Hello All,

Today, more from curiosity than necessity, I decided to see if I could back up a Windows 7 virtual machine with Acronis True Image 11.  Since I was running this virtual machine on a MacBook Pro laptop under Parallels 4, I wasn't all that sure that it would work.

I installed True Image on my virtual machine and then attached a Western Digital 500 GB USB external hard drive formatted as NTSF

The backup proceeded normally, backing up the 30 GB virtual machine in about 30 minutes.  I then successfully verified the backup.

Next, I tried to restore the virtual machine from the backup copy.  I wasn't sure if Acronis could distinguish between the Windows 7 partition and the Snow Leopard Mac partition.  Just in case it failed and over-wrote the wrong image, I made sure that I had a current backup of the Mac with its backup software, Time Machine.

Acronis True Image 11 did it, restoring the virtual machine from backup in about 20 minutes.

Ralph Sutter

Hello All,

Here are the links to my presentation at the September 5th, 2010 SLO Bytes meeting:

Opera Unite
Download Opera 10.61:  http://www.opera.com/download/

View video of Opera Unite:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5hr-6cw4M8?autoplay=1&?width=800&height=480
Show all Opera Unite applications:  http://unite.opera.com/applications/
Featured Opera Unite applications:
           Media Player Overview:  http://unite.opera.com/application/162/
           Photo Sharing Overview:  http://unite.opera.com/application/172/  
           File Sharing Overview:  http://unite.opera.com/application/132/
           Web Server Overview:  http://unite.opera.com/application/192/

Please note that I have not provided the links to these applications running on my home computer.  They were for demonstration purposes only and are not currently running on that machine.

Document Display
Elmo Digital Presenter: http://tinyurl.com/36y7t35   $1791
Ipevo Point 2 View Camera: http://tinyurl.com/ykulgf6 $69.00

I've liked Acronis, except for their "timers".  I had hoped that they would get this solved in TI Home 11.  Oh, well.  Maybe in Home 12?

"Not mush more. " Is that an error or a comment on his diet?? 

Hello All,

I purchased Acronis True Image 11 from Gene Barlow's site.  It installed over True Image 10 without incident so I ran a backup of my main hard drive.

The 460 Gb compressed to a 160 Gb backup and finished an hour or so later.

I then decided to validate the backup.  Validation began, indicating that it would take about two minutes.  I waited expectantly for confirmation as the seconds counted down.  The display indicated that validation would end in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 seconds. 

Just after it reached one second remaining, the display suddenly revised its estimate, now ending that validation would complete in 2256 days 12 hours and 38 minutes.

The more that I let it run, the more days added to the total.  I canceled the process and validated a backup that I had previously validated successfully with True Image 10.

The same unlikely scenario played out again.  The previously validated backup reported that it too would take years to complete validation.

Skeptic that I am, I ran another validation of the most recent backup.  It told me the same lies before finally validating after about one half hour.

Once again, I confirm that knowing how to read can be a disadvantage when it comes to software.

Take heart if you decide to validate your Acronis True Image 11 backups.  The process may not take as long as the program indicates.

Your mileage may vary.

Ralph Sutter

Surgery went very well.  Not mush more.

Well, my Roku is doing a fine job.  I don't need a Wii or a XBox360 or a PS3 for any other reason. 

Also, my Roku has many other choices in programming besides Netflix, including TWIT TV (Leo Laporte's video and audio podcast network), Amazon on Demand, Revision 3 (Patrick Norton, Robert Heron, and tons of other smart people) demonstrating new things and offering opinions on tech subjects, and many, many others. The others mentioned above may also offer these. 

You'll need to connect the Internet to the Roku or competitors, but you'll love what becomes available, for free or not much money.  I did up my download speed from AT&T from 1.5Mb/second to 3.0 (for $5/month) and it made lots of difference in the quality of the presentation.

If you haven't seen the instant view Netflix selection and search screen lately on a Roku (and probably on the other boxes as well) it's really slick:  Your queue (of maybe 50 DVD box images) that you've already put in the queue scrolls left or right at your pleasure and you can click any one to watch a movie or select an episode of a TV show.  Or, drop down one row and you can search for something they haven't shown you in the search section. 

Drop down another row and you'll see many shows you've recently watched.  Keep scrolling down row after row and you'll be presented (by category) with box covers of what they think you'd like to see based on what you've rated and watched in the past -- at least another 10 rows of dramas, comedies, BBC shows, etc.  If you can't find something to watch there may be something wrong with you or you've seen it all...

One thing I'd like that I can't get at this time is Hulu for old TV show series, but that's available on the PC via ZincTV.  Not a big deal, but maybe Roku and the rest will offer those some day, as well as other new offerings.  On balance, it's one of the best purchases I've ever made, and it keeps improving...

Dave McLaughlin

This article suggests that separate Network Video Streamers may be on the way out, in as much as the better Blu-Ray players people are buying now also include that type of circuitry.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20015032-1.html?tag=nl.e702
What do you Roku owners think?

In my experience when one uses webmail...like yahoo, windows live, gmail in order to set these a default email programs one must do it with the browser one uses.   The process is different for each.   I believe yahoo mail requires a download from yahoo, yahoo toolbar and IE you set by using internet options/programs tab email drop down select live hotmail.  In general, my advice is to search google using your specific circumstances..
for example Yahoo mail as default email with firefox.... and so on
Cayucostom

I found this answer on the Microsoft Forum website.  Very helpful.
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7network/thread/e97db0b5-c77a-4839-a6fc-ffc655e47139