New Dutch legislation has led to a do-not-call registry. For the past few years, a voluntary registry already existed, but of course there were plenty of telemarketing companies that did not bother to exclude people who registered with that service. But last week, the registry went online at http://www.bel-me-niet.nl/. Quite a success, too. The first day the site stopped working due to high traffic.

Of course I registered right away, and calls should stop about four weeks from now. I wonder if they will. It would be quite a relief, that is for sure. I know there is a US national registry as well (https://www.donotcall.gov/) but I also know there are still plenty of unwanted calls in spite of that registry. Hopefully the Dutch telemarketers will actually stop now. Long overdue, if you ask me.

Sometimes you want an easy way to have a site forget who you are, without logging off. CookieSwap makes this a breeze.

Blogline has always been my feed reader of choice, but lately its service is less than enjoyable. When looking for an alternative, I want another online reader, because that gives me maximum flexibility. I may give FeedShow a go soon, but Google Reader is supposed to be really good as well. The problem with Google? Single Sign On that authenticates me for all their services. So once I sign in to Google Reader, it knows who I am in Gmail, and it tracks all my Google searches. This is not something I want.

The Firefox add-on CookieSwap is just what I need. With CookieSwap, you can create different profiles. This way, I can have a profile that has me logged in as user GolbA, from which I access Gmail. Profile two knows me as GolbB, to read RSS feeds. And profile three has me completely logged out of Google, so I can search in a slightly more anonymous way. Switching is easy. CookieSwap adds a button on the browser (status) bar and a click brings up a choice of profiles. Double-clicking cycles to the next profile.

The only drawback of sorts is that switching profiles switches profiles for all tabs and browser instances. In other words, if you are logged into Gmail (or Bloglines or anything else) and it automatically tries to reload after you switch profiles, it will find you logged out. When you switch again, it will log you in again and show your mail. Well, this is how it behaved when I tried it, I don't use Gmail too often. It seems every time you switch a profile, the open page(s) get reloaded. This may not always be what you want, so make sure you thoroughly test this add-on for your own situation before relying on it.

Over two years ago, Wizards of the Coast (subsidiary of Hasbro, publisher of D&D and Magic: the Gathering) announced plans to create a social community site for gamers, called Gleemax. Nothing ever came of that. For some reason, probably financial, it never happened. Instead, what we got was a slightly revamped forum. A community, sure, but not a new one. And certainly not the kind of site I had in mind when I first heard of it. But now something new is coming.

The Magic (Online) forum is down for ten days, while they upgrade to a new site that will include such innovative features as “friends lists, groups, an invite system and calendar, blogs and wiki.” (or so the status message at the forum site says. Ten days without the forum, what will I do? Well, just go on living and playing. The forum was of marginal interest to me, I never participated much, but it was good to read other people's experiences.

I wonder what the new community site will turn out to be like. Once again I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and see what they come up with. A true social community for gamers would be cool. Then again, a social community for Magic: the Gathering players may seem a little strange at first. The actual online games are usually devoid of any social interaction. Except for some exchanges of “gl, hf” and the occasional derogatory remark. Of course there are some exceptions, but to build a community around them seems like quite a challenge to me.

If your computer runs Windows, odds are you have probably seen the infamous Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD) before. This is the (blue) screen with white text, telling you your computer crashed. Most of the time it contains all kinds of technical looking text. People usually ignore this and reboot. But this screen actually contains helpful information.

When your computer crashes and shows a BSOD, it also creates a small log file with the same information. This can be helpful if you or your friendly technician (grandchild, neighbor) want to try and fix the issue. There are several programs that let you recover the BSOD information so you can analyze it at a later time. Because of recent computer problems, I know of at least two of these programs: WhoCrashed and BlueScreenView. Note: some antivirus or spyware software will flag the BlueScreenView site and/or some of its products because they can be used to recover passwords or do other helpful things that can be used for bad reasons, see the SiteAdvisor page for the site for more information.

Both programs perform similar actions. WhoCrashed gives very basic information, while BlueScreenView gives more elaborate information. Run either program and it will check the Windows default location for the log files (called minidump files) to analyze. With BlueScreenView, you have the option of searching for those files in a different location. I don't think WhoCrashed has that option.

As you may have gathered, the success of both programs is dependent on minidump files actually being available. To make sure Windows creates these files, go to your Control Panel, then select System. Go to Advanced, and then select Startup and Recovery - Settings. You should also be able to see and change the location of the dump files at this point.

Over the course of several years, I managed to install quite a lot of (free) programs. Some of those I rarely use, but they are still helpful. Keeping them up to date is not something I am good at though. But with FileHippo's Update Checker, finding the newest versions of my programs is a breeze.

Download the little program and run it, and it will scan your entire computer. For every file it recognizes, it checks the FileHippo site to see if there is an update available. At the end of the process, a list of updates is presented in your browser. Download the updates you want and install them. Yes, that last part is still manual labor, but at least you won't have to find a dozen different sites to download the latest versions from. Be aware though, the process of checking your system for updates can be a lenghty one, especially when you have a lot of programs installed.

It seems FileHippo will check both free and commercial software, and it knows about many programs. Run it every couple of weeks or months and your system will be fairly up to date.

Every once in a while, I am surprised by the creativity and skill of people creating YouTube videos. The current interest is “literal videos”: people taking video clips of songs and replacing the singing with their own singing. They're not singing the actual lines though, but their own version. The “literal” aspect of it all, is that they're singing about what is happening in the video, at the same tempo as the original song. Below is a version of Total Eclipse of the Heart, which I like best.



Many more videos can be found as a YouTube playlist. Be warned though, some singers are more skilled than others.

Do you ever feel a homicidal rage after a day at the office? Are you annoyed by cute creatures getting all the attention? Want to have the ultimate power? Then Bloody Fun Day is the game for you.

Bloody Fun Day is a flash game in which you are Death himself, and it is your job to kill cute creatures. These creatures come in four different colors. Each cutie killed earns you a point in of that creature's color. Earn enough points to get some extra moves. Groups of cuties sharing the same color die whenever you kill one of them. And if you kill many cuties in one fell swoop, you'll find a golden egg, which increases your score by 5000 points.

It's simple, it's fun, and an average game can easily take 15-30 minutes. Long enough to keep your mind off of daily chores, not too long to forget about dinner or picking up your kids.

Are you worried your computer may be infected with the very nasty Conficker (aka Downup/Downadup/Kido) virus? Visit this Conficker Eye Chart page and check if you can see all six images loaded. If the images from antivirus vendors are missing, chances are your computer is infected.

Apparently, Conficker blocks access to certain antivirus sites. So by displaying images from those sites directly on a different page, this check is an easy way to notice problems. Make sure you are not behind some kind of proxy server when you check this though, or you get incorrect results. To disable any proxies in Firefox, go to Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Network -> Settings and set it to No Proxy.

If your computer is infected, the Wikipedia page links to some removal tools.

Lode Runner was my favorite game on the Commodore 64. (I got used to calling it Loderunner though) A long time ago I managed to find a copy of the Nintendo DS version of Lode Runner. It wasn't cheap, but I figured it was worth it. And it was, when it comes to game play. The only problem? All screens are in Japanese, and I can't read any of it. So any extended play became a guessing game, no fun at all. It isn't good when I can play for hours at a time, but don't know how to save so I can continue next time.

I no longer have a reason not to play this great game anymore: over at NTSC-uk they have a page that has images of all screens, with English translations! All this thanks to “Charlesr, David Teixeira (arada392) and Sum Hau (Venom743)”. Who ever they may be. I didn't want to sign up to their forum just to post a thank you in a thread that is over a year old, but I'll say it here: thanks guys, this is awesome!

Since January of this year, travelers to the US under the Visa Waiver program are required to apply for authorization online, using the Electronic System For Travel Authorization Experience (ESTA). This is just to travel to the US, no guarantee of actually making it into the country. Basically, this simply lets you fill out the green I94W form online. It really has all the same questions (except that it asks for date of passport issuance in addition to expiration date, details like that) and even the screen has the same kind of green color. I guess they don't want to confuse people.

Visiting the actual ESTA site the first time is ... well, mind boggling, really. It shows a warning message/EULA that fills half the screen and that basically says you have no rights. Best thing? Your only option is to click OK. Hm, weird. But oh well, I had to use it anyway. After that it's just filling out the info. The system then tells you whether or not you are authorized to travel. In my case, it told me this right away, but the site implies it may take some time before you know for sure.

ESTA forms are valid for two years, or until your passport expires, whichever happens first. One would think this is all there is to it from now on, but I have also read stories that claim I'll still have to fill out the paper version next time I fly. That seems like a waste of time, but perhaps not all US border checkpoints are fully connected to the ESTA system yet.

As for the experience itself, filling out the form is easy, as long as you have your passport and travel info at hand. It takes about five minutes (including printing) if you're confident, probably longer if you want to double-check everything. No big deal to do this before a trip, you just have to remember. And remembering all you need to do for a trip isn't always so easy.