IE8: Opening Links in New Tabs

Recently I thought I'd try out IE8 after using Firefox for a longtime.

One of the first problems I encountered was whenever I clicked on a page link a new Window would open, which was quite annoying.

I eventually discovered that if I clicked on the Tools menu & selected Internet Options. I could then alter the Tab Settings.

The Two settings which are important here are When a pop-up is encountered: which should be set to Always open pop-ups in a new tab & Open links from other programs in: which should be set to A new tab in the current window.

MAG: Comming Soon

MAG, the 256 player FPS for the Playstation 3 is being released at the end of January & definitely looks worth getting. For more News about the Beta release on January 4th go here.

Crackdown Xbox 360 Update

I'd brought Crackdown when I first got my Xbox but hadn't been able to install it to the Hard-drive. Recently however I noticed on the Xbox Dashboard that the full game was available for download

That made me wonder whether an update had been released for the game so it could be installed & it had. This update will probably get more people back playing the game just in time for the sequel.

WoW YouTube Channel

World of Warcraft now has an official channel on YouTube here.

Currently they've only uploaded Two videos but I'm sure in the future there will be a lot more.

Google Chromium OS

According to this blog post at the official Google Blog the source code for the Chromium OS has been released & can be found here.

Warcraft Patch Downloader

Today I've been downloading some updates for World of Warcraft. At first everything was going fine, I had given my Firewall permission to open a port for the downloader but I still encountered an error message saying that my Firewall was blocking access.



I went to the settings for my Netgear Router & turned on UPnP, I then opened several TCP ports, namely 6881-6999, 3724 & 6112. After a few minutes the warning message disappeared & everything was fine.

More information can be found in these links, here & here.

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Go Programming Language

Google has developed a new language for designing applications in.

You can find out more here & watch a video about it on YouTube here.

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My PSN ID

I brought a PS3 a few Weeks ago & I've just completed filling out the details for my PSN ID.

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Fake Warcraft E-Mails

Recently I downloaded the Trial version of World of Warcraft from here.

After playing it for a few days I decided to go out & buy the actual game. So I purchased the Warcraft Battle Chest & a 60-Day Game Card which cost £30 altogether. A few days after I installed it I received an email saying that I needed to post my account details to someone because I had been caught trying to sell my account which is against the EULA agreement.



After some searching I discovered here that the email was a well known Phishing tactic & should be ignored.

If ever you receive a similar email asking you for personal details, I recommend deleting it as Blizzard will never ask for your personal details in any correspondence.

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Free Unreal SDK

The Unreal Development Kit can be downloaded from here. If you want to develop your own content for it however you will need to have about 8GB of RAM installed.

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DarkBASIC for Free

DarkBASIC Pro is now available for free & can be downloaded from here.

The only difference between this & the paid version is the appearance of a banner advert at the bottom of the IDE.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Interesting Programming Talk

Here are some links to interesting threads over on the Ubuntu Forum about various programming tasks.

• Class Inheritance in C# here
• Alternative to Multidimensional arrays here
• Getting Source Code for the GNU tools here
• Why array indexes start at zero here
  

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Infinity Ward Forum

For those of you who are interested in finding out the latest news about Modern Warfare 2, you can find the official forum here.

Is Halo better than Halo 3?

I can remember when Halo was originally released on the Xbox, sadly I never got to play it because I owned a PS2. Recently however I purchased a copy of the game in a local store & discovered that I was able to play it on my Xbox 360. Within around 10 minutes of playing I have to say that I enjoyed it a lot more than Halo 3; there were more enemies to kill & the game seemed better designed. I'm now on the lookout for a copy of Halo 2 which a lot of people still say is the best Halo game ever made.

Modern Warfare 2 Trailer

A new trailer showcasing the single player campaign in Modern Warfare 2 has been released.

O3D API

The O3D API plugin from Google can be downloaded from here.

It allows you to view 3D applications in your web browser.

Google Chrome Frame

Today I was reading this blog & came across this post.

It mentions a plugin for Internet Explorer which can be downloaded here.

The plugin is supposed to increase the speed that IE can render webpages at but I haven't got around to trying it yet.

OpenGL in your browser

In the past you've had to use JOGL but soon you'll be able to use WebGL.

Locate32

If your computer's got a lot of memory & a fast processor you'll probably find Google Desktop a very usable search tool. However if you're using an older computer with limited resources you might find Locate32 to be a much better alternative.

PathEd

PathEd is a wonderful little tool which makes it extremely easy for you to add or remove programs to the PATH Environment Variable.

If you're using Vista you'll probably need to run PathEd as as Administrator & if you need to adjust other variables such as the CLASSPATH, you'll have to do it manually.

Sean Cooper

If you're wondering who he is, he used to work for Bullfrog.

He's got a blog here & he's also developed some Flash games & uploaded them to Newgrounds.

Plus there's an interesting interview he did for Gamasutra here.

Hulu Proxy

The television video site Hulu, features a lot of videos like Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica & Land of the Giants. But if you're outside the US, you won't be able to watch them unless you install the Hotspot Shield.

I also found this video on YouTube which tells you more about it; I've been using it on my computer with the K-Meleon browser & I've had no problems. You should also visit Yidio for more online videos.

RAMRush - Freeware

If you own a Laptop computer like me, you'll probably leave it in hibernation sometimes.

However you'll usually find that when you turn it back on, it may be a little slow because of all the memory that the running applications are using.

I've just started using RAMRush which will optimize the RAM usage of your computer. The first time I used it I was able to reclaim 64 MB.

Usage is quite simple, just hover your mouse over the RAMRush tray icon & click 'Start Optimize'.

Modern Warfare 2: Flag Runner

New video released a few days ago showing more multiplayer footage from Modern Warfare 2.

Island of Hobbs

Hobbs has posted a new World of Warcraft video on his blog.

Freeware Hex Editor

XVI32 hex editor is freeware & is available to download from here.

thinBasic 1.7.9.0 BETA

A new version of thinBasic has been released & can be downloaded from this thread on the thinBasic forum.

Freestyle Basic Script Language

There's a forum here where you can download the language from.

Win32 API Tutorials

A lot of very useful Windows programming tutorials can be found here.

QBasic Resources

A lot of online QBasic  publications can be found here & here.

Adblock Plus Problems

Recently I started having problems with my blog. My Spread Firefox & Thunderbird buttons weren't being displayed & after some searching I eventually discovered they were being blocked. I managed to solve the issue by hosting the images on my Wikispace.

Notebook Drive Enclosure

Recently my Vista Laptop overheated & the motherboard got damaged. So I removed the drive & brought an enclosure for it, so I can now access all my old documents. You can find out more here.

Modern Warfare 2

Nice Modern Warfare 2 countdown timer available to embed in webpages from here.

PyOpenGL Segmentation Fault

A while back I posted in this thread on the Ubuntu Forums about a segmentation fault people were receiving when using the PyOpenGL module for Python.

Today however I found that a solution for the problem here.

If you call glutCreateWindow before glutInitDisplayMode the problem seems to go away.

Learning Maths & Algorithms

Nice thread here on EAB about learning maths for programming.

Flipcode Archives

The Flipcode archives can still be found here.

Useful 3D Links

Here are some useful links on the subject of 3D computer graphics.

• Rasterisation on Wikipedia here.
• Sutherland-Hodgman clipping algorithm here.
• Dot product on Wikipedia here.
• Clipping at the OpenGL FAQ here.
  

Random Numbers in C

Thread here on the Ubuntu Forums containing useful information on the subject of generating random numbers in the C programming language.

Small Basic Examples

A lot of examples for the Small Basic programming language can be found here & here.

Developing Flash for Free

You can get FlashDevelop the free IDE from here. You should also take a look at the Wiki here for other useful information & the Flex 3 SDK can be downloaded from here.

More information can be found in this thread on the DBF forum.

Modern Warfare 2 Multiplayer

It looks very good & I can't wait for it to be released.

Google Earth Ubuntu

Installing Google Earth in Ubuntu is extremely simple.

Visit the following page here for instructions & add the Medibuntu repository to your Package Manager.

Adding a Launcher

The way you create a custom launcher for a program in Ubuntu has changed.

The new way is explained here on the Ubuntu Wiki.

OOP Concepts

Useful information about the concepts involved in Object Oriented Programming can be found here.

Bizarre Code::Blocks Problem

I've been using Code::Blocks for a long time now & have never had any problems with it. But recently I started to receive the following error.

• mingw32-g++.exe: no input files

I'd installed Code::Blocks & the MinGW Compiler seperately using the MinGW Automated Installer from here.

I noticed that whenever I attempted to compile a project the complete Compiler output was being displayed. So I checked the Compiler settings & noticed that the following option was being used.

• -print-search-dirs

When I removed it, I could compile without any problems.

When to use OOP

I was looking at the jobs on the Infinity Ward website & I noticed that one of the skill requirements for a Senior Software Engineer was the following...

• Appreciation of when not to use Object Oriented Programming

There is a Blog at the Infinity Ward site which can be found here, where there's a lot of other information.

Prime Numbers

Interesting thread here on the Ubuntu Forums about different ways which can be found to calculate Prime Numbers. A lot of different programming languages have been used in the thread too.

Invalid Server Certificate

Have you ever received the following error message.

"The certificate will not be valid until 27/03/2009 22:20."

Then you probably need to check your Time & Date Settings.

Battlefield 1943 Online Gameplay

Excellent video here on YouTube showing multiplayer footage taken from Battlefield 1943.

You can get the game now on Xbox Live Arcade for 1200 points.

Interesting Blogs

Mozilla has a blog here & Google has one here.

Both blogs contain a lot of useful information.

Google Chrome OS

Google has announced it is working on an Operating System for Netbook computers.

You can read more in this blog post at the techcrunch blog.

More information can be found in this report on the BBC Website.

Firefox WMV Plugin

Back in the late nineties I used to watch a television programme called 'The Asian Football Show', after doing some searching on Google I discovered that the show had been renamed 'Football Asia'. I also found they had a site here where you can watch footage from various matches.

When I tried watching the videos in Firefox I discovered that they wouldn't appear. At first I thought it was a problem with the Adblock Add-on. But when I viewed the page with IE Tab I was prompted to upgrade my WMV player. I could now view the pages in the IE rendering engine but still not Firefox. So I downloaded the Firefox WMV Plugin from Microsoft & restarted Firefox & now I can watch the videos perfectly.

Aurel Basic v1.1

A new version of Aurel Basic v1.1 can be downloaded from the Aurel Basic forum here.

Fun with C

Interesting thread on the JREF Forum here about the kind of fun you can have with the C Programming Language.

MIPS Architecture & SPIM

Here are some links for people interested in MIPS & SPIM.

I also found selected pages from the book 'Computer Organization & Design' on Google Books.

Trine Gameplay Trailer

It should be coming out for the Xbox 360 pretty soon too.

TIOBE Rankings

Java is still at number One in the TIOBE Rankings, you can read more here.

How Computers Calculate

Interesting set of articles on Wikipedia & other sites, which contain information on the various methods that Computers use to carry out calculations.

• CORDIC Algorithm used to calculate Trigonometric Functions.
• Chebyshev Polynomials calculate Trigonometric Identities.
• Chebyshev Polynomials at Wolfram MathWorld.
• PDF Spectrum ROM Disassembly at World of Spectrum.
• Math Toolkit at Google Books.
  

Firefox Add-ons

Two Firefox Add-ons that I've recently been trying out are AutoCopy & Tab Mix Plus.

You can find out more about them here.

Donkey Kong Aquatic Ambience

I brought Donkey Kong Country when it first came out for the Super Nintendo in 1994. I found the following video on YouTube, which shows one of the Underwater levels.

AmigaDOS PDF Manual

PDF, Scanned copies of the AmigaDOS & Tripos manuals can be downloaded from here.

Creating a DevPak

Here are some Websites which will show you how to create a DevPak.

• Rules for creating a DevPak, here.
• Creating a DevPak for wxDev-C++, here.
• How to create a DevPak for Dev-C++, here.
  

Jay Miner Speech 1989

Video of a speech made by Jay Miner on the Amiga Computer in 1989 here. Interesting because he suggests if he could have made any changes to the Amiga Hardware he would have changed the Planar display for a Chunky one.

Function Pointers in C & C++

Useful Website here which discusses Function Pointers & their usage in various programming languages.

3D Tutorials

• Vector Math tutorial, here.
• 3D Programming tutorial, here.
  

SFML

I first heard about SFML in this post on the GDN Forum.

I found some tutorial examples here & tried them out.

Browsershots Website

If you want to see how your Website will appear in different Web browsers, visit this site.

Installing ruby-opengl

Have you recently tried to install the ruby-opengl gem for Windows using gem update only for it to fail with a cryptic error message like the following..?

'cl' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

If you have, just download the gem from here & install it manually.

You can find more information about the error in this thread.

Microsoft Robotics Studio

The new version of Microsoft's Robotic Studio has been released & is available to download from here.

You can find out more about the Robotics Studio & watch an accompanying video here.

Jing Free Screen Capture

Free Screen Capture program called Jing can be downloaded from here.

New Google Chrome Version

I was browsing on FileHippo & noticed there was a new version of Google Chrome. So I downloaded & decided to try it out & was happy to discover that it is now compatible with Java. If you want to see the results for yourself, try visiting the 3D Mountains Java Applet page here. Even the JOGL example which can be found here works too.

Java Applet Examples

Useful Java Applets can be found on the following pages.

• Hidden Surface Removal, here.
• 3D Mountains, here.
• Fractal Terrains, here.
  

Falling Sand Game

Really good Falling Sand game here.

Excellent Flash Games

Last night I was chatting on IM & was given some links to the following Flash games, Factory Balls 2 & Crush the Castle.

Opera Unite

New Browser released today from Opera called Opera Unite. Not only does it support Web Browsing & E-Mail but also File Sharing, Image Viewing & it can be used as a Web Server & a Media Player.

It can be downloaded from here for Windows, Mac & Linux & there is a support forum here.

Java Criticism

There seems to be just as many sites that are critical of Java as there are C++.

• Java Sucks, read here.
• Why Sun thinks Java sucks, here.
• Java Hall of Shame, read here.
• Java Sucks a little more, here.
  

More C++ Criticism

Here are some links to articles which are critical of the C++ Programming Language.

• C++ is good for the economy, read here.
• I did it all for you, read here.
• A lot of quotes, here.
• A cautionary tale to read, here.
• A lot of comments to read, here.
• C++ FQA, here.
  

Comparing Floating Point Numbers

Description in this thread of how you do it.

Bad Code

Nice thread here on the Ubuntu Forums about the subject of bad coding practices.

Solving Equations

I came across this post on the Science Forums, where someone was having a problem solving an equation. I thought I'd try entering it in Wolfram Alpha & was surprised when it solved it & even showed all the steps.

Edge Magazine

I brought the first issue of Edge magazine way back in September 1993. It's good to see that it's still being published & they've got a webpage here that you should check out.

Kodu

Kodu is a Game Creation Tool made by Microsoft which will be released pretty soon, You can find more at the following link or you can watch the video below.

Video Game - E3 2009 - Videos

Browser Statistics

Good site here which lists the most common browsers which are used to surf the Internet.

Mario Paint Composer

I used to have this on my Super Nintendo along with the Mouse & now you can use it on your PC or Mac.

Screencast.com

Nice site can be found here, where you can upload your screencasts.

Online Sound Synthesizer

Nice online tool for making music can be found here. Just click the squares on the screen to make your music.

WMP Plugins

If you're looking for Plugins & Codecs for Windows Media Player, you can find them here.

Planet Fallout

Nice Fallout related website here, where you can find a huge amount of information regarding the game.

Virtual Functions & Inheritance

If you're writing in an Object Oriented language you'll want to make sure you make use of features such as Virtual Functions & Inheritance.

Halo 3: ODST

Here is the official gameplay video for Halo 3: ODST. You can read more here at IGN.

More Halo 3: ODST Info

New Search Engine

Microsoft has developed a new search engine called Bing.

Audacity in Vista

If you're having difficulty making recordings using Audacity in Windows Vista you should check out this page on the Audacity Wiki.

Midnight Commander Win32

A version of Midnight Commander for Windows can be downloaded from here.

Useful Java Links

Here are some links I've put together to help if you're trying to learn Java.

• Apache Ant can be downloaded here.
• An Apache Ant tutorial can be found here.
• Jogl can be downloaded from here.
• Jogl NeHe ports can be found here.
• A Jogl HelloWorld program can be found here.
  

Modern Warfare 2 Trailer

More Modern Warfare 2 Info

DOSBox 0.73

The newest version of DOSBox has been released & can be downloaded from here.

There's a Setup & Installation guide for using DOSBox here & games can be downloaded from the following sites here & here.

For anyone who is running Vista & is wondering where the dosbox.conf file is, you'll find it at the following location...

C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\DOSBox

New WinUAE Version

The newest version of the popular Amiga Emulator WinUAE has recently been released.

You'll also need to download the Kickstart ROMs, so visit this page where you might find them.

Wubi

Is an Installer which will allow you to install Ubuntu in Windows & it's probably one of the best programs ever written.

I've been using a Windows / Linux dual boot since the beginning of 2006. Setting up such a system can be a pretty tedious process, what with defragging, partitioning & having to use chkdsk. Removing one of the OSes but keeping the other intact is even more hard work & involves using a program called MbrFix.

I'd been using XP & Mandriva Linux but decided to go back to using a Vista & Ubuntu system. But this time I decided to use Wubi to install Ubuntu & it was much easier than the previous installation method. In fact it was as easy as installing any other program in Windows.

Wakoopa

I first heard about Wakoopa on the BBC programme, Click. It featured a website called Wakoopa which tracks all the software you've got installed on your computer. I created an account there & you can see the programs I use the most in the widget below.

Wolfram Alpha

Nice video which can be watched here; will show you everything you need to know about Wolfram Alpha.

Rubygame 2.5.2 for Windows

I've compiled a new version of Rubygame v2.5.2 for Windows; you can find the download & some others in this thread at the Rubygame forum.

Mathematica Player 7

The new version of the Mathematica Player is out & can be downloaded from here.

I'd encountered installation problems with the previous version of the Player but version 7 installed first time without any errors.

Flash Presentations

Have you ever wanted to make a Flash Presentation or Tutorial like this for free?

If you have then you need to download Wink.

MD5 Online

Nice website here where you can enter some text & the site will generate an MD5 checksum of it.

Fallout 3

Recently I brought Fallout 3 for my Xbox 360, so here are some Fallout related links.

• Fallout 3 wiki here
• Review of Fallout 3 at IGN here

A nice video of what the game is all about can be viewed here on YouTube.

OmniFlop

If you need to read, write or test data in a variety of different floppy-disk formats you should check out OmniFlop.

Free Video Converter

In the past I've used Super to convert videos into various different formats but sometimes I'd be overwhelmed by the number of options available to me. However I found the following converter on FileHippo & it's very easy to use.

Pixel City

Found the following video at the thinBasic forum in this thread. It shows you how to generate a city by using simple programming routines.

TripleTags Wii Gamercard

I found this site called TripleTags where you can create gamercards for the PS3 & Wii.

Here is my Nintendo Wii tag & if you want to see my profile just click here.

Xbox 360 Hard Drive Guide

There is an excellent list here which shows you what games can be installed to hard drive on the Xbox 360 & what games can't. It also tells you what the effect of installing the game is, in the case of The Last Remnant it's essential & improves the games playability drastically but in the case of Halo 3 it increases the loading times by 10 seconds.

New Mandriva Version

Last evening while I was using Mandriva, I received a message asking whether I wanted to upgrade to the newest version. I accepted & after about a download time of 4 hours & 1,426 files, I'm now using Mandriva Linux 2009 Spring.

LHA for Windows

I've previously posted about LHA compression here but I've now found that another command-line version can be downloaded from the GNU-Win32 site here.

Usage is pretty simple as can be seen in the accompanying image...

Screen2Exe

Very nice screen capture program can be downloaded from here.

It allows you to capture moving images from your screen or multiple windows & save the recording to an .exe & it's completely free.

WinDirStat

Nice program here which will scan your hard-drive & produce a graphical representation of it's usage.

Vote for Basic4GL

Basic4GL needs your vote here.

Assembly from Terminator

Ever wondered what's in the Assembly listings from the Terminator movie?

If you have then visit this blog.

Basic4GL in China

It would appear Basic4GL is being used a lot in China by the looks of this site.

Digsby

In the past I've used Pidgin as my IM Client in both Windows & Linux but I've just started using Digsby.

It's available for Windows, Linux & Mac plus it isn't just an IM Client, it also allows you to check your E-Mail & Social Networking accounts.

A word of caution though, if you're installing the Windows version the installer will try & install a lot of unnecessary garbage on your computer like Registry Cleaners & so on. You are given the option to decline the installation of such programs & I recommend you do.

XNA Creators Club

I first messed about with XNA last year but I've recently joined the Creators Club, so I hope to do some XNA game coding in C#.

If you're interested in XNA you should visit this page as it will tell you everything you need to download.

SDL_gfx-2.0.19

A new version of SDL_gfx has been released, I've compiled a Windows DLL using MinGW.

You can download the DLL & the Code::Blocks project from here.

Rubygame 2.5.0 Windows Binaries

I recently found out that a new version of Rubygame had been released.

So I compiled a Windows version of it, which can be downloaded from here.

Eric Python IDE

Interesting thread here on the Ubuntu forum about different IDEs for Python. I'd never heard of Eric before so I thought I'd install it in Windows. Building & Installation was successful but I recommend looking at the list of prerequisites before trying yourself, to minimize any possible errors.

StripReloc

Wonderful little tool which can be downloaded here, made by Jordan Russell (Inno Setup), which removes unnecessary data from an EXE & reduces it's size.

Usage is pretty simple too, when I wanted to reduce one of the demos that came with Basic4GL, I just typed the following...

StripReloc /B asteroiddemo2.exe

Free Online Storage

10GB of free storage available here at humyo.com.

Rubygame-2.4.1 Windows Binary

It took me some time to do but after a few Weeks I finally managed to build the newest version of Rubygame for Windows. I made this post on the Rubygame forum which includes a download link for the various dlls. At some point I'll get around to uploading the various project files I had to create for the dlls.

Rubygame Newest Version

If you're interested in getting the newest version of the Rubygame source to try & compile it yourself, it can be downloaded from here.

Games Coffer

Downloading Amiga games & demos from large bland anonymous FTP sites can be a tedious experience sometimes.

Now someone from EAB has created a site here where you can download a lot of content in a much more user friendly way.

Linker Tools Warning LNK4098

Ever got that Warning when you're using MSVC to compile a program?

If you have you should visit the following link.

Windows XP Calibri Font

I used to use Vista & created a PDF from a document in OpenOffice, recently I started using XP again & went through the same process but when I opened the PDF I discovered that the fonts weren't correct. After some searching I discovered that Calibri isn't installed on XP but if you install PowerPoint Viewer 2007 the font & some others will be installed so the problem is solved.

KompoZer Windows Installer

I've been using the HTML editor KompoZer for some time now. I'm sure a lot more Windows users would use it too if it wasn't for the installation method. Currently KompoZer is distributed as a ZIP file which you have to decompress & manually install, which I'm sure puts some users off.

I've used Inno Setup to create an Installer, which will install the program for you. I've tested it on my own computer & it worked fine, plus it should also work on Vista machines too as it asks for administrator privileges.

It installs the newest version of Kompozer which is version 0.8a2 & the installer is available to download from here.

Opening XPS Files

If you're using Windows XP & you need to open or view XPS files, you should visit this webpage & download the Microsoft XML Paper Specification Essentials Pack.

Free Pascal New Version Released

You can view the changes in the new version here & download it from here.

If you are taking a look at Free Pascal 2.2.4 you might also want to take a look at the Lazarus IDE too.

Java HelloApp Program

I've recently been using Java again, so I thought I'd present some simple programs you can run in Java. Just type the following into a text editor but be careful because Java is case sensitive. Certain commands are expected to be entered using upper case letters.

public class HelloApp
{
   public static void main(String[] args)
   {
       System.out.println("Hello, World!");
   }
}

Save the file as HelloApp.java & compile it with the following...

javac HelloApp.java

Run it with the following...

java HelloApp

If you want to generate documentation using JavaDoc just type the following...

javadoc -d docs HelloApp.java

Finally, if you'd like to place your class in a Jar file, you must first create a Manifest file. Just place the following text in a file called Manifest.txt & make sure you place a newline at the end.

Main-Class: HelloApp

Then create the Jar file by typing the following...

jar cvfm HelloApp.jar Manifest.txt *.class

Run the Jar file with the following...

java -jar HelloApp.jar

Further Rubygame Links

Some more Rubygame related links...

• Rubygame: The Blog, can be found here.
• Sourceforge: Rubygame project here
• Win32 Compile: Rubygame 2.2.0 guide here
  

MessageBox Functions

If you're creating MessageBoxes using the Windows API this MSDN page should help you.

C in a Nutshell

Good book to read here on Google Books, although it's only a preview (pages missing) like the rest of the books on Google, there is a lot of information still remaining.

Global Variables in FreeBASIC

Interesting & lengthy thread here on the FreeBASIC forum about Global Variables & Object Oriented Programming.

Ruby Forum

Here is a link to the Ruby Forum.

Basic4GL Media Player

I've made a Media Player plugin for Basic4GL so you can now load & watch films in Basic4GL.

You can read more about it here on the forum.

A Visit to id Software

30 minute video which was made in 1993 at id software showing them working on Doom.

A Visit to id Software from john romero on Vimeo.

SDL in Mandriva

Interesting in doing some SDL programming in Mandriva Linux? If so type this in a terminal...

# urpmi libSDL-devel libSDL1.2_0 libSDLmm0.1-devel libSDL_gfx-devel  libSDL_image-devel libSDL_mixer-devel libSDL_net-devel libSDL_Pango-devel libSDL_sound-devel libSDL_ttf-devel

You'll probably receive a message saying that you'll need to install about 40 additional dependencies, just agree & type Y to install them.

OpenGL in Mandriva

If you want to do some OpenGL programming in Mandriva Linux you'll need to install the OpenGL development files. Just type the following in a terminal...

# urpmi libmesaglut3-devel libmesaglu1-devel libdrm-devel libmesaglu1-devel libmesagl1-devel libmesaglut3-devel libxmu6-devel libxxf86vm-devel

Mandriva & Rar Files

Need to open a Rar file in Mandriva? Type the following in a terminal.

# urpmi unrar

SDL_gfx-2.0.18 in Windows

While I was trying to get the new version of Rubygame to compile in Windows I also compiled the new version of SDL_gfx. The Code:Blocks project (MinGW) which contains the release versions of the SDL_gfx dll & library can be downloaded from here. I tried it with the rotozoom example & it worked fine.

Visual C++ Express Edition 2005

It can still be downloaded from here & the additional PSDK can be found here. Full installation instructions for the PSDK can be found here.

If you're wondering why you'd want to use it instead of the newer 2008 version, it's because a lot of older programs need to be changed before they'll successfully compile with it.

GPG Links

I've been using GPG for some time now. Here are some links for people who are also interested in using it.

• GPG Cheat Sheet here
• Introduction to GNUPG here
• Exporting your public key here
• GPG tutorial here

If you want to download my public key just type the following in a terminal or console...

gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-key 0xFBBFAF03

Rubygame Downloads & Installs

There is a guide here for compiling rubygame 2.2.0 from source, the guide is a bit old but it should get you started.

You'll find a similar guide here for installing version 2.2.0 as a gem.

The source for compiling SDL_gfx.dll can be found here.

Rubygame 2.4.1 for Windows

I noticed that a new version of Rubygame had been released so I thought I'd try to download & install it.

Installation didn't work so I then thought that I'd try to build it from source. I produced a rubygame.dll & also managed to create an SDL_gfx.dll as well. What I'm supposed to do now though is a little unclear as rubygame seems to need to be installed as a Gem in order for it to be usable.

I've joined the rubygame forum & made this thread there about the subject, plus I've made this post on the rubygame-users mailing list.

GUI Programming in Linux & Windows

Another thread here on the Ubuntu Forum containing some useful links such as the Qt website & a free PDF on Qt programming.

Advice on Pointers

Useful thread about Pointers can be found here on the Ubuntu Forum.

Free Game Sprites

Over on the Basic4GL forum crazynate has created a Wikispace called CrazyNateStudios where you download a lot of free sprites for any computer games that you're developing.

GCC Warning Options

If you ever encounter an error such as...

Warning: multi-line comment

The warning can be suppressed by using the following...

-Wno-comment

More information on the various warning options that are available to you in GCC can be found here.

PyInstaller

If you're programming in Windows using Python you'll encounter a problem where you need to distribute your program. But if you use PyInstaller you'll find that the process is quite simple. It takes your source files & binds them up into an .exe containing any dependencies they need & it can be downloaded from here.

OnLive Video Game System

OnLive makes PC upgrades extinct & lets you play games like Crysis on your television. It looks very promising but it does have its critics.

Google Earth Mandriva Linux

I've just tried using the new beta version of Google Earth (v5.0) in Mandriva Linux, the results were my XServer crashed & I had to hold down Ctrl, Alt & Del to reboot my system. I decided to uninstall the beta version & install version 4.3 which can be downloaded from here. Version 4.3 seems to work fine & I've had no problems with it, albeit it's a little slow when compared with the windows version. Installation instructions can be found here on the Ubuntu wiki, don't worry there's no real difference between the Mandriva & Ubuntu installations.

Google Desktop Search Button

If you've installed Google Desktop & you're using Firefox, you might have noticed the Desktop Search button in your Google Toolbar. However if you remove that button, it's difficult to get it back. I discovered that someone else had encountered this problem & it was solved here. I've put a page on my Wikispace with some useful images which show you how to solve the problem here.

Mandelbrot Dazibao

Is a site I've been visiting for a few years now. You'll find a lot of fractal information on there & you'll also be able to download a copy of QBasic. If you do get QBasic, then you should also download DOSBox from here.

Useful Thunderbird Add-ons

Here is a short list of add-ons which I have installed in Thunderbird.

• Enigmail: If you need to encrypt or decrypt emails, get this.
• Lightning: A version of the Sunbird calender program.
• Buttons: Adds a button for viewing emails as text or html.
  

Rebuilding the Font Cache

If you've just installed some new fonts in Linux, you'll probably need to rebuild your font cache, in Mandriva you do the following.

# fc-cache -f -v

The Art of Java

Out of all the Java programming books I've seen over the years this is one of the best. I first read it when it came out back in 2003 & it's still worth reading. Some sample chapters & the full source code for the example programs can be downloaded from here.

Xbox 360: Halo Wars

I decided to buy it today after almost getting Street Fighter IV. It's a very good game & very playable, here is the review of the game from Gametrailers.

Internet Explorer 8

It can be downloaded from here & a Wikipedia article about IE8 can be found here.

Programming Forums

Friends on the Basic4GL forum have created two new forums, the first is Games World R Us & the second is Z-TechProgramming.

Online Games

Two online games that I've tried & liked are Second Life & MapleStory.

Aurel Basic New Version

Version 1.1 build 85 has been released & can be downloaded from here.

Vista to XP

I've been using Vista for about 18 months & I haven't really liked it & I'd have preferred using XP. However my old XP laptop has been unusable for about the same amount of time but I'd kept my XP recovery disks. This morning I wondered whether I could use the disks to install XP on my Vista laptop, so I backed up all my documents & went ahead. Installation went fine after rebooting my computer, I then spent a few hours tracking down drivers for the hardware in my computer & installing the various Windows updates. So I'm now using an XP laptop, now I've just got to install Linux & I can go back to running an XP - Linux dualboot.

Win32API Usage Statistics

Found a link on the thinBasic forum here to a site which lists the most used Win32API functions here.

Play DOS Games in your Browser

Another wonderful example of what you can do with the Java programming language can be found here. It's a website which lets you play classic DOS games in your browser.

Google Earth Plugin

You can download it here & I think it's well worth it. As once as it's installed you can use Google Earth in your browser.

Blender Tutorial Videos

If you need help using the 3D animation program Blender, look at this video tutorial site.

JASC Animation Shop v3.11

It's a very useful program for creating or editing GIF animations & can be downloaded for free from here. It also deals with a lot of other image formats apart from GIF too.

PS2 Games

I recently went into a Game store & brought some preowned PS2 games which were, Metal Gear Solid 3, Kingdom Hearts & Yu-Gi-Oh! I got all 3 of them for just £20 & I also brought some PC games from a Maplin store, which were Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness, Bejeweled 2 & a music creation program called Music Studio Generation MM. I got all of them for £20 as well.

ScummVM Download

If you want to play old adventure games such as Flight of the Amazon Queen or Beneath a Steel Sky on your modern PC, you'll want to download ScummVM. There is a very useful FAQ here, which contains information on how to use ScummVM & how to load & save games.

Corn Programming Language

I first encountered Corn in early 2006, I thought it was pretty good but I encountered problems with program compilation & execution. For some reason after placing the Corn bin folder on my PATH environment variable, Corn would complain that the installation directory was incorrect.

Last year I downloaded the newest version of Corn (v2.8.2) but after trying to compile a simple example with it...

corncmp -o hello.pack hello.corn

I received the following error...

exception of unknown class

I sent an E-Mail to the author of the language to see if he could help but he didn't seem that interested which was a shame.

Planet Lara Soundtracks

Excellent site here where every single track from the Tomb Raider games can be downloaded, you can even download & print the cover & disk artwork for the soundtracks.

Linux PDF Merger

If you're looking for a PDF Merger for Linux, just use your Package Manager to install the PDF Toolkit. In Mandriva this can be done using the following...

urpmi pdftk

Usage is quite simple too, just open a terminal & use the following...

pdftk file1.pdf file2.pdf file3.pdf cat output out.pdf

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