Random Bits of Life

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Prototype Review

Posted by lifeismusic434 on June 25, 2009

Prototype_01I bought Prototype last week and I’ve been playing it these past few days. It’s actually a really good game (from what I’ve played so far), however I do have a few gripes with it. I was going to sit down and write an actual review about it, but I got bored halfway through. So I’ll just give you a point breakdown of what I thought of it.

Story: 8/10

The storyline was a little unimaginative, but I really liked the way it was presented, through bits and pieces of memories of characters you encounter.

Graphics: 8/10

The graphics weren’t anything special, but they were adequate  for the game type. Had they been any more detailed you would have been playing a slide show rather than a game, due to the amount of space you had to play around in.

Gameplay: 9/10

The gameplay surprised me by being better than I thought it would have been. Besides the main storyline missions, there  were many side quests you could complete for bonus points that you could use for upgrades.

Other: 4/10

While the game itself was really fun, Prototype kept crashing on me. After just about an hour of playing, the game would just crash to desktop. Sometimes these crashes would corrupt my savegame files, forcing me to go back to a previous save. I’m hoping Activision releases a patch soon that fixes this problem. After doing some hunting around, it seems the crashing might be related to third party mouse drivers, but I couldn’t find any fixes.

Overall:  7/10

A great game, however until the crashing bug gets fixed, it’s going to remain on my shelf.

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Movie Sorter Update and Changelog

Posted by lifeismusic434 on June 9, 2009

Now titled eBrake!

I’ve been working on my Movie Sorting/Searching program almost everyday now for quite a while, and I’ve made a lot of progress. It’s now an FTP client, and I redid the search algorithm to optimize it for quick searches.

Here’s the link to the latest version: http://www.yourfilelink.com/get.php?fid=498729 I would love some feedback either in the comments, or at djtranquil@djtranquil.com

Changes:

  • Most notable change is that it now connects to an FTP server. You can specify the host, port, username, and password if you go to Edit -> Preferences. Only problem, is that it can only download files that are listed, i.e., the movies. Since none of you can connect to my server, you’ll just get a bunch of “host not found” or “file not found” errors.
  • Added a progress bar that shows the progress of the downloading file. The text to the left of the bar will eventually track progress of multiple file downloads. I might move the text location though.
  • Added a big text area at the bottom to track FTP status stuff. Color coded for easy visual cues.
  • Moved the Text searches so I could maintain a similar size of the program to the previous version. The length of the bars were also too long anyway.
  • I added some radio buttons up top so that you can return movies that contain any of the selected genres, or must contain all of the selected genres.
  • I came up with a rather mundane name, “eBrake”. A friend of mine in highschool used to call me that, and I figured, why not? There’s the program “Handbrake”, why not eBrake?

Working On:

  • I sort of feel like it’s getting a bit cramped, and there are a few changes I will be making in the lower right hand corner to try and clear some of that up.
  • Going to divide the bottom pane into two sections, with the left section still being the FTP status update place, and the right will be a place where you can queue up files to transfer.
  • I need to make it so that when you deselect all the MPAA rating boxes all the movies still appear to keep consistant.
  • I’m debating removing the Favorites Lists things, mainly ’cause I’m not sure how useful they’d be, and I’d also have to add some more GUI stuff, and figure out support for drag and drop, or figure out another way to do it. Seems like too much hassle for something that isn’t particularly useful.
  • I forgot to hook up the “download selected” button in the File menu, but it’ll just do what the button does. Right now the “launch selected” button in the File menu doesn’t do anything more than download the file, as I haven’t looked into launching a program from Java.

That’s about it for now, I’m going to continue work on it, and I’ll post more updates.

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Modern Warfare 2 Trailer Released

Posted by lifeismusic434 on May 27, 2009

The first trailer for Modern Warfare 2 didn’t contain many visual elements, it was mostly a bunch of squiggly audio lines with some voices and sound effects. The second trailer is now out on the web and hitting TV as well. It features two  minutes of game play, showing off lots of gunfire and some pretty good looking graphics. Set to release on November 10th of this year, it should be in stores in time for the holiday season.

The first Modern Warfare game was still called Call of Duty, however this one breaks away and is simply called Modern Warfare 2. I’m very excited for this game,. The first one was amazing, and I’m sure this will be one step above. For those of you who haven’t seen the trailer, you can view it below.

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I Downloaded All The LolCats From ICanHasCheezBurger

Posted by lifeismusic434 on May 19, 2009

lvl30wizardcatYes, I now have 4548 lolcat images saved to my hard drives. Now that I’m back home, when I’m not working, programming, or playing games, I’m not doing too much else. I’ve been re-watching Prison Break, and as I’ve been watching, I’ve been downloading all the images I could from www.icanhascheezburger.com. I started with the last page, and worked my way to the more current ones. That was a grand total of 469 pages, with 10 images on almost every page. It took me a few hours, and several episodes to right click, save image, and hit enter, but I finally finished. These images though are nothing compared to the number of images icanhascheezburger has in their database, which contains around 800,000 images.  So if you’d like this giant compilation of Lolcats, just shoot me an email at djtranquil@dtranquil.com with the subject “LolCat Pack”.

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Movie Sorter Documentation

Posted by lifeismusic434 on May 19, 2009

msSo as you may know, I’ve been working on this movie sorter/searcher program, which will catalog movies and allow a user to search through them by title, description, genre, or rating, as well as providing some other useful features. I’ve finished the first draft of the documentation, and I’ll post it below. I’m slowly making some progress on the program itself. The interface is almost to where I want it, and the search functions are working well. I’m having a few problems updating the table used to list the movies, but beyond that things are going smoothly. I’m not looking forward to entering in all the movie information by hand. I’ve looked into trying to automatically get the info from IMDb, but I think I would have to license their content, and that would require money. Still looking into it though.

I’m also going to be adding a feature where you can save lists of your favorite movies to a file, and then open thoses lists later. This will be sort of like playlists in iTunes, and it will make it easy to find your favorite movies quickly. I’m hoping to make it so you can also launch the movies right from the program, but we’ll see how far I get with that. Might come in a later version. But right now I’m just going to concentrate on getting this version up and running without too many bells and whistles. I tend to do that sometimes, just keep adding stuff, and never finishing it.

Anyway, here’s the first draft of the Documentation. I’m still not sure what I’m naming the program, as you’ll see below.

If you have any comments about the documentation please send them to djtranquil@djtranquil.com

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
    1. Welcome
    2. What does this program do?
    3. Why should you use it?
  2. Features
    1. Searching
    2. Resetting
    3. Sorting
    4. Resizing
    5. Favorites Lists
  3. Troubleshooting
    1. My search isn’t returning anything.
    2. My search isn’t returning what I expected.
    3. How can I search within a search?
  4. About
    1. Author
    2. Thanks
    3. Contact

Introduction

Welcome

Welcome to the documentation of <Insert Name>. This document will walk you through each feature of the program, and explain how to use its various search functions. Near the end there is also a Troubleshooting section that will hopefully resolve any issues you may be having. Finally there is a contact section should you have any issues you’d like help with or if there’s a bug that needs fixing.

What Does This Program Do?

This program catalogs your collection of movies, and makes it easy to search for and find the exact one you’re looking for. In the mood to watch a comedy? Just select the appropriate checkbox, and only comedies will be displayed. Trying to remember the name of that movie that has the word good in it? Just type it into either the Description or Title box and only movies with good in the searched for field will be listed.
Have a bunch of movies you know you’re going to want to watch again? You can also save lists of your favorite movies, and easily open and view those lists at a later time. Favorites Lists make it easy and simple to find the movies you love, right at your fingertips.

Why should you use it?

Instead of hunting through movies by title, why not make things easier by looking at the description, rating, and genre of the movie as well. If you forget what a movie is about, you can quickly read a short explanation of what the movie’s about, much like reading the back of a DVD case. Rather than hunting through directories to find the movie you’re looking for, you can launch the video right from the program. <Insert Name> makes finding and playing the perfect movie effortless and quick.

Features

Search by Title and Description

Searching by title and description is easy and intuitive. If you’re searching for a movie that has book in the title or description, just type book into the appropriate field and click search. You can search for more than one keyword at a time, and you can also search for different keywords in the Title and Description fields at the same time. The text search fields remove duplicates from the search, so if you were to search for the lord and the lady, all movies that contained the, lord, and, and lady would be returned. Movies would not have to have the word the in the title or description twice.
When searching with multiple keywords, they do not need to be in the correct order, nor do they need to be case sensitive. For example, The Lord and the Lady would return the same results as lady the the lord and. This makes finding movies simple and hassle free.

Search by Rating

Searching by rating is as easy as entering a minimum and a maximum. All movies whose rating is between these two values will be returned, with the min and max included. This means that if you entered a range of 6.0 – 9.0, all movies that were rated 6.0 or above and 9.0 or below would be shown.

Search by Genre

The genre of a movie is very important, and will often be one of the first decisions you make about what movie you’d like to watch. To select what genre’s you’d like to be shown, simply check the suitable box, and then click Search. Only genres that are currently in the database will be displayed. So if all your movies are either Action or Comedy, you don’t need to worry about having a Drama checkbox to deal with. The program will automatically add a new checkbox when a new genre is added.

Resetting

With the reset button, you can reset the program to its default state, showing all movies, with all genres selected, all text searches cleared, and the rating search set to 0.0 to 10.0. Using the reset button is the easiest way to start a new search, and the fastest way to view all the movies in the database.

Sorting

You can sort the movies in the database by Title, Genre, or Rating. To sort, click on the column header at the top of the list. This will sort the selected column in a descending manner. To sort ascending, click the column header again.

Resizing

The entire program is resizable, meaning you can make it as large as your screen to list as many movies as possible. Note however that there is a minimum size to the program, and because of this a minimum resolution of 800 x 600 is recommended. The program can simply be maximized to expand it to fill the screen.

Favorites Lists

Favorite lists allow you to save a list of your favorite movies to a file to be opened later. Want to keep all your favorite comedies separate from the rest of your movies? Make a favorites list with the best comedy movies of your choosing. You can load previously saved lists through the Favorites menu.

Troubleshooting

“My Search Isn’t Returning Anything!”

If your search isn’t returning anything, check your spelling in the Title or Description fields. A misspelled word will make is so that nothing is returned. Also check to make sure the minimum and maximum are set to the correct range. Sometimes you may need to widen your Rating search range to find more movies. When all else fails, hit the reset button, and try searching again.

“My Search Isn’t Returning What I Expected!”

If your search isn’t returning what you expected, try widening your search parameters by widening the Rating range, selecting more Genres, and using fewer keywords in the Title or Description search fields.

“How can I search within a search?”

To search within a search, simply add more keywords, reduce the Rating range, or select fewer Genres.

About

Author

The program and documentation was written by Ebrahim Kobeissi with the help of the individuals mentioned below. Ebrahim is a college student at the University of Vermont, pursuing a degree in Computer Science, with a minor in Mathematics.

Special Thanks

Thanks to Jay Kopper for initial inspiration to start this project. Without his ideas I would never have gotten this far. Thanks to Liam Elberty for all the help along the way. From data structure ideas to general programming knowledge, he was a huge help. Thanks to the members of the Sun forums, who helped me figure out all the GUI stuff.

Contact

Please send all feedback, questions, or bug reports to <insert new Gmail account here>.

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Meet The Spy

Posted by lifeismusic434 on May 17, 2009

It seems that Valve has accedently leaked the “Meet the Spy” video, just before the Sniper/Spy update. Check it out here:

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Back To Work

Posted by lifeismusic434 on May 16, 2009

Today was my first day working at Carpenter and Main, the French restaurant I work at, since being back. It was sort of like riding a bike, it came back like a reflex. Even after not working there for several months, I was able to remember where things went, and how to do all my duties. One thing is certain though, I’m not used to being on my feet for six hours anymore. Nearing the end of my shift, my back was killing me, and my feet were getting tired, and I get to do it tomorrow. ‘Cept tomorrow I’m going to be waiting rather than food running, so I’ll be earning a bit more. So if you’re in the area, stop by sometime!

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Team Funcom

Posted by lifeismusic434 on May 15, 2009

tf2_bigA long while ago I started playing Team Fortress 2. I mainly played on a server my bother told me about, the Team Funcom server. I became very fond of the people there and the community it offered. After spending many hours both in game and on the forum, I volunteered to be an admin on the server. A month or so later, the site changed around a whole lot. We got a new forum, and the main guy in charge stepped down, leaving things a little up in the air. After some voting by the regulars, five users were chosen to run the whole show. And guess what, I was one of those five. So now I’m one of the ones in charge of maintaining the server and website, and making sure everything is running smoothly. It’s a great place, and if you play TF2 and are interested in playing with a fun but challanging community, come join us. The forums can be found here, and the server address is 216.6.235.164:27015. Hope to see you around, look for Mriswith.

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Windows Home Server

Posted by lifeismusic434 on May 15, 2009

msfthomeserverA while ago, I upgraded my main computer by replacing the motherboard, video card, RAM, etc. When I did this, I realized I had enough spare parts to build a completely new computer, so I did. I had been looking for a way to back up my data in a way where it would be safe no matter what I did to my main computer. I used to have RAID 0+1 in my computer, then I switched to RAID 5. Neither of these made me feel safe though, because if something went wrong with the onboard controller, things could get messed up. I wanted to do some overclocking, and if you’ve ever overclocked before, you’ll know that random crashes are part of the deal until you get things ironed out. Sometimes I would have to do a full CMOS reset, which would really screw with the RAID. So I started looking for another solution.

I looked at NAS, but that seemed a little too expensive, with the cases alone costing several hundred dollars for something decent. I then stumbled upon Windows Home Server. It did everything I wanted, and then some. WHS stores all your data on its drives, which is then accessable over a network. It has a similar method of duplication to RAID 1, but you can specifiy what files or folders should be duplicated (assuming you have more than one drive in the WHS machine). The other beautiful thing about WHS is that it does nightly backups of any computers you have setup and connected, using shadow copies which make it so you have point in time snapshots of your computer. This means that I can reset settings to exactly how they were at any point in the past few months. I installed the Windows 7 RC just to play around, and when I was done with it, I just used one of the backups from WHS, and had my old system back in about an hour.

I currently have 7 hard drives in the WHS machine totalling about 4.5TB, with only 1.5TB free. WHS makes it very easy to add new hard drives though, so space really won’t be an issue. When I start getting low on space, I’ll just drop in another drive. Overall, it’s a great system for backing up and storing all your data. You can connect up to 10 computers to be backed up, and through Microsoft you can even have your own subdomain at homeserver.com so that you can access your data from anywhere in the world.

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I’m Back

Posted by lifeismusic434 on May 15, 2009

Well,  it’s been a few months.  Things have been a bit hectic, and I wasn’t able to update this, mainly just because I had so much other stuff on my mind. Sadly, it got pushed to the back. But that’s over now, I’m going to (hopefully) keep updating this much more often.

So let’s see, what’s been happening since I last posted? I’m home from college, the first year was awesome, and went by way too fast. Met some awesome people that I can’t wait to see again, and had a lot of fun times.

It’s finally spring/summer! I was getting so sick of the cold and was so ready for some warmer weather, and now it here. One of the things I hate most is being cold, so the warmth is great. However, my room tends to get a bit hot during the days, because I’m running two fairly large computers, three monitors, and a pair of Behringer Truth speakers which tend to put out a lot of heat. But oh well, I’ll live.

I think that I’m going to put the rest of the goings on in seperate posts, so look for them shortly.

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