Over the course of several years, I managed to install quite a lot of (free) programs. Some of those I rarely use, but they are still helpful. Keeping them up to date is not something I am good at though. But with FileHippo's Update Checker, finding the newest versions of my programs is a breeze.

Download the little program and run it, and it will scan your entire computer. For every file it recognizes, it checks the FileHippo site to see if there is an update available. At the end of the process, a list of updates is presented in your browser. Download the updates you want and install them. Yes, that last part is still manual labor, but at least you won't have to find a dozen different sites to download the latest versions from. Be aware though, the process of checking your system for updates can be a lenghty one, especially when you have a lot of programs installed.

It seems FileHippo will check both free and commercial software, and it knows about many programs. Run it every couple of weeks or months and your system will be fairly up to date.

Every once in a while, I am surprised by the creativity and skill of people creating YouTube videos. The current interest is “literal videos”: people taking video clips of songs and replacing the singing with their own singing. They're not singing the actual lines though, but their own version. The “literal” aspect of it all, is that they're singing about what is happening in the video, at the same tempo as the original song. Below is a version of Total Eclipse of the Heart, which I like best.



Many more videos can be found as a YouTube playlist. Be warned though, some singers are more skilled than others.

Do you ever feel a homicidal rage after a day at the office? Are you annoyed by cute creatures getting all the attention? Want to have the ultimate power? Then Bloody Fun Day is the game for you.

Bloody Fun Day is a flash game in which you are Death himself, and it is your job to kill cute creatures. These creatures come in four different colors. Each cutie killed earns you a point in of that creature's color. Earn enough points to get some extra moves. Groups of cuties sharing the same color die whenever you kill one of them. And if you kill many cuties in one fell swoop, you'll find a golden egg, which increases your score by 5000 points.

It's simple, it's fun, and an average game can easily take 15-30 minutes. Long enough to keep your mind off of daily chores, not too long to forget about dinner or picking up your kids.

Are you worried your computer may be infected with the very nasty Conficker (aka Downup/Downadup/Kido) virus? Visit this Conficker Eye Chart page and check if you can see all six images loaded. If the images from antivirus vendors are missing, chances are your computer is infected.

Apparently, Conficker blocks access to certain antivirus sites. So by displaying images from those sites directly on a different page, this check is an easy way to notice problems. Make sure you are not behind some kind of proxy server when you check this though, or you get incorrect results. To disable any proxies in Firefox, go to Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Network -> Settings and set it to No Proxy.

If your computer is infected, the Wikipedia page links to some removal tools.

Lode Runner was my favorite game on the Commodore 64. (I got used to calling it Loderunner though) A long time ago I managed to find a copy of the Nintendo DS version of Lode Runner. It wasn't cheap, but I figured it was worth it. And it was, when it comes to game play. The only problem? All screens are in Japanese, and I can't read any of it. So any extended play became a guessing game, no fun at all. It isn't good when I can play for hours at a time, but don't know how to save so I can continue next time.

I no longer have a reason not to play this great game anymore: over at NTSC-uk they have a page that has images of all screens, with English translations! All this thanks to “Charlesr, David Teixeira (arada392) and Sum Hau (Venom743)”. Who ever they may be. I didn't want to sign up to their forum just to post a thank you in a thread that is over a year old, but I'll say it here: thanks guys, this is awesome!

Since January of this year, travelers to the US under the Visa Waiver program are required to apply for authorization online, using the Electronic System For Travel Authorization Experience (ESTA). This is just to travel to the US, no guarantee of actually making it into the country. Basically, this simply lets you fill out the green I94W form online. It really has all the same questions (except that it asks for date of passport issuance in addition to expiration date, details like that) and even the screen has the same kind of green color. I guess they don't want to confuse people.

Visiting the actual ESTA site the first time is ... well, mind boggling, really. It shows a warning message/EULA that fills half the screen and that basically says you have no rights. Best thing? Your only option is to click OK. Hm, weird. But oh well, I had to use it anyway. After that it's just filling out the info. The system then tells you whether or not you are authorized to travel. In my case, it told me this right away, but the site implies it may take some time before you know for sure.

ESTA forms are valid for two years, or until your passport expires, whichever happens first. One would think this is all there is to it from now on, but I have also read stories that claim I'll still have to fill out the paper version next time I fly. That seems like a waste of time, but perhaps not all US border checkpoints are fully connected to the ESTA system yet.

As for the experience itself, filling out the form is easy, as long as you have your passport and travel info at hand. It takes about five minutes (including printing) if you're confident, probably longer if you want to double-check everything. No big deal to do this before a trip, you just have to remember. And remembering all you need to do for a trip isn't always so easy.

It was just a matter of time, but now it finally happened. Google Street View is a available for three Dutch cities: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Groningen (and for a bunch of English cities as well, including London). I haven't been able to find myself yet, although I have seen a Google car passing by at least once in recent months.

Checking out some spots in Amsterdam, I am impressed by the amount of automatic blurring of faces and license plates. At least I expect it is automatic, I sure hope there aren't thousands of underpaid employees painstakingly blurring faces. I am sure all these new images will lead to some interesting discoveries. Me, I'll just bore you with an image of a bike taxi in Amsterdam.

Edit: it seems Firefox doesn't like the code to embed the map view, so I'll just give you a link for now and you can check it out for yourself. After a dozen tries (preview version help) I figured out the problem is caused by the link to Google's full page. I converted it to a tinyurl URL and now it works. No clue why, but I'm not in the mood to look into this right now.


View Larger Map

It seems there is some good news in the area of rechargable batteries: batteries that may be charged in just a few seconds. Hey, I'd be happy with batteries that can be charged in just a few minutes.

So many of my gadgets require some kind of battery to power them on the road. Most of the time I remember to charge the gadgets in time for any road trip. Not all trips can be planned for though, so sometimes I end up with a gadget that is not fully charged. (plus, ok, I'll admit it, sometimes I forgot to charge a gadget) Having the option of literally last-minute charging a battery would be great. Now I just need lithium-ion batteries for my Wii controller. Since I don't use it very often, I usually end up with empty batteries, scrambling to find a couple that still have some juice left.

It all sounds like something too good to be true, right now, but perhaps this will be available sooner than thought. Science is happening at impressive speed these days. Speaking of science and technology, the compact disc turned 30 this weekend. I didn't realize it (or I, for that matter) was that old already. For the record (no pun intended) I still love compact discs.

It was time for another Nucleus update. No major security issues this time, so it could wait a few days, but today I finally got around to installing the latest version. As usual, if you happen to notice something no longer working, feel free to contact me.

Since I was looking at updating anyway, I also checked out some possible hosting alternatives, since I managed to go over my bandwidth limit last year. Although I found some interesting providers, it seems I will need more time to decide on one for sure. Meanwhile I will stay with the current hosting provider, since it has served me well for years. I just have to make sure I don't post anything popular enough to make it to digg. No worries there, eh?

In situations where several people share the same computer, problems can arise when people prefer to use different screen resolutions. What is too big for some, is too small for others. Constantly switching the resolution using the Windows settings is quite annoying. Thankfully there is a little utility program you can run to make life easier.

QuickResXP is a tiny program that, once installed and run, sits in your system tray. If you want to change your screen size (resolution), open the program and select from a wide range of preset values. Even better, you can create a shortlist of favorite settings. This is very helpful if you have, say, three different preferences on one computer. Each user can just select his or her favorite resolution.

I seem to remember setting up several accounts for people using the same computer a long time ago, each with its own resolution. Perhaps my old mind is playing tricks on me and I just remember this wrong. It seems Windows XP certainly does not remember resolution settings per user. So whenever one account switches the resolution, the other accounts are affected as well. This is why QuickResXP is so useful. Whether you use separate accounts for each user, or several users share the same account, they can all have their own settings.

Navigation and use of QuickResXP is easy enough so even elderly people can use it. The only problem I see, is if they can't get to the tray icon in the first place, because of a small resolution size. In which case screen magnification software may be useful. QuickResXP is written by Bryan Berns and is freeware for non-commercial use.