How to Play Minecraft Online

A short guide to playing Minecraft online, using Tunngle here would be good.


Minecraft is currently in Beta and deserves tons of support by simply buying the game. Not to mention many people have already bought it, and Notch is probably too rich to even bother about any of this nonsense. But if you have an overly screwed up Internet connection, or simply do not wish to have your own blocky Minecraft character, then follow these steps.








Steps to Follow
1. Get Minecraft
You can get Minecraft here.


2. Check the Force Update checkbox.
You need to do this every time Minecraft updates. Otherwise, you will be left with an outdated version of it.


3. Type in your name and Enter Game.
Type in any username you wish, and click Enter Game. If the username matches with the username of a particular Minecraft account, then you will have that person's skin.


4. Join Game
You can now click Multiplayer and type in the IP of the server you wish to join.











Hosting a Minecraft Server
1. To host a Minecraft server, simply go to the Minecraft's website and download the Minecraft_Server.exe found there.


2. Place it anywhere in your computer, and run it. The first time you run, it will generate some server files on the same directory. Close the server window.






3. Edit the newly created server.properties file using a text editor like Wordpad. Change online-mode from "true" to "false" if it is not already false.


4. Run the Minecraft_Server.exe again and keep it running, that is your server.



If you're playing it on Tunngle, just enter the Action -> Minecraft room and host it there. People can then join your server by entering your Tunngle IP.

What is Information Technology?

The word, information technology, is mostly misunderstood by many people.

I guess it all started out with the dot-com thing, huh? Everyone was rushing to study about IT. IT graduates at that time don't know much. Back in those days everyone was using DOS and issuing DOS commands, the only reason IT graduates were hired is to issue DOS commands and that's it.

Now let's look at what IT really is, this is what is provided in Wikipedia.









What is IT?
Information technology (IT) is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications.

In short, it means input data, process it and output valuable information through electronics. So...did you notice that it's basically talking about almost every single damn thing we use or work with today? You can basically say IT is life in the current age we live in. To understand more, ask yourself these questions:

Why does my car make noise/unlock the door/start with only a push of a button?
Why am I reading this article?
What is the thing that I always bring with me in case anyone needs to contact me?
What is the yellow thing on my NRIC?
What is the thing cashiers use?
Why are all my floor tiles perfectly square?
Why doesn't the damn elevator respond to me when I push GO DOWN when it's going up?
How do doctors capture X-rays and produce valuable information?
How does a RC Car work?
What is the thing I always use to do mathematics?
Why does my TV have so many channels which I can choose from?
Why is my music available to me through a push of a button?
What is the program I'm using to do whatever I'm doing?
What is biometrics?
How does GPS work?
How does the radar work?
and so on...

Even on roads...

The Misconception about IT
When you mention IT, what is the first thing that comes into your mind? Computers, yes. What are computers? The thing you're using right now, yes. Is that it?

Almost every hardware, requires a software. Hardware is the tool. Software, is the method of using the tool. With a giant machine it can be a very useful tool, but without programs, you have to manually use it, by hand, or by whatever manual means. Even your router contains software to do its routing.

IT is linked to engineering, as they are with science and technology. In the current era, who wouldn't want to cut cost, be efficient and reduce wastage/redundancy? Competition is great, you need something reliable, something efficient. The tool alone will not help your business. What if it's automated? What if...it can listen to you, just like an employee?


This, is Information Technology. Information is the key word here. Now, what do you understand about the word, "information"? Pretty damn important, eh?







Life Towards IT
Did you know that most information about you is computerized? If you watched the movie, The Net 2.0, vapourizing your existence is as easy as that...if a person has access to your stuff.

Have you seen news where hackers steal money by hacking a bank? Even money is dealt through digital means.

Are you still not aware that every single damn thing we use is in relation to IT? I also have a little problem with people differentiating animation/video editing as NOT part of IT. What is the program used? Why is recording the video even possible in the first place? What is ActionScript which is used in Flash? What is AutoCAD and 3DS Max, used by most architects? Read the definition of IT again, and see why.

Even in hospitals...

Closure
People who take study about computers are venturing into a very crazily large field that they have to somehow specialize in one area no matter what. It's not just Facebook and games when it comes to computers. It's everything we work with now. What you learn about computers, is applicable to almost anything that uses it. Hardware and software included. How much crazier can it be?

It all comes down to whether you want to stick with your damn buggy Windows computer, or you want to go for something else, with embedded software, going down into the designs of electronics, the communication systems we use, and so on so forth.




Love,
Nicholas.

How to Get Steam Working?

Steam problems, can't update, whatever the case, you can try these steps out.



If you can't update or login to Steam, try these. These are the main solutions that has managed to get Steam working for different people.



Solution #1
This is the most famous one, which is to delete ClientRegistry.blob in your Steam folder and run Steam for it to update. You should always try this first.



Solution #2
Download an updated version of Steam here, then extract it to your Steam folder. Try and update after that. This helps if your Steam update doesn't complete because it is too slow, or something of the sort.



Solution #3
If you have connectivity issues, try disabling your firewall. There are some programs that conflict with Steam, making it unable to connect or update. For example, if you have DAEMON Tools or Advanced System Care, you can try exiting it.

You can see the list of conflicting programs here.



Solution #4
The number one solution for Malaysians because of their ISP. You can try this too if all else fails. Download Hotspot Shield, install it and connect to the Hotspot Shield server. Try running Steam and see if it works. You can disconnect and exit Hotspot Shield after you've connected to Steam, because Hotspot Shield sucks in a way.




If all of the solutions here didn't work, you can pretty much say Steam sucks.



Love,
Nicholas.

What Are Unique Referral Clicks?

What are unique clicks in those pay-per-click ads you see in the net?


Okay, unique referral clicks are basically clicks that are not from the same users. If a user clicks it twice or 50 times, it is counted as one. How do they track it? By IP or by cookies, both can be possible too.



By IP
Basically, your IP is stored in the database, and whenever there is a new click, it compares that person's IP with the stored IP. If the IP is not there, it will be counted as a unique click.


By Cookie
Whenever you visit a website, you get a file called a cookie which the website uses to track your computer. For example, if you log in to a website, then you go somewhere else...when you return, you will still be logged in, because you have the cookie that the website can check. Basically it is the same here.




Wouldn't it be in Risk of Fradulent Acts?
Yes. People who pay people per unique click are at quite the risk, because people can just change IPs, go behind different proxies, and all the sort to make themselves seem like another computer.

Unless you can trace and successfully trace the IP to its original (it would be very difficult if it has gone through many network hops) ...then it is a difficult task to track fradulent activities.




What are the Workarounds?
There is no workaround for this concept of unique clicks, because the Internet is anonymous. However, sites like Nuffnang seem to use the concept where they will put up the ads on your site, and it doesn't matter who clicks it, you will still be paid. The ad will be there for an amount of time, and once it is over, you will be paid. You will obviously get very little money, but Nuffnang gets the most out of it, especially when there are many clicks.




Based on this very short article, if you get paid per click for advertising stuff, please be honest about it and not just asking for clicks. They run quite a risky business, and any person who knows something about computers can basically spend the whole day generating unique clicks. And yes, it is considered a fraud if you do this, it's called Click Fraud.



Love,
Nicholas.

How to Play Magicka Online [UPDATED + Vietnam]

This is a short guide for people who cannot seem to play Magicka online. Basically, we're going to use Steam and Tunngle to play it online. Works for everyone I guess.



UPDATED: This blogpost is updated for Magicka Update 21 with the Vietnam DLC. You might have to re-install Magicka to get this working, but if you didn't crack your Magicka and installed it inside your Steam folder, then you don't need to.


DO NOT CRACK YOUR MAGICKA GAME


Otherwise, we shall uninstall Magicka! And follow the steps below in order, a fresh install may guarantee it to work.








How To Play Magicka Online
1. Install Steam.
You need Steam in order to play Magicka, which you can get HERE.
After installing Steam, create an account at the website, if you haven't already. You can also create an account at the login when running Steam on your PC.

Can't get Steam to work? Check my "How to Get Steam Working?" blogpost and try those solutions. If you're living in Malaysia and Steam just doesn't update, try Solution #4 in that blogpost.








2. Get SmartSteam & Magicka Steam Files.
SmartSteam allows you to put in some hacked Magicka files in order to let Steam recognize that you have the game. Download THIS file.

Then, extract it to your Steam folder. You will now probably see a Magicka folder in your Steam\steamapps\common folder.

We'll be using SmartSteam.exe located in your Steam folder instead of the original Steam.exe to start Magicka.





3. Install Magicka in your Steam folder.
Install Magicka in the steamapps\common\Magicka folder. The directory should look like this in your installation:

C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Magicka





4. Update from 19-20 to 21 (1.3.6.1)
Now, you need to download the upgrade patch to 1.3.6.1 which you can get HERE.

Then, extract it to your Steam\steamapps folder. It should overwrite some files, click Yes.





5. Run SmartSteam.exe and run Magicka.
SmartSteam.exe is located in your Steam folder. You'll need to keep this running in the background in order to play Magicka.

You can then run Magicka, either from your Desktop or from SmartSteam, it doesn't matter. The first time you play, there will be a Product Key thing, just ignore it and click PLAY.







Next, Get Tunngle!
As you've read earlier, my country has almost nobody using Steam, and it will always get laggy if you play with someone else at some other parts of the world due to distance lag. So, get Tunngle!








Tunngle is also a VPN software, lets you connect to a private network and eventually you're all connected as if you're connected through LAN, through tunneling. Basically it should guarantee some good speeds like Hamachi, only that Tunngle supports all games and is quite epic, more epic than Garena.


Steps:
1. Download and Install Tunngle here.

2. Run Tunngle and there's a link to create a Tunngle account if you haven't already got one.

3. Login.

4. Click Action -> Magicka to connect to the Magicka network.

5. Start Magicka through SmartSteam and play! You can also just start the game as long as SmartSteam is running, it should be able to link together. You will know if it's linked when you see the Steam popup in the game.





Problems & FAQs
1. Magicka doesn't start, Steam just brings me to the menu and there's Buy Magicka and all that shit!
Make sure your game is not cracked in any way, and just follow the steps above to run it through SmartSteam and get it online through Tunngle. If you cracked it, and couldn't reverse it, just reinstall the game.

Make sure your steam_appid.txt is not altered to 73050, otherwise it wouldn't work. Also make sure that skidrow.ini and all that cracked shit is not in your game directory.



2. I can't see any online games!
Try messing around with the Filter options. Set it to ONLINE to find games. If ONLINE doesn't work for you, you can set it to LAN. Make sure you started the game through Steam. You would probably know that your game is linked with Steam when there is a Steam Community tab popping up on the bottom right corner of the screen. If you can't see a game, you can always try joining by IP. In Tunngle, the IP starts with 7, which you can see at the bottom left corner of your Tunngle window. Use that virtual IP if you're using Tunngle.

Also, make sure that your SmartSteam is running.








3. I still can't get Steam to work!
I'm sorry, but if you've tried everything and couldn't get Steam to update or work, you can try Hotspot Shield. If THAT still doesn't work, then Steam basically sucks. Lots of people face problems like these in the Steam forums, so...yeah.





Hosting Server Tips
1. Make sure you portforward Tunngle (11155 under UDP) and Magicka's port (27016) to make sure people could see and join your game.

2. Make sure your firewall allows Tunngle and Magicka, and not block it.

3. Sometimes when you exit Magicka, there will still be the Magicka.exe process. You have to terminate this before running Magicka again, otherwise it will create another Magicka.exe process. This may stop people from joining your game.

4. Spread your IP (in Tunngle, it's a virtual IP located at the bottom left corner of Tunngle) in chat so that people could locate your server, even if they couldn't see it on the list.

5. STOP PUTTING THE DAMN PASSWORDS BECAUSE THERE'S LIKE SO MANY PEOPLE HAVING PASSWORDS AND ITS SO HARD TO FIND A GAME IF YOU CAN'T HOST FOR SOME REASON!

6. Lastly, when hosting a game, do not Start yet. Players can only join if the game has not started.






Love,
Nicholas.

Magicka - An Exciting RPG Game

Introducing another new game for Diablo or RPG lovers!


Alright, what is Magicka? Magicka is a newly developed game by an indie studio of 8 people, which is out now on Steam and has sold over 30,000 copies on the first day. It is sort of diablo-like, with isometric view. It is 3D and has pretty good graphics I must say, while still maintaining the cartoony look.

I'll just give a brief explanation on the story and the gameplay before I give my own opinions on the game.








Storyline
The storyline is a pretty usual storyline. It is about a bunch of wizards saving the world from an evil dark wizard that plans to kill everybody. Although it is pretty common, the adventure you go through is quite a unique experience, travelling from airships to caves to vampire castles to the underworld and so on so forth. It is a story of Dungeons and Dragons, of Orcs and Goblins, of Ghouls and Ghosts, of Kings and Quests, but most importantly of Wizards and Vamp-- er, well...a story of Wizards.

Gameplay
The gameplay focuses on combat and the adventure you go through. Basically, the most unique thing about this game is the combination of spells you can make. You combine elements and conjure them to create a spell. Combining different elements makes different spells for different situations, making it quite cool and realistic.

It does not rely on loot and leveling. There's no inventory system or whatsoever. You carry along whatever you have and that's it, which is kind of realistic when you come to think of it. What sort of wizard has a huge-ass inventory that can store 5 swords or something? There's no leveling as well, the damage you do depends on the elements you combine and cast. Despite being able to deal tons of damage even from the start, there are some enemies (such as spellcasters) that you may need to rethink a bit when casting spells.








Then you might be thinking, what's good of an RPG if there's no leveling and inventory? Wait, there's no choosing a class and no keeping track of mana as well! So why is it so good? Is it even a RPG? Well, you can say it's not your average RPG or hack-and-slash game. It's so good because of the unique gameplay, that requires you to think twice when casting spells. Spells don't work with all enemies, and it's so dynamic that you have to think about it for different enemies and different situations. Spells are also used to solve puzzles, which makes the story play more interesting.


Also, conjuring elements is not an easy thing to do, and that's the fun of it! You can't combine earth and lightning because they're opposites of each other. When you try to conjure lightning when you're wet, you shock yourself. The elements play a very important role in the general gameplay of the game, which by itself, makes the game pretty awesome and unique. You can also conjure spells in different ways, such as making it into a beam, a ball, a mine or even use it with your weapon. The combinations you come up with on the fly, are the weapons of choice. It lets you experiment a lot!







In the multiplayer of up to 4 people, there are two modes, Adventure and Challenge. Adventure is where you play the story with other people, and Challenge is like survival. You can combine spells with other players, such as merging two Arcane beams to create a more powerful beam. Beware though, merging beams of the opposite element can create an explosion that may kill you, but if used properly, can be a deadly weapon.








What I Liked About This Game
1. Epic friendly-fire fun.
There's no discrimination when it comes to hitting your friends or enemies here. If you deal 1500 damage with a single arcane fireball to an enemy, you will deal the same to your friend, which will be instant death. When you have 4 people playing in multiplayer, basically you're gonna kill each other more often than being killed by the enemy. But fear not, there's always the Revive spell which you're going to use extremely often!


2. Hundreds or thousands of element combinations.
Simply take a look at the combinations you can do with fire alone... I made the names up myself by the way, since there's no name for spells you conjure. I just give it a name that looks like what it is.
Fire + Water = Steam (new element)
Fire + Earth = Fireball / Line of Fire / Fiery Earthquake
Fire + Arcane = Firebeam / Explosion / Fire Sith Epic Darth Vader Lightsaber
Fire + Lightning = Fiery Lightning
Fire + Shield = Firewall

The combinations are endless and these are only 2 element combinations. You can combine up to 5 elements at one go. You can also conjure it in different ways!








3. Lots of comedy and funny references.
Playing this game reminds you of many other games or movies, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, 300 (SPARTA!) and so on. The game has quite some humour which is nice, and makes you want to play the story over and over again.



4. Smart use of elements.
When you're wet, you can't cast lightning or you might die. So, you gotta dry yourself with fire. If you use too much fire, you'll light yourself and fire, which you can extinguish with water or cold. The thing is, in this game, most of the time you'll be watching out for these. Enemy spellcasters are smart and they can use spells like Rain. When I played it the first time, I totally forgot that the Rain made me wet and I ended up killing myself by repeatedly casting lightning.

It also applies to enemies, such as when you use water on your enemies to make them wet, lightning deals double damage. If you use a fire spell, most likely your enemies are going to get dry and not take too much damage from the fire. If you use cold, you will freeze your enemies into an ice block, so that they can't move at all, but they will not take damage from melee attacks (does not apply to an epic earth spell though)...if your enemies are not wet and you use cold, they'll simply slow down instead of freezing into ice. This is a very smart and unique way of implementing elements, which the game is famous for.

Another example is about trolls. Trolls have high regeneration rates. However, you can use fire to burn them, cancelling out their regeneration. This is a smart idea! Also, yetis can grab you and kill you instantly. You can actually set yourself on fire to prevent them from grabbing you! There is so much to see and experiment with the elements that it fills you with excitement.




What I Disliked About This Game
1. Bugs and Crashes
The game is constantly being updated so far, and it's good to see it happening. The earlier versions have bugs such as cutscene lockups and sudden deaths. Sometimes the game also crashes from time to time at certain levels. However, the new update seems to have fixed this problem, and true enough, I don't experience the crashes anymore. Bugs may still appear here and there, but they'll be fixed soon. Despite the bugs, many people support this game because it is just pure fun.

2. Steam
To play online, you need Steam. And Steam sucks, in my opinion...some people may disagree, but there are some who agree as well. In Malaysia, we have problems because of our ISP, which somehow doesn't let us connect to Steam. I will post up a guide for connecting to Steam in future.

I posted a guide on how to play Magicka online. It includes the Steam problem. It shows you how to play it online through Tunngle. You can view it here.




What Convinced Me of This Game
I knew about Magicka when I came across this video, "WTF is Magicka?" by TotalBiscuit. I immediately knew that I would need this game after I watched the video on YouTube. I'll embed it here for you to see how amazing it is.

Love,
Nicholas.

Darkness and Light SEA - Update Bypass & Watch Replays

Darkness and Light SEA update bypass which allows you to watch your replays.



Yes, this is for Darkness and Light SEA only, not other versions. This is actually not a bypass, it does not bypass XTrap or anything, it just lets you start the DAL Client so that you can watch your replays. I would like to call it a DAL CLIENT STARTER, but I guess many people would search for a "bypass" instead. The XTrap functions are not removed in any way, so the game does a periodic check about every 30 mins with XTrap, and since we don't have it, the game will close/crash. So you have about 30 mins to view your replays.


If you know how to get around XTrap, you can try to reverse engineer it. You can also try to get pass the login screen, both which I am trying to work around now.



All my updates about DAL will also be on ShadowTeamX3's blog. We are also working on a Warcraft III map for DAL, if you're interested, please visit his blog for updates.
http://evostoning.blogspot.com/





How to Bypass DAL Update
Okay, I modified the DALPatch.run and DAL.run files, so all you need to do is to overwrite them in your DAL folder. Be sure to backup the old files, these are just to get the game started, nothing more.




Step 1
If DAL Client is not installed in your computer, please visit ShadowTeamX3's blog to see the article which has the download links there. You can download the DAL SEA client there.
http://evostoning.blogspot.com/2011/01/darkness-and-light-sea-dal-update.html



Step 2
Download DAL Client Bypass Patch from ShadowTeamX3's blog post.
http://evostoning.blogspot.com/2011/01/darkness-and-light-sea-dal-update.html



Step 3
Unzip DALSEA Patch.rar and extract DAL.run and DALPatch.run in DAL SEA folder. Click 'yes' to replace the files. Be sure to backup the old files too!








Step 4
Launch DAL.exe, the updater should 'bypass' the update. For Windows Vista/7 users, run DAL.exe as administrator.
DAL will think it has already been patched, so it will say Patch Completed. Click 'Start' to launch the game.






Step 5
XTrap Error should pop up. Click 'Start' again. (Do not click 'OK' as it will terminate the program.)

NOTE: If you're using Windows Vista/7, especially 64-bit users, you might get an error saying that DAL.run is not associated with a program, or something. If so, please run it in compability mode for Windows XP, then run as Administrator.








Step 6
DAL should launch now. Congratulations, you've successfully entered the login page. Click 'Replay' to watch your saved replays. Make sure your replay file is placed in DAL\REPLAY folder in My Documents.







Step 7
Enjoy your replay!






Yes, I have obtained permission from ShadowTeamX3 A.K.A NuevoEvo to put the images here. He also has my permission to put my work on his blog. We work together. Most DAL updates will be on his blog. My work will be showed here, and then linked to his blog. Enjoy!




Love,
Nicholas.

How to Identify Songs Easily?

A song identifier that lets you identify songs through a recording device, or in your computer itself. You can easily identify songs online with this.



Sometimes, you just hear a really good song, but you don't know what it's called. You search high and low and you can't find its name. So, let me introduce a program called Tunatic, which lets you identify the songs.









How to Identify Songs Using Tunatic?
1. Download Tunatic
Tunatic is a free software. It identifies the song that is captured in your recording device such as Microphone or Stereo Mix (for within the computer itself) by comparing it with its database of songs. Get it here:

http://www.wildbits.com/tunatic/



2. Install and run Tunatic.
Install it and run it, it doesn't matter if you have the song playing or not.



3. Configure Tunatic settings.
Right-click on the Tunatic window, and click Settings. Here, you can choose your input device. Your input devices available here are the same as what is available in your Control Panel > Sound > Recording Devices window. If you disable certain devices in the Recording Devices window, you will not see it in Tunatic.






If you want to record the sound in your computer, choose Stereo Mix. Be sure to enable Stereo Mix in Recording Devices.



4. Play a song, click on the icon and wait for Tunatic to identify the song!

If you're using older versions of Windows, it is under Sounds, under the Audio tab, under Recording Devices, click Volume and check Stereo Mix to enable it.

Can't Identify Song!
If Tunatic doesn't identify the song, it is either:
a) The song quality is low or there's too much noise/disruptions.
b) The song is not in Tunatic's database.




Can't Find Stereo Mix!
If you can't find Stereo Mix under Recording Devices, it is most probably your sound card does not support it. You cannot do anything about it if your sound card doesn't support it.





Love,
Nicholas.

Flash 8 VS CS5

The benefits of why Flash 8 may be better than CS5 in terms of movie animations.


Alright, I will not go over for comparisons in making interactive websites or anything that has to do with ActionScript because Flash CS5 clearly is the winner for having ActionScript 3.0, which is the newest and the fastest. I'm going to focus on developing animation movies and you'll see why this comparison is made.

My PC's Specifications
Intel Core i5-750
1TB HDD Space
4GB DDR3 RAM
ATI Radeon HD5570 1GB
Windows 7 Home Premium 32-Bit

Memory Usage
Flash CS5 uses more memory than Flash 8, especially when performing simple tasks like showing multiple large images at once. When creating HD movies (I experienced this while creating this one), you would have to deal a lot with larger sized images, probably even larger than your HD resolution size.

For example, my Touhou animation project is 1280x720 pixels, thats a 720p HD size. I'm doing my art and images on 1920x1080, 1080p HD size so that I could do camera pans and the sort with my characters.

In Flash CS5, here's what happened. When I dragged fifteen 1920x1080 sized images (yeap, for 15 frames) from the Library to the workspace, CS5 won't even show me anything! The images just went missing and you can't do anything about it even after I restarted it countless of times. I tried adding a keyframe and CS5 tells me that I do not have enough memory. On my WNx Homestay animation project, I had over 1000 frames in HD size and CS5 crashed because it couldn't handle 1000 frames! Every time I exported my WNx Homestay as video, it will never succeed, so I had to break them up into separate Flash files to export them. It was not able to handle such simple operations on a HD project.

I was just trying to add a damn keyframe after I managed to get the pictures loaded!

In Flash 8 however, I was able to do all that. When I dragged the same fifteen 1920x1080 images into the workspace, it was there in a millisecond, I swear. CS5 took about 5-10 seconds before it's done just for you to realize that nothing is there.


Therefore, I guess it is safe for me to assume that Flash 8 takes up really much less memory and performs better when it comes to large images. Have you seen Touhou IOSYS animations? Even Core i7s can't handle them. If my decent computer's CS5 couldn't handle an average animation like mine, what more do you expect? Flash 8 does the job though.



Movie Exporting
Flash CS5 is good at exporting movies. Although I must say that the exporting system has not much of a difference between the two. My experience is that, when I told Flash 8 to export my video in 1280x720 pixels, it exports it in a different size with some black borders surrounding it as if it's helping me to "decorate" my movie.

I couldn't resolve this problem until Evo told me about compressing it with the ffdx codec option which will produce the same results but I just went to export my movie in CS5 and it worked fine.

This is what you see in CS5, which is exactly the same as Flash 8. But it exports properly, exactly as specified.

So what I do is, I do my animations in Flash 8, then open it up with CS5 and export them. They give good results, since I was unable to do my animations on CS5, I had to do them on Flash 8 (which is much better). Their workspace design is not that different at all.


Flash 8's movie exporting doesn't seem to be too friendly to me. Flash CS5 justs exports as it is and gets it done, although it will crash if you have lots of frames and a computer below USD$1000 though (from what I experienced).




Overall
Although obsolete, Flash 8 seems better to me than CS5 in movie-making from what I experienced. These are true experiences and I don't know what's the damn problem but my computer's a pretty decent one which costed me RM3000++, which to me, is quite expensive for an average home user desktop PC.

This is the PC I bought. I guess this little guy wouldn't stand a chance for HD videos in CS5.

If you're using Flash 8 and thinking of moving to CS5, just consider whether you need ActionScript or not. If you don't, Flash 8 all the way!





Love,
Nicholas.

Are Video Games Useless?

Do video games bring any benefits at all or they just make you addicted and regret years after that you've wasted your time?

Right, today's my birthday and it's a Sunday, so there are two notices before I start on this post.


1. No WNx comic strip today because I'm busy on my animation project.
2. Yes, it's my birthday! :D


Now take a look at this video. It says about how video games affected this person's life and how much time he has wasted. He regrets and warns people not to play video games because you'll eventually get addicted and so on.

FIRST THING'S FIRST
Okay, the first thing I would like to say...which is not-related to the video is this.

There are PLENTY of people giving inspiration nowadays and I'm surprised that they could come up with dumb and wrong inspirations that people believe to be good and correct. Take for example, this quote from a talk in INTI University Nilai, in Malaysia where Bill Clinton gave a talk.


"You cannot focus on what you can't do, but you focus on what you can do and find people to do what you can't do."
- William J. "Bill" Clinton.









USE LOGIC AND THINK FOR YOURSELF
1. What do you mean by something that you cannot do? Do you even need to go out there and find people that can do what you can't do? Just learn it and do it yourself!

2. If you can find people to do things for you, you probably need to pay them. There is no free lunch. If you're not capable yourself, just do something simpler or learn how to do it. Leading a team of people who are 5x more knowledgable than you is not going to get you anywhere and you'll just get overwhelmed. You first need to be capable and intelligent in what you do, then become a wise and strong leader, then you lead people.

3. Someone posted this on Facebook and I don't know what in the world is so inspirational about this. There was even this comment, "so inspiring" wtf...?




NOW MY OPINIONS ABOUT THE VIDEO
Back on topic.

Video games waste a hell lot of our time? This is relative and to be honest it is a swooping statement. If you read tons of stories like Harry Potter and the sort as much as a gaming addict plays video games, you are also wasting your time as much as a gaming addict does.

The benefits of reading are just about the same of the benefits of video games. But in video games, I bet you get more of it than reading. Such benefits are:

1. Strategic planning, anticipating changes, solving puzzles, do logical reasoning and so much more especially in strategy, puzzle and simulation games.


2. Socialize. Games unite the world through online gaming and gaming competitions, people share the same interest and stuff. To say that a video game makes you less sociable because you stay at home all day in front of the computer is the same as how bookworms sit at home all day and read books. What's the difference? In games, you get to socialize online and you get to compete with others, that's the difference.

It is true that games unite people. This is a picture of me and a bunch of other gamers from other states/country in a gathering. We were going to play paintball.

3. Games increase your creativity that lets you solve problems in various ways. Look at Touhou. The fans create videos and music that are so awesome and imaginative, they could've made a hell lot of money if it were original creations.

IOSYS is a circle that creates high quality (THE BEST) fan-made music and flash animations based on the Touhou game series.

4. Teamwork, leadership and co-ordination. I got this out of L4D and COD4, and I could watch the actions of my teammates to sync with them without any sort of communication. I was able to use this skill in reality and it's like learning psychology.


5. Hand-eye coordination that helps you do everything with ease. Games like COD4 actually improve your vision and reflexes where you actually strain your eyes to see people blending with the backgrounds and other entities. In COD4, they even had snipers with ghille suits and they're hiding in the grass. Serious gamers could spot them and take them out...while I couldn't. Now that's improving vision...even the slightest colour difference could be seen and your field of vision (you could interpret things even if it is at the corner of your eye) is increased.

COD4's Ghille Suits look exactly like grass.

These are just the few benefits I thought of on my mind while writing this. Do you get these benefits in reading? No! Games also portray their story and some games even give you a bunch of stuff to read as if you're reading a novel. Games interact with players so much more and give really healthy benefits.

Why put the blame on video games?

Rinnosuke is a character in Touhou, not much is said/shown about him. The fans called him MANnosuke and gave him MANLY skills. That's just random... and most importantly..FUNNY & CREATIVE! This comic strip is drawn by Wong (not me).

WHO IS TO BE BLAMED
The one to be blamed is the player who lacks self-control and self-discipline. If you're a parent, just get games that a Teen rated or games for kids if your children are still young. Play in moderation. Too much of anything will bring negative effects, DUH.



CONCLUSION
So look, don't say video games are bad. They're only bad if you play too much with no self-control and sense of time. Almost everything's like that. I'm a gamer and I benefit from gaming a lot. I gained confidence and logic skills to sort out things in my life. I am great in my studies, I accept criticism, I do not get angry easily (after all, online gamers like to talk crap and scold you over the simplest things, but in the end you're having fun) and I could manage time properly (the Sims helped me in my time management). And yeah, I'm not friggin' obese. My BMI's normal and I spend my time bboying as well.

I am relaxed and I feel great as ever. Without games, I couldn't have gotten so many benefits. If you do not play excessively, you get a bunch of benefits, so why not?



Love,
Nicholas.

How to Multiboot Linux?

Here's a short guide on how to boot multiple Linux distributions in one computer.



Multibooting isn't that hard actually. All you need to do is to prepare partitions for your linux distro to install itself in. Doing so gives you freedom to set up how your linux partitions are set up, such as to have all distros share ONE swap partition and so on.

However, if you actually don't know how to set up, or faced problems while partitioning, you can actually let your distro use the current available free space. This will guarantee the installation, since the distro gets to use its own method to install.



How to Do It?
1. Set up another primary partition.
If you don't know, you can only have a MAXIMUM of FOUR primary partitions. So we'll create one primary/extended partitions to store all Linux in it which they will become logical partitions inside this primary one. Make sure you set a good size to fit all your distros that you are going to install.



If you're using Windows to do it, simply use Disk Management and create a New Primary Partition. It will be in NTFS format, but it's okay for now. You should use a Linux partitioner from there onwards since we don't want it to be NTFS.

Windows Disk Management. Notice E: and F:, they're Primary Partitions. You can add in more using a Linux Partitioner like GParted later.

If you're using a partitioner in Linux such as GParted, it's the same, just create an extended partition and you can create partitions within there (it will be like a drop-down menu) after that.

/dev/hda3 is the Primary/Extended partition here, with more partitions inside it.

2. Create partitions.
Now, create partitions under that extended partition. It's simple, just make sure you make it into the ext3 or ext4 format. Ext4 is mostly used nowadays, so just use ext4. For the swap partition, use the swap format.


Do remember, Linux only needs two partitions to install. One is the root partition and one is the swap partition. If you want to share swap partitions, just create ONE. Upon installing your Linux distro, you can choose the partitions you want to install in.



ALTERNATIVE METHOD - USE FREE SPACE
If you're afraid that you'll fail, you can always use the free space method. After creating your extended partition, just create one empty partition inside it and make sure its size doesn't use all the space inside that extended partition. Leave some free space inside the extended partition for your Linux distro to install in. That free space will be used when you install your Linux using the "USE FREE SPACE" option.






Do the same for the other distros by reducing the size of the empty partition so that there is free space again. Repeat!




3. Installation
Once you have installed your first distro, do not let other distros install their bootloader as it will cause problems. Let's say you installed Ubuntu first. Then, you want to install Sabayon, Red Hat or any other distro. Do not let the others install their bootloader or GRUB (you have to find an option when installing to make sure it doesn't install it).

Untick the Install Bootloader checkbox!

Closure
Once you installed all your distros without overwriting the first GRUB you installed, you should be fine. The GRUB will detect all the new distros you've put in without any issues. If it doesn't, update GRUB and it will be fine.




Love,
Nicholas.

New Addiction - PoFV

Alright, recently I've played this game from the Touhou Project and it is really addictive IMO.


This game has been around since 2005, but yeah, it's still pretty awesome.



What is Touhou Project?
It is a series of games created by only one guy called ZUN from Team Shanghai Alice (which the team consists of only him) and most of the games are of the vertical shooter or "bullet hell shooter" genre.

Today, I'll be talking about the 9th Touhou Project, Phantasmagoria of Flower View or PoFV, because it is competitive and has multiplayer.

(You can download Touhou games here!)

Main Menu

Phantasmagoria of Flower View
Basically in the story, something happens in every 60 years, and this time, there seems to be a lot of flowers blooming! So it's called Phantasmagoria of Flower View and you get to use a bunch of characters to go through the story.



PoFV's gameplay is a little different. It has 2 side-by-side screens in which you play normally by shooting stuff that comes to you and prevent yourself from dying. The person who dies first will lose. In the process, you can destroy special stuff to create attacks for your opponents and even cast spells to send bullets to your opponents. So it's basically sort of a versus-like game.

The HUD and what it means. Number 9 is Cirno, Ice Fairy...the japanese letters read, "Baka"

So that's basically the general layout of the game. Two screens and a bunch of HUD. The game has Story Mode, which allows you to select characters to go through a story. It also has Match Mode which allows you to fight with other players, AI or even network play. Lastly, it has Extra Mode for players who want to try very challenging levels.

Opponent, Reisen casting a Level 4 spell on me, Tewi.

Spells can be casted by holding down the Shoot (Z) button until it charges up. How much you can charge depends on how much you have in the spell bar at the bottom. A Level 1 Spell will release normal attacks and doesn't deplete. Level 2 / 3 Spells clear up some bullets in your screen and creates specific attacks on your opponent's. Lastly, a Level 4 Spell (Boss Spell) will summon a copy of your character to release a huge and deadly series of bullets in unpredictable ways.

The laser beam on the left side is one of the attacks my opponent, Marisa sent to me, Reimu. The right side has my character in it spamming bullets because I casted a Boss Spell (Level 4 Spell)

Destroying certain entities in your screen also sends attacks to your opponent. So, this game is all about dodging hundreds and thousands of bullets while trying to create hundreds and thousands of bullets for your opponent to dodge till he/she dies. It is quite competitive and fun especially when you get to cast spells and screw up your opponents. It is also quite challenging.

Dodge this...

Yes, I wasn't joking about the "hundreds and thousands of bullets" part. This is one game where Easy Mode can kick your ass. It provides fast action and really helps on your hand-eye coordination too. Simple to play, yet very challenging and fun. I recommend it! It's addictive too...try playing it with your friends!




How To Play?
Detailed information on Controls are already stated somewhere, so there's no point stating it here again. I'll just give you links to see them.


http://www.giantbomb.com/touhou-09-phantasmagoria-of-flower-view/61-21289/
http://touhou.wikia.com/wiki/Phantasmagoria_of_Flower_View:_Gameplay





Videos
Just some videos to show you how it is like. You'll feel the adrenaline rush...first one's a 2-Player just-for-fun game and the second one's some serious netplay.

Love,
Nicholas.

L4D: High Point [v0.91]

Updated version of my L4D Map is out!


Alright! New version of my L4D: High Point map has just been released today. You can get it at the all new Downloads section in the blog!







Here's the changelog.
v0.91
- Fixed Boomer's Unlimited Horde
- Fixed Pill's Magical Heal bug.
- Added "/blood (on/off)" for Infected bloody death.
- Added "/noisymusic" to turn off the damn horde music. Use ONLY WHEN you face this problem where the music won't stop.



Love,
Nicholas.

GRUB Rescue Solutions

Yup, about Linux. GRUB fails? Here are some tips.



Some time in your happy days of using your epic Linux distro, you would face a simple and clueless problem. GRUB fails to load and gives you this grub-rescue which you don't have any idea what to do with it!

Before you proceed, you might wanna try Super Grub Disk to fix your GRUB.
http://www.supergrubdisk.org



Solutions for GRUB Failures

Situation: Unknown Filesystem / Corrupted or Deleted GRUB
When Does it Happen: Usually during repartitioning.
Solution:
1. Boot into your LiveCD.
2. Find out where you installed your distro by typing "sudo fdisk -l"
3. Mount it by typing "sudo mount -t ext4 /dev/sda6 /mnt (please change /dev/sda6 to the partition path of your installed Linux)
4. Install GRUB by typing "sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/ /dev/sda"



Situation: Uninstalled Linux / No GRUB
When Does It Happen: When you delete the Linux partition.
Solution:
1. This is for Windows 7, to recover Windows' bootloader.
2. Boot from Window 7's System Repair Disk.
3. Open the Command Prompt.
4. Type in "Bootrec.exe /FixMbr" to overwrite the boot record.



Love,
Nicholas.

Linux Blank Screen Problem

Problems with Sony Vaio or other PCs with Linux concerning blank screen or no display.



Some of you might have experienced that when you boot into your Linux CD/DVD, nothing shows up. Your computer is running, but nothing is on display. However, some people experience it when they boot into their OS in the hard disk, and get a blank screen instead of actually getting it during a boot from CD.

I'm going to talk about two reasons for blank display. First one will be for Sony Vaio users and the second one will be for general users. But first, you need to know how to boot into your distro, 'cuz you probably can't do it as it shows a blank screen.




Booting
If a normal boot doesn't work and shows a blank screen, you need to boot into either Safe Mode, Failsafe Mode, Compatibility Mode or something of the sort when the GRUB screen comes up. If there is no such option, you need to add "nomodeset" to the GRUB command before booting. To do so, just press the "C" key on your keyboard while having your OS selected and type in "nomodeset" at the end. This should be enough to boot into your OS with minimal display.

Added "nomodeset" into GRUB command.

Sony Vaio Blank Display
This problem occurs in Sony Vaio with NVIDIA graphic cards (such as G210M, G310 and so on). It happens because your operating system's drivers could not detect the EDID data. The EDID file is crucial as it describes about your LCD screen. Failure to detect this file will result in a blank display.

Vaio fail? Nah, it's a very good laptop. It just doesn't work well with Linux.

To overcome this problem, follow the steps below.

1. You need to extract the EDID file while you're at Windows. Go to Windows and install the Phoenix EDID Designer.




2. Place the extracted EDID file in "/etc/X11" directory. Rename it to anything you like, for example, "sonyedid.bin".




3. Install Nvidia drivers from restricted drivers list. This can be achieved by going to the Hardware Manager or just by waiting for a pop-up or indication at your taskbar about restricted drivers. You will need to connect to the Internet as it will automatically download the drivers for you.

Activate Restricted Drivers so it will begin downloading and installing it.

4. Edit your xorg.conf file located at "/etc/X11/" and add the following into the Device section of the file. The extra stuff that you need to add is highlighted in this example.


Example:
Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "DFP-0"
Option "CustomEDID" "DFP-0:/etc/X11/sonyedid.bin"
EndSection


(Notice the second last line, /etc/X11/sonyedid.bin, which is the path of your extracted EDID file. If you renamed your EDID file differently, please change accordingly.)

Typical xorg.conf file with no EDID options.

5. IF YOU CANNOT FIND YOUR XORG.CONF FILE DO NOT PANIC! The reason why you cannot find the file under "/etc/X11" is because you are probably using the newer kernel and drivers where the xorg file is located in somewhere else which I don't remember. However, if you do create a xorg file and place it in "/etc/X11", that file will be read instead. Since it works like that, all you need to do now is to create a xorg.conf file, since you don't have one. But how? Follow these steps...


a) First, you need to kill the X server. Uh...different distros have different ways to kill the X server, so I'm just gonna list some. Killing the X server basically means no more GUI, only CLI...all text.

You can try pressing Ctrl+Alt+Backspace. (BackTrack)
You can try going to the terminal and type init 3, then press Ctrl+Alt+Backspace twice. (OpenSUSE)
You can try going to the terminal and type sudo service gdm stop. (Ubuntu)


If it doesn't work for your distro, please just Google it by typing "How to kill X server in YOUR DISTRO NAME HERE"



b) Now, since you already installed your restricted Nvidia drivers, you can run the following command.

sudo nvidia-xconfig


If it doesn't work, your user might not have rights to use the sudo command. So, type in "su" and type in your root password (if you don't know, just type in your user password) and then type "nvidia-xconfig".

It will generate a xorg.conf file at /etc/X11.



c) Now edit the file and put in those highlighted lines as seen in step 4 and reboot.

Linux's file system is different from Windows. Windows starts from C:\ and so on, while Linux starts from Root, which is only a slash "/".

General Blank Screen Problem
Some graphic cards just don't work well with Linux's display drivers. It is most often experienced by Nvidia cards. ATI cards also do experience this problem though.

Most people have the blank screen because their drivers are not installed. Just follow the Booting step at the top of this blog post, so you can boot into your OS and install the restricted drivers as mentioned in Sony Vaio Blank Display step 3.


If it still doesn't work, you might have to boot your PC with the nomodeset option on. You can do this by adding the nomodeset line into the GRUB file, or just type it in before booting. Refer to the Booting section of this blog post.


That's all for the blank screen problem. The next post will be about configuring Linux and how to use it. I will explain on the different features in Linux and things you might want to do, as well as how to install software and the sort in the near future.




Love,
Nicholas.