Recent Posts

926

Living Room / Re: I'm Going to HELL! Please feel sorry for me... :(

« Last post by Darwin on November 09, 2009, 03:31 PM »

Well, Renegade, you can always look on the bright side - you're going from the Land of the Morning Calm to the Land Down Under. I'd have to wager that things will be much more relaxed down under than in the ROK. As a Quebecois friend once said to me as we fought our way down a Jongro sidewalk at 7:30 AM "If this is the Land of the Morning Calm, Canada must be the Land of the Living Dead!". I'm sure Australia will seem similarly laid back. Embrace it!

927

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.

« Last post by Darwin on November 09, 2009, 11:18 AM »

My little iBook was 4 years old when Tiger was released and about 7 years old when I upgraded it to Tiger. Having said that... it's got 576MB of RAM and a 500Mhz CPU and it is pretty darn slow... painful, actually.

-Darwin (November 08, 2009, 11:19 PM)

I'm not quite sure how to respond. Should I congratulate you for your accomplishment or express sympathy due to your predicament?

-Innuendo (November 09, 2009, 10:29 AM)

  Why not both?! My intent was to illustrate that it IS possible to install the latest Mac OS on a four year old Mac but that doing so doesn't exactly result in a great user experience. I'm pretty sure that my 6 year old XP machine will run Windows 7 just fine, though.

928

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.

« Last post by Darwin on November 08, 2009, 11:19 PM »

I don't believe I have ever heard of a MacOS release that could be installed and run well on a 4 year old Mac.

-Innuendo (November 08, 2009, 11:08 PM)

My little iBook was 4 years old when Tiger was released and about 7 years old when I upgraded it to Tiger. Having said that... it's got 576MB of RAM and a 500Mhz CPU and it is pretty darn slow... painful, actually. I've actually got Office 2008 installed on it but don't use it much because it's unbearably slow. I keep meaning to uninstall it but haven't gotten around to it. My Win2k machine, on the other hand, with 512MB RAM and a 600Mhz CPU is much, much quicker. FWIW, the Win2k machine is a year older than the iBook and runs Office 2007 perfectly. Of course, Win2k and Tiger came out 5 years apart, so not really a fair comparison.

PS Both notebooks have 8MB dedicated video memory (same cards, in fact) 

929

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.

« Last post by Darwin on November 08, 2009, 10:22 PM »

Oh, and I use the iTunes store sometimes.  Otherwise I find iTunes to be way overkill for my "not an iPod" personal media player.  Having it on my Mac at least prevents me from having to install iTunes on my PC while occasionally allowing me to see what I might want to buy on iTunes.

-grapeshot (November 08, 2009, 06:58 PM)

OMG! That's hilarious - EXACTLY how I feel about being one of the unwashed masses who is content to listen to music on a media player that Steven Jobs hasn't annointed! I also feel the same way about iTunes under Windows - I won't install it or QuickTime - and the use to which I put it on my iBook  

WRT the rest of your comments - I presume that it all comes back to "controlling" the product. By locking out older shareware applications in anything but the most recent versions of OSX, Apple ensures that there are fewer hiccoughs when users try to run older software. It's also probably seen as being a good way to encourage people to upgrade to later OSX releases. Not working if Panther is still as prevalent as it seems.

EDIT: word choice

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General Software Discussion / Re: Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.

« Last post by Darwin on November 08, 2009, 06:51 PM »

Excellent post grapeshot.

If your OS version is a couple of years old, you begin to find that new software won't work with it, forcing you to upgrade.  In the Windows world, you can reasonably expect your OS to last you for the better part of a decade.

I hear that from Mac users once in a while and to me it's almost incomprehensible, I don't mean solely from a technical stand point but from a practical one.

-rgdot (November 08, 2009, 06:35 PM)

Agreed. I have OS X 10.4 installed on my iBook (highest OS version I can install on a PPC Mac) and am constantly confronted by software that I cannot update on it or install in the first place because the OS is "too old". grapeshot's first comment:

It has trouble working with some of my peripherals, it occasionally doesn't want to find an external drive, and locks up a surprising amount, requiring a hard re-boot.

-grapeshot (November 08, 2009, 06:15 PM)

Resonates as well, given my experiences maintaining my parents' machine and my iBook. I like OS X enough, but it is hardly more stable than my Windows (2k, XP, Vista 32 bit, 7 64 bit) machines. Granted, I don't have access to a Leopard or Snow Leopard machine, but still...

931

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.

« Last post by Darwin on November 08, 2009, 06:29 PM »

Awesome! Thanks for the link to the Guardian piece, grapeshot  A bit OTT, but I loved it.

Here's a representative quote:

When I sit down to use a Mac, the first thing I think is, "I hate Macs", and then I think, "Why has this rubbish aspirational ornament only got one mouse button?" Losing that second mouse button feels like losing a limb. If the ads were really honest, Webb (the English comedian playing a Mac) would be standing there with one arm, struggling to open a packet of peanuts while Mitchell (the English comedian playing the PC) effortlessly tore his apart with both hands. But then, if the ads were really honest, Webb would be dressed in unbelievably po-faced avant-garde clothing with a gigantic glowing apple on his back. And instead of conducting a proper conversation, he would be repeatedly congratulating himself for looking so cool, and banging on about how he was going to use his new laptop to write a novel, without ever getting round to doing it, like a mediocre idiot.

932

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by Darwin on November 08, 2009, 04:04 PM »

Sure - it's about the theory of games and its application to evolution 

933

Living Room / Re: When you make your 100'th Post

« Last post by Darwin on November 08, 2009, 04:03 PM »

Cheers, Tom!

934

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by Darwin on November 08, 2009, 11:01 AM »

935

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.

« Last post by Darwin on November 08, 2009, 10:54 AM »

And if powercuts are a problem where you live you probably should look into buying an uninterruptible power supply.

-Innuendo (November 08, 2009, 10:02 AM)

He's got one!

even boot!
what can 'destroy' the registry? as i life in greece - the land of the powercuts - and that's enough. even before i was 'backing up' my pc's - i organized a ups!

-DFrench (November 08, 2009, 02:36 AM)

To comment on DFrench's original post, though, I haven't had single registry issue since I switched from XP to first Vista 32 bit, then Vista 64 bit and finally Windows 7 64 bit... I'm not sure how much of that has to do with the 32 bit to 64 bit switcheroo, though (I made it about 4 months after switching to Vista).

936

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.

« Last post by Darwin on November 07, 2009, 12:11 PM »

The second thing I tell them is if their circle of friends are computer-centric (discuss computers, software, the internet, etc. a lot) it might be best to buy what your friends have if you want to be included in all the conversations as if you are the odd man out you might feel like an outsider when these topics come up.

-Innuendo (November 07, 2009, 10:20 AM)

I'm my parents' go-to guy for computer and tech support. I'm a confirmed Windows guy and yet my parents insist on running a Mac. I've been repeating the above advice to them like a mantra for years. Falls on deaf ears!

937

Older Newsletters / Re: --> Newsletter for November 6th, 2009 - Codename "Bird Meets Frog"

« Last post by Darwin on November 07, 2009, 09:17 AM »

Great newsletter, mouser and Darwin

I guess I spotted some errors that you obviously put in on purpose:

There are strange things going on in the section in bold here (taken from the third paragraph):

The main thing I want to say is that we to hear from more of you about projects that you are working on

-TucknDar (November 07, 2009, 12:58 AM)

I just checked - that one was entirely my fault The line was correct in the draft and I managed to delete "need to" from it 

Nice catch, TucknDar 

938

Living Room / Re: Carl Sagan sings (with help from Stephen Hawking)

« Last post by Darwin on November 06, 2009, 04:04 PM »

Wow! Thanks for that, nudone. That was nothing like I expected and very enjoyable 

939

General Software Discussion / Re: Any XP users switching to Windows 7 yet?

« Last post by Darwin on November 06, 2009, 03:56 PM »

I was using ME, which ran really well for me and I've never understood all the flak it got.  Maybe I was the exception.

-superboyac (November 06, 2009, 03:51 PM)

No - app loved it, too. I had a friend that ran it without trouble as well. I actually envied him the eye candy compared to Win98SE, but upgraded to Win2k instead.

After 18 months with Vista/Win7, I find my Win2k and WinXP machines counter-intuitive and limiting to use.

940

General Software Discussion / Re: Surprised by Win7

« Last post by Darwin on November 04, 2009, 12:34 PM »

Welcome to DC, RGerryH! I just did a search of the forum for "migrate" and came up with this: https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=2540.0

Is this the thread you were reading? There are a few suggested options linked to in that thread as well as an alpha for SHJunction by Jeremy Colake (db90h). If that's the application you're referring to, why not contact its author directly via his e-mail address at the bottom of his webpage (www.bitsum.com)?

941

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone taken the plunge and upgraded to any of the latest Nuance offerings?

« Last post by Darwin on October 29, 2009, 08:48 AM »

Heh, heh, I'm no Nuance expert  But I'll say this - I have OmniPage 16 Pro and have used it perhaps a handful of times in three years. I don't really even use PaperPort, beyond its fantastic SET tools to clean up scanned images. Having said that, OmniPage would be handy if you're not interested in scanning to PDF but want an editable document. Of course, you can do this with PDF Converter 6 now as it supports scanning directly to it...

942

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: ACDSee Photo Editor 2008 - Full Version Worth $35 - 4 Free !

« Last post by Darwin on October 28, 2009, 04:18 PM »

Update: downloaded the trial and registered using the license I received in the mail - no hiccoughs. So I can report that this really works. I'll have to compare this to Paint Shop Pro X2, which I have installed as well.

Thanks again, Marc 

943

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: ACDSee Photo Editor 2008 - Full Version Worth $35 - 4 Free !

« Last post by Darwin on October 28, 2009, 03:08 PM »

Thanks Marc! I just went through the process and received my key, so all appears to be in order.

Nice find 

944

General Software Discussion / Re: Add tabbed documents to MS Office

« Last post by Darwin on October 28, 2009, 10:40 AM »

Nobody knows exactly ?

 

-Contro (October 27, 2009, 06:20 PM)

this would be come in handy, i guess..

• http://en.wikipedia...._of_Microsoft_Office

-lanux128 (October 28, 2009, 09:09 AM)

Thanks, lanux 

Here's the relevant "bit":

May 31, 2001    Office XP (10.0)    Word 2002, etc.    Last version to support Windows 98/Me/NT 4.0. Improved support for working in restricted accounts under Windows 2000/XP.

945

General Software Discussion / Re: Add tabbed documents to MS Office

« Last post by Darwin on October 27, 2009, 09:49 PM »

AFAIK, Office XP = Office 2002.

946

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.

« Last post by Darwin on October 27, 2009, 04:11 PM »

It's the absence of anything more than a thin veneer of objectivity in the blogs/articles that have been linked to that these posts are pointing out/complaining about. Perhaps we as a whole are "windows-centric" but I hardly think anyone here is blind in their appraisal of Windows. I still maintain that the whole argument is akin to the Chevy versus Ford debate. These OS are different. Deal with it. Why does one necessarily have to be better than the other?

Zaine, I'm sorry if you feel that you're not welcome here, posting as you do from a non-Windows perspective. I'd be very sorry if you allowed those other distractions to take you away from here.

947

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.

« Last post by Darwin on October 27, 2009, 12:27 PM »

Josh - thank you for reminding me! Off to send credits now   

948

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.

« Last post by Darwin on October 27, 2009, 12:10 PM »

Related article. (Sorry haven't been keeping up with the posts)

http://thinksimpleno...ate-limited-beliefs/

-Paul Keith (October 26, 2009, 08:36 PM)

Wow...one more guy on the internet discovers that a brand new computer looks better, works better and has fewer problems than one that's five years old.

Hope Obama wasn't hoping on winning a Nobel two years in a row...this guy looks like he's got the inside track on next year's award.

-Innuendo (October 27, 2009, 11:56 AM)

Crap! Innuendo - you managed to say in two sentences what I tried, but failed, to say in about four paragraphs 

949

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.

« Last post by Darwin on October 27, 2009, 10:13 AM »

Yes! That is a point that I had meant to make: people are now criticizing MS for taking apps out of Windows 7 (and Vista)... MS can't win - put the apps in and they're abusing they're not competing fairly, take 'em out and they're not offering as good value as Apple does. MS can do nothing right while Apple can do nothing wrong, it seems.

950

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.

« Last post by Darwin on October 27, 2009, 09:05 AM »

Just skimmed the Curtis Franklin piece and agree with Eóin - given that the end result is so close (overall Snow Leopard is awared a 9.3/10 vs Windows 7's 9.1/10), the conclusion that Snow Leopard is better for professionals seems rather arbitrary to me. After reading it, I'd call the whole issue a draw, not announce a winner. But then, the magazine is trying to sell subscriptions...