Military Unit Reference

Although I'm interested in military history, I've never memorized the military unit designations and symbology used in recounting military actions. So I went looking for a reference page to find one. Once again, Wikipedia to the rescue. I know some people look down at Wikipedia as a source of information since it isn't often authoritative. But in this case, it's a nice reference for what I need. So here's my reference link for military formation info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_unit#Units.2C_Formations_.26_Commands

A more detailed written description can be found at http://www.cfr.org/publication/11819/

Military Unit Reference

Although I'm interested in military history, I've never memorized the military unit designations and symbology used in recounting military actions. So I went looking for a reference page to find one. Once again, Wikipedia to the rescue. I know some people look down at Wikipedia as a source of information since it isn't often authoritative. But in this case, it's a nice reference for what I need. So here's my reference link for military formation info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_unit#Units.2C_Formations_.26_Commands

A more detailed written description can be found at http://www.cfr.org/publication/11819/

DOS is dead, but the games aren't!

Since I've been a gamer for long time, I got involved with computer games eons ago way back in my Commodore 64 days. I also still have fond memories of some of the old DOS games I used to play. In fact, I still have some of my old DOS games. They've been kept more for sentimental reasons than anything else. But hey, if ya got 'em, play 'em!

I'm still cruising with XP on my rig, so some games will run ok just by tweaking with the compatibility mode settings for the exe and using the setting for Windows 95. But not all DOS apps cooperate with compatibility mode. In these cases, you need something to provide an encapsulated DOS mode to keep the old boy happy. Two applications are big helpers for this:

• DosBox - Available at www.dosbox.com, it provides a DOS emulation container that lets you run many DOS games. It provides a windowed command prompt, but also can provide a point-and-click launch environment when combined with:
• DOSShell - a DOS application launch front-end for DosBox. It can be downloaded from Loonies software at http://www.loonies.narod.ru/dosshell.htm
• A full collection of utilities for getting the most out of a DOS game in Windows can be found at the Abandonia website at http://www.abandonia.com/en/node/23027

One of my favorite DOS applications that would stubbornly resist attempts to run on WinXP was called Pinball Illusions (a review can be found here). It was a collection of great standalone pinball games. It included themed audio tracks, which were some of the best I've encountered. Especially cool was the background music for the Viking pinball machine.

Check out this You-Tube video of the Party Land pinball machine...

Over the upcoming holiday break, I plan on messing around with the above tools to see if I can resurrect Pinball Fantasies and get it to run on my current machine. It would be a nice (and free) Christmas present to give myself.....

DOS is dead, but the games aren't!

Since I've been a gamer for long time, I got involved with computer games eons ago way back in my Commodore 64 days. I also still have fond memories of some of the old DOS games I used to play. In fact, I still have some of my old DOS games. They've been kept more for sentimental reasons than anything else. But hey, if ya got 'em, play 'em!

I'm still cruising with XP on my rig, so some games will run ok just by tweaking with the compatibility mode settings for the exe and using the setting for Windows 95. But not all DOS apps cooperate with compatibility mode. In these cases, you need something to provide an encapsulated DOS mode to keep the old boy happy. Two applications are big helpers for this:

• DosBox - Available at www.dosbox.com, it provides a DOS emulation container that lets you run many DOS games. It provides a windowed command prompt, but also can provide a point-and-click launch environment when combined with:
• DOSShell - a DOS application launch front-end for DosBox. It can be downloaded from Loonies software at http://www.loonies.narod.ru/dosshell.htm
• A full collection of utilities for getting the most out of a DOS game in Windows can be found at the Abandonia website at http://www.abandonia.com/en/node/23027

One of my favorite DOS applications that would stubbornly resist attempts to run on WinXP was called Pinball Illusions (a review can be found here). It was a collection of great standalone pinball games. It included themed audio tracks, which were some of the best I've encountered. Especially cool was the background music for the Viking pinball machine.

Check out this You-Tube video of the Party Land pinball machine...

Over the upcoming holiday break, I plan on messing around with the above tools to see if I can resurrect Pinball Fantasies and get it to run on my current machine. It would be a nice (and free) Christmas present to give myself.....

After Action Report Tools

One of the things I wanted to do on this blog is to create After Action Reports for some of my wargaming sessions. To do this, I needed to find a screen capture utility that will let me screenshot the game situation at various points. Ideally, I would like a tool that also lets me put arrows and other images on the screen capture. At work, we use Snag-It, which is an awesome tool and does everything I need. Unfortunately, it costs $49.95 a copy, which is more than I'm willing to spend just for screenshots and arrows.

A couple of free screenshot utilities are:

• MWSnap
• King Kong C apture
• Screen Hunter
• An extensive list of other utilities can be found here.
  

None of the above capture utilities provides captured image editing geared toward how I want it to work.

A interesting tool that supports creation of military maps with symbology is MILSketch. It supports drawing arrows on the image maps, and includes a host of military symbols. It's also free and looks to be the tool that I have been looking for. MILSketch is not an screenshot tool, so it looks like I would need a combination of MILSketch and one of the above screenhot tools to achieve the desired effects. I plan on downloading and trying out the tools in the near future and will post an evaluation...

After Action Report Tools

One of the things I wanted to do on this blog is to create After Action Reports for some of my wargaming sessions. To do this, I needed to find a screen capture utility that will let me screenshot the game situation at various points. Ideally, I would like a tool that also lets me put arrows and other images on the screen capture. At work, we use Snag-It, which is an awesome tool and does everything I need. Unfortunately, it costs $49.95 a copy, which is more than I'm willing to spend just for screenshots and arrows.

A couple of free screenshot utilities are:

• MWSnap
• King Kong C apture
• Screen Hunter
• An extensive list of other utilities can be found here.
  

None of the above capture utilities provides captured image editing geared toward how I want it to work.

A interesting tool that supports creation of military maps with symbology is MILSketch. It supports drawing arrows on the image maps, and includes a host of military symbols. It's also free and looks to be the tool that I have been looking for. MILSketch is not an screenshot tool, so it looks like I would need a combination of MILSketch and one of the above screenhot tools to achieve the desired effects. I plan on downloading and trying out the tools in the near future and will post an evaluation...

Nature Wallpapers

I love nature. I spent summers in my youth camping in northern Minnesota and Canada, and it gave me a special appreciation for wilderness. I've always wanted to return to some of the areas I visited, but that's the subject for a future blog post.

One of the ways I keep thoughts of nature fresh in my mind is by using nature backgrounds on my Windows desktop wallpaper. I had a really nice grassy field wallpaper, but it was lost when my work computer had to be re-imaged. So I recently went about searching for some new ones, and bumped into a site called WallPaperDave.com. It has a great set of free nature backgrounds.

I've already grabbed a couple and have set them as my desktop background. Nice shots by a guy with a great name....