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Messages - zenzai [ switch to compact view ]

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Metaproducts Inquiry, an excellent program I've been using for over 10 years, seems to have been discontinued now. No response from developers in user forums anymore, no replies from support to emails. Program has been broken (dialog boxes not responding) by several (currently 5) recent Windows 8.1 updates, apparently the same in Windows 10 but I haven't tracked which updates here, and they don't respond to requests about fixing this.


(can't find a list of discontinued software, so I'll put it here instead, feel free to move it elsewhere if there is a more appropriate place).

Password Agent has recently been updated after about 10 years. Great program with lots of cool features, been using it myself for 13 years. Developer very serious and dedicated, and excellent support.

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for Software with this feature
« on: September 16, 2015, 04:32 AM »

I would require the software to:

1.   Have an automated Move function in which I can select options to make it compare the contents of the files to be moved with the contents of all the files in the target folder.  Then all files with unique contents would be saved, and if more than one file has the same content, then only one would be saved.  Renaming would be done in any event where two or more files to be saved have the same name.
2.   The software would also have a Remove Duplicates function where it can scan any selection of files and folders for files with the same contents, renaming files when necessary and removing duplicates.

You could try this one, trial is fully functional:

The 64 bit version is very fast, it does a SHA1 compare of content (file names ignored) of 5 GB files in less than 10 minutes on my system.

Start with searching for duplicates based on content only (SHA1 compare), ignoring filenames, that will find all identical files. Then choose to delete all files but one in all duplicate sets. If some files in a duplicate set have different file names you can choose the one you want and delete the rest.

Then you can do a search on identical file names only, that will find files with same file name but different content. I imagine that aren't many of these, in that case you can rename them manually from within the program. You can also move selected files to selected folders, and all kinds of things. See attached screenshot.

Living Room / Re: Implications of a global market on random success
« on: September 15, 2015, 06:26 PM »

"Just follow the other sheep..."

Time to start some online communities and services for lone wolfs (I think there's quite a lot of them out there)... ;-)

Living Room / Re: Simpler tax forms? Intuit says NO!
« on: September 15, 2015, 06:09 PM »
Here in Denmark they have simplified the system very much over the years. Most people can fill out their tax form online in a few minutes.

In the last maybe five years I have purchased at least ten times as many eBooks as paper books. But each and every time I buy an eBook, I get a little frustrated, even angry!, because I know that if it had been a paper book, someone would inherit it after my death, but no-one will be getting the virtual books.

Why not? Put them on a DVD, box it, and place it on the bookshelf. ;)

DRM and changing formats is one reason.

OK, yea DRM and lack of conversion options is a stopper.

Tried it a while ago but I already have Artrage and it seems to do pretty much the same:

I think to many software companies are reinventing the wheel, it's a waste of time and resources IMO.

Funny, I also wrote a freeware program (first version in 2008) called DriveAlive which does the same and in the same way (writing a text file to the disks). It just has a GUI instead of command line. :)

It does rhyme after all.  :)

The Gui looks good.  I had a couple of USB 3 docking stations driving me crazy.  I could not believe they insisted on spinning down the inserted HD after about 5 minutes idle.  I never found any way to disable that "feature" on that model dock.  :)

Great minds think alike?  :)

Hehe, yeah... :)

Had same problem with my WD Studio disks, that's why I wrote it.

Living Room / Re: wierd mouse click problem
« on: March 03, 2015, 11:42 AM »
Check the LogiTech forums, it's been discussed there for a long time, and people have come up with different fixes. Some may work, some may not.




I definitely prefer ebooks. Here's why (from a purely practical point of view):

1. Learning programming and other stuff from paperbooks just doesn't work - you can't search the book or scroll quickly though the pages, you can't change the size of the pages/font, you can't copy-paste code or take screenshots etc.. And if it's a paperback, good luck with keeping the book on the page you're on, or even keeping it open, without keeping one hand on it all the time (impossible if you're learning programming or stuff like that). And if you don't have much space on your desktop it gets in the way of the keyboard. With an ebook, just alt+tab to shift between ebook and IDE. Or keep them side by side, or use two monitors.

2. You can put as many high quality pictures as you like in an e-book without it getting more expensive to produce. Paperbooks are much more expensive to produce if they contain high quality color pictures.

3. You can produce as many copies of an e-book as you like at practically no cost. Each paperbook costs to produce, and the less copies, the more each copy costs.

4. You can send an ebook from one part of the world to another in an instant, at practically no cost. A paperbook has to be packed (well packed, if you want it to arrive undamaged), you have to go to the post office to send it, it often costs a lot to send, and it can take a long time before it arrives. Then there's customs fees - if I order a book from outside EU that cost more than $12 I have to pay a $25 VAT/customs processing fee for the first book and $5 for any additional books each. No such thing on ebooks.

5. If a paperbook gets lost, or if you spill coffee on it, you can't just get a new free copy from a backup. You have to pay for a brand new copy - if it's still available, and you can afford it (rare books can be very expensive).

6. Dogs, rodents and insects don't eat ebooks (viruses do sometimes, but then you have your backups, right? ;) ).

7. Paper books take up a lot of space, which not everyone have a lot of. They weigh a lot - one million average paper books would weigh about 250 tons, one million ebooks on a DVD weigh less than 20 grams.

Paperbooks do have their advantages - you don't need en electronic device to read them, and people are less likely to steal them than to steal your Notebook, iPad or Kindle if you're on the beach or some other public place. It's also hard to make illegal copies of them, which is an advantage to the author. But that's all, at least for me. :)

I don't think that it's money.  I think it's the same thing that everything has been rooted to before money even existed as a concept- power.  All else is just an expression of this.  Power corrupts- and all of the expressions of it also.

I'd rather say that too little power corrupts. If you have unlimited power you also have the power to do and get anything you want without hurting or exploiting others...  ;)

Developer's Corner / Re: No .NET Framework, no problem!
« on: May 20, 2014, 06:41 AM »
My biggest objection to C#/.NET has always been the runtime shenanigans. So this to me is incredibly interesting, especially if the produced .exe is as small as the typical C# project output but still completely portably non runtime dependent.

I'm not so concerned with size but agree whole heartedly that there is some real pain associated with having to worry if the user has the right version of .net stuff installed, so this would be a big improvement.

Win 8 (and AFAIR also Win 7) automatically offers to download the correct version if it isn't installed, when you run a .NET program.

« on: May 20, 2014, 06:39 AM »
An alternative is CrossOver:

I'm quite happy with Win 8.1, have it on 3 desktop machines now. The only thing I don't like is UAC which IMO is even worse than in Win 7 so I've turned it off completely (unlike in Win 7 this must be done via registry otherwise it won't be completely disabled).

I've been using TerabyteUnlimited's tools for years, and highly recommend them. Been creating and restoring images with Image for DOS hundreds of times, never had a problem. I especially like that you can make byte-for-byte compare both when creating and restoring an image, haven't seen this in any other image programs.

Their BootIt Bare Metal which is a great tool for managing partitions include a copy of Image for DOS btw.


I still worry about the long-term mercury problem however. CFL bulbs just get tossed rather than recycled. It might not be a problem so far. But ten years from now, when billions upon billions of these things are sitting in landfills...

They're also very poisonous if they break:

I'm using 27" monitors for everything, and wouldn't want anything smaller. Have two side by side and that works fine for me.


I'm using Zentimo to handle my USB connections, I don't know if it is safer when it comes to Safe Removal but I've never had any problems with my disks in this respect.

Personally I use CrashPlan, partly because it runs as a service and can back up other accounts on my computer besides the one I am logged in on (not sure if SpiderOak have implemented this yet), but also because I think the 100 GB increments in data make SpiderOak too expensive (I am paying $60 for 80 GB instead of $100, and if I had 101 GB I would still be paying $60 instead of $200).

I'm using CrashPlan too, the best I've seen yet. Recently I also got a DrivePop account, though only because they had a special offer on BitsDoJour for a Pro account ($60 for lifetime unlimited space unlimited computers). I'm not impressed though with their software nor the upload speed. And I suspect their host company LiveDrive is comitting suicide with its reseller offer:

Living Room / Re: DRM for HTML5 Standards
« on: July 12, 2013, 06:56 AM »
Well it doesn't affect anyone who are just making "normal" websites, does it? Personally I don't care about what the media industry does for I hardly buy any of their products anyway.

I think a lot of the motivation is because Microsoft has been unable to convince people that Microsoft products are "licensed not sold." So their customer's perspective is still one that says "possession is 9/10ths of law." And that's despite 30 years of trying to "educate" people otherwise. Most people flat out refuse to accept the notion of 'intellectual property' when they're buying a physical product.

As well they should. The whole IP war drum thing is psychopathic corporate greed and laziness. They want to just sit back and gorge themselves with cash for doing absolutely jack shit. It makes about as much sense as an 80's one-hit-wonder walking around acting all butt-hurt because they're not still rich and getting top hat treatment.

What many people don't seem to know however is that several if their products (like Visual Studio) are practically non-profit, i.e. the cost of development is equal to what they earn on selling these products (there is a technical word for this, don't recall it). And they also give away a lot of free stuff, like the Visual Studio Express versions.

I'm using Visual Studio Pro myself and I feel I'm getting an incredible value for money here. I also bought 3 copies of Windows 8 Pro for about $50 each (normal price $350 where I am) during the promotion. Anyone who already owned a copy of Windows could do that. Microsoft may have been "the bad guys" in the past, but they certainly have changed over the years.

... raising a glass only counts if there's a five (5) pound weight attached, and if you alternate hands  :P :P

let's see, two full ones of those German litre beer glasses would make roughly five pounds weight - one in each hand.
Sip alternately :p

Now that's a fitness regime ;-)
-Carol Haynes (May 24, 2013, 07:31 AM)

Or rather fatness? ;)

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