Half a page of scribbled lines

Dear Ubisoft...

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 15:32:00 +0000

Dear Ubisoft,

I'd love to say how much I've been enjoying using my own electric guitar to play your fine game "Rocksmith." Especially as, according to a recent article: "What I see when I read the reviews is a lack of enthusiasm for something that is new."

However, seeing as there is no UK release in sight for the game, I'm not able to. I, and I suspect many others, have been waiting patently the past few months, cash-in-hand to buy your game. Hello? Customers waiting!

So far, we've heard the following regarding the UK (and European) release of Rocksmith:

* It will be released late 2011
* It will be released early 2012
* There are licensing issues (with the music) that are holding up the UK release
* There are no plans to release the game outside of the US

Which is it?

Are we to assume that you don't want European customers to buy your games?

We want the game, you want our money. Surely we can come to some arrangement here?

Distribution / licensing / trademark issues can (and do) happen. This is a sad fact of business life at the moment. However sending conflicting messages to your customers when these problems happen is a really good way to loose them.

Permanently.

So, before we go our separate ways and I start looking for a Pro Guitar to go with Rock Band 3, I'd love to give you the chance to sell me the game that I actually want. Because believe me, if I have to shell out for a new guitar to play Rock Band 3, I certainly won't be spending my money on Rocksmith (or any other Ubisoft games) for a good long while.

Yours Hopefully

DanO

Dan's Remakes vs OSX Lion

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 10:03:00 +0000

I've had a couple of emails regarding my games not working on the latest version of OSX Lion. This is thanks to those wonderful people at Apple removing support for PowerPC compiled applications in the latest and greatest version of their operating system.

Yes folks, Rosetta is no more, and when you update to Lion, neither are your legacy (PowerPC) apps.

So what does this mean for Dan's Remakes? Well, in the short term I'll only be able to support people running versions of OSX earlier than Lion as I don't have access to an Intel based Mac.

Sorry and all that, but buying a new (or second hand) Apple laptop is a bit beyond my means at the present time (and with four kids and a wife to support this isn't likely to change in the near future).

However. . . .

For a number of years there has been a link to a Paypal tips jar on Dan's Remakes. This has garnered a grand total of nothing. Should anyone feel like saying "thanks" and dropping a couple of pounds / dollars / francs / yen / whatever in, then I'll put it towards getting that new (or second hand) Mac so I can start supporting OSX Lion.

I'll update the main site this weekend and will post the progress towards the fund total (should there be any).

Fund total? Well, looking at EBay it will cost me £350-400 to get a second hand Intel based Macbook. If the total gets close enough then I'll stump up the rest of the cash myself.

Click here to donate.

On the other hand - should someone have a spare Intel based Mac Laptop that they are willing to donate then get in touch at the usual address.

If a miracle happens and too much money is raised - then I'll donate the overflow to charity.

Linux on Fujitsu Amilo Li 1705

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 08:04:00 +0000

Earlier this year I bought a Fujitsu Amilo Li 1705 and I've been wanting to get Linux working properly on it, as it would make a handy portable development system.

As I've just upgraded the CPU from a single core Celeron M to a proper Dual Core processor, I was keen to see how well Linux ran on it, especially as it had made a HUGE difference when running Vista.

It goes without saying that these days installing Linux is a lot less painful than it used to be. In fact, in most instances you can go through the entire install and configuration process without ever touching a command line.

Ubuntu can even take away the agony of partitioning. Using the Wubi application downloads the install files, creates a loopback file system, and configures your Windows boot menu to allow you to install Linux without having to do anything scary with your existing system. You can even uninstall it from add/remove programs.

Once you boot into your new "Ubuntu" option then the install proper takes place, and one reboot later you are the proud parent of a bouncing baby Linux.

End to end the install took less than half an hour. Uninstalling takes a few seconds.

Logging into Ubuntu for the first time it is time to go through the checklists:

Has the correct graphics driver and screen mode been selected? Yes.

Is 3D acceleration working? Yes.

Do we have sound? Yes.

How about wireless networking? Yes again.

Is CD Burning working? Sure is.

How about playing DVDs? Oh dear.

There is an art to getting DVD playback working on Linux. Thankfully the process for doing so in Ubuntu is extremely well documented and it only takes a few minutes to install the necessary packages.

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

Sadly although the DVD started to play the media player crashed. Not only did it crash, but it took out the window manager too, leaving me back at the login screen.

Installing VLC and trying to play DVDs through that had much the same result. After a bit of fiddling I was able to find a video driver within VLC that didn't crash within a few seconds. However playback was extremely stuttery and stalled within ten minutes.

Trying to install a basic 3D game also showed problems - Saurbrauten was running at a less than impressive 2fps.

The strange thing is that in Windows the 3D isn't that bad, and DVD playback works fine. So what is going wrong?

Web browsing was also a bit hit-and-miss, with various crashes and lockups (usually when playing video, but sometimes when playing music).

After a bit of a search I found the problem is down to the graphics drivers - a Via Chrome9 HLC - a reasonably common choice for laptops and netbooks. Not exactly a 3D powerhouse but no-where near as bad as Ubuntu was making it appear.

The driver that is installed is the OpenChrome open source driver. This provides 2D and 3D acceleration for the Chrome9 driver. Badly.

This isn't meant as a dig at the team that are doing the drivers. The fact that the drivers work at all is no mean feat. However they certainly not stable enough for every-day use. As development appears to have stalled in 2009 I'm not exactly holding my breath for bug fixes.

That said, VIA do provide (limited) support for Linux, and do have a set of drivers available to download at their linux portal.

The problem is that the drivers don't work with the latest Ubuntu release - so for now it is back to Unbuntu 10.10 (the latest supported one) to test their drivers. As the drivers are dated April 2011 it looks like they are still supporting them.

One uninstall and re-install of Ubuntu later. . .

OK, so once we've installed Ubuntu 10.10 and downloaded the drivers let's install them:

The current version is 5.75.32.87a-u1010-55689.tar.bz2. Enter the following:

tar -jxf 5.75.32.87a-u1010-55689.tar.bz2
cd 5.75.32.87a-u1010-55689
cd 5.75.32.87a-u1010-55689
sudo ./vinstall

Once the install has completed a reboot should be all it takes to get things working.

Well, this is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand the drivers have fixed the crashing during DVD playback, and 3D is now running an awful lot faster. On the downside the screen resolution is entirely wrong and the Monitors option refuses to allow you to change it.

As a side note, recent Ubuntu releases don't need an xorg.conf (the X11 configuration file), and do a damn good job of detecting what graphics card / monitor resolutions are available to you. As part of the VIA driver install an xorg.conf is created in /etc/X11. We can use this to add our "missing" resolutions.

So, how do we find our missing modes?

Open a command prompt and enter the following:

cvt 1024 768 60

This returns the following:

# 1024x768 59.92 Hz (CVT 0.79M3) hsync: 47.82 kHz; pclk: 63.50 MHz
Modeline "1024x768_60.00" 63.50 1024 1072 1176 1328 768 771 775 798 -hsync +vsync

Now, we need to edit our xorg.conf file.

sudo vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf

We are looking for the currently enabled display.

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "CRT"
Option "Enable" "true"
EndSection

We'll need to edit this section to add in our missing mode. I've also added in some of the other standard resolutions.

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "CRT"
Option "Enable" "true"
Modeline "1280x800_60.00" 83.50 1280 1352 1480 1680 800 803 809 831 -hsync +vsync
Modeline "1024x768_60.00" 63.50 1024 1072 1176 1328 768 771 775 798 -hsync +vsync
Modeline "800x600_60.00" 38.25 800 832 912 1024 600 603 607 624 -hsync +vsync
Modeline "640x480_60.00" 23.75 640 664 720 800 480 483 487 500 -hsync +vsync
Option "PreferredMode" "1280x800_60.00"
EndSection

The final line of the section selects which of our modes we are going to use. In our case we want the 1280x800 one.

One restart of X11 later and YES! We are running in full-screen! 3D now works at a reasonable speed (not stunning, but it does work). DVD playback also works - and by selecting the X11 driver in the VLC preferences it doesn't max out the CPU either. Result!

Using VIA's own drivers has changed my Ubuntu install from being basically unusable, to a pretty stable one.

After four hours of testing (I played a couple of DVDs, browsed the web, listened to some music and basically did all the regular things that I want a laptop to do) there were no crashes or lockups.

I was even able to enable the extra desktop effects such as "wobbly windows". All in all it is very nice indeed.

Once VIA release drivers for 11.04 I should be able to upgrade to that. But there isn't any rush for now.

Update

As the legendary comic Jimmy Cricket often said: There's more...

Updating the kernel reverts the drivers back to the OpenChrome ones. You can, of course, re-install the VIA ones, but there is a little extra to do this time.

We'll need to re-compile the kernel modules for the current kernel version, and then re-run the install routine. So in the directory where we expanded the drivers:

cd 5.75.32.87a-u1010-55689/5.75.32.87a-u1010-55689/VIA_Chrome9/
sudo make
cd ..
sudo ./vinstall

Now, we'll need to copy our configuration file back:

cd /etc/X11
sudo cp xorg.conf.viabak xorg.conf

Now, reboot and everything should (hopefully) be working again!

Notes:

One thing that I have found is that changing resolution (ie a game trying to set full-screen 800x600) stuffs the display. As soon as I find a fix then I'll update the article.

Big Business vs Hackers

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 11:42:00 +0000

Some times I just feel so damn old. I remember the days when I bought a computer and was able to develop software for it - no questions asked. In fact, back in the 8-bit era the computer came with a version of BASIC built in to allow you to get started.

This was how many future programming stars got their start (not to mention wannabe indie devs like myself). Even hacking things together for consoles wasn't a problem (not that the consoles of the day were really worth playing with too much). In fact, it wasn't unknown for programming kits to be released for consoles - even the NES got a version of basic!

That was then. Now, however, it seems that some manufacturers are willing to do anything to stop you playing with the hardware that you have bought from them. Sony is a case in point.

Sony don't want you to make games yourself for the PS3 (PlayStation 3) or PSP (PlayStation Portable). Their logic goes something like this: if you allow any code to run, then that code could be pirated software. Pirated software is bad, so we won't allow it.

Sony used to allow users to run Linux on the PS3 (albeit without full access to all the hardware). This allowed you to run Linux versions of homebrew games and emulators, as well as converting the PS3 into a low cost Linux workstation. Sadly this functionality was taken away at the point where people managed to get access to the "restricted" parts of the console. Never ran pirated software in your life, but want to run Linux on a PS3? Tough luck.

The "Other OS" option was not only removed from new consoles, but from existing ones too. This has led to a situation where "hackers" have been trying to find ways of restoring the missing functionality, and whilst doing so have discovered something important, namely the "key" used to sign executable programs. This is basically a code that the console looks for when a program tries to run: if the "key" is correct then the game or program will launch, if not then it doesn't.

This is bad news for Sony - as it now means that homebrew software can be made to look like Sony's own software and the console cann't tell the difference. According to Sony this can also be used to enable pirated software to run.

To make matters worse (for Sony) the PS3 also contains the key for signing PSP software, so now homebrew can run on the portable too. Although in theory Sony could change the key, in practice this would invalidate all software for the PS3 (and PSP) - in other words all existing software would be inoporable beit on CD, downloaded from the Sony store, or installed by those naughty homebrew people.

Sony's response to this has been to take legal action against the hackers. In the meantime software to allow users to self-sign PSP code has already been released and ready-signed emulators and homebrew games that run on unmodified PSPs are already available (with more appearing each day).

What can Sony hope to gain from their legal action? I wish I had the answer to that one. Sadly the cat is now well and truly out of the bag - and no amount of legal posturing is going to put it back in.

It is now only a matter of time before Linux is available again on an unmodified PS3, and this time there are unlikely to be any restrictions on what parts of the hardware it can access.

In my opinion it appears that Sony's heavy-handed response to the hacking / homebrew community has backfired in spectacular fashion - and the damage that Sony are now doing to the PlayStation brand is immense.

Could things have worked out better by using a different approach?

Indeed they could. Microsoft (you know, the Big Evil Corporation) have been doing a lot of things right lately. Let's take Kinect for example.

Not long after the Kindle was released hackers found ways of making the device work on PCs (both Windows and Linux based). Although Microsoft initially grumbled about this, they had a change of heart and are now in the process of releasing a development kit for it.

Even more recently hackers found a way to enable the equivalent of unsigned applications to run on the new Windows Phone 7. In essense, Microsoft were in the same situation as Sony with the PS3 / PSP.

So did they sue? No.

Did they create a media firestorm decrying the hackers as evil monsters intend on ruining the platform? No.

Did they invite the hackers to a meeting to discuss methods of enabling homebrew software to run on Windows Phone 7? Yes, they did.

Not only that, they also provided the hackers with custom made t-shirts that read "I was the first to jailbreak Windows Phone 7 and all I got was this lousy t-shirt." The upshot of the meeting is that the Windows Phone 7 jailbreak apps have been removed whilst the official homebrew tools are developed by Microsoft. The community is happy as they will (eventually) be able to write their own stuff on Windows 7 Phone. Microsoft is also happy because they are still in control of the phone, and have had some damn good publicity into the bargain.

This is the best advert that Windows Phone 7 could ever have - namely "we want you to be part of our community," as opposed to Sony with "do as we tell you or we'll sue you into oblivion."

Who would you rather deal with?

Does Blogger censor items

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 07:58:00 +0000

Strange but true.

Over the past week or so I've been preparing a (short) item on the PSP homebrew scene. It's been re-written a couple of times due to the speed that the scene is changing (hopefully more later on this).

Rather than swamping the blog with PSP related entries, I've been working on a draft version of the piece, and was planning on publishing it today.

Only one small problem - the article has vanished from my account. AAAAARGH!

So between my last edit yesterday lunchtime (which was just waiting for a list of homebrew games that run on unmodified PSPs) and me logging in this morning something has happened.

So, assuming that this blog entry doesn't vanish in a cloud of electrons - coincidence or censorship? If this entry vanishes then we'll know the answer.

Serious Sam The First Encounter on Ubuntu 10.10

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 10:37:00 +0000

Whilst having a hunt through some things that I had placed in storage a couple of years ago (and then forgot about) I happened across my original CD of Serious Sam - The First Encounter.

As this is one of the games where Loki games provided a proper Linux installer for it I thought I'd give it a bit of a blast.

Problem 1 - Tracking down the installer.

This should have been easy - ie. go to the Croteam website and download the installer, right?

Nope. They had some archived patches for a Linux installation, but not the damn installer - or if the do have it they've hidden it well.

I eventually tracked down the installer here:

Loki Installers for Linux Games

Problem 2 - Installation

So far, so good. Apart from the fact that the installer doesn't work (at least, not without some effort).

So here is a quick rundown on how to get the installer working.

First, move the installer into its own directory:

mkdir ssam
mv serious.sam.tfe_1.05beta3-english-2.run ssam
cd ssam
chmod +x serious.sam.tfe_1.05beta3-english-2.run

Make sure the original Windows CD is in your drive. And if you want you can try and run the installer.

./serious.sam.tfe_1.05beta3-english-2.run

If you are lucky it might work. If so then go, play, enjoy. See you later.

However, you may well find that you see the following:

Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing Serious Sam: The First Encounter 1.05beta3-english-2 Installer.............................

after which you are back at the terminal prompt.

If this is the case, then you can try the following, which worked for me.

./serious.sam.tfe_1.05beta3-english-2.run --tar xvf
sudo ./setup.data/bin/Linux/x86/setup

And that should be it. The installer should run and you can choose where to install it and finally play the game!

They're Baaaaack......

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 09:34:00 +0000

The last time I wrote about SCO was when they lost the Novell case - and had their initial request for a retrial denied. As I said at the time "SCO have approximately one month to decide on their next course of action - assuming, of course, that they don't slide into Chapter 7 bancruptcy in the meantime."

Well, here we are, just under one month later and yes, they're going to try and appeal. The timing of this (leaving it as late as humanly possible - and also just before the next bankruptcy hearing) has been well noted.

To be honest I'm not surprised that they have appealed. In fact, I don't see that they've got an awful lot of choice at this point. SCO's future - such as it is - depends on them winning the court cases, and at the present time the ongoing court cases are the only thing realistically keeping them from sliding from Chapter 10 into Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

In a perfect world I can't see the appeal succeeding. I don't believe that the evidence, facts or the witness testimonies were in their favour. Personally I think that the courts were pretty darn lenient with them all the way through (in fact I thought that it was verging on the unfair towards Novell) so I can't see them having any grounds for a retrail other than the fact that they lost when they believe they should have won.

However this isn't a perfect world, so anything could happen. I'm not sure how long the appeals process takes - although judging by SCO's recent financial reports the bigger question is whether the Bankruptcy court is going to allow them the opportunity for one more throw of the dice before deciding to wind things up.

Stay tuned folks, it ain't over (quite) yet.

Return to Retrovaders - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 06:56:00 +0000

Now that I've finished the translation framework for RetroVaders, it is time to move on to the next bit - graphics. The main sprite set (which I like, I must admit) is still a bit too close to the original Space Invaders graphics. I've adapted them slightly so that although they are still recognisable they are (hopefully) different enough to differentiate the game from the arcade original.

I've also replaced the "RetroVaders" backdrop with a new version, and made that the default. So, by default, the game now looks like this:

You can, of course, make it look like the original via the options menu.

Speaking of the options menu, another "usability" adaption is that when the game is launched for the first time, it now starts in the options menu (in windowed mode). Subsequent launches will open at the main screen with whatever options you have chosen.

The next release is (likely) to be RetroVaders 2.00 - and probably will be the final major release - unless someone supplies some alternative translations.

So what is left to do? Apart from testing the game, I've also got the Linux and Mac OS X ports to do, the translations to complete (German and Finnish still to add, maybe French too), and some tweaking of game elements; although nothing too major.

Update: The Finnish translation has been added, so that only leaves the German one to do. It actually only took around quarter of an hour to add the translation in. The language framework (although it was a bit of a bugger to sort out initially) has indeed made life much easier for me.

Return to Retrovaders - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 08:45:00 +0000

Keeping with the theme of accessibility - language support is something that has been on my list of features that I'd like to add.

Sadly, however, my grasp of languages other than English is very limited indeed, but not to be deterred I made a start - and stripped out the menu text from the game - which came to a stonking 24 words - and posted a request for translations on the RetroRemakes forum.

So thanks to the kind assistance of Ordvana, I'm now well on the way to adding Finnish and Russian (!) translations to the game. As it turns out it is just as well that I'm only translating the menus, as BlitzMax doesn't support non-English languages that well. This leaves me with creating bitmapped versions of the Russian text (and probably for the Finnish text too).

As the Russian one is going to take the most work I'm starting with that - and hopefully by the end of today should have the main menu working in both English and Russian, and be able to make a start on the Options menu.

This means that instead of "Start Game" - the Russian version will display "Начать игру", instead of "Options" we'll show "Опции" and so on.

So if you are reading this, and would like RetroVaders in your native language then get in touch!

Update: The main menu now works in both Russian and English. I can use regular text, graphics or a mix of both for the menus - which should make adding other languages much easier.

That's All Folks! (for SCO at any rate)

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 11:48:00 +0000

It's official - SCO is toast, the request for a retrial has been DENIED.

From the article on Groklaw:

Judge Ted Stewart has ruled for Novell and against SCO. Novell's claim for declaratory judgment is granted; SCO's claims for specific performance and breach of the implied covenant of good fair and fair dealings are denied. Also SCO's motion for judgment as a matter of law or for a new trial: denied. SCO is entitled to waive, at its sole discretion, claims against IBM, Sequent and other SVRX licensees.

CASE CLOSED!

So after six years and God only knows how many man-hours of dealing with their spurious claims they have lost. Again. Although there have been quite a few "face-palm" moments which have had me muttering "stop pandering to the damned litigious munchkins" through gritted teeth, it looks as if Judge Stewart has been making sure that when this is over there is no room for SCO to try and appeal the decision.

From the Final Judgement itself:

This matter came before the Court for trial on March 8, 2010, through March 26, 2010. Based on the Jury Verdict and the Court’s Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, Final Judgment is entered as follows:

1. Judgment is entered in favor of Novell and against SCO on SCO’s claim for slander of title pursuant to the Jury Verdict.

2. Judgment is entered in favor of Novell and against SCO on SCO’s claim for specific performance pursuant to the Court’s Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law.

3. Judgment is entered in favor of Novell and against SCO on Novell’s claim for declaratory relief pursuant to the Court’s Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law. Specifically, the Court declares:

a. Under § 4.16(b) of the APA, Novell is entitled, at its sole discretion, to direct SCO to waive its purported claims against IBM, Sequent and other SVRX licensees;
b. Under § 4.16(b) of the APA, Novell is entitled to waive on SCO’s behalf SCO’s purported claims against IBM, Sequent and other SVRX licensees, when SCO refuses to act as directed by Novell; and
c. SCO is obligated to recognize Novell’s waiver of SCO’s purported claims against IBM and Sequent.

4. Judgment is entered in favor of Novell and against SCO on SCO’s claim for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing pursuant to the Court’s Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law. The Clerk of the Court is directed to close this case forthwith.

SO ORDERED.

DATED June 10, 2010.

BY THE COURT:

____[signature]_____________
TED STEWART
United States District Judge

SCO can, of course, still try and appeal - but given the wording of the final judgement their chances of victory (not to mention the company surviving long enought to get to court) are somewhere between slim and none. This also nails the lid on the coffin of their other court cases.

SCO have approximately one month to decide on their next course of action - assuming, of course, that they don't slide into Chapter 7 bancruptcy in the meantime.

Thank you PJ for keeping us informed, amused and well-armed against the common enemy ;-)

Return to RetroVaders

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 08:03:00 +0000

Over the past couple of weeks RetroVaders has had some extra love sent its way. The long awaited (hey, someone may have been waiting!) update 1.35 for Windows has finally seen the light of day - removing the 320x240 resolution to prevent crashing on modern versions of Windows.

Although there have been some "unofficial" downloads for this version, it is now available properly at the main site.

I've also been looking at some additional tweaks that will affect all versions of the game (not just Windows) in the next version. This includes removing the 320x240 default screenmode for ALL versions of the game. This has now been replaced with a 640x480 full graphical border, with the game playing in the middle (just like on the old arcade cabinets).

Some other (minor) bug fixes are through as well (such as preventing impossible screen scaling modes from being selected).

This is all minor stuff really. The major point of the 1.36 release is going to be a "One Switch" mode for the game. "What is that," you may ask? Essentially it allows the entire game to be controlled with a single switch. For disabled players this can mean the difference between being able to play a game and just being able to watch someone else playing it.

A good resource for more information about One Switch gaming is OneSwitch.org.uk which has a wealth of information about games for disabled players, and how to adapt your games to their needs.

Anyway, back to RetroVaders. At the moment when the game is in "One Switch" mode (retrovaders.exe /oneswitch) the space bar or left mouse click is the switch. In game, the switch toggles between three states:

Move Left
Move Right
Stop and shoot

After asking for a bit of advice on RetroRemakes I may also add alternative control schemes, such as:

Move Left
Shoot
Move Right
Shoot

Getting the game playable with one switch is one thing. Getting the in game menus working was another challenge entirely. In the end I've settled for the game automatically cycling through the menu options, with the switch selecting. I've set a two-second delay between each menu move to make it easier for those with slower reflexes to select the right option.

There are still a couple of things that I'd like to add to the game to make it more accessible, but we're heading in the right direction!

Yet Another Linux vs Windows comparison: USB Bluetooth Adapter

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Tue, 18 May 2010 17:29:00 +0000

OK, so you probably know the drill by now. We're going to plug a random device into our PC (dual booting between Windows XP and Ubuntu 10.04) and let's see what happens...

Excited? Thought not!

Still, onwards and upwards. This time is the turn of a cheap and cheerful USB Bluetooth adapter - sourced from our local PoundWorld store for the princely sum of £1. Yes, one single solitary pound! Bargain or what?

A LiveWire Bluetooth USB Dongle, Yesterday

Starting with Ubuntu, let's plug in and see how we go. Installation was straight forward - a few seconds after plugging the adapter in, a Bluetooth icon appeared on the status bar. Clicking on the icon gives us the option to "Set up device". One short scan later I'd added my phone, had clicked "Browse files on device" (also from the Bluetooth menu) and was copying my photos onto my PC. Nice.

Now for XP. After plugging the device in drivers were automatically installed, including a modem driver to allow me to access the internet using the mobile (in the event that my broadband had died). Of course, being Windows XP a reboot was required before the adapter was ready for action.

Once it was installed a Bluetooth icon appeared on the menu, and much like on Linux it only took a couple of clicks to link to my phone. Now, this is where the Windows XP Bluetooth misses out a bit - there was an option to Send a file, another to Receive a file (and options to connect to a Bluetooth network) but nothing to browse the files on the mobile. Hopefully this is something that will have been improved on for Vista / Windows 7. Luckily, having a Nokia phone meant that I could download the rather nifty Nokia PC Suite - which is an rather nice tool for connecting and synchronising with your mobile phone.

When all is said and done there really isn't much to choose between the two, although Ubuntu does win out by doing a little more "out of the box".

Not bad for a little £1 adapter.

Court decides: Novell owns Unix Copyrights, not SCO

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 12:34:00 +0000

It finally happened. After seven long years SCO had their day in court (well, two weeks to be exact) and the jury has returned a unanimous verdict: Novell did not sell the UNIX copyrights to SCO, and the now legendary Amendment 2 did not transfer the copyrights either.

This also blew SCO's slander of title claims out of the water (if SCO didn't own the copyrights and Novell did then there is no slander).

This had a dramatic effect on SCO's share prices, which over the past year had crept up to around 70 cents plunged back down to 10 cents on the news of the jury's decision.

So does this mean that it's all over? It's still too soon to tell. One thing is certain - things aren't looking too rosy for SCO at the moment...

The Other "Chaos Caverns II"

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 09:17:00 +0000

It has been a busy couple of months (the lack of blog posts may have given you a hint) but hopefully I'll be able to get back into the swing of things a bit more.

So what has been happening on the programming front? Well, there hangs a tale.

I've been developing "Chaos Caverns II" - which is coming together rather nicely, new code base, higher resolution graphics, new features, plenty of programming work to keep me interested. However prior to this I'd started re-writing the original "Chaos Caverns" to make it into a flip-screen arcade adventure - along the lines of Jet Set Willy (Matthew Smith's follow up to Manic Miner - the game which inspired Chaos Caverns in the first place).

I'd got it to the point that it actually worked as a five screen demo in which you could walk left to right through the screens, and items collected didn't re-appear if you left and re-entered the screen. It was an interesting "first try" but I didn't think I'd be taking it much further, especially when it became obvious that the new code would bring many benefits. The only downside to the new code is that although it had a lot of new graphics, an awful lot more need to be added to give it enough variety to make a full game (especially compared to the original one).

So inbetween adding the missing bits to the new Chaos Caverns II (and tinkering around with some other code for potential games) not much was really getting done.

Time Passes...

A couple of weeks ago I read on Retro Remakes that some lovely person had been selling CDs of remakes (namely those made by Retro Spec) and had asked them to stop it. Out of curiosity I checked his listings and found that he was also selling Chaos Caverns (and renaming the damn thing as "Manic Miner - Chaos Caverns"). Wonderful - I don't think!

After asking Ebay to remove the listing (which they did) - he relisted the item again - claiming that he had permission to post it. To cut a long story short (which included me editing my YouTube video of Chaos Caverns which he was showing as part of the listing to include some informative captions) he agreed not to sell the game - and even admitted that his alledged permission to sell Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy didn't entitle him to sell my little tribute to it).

As part of this I decided that a quick update of Chaos Caverns was in order to allow me to embed the copyright (and distribution) details in a more obvious and up-front way. At this point I discovered that when I'd been updating the code I'd neglected to back up the original unchanged version - and the new code was not compatible with the original levels.

Whilst checking through the code to see if I could de-update it to get the original levels working again I had a bit of a play with it and started "tweaking" a couple of things. Then a few more. Then a lot more. Before I knew it I'd changed the way the player jumps (it now works more like Manic Miner), added vertical movement between screens, made some new maps, added some new baddies, discovered (and fixed) some long-standing bugs, and basically made an awful lot of progress towards making it into a full game.

More importantly I've also had some ideas of things that I'll need to change in the "real" Chaos Caverns II which should add some greater flexibility to the level designs.

By the looks of things I'll probably end up releasing the old one as "Chaos Caverns 2" - and using the new platform engine as either "Chaos Caverns 3" or (more likely) as something else entirely.

Next stop - adding proper DirectX scaling support into the code and changing the screenmode defaults to something supported by modern graphics cards.

Google's Christmas Gift

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:39:00 +0000

This year Google have made a $20 million donation to charity, rather than sending goodies to publishers and ad partners. Some cynics have claimed that this is less about doing good for charities, but rather more about reducing their tax liability but what the heck - at least the dosh is going to good causes.

Google have provided a list of the charities which are to benefit from Google's $20 Christmas present, and most of them are lesser known charities. One name, however, has stuck out (at least for those of us in the UK) and that is "Loud Against Nazis."

They appear to be a German charity who are trying to tackle "the increasing right-wing radicalism" which, apparently "is a problem in everyday German life."

If you are looking for more information on the charity, a Google search brings up a rather cool looking skin-head egg-cup, but not much else.

This is because the charity is actually called "Laut Gegen Nazis" (it is, after all, a German charity).

More info at their home page.

Merry Christmas!

RetroVaders 1.34 - coming soon

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:54:00 +0000

After receiving a bug report that RetroVaders crashes on Windows 7 (and finding that it also seems to do the same on XP Service Pack 3) I've delved back into the code and fixed a couple of other minor issues.

The new version will be available once Virgin Media sort out write access into my damn FTP site.

A week without Broadband

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:23:00 +0000

Broadband Internet access is something that I tend to take for granted these days, so when it is taken away it comes as a bit of a shock to the system.

What triggered this tale of woe was when I contacted Virgin Media to try and get the date of my direct debit changed. This is the second attempt at this as the first one resulted in them changing the billing period on my bills, but the direct debit date remaining the same.

This has (hopefully) been changed now, but while I was on the phone I was offered a free upgrade to the 20 meg service (well, free for 12 months). I'm actually quite happy on the 10 meg service, but what the Hell, it's free so I'll have it!

Time passed and my broadband speed didn't increase. I phoned again and got them to check, yes, I'm on the 20 meg service, but I was still only getting 10 meg speed. "I'll give it 24 hours, reset the modem and see if the speed increases," I thought.

That very afternoon something happened to my modem. All connectivity went and the only lights showing on the box were the power, ethernet and a rapidly flashing "sync" light.

Following the instructions on the modem I powered it down, waited 30 seconds and brought it back online. . . . Still no sync.

Try again, three minutes. . . . Nope.

As there was the chance that Virgin might have been experiencing problems I left it overnight and tried again. . . . and still it didn't work. At this point I called the technical support line, who arranged for a technician to come out on Friday - after, of course, they talked me through turning off the modem, waiting a couple of minutes and turning it back on. Three days with no Broadband access! Dear God NO!!!

The technician arrived at the appointed time, swapped the modem and left. Total time taken: 3 minutes. It took a couple of attempts to get the sign-up working, but after that - full speed internet! YAY!

However there was a "hidden problem" but I'll post about that later.

Mono gets useful

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 12:23:00 +0000

Regular readers will know that I am not a fan of restrictive formats, and especially DRM. The reasons against them are too numerous to go into right now, but the main one is that they tend to prevent Linux (and often Mac) users from accessing content.

A case in point is the ITV catch up / watch live TV service. Available to Linux users? Nope, because it uses Microsoft's Silverlight. Yes, there are third party "solutions" to this, but lets face it, nothing beats being able to just go to the site and view the videos as originally intended.

Although Moonlight - the Open Source re-implementation of Silverlight - has been around for quite a while now (generating controversy wherever it goes) it hasn't supported enough of the Silverlight 2 standard to allow the multimedia content to work on the ITV website.

Until now.

Yes, if you go to the Moonlight site and download the latest beta plugin then that will allow you to play the video (you may need to right-click on the video and allow it to install the Microsoft codecs first).

It is still a bit of a CPU hog - even when compared to the likes of Flashplayer on Linux - but it does actually work! How much of a CPU hog? Well, even on a 2.8ghz P4 it will still take up most of your CPU time when trying to play windowed video. Full screen? Forget it.

Still, as a first step it is good to have it working, and at least now I can watch Coronation Street without requiring Linux.

Erm.

Maybe I'd better just uninstall it after all!

Vista Probs - Slow Internet Speed

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:24:00 +0000

I had a phone call from my younger sister today - her fiance's PC was running strangely. Sometimes the internet was fine, other times it ground to a halt. They'd checked for spyware and viruses - but couldn't find anything wrong.

Whilst logged in as an administrator open a command prompt (or use the "run as" option on the command prompt shortcut).

Type the following command:

netsh interface tcp show global

This should return a fair bit of information, but the line we are interested in is the one that starts:

Receive Window Auto-Tuning Level

If this shows anything other than "disabled" then you can try entering this:

netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=disabled

This should return "OK".

At this point we tried browsing the web - and lo-and-behold it was browsing at a more normal (ie fast) speed.

If you want to set it back to the way it was, you can try this:

netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=automatic

A quick fix, but one that is worth remembering.

Chaos Caverns II - Dev Diary - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:31:00 +0000

Updated 28/08/2009

As the original post is getting a bit on the long side, I'll be continuing the Chaos Caverns 2 dev diary here.

I've been taking a couple of days off to think through what direction I want to take the game in. There are still a couple of things that I'd like to add in, conveyor belts for example, but nothing that is likely to stop me from finishing the game.

I've been toying with the idea of releasing a demo of the game so far, but to be honest I'd rather release a finished (and more importantly tweaked and polished) game this time around. With that in mind I'll be putting out a call for volunteers to beta-test the game once the game is a bit further along. Interested? Then feel free to get in touch either via the comments on this blog post, the development thread on Retro Remakes or by email at dans.remakes(AT)googlemail.com.

Right, enough gabbing for now - back to coding!

28/08/2009

One of the problems with being less than artistically gifted is that doing the graphics for a game takes a lot longer than you might expect. Trying to make animated sprites takes even longer.

Rather than trying to create the sprites from scratch I'm (mainly) shinking and editing images from photographs. This is giving the game a much more "unique" look and certainly makes up for my lack of artistic talent.

Sky+ problems: Freezing picture

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 11:52:00 +0000

Sky+ is one of the most useful gizmos that I've ever bought. It really has changed the way that my family and I watch TV. Being able to pause and rewind live TV and the ease of recording stuff is just fantastic.

I've had relatively few problems with the box. Last year I had some severe picture problems, but a slight adjustment of the angle of the receiver dish solved that. Recently, however, our Sky+ box has started locking up whilst viewing live tv. Rewinding a few seconds seemed to resolve it. Until today that was, when even recorded programs were locking up, followed by the Sky+ box shutting itself down.

These days if I've got the choice between phoning customer support or checking on Google, customer support comes second. One thing that is obvious is that an awful lot of people are reporting the same problem.

Now, I'm assuming if you've read this far you are interested in how to fix it, yes?

Captain Obvious says: "Kids, if you follow instructions posted on websites and things go wrong it is YOUR PROBLEM, not theirs."

Step 1: Power off the Sky+ box at the mains, an leave it powered down for at least two minutes.

Step 2: Restore the power to the box and start up. If your box is like mine it may take a few minutes to start up.

Step 3: Click the "Services" button on your Sky+ remote and go into the "System Setup" menu.

Step 4: Press "0" on the Sky+ remote, then press "1" and finally press "Select". This calls up the "Super Secret Hidden Menu" (seriously, it does!).

Step 5: At this point there are two options you can use. One will remove everything from your system and wipe the internal hard drive, the other performs a disk check, fixes file-system problems and hopefully gets you back to a working state.

So, if this is the first time you've tried this, you will want to highlight the option "Sky+ Planner Rebuild" and then press "Select". This should run the maintenance routines on your box, which will power itself off once it has completed.

Once you go back into Sky+ you will need to check through your list of recorded programs as any recovered but corrupted programs will need deleting. It is also worth noting that some people report problems when their Sky+ box is over 90% full, so deleting some unwanted programs may not be a bad idea either.

If this doesn't work then you can try the final option which will wipe EVERYTHING from the planner, and that is "System Reset."

Luckily for me deleting some old programs and performing a planner rebuild seems to have fixed my Sky+ box, so I've not needed to nuke the system. Apparently this is the routine that Sky customer service will tell you, but seeing as I didn't phone them I can't confirm that.

So if you are having the same issues as I did (and assuming you've taken note of the sage advice of Captain Obvious) then this might be worth trying.

Chaos Caverns II - Dev Diary

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 20:42:00 +0000

Updated 21/08/2009

A couple of months ago there was a discussion on Retro Remakes relating to creating platform games. The discussion grew to the point that I got a bit carried away and added an early (very early in fact) version of the source code to Chaos Caverns, as well as writing some pseudo-code to demonstrate how simple it is to make a basic platform game.

The thing is that once I'd written the pseudo code I found myself wondering if it would actually work, and the only way to test this is to bloody well write it. And so, using my pseudo code as a template I wrote a basic platform game engine. It works too. In fact in some respects it works better than the code for the original Chaos Caverns.

So now I'm in a bit of a quandry as I'd already been planning an update of Chaos Caverns and was in the middle of fixing up the old code.

So on the one hand is the original Chaos Caverns, which has already been expanded to allow me to create a flip-screen arcade adventure in a similar style to Jet Set Willy and pretty much only needs the levels completing to make it into a completed game.

On the other is the new code sitting in the Testplatform2 folder. This isn't quite as complete as the other but has some important improvements:

1 - It has been upscaled to 640x480. This is double the resolution of the original and does look a lot nicer.

2 - I've written the new version using Object Oriented methodology, rather than the spaghetti code of the first one. It has taken longer trying to remove things like the level transitions from the old one than it has to write the new one from scratch. Also I've got the benefit of a couple of years experience compared to when I started writing Chaos Caverns.

3 - Even on the short test level I've created it feels rather nice to play.

4 - It should allow me to create a much better game, more in a 16bit retro style than the 8bit style of the first one.

Point 4 is the decider really. Even though I could knock out a quick game using the old code base I wouldn't be as happy with it as I think I could be with the new game engine. So I'm re-implementing the functions that are still missing, which is a slightly frustrating exercise, but the new features (such as animated tiles, and each tile being available in multiple states) already there makes up for this.

So here we are at the birth of what I'm currently calling "Chaos Caverns II".

I'll be updating this post with the development diary as time goes on, so stay tuned!

2/8/2009

Level switching code has been added to the game, so now I can start building the game proper. I've put together three screens as a test and it all works rather well. At this point it is starting to feel a bit more like a proper game.

Next step: Items and enemies.

12/8/2009

Summer time isn't the most productive time for programming, but have managed to track down and fix some bugs, including an extremely annoying one which caused the player to fall through the floor, but only when existing the screen to the left. Exiting from the right worked fine. Finally managed to fix it by re-arranging the movement code to make sure that the move down / platform checking code ran before the left / right movement and exit code.

I've also spent some time tidying the code up a tad, and starting to add in the code for the enemies.

I'm dealing with the enemies in a different way to how I did in Chaos Caverns. This time all the enemies from all the levels are read into a single array when the game initialises - rather than refreshing the list at each level change. This allows me to "kill" enemies and for them to stay "dead" between screen changes.

I'll be dealing with objects in the same way. Some objects will allow you to destroy enemies, so for example, collecting a pin will allow you to destroy the giant beach balls. More on that later...

To make the game feel a bit more like a game and less like a demo I've added a place-holder title screen.

OK, so that's a long way from brilliant, but at least it makes testing the game a whole lot easier in that once you've lost all your lives you return to the title screen rather than just quitting or jumping straight back to the first screen.

I've also added a music track for the title screen - again this will probably change before the game is finished - but for now I'm using Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca (thank God for classical music in the public domain).

As a side note - if any budding musicians are reading this and feel like donating a music track or two then please get in touch.

As of midnight I've got a moving enemy on screen (at last!) and can move onto the enemy collision detection routines tomorrow. *yawn*

13/8/2009

Oh no, Thursday the Thirteenth!

I'm not superstitious about the number thirteen, but today hasn't been a great day, work-wise.

At lunchtime we lost access to the internet, email, our advertising system AND our page transmission system - while we were half-way through transmitting a newspaper that had a 1pm deadline. It was down for a couple of hours due to an alleged power-cut in Oxford.

So we had three hours of dealing with complaints about something that we've got no control over.

Wonderful.

Follow that up with me being on call, and getting called back in twice (although as luck would have it I was able to deal with both calls remotely).

On the bright side I've got collisions with the first (and currently only) enemy in the game working. So that's nice.

15/8/2009

Motivation is often an issue when writing software for yourself. When things get tricky, I try and add "one feature a day". This at least gives some impression of the game developing rather than just lurking there waiting for me to complete it.

OK, so sometimes you miss a day - but today's feature is one that makes the game a bit more tricky - and that is allowing the player to die if they fall from too great a height. Not a difficult thing to add but something that I had deliberately left out of the original Chaos Caverns.

This time, however, if the level designs that I have in mind are going to work then this is a feature that I need - otherwise there won't really be any challenge.

Features remaining to be added (and this isn't a full list):

Collectible items
Killer items
Special items
Lifts
Conveyor belts

Other things to do:

Add more levels
Add more enemies
Add more graphics and sounds
Write a proper front-end to the game
Add an end sequence

I'll be expanding this list as time goes on. But so far, so good.

16/08/2009

Today's new feature: Lifts. In getting the lifts working I've had a think about how I'm coding the game, and more importantly, how to reduce the amount of routines that I need whilst achieving the features that I require.

The lifts are a case in point. I'd considered making a new game object for the lifts, but then realised the obvious: "a lift is just a platform that moves." So by adding some new parameters to the platform object and creating a "move" method I've got a basic lift working with very little new code required.

I've still got to code the interactions between the player and the moving platform (ie. if the platform is moving left or right then the player's movement follows it). Easy for left to right, slightly more complex for up and down. Especially when I need to find a way of slowing down the lifts a bit as by default they are a bit nippier than I'd like.

I was also going to add another object for "traps" - basically killer objects. Thinking about it what is a killer object? In the terms of this game it is an enemy that doesn't move, so if I just use the existing enemy routines with a static enemy then job done!

18/08/2009

Still working on the lifts. As they were running a bit faster than I'd like I've added in some code to create a delay between each move - so the lift will only move every x number of frames. This works well and allows me to have fast and slow lifts as required.

Moving and jumping whilst on the lift works but... sometimes whilst jumping you fall through the lift, and I can't see why. Ah well, tracking down and squashing bugs is all part of the fun.

I've also been re-jigging the player movement code a bit so it should be a wee bit more optimised, as well as a bit smaller. For those interested, at present on a P4 2.8ghz the game uses around 4% of the CPU time.

Update: Bug fixed, so the lifts are now fully working (vertically at least). I've adapted the second screen so that it can only be traversed by using the lift - and it all seems to work nicely so far.

19/08/2009

Now that the lifts are working it is time to start expanding on the code to make this less of a demo and more of a game. With that in mind I've started adding a fairly basic score / level / lives display at the bottom of the screen.

The strange thing is that this revealed another bug: if you dropped from a height into water you'd lose two lives instead of just one.

After one hell of a lot of hunting through the code I finally realised that I was forgetting to reset the fall height, so when the water code killed you the fall counter still contained a value, and because you re-spawned on a platform it treated it as if you'd landed after a long fall, which kills you a second time.

An easy one to fix, but a bugger to track down.

20/08/2009

Today I've been expanding the code a touch (extra baddie movement types, horizontally moving platforms and some other bits).

I've also put together a short video showing the game in action. Not a lot to see so far, but you can get the general idea of the progress so far.

Tomorrow I'm planning to add the code for collectible objects into the game. Once this has been done then the game engine will be basically complete and it will be time to start adding enemies and designing some proper levels.

21/08/2009

Found and eliminated another bug - one that allowed you to pass through a solid block if you hit it precisely on the top corner whilst falling.

I've amended the second screen to add in a horizontally moving platform - which worked first time without problems. Mind you, once you've got the code working for the vertical lifts there really isn't a lot you need to change to get it working for horizontal ones.

I've also posted about this game on the Retro Remakes forum - so a big hello to anyone visiting from there.

Update: Collectible items are now working. Quite simple to add really, providing you remember to use methods rather than functions for your reading / drawing code. Why? Because functions can't access an objects fields (the variables that the object uses). This is a "it's too late at night for this shit" type bug.

22/08/2009

Today has been mainly spent "enjoying" a bout of either man-flu or hayfever. Either one gives the same result - my IQ has dropped so far that it now has a negative value, my nose and eyes are taking it in turns to drip, different parts of me are competing in the "most painful" competition (I think that my back is winning so far). Not surprisingly I've not been especially productive on the old programming front.

That said, I've started expanding the baddie routines a bit, so the beach-ball enemy now rotates as it bounces (which looks cool), I've added a balloon as another enemy, which is also semi-transparent. This also looks pretty cool in action.

I've also started tidying up some of the routines, and simplifying the code in a couple of places.

Continued in Part 2

On the Road again - Part 6

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:37:00 +0000

On the Road (and off the road) and back on the road again!

The new bike arrived on the expected date. The absolutely HUGE box with the bike parts in it was sat in our dining room ready for me to build my trusty steed v2. Putting it together didn't take too long. I'm getting quite experienced at doing this now, so it only took around an hour to build.

I discovered the problems pretty quickly. First, the gears weren't set up correctly. This isn't that unusual - I've often had to "tweak" the gears to get them right with a new bike. These, however, were well out. The front gears were nearly impossible to change, the back ones were sticky, to say the least. More worrying was that the front wheel was slightly warped - giving it a distinct wobble when riding.

At this point I decided that rather than playing around with it myself I'd take it to a bike shop to make sure it was set up correctly. Twenty four hours, a couple of phone calls and £20 later and I had a fully functioning and safety tested bike with a straight front wheel. Or so I thought.

I hadn't ridden the bike too far, in fact I'd only done around six or seven miles over the following couple of days when something unexpected happened - the left crank fell off whilst I was riding to work. Luckily I was able to keep control and not fall into the oncoming traffic, but as accidents go this could easily have been very nasty.

Once I'd got my breath (and the crank arm) back I found that the nut that holds the crank onto the crank shaft had fallen off. Some safety check that turned out to be! I free-wheeled the bike home and walked to work - feeling a certain amount of animosity to bike engineers in general.

On my way home I managed to find the missing nut, so I was able to re-attach the crank before walking the bike back to the shop to have a gentle word or two about the quality of their service.

Luckily they were most apologetic (them: "that shouldn't have happened, we're very particular about checking that sort of thing", me: "no kidding!") and took the bike back in for another go. They were as good as their word and the bike was back in my hands within three hours - with the crank securely attached. At least I hope it is securely attached.

It's going to be a while before I can put my trust back in this bike.

Buying a bike from a catalogue can be a bit hit-and-miss. I've bought a couple this way and this is the first time that I've really had any problems. Paying a proper bike shop to safety check and tweak your build is a good idea, as long as you can be sure that they have actually checked everything properly. You might need to be prepared to re-check everything yourself, just in case.

I'll leave the last word to the bike shop, as the assistant said to me as I was pushing the bike out to take it home. "This is why we don't sell this kind of bike."

On the Road Again - Part 5

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 12:41:00 +0000

There is a kind of bitter sweet element to this post. Originally it was intended to mark the one-year anniversary of my return to cycling - with a short update on general health, fitness, weight loss etc.

Unfortunately (as mentioned in my previous post) the biggest weight loss was the loss of my bike - now relegated to memory and a "crime reference number."

In a strangely ironic twist, my replacement bike should arrive on the one-year anniversary of my buying the original. Sadly I did need to spend a little over the £50 mark this time (the cheapeast budget bike I could get in a hurry was £139). This gives me an 18 speed, rigid frame mountain bike with front suspension.

The bike itself is a Townsend "Dark Mesa" mountain bike. Cheap (relatively speaking) but should get me to work on time. As I've recently been playing Half-Life 2 (XBox 360 Orange Box release) this has raised a smile. I may have to see if I can get a Black Mesa logo onto the frame somewhere. . .

Getting back on topic, my weight has stayed contant at 12 stone (as said before, down from 13.5 stone) and I'm feeling fitter than I have done in years. I don't really get out of breath on the ride to and from work (unless I REALLY push myself) and can comfortably make the journey in five minutes (traffic allowing, and yes, that's even including the hill on the way back).

After doing some rough-and-ready calculations I've cycled over 1000 miles in the last year (more or less) and I've developed some nice muscles where once was flab.

Speaking of flab, my "love handles" vanished at some point over the last six months. No idea when, but they've gone.

So overall (and without harping on about the loss of my bike too much) it's been a good year for my health and fitness, has given me more time at home, and has also given me some quality time going out on rides with my daughter.

So for anyone who may be considering getting a bicycle, I can honestly say I'd recommend it without reservation. Just make sure you keep it in a safe place.

Thieving gits.

Off the road (for a bit)

noreply@blogger.com (DanO) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 07:43:00 +0000

Well, thanks to the twat that stole my mountain bike from outside my house last night I'm now a pedestrian again.

I'd claim on insurance, but by the time I've paid my excess it's just not worth it. I have, of course, reported it to the police and got a crime incident number, but let's be honest here - the chances of me actually getting the bike back again are somewhere between slim and none.

Ho-hum.

My bike - July 21st 2008 - July 14th 2009. R.I.P. (Rust In Pieces).

Small update: Out of sheer bloody-mindedness I checked with my insurers about claiming for the bike and found out the following:

I'm not covered for it.

Yes folks, pedal cycles (as they quaintly put it in the small print) are not covered by the homes and contents insurance. So if you do own a bike and imagine that your home insurance covers it you might want to double-check with them BEFORE it goes walkies.