Recent Posts

4001

Developer's Corner / Re: Mailing lists or Message boards for offering software support?

« Last post by app103 on February 22, 2008, 10:14 AM »

How about the best of both worlds? I recently discovered something called QuickTopic, which is a hosted solution (they host it for you). It's a mailing list and simple single topic message board all in one.

They have a sample board set up where you can see how it looks/works and play with it.

Features include:

• RSS
  
• mailing list
  
• web based board

Admin features include:

• Delete individual messages
  
• Delete the entire discussion or document
  
• Ban IP addresses (Pro version)
  
• Moderate posts (Pro version)
  
• Change the Data/Time display format
  
• Change the title
  
• Archive - Download comma-separated-value version of the discussion that’s readable by MS Excel.
  
• Disallow further posts

4002

Living Room / Re: What annoys you to no end?

« Last post by app103 on February 22, 2008, 09:28 AM »

I once had a young woman pass me on the right (on the soft shoulder) in a park zone while flipping me the bird. I was actually going faster than the posted 30 km/h and there were people using the park! I still get riled over that one and it happened at least 10 months ago... OK rant over 

-Darwin (February 22, 2008, 09:25 AM)

Sounds like you were visiting New Jersey. 

4003

Living Room / Game: Traveler IQ Challenge

« Last post by app103 on February 21, 2008, 11:47 AM »

How well do you know the world you live in? Can you pinpoint on a map where various cities are? How close do you think you can guess to where they actually are?

Play Traveler IQ Challenge and find out.

http://www.travelpod.com/traveler-iq

4004

Living Room / Re: What annoys you to no end?

« Last post by app103 on February 21, 2008, 05:58 AM »

Telephones...and almost everything about them.

Especially getting up to answer it and finding out that some automated system called me and put me on hold and they want me to wait till a human is available to find out what they want.

4005

General Software Discussion / Re: Organize your Quick Launch menu

« Last post by app103 on February 19, 2008, 09:30 AM »

It's a stupid tip, but could help some people keep their quick launch organized using folders.

Really simple.
Just go to:

C:\Documents and Settings\{USER}\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch

(replace {USER} with your Windows User)

And start creating folders and add shortcuts or programs inside.

It will look like this:
 (see attachment in previous post)

-Dr-Leech (February 12, 2008, 04:19 AM)

You don't have to go there to do it. You can open any folder on your system onto your taskbar as a toolbar. You can even drag a folder full of shortcuts from explorer and smack it against an unused side of the screen and make a new toolbar that is just like your taskbar that can autohide & all. It just doesn't have the start button, open program buttons, or system tray...pure shortcut & toolbar space. 

This is how I did my 'scary toolbars', that always seems to freak people out.

Keeping the 'desktop' toolbar slid down like I have it on the bottom left, makes every drive, folder, and file on my pc accessable from a menu, under 'My Computer'...including ones on any CD or DVD I may have inserted.

4006

Post New Requests Here / Re: Taskbar Activate... Hide your toolbar without it accidently popping up on you

« Last post by app103 on February 19, 2008, 08:54 AM »

Skrommel's FadingTaskbar can be used for this, too.

4007

Living Room / Re: Cooking my PC: what NOT to do

« Last post by app103 on February 19, 2008, 05:52 AM »

The system with a Prescott CPU shuts down at a higher temperature than that with a Northwood. The latter's peak was, in our case, 98°C, while Prescott never shut down at temperatures below 101°C, sometimes even working on at 105°C.

http://www.digit-lif...hrottling/index.html

-nosh (February 17, 2008, 01:44 PM)

Yeah, those Prescotts get mighty hot. I have one, and before I started running the fans at 100% at all times with SpeedFan, I was over 60C most of the time, with the fans kicking into full speed automatically at 67C.

It's currently at 44C, but that's because it's winter here and I keep my heat turned off and warm my apartment with my CPU. 

4008

General Software Discussion / Re: Unix utilities for Windows - book/manual

« Last post by app103 on February 19, 2008, 04:43 AM »

Could this possibly be what you are looking for?

UNIX Shells by Example (4th Edition)

http://www.bookpool.com/sm/013147572X

A slightly older version, but the reviews look good:

http://www.amazon.co...uigley/dp/013066538X

4009

Living Room / Re: Ralf Maximus - MIA?

« Last post by app103 on February 18, 2008, 04:20 PM »

Here is how you get him back...

Top 10 reasons why Ralf Maximus hasn't been posting:

10. He is boycotting the Post cereal company for not including enough raisins in their raisin bran, and avoiding anything that says 'post' on it, including the button on the forum that submits posts.

9. He has been very busy with his new venture, DonationHaiku.

8. He's stuck in a massive Wikipedia click adventure, currently has 500 tabs open and new ones opening by the minute, and will post as soon as it ends, if it ends.

7. He discovered StumbleUpon and can't stop stumbling.

6. He will post as soon as he finishes singing 'The Song that Never Ends'.

5. He has been trying to install Linux.

4. He has been trying to install Vista.
3. He has been kidnapped by a very hungry flock of coin eating birds, and they are holding him ransom.

2. He is still waiting for The Horizon of Infinite Space to load, and will post as soon as he plays the game.

1. (reserved for Ralf's answer)

Seriously though...I miss him too.

4010

Living Room / Re: Internet Faxing

« Last post by app103 on February 18, 2008, 03:36 PM »

I've been using CallWave (http://www.callwave....g/virtualFax_L1.aspx) for their virtual fax number for several years, and they just unrolled a send fax service also.  It is a little expensive, but still far far less than you would pay for a phone line.   I pay $10 month for more faxes than I use and the service is reliable and easy to use.

-eriji (December 25, 2007, 10:46 AM)

I have been using Callwave for a number of years too (just like eriji), for receiving faxes and voicemail. The 2 biggest issues with their service is 1.) the fact it is only available for people that have a home phone number within the US and 2.) the fax number they issue to you is in Nevada, which can be a long distance charge for most people, especially those local to me.

On the plus side of receiving faxes, is that you get them as .pdf files (voicemail as .wav), and they can be delivered to you through their software, which can be run on any Windows pc anywhere, even if you are traveling outside the country on business, or you can receive them in your email, or both.

I have not tried the fax sending service, and I have no plans on it since I really don't need it. (My other pc has a nice data/fax/voice modem that came with some great software that I can use when needed.)

The Callwave service and software is quite reliable and I have never had any issues with it, not even running on dialup on my old 9x pc. So if their outgoing fax service is as good as the rest of what they offer, it's probably excellent.

4011

Living Room / Re: The Longest Joke in the World

« Last post by app103 on February 18, 2008, 03:02 PM »

The worst part about great stories like this is the fact that they end...the fact that it ends with a bad punch line is irrelevant.

And yup...I am in that 11%. 

4012

General Software Discussion / Re: Do You Purchase Software on Impulse?

« Last post by app103 on February 12, 2008, 07:13 PM »

See shiny new software...

step 1. find out if they take paypal
step 2. find out my paypal balance
step 3. find out price of software
step 4. if price < paypal balance, download & try software
step 5. wait till 30 days after trial expires to decide if I can live without it, find something cheaper/free, make it myself, etc.
step 6. if nothing found and I can't live without it and I don't want to try making it, go back and buy software.
step 7. Every few months, uninstall all the stuff I forgot about long before it made it to step 5 (which is most things)

I am very frugal by nature and there is no room for impulse shopping in my personality or my wallet.

I am not much of an impulse shopper for anything...not even food. My husband loves sending me to do the shopping, because I stick to the carefully planned list. It saves him a lot of money.

On the other side of the coin, I'll never ask him to pick up milk on the way home from work because it will be the most expensive milk in the world and come with 10 bags of free groceries. 

4013

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: port-apps launcher (auto-create shortcuts to exe's within a directory)

« Last post by app103 on February 12, 2008, 06:33 PM »

It doesn't auto-create shortcuts, but my ClutterBuster app can handle relative paths. (requires a bit of editing of the ini file, in a text editor though)

Put it at the root of your USB drive and run it.

Right click a button, select an .exe file to associate with it. (it only works with .exe files) The exe file must contain an icon or the button will look blank. Once you have all the buttons set, close it and it will save the settings to an .ini file. Open the .ini file in notepad and edit the entries so they are relative paths.

It has 100 buttons, so it can hold quite a bit.

If you copy the entire contents of your usb drive to another folder, like on your laptop, you can create a shortcut to ClutterBuster on your desktop or taskbar's quicklaunch and the relative paths will still work. (I have used a smaller version of this to bundle collections of small apps with a preconfigured toolbar for launching)

4014

General Software Discussion / Re: Free PDA Software

« Last post by app103 on February 12, 2008, 05:50 PM »

http://pocketfree.blogspot.com

A blog of freeware for pocket pc's, and the guy makes demonstration videos of a lot of the applications.

4015

DC Member Programs and Projects / Re: CluGrid Discussion

« Last post by app103 on February 12, 2008, 05:32 PM »

OOOOH, you reminded me of a true cool idea!

Having the moon on a stick would really be nice!

When can we expect to have it? 

The kidding
JoTo

-JoTo (February 10, 2008, 05:02 AM)

I'll take care of that...let timns worry about the games.

Here ya go, JoTo...New! Moon flavored lollopop!

4016

General Software Discussion / Re: The definition of "bloat" - RE: Software

« Last post by app103 on February 08, 2008, 08:15 AM »

App: You just described the opera "web browser". A more appropriate term would be suite, but they dont have that title. I dont know any other browsers which have an email, torrent, or chat client built in. Heck, even mozilla realized this and shutdown the mozilla project.

-Josh (February 07, 2008, 06:33 PM)

All they have left to add is a multi-protocol instant messaging client.

I think only someone very familiar with both AOL & Opera will find this amusing:

4017

General Software Discussion / Re: The definition of "bloat" - RE: Software

« Last post by app103 on February 07, 2008, 06:21 PM »

To understand bloat, one must look at a classic in bloatware:

AOL's traditional dialup software.

It's a browser, chat client, instant messenger, email, ftp, photo album, radio, media player, etc, etc, etc.

It wants to be every application you will ever want to use for any and all purposes.

And they created an artificial need for this software to exist, by using a nonstandard way to connect to the internet that required the use of a software utility, rather than doing it the normal way with what is already built into a user's OS.

4018

DC Member Programs and Projects / Re: CluGrid Discussion

« Last post by app103 on February 07, 2008, 03:41 AM »

WHY??!! (there goes productivity down the drain)

I LOVE this game! 

This type of logic puzzle can be an obsession for me, unfortunately. Those puzzle books never had enough of these to keep me happy.

If this is the last anybody ever hears from me, blame timns. 

Credits on the way.

4019

General Software Discussion / Re: Save the Cookies!

« Last post by app103 on February 03, 2008, 09:21 PM »

I don't know anything about 64-bit XP, but if you can use Firefox, you can use Cookie Culler or something similar, and make backups of the important files in your Firefox userprofile, including cookies, with Bookmark Backup.

4020

Living Room / Re: Brush the dust from your computer

« Last post by app103 on February 03, 2008, 06:32 PM »

Long before I ever used them to clean computer parts, I have used 1/2" wide (and smaller), long bristle badger or black sable paintbrushes, purchased specifically as cleaning/dusting tools at the local artist supply shop.

They get all the dust out without any risk of scratching....safe for even the most delicate parts. (safest, most effective way to clean very intricate fine Italian porcelain sculptures, too)

The long handle and bristles makes it easy to get into places that you can't fit your hand. And the natural bristles are static free, as tinjaw mentioned.

Over time, they will save you a ton of money too, as they will give you more cleanings than the same price in compressed air. (I am a very frugal person)

Just make sure you buy it specifically for this purpose and not use one that may have been used for paint or other substances. (this is very important!)

Oh...and stay away from soft fluffy cosmetic brushes, even if they are natural hair. They do attract static and their hairs will break easily and get caught in things.

4021

General Software Discussion / Re: Apple software recommendations?

« Last post by app103 on February 02, 2008, 11:22 AM »

One of the easiest I have seen is Veign's Quick Thumbnail.

Select your file, pick your settings, click the button, save the new pic.

You don't even have to install it. How much easier can you get?

4022

Living Room / How many germs are living on your keyboard?

« Last post by app103 on January 31, 2008, 09:53 PM »

Ok, this is kind of gross...

My daughter sent me this link.

Answer the quiz and post your results.

Here is my disgusting results  :

There are about 2,561,580 germs on your keyboard right now!
That's equivalent to the number of germs on 512 toilet seats.

http://www.justsayhi.com/bb/keyboard

4023

Living Room / Re: Me & my crazy optical mouse

« Last post by app103 on January 31, 2008, 06:05 PM »

Try the mouse on a pad of paper, rather than on the desk surface or mousepad. Make sure the paper isn't shiny. (small legal pads work great)

You didn't mention which OS you were using. I think one version of windows (can't remember which one) had an issue with a bug related to the mouse that could cause erratic behavior. Make sure your OS is fully patched with all updates.

I have a dual mouse system (1 usb ergonomic mouse and a standard ps/2, both optical). I have noticed that if my ergonomic mouse should suddenly decide not to function correctly (doesn't happen that often), using the other for a few seconds usually gets the first one working properly again. I don't know why this is, but it's a another good reason to keep my system dual mouse.

It could also be possible that your mouse has some settings you may be unaware of that can cause the automatic clicking.

This is the mouse properties panel from my ergonomic mouse. The last option, if checked, might result in some of the same behavior you are reporting is going on with yours. Go check your mouse properties settings in control panel very, very carefully.

4024

Living Room / Re: HAPPY BIRTHDAY GOTHIC!!!

« Last post by app103 on January 30, 2008, 03:39 PM »

*counts candles*

Woohoo, I'm 5!

-Gothi[c] (January 30, 2008, 03:27 PM)

Could it be possible those candles are in binary? 

4025

Living Room / Re: HAPPY BIRTHDAY GOTHIC!!!

« Last post by app103 on January 29, 2008, 10:58 PM »

Happy birthday, Gothi[c]!

I couldn't make up my mind which cake to give you, so here is both...

This one comes with a 'present': 



And here is the other: