February 2006 - Posts

Macworld Bloopers... Microsoft's not the only one!

Well we all remember Bill Gate's Windows 98 BSoD (who could forget?) but lets not leave poor Steve Job's with his precious mac's out of the picture...


If you cant load the video above, its some bloopers from various MacWorld conventions hosted on YouTube. The one with Quake III loading up is quite amusing:-)

Paint.NET v2.6 Released with full 64bit support!

My favourite native .NET application would have to be Paint.NET, its a testament to the theory that you can make anything work with managed code - even a graphics editor, replace your boring MS Paint and download Paint.NET... Its open source too, so take a look at how they've achieved this with the source....

Paint.NET v2.6
Released: February 24th, 2006 - Download

This release is an upgrade of v2.5 that utilizes the brand new .NET Framework v2.0 runtime. It introduces full 64-bit support, an aesthetically updated user interface, better performance, a new "Curves" adjustment, and seven new layer blend modes.

What's new in Paint.NET v2.6?

  • Full 64-bit support, for both x64 and Itanium systems
  • New "Curves" adjustment for editing an image's color curves
  • Seven new layer blend modes: Color Burn, Color Dodge, Reflect, Glow, Overlay, Negation, and Xor
  • Aesthetic improvements to the entire user interface
  • Better performance, especially for 64-bit systems
  • Zooming, esp. with the mouse wheel, has been enhanced
  • Rewritten layer composition engine is now mathematically correct, and faster
  • Deployment via AD/GPO is now much easier (use /createMsi with setup package)
  • User interface now works correctly in high-DPI (120dpi, 144dpi, 196dpi)
  • Layers window list is no longer "upside down"
  • Upgraded to use .NET Framework 2.0
  • Many other improvements and fixes

Note: The help file is currently not translated to German. We are planning to release an updated Paint.NET v2.6 by April that will have this.


WEBCAST: Unveilling of the new Toyota 6-Cylinder Aurion

Toyota Aurion v6
Yes thats my hideous-self in the middle there...A couple of weeks old now, but heres the Webcast of the unveilling of Toyota's new V6 into the market, their Aurion range in.... Vividas format ofcourse! Want to learn more about the Toyota Aurion? See the Toyota Aurion website

I've also signed up to Flickr recently and decided to upload some pictures from the Melbourne 2006 International Motorshow, there arent many there at the moment (mostly with the girls for now!) but it will grow when i get some time to mess with things... See the Flickr page for more info...

Tour of Windows Vista Build 5308

PC Magazine has posted a review of Vista (b5308) called Inside Windows Vista,



Dont forget to look at the screenshot gallery.

Overall, MS have made some important changes (most of the core changes can be seen in this build) and it's said to be "feature complete"... If you do obtain the build turn on the sidebar from Control Panel (by default its turned off) and play around with the Gadgets etc... I have a feeling alot of third-party folks (myself included) would be jumping on the gadget world and knocking up stuff for your sidebar. The build should go live today or tomorrow (you'll need to update your Transfer Manager to v5.x to download it from MS Connect).

The filenames & sizes for the releases are as follows:
  • FebCTP_5308_64bit_Main_Staged_DVD.iso @ 3,675.94MB
  • FebCTP_5308_32bit_Main_Staged_DVD.iso @ 2,780.79MB
As always, download and try!

COOL Trailers: Tooheys - For the Love of Beer!

Well its been quite a while since the last trailer i posted powered by Vividas, this is hot off our Vividas NSW guys. Our biggest and most popular streaming video would be the BigAd by Carlton Draught, well Toohey's have just made a commercial to directly compete with the BigAd, and its just as Big and funny...



Checkout For The Love of Beer.

If you think that was good, checkout the Stolen Glass Recovery Unit (SGRU) for Tooheys Extra Dry, funny ass commercial!

HotHTML 3 Professional FixPack 5 Released!

Well I decided to take some time off (sleeping) and finalise FixPack 5 for HotHTML 3. The build number is now 3000 (epic milestone!) and mostly caused by alot of rework to make HotHTML 3 load faster, initially I intended to add a new Ftp Editor to make it easier to upload/manage websites, but due to a rewrite of the Ftp core taking longer than expected I decided to postphone it till FixPack 6.

This release is "IE 7 friendly" (atleast Beta 1, Beta 2 and builds inbetween the two) and recognizes all recent releases of Firefox & Opera also:-)

Change Log(View Text)
=========
BUG FIXES
=========
22806. DocumentData > Loading an empty document gives 'No Document Loaded' in 'DocumentData::Core Engine Runtime' which is invalid.
22805. Core > Checkboxes sometimes may raise errors in validation on some dialogs.
22804. Core > **** EXPERIMENTAL **** New fix for the crash when saving documents every now and then (rare to reproduce).
22803. IDE > VS.NET Tabs sometimes doesnt repaint after recieving the focus again.
22802. WebManager Account Manager > Selecting first item causes a save to be placed into the pending queue when it shouldnt.
22801. Tools > SpellCheck raises a fatal runtime error because it cant locate the 'custom.dic' dictionary file.

=========
ADDITIONS
=========
1.DocumentData can now have a padding of '0' (Zero) so it will ignore file-legth checking.

=======
CHANGES
=======
1. Welcome Dialog > When selecting a file from the recent list, if its not found/non-existant it will prompt and leave the dialog open.
Download HotHTML 3 FixPack 5 and have ago, use our servers (Tucows/Download.com havent been updated yet!).

(NOTE: Updates to the website to reflect FixPack 5 will happen in the next couple of days!)

COOL TOOL: Internet Explorer 7.x Public Preview!

Finally after so long IE7 came out of private testing phase and into your hot little hands...

Download the preview build of IE 7 and take a look at the funky new features! if your bored at work why not take the IE7 Tour. Internet Explorer is definately more refined and some unique features make it really attractive (love the thumb nails) but its still got some work to do...

There are a couple of rendering issues (IEFrame) in HotHTML 3 (and subsequently HotHTML 4 preview builds) that relies on the older IE shell, I'll be releasing FixPack 5 for HotHTML 3 soon(ish! ~ March) which will address several bugs and some funky new performance improvements. The main delay has been free-time to work on these things:(