Hi there, reader
It’s been awhile since I posted this, but if you’d like to have a website provider that I’ve been using for this website since 2006, you can use my referral code.
Use this link:
dreamhost.com
or use me as a referrer:
rosicrux@gmail.com
or for a bit of discount use the promo code:
GRUE
Nov 15
If you have iPhone (3GS or newer) or iPad, this demo of Epic technology is stunning running on the IOS platform.
iTunes Link: Epic Citadel
source: http://toucharcade.com/2010/09/01/unreal-engine-3-tech-demo-epic-citadel-available-for-free/
(if you don’t have one of the devices, you can view the video of it below.)
If anything goes wonky, let me know…
Everyone who uses Firefox regularly has a core of extensions that they have grown to use so much as to make them necessary to browsing. One of the most tedious parts of browsing and then posting material is the saving and organizing of large amounts of pictures. I fully use 4 extensions every day for this task, and have several others that I use at least weekly.
One of the most useful of these extensions was Bazzacuda Image Saver. I loved this app because it could detect images in tabs, save them to a predefined folder, and close those tabs, all in one step. Plus it has the separate ability to find the largest image on a page opened in the current tab, and will save that image and close the tab.
Upgrading to new Firefox versions takes a little bit of finding, updating, and re-installing of extensions. For the most part, everything works at least the same as before, but with each new version, we all lose a few extensions that were orphaned by their developers. I lost Bazzacuda when I upgraded to Firefox 3.0. The extension would work every so often, but for the most part gave a very generic error and did nothing. I tried to find other extensions to replace it, hoping that eventually the developer would fix the extension. I was let down on both counts. No other extension (or combination thereof) would replace it, and the developer website is now redirected to something completely unrelated. Despite many comments asking for updates, the developer has been silent on the Mozilla Addons page.
So, a few days ago, I set out to see if it would be a simple change to fix it. I had already overriden the version number to allow it to install, and unpacked the code to take a look. Unfortunately it wasn’t something simple to find, but I eventually found it and fixed the problem and the little cascade of other problems it caused.
So, since it wasn’t something superficial, I am releasing the modified code. I changed the name to be generic, just in case the original developer decides to release more versions of his own program. This updated for Firefox version 3.0.2 extension is called simply Image Saver. Both the original extension and my updated version are under MPL/GPL licensing, so it should be no problem.
I also wish to add-on functionality in the future, such as more folders and more hotkeys. So renaming it now seemed best.
Download it from the Image Saver Project Page.
update 10/9/08: If you are one of the people that downloaded this yesterday, please redownload it and install again. A bug not allowing the default folder location to be saved has been fixed. Eventually I’ll put automatic updates in.
In fact, I am posting from it now.
I was skeptical, and I wasn’t alone in that feeling, but I only had one day to be skeptical because they only announced this thing yesterday! (Kudos for keeping it under wraps).
Google Chrome is a web browser built on WebKit, which powers other well known browsers such as Apple’s safari and KDE’s Konqueror. Google included a cute online comic book to explain the technology here. The gist being that the web browser uses entirely separate processes to load each separate tab. This goes beyond simple multi-threading, and gets into OS territory. They want to do this to eliminate browser hangups from ultiple tasks needing to use the same process. While this can and will usitilize more memory and processor power, it also allows one to regulate it easier, especially memory-wise. Plug-ins (when they appear) will also use separate processes.
The comic gets into computer science territory when they explain how they built their V8 from Webkit. It streamlines object manipulization and pointer calls and other things you can read about there.
I’m impressed. First off at the ease of slipping into it right from Firefox. It handles the same keyboard commands I’m used to, and tabs behave much the same. Two things it does not have that firefox has:
The lack of add-ons will make me only piddle with Chrome when I feel like, not use it for a main browser. For one, I have many that are hard to live without. And two, Firefox is damn snappy without any add-ons, too, so it’s unfair to compare Chrome until it’s got the same capablities as a fully-loaded Firefox browser.
But the technology is impressive, and obviously since everything is open source, we are going to have a flood of add-ons coming very soon.
Aug 26
An eon in modern time ago (a year) I posted a small extrinsic blurb about the upcoming Microsoft technology dubbed Photosynth. I thought the link explained and showed it better than I could, so no need for a further post. But now it is released, and now it deserves the shoutout.
This is a simple “synth”. It was taken by some guy in Austin on his cameraphone. He took a few shots of the 360 bridge (a pretty noticeable landmark), just across the river from where I used to work at Origin. I think this shows the power of Photosynth. First of all, this was easy to find, I just did a Photosynth search for Austin, and it was the first choice. Second this was only a few short photos in a cameraphone. This isn’t the Taj Mahal demo with 400 shots with a $5000 DSLR camera. No, this is normal guy with possibly time on his break from work to snap a few shots through a window and upload them. You can still zoom in on them and skirt all around his view.. and it captures his view amazingly well.
That’s all I have to say, except one more thing, kudos to Microsoft to allowing embed code. Normally that wouldn’t get kudos, because every website on earth has some free embedable content on it nowadays, but kudos for finally coming around. (but an iframe? seriously?)
As the title says, not much more to say. This is a huge update with thousands of changes across the board, both on the frontend and backend… so pretty much a brand new browser. I’ve tested a few of the builds, but a couple of my extensions wouldn’t work with 3 (yet), so I haven’t used it for my main browsing. But I love the auto-bookmark search addition, which was my favorite feature of the Flock browser. Plus it seems alot more snappy, and less memory hogging than Firefox 2.
Mozilla is trying to get a world record for most downloads in a day off the thing. See more at SpreadFirefox.
Disable Bad Behavior in the plugins section of your site’s control panel. Apparently the blacklisting service used for Bad Behavior was giving a false positive to anyone actually using Bad Behavior, so you would be blocked from your own site.
To correct the issue after disabling, update to the newest Bad Behavior.
Nov 21
Get it here. But don’t expect your plugins to work! As with all Firefox betas, it’s recommended to make a separate profile while using it.
Nov 21
Google has changed their news a little, by allowing participants in a story, or those referenced or related to it, to post comments in reference to it.
Here’s the first example I saw.
I’m not sure how they verify people’s identities, but this is a neat idea… they are opening news up to a form of public forum.
Being bored around summertime allows me to toy with the idea of writing snippets of code to help me out. The number one hardest thing about coding and developing is finding an idea… especially an idea that someone hasn’t already done.
I’ve wanted to tackle a Firefox Extension for awhile now, mainly just to know I could do it. So far I’ve only messed with it and had it say text in the taskbar, obviously not too useful.
Today I was fed up with the fact that the only time I get my anti-virus to scan downloads automatically is if I have them go through my download manager. The problem is, so many sites have download redirecting that download managers won’t work. So I need to remember to trigger the anti-virus manually after it is downloaded. So I finally went looking for a Firefox extension to do it for any download.
I went to the add-ons site, and browser around and didn’t see anything. Then I tried the search for “virus” and still nothing. Well, could this be a new project for me? Surely someone has done this before?
And yes, they have, a Google search turned up an old extension called DownloadScan, and further searching revealed SafeDownload.
Automatically scan downloaded files for viruses. You can choose to scan immediately after the file has downloaded or wait until Firefox exits. Works well with NOD32 anti-virus.
This one is simple, you plugin your virus scanner location and any arguments you want in the options. You can actually have up to four things scan your files, so you can run a spyware checker, or whatever, along with your virus scan. One nice feature, as I do indeed use NOD32, is that it shows all the arguments for NOD32 in a popup window, along with their descriptions. I already knew these, but I remember the initial setting up of command-line NOD32 took some learning, and this will definitely help other people.
Jul 20
Reducing the game of checkers into a group of algorithms of movement, computer scientist Jonathan Schaeffer has developed a program called Chinook that he has proven that at the least will draw. Apparently checkers played in a perfect game will always end in a draw.
Forget hoity-toity chess programs, Chinook has long ago ditched any human competition. The work since then was only to find an unbeatable game, and a proof to the algorithm that is the game of checkers. On the Chinook website is a link to the proof for verification. (I started to, but then I realized how much non-fun I had in my discrete math and program verification course, and decided to put it off until never.)
You can also play against the program, in a more dumbed-down version that is difficult, but that won’t always win.
Jun 28
Nintendo announced WiiWare, which allows anyone with some developer moxie to produce games for the Wii.
“Independent developers armed with small budgets and big ideas will be able to get their original games into the marketplace to see if we can find the next smash hit,” said Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime. “WiiWare brings new levels of creativity and value to the ever-growing population of Wii owners.”
Jun 19
I am getting so sick of this thorn-in-the-side, supposed copy-protection program. I really really wish software producers would not be so lazy about copy protection and find a better way rather than schluffing it off to this inept third party program.
In the last few months I have had troubles with Command and Conquer 3 in that you can’t use a Microsoft application called Process Explorer at any time before running it. If you HAVE, it will give you an error when trying to start the game, until you reboot. There is no other way to clear the error except to reboot, and not run the legitimate Microsoft application again.
I would think Microsoft would be pissed off about this. I am pissed off enough for the both of us. I hate having to reboot, especially for this arbitrariness.
This isn’t the only error, I get random other ones from Securom all the time. Either balking at other system utilities I run, or about virtual drives, or network drives, or wearing yellow feathers in a purple cap while dancing a jig.
Now I try to play the demo of Overlord, and I get the same damn message.
Googling Securom and Process Explorer shows that they’ve pissed off thousands of other people.
Please, game producers, I hate to break it to ya, but your games and apps are being copied and played despite Securom. The only thing this program does is piss off people that actually legitimately pay for these games. Even before you release your precious software, the net floods with replacement executables which are stripped of any copy protection you so diligently paid for. Oh, how do I know, you say? Because I have to use these stripped executables TO BE ABLE TO PLAY THE DAMN GAME I PAID FOR WITHOUT JUMPING THROUGH FRICKIN HOOPS!
update: While searching a bit more, I found out that a dutiful member of the Sysinternals forum (the software group that originally made Process Explorer and were bought out by Microsoft) whipped a “hider” program for Process Explorer’s services. I’ll admit I was surprised Process Explorer left a residual driver after running, which is what is detected by Securom. This worked perfectly with the Overlord demo. Thanks, throx!
You are currently browsing the archives for the software category.
