Recent Posts

4201

Living Room / Re: OK - lets get to know each other... who are you, what do you do, where from?

« Last post by Darwin on October 22, 2007, 07:33 AM »

Yes, welcome John! We hope to see more of you around here 

4202

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

« Last post by Darwin on October 22, 2007, 07:24 AM »

Just to close the door on the false-positive saga, Sophos has written back to confirm that the Archivarius 3000 exe is "clean".

Dormouse - the author is very helpful, drop him a line with feature requests, suggestions, and questions. I suppose we should all be contacting him about the index file size estimate being so off. I've never mentioned it and it's persisted through numerous builds. Right, off to do that now!

4203

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

« Last post by Darwin on October 21, 2007, 03:41 PM »

Hi Dormouse - no, that's not right. I had the same reaction when I first ran a trial (I'd forgotten abou this). As I recall the index was going to be on the order of 6 or 7 GB for 80 GB of data but came in at well under a GB. There's an index compression feature as well, which is useful because the index size does creep up over time.

4204

Living Room / Re: these new cheap core 2 due laptops - any good?

« Last post by Darwin on October 21, 2007, 09:10 AM »

Right now, in Canada, I can pick up a Toshiba notebook (A100) with Vista Home Premium running an Intel Duo 2 Core T5450 (1.67 Ghz) with 2GB RAM, 200GB 5400 rpm drive and 256MB dedicated video for $1097. That falls below $1000 for the same machine without dedicated video. I took one home and played with it for a couple of days and wasn't that impressed. Build quality was nice but Vista seemed to me to be a resource hog. All that horsepower and I still found myself disabling services (including themes!) to claw some of it back. Running Windows Classic and with nothing other than StarOffice 8 installed it didn't perform any better than my now 3 1/2 year old 1.4Ghz Centrino with a gig of RAM running XP Pro and with over 270 applications installed. I took the Toshiba back and upgraded my old Centrino to 2GB of RAM for $200 and I'm very pleased. I'm still getting 3.5 hours out of the main battery and over an hour out of the backup (smaller). Not perfect, but great considering how old they are (when new they were good for 5 hours and 2 hours respectively).

I'd buy one of the new notebooks but would IMMEDIATELY install Linux or XP Pro on it...for me this would need to be Windows because of work software compatibilty issues and means an additional $270 for XP Home. Can't justify the additional expense right now (sadly, my XP Pro install discs are OEM) and don't really see any need to at this point.

Just my (rabid) two bits.

4205

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

« Last post by Darwin on October 21, 2007, 08:21 AM »

Just to follow up on an earlier post about Archivarius 3000 version 3.93 triggering a virus alert in Webroot/Sophos AV, it IS a false positive. Both Panda and BitDefender Online virus scans failed to flag the file... I finally got worried enough about the repeated warnings from Webroot Spysweeper with AV that I ran the additional tests this morning.

Great description of your experiences with Archivarius, Ralf. Thanks for sharing it here. I'm having a similar experience in that I was a longtime user of X1, got fed up, tried and bought Archivarius and quickly fell in love with it -despite an inital dislike for the way results are formatted (missed X1's Stellent viewers). Now I'm running the X1 6 beta side by side with Archivaruis but find that I really don't use it much (did you ever try it?). Too bad neither solution works that well with Outlook - as noted above, X1 crashes and takes Outlook with it given that certain options are selected in each (if X1's system tray icon option, Outlook's minimize to tray option, and XP's standby/hibernate options are enabled) while Archivarius chokes on indexing Outlook pst files. I think in a perfect world (in which these issues were, er, not issues) I'd prefer Archivarius because it's footprint is demure. Still playing with X1, though...

I guess it's time to write to Archivarius' developer - let him know about the false positive and request again that he make this:

Currently A3000 use OLE to access Outlook mailboxes. A3000 also support
direct access (via "Custom mails"), it is useful if PST file is not
connected to Outlook (e.g. just stored somewhere as backup).
But OLE access is slow and not good for latest version of Outlook. We should
switch to COM method (it is used in other search systems). We are planning
to switch in the future.

a priority.

EDIT: cleaned up spelling, added the odd missing article...
UPDATE: Message sent to Archivarius' developer. I'll let you know about the response.

4206

General Software Discussion / Re: Do you use Desktop Widgets?

« Last post by Darwin on October 21, 2007, 07:47 AM »

I used to use Konfabulator (paid for it) then Yahoo Widgets. I found over time that as the program grew (Konfabulator 1 - 2, then to Yahoo Widgets 3 and now 4) it became increasingly resource intensive. Life Ralf, I stopped using Yahoo Widgets sometime after 3 was relesaed, but did try version 4 briefly a while back. It didn't last long. I've just doubled my RAM so was idly thinking about giving them another shot, but am not sure that I can be bothered - I can't think of any widget that I have tried that goes beyond the "gee whiz, neato" factor and can't conceive of any widget that would, either. Visually stunning, though...

I've also played with Stardock's DesktopX with the same results. In some ways, ObjectDock is the most useful to my mind. Despite having current licences for both ObjectDesktop and ObjectDock, I don't have either installed... boils down to the same rationale as for YWE - none of the widgets (or objects) really move me that much.

4207

General Software Discussion / Re: Free virtualization options

« Last post by Darwin on October 21, 2007, 07:40 AM »

My question exactly, Carol! For now, I'm happy enough with Virtual PC, but it's always nice to have options 

4208

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

« Last post by Darwin on October 20, 2007, 08:05 PM »

A further update - standby and hibernate work fine with Outlook minimized to tray and with the X1 Deskbar displayed as well (ie when you wake the computer up again Outlook is fine), the critical thing seems to be NOT enabling the system tray icon. I notice that with the icon displayed all of the X1 processes are running all the time. When it's not displayed, only X1FileMonitor runs in the background. As far as I can tell, the system tray icon serves to keep all of X1 loaded in the background and to (greatly) speed up the display of the GUI. This is the only drawback that I can see to running X1 at the moment - even with 2GB of RAM I am waiting for upwards of 25 seconds (just timed it) for it to load.

PS Armando - you read my mind! I was just reading over Carol's previous post and wondering the same thing.

4209

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

« Last post by Darwin on October 20, 2007, 07:42 PM »

I'm back - in short, I'm not sure... I've a huge number of files that have now been indexed and there is a mix of lower case and upper case file names represented. These differences have been retained in X1's index. I dragged a file (an .rtf file) that has capital letters in its filename out of X1 and dropped it into a temp folder in Dopus 9 and the capitalizations were retained. However, I'm not absolutely sure that this is what you were talking about?

4210

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

« Last post by Darwin on October 20, 2007, 07:29 PM »

Hi Armando,

I haven't really checked any other issues out but will do so now and report back.

4211

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

« Last post by Darwin on October 20, 2007, 07:08 PM »

Just to drop in and note that I am running the latest beta of X1 v.6 and like it so far. It's a lot more responsive than the last version that I tried (5.64). The Outlook issue with standby/hibernate persists but I've discovered that if I disable the system tray icon all is well (for at least one cycle of putting the notebook into standby and waking it up again, anyway). The Stellent viewers are SWEET. I'm going to play around with this for a while. Will probably also try out Exalead in the near future...

4212

General Software Discussion / Re: Free virtualization options

« Last post by Darwin on October 20, 2007, 12:02 PM »

I'm updating Win2k Sp-4 to Sp-4 as I write this. Virtual PC is pretty slick. I like your idea about looking for a windows image online, João, but wonder about the legality?

I wish I'd known about this five years ago when I got rid of my Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and DOS 6.22 install disks. I'd love to load them up and try them out on a modern machine...

4213

Living Room / Re: The worst thing about Macs

« Last post by Darwin on October 20, 2007, 11:56 AM »

Darwin: bah! We know very well Peruvian tree-shrews are no more than Uruguayan street-rats wearing lipstick… 

Cross-dressing rats! I love it!

4214

Living Room / Re: The worst thing about Macs

« Last post by Darwin on October 20, 2007, 11:28 AM »

Yes - I agree with Ralf's comment above. Very interesting to read how you entered the Mac world, nontroppo. Thank you for sharing that.

PS I'm an avowed Peruvian tree-shrew FANATIC! Please don't get me started on their all-round superiority to the garden variety wild Southeast Asian species! I mean, who wants to travel all the way to Southeast Asia to watch these mouse sized lesser primates in the natural environments? Puh-leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze! It's a zoo in Peru all the way for me 

4215

General Software Discussion / Re: Free virtualization options

« Last post by Darwin on October 20, 2007, 09:57 AM »

Just grabbed this from the VMWare Player FAQ:

Can I create VMware virtual machines using VMware Player?
No. VMware virtual machines can only be created with VMware Workstation, VMware ACE, VMware Server, VMware ESX Server, or VMware VirtualCenter products.

So for now VMWare is off the table for me (unless anyone knows of a TrialPay offer on VMWare Workstation  ?).

4216

General Software Discussion / Re: Free virtualization options

« Last post by Darwin on October 20, 2007, 09:47 AM »

Thanks João! That's just the kind of input that I'm looking for... One of the points of confusion for me is the issue regarding VMWare Player - some people say that you CAN create new machines with it, others say you can't. I think I'll go the MS route, which is the way I was leaning anyway - I'm going to be running Win2k so the MS solution makes the most sense for now.

Thanks for the VirtualBox pointer as well. I neglected to ask for other options in my original post, but that was one of my questions/objectives 

4217

General Software Discussion / Free virtualization options

« Last post by Darwin on October 20, 2007, 09:29 AM »

Hi all,

I'm keen to set up a virtual machine on my notebook. However, I'm trying to pick between Virtual PC 2007 and VMWare Player 2.2. I'm reading conflicting reports about the capabilities of each and don't know which way to jump!

Anyone here have experience with either or both and willing to enlighten me?

Thanks,

Mike

PS For now, I simply want to run Win2k and possibly 98 in a VM on my XP Pro notebook...

4218

General Software Discussion / Re: keeping/saving cloned files

« Last post by Darwin on October 20, 2007, 08:04 AM »

I didn't have any trouble with hard links - I just never really warmed to them...

4219

General Software Discussion / Re: CD Earth picks up where ThinkAll left off

« Last post by Darwin on October 19, 2007, 03:50 PM »

It's right there. "Bury it", with a red cross, and the word "Bury" at the right side of the cross

-Lashiec (October 19, 2007, 02:11 PM)

Ah... 

Couldn't see for looking!

4220

General Software Discussion / Re: CD Earth picks up where ThinkAll left off

« Last post by Darwin on October 19, 2007, 02:08 PM »

I'm a digg neophyte - how exactly do you bury a posting? I'm keen to help!

4221

Living Room / Re: The worst thing about Macs

« Last post by Darwin on October 19, 2007, 01:43 PM »

Fair comments, steeladept. I only want to comment on the pricing issue - from my perspective, Macs HAVE come down substantially in price. However, while you can get a Mac notebook for about the price of a middle of the range Windows based notebook, they are not in the same league for feature set (though they do ooze quality - I love the look and feel of them, but no more so than a good Toshiba or HP notebook), you get half the RAM and less than half the harddrive capacity. You also don't tend to get discrete video graphics at that price point. My point? Welll... perhaps there isn't one, really, other than to point out that while 3 times the price for half the spec might be a bit off in NA, I don't think it is unreasonable to argue that you get less hardware for your money. Now, having said that, one has only to look at Sony's offerings to realise that this kind of premium pricing is not restricted to Apple!

4222

Living Room / Re: Requesting new organization ideas for fresh windows installation

« Last post by Darwin on October 19, 2007, 05:16 AM »

Welcome to the site , Wolf, and thanks for contributing 

4223

Official Announcements / Re: Draw Cody competition - win incredible prizes!

« Last post by Darwin on October 19, 2007, 05:15 AM »

I love the backwards baseball cap - keep 'em coming Audrey 

4224

Living Room / Re: The worst thing about Macs

« Last post by Darwin on October 18, 2007, 09:23 PM »

By the way, my Macbook is the best Laptop I've owned (IBM Thinkpad, Dell, and Acer being the previous competition), and it isn't because I'm some middle-class lobotomised zombie with heavy pockets...

 

4225

Living Room / Re: The worst thing about Macs

« Last post by Darwin on October 18, 2007, 06:28 PM »

Thanks for clarifying that for me, nontroppo. I don't feel your passion about this but concede your point. I view the thread in the vein that Armando outlines above andI sincerely hope that you're not arguing that all "five zillion my tribe is better than yours threads" are Windows-centric (in my opinion, both sides give as good as they get) and that your issue is with the "classic Mac vs. PC mindset as depicted in the TV commercials", as Ralf suggests.