Meet my new best friend

http://peazip.sourceforge.net/

I got a new 3D Mouse today, a 3DConnexion SpaceNavigator, and much to my annoyance, the software disk that came with it was way out of date. Even MORE to my annoyance, the downloaded drivers (both versions available on the company's website ( http://www.3dconnexion.com/ )) wouldn't run. They'd extract a temp file that would run, would claim to extract all kinds of things in preparation to install, and then almost immediately throw up an alert asking to insert the disc containing "layout.bin".

I started poking around the files that DID show up, and noticed a lot of .cab files. Annoyingly, 7-Zip can't open those. Google searching brought me to PeaZip on the second link. Hmmm, Open source, on Sourceforge, I'll risk my hard drive....

Well, the .cab files were password protected, but then I went to the massive 103 meg .exe file that was created by the installer's installer. PeaZip had an option to open the .exe as if it were an archive. Presto! There was the demanded file. I simply extracted the content of the .exe to the same folder, ran the setup file that was in there, and Ta-da! I got an updated installation of the software. Needless to say, I am extremely pleased with PeaZip for solving my very frustrating problem in a very simple and clever way.

Now I have this nifty, and VERY HEAVY puck on my desk that allows me to pan up/down, pan left/right, zoom and tilt, spin, and roll.

Yeah, not every program will work with that, but I have a number of programs that will, like Google Sketchup, Blender, (a demo of Solidworks that may be dead by now), Daz 3D, and of course, Second Life. Gotta try them all now....