| | This minor release of Procreate fixes the following issues:
You can download the latest version from the Procreate homepage. Thanks to all who provided feedback. |
Do you want a small, self-contained utility to remotely wake your computer? As promised here is a utility you can use to do just that. This small utility offers the following features:
Follow this guide to ensure your computer is setup correctly for use with WoL. If you are behind NAT or a firewall, ensure the port you specify for each host in the utility is forwarded to the relevant computer. At this point you may be wondering why i chose to write yet another WoL utility when there are already several free alternatives available. The problems i found with existing solutions could be grouped into one or more of the following:
This motivated me to write this utility which allowed me to provide all the above functionality. Hopefully you find it useful – feel free to leave a comment if you want something improved or find it useful. Oh and browse the source if you are new to WPF and want to know how to write a simple app. Note that you will need at least the .NET framework 3.5 installed to run this application. This comes included with Windows 7.
Ever tried to run an old program under a 64-bit OS and found that it just wont work, even when you try every possible compatibility mode setting and running as Administrator? Many people don’t realise that there are some key differences that can often prevent a program from working.
Both Program Files and the registry are split into 32/64 bit variants, in case there are 2 versions of the same program that need to be installed. This recently caused an issue for me where i had to manually apply a registry patch to get the game to ‘work’ – under Windows XP it worked fine but would not work under Windows 7 64-bit. The reason was because by default, the registry patch gets applied to the 64-bit registry, however the game was looking in the 32-bit registry. The easiest way to solve this is to use the 32-bit version of regedit to apply the registry patch. You can start it by running:
%systemroot%\syswow64\regedit
Then open and apply the registry patch. See here for more information
After having used IE8 since it came out, i can say that compatibility mode is absolutely essential for quite a few sites that are still using IE7 hacks that don’t play nice with the new version of the browser. Having control over when to use compatibility mode is essential and can be turned on by clicking the button in the address bar:
If you can not see this button in the address bar, it is almost certainly due to the ‘feature’ i just discovered in my last install of Windows 7. In this install i did something i almost never do – use the default settings. By default, IE8 sets the option to Include updated compatibility view website lists from Microsoft. When this option is enabled, the compatibility button is hidden from the address bar because it is assumed that the updated list from Microsoft will include all sites that you will ever need. In practise i have found this is not the case and i wouldn’t expect it to be – how can MS expect to trawl every website and ensure they work.
Fortunately, re-enabling the compatibility view button is simple. Simply go to Tools –> Compatibility View Settings to open the following dialog. Then turn off the Include updated website lists from Microsoft setting and click OK to save. A few seconds later the compatibility view button will re-appear in the address bar and you can click it to view a webpage like you are using IE7.
So in short, if you used the recommended IE8 settings the first time you ran IE8 (which is likely for a lot of people), the issue above is very likely to be the cause of the compatibility view button not displaying in the address bar. At some point in the future most websites will be written with IE8 in mind. Until then, this button can be a lifesaver, especially with Flash enabled pages.
When i was running Windows Vista i never even considered setting my computer to go to sleep for a number of reasons:
Now that i have Windows 7 installed, i have taken to using the sleep feature since it wakes up in a matter of seconds. By default Windows 7 uses the Balanced power profile which puts the computer to sleep after 30 minutes when running on power. This caused me to think about how much power my computer had been using over the past few years. In Perth, the cost of power is currently 12.67c/unit so we can use the following formula to calculate the amount of power a device is using:
Cost ($) per day = (wattage) / 1000 x ($$/kWh) x (hours used per day)
The power supply in my computer is 500W. Until i get a cheap energy power meter that can accurately measure the utilisation accuracy, lets assume an average 300W usage (based on the components in my computer). Plugging this into the above equation means that my computer is costing $1.06 a day to run!! I really should have done this calculation a few years ago. Its pretty easy to see that any down time on the computer is going to save some serious $$ over the year. This is why I’ve started to use WoL as described in my previous post.
I recommend following this guide on Lifehacker to setup WoL on your network. I’ll be writing in the near future on some issues i found with using WoL, in particular the miriad of utilities out there that don’t work, why they don’t work and present a little utility i wrote for my own use while on the train the other day.
This means that for the majority of the day the PC is not running and consuming power, but is available whenever i need to use it. Since the price of power is only going to rise in the near future, this is going to save me more and more money. As humans with a growing energy problem, we should all be looking at solutions like this to save power when its not required. Gone are the days when we can just be lazy and not think about it.
I finally got around to installing Windows 7 RC on my desktop PC to replace Vista Ultimate. After enabling extended memory in the BIOS i had 64-bit running in about 1 hour and it is WAAAY faster than the Vista setup i had before. Anyway all was going well and i had it running next to me while using the laptop. Next thing i notice is that the computer goes to sleep - it turns out the default power profile in Windows 7 is balanced which by default puts the computer to sleep after 30 minutes of activity, even on desktops. I guess this is to try and help the world save power, since most users probably don’t have an issue if their computer shuts itself off. Considering i should try and be green too, I decided to run with it and leave this profile enabled. Much to my shock the computer restarts itself 5 seconds later!
It turned out the default Windows settings are to blame for this - by default WoL is enabled for ethernet NICs and configured to allow any packet to turn the computer on! On the majority of home networks out there with more than one computer, this means that it is highly probable a packet will be received in the near future, resulting in the issue i had, which is for the computer to immediately turn itself on. I really don’t understand why this should be the default configuration for most users out there. Still, it is simple enough to change so that only a magic packet will turn the computer on, or disable WoL completely, which is much more desirable for most users. To do so:
I also recommend turning off Wake-on-Mouse (WoM) since its very easy for someone (eg – your 3 year old son) to knock the mouse and turn the computer on. I like to enable Wake-on-Keyboard (WoK) since I find it very handy to be able to hit a key and start using my computer. You control both of these through the device manager using the same method described above but for the relevant devices. WoK combined with WoL gives me a great combination – using the keyboard to turn the computer on locally and the LAN to turn on the computer when i need to access it remotely, while minimising my PC power usage.
I love WoK and WoL, put another dime in the jukebox baby …
I searched quickly and couldn’t find this anywhere on the net in one neat, succinct list, so here is the full list of all 30 maps available after installing patch 1.50 for Battlefield 2 and Special Forces:
BF2:
Euro Forces (Free):
Armored Fury (Free):
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