HKvalhe's AmigaOne 500 Blog: Modernizing My System ;)

My AmigaOS 4.1.6 Butwork Blue Beach Theme!

Greeting everybody, and sorry for the delay, as i have been ill for 2 months, and now finally at last recovering and back to work.

My AmigaOS 4.1.6 system has undergone quite a number of updates to system components, as well as some programs. RunInUAE - the Amiga emulator was just recently updated to latest version 1.7! All done by AmiUpdate itself! As known to most, AmiUpdate is now officially supported by AmigaOS4, beginning with Update 6, as Hyperion Entertainment have prepared a whole new server where system components can be updated! This helps users being able to update components and AmigaOS4 programs without having to wait for major updates. We can expect to see a lot of coming updates yet!

The officially supported AmiUpdate!

As you can see from the screenshots, i have managed to find a very beautiful theme, called Butwork Blue AmiTheme from a site where several beautiful AmiThemes are found!

Using this theme, i find it to be a perfect match for my AmigaOS 4.1.6!

Not only that. I have also greatly improved the visual look of MUI through its' colour palette, making the look metallic and realistic, especially the buttons. Now even MUI-OWBs' bookmarks look much more stylish, and if i can say, a lot more professional!

AmiUpdate Prefs scanning automatically!

One of the first updates for the new year that is 2013 was to the mailer YAM, which was updated to version 2.8, along with update to a couple of MUI classes and libraries. Just click for YAM's preference on the Config button, and check for Updates by clicking its' button. Very easy!

YAM now also looks much more stylish after dramatically improving the visual look with MUI, as mentioned earlier in the blog. In addition, i have also managed to make the newest mails appear on top by date, then the older ones appear below the newest ones, making them easier to discover by date.

A modern YAM showing newest mails on top!

About 2 days ago a unique tool was released on OS4Depot, along with updated SysMon, VideoClipper and AmiSystemRestore among the things. This tool was called AttachMail, which i also installed.

AttachMail adds a feature to the Context Menu. Something its' Installer allows for the user. There is 2 versions of AttachMail. One for YAM and the other for SimpleMail.

As i use YAM, i picked the AttachYAM tool and got it installed. When clicking a file by holding right mouse button, the Context Menu appears showing AttachMail and opens the mailer where you attach files for a mail. Very useful and very fast way to do it! This is quite a handy tool to have in the system! FastCompressors (as i also have) also have the same Context Menu feature by right-mouse-button-clicking a file or drawer for compression. As a previous mistake, i had 4 of these Compressor feature in the Context Menu. By checking its' config, i realized the feature was written 4 times, so i reduced it to mention only one Compression setup as supposed to for the Context Menu and saved it.

Attahing files in YAM with AttachYAM!

Anybody remember i used to have AmiSystemRestore installed in my system? That was before Update 6 and the program didn't work so well, as it was causing an error during startup, which forced me to ditch it.

However, version R1 Beta 6 of AmiSystemRestore has recently been installed into my heavily modernized AmigaOS 4.1 Update 6 system on my AmigaOne 500 (SAM460ex) system!

What has changed in the new version of AmiSystemRestore? Well, the new version is done with Update 6 in mind, working closely with AmiUpdate. When AmiUpdate installs updates, restore points are automatically made with this latest AmiSystemRestore, which at last doesn't cause error during every startup!

AmiSystemRestore is bugfree in Update 6!

AmiSystemRestore is really useful when it works as supposed to, as it now does on my AmigaOS 4.1.6 system. It's easy to create your own restore points, and you can restore back to a previous point when something wrong has happened during an installation, for instance. Just like you have been used to in Windows and other modern OSes!

AmiSystemRestore avoids empty points!

ClipDown and VideoClipper are 2 other programs i found on OS4Depot and installed into my SYS:Utilities. ClipDown was quite tricky to set up, so i asked a friend of mine to help me as several configurations were difficult to do alone. What is ClipDown, you might wonder.

ClipDown is a tool which allows you to download video files from sites like YouTube and many others, in the format you choose, which can be MP4, AVI, HD, Divxx and many others.

VideoClipper is another flexible program that has been installed in SYS:Utilities. It needs rxMUI (Arexx tools for MUI) to fully work. This program allows you to edit your video files to appear compressed, faster and in the video format you wish. That's how i understand the program to do. Version 1.1 was recently released, so i updated to that version which works very well under AmigaOS 4.1 Update 6!

VideoClipper v1.1 on AmigaOS 4.1.6!

SysMon is another very useful, but powerful tool with several features! SysMon has also been updated to latest version with Update 6 in mind. A feature that is now included for the new version is IdeTool, which checks your harddrives and help you choose the fastest PIO og UDMA mode for your harddrives! Mine is set to the fastest possible UDMA mode available!

SysMon can also prepare a benchmark of your Amiga system and compare it with other systems used in SysMon for fun.

Another feature i really like with SysMon is that when a program crashes and can't close itself (before causing an eventual, total freeze of the system), SysMon can actually quit the crashed program easily, and still prevent your system to be freezed! How lovely isn't that?!

Latest SysMon supports Update 6!

Do you remember SnoopDos? This utility still works well under Update 6. Don't use it much, but still handy when checking for problems, even that SysMon has taken over most of the functions from the old SnoopDos.

Oh yes, almost forgot! The Mixer utility has also been updated, and it was automatically detecting my SM502 AHI settings for my onboard audio chip in my AmigaOne 500! It works very well! Placed in AmiDock!

Man, do you have any idea how full my SYS partition now is? Nearly 11%! Quite a number of important tools installed into SYS, except for net based applications, of course! They are installed into Work:Internett, where i store browsers, mailer and such.

SysMon now features IdeTool checking HDDs!

It's lovely to have such a powerful, huge collection in my AmigaOS 4.1.6, and still be waiting for the Warp3D and updated RadeonHD driver, which should both appear soon! Shouldn't be long now.

Libre Office for AmigaOS4 is making an excellent progress already, despite it being a long term project. Once completed, we should finally have a very professional, modern office bundle to use in our Amiga systems!

The wait will truly be worth it! We are going into a very exciting time in 2013! This is just the beginning!

Warp3D for RadeonHD near completion!

2013 is undoubtly going to be a really amazing year for the Amiga, as much impressive stuffs are going to happen!

Libre Office for AmigaOS4 is coming!

My SYS partition being nearly 11% full!

Now that most of my SYS partition has been updated, modernized and filled with plenty of powerful tools, it was time to look at other programs i have installed in my system, such as WordNet and RunInUAE, which were both updated to the latest version.

As the Flite speech synthezier has been updated by AmiUpdate recently for a few weeks ago, a new version of WordNet was released, so i updated to the latest version of WordNet as well. It allows you to type in words you want spelled with the new speech synthezier. WordNet is also part of the multi-tool Jack, which also uses the latest version. It's a very smart program to have!

Before we look into the new version of RunInUAE, i will show you some other programs that have been modernized through some fine tuning in configuration.

Copying bookmarks from browser to another!

Frying Pan is a MUI based program that allows you to burn CD and DVD in a very easy, flexible way. It looks great with the modern-looking MUI, and works great under AmigaOS 4.1 Update 6!

Other than that, i have of course modernized the look of MUI-OWB, as you can especially see on the bookmark buttons seen below.

MUI-OWB with modern look!

In TimberWolf i will show you a site called IMO Messenger. Here you register yourself an account to use.

When loggin in, you enter a big chat site which allows you to add connection to MSN, Facebook, Skype, Yahoo, AIM, IQO, Steam and more!

Take a look on the screenshot and see how useful this site is on TimberWolf for AmigaOS4!

IMO Messenger Chat in TimberWolf!

TimberWolf looks very good with the ButWork Blue AmiTheme seen here!

eGame Launcher is another great tool where you can start any game you like! This one has been updated to latest version! eGame just gets better and better! To make full use of it, you have to pay a donation to get a key, which allows you to put in an unlimited number of games in it!

Soon i am going to donate money for both eGame Launcher and AmiSystemRestore! Donating money, even small sum, helps the developers being inspired to continue their work on projects.

As AmiUpdate recently updated RunInUAE to the latest 1.7 version, we are going to take a close look on what can be done with this brilliant Classic Amiga Emulator (known as E-UAE). A PPC JIT Compiler is in the work and making excellent progress! Slow, but steady progress. Once this is completed, we can get a huge increasement in term of speed and power! So keep your eyes open!

Latest eGame Launcher running BlobWars!

RunInUAE now allows you to run it in window mode, so i just set it up to run it in window mode by right-clicking the mouse button to reveal a menu with number of choices to do! Extremely useful and easy!

Just recently, Hyperion Entertainment formed an alliance with the old, famous Cinemaware to bring registered users to download ALL classic Cinemaware games to AmigaOS4 to run in RunInUAE! Cinemaware are also working on HD-version for their games! The future looks very promising!

RunInUAE running SQ3 in window mode!

If you have a Cateweasel joystic adapter and set up its' driver, then you can experience a truly nostalgic gameplay with many games! Or you can buy a CD32-like USB joypad and connect it directly to your modern Amiga hardware for true gameplay!

The latest RunInUAE can also be configured through its' menu to bypass the classic Workbench to load the games faster. Since gaming is what i use RunInUAE for, then the classic Workbench is not needed to be present, but bypassed instead.

RunInUAE running KQ5 in window mode!

Another thing i have done is to do some small configuration to OctaMED SoundStudio v1.0.3c, by unticking the use for ReqTools. I discovered that having this ticked, gave OMSS some GrimReaper messages. Having it unticked removed this problem, as it would seem. So what more?

It was time to make new music, so i did just that. The first new song done this month is "If I Had You". It is to be a 7-channel Pop-Rock ballad once completed! The song already sounds beautiful! Look at screenshot below!

Composing "If I Had You" in OMSS v1.0.3c!

Last, but not least, i have improved the look of AmiCygnix programs, both the standalone ones and in the main AmiCygnix itself. The visual look is very QT like, so take a closer look.

AbiWord has been updated to the latest version, and in this new version, Gnumeric is not needed anymore, as you can open Gnumeric Spreadshets directly into AbiWord! In addition, you can spesify what graphic editor to edit images in AbiWord with! I chose the standalone version of GIMP. When putting an image into the text box, you right-click the image to choose the menu "Edit image with Standalone Gimp", then VOILA! Gimp appears in AbiWord to help you edit the chosen image! Now AbiWord has become smart!

AbiWord now features Gnumeric spreadshets!

Suppose this concludes the blog for now! I'm very happy and very proud how beautiful, fast, stable and so modern my AmigaOS 4.1.6 system on my AmigaOne 500 has become! I have had my AmigaOne 500 for 6 months already, and it hasn't failed me once! Extremely reliable! Now i'm waiting for Warp3D, updated RadeonHD driver and Libre Office to appear!

Enjoy the blog and the pictures!