Recent Posts

5051

General Software Discussion / Re: Free Windows firewalls found better than commercial ones

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 08, 2006, 03:50 PM »

Yes I spotted that - but before I spend more money that I can't afford it would be good to see comparisons of such utilities if there are any ?

5052

General Software Discussion / Re: Free Windows firewalls found better than commercial ones

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 08, 2006, 02:14 PM »

I have not come across "System Safety Monitor" - does anyone know of any comparisons of these types of tools - I have ProcessGuard, ApplicationGuard and RegDefend but I haven't used them in a while - maybe it is time to try them again but it would be good to know about useful alternatives too.

5053

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Ashampoo Burning Studio 2007

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 08, 2006, 02:01 PM »

Actually you can pay only $7.99 if you use the link from their newsletter. I got it for $7.99 today and the newsletter expired last month. Same goes for their other products.

-AdIyhc (December 08, 2006, 01:36 PM)

It's probably UK tax !! (usually is)

AShampoo rocks!

Well this app certainly does - I just wish they could make the menu a bit less confusing, each time I have to hunt for the option I need.

5054

General Software Discussion / Re: Free Windows firewalls found better than commercial ones

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 08, 2006, 05:40 AM »

this is interesting.. i had just opted for Windows Firewall about 2 mths ago & here it is ranked rock-bottom..

-lanux128 (December 07, 2006, 08:18 PM)

Not surprising it is ranked bottom though because it specifically doesn't do what they were testing.

Actually I think this whole article is a bit misleading because it is only testing for effectiveness against leaktests. It is in no way assessing the applications as firewalls. All of them fail at leat one leaktest so if that bothers you the only effective solution is to pull the network or telephone cable.

If you honestly think failing a leaktest is so bad then you need a firewall that can not only block all the known threats but also any potential new threats and no such beast exists.

5055

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Yahoo photos download program

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 08, 2006, 05:10 AM »

Anyone please suggest a simple way to download all the images at once
without the need of clicking on each thumbnail...

-destinyking (December 07, 2006, 11:37 PM)

Can't see any way because the filenames Yahoo stores the images under seem to be random.

Each image is stored in this format (at least in the UK Yahoo Photos):

http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/<user id>/detail_hires?.dir=<folder code>&.dnm=<photo id>.jpg

where <user id> is you Yahoo login id, <folder code> is a name or numerical code for the folder with the images (you can see this by hovering over the download button for one of the images in the folder) and the hard bit is <photo_id> which seems to be a purely arbitrary file name used on the Yahoo servers.

Unless there is some sort of API for Yahoo photos I can't see how you can determine the <photo id> bit without looking at each photo.

You may be able to use a Macro application to automatically step through the photos in a folder and activate the download automatically.

5056

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Yahoo photos download program

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 08, 2006, 05:00 AM »

there is a 'Download" button on the 3rd image that you posted. what happens if you click on that?

-lanux128 (December 07, 2006, 08:02 PM)

Oh God - I am so dumb at times .... Thanks - obviously one of those increasingly frequent 'senior moments'!!!

5057

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Yahoo photos download program

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 07, 2006, 07:38 PM »

Nope - this is the entire page that I am getting (all images are clickable thumbnails):



I just blanked out the pictures.

If I go into one of the albums I get:



And finally if I open an image I get:



which shows the image size but there doesn't appear to be a way to display it at that size or to download it at that size.

Even requesting prints uses preset sizes, and the Edit menu has nothing useful.

5058

General Software Discussion / Re: Free Windows firewalls found better than commercial ones

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 07, 2006, 11:54 AM »

Hmm, so what does that mean then..? Outpost is a lier?!

-mitzevo (December 07, 2006, 10:24 AM)

It would seem so.

From the page about the leak test:

Another important result of our tests is firewall scoring against FPR. FPR stands for Fake Protection Revealer. This leak-test was implemented to reveal cheating on leak-tests. Outpost Firewall PRO 4.0 (971.584.079) was convicted of such cheating. It passes all leak-tests except FPR because of the implementation of user mode hooks (ring3) for security purposes. Our article Design of ideal personal firewall clearly says that ring3 hooks can not be used for security critical features. FPR does nothing but unhooks ring3 hooks which is always possible and thus bypasses such protection. This means that Outpost Firewall PRO cheats to be very strong against leak-tests but in fact it is very weak against real malware.

(The emphasised text is from the original article, not from me.)

-Rohit (December 07, 2006, 11:12 AM)

Not the only article accusing Outpost of cheating.

5059

General Software Discussion / Re: Free Windows firewalls found better than commercial ones

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 07, 2006, 11:52 AM »

Seems a bit unfair to lump Windows Firewall in the list since it doesn't even pretend to block outgoing traffic !

-Carol Haynes (December 07, 2006, 07:56 AM)

The new windows firewall in Vista does have the ability to block outgoing traffic.

-hollowlife1987 (December 07, 2006, 10:31 AM)

True but I presume they were testing Windows XP firewall

5060

General Software Discussion / Re: Free Windows firewalls found better than commercial ones

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 07, 2006, 07:56 AM »

Seems a bit unfair to lump Windows Firewall in the list since it doesn't even pretend to block outgoing traffic !

5061

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Yahoo photos download program

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 07, 2006, 05:12 AM »

Starnge I get a completely - and I mean completely different interface for Yahoo Photos - and it doesn't seem to matter which of my accounts I log in via ???

5062

Post New Requests Here / Re: Yahoo photos download program

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 06, 2006, 07:08 PM »

I have a few photos in Yahoo Photos (and I won't be adding any more). How do you even see the full size image let alone download it? Clicking on an image just shows an image scaled to fit the webpage conveniently - it tells you the size of the original at the bottom but I can't see any way to actually get to the original file at all.

5063

General Software Discussion / Re: New & Free from Corel: Snapfire

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 06, 2006, 07:00 PM »

I suppose the tutorials are in the "Learning" section which include some screenshots (at least partial screen shots).

I'm not sure the Plus version is worth the price they are asking though as there are lots of free alternatives.

If anyone wants this basic sort of stuff you could combine the free Snapfire with the Microsoft's PhotoStory 3 (which you can find for free by searching the MS website).

5064

Living Room / Re: Aghh -- they've done it again ... avoid Agnitum Outpost 4 (at least for now)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 06, 2006, 02:53 AM »

Curt the biggest problems I have with Outpost 4 are almost constant system instability. This occurs even on a fresh install of Windows with only hardware drivers present. On my system this manifests itself as random reboots (no error logging just whoosh the system restarts) causing you to lose anything you were doing at the time, possible damage to anyfiles open and possible registry corruption if settings have not been updated fully at the time. This has even happened to me when I simpy click a hyperlink in Firefox !! Without Outpost the system is 100% stable - within minutes of installing I am suffering with these problems again.

Before you ask I don't seem to have any hardware that is malfunctioning or likely to be so whacky as to cause the issues: GeForce graphics, Soundblaster audio and a Hauppauge TV card + a few USB devices: Canon printer and scanner, Seagate USB hard disk and a USB keyboard.

Add to that a big system performance hit and the fact that I can't use my network storage at all with Outpost installed (even when it is not even running! I have tired disabling it from the tray and exiting it from the tray - plus I have made rules that allow every bit software, including DLLs, related to network storage have full network access and opened the port fully that Netgear suggest and it still doesn't work - no Outpost, no problems at all) and I think this version has some serious flaws.

I too have used it since version 2.5 and had similar issues when version 3 was released (as did most users). It does a company's reputation no good that the accepted advice is wait 6 months before installing any new release because their testing is so poor and each release is chock full of bugs and issues.

For me this is one step beyond the pale and Agnitum have lost a customer - particularly as they seem incapable of taking resposnsibilty in each release for the widely and well documented troubles they seem to cause.

5065

Living Room / Re: Aghh -- they've done it again ... avoid Agnitum Outpost 4 (at least for now)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 05, 2006, 01:48 PM »

That's the conclusion I reached - their response "We don't do refunds" - even when I have a new subscription with a full year still to run. I am tempted to contact my credit card company on the basis that the product is "not fit for purpose" ... at least on my machine.

The problem with running old versions is that the update process wants to install new software before applying detection pattern file updates - so you may have a subscription but you can't get any benefits unless you update to the latest version of the software (or at least the same revision). If I install version 3.5 on my machine now everytime it checks for updates it wants to install version 4 - and when I say no I don't get any updates at all.

5066

General Software Discussion / Re: Ask City: "The Online Map With The Best Features Hands Down?"

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 05, 2006, 04:35 AM »

Can you actually get it to do anything? I can move around the US and zoom in and out but nothing else seems to work for me (in Internet Explorer or Firefox) - I type a city in the Directions field and nothing happens when you click GO at all.

Even so it is a shame that they only cover the US (apart from topo detail the Canada area is blank - not even town names) and the rest of the world doesn't exist in any form.

5067

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Ashampoo Burning Studio 2007

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 04, 2006, 10:15 AM »

I was so enthusiastic I coughed up the exorbitant $9.99 for the upgrade to the latest version ... it really is too much though

5068

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Ashampoo Burning Studio 2007

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 04, 2006, 05:21 AM »

Actually the free version from vnunet was also version 6 (at least the one I downloaded with a free code was version 6.2) just not the latest build and you couldn't update it. They do seem to have branded the free version Ashampoo Burning Studio 2007 - on screen and even in the file name (which is confusing).

Actually it is so good I am seriously considering dumping Nero and all its bloatfest.

It has the one feature so often missing - verify the media content after writing. Personally I find this absolutely essential as I have produced too many coasters over the years that apparently wrote correctly and then didn't verify. I find it hard to believe that so many burning applications are missing this function.

5069

General Software Discussion / Outlook 2003 - rule templates - can you create new ones?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 03, 2006, 07:22 PM »

I have looked in the MS help files and searched google but I can't find any reference to creating rule templates in Outlook 2003.

Anyone know if this is possible?

5070

LaunchBar Commander / Re: Tip: Keep your Desktop Empty and Put it on your LaunchBa

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 03, 2006, 07:20 PM »

All this and you need no extra software to do it!

shhh!!! don't tell them that!! 

-mouser (December 03, 2006, 07:01 PM)

Evil grin - having said that there are other reasons to install Mouser's software (like he won't eat up his fishy like a good pussy cat if he is sad - and then he won't have any energy to play)

5071

LaunchBar Commander / Re: Tip: Keep your Desktop Empty and Put it on your LaunchBa

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 03, 2006, 06:59 PM »

Even Simpler ...

Create a folder anywhere you like (e.g. C:\ or even on the Desktop).

Right click and drag all the icons on your desktop to that folder and select MOVE from the popup menu.

Right click on the task bar and go to Toolbars > New Toolbar ... and browse to your new folder. The toolbar will appear at the bottom of the screen and will pop up when you click on the arrow. You can add extra items to the menu just by dragging them to the folder or delete them from the folder as required. You can easily group items int he folder into subfolders.

All this and you need no extra software to do it!

5072

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2006 / Re: more fasting: No newly installed apps till 2007; limiting internet intake to 1h/

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 03, 2006, 04:41 PM »

Hmmm - epiphany .... let me join the project too!

We could call it "get a life" and have numerous discussion threads in our own subforum to make sure that none of us spend more than an hour on line ... of course it will all be so interesting that we will need an extra hour a day just for these activities

5073

General Software Discussion / Re: NOD32 Technical Support - Interesting response

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 03, 2006, 12:15 PM »

Home PC - but given that they say it doesn't really achieve anything and that it won't even be in the next release ...

5074

UrlSnooper / Re: Sniffing, but can't smell

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 03, 2006, 10:52 AM »

Is URLsnooper blocked by a firewall?

5075

Living Room / Re: Agnitum Outpost 4 .... dumped

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 03, 2006, 07:24 AM »

Symantec NIS used to have that - don't know if still does. You register the info you want to protect in the application and then whenever that is sent over a network connection you have to confirm it is genuine.

What I think is needed is a tiny standalone product that would work with any security app installed.