Recent Posts

901

Living Room / Re: How will the Earth end?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 16, 2010, 11:18 PM »

I don’t know... Sam and Dean Winchester averted the Apocalypse earlier this year, so..... 

Jim

902

Living Room / Re: Filming Car Chases...

« Last post by J-Mac on October 16, 2010, 11:10 PM »

Cool sound effects, and I loved the big explosions at the end!

Thanks!

Jim

903

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone familiar with Oops!Backup?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 16, 2010, 11:05 PM »

I just read your "thread" at the Oops "forum". (Quote marks are because their so-called forum is actually on Get Satisfaction, which IMO is not the best format for a user/support forum. Personal non-preference, I guess!    ).

Very educational indeed. It was probably one of the more productive postings I have seen in a while on there. You definitely have some valid concerns, Armando. At the same time I was kinda impressed by the developers willingness to discuss it all as fully as he could. Nice exchange, and he didn't poo-poo your suggestions at all but said that all were put on the list for their team to discuss. I didn't get the feeling that he was just mollifying you, but that they will take a decent look at your comments and concerns.

Thanks!

Jim

904

General Software Discussion / Re: Google Chrome: Time for a Second Chance?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 14, 2010, 09:26 PM »

Wow! That is pretty basic.  I found the "bug report" for it. Seems it was posted in 2008 and they are still working on it!!!  Sheesh!!

http://code.google.c...issues/detail?id=173

-MilesAhead (October 14, 2010, 12:12 PM)

Did you read the comments there?

...this feature isn't vitally important to what Chromium is looking to accomplish.

Chrome's focus seems to be on improving the experience of using web apps, strong
security, stability, and (recently) a robust extensibility system.

Since printing sort of an "offline" feature, I'd imagine this feature isn't very high
on Google's radar, given the priorities mentioned above.
 

and...

If you really want this feature, be patient. It's going to come. If you can't wait,
use another browser. Complaining on the issue tracker is not going to get the feature
implemented any sooner so please refrain from spamming the 300+ people that have this
issue starred.

The code monkeys there seem to feel that printing from a browser is not a true primary function.

Printin'? PRINTIN'?  We don’t need no stinkin' printin' in our browser!!

Doesn’t work for me...

Jim

905

General Software Discussion / Re: Google Chrome: Time for a Second Chance?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 14, 2010, 11:18 AM »

Oops - almost forgot: one of the most exasperating missing features in Chrome........... NO PRINT PREVIEW!! What are they thinking with that??

-J-Mac (October 13, 2010, 09:35 PM)

Didn't even notice that, b/c I don't use it.  If you want to sort of replicate print preview from *any* program, try fine print.  The trial is unlimited, and if you don't want to use the features, just click bypass, and voila, you have print preview.

-wraith808 (October 14, 2010, 09:40 AM)

Thanks for the comment but I shouldn’t have to install & use another software just to get print previews. You can also get previews with most printers but that requires opening up the Printing Preferences box each time I print in Chrome.

I find Print Preview necessary because of the way some web designers code their pages; many print terribly from a browser, or in some cases send a blank page before, after, or both.

Thanks!

Jim

906

Living Room / Re: Windows Mobile device in $100-150 range on ebay..suggestions?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 13, 2010, 11:04 PM »

I'm still running my X50v Axim. Hardest part is finding reliable extended batteries for it! This one was my 11th WM device. I still have a couple of my older ones left but don’t use them. I'm surprised to see such a high price on Ebay for them; I didn't think that mine were worth anything anymore.

Jim

907

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Teaser Update: ContactFX 0.0.2.0

« Last post by J-Mac on October 13, 2010, 09:43 PM »

Hi Perry.

Regarding Display_Name, that is it basically. However please realize that there should be a setting where one selects how they want their contact names to display: First_Last, Last_First, etc. And the ability to set it separately for each contact if desired. Otherwise you end up with contacts displayed like: "The White Company" displaying as "Company, White The"

Thanks!

Jim

908

General Software Discussion / Re: Google Chrome: Time for a Second Chance?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 13, 2010, 09:35 PM »

Firefox extensions I miss most in Chrome:

Scrapbook
Zotero
FireGestures (The gestures extension in Chrome is pretty lame)
QuickDrag (I highlight any text and then drag 'n toss it to open a new search for the term in Google)
Ultra Recall
Surfulater (Though I am using this one less and less)
Linkman
Ad Muncher
And last but not least: Tab Mix Plus

Chrome will be tough to take until they get moving with some of these. And no I won't blame extension authors for not porting their extensions to Chrome because Google doesn’t make it easy and in some cases they make it impossible to replicate these Firefox extensions.

Oops - almost forgot: one of the most exasperating missing features in Chrome........... NO PRINT PREVIEW!! What are they thinking with that??

Thanks!

Jim

909

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone familiar with Oops!Backup?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 11, 2010, 11:38 PM »

Yeah, three licenses cost me a total of $46.50. Not bad at all!

Jim

910

Living Room / Re: Firefox Stability Issues

« Last post by J-Mac on October 11, 2010, 10:20 PM »

I was running 3.6.9 on a Win7 32-bit machine and constantly had "Not Responding" on my title bar. I finally uninstalled it again, cleaned it from the registry, and then reinstalled it again after about two weeks. It is running OK; still does it but not nearly as much. But I'll bet that after another couple months it'll be back to the same condition. I have heard something about Mozilla using an SQL database that fills up over time and causes issues like this. Don’t know if that is real or bs though.

Thanks!

Jim

911

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone familiar with Oops!Backup?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 11, 2010, 10:15 PM »

Yeah, but that lack of redundancy won't be a problem on my daughter's computer. I bought 3 licenses - btw they give you an even larger discount when buying three - and I also plan to install it on my wife's computer.

Thanks!

Jim

912

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone familiar with Oops!Backup?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 11, 2010, 01:50 PM »

Thanks Armando.

Barring any negative replies in the next couple of hours here, I will probably go ahead and get this for her. At the Bits price it's hard to go that wrong. 

Jim

913

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone familiar with Oops!Backup?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 11, 2010, 12:04 PM »

Well, well, well... Oops!Backup 3 will be on BDJ on October 11th for $18.50.

-Darwin (October 05, 2010, 11:07 AM)

Howdy! I was just looking hard at Oops Backup. My daughter was going to buy a USB drive with autobackup software from QVC - I forget the name but it looked like a whole lot of money for a very weak, simple backup solution. Instead I bought a 1 TB Iomega drive for her for a song at Amazon and have been looking for a solid but easy-to-use backup program to set up for her. She is techy enough to do basic tasks on her computer but not quite enough that I would feel comfortable installing Acronis, Genie, or even Backup4All on her box. (I don’t want to be over there all the time with it!)

Oops looks like it might be perfect for her machine. Heck, I might even get another license and try it on my main rig. I run Acronis and Jungle Disk here. I did have Genie Pro 8 installed but removed it after its last series of mistakes.

Still recommending Oops strongly?

Thanks!

Jim

914

Living Room / Re: Email Security

« Last post by J-Mac on October 09, 2010, 01:58 PM »

Another thing you have to be careful about: The extremely stupid concept most financial institutions have of requiring you to have "security questions and answers". I don’t know who dreamed this up but it is very dangerous IMO. The questions commonly put forth for this are ones whose answers can easily be derived with a little searching around. For example, it wouldn’t be difficult for me to obtain the name of the high school someone attended, the city they were born in, married in, etc. Especially with the social network profiles so easily viewed today.

Once I gather enough of that trivial data on someone I could go to a site requiring login and claim I am you and that I forgot my password - or just enter an incorrect password. Then answer appropriately when they ask for the answers to the security questions and they will give me a new password. Some will only email it to a backup email address you supply but many people use Hotmail or other free accounts for the backups and then let them lapse.

Whenever you are required to provide answers for so-called security questions, give nonsensical answers and be sure to make a note of what you give as answers. Use the "Secure Note" feature of Roboform, LastPass, or Keepass. Because someday you will need to remember those answers. I use a completely random series of numbers and letters for, say, the name of my high school. Anyone who discovers the actual high school I attended will be disappointed if they try and give that as a security answer. Do the same for all the questions. No human reads them; only a computer. So no one should question how you attended a high school named, "23dkic4ls89".   

Jim

915

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Teaser Update: ContactFX 0.0.1.17

« Last post by J-Mac on October 07, 2010, 01:13 PM »

Hi Perry.

Just gave this build a quick look. Still can't create an address book yet! So is anything created in the way of contacts lost? I imagine so for now. I guess then that importing of contacts is still a little ways off then.

In creating a contact I can only bring the four fields showing in the control pallet over: Formatted Name, Given Name, Family Name, and Additional Name. I have entered some Given and Family names - are they to represent First and Last names? Or something else? What is the Additional Name? And I initially thought that the Formatted Name field would be kind of a "Display As" field, automatically filled by the other name fields that are manually populated, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Or at least not yet - perhaps this is simply something that isn't yet implemented?

Anyway I am not certain what can be done just yet with this. I am probably missing some information at this point. Is there more I need to read somewhere?

Thanks!

Jim

916

Living Room / Re: Firefox Stability Issues

« Last post by J-Mac on October 02, 2010, 08:47 PM »

A lot of posts I have read at various forums regarding the Server Busy errors seem to involve the Foxit PDF reader and its Firefox PDF-viewer plugin. But I don’t have Foxit installed. Also many users have that same long delay whenever Firefox is opening a popup window, but again many of those are rooted in having a video-related extension that installs a plugin called "FastVid". I have never had that installed either.

Tux, while you may not have problems - and I am sure a heck of a lot of folks don’t - there are also a lot of people that are having similar issues. Many more than I have seen reported in previous versions. Actually since Firefox 3.5 was released the number of bugs and people reporting them has gone way up.

Maybe FF4 will be a little cleaner.

Jim

917

Living Room / Re: Firefox Stability Issues

« Last post by J-Mac on October 02, 2010, 10:29 AM »

As a matter of fact, I just uninstalled Firefox 3.6.? (9, I think). Very unstable here. I had previously disabled all extensions one by one, then removed all of them and added them back one by one, created a new profile, etc., etc. All the usual suspects, or recommendations. Nothing helped. Same problems appeared running FF in Safe Mode. (Firefox safe-mode, not Windows Safe-Mode).

Any link that opened a pop-up window froze FF for a good 1 to 3 minutes, every time. Firefox would continually freeze and get that "(Not Responding...)" notation in the title bar with almost any routine action - like starting to type text into any form, even forum reply boxes like this one. I found out that if I minimized all open windows there would be a message that read "Server busy..." and had buttons for Retry, Switch to..., and Cancel, though Cancel was often grayed out. I never did find the cause for that one but it was frequent and really frustrating. Looks like this:

[attachimg=#1][/attachimg]

It would mention just about any and every other open app on my box. Some more examples:

[attachimg=#2][/attachimg]

[attachimg=#3][/attachimg]

[attachimg=#4][/attachimg]

I'm using Chrome just about full-time now, and I have been trying out IE8. I am reluctant to give Firefox another go just yet because I have spent SO much time troubleshooting it for the past year!

So no, you are not alone Renegade.

Thanks!

Jim

918

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Sagelight Image Editor - pay what you want promo (Apil 2010)

« Last post by J-Mac on October 01, 2010, 10:29 AM »

Rob,

It may be less confusing to name all modes something like "Basic" and "Advanced", with basic using mostly default, common settings and Advanced being much more user-configurable. For non-experienced users Basic would be desireable, while users with more experience would most likely have a lot of detailed settings they want to change from Basic.

Just a thought.

Thank you.

Jim

919

General Software Discussion / Re: what's wrong with my PC? (it's often soooo slow)

« Last post by J-Mac on September 30, 2010, 03:40 PM »

It definitely is more convenient but I have had two instances of getting older drivers - both card readers and didn't hurt any - but I researched it and found a lot of recommendations against it. Techrepublic, Windows Secrets, and even one MS-MVP on the social.answers.microsoft.com forums. Maybe those were shaded against the MS drivers for some reason, but I do know firsthand the pain that can come from a bad driver! (Not a WU one, btw).

Thanks!

Jim

920

General Software Discussion / Re: what's wrong with my PC? (it's often soooo slow)

« Last post by J-Mac on September 30, 2010, 03:33 PM »

Better yet, DON’T check Windows Update for any of your hardware drivers! I recommend searching the manufacturers' websites for the latest correct drivers. Windows Update, while a little better than in the past, still lags pretty far behind on 3rd party drivers.

Jim

921

Living Room / Re: Looking for Refrigerator Magnets that work

« Last post by J-Mac on September 28, 2010, 12:02 PM »

CodeTRUCKER, I've used these Fridge Magnets
They're more expensive than those J-Mac linked to, but the magnets are stronger.

-NigelH (September 28, 2010, 05:37 AM)

I disagree. The ones I purchased there are No. PIN3000 low on the page. They are only .5" dia. as opposed to the .75" and all are N40 strength. Plus the Supermagnetman ones cost $4.00 for a pack of 10 while the ones you linked to are $7.50 EACH. Wow! Not sure how you get stronger? Aren't they both N40?

Thank you.

Jim

922

Living Room / Re: Looking for Refrigerator Magnets that work

« Last post by J-Mac on September 28, 2010, 12:01 AM »

Well of all the things out there in the world that can kill me, I guess that magnets are on that list somewhere.........   

Jim

923

Living Room / Re: Looking for Refrigerator Magnets that work

« Last post by J-Mac on September 27, 2010, 11:24 PM »

LOL! I had a friend - really, I did have one, believe it or not! - who swore that the term "Freudian slip" referred to an incident (accident?) that occurred when old Sigmund tried to scurry along too fast on the ice.

Me? I know that it refers to the particular lingerie that Sigmund wore under his dress to keep it from clinging too much.      

Jim

924

Living Room / Re: Looking for Refrigerator Magnets that work

« Last post by J-Mac on September 27, 2010, 10:18 PM »

Not sure what you were worried about; nothing out of sorts with the story at all. I enjoyed it!

Thanks!

Jim

925

Living Room / Re: Looking for Refrigerator Magnets that work

« Last post by J-Mac on September 27, 2010, 01:37 PM »

OK, I'll post it, but it will be password protected, and you'll have to request the password from me.  J-Mac, I'll PM you the password once I have it up.

-superboyac (September 27, 2010, 01:06 PM)

LOL!! Supe - it's OK, I don’t need to see the article. I didn't know it was embarrassing or anything. Sorry. You can keep it secret if you'd like.

Thank you.

Jim