Recent Posts

4651

General Software Discussion / Re: DivX Pro for free

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 10, 2007, 12:53 PM »

In short: Explorer will crash at every start, also in safe mode, so I can't get into Win2K any "normal" way. The OS was fully updated, so it didn't help to feed it an installation CD, and there is no space or money for upgrading it to XP Pro. W2K cannot upgrade to XP Home.

-Curt (June 10, 2007, 10:34 AM)

Can you try a repair install of Win2k by booting from the original CD ? It should keep programs and data intact but replace all Windows files to 'fresh install' status.

Explorer crashes are often caused by addons and shell extensions being corrupted - you could try this:

Boot up and ignore the fact that Explorer has crashed. Wait until the system finishes booting (look for no disc drive activity) and then use CTRL/ALT/DEL to bring up the TaskManager and use File>Run ... enter "Explorer" in the box without the quotes and hit return. Sometimes it will run without problems if it is restarted manually when the system has had time to finish booting other programs.

If it crashes again you need to disable any addins/extensions - try killing everything that doesn't look totally essential in the Process pane of TaskExplorer and also kill of any services you can from the task explorer by using File > Run and enter "Services.msc" - stop all non essential services (use your common sense there). This may allow you to start Explorer - if so you can install Process Explorer (from SysInternals) and/or ShellEx (from NirSoft). Those two utilities should help you track down the offending extensions causing the problems. ShellEx has saved my system a number of times in the past.

4652

Living Room / Re: Strange Maps

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 10, 2007, 07:47 AM »

Great fun - I really like:

http://strangemaps.w...-atlas-of-the-world/

(If you are American for Tory think Republican)

4653

Living Room / Re: eBay goes shopping...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 10, 2007, 07:33 AM »

eBay says StumbleUpon fits will with their “goal of pioneering new communities based on commerce and sustained by trust”

Based on commerce ....

4654

Living Room / Re: Flash Game: Bible Fight

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 10, 2007, 07:14 AM »

  How do you get Moses to Rain Frogs ???

Good fun for a couple of minutes - but my attention span is a bit to short!

4655

Living Room / Re: Humour - The End of the world

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 10, 2007, 06:59 AM »

LOL - I'm a Brit and we don't come off too well either (but when do we ever?) 

4656

General Software Discussion / Re: Stellarium 0.9.0 Released!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 10, 2007, 05:41 AM »

Very pretty !! Works fine for me (nVidia chipset with SLi pair of nVidia graphics adapters)

4657

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for planning wood bookcases/cabinets/tables etc?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 10, 2007, 04:14 AM »

What a beautiful space! I wish I had some spare empty space like that!

4658

General Software Discussion / Re: Returnil Virtual System

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 09, 2007, 02:57 PM »

Sorry - being stupid I hadn't noticed in the purchase form that there were pop up links in the item descriptions. That looks very like the maintenance agreement for volume licensing - we'll see what they say if/when I get a reply.

Personally I would not want to be a beta tester with this sort of software unless you have a spare computer dedicated to trying out software. On a live system if anything goes wrong your system could be completely stuffed!!

I wouldn't have any problem with trying out DeepFreeze (given that they supply to large companies and educational establishments the software must be pretty robust). I would set aside some time to play with it when you don't need to use your computer for real and make sure you use the manual. While DeepFreeze is active make sure you don't do anything that you want to be permanent. It make take a while to work out which parts of your system you want to leave free to save things in!

It shouldn't be a problem to use your computer as normal - just follow the instructions to 'thaw' your system.

Probably best to have a decent backup before you start too.

I suspect this will work in a similar way to GoBack (used to be Roxio and is now Symantec). That kept a small hidden partition on each drive that was monitored to store changes during a session and allowed you to revert your system quickly and easily to an earlier state. In some respects these applications are a bit simpler because they only revert to one set point (ie. the last time your system was frozen).

I can't help feeling that if you are the kind of person that keeps your system running for days, weeks or months without shutting down or rebooting then it will take up large amounts of disk space and the reversion won't be quick - but I may be wrong on that as I haven't tried them.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Combining partitions

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 09, 2007, 02:41 PM »

Most of the partition managers will do it safely - but it is probably best to have a backup of the main partition in case you have a problem.

If one of the partitions is empty why not delete it and simply increase the size of the one with data?

4660

Living Room / Re: Sony in trouble - again ... this time the Church of England is gunning for t

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 09, 2007, 12:13 PM »

I think the issue is more likely to be money dressed up in religious hypocrisy! Sony apparently didn't ask permission to use photo-realistic images of the interior of the cathedral - I'd guess that having sold over 1,000,000 copies of the game the bishop is actually angling for a share of the profits (and failing that he will self righteously threaten to force Sony to withdraw/modify the product).

Westminster Abbey wouldn't allow images to be used in "The da Vinci Code" because it challenged religious authority but Durham was fine with the witches and wizards of Harry Potter!

4661

General Software Discussion / Re: Returnil Virtual System

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 09, 2007, 12:04 PM »

Yes it is confusing - go to Purchase and then click on the "Online Store" link on the left of the menu bar - that gives the individual products which come with 12 months. There is no mention there of extending the 12 month period on that page though.

It is a little hard to figure out, but it seems updates 1) are free, or 2) are called "maintenance". Take a look inside the Buy Now > (find product) > Maintenance Package > "Ouote Generator"

20% of $35 is okay, I think

-Curt (June 09, 2007, 11:35 AM)

Strange I can't find that page at all - when I follow your instructions I can't find "Maintenance Package" listed ????

I have emailed them to clarify and I will post their reply when I get one. If it is 20% then that is fine.

4662

General Software Discussion / Re: Returnil Virtual System

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 09, 2007, 10:56 AM »

Actually I can't find anything about ongoing pricing on the Faronics site for one off purchases. I'll drop them an email and ask.

4663

Living Room / Sony in trouble - again ... this time the Church of England is gunning for them!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 09, 2007, 10:08 AM »

Sony have managed to offend and annoy the Church of England who are now threatening to sue them ...

http://news.bbc.co.u...nchester/6736809.stm

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General Software Discussion / Re: Returnil Virtual System

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 09, 2007, 09:53 AM »

DeepFreeze Standard is designed for standalone workstations (ie. single users) at $36 which doesn't seem too expensive and includes 12 months of updates. The Enterprise version is really aimed at organisations with central administration.

I haven't tried DeepFreeze (though I know of schools that have used it) but I can't see that it would be terribly memory hungry - presumably as memory fills up some of the 'session' data is written to disc and then discarded when you reboot.

Anyone tried either of these products?

4665

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: DivX Pro free for a limited time

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 09, 2007, 08:03 AM »

Yep - the offer appears to have closed for the time being.

Keep looking though because it comes up frequently.

4666

General Software Discussion / Re: Returnil Virtual System

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 09, 2007, 07:52 AM »

Sounds remarkably like Faronics DeepFreeze except that that is used in education and business and is an established solid product (not beta). Faronics has an annual update subscription but is not subscription based (ie. it will continue to work if you don't update)!

4667

General Software Discussion / Re: DivX Pro for free

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 08, 2007, 06:25 PM »

Go to START > DivX > DivX Converter > Register Products and then enter the key there.

4668

General Software Discussion / Re: Collectorz.com

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 08, 2007, 04:48 PM »

Likewise, after kicking up a stink on their forums and various emails I was offered lifetime licenses for the three products I purchased but it has left a bad taste in the mouth - especially as they told me very few customs were affected or complained which is obviously a blatant lie.

I certainly won't be purchasing anything else from them in the future.

4669

General Software Discussion / Re: DivX Pro for free

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 08, 2007, 12:32 PM »

That's what they did last time - you have to buy the MPEG2 plugin (but IIRC it is only about $5 if you want/need it)

4670

Living Room / Re: Do you know where your cat is going?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 08, 2007, 06:14 AM »

Great idea - just needs to get a bit smaller now ...

4671

General Software Discussion / Re: Anybody Have A Reason Why I Should NOT Purchase RegExBuddy This Week?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 08, 2007, 02:53 AM »

My pet hate with JGSoft is that none of their apps have "Exit" in the correct place on the tray menus. That seems like being perverse for the sake of it.

4672

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking to do high quality video conversion "the easy way"

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 08, 2007, 02:52 AM »

Yeah, working with video takes forever! I would imagine for the most part any DVD9 to DVD5 compression will take roughly the same amount of time, but I'd be willing to bet that Nero is one of the fastest (it's probably somewhere in the middle for quality though).

-Hirudin (June 07, 2007, 06:47 PM)

I haven't tried NeroVision since version 7 came out - but they will have had to improve it massively since version 6 to make Nero a contender for quality. Version 6 recoding was utterly crap (IMHO) and suffered horribly from video/sound sync issues.

4673

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking to do high quality video conversion "the easy way"

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 07, 2007, 03:54 PM »

I have to say I don't think DVDFab is slow - it seems to take not much longer on my system than copying 8Gb of data to the hard disk (which is what it is doing effectively - even if it is compressing it as it has to at least read the data). That's if you copy it into DVD5 format.

Really compressing the data to small XviD files is a bit slow and time consuming but why not just leave it when you go to bed? You can load up multiple copies of DVDFab and process umpteen DVDs simultaneously (OK you have to rip them first unless you have umpteen drives).

The other thing I like about DVDFab is that it lets you use the computer while it is working - apps like DVDShrink tend to push CPU usage up to 100% and lock you out unless you set the low priority option - but then it takes an age.

4674

Living Room / Re: Humour - The End of the world

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 07, 2007, 09:27 AM »

Am I the only one who hadn't seen it before?

-Carol Haynes (June 07, 2007, 09:06 AM)

Take comfort in not being a no-life geek spending 90% of your waking hours in front of your computer?

-f0dder (June 07, 2007, 09:09 AM)

  Actually I thought I was ...

4675

Living Room / Re: Humour - The End of the world

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 07, 2007, 09:06 AM »

Am I the only one who hadn't seen it before?