Archive for October, 2006
One small step for web standards, one giant download for automatic update
Internet Explorer 7 has just offered to install itself on my machine helpfully already downloaded, all 14.8MB, by Windows Automatic Update.
One can assume that IE’s market share will shift from 6 to 7 practically overnight unless significant numbers reject the update or have switched Automatic Update off completely.
This shift should hopefully mean that web developers can finally start using more of the CSS and XHTML standards we’ve been experimenting with for the last few years whilst waiting for Microsoft to play catch-up.
Sure IE7 isn’t perfect but the improved PNG support is better than a kick in the teeth.
Even if you don’t like Firefox you can thank it’s increasing presence for putting the pressure on Microsoft enough to reassemble an IE team for another release.
Happy All Hallows Eve and goodbye October 2006,
[)amien
Compile XNA for your Xbox 360 tomorrow?
There’s a possibility that tomorrow will see the announcement of XNA Game Studio Beta 2 with support for compiling and running applications on your Xbox 360.
Originally this was scheduled for the final 1.0 release and would involve a $99 annual fee for the privilege but what better way to get hype and excitement than to offer it free for a month or two while it’s being polished and tested during the beta phase?
Before you think I’m dreaming consider that Microsoft released the Xbox 360 Halloween firmware update this morning complete with XNA support, admittedly overshadowed by the announcement of 1080p support – another thorn in Sony’s leaky side.
The official release notes made it clear that the XNA support was tied into future availability and subject to subscriptions. The page on Xbox.com just comes out and plain says "now".
Dave over at LetsKillDave says they’ll be an announcement about XNA Game Studio Beta 2 in the next 24 hours although he has previously stated that the demonstrated technique for deploying games to the 360 won’t be available until 1.0.
Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
[)amien
Parallels update and creating VM images from direct disk images
Parallels build 1966
This is now a very old build, check out the Parallels Desktop product page for the latest official release.
Parallels have put ‘internal build 1966′ of their excellent Mac virtual machine (VM) software Parallel Desktop up in their forums.
New enhancements and bug fixes include shared networking, OS installation assistant and various minor other fixes.
Seems solid so far (24 hours).
Creating a virtual disk from a real one
Parallels doesn’t support direct access to disk partitions but instead relies on it’s own virtual hard-disk-in-a-file system much like other VM solutions.
VMware have made available a Physical-to-Virtual (P2V) tool, currently free and in beta, that works only on Windows but can ‘hot clone’ systems in use. It supports a number of virtual formats including Virtual PC and Ghost but not Parallels.
Until either Parallels or VMware fill in the missing pieces check out colddiver’s solution on the forums.
[)amien
Icon and task-bar tools for Windows
A few things bug me about the Windows user interface and as I currently have no inclination to head over to Vista I thought it was about time I dug around and found some tools to address the job.
Icons blown away
Windows will often make a mess of your desktop by moving the icons around normally because the resolution switched.
I can understand this happening if I switch resolution but sometimes even an Alt-Tab from a game will be enough to open the Window and let your icons scatter to the wind.
WinTidy comes to the rescue and although it comes with source the licence is a little confusing as is the technique it uses to obtain the icon positions by sending messages to the ListView control inside the explorer.exe process.
Still, it works and even lets you choose icon positions per resolution if you so wish.
Taskbar reordering
Mac OS X lets you reorder the dock, Firefox and IE7 let you reorder tabs but Windows Explorer doesn’t want to know – it’ll just about give you the time of day.
TaskbarShuffle comes to the rescue and lets you just pick up those task-bar buttons and reorder them until your heart is content.
[)amien