Commander Keen 1-3 (Vorticons) source code found

JOHN ROMERO, one of the developers of popular early 1990s PC game series Commander Keen, says he has found the source code for the Vorticons trilogy and will seek to release it under GPL.

Romero made the announcement in a discussion about four 3.5" floppy disks he had found, which included the compiled versions of Keen Dreams  and Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion.

"I just found the original Commander Keen source code for 1-3. :)," Mr Romero said.

He later added: "I'm sending it off to get GPL'd." 

The Vorticons trilogy consisted of Commander Keen 1-3. The game engine changed significantly for the subsequent Keen Dreams and Keen 4-6.

There are few details on when the code will be released and where it was found.

The source code for Commander Keen 4-6 was found by the game's creator, Tom Hall, last year on a still-readable (just) SyQuest cartridge.

The code for episodes 4 and 5 will be released as open source, but Keen 6 remains tied up in distribution issues. (If you downloaded the Keen pack on Steam you would have noticed it was missing.)

Why is the code important? A small community of fans has been modding the games for years, using patch files to reverse engineer the compiled game files and create entirely new Commander Keen games. The source code will allow those developers to make even more changes more easily and port the game to modern operating systems.

Click here to explore the fan-made Vorticons mods.

Click here to explore fan-made Galaxy (Keen 4-6) mods.

You will probably need DOSBox to run the mods.

Interview> Member for McMillan Mr Russell Broadbent: OCSN 2010 Election Coverage (13/8/2010)

Last Friday One Cuckoo Short of a Nest conducted an interview with Liberal party MP Russell Broadbent. The interview covered issues local to Mr Broadbent’s seat of McMillan, as well as broader Coalition policies including the “Green Army” and the Coalition’s answer to the Labor government’s National Broadband Network.

The transcript for the interview can be read below.

===
TRANSCRIPT
Interview with the Member for McMillan Mr Russell Broadbent
Interview conducted: 13/8/2010
Published: 16/8/2010 at www.onecuckoosnest.com
Interviewer: William Kulich

[OCSN] Mr Broadbent, thankyou for talking to One Cuckoo Short of a Nest again so close to the election. As August 21 draws nearer I ask that you to reflect on your second term in Parliament since your return to office in 2004. What events have shaped this term?

[Mr Broadbent] Um, of course the bushfires were an event for the whole of Australia. And my response to that in the parliament and, you mentioned here in your notes, about the standing ovation being given after I’d spoken to parliament – I think that was as a response to how the parliament felt about the bushfires as much as a response to me. I painted a picture for them that hadn’t been painted before. The poetry about the fires that I presented was also a response to the twelve month anniversary to the fires, and I suggested to a local poet that having reflected on the bushfires and, and our local area particularly, and the event of the service out at um, Labertouche that day, and would he put that down in words and he did. And he did. And we went back in… twelve months later. He actually read that out and I went to hear him read that for the first time, and I read it in to the Hansard. So, there was no acclimation for me, although that did begin and shape the term. There was also the issue of us charging long-term detainees and causing them to have a debt after they were released. And I was very strong on my stand on having that debt removed, as we never received more than four per cent of it anyway, so, there was some very difficult times in this term that I responded to by my address to the parliament and those speeches are there. But I think the most important one was the 58 second statement on the bushfires after twelve months, where, in very few words and a very short time I was able to encapsulate the continuing grief that some people still feel, and for me that was the address of the term.

[OCSN] Your compassion for those affected by the bushfires is clear, what have you been able to achieve for those in your electorate affected by the fires?

[Mr Broadbent] Not as much as we had first hoped, but I have to say to you that the former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd whose responses were, um, were excellent, in regards to those members of parliament whose areas were affected. We wanted to do something about boundary fencing. The Prime Minister Rudd wanted to do something to support the loss of boundary fencing, that was opposed by his beaurucrats and especially the state parliament and the state beaurucrats. So whilst we were able to support them in certain ways, we were never able to achieve what I set out to achieve on their behalf, and that is a disappointment.

[OCSN] What had you hoped to achieve? What was you plan?

[Mr Broadbent] Well the basis of the plan was that we actually paid each farmer so much per meter for the loss of boundary fencing, and that would come out of the bushfire fund. And the state government refused to acquiesce to that, which was a great disappointment.

[OCSN] Did the plan only include farmers?

[Mr Broadbent] Ah well, it was, in our area, in my particular area it was the farmers who were the most hit. It was farms where we had loss of housing, and loss of… property destruction. Whilst we don’t know the results of the trauma that people went through even to this day, we didn’t have the loss of life that we had in other areas so our focus was on property loss and some recompense that I’d hoped we could have gained and I think there was more we could have done. But the community did a lot for itself.

[OCSN] Mr Broadbent, when we last spoke you mentioned that you see climate change as an “an issue for Australia and an issue for the world.” Early in this campaign your leader Tony Abbott announced his “green army” policy, which has actually hardly been explained and has been used almost as a catch cry for the coalition’s environment policy. What exactly is this policy? Do you feel that it properly addresses the need for significant action on environmental issues?

[Mr Broadbent] Um, I think it’s a way of doing some very important projects at a local level. 15, 00 people around the country doing projects that will make a difference to climate change in the long run.

[OCSN] What are these projects?

[Mr Broadbent] They’re projects like revegetating a wetland, they’re projects like, um, it will depend, locally, but we have a number of programs that you could… where revegetation would be, um, as we’ve done with Landcare, revegetation, the upgrading of corridors, where we could have planting through corridors, and just opportunities like that where we could really make a difference to climate change by local practical proposals.

[OCSN] Aren’t there already groups that do this? Like, you mentioned Landcare.

[Mr Broadbent] Well, I’d like to see Landcare reinstated back to what it was under the Howard government. Ten million dollars has been taken away from Landcare which has been a shame, and I’d like to see that reinstated but importantly, there are projects that would come through local government or through other community interest groups, where a group of people, otherwise unemployed, would have the opportunity to do something in the environment that would make a long term difference.

[OCSN] Do you think that this is enough to address the threat of climate change?

[Mr Broadbent] No, and that’s why we have... that’s only one part of it and that’s why we have bipartisan approach to the reduction of emissions.

[OCSN] What are the other parts of the coalition’s program?

[Mr Broadbent] Well we have agreed with the current Government on the reduction of emissions and abatement and all the other programs that go with it especially in regard to renewable energy, which is the MRET (Mandatory Renewable Energy Targets) targets, and, now whilst that will increase the cost of electricity certainly renewables are an important part of the program.

[OCSN] The division of McMillan has been ignored by the mainstream media as focus has been drawn to the marginal seats in New South Wales and Queensland. You were first elected to the seat in 1996 and were defeated in the 1998 election, before being elected again in 2004 and re-elected for the first time in 2007. It’s quite clear that this seat is no safe seat. How do you feel you will fare this election? Is it going to be a tough one?

[Mr Broadbent] Well, to this point we’ve run the best local campaign possibly can in the context of the people that are resident in this electorate. To win election campaigns, I don’t believe at a local level they can be won in the last few weeks or on the day… of the election campaign – they have to be won from the three years that you are working within the electorate. People have the opportunity then to see your work, evaluate what you do and consider their vote at the election campaign whether they will vote locally or from a national perspective. And often incumbent members can attract, even though it’s minor, a personal vote. Now I’m not suggesting that personal vote here is very high, but I am suggesting to you that the incumbency of a local member, be they Liberal, Labor, National or Green… or independent for that matter, it is an important place because people do tend to take ownership of their member.

[OCSN] You mentioned that there are both local and national influences. What are the most prevalent local issues this election?

[Mr Broadbent] Well there’s two ways of looking at that. One is, the people in my electorate, such as farmers, know my, and I don’t want to be trite about this but know my record of support for them especially when they were not receiving exceptional circumstances… drought relief… were other nearby farmers were. And they know that I went out on a limb for them. People with disabilities know my record in support of them over many years and… some very specific incidences that we can talk about at another time. And also, the people in the power industry particularly know that I’ve taken a very strong stance - where I ask the question about climate change and people say to me well the first thing we do is we’re going to close down our dirty coal fired power stations. My question to those people then is alright where is the power going to come from?

[OCSN] But surely, Hazelwood, the most inefficient power station in the world, the developed world that is, should be replaced.

[Mr Broadbent] Oh, I think it could be changed to a gassified power station, therefore reducing the emissions. At this stage it supplies nearly a quarter of our power and we have to consider that in any proposal. Even the state government has said they were going to close down part of Hazelwood and then they said through minister Batchelor on ABC radio, well of course if we need the power we won’t close it down. So what we have to do… all our power stations are coming to the end of their lives, all our power stations are, and we need to consider how we are going to supply that power in to the future. Somebody has to have a vision of how we are going to use the resources that we have and at the same time have more efficient power generation to reduce emissions.

[OCSN] But what the state Government has been looking at doing is replacing part of Hazelwood with renewables. And I read somewhere that Alcoa is looking at extending Hazelwood’s service to 2036, which is still a very long time, that’s hardly near the end of its life.

[Mr Broadbent] Ah, not without changes it won’t. Not without changing it to a gas fired power station it won’t, no.

[OCSN] Tony Abbott has described himself as not being a “tech head” when questioned on his plan to upgrade Australia’s broadband. I am aware of several cases in your electorate of people being unable to get faster internet simply because of old telephone switches. Would you please explain, for Mr Abbott, what exactly will be upgraded in the Liberal’s scheme?

[Mr Broadbent] Well one of my concerns under Labor’s scheme is much of my electorate will not be receiving the broadband that they require. As proposed.

[OCSN] Why is that?

[Mr Broadbent] Because it’s to be run out to, I believe, townships and communities above 5000 people. So that’s an enormous amount of my electorate that will not be receiving the broadband run out that the Labor party is suggesting.

[OCSN] But what is the Coalition’s policy?

[Mr Broadbent] Well we’re suggesting that by 2016, 97% of Australia will be receiving between 100 megabytes, to a minimum of 12 megabytes for speed. We propose that our proposal is market based and affordable broadband, as compared to the expensive National Broadband Network which will be wasteful. And on top of that we have target mobile telephone coverage blackspots… where we need to target those blackspots and to ensure better support service.

[OCSN] In the next three years though, what are the qualifications for towns under the Coalition’s scheme? After all, the five thousand people minimum is only a short-term goal of the Labor party. What can we be expecting under the Coalition in the short term and what are the qualifications for towns?

[Mr Broadbent] Well already there are companies supplying up to… between 70 and 100 megabytes in the capital cities. Now where there is a market that can be rolled out further, and with wireless that can be given to areas that wouldn’t otherwise have it under the National Broadband Network.

[OCSN] But is this much of an improvement to what is already in place?

[Mr Broadbent] Absolutely, massive improvement.

[OCSN] Mr Broadbent, thankyou for your time.

[Mr Broadbent] Thankyou!

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On A Friday: How To Escape A Ninja

There has been a craze of “Ninjas can’t catch you if….” backgrounds sweeping the internet. One of my personal favourites is one designed for a dual monitor desktop that reads “Ninjas can’t catch you if you’re on another monitor.”

“Ninjas can’t catch you if… you’re on another monitor”

But despite this being a reasonable argument I am not convinced. Why? I am certainly no expert at dodging jumping, near-invisible, super-stealthy killers so I don’t take much comfort from there just being a monitor between me and them!

So to arm myself against these killers in black I have created my own safeguard. I feel it may just save my life:

“Ninjas can’t catch you if… you’re on another computer”
[CLICK IMAGE for larger version]

And with that advice I wish you a happy, ninja-free week.

P.S. – I know it’s not Friday but this is such an important community service announcement that one can throw convention to the wind!

How To: Bring Admin Tools to Your Fingertips

Applies to:
Microsoft Windows 7 (32- and 64-bit editions).
Microsoft Windows Vista (Recommended usage for 32-bit editions only).
---
This is a little trick which is a really handy way to quickly access administrative tools. It is really simple to implement, however it is mentioned on the internet that this can crash 64-bit editions of Windows Vista. The example screenshots in this tutorial were taken in 64-bit Windows 7, which proves that it can be stable in 64-bit 7.

The process to create a link to this utility is really very simple. Firstly, create a new folder anywhere on your computer or on removable media. The trick to making this folder special is the name – name the folder anything you like (without using punctuation is the best way to ensure that this will work) and add the following to the end of the name:

.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

Deselect the folder to change the name and the folder’s icon should change to the control panel icon (image: top right). The name you gave the folder should be the only visible part of the name.

Opening the folder will present a screen sorted into categories corresponding to different areas of Windows.

This trick may also work for users without administrative access, however these users may be prompted to enter administrator credentials when changing settings.

Google’s Stand for Free Speech

The Implications of Google’s Actions in China on the Labor Government’s proposed internet Censorship.

---

In a firm stand against the Chinese government’s human rights policies, Google yesterday announced that they will no longer provide the same search censoring service to China that they once did.

Google’s webmail service, Gmail, and several other internet services were subject to cyber attacks last month which Google have traced to China.

In a post on The Official Google Blog entitled “A new approach to China”, Google’s Chief Legal Officer David Drummond stated that “we [Google] have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn”.

Drummond continues to explain that Google will “discuss [how Google could run] an unfiltered search engine within the [Chinese] law, if at all.” This is backed up by a statement that Google “may well [have] to shut down Google.cn, and potentially [its] offices in China” if an agreement with the Government cannot be reached.

Drummond’s post indicates that the attacks were on the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists, and that Google have a strong belief in human rights and freedom of information. He comments that when Google China was launched in 2006 it was intended to make uncensored information more easily available in China, and that Google had experienced “discomfort” in agreeing to censorship.

Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy announced in December of last year that he plans to put legislation which would censor Australia’s internet to parliament before next election.

The Australian system will be implemented as a blacklist targeting “refused classification” (RC) websites. RC websites contain material which is not allowed a rating in Australia due to illegal actions being portrayed. A report leaked last March however suggests that some websites possibly outside of the initial scope of RC content may also be blocked, including some pages on the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia.

What are the implications of this on Google’s service in Australia? If the search engine were to leave Australia it may cause greater public unrest than in China where Google is not such a dominant search engine.

Google’s stance on freedom of information may lead to some disputes on service with the Australian Government, however the ISP-level filtering forwarded by Senator Conroy may mean that filtered content found on Google will lead to a dead link and not the blocked website.

Google’s actions in China show how a large information carrier such as Google can attempt to hold an entire country’s Government at ransom.

How To: Display the Old Right-Click Menu in the Windows 7 Taskbar

Microsoft made many changes to how users interact with programs in Windows 7, one of these changes involved the replacement of the menu that appears when you right-click on a program’s icon in the taskbar.

The new menu provides many enhanced and useful commands for programs designed to use it, including fast links to certain features in that program and recently opened documents. These features are all very useful, however the original functionality of this menu has been removed as a result.

That is not to say that the old menu is not gone forever, it does however require an additional command to make it appear. Holding down the ‘Shift’ key whilst right-clicking will bring back the old menu. With the shift key held down, right-clicking a closed program’s icon will bring forward the standard shortcut menu (with a very slightly different layout), and right-clicking an open program will, in most cases, open the old right-click menu from Windows 95 – Vista. It’s as simple as that! Some programs do show modernised menus for open programs, such as Microsoft’s Paint and Messenger.

Windows 7 is far more functional and much easier to use than any previous version of Windows. It is especially good for touch screen computers with the new interface designed with this application in mind. Although the new layout of the operating system, such as the taskbar right-click menu, may appear to be reduced in functionality, simple command adjustments within 7 make the new Windows far more productive and accessible than before.

On A Friday: HaPpY NeW YeAr!

Good morning and welcome to 2010!

Ten years ago a new millennium had just started, nine years ago it was the start of the 21st century, and one year ago was the start of 2009.

What got us where in the year just passed? Here is a light hearted review of 2009 which looks at a select number of events that were in some way significant (or not) to the year just passed.

FILE DETAILS:
Format: PDF
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So how did you find the last decade? America’s Pew Research Center recently released the newest instalment of a decade-by-decade rating of the last 50 years. In this, Americans’ perception of the 2000s has shown to be the lowest of any decade yet. Exactly 50% of those surveyed said their impression of the decade was generally negative. This is a jump from the same statistic for the 1990s, in which only 19% ranked the decade poorly.

This high negative is best explained by another statistic released by the Pew Center, which shows the November 11th terrorist attacks to be most widely considered the “most important event of the decade”.

But has the decade really been as bad as this research has shown? It really depends on who you ask. The research mentioned above is only a study of a fraction of the American population (779 people) and doesn’t represent any other country around the world.

One good piece of information to take from this study is that many of the people surveyed think that next decade will be better than the 2000s. Given the rating of the 2000s that won’t be hard!

On A Friday (One Hour Belated!): A Christmas Gift From… VLC?

(Posted 1:00AM 26/12)

VLC Media player changed quite a lot when it reached version 1.0, but I never expected this! After watching a video last week in VLC I was met by something quite unexpected and amusing at the end. Instead of just displaying a traffic cone (the VLC logo) on a black background as it usually does at the end of a video, the following screen appeared:

Not only had the image on the screen changed, but the program icon too!

This raises the question of whether essential basic software should become “involved” in the celebrations of some cultures but not others? VLC has many applications in the business world, and this may be considered inappropriate in some sectors there too.

To answer my own question the writers of the program have every right to place the image there, however should provide a clear path to turning it off if they want the program to be taken as a serious competitor to commercial products.

Don’t get me wrong – it actually was really funny! (It is probably because this is a serious program that it was so funny)

***UPDATE***(26/12) – I’ve just made a quick search and found that this Easter Egg also appeared in 2008 with the traffic cone being a Santa hat. I stand corrected!

On A Friday: Go Figure

After reading a test of AMD and Intel processors in the most recent Australian Personal Computer magazine, I was “inspired” (this seems to be the fancy way of saying “copied”) to create this table.

The article mentioned that the newest AMD Sempron processors cost “$0.00000011” (AUD) per transistor, but only mentions this statistic for that processor.

Being a picky buyer, I’d like to know the value for money that I’m getting for each part of my system to the most minute detail. So below is a continuation of the work that APC has started, enjoy!

(IMPORTANT!!!: THIS TABLE IS NOT ACTUALLY OF ANY USE as any kind of indication of value for money. It is entirely for entertainment value. It doesn’t take into account the number of cores, the FSB speed, socket, any cache or the inclusion of HyperTransport/Hyper Threading and as such is no indication of processor value!)

Processor Make and Model	$RRP/bulk (IN USD)	# of transistors	$ per transistor
AMD Sempron LE-1300	$39.99 (Best price on AMD website)	114 million	$0.00000035 (3.50789473 6842105263 1578947368 421e-7)
AMD Athlon X2 Dual-Core 7750 (Black Edition)	$79*	450 million	$0.00000018 (1.75555555 5555555555 5555555555 556e-7)
AMD Phenom II X4 945	$165*	758 million	$0.00000022 (2.17678100 2638522427 4406332453 826e-7)
AMD Six-Core Opteron 8435	$2759.99(Best price on AMD website)	904 million	$0.00000948 (9.48450171 8213058419 2439862542 955e-6)
Intel Celeron Dual-Core E1600	$53**	105 million	$0.00000050 (5.04761904 7619047619 0476190476 19e-7)
Intel Core 2 Duo E8190	$163**	410 million	$0.000000398 (3.97560975 6097560975 6097560975 61e-7)
Intel Core i5-750	$196**	774 million	$0.00000025 (2.5322997 4160206718 3462532299 7416e-7)
Intel Core i7-940	$562**	731 million	$0.000000769 (7.68809849 5212038303 6935704514 364e-7)

*These may be bulk prices, I am unsure.
**These ARE bulk prices for quantities of 1k.

(All prices are in US Dollars as these companies are based in America. This also ensures that these statistics remain as accurate as possible for as long as possible despite exchange rates.)

And the winner is:
In this sample, the winner is the AMD Athlon X2 Dual-Core 7750 (Black Edition) at 0.000018 cents per transistor.

(All logos and names are © AMD or Intel)

I hope this table amuses you! More useless stats coming in another On A Friday soon!

A Quick Look: Ubuntu 9.10 and Font Installation

A previous post on installing fonts in Windows and Ubuntu discussed Ubuntu not having a logical method of font installation. The recent release of the new Ubuntu 9.10, “Karmic Koala”, has seen a great improvement in font management.

Opening a font file now throws up a different preview screen, one more detailed than that of Ubuntu 9.04. This screen also includes a button which has long featured on the Windows preview screen - “Install Font”.

There are still some areas in need of improvement to bring Linux up to speed with Windows’ font management. Firstly, Linux lacks an option to install a font when you right-click on its icon. This has been present in Windows since XP and is a useful shortcut when installing a select few fonts from a large selection.

Another issue is one which could confuse less tech-savvy users. If a font has already been installed and the “Install Font” button is pressed, the button changes to read “Install Failed”. This is true, however the font still remains installed. In similar situations Windows informs the user that the font is already installed and the old file should be removed to install the new one.

Although still rough around the edges, Linux font management has vastly improved with this new version of the operating system (OS). The “Install Font” button has made it possible for people who have never used Ubuntu to figure out how to install a font. This improvement is a sign of Linux’s progression from a IT professional’s server OS to a standard desktop frontend.

IT News: Wikipedia Beta Introduces New Add to Watchlist Shortcut

It may not sound much, but the Wikipedia Beta now includes a new shortcut in the interface of the popular online reference.

The shortcut allows users to quickly add a page to or remove one from their “watchlist”, a process which used to be well hidden and most easily found during editing.

 

This addition to the already radically overhauled interface reinforces the website’s aim of becoming more accessible.

The watchlist function notifies users when a page has been edited.

To try the beta for yourself, you need a Wikipedia account (free from the website). Once logged in, select “Try Beta” from the links at the top right of the screen and you’re in.

How To: Easily Create a Font for Free

Fonts. You’re looking at one now. Look around your screen and chances are you will find at least one more, but have you ever wanted something different? Something unique to you? Well, what could be more unique than your very own, home made font!

To make a good font easily, you need two free programs:

• Inkscape
  This is a cross-platform vector image editor (that is, images that can be resized without pixilation) that can export in the SVG format. Other similar programs may also work.
• FontForge
  This is a cross-platform font creator. It is native to Linux, however there are ports (versions) which work well on Windows.

Once you have downloaded and installed these two applications, you can begin.

1. Firstly, you need to get creative in Inkscape and create your font. Shapes can be created with the pen tool and the circle, square and polygon tools. Other tools may not export to FontForge well if at all. If you want your glyph (your individual font image) to have a transparent section within an opaque area, create the inner shape over the outer shape, select both and navigate to “Path>Exclusion”. This will make the middle transparent. 
2. Save each glyph as a separate SVG file under an appropriate name.
3. Open font forge and at the “Open Font” menu,  select “New”. You will be presented with a table of empty glyph positions.
4. Double-click on the glyph you wish to insert your image into.
5. A rather daunting screen will appear (if the grid one wasn’t already scary enough!), but it is easier to use than it looks. If you want to create your glyph from scratch with the FontForge toolbox (this is NOT what is being explored in this tutorial) you can do so now. However, as we have already created the glyph in Inkscape, simply select “File>Import”, choose “SVG” from the “Format” drop-down and navigate to and select the file made in Inkscape.
6. Now we need to resize the imported image. Click and drag a box around the glyph with the “Pointer” tool. Now either move the body of the image to the first bottom line in the guideline from the centre, or click “Scale the Selection” from the Toolbox (7th button down on the left) and resize it to the size you want it to be. Holding down the Shift key on the keyboard will help to keep the image in shape. At the end, the body of the glyph should line up with the first line, with any tail overlapping toward the second line. This second line should not be passed.
7. Now you can adjust any point (or points) in the glyph that you are not happy with. Using the “Pointer” tool, select the nodes in the glyph and move or adjust them as you feel fit.
8. Now the glyph needs to be finished by adjusting the margin between the edge of the glyph and the right and left sides of the bounding box. Usually an equal distance on each side works well. Simply select the whole glyph (as we did before) and nudge it left or right using the corresponding keys on the keyboard until the left margin is as large as you want it to be. Deselect the glyph and then drag the bounding box line on the right to be roughly the same as that on the left.
9. Repeat for each glyph. Not all glyphs need to be filled, however it is recommended that most letters and numbers are created.
10. When you have completed your font, on the grid screen select "Element>Font Info”. Here you set your font’s name. It’s acceptable to enter the same name in each of these, just make sure it is one that is unique to the font to avoid conflicts.
11. Export the font! To do this, select “File>Generate Fonts”. Select “True Type” from the first drop down menu and, if you choose to, select “upload it to the Open Font Library”. If you decide to upload your font to this resource, make sure you read the licensing requirements of this service as it makes your font open source. Click “Save” and accept the error dialogues and your font should work fine.
12. There isn’t one! You have finally finished! A long process but well worth it.

Also see: How To: Install Fonts in Windows and Ubuntu

Windows 7 RC In Pictures

This is the first and last post on testing the Windows 7 Release Candidate. In  short, excellent. I have had some issues with programs locking up at the save dialogue but besides that this is the best OS I have ever used. It is faster than my Vista install and even my install of Ubuntu Studio 9.04!

So, to round up my time in this milestone of the OS, here is a small gallery of screenshots. It doesn’t cover everything by far, but it’s a little taste of the RC which is basically the same as the release version.
GO TO GALLERY

On A Friday: You would think that SOMEONE at Microsoft would have noticed

Over the last few years, Microsoft have been advertising Windows Vista on their website, trying to convince an unresponsive audience that it is worth it. If Microsoft UK are to be believed, it is still the Windows operating system  to have, despite the release of Windows 7!
On the morning of the release day of Windows 7 I was jumping around the different Windows homepages of countries around the world, checking who had 7, and inevitably, came across the United Kingdom home page.
Now, forgive me if I'm being pedantic, but I believe the screenshot below shows the UK website ON THE DAY OF THE UK RELEASE! It may have been the small hours of the morning there, but Microsoft are still introducing Windows Vista.
Even if I have got my time zones muddled, it's worth posing the question of why Microsoft would still be advertising an OS that is about to be superseded in such a way, especially so close to the release of its successor. Or maybe its a mistake, and the wrong image was set? Either way, I think Internet Explorer summed the situation up perfectly - "...errors on page"!

Windows 7: It’s good (I presume) once you’re in!

Windows 7: Slick, easy, reliable. Windows XP upgrade  to Windows 7: A little more traumatic. Or at least that was the impression I received from a sales clerk in a local Leading Edge Computers* franchise.

I entered the store and to my surprise found none of the paraphernalia that the place had been decked in with the release of Windows Vista and, after ensuring that I hadn’t got my Australian release date confused, the clerk explained the absence of the new operating system (OS) from the shelves.

The reason was that the store was unable to decide which form of the OS to stock – the upgrade or the full install, the issue behind this being the method of upgrade from Windows XP and the fact that many people have been “holding out” for 7 instead of buying Vista.

The clerk also suggested that I type “Windows 7 Upgrade Paths” into Google; the first result, a Microsoft TechNet page, made the confusion clear. In the list of “Unsupported Upgrade Scenarios” came a surprise. Apart from the usual list of Windows 95, 98, and ME, and the expected Windows 7 pre-releases, was Windows XP.

I knew this was not the case as I had visited a Harvey Norman* outlet after Leading Edge and looked at the upgrade box which stated that “any version of Windows XP and Windows Vista” can be upgraded to Windows 7. The discrepancy here is how the OS is upgraded.

To upgrade from Windows Vista, the Windows files are similar enough to those of Windows 7 to allow for Windows 7 to be installed in-place, however the OS has changed so much in the nine years since the release of Windows XP that a clean install is required. In other words, anyone wishing to upgrade directly from Windows XP to Windows 7 will have to wipe their Windows partition in the process of installation; a concept that may not appeal to the average user.

Also, according to the same TechNet page, an in-place cross-platform upgrade of Windows Vista to Windows 7 (as in upgrading to a 32-bit copy of Vista to a 64-bit copy of Windows 7) is not possible. A “cross-language in-place upgrade” is also not supported, despite Windows 7 advertising easy switching between many languages on the product box, and there are many other situations where an in-place upgrade is unavailable.

There are apparently ways around the XP – 7 in-place upgrade issue, however I won’t discuss these as I am unsure of the legality of these methods.

Whilst holding the product box, I noticed both the 32- and 64-bit versions of the OS are included in the package. This is important to note because I remember that the x64 version of Vista was more expensive than the x86 version.

I’d also like to raise the issue of operating system theft of real-world disks. Harvey Norman only had display copies of the three Windows 7 versions stocked, a store assistant explaining that this was to prevent theft.
An “MSDN Flash” e-Mail also listed today as the release date of Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2.


*For non-Australian readers: Leading Edge Computers are a computer repairs and sales shop in Australia. Harvey Norman is a larger chain retail outlet that stocks a wide variety of goods.

How To: Install Fonts in Windows and Ubuntu

Fonts are surprisingly hard to install for something that we use daily, and chances are if you have bought a CD of fonts they were installed for you using a setup program. But what if you have a single font file that you have downloaded or made and want to install on your computer?
In Windows operating systems, a shortcut to install a font (without going to the fonts folder) was not included until XP, and in my experience this is not present for some users in Vista. Windows 7 makes it easier, however in both Vista and 7 users must be able to supply administrator credentials at the User Account Control (UAC) prompt. Windows 7 also improves the Fonts folder - the first major update since Windows 3.1.
Ubuntu is baffling for anyone trying to install a font, unless they have been told how to do this before hand. The process is simple once explained, however font installation in Ubuntu is still in need of some work.
FOR WINDOWS USERS:

In any version of Windows from 3.1 to Vista, a font can be installed from the ‘Fonts’ folder. To get to this, open the ‘Control Panel’ and then open the ‘Fonts’ applet; this will take you to the Fonts folder. Click ‘File>Install New Font…’ in the Menu Bar. If the menu bar is not present (i.e. there is no ‘File’ menu), right-click on a blank  area in the folder and then select ‘Install New Font…’.
In Windows 7, a new font is installed by opening the font file and selecting ‘Install’ or right-clicking on the font and selecting ‘Install’ and then accepting the UAC prompt if it appears.
The right-click method may also work in XP and Vista depending on user privileges.

A CLOSER LOOK: INSTALLING FONTS IN WINDOWS XP AND VISTA:
The ‘Add Fonts’ menu (accessed by clicking ‘File>Install New Font…’ in the ‘Fonts’ folder) has remained the same since Windows 3.1, and can be a little confusing to navigate for less tech-enthusiastic people.
To find a font that is in your  ‘My Documents’, or ‘Desktop’ folder, or in a subfolder of one of these folders, you need to navigate to your user files. All user files are usually located in the C:\ drive. Select ‘C:\’ from the top of the ‘Folders’ area, and for Windows XP users, open ‘Documents and Settings’ and for Vista users open ‘Users’. From here, open the folder with your username and then choose the appropriate file.

FOR UBUNTU USERS:
Ubuntu requires a slightly different process to install a font. There is no graphical installation for fonts, but fonts are installed by simply copying and pasting them into the ‘.fonts’ folder in your home folder. This, however, only installs the font for the user installing the font.
The ‘.fonts’ folder usually doesn’t exist by default, and if it does exist it is hidden. To view hidden files, navigate to your home folder and select ‘View>Show Hidden Files’, or hold down the control key and press ‘H’.
Now the procedure is simply a matter of checking if the ‘.fonts’ folder is present and, if it isn’t, making the folder. This folder will become hidden once you close the file browser, so to access it again click ‘Show Hidden Files’.
Now open the folder with the font/s that you want to install, copy them and then paste them into the ‘.fonts’ folder. The font/s will become available to applications when they are next started.

Once these processes are learned for each operating system (OS), it is easy to install a new font on that OS – just make sure that you back up any purchased fonts!