Recent Posts

851

Living Room / Re: Xvid Video converter for Windows 7 x64 - any ideas?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 09, 2012, 08:02 PM »

Thanks - I will give it a go

852

Living Room / Re: Xvid Video converter for Windows 7 x64 - any ideas?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 09, 2012, 06:47 PM »

My BD supports XviD and MKV formats (it doesn't specify what the MKV should contain - which is useful - not)

853

Living Room / Re: Xvid Video converter for Windows 7 x64 - any ideas?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 09, 2012, 03:21 PM »

Hmm - looked at Boxee - bit too pricey for my needs. Add to that the number of complaints about crap support in the UK and it is definitely a no thanks.

See http://www.amazon.co...;filterBy=addOneStar

Basically in the UK the web services supplied only work with the BBC and YouTube - the lack of app or up to date Flash support killing any access to other UK TV services.

OK it might well play any file format but there are limited number I am having issues with so it seems a bit of a big price to pay for playing poor quality DivX files!

854

Living Room / Re: Xvid Video converter for Windows 7 x64 - any ideas?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 09, 2012, 01:13 PM »

I am using my computer to stream video to my TV and also my BD Cinema device.

I don't want another device to connect to my TV (I already have a DVD/HD recorder, Sony BD Home Cinema, a satellite box and an ethernet switch connected to the TV). Any more boxes would drive me insane!

855

Living Room / Re: Xvid Video converter for Windows 7 x64 - any ideas?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 09, 2012, 07:57 AM »

Sorry but I am not going to dump a less than 1 year old BD home cinema system so that I can play some rather dodgy DivX files! I know the conversion will be lossy but most of them aren't great to start with so it won't that much difference.

Thanks for the link to WinFF.

856

Living Room / Xvid Video converter for Windows 7 x64 - any ideas?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 09, 2012, 06:14 AM »

Looking for freeware to convert lots of files to XviD format.

My old DVD Home Theatre system played a variety of formats - I have replaced it with a BD Home Theatre system but it no longer supports DivX only Xvid and MKV so I need to convert a lot of DivX (and other AVI) files to XviD (preferred) format.

Anyone got any ideas for good freeware (I have already spent too much on video converters!).

I have TMPGEnc Xpress 4 but for some reason it crashes when reading some of the file formats although they play fine in WMP, WM Classic and DivX players ???

I have spent aged looking for suitable software via Google but as usual google gives Freeware = Free to download = Pay for it.

857

Living Room / Re: Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 07, 2012, 06:32 AM »

There is a move in the UK to make all scientific research papers free when there has been any public funding involvement. To allow journals to cover their costs and make it worth their while printing stuff there will be a six month 'publication only' window where free access is not automatic but after six months all research paper must be made free to download.

Obviously most of the journals aren't happy as they make money charging for per article access and corporate subscriptions.

Rip off merchants like Elsevier are even more unhappy because it will put them out of business - and quite right too. They do nothing at all for public or scientific interest and just make money by charging for access to articles that should be free anyway.

I know I saw an article on this the BBC but can't find it. There is this article though in the Guardian:

http://www.guardian....hers-enemies-science

Another couple of articles I have found:

http://www.wired.com...-eisen-open-science/
http://www.newsday.c...rch-public-1.3555902

(though how useful they are I don't know)

http://www.nature.co...gathers-pace-1.10010

858

General Software Discussion / Re: xls to png

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 06, 2012, 01:40 PM »

You learn something new every day - thanks 

859

General Software Discussion / Re: xls to png

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 06, 2012, 10:09 AM »

You could use a screen capture tool and then select the cells you want to capture.

Not sure how you do it with one click.

860

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Free & always will be, get Portable Virtual Operating System, Prayaya V3

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 06, 2012, 04:27 AM »

The trouble is without 64-bit support it is rapidly becoming redundant (free or not) since almost all new systems now come with 64-bit windows. It is useful for older systems run XP and some Vista installations but given that XP is officially coming to an end soon I would guess most of these computers are likely top be upgraded to Windows 7 64-bit at some point.

I presume the only reason it has been made free is because they don't plan to add 64-bit and so it will from now on be pretty much abandoned.

861

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: PerfectDisk Free Edition

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 05, 2012, 01:39 PM »

All the defrags use the internal MS routine for the actual defrag so you don't have much concern that either one is structurally much different

-Steven Avery (April 05, 2012, 12:24 PM)

PrefectDisk uses the MS routines to actually move file fragments but they go beyond that with file location optimisation. It also moves critical bits and pieces to faster areas of the partition (eg. folder information and boot files, as well as placing the pagefile in the middle of the partition which reduces seek distances for page writes.

The paid for versions (particularly the Pro version) goes way beyond the free version giving you a degree of control over the file layout and order on the disk.

862

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: PerfectDisk Free Edition

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 05, 2012, 08:24 AM »

Defraggler is fine but it doesn't seem to do much more than Windows Defragger.

PerfectDisk is my preferred defragger because it not only defrags but reorganises your drive to reduce future fragmentation and also has the Boot Time option to optimize windows system files which can never be defragged while windows is running. The Boot time defrag makes a significant difference in older windows installations as years of updates leave system file fragmentation in a really bad state.

863

Living Room / Re: Any ideas for a save website crawler for offline reading?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 04, 2012, 07:53 PM »

Can you access any of the material using Firefox or Chrome?
Zotero has pretty good capabilities for archiving web page content.
An IE connector for the standalone version is apparently in development

Store anything.

Zotero collects all your research in a single, searchable interface. You can add PDFs, images, audio and video files, snapshots of web pages, and really anything else. Zotero automatically indexes the full-text content of your library, enabling you to find exactly what you're looking for with just a few keystrokes.

-NigelH (April 04, 2012, 07:13 PM)

I can access the site using Firefox and Chrome but it is all a bit screwed up and doesn't work properly. If I am not using IE the site actually pops up and says it only works with IE and there are issues with any other browser.

I'm not sure but I think part of the problem is that the page types are not .html - they are .chm and it uses ColdFusion.

I have tried loads of downloaders/web spiders/archivers etc. now and none seem to be able to get past the login page. Really frustrating.

Just upgraded Surfulater as I used to use that but even that if I use the browser extension to save the page just saves a link to the pacge and that only goes to the login - it can't save the contents!

To add to the problem the website is frame based and quite a few of the links open things in a number of frames. None of the downloaders I have tried seem to like frames too much!

864

Living Room / Re: Any ideas for a save website crawler for offline reading?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 04, 2012, 04:39 PM »

It is a distance learning course and all the teaching/assessment materials are available via the university website (it has its own page).

They have provided the course to download in the form of PDF files - but they only go so far - they are basically PDF tarted up web prints but the pages have lots of links to examples and extra asides and comments that aren't in the PDFs (the links are there but the actually pop up content isn't). That is why I want an offline record of the site.

I think the course team would simply say use the PDFs.

865

Living Room / Re: I'm Going to Build a PC. Suggestions?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 04, 2012, 05:03 AM »

Strange pricing - maybe it says more about the Bulldozer processor than anything else! I think it is probably worth waiting a CPU generation or two until they get it right.

Even though we have been talking about Intel chips in this thread I still prefer AMD in terms of bang for buck - they are just so my cheaper than Intel offerings - and I have found my Phenom II x6 very good - certainly spending two to three times the price on an i5 or i7 is hard to justify.

The other thing I like is that the Catalyst Drivers for AMD chipsets and AMD graphics card are all part of the same package which makes regular updates easier and it means the drivers are designed to work well together. All drivers have issues but I certainly found nVidia drivers caused more headaches especially if it wasn't an nVidia chipset on the mobo.

866

Living Room / Re: Windows 8 is just a Service/crapware pack for Windows 7

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 03, 2012, 03:48 PM »

Didn't seem to work for ePub attachments (and yes the Kindle app was installed)

867

Living Room / Re: Windows 8 is just a Service/crapware pack for Windows 7

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 03, 2012, 02:50 PM »

Another nail in the coffin for Metro - Metro IE does not support ANY addons or plugins.

http://www.infoq.com...11/09/Metro-Plug-ins

Apparently this is a design decision but it means you can't use Flash based sites in Metro and also it doesn't even support Microsoft's own technologies like Silverlight!!

No plugins/addon's also mean no in browser document support (eg. PDF).

This is going to be almost as silly a iPad emails where you can't open some extension types!

OK you can use IE normally on the 'legacy' desktop but what an arbitrary and silly restriction to piss people off in Metro!

868

Living Room / Re: I'm Going to Build a PC. Suggestions?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 03, 2012, 02:38 PM »

Core-i7 is more expensive than i5 but this one is probably just about within reach of your budget:

http://www.amazon.co...GA1155/dp/B004EBUXSU

869

Living Room / Re: Any ideas for a save website crawler for offline reading?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 03, 2012, 02:36 PM »

I tried HTtrack - it was the first one I tried but I cna't get it to work on webform password protected sites. I don't think th esite uses a session cookie I think it is doing something with Javascript, but I am not sure.

870

Living Room / Re: Any ideas for a save website crawler for offline reading?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 03, 2012, 12:58 PM »

I used to have a copy of WebSite Watcher - didn't know it could archive whole sites? I'll have another look.

Update: WSW uses an addon (Local Website Archive) to do this but from reading the description even the 'Pro' versionly seems to be able to archive individual pages. OK the Pro version lets you queue them for download but I need to collect hundreds of pages and retain the links for offline viewing. I don't see any way that Local Website Archive is set up to do that.

I could actually do that using OneNote.

871

Living Room / Re: Welcome to Big Brother UK

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 03, 2012, 12:57 PM »

UK Government now retreating rapidly in face of public opposition (I think it took them by surprise).

Of course their response is:

"No, No, No, you got it all wrong. We want to protect your privacy."

Now we wait to see how they spin it to get their own way.

See: http://www.bbc.co.uk...uk-politics-17595209

for the latest update!

872

Living Room / Re: Any ideas for a save website crawler for offline reading?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 03, 2012, 09:08 AM »

Try Teleport Pro.

-Renegade (April 02, 2012, 07:52 PM)

Nope doesn't have the ability to go past a login page - it can use username and password but only for the very limited number of websites that all user name and password in the URL. It's also very basic and expensive unless you want to spend a ridiculous amount on the non 'Pro' versions. HTtrack is free (O/S) and is more fully featured than the PRO version.

IDM does what I need - just a shame it crashes every time I try to actually use it!

873

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: PerfectDisk Free Edition

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 03, 2012, 07:58 AM »

You an also right click on the drive and do a Boot time scan which optimises Windows files during the next restart. Makes a big difference.

874

Living Room / Re: What's Your Internet Speed/Reliability SATISFACTION?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 02, 2012, 06:50 PM »

Interesting that your upload speed is SO much higher than download speed??? Doesn't look quite right to me!

875

Living Room / Re: Any ideas for a save website crawler for offline reading?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 02, 2012, 06:07 PM »

Nice idea but unfortunately it crashes every time I run it after about 14 pages :-(