Total Commander 7.01 released

A new version of Total Commander, a popular file manager, was released on June 21, 2007, shortly after the release of version 7 final. Total Commander 7.01 is available for download here.

What's new?

Flea Market Finds #1

I visited the flea market this morning and it's a good thing I did because I stumbled upon a mini version of the popular Competition Pro joystick. If you were into computers in the 80's, you should know what I'm talking about. Anyway, the mini's not very common around here so I must say I'm happy to have found it. It looks brand new and it's also fully functional.

Feast your eyes!

Side-by-side with the 'normal' version.

And in case you've been living in a cave for the past couple of years, there's also a USB version of the legendary Competition Pro. You can read a review here.

Update: Prince of Persia

As it turns out, you can't assign 'Walk toggle' to a button because it's bound to the analog stick by default. All you have to do is push the stick half-way and behold, you walk instead of run. Good idea actually!

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones SE

Just recently I decided to give the "old" Prince a try so I bought it brand new on eBay for under 20€ (local shops sell it for about 40€). I'm talking about Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones Special Edition which also includes both prequels, each on a separate DVD disc. The discs are nicely stacked one atop the other and I find this the best system so far for packing multiple discs in a standard DVD case.

I decided to start at the beginning with The Sands of Time and I must say the game really got my attention right away! The graphics and animation are great even for a game that's almost 4 years old and the Prince is a real acrobat. Some of his stunts strongly remind me of various Jackie Chan movies. At the same time this presented me with an excellent opportunity to test my Logitech Rumblepad 2 gamepad which was sitting on a shelf collecting dust for the past year or so. After the initial confusion and some help from Google, I managed to get my gamepad to work. You basically have to manually assign all commands to the gamepad in the 'Controls' menu by double-clicking each command and then pressing the gamepad button you want to use (a tad annoying but you only have to do it once). The only command I couldn't assign to any of the buttons was 'Walk toggle'. No idea why...

To conclude this post, the game plays great with a gamepad and best of all, you don't need a Core Duo and a GeForce 7900GTO to play it :)

BBC Live Micro - Computer Music (1985)

An interesting extract from BBC program Micro Live from 1985...

Resolved: Mobile storage solution

As it turns out, the cause of the problem was overclocking. I set memory timings to SPD and clocked the CPU back to default 1.8 GHz. I'm not sure what exactly is causing the malfunction but I intend to find out in the near future. Anyway, the Icy Box is back in business.

Follow-up: Mobile storage solution

As it turns out, the Icy Box isn't all that great as one would expect. The thing is, it works fine on my office computer and my laptop. However, it doesn't work with my desktop PC at home. Well, it worked the first time but then it had a seizure and all I got from it afterwards were spooky clicking noises. The disk doesn't get recognized, making it effectively useless (still works on previously mentioned PCs). I'm thinking there could be a problem with the motherboard which is an oldish Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe. On the other hand, the rest of the USB devices I use with this motherboard work flawlessly, which is kind of funny. These include a mouse, a printer, a smart card reader, a flash drive and a webcam. Weird, eh? So I figure there could be a compatibility issue with the Cypress (7C68300A) controller in the Icy Box. If anyone reading this blog knows the solution, please let me know via comments. Thanks.

Modern web design

Vir: eatliver.com

Mobile storage solution

My latest toy is a stylish external case Icy Box IB-250U-R used with a Western Digital Scorpio WD800VE 80GB hard drive. The disk drive is reasonably fast, starts-up almost instantly and doesn't make much noise. Infact, I could hardly tell the disk is working by sound alone. What I particularly like about these types of cases (looks and size aside) is that you don't need a power adapter. You do however need two available USB ports since the unit gets power from the second USB port (the HDD wouldn't start-up without it). You also get a practical leather wallet which is great for the case itself but isn't big enough to fit both USB cables as well. Initially I wanted to get a 4GB USB flash drive but I'm glad I didn't because the drive will also be used for system backups. All in all, I'm happy with it for now.

Friendly spam

Everybody who uses e-mail knows what 'spam' is. It's probably one of the most hated things you'll encounter while using the Internet. I used to get tons of it! Penis enlargement, viagra, prescription drugs, green cards and whatnot and there's nothing much I could do about it except loose my temper occasionally. I remember the times when I used to check e-mails every 5 minutes or so. Whenever the little 'letter' icon appeared in the system tray I went "New mail!" but my excitement was too often squashed under the sense of annoyance after realizing that it's just more spam. Thankfully regular spam seems to be on the decrease. Which brings us to a different breed of spam!

The Internet is accessible to almost everyone these days and whoever has 5 minutes free time is forwarding 'funny' e-mails. Friendly spam is sort of like friendly fire. The sender's intention isn't to upset or annoy you. But the end result is just that, annoyance and possibly anger. Just make it stop! I appreciate a good joke. I also like to see a funny video or browse through a collection of beaufitul photos every now and then. But when these things start coming in by the dozen, they become undigestable and time consuming. I have better things to do, thank you very much.

People please, if you really have to share every little piece of doo-doo you find on the Internet, at least ask approval. That way you will spare the portion of your friends who don't approve of that sort of e-mails. And for those of you who don't like recieving friendly spam but don't say anything about it... tell it how it is (and try to be nice :))!