Engine Updates

Naraku 1.4 (UCI)
Win32
- 80-90 elo points better than Naraku 1.31 (estimated)
- tuned a lot of parameters
- better positional evaluation, more like a human game
- better endgame evaluation
- bitboard rewritten and much more efficient, similar to the engines of the ippolit series or gull
- some moves inserted into the engine as lookup tables, a sort of small book inside the engine. Currently it not give an advantage in terms of elo (it's only a test), but I am convinced that in next versions there will be a considerable improvement
- more efficient time management
- rewritten input / output interface
- deep razoring REMOVED; it gave a lot of problem in long time matches
- difficulty levels: currently you can set from 850 to about 2500 elo in a chess interface that support UCI_EloLimit command (like Arena); the difficulty levels have yet to to be tuned
- rating: 2800-2850 elo points
http://www.miroku79.info/blog/?page_id=88

Chess News

LittleBlitzer 2.7 (UCI)
Windows tournament manager program for UCI chess engines at fast time controls by Nathan Thom
- added option to output full PGN of games; testing shows no measurable slowdown
- can read starting positions from PGN files
http://kimiensoftware.com/littlethought/littleblitzer.php

Norm Pollock site
PGN & EPD Utility Suites and Opening Book PGN Databases
- updated programs: cleanUp, tagFix, tagRemove
- removed: OpPosSte
- old GrandO.pgn and GrandP.pgn combined into new GrandO-P.pgn
- new EPD program: epdSort - sorts the lines of an epd file
http://www.hoflink.com/~npollock/chess.html

Scid On The Go 1.09 for Android
Scid database browser ported to the Android by Gerhard Kalab
http://code.google.com/p/scidonthego/

Down/Problem Chess Websites

Bearded homepage down for 42 days
Brutus homepage down for 41 days
ChessPad homepage down today (no response in 60 seconds)
Damas homepage down today (no response in 60 seconds)
Frenzee homepage down for 217 days (webpage down until new engine release)
Sorgenkind homepage down for 83 days
Typhoon homepage down for 9 days (no response in 60 seconds)
Usurper homepage down for 82 days (no response in 60 seconds)

Wiki Changes
Nothing new today

Bonus Notifications (recent releases of free stuff)

Warnings:

- do not install unwanted toolbars, etc.
- alpha releases have new features; crashes and bugs are to be expected
- beta releases have new features; they may contain bugs or crash
- release candidate software may contain minor bugs; crashes are rare

CCleaner 3.05
free registry and file optimization/privacy/cleaning tool; thorough and effective: recommended
http://www.ccleaner.com/
http://www.piriform.com/blog/2011/3/24/ccleaner-v305 (announcement)

Foxit Reader 4.3.1.0323
free pdf viewer; faster render than Adobe, less bloat; recommended
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/

Groovy++ 0.4.180
open source jvm language; it appears to be a superset of the Java language
this is an extension to the standard Groovy jvm language; it supports better runtime efficiency using static typing
http://code.google.com/p/groovypptest/downloads/list

Sandboxie 3.54
free utility (nagware) or nag-free shareware: run/install programs in a safe sandbox
that cannot affect your Windows stability/security
http://www.sandboxie.com/

System Explorer 2.7.6
free; detailed info about tasks, processes, modules, startups, IE addons, uninstallers, windows, services, drivers,
connections and opened files; graphs monitor usage of system resources in real-time
http://www.systemexplorer.net/

Meaning of Colors

Red = New or Warning
Green = Updated
Gray = Info Only

Engine List: http://computer-chess.org/doku.php?id=computer_chess:wiki:lists:chess_engine_list
Chess News: http://computer-chess.org/doku.php?id=computer_chess:wiki:lists:chess_news_list

NOTE: If you want me to track a website for you, please email me and I will add it.
ron _at_ computer-chess _dot_ org