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4576

General Software Discussion / Re: The GIMP/PhotoFiltre/Paint.net/etc., thoughts...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 26, 2007, 03:11 AM »

Hmmm, guys; you talk about Photoshop and Gimp, but does not mention their child: GIMPshop?!!
Gimp a la Photoshop: http://gimpshopdotnet.blogspot.com/

-Curt (June 25, 2007, 01:56 PM)

If you look at the top of this thread GIMPShop was mentioned fairly early on (you have to go back to page 1).

Trouble is it is supposed to work like PaintShop but it just doesn't!! It has a superficial similarity but that is as far as it goes. I think if you want to use GIMP then you may as well use GIMP rather than GIMPshop as there is going to be a learning curve whichever you use - and if you are a Photoshop user looking for something to use at home then GIMPShop is more confusing than helpful (IMHO).

The other advantage of GIMP over GIMPShop is that you will have much quicker access to new releases.

4577

General Software Discussion / Re: The GIMP/PhotoFiltre/Paint.net/etc., thoughts...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 23, 2007, 06:16 PM »

Don't get me wrong I buy a lot of stuff on eBay - but I wouldn't buy software unless it was from a well established company that was licensed to sell the product - especially if you need to guarantee it will register/activate properly. No one is going to sell Adobe software cheaper than the upgrade price unless it is second hand - with their current activation model that would be very risky.

4578

General Software Discussion / Re: The GIMP/PhotoFiltre/Paint.net/etc., thoughts...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 23, 2007, 03:17 PM »

Personally I think it is a REALLY bad idea to buy software from eBay - the chances of getting stung are high and if the software requires activation you can be completely stuffed! Just my 2p.

Another cheap way to get Adobe software is to sign up for a course at an accredited college or uni (part time is fine - so an evening class should qualify) and then buy at student price!

4579

General Software Discussion / Re: List of Vector Illustration Alternatives

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 21, 2007, 05:49 AM »

Strange your post has appeared but I still get error messages

4580

General Software Discussion / Re: List of Vector Illustration Alternatives

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 21, 2007, 04:11 AM »

Anyone else tried to post a comment on the blog mentioned in tomos's first post in this thread?

I just get a permissions error from their Linux server but I can't find anyway to contact anyone. If I try to repost my comment it says it has already been posted - maybe there is some sort of moderation in operation.

Anyway my comment was a correction:

Note that Xara Xtreme is also available for Linux - where is it a free open source project. See XaraXtreme for Linux

Currently it is still beta.

Persoanlly I have both Illustrator CS2 (part of the suite) and Xara Xtreme Pro installed under Windows - it is Xara I keep coming back to for speed and ease of use.

4581

General Software Discussion / Re: List of Vector Illustration Alternatives

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 21, 2007, 03:59 AM »

The biggest problem I had with Serif was the shear quantity of junk mail I received (not only by email but also via the postbox). Some weeks I would receive 2 or 3 items of post.

Their software is pretty good but be prepared to be inundated with "special offers" that often bear no relation to the normal Serif product range. (This isn't 3rd part companies sending junk it is Serif direct selling stuff you won't find on their website).

I haven't used their products for years but even though the flow has diminished I still receive junk mail having told them repeatedly to remove me from their lists. In the UK this is illegal behaviour under the data protection act.

4582

General Software Discussion / Re: Is the Windows start menu dead?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 21, 2007, 03:03 AM »

I think I would be using the normal start meny much more, if I could alter it to meet my needs a lot more than it does for now. Instead of the most left column being "recently used apps", first, and then some "Favorite Apps", I would like it to be something like this:

1) Programs
2) Accessories
3) Photocenter
4) Entertainment
5) Communication
6) Systemtools
7) Registry & Backup tools
8] Microsoft
9) Specials

- or whatever. The point being that the present shortcut we have today: Start > Programs > Access. > Systemtools > SomeApp - is just TOO far away to navigate to. Let me customize my Start Menu as I like!

-Curt (June 20, 2007, 10:41 AM)

You can pretty much do that already Curt.

Go back to the traditional start menu and organise to your heart's content.

My approach is to leave the srtart menu alone and when  I install programs I always opt for a desktop shortcut. I then drag this shortcut to a desktop folder which is set up pretty much how you describe and then use right click on the Task Bar Toolbars > New Toolbar .... and point to the folder. I then get a cascading menu like you want on the taksbar.

For example - the folder "Desktop Shortcuts" is on my desktop and I used it to make a new Toolbar.

Here is my task bar ...



and the cascading menu produced:



The advanatages of doing it this way (rather than altering the start menu) are:

• Installers work correctly with the start menu (ie. they uninstall apps properly if you need to and clean up properly)
• The shortcuts menu only has the things you want - and it is up to you how you organise them

The only disadvantage I have found is that if you uninstall something the shortcut remains until you delete it manually.

4583

General Software Discussion / RegExBuddy/EditPad for Linux - only availble until 1st July

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 20, 2007, 06:11 AM »

Received this notice today as part of an email from JGSoft

End of Life: RegexBuddy for Linux
=================================

I'm sorry to say that on July 1st, we will stop selling the Linux
version of RegexBuddy.  The licensed version will remain available for
download at http://www.regexbuddy.com/linuxnow.html to those who have
purchased it prior to July 1st 2007.  Still, if you want to continue using
RegexBuddy for Linux, I recommend you make a backup of the setup package
that you can download on the RegexBuddy web site.  If you we're
planning to purchase RegexBuddy for Linux, now would be a good time to do so.

We will continue to provide technical support for RegexBuddy for Linux
until October 1st.  This 3-month period corresponds with our 3-month
money-back guarantee period.

We have successfully tested running the Windows version of RegexBuddy
on Linux using "Wine".  At http://www.regexbuddy.com/wine.html you will
find the instructions how to do this.  RegexBuddy for Linux users who
want to upgrade to the new Windows release will be able to do so at the
same conditions as RegexBuddy for Windows users.

The reason we've decided to withdraw RegexBuddy for Linux from the
market is that it no longer meets our quality standards for "Just Great
Software".  Though the product certainly does what it is supposed to do,
there are just too many minor issues to be really proud of the Linux
version like we are of the Windows version.  Serving a fragmented market
(all those Linux distributions) with an outdated development tool simply
isn't feasible.  Though there are certainly better cross-platform
development tools available, we are not willing to sacrifice the quality of
our Windows products in return for that cross-platform support, nor do
we have the manpower for significant rewrites of our products.  If
CodeGear (formerly Borland) ever releases new tools that would enable us to
support Linux or other platforms again, we will certainly consider
that.  However, I do not expect CodeGear to do so in the next few years.

Any Linux user that want a copy of RegExBuddy need to do so quickly!

The same seems to apply for EditPad (Lite and Pro versions).

Shame Jan doesn't just offer these final Linux versions for free download without support.

4584

General Software Discussion / Re: More about e-mail web based and other

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 20, 2007, 05:56 AM »

What's Address Guard, please?

I too am in the UK and use BTInternet as my ISP. They have teamed up with Yahoo in the UK provide Yahoo! Mail 'Plus' email addresses (or at least they did when I signed up - things have changed since) disguised as btinternet.com addresses.

If you are using the full version of Yahoo (Yahoo Plus?) there is the facility to use Address Guard (click on options). It works by allowing you to set up as many yahoo.co.uk (or yahoo.com depending on location) email addresses as you like for specific purposes. They each have a common prefix (which you choose) and all email is delivered to a folder you specify for each address (when you set it up - or you can edit it later. It can be the Inbox). You can also enable a column to see which was the receiving address. You choose whether you allow filters or SpamGuard to be applied to each address individually - and you can also optionally send email from these address (they appear in a drop down list when you compose an email online).

This has the advantage that each time you sign up to a website you can give them a unique email address - and if you start receiving SPAM you know which site sold your details. It is then trivial to delete that specific email address and not receive more spam on it. Your normal email address needs never be seen by anyone - not that it stops spam because Yahoo seems to have real problems dealing with dictionary attacks.

You can see full details at: http://help.yahoo.co...l/addressguard1.html

The only disadvantages I can see is that if you decide to drop Yahoo you need to change all your addresses again (but you would have to if you gave out your Yahoo address anyway) and the worry that Yahoo suddenly decide to do things a different way and expect you to change everything with short notice. I don't know how likeyly that would be as they would have a lot of very unhappy paying for customers.

4585

Living Room / Re: Thank you for this site and the people here.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 19, 2007, 11:57 AM »

Jeff,

I'm so sorry to hear of your loss. No one can say anything to make you feel better at such a time, but just remember there are people here you can talk to if you need an ear (or eye I suppose).

Feel free to PM me if I can help in any way.

4586

General Software Discussion / Re: How can I save a Quicktime Movie I watch on the internet to my computer

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 19, 2007, 09:11 AM »

I had forgotten about CacheSort - I seem to remember you can easily change the folder it sorts - so you could point it to the Firefox cache if you want to use firefox. I can't remember if you need to download the source code and recompile it with AHK or if there is a setting in the INI file.

4587

General Software Discussion / Re: More about e-mail web based and other

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 19, 2007, 07:27 AM »

But...  I have two Yahoo! accounts and access them both with POP3.  However, I'm using the old-style Yahoo.  I think I avoided the beta because I didn't have enough screen resolution for it at the time, and I've never bothered to try it again.  Besides, I think it uses ActiveX, and isn't that a security risk?

-rjbull (June 16, 2007, 03:49 PM)

It works on Firefox as well as IE so presumably it uses JavaScript and not ActiveX which would exclusively require IE.

I have swapped back and forth between old and new Yahoo interfaces and keep going back to the old interface. The new one isn't ready yet - lots of options are missing. I also use colour coding with emails based on Address Guard addresses (which means SPAM stands out) - this isn't supported in the new version (bummer).

Lot's of the options either aren't available in the new version or you end up going back to the old options pages and then it often gets confused trying to get back to your mail box.

The other thing is it is just too slow at the moment.

4588

General Software Discussion / Re: More about e-mail web based and other

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 19, 2007, 07:22 AM »

I actually prefer the Yahoo and Live offerings to GMail (though I have and use all three!). I'm wondering, though, if Yahoo will ever make it out of beta. It's pretty solid, and will be my favourite of all the options if its idiosyncrasies (mailboxes failing to load, for example - not good) ever get ironed out. It would be nice, too, if they'd let me access my account from a POP3 client without having to pay $19.95 a year for the privilege.

-Darwin (June 14, 2007, 01:37 PM)

Can't you access POP mail if you agree to some Yahoo Spam ?

I have two free Yahoo accounts and it worked fine for me - all the crap came in the same format so it was easy to setup a filter to put it straight in the bin.

Of course things may have changed as I now use an ISP Yahoo account in the UK (which is effectively a paid for account) and use the mail forwarder to send stuff from my old Yahoo accounts to my new address.

That could be another option - just set up forwarding to an ISP based address which you can pick up with POP. IIRC you have the option to leave the original mail on the Yahoo servers so you can then collect in both places but would need to manually delete old mail online.

A final possibility is to use a service like IzyMail (that one is paid but I am sure there are free ones out there too) that grab hotmail and yahoo mail and deliver it via a POP interface to your mail client. This works irrespective of whether you have a paid for hotmail or yahoo account.

You may want to look at this open source project http://ypopsemail.com/ (note I have never used this as I don't need it but it may be the solution you are looking for). Report back if it works please.

4589

Living Room / Re: Yahoo! Photos closing shop!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 19, 2007, 06:32 AM »

Nice of them to tell people!

I just logged in to Yahoo! My Photos and got no message at all! Went to the link you gave and they moved my photos to Flickr - no probs.

Would have been nice to have some sort of warning.

It's a good move though - the Yahoo!  Photos interface was crap.

The only advantage of the Yahoo! Photos interface was that you could save photo attachments in emails directly to My Photos (which was neat). Hopefully this will be changed to link to Flickr instead.

4590

General Software Discussion / Sony Offer: Complete Media Production for $99.99 (valid to June 30, 2007)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 19, 2007, 05:09 AM »

Thought some of the video and audiophiles here might be interested in this offer.

Looks like really good value:

To find out more about the Studio family products see SonyMedia's Website. Personally I wouldn't bother with Photo Go as it is pretty cheap anyway. I have never seen American Idol Extreme Music Creator so can't comment but it looks pretty lightweight stuff.

To pace an order for this special offer use this order form link.

Note that these are the consumer level versions of the professional products. I haven't used these at all but the pro versions are superb (esp. Vegas, Acid and Sound Forge) but if I were using this offer they would definitely be the three to go for.

4591

General Software Discussion / Re: How can I save a Quicktime Movie I watch on the internet to my computer

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 18, 2007, 11:30 AM »

The movie is usually saved in your internet cache folder (location depends on the browser you are using - check the browser preferences to find out where) and will have a .MOV extension.

Just copy the movie to where you want to store it (otherwise it might be deleted from the cache, and depending on your browser settings may be re-downloaded next time you visit that link).

4592

Living Room / Re: Why is Hotmail so bad at spam?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 18, 2007, 09:43 AM »

I reckon to get at least 150-200 junk emails a day via Yahoo mail - and it is supposed to be filtered. Probably about 60 end up in the junk mail folder the rest scattered through my other folders. It isn't as though it isn't obvious junk either - most is for viagra and variants or just plain porn.

I am systematically swapping all my subscription email addressed using Yahoo's AddressGuard - at least then I should be able to tell how my emails are escaping to the spammers - but it is a long winded process and I am not sure I am too happy putting all my eggs into the Yahoo basket. If at some point in the future I want to change provider it will be a massive job to change all my subscription emails again, and if they change the options available (hopefully this shouldn't impact on current users but you never know with potential Yahoo buyouts on the table) I could equally be hit.

4593

General Software Discussion / Re: memory corruption after updating my lappy to 2gb? was: pagefile usage

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 18, 2007, 07:38 AM »

I added a second module. It could be a compatibility issue, thanks F0dder.

I ran goldenMemory and it got two errors. So I think I'm returning the damn memory stick. I only have problems when I use R (incidentally, that can take up quite a lot of memory) or when hibernating.

Thanks to all who helped!

-urlwolf (June 16, 2007, 03:24 PM)

MEMTEST86+ is the benchmark for memory testing.

One word of caution about memory though - if you are using 2 sticks of DDR memory the best advice is to purchase them as a pair. There are know issues when you you mix brands of DDR memory or different size sticks. Even 2 sticks from the same manufacturer can exhibit problems if they come from different production lines.

Another rule of thumb is never buy generic memory - it usually is at the lower end of tolerances. Go for a well known brand - both Corsair and Crucial have guaranteed compatibility and lifetime no quibble warranties.

4594

What's the Best? / Re: cd burning

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 18, 2007, 03:35 AM »

Now we have ... BlindWrite as better 1:1 cdcopiers,but these are no mastering programs.....

-roady (June 02, 2007, 03:51 AM)

I have a lifetime VSO product license, but the trouble with BlindWrite is there is no way to verify a disc after writing. I have complained about this to VSO a number of times and they have promised it in a future version but until they sort it out I have given up on it.

If you want a bit perfect copy it is important that you can verify that writing has completed correctly.

4595

Living Room / Re: When you make your 100'th Post

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 18, 2007, 03:32 AM »

i hear when you get to 5,000 cody sends you a present..

-mouser (June 17, 2007, 11:19 PM)

What did you get for 10000 then?

4596

General Software Discussion / Re: What do you think of PCTools' Spyware Doctor?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 17, 2007, 01:49 PM »

I am just having an experiment with it since the free license is still available.

Just download and install the product and you are asked for a license key during installation. There is a link for a free key for personal use which takes you to a web page with a license agreement. You don't have to enter an email address if you don't want to. After accepting the license agreement a ZIP file is offered automatically as a download. The file contains a single text file with your personal key.

Nice system for offering keys - Mouser might consider adopting it for installing new DC apps for users without a universal key.

4597

General Software Discussion / Re: What do you think of PCTools' Spyware Doctor?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 17, 2007, 11:06 AM »

I think you mean Altiris SVS. There is a community site called Altiris Juice with discussion forums and helpful information.

This has now been bought by Symantec (death IMHO) but still seems to be available and is (or was) free for personal use.

4598

Living Room / Re: Why is Hotmail so bad at spam?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 16, 2007, 06:47 PM »

It's not just Hotmail - Yahoo spam filtering used to work quite well - and it is supposed be to be learning your preferences. Recently it has been utterly crap - it doesn't matter how many time I report the same message it still goes to my filtered folders and not the junk folder.

Part of the problem is if you look in the headers often the senders address is spoofed (I often have them coming from my own email addresses and/or domains) and consequently do get past as a known address (even though superficially it looks like they come from a spam source).

I think the time is coming when all email addresses (like domains) will have to be registered with a proof of identity and made spoof proof by some sort of certification process. If that were the case ISPs could simply block emails from sources that are unregistered or where the registartion and certification don't match.

4599

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Microsoft OneNote 2007

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 16, 2007, 06:14 AM »

Sorry - should have said - if you want to install the extension download it to your desktop and then in Firefox use File > Open File ... to locate the file.

4600

General Software Discussion / Re: DAZ Bryce 5.5 now free (Windows and Mac versions).

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 16, 2007, 06:11 AM »

DAZ Studio comes with all version of Bryce - and you do need the latest version for some of the content files. They don't always seem to include the latest build in the Bryce package. The current version number is 1.5 build 1 (I had to update it the other day because Bryce 6 came with version 1.4).