XZIST.org Blog
http://xzist.org/blog/index.php
]]>Defilter UK Web Proxy network relaunched!
http://xzist.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry090103-153120
The Defilter UK web proxy network has been relaunched for the new year. Each proxy now has a unique theme. Yay. And there is a central hub at Defiltering.co.uk. You can sign up with your email there to be notified of new proxies.
They're also hosted on a shiny new dedicated server. So they can no longer be suspended for using excess CPU as on a VPS.]]>Vocaroo voice recording widget now in French!
http://xzist.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry081203-231800
In other words, it's making the world a Better Place.
If you want the widget translated into some other language, just contact me and provide the translations for the following English words/phrases:
Connecting... Record Stop Play Record Again Listen Powered by Vocaroo
And I'll see what I can do.
Byes :)]]>Downloading voice messages from Vocaroo
http://xzist.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry081115-224858
Just record a message in the normal way using Vocaroo, and under the "send to friend" and "post on the internet" buttons a link should appear to download the message.
Currently messages are converted to WAVE format (.wav) as that is probably the most widely supported. WAVE isn't compressed but since Vocaroo is only intended/useful for short messages it shouldn't be too bad. Ogg or FLAC or something could be added pretty easily. But since nobody cares why bother :) And Vocaroo aims to be simple to use; too many options might be confusing.
Previously created messages can be downloaded too of course...
Byes :)]]>Evil Wordstealers
http://xzist.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry081112-221655
Many many eons ago, in the days of old when the internets were still lined with tin foil and held together with bailing twine, I was a young and curious student suffering the terrors and tribulations of the Education System. During my secondary imprisonment I happened upon a rather wonderful invention called the computer, and shortly afterwards encountered the internets and the many dark and devious delights within.
After taking a few wrong turns, and encountering a few shady characters, I soon developed an unhealthy fascination with murder simulations. To my family's growing horror, this did not stop at simple participation, and within my cold heart sparked a burning desire not just to act in these disgusting charades, but to spawn my own. I nurtured this desire. I vowed to learn the vile art of murder simulation design. I would author a new kind of horror, a violent revenge to be meted at my whim upon the other younglings. I would steal their souls just as my own was being siphoned by the System. Glorious is the hivemind. The circle would be complete and satan would rise again destroying the worlds in fire and blood.
But I digress.
Standing in the way of my progress, reviling my aspirations, was The Web Blocker.
*beep* ...... *boop*
The web blocker (a.k.a. web FILTER) stopped anything with the word "game" in the URL getting through, be it an actual game website or a website about game development. Game dev is a potential JOB, it shouldn't be blocked at schools.
So I made a simple PHP script which acted as a web proxy (at the time I didn't know the term "web proxy", and I have a feeling PHProxy and others weren't around then). I called this "Defilter" and set it up on a bit of free web space I had. I posted on a leet haxor forum about it, and voila, I had some traffic. Then I moved to Defilter.Co.Uk, and also abandoned my own web proxy script in favour of a better made open source one. I get a few pennies from adverts on the website, just enough to cover the VPS it is hosted on.
Blah blah blah.
What I am annoyed about, is that some ugly monkeys have started registering their own web proxies with defilter in the name, which are now coming up when you put "defilter" into Google. I'm not going to link to them as they are evil alien wordstealing scum. But.
IT'S MY WORD! I INVENTED IT!
Go and invent your own words you silly catfishes.
This RANT brought to you today by RantSpielers International (tm), purveyors of whiny pretentious rants since a long time ago.]]>Buy a Christian Pearl Necklace!
http://xzist.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry081103-210246
Gift Of Grace which sells a variety of strange and wonderful delights.
If you're looking for a special thought-provoking treasure for yourself or a loved one, or even that perfect quirky keepsake to slip in your christmas cards, you're in the right place!
At GIFT OF GRACE many of our products are carefully and enthusiastically bespoke, created by the team at our H.Q in Tintagel, Cornwall. Other creations are carefully chosen from our favourite Cornish Jewellery or Gift suppliers!
We hope to expand in the future, so please check back again! At the moment we offer just a small collection, but select, and everything has been thoughtfully designed to inspire, enhance, and max your life...
Your very own symbol of heaven! The Pearl without Price is an adorable and thought provoking gift for any woman. Timeless elegance, with a refreshing twist. You can't go wrong!
So there you have it. Go buy stuff ;)]]>Save the Gurkhas!
http://xzist.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry081025-132117
Please head over to GurkhaJustice.org.uk and support the Gurkha's right to stay in the UK.
You can sign even if you're not British :)
Gurkhas are fighting for Justice. They want the same terms and conditions as their UK and Commonwealth counterparts.
Britain has had no greater friends than the Gurkhas. They have served all across the world in the defence of our Country for nearly 200 years. Over 45,000 died in the two World Wars as part of the British Army. They are still fighting in the British Army today.
You may have seen in the media that the Gurkhas have been fighting in Parliament and the Courts. Step by step, things are getting better - but there is a long way to go.
On Tuesday 30th September, the High Court ruled their treatment had been unlawful in terms of the right to live in the UK if they retired before 1997.
Following that fantastic High Court decision, the Government has to change the law on how it treats Gurkhas. We demand the full, fundamental change in law that will allow all retired Gurkhas the right to live here.
By signing up below you will be expressing your support for all Gurkhas. You will be signing our petition, and we will be able to contact you in the future as we mount the largest ever campaign to get them the Justice that they deserve.
P.S. It's all quiet on the gamedev front :(]]>Vocaroo tip: autoplay a voice message on page load
http://xzist.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry081018-234846
Vocaroo.
When you record a message, you get an embed code like such:
So you can post that in the HTML of your website or blog to display the Vocaroo message player widget. By default, a visitor to your website has to click on the button to play. But perhaps you want the voice message to play automatically, for example as a welcome message for your website.
To do that, see in the embed code the text "autoplay=0" occurs twice. Simple change the number 0 to a number 1 in both places and the message should play automatically when someone visits your page.
:)]]>My game keywords
http://xzist.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry081009-094553
games.
On the one hand my faith is restored in humanity:
"bunny run game" "rabbit games" "3d rabbit games" "games with rabbit"
It warms my heart, so it does.
But on the other hand:
"hit people and kill them game" "people commiting suicide" "the bloodiest shooting games"
Not that I can talk of course, having made People Shooter :S ]]>Making education more interesting: learning from the top down
http://xzist.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry080920-144944
Equations of current and suchlike ARE pretty boring, even if you are a maths wizard. A robot that rolls around the floor of its own accord is not.
The nature of nouns, verbs, the rules of grammar, is boring. Reading an exciting novel is not.
If "advanced" is the state you would like to reach, it makes perfect sense to immerse yourself in advanced knowledge from the word go. Even if you don't understand it, it is still exposing and getting you used to these ideas, so they won't come of so much as a shock. Certainly, exposure to the *results* of these ideas (e.g. an interesting robot, a great novel) provides you with the inspiration to gain and learn the knowledge, and instills you with the desire to achieve great things of your own.
So how about teaching from the top down?
For example, in a basic electronics course, don't start with the theories and equations. Instead, take a pre built circuit, that actually does something *interesting*. Perhaps a simple wall following robot. Take apart its systems, analyse them in detail, and learn about the various components with respect to the *interesting* working example.
Spending hours on a single piece of electronics might get boring; maybe learn one part in detail, then move onto another gadget to learn another aspect, with a brief overview of each system.
The basics of anything are generally boring, we don't learn for the sake of learning, we learn to achieve a goal or master an art. A pure focus on the tedious basics can crush creativity and put people off learning.
...
My personal experience: 1) years of school/university (why bottom up learning is often boring) 2) learning in my own free time (why top down learning is interesting)
I'll expand a little more on (2). As a teenager, I wanted to make computer games, and found the idea of robots and artificial intelligence fascinating.
When I decided to make a computer game, I didn't start off by reading about data types, program flow control, complexity theory. I simply searched until I found a computer programming package orientated towards games, dipped into some tutorials, looked at the source code of the included example games, and started MAKING A GAME!
Of course, the computer code I wrote was badly written, the game had bugs, wasn't all that fun, and in some parts blatantly copy and pasted from other people's code. That was only to be expected. But I was learning.
I kept this up for a few years, finding a goal I wanted to achieve, and through the process of achieving that goal I was forced to research and learn new things.
There tends to be a lot of people in the computer industry with similar experiences. I guess because it's quite a cheap hobby: no expensive resources are required to learn computer skills other than a computer (which most people have anyway) and an internet connection (and time!). In contrast, my interest in robotics has not been developed much: servo motors and microcontrollers cost money!]]>Google Chrome problems and first impressions
http://xzist.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry080905-201326
I'm feeling a bit narked today so I think I'll list all the problems with Google's Chrome web browser. Beta is just an excuse, all software is being constantly developed. Otherwise how long has Windows been in beta?
ALL THE PROBLEMS
(those with a strike through have mysteriously disappeared).
- no RSS feeds on the bookmarks toolbar! For me that is a killer feature in Firefox. Maybe they think we should all be using iGoogle?
Side rant: iGoogle is information overload. Too much at once. Also I like to quickly check for RSS updates without leaving my current page.
- once a folder on the bookmarks toolbar has been clicked, expanding the contents, you cannot simply click it again to close it. Doing so only causes it to flicker. Instead you have to click somewhere else in the screen.
- it f*cks up a little with Vocaroo, arguably the most important website on the internet. The recording widget appears higher in the page than it should (obscuring the vocaroo tagline). Yet after clicking once on the page, the widget jumps to its correct position.
- "Error 320 (net::ERR_INVALID_RESPONSE): Unknown error." when I try to access the website Boolean Soup. This loads fine in Firefox 3.
- it won't let me access https://gmail.com, says it's "probably not the site that you are looking for" and is harmful. Firefox however forwards me to the correct place (https://mail.google.com). Maybe Chrome's behaviour is more secure or something?
- the main bookmarks menu is accessed from a button way over to the right. It does not seem inclined to move to the left, however much I shout at it.
- it doesn't seem as adept as Firefox at identifying what is a login box (doesn't always offer to remember passwords). My single benchmark for this claim is logging in to Vocaroo.
- you can't search through saved passwords! Google no searcho! Crazy!
- website login boxes: there does not seem to be an easy way of choosing alternative login details. It only shows the most recent, to get others you have to start typing it. And say you have an account named "dan" and "daniel", it only fills in with "dan", until you get to "dani". After typing "d" it ought to at least give all possibilites.
With Firefox you double click and get a list.
- right clicking to save an image: the destination directory is not remembered. Crazy. This is one niggle I have with a lot of new apps. They are otherwise very useful except they neglect this functionality. Almost as if the developers do not actually use the programs themselves.
An idea: how about remembering the different download directories used for downloads from different websites?
- scrolling through bookmarks with the mouse wheel is quite slow. I have a lot of bookmarks, and I don't remember them all so searching in the address bar isn't going to help. Also the scroll arrow buttons are too small and white to be useful (as in Firefox).
- Why have the different options shown as text in the config menu? It's still a part of the Chrome UI, right? I WANT PRETTY BUTTONS ALL THE WAY DOWN!
I also want the option to have more of those config options displayed as buttons on the toolbar (the address bar is plenty wide enough).
- and what's with a star as the bookmarks item? Oh right, other browsers do it like that. But did you know, the word "bookmark" orginated from a real life object?? Even Safari's "+" sign is more intuitive.
- like Firefox, the "edit bookmark" dialog appears up near the top of the screen next to the bookmark button. I can see why they put it there, but I always expect an important dialog to pop up in the middle of the screen.
For me, editing a bookmark is so rare I fail to see why they bother having that little dialog anyway. I'd rather see the full blown bookmark tree.
- It's currently only available for Vista/XP. A simultaneous Windows/Mac/Linux release would have been nice, and shown they were *truly* committed to open source.
- the close button on a tab is too small! (as is Firefox's). Minimalist doesn't have to == small.
- when viewing a large image, there is no option to fit it to the screen. Right click -> "open image in new tab" sort of does this, but it's not that intuitive, and what if I want to open the image in the current tab?
- Also, scrolling a single large image can be slow and jerky. Although sometimes after a little hard-drive noise, the image becomes lovely and smooth. Some memory management going on I guess.
Firefox 3 handles large images like a dream, with no slowdown whatever.
- Following on from that, when scrolling a large page with several images, the scrolling can jump about, flicking back up to the top of the page. I guess this is again related to some caching or other - after successfully viewing the whole page, it can be scrolled with no problems.
These slowdowns are temporary, and soon disappear, however they ARE annoying, I guess this is also related to their process-per-tab thing they have going on - the slowdowns generally occur for a short while after switching to a new tab.
I've never noticed such slowdowns in Firefox 3. (in FF2, certainly - a large image would cause the entire browser to freeze up).
- it's patronising. It offers to "Help me understand" when a page doesn't load. THAT IS PATRONISING! I cannot explain why.
- it doesn't do that hold-down-the-middle-mouse-button-scrolling-thing. Which is useful for quickly scanning large pages without repeatedly spinning the mouse wheel.
Ahhh. That's off my chest. I feel a little happier now. YAY!
Note: there are obvious reasons for a few of these problems. Some may even be deliberate, for the greater good and the breaking of bad habits. But I wouldn't know, I'm just a stupid user.
SOME NICE THINGS
Now for a few things I like. This list won't be as extensive as the last, my heart just isn't in it. There's nothing so fun as pointing out flaws :'(
+ it's all shiny and slick and smoooooooooth. At least, the UI is.
+ screen space is large. IT'S LIKE A GIANT WINDOW INTO THE INTERWEBS! (sorry Firefox, did you say F11?)
+ tabs at the top with a separate address bar for each. Nice, visually. (although I don't know how it will pan out long term - that's an extra distance to move the mouse when switching tabs).
+ importing bookmarks, passwords etc. from Firefox was straightforward.
+ address bar also used for search; I didn't like that separate-search-box fad.
+ if it's as crash resistant as the blurb says, that can only be good. I haven't used it enough to test that though. And Firefox 3 is crashing a lot less than FF 2, so from a user's perspective it isn't that big a deal.
Anyway periodic state saving (including sessions, editbox contents, text areas. EVERYTHING!) reduces the need for separate processes. Which both Firefox and Chrome do. I haven't tested either's abilities in that respect in much detail though.
+ the website suggestion in the address bar seems a little better than FF. Notably just the domain rather than a full URL is the first suggestion.
CAVEAT: it won't autocomplete if your bookmark for that site started with "www" and you omit that when typing. Also it doesn't seem to cope with subdomains.
+ links opened in a new tab pop up next to the tab that called it. It's nice to have things in order.
+ an incognito mode where no history is saved. I can in fact think of several uses for that. Although how about an Uber-incognito mode, that doesn't allow adding of bookmarks or downloading; anything that might accidently compromise privacy.
OTHER THINGS
Some other features I don't much care either way about, but are probably a Good Thing:
* JS is faster. So, uh, GMail works a little quicker. * drop down history on the back/forwards buttons can be gotten either by holding down the left mouse or right clicking. Actually I think I still prefer FF's way (with the little arrow button).
Random thought: The main reason I use back/forwards history is to remind myself what page is back/forwards before I go there. I rarely use it to jump more than one page away. So how about displaying the back/forwards page title as hover text? (without a delay, too)
FINAL VERDICT
Google Chrome is slick and modern. It has some nice features - but also lacks some, including a few I've come to accept as standard.
My single biggest qualm was the erratic scrolling, presumably caused by images being cached on to the hard drive or something. I guess on a better PC it wouldn't be as noticable.
Yet despite failing in some areas, Google Chrome is strangely compelling. I'm currently browsing with both Firefox and Chrome open.
Oh my.
All it needs to do is synchronise bookmarks with FF. And all other browsers too. A bookmarks standard? Now THAT is something Google should be working on. They claim that Chrome is in the interests of a better web, after all.]]>
