Recent Posts

2776

Living Room / Re: Thread for time-wasting flash games.

« Last post by Edvard on May 16, 2006, 10:56 AM »

Try these, I nearly drove myself batty for... well... way too long before giving up. What you're doing is clicking on things to get them to do a rube-goldberg sort of scenario to achieve a goal. If you're nice, I'll tell you how I found the solution...
http://www.foon.co.uk/farcade/hapland/
When that drives you crackers, go to the next one...
http://www.foon.co.uk/farcade/hapland2/
And the insanity continues...
http://www.foon.co.uk/farcade/hapland3/

Oh, by the way, I did say I'd spoil it if you were nice...

Google for Hapland walkthrough

2777

Developer's Corner / Re: Indie Game Devs: Forget It - article

« Last post by Edvard on May 16, 2006, 10:21 AM »

But... what about http://indiegamedev.tucows.com/
and the "Scratchware Manifesto" http://indiegamedev....005/1/14/243722.html

2778

Living Room / Re: Too Funny

« Last post by Edvard on May 15, 2006, 05:08 PM »

Overheard in a computer shop:

Customer: "I'd like a mouse mat, please."
Salesperson: "Certainly sir, we've got a large variety."
Customer: "But will they be compatible with my computer?"

For the victims...
http://support.it-ma...ducts&p=mousemat

2779

General Software Discussion / Re: 7-Zip 4.42 Final now available

« Last post by Edvard on May 15, 2006, 03:11 PM »

Dig around the forums there and you'll find fistfuls of the same. Igor silently toils away cleaning up his code and fixing a bug or two when he can and folks keep slinging the mud at him like no other i've seen. You should have seen the bile spewed over drag-n-drop functionality.  eek! I agree it was a much-missed function, but people were questioning his basic competence as a programmer over it.

2780

Living Room / Re: Thread for time-wasting flash games.

« Last post by Edvard on May 11, 2006, 01:14 PM »

Yeah, it won an award at some 2006 game awards thing... http://www.igf.com/2006entrants.shtml
Dodge That Anvil got an award too...
http://www.rabidlab....o.html?sw=1#dta_demo
and Moleculous...
http://www.gametrust.com/moleculous/

2781

Living Room / Re: Thread for time-wasting flash games.

« Last post by Edvard on May 11, 2006, 12:10 PM »

agh. Global Player. My eyes crossed before I wasted too much time. Reminds me some of Simutrans. Nice game, abandoned development. Here's a low-key but very time-wasting puzzle game: String avoider
http://www.newground...m/portal/view/300760

Avoid colliding with walls and guide your string through each unique level. Time is of the essence as you must steadily travel through 26 levels to victory. Keep your hand steady and move it quickly, hoping your compulsive hand activities will pay off and make you one of the top 50.

I'm not much for violent games, but this one from the same folks was strangely entertaining...
Dad 'n Me
http://www.newground...m/portal/view/254456
Basically you're the purple-costumed child of a purple-costumed super-villain and you beat up kids on the playground. Some of them fight back...

2782

Living Room / Re: XCCR--what's it about?

« Last post by Edvard on May 10, 2006, 01:36 PM »

Keep doing that, it'll eventually react. Although that's all I've got it to do...

2783

Living Room / Re: German, French, and V for Vendetta

« Last post by Edvard on May 10, 2006, 01:34 PM »

OK. Shoot me if this is just too cheeseball, but I watched the original Das Boot with no subtitles. Loved it.

2784

Living Room / Thread for time-wasting flash games.

« Last post by Edvard on May 10, 2006, 12:59 PM »

Since Mouser and others seem to be very good at finding TWFG's, maybe we ought to have a separate thread or even forum heading for them. Here's my addition:
http://www.yarukinok...t/flash/pendulumeca/
To get started, click and hold your mouse button which will send a cable to the roof for Pendulumeca to swing from. Too short, and he doesn't swing far. Too long, and he swings to the spikey floor. When he swings forward a bit, let go the mouse button and Pendulumeca will go flying. gravity will eventually bring him down and you will have to send another cable to continue swinging with. See how far you can swing Pendulumeca. I got 507 meters so far....

2785

Living Room / Re: XCCR--what's it about?

« Last post by Edvard on May 10, 2006, 12:41 PM »

I entered in a few random numbers (that seems to be all it accepts is numbers) and sometimes it will pop up a grid that does nothing and it resets the timer in the upper right hand corner. weird.

2786

Living Room / Re: Is Moffsoft alive?

« Last post by Edvard on May 05, 2006, 01:15 PM »

Two cents coming through...

TabbyCalc
http://www.bradlima....x.php?page=tabbyCalc

With tabbyCalc, you won't need to use the pitiful default windows calculator ever again!  Nor will you have to
endure the awkward interfaces of some other replacement calculators I've seen.  No big buttons or crazy skins,
just a very functional and powerful calculator!

2787

Developer's Corner / Programming Confessions

« Last post by Edvard on May 05, 2006, 12:39 PM »

Something hit me the other day... Due to my early training in Apple Basic, I have a mental disorder that goes like this: whenever I have to use a dollar sign in any computing capacity, whether just typing or as a variable signifier, I mentally say the word "String" when I type it. That's because in Apple Basic, $ meant "string" as in, a string-type variable like a name or a password.

[Select]

10 A$="Hello World"
20 Print A$

(and it took a quantum leap of faith to realize that line numbers were no longer required in modern programming...)
Then it occurred to me that Programming, like any other occupation, has the potential to produce anomalous behavior that would otherwise be potentially embarrassing if it wasn't effective. So I have a question... Anyone have an old programming habit you cannot break? Use your favorite language the "wrong" way? Done a full gui app when a batch file would have done the job better just because you have Visual Studio? Or did you do ever catch yourself doing OOP with Assembly? Let's hear it...

2788

Developer's Corner / Re: Can a program be reverse-engineered?

« Last post by Edvard on May 05, 2006, 12:22 PM »

Google for "decompiler". Shellcity has listed a few here. Debuggers have often been used for such a purpose (SoftIce being a favorite of some crackers I've heard of...) AnalogX has a tool called TextScan that may be useful.

"...AnalogX TextScan searches any binary file for a minimum and maximum string length, and then returns all occurrences in sorted order, but it doesn't just stop there..."

2789

Living Room / Re: Fast Beetle

« Last post by Edvard on May 05, 2006, 11:30 AM »

And how about his wife's scooter? Look out pod racers! Here comes Vespa Sudacide from the star system Calla Forneya!
I also found out a few months ago that VW bought Bugatti and promply put out a screamer: the Veyron 16.4.
16 cylinders 4 turbochargers 1001 horsepower (as if 1000 wasn't quite enough) and electronically governed at 253 mph (254 was just too over the top?). Does 0-60mph in 2 seconds flat and corners like a cheetah. I would kill myself 2 blocks from home with that thing...

2790

Living Room / Fast Beetle

« Last post by Edvard on May 04, 2006, 11:22 AM »

I'm not normally a fast car fan, but I do own a yellow VW New Beetle (I read an article when they first came out calling them "Pods from the planet Dork"...) and this looks like a sweet ride.
http://www.ecm-co.com/jetbeetle/
Teaser screenie:

2791

Living Room / Re: Cool site with videos on how stuff gets made

« Last post by Edvard on May 04, 2006, 11:17 AM »

Dude!! My 8-year old is going to LOVE this!! Great Link!!

2792

Living Room / Re: Do you Suffer from Computer Anger Management - How do you handle it?

« Last post by Edvard on May 04, 2006, 11:14 AM »

I admire your confession, Mouser. I hear that's the first step - admitting you have a problem. 

I would have to agree with Carol. Make a conscious decision to just get up and go do something else for a while, preferably physical. Something you've NEVER done before. Miniature golf, rock climbing (plenty of indoor climbing gyms about these days and they're relatively inexpensive), fishing, etc. Go get a shovel and dig a hole as deep as you dare in your backyard. (Wait, the neighbors might get REALLY suspicious... Keep it in mind, though.) Something some of my bored bike messenger friends in Seattle did a few years back was to find a tall building (five floors or more) and see how far you could get up by stairs without encountering a locked door or a security guard. Some of those have awesome views if you find a hall window...

2793

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your favorite computer game from when you were young?

« Last post by Edvard on May 01, 2006, 05:56 PM »

Oooohhhh... I remember that one. Whoa. Does any of you Apple geezers remember the Apple II software company that would advertise in the computer magazines and they would include incredible one-liner programs in the ads? <something> Brothers, IIRC. Great stuff, multiple commands on one line seperated by :
*sigh* software used to be so simple...

2794

Living Room / Re: Unprotected Wireless Lans?

« Last post by Edvard on April 28, 2006, 10:38 AM »

I thought he was giving an example of a secure password 

2795

General Software Discussion / Re: Gabbly!

« Last post by Edvard on April 27, 2006, 03:19 PM »

Looks like Gabbly got an update. You can now close the Gabbly and toggle the join/leave alert.

2796

Living Room / Re: Why Macs Suck

« Last post by Edvard on April 27, 2006, 01:41 PM »

  From bash.org:

#171297 +(160)- [X]

<@DocGonzo> saying mac osx has 'the power of unix' is like putting whippets in your glovebox then saying your car has 'the power of nitrous'

2797

General Software Discussion / Re: New Internet Explorer Security Risk - April 25, 2006

« Last post by Edvard on April 27, 2006, 12:19 PM »

Yeah, you'd think with FireFox being open-source, crackers could just do a little reading and find all the holes they wanted.

2798

Living Room / Re: Coffee vs. Tea

« Last post by Edvard on April 26, 2006, 05:29 PM »

Hmm... let 'em Google Fight!

2799

Living Room / Google Fight - Funny website

« Last post by Edvard on April 26, 2006, 05:24 PM »

www.googlefight.com

Takes two search terms and visually compares their hit count.

2800

Living Room / Re: New Study Says Drink All the Coffee You Want. Really.

« Last post by Edvard on April 26, 2006, 05:08 PM »

Okay, I'll crack... I finally looked it up: How Caffeine Works.
http://home.howstuff...ffeine.htm/printable

So you can see why your body might like caffeine in the short term, especially if you are low on sleep and need to remain active. Caffeine blocks adenosine reception so you feel alert. It injects adrenaline into the system to give you a boost. And it manipulates dopamine production to make you feel good.

SWEET!!!