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4126

General Software Discussion / Re: GemX - missing in action

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 15, 2007, 06:52 PM »

At least that is a response - but it begs a number of question not least - why don't they respond to support reqests (including refund requests) and if they can't support a forum where other users will share the load of answering dumb questions how will they possibly cope with the same people emailing the same dumb questions for individual attention?

If they don't want a forum that they respond to why not have a forum that is peer-peer help with just a bug posting board that they can check occasionally for new bug reports. Their policy of irregular participation and primarily peer-peer discussion could be made absolutely clear.

4127

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 15, 2007, 05:58 PM »

I have installed Exalead to give it a try.

CPU usage is less than 1% and I set it to do immediate indexing (which is running as I type).

Outlook support is ???

The only information I can find is that it supports Outlook! That's from the website and the manual. Other than that there are no details.

During setting up the Index you are asked for an Outlook profile - so I set up a new profile that includes all of my archives - and kept my standard profile for normal use.

It seems to index everything and during indexing if I search it finds things throughout my files (which is what I want) but when Outlook indexing has finished it can't open the Outlook message that are not in the default profile - although it has them in the index and tells you where they are.

This is the best solution I have found so far -and searching is lightning fast (<0.03s on my large email archive).

I'll keep playing and see how it goes, I'll add a comment if/when there is something worth saying about it!

4128

Living Room / Re: Microsoft patches applied - EVEN WHEN AUTOUPDATE IS OFF

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 15, 2007, 01:06 PM »

It's easy to do that - just create two batch file called WU_On.bat and WU_Off.bat and then edit them with a text editor and add the relevant commands to each.

Then you just need to double click the batch file to switch off and on (assuming Admin status).

You can automatically stop the relevant processes using:

SC STOP <svc_name>

eg. SC STOP waauserv

will stop the "Automatic Updates" service (just go in to START>Run>Services.MSC and double click on the service you want to identify and the service name is as at the top)

To start it again just use SC START <svc_name>

4129

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 15, 2007, 11:57 AM »

I don't want to try any more search apps without a little more info - and Exalead download page doesn't seem to have much info about the program or its features!

Anyone tried this with archived Outlook files - can it index PST files that aren't automatically loaded when you start Outlook ?

4130

Living Room / Re: Microsoft patches applied - EVEN WHEN AUTOUPDATE IS OFF

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 15, 2007, 11:44 AM »

It get's better and better - now updates are being installed that force a reboot without user consent even when WU is completely disabled.

See http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=832 and the discussion that follows.

If you want to completely disable Windows Update so that you have control over what is going on there are two posts in the discussion which are a really useful overview. The second one is particularly helpful as it only shows how to disable (and re-enable for manual checks) WU without affecting other components:

http://talkback.zdne...3925&start=-9911
http://talkback.zdne...3961&start=-9911

4131

Living Room / Re: ASUS bring out motherboard with built in Linux and Firefox - 15s boot time!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 14, 2007, 04:55 PM »

OK - just looked up Epiphany/Galeon on Google. Epiphany seems to depend on Gnome - which again would be a good reason for ASUS not to use it without the full Gnome desktop present.

4132

Living Room / Re: ASUS bring out motherboard with built in Linux and Firefox - 15s boot time!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 14, 2007, 01:38 PM »

I presume Konqueror needs KDE to work though as it is integrated heavily into KDE.

Never head of Epiphany so I can't really comment, but if it is based on Gecko isn't it based on the same code base as Firefox?

4133

Living Room / Re: Activate poll on this forum?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 14, 2007, 12:37 PM »

No you can post a new poll to start a thread.

This is the top of the Living room forum - notice the "New Poll" button

4134

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 14, 2007, 12:35 PM »

Yep - pretty much my experience with X1. I did like its interface though - but I'm not going to pay $50 for something with major glitches (I can get around Standby/Hibernate problem easily enough by disabling them).

The trouble is that the Outlook Inbox Repair Tool is pretty crap at telling you what the problem is. It only has three messages:

• No problems
• Minor inconsistencies
• Errors

It does produce a log but often it doesn't tell you anything specific at all (like what it fixed) just the repair stages it went through. When it does give repair info it is total gobble-di-gook filled with unintelligible abbreviations and jargon that is specific the to PST format! I presume MS technical bods can understand it for debugging and problem solving purposes but since MS charge a fortune and don't provide any real non-corporate user support it just doesn't help the average user.

4135

Living Room / Re: Aghh -- they've done it again ... avoid Agnitum Outpost 4 (at least for now)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 14, 2007, 09:54 AM »

I have tried Outpost on 3 different computers - with different hardware on each and on all of them I get random reboots (ie. screen goes black and the next thing you see is the BIOS POST screen and windows starts up.). It is almost impossible to track this sort of problem down because there are no error messages or codes, and it invariably happens when you have been doing something for a couple of hours and have forgotten to save recently.

The only solution I have found is to uninstall Outpost and then my systems are rock solid.

4136

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 14, 2007, 09:51 AM »

LOL - I don't usually command much respect, but thanks for answering.

The problem is that LOCATE only finds the PST file names (PST is the filetype used by MS Outlook for storing emails, contacts etc.) and doesn't have the option to search the content.

I really need something to index the contents of all my PST files - I have loads of stuff archived in separate archive files. I am not bothered about other file types (though that would be nice) as Locate and DOpus combine to give a quick way of finding and viewing files.

The only program I have found that will index Outlook data fully is X1 Pro (at $50) but I wasn't happy that my PST files regularly got damaged by X1. I am not the only person to report that as a bug but they never did come up with a solution.

Currently X1 Free version, Archivarius and Copernic all index Outlook data but they only use the PST files opened in the current profile. That is when I open Outlook it opens the normal "Personal Folders" file plus any of the archives I left open last time I used it. To keep things indexed and available it means that I have to open all of my Archive files every time Outlook opens - which takes huge amounts of time and memory and make Outlook 2003 crawl like a pig in a mud bath.

You can set up alternative profiles but unfortunately none of those apps take much notice of other profiles that are present - just the one that opens by default.

Copernic looks the most user friendly as it doesn't actually run Outlook to index your emails. Archivarius appears to load Outlook when it is indexing but there doesn't seem to be any way to close it again, even when indexing is finished!

I don't want to go back to X1 because I don't want to pay $50 to search my emails and I don't like having to regularly repair my Outlook data files.

4137

Living Room / Re: Activate poll on this forum?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 14, 2007, 08:06 AM »

Can you not see the link?

4138

General Software Discussion / Re: Personal Movie Organizers - A quick rundown

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 14, 2007, 06:44 AM »

I use Collectorz MDB and just tried PVD.

I like the speed and ease of use of PVD - but the web database support seems a bit limited. Granted I have only input a handful of films but in CMDB I could find the exact box images of my DVDs quite quickly and easily - in PVD I couldn't find them at all (they were obviously US Region 1 covers not the ones issued in Region 2). That would mean very slow input as covers would have to be scanned - and without integrated scanning it makes it even slower.

4139

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 14, 2007, 05:13 AM »

I have edited the poll - a number of people use Locate and another full contents search engine. You can now select up to two items in the poll.

If you have already voted you can change your vote by clicking "Remove Vote" and then voting again.

4140

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 14, 2007, 05:08 AM »

I just tried archivarius again - it doesn't seem to behave well with Outlook 2003 !!

• after indexing my PST had errors when I scanned it,
• it loaded Outlook into memory to index and then refused to unload it again - consequently I had Outlook running in the background permanently (that was even after I exited Archivarius),
• there didn't seem any way to index PST files without loading them into Outlook first - which is a complete pain and impractical - esp. if Outlook is permanently locked in memory  ... I would be using about 75% of my memory just to search my emails!
• the help file is useless - there is no useful index and no obvious way to search it - which for a search app seems a bit daft

Am I missing something? Quickly finding stuff in emails (and esp. the hundreds of megabytes of archived mail) would be a primary reason for me to keep a search engine on my system - as it is I have uninstalled it again and will just use the slow outlook search function.

Anyone found anything that works with multiple PST files in a sensible and proper manner (ie. it doesn't damage the file, like Archivarius and X1 seem to, and doesn't require Outlook to be permanently loaded to access the index, and doesn't require all the PST files loaded into the default profile)

4141

Living Room / Re: ASUS bring out motherboard with built in Linux and Firefox - 15s boot time!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 14, 2007, 04:40 AM »

No what I mean is what is the alternative - apart from a bespoke browser? Remember it is running under Linux without the benefit of KDE/Gnome (as far as i can tell) - so what else is available that can be freely modified to do the job and not incur licensing costs?

4142

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 14, 2007, 03:54 AM »

Here is the current Yahoo Desktop Search - so it is clearly still using X1. Last time I tried it they were using the lastest version of X1 with the restrictions I mentioned above. There is also a permanent link on the top right offing to upgrade to the full Pro version for $50 (IIRC) - which seems a bit steep when there are so many good alternatives for free.

4143

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 13, 2007, 05:55 PM »

There is always a free version of X1 but it has limited support for Outlook (which killed it for me) and doesn't index any network folders or external drives - which is also a killer. I haven't looked recently but that was the situation when I packed in with X1.

4144

Living Room / Re: ASUS bring out motherboard with built in Linux and Firefox - 15s boot time!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 13, 2007, 05:53 PM »

Why not - it is open source and non-proprietary ... what would you suggest? The version on that ASUS board is a modified version of Firefox. Remember - it has to be available on Linux and presumably it isn't running in a normal GUI such as KDE or Gnome.

4145

Living Room / Re: Activate poll on this forum?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 13, 2007, 05:50 PM »

I'm sure it used to be possible to choose an icon for the thread when it is posted but I can't see it any more ???

I think it must have been disabled or lost along the way because I have the same version of SMF installed and you can choose a thread icon with the first post and also go back and edit it with the usual modify button.

4146

General Software Discussion / Re: How can a BSOD ruin an mbr???

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 13, 2007, 05:44 PM »

Get a backup before you do anything that stresses as suspect disc!

4147

General Software Discussion / Re: How can a BSOD ruin an mbr???

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 13, 2007, 01:52 PM »

Yep that's the one. But there are loads of other diagnostic and soak test applications out there which can also be used.

4148

Living Room / Re: ASUS bring out motherboard with built in Linux and Firefox - 15s boot time!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 13, 2007, 01:51 PM »

No you can't add extensions - but if you just want to quickly browse the internet, check your emails or use Skype it is a good idea. I think this would have a great future on laptops too. One of the 'features' is security because it cannot access hard disks from the built in Linux. It does mean that anyone can use the computer with having access to screw up you desktop installation.

This is the first of it's type - hopefully it will move down into cheaper boards (this one is the most expensive ASUS make at the moment) and develop further.

There is no real reason why in future a partition can't be added to a hard disc (if they want to keep it insulated it could be a protected partition in some way) to allow other software to be installed including plugins etc. and possibly even a full implementation of Linux in ROM. They could use programmable (EPROM) memory chips to allow updates.

The best bit would be that it comes integrated with the necessary drivers for the mobo hardware - including an 802.11n WiFi interface - which is pretty cool.

4149

General Software Discussion / Re: How can a BSOD ruin an mbr???

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 13, 2007, 12:15 PM »

If the MBR is getting corrupted it could be a block on the drive that isn't behaving consistently (prior to its death).

Do you you know the manufacturer for the drive? If so many have a downloadable diagnostics tool which often runs from a boot CD or floppy - it may be worth giving it a go.

If you are getting memory parity errors it does sound like a memory problem or possibly an intermittent bus problem. Try soak testing with MEMTEST+ for at least 24 hours. The trouble is MEMTEST doesn't check all memory (it needs some for itself to run and store its results) so if it is that area of memory that is bad it may or may not show up.

Microsoft also have a free memory tester to download - but on a quick search I couldn't find it in their download centre. It might be worth finding it (and other available testers) and running a series of memory tests.

4150

Living Room / ASUS bring out motherboard with built in Linux and Firefox - 15s boot time!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 13, 2007, 11:29 AM »

Hands-on
Hardware for Webware: A motherboard with embedded Firefox
By Rafe Needleman – October 10, 2007, 6:08 PM PDT

I just got a chance to try out a Webware PC: a computer built around the new P5E3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP motherboard from Asus. What makes this motherboard be hardware for Webware is that it has a Firefox Web browser (running on an embedded Linux operating system) burned into ROM. It also has Skype. You turn it on, and in fifteen seconds (I timed it), you can be in Firefox and surfing the Web.

See http://www.webware.c...2-2.html?tag=nl.e776 for the full article and video.

Looks like a really interesting concept - you don't have to use Linux but it is there if you want it without having to install much! Not sure how ready it is for real use yet but if things head in that direction MS will be worried!

For full tech spec see: http://usa.asus.com/...1872&modelmenu=1