Recent Posts

4276

General Review Discussion / Re: Free PDF tools review?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 17, 2007, 04:32 AM »

Presumably they want you to buy their other products - none of which are free (though they are reasonably priced).

4277

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Office 2007 Ultimate for $59.99 (if you're a student)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 17, 2007, 04:16 AM »

According to the UK site it is £38.95 which at current rates equates to $78 - why can't MS do sums?

Actually if you start the order process it does say you can buy a DVD-ROM for a nominal charge if you don't want to rely on downloads.

OK you can only install it on one machine but at that price you can buy a couple of copies if you need to (assuming they let you buy more than one license at that price).

Personally I can see no compelling reason to move on from Office 2003 (esp. as Outlook 2007 is notoriously bad and will probably need a couple of service packs to get it working properly) - however if I were still using Office 200 or XP I would probably upgrade.

For anyone interested note that you get full copies of:

    * Word 2007
    * Excel 2007
    * PowerPoint 2007
    * Publisher 2007
    * Access 2007
    * Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager
    * OneNote 2007
    * InfoPath 2007
    * Groove 2007

and so it is almost worth it just for OneNote 2007.

I suppose I am slightly tempted - does anyone know if you can install Office 2007 without Outlook and retain Outlook 2003 ? The beats allowed that because the PST file format changes and can't be easily reverted to XP/2003 format but I don't know  if you can do this in the full release version.

Buy the way - the academic check is done by the use of academic email addresses (at least in the UK) but they may also contact you to provide further documentary proof (student card or other written confirmation).

There is also a minimum requirement that your course enrolment must be at least 50% full time equivalent.

Also you can only purchase one copy - here are the relevant bits:

Eligibility: Entry into this promotion may only be made by students who are enrolled at, and possess an email address with the suffix ‘ac.uk’ at an educational institution geographically located in the United Kingdom. This offer is non-transferable. This offer cannot be combined with any other Microsoft offers or rebates.

Microsoft or an appointed vendor may contact you to verify that you are a current student. If documentation is not provided indicating that you are a current student, you will be liable to reimburse Microsoft for the full retail cost of the software (£599.99)

Promtion Limits: Only one trial download and one purchase per eligible student will be accepted. Entry constitutes full and unconditional acceptance of these terms and conditions. Microsoft reserve the right to exclude any individual who is in breach of these terms and conditions. This offer is subject to availability.

Given that you can only purchase a single copy and it can't be installed on more than one computer that makes the decision clear for me - especially as it may not install again if you upgrade your computer with memory or a larger hard disc (at least that was suggested for the Windows Vista activation system and so presumably similar provisions apply to Office 2007 - haven't checked tho')

4278

Living Room / Re: How much RAM do you have on your PC?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 17, 2007, 03:56 AM »

Oops ... I'll change it ...

4279

Living Room / Re: How much RAM do you have on your PC?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 16, 2007, 04:17 PM »

I have added a poll ...

4280

Living Room / Re: How much RAM do you have on your PC?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 16, 2007, 04:16 AM »

Win XP Pro SP2 - 2Gb, mainly because I run PhotoShop and Video apps.

4281

General Software Discussion / Re: GemX - missing in action

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 16, 2007, 03:50 AM »

I'm from Vancouver Island so we're getting a healthy number of Canadians in this thread.

My parents live at Bracebridge, about 150 miles north of Toronto, so can I count (by proxy) ?

4282

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 15, 2007, 02:44 AM »

doublewitt - are you the author of TreeDBNotes

4283

General Software Discussion / Re: Real Player 11 is actually quite good!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 14, 2007, 06:19 PM »

HERESY! Both Mr. Crispy and mouser are heretics and should burn in the holy fire!

(Turn on tomorrow for another episode of DC confessions: Everybody loves iTunes!)

-Lashiec (September 14, 2007, 10:02 AM)

I confess ... I do use:

• Windows Media Player 11 (for most things - works pretty good and is easy to find stuff)
• iTunes (for Audible files, Podcasts and the iTunes files I have bought - few - or received free - quite a lot)
• RealPlayer 10 (burns RM audio files direct to proper CD Audio disks - which is useful)
• Audible Manager (hate it but it allows Audible files to sync with my Zen Micro nicely - yes WMP does it too, I just don't like the way it does it)

so there.

4284

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 14, 2007, 09:34 AM »

I have the same feeling about Windows Secrets and the demise of the LangList. I used to read both and LangaList was the one I read just about every word of. I still have a subscription but I don't think I will be renewing when it expires. I also really object the growing amount of blatant advertising in the paid for version.

4285

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 14, 2007, 07:54 AM »

I have an XP Home disk right here in plain sight, and am always fighting the urge to reformat and install it.

If I do that, I'm told by Hewlett Packard, it invalidates my warranty.  Also, I don't know specifically what drivers to use, for instance to continue accessing the internet, though I know I can obtain XP drivers for everything else, I'm not sure the DVD/CD combo on this thing will read the CDs if I make the change, so I feel sort of handcuffed.

I can't see why you would have problems with a DVD drive - most of them don't use any drivers other than Microsoft's ATAPI driver. Check in your hardware devices and I'll bet the driver for that drive is a Microsoft driver so it is almost certain it will work fine in WinXP.

Invalidate your warranty? How - if you were taking the hardware apart yes - installing an OS ... no way. What happens when the next version of Windows comes out and you want to upgrade - or if you want to dual boot a completely different OS like Linux.

There is a free helpful utility (SIW) that you can download from here which will give you a list of all the hardware installed on your system - you should be able to see from that that manufacturers names of the components and model numbers - you can then visit the manufacturer's websites and get the latest versions of their drivers (you should do this anyway as OEMs are notoriously bad about updating drivers on systems, or even listing updates on their website, once they have sold them). Here is an image from SIW showing my motherboard details:



Finally get some disc imaging software and do a full backup of your system to DVD (ensure you verify the backup too). Then you can format and install XP and if there are insurmountable problems simply use your backup to restore your entire system back tot he way it was before you started. There is another thread where you can get Acronis TrueImage 9 for $8 + postage. If you have a large enough disc drive with plenty of free space you could also add a blank partition and backup everything to that partition (much quicker, verifies quicker, and much easier to restore if you need to).

Any hardware you are not sure about start a new thread and post your hardware details and someone will help find the right drivers.

Good luck.

4286

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 13, 2007, 07:41 PM »

As some of the posted comments on that page say, the MS apologist completely misses the point.

If I have 'notify me of updates and ask if I want to install' enabled then Windows Update should simply report that there is an update to Windows Update. It is then my choice whether I install it or not. OK I may never see any other updates until I do but at least it is my choice.

Silent updates without any information means that if the MS servers are compromised there could be a worldwide automatic distribution of various kinds of malware without user intervention. The fact that MS can even do this means there must be a loophole that already exists that could be exploited by others with drastic consequences. Given that MS is not exactly known for its high security profile I think that these are potential situations that really need to be taken seriously! If Windows Update couldn't accept updates without user consent then this whole can of worms could be avoided.

Personally I think the blanket 'Automatic (recommended)' setting is practically a blank cheque which is open to abuse - and at the very least stupid given the number of problematic patches MS shovels out every year. I have lost count of the number of times 'fixes' from MS have broken more than they fixed.

4287

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 13, 2007, 04:05 PM »

That poll is pretty useless.. how about the options be:

"wrong"
"don't care, but buy me beer, vodka + cranberry/orange"


   

-mitzevo (September 13, 2007, 03:38 PM)

Of course it is pretty useless - we all know the answer, it was only meant as a bit of fun

4288

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 13, 2007, 04:04 PM »

Poll updated to reflect your tastes

-Carol Haynes (September 13, 2007, 03:03 PM)

Can't vote again unfortunately 

-katykaty (September 13, 2007, 03:20 PM)

You can now - just remove your old vote using the link.

4289

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 13, 2007, 03:03 PM »

Poll updated to reflect your tastes

4290

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 13, 2007, 01:45 PM »

True - but I think you are stuck with Don't Care or Buy me a beer

4291

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 13, 2007, 12:29 PM »

And another article (with a vote at the bottom) ...

http://blogs.zdnet.c...ware/?p=779#more-779

I have added a poll at the top of this thread ...

4292

Living Room / Re: Forum Signature Spam: Let's discuss how to handle..

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 13, 2007, 08:14 AM »

Actually I quite like the idea of restricting sigs to donating members - its not a big hardship to non-donating members and is a little perk for people who bother to make the effort.

4293

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 13, 2007, 08:09 AM »

Worrying trend ...

See http://windowssecret...m/comp/070913#story1 for details

4294

Living Room / Re: Forum Signature Spam: Let's discuss how to handle..

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 13, 2007, 06:25 AM »

OK I have changed mine now - I feel sufficiently guilty 

4295

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Kaspersky Internet Security 7

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 13, 2007, 06:22 AM »

Doesn't seem to mention firewall on the website and there doesn't appear to be one in the software window in the first post above.

-Carol Haynes (September 13, 2007, 05:04 AM)

There is a firewall. From the product website:

# Personal firewall with an IDS / IPS system. Improved!

I noted in my review three advanced features that I chose not to install: Anti-Spam, Firewall, Parental filters. As others in the thread have noted, software firewalls (notably ZoneAlarm) tend to be a nuisance. I prefer a hardware firewall.

-CWuestefeld (September 13, 2007, 05:25 AM)

Thanks - I should have read it more carefully 

4296

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Acronis True Image 9 - $8 (plus shipping)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 13, 2007, 05:23 AM »

I am not overly impressed with Acronis these days - I have TrueImage WorkStation 9.1 with Universal Restore and a maintenance contract for both. Druing the last year there have been no major updates to Universal Restore (which in my experience doesn't work at all) and only one minor bug fix to 9.1. Whilst the Home version has moved on to version 10 the business version is static (presumably because as usual they are using Home users as beta testers).

When Acronis software works it is good but my personal advice is NEVER EVER adopt new version early - they are usually as buggy as hell (which is unforgivable for this sort of software). If you can get version 9 for $8 go for it - and look for a cheap offer for version 10 when 11 is released!

I have used Acronis since version 8 - and I can't honestly see that major version releases actually add much - apart from a financial burden if you buy them. The move from version 8 to 9 added file level backup but it is so badly done I suspect no one actually uses it.

4297

Best E-mail Client / Re: How to accurately block junk mail? (The Bat and other clients also)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 13, 2007, 05:10 AM »

Just to compare ... here are my POPfile statistics:



but remember POPfile knows nothing about SPAM at all (and doesn't come with any pattern files etc) it just learns what YOU think is SPAM as it works.

To be fair I reset the counter on the date stated in the stats - the software had been installed for about two weeks at that point - so it isn't doing too badly!

Note on the right hand side the term 'buckets'. These are defined by the user and you can set up as many as you like. The concept is very simple - imagine post coming through the letter box - mail is sorted automatically into the buckets. If one ends up in the wrong bucket you simply say which bucket it should be in and the software learns a bit more about what you mean by your preferred bucket contents.

4298

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Kaspersky Internet Security 7

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 13, 2007, 05:04 AM »

Doesn't seem to mention firewall on the website and there doesn't appear to be one in the software window in the first post above. Just curious - how can a software suite be complete internet protection without a firewall?

4299

General Software Discussion / Re: New interesting features for Firefox 3

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 13, 2007, 05:00 AM »

Flash is pretty ubiquitous these days - how many pages don't you find it on?

Having said that Just clicking on a link on the BBC homepage pushes up my CPU usage for Firefox to 7% - which seems a bit excessive - and during Firefox startup (slow in itself) my CPU usage hits 60-80% (opening 6 tabs)

4300

Living Room / Re: Firm sues over comments

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 13, 2007, 04:46 AM »

It depends whether the courts allow you to shift responsibility like that. Just because you make a statement doesn't mean that you dismiss your responsibilities. For example a toy may carry a label saying 'not suitable for under 3 years' but would they have a defence in court if a toy belonging to a 5 year old injured their younger sibling because of poor design or manufacturing?

It is interesting that many lawyers actually argue that software EULAs are probably not enforceable even when users agree to them!

Actually on the basis of their argument could a company sue MS if critical material was prepared in MS Word, or distributed via MS Outlook? What is the difference?