Nice Sudoku programs

from wikipedia,
"Sudoku is a logic-based number-placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9×9 grid so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 boxes (also called blocks or regions) contains the digits from 1 to 9 only one time each. "

I have tried quite a few sudoku softwares and found some of them very nice with different features. If you are a Sudoku fan and have some other nice alternates which i forgot to put, then comment it. I will add it to the list.

1) Simple Sudoku : According to author, "Simple Sudoku makes high quality puzzles that are symmetrical, have a single solution, and do not require trial & error to solve. The user can also choose between five levels of complexity - from Easy to Extreme. Each puzzle is generated randomly so there is an almost limitless selection."

And he seem to pretty correct. Works with most of the newspaper Sudokus. Also it gives logical hints incase you are stuck at some point on your today's newspaper Sudoku :). Allows only 9x9 puzzles.


License : Freeware

Homepage : http://www.angusj.com/sudoku/



2) Sadman Software Sudoku : This is another nice Sudoku solver/generator. It caches the puzzles in background so that you get puzzles instantly. Along with logical techniques it also
provides Trial & Error for the diabolic Sudokus. It also currently supports 9x9 grids only.

One of the nice feature of this one is that it has got a OCR image reader. Just copy the sudoku image to clipboard and paste it in the program and it might recognize you. If the puzzle can't be read properly from the image then it shows a dialog to fix the values. As the author says it can't be made to work with every image if the fonts are different. Although i have tested a few puzzles from websudoku and it works flawlessly there.


License : Shareware, 30days Trial

Homepage : http://www.sadmansoftware.com/sudoku/

3) Sudocue : Another Sudoku program made in .NET. It has many more features than the above two programs. Supports 9x9 grids. Some of them are:

• Supports Sudoku variants like Sudoku-X, Windoku and some others
• Sudoku Scrambler
• Very thorough help file for learning sudoku.

For complete list visit their homepage

License : Freeware

Homepage : http://www.sudocue.net/

4) Sudoku Explainer : One of my favourite solver for 9x9 grids. It's written in Java and as the name suggests it explains how to solve sudokus. It shows many different techniques which can be applied to solve problems. Along with the excellent solver it also has a Sudoku generator. Custom size grid not supported.


License : Open Source

Homepage : http://diuf.unifr.ch/people/juillera/Sudoku/Sudoku.html




5) JSudoku : This is program that i mostly use nowadays. It's also written in Java and has loads of features including Sudoku variants, custom grid size, online puzzle fetch from some sites.

License : Freeware

HomePage : http://jcbonsai.free.fr/sudoku/?page_id=216



So make your choice now and dive into the world of Sudoku.

Downloading music from music.pz10.com

There is a famous website for all the music lovers called music.pz10.com. If you have visited it earlier than you might be knowing that it only allows the songs to be downloaded by their premium members. According to them, the songs offered to premium members are of higher bitrate and in mp3 format as compared to those that are streamed in wma format of approx. 64kbps. But the quality of streaming songs is decent enough to hear. Go on and try some...

So you have heard couple of songs and might be wishing to have them downloaded to listen them offline. Is there any method? Yes, Indeed there are few methods!

One method is getting the songs from the temporary folder. But you have to wait for every song to finish playing. So this method is too much time consuming :(

Another method would be to have some software that can catch streaming songs like WM Recorder or google for more options.

I will tell you my method. You will need Firefox(Most of you might be already having it), a download manager for accelerated speeds and better management(Orbit or flashget). Here is step by step method:

1) Open music.pz10.com and open the album page which you want to download. I'll download Kuldeep Manak's "Jogi" .

2) Select the songs you want to download and select "Windows Media" radio button. and click the "Play selected songs".
















3) A new popup window will open. If it doesn't then make sure that it is added to whitelist of the pop up blocker(or NoScript addon).



4) Right Click the media player bar shown above and select "Properties" and Copy the location of the playlist. You may now close the popup window if you want.



5) Paste this link into the download manager and download the playlist.

6) Now open the playlist file you got in notepad and voila!!! you will get the direct link for all the songs that you have selected in the first step.



7) Paste these links directly into your download manager and you will get all the songs right on your hard disk after your download manager completes downloading ;)

8) Optional:
I coded a little utility that will copy the links in the playlist file. Just open Orbit and make sure that "Clipboard Monitoring" is checked and dragdrop the playlist file to the program window.

Download

Enjoy music!

Maths Programming Challenges

Do you love programming and related problems?
Do you love mathematics?
If yes, then visit ProjectEuler to get some interesting math related puzzles. There is no restriction for language or method you use for solving. So good luck and have fun!

Wait

Don't be surprised to see only this post in my blog. I promise i will start updating it soon. Until then ...just chill....