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Here we go, another version.

Due to the feature requests I was getting and the fact that Stream Keeper (temporary title) could be quite a while away, I finally went and added configurable settings. I regarded YouChoob as more of a tool than an application, so I wanted to keep it minimal. Not any more, it seems.

More importantly, I figured out a way of getting batch downloading working in a good way despite the app’s one-at-a-time download design. The batch window also features monitoring functionality in that it’ll keep an eye on the clipboard and add any new YouTube.com links it finds; this allows you to use your browser to Copy Shortcut/Link/Whatever to quickly queue a lot of links with minimal effort.

Check out YouChoob below for more information, specifically its change log.

View: YouChoob

Here we go, another version.

Due to the feature requests I was getting and the fact that Stream Keeper (temporary title) could be quite a while away, I finally went and added configurable settings. I regarded YouChoob as more of a tool than an application, so I wanted to keep it minimal. Not any more, it seems.

More importantly, I figured out a way of getting batch downloading working in a good way despite the app’s one-at-a-time download design. The batch window also features monitoring functionality in that it’ll keep an eye on the clipboard and add any new YouTube.com links it finds; this allows you to use your browser to Copy Shortcut/Link/Whatever to quickly queue a lot of links with minimal effort.

Check out YouChoob below for more information, specifically its change log.

View: YouChoob

One of the things I like with new versions of Windows is the possibility of new features for developers. Windows 7, like Vista, seems to include a few little things for us to play about with, namely the ITaskbarList3 Interface exposed by the Windows Shell.

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Today I noticed while I was messing about with YouChoob downloading some videos, that the thumbnail preview for the currently downloading video wasn’t appearing. After mooching through the code I found out why: any URLs that have the &feature or &related components in them causes the video image generator code to generate a wrong link to that video’s thumbnail image.

Now all extraneous information in URLs are stripped away when Download is clicked. I’m not really sure, but I think this might also fix a problem – as reported in the forum – where YouChoob says a URL is invalid. I say not sure because I personally can’t re-produce the problem.

Speaking of the forum: I set it up some time last year but it wasn’t actually officially open to the public. Because of this, I sort of forgot all about it and only recently noticed that some postings had been made in there. Oops. I’ve replied to a couple of posts as a starter, but it’ll officially open once I’ve finished setting it up.

View: YouChoob : StreamKeeper

Taking my sweet, sweet time with updates, it seems. Raiding in WoW is picking up pace and it’s goooood stuff.

But anyway! YouChoob! A new version, no less. Not that there are many changes, or anything. A few months ago I put in support for batch downloading videos (using its very own window) but I ran into a slight problem in that I couldn’t think of a good way of integrating it with the main download window. In fact, whenever I loaded the source into Visual Studio to continue it, I just groaned and worked on another application instead.

Rather than just indefinitely delaying the next release, I disabled the batch stuff and added support for downloading high quality versions of videos. In fact, there are three quality tiers, which are…

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Imagine the scene: I’m in a hall way. Nothing is happening other than me walking through a door.

Moments before I close the door behind me, someone comes up to me and, without a hint of any context, blurts out: “You know the circle with the four corners?”. Then silence. No information on which plane of reality this imaginary circle inhabits. It could be a fucking dream for all I know.

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What a bunch of scummy bastards.

I decided to move away from 1and1 Internet a while ago because the features they offer are still stuck in the 90s with their tiny monthly transfer and instead went with UK2.net as they’re not so freakin’ archaic (although they have a terrible-looking control panel). I’m still with 1and1 because I want to make sure no more mail is incoming via my tnk-bootblock.co.uk domain and their domain transfer procedure is a massive pain in the arse.

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My main email account has spacked out; I can receive mails fine, but I just cannot reply to them. I thought this would have been solved quickly, but it hasn’t – so I’m making this posting. If you’ve mailed me and haven’t gotten a reply back yet… this is why.

Woah, wait! I’m not going to blather on about Chrome like a lot of people are currently doing. Okay, I’m not going to slag it off like a lot are doing, and I’m not going to praise it as the best browser in the world. Like a lot of people are also doing.

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I’m not entirely sure how I found this site, but randomally hopping between sites while clicking on links that seemed mildly interesting seemed to be somewhat responsible. OCR is a site dedicated to providing high-quality remixes to existing video games.

Not much more to say than that, really. I’m particularlly fond of the Da Bomb Lemmings remix. The built-in Last.FM player doesn’t work for me, so click on the Download MP3 link underneath it if you’re also experiencing the same.

View: OverClocked Remix

Why do I even bother installing Wordpress updates? I installed 2.6 and it toasted the entire admin area so I couldn’t log in. Almost every update has caused the installation to spew, which is quite amazing considering that the files that get updated aren’t touched by us mortals. Lame-o!

Anyway, Romulator has been released. It’s an application that renames ROM files for the Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Colour, Nintendo DS, Playstation Portable, and Wonderswan systems. It uses the magic of the CRC hash to work out which files are ROMs and then renames them according to a user-specific naming mask. Unlike other ROM renamers, there’s no need to put it into a specific system mode.

This release is v0.90 Alpha. There are missing features and I personally want to redesign its interface. Rather than delaying the thing for a billion years, I’ve decided to go ahead and just release it. I’ve done a load of testing and all that and it seemed to work without a problem.

While I’m here, WoWus v1.09 will be released soon which fixes a bug that can stop WoWus installing addons on some systems.

View: Romulator