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Microsoft has recently made Virtual PC 2004 a free download; we’ve taken advantage of that by releasing a VPC virtual machine image containing a pre-activated Windows XP SP2, IE6 and the IE7 Readiness Toolkit to help facilitate your testing and development. Link: http://.../ie6-and-ie7-running-on-a-single-machine.aspxDirect link to the download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...
A little too lazy today to blog about each one in its own post so here they are; Fanpop: What are you a fan of? What are others posting about it? See it here. Ugenie: Attempts to find the lowest possible price for a given product. Not too sure about this one. Weebly: Create your own AJX site. Be the next Gmail, Digg or whatever floats your boat.
Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows: Name says it all.
Thats the premise of 41414.com. Basically you text message, at some rate, your bid and get entered into a drawing for the prize. Basically your just paying some low fee to enter a contest to win a great prize. Do they actually give out the prize? Yes. Do they make money on every giveaway? Of course. Link: http://www.41414.com/
 Somthing just doesn't seem right about this offer to receive a fully licensed version of Vista and Office 2007 from Microsoft. Watch out with this one and before you enter ANY information search around on Google and see what people have to say. Link to the offer: http://www.powertogether.com/#Whois on the domain: http://whois.domaintools.com/powertogether.comCould it actually be for real: http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=261550#261550Seems it just may be. Labels: microsoft, office, windows
 Its seems that AllofMP3 may be on the way out. Never really understood how this russian based MP3 site was to stay operational for long considering the are selling copyrighted music at ridiculously low prices (like $2.00 per CD). So get'em while you can as its may be closing its doors very soon. Read on: http://.../Russia_Poised_to_Shutter_AllofMP3/1164748997Labels: multimedia
Microsoft Windows PowerShell command line shell and scripting language helps IT Professionals achieve greater productivity. Using a new admin-focused scripting language, more than 130 standard command line tools, and consistent syntax and utilities, Windows PowerShell allows IT Professionals to more easily control system administration and accelerate automation. Link: http://.../powershell/default.mspxLabels: windows
10% off Electronics and Accessories: NV5XPFNGBH5?0 (first come, first serve)
This KB article show How to perform an in-place upgrade (reinstallation) of Windows XP. It reinstalls Windows XP to the same folder. You may want to perform an in-place upgrade if your installation of Windows XP must be repaired. Link: http://.../default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341&Product=winxpLabels: windows
It involves typing random characters between successive characters of the password, and changing focus to and from the password field using the mouse. Instead of the password snoopy2 the keylogger now gets: hotmail.comspqmlainsdgsosdgfsodgfdpuouuyhdg2 Here a total of 26 random characters have been inserted among the 7 characters of the actual password. In general a total of n extra characters in a length k password will yield so many possible passwords that attack is infeasible (recall the password that can only be tested by attempting login). Full article is outlining this as a method to safely login from a computer at an internet cafe. Read the full article here (pdf): http://cups.cs.cmu.edu/.../herley-poster_abstract.pdf
Exclusive Computeractive Download Offer - Expires December 13, 2006
We’re giving you the full commercial version of Ashampoo Burning Studio 2007, a fully featured program for creating audio and data CDs and DVDs. Link: http://www.computeractive.co.uk/burningstudio/indexDo what you will with it.
I thought I had mentioned this site before but in case I didn't here is one huge list of the free software offered from Microsoft. There is some really interesting finds on this site and numerous applications that I had never heard of. Link: http://.../cns!70F64BC910C9F7F3!1231.entry Labels: microsoft
Seems like the only time I have for games these days are these quick little Flash games. I came across two games that are both well done. Gold Miner Joe (Scored 25250): http://www.donutgames.com/play/gold_miner_joe/Funny Faces (made it to level 8 with a score of 70050): http://www.donutgames.com/play/funny_faces/How did you do?
NewEgg is holding a giveaway where they are giving away two Wii's a day for 22 days. Keep in mind that by giving them your email address that you are signing up for their weekly newsletter. Link: http://.../sweepstakes45/Land47.html
Not only has Quick Thumbnail made it to Download Squad and Shell City but it has just been listed on Lifehacker. All this exposure gets me wanting to start working on the next version. I like how someone commented on the cheesy web 2.0 logo I put on the site. It was done as a kinda of a joke that stuck. Labels: veign
 Labels: holiday
XML Notepad 2007 provides a simple intuitive user interface for browsing and editing XML documents. OverviewHandy features include:
- Tree View synchronized with Node Text View for quick editing of node names and values.
- Incremental search (Ctrl+I) in both tree and text views, so as you type it navigates to matching nodes.
- Cut/copy/paste with full namespace support.
- Drag/drop support for easy manipulation of the tree, even across different instances of XML Notepad and from the file system.
- Infinite undo/redo for all edit operations.
- In place popup multi-line editing of large text node values.
- Configurable fonts and colors via the options dialog.
- Full find/replace dialog with support for regex and XPath.
- Good performance on large XML documents, loading a 3mb document in about one second.
- Instant XML schema validation while you edit with errors and warnings shown in the task list window.
- Intellisense based on expected elements and attributes and enumerated simple type values.
- Support for custom editors for date, dateTime and time datatypes and other types like color.
- Handy nudge tool bar buttons for quick movement of nodes up and down the tree.
- Inplace HTML viewer for processing xml-stylesheet processing instructions.
- Built-in XML Diff tool.
New features included in this version:
- Added keyboard accelerators for find again (F3) and reverse find (SHIFT+F3).
- Added support for loading IXmlBuilder and IXmlEditor implementations from different assemblies using new vs:assembly attribute.
- Made source code localizable by moving all error messages and dialog strings to .resx files.
- Added a default XSL transform.
- New icons, a play on the Vista "Notepad" icons.
Bug Fixes included in this version: - Fixed install on Windows Vista machines using Windows Installer XML 3.0.
- Performance of expand node when validating.
- Fixed bug where changed schemas and transforms were not being re-loaded.
- Fixed spurious warnings about file being changed on disk.
- Fixed handling of very long text nodes.
- Fixed round trip of DTD content in tags.
- Fixed validation of elements with xsi:type attributes.
- Scroll bar not updating when node expanded/collapsed in some cases.
- Tree view needs horizontal scrollbar.
- When XML Notepad is minimized and file changes on disk, the file reload prompt is confusing. Notepad should be restored first.
- XSL output window should pick up new xsl-transform based on input document.
- Fixed unhandled exception when closing a group of XML notepad windows.
- Added registration of "Edit" action for .xml file extension.
- Move source code to CodePlex.
Link: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...
I just received 50+ spam emails from kuhens@msn.comI hope an email harvesting spider picks this up: kuhens@msn.com I hope this post gets them the attention they deserve.
In a very cool way Flickr is sharing the camera information of its users through a new Camera Finder page they have put up. Not only interesting but a great way to know your getting a decent camera (after reading reviews on Amazon of course). How do they do it? They are probably reading the Exif data that is embedded in every Jpg image taken from a digital camera. This data identifies things such as camera used (duh!), date/time, was the flashed used, focal length, image compression, and much more. Also, thumbnails of the original image can sometimes be found in cropped JPG images (remember the TechTV girl Cat Swchartz incident), so watch out. This isn't in the Exif data but show how other information can be stored within. Camer Finder: http://www.flickr.com/cameras/
 After many years it appears that Cerulean Studios is updating their very popular IM application called Trillian with a new version code named Trillian Astra. If you don't know about Trillian its basically an IM client thats supports all the major IM's in one interface and an application I have used for many years. I have waited a long time for the elusive v4.0 of Trillian and it appears the future looks bright. Link: http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/ap/
I have finally removed PHP Designer and am running PHPEdit full time as my PHP IDE. That says a lot since from an IDE standpoint I'm pretty hard to please. Try it and let me know what you think. Link: http://www.waterproof.fr
What do you think of her avatar? http://...&traveler=0&blog=bilo (Flash avatar on the left)
 One more post on quickly setting up a WAMP development platform. I figured I would post another option to my original post on this subject. Current Xampp includes all this: - Apache 2.2.3
- MySQL 5.0.24a
- PHP 5.1.6 & PHP 4.4.4
- phpMyAdmin 2.9.0.1
- FileZilla FTP Server 0.9.18
- OpenSSL 0.9.8d
Just download and install. How much easier could it get?
Ten Spammers Create 80 Percent Of Spam"Email users in North America and Europe who find themselves plagued with the incessant bombardment of spam can blame ten spammers singled out by junk mail fighter Spamhaus for the unwanted messages."The top 10 spammers list: http://www.spamhaus.org/statistics/spammers.lassoLink: http://.../TenSpammersCreate80PercentOfSpam.html
 I have been looking for a long time for a PHP IDE to help in some of the more complex aspects of PHP development where working in a text editor is just not efficient. I tried PHP Designer 2007 but there where some bugs that made it too annoying to work in so I continued to test some others all along working inside of my favorite text editor, emEditor. Then I came across PHPEdit and was very impressed with the interface and functionality. Once I got the editor colors setup and set the font to Consolas I was ready to really start hammering on it. Pros: - The IDE is very powerful and customizable to fit my likes
- Very stable. No crashes or bugs that I have come across
- There is just too much to list here. This application is feature rich without pushing too much in front of the user. You see what you need and the rest is in the background when you need it.
Cons:- Some of the auto-complete options I find annoying. Need to find out where this is controlled
- At times the IDE layout seems to change or revert back when starting the application. I think I just need to save an IDE configuration I can recall
- The contextual help is hard to use since it only has a scrolling window and never enough space to use it along side an open document. This feature is really nice to have and something I just need to figure out how to use effeciently. Also, the more you write code the less you will need this active.
- Really needs an active highlighter for brackets on control statements - Kinda like how PHP Designer does it (they call it Highlight Matching Brace/Brackets).
Even though I list some cons there really isn't anything wrong with this application (maybe the price) so, if you are doing PHP or any web dev work check it out. Link: http://www.waterproof.fr/products/PHPEdit/Labels: software
A white horse goes into a pub and orders a drink. The publican says, “Hey! We have a drink named after you!” The horse says, “What, Eric?” -- An Alsatian (German shepherd) went to a telegram office, took out a blank form and wrote: “Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof.” The clerk examined the paper and politely told the dog: “There are only nine words here. You could send another Woof for the same price.” “But,” the dog replied, “that would make no sense at all.” -- A couple of New Jersey hunters are out in the woods when one of them falls to the ground. He doesn’t seem to be breathing, his eyes are rolled back in his head. The other guy whips out his cellphone and calls 911. He gasps to the operator, “My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator, in a calm soothing voice says, “Just take it easy. I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence, then a shot is heard. The guy’s voice comes back on the line. He says, “OK, now what?” -- Two weasels are sitting on a bar stool. One starts to insult the other one. He screams, ‘I slept with your mother!’ The bar gets quiet as everyone listens to see what the other weasel will do. The first again yells, ‘I SLEPT WITH YOUR MOTHER!’ The other says: ‘Go home dad, you’re drunk.’ -- This is my favorite:A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says: “That’s the ugliest baby that I’ve ever seen.” The woman goes to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her: “That driver just insulted me!” The man says: “You go right up there and tell him off – go ahead, I’ll hold your monkey for you.” Link for some of the jokes: http://www.peak.org/~jeremy/dictionary/chapters/LaughLab.php
Black Friday Ads from most of the major retailers around. So, if you're one of the crazy people that venture out on the Friday after Thanksgiving then get a jump on the ads and plan you day early. Good luck and godspeed. None for me thanx Link: http://bfads.net/adscans/
- A post about a great PHP IDE - All the black friday ads one can stomach - The easiest way to setup a WAMP development environment
Damn, Damn, Damn. I am such an idiot and owe a big apology to Blogger Beta. It appears that the mistake was on my end and not theirs. What happened was after the move I had setup a test account on Blogger Beta under the same user, using a different login credential. The one I used had only a few posts and not my full 1200 posts. Since I stored the login I never noticed and thought everything was gone. I'm big enough to admit I made a mistake.
Veign's blog will be stagnent for a couple of days as I attempt to either move my blog to Wordpress or get Blogger to fix the major f*uckup that they did. Blogger removed all my posts from their system which means I couldn't edit any existing posts or create any new posts (through their system). Of course they have not responded to emails and are just leaving my blog broke. I am so p*ssed abou this as I have worked so hard building this blog and then poof, 1200 posts gone. At least I have the backup and had been publishing on my server so I still have the information. Oh well, time to move on
Add this line to the style sheet driving your blogger (beta) blog; #navbar-iframe { height: 0px; visibility: hidden; display: none;}Labels: development
 3d Traceroute has an interesting twist on the standard trace tools by providing a 3d graph type look to the results. The problem is the application is so annoying to use that I just can't get deep enough in to do any real testing. Why is it annoying? The sounds. The developer has include a bunch of audio alarms, sounds at startup, and noises when you perform certain things. Where Microsoft took 18 months to develop the sounds of Win Vista to make sure they got it right, this developer probably chose these sounds at 2am after an all night binge. Is it a good application? Not sure and I will never know. Link: http://www.d3tr.de/Labels: software
I knew I shouldn't have upgraded but I did. The new Blogger beta doesn't have a Blogthis type tool to work from within Firefox where I can just right click and quickly throw up a post. Plus Blogger is forcing me to type a word verification for every posts since it thinks I'm a spammer - what a joke.
This is a very cool video (really just audio) that displays the sounds of Win Vista as compared to WinXP. The sounds are much softer and in some cases I think a bit too soft. Link: http://.../20061110/vista-sounds-compare/Or are these the actual sounds: http://.../enjoy-the-windows-vista-sounds/Labels: multimedia, vista
The conversion has been completed and everything seem pretty transparent. Will see over the next few days if anything was affected.
I decided to just go ahead and convert to the new Blogger Beta. Very shortly, after making a full backup, I will be pressing the convert button and seeing what happens. Good or bad there is no turning back so if you see some hiccups with this blog bear with me.
Amazon To Sell Xbox 360 for $100?: "If you are thinking of buying an Xbox 360 in the next few days, don’t. We’ve gotten information that Amazon may be putting the $300 Xbox 360 bundle on sale for $100 in the next week or so as a promotional move for the holiday season." Not sure I believe it but here it is anyways.
Draw Function GraphsNothing really to say except check it out.
I have installed Firefox 2 on a test system and noticed a cool thread over on DonationCoder talking about Firefox 2 hints and tips. A couple: - Ever closed a TAB only to realise you wish you hadn't? Try Ctrl + Shift + T and you can step back through closed tabs and they will be reopened in new tabs.
- Firefox 2.0 default putting the close icons on every tab. I prefer instead just one single red X icon, on the right. Just set browser.tabs.closeButtons = 3 to have it this way.
Read the full postLabels: firefox, help
Mirosoft Releases 'PhotoSynth' 3D Tool: "Microsoft on Thursday released a technology preview of an application it previewed in July, which is capable of taking hundreds of photographs and building a three-dimensional model in which users can 'fly' through like a virtual world." If you haven't seen or heard about this then you really need to check it out.
nexImage :: The ultimate online imaging solution: "nexImage is a freely configurable image processing software that integrates current image processing tools directly in your web application without the need for plugins, ActiveX or a Java VM." Damn, that's expensive. I tried the demo and was mildly impressed. Its not the kinda of interface that makes you say Wow!.  Instead it feels like you've stepped in a way back machine to some Win3.11 world. The usage is painfully slow and honestly its not worth the $1,250 price tag for the light version. That's right, over a grand for the light version. They won't even list the Pro or Enterprise prices. Better off grabbing a copy of Paint.NET (its free) or Photoshop. And for simple image resizing use the free service over at Quick Thumbnail (new things coming at that site)
Google Launches AdWords Diagnostic Tool With Magnifying Glass: "The Ads Diagnostic Tool can identify why a particular ad or group of ads may not be showing. In those cases where an ad is not shown, this tool provides recommended steps to help you get your ads up and running."
Everywhere I look on Blogger they are pushing me to upgrade to the new, Beta version. It offers more features and improvements over the version that I am currently using. I just don't know if I am ready to take the chance since they clearly state that good or bad, you could never go back. So, if at some point over this weekend you see the blog down you know why. Hopefully this process will go smoothly but with my luck I will be up late this weekend trying to recover. Fingers and toes crossed. Do you like the template used in this Blog?
 Boy did I miss the boat with this post. I had bookmarked Zamzar a while back but never got around to blogging about it. So here it is. I think Zamzar deserves a bit more exposure since its a pretty useful site. Zamzar is a file conversion site. From documents to images to multimedia files it can handle it. In case you need a tool to resize image then be sure and drop by Quick Thumbnail as it handles this with ease. Link: http://www.zamzar.com/
Process Monitor v1.0: "Process Monitor is an advanced monitoring tool for Windows that shows real-time file system, Registry and process/thread activity. It combines the features of two legacy Sysinternals utilities, Filemon and Regmon, and adds an extensive list of enhancements including rich and non-destructive filtering, comprehensive event properties such session IDs and user names, reliable process information, full thread stacks with integrated symbol support for each operation, simultaneous logging to a file, and much more. Its uniquely powerful features will make Process Monitor a core utility in your system troubleshooting and malware hunting toolkit."
Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.8 released. Even though 2.0 is out some people, like me, have not upgraded yet.
Animated Knots by Grog: "Animated Knot-Tying for Boating, Climbing, Fishing, Scouting, Search and Rescue, and Arborists" Pretty cool and there are a ton of knots on this site.
 All 16,777,216 RGB colours: "The graphic, being 16.8 million pixels and 24 bit colour, ends up a modest 50 MB uncompressed. The PNG format produces a 58.0 kB file."
 Quick Thumbnail: Online Image Resizer: "The fastest way to resize your pictures and images." Just in case you wonder the above online application was created by me so if you have any suggestions to make it better than please drop me a line. Features:- Resize by percentage or by pre-defined pixel sizes
- Simultaneous generation of different sizes creates multiple image sizes in one step
- Quick Resize options lets you tweak the size of the image from the results page
- No software to install and works right from your browser
Link: http://quickthumbnail.com/Labels: veign
Microsoft Office Outlook Connector: "With Outlook Connector, you can use Microsoft® Office Outlook® 2002(XP), Outlook® 2003 or Outlook® 2007 to access and manage your Windows Live Mail or Office Live Mail accounts, including e-mail messages, calendar, tasks, notes, and contacts."
SyncToy v1.4: "SyncToy helps you copy, move, rename, and delete files between folders and computers quickly and easily." Whats New:- The ability to type in a UNC path;
- Support for longer folder pair names and ability to widen the left pane to see those longer names;
- The ability to support the maximum length for folder paths, and documentation was added to the help file about how to set up a share to be able to sync deep folder pairs;
- Better handling of the difference in precision between NTFS and FAT timestamps;
- More discoverable link to the help file for information on how to schedule SyncToy using the Windows XP Task Scheduler;
- Support for 800x600 screen resolution;
- Added a warning for users if the selected action will take some time to complete;
- Added brief explanations of the actions in the user interface
- Improved behavior when choosing folders to include or exclude when there are large numbers of folders involved;
- Improved support for accessibility modes.
Cool. Link: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...
The Firefox Kid: "Parakey is “a Web operating system that can do everything an OS can do.” Translation: it makes it really easy to store your stuff and share it with the world. Most or all of Parakey will be open source, under a license similar to Firefox’s. There are differences between the two projects, however. Although Ross plans to incorporate the talents and passions of the free-software community, he’s building Parakey around a for-profit business model. And he’s leading the charge with a simple battle cry: “One interface, not two!”" That's whats next from Firefox.
You can now get up close and personal with Zune as Microsoft has put up the Zune Home Page.
Revision to Windows Vista retail licensing terms: "You may uninstall the software and install it on another device for your use. You may not do so to share this license between devices." Very smart of them to fix that issue.
A faster Windows XP? Here’s how!: "Some of the working tweaks you can do to your Windows XP can really be a blessing to your system’s speed." Highlights:- A. Disable Indexing Services
- B. Optimise Display Settings
- C. Speedup Folder Browsing
- D. Improve Memory Usage
- E. Optimise Your Internet Connection
- F. Optimise Your Pagefile
- G. Speedup Folder Access - Disable Last Access Update
- H. Make Your Menus Load Faster
- I. Improve Xp Shutdown Speed
- J. Improve Swapfile Performance
- K. Ensure Xp Is Using Dma Mode
Link: http://.../faster-windows-xp-heres-how.html
Thank you: the Max project has concluded: "Thank you for participating in the beta of Microsoft Codename Max. Over the past year, you’ve sent us tons of fantastic feedback that we’ve incorporated not only into Max, but into the platform layer with the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)."
Ultra Fast Whois is a quick way to check on the availability of a domain or see who owns it.
Microsoft XNA Game Studio Express (Beta 2): "This second beta of Microsoft XNA Game Studio Express makes creating great video games for Windows-based PC’s even easier with the inclusion of the content pipeline, full Windows functionality and Xbox 360 project system preview."
Microsoft Office Online is a new website from Microsoft dedicated to the next version of MS Office, 2007. It includes the new Microsoft Office Accounting 2007 application which MS released a free version of this week.
Win MS Visual Studio Suite (worth over $10k) !!!This is no joke. I was given invites to the MSDN subscription from MS to give out and decided to push one through a great website that does a lot of good for software developers called DonationCoder. Because they must be given out there is no hidden cost or anything, just register to win. Developers Signup!
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