Recent Posts

4151

Living Room / Re: Activate poll on this forum?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 13, 2007, 06:59 AM »

Yep - look to the right at the bootom of the thread - there is an Add Poll button

4152

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 13, 2007, 06:58 AM »

Thanks f0dder a light has finally dawned - that could well have accounted for the data corruption I regularly experienced with Catalyst drivers !!! What a really stupid 'bug' ! Luckily I don't use Catalyst drivers any more and don't really plan to again in the future.

4153

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 13, 2007, 04:02 AM »

Dying block on your hard disk just where you don't want it ?

4154

Best Text Editor / Re: EditPad Pro and Inaccuracies in Reviewing Generally

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 11, 2007, 07:08 PM »

Actually I don't think there is any compulsion to update reviews provided it is accurate at the time and clearly states when it was written and the version (or release date) of the software used in the test. Unless there is a review team ready to take on the onerous job of keeping things up to date (which also means obtaining new versions - which may not be practical - and new titles) it isn't realistic to constantly update old reviews other than responding to inaccuracies in the conclusions of the time.

4155

Developer's Corner / Re: Strange customer...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 11, 2007, 07:04 PM »

If you don't get a reply or paid for the work is there any potential in selling what you have done - that would make him sit up

4156

General Software Discussion / Re: GemX - missing in action

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 11, 2007, 12:28 PM »

Can someone get them on false advertising? They advertise:



on the homepage and

It's Simple and Responsive
 
Besides producing superior quality applications, GemX is proud to offer one of the best support services in the industry.

That's the heading on their support page.

Given that they don't seem to respond to any form of communication (even the company that processes payments) surely this must breach an advertising standard. (Sorry I don't know anything about Dutch advertising regs. but that would definitley have to be removed in the UK if challenged).

4157

Living Room / Re: The worst thing about Macs

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 11, 2007, 12:15 PM »

The link to the YouTube video on that page doesn't work. Do you have a direct link?

[Edit: Actually it does work but AdMuncher blocked it because it looks like a load of advertising crap - what was the point of the page - just the image comparisons?]

But how about this one ... http://www.youtube.c...=related&search=

4158

Living Room / Re: The worst thing about Macs

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 11, 2007, 08:44 AM »

Great article

I love this:



To prove it isn't a joke here is the official iTunes EULA ... http://images.apple..../sla/docs/itunes.pdf

Check out clause 10

4159

Living Room / Re: The worst thing about Macs

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 11, 2007, 07:42 AM »

Are not Windows partisans just as bad?

-empyrean (October 11, 2007, 12:13 AM)

IME most Windows users either don't care or outright criticise MS.

The trouble with Apple fans is that they like the way the box looks - they really don't care what is inside.

A friend of mine is an Apple fan ... and guess who gets to do the troubleshooting - yes there is some to do. For a start she didn't realise that her oldish iMac only had 256Mb of RAM - it will support 1Gb but to expand to full size it has to be sent back as there is only room for a single sick of RAM for user installation, maxing out at 512Mb. Add to that her external hardware keeps having issues - particularly her external drive (no room in the box for an extra internal drive, and no option for user upgrade anyway) which keeps not connecting via Firewire. It is an IOMEGA drive which is preformatted for the Mac - so far she has got through 2 of them in less than 6 months.

She recently wanted to get a laptop for a friend who wants to browse the web, send emails and type a few letters. She was trying to convince him that the best (and probably only option worth considering) is a iBook. I pointed out to her that you can get  twice the hardware specification for a third of the price - not that it will do any good. A computers no good if it doesn't come preinstalled with iTunes and iPhoto !!

4160

General Software Discussion / Re: Magix (Xara) rant...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 11, 2007, 04:34 AM »

I bought Xara X1 from an offer posted earlier on this site and I can't get them to stop sending me spam about the latest Xara versions.

I've clicked the unsubscribe link several times. Sadly my awesome spam-free e-mail account now gets spam from Xara and only Xara.

-Deozaan (October 10, 2007, 09:48 PM)

Two thoughts - email their support and complain. They aren't always quick at replying but I have always had a reply from them within a week or so. If you don't get a satisfactory response point out that they are a UK company (Xara is based in Hertfordshire) and therefore governed by UK law which makes unsolicited commercial email illegal.

Alternatively just set up a filter to dump all their mail straight into trash - they always use the same email address to post from so it shouldn't be a problem.

4161

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone actually use windows system restore if so,does it work.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 10, 2007, 11:01 AM »

Yes it effectively uninstalls everything installed since the restore point BUT it doesn't remove the application files - so they will still appear in the START menu etc.

If you think you are going to need to use System Restore in this way it is probably worth manually fixing a named restore point before every installation - then at least you know what will need to be reinstalled by looking at the restore points before actually applying.

4162

Living Room / Re: Nasa to build gigantic roller coaster for astronauts

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 10, 2007, 04:11 AM »

Yeah - lucky b....

Having said that if they need to use it for real they won't be feeling lucky!

4163

General Software Discussion / Re: Adobe Acrobat Reader Security Vulnerability

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 10, 2007, 04:09 AM »

Anyone know if Acrobat 7 Professional is vulnerable?

I can't afford (and don't need) to upgrade but Adobe says it applies to version 8.1 and earlier versions. However, the workaround registry fix can't be applied to Acrobat 7 as the registry entry does not exist at all. There is a registry entry which is similar (but store in the HKLM/Programs/Adobe ... branch) but it doesn't have the specific permissions key tSchemePerms it just has sSchemePerms which doesn't have a value including mail anyway ?

4164

UrlSnooper / Re: running XP SP2, worked at first, no longer does

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 10, 2007, 03:29 AM »

Don't know then - you'll have to see if Mouser comes up with any other ideas. All I can say is that it should be a solvable problem as it works fine for me on XP Pro SP2 - but that doesn't help you much.

4165

UrlSnooper / Re: running XP SP2, worked at first, no longer does

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 09, 2007, 01:17 PM »

Could it be related to the WinPcap installation?

Try uninstalling URLSnooper again and then uninstall WinPcap from Add/Remove programs.

Delete the folder C:\Program Files\URLSnooper2 (or wherever you previously installed it)

Now reinstall URLSnooper again (it will install a new copy of WinPcap automatically and start with a fresh copy of Settings.ini)

4166

General Software Discussion / Re: Best free firewall for Windows?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 09, 2007, 06:29 AM »

I have just been reading an article about PCTools Firewall (free). As part of my reading I revisited

http://www.matousec....l-firewall-analysis/

which has been updated a couple times recently.

Some interesting feedback from vendors that are criticised.

4167

General Software Discussion / Re: alternatives to partition magic/paragon?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 07, 2007, 07:20 PM »

I really wouldn't recommend trusting any Acronis product for managing partitions. I had a big catastrophe today when I tried to use the Acronis HDD boot function (the one that offers to show a True Image screen on boot so you can run recovery right off the HDD).

It tried to create a partition, failed and abruptly exited. When I logged on to Windows all the partitions seemed to be in place but Windows prompted me to reboot coz "changes had been made". After reboot compmgmt showed me that a small partition (unlettered/ unused space) had indeed been created. A peep via partition magic showed the whole disk merged into one "bad" partition! I tried to allocate the unused space back via compmgmt and boom! it exits with an error and the free space has been merged with two of my logical data drives, making them both unusable. I know people don't think very much of PMagic but it was the only app that recognised that things had been badly fxxxed up.

I managed to get everything back, thanks to most of it being mirrored daily on another HDD and a gem of a utility called 'Find and Mount', free for home use. It lived up to its name and found both lost partitions and the chunk of unallocated space. It let me mount both partitions to their respective drive letters and I'm moving data to my other HDD as I type this. The free version lets you read data off the mounted drives at 512 KB/s, it'll take me half a day yet to get everything out of there but I'm not complaining, this thing saved my ass.

Partition Find and Mount - highly recommended! Acronis for partitioning, NOT!

One thing I'd like to add is, whatever tool you're using for partitioning, if it's not screwing up, stick to it! Managing partitions via multiple apps really seems like a bad idea.

-nosh (October 07, 2007, 06:33 PM)

I also had a partition disaster a while back after Partition Magic told me that a parameter was wrong and tried to fix it - thus rendering about 8 partition inaccessible with a "Bad Partition Table" error.

It's a pain backing up, but ... before you do anything to partition tables get a backup of the whole drive.

I found "Partition Table Doctor" a real life save a few times now. OK it isn't free but it does a number of useful things:

• Can be run from Windows or booted directly from a Rescue CD if Windows won't boot
• Scans a drive to check partition table consistency
• If problems arise it finds all the old partition table data (even from a number of partition generations back) which can be really useful if your PT gets hosed
• BEST: It has a backup and restore function of the Partition Table data. This is really good - if the partition table is damaged you can instantly restore it - you just need to remember to get a new backup every time you make partition changes.

4168

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 07, 2007, 11:27 AM »

VS6 is still used by many coders - can they not use Vista at all without spending a fortune?

I agree about some of the issues though - FDISK should not be used with XP or Vista - neither OS (and no OS based on NTFS) is designed to use FDISK. There are other tools that support large hard discs and are properly compatible with current filesystems.

4169

General Software Discussion / Re: registration benefits

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 06, 2007, 01:54 PM »

Got a number of freebies from Adobe when I registered including free video tutorials, a few fonts and a short trial subscription to NAPP magazine. You were only supposed to get one benefit but since I moved software from one machine to another I was offered another freebie after each install (their DB was too stupid to notice previously issued freebies).

The other advantage is that if you register Adobe have a record of your serial numbers and therefore it is easy to get replacement media if you should have a damaged CD etc. without having to dig out receipts and post copies. This can be useful to have with such expensive products.

For general shareware software that you download there is usually little or no point.

4170

Living Room / Re: Whats on your desktop?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 06, 2007, 02:05 AM »

Some people can be too organised you know 

Actually I would have a problem with your approach - sometimes Windows randomly decides to reorganise my Quick Launch bar so that things go into alphabetical order. I really don't know why it does that. With one bar it is quick enough to organise it back the way I want but if that happened to your system ....

4171

General Software Discussion / Re: Back up files with a printer and scanner

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 05, 2007, 06:46 PM »

Last i heard we have problems with just having a blank video tape on the premises because it COULD be used to break the law, well stupid laws shouldnt be and arent generally supported, i think at last count there are about 15million households here in Aus with a VCR and I would go so far as to suggest that more than 1/2 have a blank tape, the courts will be busy 

-Grorgy (October 05, 2007, 06:05 PM)

Why do you need a blank tape - you can equally well break the law with a used tape. 

Of course we all know that the only reason blank media is sold is so that we can all use Camcorders to record family events.

Uhm... Considering that app like PaperBack are around, and enable one to store digital data on plain paper sheets... hope some Marjors-funded politicians don't come with some bright idea about taxing paper!

-Mark0 (October 05, 2007, 06:12 PM)

Didn't the media industry suggest this for blank audio cassettes and blank CD-Rs at one time. I think is was implemented in some countries. In which case they already get their 'royalty' from the blank media and so it should be perfectly legal to do what you like with it.

4172

General Software Discussion / Re: GemX - missing in action

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 05, 2007, 03:32 PM »

Hmmm... I'm starting to question the wisdom of having requested a refund: I paid $70US in August when the Canadian dollar sat around $.96US. If I get my refund over the weekend I'll be paid back with the US dollar worth $.98CDN! I''m going to be losing money on this deal... Not to mention that the credit card company charged me a fee to do the conversion from Canadian to US currency and will do the same again 

-Darwin (October 05, 2007, 03:19 PM)

You should contact your credit card company and explain the refund - you should be reimbursed in full. If not contact the transaction company and explain to them too.

4173

Living Room / Re: DC Unofficial Meeting #5 Took Place - Veign and Mouser meet

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 05, 2007, 12:23 PM »

LOL - maybe he should do the first DC webcast of that!

4174

Living Room / Re: DC Unofficial Meeting #5 Took Place - Veign and Mouser meet

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 05, 2007, 10:01 AM »

Are beards obligatory - I feel left out.

Maybe you could include one in the member pack in future.

4175

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 05, 2007, 04:45 AM »

Then all you have to do is to remember to defrag regularly (I don't like using schedules because it always does things when you least want it) and to do backups regularly (for the same reason)! The last thing I want is something trying to kick in when I am burning a CD ROM or I am doing something that involves processing huge files that takes a couple of hours anyway.

I suppose I should use a scheduled notice to remind me!