Recent Posts

776

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a minimalist Desktop Calendar Application..

« Last post by dr_andus on February 19, 2013, 07:32 AM »

I think the big requirement that's going to kill most of them is the fact of displaying the calendar then allowing you to click in the cell to directly edit the text.  Most don't allow you to do that.

-wraith808 (February 19, 2013, 07:13 AM)

...which is where Classic Calendar shines... It lacks some of the other features mouser was looking for, but the basics are there. 

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General Software Discussion / Re: Rumors of Adobe releasing CS2 for free? (true or NOT true)

« Last post by dr_andus on February 18, 2013, 08:16 AM »

It looks like Adobe have updated the page, adding a message of clarification about the policy:

The serial numbers below should only be used by customers who legitimately purchased CS2 or Acrobat 7 and need to maintain their current use of these products.

At the same time they've removed Acrobat Pro 8 and Photoshop Elements 5.0 from the list and added After Effects. There must be a reason...

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General Software Discussion / Re: MS Office 2013 Home/Business - non-transferable (1 PC p.person) - Caveat emptor.

« Last post by dr_andus on February 14, 2013, 04:53 AM »

I didn't think that there was much difference between LibreOffice and OpenOffice... just two different companies doing it.

-techidave (February 13, 2013, 06:27 PM)

I tried them both recently on a Win7 64-bit system and I kept running into bugs and performance issues in OpenOffice, while LibreOffice worked without a hitch. Just my personal experience...

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General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a minimalist Desktop Calendar Application..

« Last post by dr_andus on February 13, 2013, 05:37 AM »

I downloaded Classic Calendar and it works with XP and Win7. It is a nice, simple program and is what I've been looking for to calendar work appointments.

-Joe Hone (February 12, 2013, 10:09 AM)

Agreed. Seems perfect for planning, recording and tracking the daily tasks for a specific project, which you don't want to get mixed up with all your other calendars and projects. A bit like a local version of iDoneThis, except also used for planning the day, not just recording it at the end.

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General Software Discussion / Re: ScreenShot Capture question

« Last post by dr_andus on February 11, 2013, 01:19 PM »

Has anyone compared WinPatrol FREE with StartEd Lite by any chance? WinPatrol seems more sophisticated at first sight(?)

781

General Software Discussion / Re: free web storage service that offers the biggest amount of data?

« Last post by dr_andus on February 11, 2013, 07:04 AM »

I just signed up for Dropbox, and just by adding it to a second computer, my blackberry phone, my android tablet and sharing a folder it bumped up from 2Gb of storage to 50.25Gb of storage for free !!!

-Carol Haynes (February 11, 2013, 04:21 AM)

Hm, as someone who has used Dropbox's free service of 2.00 GB on several PCs, iPods and iPads for years, I feel somewhat undervalued now...

I just checked on my iPad and to upgrade to Dropbox Pro 100 (with 100GB), they're asking me to pay the princely sum of GBP69.99 (per year!). How likely am I to do that if I can sign up for 100GB for free in no time with Box.com and Mega?

On the other hand they must have figured that I'm a cheapskate, if I haven't upgraded for this long... Although if they had made me a decent offer, I'd still prefer to keep all my stuff in one place. But not for 70 quid a year...

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General Software Discussion / Re: On data storage and applications going cloud (Surfulater, Mindjet et al.)

« Last post by dr_andus on February 08, 2013, 03:25 AM »

the competition have some ideas (this mainly about price and number of licenses):
http://softmaker.com/english/blog/?p=435

-tomos (February 07, 2013, 04:12 PM)

The single machine license Office 2013 is another desperate attempt on MS's part to squeeze its lemon cash cow (sorry for mixed metaphors) and push people towards its subscription-based cloud model. I can't see how it can possibly be a good thing for them to do. Office apps are already becoming less relevant, competition such as the FREE LibreOffice is getting better all the time, and why would you want to upgrade if you already have Office 2010? To give students a single machine license will just push students (the future generation of office workers!) not to bother with MS Office at all. There are increasingly fewer reasons why they should need MS Office anyway.

783

General Software Discussion / Re: remove pdf page parts completely

« Last post by dr_andus on February 06, 2013, 01:41 PM »

Or you can simply crop the page (or all pages), using the crop tool in Acrobat or PDF Exchange. Wasn't Adobe "giving away" Acrobat Pro 8 just the other day?

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General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a minimalist Desktop Calendar Application..

« Last post by dr_andus on January 31, 2013, 04:02 AM »

What i want is:

2. Each day box should be a very simple click to edit plain text field so I can just easily write and edit the text notes for a given day.  I don't want to have a form pop up asking me start and stop times, etc.

-mouser (January 30, 2013, 11:41 PM)

Not exactly the same thing but it reminds me of the iDoneThis implementation:
http://nicolamcnee.e...donethis-11xgdr7.png

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General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a minimalist Desktop Calendar Application..

« Last post by dr_andus on January 30, 2013, 05:05 AM »

I want is a very simplistic, minimalist Desktop Calendar application, with a very basic feature set -- but I'm quite picky about some of the user interface elements.

-mouser (January 30, 2013, 01:08 AM)

I looked into this category a few months ago and couldn't find anything that simple, so decided to stick with Google Cal. But here are a few software I came across (in order of increasing complexity - the last few are far too complex for your criteria, but included them anyway for comparison):

• Smart Desktop Calendar
• Cotton Calendar
• VORG
• Pimlical
• Calendarscope

Another option might be to use the provided calendar files and features within existing PIM, such as BrainStorm, WhizFolders etc.

Edit: I should have mentioned calendar view and date topics within ConnectedText (wiki), which is all text and mark-up based.

786

General Software Discussion / Re: 2013 Version: Browser Wars

« Last post by dr_andus on January 28, 2013, 06:03 AM »

I went from Firefox > Waterfox > Pale Moon > Chrome, mostly against my will. Firefox has been getting too slow on my Win7, 64-bit system. Waterfox worked fine for a while (except during checkout process while online shopping), but at one point stopped working with Google services (Calendar, Drive etc.). Switched to Pale Moon, which was fine (though same issues with online shopping as Waterfox). But I stopped using it because it doesn't display the opened window preview in its pinned place in my taskbar.

During switching between these I set up Chrome as a temporary measure but now I've ended up using it because it seems to be the fastest. But I don't like the font rendering. Everything (e.g. fonts) seems to be less sharp (greyer) than with Firefox somehow. But various Google services work more smoothly for obvious reasons. I do feel that I've fallen into some kind of trap set by Google though but the other options just failed me when I needed them.

787

General Software Discussion / Re: Strategies to stay with Windows 7 as long as possible

« Last post by dr_andus on January 25, 2013, 08:55 AM »

I could see their prices drop after (or even before) Christmas, but then who knows, if Win8 turns out to be a disaster, could scarcity start driving up prices of Win7 machines fairly soon?

-dr_andus (November 08, 2012, 06:37 PM)

Well, the price for Win7 Home Premium retail package did not drop, at least in the UK. On Amazon UK back in November the price was around GBP118-ish, today it's GBP139. So the price seems to be climbing upwards quite significantly. Draw your own conclusions 

I wish I bought it then...

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

« Last post by dr_andus on January 17, 2013, 04:07 PM »

Thanks for the suggestions. In the end I didn't go for the system restore because my most recent restore point was after a critical Windows update and it said my Firefox would need to be reinstalled if I went ahead.

So instead I uninstalled Waterfox first to see what would happen. The problem continued in Firefox (I think I had the latest version). Plus it kept telling me to install a bunch of java updates in a loop, without installing them. So I uninstalled Firefox and installed Pale Moon instead. All working fine now.

P.S. And I even got the little plus sign for "Open a new tab" back, which I lost somehow over time from both Firefox and Waterfox.

789

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

« Last post by dr_andus on January 17, 2013, 12:13 PM »

cyberdiva - thanks. The thing is my access via Chrome or IE is fast, it seems only Waterfox is having difficulty. I thought I also tried Firefox but now when I try to launch Firefox Waterfox takes over and I don't seem to be able to run Firefox alongside it. But otherwise my internet access is fine.

I really wonder if I messed something up by running CCleaner and not shutting Waterfox down. CCleaner usually forces browsers to be closed down to clear the cache, so I'm even surprised it was able to run with Waterfox open.

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

« Last post by dr_andus on January 17, 2013, 09:08 AM »

Thanks. You might be right that it's temporary but it's been happening all day, so I've been forced to switch to and set up Chrome, to be able to carry on working... Oh, well...

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

« Last post by dr_andus on January 17, 2013, 07:11 AM »

Today both my Firefox and Waterfox failed to connect to Google services ("Trying to reach Google.com..."), making them unusable for my main tasks with Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar (and even some sites that used Google Analytics). This happened after I used CCleaner and forgot to close Waterfox during the process (not sure if that's related).

However everything worked fine in IE9 and Chrome. Which made me think, is this a ploy by Google to make people switch to Chrome? Or am I just being paranoid and messed something up with Waterfox/Firefox? (I'm on Win7, 64-bit).

For a page in Waterfox that has a Google Doc embedded in it, I get the message:

The page at https://docs.google.com says:
A server error occurred. Please press ’Reload' in your browser.

Again, it works fine in IE9 and Chrome.

792

General Software Discussion / Re: Rumors of Adobe releasing CS2 for free? (true or NOT true)

« Last post by dr_andus on January 14, 2013, 07:51 AM »

...we issued a serial number directly to those customers...

-tomos (January 14, 2013, 06:46 AM)

...doesn't sound quite right either. Wouldn't "issuing directly" mean that it is only accessible to "those customers", rather than everyone in the world and his dog?

You will want to have a valid license

...is also an interesting use of the English language. It doesn't quite mean the same thing as "you must have a valid licence." Plus the fine distinction between "having a valid licence" and "having a valid serial number" might get lost on non-geeks and those without a legal background...

793

General Software Discussion / Re: Rumors of Adobe releasing CS2 for free? (true or NOT true)

« Last post by dr_andus on January 14, 2013, 05:59 AM »

Just as endnote: Adobe forum thread with clarifications from Dov Isaacs  (mentioned in Forbes article) seems to be deleted.
I wonder if it's not my VPN issue?

-fenixproductions (January 14, 2013, 03:41 AM)

Nope, it looks like they've rewritten history, as the other staffer's comments were removed as well. They've been all replaced with the official (?) line

we are aware that the software is available for all users with an Adobe ID.  You will want to have a valid license for a software title affected by the activation server outage.  Please also keep in mind that due to the age of these software titles it is likely that they will not function properly on modern operating systems.

Although this is inaccurate now as well, as you don't need an Adobe ID to access the page and download the software and the serial no.

794

General Software Discussion / Re: Good writing program for the iPad?

« Last post by dr_andus on January 08, 2013, 03:32 PM »

I looked at Textilus, Write 2 and several others. There doesn't seem to be a killer app in this category for the iPad. Does anyone have anything they *really* love? And don't say Pages. :p

-robinsiebler (January 08, 2013, 01:52 PM)

It probably depends on what you mean by "writing." For distraction-free writing, I thought IA Writer was pretty good. But I tend to use Nebulous Notes mostly, thanks to its sensible sync setup (via Dropbox) and its customisable keyboard (macros). For handwriting I use Notability (I bought it because it was on sale, but it does the job).

795

General Software Discussion / Re: Rumors of Adobe releasing CS2 for free? (true or NOT true)

« Last post by dr_andus on January 08, 2013, 07:58 AM »

They've been promoting the Cloud lately (per email at least) - and this episode, whether intentional or not, has gotten them an awful lot of promotion for the server cost.

-tomos (January 08, 2013, 07:36 AM)

Note the Cloud ad right above the download links 

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General Software Discussion / Re: Rumors of Adobe releasing CS2 for free? (true or NOT true)

« Last post by dr_andus on January 08, 2013, 06:34 AM »

Well, this looks like the official statement then:

Effective December 13, Adobe disabled the activation server for CS2 products and Acrobat 7 because of a technical glitch. These products were released over 7 years ago and do not run on many modern operating systems. But to ensure that any customers activating those old versions can continue to use their software, we issued a serial number directly to those customers.  While this might be interpreted as Adobe giving away software for free, we did it to help our customers.

They seem to agree that the situation is open to interpretation... They are only explaining their original intention and motivation here. But apparently now the download page doesn't even require an Adobe ID any more, i.e. in the last 12 hours they've decided to make access even easier. Hmm... Conflicting messages...

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General Software Discussion / Re: Rumors of Adobe releasing CS2 for free? (true or NOT true)

« Last post by dr_andus on January 08, 2013, 04:27 AM »

Looks like the download frenzy has subsided because the Adobe page with the download links and serial numbers is now up again.

Given all the information that has emerged in the past few hours, it's surprising that The Register still decided to run with the title: "Adobe offers free trip to PowerPC era: 'Free' download of CS2 is real, but crusty" (and the URL helpfully says: free_adobe_cs2_download)

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General Software Discussion / Re: Rumors of Adobe releasing CS2 for free? (true or NOT true)

« Last post by dr_andus on January 07, 2013, 06:21 PM »

Out of curiosity...where was the official announcement from Adobe saying it was going to be free to begin with?

Oh...that's right! They never did say that did they?

-40hz (January 07, 2013, 05:32 PM)

Good point. Though clearly now their staffer thinks there will be one. So that's a bit of an admission that there is a "situation."

In any case, it does seem a bit unusual that a software company would post the download link and the licence key underneath it on their website and then announce that fact on their public forum... It's hardly surprising that even a reputable publication such as Forbes would misunderstand that and would publicise it. Adobe has made it infrastructurally possible for this situation to arise.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Adobe CS2 for free? (NOT SPAM)

« Last post by dr_andus on January 07, 2013, 05:04 PM »

It surely would be interesting to see an official Adobe statement on this, rather than a comment on a comment on an Adobe forum. Later on another Adobe staffer says:

I don't think you have to worry about Adobe coming after you for this [referring to user who had downloaded the files in good faith]

As soon as our execs have approved an official statement on this issue, I or another Adobe staffer will post it here.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Adobe CS2 for free? (NOT SPAM)

« Last post by dr_andus on January 07, 2013, 03:23 PM »

There is some new info now at the original Forbes blog site: