Recent Posts

6551

General Software Discussion / Offers (this week only) on WinRAR and Wintasks 5 Pro

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 25, 2006, 01:45 PM »

WinRAR at $23.20 (= 20% discount) here http://www.win-rar.com/uniblue.html

WinTasks 5 Pro at $29.95 (= 40% discount) here http://www.digitalriver.com/promo=105057 (don't forget to uncheck the optional extra on the DR form)

Enjoy

6552

General Software Discussion / Re: does anyone of you believe in defragmentation programs?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 23, 2006, 01:38 PM »

As the results in our chart indicate, Disk Defragmenter does improve a drive’s performance, but it seemed like only files that were fragmented tended to benefit from Disk Defragmenter.

-mrainey (January 23, 2006, 11:04 AM)

How could unfragmented files benefit from a defragremtation run??? I suppose it is possible if a sequence of files need to be loaded and they are all optimised to the fastest part of the disk. I don't know of any defrag program that can do this - and it would need real-time monitoring to assess which files would benefit and that in itself would probably negate some of the gains.

The point is that fragmented files do benefit.

6553

General Software Discussion / Re: Nero 7 issue - Nero Scout really annoying delays!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 23, 2006, 09:42 AM »

You're welcome - I certainly have had fewer issues and a faster machine since I removed the service.

6554

General Software Discussion / Re: does anyone of you believe in defragmentation programs?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 23, 2006, 09:39 AM »

Actually Woody is highly respected in most areas - particularly around Microsoft Office applications. I think he is wrong on this one though. Having said that he is probably correct for the majority of users who only use MS Office in a work setting. Fles will be small enough not to become significantly fragmented anyway. Defragging makes a lot of difference when you deal with large files - such as ISO files already mentioned, but also large image files, video files, audio files etc.

It is just common sense that if a file is split into over 500 fragments (as one of mine was recently) it is going to take longer to load/process and re-save than a file stored as a single contiguous block on the disk.

The built in defragger won't defrag system files either whereas PerfectDisc and DiskKeeper do. One of the significant ways to slow down your system is to have a fragmented PageFil.SYS - which on default Windows systems is guaranteed as by default windows resizes the file dynamically all the time. Using a fixed sized PageFil.SYS and a defragger like PerfectDisc means your paging file will be in a fixed, permanent location and guaranteed to not get fragmented again.

If you don't want to defrag you can acheive the same result by making a separate empty partition (preferably on a different physical drive) just for your page file and moving it there.

6555

Living Room / Re: New iPod 'feature' ... criminals beware ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 23, 2006, 09:31 AM »

iTunes loads a service called iPodService even when you haven't got one. I'd guess that is part of the iPod driver interface.

Not sure how data files are transferred though.

6556

Living Room / New iPod 'feature' ... criminals beware ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 23, 2006, 06:11 AM »

I don't often read CNET articles these days (they seem too often to be partisan in their opinions) but this caught my eye and was an interesting read ...

http://reviews.cnet....0-1.html?tag=nl.e501

6557

General Software Discussion / Re: does anyone of you believe in defragmentation programs?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 22, 2006, 06:07 PM »

Mine isn't a server either - and I use NTFS.

If you defrag regularly the difference is marginal, if youleave it for months I have found a significant difference in speed and disk thrashing.

6558

General Software Discussion / Re: does anyone of you believe in defragmentation programs?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 22, 2006, 03:30 PM »

Ditto - same reasons I use PerfectDisc too. Yes it does make a difference - use CrapCleaner too before you defrag.

6559

General Software Discussion / Re: SQX format for compression

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 21, 2006, 11:14 AM »

You could equally well say RAR is a non standard format since it is proprietary. If you want to go for true portability there is only one real standard and that is ZIp which is the only compression format that current versions of windows will open as standard without the need for other software.

6560

General Software Discussion / Re: SQX format for compression

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 21, 2006, 10:49 AM »

RAR is more widely used (but nowhere near as widely as ZIP).

Can't really see the problem with using SQX since they are easy to make self extracting.

6561

General Software Discussion / Re: Virtual Slide Rules

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 21, 2006, 08:03 AM »

O god - how wonderful ...

Brings back lots of lovely memories. I was the only person in my class who seemed to get the hang of slide rules and I absolutely loved them. I still have one somewhere ...

The images on that site are beautiful but nothing beats the feel of the slide rule

Not as kinky as it sounds (honest  )

6562

Living Room / A short article on losing the internet security battle

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 21, 2006, 05:45 AM »

An article from Kapersky labs ...

http://www.viruslist...ysis?pubid=174405517

6563

General Software Discussion / Re: very nice and FREE graph calc

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 20, 2006, 06:36 AM »

Nice - I can use that too ... good find

6564

Living Room / Re: Rubber Johnny

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 20, 2006, 06:23 AM »

Hmmm ... obviously too old too - what was the point?








































No don't bother ...

6565

General Software Discussion / Re: Holding code ransom?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 20, 2006, 06:19 AM »

Isn't mouser using a similar system for SMF/Wiki combine login mod project ?? (Well sort of)

6566

General Software Discussion / Re: SQX format for compression

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 20, 2006, 06:18 AM »

I have moved to Sqeeze for all of my compression stuff now since it natively supports almost everything and is easy to use.

One of the nice things is built in SE support, and also SQX and RAR can have recovery records added which makes it feel secure.

I haven't had an SQX file go bad so I can't really comment on the strength of the recovery record method.

6567

Living Room / Re: caffeine free week - who wants to join me?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 20, 2006, 06:16 AM »

Less than 2 minutes to reply - told you you are addicted ...

May name is Carol and I am a DCaholic ...

6568

Living Room / Re: caffeine free week - who wants to join me?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 20, 2006, 06:13 AM »

Except DC

6569

Living Room / Re: Why Macs Suck

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 19, 2006, 01:56 PM »

Alt SPACE = Find and Run Robot .....

6570

Living Room / Re: Why Macs Suck

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 19, 2006, 01:31 PM »

Ah, no there is a context menu.

Of course you could try Alt F4

6571

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Startup Delayer

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 19, 2006, 10:59 AM »

If you read the FAQs on the website you will see this is discussed and there is a simple solution.

The problem arises because SD uses its own registry keys to manage startup. When you tell SD to manage a particular startup item it is moved to the SD key. Trouble is there is no standard way for SD to tell the app that the startup has moved and consequently in a lot of apps the next time they start they notice the startup keys have been deleted (in this case moved to SD) and automatically add a new entry in the standard locations.

The solution ...

Any apps you want startup delayer to manage after you hand it over to SD open the apps preferences and switch off run on startup, that way the original key won't be recreated at the next system start.

It doesn't happen for all apps - some just check the startup keys and set the Run on Startup option on the basis of the key existing - these are well behaved, so it is only the less well behaved apps that cause this problem.

6572

Living Room / Re: Fred Langa's Take on security ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 19, 2006, 10:53 AM »

First time I remember Gibson getting a platform in the last 3-4 years of Langa subscriptions - I'll forgive him

6573

Living Room / Re: Why Macs Suck

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 19, 2006, 10:51 AM »

since in the other example you gave, i don't like having the close button at the right, since i right-click in the title bars of my apps to close them (another option inheriant to blackbox )

-jgpaiva (January 19, 2006, 07:36 AM)

Actually that is standard in Explorer too

6574

Living Room / Re: Fred Langa's Take on security ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 19, 2006, 05:41 AM »

original item updated ...

6575

Living Room / Re: Why Macs Suck

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 19, 2006, 05:23 AM »

I think you misinterpret here what we mean by standards - we aren't talking about everyone using one browser more that whatever browser you use there should be certain standards which are adhered to eg. so that webpages appear the same whatever you use.

Good examples of standards in Windows are CTRL C means copy, CTRL X means cut and CTRL V means paste. These should always be options in the Edit menu of any application and the shortcut keys should always be the same so that no matter what software you use you don't have to learn new versions of these.

These are pretty much standard across 99% of apps but there are still apps out there that don't adhere to this standard.

Another interface design standard within windows is using common icons to do the same job, so the icons around a window should close, maximize, minimize etc. in identical ways and yet you still find loads of software that assume there are better ways to do these tasks and so provide their own methods - this is just confusing to users and completely unneccesary.

One of my pet hates is when designers remove these icons (and the ability to resize windows and remember their positions) - especially on webpages. The number of times people have problems with windows because they want to use a bigger font than standard and then can't see half of the contents, or webdesigners end up with webpages where the edges are clipped by a fixed window size drive me mad. These are totally unnecessary restrictions which break standard design criteria and are a big frustration to users.