Favorite Files

1. Adium X
2. eMule
3. phpMyAdmin
4. Skype for Linux
5. WinMX

Recent Posts

1. 
   Review - Mozilla Thunderbird for Windows

   0.2 (Sep 4, 2003)

   In mid-june I've switched from Mozilla Mail to Mozilla Thunderbird. Though a child of the same parents Thunderbird was fast and beautiful. It has the most needed features and is as stable as the rest of the Mozilla branded products.

2. 
   Review - Miranda IM

   0.3 (Jun 24, 2003)

   Used Trillian, switched to Miranda when 0.21 was released - now when 0.3 is out Miranda trully rulez the Messenging world on Windows machines.. the only disadvantage is that Linux does not have anything even close to functionality of Miranda...

3. 
   Review - MusicMatch Jukebox

   8.00.0084 (May 14, 2003)

   My Licence Key which supposed to be valid "for all future versions" is no longer accepted in this beta :( Awful... and I have removed my 7.5 copy :( can anyone suggest location for 7.5?

4. 
   Review - MusicMatch Jukebox

   8.00.0070 Beta (Apr 26, 2003)

   Hm... Very good support for movie files :), however it will play only audio part of those files :), not exactly what I expect from my VIDEO files. :(
   Also can you explain me why some player would even need to reboot my system after installation? Even more complex program - Windows Media Player 9 does not require this.
   Next I have dual XEON system with HyperThreading: total of 4 virtual CPUs... NONE, NONE of media player ever require anytyhing more than 1% of total power even when I activate some filters or visualisations, at the same time MMJB wants 3% always jumping up from time to time.
   Now, get Nero and start recording CDR (plz record some good gold CDR which is expensive) and somewhere in the middle of the process start MMJB... enjoy the show and frustration with lost good quality disk.
   May be all these features reserved only to the users of their Plus version as a bonus (I use Plus version as I'm registered user), but I don't really care I have this player for only one purpose nowdays - playback of MP3 Pro files since I don't want to use some lousy decoder that Fraunhoffer uses to decode MP3 pro and MP3 files in Winamp.
   As I told before execept these couple of new codecs, new theme and file tagger (I forgot to mention last time) nothing has changed since version 5.0. :( (I use MMJB since about version 3.0 and for a year it was even my default player)

5. 
   Review - MusicMatch Jukebox

   8.00.0067 Beta (Apr 26, 2003)

   I give only 1 star... reason? This program didn't change a single bit since release 6.0, if I were the developer I would name current version 6.3 not 8.0. Still buggy, still slower than hell even on fastest machines, still takes tons of space. Try starting this program when you burn your CD and you will get a coaster since for some unknown reason it will totally disrupt all cd-rom activities. Still no gapless playback of even normal audio cds, still unusable media collection management (all Winamp 2.91, WMP9, Media Center got it right except MMJB). Still no support for any codec other than MP3/WMA/WAV. Still while running it may cause even super stable WinXP to BSOD after some time.
   
   After the death of one of the developers a couple of years ago basically no changes were done, they oly added WMA and MP3 Pro support and created their own radio. Ha... who cares? shoutcast.com is better anyhow with tons of stations to explore.

6. Comment - Canada investigates P2P blocking, finds it just about everywhere

   8.00.0067 Beta (Jan 22, 2009 - 8:07 AM)

   It is Canada, with no anti-monopoly laws, companies like Rogers, Bell, etc can do whatever they want. Like the switch from "unlimited" internet to 60Gb limit on their "High Speed" offerings. Since there is no competition in local markets (where there is always a single service provider) there is no way to get past this limit unless you want to pay much more for 100Gb limit with a bit higher download speed.
   CRTC is a liberal, protective organization formed (and I bet controlled) by the telco monsters. Because of CRTC we don't have any online video rentals (except Apple TV and Bell's own expensive service). We don't have Skype-In service with local numbers. We have to pay "basic cable" fee for some sh*tty amateur video channels created by Rogers, etc... We don't have any foreign cellular network providers... everything related to tele-communication in Canada is anti-competitive and does not force any CUSTOMER protection, only protection for big industry players.

7. Comment - Microsoft Adds 26 Terabytes to Virtual Earth

   8.00.0067 Beta (Jul 6, 2007 - 2:05 PM)

   For Toronto they have bought the same images as Google already has. But, for Greater Toronto Area they still don't have high resolution details.
   Not good for us Torontonians - will not visit VE before I read about new update. And even then, Google Maps will probably be already 1 step ahead.

8. Comment - AOL Replaces IE with Netscape in New Beta

   8.00.0067 Beta (Mar 16, 2002 - 11:17 PM)

   I think Gecko is a briliant engine, the only thing Mozilla developers made wrong (this is why Mozilla/Netscape is slow) is UI based on XUL. Look at how fast KMeleon and it is still uses Gecko engine. KMeleon sucks without since it is a bare bones browser with no options or controls, but imagine something like Netcaptor or what is better MyIE using the Gecko engine. I wish I get such thing here.
   And I really like how Gecko renders pages designed by the rules - very fast and accurate: you always know what to expect. So one wish is that if AOL wants to make a good impression on the users is stop using s***ty XUL interface and write something is MFC instead.

9. Comment - AOL Looking to Acquire Red Hat

   8.00.0067 Beta (Jan 20, 2002 - 1:48 AM)

   Who killed Netscape? I don't think they did, they actually helped to create fantastic engine that can power not only Netscape but other browsers and apps on many different platforms! Netscape would be a dead company if they were not bought. Who needs crappy browser from 1997? Honestly, I used from July 4th, 1997 to Sep 17th, 1997. The day when IE4 was released, after that release I didn't use Netscape a single time. And many others didn't do this either. So Netscape killed themselves by not producing new versions soon after main release. All they wanted was to sue Microsoft.
   
   Linux needs investments, and AOL has money, this combination may be very good. AFAIK, even now RH has closed source software, and they would do even w/o AOL.

10. Comment - AOL Looking to Acquire Red Hat

    8.00.0067 Beta (Jan 19, 2002 - 1:34 PM)

    I actually don't like AOL, for making 30M users suffer using their client, and not knowing what the real Internet is.
    
    But where would ICQ be now if AOL didn't buy it, to keep 30-40M active users chatting you need servers and quite a lot of bandwidth that costs money. So all the "bloat" that goes with ICQ can be switched off completely? So my ICQ is clean of the "phones", SMSs, cards, etc. And it is a light small program with only buttons showed that I really need. Ads are needed to make us have this program, or anyone prefer paying month fee for ICQ?
    
    Now Netscape, Netscape at the time AOL bought them was absolute crap (and version 4 still is), but they allowed open source community to developed a much better broswer Mozilla (Netscape 6.x) and what's more important sponsored main developers, in order for us now to have good browser for both Windows and Linux. And what a beautiful engine powers Galeon and K-Meleon...
    
    Finally to RedHat, RedHat is not desktop OS, it server OS, and I can see how it can finish the line of server products that AOL now offers together with SUN. Since all the sources are GPLed, all new improvements will be available to everyone else, including Mandrake, etc. At the same time current developers will be able to keep their jobs in this crazy market environment, when you have job today and none tomorrow.
    
    I would not be afraid of this acquisition, it will probably make more good than bad, AOL now has a good stake in RH shares and RH is still has ISO images downloadable. ICQ still allows other clients to use the network (both under Windows and other OS). However, IMHO, RedHat is lousy distro, SUSE is a much better choice. Need server? Turbolinux, Debian, etc. there are tons of other distros.