tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20908901366029473772024-02-07T07:36:44.603+02:00Technology, the Universe and EverythingZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.comBlogger97125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-6176188632526297692018-12-31T21:38:00.001+02:002018-12-31T23:43:17.140+02:002018 Year in Review; Happy New Year 2019!Just to get a post in 2018 too, here's a random list of big or small things that happened this year, for me or just generally in the world, in no particular order:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>I recently updated my <a href="https://netbooksandeverything.blogspot.com/2017/01/raspberry-pi-3-no-monitor-no-keyboard.html">Raspberry Pi post</a> with details about the latest Raspbian system</li>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDFBTdToRmw">Skibidi</a> was a thing</li>
<li>I watched quite a few <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtI0Hodo5o5dUb67FeUjDeA">SpaceX</a> space ship launches live on YouTube</li>
<li>In Helsinki, Finland the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redi_(shopping_centre)">Redi shopping centre</a> was finished. The general public found its layout highly confusing and the entrepreneurs found their businesses didn't attract enough customers. I visited it once.</li>
<li>In February, <i><a href="https://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Civilization_VI:_Rise_and_Fall">Civilization VI: Rise and Fall</a></i> was released</li>
<li>I got some <a href="https://ruuvi.com/">Ruuvi sensors</a> and started playing with them</li>
<li>I also got a Bluetooth-enabled bike light(!?), a Magicshine MS-606C 1600 (MJ902B)</li>
<li>It seems that I posted <a href="https://www.instagram.com/zeroone3010/">over 50 photos on Instagram</a></li>
<li>I read several good books by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Gladwell">Malcolm Gladwell</a></li>
<li>I enjoyed playing <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/268130/Heat_Signature/">Heat Signature</a> and <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/341800/Keep_Talking_and_Nobody_Explodes/">Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes</a></li>
<li>More than 12 million items <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(<a href="https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:News">source</a>)</span> were created in <a href="https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page">Wikidata</a>. I also created some <a href="https://twitter.com/ZeroOne3010/status/1034584855512801280">Wikidata queries</a>.</li>
</ul>
ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-4686906840111617672017-01-08T22:09:00.002+02:002018-12-30T00:59:13.466+02:00Raspberry Pi 3 no monitor & no keyboard: setup with Windows – Tutorial<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEietgi4PJCQnklCU1uv2xt6Z8guyEjcUzjUWG0SrUNpJKTWWLPGIWyKXxNL3nu1mM5GT7y468Z6QCEjcbpZ1iVxP5D8Fd9-ITcU95EFk_G6gBE_XbvZMUAfFWiEyNQZNY1-zxgsMGGtUIk/s1600/raspberry-pi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEietgi4PJCQnklCU1uv2xt6Z8guyEjcUzjUWG0SrUNpJKTWWLPGIWyKXxNL3nu1mM5GT7y468Z6QCEjcbpZ1iVxP5D8Fd9-ITcU95EFk_G6gBE_XbvZMUAfFWiEyNQZNY1-zxgsMGGtUIk/s200/raspberry-pi.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Raspberry Pi 3 Model B</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In this post I'm succinctly going to explain how to setup a Raspberry Pi computer that does not have a monitor or a keyboard (a "headless" setup), using a Windows PC. I'm using a <a href="https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-3-model-b/">Raspberry Pi 3 Model B</a>. The microSD slot is under the circuit board, at the other end where the USB and Ethernet connectors aren't. At the time of writing this post the latest version of the Raspbian <strike>Jessie</strike> Stretch Lite operating system is the version that was released on <strike>2016-11-25</strike>. (<i>Update on December 2018</i>: The latest version is nowadays called Stretch, not Jessie, and it was released on 2018-11-13!)<br />
<ol>
<li>Download <a href="https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/" target="_blank">Raspbian Stretch Lite</a> (pro tip: the Torrent file loads faster)</li>
<li>Download <a href="https://www.balena.io/etcher/" target="_blank">Etcher</a></li>
<li>Run Etcher to install the Raspbian Stretch Lite on your microSD card </li>
<li><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeso5rjK0M70Lo26sAu-bkImfQQqv6_1Uh0ocuN9N0WnQvQf5angFArcnOyjwMk9LXCMWNdlJbjJ9-af16A7pq8k9sRW30LAugGVe1-BeLhHuKy4EKTVXI4Qjr6vkqBQeMnzpTKowtXhg/s1600/raspi-sd-new.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeso5rjK0M70Lo26sAu-bkImfQQqv6_1Uh0ocuN9N0WnQvQf5angFArcnOyjwMk9LXCMWNdlJbjJ9-af16A7pq8k9sRW30LAugGVe1-BeLhHuKy4EKTVXI4Qjr6vkqBQeMnzpTKowtXhg/s200/raspi-sd-new.png" width="171" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Contents of the microSD card</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Etcher may unmount the card after it's done: remount it, then add a new file into it, called "<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">ssh</span>". No extension, no contents in the file. This enables the SSH daemon on the Raspbian. </li>
<li>Optional: If you want to use your Raspberry with a WIFI connection instead of an Ethernet cable, add another new file called "<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">wpa_supplicant.conf</span>". In this file add the following:<br /><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br />network={<br /> ssid="NAME OF YOUR WIFI"<br /> psk="PASSWORD OF YOUR WIFI"<br />}</span></li>
<li>Insert the microSD card into your Raspberry Pi, then start it by connecting the power cord. Make sure the Ethernet cable is connected too – or that you completed the optional step 5 above. The system will be ready in about 15 seconds. </li>
<li><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr233VnMZqZ04sDWBZBzxJhDLrsfpatrKfcsgVa1XROxfTRWNjvTzZHw4D52sTKMMDm-GIraN8hBwd689puGeAq48XoM25vGE1eiAIx-a0egVhJQrEJMztPaDvXnq3RLsJUBn96wvVVJU/s1600/advanced-ip-scanner.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="97" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr233VnMZqZ04sDWBZBzxJhDLrsfpatrKfcsgVa1XROxfTRWNjvTzZHw4D52sTKMMDm-GIraN8hBwd689puGeAq48XoM25vGE1eiAIx-a0egVhJQrEJMztPaDvXnq3RLsJUBn96wvVVJU/s200/advanced-ip-scanner.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Advanced IP Scanner</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Using either your router's admin view or the <a href="http://www.advanced-ip-scanner.com/" target="_blank">Advanced IP Scanner</a> program find the IP address of your Raspberry.
</li>
<li>Use <a href="http://www.putty.org/" target="_blank">Putty</a> to connect to your Raspberry </li>
<li><tableame span="" style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Username </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">"</span></span></tableame><tableame span="" style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">pi</tableame>", password "<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">raspberry</span>". </li>
<li>You are now logged in. Now update your system: first do "<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">sudo apt-get update</span>" and then "<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">sudo apt-get dist-upgrade</span>". </li>
</ol>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3a2BpH-qhjCzjrMVa8EIKC4t_vFbAgBOkbCk2CL_ToozuG5qpg3Uca_gsIKKxQKZOzGb09k2-8GhmYfObSKkqut3yBIuIHTAP0XX1qeGqnwJbasUKdmidQccgTZ1PMG_MzJFigsp9IfA/s1600/pi-putty.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="86" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3a2BpH-qhjCzjrMVa8EIKC4t_vFbAgBOkbCk2CL_ToozuG5qpg3Uca_gsIKKxQKZOzGb09k2-8GhmYfObSKkqut3yBIuIHTAP0XX1qeGqnwJbasUKdmidQccgTZ1PMG_MzJFigsp9IfA/s200/pi-putty.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Logged in</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Congratulations, your Raspberry Pi is now ready for use!<br />
<br />
PS. If you don't have a case for your Raspberry, why not find a 3D printer and print one? Thingiverse has for example <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:423216" target="_blank">this one</a> that also fits perfectly for a Raspberry Pi 3 model B.ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-18653880600803134102016-01-16T15:12:00.000+02:002016-01-16T15:12:24.321+02:00Hexcells, Hexcells Plus & Hexcells Infinite<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_7IHVxi9t5pnNJghAHbH5fnCfZECUMLHtt__j1cy6NzXeMTWyFrJbacw868pSqsy8EcjKezBJ6zx7kRRfu3DE6Br9ftO1uk34lrMhqgy1cQcBu1Itaw5llnl_1F0PV_Gvk9W-lIiqV_8/s1600/2016-01-03_00001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_7IHVxi9t5pnNJghAHbH5fnCfZECUMLHtt__j1cy6NzXeMTWyFrJbacw868pSqsy8EcjKezBJ6zx7kRRfu3DE6Br9ftO1uk34lrMhqgy1cQcBu1Itaw5llnl_1F0PV_Gvk9W-lIiqV_8/s320/2016-01-03_00001.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Level 6 from Hexcells Plus, in its initial state.<img height="16" id="6raa68bxca0x" src="data:image/gif;base64,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" width="16" /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/265890/" target="_blank">Hexcells</a> is a casual puzzle game in the spirit of the good old <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Minesweeper" target="_blank">Minesweeper</a>. It differs from Minesweeper with a few key points, though: 1) all the puzzles are solvable by logic only, you never need to guess (even if the logic may be a bit tricky to figure out!); 2) the board consists of hexes instead of squares; and 3) there are other kinds of hints besides just the number of "mines" (blue hexes) next to a number hex, such as the number of hexes on a column, or a hint that the blue hexes around a number hex are joint with no gaps (number in curly braces: {2}) or that they are not all adjacent (number with dashes around them: "-3-"). Also the game looks nice and has an ambient background "music" that can only be described as "soothing".<br />
<br />
It took me less than two hours to perfect the original Hexcells and I figured I could've played some more, so I bought <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/271900" target="_blank">Hexcells Plus</a> and <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/304410/" target="_blank">Hexcells Infinite</a> too. All of the games have initial tutorial levels to teach the mechanics, but the difficulty level in Hexcells Plus goes up way quicker than in Hexcells -- there are few really easy levels. The more difficult levels can even take up to 30 minutes or so, which started to feel like too much, especially given that you cannot save the game in the middle of a level! Also, it does feel irritating if you make a mistake towards the end of a level after having spent 20 minutes on it, especially if you're after the Perfectionist achievement without cheating.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTcuM7Q5o8QQi-TEOlE1nRDtR0Vi_z7OA_BaR2Q-TlRNUG-3OsmCN5oTu0JnXNrF2J10m3XZA_NAiWMU21hi69uHpG-IA_BMGn55HbmQy0nF88mO_k6a1PdJz12lhCqAJVMLYRN8eb9hM/s1600/2016-01-03_00001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTcuM7Q5o8QQi-TEOlE1nRDtR0Vi_z7OA_BaR2Q-TlRNUG-3OsmCN5oTu0JnXNrF2J10m3XZA_NAiWMU21hi69uHpG-IA_BMGn55HbmQy0nF88mO_k6a1PdJz12lhCqAJVMLYRN8eb9hM/s320/2016-01-03_00001.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Level 29 from Hexcells, almost solved.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Both Hexcells and Hexcells Plus have 36 levels, but it took me between 5 and 10 times longer to complete Hexcells Plus than Hexcells. All the levels in both games are hand-crafted and sometimes almost made me laugh at the beauty of the puzzle, which is a good sign of a good puzzle game. I'm still in the middle of Hexcells Infinite, which also has 36 hand-crafted levels, but in addition to that, millions of randomly generated levels and a possibility to load in community-made levels.<br />
<br />
Playing all the three games is starting to feel a bit laborious, but the games are strangely addicting and you often feel like playing one more level even though the last one already took too much time. I can warmly recommend any of these games to any puzzle-lover out there. I liked the original Hexcells the most, as it offered a short Flow-state of puzzle-solving, whereas the other games make you put much more effort into them. Hexcells is also priced the same as Hexcells Plus, Hexcells Infinite being a bit more expensive. All the games are sold in a <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/sub/50074/" target="_blank">bundle</a> too, which you might find at a nice discount in some Steam sale.<br />
<br />ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-77064470636622818912014-05-11T22:14:00.000+03:002014-05-11T22:14:57.978+03:00Peter Watts: Blindsight<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP9Beqj-X3IhvuKhI6sOUAmSISgotLyOJ5_X9DGo2gYJTcgJ41KF60Z1xu3arMvSTuu0asYVWmNz3fZZP8ly4LvItSBADdmkTfxLIfj6xakrYC1PlP_phSv3Y_GBxAv8DTUTCIhbmYscA/s1600/Blindsight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP9Beqj-X3IhvuKhI6sOUAmSISgotLyOJ5_X9DGo2gYJTcgJ41KF60Z1xu3arMvSTuu0asYVWmNz3fZZP8ly4LvItSBADdmkTfxLIfj6xakrYC1PlP_phSv3Y_GBxAv8DTUTCIhbmYscA/s1600/Blindsight.jpg" height="320" width="212" /></a></div>
Blindsight is a neurological condition where there's nothing wrong with your eyes, but you cannot see. Your brain cannot access the image data consciously, but you are still able to reflexively react to visual stimuli, such as by ducking an object flying at you. Blindsight is kind of related to the perhaps more famous condition of body integrity identity disorder, where one might think that their leg or some other limb is not theirs but just a dead piece of meat and needs to be amputated.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Blindsight</b></i>, on the other hand, is a 2006 novel by Peter Watts. The events of the story take place in the 2080s, when a spaceship called <i>Theseus</i> is sent to investigate an alien object somewhere far beyond the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt" target="_blank">Kuiper belt</a>. Technology has advanced greatly since our days. 3D printers, called fabricators, can print just about anything, including computers and robots. Medical treatment can also cure almost anything short of a major brain damage, including severe radiation poisonings. People get their brain rewired for attitude adjustments and DNA augmentation isn't uncommon either. The minds of deceased people are copied into a virtual world called Heaven, and the living can visit them there.<br />
<br />
The story follows the events in and around <i>Theseus</i>. The crew consists of an AI called the Captain and five people: Siri Keeton, Susan James, major Amanda Bates, Isaac Szpindel and Jukka Sarasti. Keeton is a <i>synthesist</i>, trained (with the help of some brain augmentations) to understand complex systems and to explain them to others. He is also the narrator of the story and is included in the crew to observe everything that happens and report back to Earth regularly. Susan James is the "mother" of the Gang of Four, the other minds living in her brain: regularly any of the Gang of Four may take control of their common body, and together they form a highly functional unit specialized in linguistics, to speak with the aliens. Amanda Bates is the soldier in case things get bad, and Isaac Szpindel is the biologist, to study the aliens. Finally, Jukka Sarasti is the commander in charge of the operation. He is also a vampire, brought back from extinction by the science of paleogenetics.<br />
<br />
If at this point you flinched, don't. Vampires aren't some magical creatures, but the author has actually devised a plausible evolutionary history for <i>Homo sapiens vampiris</i>. It is, for example, noted that vampires are sociopaths: "<i>Vampires had to be sociopaths. They're too much like their own prey—a lot of taxonomists don't even consider them a subspecies, you know that? [...] If the only thing you can eat is your own kind, empathy is gonna be the first thing that goes. Psychopathy's no disorder in those shoes, eh? Just a survival strategy.</i>" The reason why there's a vampire commanding the crew is that vampires have superior pattern-matching and analytic skills compared to humans. It's basically hinted that in a traditional IQ test a vampire could score four digit numbers, whereas the average human IQ is 100. That makes sense, since if you are going to hunt something as clever as man, you'd better be smarter than your prey. Additionally, vampires are solitary hunters: very territorial and never team up.<br />
<br />
In many works of fiction long distances in space are covered in some kind of cryogenic sleep. Watts has cleverly combined this with vampires, as the crew's DNA has been augmented with some vampire DNA, allowing them to be "dead" for a long period of time and then be woken up again.<br />
<br />
Regarding Susan James, it's important to note that the Gang of Four (her and Michelle, Sascha and Cruncher, who is the only male in the gang) aren't Susan's alter egos or anything like that, but indeed completely other people. While Susan's brain has become "multi-core" with the help of a surgery, it is noted that a simple, strong enough stress could also split the brain the same way. The story makes a clever remark about the multi-core people of the past: "<i>People were fucking </i>barbarians<i> about multicores back then—called it a </i>disorder<i>, treated it like some kind of disease. And their idea of a cure was to keep one of the cores and murder all the others. Not that they called it </i>murder<i>, of course.</i>".<br />
<br />
A few times during the book there's a nice recurring narrational feature, where a section would start with "<i>Imagine you are [someone or something]</i>" and the story would progress for a while describing what you usually do and how you usually think, and reflect that to the events at hand. That's a nice break from the other narration and I haven't seen it used in other books. Just when you might think the trick is getting old, it disappears for a couple of hundred pages, just to resurface to wrap the entire story up. So the narration (as well as the vocabulary) is clearly way, way above that of, say, Dan Brown's works.<br />
<br />
On the cover of the book there's a quote from a British author Charles Stross: "Blindsight<i> is a tour de force, redefining the First Contact story for good.</i>". That should already give it away that aliens are indeed encountered when <i>Theseus</i> reaches its target. But what do you do when you don't even know if the aliens are way smarter than you, or if they are as stupid as dandelions? The book explores interesting concepts such as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room" target="_blank">Chinese room</a> and the relationship between sentience and intelligence. The author has clearly seen a lot of trouble making everything so different from other stories, yet plausible, and also manages to make you think.<br />
<br />
I recommend the book for anyone interested in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_science_fiction" target="_blank">hard-SF</a>. I'd also recommend the novel for anyone who's not interested in science fiction, as this might be a good starting point with the more realistic setup than, say, <i>Star Trek</i>. The author has published the entire book on his web site at <a href="http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm" target="_blank">Rifters.com</a> in PDF and HTML formats as well as in some e-book formats.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCEW8vGuoiFNGKet-k7rvzoN7KHY4sqZO3zSo45mYV9F4eC9Lg5JO40IHpyqcP5qbjthy-Y96E5ErW6VeKyc2KcwMyaGgJb-2g4N7XrjvzdbrAVS2182Rpmkngzb58mmsONXhCOmlTXoQ/s1600/Blindsight_excerpt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCEW8vGuoiFNGKet-k7rvzoN7KHY4sqZO3zSo45mYV9F4eC9Lg5JO40IHpyqcP5qbjthy-Y96E5ErW6VeKyc2KcwMyaGgJb-2g4N7XrjvzdbrAVS2182Rpmkngzb58mmsONXhCOmlTXoQ/s1600/Blindsight_excerpt.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-19358729850291965632014-01-12T02:07:00.001+02:002014-01-12T02:07:09.314+02:00The best Firefox plugins for web developers<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF3oNkRZbx-WkbVnZ-zEVSWdyRhkPc3pp3kfn-3RBPDJJGMOpIUOdlAvv_hv898ehvF83kwPxgKoKX9cE0UxVrG-DVQrWXtAm43bB9tMVqkrYwmXgkT2mnk7SXHmgKvCbpmEK89-9ZBkk/s1600/Tamper_Data.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF3oNkRZbx-WkbVnZ-zEVSWdyRhkPc3pp3kfn-3RBPDJJGMOpIUOdlAvv_hv898ehvF83kwPxgKoKX9cE0UxVrG-DVQrWXtAm43bB9tMVqkrYwmXgkT2mnk7SXHmgKvCbpmEK89-9ZBkk/s1600/Tamper_Data.png" height="50" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tamper Data</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY2H9kMkZNh7UiAa4HQOKC8TGAgHyTc5coYhWOUz_mC6n2Lmi8Bv-jPo2TsZgI4iF8e3OqjFlDu6N3Q6H8BQbosmcvunZ7lMI08805N7kJoNEsVhCZn2mM0dumY_krEBP7EK4PwRiuP2o/s1600/JSONView.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY2H9kMkZNh7UiAa4HQOKC8TGAgHyTc5coYhWOUz_mC6n2Lmi8Bv-jPo2TsZgI4iF8e3OqjFlDu6N3Q6H8BQbosmcvunZ7lMI08805N7kJoNEsVhCZn2mM0dumY_krEBP7EK4PwRiuP2o/s1600/JSONView.png" height="200" width="191" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">JSONView</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpSesYyO27w4CnifeIYtPfICBXVYV034Zl6n0mYvkfyOb1QSfeLxKV0HRYwtsErCOGPLQ2In-SEapgOaqyX3xk64mWjBDXVevONh0zym9mcxp_e7brVHHn4zP9qq1rAFO3rCkg2SOupB0/s1600/XPath_Checker.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpSesYyO27w4CnifeIYtPfICBXVYV034Zl6n0mYvkfyOb1QSfeLxKV0HRYwtsErCOGPLQ2In-SEapgOaqyX3xk64mWjBDXVevONh0zym9mcxp_e7brVHHn4zP9qq1rAFO3rCkg2SOupB0/s1600/XPath_Checker.png" height="96" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">XPath Checker</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Here's a bunch of Firefox plugins for the web developers out there. If you are only going to install one, then <a href="http://getfirebug.com/" target="_blank">Firebug</a> is obviously a no-brainer (and you should already have it if you are a developer), but these others are very useful as well. Listed in alphabetical order:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie-manager/" target="_blank">Advanced Cookie Manager</a>: Inspect and easily edit and/or remove any cookies there are</li>
<li><a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/jsonview/" target="_blank">JSONView</a>: Makes JSON documents easily inspectable with syntax highlighting and collapsible structure</li>
<li><a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/fi/firefox/addon/live-http-headers/" target="_blank">Live HTTP Headers</a>: Makes it trivial to inspect the HTTP headers of all requests and their responses</li>
<li><a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tamper-data/" target="_blank">Tamper Data</a>: Modify HTTP and HTTPS post parameters and headers</li>
<li><a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/xpath-checker/" target="_blank">XPath Checker</a>: View and test XPath expressions on the current page</li>
</ul>
<div>
Finally, there's a whole array of <a href="https://getfirebug.com/wiki/index.php/Firebug_Extensions" target="_blank">plugins for Firebug</a> and there's something for everyone, so I'm not going to list any individual plugins from there. Just take a look and pick whatever you might like. :)</div>
ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-83339609726144661122013-09-14T16:20:00.001+03:002013-09-14T16:21:11.853+03:00Humble Indie Bundle 9Name your price for four excellent indie games -- six, if you pay above the average, which is currently mere USD 4.59! The above-average-price games are <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fez_(video_game)">Fez</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTL:_Faster_Than_Light">FTL: Faster Than Light</a> which have both received highly favorable reviews. Within the four games that you can get for any price there's for example such a gem as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_of_the_Ninja">Mark of the Ninja</a>. All the games work for Windows, Linux and Mac. You'll get Steam keys and you also get to download them, free of any <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management">DRM</a> technologies that would hinder the gaming experience.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/1uET5jheNjc" width="459"></iframe>ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-44453438265008186202013-04-01T14:46:00.003+03:002013-04-01T14:49:28.052+03:00iPad gamesAside from all the Rovio's <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/angry-birds/id343200656" target="_blank">An</a><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/angry-birds-seasons/id398157641" target="_blank">gr</a><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/angry-birds-star-wars/id557139259" target="_blank">y B</a><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/ke/app/angry-birds-space-hd/id501968250" target="_blank">ir</a><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id420636551" target="_blank">ds</a> and <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/lk/app/bad-piggies-hd/id545229893" target="_blank">Bad Piggies</a> games, there are many other great games for iPad. I present three of them here, in no particular order.<br />
<h4>
<br /></h4>
<h4>
Need for Speed: Most Wanted</h4>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbr-aYwsWAt9-I5wduSr8AWNxeYKOUZLYjsTzz-0_kVefgf2wAi_KQ_8mh1ks2m-EkBoreAEK-0pLFVQ-MIY5qTreCWXECsmE8OggtEJ93QdsaM1XPx57xRbiP8xCO19lthNHeJUOVQ3Q/s1600/2013-01-10+23.19.37+-+Need+for+Speed.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbr-aYwsWAt9-I5wduSr8AWNxeYKOUZLYjsTzz-0_kVefgf2wAi_KQ_8mh1ks2m-EkBoreAEK-0pLFVQ-MIY5qTreCWXECsmE8OggtEJ93QdsaM1XPx57xRbiP8xCO19lthNHeJUOVQ3Q/s320/2013-01-10+23.19.37+-+Need+for+Speed.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/fi/app/id540925500" target="_blank">Need for Speed: Most Wanted</a> is a beautiful and well implemented racing game. There are several different tracks with different types of races. More tracks are unlocked when you do well, and more cars become available for purchase with the money you earn from winning the races. There are many types of cars and not all races are open to, say, sports cars, but you need to drive, for example, a Hummer every once in a while as well. Aside from their looks the cars have a few different attributes that make them different: speed, acceleration and handling, and there's also implicitly the weight. These attributes can be modified per race by adding various modifications to the car. These mods include engine tweaks, lightweight chassis and reinflating tyres (Yes, reinflating tyres are needed -- the races in the game are "illegal", so there are police cars that may try to stop you using spike strips). You control the car by steering your entire iPad (or iPhone), which is quite a nice and intuitive way of driving. You can also touch the right side of the screen to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drifting_(motorsport)" target="_blank">drift</a>. NFS:MW does not support the Apple Game Center but it has its own in-game social system called Origin, for which you might actually already have an account if you have played any other Electronic Arts games recently, even on PC.<br />
<h4>
<br /></h4>
<h4>
Fieldrunners 2</h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEf7mu68PI-_g_Aeq63e5ztM4XiTWeatu65FCsBz3-f2gZkklTwXuHRRksjb8Dp3Ula1P0qNLrmN4fpMKXMBPwAsfYM3bHELg0N5KYL1ixOR7spryt-Wf4AUXA3Y1hbRMMBSvbGRf3Bik/s1600/2013-01-14+21.55.14+-+Fieldrunners+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEf7mu68PI-_g_Aeq63e5ztM4XiTWeatu65FCsBz3-f2gZkklTwXuHRRksjb8Dp3Ula1P0qNLrmN4fpMKXMBPwAsfYM3bHELg0N5KYL1ixOR7spryt-Wf4AUXA3Y1hbRMMBSvbGRf3Bik/s320/2013-01-14+21.55.14+-+Fieldrunners+2.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLtmbIPh5WXlFPo6VuSACyA9t27lKSc6D9ceRFW79ufxcvN6bHApXZdqJWexKhXjQT1acWnvqyNfQwax4zneVSEkm8LRAPs-mldFhW4Q5NKG5qMpQrimLTUBJKuZZhVjuZ-HhtX4Accfc/s1600/2013-01-01+19.27.54+-+Fieldrunners+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLtmbIPh5WXlFPo6VuSACyA9t27lKSc6D9ceRFW79ufxcvN6bHApXZdqJWexKhXjQT1acWnvqyNfQwax4zneVSEkm8LRAPs-mldFhW4Q5NKG5qMpQrimLTUBJKuZZhVjuZ-HhtX4Accfc/s200/2013-01-01+19.27.54+-+Fieldrunners+2.png" width="200" /></a><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/fi/app/fieldrunners-2-hd/id556666026" target="_blank">Fieldrunners 2</a> is a tower defense game where almost endless hordes of enemies try to cross the playing area on which you must build a maze for them using various lethal obstacles, including machine gun towers, flamethrower towers and radiation towers. The game is pretty and humoristic, has many levels of a few different types, and it has quite a few different types of towers as well. At the beginning only some quite basic towers are available, but more can be purchased with the in-game gold. Compared to <i>Plants and Zombies</i> I prefer Fieldrunners 2 by far. Some maps of Fieldrunners 2 even contain director's commentary on how the map came to be. There are also many different enemies with different traits: some are very fast, some fly over your defense towers, some are immune to radiation. The Heroic difficulty level also basically requires you to use items that you can drop on the field for some brief additional effect, such as freezing, poisoning or exploding the enemies. Fieldrunners 2 integrates nicely with the Apple Game Center, allowing you to compare you scores with those of your friends.<br />
<h4>
<br /></h4>
<h4>
SpaceChem</h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIpvNzNTkl0-JBFUfAmVZ41JFGWRHk2DTmNNCNDZP9KTcFAo79z6whBmIxovi_WCO5Z-7k5ai5yQh0N0DSkOip7Nh6PUU2IoOtx2sQWAlWoA5EH6xIQMuRvCltpnjKCYUjBHqzteGmOfk/s1600/2013-02-09+02.31.55+-+SpaceChem.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIpvNzNTkl0-JBFUfAmVZ41JFGWRHk2DTmNNCNDZP9KTcFAo79z6whBmIxovi_WCO5Z-7k5ai5yQh0N0DSkOip7Nh6PUU2IoOtx2sQWAlWoA5EH6xIQMuRvCltpnjKCYUjBHqzteGmOfk/s320/2013-02-09+02.31.55+-+SpaceChem.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Reactor splitting Nitrogen and Oxygen molecules</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfjlYz9ID_0r0oBC2W6kH-kf-YdGBM58E5a143mfjUc-KuFTPM_E-AvjNRjPsWbW00HF7ubaYPN9wJIy2NA2xcog4KmKxU5h1BztHHCEqq4XfJnW0CMMWyFQXw_7bq4HYXNUbsdigLtU4/s1600/2013-02-09+02.31.41+-+SpaceChem.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfjlYz9ID_0r0oBC2W6kH-kf-YdGBM58E5a143mfjUc-KuFTPM_E-AvjNRjPsWbW00HF7ubaYPN9wJIy2NA2xcog4KmKxU5h1BztHHCEqq4XfJnW0CMMWyFQXw_7bq4HYXNUbsdigLtU4/s200/2013-02-09+02.31.41+-+SpaceChem.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A production assignment in action</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/app/id466007612" target="_blank">SpaceChem</a> is an excellent puzzle game unlike any other I have ever played. In the game your task is to build reactors to transform molecules and atoms to other molecules. You do this by creating "tracks" for molecule transporters (called "waldos") and by adding instructions to those tracks: input atom, grab an atom, drop the atom, rotate the molecule, etc. While this all might sound or look incomprehensible at first, the game actually has a good tutorial that slowly introduces you to all the concepts little by little. On some levels (so called <i>research assignments</i>) you must only build one reactor, whereas in others (<i>production assignments</i>) you actually design several reactors and how they connect to each other. The game is also available for <a href="http://www.spacechemthegame.com/" target="_blank">Windows, Linux and Android</a>, which may be one reason why it unfortunately does not integrate with the Apple Game Center. However, this game as well has a social component: on each level you can see statistics about all other plays of the level by everyone else. The statistics include the number of reactors used, number of cycles used and number of instructions used, so you can try to optimize your solution according to different attributes, if you want to. There are also in-game achievements to earn by, say, completing a certain level in a certain amount of cycles (in-game "ticks of time"). SpaceChem has a few dozen levels built in and more can be downloaded from the Research Net, so it should provide hours of fun.<br />
<br />
That's it for this time, but finally, a tip: you can use the <a href="http://appshopper.com/">AppShopper.com</a> site to watch for price drops and new apps. It also shows the price history of all the apps in the App Store, and you can browse apps by popularity and category.ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-3067323490514376992013-02-28T23:13:00.000+02:002013-04-01T12:22:56.097+03:00iPad Mini for dummies<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaeCowgCml_wo8sqoERwTaBlBbqrWgcGyBIVA_DxQydP0qt1hZofTXxMMIP_Ob8tXSXDZa4XqCGN_DA7EBN83mQl_X500KXwJd7b1lGJDNpWpnQYakGf4uH-PQbRvvisy_YmZGyUemtwg/s1600/Home_Screen.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaeCowgCml_wo8sqoERwTaBlBbqrWgcGyBIVA_DxQydP0qt1hZofTXxMMIP_Ob8tXSXDZa4XqCGN_DA7EBN83mQl_X500KXwJd7b1lGJDNpWpnQYakGf4uH-PQbRvvisy_YmZGyUemtwg/s200/Home_Screen.png" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Home Screen</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I recently became an owner of an iPad Mini. Having never used any Apple products (despite <a href="http://netbooksandeverything.blogspot.fi/2012/03/walter-isaacson-steve-jobs.html" target="_blank">reading the biography of Steve Jobs</a>) it took some time to get the logic of the system. For those in the same situation, here are some random pieces of information that I personally found useful.<br />
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<strong>Enabling the Safari bookmarks bar</strong><br />
<br />
First, I tried the Safari browser. It's quite minimalistic, and by default you don't even see a bookmark bar. The weird thing compared to, say, Android or Windows is that you cannot control the settings of Safari from the app itself! This seems to be true with many other apps as well. Instead, you need to go to the Home Screen with all the icons and navigate to the <em>Settings</em> app. In there, select <em>Safari</em> and then toggle on the <em>Always Show Bookmarks Bar</em> setting.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx7bs4_hZwuEnq8-_1wtZN64J7ztXANlNEpxtHmh_nFfS29Yy41Uj9oc-VdZkAU403z_avkEkMH6oiLdC3psW8-nOmSk8feh5-OyDhHeztY-bq3-l5hk2sN89WsLuFwJAZcVQu75T1eRo/s1600/Safari.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx7bs4_hZwuEnq8-_1wtZN64J7ztXANlNEpxtHmh_nFfS29Yy41Uj9oc-VdZkAU403z_avkEkMH6oiLdC3psW8-nOmSk8feh5-OyDhHeztY-bq3-l5hk2sN89WsLuFwJAZcVQu75T1eRo/s200/Safari.png" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Adding a bookmark</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Now, how to add links to that bar? Navigate to the site you want to bookmark and click the rectangle-with-an-arrow -icon next to the address bar. You normally associate this icon with sharing content through email/Facebook/Twitter/whatever, but in Safari you also find the <em>Bookmark</em> option in the menu that opens. The dialog is simple: there's the name of the site, then the address, and finally a category, where you should obviously choose <em>Bookmarks Bar</em>.<br />
<br />
<strong>Muting the keyboard sounds and using the Side Switch</strong><br />
<br />
The physical volume buttons of the device don't affect the keyboard sounds. By default you can mute those too with the little switch above the volume controls, but since muting the other sounds of the device is just a matter of briefly holding the 'volume down' button, it seems like a waste to use the switch only to mute the keyboard sounds.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMvPbl8y5WUTQENWRv-5S_S1RJbMV6xe2vVhyphenhyphenjyxK9ROATaNMpc0OnGSBA3PCu8KxfWDEddjVxv8RioNhiAEw16kr99JacdT82t5k7fMOdt1P70HQlaxaf1lG2hTW4BvqiqdVvKRc9wlg/s1600/Settings.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMvPbl8y5WUTQENWRv-5S_S1RJbMV6xe2vVhyphenhyphenjyxK9ROATaNMpc0OnGSBA3PCu8KxfWDEddjVxv8RioNhiAEw16kr99JacdT82t5k7fMOdt1P70HQlaxaf1lG2hTW4BvqiqdVvKRc9wlg/s200/Settings.png" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Settings</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
To get completely rid of the keyboard sounds for good, navigate to Settings again, then <em>Sounds</em>, and then toggle off <em>Keyboard Clicks</em>. Now you can change the Side Switch function from <em>Mute</em> to <em>Lock Rotation</em>, which I find to be more useful. You can do that in the <em>General</em> panel of the Settings.<br />
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<strong>Multitasking Gestures</strong><br />
<br />
Multitasking Gestures are a way of quickly switching between apps. They are enabled from the same <em>General</em> panel where the Side Switch function is changed. The gestures are done with four or five fingers:<br />
you can pinch to show the Home Screen, swipe left or right to switch between apps, or swipe up to reveal the multitasking bar.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVx0g-qlA23AqGvjbYIUVbNfJ0ZllADvWMGcAJXBQm563Zn3ToC9uetygSfhSku9iKQbHAdzDKdxZE-SliJV3G9C_iZLZMlXz4fxzwHnsHzPGI_jEFXXeVOtr6_sYDXxyI38GggAWyQP8/s1600/Volume_controls.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVx0g-qlA23AqGvjbYIUVbNfJ0ZllADvWMGcAJXBQm563Zn3ToC9uetygSfhSku9iKQbHAdzDKdxZE-SliJV3G9C_iZLZMlXz4fxzwHnsHzPGI_jEFXXeVOtr6_sYDXxyI38GggAWyQP8/s200/Volume_controls.png" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Volume controls in the<br />
multitasking bar</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The multitasking bar shows you the most recent apps you have used. There's one very useful, non-obvious feature there too: swipe the bar right to bring up volume and brightness controls! Tapping the speaker symbol mutes the device, just like the Side Switch used to do before you switched it to rotation lock. ;) So if you'd prefer to hear the keyboard clicks at least sometimes, this might be a better option than to remove them altogether.<br />
<br />
<b>Disabling Auto-Correction</b><br />
<br />
In theory, Auto-Correction fixes your spelling mistakes. In practice, however, it usually just makes you <a href="http://www.autocorrectfail.org/" target="_blank">write things horribly wrong</a>. To disable Auto-Correction, go to <i>Settings</i> -> <i>General</i> -> <i>Keyboard</i> and just toggle <i>Auto-Correction</i> off.ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-76184014672433203102013-02-17T01:10:00.002+02:002013-02-17T16:10:16.425+02:00VirtualBoxIf you have ever wanted to try another operating system besides your current main one, then <a href="https://www.virtualbox.org/" target="_blank">VirtualBox</a> is your solution. VirtualBox creates a virtual computer inside your Windows (or Linux, for that matter) and you can then install any operating system into it and launch the virtual computer just like you would launch any regular application. With VirtualBox you don't need to reboot your computer every time you wish to switch to another operating system. I remember originally hesitating about the whole concept at first, thinking that it must be somehow difficult to use, but I was wrong: it couldn't be much easier.<br />
<br />
Let's start. Download VirtualBox from the site linked to above. Then download an image of some Linux distribution, say, <a href="http://www.linuxmint.com/" target="_blank">Linux Mint</a>. An "image" in this context is a large file, usually with a <i>.iso</i> extension, that you would normally burn to a DVD and insert into your computer when booting it, causing it to load the installer from the DVD. However, with VirtualBox you can use a virtual DVD drive, so it just uses the file you downloaded, without needing any actual physical installation disk to be inserted.<br />
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Install VirtualBox. It's a normal application so there's nothing weird about the installation process. Then, once your Linux image download finishes, run Virtual box. You are greeted with a screen more or less like this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWbaAX5BWHl0LKjyvdnfUsQ205ICMGaS_8tF8VinnDpNEhVBT01BIdZGSjNzEBnjGDiJ55WMQCjHzJvx_Bofdz2bcB2GS2MFINQlHaGYcmXoIpdUb6FkCc6VILUM28VjuiY9KhE491FD4/s1600/00_VirtualBox_Main_screen.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWbaAX5BWHl0LKjyvdnfUsQ205ICMGaS_8tF8VinnDpNEhVBT01BIdZGSjNzEBnjGDiJ55WMQCjHzJvx_Bofdz2bcB2GS2MFINQlHaGYcmXoIpdUb6FkCc6VILUM28VjuiY9KhE491FD4/s400/00_VirtualBox_Main_screen.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Here in this VirtualBox I have already installed an Ubuntu system, so your view of the application will be much emptier, but don't let that bother you. Instead, click on the 'New' button in the toolbar to get to this view: </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpSR2pC0LvUpXY-7c-v03CndqaeLfDJWVI-25esUSuQg7x2wGgceRXBqp9KGfGJMhpB6IPbXg-god5i6CJ4T1UAhg2ytDgR0J6YDae-u23w1y9LRnIYEAGFGgA_Tpr8lqqU5kzyjWYJ2k/s1600/01_Create_new_VM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpSR2pC0LvUpXY-7c-v03CndqaeLfDJWVI-25esUSuQg7x2wGgceRXBqp9KGfGJMhpB6IPbXg-god5i6CJ4T1UAhg2ytDgR0J6YDae-u23w1y9LRnIYEAGFGgA_Tpr8lqqU5kzyjWYJ2k/s400/01_Create_new_VM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
Here, enter some descriptive name for your computer (like I've just entered "Linux Mint" here) and select the OS type that best matches what you are installing. For Mint, the above settings work well.
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Now the next phase should be to decide the amount of memory you wish to dedicate to your virtual computer:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirOYSwXZS4LUGrmWTXSU_SevrxWtKoO2xUwIl95N3u3cWon4GJTUSLJqkgTaCVjbsBk6ebsYGFQJBs_5TWgk6DnvpJDCbOf89epeVQFOIhKefyE_am9RQzj71-DwBuO5IDct_RBqsKb1M/s1600/02_Memory_allocation.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirOYSwXZS4LUGrmWTXSU_SevrxWtKoO2xUwIl95N3u3cWon4GJTUSLJqkgTaCVjbsBk6ebsYGFQJBs_5TWgk6DnvpJDCbOf89epeVQFOIhKefyE_am9RQzj71-DwBuO5IDct_RBqsKb1M/s400/02_Memory_allocation.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Computers generally run smoother the more memory they have, but be sure to leave some for your main operating system as well. :) Here, VirtualBox suggests a ridiculously low amount of 384 MB of memory. That may have been enough about ten years ago, but definitely not today, so I've given it a third of all the memory in my computer, i.e. 4 GB, leaving the other 8 GB for Windows and its other applications.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_7-Eh0K0ZApkzxzgw-3ir3-tv6_m_nHbmwne291l_TYTEXqaST3joy5Xmq9LI96-TeHuoXZnUgD0Jky9a_NyX59j_2hZlZ7m9tJxbeT0iWPUyCVo-_GPRFE50_ZBgYhMjTX2ka8gOmXI/s1600/03_Disk.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a>The next phase is to give the virtual computer a virtual disk to which the operating system can be installed and files can be saved. This disk, just like the virtual computer, is actually only a file on one of your normal hard drives. </div>
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The process goes like this: first you choose a file format for your disk. You don't really need to care about this, because as it says, you can leave it unchanged because you are not going to use it with any other virtualization software besides VirtualBox:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUxBuYdhOLBbhfE7ciy7x5Of188ZbUaE7MDoeBE0A8eIncuJWt13Dec1XcxCOqKL3zrhYIq53Xti4DhLh4o4u-utBYQnw1vP7Rhz03-K8xFfSaREefXQbkwfb3Xq-xSdjUlQJodIkG-ys/s1600/04_Disk2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUxBuYdhOLBbhfE7ciy7x5Of188ZbUaE7MDoeBE0A8eIncuJWt13Dec1XcxCOqKL3zrhYIq53Xti4DhLh4o4u-utBYQnw1vP7Rhz03-K8xFfSaREefXQbkwfb3Xq-xSdjUlQJodIkG-ys/s320/04_Disk2.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Next you choose whether you want a dynamically allocated disk or a fixed size disk. The dynamically allocated disk starts with a smaller file and grows when more data is saved on it, whereas the fixed size disk is at its maximum size right from the beginning and, like the prompt says, is often faster to use:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggBaGmom1_h9SpqyVpNLP220GU31se3u7QVPuzSzcwZMTl1Ut62_nlsbywHwEBeuPGD3g9EAOAssumaXXz4zqGaHFRcMNIsmS8ANPgfuEUVob4cAdJCuWx0EqPOcK1hDrYKx9Ra661hXM/s1600/04_Disk3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggBaGmom1_h9SpqyVpNLP220GU31se3u7QVPuzSzcwZMTl1Ut62_nlsbywHwEBeuPGD3g9EAOAssumaXXz4zqGaHFRcMNIsmS8ANPgfuEUVob4cAdJCuWx0EqPOcK1hDrYKx9Ra661hXM/s320/04_Disk3.png" width="320" /></a></div>
Then select where to place the virtual disk file on your computer. I have created a dedicated V:\VirtualBox folder for it and selected it to be 25 gigabytes:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidxp_THAPQgvgklAe-5jsQc41QAUHPuz0ARkT_zgVySobZTXn5Qq_r3-zsrveuQHq1RW53Meaf83vRGdZTO98Mw_tpoXa4aoQXtc4rooO72p9072iDvVIBf4OJlgyoL4TV61ihm4z720o/s1600/05_Disk4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidxp_THAPQgvgklAe-5jsQc41QAUHPuz0ARkT_zgVySobZTXn5Qq_r3-zsrveuQHq1RW53Meaf83vRGdZTO98Mw_tpoXa4aoQXtc4rooO72p9072iDvVIBf4OJlgyoL4TV61ihm4z720o/s320/05_Disk4.png" width="320" /></a></div>
Now the disk file is created. This phase might take a few minutes:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZLMG39c7R_92JU4shBNshKoVYmwjleitGLYoHbZ88Jj0zdjn32aytUj6qbPLMmakPujs1CvsM4_Al11IW8_w5fQzPPNNZRQUiCDfqWKeOgK6MKL6Su3N6e8oS-b-mkRLl0Qvsl3is8I4/s1600/06_Disk5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="104" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZLMG39c7R_92JU4shBNshKoVYmwjleitGLYoHbZ88Jj0zdjn32aytUj6qbPLMmakPujs1CvsM4_Al11IW8_w5fQzPPNNZRQUiCDfqWKeOgK6MKL6Su3N6e8oS-b-mkRLl0Qvsl3is8I4/s320/06_Disk5.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Congratulations! Your virtual computer is now ready to be booted up for the first time. Click on the Start button in the toolbar when your new computer is selected. Again, don't mind me having the Ubuntu computer there -- you should now only have that Linux Mint computer, or whichever OS you chose to install:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk8s7cvsHYoX7qJnlUwuRAVXQVcClSobZcVoJBRoHwXWFRDaEkQPr2zI5FilPQmyIUgnX0o8olj_oVceBwb4qvdMChs4rBJMy9J2YVi3WhsAOWVLjSvikV-jxKeqfbsVRqBxwuDwZHrjw/s1600/07_LinuxMint.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk8s7cvsHYoX7qJnlUwuRAVXQVcClSobZcVoJBRoHwXWFRDaEkQPr2zI5FilPQmyIUgnX0o8olj_oVceBwb4qvdMChs4rBJMy9J2YVi3WhsAOWVLjSvikV-jxKeqfbsVRqBxwuDwZHrjw/s400/07_LinuxMint.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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You should now see a First Run Wizard that prompts you for the image file you downloaded earlier. Find it and let the installation begin:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrJzJWmf34iMjJrdOPqKHMn_vbd9w0cdiK-Uh-53A8_Y7XMJVocXmIvleauhN4OEyURozX9eH6ph-6gFXpKdHKyiWeYd9dUyhcKVjUQARqF106hfSw9Qw6ZKaPQx6uPMzJSFpMRME8dhs/s1600/08_First_run.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrJzJWmf34iMjJrdOPqKHMn_vbd9w0cdiK-Uh-53A8_Y7XMJVocXmIvleauhN4OEyURozX9eH6ph-6gFXpKdHKyiWeYd9dUyhcKVjUQARqF106hfSw9Qw6ZKaPQx6uPMzJSFpMRME8dhs/s320/08_First_run.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVx_d6adiBZny9uZ_DO-GBvnKEijwdaVSdH3GPcAPB8YmB0rauO42JV3S25Z5qztSTQbpqWLeoqIQG0XIgNxUTutcodRfFEeiiFgsKQ1xCX-AWbRiHx5vL5lVWoZUwWuIUm0x-RFWlyUk/s1600/09_Image.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVx_d6adiBZny9uZ_DO-GBvnKEijwdaVSdH3GPcAPB8YmB0rauO42JV3S25Z5qztSTQbpqWLeoqIQG0XIgNxUTutcodRfFEeiiFgsKQ1xCX-AWbRiHx5vL5lVWoZUwWuIUm0x-RFWlyUk/s400/09_Image.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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The virtual computer boots up and probably loads the Linux Mint desktop. It's now running off the virtual DVD, so it's not installed into the virtual hard drive yet. Open the Install Linux Mint application:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrRzLVqiDeSt6H8TxsHvo1DzcLLGIKTPCg1-J74RGvi5cZbxeZ5Qx3qXvaiQmLa2CmgiUx8oZrwBl0Q0eoHxPkH3fHEIAz6gxmc74yYRogyy7A9mDpYKhozwzZz-_H9XHw79apT0dcepg/s1600/11_Mint_running.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrRzLVqiDeSt6H8TxsHvo1DzcLLGIKTPCg1-J74RGvi5cZbxeZ5Qx3qXvaiQmLa2CmgiUx8oZrwBl0Q0eoHxPkH3fHEIAz6gxmc74yYRogyy7A9mDpYKhozwzZz-_H9XHw79apT0dcepg/s320/11_Mint_running.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Mint is easy to install. Just fill in the forms:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvVVfWnFbfghqkTgwFaeJNhshANH323kqwN4cxe1wOlvXbAptaCio5k5Ul6_J8hwQ1GtI_YAFpEiXFiDs29s9GwMIquq3LM2d4tWKEar6NbRYrogc09XEJbSZvFykFEHwItE7JEQTChL4/s1600/10_Mint_installing.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvVVfWnFbfghqkTgwFaeJNhshANH323kqwN4cxe1wOlvXbAptaCio5k5Ul6_J8hwQ1GtI_YAFpEiXFiDs29s9GwMIquq3LM2d4tWKEar6NbRYrogc09XEJbSZvFykFEHwItE7JEQTChL4/s400/10_Mint_installing.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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After the installation is finished, you should be back at the desktop, this time without the "Install Linux Mint" application. Well done!</div>
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Finally, if when trying to change the screen resolution in the operating system in your new virtual computer the higher resolutions are not available, try following <a href="http://faisalzqureshi.blogspot.com/2012/06/virtualbox-setting-high-screen.html" target="_blank">these instructions posted elsewhere</a>.</div>
ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-14082854862633384772013-01-06T18:40:00.002+02:002013-01-06T18:40:35.057+02:00Pocket (formerly Read It Later)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZdDiTUmCEmhlxph76tQqu5_mwr4J9er-8YxHhUNYmp3NspqyS2NyU0Mzfm51pwT3rSPawpMtp4ZPh7iHDce3Kbtz11AO07AAlu-ge_ekbI_IKXOu2j6S66gKcOlAmE_QckTxVOjWNizI/s1600/pocket.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZdDiTUmCEmhlxph76tQqu5_mwr4J9er-8YxHhUNYmp3NspqyS2NyU0Mzfm51pwT3rSPawpMtp4ZPh7iHDce3Kbtz11AO07AAlu-ge_ekbI_IKXOu2j6S66gKcOlAmE_QckTxVOjWNizI/s1600/pocket.png" /></a></div>
Some time ago I realized I have a problem that I often find interesting articles online that I don't have the time to read at the moment. Then I just leave them open on my browser, and suddenly there are 50 tabs open in it -- not to mention having the same problem on the browser of my smartphone as well (if only with less tabs). And if the browser crashes, I might lose all the open tabs for good.<br />
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<strong><a href="http://getpocket.com/" target="_blank">Pocket</a> (formerly Read It Later) </strong>is a web site / application that is designed to solve the problem of stashing interesting articles to be read later. Stashing an article from your browser couldn't be simpler: it's just a click of a single button (for <a href="https://addons.opera.com/en/extensions/details/save-to-pocket/" target="_blank">Opera</a>, <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/fi/firefox/addon/read-it-later/" target="_blank">Firefox</a>, <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pocket-formerly-read-it-l/niloccemoadcdkdjlinkgdfekeahmflj" target="_blank">Chrome</a>). There are also versions of Pocket for <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ideashower.readitlater.pro" target="_blank">Android</a> and <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pocket-formerly-read-it-later/id309601447" target="_blank">iOS</a> that allow you to update and, equally importantly, to read the articles you have stashed before. Pocket formats the stored articles nicely, stripping out all non-essential content such as advertisements and navigation links, showing you just the main text.<br />
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Right now my Pocket seems to contain about two dozen articles, including these:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2010/08/avoid-being-embarrassed-by-your-error-messages.php" target="_blank">Avoid Being Embarrassed by Your Error Messages</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/14/3038814/yucca-mountain-wipp-wasteland-battle-entomb-nuclear-waste" target="_blank">Wasteland: the 50-year battle to entomb our toxic nuclear remains</a></li>
<li><a href="http://7habitsofhighlyeffectivehackers.blogspot.fi/2012/05/using-twitter-to-build-password.html" target="_blank">Using twitter to build password cracking wordlist</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2012/08/01/epic-stop-motion-fan-made-animation-batman-dark-knightfall-video/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+geeksAreSexyTechnologyNews+%28%5BGeeks+are+Sexy%5D+technology+news%29" target="_blank">Epic Stop-Motion Fan Made Animation: Batman – Dark Knightfall [Video]</a></li>
<li><a href="http://blog.mugunthkumar.com/articles/restful-api-server-doing-it-the-right-way-part-1/" target="_blank">RESTful API Server – Doing it the right way (Part 1)</a></li>
</ul>
I don't know if these are any good, but when I came across them they looked interesting enough to warrant reading (or watching) later. I get the links from friends or from <a href="http://www.reddit.com/" target="_blank">Reddit</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, or from any other source. Note that as demonstrated above, you can also stash videos and images into Pocket, so it's better than <a href="http://pinterest.com/" target="_blank">Pinterest</a> that only allows you to save pages with images. ;) However, you cannot share the contents of your Pocket with others, which some may consider to be a minor drawback.ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-69031728858389743532012-11-17T01:05:00.000+02:002012-11-17T01:05:15.394+02:00Humble Bundle for Android 4There's six more days left to <a href="http://www.humblebundle.com/" target="_blank">get six Android (and PC, and Linux, and Mac) games</a> for whatever price you want to pay! Pay above the average and you'll even get five bonus games!<br />
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<br />ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-65846002275366308552012-11-12T17:25:00.000+02:002012-11-12T17:25:10.821+02:00Setting up custom Gmail notification sounds in AndroidI recently found out a way to customize the email notification sounds of the Android Gmail app based on the Gmail labels. For example, I have set my Gmail account to apply a label "Geocaching" to those email messages from Geocaching.com that inform me about new <a href="http://netbooksandeverything.blogspot.fi/2012/09/geocaching.html" target="_blank">geocaches</a>. There's a semi-serious "competition" going on between geocachers on who's the first one to find new caches (FTF, First to Find), so I wanted to distinguish those geocaching emails from other messages that don't require you to urgently rush outside. ;) So, here's how you do it (at least on Android 2.2.2 -- there are instructions for Android 4.1 as images later in this post as well):<br />
<ol>
<li>Open your Gmail application, then press the menu button of your device, and then find "Settings" from the menu that opens.</li>
<li>You should now see a dull screen with just "General preferences", your email address, and an "Add account" option. Click on your email address.</li>
<li>Click "Sync inboxes and labels", then find the label for which you want to select a special notification tone and click on it, then select "Sync last 4 days".</li>
<li>Now return back by one menu, locate the "Labels to notify" option and click on it.</li>
<li>The label you just selected to sync should appear there, with notifications set "Off". Click on the label.</li>
<li>A new window opens. Check the "Email notifications" checkbox and the option to choose a ringtone becomes available! Now choose a tone that you wish would play when you receive an email that matches the label. You may also untick the "Notify once" checkbox to get a separate notification for every email instead of just the first one since the last time you read your mail. Then click OK and then return to the app or exit it.</li>
<li>The next time you receive email that matches the given label, your phone will emit the sound you just chose. :)</li>
</ol>
Finally, I managed to <a href="http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57474203-285/how-to-take-a-screenshot-on-the-nexus-7/" target="_blank">take screenshots</a> of the process on my new Nexus 7 tablet, which runs Android 4.1 and thus has a bit (but not too much) different menus:<br />
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First, locate the settings of the Gmail app:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF7fwgRpRIvL55JuykDNASDKTkujRw9UrmVk95-ru12Dj0gvXRRmVALIuPTLLNw3VxUrcJBrpse1xOZqg72M5iJsKLuNYC1Xz5qx8FfWRWqi78qs7do36zFXudPyrFxd2ukrsqjiefedQ/s1600/gmail_notification_step_1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF7fwgRpRIvL55JuykDNASDKTkujRw9UrmVk95-ru12Dj0gvXRRmVALIuPTLLNw3VxUrcJBrpse1xOZqg72M5iJsKLuNYC1Xz5qx8FfWRWqi78qs7do36zFXudPyrFxd2ukrsqjiefedQ/s320/gmail_notification_step_1.png" width="200" /></a></div>
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Then click on your account (blurred in this picture): </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjoS0ut8yPLUzhQcF-XVOwbyWwB-CzrcnHxeN6TrIX0zYSUB_YWo8tJEZEppNqvlasYj8dhdQOn_VSCEKHCo_K5umuow7HNcovwCUSm4xTkzzJI_jhG1tSqkCzM88rwp7vdV302IbynPo/s1600/gmail_notification_step2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjoS0ut8yPLUzhQcF-XVOwbyWwB-CzrcnHxeN6TrIX0zYSUB_YWo8tJEZEppNqvlasYj8dhdQOn_VSCEKHCo_K5umuow7HNcovwCUSm4xTkzzJI_jhG1tSqkCzM88rwp7vdV302IbynPo/s320/gmail_notification_step2.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Now click Manage labels:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja7o3jqMSPt73yXZDjPDsad2kCiVNsCxxVflukSiLTAWVMhvrGMpfN8GDwBsjXmDzPMABQmq00elfjLPVoWe7pnaTBP3RHGM2BcViQIC1Alqd7bv75SwWSm8dSnser_1ZSCFWwX3PVNrI/s1600/gmail_notification_step3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja7o3jqMSPt73yXZDjPDsad2kCiVNsCxxVflukSiLTAWVMhvrGMpfN8GDwBsjXmDzPMABQmq00elfjLPVoWe7pnaTBP3RHGM2BcViQIC1Alqd7bv75SwWSm8dSnser_1ZSCFWwX3PVNrI/s320/gmail_notification_step3.png" width="200" /></a></div>
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You'll get to this view where your labels are on the left and the settings on the right. Click the label for which you wish to set a custom tone -- here I've just picked "Starred". Set Sync messages to "Last 30 days", then make sure Email notifications is checked. You'll probably want to uncheck "Notify once":<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd5T-cA_fQZSJXzPQGqFzkgzXKze0GtAYtY5qpp2rWGO2MKOHufs8WwNoXBeDf42JikCxJ8zweI4ysQdgNAd3Rj0XEwRrJeRUkZ96AhfgZSLiEv6cxXjDDVkyAY72ct-PbH3pcH1pf42U/s1600/gmail_notification_step4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd5T-cA_fQZSJXzPQGqFzkgzXKze0GtAYtY5qpp2rWGO2MKOHufs8WwNoXBeDf42JikCxJ8zweI4ysQdgNAd3Rj0XEwRrJeRUkZ96AhfgZSLiEv6cxXjDDVkyAY72ct-PbH3pcH1pf42U/s320/gmail_notification_step4.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Now click Ringtone and you can select the notification tone for these kind of email messages:</div>
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Voilà!ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-12524168175857328622012-09-03T23:59:00.000+03:002012-09-03T23:59:36.024+03:00GeocachingIn the right hand side bar of my blog there has always been a little image telling the number of geocaches I have found. Also, in the very first post of this blog I mentioned that you might see an occasional post about geocaching, but that hasn't really been true -- until now.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgja9S5AHCPPP1qdNH_oPAWobPb_qWWxf9vinm_yDM08HIIyjlWVsPn1I8ZvKzLG_H8wW5WU77Np8nOwbHPtbRr6Soh5HFCXD9UW0Drou5gArgtH7Usc_GHWRKU8edg1uwp-8xylEReA6c/s1600/treestump-blur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgja9S5AHCPPP1qdNH_oPAWobPb_qWWxf9vinm_yDM08HIIyjlWVsPn1I8ZvKzLG_H8wW5WU77Np8nOwbHPtbRr6Soh5HFCXD9UW0Drou5gArgtH7Usc_GHWRKU8edg1uwp-8xylEReA6c/s200/treestump-blur.jpg" width="148" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" div="div" style="text-align: center;" width="148">A particularly clever cache, drilled into a tree stump and openable with a key. (The code that identifies the cache has been blurred.)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I think geocaching is a pretty well known hobby already, but still not all people have heard about it yet. It's basically a modern game of treasure hunt: someone hides a container, a <i>geocache</i>, somewhere and posts the coordinates on the Internet, and then other people go and find it. You usually use a GPS device to find the cache, but often just a map is enough. Most if not all smartphones already have a GPS receiver built-in, so basically you probably don't even need to buy any new equipment to start the hobby. I've been caching just fine with my phones for some three years now. :)<br />
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Okay, so what's a geocache like, you may ask? Well. Probably the only common denominator with all caches is that they all contain a <i>log book</i>. It's either a real book or a dedicated piece of paper where you sign your nickname. Afterwards you go online to <a href="http://geocaching.com/">geocaching.com</a> and log your find to the cache's own page as well.<br />
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OK, but what's a geocache <i>really </i>like, then? One of the most common appearances is a plastic box of a couple of deciliters. Film canisters are also popular. The tiniest caches I have found are nano-caches that measure less than 2 by 2 by 2 cm, such as <a href="http://www.cachingcontainers.com/sfp/Wide_Black_Magnetic_Nano_Geocache_Container" target="_blank">this one</a>, and the largest has been a plastic container of about 40 liters. Needless to say, the first one can be hidden in the busiest place of a city center, whereas the latter definitely needs a remote place in the woods.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXk8hKwaN1lvqI4qdI331XRlU3x7hRefV0HgjHYowLisgyzM-mOkePLhQpftAHVk0-qQMng3Dj7SrhqCgxuy9ImsPwGeSAD3VN3hWE-7oFcgh04XTbLwf3Q9QyBD48RyvcFmb7wz7YgA8/s1600/tree-and-fence.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXk8hKwaN1lvqI4qdI331XRlU3x7hRefV0HgjHYowLisgyzM-mOkePLhQpftAHVk0-qQMng3Dj7SrhqCgxuy9ImsPwGeSAD3VN3hWE-7oFcgh04XTbLwf3Q9QyBD48RyvcFmb7wz7YgA8/s200/tree-and-fence.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" div="div" style="text-align: center;" width="148">One of the weird things I've seen while caching: a tree had grown up right through a fence.</td></tr>
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Right, so where are these geocaches hidden? I already touched this subject in my previous sentence, and the answer is that they can be hidden basically anywhere: in the cities or in the woods, in parks, mountains, bus stops, train stations, light poles, stone walls. In cities you can often find micro-caches under, behind and inside various pipes, bars and railings. They may be under staircases or in a bush. They may be hanging from trees or they may be hidden in the roots of a tree, behind some stones.<br />
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OK, but what's so interesting about finding a plastic box from the woods? Well, usually the cache page contains a description of the place: why does the cache owner want to show you the place? There are, of course, those boring boxes with no purpose as well, but you don't need to get those. :) Geocaching is a great way to get to know a new city, for example. Geocaching takes you outside the normal tourist areas and attractions and shows you less-known and quaint places. For example here in Helsinki, Finland there are many World War I era fortifications in the forests and <a href="http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.aspx?guid=49392772-0ce6-4f43-b702-f49f8a2e67b6" target="_blank">many caches have been placed in them</a>. In London there was a cache in front of <a href="http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=d7ceda30-b009-4170-8eae-a7745f2c0274" target="_blank">two houses <span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">– </span>which are actually fake</a>, designed to hide a railroad. Normally you'd just pass this kind of a place without noticing anything, but with geocaching you become familiar with the local history.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8M3raLfiwUwrCu_QGoMB7t-0pOsWbDB8JfAB-I8AiIV_SkQ63JFIffQwkNZ_ASJokWv-bIPB2PeLIAjq8n4uDibOShOwUwRdJ2lV9fMizX82pWjvSzA1fCpYTVSiLB4KLPRDHgJeZd1A/s1600/traditional.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8M3raLfiwUwrCu_QGoMB7t-0pOsWbDB8JfAB-I8AiIV_SkQ63JFIffQwkNZ_ASJokWv-bIPB2PeLIAjq8n4uDibOShOwUwRdJ2lV9fMizX82pWjvSzA1fCpYTVSiLB4KLPRDHgJeZd1A/s1600/traditional.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Traditional cache</td></tr>
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Besides the location, the cache itself might be interesting and worth seeing in its own. Some cache owners put a lot of time and effort to construct contraptions where you have to, for example, open some lid with a key or winch a container down from a tree. I have seen a cache camouflaged as a beehive, and some of the funniest caches are the ones that are hidden in plain sight, disguised as electric boxes or some such ordinary objects that just belong to the landscape.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq0ZRciN0K0ueAy6i_0xzSGXqtOs_4jG3lNQyc9iEZAbtE3oCV9zXNNwPUF6J4fqVWeCkuy3rxRMEVdRlXMlz4L1D0TbV1tq7KunilP1FfB4_T0TTN0ELfM1lSpVYEVQutZSUu5HDuBIU/s1600/multi.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq0ZRciN0K0ueAy6i_0xzSGXqtOs_4jG3lNQyc9iEZAbtE3oCV9zXNNwPUF6J4fqVWeCkuy3rxRMEVdRlXMlz4L1D0TbV1tq7KunilP1FfB4_T0TTN0ELfM1lSpVYEVQutZSUu5HDuBIU/s1600/multi.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Multi-cache</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Besides the <em>traditional</em> caches where someone just posts the coordinates on the Internet and you go find it, there are other kinds of caches as well. The most popular other types are <em>multi-caches</em> and <em>unknown caches</em>, also known as <em>puzzle</em> or <em>mystery caches</em>. Multi-caches contain one or more intermediate points before the final location where the cache with the log book is. In the intermediate locations you might find cache boxes with coordinates, or you might have to calculate, say, the number of windows in a building and apply that number to a formula given in the cache description to get the next coordinates. Multi-caches may be of any length: 20 meters, 2 kilometers or 200 kilometers. The basic rule with all caches, though, is that there must be at least 161 meters, or 0.1 miles, between them.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTXlehbV1kOTV5GUdMstRygDFqpEnVeIALxir2tZgrFsAFP-jWDbzYy327dPuNduzWvSR_hO7RQ3L5W-7KO-CyHA4WleaiMt-p0EEj3yBV7wPifT67-l8ImVgb54y_ffGbeLMVxs2aWq4/s1600/mystery.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTXlehbV1kOTV5GUdMstRygDFqpEnVeIALxir2tZgrFsAFP-jWDbzYy327dPuNduzWvSR_hO7RQ3L5W-7KO-CyHA4WleaiMt-p0EEj3yBV7wPifT67-l8ImVgb54y_ffGbeLMVxs2aWq4/s1600/mystery.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mystery cache</td></tr>
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Finally, <em>mystery caches</em> can be pretty much like anything. There might be a simple jigsaw puzzle that you must build in order to see the coordinates in the picture that forms, or the puzzle might require deep knowledge of some sports league, programming language or historical event or person.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEz1-B5sMfX0sKu3xGLh5aVfHP9KiLDw9i-G4OZTWnWTc6S8ckKhV27wJ8u218X0rLTLrfXVSfPy67w-n4dmUrcPgrOCn1ULjsRu3WxdCHLt18B9rGB3VkobsTCVlQdjTm65AFOWT4zfg/s1600/OsloConcertHall.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="56" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEz1-B5sMfX0sKu3xGLh5aVfHP9KiLDw9i-G4OZTWnWTc6S8ckKhV27wJ8u218X0rLTLrfXVSfPy67w-n4dmUrcPgrOCn1ULjsRu3WxdCHLt18B9rGB3VkobsTCVlQdjTm65AFOWT4zfg/s200/OsloConcertHall.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" div="div" style="text-align: center;" width="148">A screenshot from Geocaching.com, showing you the strategic information of the Oslo Concert Hall cache: D/T 2/1.5, small.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Oh, and how do you know which caches would be easy and which ones would be difficult? All the caches have two ratings assigned to them by the author: the difficulty rating (D) and the terrain rating (T). You seldom see traditional caches with difficulty values over D3 or D3.5, and those are often used by cleverly camouflaged caches or caches in places with many possible hiding places. A cache with a difficulty rating of D1 should be quite trivial to find, whereas a mystery cache with a difficulty rating of D5 might stay unsolved for weeks or months. Difficulty ratings are, however, quite subjective. In the end terrain ratings are also subjective, but I think they are less subjective than difficulty ratings anyway. A T1 cache can usually be retrieved even from a wheelchair, whereas a T5 cache basically requires you to have some special equipment, such as climbing gear, or you will risk serious injury or even death. Of course one of the fun parts of the hobby is that there's something for everyone and you can only go find those caches that suit your tastes and skills. :)<br />
<br />
So, what are you waiting for? Go <a href="http://www.geocaching.com/map/" target="_blank">check out the map of geocaches</a> in your area, register to the site, get the coordinates and go out with your smartphone. :)ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-14940657848474501122012-08-23T14:00:00.001+03:002012-09-03T23:59:45.946+03:00Enabling Windows 7 hibernation mode<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPaTTM9Yg_MJHs51TW347dlRCuwGQSHke3kBYxsVax1u6DpZJT-LLplYVFk2XAbx3EUH822cLVg4w01fH-_KG92E-fkfcEV3sgfSdmQJlrHMDgg6rKdGsH-Tz7sxBwQWOzJJNOHHKByzM/s1600/Windows_7_hibernation.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="129" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPaTTM9Yg_MJHs51TW347dlRCuwGQSHke3kBYxsVax1u6DpZJT-LLplYVFk2XAbx3EUH822cLVg4w01fH-_KG92E-fkfcEV3sgfSdmQJlrHMDgg6rKdGsH-Tz7sxBwQWOzJJNOHHKByzM/s320/Windows_7_hibernation.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The hibernation setting in the shut down menu</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It always seems to be a bit of a pain for me to figure out how to enable the hibernation mode in Windows 7 desktops. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibernation_(computing)" target="_blank">Hibernation</a> is a mode where the current computer status is saved to the hard disk and the computer is then basically turned off. Waking up from hibernation takes far less time than waking up when the computer has been shut down completely, so I use hibernation almost exclusively. There's a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Too_long;_didn't_read" target="_blank">TLDR</a> <a href="http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/819-hibernate-enable-disable.html" target="_blank">tutorial</a> on how to enable it (if it's not already available in the shut down menu), but I'll just write the short steps here:<br />
<ol>
<li><div>
In Start Menu, type <span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"><b>powercfg.cpl</b></span> and hit enter</div>
</li>
<li><div>
With your selected power plan, click "<i>Change plan settings</i>" and then "<i>Change advanced power plan settings</i>"</div>
</li>
<li>Set <i>Sleep</i> → <i>Allow hybrid sleep</i> → <b>Off</b></li>
<li>Close the prompts you opened by clicking <i>OK</i> and <i>Save changes</i></li>
<li>From the Start Menu, find <i>All Programs</i> → <i>Accessories</i>
→
<i>Command Prompt</i> and <b>right-click it</b>, then select "<i>Run as administrator</i>"</li>
<li>Now type <span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"><b>powercfg -h</b> on</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> and hit enter. The hibernate option should now be available!</span></li>
</ol>
ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-83753740544869888862012-06-16T00:25:00.000+03:002012-06-16T00:25:26.858+03:00Frozen Synapse<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a class="vt-p" href="http://cdn.steampowered.com/v/gfx/apps/98200/header_292x136.jpg?t=1338330881" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://cdn.steampowered.com/v/gfx/apps/98200/header_292x136.jpg?t=1338330881" /></a></div>
<a class="vt-p" href="http://www.frozensynapse.com/" target="_blank">Frozen Synapse</a> is a cool game where you control a squad of soldiers by giving them orders and then watching them execute the orders for five seconds at a time. Your opponent does the same, and if you anticipated their moves correctly, you should see your soldiers take down theirs. The orders are given as waypoints and they can be arbitrarily complex, such as "back away from the door keeping your sights towards it, then wait for 0.2 seconds before turning and running across the hallway ignoring any possible enemies in there, and then duck behind the cover while taking a particular enemy to your sights". You can finish a turn in five minutes or you can grind it for an hour.<br />
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The game has several different modes and a "Dark" and "Light" variant of each. In the Light versions you always see where the enemies are, whereas in the Dark versions you only see the enemies that are currently in the field of vision of your troops. Once you lose a sight to an enemy in a Dark game a "shadow" of the enemy stays at their last known location along with an info text like "Last seen 2.8 seconds ago".<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a class="vt-p" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqw2qtFIhfUXBIn9usl9-abvlhfOVnqvuYmvy9MBzffWUEyhmDJK5mDZsTSQ99m_Of5Ie7IvjTjA7jHczFrKsbxjAKLZ-RPssAJOMXJYuHbIE63Xcsjsi0c4xhobSMYQR6v82dDi75HMw/s1600/FrozenSynapse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqw2qtFIhfUXBIn9usl9-abvlhfOVnqvuYmvy9MBzffWUEyhmDJK5mDZsTSQ99m_Of5Ie7IvjTjA7jHczFrKsbxjAKLZ-RPssAJOMXJYuHbIE63Xcsjsi0c4xhobSMYQR6v82dDi75HMw/s320/FrozenSynapse.jpg" width="283" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A maneuver assigned to a machine gunner.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The most popular modes are probably Extermination and Disputed. In Extermination both teams try to exterminate the other, plain and simple. In Disputed, the teams also try to kill each other again, but they also try to hold as much ground as possible in order to extract boxes that appear on the map after the fourth turn. Then there's also a Hostage mode where the other player plays as a hostage taker and the other tries to free the hostages. The hostages need to get to the edges of the playing area and they are controlled by the rescuer, but they can only be given instructions once. The hostage taker then tries to prevent the hostages from getting away.<br />
<br />
In all game modes you can simulate the end result of a turn in the planning phase. This means that you can also assign commands to the enemy troops and move them around when you try to anticipate what the enemy will actually do. Simulating is crucial. The game is deterministic, so if in your simulation a soldier gets shot, he will get shot the same way in the actual outcome -- provided that everything stayed the same compared to the simulation. A slightly differently placed unit may yield a completely different result.<br />
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Let's watch a game of Dark Disputed I just finished. (Unfortunately the replay doesn't show the actual fields of vision for the troops.) The replay doesn't include the planning phases, just the action, so it lasts only 30 seconds. Remember that there was a planning phase every five seconds. I was controlling the green team and my enemy was controlling the red team. I recommend opening the video in a separate window and watching it with the HD quality:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Hszi5u4v4ks?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
Initially, both players can see the starting positions of each other's troops. I determine that no contact is likely during the first turn and just make my troops spread around and advance. At the end of the first turn, at 00:05, the enemy sniper at the left sees my machine gunner at the bottom and vice versa. The turn ends there and a subsequent simulation reveals that my gunner has no chance against the enemy sniper, so I order him to proceed, ignoring the sniper. On the other hand I turn the guy with the shotgun around, as sniper rifles have a way longer range than shotguns and at this point it doesn't look like it's going to be a close combat situation.<br />
<br />
At 00:06 my sniper at the right gets an enemy gunner to his sights and takes him down a couple of seconds later; that's the first casualty of the game. The turn ends a second later when my gunner and an enemy gunner have just opened fire at each other. The simulation reveals that the bullet that's on its way already is going to kill the enemy, so he cannot dodge it and gets shot right at the beginning of turn three. During turn two my other gunner also ran up across the enemy sniper's line of fire because the simulation revealed that the enemy wouldn't have the time to take the shot. From his new position my gunner also opens fire against an enemy gunner trying to run down across the map at 00:10.<br />
<br />
Again when I simulate the situation in the planning phase it appears that the enemy running down may be able to escape from my gunner who just opened a fire against him, so I turn the gunner in the middle to face the doorway in case the enemy would try to flank him. Luckily he takes the enemy down himself at 00:14, so there are only two enemies left now. My gunner at the bottom was ready to greet the enemy had he ran downwards instead of just stupidly staying put in the middle.<br />
<br />
At the start of turn three my soldiers had caught a glimpse of an enemy gunner going into the room at the upper left corner. Since shotguns are very powerful at close range I decide to have my shotgunner clean the room and make an elaborate plan on how he would enter the room from the top door. I test my plan with the enemy soldier in every corner of the room until my shotgunner comes across as a winner in every scenario. The machine gunner and the sniper are his backup, and indeed the machine gunner engages in a firefight with the enemy right before the shotgunner enters the room and kills him at 00:19.<br />
<br />
At 00:20 the fourth turn ends and the red boxes appear. My sniper is on the other side of the playing area and I decide that the three machine gunners are enough to take the final enemy sniper down, so the sniper goes to collect a couple of boxes. The shotgunner stays at the room he just cleaned and guards the windows in case the enemy sniper would run past them. Finally, it's the machine gunner that's ducked in the bottom room who kills the enemy at 00:23. The replay then plays for one more turn that I didn't actually play and you see my sniper exiting the area with the two boxes he had collected.<br />
<br />
So, this hopefully gives you a fairly good picture of the game. Besides the multiplayer mode there's also a single player campaign and a possibility to play quick skirmish matches against the AI, but multiplayer is clearly the most interesting part of this game. The game is cross-platform so Windows, Linux & Mac versions exist. The game can also be bought from <a class="vt-p" href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/98200/" target="_blank">Steam</a>, and there's an unofficial <a class="vt-p" href="http://fs.error420.com/wiki/Special:AllPages" target="_blank">Frozen Synapse Wiki</a> for you to use as a reference. Finally, it takes a little patience to really get into the game, but if you intend to play it you should probably also read this blog entry called <a class="vt-p" href="http://blog.gaming.stackexchange.com/2011/07/how-not-to-be-shot-in-frozen-synapse/" target="_blank">How Not to Be Shot in Frozen Synapse</a>. :)ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-32508670650323681362012-06-04T00:41:00.002+03:002012-06-04T00:41:08.848+03:00Humble Indie Bundle VThe <a href="http://blog.humblebundle.com/post/24135140832/introducing-humble-indie-bundle-v" target="_blank"><em>Humble Indie Bundle V</em></a> is available!<br />
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<br />ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-41222327130203689002012-05-17T16:04:00.000+03:002012-07-07T13:28:30.160+03:00Windows PowerShell<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a class="vt-p" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5XoHildvsJi-_pF9ohdC9wSuuqrUeOkri4MPHDX-GOwsvaMg6jt6WdgZJAW8J3X2mEa9LAx5869mgfcEVcfQNzUzGHLuHOCJd5cUd5ZzK3xRm20g1YbITUh0EaKFEI4IV3KM8k02_dQE/s1600/WindowsPowerShell.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5XoHildvsJi-_pF9ohdC9wSuuqrUeOkri4MPHDX-GOwsvaMg6jt6WdgZJAW8J3X2mEa9LAx5869mgfcEVcfQNzUzGHLuHOCJd5cUd5ZzK3xRm20g1YbITUh0EaKFEI4IV3KM8k02_dQE/s320/WindowsPowerShell.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Windows PowerShell</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
One advantage that Linux (and other Unix-like systems) has always had over Windows is the powerful command line interface. Linux systems provide the user with dozens of little programs that can be combined, or <i>piped</i>, together to do more complex things. For example, the <a class="vt-p" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ls" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;">ls</span></a> ("list") command lists the files in the current directory. The <a class="vt-p" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/wc_(Unix)" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;">wc</span></a> ("word count") command counts the number of lines, words and/or bytes in the given input. Pipe these together, and you can get the number of files in the current directory: "<span style="font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;">ls | wc -l</span>".<br />
<br />
With the Windows Command Prompt these kind of operations have traditionally been way more difficult. Of course, I guess most people never use the Command Prompt, but those who do miss these powerful features from Unix-like systems. Nowadays, however, we have the <a class="vt-p" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_PowerShell" target="_blank"><b>Windows PowerShell</b></a>.<br />
<br />
The Windows PowerShell has been around for a few years already and I've been vaguely aware of its existence, but never really looked into it until now. It seems to be readily available on all Windows 7 installations, and most likely on Windows Vista as well. You can find it from the Start Menu.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Basics</h3>
When you start the PowerShell, you might want to see what commands are available. You can use the <span style="background-color: #9fc5e8; font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;">Get-Command</span> command or its alias <span style="background-color: #9fc5e8; font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;">gcm</span> for that. You'll see many lines of text that end with "<span style="background-color: #9fc5e8; font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;">...</span>", i.e. they are truncated. Use <span style="background-color: #9fc5e8; font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;">Get-Command | Format-List</span> or the short form <span style="background-color: #9fc5e8; font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;">gcm | fl</span> to see everything, or <span style="background-color: #9fc5e8; font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;">gcm <i><command></command></i>Some-Specific-Command <i><command></command></i>| fl</span> to get info on some specific command only. And since the PowerShell commands aren't that short, you might only want to see the list of short commands, or aliases, available <span style="background-color: #9fc5e8;">G<span style="font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;">et-Alias</span></span>. The PowerShell commands are case-insensitive, so that would be the same as <span style="background-color: #9fc5e8; font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;">get-alias</span>. And by the way, the default alias for get-alias is <span style="background-color: #9fc5e8; font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;">gal</span>.<br />
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When you are accustomed to Unix shells the weird part in PowerShell is that it is object oriented. The pipes actually pass around typed objects rather than character streams. So when you "print out a list of files", you are actually <i>rendering</i> a <i>collection object</i> consisting of <i>file objects</i>. I won't go into this in detail but it is good to know this.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Replacements for Unix commands</h3>
So, what commands replace the most used Unix commands? Here are some of the most important ones in the format of <span style="font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;"><b>Unix-command</b>: <i><span style="background-color: #9fc5e8;">Windows-command</span> </i>(<i style="background-color: #9fc5e8;">alias</i>)</span>:<br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;"><b>grep</b>: <i style="background-color: #9fc5e8;">Select-String</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;"><b>cat</b>: <i style="background-color: #9fc5e8;">Get-Content</i> (<i style="background-color: #9fc5e8;">cat</i>)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;"><b>ls</b>: <i style="background-color: #9fc5e8;">Get-ChildItem</i> (<i style="background-color: #9fc5e8;">ls</i>)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;"><b>mv</b>: <i style="background-color: #9fc5e8;">Move-Item</i> (<i style="background-color: #9fc5e8;">mv</i>)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;"><b>cp</b>: <i style="background-color: #9fc5e8;">Copy-Item</i> (<i style="background-color: #9fc5e8;">cp</i>)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;"><b>wc</b>: <i style="background-color: #9fc5e8;">Measure-Object -line -word -character</i> (<i style="background-color: #9fc5e8;">measure</i>)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;"><b>cd</b>: <i style="background-color: #9fc5e8;">Set-Location</i> (<i style="background-color: #9fc5e8;">cd</i>)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;"><b>tail -n 15 <filename></filename></b>: <i style="background-color: #9fc5e8;">cat <filename> | select -last 15</filename></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;"><b>tail -f <filename></filename></b>: <i style="background-color: #9fc5e8;">cat -path <filename> -wait</filename></i></span><br />
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<h3>
Aliases</h3>
OK, so the PowerShell can do pretty much anything a Linux shell could, and often with the same command. However, there aren't ready made aliases for all the commands. Luckily, you can define more of these aliases by yourself. Let's create that <span style="font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;">grep</span> alias: <span style="background-color: #9fc5e8; font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;">Set-Alias grep Select-String</span>. There! However, there's still a problem: if you now exit the PowerShell, your brand new alias is deleted. Luckily, you can save these into your profile file. First, type <span style="background-color: #9fc5e8; font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;">$profile</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> to see the location of your profile file. Chances are it doesn't exist so you need to create it. After you have done that you can add your set-alias commands into it. You can then easily edit the file by typing </span><span style="background-color: #9fc5e8; font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;">notepad $profile</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">However, when PowerShell starts the next time it will give you a warning that "<span style="color: #660000;">the execution of scripts is disabled on this system</span>". The command </span><span style="background-color: #9fc5e8; font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;">get-help about_signing</span> explains in detail what you can do about this, but the easiest way is to restart PowerShell with the administrator rights and to enter the command <span style="background-color: #9fc5e8; font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;">set-executionpolicy remotesigned</span>. You can now close the admin shell and open it up again with your normal rights and presto, your aliases are available to you right from the start!<br />
<br />
<h3>
Functions</h3>
Unluckily, aliases can only be created for plain commands, not for commands with parameters or pipes. However, these cases can be dealt with by creating functions. Let's create a function called <span style="font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;">tail</span>. Open your profile file and add these lines to it:
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 3px; margin-top: 3px;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;">function tail($1, $2) {</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;"> cat $2 | select -last $1</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;">}</span>
</div>
Then, in your PowerShell, reload your profile script: <span style="background-color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;">. $profile</span></span> (notice the dot). Now, when you want to see the last 15 lines in the given file, you can just enter this command: <span style="background-color: #9fc5e8;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", "Courier", monospace;">tail 15 <i>[filename]</i></span></span>. Voilà!<br />
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<h3>
Further resources</h3>
I read quite a few web pages when learning the basics of PowerShell and you will probably find them useful as well. First, Microsoft, of course, has an <a class="vt-p" href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee221100" target="_blank">Owner's manual</a> as well as a large <a class="vt-p" href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh848797" target="_blank">collection of useful PowerShell tips</a>. Second, Stack Overflow has <a class="vt-p" href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/powershell?sort=votes&pagesize=50" target="_blank">thousands of questions about PowerShell answered</a>. Third, a Windows PowerShell blog has a more detailed list of those <a class="vt-p" href="http://windows-powershell-scripts.blogspot.com/2009/06/unix-equivalents-in-powershell.html" target="_blank">Unix equivalents in PowerShell</a>. Finally, as usual, <a class="vt-p" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=powershell" target="_blank">Google is your friend</a>!<br />
<ul>
</ul>ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-77942244837449001552012-05-11T00:28:00.000+03:002012-05-11T00:28:12.142+03:00More good Android appsIt's been a few months since my previous post on <a href="http://netbooksandeverything.blogspot.com/2012/01/good-android-apps.html" target="_blank">good Android apps</a> and since then I've discovered more great apps.<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/bwBj9B4fGmTN_of0JS8xdkwklCmqCzSne1tJ9RaUNRQIzU-FEyCuFWzlsLyyPoTbyJE=w124" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/bwBj9B4fGmTN_of0JS8xdkwklCmqCzSne1tJ9RaUNRQIzU-FEyCuFWzlsLyyPoTbyJE=w124" /></a><br />
First, <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.whatsapp" target="_blank">WhatsApp</a>. WhatsApp is an instant messenger that feels just like sending free SMS messages. It's a cross-platform software, so you can communicate with your friends even if they are using iPhones or Windows Phones. You register to WhatsApp using your phone number, and the software finds everyone else who is using WhatsApp based on the numbers in your phone book. In addition to text messages you can also send images and videos. WhatsApp is free for the first year, then it's $0.99 per year.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/LUBbdER8FLcwJzRtZv1lnHNf-s702LWlQa6hc3hJMXzHDdXSBss3-w-X5mKKAZjxKQ=w124" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/LUBbdER8FLcwJzRtZv1lnHNf-s702LWlQa6hc3hJMXzHDdXSBss3-w-X5mKKAZjxKQ=w124" /></a></div>
Then, <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ideashower.readitlater.pro" target="_blank">Pocket</a> -- formerly known as Read It Later. The former title actually tells you what this app is about: it's about saving articles from the web to be read later. Sounds simple, and it is, but Pocket does it really well. Once you register to the service, you can start adding articles (or videos, or anything else) to your Pocket. There are bookmarklets you can install to your browser for saving any page with just one click. In Android, Pocket registers itself as something that shows up when you select "Share" from any application. Pocket strips ads, menus and side bars from the web pages and only shows you the article main content in a really clean way. Pocket even handles seamlessly those multi-page articles where you'd normally need to click "Next" every few paragraphs. You can also adjust the text size, screen brightness and such features easily when reading the text.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/U4YoAhJyyeINXoexcD0XkxMd_s2-dZEqe3Rftl-wP2LTdzHmqrRNdvI0GBZNMujhIwx1=w124" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/U4YoAhJyyeINXoexcD0XkxMd_s2-dZEqe3Rftl-wP2LTdzHmqrRNdvI0GBZNMujhIwx1=w124" /></a></div>
Finally, <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.onelouder.baconreader" target="_blank">BaconReader</a> for <a href="http://www.reddit.com/" target="_blank">Reddit</a>. Reddit is a "social news site" to where users submit links and the best links get voted up and show up at the main page. By default, the main page consists of links that mark the lowest common denominator between all Internet users, i.e. 75% of the links direct to funny images. But Reddit contains hundreds of sub categories, or <em>subreddits</em>, for every imaginable topic. Whether it's <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/astrology/" target="_blank">astrology</a>, <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/" target="_blank">programming</a>, <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/bicycling/" target="_blank">bicycling</a> or <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/cooking/" target="_blank">cooking</a>, there's a subreddit for it. The <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/" target="_blank">TrueReddit</a> subreddit contains long, serious articles, whereas the <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/lolcats" target="_blank">lolcats</a> subreddit contains cute pictures of cats. With BaconReader you can choose which subreddits to follow and always get the newest links to your Android device easily.ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-28934844478519937712012-04-10T01:14:00.000+03:002012-04-10T01:14:10.646+03:00Instagram<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/vFpQP39LB60dli3n-rJnVvTM07dsvIzxrCL5xMiy1V4GV4unC1ifXkUExQ4N-DBCKwI=w124" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/vFpQP39LB60dli3n-rJnVvTM07dsvIzxrCL5xMiy1V4GV4unC1ifXkUExQ4N-DBCKwI=w124" /></a>The popular photography app <a href="http://instagr.am/" target="_blank">Instagram</a> was recently released for Android. Previously it had only been available for iPhone, so I decided to give it a try.<br />
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Instagram is similar to another highly popular app called <a href="http://hipstamatic.com/" target="_blank">Hipstamatic</a>. The idea is that you take a photo, crop it into square format and apply a filter that makes the photo look "vintage" or "retro". The analog-world counterpart of these apps is often called <a href="http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/inspiration/what-is-lomography/" target="_blank">Lomography</a>, after the cheap Soviet Russian camera Lomo LC-A. Why would anyone want to have their photos artificially aged? Others have discussed this elsewhere, so see, for example, <a href="http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2011/05/14/the-faux-vintage-photo-full-essay-parts-i-ii-and-iii/" target="_blank">this study</a> or <a href="http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2011/05/14/the-faux-vintage-photo-full-essay-parts-i-ii-and-iii/" target="_blank">this essay</a>.<br />
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Instagram is very intuitive to use: snap a photo, select a filter, write a caption, upload. You apparently cannot save any photos to your device: if you want to keep a photo you must upload it into the service. So Instagram is not only an app but also a service that hosts your photos. You can also find you friends there and subscribe to their feeds to get their latest photos on the main screen of the app. Or you can just browse the most interesting photos from all users.<br />
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There's something in Instagram that appeals to me. It sort of fills a need that I didn't know was there. To Flickr, I only try to upload my best and technically flawless photos. To Facebook I upload photos of events with my friends. But to Instagram I can upload any random photos. It couldn't be easier and you always have the camera (your smartphone) with you. Some people are into <a href="http://content.photojojo.com/tutorials/project-365-take-a-photo-a-day/" target="_blank">taking a photo every day</a>, and I think Instagram is quite perfect for this kind of a project. In fact, I'm going to try it! Instagram doesn't have its own web interface for browsing the photos but an external service called <a href="http://web.stagram.com/" target="_blank">Webstagram</a> fills that void; see <a href="http://web.stagram.com/n/ZeroOne3010/" target="_blank">my photostream here</a>.<br />
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<em>Coincidentally, about five hours ago (as of writing this post) Facebook announced that it is going to buy Instagram for 1 billion USD. The figure is ridiculously large and I believe Facebook is never going to get their money back from that purchase, but hey, if they happened to have an extra billion lying around then why not buy Instagram with it. <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-31322_3-57411422-256/facebook-buys-instagram-..-but-for-what/" target="_blank">Molly Wood from CNET</a> also questions the price tag, and <a href="http://theurbandaily.com/1905972/5-ways-facebook-will-ruin-instagram/" target="_blank">some people believe that Facebook will now ruin Instagram</a>, although Mashable's Chris Taylor says <a href="http://mashable.com/2012/04/09/facebook-instagram-opinion/" target="_blank">Facebook could actually improve Instagram</a>. What happens, remains to be seen, but I'm not too concerned.</em>ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-61555180525075923972012-04-03T23:56:00.000+03:002012-10-21T17:40:43.683+03:00URL shortenersHave you ever had to share a long link to some website with someone? Perhaps something like this: <a class="vt-p" href="http://maps.google.com/?ll=60.169145,24.952417&spn=95.287566,270.527344&vector=1&hnear=Helsinki,+Suomi&t=w&z=3&layer=c&panoid=-fKxq5ulDCh5MjWvf2lsqw&cbll=60.169145,24.952417&cbp=13,-9.198922634831321,,0,-3.4772653749464837&source=gplus-ogsb"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://maps.google.com/?ll=60.169145,24.952417&spn=95.287566,270.527344&vector=1&hnear=Helsinki,+Suomi&t=w&z=3&layer=c&panoid=-fKxq5ulDCh5MjWvf2lsqw&cbll=60.169145,24.952417&cbp=13,-9.198922634831321,,0,-3.4772653749464837&source=gplus-ogsb</span></a>? You can be sure that if you send a link like that over the email it gets cut at some point and breaks. So, what to do? Enter URL shorteners.<br />
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URL shorteners take a long URL and create a short alias for it. One of the oldest ones, if not the oldest, is <a class="vt-p" href="http://tinyurl.com/" target="_blank"><b>TinyURL</b></a>. The user interface is simple: you take your long link, paste it into the box on the site and click the button. The long link above then becomes a much more manageable "<a class="vt-p" href="http://tinyurl.com/cs92l4u" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/cs92l4u</a>". On the site you can, in theory, also choose a custom name for your URL, instead of the randomly assigned string "cs92l4u". However, TinyURL is so old and popular that most good short names are already taken. If you want to know where a TinyURL link leads to, you need to add "preview." in front of the domain name like this: <a class="vt-p" href="http://preview.tinyurl.com/cs92l4u" style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" target="_blank">http://preview.tinyurl.com/cs92l4u</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicJF-sKMCjOrb_9ezNjSBtCQblIcl9sEpyrb2ZCHtBOkZ4Q_Uu9F9rAmyBQyrNPyPGBKXzTiTGLDRUBMVgKku-hlm47qzGO5bBpZpLahow-rwB8Rt-eGFo62TqAWnm7-O4rtVGjMeW4wU/s1600/Bit.ly_Logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="90" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicJF-sKMCjOrb_9ezNjSBtCQblIcl9sEpyrb2ZCHtBOkZ4Q_Uu9F9rAmyBQyrNPyPGBKXzTiTGLDRUBMVgKku-hlm47qzGO5bBpZpLahow-rwB8Rt-eGFo62TqAWnm7-O4rtVGjMeW4wU/s200/Bit.ly_Logo.png" width="200" /></a>TinyURL links are short and good for email and newsgroups, but they could be shorter. <b><a class="vt-p" href="https://bitly.com/" target="_blank">bitly</a></b> is a good alternative for many reasons. First, the domain name they use by default is "bit.ly", i.e. just six characters instead of the 11 in "tinyurl.com". If you create an account to bit.ly you also get an access to the shortest possible short domain address "j.mp", which is just four characters. Second, bitly provides extensive tracking for the links shortened with it. Shortening the long link above gets me this: <a class="vt-p" href="http://j.mp/H5Go2J" target="_blank">http://j.mp/H5Go2J</a>. Now, when I want to see the statistics of any bitly or j.mp link I'll just add a "+" sign at the end of the URL: <a class="vt-p" href="http://j.mp/H5Go2J+" target="_blank">http://j.mp/H5Go2J+</a>. Tadah! On that page you can also see a QR code for the URL, to be read with the camera of your smartphone. Unfortunately, bitly does not allow you to choose the name for your link: it's always a random string of characters. bitly does, however, allow you to create collections of links, i.e. bookmark lists. See, for example, my list of the <a class="vt-p" href="https://bitly.com/bundles/zeroone3010/2" target="_blank">most interesting TED talks</a>.<br />
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<a class="vt-p" href="http://is.gd/isgdlogo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="151" src="http://is.gd/isgdlogo.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Yet another URL shortener is <b><a class="vt-p" href="http://is.gd/">is.gd</a></b>, pronounced "is good". You can choose to have it log statistics and it also creates a QR code for your URL, but there's no registration or login required. The example link shortened to <a class="vt-p" href="http://is.gd/yitefe" target="_blank">http://is.gd/yitefe</a> with the "lower case pronounceable" option selected. The preview page is the URL with a minus sign added, and from that page you can also access the statistics (if you chose them to be logged) and the QR code: <a class="vt-p" href="http://is.gd/yitefe-" target="_blank">http://is.gd/yitefe-</a>. is.gd is also newer and less popular than TinyURL so you actually have a chance of getting some meaningful short name assigned to your link -- for example, the <a class="vt-p" href="http://is.gd/bookofjobs" target="_blank">http://is.gd/bookofjobs</a> address now leads to my post about the biography of Steve Jobs.<br />
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<a class="vt-p" href="http://tinyarrows.com/img/ta/buttons/logo_black.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="82" src="http://tinyarrows.com/img/ta/buttons/logo_black.png" width="200" /></a></div>
The next URL shortener is called <a class="vt-p" href="http://tinyarrows.com/" target="_blank"><b>Tiny Arrows</b></a>. The URLs created with it look really special: they actually have tiny arrows in them! Tiny Arrows never assigns a random string to your URL so you are forced to think of a name for your link, which is not bad. I shortened the example URL to this: <a class="vt-p" href="http://xn--hgi.ws/senatesquare" target="_blank">http://➡.ws/senatesquare</a>. What's also special about this shortener is that it doesn't take you to the target right away but actually shows a short countdown during which you see the actual URL of the page you are about to enter. You can also bypass this countdown by clicking a link or disable it altogether from ever appearing to you again.<br />
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<a class="vt-p" href="http://t.co/static/images/bird.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://t.co/static/images/bird.png" /></a></div>
Next, <b>t.co</b>. It's not a link here because it doesn't really have an user interface: it is integrated to Twitter. So when you post any link to Twitter, it gets shortened using t.co. They rolled this service out in 2010 when they decided that they want to track the links and that their users shouldn't need to use third-party services for posting long links to Twitter. Not much to say about this one besides that, but it's good to know about it. It doesn't give the tracking information to you, so if you want to track the clicks, you still need to use, say, bitly.<br />
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<a class="vt-p" href="http://www.mcafee.com/img/logo-mcafee.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.mcafee.com/img/logo-mcafee.png" /></a></div>
So, is that all? Nope, there are still some services worth mentioning, like the <a class="vt-p" href="http://mcaf.ee/"><b>mcaf.ee</b></a> shortener by the computer security company McAfee. Because they are a reputable computer security company, they have a pretty good idea on which web sites are safe and which ones may try to infect you with viruses. So, the mcaf.ee links are safe to click. They also display a frame at the top of the page telling you security information about it. The example URL to Google Maps that I've been using in this post is a bad example in this case because it breaks out of the frame, but take the Steve Jobs post again: <a class="vt-p" href="http://mcaf.ee/mgj7b">http://mcaf.ee/mgj7b</a>. You'll see the "This site is Safe" text at the top of the page, along with a link to a detailed site report (which, in the case of this blog, tells you almost nothing, but anyway..).<br />
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<b><a class="vt-p" href="http://www.shadyurl.com/" target="_blank">ShadyURL</a></b> is the opposite of mcaf.ee: it creates links that look really, really suspicious: something along the lines of <a class="vt-p" href="http://5z8.info/best-russian-sites-for-bootleg-everything_r7c1lr_b00bs">http://5z8.info/best-russian-sites-for-bootleg-everything_r7c1lr_b00bs</a> for example. It's more of a satire of an URL shortener than an actual URL shortener. :) And finally, if all those links were <i>too short</i> for you, then <a class="vt-p" href="http://hugeurl.geeks.org/" target="_blank"><b>HugeURL</b></a> is your service: it expands any URL into a ridiculously long one!<br />
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OK, we are almost in the end. There are many utility services also built around the concept of URL shorteners. For example, there are various browser plugins. For Chrome, the <a class="vt-p" href="http://j.mp/Hc2cOv" target="_blank">bitly plugin</a> creates and copies short URLs to clipboard with one click. There are also services that show you the expanded links, possibly as tooltips over the shortened URLs. For Chrome, there's <a class="vt-p" href="http://j.mp/Hc1Uax" target="_blank">View Thru</a> for that. For Firefox there are <a class="vt-p" href="http://bit.ly/i85REA" target="_blank">URL Shrink Easy</a> and <a class="vt-p" href="http://bit.ly/Hjz6WG" target="_blank">Long URL Please</a> for the same purposes.<br />
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Finally, a word of warning: like any other website, a URL shortener site may stop working. At that point all of your short links will also stop working. This is called <a class="vt-p" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_rot" target="_blank">link rot</a>. So keep your important links in the full form and only use shorteners if you figure that no damage will be done in case the link would stop working in a week or in a year. You can lower the risk of your links rotting by only using reputable shorteners, such as TinyURL and bitly, even though <a class="vt-p" href="http://moourl.com/" target="_blank">there</a> <a class="vt-p" href="http://fu.gy/" target="_blank">are</a> <a class="vt-p" href="http://cli.gs/" target="_blank">actually</a> <a class="vt-p" href="http://ncc1701.co/" target="_blank">dozens</a> <a class="vt-p" href="http://lnk.co/" target="_blank">of</a> <a class="vt-p" href="http://imyur.com/" target="_blank">URL</a> <a class="vt-p" href="http://fur.ly/" target="_blank">shorteners</a> <a class="vt-p" href="http://snipurl.com/" target="_blank">available</a>.ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-69350895476351452452012-03-26T22:50:00.001+03:002012-03-30T23:54:10.125+03:00The Humble Bundle for Android #2Again, it's time for yet another Humble Bundle. That's five or six games that work on Windows, Linux, Mac and Android, for whatever price you want to pay! There are just seven days left of this offer, so go to <a href="https://www.humblebundle.com/" target="_blank">humblebundle.com</a> and act now!ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-87743605743935918612012-03-25T19:06:00.000+03:002012-03-25T19:06:27.176+03:00Walter Isaacson: Steve Jobs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi95NdZwhR5UbuToulB1Ym6AdZvg-cryeEB0BMVs8XgRgHOw5OGvyVh7bwQi_bFmBQxRyvFe35XKBhuHT6X42N_ii-hA5ledKopyfPku22tTiwMvSOkUgSLnW6Hbo4hpkWJgFpp8WiRxjE/s1600/Steve_Jobs_by_Walter_Isaacson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi95NdZwhR5UbuToulB1Ym6AdZvg-cryeEB0BMVs8XgRgHOw5OGvyVh7bwQi_bFmBQxRyvFe35XKBhuHT6X42N_ii-hA5ledKopyfPku22tTiwMvSOkUgSLnW6Hbo4hpkWJgFpp8WiRxjE/s320/Steve_Jobs_by_Walter_Isaacson.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>I just finished reading Walter Isaacson's 600 pages long book <i>Steve Jobs</i>, the biography of Steve Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011). This is my attempt at summarizing the parts of the book that I found the most interesting.<br />
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According to the book, in Jobs's mind everything -- including ideas, people and products -- was either the best or utter crap. Not many shades of grey there. He also voiced his opinions loudly and shamelessly in front of other people. At some point some of his colleagues and employees understood that when Jobs called their idea/concept/product/model total bullshit, he actually meant "Please explain to me why this is absolutely the best way of doing this". If you then managed to do that, Jobs would respect you. He might not necessarily admit it at first, but he would come back in a few days and then present you your idea as his own.<br />
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This has to do with another concept that was discussed a lot in the book: Jobs's ability to distort the reality. Jobs could easily hurt people, but he was just as skilled in flattering them or persuading them to do something -- even if that something was thought to be impossible. When Jobs told his team that they could do something, they believed him and actually pulled it through. For example, in January 1984, when there was a week left before the deadline for the software of the new Macintosh, the engineers concluded that they just couldn't do it: they needed two more weeks to finish it. Jobs explained to them that they were a great team and had been working on the project for months so a couple of extra weeks would not make a difference and the original deadline would stay. So the team bought a huge bag of coffee beans, pulled a few all-nighters and actually shipped the product in time.<br />
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Jobs's skill of persuading almost anyone of almost anything was the product of a couple of factors. First, Jobs could also deceive himself to believe in anything he decided was the truth. Some would say he was lying, but it seems he truly and fully believed in whatever he had decided was the reality. He could effortlessly ignore any fact he didn't like (such as the birth of his first daughter Lisa, for the first couple of years), or he could just twist those facts to suit his own mind. Second, Jobs could direct his attention sharply to anyone or anything, ignoring anything else around. He could focus on something "like a laser beam". He had even learned to stare at people without blinking.<br />
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Jobs was a special kind of a person who could as easily focus on the big picture as the smallest details. He could spend a morning in a board meeting and then in the afternoon give his unfiltered opinions on the coating or curvature of the screw heads in their newest physical product. He was passionate about the details of the products of his companies and worked closely with the designers. He actually forced everyone in his companies to work closely together: in other organizations, such as Sony, different divisions practically competed with each other. That is one reason why Sony failed to create a solution that would integrate an online music store with an MP3 player: they were afraid that the online store would eat a share of their traditional CD sales. Jobs managed to do this with the iPod and iTunes and was never afraid to have one product cannibalize another's market: "If you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will".<br />
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Jobs considered himself and Apple as being in the intersection of humanities and sciences, or creativity and technology. He was a good engineer but Steve Wozniak, with whom he founded Apple in 1976, was the best one. Whenever Wozniak came up with a new invention, Jobs found a way to make money with it, so they completed each other in that sense. Wozniak was more of a hacker and was happy when soldering parts on a circuit board, but Jobs always insisted that everything should be intuitive and easy to use for an average person.<br />
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During his youth Jobs tried LSD, marijuana and other drugs. He later said that taking LSD was one of the most important things in his life as that -- and his Zen studies -- made him "more enlightened". He was rebellious and lived with fruit and vegetable diets, and also traveled to India to find his guru. He liked to walk barefoot and also thought that because of his vegetarian diet he wouldn't need to shower or use deodorant, which wasn't too nice for the people around him. Later on when he got the cancer in the 2000s he still tried to distort reality into overcoming the cancer with various fruit-based diets only, which delayed the proper medical care for several months and actually worsened his condition badly.<br />
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Finally, here's Jobs's speech to the graduates of the Stanford University in 2005. All the themes of the speech and the speech itself are also discussed in the book, but I figured I'd rather not repeat them and just let Steve speak for himself:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/D1R-jKKp3NA?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-90241520838722930932012-03-07T01:21:00.001+02:002012-03-07T01:25:21.295+02:00Battlefield 3 newbie tutorial<a href="http://netbooksandeverything.blogspot.com/2011_03_01_archive.html">Last March</a> I wrote a couple of posts about the <i>Battlefield: Bad Company 2</i> game. They were aimed for newbies, documenting pieces of information that I wish I knew right from the beginning. The newest installment of the series, <i><b>Battlefield 3</b></i>, was released last October and I've already played it for perhaps even a bit too much. I cannot consider myself a newbie to the series anymore but I figured I'd still try to help those who are just getting into the game, so here goes. Note that I focus solely on the PC multiplayer aspect of the game. I'd like this to be some kind of a "everything you ever wanted to know about Battlefield 3 but were afraid to ask" -list. Comments and further questions both from newbies and experienced players would also be much appreciated. Experienced players, what tricks do you wish you knew right from the beginning?<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Game modes</span></b><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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The most popular game modes are Rush and Conquest. The other ones are Team Deathmatch and Squad Deathmatch, but I'll focus on the first two modes.<br />
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<b>Rush</b><br />
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<b> </b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKCi76_CVDjJwwpEAudzEDVZo-lWDucjofvBUdaAZnoek6Q_rv-Jbhe1Z2dE2W8iMXc3PHRzXtf9ldlayg9tUThx8ePOF1nKz7K87cgDpC18-_Y8gWEb5_IbqcRVbNDSs3g0GZeMrFOeM/s1600/bf3_arming_MCOM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKCi76_CVDjJwwpEAudzEDVZo-lWDucjofvBUdaAZnoek6Q_rv-Jbhe1Z2dE2W8iMXc3PHRzXtf9ldlayg9tUThx8ePOF1nKz7K87cgDpC18-_Y8gWEb5_IbqcRVbNDSs3g0GZeMrFOeM/s200/bf3_arming_MCOM.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Arming an MCOM</td></tr>
</tbody></table>In <b>Rush</b> one team, the attackers, tries to arm bombs to <b>MCOM stations</b>, marked on the minimap with squares. The other team, defenders, tries to prevent the attackers from arming the bombs. You arm a bomb by holding down the E-key when next to the station (on any side of it). After the bomb is armed, it takes perhaps some 30 seconds before it explodes, during which time the defenders will try to disarm the bomb. You disarm the bomb exactly as you would arm one, by holding down the E-key. Arming and destroying MCOMs earns you a lot of points, so you should try to do that. Surprisingly often no-one wants to make the final move towards the station, everyone just expects "somebody else" to do that, and that's no way of winning matches.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2gYd4HWVqciPQ5SwpUpboq94_rjORE-OfAwf5v2wuLXry5Mqq9n0kMRuZe20UShEQnSaAIV8essjdk-ixPU42EQwD-_SPsxg1zk7kuvrCqXmrDVKstJsJQ0tV0UbtTQ64_U1S4TNAl40/s1600/bf3_MCOM_armed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2gYd4HWVqciPQ5SwpUpboq94_rjORE-OfAwf5v2wuLXry5Mqq9n0kMRuZe20UShEQnSaAIV8essjdk-ixPU42EQwD-_SPsxg1zk7kuvrCqXmrDVKstJsJQ0tV0UbtTQ64_U1S4TNAl40/s200/bf3_MCOM_armed.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">MCOM armed</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
After destroying two MCOMs the map is expanded, the attackers advance and the defenders fall back to defend the next pair of MCOMs. There are usually 3 or 4 pairs of MCOMs. The game ends if the attackers destroy all the MCOMs or if the defenders kill all the attackers. The number of attackers is visible at the lower left corner above your minimap. That number is called the number of <b>tickets</b>. Defenders have an unlimited number of tickets.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1AvmZzTb5AUJIx0hkFSqcsvOKwW67TUHvUg-Fu_APy8Xuy95aQP_9gNu3UY33w7LUDKqMvB72474I6CRqUE5nN-WDUzN6G72qOrFTx7ylLKBO_X0e4EFekn3aakYnfsYrOruR7yraxEQ/s1600/bf3_destroyed_MCOM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1AvmZzTb5AUJIx0hkFSqcsvOKwW67TUHvUg-Fu_APy8Xuy95aQP_9gNu3UY33w7LUDKqMvB72474I6CRqUE5nN-WDUzN6G72qOrFTx7ylLKBO_X0e4EFekn3aakYnfsYrOruR7yraxEQ/s200/bf3_destroyed_MCOM.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A destroyed MCOM</td></tr>
</tbody></table>When you have armed an MCOM station you should do whatever it takes to defend it from being disarmed. Get into a corner and take a doorway into your sights (you bring up your weapon's sights by holding down the right mouse button). If there's a teammate in the same room or area with you, see which entrance point he picks and pick the other one yourself. If the enemies try to advance, kill them. If it looks like you are going to die, you might, as the last resort, want to throw a grenade towards the MCOM. I recommend binding the grenades to the F-key, I seem to recall they are bound to G by default. F, I think, is, by default, the key for your knife -- you'll want to bind this to a mouse key if your mouse has more than the basic two keys and a scroll wheel. More on the knife later.<br />
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Also, once one of your teammates has armed the MCOM station you should prevent the enemies from getting there. At this point the enemies are usually running quite blindly towards it, so this may even give you chance to go for the other MCOM station when the enemies are busy with the first one!<br />
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<b>Conquest</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh0UT0Zr_U1B5iZuRxv8AKak3h4eTrj_bmFXUIxQ4d-GOB_UfOEJdHeYQvYAeXXC8NNm9gE-XQ1hOSTcGf_l7IUJJ6R9TSn0rkHa4VfGNYS7dwITt0qx6BVbJcjMiAoAVxEcEodTG4_wQ/s1600/bf3_capturing_a_flag_in_an_IFV.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh0UT0Zr_U1B5iZuRxv8AKak3h4eTrj_bmFXUIxQ4d-GOB_UfOEJdHeYQvYAeXXC8NNm9gE-XQ1hOSTcGf_l7IUJJ6R9TSn0rkHa4VfGNYS7dwITt0qx6BVbJcjMiAoAVxEcEodTG4_wQ/s320/bf3_capturing_a_flag_in_an_IFV.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Capturing a flag in an infantry fighting vehicle (IFV)</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
In <b>Conquest</b> the teams try to conquer flags that are scattered around the map. The flags are initially neutral and are converted by hanging out near them, without any enemies in the vicinity. Once you get close enough to the flag you'll see and hear a counter ticking in the middle of the screen. Capturing flags earns you a lot of points, just like arming MCOMs in the Rush mode. The <i>Back to Karkand</i> expansion pack also added a slightly different variation, <b>Conquest Assault</b>, where one team, the defenders, starts with all the flags and the other team must conquer them to deplete the defenders from spawning points. The Conquest games end when one of the teams runs out of tickets. One important thing to know about the Conquest mode is that once one team controls more than half of the flags, the other team <i>bleeds</i> tickets. This means that they lose reinforcements even if no one is actually killed, so this gives you even more reason to try to capture flags from enemies.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Squads, character kits and their equipment</span></b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivDRoEegF6j8Ai-k-wRMlEl1kK4FKFVSbeHfubFDZJw2P0TN8Qq3cbjj7GqFQRJm80td_AucPnOSLbOdnd3H6iIQXfgwAnHWMd5-sKFRFh7rzWv5pQO23jnmOapw_LTPf8qyiBtIUtTfg/s1600/bf3_squad_screen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivDRoEegF6j8Ai-k-wRMlEl1kK4FKFVSbeHfubFDZJw2P0TN8Qq3cbjj7GqFQRJm80td_AucPnOSLbOdnd3H6iIQXfgwAnHWMd5-sKFRFh7rzWv5pQO23jnmOapw_LTPf8qyiBtIUtTfg/s320/bf3_squad_screen.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Squad selection screen</td></tr>
</tbody></table>There are four character classes -- or kits -- in the game: Assault, Engineer, Support and Recon. They all have different strengths and weaknesses. One thing I'd like to stress at this point: <b>always join a squad! </b>Most servers seem not to assign you into a squad automatically, so unless you do that by yourself, you will miss a lot of points, as working with your squad mates always gives you some extra points compared to working with any other team members. (Not that you shouldn't help them also; of course you should!)<br />
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So, to join a squad check the squad menu from the spawn screen to see which squads have vacant places. A squad holds four soldiers, so to get a maximum amount of support from friends -- and to help a maximum amount of friends -- try to join a squad that has three players. In addition to the attacked/defender starting point or a flag, a server may allow you to spawn to your squad leader or to any of your squad member. Before blindly spawning, inspect the situation at least for a couple of seconds. You do that by clicking on the desired spawn location which moves the camera there. If your squad mate is in some good position, such as flanking an enemy, you'll want to join him. But also if he's under fire, you might want to join him as an Assault soldier in order to give him a medkit and to revive him if needed. In general I always drop a medkit or an ammo kit right away when I spawn next to a squad mate.<br />
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<b>Assault</b><br />
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The assault soldier carries an assault rifle and medkits by default. Use the medkits! What I generally do when I spawn next to a squad member, I immediately throw them a medkit. Hanging next to a medkit heals you quickly and earns points for whoever deployed that kit. Assault soldiers can make good points without even killing anyone by deploying <b>medkits</b> and reviving fallen team mates (once you have unlocked the <b>paddles</b>). You use the paddles by aiming at your dead friend and firing -- there's no indication on when you are at the right position and sometimes the paddles seem to be buggy and won't have an effect (on the first try), but that's how you do it anyway.<br />
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The assault class also has an unlockable <b>grenade launcher</b>, but using that one uses up the slot where you'd normally keep the medkit. Once you kill 20 enemies with the grenade launcher, you earn <b>smoke grenades</b> for it. These are very useful especially for the attackers in the Rush mode as they help you to advance in the cover of a smoke cloud without the enemy seeing where exactly are you.<br />
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<b>Engineer</b><br />
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Engineers are good at repairing and destroying vehicles. By default they carry a basic rocket launcher and a repair torch or anti-tank mines. The main weapon of an engineer is a carbine. In terms of stopping power and accuracy carbines are basically as good as assault rifles; my favorite carbine is the SCAR-H which is the third or fourth unlock of the Engineer class, depending on how you count it, after 14000 points.<br />
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Engineers are similar to assault soldiers in that they, too, can earn lots of points just by helping the other members of the team. With this I'm referring to <b>repairing</b> their vehicles, of course. Choosing whether to use AT mines or the repair torch should be decided on a case by case basis. If you can get into a tank or some other vehicle the repair torch is always a good choice, but if there are no seats left for you then you might want to make sure that the enemies don't use their vehicles either. ;) However, when attacking in a Rush game you will usually want to equip the repair torch.<br />
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Applying the repair torch to an enemy vehicle causes damage to it, so it's entirely possible to kill enemies by destroying their tank with a torch. You should, however, be aware of a few points. One: many people use proximity scanners in their vehicles so you won't be able to approach the vehicle without being noticed. Two: you can be ran over by a vehicle if you are in front of it or behind it. Three: one member of the vehicle crew will probably jump out and kill you even if the vehicle's weapons cannot shoot you when you are right next to the vehicle. So mines are a lot safer for you if you keep clear from them when they detonate.<br />
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Notice that while unarmored vehicles will be destroyed by one mine, tanks usually won't. Instead they become <b>disabled</b>, which means that their turret can still turn and they can shoot, they just cannot drive away anymore, or only in crawling speed. The vehicle also catches a fire and will start losing health, but if there's no one to finish the vehicle off with an RPG then there's a good chance that a member of the crew will just repair the vehicle. I realize that it's boring and risky to wait for someone to drive to your mine and no one actually does that, but at least the defenders of a Rush round should be aware of this issue.<br />
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At 82000 points the Engineer class unlocks the <strong>Javelin</strong> missile. It locks on to a target and is then guided into it. That's at least in theory. In practice the locking time feels like an eternity and you seldom have the chance to shoot enemy vehicles from a distance where Javelin would be better than a regular RPG. You also cannot shoot Javelin without it locking into a vehicle first, so you cannot use it in quick situations or against infantry, nor can you, by default, shoot aerial vehicles with a Javelin. Finally, the basic RPGs are slightly more powerful than the Javelin if they hit their target anywhere but on the top. However, Javelin excels if one of your team mates is using a laser designator, more on which later under the Recon header.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stinger ready to be fired</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
There are also anti-air missiles in the Engineer kit: the <strong>IGLA</strong> for Russians and the <b>Stinger</b> for the US troops. These need a lock-on just like the Javelin and they only lock on to aerial vehicles. The air vehicles then have a chance to defend themselves with IR flares, so it's still not a guaranteed hit.<br />
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<b>Support</b><br />
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Support soldiers are armed with a <b>light machine gun</b> and can deal ammo for their team mates. As with the Assault medkits, do deal ammo out too! Light machine guns are pretty effective if used correctly, but horribly ineffective if used incorrectly. A correct way to use a light machine gun is to deploy a bipod for it. If you have selected one as an accessory for your gun, the bipod is deployed automatically when you bring up your sights when you are laying down or close to a suitable obstacle on which to place the bipod.<br />
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The bipod makes the gun very stable so it is often quite feasible to just go for a long burst of automatic fire. However, when using a machine gun without a bipod, that's not a good idea. The recoil will throw your aim off and there's a great chance that you only get yourself killed by an enemy five meters away after spraying 50 bullets at him. So go for short bursts and in between correct your aim.<br />
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As a Support soldier you will quickly earn the <b>C4</b> plastic explosives. Later on the Support class will also earn Claymore mines and a 60 mm mortar. The C4 can be used -- you guessed it -- to destroy stuff. You deploy an explosive with the right mouse button and detonate it with the left one. You can remember this from the fact that every other weapon is fired with the left button as well. You can have several explosives deployed at any given time, and when you run out, you can just drop an ammo box and collect new ones. Deploying "too many" C4s (or anti-tank mines or Claymore mines) will, however, make the oldest explosives disappear.<br />
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If you are brave, you can destroy enemy tanks with the C4. Just go to the tank, attach an explosive with the right mouse button, preferably back off and then detonate. The same cautions apply as with the Engineer and his repair torch, so you are likely to get noticed and killed, but hey, it's still worth a try especially if the tank in question is busy with shooting at your team mates in the other direction. I have also found the C4 useful as a Rush defender when you can attach the explosives to the MCOMs or right next to them and then easily kill the first one trying to arm a bomb.<br />
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The <b>Claymore mines</b> are anti-personnel explosives. Use them to protect the MCOMs and routes that you cannot guard the whole time. Be careful to set the mine so that the direction of the explosion is the direction from which an enemy is likely to approach. I also sometimes disguise the Claymores by dropping an ammo box right on top of it.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjivCNg0z2MqeupE2atJJzrWvYBeeJiIMRUMpjSAMxZHNmpH8UkgVVxzK2LGCJv8zctX-vsjBdRvkmAJzG1iBRW3rfSZE1HX1YADaBu6sJN0pmffDXzoFWFj1E7IE6aXWxoxlWVdzxFLMc/s1600/bf3_mortar_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjivCNg0z2MqeupE2atJJzrWvYBeeJiIMRUMpjSAMxZHNmpH8UkgVVxzK2LGCJv8zctX-vsjBdRvkmAJzG1iBRW3rfSZE1HX1YADaBu6sJN0pmffDXzoFWFj1E7IE6aXWxoxlWVdzxFLMc/s320/bf3_mortar_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You can also destroy enemy explosives with the mortar</td></tr>
</tbody></table>The <b>60 mm mortar</b> is a weapon that can provide indirect fire afar. The basic shells are high explosive (HE), but you can also use them to shoot smoke shells. It's a bit difficult because there's no indicator on the screen on whether you have the HE or the smoke shells selected: you just have to know it. You select the smoke shells with button "2" and the HE shells with "1". They have independent reloading times so you can shoot two shells in a very quick succession before a short loading period. Smoke shells are especially useful for attackers in the Rush mode. Naturally they can be used to cover your own troops but they can also be used to blind the defenders. If an enemy sniper is fortified somewhere so that you cannot kill them with the HE shells, you can often blind them with the smoke shells, which is enough to force them to find another position. The possible problem with the mortar is that as you cannot see the target area directly, you only rely on your team mates spotting the enemies so that you can see them on your minimap that you use for targeting. So this is yet another good reason for you to spot every enemy you see.<br />
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<b>Recon</b><br />
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The Recon class is often regarded as the "sniper" class as they get the sniper rifles. This seems like a tempting class for many new players. However, a sniper's worst enemy is often another sniper, and unfortunately for you the truth is that most enemy snipers on the field are much more experienced and better equipped than you. Thus it might not be a good idea for a new player to camp somewhere with a sniper rifle when they could be in the frontline using some other kit.<br />
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In addition to the sniper rifles the Recon class also gets some nice gadgets such as the T-UGS. If you wish to use these but killing enemies with sniper rifles doesn't seem to work out, I recommend you to play some Team Deathmatch games as a Recon soldier using some all-kit weapon, such as the UMP-45 submachine gun. You can earn this gun using any other character kit and then use the gun to get some points with the Recon kit.<br />
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So, the Recon class gets these gadgets. The first one is the <b>Radio Beacon</b>. This is basically a spawn point for you and your squad. Depending on the map you might spawn next to the beacon or you might spawn into the air with a parachute! In some maps you can take advantage of this to attack the MCOMs by moving your parachute towards one. Using Radio Beacons is a good idea, especially since you have nothing to lose. Or, well, they do beep so they might give your position away, but in general the ability to spawn to a critical point greatly overweights this drawback.<br />
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The second gadget is the cryptically named <b>T-UGS</b>. It's short for Tactical Unattended Ground Sensor. It is basically a motion sensor. You deploy it anywhere and it will then spot enemies that come nearby. Again, you might want to put these near MCOMs or somewhere behind you to prevent enemies from sneaking up to you. These do, however, get destroyed pretty easily and the enemy will also seek to do just that.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_0esXCtAAXE-jc9A1qTFue7BtsU091-6UEa1iTmwz_C9CwqtixNpHNr-vzNkS6xpfdOrY9skKW3a4uRV_SmLGqRVh0MrjEeLbA7ax4VcAUy54I7R-Kf0DD5cip5LVaEDCAFzACmwendA/s1600/bf3_SOFLAM_deployed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_0esXCtAAXE-jc9A1qTFue7BtsU091-6UEa1iTmwz_C9CwqtixNpHNr-vzNkS6xpfdOrY9skKW3a4uRV_SmLGqRVh0MrjEeLbA7ax4VcAUy54I7R-Kf0DD5cip5LVaEDCAFzACmwendA/s200/bf3_SOFLAM_deployed.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SOFLAM and its remote controller </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBJV6v0a8EzD_EPUQ73R6XnumAP8d4WSakX_v_eec3XlTv9Gq3WuIt86p2dYeYxSQOWxv9-fB7ebTqG8NV6UGIL1qj0Fi8-ln1wHnVj16LgLNadJz5XHDw1Z1Hxr1vFrjUK_YHbDX3a8s/s1600/bf3_SOFLAM_in_use.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBJV6v0a8EzD_EPUQ73R6XnumAP8d4WSakX_v_eec3XlTv9Gq3WuIt86p2dYeYxSQOWxv9-fB7ebTqG8NV6UGIL1qj0Fi8-ln1wHnVj16LgLNadJz5XHDw1Z1Hxr1vFrjUK_YHbDX3a8s/s200/bf3_SOFLAM_in_use.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SOFLAM tracking a target</td></tr>
</tbody></table>The next gadget is the <b>SOFLAM</b>. It is a sensor that is used to laser designate vehicles. Laser designation causes Javelin rockets and certain other guided weapons to home to the target and also to cause more damage than they would without the laser designation. The nice thing about SOFLAMs is that you don't need to be anywhere near it to use it. You deploy it (left click), exit it (E), move to a safe place and bring up its remote controller again (select it and left click). With the right mouse button you can also change the zoom level of the gadget. It is useful even if there are no enemy vehicles as you still use it to spot enemies. Also you can just forget about the device, it will automatically lock on to targets and help your team on its own (until it gets destroyed).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgTXwj4uXKDZvpe80hkEnd2bXyO-F4o2VSzes57zpPOjUMu9-iTznoyypUPx6Fk3ouhfr7qv7ZcsMgtSAWDH9VPvCxRipX71wUZa_ey1WBO0WsFl6PCC-YxbLrlJlms3ncoB0r89hWr70/s1600/bf3_MAV.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgTXwj4uXKDZvpe80hkEnd2bXyO-F4o2VSzes57zpPOjUMu9-iTznoyypUPx6Fk3ouhfr7qv7ZcsMgtSAWDH9VPvCxRipX71wUZa_ey1WBO0WsFl6PCC-YxbLrlJlms3ncoB0r89hWr70/s320/bf3_MAV.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A view from the MAV</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Finally, there's the <b>MAV</b>. It's a small flying spying machine with a motion sensor. You can guide it from a safe location, and if you exit it, it will gently float down to ground (or a roof if that's what was below it). Like the SOFLAM, you can then forget about the gadget and just let it act as a static motion sensor, or you can get back to it later. The MAV operator can also ram the machine against an enemy soldier to kill them! This requires some skill as the gadget is quite tricky to control that precisely, but this can prove useful for, say, killing a well fortified sniper.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong>General tips & tricks</strong></span><br />
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More on the <strong>knife</strong>, as promised. The knife does some damage to the enemy if you just swing it at them, but the real way knifes are used is the <strong>takedown</strong>, which is instantly fatal. You perform a takedown by approaching the enemy from behind and then <strong>holding down the knife button</strong> when close to them. This wasn't told anywhere clear enough for me so at first I missed a couple of takedown chances when I didn't know I need to hold the button down. When you perform a takedown the game goes out of your control for a couple of seconds to show an animation of you cutting the victim's throat. When performing a takedown you also get the victim's dogtags. Not that there's any value in them in the game, but they are valued as "trophies" outside the game.<br />
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Next, the <b>helicopters</b>. I'll be the first one to admit I'm still a bad helicopter pilot. However, I found them easier to control once I changed the default keys so that mouse controls the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flight_dynamics_with_text.png" target="_blank">pitch and yaw</a> and the keyboard controls the roll. That basically allows you to aim with the mouse, as usual.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN_I4sedzQCYYwV4nGix7gShC2q6CXkTIIGXF80lcffHXT9nz14baIczsXpjyNNSdmlPM8JwZFy9J0txE_hNh0UIw4GatFG9tWHPIJYriJOQjxglNW3qY-Y1kzTnJg3jGZ7bu5wRMzaLg/s1600/bf3_light_machine_gun.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN_I4sedzQCYYwV4nGix7gShC2q6CXkTIIGXF80lcffHXT9nz14baIczsXpjyNNSdmlPM8JwZFy9J0txE_hNh0UIw4GatFG9tWHPIJYriJOQjxglNW3qY-Y1kzTnJg3jGZ7bu5wRMzaLg/s320/bf3_light_machine_gun.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">4x scope on a PKP Pecheneg machine gun</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Then about <b>weapon accessories</b>. When you use a weapon you unlock new accessories to it. You may, for example, unlock holographic sights or scopes. Choose your sights wisely: in a tightly packed map a 4x scope is usually too much when the enemy may appear right in front of you. Also, if your weapon is not suited for longer distances, like shotguns or submachine guns, a 4x scope is not that useful and you should instead go for the holographic or red dot sights. Sights with magnification may also be slightly slower to deploy than the sights without magnification. The sights with the highest degrees of magnification have <b>scope sway</b>. This means that the sights are moving around a bit and it is more difficult to properly acquire a target. You can hold your breath and thus temporarily get rid of the scope sway by<b> holding down the sprint button</b> (left shift by default).<br />
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Another thing you should know about the weapons is that many of them, especially assault rifles, have a <b>firing selector</b>. This means that you can choose between single shot fire, burst fire and fully automatic fire. Not every weapon has all of the options available to it, but anyway. The default key for the selector is "V" and you'll see a firing mode indicator at the bottom right corner next to your ammo count: *** means full auto, ** burst fire and * single shot fire. Full auto may be the best in close quarters but single shot has its use with long range shots.<br />
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Well, that concludes this post. I hope you learned something. Again, comments and questions both from new and experienced players would be much appreciated. Finally, here are a couple of nice links: <a href="http://battlefield.wikia.com/wiki/Battlefield_Wiki" target="_blank">The Battlefield Wiki</a> and the <a href="http://bf3stats.com/">BF3Stats.com</a> site for tracking your statistics. Also, the software I used to capture those screenshots is called <a href="http://www.fraps.com/" target="_blank">FRAPS</a>.ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-357972137464777482012-02-12T18:48:00.000+02:002012-02-12T18:48:33.423+02:00Cities in Motion<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3sCkQqMdj439veeRt-aVn3DLGuB5fQnRlfoNtIo1phqielQIpwId32Ud88qqg3GpL08ToG5fANcaJOe4xDyYCieRvhQt1dBCY63jGKWNZDO5GkdmcvTeMoPFRYC1U1mJoqE1SCQcAl90/s1600/Cities+In+Motion+-+Bus.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3sCkQqMdj439veeRt-aVn3DLGuB5fQnRlfoNtIo1phqielQIpwId32Ud88qqg3GpL08ToG5fANcaJOe4xDyYCieRvhQt1dBCY63jGKWNZDO5GkdmcvTeMoPFRYC1U1mJoqE1SCQcAl90/s200/Cities+In+Motion+-+Bus.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">People getting in and out of a bus</td></tr>
</tbody></table><i><a href="http://www.citiesinmotion.com/" target="_blank">Cities in Motion</a></i> is a game where your task is to create the public transportation system of a city. The cities in the basic version of the game are European capital cities such as Helsinki and Berlin, but you can build more yourself, download cities made by other players, or buy them as add-ins.<br />
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The game looks pretty and works well on a modern PC. It focuses solely on moving people around so there are no cargo trucks or such, but there's plenty of things to do without them anyway. In the campaign mode you move from city to city, and in each city you must complete a certain amount of tasks. The tasks are usually something like "build a line from place A to place B" and it is then up to you to decide how to implement it. You can have multiple tasks going on at once so you can take all the time you need for completing them. This is good if the task is something like "build a metro line from the north side of the city to the south side of the city" and if it seems like there wouldn't be too many passengers between those places. The correct way to do that, then, would be to start somewhere in the middle and to build a line from, say, the railway station to the mall, and then gradually expand it towards the required end points.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhloIiBmuy5QKWQeNJkp-6-O1w9yiXV5vkvDUhYCqlEh0Tj2yAhm9mUYs-FDCUPB5-ctM_P-soqe33NRdWH0wM-hZD-btS71WlrtZ1_LhloDli7Rob91cG-MkeS8GNNRz4zs1iLFyCueRE/s1600/Cities+In+Motion+-+Riot.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhloIiBmuy5QKWQeNJkp-6-O1w9yiXV5vkvDUhYCqlEh0Tj2yAhm9mUYs-FDCUPB5-ctM_P-soqe33NRdWH0wM-hZD-btS71WlrtZ1_LhloDli7Rob91cG-MkeS8GNNRz4zs1iLFyCueRE/s200/Cities+In+Motion+-+Riot.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A riot in front of the Vienna City Hall </td></tr>
</tbody></table>So basically you create lines by placing stops, assigning them into some order and buying vehicles for the route. The lines are routed automatically from stop to stop. The available modes of transportation are buses, trams, metros, ferries and helicopters. There are trains on the maps as well but you cannot manage them, you just need to take care that the people of the city can get to the railway stations, as they are quite popular.<br />
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The people of the cities are an interesting point in the game. Each and every little person walking down the street is an individual. You can click any person and get statistics about him or her: where they live, where they work, where are they coming from and where are they going to. Every person also belongs to some social group, such as students, blue-collar workers or businesspeople. Students need an inexpensive method of transportation from the homes to their colleges, whereas businesspeople are busy and rich and can pay more to quickly get to their workplace or, say, the airport. You can also save these people as "customer profiles" in order to check back on them later to see, for example, if a person using a private car has been converted to a user of the public transportation.<br />
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The key to making people flow smoothly is to build a network where the vehicles and lines complement each other. It is not uncommon to see a basically dead bus line to start to flourish when a metro stop is added next to one of its stops. People can and will take connections from one line to another if you just plan the network so that it is worthwhile.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBxdzr5WFPwdNOcfO8wDdA2-LmuM0qGlwnKmpilkzIhwpOazdEfiQTFCGveO3gfno7W_IVbbJLu8rPq2RZz7ZTXEEFzGhZqw8v9EU1YbzKMts1jnS775A7ZyyyyxplJEMzXgGKw9-Dygc/s1600/Cities+In+Motion+-+Deadlock.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBxdzr5WFPwdNOcfO8wDdA2-LmuM0qGlwnKmpilkzIhwpOazdEfiQTFCGveO3gfno7W_IVbbJLu8rPq2RZz7ZTXEEFzGhZqw8v9EU1YbzKMts1jnS775A7ZyyyyxplJEMzXgGKw9-Dygc/s200/Cities+In+Motion+-+Deadlock.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Deadlock</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Every now and then there are some small events around the city: a fire, a demonstration, a vehicle breaking down, etc. There's not much you can do about fires or demonstrations: they just cut a road until they are over. Vehicles break down every once in a while, but in order to have them quickly repaired you can keep the wages of the technical personnel up and invest into the upkeep of the vehicles. So in addition to creating lines, you are also in charge of the monetary aspects of your company. That includes setting the ticket prices for each method of transportation. When the prices turn green, they are considered inexpensive, and when they turn red, the people think that they are too high. The amount of how much people are willing to pay depend on the current economical situation of the city. If it's going well the people can pay more, but as the unemployment grows the people cannot afford to pay too much. These are all presented as graphs in the menus of the game.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmAXhuvaQVRNSthemt0Xn-BY_GL2B8K6N-97RErAAEr2akFzLhNV3xHWbqRjoUsBRxJ0VqrdSvP8WI0PT173XQ9glpFEModuXMhEFhHAJuZK4fmdbN9v4KVxmc0bsd6td-QOr_Swsjj7s/s1600/Cities+In+Motion+-+Elevated+metro+tracks.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmAXhuvaQVRNSthemt0Xn-BY_GL2B8K6N-97RErAAEr2akFzLhNV3xHWbqRjoUsBRxJ0VqrdSvP8WI0PT173XQ9glpFEModuXMhEFhHAJuZK4fmdbN9v4KVxmc0bsd6td-QOr_Swsjj7s/s200/Cities+In+Motion+-+Elevated+metro+tracks.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="width: 200px;">Elevated metro track, passing above the river and over a bridge</div></td></tr>
</tbody></table>The game also offers many kinds of statistics of the city as colored overlays to the map. You can, for example, see where the blue-collar workers live, where they work, where the shopping centers are, where do the tourists live, which roads are congested and where the traffic is flowing well, etc. You will then want to avoid putting bus or tram lines to the congested roads as it will make those waiting at the stops unhappy if their vehicle is not arriving because it is stuck in the traffic.<br />
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There aren't many downsides in the game that I have observed. For me the most obvious one is the lack of zoom levels: you cannot zoom as far away as you would like. Zooming in, on the other hand, works perfectly and reveals the excellent graphics. Unfortunately that is not actually the most usable view for playing the game. But there's always a minimap in the corner so you still know where you are. The other thing is that I'd love to get some aggregate information on the passengers inside a vehicle or waiting at a stop. Currently you can only observe individual citizens, as I already explained. This does become less of a problem once you understand the general mechanics of the game, but still. Many times I have found that 90 percent of the passengers of my ten stop bus line just travel between two or three of the stops, so cutting the extra stops saves you both time and money.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD1Sh1K-GPifdHxZbUDOLe8jjjoyUDpMI1I9MewlgD2QhiUxHdRjDzsxZBlI533XElT5b78K_TDhR6f3G0AeHoy5StfENZhM016mHBIWKEdJRK_3zaymNBQPif15JMuNOY5hfs-ZwmFBU/s1600/Cities+In+Motion+-+Vienna+business+park.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD1Sh1K-GPifdHxZbUDOLe8jjjoyUDpMI1I9MewlgD2QhiUxHdRjDzsxZBlI533XElT5b78K_TDhR6f3G0AeHoy5StfENZhM016mHBIWKEdJRK_3zaymNBQPif15JMuNOY5hfs-ZwmFBU/s200/Cities+In+Motion+-+Vienna+business+park.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="width: 200px;">Metro, tram & ferry moving people in Vienna</div></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Cities in Motion is anyway the best game I have played for a while. The game is just <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/73010/" target="_blank">19.99 €/$ on Steam</a>, or 39.99 €/$ with the expansions, which I also recommend. The <a href="http://www.cimexchange.com/" target="_blank">CiMExchange</a> site offers many mods and cities for download. So far I haven't tried any mods but there are some that I will try later, such as the <a href="http://www.cimexchange.com/index.php?/files/file/168-ultimate-camera-control/" target="_blank">Ultimate Camera Control</a> mod. Finally, there's even a <a href="http://citiesinmotion.wikispaces.com/" target="_blank">Cities in Motion wiki</a> with all kinds of information about the game. <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/Citiesinmotion" target="_blank">@Citiesinmotion</a> is also in Twitter.ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090890136602947377.post-41286182845559194032012-02-06T10:24:00.001+02:002012-02-06T10:28:14.561+02:00The Humble Bundle for AndroidThe Humble Bundle is a concept that I've written about <a href="http://netbooksandeverything.blogspot.com/search/label/humblebundle">several times already</a>. In short, they publish a few cross-platform games and let you pay anything you want for them. The newest addition to the Humble Bundle series is <a href="http://www.humblebundle.com/" target="_blank">the Humble Bundle for Android</a> which contains four different games that work not only for Android but also for Windows, Linux and Mac! As of writing this post there are still eight days left for you to grab this offer. The games are <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomaly:_Warzone_Earth" target="_blank">Anomaly: Warzone Earth</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmos" target="_blank">Osmos</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_(video_game)" target="_blank">Edge</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Goo" target="_blank">World of Goo</a>.ZeroOnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10500276523554958382noreply@blogger.com0