Catfood Software Blog
Catfood TextShips is a simple play by text message version of battleships for Windows Mobile 6 (both smartphone and professional). There is no single player version so you'll need an opponent with a Windows Mobile phone to play. You'll also want an unlimited text message plan as one game could potentially send hundreds of text messages.
Download TextShips
TextShips requires the .NET Compact Framework 2.0 SP2 - if the game won't start on your phone you probably need to download and install this.
After installing if you receive text messages starting with "CFBS" click Menu -> Settings and enable reading your SMS inbox. TextShips tries to intercept text messages automatically but this fails on a some devices. If you need to switch this setting on then I'd recommend exiting TextShips (Menu -> Exit) when you're not actively playing.
I've added a mobile download page at http://www.catfood.net/m - bookmark this on your phone to check for TextShips updates and to download other Windows Mobile products from Catfood Software.
You can get help with Text Ships using by sending me email. Labels: Games, Tools, WindowsMobile
Posted by Rob on 5/25/2009, 1 comments.
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Catfood Follower is a desktop Twitter tool for following new friends that follow you and removing friends that don't follow you back. Follower supports Windows XP and Vista.
Download Catfood Follower
Why auto-follow?
I have multiple twitter accounts. My personal account (@abfo) doesn't auto-follow. If you look interesting and not obviously spammy then I'll probably follow you back. Catfood Software (@CatfoodSoftware) will follow you backup using Catfood Follower. I've no idea if followers are Catfood customers or not so I want to follow everyone that signs up for Catfood updates.
Why auto-remove?
Twitter makes it hard to tell when someone you're following removes you. The auto-remove feature of Follower checks for friends who don't follow back and removes them. You can exclude users who you want to follow regardless.
How to use Catfood Follower
Follower supports multiple twitter accounts. For each account you can decide if you want to auto-follow, auto-remove or both. The screenshot above shows the settings for a single account.
You can add exclusions for both auto-follow and auto-remove. For auto-remove you can also set how many days to wait before removing a friend who is no longer following you. This prevents Follower from automatically removing new friends who haven't had a chance to follow you back yet.
Once you've entered rules for each account click the Test button on the main window. You can run the rules in test mode to see who would get followed and removed, or run in live mode to actually process the rules.
You can just run Follower manually when you want to run the rules, or you can use Task Scheduler to run it automatically. To schedule Follower (on Vista) run Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Task Scheduler. Click Create a Basic Task and follow the Wizard to set the schedule (i.e. once a day). If you accepted the defaults during installation then the path to Follower is "C:\Program Files\Catfood Software\Catfood Follower\Follower.exe". Running Follower with no arguments will automatically process the rules that you entered in Catfood Follower Settings. There is no display when Follower is running automatically.
Need Help?
If you have any problems or questions send me an email. If you have any feature suggestions please leave a comment below.
(Updated 2009-05-04 to 1.00.0108: Fixed a problem where new exceptions for an account were not processed, this led to Follower auto-removing exceptions. Also, the installer is now digitally signed.)
(Updated 2009-06-25 to 1.00.0122: Handle a twitter API bug with returning the correct number of friends/followers per page this is a critical update, added logging.)
(Updated 2009-07-21: Note that Follower does not follow new users for you. If you're looking to do this check out Twiogle Twitter Friend Adder.) Labels: Tools, Twitter
Posted by Rob on 4/12/2009, 27 comments.
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This screensaver shows the twitter public timeline, posting a new tweet every three seconds. I wrote it while experimenting with the twitter API and I love watching the deluge of random thoughts.
Download CatfoodTwitterScreensaver.exe. Once downloaded right-click the file and choose Install (Now packaged in an installer so just run / double-click to install the screensaver).
The screensaver requires that .NET 2.0 is installed. You probably have this but it you see an error when you try to run the screensaver you might need to install it. (.NET now automatically installed if needed)
If you don't see any updates (just a blue screen) make sure that your firewall is configured to allow TwitterPublicTimeline.scr to access the Internet.
If you have any problems get in touch here. Please leave a comment on this post for any feature requests. Also, if you like the screensaver please follow @CatfoodSoftware.
(Updated 2009-02-25 to 1.00.0080: Improved tweet display and support systems with multiple monitors.)
(2009-04-22: Profile pictures aren't displaying correctly at the moment - you just get the default twitter image. This is a known issue with the Twitter API. As soon as the Twitter bug is fixed the screensaver should start displaying the right pictures again.)
(Updated 2009-05-08 to 1.10.0138: You can now add your own account (or accounts) to follow as well as the public timeline. Colors are also now configurable. I've added an installer so just download and run to get started.) Labels: Tools, Twitter
Posted by Rob on 2/01/2009, 6 comments.
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I've created gadgets inspired by several Catfood Software products. All of these gadgets can be added to iGoogle or Google Desktop, World Webcams is also compatible with the Vista Sidebar. If you can't see the gadgets in the post see the Google listing for World Webcams, Desktate and Life.
World Webcams
World Webcams rotates between 200 of the streaming webcams in the WebCamSaver directory. You can click the description for any webcam to jump to the page that allows you to control the camera.
 | Add to Vista Sidebar
Desktate
The gadget version of Catfood Desktate. Shows the current extent of day and night together with local sunrise/sunset times for any longitude and latitude.
Life
Life is a JavaScript implementation of Conway's Game of Life. It starts with a random population which you can then alter by clicking on the gadget to flip individual cells between being dead and alive. You can also download a screensaver version of Life.
Labels: Tools
Posted by Rob on 1/31/2009, 0 comments.
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Auto Avatar is a Skype Plugin that sets your Skype Picture (avatar or profile picture) automatically from a webcam whenever your status changes in Skype.
When the plugin is installed and running you'll see an icon like this in the tray area of your taskbar:
You can change your picture by double-clicking the Auto Avatar icon. To configure Auto Avatar right-click the icon and choose Settings. You can pick which video device to use to take snapshots and also control when your picture will be taken automatically (when Auto Avatar starts and/or whenever your status changes in Skype).
Be aware that your Skype status can sometimes change unpredictably and Auto Avatar isn't smart enough to know if it's taking an inappropriate picture.
If you have Skype installed then download the plugin installer (1.05 MB, supports Windows XP and Windows Vista). The download is a 7 day trial after which the full version costs just $1.
For Auto Avatar support send us a message using the Contact Us page.
(Updated 2009-02-06: version 1.10 - corrected a bug that caused Auto Avatar to fail to disconnect from the webcam if the Skype avatar update failed.)
(Updated 2009-02-20: version 1.10.0012 - added a missing DLL to the installer.) Labels: Skype, Tools
Posted by Rob on 12/29/2008, 2 comments.
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Tracker is a GPS tracking tool for Windows Mobile. You'll need to install the .NET Compact Framework 2.0 SP2 if your device doesn't already have it.
Tracker writes a track log to your My Documents folder while it's running. When you exit Tracker it will generate a Google Earth KML file and some statistics (distance, time taken, total elevation gain and average speed). Both the track log and KML file are saved with the current date in the file name. Tracker will prevent your device from powering off while it's running, so you can just kick if off and then lock your phone while it's running.
You can open the KML file in Google Earth, or upload the KML file and use it in Google Maps (see these instructions). The map below is a walk around Crissy Field in San Francisco that I logged earlier today using Catfood Tracker:
(Updated 2009-01-26: Tracker now has a menu to start and end tracks. This solves a problem reported on SmartPhone editions and means that you can log multiple tracks without restarting the app. Also, if you have any problems with Tracker you can get in touch here.)
(Updated 2009-02-23 to version 1.20.0008: Tracker will now start a log if your GPS doesn't report altitude (this doesn't affect the Google Earth KML). Tracker also now supports phones with regional settings that don't use a full stop for the decimal symbol.)
(Updated 2009-05-02: If you'd like to know the format of the Tracker log file see the comments on the Catfood Tracker 1.10 post.)
(Updated 2009-09-07 to version 1.30.0025: Tracker now includes options to configure the sample interval, switch off the GPS between samples and log altitude data to the KML file. Read more at Catfood Tracker 1.30. Download above or at http://www.catfood.net/m/.)
(Updated 2009-10-09 to version 1.31.0003: Fixed a problem that caused some devices to fail to receive samples from the GPS.) Labels: Tools, WindowsMobile
Posted by Rob on 12/27/2008, 41 comments.
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I've been trying to cut back on the amount of power we use at home. This is partly virtuous, but mainly because I've started tracking power consumption vs. generation for our solar panels (even though it's December I want to try and have a day of net generation, you can see my progress on this chart).
I bought a couple of smart strips and now have both main computers set to switch all their peripherals off when they go to sleep. This goes from 250-300 watts to 1-2 watts - very cool.
There was a problem though. I run all sorts of overnight processing - backing up databases, processing web stats, updating the webcam list for WebCamSaver - and the computer kept going to sleep in the middle of it.
Task scheduler lets you wake your computer to run a task, but there doesn't seem to be an option to stop it sleeping until the task has finished. I hunted around for a while, but it seemed like one of those times when it's just faster to write something.
Nosleep (source) is a command line tool that disables sleep or hibernate, runs a batch file or program and then enables sleep or hibernate again. It will run on any recent version of Windows - I use it from task scheduler to launch my monster batch file of overnight tasks.
It's a simple little app - it just calls SetThreadExecutionState() before and after launching the target batch file. The trick with SetThreadExecutionState is that the new state doesn't take the first time you call the function. Calling it twice has the desired effect. Labels: Tools
Posted by Rob on 12/07/2008, 4 comments.
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