Recent Posts

701

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

« Last post by Darwin on April 05, 2010, 03:09 PM »

Can't argue with any of the comments in response to my last couple of posts! Overall, I am pretty sure that I'll wind up doing what I've been doing - keeping things organized in DOpus. What is nice about PSP X3 is that it doesn't actually do anything with the pictures that I can see. By this I mean that it doesn't index them or create a catalog. It simply reads the tags/exif info and displays pictures filtered accrordingly. The advantage over DOpus is that I can also tag my images. So... I'll use DOpus to move stuff around and to import pics onto my computer and PSP X3 if I feel the need to tag my stuff.

Jim - PSP X2 worked fine on my system (both under Vista and 7 - both 64 bit). I gave up worrying about their protection system after I could no longer get the Protexis removal hacks to work under Vista. They've changed it under X3 - it's now called the psiservice. On my system, it gobbles up about 23MB of working set RAM/1 MB of private working set memory. With 4GB of RAM on tap, I don't care about it anymore. However, when I think too hard about ti, I do get a bit PO'd about the principle of it, but c'est la vie. Lots of other apps are running similar nonsese on my system. MacDrive, for example.

702

Living Room / Re: Should I swtich from w7 32 bit to w7 64 bit?

« Last post by Darwin on April 05, 2010, 12:17 PM »

FWIW, I like to buy cheap but not noname memory.

-daddydave (April 05, 2010, 11:57 AM)

Amen! Having said that, I'm neither a gamer nor an overclocker.

703

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

« Last post by Darwin on April 05, 2010, 10:21 AM »

Well, I'm quite pleased with my cursory use of PSP Pro X3's organizer. Once I got the hang of setting up Smart Collections, it works really well. Time will tell, of course...

exifPro (with regret) and PhotoCollector (no regret) have both been banished from my computer once again. If PhotoCollector ever gets an update, and the bugs/functionality issues are addressed, I may revisit either or both of them. FWIW, I love exifPro's Viewer. PhotoCollector's viewer is a close second.

704

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

« Last post by Darwin on April 05, 2010, 09:27 AM »

Yeah... exifPro is frustrating (for me) because it STILL chokes if it encounters an error when creating a catalogue. By choking, I mean it pops up a warning and then sits and waits for the user to click "OK" before continuing. Frustrating if you're attempting to create a catalogue for 20 or 30 GBs of images and don't want to sit in front of your computer while it does its thing. The other frustration is that there's no way to add pictures to an existing catalogue - you have to create a new catalogue. The catalogues created are horrifically large as well.

PhotoCollector is just plain BUGGY. I get Access Violations that I can only exit out of by using TM to kill the process when trying to create my index with it. From past usage, a big frustration is that there is no option to use a Folder tree view to navigate your pictures - it's all done by year, date, or tag. The tagging system sucks because you can't reliably search your index using it. You search it by creating Filters. Often the program will hang trying to search for a filter but if it successfully filters everything, there is a good chance that what you are looking for, and what you KNOW has been tagged that way, won't be found.

I've just tried both and only successfully created an index for exifPro. PhotoCollector is being banished again and I am considering banishing exifPro as well.

Must have patience. Patience. Yeah, yeah, how long will that take?

I'm going to try the organizer built into PaintShop Photo Pro X3 next...

This is all just bringing back bad memories and reminds me about WHY I dumped the whole "organization" idea in the first place and just use DOpus 9...

705

Living Room / Re: Giving away a copy of Camtasia Studio 7

« Last post by Darwin on April 05, 2010, 08:41 AM »

Go on Facebook?

Sorry mate! That's a showstopper right there.

-40hz (April 05, 2010, 05:56 AM)

  Couldn't agree more. I loathe Facebook - though family keep urging me to enable my account... I'm almost tempted - might stay in touch more - but the, I loathe Facebook... Vicious circle 

706

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

« Last post by Darwin on April 05, 2010, 08:35 AM »

I'm really beginning to understand the purpose of this thread (I'm a quick study!). I have licenses for exifpro and for PhotoCollector and also for PaintShop Pro, which has some organizational capabilities (not tested by me, yet) built in. FRUSTRATING! I'll elaborate later, but after not bothering for a long time, I've reinstalled exifPro and PhotoCollector and am attempting to get organized again...

707

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Sagelight Image Editor - pay what you want promo (Apil 2010)

« Last post by Darwin on April 05, 2010, 08:33 AM »

I can report that I am not buying this for myself (as noted, I already have two other editors, one of which is installed on my system), but I've loaded it up for my mum and she's buying a license. It's very easy to use, once you get the hand of the interface (a bit busy) and does a good, very quick job. I haven't used it much, but mum and I edited some of her photos from a trip to Mexico and it did a very nice job. I like that it automatically appends "-edited.jpg" at the end of a new file so that you don't risk overwriting your original.

708

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: O&O DiskStat 2 Pro (Easter promo)

« Last post by Darwin on April 04, 2010, 07:47 AM »

Woo! You're on fire, lanux! Thanks for this one - I have Treesize Pro on my machine, but this might be nice on my wife's system 

709

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Sagelight Image Editor - pay what you want promo (Apil 2010)

« Last post by Darwin on April 04, 2010, 07:44 AM »

i haven't used this software before. however since the freeware v2.0 is regarded as the "Best Free Digital Editor" at Gizmo's, i guess it wouldn't hurt to download the v3.0 trial and take it for a spin..

-lanux128 (April 04, 2010, 07:05 AM)

Yup! Trying it out now... I have PaintShopPhoto Pro X3 and PhotoFiltre X, so don't know if this is going to be "must have software", but so far it does seem simple to use compared to the other two and light on resources. I'll post back later with a more complete impression.

710

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Sagelight Image Editor - pay what you want promo (Apil 2010)

« Last post by Darwin on April 04, 2010, 06:10 AM »

Looks nice, lanux  Thank you for the heads up. Do you use this? If so, what are your thoughts? I'm downloading it now...

711

Living Room / Re: Be the author of a scientific paper

« Last post by Darwin on April 03, 2010, 07:19 PM »

Most "scientist" of today, are just scholars, and not researchers, they just blindly cite another persons work (that normally just cited another one previous work,), instead of doing the research themselves.

-rxantos (April 03, 2010, 03:56 PM)

What do you base this perspective upon? If this were true, scientific discovery would long ago have ground to a halt...

712

Living Room / Re: First iPad Reviews Are In

« Last post by Darwin on April 03, 2010, 10:29 AM »

Still, neither really very portable.
Ebook readers can be put in pockets (just, depending on pockets) - and that's the size I'd be looking for.

-Dormouse (April 03, 2010, 10:13 AM)

Agreed. From what I've read, it REALLY is desireable to have a dedicated eBook reader to avoid unnecessary distractions. I'm dithering now because neither the Kindles nor the entry level Sonys have expandable memory (a deal breaker for me) and the Sony touch screen readers (which do have expandable memory) apparently have screen visibility issues in some lighting conditions. They're also PRICEY. The other option available to me where I live is the Aluratek Libre which is cheaper and has expandable memory, but is not well reviewed.

Overall, this is why I'm waiting to see what happens with the Courier. It looks to have the right form factor and the right feature set (even if it is more feature rich than a dedicated reader). IF it is as good as promised and at a reasonable price I'll get one, unless the next generation of eBook readers drop their prices significantly.

713

Living Room / Re: First iPad Reviews Are In

« Last post by Darwin on April 03, 2010, 10:07 AM »

The Skiff appears to utilitze a flexible colour screen. I'm REALLY wanting an e-Book reader, but I don't want to buy one *just* yet - I want to see what happens with the Courier (which I think looks brilliant) and with the next generation of eBook readers. HP's Slate looks promising, too, albeit a bit thick for my liking. But then it is a full tablet (ie a proper computer running Win7).

714

Living Room / Re: Should I swtich from w7 32 bit to w7 64 bit?

« Last post by Darwin on April 03, 2010, 07:13 AM »

I know 64 bit can use more ram. What's the biggest amount of RAM a single stick has, can you recommend me a RAM stick?

-Musubi (April 03, 2010, 06:43 AM)

This depends on what RAM your computer's chipset supports. A good starting point would be to determine what RAM is in your computer now (DDR, DDR2, DDR3?), You can download a tool like my favourite, SIW, and run it to find out the answers to these and many other questions about your hardware.

715

Living Room / Re: First iPad Reviews Are In

« Last post by Darwin on April 02, 2010, 11:23 PM »

I am waiting to see what happens with the Microsoft Courier - looks sweet.

716

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 8 Requests

« Last post by Darwin on April 02, 2010, 11:00 AM »

I can confirm that the taskbar behaviour 4wd asked about works fine on my install (Win 7 64-bit). I tried it in every position (ie bottom, top, left and right of the desktop) and all menus opened where they were clicked.

As for the other comments - I've never had either Vista or Win7 reboot my computer after Windows Update. I do get pop ups warning me that I need to reboot, but that's it. If I am not around for the warnings, the power button on the start menu switches to "Install updates and shutdown". File transfers/copying speed is fine on my notebook (although I use DOpus 9 and TeraCopy, so perhaps I'm simply not seeing the behaviour).

NB I just tried using two instances of Windows Explorer with TeraCopy disabled and moved a 50MB file from E:\ to my desktop (on C:\) in less than a second.

717

What's the Best? / Re: Best file archiver/compresser

« Last post by Darwin on March 18, 2010, 05:46 PM »

Heh, heh - I won a WinRar license here as well    It supplanted PKZip and Stuff-It licenses, both of which I had purchased previously. I'll have to give PowerArchiver a look.
 
A hex on you, Innunendo! You make a rotten 12 step program partner  

718

What's the Best? / Re: Best file archiver/compresser

« Last post by Darwin on March 18, 2010, 01:41 AM »

Rar is indeed the archiver of choice for software pirates.

-Innuendo (March 17, 2010, 08:01 PM)

I was unaware of this... I wonder why?

-Darwin (March 17, 2010, 11:20 PM)

most likely for the same reason everyone else uses it, because it's a good product (dare I say a leader in it's class...)

-Target (March 18, 2010, 12:36 AM)

Doh! Why didn't I think of that 

Very true, of course.

719

General Software Discussion / Re: Undelete utilities?

« Last post by Darwin on March 17, 2010, 11:25 PM »

I have my drive partitioned, so this isn't a huge issue for me (data is on a different partition than windows and program files, including recovery tools). However, I wouldn't be *too* concerned about instaling Easeus on your drive, unless you're likely to be trying to recover files that are HUGE (GBs in size). Having said that, is a portable installation an option? By this I mean installing it to a thumbdrive. I've also done this with my recovery tools and run them that way.

720

What's the Best? / Re: Best file archiver/compresser

« Last post by Darwin on March 17, 2010, 11:20 PM »

Rar is indeed the archiver of choice for software pirates.

-Innuendo (March 17, 2010, 08:01 PM)

I was unaware of this... I wonder why?

721

What's the Best? / Re: Best file archiver/compresser

« Last post by Darwin on March 17, 2010, 07:42 AM »

Yeah, he should Stuff-It!

722

Living Room / Re: Donationcoder: How did you find it + What has your experience been like so far.

« Last post by Darwin on March 17, 2010, 07:32 AM »

Hi. My name is Michael and I am a software addict.

-Darwin (March 16, 2010, 11:08 PM)

I hope you take my post in the same vein as it was meant - mean and nasty...   purely in jest!!

Hey, I have seen just about everyone else here rib you about that; I just couldn't pass it up!   

Jim

-J-Mac (March 16, 2010, 11:33 PM)

No offence taken

My software addiction is well documented on this forum. I am OCD about anything that captures my imagination at a particular point in time - let's see, Artie Shaw recordings, the Beatles, the Avro Arrow, wristwatches, fountain pens, calculators, Multi-tools, my '67 GTO, several unfortunate girls in high school... That's just off the top of my head!

723

Living Room / Re: First compelling reason to switch to Windows 7

« Last post by Darwin on March 17, 2010, 07:09 AM »

  I love my 64-bit OS 

724

Living Room / Re: Donationcoder: How did you find it + What has your experience been like so far.

« Last post by Darwin on March 16, 2010, 11:08 PM »

Hi. My name is Michael and I am a software addict.

725

What's the Best? / Re: Best file archiver/compresser

« Last post by Darwin on March 16, 2010, 11:08 PM »

could be, but that fact that he stated it twice kind of makes that assumption a bit questionable

-Target (March 16, 2010, 10:57 PM)

Hmm... hadn't noticed that