Recent Posts

751

Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« Last post by dr_andus on July 03, 2013, 11:40 AM »

Even UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon comes down on the side of the spymasters. It's as if the EU and the UN are also run by spies, whose no. 1 priority seems to be to make an example of Snowden to show what happens to spies that break the code of secrecy:

Speaking to a gathering of the foreign affairs committee of the Icelandic parliament in Reykjavik on Tuesday, Ban said that in his personal opinion "the Snowden case is something I consider to be misuse." The UN chief added that the opening up of digital communications should not be "misused in such a way as Snowden did".

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Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« Last post by dr_andus on July 03, 2013, 07:24 AM »

^I'm not sure that they're "cowed" - they've always pretty much just played along with most of what the US wants.

-tomos (July 03, 2013, 06:30 AM)

I guess you're right. Europeans didn't seem to have a problem with CIA planes zipping around in their airspace with "extraordinarily rendered" people on board, sometimes kidnapped from their own streets.

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Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« Last post by dr_andus on July 03, 2013, 05:55 AM »

Wow, it's an eye-opener how easily European countries can be cowed into compliance by the US, despite the synthetic outrage about being spied upon...

Bolivia has accused European countries of an "act of aggression" for refusing to allow its presidential jet into their airspace, amid suggestions US fugitive Edward Snowden was on board.

Bolivia said France, Portugal, Spain and Italy had blocked the plane from flying over their territory.

It was diverted to Vienna where it was reportedly searched.

This is incredible... How does this work? Was that simply legal compliance with some Interpol request or some behind-the-scenes political arm-twisting? I thought France didn't even have an extradition treaty with the US, so what was the big deal about letting a presidential plane pass through its airspace, even if it might have had a fugitive on board who France etc. have nothing to do with?

754

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows "Blue"

« Last post by dr_andus on July 02, 2013, 10:36 AM »

With ads like this, can we get some idea where Microsoft's brain is at these days? Especially at the 20 second mark with that "you want some?" move. Jeezus Redmond! What were you thinking?

-40hz (July 02, 2013, 08:50 AM)

You mean Steve Ballmer's signature move? You should see him doing it on the dance floor... 

'Fancy' advertising is hardly going to make a difference. You need a product that works and which appeals to the prospective user, not one that is shoved down their throats and which frustrates and confuses them.

755

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 History

« Last post by dr_andus on June 27, 2013, 06:10 AM »

In this thread however I'm talking about something that will allow the user to examine Windows history in detail, what was accessed/changed yesterday, last week, last month.

Something like, I guess, the Windows Event Viewer but simpler and more focused on basic file operations etc. Of course it's quite likely that I've just not learnt how to make Event Viewer do what I want...

-sicknero (June 27, 2013, 06:01 AM)

Oh, I see. I was about to suggest Nemo, but that only focuses on the history of certain file types, not all file operations, as far as I know.

756

General Software Discussion / Re: Stickies - Part of the Zhorn Software Donationware Series

« Last post by dr_andus on June 27, 2013, 06:01 AM »

There is also the free Sticky7List in this category from the maker of WhizFolders

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General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 History

« Last post by dr_andus on June 27, 2013, 03:41 AM »

And Direct Folders is pretty handy for jumping to the last used folder (especially when dialog box is already open)

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General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 History

« Last post by dr_andus on June 26, 2013, 05:50 PM »

I've still got in mind some kind of third-party app which will display history along with a few extra details and, be immune to history cleaners such as ccleaner.

-sicknero (June 26, 2013, 02:43 PM)

RecentX might do the trick

759

Living Room / Re: Blowback from Snowden's revelations... this isn't pretty...

« Last post by dr_andus on June 25, 2013, 05:32 AM »

P.S. It's kind of funny for the Chinese now to admit that the US used to be "a 'model of human rights'"... It seems to imply that they accept that past US criticism of China's human rights record had been justified. How things are changing...

760

Living Room / Re: Blowback from Snowden's revelations... this isn't pretty...

« Last post by dr_andus on June 25, 2013, 05:26 AM »

Yup. Here is what China has got to say about it.

The Chinese government has expressed deep concern about Mr Snowden's allegations that the US had hacked into networks in China.

Tuesday saw the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party praise Mr Snowden for "tearing off Washington's sanctimonious mask".

In a strongly worded front-page commentary, the overseas edition of the People's Daily said: "Not only did the US authorities not give us an explanation and apology, it instead expressed dissatisfaction at the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region for handling things in accordance with law.

"In a sense, the United States has gone from a 'model of human rights' to 'an eavesdropper on personal privacy', the 'manipulator' of the centralised power over the international internet, and the mad 'invader' of other countries' networks."

761

General Software Discussion / Re: Waterfox has now been accepted as a Mozilla project

« Last post by dr_andus on June 21, 2013, 10:18 AM »

The main reason I stopped using Waterfox, Pale Moon etc. and returned to Firefox because the former couldn't handle e-commerce transactions properly. I'd be shopping, fill in all my details, hit "purchase" and then it turns out the transaction couldn't go through apparently because of the browser - in Chrome or Firefox the purchase would always go through. The one time I really want my browser to work is when I'm buying stuff and I'm about to pay...

762

General Software Discussion / Re: Tree action Plans

« Last post by dr_andus on June 12, 2013, 04:52 AM »

taking control and store the logs of the decisions taken

-Contro (June 11, 2013, 04:48 PM)

You could attach the logs as .txt (etc.) files to the mind map branches too. Alternatively logs could be entered as "notes" to each node's notes section (which can be viewed in a separate pane or in the mind map).

I thought Freemind hasn't been updated for a couple of years now, while Freeplane seems to be actively developed.

763

General Software Discussion / Re: Tree action Plans

« Last post by dr_andus on June 11, 2013, 09:30 AM »

Could use Freeplane (or any other mind mapper that allows for drag and drop of files) for the decision tree, and simply drag and drop the audio files onto the branches.

764

General Software Discussion / Re: From the B.F.D. Dept. - Microsoft releases first video preview of Win 8.1

« Last post by dr_andus on June 06, 2013, 07:48 AM »

Our accountant is in his late 70s. He is not an advanced user by any measure. He recently made the jump from XP to Win8 on his home computer. Neither he nor his wife have had any major issues adapting to the new UI.

-Stoic Joker (June 06, 2013, 06:56 AM)

Do they have a touch screen? If not, would they have been better off upgrading to Win7? How about if one is not an accountant in his late 70s and wants a work computer, not a home computer, without a touch screen? Is Win8 still a better option?

765

General Software Discussion / Re: Best method for a dead simple web site?

« Last post by dr_andus on May 29, 2013, 05:06 AM »

Self-hosting sounds like more work to me 

-dr_andus (May 28, 2013, 04:02 PM)

Only downside to self-hosting is security issues:  you have to manage that.

-barney (May 28, 2013, 07:21 PM)

I had the OP's best interests in mind: how to get your computer illiterate wife off your back, sorry, make her more independent  And surely it must be less hassle to just select a log-on and password and a theme on Wordpress.com, then to have to get into the whole business of downloading Wordpress, getting server space, uploading it, installing it, and then regularly having to update it (however much that appeals to DoCo's techie audience  ). It's just more work.

766

General Software Discussion / Re: Best method for a dead simple web site?

« Last post by dr_andus on May 28, 2013, 04:02 PM »

If you go with wordpress.com or Blogger, there is a certain amount of lock-in that occurs, even if you use your own domain name with it. You'll never get a copy of that database for moving or restoring your site, if anything happens to it, or if you run out of the allowed storage space.

-app103 (May 28, 2013, 01:22 PM)

With Wordpress.com you can at least

export your posts, pages, comments, categories, and tags; uploads and images may need to be manually transferred to the new blog.

Self-hosting sounds like more work to me 

767

General Software Discussion / Re: Best method for a dead simple web site?

« Last post by dr_andus on May 28, 2013, 06:11 AM »

Another vote for Wordpress (.com, not .org) for this purpose. Besides the benefits already mentioned, Wordpress sites also tend to rank highly in Google searches.

You get a lot of space for free, and the payment to get rid of the ads and add your own domain name are reasonable.

768

General Software Discussion / Re: Folder protection

« Last post by dr_andus on March 29, 2013, 01:57 PM »

It's not a recommendation, but just saw something called "Protect Folder" on sale at BitsDuJour today, in this sort of area...

Protect Folder lets you protect files, folders, and removable drives using a secure password, on-the-fly. With Protect Folder, there's no need to manually encrypt and decrypt files as you go about your business - instead, the program automatically performs encryption and decryption, silently and quickly, in the background as you work.

769

General Software Discussion / Re: Listary 4 released - tons of new features

« Last post by dr_andus on March 16, 2013, 07:29 AM »

@Channing: I'm a DOpus user. If I buy a licence at BdJ today, will I get the Listary update with the DOPus support next week?

(I haven't tried Listary yet because I use an Apple Wireless Keyboard with an AutoHotkey script to remap the keys, so I wasn't sure the Win+S key would have worked for me, as I don't have a Win key.)

770

General Software Discussion / Re: Seeking Little App w/Specific Actions

« Last post by dr_andus on March 13, 2013, 07:08 AM »

WinSplit Revolution can do both with hotkeys (well, minimise, though probably not to the system tray).

771

General Software Discussion / Re: Outlook synching

« Last post by dr_andus on March 08, 2013, 04:55 AM »

Sorry I may be being dense but why not just download from your POP accounts on both computers and on both computers set up POP to leave the email on the server (just set it to delete if you delete from an email from the computer).

-Carol Haynes (March 07, 2013, 07:53 PM)

This is what I do, using the free Windows Live Mail (Windows Essentials) client on several computers. All my hotmail, yahoo, Gmail email comes into Windows Live Mail, they are in sync across the computers, and copies are left of the server.

772

General Software Discussion / Re: W7 taskbar>toolbar>'desktop' extremely slow

« Last post by dr_andus on February 27, 2013, 09:56 AM »

SE-TrayMenu (free) is another option (I've been using it happily on Win7, 64-bit).

773

General Software Discussion / Re: Recycling hardware

« Last post by dr_andus on February 25, 2013, 03:18 PM »

Well, I have an old HP PDA and a Palm III. I'm keeping them to donate to a museum in a few years. Or something else similarly silly.

-Renegade (February 25, 2013, 06:51 AM)

Well, you can never know... Palm might rise again...   In fact WebOS is coming to a TV near you...

The South Korean company will acquire the system, known as webOS, and some of the employees who work on it from H-P for an undisclosed amount. LG plans to use webOS in televisions, said Skott Ahn, LG president and chief technology officer. (...) Unlike smartphones and tablets, where Apple's or Google Inc.'s operating systems have a vast number of apps written for them, smart TVs don't have a dominant operating system yet. Developers could just as easily choose to write programs for webOS...

774

General Software Discussion / Re: remove pdf page parts completely

« Last post by dr_andus on February 19, 2013, 11:07 AM »

however, I want to treat them like doc files, where when you delete text or other blocks of data, all the below text moves up to fill the void

-kalos (February 19, 2013, 10:21 AM)

Isn't that what Nitro Pro does? (though I've never tried it myself) If you do this often, why not just scan the PDF in something like ABBYY FineReader and then convert it back into PDF?

775

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera to move to webkit/chromium rendering engines

« Last post by dr_andus on February 19, 2013, 10:00 AM »

Ah! I know of 1 thing that only Opera does... Copying a web page only copies text in Opera, and not rich text. It is useful sometimes.

-Renegade (February 19, 2013, 06:40 AM)

Check out PureText (free) for that.