Recent Posts

576

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Tray Management Utilities Mini-Review

« Last post by dr_andus on February 26, 2014, 12:51 PM »

Tedious, but it's the only way to know why its happening.

-wraith808 (February 26, 2014, 09:51 AM)

Thanks for the suggestions. Yes, that does sound tedious. I have some 20 items in the startup folder alone. As long as I don't reboot often, it's not a problem, so if there is no long term damage, using the "Restart Explorer" is currently a more attractive option...

577

Living Room / Dropbox and privacy (or lack of)

« Last post by dr_andus on February 26, 2014, 11:46 AM »

This caught my eye...

Dropbox erects sueball shield with new T&C and privacy legalese • The Register

There are a couple of interesting-looking additions to the policy. Here's one:

    “If you are not a Dropbox for Business user but interact with a Dropbox for Business user (by, for example, joining a shared folder or accessing stuff shared by that user), members of that organization may be able to view the name, email address and IP address that were associated with your account at the time of that interaction.”

That may give you pause before you download something from a Dropbox for Business account.

How would this actually work? I presume that one would need to have the Dropbox app running on the PC or be logged on in a browser for Dropbox to see who exactly had downloaded the given file (?)

Also, is there a way to identify that you're downloading from a Dropbox for Business user, in order to avoid such an interaction? This sounds all too murky to me, and disconcerting...

578

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Tray Management Utilities Mini-Review

« Last post by dr_andus on February 26, 2014, 05:41 AM »

If you have set the tray icons to be displayed by default, and yet some icons are still sometimes not displaying, then this is a recognised Win7 bug, to which a common workaround is to restart Windows Explorer.
You could do that (stop then start Windows Explorer) from the Windows Task Manager, or (better) use a utility called Restart Explorer:

-IainB (December 26, 2013, 10:22 AM)

Thanks, Ian. I use Dopus, so maybe most of the time I'm not even aware that Explorer has crashed. I'll try Restart Explorer and see if things improve.

-dr_andus (December 27, 2013, 04:21 AM)

IainB, thanks once more for bringing "Restart Explorer" to my attention. It's great, it does fix my tray icon problem, and I use it all the time.

Which brings me to the question, why can't MS fix this bug then? Explorer on my system (Win7, 64-bit) seems to crash already during boot-up, pretty much every time. Considering that Explorer seems to be sort of central to Windows, I'm puzzled that this problem is persisting.

Has this been fixed in Win8?

579

General Software Discussion / Re: Book Tracking

« Last post by dr_andus on February 24, 2014, 05:52 PM »

Simple and basic program that can collect data from a stable website like worldcat and keep relevant information at hand.

-nickodemos (February 24, 2014, 09:45 AM)

Check out Zotero, including its Firefox add-on, which allows you to add books from Amazon with one click. There is also a desktop client.

580

General Software Discussion / Re: The Best Security Suites (2013/2014)

« Last post by dr_andus on February 23, 2014, 05:04 PM »

But I also knew each of those machines was properly set-up and updated -  and was "squeaky clean" system-wise before I installed BitDefender so somebody else's mileage could well vary.
 

-40hz (February 13, 2014, 02:46 PM)

A couple of months ago I stopped using AVG 2014 because it just stopped working properly (it just would not carry out some commands, such as scan individual files from the context menu) and I was also miffed about AVG for some other reasons.

I switched to Avast!, which has been running well on my system (Win7, 64-bit, Intel i7, 8GB RAM), but I wasn't too happy about their personal data collection practice (though they are upfront about it). So I tried BitDefender after seeing this thread, but it didn't work out for me. It slowed down my system noticeably, though I don't have any direct evidence to prove how it did so. I presumed that it was running some scans in the background. But even when I suspended the scans that I could find, the system was still slow. Also, at one point the main BitDefender panel disappeared and I lost the controls to the scans etc.

After uninstalling it and re-installing Avast! things seem to be back to normal. So, yes, my mileage varied, though it's a bit of a mystery to me what exactly was going on.

581

Post New Requests Here / Re: For Serious Research: Cadillac of "ClipBoard Managers" vs. "Info/Data Manager"

« Last post by dr_andus on February 23, 2014, 04:52 PM »

In my humble opinion, every paper -- scientific, academic, etc. -- and book I download and add to my Library really deserves to be in my grand personal database as well.

-nkormanik (February 21, 2014, 03:08 AM)

As Tomos had suggested above (after Manfred Kuehn,) there are some benefits to distinguishing between "collected data" and one's own notes. The former are analogous to books that have been purchased and put on the shelf without having been read, and there is also a chance that they may never get read. They are more like bookmarks than notes. The chances are that these unprocessed bookmarks would overwhelm your own notes in terms of sheer volume, making it difficult to make use of your own notes.

I'd recommend a two-tier system. In tier one (a big box), include all the collected data that may become interesting in the future (e.g. PDFs of articles, collected web pages etc.). In tier two (a much smaller box), include only your own notes (such as selected quotes, comments, your own ideas and opinions). The first tier can be any kind of software that can hold that sort of data together (such as UltraRecall, Surfulater, RightNote, MyInfo etc.), and the second tier some kind of a dedicated database that can deploy the Zettelkasten method (index cards in a slip box with one note/quote per index card) and offer sophisticated tools for analysis and synthesis (writing up), such as ConnectedText, Luedecke's Zettelkasten, Piggydb or other desktop wikis and equivalents.

582

N.A.N.Y. 2014 / Re: N.A.N.Y. 2014 Release: Text Inspection & Manipulation Utility

« Last post by dr_andus on February 23, 2014, 04:35 PM »

phitsc, thanks for this great tool. Could "sentence case" be added to the capitalisation options? It seems to be a standard option in word processors like MS Word (to capitalise the first letter of the line/sentence only). Thanks for considering.

583

Post New Requests Here / Re: For Serious Research: Cadillac of "ClipBoard Managers" vs. "Info/Data Manager"

« Last post by dr_andus on February 19, 2014, 09:10 AM »

These are some power articles.

Per these articles, years ago I got fascinated by that kind of high level theory. But if the "Implementation" has a fatal flaw, in real life you lose months of your productive life. (Speaking from experience!)

-TaoPhoenix (February 18, 2014, 08:16 PM)

BTW, it's not necessary to adopt the Luhmann approach in its entirety (I'm not even sure I completely understand it). Instead, I've just adopted some of the basic principles, such as:

- bite-size notes (c. 200 words on ave., 500 words max. per note). One major idea per note.
- no hierarchical organisation (flat alphabetical or chronological list). I keep them in a chronological order.
- make it easy to find the notes by:
-- having descriptive (long) titles, inc. date and time note captured, author's name, year of publication, main topics
-- having categories, labels.

- link related notes together by:
-- using categories and attributes in CT (which create meta-pages, if you click on any of the marked-up terms)
-- using direct (wiki) linking.

The advantages of using CT for this is that there are all kinds of other sophisticated annotation and search tools, plus the software is highly modular, so you can arrange it to suit your idiosyncratic needs. But the above principles can be also adopted for use with a variety of other Zettelkasten or database software that don't require you to define a hierarchical position for your notes upfront.

584

Post New Requests Here / Re: For Serious Research: Cadillac of "ClipBoard Managers" vs. "Info/Data Manager"

« Last post by dr_andus on February 19, 2014, 06:30 AM »

Per these articles, years ago I got fascinated by that kind of high level theory. But if the "Implementation" has a fatal flaw, in real life you lose months of your productive life. (Speaking from experience!)

(Your choice of who) have taken smaller goals and implemented them well. In Data Mgt to me that's huge - do a smaller subset tightly and maybe I can work around my edge case, than get too big and have the whole thing implode.

-TaoPhoenix (February 18, 2014, 08:16 PM)

I really wouldn't want to suggest that the Zettelkasten approach (or desktop wikis) is a magic bullet solution for all kinds of data management problems. If a hierarchical organisation approach works for you, there is no need to abandon that.

My own problem had to do with the organisation, analysis and synthesis of qualitative data for academic research, and the wiki/Zettelkasten solution emerged as a solution to the limitations of traditional academic qualitative data analysis software (so-called QDA or CAQDAS software, such as NVivo, Atlas.ti, QDA Miner etc.).

It took me repeated trials of CT over 2-3 years to figure out how I could use it, and even after that it took another year of resisting the Zettelkasten method until I realised its main benefits. Now I'm kicking myself for not adopting some kind of a similar index-card system at the start of my undergraduate studies. Obviously taking and organising notes is a core academic skill and it probably makes or breaks an academic career especially in the humanities and social sciences.

585

Post New Requests Here / Re: For Serious Research: Cadillac of "ClipBoard Managers" vs. "Info/Data Manager"

« Last post by dr_andus on February 19, 2014, 06:08 AM »

While reading, I was wondering if CT+Zettelkasten was useful for writing too - interesting to note he says this article was the first he wrote in CT.

-tomos (February 18, 2014, 07:04 PM)

It's certainly possible, especially since CT v. 6, as you can have unlimited floating windows of notes open, while doing the writing and editing in the main window. CT also has its own dedicated single-pane outliner, which can be combined with the notes to be used as a dual-pane outliner/viewer of notes.

Occured to me it might be helpful to have notes in one app and write in another. What's your approach there?

-tomos (February 18, 2014, 07:04 PM)

This is probably down to individual taste (and budget). I prefer to use CT as my database of notes (Zettelkasten), displayed in my third monitor on my right, while I do my writing in WriteMonkey in the central monitor. CT does have a full-screen writing mode, but it's not as good as WM's or Scrivener's.

I use CT's outliner mainly as a to-do list to track the writing tasks, but I use a Freeplane mind map for the overall outline of a writing project. The nice thing is that it is easy to link specific CT notes to specific Freeplane mind map/outline items, so clicking on a Freeplane node can bring up a corresponding note with a quote or comment in CT.

586

Post New Requests Here / Re: For Serious Research: Cadillac of "ClipBoard Managers" vs. "Info/Data Manager"

« Last post by dr_andus on February 16, 2014, 05:11 PM »

Looks like an interesting system, especially for complex issues, scientific books, and journal articles. Could you recommend some readings on the topic?

-Attronarch (February 16, 2014, 03:59 PM)

It was this article by Manfred Kuehn that got me started: Some Idiosyncratic Reflections on Note-Taking in General
and ConnectedText in Particular

He blogs frequently about Zettelkasten.

Christian Tietze's blog posts on the matter are also helpful.

And here is the original Luhmann article: Communicating with Slip Boxes: An Empirical Account

587

Post New Requests Here / Re: For Serious Research: Cadillac of "ClipBoard Managers" vs. "Info/Data Manager"

« Last post by dr_andus on February 16, 2014, 04:13 AM »

Tomos is probably right in that it also depends on the nature of the data being organised. The tree-like hierarchy clearly works for TaoPhoenix and many other people, otherwise hierarchical software like UltraRecall, RightNote, MyInfo etc. wouldn't be around.

The scenarios I'm talking about have to do with organising a large number of small chunks of text (with occasional images or links to other files and websites), such as a database of quotes and reading notes that one collects over a lifetime. In that situation it is not all that useful to organise these items into trees at the time of collecting or creating them because they are being gathered for later consumption, where they may be re-used for different purposes. It would be more important to label/categorise them, so that they would turn up in relevant searches.

The method I'm using is called the Zettelkasten (slip box) method, developed initially by a sociologist called Niklas Luhmann. If you do a search for it, you can find sites that explain it.

One category of software to implement this system are personal/desktop wikis. I use ConnectedText, but as I said, it's got a steep learning curve, it took me several tries over several years to finally start using it. Zim is another one.

There are some cross-over software that try to combine the tree with a wiki. E.g. Wikidpad, Whizfolders, or Outwiker.

There is also Luedecke's Zettelkasten software.

Piggydb is another interesting approach.

Is this sort of program beyond what we might hope for on donationcoder.com?

Not necessarily. There are some very simple implementations of the Zettelkasten out there, such as using nvALT on Mac or ResophNotes on Windows. Apparently it's even possible to create a desktop wiki using AutoHotkey.

588

Post New Requests Here / Re: For Serious Research: Cadillac of "ClipBoard Managers" vs. "Info/Data Manager"

« Last post by dr_andus on February 15, 2014, 05:48 AM »

Tomos, would you please share how outlines seem limiting?  Outlines are what I've been thinking of doing.  If there is some other approach I'd love to learn about it.

-nkormanik (February 13, 2014, 09:14 PM)

Outlines (hierarchical tree-based organisation) is fine for relatively small number of items or if it's mostly for long-term static storage.

However, if you want to work with a text database on an on-going basis dynamically (e.g. by constantly analysing, re-organising and synthesising it, such as to write a number of articles, books etc. over a lifetime), then the hierarchical tree can become an obstacle to developing new understandings of the material. E.g. it requires you to decide up-front how many hierarchies up or down an item should reside, which later may prevent you from seeing connections between that item and another related item at some other deep location in the tree at a faraway branch. One benefit of personal wikis is that they allow you to link items directly in a number of different ways, and they also tend to discourage you from organising your material hierarchically as a tree.

Another way to think about tree-like organisation is that an item e.g. at level 7 in a hierarchy is actually in a box within 6 other boxes. If you were to do this with paper and real boxes, it would be a real pain to locate such material and relate it to other similar material. Of course in a computer we also have labels and categories these days, as well as search, but even then a hierarchical system trains you to think in a particular way that may not always be the most fruitful for creating new knowledge.

P.S. Outlines are very useful for organising the output (writing up an article), but not necessarily for organising hundreds or thousands of text items.

589

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: New program: FileSearchy - Quick file search utility (freeware)

« Last post by dr_andus on February 11, 2014, 05:25 PM »

Search by a number of matches is not hard to implement, but i don't see a use case that shows when it is needed.

-Cashper (February 11, 2014, 04:27 PM)

To me that is an important basic measure of relevance. The more a search term occurs in a document (especially with some Boolean operator), the more likely that it is relevant. In some applications search results are automatically ranked in such a way, and in most cases the top-ranked search results do turn out to be more relevant ones. Obviously one needs to pick the search terms strategically (I mostly know what the search terms are that are likely to return the results I'm looking for in my collection of documents).

590

Post New Requests Here / Re: For Serious Research: Cadillac of "ClipBoard Managers" vs. "Info/Data Manager"

« Last post by dr_andus on February 11, 2014, 12:20 PM »

Skwire has built into Clipboard Trap the option of using a customizable 'delimiter', which separates snippets of text.  For that delimiter I use "=====" plus linefeeds above and below.  The delimiter could be used to automatically break apart the snippets when, say, importing the text files into a data management program.

Skwire, do you know of a program, or have you already written one, that can import delimited Clipboard Trap text files?  What would you suggest?

-nkormanik (February 10, 2014, 08:44 PM)

ConnectedText, which is a desktop wiki, has such an import function (it calls the 'delimiter' a 'separator'). It also has its own "clipboard catcher", so it can paste text directly into an open "topic" (CT document).

Advantages of CT are that it's a non-hierarchical system and it has a variety of annotating/categorising features and powerful search options, so it's suitable database for a very large number of topics (tens of thousands), which might be challenging to manage in a traditional hierarchical tree-based folder structure.

The main downside is that there is a fairly steep learning curve associated with it (unless one already knows about wiki markup and has an engineer's or programmer's type of mind - as opposed to being a 'poet' ).

591

General Software Discussion / Re: Mind mapping software

« Last post by dr_andus on February 09, 2014, 06:01 PM »

Your definitions, unlike most of what I've found around the net, are spot on in terms of the traditional definitions of mind map and concept map. However IMO they are also outdated and inaccurate, perhaps even irrelevant, in the context of computer modeling.

-Vurbal (February 05, 2014, 08:56 PM)

It seems to me that you're taking the term "mind mapping" a lot more literally than I do. To me it was always just a metaphorical term, I never thought they were for "mapping one's mind." Mind maps and concept maps for me are tools for either analysing and developing ideas or for organising them for further presentation (i.e. outlines). They are for messing with stuff on (virtual) paper, rather than building a representation of my mind.

On a computer you can create an n-dimensional model which is much closer to what's in your head and then view it from whatever perspective you choose.

That sounds to me like a very different use case from just analysing, developing or organising ideas. It sounds more like a scientific project (psychology?) to map what's happening in someone's mind. I'm not entirely convinced that such a thing is possible. It would presume that things are fully formed in the mind, and one just needs to use some kind of a tool to capture them. I suspect that ideas are not fully formed in the mind and they emerge exactly when one starts to interact with tools. So the tool is not just recording what's already there but it takes part in the development of those ideas.

Having said that, one could certainly try to build multi-dimensional models of one's understanding of a feature of reality. I was also looking for such a tool to analyse some of my empirical research data in this forum thread:
http://www.outliners.../0/fast-3d-modelling

592

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: New program: FileSearchy - Quick file search utility (freeware)

« Last post by dr_andus on February 09, 2014, 05:36 PM »

Is there a way to rank search results by relevance (e.g. the number of times a search term occurs within a file)?

593

General Software Discussion / Re: CrossLoop – Simple Secure Screen Sharing

« Last post by dr_andus on February 03, 2014, 05:41 PM »

now will have to find another one 

-techidave (February 02, 2014, 09:06 PM)

Having just jumped on the Chromebook bandwagon, I was surprised how well Chrome Remote Desktop works. I've only tried it on the Chromebook, but it's supposed to be cross-platform. Once it's installed on both computers, you don't even need anyone at the other end to type in passwords etc., like it was the case with TeamViewer the last time I used it (admittedly a while ago).

594

General Software Discussion / Re: Group two windows so they get focus together. Possible?

« Last post by dr_andus on February 01, 2014, 06:18 AM »

the program is less than five weeks old!

-Curt (January 30, 2014, 02:45 PM)

TaskSpace could be a really useful software. I was delighted to see that I could dock several of ConnectedText's floating windows and move them around as one.

But yes, it does feel like a beta still. I ran into a number of bugs on a Win7, 64-bit system (although the developer does warn about them). E.g. I couldn't detach Notepad2-mod, once attached. Also, when moved between different monitors (with different resolutions and sizes), the docked windows can get a bit messed up, so need manual rearranging.

I do hope this app will mature soon.

One needs to be pretty careful during installation though not to install all the adware stuff...

595

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: MS Office 2013 US$9.95 Corporate/Enterprise Home Use Program - Mini-Review

« Last post by dr_andus on January 28, 2014, 05:49 PM »

So, you can compare Word v2010 to v2013 in parallel, on the same PC.

-IainB (January 28, 2014, 05:13 PM)

Oh, I didn't realise that. Thanks for clarifying. I thought it would overwrite Office 2010, and so I was worrying about having to uninstall 2013 if I didn't like it and re-install 2010. But if this is the case, then it is really a no-brainer...

It's GBP8.95 in the UK, btw.

But in the end, I'm back to Scrivener.

-wraith808 (January 28, 2014, 05:27 PM)

I wasn't actually looking to replace Scrivener. I do use Scrivener for some special jobs, but it's not my main writing tool. MS Word for me is a post-production tool, for finishing manuscripts, not for writing them.

Otherwise I do my writing in plain text in WriteMonkey. I suppose Gingko is my corkboard of sorts these days (also plain text and markdown).

596

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: MS Office 2013 US$9.95 Corporate/Enterprise Home Use Program - Mini-Review

« Last post by dr_andus on January 28, 2014, 09:22 AM »

My suggestion would be to "jump in and take a swim!", and at less than $10 it is incredibly cheap.
In the world of software, one can often be surprised - once one has overcome one's natural inclination to resist/reject the new/change - to find that actually, the newer does have its benefits and seems to have fewer of the disadvantages of the old.

-IainB (January 28, 2014, 06:40 AM)

Thanks for the encouragement. But my issue is not a fear of the new but a fear of having to spend time and effort uninstalling a massive piece of software (and reinstalling the previous version) that doesn't add much new to the features that I use. That would be more expensive to me than the software. I also have some Add-Ins that may get messed up through such an install/uninstall/reinstall. Even if it was free, I'd think twice about it, considering that I already have Office 2010 and it works fine for my purposes.

Having said that, Hewson's blog posts are encouraging. I was just wondering if there are any other writer-types here or out there who have upgraded from Word 2010 to 2013 and found it a positive experience.

597

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: MS Office 2013 US$9.95 Corporate/Enterprise Home Use Program - Mini-Review

« Last post by dr_andus on January 28, 2014, 04:08 AM »

Still mulling it over whether it's worthwhile for me to upgrade from Word 2010 to 2013 (the other Office software are not that important to me, except maybe OneNote, if there is a big improvement from 2010 to 2013).

But I had come across a few reviews on Word 2013 by David Hewson, which seem to suggest that for writers specifically Word seems to offer some improvements. It sounds like he switched from Scrivener to Word 2013:

Word 2013: any use for writers?

Word 2013 for writers: look and feel

How to map a story with Microsoft Word

Scene planning and navigation in Word

Making OneNote and Word partners in writing

Microsoft Word revision – the best solution yet

598

Living Room / Re: Warning for chrome extension users

« Last post by dr_andus on January 20, 2014, 06:51 AM »

Looks like Google will crack down on these, which makes sense, considering that ChromeOS is a cornerstone of their strategy for world domination (in which I'm willingly participating... )

Google discards extensions that force feed users ads in Chrome | Internet & Media - CNET News

599

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: MS Office 2013 US$9.95 Corporate/Enterprise Home Use Program - Mini-Review

« Last post by dr_andus on January 19, 2014, 06:17 PM »

Well, the value of getting the latest and greatest versions of Microsoft's flagship suite for $9.95 should count for something!

-Innuendo (January 19, 2014, 05:23 PM)

Well, yes, but only if it is really better than Office 2010... It comes down to specific features that I use in Word 2010.

Re 'split' function, here's what this review says:

Microsoft Word 2013 Review & Rating | PCMag.com

Some of the most powerful features that Microsoft built into Word twenty years are still there, but now you have to look for them. For example, Word is the only current word processor that lets you split a document window into two panes so that you can (for example) edit page 1 in the top pane and page 100 in the bottom pane, while your edits in both panes are instantly reflected in the document. Until now, Word's vertical scroll bar had a "split" tool at the top—you simply dragged on that tool to split the window into two panes. Now you have to go to the View tab on the Ribbon and select Split. Only a tiny percentage of users bothered with the split-screen feature, but it seems unfair to penalize them by hiding a useful tool.

Unfortunately I'm part of that tiny percentage... I use it daily, all  the time. So it would be a nuisance if it takes several steps to activate it.

And then this is what another review says:

Office 2013 review | PC Pro

Word 2013 is a strange mix. It remains the most powerful word processor around, and there are a lot of new features in this version. If you have a touchscreen device, it’s your only option. And yet not all of these new features are successful – and some, in fact, are aggravating. Ultimately, if you already run the previous version and don’t have a touchscreen, there isn’t enough here to warrant the outlay.

$9.95 might be a good deal, but not if I have to uninstall it afterwards and reinstall 2010...

But thanks for your comments, they were helpful. I'm still deciding... The improvements to the review (collaboration) features sound good, and also the headings apparently are now collapsible.

P.S. This also doesn't sound promising:

Office 2013 review: Word 2013 | TechRadar

Also, the AutoCorrect features have disappeared from the menu when you right-click a spelling mistake; you have to go all the way into Word's huge Options dialogue to add corrections you want to use.

600

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: MS Office 2013 US$9.95 Corporate/Enterprise Home Use Program - Mini-Review

« Last post by dr_andus on January 19, 2014, 03:58 PM »

I'd known about the program in the past, but every email address I threw at it didn't qualify, but I stumbled across this thread the other day & thought since I just recently started a new job I'd give it a go again.

-Innuendo (January 18, 2014, 11:38 AM)

I'd say it's even worth trying it a few times with the same email, even if you are declined the first couple of times. I kept trying and after having been declined 2 or 3 times eventually it said I did qualify, and it sent me a link for buying. This almost makes me wonder if digitalriver eventually accepts everyone. I guess it would be in their interest to make a sale eventually... Unless it's just a very convoluted electronic process and the database query needs to be executed a few times before it gets through...


Edit: My mistake. I didn't realise I used a different email address the second time.

Anyway, now that I do qualify, I'm still wondering about the value of upgrading from MS Office 2010 Pro to 2013 Pro. I've checked out a few reviews and on balance (including user comments), they are far from being overwhelmingly positive. I mostly use Word and Excel in Win7. It sounds like a lot of changes were made mostly to serve the Win8 environment. I wasn't happy to see that they've removed the split screen feature from the scroll bar in Word. I use that feature daily.

So what are the compelling reasons to upgrade from MS Word 2010 to 2013?