Matt's Blog

The state of Internet Streaming Video

2006-07-14T20:53:00.000-06:00

Wow, it's been nearly 2 months without an update! While the focus of this blog is mostly technical, all I can say is that I've moved, and as such, I've been busy with such things. But I digress.

So the other day, I was surfing the internet looking at www.liberatedgames.com (highly recommended), and I saw a banner ad for one of the major PC new sites (PCWorld or C|Net or something like that) listing the top 10 most unique games of all time. Naturally, I was intrigued; having been bit by the gaming bug at quite a young age and my desire for geeky top 10 lists, I ended up following the ad. What ensued was in a word, frustrating, for I had no control over it and there is no real fix for it.

So anyway, rather than being presented with some form of textual top 10 list like I see many places, this site had clips of these rather unique games, with buttons at the bottom of the page that showed the 'places' of these games. Interesting idea, and the idea of having 30 second clips of content displaying gameplay was highly effective in showing just how cool these games were (in one, for example, you're a mosquito and you try to suck blood from a 'host family'. Innovative, to say the least!). I certainly found myself entertained, and enjoying the first two or three clips.

I never made it past 3.

Patience is a virtue, they say, though if I truly was one for patience, I'd still be on dial-up and not broadband cable internet. Anyway, after I clicked on the first video clip to play it, I was greeted by the now-traditional introductory 30 second video before the clip started streaming. No biggie. With that out of the way, I sat back and watched the first 30 second clip, finding myself mildly amused. Certainly, because these were small reviews of different games, I wasn't too excited when I saw 'streaming clip 2 of 10', so once again, I waited my 30 seconds for that 30 second clip. ...however, rather than being greeted by the next game, I'm once again forced to sit and wait 30 seconds for YET ANOTHER 30 second ad. "No big deal" I tell myself, and watch the same ad from a minute thirty ago play again, shrug it off, and wait again for the second clip to play. Again, a 'slightly more' interesting, unique game is displayed. Once it's finished, however, I realize that, surprise surprise, we're streaming ANOTHER 30 second ad! By this time, I'm frustrated. I just want to watch the content. Deciding I would be 'sneaky', I went down to the numbered buttons for the clips and click #3, skipping some of the games in between. Alas though, it was not to be so sneaky, as that same ad, the one I had been forced to watch 2 times prior pops up. Frustrated, I just close the window.

What am I complaining about here? It's the state of internet streaming video and how now half the f***ing content I watch is ads! I think about this, and wonder... if CNN.com were half ads, would people go to their site to read the news? What if you went to a website to read an article and after reading a paragraph, an ad the size of that paragraph was between the one paragraph and the next? Or how about if the way the site was designed was such that you couldn't scroll past the ad until you were forced to sit there for 30 seconds and physically LOOK AT IT? I have a feeling that if text on the internet worked like that, you'd almost never read an article again.

I understand that to be on the internet, you have to make money. To make money, you can either request donations, or you can put these little ads up, which I have no problem. The problem becomes when 50% of what I'm viewing is an ad that I cannot skip unless I want to skip the content of what I'm watching entirely!

The reason I post this today rather than a few days ago is because some AOL videos just tried to pull the same stunt with me. 30 seconds of ads for either a 30 second or 1 minute clip, each and every clip. As well, AIM has those stupid movie ads that play at the top of the IM window, which usually have sound going, so if you have your buddy list open and are playing a game for example, you suddenly hear this background garbage which is yet another ad playing! Like holy crap people! I don't mind ads I can just 'filter out', like say banners on pages that only appear on the sides or top of the page, but these obtrusive ads just have to go! How about those annoying popups that appear in the same window as what you're trying to look at? They have the close button, but are physically sitting over the text, and are not a regular 'Windows' window. Ugh, nothing short of annoying.

The solution? Well, I think I'll go live as a hermit and crawl under a rock. Maybe then, I'll escape it all.

...linux article coming soon.

Another great talk at EMUG

2006-05-25T21:13:00.000-06:00

The last few days have been technological nightmares for me. I won't go into huge detail, but suffice to say, my bit-torrent client on Linux died (which I had set for all day... got a NullPointerException 40k into a 500mb download), and Battlefield 2's patch (the new one, 1.3) screwed up, like the 1.2.* patches. So there goes my download AND my favorite game. Fan-tas-tic.

On to other news.

So I had the privilage of attending another .NET programmer's meeting, this time done by Rod Paddock, the editor of Code magazine. Justice hyped this guy up hardcore in this post of his, so I won't go into background details about Rod (Justice knows so much about this guy... he even has a picture on his site with Rod's shirt off! I swear, J's stalking the guy or something). The summary: Rod's presentation on Visual Studio's Templates outdid JP's presentation on TDD by leaps and bounds.

It's quite possible people will feel differently about that, and it is a rather strong opinion for me to be stating, but I must say that JP's presentation left me feeling like I knew nothing about code. This feeling is probably valid in some ways, but as well, I found that JP's presentation was quite advanced, and that it required some background knowledge in many aspects of TDD (NUnit, for example) before the talk would make sense. Rod's talk, on the other hand, was taken from a different perspective. Every detail of the presentation was taken step by step, and the terminology and concepts were down to earth (as far as programming goes). Rod took his time, and the presentation didn't feel rushed or way over my head. This is, without a doubt, the best technical talk/speaker I've attended/listened to.

Doubly-pumped!

2006-05-03T19:12:00.000-06:00

So I talked to Justice and he proposed one hell of a good idea! ...that said, due to it being his idea, I shouldn't disclose much info on it. However, I've been looking for a project to build at home in my free time, and this sounds nothing short of amazing! That, and having the potential to develop with a master programmer is pretty sweet as well! Heh, maybe my SVN server that I built might be used after all. :)

So my second good news comes in the wake of really crappy news. Let's start with my weekend.

On Thursday, I got a call from someone at the place that I'm renting, saying that there was a suite on the 3rd floor that I could take a look at. Naturally, it wasn't taken, so I was ready to jump on it when I went in on Friday to look at it. So Friday comes and I leave work, 3 hours early, to go and see this place and scoop it up. However, that morning, the lady who I was dealing with sold it. ...man, that was tough to take. Unfortunately, losing that room truly ruined my weekend, as I felt 'crap, I'm never going to get away from home.' ...then, on Monday this week, I got a call saying that there was a place on the 9th floor! Fantastic! So now I'm moving out! Sooooo good!!

Now... about that Linux guide. ...I'm moving, so we'll see when I can work on it. I'm trying to write in this blog once a week, at least, so hopefully, that update will be coming soon. :)

Actually, before I sign off for this entry, I think I'll say this: Ubuntu is coming out with a new install procedure, according to Digg.com. I looked at it, and it appears to run like a Live CD, which means you get a Windows like GUI (so you can play with Linux), but it also will install WHILE you get to do things! No more of this 'lose all functionality while installs are occuring'! Now, you can surf the web, write e-mails, do word processing, play games, etc. while the same machine is installing the core OS! Man, is there ANYTHING linux cannot do?

Here's ONE screenshot. I couldn't find the EXACT article, but it shows it working! :) http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=615&slide=12

Man... I just got Programming pwned.

2006-04-27T21:45:00.000-06:00

So I went to my first developer's meeting in Edmonton. I can summarize what I saw as one word. Wow.

Justice (see Gray's Matter on my links) will undoubtably have something really good to say and summarize the event well, as he was there with me. I wish I could summarize (I WAS going to say 'do justice', but that has horrible connotations) what went on there properly, but a fair chunk of it went right over my head. I suppose basically said, there was a talk on Test Driven Development with a guy by the name of Jean-Paul talking about writing tests for code before code is written. Truly, an excellent talk, but again, it seemed a little 'advanced' for me. I think this weekend, I'll actually take some time and try to do some TDD work. We'll see.

On other news, I'm going to see a new apartment tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it! I suppose that as long as it doesn't smell bad, I'll take it. That's it, that's all!

Revamped Blog

2006-04-24T21:57:00.000-06:00

Okay, so my blog looks different. On the right of the screen as well, there's two links that you WILL follow, and here's why:

Gray's Matter - This guy is a computer/programming genius. Seriously. His blog is technical and also quite funny, so seriously, read it!
Anand Narayan's Blog - One of the coolest guys I've met. He's also a very skilled programmer and publishes interesting articles as well. Indeed, another good read!

So there's the Blogcall, or however I'm supposed to put it... ...yeah?

I was going to write something down that I thought was significant, but it got somehow lost between my TV set and my computer desk. Funny how that happens.

Oh! I know what I'll do! I'll talk quickly on Dreamcast emulation! It's great, especially for games like Street Fighter III and Capcom vs SNK 2! I have at least two people interested in this topic, so I'll have to point it out to them specifically later.

Before I continue, here's the disclaimer:
I take ABSOLUTELY NO responsibility for people who try this and fuck their box up! As well, you need to be legally entitled to do this, which means that you need to own a Dreamcast, or a valid copy of the game you are trying to play! To note, the 'fucked up box' bit isn't as scary as it sounds. I've truthfully done this to 3 different machines, and I know of quite a few friends who've done this, all of which have working copies. My opinion is that the risk of damage is 0%.

There. I've said it. With that out of the way, here's what you'll need:
- Chankast (http://www.chanka.org/)
- A Dreamcast bios (dc_bios.bin is the file. Google is your friend here)
- Some games that you've purchased for Dreamcast (though I'll go into a much more interesting setup in a moment)
- Daemon Tools* (http://www.daemon-tools.cc/)

*Note: Daemon tools is optional, but once I show you the two ways to play these games, you'll probably want to use the app.

So as my note stated, there are two ways to play these games. The first is to use your copies of the game directly with the emulator. This is fine, and it saves you some space on your HD verus the second method. This second method uses cloned images of your CD's (or ISO's as they're called, typically). While the second method could cost you a few gigs (or MANY gigs, depending on the size of your collection), having these image files keeps you from having to fumble through your CD's, having to insert CD's, and also stops you from having to wait for your CD to load intensive elements. I personally like the second method more, though it's a little more involved. I will assume that inserting a CD, setting a few preference files, then starting the emulator is pretty easy. I'll concentrate more on the second method, what to do, etc.

First, install Daemon Tools. This is just a double-click and reboot step. Next, we need an image of the game you wish to play. While there are cloning tools out there (Nero I think allows you to rip an image, and CloneCD does for sure), my understanding is if you have a legal, purchased copy of a CD, you can get images for 'archival' purposes. eMule and BitTorrent are useful for that, if you're legally entitled to use them. I won't go into an eMule or BitTorrent disucssion, but if there's request for one, I'll publish info on it in another posting.

Now we have our CD emulation installed, you should see a virtual CD Drive under my computer, and a little CD with a lightning bolt through it on your taskbar. Good? Good. Now we install Chankast. This install is merely an unzip-the-file install, and I REALLY hope I don't have to get into the details of that (otherwise, my target audiance isn't whom I suspect). So now we have the Dreamcast emulator and CD emulator ready to go. As well, we have our image. Configuration time.

To configure Chankast, what I like to do first is put the bios in the same folder as Chankast. This is a requirement, not an option. Okay. Next, using the little CD n' Lightning Bolt icon in the taskbar, click on it, choose to mount an image, and point it to the game image you created. This will mount the image as a CD in the virtual drive created by Daemon Tools. Note that you MAY have to choose 'all files' in Daemon tools file opener in order to see your CD image, depending on format.

FINALLY. We can double-click Chankast and launch it. I do not recall the CD plugin choice that I use, but I do remember that I use the 'Input Interface by ElSemi' option. It works well. :) Once you've done this, it's time to set the CD drive. Click OK to get out of the Configure Plugins window, then choose Options > Configure Drives. Point it to the emulated drive (or if you're using regular CD's, point it to the CD drive) and click OK.

Now the moment of truth. Go to Run > Start. If all goes according to plan, your game will run after the dreamcast logo appears. If not, then one of two things have happened: You've either got your CD set wrong, or your BIOS wasn't shown properly. A CD issue would be more likely here, and you MAY need to install an ASPI layer driver. Look online for ASPI and your Windows version to find a driver that will work, read the directions on where to install it, then go from there. If it's a BIOS problem, you either have a botched BIOS file, or you haven't named it correctly.

Okay, onto the gaming. As suggested before, I use Chankast for Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike and Capcom vs. Snk 2. These games are a little buggy, but only a little... IF you have the right options on. To fix the vast majority of visual bugs you'll see, go to Options > Configure Video, and set Use ZWrite and Use AlphaTest ZWrite to be 'on'. It also helps to have the Capcom Hack on, especially if you find your games going pathetically slow (CVS2 does this and NEEDS Capcom Hack On).

Something to note: If you have a 2ghz computer or better, your game will run VERY Fast. Use the + and - keys on your keypad to throttle the CPU. The higher the number you set it to, interestingly enough, the slower your game will play. I have a Pentium DualCore at 3.0ghz, and I need to set my CPU to about 190% so games play at about the right speed (Effectively eliminating one processor). Interestingly enough, your videocard will have an almost insignificant effect on the game, so long as you don't have that integrated intel sh... er, stuff on your mobo.

Well, that's it! Comments/Questions can be left in the comments below. And to note, the Linux article is coming! I have a LOT of people interested in that one, but it'll take probably a good weekend to try out/research.

I'm my own worst IT nightmare!

2006-04-22T18:07:00.000-06:00

I'm a performance hog. My computer has to make zero sound. I install an OS if I botch part of some non-core related install. Indeed, I'm my own worst IT Nightmare!

So I built a PC back in December. It's a beautilful machine, or at least I think so, with a nice video card, 2 gigs of RAM, good processor (though an Intel), etc etc. However, after I replaced my stock cooler with a 'silent' aftermarket cooler and tried to make my PC whisper quiet, I was having nothing but grief with installs and compatability warnings/issues out the ying-yang. About two weeks ago (bearing in mind this had been going on for about 2 months), I tried to flash my BIOS with a beta version of my vendor's BIOS drivers, hoping it'd fix these issues. So it did... sorta. I was able to install WinXP successfully and Linux, though I was still having issues with my wonderfully slient PC. After turning all the fans onto their maximum setting, my problems vanished. The issue? My HD was hitting 55C!

With motherboards running in that range and processors up to even 85C in laptops, one would think that Hard Drives could run that hot. The moral of the story? Sufficient ventilation is a really good thing to have. Curses!

Sweet Software

2006-04-21T13:10:00.000-06:00

So now I have 3 topics I'm going to write about in this blog over the next little while. They are as follows:

- Starters Guide to Linux
- Why the world isn't ready for 64 bit OS's (Linux perspective)
- Cool apps to aid in day to day development

Seeing how I have a bit of time now, I'll post on the Cool Apps front.

So last night, I went ahead and did something I've not done before: I purchased an application online. This isn't to be confused with purchasing applications/software in general, as I've typically gone to the store to do this. However, one app was shown to me a few days ago and I bit the bullet, paying the amazing fee of $11.45CND for this software. That software is called TopDesk, and it's totally awesome.

I wish I could do this software justice in my blog, but rather than trying to, I'm going to just point to the developers site.

www.otakusoftware.com/topdesk/

Both at work and on my laptop, I'm forced to use a monitor at 1024x768 resolution. This, frankly, sucks. I end up tiling somewhere in the range of a billion windows on these machines, and have to sift through, or alt-tab for about an hour, to get any work done. As shown on the webpage, Topdesk emulates one of the Mac OS X features (which I've forgotten at this time) where all windows get tiled to the screen for easy viewing and it allows focus of windows to be brought to the front with a mouseclick. Seriously, this is one heck of a timesaver.

I've always been paranoid about storing apps I've either written or bought, and having to worry that during a hard drive crash, I would lose all my data and that would be that (that happened to me. Trust me, it sucks). Well, an application called GMail Drive (free) fixes part of my woes. What this software does is take any gmail webmail account and lets you store data on that account like you would another hard drive. The plus? Any files you upload are visible from both google's webmail (so anywhere in the world, really) and from other computers that have GMail drive installed. Brilliant! Here's the link:

http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm

Also, check out SlickRun (free) for those of you who want an alternative to the command line. Again, this is a hard app to describe, but it allows you to type a key command which brings up a mini-prompt. From there, you can define 'MagicWords' to launch various applications. It has auto-complete too for these MagicWords. It also accepts regular windows commands as well! Seriously worth checking out. I use it all the time!

www.bayden.com/SlickRun/

There are a lot of apps that I will add to this list, but I'll add them later.

The Weekend Has Landed!

2006-01-06T18:12:00.000-07:00

Woot!

So... I think I've decided what I want to write on for my first real article in this blog. ...which isn't this article... because I'm too tired. ;)

I'm thinking that I'm going to write a Linux starter guide thingie, then talk about OpenGL. The point of these topics is because I have plans on releasing some soon-to-be open source software that me and a partner made, that being a 3D chess game. As well, given that I'll be celebrating my b-day tomorrow (Sat), I'll probably get to writing this Unix/OpenGL article on Sunday.

There are but a few things holding me back from giving this code out now:
1. The code isn't up to what I consider Open Source documentation standards.
2. I want to add a few features, including animation and turn tracking, to list a few.

That's it! Stay tuned!

The ultimate Blog Test

2006-01-06T13:24:00.000-07:00

This is my first post, and while it has practically nothing in it, I will be putting something in shortly, after work.