Recent Posts

726

Living Room / Re: Why I could never buy a Dell or HP computer (rant)

« Last post by steeladept on June 04, 2008, 03:47 AM »

REALLY?  I didn't know that.  I guess I should ask about that more often...

727

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Take Command Console LE from JPSoft

« Last post by steeladept on June 04, 2008, 03:24 AM »

Ack, miscommunication!   

Misread, perhaps?  mwb1100 did mention "what 4NT was prior to version 9".  If that is what you are talking about, that is quite different then NT4.  Just a thought anyway.

-steeladept (June 04, 2008, 12:34 AM)

I meant that towards f0dder who appears to have misunderstood your post.  Either that or I misread this entire thread...

728

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for use with scanner?

« Last post by steeladept on June 04, 2008, 03:20 AM »

Sorry.  Like you, I didn't see it either.  I think it was just a special version that came with some brands of scanners.  It was worth a shot though.

729

General Software Discussion / Re: Unallocated drive space

« Last post by steeladept on June 04, 2008, 03:17 AM »

Have you tried laying down your existing image?  It may be that you don't need that partition, especially if it is a diagnostic partition.  Compaq was good for that - put diagnostics in a diagnostics partition that only could be accessed a certain way and you can not copy it.  At least we never found a way.  Even full disk imaging didn't cut it.

As for is there a way, in an answer, yes.  Is it worth it?  Probably not.  Look into forensic recovery software.  This type of software works for deleted files, encrypted files (though it can't unencrypt it), formatted sections, etc.  From my understanding, it literally takes a bit-by-bit copy of an entire drive.  You will get a copy of it, and may even be able to access it, but it probably won't be as helpful as what you are looking for.

730

General Software Discussion / Re: Duplicate documents search with similarity/fuzzy logic ?

« Last post by steeladept on June 04, 2008, 12:39 AM »

What if you used a script to feed the diff/merge utility?  Assuming they provide some sort of selection automation, the script can go through the files and feed the utility which would then make the decisions and then you would feed the next file.  Once completed, you could then go to the next file and start again after moving the first file to a new location.  Well, something like that anyway.  Don't know if any utilities provide that level of automation, however.

731

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Take Command Console LE from JPSoft

« Last post by steeladept on June 04, 2008, 12:34 AM »

mwb1100: "dos box" -> "console window"... there's no DOS in NT

-f0dder (June 03, 2008, 06:01 AM)

Misread, perhaps?  mwb1100 did mention "what 4NT was prior to version 9".  If that is what you are talking about, that is quite different then NT4.  Just a thought anyway.

732

Living Room / Re: Help! Any NetGear experts out there?

« Last post by steeladept on June 04, 2008, 12:25 AM »

Yeah, I have seen that before.  That was what prompted the "borrowed" section of my suggestion.

733

Living Room / Re: The 10 most annoying programs on the Internet

« Last post by steeladept on June 04, 2008, 12:15 AM »

So if you hate Flash so much then why not Adopt Silverlight which has no official installer for mozzila..instead mozzila team is working with moonlight for extention on their own..MS not even cares for the firefox or Opera users....Silverlight maybe small in size but it exhibits simmilar problems as that of flash..

-mahesh2k (June 03, 2008, 11:31 AM)

Two things:

1) I have adopted Silverlight in addition to flash on my home PC and wherever I can.  However,
2) I think it is truly poor when people rely on these engines to provide content.  I have no problems with it being an additional capability on the site for those who want to take advantage of it, but why force it down peoples throats?  Why not give the consumer the option instead of alienating a segment of the population that is otherwise interested in your content?  I have a very similar gripe against those who publish only HTML emails...

734

General Software Discussion / Re: Desktop state snapshot & recall software

« Last post by steeladept on June 03, 2008, 11:00 PM »

No, but I am trying to become a virtualization expert so to speak (like that is even possible from outside the industry  ), so I will definitely check it out sometime soon.  Thanks for the heads-up.

EDIT - Ack, it is a desktop manager.  I thought it was a virtualization scheme.  Not that I am not interested in it, mind you, just not what I expected.

735

Living Room / Re: Help! Any NetGear experts out there?

« Last post by steeladept on June 03, 2008, 10:55 PM »

Lanux, that is easy to prove.  Just disconnect the router and connect a PC direct to the wall.  Even if you are using a cable modem, they need to provide the converter (or at least authorize specific models) that will still point to them.  If they authorize specific models, you may need to "borrow" a new one from somewhere, but you can still prove the point rather easily.

736

Living Room / Re: Opera and fancy AJAX sites: not much luck on my side of things...

« Last post by steeladept on June 03, 2008, 08:35 PM »

This is exactly why I have never fully adopted Opera.  I always have it to test my own sites against, but I am not overly fond of it.  It has some great features, but Firefox soon has them available through plugins if you find a feature you like.  The only true advantage Opera has in my opinion is speed.  Plugins slow firefox more, not speed it up.  That said, I don't generally find the few seconds difference matter much given the feature availability and customizability.  On the other hand, it is nice for an app to start as soon as you click on it...

BTW: urlwolf, add to your list of sites www.stillsecure.com.  I can never get that site to work right in Opera and they don't seem to care.

737

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for use with scanner?

« Last post by steeladept on June 03, 2008, 08:16 PM »

PaperPort is supposed to be great as you say steeladept for office use but @ $199 it's definitely overkill for what I want.

-tomos (June 03, 2008, 11:44 AM)

It's that much!?!  Goodness, no wonder everyone likes it when they have it.  I didn't look as you can tell.  I know PaperPort LE came with many scanners a while back, but I never imagined it would cost that much.  Perhaps they still have a PaperPort LE (or equivalent) version you can download for free?  Just a thought.

738

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for use with scanner?

« Last post by steeladept on June 03, 2008, 04:49 AM »

The only one I have any knowledge of is ScanSoft Paperport software.  I have never used any personally, but I know there is a bunch of alternatives.  This just happens to be the one many of my company's secretaries like.

739

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Scanahand on Bits du Jour

« Last post by steeladept on June 03, 2008, 04:02 AM »

Doh!  How did I miss this yesterday!  Oh yeah, night shift!  I was asleep most of the day while not working.  Didn't get to this post till way too late!  Grrr..

At least I can get it still...say, don't we have a discount here?  <taking a quick look>
Hey, yeah, here </taking a quick look>

Now I don't feel bad about missing the deal.  I just have to go out and use this link...Thanks for the reminder.

740

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for use with scanner?

« Last post by steeladept on June 03, 2008, 03:54 AM »

Ack!  I agree.  Is this a TWAIN compliant device?  If so, most 3rd party scanner software will work well with it.

741

General Software Discussion / Re: Desktop state snapshot & recall software

« Last post by steeladept on June 03, 2008, 03:45 AM »

I've never looked into it much, but perhaps that is possible with Application Virtualization?  There are a few supposedly good ones out there, though the only one I know of that is free is Altiris SVS. There may be others. This comparison of three leaders in the field may help.  I didn't read it, but it gives you an idea of their capabilities, I am sure.

Application Virtualization Comparison PDF.

EDIT = I just went looking for Altiris SVS Personal edition and found Symantec owns them and doesn't make it easy to find the link.  I am posting it here for you: http://www.altiris.com/Download/svsPersonal.aspx

742

Living Room / Re: Annals of Self-Experiment - Seth Roberts is His Own Mouse

« Last post by steeladept on June 03, 2008, 03:21 AM »

Yeah, the article needs to be titled "Set Roberts is His Own Lab Rat"

-Deozaan (June 02, 2008, 11:08 AM)

Agreed.

743

Living Room / Re: Free PhotoShop book

« Last post by steeladept on June 03, 2008, 03:19 AM »

I don't know how they are now, but when I got a hold of Photoshop in my first position at my company, they gave me the time to go through the tutorials and they were fantastic!  It took about 40 hours to go through them all, but it got me from someone who knew NOTHING about "photoediting" (quotes because it is much more than photo editing, it is practically any picture) to being reasonably competent with both the tool and the techniques.  I strongly suggest them to anyone who wants to learn how to use Photoshop the way it was intended.

744

General Software Discussion / Re: Desktop state snapshot & recall software

« Last post by steeladept on June 03, 2008, 03:00 AM »

I would strongly suggest the Virtualization route.  There are many good free desktop virtualization programs out there, including VMWare Player (need a VM already created though), Microsoft VirtualPC, VirtualBox, and XenDesktop (though I never used this last one personally).  My personal suggestion is Microsoft VirtualPC (believe it or not) as it seems to have the most features and is reasonably lightweight (comparatively).  Now if you are willing to spend the money, VMWare Workstation beats them all hands down, but it is ~$200 USD in the U.S. for the Windows version.

Just a note of warning though - While this class of virtualization software is useful, especially for sandboxing and doing state snapshot & recall; as a class, they are very resource hungry.  You are running a complete OS inside your current OS!  You need to have enough disk space and Nemory to run ALL VM's w/ running programs IN ADDITION TO THE UNDERLYING OS.  In my experience using VMWare Workstation, a 2.2GHz Intel processor (single core) w/ 3GB of DDR2 memory and 100GB disk space running on an XP Pro SP2 machine w/ typical business setup (e.g. NortonAV & Intel Landesk running on it), could barely handle running 3 linux virtual machines at the same time (Ubuntu, Kbuntu, & Xbuntu, version 6, were my test machines at the time).  Any more than one machine running in a VM was horribly slow on this system and completely unusable in a business environment (though perfect for my playing around).  Memory was generally the constraint if you are curious.  However, with the knowledge of these caveats, I feel this would be an ideal use of this technology.

745

General Software Discussion / Re: Need Virtual Desktop software recommendations

« Last post by steeladept on June 03, 2008, 02:23 AM »

Wow, I have been looking for this for quite some time.  I have looked at Dexpot many times as that is the closest to what I am looking for that most people recommend, yet (and I can't say exactly why), it never seems to work out for me.  I have tried most that were talked about here, but the two pay ones mentioned, EVD and GoScreen are new to me.  I must check them out now

What I am looking for is like Mouser said - what is in Linux (though my experience is from much later that the cli mouser spoke of).  Gnome desktop has an extrodinary virtual desktop.  I am looking for the same experience.  GoScreen and EVD appear to offer that.  Thans for bringing this up again...

746

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2007 / Re: Help me find a name for my reading/writing speed-up program

« Last post by steeladept on June 03, 2008, 01:47 AM »

Vocabulous?

747

Living Room / Re: The 10 most annoying programs on the Internet

« Last post by steeladept on June 03, 2008, 01:28 AM »

I don't know why she's picking on flash though, from what little I've seen of it, it seems like a really promising technology. Blaming flash for all the badly designed sites using it isn't really justified.   

There’s nothing wrong with Flash, provided you don’t use it to construct Web sites where people want to find information, navigate easily, or do anything beyond passively consume exactly what you choose to give them in exactly the way you’ve decided.

Not always true, I've seen some pretty decent sites that use flash for navigation.

-nosh (June 02, 2008, 04:00 AM)

Thanks for the update on Yahoo.  Like I said, I only use their online offerings.  I even use YIM through the online email the rare time I use it at all.

As for Flash, that is great and wonderful when they work, but have you ever tried using it behind a firewall that blocks flash, or on a cell phone, or in a plethora of other locations?  Using flash, especially as navigation, is just bad,bad,bad! 

748

Living Room / Re: Drinking Vinegar?

« Last post by steeladept on June 03, 2008, 01:22 AM »

I think people are missing the difference in vinegars here.  From what I understand, drinking vinegar as Renegade is talking about is a mild flavored drink that is not far from wine and may even be made by letting wine "go bad" (never researched it, though it certainly would make sense).

The vinegars other people think of is typically distilled white vinegar or balsamic vinegar, neither of which is in the same category.  I get the feeling few people actually know how many different types of vinegars there are out there and how different they are.  Like wines ranging from sweet to dry, red, white, rose, flavored, etc.; vinegars come in MANY different ranges for different purposes.  While I agree that distilled white vinegar would be absolutely horrible to drink strait (in my opinion); I can certainly imagine much milder vinegars that are tons healthier than colas and other soda pops and just as tasty.

All this from someone who has never tried it

749

Living Room / Re: AGP 4x on 8x Mainboard

« Last post by steeladept on June 03, 2008, 01:04 AM »

AFAIK it is supposed to be.  AGP is supposed to be 100% compliant and the 'X' just identifies the bus size (read data throughput from what I have gathered).  That said, the key word is 'supposed' because I have heard of compatibility issues before.

750

Living Room / Re: Annals of Self-Experiment - Seth Roberts is His Own Mouse

« Last post by steeladept on June 02, 2008, 02:23 AM »

LOL, Me too!