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quick links
Posted 8:59:59 AM on Tue, 5th August 2008 by Dj-ZoRt!
I found that the MacOSX installer will fail if the iMac G4 sleep functions kick in. For some reason the installer doesn't disable any of the power saver functions for the screen, hard disk etc so when (i assume) the hard disk or cd/dvd-rom (not sure which) powers down the installer will fail with an big orange error saying installation component not found.
My wife and I took our first DVD back as we thought it must be faulty. However after seeing the same error again, we watched carefully (rather than just walking away for long waits in the installer) we noticed that the failure varyied as to when it occurred i suggested that my wife sit there and hit ctrl ever minute or so throughout the 90 odd minute install (as ctrl has no impact on the installer, but will wake this system. this is an old unix best practise). So with a novel in hand she diligently tapped ctrl throughout the installer. It then worked nicely.
In my defense the upgrade of OS was to allow her new iPod nano to work. Panther was perfectly suitable for all other purposes, even if a few new apps were starting to not support it, it worked fine for browsing, watching files and dvd, and up until the new iPod nano - for syncing ipods.
As the install would start upgrading the system then fail, I was unable to get back into 10.3 to turn off power saver features. So the machine was basically a brick without sitting there tapping on the keyboard for an hour and half.
Good news is that despite the numerous upgrade failures, when things finally did install properly we didnt lose anything. All the user data and installed apps from 10.3 were where they should be and the upgrade is as you would expect. Ie everything is the same when you log in except the version is now newer and there are more bells and whistles.
Our iMac G4 is 1ghz with 768mb ram and Leopard seems to run just as well as Panther. There are a few effects that are slower and surprisingly some that are faster. For the skeptical windows user, you cant boast that sort of experience when upgrading windows ever. Although i will admit that moving from NT4 to Windows 2000 was actually the first time that upgrading windows seemed to make life better.
Posted 1:19:31 PM on Fri, 13th June 2008 by Dj-ZoRt!
For some strange reason I had never previously needed to install a perl module in debian. Its baffling, considering I am staunchly Debian in the face or the Fedora and Ubuntu hoards, and similarly i am a Perl-is-best system administrator who finds php, java, ruby and even python to be unnecessary uses of my hard disks sectors.
So with that rant out of the way. Here is how to install perl modules the Debain way :) keep in mind this command will make a .deb file in the current directory
So firstly (only need to do this once), install dh-make-perl with...
apt-get install dh-make-perl
Then for each module, just run
dh-make-perl --build --cpan Module::Name
the --notest option may help you if you are lazy like me and just assume things will work right
then you will want to install the .deb package with dpkg -i etc
Posted 11:59:17 AM on Wed, 23rd April 2008 by Dj-ZoRt!
This is a very quick howto on installing Call of Duty 4 (COD4) dedicated server for Linux. This uses the native linux port. It should also work fine for FreeBSD (as cod4 works perfectly in freebsd's linux emulation)
Note
I have also stripped out unneeded files to minimize size (by default its over 6gig). I am not using punkbuster, infact im also removing it completely. You can use punkbuster, but you will need to work that out for yourself (doing so will may mean you cant trim the install to bare essentials).
You will need...
- cod4 server binaries tar archive
- cod4 discs (cd or dvd, these instructions are for dvd)
Prepare the game data files
Mount the cd/dvd to a convenient location, i will use /mnt/
Go to the directory you want to install in (keep in mind you will need about 7 gigs of space initially). Perhaps /opt/games/ or /usr/local/games/. FreeBSD users may be inclined to have the files live inside /emul/linux/ with the rest of the linux environment.
Create the COD4 server directory, and copy the game files then make them writable by the owner. You will need to repeat the copying line for each CD.
mkdir cod4-linux-server
cd $_
cp -R /mnt/Setup/Data/ ./
chmod -R g+w *
Remove Junk we dont need
Now remove the junk we dont need and save over 1gig of space (this isnt in the README file, but we dont need windows files unless we want to use punkbuster)
rm *bmp *exe *dll *ico
rm -rf main/video/
cd ..
You may also be able to remove the Mods and Miles directories, but they are under 1meg so its not all the worthwhile.
Install the Linuxy bits
Now install the COD4 binaries (do this last so that updated files in the package override the cd files) and remove the punk buster installer.
wget
tar jxvf
cd cod4-linux-server
rm pbsetup.run
Look how small it is!
dean@optimus:~/cod4-linux-server$ du -h
2.8G ./main
456K ./miles
696K ./Mods/ModWarfare
696K ./Mods
2.3G ./zone/english
2.3G ./zone
5.1G .
Configuration Files
Look elsewhere for this step.
Run your server!
Now do all the configuration files and then run the binary (you might want to run this in screen).
./cod4_lnxded
Caveats
1. I have read that COD4 needs its game files and subdirectories in lower case. If there are just a few, you can rename them yourself with the mv command. Otherwise you can use a fancy script such as this one, which will rename everything in and under the current directory to lowercase.
#!/usr/bin/perl
@files = `find .`;
shift @files;
foreach $file (@files) {
$file =~ s/\n//;
system('mv',$file,lc($file)) if ($file =~ /[A-Z]/g);
}
2. COD4 will fail to run if ~/.callofduty4/pb doesnt exist, even if punkbuster isnt used. This may cause problems with a very restricted user. You can probably fake cod4 by running it with $HOME overridden. Ie
HOME=/opt/games/cod4-linux-server ./cod4_lnxded
You shouldn't use export HOME=/blah/blah as this will wreck up your session.
Posted 9:11:02 PM on Sat, 1st March 2008 by BaRRaCUDa!!!
Ok so last Thursday's uni bar night was the most fun ever. The students association organised for the people at the foam party company to run an event, we had an awesome DJ and a giant foam cannon.
The dance floor was absolute chaos as large numbers of uni students in varying states of intoxication all smushed together to get as close to the foam cannon as they could, combined with the fact that everyone was drenched and slippery with whatever chemical the foam was made from. Despite the crush it was actually very easy to get into the middle because everyone was drunk and slippery so you could just slide through the crowd.
All in all it was a fantastic night, i got home at 2amish, i wish i could have stayed longer but an early friday class beckoned. Hopefully there will be one again!!!
if someone is looking at organising an awesome night for a birthday or some such think then have a look at http://foamparty.com.au
Posted 1:23:09 PM on Fri, 15th February 2008 by Dj-ZoRt!
There is a lot of people out there annoyed that hamachi 'wont run' on GNU/linux for AMD64. Likely this is mainly because hamachi is game oriented and Linux gamers often lack really indepth linux skills. Maybe, maybe not. But either way here is how to get it to run on your AMD64 system - regardless of your distribution (i personally run Debian, i have also made this work on OpenSUSE as well... it will work on any distribution.
So lets start by downloading hamachi (this link may need updating)
[dean@cache dean]# su
.. etc ..
[root@cache dean]# cd /tmp/
[root@cache tmp]# wget http://files.hamachi.cc/linux/hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx.tar.gz
... file downloads ...
[root@cache tmp]# tar zxvf hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx.tar.gz
hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx/
hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx/Makefile
hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx/LICENSE
hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx/README
hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx/LICENSE.tuncfg
hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx/LICENSE.openssh
hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx/LICENSE.openssl
hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx/hamachi
hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx/tuncfg/
hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx/tuncfg/Makefile
hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx/tuncfg/tuncfg.c
hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx/tuncfg/tuncfg
hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx/CHANGES
[root@cache tmp]# cd hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx
So we have downloaded and extracted the hamachi tar.gz file into /tmp/
Then we move on to other things.
The 'tuncfg' portion of hamachi will compile without any issues. The actual 'hamachi' binary file is a binary, but its encrypted and compressed with 'upx'. So to make it work, we just need to extract it. Easy!
At this stage, some distributions may actually run the binary. CentOS seems to do so out of the box. So try it like so...
[root@cache hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx]# arch
x86_64
[root@cache hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx]# ./hamachi
Cannot find configuration directory /root/.hamachi. Have you run 'hamachi-init' ?
[root@cache hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx]#
Otherwise we will just need to uncompress it with 'upx'. Once again, the link below may break. So check out upx.sf.net for the real file.
Your dist will likely have a proper package, but i will just use the tar.gz so we can delete it later with the hamachi install files.
[root@cache hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx]# wget http://upx.sourceforge.net/download/upx-3.02-amd64_linux.tar.bz2
.. the file downloads ...
[root@cache hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx]# tar jxvf upx-3.02-amd64_linux.tar.bz2
upx-3.02-amd64_linux/
upx-3.02-amd64_linux/BUGS
upx-3.02-amd64_linux/COPYING
upx-3.02-amd64_linux/LICENSE
upx-3.02-amd64_linux/NEWS
upx-3.02-amd64_linux/README
upx-3.02-amd64_linux/README.1ST
upx-3.02-amd64_linux/THANKS
upx-3.02-amd64_linux/TODO
upx-3.02-amd64_linux/upx
upx-3.02-amd64_linux/upx.1
upx-3.02-amd64_linux/upx.doc
upx-3.02-amd64_linux/upx.html
[root@cache hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx]# mv upx-3.02-amd64_linux/upx ./
[root@cache hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx]#
So we extract and move upx, its still in the hamachi directory so it will wipe easily later. Im not proposing you avoid your package system! Just that for a once off usage you may as well go this way. Extract as so...
[root@cache hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx]# ./upx -d hamachi
Ultimate Packer for eXecutables
Copyright (C) 1996,1997,1998,1999,2000,2001,2002,2003,2004,2005,2006,2007
UPX 3.02 Markus Oberhumer, Laszlo Molnar & John Reiser Dec 16th 2007
File size Ratio Format Name
-------------------- ------ ----------- -----------
830676 <- 331144 39.86% linux/386 hamachi
Unpacked 1 file.
[root@cache hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx]# ldd ./hamachi
linux-gate.so.1 => (0xffffe000)
libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0x4f7e4000)
libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0xf7fe2000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x4f59a000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x4f57d000)
[root@cache hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-lnx]#
So now the hamachi binary is ready to go. Observe that ldd now knows whats what with the binary, previously ldd would give you ' not a dynamic executable'.
Now, do all the usual hamachi steps! (make, make install, hamachi-init etc. See the README file that comes with hamachi). gHamachi and init scripts are out there. So go find them if you like!
I have played numerous linux native and windows (through wine and or cedega) using hamachi in this way. Its quite easy! Not to mention ssh over hamachi. So watch out, as hamachi will expose your machine to the VPN network even when you are behind a ADSL/IP router with firewall facilities. Hamachi uses 5.0.0.0/8 network addresses which may also get around your local iptables rules.
Posted 8:40:47 AM on Fri, 8th February 2008 by Dj-ZoRt!
My Wife and I were excited to go see Cloverfield. The trailers and pre-release marketing looked excellent. We are both Lost fans so were looking forward to something special. Whilst in NZ on the last leg of our moneymoon we found a cinema and watched it. Keep in mind that we put off seeing it to save ourselves some money before our wedding, we might have seen it in the Cook Islands but their little cinema seems to focus on family movies - so we waited for New Zealand. Well. It was rubbish. Utter, utter rubbish. Blair Witch style cinematography was way art house, but stupid. Miami Vice style would have worked just as well without the motion sickness and constant annoyance at the intentionally lowsy camera skills. The monster seemed cool, but there were only a few good solid shots to enjoy him/her and absolutely no information whatsoever on where it was from etc. I understand what the movie was trying to do. But the angle is for Dendy Cinemas not for mainstream cinemas. My recommendation? spend your time watching land before time sequels instead.
Posted 1:25:26 PM on Thu, 10th January 2008 by Rufnex
SteelSeries presents results of recently held Iron.Lady female tournament
Shanghai, China - January 9th, 2008 - SteelSeries, a leading manufacturer of innovative professional gaming gear presents the final standings of the world's most successful female gaming event Iron.Lady 2, an invitational Warcraft 3 tournament, held the between the 4th and 6th of January.
Iron.Lady 2 took place inside the NeoTV studios, where the event was televised off- as well as online. During the 3 days Iron.Lady 2 was held, over 90 million people were exposed to the event on over 200 Chinese websites, and was the most viewed program on Web TV throughout China.
With gaming systems provided by DELL and professional gaming gear from SteelSeries, eight professional and upcoming female gamers battled it out for the winning title. Last year's winner Zhang "Cang" Xiangling was set to defend her title as she faced Xu "Sara" Yinghua in the finals. After an exciting match, Cang was able to snatch the first prize that included a DELL XPS M1530 gaming laptop and a 12 month sponsorship from SteelSeries involving 3000 RMB per month.
The final Iron.Lady 2 standings were:
1. Zhang "Cang" Xiangling (SteelSeries sponsorship and DELL XPS M1530)
2. Xu "Sara" Yinghua (5000 RMB and DELL XPS M1330)
3. You "MoonFish" Jianying (3000 RMB)
4. Iin "sweetdream" Jia
5. Zhao "KilLah" Ming
6. Wu "Dido" Jingjing
7. An "Angel" Jia
8. Mimi "MiMi"
Besides the main tournament a vote took place among all spectators for the most popular SteelSeries Iron Lady. The winner received a DELL XPS M1530 gaming laptop and once again Cang ran with the prize as she turned out to be the crowd's darling.
For more information about the event including information about the contestants, replays from the tournament, pictures from the venue and spectator statistics please visit www.steelseries.com/ironlady.
About SteelSeries
SteelSeries is a leading manufacturer of gaming peripherals and accessories, including headsets, keyboards, mice, software and gaming surfaces. SteelSeries has been on the forefront of professional gaming gear since its inception in 2001, thanks to continued innovation and product development in cooperation with leading professional gamers. All SteelSeries products are developed in co-operation with professional gamers to ensure optimum performance and durability. SteelSeries supports the growth of competitive gaming and electronic sports through aggressive sponsoring of teams and support of communities, tournaments and LAN-events all over the world. For additional information, visit http://www.steelseries.com.
About Iron.Lady
Iron.Lady is a unique yet successfully popular gaming event held in China. Iron.Lady gathers the top female professional Warcraft 3 delegates from around Asia, in order to battle against each other for cool prizes and of course the ultimate title of "Super Iron Lady". Iron.Lady was founded in 2007 and reaches a viewer base of approximately 90 million people with 200+ websites in China alone. Iron.Lady represents and signifies the strength within these females' personalities, but also their determination and ability to compete on a professional level. The Iron.Lady tournaments are a cornerstone of competitive female electronic sports. For additional information, visit http://www.steelseries.com/ironlady.
Posted 12:03:30 AM on Thu, 10th January 2008 by Dj-ZoRt!
what a legacy....
well im using debian which is requires some loving for ut2004 to work properly
firstly one removes the ut2004/System/libopenal.so and links it to /usr/lib/libopeal0.so
then similarly remove and link the libSDL
but you need to force openal to use alsa... (for the longest time i thought it was just my soundcard sucking - in addition to the oss layer sucking)
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2325660
one needs to force alsa in the ~/.openalrc file
ie
echo "(define devices '(driver))" > ~/.openalrc
where 'driver' is
# native (OSS)
sdl (Simple DirectMedia Layer backend, see above Q/A)
arts (arts backend)
esd (ESounD backend)
alsa (ALSA)
waveout (Output a wav file)
null (no sound)
which may look like, as in my case...
echo "(define devices '(alsa))" > ~/.openalrc
then edit ~/.ut2004/System/UT2004.ini in the ALAudio.ALAudioSubsytem section make sure the following is set.
UseDefaultDriver=False
and viola! ut2004 runs heaps better. like, not grinding and clunky. smooth sound as one would expect. even on my super-duper onboard realtek sound, it sounds good.
i dont doubt this will have similar results on other distributions and with other sound cards. for newbies, libopenal will have the same behaviour on other systems, so give it a try. also debian or otherwise, the kernels are all the same, so yeah - will also help.
Posted 10:39:01 AM on Wed, 9th January 2008 by Dj-ZoRt!
Firstly, the following does not constitute as financial advise. Please consult with a qualified financial adviser, planner or consultant before making serious financial decisions such as opening a credit card account.
My co-worker made the fatal mistake of acquiring a Virgin Credit Card.
When i first went for a a Credit Card, Virgin sent me an application pack - i didn't solicit it at all - which i filled out, sent back and had rejected. The good thing was they spent their cash printing and mailing it too me, then with a paid return envelope for me to send it back, they wasted their time to then deny the application.
Anyway regardless of the pro's and con's on paper of a Virgin Credit Card, having not looked in to them recently - i would like to talk about how down right annoying having a Virgin Credit Card is. Given that i don't even have one - I am still inconvenienced because a co-worker has one.
Generally with a Credit Card, you get one, you buy things and you pay back the debt as quickly as possible trying to make the most of the interest free period. This is great for unexpected costs such as car damage. Generally with a CC you can make zillions of transactions and not be charged for each one, then you just pay your credit card off once a month or week - depending on how you get paid - then just have one transaction. Also you join an awards scheme, which may cost about $30/year, but then by pouring all your money through said credit card you can get freebies well beyond that $30.
Using this 'pouring through method' i was able to redeem points for $50 worth of fuel cards. Which for my little card is two tanks of fuel, one of which will usually last me a week. In generally i will usually redeem about $120 worth of freebies each year for $30 plus i save on transactions. The month before i redeemed my points for a Roses-Only voucher - which provided a nice (and free) surprise to my fiance.
There are also bonus points partners that will give you 2-3x the points per transaction if you buy through them. Which, if you book holidays etc is rather worth it. For $20 purchases its hardly worth the fuss.
If you don't pay quick enough, you start paying interest. It just accrues on your card and you will sooner or later have to pay it. If you hit your limit, the bank calls you - then things start to happen and your life starts to be miserable.
Anyway so thats what normally happens, at least with my credit card which i have with a large well known bank firm which may or may not have originally been government owned.
But with old Bransons financial group, Virgin - they have taken a page out of your ex-girlfriends book, who may have also been a Virgin originally as well - so the parallel may be striking.
Rather than being patient and appreciating the money you give to her, she nags you constantly for input. Similarly, Virgin rings you once a week at the very same time and nags you for a payment - which i might add - has already been made and has never yet been late.
This seems reasonable, when for example, they have graciously let you go over your limit. Thats fair enough, and my co-worker understood that. But 9 months later with said credit card has a grand sum of maybe $400, with a limit of several thousand, they just keep on calling.
Its like when you finally bring yourself to dumping her - then she just keeps calling you.
Now, you could just turn off your mobile - but like your nutsy ex they will call you at work, at home, and leave messages. Not only that, they don't identify themselves or really have any phone decorum whatsoever. Their only redeeming quality is that they don't ever call before 9am.
So, before you consider filling out an application for a Virgin Credit Card - consider just how much fun it was with your crazy bonkers ex.
She was awesome for the first little while as well, and looked really great compared to the competition - but oh how wrong you were.
Posted 3:23:31 PM on Fri, 21st December 2007 by Dj-ZoRt!
Given all the TV-spam (ads) about this new Will Smith movie "I Am Legend" i thought i would actually read it - potentially ruining my chances of enjoying the movie.
A quick wiki will inform the internet user that "I Am Legend" is a novel written by Richard Matheson of 1954 vintage. It was (is?) classified as Science Fiction, but could be considered a Vampire or Zombie book depending on how you slice it.
The main character is Robert Neville (who's race isn't particularly identified, so Will should be okay in that regard) who is essentially the last man on earth. A disease has killed everyone and brought them back as zombies. Seems pretty ho-hum heard it all before? Well this book is actually the original for this style of zombie/vampire, apparently one of the first to deal seriously with zombies/vampires (they are kind of both) by trying to provide a reasonable explanation as to why they exist and their motivations. I Am Legend goes as far to explain how the virus spreads and how it works, as Robert studies them over a number of years. The book concludes by leading into the triumph of a new society emerging.
Overwhelmingly though, the book deals with his isolation and adaptation to his new life of scavenging in the day, hiding in the night. He becomes more efficient as a scavenger whilst becoming less and less emotional about his situation. He deals with the realities of living off long life foods only and needing to travel increasing distances to find supplies, making for more and more dangerous adventures. I Am Legend goes so far as to identify the withdrawal of behaviors and lusts taught to Robert by society prior to his isolation. It also deals with his sexuality as he is totally isolated and without any gratification (in this regard, the book borders on distasteful at times, so it will be interesting to see how this is incorporated in the movie).
Unlike the trailers for the Will Smith movie, the book is not set in New York, but rather in Southern California. Similarly not set present day, but in 1976 through 1978.
Alternative film adaptations include 'The Omega Man' starring Charlton Heston circa 1971. I have not seen it, but apparently varies from the book considerably. So did the 1964 film 'The Last Man on Earth' according to Wikipedia.
Is it worth read? yes.
Is it really good? its okay, good would be a stretch, really good would be a lie.
Did i feel like hours of my life were wasted? No, I enjoyed the book and am recommending it for your reading pleasure.
But for the reader, keep in mind that its only a short story (170 pages) so lacks the polish and refinement of a full novel. Which is true for I Am Legend, which seemed to build towards something rather grand then disappointed by concluding totally differently. I was left without the satisfaction I has read 160 pages hoping to find in the last 10.
Short stories also aim to explore a single concept and help the reader ponder thereon. In this regard I Am Legend did very well. Certainly i wasn't expecting the depth in exploring his isolation.
Did is feel lame? No not at all. Although it lacked the highly shined polish of an Oprah recommended novel, it was certainly far far far better than anything L. Ron ever managed to get printed.
Its cheap and easily bought second hand off amazon, so go grab it and you will have a pleasantly intriguing read during a day off this Christmas break.