Brain Assassin » computers

STDU Viewer: A Small and Fast PDF Reader

JC — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 13:12:49 +0000

A few days ago I had to check out lots of PDFs and I never liked the Adobe Reader that much. I also have a dislike for the Foxit Reader and while the Nitro PDF Reader has its uses it’s not exactly small, it’s still beta, and if you don’t like the ribbon user inferface you won’t be happy with it. I discarded Sumatra PDF because of it’s very, very minimalistic user interface and Cool PDF Reader because I got a few error messages with different PDFs.

Perfect PDF Reader 6 was too big as was the excellent PDF-XChange Viewer. By now I was ready to go with the PDF-XChange Viewer despite its size but then I stumbled over a PDF reader called STDU Viewer. It’s small, it’s blazingly fast, it opened every PDF I threw at it, and it features tabs. Absolutely fantastic! Exactly what I was looking for! I would recommend this viewer to everbody looking for a small but efficient PDF reader.

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Fix Your Mouse Wheel, Windows Users

JC — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 06:20:45 +0000

Windows doesn’t always work “properly” or in a way you would expect it to work. One of this minor annoyances is the mouse wheel. For instance, you’d expect that moving the mouse wheel will scroll the window directly beneath the mouse cursor and not the one with the input focus. Fortunately, there are a few freely available tools that are able to fix this issue.

There are KatMouse, WizMouse and Wheel Here. While I like KatMouse the most, the other two programs offer the same basic functionality. KatMouse just goes a few steps further and adds a few more interesting options. Just try them out to decide for yourself. If you want to pay for your daily software fix, take a look at MouseEasy. Ah, I almost forgot the X-Mouse features you can activate with the Powertoys. I don’t really like X-Mouse because it activates a window but hey, that’s your choice.

http://antibody-software.com/web/software/software/wizmouse-makes-your-mouse-wheel-work-on-the-window-under-the-mouse/

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New E-Mail Client Wanted

JC — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:45:30 +0000

Recently, a few Mail User Agents (MUA) – commonly referred to as email client – have been updated, mainly Thunderbird, Sylpheed, Claws Mail, and eM Client. During the next days (possibly weeks) I will take a look at them and their feature sets to decide whether switching from Thunderbird to another contender has its advantages or not. Last time I did something similar, I decided to go with Thunderbird.

I’m not going to write a review for every email client I’ve picked for closer examination, nor will I create a check list. My plan is to install them all and then just use them. I want to see how they differ in their feature implementations and how intuitive their user interface is. Because I want to remain open-minded about anything, I decided against a check list.

Do you have some suggestions or want to tell me how you chose your email client? Don’t hesitate to leave your opinion and enlighten me.

PSN Error 8001050F Fixed Itself

JC — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 08:22:52 +0000

Obviously, the 8001050F PSN error fixed itself when the internal clock date changed from February 29th to March 1st UTC. If the time displayed on the XMB is still incorrect, you can fix it by adjusting time settings manually or via the internet. I just took a quick look at it before going to work and I could sign in to the PlayStation Network without experiencing any error message. I’ll have to check whether I’ve lost any data but I don’t think so because I really couldn’t do anything.

If you started a game while this happened your local trophy collection may be blank. Just get a new trophy and your local list should be refreshed and alright. If it doesn’t work, you’ll have to wait until Sony makes an official statement regarding this issue. Have fun once again.

How to Fix the PS3′s 8001050F Error

JC — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:28:37 +0000

Just a few hours ago I said that you couldn’t fix the error 801050F on your own. Looks like I was wrong. Some guy claims that you only have to open your PS3, disconnect the battery for a few minutes, stick it back in and you’re fine. Sounds very nice if you’re adventurous and don’t care about opening your PS3 system. I don’t know for certain but I’m pretty sure you’ll lose your warranty so it is safer to wait for Sony’s fix to arrive. If you absolutely can’t wait, that seems to be the way to go!

By the way, if you try to follow the link only to see a message about the board being down for the moment, try Google’s cache. When the site has loaded, press the Escape button or click the Stop button in your browser’s toolbar.

PlayStation Network Error 8001050F

JC — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:40:20 +0000

The PS3 error code 8001050F is wreaking havoc on the Playstation Network. Apparently, this problem is caused by a bug in the clock functionality and affects models other than the new slim PS3 (120/250 GB models). According to some reports in a number of forums some “fat” PS3s have worked ok.

If you are affected, date and time settings have been re-set to January 1st, 2000. This prevents you from signing in to PSN with the error message “An error has occurred. You have been signed out of PlayStation Network (8001050F)”. Your trophies will also not display correctly or fail to sync.

You can’t fix it. Sony probably stores some form of date in UTC format, then modifying it according to your timezone to get whatever you see on your on-screen clock. If it won’t fix itself, we’ll need a firmware update which we will probably have to install manually from USB stick (I don’t really think so but always expect the worst). Changing the system date manually won’t change anything at all.

What did Sony have to say about the issue? Not much but they do advise us to “not use the PS3 system, as doing so may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data”.

Interestingly enough, I first encountered this error late at night on Friday, February 26th, probably around 23:20. I didn’t want to mess with it and since restarting the PS3 didn’t change anything I let it be. It worked fine on Saturday and Sunday so I forgot about it. Until 18:30 today when I wanted to play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 with a friend.

You think that’s bad? No, it’s not because it only gets worse. The PS3′s 8001050F error is a very good example of the dark side of the ‘always on’ net connection. Ubisoft, for instance, has recently introduced anti-piracy countermeasures that require you to be online to play the game. Unlike Valve’s Steam, there will be no offline mode. Most upcoming Ubisoft PC games will use that scheme.

Now, what happens if you lose your internet connection for whatever reason? Right, you can’t play the game you spent your money on. At least they promised to patch the games if they ever scrap the system. I for one will not support such methods. Right now, I’m quite agitated and I’d love to vent my anger by playing MW2 just to calm down – but I can’t!

Calendars and MUAs

JC — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 09:43:50 +0000

Long time no post. Yeah. Let’s just say that it’s summer, the weather is fine and I don’t wanna spend more time in front of my PC than necessary. Besides, I had some business to take care of. Anyway, a few people asked me to return to writing more regularly. I picked a topic that has really vexed me over the last few days: Calendars and MUAs (Mail User Agents, commonly referred to as mail clients).

I’m currently using Outlook XP and I wanted to change something. Frankly, Outlook’s IMAP support sucks and it’s really bloated. All I wanted was a well performing MUA that supports IMAP. After I did a little research I found that Sylpheed exactly fits my needs. It’s small, it’s fast, it doesn’t need much memory, and it supports IMAP. Unfortunately, Sylpheed doesn’t sport a calendar. That can’t be much of a problem, I though. Little did I know that looking for a calendar application would eat up a lot of my spare time.

I discovered some PIM (Personal Information Management) software that would fit my needs but almost every application had a major drawback. First of all, I didn’t want to pay for it. Otherwise, EssentialPIM would’ve been my first choice, even though they charge you twice: Once for the Pro application and once for the plugin needed to sync with my Google calendars. Well, I took a look at the Chandler Project but that has a lot more to offer than I want. Next, I tried Mozilla Sunbird. In combination with the Provider for Google Calendar 0.4 extension it did actually work. After some extensive testing I realized two things. First, the extension didn’t always work satisfactorily and Sunbird has a memory footprint of about 35 MB.

35 MB isn’t all that much you think? If you employ Mozilla Thunderbird, you can install the Lightning add-on and the Provider for Google Calendar 0.4. That combination will actually use up 10 to 15 MB more memory than Sunbird. Sylpheed needs about 20 MB on average. OK, time to switch to Thunderbird with the Lightning add-on. It consumes roughly the same amount of memory Sunbird and Sylpheed do combined. That move almost fixed all my needs. Still, Thunderbird wouldn’t always sync with my Google calendars and I haven’t been able to find out why. I addressed this last issue by disabling the Google Provider extension. Instead, I installed the latest version of GCALDaemon which does a much better job. In two days it hasn’t failed me once.

Of course, Thunderbird doesn’t start up as fast as Sylpheed does. Sylpheed is about four to five times faster than Thunderbird. Sunbird isn’t exactly the speediest programm either, so that doesn’t really matter. Currently I’m doing fine with multiple Google calendars and Thunderbird as a MUA. As an added bonus there are a few nice extensions available for Thunderbird. During the course of my tests, six extensions (Display Mail User Agent, HeaderScroll, Lightning, Maxmize Message Pane, Update Notifier, View Headers Toggle Button) were active.

New E-Mail Client Wanted

BumpTop – A Step in the Right Direction?

JC — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:24:51 +0000

You tend to fill your Desktop with a lot of icons and use is like a clipboard? You like the the simplicity of dragging stuff onto the Desktop for later processing and it serves as your prime download folder? If that’s the case, you might want to check out BumpTop. According to the website BumpTop is “a fresh and engaging new way to interact with your computer desktop”. I can assure you that it sure is. This piece of software tries to mimic your real-life desk and it does so in quite a nice way. You can push, pull, toss, pile, and sort your documents with simple gestures. Sound like some real cool stuff. Check it out:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0ODskdEPnQ

To my mind, however, managing the desktop only is the first step. You see, with an application like that you don’t wanna restrict yourself to your desktop. Provided that they can seamlessly incorporate BumpTop into your Windows there’s one place I’d like to see it: It would be way cool if they managed to integrate the software into the Windows Explorer. I can almost see it in front of me -- on the left hand you have your usual tree-view and on the right hand you got BumpTop featuring a 3D view and all the aforementioned features. That would be awesome. I hope they think of something like that.

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OpenDNS

JC — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 10:45:00 +0000

Yesterday I upgraded my router (Linksys WRT54GS) software to HyperWRT Thibor 15c because the last upgrade was made in Q1 2006. Additionally, I changed from my ISP’s DNS servers to the OpenDNS service which proved to be a wise decision. According to the website, OpenDNS is safer, faster, and smarter. The integrated phishing protection and the spell checking function seem to work quite nicely as preliminary tests indicate. Even so, I can live without these functions so they’re to be considered a nice-to-have. What’s important though, is the fact that my internet connection really became faster as far as the resolving of domain names is concerned.

But that’s still not the best thing. No, the good news is that this service is free! If you’re a heavy user – browsing multiple sites in different tabs – you should give it a try. I’m sure it’s worth the few minutes you need to spare in order to change the IP addresses of your designated DNS servers.

What’s the Best URL Shortener out There?

Windows XP x64 Edition

JC — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 14:10:00 +0000

Well, my system isn’t ready yet. I tried and tried and tried again but there are some issues I’d like to share with you. First, there are no drivers available for my NIC. It’s a wireless NIC from Linksys and they simply don’t offer 64-bit drivers. I tried to go with the chipset drivers instead, which are available for 64-bit systems. They worked half the way. I could install them and enter my settings. It was even possible to establish a connection with my wireless router but that’s it. I couldn’t access the router’s settings nor any of my other PCs. Not even a ping. Nothing.

Second, there’s an issue with ATI’s Catalyst drivers. I used 6.10 and they installed fine. They even seem to work fine unless I took a look at the event manager. Suddenly, I knew why booting my rig seemed to last forever. “L2c return failed”, the log’s telling me. I didn’t find any information on it and my system became responsive again. Yeah, I didn’t wanted to roll back to 6.9 so I installed Windows XP again. Apparently, everything is working fine for the moment.

I’ll report back later, if I’m able to.

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