The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Was that the Roxio product?

Roxio produced Toast.

[BetterRed]

Rocket Dock has been left out in the cold, see ==>> Punk Labs - Blog

A couple of months ago someone asked me if I could recommend an alternative. RocketDock or one of its add-ons was causing her grief. I recommended she try to do without.

BR

[Blossom]

Rocket Dock still works fine for me but I don't use any add ons. I don't know why you would need any. It's so light weight It sits on the right edge of my screen. I already knew RocketDock was no longer being developed but it's still a good solution for me. I have issues when I pin to taskbar. A few pins have corrupted. Most likly due to this being a upgraded version of Windows 10 from Windows 8.1. The Rocket Dock lets me keep my desktop clean and still have everything I need at my fingertips.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I use Classic Shell. The developer has ceased development because of time constraints but it still works. He put the last source up in Sourceforge is someone wants to pick up the reins.


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Dennis

I used Classic Shell till I found StartIsBack which has a better interface and more options and it's still in development. This what my start menu looks like. It's very customizable so you can make it your own, it's not a Windows 7 knock off but more.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Was that the Roxio product?



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Dennis

Possibly. It came with the DVD Drive when I bought way back in 2007. I don't know why it quit working. It takes me a long time to trust a burning software with my data. I don't want to make coasters.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Rocket Dock has been left out in the cold, see ==>> Punk Labs - Blog

A couple of months ago someone asked me if I could recommend an alternative. RocketDock or one of its add-ons was causing her grief. I recommended she try to do without.

What sort of grief?

I could do without Rocket Dock, but it works well enough here. I'm not using addons - I simply wanted a dock product that would provide fast access to the stuff I use all the time. It's set to be on the right edge of the screen and autohide. Move the mouse to that edge and it appears and I can click an icon.

Rocket Dock hadn't seen any updates in some time when I installed it, but what was there worked so I didn't care. And it's a 32bit program, but again, I didn't care. 64bit Win10 runs 32bit programs fine, and there's nothing about Rocket Dock that needs 64bit. (64bit provides far larger address space, but what Rocket Dock does doesn't need it.)

The one curious bit was that I just got a new Win10 Update, and when I rebooted, Rocket Dock wasn't there. I could run it manually, and did, and it's working. What got impacted was having it start when Win10 did. I haven't tracked down just what the problem was, and will poke around more later.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Possibly. It came with the DVD Drive when I bought way back in 2007. I don't know why it quit working. It takes me a long time to trust a burning software with my data. I don't want to make coasters.

CD/DVD media is cheap. It's easy enough to test a new burning product with data that isn't critical to insure it works as expected.

My current desktop came with a CD/DVD player, but it's disabled. I repurposed the port it plugged into on the motherboard to support another SATA HD drive. (It's a small form factor device with limited mobo SATA connectors.)

Stuff I used to burn to CD/DVD I now put on USB flash drives. The last hardware addition to the desktop was USB3. The machine did not include native USB3, but I found a PCI-e USB3 card that plugged into a mini-PCI slot. I did need to get a SATA power Y adapter, as the device required power and I didn't have a spare power lead, but that wasn't a problem.

Along with the USB3 card, I added a USB3 hub and a USB3 drive enclosure so I can plug in an external drive if needed.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I used Classic Shell till I found StartIsBack which has a better interface and more options and it's still in development. This what my start menu looks like. It's very customizable so you can make it your own, it's not a Windows 7 knock off but more.

I know someone else who uses StartIsBack and is happy.

I've used Classic Shell for years, and it does what I want to do, so I have no plans to switch. It's possible a future Win10 update will kill it, but I'll deal with that if and when. I can deal with the native Win10 Start Menu if I have to. Classic Shell on Win10 was a reaction to "Oh, joy. MS brought back the Start Menu, but fixed what wasn't broken and changed stuff around so folks had to relearn the interface."

MS is hardly the only outfit that does that. An old friend does photo retouching. He still uses an at this point ancient version of Photoshop because it does what he needs to do, and he got tired of the entire UI changing every time a new release appeared and forcing him to relearn it.
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Dennis

[Blossom]

I use Photoshop CS2 so I understand. Windows 10 throws a prompt up every time I unminimize the window. I also use Acrobat Pro 8. No plans to upgrade. They do what I need to. I do have Office 2016 and no longer use Office 2003 but I got it for $9 when hubby was working for a company last year and it had a perks club. It was too good a deal to pass up. I prefer 2003 though.

Sent from my XT1528 using Tapatalk

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I use Photoshop CS2 so I understand. Windows 10 throws a prompt up every time I unminimize the window. I also use Acrobat Pro 8. No plans to upgrade. They do what I need to. I do have Office 2016 and no longer use Office 2003 but I got it for $9 when hubby was working for a company last year and it had a perks club. It was too good a deal to pass up. I prefer 2003 though.

I have a current Adobe Reader, but normally use the open source SumatraPDF, which renders PDFs and as a fringe benefit renders eBooks in Mobi and ePub format. I've never needed the Pro version of Adobe Acrobat.

I have Office 2007, courtesy of a site license from a former employer. The only part I normally use is Publisher for occasional DTP projects. The pro tool for that these days is Adobe InDesign, but I don't have sufficient need to justify purchasing a current version. I know how to make Publisher do what I want, and get occasional "How did you get it to do that?" comments. I just smile beatifically. If the asker can't figure it out, they can Look Stuff Up.
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Dennis

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

What sort of grief?

Autocad started to wedge, went away when RocketDock was not started. Given its longevity AC can be a bit crotchety-finicky, but the user is a civil engineer, so as you can imagine AC takes priority over everything else.

AFAIK she is now using a 7TT tweaked Windows taskbar, i.e. essentially a quick launch bar with minimal bells and whistles, which is why she had RD. When Win7 was first released the task bar was a PITA, so Kathie installed RD, whereas I installed 7TT.

BR

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Autocad started to wedge, went away when RocketDock was not started. Given its longevity AC can be a bit crotchety-finicky, but the user is a civil engineer, so as you can imagine AC takes priority over everything else.

Yep. But I'd love to know what AC was allergic to when Rocket Dock was running. I have not seen behavior like that.

AFAIK she is now using a 7TT tweaked Windows taskbar, i.e. essentially a quick launch bar with minimal bells and whistles, which is why she had RD. When Win7 was first released the task bar was a PITA, so Kathie installed RD, whereas I installed 7TT.

One of the exercises I went though over the years was controlling what appeared on the taskbar, and in the system tray. Tray apps are better under Win10 and I no longer have to jump through hoops to hide them.

I downloaded 7TT and will look when I get a chance. Rocket Dock does what I wanted, which was a dock I could hide till moused over, with one click access to what I used all the time, but other things can do that as well.
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Dennis

[Toxaris]

I am amazed that I see people use such old versions of programs that have known security flaws and are susceptible to all kinds of nasty stuff... That alone should be a reason to upgrade or replace. For most common programs there are low-cost/free alternatives that are being maintained and actively solve security issues.

[Blossom]

The only time I worry about security issues is on my browser other than that my system is lock down tight. Any vulnerabilities would have to make it past those layers first. I'm not going to upgrade to software that has become bloated or doesn't work the way I want it to. Newer is not better many times when it comes to software.

In all the years I've been using a computer I've only been affected once and that was light malware and it was my own fault. I was doing Swagbucks back then. Now I use a VM or Sandbox for stuff like that.

Sent from my XT1528 using Tapatalk

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

I am amazed that I see people use such old versions of programs that have known security flaws and are susceptible to all kinds of nasty stuff... That alone should be a reason to upgrade or replace. For most common programs there are low-cost/free alternatives that are being maintained and actively solve security issues.

Which ones do you have in mind?

But never underestimate the attraction of clinging to something long used and familiar. I interact elsewhere with people still using PCs running MSDOS and DOS programs as their main computing devices. I admire the fact that they can, but it gets more difficult as time passes. The biggest issue is Internet access. There are browsers that run under DOS, but none will provide a good experience (largely because of little or no support for JavaScript.)

Even if they are using more current technology, familiarity trumps. They want to spend time using their systems, but are reluctant to invest time in learning new stuff. (I've been around that one as a corporate IT guy supporting facility wide upgrades. "I haven't got time to do all my work now, and you want me to learn a batch of new stuff too?")
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Dennis