Category: Technology

Backporting D2K Driver from Misfit MAME to AdvanceMAME

19 Feb 2009 · Technology No comments

I have an arcade cabinet that runs AdvanceMAME 0.106. My arcade cabinet has an arcade monitor in it and AdvanceMAME is the only software I have found that can recreate the arcade games with pixel-perfect accuracy on my monitor. Unfortunately, AdvanceMAME is no longer in active development, although there was a recent bugfix release.

I am trying to use the source from Misfit MAME 0.127e which supports Donkey Kong II: Jumpan Returns (or d2k for short) but the changes in MAME are somewhat drastic and I’m having trouble coming up with the appropriate code to make the new dkong.c work in the old MAME environment. I will keep trying, though, because it would be amazing to get it running on my arcade cab until I can afford a real Donkey Kong machine to run D2K on.

Who knows, maybe once I understand the code a little bit better, I might be able to make some real contributions to MAME or possibly fix some buggy drivers in AdvanceMAME 0.106.

New Site Migration Successful

17 Jan 2009 · Technology No comments

As Godaddy economy hosting was rather slow, albeit inexpensive at only $3.95/month, I was eager to find a faster service, if it were economical. Alex called me up near the beginning of the year with news that DreamHost was doing a major deal on 2 years of hosting. For about $20 I got two years unlimited everything! One of the biggest advantages other than speed on DreamHost is that I have SSH access to my site. Another great addition is that I can now use scripting languages other than PHP.

There may still be some rough edges on the blog now that I’ve got it moved. Please let me know if you find any broken links or other problems.

Searching a Freecycle Mailing List with Gmail

18 Oct 2007 · Howto, Technology No comments

I subscribe to the local freecycle mailing list and have filters set up in Gmail to label all freecycle mail and have it get archived automatically so it doesn’t clutter up my inbox. I don’t check it every day, so I just want to see what’s available right now. Sometimes I also have a specific thing I’m looking for. To help look for these things, I use the following search string in Gmail.

label:freecycle subject:offer subject:-wanted subject:-want subject:-needed subject:-need subject:-taken

You can also add subject:bike and it will only return results that have the word bike in the subject line. This assumes that the label you are using for all of the freecycle messages is freecycle.

Signal Surfing and the Daily Commute

3 Aug 2007 · Technology No comments

For the last couple of weeks I have been listening to the 7th Harry Potter book on an MP3 player in the car. I am using an FM modulator to get the signal from the MP3 player to the car’s speakers. I can choose to have the modulator broadcast on any frequency in the FM band, but it works best if it doesn’t have to compete with other, possibly stronger, signals. The default for an unset preset on the car radio is 87.9 FM, the very low end of the FM band. It just so happens that no local stations use this frequency, so I figured I’d use it.

While driving around, I would experience interference and static sometimes. After a few days of the commute I determined that it wasn’t in any particular location; the static seemed to happen whenever it wanted to. During on of the times when there was static, I tuned my transmitter to another frequency, just to rule out that it wasn’t part of the recording or a defect with the MP3 player. When I tuned my transmitter away I was blown away by crystal clear &em; and very loud &em; heavy metal music. I thought this was an isolated event at first.

I started turning off the transmitter any time I heard static, and in every single case, there was another signal coming from another car! I was astonished. I know there are FM modulators available that work with iPods, but I was amazed by how many people were doing the same thing I was. I wouldn’t think it would be very popular. After a while I deduced that most of the signals came from satellite radio. I guess the little boxes for cars that receive satellite radio come with FM transmitters to make car installation easier. I’m guessing that most of them default to using 87.9 FM.

If you want to try this yourself but don’t want to listen to minutes of noise in between hits (the whooshing sound makes me sleepy) try just switching over to 87.9 FM at intersections. The more cars you can get close together, the greater your chances of picking up on a signal will be. If you get lucky, then the signal will be coming from one of the cars traveling the same direction as you, then you can listen to it until you get too far apart. It can be fun trying to figure out which car is listening to the Howard Stern show. I’m usually wrong, though. I think I know which car it is, then the actual car will turn off the road and the signal fades away.

Have fun, but be safe. Don’t let the random transmissions distract you from your primary driving responsibility.

Firefox in a Single Sign-on Intranet Environment

17 Apr 2007 · Annoyances, Technology, Work One comment

I have been using Firefox for my normal browsing at work, but found it useless for browsing the company intranet because it asked me repeatedly for my network user name and password. There were other annoyances, as well. Many sites using SSL certificates made Firefox flash multiple warning messages because our proxy issues certificates instead of passing them through unchanged. I decided today was the day to fix these annoyances. The Single Sign-on fix only works with the Windows version of Firefox, unfortunately.

To fix the Single Sign-on problem:

  • Type about:config in the Navigation Bar.
  • Type ntlm in the Filter box.
  • Right-click on network.automatic-ntlm-auth.trusted-uris and choose Modify.
  • Type in the domains you want to have access to without typing in your password over and over again. This could include a list like the following: home,portal,service,hr. The format of this list is each domain is seperated by a comma without a space.
  • Click OK.

These changes take effect immediately, so go ahead and navigate to another web site and test out your intranet. If the site asks for your user name and password enter it and try to keep navigating. If any more pages start asking for your user name and password and they are part of your intranet, note the domains and add them to the list using the directions above.

To fix the SSL certificates problem you need to export the certificate your intranet uses with SSL encrypted traffic. To export the certificate in Internet Explorer:

  • Open IE, go to Tools -> Internet Options.
  • Click the Content tab.
  • Click Certificates.
  • Click the Trusted Root Certification Authorities tab.
  • Select the certificate issued by your intranet (look for your company name).
  • Click Export.
  • Click Next, Next.
  • Save the file somewhere and give it a good name.
  • Click Yes, Next, and OK until you get back to the main IE window.

To import the certificate into Firefox:

  • Open Firefox, go to Tools -> Options.
  • Click the Advanced tab.
  • Click the Encryption tab within the Advanced section.
  • Click View Certificates.
  • Click the Authorities tab.
  • Click Import.
  • Choose the file you exported above.

If all goes well you should be able to use your intranet and browse the Internet using Firefox as long as your intranet doesn’t use ActiveX controls.

Enlightening Encounter with E.T.

2 Feb 2007 · Design, Technology One comment

Today I attended a seminar held by Edward Tufte. Edward Tufte, or E.T. as he refers to himself, is the foremost authority on representing data and charting information. He practices what he preaches in his presentation. I enjoyed every minute of the lecture. I was seated to the far right in the very front which made it difficult to see everything he was doing, but his engaging teaching style worked even for people who couldn’t see him very well from their seats.

He used examples from his books extensively to illustrate points and to introduce topics. Four books written and published by Edward Tufte were distributed at the entrance before the talk began. These four books were worth the entire price of admission alone! I can hardly wait to take the time to study them and incorporate their ideas into my own designs.

In one portion of his lecture E.T. focuses on eliminating “chartjunk” and useless clutter from data representations. He is not too keen on the use of PowerPoint with its heavy reliance on hierarchical outlines and the interface’s encouragement to use “bullet grunts” to describe things.

One recent innovation he presents is Sparklines, or small word-sized graphs that can be used any place in a document to quickly convey a lot of data. They are meant to be used just like words. He even suggested that a Sparkline could make a great headline in a news story, especially in the sports section.

This was an all-day event, and afterwards I met up with my wife and some friends at the Old Spaghetti Factory in Phoenix; a satisfying end to an enlightening day.

The Truth about Net Neutrality

17 Dec 2006 · Annoyances, Technology, Video One comment

Unfortunately, it seems that political ads don’t have to actually tell the truth or use pesky facts to convince people of who and what to vote for. Most political topics can’t be accurately explained in 30 seconds or less. I wish the following video were possible to get on television during commercial breaks. If you don’t know what Net Neutrality is or why you should want laws in place to guarantee it then please take the two and a half minutes to watch the video below. The cable and telephone companies, who constitute the majority of high-speed internet service providers (ISPs), want to make more money at your expense. You will probably see commercials that try to convince you that Net Neutrality is bad, but they won’t talk about why, except by trying to scare you by threatening to raise cable and internet bills. These ads against Net Neutrality are nothing more or less than that; they are threats. The user oepapel on a discussion about Net Neutrality at digg.com summed it up best.

The ISPs (the gatekeepers) are basically saying “We want more money. If we can’t charge Google extra because of some Net Neutrality law then we are going to charge you, the customer. So don’t vote for the law and we won’t charge you more. Deal?”

It’s not that they lied, it’s that they skipped right to the end of their thinly veiled threat to raise prices if they don’t get their way. It’s a giant temper tantrum. They see the internet and their customers as an asset to be sold to the highest bidder, only nobody is bidding. None of the content producers are taking the bait. God help us if one of them does because then they ALL will have to in order to stay competitive. Sure, your internet [access] might be cheaper (and that’s a big assumption) but you traded your freedom away to get it. Hope you kept the receipt…

The ISPs are threatening to raise your bills unless they can force other companies with popular websites to pay the ISP just to grant you access to the popular websites. This idea just makes me so angry! And this is only one of the possible misuses if Net Neutrality is not passed into law.


Watch on YouTube

Wii Popularity Exceeds Supply

19 Nov 2006 · Goals, Technology One comment

I thought I might be able to get a Wii on Monday morning, but it is looking less and less likely the more I read online about the popularity of the Wii and the numerous Costco locations that have already sold out. I was banking on the fact that Costco has been overlooked in previous console releases. The Xbox 360 was still easy to get at most Costco locations the day after its official launch. The only way that I might still be able to get one tomorrow is if one of the local Costco stores didn’t receive a shipment on Sunday and get them in on Monday.

If I can’t get the bundle from Costco it’s not the end of the world. I won’t really have much time to play it anyway. I was still excited for it though. The bundle comes with Zelda: Twilight Princess and Excite Truck. It is looking to be difficult to get Zelda anywhere else; everyone is sold out. Message boards online are also saying that the only way to buy a Wii Remote is from Nintendo.com, so it looks like no two-player games for a while. I will post again when I have more information. Here’s hoping that I can find the Wii somewhere tomorrow.

Simple Tip for Better Photographs

9 Nov 2006 · Annoyances, Links, Photography, Technology One comment

I’ve seen it happen so many times, and I always feel bad when it does. Have you ever had a picture of a person where the background is in focus and the person is all blurry? There is a solution, and it’s called focal lock. It’s something that anyone who ever takes a picture with a camera should know about and how to do properly. It’s not a hard thing, but there are still many many people who don’t know about it. I hope the suffering in the world might be lessened by this post.

The Hardest Special Effect to Get Right

5 Nov 2006 · Annoyances, Technology 2 comments

What do you suppose is the hardest thing to reproduce on the big screen or in a TV show? Is it space scenes? I doubt it. They look pretty good to me for the most part except for the sound and the fact that you can’t really see a laser unless it is hitting something (think laser pointers… all you see is a dot). Is it water? Well, it’s challenging, but it usually looks believable. No, I’d have to say that, based solely on the observation of the final product, it would have to be: the personal computer.

You would think that it wouldn’t be too hard to make a computer look and act like a computer on screen. I don’t know about you, but when I bring up a webpage my computer doesn’t make any high-pitched jittery noises. Almost every show I see has the computer make a weird chirping noise every time the screen’s contents change. I think the sound guy just gets jealous or something that he has nothing to do when the computer screen is the only thing in the frame. He looks at it and thinks, “I could make this part so much cooler with this super high-speed cricket noise every time the screen’s contents change!”

My number two complaint is computer technology that doesn’t exists. The worst offender for this sort of thing is the classic blowing up and “enhancement” of a digital image. It gets blown up, the pixels get huge, and then someone says “let me enhance it” or something similar, and the picture magically becomes so clear that what was a giant 4 inch by 4 inch single colored block turns into a license plate with letters that are an eighth of an inch high and perfectly legible. It just creates this detail data out of nowhere. It makes no sense. It happens at least once in almost every crime show.

When will Hollywood realize that everyone uses computers every day and we can see that the computers in their shows don’t act anything like the computers on our desks. It really makes it hard to stay focused and suspend my disbelief when the computers are such horrible actors.