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4451

Living Room / Re: LV here I come!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 14, 2007, 11:35 AM »

Don't miss seeing at least one of the Cirque du Soleil shows - O  and Mysterie look interesting and there is Zumanity if you are into kinky acrobatics!

The other one that looks awesome is Ka Extreme - that's in the "MGM Grand" - they spent millions completely destroying the theatre so that all the action takes place in 3 dimensions in a huge open space. The TV doc about it looked amazing.

They seem to be taking ove LV big time. The final show currently on offer is Love - based around Beatle's music.

See http://www.cirquedus...ds/dropdown/lasvegas for details.

4452

General Software Discussion / Re: Text Maker Software

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 14, 2007, 06:12 AM »

If the Euro price includes VAT (which here in germany is 20%) it works out almost as euro=dollar pricewise.
It's German software but VAT should naturally be charged according to where you are.
Sometimes you can buy things in dollars & get a better price that way but it getting harder to do these days ...

-tomos (July 14, 2007, 02:38 PM)

It's particularly annoying when VAT is added to already inflated prices and especially galling when the wrong VAT rate is used for the market in which they are selling (which I think is actually illegal - UK rates is 17.5% but I have frequently been charge 19% or 21%).

I am never too convinced that a lot of these companies actually hand over the VAT they collect either. How do US companies pay VAT in the UK ? How do the UK gov know that US companies are selling to UK customers when their main business is in the US?

It is all very strange - some really large companies (that definitely would not qualify for VAT exemption) do not charge VAT if you pay in dollars - and other 'one man shows' who probably only have a turnover of $100 a year do - this seems incredibly suspicious to me.

4453

Screenshot Captor / Re: Should I add desktop screencast(movie) recording to ScreenshotCaptor?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 13, 2007, 12:37 PM »

If you plan to extend the functionality (editing and formats) in the future then why not - it would be useful.

If you just plan a quick capture to AVI I would suggest it is best left to another app. Jing seems to work reasonably well (actually incredibly simply) for SWF capture at the moment for anyone who wants it and there are Wink and Camstudio for people who want a bit more from their software. Since both are free I would suggest that adding very basic functionality would just mean that people need more than one application installed - which seems a bit like pointless duplication.

4454

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 12, 2007, 04:07 AM »

* Don't bother with registry cleaners (esp. in automatic mode) they always cause more problems than they solve. Automatic registry cleaning absolutely WILL hose your system - even on a clean install of windows...

-Carol Haynes (July 29, 2007, 03:04 PM)

I have tried and used several (at least 5 off the top of my head) registry cleaners with no problems at all. Strange.

-wreckedcarzz (August 11, 2007, 07:40 PM)

Very strange indeed - I would suggest that you haven't noticed problems ... yet. The biggest problem with registry cleaners is that unless you manually check every change that will be made (in most cases impossible because you will find hundreds on a freshly installed version of Windows) you will be changing intentional behaviour - especially in the case of Windows itself and MS Office if you use it. MS set the rules for use of the registry but break them all the time - if nothing else they install hooks in the registry when you install their software that allows their programs to use extensions and addons. Normally they are empty registry values but if you delete them (and all registry cleaners will flag them as pointless registry values unless they are explicitly excluded) and consequently you lose the ability to install those extensions. That is a simple example.

Othere examples of where automatic registry cleaning doesn't work are things like file assoications can get screwed up, you lose intentional blank values (where the existence of registry key alone acts as a flag to the software that installed it).

The biggest problem is that most consequences of registry cleaning are not immediately obvious - you only find out weeks or  months later and then blame something else for the problem.

4455

Official Announcements / Re: How to punish DonationCoder if you are angry at being nagged to donate

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 10, 2007, 01:37 PM »

I haven't donated? Why? I don't trust paypal.  I've heard too many horror stories.

-tonsofpcs (August 09, 2007, 12:51 PM)

Fair enough (not that I have had any problems with them - and they are governed in the EU by the banking regulations so any problems can be quickly and easily sorted out) - but there are other ways to donate if you wish to make a donation without using PayPal.

See https://www.donation...te/DonateMethod.html for details.

4456

Site/Forum Features / Re: compose hotkeys

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 09, 2007, 10:01 AM »

Mouser - how about a NOBBC button in the editor near the Code button ?

hey now that's a good idea.

-mouser (August 09, 2007, 06:41 AM)

Thanks - great

Now to try it out:

How to do [b]bold[/b] hey it works great.

I presume you can't nest the nobbc tag?

4457

Living Room / Re: new PC options:-

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 09, 2007, 06:13 AM »

Having used ATI for years and recently moved to nVidia I would recommend nVidia simply because their drivers play much more nicely. In the future I will only use ATI cards with ATI base motherboards.

4458

Developer's Corner / Re: Do you use a good office chair when programming?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 09, 2007, 06:05 AM »

Mine cost 129euros and is well worth it as it sorted my back problem.

http://www.conforama...63/img/p111763-3.jpg

-jah (August 09, 2007, 05:29 AM)

LOL - That is almost identical to my chair (which cost me £0.01 UKP as a sepcial offer - list price £75 ... ~ 110 Euro +VAT)



see Viking

4459

Living Room / Re: Anyone any idea how to fix file assocations?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 08, 2007, 04:57 PM »

Yes I do you DOpus, I'll give it a go and see if it can fix things.

4460

Living Room / Re: Anyone any idea how to fix file assocations?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 08, 2007, 04:28 AM »

Yep - that's what I usually do but obviously something is not right somewhere as this doesn't work consistently on these music types!

4461

Living Room / Re: KenR's health and situation

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 07, 2007, 07:25 PM »

Thanks for sharing that Ken and the best of luck with your surgery. There isn't a lot anyone can say to help but if you need an ear to bend (or pair of eyes in the case of email) don't hesitate to contact me.

I am sure I speak for all of us when I say we look forward to your safe and healthy return to the forum when you feel up to it.

One idea - do you like cats? My father fell of a roof and broke his back (many years ago) and ended up on bedrest for nearly 6 months. The one thing that kept him sane was his cat the climbed on the bed and kept him company throughout!

4462

Living Room / Re: Anyone any idea how to fix file assocations?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 07, 2007, 07:14 PM »

One idea that popped up in my head would be to (and DO export those registry branches first!) check the HKCR\.mp3 (etc), check out the "default" key (on my system that'd have the value "mp3file") - then nuke the .mp3 and key (and all subkeys of course), plus the key mentioned by the default entry. At least that'll get rid of the keys, including permissions - hopefully whatever player you want will be able to fully construct what it needs afterwards.

The trick would work for me, but I don't depend on any explorer.exe support for media types etc., I just want to double-click my media files and have them enqueue in foobar...

Anyway, once you have things working, you can set permissions for those registry keys and only allow read access - that might work for getting media player to ACCEPT not stealing ownership of the permissions

-f0dder (August 07, 2007, 07:09 PM)

Not a bad idea - actually I might just steal the relevant branches of the registry from a working installation and import those to see if that works.

Trouble is that some of these registry setups are really complicated including references to MIME types (which I really don't understand) and GUI references (which are presumably system specific depending on what you have installed).

Mouser -- if you are reading this did anything ever come of the idea for a file association application?

4463

Living Room / Re: Anyone any idea how to fix file assocations?

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

I've used Doug Knox's site (a Microsoft MVP) to straighten out some messed up file associations.

Here's his Windows® XP File Association Fixes page:

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/file_assoc.htm

Many other tips, fixes and utilities on his site.
Its a gem of a site - I've used it for years.
http://www.dougknox.com/

-laughinglizard (August 07, 2007, 01:14 PM)

Thanks - yes I like Doug's site (and have for a long time). He is also very helpful on the MS forums and I have exchanged emails with him over the years.

Unfortunately the one area that isn't fixed on his site is file associations for music files - all the fixes are just registry files to restore the default settings for specific file types.

4464

Living Room / Re: Anyone any idea how to fix file assocations?

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

WAssociate should do the trick.

-PhilB66 (August 06, 2007, 07:36 PM)

Not sure how this will fix anything as it appears to be a registry editor aimed specifically at file associations. I have made sure my "Classes" keys (and all subkeys) are set up so that I have "Full control" permission (and ensured the Admin group and System have the same). I can't see why an app can't set the required values because of permssion issues ?

4465

Living Room / Re: Build a $250 PC That Doesn’t Suck

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 07, 2007, 12:45 PM »

Looking good.

Do you need the CPU cooler? The retail AMD CPUs come with a very nice cooler included.

Also if you aren't a big game player you could get a lower spec graphics card. I have found 7300/256Mb more than adequate and they are about half the price. Even better buy two and run them in SLi mode!

4466

Living Room / Re: Anyone any idea how to fix file assocations?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 06, 2007, 07:15 PM »

I have switched off the options in iTunes that maintain file associations.

I also have RealPlayer installed ... I have found that if I make RealPlayer the default app for all media (but don't allow it to re-establish connections) I can then associate WMP again properly.

iTunes still complains that there are permission issues though.

At the moment I am happy tohave associations back with WMP - but it would be good to work out how to fix this for future reference.

4467

Living Room / Re: Anyone any idea how to fix file assocations?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 06, 2007, 06:28 PM »

Hmm -- thanks for trying but doesn't seem to work for these extensions on my system. Something is screwed up - even though WMP opens MP3 files they have an iTunes icon. If I try to change the association to another program (using file properties - change the application etc. or Associate this) it doesn't work consistently - changing to some apps leaves the opening app undefined otherwise it seems to assume a mixture of associations !!

It's really annoying.

4468

Living Room / Anyone any idea how to fix file assocations?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 06, 2007, 03:41 PM »

I have a problem with my MP3 and WAV associations. Windows Media Player options settings for file types allows me to set it as default for all file types but when I come back later they are unset again. I also have iTunes installed and I get an error if I try to change that to my default player for MP3 that says I don't have permission to set the file types.

I am logged in as an administrator.

Strangely if I go into Folder Options there are no associations for MP3 or WAV listed and I can't create them. If I do create a new entry it is not there when I come back and check again. I have checked in the registry and they seem to be there and assigned to iTunes, but if I double click on an MP3 or WAV file it opens in WMP.

Anyone got any idea how to sort this mess out?

4469

General Software Discussion / Re: iTunes folder content based on Albums?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 06, 2007, 08:43 AM »

I don't think you can if you allow iTunes to organise itself. As far as I can tell there is no way to force iTunes to automatically arrange files in any other way.

The only solution is to turn off "Keep iTunes Music Folder organised" and "Copy files to iTunes folder" and organise the files yourself manually. You then need to clear all the files you moved out of iTunes from the playlists and library and reimport them into iTunes.

If purchase music from the iTunes store I think this is handled automatically - but you should be able to move the files somewhere else and then reimport them into your library.

iTunes really doesn't play well with other media players in terms of music file organisation. If you don't use iTunes store I would suggest using a different player (there are lots of examples in other threads on this forum). For organisational ability I prefer Windows Media Player 11 to iTunes simply because you can put files where you like (even multiple locations) and then just specify the folders WMP should check on to see new files. WMP is a heck of a lot faster than iTunes at loading too - and less prone to 100% CPU usage.

4470

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 06, 2007, 03:47 AM »

If I'd have to give you one reason, it's FAR better security. Vista is MS' most secure OS ever. I don't use AV or a software firewall on my Vista box so far. I know I'm asking for trouble, but I know what I'm doing, for one, and secondly I trust Vista to protect me sufficiently. I don't see where I could get a virus from. All my mail is done through GMail, so it never even gets to my PC. The only thing is that I don't have any real software firewall protection, but I'm also behind a router... dunno. I feel safe

-moerl (August 05, 2007, 10:12 PM)

Presumably you are using the Vista Firewall which is reasonable ?

No AV seems a bit dangerous to me - you may know what you are doing but mistakes happen! What if you download sofware that has been accidentally infected at the developers end (it has happened before even in big companies who have sent out infected CDROMs). If you do get infected how will you know?

As for Vista is the most secure version of Windows yet ... may be true but it sounds like MS hype to me ... after all that is precisely the reason they gave for upgrading to Windows 2000 and Windows XP both of which were found (after they had been running for a while) to leak like sieves. Sorry but the initial evidence with Vista is that it doesn't look like it will be much better than previous versions. The "most secure" tag merely acts as a challenge to malicious code writers.

By the way I am not saying other systems (Linux and Mac) don't leak but they are less of a problem simply because of the tiny user base. Vista is the current big target. Short of not connecting to the internet and not installing software there is no such thing as a truly secure system.

4471

General Software Discussion / Re: Photo panorama creation

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 05, 2007, 01:10 PM »

Hugin is very impressive for a freebie but as I understand it Hugin is basically a front end for panotools and the other addins. Most of those addins long ago ceased development (especially panotools which is not open source - though some people have started to reverse engineer it to add a few features). PTGui took the same approach initially but is now a complete self contained pano app - you can still use pano tools, enblend etc. in PTGui but it also has its own rendering engine which is probably a bit better.

Autostitch is very easy to use but is really a pretty limited demo. Serif Panorama 2 is based on the autostitcher code and is very simple to use (even easier than Stitcher!) but doesn't have the limitations in terms of output etc.

My favourite application is Autopano Pro. It isn't free but it is really easy to use but if you want more advanced tweaking it has all the features you could want unless you are high end professional user - in which case I am not sure what the limitations are. The original Autopano was based on autostitcher too (and I think that is what the autopano plugin does in Hugin) but now it has dropped the autostitcher code in favour of its own code base. The really nice feature is that you can right click on a folder full of photos and it finds all the possible panoramas all by itself - you can't get simpler than that!

I am beginning to get a bit inspired again - I will try to get going on the review! (Famous last words)

4472

Living Room / Re: Article: A Woman's Primer for Building Her Own Computer

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 05, 2007, 06:37 AM »

??? Not sure I understand that last post.

If you buy a motherboard a lot of manufacturers provide a 3 year guarantee (ASUS and MSI certainly do). OK it isn't as convenient as an on-site service contract - but how many people will be using their current set up in 3 years? Lots of components come with warranties too - 5 years on hard discs isn't uncommon, BFG do lifetime warranty on graphics cards, Corsair & Crucial do life time warranties on memory. Not sure about PSUs but I'd guess you can probably get at least 2 years warranty if you shop around.

My first Windows box was bought from Tiny Computers. It had on-site service but in the first year I had to call them out on no fewer than 5 occasions - and the contract made it clear that if I open the box and change anything the warranty is void - so I didn't have  the option of adding memory, changing a graphics card, upgrading a hard disc unless I bought it from them and got them to install it. They also didn't have a data support system so if they couldn't fix something they swapped components until it worked and then ran the 'factory install' disc - not an ideal solution. You couldn't even update the BIOS without invalidating the warranty.

The biggest issue I had with buying a computer was that when I gave up on their on-site maintenance and opened the box it is patently obvious that every component present was the cheapest possible on the market - and also they had supplied an OEM motherboard from MSI which had a modified BIOS so that most of the settings were missing.

4473

Living Room / Re: new PC options:-

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 05, 2007, 06:29 AM »

OCZ is a good make of memory.

Otherwise go for Corsair - it isn't cheap but it is fast and excellent quality with a no quibble lifetime guarantee that works. If you do buy Corsair make sure you read the recommended BIOS settings as they dafault to slower settings than the sticks are rated at - so for maximum performance you have to set the BIOS to use the recommended values.

Crucial is also good budget memory with a lifetime warranty.

Whatever you buy make it clear that two sticks are bought as a pair - some manufacturers (Corsair and Crucial and probably others) actually manufacture Twinned sticks of memory. Mixing DDR memory (even same sizes from the same manufacturer because they can use different chips from various sources in different manufacturing batch runs) have caused me major headaches in the past.

4474

Post New Requests Here / Re: FirefoxPortable.exe on a small Flash Drive that will bring up an Index

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 05, 2007, 06:13 AM »

You can get emergency id containers that can be pinned on, worn around the wrist or on a chain around the neck. They are small (size of a small pendant) but can be unscrewed to store a paper record inside. They are waterproof and recognised by emergency crews as medical info. I use one whenever I go caving or rock climbing in case I have an accident and someone needs to work out who I am and who to contact.

See http://www.medical-bracelets.co.uk/ for details of the one I carry, but I'd guess there are loads of companies make this sort of thing. Don't buy from this online store - I found mine (one of the necklaces) a heck of a lot cheaper - there is no way I would have spent £22 on one (over $40). How about this engraved one aimed at children: http://www.medicalta...entity-bracelets.php

Big advantages are that they are cheap (who'd want to steal one), waterproof and unbreakable, don't rely on technology and recognised by emergency services.

4475

Post New Requests Here / Re: FirefoxPortable.exe on a small Flash Drive that will bring up an Index

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 04, 2007, 02:23 PM »

I think the only way this is possible is to us a U3 compatible USB flashdrive - then you can set up an autostart function.