Recent Posts

4151

General Software Discussion / Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!

« Last post by Darwin on October 31, 2007, 04:01 PM »

Ralf - I'm not sure when I'll be in Atlanta next, but we'll definitely have to turn that visit into a mini-DC get together 

4152

General Software Discussion / Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!

« Last post by Darwin on October 30, 2007, 08:48 PM »

Thanks for the tip, Ralf, but sadly it's a notebook with an LCD 

Great Scott! You're in the Atlanta region? My wife is from Savannah but went to school in Atlanta and still has family there. We live on Vancouver Island in Canada now, so several thousand kilometres away. Thank you very much for the offer, though!

4153

Living Room / Re: Teledildonics — build your dream (virtual) sex machine

« Last post by Darwin on October 30, 2007, 01:33 AM »

Stop, guys, I can't breathe!

4154

Living Room / Re: How to get data from dead flash drive?

« Last post by Darwin on October 30, 2007, 12:42 AM »

Dang! I really hoped that that would help you out. As I've a number of USB storage devices, including three thumbdrives, I'd be interested in knowing of any solutions to this problem as well (knock on wood I've yet to encounter this one, even after having my main 4GB thumbdrive go through the wash in my trouser's pocket  ).

4155

Living Room / Re: How to get data from dead flash drive?

« Last post by Darwin on October 29, 2007, 11:53 PM »

Coincidence? I think not. I noticed this on lifehacker earlier today. Hope it helps.

4156

Living Room / Re: Teledildonics — build your dream (virtual) sex machine

« Last post by Darwin on October 29, 2007, 11:42 PM »

If they sell it as shareware I hope they wash it before they share it.

-tinjaw (October 29, 2007, 08:43 PM)

4157

General Software Discussion / Re: GemX - missing in action

« Last post by Darwin on October 29, 2007, 11:41 PM »

Javier - welcome to Donationcoder and thank you for sharing your experiences and thoughts. Good to see you here!

4158

Living Room / Re: Postcards from DC members

« Last post by Darwin on October 28, 2007, 07:13 PM »

Ah... hadn't picked up on this being a campaign to send Mouser a postcard. Completely agree with you about being able to pick up and trace the postmark and stamp on a postcard. Also, reading handwritten comments has an immediacy about it that is lacking in an e-mail with a jpg or png attachment.

I like the mosaic idea!

4159

Living Room / Re: Windows Install Date Thingie: I made it!

« Last post by Darwin on October 28, 2007, 07:09 PM »

I feel much the same way, Chris. I skipped Windows 95 but was an early adopter of 98 and 98 SE before moving to Win2k. I resisted XP for two years before upgrading but it has been a very reliable OS (as, in fairness has Win2k). I've no doubt that after Vista Sp-1 ships it will be fine, but I'm in no rush to move up to it just yet!

4160

Living Room / Re: Teledildonics — build your dream (virtual) sex machine

« Last post by Darwin on October 28, 2007, 07:05 PM »

Slashdong?! Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Kind of hard to say, read, or write that with a straight face. Straight - no pun intended (Darwin smirks, but winds up blowing a raspberry before snorting loudly and then collapsing on the floor. Sadly, only he is laughing... Wife looks on with evident displeasure).

4161

Living Room / Re: Postcards from DC members

« Last post by Darwin on October 28, 2007, 07:02 PM »

Great idea, Veign. I think, though, that you might want to reconsider the snail mail route - there are 91,000 members - if only 1% of us send a postcard in you'll be scanning them for a long, long time - even if you do them in batches of four! Better, I think, to let each of us scan a postcard and e-mail it, no?

4162

General Software Discussion / Re: Auto-renew fees just slammed me!

« Last post by Darwin on October 28, 2007, 06:59 PM »

Good advice, edbro. We, as consumers, must REALLY be careful. There are some pretty evil schemes to part you from your cash out there and even more insidious schemes to keep doing it. I like the internet services that allow you to sign up for free 7 day trials and require you to submt all of your cc information in order to set up the free account. If you forget to cancel the subscription it switches to paid mode after the seven days. Good luck getting your money back. Of course, the incident I am recalling with discomfort WAS my fault (WTF was I thinking submtting my cc without reading the fine print?!) but the silver lining lies in a lesson learned 

4163

Living Room / Re: Whats on your desktop?

« Last post by Darwin on October 28, 2007, 06:55 PM »

Why is it, Ralf, that you insist on playing Eve to my Adam? My wife, whose alter-ego in this little analogy I'll leave to your imagination, will go ballisitic and cast me from the family home if I go out and buy a secondary (Note: not a tertiary or quaternary, but a lowly SECONDARY) monitor. Yet there you are, with your four monitor setup, parading it in front of me, saying "Go on. You know you want to".

-Darwin (October 28, 2007, 03:47 PM)

Hey, Christmas is coming and TigerDirect is having a sale:
http://www.tigerdire...998&Sku=V18-1794

Tell your wife I said it's okay.  :-)

-Ralf Maximus (October 28, 2007, 05:18 PM)

 

4164

General Software Discussion / Re: Extended Download Protection Plans? A waste of money?

« Last post by Darwin on October 28, 2007, 06:53 PM »

Yeah... I've bought extended warranties on my last three notebooks. Each extended warranty has paid for itself - first notebook got a new motherboard at 15 months old, second got a new motherboard, harddrive, and AC converter at 27 months old and the third is in getting a new cooling unit at 22 months old.

Extended download protection, though? Criminal rip off. I've actually argued and received refunds for this on those occasions when I've accidentally failed to clear the checkbox offering me this "service" (don't get me started about the kind of servicing that I think this actually represents - there are children present!), but I wouldn't bet my lunch money that every vendor is going to be so quick to do so.

4165

Living Room / Re: Completely New Amazon.com Interface - Spotted in the Wild

« Last post by Darwin on October 28, 2007, 06:46 PM »

Yeah, I can see it too. I was *just* there looking for potential Forensic Anthropology textbooks and didn't even notice the new design! Had to go back and check after seeing Jesse's screen shot... Yeah, observational scientist my ass!

4166

Living Room / Re: Whats on your desktop?

« Last post by Darwin on October 28, 2007, 03:47 PM »

Why is it, Ralf, that you insist on playing Eve to my Adam? My wife, whose alter-ego in this little analogy I'll leave to your imagination, will go ballisitic and cast me from the family home if I go out and buy a secondary (Note: not a tertiary or quaternary, but a lowly SECONDARY) monitor. Yet there you are, with your four monitor setup, parading it in front of me, saying "Go on. You know you want to".

You're killing me...

4167

General Software Discussion / Re: Evidence Eliminator - What has your experience been?

« Last post by Darwin on October 28, 2007, 03:14 PM »

There's also CleanCache, which I have used on and off for years - very good, very stable. Even allows you to secure delete data. Unfortunately, in chasing down the link for this posting, it appears that the homepage is now defunct. Still works like a charm, though...

Waybackmachine is our friend....

4168

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

« Last post by Darwin on October 28, 2007, 02:59 PM »

Yes - sadly, Archivarius' developer seems to be incommunicado at the moment. He's usually very quick to reply to e-mail but has not answered any of my messages over the past two or three weeks. Perhaps he's on holiday? I know that Archivarius is a one man show...

4169

General Software Discussion / Re: Weird Issue with Roboform - Need Some Advice

« Last post by Darwin on October 28, 2007, 02:58 PM »

Er... PS, goes without saying that the above idea relates to problems that were posted about, discussed, and resolved in the forum. The summary could point to original thread. The idea is motivated by having gone through this process innumerable times myself - wading through pages of google hits and the frustration of incomplete threads (ie problem posted with no response or with no clear resolution) and bloody Experts Exchange, which now requires a paid up subscription before you can view any of the SUGGESTED solutions.

4170

General Software Discussion / Re: Weird Issue with Roboform - Need Some Advice

« Last post by Darwin on October 28, 2007, 02:51 PM »

Hmmm... This gives me an idea  - maybe whenever somebody comes across a problem and it is resolved we could have a separate board in which the problem is summarized along with the solution? We could have some sort of a standardized format for both the posting and the title/subject to maximize the possiblity that search engines will tag them properly. Just a random idea.... Thoughts?

4171

General Software Discussion / Re: GemX - missing in action

« Last post by Darwin on October 28, 2007, 09:53 AM »

Hmm... logging into the registered users section of gemx STILL allows me to download both the registration key and the full Do-Organizer suite, despite the fact that I received a refund for it two weeks ago. I dropped gemx a DSM to express my feelings about the two month blackout that occurred (as background to WHY I initiated the refund request) and then pointed out that I still have access to installers and registration keys for software that I no longer have any right to... I'm curious about their response (if any - I have yet to receive any response at all to any of the attempts at communication that I made during their lost weekend!).

4172

General Software Discussion / Re: YzShadow - Drop shadows for all your windows

« Last post by Darwin on October 28, 2007, 08:01 AM »

Ha, ha - you've summed my feelings on these types of utils nicely, nudone  (well... with the exception that I get resource anxiety about the built in eye candy too, so run XP in classic mode with the themes service disabled. I wound up doing the same with the Vista machine that I had briefly...)!

4173

General Software Discussion / Re: New version of Process Explorer available (11.03)

« Last post by Darwin on October 27, 2007, 12:09 PM »

Thanks for the heads up, Carol. Downloading it now. Some of the new features look great!

4174

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

« Last post by Darwin on October 27, 2007, 11:46 AM »

Yeah.... me too 

4175

Living Room / Re: Leech Attacks

« Last post by Darwin on October 27, 2007, 09:50 AM »

Unbelievable. I am often ticked off by the kinds of posts that you are describing here. As an end-user I find them frustrating and amazing for their authors' rudeness, presumption, and sense of entitlement. Mike - I wish I had a pair as big as your correspondent's!