Newsalicious.

I should be working on school shit, but I feel it’s time for an update to the site status: Everything is groovy, bitches.

Some time ago I started work on a Column to showcase all the VB apps I’ve made. It’s not nearly done, yet, and I’ll probably have to finish it during Christmas break, but you can still see it here. By the way, it uses my new background effect, grid transparency: You make a 2x2pix image and make the opposite corner pixels either a solid color or transparent (as in the GIF spec), and this creates an opacity effect of 50%. Very neat, albeit it doesn’t work in some browsers and is CPU intensive. Oh well.

Also, I updated the Flash nav to the left finally. I changed the Columns around, cut a staff listing, and changed the link for Downloads. And, if I hadn’t mentioned it before, I changed the site background–simple effect, reminds me of a cross between the Halo 17 album art and Matrix cover art, yet shrouded in blue. It’s actually an amalgamation of a picture of Beckie and one of Rachael.

I had a vision a few days ago of a mail redirection script, so I made that today. Obviously, there are bots that scan web pages in search of E-mail addresses (the @ and .com, .net, etc. are dead give-aways), so this script makes it impossible to phish any of the email addresses here. That is, once I’ve implimented it throughout the site. Most of the links to mail me are done, already, though. The greatest part about this script is its simplicity and mobility. There are only about 15 lines of code involved and if you change email addresses, you only need to change the script and you will still get email from whatever pages you listed the email on. It’s also easy to impliment the script. Just point to the script URL and add ?u=Username&s=Subject. This script is so awesome, I should submit it somewhere like The CGI Resource Index.

I’ve also been working on VB apps, of course. You can follow the story behind my Rise of Nations Script Maker at RoN Heaven. Then, I’ve made major improvements to the MX510 application-specific buttons tool since the last post about it. It now uses two apps, one to monitor the foreground window in order to notify the Logitech software and another to work with schemes for different apps. Development of this app is slowed because it has problems with starting communications with EM_EXEC.EXE and crashing in new builds. Last night, I spent hours decompiling and trying to reverse engineer EVENTEX.DLL–must have crashed WDSM and VB6 like 20 fucking times. Thought I found the weak spot and changed some assembly code at about hmm…Offset 100206BD (see, it’s burned into my memory, now). Alas, I only succeeded in making the mother fucker delete my Current User registery HKey 😕 . Luckily, I installed DX9.01c the other day and that made a System Restore Point. Microsoft saved my ass that time. Really, though…they should make it impossible to delete an entire registry root key. Anyways, my program is perfectly safe and available at www.snakebytestudios.com/download.php?id=7.

I also fixed the MBM Interval Log upload. Didn’t know the host IP changed.

Later, dudes.

P.S. I’m single. Date me, womens!

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Programming

I’m back at VB and currently working on three programs; one of them being my old ShellMPX frontend for SCMPX. I never tire of its simplicity and exceptional audio quality, but over the course of using my shell, I have come up with a few improvements. But then of course, nobody uses SCMPX. I bet even S. Chiba, the author of SCMPX, uses Winamp or some mainstream crap. Anyways, the second app I have put a lot of time into programming. It’s a utility for creating game scripts for use in Rise of Nations. It’s nearing final release status, but it’s been getting slow. More info can be found in my thread over at RON Heaven.

My latest project is even more practical than the last. After purchasing a Logitech MX510 mouse to replace my first replacement (an MS Intellimouse Explorer 4.0) for my much-loved MS Intellimouse Explorer 3.0, I found it to be superior in many aspects. The only thing that is lacking in the MX510 is the Logitech software to support it. Unlike the MS mouse software, Logitech doesn’t include application specific button settings. This creates a great conflict when switching between playing games and doing work in Windows. There was a fix mentioned around the web to make two registry files for the two differing tasks so that you can run them and then open the mouse control panel briefly for the settings to take affect. I found this to be a clumsy and annoying workaround, especially since being pampered by Microsoft’s application specific settings for a year. I examined the way the Logitech software made use of the registry, and without a second thought, begin writing a program that will appropriately load button settings according to what application has focus. After around 16 hours of programming on two occasions, I have come up with a program that will load button settings from a configuration file in the aforementioned way. I had even tested it in Thief3 and concluded it to work well already. In the game, I bound the keystrokes that were assigned to the cruise buttons to zoom in and out. Immediately after quiting to desktop, I then used the cruise buttons in their normal manner. The only thing left now is to make a pretty GUI, include the rest of the button functions supported by Logitech’s software, and hunt for bugs. For the savvy users that googled their way to this page, you can download this highly alpha version now at http://www.snakebytestudios.com/download.php?id=7. You have to edit the butsets.ini (hehe…that sounds like butt sex 😀 ) file and the only functions available are the ones already listed. Keystrokes settings function and appear exactly the same as in the Logitech software. The [Default] profile is what the program loads when there is no specific profile for an application. App-specific profiles are listed exactly as they do in the GUI, thus [iexplore.exe] would be the heading for Internet Explore settings. Hopefully, I will get some time soon to finish all these programs.

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Feeling like web editing.

Well, just like the title suggests, I’ve been in the mood to edit the site some lately. I’m wanting to add some demo reviews and upload some papers from last year at college to the projects page. Also, I’ve been slowly adding to my old column on single-player game experiences, found here. What I have actually done is make some improvements to the journal system. Specifically, I added the ability for bloggers to block entries from public view (which you can see working in my newest blog) and updated the user list drop-down to work dynamically. Thus, all the old bloggers that have been deleted do not show up in the list. Any other further improvements are pending anybody giving a fuck. I’m generally the only person that blogs anyways and I’m the only one that works on this site.

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Updates.

I found this killer app for multimonitor setups the other day. It’s called UltraMon and can be found here. It has support for just about everything important that ATI’s Hydravision app has, plus a taskbar for secondary monitors that can show only apps currently on the secondary monitor and different wallpapers and screensavers for secondary monitors. It supposedly also supports an unreal number of monitors. Make sure you pick UltraMon up if you’re going dually like I am.

I also updated my CTT and MBM Interval Log CGI in the top frame. When I added readings for the HDD temp, it set all the other readings off. Alright…peace, niggers. I’m out.

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Monitor wishes and video card dreams.

I recently purchased an extremely kickass new video card. It felt like old times again. The excitement of pulling the box out of the shipping peanuts…removing the card from the static bag…immediately modding it…making sweet sweet love to it all night long. No, wait. I guess there’s still something left to be desired 😕 . Anyways, upon removing the video card (an ATI Radeon 9600XT), I got the urge to take massive amounts of picage–especially of the copper ramsinks I added. Additionally, I decided to incorporate the pics into a guide that shows how I, a seasoned gamer and hardware nut (or just a seasoned nut), go about purchasing the right video card and installing it flawlessly. I call it the Novice Guide to Upgrading Video Cards and it can be found here. Previewage:

After the overcoming joy of the 9600’s speed and Pixel Shaders, I went right to the multimonitor support; and all I can say is “wow”. The implimentation of multiple monitors on this card is solid. I can’t see why more people don’t use it. I’m sure a lot of computer users have killer video cards and an old monitor, and it is only for their ignorance that they don’t marry the two. Although I’m still testing the capabilities and flaws, I’m still greatly impressed with the former. You can watch two movies at once (especially useful for pr0n), browse two sites at once, keep important apps always visible, leave a walkthrough open when playing a game, have a developer database (MSDN) open on one and the programming software of your choice on the other. The possibilities are endless. Mostly, I like to keep the apps I frequently check open on the second monitor (emule, AIM, Task Monitor) and reserve the primary for my focus. The only problem I can see is that you can’t move the focus from the primary to the secondary in a game without minimizing the game. If I find a workaround for this, I’ll be sure to report.

The only thing better than multimonitor is having two separate computers and a KVM switch; although, the smoothness of moving across both monitors seemlessly is also very sweet.

I’m out, bitches.

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Tinkle Tinkle Poop Plop

I couldn’t think of a title that wasn’t trite, so enjoy the quote from Beavis. On to business…

I’ve been playing a lot of CS: Condition Zero lately. I flip flop between the botmatches and “Deleted Scenes”, but of course the botmatches are the most fun. The old models suck, though, so I replaced them with some of my better downloaded ones. Just my luck, they didn’t work right. I spent the last two weeks figuring out how to fix them, though. In the course, I devised two methods of upgrading the models to CZ standard, one of which I wrote a program for in VB. As I believe other CZ players will have this problem, I wrote a guide to upgrading CS models. It can be found here.

Other than that, there have been no other updates. Some Columns are still in limbo currently. Given the end of the semester for college and the end of my relationship with Beckie as well as my lack of acquiring a job, I’ll unfortunately have a lot of free time, now 😕 . At least the site will get some upgrades, perhaps even a new graphics set soon. Although, in the gloom of my current love life, the bloody walls are strangely tranquil. Which reminds me: Gandalf and I have recently blogged on our mixed pool of emotions and thoughts. Enjoy.

Peace. Fuck you. Whatever.

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