Favorite Files

1. 7-Zip (32-bit)
2. AbiWord for Windows
3. CCleaner
4. DVD43
5. foobar2000
6. Gnumeric
7. Mozilla Firefox (v3.5) for Windows
8. Recuva
9. Revo Uninstaller
10. SLAX
11. Transmute Portable
12. Ubuntu

Recent Posts

1. 
   Review - LameXP

   3.1.3 Beta 3 (Oct 5, 2009)

   Like a previous reviewer, I'm struck oddly---and negatively---by the fact that this software transcodes from WavPack, yet can't encode it. I also wonder why Speex support is omitted, given that all other audio formats under the Xiph.org umbrella are supported.
   
   I've often looked for a more modern replacement for the venerable deadware Multi-Frontend, and this could be it, but only if and when it can encode WavPack, which long ago replaced FLAC as my lossless format of choice.

2. 
   Review - Wine

   1.1.22 (May 24, 2009)

   I've always read people saying WINE doesn't work well, and I'm sure for many applications, it still doesn't, but since I switched to Linux as my primary OS in July '07, I've only had the need to regularly run two Windows applications, Mp3tag for personal use and the Citrix ICA client for business (I can't get the Linux version of the Citrix client to run properly for some reason).
   
   WINE runs both those programs almost perfectly, and does so on an almost daily basis, which means that for my purposes, it's a five-star program.

3. 
   Review - Ubuntu

   9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) (Apr 28, 2009)

   The new notify-OSD is highly annoying, but thanks to the brilliant Martin Pitt, can easily be gotten rid of. Upon doing that, I'm left with the best version I've tried of a very fine OS.

4. 
   Review - Monkey's Audio

   4.02 (Jan 21, 2009)

   With WavPack having a better feature set, and TAK now yielding virtually the same compression level at faster encoding speeds, there mightn't be much point in continuing this CODEC. For those who've committed large collections to the format and therefore might find it impractical to abandon, however, it's good to see it rise from the dead.

5. 
   Review - KDE

   4.2 Beta 2 (Jan 6, 2009)

   There have always been some things I've liked about some distros that use KDE, but I'm just generally annoyed by eye candy, which means I prefer Gnome. KDE has also always seemed slower than Gnome to me, and I've seen nothing in the 4.x series to change that.
   
   I'll keep taking a look at KDE, and hoping it gets quicker and less glitzy, but that hasn't happened yet.

6. Comment - Can Microsoft Make Vista More Compelling?

   4.2 Beta 2 (Oct 29, 2007 - 1:02 PM)

   I've always been one who preferred as little eye candy as possible, but even in my relatively short time (two months) of using Linux on a daily basis for both personal and home-office use, I've already found that its level of customizability is deep enough to render its default state almost meaningless. In other words, if you think a distro is ugly, chances are its interface can be radically if not almost completely altered toward your taste, and with relatively little difficulty.
   
   My Ubuntu desktop, for instance, is similar enough to my XP desktop that at least four people I regularly work with have yet to realize that I now primarily run Linux.

7. Comment - Can Microsoft Make Vista More Compelling?

   4.2 Beta 2 (Oct 27, 2007 - 12:16 PM)

   zridling, leave it to you to find out about such a distro. I read your series at DonationCoder after I had begun to use Linux on a daily basis, and was both impressed and well informed by it.

8. Comment - Can Microsoft Make Vista More Compelling?

   4.2 Beta 2 (Oct 26, 2007 - 7:56 PM)

   I gravely doubt MS can make Vista compelling to me, but seeing Vista in action certainly made Linux compelling as nothing had before. I'm quite happy dual-booting XP and Ubuntu on one of my machines and Ubuntu alone on the other.
   
   Linux has BECOME my Vista.

9. Comment - Key Thunderbird Devs Leave Mozilla

   4.2 Beta 2 (Oct 8, 2007 - 11:30 PM)

   Mozilla could drop Thunderbird tomorrow for all I care. I've used Firefox since its very early days when it was called Phoenix, and I love it. I wanted to feel the same about Thunderbird, but I just don't like it. It's huge, doesn't (or didn't when I last saw it) handle multiple accounts as well as I'd like, and doesn't/didn't support selective downloading from on-server header previews.
   
   I've used Pegasus for years when I'm in Windows, and whenever I try another e-mail client, I always end up going back to that.
   
   For Linux, Evolution is hardly my definition of an ideal client, but it annoys me far less than does Thunderbird.

10. Comment - Google Investing in Maxthon Browser?

    4.2 Beta 2 (Apr 11, 2007 - 5:00 PM)

    Yes, I've been using IETab sporadically for quite some time now, but I've kept Maxthon around because I've found a few instances in which IETab didn't work properly.