Recent Posts

5301

Official Announcements / Re: --> SEPTEMBER SOFTWARE DRAWING RESULTS - POSTED!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 01, 2006, 06:36 PM »

Now that I have this great font manager I just realized something...

12,485 fonts are not enough! 

[ Invalid Attachment ]

Maybe Carol, Ken, Allen, thunder7, and wraith808 can help me out? 

(Is there a Font Addicts Anonymous?)

-app103 (September 30, 2006, 01:40 AM)

Try googling "font addicts" - I got 440000 hits! You are not alone.

My name is Carol and I'm a .... fontaholic ...

5302

Living Room / Re: Xara X1 Massive discount (expires 28th September)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 30, 2006, 09:27 AM »

There is a trial version for Xtreme which is fully functioning (AFAIK). If you purchase it they give you an instant unlock code and also send you the CD Pack which includes loads of Video tutorials and demos of other apps. You can also choose to include a printed manual now (I think - there didn't used to be one but I think they have got one now).

5303

Backup Guide / Re: Acronis now does backup of individual files/folders

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 30, 2006, 09:25 AM »

I was running the current version of Iomega Automatic Backup Pro for some weeks without any crashes or issues. I haven#'t tried their burning software though.

By the way IABP also does imaging backups and has an ISO for the restore disc included in the download.

5304

Backup Guide / Re: Acronis now does backup of individual files/folders

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 29, 2006, 04:29 AM »

The Seagate drive is hardwired - but you can upgrade their software and use the Pro version (which looks pretty good).

-Carol Haynes (August 22, 2006, 08:27 AM)

Follow up - I have given up completely on the backup software provided with the Seagate drive. I upgraded to the Pro version as that also supported imaging but in order to restore an image you need a restore boot CD. I ordered one but it is useless. Crap command line Linux interface, it doesn't work with my hardware (not even the Seagate drive which is why I upgraded) particularly my RAID array (it won't even boot if that is enabled). I exchanged a number of emails with their technical support which waas pretty crap - basically it was my fault or my hardware's fault - not theirs. They refused a refund on the Pro upgrade (since it doesn't actually manage to do anything that the free version doesn't) - which is against UK law (as I understand it if a compnay is trading in another country's market they are bound by the law of that country ... though how you enforce that I don't know).

My advice avoice CMS products altogether and in particular BounceBack Pro.

The other irritating thing was that when I uninstalled it it didn't completely uninstall and left a device driver still trying to load  (and failing) every startup. At first I thought it was something to do with the Seagate single button backup - but even when the drive was unplugged it still caused problems. In the end I had to track down the device in the registry and remove it manually.

5305

Image Manager Shootout / Re: Newbie on the block looks set to rock the world ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 28, 2006, 02:10 PM »

Yep - I got the email too - and yes it does seem quicker. A major improvement too is that the Windows version is now functionally identical to the Mac version (the previous Win beta was a few steps behind the Mac version).

5306

Living Room / Re: Annoyed (Warning) re. Agnitum Outpost subs. renewals.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 28, 2006, 08:30 AM »

Fair enough they responded within a few hours with a new activation key which fixed the problem.

5307

Living Room / Annoyed (Warning) re. Agnitum Outpost subs. renewals.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 28, 2006, 03:31 AM »

Got a message today offering 25% discount on renewals when you answer a short survey - so I did.

What I didn't realise was that when you extend your subscription it resets it to 365 days - consequently I seem to have lost 66 days of my previous subscription without warning.

I have emailed Agnitum but I have to say this is pretty irritating!

5308

Official Announcements / Re: --> SEPTEMBER SOFTWARE DRAWING RESULTS - POSTED!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 26, 2006, 01:11 PM »

Oooeee thanks a lot - now I have to start producing fonts ! 

 

Is it my imagination or are the prizes getting bigger every month ?

Thanks again.

5309

Living Room / Re: Xara X1 Massive discount (expires 28th September)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 26, 2006, 06:35 AM »

Don't think it has been done yet but there are noises on www.svg.org (check out links at http://www.google.co...f-8&q=XARA%20SVG)

5310

Living Room / Re: Xara X1 Massive discount (expires 28th September)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 26, 2006, 03:18 AM »

I have always found it slightly odd that they price in dollars - especially being an exclusively UK company.

I figure they assume Americans can't do sums

Unfortunately they have no choice on VAT as an EU based company so all European orders are stung - but at least it as the UK rate which is lower than many EU countries ! In fact many countries outside the EU now charge VAT on parchases to the EU. I am never sure if those taxes ever actually make it to the EU though, but at least you avoid ridiculous courier charges and import duty on delivery if you have already paid VAT.

5311

Living Room / Re: Xara X1 Massive discount (expires 28th September)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 25, 2006, 05:31 PM »

It's from the UK and it comes in a DVD case with some documentation.

-Carol Haynes (September 25, 2006, 02:08 PM)

Documentation is good! I don't feel so bad about the shipping now.

So I decided to try to look into what I had bought, and I can't find any information on X1. Just Xtreme. Are they basically the same thing but with Xtreme has a few more features?

-Deozaan (September 25, 2006, 05:10 PM)

The sequence of programmes was:

ArtWorks (on the Acorn RiscOS platform - probably mid 1980s but I can't remember - I still have a copy somewhere)
Xara
Xara X
Xara X1
Xara Xtreme

Xara and Xara X were long term developments of ArtWorks moved to the the Windows platform and enhanced. X1 was a single upgrade to X and then Xtreme became the next version - so basically X1 is just the previous version to the current one.

Don't expect too much from the documentation - IIRC it was a keyboard shortcuts card. Having said that $8 delivery is probably cost price with UK postage prices these days - they certainly won't make a lot of profit out of that (if any) - and at least they deliver properly packaged CDs unlike most suppliers these days you usually just send stuff out in a paper slip cover!And they still give the option to download while you wait for the package.

My only gripe with Xara deliveries is that they tend to be a bit slow (esp. when they are running promotions) but that just refelects the fact that they are a small company doing everything by hand.

5312

Living Room / Re: Xara X1 Massive discount (expires 28th September)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 25, 2006, 02:08 PM »

It's from the UK and it comes in a DVD case with some documentation.

5313

Living Room / Xara X1 Massive discount (expires 28th September)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 25, 2006, 12:47 PM »

http://www.xara.com/offers/xarax1/

XaraX1 reduced to $19 (US) from its oringinal price of $179 !!

The first 500 orders get the CD version and after that the download version.

If you fancy a really cool app for illustration, animation and photo editing now is the time to grab a copy - at $19 you can't lose!

PS The current version is Xara Xtreme, X1 was the previous version - but it was an excellent app and the upgrade price if you later want to move up to Xtreme is only $39 - see my banner below for upgrades)

5314

General Software Discussion / Re: idea for donation coder CD

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 24, 2006, 10:11 AM »

Hum, well this has come so far around the houses from my original idea ive kinda lost intrest in it now.

I just wanted a disc to carry around that had all the tools necessary to make a virgin PC usefull, plus diagnostic stuff  "A swiss army knife", hence the reason it being an .ISO

I have to do one anyhow cos ive a new job starting next month, so when mines complete ill get post it to show the inner workings of my head.  The donation coder relevence for me was more a branding excersise, you know like when pharmaceuticals put there names on pens.

Anyhow, you show me yours and ill show you mine

-mukestar (September 23, 2006, 11:53 AM)

Have you tried BartPE which is a bootable ISO disc with diagnostic tools. There are also lots of plugins you can add to the CDROM to customise it to your needs.

See:

http://www.bartpe.org/

and

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

5315

General Software Discussion / Re: Best jukebox that is NOT iTunes?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 23, 2006, 11:19 AM »

dbpoweramp is still out there but I don't like the MP3 player interface (couldn't get it to work with my Zen Micro at all)

5316

Living Room / Re: Interesting Links

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 23, 2006, 11:15 AM »

that Teddy looks amazing. what are the Alice and Squirrel links you mention, Carol?

-nudone (September 20, 2006, 06:00 AM)

SmoothTeddy is downloadable here http://www-ui.is.s.u...oothteddy/index.html (which includes colouring as well as the drawing stuff)

Alice is linked on the page there too http://www.alice.org/

Squirrel is here: http://www-ui.is.s.u.../squirrel/index.html

5317

General Software Discussion / Re: Motherboard Monitor, or Something Else?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 23, 2006, 06:56 AM »

Wow - I see what you mean by the dregs left in the registry - there were dozens of entries left behind ... not good!

5318

General Software Discussion / Re: Motherboard Monitor, or Something Else?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 23, 2006, 06:18 AM »

Quite right it was there ...

5319

General Software Discussion / Re: Best jukebox that is NOT iTunes?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 23, 2006, 05:19 AM »

Creative on the whole is not exactly known for making good software, either smiley

I agree ... but I do think they have improved a bit in recent years. The reason I suggested MediaSource is simply that it is there, free and integrates well with Creative products such as the Zen range of MP3 players and it is easy to create and maintain playlists.

5320

General Software Discussion / Re: Motherboard Monitor, or Something Else?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 23, 2006, 05:14 AM »

SysTool doesn't recognise my mobo

By the way it didn't leave a file in System32 on my uninstall - did you still have it running in your system tray when you ran the uninstaller?

5321

General Software Discussion / Re: Best jukebox that is NOT iTunes?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 23, 2006, 03:25 AM »

If you use a Creative Zen why not use Creative MediaSource player which comes on the Zen disc and also allows you to sync up with the Zen seamlessly.

The only reason I have iTunes on my system is because I have some protected iTunes store music and Audible audio books otherwise it would be off my system. It is a total resource hog (version 6) frequently bringing the system to a complete standstill - and from what I have read version 7 is even worse.

5322

General Software Discussion / Re: Motherboard Monitor, or Something Else?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 22, 2006, 07:40 AM »

I second SpeedFan ... not you don't have to use it to automatically control fan speeds but you can if you want and it works great. It is particularly easy to set up now they have started building a database of configurations for motherboards.

5323

Living Room / Re: hard drive resurrection [I'm desperate!]

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 22, 2006, 04:31 AM »

Don't forget Iomega Automatic Backup Pro which you can download for free.

Direct download link here

It does imaging and file backups and has an ISO recovery disc image.

File backup is quite good and can run in th background. It includes file versioning too !

There is a Flash video tutorial at http://download.iome...tutorials/index.html

5324

Living Room / Warner Bros. come up with a single Blu-Ray, HD-DVD and DVD compatible format

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 20, 2006, 11:05 AM »

Article at: http://www.vnunet.co...-hd-dvd-blu-ray-same

Basically they have patented a format that can hold both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD on one side of the disc and a standard DVD format on the flip side.

Sounds like a sensible idea to overcome the format wars and to help people know that if the format they support becomes obsolete then their collection isn't ! Plus if people don't want to upgrade no then in the future they will already have the new formats and so don't have to start replacing their library again.

5325

Living Room / Re: raid 0 - lots of fun

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 20, 2006, 08:16 AM »

Well done Samsung ! A good result.