RGdot

Month: June 2010

  • World Cup 2010 Day 4, A Brief Recap

    Holland 2-0 Denmark
    Daniel Agger (og 46′) Dirk Kuyt (85′)

    Holland, as expected, were fluid at times but Denmark, also as expected, held their own. Denmark however lacked the skills shown by their opponents and were undone by the own goal. The Second Dutch goal exemplified at least one case of enthusiasm and work rate difference when after the ball had come off the post Denmark defender Kjaer only walked and watched the ball without any apparent urgency allowing Kuyt to run around him to tap in the rebound and finish off the game.

    Japan 1-0 Cameroon
    Keisuke Honda (39′)

    The match continued the run of early World Cup matches that most have characterized as boring with even some cries of anti-football. Japan, much like their fellow Asian qualifier South Korea, showed stamina and some determination and managed to score through the rising star Keisuke Honda. Cameroon and in particular Eto’o were more alive in the second half and managed some chances, notably hitting the post late on. The overriding conclusion from this game was that Eto’o needs to play a more offensive and direct game if Cameroon are to avoid an early exit.

    Italy 1-1 Paraguay
    Daniele De Rossi (63′) Antolin Alcaraz (39′)

    Marcelo Lippi fielded a slightly more youthful squad than expected, Perhaps the absence due to injury of Pirlo forced the hand of the Italian. Therefore the line-up included Montolivo and Pepe. The Italians dominated territorially for long stretches and the Paraguay goal came off a bounce and against the run of play. Both teams showed some vulnerability to speedy attacks but, despite continued Italian dominance, perhaps the crucial part of the game occurred when the experienced Paraguay goalie, Justo Villar, misjudged the ball from a corner allowing De Rossi to tap in the ball to tie the game. Buffon, the Italian goalie, was substituted at half time for Federico Marchetti and any absence may prove decisive in future matches.

  • World Cup 2010 Day 3, A Brief Recap

    Algeria 0-1 Slovenia
    Robert Koren (79′)

    The first half featured a bevy of giveaways that suggested two nervous and/or weak teams. The second half was slightly better but seemed to be going nowhere. It featured the Algerian Ghezzal being sent off after a second yellow. Just as the earlier feeling of the game ending as a tie was about to materialize Chaouchi let a not too powerful shot go in. He failed to block and the ball almost went through him.

    Serbia 0-1 Ghana
    Asamoah Gyan (pen 84′)

    Ghana missing Essien were intriguing to watch. Both teams showed some tactical ability and were somewhat cancelling each other out. The second half saw more chances. Krasic, Zigic and Jovanovic had acceptable but not great games and on the Ghanaian side Asamoah Gyan was doing well. Another second yellow game incident saw Lukovic out at the 74th minute. And again the game seemed to be heading for a scoreless tie when Kuzmanovic handled the ball needlessly in the box. It resulted in the only goal of the game. Not for the first time Serbia did not help their own cause.

    Germany 4-0 Australia
    Lukas Podolski (8′) Miroslav Klose (26′) Thomas Muller (67′) Cacau (70′)

    The young Germans were their steely selves and at least for this opening game not only kept their nerves but were disciplined and executed well. The Socceroos were poor in dealing with the superiority of the midfield and offense of the Germans and were time and again running to cover raids by Podolski, Muller and Ozil. Tim Cahill was sent off with a straight red in a somewhat questionable call but nevertheless Australia mustered few and far between chances and Neuer, in the German goal, did not have a difficult night.

  • World Cup 2010 Day 2, A Brief Recap

    South Korea 2-0 Greece
    Lee Jung-Soo (7′) Park Ji-Sung (52′)

    Greece started a more adventerous style than recent history and reputation has suggested. Coach Rehhagel’s men though seemed disorganized and unprepared to deal with a hard working and counter attacking South Korea. The likes of Gekas and Karagounis were entirely none factors as Lee Jung-Soo and Park Ji-Sung scored for the Koreans. Cha Du-Ri for example exemplified the better Koreans but they still could fall to a more organized, pressing team.

    Argentina 1 – 0 Nigeria
    Gabriel Heinze (6′)

    Argentina left the likes of Milito and Maxi on the bench in favor of Higuain and Di Maria and also started Veron. Nigeria on the other hand left Martins on the bench. The most notable points from this games were the number of chances Messi missed or was thwarted by the competent goalkeeping of Enyeama. This game was a total write off for Veron who even struggled to complete easy passes. The aforementioned Martins made a difference in Nigeria’s shape and attacking intent with his speed and skill when he came on early in the second half. Argentina remained somewhat disorganized tactically and had the likes of Tevez and Gutierrez to thank for some hard work.

    England 1-1 USA
    Steven Gerrard (4′) Clint Dempsey (40′)

    Heskey remains a mystery favorite of various coaches. In his defense is the ability to open paths and space for his striking partner(s) which in this case was Rooney, of course. After England scored early its lineup was tweaked with a relatively early substitution (Wright-Phillips for Milner) in the 30th minute, presumably Capello either saw something or didn’t like Milner’s early booking. Robert Green continued the English goalkeeping troubles by fumbling the ball and letting it trickle in from the Dempsey shot (does anybody doubt the fact that Green and David James are one and two in the English setup only because of EPL’s money bonanza?). England and indeed the US had many chances or perhaps half chances – by Ronney and Altidore for example – but in the end players like Lampard and Dempsey, for England and the US respectively, needed to be more involved if more goals were to be scored.

  • World Cup 2010 Day 1, A Brief Recap

    South Africa 1-1 Mexico
    Siphiwe Tshabalala (55′) Rafael Marquez (79′)

    Vuvuzelas in full blast Mexico controlled the match early, especially down the wings, but the South Africans soon settled. A Mexico goal was correctly called back for offside. South Africa resisted and showed some good passing – and goalkeeping courtesy of Khune – before Tshabalala scored from a rather tight angle with a fierce shot. Marquez rescued Mexico when the South African defense failed to hold the line. Mexico goalie Perez – along with Mexico’s defense – seemed to struggle often and the South Africans had a few chances, one off the post, to get off to a winning start.

    France 0-0 Uruguay

    France left Malouda on the bench and neither team could create much excitement. Skills of the likes of Ribery or Gourcuff were very rarely in evidence. Discipline was a factor with a few yellow cards that eventually had Uruguay’s Lodeiro sent off for a double yellow for a bad tackle on Sagna. France coach Domenech tried to change the shape of the offense by bringing on Henry, Malouda and Gignac (for Anelka, Diaby and Govou respectively) but with little success.

  • Trix: Freeware Efficiency And Productivity Utility For Windows

    Trix: Freeware Efficiency And Productivity Utility For Windows

    Trix is a lightweight and no-install program that acts much like other hotkey managers. It makes certain task easier and faster. Trix assigns, and lets the user choose, combination of hotkeys for some typical and often-used PC tasks. Combinations of Ctrl, Shift, Win and other letters or keys are assigned to and are configurable for the following tasks:

    • Export copied text to (default) email client, Word, Excel or Notepad. The copied text is automatically inserted into the applications.
    • Open Files, folders, websites or the terminal. In this case it is probably easier to do it the old fashioned way especially since trying to open multiple items at the same time is seemingly not possible.
    • Unzip and zip chosen or highlighted files.
    • Show brief computer specs, quote of the day, a timestamp with the current date and more, or stats on any highlighted text such as the number of characters. All these are shown in tooltip style.
    • Access power management tools such as hibernation, rebooting, or locking the computer.
    • Generate passwords. Encrypt and decrypt copied text. In the latter Trix will prompt for a passkey and allow the encryption level to be chosen and then asks what to do with the encrypted text (copy encrypted text to the clipboard for example).
    • Speak the highlighted text.
    • Control system volume.
    • Convert units of measurement. This works on a highlighted number.
    • Calculate highlighted expression. Here if “44+44” is highlighted the tooltip will show “44+44=88”
    • Generate Lorem Ipsum text.
    • Translate highlighted text, either based on saved settings (one of the last items in Trix’s settings window) or by choosing languages on the fly.
    • Extract email, IP, links or file and folder paths from any copied text.
    • Transform text. Reverse case for example but perhaps most importantly strip formatting.
    • Adjust the focused window to fill the screen or maximize the focused window.
    • Open the system color picker.
    • Launch any one of web searches, from google to iconfinder and more.

    The somewhat confusing nature of Trix is that some of the text tools seem to require a text highlight while in others the text needs to be copied. This along with the fact that to be really productive one must learn the assigned hotkeys makes Trix, or any other hotkey manager for that matter, useful for some and not for others.

  • Notebox Disorganizer Tries To Organize Your Notes

    Notebox Disorganizer Tries To Organize Your Notes

    Late last year Paulo Brabo commented in response to the post on Pigeonhole here on RGdot and recommended I take a look at Notebox Disorganizer. This is a much belated review on the somewhat unusual freeware.

    Notebox Disorganizer uses spreadsheet type cells or note areas to help organize and jot down notes and text. The author explains all the features in a very refreshing and entertaining manner and is the first to admit that the disorganizer part of the program may turn off users who prefer tree type note keepers for example. He also points out that the interface has ended up not following the best of design practices. In short Notebox Disorganizer will probably only work for you after getting used to using it.

    The main portion of the program interface is divided into a note grid and an editor, group of notes are visible in the grid and clicking or highlighting one shows the full note in the editor below it, the editor has few keyboard and mouse controls, for text manipulation for example. These controls like every other feature is explained in detail in the accompanying documentation or on the program’s site. The two drop downs to the right of the grid and editor provide additional tools and navigation options which will be populated depending on the note in use or the feature being accessed. For example in the image above ‘categories’ (from the drop down menu) would be the months of year of the journal on the left. Note that the journal is part of 7 ‘NBTemplates’ that come with the program and provide starting points for its use, other templates (available via File —>Open Notebox and in the NBTemplates folder) include the likes of Companygoals and NonfictionPlanner.

    There are many aspects to this program but a few words on some of it tools and features should prove useful:

    • Outbox (Outbox menu) lets you save notes from different grids together for use on their own as a kind of quick view or move a note into another or elsewhere, as ‘semi-formatted’ text files.
    • Exploded notes provide a similar function as Outbox as in providing a way to use notes to exist outside of Notebox Disorganizer perhaps to be used in another instance of the program, these notes will be tagged with their name and be placed in a folder of the same name.
    • Keywords – in the lower right drop down area – let the user assign keywords to notes.
    • Bookmarks – in the upper right drop down area – allows certain notes to be marked and therefore be easier to find later.

    Notebox Disorganizer needs to be used to discover all of its features and nuances, I confess that I haven’t really discovered or understood the program fully. Once grasped it can prove very usable. It weighs at less than 1MB and is portable.

  • Freeware Nimi Places Provides A New Way To Organize Your Desktop

    Freeware Nimi Places Provides A New Way To Organize Your Desktop

    Nimi Places is described by its author as

    Simple way to organize and keep important folders on desktop

    Nimi Places does things a bit differently, in practice or in theory an empty desktop devoid of any icons would use Nimi Places to assign movable or drag-able regions of it to important or often used folders. In other words Nimi Places creates opaque or transparent areas or windows where the contents of a folder will remain or become visible when needed. Nimi Places is, in a way, creating visual and somewhat workable shortcuts to folders while at the same time keeping the desktop clean.
    After running the program and left clicking the tray icon one can add places by clicking the + sign and choosing folders to create places for. Nimi Places allows most normal file operation inside these ‘places’. Copy and pasting and renaming file to name two. However it seems none of moving or dragging and dropping work or are buggy, indeed a few of the other operations listed on the Nimi Places page are not available or unworkable in the version I downloaded.
    Nimi Places is lightweight and very interesting. At its most basic it does a good job creating a new desktop experience. It is, however missing help or a clear explanation (perhaps there is a pro-version?) and even its “HD streamed video clip” – available on the home page linked at the beginning of this post – shows features that are not available or not possible to do on an XP machine.

  • World Cup 2010: Five Players 23 And Under To Keep An Eye On

    World Cup 2010: Five Players 23 And Under To Keep An Eye On

    The following five players are 23 (or under) years old. They are not the biggest names in football but are stars at their clubs and are ready to make an impact. Their young careers suggest a big potential to shine at World Cup 2010 in South Africa.

    Marek Hamsik
    Date of birth: 27 July 1987 Country: Slovakia Club: Napoli

    Alexis Sanchez
    19 December 1988 Chile Udinese

    Mesut Ozil
    15 October 1988 Germany Werder Bremen

    Luis Suarez
    24 January 1987 Uruguay Ajax

    Eljero Elia
    13 February 1987 The Netherlands Hamburg