Entis Cursors Summary

I've been thinking about cursors I've made a few years ago. So I decided to make a short summary about the life of these cursors.

We've got:
- original version for Windows/X11
- original mini-version for Windows/X11
- original left-handed version for Windows
- unofficial un-titled version here
- version for CursorXP/CursorFX here

Official web-site of cursors is at entis-design.com. The X11 version can be downloaded and discussed at kde-look.

According to Google, the Entis cursors are discussed/mentioned also on some other sites, some of them are in foreign language, for example:
- http://www.dl4all.com/desktop_enhancements/cursors/14589-19-windows-mouse-cursor-sets-new.html
- http://themes.5d6d.com/archiver/tid-2768.html
- http://bbs.cnplayer.net/read.php?tid-57423-uid-270.html
- http://www.creativosonline.org/blog/entis-cursors-cursores-para-windows.html
- http://sites.google.com/site/jyc860923/
- http://bbs.syue.com/redirect.php?tid=20959&goto=lastpost
- http://www.dl4w.com/desktop-enhancement/cursors/137-entis-cursors.html#comment
- http://www.instantfundas.com/2007/12/21-most-beautiful-mouse-cursors-for.html
- http://www.uushare.com/user/cemily/file/1799749
- http://www.ghacks.net/2007/12/20/use-custom-cursors-in-windows/
- http://thesiliconjungle.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/windows-xp-revamp-part-1-visuals/
- http://usefulcomputerhelp.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-mouse-pointer.html
- http://blog.tbits.ie/2009/09/mouse-cursors-ahoy/

There is also a small Windows XP bug which appears when dragging these cursors which is mentioned here.

So, I've computed the download stats altogether and it seems, that these Cursors have been downloaded 100533 times. At minimum. I'm quite happy for this project.

Left handed cursors

Somebody asked me for left handed version of Entis cursors, so I've created one and placed it on entis cursors website. I hope that this guy is not the only person who will ever download it :).

And just a small update to my favourite software list - I've been using Unreal Commander for a few months, but since last version it suffered from several awkward bugs (besides some other were fixed). The release cycle of this piece of software started to be to slow to my needs, so I've switched to FreeCommander, which has less bugs (to be precise - less bugs in functions I use) and after a few minutes of configuration looks and behaves the same way as Unreal Commander or Total Commander. The main difference (that I've spotted) is, that it's not binary compatible with Total Commander plugins and add-ons (Unreal Commander was compatible), but it does not hurt me anymore.

Laptop universal adapter frustration

My DELL D400 power adapter went off. Of course in the moment I needed him most. No green light, no power, just some silent beeping. So I decided to buy a new one. But since it takes quite a long time to get original Dell adapter, I instantly bought Trust Universal Power Adapter PW-2120. I have also verified, that this adapter is suitable for my laptop.

What a surprise - after setting the appropriate voltage and turning the notebook on - the adapter was working, but the battery was not charging. I did some googling and found out, that it is not a bug, it's a feature. It seems, that DELL is using some special chip inside of his adapters to ensure, that only original accessories is used. I've tried it on my second laptop (HP Compaq 6710b) and everything worked fine.

So I've understood that resistance is futile and ordered another one brand new DELL PA-10 Power adapter.

IIS 7 Integrated Pipeline Mode Problem

Our ASP.NET apps started to behave weirdly when running on IIS 7. We found out, that switching the IIS mode from Integrated Pipeline to Classic worked well. Lately I've done some debuging and found out, that after calling Response.End() in some click event, the IIS continued to process other events and methods, which included further successful (?!?) writing to the Response object (in our PreRender and Render event). Closing the socket using Response.Close() prevented this :))).

I have thought for all my life, that after Response.End, somebody tries to stop processing the page :).

We've experienced two weird issues using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 on Windows Vista. Both are connected to developing web applications using ASP.NET and the Web Server which comes integrated into the IDE.

First thing is, that the localhost is not any more localhost. Due to the IPv6 mapping
in file c:/windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts which looks like this

::1             localhost

it seems, that request from http://localhost:1111 (number varies) never hit the WebDev.exe. Commenting this line out using

#::1             localhost

overcomes this problem (unless you need IPv6 it probably won't be a problem).

Second issue was the already mentioned port number. When you hit the Start debugging button, Visual Studio launched Web server and automatically opened your favorite browser on that page. But in our case, the URL in browser contained different port number that the Web server has been running on. After some digging I have found this solution.