Recent Posts

851

General Software Discussion / Re: Favorite ZIP/RAR application?

« Last post by Jibz on March 12, 2011, 07:16 AM »

I went digging through the way back machine because I was sure it used to say lifetime updates for free -- quite interesting.

If you look at rarlabs.com, you can see that back in Nov 2009 we have

Better compression, easier use, lower price. All extras included, upgrades free.

which was changed in Dec 2009 to

Better compression, easier use, lower price. All extras included.

and from the list of rar benefits from Jun 2009

- You also receive the benefit of a life-time use of the WinRAR archiver. No upgrade fee to pay. When a new release is made, simply download and install, your license is valid for life.

this line is gone in Jan 2010.

On win-rar.com (the official distributor for rar software) we have in Feb 2009

* WinRAR gives you all future UPDATES for FREE! Not like the competition that will make you pay again every one or two years.

But in Mar 2009 that line is gone.

If we look at the knowledge base articles on win-rar.com, we can see that the one about updates from Nov 2006 saying

Q: Do I need to pay again to use an upgrade?

A: You can UPGRADE for FREE!

It has always been our policy not to charge
our customers purchased RAR once, you will be able
to enjoy all further versions completely free.

was removed. The same is the case with the knowledge base article about their license model

If you are not a registered user, please register to encourage the author to further develop and improve RAR, making possible new RAR releases!
You gain the right to use all future RAR releases in the registered mode.

So what does all this mean?

I have no idea, but it could be an indication that all the annoying links to dubious looking "pc performance optimizers" they put on their pages are not generating enough income, so they are silently trying to remove the free updates .

At any rate, like Josh said at least the 4.0 version works fine with my old key.

@f0dder, it's on the purchase page, click the buy now button on win-rar.com

852

General Software Discussion / Re: The Bat: Great program, terrible documentation and support

« Last post by Jibz on March 09, 2011, 01:43 AM »

Edit: I say this about The Bat as a purchaser and former user of it who successfully converted to Gmail and hasn't looked back. I thought I needed massive power and flexibility too. Turned out all I needed was to find the right system that worked for me, despite its many limitations (and yes there are things I miss in Gmail or that bug me, but less than The Bat by far; I find GMail at least a pleasure to use on a day-to-day basis). In a way I kind of found my own Apple-style app in Gmail, with a focus in fast, easy to use, intuitive, but with fewer compromises and more creativity (e.g. labels, labs).

-JavaJones (February 26, 2011, 01:29 AM)

I think that is a very precise description of my experience with switching to Thunderbird as well, and a point about what is "wrong" with The Bat.

In the beginning I was annoyed by all the stuff I didn't get, like the advanced filtering, and all the plugins I had to get to get it to do stuff that in my view should be included.

But after a few months I must admit what I do most is read my e-mail and search for old correspondences, and in that department Thunderbird (and GMail) are way ahead.

853

Living Room / Re: Should I be concerned that my wife opened a Facebook account?

« Last post by Jibz on February 23, 2011, 07:11 AM »

From the BitDefender safego eula:

Whenever it detects a post/comment that is likely to be spam or part of a phishing/malware dissemination scheme, BitDefender safego will post a warning comment to the respective message. BitDefender safego can also periodically post on users. Facebook Wall page various statistics concerning the security status of that account and the application.s activity.

The application.s page (interface) may also display various BitDefender advertisements or direct links to BitDefender quizzes or questionnaires.

So it's an anti-spam solution that reserves the right to spam you?

Ok, jokes aside, it sounds like a good idea. I find it annoying having to check manually what new privacy options they have added that are set to share all by default all the time.

854

Developer's Corner / Re: Choosing an Installer

« Last post by Jibz on January 28, 2011, 05:59 AM »

NSIS is still around aswell

http://nsis.sourceforge.net/

855

DC Gamer Club / Re: NightSky

« Last post by Jibz on January 07, 2011, 01:35 AM »

Reminds me a bit of Limbo .. http://www.limbogame.org/

856

Developer's Corner / Re: How to program for all 3 platforms at once

« Last post by Jibz on January 06, 2011, 03:04 AM »

Just to add to the discussion:

http://blog.kowalczy...esktop-software.html

857

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: My tribute to the guys and gals of NANY 2011

« Last post by Jibz on December 21, 2010, 10:25 AM »

Love it

858

T-Clock / Re: T-Clock 2010 (beta - download)

« Last post by Jibz on December 20, 2010, 01:30 AM »

Not sure, but maybe installing the previous SDK and setting VS 2010 to compile using that might do the trick.

859

General Software Discussion / Re: Complaint: FeedDemon is now adware, but does not disclose it

« Last post by Jibz on December 01, 2010, 12:55 PM »

Yes, that was the comment I read as well.

I was a bit surprised by the word 'unable' -- I doubt there is a law of physics preventing it, but I guess unwilling sounds less appealing .

There could be some licensing issue in regards to the deal he made with newsgator I guess.

860

General Software Discussion / Re: Complaint: FeedDemon is now adware, but does not disclose it

« Last post by Jibz on December 01, 2010, 06:38 AM »

Thought this might be of interest:

http://nick.typepad....40-lite-and-pro.html

This new version also returns to FeedDemon's roots as a paid application.  The final release of FeedDemon 4.0 will come in two flavors – Pro and Lite – which offer different feature sets.  FeedDemon Pro will offer the full feature set and will require purchasing a serial number (price TDB).  If you purchased a serial number for FeedDemon 3.0, there will be a nice discount when upgrading to the new Pro version.  A free ad-supported Lite version with a reduced feature set will also be available.

-

So FD has come full circle .. from paid software to free to adware and back to paid again.

Personally I wouldn't mind paying for it, except for the fact that he is only going to offer an upgrade discount to people who 'tipped' $10 to remove the adds in v3 and not to the people who actually paid full price for FD back at v2.

861

Living Room / Re: Still holding out, won't join Facebook

« Last post by Jibz on November 19, 2010, 01:24 AM »

I use facebook. Here is what I use it for:

Once a month I log on and check the security and privacy settings to see what features they have added in the meantime with defaults to allow anyone access to anything, and switch all I can find over to only me or only friends.

With the settings being scattered over various pages and in submenus and popup windows, this is a nice way for me to procrastinate doing something useful for at least 15 minutes, which is the main benefit I have from using facebook .

I understand they are adding e-mail now .. the mind boggles.

862

General Software Discussion / Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor

« Last post by Jibz on November 16, 2010, 05:10 AM »

http://www.zdnetasia...-in-vim-62056578.htm  

-Tuxman (November 16, 2010, 04:43 AM)

To hit ESC, then $, and then i to get to the end of a line is, to me, a ridiculous waste of time.

I've never used Vim much, but doesn't A do the same as $ then i?

Edit: Ah, someone replied saying that there as well, sorry.

863

General Software Discussion / Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor

« Last post by Jibz on November 12, 2010, 12:41 AM »

$275 with an additional $100 for one year of upgrades? .. nearly choked on my coffee .

864

General Software Discussion / Re: Scrivener for Windows

« Last post by Jibz on November 10, 2010, 03:49 AM »

From http://www.scrivenerforwindows.com/

When Scrivener for Windows goes on sale early next year it will cost $40 for the regular licence and $35 for
the education licence.

865

General Software Discussion / Re: What's the best The BAT! version?

« Last post by Jibz on November 08, 2010, 09:18 AM »

I must admit I am not that terribly bothered ideologically by the format being proprietary. As long as there is a reasonable export path.

The real problem is that it means it's hard to find support for it in other tools, like backup software or search tools (I think Archivarius is the only decent one with The Bat! support).

866

General Software Discussion / Re: What's the best The BAT! version?

« Last post by Jibz on November 08, 2010, 02:26 AM »

Inspired by f0dder's comments, I installed Thunderbird again to give it another spin. Moving mail from The Bat! is of course a pain, but it's manageable. What really gets me though is the stuff that should just work but doesn't.

For instance, I entered name and e-mail for an account, and the fancy auto-configure checked and created an IMAP account for me. Now the account was actually a POP account, but there was no way to change it back, and there was no way to do add an account manually without running the auto-configure. A little searching around with google (since the help site is quite useless) showed that you have to "press the stop button" to stop the auto-config when it starts and then turn it into a POP account.

After adding a couple more accounts I wanted to move the last one up on the list to a different position. Drag and drop doesn't work, nothing in the right-click menu .. back to google. If you want to reorder the list you have to install an addon or manually edit an ini file somewhere in your profile folder.

Then I exported mails into mbox format from The Bat! Now like f0dder says this is a very standard format, and is the format Thunderbird uses to store e-mail as well, so clearly it should be easy to import then? Alas, File->Open only reads eml files and the import wizard will only auto-import from other clients with no option to select and import from a file. Again you have to google and figure out that you have to install another addon to be able to import from the programs own native format.

Thunderbird seems like a nice e-mail client, there is a lot to like about the filtering and stuff. It would be nice to move away from The Bat! (v4.2.36.4), which is an awesome e-mail client, but the yearly upgrade doesn't seem to really get you more than UI tweaks these days.

I just think they need to work on making the user experience feel a little less like a beta, and while relying on plugins to provide functionality is fine in some cases, there is a limit to what simple stuff that should just work you want to rely on some 3rd party developer to maintain and get to work when the next update is released.

867

Living Room / Re: Avatar Ambiguity

« Last post by Jibz on November 08, 2010, 01:45 AM »

I totally missed this thread .

I am flattered some people actually noticed my avatar and thought about what it is, and you are right it is barb wire with frost on it.

It is a picture I took back in 2003 on a crisp winter morning where it seemed like the entire world had been covered in ice.



I loved the colors and the contrast in the very sharp frosted wire and the blurry background, so I started using it as an avatar on forums .

868

General Software Discussion / Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor

« Last post by Jibz on November 07, 2010, 05:53 AM »

There are a few decent editors out there based on Scintilla. Atm I am using Notepad++ for more heavy editing and Notepad2 (thanks app) as my "press F4 to quickly edit a single file from TC" editor. I even have it set up to close when I press Esc .

Since it doesn't support tabs it is not for heavy editing, but as a fast text editor I think it has almost the perfect feature set .. only two things I miss are smart highlighting and an option to make backspace unindent.

869

General Software Discussion / Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor

« Last post by Jibz on November 06, 2010, 01:42 PM »

I would have thought that doing a Find & Replace using

[Select]

</head>\n\n\n<body>

would work, but it doesn't.

-Jammo the OrganizedFellow (November 06, 2010, 12:36 PM)

I assume you have search mode set to extended to allow escapes like \n. If your file is using DOS line endings, try using \r\n instead of just \n.

870

Living Room / Re: Awesome photos

« Last post by Jibz on November 03, 2010, 03:52 AM »

If you have time, check Sugar: The Bitter Truth.

-Renegade (September 22, 2010, 02:18 AM)

That was quite interesting, takes a good lecturer to make even the biochemistry stuff not that dull.

871

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Quick Comparision of Flickr/ipernity/PicassaWeb

« Last post by Jibz on October 26, 2010, 07:35 AM »

I think my main problem with smugmug back when I last looked at it was that it seemed like access control was at the album level.

What I like about flickr is that I can take 200 photos on a trip and then while uploading as a set, say "Holiday 2010", I can mark all the ones with family members on as private and the rest as public. That way, I get the one set in my photostream, and people who have a guestpass (access) see all the photos, while everybody else only sees the non-personal shots.

If I understood smugmug right, I would have to create separate albums to be able to do this.

872

Living Room / Re: Why do support people never answer questions?

« Last post by Jibz on October 20, 2010, 05:41 PM »

The point is that while it is true that people don't like to hear I-Don't-Know ... They hate to be jerked around even more.

-Stoic Joker (October 20, 2010, 05:00 PM)

Very true .

873

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Bvckup (Beta) :: A first look review.

« Last post by Jibz on October 19, 2010, 04:15 PM »

Well to some degree I think it is a valid point. I would imagine some people would expect backup and restore to go hand in hand.

Maybe it should have been Cvpy instead .

Trying the beta atm, it seems like it does a good job at what it does, and the simple user interface is a pleasure.

874

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Bejeweled 2 free today

« Last post by Jibz on October 11, 2010, 04:39 AM »

Same .. and my son was all excited when he saw Bejeweled here .

875

Living Room / Re: Why do support people never answer questions?

« Last post by Jibz on October 08, 2010, 04:01 PM »

Then, imho, "I don't know" or "Not that I know of" would have been good answers (suitably wrapped in "cushion" of course).

Just stating something obvious feels to me like trying to give the illusion of an answer -- if you don't have one that's fine, just say it .