Thursday, April 20, 2006
AB Sudoku 1.5
Thanks everyone who provided feedback for AB Sudoku 1.0. I’m happy to announce new release – AB Sudoku 1.5 Download AB Sudoku 1.5
- Better support for mouse-based play: When I started writing the Game, my intention was to print puzzles and then solve them. Later, it turned out that people prefer playing on the computer rather than using the printouts. I hope those who like to use mouse to play, will like the way I implemented the mouse control in this version.
- New option to reduce generated game complexity: This option controls how the new game is generated. By default generated games do not have moves where guessing is required.
- Auto-pick last number in a 9 digit sequence: When all the numbers but one are known in a row/column/quadrant, the remaining number can be automatically picked up by mouse. This eliminates necessity for obvious but routine calculations, when the last number is opened in a 9-digit series.
- Optional automatic check for new updates: This ensures easy notification for latest product updates. The check occurs once per week. The check is also available per user request.
Upgrade from version 1.0:
It is recommended to uninstall Ab Sudoku 1.0 before installing the version 1.5.
ABS files saved by previous version are valid for Ab Sudoku 1.5.
New version is available for download at AB Insight
Also for those who like Sudoku, check out this link: http://www.sudokulinks.com/sudoku.html
It has a lot of useful Sudoku-related resources.
See you next time,
Andrei
New features are:
- Better support for mouse-based play: When I started writing the Game, my intention was to print puzzles and then solve them. Later, it turned out that people prefer playing on the computer rather than using the printouts. I hope those who like to use mouse to play, will like the way I implemented the mouse control in this version.
- New option to reduce generated game complexity: This option controls how the new game is generated. By default generated games do not have moves where guessing is required.
- Auto-pick last number in a 9 digit sequence: When all the numbers but one are known in a row/column/quadrant, the remaining number can be automatically picked up by mouse. This eliminates necessity for obvious but routine calculations, when the last number is opened in a 9-digit series.
- Optional automatic check for new updates: This ensures easy notification for latest product updates. The check occurs once per week. The check is also available per user request.
Upgrade from version 1.0:
It is recommended to uninstall Ab Sudoku 1.0 before installing the version 1.5.
ABS files saved by previous version are valid for Ab Sudoku 1.5.
New version is available for download at AB Insight
Also for those who like Sudoku, check out this link: http://www.sudokulinks.com/sudoku.html
It has a lot of useful Sudoku-related resources.
See you next time,
Andrei
Monday, April 03, 2006
Disk Cleaner
Hi again,
My first personal IBM compatible computer had a high hard drive capacity of up to 10 Mb. Today my system is much more advanced and the disk size is 200 Gigs. However one thing has not changed. The day comes when I get ‘Insufficient disk space’ when installing new software or trying to put a new file (e.g. corporate party video) on the disk.
Many utilities exist that claim to solve this problem. Most of them take care of temporary system files, temporary internet files and such to free up disk space. Unfortunately this approach does not help me. Let’s take temporary internet files as an example. On my system the size of the “Temporary Internet Files” folder is close to 150 Mb. If I clean the folder, I still don’t have room to put in a new video (850 Mb), plus my browsing experience sucks and in a week the folder size is 150 Mb again!
A couple of months ago Alexey Vasilyev and I wrote a utility to show you exactly where the free space has gone. It turned out that this application helps to clean the disk and free up as much space as needed without deleting a single file. We decided to call it Disk Cleaner.
In a matter of seconds Disk Cleaner calculates recursive folder size (including all files and sub-folders) for all folders on the entire NTFS drive. It allows drilling down through any particular folder to its subfolders and helps identify space-hungry ones. When a clean-worthy folder has been identified, the tool launches native Windows Explorer against the folder. Than Explorer can be used to do the actual cleaning. Cleaning could mean deleting, moving to DVD or compressing (in rare cases).
Disk Cleaner accesses NTFS through MFT (Master File Table). This is similar to how the native disk defragmenter accesses NTFS to do its job. It’s definitely the fastest way to access all objects and calculate recursive folder size.
When we gave the utility to a couple of friends, the most noticeable feedback was:
The download size was big because we used a combination of C# and C++ to create the Disk Cleaner. This resulted in a necessity to include and install Microsoft .NET 2.0 runtime for the utility to work. That’s why Amust Software decided to rewrite it using pure C++. Now download size is 641 Kb, which we consider quite reasonable.
I will do a separate post to this blog to explain the fourth item.
Current status: Disk Cleaner is fully tested and will be released on the Amust web site in a couple of weeks. The only reason not to officially release it now is that there are other significant Amust product releases on the way. The utility is going to be free, without any time limitations or functionality restrictions.
Until the product is released by Amust, download is available here: Disk Cleaner.
My first personal IBM compatible computer had a high hard drive capacity of up to 10 Mb. Today my system is much more advanced and the disk size is 200 Gigs. However one thing has not changed. The day comes when I get ‘Insufficient disk space’ when installing new software or trying to put a new file (e.g. corporate party video) on the disk.
Many utilities exist that claim to solve this problem. Most of them take care of temporary system files, temporary internet files and such to free up disk space. Unfortunately this approach does not help me. Let’s take temporary internet files as an example. On my system the size of the “Temporary Internet Files” folder is close to 150 Mb. If I clean the folder, I still don’t have room to put in a new video (850 Mb), plus my browsing experience sucks and in a week the folder size is 150 Mb again!
A couple of months ago Alexey Vasilyev and I wrote a utility to show you exactly where the free space has gone. It turned out that this application helps to clean the disk and free up as much space as needed without deleting a single file. We decided to call it Disk Cleaner.
In a matter of seconds Disk Cleaner calculates recursive folder size (including all files and sub-folders) for all folders on the entire NTFS drive. It allows drilling down through any particular folder to its subfolders and helps identify space-hungry ones. When a clean-worthy folder has been identified, the tool launches native Windows Explorer against the folder. Than Explorer can be used to do the actual cleaning. Cleaning could mean deleting, moving to DVD or compressing (in rare cases).
Disk Cleaner accesses NTFS through MFT (Master File Table). This is similar to how the native disk defragmenter accesses NTFS to do its job. It’s definitely the fastest way to access all objects and calculate recursive folder size.
When we gave the utility to a couple of friends, the most noticeable feedback was:
- the name Disk Cleaner is okay
- performance is very good
- a 25 MB download size is too big
- some were confused why results are different when using the tool versus native Windows Explorer
The download size was big because we used a combination of C# and C++ to create the Disk Cleaner. This resulted in a necessity to include and install Microsoft .NET 2.0 runtime for the utility to work. That’s why Amust Software decided to rewrite it using pure C++. Now download size is 641 Kb, which we consider quite reasonable.
I will do a separate post to this blog to explain the fourth item.
Current status: Disk Cleaner is fully tested and will be released on the Amust web site in a couple of weeks. The only reason not to officially release it now is that there are other significant Amust product releases on the way. The utility is going to be free, without any time limitations or functionality restrictions.
Until the product is released by Amust, download is available here: Disk Cleaner.
