New Programs Added to Labs Page!

Today, I uploaded some of my old programs to the Labs page:

A Bejeweled clone game, and a Mastermind clone game.

GFX Bejeweled Screenshot

GFX Mastermind Screenshot

And my old “HIT” program, intuitively called Kinnectica MP3 Player, it’s basically a compact MP3 player that you can dock to your desktop and save some valuable screen space while you’re listening to your favorite tunes.

Kinnectica 2 MP3 Player Screenshot

I’m so excited to bring my old work back to life, and I hope you’ll like this new batch of programs from GFX Studios. They’re all freeware of course 😛

Cheers.

GFX Solitaire 0.5 Released!

So, after the long exhausting rewrite, I released GFX Solitaire on the web today! And here’s a screenshot of this beauty:

GFX Solitaire Screenshot

You can download it from the dedicated GFX Solitaire web page on this blog.

The core changes are not visible to the user. The only visible changes are some UI tweaks, and enhanced handling of mouse events. And I’ve included the usual surprise at the end of the game, so you can enjoy your victory 😉

I hope you like it, and please remember to provide your feedback on this game. You can find my contact information in the About page.

Enjoy the new game, I know I did! 😛

Useful Firefox Add-ons

Most of us, Internet users here in Syria, are struggling each day to get the most out of our 4 Kb/s connections.

There’s no doubt that Firefox surely did help us in terms of page-rendering speeds, and its efficient caching system. But unfortunately, we can’t ask for more with 4 Kbs.

However, for those of you who love to go the whole way for a better browsing experience, here are some very useful Firefox add-ons that I use on a daily basis, all of them are freeware:

1 – Flashblock

This add-on will disable all Flash objects on every page you visit, and replace them with “Play” buttons that you can click to activate only the objects you want to see. Very useful and saves lots of bandwidth.

More info and download here: http://flashblock.mozdev.org/

2 – Gmail Notifier

This one will sit next to the search bar, and will check periodically for new emails on your Gmail account(s). This also saves the bandwidth to go check your Gmail account every once and a while to check for new emails.

More info and download here: http://www.nexgenmedia.net/extensions/

3 – FoxyProxy

This will help streamline your browsing experience. Recommended for those who use more that one proxy server, or those who use Ultrasurf (or any other proxy breakers). You can define patterns to visit certain websites using one proxy address, and others using another. The add-on will then automatically switch your proxy settings accordingly.

More info and download here: http://foxyproxy.mozdev.org/

4 – Page Saver Basic

This one will help you take images of whole websites and save them on your hard drive. Very useful for saving the page as it is displayed in your browser in JPEG or PNG format, for a later review.

More info and download here: http://pearlcrescent.com/products/pagesaver/

Hope you find them useful as much as I did. Please drop a comment if you know any other useful add-ons, and tell us your opinion.

Ultrasurf

Ultrasurf is a freeware proxy-bypass program, which will let you surf the net privately and freely.

It doesn’t need to be installed, as it’s only one small executable file that you can run directly from your HDD or your USB flash drive. I tried it, and it’s safe, with no spyware and adware attachments.

Download it here: http://www.ultrareach.com/

Run the program and set your proxy to: Address: localhost, Port: 9666, and you’re ready to go.

Have fun.

Defragmentation Made Easy

For those of you who skip the HDD defragmentation process because it takes ages (especially with bigger HDDs). And that situation only got worse in Windows Vista’s defragmentation tool. I looked up a solution, and fortunately found a new piece of software that works to make your life easier and defragmentation faster. And best of all, it’s FREE.

The new software is called AusLogics Disk Defrag. Official web page: http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag

I tried it on my PC, and the results are amazing. It gets the job done in just about 4-5 minutes on a fragmented 30 GB partition. Which is WAAAAAY faster than Vista’s bundled tool.

I don’t know what’s the exact secret behind the speed increase. I know it doesn’t defrag free space (with the current version), but that’s the only difference I found between this program and Vista’s.

I trusted it because it’s rated 5 stars on Cnet.com, 2Cows, and MajorGeeks. It also has its own video review on Cnet, and it’s currently in the top 10 downloaded utilities from Download.com. And it’s a new application, and fully compatible with Vista.

Unlike many others, I believe defragmentation is useful, and COULD speed things up for you. Even if you don’t notice any performance difference, defragmentation prolongs your HDDs lifecycle, and helps prevent sudden HDD failures. So, spare a few minutes every week or two and help out those poor HDDs.