January 2006

Ducks, videos and turtle hopping

Ducks

As busy as I’ve been lately, I was able to take the opportunity last Saturday to visit my family and my girlfriend. I took my little 5-year old sister Jenna and my girlfriend Jamie to feed ducks, which was a first for Jenna. She was a bit scared at first when the ducks started to approach her, but she quickly got over it. It wasn’t the warmest of days, and after a while Jamie and I decided it was time to leave. We told Jenna it’s time to stop and that it’s getting too cold, but
Jenna is a stubborn girl who enjoys the cold. “Just cuddle together” was her response, and she continued to feed the ducks. Ah well. Once we assured her we would come back another time, she willingly left.

Videos

I was browsing around del.icio.us today and came across an interesting site, YouTube. It’s a tag-based video posting site where people can upload videos and they’ll be played in a Flash wrapper, like Google Video uses. I’ve found a few neat videos so far, but haven’t explored it as much as I’d like. I’ve never heard of it before tonight, though, so I thought I’d post it for others to play with.

Turtle Hopping

So it turns out that there’s a number of developers writing new versions of Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda games. They’re not bad, either. I haven’t played very far into any of them, but they definitely look promising. The main ones I’ve found are Super Mario: Blue Twilight (a 2D side-scroller similar to SMB3 but with some Mario 64 elements, taking place in a halloween land), Super Mario War (kill all the other Marios before they kill you), Super Maryo World (a Mario game written in JavaScript), and Super Mario Pac (a combination of Super Mario World and Super Mario Sunshine).

On top of that, there’s a set of instructions for accessing developer-only areas of Super Mario Bros 3. A room full of Tanooki suits! Awesome.

As for the Legend of Zelda, check out Zelda Classic. It’s Windows-only for now, but they claim there’s a Linux version coming out. It’s the Zelda engine (plus some additional features) with support for custom games. There are many game sets provided by other users, some mediocre, some excellent and detailed. I recommend playing around with it.

And now, for the old-style unmodified retro games. Sure you could download emulators and do things that way, but why bother when there’s 1980-games.com, Every Video Game Online, Game-Oldies, Play Infocom Adventures Online, and C64s.com? Nice ways to quickly kill a few minutes from anywhere.

For the Tetris-type puzzle fans out there, I present to you Stackopolis!

(Can you tell I’m going through a nostalgia phase?)

A few project updates

I’ve been putting off several posts for a few days now, due to just being busy with things. So, here we go.

Notification Framework

I just put out a couple of good releases of notification-daemon and libnotify. A few days ago, I released version 0.3.2 of both components, and tonight I put out notification-daemon v0.3.3, which contains a few nice bug fixes such as a fix to prevent notifications when the screen saver is active or when something is running full-screen. The style of the notifications has been changed to resemble the look from notification-daemon v0.2.x. It now supports theme engines, so that other looks can be developed. The protocol has improved and stabilised a bit, and the API and general code of both components have been cleaned up, thanks to J5’s work.

Galago

Galago’s been on hold lately due to work and trying to get the new notification-daemon and libnotify ready for distros. Development has picked up again, and I’m hoping I have very little to do before I can put out the 0.5.0 releases of all the components. Finally, libgalago will be GLib/GObject-based, and the API will be a lot more sane. Plus, Python bindings! Yay!

Oh, and I’m moving to Trac for our bug tracking (see trac.galago-project.org). This is real nice, because I can now reference bugs in commit messages and they’ll close automatically with the commit message. It’s also quite clean and easy to use. I’m slowly moving some bugs over, but I’ll continue to monitor the bugzilla for a while.

Leaftag

Remember those screenshots of our tag integration I posted? It too has been on hold, but it’s far from vaporware. We’re calling it leaftag, and I think our logo is somewhat cute :). I have very little left to do before the library is released, and I should be able to redo the Nautilus support quickly. I’ve been using the tagging almost every day. Now I just need to find the time to get this ready. Maybe at one of these upcoming hackfests I’ve been doing (and really hope to do more) with friends.

VMware

Busy busy busy, but good. I’m working on some pretty exciting stuff. More about this later 🙂

Oh, and someone needs to remind me to put up a picture of our cool new Workstation 5.5 sweaters featuring Mario!

What the hell is midnight oil?

I’ve never understood that expression.. “Burning the midnight oil.” What’s midnight oil? Oil that is only used at midnight? Why do we want to just burn it? I don’t know..

I’m pulling an all-nighter. Oh how I missed these… Except I shouldn’t be doing this. Still, getting a lot done, so it’s worth it, but I think I’m going to crash. If you don’t count sleep and a couple small breaks, I’ve been working about 57 hours straight. I didn’t even notice the weekend. Now it’s Tuesday.. This week’s going to fly by. It’s worth it though.

I don’t know why I wrote this. Trying to keep my eyelids open. Back to work.

Tux Paint for the Nokia 770

Tux Paint is one of those Linux applications that just makes me smile. It’s cute, fun, and great for kids. My little sister of five years old loves it and has been playing it since she was two. Also, Bill Kendrick, Tux Paint’s creator and lead developer, is a friend of mine, but I’m not biased at all!

So recently, Bill has been talking about finding somebody to port Tux Paint to the Nokia 770. Since I have one, and since my sister loves playing with both the 770 and Tux Paint, I figured I would take up the challenge. While not perfect, and somewhat slow in loading, the end result turned out pretty good.

Tux Paint on the Nokia 770

Work will continue on this. Some optimizations need to be made in areas, and hopefully other users of both Tux Paint and the 770 will want to contribute.

Releases will be posted soonish.

20 Ways to be a Good User

I don’t expect anybody who should read this to actually read it. A couple of users the past few days have inspired me to write this little guide.

  1. If you request support in a channel and nobody is around to answer within two minutes, make sure to voice your frustration and leave immediately. Make sure that you stay for no longer than four minutes in total.
  2. If a developer tells you the answer you’re searching for is in a piece of documentation easily accessible, refuse to read it, perhaps citing an inability to read. Your time is important, and the developer should know the answer.
  3. Don’t read instructions or information in detail. Glancing over it should be enough. If glancing isn’t good enough, repeat your question. Don’t add any additional information to this question, or it might confuse the situation.
  4. Remember, you use this software. You have rights. The developer’s personal life, work life, or stress level is completely irrelevant. If they don’t provide the level of help you expect, remember that this is not your fault, but theirs. They owe you support, and be sure to complain loudly in as many forums as possible.
  5. NEVER thank someone for their support. They’re working for your needs, and don’t deserve any gratification. Besides, thanking them gives them a sense of control, which you should attempt to keep for yourself.
  6. Your problem is the most important. The developer may have other people they are trying to help, but it’s unlikely that their problems are more important to yours. Be sure to explain this, loudly if necessary.
  7. If you are influential at all, your opinion matters more than anybody’s. Follow the previous rule, as it will definitely produce a positive outcome. Be sure to relate the developers in question to members of organized totalitarian political parties.
  8. The more supportive you are of a developer’s software, the more support you deserve.
  9. Don’t use punctuation or bother with the spell checking. This slows down the communication between you and the developer.
  10. Insult the developer. This establishes control which, as previously mentioned, is important. Support should be thought of as a battle. Popular insults include “asshole,” “mother f**ker,” “dipshit,” and “newb.” Insulting their mother is another good way of establishing control.
  11. If your problem is very important, make sure to complain loudly about the software in general on several popular forums. The louder you complain, the more likely it is that the developers will fix your problem.
  12. If you’re confused by the “support” that the developer is giving you, don’t feel bad, as this isn’t your fault. This is the developer’s fault. Developers live in a different world. They’re nerdy, geeky, socially inept people who aren’t able to clearly get points across. Tell them this, as they probably don’t realize it. It is sure to ease the communication.
  13. As a user, you’ve come to know this software, probably better than the developer. If the developer says something about the software, take it with a grain of salt. They’re only the creators. You’re the one that uses it.
  14. Don’t waste time by upgrading to a recent version of the software. The bugs you have are important, and upgrading may introduce new bugs. It’s best to get the current bug resolved. If necessary, inform the developer that they need to create a patch release. This is especially important if the software is several years old.
  15. You represent the majority of users. Your feature request is everybody’s feature request, and it isn’t a hard to implement, really. The developer should be able to do it RIGHT NOW. Drill this in to the developer when they start stating bullshit like “that feature requires a rewrite of our codebase,” or “that feature conflicts with this other feature,” or “we’ve never heard of anybody wanting this feature before.” They’re just lazy.
  16. If you have a family member or close friend that tells you a fact about a piece of software, and the developers try to tell you that your family member or close friend is wrong, they’re just jealous. They don’t want to acknowledge your family member or friend’s expertise, especially if your family member or friend can “program” Microsoft Office onto your computer.
  17. Documentation is essential to a program. Many developers will claim they have not had the time to produce extensive documentation, citing work or personal life or other bullshit as “reasons” for not spending time on this. Often, they will ask you to do it. Have no part in this, as it’s a trap. If nothing else, they will try to take credit for your hard work.
  18. It is your responsibility to fill out as many feature requests and bug reports as possible. Do not check for duplicates in the bug tracker, as the more redundant bugs that exist, the more likely the developer will notice and fix these bugs, or implement the features.
  19. Sometimes you just have to switch to a competitor’s program. Your problem may be trivial, according to the developer, but it’s still a problem, and if there is one problem, there may be many. What are the chances that the competing program would cause problems?
  20. If the program is open source, fork it. You can do it better. To gain press coverage, post on all the forums and popular news sites. You’ll gain more respect and developers this way.

I hope this has helped all the users out there.

NOTE: For the sarcastically-impaired (if you live somewhere in the vicinity of Betelguese, this includes you) do not actually take this advice.

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