I just discovered Dave's Quick Search Deskbar and man, this thing is cool! It gives you easy access to a ton of different functions like calculator, calendar, clock, currency converter, and stock quotes. Not only that, but any kind of internet search you can dream up like acronym finder, dictionary, translations - anything!

Not only is it so versatile right out of the box, but it's so easy to modify! The one thing I could find though was renewing my IP address though the tool. So I wrote it :)

Check out my "iptools" attachment. Just unzip it into your addons folder and refresh the Deskbar. Then you will have a couple commands at your disposal:

• "renewip": Renews your IP address.
• "showip": Shows your local IP addresses
• "showip /ext": Shows your external IP address

Sick of these things yet? ;)

One of these days I'm going to switch to Mono and check that out now that it supposedly has a Windows.Forms implementation. Someday.

For now, this is what I was doing this weekend when I wasn't visiting fam or fixing up my gameroom.

I present... Tail (shows you the last X lines in a file and/or monitors that file for changes). It's a lot like mTail but with a couple more features. Incidentally, mTail is a great program, so if this doesn't work for you I suggest you check it out (after letting me know how I can improve it of course ;) ).

Next up, Verify hash! This one will verify MD5, SHA1, and CRC32s of files that you download. The cool thing that I haven't found in other apps that do this (yes, I know there are about a million of them), is that it will look for one of these hashes in your Windows clipboard to verify against as well as a .md5, .sha, or .crc in the same folder as the file.

So, that means that when you download a file from a website and the hash is posted on the download page, you can simply copy the hash to your clipboard, right click on the downloaded file and select "Verify Hash" and you'll get verification right away.

It's portable too, unless you optionally register it to your shell (so you can right-click a file to get the hash).

So few steps, it's like taking a opening a can of beer!

I've been playing with XUL a bit to get a feel for the capabilities and limitations, and so far it's been a little stop and go. Writing simple applications is super easy, but if you need to build something with any kind of interactive functionality (opening/saving files, for example) dealing with external libraries (XPCOM for example) is a pain.

I've been casually searching for a couple small functions that I haven't been able to find adequate implementations of. One is an IP gadget that lets me see what my current IP is and also /renew for me when I switch from NAT (work) to bridged (home) networking in my VM.

The other is a small calendar app that shows me "today" and any upcoming holidays/birthdays, etc (I'm constantly looking at the calendar for some reason). I want to enter in all my reoccurring dates (birthdays, paydays, etc) but I don't need a task scheduler. There are a brazillion calendar apps out there but they were all way overkill and didn't integrate with my system/workflow the way I was looking for.

I've been completely facinated lately with that old Busweiser commercial after seeing it again recently. Also recently, I've been getting back into C# trying to help out a friend of mine. Put the two together and what do you get?

True, True (*-style)!

Enjoy!

Update: Since writing this post I have since gained more experience both with VirtualBox 1.5.2 and VMware Workstation 6 (both current as of 10/07). I updated my reviews to reflect this. Also, after re-reading it the first time, I thought it would be valuable to list what I'm looking for in a hosted (i.e. desktop, or non-bare-metal/native) hypervisor. I suspect that relative to most I am a power user, with power user wants/needs. This might not be the same as what you're looking for though. As such, I tried to lay out the pros and cons in the most generic way possible.

Also, previous to this experience with researching a suitable desktop VM my primary experience has been with the server-grade version of VMware, VMware ESX 2/3. I tried to keep this as "non-technical" as I can, but if you want to know more feel free to ask.

Oh, and one more thing. Before you even THINK about trying out any of these, make sure you have at LEAST 1GB of RAM in your PC. Any less and you'll be spending your day waiting for the mouse to move while the VM's memory gets swapped out of the host OS's pagefile/swapspace. Ideally you don't want to oversubscribe your resources to your VMs at all, but it's bound to happen, and as long as you don't pass a certain threshold, you should be fine.

As you know, I am pretty big into the whole "Portable App" movement. I have my own launcher, made my own wrapper, and have customized a few applications that I have found handy to have around. But all in all, this has turned into a pain in the ass. When new versions of the products are released, I have to go through the same riggamaroll every damn time that involves a few hours of recoding and/or testing. Such a hassle.

I took this picture out back in the same place a couple days ago. What caught me with this one is how it was the only dying leaf in an area of already dead leaves. If this were paintball, it would have won ;)

Played around with Photoshop filters a little. I tried to retain "normal" coloring while highlighting the center red leaf a little.

Sometimes when I need to take a break I head out behind my
work and clear my head for a bit. This morning I thought I forgot my
keys so I took a stroll out there and captured some neat pictures. Here
is one.

This is the first release of a new application I'm working on called PortaLaunch. It is an integrated menu and launcher, primarily used for launching "portable applications"

At this point, the menu is fully functional and feature-complete, but the launcher needs to be converted over from my NSIS version.

PortaLaunch is programmed in AutoIt, which should make it easier for other people to hop on in and help out with the project.

XML Cooktop: http://www.xmlcooktop.com/

It checks for well-formedness and validation! And it is free!