The Soulpass Project

Well, Google Chrome has impressed me enough to make it my default browser already — though normally there will be Firefox windows open as well, at least while Chrome is in its current state of development.

If you use Chrome regularly, you may have had it pause or freeze on you… especially when a tab utilizes a plugin such as Adobe Flash or Adobe Acrobat. IT enthusiast and expert Alex Wells has discovered, and it is verified to work on my setup as well, an easy method that seems to unfreeze Chrome in most cases:

When Chrome freezes, simply right-click on the Chrome icon in the Windows taskbar. Note that if you have the “Group similar taskbar buttons” option enabled (it’s enabled by default), then you must first left-click to expand the group before right-clicking.

As far as we have seen, this method has (oddly) cured the freezes in Chrome. Keeping that in mind, hopefully an update will be released that addresses the freezing issue. Since the right-clicking method seems to work, maybe it will be a pretty easy patch!

This is for all of you who figured the Acer Aspire 5315-2153 (which comes packaged with Vista) would make a great Windows XP Professional notebook, for only $348 + the cost of windows… and then realized you had problems.

We have been receiving a large number of visits from folks with non-English-speaking configurations. As a convenience to visitors, we are offering a machine translation of this tutorial powered by N2H and Google Language Tools:  

There are two methods for getting this to work, one only requires the internet, a few minutes, and a CD burner. The other requires a USB floppy drive.

UPDATE: We’ve got a working modem driver now. Check out the tutorial on getting it up and running (should be installed last).

READ FULL TUTORIAL »

I kept getting booted periodically from every protocol in GAIM. I looked up the error and suspected it might be a problem with the GTK version. Another error I had been getting with both GAIM and GIMP, “no disk in drive,” was verified to be a problem with GTK. I downloaded the latest version. The latter error disappeared, but I still get booted (probably an issue with the University network).

I needed to do some photo editing a couple days later, and I tried to run GIMP. It threw the “libexpat.dll” error and terminated. Oh. That was weird, obviously had something to do with GTK. Upon upgrading any GTK version it first uninstalls the previous version. Obviously that file was there before, but this had to have been caused by the uninstall/upgrade. Here’s how to fix it:

1. Go to http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?libexpat and download the file.
2. Go to Start->Run… and type “%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\GTK”
3. Open the folder with the highest version number (in my case and at the time of this writing it was 2.0)
4. Open the “bin” directory and extract libexpat.dll from the .zip file in there.

GIMP should work again.

After upgrading to Firefox 2, links that were supposed to open in new windows were not being handled properly. It was forcing them into a new tab. When I tried forcing a new window with shift+click, it would open a new window and force the page into a new tab as well. The “New pages should open in:” option was set to “a new window,” as it should, so it wasn’t making much sense.

Thankfully, the solution was simple:

• Go to Tools->Options->Tabs
• Set the “New pages should open in:” option to “a new tab” and click OK
• Go back to Tools->Options->Tabs
• Set the “New pages should open in:” option to “a new window” and click OK

Fixed. I think the culprit may have been the Tab Mix Plus extension. Even if it was the culprit, I highly recommend it; I think it’s one of the best non-webdev extensions available for Firefox.

1. Default tab width of 8 spaces
2. No “bulk indent” functionality (that I could find)
3. Random window pops up every time it checks for updates (or something… This can be disabled)
4. Errors come up in realtime after typing valid code too fast. I type void somefunction(), and if I don’t wait a second before closing the parenthesis, I get this error: [C++ Error] filename.cpp(1): Unable to invoke Code Parameters due to errors in source code… What the heck!
5. No brace matching
6. No code collapsing, but I can live without that
7. Tabs don’t close on middle-click
8. Does not remember last selected tab
9. You have to take extra effort to work with header (.h) files, which are an integral part of C++. What the heck?!? It’s not in the default file types list, so you have to click on “Any file (*.*)” to see them.
10. As far as I know, it’s not possible to select a whole line at a time. If you click in the margin, it sets a breakpoint instead of selecting the whole line.
11. Anywhere you click in the editor, the insertion point is placed there. This can get annoying.
12. When I open a project file, some seemingly pointless .bpr file is the only file loaded. The user does not create this file, and I did not have it open when I saved the project. All it contains is a sentence that includes “This file is used by the project manager only…” and the word “main.” No other files from the project are loaded when you open one.

I’ll list more as I think of them.

My recommendation: For a C++ IDE, a great free choice is Bloodshed Software’s DEV-C++. For a more generic and lightweight solution, I highly recommend the PSPad text editor. It has the capability to integrate with a compiler; however, as far as I know you won’t get fancy debugging features such as breakpoints without a full-featured IDE. PSPad is definitately worth checking out anyway.

Looking for a replacement to “calc.exe”? Look no further… Head on over http://www.virtualplastic.net/kobi/eq/ and download a copy of Equalizer. It’s a neat little expression-based calculator program — perfect for programmers, but suitable for anyone.

I’ve made a few skins for it, my favorite being “Simplistic.” It fits right into the titlebar… Please rate it! Here’s a screenshot:

You can see/download it here.

Looking for an alternative program to open your zip files or other compressed file formats? Me too. I’ve been looking for a while, and I never really settle on anything. Check out TUGZip. It’s the best I’ve seen so far. Among some other that I’ve tried are 7-Zip, Winzip (damn that annoying registration notice), IZArc, and ZipGenius (This is also a good one… now that version 6 is complete, I might have to give it another go. Some minor problems with 6 Beta, made me want to switch. It’s also pretty bloated). TUGZip supports the 7-Zip format, rar, tar, ace, and of course zip. Those are some common ones that you might run into, and it does support a lot more than those. It has a nice clean UI, good shell integration, and it’s reasonably fast. It’s the best overall that I’ve seen so far. Agree? Disagree? Post a comment!

Quick links: TopTools is probably the best free one, and Screen Calipers are probably the best if you are willing to pay. If you just need to measure something in a web page, there is a Firefox plugin called MeasureIt that should do the trick for you.

Since this post seems to draw a fair amount of traffic to the site, I’ll elaborate on it. There is a piece of software out there called Screen Calipers, by Iconico Software. I tried it, and it’s rather nice. On my computer, moving and resizing the calipers caused flickers in the calipers, but that is certainly bearable. The Screen Calipers are not free, but they are probably the best for what they do. You can use them for an unlimited amount of time, but you are supposed to pay 19.95 for a single license. If you are really serious about measuring screen pixels, it’s probably worth it. I don’t think you will find anything better for a cheaper price anywhere. It is extremely well thought-out software. The interface is skinnable, and that’s pretty neat :). Screen Calipers by Iconico software is probably not for you if you don’t plan to pay for the registration; for one, the unlock reminders are annoying. If you don’t wanna pay (like myself), read on.

In search of a really really great screen pixel ruler, I found a lot of crap on the way. Cool Ruler is the one that I had used in the past. I guess it’s not too bad, but seems like there ought to be more out there. From the search results, it appears that JR Screen Ruler is a popular one. Too me, it’s too simple and ugly, might as well stick to Cool Ruler.

TopTools is my favorite free one. The memory footprint doesn’t seem too bad, and it’s got some neat features. Of course, there is room for improvement, but nothing is perfect. It would be nice to be able to adjust the size of the ruler by dragging the edge, and I can see where the screen docking could pose a problem if one needs to measure near the edge of the screen. Besides, there is a “slide to zero option” which pretty much does the same thing as docking to the edge of the screen. It also has a screen loupe (magnifier) which works in conjunction with the ruler. Seems like all screen ruler software should have that feature. I’d still like to find another ruler, though, there still ought to be a better one.

There is a program called MWSnap that does more than just measure units on the screen. In fact, that’s not its main purpose. Its main purpose is to be a screen capture utility, and it’s good at it. It also happens to have a screen zoom tool (loupe), a color picker (eyedropper, but don’t get MWSnap for that, get ColorCop instead), a window spy (mostly useless), and yes, a screen ruler!

MeasureIt is a plugin for Firefox that measures a square area. It could be used as a pixel ruler, and I use it for a pixel ruler myself. Just read the width or the height, depending on whether you need to measure horizontally or vertically. It’s mostly a convenience thing, since it’s right there in the browser.

If you are a seasoned web surfer, you already know of the best web browser available right now. Firefox. Many reasons have come up as to why to make the switch, and i have a few of my own.

Firefox is open source software. I will save the reasons about why I am a fan of the open source initiative for another post. It does mean that the people that are working on this are doing it partly because they want to make the greatest product that they can, and they enjoy programming. Firefox is not bloated. Internet Explorer is very bloated, and even seeps into the windows operating system. That’s why you hear of security holes in IE that could “allow a remote attack to compromise a users computer and run commands.” Something like that, I don’t remember exactly. Firefox is not tied into the operating system, and does not support ActiveX by default. ActiveX is a major reason why IE is so unsafe. When people ask me to help them with their computers nowadays, the major problem they are generally having is with spyware. The cause? Internet Explorer. I always recommend that people switch to Firefox, as that is a simple solution to not only eliminate spyware caused by web surfing, but improve the browsing experience.

If you would like, you can read a more professional opinion.

One can get extensions for Firefox, extending its capabilities and allowing a user to customize the browser to fit the needs of said user. Soon I will post a list of extensions that I personally use.

Firefox strives to be standards-based browser. That means a few different things for users as well as website developers. One thing that it means is that not all web pages are going to display correctly for us Firefox users. The reason is that many developers in the past have gotten used to Microsoft making up their own rules about how sites should display. The way that Microsoft decides to do things isn’t always the best way, nor is it fair to the rest of the world. We need consistency, and without standards there is just too much randomness and nothing works together. Luckily, the alternative browser market is speeding up very rapidly and we are seeing less and less IE-specific sites out there. In the rare event that a site isn’t displaying quite right in Firefox, bite the bullet and load it in Explorer. Heck, you can even get the IEView plugin and simply click on a menu button to load the current page in IE.

Of course, there are quite a few other browsers out there besides IE and Firefox. In fact, some are pretty neat. For me personally, and I feel like there are plenty of perfectly valid reasons, Firefox stands out as the best.

Spread the word:

After testing out a lot of other text editors, I have come to the conclusion that PSPad is the best overall that I have found thus far. Firstly, it’s not bloated at all. That is one of the characteristics that I was looking for in a good editor. It has the same, if not more features as other editors. The author updates the software rather often, and the latest updates can be found in the beta forum.

Here is a partial list of features from the PSPad site:

• Work with projects
• Work on several documents at the same time (MDI)
• Save desktop session to later reopen all open files
• FTP client - you can edit files directly from the web
• Macro recorder to record, save and load macros
• Search and replace in files
• Text difference with color-coded differences highlighted
• Templates (HTML tags, scripts, code templates…)
• Installation contains templates for HTML, PHP, Pascal, JScript, VBScript, MySQL, MS-Dos, Perl…
• Syntax highlighting auto set by file type
• User-defined highlighters for exotic environments
• Auto correction
• Intelligent internal HTML preview using IE and Mozilla
• Full HEX editor
• Call external programs, different for each environment
• External compiler with catch command output, log window, log parser for each environment for “IDE” effect
• Color syntax highlight printing and print preview
• Integrated TiDy library for formatting and checking HTML code, conversion to CSS, XML, XHTML
• Integrated free version of top CSS editor TopStyle Lite
• Export with highlight to RTF, HTML, TeX format into file or clipboard
• Column block select, bookmarks, line numbers, …
• Reformat and compress HTML code, tags char case change
• Line sorting with ability to sort on defined column, with option to drop duplicates
• ASCII chart with HTML entities
• Code explorer for Pascal, INI, HTML, XML, PHP, and more in future
• Spell checker
• Internal web browser with APACHE support
• Matching bracket highlighting

Keep in mind that 1) this is a partial list, and 2) PSPad is a very lightweight editor compared to others; it loads rather fast. Jan Fiala, the author of PSPad, certainly deserves donations if you can find it within your heart and wallet.

Here is an incomplete list of the other editors I have tried (many are geared towards PHP): MetaPad (looking for other features), Notepad2 (too simple, good for a bare-bones Notepad replacement), Crimson Editor (too bloated), Notepad++, ConTEXT, NotepadEx, mdiNotepad, PHPEdit, HAPedit (rather ugly UI), Arachnophilia (Java), Matrix Y2K, Svoi.NET PHP Edit (bloated), EditPad Light (Pro version costs, and not that great anyway), Syn, PHP Designer (Looks like they have a new version out, will have to take a look)…

Here are some things that I look for in a good editor:

• Speed
• Pretty smooth, reasonably easy-to-navigate interface. I like the retro windows look. The smaller the toolbar icons can get, the better
• Reasonable download file size
• Context highlighting (used to be optional, but now I realize just how handy this is)
• Direct FTP editing (optional, but very, very handy. The downside is that one could get used using it, and not keep current local copies of one’s files!)
• Plenty of control over program functionality (i.e. extensive options dialog, hopefully reasonably easy to navigate)
• An author that keeps up with the program. Software that was last updated three years ago is a red flag. I like seeing the authors stay on top of things, perhaps through a forum.
• Extendable, i.e. - It should be able to highlight additional languages by simply adding a file or two. A plugin architecture is nice as well.
• Brace-matching (for finding matching brackets, braces, and parenthesis)
• A project manager is nice, though not necessary. PSPad’s project manager is not bad, could possibly use some improvements in the way that the files in the project are referenced to the files on the drive. There could be a good reason for the way it’s set up the way it is, though. I don’t know.

If you disagree with my conclusion that PSPad is the best all-around editor, please, by all means, leave some comments here! I want to know what you think. If you have a better one, I’ll try it and we can discuss. I’m not here to list as many software titles as possible, I’m here to give the best that’s out there. Only editors that are free for personal as well as commercial use will be eligible to be the “best,” but I’d like to here what you have to say in any case, for any editor.

Cheers!
-Daniel