Recent Posts

7001

Living Room / Re: Google Analytics - Now free!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 14, 2005, 09:04 AM »

and future expansion plans for DC ...

7002

Living Room / Free MIDI files (and very cheap CD/DVD media)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 14, 2005, 09:01 AM »

See http://www.rivierapu...Free_Midi_Files.html

I have bought loads of DVD-R/+R/-RW/+RW from this company and they are great value. Fast delivery (at least in the UK) and cheap prices.

7003

General Software Discussion / Re: Stepmania - Open Source Dance Dance Revolution game clone

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 14, 2005, 06:42 AM »

oo ... looks like a good Christmas present!


Where's my wrting pad, and Santa's address ...

7004

Living Room / Re: Why we must take great care when designing software

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 14, 2005, 06:38 AM »

Thanks for pointing out that thread ... particularly interesting news at http://news.bbc.co.u...chnology/4427606.stm

I wonder is Sony are criminally liable having caused the problem?

7005

General Software Discussion / Re: 2 questions for shareware authors

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 14, 2005, 05:27 AM »

question 2 is, anyone a member of shareware association? do you think its worth the membership dues?

Or perhaps they could pass on the odd question you have

7006

General Software Discussion / Re: Pixel Image Editor

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 14, 2005, 05:26 AM »

Don't need to use it but if anyone is interested they seem to have adopted the Adobe PhotoShop interface. Not sure it will do they same as PS though, but if it does a quarter of it then $32 is pretty cheap ...

7007

Official Announcements / Re: ANNOUNCING - DonationCoder.com Logo Contest

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 14, 2005, 05:00 AM »

I was thinking of changing the egg into a stumbling coin ???

7008

Living Room / Re: Why we must take great care when designing software

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 14, 2005, 04:59 AM »

Interesting webpage - I couldn't view it at all in Firefox - had to go into Internet Explorer ...

I particularly like the article on iTunes (is Sony taking up Apple's batton on consumer realtions )

7009

Official Announcements / Re: ANNOUNCING - DonationCoder.com Logo Contest

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 14, 2005, 04:45 AM »

But I quite like this one

7010

Official Announcements / Re: ANNOUNCING - DonationCoder.com Logo Contest

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 14, 2005, 04:21 AM »

OK ... here are two with the birdies ... I think the cleaner version works best with the crisp circle though ...

7011

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Locate 3.0 - great HD search tool

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 13, 2005, 08:04 PM »

I use Windows 2000 Pro (don't like XP that much)

Can I ask why? (Just curious). If it is the 'blue theme' that can easily be turned off, and you can revert the Start Menu etc. so it all looks like 2000.

Granted it isn't a huge increase in terms of new stuff over 2000 but it is better supported these days by MS, and looks like it will be more so in the future (despite the huge corporate use of win2k).

I swapped from W98 to W2k and then WXP and I must say I was reluctant at each step (familiarity I suppose) but I have grown to like WinXP.

7012

Official Announcements / Re: ANNOUNCING - DonationCoder.com Logo Contest

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 13, 2005, 07:55 PM »

Corporate Logo was the word that sprang to mind when I saw it

Here's my final stab at the animated birdie nonsense, I have given him a bag of money, but to make it easy to carry it is attached to his twig (and it saves me editing the twig out). (Zipped XAR file also attached if anyone wants to play with this further). Ideally the bottom end of the stick needs to be edited out, but that means manually editing 9 frames, and my attempts came out less than artistic 

7013

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Minimized Startup not working

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 13, 2005, 06:50 PM »

carol i think you should pursue a second career as a detective

Just call me Sherlock Haynes ...

7014

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Minimized Startup not working

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 13, 2005, 06:22 PM »

Moerl,

Are you using "Startup Delayer" ?

I had this problem with a number of apps until I tracked the problem down. If you have set up Startup Delayer (or similar) to manage the startup process you will probably have apps starting from there. the trouble is a number of apps when they start see the 'Start with Windows" option set and the regenerate the entry in the normal windows registry. This means the program gets started twice, and some programs respond to that by opening a window. Also I have found that Startup Delayer doesn't always transfer command line options (which usually force the minimized to tray option).

Just a thought.

7015

Official Announcements / Re: ANNOUNCING - DonationCoder.com Logo Contest

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 13, 2005, 01:55 PM »

Just another version to give the impression. The bird was found (a dove of peace) on Google Images. If we could change the twig for a bag of money with coins dropping out ...

(Zipped XAR file attached for this one too - if you want to see animations and how they work go to the Gallery Menu and click on Frames)

7016

Official Announcements / Re: ANNOUNCING - DonationCoder.com Logo Contest

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 13, 2005, 01:02 PM »

Does this help? If it does I created in Xara Xtreme (www.xara.com) which rivals Adobe Illustartor (at a fraction of the price) and is easier to use. I have attached the Xara file (zipped because I can't attach XAR files) if you want to download the demo and experiment.

7017

General Software Discussion / Re: Some Cool Shell Extensions...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 13, 2005, 07:31 AM »

Good find there, I like the hidden file toggle too ...

Now we just need a system file toggle

7018

Official Announcements / Re: ANNOUNCING - DonationCoder.com Logo Contest

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 13, 2005, 06:23 AM »

Carol,
might I ask what you used to make the logo for Swaledale Outdoor Club?

-rrtwister (November 12, 2005, 10:18 PM)

A scanner 

It's off the letter head of the club ...

7019

Official Announcements / Re: ANNOUNCING - DonationCoder.com Logo Contest

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 12, 2005, 07:32 PM »

Here are a couple of stabs at the animated money/binary strip ...

I perhaps need fewer, larger coins and slow it down a bit. Trouble is slowing it down needs more frames which means bigger filesize.

I also though as the Money wiped along it could generate DonationCoder.com behind it ???

Not trying to nick people's ideas just thought I'd have a quick stab - if anyone wants the PhotoShop PSD file to play with I can let them have it. The animation was made in Adobe ImageReady 7.

7020

General Software Discussion / Re: HELP ... Any ideas - Bad Partition table (sometimes) ????

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 12, 2005, 06:59 PM »

You say "It's just a shame Norton now have it and don't seem to be devloping it any longer.", but what you probably mean is now Symantec has it.

-Innuendo (November 12, 2005, 12:48 PM)

You are quite correct of course - just my typing speed got the better of my thinking ...

Symantec is the disease of the application software world. They buy products and companies continuously. Those good ones they don't discontinue right away, they load up with bloat and turn the programs into caricatures of what they once were. Norton was an excellent company before Symantec bought them out. Same with Central Point, Quarterdeck, the Partition Magic people, AtGuard, etc. The list goes on & on of wonderful products turned to poo by Symantec.

Agree wholeheartedly ...

7021

Official Announcements / Re: ANNOUNCING - DonationCoder.com Logo Contest

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 12, 2005, 10:30 AM »

How about a screen saver (you may be able to click on it or right click and save it - it depends on your browser).

To try it out, download the file, right click on it and choose install. The screensaver dialogue in Display Properties should appear with the screen saver selected just click OK. In not put you mouse on a blank area of the desktop, right click and choose Properties and select the screen saver tab. You should find it in the list under DCScreenSaver. These instructions are for Windows XP other versions should work similarly.

Note if you change screensaver it disappears form the list again, if you want it permanently available copy the file to the C:\Windows\System32 folder, right click install from there, and then it should be permanently available.

If you just want to preview it just double click the file.

7022

Living Room / Re: Nice story about a canine "cat of the year" award winner

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 12, 2005, 09:35 AM »

My cats are horrified by the story (and all dogs) - but then they didn't know her did they ...

7023

General Software Discussion / Re: HELP ... Any ideas - Bad Partition table (sometimes) ????

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 11, 2005, 08:03 PM »

Fixed ...

Actually PM was giving a correct alarm.

I decided that if Partition Table Doctor could do what it claimed it was worth it (just in the time and frustration saved).

The demo reported a couple of incorrect partition data entries (block pointed a couple of blocks off). So I splashed out and bought the thing.

I corrected the two errors and though what the heck I'll try doing a complete Partition Table Repair. The tool scans through the whole disc showing partition markers present (including old ones I thought were gone forever). That with the layout map for the current settings meant I could find all of the partitions (they were also shown by name, but there were duplicates because of the partition resizings I had done). I selected the correct version, and then discovered that one of the small partitions didn't have any possible correct entries, so I simply left it unchecked. A quick click and my partition table was rewritten with a hole where the extra partition should be. I had an upto the minute backup of that partitions (and it was only 8Gb), so 15 minutes later it was restored.

After a reboot I ran Partition Magic again, and lo and behold everything looks good.

I suspect the problem actually arose using Acronis Disk Director to resize partitions.

I have to say so far I am not at all impressed with Acronis' products. I bought TrueImage 8 and they gave me a free update to TrueImage 9 when it was released a couple of weeks later. That was absolutely full of bugs, and judging by this experience the recovery disc still has some. what use is a backup utility that incorrectly tells you your backup files are corrupt and refuses to restore them?

DiskDirector 9 hasn't exactly got off with a good start either. Over the years I have used Partition Magic numerous times to shif free space around my drives, expanding and contracting partitions on the fly. It has been very rare to have any problem at all with that product. It's just a shame Norton now have it and don't seem to be devloping it any longer. Acronis DiskDirector gets used once and my partition tables are completely naused up. It may be just a coincidence and I am jumping to conclusions - but it seems strange that this unusal problem occured on the day I used it to shuffle free space ???

Anyway for what it is worth Partition Table Doctor worked really nicely (although it isn't exactly pretty to look at) and is provided in two forms: a windows desktop app, and an ISO image to burn to make a bootable CDROM. You can also purchase it on disc.

7024

General Software Discussion / Re: HELP ... Any ideas - Bad Partition table (sometimes) ????

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 11, 2005, 06:29 PM »

Hi Innuendo - yes I am using NTFS.

The only reason I used Win98 FDisk was to see if it could read the partition table (not the data). FDISK recognises NTFS partitions.

Mouser - yes you are right - it is amazing how frustrtaing things like this can be! My problem is that I have used Partition Magic for years and it's error reporting is somewhat limited (usually an unlisted code on their website). Having said that I have never had an error reported when there was no problem.

It's all very strange.

Does any one know of reliable partition recovery utilities that don't cost an arm and a leg. I found one today that scans the entire dis and finds all the FATs, partition details, boot sectors etc. The demo seems to work - but it costs $375 ... which is simply ridiculous.

What i need is a program that can be booted from CDROM and can check the validity of my partition table, and correct any errors.

I have found Partition Table Doctor  which has a 5/5 rating. Is suppose I could try the demo and see if it detects anything unusual (the demo doesn't write repairs so shouldn't so any further damage). Does anyone know about this software? (Home page is here)

7025

General Software Discussion / HELP ... Any ideas - Bad Partition table (sometimes) ????

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 11, 2005, 11:55 AM »

I have had an extremely frustrating day!!

Got up this morning with various errors on my computer screen. I had left Perfect Disk running over night to defrag my whole system. PD wouldn't work on any of my partitions this morning!

I recently installed Acronis Disk Director and had resized a partition, so I loaded it up to look, and there were no obvious problems. I also installed Acronis' boot manager.

I had a copy of Partition Magic 8 (I moved to Acronis because it is obvious Norton aren't doing anything with PM) so I loaded that up and the whol of IDE0 was reported simply as 'BAD'

Suspecting that it was the Acronis Software causing the problem I decided to remove the boot manager and see if PM could then see the partitions. First problem - removing the Acronis boot manager didn't restore my orginal settings - it left me with a single boot system (whereas I have a multiboot system). Windows Boot.ini was untouched so I presume acronis have left something in the Master Boot record.

No probs, me thinks, I will load up the Recovery Console and FIXBOOT, that should sort it out.

That's when things went seriously pear shaped!! The system wouldn't boot at all ... three words on screen only Bad Partition Table.

A lot of cursing and swearing ... but hey good old Acronis TrueImage keeps regular backups so it shouldn't be a problem to restore my system.

Pop in the Acronis TrueImage Rescue CD and hey presto I am restoring my C drive ... OK its 24 hours old but I never keep useful info on that drive anyway. Ten minutes later 'Corrupt Backup' .... lots of expletives .... this despite always running a verify backup check after every backup.

Talk about mad!!!

Anyway to cut a long story short I installed a quick version of windows on a spare drive and managed to restore the corrupt backup with no errors! So much for rescue disks.

I still haven't cured the problem though - Partition Magic still reports IDE0 is BAD, althought the system boots, Acronis Disk Director finds no problems, Perfect Disc sees all my partitions and I ran the Windows utility DiskPart which finds all my partitions and declares them healthy.

Do I believe Partition Magic? Am I heading for trouble? PM has never reported errors like this before so I am rather nervous just to carry on as though nothing has happened.

I tried running Windows 98 FDISK (just to see what it said was on the disk). It reports an Active NTFS Primary Partition and an Extended Partition, but it can't see the logical partions inside. Having said that it can't see logical partitions on any of my disks??

Anyone got any suggestions how to check the real integrity of a partition map? (Preferably without spending megabucks).