Open Source Huffalumps Wanted

OSCP start day

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Sat, 16 Jul 2022 08:26:00 +0000

Oh God.

I still have not coded a single stoopid Android app.

I am a goner.

I need a plan people. Give me a plan, I will build you an empire. Or shoot down your plan.

Anyways.

I am starting oscp today officially yes!!

I hope this ends well. 0.o

Android! There and back again

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 07:16:00 +0000

or not quite there and whoa there is a new pavement! *cough*

So apparently I code Android every 5 years :p

Anyways, the new interface is really pretty but... hmmm apparently space create major problems.

I orginally had a gradle sync failed error.

Without much usable error message.... in the end it was solved by putting the SDK and NDK in D drive with no spaces in the file path, everything installed prettily then:

voila!

Alrighty, see you in 5 years ppl :) *kidding kidding... I hope*

iSpin Installation

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Sun, 30 Sep 2018 16:27:00 +0000

So I have recently taken on an automata course and we are using SPIN.

So I am just documenting the process and whatever. :P

Platform:
I am using an ASUS VivoBook Pro on Windows 10

I installed cgywin, it was relatively painless, which is awesome! :)

Then I installed Active state's version of Tcl/Tk wish which is for iSpin (cos I really really suck)

I installed Spin for PC the following way:
1) I used the instructions here specifically this was useful "download the latest pc_spin*.zip file"
2) I downloaded pc_spin*.zip and extracted the contents lets call this folder of stuff pcSpinFolder
3) I created a folder in cygwin /bin/ispin - somewhere in my various searchings on google something rold me to do this so I did (it did not quite help, but it seemed to be a clean way to put files so there!)
4) NOTE: I copied all the stuff in pcSpinFolder into /bin/ispin
5) As an aside how you let cygwin access your windoes stuff is you copy it into the folder where you installed cygwin, this will appear as its root folder i.e. / (I know this is obvious for seasoned users, but for a n00b like me, I had to do quite a bit of trial and error since I haven't touched linux in a while)
6) From 5 you can achieve 4 (hopefully... if you are a complete n00b, in cygwin run cd to the pcSpinFolder and type cp * /bin/ispin
7) Once you have cluttered /bin/ispin :P you can then run wish -f ispin.tcl, this should invoke the iSpin UI

And this popped up:
(I opened leader.pml from the UI)

Hope this helps!

Date: 20181001 00:26

To Update to the latest version of Spin in iSpin you can do this:

1) Download latest version of Spin for your platform, for me it is : here and I picked the Wwindows 64-bit executable
2) Unzip and copy out the spin*.exe file, rename to spin.exe
3) replace the spin.exe file in /bin/spin with this spiffy new spin.exe!

When you start up iSpin, again you should now see the latest version of Spin in the command line dialogue.

Date: 20181001 00:40

At some point I realised I need to install gcc on cygwin =-=

So you just need to run the installer for cygwin again, but careful! Select the category "Developer"
and select gcc, the installer will handle the rest.

At which point when I run it says spin is not an external internal command or batch or blah... the thing to note is this is a windows error message... meaning it is the ispin calling the spin through windows. So you need to add the path where spin is found into %PATH% again if you have been messing wih windows since win95 or earlier this is old school n00b errors.... which I am commiting heh.

So put it in the path.

And later to see the diagram for the states I need dot..... so I installed dot and put it in the %PATH% and now... the UI seems to be behaving.... :)

This was about 4 am in the morning... darn.

Date: 20181001 11:21

Its Funny

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Sun, 05 Jul 2015 13:33:00 +0000

Its Funny.

haha.

Sry.

Anyways. Its funny (haha) the only post that gets the highest count on this blog at the moment is my post on LibreOffice. :P

It was apparently because it contained some macro solver code for some min-max problem used to calculate the input amounts for some mousehunt event.

Apparently someone linked the post when he posted some question about solver macros in LibreOffice.

On a positive note, I am inspired, honoured and highly amused that my code was found useful and worthy of mention. Thank you! Random dude for making my day. On the negative side of the coin, I am rather horrified that there are no better content?

Someone needs to bust out those nachos....

GIMP

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Mon, 09 Jun 2014 14:55:00 +0000

GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulator Program =)

Which is what i used a long long time ago. So many things have come and go so seeing GIMP still around warms my 30+ year old heart. So as a bit of plugging I am talking about it =P

Anyways, I am messing around with the Android tutorial and i need to create some icons. Just simple ones mind you. And .png so I guess I will use GIMP. I hope it supports vectors.

Anyways this is the splash image when you install it =)

And in my quest to get vectors I ended up installing Inkscape as well! Something which my sis recommended a long time ago =)

I am using this as a guide!

Android Musings Lovely June and the start of a hopefully longer Journey

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Sun, 08 Jun 2014 05:43:00 +0000

Hi ya,

I have been blogging more like very slow micro tagging actually =)

But I am going a little bit into Android these days. Armed with an (now) old Galaxy Nexus... I think.

Anyways I am going to list down the problems I had while getting the system up ;)

Anyways my profile is this:

I start and stop Android development so many times now.

Mostly it was a lack of commitment (time, energy).

And partly it was due to a lack of steeled determination!!

At least thats what I realised.

For instance, I recently start again (duh!) in April actually.

I downloaded the Eclispe (I think the last time I tried was 2011, I vaguely remember there were attempts in 2000+ and possibly the 90s.... I was around during the One Child one Laptop thingie... so my futile and feeble attempts have been weak and many =) ... I understand that does not give much hope. But babies and loves, FAITH is believing in that which is UNSEEN!! in this case its any smidget of chance that I have the fortitude to pull this through. But we'll see I guess =))

And that was that. I updated it, got the avd up and was sufficiently happy that I have contributed to humanity or at least there was less of a lack of, no matter how ludicrous the thought was. The wonders of the human mind! Well. I believe GREAT minds think alike an so here we are wallowing in self pity together!! No wait. Back on topic!

So thats was a failing in my strength of character ;)

But I am sufficiently annoyed recently!!! Do not annoy a GIANT! even a little one! Giant is relative!! No laughing! Or sniggling! Anyways. I was motivated enough by my lack of stuff and abundance of chaff that I decided to look at it again.

And then I got hit by strange bugs. Even though this time I did not write any code??? I was just running and configuring the stuff (and my it has improved alot... just setting up Eclipse used to give me headaches in the past, yes yes I have a weak mind) . I used to get errors because I would set up the tools and everything, THEN look for sample code to modify, so there was PLENTY of room for errors! But this time, it was all horse led to water, I was ready to drink. But lo and behold! A bug! And after following instructions to a Tee. I was flabbergasted, lost and alone. Well no I was distracted surfing the web and stuff. So the bug dialog popping up was ignored and retried. Many. Many. Times. Until I noticed it was the same bug. Oh the time wasted. It was like edge of tomorrow. I could have killed myself but could'nt and would'nt. I mean I don't have the alien blood in me like Tom Cruise and all.

Anyways, so I gave up finding fault in my ability to follow instructions and ask the very knowledgeble Mr Google. You know him too! The multicoloured guy! Who keeps changing his pics with the holidays!.... oki.

Anyways Google presented that it was due to old certs generated by my previus installations.

My search was "android eclipse error generating final archive"

Specifically this gave the answer

The solution?

Delete the file:
debug.keystore

Mine was a win7 so it was in this directory:

C:\Users\YOUWISHIPLACEDMYNAMEHEREDUNCHA\.android.

Remember I started and stopped a few times? Ya. Like Cloud Atlas huh, every damned thing is linked. Its cold no?

So I managed to run the App on the emulator, which took a long time to load. I guess I need to close my windows more...

Anyways, again I was sufficiently happy. Until now. When I tried to run on my phone. (That old galaxy nexus)

It can detect my usb storage but Thats all.

To run it you need to download the USB drivers from Samsung here

My search on Google was this:
"eclipse cannot detect my galaxy nexus as active device"

I actually hopped around on the Samsung page for a while before I reached that page i linked above.

Its about a 20 MB download. I hope it works =)

Again why I am posting? I figured it would give me some motivation and track my trials and tribulations ;P And besides GREAT minds think alike, so someone is likely to go through the same shit. So here I am. Saving the world. One moper at a time =)

Happy Coding!

[20140608 14:42]
So after downloading it still does'nt work. This is after restarting Eclipse.

I suspect i need to reboot.

[20140608 18:12]

See. many hours have passed. And I have rebooted!!! And it works!

I also figured out how to take screenshots. (my keywords were: "android how to screenshot")

If you are using a Nexus S and above and have kept your device updated:

Pressing the power button and volume down button should work. (For IPhone users, its holding down the menu button [there is only one button... and I callz it the menu button so there] and the power button at the same time)

What you should note is that if you are sharing out your USB storage to your PC (i.e. you can see the drive in your PC), your Android device (in this case my Nexus S) will not be able to access the USB storage.

In my case I was happily snapping and snapping screenshots not realising that none of the pictures were stored! Silly me.

Anyways there reason I wanted to take a screenshot was that aside from installing the Samsung USB drivers as well as having windows update detect and download drivers for Nexus S (it actually recognised my phone model! So cool!); is that I also enabled USB debugging. I am not actually sure if that was crucial =)

Anyways this is a screenshot of that option:

And the example App I was installing from my PC

And actually launching and running it!

Also even if you do not share out the USB storage (i.e. you do not see the Android device USB storage as a drive on your PC). Eclipse is able to launch the App. =) Which is nice to know.

It does not do anything, but its Hello World!!! W00t!

[20140610 01:08]

So a work day usually means I get about 3 hours to get anything done :(

So this is what I have so far:

yep, its a lobster. And the button and text field elements were done yesterday. So I have really only added the action bar :/

The portion of the tutorial now is on action bars, so it requires more icons. If you read carefully (unlike me), you would have noticed that they allow you to download the full suite of icons. So you just need to download and place the files in the res folder. ... I skimped over that part and thought I had to draw my own icons. Thats how the lobster came about.

I did actually read a bit, albeit in parts. So the recommended image type was svg. So there was a bout of downloading and installing GIMP and Inkscape to generate a .svg file. It was cool. Even though it was a bit of a bloody waste of time, but I did get a nice lobster.

Why a lobster? Actually I just wanted a base 48 by 48 pixel image. I randomly drew an it looked like a lobster. Voila! Anyways somewhere while figuring what to do with my newly minted lobster image, I came to terms with the fact that the icons were available for download. Le sigh.

Anyways at least I got the thing up. It appears that the tutorial was a little half hearted. It does'nt seem to be headed to an app, just random examples of code which show parts of the App life cycle. I am going to have to improvise I guess =) like a lobster!

Happy Coding and may you read everything carefully!

[20140611 00:03]

no updates today :( I took half day and was hoping to do something but got hit by a bout of food poisoning. My eyelids got swollen and my stomach was having the runs (excuses I know =))

Any ways I was a little disapponted with the progress yesterday as, the Action Bar was'nt alot and whats more, I could'nt see the "Settings" button... So today i did a bit of a search on google and lo and behold. I was looking for an overflow button (which I though was an image, that was what i thought I was seeing in the example). But apparently for Samsung phones, the physical menu button is the "overflow" button =D

And there it is! My non functional "Settings" button

May you not be as blur as me =)

Hopefully I have more to brag about having done tomorrow =)

[20140825 00:33]

Alas I appear to have a very bad of giving up on my life and stuff.

This ailment has gotta be addressed!

Strongly! and fervently!!!

RAWWWWR!

Like Tabby the cat!

Anyways.

I seem to have a 2 mth problem here. I started in April. Sputttered and got back in June. And sputtered and now its August!!!

I really want to stop sputtering through life lol.

Anyways. The good thing about a "live" blogging post is that I get to track how pathetic my progress is. It is also disconcerting that this thingie is public and all. But actually I can see how many people read this and I can safely tell myself that I am alone in here and my embarassment (if any? Oh the hubris!) is all for me to enjoy!

How wonderful.

So at least I am back now I guess. The good thing is that I can review it as a journal of sorts and retrack and redefine by steps. Always useful. Anyways I will continue to post and update any wondrous doo doos I discover. Unless I backslide again (oh how we love to do that don't we ;))

See ya.

[20140825 01:07]

So just for tracking I am now trying to add an action bar!

[20140825 01:09]

Oh wait I seem to have already dunnit.

dang.

Back to searching where I stopped the last time....

[20140825 01:15]

Okay... I believe i am at action buttons......

[20140825 01:16]

dammit.... wrong again... apparently I must have covered quite a bit the last time....

[20140825 01:41]

So now i know i am at the responding to Action buttons portion!

... that took awhile ... anyways I gotta snooze.

I figure I really do not know the framework well enough. So in the morning and free times I will read up on those and hopefully when I get to code when I get back home, I can understand the code better!

[20140914 20:30]

YOWZA!!!

Its been two weeks since I coded anything!!!! The only bright spark here is that the sputtering is two weeks instead of two month.

Hey don't knock the small wins :p

LOL

Anyways I gotta get a grip on myself. I need to read faster and harder.

I went to the library today. I am feeling pumped. It might have been the Mac Spicy. nvm.

Anyways.

Here I go!

[20141214 11:04]

!!!!!!!!! it is exactly... well not exunctly but you know... the numbers for the months shifted by three and it is the fourteen!! So.

3 mth. That must be some kind of record... no wait my record for slacking off and coming back is in years lol.

Anyways... back to the grind for a bit I guess... and hopefully this time I get more than a button!!!!

[20150705 21:19]

OMG.

I have done nothing all this time.

Time Time, effervescent as you are, I wished I cherished you more.

I will try to do so before my time is done and my strength is no more and youth shall fail me.

That was dramatic.

Backtrack 5r3 on Acer Aspire 4749z

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 04:39:00 +0000

Its actually rare that I have something to post on this blog.

I think I lost my fire for tech stuff, but recently I have to touch linux again, *hello olde buddy!*

Its more for security modules, but hey I am interested in forensics at a personal level so we might go the sleuth package. Who knows =)

Any ways it was kinda fortunate.

I almost had to dump a newly bought Acer Aspire 4749z

Its not the latest model but it was going for 699 SGD with a spec of 500 GB HDD 2.2 GHz Intel Core B960 64bit with 2 GB ram. It was the best value on the shelf (I did'nt really have time so I cannot afford to go multiple stores)

Compared to my trusty AXIOO Zetta, the Acer Aspire 4749z was a bit of a dissapointment. The Win7 was flawless (well until I use it more, if I do use it), but the Backtrack live CD could not boot!!!

At first I thought, it was the MD5 or the burning. But MD5 check passed and most damning: my AXIOO Zetta booted it with no complaints.

For the Acer Aspire 4749z, the boot CD will go to the menu, countdown by 3 (it should be 30) and then shutdown.

At first I thought it was the battery, but by some strange luck (dear God must be watching) I happen to press enter twice in quick succession (i.e. before the menu is fully up - but is on screen ... one way to see this is that the counter does not start counting down yet -- yes it was very lucky to hit upon this) and voila its alive!!! I proceeded to try with and without the battery (as I really wanted to have backup power and it really did'nt make sense that the battery was causing the problem) and in the end I narrowed the problem down to the menu. Entering twice quickly (hence skipping the menu and countdown) did the trick, with or without the battery. And the battery was vindicated and my laptop saved from a fire sale.

Conclusion is both the Backtrack 5r3 live disc and Aspire 4749z are buggy here. =) I might continue to post. I just felt posting is important as apparently many people have issues and alas, it s mostly very version and hardware specific. I was looking for a solution in the boot options maybe, but in the end the solution that worked for me was something alot sillier.

As I write I am installing Backtrack 5r3 into the harddisk. I am attempting a dual boot. Lets hope it works.

I left the windows partition alone and luckily, half of the 500 GB is another HDD so it was left relatively virgin and untouched (it was ntfsed tho lol). I partitioned it as

10 GB fat32
4 GB Swap
5 GB /boot
120 GB /
and about 90?? GB /home

I hope that works =)

and btw. To shutdown. The command is "shutdown now -h". You are welcome =)

[121006 12:37]

so fortunately GRUB works!!! W00T!

so I booted in!

And if you are like me a total N00B. You will get stuck at the login. Fortunately Google is *still* your friend. And this link came up! It actually provides ALOT more detail than my post so you might want to just skip over there =)

essentially, login as root and type toor and that will get you to the console.

After that type startx to get to the GUI =)

Have fun!!!

[121006 12:51]

So I am now testing the Win7 side of the family. On GRUB select the windows bootloader.

The Acer eRecovery dialog will come out.

I am currently wondering should I do the factory setting thing or to just boot from the windows.

The factory reset thing is fine as it is new and I haven't done anything yet. But I am worried that it will wipe my poor BT too! (though logically it should'nt).

In any case I decided not to since I can just boot windows through GRUB! =D and it still works!

Hooray!.

As an aside, filesystems are amazing. Windows now only sees the 10 GB fat32 space.... lol
[121006 12:57]

LibreOffice Programming Solver Example

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 15:49:00 +0000

This Example came out as a result of a game called mousehunt (there is alot of statistic and mean-max programming opportunities, its all fake of course, but it does create interesting data to play with =P)

You can download it from here! =P

You will need to download it, Google docs does not recognise the macros, but if you download it, it will still contain the macros. Just follow the following instructions to run the macro:

1) Key in the amounts of the toy parts that you have collected

2) Open up LibreOffice Basic as shown (OpenOffice should also be able to... but I am not sure how =P -- but definitely it can run the macro!)

3) Select as shown and click "Run"

4) You will see the solver run

5) The result will be as shown, but you may need to round off =)

The important things to note are (at least the mistakes I made while writing the code):

1) VBA arrays start from 0, when you declare them, declare the last index, not the size. So a size 10 will be array(9) for instance.

2) The "getCellByPosition(10,14)", is (column,row) NOT (row,column) or (x-axis,y-axis) as is more the norm in other languages and tools

In order words, there are the usual VB eccentricities =P

3) For LibreOffice 3.4.x
You can enable 'Record Macro' via
'Tools > Options > LibreOffice > General
☑ Enable experimental (unstable) features'. ---- you don't really need this

4) You may need to enable macros to run macros... duh.

I posted this as i had a hard time looking for something to script VBA Solver code into LibreOffice.

I gave up then tried the macro recording but that did'nt work out... then looked again and luckily i found this!

Other useful links
1) This was useful to figure out the column,row thing.

2) This explained why my LibreOffice did not have a record macro button! =/ Which i did'nt se in the end.

3) This was the most useful! The motherlode!! Thanks to FJCC for his example code in 2009 in the 4th post! I thank you! Even though I do not know you =) The example code I wrote was made by modifying his code which had everything needed inside! Very good code! =D

Below is the code in download (not FJCC's - you can see it by following the link in point 3 above =) )
----------------------------------------------------Code--------

REM ***** BASIC *****

sub Main
rem ----------------------------------------------------------------------
rem define variables
dim document as object
dim dispatcher as object
rem ----------------------------------------------------------------------
rem get access to the document
document = ThisComponent.CurrentController.Frame
dispatcher = createUnoService("com.sun.star.frame.DispatchHelper")

rem ----------------------------------------------------------------------
rem -- dispatcher.executeDispatch(document, ".uno:SolverDialog", "", 0, Array())

Dim Variables(8) as Object
Dim Constraint_0 as New com.sun.star.sheet.SolverConstraint
Dim Constraint_1 as New com.sun.star.sheet.SolverConstraint
Dim Constraint_2 as New com.sun.star.sheet.SolverConstraint
Dim Constraint_3 as New com.sun.star.sheet.SolverConstraint
Dim Constraint_4 as New com.sun.star.sheet.SolverConstraint
Dim Constraint_5 as New com.sun.star.sheet.SolverConstraint
Dim Constraint_6 as New com.sun.star.sheet.SolverConstraint
Dim Constraint_7 as New com.sun.star.sheet.SolverConstraint
Dim Constraints(7) as Object

smgr = GetProcessServiceManager()
solv = smgr.createInstance("com.sun.star.sheet.Solver")

ConstrOperator1 = com.sun.star.sheet.SolverConstraintOperator.LESS_EQUAL
ConstrOperator2 = com.sun.star.sheet.SolverConstraintOperator.GREATER_EQUAL

oDoc = ThisComponent
solv.Document = oDoc

Sheet = oDoc.Sheets(0)
Sheet1 = oDoc.Sheets(1)

ObjectiveCell = Sheet.getCellByPosition(10,14) 'This cell has the formula =A1 +B1 - C1
solv.Objective = ObjectiveCell.CellAddress

VariCell0 = Sheet.getCellByPosition(1,14)
Variables(0) = VariCell0.CellAddress

VariCell1 = Sheet.getCellByPosition(2,14)
Variables(1) = VariCell1.CellAddress

VariCell2 = Sheet.getCellByPosition(3,14)
Variables(2) = VariCell2.CellAddress

VariCell3 = Sheet.getCellByPosition(4,14)
Variables(3) = VariCell3.CellAddress

VariCell4 = Sheet.getCellByPosition(5,14)
Variables(4) = VariCell4.CellAddress

VariCell5 = Sheet.getCellByPosition(6,14)
Variables(5) = VariCell5.CellAddress

VariCell6 = Sheet.getCellByPosition(7,14)
Variables(6) = VariCell6.CellAddress

VariCell7 = Sheet.getCellByPosition(8,14)
Variables(7) = VariCell7.CellAddress

VariCell8 = Sheet.getCellByPosition(9,14)
Variables(8) = VariCell8.CellAddress

solv.Variables = Variables()

Constraint_0.Left = Sheet1.getCellByPosition(1,12).CellAddress
Constraint_0.Operator = ConstrOperator1
Constraint_0.Right = Sheet.getCellByPosition(1,9).CellAddress
Constraints(0) = Constraint_0

Constraint_1.Left = Sheet1.getCellByPosition(2,12).CellAddress
Constraint_1.Operator = ConstrOperator1
Constraint_1.Right = Sheet.getCellByPosition(3,9).CellAddress
Constraints(1) = Constraint_1

Constraint_2.Left = Sheet1.getCellByPosition(3,12).CellAddress
Constraint_2.Operator = ConstrOperator1
Constraint_2.Right = Sheet.getCellByPosition(2,9).CellAddress
Constraints(2) = Constraint_2

Constraint_3.Left = Sheet1.getCellByPosition(4,12).CellAddress
Constraint_3.Operator = ConstrOperator1
Constraint_3.Right = Sheet.getCellByPosition(4,9).CellAddress
Constraints(3) = Constraint_3

Constraint_4.Left = Sheet1.getCellByPosition(5,12).CellAddress
Constraint_4.Operator = ConstrOperator1
Constraint_4.Right = Sheet.getCellByPosition(5,9).CellAddress
Constraints(4) = Constraint_4

Constraint_5.Left = Sheet1.getCellByPosition(6,12).CellAddress
Constraint_5.Operator = ConstrOperator1
Constraint_5.Right = Sheet.getCellByPosition(8,9).CellAddress
Constraints(5) = Constraint_5

Constraint_6.Left = Sheet1.getCellByPosition(7,12).CellAddress
Constraint_6.Operator = ConstrOperator1
Constraint_6.Right = Sheet.getCellByPosition(6,9).CellAddress
Constraints(6) = Constraint_6

Constraint_7.Left = Sheet1.getCellByPosition(8,12).CellAddress
Constraint_7.Operator = ConstrOperator1
Constraint_7.Right = Sheet.getCellByPosition(7,9).CellAddress
Constraints(7) = Constraint_7

solv.Constraints = Constraints()

solv.Maximize = True
solv.Solve()

Print solv.ResultValue

end sub

-------------------------End Code

Libre!!!!!!! No Nachos.... =P

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 14:37:00 +0000

LibreOffice is what OpenOffice became after Oracle took over.

I always just used Open Office and ya I don't really like Oracle, but the Open Office has been pretty alright so far. But given a choice between Libre and Open.

We all know right. ;)

NachOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

You know the drill.

MagARENA

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 04:53:00 +0000

A friend of mine recently noticed I play magic and recommended me to try this AI software.

And lo and behold its Magarena

It is a really cool game and the best thing is it is FREE!

Not just free but GNU GPL v 3 FREE!

Whats even more cool? My friend (Melvin) is the developer of the A.I. how cool is that =)

I'm so proud of him really =D

Alright enough hollering.

I tried the A.I. and it is pretty addictive.

I have not tried to make it run more than 40 cards, tho I suspect it might be possible.

One of the disclaimers of Magarena is that it is not meant as a duel playtest software, which is a little bit of a pity since, the playtesting facility will really stress test the A.I.

and more importantly provide another playtesting avenue.

Having said that,unless the AI is able to play with the nuances required in the various types of decks, it would be useless. The reason being that MWS allows a player to play against himself already so that niche is covered.

Hence I can see why Magarena does not want to pursue duels since it would significantly up the ante in complexity.

A few things to note:

- You want to download the images and use the image version
- It can take a while but its worth it
- Its really good for learning combat and phases of a turn, without the pressure of a life opponent say on MODO or MWS

You probably can get a better view here

Clicking on a card gives you the a bigger card image so its readable:

There is also a text version but I found it difficult to use as there is no way to see what the card does. I did ask Melvin what was the use of the text version, he said it was for portability. Still something a little more friendly would be good. Apprentice was a software that was pretty lightweight and text based.. so that might work =)

About the A.I.
================

It is good enough to give you a good game. I suspect it is actually stronger than I think it is but it underestimates poison and landwalk.

Alot of the games I literally have a walk over because of landwalk.

Have fun ppl!

CSS Positioning

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 18:01:00 +0000

I thought this website was useful =)

this one also helped in my understanding

Postgre

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 10:34:00 +0000

I am currently using the windows version and to let you in on a secret...

It is good stuff =)

Now.

I have yet to ascertain if it is good in huge databases, but I can say it is definitely better than mySQL. Which is a shadow of itself ever since Oracle took over.

Here is hoping that Postgre will go the distance =)

A few bits o' weirdness though.

1) You really need to work out the SQL statements (with ' or or ").
2) Standard SQL - no funny vendor specific syntax

Both are not Postgre's fault but can be a little irritating when you are converting.

BUT!

having said that, i think it is good to have standard syntax.

1) It maintains the Open Source as Open (i.e. it is really FREE OPEN SOURCE)
(again free as in Libre and not Beer)

2) Once you use standard syntax, you will be enlightened. =) (My colleague did remark that Postgre is actually easy to use and reliable once you get the hang of it, before using, my colleague was rather despondent about the whole thing : She needed to get perl and php to talk to Postgre - which all worked out in the end =))

3) I think Postgre's current implementation is in a good compromised stage. It is alot more accessible due to its (very good) port to windows. In the past Postgre was the cream of the crop in the FREE source world, mySQL was the popular kid due to its accessibility to the windows crowds. The problem was windows users (who tend to be a little softer - yes I admit i am a wussie) find that mySQL hits a bottleneck in performance, then switch to some "Enterprise" commercial software. Not cool. Nobody went to Postgre from this crowd, as the crowd rarely bit the bullet and jumped into the Linux oasis. (Granted I am being unfair here, there are many reasons not to use linux, incumbent environment, incumbent software, administrator's expertise, management view of software and its management etc). But now with its newfangled port to windows! Kazaam!!! I luvz it it =D

Keep it up FOSS!!!!

Sad huh

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 01:56:00 +0000

Open source where are you going?

mySQL got bought by SUN, then SUN got bought by Oracle....

I know I know old news... but it kinda only hit me when we were talking about databases the other day and my friend recommended Postgre.... ironically the one that was not too user friendly is now the last bastion of truth *drama yes* ..... ah well. I hope Oracle does'nt ever get Linux. Another friend commented that its the only missing piece. I have a different view though. I believe Oracle will find it difficult to eat Linux.. it would have an easier time eating MS (MS just has to slip up enuff since, money and current bare relevance is the only hting keepin git afloat).... but then I believed that of many other open source OS =P still I think Oracle (if it even needs an OS - that the current assumption) would simple bypass Linux hoping to fight it off via relevancy. Fortunately that would be tough given how flexible Linux is. One hopes anyways.

linuxNUS presents: LXDE’s Mario Behling! (Singapore)

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:42:00 +0000

Apparently linuxNUS is organising an event...

Below is an excerpt from their site which you can access here.

You’re all invited to NUS to listen to Mario Behling talk about LXDE next Wednesday, 11 March! The talk will be held at the SOC1 building, in SR4 on the 6th level. Registration starts at 6.30pm; the event proper commences at 7. However, do leave us your particulars at http://linuxnus.org/registration/lxde first!

Its funny how I got this news.... apparently they guy looked at my profile ... and probably my profile pic??? which was the OSIG logo by a Vincent Lai a student of mine lol

Its just so strange... someone looking for the contact of OSIG, somehow blindly asking the previous contact for OSIG... life is funny.

OSSPAC - Open Source Singapore-Pacific-Asia Conference --- Some open source conference in Singapore???

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 15:21:00 +0000

Just saw this on facebook....

mostly vendors though...

PERL PERL PERL ... Back in the Chain Gang

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 15:01:00 +0000

well I decided to do some perl today....

actually I wanted to script something that will automate the decklisting whenever i make a deck list on my MTG blog

and then I realised...

I have uninstalled PERL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

oh the blasphemy.

Anyways I got it back on.

Activestate!

I do hate that Komodo Dragon mascot... whatever happen to the cute lil' gecko?

[Edit]

I'll probably put up the script later...

Something on Storage (plus RAID)

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 06:10:00 +0000

http://www.acnc.com/04_01_01.html

nice raid explanation ... probably a book is still
better with the details and all.

But a picture does say a thousand words.

So thats a few thousand words added to what you read
in your textbook! Just like that! =D

Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundant_array_of_independent_disks

This is a little dated, but I thought the thought
process was useful, and somethings you do not learn...
no not even from the aforementioned picture =)

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/building_budget_storage_server/

How dated?

This article was talking about 2 TB...

The latest offerings from HP:

http://h18006.www1.hp.com/storage/disk_storage/storage_servers/index.html

48TB max internal

Still DELL seems to only offer 2TB max internal....

Fedora 10

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 06:05:00 +0000

Cool.. did you know Fedora is now on 10.....

actually if you are an open source aficionado you 'd probably know =P

I just found out, cos my sis wanted me to help her download...

its been so long.... The first time I used it it was Fedora 2!!!

The last time I used it it was Fedora 9 but I had to use 8 because, I could only burn CDs and they had some weird DVDs only... the CD isos were maintained by an affiliated but not main group apparently ....

Good to see the change!

Oh BTW the isos are hosted by NUS!!! thats a great way to get your university known to academia NUS, incase you did'nt know ;)

And that would be the first useful thing you did for me as an alumni.. instead of always asking me to donate lol

Zone Alarm 15th Anniversary Giveaway: A Review

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 04:57:00 +0000

Well the below was quite awhile ago...

Just to kinda review....

ZA has definitely improved

The old ZA I used use to lock my entire machine, the reason was it was the first application to load and it screen EVERYTHING else.

This makes sense from a security stand point but is bollocks in terms of usability.

Not surprisingly it was the next thing I CLEANED from my comp ;)

But this new one is rather nice. Same old comp but much better performance from the desktop firewall =)

Also they are running something called defensenet. Where they collect daily, your system specs.

I opted out.

I do know what they are trying to do and it is not malicious.

They are likely to be doing either datamining or some form of trend analysis.

Which is a good thing =)

Still I was more concern about the load. If it were a weekly load i would be more willing. =D

Overall usability wise definitely not bad and the load is not too heavy.

Why Should One have a desktop firewall?

Say you get infected by trojans? The firewall actually allows you to lock down your out going connections, it also allows you to block incoming connections from outside, nefarious or not ;) Oh btw Singnet is still scanning.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dear ZoneAlarm 15th Anniversary Promotion Participant,

If you had any difficulty downloading your free copy of ZoneAlarm Pro, here is a new, simpler to use, download link. Below are full instructions, including your individual license key you will need to activate the product.

Save this email for future reference.

NOTE: If you have already downloaded and installed ZoneAlarm Pro you do not need to do it again.

Included in this email:

* ZoneAlarm Pro download link
* License key to activate the software
* Instructions for installing the license key

CLIPS new URL

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 04:50:00 +0000

Well not really an opensource entry ... more like an update.

But hey! CLIPS is an open source thingie =)

So just to inform that CLIPS has changed its URL to

http://clipsrules.sourceforge.net/ .. also the link on this site has been updated to reflect that =)

This was the post by the current maintainer Gary Riley

http://clipsrules.sourceforge.net/ is the current URL. It was http://www.ghg.net/CLIPS/CLIPS.html until this year and then before that http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/~clips/CLIPS.html. If I enter CLIPS into google it's the number 1 hit.

I think its for the better =)

Being on sourgeforge it is likely to be better maintained and more structured and have more exposure.

Its good to see the .NET port of CLIPS now on a "proper" kinda fork. All good.

Keep up the good work folks ;)

Buglabs

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 04:10:00 +0000

I've always noted how as a software programmer, my
powers are limited by what hardware and the
interfacing software is available....

well this might be the answer...

http://buglabs.net/

dun go bananas yet... they have just started.

But this begins many wet dreams of entrpreneurs and
hackers alike ;)

MySQL may close parts of the code or rather...

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 02:47:00 +0000

"All,

I tried to clarify the facts in another posting a moment ago: http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=525246&cid=23098626

Here I will discuss the business model considerations, MySQL's commitment to Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), and why we made the decision we made."

This is from the /. forum, so its best you read it yourself. Its not anything too new... but it does make SUN look kinda bad (at least that was my first impression), still kudos to the ex CEO of mySQL to speak up and clarify (it was the correct move to make for them) and apparently it is just the same issue with the previous incarnation of mySQL (well if you dunno go read up...)

I think it is a pragmatic choice of doing things, and I laud it, but it must be carefully managed, since it is all too easy to do something close (even if a portion) and that close bit happens to be all that is good about the product while neglecting the open and arguable the original purpose of the whole project.

Jigdo - More thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 02:17:00 +0000

Ver interesting...

Jigdo actually allows you to pick the individual files and form the ISO on your disk...

Great Idea =)

Contrast this with torrents, where the bits are manipulated.

Two different technologies I wonder which would be faster? And what would be the metrics of measure.

Also apparently Jigdo is already used in Debian distros. Good to see the Debian folks produce and leave their marks =)

Also to someone new to using a linux downloader, it might be quite freaky as it is really international, the mirror sites =)

Japan, Russia, Taiwan and many more which I do not recognise =)

Its not the fastest thing on the planet, but its decent =)

Update:

FTP speed versus Torrent essentially, but I suspect with more overheads, as it negotiates for each file.

This opens a whole slew of trust issues I suspect... but you could of course verify the hashes so thats cool.

And it does actually autoverify for you at the end of download, which is cool =)

Not very fast, I should thinik a torrent will still be faster, but only for the latest and most popular torrent.

For older stuff for which peer to peer critical mass is scant, you are probably waay better off with Jigdo, since you are getting FTP speeds.

This may actually solve one of the conundrums of Bittorrent:

Once a file is mostly had by everyone, speed degrades. Unless you live in an utopian world where RIAA and its likes do not hunt ppl down, and even in such a world, would people who have fully downloaded be willing to serve as seed? And if so for how long?

And thats the beauty of it I guess, *all copyright vigilantes rejoice* , and that is jido will not help the usual "bad" downloads, since it is specific to building an ISO. Unless of course people start distributing in ISO, and even then you are talking about people distributing individual files on their servers... kinda flying in the face of Bittorrent.

Oooh but think of Jigdo running on top of a peer to peer.... (which still does'nt help... only in the automated sense which should be achievable without Jigdo ... =P)

Fedora 8 CD ISO !!!

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 06:38:00 +0000

Fedora 8 CD ISO !!!

I have been wanting to try out the Ferdora 8 series for a while.. but as happenstance, my DVD cannot burn...

Well I screwed with the iomega Hotburn settings and must have corrupted the drivers, but that is another story =P

So I am like stuck with CDs even thought I can read DVDs. So this new site is a life saver!

W00T!

The catch?

They are trying a new download technology.

Its supposedly better or less stressful on their servers than torrents???

Hmmm...

Anyway the new download method is jigdo.

And here is the link:
http://spins.fedoraunity.org/unity/fedora-unity-re-spin-f8-20080204

though a little browsing will get you there too

Beware though, this one is still console based, at least the one I am using... and it does require you to be patient.

Not too much automation for deciding what you wish to download, but the download speed is decent, which may be due to my bandwidth =P

and lo!

Running it I realised it is actually wget in disguise then!

this is strange then wget can achieve multiple downloads on the ftp.....

I suspect I missed out something on reading as usual....

I downloaded my version from here :

Here is more on jigdo if it so pleases you to find out more about it.

Gdae.

http://spins.fedoraunity.org/spins

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigdo

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Debian-Jigdo/

Bot nets?

noreply@blogger.com (god_is_good478) — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 05:29:00 +0000

Not sure how true this is but wow, if it is....!