Recent Posts

701

General Software Discussion / Re: Digital ink/tablet pc: worth the effort?

« Last post by iphigenie on February 02, 2008, 06:06 PM »

If I could find a good enough excuse to justify buying it, I would buy the successor to the one I had, the p1610/1620.
The p1310 was a lovely machine with 512M ram and only a 4Mb graphics card, and I managed to play a lot of games (using a virtual cd) and it worked beautifully

This has a much better cpu, it has the tablet option, it has more networking, more memory, is a tiny bit bigger - yet it keeps a decent size keyboard by skipping the infamous pad. Reading reviews it seems to have improvements but battery life has suffered (mine was easily 6+ hours!!!) and noise too (heres one at random http://ultramobilepc...su-p1610-review.html) (is it true what he says, that fujitsu delivers it with an optional evernote trial?)

It is expensive for the spec, you can get better if you go to the 12" machines sometimes, but I really liked the 9", it fit in handbags!

And with 128M on the graphics card I think I can play about 50 or more of the games I own!

If only I could just find an excuse to buy it... but I have a lovely desktop and a 17" rock notebook I just have no reason

702

General Software Discussion / Re: Digital ink/tablet pc: worth the effort?

« Last post by iphigenie on February 02, 2008, 05:55 PM »

ugh, purple??????

703

General Software Discussion / Re: App and Web app solution

« Last post by iphigenie on February 02, 2008, 05:51 PM »

Nxqd3051990, I assume you already have space and you are curious about advice on a set up?

I used to have a "daily" backup which would simply copy my important files from all over the place (in mydocuments, application settings, application's own directory, my own directories etc.) to one place on my local machine - that's more a backup from my stupidity deleting thing.

Then i would backup weekly automatically, sometimes more often manually, to a drive somewhere else

I would always put something automatic, I know I might forget if I don't. The challenge is maintaining the list as new applications add new folders, and I wish I remembered the piece of software i tried years ago that did a pretty good job at finding files to backup on its own...

But at the moment i dont backup online, just 2 usb drives, one which i take away on a rotation... online would be better but i always thought it'd be slow...

704

Living Room / Re: is someone stealing my bandwidth?

« Last post by iphigenie on February 02, 2008, 08:01 AM »

I will agree totally on the "secure your machines/network" bit

I must also admit that I have bitdefender and it knows (and is grumpy about) the fact that I am using an unsecured network.
By default it set it up as "untrusted" and even now that I have switched it to "trusted" it gives me small status messages whenever anything or anyone (i.e. my 2 routers) connects/renews connection to the wifi. It is discrete (semi transparent tray messages) but it also means that I would know if any ip appeared on the network (unless they were really really clever).

705

Living Room / Re: What's Your Favorite Smilie?

« Last post by iphigenie on February 02, 2008, 07:20 AM »

http://www.phoenix-g...dex.php?topic=5827.0

-iphigenie (January 26, 2008, 08:10 AM)

There's about 70 smileys there and if anyone wants to use them I have kept a list of the source for most so you can check if they are ok to use for yourself

706

General Software Discussion / Re: App and Web app solution

« Last post by iphigenie on February 02, 2008, 06:57 AM »

I'd be curious to know what various online backup providers people here use

707

Living Room / Re: Article: The Economics of Open Source Donations

« Last post by iphigenie on February 02, 2008, 06:46 AM »

One more thought - this was on the website of a publisher, packt.

I think it would be good form if all these publishers and authors who make a nice living writing books about open source projects would donate/contribute to said projects. In some cases it happens cause the author is on the project but often the author nowadays is just someone who made a pitch.

After all they have no more income if the projects die, so it's not only a 'fairness' requirement but good commercial sense

708

Living Room / Re: Article: The Economics of Open Source Donations

« Last post by iphigenie on February 02, 2008, 06:43 AM »

This thread made me go and donate to the winmerge project 
Peazip doesnt seem to have a donate link/option anywhere

709

Living Room / Re: OpenDNS - safer, faster and smarter DNS

« Last post by iphigenie on February 01, 2008, 03:38 PM »

Customisable blacklists? 

Hmm, you mean I could make it as if all the World of Warcraft forums and information sites no longer exist?

 

710

General Software Discussion / Re: Digital ink/tablet pc: worth the effort?

« Last post by iphigenie on February 01, 2008, 03:31 PM »

I had the fujitsu 9'' subnotebook (although before it had the flippable screen, the p1310 at the time) and I must say I still miss the touch screen!!!

I dont think i would flip it much to use as a pure tablet, but I know I used the touchscreen all the time - it means that on the road you dont need a mouse!

It wasnt to draw or anything, it was the drag, drop, click etc. day to day use of a mouse. Poking the screen with a fingernail to open, close, move things is just soooo convenient, especially on a small machine

It got stolen and I still miss it, and I wait for the day I can justify buying one again

711

General Software Discussion / Re: How much email do you keep…and why?

« Last post by iphigenie on February 01, 2008, 03:21 PM »

I have private email going back to before 2000 - although I purge a lot of the "unimportant" messages and only keep messages to/from friends, orders, software registration, travel confirmation.

All the private stuff I migrated to my new IMAP service, plus I have all the emails of the company I ran for 5 years stashed in a set of pocomail files, although i think in a year or two I will can most of those.

At work I have a method where the inbox gets cleared, messages tagged and filed, things flagged for action - I delete a lot of the "furniture" email, plus i remove attachments, so I can keep it all on the exchange server (i dont trust local outlook files!)

712

Living Room / Re: USB device misbehaving

« Last post by iphigenie on February 01, 2008, 03:12 PM »

maybe

How many machines have you tried it on?

it could also mean that the usb port is not giving it enough power - i had a device which was misbehaving and eventually (when using another device) i figured out that some of my usb ports have flaky power...

Also, always change the cable first - its cheap and you will kick yourself if it turns out to be the cable. Usually usb cables are pretty simple/easy, but this rule is a good one nonetheless

713

Living Room / Re: OpenDNS - safer, faster and smarter DNS

« Last post by iphigenie on February 01, 2008, 12:58 PM »

Still, third party DNS services are a good thing

I used to have a DNS server in the basement, it was a backup for our web dev agency's DNS servers (2 in the office, 2 in founders homes etc.). BUt I also put a caching proxy dns for my own access. It's nice not to rely on the flaky DNS of the main ISPs (virgin/telewest in the uk are iffy for weeks at a time)

Right now I dont bother doing my own, not even for my own domains, too lazy. I guess I paid my dues - i no longer run my own email or dns, i just pay for a decent service somewhere.

714

Living Room / Re: OpenDNS - safer, faster and smarter DNS

« Last post by iphigenie on February 01, 2008, 12:54 PM »

it's not hijacking google, its just an affiliate thingie. and i think it's perfectly fine.

Some sites make their finance via amazon affiliates, others via search referrals

google for example is a major source of income for the mozilla/firefox projects, because they are set up as a partner and get a small amount of money for searches and adwords done from the default search in the browsers. Similarly opera seems to have a deal with yahoo etc. Many ISPs do too.

I was not suggesting they are doing anything sneaky, such as sneakily putting affiliate codes on ecommerce links - but as far as i am concerned they would be perfectly entitled to do so (if they said they did, ofc)

Whenever I make an amazon purchase i go to a site l like and use their affiliate link - and i would have no qualms if i used someone's DNS service if when I dont have an affiliate code in my amazon link they put theirs.

715

General Software Discussion / Re: Online Content Editor

« Last post by iphigenie on February 01, 2008, 11:37 AM »

ah yes: http://www.techcrunc...-script-is-accepted/

no idea if a) it works b) it is safe

but i thought it was intriguing

716

General Software Discussion / Re: Online Content Editor

« Last post by iphigenie on February 01, 2008, 11:28 AM »

I bookmarked one the other day, but heck if i can remember where... or maybe it was in an rss feed

717

General Software Discussion / Re: Word processors, wikis and other tools for writing business reports

« Last post by iphigenie on February 01, 2008, 11:27 AM »

I find that a word processor tool tends to sidetrack me - spend time changing text styles, worrying about page breaks and tweaking the layout (which will break 10 minutes later when i rejig everything for the 10th time, since i move paragraphs around a lot).

So I tend to write in a text editor and add the fancy bits later - or organise my thoughts in an outliner, although i am off outliners at the moment (i just want a clever one that reads my mind and works just like me).

718

General Software Discussion / Re: What are your favourite Outlook plugins?

« Last post by iphigenie on February 01, 2008, 11:23 AM »

One add on I have been testing at the moment is xobni, which mostly analyses contacts and emails to produce nice little profiles, for each contact, showing not only the history of interactions (and the wonderful "files exchanged with x" section listing all attachments sent or received, which means I only need to find an email from that person to find any attachment they sent me, i like that!) but also social features like who they are connected to, emailing patterns, and some quick overview tools

Its actually useful, especially the attachment feature (although i tend to delete attachments out of email to save on space), although not as useful as it could be (it falls down on things like how it deals with flagged items and todos etc.)

719

General Software Discussion / Re: What are your favourite Outlook plugins?

« Last post by iphigenie on February 01, 2008, 11:13 AM »

I use Outlook and I was about to post a request for some suggestions on some very precise needs

The first one is that i use Outlook's categories as "tags" and tend to put all my read email in one big "processed email" folder, and then I use sort by categories, and a few category related virtual folders (for large categories). The problem is that this doesnt allow me to drill down quickly and i end up using search all the time.

What i would really like is a way to use categories/tags to organise content, then have an easy way to drill down without having to go to advanced search all the time.
I found one tagging add on at  www.taglocity.com but so far it hasnt wowed me but it seems all right. Theres also one being promised at www.sidefinder.net but i contacted them and nothing testable just yet.
I have found that there are autofilers, but i dont want to maintain a whole mountain of folders, even with the best searchable help (and most search technology doesnt work in an exchange environment all that well)

All in all I am most interested in a way to do multi-level sorts in outlook, in a dynamic and flexible way, or some much better search that is usable in a live,dynamic way

Taglocity is the best I have found so far, and I wondered if anyone had a better solution

720

Living Room / Re: OpenDNS - safer, faster and smarter DNS

« Last post by iphigenie on February 01, 2008, 02:36 AM »

Pinging google.navigation.opendns.com [208.67.219.230] with 32 bytes of data:

-nosh (January 31, 2008, 11:08 PM)

That's probably a good way to finance the service, jack URLS so they are linked to your affiliate deals.
Maybe it adds its affiliate code when you go to amazon and other places too, and frankly, why not - if you use them let them make money to cover the costs.

721

Living Room / Re: ASUS eee PC - Any owner?

« Last post by iphigenie on February 01, 2008, 02:28 AM »

I used to have the fujitsu p1310, just a tad bigger screen with a touchpad. It got stolen, but I really lust after one again.

Once you have a tiny computer which you can take along with you to take notes, do a lot of basic tasks, and play games on the road (I have a lot of great old games that I could revisit)

I'm sorely tempted by the eee, although it has a pad (versus point for the fujitsu) and no touch screen so I am still hesitating.

722

Living Room / Re: ASUS eee PC - Any owner?

« Last post by iphigenie on February 01, 2008, 02:25 AM »

My designer bought the 4gb one, got the crucial mail upgrade, and is running windows, including photoshop cs1, on it - thinks its brilliant to be able to show things and do things on site

I dont know what the graphics chip can do

My take is that they made the screen just a bit too small, who needs such large speakers?

723

General Software Discussion / Re: What is your boot time?

« Last post by iphigenie on January 31, 2008, 09:11 AM »

I dont reboot very much, but typically when I reboot it is because something crashed or locked up and I am then pretty eager to be up and running to pick up whatever got interrupted, and terribly impatient!

724

General Software Discussion / Re: What is your boot time?

« Last post by iphigenie on January 31, 2008, 08:43 AM »

my boot time is pretty quick, it's the "time between log in and actual availability of the system" which is long (too many services and autostarts, and yes I want almost all of them!)

725

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for finance app

« Last post by iphigenie on January 30, 2008, 05:33 PM »

I know it is old but when I read the beginning of this thread, in the spirit of this forum, there's "the question": Try suggesting to the dev of AceMoney the features that you are missing...

I used to hang out in the acemoney official yahoo group and he was very responsive, both in suggesting how to achieve things but also doing small releases fulfilling requests

Worked for me on little things which annoyed me in the entry of transactions (I had abandoned MS money when it got too bloated but missed a few shortcuts for efficient entering especially of dates. It got added!). It was about 2004 iirc so maybe he got slower later.