Recent Posts

6776

General Software Discussion / Re: Free DVD Menu authoring software, is there such a thing?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 16, 2005, 03:16 AM »

The Direct download for the GUI including DVD AUthor with a normal windows installers is http://www.videohelp...hor_Full_Install.zip

This is the 'full install' link on http://www.videohelp.com/~gfd/ if the direct link doesn't work.

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Living Room / Re: "Price as Signal" - very interesting piece

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 15, 2005, 04:03 PM »

No - its Russian for "Thanks" - pronounced spas-eeba

6778

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Possible Large Directory Opus Discount

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 15, 2005, 09:03 AM »

Seems to work (I have been waiting for this one!)

6779

General Software Discussion / Re: Free DVD Menu authoring software, is there such a thing?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 15, 2005, 07:11 AM »

Not free and I haven't tried it but this looks cheap and might do what you want

http://www.svcd2dvd.com/

You can try the demo version.

There is also Microsoft's Photo Story 3 (you'll find it in the Windows XP downloads on MS's website - sorry haven't got the link). This will produce slide shows from graphics files and if I remember correctly burn them to DVD with menus. You don't have control over the menus though.

Sorry I can't be more help but I haven't found anything free and ended up shelling out for something.

It is worth saying I think that with DVD Authoring you tend to get what you pay for - there seems to be little out there related to MPEG encoding to DVD (which is what you are looking for though it doesn't seem like it) which is better than junk.

Another program (a bit more expensive but does work well) is ULEADs CD and DVD Picture Show. You can build entire CDs and DVDs of slide shows, and add animation, graphics etc. and use templates to produce menus.

There are very few programs (even at expensive prices) that give full control of menu building for DVDs as it is sucha complex business. Most are based on some sort of template system. The best I have found at a reasonable price is TSUNAMI-MPEG DVD Author, but it isn't cheap and is still based on templates. Sony's DVD Architect (formerly Sonic Foundry's product) is very flexible but a silly price.

6780

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: explorer.exe auto-restarter

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 15, 2005, 07:01 AM »

Terminal Services KILL - it is part of WindowsXP

Goto Start > Help and Support Centre and type TSKILL in the search box to get the full set of options available.

At the bottom you will see a link to "Related Topics" if click it pops up a menu with "Command Line Reference A-Z" which will give you all the possible command line programmes supplied as standard with Windows XP and their full syntax.

6781

Living Room / Re: "Price as Signal" - very interesting piece

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 15, 2005, 06:55 AM »

I must admit AllOfMP3 seems really quite slick ... getting a bit carried away over there (LOL)

Спасибо Tony

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Living Room / Re: Anyone use Netflix or Blockbuster or any other online rental service?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 15, 2005, 05:44 AM »

Anyone tried the Amazon service (UK in particular for me)

6783

Living Room / Re: "Price as Signal" - very interesting piece

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 15, 2005, 04:46 AM »

Thanks - they look Kosher - but it is always difficult to tell these days isn't it.

I'll use a card I never use these days and see what happens ...

Followup ...

That was easy ... quick easy downloads too by email.

6784

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: explorer.exe auto-restarter

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 15, 2005, 04:32 AM »

Open a DOS window, put it in a batch file or Start>RUN

6785

Living Room / Re: Google in the sixties

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 15, 2005, 03:57 AM »

LOL ... probably not too far from the truth!

I remember going to my library to get a specific book on a science topic and being told they would get it for me on inter-library loan. Six months later I got a note to say they had managed to track down a copy of volume 2 (I asked for volume 1) !!

6786

Living Room / Re: Google Music Search...Pretty neat

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 15, 2005, 03:50 AM »

That is neat - what would be useful though is if all the buy links had the current price displayed for each vendor.

On the same subject do people know about HappyHunter for DVDs ?

It is UK based, but also includes all region discs from lots of different worldwide suppliers. Check out www.happyhunter.co.uk

Note they are paid by the stores to be included so some noteable stores are missing - but it does give an overview. I find www.dvdpacific.com often has the best prices for Region 1 discs, they ship quickly if the items are in stock but can be a little slow if they are out of copies.

6787

Living Room / Re: "Price as Signal" - very interesting piece

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 15, 2005, 03:45 AM »

Has anyone used AllofMP3 ?

Is it reasonable to pay by credit card (do they handle payments or are they outsourced to somewhere that feels a little safer to give away card details to?)

6788

Finished Programs / Re: DONE - IDEA: Program Closer

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 15, 2005, 03:36 AM »

Thanks - it made me chortle anyway ... and made my cats look a bit surprised at the barrage

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Finished Programs / Re: DONE - IDEA: Program Closer

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 14, 2005, 06:12 PM »

Hey, I really like this now - but have you tried running it with Clipboard Help and Spell running - sounds like an artillery range letting off a few rounds ...

6790

Living Room / Re: Website for viewing software other people use...check it out

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 14, 2005, 06:05 PM »

No - I use Audible Manager for my Creative Zen Micro interface because I have to but for all other purposes I use iTunes as it is a lot less buggy. Incidentally for music sync with the Zen I use MS Media Player which works better than the Creative Software.

I really wish audible would get its act together - it hasn't yet produced a decent program - every version I have tried has been absolutely full of bugs.

Personally I don't see why they don't simply go for WMA content protection - it is stronger than the one they use now (anyone can easily convert AA to MP3 files with a $25 audio tool) and then get out of the software game altogether. People can then use any player which is WMA compatible (most except iTunes) - and these days it only excludes iPods so it would be no bad thing. The situation as it is is simply stupid. If they want to continue to support iPods they could release them in dual format with iTunes protected content format too.

6791

Living Room / Re: How much ram do you really need?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 14, 2005, 04:33 PM »

Also, there's a LargeSystemCache=1 setting which lets windows use a lot of ram for filesystem cache - this gave me some okay speed boosts back when I used it. However, DO NOT USE IT WITH ATi VIDEO CARDS, the drivers are bugged and it will result in data loss that may even look like a physical harddrive error (clicking drive-head sounds, spinup problems, etc.)

On Win2k, you had to do this setting manually. On XP, you can find it in System Properties -> Advanced -> Performance Settings -> Advanced -> "Memory Usage = System Cache". The bug only happens on "some" systems if you're to believe ATi, but I'd stay away from it.

-f0dder (December 14, 2005, 12:30 PM)

Does that apply to the MS version of the ATI WDM drivers included with WindowsXP (which I am using for the first time and actually seem better than any of the Catalyst releases I have tried)?

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Living Room / Re: How much ram do you really need?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 14, 2005, 11:53 AM »

Yes you should adjust the pagefile, but there are no hard and fast recommendations for more than about 256Mb of RAM. Certainly you don't need the suggested 1.5Mb of page file for 1Mb of RAM, I find 768Mb is sufficient.

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Living Room / Am I meant to laugh ??

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 14, 2005, 10:12 AM »

I just got an email from 'JoelOnSoftware' which is a regular newsletter I get. In this case it had a short summary of the following article:

http://www.joelonsof...wToShipAnything.html

and that led me to preview the Ardvark Video:

http://video.google....d=683920339919633877

The question is was I meant to laught this much ..... ROFLMAO ???

Or am I misplaced in Geekdom ?

6794

Living Room / Help ? Using Sleep mode - keyboard error

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 14, 2005, 06:57 AM »

I haven't really used Sleep much in recent years (my RAID drivers did not support it).

I have updated my RAID BIOS and the drivers now support it and it works great - I can force my computer to sleep, switch off the monitor and spin down my hard drives which is great.

Unfortunately when the system wakes up everything seems to work OK except my keyboard which seems to produce gobble-de-gook.

Anyone any idea how to force my keyboard to open its eyes and face the world after a sleep?

I have a MS Internet Keyboard and the drivers are IntelliType Pro 5.3.exe (Windows XP SP2)

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Living Room / Re: Website for viewing software other people use...check it out

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 14, 2005, 06:37 AM »

Audible Manager is a complete PITA these days ... try using iTunes - it is much easier to use and the CD burning works much better!

I like unlocker too, it seems to get update pretty regularly too, and I find now it manages to unlock and/or delete things without causing the host process to bomb like it used to.

6796

Post New Requests Here / Re: auto website loginer

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 14, 2005, 06:02 AM »

Give it a try and you will see in less than 5 minutes ... honestly if you want password storage for websites I haven't found anything that comes even close for ease of use and features (and it has notes storage too - I use it for passwords for things like download music services that don't use stanrard webpages, such as iTunes).

One of the new features introduced recently is websearching from the browser toolbar - but it has the twist that you can add all and any search engines you fancy very easily - and can even search shops like amazon with a single click.

6797

Living Room / Re: Samorost - beautiful puzzles

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 14, 2005, 04:39 AM »

Fascinating - I am not a great games player and quickly gave up on the puzzles here but it really is a nice showcase of what Flash can do!

6798

Post New Requests Here / Re: auto website loginer

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 14, 2005, 04:32 AM »

I don't see why? The program is less than $30. If you want any of the other products you have to specifically select them on the order form - but non of them are essential unless you actually want Palm / Pocket PC / USB sitck access (non are selected by default).

I paid for RoboForm Pro years ago and all updates (and there have been a lot) have been free ever since. In fact the program has been expanded and developed very actively over the last few years.

It also has the big advantage that it works with all Internet Explorer based browsers (eg. it works fine with Maxthon) and also all Mozilla/Netscape browers (including Firefox 1.5). It also works with Yahoo's Browser.

They are very responsive - like a few hours - by email too when you have queries or technical issues (not that there have been many).

6799

ProcessTamer / Re: Still having problems ... ignoring rules with full shutdown/reload of PT

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 14, 2005, 03:05 AM »

'K, having just reinstalled I donwloaded the latest build expecting great things

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Post New Requests Here / Re: auto website loginer

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 14, 2005, 03:04 AM »

The main advantage of programs like RoboForm is that you have the ability to set obscure passwords on dozens of sites that you could never remember.

I have it set to generate maximum length passwords of maximum complexity by default. If a website complains I just alter the settings for that site. It does mean that the passwords are unguessable (at least manually), but nothing will stop dictionary attacks except for a three strikes and you are locked out type approach.