Archive for June, 2006

TreeSize Free Gets Update

Wednesday, June 28th, 2006

TreeSize Professional and TreeSize Personal are not the only members of the family. They have a little brother – TreeSize Free. Well, TSFree may be “little”, but it’s actually quite nice if you don’t need the fancy graphing facilities in the other two programs.

TreeSize Free will analyze the drive of your choice and create a folder tree, displaying various information such as: size, bytes allocated, percent (out of total size) and wasted space. Switching between these display modes can be done instantly, without triggering a rescan of the drive being analysed.

Information must be sorted in order to be meaningful; TreeSize Free can do alphabetical and “by size” sorting, but it can also spit the results unsorted, as they come from the filesystem.

Free doesn’t mean “featureless” in TreeSize: there’s a useful setting (filter) which allows you to specify what files should be included in the scan (perfect if you want to check the size of the MP3s scattered everywhere on your hard drive).

The scan results can be printed for later reference (or as “hard” proof if you need to persuade someone to delete a few games to make room for your music).

TreeSize Free 1.78 is basically a bugfix release, improving error handling and solving several GUI issues. See below for more details.

*** WHAT’S NEW IN TREESEIZE FREE 1.78 ***

- Bugfix: Changing the cluster size to a user defined value in the Scan Options didn’t update the values of the wasted space.
- In some cases the error handling has been improved and error messages are shown less often.
- The flickering during the scan has been eliminated.
- The French UI was not always shown.

*** RELEVANT LINKS ***

Download TreeSize Free 1.78 (.exe installer, 803KB)
Check out TreeSize Professional and TreeSize Personal

FlashFXP 3.4.0.1145 Released for Public Download

Tuesday, June 27th, 2006

A major update to FlashFXP 3 has been released on the 20th of June. FTP sites everywhere gasp in excitement as they get ready for even faster and more secure downloads. FlashFXP 3.4.0.1154 is loaded with new features, improvements and bug fixes targeting most areas of the application. Here are the highlights:

ADDITIONS
- Global and per-site “bind socket to IP” option,
- Multi-language support,
- Per-site management facility for SSL certificates (including creation of own self-signed certificates),
- Per-Site speed limit settings and global option to disable speed limiting for LAN transfers,
- New command line options for download/upload/FXP.

CHANGES
- Linked with OpenSSL 0.9.8a DLLs,
- Opening the Site Manager while connected now jumps to the currently connected site profile.

FIXES
- Fixed bug with SOCKS5 that resulted in a delayed failure when the connection is rejected by the SOCKS5 proxy,
- Fixed corrupted data in CWD when selecting a path from the dropdown box via the keyboard.

The “bind socket to IP” setting is very useful if you have multiple network adapters – it allows you to tell FlashFXP to do transfers through a certain NIC. You may want to do this if the cards are linked to different Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as you may get better speeds depending on the FTP-site/outgoing ISP combination (or maybe you just want to punish one of the cards for corrupting the very last bytes of that crucial 4.3GB file you needed for last week’s presentation).

Interface-wise, things have not changed; we get the same two-panel GUI, plus the queue and transfer log windows. At least the site manager icons have been replaced.

FlashFXP Statistics Speaking of which, the site manager is the super-secret hideout of an interesting feature cleverly called “Statistics”, which should be advertised a bit more evidently throughout the program (a big red arrow saying “super-secret cool-stuff” would do nicely). These statistics can be accessed via a tab in the site configuration and offer both global (upload, download, FXP, total) and per-site data (create time, last connected, total connections, upload, download, FTP upload/download and total). All these statistics can be reset.

The next stop is something that may not be so new and fresh, but it sure is helpful: the FlashFXP plugin for Internet Explorer. What it basically does is this: every time you click on an FTP address (e.g.: ftp://ftp.site.com/) in Internet Explorer, you’ll be asked if you want to open the FTP server in FlashFXP instead of IE. This is usually a good idea, since IE is on the slow side when it comes to FTP. You may also choose to open FTP sites in FlashFXP by default, by disabling the prompt (check the FlashFXP options dialog).

That’s about it for now, check below for the full list of changes in FlashFXP 3.4.0.1145.


*** RELEVANT LINKS ***

Download FlashFXP 3.4 Build 1145 (.exe installer, 3.88MB)
FlashFXP Homepage
FlashFXP Documentation (Knowledge base, FAQ, etc)
FlashFXP Tutorials

*** WHAT’s NEW IN FLASHFXP 3.4 Build 1145 ***

NEW FEATURES (Updates since FlashFXP v3.2.0.1080)

- The graph font can now be changed separately from the application font.
- Global “Bind Socket to IP” setting.
- Per-Site “Bind Socket to IP” setting.
- Multi-language support. See http://www.flashfxp.com/languages for more information.
- Added new status msg “Listening on PORT: X, Waiting for connection.” to help troubleshoot PORT mode connections.
- If Passive mode fails two times in a row, FlashFXP will switch to PORT mode or vice versa.
- If the connection is lost to the ftp site you can continue to browse cached folders and queue files. If a task is performed that requires a connection, FlashFXP will reconnect back to the ftp site and then perform that task.
- You can now browse cached folders and queue files while a transfer is in progress.
- Added Replace feature to internal Text Editor.
- Secure certificate details are now stored for later reviewing, they can be viewed via the Site Manager / SSL Tab.
- When the speed limit is activated you will see a status indicator icon in the statusbar next to the transfer filename.
- Added new option in Preferences / Display / Options “Accurate file system shell icons”, when unchecked FlashFXP will use the default icon for each file type. Using default icons rather than accurate icons improves performance.
- Per-Site speed limit settings.
- Global option to disable speed limiting for LAN transfers.
- New command line options for download/upload/fxp (see updated help file)
- Added support for Clear Command Channel (CCC)
- Added support for SOCKS4/SOCKS5 BIND method, which means you can use SOCKS4/SOCKS5 with active mode (PORT).
- Added support for SSL Client Certificates.
- New import/export for sites using .ftp (xml based) file format. Easily export and send sites to friends, or script .ftp file generation for easy configuration for clients/friends/webhosts.
- U3 USB drive support. Watch the website for a U3 specific installer.

CHANGES

- Synchronized Browsing. When browsing remotely the local sync now occurs after the change dir, rather than after the list complete.
- Rename will now cancel out if the folder/file name only contains spaces.
- The active selection in the Preferences is now saved and remembered when you re-enter the Preferences dialog.
- OpenSSL DLL’s updated to 0.9.8a (Compiled with VS2005 for speed).
- Default application font switched to “Microsoft Sans Serif” since it supports ClearType, unlike “MS Sans Serif” which doesn’t.
- Holding the shift key while pressing the refresh button will now refresh from cache, Similar to shift-F5.
- When you rename a file/folder in the file listing the selected file/folder is remembered after the listing is refreshed.
- Opening the Site Manager while connected will now jump to the currently connected site profile.
- Changing focus to the dropdown box using the mouse now selects all of the text within.
- If the connection is lost during a file transfer, auto-reconnect will only trigger if the connection retry count is non-zero or the retry failed transfers value is non-zero. Previously auto-reconnect was triggered in all cases. Sometimes there are sites where the login/password is only valid once, so an auto-reconnect is pointless.
- After editing a remote file the edited file is re-selected after the listing is refreshed.

FIXES

- When selecting files in the local browsing the selection size isn’t updated probably due to a syntax error.
- If FlashFXP was locked with a password and on transfer complete triggers it was unable to close properly.
- If the connection is lost during a delete operation and the user clicks yes to the reconnect prompt, after connecting FlashFXP sometimes ended up in the wrong folder.
- Once the connection retry count was reached the ‘Go’ and ‘stop after current transfer’ buttons states weren’t updated properly.
- If you connect to a site and while that connection is still being attempted click ‘go’ the connection attempt isn’t properly reset prior to connecting to the site in the queue.
- Bookmark selection was disabled when working with the site in offline mode.
- There was a logic bug in the “FTP sort by (default)” option located in the Preference dialog. If you select sort by “file extension” the option saves but when you re-open the Preference dialog the option becomes undefined and errors when you click OK.
- Fixed bug with SOCKS5 that resulted in a delayed failure when the connection is rejected by the SOCKS5 proxy.
- When expanding folders if the user pressed disconnect or the connection was lost at a specific moment, the folder was removed from the queue without being expanded.
- The -go command line param didn’t work as was intended.
- Fixed corrupted data in CWD when selecting a path from the dropdown box via the keyboard.
- Fixed a bug that resulted FlashFXP transferring a file followed by trying to transfer it again, this was caused by a loss of connection and followed by reconnect and due to a flag not being properly reset.
- Compare Folders > Exclude File Extension Toggle bug.
- SSL problem when connecting to two SSL sites at the exact same time, one site would lose connection.
- Local file list “type” column was shown even though the right click menu said it was hidden (unchecked). The default value was inconsistent.
- Print is now disabled in the internal text editor if no printers are found. Otherwise trying to print would generate an error.
- Local Browser – Clicking a shortcut link that points to the current working directory would result in an empty file list.
- In some instances the file date/time in the file exist dialog were not updated to reflect the time zone offset
- Other minor fixes.

It’s time to download and test µTorrent 1.6 Release Candidate 1 (Build 467)

Monday, June 26th, 2006

uTorrent 1.6 Screenshot Yesterday brought us a new beta, µTorrent 1.5.1 Build 466. Today has something special in store for us: the first release candidate for µTorrent 1.6 (Build 467).

According to the change log available on the official website, 1.6 RC1 includes some work arounds for rare network related problems and some other minor bugs.

See below for more details.

*** WHAT’S NEW IN µTORRENT 1.6 RC1 ***

Build 467

- Change: ‘min interval’ was misspelled.
- Change: Fixed problem with piece counts sometimes getting wrong.
- Change: If the file cannot be opened, delay a little while and try again.
- Change: Show a message in the logger if the autoload is set to the same as the storage folder.
- Change: Delay firewall opening a little to help problem where utorrent starts faster than the firewall.
- Feature: Standby when torrents complete
- Fix: Auto shutdown on Win98 wasn’t working

*** RELEVANT LINKS ***

Download µTorrent 1.6 RC1 Build 467 (.exe only – 170KB)
Download µTorrent 1.5 Stable (installer – 560KB)
µTorrent Official Site
µTorrent Skins
µTorrent Beta Full Changelog

µTorrent 1.5.1 Beta Build 466 Available

Sunday, June 25th, 2006

uTorrent 1.5.1 Main Window ScreenshotA new µTorrent beta build was readied today by creator Ludvig Strigeus (ludde). µTorrent 1.5.1 Beta Build 466 has been posted minutes ago on the official website.

The changes are minor and affect µTorrent’s language settings as well as some network behaviors. See below for more details.

*** WHAT’S NEW IN µTORRENT 1.5.1 BETA ***

Build 466

- Change: Fixed various language strings to be more consistent
- Change: Resolve IPs is on by default, but only if the Peers tab is active.
- Fix: Superseeding should work better
- Change: Added buttons to select all / deselect in the add dialog

Build 465
- Change: Don’t use router.bittorrent.com
- Change: Added option not to connect to port 25 or 110

Build 464
- Change: Redesigned settings dialog (I still need icons for the categories)
- Change: Better uPnP support with certain routers
- Change: Auto Shutdown Windows available from a menu

Build 463
- Change: peer.lazy_bitfield enabled by default.
- Feature: Added option to allow multiple connections from same IP.
- Feature: Added option to bypass the Nanotorrent search redirect.
- Fix: Shift+Click now works properly in scheduler.

Build 462
- Change: More dialogs are non-modal
- Change: Changed connections for the 384k speed
- Change: New UPnP code (works on all OSes)
- Change: Graphic progress bars enabled by default
- Change: Increased length of editbox for new labels
- Feature: Removing torrent will remove partfile
- Feature: Added “Completed On” column
- Fix: Don’t allow blank filenames for single-file torrents (uses default name instead)
- Fix: Bug in add dialog diskspace computation when selecting an item from the list
- Fix: Couldn’t use Unicode characters with search box

*** RELEVANT LINKS ***

Download µTorrent 1.5.1 Beta Build 466 (.exe only – 172KB)
Download µTorrent 1.5 Stable (installer – 560KB)
µTorrent Official Site
µTorrent Skins
µTorrent Beta Full Changelog

Nero Burning ROM 7.2.3.2b Ready for Download

Saturday, June 24th, 2006

The leading CD/DVD utility, Nero Burning Rom, has been updated yesterday. Version 7.2.3.2b brings forth a series of fixes for bugs which plagued the previous Nero release.

According to the official product release notes page, Nero 7.2.3.2 addresses a couple of bugs which caused the program to crash in certain situations, solves some Windows 98 compatibility issues and fixes the UNC path support in multisession CDs.

Other bugs, affecting MP3 encoding and CD ripping in Nero Digital Audio format have been resolved. Check below for full coverage of the changes in this version.

*** WHAT’S NEW IN NERO BURNING ROM 7.2.3.2b ***

- Nero Burning ROM and Nero Express crashed after the DEMO version had expired.
- Bad, scratchy sound when encoding files to mp3 using the ‘standard’ settings
- Multisession was not automatically selected when burning to the image recorder
- UNC support of Nero did not work anymore, so continuing a multi session CD with UNC paths did not work
- Nero Burning ROM did not use the selected partition to create a boot CD
- Nero Express crashed under Windows 98 when adding protected WMA files to a compilation
- Nero Burning ROM had graphical problems under Windows 98 when changing the menu options any kind of animation
- It was possible to select the ISO file system view in the folder panel of the compilation, although a UDF compilation was chosen
- Error message was shown when starting to convert Audio CDs to Nero Digital Audio

*** RELEVANT LINKS ***

Download Nero 7.2.3.2b All languages (No Yahoo Toolbar, .exe installer – 270MB)
Download Nero 7.2.3.2b English (No Yahoo Toolbar, .exe installer – 128MB)
Download Nero 7.2.3.2b German (No Yahoo Toolbar, .exe installer – 132MB)
Download Nero 7.2.3.2b Russian (No Yahoo Toolbar, .exe installer – 132MB)
Other languages and versions (FTP Directory)
Full changelog information
Nero 7 Product Page

Opera 9 Unleashed and It’s Definitely Worth a Download

Friday, June 23rd, 2006

Opera 9 screenshot Opera 9 Final has been released yesterday with a horde of interesting new features and improvements.

The highlights of this version – tagged build 8501 – are, by far, Bittorent support, the powerful and interactive content blocker and the widget engine, all explained in more detail below.

The installer is quite polished, with an optimistic feeling to it, and, in case you have an older version of Opera installed, offers the option of installing 9.0 as an upgrade or as a separate program, a helpful option if you want to keep both versions available to make the transition somewhat smoother.

A very interesting addition is the tab preview, which basically displays a thumbnail of a tab’s contents along with a couple of other bits of information when the tab is hovered with the mouse.

Opera 9 torrent screenshot The Bittorent support in Opera 9 eliminates the need for a standalone Bittorent client. Bittorent links are picked up on the fly by the browser. However, some users may still prefer to stick to traditional programs such as uTorrent and Azureus for this task. (Traditional AND memory-hungry in Azureus’ case.)


The content blocker is a sneaky and powerful sidekick on your web endeavors. It allows per-URL content blocking and takes care of useless images and annoying Flash animations – for good. Just right click on the page, read the short instructions and click/shift-click the baddies. They’ll never work in your town again.

Opera 9 tetris widget Widgets are more and more becoming a thing users fear is going to be implemented in their favorite application. Why feared? Well, mostly because the ability of having tremendous fun playing Tetris or Snake from within your email reader or web browser is going to bring some overhead into the software as well. Yes, you’re going to have the time of your life feeding that little worm his favorite snack (black square dots), but if the software gains crashing and memory leaking super-powers in the process you might want to reconsider.

Opera is yet another victim of the widget-trend and includes some default little applications such as news readers, clocks and mini-games, nothing out of the ordinary. There is a game though, Circular Tetris, that kept me busy for about 3 minutes, so I guess that’s cool.

Voice support transforms Opera into an obedient servant, but only after you install a fatty 11MB plugin. Once you do so, you get to verbally command your brand new virtual Lurch to reload pages or even read up texts.

There’s a lot more to be said about Opera 9 so, even if I’m going to wrap this up now, you should expect a full-blown, hands-on, widget-thrashing, content-blocking, torrent-downloading crocodile-wrestling review sometime soon.


*** RELEVANT LINKS ***

Download Opera 9 for Windows (.exe installer, 4.6MB)
Download Opera 9 for Linux i386 (various distro packages)
Download Opera 9 for Mac OS (.dmg, 13MB)
Download Opera 9 for other platforms

New µTorrent 1.5.1 Beta Build Released (465)

Tuesday, June 20th, 2006

uTorrent 1.5 Main Window ScreenshotLudvig Strigeus cooked up a new µTorrent beta build for today. µTorrent 1.5.1 Beta Build 465 has been posted minutes ago on the official website.

The changes are minor and mainly involve some restrictions in µTorrent’s network connection policies. See below for more details.

*** WHAT’S NEW IN µTORRENT 1.5.1 BETA ***

Build 465
- Change: Don’t use router.bittorrent.com
- Change: Added option not to connect to port 25 or 110

Build 464
- Change: Redesigned settings dialog (I still need icons for the categories)
- Change: Better uPnP support with certain routers
- Change: Auto Shutdown Windows available from a menu

Build 463
- Change: peer.lazy_bitfield enabled by default.
- Feature: Added option to allow multiple connections from same IP.
- Feature: Added option to bypass the Nanotorrent search redirect.
- Fix: Shift+Click now works properly in scheduler.

Build 462
- Change: More dialogs are non-modal
- Change: Changed connections for the 384k speed
- Change: New UPnP code (works on all OSes)
- Change: Graphic progress bars enabled by default
- Change: Increased length of editbox for new labels
- Feature: Removing torrent will remove partfile
- Feature: Added “Completed On” column
- Fix: Don’t allow blank filenames for single-file torrents (uses default name instead)
- Fix: Bug in add dialog diskspace computation when selecting an item from the list
- Fix: Couldn’t use Unicode characters with search box

*** RELEVANT LINKS ***

Download µTorrent 1.5.1 Beta Build 465 (.exe only – 172KB)
Download µTorrent 1.5 Stable (installer – 560KB)
µTorrent Official Site
µTorrent Skins
µTorrent Beta Full Changelog

Stats by WP SlimStat