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Recent Posts

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5776
I do essentially the same - I use Evernote for everything, unsorted, and use TexNotes Pro to manage projects. I also use Net Snippets for web stuff (but this boils down to habit, more than anything - Evernote is much easier to use); it's kind of a backup for Evernote.
5777
General Software Discussion / Re: Movie Collector 5 released
« Last post by Darwin on May 02, 2007, 06:21 PM »
I indexed my Collectorz program files folder with Archivarius and searched for upgrade. Very interesting BECAUSE this text is in the licence agreement as articulated in the help file for each of the four Collector apps that I own:

The Licensor reserves the right to charge an upgrade fee in the case of major new enhancements or additions to the Software.  This major new version will then start a new version line that will use version numbers clearly distinguishable from the old version line.  The Licensee has no obligation to upgrade to the new version line and the Licensor will continue to make the latest version of the previous version line available for download to Licensee.

BUT is absent from ALL of the actual EULA agreements...
5778
Living Room / Re: Best Buy Geek Squad Confession (long and interesting)
« Last post by Darwin on May 02, 2007, 05:25 PM »
Nice...
5779
General Software Discussion / Re: To Vista or not to Vista that is the ?
« Last post by Darwin on May 02, 2007, 04:54 PM »
IWhat about component failure? Bad enough to have a system go down without MS looking for a pound of flesh!

No doubt there will be loopholes/exceptions made in such circumstances, but your other point, about not paying for a Windows licence just to install a CPU upgrade is spot on. If M$ is serious about this, they are asking for an end-user backlash... I haven't really been serious about Linux but it is looking increasingly like a route for me to consider. Of course, by the time I get there M$ will no doubt have castrated Linux through legal channels.

EDIT: Of course, I'm very happy with XP Pro and am not considering upgrading, anyway. It *sort* of looks as though M$ is in cahoots with the computer manufacturers because, unless they've changed things since XP, OEM installs on desktops and notebooks are "auto-activated" and tied to the BIOS. This would make good business sense (in a strictly profit driven, no other consideration world) in that it would force people to keep upgrading as once a computer is obsolescent/irreparably broken the licence doesn't allow them to shift the OS onto a new machine, which is what I would like to do with XP Pro.
5780
General Software Discussion / Re: Movie Collector 5 released
« Last post by Darwin on May 02, 2007, 04:50 PM »
Heh, heh... You've more or less written exactly what I've been thinking, Carol:

It would even be a little more sensible to hold their hands up and make a statement of the new policy by email to all registered users and if they want to explain the old policy is not financially practical in the long term and the new policy will apply to everyone, but previous purchasers will get the next major upgrade free as partial compensation.

This is more or less the "middle ground" solution I *think* we can expect, though obviously I'd be happier with this:

I think they should draw a line under it and say all new purchases from NOW will be subject to the new policy clearly on the website and support previous users according to the de facto understanding.

Hear, hear!
5781
General Software Discussion / Re: Movie Collector 5 released
« Last post by Darwin on May 02, 2007, 03:42 PM »
I guess I should amend my comment above by noting that the licencsing policy is clearly stated in the FAQ BUT, as Carol notes in a posting on the forum, returning customers are not wont to run around checking on-line FAQ's to see if there's been a policy change. One expects that there will be an announcement on the purchase page, if no where else...
5782
General Software Discussion / Re: Movie Collector 5 released
« Last post by Darwin on May 02, 2007, 03:35 PM »
Carl - you posted while I was smashing out the note above. Thank you for taking the time to do that; the more messages they receive like that, the more likely it is that they will feel compelled to take action (positive, one hopes!).

On a related note - has anyone actually seen an announcement about the change in licensing policy? I ask only because AFAICT, there hasn't been one. Just an evolving shitstorm on the collectorz forum over the paid upgrade to MovieCollector 5. But other than that, nothing. I assume that we can expect an immimnent, and prominent, banner to appear on the website along with a news release and general announcement on the forum. Should have happened BEFORE November 2006, though...
5783
General Software Discussion / Re: Movie Collector 5 released
« Last post by Darwin on May 02, 2007, 03:27 PM »
I'm glad you got that off your chest and found it therapeutic, tuckndar... I've been known to rant a bit myself  :redface:

Anyway, I haven't posted on the collectorz.com forum, but did submit a support form request and sent a private e-mail message, in both of which I echoed Carol's sentiments above. I received the same reply as well:

MP> ...a policy change such as this is fine if it applies to
MP> new purchasers AND comes after a clear statement indicating that the
MP> policy is changing.

You may be right about that; we had not really considered people who had already purchased a product before the policy change and would buy another one afterwards without realizing the change.

I don't know what to think about the fact that they are offering to provide free upgrades to MC 5 to people who take the time to write in - I don't own it and am wondering WTF is going to happen WRT PhotoCollector, mp3Collector and MusicCollector when the time comes. I bought all three under the assumption (clearly fuelled by my past experience with BookCollector Pro and the fact that no statement was evident indicating that the licensing model had changed, etc.) that I was in fact purchasing a lifetime licence for each. It's unclear whether their willingness to provide free upgrades applies to this upgrade to MovieCollector or to their whole range. Time will tell, I guess. On a related note, in the collectorz forum a comment is directed at Carol, which essentially states that the company can't understand why she is being so adamant - Excuse me? If I buy a car on the understanding that it has a three cylinder engine and will get 60 mpg (and in fact all of the literature in the dealership and the owner's manual states this as well) and the first time it needs gas and oil I find out that it's got a 12 cylinder engine that gets 8 mpg, I'd have a right to complain and to demand redress. I don't see this situation as being all that different.

I absolutely understand and respect that collectorz.com needs to generate revenue so that it can pay its employees and pay for rent, utilities, etc. but I cannot understand why, given that they've got my e-mail address on file from my purchase of FOUR of their titles AND they've got a comprehensive website that INCLUDES a fourm that collectorz.com employess are frequent posters on, it wasn't possible for them to get the word out to their existing user base to avoid this kind of situation?! How difficult is ito e-mail your user base, or put a great big banner at the top of every page on your website, or make an announcement on the forums, or state it prominently in a newsletter? As someone noted in the MovieCollector user forum, it's primarily the principle of the thing... I loathed statements like that when I was in Muddle Management - every decision I ever made, or that I had to pass on to the unwashed masses, er, employees working under for me was invariably met with at least one howl of protest and a resort to the principle argument. Glad I'm not in that position any more and can invoke it all I want. La, la-la, la-la, la  :P
5784
 :( I don't have enough free disk space to pull this off...  :D I wonder if the financial gateke.. er, my wife, would see this as a sufficient reason to lash out on a new hard drive and some RAM?! Could happen... Anything's possible, right?

Crap...
5785
General Software Discussion / Re: how to extract links from a site?
« Last post by Darwin on May 02, 2007, 01:37 PM »
Justice  :-[ steve_rb - I'd edit out your e-mail address above, post-haste, if I were you ( I *HATE* spam, get too much of it as it is, and don't go looking for any more of it!  ;D)...
5786
I know, Tom... but it was a very North American-centric thing to be posting about in the first place.

** More car talk here:
I spent my idle youth spinning wrenches on my own 6.6 litre Pontiac GTO and a friend's 7.2 litre Plymouth GTX (while yearning for a Jag or an Aston-Martin) and could not believe the nonsense he and a lot of other people around me spewed about the relative merits of various incarnations of "Detroit/Windsor Iron" AND how superior 1960's American technology was over then current (late '80's early '90's) Japanese and European technology. The (1993) 2.2 litre turbo-charged Subaru  :-* (still miss that car) that I replaced the (1967) Pontiac with ran circles around it and it was a station wagon (Estate) to boot!
**Car talk largely ends here...

Tom, I expect your eyes crossed again if you read the above... Don't know how to explain the analogy except to say that cars are cars and are designed to get you from point A to point B safely and computers are computers that are *supposed* to make you more productive (ha, ha -there's a laugh!). Typing this latest diatribe on a Mac, Windows PC or something else running some flavour of Linux is kind of irrelevant to the task itself... In the end, regardless of the platform and the hardware that I write it on, this BS is the result   :D That's part of what I was trying to say - the other part would be that from my perspective the V-8 engines in 1960's American cars were pretty standard in design, regardless of the company that manufactured them. So, the argument that one or the other of the "Big 3" (General Motors, Ford, Chrysler) produced better engineered cars always struck me as dim. The output was pretty homogenous across all three of the ranges both from an engineering perspective (engines, brakes, suspension) and from a styling perspective. My point WRT the Mac/PC debate was that both Apple and Microsoft hire the best software engineers that they can get their mitts on and ask them to do a very similar job: design an OS to take advantage of the hardware that it runs on. The hardware is pretty much the same and the capabilities of both OS X and XP/Vista are largely the same. Given how competitive these jobs are, the suggestion that Apple somehow hires better, more capable engineers strikes me as silly... So's this analogy. I'll shut up now because this line of *reasoning* could go on and on and on... and I'm already anticipating counter-arguments!
5787
OK auto rant over. Hope the analogy was clear -
well no ...

but
I wouldnt bother explaining it any further for my benefit at any rate   

 :-[
5788
Thanks Carl! This looks really cool - nice find and thanks for sharing it with us.
5789
I'm with Perry... that is amazing. I probably don't... no scratch that: I definitely do not need this kind of functionality but I'm already hankering for a licence. The banker will K-I-L-L me if I spend a penny more on software though  >:(
5790
General Software Discussion / Re: Movie Collector 5 released
« Last post by Darwin on May 01, 2007, 08:20 PM »
Well... I wrote a more reasoned and better argued note and sent it to a real e-mail address (rather than simply filling out a support form from their website). I don't expect anything to be done about this, but I do feel that they should hear from as many of their users as possible that policy changes such as this need to be rolled out with a great deal of fanfare to avoid, as Carol notes, feelings of
mistrust and ill-feeling.

Right, I have a hot date with a 50,000 year old Neanderthal from Gibraltar, a number of spreadsheets, two databases, and ArcGIS. It really doesn't get any better than this...  :'(
5791
General Software Discussion / Re: Movie Collector 5 released
« Last post by Darwin on May 01, 2007, 07:42 PM »
Thanks for posting your e-mail to Collectorz.com and for clarifying their upgrade discount pricing, Carol. I must learn to be more methodical in researching things like this before dashing off panicked e-mails to support! The inclusion of the links to the webpages STILL describing lifetime upgrades really strengthens your case (and their absence weakens mine  :()! Scheming... shall I dash off another missive complete with supporting evidence (meditatively strokes chin and scratches nose)?
5792
General Software Discussion / Re: Movie Collector 5 released
« Last post by Darwin on May 01, 2007, 05:39 PM »
PS TucknDar - how much was the upgrade (if you don't mind saying)?

Concerned in Courtenay...
5793
General Software Discussion / Re: Movie Collector 5 released
« Last post by Darwin on May 01, 2007, 05:38 PM »
Whoa. Hang on. Hold the phones... does this issue WRT lifetime licensing apply to all of Collectorz.com's products? I sincerely hope not, having bought three of them in since January 1st (because I was so impressed by Book Collector Pro and its lifetime licence) under the assumption that I was purchasing lifetime licences! My bad if I didn't read carefully enough, and just assumed that their licensing model hadn't changed, but s*&^!

Well... perusing their FAQ certainly confirms that they have changed to a paid upgrade model, but my confirmation e-mails give no indication of whether my licences are affected or not. I've e-mailed them requesting confirmation.

Not happy  :(
5794
I just discovered that I can have my cake and eat it too. For some reason, setting Adobe Reader as the default handler for pdf's DOES NOT make it the default handler for viewing pdf's from within my web browser. Sweet - Foxit for the web (small footprint and quick to open) and Adobe Reader for everything else. I'm going to try this set up for a while and see if "it suits".
5795
I posted about Bits du Jour's 40% discount on IdeaMason... It's in place today and I can't BELIEVE that I didn't have the wit to post for opinions in this thread last week. Mea culpa...
5796
Found Deals and Discounts / Re: IdeaMason to be featured on Bitsdujour
« Last post by Darwin on April 30, 2007, 09:23 AM »
Bits du Jour has it today (April 30) for 40% off any of the licences that are available (e.g. academic licence is a hair over $40, down from $69). I'm not going to be jumping on this one, but thought I'd let everyone know!
5797
I find it particularly interesting that while all this paranoid rubbish is being churned out you have companies like iTunes removing DRM from music. Presumably this has come from public and legal pressure to open up its market place - how long will it be before similar moves will hit the movie market?

Excellent point! I expect that you're right. This is what I was saying too (VERY indirectly) - the masses, being forewarned, will act accordingly. Hopefully, this will translate into people voting with their chequebooks - as in, keeping them in their pockets, as you suggest. OK, must put on the tinfoil hat and get back under my bed...
5798
General Software Discussion / Re: Must-have apps in the System tray?
« Last post by Darwin on April 29, 2007, 01:13 PM »
clevercat -

South Africa - formerly UK

When did the UK get renamed South Africa?  :D

Sorry, could not resist - and I tried very hard, too...  :P
5799
General Software Discussion / Re: Can you disable XP's Recovery System partly?
« Last post by Darwin on April 29, 2007, 01:11 PM »
You don't want to use DVDs anyway.

I tried using DVDs to backup my system using TrueImae 9 (Workstation version) and the discs worked OK but the image was spread over 3 DVDs and the disc swapping to restore the image was intolerable - I spent more than 40 minutes swapping discs and as far as I could tell it still hadn't restored a byte. I copied the images to a hard disc and restored from there and they worked fine.

Moral is - even when the DVD images are good and work (and I too have had images that say they are invalid but verify and then work magically another time)  you can't reallistically do it from DVD unless you have an image that fits onto a single disc!
-Carol Haynes (April 29, 2007, 09:31 AM)

Yup. I can confirm this - I was trying to mount the drive image and was getting an error message from both TI 9 Home and TI 9.1 Workstation stating that the image was invalid or corrupt. After I posted above, it occurred to me to be "proactive" and read the help file  :-[ and sure enough discovered that you can only mount a dvd image if it is on one disc (actually, what it says is that all portions of an image must be on the same volume) so I am copying three dvds to my harddrive so that I can use TI to extract my wife's Outlook file and move it onto my old workhorse Win2k machine. Staples/Office Depot want three weeks to fix the DVD-RW... So, most of what I rant and rave about above holds true, except for my experience with DVD's - on the two setups that I have running here - Win2k and TI 9 Home/WinXP Pro and TI 9.1 Workstation, it works, it's just as slow as molasses. I really hope that I can restore from these DVD's when my wife's notebook comes back as I returned her harddrive to a clean XP install before surrendering it...
5800
General Software Discussion / Re: Can you disable XP's Recovery System partly?
« Last post by Darwin on April 29, 2007, 09:23 AM »
TrueImage is great when it works... However, Acronis do two things that really piss me, and a lot of their users, off. First, they release a new version every 9-12 months and require their user base to cough up for it. This is fair enough, but over three versions I've noticed (and this point is hammered home on their users' forum constantly) that the new version invariably *fixes* major features that simply did not work as advertised in the previous version. Case in point is writing to DVD in version 9. It was advertised all over the Acronis website as a must have feature in version 9, and yet it never worked reliably (backup software MUST be reliable!). People complained strenously about it for a year without a fix. Lo and behold, Acronis brought out version 10 and it's been fixed. Read the forum and you'll see constant complaining about this practice (and it is certainly not limited to the single example I've given). The point being that they release software that is advertised with certain functions that in practice do not work. The user base essentially pays to beta test features and are then expected to pay for those features when the problems with them have been ironed out. Wouldn't be so bad if they released a solid version (ie one in which all advertised features work) and then allowed their user base to beta test unstable and UNADVERTISED features, but of course they don't do this. Upgrades run in the $30 range, IIRC.

TrueImage 9 (which is the last version I paid for) works for me as I backup to USB harddrives. It works really well. However, I am tired of paying for upgrades and am leaving well enough alone. Note too that I can confirm the problems with DVD backups in 9, having backed up my wife's C: drive to three DVD's, verified the images at time of burning and TrueImage won't recognise them as valid image files!

Caveat emptor...
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