I was casually surfing around just now when I "accidentally" come across some useful freeware recommendations on Freeware4PC.com, so I thought I can share some of the recommendations I found useful on the index page of the site. I am going to give them a try real soon.

1) Undelete Plus: Recovery of deleted files on NTFS/NTFS5, FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 volumes, including flash cards.
2) Advanced Renamer: More flexibility for bulk renaming of files/folders.
3) save2pc: Download videos from YouTube or a couple of other video websites.

If you have recently tried the public beta version of Opera Mobile 9.5 and uninstalled it because you were unhappy with it (like me), you may be rudely surprised that Opera Mobile has pretty much screwed up the file association for HTML files (*.htm and *.html files). After some trial & error, I figured out the registry values to edit in order to restore "peace".

Registry Key: HKCR\htmlfile\Default Icon
Value Name: (Default)
Value Data: browsres.dll,-6703

Registry Key: HKCR\htmlfile\Shell\Open\Command
Value Name: (Default)
Value Data: iexplore.exe file:%1

As seen above, the open command is not quite the usual "app.exe %1" string for IE Mobile. Without the "file:" portion in the string, HTML files will not load in IE Mobile and it kinda drives IE Mobile mad.

Opera Mobile 9.5 has just gone public beta recently and I started trying it out yesterday. Apprently, it is much more stable on my TyTN II compard to previous leaked versions. Everything looks pretty and it looks like it is potentially going to be my default browser.

Unfortunately, here are some issues that annoy me:
1) Slow loading time, which can be improved by compressing the EXE file using UPX.
2) In normal view mode, it assumed a certain screen width defined int he setting file (i.e. 960 by default). This makes mobile-friendly webpages look stupid because they are always zoomed out by default. You have to zoom in on every page you go to in order to make them readable.
3) In mobile view mode, the problem above is solved. However, it screws up formatting on some sites, e.g. paragraphing, line spacing, background images. So, there isn't an ideal solution for mobile-friendly webpages? In this aspect, even the much criticised IE Mobile seems to do much better.
4) After loading, it ALWAYS disables all SMS notifications. Check out the Sounds & Notifications settings after running the software. It automatically unticks everything for you. How "helpful".

Frankly, these last 3 issues annoyed me so much that I decided to uninstall it after trying it out for one day.

Does your device come pre-installed with Opera Mobile, e.g. HTC Touch Cruise, HTC Touch DIamond, Samsung SGH-i780/SGH-i900? If you are using ClearTemp on such devices, is it able to detect the cache folder of Opera Mobile correctly (i.e. ticking "Opera Mobile" in ClearTemp should not result in "Not Found")?

If no, I will need your help by providing me with these details in the e-mail:
1) Device and OS that you are using
2) Opera Mobile version
3) Opera Mobile application folder
4) Opera Mobile configuration folder (i.e. where you will find a "Opera.ini" file, e.g. "\Application Data\Opera\")

I will need these details so as to make the next version of ClearTemp detect the cache folder of Opera Mobile on your device correctly. I would greatly appreciate your help in making this work.

If you are good at designing icons and would like to see your art featured as an application icon of one of my software, you can contribute your designs to the e-mail address below. The icon design must be in the form of ICO files and need to contain icons of 3 sizes: 16x16, 32x32 and 64x64. If your design has been accepted, you can expect to see your name featured in the software and the webpage. Please also indicate which software you are submitting your icon design for. Well, I am a bad artist (as you can probably see from the evidences found in my software) and such help will definitely be greatly appreciated.

It's the annual book fair held by the National Library Board next weekend at S'pore Expo. It's a very good time to grab some real cheap books (mostly between $2 to $5), though the titles are mostly a little old. Time for me to scavenge some cheap $2 computer books.

Ever irritated by the fact that certain new files are locked for no reason even though you have not accessed them before? I just had the annoying experience of not being able to delete a new file I have not even accessed before. And as GIYBF (Google is your best friend), I stumbled upon the freeware application called Unblocker. What it does is to list out the applications that are locking the file and gives you the option to unlock the file. After unlocking it, you can do whatever you like to the file. Simple and neat!

If you are thinking of getting a UMPC and the Eee PCs fall into your radar, CNet Asia's article should be helping in helping you decide which Eee PC is suitable for you. They even have a table comparing the specifications of all the Eee PCs available/announced. Meanwhile, I'm pretty happy with my Eee PC 900 (12GB, WinXP).

Ever since getting my Asus Eee PC 900 (Win XP) last week, I've been more cautious about the disk space. I've tried removing unused applications and also remember to install every software to drives other than the C drive. My interest on portable apps (running software from thumdrive on any PC without need to install anything) also increased and found some interesting links to share.

Here are some noteworthy websites I've found so far:
Pendriveapps
PortableApps
Pendrive Linux
Mac-on-Stick (Mac OS Classic 7)
HOWTO: Install and Boot OS X On a Flash Drive

I was looking around for a free tool to split a large text file into several smaller files and stumbled upon File Splitter. I find it pretty simple to use and does the job well. It helped me to split a huge SQL script file into many smaller ones so that they can be more manageable (easier to import). Of course, some manual checking has to be done to ensure the files are not split such that the SQL syntax breaks. It's still pretty convenient and useful though.