Cameron's Thoughts

Who doesn't like free PC utilities? Joel at ClieSource passed along a link to the 16 best freeware utilities. You can find it here. Some programs I am downloading now include a freeware registry cleaner and freeware DLL cleaner. I know my PC is getting junked up and some cleaning is in order.

This is something that has to be seen to be believed. Check out this link: http://media.ebaumsworld.com/moSMB3.wmv

This is an 11 minute long video showing the complete game. This guy must have spent the past 10 or 15 years (however long this game has been out) perfecting this. It is a true artwork the way the guy plays this game. Not quite sure who this is, but I saw this link posted at ClieSource and I just had to share it.

On Sept. 26, I wrote the first part of this article, Bluetooth Fun. It's been a while and I just finally got the damn PC Suite to work today. Actually, I have no idea what I did, but when I tried it, it connected to my phone and worked fine. For the longest time, the PC Suite application kept saying 'Device not Connected' even though it was. There is another application called mRouter that is required to connect the PC Suite with the phone over Bluetooth and that showed the connection was fine. There are a number of website forums on the web where many other people have listed the exact same problems that I have had with no solution. It seems the solution to most problems is just to uninstall everything, the PC Suite, and all the Bluetooth drivers. Plus, there are a number of different driver versions available and depending on who you ask, some are evil and some are great. For example, my Bluetooth dongle came with the WIDCOMM ver 1.3.something drivers. Some people say, 1.4.something is available and it's the newest, so use that. Others say 1.2 is the best and the newer versions have flaws, so use that. I've downloaded the different versions, uninstalled and reinstalled so many times I can't even count them. I even resorted to using the rollback feature of Windows XP (I think it's called System Restore). Never used it before, but even rolling back to before my first Bluetooth install didn't help. I eventually gave up and figured I would go without the PC Suite. But, it's nice to have now since I can back up the phone to the PC. I would hate to lose all that contact info. Most of it is backed up on my Clie, but not all of it.

Mobile Digital Media (MDM) is giving away a one software title to the first 5000 people who provide them with a little personal info about themselves (name, address, phone number, that soft of stuff). You even get to choose the software title you would like to receive. The choices are:

• Rayman
• Atari Classic
• Sega Classic
• Dictionary/Thesaurus
• Travel Software

The software is available on SD cards, but if you have an SD card reader for your PC, you can transfer the apps to another media (like Memory Stick for us Clie users). Oh, and the link for this offer is here: http://www.gomdm.com/registration.asp

Today I bought Mario Kart for the GameCube. Super Mario Kart for the SNES has got to be my all time favorite game. I still am not sure if this game fully lives up to it, but it is a pretty fun game itself. I've never played the N64 version,so I can't comment on that.
One thing that I have not received, the bonus disc that was supposed to be included if you pre-ordered the game. I did pre-order, but the people at Wal-Mart said they didn't have them in yet, Actually, the people at Wal-Mart were pretty clueless. They were advertising the game was going to be available November 18th (even though it was released nationwide on the 17th), but they didn't even have it on the shelf. The lady I spoke with said she was pretty sure the game wasn't in yet, but then double checked and sure enough, there was a whole box of games not even opened yet in the back.
But, now I have it and today I was able to easily (first try) get Gold trophies for all three circuits on the 50cc. So far I have received a Silver trophy for each race in the 100cc, but I have only played the 100cc races once now.
The graphics of the game are basically the same as Mario Sunshine, and I think they basically just took a number of the 3D graphics from Mario Sunshine and just did some minor edits and added them to MK:DD.

How about three posts in one day!
I wrote a little utility about three years ago called My Folder that let's you customize folder icons and change the background image of folders. Oddly, Windows 98 already let you customize the folder backgrounds, but not the folder icons. Now, Windows XP will let you do you the icons, but not the backgrounds. So, I have now uploaded the utility to my website here since it looks like the former download locations no longer exists. A friend of mine had some ideas on some updates I should make to the program that would benefit XP users (XP wasn't out when I created My Folder, only in beta versions). If I get a chance, I might work on some more updates. Actually, there already is an update thaat I wrote, but it had a bug so I removed it a few days after releasing it. Then I never fixed the bug. You can download My Folder 0.94 from this link.

I installed the new Google Deskbar from Google Labs yesterday, and I must say it's pretty nifty. It adds a Google search to your taskbar making it easy to find things. Plus, you don't have to open your browsers. It has it's own mini-browser built-in. I use the Opera web browser and it also has it's own search box at the top that I have set to Google, but I like how easy the deskbar makes it to search using other searches than the normal Google. One click of a button and you can access searches such as News, Groups, Images, Froogle. You can also set custom searches. It comes with a definition and thesaurus. Plus they include a movie review search from Rotten Tomatoes. Also a download search from CNet's Download.com. I added my own custom search from Acronym Finder, making it easy to figure out those strange acronyms. I'd say anyone who loves Google (and who doesn't), should try this out. It's a free download, though still not a finished product.

I don't know why, but the last to weeks I have just felt like shit. Last Tuesday, I called into work sick, the first time I have done so in the last three years. I slept almost 20 hours that day. After that I felt pretty good for a couple of days. Now I'm back to feeling like crap again. I have been on a constant stream of aspirin that soon I will have no stomach lining left. I am thinking it's some kind of flu, so there isn't much the doctor can do, so I see no reason going there. Oh, well. I hope I start to feel better because it is a pain to get up early in the morning to feed Hailey when I am not feeling well.

Well, I've been extremly lazy updating this journal. A lot has happened in the last month that I didn't do any updates. I will just let all that pass as trying to catch up will only make me not want to type anything at all. Today I reserved the new game coming out for Gamecube, Mario Kart: Double Dash. I'm sure it will be great. I still play the SNES version of Mario Kart all the time. I also rented F-Zero for the Gamecube today, and OMG!!! The graphics are amazing. It almost feels like you are really driving at hundreds of miles per hour. The framerates are unreal. And the lighting and course designs have a lot of detail put into them. If you want to play a game that is not only fun, but can blow you away visually at the same time, I'd recommend this one.