Nearly Deaf

Given the love of the hardware on the Blackberry, and the love for the Android software platform, Google’s new open phone system, it seems like a given, yet I haven’t seen anyone mention combining the two before. I had to google quite a bit and I was pleased to see some people are already pondering what they could do with the Android SDK once it’s fully released with all the Android libraries released to the wild. The Blackberry Curve uses a 320mhz processor with ~32mb of avalible ram, while the first Android phones use a 550mhz processor and 128mb of ram. The Blackberry Bold, when released, will have the hardware needed to run Android no problem.

Interestingly, both the Blackberry and Android run all apps as Java apps - the main difference lies in that blackberry apps run on the J2ME JVM while android apps run on the Dalvik JVM which has a lot more access to various math functions. So what does this mean? Well the Curve may be able to run a slimmed down version of Android (linux) and have some functionality down the road, but in the short term it’s very likely we’ll see someone come along and port the Dalvik JVM so that we have an Android runtime app - think about that; Android apps running natively on your Blackberry!

Technical details after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

This is simply the best app for unlocking achievements in TF2, DoD:Source and others. The recent steam update broke the API that 2.1 used, the current version is 3.0. This app can allow you to unlock the Heavy’s weapons, Natasha, the Sandwich (Sandvich) and KGB (Killing Gloves of Boxing), or any of the Pyro or Medic’s weapons (Backburner, Flare Gun, Kritzkreig, Blutslauger, etc) along with future releases for the scout, sniper spy unlockables, etc. The best thing is that by unlocking only the milestones for each class, you can have all the new weapons, while still unlocking the other achievements normally.

Download it here: Steam Achievement Manager 3.0

Works with:

1. Team Fortress 2
2. Half-Life 2
3. Half-Life 2: Episode One
4. Half-Life 2: Episode Two
5. Day of Defeat: Source
6. Day of Defeat: Source Beta
7. Portal
8. Audiosurf
9. Ninja Reflex: Steamworks Edition
10. Opposing Force
11. Ricochet
12. Spacewar
13. Trials 2: Second Edition

Instructions

1. Install Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 if you do not already have it installed.
2. Download Steam Achievement Manager. Read the rest of this entry »

Living in the DFW area it’s been interesting to watch Gustav and now Ike hit the coast 300-some odd miles to the south east of me during the 2008 season. Fark.com linked to a particularly interesting site, called stormpulse.com, which is an ingenious flash app that allows you to turn on and off all sorts of weather data, forecast models with up to the 10-minute weather data. Anyways I was tracking Ike as it brushes past Dallas and noticed, Ike is affecting Houston, DFW, and Austin at the same time. That’s a pretty big storm. This is a cropped screenshot of stormpulse. To see more, go here .

Found an awesome map running bots in a zombie type configuration. I haven’t been able to find it anywhere else, but it’s called stabby_b3.bsp and is awesome. Anyways I’ve thrown up a server, and to my suprise, usually has 2-4 people on it, which really, is about the max number of people you need killing 39 zombies. The map is laid out like a grid, with some open areas and dead end rooms to make things interesting.

I’ll probably move the server over to another port and switch over to a dedicated server…whenever I get a chance but right now work is really beating me down. Suprisingly installing the dedicated server in linux is very easy, but you have to have a separate steam account to run the CS server, which is what I’m still working out. At an even later date I’d like to decompile the map and lower the lighting significantly so you have to use your flashlight. Maybe even skin the map proper. Found the map at Quakecon and realized once I’d played it, I have a copy of it local. Ended up playing this most of the weekend at ROGcon… ended up being the most popular server there. Kind of sad, but we did have like 1/10th of the people playing on it.

Basic sv modifications are bot_add_ct, sv_autobalance 0 and mp_limitteams 60 give or take. Then just set bot difficulty to 0 and then back to 3 and the CT side fills up with knife wielding bots which are then zombies. I like to set sv_gravity to 180 or so to make the grenades go further. Surprisingly fun to play!

I picked up a free laptop with a decent hard drive (60gb), processor(2.6ghz), and built in wi-fi (802.11g) and a “broken” copy of XP which I promptly wiped and put a fresh install of Hardy Heron 8.04 on here. I debated back and forth as to whether or not I wanted to go with a low resource Xubuntu or Kubuntu of suck it up and try installing the full thing (Hardy). “Well,” I figured, “It’s a relatively modern laptop - might as well give Hardy a shot”. And so I did.  Installed like a dream and even recognized my wifi card - but didn’t actually use it due to linux broadcom driver legal issue bullshit.

Four hours later I had my fucking broadcom drivers working in linux, blindly following the how tos on Ubuntu’s user support forums. Firefox took a bitch-ass long time to load, as did everything else, but at this point, I had working wifi on my laptop and I didn’t care. There was no way I was going to reinstall an alternate low memory version of Ubuntu, just to have to figure out how to get the broadcom drivers to work outside of the warm cocoon of the Ubuntu help forums, wasting potentially 8 or more hours of my life.

So you’ve gotten this far and are wondering, “well, how well does the full, vanilla install of Ubuntu really work with just 256MB of ram?” Read the rest of this entry »

The entry level to learning and making music keeps being lowered. When Guitar Hero first came out you read articles questioning if it would ever really make you any better or help you learn the real guitar. Guitar Hero: World Tour has arrived at E3, and looking at the second video you can see they’ve come up with a fairly intuitive design that allows you to use chords for the rhythm guitar (skip ahead to the 4:40 mark) - although only one key at a time. BUT you can make your own chord settings, and with up to 7 at a time - which should cover 95% of all songs out there. In addition to that the controller has been completely revamped, it has an elongated touch pad that replaces the “soloist keys” of the Guitar Hero 3 guitars, and gives you a lot more options in a variety of ways that it sounds like they’re still exploring. To top that off it has a full on MIDI editor so you can really compose music. I guess also you’ll be able to upload your music to share as well. I see the second generation of this working out a lot better but we can always keep our fingers crossed I suppose.

In the mood for a little guitar today - pulled out the guitar and was looking for some tracks to play my guitar over. Turns out the correct google term is “backing tracks“. I found a couple of sites, but this one was the best with almost no ads, and a very usable interface. As a bonus, you can download the tracks as MP3s to play on your iPod later (my amp has a “line in” jack for this exact purpose as do most modern practice amps) and play along with. In addition to their Jam Tracks they have backing tracks for a bunch of modern and popular music. For basic practice I grabbed the best three MP3 backing tracks and posted them here:

• Blues backing in Am (Blues you can play your Am pentatonic scale to)
• BB King style blues (just play notes D11, G9, G11, e12 and bent notes on the G string over this in various patterns)
• Classic blues shuffle - The classic.
  

I like playing the BB King style blues backing track the most. Good tune and in only an hour has really improved my improvisational abilities significantly.

I’ve been watching cp_steel, and then pl_dustbowl_b3 come to frutition on the forums, and then saw cp_freight built in less than a week. Finally I asked someone who I saw keep jumping between TF2 (Team Fortress 2) and SDK (software developer kit) all day what he was doing, he responded, “making a jump map”. So it’s that easy eh?

Well I found a pretty good tutorial that lays out the basics. I’d tried my hand at mapping before, with Qoole, a quake 1 map editor and made a deathmatch level out of his house. Anyways with that in mind I tried it out, no luck. Found this tutorial which is rather useful. Lays it out so you can figure it out in about10 minutes and litterally jump right in. The only mistake I made was that the player start point had the player’s feet stuck slightly in the ground. Moved the starting point up 6″ and problem solved. Read the rest of this entry »

So I’ve had some time to play with the pyro now that the update has been out a while, and my opinion has changed somewhat. To what, exactly, I’m not sure, but it’s definitely less favorable than it was. Valve conceded he was slightly overpowered, and made some adjustments to the pyro, including restoring damage fall off (though less than before the update). I’m inclined to agree Read the rest of this entry »

Well two weekends ago Valve released their updated version of Day of Defeat: Source (DoD). I guess Valve did a major Source engine update and as a result has updated DoD to reflect that, including particle effects (with SMP support), achievements, Steam stats tracking, and a bunch of smaller things like deathcams, etc. Basically they ported the TF2 “user interface” over to DoD, I suppose, to drum up interest in their Steamcloud extensions and to show you can revitalize sales for a slumping product by adding them to your own existing product.

Anyways, as a recent Mac -> PC convert (yes you read that right; that’s a story for another day) I decided to see what this whole DoD deal was about. Unfortunately the weekend sale price of $5 is back to $10, which is still a steal for a game with such an active online community. My first impression, and still, is that it is halfway between Counter Strike and Team Fortress 2.You have the health meter of Counter Strike, but the team/class dynamics of Team Fortress 2, as well as the “respawning in waves” that helps promote teamwork.

Read the rest of this entry »

One of my coworkers goes to India every other year for her Yoga certification. This december she’s heading over there, and when the topic of laptops came up, one woman mentioned she’d bought ___ laptop for her daughter for college, and the other coworker said she was looking for a good laptop to take with her to India that was small cheap and could get the job done. My eyebrows raise and catch her attention. “Eee PC”, I say. “Eee PC?” “Yes, it’s $400 and is this small (gesturing with my hands). I shoot her an email later that Tuesday . Wednesday she tells me she’s ordered the linux version of the 701 and it will be arriving Friday.

So today I got to look at my first ever Eee PC close up and play around with it. Read the rest of this entry »