Recent Posts

7101

General Software Discussion / Re: Storage on the go

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 02, 2005, 12:13 PM »

Yes it will plug and play on a PC because that is the way Windows is designed. Effectively Windows already has the device driver and communications already set up.

One further thought ...

If it is plug and play in Windows XP I would have thought he would perhaps be able to upload his audio at some of the places he is speaking. Surely someone would give him 10 minutes on a computer every now and then, and webspace to uplad to is easy enough to find.

7102

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Startup Delayer

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 02, 2005, 10:42 AM »

Anyone seen copycat on the same site ... looks really neat if you are using a network computer - or even the internet since it is IP based ...

7103

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Startup Delayer

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 02, 2005, 10:26 AM »

Out of curiosity, and not to appear too lazy cheesy, how does PCMag's StartupCop Pro 2

Out of curiosity, and not to appear too lazy , how does PCMag's StartupCop Pro 2compare to this?

-Darwin (November 02, 2005, 09:59 AM)

I would guess the reviews on the page you posted should give caution.

Of course the other big difference is price 

Err... did you notice that you can just click an app in there and move its bar from left to right, according to what you want?

-brotherS (November 02, 2005, 09:08 AM)

No I hadn't noticed that, and the help files are written for a different version so don't help!

Actually what I think would be nice is if the column where the delay is listed contained a slider for each app so that you don't have to do anything other than drag the slider from 0. By default all apps with 0 delay should be in their normal registry key, and only moved if a delay is entered.

Would make the whole thing instantly tweakable - and could still be reflected in the overview at the bottom - and so take a couple of minutes rather than the half hour it just took me.

The other change I'd like to see is to be able to simply select a block of apps (and change the order to the one you want by dragging) and then click on evenly space. That would really be neat. Maybe I'll drop the developer a line ... (I can say thanks then too)

7104

General Software Discussion / Re: Storage on the go

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 02, 2005, 10:16 AM »

so your task is to find one of the hd-based mp3 players with usb interface that can do this.

-mouser (November 02, 2005, 10:09 AM)

I thought of this but the trouble is the media player responds to the software installed on your PC, it doesn't have any upload or download control in itself so unless there is compatible software in the voice recorder I can't see how they can talk to each other.

A similar example is Canon cameras and printers. Both are USB based but you can't just plug your camera into the USB port and print - you have to have  PictBridge enable USB connector to do that, in which case the printer acts as a PC and talks to the camera.

7105

General Software Discussion / Re: Storage on the go

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 02, 2005, 10:11 AM »

Sorry didn't think most cameras have cards of one sort or another - short of a laptop I can' t think of any storage devices that are USB compatible without a PC or similar as a controller?

Presumably the device needs drivers to communicate with the laptop, so even if you can find a device that could do this the chances of it having drivers that support the recorder seem pretty slim.

This was the sort of thing I was thinking of: https://emporium.oly...s.asp?sku=200336-410

7106

General Software Discussion / New: Special Offer Raxco DiskState (or PerfectDisk Bundle) expires 30th Nov. 05

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 02, 2005, 09:18 AM »

Got an offer today for Raxco DiskState for $19.95 or with perfect disc for $39.95

I presume these are generic offers as it doesn't look like a personalised email.

As I've said in these forums before I like PD more than DK having used both, so this is quite a good offer.

DiskState seems to work quite well at cleaning up your hard disks - finds loads of temp files, internet cache files, broken shortcut links (and is intelligent enough to avoid things like MS shortcuts which appear empty to the user) and loads of other rubbish that can be deleted. You do have to be fairly careful though as it also list files of 0 bytes that might be required by some apps.

There is also a really useful facility for finding duplicated media files (amongst others) on your hard disks and various other tools.

See http://www.raxco.com/products/diskstate/ for further details

Here is the offer text

Do you get overwhelmed with managing your video, audio, gaming, and other large files? Are you concerned that you might be wasting lots of disk space on unnecessary duplicate files?

Check out DiskState™, Raxco Software's powerful disk cleanup tool and the perfect compliment to PerfectDisk®. With DiskState, you can:

recover wasted space by removing duplicate files
clean your drives automatically
view reports on your oldest files, certain file types, files edited within a certain timeframe - and much more. Reports are easy to customize according to what you want to see.
DiskState gives you a bird's-eye view of your entire disk and then lets you drill down to the detailed level. Get a snapshot of which files are taking up the most space and take corrective action - resulting in a cleaner and more efficient disk.
 
Save on DiskState, including the PerfectDisk/DiskState Power Pack (download only), by using the following promo codes:

$19.95 DiskState Workstation
Use Promo Code: 55DSWV3
(regular price $44.95, 55% savings)

OR
$39.95 PerfectDisk/DiskState Workstation Power Pack
Use Promo Code: 33DSWV3
(regular price $59.95, 33% savings)


**Please contact Raxco Sales for special server pricing offers on the above products: 1-800-546-9728

To purchase, your new version of DiskState or to take advantage of the PerfectDisk/DiskState Power Pack offer using the above promo codes, click the "Buy Now" button above or go to the Raxco Download Store where you will find all of our web download products. Upon choosing a product and clicking the “buy now” button you will be presented with a page that has an area at the top labeled Promo Code. Enter your promo code in this area and click the “apply promo code” button. Special pricing will be automatically calculated.

**Promo codes and special pricing are valid through November 30, 2005.

The Buy Now link takes you to: http://www.raxco.com...rce/products_all.cfm
 

7107

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Startup Delayer

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 02, 2005, 08:57 AM »

Installed it, and it looks to do the right thing.

Just wish the interface was easier to use ... it would be so good to edit the delays in the table rather than have to open a properties page, and confirm you want to open it for each app ...

Getting a sore wrist ...

7108

Living Room / Re: incremental vs differential

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 02, 2005, 07:18 AM »

True ... quite right ... I wasn't thinking (and I didn't take time out to look at the review)

7109

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Startup Delayer

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 02, 2005, 07:16 AM »

Excellent find - I like the look of that.

I have been looking for something like this for years to cure startup bottleneck ... now to install and play ...

7110

Living Room / Re: Close the Blog Section?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 02, 2005, 07:08 AM »

I don't know about others but I tend to read some of the blogs as they are written, have made the odd comment here and there and then tended to forget about them.

If there was a BLOGGERS section to the forum where columnists (and anyone that requests one) gets their own board to spout off at will, it would have the advantages of

• keeping the 'blog feel' in that it consists of longer 'articles' rather than quick notes and question like most of the forum
• new columns flagged up with all the forum links (Unread Posts / Recent Posts / Since last visit) which I would guess are widely used
• searchability
• interactive response ... the current blogs have to be read to see the comments left - there is no interaction, or encouragement to send others back to have a look.
• the current blogs could be retained (cut and paste into new board messages, if current bloggers want to do that)
• easy to backup with your existing DB backup system
• do away with Moveable Type (did I hear Mouser sigh)

Can I be even more radical and say that the reviews could do the same too (for pretty much the same reasons). However, you might want to have some control there otherwise everyone will be writing two line reviews and it would get too cluttered. But it would be nice if revies were searchable, and the responses interactive. It might also be useful to have a standard layout for reviews - inc. review date, and review updated date (w. change log) ... perhaps the first three posts in the individual review forum could be:

• Date of review - overview / review update/change log
• Main Review
• Conclusions

7111

Living Room / Re: incremental vs differential

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 02, 2005, 05:23 AM »

Can I ask why 'a seperate program' ??

To me one of the advantages of a program like Acronis is that th initial (monthly if you like) snapshot is fully recoverable, as are individual increments?

I haven't tried it yet, but I think with Acronis you can offload your images to DVD (to clear space) but still produce increments (even though the base isn't present). I may be wrong though ...

7112

Finished Programs / Re: simple tool needed: start x.exe in y seconds

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 02, 2005, 04:58 AM »

Actually, is it possible in AutoHotKey to pass arguments ? If so you could create a script that does something like:

StartInXSecs.exe 30 C:\Prg.exe

This would be really useful for shortcuts, and especially in the startup process where it would be good to build a delay into certain apps starting.

7113

Living Room / Re: incremental vs differential

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 02, 2005, 04:54 AM »

Both methods use a similar principle ...

Start with a base backup, which can take a long time to do.

This is a snapshot of your partitions at that time - just like a single standalone backup - which is what it is.

Over time your files change:

Differential Backup -> Backup changes in a new file since the base was made. Each time you do a differential it replaces the previous differential backup. This means you can restore your system back to as it was at the time of the last differential or the original base. Obviously the differential chunk will grow over time, and there will come a point when a fresh base is required.

Incremental Backup -> Backup changes since last backup. This is stored in an extra file, one each time you do a backup. These are usually quite small if you do them regularly and quite quick. Advantage is that you can restore your system to any of the times you did an incremental or base backup, not just the last one. Disadvantage is that it takes up more disk space than differential and you may need to do base backups more often to save running out of space.


It shouldn't take over an hour to do an incremental backup, and anyway you can continue to use your system while it does it. I do find the Acronis time estimates a bit hit and miss - my last backup initially said it would take 30 hours, after a while it settled down to 9 hours, and actually took about 3!

The really time consuming part is if you do a backup verify after each backup ... unfortunately Acronis have not realised that to verify an incremental backup you should only check the increment, not the whole thing. I have requested this a s a feature, but it hasn't appeared yet. PowerQuest V2i Protector (now sadly gone in to the giant dustbin called Symmantec) was great at this - a verified increment took about 5 minutes to build and verify, unfortunately it had a couple of bugs in its ability to create increments, and would occasionally decide it couldn't do it any more and start a whole new base backup - which defeated the object!

Note also that if you defrag your system regularly this will really bump up the size of your differential and incremental backups, as they are not stored on a file by file basis, but rather on disc sector by sector - so a defrag really has an effect on the backup size since it always compares to the base backup.

7114

Finished Programs / Re: idea: batch .par2 executer

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 02, 2005, 04:41 AM »

True - oh whoops ... can't see the wood ...

7115

Finished Programs / Re: simple tool needed: start x.exe in y seconds

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 02, 2005, 04:40 AM »

Actually I jibbered posting that - my furriness is not yet fully developed 

7116

Finished Programs / Re: simple tool needed: start x.exe in y seconds

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 02, 2005, 04:37 AM »

Marginally modified version here:

I have changed it to seconds (rather than minutes) and added an input field for the filename to Open, which saves having to edit the file.

It is worth grabbing NinoTech Path Copy for use with this (worth having anyway). It is a shell extension that can copy the filename, pathname, folderpath to the clipboard (in both long and short forms).

[Select]

;2005-11-02
;Start .exe file in x minutes
;http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=36314#36314
^q::
#Persistent
InputBox, FilenameToLoad, Enter filename to Open here
InputBox, Laufzeit, Enter Delay to start program (in seconds):
Laufzeit := Laufzeit * 1000

Zeit = %A_TickCount%
Settimer, Anzeiger, 250
Settimer, Start_Program, %Laufzeit%
return

Anzeiger:
  till_start_minutes := (laufzeit - A_TickCount + zeit)/60000
  till_start_minutes := Floor(till_start_minutes)
  till_start_seconds := (laufzeit - A_TickCount + zeit)/1000 - (till_start_minutes * 60)
  till_start_seconds := Floor(till_start_seconds)

  CoordMode, ToolTip, Screen
  ToolTip, time until .exe starts: %till_start_minutes%:%till_start_seconds%,80,1010
return

start_Program:
  settimer, Anzeiger, off
  ToolTip
run, %FilenameToLoad%
settimer, Start_Program, off
return
;Start .exe file in x minutes
;http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=36314#36314

7117

Finished Programs / Re: idea: batch .par2 executer

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 02, 2005, 04:17 AM »

Wouldn't an ordinary DOS batch file achieve this - it will execute command sequentially ?

7118

Finished Programs / Re: DONE - IDEA: make the taskbar shift through a range of colors gradually

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 02, 2005, 04:14 AM »

I'm still waiting for scolling/changing wallpaper (whilst still having  the use of desktop icons ...)

7119

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Free .be domains

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 02, 2005, 04:12 AM »

Expensive after year 1 !!

Fun though ...

how about

canit.be
happyto.be
wherecouldit.be

7120

Living Room / Re: Dead Motherboard....maybe....what do you think?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 02, 2005, 03:28 AM »

MSI are usually pretty good about this sort of thing.

7121

Official Announcements / Re: Welcome Skrommel Into Official Software Pages!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 01, 2005, 07:07 PM »

Sort of ... 

You don't get URLs based on it, it just converts to the other address ...  to skrommel

7122

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Weather Watcher 5.6 - now better than ever!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 01, 2005, 07:05 PM »

Wow - that is so cool ...

I have seen others but this definitely rocks ...

It even has my local RAF base (in the UK) which happens to be a Met Office data supplier for the area.

7123

Official Announcements / Re: Welcome Skrommel Into Official Software Pages!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 01, 2005, 06:55 PM »

Actually I think he deserves a subdomain ;-)

How about skrommel.donationcoder.com

7124

Living Room / Re: great read - "Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far"

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 01, 2005, 06:47 PM »

Scary stuff - makes you wonder how everyday users are supposed to protect against this ...

Personally I use software which automatically hides copy protection on CDs and DVDs from my system altogether. That way any CD can be used with any player, and any DVD can be used without 'infecting' my system.

Whilst this may be seen by some as potentially illegal, I would defend my right to do that in a court and counter it with a lawsuit of propogating viruses illegally.

7125

Official Announcements / Re: New Software Release (11/01/05) - Piper

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 01, 2005, 05:42 PM »

DonationCoder.com software hub

Oooo errr missus - going up in the world

we now have a HUB

Beam me up Scotty