Recent Posts

6026

Best Music Service / Re: tech crunch article comparing music services

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 18, 2006, 10:37 AM »

AllofMP3 back up and running now

6027

Living Room / Re: Paris by night (panorama)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 18, 2006, 04:55 AM »

Unfortunately I just found they hurt my eyes (I tried the crosseyed version and the parallel eye version but couldn't quite get it). I haven't got any stereo glasses so I couldn't check out the stereo image.

Fun idea though ...

6028

Living Room / Re: Paris by night (panorama)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 18, 2006, 03:37 AM »

It is rather good - actually it is a full 360 degrees - shame it isn't formated so that you can just rotate seamlessly.

6029

Living Room / Re: World's worst pop-up dialogs

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 18, 2006, 03:35 AM »

I really like



and

6030

General Software Discussion / Re: a backup solution that uses winRAR

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 17, 2006, 08:12 PM »

I'd be interested to know what degree of compression you can get. Have you got a small partition that you can backup both uncompressed and compressed and then post the size of data on the original drive and the size of the backups?

6031

General Software Discussion / Re: a backup solution that uses winRAR

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 17, 2006, 07:44 PM »

I am intrigued to see they store backups as XML files ... won't that make them huge?? If you try it let us know what you think please.

Have you read the FAQs - it looks a bit on the picky side - plus you need to download and use other software to restore a trashed system, so you need to download and setup a WinPE Rescue CD with the restore routines installed there otherwise you would have to have enough space to install windows on another partition to run the restorer and still have enough space to make a partition at least as big as the original you backed up (it won't allow you to restore a small amount of data from a large, mostly empty, partition to a smaller partition).

You also need a big enough partition to make the backup and then manually burn, with third party software, DVDs, CDs etc. This is the way some like to work anyway.

6032

General Software Discussion / Re: Article: Inside the Spyware Scandal -- Part 2

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 17, 2006, 07:40 PM »

I must admit I was in a quandry when I wanted to upgrade SoundForge and Vegas. I had bought them when they were still Sonic Foundry products and since then Sony bought up the titles. I have a rooted objection to buying anything Sony after the Rootkit debacle but I really did want to continue using SoundForge and Vegas. In the end I succumbed and felt guilty.

It is surprising though how many pies they have fingers in - it is almost impossible to buy CDs or DVDs that they don't have a share in ... and you can't always tell by the manufacturer mark as they have some many non-Sony (named) subsidiaries.

6033

General Software Discussion / Re: Article: Inside the Spyware Scandal -- Part 2

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 17, 2006, 06:39 PM »

Interesting (if basic) article - and a polemic ...

http://www.pcmag.com...,1895,1962437,00.asp

The last para (page 2) says ...

Can't we find alternative ways to be entertained? Do you really need to listen to music all day long? Try classical music. You'll find genuine and sincere musicians who are not there to crank out pop junk. Move to indie bands if you need a dose of rock. Stop going to the movies and go see some plays—even a high-school play. These kids need your money more than anyone in Hollywood. Do you really need to watch a movie? Find an art theater and watch something thoughtful, if you must.

Which is good healthy advice.

I am off to the theatre tomorrow to see a play by Ibsen, reset in India and by an Asian group of actors. The whole eveing will cost me something under £10 (not counting drink!) and it will be a sociable evening out with friends. Thats about 50% of the cost of a DVD - which is ridiculously cheap.

6034

General Software Discussion / Re: Article: Inside the Spyware Scandal -- Part 2

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 17, 2006, 06:12 PM »

Actually after Sony's problems I think CD copy protection is less likely. What is more likely is that CD sales will start to be wound up in favour of downloadables with DRM attached. This is already happening in the classical music world where lots of back catalogue has been taken off the shelves and is now only available in electronic form.

A knock on effect may well be that musicians say "if you aren't getting our product into the shops why do we need you" ... we can all live in hope for that day!

6035

General Software Discussion / Re: a backup solution that uses winRAR

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 17, 2006, 04:36 PM »

If you want a basic file backup program which includes scheduling why not use Windows Backup ??

Start > Accessories > System Tools > Backup

It's free 'cos it is in Windows and it does incremental backups of any set of files you like and also compacts the backup too.

6036

General Software Discussion / Re: Freeware, Shareware, Registerware, Donationware, Requestware, Nagware, gloss

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 17, 2006, 12:25 PM »

Except abandonware

How about a new software type pitaware ...

6037

General Software Discussion / Re: Article: Inside the Spyware Scandal -- Part 2

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 17, 2006, 12:25 PM »

Also DRM isn't pointless and avoiding it is antisocial and illegal in most countries (not just the US now - its a global BB conspiracy) ...

now where is my CD burner ? (just kidding)

6038

General Software Discussion / Re: Freeware, Shareware, Registerware, Donationware, Requestware, Nagware, glossary

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 17, 2006, 12:22 PM »

That too ...

Actually Ithought requestware was appropriate because you request people come back to the website, register and take part in the community etc.

6039

Developer's Corner / Re: The Hunt for the Best CMS

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 17, 2006, 12:17 PM »

where's allen!!!
if we all hold hands maybe we can wish real hard and he'll make a custom cms for us

-mouser (May 17, 2006, 07:41 AM)

Maybe you could offer him a bespoke Cody-mug

6040

Living Room / Re: Help Needed! - A Request from an old friend of Mouser

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 17, 2006, 12:16 PM »

How about starting a "webring" sort of thing with DonationCoder - so that both sites have links on their forum/web pages to the others in the ring. OK it is only two sites at the moment so it can hardly be called a ring but it would be a start ...

6041

General Software Discussion / Re: Freeware, Shareware, Registerware, Donationware, Requestware, Nagware, glossary

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 17, 2006, 12:14 PM »

So it sounds like you provide a hybrid of DonationWare and RequestWare ...

6042

UrlSnooper / Re: Odd problem ... lot's of win32 exceptions

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 17, 2006, 10:57 AM »

I used to use it all the time but haven't bothered for a while. The main reason for retrying it is that I have an enormously long menu in Internet Explorer and there is an overall limit on what is allowed so I was hoping MMM+ would allow me to work round that by allowing me to group entries into a cascading menu. Didn't work though - the limit still applies.

Any idea how to persuade IE to play ball? Hopefully it will work properly in IE 7 but I don't want to use the beta as I tried it before and it is a bit flaky.

Ironically I don't use IE much at all but I have one or two plugins that only work in IE that I use occasionally.

6043

UrlSnooper / Re: Odd problem ... lot's of win32 exceptions

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 17, 2006, 10:54 AM »

No, it is only supposed to affect certain applications anyway. It is tailored to particular programs and doesn't appear in others.

6044

UrlSnooper / Re: Odd problem ... lot's of win32 exceptions

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 17, 2006, 10:51 AM »

Solved the problem (ish)

I have MMM+ installed (which allows things link Windows Explorer Menus to be customized). There seems to be a conflict because as soon as I disable MMM+ it works fine again.

I'll try uninstalling and reinstalling MMM+ and see if it is fixed if not I'll justuninstall MMM+

Annoying though.

6045

UrlSnooper / Odd problem ... lot's of win32 exceptions

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 17, 2006, 10:10 AM »

I have started getting this error every time I try and access any menus (ie. File .... bar, or the right click menu):

An unhandled win32 exception occurred in URLSnooper.exe [4496]

This is appearing in Visual Studio's debugger window.

It was working fine up until a couple of days ago when I last used it.

I have tried uninstalling it and reinstalling (and WinPCap) but it doesn't make any difference.

Also I deleted settings.ini and it made no difference so it isn't corrupted settings.

This is happening with both versions 2.6.4 and 2.5.1.

I have been installing new software - are there any dependencies that may have got screwed up but installations of other products?

Any other suggestions?

Other CD (well SC) seem to work OK - I haven't installed others yet.

6046

Living Room / Re: Skype users: beware

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 17, 2006, 08:15 AM »

While the bad guys are hacking around I think it is absolutely necessary that the good guys should also be hacking about.

And who determines who are the good guys and bad guys?
If it's such a boon then how come we don't see websites with "Hack my code please"? Instead of EULA's that specifically prohibit this sort of stuff.

The bottom line is this, how realistic do think it is that a shareware author would care to participate with a group of people who feel that a EULA don't mean anything? Who have no respect for their property?

To me this is a bit of a no brainer:

Bad guys - people who write Trojans/Viruses etc. to steal from users, hijack their computers for various reasons including spamming the world at your expense, people who steal identities, credit card details etc., people who do malicious damage for the fun of it

Good guys - people who try to find some of the flaws in software to stop the bad guys doing what they are doing.

No one on this forum is suggesting that software should be ripped off in anyway - in fact if you read the comments of others in this thread in other parts of the forum you will read many items arguing precisely the opposite.

Yes US law says you can't reverse engineer copyright material - but we live in a real world where reverse engineering takes place, and not everyone is American. If only the bad guys do it we will be in real trouble.

I presume your computer does not run behind a firewall (that could break some EULAs), you don't run AntiVirus software, AnitTrojan software or any AntiSpyware products because they all break EULA conditions either during production, everyday producing updates or when they are actually running on your system.

Finally do you actually read EULAs? If you took them all seriously you would never install a piece of software on your computer (including but not limited to the operating system). Windows EULA explicitly gives Microsoft the right to do practically anything to your system without your knowledge or permission - can anyone really take such a thing seriously? I have even seen EULAs that specifically remove your right to uninstall the software or block its access to the internet !!!

6047

Living Room / Re: Speed up Windows XP Startup/Shutdown

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 17, 2006, 08:02 AM »

You just double click it to install like any other MS update. Don't know why that happened on your system mine just goes through a normal install and then you forget about it. On shutdown it is invoke automatically.

6048

Living Room / Re: Skype users: beware

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 17, 2006, 03:43 AM »

Personally I think intellectual rights should be respected for all developers and certainly hacking for illegal or purely selfish motives is wrong.

However there is a very big BUT ...

Without third parties looking at code and background activities of applications Virus, Trojan and other kinds of malware would go completely unchecked. Almost all security issues are discovered by people monitoring things that software companies would probably prefer that they didn't - and most of this monitoring goes on in direct contradiction of EULAs.

As a simple example ... how many security holes in Windows and Internet Explorer would have been found if people hadn't been hacking about? Microsoft specifically deprecate hacking their code in their EULAs and I'm sure they would prefer not to have people embarassing them that they have found yet another 30 issues this week - but who benefits from this behaviour.

The logical extension is that if a virus writer applies copyright to his code (and writes it in the US) then provided he is not stealing or doing something positively illegal then no one should have any form of redress ???

While the bad guys are hacking around I think it is absoultely necessary that the good guys should also be hacking about.

This is really the strongest argument for open source across the board (not that it will happen).

6049

Mouser's Zone / Re: A little hep please.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 17, 2006, 03:28 AM »

Sorry, I think that all of  the downloads on the site are for Windows only.

You will find Linux software discussions and somebody may be able to offer a suggestion for Mac.

You might also have a debate on your hands with comments like "Mac's ability of graphing is beater than Windows" as they both run the same professional level graphics software packages.

6050

Living Room / Speed up Windows XP Startup/Shutdown

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 17, 2006, 03:21 AM »

Free PDF excerpt from Windows Hacks book giving a few tips.

Nothing Earth shatteringly original - and some stuff that may be dubious but you may find it insteresting reading (you don't need to register for this download).

One thing that doesn't seem to be mentioned is UPHClean (from Microsoft) which I found made a great difference to shutdown times as it unloads the user hive from the registry almost instantly rather than hanging for ages as can sometimes happen.