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5601

Living Room / Re: Free Acronis TrueImage for Seagate/Maxtor HDD owners

« Last post by Darwin on May 23, 2007, 11:51 AM »

Just to clarify - my Seagate drive didn't come with any software at all! They've rebranded Acronis TrueImage as Seagate DiskWizard and as Maxtor MaxBlast.

It's not clear from the piece what the author is trying to say here:

We wonder is there some agreement over keeping this cooperation silent, but Seagate missed out the fact that this hack uses Seagate drives.

but I take it to mean that the software either won't run at all or the licence is null and void in the absence of at least one Seagate/Maxtor drive in your setup.

5602

Living Room / Re: Free Acronis TrueImage for Seagate/Maxtor HDD owners

« Last post by Darwin on May 23, 2007, 11:41 AM »

Thanks oBFusC8r - I just took delivery of a Seagate notebook drive, but it didn't come with Acronis TrueImage  I'll investigate further...

5603

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for planning wood bookcases/cabinets/tables etc?

« Last post by Darwin on May 23, 2007, 11:29 AM »

I received a reply about Velverette. It was discontinued "about ten years ago". I've replied asking if Delta has something equivalent in its current product line.

UPDATE: noting equivalent in Delta's product line ("nothing as thick as the Velverette")... I wrote back saying that this is truly unfortunate, blah, blah, blah. Maybe if enough people do the same they'll re-release it! Yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my...

5604

General Software Discussion / Re: musicIP (as a player): wow

« Last post by Darwin on May 23, 2007, 11:13 AM »

Whew! That's a relief - thanks Justice!

5605

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

« Last post by Darwin on May 23, 2007, 10:01 AM »

I don't usually pay for software because there are too many frere/open-source programs that do exactly (and sometimes more) then the commercial alternatives. This comes to mind, mostly with graphic programs and VB.NET components for GUIs (I develop free software).

dhuser

-dhuser (May 23, 2007, 07:27 AM)

Crush's points aside (which I read with interest and can see where he's coming from), dhuser's argument about using freeeware/open source is valid.

Regarding my earlier post and the quote that I made in it, I can even respect, even if I don't agree with, an argument about ripping off Microsoft or Adobe because their stuff is too expensive. However, stating that you rip a company off because their products suck is ridiculous! How many car thieves target rusted and clapped out non-exotic cars?

5606

Living Room / Re: POLL: How many students are active here (instead of writing up?!)

« Last post by Darwin on May 23, 2007, 09:52 AM »

Nice one Grorgy. Sadly, I think the cartoonist has really summed things up in my case 

5607

Living Room / Re: Calling for help - again !

« Last post by Darwin on May 23, 2007, 09:50 AM »

I find the pre-windows environment on installing 2k or XP appalling - important options are hidden off screen, requiring you to have the wit to scroll down to find/select them, and things like partitioning the drive prior to install and selecting the parititon to load windows on is really flaky - most of the time it doesn't work! Basically, you can configure your drive and load your flavour of Windows NT onto any partition that you like, as long as it's C:\. But maybe it's just me...

As for merleone's problem - I don't have an answer. I've learned to live with whatever workarounds I can come up with for problems that I encounter when installing Windows.

5608

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for planning wood bookcases/cabinets/tables etc?

« Last post by Darwin on May 23, 2007, 09:45 AM »

Gorilla glue is very strong - my dad loves it. I've had mixed results with it, when trying to bond hardened plastic, but that's always a pain. It's awesome on things like wooden chairs. I'm trying to think what my dad and I fixed with it (both in the repair sense and in the bonded sense!) a couple of years ago that had us swooning over the stuff... whatever it was, I know it's still "fixed"!

5609

General Software Discussion / Re: musicIP (as a player): wow

« Last post by Darwin on May 23, 2007, 09:33 AM »

BTW - I get a popup message everytime I shut it down but it's up and then gone in the blink of an eye - I can't tell if it's an error message or if it's important. Has anyone managed to read it?!

5610

General Software Discussion / Re: musicIP (as a player): wow

« Last post by Darwin on May 23, 2007, 09:30 AM »

This is a bit picky, but I find getting it to play tracks a bit fussy - sometimes it appears to freeze and won't play my selection... Oops! I'm an idiot - I was trying to play DRM'd iTunes files  

Anyway, sound is nice and I like the layout. I was going to cry "Foul" over urlwolf's assertion that

Memory usage is tiny compared with basically anything else (even virtual memory) : mediamonkey, foobar, even XMplay (!).

But actually running it head to head with XMPlay:

On my machine musicIP Mixer used the following while playing a randomly selected track:

0% CPU, 17,584K RAM, 17,124K VM

Compare this to XMPlay playing the same track:

0-32% CPU, 17,048K RAM, 21,196K VM

In both cases I opened the program and selected the track and played it immmediately (ie neither programme had been running for hours beforehand).

Dang! This is cool because it features all of the extras urlwofl mentions: live search (I agree really quick), album art (don't actually care one way or the other about this), much more intuitive/easy to use playlists, Pandora-esque playlist generating ability, ability to see and export to my mp3 player (haven't tested this aspect yet, thought)...

I like it!

5611

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for planning wood bookcases/cabinets/tables etc?

« Last post by Darwin on May 23, 2007, 09:02 AM »

app - that's just a tease if it's not available anymore! I'm always looking for good, strong glue (with a three year old and a five year old I have a never ending supply of broken things requiring repair) and Velverette sounds like just the thing 

Hmm... found this data sheet from what I believe is the manufacturer (looks like it started out as Solomon's Velverette and was acquired by Delta) - dated late January 2005. Velverette is no longer listed among their products, though, so I've written to them asking for its status.

5612

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by Darwin on May 23, 2007, 08:37 AM »

I'm finding it quite good also.  Sometimes I buy software on a whim, and then weeks later sit down and work out how to use it.  I bought EverNote on the basis of its handwriting recognition and now find I am using it daily more to keep web page contents of some web searching I am doing.

-JeffK (May 23, 2007, 03:11 AM)

Ha ha - Jeff, you've described exactly my experience with software purchases in general and with Evernote in particular, right down to why you bought Evernote (with the only additional "thing" being that I also wanted the OCR feature that recognises words in scanned images and photos making the words searchable as well). It was the gee whiz, neato factor that sucked me in. Then I didn't use if for a long time - now I find it indispensable.

Glad to know that I'm not alone in my software buying habits!

5613

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: PhotoFiltre - excellent raster graphics editing tool

« Last post by Darwin on May 23, 2007, 08:29 AM »

Hi Lanux - I've already heard back from the author. He says he changed the format about two years ago and that files created with version 7.1  or earlier of Studio cannot be opened in later versions.

5614

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: ServicesCtl by OGroeger

« Last post by Darwin on May 23, 2007, 12:43 AM »

This looks really interesting and useful. I usually go through the Start menu - Administrative Tools - Servcies to mess around with services; this will save me a lot of time.

Many thanks!

5615

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: PhotoFiltre - excellent raster graphics editing tool

« Last post by Darwin on May 23, 2007, 12:11 AM »

PS I've written to the author, Lanux. Don't know why, but I had gotten it into my head that you are French!

5616

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: PhotoFiltre - excellent raster graphics editing tool

« Last post by Darwin on May 23, 2007, 12:02 AM »

All right then, I'll drop a line to Antonio and see what he has to say!

5617

General Software Discussion / Re: musicIP (as a player): wow

« Last post by Darwin on May 22, 2007, 11:58 PM »

Thanks for posting the above, justice. musicIP Mixer is just about finished validating my mp3s (I have roughly the same amount as you - about 1800 or so) and am already impressed by the fact that I've been able to play tracks while my collection is being indexed/validated. I'm already impressed, too, by the fact that while indexing AND playing a track, resource utilization is less than, say, WMP or iTunes when either of them are merely playing a track. I'll post back later when I have actually had a chance to play around with it more completely.

5618

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for planning wood bookcases/cabinets/tables etc?

« Last post by Darwin on May 22, 2007, 11:54 PM »

Farmsteader - I think that you are as sharp as a tack and I like your idea!

5619

General Software Discussion / Re: Music player

« Last post by Darwin on May 22, 2007, 11:51 PM »

Yeah... I love XMPlay. Note, though, that urlwolf (who alerted me to XMplay via the thread linked to by lanux) has now found something new: musicIP Mixer. It's *just* about finished checking all of my music files and I'll be able to test its search speed and resource utilisation when playing my favourite files.

5620

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: List of disc catalogers

« Last post by Darwin on May 22, 2007, 11:49 PM »

That shouldn't be a problem - contact them anyway and let them know that you're using the GOTD version and that you *might* be motivated to purchase a licence if x,y, and z are implemented/fixed. I suspect that the rationale most authors use in offering their apps on GOTD is to get feedback anyway, so I am sure whatever suggestions you have would be welcome. Who knows, you might even get a discount on a full licence (I know that at least one vendor that offered apps on GOTD has done this).

Good luck!

5621

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

« Last post by Darwin on May 22, 2007, 06:25 PM »

Oh cripes... here we go again! Suffice it to say, I don't see a dislike for MS business model to be suffiicent excuse for continuing to use their products without paying for them. WTF? One poster goes on about how he relishes in pirating their stuff because he doesn't like their attitude, which he summarizes as:

I do NOT pay for Microsoft products and a quick poll shows that neither do my friends or family. Should Baller resign and the company policy does a reversal from "*uck the user, who cares if it works" to one of sincere quality and user accommodation, I will reconsider my pirating ways.

If the software is so bad, why are you using it, pirated or otherwise?! Post hoc rationalizing if you ask me... oh, you didn't? Too bad...

5622

General Software Discussion / Re: Increasing Notebook PC Volume

« Last post by Darwin on May 22, 2007, 05:18 PM »

Now this sounds like a great idea. I'm in the same boat with the speakers on my notebook - useless (and yet, like you Kruskal, I always have them at full volume with no distortion that I can detect)...

5623

General Software Discussion / Re: musicIP (as a player): wow

« Last post by Darwin on May 22, 2007, 05:14 PM »

musicIP sounds seriously nice (as opposed to merely tentatively nice...) and I'm off to download it now. Thanks for alerting me to it, urlwolf!

5624

General Software Discussion / Re: PC Diagnotic Software?

« Last post by Darwin on May 22, 2007, 05:08 PM »

Thanks for the comments, Tekszel. I've tried out Startdelay in the past (discovered it right here at donationcoder courtesy of a post by Carol) and probably wasn't patient enough to figure out how to organise things. WinPatrol 2007 actually features similar funcitonality now, though it's just been implemented and has a way to go before being as powerful as Startdelay. It didn't really help because Windows itself was taking so long to load. That trouble seems gone now and as I only boot my computer once in a blue moon I'm not that concerned about tweaking things further (but if I see 12 minute boot times again I'll be concerned!).

As noted above, I'm using ZoneAlarm Pro (current version) - or rather I have it installed but no longer run it - and don't intend to renew my subscription at this stage. It's a resource HOG and in future when I want to be away from the security of my home network (which doesn't actually happen that often) I think I'll either continue to use whatever version of ZoneAlarm Pro I wind up with at the end of my current subscription or a freebie like GhostWall or Comodo.

5625

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by Darwin on May 22, 2007, 04:40 PM »

Thanks Aram, that helps. I'll pass for now - I'm trying to cut down on the software that I have installed AND on my software purchases. Fortunately, Surfulater is reasonably priced to begin with, so if I decide that I need it in the future I won't be regretting not jumping at it today.