Archive for November, 2007

04 Nov 2007

Quick and Easy Week – The Epilogue

1 Comment News

I’ve now uploaded the source code to all the programs released this week. I offer no guarantees on its quality, some of it is based on 5 year old code from when I was learning programming and a lot of it is ongoing development code, peppered with todo’s. Much of it shows a disregard for coding conventions and I haven’t yet found the time to refactor and clean it up. In short, your mileage may vary.

Download it here.

Quick and Easy week is now over, many thanks to those who’ve offered words of encouragement. Should you want to show your appreciation and support my work, you can do so via a paypal donation. The ugly paypal button on the right of the page will let you do this. I hope that people find the tools useful; as always people can contact me via the forums or my contact page if they have any problems or suggestions.

04 Nov 2007

Quick And Easy Week – Day 7: USB Disk Ejector

38 Comments News

Quick and Easy week comes to a close with the USB Disk Ejector.

This was originally a program that I wrote for my own use and released just to see if anyone found it useful. Apparently people did and it was surprisingly popular.

In response to user requests I’ve now beefed it up significantly. This new version has been completely re-written and has many new features. It now works on Vista, can run as a command line application and can eject drives from the command line based on drive letter, drive name or partial drive name.

The new command line options make it especially suitable for use with a flash/pen drive, especially if you use a menu such as PStart or the Portable Apps launcher. Eg. I have PStart setup to run the program with the command line option “/EJECTTHIS’. When I run it, the program loads silently, ejects the pen drive and exits. This works regardless of the drive letter that Windows assigns the drive. I strongly recommended that you check out the readme for more information on the new command line options and how they can be used.

New in version 1.1:

  • Now works on Windows Vista. It’s only been tested on XP and Vista but should work with earlier versions of Windows too.
  • Changed to ‘silent ejection’ by default. There are now no messages shown when a device is successfully ejected, messages are only shown when there is an error and the eject fails.
  • The keyboard can now be used to eject drives (press enter).
  • Completely reworked the command line options, the old ones were removed and new ones added. See the rest of the readme for more information on these.
  • Drives can now be ejected entirely from the command line. You can specify a drive letter, drive name, or partial drive name.
  • Mobile mode has been removed, its now automatic. The program will restart itself in mobile mode when appropriate.
  • Completely rewrote the drive scanning code. USB devices that dont identify themselves as removable disks can now be managed by the program.
  • Uses Vista fonts when running under Vista.

Download it here.


USB Disk Ejector

03 Nov 2007

Quick And Easy Week – Day 6: Escape From Monkey Island Launcher and Escape From Monkey Island Setup

8 Comments News

Day 6 brings the last of the launcher and setup programs.

Escape From Monkey Island Launcher has been updated to version 1.5. The resolution patch has been reworked to make it much faster, the 6 different language versions of EMI are now better supported and Vista/64 bit Windows support has been added. The full list of changes can be seen below:

New in version 1.5:

  • Resolution patch reworked: It’s now much faster. On most systems it will only take 1 or 2 seconds to apply – compared to 30 seconds in previous versions.
  • Added support for the 6 different language versions of EMI: The launcher will now download and install the appropriate patch when prompted. Previously only the English patch was supported.
  • Added features from the original Lucasarts launcher. Added buttons to switch between Direct3D/OpenGL and 16 bit/32 bit colour. The original launcher now wont run on some systems so it was necessary to include these features.
  • Cosmetic changes: Interface redesigned, text and icons made clearer, changed the launcher images.
  • Vista compatibility: The launcher now automatically prompts to run as administrator when its started, the program icon now includes all sizes up to 256×256.
  • Fixed a small memory leak.
  • Now uses the excellent EMI icon created by Thanius.
  • 64 bit versions of Windows are now officially supported. The launcher has been tested on XP64 and Vista64.
  • Old versions of Windows are no longer officially supported. Versions before XP (95/98/ME/2000) should be fine but the launcher hasn’t been tested with them.

Download it here.

Escape From Monkey Island Setup is a new tool. Its a replacement installer (setup program) for Escape From Monkey Island. The installer that comes with the game can be problematic with newer versions of Windows and refuses to work at all on 64 bit Windows. This installer doesn’t have those problems and comes with the above-mentioned Escape From Monkey Island Launcher.

Download it here.

EMI LauncherEscape From Monkey Island Setup

02 Nov 2007

Quick And Easy Week – Day 5: Curse of Monkey Island Launcher and Curse of Monkey Island Setup

13 Comments News

Day 5 features two tools – one updated and one new.

The Curse of Monkey Island Launcher has been updated. Its had a slight redesign to make it easier to use, has full Vista compatibility and now supports 64 bit versions of Windows. The full list of changes can be seen below.

New in version 2.5

  • Cosmetic changes: Interface redesigned, text and icons made clearer, changed the launcher images.
  • Vista compatibility: The launcher now automatically prompts to run as administrator when its started, the program icon now includes all sizes up to 256×256 and if running on Vista the launcher now uses vista fonts.
  • Fixed a small memory leak.
  • Now uses the excellent CMI icon created by Thanius.
  • 64 bit versions of Windows are now officially supported. The launcher has been tested on XP64 and Vista64.
  • Old versions of Windows are no longer officially supported. Versions before XP (95/98/ME/2000) should be fine but the launcher hasn’t been tested with them.
  • The cutscene fix feature has been removed: Newer versions of DirectX and newer versions of Windows mean that the fast cutscene bug no longer occurs.

Download it here.

Curse of Monkey Island Setup is the new tool. Its a replacement installer (setup program) for the Curse of Monkey Island. The installer that comes with the game can be problematic with newer versions of Windows and refuses to work at all on 64 bit Windows. This installer doesn’t have those problems and comes with the above-mentioned Curse of Monkey Island Launcher.

Download it here.

CMI LauncherCurse of Monkey Island Setup

01 Nov 2007

Quick And Easy Week – Day 4: Psychonauts Saved Game Editor

2 Comments News

Thursday’s tool is the Psychonauts Saved Game Editor.

There’s been some minor cosmetic changes, Vista compatibility has been tweaked and 25 new common tasks have been added. These allow you to change the ammount of ammo you have, give yourself items such as the cobweb duster, enable/disable Raz’s powers and much more. Many thanks to Bosam and Tobi Lukefisher for sending me these new tasks.

Download it here.

Psychonauts Saved Game Editor