Six-eyed Root Horse (Spore creature)

Oh god, you can keep adding eyes and mouths... I'm really curious to see how the full Spore game will stack up against the Creature Creator portion. Releasing that bit early for ten bucks might be giving too much of the full product away.

Read the full article

ClrTyp 1.0 - Disables ClearType when taking screenshots

At the request of a friend, I made a utility last night that temporarily disables ClearType when a screenshot is made via PrtScr or Alt+PrtScr.

ClrTyp 1.0

Usage:
Extract zip file to any folder and run ClrTyp.exe. An icon will appear in the systray. As long as ClrTyp is running, any screenshots made with your Print Screen key will have ClearType disabled.

Download:
clrtyp_x86.zip 32-bit version
clrtype_x64.zip 64-bit version

Requirements:
- Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 must be installed.

Read the full article

How to simulate Valve's Steam Cloud with Live Mesh

Valve recently announced that their Steamworks SDK would include a feature called Steam Cloud in a future update. What Steam Cloud does is implement my own most-wanted feature - a way to keep saved games in sync across multiple PCs. (At one point I even thought I would write my own software, registering steamsync.com.)

In any event, it's unlikely that Steam Cloud will be back-ported to many (if any) existing titles on Steam. That means I still need a solution for keeping my Peggle save file in sync between my desktop and laptops. :)

So if you're a Live Mesh user, here's how keep some of your PopCap Games save files in sync on Windows Vista:

Game	Effective Mesh Folder
Amazing Adventures: The Lost Tomb	%ProgramData%\SteamPopCapv1005
Bookworm Deluxe	%ProgramData%\Steam
Bookworm Adventures Deluxe	%ProgramData%\Steam
Mystery P.I. - The Lottery Ticket	%ProgramData%\SpinTop Games
Mystery P.I. - The Vegas Heist	%ProgramData%\SpinTop Games
Peggle Deluxe	%ProgramData%\Steam
Peggle Extreme	%ProgramData%\Steam

Why "Effective"? Well, you could mesh individual save folders but I prefer to keep things simple. It doesn't hurt if one of the meshed devices doesn't have all of the same games installed as the others.

Read the full article