XPP -- XML PreProcessor

XPP 1.0.1708.27390 — Use it to fold repeated units into static pages as a compile-before-upload step for XHTML web pages. See the ReadMe file in the archive for more details.

From the Windows page

PassiveFTP 1.6

PassiveFTP 1.6 — PassiveFTP version 1.6.1701.15662 — when XP SP2 dropped my screen depth from 32-bit to 16-bit off its own bat, all hell broke loose. Fix for the default 16-bit style, maybe all 16-bit and even 24-bit. No 8-bit or less planned.

Texture

A new background texture which is done by Noise + greyscale + invert, followed by blurring and embossing, and then tweaking the brightness and contrast to taste.

PassiveFTP 1.5

PassiveFTP 1.5 — PassiveFTP version 1.5.1667.19669 — minor bug-fix release — this fixes the 11-Jun-04 issue. This turned out to be GDI exhaustion by putting server-side icons in the client icon cache, and thus having to regenerate individual icons for each file on the server, each time the view changed!

Windows page, as usual

I like Metal

Rolled my own textures for the brushed metal look : light and dark brushed aluminium. The brushed metal trick is Noise + greyscale + invert + motion blur; then cut a chunk out the middle.

Fade to Black…

Fade To Black… — version 0.8 — dead simple image manipulation program in Java SDK 1.4. Run using

java -cp fadetoblack.zip com.ravnanadtines.FadeToBlack

(with jre, jrew or javaw instead of java as appropriate), where fadetoblack.zip is the download archive. I used it to do the fade on the top-left masthead image (of the Louvre pyramid, in Paris) on the linked sites.

On the Java page

Glitches -- PassiveFTP and Janus/.Net

With Passive FTP 1.4 I've encountered a number of occasions in live use — but not, alas when running in set-up tests, where it seems that operations on a large server-side directory and shuffling that around by adding or deleting files can cause some sort of fault in the icon rendering.

In Janus.Net 1.1, I have observed that null credentials (empty username and password) will suffice to perform NTLM authentication. A little digging suggests that this is a "feature" of the protocol. Note that IE prevents you giving an empty username+password in the login dialog box by keeping the OK button disabled under those circumstances.