Recent Posts

4501

General Software Discussion / Re: Magix (Xara) rant...

« Last post by Darwin on September 22, 2007, 04:11 PM »

I have a bad feeling about the direction that Magix is taking them. Xara's graphics packages used to be attractive because they offered an affordable alternative to applications like Adobe Illustrator. It *looks* to me like Magix is doing a Corel (a la PaintShop Pro) with the "standard" version - dumbing it down (no doubt with new versions to be released once every 12 months) and looking to position the Pro version in a much higher price slot. The whole business has left a bad taste in my mouth - I used to read the forums regularly and enthusiastically but I can't be bothered anymore.

No, this isn't a rant about software economics and capitalism. I don't mind paying for a professinoal graphics package but I strenuously object to having a new version rushed out as a cash grab within a two months of the software being released. Charging for bug fixes so soon after release is akin to a car manufacturer asking customers to pay to have the malfunctioning SRS airbags replaced in the car that they bought the day it was released two months earlier.

4502

General Software Discussion / Re: Acronis True Image OR maybe not ???

« Last post by Darwin on September 22, 2007, 03:58 PM »

Well... the bad news is that Acronis does seem to have a high number of "bugs" to work out with each release and that there are always very vocal people complaining about them on their forum. The good news is that True Image has never failed me, I've never been "bitten" by one of the bugs, and the upgrades are about 40% off (and you can skip versions and not have to pay a penalty when you buy your next upgrade - i.e. going from version 9 to 11 is the same price as going from 10 to 11). If you go for the higher end Workstation version they offer maintenance contracts that are actually cheaper than the yearly (they are like clockwork) paid upgrades to the Home version - on the order of about 50% cheaper...

4503

General Software Discussion / Re: GemX - missing in action

« Last post by Darwin on September 22, 2007, 03:48 PM »

I just DSM'd GemX. I started out planning on being polite and asking once again for "news" on GemX and it's catalogue's future, but kitty turned rabid and I wound up demanding a refund on the cost of upgrading to Do-Organizer from TexNotes Pro on August 13 Having made the threat I am off to try to find an avenue to make good on it (I don't imagine that DSM is the right channel for this kind of thing). If nothing else, *maybe* the threat of a refund request will elicit a response - any response!

4504

General Software Discussion / Re: Check&Get support blows chunks

« Last post by Darwin on September 22, 2007, 03:37 PM »

I'm just sitting here watching the tumbleweeds tumble by... little eddies of wind pick up dust and redistribute it around town... Not a word from Check&Get in response to either of my e-mails or the online suggestion submission form...

4505

General Software Discussion / Magix (Xara) rant...

« Last post by Darwin on September 22, 2007, 03:33 PM »

Magix acquired Xara, developers of the wonderful Xtreme graphics package, earlier this year. I, along with many others, were thrilled last fall when Xara began beta testing a more powerful "Pro" version of Xtreme 3 and eagerly purchased a licence in Dec. 2006 when it was released. The Magix takeover was announced about three weeks later and in mid-February a notice went out alerting existing customers that new versions of Xtreme, both Standard and Pro, were due out in March and that these would paid updates (from version 3.02 to 3.2). We were offered a pre-release price of $39 and change. I passed on this offer feeling that being asked to pay for bug fixes to a program that was brand new two and half months earlier, that I had helped to beta test, and that I had paid handsomely for, was "taking the piss". Recently, I decided, for some unfathomable reason, to check the cost of "upgrading" my version - 3.02 - to the current version - 3.2x. It had gone up to $59, although at the moment I note that they are offering a 25% discount on upgrades through October 3, so it would cost me $44. What's alarming is that upgrading from earlier versions of Xtreme is more expensive, up to $127 (with the discount applied), so that when version 4 rolls out I assume it will cost considerably more money to upgrade.  I think that this is an appalling abuse of the existing customer base. I put this down at the time to Magix seeking to recoup as quickly as possible some of the purchase price by gouging Xara's loyal customers and this looks to be the case.

Well, rant over. I figured I might as well earn my reputation for being on a vendetta  ...

4506

General Software Discussion / Re: File Managers! Windows Explorer replacement! Come one, come all...

« Last post by Darwin on September 22, 2007, 01:52 PM »

I agree Lashiec. The nice thing is that out of the box TC UP features file previews for just about any file format that you can think of - this is my primary reason for "loving" it.  The other things - media players, chat clients and so on are not essential for me at all, and yet they are more convenient that I would have thought. If nothing else, the ability to copy the TC UP directory onto a thumbdrive and have all these apps configured and ready to go is NICE. I'm using it for now to guide me in configuring TC to my liking. Once I get it configured I'll probably stop using TC UP... For now, I'm just having fun with it!

4507

General Review Discussion / Re: Free PDF tools review?

« Last post by Darwin on September 21, 2007, 09:09 PM »

I don't think jzippo has to go the whole hog and lash out for Adobe Acrobat, there are myriad options in the $49.95 to $99.99 range that will more or less stand in for Acrobat Standard!

4508

General Software Discussion / Re: really good spell check tool wanted

« Last post by Darwin on September 21, 2007, 09:08 PM »

Do the Addictive ones work? Might be worth a try...

4509

General Software Discussion / Re: File Managers! Windows Explorer replacement! Come one, come all...

« Last post by Darwin on September 21, 2007, 07:21 PM »

Beth - please add your vote to the File Manager poll (unless you've already done so?) - AB Commander is all alone with no votes (this was one of the first that I tried about 7 years ago - the developers, WinAbility, were responsible for one a MUST HAVE add-on under Windows for WorkGroups 3.11 - FMStepUp - that I still remember with great fondness)...

EDIT: actually, who am I kidding? I'm still running FMStepUp - I <ahem, cough, cough> managed to find a copy of winfile.exe from WinNT4 and both it and the FMStepUp add-in still work flawlessly under XP. It's incredible to realize that a dual-pane file manager WAS a feature of Windows that was slowly phased out....

4510

Living Room / Re: Blondie still going strong

« Last post by Darwin on September 21, 2007, 04:30 PM »

Blondie is 62?! Time flies, doesn't it? I liked Blondie a lot when I was a teenager, though they'd been broken up for a few years at that point, and am always thrilled when one of their tracks comes on the radio. To me the band and Debbie Harry are synomymous (I suppose I should fee bad for the rest of the band!).

Thanks for the memories, Curt 

4511

General Software Discussion / Re: File Managers! Windows Explorer replacement! Come one, come all...

« Last post by Darwin on September 21, 2007, 04:24 PM »

Well, I'm using one of those TC 'distros'. It's called ultima prime, and it comes with all kind of plugins and programs to handle basically any file association. it's almost an entire OS in itself. And no, I didn't have to spend any time configuring it; everything worked out of the box.


http://tcup.pl/index.php?l=en

-urlwolf (September 09, 2007, 06:59 PM)

urlwolf - you dawg! I LOVE this! I had an epiphany this morning and discovered how to get a permanent tree view to display on the left hand side of the screen in Total Command/TC UP. That has made all the difference - I can now see  how you have been able to make the move from DOpus to TC UP. I still love DOpus and will retain it as my default Windows Explorer replacement and File Management solution but I could easily see myself switching to TC in the future.

WOW!

4512

General Software Discussion / Re: How do you launch stuff?

« Last post by Darwin on September 21, 2007, 12:52 PM »

Cool. Thanks for posting that, edbro. I'll keep my eyes peeled for an update.

4513

General Software Discussion / Re: really good spell check tool wanted

« Last post by Darwin on September 21, 2007, 11:36 AM »

Well... "monring" to "morning" isn't particularly noteworthy, but your other two examples are! Spell Catcher Plus failed both the other tests. I *suspect* that I can set it up to do this, maybe with the custom dictionary or with some of its other tools, but it certainly doesn't do it out of the box.
Right, I'm off to look into Google's spellchecker - you've piqued my interest!

4514

General Software Discussion / Re: How do you launch stuff?

« Last post by Darwin on September 20, 2007, 11:02 AM »

Although I would not put every program on my computer in it, what I would like to try is something that operates like the album cover viewer in iTunes.
 (see attachment in previous post)
I would want to be able to spin through it with my mouse wheel and select the application with a click of the scroll wheel. Does anybody know of something like this for MS Windows? Maybe somebody cloned the Apple desktop interface that does something similar.

-tinjaw (September 20, 2007, 10:46 AM)

This is an interesting idea and you'd think would be fairly easy to code - it's like a hybrid between, say, Object Desktop's WindowsFX alt-tab switcher and FARR. They just need a blood test and a licence and they can get married! OK, not that simple...

4515

General Software Discussion / Re: How do you launch stuff?

« Last post by Darwin on September 20, 2007, 10:54 AM »

Hi edbro - no, that's the annoying thing: I'm using the latest build as downloaded about three hours ago. I've posted on the support forum and hope that the developer replies with a suggested solution soon. From the short time that I was able to use Dash, it seems brilliant. Very quick and very light footprint.

EDIT: latest build is 0.94.2 - I have 0.92.5, so it looks like the trial version hasn't been updated. Crap.

4516

General Software Discussion / Re: IBM Lotus Symphony

« Last post by Darwin on September 20, 2007, 10:54 AM »

Interesting - I missed this when it first went up. The gig of RAM requirement is a bit rich - I wonder if that will be amended? Having said that, older versions of OpenOffice were pretty resource intensive, maybe IBM recognises this and is <ahem> covering its butt?

I think I'll keep my eye on this, but won't be jumping on board just yet.

JohnFDeluca - thanks for alerting us to it.

4517

General Software Discussion / Re: How do you launch stuff?

« Last post by Darwin on September 20, 2007, 09:20 AM »

The other irritant is that ever since I installed Skylight, Dash Command has been broken (the two events may not be related). I've uninstalled both, rebooted and reinstalled Dash... and gone through several uninstall/reboot/reinstall cycles. Nothing helps   I get the following error message every time I try to start it now:

Exception ENotifyIconError in module DashCommand.exe at 000B0B2E.
Failed to set version of notify icon.

I click OK and that is that... Right, off to post in the users forum (though if I was smart I'd stay away - I really don't need another launcher...).

EDIT: Looks like edbro had a very similar problem a couple of months ago...

4518

General Software Discussion / Re: How do you launch stuff?

« Last post by Darwin on September 20, 2007, 08:01 AM »

Very nice. It froze when I tried to send a comment (Darwin holds his nose as he evicts Skylight from his computer)...

4519

General Software Discussion / Re: How do you launch stuff?

« Last post by Darwin on September 20, 2007, 07:57 AM »

Yuck. Skylight hogs up to 40% of CPU while indexing and RAM shot up to 110MB and (cue drum roll) VM went to 310MB and STAYED THERE even after indexing had completed. This makes AppRocket look svelte by comparison. Indexing didn't take TOO long but I had to exit to release VM. On restart it hogged a bunch of resources (30% CPU/87MB RAM) while it checked folders for new links and then settled down to a constant 2 - 4% CPU, 13MB RAM and 74MB VM. DA, FARR, and Dash Command are MUCH better behaved, at startup, in operation, and at shudown.

Bye bye Skylight! Well, I guess I should use the Send E-mail to the development team link in the help menu before consigning it to electronic oblivion!

4520

General Software Discussion / Re: How do you launch stuff?

« Last post by Darwin on September 20, 2007, 07:45 AM »

Dirhael and edbro - thank you/curse you for introducing me to Dash Command! I can't believe how light this is on resources. I'm used to both FARR and DirectAccess (and ActiveWords and AppRocket) sucking up in excess of 30MB of RAM/VM - Dash is currently using only 5MB RAM and 18MB VM. Impressive.

Has anyone here tried AppRocket's successor - SkyLight? I'm about to download and install it now. It's in development and free at the moment. I'll report back.

PS In the course of all this, I must say that FARR 2 is REALLY impressive. Yes, I know, we all knew that all ready, but it needs to be said. Repeatedly. FARR is REALLY impressive. Mouser, this is incredible!

4521

General Software Discussion / Re: How do you launch stuff?

« Last post by Darwin on September 20, 2007, 06:38 AM »

If you do that, won't you still have to use DA or something else for boilerplate text?  Or is that now included in FARR?

Yes, indeed. However, I don't actually use the feature much, so won't miss it!

4522

General Software Discussion / Re: How do you launch stuff?

« Last post by Darwin on September 19, 2007, 06:48 PM »

PS Just noticed dirhael's post above - he hit's the nail on the head for me with:

Hehe, see the problem is that I just can't decide which of them to use. I mean, I like both programs...

About sums it up for me. Every so often I still fire up ActiveWords as well...

Sue me! I'm a software junkie 

4523

General Software Discussion / Re: How do you launch stuff?

« Last post by Darwin on September 19, 2007, 06:45 PM »

To be honest Armando, the thing I like most about DirectAccess (and to a lesser degree ActiveWords) is the ability to simply type an abbreviation, word or phrase followed by a trigger and having a file or a program open up (or boilerplate text inserted, etc.). It all happens in the complete absence of a programme interface. It might just be the gee whiz, neato factor, but I've been using this type of launcher for three or four years and still love it...

A contributing factor is simply the fact that I bought ActiveWords a long time before I discovered FARR and got used to working like this. I *should* try running with FARR only. Darn it! I will... I expect I'll fall back into this pattern because it's very comfortable and I am sentimental - I paid for DA so want to use it! I've also gotten used to using it and like it... For a long time, as an aside, I couldn't get the FARR alpha to work (it does so now, brilliantly) which is one reason I turned to DA from AW.

4524

General Software Discussion / Re: GemX - missing in action

« Last post by Darwin on September 19, 2007, 06:24 PM »

Truth be told - I seriously regret buying Do-Organizer - I'm perfectly content with Outlook 2003, a point driven home by my experience making an experimental move to Do-Organizer. I wanted to support development of both Do-Organizer and TexNotes Pro and was interested in the notes module (Scribe) as well as the Favourites organizer, and the simple Mind Mapper. All of it has turned out to be disappointing (I *thought* I might fall in love with the e-mail client and move over completely, replacing Outlook). Sadly, none of the components is really compelling enough to have warranted the purchase and I rarely even open it up anymore.

Yes, I had the opportunity to trial it for 60 days. I didn't. Mea culpa. However, I am mightly cheesed off that I appear to have thrown money away on abandonware. Like I said, I wanted to support development - I've enjoyed TexNotes Pro for the last year - but I don't perceive supporting development as equalling tossing my money into a fire (that then goes out!). Wish I hadn't bothered. They're quite clear on their FAQ that they do not provide refunds but I feel somewhat misused, having made the purchase literally days before the forum went down. There have been no updates, no news, nothing since. Part of me wonders if I might get a response to a refund request, stating the reasons outlined above, but I doubt it. I'm certain that if I did get a reply it would run along the lines of "We're in active development so fear not. Besides, you had 60 days to try the software out, etc.,etc."

Just rambling...

4525

General Software Discussion / Re: How do you launch stuff?

« Last post by Darwin on September 19, 2007, 05:34 PM »

Direct Acess for programs I use  often every day  
FARR for programs I use occasionally and for programs I know I have but don't always know where

-ljbirns (September 19, 2007, 12:38 PM)

Ditto. This is getting repetitive as I've had to say "ditto" about using the same workflow as ljburns in a different thread on the FARR boards