Launchy

The lifehacker has a very nice post on how to get more out of Launchy. In case you don’t know what Launchy is:

Launchy is a free windows utility designed to help you forget about your start menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager.

Launchy indexes the programs in your start menu and can launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes!

Lifehacker.com: Take Launchy beyond application launching
Launchy : http://www.launchy.net/

Civ IV: Beyond The Sword

The new civilization IV: Beyond the sword expansion is coming soon. In preparation I played a few games of Civ IV warlords again and I must say, it’s still very good. Beyond the swords will add a lot of nice new features. Especially the corporations and improved new AI sounds good. I preordered my copy from gameplay.co.uk, and it’s usually delivered around the official release date.

Civfanatics – Excellent site with a load of information and a great forum
Beyond the sword – Official site
** UPDATE **
A very nice history and an interview can be found at Gamasutra

Building a PC

Nice post on putting together a PC on codinghorror.

I have always put together PCs from parts, since you can at least pick what parts go into it. And it used to be cheaper, but that argument isnt valid anymore. Once you’ve put one together, you start the endless upgrading cycle. Bigger harddrives, new videocard, and eventually a new motherboard + CPU and maybe a new powersupply that can power all your devices.

Downside of this is, while upgrading you end up with all these spare parts, enough to put together a new PC. So you use that as a home server. Ok fine, oh more parts: you end up with a Multimedia PC hooked up to the TV. So far that’s all functional, but you also get these pcs that are ‘meant for testing OS [insert an OS here]’ and get booted maybe once a month ;).

Why not sell those spare parts on Ebay then ? I have done that in the past, but these days, they are hardly worth anything anymore. You cant sell a 40/80Gb drive or an Nvidia FX5700 (for which you paid E150) for a reasonable amount, that makes it worth the packaging and all the hassle that goes along with it.

Did I mention I also got a stack of leftover old scsi server stuff ? 😉