Published on October 9th, 2009 by Hypn. Filed under programs, World of Warcraft | No Comments
Just a quick post to tell you about a new app we’ve made, called “WoW Item Info” (we’ll probably re-name it), which lets you view a World of Warcraft item’s info anyway – it’s a program with runs in your system tray, and when you highlight text (the item name) and press Windows key and W (Win+W) if fetches the item info from WowHead.com and displays it. There may still be a lot of bugs, and there will be a new version released shortly.
Note: Might not work in Skype, depending on your “Pressing Ctrl+V will” settings (under “IM & SMS”, under “Show advanced options”)
UPDATE: Fixed an issue reading in the icon, preventing the program from working :| Will probably release a new version shortly with a better quality (larger) icon.
Credits:
AutoHotKey – http://www.autohotkey.com
WowHead’s API – http://www.wowhead.com
Titan’s “xpath” – http://www.autohotkey.net/~Titan/#xpath
Download: WowItemInfo1.1.zip (201kb)
Greets to:
Ultrazor, Kymeara and Durgath. Taera (various EU realms)
GameThreat (http://www.gamethreat.net)
“Pap en Vleis” on Twilight’s Hammer EU (http://www.papenvleis.za.net)
“Murder of Crows” on Bronzebeard EU (http://www.murderofcrows.ws)
Published on October 16th, 2008 by Hypn. Filed under programs | No Comments
FireFox 3.1 beta has just been released (portable version available here), and the “Ctrl+Tab” (for switching between browser tabs) has been changed to work and look more like “Alt+Tab” in Windows… showing you a picture of each tab you have open and allowing you to switch between them. Or as they put it “A new tab-switching shortcut that shows previews of the tab you’re switching to” – gee, thanks.
Personally, I HATE this new functionality – hasn’t anyone ever heard of that say “if it aint broke, don’t fix it”? I’m all for adding new functionality and allowing people to choose if they want to use it, but don’t change how a person interacts with a program (though personally I would’ve preferred it was a separate addon). I use Ctrl+Tab all the time, and the way it works now does not suit me. You can still scroll between tabs the “old way” using “Ctrl+PageUp” and “Ctrl+PageDown” – so now a one-handed action requires two hands… thanks alot. Clearly people are more concerned with things looking pretty than being functional.
Anyway, the point of this post is to tell you how to disable this new functionality, so it works like it used to. Go to “about:config” and type “ctrltab” in the filter bar, then set:
1) “browser.ctrlTab.mostRecentlyUsed” to “false”
2) “browser.ctrlTab.recentlyUsedLimit” to “0”
3) “browser.ctrlTab.smoothScroll” to “false”
You might need to restart FireFox for the changes to take effect.
I’m left wondering how much time was spent coding this nice new little “feature”, and how much it increased the filesize and memory usage of FireFox. Bad Mozilla. Maybe one day I’ll have to switch to “Links” (which looks like this). How about you spend more time worrying about standards compliance, CSS3, and passing that Acid test, and less time on making thing looks pretty, huh? Just a thought.
Published on October 10th, 2008 by Hypn. Filed under programs | No Comments
I use a couple of programs that I probably couldn’t live without… most of them are portable (or can just be run without needing to be installed), and all of them are free. Combined they weigh in at under 20mb – a very small price to pay for the functionality.
I’ve listed them in alphabetical order, and will provide a brief description of what they do and why I use them, but it’s up to you to read more about them and try them out:
allSnap – enabled “window snapping”, like WinAmp and Steam do… just helps with positioning windows on the screen
DisplayFusion – allows you to set different wallpapers on different monitors and provides hotkeys for moving windows between monitors, when you have more than 1 monitor (yes, I know, you could just use UltraMon, but it’s not free – though it does offer more features)
Hamachi – allows you to “network” computers over the internet, works through all kinds of network setups and firewalls
KatMouse – by default Windows scrolls the “active” part of the “active” window when you use your mouse scroll whell, this program scrolls whatever’s under your mouse
Launchy – basically a “Run” menu on steroids, you tell it the directories and file types to monitor and it makes launching files or apps incredibly quick and easy
PowerMenu – provides extra menu items when right-clicking on items in the taskbar, allowing you to adjust a program’s transparency, minimize it to the system tray, make it “always on top” and adjust it’s priority
ProcessTamer – monitors running programs and lowers the priority of any using too much CPU usage so your PC doesn’t slow down or freeze (only started using this today, but it looks like a keeper)
StrokeIt – gives Windows “mouse gestures” (you hold down your right mouse button and drawing shapes/letters) to execute commands, maximize/minimize windows etc (DEFINITELY can’t live without this one)
Taskbarshuffle – allows you to reposition items on your taskbar or in your system tray by dragging them, and close them by clicking your middle mouse button (like FireFox tabs)
UltraVNC – allows you remotely access/control your computers (I use this with Hamachi to access my home pc from work and visa versa)
Unlocker – when ever you get a “file in use” error (eg: when trying to move or delete a file) this program will tell you what’s using the file and allow you to close that program or unlock the file
I hope you find these tools useful :)