Program review : Part 1

I was going to post the most rememberable posts at Catharton Electronica, but I’m saving that for next post. The selection I have doesn’t look quite right, and there are 88 pages of posts from me alone so I’ll be searching hard for only the best ones for everyone to read. Meanwhile, look at my first batch of program reviews. I’ve done this before at Ian1984’s Software Blog, but didn’t feel like looking for new program versions today or any day the past month. I’ll be looking for new versions for eternity if I kept that up and wasted more time than I am on the gaming boards. By the way, a new strategy RPG from Japan is coming to Toyriffic (the store that has all the videogames in stock other places don’t) on Thursday called Atelier Iris ~Eternal Mana~ which interestingly got a 9.0 out of 10 at Gamerankings.com before it came out from a site I’ve never heard of. I’ll be checking this site regularly for changes. Read the only Game Review available!



I’ve also been wondering about how much time I’ve spent on Catharton Electronica…. writing all those videogame replies is indeed addicting never-the-less all good things come to an end. Knowing I’ve learned more about games makes it worth it. Not now, of course, how else would I get information I need to post on my favorite blog?

What would make life interesting is if I owned a videogame every gamer wants just like old Nintendo software even if I’ll never play it to the end. The colors in graphics were a lot fewer 20 yrs ago, but games hadn’t got any easier just more complicated (more buttons anyone?) I haven’t played a PC game (Half-life 2) since January. I’ve pass the part where Gordon armed himself with a handgun for the first time than I got lost in the Underground Railroad area & shot down by a helicopter sniper. The sniper and I died at the same time. I was ranting about this game a couple months ago and now almost completely forgot about it. Anyways, I know I’ve lost valuable game collecting when I skipped the earlier consoles all together.

Although not positive, I am pondering if I shall buy Super Castlevania IV for $25? Yes, I could get it cheaper online, but I am probably going to afford it next time I pick up Atelier Iris. What’s so special about it? It was extremely popular during the 16-bit era, and it also came in a Genesis version known as Castlevania - Bloodlines. The rumor is Konami took all the aspects of the previous installments and improved them until nothing resembled quality in side strollers as much as Super Castlevania IV (©1991 Konami) for action platformers. The point of the game is killing the “impaler” at the end; none other than Dracula himself. It provides enough challenge to be interesting, but is easy enough so that it doesn't become frustrating.

Tomorrow, I might just go to Hudson to meet Nikki again. She’s the woman I visited last week. I could also stay home and be unsocial which is what I’m good at. I’ve haven’t seen Randy in over a week. He’s the one who visits me & we chat about me, or look around at electronic stores in the cities. We talk about my job as a computer technician. He knows little, I wish there was someone who knew more so the communication between us would be better.

Program reviews part 1:

Mozilla Firefox v1.02

Features 10/10 popup blocker, tabbed browsing, small download

Stability9.7/10

loyal meter 10

codec support 10 JPEG, GIF, PNG, SWF, JS, BMP

Javascript support 8/10

Macromedia Flash Support 5/10 Need to download it

JPEG 2000 support 0/10 not supported at all [tears rolling down eyes]

Comments: Started using in 2003 and I love it. Use it everyday on the Internet.

Coral Paint Shop Pro 9.1

Features 8/10 makes excellent cropping images + effects browser + awesome intelligent decolorize PNG codec exclusive to PSP 9

codec 8/10 – uses advance PNG codec. Professional grade JPEG and GIF codec. Also creates JPEG2000 images.

Stability 9/10 pretty stable. Doesn’t crash on Windows XP

loyal meter – 10/10

Comments: Use it to crop my images all the time or do text effects.

Irfanview 3.95

features 6/10 – free image viewer that crops images saves them in JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP. Slideshow images full screen

codec supports 10/10 – extremely advance PNG codec and pretty good JPG codec too for compression. Having them is reason alone to have this program on your computer It’s free too!

Stability 7/10 runs great with pictures, but often when viewing MPEG it crashes.

Quintessential Player 4.51

features 9/10 - skin support, stream saving support for MP3, OGG, WAV, MPEG, AVI

loyal meter – 5/10

supports following codec supports MP3, MP2, OGG vorbis, AU, WMA, WMA9, WAV, MP4, and HC-ACC

Stability 9.5/10 stays functioning forever if you’ll allow it.

Comments: Use this program to stream save PLS files off the Internet. Otherwise, it’s another Winamp that’s no longer supported.

Maxthon Browser 1.21

features 9/10 supports browser skins, everything IE supports, popup blocker, small download too

codec supports JPEG, GIF, PNG, SWF, JS, BMP

stability 8/10 pretty good, but not close to Mozilla Firefox. Better than IE6 by far.

MS WORD Professional 2003

features 10/10 great spellchecker, grammar checker, image inserter, greatest True Font support of them all.

loyal meter – 10/10

stability 9.5/10 great stability

Comments: Used MS Word for as long as I can remember.

The handy VideoLAN 0.81 media player

Features 8/10 It’s a full featured video player that pans any kind of video to full screen. Something that’s been overshadowed by Windows Media Player and Winamp 5. Also allows the user to host a server to stream compressed audio or video to other computers in a LAN or by Internet. Open source project.

stability 9/10 had no problems with it yet on Windows XP.

Namo Webeditor 6

Features 10/10 - HTML made easy, better than Dreamweaver because it never crashes. I can make Tables very easily. Good Stuff. It’s a graphical user interface one too. Dreamweaver enthusiasts hate it, but I love it.

loyal meter – 10/10

Stability 9/10 rarely crashes though not perfect, but what HTML editor is besides MS Notepad?

supported codec 10/10 If it’s on the web….Namo would support it.

Here is the bandwidth survey I’m giving every one at school. It took me about an hour to type up.

VERSION ONE: What is the Best Online Gaming Bandwidth of a PC with several players over the Internet?

1.) What is your Internet Service Provider?
2.) What is the least bandwidth you can get a way with for playing a 3D Multiplayer? First Person Shooter online with low latency?
3.) How much money would this ISP charge for the provided bandwidth?
4.) How often does your connection ever go down?
a. Once a week
b. Once a day
c. Once a hour
d. Once every 3 days
5.) Does satellite Internet affect online games to the point where they’re unplayable?
6.) Do more advanced 3D online games take more bandwidth than ones a few years ago (example a reliable connection to play Half-life online vs. playing Half-life 2)
7.) Are you happy with your current giving bandwidth?
8.) Do you wish to upgrade you’re bandwidth at home?
9.) What’s top dollar you’re willing to pay for Internet access?
10.) What games do you play online over the current connection?

VERSION TWO: What’s the best bandwidth for the average high speed user to get all tasks done?


1.) For someone who wants to either download small programs (between 20 to 60 MB), and surf the World Wide Web or listen to streaming audio through Winamp or Windows Media Player at 128 kbps streaming audio connection for an example, and surf the world wide web at the same time? What’s the minimum bandwidth would get all these accomplished?
2.) What’s the best service provider for 1 Mbps connection
3.) What bandwidth would the user need to be able to stream a 192 kbps audio session?
4.) What’s the best service provider for 512 Kbps connection
5.) What chosen ISP disconnects the least?
6.) What chosen ISP disconnects the most?
7.) What bandwidth would be good if two people want to serf the web at the same time
8.) Would you upgrade the connection if next step up is cheaper?
9.) How much do you pay for you’re current bandwidth?
10.) Are you an Internet Explorer, Netscape, or Mozilla user?
11.) Do you want Satellite Internet to do the above 10 questions? Yes or No.

VERSION THREE: What’s the best bandwidth for streaming Video onto your computer?

1.) If you want to stream video (MPEG, Quicktime) onto your computer what’s the best bandwidth that’ll get the job done?
2.) What resolution do you stream at? (example 440x280)
3.) How much do you pay the ISP to give the amount of bandwidth to be able to stream video you want?
4.) Is 512 kbps too slow? Yes or No.
5.) Is 1.5 Mbps too fast? Yes or No.
6.) Can you stream audio and stream video with a 1 Mbps connection?
7.) Is 1 Mbps the ideal connection speed to stream video, stream audio, download large programs frequency, surf the internet would you say? Yes or No
8.) How much do you pay for 1.5 Mbps?
9.) Is 1 Mbps the ideal connection speed to stream video, stream audio, download large programs frequency, surf the internet would you say? Yes or No.
10.) How much do you pay for 1.5 Mbps?
11.) Is 1.5 Mbps the ideal connection speed to stream video, stream audio, download large programs frequency, surf the world wide web would you say? Yes or No.
12.) Have you ever streamed audio to a friend using a program like videoLAN? If so do you like it?
13.) How many viruses do you get over broadband?
a. One a day
b. Once an hour
c. One a week

Pretty good aren’t they?

This is Ian signing off Modblog…