Dennis Faas

Last week was a very busy week for me. I spent an obscene amount of time writing a plugin for the new publishing system ("Movable Type") so that our Editing Team would be alerted (via an RSS feed ) when a new draft article has been submitted by our ... Team of Bloggers . My notification plugin, aptly named "RSS Draft Notify", is used in conjunction with another plugin (called " Workflow "). In a nutshell: the Workflow plugin changes the dynamics of the publishing system (Movable Type) such that "Contributors" may only submit draft articles, while " ... (view more)

Synopsis: Need a way to run a CD or DVD directly from the hard drive? CD Anywhere is a powerful CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive emulator that allows you to emulate up to 23 virtual CD/DVD-ROM drives. And because the CD image is stored / read directly from the ... hard drive, data transfer is *significantly* faster than running a program straight from CD or DVD -- just imagine what it would be like to own a 200x CD-ROM drive! With CD Anywhere, you can also create image files from CD or DVD, burn CD image files to a disc with the built-in burner, erase CD-RW discs, and many other useful functions. CD Anywhere ... (view more)

Movable Type is a proprietary weblog publishing system developed by a Californian-based company, called "Six Apart". Movable Type is widely used and supports most popular weblogging features, including: user accounts, comments, TrackBacks, ... categories, and themes, and is extensible through a large library of third-party plug-ins. The TrackBack feature was actually originated by Six Apart, and version 2.2 of Movable Type was the first weblog publishing software to include support for it. Movable Type is free of charge for a single author, and paid licenses are available to allow more ... (view more)

Today's issue of the Gazette is a synopsis of what's been happening with our web site. On November 25th , I wrote an article which asked for volunteers to edit article submissions from our team of Bloggers . The response to that article was so ... strong (with over 120 candidates volunteering to lend a hand), I decided on November 30th that it would be best to host a contest for a seat in our Editing Team. The contest was simple enough: edit a sample article and correct it to the best of your ability. The contest deadline was very brief and ended December 5th (lasting only 5 days); as expected, ... (view more)

Synopsis: Just in time for the Holiday Season! Reindeer Reels is a 5 reel, 20 pay line slot simulation machine game that works just like a real slot machines -- except you can't win any real money (too bad)! Nonetheless, Reindeer Reels was created ... especially for the Christmas Season and features very-nicely detailed graphics that will help put you in that "Holiday Spirit". If you're an avid gambler and you like to play the "pokies" -- you'll love Reindeer Reels! Reindeer Reels: Screenshots Click to view: Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4. Reindeer Reels: How to Play To play, first add some ... (view more)

In computing, the Windows registry is a database which stores settings and options for the operating system for Microsoft Windows 32-bit versions. It contains information and settings for all the hardware, software, users, and preferences of the PC. ... Whenever a user makes changes to "Control Panel" settings, or file associations, system policies, or installed software, the changes are reflected and stored in the registry. As time goes on, an aged Windows installation can have a very large registry database. This can slow down the computer's startup and has led to frequent criticisms that the ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Mike F. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have been reading your articles for quite a while and now I have a situation of my own and am hoping that you can help. The problem is that when I click a link to download a file, there are no ... options for me to choose where I can save the file. Subsequently, I cannot locate the files I download from the web. I have searched all over my computer but have had no luck. I would appreciate any help you can provide in resolving this problem. " My response: I've been asked this question a number of times in the past. According to ... (view more)

Synopsis: Have you ever had to do a repetitive task on a computer (who hasn't)? Have you ever wished that you could record your actions so that you could automate the process? Well, with Ghost Control, you can! Ghost Control is special "macro ... software" that can record, save, and replay any mouse or keyboard actions you create while working on your computer. Everything you do is recorded: not only mouse and keyboard actions, but also the parameters of any windows environment in the moment of recording. After the job has been recorded, you can then schedule it to run at a later time -- fully ... (view more)

A volunteer is someone who performs or offers to perform a service out of his or her own free will, often without payment. Every 5th of December is International Volunteer Day. People may volunteer to perform some work, e.g., of charitable ... character. Some volunteer for clinical trials or other medical research, and may even donate their bodies to science after their death. Online Volunteer An online volunteer is a person who contributes time and effort with an organization through an online connection, rather than in person. A wide variety of people from around the world are online volunteers ... (view more)

I am simply overwhelmed from the response to last week's posting, " Editors Wanted !" To be quite honest, I was expecting no more than a handful of folks to volunteer their help; to my surprise, however, there were well over 100 "volunteer emails" ... [pic] in my inbox only a few hours after the post was published online our web site. While I do not have the time to reply to each letter individually, I would like to take a moment to give a very warm and heartfelt "Thank you!" to everyone that offered their assistance. It *really* made my day to see so many ... (view more)