Recent Posts

651

Living Room / Re: LastPass users: do you backup?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 31, 2012, 04:49 AM »

http://helpdesk.last...com/lastpass-pocket/

This is listed as a link in the Help file contents.

What is wrong with a CSV file? If you want to secure it just compress it to a RAR file with a password.

PS: The only option I can see in LastPass for Importing is the CSV file - so the encrypted pocket file probably wouldn't be much use (except I suppose you could export from Pocket to CSV if you need to).

652

Living Room / Re: esata vs. USB...fight!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 30, 2012, 04:15 PM »

@superboyac the thread in your link is from Jan 2011.  The only thing new I've learned since then is check Device Manager to make sure your USB 3.0 hub does not have the option to power off to save energy enabled. Otherwise if the drive in the dock is idle for awhile it may shut the port off. I've already posted my experience on that thread in detail.

-MilesAhead (July 30, 2012, 02:19 PM)

Dang Miles!  Always one step ahead!  Thanks...

-superboyac (July 30, 2012, 04:05 PM)

Don't forget to disable the selective suspend option in Windows Vista/7 power settings too!

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Living Room / Re: esata vs. USB...fight!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 30, 2012, 04:12 PM »

The advantage of eSATA is that with an expansion box you can attach loads of drives whereas USB ports support only one drive (or the box contains a hub to attach more).

Just ordered one of these: http://www.amazon.co...p/product/B006CS1VN4 with two Seagate 3Tb drives.

I am putting the drives into my box after using that to clone them! (Hopefully)

Personally I have had no luck with eSata - I have had three mobos with eSata support and external devices apparently with eSata support and have yet to find a combination that works convincingly and consistently.

Almost the exact opposite of the experience described in the opening message - I have rarely had any issues with USB (only slow speeds with USB 2) - hopefully USB 3 will help to solve that - it has pretty much killed firewire, even Apple don't use it any more.

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Living Room / Re: Windows 7 boot time woes ... anyone any ideas?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 30, 2012, 10:21 AM »

Not much point in installing an Intel AHCI driver when I am using an AMD board!

It isn't a driver problem - been using AHCI / IDE mixed system (supported by the mobo) for a couple of years without issue.

WRT getting hiberfil.sys files confused - you can only hibernate one OS at a time so using the same file shouldn't cause problems (you can use the same page file - always have done on multiboot systems)  - and even on multiboot systems you don't see the OS selection menu iof the system was hibernated - it just goes straight back to the OS that was hibernated. That is correct behaviour.

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Living Room / Re: Windows 7 boot time woes ... anyone any ideas?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 30, 2012, 07:09 AM »

I have seen that article.

Because the Hibernate File must be readable by the bootloader, it must be stored on a specific sector of the hard drive, on the primary system partition.

But that is the point my primary system partition (with the boot loader) is my WD hard disk. That drive has a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate (including a hiberfil.sys). My dual boot copy is on the SSD (Win 7 Pro) but also includes a hiberfil.sys even though it isn't the "primary system partition" and therefore isn't "readable by the bootloader"

The best I can acheive is reducing the size of hiberfil.sys to 50% of memory size (by using powercfg -h on -size 50). Switching off hibernation removes the hiberfil.sys but enabling puts the copy straight back on the SSD.

Given that SSDs as the system drive are becoming more and more popular, but necessarily small capacity because of cost, it is about time MS made it possible to place the whole of pagefil.sys and hiberfil.sys somewhere separate (preferably on their own partition like linux does with its own swap file.) There is no logical reason why the boot loader can't be rewritten to include code to point to the correct location.

I know I can more pagefil.sys to another partition - but it does require a small pagefil.sys on C: to produce bugcheck dump files. I suppose with 32Gb I could simply allow a tiny pagefil.sys and not bother with any extensions on other drives.

656

General Software Discussion / Re: Ripping My DVD Collection

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 29, 2012, 08:15 PM »

+1 for DVDFab

You can rip directly to ISO files or if you prefer to VIDEO_TS & AUDIO_TS folders.

You can also rip just the movie (no extras or menus etc.)

OK it isn't free but it works quick and only requires about 2 clicks to do the job.

There are also addons for ripping BluRay (no data loss) or BluRay to DVD format.

Finally there is an addon to convert to mobile formats.

I have the same problem - too much crap in the house (DVDs, BluRay, Books and CDs - not to mention computer crap) but I haven't found a solution I would be happy with - ripping DVDs to HD wouldn't do it for me as I would still have the DVD!!

Another alternative is book storage for your DVDs - you can buy storage solutions that pack hundreds on indexed CDs and DVDs into scratch resistant and chemically stable sleeves together with inlay cards and booklets. You do have to be organised (I'm not and that is why I gave up on it) but it can reduce the clutter enormously.

How about these:

http://www.amazon.co...pacity/dp/B004CYR166

(this isn't the storage system I was thinking of, as it doesn't store the paper work, but it stores lot of disks in a small space).

657

Living Room / Re: Windows 7 boot time woes ... anyone any ideas?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 29, 2012, 02:19 PM »

Thanks Miles - actually I think I have fixed the boot up partition issue. I added an extra SATA PCIe card a while ago because I ran out of SATA sockets and didn't change the BIOS setting so I think it has been trying to boot from the wrong drive for a while and when it found it wasn't possible it defaulted to the correct drive. I have fixed the BIOS and deleted the boot loader stuff from the wrong drive and all now seems to be working.

Now all I have to figure out is how to move hiberfil.sys from C: to the boot drive. MS suggest this is the default arrangement so I can't quite see why I have a hiberfil.sys on drive C: ??? Maybe I will diable hibernation and remove that file and then reenable and see if it does what it is meant to do!

658

Living Room / Windows 7 boot time woes ... anyone any ideas?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 29, 2012, 12:45 PM »

I have just added an SSD to my system and plan to move my Windows 7 installation to that drive (using a clean reinstall).

The system has multiple hard disks plus the new SSD and up until today I have had no issues with the boot process.

I bunged in the Windows 7 DVD, rebooted and installed to the new SSD drive naively assuming that Windows Setup would simply add a dual boot entry to the exist BCD database used by my old system.

That's when the boot issues started!

It reboot straight into the new version of Windows but there was no dual boot menu to boot into my old version of Windows on a hard disk.

I used BCDEDIT to rebuild the multiboot menu  and I can now access both installations.

The trouble is my BIOS points to the original harddisk as the boot device (which is what I wanted) but the new install has built a new boot setup on another irrelevant drive.

I want to keep the original drive as the boot device and ultimately make Windows on my SSD the default boot from that partition. The reason for this is that hiberfil.sys has to remain on the drive with the boot sector (according to MS) and I use a UPS that requires hibernation to be enabled. The system has 32Gb of memory so I definitely do not want hiberfil.sys on the SSD as it would eat 25% of the drive on it own.

A number of questions:

1) How can I make my original drive the source for the boot process again? It has a hidden MS 100Mb partition specifically for this but the installation process of the new version of windows ignored it and has put the Boot stuff on a Green drive which makes start up slow - also I don't want multiple bootable partitions.

2) Once I get it booting from where I want how do I ensure that the only hiberfil.sys file is on the system boot disk and not on the SSD - I read a number of articles from MS suggesting that hiberfil.sys has to be on the boo drive but even so windows has created one on the SSD anyway - wasting over 27Gb of space.

Any ideas appreciated.

659

Living Room / Re: Big brother Microsoft listens in to your Skype IMs

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 26, 2012, 01:43 PM »

When will overdubbed ads start appearing on Skype based on your conversations content?

Oh I forgot it is MS - they would probably advertise something completely irrelevant - but they know you should want!

660

DC Gamer Club / Re: Portal 2 gets a new level maker! Woohoo - thousands of new levels

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 26, 2012, 09:49 AM »

Woo Hoo - one of my maps (called Bouncy Castle) has made it to the Steam Workshop "Most Popular this week" front page (currently at the number 12 slot but climbing slowly!).

It is very strange - the map I spent least time and care on has attracted more attention that all my other maps combined (by a rather large margin).

It is a deliberately simple puzzle to solve - but designed to be humerous (silly).

Here is a picture ...



If you have Portal 2 check it out at:

http://steamcommunit...details/?id=84113218

(it is a short map that probably takes less than 5 minutes for most to solve - for want of a better word.)

661

General Software Discussion / Re: Screen Calipers is currently free

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 23, 2012, 06:33 PM »

Great find - includes updates 'for the life of the product' ...

After you make a purchase of this BitsDuJour discount promotion, Screen Calipers may be used indefinitely.
Screen Calipers is licensed per computer, and not per user.
Transfer of a license to another owned computer is allowed.
License activation isn't required. what's this?
Upgrades to future versions of the software will be free for the lifetime of the product.
Support is provided for the lifetime of the product.
30 days return policy.

662

General Software Discussion / Re: Why Windows 8 Made Me Sell Microsoft (MSFT)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 23, 2012, 02:04 PM »

Don't forget that corporate clients have licenses that allow them to update tot he latest version of Windows. I presume that MS includes them in the business sales stats - even though they don't actually upgrade

663

General Software Discussion / Re: Why Windows 8 Made Me Sell Microsoft (MSFT)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 23, 2012, 10:11 AM »

Given your usual approach to all things Windows I am somewhat surprised that you even had stock in Microsoft.

Having said that I would guess you are right to dump stock - I am sure MS will spin Windows 8 as the most successful OS in the history of computing (usually before it is released) but I fear this might be the nail in the coffin.

Too many people still regard Vista as a total nightmare and are still using XP because they didn't want to move to 7 - I can't see many of them being convinced by Windows 8. With customers I have noticed a definite trend to at least ask 'is it worth moving to Apple?' just to get away from Windows. I think Metro on desktops and laptops will akin to a Leslie Nielsen movie "Microsoft - the final insult' from the response of people who actually use computers. Metro on tablets is likely to be too little, too late.

664

Living Room / Re: Strange Windows Explorer problem - anyone know how to fix this?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 22, 2012, 03:34 AM »

Thanks - I will definitely check that out

665

General Software Discussion / Re: SilverStripe - Easy to use open source CMS + Framework

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 21, 2012, 03:25 PM »

Said it before (and say it again) I like Joomla - but maybe that's because I now use it for all my projects and have things pretty well sorted out for most of my needs.

I am not doing anything complicated so I suppose that makes a difference.

AMPPS looks interesting - I will check it out.

666

Living Room / Re: Strange Windows Explorer problem - anyone know how to fix this?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 20, 2012, 06:25 PM »

Unfortunately the problem was that as soon as you clicked the file the spinning ball appeared and didn't stop - you had to kill explorer to get control back.

667

Living Room / Re: Strange Windows Explorer problem - anyone know how to fix this?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 20, 2012, 08:09 AM »

Trouble is I am not sure what generated the files - I need to find out before changing the folder structure too much.

668

Living Room / Re: Strange Windows Explorer problem - anyone know how to fix this?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 20, 2012, 06:33 AM »

Seem to have fixed it.

I have found this problem in all versions of Windows since 98.

Basically what had happened is that an application had saved some files in deep nested subfolders and the file names are too long.

This seems to bugger up the file system and cause odd/random effects.

Basically I removed the folder from the Documents library, copied everything I could to a new Documents folder (and left behind the files with bad names) and then made that the default docs folder.

All seems to work fine now - but I have 19 files in the old folder which cannot be moved.

The really stupid thing is I would have thought this is precisely the sort of error CHKDSK was designed to resolve!! (Not that it should be able to happen in the first place).

669

Living Room / Re: Strange Windows Explorer problem - anyone know how to fix this?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 20, 2012, 05:04 AM »

Seem to be mostly MS office files (but seems random which ones cause the problem). I have run a Repair install of Office 2007 which should fix file associations etc. just rechecking now.

I used ShellExView to disable all non-MS shell extensions and that didn't fix it

Just running SFC /SCANNOW

The annoying thing is the only logged error is Windows Explorer stopped interacting with Windows - doesn't give any clue why. It says look in the Action Center for futher info and that says there are no issues!

Could it be an AV issue? Something doing realtime scanning on certain files in certain locations, perhaps, that might need its behaviour tweaked?

-oblivion (July 20, 2012, 05:03 AM)

Using Microsoft Security Essentials - so shouldn't be an issue and it isn't running a system scan at the moment.

670

Living Room / Strange Windows Explorer problem - anyone know how to fix this?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 20, 2012, 04:26 AM »

When Windows Explorer opens the Documents library (on Win 7 x64) everything appears normal but there are some files that when you double click to open them they cause Windows Explorer to freeze and you have to use task manager to restart Explorer.

Oddly it doesn't seem to be file type specific and there don't seem to be any problems if you are working in subfolders of Documents.

Never come across this before.

Initially I ran CHKDSK on the drives where the Documents library folders are located and it made no difference.

It could be a Shell Extension issue but why are only some non typ-specific files affected and only in the Documents folder root? I would expect a shell extension problem to affect all specific file types.

671

General Software Discussion / Re: Why Microsoft killed the Windows Start button

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 19, 2012, 11:59 AM »

Nevertheless Win+Q would still spread over pages on my system (I have a lot of apps)

672

General Software Discussion / Re: Why Microsoft killed the Windows Start button

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 19, 2012, 08:18 AM »

Maybe it is just me with my forty-something eyeballs, but I seem to have a low tolerance for extraneous eye movement when I am at my desktop computer. I don't want to have to scan to entire screen on those occasions where I don't remember the name of the program.

-daddydave (July 19, 2012, 07:19 AM)

I agree and it ain't just scanning the whole screen! Only the things you choose to put there are on the Metro screen - other things have to be searched for.

If you add all your apps to the Metro screen they go on for pages (at least on my system) - who wants to scroll through pages of near identical icons to find something when you can't remember its name?

673

Living Room / Re: Raspberry Pi's $35 Linux PC

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 12, 2012, 01:41 PM »

I couldn't find anywhere on mine to change the time - plug in an ethernet cable and it grabs the time from the internet.

674

General Software Discussion / Re: Problems with AMD/ATI Radeon HD 6500M/5600/5700 Series GPU driver/software

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 11, 2012, 07:58 PM »

It is interesting that the AMD tech support seemed to recognise the issue. They didn't offer a solution other than rolling back to a previous driver and waiting for a new release to replace 12.4. They even suggest using 11.12 as more stable than the 12 series!

I have seen lots of posts about problems with 12.4 in particular.

There was no recognisable pattern to the BSODs I saw. There was a range of Bugcheck codes and they happenned playing games, surfing the net, collecting emails or even when the computer was sitting idle. The were all traced to Catalyst driver components.

I have had no BSODS since I rolled back.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Problems with AMD/ATI Radeon HD 6500M/5600/5700 Series GPU driver/software

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 11, 2012, 06:13 AM »

Just to note - I have found 12.4 anything but stable (and there are lots of reports of problems). Loads of BSODs and freezes and other issue.

Personally I have found the whole Catalyst 12 series to be problematic and followed the advice from a tech support conversation with AMD to go back to 11.12 - I have had no issues with 11.12 and I don't intend to upgrade again until all the glitches are ironed out in the 12 series drivers.

PS Using Radeon HD 6870