Loser-X

Happy Birthday Miranda IM

loser-x — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 08:31:09 GMT

Miranda IM is 10.

Easily the best IM client available for Windows.

Sony Ericsson Jalou

loser-x — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 05:49:46 GMT

~~Designed by D&G, allegedly.~~ Is it just me or is it one fugly phone?

Update: oops, it just comes in regular and D&G editions.

Thunderbird 3.0

loser-x — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:33:09 GMT

Looks great, performs better. Best feature: super-powered search. Next best feature: global inbox.

Lightning doesn’t yet work on it though, so I can’t move my main work machine to it. At least Enigmail’s OK. Can’t wait…

Update: broke down and installed TBird 3.0 with the Lightning nightlies. Working OK so far.

Quinnware is BACK

loser-x — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 07:06:32 GMT

More than a year after the last test build 120, almost five years since the last official release 4.50, 5.0 is here, baby! I’ll be having a beer in its honour tonight.

The skin’s updated a little, but the most obvious addition is album art support in the default skin.

Oblivion: The Lost Spires and Blood&Mud

loser-x — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 07:02:24 GMT

Note to self: The Lost Spires must come after Blood&Mud in the load order to prevent land tearing in Bravil.

Irregular Oblivioning: Foundations

loser-x — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 17:33:00 GMT

Before you begin any serious usage of mods, you will need a few resources that will enable some other mods you will be installing.

Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE)
The OBSE is an amazing piece of software. It hooks into the Oblivion executable and provides new scripting functions while keeping things rock-solid. If you don’t understand what that mean, just know that the OBSE enabled the creation of much more complex mods than what would otherwise be realistically possible. Note that D2D users and No-CD crack users are out of luck. Installation is simple, just follow the instructions in the readme file.
Pluggy
This is a multifunction OBSE plugin, and adds more scripting functions.
Common Oblivion (Cobl)
Cobl adds lore-friendly races, books, ingredients by itself, but its true value comes from it being designed as a shared resource for modders. It doesn’t come in an OMOD unfortunately, so read the installation instructions carefully. I have just the Core ESM/ESPs installed. Salmo the Baker is nice but unstable for some users, you’ll have to test it for yourself.

I’ll be doing game play tweaks next.

Sueetie

loser-x — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 10:21:00 GMT

All I can say is, SUEET! It is a project that integrates best of breed Open Source .NET software to produce an online community suite. That makes it a direct competitor to Community Server and, to a smaller extent, mojoPortal.

I’ll be looking at the possibility of migrating That Stupid Club which is currently running on CS to Sueetie. CS was nice, and for a while was the only choice, but it is just too big and too complex to customise easily.

Irregular Oblivioning: The Essentials

loser-x — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 11:24:00 GMT

I’ve been a fan of the Elder Scrolls series since the Arena days and apart from the action adventure Redguard I’ve played them all (never did finish Arena or Daggerfall though, pesky bugs…).

The series really took off with Morrowind. While the main quest was OK, if a bit formulaic, the excellent plugins feature and the Construction Set were what really made the game shine, and almost instantly a huge community sprung up around Morrowind modding.

Oblivion continued the fine tradition of extensibility. I started playing it earlier this year, as I did not have a PC capable of running it. I did not even bother to finish the main quest as I did with Morrowind before downloading and using user created mods.

I’ll be writing about a series of posts about the Oblivion mods I’m using mostly for my own future reference, but I’m hoping somebody else will find them useful too.

And remember, whatever you want to change in-game, somebody’s probably already done it.

In this first post, I’ll be doing through files that I consider musts for every Oblivion on PC player (Xbox 360 and PS3 Oblivion can’t use user created content, sorry).

Before everything else, make sure you have the last official patch (v1.2.0416 at the time of writing). You should ideally get the Shivering Isles expansion as it adds a few scripting functions. Well you should get it anyway, as the quest is actually more interesting than the Main Quest.

First up, you want, nay, need Timeslip’s Oblivion Mod Manager. As its name imples, it manages your mods. But more than that, it handles OMOD files which are specially packed mods. This utility can easily add or remove mods, warn of file conflicts and most importantly, mod authors can provide an installation script which allows one to, say, install optional parts of the mod. Always prefer OMOD if that option is available from the author or perhaps a third party, and its usually worth it to make your own OMOD if not. And for the mod authors who are not yet providing OMODs officially, what are you waiting for? Get to it. Follow the instructions!

Even fully patched up, Oblivion has bugs. Modders to the rescue though. Grab the Unofficial Oblivion Patch. You will want the Shivering Isles and Official Mods patches too if you have them. Bethsoft should be paying these guys for what they do. OMODs are available.

You will want one of the UI mods too Out of the box Oblivion looks like a console game. Everything’s just so…big. And clumsy. Modders to the rescue, again. BTmod was the gold standard for a long time, but its been superseded by the excellent DarNified UI. Its what Oblivion PC should have been. Personally I’m using DarkUI'd DarN. Both DarN UIs comes in delectable OMODs.

Now grab the Better Oblivion Sorting Software, fomerly known as the FCOMhelper. Official description: 'A simple program for mod users to quickly optimise load ordering of ESP/ESM files in their Oblivion load-order.' MS Visual C++ Runtime 2008 is a requirement.

With these mods you will still be getting the Vanilla Oblivion experience. Next up, foundations.

Goodnight, Quinnware

loser-x — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 20:36:01 GMT

Looks like its lights out at quinnware.com, home of QCD and QMP. I’ve still not found a suitable replacement for QMP yet and I probably was still hoping for that one last release despite the months of silence from the developer, but I guess the search is that much more urgent now.

Thanks for the years of aural pleasure.

Update 23-Nov: Looks like its a server hardware failure, whew…

Update 3-Jan: Happy New Year! Looks like quinnware.com is kind of back… at test.quinnware.com, with a new design to boot! Let’s hope we’ll get more news soon.

Comodo Internet Security Released

loser-x — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:07:49 GMT

I’ve mentioned that I’m using Comodo Firewall as my software firewall solution. Version 3 was even better than version 2, with low CPU utilisation (even while engaging in heavy P2P sessions) and secure (ranked consistently near the top in the Matousec firewall tests).

And now version 3.5 (renamed the Comodo Internet Security) has been released and now features an optional anti-virus component. I cannot speak for the efficacy of the anti-virus component, but the engine feels very light, and the definitions get three or four updates a day. If the quality of the firewall is anything to go by, the anti-virus engine should be one to keep an eye on.

Best of all? Its free (as in beer).

The final build has been released in the forums, but the public facing sites have not been updated yet.

Nifty jQuery Plugins

loser-x — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 08:04:37 GMT

So I have the links to all the stuff I use in one place:

and of course, jQuery and jQuery UI.

Addendum (26 Nov):

Oh, Norton!

loser-x — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 21:04:19 GMT

So Firefox 3 and Norton 360 2.0 and Internet Security 2008 do not get along at all. This was probably a shock to the millions who use and trust Symantec products but I have to say this, Symantec is not nice.

Symantec destroyed the reputation of the brand “Norton”, making the security applications bloated monstrosities. Left my beloved PartitionMagic to stagnate (where’s my new version that groks Windows Server 2003 and Vista partitions?). Killed Sygate Personal Firewall *shakes fist*.

And don’t get me started on Norton Commander…

I have not had a single Symantec product installed on any of my PCs this century and I intend to keep it that way.

Free alternatives I use and recommend:

Antivirus: Avast!

Firewall: Comodo Firewall Pro

PartitionMagic: GParted

Norton Commander: FreeCommander

Verisign SSL Certs with Apache2

loser-x — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 07:16:00 GMT

Just spent a couple hours wrestling with this, sigh…

So apparently Versign certs do not work with mod_ssl because they are packed in the PKCS#7 format.

For my own future reference:

openssl pkcs7 -in www.example.com.crt -print_certs -out www.example.com.crt.new

from Using a Verisign SSL Certificate with mod-ssl.

Cutest Trooper Ever

loser-x — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 07:03:36 GMT

Or: Hello Trooper.

From BBC’s In Pictures, via digg.

Ayreon 01011001 DVD

loser-x — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:10:30 GMT

Found in the special and limited editions. Well worth the extra cost, especially for this one line:

"Dear Penis, give my butt a sign"

- Simone Simons

Clever girl...