The Executables.

Theo Jenson Wire Walker

2010-08-05T21:26:00.000-07:00

Yeah, this is what happens when I don't have a girlfriend, a job, or a class to go to. I do weird things...

I made it from baling wire, because I was testing how baling works as a structural prototyping material. It's remarkably strong, so I tested the idea of using it as a structural prototyping material by making this Theo Jenson style walker thing. I may post another video on how to actually make one.

Make Magazine's blog was kind enough to link to it.

~bg

The email test

2010-02-08T18:39:00.001-08:00

Well, isn't this interesting. Anyone can update their blogger account from email? Hmmm.

Testing Windows Live Writer

2010-02-07T15:01:00.001-08:00

This is interesting (to me): I have installed a program from Microsoft called Windows Live Writer, and I can use it to update this blog from within the program instead of the wysiwyg editor of Blogspot. I haven’t updated the blog and won’t, so don’t come back. You aren’t welcome here.

Oh your still here? Well, then here is a video of my cat:

Cut The Knot

2007-01-01T11:00:00.000-08:00

Here is a neat math site. With allot of java applets as demonstrations. Seriously go and check it out!
... Your not going to check it out are you... Well you should, I promise you'll find some interesting pages. Like the number tricks and games. Trust me its neat.

Navigate to Cut-The-Knot.org by activating this link.

Pandora

2006-12-25T11:14:00.000-08:00

Shoutcast is so passè, Pandora is a flash based music service that works like so: You enter a song or artist which Pandora plays then it finds a song or artist that is similar and plays that, you can rate the song thumbs up or thumbs down and Pandora builds a list on what it thinks you might like I am betting the more you rate the better it can predict what you'll like. Any who this is a great way to find new music. You can try Pandora for twenty minutes then it asks you to register for free. There is an ad-based free service which is awesome or you can pay about thirty-six bucks for one year of banner free music, one downside is you cannot request a specific song because of licensing. Either way its still pretty cool.

You may navigate to Pandora by clicking this text.

Zune Theme

2006-12-20T21:44:00.000-08:00

There is a new theme from Microsoft for the Windows XP. The theme is in the style of Zune, that new Mp3 player that Microsoft put out. It is a pretty crummy Mp3 player with all it's DRM'ness, but the theme is still pretty cool. It makes your XP look allot like Vista's aero theme (not the glass one.) Free of course but you must have XP sp2 or higher for the installer. For other versions of XP like mine, x64, you'll have to get the files out of some one's themes folder in a x32 bit version of XP and it will still work.

Here is the page on the Zune site.
Download it directly from Microsoft here.(link working as of 12/06)

PowerShell

2006-11-28T21:48:00.000-08:00

Microsoft released what is called Windows Powershell. It is a full featured command line shell for Windows XP, and I'm sure they will have for Vista. You can write scripts with it and all sorts of cool things. Oh and its free too!

Get the Windows Powershell here.

Learn programming with Java

2006-11-27T12:16:00.000-08:00

Here is a good site to learn programming. Or to just learn java.
Go here for the tutorials.

Firefox add-ons.

2006-11-15T10:10:00.000-08:00

Now that Firefox 2.0 is out, I am listing my favorite add-ons.

Googlepedia - displays Wikipedia results on the left of the page when you search Google.
Adblock - Blocks images/flash from known ad servers.
Chatzilla - which is an easy to use IRC client.

Just click on the links to go to their respective websites.

Incase your a jerk, all images on this blog are copyrighted to their respective owners.

WinDirStat

2006-11-04T11:33:00.000-08:00

I was hipped to this program by Lifehacker blog. WinDirStat is a program that analysis your hard drive(s) and shows it as a bunch of blocks, bigger files are bigger blocks allowing you to see whats taking up so much space. I know allot of people would be tempted to go on a delete-athon but try to resist as you could delete important files. But never the less an awesome program which is based on Stefan Hundhammer's KDE program KDirStat , and Re-programmed for Windows by BerdhardSeifert.

Get it here.

Blender

2006-10-26T15:06:00.000-07:00

Blender is an open source modeling software.
Get it here and tutorials here.

AutoGK

2006-10-13T20:20:00.000-07:00

AutoGK or auto gordian knot is a program that makes compressing your videos to XviD or DivX easier than ever. I have found it really dificult for me to figure out what all the compression settings do and how they will affect the out come. But not now! You select a target size or quality and press start you can even easily que up a list of jobs to do unattended.

Find AutoGK here.

Also here is an excellent guide ripping your dvd's and converting them with AutoGK.

VNC

2006-10-12T00:35:00.000-07:00

Lifehacker a while ago now did a editorial on how to setup whats called a Single Click VNC. Which means some one, like anyone who is having trouble with their computer in windows and you have them click on this file and now you can connect to their computer remotely. Its a VNC client/server setup but instead of having the server on the host machine the server is on your machine which just means that they, (the person having the troubles) doesn't have to port forward their router or anything. They don't even have to install the program its just a single file that you can email. Although I noticed that gmail wouldn't let me send it even zipped because it was an exe file. Don't be intimidated just go through the tutorial and you'll end up with a really great tool to help solve computer problems with out having to be near the actual computer.

Here is the life hacker tutorial.

And here is the actual VNC website.

This is Windows only and I am sure there are better VNC server/clients out there but I still think this is pretty cool.

Streaming Prime Time

2006-10-11T23:45:00.000-07:00

May favorite show right now is Lost, lucky for me ABC has their prime time shows available to watch for free. It's ad supported wide screen flash streaming goodness. Streaming using flash like YouTube is just so much easier than say downloading on iTunes. I really dislike iTunes, the interface is irritating to me and the video quality from TV episodes is not worth 2$; especially when you don't have a video iPod. But I digress, quite a few TV stations are offering streaming content online for free, how ever they haven't figured out that people don't want to watch "extra content" that didn't air, we want to see the actual TV episodes. ABC, MTV and VH1 are the only ones I have found to actually do the full episodes, keep in mind each episode is only up for a limited amount of time, maybe so you'll buy the DVD's.

ABC prime time shows are available here.

MTV and VH1 both have some good shows available to watch after they have aired. Like Surreal Life, Flavor of Love and the Wild boyz... God I hate fitting into my age demographic.

Ubuntu

2006-10-11T00:18:00.000-07:00

//UPDATE: I would like to amend this sudo review by saying that I still recommend Ubuntu, HOWEVER I have had allot of frustration with the latest release so I would also recommend either using the stable LTS release or maybe trying SUSE or maybe MEPIS.
I would like to officially recommend my new favorite Linux distro, Ubuntu. I have been for a long time now a Linux noob. And as a noob I can say that Ubuntu is the first I have used with out getting too frustrated and thought I could definitely use as a WinXP replacement. First off installing Ubuntu us painless with its graphical installer that most popular desktop linux's have. One thing that has always been a selling point for Linux is speed even on older machines, however my last favorite was Fedora core but for some reason it always seemed to be too big and kinda slow when compared to other Linux and even a fresh WinXP install. Ubuntu gets a gold star in the speed department from me. Another selling point is its package install/update system. One thing that is really easy partly because of Ubuntu becoming so popular is that allot of software that you would like to install is already in the package manager. All you have to do is check a box next to the software you want and it will get loaded. It's easy to be able to get non supported and non open source software too that will allow you to play mp3s, DVDs and that sort of thing. Pretty much everything that you might be wondering how to do has already been done and documented step by step in Ubuntu's forums. Go ahead, download and see for yourself.

You can get Ubuntu in x86 and x64 here.

It comes standard with Gnome but there are two other Ubuntu projects that come with KDE and XFCE as the default GUI if you prefer. Also there is an educational version here.

Free files on Call for Help

2006-10-10T23:43:00.000-07:00

Leo Laport has a television show besides his excellent tech radio show on KFI on weekends, on a tech tv like channel in Canada called "Call for Help". You can watch episodes on google video which I hope with get better with the acquisition of YouTube. Anyways what I am really posting about is the section on Call for Help's website called Free files where they have posted free software for MAC/PC/Linux. I need to say that any software I post about has not been fully tested for spyware or affects on your computer like slowing or bugs, simply because of the lack of time, but I try my best. However I am sure you can trust them as well as I know Lifehacker fully tests any software they recommend.

Find useful software at Call for Help's website here.

Visual studio.

2006-08-14T07:07:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has free versions of it's Visual studio line of programming programs. Great if you want to start programming. Here are the diferent versions:

Visual Basic
C#
C++
Java

Click above links for respective sites.

Jayisgames.com

2006-07-16T00:11:00.000-07:00

This blog is really neat. Go there today!

Jayisgames.com

Spyware time!

2006-06-26T13:17:00.000-07:00

If you are getting bombarded by popups for no reason, chances are these sites will help when all else fails.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/VundoFix.shtml - Fixes vundo's

http://www.merijn.org/downloads.html - Resource for CWS's

http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Panda-Quick-Remover-Download-20687.html -might help

http://siri.geekstogo.com/SmitfraudFix.php -this one is for atmclk.exe dcomcfg.exe's

Share Keyboard and Mouse with Multiple Computers.

2006-06-03T10:50:00.000-07:00

Synergy allows you to share both a mouse and keyboard with as many computers that you want on your network. Regardless of your operating system. You can slide your mouse off the screen and seamlessly on to the other computer. Is available in Windows, Linux and Mac versions.

Here's the Sourceforge website.

Wolfenstien enemy territory

2006-06-03T10:40:00.000-07:00

Enemy Territory was the multyplayer part of return to castle wolfenstien by ID based on the Quake 3 engine and is very fun and best of all FREE even with today's top of the line graphics its till really fun, looks good and will run on a lot of machines.

Download it here.

µTorrent

2006-04-27T20:18:00.000-07:00

I have been using Azureus for my torrents for a while and I have had no problems. How ever µTorrent has replaced Azureus for me not only for all of it's features but its tiny, and my favorite thing in the whole world that I wish programmers would do more is you don't need to load it. µTorrent comes as just an exe which can be run in what ever folder you want. No invading Window's system folders.

Find µTorrent, here.

Deep Burner

2006-04-27T20:00:00.000-07:00

I've formatted my hdd a few times in my computers life and some where along the way I lost my Roxio CD's. I am usually stuck with trying to burn with WinXP's built in burner through explorer. It is very limited and never seems to work right. Also if you like to open, make and burn ISO images like Linux distros you need a separate program. Deepburner can do it and for free no less. I've used it on a few occasions and had no problems. On Deepburner's website they have a Pro version which isn't free and adds more features so just make sure which version your downloading.

Deepburner's download page, here.

Track Mania

2006-04-27T19:38:00.000-07:00

From the makers of Track Mania comes, Track Mania Nations a wicked-in-your-face-kick-in-the-pans-movie-review-cliche-ride-like-you've-never-seen-before, action... Well if you liked Track Mania you'll probably like this. The same basic thing except with formula cars and its free. Yea so if you've ever wanted to drive a formula car through loops upside down on floating highways in a giant stadium then download today!

VLC player

2006-03-25T20:42:00.000-08:00

This goes along with the last post. Video Lan Client player, or VLC, is an open source player which comes with it's own opensource codecs and can play almost anything. I used it mostley for videos but I know it plays music files also. There are ports to diferent linux distros aswell.

Get VLC here.

ffdshow

2006-03-12T19:03:00.000-08:00

It can be frustrating when videos on your computer wont play. That's because of the many different "codecs" used to make the videos. They have to do with the compression and quality but you probably don't care very much as long as the videos play. Here is a codec thing called "ffdshow" that can decode and encode diferent formats. This has DivX or Xvid in it.

Get ffdshow here.

DOOM9

2005-09-23T22:30:00.000-07:00

quick post, DooM9 is a website that has many reasources about digital video, editing, codecs, programs players, etc just check it out. infact im going to add a link to the side, which is a great honer for them, they should so thank me lol.

doom9.net

ZynaddsubFX

2005-09-05T01:21:00.000-07:00

Oh neato! This is a great synth, but the windows version doesnt support midi in out thing, how ever some one compiled a new windows version that could run either by itself or inside another midi midi program which made it work better... if you care to know I found another free synth, called crystal do a searh on google.

It is called ZynAddSubFX, and you can get it here.

The FBI is listening... to your mp3's.

2005-08-27T20:42:00.000-07:00

File sharing programs often come with annoying spy/adware and they are usually only on one network. What I mean by that is, In the P2P (person to person) file sharing world, there are a few different types and they each work a little differently. I'm sure you have heard word's like Kazaa, Limewire, Gnutella and BitTorrent. Although torrents work diferently, those are each a different network. With p2p everyone is a server. Anyways, pounding away on the ol sourceforge is a client called "Shareaza". It can search on all the networks, has an easy interface, and a detached media player. You know I'm usually just happy though if I can find one of these programs that will download a song fast with out spyware, and maybe if you can search for more then one thing at a time which you can.

Get Shareaza here.

===========================================================
DISCLAIMER:
Please don't download mp3's as it is illegal and I don't do it. If you ever get the erg to do the DL, just think of the poor band Metallica and how they wont be able to buy that African country that they have always dreamed about having.

VIRUS!

2005-07-14T23:49:00.000-07:00

OMG!!!!!1!!1!!!11!!!ONE!!!!ONEONE!!!EXCLAMATIONPOINT!!! Did I scare you? No? Awe shucks. Well I bet you do have at leased some kind of virus from all that porn and warez that you have been downloading. Wait don't panic it's ok! I'm here for you and since by now your probably aware that Norton is a piece of crap, did you know that there is a free AntiVirus project. Yup that's right free. It is called ClamAV. So, don't you feel like a walking infestation looking to people in the streets for help but there is Norton in his top hat and coat with his driver opening the door to his horse and buggy and you try to catch him but its too late. ClamAV sees you and is all be it slightly disgusted but intrigued at the idea of turning you from the virus flower girl, to a lady who he can take to the races and a ball and stuff.

For Windows here.
For Others here.

Abi Word

2005-07-14T23:33:00.000-07:00

Its always good to have more then one program that does the same thing like a word processor for example. AbiWord is a full featured word processor that can open many different kinds of documents. You can also download many plug-ins like a dictionary, spell check, translation etc. So like I said its always good to have more then one program that does the same thing because they all do it differently.

(Click on your operating system)AbiWord's site is here.

DHTML - ART

2005-07-11T12:38:00.000-07:00

I know this blog isn't about websites but who cares its my blog. =D I could not stop looking at all these cool dhtml 3d stuff on this one artistic website. Its really neat to kill some time and you can get the code for each one. I would suggest using IE to view the site here.

Audacity

2005-07-06T02:38:00.000-07:00

This is one of those on top 100 downloaded at sourceforge.org. I'ts a good audio program. With Audacity, you can edit wav, mp3, and ogg's. There are many tools and effects that you can use to enhance or change your audio. You can have an unlimited amount of tracks. Save and export in various formats like wav, aiff, ogg, and mp3(with lame [that's what it's called] mp3 DLL). It's really pretty easy to use and there isn't any useless buttons. I have used this type of program before for repairing audio, making music and making the sound tracks for a movie project.

Get Audacity here.

Bink!

2005-06-25T02:06:00.000-07:00

This program will Convert your video file or sound file or both, into an exe file. Just click the exe and the video will begin to play. This is nice for a few reasons one of them being if you want someone to be able to play your video but not have to have downloaded like say QuickTime or a codec like divx beforehand on their machine. This has allot of features that I don't use but you might. Download the Bink is the video and Smacker as its called with Rad Video tools here.

DVD Backup.

2005-06-23T14:16:00.000-07:00

Ever wished you could make a back up of your DVD's and burn them so that way when they get scratched by your kids or if you decide one day to use it as a frisbee, its ok just burn a new one. PROBLEM - Oh no, you have figured out that "the man" doesn't want you to be able to copy your own DVD's and has encrypted them some how. SOLUTION - This nice program called DVD shrink will be able to unencrypted your DVD for you and burn to a DVD-r or rw. However, Don't be like China, and start selling illegal DVD's on the street because then you'll be a Jerk who will get caught. And hugs not drugs!

Get DVD Shrink here.

Gmail as a HDD

2005-06-19T21:22:00.000-07:00

That's right folks step right up and see the amazing shell extension. It's called, well Gmail Drive file extension. After you load this, you go to "My Computer" and their will me a hard drive icon there use click on it and enter in your Gmail user name and password and you'll see a regular file folder. You can then drag and drop right into the file, and everything will be saved as an email attachment. But you wont see that part. Two gigs of a internet HDD is pretty great if you ask me. The only restriction is on each file size. It can only be about 20 megs if I remember right. If you have a Gmail account why not have this for emergencies I know I could have used this once in a while.

Download it here.

7zip

2005-06-19T20:46:00.000-07:00

Everyone needs a ZIP utility to open various compressed files, and up to now most of us have been using the almost free annoying WinZip. (sings Twisted sister: Were not gonna take it! Were not goooonnna take it any moreeeee YA!) Ok out there on the ol' source forge is a Zip archive utility that is completely free, much easier to use then WinZip with that annoying extra click through "No I don't want to purchase you AGAIN." Anyway this zip utility is called 7zip. It supports a "menagerie" of compressed files such as: ZIP, CAB, RAR, 7Z, ARJ, GZIP, BZIP2, Z, TAR, CPIO, RPM, DEB, R2D2 and C3PO. Ok not the last two but, for zip and gzip it provides a compression ratio that is 2-10% better than WinZip. Oh snap! And I know your head is spinning by now but their website claims that with the new ".7z" format it can compress to 30%-70% better than Zip format.

Get it here.

LEGO lovers look!

2005-06-19T00:19:00.000-07:00

There is a Lego nerd inside all of us, except for me. I can see the pain in your eyes from the memory of a small boy protecting his prized Lego masterpieces from your brothers/sisters/minions of Satan. Anyways there is a program called Ldraw, a CAD with every Lego piece you can imagine. No longer do you have to keep trash barrels of Lego pieces in your basement. Its an easy typical CAD program, just drag the pieces into one of the four views and let your blockhead run wild. I would recommend at leased scanning through the website for details before downloading.

Get it Here.

The Gimp!

2005-06-15T00:02:00.000-07:00

I've only used this a few times because I'm not an artist however I always like to have multiple image programs on hand because they each have some feature the others don't. Gimp is pretty advanced and definitely worth the download; especially if your sitting there using paint or some nonsense. Here's a quote from there site:

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.

Get GIMP here.

Fedora Core 4

2005-06-14T20:43:00.000-07:00

As of the date of this post there happens to be a new version of Fedora Core which would be number 4. This is my favorite Linux distribution. It is really easy to install especially on a PC you don't need anymore. Its packed with appliances and games. The only thing I have yet to fix how ever when you load this on an older machine and you use KDE or Gnome desktops it will run slower then I would like. But if you have never used Linux before this is the Linux distro I would recommend. I've heard that slackware is the best and gentoo is also good, except slackware is too pro oriented, and gentoo is getting up there. Anyway if you want to have fun with your old PC loading different distributions of Unix, Linux, BSD will become addictive and you'll learn allot too. Here's two tips: x86 is probably the ".iso" file you want, x86 being any pc that perhaps had windows on it, its the type of processor. An ".iso" file that you'll download is an CD image file, no not a picture but all the files that need to be burned to a CD. The way you do that is simply by selecting the iso file as if you were copying a CD in your CD burning software and instead of selecting a drive you select that iso file. One more thing that might sound daunting but if you stick the CD in and nothing happens try going into your bios and making your cdrom drive the master and your hard drive the slave then change it back when your done loading.

Get FedoraCore 4 here.
A good site for distros is distrowatch.com

ChatZilla IRC

2005-06-14T13:53:00.000-07:00

IRC clients make me frustrated. They are usually too complicated with too many options that I don't know what they do, plus there demos. Well that's just the opposite of ChatZilla, a Firefox plug-in that is easy to find your chat server. I know most people out there use Firefox now so why not just have this in there so you don't miss the next chat with guest Jerry Ryan from Voyager, or developers of Everquest two to talk about the next expansion pack... Dorks.

Download ChatZilla here.

GTK-Radiant

2005-06-13T19:33:00.000-07:00

Old old old I know, but who cares its that good, I had to post it. I'm just trying to think of things that could go here as I find them and as I remember. GTK-Radiant is a level editor that is very easy to use compared to others. Although you may have to practice awhile before you get the hang of it, however that shouldn't scare you away there is allot of walk-throughs out there as well as forums where people have asked the same questions you have. You can see what people have done with this and the Quake 3 engine here.

Download the Editor here.
Image from planetquake.com

Spy-ware

2005-06-13T15:00:00.000-07:00

SPY WARE, OMG!!!!! It's ok I'm here for you. If you don't know by now you should that Microsoft has a free beta of their spy-ware removing software. It is currently the best spy-ware, ad-ware, mal-ware, worm and trojan removing software out there. It updates itself and runs a system check every morning at 2am by default. This will find the spy-ware that's embedded in your computer in all the dlls and delete it.

Get it from Microsoft here.

Hammer Head

2005-06-13T14:20:00.000-07:00

Here is a drum-box that is has an intuitive interface loaded with a enough free sounds to do a quite a few things. You can load your own sounds in there and also can stream to a WAV file on your HDD. If you have ever thought you needed a new beat for mixing or just want something fun to play with HammerHead rhythm station is a gem in your treasure chest of a computer.

Get Hammer Head from cnet here.

Little John

2005-06-12T22:35:00.000-07:00

If you have a palm or a, now useless because of the ultra cool PSP, Zodiac. I feel your pain. This is the best app for palm EVER. It's called Little John by Yoyofr, a NES, SNES, GB, NEOGEO and Sega Emulator all in one. Sadly no GBA but still really great. I've noticed high rom compatibility. Unlike Firestorm GBA emulator that has zero rom compatibility, worst emulator ever.

Get the Zodiac version here.
Get the palm version here.
And find some really neat projects on his main page here.

Rockstar Games Presents

2005-06-11T23:37:00.000-07:00

Did you used to play Grand theft auto 1 or 2? Oh the memories! Actually I never did but you can download GTA1 and 2 free from Rockstar, along with a lesser known, once-had-to-pay-for, game. Which is almost better than freeware. Something else fun on their website is a pretty advanced flash based Music loop mixer... Thing called The Beaterator. If you like to make techno/house check it out!

Get the games here.
And find the Beaterator here.

OpenOffice.org

2005-06-11T21:00:00.000-07:00

OpenOffice.org are six very nice office apps bundled together from Sun microsystems comparable to the expensive MS office suite. I wouldn't say its necessarily better than Office but its very useful and a must download for Linux and Windows. Get it here.

DV Editor

2005-06-11T12:01:00.000-07:00

There happens to be a free version of Avid on their website. If you dont know what Avid is, it's a video editing program that is what the pros use for real movies. This is a free version that you have to register to get a key but its free to reg. Anyways I havent had a chance to use this one yet or see how usefull it is and usualy I would before recomending software, but seeing as this page needs a post I figured why not. Get it Here.