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TSX does that now. They don't even let you turn it off. Click here if you're a masochist. Then click here to tell them what you think.

TSX does that now. They don't even let you turn it off. Click here if you're a masochist. Then click here to tell them what you think.

My biggest gripe tho is the 2GB they talk about needed

The win32 console application UPX compresses Windows applications and libraries to 50% of their original size or smaller.

This means that we're one step closer to making the most evil timewasting and addictive piece of software ever written portable-- do these people really think that what they're doing is moral?

Binary executables are relatively small.

And UPX (an executable packer) makes them even smaller on DOS, Linux, Win32, and several other targets.

but why is the Linux kernel compressed? Wouldn't that make the loading process longer because it must be uncompressed?

Rotating storage is slow. Executable compression products such as free UPX take advantage of the fact that loading a compressed file and unzipping it on a modern CPU-memory system is often faster than loading the same file, uncompressed, from rotating storage media such as hard drives or {C|DV}D-ROM drives.

Also, I wish that Linux could have a much smaller text editor. Windows Notepad is only 34KB in Windows 95

• Use pico. It's said to be much easier to learn than vim and still much more powerful than Notepad, especially taking into account all the DLLs that Notepad loads.
• Keep an Emacs session running in the background (C-z). Parts of Emacs will be swapped in as necessary.
• Use one of the hundreds of text editors available on OSDN Freshmeat.

If you're mildy familiar with motorola assembly, grab the Onboard Resource Editor. It's great fun. You can examine all the databases of every app you have installed and alter anything you want. Dead easy to disable nagware.

Top Secret. For storing your passwords etc. (protected my TinyDES encryption).

Planetarium. The best astronomy palm companion.

MindSpiral. Just to get freaked out.

Invert. Invert your screen (because some grayscale apps, when backlit, look dodgy)

Convert. The best conversion table app.

Mock not the masters of our existence, they who have granted us this miraculous game! There are those who say they suck our essence, our very lives through this "game" of theirs, but we are willing servants to our lords!

[glares at the clock over her desk]

Move on, foul demon! Strike the five o'clock hour and free me from my torment! I am due in Lake Rathetear to deal with some giant skeletons, and will not take kindly to being delayed.

------------------

I'm one of those people who answered "no" to the question about drive scanning. I understand their motivation and have no problem with that, but their current hack-detection does not always work as planned - it concerns me when they automate banning of players, especially since there is no standard procedure for contesting a ban.

I'm also a die-hard evercrack junkie, and I think that the game (while having occasional flaws) is the best thing I've ever played on my computer. It was made by gamers to be what they wanted it to be... and they did an excellent job of it. As far as I'm concerned, it keeps improving. I think the idea of drive-scanning was a mistake, and I'm glad they decided against it. Frankly, they seem to be reasonable people who actually do listen to their player-base (no matter how much people whine that they don't) - and I have a lot of respect for them.

Leilah

(Taerma D'Estain, 26th Erudite Paladin of Quellious, serving the Blade of Enric, Brell Serilis)

Another WinAMP plug-in goes by the name of Audiostocker...I use it exclusively. (Just 'cause I'm testing win2k...erm...yeah. :)..) Check out Audiostocker here.

Sorry, German only. It is basically something like a DiscMan which can read ISO9660 CDs and decode MPEG-I audio layer 3.

Quite expensive, though. I'd rather burn my custom collection on normal audio CDs and use a cheap portable CD player instead.

DAMMIT! It worked in preview... REAL post follows:

Why would anyone and I mean anyone actually care about a stupid solitaire game? Let alone for a software company to actually port that game from one OS to another?

Uh, I do? EUS is vastly under-rated. PySol may have more games, but EUS has a much slicker interface.

And my wife likes it a lot better, too, and anything that gets her on the Linux bandwagon is cool by me =) It's a good non-geek program to have. I bet I could get my grandmother to switch if I showed her EUS...

(Don't knock it until you've tried it. Seriously. Now, if the EUS interface was combined with PySol's complete set of game types, you'd have the best solitaire game of all time...

Why would anyone and I mean anyone actually care about a stupid solitaire game? Let alone for a software company to actually port that game from one OS to another? Uh, I do? EUS is vastly under-rated. PySol may have more games, but EUS has a much slicker interface. And my wife likes it a lot better, too, and anything that gets her on the Linux bandwagon is cool by me =) It's a good non-geek program to have. I bet I could get my grandmother to switch if I showed her EUS... (Don't knock it until you've tried it. Seriously. Now, if the EUS interface was combined with PySol's complete set of game types, you'd have the best solitaire game of all time...)

To be honest, I don't see much need for a free (speech) replacement for PalmOS. The OS (at least until quite recently) is very closely coupled with the hardware, and Palm are very good to their developers. You can (after filling in the relevent forms) get the source to most of the OS, and the source to all the built-in apps is available under a very free license. One thing in particular would make a free replacement hard - there is no keyboard on the device, so you'd need writing recognition to do most useful things with the device.

One more thing: my GPLed software for the Palm is available at http://www.vmlinuz.org/palmos. There's a barely-written web site downloader (use SiteScooper instead) and LinkDirect (yes, it's a better, GPLed clone of DirectLink), a program for making a quick PPP connection between the Palm serial port and the PC serial port.

And what about the character Ranft gives voice to -- Wheezy, the asthmatic penguin? Did Pixar honcho Steve Jobs intend that as a subliminal reference to the penguin mascot of Linux software? "Linux? What's that? Really, I have no idea what that is. We had an idea for a broken squeaky penguin who had asthma way back on the old 'Toy Story.'

And, to go offtopic, I read it using Sitescooper, a funky off-line web formatting thingy written in Perl, aimed at PalmPilot users.

It's interesting how various tiny nations have tried to cash in on the net.

Like Nauru, tuvalu is a tiny pacific island, the world's 4th smallest nation. Population : 10,000. When the internet boom began, tuvalu stood to make a fortune on the domain name trade - it's .TV country code was a potential goldmine (www.fox.tv ?)

What happened next was a sad tale of how a pacific nation, remote and unaware of the existence of the internet, was swindled by domain name sharks.

First, webTV grabbed admin. control of the .tv domain from ICANN without informing Tuvalu - further proof that webTV is evil incarnate. Tuvalu's prime minister came to know that something called the "Internet" existed after visiting Australia, and managed to get ICANN to hand them control.

Good wired story here.

Next, VCs and domain name companies descended on the remote island, courting the confused govt. Ultimately, Tuvalu signed a deal with a Canadian company, which failed to deliver the $50 million it had promised in a year (that's 10 times the country's entire GDP). Sad story.

Now Tuvalu, wiser and bitter, is still looking for a company to administer .TV and raise the nation's fortunes. Being honest religious folks, they don't want to do pr0n, shady financial deals, or anything unethical.

If only they could be like Nauru, with its offshore banking, or Niue, which hosts tons of porn on the .nu (naked in French) domain, or like Tonga, which sells $100 .to domains, no questions asked; they could improve their per capita income 10 times, but instead, they are fumbling in confusion.

I felt particularly sorry for them because they are so naive and quaint. It's a custom on the island to apologize if you walk past someone sitting, since the level of your head is higher than theirs. And hey, you can climb on top of the local church if you ask permission from the pastor. They're so naive their web site is a Yahoo Club.

Poor Tuvalu. Maybe the linux community can help them out by hosting their domain thingie and transforming their island. :)

w/m.