Right now, what you're probably thinking is something along the lines of "What the heck is Toribash?"

Well, it's actually pretty hard to explain, but i shall try. Toribash is a turn-based fighting game, where you control a ragdolls joints and set them to do whatever when you press space, or in case of on-line play, when the time runs out.

One thing that really makes Toribash stand out among others isn't only that it's an indie game, but that it's also entirely physics based, with no pre-rendered moves or anything. Everything is rendered real-time. One should think that this would be enormously taxing for ones CPU, right? But this isn't true. While the early versions of Toribash was very unoptimized, the new versions run incredibly smooth, considering the amount of calculations done.

And you know how people say that the best things in the world are free, right? Well, guess what? Toribash is free! Ever since version 3.0, Nabi Studios, the creators of the game, has removed the 20$ price tag from the game, and now they earn their money by charging for many kinds of optional services.

Toribash even features its own little economy system, using a virtual currency called ToriCredits. These ToriCredits (Or TC as they're usually called) can be used to buy many different things in the ToriShop, like colors for your ragdoll (Or Tori), custom textures, colored trails and so on.

First impressions of the AerO₂bic Vertical Mouse

It's a "vertical" mouse aimed mainly at people who are having trouble with wrist/arm/shoulder related to using regular mouse.

well, I dont think anyone, excluding gamers(!), would pay this much for a mouse unless they're having trouble in some way related to the use of regular mouse. I should probably state at this stage that I do have problems with my left shoulder (I'm left handed). In the past I've had problems with my wrist, arm, elbow as well but not at the moment.

With this mouse, the hand actually rests completely on the mouse, thumb to top. You can move the mouse and leave the hand completely relaxed. I personally at this stage cant really say how good this is - I like it a lot but it reminds me of the first time I drove a car with 5 gears (as opposed to just 4) - I found it so incredibly difficult to do this little extra movement that I wasnt used to doing. Likewise now, I'm aware of muscles in my shoulder & down my back that probably have never made these specific movements ..

http://aerobicmouse.com

LineByter is a utility designed to find and extract patterns from text files.

It's a brand new (free) program coded by DonationCoder member Carl Danley (CodeByter) and released today.

It includes some unique features like duplicate removal, the ability to specify multiple match and reject patterns, and the ability to save and load profiles, that make it ideal for doing repeated things like extracting emails or urls from text files.

Motivation for the program

When we send out the DonationCoder mailing list, a certain number of the newsletter emails bounce back each month as undeliverable.  I use phplist to manage the web mailing list but lately what I've been doing is exporting these bounced emails from my email program and running an email extraction utility on the exported email to get a list of email addresses from these emails, and then feeding them into a script that turns off email notification for those users on the forum whose emails can be found.

In the past i've been using a now-discontinued utility designed specifically to extract emails.  But it's less than ideal.  It's a big clunky, it sometimes finds things that aren't emails, and sometimes misses real emails.  It also has a bad user interface and doesn't remove duplicates.  After i would run this utility i would bring the output file into a text editor, sort and remove duplicates, and then go through and remove certain emails, like those that are really donationcoder.com addresses and a a few known fake email address patterns that seem to show up regularly.

SO that's why I have been wanting for a while a little utility that is better at extracting emails and doing some of the things automatically that i have been doing manually.  Of course I could have written a little perl or python script for it, but i am a big fan of custom gui tools for such things.

LineByter is the program that emerged from my discussions with Carl about this idea.  It's actually a much more general purpose program that can extract and reject all kinds of regular expression patterns, BUT it's also designed to be really easy to use and is focused specifically enough on the general workflow that i described above so that it's a real joy to use for this kind of stuff.


Features

Some key features of the program:

• You can drag and drop as many files to scan as you want.
• Nice progress bar so you can see how much more time it's going to take.
• Supports preset library of regular expressions so you can easily just select common patterns and add your own presets -- this is super important for letting you quickly reuse patterns and makes it suitable even for those who don't understand regular expression syntax.
• Lets you specify a list of multiple patterns that are being searched for and how to extract the data you want from these patterns.
• Lets you specify a list of additional patterns which should be rejected even if they match the first list (ideal if you want to find and extract all email patterns except those with certain properties).
• Shows a nice complete report of why each pattern was found and/or rejected.
• Automatically removes duplicates.
• Produces a final list of results in text form that can be copied to clipboard or saved to file.
• Can save and load profiles so you can reuse configuration settings for common jobs you perform.

A few days ago i was in need to implement a file upload capability in one of my web applications. It should work on clientside without any special programs like a FTPClient or sth. like that. Only with the pure, available on every PC, webbrowser.

The ugly side of the story was, that uploads with browsers sucks. You have no real progress tracking. But i like to have this feature. So i researched a bit and learned that is isn't possible with only PHP right out of the box, if you haven't installed PHP V 5.2 or higher on your server or use some patched unofficial PHP corefiles. In the 5.2+ versions of PHP there are hook functions built in to monitor http uploads. But i was stuck with PHP 5.1.2, so no hooks for poor JoTo and i reject to use unofficial hacked core files.

So i accepted to have a hybrid solution with a combination of PHP and Perl/CGI that can do the trick. I searched a bit further and found a wonderful component named XUpload from Sibsoft. I downloaded the thingy and it worked for me, right out of the box, after a short and easy install. So i decided to share this information with you all, in the case someone is in need also in the future.

Features i liked:

• A continuous realtime progress bar and information about uploaded amount in percent and KB, upload speed, used as well as remaining time


• Handles big files also (i tested it up to 600MB yet)


• The upload page and the embedded form, as well as the upload status window, are very customizable using a template system and CSS


• The upload form is extensible with as many user defined fields as you wish


• The upload CGI is fully transparent and you can redirect all form data, after the upload finishes, to any URI you want (to process the uploaddata yourself - e.g. like me to my PHP script again to send a notify email about the upload

The older version 2.6 of XUpload is free. There is also a PRO Version 3.0 of XUpload with many more features (, page inline progressbar, ...) for purchase at $37 per domain. But even the free version is very usable for most cases and can be used for as many domains as you wish.

http://www.sibsoft.net/xupload.html

DeVeDe is a(nother) video converter, but with the sole purpose of producing DVD's viewable on a TV using a standalone DVD player

Features (from the site)


I'll start by saying that I have (until recently) had no interest in or requirement for anything like this, hence my knowledge of all things relating to video editing, conversion, production, etc is practically nil, and as such, I have absolutely no qualifications for writing this review...

Recently though my inlaws purchased a shiny new HDD camcorder...

how is that relevant?  well, for a start they are techonogically challenged.  They really shouldn't have any tech whatsoever, period.  They didn't seek any advice regarding their purchase, just what the salesmen told them on the day (I think you can see where I'm going with this....)

...

DeVeDe on the other hand was something of a revelation.  Not only was it dead simple to use, but I understood what it was doing, and I got good results (choose the output format (DVD, VCD, SVCD, CVD or DivX), add my files, answer the prompts, and I'm done!!)

The interfaces are logical, clean, and simple, with all the common functions ready to hand, and the lesser only a click away.   

mouser and I have been using redmine lately for various projects, and I must say it really helps productivity.
I find this kind of the ultimate `getting-things-done` tool, even if you don't need a bugtracker for what you're doing per se. It's a bit hard to explain everything so I'll just break down the features below:

I just got my copy of "The Best of 2600: A Hacker Odyssey" and thought I would post a little about it.

For those of you not familiar with the magazine "2600", it's a small magazine about hacking phones and computers, that was stared in the mid-80s as a few printed sheets stapled together and mailed out by a couple of college students. It's always been a kind of loosely put together collection of musings and pictures of odd phones, and the occasional cool hack.  It's always had a very distinctively underground feel, bordering on illegal, and has developed a kind of cult following.  I've always been a fan of the magazine though i don't understand most of it and only read it occasionally.

With the release of this new big anthology, the best writing of 2600 is about to become a lot more well known.

The book is edited and contains chapter introductions (sometimes substantial) by Emmanual Goldstein, one of the original founders of 2600 and still the driving force behind the magazine.

I expected the book to have the eccentric/indie feel of the magazine and be similar in organization to anthologies like "The Best of Creative Computing" -- that is, filled with pictures and organized into randomly themed areas.

Instead, the book is organized chronologically, and separated into 3 main sections for the decades of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, and subchapters in each section.

It's a big hardcover book, 871 pages.  And there are no pictures or photos(!).  This is actually a little strange given how many photos and illustrations are in the magazine normally.. I wonder in fact if this wasn't a decision made out of legal concerns.. No explanation is given.

The lack of images and the minimal discussion about the history of the magazine is going to be a little disappointing to anyone who gets the book hoping for a visceral immediate feeling of nostalgia the way one gets from reading the Creative Computing anthologies for example, nothing looks or feels like the original magazine, and the articles are all professionally laid out and typeset uniformly.

It's a great collection of essays that reflect the hacker mindset and the amateur hobbyist perspective on hacking -- a collection that anyone interesting in the history of hacking would be thrilled to own.

If you're expecting to get a collection of the best hacker writing in the last 3 decades, suitable for a general audience, you're likely to be dissapointed.  2600 was always hackers writing for other hackers, and these are not professional writers.  And if you're expecting a visual walk down memory lane through the history of 2600 you'll also be disappointed.

But if you are looking for a collection of the best essays from three decades of the magazine and the hacker community, providing a representative and thorough look at the emerging issues in hacking over time, you've got yourself a new bible.  It's a fascinating book and a great way to jump into the raw source literature if you like that kind of thing and are curious about the hacking community.  And if you're a fan of the magazine it's impossible not to be a fan of this book.

When I read about Direcscape I had to give it a try, because I simply could not understand what it was about! I downloaded the file, 680 KB, and double-clicked it. It is a WinZip SelfInstaller that will unpack to the silly folder name, "Install Direcscape". Would you go looking under the letter "I" to find Direcscape? I wouldn't, so I unpacked the container again to see what had happened. I found it and installed it in a folder named extSoftware. I tell you these minor details because the Direcscape installer will not create any shortcuts for you, so...

...

Now came the big question. What the heck was I to do with this program? At first I found it to be extremely strange if it was supposed to be some kind of a file manager that would navigate. But it isn't. All it will do if you click inside the program is to open Explorer. Hmm...!?? It certainly took me more than a moment to understand what was happening. And studying the readme.txt didn't do much ("This is a sample file." End of story!). Well, the program actually comes with a chm help file and a link to on-line tutorials, so eventually I started to figure out what it all is about. And because of the tutorials you really don't need me to tell much. But I will say that as I kept on trying the program, it became clear to me how smart it is that the author has left it to Explorer to do what Explorer is meant to do, instead of trying to make Direcscape replace Explorer.

But what is it then, Direscape? No matter what intentions the author may have for this program, I will say that Direcscape is a VERY fine tool to prevent you (me) from getting lost in a project - I would say Direcscape is a project viewer, if ever there was one. I would also call it a Project Organizer, but in the sense that I will organize the view of the project's folders and files, not the project itself, if you know what I mean.

Well, it seems that CamSpace, http://www.camspace.com, is in Beta3 mode and they sent out invites to the people that signed up (I never got mine, though. Anyone got theirs?).  Here's three videos of someone trying to use CamSpace to emulate a mouse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AYnNzr_uO4, http://www.youtube.com/wa...2hT-ejlrA&feature=related, http://www.youtube.com/wa...uIKe4HUEI&feature=related and here is a video of someone using it on Google Earth type application: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xoSS5QiyX4. Note that these videos appear to be from people who have actually gotten copies of the program and are not promotional videos.

Some of you may remember the WebCam Signature program I submitted for the DC Programming Contest that contained an experimental webcam mouse mode (http://webcamsignature.wikidot.com). From coding that program and watching these videos, I feel that I can provide some useful information for people that haven't gotten an invite yet.

Espresso is a powerful permissions-based email client designed to completely eliminate spam as you define it from your Inbox.

Espresso's unique email filtering system is based on common sense. Everyone knows from whom they want to receive email. Anyone else who sends you messages is sending you junk, otherwise known as spam. Espresso does not filter junk. It only looks for messages you want to receive based on simple, yet powerful rules. Using a number of options available, you decide how to handle messages from unknown senders.

A while back, I wrote a review of TaskPaper over on MacSpark.net (http://www.macspark.net/2...paper-win-a-free-license/).  The truth is that since then I've fallen once again into my old habit of tweaking the tool and not doing the necessary.  I played for a few months with RTM, again, and then settled to paper and my trusty, familiar old Moleskine pocket notebook (the same one I've carried everywhere for the past three years).  But now and then I have opened TaskPaper, updated my lists, downloaded the latest development version, and every time I've done this I've breathed a sigh of pleasure and relief.  There's something about plain text that I find so appealing.

But since I work on a Mac at home and on PCs during the day, I've searched for the best way to carry my lists.  What I've done in the past is to use the portable version of Notepad++, which is a fine solution and does the job perfectly well, but really only to a minimum of usability when you compare with what's possible in TaskPaper.

And then along came TodoPaper ($29.99, http://widefido.com/products/todopaper/), which bills itself as inspired by TaskPaper.  The two programs are, in fact very similar, especially when you compare TodoPaper to the recent development versions of TaskPaper.

Both are really sophisticated envelopes for plain text files.

This is an update to my 2005 review that is titled "Casual User Review" and located at the following link:
Initial 2005 Review

I am still proud to say that I still use the program on a casual basis.  What I mean by this is that the program has a lot of features and options and can do very specific things, but I don't use them all.  MLO is essentially a fancy To-Do list.  That is the simplest way to describe it.  However, it takes the idea of a todo list and packs in a feature set that will allow you to really break free from the traditional checkbox task list.  So, I'll let other users comment more on the intricate features of MLO and I will stick to explaining, on a general macro level, why this program is so useful even for the casual user.

Obulis is an outstanding physics based puzzle game for the PC.  It began as a pair of excellent PocketPC games (Obulis and Obulis: The Second Epoch), which recently were named in a list of "All-Time Top 10 Games" by Smartphone and PocketPC Magazine (April/May 2008).  Now that the game has made the transition to the desktop, there is no reason not to install the demo and take a look.  You won't be disappointed.

John's Background Switcher

I am personally surprised that I didn't find more about this gem when I searched the DC forums!  This background switcher is probably the best I have ever used. 

It provides not only the ability to use pictures you select, or entire folders and sub-folder you select, but also allows for random Flickr and Yahoo photos/pictures!  You read correctly, you can configure John's Background Switcher to grab the top 100 or whatever user specified number of photos/pictures off Flickr and Yahoo for endless random backgrounds.  You can also specify tag/text keywords for Flickr, and search terms for Yahoo. 

There are other services that unfortunately I don't subscribe to or use, specifically Phanfare, Smugmug, and Picasa.

Now get this, new to the version released this weekend, you can also get your friend's and your own FACEBOOK photos!

Jungle Disk (from now on JD) is an application that lets you store files and backup data securely to Amazon.com's S3 ™ Storage Service. Unlike other services, with Amazon S3 ™ there is no minimum and no maximum amount of data you can store.  You pay only for the actual amount of storage you are using. It supports 256-AES encryption if desired.

In practice it's possible to access the JD drive as a mapped network drive in explorer, over WebDav or via the local http server (JD Plus). JD keeps a local cache of 1GB by default which allows most operations to be instantaneous with any changes being made transparently in the background. There's an inbuilt backup utility included which works well and previous versions are kept if desired. This approach makes JD suitable for backup purposes as well as temporary file storage or as an remote filesystem as it will work with native copy tools such as robocopy, sync tools such as SyncToy and SFFS etc.

Version 2 (in development and tested here) includes some excellent refinements, partly based on user feedback, these include but are not limited to (see release notes):

• New User Interface
• Support for new Jungle Disk 2.0 buckets as well as Compatibility buckets, which can be shared with other S3 tools
• Support for connecting to multiple buckets at the same time
• Support for multiple backup jobs with independent scheduling
• Expanded bandwidth limiting feature
• New Previous Versions features
• Verify MD5 hash on downloads (as well as upload)

App Name	GCstar
App URL	http://www.gcstar.org/

After looking at the mess created by all the items sitting in my shelves, drawers, and other unspecified places (room corners, for example), I decided that it was impossible to remember what I have and where it is, so it was time to put my ass to work and catalog these things to prevent future losses and be able to accumulate more crap have quick access to my precious belongings.

So I searched around for the software to let me accomplish such thing. The main option was (and continue to be, despite this post) MediaMan, a very polished piece of software that lets you catalog music, films, books and other media pulling data from the Internet, but shareware. A quick search in DC also unearthed Libra, very much like MediaMan, not as good, but freeware, and Listal, a web service that looks like a nice option to have your data up in the cloud, while having a social component in it, it seems you can even backup that data locally.

Then I remembered that an OSS movie cataloging software called GCfilm stopped development a while ago to be fully rewritten and contain every kind of collectible thing created by humankind. So, I googled it, and came upon GCstar. GCstar is a cross platform app, that uses the GTK toolkit and several external libraries to do its job.

WebDrive is system utility which allows you to connect to an ftp server and map it to look like a local drive on your PC.  This let's you use any program on your PC that works with local files work with your ftp sites even if they are not internet-enabled.

App Name	Zoho DB & Reports
App URL	http://db.zoho.com

Who is this app designed for: Someone with minimal programming expertise who wishes to create a moderately complex relational database online - although an understanding of relational database tables is probably a good idea.

Intro: FileBoss is a robust and full-featured file manager replacement for Windows.  Some of the features include: multi-pane multi-tabbed file groups allow you to browse your files in many different ways.  Advanced copy features allow you to copy files with robust error recovery so the copy does not fail because one file failed.  FileBoss includes a powerful batch renaming function,
and the ability to touch files and manipulate attributes of many files at the same time.  It has an advanced file find function that allows you to specify search definitions and save the searches in virtual folders that can automatically update when you open FileBoss again.  This is a file manager literally chock-full of tools to let you manipulate files the way that you want to.

InfoLayout is supposed to have all of the features of standard disk cataloging software.  It states that it organizes by disk, but the catalog is easily rearrangeable, categorized, and searchable, even across multiple disks.  Infolayout is supposed to be able to automatically extract information from documents, eBooks, audio and video files. It can generate image thumbnails and video previews, retrieve descriptions, create document snippets, and obtain relevant information from zipped archives...

Wez's Evil Shell is, as the name suggests, a shell replacement for last generation NT-based Windows OS. But don't fear, it's not evil at all (apart from some mysterious crashes that I'll comment later), quite the contrary, as is barely noticeable on your computer, save for a few interface elements.

The story goes that Wez Furlong (self-titled as Dr. Evil), his sole author, and one of the developers of PHP, is a supporter of the idea of virtual desktops, but less-than-good experiences with 3rd party managers, and other shell replacements prompted him to write his own replacement, which gets ideas from various places.

The Evil Shell uses a dock ala OS X pre-Leopard, that does a double task as a launcher and taskbar, apart from having a section to house the system tray and the clock, everything packed in a compact interface. The rest of the shell is accessible via context menus, including the Start Menu, the filesystem and several Windows functions, like the shutdown menu. Plus, it has support for up to 32 workspaces, with various method to switch between apps and workspaces (hotkeys, the dock, a glorified Alt-Tab with thumbnails, and a Expose clone).

App Name	Breakaway Audio Processor for Windows System
App URL	http://www.claessonedwards.com/winmore.htm

Breakaway is an audio processor that runs in WinXP/2K/Vista. It's main function is to enhance whatever comes out of your speakers.  I found it really interesting, because it made my crappy laptop speakers to sound... well, actually, pretty nice.

The website says it all:
   • Multi-band dynamics processing restores spectral balance to your music library.
   • Multiple look-ahead peak limiters provide distortion-free transient control.
   • Makes tunes sound louder and punchier, while bringing out subtleties you never knew existed.
   • Automatically adjusts volume dynamics and spectral balancing.
   • Corrects song-to-song volume shifts and overdriven speakers.

Sebran's ABC is a cute, small (~700kb) edutainment application for small children (4-9 years). It features a few minigames, some cute clipart graphics, and MIDI music (!). Make sure you give your children headphones.

A few screenies:

Linkman - a Bookmark Management Program from Outer Technologies:

Linkman is a standalone or browser independent bookmark organizer and search tool. You enter bookmarks into it and organize them in any way you want. You create folders to organize them in, much like you would create folders in which to organize your files. You can import bookmarks from all the popular browsers and some bookmark organizers.

Linkman really begins to shine though once the bookmarks are entered. First off, Linkman will validate the bookmarks, similar to Martin Aignesberger's AM-Deadlink utility. In addition to making sure the links still work, Linkman will download the description and keywords from the website. This makes it easier to find the link when you are searching if you can't remember the bookmark name.

All bookmarks have a name, path (url), keywords and description (both from website), comment (notes you enter about this bookmark), and six user defined fields, giving you more than enough ways to catalog, organize, and describe your bookmarks. Once your links are set up, you type what you are looking for: either the bookmark name or information in any of the other bookmark fields that you specify. All bookmarks are initially listed, but unrelated ones disappear as you type, leaving only the one(s) that meet your criteria. You then tell Linkman to launch the bookmark(s) and it will open whatever browser you specify and load the bookmark(s).