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6276

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Clipboard Help+Spell - Top Priority Requests for 2011

« Last post by IainB on April 25, 2011, 04:48 PM »

@mouser: Oh! Thankyou! I had missed that new feature. Sorry for not paying attention!   

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General Software Discussion / Re: [SORTED] Intelligent comparision of folder contents

« Last post by IainB on April 25, 2011, 09:34 AM »

@tomos:

I'm wondering can that compare files simply by filename - ignoring size and date, even (optionally) ignoring file-extension.

I don't think it can - or at any rate, I've never used it in that way. It might be able to.
Sorry, I don't have time to play with it to find out right now.

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Living Room / Re: Higgs Boson, God Particle, rumored to have been found.

« Last post by IainB on April 25, 2011, 05:57 AM »

Hmm, the Dayglo Abortions music is, erm, interesting...and I like the family pic of President Ronald and Nancy Reagan poised over their dinner plate (NOT).
Talking of presidents, didn't President Obama bow down to a Saudi king a while back? I wonder, would he have been bowing to Mammon or Allah by so doing?     

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General Software Discussion / Re: Intelligent comparision of folder contents

« Last post by IainB on April 25, 2011, 01:32 AM »

@tomos:
I perform this kind of "intelligent" comparison of folder contents on a regular basis, and it works exceedingly well, using xplorer² - from zabkat.com
You can try out xplorer² with a free download.

IMHO, as well as being a superb file manager/explorer, it is a brilliant archive/folder/file comparison tool.
It can even make a passable cup of coffee.
The functions you would need are:
"Synch Wizard"
"Synchronse panes" (F9) - this keeps you in synch with 2 folders displayed in 2 panes/"windows", and through nested folders within those as well (if the naming of nested folders is identical).
Ctrl-M (performs a version comparison on file size/date or other selected criteria, on each pane).

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Living Room / Re: Higgs Boson, God Particle, rumored to have been found.

« Last post by IainB on April 25, 2011, 01:16 AM »

@Renegade:

Well, I'm not bowing down to or worshiping anything called "boson".

But do you bow down to anything else - Mammon, perhaps?          

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Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Clipboard Help+Spell - Top Priority Requests for 2011

« Last post by IainB on April 25, 2011, 12:28 AM »

URLs - this is just a note as a "By the way" comment and question: I noticed that when I copy/paste (Ctrl-c/Ctrl-v) stuff off a web page into MS OneNote, the url where I copied it from always gets pasted also - which is very useful as a source reference. So that means that CHS could capture the same URL data doesn't it? But does it? I know it captures the application where the Copy was made.

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Finished Programs / Re: DONE: automated mp3 rip from video clip

« Last post by IainB on April 23, 2011, 03:43 AM »

@skwire: Thanks for the update!     

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General Software Discussion / Re: Documents Organizer

« Last post by IainB on April 18, 2011, 02:59 AM »

I tried this just now, rather quickly, in xplorer².
It can generate the sorted file listing in just about any form you want and with various filters. That should be able to meet the requirements.
Then it can create shortcuts for all the files listed, as an immediate batch operation. The shortcuts are output to the Desktop folder by default, but that default could probably be changed.
Thereafter it gets messy. The shortcuts do not inherit the date. If the shortcuts pointed to a folder name which contained a date, then Xplorer² could sort on that text in the shortcut, so you could get a date order out of that.

None of this is automatic. You would have to do it manually within xplorer², though I suppose you could write a batch job to automate it - or some aspects of it.
An expert user of xplorer² would probably be able to do better than I.

You can download a free trial of xplorer² and try it for yourself: http://zabkat.com/

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Developer's Corner / Looking for documentation: Cyber 205 Instruction Reference Manual

« Last post by IainB on April 18, 2011, 01:59 AM »

Not sure if any members of this forum might be able to help, but I am trying to find someone who might have a copy of the programmer's guide "Cyber 205 Instruction Reference Manual", as I would like to get a text-searchable PDF scan of it for a CDC forum (CDC manufactured the Cyber range of computers in the '70s). Can't seem to find it anywhere yet.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Documents Organizer

« Last post by IainB on April 17, 2011, 08:12 AM »

I'm not sure, because I haven't actually tried to do this but have previously done something similar, but xplorer² seems to be able to handle this sort of thing pretty well.
I would need to read the manual and try it out to be sure though.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Unlocker 1.8.7 released - 01/05/2008

« Last post by IainB on April 14, 2011, 04:27 PM »

Thanks for the posts about Unlocker updates. I was looking for an update and have downloaded and installed Unlocker1.9.1-x64.exe.
I found no viruses, though it has an avoidable (i.e., you can deselect it) piece of adware in the install. Previously there had always been the Yabector or e-Bay viruses/trojans. Unlocker software was always very useful (though the viruses/trojans it contained were annoying and Microsoft Security Essentials would always object to them).

Last week I went looking for an update to Unlocker and had no joy. These are my notes (below) - they might be useful to users of "Unlocker" (a great little piece of software IMHO:          

• I have the author's blog (Cedrick Collomb blog - http://ccollomb.free.fr/blog/ in my Google Reader, but there seem to be no posts after July 2, 2010. His posts were interesting and useful. However, now the blog seems to have gone, though I can access the stored abbreviated posts to the blog in my Google Reader.
• He also has a blog at emptyloop.com , but parts of that seem to be broken.
• Several other sites that he used or linked to for downloads seem to have have removed links to download his software, because they were infected with viruses (e.g., Yabector).
• I have had some correspondence over the last couple of years with Cedrick Collomb. I recently emailed him to see if he was OK, as his blogs seem to have been abandoned. He referred to the emptyloop blog and said "Blog is still down there, I kind of lost my database."

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General Software Discussion / Re: How to make Firefox Not Open PDF Files

« Last post by IainB on April 05, 2011, 12:54 AM »

@bob99:

In Firefox 4
Tools > Options > Applications > Application/pdf  I set to "always ask"
There are also other choices here.

Thankyou for that note. I had not spent the time looking at that menu. That seems like quite an improvement in FF4 over the previous versions.

@mouser:
I don't have any problems with annoying PDF links since I started using Google docs to view them online by default.  
If I want t save the PDF document after reading some of it, then I either save it into Google docs, or if I want the document on my laptop,  then I download it from either Google docs or via the Flashgot add-in    and my GetRight downloader  

I don't like to download PDF files of unknown size directly in the browser as they can be very slow to download if they are large. GetRight is fastest as I have it set to download a file in up to 4 sequential segments simultaneously (each segment being a unique slice of the file). GetRight sticks them together automatically (so CRC checksums remain valid).

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General Software Discussion / Re: Measuring PC boot-up time by component - and tweaking it with Soluto

« Last post by IainB on March 30, 2011, 08:15 PM »

Update 2011-03-31 from me:
Sorry I haven't posted anything on this subject in a while.
What I can report is that I continued using Soluto up until mid-December 2010, at which point my Toshiba Satellite A100 laptop died. It was quite a good laptop, with good keyboard ergonomics, and had an Intel Centrino Duo CPU, WinXP and 3GB of RAM. It actually had been on the blink for a couple of months - the keyboard processor seemed to be intermittently failing - but I think I might have finished the whole thing off by accidentally shorting the battery terminals when I was checking them with a voltmeter.  

Anyway, I managed to get hold of an HP ENVY 14-1112TX laptop at about 50% discount.
It has an Intel i7 CPU, Win7 (64-bit) and 4GB of RAM. This is a superb laptop - it would be a good games machine too as it has a very good/fast GPU (ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650) and a beautifully clear display. (URU/Myst Online looks good on it.) The keyboard ergonomics and the narrower screen are different to my Toshiba and I have had to get used to them. It scores 5.9 on the "Windows Experience Index". Overall, this laptop comes highly recommended by me.        

I decided to not install Soluto initially, as I didn't want to put anything into the mix that might cloud my learning/understanding of the new laptop and new OS. I have now got a handle on things and I don't think Soluto would be of much benefit to me right now. The new laptop is blazingly fast on startup and very stable, so I run it either switched on, or in standby (in RAM) for many days at a time, with only the occasional reboot following an update or new program installation that might necessitate a reboot. Though there are a lot of small ancillary (mostly non-essential) processes running from startup - e.g., including HP 3D Drive Guard (an accelerometer), Hard Drive Sentinel, and some convenient utilities - I don't perceive any problems with boot-up times as I had done with my Toshiba. Incidentally, I used to keep the Toshiba on, or in standby most of the time too, with infrequent reboots.

Win7 lets you know when it has problematic processes - e.g., unresponsive or slow processes, or processes that won't unhook on shutdown. I might try Soluto on this new configuration some time later this year, purely out of interest. If I do, I will post the results here.

6289

Found Deals and Discounts / Hard Disk Sentinel Pro - 20% discount

« Last post by IainB on March 18, 2011, 07:25 AM »

Just FYI.
I have been trialling Hard Disk Sentinel Pro for a couple of months and decided it was very good and that I would buy it.
I have not written a review here, because the experience will probably vary from user to user depending on their needs and their hardware.
However, I will state that one of the many features that I especially like about HDS Pro is that it can perform a SMART test on my USB-connected 500GB hard disk drives (I use them for backup). This will give me time to prepare to migrate to other backup devices as soon as the SMART tests show a degradation of a particular drive.

HDS Pro has a 20% discount coupon currently (2011-03-18) applicable to purchases of trial downloads.
 - Full price: USD35.00
 - Purchased at 20% discount: US$28

6290

Living Room / Re: Leave me in the clouds

« Last post by IainB on March 17, 2011, 11:09 PM »

@Tuxman: I can't see that you are necessarily paranoid from what you say. I was trained to make absolutely certain about data backup/preservation and security whilst doing programming work in a consultancy that had contracts for VHS (Very High Security) and hush-hush type military defence projects in the UK, many years back.
I carried that training with me when I went to work in an organisation that was a data processing central clearing house for a group of trading banks in another country. Now they were an organisation that was pretty secure, but actually they were sloppy by comparison to where I had been trained up.

Over the years I have lost count of the number of instances where I have heard that computer operations people - who really should have known better - had been religiously doing backups, but had never thought to test on a regular basis that they could actually run a recovery successfully from the backup data. So when they had to actually run a recovery after a major data loss - Oops! - look, all backup had been corrupted. Oh dear what a pity never mind. There are good reasons why it's a good idea to have at least two copies of backup data, stored geographicaly far apart.

What you seem to call "paranoia" is really just good practice and prudent data management. It's the rest of us who do not follow good practice (because we've never been taught to).

I do think you might be taking a potential risk by going into the cloud. Presumably you are prepared to take those risks - whatever they might be. Crossing the road can be a potentially risky business. I don't know to what extent you are aiming for 100% built-in redundancy of backup, but if you don't have that, then I'd recommend that you at least try to get there. The thing that will kill you or your data is statistical variability brought about by human error. For example, like the Google Gmail outage affecting a few thousand users the other week. Apparently it was caused by a bug (human error) in a system update implemented by one of the Google engineers. Oops.

You cannot eliminate human error unless you can automate the process that allows for human error. I forget whether it was a NASA Mars or Venus satellite landing probe that slammed into the target planet at zillions of feet per second a few years back, because there had been some accidental confusion in the satellite's programming relating to calculations involving speed/acceleration - mph having been mistaken for kph, or vice versa. Oops.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch - Aaawwweeesssooommmeee

« Last post by IainB on March 14, 2011, 09:30 AM »

@Edvard: Many thanks for this.
Very nice find.     

6292

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: V2 Beta of Clipboard Help+Spell With Support for Images

« Last post by IainB on March 09, 2011, 04:48 AM »

@mouser: Yes, I vote +1 for this.     

When engaged, and a new image is copied to the clipboard, it would be saved in CHS database/images directory, as a standalone file, and an entry added to the clip database referring to this file.
At any time you could manually delete files in the database/images directory without harm; maybe some maintenance functions to help prune the image directory

This would be very useful.
I currently use Picasa and SC. If I take a screen capture, and if Picasa is running, then Picasa will intercept it and put the captured image into a defined folder.
I have set SC to use this folder as its default storage location, so all my capturing of images goes into the one bucket.
I use Picasa to manage and delete the contents of the bucket.
If CHS could be pointed to using the same default bucket for its image captures, then that would be great.

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Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Clipboard Help+Spell v1.45 Discussion and notes for Ugraders

« Last post by IainB on March 06, 2011, 08:45 PM »

Thanks for this mouser.
Will do a backup, install the ß, try it out and report back.

6294

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: O&O Migration Kit for Windows 7

« Last post by IainB on March 05, 2011, 05:36 AM »

@Carol Haynes:
What an impressive post!       
Only odd thing is:

"It doesn't say it transfers programs."

It apparently doesn't say that it doesn't transfer programs either. I used it to transfer programs. Just pointed the thing at the program folders I wanted to transfer, and Bob's yer uncle - worked a treat. Some of the transferred proggies fired up initially with a bit of difficulty on the Win7 (64) platform, but, after a bit of adjustment to their properties, thereafter ran OK. Some didn't play nicely in the new OS so I reinstalled them and that usually seemed to fix things. One or two wouldn't work at all in the new OS, but these did not surprise me.
Maybe I was using it "the wrong way" after all, but I dun't kno ani beter.
Oh dear what a pity never mind.

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Found Deals and Discounts / Re: O&O Migration Kit for Windows 7

« Last post by IainB on March 05, 2011, 04:03 AM »

@Curt:

"...not the wrong way, but the only possible way..."

Oops. But I migrated from XP to Win7 (64-bit). - using WTW.
From what you said, I'm not supposed to be able to do that.
However, in my defence, I do recall taking the trouble to read the destructions before using the thing, and it seemed that it was well within its design parameters to do that.

In any event, it obviated the need for me to purchase either the O&O or the LapLink migration tool - which I had been on the point of buying.

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Found Deals and Discounts / Re: O&O Migration Kit for Windows 7

« Last post by IainB on March 04, 2011, 08:39 PM »

@Carol Haynes:

"Am I correct in reading the O&O site to say that it will migrate applications as well as data - in which case the Windows Transfer Wizard doesn't do that."

That's odd, I used the Windows Transfer Wizard to transfer all the applications and their relevant data holas bolas. It worked very well for me. Maybe I used it the "wrong way"?

I did not know the WTW existed and only stumbled upon it by accident just as I was debating with myself whether to buy the O&O migration tool or the Laplink migration tool. WTW saved me some money and did a great job. I don't usually sing Micro$oft's praises, but I'd like to give credit where credit is due. (I've been very impressed with pretty much all of Windows7 so far.)

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Found Deals and Discounts / Re: O&O Migration Kit for Windows 7

« Last post by IainB on March 04, 2011, 08:13 AM »

At first, I thought about getting the LapLink migration tool, but then I realised that you don't actually need a third party migration kit, because Windows7 already includes one to help you migrate from (in my case) XP to Win7. It worked just fine and was free (bundled with the OS).

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Found Deals and Discounts / Re: [Giveaway] PDF Decrypter Pro

« Last post by IainB on March 03, 2011, 04:03 PM »

@PhilB66: It's in a file called license.txt in the .ZIP file.
The license.txt file contains:

PDF Decrypter Pro license to use:

License key:

A4T4N-B8UFK-SFN3P-VKJ8B

Thank you

Tipradar.com

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Living Room / Re: Lift: Short Film on Everyday People

« Last post by IainB on March 03, 2011, 02:48 PM »

@mouser:

"There is a lot of sadness and loneliness in this world.  This video shows some of that. ... to see people open up and respond to someone who is willing to non-judgmentally listen to them, and see how it's a meaningful event for them."

Yes, exactly, and that's just one aspect of what seems to me to be so depressing about this video. It shows objectively the stark reality of a lot of the human condition in the marvellous, civilised human society in London (which is where I gathered it was from the context - the film is taken in what is probably the sole operational lift in an '80s-style, high-density living, apartment block).

I wouldn't dream of criticising either the video (I think it's quite an interesting idea, actually), nor your take on it, but, I find the video (and the rather curious Free Hugs one too, for that matter) - as cranioscopical so succinctly and possibly euphemistically puts it:

Not wholly uplifting.

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Living Room / Re: Lift: Short Film on Everyday People

« Last post by IainB on March 03, 2011, 07:54 AM »

Now that's depressing.