Recent Posts

701

General Software Discussion / Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?

« Last post by Jibz on February 29, 2012, 11:32 AM »

Looks like an interesting piece of software .

Just in case anyone is moving to the free edition, it is probably worth noting this:

1. Will the final/official/non-beta version of Daminion Standalone be freeware or commercial? If it will need purchase can you say any price range for it currently?

-polarbeer

All Daminion Standalone 0.xx versions will be free. Starting from 1.0 version we'll issue two Daminion Standalone versions: Free and Pro ($149)

Any details yet what will be differences between free/pro?

-polarbeer

Not decided yet. Because we didn't implement yet most of the Pro functionality.

-Daminion user forum

702

General Software Discussion / Re: Need Disk Imaging tool that can restore from external HDD

« Last post by Jibz on February 28, 2012, 11:16 AM »

Since we've touched on most of the usual suspects, I will throw in a link to Drive Snapshot.

Unlike the 50gb suites, it's a ~300k executable that somehow magically manages to do most of the useful stuff the others do. The only thing I miss is a pre-configured rescue environment.

703

General Software Discussion / Re: I seek calendar software to suit a specific requirement.

« Last post by Jibz on February 28, 2012, 11:13 AM »

I used the pro version of vueminder on my old computer, and like cranioscopical my experience has been very competent support and a nice product.

I must admit I've chosen not to upgrade it because at the moment google calendar does most of what I need, and I had some issues with vueminder opening the window when alt-tabbing out of a full screen application even though it was minimized to the tray which drove me nuts on the old box where opening vueminder could take 10 seconds .

704

General Software Discussion / Re: Help me choose an online backup service

« Last post by Jibz on February 25, 2012, 03:46 AM »

Is it working on the initial backup of all your data? because mine is around 80 mb

Anyway, I am amazed at how many services have been suggested in this thread, it seems like there are a lot of possibilities, and it all comes down to two things -- specific features you might need, and what service gives you a feeling of security.

705

Living Room / Re: Another internet lowlife

« Last post by Jibz on February 24, 2012, 01:18 AM »

I refer you to two quotes:

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

"Power without responsibility — the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages."

Basically, to restrict the ability to be an asshat on the internet, you'd have to give bigger asshats more power

-wraith808 (February 23, 2012, 03:15 PM)

I think that was rather well put

706

Living Room / Re: Anyone playing Mass Effect 2 game yet?

« Last post by Jibz on February 19, 2012, 03:59 AM »

I guess omnipotence isn't all it's cracked up to be

707

General Software Discussion / Re: Help me choose an online backup service

« Last post by Jibz on February 17, 2012, 05:22 PM »

Well, all I can say is that I have never felt any actual impact from it even on my machine with 1 GB of mem. As long as that is the case I am not that bothered by what numbers task manager shows .

708

General Software Discussion / Re: Help me choose an online backup service

« Last post by Jibz on February 17, 2012, 05:41 AM »

One thing I'm still struggling with is that this is really my last line of defense, and i already have a backup system to version files right away.  The offline backup does not need to happen so frequently.  That runs counter to the way all of these processes work -- they are always running in the background eating up cpu cycles and bandwidth and uploading changed files.

-mouser (February 17, 2012, 03:06 AM)

CrashPlan allows you to set the backup schedule etc. for each backup set -- for instance my image folder is only backed up once a day, while my source folders are backed up every 15 minutes. I know that you can do something similar with SpiderOak -- schedule it to only run every now and then.

On my old computer (which was slow) I set it to use 0% cpu and bandwidth while I was present, which meant it only did it's job when I left the computer for more than 10 minutes.

709

General Software Discussion / Re: Help me choose an online backup service

« Last post by Jibz on February 16, 2012, 03:07 PM »

Java backup applications suck (imho)...

I've tested CrashPlan a year ago and observed equally the same results as in the review of JavaJones. A backup client software that was
awfully slow and used up several hundreds MB of memory. Ridiculous...

-highend01 (February 16, 2012, 05:46 AM)

I can't really relate to this sorry. I've been using CrashPlan for a couple of years, and even on my old computer (which was single core with only 1 GB of mem) I didn't notice it running at all. I know others say it uses a resources on their machine, so I guess it's different (or maybe related to how you set up the options).

At any rate, it has worked well for me .

Edit: to add, what made me choose it over the others back then was that it had a sane de-duplication chice, allowed me to encrypt the data locally with my own password before it was uploaded so noone can access it, it runs as a service so it worked well with my setup of running on a non-admin account, and it allowed me to backup to the other machine here as well as online.

710

Living Room / Re: Anyone playing Mass Effect 2 game yet?

« Last post by Jibz on February 15, 2012, 03:11 AM »

I really loved ME 2, so I would probably be playing it too, if it wasn't for EA not putting it on Steam .

711

Living Room / Re: Win7 - how to disable visual effects?

« Last post by Jibz on February 14, 2012, 11:07 AM »

Thank you so much, that seems to do the trick!

I was having the same problem with Windows not remembering the settings. The fix is to type SystemPropertiesPerformance in the Start menu's search bar, then choose your settings. The problem seems to be related to the UAC settings

712

Living Room / Win7 - how to disable visual effects?

« Last post by Jibz on February 14, 2012, 10:13 AM »

I am fighting a loosing battle with Windows 7 at the moment -- I am trying to disable some of the visual effects (smooth scrolling, animated windows and controls, see through glass effects, etc.), but every time I log out and back in, the settings revert to turning all this garbage back on .

Disabling it worked fine for the administrator account, but on my regular user account it keeps resetting what I change -- anyone have any experience with what is causing this, and how to make it stick?

713

General Software Discussion / Re: Zentimo/USB Safely Remove - Are they needed anymore?

« Last post by Jibz on February 12, 2012, 06:21 AM »

I tried it about a year ago, mainly due to all the praise it got here, but didn't really feel it added much besides a shiny interface and another driver and program to constantly run on my machine.

Like others say here, left-clicking on the USB icon in Windows and selecting the device from the menu to remove it has worked fine for me .

714

General Software Discussion / Re: Is WinZip still worth updating?

« Last post by Jibz on February 09, 2012, 09:26 AM »

Does anyone know of a zipfile manager that can do something I've only ever found a straightforward way to do with ARJ -- archive all files from a folder that are more than x days old, preferably via a commandline version? (FreeArj is good but it doesn't look like it's ever going to be anything more than a nod to an archiver that used to be a lot more important than it's ever likely to be again...   )

-oblivion (February 09, 2012, 04:12 AM)

Not a zipfile manager, but WinRAR has the -to option which processes files older than a specified period, for instance -to2d would process files older than 2 days.

715

General Software Discussion / Re: Is WinZip still worth updating?

« Last post by Jibz on February 07, 2012, 06:46 AM »

7-zip is excellent if you just want something that gets the job done.

If you want something "commercial grade" then paying the one time fee for WinRAR is worth it imho. Like Josh, I bought my license many years ago, and it has been on my computers ever since. I would never pay a yearly fee for a general archiving tool with those two options available, and if WinRAR ever moved to subscription I would switch to 7-zip.

It's not that I mind paying for good software, but this is an area that has been "developed out" in my book, there is nothing that adds value over the free alternatives anymore, so paying yearly feels a bit like throwing away money.

716

Living Room / Re: Google Ends Privacy

« Last post by Jibz on January 27, 2012, 04:40 AM »

+1 (pun intended) to Josh, Deo and Oshyan.

Some years back this would have gotten me upset, but when I read this the other day I was merely surprised because I had assumed they already did this. It seems odd for a company to not aggregate data from its various divisions -- like Oshyan says, I think you can rest assured MS, FB, Yahoo etc. all do this.

I've also checked the data they have on me from time to time, and it boils down to the fact that I am interested in technology, programming, puzzles and MMOG, which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

I doubt I will ever click an add, but if I have to have some on my screen, I'll take some for compilers and debuggers over life insurance and viagra any day.

The only thing that worries me a bit about the whole thing is the way social search gives you a narrower view of the world. If you are interested in something, social search could show you only results that match your view on the subject, which lessens the value of the information. On the other hand it has the potential to greatly increase the effectiveness of searching, for instance youtube is slowly getting better at showing me videos I might actually watch.

717

Living Room / Re: At last, KeyNote done better :)

« Last post by Jibz on January 13, 2012, 05:39 AM »

It seems they released a freeware version with (slightly) limited functionality now.

718

General Software Discussion / Re: SoftMaker Office 2012 BETA testing

« Last post by Jibz on December 30, 2011, 04:51 AM »

Thanks for the heads up .

I kind of wish they'd offer a Danish localized version of SO, but the market probably isn't big enough to cover the cost.

I know English well enough to be able to live with the English UI, but I noticed today that unlike the rest of SO, the e-mail client doesn't include Danish spellchecking . I guess maybe that might get added later on.

Anyway, nice that they gave fair warning when the discount ends.

719

General Software Discussion / Re: SoftMaker Office 2012 BETA testing

« Last post by Jibz on December 07, 2011, 05:24 PM »

Excellent, thanks a lot .

720

DC Gamer Club / Indie Gala - another pay what you like bundle site

« Last post by Jibz on December 07, 2011, 03:01 AM »

http://www.indiegala.com/

via Blue's News.

721

General Software Discussion / Re: Logging out of Facebook is not enough

« Last post by Jibz on December 06, 2011, 10:21 AM »

Facebook security hole allows viewing of private photos - I think essentially, no matter what security label you stick on stuff be it private or public, never post anything that you do not want to be public .

722

General Software Discussion / Re: SoftMaker Office 2012 BETA testing

« Last post by Jibz on November 30, 2011, 06:08 AM »

http://www.softmaker...m/english/ofw_en.htm .. just below the green box it says

Office Professional is already shipping.
Office Standard will be available shortly.

Since I doubt I would use the e-mail client, I am going to wait and see what the standard upgrade ends up costing I think.

723

General Software Discussion / Re: Easy Remote access to another PC?

« Last post by Jibz on November 29, 2011, 02:01 PM »

I ran into a problem with troubleshooting - I am unable to see uac demands for password at their end (more accurately, I'm not able to see the password dialogue itself) - so I'm not able to do anything requiring admin rights from within their user account. I guess this would be a problem with any method....
I guess the only solution is have someone there the whole time to fill in the password, or to use an admin account.

-tomos (November 29, 2011, 01:23 PM)

I think not being able to take over the UAC prompts may be by design -- if a remote control program could "click" them, then any local badware could as well. I don't know if you can choose to run the client with higher privileges to avoid it.

I've seen the same with TeamViewer, which btw has worked great for me when I've had to fix problems on relatives computers in the past. You can talk even the least computer savvy people through going to their homepage, saving the quick access module on their desktop, double-clicking it, and giving you the login info.

724

DC Gamer Club / Re: RIFT - MMORPG Beta Invite

« Last post by Jibz on November 24, 2011, 01:10 AM »

It looks like European customers get it for €5 instead of free, but that includes 30 days of gametime.

725

General Software Discussion / Re: automated back up software

« Last post by Jibz on November 24, 2011, 01:09 AM »

Speaking of which, I wonder what happened to that. Wasn't there supposed to be some new glorious version 2 on the way?