Software Review

Final after many years, my favorite free anti-spyware program has come out with a new version, yes, I'm talking about Spybot Search and Destroy has finally made it to 1.5.1!   What does it have? Check the list below,

• Restored Win95 compatibility
• Improved Wine compatibility
• Fixed HyperThreading issues
• Improved 64 bit immunization
• Create Portable.ini in main folder to use app folder as data folder as well
• New warnings about missing admin rights on Windows Vista
• Support for multi-line bookmarks (IE 7 / Vista)
• New Immunization for Firefox & Mozilla
• Improved Immunization for Opera
• "Single excludes" now include filenames to be more unique
• Improved settings retrieval from registry (mixed installations)
• Fixed .reg import bugs
• Added support for automated removal of F/Ps from host lists
• Changed update UserAgent and Referrer
• Improved (Vista-compatible) support for fast user switching

Yep, a very short review on Vista. Not that I have bought it or anything, or that I have it on my main PC. I have a copy as I was testing it. So the copy I have will run out sometime in June. Even by then, I don't think I'll be getting it.

You may have noticed TV/Newspaper/Poster ads that go on about the WOW that people will will say when they first see/use it for the first time. I certainly didn't say that when I first saw it. It was more wow crap! Oh you want to see some of those ads?

Here's some from Waterloo Station London: (source)

Bleedin' dull you have to agree.

One of the much vaunted features is the parental control. So I had a look and well, it was kinda funny and you would wonder who was involved in the request. Check out the image...

Rather amusing don't you think?

Anyway, if you do decide to take the jump to Vista, my suggestion is, don't, well not now anyway, I would wait till the first service pack is out. Otherwise stay with your XP.
If your a MAC user and have one of those INTEL based ones, I'm sure Vista will work on that in the not too distant future with Bootcamp 2.

If you want more info on Vista clicky here.

Been beavering away with a new plugin. I found the greybox script from orangoo.com. It's a very simple script and can be used if the following situations:

•  It does not conflict with pop-up blockers
•  It's only 22 KB!
  
•  It's super easy to setup
•  It's super easy to use
•  You can easily alter the style as it is controlled through CSS

You can use it to pop to open a quick search window.

• Load Google in a 500x500 window
• Here you can have it in a fullscreen window

Obviously, more example at the Orangoo.com.

You can download the S9y script here.

Comments most welcome.

Well, I'm sure most of you will know that Microsoft will be releasing their new fan dangled operating system called Vista. Ooooo!
Well, to make things easier for us consumers it has come out with a master plan, easy to understand plan, they have come out with 5 different versions.

• Windows Vista Basic
• Windows Vista Home Premium
• Windows Vista Business
• Windows Vista Ultimate
• Windows Vista Enterprise (you won't be able to get that one)
  

Yep that was the master plan to make it easier for us consumers to decide. But if your confused they have done a little video so that you can understand the differences between them, well it's for the retailers, like the folks at PCworld.
Watch it here. Yep, we consumers will be darn confused.

In order to simplify the process even more, they, have come up with master plan B, this is those fandangled logos, you know the ones that at the moment say, certified to work with Windows XP? Yep, they have the same for windows Vista, but they have been clever, yep, in that ultimate quest to make sure that they don't confuse us consumers, they have come with not one logo but two! And here they are...

Ok, not much to yack about. Being a bit of a Geek. I have taken the the jump, leap of faith and have upgraded the serendipity software from Version 1 to a beta version 1.1. A big jump in the admin part of the serendipity which has been improved quite dramatically with increased manageability and I have to add, excellent media management to make the adding of pictures as easy as possible with quite a few basic image manipulation tools, like crop, resize, rotate simple tools as I said.
A new addition is the ability to edit the text that can be saved into the image. This is called the IPTC information. This is where you can pop in copyright info in to Jpeg images only. Not bad I have to add.
Other than that, lots of other new features. Read more info here.
Oh and by the way. I've added a e-mail announcement service from feedblitz down in the My little tag area. This service will send you and e-mail every time I do an update.
There, that's it, enough geekiness for now.

Yep, Microsoft is intending to force you to upgrade to IE7 upon you like it did with WGA (or Windows Genuine Advantage). I'm no real fan of IE, as I have been getting started in creating website. IE is the biggest pain, it basically just can't do anything right on the design front. I ended up spending more time fixing issues with IE than with Opera or Firefox.

Considering Microsoft haven't done any development on IE since it was released with Windows XP, that's 2001. It was the storming success of the likes of Firefox and Opera that got MS off it's lazy arse, and make a browser that is secure, safe etc. But I don't see MS being able to do that.

Would be wanting to know how to stop Microsoft from installing IE7 on your PC? IS there a way? Well, yes, there is always a way. You mainly have to look at the Microsoft Technet sites. This is where Microsoft 'helps' it's cooperate customers, who would have busy IT depts, who don't want to have IE 7 installed on their staffs PC automatically.  How's it done? suprisingly easy actually, if your aufait with tinkering with the registry, then all you need do is the following.
  Read More

This is the 2nd test, small change made to the img tag. changed class="serendipity_image_link to class="thickbox"

So, when you press on the image, the image should load on top of the page, with a gray overlay. If this doesn't happen, then all I can say is, it's not workin'. As the call for the script is very basic.

<a title="Clounds Over London" class="thickbox" href="/uploads/images/clouds_over_london.jpg"><img src=""/uploads/images/clouds_over_london.jpg"><img" width="110" vspace="5" hspace="5" height="83" border="0" style="border: 0px none ; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;" src="/uploads/images/clouds_over_london.serendipityThumb.jpg"  alt="Clouds over London" /></a>

Fingers crossed this will work!?

 

Over the past two days on trying to get a script called Lightbox JS and Thickbox JS to work with this blog software. What do these scripts do? Well it's very simple, if you want to have an image in your content, there are several ways in which this can be done.

• By having the image at an ok size to fit into you comment.
• By having a thumbnail that links to a bigger image that can load up in a new window, or a popup window
• You have a smart easy to use java script to load up the full sized image over the page, not in a new window.

It's the last way that both of these scripts work, I am hoping to find a way to get both of the scripts to work at the in the same site without disturbing each other, I am sure it can be done on a normal HTML based website as both use different ways to call up the script. SO I am using thickbox script which I find is better as it has a smaller file size.
Here's a nice picture of a cloud cover and colour.

More tweaking of my blog software. The original theme I am using was done by Mads Sigvert from EvilSun Top
The original theme didn't work on firefox, so I had a look at the css file, being new to css but having a very good idea how it all works and how it glues together I managed to fix it.
Today, well yesterday, I have updated the theme a little bit more again, this time all I added was a tab bar on top of the page I'll try and finish of the theme, tidy it up and may release it for other to grab.
All comments on the theme are most welcome.

As with most bank holidays here in the UK, it was crap weather, neither warm, nor cold. Just yunky.
So what can one do? I could take more photos, get some walking done, to see some sights of London. But the lighting wasn't too good, very gray. So not a day for photography but a day to get my head around my photo gallery. Some of you have ventured in I'm sure, and have seen, what can only be described as work in progress. But no, now it's pretty much up and working, latest software installed and is pretty cool bit of coding by the guys at Gallery2. More on that later.

So, what can you expect from my photo gallery? All sorts of stuff, I would say that wouldn't I. But yes, there is a nice selection of photos from around London, San Francisco, Belgium and finally a nice selection of background images that you are free to take, I found them on the net with no restrictions on them so far.

I have set-up a feature so that you an e-mail pictures to your friends or who ever you like. A feature I'm thinking of is to allow you, the internet surfer,  to have the images as puzzles. If you like any of the images, you can rate them.

So, now you know what's there, why not take a hope over to it here. You can also get to it by clicking on the image that appears on the top right of this blog. but most of all enjoy the work, and the pictures.

Gallery2, what do I like about it? many things,
Mainly it's simple to use. It's easy to install,  and most important, it's free and I control everything (calms down before I start getting delusional )

So what is this you ask? Well Performacing is and extension for firefox and Mozilla browsers. What does it do?
Well it allows you to add new content without having to login to your Blogger, Wordpress or  your Moving Type account pages. For me, what's better is that it also works very well with my blogging software, Serendipity which is a fine bit of code from the very nice guys at S9Y 

Performancing has most of the tools you need, a standard editor, a HTML editor and that it, you really don't need more than that. You can even have multiple blogs configured, so it's a one interface that does all interfaces.

Other notable features:

• Easy Technocati tagging
• You can see your catagories
• You can see your previous entreries.
• You can keep notes.

The extension works by splitting your browser window, with the editor interface either at the top or bottom, this is configurable.
Not sure if this is a must have extension, but a very nice one none the less.
Other features that the folks at performacing offer, is site stats. Will have to give that a spin.
One downside I suppose for this extension is that I don't have access to the advanced publishing features that my blog does on posting which is to ping most blogger trackers to say that I have a new entry in my Blog, I can't comment on other blogging software applications as I've only used this on my software.

The good old folks at FireFox have been having a competition for the Firefox community of who could produce a short film showing the merits in a serious or better still an amusing way. I prefer the latter as, well, life is all a laugh and not to be taken too seriously.

So here's a sample. (click on Icon to view)

Ok, only on the new ones that use the Intel processor. The question I would like to know is can I get Mac OSX to run on my PC ?
The software you need to allow your Mac to run WinXP is called Boot Camp... I like that name, it's not about what we know as a bootcamp where you send your brats to for summer so that they can come home and be kids again. But i'm sure it's to do with Boot as in Booting up your PC and a Camp where you can leave your tent or in this case where you can safely have a bug ridden winXP running. A nice Idea I have to say

But I want (stamps foot on floor), ok that didn't get me anywhere, I would like to be able to run Mac OSX either via a dual boot (two operating system on one PC, you only run one at a time)  or from within WinXP.

I don't think I'll get the 2nd option but it would be nice ..

Read on for more info on Apples Bootcamp for windows (naughty OS) here

What Mac's can run this software, it's any Mac that has the Intel Duo Core like this MacMini, The IMac, and finally, The Macbook pro so now you can get a very stylish Mac and run Windows XP on it.
I do have to say that the MacBook Pro does look like a nice laptop ...

The final version will hit the internet in the coming week (maybe the 18th). Not many serious bugs fix, but the main one is that the fully automated update system is now running quite nicely thank you.
What is the fully automated update system, it's quite neat in that when there is a patch update, mostly a security update, instead of having to download and install the full download, you only have to download a 200Kb to 500Kb download. The patch update is applied either straight away, (your choose) or you can delay it till you have finished doing what your doing, close the browser, and that's it, when you reload Firefox, the patch update will be installed for you. easy.

One word of warning though if you are using Firefox now, and are also use the extension Adblock, This does not work well at all with Firefox RC2 . I suggest that you get Adblock Plus.
Have fun Click on Image to get the Release candidate.