STG's

A couple of days ago, I've started using the excelent FTP Voyager , instead of my *very* old copy of WS_FTP Pro. While it did take a bit to get used to the new interface, it was well worth it. Some of the neat things: - SSH: I feel so much safer - Compression: now my logs are downloaded 90% faster. It's not so much for less repetitive file types, but still a lot on most text based files. - Synchronizing: instead of picking the files that changed manually, just tell it to synchronize. - Scheduling: it's very easy to schedule downloads and synchronization (both sides, server to client or client to server). I've added an item that grabs new log files, for example. And if you don't want to schedule, you can run it manually when you want to. - Multiple downloads/uploads: it automatically generates multiple connections when downloading several files. That saves a lot of time, specially if you are sending several small pages. Support is pretty good too - I...

...and the other reason was Half-life 2. Yes, I hate their delivery system and activation in general (but I'm still thinking whether to use it on my own software or not), but all in all, this is an awesome game. The *LOADING* time is very annoying, but the gravity gun and the neat physics system and the puzzles make it well worth the time spent. Far Cry still beats it on outside views such as jungles and water (and by a lot!), but other than that, HL2 is probably the best FPS shooter ever done. I also like the fact that it must be one of the first major titles to be distributed through the net at launch. I got a few games from Stardock's Totalgaming.net , but they are not anywhere in the same league as HL2. I still would rather have a download system that is less intrusive, like Stardock's, but I guess you can't have everything...

I've just finished reading State of Fear, and it was very good. The best part is easily the enormous amounts of graphs and data on global warming and the consequent discussion on what we know, as opposed to what was made up. Also great were the reflections on the state of scientific research and the increasing lengths to which media will go to increase the scale of turning pure speculation into major scares. The extra essays (on the e-book, not sure about the print versions) were very nice, too. Of course, it also helps that it just being released and I got a 100% rebate on Fictionwise . Some of the particularly scary parts is how much of the nuclear winter theory was made up (but hey, are you in favor of nuclear war?) and the DDT ban. One of the reasons I started posting at the blog again was this book. I just felt the need to post my opinion on such a great book. And the other reason...

I haven't posted in a few months. In that time, I read all available books of the Honor Harrington series , including both Anthologies available at Fictionwise. Not to mention several dozen other books... That particular series is just great, I've liked several other series by David Weber (Empire From Ashes and the Prince Roger series), but that is easily the best. One of the points I like the most is the tactical setup. The technology of the series is very well suited for complex (sometimes a little silly, but most often not) scenarios.

Empire from Ashes I got started about a week ago reading this 3-volume pack, and it was spectacular! I finished it just today, and it was well worth the time spent - I'm only sorry the series doesn't seem to continue...

XUL Apps > Tabbrowser Extensions - outsider reflex If you use Firefox (or Mozilla), go get this now ! Yes, it's that good. There is an absurd amount of options. Some of my favorites are undoing close of tabs and launching new windows in tabs (plenty of options on that too).

Stories of your Life , by Ted Chiang. An excellent collection of short stories. Very creative. Ground Zero , by Bonnie Ramthun. Pretty good sci-fi thriller, about a murder in a group of Missile Defense developers.

There were quite a few Rudy Rucker's books I enjoyed over the years. Hacker and the Ants, the Software/Freeware/Wetware trilogy, White Light... All were fun, quirky, and incorporated some math aspects. Spaceland is certainly no exception. The action revolves around the 4th dimension (no, not time, a physical extra dimension). There is a plot involving the 4th dimensional beings and the spaceland - a semi-3 dimensional slice (a few nanometers "thick") in the 4th dimension that happens to be our universe. There are a lot of cool insights into dimensions in the book, mostly about how a 2 dimensional universal would look to its inhabitants (since this is easiest one for readers to understand) and 4 dimensional space and objects to 3 dimensional eyes (since it's how we'd see it). Other dimensions make brief apparences as well (0-d and 1-d too, around the end of the book). Pretty cool. I really recommend it, but if "thought experiments" aren't you...

A couple of months ago, I started switching to Mozilla from IE. There are a few reasons for that, the biggest being how wonderful middle-clicking to open new tabs are (I tend to browse quite a few at the same time...), as well as how poorly IE reacts sometimes, also slowing the rest of the Windows Interface (apparently the worse side of browser/OS integration ). The numerous (and serious) security issues were also a factor. AFAIK, there is still an open Javascript program that allows anyone to install spyware. Last week I tried Firefox, and it's even better than Mozilla. The interface is superior, and it feels a bit faster, too. The extensions available are great! I installed a lot of them. For example: 1) Adblock : Blocks ads using Regular Expressions. Some ad heavy pages, such as Yahoo, look so clean they seem weird 2) Googlebar (although the cute Google/etc search on the right of the toolbar cover most of my use). It does have a keyboard shortcut for showing up or not...

Read it last week. It's not fantastic, but it's pretty good. I was very surprised when I saw it was out (on Fictionwise's newsletter) - the delay between the other books was several years! Of course, I bought it right away and was reading it a few minutes after that (oh, the joy of e-books instant delivery). If you didn't read the rest of the series, of course, it won't make any sense. Otherwise you'll probably like it. The end of the series (volume 7) should be available on September 21, according to Amazon...

Annoyances.org - Change the icon for Internet Shortcuts Today I decided to switch my default browser to Mozilla, in particular because of "the middle-click opens the link in a tab, on the background" option, which I use a lot . There are a couple of other neat things too, like easily blocking images from a server with just a context-menu option. Anyway, the Mozilla icon is just awful, and suddenly all the URL shortcuts I dropped in my desktop were an annoying Mozilla red instead of the much nicer IE icon. Took me a while to figure it out (by using the linked page) since the normal way won't work without a registry hack, but it's ok now. I was just about switching the default back to IE... Yes, it was easily that annoying...

E-mail Confidential - Who's afraid of Time Inc.'s legal disclaimer? Interesting article about e-mail disclaimers.

Nerg's web server Check out NergAmp - it allows setting system-wide hotkeys for Winamp. That way you change the music or the volume from within any program or game. Neat.

Hi, This week (so far <g>) I've read a couple of e-books, both good. The first was Candle, by John Barnes. Very nice - mostly it's about a world taken by "memes" - in this context AIs that were designed to spread through "skull jacks" (brain-computer interface) and take some amount of control, usually total. (Originally "meme" is an idea considered as an replicating entity that uses people to spread) The Earth was taken by a particular meme completely, with just a few remaining people not taken by it. These are called cowboys. The story goes by the focus of a cowboy hunter. I felt the end was quite surprising... One slightly off-putting part is the dates - the book was released on 2000 and yet has a major world war in 2002. Duh! Other excellent book by Barnes is Mother of Storms. I can't recommend this one highly enough! The other book was Spider Man 2. I just bought it because it had a 100% rebate on Fiction...

Hi, Welcome. I thought I'd like somewhere to comment on sites, books and software. Blogger being free and all, it seemed easier than finding and installing a free script. I will probably be posting praise of my own software , too :-).