Recent Posts

4876

Living Room / Re: Sites Where You Can Converse With Imaginary Characters

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 11:21 PM »

There're a lot of 976 numbers that you can call if you'd like to SPEAK with an imaginary person...  Sorry, couldn't resist, and yes, I am ashamed of myself 

4877

Living Room / Re: A joyful addition..

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 11:18 PM »

Young Jack is going into French immersion so not only will they be plotting against me, they'll be able to do it right in front of me!

4878

General Software Discussion / Re: Top 3 programs you use

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 09:11 PM »

Darwin, I will setup the poll after I determine the top few apps, apparantly I have another 2 pages worth of sorting to do to see what the top few are (probobly top 5, maybe top 10?).

Cool - I'll love,er, look forward to it (though I'm sure I'll love it too!). Should be very interesting.

4879

Find And Run Robot / Re: [feature request] FARR2 as dialog extender?

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 07:52 PM »

armando, I like your vision for how this would work. I suspect that it would be hard to integrate FARR into any of the Office dialogues but regular open/save dialogues it might be possible. We can dream!

4880

Living Room / Re: I wanna hurt this guy!

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 07:22 PM »

This could be done (I'm sure - don't know how though!) But I think you'd still be advised to get some sort of anti-spam application in place. Unfortunately, if your e-mail address is in the wild, the least of your worries are people spoofing your e-mail address - just wait for the avalanche of spam promising to enhance, arouse or subdue you...

4881

Living Room / Re: I wanna hurt this guy!

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 06:29 PM »

I remember back when I was using Eudora (an early version - this was 1994/1995) - all I had to do to spoof an e-mail address was type the address into the "From" line of the e-mail message. Later I had to type it into a field in options for outgoing e-mail (this would have been around 1998). Times have most certainly changed!

4882

Living Room / Re: I wanna hurt this guy!

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 06:24 PM »

PS googled this and came up with this discussion of e-mail spoofing!

4883

Living Room / Re: I wanna hurt this guy!

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 06:22 PM »

Short answer - no idea... Long answer is that I use SpamBayes  and never see this stuff - it just goes directly into my Junk Mail folder and I check it periodically before emptying it to make sure that no bona fide mail got filed there by mistake. It works with Outlook and other POP3 clients and is open source.

Oh, I *would* run a virus scan and an antispyware scan just to make sure that you haven't been breached!

4884

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

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 05:52 PM »

In the same vein as Grorgy's posts above, I just received this offer for PDF Converter 4. This triggered a memory as well - Bits du Jour is set to feature the same app on Wednesday the 29th (of August). Most likely it'll be the same discount... but you never know! I use the Professional version of PDF Converter 4 and am very happy with it. Still, heed my advice above about checking apps in this segment out before comitting... Another great choice, and Zaine's recommendation on the Great Software List is FinePrint's PDF Factory. He also likes Nitro PDF. That should give you a good start on the shareware options, anyway!

4885

Living Room / Re: Where'd my video memory go?

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 05:35 PM »

No problem! It took some digging to find out what is going on, didn't it? It is kind of misleading and ATI's website is a waste of time as far as answering any questions that one might have!

4886

Living Room / Re: Where'd my video memory go?

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 05:25 PM »

OK I googled this. Looks like your card uses ATI's "hypermemory", which is discussed here (in relation to the X1400, which is the same as your chip but one step "up").

4887

Living Room / Re: Where'd my video memory go?

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 05:04 PM »

I dunno... I *think* that you have a hybrid dedicated/integrated memory chip (split 64/182) that either only accesses your RAM if it needs to (and at the moment it doesn't need to and thus this isn't being reflected in system properites), or you need to go either into a utility accessed via your Control Panel (probably an ATI utility or even the dispaly properties cpl) or into your BIOS to configure how much RAM to set aside for video. I think the second scenario is more likely. As night_ed points out, the manufacturer's description of the chipset, while not abundantly clear, does seem to be saying that this chip is a hybrid.

4888

Living Room / Re: Where'd my video memory go?

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 04:31 PM »

PS to confirm the above, right click on "My Computer" and select properties. You'll see a screen that gives information about the version of windows that you're running, your processor and how much RAM you have installed and available to the system (not how much is free, the total that the system can access). If your video card shares (ie leeches) memory from your cache of RAM, then this number should be less than 1GB.

4889

Living Room / Re: Where'd my video memory go?

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 04:18 PM »

Sorry, seedling. I didn't explain very well (kids rushing out the door). Shared, or integrated video memory means that the video card leeches away your system memory, not adds to it. Thus, if you have 1 GB (or 1024MB) of system memory (RAM) and your video card shares 182MB with it, you'll actually only have 1024MB less 182MB = 842 MB of RAM available to your systm. The fact that your card isn't showing up as an on-board device is simply reflective of the fact that it does indeed have 64MB of its own, dedicated, memory. When it needs more grunt, it goes to your installed system RAM and takes what it needs, up to 182MB.

4890

Living Room / Re: Where'd my video memory go?

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 03:41 PM »

seedling - I *believe* that what is happening here is that you have 64MB dedicated video memory and access to a further 182MB that are shared with the system, so come out of your installed RAM...

4891

General Software Discussion / Re: Mouse software

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 02:16 PM »

The first utility i bought years ago on windows 3 was a mouse utility called squeaky mouse. It had a cute icon, and a lot of useful features from positioning the mouse over the active button, autoclick, help for scrolling lists (jumping by clicking a character, which didnt use to exist), smart scrolling modes, and some keyboard shortcut help (plus a trashcan and the list goes on).

You know it's funny... thinking back to Windows 3, the mouse utility segment was huge. Seems to have largely died off, maybe because mouse manufacturers have packed so many features into their own drivers and utilities and Windows keeps adding features as well?

4892

Older Newsletters / Re: Newsletter for August 27 - Codename "Mouser reinvents the wheel"

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 02:14 PM »

Wow! Check out the stats on the forum index page: I grabbed the number of members at around 5 am (PST) this morning and entered it in the newsleter: 84,379. It's now 12:12 PM (PST) and there are 84,447 members! Cool... now of course, not all (or even perhaps, any) of these new members have made a donation, but I'm still impressed!

4893

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

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 02:07 PM »

This is actually quite a competitive segment with both free and shareware options available. If all you need is highlighting and annotation, I *think* the latest Adobe Reader will do this. Otherwise, I'd download and install some demos and some free apps and see what strikes your fancy. For some perverse reason, this is one segment in which developers have really gone in a host of different directions so you've definitely got the "different horses for different courses" philosophy to contend with.

4894

Best Dialog Extender / Re: PowerDesk Pro's Dialog Helper

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 02:05 PM »

Let's see here... I forgot about two other file managers that I have but don't currently have installed, two more notepad replacements (ie text editors), at least three graphics suites... there's no hope for me! I'm lost!

Hello, my name is Mike and I have a problem... Grorgy, maybe we should do this together afterall? Problem is, while I freely admit that I have a problem, I don't WANT to change Like grorgy, and no doubt ipihgenie as well, I really like playing around with different apps, figuring them out, comparing them - I just like change... <Is that so wrong? sob!>

4895

General Software Discussion / Re: [IDEA] recode intellicomplete, make it publicly available

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 12:42 PM »

Too early to comment on the DirectAccess/Word Autocomplete marriage, though I am not finding it particularly useful (but then I'm using the default MS offerings - see below). Word's autocomplete is a configurable autocompleter and rudimentary spell checker. So I can type "chekc" and I am given the option to change it to "check". I can add an unlimited number of words like this to the 845 that Microsoft has given me by default. Note that the words that MS has included are all set up like my chekc example, i.e. they provide a misspelling and offer to spell it correctly. If the particular misspelling isn't in the list, it won't cacth it (misspelling intentional!).

As for which autocompleteters I've used...ActiveWords is the only one. Lately, I've been using SpellCatcher Plus. Note, though, that SpellCatcher isn't an autocompleter, per se, it's really a very advanced Spell Checker and I am rethinking my announced intention to ask for a refund (I've gone so far as to make a note in my calendar to remind me when my 30 day grace period is up so that I can review what I want to do) because I really need a universal spell checker, not autocomplete.

Note that you can also import AHK scripts into DirectAccess, though this may not be particularly enticing as you can run AHK scripts from AHK! It's nice for me, though, as I've already got DirectAccess loaded and can download scripts and run them without having to run a secondary (or tertiary?) app.

4896

Living Room / Re: A joyful addition..

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 11:39 AM »

Just walked my eldest to his first day of kindergarten  . Time flies... My babies are growing up 

4897

Best Dialog Extender / Re: PowerDesk Pro's Dialog Helper

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 11:36 AM »

Nope. You are most definitely NOT alone, iphigenie. I have... let's see, either 5 or 10 installed graphics editors (depending on whether or not you want to count different versions - PSP 9, X and XI, for example), 5 or 8 file managers, 4 different office suites, 3 notepad replacements... etc. Nope, you're not alone at all! I keep threatening to start a 12 step programme for people like ourselves (note that Grorgy will not be invited to sponsor me   if I do decide to go ahead with this)... Seems warranted!

4898

General Software Discussion / Re: [IDEA] recode intellicomplete, make it publicly available

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 10:04 AM »

Note: Andrea Nagar has added the ability to import Word's autocomplete feature into DirectAccess and use it in any application.

4899

Older Newsletters / Re: Newsletter for August 27 - Codename "Mouser reinvents the wheel"

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 09:32 AM »

PS I have to give credit to mouser, who provided a guiding hand throughout the process and had a major role in finalizing the newsletter - thanks  mouser 

4900

Older Newsletters / Re: Newsletter for August 27 - Codename "Mouser reinvents the wheel"

« Last post by Darwin on August 27, 2007, 09:28 AM »

Many, many thanks momonan. I really appreciate it. It was a lot of work, but I enjoyed it.