Favorite Files

1. FLAC for Windows
2. Koepi's XviD Codec
3. Nero
4. OpenOffice.org for Windows
5. Opera for Windows
6. Pidgin for Windows
7. Virtual CloneDrive
8. VirtualBox
9. Win32Pad

Recent Posts

1. 
   Review - Mozilla Fennec for Windows

   1.0 Alpha 1 (Oct 21, 2008)

   I think it definitely better than any of the browser currently available on Windows Mobile. It's a definitely a big improvement over what Minimo was. It seems to render standard html very similarly to the desktop version of firefox. Once a Windows Mobile version is available I am sure it will be popular on that platform. As I am using the Windows desktop version of Fennec to test this I can't really comment on what the performance would be like on the Nokia N810, the only mobile device this currently works on.
   
   This is definitely still pretty rough though. I was able to go to YouTube but I only seem to get the audio from the Flash animations but not the video. I can log into my Gmail account but I seem to have issues scrolling down the page. Occasionally the browser's address bar will cut off the top of the page. I can get to Google Maps and I even get it to pull up a map of my home but navigating the map was fairly difficult. Some pieces of the directions got cut off of the page. You can't navigate the map and read directions at the same time. I think that may be more of a limitation of the resolution of the device though,800x480, than the browser. Even if it rendered the page perfectly I think that would be tough.
   
   It has the look of any other N810 application but I haven't found any particular advantage this has over the Webkit based web browser that is included with the N810.

2. 
   Review - Koepi's XviD Codec

   1.0.1 Build 05062004 (Jun 8, 2004)

   I first downloaded this codec to watch some episodes of "the o.c." and I have found that in practice that this codec like Divx is capable of some decent quality video. Obviously the quality of an individual file is going to be limited by the quality of the source material but I have found that the codec is as capable of very good quality picture and frame rates at full screen with my 700 mhz Athlon and it's four year old video card.

3. 
   Review - ZoneAlarm Free

   5.0.590.015 (May 25, 2004)

   Fairly simple and foolproof. After installation I checked my machine at Steve Gibson's site and his port scan showed that none of the lower level ports responded. I hadn't had any problems with Zonealarm yet. This program seems to try to go beyond simply being a firewall in that it can monitor whether you hosts file is being tampered with, alert you to the fact that your antivirus software isn't current, and it can block users from opening executable code in email. The mail protection scheme doesn't seem terribly useful since you really shouldn't have a client that opens such files anyway but that setting can be turned off it desired.
   
   For someone who just wants something that works but doesn't take a lot of configuration will find this product is pretty good. People looking to fine tune their firewall will be disappointed to find that there isn't very many user definable settings.

4. 
   Review - Opera for Windows

   6.0 Final (Nov 29, 2001)

   I have used the last several versions of Opera and I must say that Opera 6 is quite a bit of an improvement over previous versions. The new UI looks a lot better than old one. By default the chrome includes a lot of bars that seem unneccesary. Fortunately one can get the chrome down to whatever you use. The addition of the option of using an SDI interface makes the learning curve from other browser much smaller.
   
   I haven't been able to discern much of a difference in speed or rendering. For the most part it seems like the primary goal of this release was to do a long overdue overhaul of the UI. It seems like most of the changes that have been made so that one could make the browser look more like Netscape or Internet Explorer. There were a few quirks though. The page loading bar covered the down button while pages were loading.

5. 
   Review - Mozilla for Windows

   0.9.1 Beta (Jun 8, 2001)

   I have only been using Mozilla since .9 so I am pretty new to Mozilla. So far I have been pretty impressed with .9.1. A few minor bugs have popped up in some recently builds though. On a couple pages borders that worked on .9 are now absent in .9.1. I have also had some issues with the bookmarks as well. I haven't tried the turbo mode yet but without it mozilla takes about 10 seconds to startup on my athlon 700.
   
   On the good side however, memory usage seems to be pretty getting to be pretty competitive with internet explorer. On startup Mozilla is only using about 14mb on my machine. Most pages seem to render well but their are a few exceptions but they seem to be pretty rare which is pretty impressive considering how many web pages seemed to be built assuming that end users would only use IE.
   
   All in All I say it is good enough to call beta but there are still a lot of minor bugs and missing features that need to be finished before 1.0. Once some of the minor quirks are fixed I think mozilla will finaly be ready for large scale use.

6. Comment - Windows 7: Vista without the crap

   0.9.1 Beta (Oct 22, 2009 - 1:39 PM)

   Only time will tell how well Microsoft provides 'extended support' for XP. In the past MS only fixed what it deemed to be serious security issues for 'extended support' products. I know Windows 98 already had known security issues that even Microsoft deemed 'critical' that were reported before 'extended support' ended that were never fixed.
   
   In addition many third party developers may drop support for XP years before MS does if enough user give up on XP.

7. Comment - The Crook in the Nook: Barnes & Noble ebooks are overpriced compared to Amazon

   0.9.1 Beta (Oct 22, 2009 - 12:35 PM)

   The Kindle and the Nook don't use the same wireless network. The Kindle uses Sprint and the Nook is going to use AT&T. Since Sprint has better 3G data coverage then AT&T that would be anohter disadvantage for the Nook.

8. Comment - Google vs. Yahoo vs. Bing on 'deep linking:' Does it make any difference?

   0.9.1 Beta (Oct 2, 2009 - 2:00 PM)

   I am skeptical how helpful this would be. If the anchor text doesn't appear anywhere else in the text of the document how likely is that page going to be relevant to my search.

9. Comment - Microsoft credits/blames user feedback for latest Home Server delay

   0.9.1 Beta (Oct 2, 2009 - 1:55 PM)

   Agreed. I haven't had any home users ask me anything about WHS. Most brick and mortar retailers don't really have a good display to explain to consumers why they would want a Windows Home Server assuming they sell any of the WHS units at all. I bet most retail salespeople would have a hard time selling it.

10. Comment - Q: How essential is Microsoft Security Essentials? A: Does your door have a lock?

    0.9.1 Beta (Sep 30, 2009 - 12:47 AM)

    If the scanning engine is anything like what they used with OneCare I don't think that most existing AV vendors have much to worry about. OneCare generally didn't do very well on some of the tests that were done by third party tests like the ones done by AV Comparatives.