Alternatives to popular software
To Quicktime or not to Quicktime
A year and a half ago lifehacker made an excellent post regarding alternatives to popular (and crappy) windows software. The post is still relevant but I wish to highlight a few that I've had good experiences with and add some other ones.
Alternatives to
- Internet Explorer: Firefox. Or Chrome. Does this need explanation? GetFirefox.com please! Or if you need a light, fast browser go for Chrome. I use it for my NetBook and it works wonders when I just need a quick browsing session. But remember, Chrome hasn't got addons!
- Adobe Reader: Foxit. Faster, firefox support, light. Did I say faster?
- Quicktime: Quicktime Alternative. Although none would be better, Quicktime is a necessary for some programs.
- RealPlayer: RealPlayer Alternative. If you need to play those RealPlayer-files.
- WinZip: 7-Zip. Excellent free-ware alternative!
- Windows Media Player: iTunes, Songbird. To be honest, I do like some aspects of WMP in Windows 7. But overall, it's terrible for managing larger libraries. Try iTunes if you have an iPod. If not, get Songbird! It's an awesome piece of software built on FireFox. Yes, you read that right! You get a browser IN your media player. Quite cool, aight?
- iTunes: doubleTwist. Okay, so first I recommend iTunes and now reject it? Let me explain. For those of you with iPods; doubleTwist will let you sync and put music onto your iPod. Using doubleTwist you can now as an iPod owner get rid of iTunes if it isn't your thing. Also, the author is none other than DVD-Jon!
- Tune-Up Utilities: Glary Utilities. I've used Tune-Up Utilities for quite a while. It's a wonderful application that easily takes care of your computer. However, because they haven't made it compatible with Windows 7 I was forced to find an alternative. And so I did! Glary Utilities even adds some good functions such as searching for duplicates. Get it while it's hot - and free!
- Nero Suite: infraRecorder. Nero has never been my thing. Too much application for such a small task. Get infraRecorder. It's free and easy to use.
- Daemon Tools: UltraISO. Although D-Tools always has been my mounting program of choice, the incompatibility with Windows 7 let me look elsewhere. I did so and found UltraISO. Very handy program, which easily let's you browse and mount images. It also does a whole bunch of other stuff, but I haven't really used those features.
Guide: How to setup DOSBox
D-Fend
Yesterday I suggested to spend some time playing good ol' games. Obviously, these games won't run in a modern OS-environment, but with a little help from a friend or three we can emulate an old-school environment. Spending a lot of time getting this to work I figured I'd make this step-by-step guide for Windows-users. I personally run Windows 7 64-bit, but there shouldn't be any critical differences if you run XP or Vista.
So, you want to play Keen? Let's do it then.
What you will need:
- - DOSBox and D-Fend Reloaded. It's bundled here: http://dfendreloaded.sourceforge.net/.
- - Games. Search google or simply try 486 Games.
Okay, start off and download D-Fend Reloaded. You want the file named "D-Fend-Reloaded-x.x.x-Setup.exe", x's indicating version number. When the download has finished, install it as you would any other program - automatic installation worked fine for me.
First time you run the program it will bring up a wizard to configure the program. There is one thing, that you may want to change and that is the Game Folder. The default is located somewhere like User\Admininistrator\D-Fend Reloaded\VirtualHD\. I prefer to make a directory either immediately in the C: drive or in a subfolder. Note: I was not able to change the Game directory after I had chosen the name in the wizard. Therefore, choose carefully and watch your spelling :)
For these old DOS-games I chose to make a folder called DOSBox in C. I therefore clicked the Edit Settings button in the wizard, skipped to Game Folder and wrote C:\DOSBox. The games I download will need to be put in that folder.
And now.. we're basically done! What we simply need is to find the games we wish to play, put them in our Game Folder and launch them with D-Fend.
Using the example with Keen, go to 486 Games (or Dos Games Archive) and search for it in the search box in the left-hand side. Choose your favourite Keen (mine is Keen 4) and download it where is says 'here' in red.
You will now have downloaded a zip-file containing the game. Open the zip-file and put it the folder named keen4 in your Game Folder.
Open up D-Fend Reloaded and click the green Add-button (or press Insert). This will bring up a profile-window. If you wish, you can select an icon for your game. The essential options for us are the name of the profile and Program file. Go ahead and name the profile Keen 4. Next, click the folder icon to the right under Program file. This will bring up an explorer-window. Dive into your keen4 folder and chose KEEN4.EXE and click Open. We don't need to specify any setup-file, but other games require that. In that case, simply browse to the game folder and chose SETUP.EXE. Now, Click OK and you should be back in the main menu and see Keen 4 added to the list of programs.
Lastly, double-click Keen 4 and the game should start. Notice the prompt: Alt+Enter toggles between Fullscreen and Windowed mode and Ctrl+F9 terminates the game.
If any error occurs feel free to comment on this blog. Good luck and have fun.
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