Check out this page: http://blacksapphire.com/antispam/

Not only does this guy require you to answer a mini quiz to prove you are human, but he will also generate a new email address for every person who wishes to contact him (which I imagine are only valid for a limited amount of time) so that he never has to give a single, spammable, email address..

I thought it was quite inventive!

As someone whos studies and work are totally computer-based, backup is an important issue to me. Until now I’ve relied on simple directory synchronisation – I can specify exactly what I want and know what exacltly is going on. I still use Directory Sync Pro, which is just great for most purposes.

However since starting to use Windows 7, I’ve been wanting to give the inbuilt Backup & Restore feature as a second backup. So I found a nice empty hard-drive for dedicating to this purpose, and went ahead.

First I just chose all the default options, which essentially backs up all your user profile stuff, and makes a “system image” (which it’s a bit vague about, but anyway). First it says it’s copying the files, which takes absolutely ages (hours and hours). The computer is usable during that time but sometimes it really slows down. Also there’s no pause button. There’s stop, but I have yet to see it actually work :/.

Anyway, then it finally gets to the system image, which takes even longer… long story short, for some reason mine would never complete. It would always get stuck at 83%, even after a whole night of working. At this point the computer is unusable – I pretty much had to do a hard-reboot. Tried again and it did exact the same thing, practically freezing at 83% then another hard reboot.

So I cleared everything, and decided to try again choosing “custom” this time. I selected my libraries and 2 folders in C:\, with no system image since that’s what seemed to be the problem before. This time it works for about an hour, getting to 25%, then suddenly finishes saying the backup was incomplete because it skipped some files. When I look at the log to find out what it skipped, it’s some non-existent file: C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\Web Development

Last chance I thought.. I changed the backup settings and removed some insignificant stuff like the contacts folder – then start the backup again, it takes 6 whole hours to get to 100%… but then complains about the same file!

At this point I lost hope. There’s definitely something in the backup, but it never “completes”, always complaining about that file. So honestly I don’t know how much I can trust it…

My conclusion: you’re probably better off with something else. Anyway if anyone has had similar (or different) luck with it I’d love to know…

So I bought an iPod Nano a while back, it’s actually a 1st-generation model. I was happy using it with iTunes for a while, but as time went by I started to hate iTunes (on Windows) more and more.. to the point where I got rid of it once and for all.

I resorted to Windows Media Player, which is actually pretty decent and BLOODY FAST! Compared to iTunes… I mean there’s absolutely no contest.

Anyway I wanted to use my iPod but would absolutely never install iTunes, so was looking for a good way to manage my iPod files without it… and lo and behold, I found SharePod.

SharPod is absolutely wonderful – there’s no installation, you just run a single executable which does all the config work for you, and all you do is drag and drop your music to and from your iPod, just like it was a normal non-closed-off-by-Apple personal music player.

Lovely… I definitely recommend it! Oh, plus it’s completely free – but not the “ok what’s the catch” sort of free, but the “all the best software is free” kind

Like lots of people who use Thunderbird, I was getting irritated when receiving emails from Outlook users with the smiley’s replaced by J’s.

Unsuprisingly, it’s Microsoft’s fault because they just simply don’t care about other clients and standards. Anyway, here’s how to fix it:

j’s in Thunderbird emails Outlook smiley faces | The Swan Song.

A great effort to get people to switch from IE6: Let’s Kill IE6.

I couldn’t find the CSS for this anywhere, so here’s what I’m using.
Note: you will probably also want this image.


/* ============== */
/* Let's Kill IE6 */
/* ============== */
#letskillie6 {
width:400px;
background:#2A2A2A;
color:#CCCCCC;
font-size:14px;
line-height:18px;
position:absolute;
left:34%;
}
#letskillie6 #letskillie6_close {
background:url(images/letskillie6.gif) no-repeat 0 0;
float:right;
height:15px;
width:0;
overflow:hidden;
padding-left:15px;
margin:5px;
}
#letskillie6 #letskillie6_close:hover {
background:url(images/letskillie6.gif) no-repeat 0 -15px;
}
#letskillie6 .content {
width:100%;
margin:0;
float:none;
}
#letskillie6 .content .pic {
background:url(images/letskillie6.gif) no-repeat -15px 0;
height:73px;
width:55px;
display:block;
float:left;
margin:10px;
}
#letskillie6 .content p {
margin-top:10px;
padding-right:10px;
}
#letskillie6 .content p.browsers {
padding:0 10px 15px 10px;
}
#letskillie6 .content p.meta {
display:none;
}
#letskillie6 .content p.browsers a {
display:block;
float:left;
height:16px;
padding-left:20px;
margin-left:11px;
color:#A8C634;
}
#letskillie6 .content p.browsers a.ie8 { background:url(images/letskillie6.gif) no-repeat -70px 0; }
#letskillie6 .content p.browsers a.firefox { background:url(images/letskillie6.gif) no-repeat -70px -16px; }
#letskillie6 .content p.browsers a.opera { background:url(images/letskillie6.gif) no-repeat -70px -32px; }
#letskillie6 .content p.browsers a.chrome { background:url(images/letskillie6.gif) no-repeat -70px -48px; }
#letskillie6 .content p.browsers a.safari { background:url(images/letskillie6.gif) no-repeat -70px -64px; }


Found this quite useful.. Linked to google cache version because the actual page wouldn’t load when I tried…

Bring Misplaced Off-Screen Windows Back to Your Desktop (Keyboard Trick) :: the How-To Geek.

I thought AllWaySync (previous post) was great, but after some use I was told my usage patterns are too high & that I needed to buy a pro license.. screw that!

So I went on another hunt and found something whch I’m starting to like even more:  DirSyncPro. Don’t let the “Pro” fool you, it’s 100% open source goodness. My only real gripe with it is that it’s Java and therefore a little slower, but really when you only use it occasionally you can look past that. It’s totally customisable like all good power user software should be.

Anyway, I love it and you should too. Cheers guys

After a few years of using the primitive XCOPY command, I was looking for a good, free, folder sync program to handle my backups for me.

I’ve found one, it is called Allway Sync, and can be found here: http://allwaysync.com/

Interfaces that use their own colour schemes other than the OS default always annoy me (because they always look hiedeous) but other than that this program is really great – look into it.

After looking through the entire firefox themes directory, I’ve concluded that they’re all hideous. If you want something that looks good in Vista, anyway.
The only decent one I found (and the one I’m using) is ChromiFox, which rather sadly is a rip of the Google Chrome skin.
Oh well, I guess they can’t get everything right…

This is my experience on using an SD Card for ReadyBoost. The main reason for using as SD card is that I can leave it permanently in my laptop, as opposed to a USB drive which would obviously stick out the side.

Initially I had a 2GB TwinMOS SD card, rated at 133x. At first Vista told it wasn’t suitable for ReadyBoost, but after a few formats of the card at with different filesystems and cluster sizes it started to work. I never noticed any real difference, and much to my annoyance Vista kept “forgetting” to use it for ReadyBoost and I’d have to keep switching it on again.

After a few months the SD card stopped working altogether so I got it replaced under warranty. This time I got a 4GB TwinMOS card listed as “SDHC Superfast” (whatever that means), and told Vista to use practically the entire 4GB (whatever the recommended value was, something aroun 3.8 GB). This time the performance increase was very noticable – mostly when it came to opening programs, and of course having lots of heavyish programs open simultaneously. Also, Vista never seems to “forget” anymore, it just works all the time silently. Even with my laptop’s 2GB of actual (which is pretty decent) the effects of ReadyBoost with this card were noticable.

And of course you’d never know it was there since it’s hidden neatly in the SD card slot.. nice.