Favorite Files

1. avast! Free Antivirus
2. FLAC for Windows
3. Koepi's XviD Codec
4. Microsoft Security Essentials (32-bit)
5. Nero
6. OpenOffice.org for Windows
7. Opera for Windows
8. Pidgin for Windows
9. Virtual CloneDrive
10. VirtualBox
11. 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 - One of 75 new Microsoft stores is coming to a mall near you

   0.9.1 Beta (Jul 15, 2011 - 3:05 AM)

   I live in Orange County so I have been to both their Costa Mesa and Mission Viejo stores. They sell pretty much what you think. Xbox stuff, Laptops and desktops, Window software, computer peripherals, and Windows Phones. Their customer experience is pretty much like the Apple store. They have their own version of the 'genius bar.' They have training sessions for customers.
   
   There are a couple reasons I think many people would prefer to shop at a Microsoft Store rather than a Best Buy. First the only things installed on all the computers they sell are Windows 7, Microsoft Security Essentials, and the Windows Live pack. No random trials or other BS installed that you don't want. If you buy a computer from them you can pretty start using it out the box without wasting time reinstalling windows or trying to uninstall all the extra crap. I also think that their selection on laptops is a bit better.
   
   There sales staff is much better trained than Best Buy. I know that not really saying much considering how inept the typical BBY employee is but I think the average person who doesn't already know what they want will be more likely to get their question answered at a Microsoft Store than Best Buy. I don't have any personal experience with their technical staff but everybody I have talked to that has used them was happier with their MS store experience vs BBY.

7. Comment - IE10: Don't cry for me, Windows Vista

   0.9.1 Beta (Apr 15, 2011 - 6:21 PM)

   The primary reason I think Microsoft is dropping support is that market share for Vista hasn't fallen so quickly that by the time IE10 is gold there won't be enough users to justify the time. In another year market share for Vista will probably be down to ~5-6% which is low enough to where many developers start to question whether it is still worth supporting. Especially given that IE users are usually slow to upgrade I would there would be very few people that would be using Vista that would be irked.

8. Comment - Amazon lowers Kindle's price in exchange for advertisements

   0.9.1 Beta (Apr 11, 2011 - 11:25 PM)

   I don't think $25 isn't enough of a price break for it to be worthwhile. I have a feeling that this won't last very long unless Amazon is willing to give a larger price break for watching advertisements.

9. Comment - Yawn, Android beats iPhone and BlackBerry again

   0.9.1 Beta (Mar 4, 2011 - 11:35 AM)

   You might want to check a few of your numbers there. For example on app totals 350K - 120K is a 230K increase not 330K. By your own numbers the number of Android app was 6.5 times greater than the previous year whereas iOS was only ~3 times greater than the previous year. I am at a loss how you figure the number of iOS apps is growing 3 times faster.
   
   I would also point at that iOS has plenty of junk apps too. How many fart apps or other useless app do you really need? Many of the top iOS apps are available on Android as well. While Apple got an early start on applications it seems like whatever advantage they had is disappearing. I don't think you are going to be seeing too many iOS exclusive in the future, especially with how Apple has been treating developers .
   
   I don't think anybody but the manufacturer's shareholder care about the percentage of profit margins. So long as the companies are making money and they keep making selling Android handset and tablets Google wins.

10. Comment - 5 must-try Windows email applications

    0.9.1 Beta (Feb 25, 2011 - 3:15 PM)

    To be fair to Thunderbird most email clients have trouble importing mail and settings from Outlook. That is more of a reflection of the fact that Microsoft hasn't adequately documented their PST format.