Christianb

You know if you have a VB or MS C++ you can just use sendkeys on that shareware dialog and you'd never ever have to see it . -Christian

I doubt the registration deal is as good as Winzip's? Is it? Most companies aren't that decent . -Christian

Hi Clutch, Well that sounds funny/scary all at the same time. However the windows installation location is very easy to detect in every programming language I've ever used so I'm not surprised the artist decided to utilize it . It definetly will add to the realism. You know I think I've seen the joke you are referring to before, but it was probably 4 or 5 years ago or more. -Christian

Good grief Adam are you unemployed or do you just not work while you're at work? As for the shareware screen on Winzip it's only 30 bucks and you own it for life, no upgrades, no rebates, no hassles. The only time I see that screen is when I'm in a lab otherwise I'll have already registered it. -Christian

Does anyone know of a special printer you can buy that'll put professional looking logos on the tops of disks? Printing out CD labels is a pain in the ass and they never come out right.

Oh man are serious? That sucks. I take it you own one of those Yamaha's? I did however figure that whatever the solution it would require you to use their media.

Also the best self extractor isn't from a compression title, it's InnoSetup. Try it you'll see what I mean. You can have your own Icon, you can specifiy where the files go, and no matter how stupid the user is on the other end you can make it work for them . -Christian

I'm not saying WinRar isn't decent, don't get me wrong it seemed like a reasonable archiver, but considering I've used Winzip since Windows 3.1 and know all the settings, I really don't see much point in changing until some seriously better features are offered by one vs. the other. -Christian

Who knows, Who cares! This is our messageboard not MS's . But I thought MS owned everything ? 8)

Way to go posting Hover! That took balls. It looks like you're getting a head start on October 2015 (when Hover will be anbandonware . Screw Microsoft it's not like Hover is for sale anyware and besides they should still be bundling it with their OS's, but no they wouldn't do that because it could cut down on their game sales and their stock would drop 1/200 of a %. -Christian

Sorry Clutch, what that means is that I tested less stable daily builds rather than the periodic public builds which we test the hell out of which are in fact much more stable. So my experience with that beta builds may be worse than most. However either way it's a hassle to test a beta OS. In fact it could be something worth crying about if you lose a whole day or more of worth work, because the OS ate your files. So it is my recommendation to test the OS by playing games rather than doing mission critical work on a your beta box. Of course the games approach typically isn't accepted in a business environment. Even though that's how I learned most of what I know about this fuzzy little OS. . Today I'm not much of a gamer though I usually program, because it's almost as much fun and it pays the bills. Cheers, Christian

Hi Clutch, Thats freaking awesome. That's the funniest virtual windows I've ever seen. I could stop laughing. I'll have to forward it to all my friends. -Christian

Although I must say I do think QuickZip has tons of potential the author just needs to focus on stability for a year instead of functionality. Making it open source would certainly help out in the stability department. QuickZip also supports more file formats than just about every other professional alternative. -Christian

If your CPU isn't pegged during decompression your decrompressor isn't making proper use of it. I like Winzip better. Winzip has just been around the longest, they've made minute changes every version and so things have just about always been stable. Honorable mention goes to ACDZip for it's intuitive functionality. Most unstable freeware alternative goes to QuickZip . -Christian

Okay fair enough. You know I think I've forgotten one thing. MS tests the hell out of their beta releases. It's the daily internal beta builds that are trouble. Before they release a beta build to the public they don't include any new code for a few days and allow additional testing to make sure they've got a stable build. I tested Windows 98SE and 2000 internally for Microsoft in the Windows Consumer Hardware lab.

Oh ya I remember that one. Perhaps you should post it. Just remember to be sure and take it down after a MS representative asks you to remove it . Until then share like the dickens Cheers, Christian

Hola Amigo, While it certainly could be XP Sp1 are you sure you haven't just gotten to a higher level in your games. Higher levels typically have more characters, and larger levels this means more Polygons and more textures, both will consume more CPU time and RAM hence your hard disk swapping. It sounds to me like your game uses more than 256MB Ram. Rather than worrying about your HD performance and CPU usage, why not buy some physical RAM (~1,000 times faster than your HD) so that you don't have to experience swap file lag. I recommend Micron memory www.Crucial.com they make excellent memory and sell it at reasonable prices. However you'd probably be better off at this point buying the exact same type of ram you already have however If I were you I'd get a 512MB module. I could be completely wrong on this issue, but it's definetly worth trying and I know one things for sure having more than 256MB RAM won't slow your system down. Sure maybe your top speed will be slightly less (more ram to allocate), but your bottom speed will improve dramatically. Good Luck, Christian

Hi Gang, My dad bought himself a used HP AMD 1GHZ laptop. It's very nice, but we're woth Win2K men and it's XP. I'm wondering how do you get the F in the File menu to stay underlined even when you're not holding down the ALT key? Thank you very, very, much , Christian Blackburn

Hi Andy, Thanks for the quick reply. I'll give it a try when I get home. -Christian

Sapiens are you crazy? I hope you have a spare PC to run that on? Have you ever beta tested an OS before? It sucks! Nothing works, everything crashes, and you waste tons of time trying to figure out why. The only cool thing is when it comes out you'll be a hot job prospect, presumably. All the same good luck. Sometimes a new OS is like a new universe, or a giant playground . However I don't think the cost of the OS 100-200 is worth all the time you'll waste when you're apps don't work. Anyways just my two cents. I hope it's fun for you and you have good experiences with it, Christian

IHey Cool, You've played it too . Is the buddy Holly video the one with that cute brunet chick singing "You don't even have to try it comes easy for you the way you move is so apealling it could make me cry....". I liked that song, it wasn't the greatest one ever or anyting, but it ain't half bad either. Also at the time getting a free music video was a big deal, now you can download a trillion and we have the bandwidth to do so. We'll people who live in metropolisses.

Although I haven't ever used it and can't comment on it's quality Yamaha has a 40X burner that'll print labels on the tops of CDs too. That looks awesome. Check it out: Shweet Drive (You'll need flash www.Macromedia.com) -Christian

Well I'm sure you're missing a setting here or there, but basically I've converted about 12 movies now and have it down to a science. They always come out great once I get the setting right and yes you do have to change them for almost every movie. If you want to paypal me 10 or 20 bucks I'll show you how to do it via TightVNC (www.TightVNC.com) for 30 minutes or an Hour. Cheers, Christian

Quote: Too bad I no longer work iN redmond. i like free stuff Hey Sapiens74 I totally agree. I miss MS's file servers home of just about every wonderful MS product ever made. Although sometimes it's difficult to connect between departments. For example the Games Dept doesn't always share their latest with the OS's, and MS press keeps a tight lock on their tutorials. But who knows maybe things have changed since I toiled their in 1999. No Clutch I know MS pays tons of agencies to do all sorts of evaluations for them. They even pay people to sit down and write text descriptions and vote on the best descriptions to that their wording inside of applications is highly intuitive. -Christian

I'll tell you thought the burner to get is the Yamaha that can print labels right on top. I think it burns the labels on their with yet another laser . Ahhh so many lasers so little in my bank account. I need to get a job man! Cheers, Christian