Pantera Designs - Software, Gaming, and a bit of Shopping Ideas

So, what's been going on around here?

2008-05-19T23:57:00.003+02:00

Now that my exams are over, I can finally take a sigh of relief after a whole month spent studying. All should have gone well especially in maths, but I'm really happy that it is over and I could spend a whole week with my family afterwards. My daughter is now four and a half months old, and she seems to be growing longer by the day (I think she actually is). I don't want to miss her growing up and end up regretting it.

I have had a couple of days trying to catch up with emails, blogs and all that to see what's been going around. I even had some stuff going back to October. I found some interesting reading at Tradepub, although at this point I'm only skimming through the pages.

Also had some time to change the website layout of DeskDeco. I have learnt some new stuff which I will be implementing later, but for now an improved layout that takes advantage of the space available by reducing the amount of ads is still welcome I suppose. The site makeover is not quite finished yet, but you can take a look and say how you like it. Due to the site popularity in the past, I'm also thinking about submitting the site to Best of the Web. Well, so perhaps I'll sign off and try to work on it some more then.

The Past (Abandonware), The Present (MMOGs) and The Future (Wii) of Gaming

2008-03-21T16:58:00.003+01:00

Last week I started 3 new blogs and have even added links to them from the main page, but haven't actually told you about them. The three webistes are MMO Today, Daily Abandonware (Screenshot below) and Wii Insider. As you can see, they are all gaming-related. Here you will find the latest news about your favourite game type. You will also find videos made by the gaming community to show you what other people are doing to make the most of the same hobby that you have.

The new websites are made possible by means of new program code (currently titled BlogPost) that I have recently written which makes sure to find news updates and keep everything in place. So far it is looking good, and I have had some positive comments about the blogs already. I even got praised by a game developer for coming up with the idea behind these websites.

Refurbished Shopping Store

2008-03-18T00:13:00.002+01:00

I have just finished editing the stores pages with some new layouts and the latest product updates. Should be easier for you to get around the malls now.

Shop safely!

Top 10 Software for the Vista Developer

2008-02-22T17:47:00.003+01:00

Earlier this week I told you about how I am enjoying my experience with Windows Vista, but haven't actually told you what software I am currently running for software and web development. What I will do now is to list the 10 best programs which I use regularly that actually work on Vista succesfully.

1. Google's Gmail

Google's Gmail has become an essential service for me. It has its limitations, but it also has one big advantage; you can carry around and read your virtual mailbox from everywhere. And with 6 Gigs of storage (and growing) there's enough space for the most active of e-mail users.

2. Mozilla's Firefox

Since Vista already comes with an excellent browser in the form of Internet Explorer 7, I wanted to give you another browsing option. Both IE7 and Firefox are valid alternatives. Firefox has been the better browser for a number of years, but IE7 has improved a lot. At this point I'm really undecided if one of them is far better than the other. All I can say is that Firefox conforms to the web standards better, and IE deviates a bit. In fact if you are developing for the web, you have to install both programs to test how your pages perform on each one before posting on the Internet.

3. Microsoft's Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition

If you still haven't got your hands dirty with the 2008 editions of C#, Visual Basic and Visual Web Developer, now is the time to do so. Moreover Microsoft is offering you to start learning one of these languages for free with the Express Editions. In fact, you can develop fully blown programs and websites with them. You have the latest development tools at your fingertips, so now there's no excuse to start working on that old idea.

4. Helios' Textpad

If you don't plan to develop for Microsoft's .net and ASP.net platforms only, you will also need another development platform. I know there's stuff like Netbeans for Java and so on, but when it comes to other languages like Java and PHP I prefer a quick and simple editor. Textpad is one program that I have been using for these two years, and I have brought it along on Vista. Textpad allows you to try it for free, and registration costs $33, although in my opinion $10 less would be a fairer price.

5. Adobe's Dreamweaver

If you want to use Dreamweaver you have to buy it, but rest assured that there isn't a better website development environment around. Nothing comes even close. Looking at Dreamweaver for the first time might be intimidating, but start using it and your production will start increasing immediately.

6. Antonio Da Cruz's Photofiltre

When it comes to quickly editing a picture before posting it onto a website or blog, nothing beats this program. Yes Photofiltre is quick, simple and also manages to obtain decent results with modified JPEG images. Avoid this free program at your own risk.

7. Sun's OpenOffice

I don't even remember when I last used Microsoft's Office suite. I have been completely converted to OpenOffice, which is nothing less than a free alternative. And with the confusing 2007 layout of Microsoft's product, installing OpenOffice on Vista brought a sigh of relief.

8. Microsoft's SyncToy
Unlike most people that compile these kind of lists, I don't have a grudge against Microsoft and I dutifully praise them when they do good things. For free! And SyncToy is such a good thing. This tiny package copies any file modifications on one disk to other disks that you specify. I use it mostly to keep all my website code, program sources, important documents and school assignments the same both on my portable and fixed disks. In this way I have the latest version of my files wherever I go, and a safe copy back home.

9. IAC Search & Media's Bloglines

Development work does not always mean sitting down and writing code all day. Many times it also means sitting down and reading news about what other people are coming up with to solve their problems. I started with Bloglines all those years ago during the RSS boom. Although there may be better alternatives out there and I have tried some of them, so far none has convinced me enough to switch. So daily Bloglines it is.

10. Syntax Rebels' Mass Text Replacer

I could not end this list before mentioning my own Mass Text Replacer. I have worked on the program to make sure that it supports Windows Vista. If you have a lot of pages that need any kind of text modification, you cannot live without Mass Text Replacer. And at $15.45 it's a steal.

Moving to Vista

2008-02-18T08:31:00.002+01:00

I'm now happily working and blogging on my new home computer running Windows Vista. But how did this happen you may ask?

Well, I had used Vista before, during Beta 2 and RC1 to be exact. As a developer I had to test my software to see how it behaved on this new operating system. And it behaved pretty much as desired. So that was good.

When Vista was officially released, I didn't make the jump immediately. I heard a lot of complaints about incompatability, and I had a lot of software on my XP machine that I did not want to lose. So I waited.

Last week however, my home computer's motherboard died. So I went to buy a new one. And at the shop there was an offer to buy Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic on discount. So I bought it.

Then I bought a hard disk to get a dual operating system choice. I think I still would need XP sometimes. Anyway, Windows Vista actually installed better with the new motherboard than XP did. All the drivers except for the LAN adapter installed automatically. With Windows XP I had to install all the drivers, and there were above 100 updates downloaded from Microsoft's website to bring the system up to date.

Now I have been using Vista for 4 days, and I can say that I am quite happy with it. All the work I do at home (software, web development and blogging) is working wonders. The only fault I have so far is that the CD player is not working with Audio CDs, and with XP it's fine. I still have to check and find what is happening, for now I have to work in silence...

Command And Conquer: Generals on Classic Game Guides

2008-02-04T23:42:00.000+01:00

I have completed the fact page for Command & Conquer: Generals on the classic gaming website. This game has kept me playing for a long time and was one of the best real time strategy games of yesteryear.

Set in a modern day scenario, you can choose between one of three factions in campaign mode. Each army has different weaponry at its disposal, but it's ultimately the quickest and most aggresive general that wins.

Now I have prepared the complete storyline with screenshots and even saved game downloads for you to enjoy this game more. Anytime you want.

BOTS Weekend Event

2008-01-27T10:44:00.000+01:00

I know I'm telling you this on the last day of the event, but don't forget that there are bonus treasure chests and double points this weekend at Bots!!. This is the best day anyway as it is Sunday and you still have one whole day to play.

For those who don't know, Bots!! is a free arcade massively multiplayer online RPG that puts a team of players together in a hectic battlefield against computer robots and in a competition for who gets the most points. Your Robots can be customised with various body parts. Players can get them through item drops, which are in fact dropped by defeated enemies, or from the Acclaim shop.

Good luck in obtaining as much bounty as you can!

E-mail is Evil

2008-01-22T11:45:00.000+01:00

Is everyone experiencing a sudden surge of spam, or is it just me that is getting inundated with trash? I don't know, all of a sudden I have above 7000 e-mails in my spam folder, and I do try to delete them regularly.

I always made it a point to check all spam messages whenever I had some spare time, because there is always the odd good message that slips in there. And it may be from a client that needs some help. However, I just cannot keep up. The more messages I delete, the more they come!

At least there's always something in life that enlightens your mood with some unexpected humour. Gmail for example, persists on inviting me to buy some spam imperial tortilla sandwiches. I have to agree that with a full stomach the world becomes a better place, so cut each roll in half and start serving.

Free Flash Games for Everyone

2008-01-20T22:48:00.000+01:00

I'm not only closing down my websites you know. I have also prepared a new website for you all and it's now time for me to announce it.

The website has a collection of free flash games that you can play instantly, similar to Flash Games 247. I have added 184 games till now, although I'm still putting them in the right categories. However I have over 1600 more games coming, so this website is going to be huge!

So take a break from what you're doing and play some online flash games right now!

What I'm Dropping

2008-01-19T22:28:00.000+01:00

Yes people, it's time to name the sites that I'm going to close down from Pantera Designs for good.

First are the ones where I was duplicating content from other sites. The culprits are Huszra, Indra's Net and News Article of The Day. You will find two good news websites in Linx and Google anyway.

Second up is the Online Marketing Tips. That is going to be integrated here in some way as I do not need another website dedicated to online marketing deals.

Finally the special offers are also heading out, but some of them may make it inside the shopping mall.

What I'm Keeping

2008-01-16T21:19:00.000+01:00

As I said a few days ago, I'm letting go of a few sections on the Pantera Designs website to focus on the remaining ones. The idea is to metaphorically lose weight and pick up speed. But before telling you what I'm cutting, today I want to tell you what I'm keeping. Here goes:

DeskDeco Wallpaper Downloads
This is my most popular site. I would be mad to drop it now.

Classic Game Guides
I like playing old games and tell you all about them. Right now I'm preparing the details for pages on Command & Conquer: Generals and the Adventures of Willy Beamish.

MMO Diaries
Another of my favourites. Nuff said.

Shop MMO
I know I know. I should start this site properly some day. But I'm keeping it anyway.

Freeware Software
That's how it all started at Pantera Designs, and it will always be part of the menu.

Buyer's Hub
Also getting a makeover soon, and some of the freed time will go on this in fact.

Shopping Mall
Another popular site with a big range of products for you to buy. I admit it needs a paint job, but it's strong as ever. Especially selling calendars!

You should see the links appearing for these sites soon. You may guess what I'm discarding, but I'll post another update to tell you my reasons behind each dismissal.

Less is Better

2008-01-15T13:16:00.000+01:00

I have made an unusual resolution for this new year; to remove 5 advertisers each week from my Commission Junction advertiser list until I am happy with my performance with those remaining.

I have come to believe that having exactly 111 advertisers is too much too handle, and I want to bring down the list to 50. Today I finished removing those advertisers with a lot of impressions and absolutely no clicks whatsoever. Something must be going wrong in there.

Looking forward for next week, I still need to see on what criteria apart from clicks only by which to select the next five. As a rule, I now only work with new affiliate programmes that offer a product datafeed. Maybe I should start eliminating those that do not offer this option?

No More Additional Offers

2008-01-14T09:06:00.001+01:00

The Additional Offers part of Buyer's Hub has been discontinued. This was a sub-section of Buyer's Hub dedicated to advertisers from the Commission Soup programme. I know that I listed Commission Soup as one of the top 5 sources of income for me last year, but there is a high advertiser turnaround that is too much for me to keep up with. Too many new advertisers, where the application process for each one of them takes too much time and many of them quit soon afterwards, which takes even more hassle for updating my pages.

Apart from that, my income was largely from Colonial Consumer Alliance, which is a good product to market. However it has left Commission Soup too.

My Top Performers for 2007

2008-01-13T22:46:00.001+01:00

Just tought someone out there may make use of this bit of information about making money online. After last year's reports are in, I can tell you the top 5 programs that have been the most profitable for Pantera Designs.

1. Google 36% (of total online income)
2. Commission Junction 20%
3. Rentacoder 17%
4. Calendars.com 15%
5. Commission Soup 8%

As you can see, the majority of my online income is coming from only 5 partners which account for a total of 96%. So, as a rule from now on I'm taking it to focus mostly on 5 products at a time and try to make the most of them.

Google is the clear winner, and since AdSense basically takes care of what to advertise by itself, it's almost too good to be true. Then there's Rentacoder, not actually an affiliate program, but a site that aggregates IS requests from businesses, and software developers can make money by working on these requests. I'm looking forward to participate in some projects this year come summer. Finally, calendars are always popular, and a good source for income.

Personaemicon Online Axed

2008-01-12T15:01:00.000+01:00

It's the first site that gets the cut. After my efforts to try to have an interactive website where people could log on and contribute to an online encyclopedia of first names, I saw that this was going nowhere. Particularly with the hacker attempts that instead of contributing to the knowledge base, just added links for selling viagra and stuff like that.

The problem is not with Mediawiki as such, which I was using to power the site, but with an older version of the Mediawiki engine that was open to attack. My word of warning is to only use the latest version of the software or your site will be instantly attacked by spam bots that can take advantage of it. Why didn't I upgrade to the latest version then? Well, it's because Globat, my hosting provider has only PHP version 4 installed, and the latest secure version of Mediawiki does not work with that.

So, while the Personaemicon software is still strong as ever, its associated Personaemicon Online site is no more. If you try to visit the site, you will be directed to yesterday's post where you can download the software.

Personaemicon

2008-01-11T17:37:00.000+01:00

Personaemicon, the software for first names gets its page moved here. Details about it below:

Summary

Version: 1.2.0
Last Updated on: 4.Oct.2003
Runs on: Windows 95, 98, 2000, ME, XP
Download Size: 2818K with installer
License: Free Download

Download Personaemicon from Pantera Designs Server
Note: Download includes program, libraries, installer and uninstaller.

Details
Personaemicon is a nice and simple program which you can use to know a great deal of facts about person's names. It is really easy to use and should be tried straightaway. You only have to enter the information you are looking for and Personaemicon comes up with a result. It can be used for example to enter a name and its meaning comes up, or to enter a meaning and first names with that meaning will be displayed. You can also narrow the search by gender and place of origin.

Copyright

Personaemicon is under the copyright of Pantera Designs and is distributed as freeware. This means that you can download, use, copy and distribute it freely without any obligations.

Installation

Program installation is just as simple as the program itself. To start installation click on the file named install_personaemicon.exe. This will launch the installer, which will ask you questions on where you want to install the program and its icons. Proceeding with the default selections is suggested.

Searching

The search function is really the main advantage of using this software over more traditional methods because the information you ask for will be found in less than a second. With over 4000 names in the database, it would be quite a task if it were to be sought within a book for example. Furthermore a query can be made with four different filters that you can even combine together.

Basically the table inside the program is made of four headings, which are Name, Origin, Gender and Meaning. By typing inside or selecting an option on top of each header actually makes the program display only the names whose properties contain the text that was selected. So for example you can type your name above the Name heading and when you start the search Personaemicon will come back with the place of origin, name meaning and the gender that the name applies to. This also works the other way round by typing in a meaning to see which names have that meaning. Filters can also be combined, so that for example gender can be applied to the previous query to list only the female names with your intended meaning. Just right for finding a name for a sweet new born girl!

Once that the filters are set, the actual search is started by clicking the Search button or just by pressing Enter on the keyboard. The results are displayed inside the table which you can scroll around at your pleasure.

The Random Button

The Random button is for those indecisive people who just can't decide which name or meaning to give to their babies. Parents can try their luck and choose the name that Personaemicon first comes up with, although I do suggest that you match the gender at least, or else if the gender is not appropriate you can search for the same meaning for the opposite gender. Quite handy isn't it so? Indeed, every time that the Random button is pressed a different name is picked for you.

History
v1.2.0 Translated into Spanish and optimised database access.
v1.1.0 Additions to new version: More names, random function and online support
v1.0 First release of Personaemicon

Reviews/Awards
TopShareware.com
SofoTex.com
FileTransit.com
Softonic

Changes, and a New Blog

2008-01-10T17:38:00.000+01:00

Today I have decided to change this site drastically. In a way as to focus on what I can update regularly and scrap the rest.

From its humble beginnings in 1987 to its days of high traffic, I was always working as hard as I could to add new features for site visitors. Thing is, I have been incredibly busy working on my Computing and Information Systems degree with the University of London for the past two years. That has left me with only half the time to dedicate on personal projects, such as those on Pantera Designs.

The other thing is, my wife just gave birth to a lovely baby girl last week. Which we named Denise, btw. And I'm just too glad to help in taking care of the little one and watch her grow day by day. You have to look at the way my home office is also changing!

According to my calculations, that leaves me about 5 minutes now and then to work on side projects. Time I still very much like to spend on improving the site, which has however fallen into disrepair. A lot of forsaken things must go away, and I will focus on what is working to make it work better.

The most sharp amongst you will guess where this is going by looking at the title of the new blog. Speaking of which, I chose to use Blogger once again in spite of the problems I had some two months back. It's plug and play, and for now still hacker-proof, ~~although it only lets me name the site with up to 50 characters only. I hoped for about fifteen more, but you can't have everything in this short life~~! (Yes you can it seems, I just found out that you can change it later after the blog wizard is completed)

Let's move along, see you in the next five minutes I have available.