You may or may not be aware but Adobe released a new font a couple of days ago. Who cares right, you are not a graphics designer, you sling code for a living. Well you should care about this font. Adobe has released a font that has been optimized for coding. And I am here to tell you it is a beautiful font.

I have been a huge fan on Consolas ever since it was released by Microsoft. And I was excited to see a new alternative font from Adobe. And to make it even more interesting, Source Code Pro is open source font on GitHub and they are accepting pull requests for it. In other words, it can only get better from here.

Given that I am always looking for the perfect coding environment, I decided to install Source Code Pro, and set it up in Visual Studio. To get started you need to do the following:

1. Download the latest release from their GitHub page.
2. Extract the fonts to a folder.
3. Navigate to the folder that contains the Source Code Pro fonts.
4. Select the fonts. (I selected all the ones with .ttf to install)
5. Right-click the selected fonts and choose “Install.”
6. The fonts are now installed and will appear in the font menus of your applications.
7. Open Visual Studio.
8. Go to Tools > Options > Fonts and Colors.
9. Change the Font to Source Code Pro in the drop down.
10. Restart Visual Studio.
11. Now you are ready to start using Source Code Pro.

Here are examples of Consolas (on the top) side-by-side with Source Code Pro (on the bottom).

You can click on each image and open them up in new tabs in your browser, and switch back and forth to see the subtle changes between the two. It should also be noted that Consolas is running at 10 pt and Source Code Pro is running at 9 pt, which seem to produce the same size characters on my machine.

I am actually really digging the Source Code Pro font, and I am looking forward to updates when they are released. And if you know anything about creating fonts, please help out and contribute. Personally I enjoy looking through the source on GitHub and learning about how fonts are constructed.

Do you hate having to go to umpteen sites just to download your essential software to get your computer running?
Do you hate then having to again go to umpteen sites again to check for software updates, and then downloading and installing them?

Well I have the answer for you, it is call the Google Pack. Not only does the Google Pack include a wealth of Google software it also includes many non-Google software titles such as, Skype, RealPlayer, Adobe Reader, Norton AntiVirus 2005 SE, Ad-Aware SE Personal, Mozilla Firefox, and all the software is downloaded and installed according to your preferences. And as an added bonus there is a service that runs in the background called Google Updater and it will keep all of the supported installed programs updated to their latest and greatest version. See image to the right for a screen shot of Google Updater.

So if you would like to check out the Google Pack just click the button below:

The following wealth of programs is one of the main reasons I recommend it along with Firefox on the left side of my site.

List of Software in Google Pack

• Google Earth
• Google Desktop
• Picasa
• Google Pack Screensaver
• Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer
• Mozilla Firefox with Google Toolbar
• Norton AntiVirus 2005 Special Edition
• Ad-Aware SE Personal
• Adobe Reader
• Google Talk
• Google Video Player
• RealPlayer
• GalleryPlayerHD Images
• Skype

Well its offical Apple iTunes 7.1 was just recently released. This is the quote from the Apple Site on the release:

About iTunes 7.1 for Windows
iTunes is the world’s best way to organize and enjoy your personal digital music and video collection with your Mac. iTunes is also the easiest way to sync music, videos, and more with your iPod.With iTunes, easily create a digital music and video collection by importing your personal music CDs or downloading your favorite songs and videos from the iTunes Store. Create your own playlists, perfect for any mood or occasion. Burn playlists to CDs and play them on your home stereo, or sync iPod with iTunes and enjoy your collection in your car or on the go.

What’s New in this Version
Using iTunes 7.1, you can now enjoy your favorite iTunes movies, TV shows, music, and more from the comfort of your living room with Apple TV. iTunes 7.1 also supports a new full screen Cover Flow and improved sorting options to let you decide how iTunes should sort your favorite artists, albums, and songs.

You may remember my previous article talking about how to install iTunes 7.0.x on Windows Vista x64. Well I am getting ready to install iTunes 7.1 on my machine and will provide an update on the progress. Hopefully Apple has done a good job at getting iTunes to work with Windows Vista x64.

Update: (8:00 am) I have tried installing Apple iTunes 7.1 on my Windows Vista Ultimate x64 and it failed dismally. Gave me some error that said Apple iTunes installer could not run VBScript for the installer. I don’t really understand why iTunes is using VBScript, because this is moving backwards from every other MSI installer, and this is actually the first program that I have had problems installing since upgrading to Windows Vista back at the end of November 2006. I really have a feeling this has to do with Apple programmers not understand Windows MSI Installer. Why can’t Apple hire Windows Application developers like Microsoft hires Mac Application developers for its Office Suite. I will post another update as soon as I find a solution.

Update: (2:01 pm) Apparently Apple requires you to enabled VB Script which was disabled by Microsoft by default because of potential use by internet worms and trojan viruses. I have created a step-by-step guide to walk users through the process of enabled VB Script and then disabling it after the iTunes install is done. Apparently Apple is not the only vendor having problems with the disabling of the scripting languages in Vista, I have seen reports that Adobe Photoshop CS3 is having trouble installing because JScript is disabled. I am willing to put up with this for now, because it was a good move on Microsoft’s part because of the harm the scripting languages have caused in the past.