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5376

Living Room / Re: Chat with God online!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 04, 2006, 04:49 AM »

LOL - sounds like most churches I have visited

5377

Living Room / Re: Is 'No' a complete sentence?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 03, 2006, 03:52 PM »

By that argument almost any exclamation can form a sentence - including non-words such as ARGHHHH !

Exclamations (including "No!") are contractions used in common speech.

The main thing is that sentences are a written construction. Speech rarely follows lterary convention being used in a much less structured and more flexible ungrammatical way.

Most examples of the use of "No!" are in the context of speech. It would rarely appear as a sentence in writing without speech associations or some for of qualification.

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Living Room / Re: Is 'No' a complete sentence?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 03, 2006, 02:55 PM »

Actually, no can be a transitive verb as well as an intransitive verb.

-KenR (September 03, 2006, 12:15 PM)

True - but I don't think in the context of a one word sentence. As a verb it is used to describe actions.

Here is the OED again (the definitive work on the English language - OK I know it doesn't apply to American's 'cos they don't really speak English )

no, v.

[< NO adv.2 Cf. earlier NAY v.]

    1. intr. To say no (to a person), to refuse approval.
1820 Blackwood's Mag. 8 271 Yes-ing and No-ing to the great man's will. c1843 W. L. REDE Our Village I. ii. 20 The more we keep on imploring, the more she keeps no, no, no-ing. 2001 N. WEINSTOCK As Long as she needs Me 140 There were days, entire years of his life, spent yessing and noing on the phone.

    2. trans. To answer (a person) with no, to reject (a person).
1835 Court Mag. 6 168/1 It is of the utmost importance..that you should No the world. 1965 D. IRELAND Chantic Bird vii 69 The ordinary bloke only gets these ideas when his woman Noes him.

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Living Room / Re: Is 'No' a complete sentence?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 03, 2006, 11:32 AM »

To quote the Oxford English Dictionary:

6 a. A series of words in connected speech or writing, forming the grammatically complete expression of a single thought; in popular use often (= PERIOD n. 10), such a portion of a composition or utterance as extends from one full stop to another. In Grammar, the verbal expression of a proposition, question, command, or request, containing normally a subject and a predicate (though either of these may be omitted by ellipsis).

from www.oed.com

There are actually 9 full sections on sentences but this is the one that seems to get to the heart of what a sentence is.

On this basis "No!" seems an unlikely candidate for a sentence.

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Living Room / Re: Is 'No' a complete sentence?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 03, 2006, 11:14 AM »

Interesting discussion on whether or not 'No' is a complete sentence.

-app103 (September 03, 2006, 11:04 AM)

LOL .... Too much time on your hands April !!

Actually "Go!" isn't a complete sentence either because it could mean "Go away", "I go", "You go", "We go" or "They go" which are distinct different meanings - and a further part of the thought is required "I go to work." etc.

I would say both No! and Go! are exclamations which only have meaning in context.

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Living Room / Re: Mouse driver

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 02, 2006, 10:32 AM »

Try uninstalling the drivers for the mouse and start again (go in to CP > System > Device Manager and then right click and uninstall the mouse) with fresh drivers.

Maybe first check Add/Remove programs for any mouse related software and uninstall it too.

(Make sure you have a mouse with a chord though to use while your wireless mouse is on holiday!)

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Living Room / Re: The Great Firewall Hunt ... frustrating ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 01, 2006, 12:59 PM »

I am now using Outpost fully again - and seem to have lost the crashes.

Can't say I am looking forward to version 4 being released if the version 3 debacle is repeated. I wonder if they will make the upgrade optional to allow the inevitable wrinkles to be ironed out?

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Living Room / Re: Article: How Much System Memory Is Really Enough?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 01, 2006, 09:40 AM »

Swap will, unfortunately, be necessary a long time yet, as long as we have sloppy coders like the ones at Adobe.

Bit harsh - one of the reasons for high memory usage is the use of many layers in processing files as well as the use of snapshots which means you store multiple copies of files (I don't mean the history palette there either - I mean snapshots which are user made intermediate images). History could be made more efficient by storing instruction sequences rather than intermediate images but then each step would have to be undoable in software and so would need a lot more code - plus it would be slower.

It isn't uncommon for me to have 10-15Mb images - once you start adding extra layers and multiple undoable changes the amount of memory escalates.

By the way Adobe Photoshop doesn't seem to use a lot of Pagefile space since it uses its own scratchfile system.

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Living Room / Re: Article: How Much System Memory Is Really Enough?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 31, 2006, 08:17 PM »

Strange conclusions (or results) in the article. It may happen but I can't really see how adding memory makes things run more slowly - there may be something screwy with his mobo or BIOS settings. Also if you want 2Gb why not have 2 x 1Gb modules rather than 4 x 512Mb modules (which would be more expensive) ???

Surely the point is that having more memory doesn't necessarily make things faster (though for some apps such as Photoshop it will) but that it also allows you to have numerous large apps loaded simultaneously without resorting to pagefile swapping ??

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Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Bryce 5 Free Till Sept. 6th

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 31, 2006, 11:38 AM »

Not sure - haven't had time to properly get into it all yet.

I do find the website very confusing too!

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Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Bryce 5 Free Till Sept. 6th

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 31, 2006, 09:08 AM »

Actually it is worth the $19.95 to buy the upgrade to the full version 5.5 !

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 31, 2006, 09:06 AM »

Perry I'm not sure what you are referring to (as the thread has diverged somewhat).

Your link seems to point to software that combines bitmap and pixel in one package - but that really isn't what LitghtRoom is about - it is about a professional workflow solution for RAW file processing and building catalogues of images. (Well at least they are the primary aims but there are others too).

I presume when LightRoom goes to a full release version with will integrate with Adobe Design CS3 products.

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 28, 2006, 12:27 PM »

Acorn Computers solved these problems years ago - the RiscOS operating system stored all related stuff for an app in a single special folder (say !Painter for the Painter program - the ! indicating it was an application folder). Double clicking the folder loaded the application and installation was as simple as copying the application folder to your hard disc. Installing plugins or extra setting just meant copying stuff into the folder. When an app started a text file (!Boot) in the folder was executed to start the app (a bit like a DOS batch file) which ensured required modules were installed (equivalent of DLLs) with a simple cammand such as:

RMLOAD 230 Modulename

where 230 is the version required and the modulename is a given module stored in the app folder. If a version of Module name is already loaded in memory the version numbers are compared and if it is older the memory version is replaced, if it is newer it is used without reloading.

It was a very quick and easy way to install programs. To uninstall you just delete the app folder.

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Living Room / Re: Apple back down and cough up to Creative ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 25, 2006, 03:33 PM »

No Creative sued Apple who then tried to counter-sue Creative claiming the patents should have been theres (or something equally daft).

Given the history of Apple lawsuits against competitors on 'look-n-feel' issues in the past I think it is refreshing that they finally got stung basically on the same issue.

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Living Room / Apple back down and cough up to Creative ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 24, 2006, 03:30 PM »

Creative's case against Apple's infringement of patents in iPod design has resulted in Apple backing down and coughing up $100,000,000 to Creative.

Personally I think it wasn't a bad deal for Apple (given the profits the iPod has amassed) but it was good to see them get a bit of their own medicine

Here is the BBC version of the story: http://news.bbc.co.u...business/5280736.stm

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Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Bryce 5 Free Till Sept. 6th

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 24, 2006, 03:13 PM »

Nice find - plus you can upgrade to the full version of Bryce 5.5 for $19.99 !! And then presumably upgrade to version 6 which is on its way.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Photo panorama creation

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 23, 2006, 04:06 AM »

Thanks Tony - yes I have already requested a review copy.

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Living Room / Re: New DVD Rewinding Service

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 23, 2006, 04:05 AM »

Excuse my ignorance but what does it do?

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General Software Discussion / Re: Photo panorama creation

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 23, 2006, 03:52 AM »

Thanks for the suggestions I have emailed ArcSoft - but I think I will look at Panorama Maker only as Scan-n-stitch is not really designed for panorama making (though it may do that).

Sorry guys I haven't forgotten about this but I have been away and am snowed under with work (and vistors) at the moment as well as a few other commitments. It will get done (honest) it is just taking a while to get to it.

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 22, 2006, 08:27 AM »

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

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 21, 2006, 03:06 PM »

I have just discovered "Iomega Automatic Backup Pro" which is actually a free download from the Iomega website. You have to register with the site to download it.

Basically you can set it up to backup a set of files/folders you choose. Initially it backs up the complete set once and then does incremental backups according to a schedule or manually. One of the schedules is 'as files change' so effectively it backs up a file everytime it changes content (if that is what you want) and allows versioning of files. By default it saves 5 versions of files before it discards the oldest backup but you can set that from 1 version to inifinite versions.

You can also set it to backup multiple sets to different locations and with different schedules.

For a freebie it seems pretty neat - and transparent in use.

The only things lacking are compression and the ability to backup files locked by other processes - but for normal 'My Documents' type data files it works really well and worth giving a whirl.


I have also just got a new Seagate external USB drive (the the one press backup button). This seems to work quite neatly and can be scheduled. The Pro version o the software (a $39 upgrade after a $10 discount when you register the express version supplied) allows versioning. But again there is no compression of data. Having said that a single press button is a neat way to backup (one is running as I type) with the option of 'verify' and 'shutdown when finished' it is quite neat - and the drive appears well built (it is a 400Gb Barracuda ATA with 16Mb cache - it comes in USB 2 format and also a combi USB2/Firewire version and comes supplied with BounceBack*** Express backup software and a set of Seagate tools for setting up and maintaining hard drives - the drives come preformatted and ready to use in FAT32 with a DC power adapter including leads for US and UK sockets. I only bought one because I was looking for an offline backup solution that didn't involve burning DVDs too often and Maplin, the UK equivalent of Tandy, had then on very reduced special offer - much cheaper than a bare OEM Barracuda drive! So far I am impressed).

*** See my followup below about BounceBack - avoid!

5397

Living Room / Re: What A Crowded Solar System We Live In

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 16, 2006, 12:41 PM »

Apparently they have now made a decision that Pluto is indeed a planet (the definition used in the end was a body which generates sufficient gravity to evolve into a round shape - sounds like me after a good curry night).

The upshot is that there are likely to between 100 and 200 'planets' listed in the Solar System over the next few years. So we definitely live in a crowded place.

See http://news.bbc.co.u...sci/tech/4798205.stm

5398

Borland C++ Builder Contest / Re: FlashCard Pro

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 15, 2006, 05:37 AM »

Looks interesting but links on the website documentation look incorrecly formed - consequently none of the graphics show, eg. the main graphic on the page with your URL is linked to:

http://www.xhirl.com...lp/images%5Cfull.jpg

but %5C equates to \ whereas it should be /

The webpages work fine in Internet Explorer but not in Firefox - not sure why.

By the way, why not add a download link on the Welcome page?

Here is the page rendered in Firefox:

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Developer's Corner / Re: What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Error Handling

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 14, 2006, 02:31 PM »

quite - I agree with that

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Living Room / Re: CLASSIC: 3d Singing alien

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 14, 2006, 02:11 PM »

Great - especially the ending.