Just a shout out

Just a shout out to GOG.com, who sell DRM-free "Good Old Games" at good prices.

I have to say that this is an unsolicited "promo" for them.

I've been happy with the games I've bought from them. They sell DOS games (Like Duke Nukem 3D, Redneck Rampage), and Windows games, but I haven't really looked into other platforms. Whats really nice is that the DOS games are wrapped in DOSBox so they run under Windows. Yeah, I know you can do it yourself, but then you have to get the DOS game and the latest official patches and tweak DOSBox.

They also have Myst, Riven, Serious Sam, the earlier Fallout and Unreal games, along with a bunch of others, ready for download.

Blogging from my iPhone

My last blog posting to my alternate blog, Technofilez, was done from my iPhone. When I tried to repeat this posting to this blog (Techno Files), I ran into problems. Even though I have 3 blogging Apps on my iPhone, I just wasn't able to do this. I may have just tried two of them though, since I was a bit pressed for time. The biggest irony, was that I was unable to copy and paste into iBlogger, which is the Blogging App for the iPhone (and pricey too). When I started iBlogger up, it seemed to simply clear the iPhone clipboard!

No App Store for my Touch

I'm delaying upgrading my iPod Touch to use the Apple App store. Instead, several weeks back I ran a "jailbreak" on the Touch, and I've been loading it up with applications including an eBook Reader, File Manager, Unit Converter and Dictionary with thesaurus among many others, and all free.

Running on Automatic

No, I'm not referring to the Roomba (I still have some video to edit for that blog entry). This is something more serious.

I was researching scripting languages and started looking at Basic compilers and interpreters. The main reason I was looking at Basic is because the Basic programming language is the one I know best. Among many other trial and demo versions I downloaded was one called IBasic Professional. I ruled it out as it wasn't what I was looking for at that stage - a professional Basic compiler costing $75.

During my research I was surprised just how many Basic compilers and interpreters are available. See this List of Basic-like language compilers for Windows at mindteq. Some are free (thinBasic and XBLite), while others cost up to $400 or more (the multi-platform RealBasic)
For the difference between compilers and interpreters see compilers at Wikipedia). There is also an article on the Indiana University Knowledge Base.

Among the Basic compilers and interpreters, some products are actively supported and others are either abandoned or just no longer supported.

This brings me back to IBasic Professional. One way of checking if a development tool (or in fact, a wide range of software) is any good is to have a look at the User Forums. The IBasic Pro User Forum was not available but had the following cryptic message "Closed until further Notice. Read the message on CodingMonkeys.com to see why":





My curiosity piqued, I just had to look at CodingMonkeys.com, which turns out to be a user forum for an assortment of programming languages from Java to Delphi. I could not find out much information without first registering for the CodingMonkeys forums - something I would not normally bother with (you want me to register on your forums just to be able to read them without restrictions?), but I was curious.

After a few searches on the CodingMonkeys forums I found out two things:
1. The IBasic Pro forums had been hacked over six months ago
2. "IBasic is a dead product. The site is automated and will probably continue to run, as a ghost, for a long time come" (from the developer of IBasic Pro)

Whether IBasic Pro could still be purchased on the website I don't know - but I had been able to download the 15 day trial version.

If you go through the purchase process, it says:



Free updates (from who?), free priority technical support (from who?) and maybe they mean CodingMonkeys as their "active programming community"

I wouldn't recommend buying IBasic Pro from their website, since no-one is home. I have also seen some online software vendors selling IBasic Pro for around $45, but who wants an unsupported, abandoned compiler?

Vista - Just Say No

For now anyway.

According to ZDNet, "Dell brings back XP on home systems" - no surprise considering the problems customers have been having with software incompatibilities and "a lack of hardware drivers for Vista" as mentioned in this article "Dell Brings Back Windows XP as Option" in BetaNews.com.

From my point of view, if I bought a new Desktop which had Windows Vista installed, I would reformat it and install Windows XP Professional. Why? So my Palm handhelds could synchronize with it.

Even Pocket PCs and Smartphones running Microsoft's Windows Mobile Operating System cannot synchronize with Windows Vista. You can only hope they work with "Windows Mobile Manager", which replaces Microsoft ActiveSync.

This is just the tip of the incompatibility iceberg.

Up and Running

I'm up and running again on my main PC. It turned out not to be Partition Magic, as I got similar errors trying to resize the partition with BootItNG. So it must be the PCs configuration. I've had enough restores to last me for a while, so I won't be trying this again in a hurry.

Recovery Mode Again

Today I was hoping to finally blog about the end of my hunt for a cellphone. However, since I had backed up my primary PC to a working external hard drive (why "working"? - that's another story), I decided to try to resize the partitions again. This time I booted from the Partition Magic 8 CD, but it made no difference. After resizing the C partition, Partition Magic gave an error and Windows was unbootable. This time I restored from the original PC restore disks, and am now running "Restore my PC" from Norton Ghost, which will hopefully put it in the working state it was this morning.

These Partition Magic failures are really puzzling me. I have used the software successfully numerous times before. Since Symantec bought Powerquest - the developers of Partition Magic - in September 2003 they have not updated the software other than to rename it. So it could be their fault since I'm working on Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 which was released since then. But I have also had problems with running Partition Magic on my three year old Compaq Presario notebook, so it could be the Compaq.

Oh well, it is recovery mode again.

Still around

Yes, I'm still around, I don't have writer's block nor have I (gasp) abandoned this Blog.
I've just had some Critical crashing computer syndrome (my main PC this time) - more about that later...

Weird patch results

As mentioned yesterday, I applied Daylight Savings Patches to several handhelds.
Well, this morning I checked the results. First was my Tungsten T3, and I was initially dismayed - the screen was displaying the message "Please insert CD to continue with the installation". This was was fairly familiar to me as one of the screens displayed after the hard reset process (I've had more than my fair share of hard resets in the past month). Once I had verified that my programs and data were still there I relaxed a bit. How other Palm users would interpret this message I don't know (Apparently the Palm LifeDrive displays a similar message). Palm should have really tested this patch and advised users what to expect.
My wife's Palm Zire 72 only displayed the standard "Your clock has been adjusted for Daylight Savings Time" message. I had forgotten to turn my Treo 650 off, but it had not automatically updated its time from the wireless network. It only did so when I switched the phone off and on again.

DST Patching Away

It has been called the "Mini Y2K" (Year 2000) by some, but to me the Daylight Savings Time changes have resulted in more applying of patches than changing software code. Even at home today I spent a fair amount of time applying patches to various handheld computers. I drew the line at patching my Dell Axim with its Windows Mobile Operating System though. Sure, Microsoft had a patch for it, but to apply the patch I would have to upgrade the ActiveSync to version 4.5 on my Desktop PC (ActiveSync being the utility which handles synchronizing data between the Desktop PC and the Pocket PC).

Typical for Microsoft, as the automatic Daylight Savings Patch for Windows PCs only works on Windows XP Service Pack 2 and above - it will patch run Windows XP Service Pack 1 if run manually. If you have Windows 98 or Windows 2000 then a manual patch is required, unless you downloaded one of the third-party patches.

Back to Palm, their patch didn't work on my old Treo 600 (which they said should be patched), giving an obscure "Cannot update CityTime database" message - guess they never tested it. I got two emails today, one from Palm, and another from Verizon Wireless, both about patching my Treo 650. I didn't, relying on the network to update my Treo's time.

Top 5+ List of 2006

Okay, I know it is already 2007, and I should be looking forward, but:

At the end of 2005 and 2004 I wrote a list of the Top 10 tech products and have been thinking hard about whether to do one for 2006 or to do something different. The problem is that I've previously limited this list to products I've actually used or own, and had to limit (or pad) my list to ten items.

So here is my slightly different top 5+ list for 2006 (I still may repeat tech gadgets from previous years if they - or their updated versions - still are worthy of mention):

iPod Nano second generation - the 2nd generation improves on the original with a less scratch-prone anodized aluminum finish, brighter screen and double the capacity.

Creative Zen Vision:M - this MP3 Player with video capability outclasses the iPod Video with a 262,144 color screen and support for multiple video formats.

Sony PSP (PlayStation Portable) - there are even more games available now and some of the more recent ones have incredible graphics. Sony also continues to release firmware updates which add more and more features. Also, worldwide sales of the Sony PSP are more than Microsoft's Xbox 360.

Ubuntu Linux - Maybe I'm biased towards a product from a fellow (ex-)South African, but this free Linux distribution from Mark Shuttleworth's company is competing right up there with commercial Linux distributions. Although my main Operating System is Windows XP, I like to have a Linux distribution installed and handy. Right now Ubuntu Linux 6.06 LTS is it.

Mozilla Firefox browser - still my browser of choice. I'm slowly upgrading to version 2.0 (one machine at a time), while Mozilla still releases updates to version 1.5.x. Even with tabbed browsing, Internet Explorer 7 doesn't come close.

Honorable Mentions

Nintendo Wii - the gaming console Sony hoped the Sony Playstation 3 would be. The Wii makes gaming accessible to non-gamers, and is attractive as a second gaming console to gamers.

Giveaway of the Day website - I don't know how long this will still be around for, but it is a great idea. Mainly shareware software, the programs are available for download and free registration for one day. I've found some useful programs there. The catch - the software can only be registered in the 24 hour period, cannot be upgraded and doesn't have technical support.

VMWare Player and Server Even though Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 is now free, VMware still outclasses it with more powerful features

Dishonourable Mention
Motorola RAZR V3 cellphone - popular but flawed - the screen is impossible to read in daylight. If that and a slippery keypad is acceptable this isn't a bad phone.

Essential Software

The Internet can be a wild place. According to statistics, an unprotected (Windows based) computer only needs to be connected to the internet for 12 minutes before getting infected. Also, a PC user probably wouldn't even know that their machine has been compromised. So, with some justifiable paranoia, I try to protect my computers with Internet Security software. I tend to go for the "Internet Security Suites", which can be frustrating at times. These software Suites usually include most of the security software components you need, like an antivirus, a firewall, anti-spam (sometimes more trouble than it is worth) and more recently anti-spyware.

Of course it is possible to put together your own "best of breed" Internet Security Suite from commercial or free software. I often go this route with either an new PC which already has some protection (usually a trial of an antivirus and a firewall) or an older one which is not used much. The main problem with this is that the software components from different vendors can cause conflicts and false alarms.

I've had Webroot Spysweeper raising alarms because a Norton component was trying to modify the "Hosts" file - I figured that I trusted the Norton utility although it was doing something it shouldn't. Other conflicts could possibly cause system crashes.

So far I've tried Norton Internet Security Suite (twice), McAfee Internet Security Suite (once, which was one too many), System Suite Professional (The utilities seem better than the Antivirus an Firewall, but it hasn't been really problematic) and finally ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite which is top-rated by PC Magazine. PC World recommends Norton Internet Security Suite, but I've found it to be bloated an somewhat sluggish. The background virus scan also slowed computers down, although it may have been improved in later versions.

Although ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite generates a lot of popups. I've basically standardized on it at home - having bought copies for 3 of my machines. It has a 30-day trial version, which is well worth trying if you want to see what the full suite is all about. After the trial period it simply runs as the free ZoneAlarm Firewall.