Just for Kicks

One of the hotfixes that came with Windows Update recently is KB 976264. It provides the ability to run certain programs in Windows 7 that previously could not, including Jasc Paint Shop Pro 8.

Well, it works. After installing that KB, I installed Paint Shop Pro 8. On first startup, the Microsoft Installer did something, and after that the program ran fine. I didn’t test all its functions though, just the ones I frequently use. Fantastic!

That hotfix also fixes compatibility issues for many other applications like Magix Video Deluxe 15, Magix Digital Photo Maker, Xara Xtreme Pro 4, Disney’s Classic Print Studio Collection, Virtual PC 2007, The Print Shop Business Card Creator, Daemon Tools, Manga Studio Debut 3.0, Nero 8’s PhotoSnap, Magic Schoolbus Dinosaurs, Ulead PhotoImpact 15, Bejeweled 2 Deluxe, Chuzzle Deluxe, Zuma Deluxe, Bestcrypt 8, Corel Home Office, 3D Pinball and lots more. I really mean lots more.

If you have a program that you used to run in XP, and later found it couldn’t in Windows 7, look at the list, apply the hotfix and see if it works now.

Anyway, I’m glad I can run Paint Shop Pro 8 again. As I said before, the latest Corel Paint Shop Pro X3 is just not for me. The old versions of Jasc Paint Shop Pro doesn’t have the awful Protexis service and doesn’t install things like QuickTime, with its irritating habit of taking over all associations, inserting itself to run at startup and so on.

Opera 10.50 has been released, with a UI overhaul, including a move to the Office 2007/IE8 all-menus-in-one menu, a fast JavaScript engine, CSS improvements and a whole lot of bugs. The bugs are no surprise. I’ve said many times before that Opera’s x.x0 releases are unusable. It used to be that Opera’s x.0 releases are unusable, but since they have started putting major new features into minor x.x0 releases, you gotta wait till the x.x1 or x.x2 releases to get a stable browser.

The stupid Office 2007/IE8 all-menus-in-one menu can be easily reverted to the old style menus if you want. Ars Technica gives some ways to change it back. That isn’t the real problem with this release.

The real problem is the bugginess. Take a look at Opera’s forum to see the amount of complaints people have. At present, the whole forum is dominated by threads complaining about 10.50. These are not UI change complaints. These are bug complaints, including a very big security hole: the inability to disable Opera Unite and its discover-unite-users-via-uPnP feature. Configuring Opera 10.50 to do so won’t help you: Opera ignores the configuration settings.

I desperately want to upgrade to the new version. I want the new CSS support for rounded corners. I want the HTML5 support. I want the new HTTP authentication dialog that does not prevent you from switching tabs. I want the private browsing mode that isolates a tab from the other tabs since this allows me to log into multiple webmail accounts on the same provider. Come on, Opera. Fix your bugs. Do it fast.

It’s very hard to get Razer DiamondBack nowadays. Shops sell the newer DiamondBack 3G with its 1800 dpi. But I think the original Razer DiamondBack, the 1600 dpi version, is a much better quality product.

I have a number of mice. I have a few DiamondBack mice and some DiamondBack 3G mice. All my DiamondBack 3Gs exhibited quirks after a few months of use. Some of them have squeaky scroll wheels. Others squeak when the mouse button is clicked. I’m not alone in experiencing this. Search Google and you’ll find many others facing this.

I want the old DiamondBack, with its higher quality, not this newer model that is made from cheap parts. My old DiamondBack mice have been working flawlessly for years, and are still not showing signs of wear.

I don’t like the Razer Abyssus either. The 1800 dpi setting doesn’t respond as smoothly and responsively as either of the Diamondback models, and the 3500 dpi setting is just way too difficult to control and doubleclick precisely. The second click of the doubleclick is usually off by a bit from the first click, making Windows think that there were 2 separate clicks instead of a doubleclick.

Like everyone else, I get spammed in my mail box and in my comments.

One thing I noticed recently is that spam mail almost invariably have spelling mistakes. And these mistakes are very obvious, even in the subject line, making it very easy to detect spam and delete it. But why are spammers such terrible spellers? Don’t they have spell check software?

Just wondering, you know.

Ever since I’ve upgraded to Windows 7, I’ve noticed that every now and then svchost.exe makes a connection, either to the HTTP or the HTTPS port of one of many IP addresses registered to Microsoft, eg 65.55.xx.xx. This is not the initial network connection to bay-something-or-other.hotmail.com that Windows uses to find out whether the machine is connected to the Internet. Or I don’t think so. I wonder whether it is part of Windows 7’s WGA notification, which probably comes built-in with the system.

I installed the trial of PaintShop Pro X3 today to give it a spin, to see if it’s a worthwhile upgrade to get. I’ve been using PaintShop Pro since version 4, and it’s still my favorite. I stopped upgrading some time ago after Corel took over, and installed the Protexis DRM service into the program.

1. PaintShop Pro X3 still has the Protexis DRM service. It runs all the time in the computer, even when Paintshop is not running. Sheesh, Corel. If you must have such an irritating program running, can’t you at least run it on Manual instead of Automatic, so that it only starts up when PaintShop runs and terminates when the program exits?

2. It installs QuickTime on the computer. Yucks. No way to disable it. It doesn’t even tell you it does this.

3. Its installer is the slowest installer in the whole world. Even before it starts installing, its expansion of its files takes forever.

It’s not worth upgrading. I rather run my old PaintShop in XP mode.

Continuing my series on discovering all the fonts bundled with the various software I have installed on my computer, I fired up a virtual machine and installed Serif PhotoPlus X3 to see what fonts it bundled.

None.

I guess Serif doesn’t share Adobe’s philosophy that photo and painting apps need fonts. As I blogged about before, Photoshop CS3 includes 120 fonts.

Other posts in this series:

List of Fonts Bundled with Serif PagePlus PDF 8.0
List of Fonts Installed with Softmaker Office 2006
List of Fonts Bundled with Softmaker Office 2008
List of Fonts Bundled with Corel Painter Essentials 4
List of Fonts Bundled with Adobe PhotoShop CS3
List of Fonts Installed with Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows

As usual, XKCD presents an interesting and humorous take on how DRM causes and encourages piracy rather than reduces it. The basic reason given in the comic is that if you want to be able to play your shows and music when you upgrade your machine, the only way is to pirate it. Buying DRM-locked stuff will cause you to lose both your collection and your money. Actually, since this is actually a description of real life today, I’m not sure I’m right to classify this as humor.

Ars Technica reports that Google wants DNS queries to show the IP addresses of the clients requesting the domains. When Google first revealed that it was providing free DNS servers for anyone who wants to use it, I was already suspicious. They can already track most of your movements through the Internet even when we’re not at Google. With the DNS service provided free of charge, they know even more about us.

With this latest request, the other shoe drops. With information like that, Google can know not only where those who are using their DNS service is going, but also where those who are using other DNS services are going.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has a project that shows that even if you disable cookies in your web browser, you can be tracked and distinguished from all the other people visiting the site. It does this by using the information provided by the web browser as you surf. You won’t believe the things that your browser discloses about your unique system fingerprint. See it for yourself at Panopticlick.

Essentially, the more rare your browser is, the more easily tracked you are. So if you are using a less-used browser like Safari, Chrome, and Opera, the likelihood of sites tracking you is even greater. Even if you disable JavaScript and all plugins, the sites can trace your movements, since you’ll be in an even greater minority of users who disable JavaScript and plugins. And if you enable JavaScript and plugins, they can track you just as well, since JavaScript and Flash disclose even more secrets about your system, like the unique combination of fonts you have installed on your system. As a result, you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

The company with the most information about your movement is of course Google. It sees you at the search engine. Even when you go to a private site, it knows your movements since so many sites use Google Analytics and Google AdSense. And if you use their Google DNS, they have even more information on you. And don’t forget the ReCAPTCHA too that has been acquired by Google. There is no escape.