Recent Posts

5526

General Software Discussion / Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com

« Last post by Darwin on May 29, 2007, 11:32 AM »

Nice pointers, Carol - thanks! It took me over a year to post about it because I was that embarrassed. C'est la vie...

I thought $99.95 was excessive - outrageous, actually. $199 is just plain obscene. I had a full membership for one year and didn't really use it very much. I tried quite hard to get my money's worth, but succeeded only in so far as it was a lesson learned. Their service isn't that bad, actually, just not overly suited to academic research. Quite valuable as a repository of newspaper and magazine articles. My main complaint was that the emphasis is on text rather than graphics, so many interesting articles would be missing the illustrations and tables.

Overall, I just had a bitter taste in my mouth over the money, which was at least 50% my fault anyway.

5527

Living Room / Re: When you make your 100'th Post

« Last post by Darwin on May 29, 2007, 10:46 AM »

Thanks guys! I'm looking forward to your 1000th, Ken and Lanux' 1500th (and many more from both of you beyond those landmarks!).

5528

General Software Discussion / Re: Q: Preferences backup for installed applications?

« Last post by Darwin on May 29, 2007, 10:43 AM »

I'll try get some screenshots together to clarify this - hopefully later on today. In the meantime, check out mouser's Pro-user Backup Guide. It covers a lot of this territory.

5529

Living Room / Re: Why don't you pay for software?

« Last post by Darwin on May 29, 2007, 10:39 AM »

Excellent advice wraith808! Approaching the developer to request a demo is preferable to pirating their product. I've been down each of the four paths that you suggest since I gave up running pirated versions, I can tell you that following your advice *feels* a LOT better than running a crack/hack/bogus serial. Another insight that comes from experience. Thank you for sharing it.

5530

General Software Discussion / Re: Q: Preferences backup for installed applications?

« Last post by Darwin on May 29, 2007, 09:24 AM »

Ah... there's the rub! Actually, TrueImage will allow you to do two things that are very helpful in this regard: it compresses the backup and it allows you to make incremental backups. So once you've backed everything up, you just have it save the changes made since the backup. I've never played with the compression level - just have it set to default, but could compress it more via options - and have a 32GB partition for Windows and Program Files. It is backed up into about five files at the moment that total about 21GB on the USB drive. What I tend to do is this:

The first backup is a base windows install with all drivers and True Image installed. Then I make another (incremental) backup that has my basic needs installed (Office, DOpus and anything that that requires activation). I follow this up with another incremental backup once everything is installed and continue to make backups periodically after that. Incremental backups reflect software uninstallations in addition to installations, so the size varies from 8 or 9 GB to as little as a couple of hundred MB's. When space gets tight, I delete the incremental backups back to the Office install or some other point (i.e. I delete everything but at minimum keep the first two backups - they're named sequentially, by default, My Backup1, My Backup2, and Acronis allows you to make detailed notes that are attached to the file as well, so it's easy to be precise about this) and then do an incremental backup. This works because I have just about all my user settings on my other partition (My Documents for a start, but I also have my favorites, Outlook pst files, etc. redirected to E: as well) so I can restore right back to my second backup and not lose anything important.

OK rambling post  but I hope you get the gist?!

5531

Living Room / Re: Why don't you pay for software?

« Last post by Darwin on May 29, 2007, 09:06 AM »

When I did this in the past, it was to unlock those parts of a shareware app that were locked in a trial. I justified this in my mind because I was being asked to accept on faith that the features would work without being able to "try before I buy". I'd give the features a shot and then either buy or uninstall. I usually spent a lot more time finding the crack/hack/serial than I did trialling the feature(s)! In doing so, I exposed myself to all sorts of potential dangers - adware, spyware, malware, viruses - I don't have any desire to revisit those days.

Like you, iphigenie, I tend to look elsewhere when faced with a program without a trial. Part of becoming more "discerning" as I note above, is the realisation that there really are very, very few apps out there that are unique to the point that there isn't at leas one alternative. Thus I no longer feel any sense of urgency when faced with a tantalising app that I can't trial. For one thing, I can just peruse the forums at donationcoder and usually find postings about five or six alternatives, usually with detailed comments if not a mini-review. If an alternative isn't already mentioned here, I can just post and receive a range of suggestions!

5532

General Software Discussion / Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com

« Last post by Darwin on May 29, 2007, 08:46 AM »

Reading this thread has brought back some bad memories with a silver lining - a lesson learned. I got burned in a similar manner - for a lot more money - by HighBeam research. I was googling for some info relating to my PhD research project and found it at Highbeam. In order to read the article I was encouraged to purchase a full membership or to sign up for a free 7 day trial. I opted for the trial. Part of the sign up process required supplying credit card information, which really should have clued me in, but didn't. Because I use Roboform, this happened automatically and I clicked right through the "Roboform has filled in sensitive information" warning because the sign up blurb gave me some (now forgotten) spiel about why they needed this information to process my trial. I used the service the one time and promptly forgot about it. I guess this occurred right at the end of my credit card's billing cycle because I signed up on March 19 and the trial ended March 26. I wrote to them on April 1 querying the $120 Cdn. charge to my credit card:

I have just noted a $120 Cdn. charge on my credit card from Highbeam
Research. Apparently, my trial period ended five days ago and has been
converted into a full membership account. I received no warning of the
trial period coming to an end and was thus afforded no opportunity to
cancel the membership before it's conversion to a paid account. I also
received no receipt from HighBeam Research, nor an e-mail advising me
that my credit card had been charged.

Their response indicated that I had agreed to the trial reverting to full, paid membership if not cancelled within 7 days by agreeing to the TOS. NB that at no point were the fees stated during the sign up process (One result of this experience is that I now check the price of services and software before signing up for trials!). They would not budge and I didn't pursue the matter as I felt like a real idiot! I received a receipt a week later. Anyway, I took this as a hard lesson well learned about being careful when signing up for ANYTHING on the internet.

Reading this thread this morning prompted me to go take a look at the HighBeam TOS and I note that there is a prominent note about this at the top of the page (the pertinent clause is 2.5). They have the end user agree to the TOS by filling in a radio button indicating that they have read it - it's hyperlinked to the right of the radio button. I am sure that they are operating within the letter of the law, however, I feel that it is shady to offer a trial without EXPLICITLY stating during the sign-up process that the end user has effectively purchased a fully paid membership with a 7 day opt out option.

Again, my fault for agreeing to the TOS without bothering to read it Needless to say, I no longer agree to anything without at least scanning the TOS for pitfalls like this!

5533

Living Room / Re: When you make your 100'th Post

« Last post by Darwin on May 29, 2007, 06:51 AM »

Thanks Lanux 

5534

Living Room / Re: Sony's special screw will make your everyday screws blush in shame!

« Last post by Darwin on May 29, 2007, 06:49 AM »

That price is excluding VAT! What's VAT in Finland?

5535

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Super Flexible File Synchronizer Mini-Review

« Last post by Darwin on May 29, 2007, 06:45 AM »

Sounds exactly like my situation - I'm using Beyond Compare for most file comparisons as well.

5536

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a way to see all active programs in ALT-TAB cycle

« Last post by Darwin on May 29, 2007, 06:42 AM »

Or you could just use ctrl-shift-esc, which is the default shortcut to bring up Task Manager under Windows (2k and both flavours of XP anyway...).

5537

Best Website Change Monitoring Tool / Re: I stopped using WebSiteWatcher and started using OpenKapow

« Last post by Darwin on May 29, 2007, 06:41 AM »

Last comment was "But an optional word-by-word comparison is planned for a higher version." but the developper seems concerned with performance. To my knowledge, this still remains to be implemented. WebSite Watcher may be "one of the most respected apps in this category", it still does not perfom word-to-word comparison, unlike other software.

Interesting. I guess I've come to take this for granted with Check&Get!

5538

Living Room / Re: When you make your 100'th Post

« Last post by Darwin on May 28, 2007, 09:27 PM »

This is my 1001st post. Here's a screencap of post number 1000:

5539

General Software Discussion / Re: Q: Preferences backup for installed applications?

« Last post by Darwin on May 28, 2007, 09:20 PM »

Yeah, I'm with Grorgy on this one - it all makes sense and is impressive, but beyond my abilities to maintain anything that organised!

FWIW, I have two partitions C: gets Windows and all of my programs and E: gets everything else. I backup E: to a USB drive using synchronizing software (used to use DOpus' built in feature, now use Super Flexible File Synchronizer (thanks Zaine!) and backup C:\ about once a week using Acronis TrueImage 9.1 for Workstations. This has served me well so far... (knock on wood!).

5540

Best Website Change Monitoring Tool / Re: I stopped using WebSiteWatcher and started using OpenKapow

« Last post by Darwin on May 28, 2007, 08:17 PM »

PS Website Watcher's developer is quite active here and is very approachable - perhaps you should/could raise this issue with him?

5541

Best Website Change Monitoring Tool / Re: I stopped using WebSiteWatcher and started using OpenKapow

« Last post by Darwin on May 28, 2007, 08:14 PM »

I do not like the fact that even if just 1 word changes, the whole paragraph gets highlighted

I've never used Website Watcher, but is it not possible to change this behaviour via an optional setting?  I ask because I use Check&Get 3 (love it) and when a word changes, only the changed word is highlighted. Website Watcher is one of the most respected apps in this category (and won an award in an early Donationcoder review), so I'd be surprised if it was this ham fisted in its approach to this...

Just my 

5542

General Software Discussion / Re: Increasing Notebook PC Volume

« Last post by Darwin on May 28, 2007, 07:26 PM »

!Thanks Mooseman, I'll take a look!

5543

Living Room / Re: Why don't you pay for software?

« Last post by Darwin on May 28, 2007, 07:26 PM »

I will, however, admit to "pirating" some programs before buying, just to see if they are as good as claimed.  Most of these I have rejected, uninstalled and never purchased.  Those that I decide are worth the money, I keep and purchase.  Of course, if a good discount can be found on software that I like, I am greatly pleased.

I must confess to having done this in the past myself. I no longer do this as I've become somewhat (in my own mind?) more discerning about software and how to make use of a trial. I suppose I might be tempted to do this with an app that doesn't have a trial and for which there is no clear policy about a money back guarantee. Like you Dave, if I did this and liked the software, I'd buy a licence otherwise I'd uninstall and move on. Haven't faced that situation, yet, though.

5544

Living Room / Re: My Generation ...

« Last post by Darwin on May 28, 2007, 07:22 PM »

I heard the single on the CBC a month or so ago and was impressed! Quite good for a group of people well over 70 years old (if I recall correctly, the lead singer is something like 97!).

5545

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Mini-Review: Wubi - Painless, partion-free WindowsXP/Ubuntu dual booting

« Last post by Darwin on May 28, 2007, 07:20 PM »

Sweet! I'm posting this from my Ubuntu install! I would have been on here quite a bit earlier but for the fact that I coudn't remember my log-in details for donationcoder 

Anyway, one thing I really appreciate about the WUBI installation is that it defaults to your largest partition (or so I suspect as it installed to my My Documents partition, which had 37 GB free versus my Windows partition, which has 8 GB free) so it's painless.

Thanks again Carl!

5546

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Mini-Review: Wubi - Painless, partion-free WindowsXP/Ubuntu dual booting

« Last post by Darwin on May 28, 2007, 06:19 PM »

It's beyond my abilities to even try, so good luck.

Forget ability - it's beyond my comprehension! I'm 1m 15s away from the Ubuntu download finishing, so no worries!

5547

Living Room / Re: Why don't you pay for software?

« Last post by Darwin on May 28, 2007, 05:34 PM »

The question was "Why don't you pay for software?"

That question in and of itself doesn't imply that one uses pirated software.

I interpreted that question to mean "Why would you use freeware? And why would you choose not to support the software you use?"

-app103 (May 26, 2007, 04:40 PM)

This is a valid point. However, check out the quote from the introduction to the original discussion at Download Squad:

This is a post for the crack 'torrenters, the chronic non-donators and the I'll-stick-with-the- free - alternative'ers in the crowd: we want to hear your thoughts on why you don't pay for software.

It seems that the intent of the original thread, at least in part, was to address the issue of people using either donationware or shareware apps ("crack 'torrenters") without actually paying for them. So, piracy was included in the scope of the original discussion.

I agree, though, that we got into a bit of a rut and have focused almost exclusively on piracy. The use of donationware, e-mail-ware, postcardware, or other types of software that use alternative forms of licensing without actually honouring the end-user's part of the bargain (donation, postcard, etc.) seems to be a major problem as well. I mean, given that most software is downloaded now, how difficult is it to write an e-mail to thank a developer for their time and effort and for making the result of that time and effort available to you for download? Not saying I'm saying I'm perfect... In fact, thank you for making me think about this as I've a bunch of e-mail/postcards to write!

5548

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Super Flexible File Synchronizer Mini-Review

« Last post by Darwin on May 28, 2007, 04:31 PM »

WOW! The more I use Super Flexible File Synchronizer the more deeply I fall in love with it. It's so feature rich, so well though out and laid out, so FAST, and so easy to use -what's not to like? I particularly like the almost infinite degree to which you can customize saved jobs. I know that this is possible in other synching programmes (I have several of them!) but SFFS is set apart by its ease of use. Did I mention how FAST it is?

5549

Word Processor Roundup / Re: Missing in Part 2...

« Last post by Darwin on May 28, 2007, 03:50 PM »

Has part 2 of the roundup been posted? I've looked and still see part 1 available only... I'm eagerly awaiting the next two installments! Go Zaine, go!

5550

General Software Discussion / Re: A Utility to Tell Me What is Stealing Focus!!

« Last post by Darwin on May 28, 2007, 03:41 PM »

Install TweakUI for windows XP. There is an option which disables applications from stealing focus. This might solve your whole issue. I'm on vista just now so unfortunately I cannot make a screenshot.

-justice (May 28, 2007, 03:09 AM)

Just a caveat, though (with a caveat of its own: this *could* just be a conflict on my system), in that I find that this setting gets "undone" often. That is, I'll set it and it will work for a time and then programmes will start to steal focus again so I'll have to re-set it. Kind of a PIA. I haven't checked this, but I think that it's getting reset on every reboot.

FWIW, I'm runnning WinXP Pro Sp-2 fully patched and am using TweakUIXP...