Recent Posts

4301

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 13, 2007, 03:51 AM »

Wasn't the whole point of Firefox that it was to be a lean, mean, browsing machine?

As I remember it was designed to replace Netscape and Mozilla so why are they devloping it to death and creating yet another bloatfest?

To my mind the memory footprint issues with Firefox is less of a problem than the speed and CPU grabbing issues. With an Athlon64 X2 4600 CPU the browser shouldn't need to use up to 50% of CPU cycles fairly regularly during use. My last CPU was often pushed to 90-100% for extended periods.

4302

Living Room / Re: Firm sues over comments

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 13, 2007, 03:43 AM »

I just think it is ludicrous in a community forum that the web site owner is deemed responsible for all comments.

If this case is successful then it would be likely that all web forums would become either obsolete or moderated before posts appear which would change the character completely and be completely unmanageable on forums such as this where there are large numbers of posts every day.

Presumably they will need to demonstrate in court that the comments were both untrue and materially damaging. The first may be possible if the posters have been stupid but the latter may be difficult - how do you prove that the forum posts have a direct effect on sales? If their product is not good sales will drop anyway.

4303

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 13, 2007, 03:34 AM »

Nice - well done.

Do I gather that this "Suite" doesn't include a firewall ?

4304

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 12, 2007, 06:01 PM »

How about a Karma type system - any post that is deemed spam or nuisance automatically means that the offender loses signature rights for 10^(n+1) posts where n is the number of times they offended.

This would mean there would have to be 10 posts before a user can have a signature. If they post something deemed of sufficient nuisance value then they would have signature rights suspended for 100 posts, next time 1000 posts ...

OK 10 might be the wrong factor to use - how about 5 + 5^(n+1) which would go 10, 30, 130 ... or 8 + 2^(n+1) which would go 10, 12, 16, 24 ...

It could be automated so that everytime someone has a message moved to the sin bin by a moderator their value of n is incremented.

Having said that what is to stop the same person posting under 100 different aliases?

4305

Living Room / Re: Firm sues over comments

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 12, 2007, 03:23 PM »

You can't help laughing - the fact that they are suing means that the very comments they don't like are being repeated more widely to illustrate the case.

I don't know how Australian law works but AFAICS the simple defense of 'personal opinion' of users would cover it - everyone in a country with free speech should have a right to be wrong in their opinion. I'm sure the company could enter into a meaningful discussion on the same forum if they really wanted to.

4306

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 12, 2007, 12:01 PM »

Try POPFile - let's you filter any way you like but learns your SPAM rules v. quickly as one method of sorting. It uses Bayesian filtering methods and is excellent. See http://popfile.sourceforge.net/

You can use it with any POP email client.

4307

General Software Discussion / Re: Stay Away From Microsoft VISTA

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 11, 2007, 07:35 PM »

Personally I'd prefer any car other than the one I've got at the moment (I just paid £850, ~$1800, for a service as a suspension spring had snapped and I needed new brake pads - JEEEEZ)

4308

Living Room / Re: Anyone know how to capture video + audio (uin good quality) from WMP ?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 11, 2007, 07:30 PM »

Thanks everyone for suggestions - I now have a number of working copies in various states of quality - from complete gobbledigook to 'that'll do' which is probably as good as it gets for a web download.

4309

Living Room / Re: Anyone know how to capture video + audio (uin good quality) from WMP ?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 11, 2007, 01:32 PM »

I haven't had a good experience with kmplayer in the past - if I can get it to work will it play encrypted WMV files ?

4310

Living Room / Re: Anyone know how to capture video + audio (uin good quality) from WMP ?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 11, 2007, 01:16 PM »

I am using Camtasia which does the job by turning off hardware acceleration.

The biggest problems I have now are capturing at high enough frame rate (full screen, 25fps for PAL DVD production) and keeping audio in sync - neither of which behave particularly well in Camtasia. Full screen capture is the biggest problem - it produces a file that is in sync with audio but it looks more like a discrete series of photos (about 2 or 4 a second) than true video. If I capture in a smaller window quality isn't so great and audio loses sync but video is at least video.

I looked on VideoHelp and they point to a number of commercial apps that can do this sort of thing - but initial impressions are not great.

I found Tunebite at www.tunebite.com which looks promising - unfortunately the demo version only works for the first 60 seconds of a clip so there doesn't seem to be any way to check and see if sync is maintained. Anyone used this and know what it is like?

4311

Developer's Corner / Re: VB6 - where to go now?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 11, 2007, 11:45 AM »

Kylix is no longer viable as it is not available any more and no longer supported. Borland cancelled the Kylix project quite some time ago.

4312

Living Room / Anyone know how to capture video + audio (uin good quality) from WMP ?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 10, 2007, 05:42 PM »

I want to capture a short video in WMP in good quality - anyone know how to do it?

All the software I have tried have come out with poor sound and either no picture or a single still.

What I am trying to do is record a TV programme I missed the other night to record on DVD. Unfortunately the internet download version of tghe program is DRMed so I can't use the file directly. Stupid really since it was show openly on TV and anyone could record it (if they mastered their recorder!)

4313

Official Announcements / Re: FreeThesaurus.net - new official DC web service, is now up and running!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 07, 2007, 06:55 PM »

Sooo... does the new yellow box appeal to you, with scrollbar and tuned timeouts?

-Wordzilla (September 07, 2007, 05:49 PM)

Oooooooooo .... beautiful

What a star!

4314

Official Announcements / Re: FreeThesaurus.net - new official DC web service, is now up and running!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 07, 2007, 01:33 PM »

Another 'bug' - don't know how you can fix this one ...

If a definition is a long one the pop up box is too narrow to display the whole definition. Try hovering over "good" to see what I mean.

AFAICS the only way to solve this would be to allow the mouse to enter the yellow box (currently it disappears if you move the mouse) and include a scroll bar. A workaround would be to make the yellow box quite a bit wider so that more will fit on screen.

Some of the synonyms for good are a bit over the top (and not really synonyms as far as I can see).

4315

Official Announcements / Re: FreeThesaurus.net - new official DC web service, is now up and running!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 07, 2007, 01:27 PM »

That seems to have got it - well done

It's all a learning curve 

4316

Official Announcements / Re: FreeThesaurus.net - new official DC web service, is now up and running!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 07, 2007, 09:52 AM »

That seems to have cured the slow downs for me - no yellow pop ups though in FF.

4317

Official Announcements / Re: FreeThesaurus.net - new official DC web service, is now up and running!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 07, 2007, 09:36 AM »

Glad it isn't just me - I was beginning to think it must be an issue with a Firefox addin.

4318

Official Announcements / Re: FreeThesaurus.net - new official DC web service, is now up and running!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 07, 2007, 07:15 AM »

that slowdown you are experiencing is an invisible window where cody is doing a dance.  it's true you can't see it, but just knowing that your computer cpu is being used for a complex physics simulation of Cody doing his special Worm dance should bring you immense satisfaction and outweight any sluggish pc performance.

-mouser (September 07, 2007, 06:47 AM)

That's OK then - I am now happy

4319

Official Announcements / Re: FreeThesaurus.net - new official DC web service, is now up and running!

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

According to the hefty Merriam Webster's unabridged dictionary

Christian  a. (3c): decent, civilized. 

-Wordzilla (September 07, 2007, 07:01 AM)

Tell that to victims of the crusades (or George Bush/Tony Blair) ... sorry didn't realise that Merriam Webster had an agenda!

4320

Official Announcements / Re: FreeThesaurus.net - new official DC web service, is now up and running!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 07, 2007, 06:41 AM »

1. To get the yellow definition panels, move mouse cursor over a word/phrase - if you have javascript enabled, they should display properly.

Seems to work in Internet Explorer but it doesn't seem to work for me in Firefox 2.0.0.6

2. Hmm maybe your browser has a problem with my ajax scripts, just click on "Disable quick dictionary" and "Disable live suggest" on the top-right corner.

Using Firefox, I have disabled both but I still have the problems in other tabs - unresponsive mouse highlighting of text and typing playing slow catch up as I type. Once I close the thesaurus tab everything is back to normal.

4321

General Software Discussion / Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 06, 2007, 08:33 PM »

Just looked on the Adobe website and it is listed at $299. I am really glad I bought Pixmantec RawShooter Premium when I did - that cost me £40 (~$75) so I feel quite chuffed with a free copy of LightRoom

4322

General Software Discussion / Re: GemX - missing in action

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 06, 2007, 08:26 PM »

I haven't used their software but their website loads fine for me (really quite brisk) - forum is still on the move though apparently.

If it is still sluggish try clearing your browser cache.

4323

Official Announcements / Re: FreeThesaurus.net - new official DC web service, is now up and running!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 06, 2007, 08:22 PM »

Absolutely brilliant (and really elegant too) - but can I ask two questions:

1) How do you get the yellow definition panels (I am using Firefox) ?

2) If I leave FreeThesaurus.net open in a tab I find my keyboard really sluggish in other tabs - is there any way to fix that or should I simply close the thesaurus tab when I finish?

4324

General Software Discussion / Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 06, 2007, 08:13 PM »

but they have weaved magic with Lightroom, truly photo-heaven...

That's probably because they had a lot of new (and very experienced talent working on it). The whole team from Pixmantec (who produced RawShooter - a truly excellent program) moved over to the LightRoom team. I was really pleased that as a Pixmantec customer Adobe gave me a free upgrade to LightRoom - I too think it is superb, brilliant and beautiful (and that's on Windows!). Not cheap though if you have to pay for it

4325

General Software Discussion / Re: Stay Away From Microsoft VISTA

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 06, 2007, 08:45 AM »

How about letting installed apps be 'pseudo-users'  (say initially in the 'applications user group') like System, .Net or ASP users - then you can use user settings to set what access each application has very specifically. If certain settings are required to use an app for everyone using that app it could be set up in the installer with appropriate warnings to system administrator doing the installation (eg. via popup permissions and in the system log each instance of changed access rights could be noted with specific details).