. : : Marc Sez : : .

LOLCODE - A Programming Language For Everyone!

I found a new programming language called LOLCODE currently under development that hopes to bring the power of other high level languages to the Internet Explorer-using masses.

Here are some examples that demonstrate the flexibility and simplicity of the code. The actual meaning of the code is beyond me but all you B.E. computer science nerds should be able to figure it out.

COUNT!!1:
HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
I HAS A VAR
IM IN YR LOOP
UP VAR!!1
VISIBLE VAR
IZ VAR BIGGER THAN 10? KTHXBYE
IM OUTTA YR LOOP
KTHXBYE

FILEZORZ:
HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
PLZ OPEN FILE “LOLCATS.TXT”?
AWSUM THX
VISIBLE FILE
O NOES
INVISIBLE “ERROR!”
KTHXBYE

IF / THEN / ELSE Implementation
HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
I HAS A VAR
GIMMEH VAR
IZ VAR BIGGER THAN 10 O RLY?
YA RLY
BTW this is true
VISIBLE “BIG NUMBER!”
NO WAI
BTW this is false
VISIBLE “LITTLE NUMBER!”
KTHX
KTHXBYE

If you wish to contribute to the development of this language or find more code snippets visit their home page. LOLCODE

Starcraft 2 Announced By Blizzard!

Oh shit! Blizzard has announced that they will make Starcraft 2, a sequel to the insanely cool and highly respected 1998 real time strategy game. (Read more about Starcraft.)

Starcraft
Starcraft was brilliant, with great cut scenes, interesting game play that wasn’t always base building and three separate factions that had completely different units, structures and gameplay. The story was good and the factions (Terran, Zerg, Protoss) were well designed. And all this was back in 1998! The expansio, Brood Wars added more levels and units and made the game even better.

Starcraft 2
And now, we can go to the Starcraft universe once again… in full 3D this time with vastly improved graphics and gameplay. Check out the announcement trailer below:

Here are some gameplay videos: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
(YouTube)

From what I can see from the gameplay videos the game retains too much of the elements from the prequel and while die-hard fans will be comfortable with that I’m in favour of a more radically different interface that looks better.

I wonder if it will be better than Command & Conquer - Tiberium Wars and Generals.

List of Computer Games I Want To Play

Oh no! They still haven’t given my hard disk to be replaced. And tomorrow is a holiday (May 1 - Labour DAy) so the chap says he’ll give it only on Wednesday. So I’ll be getting the disk back only by next Monday (worst case). WTF. Stuck with DNS resetting Ubuntu till then. Well it could be worse I guess.

Anyway, here’s a small list of games I’m planning to install and play when my hard disk does come back. (Computer games of course. Consoles suck.) Now to find a way to get this stuff.

Need for Speed - Carbon (Racing)
Even more shiny fast modified cars and races. Except now I have the hardware to view them in their full glory.

Farcry (First Person Shooter)
Became quite famous when it came out. Never bothered with it. Should try it.

Doom 3 (FPS)
Played it already but want to play it again with the proper shadows and lighting.

Half Life 2: Episode 1 (FPS)
Sequel to the incredible Half Life 2.

Elder Scrolls 4 - Oblivion (FPS RPG)
Judged one of the best RPGs and best looking games, this one is a must play. I already have the disk.
PLAYED.

Unreal 2 (FPS)
Never got to play this one since my PC kept crashing. I want to play this but don’t remember who took the disks.

Battlefield 2142 (FPS)
Already have Battlefield 2 and found servers to play it one. The sequel should be better.

Colim McRae Rally (Racing)
I’m a fan of the World Rally Championships and I want this game to try to experience the speed and thrills of rally racing.

CounterStrike - Source (FPS)
Tired of playing CS Condition Zero with bots. So planning to play this with bots.

Call of Cthulu (FPS)
Supposedly to be really scary and good.

Medieval 2 - Total War (Strategy)
Played Rome Total War? This one is the medieval version of it. Always wanted to play pitched battles from the Middle Ages.

Civilization 4 (Strategy)
Never played this game fully. Should do so atleast now.

Freedom Forces Vs The 3rd Reich (Action)
This one is a game I’ve been wanting to play this one for a long time. Except I could never find the damn thing!

Medal of Honor - European Assault (FPS)
Kept crashing in the first 5 seconds on the old config. Looking forward to some Nazi ass kicking!

Medal of Honor - Pacific Assault (FPS)
Have you seen the review in GameSauce? It’s Pearl Harbor, man. And you’re there!
PLAYED.

Command & Conquer - Tiberium Wars (Strategy)
The latest C&C. Nod versus GDI and a new alien race too. Awesome!

Neverwinter Nights 2 (RPG)
If you’ve played NWN1 you’ll know why this game is a must play.

Act of War (Strategy)
A more realistic version of C&C Generals. Very good gameplay, the reviews say.

Company of Heroes (Strategy)
Gamespot rates it 9.0! What else do you need? Looking forward to playing this amazing WW2 strategy game.

Brothers In Arms - Earned In Blood (FPS)
A very realistic WW2 FPS. Skipped frames badly on my old config. Will play this in high res.
PLAYED.

Fable (RPG)
Adithya said this was a nice game. I didn’t try it yet.
PLAYED.

GTA - San Andreas (Action)
Very choppy on the old config so didn’t play more than a few missions. Bad camera was also a factor. Will try it again.

Black & White 2 (Strategy)
Played Black & White on Krish’s PC when it first came out and liked it but got to play it only last year. A lovely game. The sequel should be great fun too.

Chronicles of Riddick - Escape from Butcher Bay (FPS)
Ran fine on the old config. But could have been better. A good game. Will replay it.
PLAYED.

Halo 2 (FPS)
It’s coming for the PC! Yay!

F.E.A.R (FPS)
You should see the videos to believe it. Unbelievable action and environment destruction. Scary too.

Hitman - Blood Money (Action)
Hitman Contracts was just mind blowing. Blood Money will finally run on my PC. Bound to be awesome.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R - Shadow of Chernobyl (FPS)
A different game. I liked it from the review.

Battlestations - Midway (Strategy)
Planes, ships and subs to command and blow up stuff. Great fun.

Jade Empire (RPG)
From the makers of NWN, this game should be interesting too.

Gothic 3 (FPS)
A slightly unknown game that is good nevertheless.

Sid Meier’s Railroads! (Strategy)
Why not? I’m bound to get tired of blasting things away. Watching trains chug around and building an empire will be a nice distraction.

That’s about all of them for now. I made this list during a model exam with additional sheets. Kept me from falling asleep.

The Ubuntu Live Disk Adventures

In my last post I didn’t mention how exactly I was still coming online even though my hard disk crashed and has gone for replacement (under the warranty).

Well, it’s through a Ubuntu Live disk. I got it shipped through me a long time ago. January 28, 2006 actually. The entry is in my old blog.

Here’s an explanation of what a Live disk actually is. (Apparently Wikipedia refers to it as a LiveDistro.)

Previously
When my hard disk was working, I had set my modem in the bridge mode. Then I would dial in to Airtel from Windows XP. However with Ubuntu I didn’t know how to connect to the internet simply because it didn’t let me dial in with a username and password in the way XP did. It’s hard to explain so I won’t. The point is, I couldn’t connect because there was no XP-like facility to do that. As I type this it strikes me that I could download a PPPoE dialer and then use that. (Hey! That might work, actually.) So I never bothered to investigate this matter further when I had tried the Live disk, simply because there was no pressing need for it. I was just trying out Ubuntu anyway.

And Now
Now that I had no hard disk and my computer hardware was useless without it, I thought I’d try to get internet working with the Live disk. I had the 5.10 version of the Ubuntu disk (Breezy Badger). It was seriously outdated but hey, atleast I have that. I booted into it and was checking the network settings. Suddenly it struck me that the modem could be set to automatically dial and connect to the internet. It had an inbuilt dialer which could be set from it’s the configuration page. That was the setting I was using it with back when I had a BSNL Dataone connection.

So I went to http://192.168.1.1 which is the modem config page and then changed the settings from bridge to PPPoE and set the dialer details. The modem connected fine and I launched Firefox and tried a Google search query to test the connection. The request timed out (meaning, no connection).

I don’t give up that easily. It was either get it working or stay without internet for the next four days until my new hard disk arrived. I went to the terminal and typed ‘ping google.com’ to see if I had a connection or not. What the hell, I was able to ping the Google server!

I could see google.com’s IP address (72.14.207.99) listed. Fine, let me try accessing the site through the IP address, I thought. I was reminded of Sachan asking Adithya to give him IP address links to sites because his DNS server wasn’t working or something. So I entered http://72.14.207.99 and the browser opened google.com! Okay so Ubuntu didn’t know my DNS settings. I found the DNS entries setting in System > Administration > Networking > DNS tab. The DNS IP already entered there belonged to my modem configuration page! But what were the bloody DNS servers for Airtel? I tried a Google search term for that but was unable to access the search result sites. Nor could I access many sites whose IP addresses I found by pinging them.

I called Chetan, Suren and George asking for the OpenDNS and Airtel DNS server IPs. Armed with this information I went back to DNS settings and entered the Airtel DNS server IP addresses. And it worked! Finally! Yay! I had internet working!

The Mystery of the DNS Resets
I went to the usual sites and was just getting warmed up when I lost the connection. Site requests kept getting timed out. I found out that the DNS entries were automatically getting reset to the modem configuration page IP address. Why was Ubuntu doing this? I couldn’t find help on the net through Google searches and George didn’t know either. He told me to directly edit some config files but that didn’t work either. So every ten minutes I have to re-enter the DNS values. Hey, atleast I have internet.

The Magic of GAIM
But I also found out that GAIM remains connected even if the DNS values are lost. It needed the DNS only to connect initially. After then it maintained the connection just fine. Not so for Meebo which dropped the connection every time the DNS reset. I’m not sure. Perhaps Meebo uses HTTP requests and GAIM accesses the server IPs directly or something. Okay so I now had internet access and then messenger access with GAIM. I was using GAIM in XP also so seamless transition. GAIM staying connected all the time independent of DNS was a plus.

Update blog? No problem. With photos that are on a camera? Still no problem!
Now I wanted to update my blog. That’s not a problem if all I wanted to post was text. I wanted to include pictures from my camera.

I had already connected my camera to the Ubuntu live disk earlier when I had USB problems and I knew that I would work just fine. It did. Now where do I store photos? On the RAM? Okay, I tried and I was able to. Now how do I resize images and save them as JPG? The GIMP was included along with Ubuntu and that worked just fine. I rescaled the image and saved as JPG. Then I was able to upload the photo, compose the blog entry and post it as usual. No problem at all!

Will online radio work?
Now I’ve already mentioned RadioVeRVe. Ubuntu seems to be able to do everything so why couldn’t it open the online radio stream? I used RhythmBox to open the stream but it kept crashing when I did. I went to the main site (www.radioverve.com) to open the browser based player but Firefox didn’t have the Flash plugin. Dammit! I tried the automatically install plugin feature of Firefox. It never works properly in XP so I didn’t think much of it. But it installed Flash player correctly on Ubuntu. I fired up the browser player and it worked.

Now to intall audio drivers, I thought. It shouldn’t be so hard to find them, right? I turned on my speakers and began typing the search query in Google but wait. What was that I was hearing? Holy crap! I already had sound. Why is this so surprising? Even Windows XP does not have default sound drivers for my onboard audio.

Ubuntu Rules!
Now I was really impressed. I had internet. I had instant messenger. I had USB support. I had image tools. I had online radio and sound drivers. All out of the box without installing anything extra (except the Flash plugin). So I can effectively do most of the things I do on my computer even without a hard disk! All it takes is a single Live disk. Now that is something quite amazing.

The only annoyances are Ubuntu sometimes freezes for no reason and the DNS keeps resetting but these are minor annoyances probably because the version I’m using is 15 months old.

And no, I’m still not a Ubuntu convert. It’s impressive, yes, but I’ll still install Windows XP when my hard disk comes back. I’m a gamer and support for games on Linux (even after advances and emulators like WINE) leaves much to be desired.

For people who don’t play games, Ubuntu is the way to go. It has everything you need, there’s load of extra software you can install directly over the internet from Applications > Add Applications, is stable and secure and most of all, it’s completely free.

George Is Using Windows!

Chetan recently acquired this covertly taken picture of George. What a hypocrite!

Looks like he hasn’t stopped growing weed at home either.

Computer Back Online… Still No USB

My computer didn’t power up yesterday so I thought the SMPS or the motherboard might have failed. (Who has this annoying habit of calling a motherboard ‘mobo’. George isn’t it?)

I took it to ‘PC Connexions’ (or however it’s spelt) who was the guy who assembled my PC. Adithya’s too, in fact. Now this guy, Sahu, is never at his shop but his assistant is. I got my PC all cleaned out with a brush and when it was nice and shiny clean he powered it on and it worked fine. Just great. And after connecting a USB hub (is that what it’s called?) to a USB port on my computer and after removing it, my USB functionality was also fully restored! What the heck?

So I brought the damn thing back and it refused to power on here. I went to Adithya’s house, made him stop playing WoW and turned off his computer and returned with his power cable. Sure enough, it was the power cable that was causing the problem. I returned it and got a new one from Mercy Electronics for Rs. 30. (Now Ragha will comment and say he could have gotten the cable for cheaper.)

Finally the computer was back online but there was no display on the monitor. This was a common problem. After a bit of shaking and tapping the graphics card the display was restored.

Now after all this, USB devices are still not recognised on my computer. Annoying. It works fine in Ubuntu but not in XP. (And I’ve already reinstalled XP twice so don’t you even dare suggest that. See previous posts.)

Today I noticed that I hadn’t installed any program to handle .rar files. I don’t like WinRAR. I usually use PowerArchiver which looks more modern. So I found the files on the net. But guess what? The installation files were inside a RAR archive. Freakin’ brilliant.

Going to borrow that USB hub thing from the shop. Will post photos if successful.

Not Another Windows Reinstall!

I’m having problems connecting my camera to my computer. At first I thought it was an issue with the camera, but when the card reader wasn’t recognised on my system either I began to suspect Windows. So I’m planning YAWR, this time with Windows XP UE that Hariharan downloaded for me.

But I don’t want to install SWAT 4 and then patch it and then install the expansion all over again. I’ll do the reinstall during the weekend. I don’t feel like it now.

No, George. I’m not going to use your Linux method.

YAWR - Yet Another Windows Reinstall

I’ve edited and updated the previous post in case you didn’t notice.

I mentioned that my computer wasn’t booting up, right? Well I called Ragha and he asked to try resetting the BIOS settings with the usual method (removing the circular BIOS battery and then putting it back in). Link to tutorial, if you want to know more. I’d forgotten about that and tried it. It worked and now the computer was booting into the XP login screen.

When I logged into my account I was presented with a nice blank desktop. Nothing was loading. Task Manager took about four minutes to appear. But after that I could run most programs, including Firefox. After some experimentation I ran Winamp and pressed play and that somehow triggered the loading of the desktop. So now I was in the desktop but I couldn’t run my firewall because it was one of the files was corrupt. My connection to the internet also kept terminating five minutes after I successfully access the ADSL account.

So I realised that Windows was screwed up again and went over to Suren’s house to borrow his copy of XP. (That reminds me, I’ve got to return it to him!) I deleted my primary partition to remove all traces of the old XP, recreated the partition and installed Windows.

The worst thing about a Windows reinstall, apart from the loss of all installed programs, is the amount of updates and software necessary to bring the computer to a usable state. It takes hours!

This are the things I installed right away:

1. Nod32
2. ZoneAlarm
3. Firefox 2 and Add-ons
4. GAIM
5. TuneUp Utilities
6. Free Download Manager
7. VLC Player
8. All motherboard drivers
9. TCP/IP Optimiser
10. uTorrent
11. JCreator

Not installed yet:

12. Paint.Net
13. Ad-Aware
14. CloneDVD2
15. Google Earth
16. Opera
17. Quicktime Player
18. Gtalk
19. FileZilla
20. Skype
21. Ventrilo
22. hamachi
23. Daemon Tools
24. Google Video Player
25. BS Player Pro
26. Adobe Photoshop CS2
27. OpenOffice

Thankfully, World of Warcraft worked without needing to be reinstalled.

Why the hell won’t Windows work for more than 6 months without getting one of it’s files corrupted like this?

Sindhu’s Firefox Add-ons List

We can’t live without Firefox and it’s add-ons, right? I’d like to list the ones I use but Sindhu’s recent post just about covers it all and includes some of her own suggestions. So go read that.

Fission is really cool. I suggest you get that. [Highly recommended.]

Download Statusbar is a must have if you hate the one second delay before Firefox’s download manager loads. [Highly recommended.]

Digg.com Roundup - IM Encryption, Adsense, Ubuntu And More

It’s been a while since the last post so let me start with a Digg.com round up. Something is wrong with Digg these days. I’m in page 20 and there are still new articles. Usually there are just two new pages a day. Maybe it’s because I stopped logging in?

GAIM Encryption Plugin

Do you know that your instant messenger conversations are sent over networks as plain text? They can easily be read by anyone who knows how to.

This plugin for GAIM makes things harder to spy on your conversations (but not impossible). Download here: http://gaim-encryption.sourceforge.net/

Instructions here at Lifehacker if you need the help.

Of course you need GAIM, the multiple platform instant messenger. Get it here: http://gaim.sourceforge.net

Why should you use GAIM? Well, it uses very little memory and can connect to Yahoo, MSN and GTalk, the three main messenger networks we use. So all your contacts in a single messenger. Minimum hassle. Try it out.

Gravity Launch [Flash Game]

A fun game based on gravity. You have to launch a rocket with the correct angle and thrust and dock with orbiting space stations. Great fun but very hard at the fourth level. Link

Adsense Updates ToS - Other Contextual Ads Now Permitted

Google’s Adsense now lets you display other contextual ads along with Google ads provided they do not mimic Google ads.

Link

Bam Bam Bigelow Dead!

Aw! He was my favourite player in that Wrestlemania DOS game.

Switching to Ubuntu Made Easier

It really is a pain to switch to Linux if you’re already running Windows. You need to delete one partition and then boot with Ubuntu and create a new ext3 partition (which incidentally didn’t work for me… my newly created ext2 partition wasn’t recognised by the Ubuntu installer).

Then in the case of SATA disks, the disk won’t be detected like at Ragha’s place.

The solution to all this might be a Windows installer for Ubuntu. Read this.