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6126

General Software Discussion / Re: Is this a worthwhile idea for a program?

« Last post by IainB on October 10, 2011, 10:24 AM »

@rjbull:

Maybe IainB hasn't discovered it yet   

Heh. That's true - I don't understand (have not "discovered") a great deal of functionality in CHS nor the requirements that could have conceivably led to them. To be fair, I did at least make provision for them in some general and vague lines in the requirements analysis spreadsheet though.
There's still a lot in CHS that I have not yet managed to wrap my head around.
As @superboyac puts it:

mouser, I didn't even realize CHS could do this until maybe last week or so.  Guys, check it out, it's freaking awesome:

I already think that what @mouser has done so far with CHS as a relational database is pretty impressive.

6127

General Software Discussion / Re: IDEA: display first page of pdf, when hovering over the pdf file

« Last post by IainB on October 10, 2011, 01:03 AM »

@kalos:
The Windows Explorer replacement tool, xplorer², has a "Quck View" function, where it can do rather more than just show the first page of a file. For example, for any file you select (not hover) it can  give you things like:
* display the draft and native content of a .pdf file.
* display the draft and native contents of a Word file.
* display the contents of a .txt file.
* display an image file.
* play an .mp3 or other (sound file).
* play a video file (various formats).
* it will also display the text in many other files (e.g., html files, script files).

The display is made in a special Quick View window that is opened when you select Quick View. All you need to do is scroll through the files to see the display of contents.

6128

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Main window font size

« Last post by IainB on October 08, 2011, 11:05 PM »

+1 from me - I'd like to be able to configure the fontsize of different parts of CHS (which I use a lot) - ideally, I'd like to be able to configure most aspects of the display to suit my peculiar needs.

@candyman: Working in this area on some projects years ago, I learned that the ergonomics of computer usage can be greatly assisted by enabling user control over the variability of fonts and backgrounds, with some surprising potential benefits able to be realised.

Therefore, and FWIW: If you are finding it difficult to read some screens, then you might also consider setting the system default background colour from white to a sort of light mustard colour. In the screenshot below, you can see how CHS looks to me, having done this. For comparison, the CHS window is overlaid on the blurred background of your post and screenshot. (My screenshot was captured using the already excellent yet ever-improving DC Screenshot Captor).   



Studies into human visual perception have given us examples of several colour combinations that can greatly ease visual perception and assist reading comprehension. They do this by reducing the eyestrain and the visual perceptual disorganisation that arises from visually "noisy" or conflicting colours, glare and contrast, and by improving legibility. These examples include:

• Black print on a light mustard background (as in the example).
• Black print on a light grey background.
• Light green on a black background.
• White print on a black background.

(Also, if you want to help yourself further, these studies have proven that serifed fonts enable speedier and improved reading/comprehension rather than sans serif. This idea of course goes down about as well with the Helvetica or Arial Fascista as does the idea of using good scientific method with the anthropogenic global warming church. See how Google's latest "new look" has gone all white and glary? Go figure. Maybe they are just ignorant.)

These studies in human visual perception also indicate examples of the absolute worst colour combinations to give perceptual disorganisation, eyestrain and probably a headache:

• Black and bright yellow combinations - including black print on a bright yellow background.
• Bright green and red combinations - including either one being used on a background of the other.
• Black and white combinations - including black print on a white background. (Yep, Gutenburg inadvertently started zapping our eyes by setting that as the customary combo all those years ago!)

By the way, I use Google reader in Chrome to do most of my reading of DC and other forums/blogs, because I can use an extension Change Colours.
I would prefer to use Firefox (my preferred browser), but I have not yet found a similarly useful script/add-on.

6129

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for 'self email' sender

« Last post by IainB on October 08, 2011, 08:28 PM »

Thanks for the pointers above to the Scribbly widget - I had not known about that.
The only concern I have about Scribbly is that it is an AIR application and it might not be secure, and that I could be inadvertently giving my email address and other personal data away to spammers/scammers.

Adobe must have similar thoughts too - just look at the terms and conditions of their Consumer Marketplace Agreement they oblige you to accept if you use any of their AIR applications/widgets.

I have therefore avoided using AIR like the plague, but this widget does seem quite nifty.

6130

General Software Discussion / Re: Is this a worthwhile idea for a program?

« Last post by IainB on October 08, 2011, 07:50 PM »

This might be of help/use: For years I have used a brilliant text parser/"cleaner" for jokes that I send out to subscribers via my jokes listserver (which draws on a large database of collected jokes that people have sent me via email).

I often have to reformat the jokes first, because they need it. I use a freeware program called Cleaner (version 1.02), which was introduced to me by an American guy I used to work with on a project in Thailand (Hi Ed!), and which is a real time-saver.  This utility is ideal if you wish to keep and use text received through email.  It was really annoying to see all the ">" symbols in front of each line - though these have become much less common with today's technology.  Not only does this nifty little program remove them from email messages, making the message look cleaner and preventing choppy word wraps, but also it clears any special formatting properties - e.g., losing any special formats that may have been put in by Outlook or Word. This is quite handy nowadays when people seem to use all sorts of large text formats and insert irrelevant GIFs into the joke.
For example:

The cleaner helps to just strip out the bare text and make it more legible.
However, it does not help to make the jokes any funnier.    

If you want a copy of Cleaner to have a look-see, you can get it (the latest version is called eCleaner version 2.02) from various sites on the Internet.  The author's website is now http://ecleaner.tripod.com/.
This version has many more features - for example, it has buttons to strip out HTML code from the text.

eCleaner probably wouldn't be of much use for the purposes of this discussion thread (text language syntax parsing), but I suppose you could do worse than ask the author of eCleaner if you could have the code to adapt to parsing different languages. (Why re-invent all parts of the wheel?) He might even be interested in helping out - his website indicates that eCleaner is becoming obsolete, so he might like to collaborate with DC coders in a new challenge. His email contact details are in the Help file for eCleaner.

Update: I have sent the author of eCleaner an email with the contents of this post, so he can see for himself whether he likes the idea.

6131

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 7 is out

« Last post by IainB on October 08, 2011, 06:31 PM »

Yes, I have FF v8 via the ß channel.
A very smooth implementation, but it did manage to break on one of the many add-ons that I have, and I had to find which one it was by disabling them all and then re-enabling them three at a time until it broke again.
It's running quite nicely, and faster too, without that add-on.
The updates seem to be so frequent now that I suspect the add-on developers cannot keep pace.

6132

Living Room / Re: Social Media's Hidden Truth

« Last post by IainB on October 07, 2011, 07:54 AM »

@Paul Keith:

My take is that it's more hmm... black hole-ish. (or whatever the theory is that the universe is destroying itself to set up another big bang)

Yes, absolutely. That's "entropy" - (in cosmology) a hypothetical tendency for the universe to attain a state of maximum homogeneity in which all matter is at a uniform temperature (heat death).

6133

Living Room / Re: Social Media's Hidden Truth

« Last post by IainB on October 06, 2011, 09:32 AM »

Interesting post here

"After the Iranian post-election events that led to massive riots and break-outs through the world, the Iranian government started blocking all social websites, including Facebook, Youtube, Orkut, MySpace and Twitter. The Iranians, however, started using VPN (virtual private network) connections to bypass censorship. Since Thursday, September 30, 2011, all VPN ports have however been blocked, in the first attempt to start what the Iranian government calls the 'National Internet.'"

6134

Living Room / Re: Social Media's Hidden Truth

« Last post by IainB on October 06, 2011, 04:24 AM »

@Paul Keith: Yes, I don't know what the real issue is here, but I hope you are right - though some people might say that history would seem to indicate that you are probably on the wrong tack.

Freedom seems to be something that mankind has typically had to fight for, and generally "...you don't know what you got 'till it's gone", as the songs have it. I guess it could be cyclical. Once freedom has been obtained, the erosion of that freedom can commence. Entropy.

6135

Living Room / Re: Social Media's Hidden Truth

« Last post by IainB on October 05, 2011, 06:10 PM »

In haste. I would suggest that the fundamental issue here is not Facebook or other social media "hidden truths", but freedom.
If I have this right (and please correct me if I am wrong), it seems that it is a fact of life that currently the only way to avoid the Facebook and Google tracking of our IP address transactions is to browse anonymously through a VPN (Virtual Private Network).

It is a characteristic of the way the Internet works that our browsers send out an http header to every site we visit. The header includes lots of data - e.g., our browser name and version, possibly our MAC or PC details and maybe even our email address (depending on how we have configured the browser), and of course the header has to be preceded by our IP address so that the server being accessed knows the address to use to send back a response.
I used to use the now obsolete JunkBuster which could spoof the header and spoof/deform the cookies, but it could not do anything about the IP address.

Big Brother (the State) wants to know, and makes sure that it does know (or can find out), where and who we are and what we are doing when we are online. It is all faithfully logged.
Nowhere has this been shown to be more true than in reports of communist and Fascist states' tracking or control of user activity (e.g., China, Iran), but democratic states (e.g., US, European, Australasian, Canadian) are categorically not excluded - in fact, the latter invented and perfected the tracking (Google even did it for the Chinese government, at one point). The IP address is our virtual and (usually) actual geographical location key. If you do not operate via a corporate and fixed IP address (where everything is logged by default), then even though our private ISP will dynamically reassign a different IP address if the ADSL router/modem disconnects/reconnects or is reset, that key is valid for all session activity from that point on up to the next point of disconnection, and is faithfully logged by our ISP. Newly-assigned keys are similarly logged by our ISP as soon as a session is started. Those logs are saved for an extended period, the length of the period depending on local statutory regulations, for the purposes of tracking for criminal activity - which includes, for example, child pornography and file-sharing copyright infringements in an increasing number of states/countries - and which can be scrutinised for those purposes under legally enforceable requests from relevant police/state authorities or state mafia. We are obliged to accept this - the difficulties of enacting/imposing these legal controls on users' Internet activity in the current Internet system can only be overcome by reducing our right to freedom/privacy whilst we browse, and sites consided by the State to be "illegal" may even be commandeered (taken over) or blocked from us by the State (e.g., China, Iran).

Even if you have a VPN, the provider of the VPN services will have logs of your activity also, and it is a matter of record that these logs can be and have been provided to relevant authorities (e.g., to the FBI) on their legally enforceable requests. Though Facebook and Google currently have no legal right to access these logs, that could change overnight by statutory mandate if they successfully lobbied state authorities and if the State thus decided that it made sense to delegate such monitoring to reduce the costs of direct State monitoring. Anything is possible here, which is why I used the word "currently" in the opening sentence of this post.

So, if you woke up this morning, feeling refreshed and secure in the almost certain knowledge that you live in a democratic, free State, where your rights to privacy and freedom of speech are securely maintained, then you are living in a warm and fuzzy state of illusion. Whilst you were sleeping, your freedoms and rights on all fronts will have already been even further eroded by remorseless State Fascism and corporate Fascism that - like rust - never sleep. It's all about money and power.

Some recent examples:
(a) The US police department of Renton legal action to secure the identity of the satirist who produced YouTube cartoons that Renton police only thought was aimed at them, and so wanted to retaliate and exact retribution/revenge. This is effectively a direct attack on US First Amendment rights. Google were being required to reveal the ID and IP address of the YouTube cartoon author.

(b) Different secular states (e.g., including US, Canada) considering enacting laws to make it an offence to criticise religion or upset the feelings of religious people (this after pressure only from Islamist organisations like the un-indicted 911 co-conspirator CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood). Christians and other sects have been fair game for as long as they have been around, and that is exactly how it should be - e.g. the cases of the RC priesthood's well-publicised penchant and belated recompense for buggery of little boys could never have become so public or have been remedied otherwise.

(c) The UK government's responses to the recent chav riots - including the increased scrutiny and control of Blackberry device usage logs, and increased CCTV surveillance.

(d) The US government's tacit approval of Philip Morris International's (Big Tobacco) involvement in activity in Indonesia which is banned and would be illegal if carried out in the USA - e.g., targetting children and the young in general for tobacco advertising/sale. PMI bought out the state's biggest tobacco company some time back and now has a monopoly - even 2-year olds are encouraged to smoke (check YouTube for examples/TV documentaries), and even the Indonesian government health department sponsors mumbo-jumbo treatment for people, including children, where nicotine and smoking are prescribed remedies ("spiritual tobacco" use). This sort of thing will be putting at risk potentially millions of Indonesian citizens (including a large proportion of children), but it must be generating good corporate profits for the PMI US head office, and the stock (share) price will look good as a result - which is a main objective. And that has to be good for State tax revenue on all fronts.

6136

General Software Discussion / Re: research system where emails w/ inline pics are the base

« Last post by IainB on October 04, 2011, 08:38 PM »

@Steven Avery: I should perhaps add that Google groups changed its format early this year, and that my test results are from using the new format - you can still use the old one, which has not been phased out yet.
I always felt that the old format was a bit kludgy, and - though I am not sure - I suspect you might not get similar results if you ran the tests under the old format.

6137

General Software Discussion / Re: research system where emails w/ inline pics are the base

« Last post by IainB on October 04, 2011, 07:43 PM »

@Steven Avery:

I tried Google Groups. The mail goes to the receiver fine, identical to Yahoogroups.  Then the big issue is the archiving. Where it is better than Yahoogroups, but it converts the embedded .jpg to an attachment .jpg...

... the pic does show up properly within a gmail account.

-Steven Avery (October 04, 2011, 12:43 PM)

That doesn't seem to be quite correct, as proved by the following tests:
Test 1: Using Gmail, I just went through the process of dragging and dropping a .jpg image file into an email, and sending it to a Google group.
Results:
The .jpg image file showed clearly in the email during compose and was NOT registered as an attached file.
The .jpg image file shows clearly as an embedded file in the email posted to the Google group, and right-clicking on it shows the filename "image.jpeg".
The .jpg image does not show in the "sent" email in Gmail, is NOT registered as an attached file, but is represented by an icon embedded in the text of the email, and right-clicking on it shows the filename "image.jpeg".

I repeated Test 1, but with a .png image file, and got identical results, except the file gets named to "image.png".

Test 2: Using Gmail again, I forwarded an email to a Google group. The email - which had been forwarded to me -  contained embedded linked Picasa images from a friend.
Results:
The images showed up fine in the group post, except (interestingly) for some images which had been deleted from Picasa since the original email that had been forwarded to me.
The images showed up fine in the "sent" email.

Test 3: Using Gmail again, I pasted a .png image - which I had earlier copied into CHS (Clipboard Help & Spell) - into the email, and sent it to a Google group.
Results:
The .png image file showed clearly in the email during compose and was NOT registered as an attached file.
The .png image file did not show as an embedded image nor was it registered as  file in the post to the Google group - there was nothing to show that it had been there.
The .png image does not show in the "sent" email in Gmail, is NOT registered as an attached file, but is represented by a lot of garbage text embedded in the text of the email.

So, it looks as though you can do what you want, using Gmail and Google groups, if the images are embedded (not attached) .jpg or .png images, and have not been "pasted" into the email - they then seem to stay embedded in the text of the group post, just as they were in the text of the email.

6138

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by IainB on October 04, 2011, 04:27 AM »

I am currently re-reading The Deming Method, by Mary Walton and Out of the Crisis by W. Edwards Deming.
Great books, both.

6139

General Software Discussion / Re: research system where emails w/ inline pics are the base

« Last post by IainB on October 04, 2011, 04:16 AM »

@Steven Avery: I think either I misunderstand your post, or you have got it slightly wrong. You can already get what you seem to require here.

Emails sent/forwarded/posted to a Google groups forum show up almost exactly like the email - i.e., displaying any embedded images, and with icons for attachments. The attachment icons can be clicked on and the attachment either displayed in Google docs or downloaded to your client PC.

6140

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Hard Disk Sentinel Professional on BDJ

« Last post by IainB on October 03, 2011, 08:48 AM »

@wraith808: I have experience of using HDS Pro for 7 months, and it is trouble-free and seems able to do what is claimed, though I fortunately have not had any disk failures to test its predictive ability yet.
I bought it on a 20% discount.
HDS Pro seems to be able to "see" and check SMART on USB-connected drives also, which apparently not all drive checkers can do.

6141

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CLIPBOARD HELP+SPELL LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - v2.23.01 - Nov 22, 2013

« Last post by IainB on October 03, 2011, 01:04 AM »

@mouser: It looks as though one of the CHS settings is still not "sticking":
Move from Clipboard New to Old group after every X number of HOURS: (does not seem to obey the rule set by the user)

6142

General Software Discussion / Re: Cnet's Download.com and the installer scam

« Last post by IainB on October 02, 2011, 03:51 AM »

I had forgotten about the Cnet problem and I was in a hurry the other day, when I downloaded something from Cnet. I wasn't careful enough in my hurried clicking. When I started the install file that I had downloaded, I realised that it wasn't the installer for the program that I had wanted, but the installer for Cnets proprietary downloader. It was going to install lots of adware crap that I didn't want, by default. So I killed the process, expunged the file and got the download from somewhere else, making a mental note never to go to Cnet again to download anything.

I think Cnet have shot themselves in the foot.

6143

Screenshot Captor / Re: guidelines for region selection

« Last post by IainB on September 30, 2011, 07:46 AM »

+1 from me for this feature. Only today I had been wishing that something like it was available.

6144

Living Room / Re: Lady Geek -- Helping businesses sell technology to women

« Last post by IainB on September 29, 2011, 09:47 PM »

I think arguably few individuals will have succeeded as well as Steve Shirley in terms of encouraging women to work in IT. I have been a fan of hers since the '70s when I saw how she built up F.I. Group. I think she started by getting contracts for IT work which was assigned to highly skilled solo mothers, so they could work from home (thus tapping into a rich vein of resources and incurring little or no office overhead costs). What an amazingly developmental and beneficial life (for humanity) she has led.

6145

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone seeing problems with MS Security Essentials recently?

« Last post by IainB on September 21, 2011, 09:29 PM »

My version of MSSE is OK.

This was an interesting article in PCMag: The Best Free Antivirus Software
What do you reckon? The Ad-Aware thing looks like it tops both lists (virus and malware).

I am currently using:
    * MS Security Essentials
    * Malwarebytes (licenced version)


I got MWB (free version) after doing some some rapid research, to clear up the hard drive of a friend's laptop one day. I used it to remove scareware/malware that MSSE had not caught (and months after I had installed MSSE for him!).

I bought the licenced version of MWB the same day after realising that if MSSE was not up to the job 100% on his laptop, then I had better cover myself on my laptop - and MWB seemed to be very, very good at what it does.
MWB (licenced) is good for the paranoid. It does real-time scanning - so can catch nasty things (e.g., block any browsing to a site regarded as "dangerous") and can do "flash" scans to check currently operating proggies in memory. Doesn't seem to impose a humungous overhead either - on my HP ENVY (Intel i7, Win7 64-bit).

6146

Living Room / Re: Thoughts in remembrance of 911

« Last post by IainB on September 21, 2011, 09:15 PM »

At the risk of digressing and following a red whale...

That would have been strange if you saw an actual swastika on the side of a buddhist temple.  The swastika itself is an aberration- a reversed symbol from the one actually used, so the symbol should have been a reversed swastika, i.e. the original symbol...

-wraith808 (September 21, 2011, 09:34 AM)

Apparently not as strange as one might think:
I could always have been mistaken, of cour, but it certainly looked like a Nazi-style swastika to me at any rate. So, just for the record so that I could check up on my facts, I took a picture of it with my trusty Asahi Pentax SE mounted with a 900mm telephoto lens (sadly all now obsolete). The wat (temple) which had the huge swastika on its walls was a couple of kilometres away across a valley from the wat where I was standing in Changwat Suppanburi. When I had the photo developed, I checked up on it in the Enc. Britannica, and yes, it was the "bad" Nazi swastika, so my ignorance was reduced at that point. This was in 2001, so the photo would be in hardcopy form only, and it is in storage with my stuff 800 kilometres from where I am now living. If I get a chance to, I shall get the photo and scan it. This might be just what I needed to motivate me to scan all my old photos anyway, as I now have a scanner that can scan perfectly from negatives as well.

In any event, my wife (who is a Thai Buddhist) told me at the time that it was common to see swastikas in wats, most usually in Chinese quarters in Bangkok. She said it come in both orientations ("left" or "right"), and certainly you can see pictures of this on the internet if you google it - e.g., The Swastika Symbol in Buddhism
It's quite interesting actually. I had not done this before now. Just go to google.com and type "Buddhism and swastika" into the search field.

I did this after reading @tomos' comment:

well, the name swastika, is used for the original symbol and the nazi version [edit] am I nit-picking [/edit]

BTW I've seen swastikas (original) incorporated within Christian crosses, in medieval Irish Christian stone crosses, and tombstones. (Presumably it was also used elsewhere in Europe by Christians).
More info (wikipedia) [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika]Swastika

-tomos (September 21, 2011, 10:00 AM)

6147

Living Room / Re: Thoughts in remembrance of 911

« Last post by IainB on September 21, 2011, 08:34 AM »

@cmpm: That's a welcome and very positive approach, though I must admit, I had to think a bit before I could shift my paradigms to perceive what you describe as your perception, but I think I get it now, more or less.
If I may ask, does your perception of the meaning of the Caduceus affect you in your progress through life - or your own philosophy of life?

Where you say:

Mythology is an offshoot of truths and lies.
So I look beyond that, although it does offer insight.
Being based on other things, the mythological view is not the original intent.
But points to some definite facts that they are based on.

- it caused me to think of the Swastika.

Having been brought up on WW2 documentaries, I used to feel slightly sick at the sight of that emblem, until - years ago - I saw it painted very large on the side of a Thai Buddhist temple. After a little investigation, I realised that the symbol is named in Sanskrit as "svastika" or something, and represented extreme good luck and wellbeing. As I learned to speak Thai, I gathered that one theory on the etymology of "Sawat dee" (a polite formal greeting) was that it was derived from a corruption of "Svastik dee" ("dee" means literally "good"), so "Sawat dee" might be something of a tautological "Have a really good good luck day".

6148

Living Room / Re: Thoughts in remembrance of 911

« Last post by IainB on September 21, 2011, 05:57 AM »

@app103: Thankyou. That's a relief! At least someone already had the guts to face up and tell them that they are using the "wrong" emblem. Though it seems that it may be the "right" emblem because it is the wrong one.
I think learning assembler was easier than this.
Maybe we should try to avoid thinking of those medical corps' emblems as necessarily related to medicine/healing then.
I shall have to go and readjust my whole world-view now.
My brain hurts. This is highly perturbing.
What did I tell you? This sort of confusion could only happen in America.

6149

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR Release v2.107.04 beta - Sep 23, 2012

« Last post by IainB on September 19, 2011, 10:02 PM »

@mouser: FARR v2.99.01 needs SALRTL.DLL

What version is required please? Are you able to tell me?

Also, where could I download the correct version from?
(Thanks.)

6150

Mini-Reviews by Members / DiviFile from Qnomad - Mini-review

« Last post by IainB on September 19, 2011, 06:13 PM »

Originally posted:	2011-09-19
Last updated	2014-08-07

Basic Info

App Name	DiviFile (File, Bookmark and Note categorisation, tagging and association tool)
Thumbs-Up Rating	Still under development. Developer currently focussed on another project.
App URL	http://www.qnomad.com/divifile/
App Versions Reviewed	v1.0.7 (latest), v1.0.0 (previously)
Test System Specs	Win7-64 Home Premium, Win8.1-64 PRO
Supported OSes	Windows
Support Methods	email: [email protected], [email protected]
Upgrade Policy	Not applicable.
Trial Version Available?	Freeware
Pricing Scheme	Not applicable.

1. Intro and Overview:
This is an update dated 2014-07-20 to finally do DiviFile the justice of a proper review.
I originally did a very quick Mini-Review of DiviFile on 2011-09-19, and then forgot about it as I thought I did not need it.
In that review I wrote:

Sorry, I had thought of using the Mini-review template provided by @Josh, but after looking at that template I put the idea in the "too hard" basket - that was after seeing what a constipated process it was going to be for me.

So this is just a quick heads-up from me in case it is of help/use to anyone:
Yesterday, I came across this reference to DiviFile in my Google reader feed: Organize your files into a virtual structure with DiviFile

I downloaded and installed the proggy (it's version 1.0) and played with it for a while and then uninstalled it.
I caused it to crash once, about 30 seconds after starting it.
It's a curious and potentially very useful item categorisation tool, where "items" are linked to or contained in a database:

• Files. (Linked: it is a bit like a tagging container.)
• Bookmarks. (Linked/copied: I didn't try this out.)
• Outlook items. (Linked: I didn't try this out.)
• Notes created in DivFile. (Text notes.)

I found the text notes a bit kludgy, and the user interface to be rather kludgy and unintuitive.
Despite this, I reckon it could be worth keeping an eye on DiviFile as it develops, because it seems to cut across the domains of PIMs and virtual folders.
I don't really need DiviFile anyway, as I use InfoSelect, OneNotes, Gmail, Google docs and CHS as my PIMs, and I use xplorer² for file management and virtual folders - e.g., reparsed files, Windows 7 "Library" files, virtual folder cabinets for file collections.

Since then several things have changed:

• Reducing the legacy technology: I am progressively reducing my dependency on InfoSelect and migrating its contents to OneNote on an as-and-when-needed basis, running OneNote to the Cloud (OneDrive) as a prudent approach to minimising critical database dependency on solely client device-based databases. I can access my database on and off-line.
  
  
• I have moved to Win8 PRO. Microsoft have now achieved integration of Win8 PRO with OneDrive and Outlook.com, and the MS Office suite - including Outlook, OneNote, Excel, Access, etc. It is an exceedingly well-designed integration, one of the most useful parts for me being the OneNote integration with OLE (Object Linking and Embedding), which seems to have finally come of age after a history blighted by the shattered hopes and dreams of the "Open" crowd (particularly DEC and HP).
  
  
• Google's mucking about: with Gmail,  Google Docs (now Google Drive) and especially with the document type and "labelling" (categorisation) system within the latter, and then shutting down Google Reader and the coercion around forcing Google+ usage and "real names only" has all essentially broken trust and thus helped to discourage me from increasing my dependency on Google Anything. Quite the reverse in fact - I am in the process of migrating away from Google - not an easy task. So I am now moving across to the integration of Win8 PRO with Microsoft Outlook, OneDrive, and the MS Office suite.
  __________________________________
  

Amongst my PIMs (Personal Information Managers) I continue to rely on InfoSelect and CHS and I use xplorer² for file management and virtual folders - e.g., using hard/soft links, reparsed files, "Library" files, virtual folder cabinets for file collections.


2. Description:
Screenshots (from the website):
This is DiviFile's deceptively simple UI, for an example of categorizing information relating to amenities in different cities:




This is an example of categorizing personal software and other data on one's PC:




DiviFile is described here: http://www.qnomad.com/divifile/

(Some text taken from the above webpage.)
Do you maintain a set of folders for organizing your documents? Another set for arranging your Favorites? And yet another set of folders and categories in Microsoft Outlook for notes and emails? What a mess! Wouldn't it be nice to have a tool that can bring together all these otherwise disparate pieces of information and allow you to organize them under one set of categories in one place? DiviFile lets you do just that! It serves as a hub for all information pertinent to your life, and it lets you get maximum mileage from every category you create. Using DiviFile's unique features, you can create your own organizational system that is personally intuitive and then use instant search to find the information you need when you need it.

DiviFile is a:

• File-tagging utility
• Bookmark manager
• Note-taking tool
  
  • Research Assistant
  • Peripheral Brain
  • Tracker of random bits of information

3. The Good:

• This software now seems somewhat improved.
• It also seems more stable, though I today made it crash (sorry @Qnomad, there was no error message other than that "DiviFile has stopped responding").
• Faceted Classification
  I had not known that there was a correct term for this kind of classification method. I got used to using the method in a DOS-based PIM database system called Lotus Agenda, in about 1989. There was at the time, and has been since, nothing else quite like it.
  

  From: Qnomad - Power of Facets
  DiviFile is an information management tool that offers you a whole new way to conceptualize your research topics and organize your information resources. DiviFile is the only general reference filing system that let's you file a single item into multiple categories. This allows you to create your own organizational system, using a technique known as Faceted Classification, which is more natural and intuitive than using the single-facted hierarchical system found in Windows Explorer or in your browser's built-in bookmark manager.
  A facet is a top-level category, the descendants of which describe and divide a particular aspect of the information you are organizing. DiviFile gives you the power to organize your files, bookmarks, and notes into multiple facets. (See link for detailed illustrative examples and to get a hang of how Faceted Classification could work for you, in practice.)
  
• Potentially an incredibly useful program, and it apparently integrates with the file and bookmark systems via Windows Explorer and IE, and with the Notes in Outlook (though I have not tested these yet).

4. Needs Improvement:
As it stand, it could seem a deceptively simple application, but there's quite a lot of smarts under the hood. I think there could potentially be a great deal more to come for this application, given @Qnomad's comment below:

When you wrote that DiviFile "cuts across the domains of PIMs and virtual folders" I was very happy to see you can sense the original vision I had for DiviFile, which is much grander than what it is now.  It is actually intended to include GTD functionality (it's probably not obvious how it fits together, but it does).  It already has this to-do list management model under the covers, but I haven't yet taken it to that next level.

-Qnomad (September 20, 2011, 07:35 PM)

That gives me quite a bit to look forward to!
UPDATE 2014-08-07: A recent email from @Qnomad indicates that he has been focussed on a new project. I would thus not expect more updates to DiviFile until he has the time.

5. Why I think you should use this product:
If you are interested in dragging yourself out of and above the Windows hierarchical file structured regime to a new level of PIM, then you are likely to be interested in this software.
However, do bear in mind the potential lack of updates per the note of 2014-08-07 above. This may not really be a finished product, though it seems to work OK AS-IS.
Extract from: http://www.qnomad.com/divifile/

In Windows Explorer, a file is shackled to one folder and one folder only. Set your files free by dropping them into DiviFile! After doing so you can tag a file in as many categories as you want, and see for each one which other categories are related through owning the same file. Interact with the file in both DiviFile and Windows Explorer as you normally would. You can move files around in Windows Explorer even after adding them to DiviFile. This awesome app taps into file location changes and so knows where your file actually is! You can also drag a file from DiviFile and drop it back into Windows Explorer at a new location, or into another application such as attaching it to an email message.

6. How it compares to similar products:
I know of nothing similar to DiviFile, though I had been trialling Tabbles (offering potential Faceted Classification, but not by name):

• but not without some major problems Help please! - Unable to install MS SQL Express 2012 on laptop..
• See also: Organize files using virtual folders

7. Conclusions:

• This seems to me to be a brilliant and simple implementation of the concept of Faceted Classification for data files on a file system.
• If you are interested in dragging yourself out of and above the Windows hierarchical file structured regime to a new level of PIM, then it could well be worth your while giving DeviFile a trial.
• If Faceted Classification is something new to you, then give it a whirl and prepare to be surprised at what the implications are for this fast, simple and easy approach to data retrieval to meet your needs.