Silently, we passed our 10th anniversary some days ago. As a little gift, here’s an older video right from the DVW game engine.
All posts in Miscellaneous
Android Game Development (Day 4)
Day #4, Saturday, June 26th.
Keep reading below if you’re interested in today’s progress. Comments are welcome! In case you missed it, also don’t forget to read the report on my first three steps in Android game development.
Android Developer Challenge
Google has announced the second Android Developer Challenge and I’m seriously considering taking part. They have ten different categories with three attractive prizes each and one overall category with three even more attractive prizes. Given the facts that there were only 1788 submissions last year, that I have already gathered some experience in mobile device development and that I do work with several Google APIs for my freelancing job I consider my chances not too bad. Idea, anyone? ;-)
Great Mac Wallpaper
While I’m at it, I could also post a great wallpaper I use on my Mac.
Firefox AddOns and OS X Software I use
People seem to like posting their favorite plugins and software these days, so I thought I could add my little list of useful stuff here, too. I’m open to suggestions for other good extensions, of course.
Here’s my list of Firefox AddOns I am using actively:
- Adblock Plus
- Firebug
A powerful debugging aid for web developers. Comes with e.g. a DOM explorer and a JavaScript debugger. - Web Developer Toolbar
A toolbar which offers many useful functions for web developers. In particular, I like outlining of block elements or enabling read-only form fields. - FoxyProxy
Manage proxy configurations and use them depending on URL patterns etc. - ImageZoom
Zoom images with RMB and mouse wheel. - Foxmarks
Synchronizes bookmarks. I found it particularly useful to define synchronization profiles so that I can separate work bookmarks from private stuff. - Tabinta
Ever tried to enter a TAB in textarea controls? Tabinta allows you to use TAB there. - Flagfox
Shows the country flag of the server’s origin in the address bar. - Split Browser
Splits the browser window into multiple areas. - Nuke Anything Enhanced
Allows to remove any DOM object under the mouse. Useful e.g. to get rid of layer ads that Adblock Plus doesn’t catch.
I also found the following OS X software to be useful:
- On the Job
I bought this one to do my expense tracking and invoicing when I do freelance work. It can be tested freely for 20 days and I really liked it from the beginning, but I got convinced to buy when it offered me another 10 days trial after the first period was over – wasn’t that nice? - Cyberduck
Great FTP client. - TextWrangler
Powerful text-editor with FTP-support. - The Unarchiver
Unarchiver which supports plenty of file formats. Good replacement for the native ZIP tool which is pretty limited. - LabTick
A little tool which keeps the keyboard light on all the time, independent of the ambient light. - Little Snitch
Firewall which monitors outgoing traffic and keeps programs from “phoning home” if you don’t want them to. - ChMox
Tool to read Windows CHM files. - 0xED
Small and fast hex-editor.
Some German comments on ELFrun
mattin posted at mac-tv.de and one particular comment gives a quite comprehensive feedback. Also, there’s a pictured review on a Swiss site, apfelkraft.ch.
Oh, and btw., version 1.5 is in the store and we’re working on version 1.6.
Did I mention the ELFrun review on iphonegamenetwork.com?
ELFrun featured on YouTube channel
mattin found ELFrun featured on “Englishtwist’s” Christmas Countdown for December 3rd. If you want to see the whole ELFrun intro video (because you don’t have an iPod/iPhone, of course, otherwise you would indeed buy the game to watch it), have a look at his footage starting at about minute 4 :-)
There’s another video from “ipodtouchlab” who is featuring ELFrun over here with two (simple) levels of gameplay. I’m really wondering whether someone will ever make a movie of the harder ones.
ELFrun gameplay video #1
mattin created a new video which shows ELFrun from starting it up on the iPhone to finishing a level (and most of a bonus level). It’s one of the easier levels at the beginning (level 5), so there are not many obstacles and the speed is still pretty low. I guess playing a higher level through a camera is pretty much impossible.
ELFrun is also currently featured on TouchArcade.com, hooray!
I was a bit scared how fast ELFrun was pirated, though.
ELFrun available
On 12/3/2008
In Game Development, Miscellaneous, Personal, Software Engineering
With 8 Comments
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ELFrun is available in the AppStore. Just follow this link.
And now, dear colleagues, please spread the word! Feel free to use one of the shots mattin posted and do some advertising. Greatly appreciated!
I am now a registered iPhone Developer.
On 9/21/2008
In Game Development, Hardware, Miscellaneous, Personal, Software Engineering
With 1 Comment
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Plus MacBook Pro owner since Saturday. Plus soon to become an iPhone owner. Plus a bit confused by Objective-C syntax already.
New DVW screenshots
On 8/15/2008
In Game Development, Miscellaneous, Personal, Software Engineering
With 2 Comments
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A bugfixed Bookmarks Displayer Widget
I upgraded to WordPress 2.5.1 today due to some major security issues (German link) and was reminded that one of my widgets was not working correctly. Nathan Oliphant wrote this widget to display bookmarks in the sort order of the users choosing. Unfortunately, it had two minor bugs which 1. caused changes not to be made persistent correctly with recent WordPress versions and 2. broke proper sort order selection. I fixed those bugs and added optional support for Ozh’s Click Counter plugin.
Again, here’s a direct link for your convenience, tested with WordPress 2.5.1:
Nathan Oliphants Bookmarks Displayer Widget (rename to .PHP after downloading)
MyBB Registration eMail Check
Today, I wrote a simple MyBB plugin, Registration eMail Check (RMC). The plugin first verifies whether the email has a valid format, then compares the email host with a number of hosts which were explicitly disabled by the administrator (the plugin comes with a decent list of well-known one-time address providers), and finally tries to communicate with the corresponding mail server in order to verify whether the address actually exists.
I wrote the plugin for two reasons: First, because I wanted to prevent automated bot registration with non-existing email addresses. When I look through lists of users waiting for activation I find an ever growing amount of accounts which were obviously generated automatically, using non-existing email addresses. Second, because I don’t want people to use anonymous one-time email addresses when registering in forums where a certain mutual trust is mandatory.
Here’s version 1.0 for your convenience, tested with MyBB version 1.2.12:
RMC – Registration eMail Check 1.0 for MyBB
The source code is now available on GitHub.
Internet Fraud
I saw the following advertisement on AutoScout24 today.
5300 EUR for a 2007 Audi A3 ragtop. This looked too good to be true, indeed, but still I couldn’t hesitate to contact the seller. The telephone number shown in the ad turned out to be a fax number, so I tried to get in touch by email. I received a reply about 15 minutes later.
Merry Christmas
(Image courtesy of mybestdesktops.com)
BlackBerry 8800 woes
I have a BlackBerry 8800 for work which is generally a good thing. I can read and write email, notes and calendar entries from anywhere, surf the web, get a route calculated from my current position and so on and so on.
Still, it’s a work gadget, so it would be just half the fun if it hadn’t a micro SD card slot and wasn’t capable of playing music and videos. So I installed a 6 GB card and copied some music on it. When I reinserted the card I was presented a message box saying, “Media card has been inserted that contains errors. To correct the errors please use a disk error checking utility on a computer.” (or “Es wurde eine fehlerhafte Medienkarte eingelegt…” in German).
In case you ever run across this message, make sure that your files on the media card have no spaces in it. The BlackBerry obviously can’t deal with them. Moreover, I removed all special characters from the files as a precaution. It worked for me then.
DVW Data Leaked
Apparently someone has leaked internal DVW data, possibly using an iPod or iPhone, as the evidence shows. If you know this bastard, tell him that we’ll segfault him.
Usability issues
Did you ever think about why your mouse pointer becomes a hand if you hover a link but not if you hover a ? I don’t get the difference.
Hardware, again
After years on a 60Hz CRT at 1600×1200, I decided to get a 20″ TFT. It’s a Samsung SyncMaster 204B which is one of the cheaper models on the market, but it turned out to be a real bargain and I am really satisfied with it.
I like the pivot function. Although it is unfamiliar for me, I always wanted to have a better overview over the code above and below the cursor, and I know that this is the only solution left if you use a relatively high resolution and relatively small fonts. So I’ll try to get used to that. When I tried out the pivot function, I recognized the only drawback of the hardware so far: I found it quite hard to rotate it 90 degrees, and I missed snap points.
This is our game, DVW, at 800×600.
Another view of my hacker cabinett with flash. To the left you can see my old tube which I now use for chat and debug windows. Although the CRT takes a lot of room on the table, I will keep it as a desktop extension for my debug and chat windows, or to watch a movie while coding or so.
Windows Genuine Advantage
Microsoft now requires its Windows users to prove their right to download updates by verifying the serial number and the activation status. Within 24 hours, this check was passed over, as BoingBoing reports. But it looks to me like this one is very easy to fix for MS, maybe it’s even a debug flag which was forgotten.
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