There’s a really popular game for Android called Alchemy which Gillian’s eldest took quite a shine to on my phone. It’s a really simple game, involving dropping icons of the basic four elements onto each other to create newer items. These can then be used as blocks to make more complex ones and so on.

For example, mixing fire and water gives you alcohol, earth and air gives dust, dust and water gives mud… and so on. This version currently has 370 items to develop and discover. There is a “competing” program going by the name of Alchemy Classic which is the same but different. The programmers of this have also developed a PC version, but it’s a pain in the backside to install. There is also a new version from another developer called Alchemy ~ Genetics which does much the same thing with genetic traits of various creatures (wonderful gift to send to your Creationist friends – assuming Creationists have friends).

And, finally, there’s an excellent version for the PC (sorry Mac users). It’s programmed by Marius Bancila and the most recent version (2.0) can be downloaded from his blog (link below). It’s a small install and this new release has been re-jigged so that it works better on netbook screens. The old one kept expanding so that controls dropped off the bottom.

I’m giving this a plug partly as it’s such a good game and also because Marius has proven to be an excellent supporter of his own product. He happily listens to feedback both for bug fixes and new combinations of items. His Alchemy currently sports 444 different creations!

POINT TO NOTE – the game downloads as a single file within a ZIP archive. Just drag the file out of the archive and pop it somewhere to run it. For those who like things near and tidy, you can’t put the game into your Program Files folder where you’d normally store executables. For some reason it won’t then have permission to create and update the separate progress file so you’ll lose all your work each time to leave the game. Store it pretty much anywhere else! This may only be an issue under Windows 7/Vista, though.

A quick list of links for all four versions listed in this post:

• Alchemy (from the Android Market – free version, there is also a premium version)
• Alchemy ~ Genetics (from the Android Market – free version, there is also a premium version)
• Alchemy Classic (from the Android Market)
• Alchemy 2.0 (from Marius’ blog)

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Laptop Alchemy

Can't reinstall?

I’ve located a very useful piece of freeware. When re-installing Windows on a machine, the only things you need are a working CD/DVD (or USB version) and the installation key. The key is supposed to be stuck onto the machine which is fine is a) it is and b) it’s not been rubbed off by wear and tear.

Such is the case with both my laptop and my netbook.

Thankfully, a company called Mayhem Development have a handy utility available for a free download that, in seconds, presents you with your Windows install key. It states that it works on XP, but I gather it’s also useful if you’re stuck with the bulbous penile pustule of operating systems that is Vista. It may even work with Windows 7.

In addition, it will also recover your Office install key for versions up to and including (to a Beta level) 2010.

The package can be downloaded from Mayhem’s website. It’s tiny, portable (i.e. it doesn’t install – you just run it) and as mentioned, completely free.

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Lost your Windows/Office install key?

I did some digging online and the best solutions I got were pointing me to a settings or configuration program within some XVid codec installs. Thing is, I don’t have those particular codecs so that didn’t help.

A bit of a dig later, courtesy of Process Explorer (formerly by sysinternals, now Microsoft) and I found that the program being used was one avisplitter.ax which can be found in C:/Windows/System32. I renames this (popped a “.bak” on the end)… and problem solved.

As far as I can tell, this has had no other effects on the system. Everything else seems to be working fine. However, I’ll leave the file in place rather than delete it just in case.

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AVI Chunk Viewer – how to remove it

Speedyfox

Recently I’ve been having problems with Firefox taking an age to boot up. I’ve more or less fully migrated to Google Chrome, but still need Firefox for some pages that don’t quite work properly in Chrome. Thing is, it’s taking about a minute to load what used to be a quick browser.

After a dig, I found this little solution called Speedyfox. It is a tiny download (0.3Mb) and essentially all it does it optimise the Firefox database. It’s Windows-only at present but it’s knocked my load time down to nearer 10 seconds. Much more acceptable!

Oh, yeah. How much does it cost?

Nothing. My kind of price point.

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Speedyfox

It’s also available as a downloadable screensaver, I think just for Windows.

Linkety-link: Zoomquilt2

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Zoomquilt

Look, Green - no adverts!

This is a very simple hack to get rid of the annoying adverts in Windows Live Messenger (and possibly older versions of MSN Messenger). It doesn’t involve any downloads or patches and the change is simple to reverse if it doesn’t work, or it causes problems which it shouldn’t.

Note that I have nothing against the adverts as such. It’s a great communication tool and MS are well within their rights to sell some advertising space on it. Generally I tune them out, but the “rollover to pop up” ones are a complete pain in the backside. It’s for these I went searching for a solution – and found three on DotNetWizard.net.

That post above lists three solutions. I found that the first did the job for me and I’ll sum it up in brief here.

1. Open My Computer or Windows Explorer
2. Navigate to C:/Windows/System32/Drivers/etc
3. Right click on “hosts” and select “Properties”. If the file is read-only, remove that tick and Apply if necessary
4. Double-click on “hosts” and when the window appears, choose to open it with Notepad
5. Near the top of the file you’ll see an entry “127.0.0.1 localhost”. Underneath that, add a new line “127.0.0.1 rad.msn.com”
6. File … Save then exit Notepad
7. If the file was read-only before, make it read-only again.
8. Log out of MSN if you were in it, and back in.

You should now find that the ads are replaced with a blank white box. Not pretty, but at least you don’t end up with adverts obscuring your desktop. This works on XP and Vista. I don’t know about Windows 7 as yet, sorry, though I assume it has the same file structure and use of hosts.

For the techies, how this works is pretty simple. All the adverts from Microsoft are served up via a server located at the end of the web address “rad.msn.com”. The hosts file is a plain text system file which tells the system where to look for certain resources – it’s a single-machine version of the DNS system in some respects.

As well as using it to point at local resources (such as 192.168.0.7 Steve_PC) you can get it to redirect any other network request. All we’ve done is told the machine that when Messenger goes looking for the advert server, it should – instead of heading out into the internet – look to the local 127.0.0.1 address. This is a standard “loop back” address used by all PCs (indeed, all networking equipment). Hence, Messenger can’t reach the server and the ads don’t appear.

Microsoft could easily fix this by hard-coding an IP address for the advert server into an WLM update, though this in turn could be blocked using other methods, such as firewalls.

Right now, though, I don’t have someone trying to sell me coffee every time I try to click on an icon in my tray.

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Remove ads from Windows Live Messenger

Windows 7

Time for a geeky post – it’s been a while. I was tinkering with the beta version of Windows 7 for a while before it expired and was… well, I’d not say “impressed”, as it had problems with basic graphic drivers on my Acer TravelMate 2410. Otherwise it looked like it had the nice stuff from Vista without running like a two legged dog that’s been shot in the back of the head, then buried in concrete. As Vista does.

One feature I couldn’t check out is the XP Mode, which uses the virtualisation (I’m Anglicising that) of a copy of XP SP3 because my PC won’t support it. The idea is that anything you can run on XP should run on 7 using this feature… as long as your PC is beefy enough to handle it. The thing is, it’s not just beef – it’s functionality of your processor that actually comes into it.

The core requirements for XP Mode to run are:

• Minimum 2GB RAM
• Chip-level virtualisation in your CPU

Do you know if your CPU supports chip-level virtualisation? No, neither do I. I’d assume anything made in the last 6 months or so has a good chance of doing so but there’s no guarantee. Thankfully, Intel and AMD both supply free downloads that will give you a ton of information on the magic box within your PC including whether or not you have this level of functionality:

• Intel
• AMD

Download the relevant one and run it. You’re looking for confirmation that you have some kind of virtualization (American spelling, ick) technology. If you don’t have it, then you won’t be running XP under Windows 7 without upgrading your PC – and possibly having to get a new Windows 7 license if it works like the old XP ones did!

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Windows 7: XP Mode

I didn't "Ask" for this...

I’ve been updating my old laptop after not using it for a couple of months and one program that told me it had a new version was the excellent GOM player, my choice of media player under Windows. Happily I clicked on “yes please, download the update” and sat back.

Down it came, install started, answered the usual questions and then hit a new screen. Do I want the Ask Toolbar? And to change my default search engine to Ask? And to have my homepage set to Ask?

Well, no. I don’t. I also don’t like the fact that agreeing to the license is the same choice as agreeing to have the Ask toolbar installed. Of course, by now you’ve downloaded and installed the software so you’ve overwritten your old version. So unless you have the install file for that, you’re screwed.

Only you’re not. Fortunately there’s an “out” although whether by accident or design, I don’t know. I simply unchecked all the boxes and hit “Cancel” which – to my surprise – didn’t roll back the install. Instead, it opened Internet Explorer (itself strange as it’s not my default browser) on the download page for the Russian version of GOM.

And that was it.

So very, very bad form from GOM. A warning that the license has changed and toolbars are going to be enforced should be mentioned before download / install. Alternatively, there should be an option not to install the toolbar while still using the software/ Many other programs manage this, so GOM should as well.

It’s still my preferred media player, but only as long as I can skip around it installing bloody search bars. Mind you, if it only installs it on IE – which seems the case – I could almost put up with it on the basis that I never use IE anyway.

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Bad GOMplayer!

Clowns teaching Sex-Ed - what more do you need?

Time Gentlemen, Please! is the sequel to Ben There, Dan That which I railed about some time ago. Both are made by Zombie Cow Studios which seems to be a one-man act as far as I can ascertain.

I loved BTDT – it was one of the best graphic adventures I’d played in some time. If you like your humour quirkly and slightly disgusting then this is definitely for you. Playing right through will take you a couple of hours, even if you know the solution so the asking price of £2.99 is well worth it. After all, a cinema ticket costs twice that.

Pop over to the web site and nab yourself a copy. It’s Windows-only, which is a shame, but I’m sure it’ll keep me busy on the flight to Bangkok next week!

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Time Gentlemen, Please!

You can't always lock it

I just found a useful little freeware program called Prey which may be useful for laptops, or indeed any computer. It runs on Linux, Windows and Mac and it’s open source.

What it does is simple. Should your machine be stolen, if the thief logs in (this is the only pitfall, in my opinion) the program will automatically email you a load of details every few minutes. These include its IP address, wi-fi network name, screenshots and – if you have a webcam attached – a picture from it. With luck that may even capture the thief.

How does the machine know it’s stolen and not being used by the real user? When it fires up, Prey checks for the existance of a web page. Any web page, it’s customisable. I’ve told it to look for a page on my blog called “stolen”, so should I find my laptop’s gone walkies then I create that page on my blog. If the page exists then Prey starts emailing details.

It’s only on v0.2 so it’s pretty much beta but it works as far as I can test it under Ubuntu. I’ve not installed it on XP or Win7 as yet. The only thing that’s not clear about the Ubuntu version is how to change the configuration once it’s installed – there’s no menu item or command to run. Go to the directory where you’ve installed it (default is /usr/share/prey) and edit the “config” file with your choice of text editor. It’s well-commented.

As I mentioned above, Prey will only trigger once a user has logged in. As it’s installed as root and runs under root’s crontab (or in the case of Windows as a system process) it will execute no matter what user logs in. Of course, if you have only password-protected accounts then a lot of people will just shrug their shoulders, format it and sell it on.

Hidden in the config file is what looks like a feature that’s not yet implemented – to create a dummy “guest” account with no password that will lure a thief into having a snoop and therefore giving Prey a chance to execute. Of course, you could to this manually. Prey will automatically attempt to locate the nearest publicly-accessible wi-fi connection should it be activated in a bid to get that information out to you.

It’s a teeny program, may or may not help… but for the effort it takes to install it I reckon it’s worthwhile. Of course, I’d also recommend opening the machine up and scrawling your postcode in indelible marker or UV pen somewhere as well. And registering the serial number with Immobilise (or Immobilise in the US).

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Prey – secure your laptop