Freeware

Items which are announcing freeware

Mar 6 2012

Super Mario Brothers Rehash Mari0 brings Creates New Generation of Fun

For many of us, Super Mario Brothers was one of the first Nintendo games or Famicon games we owned.  That was the epitome of the 1990′s gaming scene and had only one aspect to the game.  Now there is a new Super Mario Brothers game, Mari0 which introduces a host of elements including portal gun mechanics.   The open source game is available for Windows, Linux, and Macintosh and the complete source code is also available.

Some of the new features included in the Mari0 version of the game are:

  • Complete recreation of SMB
  • Elements from Portal
  • Portal gun that shoots portals
  • 4-player simultaneous coop
  • Level Editor that was used to create the levels in the game
  • 33 different hats
  • Downloadable Mappacks
  • Game modifiers for extra fun

You can download the appropriate version of the game for your computer and the source code from the Mari0 website at:

http://stabyourself.net/mari0/#download

By admin • Apple Computing, Apps, Freeware, Games, Macintosh, Software • 0 • Tags: , , , ,

Mar 5 2012

Booting from IDE drive when there are SATA drives

This is a generic sort of article… I have only tried it on one type of machine but this advice may prove useful in other situations.

As regular readers know, I volunteer at an educational non-profit organisation every Friday as a systems administrator.One of the privileges is I get to borrow a computer every so often for one of my projects. In this case I had a computer I was using as a file server (using FreeNAS v7.x). Since I had it for over three years I figured it was time to get something a little newer. A client returned a Dell GX 270 because he no longer needed it. I asked and was granted permission to replace the older machine with this one.

At first I only had two hard drives to work with. The first was the hard drive from the old computer and the second was the drive from the new one. I was able to boot from the old drive with no problem. Adding in the new drive so it would be accessed over my LAN was also easy. I had a third drive. It was a 500GB SATA drive. I had everything but the power adapter so it took a few days to connect.

The SATA drive was one I had in my Linux box before the motherboard died. It still had all the information as well as the master boot record intact. Once it was added into the 270 it wanted to take over. Like Macs there is an option which allows the user to select which drive to boot from. For a file server that’s not an acceptable solution. In this case it didn’t work very well either. The boot process was hung for 15 minutes…

After a bit of research on the net I found the solution was to boot from a rescue CD/DVD and toggle the bootable flag on the first partition on the hard drive to off. From that point things worked fine. I don’t know if the hard drive works or not since it was only yesterday I added it to the machine. Assuming there are no hardware problems I should be able to do a bunch of neat things like create virtual machines which are stored on  the LAN, set up a private iTunes server, and back up the Mini I am using at the moment…

By BlankMike • Disk Images, Disk Storage, Emulation, File Utilities, Freeware, Hardware, Public Domain, Software, Virtual Servers • 0

Feb 21 2012

FlightGear Version 2.6.0 Released

The latest version of the open source FlightGear flight simulator has been released.   Version 2.6.0 includes a number of improvements primarily in the handling of AI type aircraft, making load times faster as well as the CPU cost per AI aircraft much lower.

FlightGear Version 2.6.0 is available for free download and is available for all of the Major computing platforms.  You can download the version for your machine from the FlightGear Website at:

http://www.flightgear.org

For information about the other features that have been improved in version 2.6.0, check out the release notification at:

http://www.flightgear.org/news/flightgear-v2-6-0-released/

By admin • Apple Computing, Apps, Emulation, Flight, Freeware, Macintosh, Software • 0 • Tags: , , ,

Jan 28 2012

Namco Arcade for the iPhone and iPad

NamcoBandai Games has released their entry into the realm of vintage gaming on the iPhone and iPad, Namco Arcade.  Sadly, this is as far as the excitement went.  While many of us who lived in the arcades in the late 1970′s and early 1980′s, the quarters we plunked into the machines were for real play on real machines.  We certainly were not willing then nor now to buy digital coins just to play our favorite arcade games.   NamcoBandai was betting on users being willing to do this, giving away the App on the Apple iTunes Store.

There are four included titles in the App, yet purchase of additional machines are priced at outrageous prices for in-app purchases.  Also, the need to buy coins at $.99 cents per 10 coins with the user being able to hold a maximum of 20 just does not fly in this day and age.

In our testing of the playing of the games, the graphics were good, the speed was about right and everything was hunky dory on the play side of the app, yet the controls were not only difficult but also sluggish.  In our playing of Xevious, we found that when we went right at times, the ship would not move and the joystick actually seemed to stick.  Maybe it was  just our big thumbs but then game play should be intuitive it they expect the users of the mobile devices to play the games.

We used up our one free game and then were left with NamcoBandai’s idea of a good time.  Purchase 10 more play coins.  And if you want more than the 4 games, you will have to pay for those plus the play coins.  Even as bad as Atari’s $.99 cents per game was, at least they had the $14.99 unlimited option.  This game has no such option and in our book is a real dog.

The game is rated 1.5 stars with 37 rating at press time with only 4 5 star ratings.  there were 28 ratings that were one star and based on the ineptness of NamcoBandai to figure out this market, it is highly likely many of those users wanted to leave 0 star ratings, including ourselves.

If you wish to check out the game for nostalgia effects, Naco Arcade is at:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/namco-arcade/id465606050?mt=8

Dont say we didnt warn you.

Rating: 0 Apples out of 5

 

By admin • Apple Computing, Apps, Freeware, Games, iPhone, Software • 0 • Tags: , , , , , ,

Jan 19 2012

Push Panic now a Free Download (temporarily?)

Push Panic!, the game that brings new meaning to the columns theme is available as a free download.  The program which drops multi-colored boxes as you do your best to explode them, is not just a challenge, it is also addicting.    Your objective is to explode as many boxes as you can, keeping the boxes below a red line.  The more boxes you “link” together in the explosions, the higher the score.

Push Panic! works on both the iPhone and the iPad.  To download Push Panic!, go to the iTunes store at:

http://itunes.apple.com/app/push-panic!/id494497219?mt=8

By admin • Apps, Freeware, Games, iPad, iPhone, Software • 0 • Tags: , , , , ,

Jan 16 2012

Donut Games Free Game of The Week — Monkey Flight

The Donut Games free game of the week this week is Monkey Flight, a delightfully entertaining game which will keep you going for hours. The game now has 60 levels in the challenge section of the game, making for even more fun.  This game is one you must get!

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=311768443&mt=8

By admin • Apps, Freeware, Games, iPad, iPhone, Software • 0 • Tags: , , , ,

Jan 9 2012

1990 Version of GEM CD now Available for Download

Thanks to Arnaud Brossard, the original 1990 version of the Generous Efforts of Many (GEM) CD is now available for download from his website.  The collection which included all of the major Apple ][ shareware and freeware up to that point, included some 200mb of software, fonts, utilities and other items related to the Apple ][.

The CD is divided into 6 sections, 32mb each, and are ProDOS volumes.  They include:

GEM.CD.A - (Bootable) Features, Shrinkit
GEM.CD.B - Sounds, Games
GEM.CD.C - Graphics, MacPaint
GEM.CD.D - Macpaint
GEM.CD.E - NDA, CDA, INIT, Icons, Music, Selectors, File.Utilities, Development, Communications
GEM.CD.F - Productivity, Education, TAWUG, NAUG, AppleWorks GS, Appleworks, Miscellaneous

The zipped download file is in ProDOS ordered files and are ready for use in your favorite Apple II emulator.  They can also be transferred to a hard drive.

To download the GEM CD in its entirety, go to Arnaud's Apple ][gs Info website at:

http://www.apple-iigs.info/logicielsgemcd.php

Thanks to Alex Lee for pointing this out to us in his latest news bulletin.

By admin • Apple ][, Freeware, Software • 0 • Tags: , , ,

Jan 7 2012

Washington Apple Pi Apple /// DVD Now Public Domain

An announcement on the Apple II Scans website brought word that Dave Ottlani, creator of the Washington Apple PI Apple /// DVD, has made the entire collection public domain.   He released this collection “so that the information there can be freely accessed.”

You can read the announcement in its entirety at:

http://apple2scans.net/apple-iii/washington-apple-pi-apple-dvd/

You can download the .iso of the DVD from here:

http://apple2scans.net/files/apple3/WAP_DVD/A3DVD.iso

The news release also included the corrected version of the corrupted file A3 and can be downloaded from here:

http://apple2scans.net/files/apple3/WAP_DVD/A3%20–%20WAP%20Disk%20Library.zip

By admin • Apple III, Copyrights, Freeware, Public Domain, Software • 0 • Tags: , , ,

Nov 29 2011

Ghostery

Ghostery is an add-on to FireFox (and other web browsers) which stop sites from tracking users as they surf the web. Installing it depends on which web browser and which version is being used. A good place to start is either tools, extensions, or add-ons. Once installed and the browser is restarted, Ghostery will go through three or four configuration screens. The last screen lets the user select which tracking cookies/bugs to block.

One of the options is to let the user know which cookies/bugs are being blocked. My record is seven or eight sites. The average is around three. If you are like I am and want to maintain at least a minimum of privacy on the net, this is a good place to start.

By BlankMike • Ads, Cross Platform, Freeware, General, Software, Software Ads, web browsers • 0 • Tags: , , ,

Nov 25 2011

Codebreaker for the Apple-1 Updated

Egan Ford has released a new update to his Codebreaker program for the Apple-1.   The new program now includes three levels of play; Normal, Master, and Pro.  Also changed in the program is the following items:

  • Added “Master” level–same as “Pro” but with 60 second time limit.
  • Added a score board on exit.
  • Fixed a memory(stack) leak.
  • Built for 8K Apple 1.

To Load and Execute the Codebreaker program on an Apple-1 or Apple-1 Emulator, use the following commands:

  • C100R
  • 280.1AB9R
  • 280R

You can download the program in its entirety with all source code included at:

http://xmission.com/~egan/codebreaker.zip

By admin • Apple-1, Apps, Freeware, Games, Programming, Software, Source Code • 0 • Tags: , , , , , ,

1 2 3 4