Sengor's General Tool Set

Looking at how much time I spend looking for useful software utilities, here is an essential list, all of them are freely available on the internet:

(In no particular order or category)

• AVG Free
• Great free antivirus software, thanks Jones
• Sonique
• Formerly my favourite audio player, development of it these days is next to none
• GX::Transcoder
• Convert those audio files to and from multiple formats
• EAC - Exact Audio Copy
• Accurate and quality focused free CD -> MP3 ripper
• PowerToys for Win XP
• Tweak UI & Enhanced Alt+Tab & ClearType Tuner & Image Resizer & Virtual Desktop Manager are the most useful ones
• SciTE
• Syntax aware Code/Text editor with ability to expand/collapse code sections, very useful for large code viewing
• Dev C++
• C/C++ IDE for Windows platform
• WinAMP
• Still with classic skin, still the best media player out there ;)
• PeerGuardian
• Block/Filter out internet traffic from preselected IP address ranges, thanks Jones
• The GIMP
• Free photo editor/creator like Photoshop. Wind32 and Linux
• WinRAR
• best file archiver out there, light and fast, opens many formats
• 3D Mark
• Test out that Gfx Card, yes I know it's now called Futuremark - Hey I'm old fashioned!
• BurnAtOnce
• Burn those ISO images
• OneWorld Time
• What time is it in --insert place-- ?
• PowerOff
• Turn that PC off when you want and how you want, thanks Jones for the tip
• GameArena COGS
• Keep track of all of those local gaming servers for all of your games, GA account required
• WordWeb
• Uhh Ohh what does this and that fancy word mean? Free disctionary, I wish they had more internet jargon in there
• Windows Uptime
• How long did your Windows PC manage to stay up for so far?
• RefreshForce
• Fix all of those games/[resolutions] that run in low refresh rates
• SuperScan & Nmap
• See what TCP/IP ports are open on a remote computer
• Y'z Dock
• Mac OS Like docking bar for Windows, attractive eye candy, no official page since development ceased
• TCPview
• kindof like netstat but in GUI and real time
• Process Explorer
• See ALL processes that Windows is running, Task Manager hides some
• Riva Tuner
• Tweaker for nVidia based video cards
• Resource Hacker
• See what those Win32 binaries contain, Pictures, cursors, resources, classes...
• WinSCP
• The best SCP/SFTP client out there
• TightVNC
• Cross platform remote graphcal computer access, great for slow links, session resuming and situations where you don't have admin access to the remote box
• FreeNX
• I blogged about this a while ago. Similar to VNC but faster
• PuTTY
• SSH/Tenet/RAW client, for all of the remote access needs
• Cygwin
• unix shell for windows along with all of the usefull GNU tools, best way to get X11 working under Windows
• gVim
• advanced text editor, only for the brave!
• Real Alternative
• aka Media Player Classic with Plugins
• VLC Media Player
• ... and also preview/stream those corrupt/incomplete videos
• Net Transport
• download manager, even downloads streams into a file, thanks Jones
• uTorrent
• Light and small BitTorrent client with all the features you might need
• WinRipper
• Extract various multimedia segments from any file. Useful for extracting content from game files
• GkrellM
• System statistics monitoring panel, one of my long time favourites. Comes both in Unix and Win32 ports
• CPU-z
• Detailed info on CPU, M/B and RAM for PCs, can produce great summaries of a PC config.
• BartPE
• Make a bootable Windows XP based CD. There's lots of plugins for it available out there. Great for troubleshooting Windows issues (viruses, disks, spyware...)
• Knoppix
• Best live Linux CD/DVD out there. Useful feature is booting Memtest86 for troubleshooting memory related problems.
• Slackware
• Not a single tool, but a great selection of useful tools atop of a great build of Linux ketrnels (Yes that does constitute an OS).

That's enough for now, I'll probably update this list at a later stage...

Version: 1.4

Flash and Web Design

This is what it is all about, effective ideas with simplicity in mind: ertdfgcvb.ch idea.hr

Web Browsers Update

Opera 8.51 and FireFox 1.5 were released almost on the same day. Coincidence? Who knows . . . Anyway seems like FireFox has finally sped up their GUI which got annoyingly slow in previous versions (especially as the number of tags opened increased while browsing). My recommendation: Opera for everyday browsing and FireFox for all the tech/web development tasks.

Bye, Bye Optus Game Servers . . .

. . . it's been a long time and finally on December 1st 2005 Optus has officially closed down all of their gaming servers. :( Local RtCW: ET Alternatives:

• Internode (aka Intern00b)
• GameArena

Update: rtcw-4.games.internode.on.net:27960 seems to be gaining popularity, about time. :)

FreeNX

Just discovered FreeNX (and here) and it became an instant favourite of mine. NX comes in various distributions and is VNC like. However what surprised me is the speed at which graphical logins are forwarded to the client with so little network overhead. Now I can finally run a virtual desktop from my Slackware machine and view it within any windows box on the LAN with much faster speeds than VNC or X11 forwarding. Further more the applications feel like being ran locally rathen than remotely, even copy-pasting works to/from windows desktop to Linux desktop with no extra effort. Finally feels like I'm back on the Linux machine locally. :) Winamp and Eterm side by side on the same monitor. Time to redesign my Linux desktop...! More info over at freenx.berlios.de & www.nomachine.com Grab the Slackware package over from linuxpackages.net

WH 40K: Winter Assault

Finally got my hands on the new expansion pack for DoW. After few hours of game play and few levels past me I can certainly say it's a definitive improvement to the original game. Levels aren't as linear as previously, allowing the player to collaborate with multiple teams within the same match. Game difficulty has also been improved, directly affecting a large time portion of my weekend. Still more levels remain to be conquered ... Update: Short, way too short...

Opera is free

Yes no more ads. Grab it here, it's free and it's packed with features! Did I mention it's light, fast & secure ?

Been browsing with it for years but only recently has it become my default browser. Still have FireFox on the side for all the useful plugins & web development (Internet Explorer is well hidden these days ;) ). My only complaint is the way fonts are rendered which is sometimes buggy when resizing text and does not look as good as native font smoothing of the OS on LCD monitors.

Max Power

That's it, I finally did it. All awards and all skills to the maximum!

The real Sander

A portrait by / MegA /

Spud

Spud is (or was) a web server running on Linux and 5 potatoes, serving the Internet at 0.2 hits/second! I've always seen an integration of biology and digital electronics coming, but definitely not in this shape & form. Blame my (lack of) imagination...

Ibrahim Ferrer (1927 - 2005)

Sad news of Ibrahim Ferrer passing away have caught my attention on news earlier today. Ibrahim was one of the founders of Buena Vista Social Club from Cuba and will be remembered by many as one of the major musical influences in the '90s.

The Average Colour of the Universe

Yup, that's it. Who would have thought? Read on...

Dream Keyboard

Imagine a keyboard which can be customised at key appearance level. Well some creative folks have come up with just the idea. Although still a concept there is an indication of a patent emerging here (fingers crossed). Each key on the OLED based keyboard would practically be a screen of it's own, capable of displaying all sorts of graphics depending on the current software layout.

Loading a game would change the key appearances ideally to match the game:

Finally get your own shortcuts on your actual desktop:

The end to my long term search for the right keyboard seems realistic again. I would not wait a minute to order in one of these only if they were available for sale...

Modern Tourism (Updated)

Google Earth and World Wind are one of the more interesting technology applications to come out in recent times. Simple ideas of combining data with technology seem to be a very effective mix. Both applications aim to present the globe in height mapped 3D satellite images. This allows high resolution viewing not only from the traditional top-down perspective but also from practically any angle you happen to choose. The end result is quite more realistic. Of course you can always opt for a more mobile solution and head over to Google Maps... Update: Now you can visit the Moon too (Hint: Do a maximum zoom in, as recommended by Mr Lane).

Alan Wake

As you might know Remedy will not make Max Payne 3. Instead they have dedicated their efforts to a brand new game. Nothing to worry about though, Max is likely to return again. Only this time Remedy will not be the developer (We'll see how that turns out). The new game is titled Alan Wake and seems to be a rather interesting cinematic style action thriller. Graphics wise the game looks promising with dynamic outdoor environment and next generation lighting ... Set to be released some time in 2006 I will be one of many people eagerly awaiting its release. HDTV Trailers and more info can be found over at alanwake.com.

RtCW: ET Fun

Internode is not only about free traffic and low pings ...

... it's all about making things work.

use Sengor::Blog;

Welcome all, I aim to list down all of my technical and computer related jargon at this blog. Comments are welcome. We'll see how the blog will expand... So far liking Blogger's editing capabilities. It's a wonder how good the JS people @ Google are.

Here is an old screenshot of my Linux desktop:

This should fully acknowledge my post editing capabilities.