Recent Posts

451

Official Announcements / Two more discounts

« Last post by cthorpe on May 10, 2007, 09:48 AM »

Claudia Spulber with Softland (makers of Backup4all and novaPDF) contacted me and said that her company would like to extend their past discount on both of these products until the end of June.  I personally use both programs and think they are outstanding.

Please see the discount board for more information.

Carl Thorpe

452

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Mini-Review: Wubi - Painless, partion-free WindowsXP/Ubuntu dual booting

« Last post by cthorpe on May 09, 2007, 05:29 PM »

What was the error that you were getting?

453

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Replacement for Windows 'Open With...' dialogue

« Last post by cthorpe on May 09, 2007, 05:14 PM »

Ok, so I have no idea how to code this, but a thought:

Make an AutoHotkey script that accepts two parameters when it is run.  One would be the filename, and one would be the type (image, audio, text, etc).

The script would then get the menu info for that particular file from an ini file (you might need more than one ini: one for each type) and present it to you.

When you select the program you want, the script calls the specified program and passes the filename parameter.

ChoiceEditor works great for this!  I don't have TC, and it works.  Thanks TucknDar!!!!

For example, I have the following ini file:

[Select]

[Options]
Language=0
CheckCursor=1
CheckKey=27
AlwaysChecked=1
[General]
DisplayName0=IrfanView
Editor0=C:\Program Files\IrfanView\i_view32.exe
Ext0=JPG,png,gif
DisplayName1=XnView
Editor1=D:\Applications\XnView\xnview.exe
Ext1=JPG,png,gif

I then associated jpg, png, and gif with ChoiceEditor, and a double click brings up this menu:


Clicking the double arrow in the lower right lets you add another program:


After you add the first program for an extension, you need to open the ini file and add a second program entry for the same extension to get the menu to show up.

454

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Quality Comparison: 8 x freeware PDF Readers / Viewers

« Last post by cthorpe on May 09, 2007, 02:00 PM »

PDF-XChange Viewer is really cool.  It's a tiny bit slower to load on my machine than foxit, but it is a lot clearer, and the search functionality actually works in it.  For some reason foxit's search usually fails to come up with anything for me, even in documents that can be easily searched in Adobe and PDF-XChange.

C

455

Finished Programs / Re: Folder-RSS: Monitor folder changes via rss

« Last post by cthorpe on May 09, 2007, 12:33 PM »

Yay!  Got it in Opera!

Thanks.

456

Finished Programs / Re: Folder-RSS: Monitor folder changes via rss

« Last post by cthorpe on May 09, 2007, 11:12 AM »

The validator says valid RSS 2.0.

If I have the xml file located at C:\rss\test.xml what should I put for the address in SharpReader?

457

Living Room / Re: How do you spend your time on the computer?

« Last post by cthorpe on May 09, 2007, 10:24 AM »

Recently, I have been hitting the web looking for useful software with developers that might consider discounts .

458

Finished Programs / Re: Folder-RSS: Monitor folder changes via rss

« Last post by cthorpe on May 09, 2007, 10:09 AM »

Ok, so obviously I have no idea what I am doing, but I cannot figure out how to actually read the feed.  I tried Opera, and it's blank.  SharpReader says: "The specified cast is not valid."  Feed Demon says that the feed cannot be added.
 

459

Finished Programs / Re: Folder-RSS: Monitor folder changes via rss

« Last post by cthorpe on May 09, 2007, 09:51 AM »

Does it monitor down into subfolders?

460

Living Room / Re: How many students are active here (instead of writing up?!)

« Last post by cthorpe on May 08, 2007, 05:41 PM »

I am working on a teaching certificate, so I selected some other kind of school.

461

General Software Discussion / Re: More offensive — Resource bloat or Feature bloat?

« Last post by cthorpe on May 08, 2007, 02:31 PM »

Well, my primary PC was top of the line back with the 866mhz Pentium 3 was the top Intel chip around.  With that being the case, I look for lean programs.  I run a lot of older versions of programs because updating them would make them unusable on my computer.  I'm all for more features if they are done in a responsible manner that doesn't cause the program to grind to a halt.  Unfortunately, too many programs try to load every bit of themselves into memory when you first run them.  I would love to see programs have a low resource mode that only loads the main functions, and lets you turn the other functions on and off as needed.  Likewise, I would love to have a means to limit programs to a certain amount of resources.  If a program lists a specific configuration as its minimum requirements, it would be great to be able to tell the program that it only has that amount to work with.  Sure it might make that program slower, but it would allow for more multitasking.

Carl

462

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: New Raxco Product : Defragmenter - Optimizer ; $9.99 until 2007-05-13

« Last post by cthorpe on May 08, 2007, 01:08 PM »

I don't know.  I'm wary of the company now that they pulled the rug out from under their FirstDefence-ISR customers without warning or reason.  They sent out an email today saying that the company "appreciates your business and investment in our company," then a few paragraphs later tells us that "Effective immediately, Raxco Software will no longer sell FirstDefense-ISR."  They then go on to offer me a great deal on their new product.  If the new product included the functionality of ISR along with the new functions, I'd be all over it.  Alas, it doesn't.

https://www.donation...index.php?topic=7189

463

Living Room / Impressive little scam

« Last post by cthorpe on May 08, 2007, 12:36 PM »

http://tech.cybernet...-windows-activation/

Quote from Cybernetnews

There is a new Trojan in town, called Kardphisher, and it could be one of the trickiest computer scams ever made. It uses the annoying Windows Activation to make a user think that their system has been activated on another computer. It then prompts them to reactivate their PC by entering in some of their personal information, including their credit card number.

464

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Mini-Review of FirstDefense-ISR (Raxco Software)

« Last post by cthorpe on May 08, 2007, 11:43 AM »

If you're watching this topic, please see the first post for an update about the current status of FDISR.

465

General Software Discussion / Re: Things I can do in Linux that I can't do on Windows

« Last post by cthorpe on May 08, 2007, 11:01 AM »

My advice, should you choose to try Linux, is to forget about making it exactly like Windows.  You will spend countless hours, and you will fail.  Once you spend signicant time on Linux, every time you use a Windows computer you will say "Bah, I could do xyz if I was on Linux".

Funny, I find myself saying, "Bah, I could do xyz if I was on Windows.  Here in Linux, before I can do xyz, I have to do acdefg(no wait i needed d efg)defghi(.1)i(.2)i(.3)jklnmomnopqustuv(what do you mean I needed b???? Ah $%!& it!)"

466

General Software Discussion / Re: I love opera, but something is terribly wrong...

« Last post by cthorpe on May 08, 2007, 08:11 AM »

Try reneabling the global password and make sure it is the same password as you had before.  Perhaps the wand password files are encrypted using that globalpassword, and without it being set they can't be used?

The webpage you linked to states:

(if you had set a master password, you will also need to copy the Certificates files -- and set a master password in the new installation)

Carl

467

General Software Discussion / Re: Things I can do in Linux that I can't do on Windows

« Last post by cthorpe on May 08, 2007, 08:08 AM »

the confidence of being able to criticise both open source and proprietary software actually knowing what you're talking about

-Lashiec (May 08, 2007, 06:03 AM)

Yes, that's why I dual boot

468

Living Room / Re: Will copying 300 GB from one hard drive to another kill it?

« Last post by cthorpe on May 07, 2007, 06:10 PM »

I've done similar many times.  Everything should be fine.  I would guess that the earlier failure was a fluke.

469

Living Room / Re: Solving an hibernation-related problem on a XP Home PC

« Last post by cthorpe on May 07, 2007, 05:56 PM »

I posted this in another thread about turning hibernation on and off with task scheduler.  Don't know if it would help you at all, but here it is:

These are a couple of AutoHotkey scripts that should disable and reenable hiberation.
These should work for Windows XP.  You may have to modify them for other flavors of windows.

Hibernate Off

[Select]

WinWait, Program Manager,
IfWinNotActive, Program Manager, , WinActivate, Program Manager,
WinWaitActive, Program Manager,
Send, {LWINDOWN}r{LWINUP}
WinWait, Run,
IfWinNotActive, Run, , WinActivate, Run,
WinWaitActive, Run,
Send, powercfg.cpl{ENTER}
WinWait, Power Options Properties,
IfWinNotActive, Power Options Properties, , WinActivate, Power Options Properties,
WinWaitActive, Power Options Properties,
Send, {CTRLDOWN}{TAB}{TAB}{CTRLUP}{SPACE}{ENTER}

Hibernate On - Change the number of {UP} on the last line to adjust the hibernate time.

[Select]

WinWait, Program Manager,
IfWinNotActive, Program Manager, , WinActivate, Program Manager,
WinWaitActive, Program Manager,
Send, {LWINDOWN}r{LWINUP}
WinWait, Run,
IfWinNotActive, Run, , WinActivate, Run,
WinWaitActive, Run,
Send, powercfg.cpl{ENTER}
WinWait, Power Options Properties,
IfWinNotActive, Power Options Properties, , WinActivate, Power Options Properties,
WinWaitActive, Power Options Properties,
Send, {CTRLDOWN}{TAB}{TAB}{CTRLUP}{SPACE}{ALTDOWN}a{ALTUP}{CTRLDOWN}{TAB}{TAB}{CTRLUP}{ALTDOWN}h{ALTUP}{UP}{UP}{UP}{UP}{UP}{ENTER}

You could compile those and then run them using Task Scheduler to stop the hibernation process.  The attached files should turn it off and turn it back on with a 3 hour delay.

470

Official Announcements / May 2007 Software Discounts and Giveaway

« Last post by cthorpe on May 07, 2007, 04:32 PM »

Supporting Members, you've got until May 15th to enter this month's Free Shareware Giveaway.  The Discounts run until at least May 31st.

This Month's Special Discounts and Giveaways:

• ArtRage 2 (15% OFF)
• ED for Windows (50% OFF)
• Super Flexible File Synchronizer (Pro and Std) (30% OFF)
• SynchronizeIt and CompareIt (50% OFF)
• ZuluPad Pro (33% OFF)

Be sure to read the member reviews of ArtRage by me and Super Flexible File Synchronizer by zridling.

Carl Thorpe

471

General Software Discussion / Re: A Guide to Trying Out Linux Distros

« Last post by cthorpe on May 07, 2007, 10:03 AM »

That's pretty old page. It was written on 11 Apr 2006.  The Ubuntu section, for example, lists version 5.04.  Most of the links still probably work and point to newer information though.

472

General Software Discussion / Re: Directory Opus 9

« Last post by cthorpe on May 07, 2007, 09:03 AM »

I would like to select it, press a hotkey (or use a context menu) and create an archive named "temp 20070427.zip".

-Nomadin (April 27, 2007, 12:51 PM)

An update (Opus 9.0.0.1) just came out which addresses this:

- The Copy ZIP and ADDTOZIP commands can now accept the CREATEFOLDER argument to specify the name of the destination Zip file

So you can use this to zip the selected folder into "temp <todaysdate>.zip" in the current folder:

Copy ZIP HERE CREATEFOLDER="temp {date|yyyyMMdd}"

-Nudel (May 07, 2007, 05:06 AM)

Huzzah!  I fought with Opus for hours when I first got version 8 to try to do this.  Thanks for the heads up!

Carl

473

Living Room / Is someone trying to phish donationcoder accounts?

« Last post by cthorpe on May 06, 2007, 06:53 PM »

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING LINK MAY BE UNSAFE

So I came across this link in some search results:

http://sc2jp.mojolin....com/forum/index.php

Looks like the forum is going to obsure part of the link, so here is the whole url:

[Select]

http://sc2jp.mojolingo.xuite.net/m2m-0000/www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php

474

Living Room / Joost Invites for All

« Last post by cthorpe on May 06, 2007, 04:15 PM »

Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten is giving away Joost invites.  But he's not asking you to post a comment on his blog and get one that way.  Instead, he has shared his login information for Joost.  All you have to do is download the client, log in him, and invite yourself.

A few days ago I posted that I now had 999 invitations to sent. Since then that post has received 22 comments and I have personally invited 20 people. Since there seems to be great interest I have decided to just post my own Joost Account details so you can go in there and invite yourself AND your friends if you want.

I don't know if Joost is even worth messing with.  I tried it, and it was so choppy on my machine, that I gave up.  But I did get far enough in to invite myself using Boris' info.

http://bomega.com/

475

General Software Discussion / Re: Software gone social? Wakoopa is quite clever

« Last post by cthorpe on May 06, 2007, 02:18 PM »

I joined the team.  Too bad there's not a way to hide certain apps from being reported.

Carl