Most programs for creating Flash screensavers are just completely crappy and overpriced, they usually have poor support, don’t work with Windows Vista (although the “developers” claim they do), and you never find out who their real authors are. This all does not matter much as long as the programs are promoted in a fair way. However, there are several pieces of software that were submitted to hundreds of download sites several times under different names claiming to be developed by various companies. And if you try to search for these “companies”, you’ll find out they’re completely fake, they just don’t exist in any country in the world. Let’s take look at an example:

There’s this program called ScreenSwish. Looks pretty nice, eh? Well, what’s the price? $69.99?! My gosh. Anyway, let’s check out who the publisher is. Download.com says ScreenSwish Inc. What’s their site? Flash-screensaver.net? Yeah, let’s open it. Server not found. Bummer. What if someone really wants to purchase it? Would you ever send money to a software vendor that submitted a program to Download.com in October 2007 and does not even keep the product site online in August 2008? I definitely wouldn’t. I guess you would never receive your registration key either if you registered the program using a service like RegNow, since the email address the developers use can’t be working anymore (there’s no DNS server assigned to that domain name). At least I can still download the latest release with no trouble. Oh, wait, there’s one more interesting thing. Programs like this usually use fake version numbers to make the users think they’re constantly updated. This one says 2.0 but I doubt there has ever been a 1.0. I even doubt there has ever been a different version. Let’s get back to the program itself. The installation process went smoothly. Now I’m excited to finally see what the program looks like. Hey, I know this program. It looks exactly like… what was the name? Flash Screensaver Converter Pro? Advanced Flash to Screensaver? Flash Saver Creator? Flash Screensaver Maker? Flash Screensaver Builder? Builder? Yeeah, I got it. It was definitely Flash Screensaver Builder. So let’s look it up to see what exactly happened to that one.

Download.com—Search—Flash Screensaver Builder… yeah, it’s still there (UPDATE: Great, Download.com guys seem to have finally removed this one, great job! It’s still available at many other download sites, though.). It says its developer is Dream-Soft. Let’s open Dream-Soft site. Wow, it looks pretty professional. Even though it’s most definitely just a template the publisher purchased. At least it still exists and seems to be offering a working way to register the product. Cool. According to Whois, the domain name dream-soft.org is owned by a Chinese guy Zhou Liang. Interesting, flash-screensaver.net was registered in China as well. Let’s take a look at what the program itself looks like. Yes, it’s totally the same thing as ScreenSwish, even the project files are 100% compatible, and the program version is… wait for it… 2.0!

So that’s it. Two identical programs were submitted all over the download sites under two different names. It’s a pretty lame and unfair way to increase product sales. I kind of wonder why folks over there at Download.com did not find out earlier. I always thought Download.com was a software archive I could trust. And how does the program, well, programs, work? They offer a basic set of features but they’re extremely overpriced. The worst thing about them is that they’re buggy (like if you don’t have the ActiveX control of Flash Player installed, the screensavers created with them will freeze) and the vendors simply don’t care about updates.

The same applies for another product: Eastsea Flash Screensaver 1.80 a.k.a. Icesun Flash Screensaver 1.90 a.k.a. Any Flash Screensaver Maker 2.10 a.k.a. ABC Flash Screensaver Maker 2.10. Non-existent support, high prices, low value, they’re all available on tons of download sites and look exactly the same. What’s also weird about them is the fact that the programs have slightly different version numbers on the download sites. If you run these programs, they’re all 2.10, though. There may even be more than 4 programs like this, just try searching for a part of their usual description on Google.

What’s the point of this post? Well, if you’re about to buy a new program, you’d better double-check its trustworthiness even when it’s presented on a well-known download site. As a software deveoloper I’m really disappointed to see this low quality software being promoted like real programs.

Aero Glass support

What I always liked about Microsoft’s IE 7 was the fact that it was using Vista’s native Aero Glass look. Chrome is the first browser to include Aero Glass compatibility since IE 7, which makes the UI look nice and native on Vista. Mozilla should have included it in Firefox 3.

Advanced source code view

This is something I never saw in a web browser before. Chrome has just luxury source code viewer. It displays line numbers and turns everything that looks like a URL into a clickable link.

Task manager

Yeah, you have probably seen the task manager in Google’s promotional comic book released yesterday. The task manager really rocks—it even has this little link label saying “Stats for nerds” that can open advanced memory usage statistics.

Download manager

Just like Opera and Maxthon, Chrome tries to avoid using extra dialog windows. Almost everything like bookmark manager or a download manager opens its own tab that looks just like a web page.

Searching within the current page

This is something we use a lot and don’t even realize it. When you hit Ctrl+F in Chrome and start searching, every match on the page is automatically highlighted without having to click on a button like in other browsers. Too bad Chrome does not allow you to start searching immediately without pressing Ctrl+F like Firefox does.

Great compatibility

This is just a minor issue… but did you notice that Chrome has both Gecko and Safari words in its user agent string? This makes work almost every web app that officially supports Firefox or Safari. Not all developers realize that there is something like KHTML and WebKit and some of them often put the word Safari in their browser detection scripts.

Language the browser UI uses

It looks like a typical Google product. I especially love the options dialog tab named “Under the Hood”.

Prism-like functionality

The “Create application shortcut” is more useful than Mozilla Prism. Even though the browser bar is hidden when the site is running in “application mode”, you can still access basic features like Back and Find in page by clicking the window’s icon in the top left corner.

Duplicate tab

Chrome allows you to duplicate any tab through its right-click menu.

Installing missing plugins

If a site requires a certain plugin, Chrome will take you to the download page immediately, in most cases you don’t need to search through the whole plugin vendor’s site.

Download links:

• 800 × 600
• 1024 × 768
• 1152 × 864
• 1280 × 800
• 1280 × 960
• 1280 × 1024
• 1440 × 900
• 1680 × 1050
• 1600 × 1200
• 1920 × 1200
• 2048 × 1536
• 2560 × 1600
• 800 × 600 Sidebar Edition
• 1024 × 768 Sidebar Edition
• 1152 × 864 Sidebar Edition
• 1280 × 800 Sidebar Edition
• 1280 × 960 Sidebar Edition
• 1280 × 1024 Sidebar Edition
• 1440 × 900 Sidebar Edition
• 1680 × 1050 Sidebar Edition
• 1600 × 1200 Sidebar Edition
• 1920 × 1200 Sidebar Edition
• 2048 × 1536 Sidebar Edition
• 2560 × 1600 Sidebar Edition

• Open the Start menu, go to Accessories, right click the Command Prompt icon, and select ‘Run as administrator’.
• Type the following lines:

C:\Windows\SysWoW64\regsvr32.exe C:\Windows\SysWoW64\vbscript.dll
C:\Windows\SysWoW64\regsvr32.exe C:\Windows\SysWoW64\jscript.dll

That’s it. I hope this will work for you. Oh, wait, there’s another tip. Stay away from automatic CorelDRAW 12 updates in 64-bit Vista, just stick with the version that came out with the CDs. It will probably slow down the program.

Download Borealis screensaver

If you want to use these icons with IrfanView, just download the following file, unpack it to C:\Program Files\IrfanView, and double click IrfanView_VistaDefaultIcons.reg file (requires administrator rights). If your IrfanView is located in a different directory, simply edit the .reg file to match the program location on your computer. I have also extracted the icons from system DLLs to separate ICO files so that you could use them easily for more image formats. Enjoy!

Windows Vista icon fix for IrfanView images (312 kB)

If you’re lucky enough and don’t know what crapware exactly is, check out this video featuring Tom Merritt. So how to get rid of it? Well, the first thing I did when I first saw those tons of useless trials, pre-installed programs, and drivers was trying to uninstall them. As soon as they got all uninstalled, the system still remained too slow and generally weird. CorelDRAW 12 kept crashing, the wireless network connection would always disconnect and I was like “Damn Vista. I should have stuck with the old good XP or 2000.” A few weeks later I found this blog post about replacing the manufacturer customized Vista with a clean installation. However, doing so usually requires spending some extra money (the fee depends on your location, I paid $7 in Europe but I guess that shipping within the U.S. is even cheaper) on the original “Windows Anytime Upgrade” DVD. But man, it’s definitely worth it. When I received the DVD, I made backups of all my data, formatted all the partitions, and started installing. I ended up saving about 10 gigs of hard drive space by removing the HP’s useless partition containing the original disk contents and other similar stuff. The system is now way faster, Wi-Fi finally works without random disconnecting, and surprisingly CorelDRAW 12 works fine too. If you keep getting mad about your computer being slow because of crapware and if you’re not too lazy to spend like one day making backups of your data, you should definitely check out the site I mentioned above. You won’t regret the effort.

Since they’re completely disorganized, I’ve chosen the best of them and added some info for those who haven’t come across them yet. To make things clear – I don’t support North Korea’s policy and communism at all, actually the point of this post has no deep political meaning, I just find it mysterious to discover things about a country that no one knows much about. So let’s begin with the most important site:

Naenara

Translated into English, Naenara means “My Country”. It’s the major governmental propaganda site including dozens of articles, galleries, media files, press reports, and even an online store (which is weird, they’re running a similar store here). It’s currently available at naenara.kp (kcckp.net domain is still working, though) and as far as I know, it’s one of just two active sites using this .kp TLD. Definitely a must-see for everyone who hasn’t seen any North Korean sites before.

Korea-DPR.com

Another general site, looks disorganized as well. Some pages still use the old black layout, some use a brand new white one that is probably based on a template. What’s pretty “funny” about this is the fact that you have to click two Enter buttons in a row to be able to proceed to the main menu. Reminds me of some Christian record label sites. Make sure you check out this Automobile Industry video, travel gallery, and the Korean Friendship Association anthem. Oh, and I almost forgot, there’s another online store. This one mostly offers products with the Korean Friendship Association logo, nothing special.

Korea Business Site

I guess this site is based on a template but the content is awesome. Especially this page – those PDF files are worth seeing!

Korean Central News Agency

Looks like a pretty old site based in Japan. The news seem to be up-to-date, though. A Korean version is available here.

Official Discussion Forum

When I first spotted this, I was sort of surprised. A discussion forum that seems to be active. Just wonder how much the posts get censored. As for the moderators and administrators, they’re probably all from Korean Friendship Associations all over the world, I wasn’t able to find real Korean people.

Korea Computer Center

“The center of technological innovation in North Korea…” My ass The page contains links to many sub-sites for centers in various cities. I wonder if the products they advertise really exist, I’m a frayed knot. Anyway, I suggest that you should use IE to view this site, since those “beautiful” layouts get all messed up in other browsers.

Sili Bank

“SiliBank will assure SILI in the communication with the DPRK.” This is sooo awesome! A North Korean bank that is actually based in People’s Republic of China. Sadly, the site is not online anymore but I was able to find some pages in Archive.org. The bank also used to provide the only way to communicate with North Korea using e-mail – the
pricing is funny as well.

Korea Computer Center Europe

There’s nothing much interesting about this this, a German site with common stock photos. I’m just listing it here because it’s one of two sites using the .kp TLD (along with naenara.kp mentioned above).

The Pyongyang Metro

It’s not an official site but it’s probably the best source of information about the mysterious Pyongyang metro.

Some YouTube videos recorded from Korean Central Television

YouTube contains some interesting videos recorded directly from the official North Korean TV channel.
Check out the weather forecast #1, weather forecast #2, the best of North Korean Television, a generic North Korean show, some cartoons, and “harmony news”.