The Workshop has a nice feature called “linked collections” which basically allow you to put all the maps in one collection and all the models into another. You can then add a third collection to link both together. In theory.

Practically this feature does not work in Garry’s Mod, the game processes all items returned from the Workshop API as downloadable content, regardless of whether that’s true or not (hint: if the filetype is 2, it’s a collection, not an addon!).

Being sick of waiting for Facepunch to fix this trivial problem, I figured I could simply rewire the request to another host which will do the pre-processing of collection data for me. The basic idea is that all the contents of collections linked to the primary collection will get “pushed” into the primary collection so Garry’s Mod will be fooled into downloading the contents of three collections “as one”.

Here’s how I did it (warning: Windows only!), I’m sure there are plenty of better ways to go about this:

1. Install Fiddler, enable traffic capture and customize the rules for OnBeforeRequest by adding code like this:

   // Rewrite the Steam Workshop request for getting collection contents to target our emulator.
   if (oSession.HostnameIs("api.steampowered.com") && (oSession.PathAndQuery=="/ISteamRemoteStorage/GetCollectionDetails/v0001/")) {
     oSession.hostname="example.com";
     oSession.PathAndQuery="/steam_collections.php";
   }

2. Create a new PHP script named steam_collections.php on your webserver example.com and edit $process_collection to fit your needs:

   <?php
   
   // Prepare the output header!
   header('Content-Type: text/json');
   
   // Only this collection will be processed, all other collections are passed through.
   $process_collection = '123456789';
   
   $api_url = "http://api.steampowered.com/ISteamRemoteStorage/GetCollectionDetails/v0001/";
   
   // These values will be delivered by srcds's POST request.
   $api_key = $_POST['key'];
   $primary_collection = $_POST['publishedfileids'][0];
   $collectioncount = $_POST['collectioncount'];
   $format = $_POST['format'];
   
   // Must be global so every collection can access it.
   $sortorder = 1;
   
   function AddToPrimaryCollection(&$target_collection, $keys_to_add)
   {
    foreach($keys_to_add as &$key)
    {
    $target_collection[] = $key;
    }
   }
   
   function GetCollectionDetails($collection_id, $is_primary_collection = false, $process_children = false)
   {
    global $api_url;
    global $api_key;
    global $collectioncount;
    global $format;
    global $sortorder;
   
    $final_data = array();
   
    $post_fields = array(
    'collectioncount' => $collectioncount,
    'publishedfileids[0]' => $collection_id,
    'key' => $api_key,
    'format' => $format
    );
   
    $post_options = array(
    'http' => array(
    'header' => "Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n",
    'method' => 'POST',
    'content' => http_build_query($post_fields),
    'timeout' => 120
    ),
    );
   
    $request_context = stream_context_create($post_options);
    $request_result = file_get_contents($api_url, false, $request_context);
    $json_data = json_decode($request_result, true);
   
    if($process_children)
    {
    if ($is_primary_collection)
    {
   
    foreach ($json_data['response']['collectiondetails'][0]['children'] as $key => &$collection_item) {
    if ($collection_item['filetype'] == '2')
    {
    // Grab the subcollection contents and add them to the mix list
    $sub_collection = GetCollectionDetails($collection_item['publishedfileid'], false, false);
    AddToPrimaryCollection($final_data, $sub_collection['response']['collectiondetails'][0]['children']);
   
    // Get rid of the collection reference
    unset($json_data['response']['collectiondetails'][0]['children'][$key]);
    }
    }
   
    // Now mix the aggregated list of all subcollections with the primary collection
    AddToPrimaryCollection($final_data, $json_data['response']['collectiondetails'][0]['children']);
    $json_data['response']['collectiondetails'][0]['children'] = $final_data;
    }
    
    // When in the primary collection, return the merged data array.
    if ($is_primary_collection)
    {
    foreach ($json_data['response']['collectiondetails'][0]['children'] as $key => &$collection_item)
    {
    $collection_item['sortorder'] = $sortorder;
    $sortorder += 1;
    }
    }
    }
   
    return $json_data;
   }
   
   if($primary_collection == $process_collection)
    // It's our target collection with subcollections, process it!
    $result = GetCollectionDetails($primary_collection, true, true);
   else
    // It's something else... don't bother!
    $result = GetCollectionDetails($primary_collection, true, false);
   
   // Now encode the data back to json and let srcds do it's thing...
   echo json_encode($result);
   
   ?>

3. Launch srcds with the +host_workshop_collection 123456789 parameter and watch the magic happen. The start might take a little longer than usually.

It would be really nice if this would finally get fixed, it has been reported ages ago.

Enter Komodia Relay, a great (and free, to boot!) tool to forward a TCP/UDP port to a different system. The basic idea here is that it works like a proxy, clients connecting to the old server will transparently be proxied to the new one through Komodia Relay.

Usage is outstandingly easy and even under loads of several hundred connections the application still performs beautifully.

If you are more the GUI-oriented type and do not mind to pay for your ride, Network Activ’s AUTAPF might be worth checking out.

With Titanfall being released I have one more game in my Origin library I am probably going to play quite a bit. So I while looking around I found the usual subpar solution of adding Origin.exe as a non-Steam game. Unacceptable.

Thankfully I came across NoFate’s wonderful homepage and his PAR remover. Simply navigate to your Titanfall game directory, make a copy of the original Titanfall.par and upload the original PAR file to NoFate’s PAR remover site. You will receive a new PAR file that will allow you to directly start Titanfall – and use the Steam overlay.

But what about your friends on Origin? They will still see you playing the game, they will still be able to join you – but you cannot use the Origin overlay anymore. Well, that’s a shame but does not bother me as much because most of my friends are on Steam.

If you work with a WebDAV or FTP connection and do not have quotas enabled, WebDrive will, by default, assume a total capacity of 100GB for the drive/connection. Especially if you are moving tons of files, 100GB is nothing and the limit gets in your way.

Thankfully you can set the limit per connection via the Windows’ registry:

• Start regedit
• Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\South River Technologies\WebDrive\Connections\YOUR_CONNECTION_NAME
• Set the QuotaMB key from 102400 to something else, i.e. 1024000

After disconnecting/reconnecting, the new limit should show up. Cool stuff.

As it turns out he was right. While I was busy replacing obscure hardware, sniffing through HCLs and tinkering with different OpenSolaris’ upgrade paths (side note to myself: Never again upgrade to Solaris Express, go with OpenIndiana!), he called the manufacturer’s tech-support and was good to go.

Almost a decade later I am older and (arguably) a little wiser now. To replace my patchwork Solaris file-server I decided to go with something pre-made: The Synology DiskStation 2313+.

On paper it does everything I need:

• Comes with 12 hot-swappable 3.5″ SATA disk bays
• Small, non-rackmounted form factor suitable for storage in offices
• Supports growing the total volume by replacing a number of disks (combination of lvm/md)
• Supports encryption (Note: Only via SMB, no support for encryption via NFS!)
• 2x 1GB Ethernet ports (LACP supported)
• Support for Infiniband-based expansion with a second unit, giving me a [theoretical] total of 24 bays
• Intel x86 architecture system with 2GB of memory (can be upgraded to 4GB)

The base unit without any disks set me back 1200 EUR. Instead of continuing the tragic history of getting the largest consumer hard-disk I could find, I opted for longevity by choosing 12x Seagate Constellation CS 2TB drives, giving me 18GB of usable storage in a SHR2 RAID6 configuration. The disks set me back another 1200 EUR, an investment well worth it (I hope?).

So the first conclusion we can draw here: If you want to fully use the DS2413+, it’s not a very cheap device.

The build-quality of the device is pretty nice with no cheapo plastic parts on the exterior. The disk trays are well made, have no splinters, rough edges or deformations so disks slide right in and sit on a nicely padded base.

Synology ships the DS2413+ with a number of stuff; the only noteworthy being the included ethernet cable: A 2m CAT5e cable – haven’t seen one of those in years.

The disk bay can be locked with one of the two included keys. There is no way to lock individual disks, only the entire bay.

After starting the DS2413+ for the first time it needs to install the operating system, Synology’s Linux-based “DSM”. Installation is simple, browse to the DS2413+’s IP-address and follow the web-based wizard which will download the newest DSM automatically. About 10 minutes later the device was online.

You can configure the entire device through a nice-looking web-interface. DSM takes some strong cues from OSX in terms of it’s UI design. If you have ever used a Macintosh with OSX you should have no problems finding the options you want.

Synology gives you the option to install additional packages to extend the functionality of your NAS. Unfortunately all packages get installed onto your storage pool, so when you swap all disks, the packages will be gone. This is a major problem for me, the DS2413+ does not have a dedicated system drive.

The packages range from useless stuff like cloud-backup or media-streaming to Python, Perl or Java. You can install a LAMPP stack on your NAS if you wish to do so. Honestly, this looks more like a gimmick than a really useful feature, especially considering the Linux flavour on the DS runs a bare busybox with a few additional binaries.

The volume management is where things get interesting. Since this is a Linux system, there is no ZFS. Surprisingly, the only file-system supported by DSM is ext4. There are some HFS tools installed as well but they are useless for my use-case and I did not spot any option to create HFS+ volumes.

The DS2413+ supports all common RAID levels and sports it’s own lvm/md-based “SHR” RAID level which allows for dynamic growing of volumes.

I hope that the introduction of DSM5 in January 2014 will bring the option to migrate to btrfs. I enjoyed the option to snapshot file-system states and it has come in handy several times before.

Network performance is okay. LACP works, the setup is a little bit weird and throws away the first ports configuration instead of using it as the aggregated adapter’s configuration, though. It may just be a Linux thing.

SMB2 performance seems to suffer quite a bit when the device is busy, FTP and/or WebDAV do work fine in these cases. NFS works – except on encrypted folders. There are no SMB-to-NFS permission problems.

When changing SMB or NFS options, the DSM will restart all sharing services, meaning that if you change an SMB option and have a client connected via NFS, the client will be disconnected as well. Meh.

So, am I happy to have this device or would I recommend to roll your own build? Simply put: I am happy. There is much to see and tinker with, I have not mentioned any of the energy-saving options or the sound-levels of the device. Both are great.

There are a few nitpicks but the overall build-quality and software is fantastic, making the device easily usable for all target-groups. The option to extend the DS2413+ with another unit via Infiniband is a great idea and hopefully the extension unit will still be for sale in a few years.

Whether you are a passionate home-user with hunger for storage or a small business unwilling to get a rack, the DS2413+ is worth your attention. Otherwise there are plenty of great rack-mounted options for the same price that do the same.

To circumvent this behaviour, add the following lines to your ut2004.ini:

[FireWall]
IgnoreSP2=1

Thankfully Battlefield 4 can be reset to English in numerous different ways. You have probably read about deleting the unnecessary extra locales (everything under Data\Win32\Loc that does not start with en*) but unfortunately these files will be restored on the next patch.

A much better and less intrusive way is available by altering your registry:

1. Start regedit
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\EA Games\Battlefield 4
3. Set the “Locale” to “en_EN”

This should work on every localized version and teach the game some manners.

Now I could do this with Windows’ own task scheduler but I would have to write either a vbscript or a batch file to specify the details. Performing a dry run also sucks. Apparently there’s no dedicated software that gives a new “Schedule Move” or “Schedule Copy” context operation (hint: I’ll develop one once I have beaten Grand Theft Auto V) for quick use, so I started experimenting.

It seems the amazing SyncBackSE fits the bill. I already own a license for this great piece of wizardry to perform sync operations between multiple machines and backup my files. Turns out you can configure a new, one-time job to be your scheduled file mover:

1. Create a new backup profile and choose the directory above the one you want to move.
2. Choose “Select Subdirectories and Files” to specify the directory/directories you want to move.
3. Now select your target directory.
4. Add a schedule
5. As a condition set “Move file to target”

SyncBackSE will automatically move your file, produce a nice log for you to review and even allows for a dry run.

When I got my Hauppauge PVR2 GE Plus it only came with component multi-av cables for the Playstation 3. “Big deal”, people say, “you don’t see the difference on YouTube anyway.”

That may be true if you play Battlefield or Call of Duty all day. However I almost wanted to cry when I saw my glorious Playstation outputting mushy pictures…

(It’s Jena-san from Planetarian, I’m sure!)

As this small video should demonstrate there are quite a few differences, starting from the foggy picture to the blurry outlines to the ashen white color to the strange color impacts. Simply put: Playstation 2 era quality.

My advise: Grab a simple HDMI-to-DVI adapter cable, one of those DVI+Toslink-to-HDMI converters and output beautiful, sharp material. Even if you think the quality won’t be visible after your post-processing, it is still visible on your own television set during your recording, at least.

Since I’ve changed my workflows and my software stack around a bit in the past few months, here is a small look at how I work. I am not suggesting this setup is generally awesome (because it is clearly not) but at least it’s a solid, mostly software-based foundation.

I’m not the average player who simply streams his progress. I am too lazy for producing a continuous series of videos. Another problem is that gameplay is – in my opinion – only interesting at 720p and/or higher resolutions. Unfortunately, due to the poor cut-throat politics of the German Telekom, it is impossible to get proper broadband internet access. I have to put up with ~100 kiloByte/s upload and mere 10 Megabit/s downstream. The best I can manage with that is 480p with about 700-750kbps video data and 96/128kbps AAC audio.

However, I do want to be able to record in high-definition anyway. Ideally I record in 720p@30 and stream in 480p@30 – in realtime, that is. Technically this should not be an issue, my computer supports Intel Quick Sync so I could (in theory) encode my local high-definition copy of a video without suffering any performance penalty. I specifically mention “in theory” because reality leaves me in despair.

In the past I have used Dxtory and Xsplit to stream. Dxtory can output data to both file and a pseudo-camera. The camera output could then be used in Xsplit to stream in 480p. Unfortunately Dxtory does not give any specific resolution details to it’s camera output so the content is always 4:3 and blurry as hell in Xsplit. That may be an acceptable short-term solution for 480p crap quality but no keeper. Another bummer is that Dxtory does not make use of Quick Sync. The same is the case with Xsplit (except when doing local recording – which renders the entire feature moot).

I also want to mix several input sources (like multiple webcams, microphones, my Hauppauge PVR2 plus local media files [avi, mkv] etc.) so my choices are rather limited. Again, I use Xsplit as my weapon of choice here. I have tried Open Broadcaster Software and while the software did perform well, the user-experience and some kinks with capturing DirectX and OpenGL surfaces once again left me in despair. Capturing an exclusive madVR surface is impossible with OBS in it’s current state, there is flickering all over the place.

So yeah, Xsplit it is for preparing and switching stages. Starting with Xsplit 1.3 it has also become a useful tool for local recording due to Quick Sync support. Again, I could use OBS here or even Mirillis Action! but I already own an Xsplit license and there’s too little difference in the output to warrant extra software setup.

As mentioned before I use a Hauppauge PVR2 Gaming Edition Plus device to capture HDMI and Component material from my Xbox360, Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii and Playstation Portable. It works fine, the quality is acceptable, even if the blurry Playstation 3 component output makes me cry. One little thing has to be noted: The PVR2 has a streaming lag of about 3750ms.

It would be rather ugly to have commentary about 3-4 seconds early, so I manually keep my microphone input in a 3750ms Virtual Audio Cable repeater buffer that also allows me local playback in realtime from my line-in while adding latency to the audio data for use in Xsplit. It’s a great piece of software, I’ve fiddled around with VB-Cable before but VAC is just a much better experience for me. Your mileage may vary, especially since my  requirement here is inducing latency while most people want to reduce latency.

So, what’s left to do? Well, I still need to get a proper microphone that does not sound like I’m trapped in Buffalo Bill’s basement. I also need an additional, dedicated SSD for dumping the video data. And yeah… proper upstream – the one thing I will never get.

In short:

– Dxtory for capturing “strange” sources
– Hauppauge PVR2 for capturing consoles
– Virtual Audio Cable for mixing, splitting and postprocessing live incoming audio data
– Xsplit for bringing all sources and media together

I am not saying that the software listed above is perfect or the best there is. God knows Xsplit is far from perfect and OBS shows SplitMedia Labs who is boss in some departments (and no – “having more features” is not a good excuse for having the world’s slowest UI or not implementing features supported by libx264 [like OpenCL]). But my workflow could be a lot more miserable, so I guess this could pass as a recommendation.

The reason I decided to shell out the 25$ for the tool is because it just works. No bells and whistles, no stupid, overloaded crap UI. Select a few sources to monitor, define your rules, done. File Juggler will automatically keep watch of the files and move, delete, rename or extract them when the rules apply.

In the current version 1.3 you cannot move entire folders around, unfortunately. So if I wanted to move .\a\b to .\c\b the files from .\a\b would end up in .\c\. Fortunately the developer behind the application is already working on folder operations for version 1.4, so I have high expectations .

Different PHP versions, lots of TCP and Wincache tweaking – no cigar. What could possibly cause the server to wait for about 8 seconds to render a simple WordPress front page?

The answer puzzled me: localhost.

Due to the IPv6 address of the machine, some kinky routine preffered the IPv6 address over the IPv4 one, causing significant slowdowns on each and every request to MySQL.

After simply replacing “localhost” with “127.0.0.1” in all configuration parameters I got the kind of snappy performance I expected. Crazy stuff.

with blog.tsukasa.eu and redirect requests from tsukasa.jidder.de to here.

That way links won’t be broken and I can finally utilize all the modern shennigans I’ve installed.

Future ahoy!

Edit 2013-06-15: The missing comments from the transition period are also on board now, me hearties!

the trouble starts. Every user with this mod increases the stress on Bitcasa’s web interface considerably due to the unending stream of requests. Now here is where my dilemma starts: I was out to improve the user-experience and show that it does not take much to do so, not to harm the service I want to prosper for years to come. Unfortunately though, that seems to be the case now, making the life of the good folks at Bitcasa harder – not cool. So please understand that I will not offer or work on this modification anymore. I do recommend that if you still use the modification, you should uninstall it immediatly because it will not work as intended anymore; all it will do at this point is lock you out of My Bitcasa for a few minutes due to the number of requests. If you are interested in…

• An infinite queue for your Bitcasa Everywhere downloads
• Automatic login to My Bitcasa
• Tighter integration with 3rd party services
• A more up-to-date Bitcasa client update check (possibly an official announcement for each new release via Twitter?)

…please vote for these features on the official feature request section! The more votes a feature gets, the better! If a feature is not feasonable you will receive official word on why it will not make the cut. Also consider voting for the addition of some kind of file-download extension to Bitcasa’s API, giving third-party developers more freedom to interact with Bitcasa without having to play the “middle man” for file caching. Again, sorry to everyone at Bitcasa for the inconvenience caused and sorry to everyone who came here expecting a turbocharger for their Bitcasa Everywhere!

Paypal gets the one thing right about payment online: Don’t allow charges without user authorization. That’s where credit-cards fall short, in my opinion.

Needless to say I was quite disheartened to learn Bitcasa only allows credit-cards as their method of payment (although the legal page hinted strongly towards that during beta). Luckily enough, services like Kalixa, Wirecard or Neteller seem to work fine with Bitcasa. While not a perfect solution, this does at least postpone the problem a year for me.

Once again, Wuala gets it right while others seem to fail miserably with the same tools at their disposal: Paypal recurring, Paypal subscription (usable without credit-card) and even Bitcoin are offered as payment options.

this means I can finally get rid of Twitter’s ridiculous amount of spam.

Simply put: I did not care for the service in a long time until I got a rather interesting newsletter from Bitcasa a few days ago, highlighting their new range of clients.

Bitcasa now calls itself the “Infinite Drive”, a clever spin to highlight what their new client is all about. Instead of pestering me with a confusing GUI that makes no sense whatsoever I get what I have always wanted from the service: A Wuala-esque file-system integration via a virtual drive (on Windows).

A client I can understand also means that I finally had a chance to actually use and test Bitcasa. Trying to upload Ubuntu resulted in me having to upload the entire ISO, so unfortunately there seems to be no Wuala-esque pre-upload check for file availability.

Bitcasa gets a big gold star for making the stupid sync/mirror thing the old client did by default an optional feature. This means files I upload will not automatically be downloaded on every connected machine (which, quite frankly, is the only sane thing!).

One gripe I have with this simple new client is that it does not offer to pause uploads. You can either use Bitcasa and it will block your upstream with it’s jobs or you quit Bitcasa and cannot use it.

Bitcasa announced that they will go into paid operation starting early 2013, I’m curious what payment methods they will accept and what payment providers they will work with (hopefuly at least one that does not require a credit-card!).

Bottom line: 10$/month for infinite storage (limited by your very own upstream capacity) is pretty sweet, the new client is a definite improvement over the old trainwreck.

I’m excited to see how this will work out for Bitcasa and whether or not the business model will survive over time. Because that’s what I expect from a cloud-storage provider: To actually stay in business and to keep my files safe. Whether Bitcasa will pull this off… we will see.

This means you can finally get the pack without a credit card now.

In case you don’t know the game: Pochi to Nyaa is a puzzle-game like Sega’s Puyo Puyo; you align coloured “cat blocks” and send them away with a boom – much like Puyo or Tetris. The twist is that you can control how long you want hold off firing the chains. Want a 20 block chain? Do it… or at least try. Big chains send “concrete cat blocks” to your opponent’s field (again, much like Puyo or Tetris).

The game starts off calm und cute but quickly starts biting you in the bottom after the third or fourth round with a vicious AI that retaliates mercilessly.

What makes Pochinyaa great – apart from the gameplay – are the quirky visuals and the incredible soundtrack. In honor of its 10th anniversary I looked for my Playstation 2 version of the game, extracted, converted, tagged and uploaded the music for you.

Nyaa and Pochi, the two mascots of the game

Whoever has the rights for the game now: You really should re-release it on newer platforms, Pochi to Nyaa is awesome and exactly the way a puzzle-game should be: cute as buttons and hard as nails.

Anyway, here is the soundtrack. Thank you ~nya!

Lucky enough that’s where AutoIt comes in handy:

; +--------------------------------------------------------+
; |                                                        |
; | FBA NeoGeo MVS Launcher                                |
; |                                                        |
; | Launches FBA in MVS mode and automatically applies the |
; | last cartridge configuration used.                     |
; |                                                        |
; +--------------------------------------------------------+

Global $executable = "fba64.exe";

If FileExists("fba.exe") Then
 $executable = "fba.exe";
Else
 $executable = "fba64.exe";
EndIf

If FileExists($executable) Then
  ShellExecute("fba64.exe", "neogeo");

  While Not WinActivate("Select cartridges to load...");
    Sleep(500);
  WEnd;

  WinWaitActive("Select cartridges to load...");
  Send("{ENTER}");
EndIf

Simply compile the script, drop it into your FBA directory and pre-configure the MVS slots in FBA. Launch the script afterwards… and yeah, that’s it.

For your convience there’s also a precompiled version available.

Be sure to set the Neo-Geo BIOS to the correct 6-slot system, otherwise you obviously cannot cycle through the games.

The cause could be your module configuration, in my case I had to deactivate the CRYPT module to correct the behaviour as the module seems to block the message from being broadcasted to all clients. Bummer.

• Copy the database and all it’s files (d*, b*, st) to the new location
• Edit the .st file in a text-editor, replace the old path occurences with the new one
• Open a ProEnv prompt and navigate to the database’s directory
• Run: proutil <database name> -C truncate bi
• Run: prostrct repair <database name>
• Check whether all went well: prostrct list <database name>
• If your admin server already knows the database, try to start it: dbman -db <database name> -start

A thing I noticed is the difference in output between dbman and the old Progress Explorer Tool. While the Explorer gives you some meaningful output, dbman often responds with DBMan022 which the Progress Knowledge Base refers to as a database error… duh.

With the advent of technologies like Eyefinity even non-professional users crave for more screen estate – and the industry is happy to oblige. But there’s one big problem: There’s no room left on my desktop. Mobile phones, laptops, trinkets, joypads of all sorts as well as beverages fight for their spots. But hey, what if we could just recycle some of the screens we already have on our desktops?

Enter Maxivista, a software that allows Windows systems to extend their screen estate by utilizing other Windows/OSX|iOS systems’ screens. The idea isn’t new and there’s also a free program called ZoneOS ZoneScreen that basically does the same (minus the OSX|iOS compatibility) plus a few mediocre solutions geared towards tablet/smartphone compatibility.

Papers and tech demos are fine – but does Maxivista really work well in everyday use?

Let me write up front that I tested MaxiVista v4 Mirror Pro which is the latest and greatest version with all the bells and whistles. If it’s not in here, it ain’t there. With a price tag of 99 EUR the software is not exactly a bargain, add a few more Euros and you could get a nice new monitor.

There are a few limitations with MaxiVista:

• Aero will not work while MaxiVista is active.
  I don’t really care for blurred windows and transparency, so I’m fine with this. However – this also means that kinky stuff like overlays or accelerated graphics operations won’t work either. So while you can watch a movie on your host’s screen, you cannot drag the window to a MaxiVista screen and continue; there’s no cpu-based drawing fallback. This means that applications like XSplit will not work on MaxiVista screens.
• You can use a maximum of 3 machines as slaves.
  If I interpret the FAQ correctly each of these machines can have up to 2 screens connected to them, giving you a maximum of 6 additional screens. Personally I wouldn’t exactly call this a limitation since this gives you a lot of extra screen estate to play around with.
• There’s an OSX/iOS version but no Linux/Android port.
  While I understand perfectly well that supporting a variety of platforms can be tricky, I’d really love at least an Android version of MaxiVista.

Bartels Media states these limitations on the MaxiVista homepage, so they don’t come as a surprise and we know what we’re getting into.

MaxiVista features a WDDM driver, enabling the program to work perfectly on a 64bit Windows system and is just so much more comfortable than ZoneScreen. Once the software is installed you can generate a viewer program for either 32bit or 64bit systems. Copy the viewer program onto the target machine (i.e. your laptop), run it and you’re pretty much done, Aero gets disabled automatically – zero configuration is required.

There is one thing that makes MaxiVista absolutely great: There are plenty of compression options to ensure you get the best performance out of your network. Whenever you feel that an applications displays too sluggish you can run an integrated optimization tool that really does a wonderful job of adapting the compression options to suit the application.

In the default settings MaxiVista isn’t much of a killer, this is most apparent when you’re trying to scroll through webpages on a MaxiVista screen for the first time: The scrolling is choppy, there’s tearing and general slowdown. Optimize the application by following the process’ instructions and you will barely notice that you’re working over the network. The screen will get a little choppy if you fill it completely with dynamic content which is expected and still above your average RDP, NX or VNC performance.

The performance and quality is good enough to watch videos fullscreen on a 1680×1050 screen over network in very good quality – if your CPU is powerful enough to handle the decoding in software.

While MaxiVista always gets demonstrated with WiFi (see demo videos on their homepage and on YouTube), I highly recommend a wired connection to get sharp, crisp images.

On the topic of picture quality: There is absolutely nothing to complain about. From your usual JPEG-artifact-ridden compression up to lossless, there is a setting for everyone. I got great results just optimizing for Google Chrome with great sharp fonts and bright, vibrant colors that do not bleed into neighbouring areas.

One thing I noticed during my test period are some infrequent crashes on the viewer. If you opt to install the viewer as a service that’s not much of a problem since all your programs still reside within the MaxiVista screen but annoying nevertheless.

There seems to be some weird outage whenever the resolution on the host machine switches (think: games starting up) that result in the MaxiVista screen losing connection, applications flying back to the host’s screen and immediatly back to the MaxiVista screen. Yuck!

For some reason applications will always start up on your host’s screen and migrate to the MaxiVista one. Again, it’s an annoyance, not a problem.

MaxiVista allows you to hide the expanded screen on a client so you can continue to use the machine. While the idea is a good one it does miss an option to disable the client’s keyboard/mouse and also lacks an option to prompt for a password before hiding the expanded screen.

If you’re planning to get the most basic of MaxiVista’s editions you can stop reading here because that’s all there is to it. The bigger editions come with some sort of Synergy-slash-InputDirector-slash-Multiplicity-esque software KVM feature that allows you to share a single keyboard/mouse plus the contents of your clipboard across multiple machines. While the idea of integrating this feature is a good one, the execution lacks the flexibility of the former programs. An option to switch machines via hotkey is not available, neither is sound transfer to the controlling machine (Multiplicity shows how to implement these features in a sane manner, imho).

Now if you remember the title of the post, you probably wonder when we get to the “Mirror” part. Well, additionally to the main screen-extension and software-KVM feature you also get a small feature to display the contents of your host’s screen on the client. It utilizes the same technology as the screen-extension feature so the image is crisp and the refresh rate is still good. A nifty feature would have been to integrate the option of actually controlling the MaxiVista/host screen from one of the clients (think of it as a reverse KVM) – but sadly that’s not possible, thus making VNC a more affordable and flexible option for these use cases.

Bottom line: is MaxiVista worth the money? The answer is a big “yes” with a small “but”. If space on your desktop is limited or you are under constraints by your device (old laptop or desktop machine) and you keep the limitations of the software in mind you’ll find that MaxiVista is a fantastic piece of software with a few minor annoyances. The extra features you get with Mirror Pro are nice but not really a big deal, especially considering that there are other solutions that outperform MaxiVista in the aspects of KVM and display mirroring. But you’ll be hard-pressed to find a software that works as easy and well as MaxiVista’s core.

If you’re on Linux you’re out of the game. MaxiVista is proprietary software and the protocol is not open.

looking for: Enter Concurrent RDP Patcher. Applying the patch is simple: Download, unpack and run it. Afterwards you’ll need to make a small change to your registry. Navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server

and create/modify the following DWORD value with the value 0:

fSingleSessionPerUser

After a simple reboot you’ll be able to connect to your machine – multiple times. As usual when putting your fingers where they don’t belong, make sure you keep a backup of your original termsrv.dll (can be found in your system32 directory) before getting started.

As with so many other things in life there’s a workaround that sort of works: You can use Dxtory’s virtual camera to capture the window of (for example) MPC – including the already rendered subtitles. That way you can get the subs to show up.

But there’s a problem: The client was made around the year 2000 and Linux has evolved since that time. There are a few guides around to help installing and troubleshooting UT on Linux but I didn’t find them particularly helpful. So

here’s my attempt, maybe some will find it somewhat useful.

Please note that this is specifically for the original version of the game, not the Game of the Year or GOG editions.

What we need:

• An original Unreal Tournament CD-ROM
• The full Loki UT installer for version 436
• The UTG patch 451.

1. Insert the CD-ROM into your drive and be sure to mount it to /cdrom.

2. Install UT by using the Loki installer:

$ export _POSIX2_VERSION=199209
$ chmod +x ut-install-436.run
$ ./ut-install-436.run

If the installer won’t run because you’re on x86-64, simply start it by using ./ut-install-436.run –keep, browse the new ut-436 subdirectory and edit the setup.sh’s DetectARCH to look like this:

DetectARCH()
{
echo "x86"
return 0
}

Other errors can be ignored.

Now install the UTG patch 451 by unpacking it into your UT/System directory.

Open ~/.loki/ut/System/UnrealTournament.ini, find the line:

AudioDevice=ALAudio.ALAudioSubsystem

and replace it with:

AudioDevice=Audio.GenericAudioSubsystem

Now you should be able to start the game by typing:

padsp ./ut

No.

Even if Microsoft decides to scrape .net as their first class platform, there’s still a massive number of projects utilizing it. Heck, Windows Forms was supposed to be dead 2005 and it’s still rocking. And there’s Mono, too.

So why would you think .net is dead?

Admittedly I didn’t really care about lighting in my room until recently, though. With LED lamp prices on the low I didn’t have any excuse to not try a few of the things I always wanted to do anymore and ordered a few items off Amazon. My personal experience with a few pros and cons will be the content of today’s post.

The goal: Having a nice, adjustable illumination for both my display’s back (aka ambilight for cheap people like moi) as well as a bit of dynamic light for my figurine shelf.

The items I ordered off Amazon:

• Philips IMAGEO LightStrip Color, currently selling for about 30 EUR
• Revoltec Backlight Set SMD-15, currently selling for about 33 EUR

Philips IMAGEO LightStrip Color

I like Philips products – at least in general. I’m in love with the LivingColors LED lamp (unfortunately a bit overpriced for what it does…) and wouldn’t want to miss it anymore. The LightStrip Color is – per se – a good product. It’s made out of sturdy, elegant material with a nice brushed metal finish. What stands out is the use of real RGB LEDs over 3 single coloured ones set to a group, so the colors are consistent on every position of the strip. The cable system seems smart to me, you can remove the end of each LightStrip to connect either another one or a cable. The colors look crisp and there’s no problem with the brightness.

However – and this is a big fat “F” like in “what did they think when they fscking made this?” – there are a few caveats. The LightStrip comes with an AC adapter – but the cable is ridiculously short. To make matters worse, the control unit for power and color are set about 15cm after the AC adapter itself. A setup like that makes it hard to use i.e. power-plugs in hard-to-reach positions. Another big fat “booh” goes to the missing color mixer – it’s either the fixed set of colors, the rainbow mode that cycles through all shades of beautiful colors or “off”. Same goes for the non-available dimming.

Revoltec Backlight Set SMD-15

The Revoltec set sets out strong by giving you a remote control and two strips right out of the box. It lets you mix freely, you can set colors for either all strips or cycle through them, there’s a rainbow mode, dimming, profiles and a sleep timer. The cable lenghts are great and allow for complex setups.

Although the strip is rather plastic-ey it works very well. Connecting multiple strips works over a USB hub (included), so a star-structure is imperative. All these great features packed into 32 EUR? How does that work? Well, instead of using RGB LEDs like Philips, Revoltec uses a setup of red, green and blue LEDs and mixes them through PWM. The colors do look great but of course – depending on the position on the strip – the results vary. This isn’t much of a buzzkill, though.

The verdict

Despite the somewhat cheaper LEDs I would definitely recommend the Revoltec set. It’s extendable up to 6 strips and controlling them is easy and fun. You can’t go wrong with 32 EUR and you get quite a lot of value for your money. I’d say this set is ideal for backlighting your displays – if you want to showcase figurines in good light the 3-LED mixing gets in the way.

The Philips product suffers from several inconsistencies, missing features and incompatibility between their own product series but stands strong with the great quality and components.

Which one you choose for you is probably a matter of taste and/or application. If you want to have a clear illumination, there’s no way around RGB LED-based solutions. For display backlights this doesn’t really matter.

It’s a nice change from the usual Project Diva on my PSP or PS3, so I gave it a go. The only problem after following the Windows 7 setup instructions in the wiki: Still no video.

The solution is simple: I have the Haali Media Splitter installed and had it set to use a custom media type format for h.264. Simply go to the Haali options, set the value to “No” in the options and you’re good to go.

Unfortunately this can backfire sometimes. As a Linux user I currently don’t get hardware-accelerated decoding of video with the stable version of the Flash plugin Chrome ships.

Reading up on the topic I found the usual symlink tips that I believe are not the ideal solution. A better one is this:

• Install your own choice of Flash plugin (for me it’s 11.2 at the time of writing)
• Go to about:plugins
• Expand the “Details” on the right side
• Scroll down to the Flash plugin and disable the very first entry
• Restart Chrome and enjoy

This way I can still maintain my own Flash version with full hardware-accelerated video-decoding while having a safe fallback in Chrome in case the beta goes haywire. Cool stuff.