Recent Comments:
How to display a Windows desktop icon when you plug in a flash drive {Download Squad}
Jul 11th 2008 5:09AM http://www.freewaregenius.com/2008/05/27/desktop-media-get-automatic-desktop-shortcuts-when-you-plug-in-your-usb-drive-or-other-media
Desktop Media has a smaller footprint and was spawned from the idea of Desk Drive
Undelete Plus Offers Free, Fast File Recovery {Download Squad}
Jul 5th 2008 1:57AM Yup, it's junk compared to Recuva http://www.recuva.com/
FireShot Does Browser Screencaps One Better {Download Squad}
Jul 1st 2008 11:23PM I use FireShot and prefer it to the other screen grabbers for Firefox. The full-sized Amazon preview pages won't capture properly, though. The intermediate covers can be captured with the Greasemonkey script "AmazonBookCover". Flash-based stuff is just a lot harder to capture.
OneLoupe: Simple, small, and portable desktop zooming solution {Download Squad}
Jun 13th 2008 9:00PM Magnifier uses the scroll wheel to set the zoom level. It will also do a capture and has a setting to smooth edges of text which I find quite helpful. Anti-aliasing looks chunky when zooming. I don't really understand the full screen question. If the desire is for the entire screen to be magnified, how would you navigate? http://www.iconico.com/magnifier/
Boot Xbox Media Center on (almost ) any PC from a USB flash disk {Download Squad}
Jun 7th 2008 1:10AM Mythbuntu http://www.mythbuntu.org is similar but it started from the other end of video, TV tuners. LiveCD and diskless (server-based) use are pretty mature.
FlixPulse: Movie reviews based on Twitter comments {Download Squad}
Jun 2nd 2008 4:55PM This is a great idea but look at the results. How likely is it that all the current releases are great movies? Methinks this shows people are more likely to mention a movie they like than one they don't. Good execution, poor data set. Metacritic seems to have a better data set. Cool idea, though.
Budget Hero: balance the federal budget your way - Time Waster {Download Squad}
May 23rd 2008 3:25AM No, Rick. The reason you don't live in a hovel is supply-side economics.
The only way investment happens is if people have resources to invest. Supply side economics, basically, means productive people invest their created wealth back into the society to create more wealth for themselves and others. A market economy rewards producers with a fraction of the benefit their productions bring to other people. At the same time, economies of production are constantly being refined which leads to some jobs becoming inefficient. That is good. It's why products which were once incredibly expensive are so cheap now. "Displaced workers" become free to do other tasks. The net gain to everyone is positive.
There is no way expanding confiscation of wealth, consuming most of it inside the government, then providing disencentive to produce to part of the population leads to expansion. If it did, the Socialist countries would be the economic giants. The government cannot "create" jobs or opportunity other than by artificially influencing a situation but that always leads to a collapse and consumes more resources than the "benefits." If a situation is not economical, throwing money at it won't change that equation, it just encourages an unstable situation to grow.
This thing seems to run on Keynesian economics, which is not a surprise given the blurb about the underlying modeling assumptions. The problem is they don't account for the concept of velocity. Lowering taxes in market economies leads to larger economies. This is how collecting a smaller percentage in taxation leads to higher total revenue. A "balanced" economy assumes a stable environment which, quite frankly, isn't what any society should want. It should want its people to live longer and be more productive. That can't happen if the government "gives" too much to the people. In order to give, it must tax/confiscate more than it "gives". That's why the Social Security part of the equation ultimately crashes the system, even in this simulation. It's a Ponzi scheme with an ever-increasing target base.
Budget Hero: balance the federal budget your way - Time Waster {Download Squad}
May 22nd 2008 11:29AM No matter what I did, health care and social security always broke the bank. This thing just proves the point that those need to be capped. I didn't see any way to change the structure of SS from a pyramid scheme to something else. Health care popup is misleading, too. The government counts 1 day without health coverage as not having any. Without changes in those to reduce abuse and change their growth rates, you'll always bust.
DupliFinder: Find duplicate and similar images on your PC {Download Squad}
May 21st 2008 1:43PM I've used Dup Detector for years. Dup Detector 3.201 s at http://www.freeware-guide.com/rareware/DupDetector.html
Image Deduplicator is slow http://walidator.info/?s=deduplicator
There are a few commercial apps but Dup Detector is still the best for now.
Quicksys RegDefrag: Defrag your Windows registry {Download Squad}
May 13th 2008 9:01PM I love ERUNT and have it set to do a backup every 6 hours, keeping the previous 31 days. It's saved my butt a few times.
PageDefrag is also a real nice thing to have in your startup arsenal.
