This physics engine from Umeå University is seriously entertaining. There’s no objective, but watching it’s effects at work is likely to eat up a good piece of your day.

The program was written in C++ as part of a Master of Science Thesis in Computer Science. Unfortunately, its source code hasn’t been released yet, but when it is, it’s certain to make the rounds of all the programming blogs, as its physics engine blows any Flash game I’ve ever played out of the water.

To download Phun or read more about Phun, visit the homepage of Emil Ernerfeldt.

While I’ve been a dedicated user of VideoLAN Client (VLC) for longer than I can remember, I’ve recently been converted.

The new player I’ve been using lately is Kantaris. Kantaris is a new media player based on VLC, with a few small improvements, including, most notably, a slick graphical user interface similar to that of Windows Media Player. Not only can Kantaris play all of the file formats that VLC can play, it claims to be able to play a few more with improved support for some of the difficult to manage file types (such as .WMA).

What really has me excited is that the developers claim that, in theory, Kantaris is able to read files archived as RAR files before they are extracted. This means that it should be useful in verifying the authenticity of downloaded (read “pirated”) videos without wasting time on a virus scan or passwords. As of yet, I haven’t been unable to verify this functionality. In the first three practical cases I’ve tested Kantaris with, the application did not work as promised. However! This feature was only supposed to be added in version 0.3.0 last week, and today, version 0.3.2 is available. With version being released this quickly, they’re bound to get things right soon, and in the mean time, the GUI is a marked improvement over VLC.

Download via Sourceforge
Visit the official Kantaris website

Blame it on Shift + Delete. You can’t live with it, you can live without it. The important thing is to be ready when it finally happens, because the first step in data recovery is to stop using the drive from which you’ve just deleted the files you need to restore. You definitely don’t want to spend those precious minutes following the deletion and inevitable flurry of curses that follow surfing the internet for recovery software. So download one of these now as insurance against future emergencies!

For those of you who have come to this page by way of Google in the middle of such an emergency, here’s what you need to do:

1. STOP USING THE DRIVE YOU WANT TO RECOVER FILES FROM! Stop everything you’re doing the moment you delete anything you want back to prevent overwriting what you’ve lost. Shut down all other applications that write to that drive, and if you need to save something that you’re working on in order to shut down an application, save it to another drive. It’s best to have these utilities on hand, but if you have to look for them, use another computer. If it’s going to be a while before you get around to using a recovery utility, you might also consider shutting down the computer altogether, since Windows always has a couple systems running in the background.

2. Don’t put any of these utilities on a drive after deleting something you want to recover, otherwise you run the risk of overwriting whatever you’re trying to restore. The following software will all run from a USB thumb drive, and that’s where they should stay until you’re done.

3. Don’t save the files you recover to the same drive that you’re recovering them from. This is a recipe for disaster, as what you’ll probably recover on the first attempt will be whatever temporary file the system creates as it works with the files that you actually want back.

4. As with any software, make sure you download these utilities from their developer’s website, not from some no-name third party. Scan it with an anti-malware package before you use any of them if you have any doubt as to their authenticity. These sort of “panic downloads” are prime opportunities for hackers and script kiddies.

5. If you don’t have a floppy drive, thumb drive, or second hard drive, take this as a lesson. Go out and buy one tomorrow.

Here are top dozen free file recovery utilities on the Internet, in alphabetical order. I haven’t rated them, because I fully recognize that everyone is going to judge them by a different set of criteria, but I have learned that they don’t all work exactly the same. Some recover files that others don’t. Some recover a ton of junk system files along with what you need. So, if one doesn’t work, don’t despair! Just move on to the next one.

It bears mentioning that, for my money, Restoration is the best utility on this list. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistle of some of the other choices out there, but it’s quick and simple.

ADRC Data Recovery Software Tools (44.4 KB)
Contains a collection of DIY data recovery tools that supports a wide variety of drives and file systems. The software incorporates extremely simple GUI with novice users in mind.
Official ADRC Website

Avira UnErase Personal (402 KB)
Recovers data that have been deleted from the hard drive – either accidentally or as a result of a virus infection, an uninstaller or defective software. The danger of important data being lost forever is averted with Avira UnErase.
Official Avira UnErase Personal Website

Glary Undelete (1.17 MB)
A free and easy-to-use yet powerful file undelete solution for FAT and NTFS file systems. It will bring back files emptied from the Recycle Bin, in a DOS window, from Windows Explorer with the SHIFT key held down. It will even recover files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses!
Official Glary Undelete Website

Pandora Recovery (2.12 MB)
A powerful free tool that provides its users an effective way to attempt recovery of permanently deleted files. It can recover files that have been deleted months before Pandora Recovery was installed.
Official Pandora Recovery Website

PC INSPECTOR File Recovery (5.83 MB)
A data recovery program that supports the FAT 12/16/32 and NTFS file systems, even when a header entry is no longer available.
Official PC INSPECTOR Website

Recuva (647 KB)
A freeware Windows utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer. This includes files emptied from the Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players. It will even bring back files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses!
Official Recuva Website

Restoration (163 KB)
Restore files which are deleted from the recycle bin or deleted while holding down the Shift key by mistake.
Conversely, this program has another function that makes it almost impossible to restore all deleted files.
You can use it after deletion of confidential documents, embarrassing files and so on.
Official Restoration Website | Restoration Mirror

SoftPerfect File Recovery (247 KB)
A free and useful tool to restore accidentally deleted files from hard and floppy disks, USB flash drives, CF and SD cards and other storage media. It supports the popular file systems such as FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS and NTFS5 with compression and encryption.
Official SoftPerfect File Recovery Website

TOKIWA DataRecovery (198 KB)
Freeware from Japanese developer TOKIWA able to undelete accidentally deleted files. It supports FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS undeletion. Even in both NTFS compressed files and EFS encrypted files. The major draw-back to using this utility is that it is painfully obvious that English is not the first language of the author of the developer’s website, so if you have questions, you’re on your own.
Official TOKIWA DataRecovery Website

Undelete Plus (583 KB)
A quick and effective way to restore accidentally deleted files. It can also recover files that have been emptied from the Recycle Bin, permanently deleted files within Windows using the Shift + Delete, and files that have been deleted from within a Command
Prompt. Allows the recovery of deleted files from NTFS/NTFS5, and FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 volumes.
Official Undelete Plus website

Like I said, Restoration is my favorite of the list. If you prefer another, leave a comment explaining why. If you know of a fully functional, free utility I’ve omitted from the list, leave a link below.

Netscape has released the first beta of Netscape 9, which, not surprisingly, is based on Firefox. It’s not exactly clear what might convince a user to switch from Firefox to Netscape, but the name alone may draw some old school Netscape users away from Internet Explorer. For those of you who do remember the old Netscape, you may not even recognize it’s new look. It’s significantly slimmed down; it no long includes a mail client or any sort of html editor. It does however include a host of other new features, like the Link Pad. Want to revisit a site, but don’t want to clutter your bookmarks? Just drop the link to the Link Pad and come back to it later. The browser will also feature URL Correction. Navigator 9 will automatically correct common typos in URLs. For example, if you accidentally type googlecom, Navigator will fix it be to google.com.

Check out all of Netscape’s features
Download it at Netscape Now

If you have any others that you use regularly, feel free to throw them out there.

1. A bookmarks Folder’s position can also be Dragged & Dropped but you must hold down the SHIFT key while Dragging.
2. After you’ve typed in a domain name, such as “Yahoo” press Ctrl and Enter together to automatically append “http://www.” and “.com” to that domain.
3. Clear your Download history to make the download manager more responsive: Tools | Options | Privacy
4. Double Clicking empty space on the Tab Bar will open a ‘New Tab’
5. Drag any link to the Download Manager Window to add & download the link.
6. Holding down the Ctrl key when you right click to “View Image” or “View Background Image” will open the image in a New Tab or New Window.
7. If you accidentally delete a bookmark and want to recover it, open the “Bookmarks Manager” and use Ctrl+Z, or Edit | Undo.
8. If you wish to remove an item from your Address Bar Drop down menu, Highlight it without clicking and use Shift+Delete.
9. To prevent a website from replacing/changing your rightclick context menu go to Tools > Options > Web Features then click the “advanced tab” and de-select “remove or replace context menus”.
10. To quickly find any word in a web page type /word it will highlight the word and press Ctrl+G to “Find Again” that word again.
11. To stop animated gifs from moving, press the ESC key.
12. Type about:cache?device=disk in your address bar to view/save items that you have in your firefox disk cache
13. Type about:cache?device=memory in your address bar to view/save items that you have in your Firefox memory cache
14. You can bookmark the current page by dragging the icon from the location bar to your Bookmarks folder. You can also drag it to the desktop to make an icon for that page.
15. You can work offline in Firefox just go to File > Work Offline. This means that you can browse your previously visited pages even when you’re offline this is a really cool feature but not many people who use it.

Alliance is private and secure peer-to-peer filesharing software for sharing files and communicating with people you know. Technically, Alliance takes the best parts of BitTorrent (advanced multi-source downloading), DirectConnect (community), and WASTE (security). The unique feature Alliance brings to the table is that Alliance users create their own networks. Users can either start a new network or get invited into an existing network by another Alliance user. Combined with encryption, Alliance is a very secure method for sharing files.

I don’t advocate piracy, but if I had a small group of friends or I wanted to share stuff with, this would be the software I would use.

Check out a full set of screenshots of the software, or go straight to the download page.

Unfortunately, the fix only seems to work for Windows user.

Source: The Hymn Project via Digg

It turns out that Hackety Hack is a Ruby-based environment, created as part of a manifesto entitled “The Little Coder’s Predicament” written in 2003 by a programmer known by the handle “why the lucky stiff” or just “why” for short. The language is a highly streamlined combination of conversational Ruby code and a no-brainer install environment. It’s purpose is to reawaken the interest in programming in younger generation that was rampant back in the eighties.

Why’s fundamental grievance is that, in the eighties, there were a pack of introductory programming languages that came ready-installed on most computers of the day. Either BASIC, LOGO, or PASCAL was there at your fingertips without any additional installations. He attmpts to compensate with a great set of simple tutorials available on Hackety Hack’s official site.

I think that it’s a brilliant project. I wish there were more out there like it. Public schools, at least in the United States, aren’t embracing the Information Age as they should be, and there are few enough places for adults to turn to teach themselves programming.

Here’s an example of Hackety:

blog = Table("MyBlog").recent(10)
Web.page {
  blog.each do |entry|
    title entry[:title]
    puts entry[:editbox]
  end
}


If I’m not sitting at the keyboard of my computer, then my bittorrent client is up and running. For thirty dollars a month, I’m not wasting a minute of bandwidth. The problem is that the downloads need a bit of a tweak now and again. I like to throttle back on the most popular torrents once they’ve finished, so that my other downloads have a chance at finishing. I also like to reactivate my completed downloads to seed once I have what I need for the day. But how can I do that while I’m at work? As usual, the Gods of the Internet have provided a solution.

W3btorrent is a lightweight, full-featured BitTorrent client designed to run off on a web server. It is easy to configure, works without a database, and supports WAP. Once you’ve installed it on a web server you can remotely start, stop, add, and delete torrents, from any computer or Wap phone!

You can try a demo of the software online at the W3btorrent website.

Some of the features of w3btorrent include:

• Simple online installer.
• Fast Ajax browsing.
• Upload or download torrent files to server with URL or file upload.
• View status, start, stop, delete torrents.
• Browse downloaded files easy.
• Rich archive support, both compress and decompress.
• WGET support. Type a URL and download it, no need to open terminal.

Source: The W3btorrent Website

Microsoft spent millions of dollars advertising its next generation OS ‘Windows Vista’ in China, in fact the IT juggernaut threw up the biggest Vista Ad on the 421 meter high Jin Mao tower in Shanghai China. However after 2 weeks (Jan 19 to Feb 2) from launch Microsoft managed to sell a mere 244 copies of Windows Vista. Software piracy is rampant in the middle kingdom and a pirated version of Vista sells for a mere $1 on the streets. The following numbers are quoted by Windows Vista chief distributor in Bejing.

Source: Japan’s IT Media via Newlaunches.com

Noted offenders include:
BugmeNot (http://www.bugmenot.com/)
Linux Forums (http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/faq.php) Et tu, Linux? Et tu?!!
Pod1 (http://www.pod1.com/) web designers who should know better

Luckily, I’ve figured out a simple solution for removing irritating favicons:

Step 1. Open Firefox 2 (or above)
Step 2. In the address box type “about:config”
Step 3. In the filter box type “icon”
Step 4. Set browser.chrome.favicons to “False”
Step 5. Set browser.chrome.site_icons to “False”
Step 6. Close and restart Firefox

Viola! No more colorful dancing little icons. All bookmarks are labeled with the default file icon.

Months ago, I began using my big, beautiful GMail account as a storage bin to shuffle files between computers. At first, I started out using a script called the GMail Drive shell extension. GMail Drive creates a virtual filesystem on top of your Google GMail account and enables you to save and retrieve files stored on your GMail account directly from inside Windows Explorer. It actually adds a new drive to your computer under the My Computer folder, where you can create new folders, copy and drag files to your .GMail Drive.

The problem with this method is that sometimes the GMail Drive works, sometimes it doesn’t, and when it does work, the files appear as so much gobbledy-gook in your inbox. And, of course, with no official sanction, there’s always the chance that Google could decide to block the script at any time.

GSpace is a new Firefox extension that greatly improves GMail storage. The extension not only allows you to use your Gmail Space for file storage, it also gives the Gmail account the appearance of an FTP host. After the installation, you just select the “Gspace” option in Firefox’s “Tools” menu, which then opens the GSpace window.

I’ve been using the extension for about three weeks now. It seems seems to take full advantage of my bandwidth, it works consistently, and it’s super convenient. I not only recommend it, I eagerly await the day Google makes the feature a built in standard.

Source: The Official GSpace Site

David Biedny of MacLife has posted an in-depth, up-close look at Photoshop CS3 this week. Check it out at: http://www.maclife.com/article/inside_photoshop_cs3

Here are the principal complaints:

Darkness is removed. Where the console version covers the game in eirie darkness, night is almost as bright as daytime in the PC version removing most of the feel.

Here is the PC screenshot.
Here is the GameCube screenshot.

Daylight is removed. Where the console version is lit up by yellowish daylight, the PC version is just grey dull textures.

Here is the PC screenshot.
Here is the GameCube screenshot.

But that seems to have just been the tip of the iceburg. Here is the rest of his list of complaints:

• Aiming is corrupted. Analog controllers work as digital ones. You have some kind of threshold that must be passed before the aim start to move and when it does it moves too fast. This makes it almost impossible to hit smaller targets even when they are perfectly still.
• Buttons in-game will be refered to 1-10 rather than “USE”, “MENU”, “SHOOT” etc. When you look at the in-game players manual it will describe how to do things by using the Playstation 2 controls with the Playstation 2 setup (which might not be the same as how you set up the joypad). You are pretty much forced to guess the buttons on your way through.
• Despite the lack of effects/shaders the PC version still requires a graphiccard with Pixel Shaders 2.0 to play.
• Haze/Fog is removed. You can see at any distance and when opponents run into the supposed fog (that cannot be seen) they just vanish in thin air.
• Many keys on the keyboard, such as F1-F12, TAB, DEL, Insert etc cannot be bound at all.
• They did not bother about a real “quit game” function, you quit the game with ALT+F4.
• There is no mouse support. You are going to need a joypad with two sticks to play it.
• There is no support for Anisotropic Filthering or Antialiasing.
• There is no support for EAX, modern soundcards or surround sound.
• The PC version uses low quality models from the PS2 version rather than the higher quality GC models, meaning that everything like tree’s etc uses alot fewer polygons than the GC version.

Check out the official Resident Evil site.
Check out the original forum posts.