Recent Posts

51

Found Deals and Discounts / Leadertask Daily Planner Free on Bits Today, 4 Oct 2014

« Last post by J-Mac on October 04, 2014, 10:35 PM »

Leadertask Daily Planner is free on Bits duJour today, 4-Oct-2014. However the deal doesn’t appear to be as generous as it first looks. First obstacle - Malwarebytes is preventing many from accessing the site at all. Also, the program isn't offered for sale anymore - instead it is offered free with a sync option offered as a subscription. Also there isn't a privacy policy on the website and your data is stored on their cloud servers. Plus the program asks for admin access on your computer. All in all it could be a recipe for disaster.

I had previously heard good things about Leadertask, but that was at least five or six years ago. Doesn’t sound very tempting to me today.

Thanks!

Jim

[attachthumb=#1][/attachthumb]

[attachthumb=#2][/attachthumb]

52

N.A.N.Y. 2014 / Re: NANY 2014 Release - epCheck

« Last post by J-Mac on September 14, 2014, 01:45 PM »

Downloaded, installed, and looking good so far!

Thanks!!

Jim

53

General Software Discussion / Re: Way to hide a desktop icon temporarily?

« Last post by J-Mac on September 04, 2014, 10:26 AM »

I installed the trial but it doesn't let me start the 30-day trial period. There's a big dialog box with 3 options and activate the trial is 3rd, but clicking it does nothing. If I try to make a fence, the option appears but then the fence doesn't. Google showed that other people have had this problem too.

-jshare (September 04, 2014, 08:53 AM)

That's odd. I thought that happened only if you once had a trial installed in the past. Guess it's a bug then.

Good luck!

Jim

54

General Software Discussion / Re: Way to hide a desktop icon temporarily?

« Last post by J-Mac on September 04, 2014, 05:25 AM »

Or make a fence containing multiple icons which you want to hide, and make that "fence" or area visible as needed. DL a trial and give it a shot.

Jim

55

General Software Discussion / Re: Way to hide a desktop icon temporarily?

« Last post by J-Mac on September 04, 2014, 01:25 AM »

No, you don’t need a rule for each icon. You put the icons you wish to hide in one fence and hide that area. Make it visible when you want and invisible when you want. Works here.

Jim

56

Living Room / Re: Android security mystery – ‘fake’ cellphone towers found in U.S.

« Last post by J-Mac on September 04, 2014, 01:01 AM »

Stingray effects?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker

Jim

57

General Software Discussion / Re: Way to hide a desktop icon temporarily?

« Last post by J-Mac on September 03, 2014, 03:36 PM »

Fences!  http://www.stardock.com/products/fences/

Works great!

Jim

58

Living Room / Re: What age is too young for a mobile phone?

« Last post by J-Mac on September 03, 2014, 03:29 PM »

I'm beginning to think that 60 might be too young!   

And I think that when an incident like Sandy Hook occurs, the cell phones serve mainly to cause a whole lot of parents showing up and crowding an already dangerous scene.

BTW, "incidents LIKE Sandy Hook" should be read as "all the school lockdowns that turn out to be due to a first grader drawing his finger too much like a gun".

Jim

59

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: AdGuard: the better Ad Muncher?

« Last post by J-Mac on September 02, 2014, 04:51 AM »

I've never had YouTube ads here, and I don't really know why. I don't have an ad-blocker inside Chrome (other than Ghostery) -- perhaps it is because I am loggen in on YouTube?

Now Facebook on the other hand ...

-Jibz (September 02, 2014, 01:52 AM)

Now if you are logged in to YouTube the ads are unbelievable. on the page, within the videos. Nearly unbearable.

Jim

60

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: AdGuard: the better Ad Muncher?

« Last post by J-Mac on September 01, 2014, 09:22 PM »

YouTube's ads alone have me wanting some sort of https ad control.

Jim

61

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: AdGuard: the better Ad Muncher?

« Last post by J-Mac on September 01, 2014, 06:44 AM »

And in 2011, 2012, and 2013 Jeff stated that V.5 would be out by the end of the year. Still waiting...

Jim

62

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: AdGuard: the better Ad Muncher?

« Last post by J-Mac on August 31, 2014, 11:12 PM »

Still, let's see how it'll perform compared to Ad Muncher 5 one it's released.

I wouldn’t hold my breath for Ad Muncher 5.0. There has not been any reported progress on that for quite some time, and they first announced it back in 2005 (or possible earlier!). That's NINE years now of talking about how great their next major update will be. NINE years! I give up. I'll give AdGuard a try.

Thanks for the review.

Jim

63

Living Room / Re: My Stinking, Rotten ASUS Router Died Overnight!

« Last post by J-Mac on August 30, 2014, 07:59 AM »

YMMV of course, but I've found my RT-N16 to be pretty much bulletproof ... and considering the number of power brownouts/cuts that I get at home, that's impressive.  I forget exactly when I got it but it must of been powered on 24/7 for the last 4 years at least.

-4wd (August 30, 2014, 06:47 AM)

About the same here. Perfect until now.

Given the brief description of the fault, I'd go with what SJ said and it's likely to be the external PSU.

Quite possible. Still, outside my current capabilities.

Even if it's caused the router to brick itself, as long as it's not a hardware fault within the router the RT-N16 can be recovered pretty much 100% of the time.

Maybe later. For now, my new RT-AC66U is up & running and doing fine. Much easier setup than any other router I've owned.  Better UI on the web settings pages too.

I'll put the RT-N16 on the shelf for now and maybe take a look at the power supply in the future.

Thanks to all for your comments and suggestions.   

Jim

64

Living Room / Re: My Stinking, Rotten ASUS Router Died Overnight!

« Last post by J-Mac on August 29, 2014, 08:43 AM »

@SJ:  I read where others have found problems like that. However I don't have the tools oreequipment to test it unfortunately.

@40hz:  I guess that's true. I've had other equipment fail over the years. But my old routers have been so reliable for so long that this one caught me by surprise.

New router should be here shortly and I'll get over it fast. 

Jim

65

Living Room / Re: My Stinking, Rotten ASUS Router Died Overnight!

« Last post by J-Mac on August 29, 2014, 05:24 AM »

Thanks Shades.

Blown capacitor is the most common reason. I opened the box but none are obviously blown - none are raised or blackened.

Jim

66

Living Room / My Stinking, Rotten ASUS Router Died Overnight!

« Last post by J-Mac on August 29, 2014, 12:57 AM »

ASUS RT-N16 router... State of the so-called art.  Blah!

No internet when I got up - noticed I had no lights on the router at all. Pulled the power cable and re-plugged it; lights on for a half second and then nothing. Tried all the online tips I could find: Holding WPA button while inserting power cable; holding Reset button while doing the same. Couldn't get it going at all. Apparently this has happened to some others out there. Most others were on dd-wrt F/W; I was still on the stock ASUS F/W.

New router should be delivered tomorrow. My old Linksys WRT-54G routers seemed to last forever. I used them for years and they are still in service on my kids' networks. The newer and fancier they get, the faster they die, or so it seems.   

Jim

67

Living Room / Re: My cat needs your thoughts | RIP Saffron my dearest cat

« Last post by J-Mac on August 29, 2014, 12:51 AM »

So sorry to hear this mouser.   

I know how much it hurts - We lost one of our little Yorkies a couple of months ago at 17 years old. I wouldn’t have thought I'd be so devastated. I'll continue to send happy thoughts and prayers your way.

Take care.

Jim

68

General Software Discussion / New Dropbox Limits - Pro Accounts Get 1TB!

« Last post by J-Mac on August 27, 2014, 12:02 PM »

Woohoo! Just as I was thinking hard about dropping my Dropbox Pro account since I could get so much more storage elsewhere, they went and sent me an email today saying that they have raised my limit from 100GB to 1TB! Wow!

They also added a number of features to make sharing more secure, like the ability to require passwords for others to download from your Dropbox. Many more changes also.

Here a link to their blog post announcing the changes:  https://blog.dropbox.com/2014/08/introducing-more-powerful-dropbox-pro/

Jim

69

Living Room / Re: Wikimedia refuses to remove animal selfie because monkey ‘owns’ the photo

« Last post by J-Mac on August 08, 2014, 01:34 PM »

App,

While this topic was fairly interesting on its own, you have made it infinitely more so! Thought provoking. (And now I am trying hard to remember if I have ever taken any photos of anyone who has since become famous!    )

Jim

70

General Software Discussion / Installing USB Mass Storage Driver - Problem

« Last post by J-Mac on August 04, 2014, 12:02 PM »

Hopefully this is an easy question for someone here!!

I am trying to install an updated USB Mass Storage Device Driver for my USB 3.0 devices. Current driver is from 2006 - I'm guessing this was from Microsoft since the PC was just built in January 2012 - and I keep getting shouts from the Windows 7x64 Action Center. That plus the fact that I keep getting BSODs which are possibly caused by outdated software driver(s), according to suggestions from the Windows Debugger, WhoCrashed, and Nirsoft's BlueScreenView. My problem is that shortly after starting the installation I get an Install Shield popup asking me to "Please Plug-in Device". What device? All devices I have that need to be plugged into USB ports are already there. Am I supposed to remove one and then plug it right back in? Remove all? Can I just unplug it or must it (or they?) be uninstalled and reinstalled? (via Device Manager).

If I don’t plug anything in then the driver installation is canceled and I'm back to square one. I have done a fair amount of searching but cannot find anyone else posting about this problem.  (Am I the only one dumb enough to not know what to do here?! Second though, don’t answer that...)

Anyway, since there are a number of folks here with a lot more tech knowledge than I, I'm hoping that someone can advise me on this.

Thank you.

Jim

71

General Software Discussion / Re: Ad Muncher 5 will be free

« Last post by J-Mac on August 02, 2014, 08:31 AM »

I think I might have to give AdGuard a try. I am tired of waiting for AdMuncher to work on https: websites.

Thanks.

Jim

72

General Software Discussion / Re: jv16 PowerTools - using Indiegogo to 'fund'' open-sourcing it

« Last post by J-Mac on July 30, 2014, 01:34 PM »

BTW...is it just me...or do about half the comments posted on the campaign site read like astroturf?

-40hz (July 29, 2014, 04:06 PM)

Well, who else would post anything nice at all there!

Jim

73

N.A.N.Y. 2014 / Re: NANY 2014 Release - epCheck

« Last post by J-Mac on July 28, 2014, 11:34 PM »

Oh - and here's the actual first showing date, per Wikipedia:

[attachthumb=#1][/attachthumb]

Thanks!

Jim

74

N.A.N.Y. 2014 / Re: NANY 2014 Release - epCheck

« Last post by J-Mac on July 28, 2014, 11:30 PM »

Hi Jody!

The show is "Crossing Lines". The first season was last year, yet here is what my Weekly View showed for Sunday:

[attachimg=#2][/attachimg]

And here is the episode page at TVDB:

[attachthumb=#1][/attachthumb]

Thanks!

Jim

75

N.A.N.Y. 2014 / Re: NANY 2014 Release - epCheck

« Last post by J-Mac on July 28, 2014, 01:05 PM »

I'm getting some programs on my list show up in the Weekly view but they aren't actually scheduled, at least not in my area. What location is EpCheck pulling the schedule from?

Thanks!

Jim

PS - Hmm, worse yet when I double click on those entries I am taken to J River Media Center webpage for that show and it says there that the first air date was yesterday - July 27, 2014! It was actually on the air last year. It appears the problem is with bad data from J River.