Recent Posts

4426

General Software Discussion / Re: Status of Directory Opus development, does anyone know?

« Last post by superboyac on September 03, 2009, 10:26 AM »

I have licenses for TC (5+ years now), DOpus, and XYplorer Lifetime. I use DOpus the most, have been trying XYplorer more and more since they started with the dual pane, and of course I still use TC for a number of features that I could probably get the others to do but it's quicker to fire up TC and just do it.

-J-Mac (September 03, 2009, 03:08 AM)

Pretty much exactly describes my situation as well.

4427

What's the Best? / Re: Video conversion: What's the best (freeware or shareware)?

« Last post by superboyac on September 03, 2009, 10:25 AM »

I use a freeware "Format Factory" which converts just about everything.  AMAZING converter.  Tons of features.

http://www.formatoz.com/

-y0himba (September 03, 2009, 08:20 AM)

Looks pretty good.
Are any of these converters portable?

4428

What's the Best? / Re: Video conversion: What's the best (freeware or shareware)?

« Last post by superboyac on September 03, 2009, 10:23 AM »

i've resorted to just using virtualdub (with a few plugins). sometimes it means messing about to get ac3 to mp3 with the audio (which might also be offset, so needs judging a bit); or i'll just not bother converting the audio and leave it as ac3. video is to xvid.

i'm also curios as to what people suggest for simple one click type programs that provide acceptable results - if there are any.

-nudone (September 03, 2009, 05:33 AM)

Yeah, I'm talking about the one-click programs.  Practically mindless.  That's why Super is good.  You can use the defaults, or you can individually tweak the many settings and they are all just radio buttons to check off.

Virtualdub would be much more involved.  Same with something like Handbrake.  I'm not trying to do it the "right".  More just the easy way, but with some options if possible.

4429

What's the Best? / Re: Video conversion: What's the best (freeware or shareware)?

« Last post by superboyac on September 03, 2009, 10:20 AM »

(just a heads-up: this thread will probably get loads of spam -video conversion is a common spam topic- so please take the recommendations with a grain of salt)

-jgpaiva (September 03, 2009, 05:17 AM)

Yeah, I've noticed that.  That's why it's so hard to search the net for good recommendations.  I found it difficult to find a thread that had an intelligent discussion going on.

4430

What's the Best? / Video conversion: What's the best (freeware or shareware)?

« Last post by superboyac on September 03, 2009, 01:39 AM »

What are people's opinions on the best video conversion software?  For a while, I have used Super, which is very good.  I'm curious what others think.

4431

General Software Discussion / Re: Status of Directory Opus development, does anyone know?

« Last post by superboyac on September 02, 2009, 06:55 PM »

Thanks everyone for replying. I don't know whether I'd ever be able to switch to DOpus entirely. Every morning I bow to a little statue of Christain Ghisler by my bedside - well, almost. TotalCommander is an extension of my fingers and it goes where I go.

I've given DOpus a good long try that last time, and of course I appreciate all the power features, but can't quite get used to the way things are in DOpus. Niggly little things like some aspects of the listview behavior when used via the keyboard. So I'm only thinking of using it for the collections feature, and then maybe for more of the stuff that TC does not yet to. I'm a software junkie, always happy to get my hands on a powertool like that - so it's down to the question of whether I want to part with a non-trivial sum just for that one special feature in DOpus with little desire to become a true convert. I'm itching though

...and this is where I recalled I have a laptop, gathering dust on a shelf a few feet away. I guess I'll give DOpus another spin there.

-tranglos (September 02, 2009, 06:41 PM)

TC is definitely much more keyboard friendly.  And it's faster and lighter also.  I'm still convinced that you can get DOpus configured to behave just like TC or 99% close, but it would probably take a good deal of effort.  I've actually nitpicked a couple of times about certain mouse/keyboard selection features I loved about TC and wanted implemented in DOpus, but they went largely ignored.  Nobody else really cared.  Small things make a difference when you use those small things all the time.  Developers very often forget this.

4432

General Software Discussion / Re: Status of Directory Opus development, does anyone know?

« Last post by superboyac on September 02, 2009, 06:07 PM »

Dopus v9 was released in April 2007.

-mwb1100 (September 02, 2009, 05:27 PM)

Really??  I'm way off.  Man...time flies.

4433

General Software Discussion / Re: Status of Directory Opus development, does anyone know?

« Last post by superboyac on September 02, 2009, 04:43 PM »

If you commit to DOpus, you just have to mentally understand that you will give in to their licensing policy.  It is expensive and every upgrade will be expensive as well.  But it's also the best.  So if you want it, there's no alternative.

I like the program a lot.  I use it every day.  If I'm in front of a computer, I'm probably using DOpus once every few minutes, and if for some reason, I can't, it's very frustrating.  You can get the program to do whatever you want.

Ever since you inquired about the file collections in the other thread, I've been testing it out a little more, and it is quite good.

I haven't heard of a v10 upgrade.  If their schedule is similar to what they've done in the past, i wouldn't expect a new version anytime soon.  Probably a year or two minimum.  Version 9 is still relatively new, I think less than a year old.

4434

Screenshot Captor / Re: NOD32 False Positive

« Last post by superboyac on September 02, 2009, 12:46 PM »

I've only done a full scan once.  Here's a question: what's the point of doing regularly scheduled full scans?

-superboyac (September 01, 2009, 05:04 PM)

I always run a full scan after installing a new AV package, just to see if it comes up with anything. But you're right, there's not much point in doing it later, unless you expect an infection missed earlier.

The shaky mouse movement during full scan worries me somewhat, because it may reflect on the performance of real-time scan as well. And even when I selected "Objects scan" and "By extension", Kaspersky still seemed to be scanning *.pas files - that's weird, and I couldn't find a way to customize the list of extensions.

That said, with Kaspersky I see no perceptible delay when viewing or executing large apps, while with Eset there was always a small pause. I like it a lot so far.

-tranglos (September 02, 2009, 06:45 AM)

I'm not sure if I've experienced the shaky mouse movement.  I know during full scans my computer has slowed down somewhat noticeably, but nothing as far as mouse movement.  The only other nuisance I've experienced with kaspersky is that there is a pretty long pause sometimes when running an executable for the first time while it figures out what level of trust to assign to it.  Especially for a new, fast computer like mine, I felt the long pause was unnecessary.  But it's only the first time it runs, after that it's fine.

I've tried other programs also, like you have, including the free ones.  I always go back to kaspersky because of the extensive configuration options.  Just in the last month, i even put it on my mom's and sister's computers because they both got some pretty horrible virus/malware just recently.  My mom's computer was destroyed, I had to reinstall Windows.  I just happened to be at my sister's house at the time, so I made her buy Kaspersky and installed it quickly to clean it, and it did.  i think both viruses (or malware) came from Facebook.  My mom had an old version of F-secure running, which is usually pretty good, but it didn't catch it (it was the antivirus version, not the "internet security" version and the definitions were updated).  My sister had AVG Free running and it did not catch it.  Kaspersky Internet Security caught them all.

This wave of attacks from Facebook recently has been pretty bad.  I think someone at my work also got a similar virus.  All within the past month.  I searched google, but didn't find any news about it, so maybe it's not as big as I'm imagining.  But I've never seen so many computers around me get infected at the same time like this.  The one on my mom's computer was especially bad:  it disabled Windows safe mode, it disabled any kind of entry into Task Manager, and it prevented any exe's to run.  There was nothing you could do.  I eventually cleaned it by using a special Linux boot CD, but after it was cleaned, the OS was just in shambles.  I'm very surprised F-Secure didn't catch it, but again, it was an old version.

4435

Screenshot Captor / Re: NOD32 False Positive

« Last post by superboyac on September 01, 2009, 05:04 PM »

It's the first time I've tried Kaspersky and I like it a lot. I like the interface and the configurability. It's not exactly stingy when it comes to RAM usage (though better than Eset), and when performing a full scan, Kaspersky puts a bit of strain on the system. It seems to take 100% of one CPU core. Once mouse movement becomes shaky, it's not too good! I've looked for a process priority setting but can't find one.

-tranglos (September 01, 2009, 04:39 PM)

I've only done a full scan once.  Here's a question: what's the point of doing regularly scheduled full scans?  if you scan once and then have the program running a live scan afterwards, could something actually infect your computer withohut the live scanner catching it?  How could it go undetected by the live scanner and then be picked up by a full scan?  I've always wondered about that.  Also, when I did do scheduled scans, I obviously had them scheduled during times when I'd be sleeping.

4436

General Software Discussion / Re: 30 Days of DonationCoder Screencasts - Video Links Here

« Last post by superboyac on September 01, 2009, 05:00 PM »

Why thank you.
I'm going to take today of and then.. begin ANOTHER 30 DAYS OF DC SCREENCASTS!

-mouser (September 01, 2009, 04:48 PM)

Wow.

4437

Screenshot Captor / Re: NOD32 False Positive

« Last post by superboyac on August 27, 2009, 11:24 PM »

Wouldn't you want to try kaspersky before going to Avira?

-superboyac (August 27, 2009, 07:09 PM)

I've never tried Kaspersky, but had great results with the free edition of Avira. For one thing, its real-time scanning was much faster than Eset's, especially on larger files.

The reason I bought Eset Smart Security was I wanted a package with a firewall, and the Avira suite was giving me blue screns at the time. Then again, Eset consumes ungodly amounts of RAM, and behind a router I can probably live without a firewall. Now it's breaking my daily backup process, so I'm planning to go back to the basic Avira AV and see how that works out.

-tranglos (August 27, 2009, 07:40 PM)

I see, interesting.  I'm always curious about the antivirus programs.  I've always stuck with kaspersky.  I thought ESet was very light on resources, so I'm surprised to hear you say that about the RAM.  I like Kaspersky because it is highly customizeable and has a lot of details.  But sometimes, it slows things down.  They seem to get better with each version, though.  I've never tried Avira.  All the free ones always seem to be lacking in a feature or two, and I just go back to kaspersky.  Anyway, didn't mean to turn this into an antivirus thread.

4438

Screenshot Captor / Re: NOD32 False Positive

« Last post by superboyac on August 27, 2009, 07:09 PM »

Not related to SC, but Eset has been bugging me lately for another reason. All of a sudden Backup4All cannot complete certain mirroring tasks - it hangs onto a file it's trying to copy and stays at n% forever until I kill it. I thought it was a bug in the latest version of Backup4All (and it kind-of is a bug, since they should implement a timeout in case it gets stuck on a file that might reside on a network drive, say), but no - the problem went away as soon as I disabled real-time filesystem protection in Eset. So it seems like Eset is intercepting a file access and never stops scanning the file. I've seen this happen on a 120-byte text file, go figure.

Time to kiss and make up with Avira, I think.

-tranglos (August 27, 2009, 06:23 PM)

Wouldn't you want to try kaspersky before going to Avira?

4439

General Software Discussion / Re: Add tabbed documents to MS Office

« Last post by superboyac on August 26, 2009, 12:35 PM »

Very very awesome.  Thanks!

4440

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

« Last post by superboyac on August 26, 2009, 12:02 PM »

Wiznotes looks cool.

4441

General Software Discussion / Re: The Bat: Fix all the wrapping issues...now!

« Last post by superboyac on August 25, 2009, 05:41 PM »

You may need to start looking for a new email program if it irritates you so much & the developers won't see your way of thinking.

-Innuendo (August 25, 2009, 03:00 PM)

Nah, it's not that serious.  The Bat is still by far the best email program.  I'll deal with it.  but I do feel the whole Bat community is kind of out of touch...quirky at the very least.  I suppose it's typical of programs that offer a lot of power and customizations.

4442

General Software Discussion / Re: The Bat: Fix all the wrapping issues...now!

« Last post by superboyac on August 24, 2009, 11:24 PM »

I am pretty convinced that the developers of the Bat are not really all that friendly.  They will not respond to any of my feature suggestions anymore and they refuse to address the problem I've explained here other than to say "That's how it is and we're not going to change it."  It doesn't make sense to me because the feature I am asking for doesn't change anything, it just adds a small feature, something most developers would easily and gladly add.

Again, I asked for the following feature:
--When Auto-Format is turned on, have an additional option (checkbox) to enable/disable "Allow single carriage return"

There's no reason for current users to oppose this idea because it would be transparent to them.  If they don't want anything to change, just leave it off and everything will be the same.  But for others like me, it allows us to start new lines without having to press Enter twice, while still keeping the auto-format reflowing features, and the other benefits of using microEd.  Yet, many users in their mailing list oppose the idea and keep telling me to just use Alt-L.  I'm not looking for a workaround.  I know about Alt-L.  That's not the point.  I know how to do it if I have to, I just feel it's too much work for something that needs to always happen.

This is not the first time I've been frustrated by the Bat's developers and community.  A few months ago, I asked a question that was critical about MicroEd on their forum, and the banned me from the forum without warning and removed the thread.  I was not being mean or rude, I was just questioning and somewhat critical.  This was the first and only time my feature suggestions and comments about a program have not been appreciated and actually had a negative response.

That's why I said 95%. It's not perfect & in your example when the text turns into "list 1 list 2" just put the cursor right before "list 2" and hit enter. It'll stay properly formatted then. It's inconvenient & I can see your point, but the advantages of using The Bat! far outweigh the disadvantages of the editor.

Innuendo, no offense, but this is exactly the type of response I am getting from the other users.  I know you mean well, but my point in asking was not because I couldn't find a workaround.  I know how get it to work the way i want using the current features.  What I'm frustrated about is the extra steps it takes, which I feel can be eliminated if they add my feature suggestion.

Every day for the last several years, when I use the Bat, i probably have to do a few extra steps because of this wrapping issue.  I wouldn't care so much normally, but in this case, it's a tool that I use way too much to go unsaid.

4443

General Software Discussion / Re: 30 Days of DonationCoder Screencasts - Video Links Here

« Last post by superboyac on August 24, 2009, 05:58 PM »

DAY 23:

Today's video takes a look at the Keyboard Interface Options of [url=https://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/findrun/index.html]FARR[/url

-mouser (August 23, 2009, 12:21 AM)

I love it when you explain the Ctrl+Alt+# thing, "ok, I don't know what this does... ok, so that's not really useful"

-TucknDar (August 24, 2009, 10:59 AM)

Funniest screencast ever

-jgpaiva (August 24, 2009, 12:03 PM)

Yeah, that was funny.

4444

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: VueMinder Calendar 50% Discount to Celebrate First Year

« Last post by superboyac on August 24, 2009, 12:06 AM »

Dan, thanks for the discount and writing here at DC.  I think I am one of the few that appreciates a good dedicated calendar program, as most people use Outlook or whatever other larger-scale integrated solution that is out there for managing emails, appointments, and events.  It's been a long time since I've seen a new entry into the dedicated calendar software genre.

I just downloaded the Pro version and it's very nice.  The program i currently use is Calendarscope.  In all of my searches in during the past few years, Calendarscope is the best because it's very fast and lightweight and has a lot of nice options for customizing the calendar.  What I absolutely hate about Calendarscope is their licensing policy.  A license lasts one year only, and spending $40 a year for just a calendar software is a little too much in my opinion.  Furthermore, you have to pay extra for Outlook synchronization and sharing of any type.  But the software itself is pretty good.  The way I look at it is you buy it once and just keep using the old version until you absolutely need the newer features.  Still, I don't like their license policy at all.  I've made a few posts about it here at donationcoder, so if you search for it, you can read more about it.

Now, I can already see that even though your price is the same, I don't think you have the same kind of policy as they do, so that's good.  Let me comment on your software now, even though I've only tried it for a few minutes (I'll have more to say later):

--First, your program is slower than Calendarscope.  That's not really a bad thing, it's just something I thought I'd point out.  You can tell by scrolling and clicking things that the reactions are not as fast.  But that doesn't mean it's slow.  One thing that I always notice about Calendarscope is how fast it is.  Ultimately, your program is fast enough.

--One thing I hate about Calendarscope is that when you hover the mouse over an event to see the details in the popup tooltip, it uses the settings of the regular Windows tooltip settings.  So if you're description and details are long, most of it will get cut off.  Also, it will disappear after a few seconds and there's no option to change it because it's part the Windows system, not Calendarscope.  i asked him to change it once to something custom-programmed for Calendarscope, but he didn't care for the suggestion.  I can see that Vueminder uses its own tooltip/hover/popup feature and it is really nice.  it shows a lot more and looks really good.  And I know you can add features to it because it's part of the program.  Very nice.

--Another thing I don't like about Calendarscope is the Details pane.  It can only be docked on the bottom of the screen.  I like to dock it on the side because there's never much information in the details so putting it on the bottom wastes too much space.  It would be better on the side taking up little space.  In Vueminder, you can dock anything anywhere which is very very nice.  And the details pane looks better.

--One thing I LOVE about Calendarscope is that the days with events in them will be colored nicely in the Navigation Pane according to the event color.  Most program, including Vueminder, will just bold a day with an event.  Having the different color in the Navigation Pane is better, prettier, and stands out more.  If you are open to suggestions, i would recommend this feature.

--Also another recommendation.  I can see that events can be styled in a very flexible manner (two background colors, font, gradient, etc.)  This is nice.  However, it would be even better if event categories themselves could be defined with a default style.  For example, all Birthday's could have custom-defined fonts, colors, icons, etc.  This way, when we select a category for an event, the visual styles will automatically be applied.  This is how Calendarscope does it and it is very nice.


I probably have more suggestions, but that's enough for now.  Overall, Vueminder seems to be a fantastic calendar program.  In many ways it is already superior to Calendarscope.  I thank you for your efforts.

Aram

4445

General Software Discussion / Re: FileBox eXtender Alternatives

« Last post by superboyac on August 22, 2009, 02:31 AM »

What can I say.  There's no malware or virus.  it's just an antivirus program being overly sensitive.

4446

General Software Discussion / Re: The Bat: Fix all the wrapping issues...now!

« Last post by superboyac on August 21, 2009, 04:34 PM »

Want to know why i am frustrated?  I sent a help ticket to Ritlabs to inquire whether the auto-format thing was a bug or not.  And if not, could it be modified so that you don't have the line jumping back thing.  This is the response:

Hello,

I am sorry to say, but this is not a bug, it's a feature of MicroEd. Auto-Format works that way for years and we do not intend to change that...

First of all, it's just a strange response.  Most developers would be more than willing to change something like this.  But I am not asking them to change, just add a checkbox or something so we can have it both ways.  I've done this to you, mouser, plenty of times and you have always graciously added practical features to your programs.  Very seldom do you say the feature will not be implemented, unless there really is a good reason for it (and there is sometimes).  But this is not a good reason.  i think they are either being stubborn or out of touch.  i don't even think it would be that hard.  Again, it reminds me of their mailing lists and why they insist upon doing it that way.  Hardly a good reason.

4447

General Software Discussion / Re: The Bat: Fix all the wrapping issues...now!

« Last post by superboyac on August 21, 2009, 01:47 PM »

I've been very irritable lately...I used to be much more polite.  The past few months have done a number on me.  Girls, work, all those things that can get to a guy.

4448

N.A.N.Y. 2009 / Re: NANY 2009 Release: Trout (audio player)

« Last post by superboyac on August 21, 2009, 01:35 PM »

Congratulations, you deserve it.  I'm very impressed with Trout.

4449

General Software Discussion / Re: The Bat: Fix all the wrapping issues...now!

« Last post by superboyac on August 21, 2009, 12:57 PM »

Without auto-format, I can't go back and edit a paragraph and have it automatically reflow and rewrap. I'd have to use the Alt-L trick to fix the paragraph after I've finished editing it.

that's what i use.
it is a bit annoying i agree.  but it's just a minor annoyance for me.

-mouser (August 21, 2009, 12:07 PM)

it bothers me more than it probably should because I expect a lot out of the Bat.  I agree that it's the best, most powerful client out there.  They just need to fix this.  Let's say I write 20 emails a day.  I have to use <enter> how many times?  Like 60?  So each time, i have to either go back and fix it, or turn it off and do a ctrl-l.

The other reason why it bothers me is that they don't fix version after version.  I sent a help ticket, so maybe something will happen.

4450

General Software Discussion / Re: The Bat: Fix all the wrapping issues...now!

« Last post by superboyac on August 21, 2009, 11:37 AM »

I still don't see the issue, really.

Apart from lack of hyphenation, MicroEd mode wraps perfectly for me. What exactly is your problem? Time to add those screenshots, perhaps?

-f0dder (August 21, 2009, 05:29 AM)

OK, do this:
--make sure Auto-Format is turned on
--start typing in MicroEd
--press <Enter> once to go to the next line
--start typing on the new line.  you will see that the cursor jumps back to the previous line continues from there as if you didn't press enter.

So, you will say, "disable Auto-Format".  Sure, that solves the problem.  But now there's another problem.  Without auto-format, I can't go back and edit a paragraph and have it automatically reflow and rewrap.  I'd have to use the Alt-L trick to fix the paragraph after I've finished editing it.

So, there you go.  It's very frustrating and they need to fix it like right now.