GintasDX

Remove custom search in Linux Mint

2011-09-14T21:23:00.002+03:00

I find a Google custom search rather annoying since it doesn't have a sleek look as the original one so here is few steps how to get back into using normal one.

Mozilla Firefox

Download and install Google.com in English. To select it as default for search field click on search engine icon in the search field. Select "Manage Search Engines..."
and move it to the top. Second step is to make it work in the address (URI) field.
In the address field type about:config and press the "I'll be careful..." button. Here type a google in the Filter field.

Now you need to change the the 3 lines:
browser.search.defaultenginename
browser.search.order.1
browser.search.selectedEngine
double click on each field and type Google.com (in English) .
That's all you are done! Try to search for something random in address to see if it working :)

Chromium

Click on wrench icon and go to Preferences. In the Basics options you need to find Search options. Click on the Manage Search Engines button. In a new window you will find a Default search options in the third value field replace a current entry with this one:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%s .

You are done!

Opera

I rarely use this,but it's really easy too. Go to Tools->Preferences... -> Search tab. Select Google and click Edit... button. Press Details >> button and replace
Address field entry with http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%s

Note:
The Linux Mint project is funded from the Ads in custom search engine so make sure you are giving them a donation before removing their search engine.

Android phone as 3G modem on Linux

2011-09-14T19:50:00.003+03:00

I was quite sad when the Linux couldn't connect to internet using LG GT540 via USB cable. Since the phone runs Android 2.1 there is no option of WiFi Hotspot,but I found a working solution called Barnacle Wi-Fi Tether . Just open the market app and look for this app. Once you installed it open and press "Start" button. Optionally you can make a password for your WiFi connection in the settings menu. On many phones you need to enable Skip wpa_supplicant in Settings to actually create the ad-hoc network. In that case WEP will most likely not work.

Turn on WiFi on your computer and Linux should notice you about new availabe WiFi connection by default named "barnacle". Connect and start surfing the web.

I like that this app also displays the connection speed and dowload/uploaded data.
On Windows you need to check TCP/IP settings to make sure you are obtaining IP address automatically. It doesn't worked for me first time since I was forgot about static IP settings in WiFi connection since I was using WLAN.

At no cost you now have the wireless hotspot probably working even with old Android 1.5 phones too :)

Here are some more detailed steps about WiFi tethering on rooted Android phones:

Tutorial: Code::Blocks with FLTK

2011-08-07T23:07:00.003+03:00

Building the FLTK library is pretty easy.
Building the library on Windows
Stuff you will need:
CMake
MinGW Compiler System
CmdHere Powertoy

Make sure you have a MinGW in your PATH. On Windows XP you just need to right click on My Computer
and select Advanced tab. Press the "Environment Variables" and add the MinGW folder path into the PATH variable. In some cases MinGW setup lets you add this automatically.

Lets setup the CMake. Run the CMake-GUI application and setup the extracted FTLK library folder.
I was testing this with stable 1.3 and 1.1.10 versions.

On first time run you need press "Configure". Options window should appear. From the list select
"MinGW Makefiles" and select "Specify native compilers".
Browse for the C and C++ compilers in MinGW folder.

For the C compiler select gcc.exe and for C++ compiler select
g++.exe . Yes not the c++.exe :)

Your settings should look like this. We don't want to use the system libraries and build all the examples.

Hit the Configure button and later Generate. All the red warning should be gone.

Note:

For 1.1.10 version you need to open the CMakeLists.txt from \src\ folder and

and in the end of file add the following lines:

if(WIN32)

target_link_libraries(fltk comctl32)

endif(WIN32)

Now we have configured and build all makefiles we need. Lets build the library and FLUID.

If you have configured Comand line shell in explorer from the link above you just need to right click

and on the extracted folder of FTLK that includes all the source and test files,and select "Open Command Window Here". If you don't have such option press Windows Logo key + R or from Start menu select

"Run..." and type cmd in opened window.

Now you need to execute command pushd .

And execute command mingw32-make or just make. Look the image bellow.

If everything alright you should get everything build 100% and all FTLK libraries plus FLUID app in the

FTLK bin folder. Or in the folder defined in CMake. Copy those libraries into MinGW installation lib folder.

I actually added FLTK library folder into Code::Blocks search directories. You can find those in

Settings->Compiler and debugger... -> Global compiler settings -> Search directories tab.

How to build libraries on Linux?

Everything is quite the same. You need to download cmake and cmake-gui (probably with QT interface).

After generating makefiles right click on the FTLK source folder and open the terminal.

In terminal enter make command. That's all. If you get some errors you might be missing some libraries

and dev packages.

When building from the imported MS Visual Studio files on Code::Blocks don't forget to link those libraries:

ftlk
uuid
ole32
comctl32
comdlg32
gdi32

If you get and error that some X function cannot be found in libfltka you may want to look in Google

for that function to see what library you will need to link. If you are building a new project using wizard simply make new folder called include in FLTK library folder and copy here the FL folder since Code::Blocks Project wizard always looks for include folder.

Have fun with codding!

You can download my Win32 build version with 4 extra Gleam themes.

[Download FLTK 1.30 Stable + 4 Gleam themes]

Atheros WiFi problems

2011-07-09T18:33:00.003+03:00

I am using Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter and I couldn't connect to other home computer using
WLAN. I tried few registry tweaks and modifying Firewall settings,but seems the problem was really easy. The computers was on different workgroup.

So if you having problems with Atheros this might be not the drivers problem. To change the workgroup of computer right click on My Computer icon and select Properties. Select the "Computer Name" tab and make sure both computers are on same workgroup. I am using default - MSHOME.

Also I don't automatically defined IP address. You can change the IP settings by going to Control Panel.

From the left menu select "Switch to Classic View" if you using default view.
Double click on Network Connections.
Find the "Wireless Network Connection"
Press Right mouse button and select "Properties"
In the "General" tab select the "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)" in a list box.
Press "Properties" button.

Your settings should look like this. On the computer you want to connect use different IP address like 169.10.10.22 .

Hope it works for you.

Some useful links to follow:

Atheros Drivers

Configure a wireless LAN connection in Windows XP

Chrome To Phone alternative for Android 2.1

2011-07-08T19:06:00.002+03:00

The Chrome and Firefox has a simply extension to pull links into mobile,but sadly it's not compatible with my phone. There is an free alternative which doesn't requires to have an GMail account,works on Android Eclair and Symbian,Windows Mobile phones and you can pull not only links but also:

Geo location on Google Maps
Phone Number
Calendar Event
Contact Information
SMS
Text
Wifi Network login details

It's called ZXing and you can download it from the Android Market or official website. It's a QR Code scanner and you will need to copy the link or text you want and generate the QR code using online QR code generator.

QR code of my blog.

Lunch the ZXing app on your phone and it will automatically read the code.

Now you may wonder how to pull links from phone to computer. It's quite simple,just download an Opera Mini for your phone and turn on Opera Link feature in settings menu.

Here is some good QR code scanners for other mobile phones.

Barcodes readers for Windows Mobile phones

Barcode readers for iPhone and Symbian phones

Covert videos to Android phones...

2011-07-07T20:56:00.001+03:00

Well this method works for all mobile phones and portable media players (PMP).

One of the best free converters I found without ads or junk after install is Format Factory .
The best things I love about it that I can rip whole DVD into single file and the lets you to pickup
language for audio and subtitles. Also it can convert download Youtube videos into MP3.

Start the program and from left menu click on Video bar. Select All to mobile.

From the models list I selected Google phone and 480x320 resolution since my mobile has HVGA resolution. To find out your screen size you can check your phone model at manufacturer website or PDAdb.net and GSMArena.com .

If you have large SD card sure you pick a better sound quality when default.

Press OK.

In the new dialog select the files you want to convert and press OK.

In the main window press start button and have a coffee while you will get all your videos converted.

And press the "Output folder" if it doesn't popup for you and simply copy all the videos into your phone

using PC suite or WiFi.

How to convert DVD into mobile video?

From the main window select the "DVD to Video file"

Make sure to check Youtube for detailed tutorials about Format Factory.

As alternative you can FreeMake Video Converter. It requires .NET Framework 4 . Make sure to check their "How to" section with lots of video tutorials.

Battle City - Free Remakes

2011-07-07T20:13:00.001+03:00

Battle City or Missile Tank 1991 was one the first video games I played. It was coming in with NES/Famicom console clone bundle. Simple game play was pretty addicting and one the best feature in two players mode.
You can watch the video from orginal game.

Anyways after more than 15 years I decided to take a look at PC version of this game and I was really satisfied with games I found. All games are free and full versions.

Tank Commander - A one of the best remakes with great effects and graphics. Has a two players mode and includes 4 different zones and about 40 levels.

Battle Rush - A 3D clone of Battle City with simply graphics and two players mode. Too bad there is not much levels to play.

Diamond Fighters - A remake for Linux and comes with 30 levels.

Combatant Area - A simple 2D remake with new graphics and two players support.

Battle City X - Really nice clone with original graphics and power-ups. Includes lots of additional levels in
addition to all original levels.

Battle City Tanks - Original game made in Python. You will need to download PyGame and Python to able to play it.

Normal Tanks - A game with nice 3D rendered sprites and single player game mode. Great action packed game. Wacth the gameplay

Post in comments if you find some more :)

Online 8-bit sounds generator

2011-07-07T19:23:00.000+03:00

There is one little great tool that generates 8-bit video games like sound effects. You can generate tons of random sounds like coin pickup from Super Mario Bros. or explosion sound from Galaga game.

Today I randomly found this little app ported into Flash so you can generate all the sounds online. It's free for any use including commercial titles. It will come handy in making old school retro games.

Check it now!
http://www.superflashbros.net/as3sfxr/

I hope there is more tools like this. :)

Phone as FM tuner for laptop

2011-07-04T23:07:00.000+03:00

Since USB FM tuners for laptops and desktop computers aren't very cheap you can make an alternative just for
0.99$. All you will need is:

Phone with FM radio,iPod,MP3 Player or basic FM radio with 3.5" audio jack
3.5" to 3.5" audio cable.

Connect one jack into phone 3.5" port and another jack into your computers microphone port. Most times it's a colored in pink or has a little microphone icon near. Turn on the FM radio on your phone and unmute the Microphone in the Volume control. On my Realtek soundcard it is called Pink In in Volume control panel. And that's all! You can now record the music from your favorite radio station or listen to iPod music on your laptop/desktop PC speakers.

Some phones has 2.5" inch headphones port so you will need an additional adapter.

Download Youtube videos to PC

2011-07-04T21:41:00.000+03:00

There is probably lots of tips and tricks how to download those. I often search for some Flash game development tutorials and sure I want to watch video again without internet connection. With old Flash Player plugin it was easy since all the videos was saved into browsers cache folder, but now the Flash Player holds the downloaded video in <User Name>\Local Settings\Temp (well on WinXP anyways :P) folder *.tmp files. They are locked by program and cannot be copied. I tried various force copy handlers,but not much help from those.

After testing a few Firefox extensions I found the one that does the job well. It can download vidoes in High or Low quality and in .FLV or .MP4 format (yep you can watch your downloaded videos on the phone or iPod) . It's called Flash Video Downloader Youtube Downloader Facebook . Sure it does downloads any embedded videos from any websites. To use it simply press Play on the video and right click on the player and select "Stop Download"

Find the blue arrow near address bar or in the bottom right corner and click it.

A dialog should appear with all available video formats. Pick the one you need and wait until extension downloads the video.

Even more goodies available at extension developers website:
http://www.flashvideodownloader.org/

Enjoy!

Chrome Web Apps... make your own

2011-07-04T20:52:00.000+03:00

If you still using your default browser on Windows like Internet Explorer 6 then I feel for you. You really need to download Google Chrome. Like other modern web browsers it can be expanded with extension and apps available from Chrome Web Store and while those extensions can be not very perfect you may find some really great apps. Sure one of the popular is the Angry Birds game.

Chrome Apps is most times just a website bookmarks and it might be good idea to make one for your own website. You will only need to create and few site icons and manifest file.

And here is my manifest.json file:

{
  "name": "GintasDX Blog",
  "description": "Techonology and random blog",
  "version": "1",
  "app": {
    
    "launch": {
      "web_url": "http://gintasdx.blogspot.com"
    }
  },
  "icons": {
    "32": "32.png",
    "16": "16.png",
    "96": "96.png",
    "128": "128.png"
  },
  "permissions": [
    "unlimitedStorage",
    "notifications"
  ]
}

You need read a developers guide if you want to know what exactly each line does. Basically all you need is a 128x128px size icon and this sample manifest file. Finally you need to pack your extension using Chrome.

Start Chrome and push the wrench icon in the right upper corner. Go to Tools->Extensions....
Select the Developer Mode and press the Pack Extension button. In new dialog you need select the folder where you put an icon and manifest.json file .

Later just drag and drop the .crx file on Chrome browser window. You will see a some warning at the bottom,but since you are using your own extension you can press Continue without worries.

A dialog like this should appear:

After pressing Install you will have your custom app in a main
start page.

<<DOWNLOAD MY APP>>

WM6 Game Development

2011-07-04T19:25:00.000+03:00

OMG! It works! :) ZenGL demo with Software rendering mode.

In the Pascal Game Development forums I found that one the easiest OpenGL 2D game engines for Pascal can run on Windows Mobile devices. I checked the demo on brother's Samsung i900 and sadly was only able to run demo in Software Emulation mode. I got only average ~12FPS. I guess I will get more FPS in Windows Mobile emulator :) There is really not much choices of game engines for Windows Mobile 6. Android community has a really way to more options and with much better market ahead.

Samsung Omnia (i900) doesn't have a GPU so it doesn't supports
rendering with OpenGL ES in hardware mode. Also the 3.1" display only has
a 65k colors. This phone only good for checking email,lol

Few useful function in Lazarus

2011-07-04T16:42:00.002+03:00

I randomly found and very easy function to copy files for "Save as..." function.
Simply include "ProjectTemplates" unit from lazarus\components\projecttemplates\ folder.

Function SimpleFileCopy(Const Source,Dest : String) : Boolean;

As parameters you need to input what file to copy and define where to copy. It returns true if file copying
was successful.

Also I needed AnsiCompareString or CompareString from Delphi in Lazarus,to check if TListBox has same items. Luckily the Lazarus has alternative better method for comparing two strings.

function SameText(const s1,s2:String):Boolean;

List of Android Game Engines

2011-06-29T20:06:00.001+03:00

I was currently searching for these lately and made a quick list which engines are worth your attention.

LibGDX - Java game engine for mobile and desktop game engines. You can make both 3D and 2D games and it's cross-platform so you can make games for all major systems Linux,Windows and MacOS . More information on official page http://libgdx.badlogicgames.com . It's free for commercial use.

WiEngine - a powerful game engine based on Cocos2D. The main website is in Chinese,but examples should help you get started. You can also check the WiAd which helps to add in game advertisements and earn revenue. You need to register to download the SDK.

Papaya Game Engine - This one looks really easy and promising engine. You can also download additional SDKs for in-game payments and online score boards. Quote from original site:

The Papaya game Engine was written entirely in C and is much faster than Java based game engines. We've benchmarked our engine against the competition to make sure it outperforms them all.

Games can be written for Papaya game engine in Python or ActionScript, making it simple for any experienced engineer to start building games immediately.

AndEngine - Has a nice community forums and great tutorials section to get started. Licensed under LGPL and written in Java. Here is some features:

Android-Optimized
Android 1.6 Compatibility
SplitScreen
Network Multiplayer
Live-Wallpapers
MultiTouch
Physics-Engine (Box2D)

You can look in Android market for a demo application.

E3Droid - 2D OpenGL Game Engine. Supports LUA,JavaScript scripting and other goodies.

Here is some more engines to try:

Candroid Cocos2D-Android Android 2D Engine ANGLE Android 3D Engine Rokon Alien3D

PyGame for Android Loon Simple Doom Engine for Android JGame YoghurtGum Android Flixel

Catcake

Just use the one that fits all your needs ;)

Cross compiling from Windows to Linux (QT Interface)

2011-03-23T00:59:00.000+02:00

Again I was if I can make a Linux executables without switching back into my Linux Mint 10 or using virtual machine. This time I decided to play around with QT interface. First I needed to rebuild LCL for QT Interface and set project to use QT widget set and Linux i386 architecture.
Since I got my Linux partition working on Windows using awesome Ext2fsd tool that lets you mount EXT2/EXT3 partitions on Windows systems I just needed to set a path to Linux lib folders /lib/ and /usr/lib/ in Lazarus project path
field. But if you don't have Linux on your machine you may come to really time consuming way to build Linux executables.

Step by step

1. Download the CodeTyphon and and using "setup.bat" or CodeTyphon Center choose
the Remove and Build ALL (FPC + Lazarus). This should setup the brand new IDE for your development.
2. Using CodeTyphon Center build a cross-compiler. Select from menu
Cross-build->Free Pascal 32bits->FPC32 build cross element i386-linux
After completing this step now you need to build Lazarus cross element.
Select from menu Cross-build->Lazarus32 build cross element i386-linux
3. If everything went smooth now you should have a cross-compiler. Start the Lazarus IDE and
make a simple application or open some sample from Lazarus examples folder.

Yeah very random test app... :)

Now build the LCL with QT widget set. To do this in Lazarus menu select Tools->Configure "Build Lazarus"... . In a opened window select:
Profile to Build: Build LCL
LCL Widget Type: qt
Target OS: Linux
Target CPU: i386
[x] With Packages.
Leave all other options default and press Build button.

4. From the Lazarus IDE menu select Project->Project Options... or just press CTRL+Shift+F11
In the Build modes options select macros LCLWidgetType to qt

I was using Lazarus 0.9.31. The macros might not be available in an older versions.
You may need to find a LCL Widget Type option in another options page...

At the same window, in a compiler options in a Code generation page you need to set the Target Platform. Simple from drop-down menu select Target OS : Linux and and Target CPU family: i386.

5. Now you will need to have a lots of Linux libraries to link an executable. Here is the whole list that may need to download from http://packages.debian.org or http://packages.ubuntu.com . Or maybe a friend with Linux can send it to you. After downloading all those libs create the folder "LinuxLibs" or etc. and add it to project paths. Here are all the libs you will need from /lib/ and /usr/lib/ folders.

ld-linux.so.2 libogg.so.0 libsndfile.so.1

libaudio.so.2 libpcre.so.3 libsqlite3.so.0

libc.so (copy and rename libc.so.6) libphonon.so.4 libstdc++.so.6

libc.so.6 libpng12.so.0 libuuid.so.1

libdbus-1.so.3 libpthread.so.0 libvorbisenc.so.2

libdl.so.2 libpulsecommon-0.9.22.so libvorbis.so.0

libexpat.so.1 libpulse-mainloop-glib.so.0 libwrap.so.0

libFLAC.so.8 libpulse.so.0 libX11.so

libfontconfig.so.1 libQt4Pas.so (copy and rename libQt4Pas.so.5) libXau.so.6

libfreetype.so.6 libQtCore.so.4 libxcb-atom.so.1

libgcc_s.so.1 libQtDBus.so.4 libxcb.so.1

libglib-2.0.so.0 libQtGui.so.4 libXdmcp.so.6

libgobject-2.0.so.0 libQtNetwork.so.4 libXext.so.6

libgthread-2.0.so.0 libQtWebKit.so.4 libXrender.so.1

libICE.so.6 libQtXml.so.4 libXt.so.6

libm.so.6 librt.so.1 libz.so.1

libnsl.so.1 libSM.so.6

And in the end you should get something working

Same app running on Linux Mint 10.
Goodluck with having fun :)

Game Engine for Netbooks

2011-03-01T23:28:00.000+02:00

I found a very neat game engine called D2D the main features of it is:

Takes 0% percent of CPU usage (saves battery lifetime when playing unplugged)
Uses DirectDraw which is enought for fast simple 2D games.
Supports PNG
Fully written in C

Here is some simple game made with it:

http://zii-game.blogspot.com/2008/12/mario-demo.html
Only 32kb.
It should perfectly fit small resolutions and I no doubt I may run on old Windows 95 machines. I will play around with later on...

Need a DropBox invitation?

2011-02-05T17:37:00.000+02:00

Looking for a place to share your files online with a friends? I can say DropBox is the best place for that.
It features 2GB of free space and doesn't limit a file size uploads,plus it's so easy to sync files across computers by installing their neat app.

If you want an free invitation just drop me an email:
aliencide (at) gmail (dot) com

With invitation you will get a additional 250mb for your 2gb storage ;)

Lazarus IDE Custom Themes

2011-02-03T18:15:00.002+02:00

Since Lazarus started to support custom themes for source editor I ported a few random themes from
Notepad++ source code editor. I think the best fonts for editor is Droid ones :)

[Download]

Deep Black by Mariusz Kasperkiewicz

Hello Kitty theme

Obsidian theme by Joni Eskelinen

S2DL Game Engine

2011-01-31T22:19:00.000+02:00

Heya,

I recently found an old game engine in my downloads. It's a cross-plaftorm (works on Linux and Windows) and is based on SDL library. Features and easy game states engine and has all functions you need for a 2D PC games.

I just tested and compiled a demo without no problems with Free Pascal 2.4.3 and Lazarus IDE.

Mini game from a demos folder showing the use of game states and collision.
The engine website is no longer available

Here is a download link of 2.0 version made in 2007.
As alternative I would recommend a ZenGL which works on Linux/MacOS and sure Windows. Compatible with Delphi and Lazarus and can be linked statically.

Update Linux Mint 9 to newest Ubuntu 10.10

2010-10-15T17:24:00.000+03:00

The Ubuntu 10.10 is finally here,but I don't see nothing impressing into this release. I only need updated packages like Pidgin 2.7.3,Geany 0.19.1 and so on from Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat.

First we need to open terminal and type:
sudo apt dist-upgrade

And secondly you can try to add a Ubuntu 10.10 repositories into /etc/apt/sources.list using great online Ubuntu Sources List Generator

Open Update-Manager and press Refresh button. You now should get lots of new packages to update.

Also there is alternative way I found on UbuntuRoot.com blog

Open terminal and type:
sudo perl -p -i.lucid -e 's/lucid/maverick/' /etc/apt/sources.list

Now open the Update Manager from Menu -> System -> Update Manager and click the refresh button.

I couldn't install packages due error "Could not apply changes! Fix broken packages first."

If you get this message to simple open deselect packages in Update Manager which is 0 bytes of size. It worked fine for me and I am downloading now a 1251 package from Maverick Meerkat repositories. :)

DevPaks

2010-09-27T21:30:00.007+03:00

I am doing backup of DevPaks that I was downloaded long time ago using DevC++ IDE. You can download some of these from official website. Since a lot of download links are broken I decided to upload all DevPaks I have on my CDs. All of them are really outdated from year 2004-2007. I would really recommend you to update to Code::Blocks open-source IDE. It's a cross-platform and has really nice user interface. There was an unofficial update to DevC++ called wxDevC++ (comes with wxWindows library),but it's written in same Delphi and was crashing a lot since I last time I was using and moving all the toolbars was a really pain. Also I am glad somebody packed MinGW compiler in really handy way. You can grab it from:
http://tdm-gcc.tdragon.net/

Some are with unknown version in the name since I copied directly from DevC++ IDE.

WxWindows.devpak
wxWidgets-2.8.6-msw-static.devpak
Win32API.DevPak
w32api-3.10-1pm.DevPak
Tools.DevPak
smartwin-1.0.1-gcc3.4-1mol.DevPak
SDL.DevPak
SCR-1-1nz.DevPak
RADC++.GuiLlib-1.2.3-gcc3.4.2-2set.DevPak
qwt-20060130-gcc3.4.4-2siomek.DevPak
pthreads_w32-2.8.0-1aj.DevPak
PackMaker.DevPak
OpenSSL.DevPak
OpenGLAPI.DevPak
OpenAL.DevPak
mingw-runtime-3.14-1spec.DevPak
MessageBoxer-1.3-2JDG.DevPak
make-3.81_2-1spec.DevPak
make-3.81_1-1spec.DevPak
libcda-0.5-1mol.DevPak
libbzip2.DevPak
Insight_Source.DevPak
Insight_Binary.DevPak
ImageLib.DevPak
GTK.DevPak
GLibCHelp.DevPak
glfw-2.5.0-1fun.DevPak
gcc-objc-3.4.2_20040916_1-1spec.DevPak
gcc-g++-3.4.2_20040916_1-1spec.DevPak
gcc-core-3.4.2_20040916_1-1spec.DevPak
FreeImage.DevPak
FLTK2-r5783-1pkz.DevPak
FLTK.DevPak
fltk-1.1.7-1cyd.DevPak
eFLTK.DevPak
Dscan.DevPak
DevCppHelp.DevPak
databaselayer-1.5-gcc3.4.5-1fiammy.DevPak
CryptoAPI.DevPak
Cal3D.DevPak
binutils-2.17.50_20060824_1-1spec.DevPak
allegrogl-0.2.5_CVS_20050308-1mol.DevPak
Allegro.DevPak
allegro-4.2.2-1len.DevPak
AKRip.DevPak

Some also has mirrored some of the packages and I am sure you can easily search for those in Google.
Also check out this mirror:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/devpaks/files/

Android On VirtualBox

2010-09-09T23:17:00.002+03:00

The official Android emulator based on QEMU is really slow and makes me depressed, when it comes to testing real apps. So for that reason I was quite away from testing games development on this OS. Even Windows Mobile 6.5 emulator booted much faster :) Luckily I randomly found a Android-x86 project which tries to port Android for native desktop computers and laptops. You can find some screenshots on their Picasa web album.

I was supper happy since after booting Android from virtual ISO image it loaded maybe 15x faster
than on standard emulator. I was testing older Android-x86 1.6-r2 version which doesn't worked on a real PC.

Update: I found another ISO for testing android-x86-eeepc-2.0.iso
which worked just fine on a real PC,but pretty slowly on my widescreen resolution. I decided
to keep using it on VirtualBox emulator only. Lets hope soon to have Android on native x86 architecture Netbooks and UMPC.

More info:

Looking Forward to Android $100 Laptops
and something random: Android powered Washing Machine :)

Running Android on VirtualBox on meh Linux Mint 9.
Now let's have some fun with apps development :)

Do More With 7-Zip

2010-07-21T18:25:00.000+03:00

7-Zip is one the best freeware and open source compression utilities so far. I use it a lot when I don't want to install a software and poop into my registry. Plus it works with any EXE and DLL file so you can look inside the program resources. Also I randomly figured that new 9.15 Beta and older 9.x series works nice with extracting SWF and FlashVideo files.

The comments always helps to see what's inside. After extracting a audio file it was a acc file inside,but no player worked with it. Somehow headers was messed up. But the behind.audio.flv worked just fine. The easiest way to extract audio from Youtube movies is download FormatFactory . It's freeware and the best converter I found. Works just fine when you need to rip a DVD into single iPod video file.

Extracting textures and music resources from Flash games:

Simple download a SWF file and open with 7-zip.

All you will see is the one single file that we need to extract again. Open the Flash file with tilde in 7-zip and you should see something like this:

That's all. By the comments you can easy figure out where is JPEG image and MP3/WAV sounds. :)
If you want more tools for editing and creating Flash files take a look at these resources:
http://swftools.org/
http://www.osflash.org/
http://www.libming.org/
http://www.flashdevelop.org

Seamonkey 2 Dark Theme

2010-07-06T02:13:00.000+03:00

I noticed there is a just few themes for SeaMonkey . This browser isn't very popular since it's bit lighter FireFox version and I mainly use it for editing web pages using Composer editor inside this browser. I hope somebody will make a Personas soon for it since those are much better than real themes and easier to make. They get a thousand of downloads just in a first weeks.


I only changed the main navigator screen and main icons. :P Feel free to edit and see how it was made it.

Download it from here

Cross-compile From Windows To Linux via FPC

2010-06-18T20:46:00.002+03:00

Since the past time I wrote this I was only able to compile boring console programs and Free Vision examples. Now I would love to share a detailed tutorial how to compile Linux applications from Windows using CodeTyphon IDE.

Cross-compiling using CodeTyphon:

CodeTyphon IDE from PilotLogic includes all cross-compilers (NDS,GBA,FreeBSD and so etc. ). It weights more than 200mb,but it is worth to download it since it includes such good components like GLScene,ZEOS Access,AGG and lots of OpenGL,DirectX examples in CodeOcean folder.

After downloading extract the archive and run CodeTyphon_win32.exe .
From menu select CodeTyphon - > Remove and Build ALL (FPC+Lazarus)

It may take a while after program will build you a fresh IDE and FPC from sources. Another step is to build a crosscompiler. From main menu select Cross-Build -> Lazarus32 build cross element 1386-linux .

Wait a while after you will get all LCL and FPC units compiled for Linux i386 system. After getting done this step now you can run the Lazarus IDE by clicking Lazarus icon in the CodeTyphon Center toolbar.

Lets start some testing :)

You can open a simple Lazarus example or write some small demo program. I made just a simple program with a message box.

Boring tiny test app with just a PNG image and message box.

After you made some demo application go to Project - > Project Options... or simply press Shift+CTRL+F11. In the Compiler Options you need to specify a Libraries (-Fl) path. You need specify a folder where you are going to store Linux libraries with .so extension. Just simply click on the "..." button and press the Browse button in opened window. Make a new folder where you are going to put a Linux libraries and select it.

Now comes the hardest part. To compile a Linux programs you will need some native libraries from it. After trying to copy missing GTK 2 libraries from secondary Linux partition I figured that some libraries were way to new for cross-compiler. Luckily I found a old Kubuntu 6.06 Live DVD. The full list of what libraries you exactly need is available up here. As I remember I copied a Pango 1.0 , ATK 1.0, LibGTK2.0, LibGlib2.0,LibCairo2-dev_2.18.17,LibSelinux,LibPNG12 and LibC6-dev_2.3.6,LibX11-6.1 packages from DVD disk and was also using a Ubuntu 10.04 Linux partition in Libraries path. You may try to search for those packages in old Puppy Linux repositories . Also have in mind that you might need to rename libraries libatk-1.0.so.0.1114.0 -> libatk-1.0.so.0 .

It may take a really while to search all those libraries. Use Debian and Ubuntu packages repositories to find packages containing the required libraries.


No matter a bit distorted PNG the executable compiled on Windows worked just fine on my Linux Mint 9 (Ubuntu 10.04) :)

If you bother about huge executable you need to uncheck the one debugging option which causes to increase the executable size up to 10 times!
Go to Project -> Project Options... . In Opened window select Compiler Options -> Linking and uncheck the Display Line Numbers in Run-time Error Backtraces (-gl).

Further reading:
http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Cross_compiling
http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/buildfaq
Cross building for Windows Mobile/WinCE
Build Maemo 5 applications with Lazarus

Tools:
PuppyLinux a small (~100mb) Linux distribution that might be installed into USB thumb drive or CF card and used as Lazarus for Linux development environment.
TOP (Tacky Optimizing Puppy) Linux - similar to Puppy Linux,but includes my favorite XFCE desktop shell.

On the weekend I am going to try the arm-linux cross-compiler for Android software.