Pixelpope - Positive

Free (and useful) Download Manager

Sat, 23 Sep 2006 02:39:06 +0200

Free Download Manager is a free (oh, really?) and powerful download manager for Windows.

It offers all you can ask a download manager to do:
It can split downloads into chunks for simultanous download, resume and time downloads for later, limit bandwith, and, of course get files from ftp, http, https sites. It just does what it should and is easy to use.

Seriously, I've been looking for this for years. 5 stars, period.

1000 numbers

Wed, 31 May 2006 10:19:39 +0200

This is a pretty nice and simple idea:
A guy paints the numbers from 1 to 1000 and sells them on the internet.

Don't start to babble around that it is just numbers painted on a canvas, that you can get it cheaper, and that it's just a Millondollarhomepage copy.
That's all true, I know it, you know it, Sala knows it. But it just doesn't matter, because it works. I also got one.

Appleseed: Another milestone in anime history

Tue, 02 May 2006 15:20:48 +0200

I'm not an anime expert, so I'm sorry (well, I'm not, I'm just pretending) if this is not new for you. But it was for me and I happened to really like it. This one is just great: From the makers of the anime classic »Ghost in the shell« comes Appleseed, something I would call another milestone in anime history.
It was in cinemas last year (depending on where you live), so it should be available on DVD since a couple of months.

It looks just awesome. As far as I can tell, the whole movie was built in some 3D app and rendered with filters, reducing the number of colours, which gives the characters a more hand drawn 2D look. The mixture of both looks just great and is what future animes will have to match with.
Also, you can see an unbelievable love for details, just everywhere.

Screen caps can only give you a glimpse, so check out the trailer to see what I'm talking about.

Beside the great looks, the action scenes rock and the story is cool.
As far as I can tell from some webpages, this seems to be a remake, based on an anime of the same name from 1988. But again, I'm not the expert. And I guess this doesn't make the movie any worse.

Screen captures taken from Moviereporter.

The best extensions for Firefox

Mon, 03 Apr 2006 14:10:17 +0200

Firefox is one of the best and most modern browsers out there today. It has a great plug-in / extension interface and is very popular for its extensions.
I'm not going to talk about the advantages or which browser is better right now. This is a decision everyone has to make for themself.

I don't claim this list to be complete or right or anything. A better name would probably be "my favourite Firefox extensions" but that just doesn't sound as much as a superlative.

The best Firefox extensions:

Web developer toolbar The must-have for everyone doing simple to complex web sites.
CSSViewer New and hot: shows CSS properties live on the page while you hover an element
Google pagerank status - No matter if it's even right, you want to know: Google Pagerank also for Mozilla and Firefox.
Bookmarks synchronizer - Synchronizing bookmarks between multiple user accounts, Firefox installs, or computers.
Mouse gestures - Idea stolen from Opera. You will miss it once you use a browser without gesture recognition. You will move your mouse up, and up, and up. But no new tab/window will open.
SessionSaver - Keeps record of your open windows and tabs once you close/crash Firefox
Nightly tester tools - Firefox devs like to change the API and make extensions become incompatible. Use this until the extensions have been made compatible.
Fasterfox - Speed up your connection and display page load time. Good to know if a page just "feels" slow/fast or really is.
Auto copy - Copy stuff to the clipboard by simply highlighting, no more ctrl+c required. Just like Trillian or others.

You know any other useful extensions? Let me know.

Lightbox JS: Displaying pictures the right way

Sun, 22 Jan 2006 23:13:35 +0100

The Lightbox JS script by Lokesh Dhakar is the way to go when it comes to previews and full size displays of images. No pop-ups, no anti-usability.

PixelZilla | a pixel style theme for Firefox

Thu, 19 May 2005 16:02:15 +0200

Normally I don't care much about skinnable software, so I use the default theme or look for a quite minimalistic one.
Same with Firefox - just 'till I found PixelZilla, a cool pixel style theme for Firefox, Firebird, the Mozilla suite, and now even for K-Meleon.

Of course all Firefox skins are pixeled somehow. But this one goes for a reduced colour set, pretty much towards the high coloured trend.

Credits go to Róman Joost

Ductype | foundry for pixelfonts

Wed, 11 May 2005 00:06:04 +0200

Let me introduce ductype to you.

Ductype is a German font foundry, specialised in pixel fonts, that was founded in 2004.
On their website, you can browse through their catalogue and preview the fonts in a Flash box where you can edit the text and switch between the different styles.

Normally I don't like full Flash websites, because I think it's not necessary. But in this case it even makes sense, as these fonts are mainly for Flash artists and developers. The preview in Flash is a very neat feature.