Activity for Yesterday

Review - AutoIt
3.2.3.2 Beta (Apr 11, 2007)

I have used this app for well over a year now and I have to say it beats many other script languages hands-down.

I have written full-blown applications with it that migrate printers, run entire processes under another user context, full GUI based applications for loads of different tasks and a shed-load more besides.

Every time I see AutoIT mentioned somewhere it simply says that it is a keystroke macro app but essentially it is a full-blown script language as powerfull as vbs if not more so.

When coupled with the freeware SciTe editor for authoring purposes AutoIT3 is awesome.

Best of all your creations can be compiled into self-contained executables (try that one with a vbs file and no 3rd party apps!).
Review - BootDisk2BootStick
0.10 (Apr 4, 2007)

One question...Why?

I find it hard to understand why someone would spend time and effort in creating such an app when there are far superior apps that do the same which are also free.

I could understand if it was a case of 'My First Application' and the author wanted to show off a bit why waste anyone's time in pretending that the app is any good.

Why limit the memory stick's size to that of a floppy?

HP produce a tool that does exactly the same which is available to download which you just simply run, point to the location of your bootable files (DOS or other) and it then makes your memory stick bootable and and uses the entire space available. You can then modify the files and OS being booted from the device as much as you like.

I don't even think this app warrants being listed on BetaNews!

Update: It needs .net2 ?!?!?!?!?!?!?
What a complete load of rubbish

If I could give it a negative score I would.
Review - Adobe Reader for Windows 2000/XP/Vista/2008
8.0.0 (Dec 6, 2006)

I hope Adobe is going to carry on patching v7 as there is currently a security floor with no fix and in large coorporate environments who need other languages than English it appears they will have to wait an entire year until versions they can use are available.

When releasing Adobe Reader\Writer products Adobe always screws up as they always;

1. release the writer before the reader so if you want to use any 'new version' only features, you can't as no one will have a reader to work with them;

2. don't release international versions for sometimes months (12 in the case with v8) meaning not all can use the new version at the same time (creates issues for multinationals and their clients);

3. doesn't even bother to release font packs for Asian, CE etc at the same time as the EnglishUS versions so that those who could get away with it could instal that version along with the font packs for suedo mulitlanguage support.

Like so many firms their interest lies in the US and everyone else is an afterthought.

I'm English (UK) in case you wondered.

I also rate the product as a 1 not because of my little anti-Adobe rant above but rather that this version is yet another case of an app that offers little over the previous version and seems to work even slower than than the previous version as well.
Review - Microsoft Windows Vista (32-bit)
RC2 Build 5744 (Oct 9, 2006)

Users with Nero installed may have difficulty in reading the disc image once burned due to it having installed it's own UDF driver.

The disc should still work perfectly however if you want to boot off it and install Vista from it otherwise uninstalling Nero will allow the disc to be readable.
Review - PearPC
0.40 (Dec 21, 2005)

Not used this app but I have used Basillisk emulator to run OS8 for a long time which If you want an emu that runs well and performs the job of the whole OS check it out (requires HW Rom file and an OS CD).

With regard to PearPC I have to ask 'Why bother?'

With Apple switching to an Intel Processor etc it won't be long before you will be able to run a Mac OS on your PC.
Comment - Sophos study suggests Windows 7 UAC's default setting is self-defeating
0.40 (Nov 6, 2009 - 10:59 PM)

A recent IDC report (International Data Corporation) proclaimed that Sophos is 'Focused on serving the enterprise market exclusively' and so this is them trying to keep their business customers from thinking about changing their AV provider if\when they role out Windows7.

They are happy to slam Windows7 and\or UAC as they are a bit pissed at Microsoft for not giving them any seal of approval for their products and not involving them along with other AV companies on the development of Windows7's security interoperability.

Also it is a bit cheeky of them to slam Windows7 when they don't have any products that they officially suppport when running on Windows7!
Comment - Internet Explorer slows down again: Is Microsoft messing up IE's JavaScript?
0.40 (Nov 3, 2009 - 3:20 PM)

Oh my god the world is going to come to end cos of the 0.1 seconds i just lost opening this page!

Real world check - a few milliseconds difference in rendering the webpage doesn't make a heap of difference to most peeople. Most people use IE because it comes with their copy of Windows and don't care about other browsers unless there is a real 'woo hoo' feature that an alternative to IE has under it's belt.
Comment - Bad Vista-to-Windows 7 upgrade experiences #2: No TV in Media Center
0.40 (Oct 28, 2009 - 10:15 PM)

I upgraded from Vista with an old hauppauge card installed and working and found that it didn't work after the upgrade but all I did was install the OEM software drivers again and it all worked perfectly without the conveluted steps described in this article.

By the way, a clean install of Windows7 had the device working perfectly so the issue would appear to have just been a driver conflict.

At the end of the day, as lots of manufacturers don't currently have any Windows7 specific drivers available this sort of problem is to be expected that is why running the Microsoft Windows7 upgrade advisor is a good idea as it will tell you what you might have problems with along with what is known to not work or at least be a concern posr-upgrade.
Comment - Apple declares war on the entire PC industry
0.40 (Oct 20, 2009 - 10:49 PM)

Why do people insist on bringing the Windows registry into Mac Os versus Windows OS arguments?

It's all ready been established that Apple is working on a their own version of the registry database to put an end to all those configuration files all over their systems.
Comment - Why is John Hodgman smiling? Data loss isn't the only Snow Leopard problem
0.40 (Oct 20, 2009 - 5:03 AM)

Wrong.

Other companies as illustrious as apple have been made to pay compensation to plaintifs regardless of their having 'been covered' by the same type of clause in the EULA.

When the firm is international the case can also be raised in europe where the individuals rights carry more weight than those of the faceless corporate trying to evade culpability.