Category Archives: Platforms

Cool stuff for Windows

Easily block Flash animations in Firefox with Flashblock. Has a whitelist so you can let your favourite sites through. I’m finding it handy to stop advert-laden (mostly MSM) sites stealing inordinate amounts of CPU just to show their ads. (Though the Herald-Sun must use something else for its slow moving mid-page picture banner thingy.)

Could Democracy be the Firefox of media players? It looks pretty cool, and there’s a new version just out, though at the moment I’m using the Real and Quicktime alternatives from Free-codecs.com.

Looking for something like Co-pilot, but free? How about UltraVNC Single Click? (via Anthony)

Phone numbering schemes

Raymond Chen writes about the notoriously complicated North American telephone dialling rules.

It would appear that despite the huge population growth over the decades, leading to more than 10,000,000 phones in many major cities (less than that actually, given phone exchange limitations and so on), nobody’s had the guts to change the (xxx) xxx-xxxx phone numbering system that’s been in action over there for the past 50 years. And apart from the issues with cities blowing the limit and getting multiple area codes, they’ve also got problems with cell-phones being tied to regions, rather than being truly nationally mobile.

In Australia we went through short-term pain for long-term gain, migrating from a phone numbering system that was mostly (xx) xxx-xxxx in the big cities (and a lot of variations in rural areas and for mobiles) to being uniformly (xx) xxxx-xxxx, which should allow for plenty of growth over several decades. Perhaps longer if fax machines and dialup modems (and separate lines for them) and even fixed-lines continue to die-off. It’s meant that dialling is pretty consistent.

On the other hand, it has to be pointed out that the North American numbering plan covers some 24 countries and territories, so I appreciate revamping it would be a helluva job.

More Vista ponderings

The Windows Vista Team blog has explained how the Windows Experience Index works, by evaluating your processor, memory, graphics, game graphics and hard disk, and giving each a ranking.

All well and good.

But this only happens when you install Windows Vista.

While I don’t plan to do it anytime soon, I wouldn’t mind knowing how my current PCs would perform with Windows Vista. I was hoping the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor would provide this kind of information, but it doesn’t — it’s much more vague.

I know my old boxes do meet (and exceed) the minimum standard, but we all know that’s never a true indication of whether it’s going to be pleasant/productive to use.

By the way, would you believe Microsoft’s new Zune player is not Vista compatible? Nor does it play anything using Windows Media DRM. And Engadget says the Zune installation sucks (yes, it really does demand a Windows Live ID and your name, address and phone number before letting you use it). What a balls-up.

Classic videogame ringtones

I’ve switched my ringtone. I wanted something distinctive but not crass and loud. I ended up deciding on the intro theme from Galaga. The text alert tone is the sound from Galaga when you put a coin in.

And it turns out it’s quite easy to do — provided your phone is newer than Josh’s and supports music files (eg MP3, WAV or AAC)… which most from the last couple of years do.

If you run Mame32, it’s got an option to record the sound as you play the game (on the File menu). This saves to a WAV file. Load it up into Sound Recorder and snip away (using Edit / Delete before or after current position). Some other MAME variants may have this feature too.

Some phones will support WAV, but if not (or you want to minimise the file size), convert to MP3 or your preferred format using Bladeenc or any other encoder. Transfer it onto the phone using a cable or IR link, then customise the ringtone and alert sound (on my Nokia it’s via Profile / General / Personalise). Easy!

If you know me in person, please find something else to use, so I know it’s mine going off when I hear it 🙂

Some other classic video game sounds that spring to mind as suitable are the Pacman theme (and dying sound for alerts) and Donkey Kong’s “How high can you jump?” theme (with the jumping barrel sound for the alert).

I’m not getting Vista, yet

Windows Vista has been released to manufacturing, and Ed Bott has a run-down, summarising reaction (mixed, mostly positive), the perils of installing it over old versions (nothing new there then; why would you subject yourself to that?!), noting how good it is on new installations, even on old hardware, and the key question of whether it’s worth upgrading.

I haven’t tried out any of the betas. I’ve read some of the reviews, but I haven’t used Windows Vista. My gut feeling is it’s probably a pretty good upgrade, but I must be getting more cautious in my old age, because I’m not going to touch it until at least SP1, or perhaps even SP2. Not only does that give MS the chance to get all the glitches under control, it also gives a bit of time for the hardware to catch up so that it provides nice performance.

In fact I have half a mind to buy a laptop at some stage to replace one of my desktop machines. Picture it, sitting in a hammock in the sun in the backyard working/surfing, a beer by my side. And if I do, I think I’d be looking to make sure it’s XP, not Vista. I don’t need the hassles of a new OS to learn, not for a couple of years.

This means though, that if I’m going to do this, I’ll have to be quick: “On January 30, you will be hard pressed to find a machine that doesn’t have Windows Vista available,” Mr Allchin said.

But hey, what I really want to know is… what are the built-in games in Vista? Looks like depending on which version you get, there’ll be the oldies: Freecell, Hearts, Solitaire, and Minesweeper, as well as Spider Solitaire, Shanghai, Purble Place (aimed at the kiddies), Mahjong, Inkball and Chess. What, no 3-D Pinball?!? Ripped off! I wonder if you’ll be able to copy the EXE across from an old version, like people did with Cardfile from Win3.1 to 95.

AVG IS still free

AVG is moving its free anti-virus from version 7.1 to 7.5. Never fear, it’s still free, despite the announcement implying that it won’t be after January 2007. What it’s actually saying is that version 7.1 won’t be supported after that time, but a lot of people are misreading it.

The optimist in me says it’s just worded badly. The cynic in me notes that some recall the switch from version 6 to 7 was worded in a similar way and it smells a little bit of the Real Player page that featured a big advert for the paid version, and a tiny link to the free one. But hey, the bottom line is AVG is still free, and millions of home users can continue to protect their PCs. Can’t really argue with that.

Free version 7.5 download here.

Other freebie anti-virus packages for Windows include Avast, Trend’s free adhoc (online) scan and the open-source ClamWin.

Using old hardware: Win2K drivers in XP

How to get an old Canon scanner (which has no XP drivers) working in Windows XP: Use Win2000 scanner driver, but follow this procedure (on Canon’s German site, but written in English).

In summary you make sure the scanner is DISCONNECTED; then use the old Setup.exe to install the software; shut down the PC and THEN plug the scanner in. When you start the PC up again, it’ll detect the new hardware and — against all odds if you ask me — figure out that it matches the drivers you’ve already installed. After that you should be right to go.

It worked fine with my ancient FB-310, and it’s something to keep in mind with other hardware, too.

XP logon problems?

Windows XP logon - with language indicator?!Is it just me who’s got problems with the Windows XP Welcome screen (friendly logon) in the last few days (perhaps since the last security update)? Firstly I note the presence of a language indicator next to the logon name; I’m pretty sure that wasn’t there before.

Secondly periodically the password box doesn’t work when I go to type in it. Clicking, typing, nothing works. Have to either restart the machine (thankfully possible via the mouse) to get it back, or Ctrl-Alt-Del twice to get to a “classic” logon, which lets you in.

Weird.

Okay, it’s not just me. (Usenet thread)

PS. 28/11/2006: Another Usenet thread on this problem. Still no definite solution, though one suggested (unverified) is: regsvr32 shgina.dll

PS. 8/12/2006: The above register command doesn’t fix this problem.

PS. 13/12/2006: Some of the guys on the SysInternals forum have also noted this problem. No solution yet.

PS. 26/7/2007: Graham comments below that he’s found KB923191 appears to be the problem. But given this patches a critical security flaw, I’d rather live with the workaround.

Vista and Visual Studio

Which Microsoft development environments will be supported in Windows Vista?

Not the ones you might think.

  • SUPPORTED: VB 6 — ah, my old friend
  • NOT SUPPORTED: Visual Studio .Net 2002
  • NOT SUPPORTED: Visual Studio .Net 2003
  • SUPPORTED, BUT WITH “COMPATIBILITY ISSUES”: Visual Studio .Net 2005

Good grief.

So, forcing the upgrade path for those older .Net versions? Or is it that they just can’t be bothered making it all work?

Meanwhile, Australian pricing for Vista is out. $751 for Vista Ultimate?! Yowch. Mind you, who really pays for a full version of Windows? Most people would be getting upgrades from previous versions, or OEM copies. Like Office, the full pricing is always exhorbitant.

The 3210 is dead, long live the 5110

Last week, my Nokia 5110 started acting funny – switching itself off, and so forth. The backup phone, a Nokia 3210 was pressed into service. Gotta love those old Nokias, charger compatability is a lovely thing, even if the battery form-factors aren’t the same.

Anyway, I figured out that the dodgy LiI battery I’d upgraded the 5110 with was the cause of the problems, what with the housing seperating into two pieces and all. I figured I’d get around to fixing it and then the 5110 would then be the backup phone.

Owen proceeded to prove that the 3210 wasn’t as well made as the 5110. The 5110 has suffered hundreds of falls during its service life, due to a clumsy owner. The 3210 was destroyed by a 12 month old child dropping it in the carpark of Bunnings. LCD screen cracked, as well as the protective plastic over the screen. And yes, it was in a protective leatherette case.

With zero operational mobile phones left, I discovered I could repair the dodgy battery for a 5110 by filling it with PVA glue and clamping it for 36 hours.

As good as new. But now I don’t have a spare phone.

Movie Maker’s downfall

I put together a 15 minute compilation video in Windows Movie Maker. Now, WMM is okay… it’s free with XP and does the job of a basic movie editor quite well. Well, as long as you’re happy with it only spitting out WMV. Which I’m not overjoyed about.

WMM’s big problem is it doesn’t like MPEGs. Oh sure, it’ll work with them, but it doesn’t like them. I can’t find any other explanation for how slow it gets when dealing with them. Once you have a few MPEGs in your project, you’ll find it takes an agonisingly long time to re-open the project. Seriously, by the time I got finished I had 15 minute long project with a couple of dozen MPEG-1 clips, and it literally took two hours of “checking project files” before I could do anything.

I thought it was some kind of hideous mistake the first time it happened, and cancelled and rebooted the machine. But it wasn’t. I ended up doing some research (on another PC, since that one was busy burning up CPU and disk cycles) and the word on the forums is that it just doesn’t like MPEGs. Throw a bunch of AVI or WMV videos at it, and it’s fine.

Well, I say fine, but in fact WMM regularly freezes up. My kids describe it as “going out to lunch” and it’s a source of constant frustration.

As it happens I’ve just bought Pinnacle Studio Plus version 10 ($189 via Harris Technology, and widely available elsewhere), something of an upgrade from both WMM and the Pinnacle Studio Quickstart 9 I got with the TV tuner card I just bought. Australian purchases of Studio Plus (and a couple of other Pinnacle products) will get a bonus USB TV tuner if they buy before the end of the year. (Yes, this is a bummer for me. Maybe I’ll put one of them on eBay.) So hopefully the next video project won’t be subject to WMM’s vagaries.

Other lessons: Google Video suggests 640 x 480 is the ideal resolution for uploads. But this resulted in a file close to 100Mb long, which not only took ages to upload, but was also sluggish on playback. Eventually I downsized it to 320×240, and it’s much faster in both cases, though quite pixellated. The default Google player (embedded in a web page) is actually 400×300, though I’m not sure this is actually supported in an AVI or WMV file, since Tmpgenc refused to resize to that, saying that 300 isn’t divisible by 16.

More on Studio Plus when I actually get around to installing and using it.

Basic Windows setup

I got a “new” secondhand PC for my girlfriend. An off-cast from a friend, so obviously it’s not the latest and greatest, but it’s faster than the box she has now. 500Mhz P3, 192Mb, about 40Gb space over two hard drives. Might see if I can find some more memory for it, but I can live with that. It was running Win98 SE, and was overdue for a rebuild.

Wordprocessing and web were the main requirements. An old computer and basic requirements call for basic software, and old versions in some cases.

So, here’s the setup I did on it:

Found a spare Win2K licence, booted up using the CD and wiped the disks. Installed.

It picked up all the hardware no problems, but later I found it didn’t shut down automatically (went to “It is safe” instead). Made a note to fix that later.

Installed Win2K SP4 and the post-SP4 rollup (aka SP4 and a half). And IE6 SP1.

Then went to Windows Update and got it to grab everything going; well, at least the security stuff — don’t really want the latest bloated MediaPlayer. 45 updates and many minutes later, it was okay. Except for one thing, which I came back to later.

Found a spare Office licence (XP) and installed Word, Powerpoint and Excel. She’s not a geek, so she didn’t need Access or Frontpage, and her email is all web-based, so I didn’t bother with Outlook. Went through the custom setup to ensure minimum bloat (eg no VBA help, obscure file conversion, speech input, that kind of thing).

Put on Office XP SP3, then went to Office Update to see what was going. Stupid thing wanted to install patches for Visio. Switched them off.

Grabbed the typical extras useful for web browsing: Acrobat Reader 5.05 (just before they went stupid with bloat; still obtainable from oldversion.com). Flash Player (latest). Quicktime Alternative. Real Alternative. And Google Toolbar for popup blocking.

Also plonked on the latest DirectX. Winzip. AVG Free. This PC will live behind a NAT router/firewall, so I’m not going to bother with a firewall.

Put a copy of Mame32 on there for some light entertainment.

Created a logon for her, and a logon for me. Standard users of course; not Admin. Verified everything works under those new users.

Used Ed Bott’s method for securing IE: Once the ActiveX controls you want are in place, go into the security settings and disable Active X Signed downloads. You have to do this for each individual user, but it solves a major gripe of mine; that IE can install any old crap provided it’s signed.

Went through the services and disabled the extraneous stuff, like Messenger. Likewise checked for any other little applets that decided they should run in the background. Most of them aren’t needed.

Turned on automatic Windows updates. One problem: it insisted one patch needed installing, but each time it claimed it had worked, it hadn’t. Next time it looked, it still needed to be installed. Downloading and running the patch manually showed it had been superseded by something else… but Windows Update apparently couldn’t figure that out. Eventually I solved it by going into the Windows Updates web site and manually telling it to ignore this patch. (Thanks Malcolm for the help on this.)

As for the “Safe to turn off” instead of turning itself off, that was solved by going into the Control Panel power options and turning on APM.

Am considering Paint.Net, but then I’d have to put the Dot Net Framework on it as well. Don’t want to over-burden the poor box.

Ditto Firefox — IE has the advantage of virtually sitting in memory most of the time. Firefox is great on fast machines, but is an extra load on slow ones — as I write this, Firefox on my PC is sitting on more than 70Mb of memory. Sure, I could get Opera or whatever, but if IE is relatively safe (patched, unable to download more ActiveX, most popups blocked, running under non-Admin users, and not being used by idiots), why bother?

Considering adding Java (my Internet banking needed it until very recently, but they just switched to pure HTML, woo hoo!) and DivX.

Anything else I’ve missed before I hand it over? Will it be secure enough?