Dan's Adventures in Programming and Life

Getting Git-y

2012-01-27T12:09:00.001-08:00

Now that BitBucket does free, private Git repositories, I've new going a little crazy adding a bunch of my projects, old and new, to Git repos and pushing them into the cloud for safe keeping.

In the process, I've decided to share some projects publicly on Github, as well. So far I've put up my Software Engineering project from last semester, and the experimental CMS that I wrote in AppEngine Python for my Orchestra's website. I'll probably post the Java Applet that goes with that CMS for publishing the website over SFTP sometime later.

It's nice to see my Github profile looking not quite so forlorn :)

WeGoIgo 1.16 and GnuGo 1.1

2011-08-07T16:49:00.000-07:00

Well, like I promised, I've released v1.16 of my WeGoIgo app and v1.1 of the GnuGo AI app. I haven't made all the changes I wanted to the interface-- I want to take some time to really think through the best way-- but I have made the magnifying glass try to go above your finger instead of to the side. I've also slightly improved the efficiency of the SGF loader, so people who've had trouble loading Kogo's might try to clear their cache and try again. No promises-- it was a very small change-- but you never know!

The biggest thing here, as I said, is the AI. I'm confident that it will be more responsive and more stable-- something I know many people, including myself, have been wanting for some time.

I haven't gotten around to releasing the update for the free version yet-- enjoy the perks, paid users! I changed my system for managing them so it's easier and quicker for developing, but publishing is not quite as automatic. But, since I spend more time developing than I do publishing, I'm happy with the tradeoff.

Updates

2011-08-06T21:20:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted, but I've been pretty busy working for Minus (previously Min.us) developing their Android app, a job which I happily took over from my good friend Colin. Everyone should check out the service-- it's pretty slick. And, they've got a pretty awesome Android app, which should see a pretty good update sometime very soon.

In other news, I've finally found my way back into my WeGoIgo code. It's definitely showing it's age (it was my first published app, and only the second I wrote). There's a lot of rugged stuff that shows how little I really understood about the platform when I first started, and I feel I've really developed as a programmer since I started the project about a year ago. I've already executed several ideas I had for revamping some of the code to make it sturdier and just generally better. The focus for the next release (whenever I have the time to finish some things up) will probably be AI. I've completely re-written the bridge between GnuGo and Android to make it faster, more efficient and stable, etc. I've also scrapped all the logic for the interactions between GnuGo and WeGoIgo and rewritten it, so that should also be significantly more stable. GnuGo will now throw up a Notification while it's running, so there's no doubt about whether it's crashed and just not told you!

I may release just these changes if I don't have time to improve the interface like I want to, but I hope to add some fun enhancements to stone placement and stuff that I think everyone will like.

Look forward to it!

Silence O'Clock 2.1

2011-06-03T18:17:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post to note that I've updated Silence O'Clock to fix a pretty weird bug. Sorry for any inconvenience!

If anyone else stumbles on a weird issue where they've got checkboxes attached to views in an ExpandableListView, and expanding/hiding the groups causes the checkboxes to go crazy, you might be doing something like this in your getChildView or getGroupView:

 final Item item = getChild(groupPosition, childPosition);
CheckBox enabled = (CheckBox) convertView.findViewById(R.id.enabled);
enabled.setChecked(item.enabled); 
// reset with a shiny new listener
enabled.setOnCheckedChangeListener(new OnCheckedChangeListener() {

@Override
public void onCheckedChanged(CompoundButton buttonView, boolean isChecked) {
// do something with "item"
}
});

The problem is that hiding/showing the views actually causes them to be recreated. But, in an effort to be memory friendly, Android just reuses old Views. So, your call to setChecked() is actually firing the old OnCheckedChangeListener that was attached earlier, and which has reference to a different Item.

The easy solution is to just clear the listener with enabled.setOnCheckedChangeListener(null); before you call setChecked(). Easy!

Full changelog:

* Fix: Missed one or two "slice" renames
* Fix: Strange bug where expanding/hiding groups would cause
slices/groups to get toggled randomly

Silence O'Clock 2.0

2011-05-19T15:21:00.000-07:00

A demo of the spiffy effects on the Quick Slice creation widget.

At long last, I've finished a bunch of new features and modifications to my Silence O'Clock app. Besides changing "Silence Period" to "Silence Slice"-- it's alliterative, and I wasn't a fan of the old wording anyway-- the biggest new thing is the addition of "Quick Slice." With Quick Slices, with just a "slice" (in this case, a sliding motion with your finger) and a couple taps, you can set your phone to silent for 15 minutes up to 6 hours, after which your ringtone will automatically be turned back on. This feature is perfect for movies or unscheduled meetings-- you'll miss any calls because you forgot to turn your ringer back on again!

+ There's now an option to have Notifications displayed during Silence Slices
+ New "Quick slice" feature: a one-shot slice of silence for movies, etc.
+ Shortcut available for creating Quick Slices
* "Periods" renamed to "Slices" (as in "time slice")
* Times for new Slices now start at the current time and end an hour after
* Various dialogs now have a bit more explanation

WeGoIgo 1.15

2011-05-19T15:15:00.000-07:00

Just uploaded yet another update. Someone requested the ability to pass in Joseki on the reviews, so I thought I'd go ahead and put it in. You can pass through the options menu, a new button that's only enabled if there's a "pass" in the dictionary for the current move, or if there's a "tenuki spot," which is just some label in the bottom corner without a variation associated.

In other news, I've changed handicaps to follow this page: http://senseis.xmp.net/?path=Handicap&page=HandicapPlacement. I think this is more common. If you don't like those, however, I've also added custom handicap placement.

Finally, I've added a bit more SGF/Tsumego compatibility, and updated the visual area calculation to include labels. Also, if it surrounded the board completely, it now shrinks it back down to what you'd expect.

+ Added passing for Joseki; Clicking on the tenuki spot in Kogo (IE, a label without an associated variation) will also pass
+ Added custom handicap placement!
+ "Automatic" (Japanese) handicaps now match GnuGo's order
+ More compatibility (specifically, old-style multiple labels, board size specifications for tsumego)
* Fix: Visual area for Tsumego now takes labels/annotations into account

WeGoIgo 1.14

2011-05-09T13:56:00.000-07:00

Nothing groundbreaking in today's update for WeGoIgo, but a few fixes and changes that should make those users with small screens smile. You can now choose to view games in "fullscreen" mode, which hides the status bar and, if my emulator is to be believed, grants users with 3-inch QVGA screens just enough elbow room to use the navigation buttons when an ad is on screen. If you've got a nice beefy screen, or have paid for the ad-free version, this will just give you more room to read comments... but that's pretty cool, too, right? I also fixed a bug where, even if the ad slid off screen (which is automatic if any comments are there), you could still click on it somehow. My apologies to anyone affected by this issue for not discovering it sooner!

In other news, I've continued to fiddle with my SGF reading and handling to make them even more forgiving. This is a formal plea to SGF developers or people just writing out their Tsumego problems by hand: Follow the SGF standard specifications! It's easier for all of us. Regardless, this should make WeGoIgo official compatible with at least the kyuu-level tsumego on the venerable goproblems.com. Thanks to Timo for your help finding incompatible sets!

+ Fullscreen preference. Helpful for those with really small screens.
+ WeGoIgo will now follow moves in SGF files even if they don't match the current black/white turn-- this is more in keeping with SGF standard
+ Even MORE compatibility with non-standard SGF
* Fix: If UI was covered by ads, trying to click on it when the ads hide no longer opens the (supposedly hidden) ad.
* Fix: FC caused by loading a file, loading a second one that doesn't parse, then loading the first again

WeGoIgo 1.12

2011-04-12T09:28:00.000-07:00

Another quick-- but very important-- update for WeGoIgo. The last update changed some things about loading files to be more compatible with poorly formatted files, but I neglected to notice that the change would not be compatible with the loading method used for Joseki (it's different because Kogo is so huge). As a result, an initial load of a Joseki file would get stuck at 0%-- anyone who had installed it and used Joseki before the update should be fine, but another change in the loading made WeGoIgo apparently refuse to read files it created (such as the autosave). These embarassing bugs have all been fixed with this update, so PLEASE grab it if you haven't!

For those of you affected by the Joseki issue, you can to to Preferences > Advanced Preferences > Clear Cache to get rid of the failed Joseki reads. This applies to you if, when you load a Joseki, the board is empty and the comments field at the bottom says "End of recorded path."

Sorry for the inconvenience! Full changelog after the break, as usual.

* Fix: Bug preventing Joseki from running their initial load properly

* Fix: Bug causing WegoIgo to refuse to read files it created itself.

That's embarassing!

+ Item in Advanced Preferences to clear the cache-- useful for those

having problems loading Joseki so they can retry without losing

all of their Tsumego data.

WeGoIgo 1.11

2011-04-09T07:40:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post to announce that I've (finally) posted version 1.11 of my Go app. I decided to take a break from my class projects and address some issues with loading SGF files that I've been emailed about. Otherwise, the full version is withing spitting distance of 100 downloads, and the lite version is not that much further from 3000. I'm pretty excited! I'll be more excited, though, when I'm done with all the projects I have to do and can back to working more on those I want to do, like this.

Full change log after the break

* Fix: Potential crash for really small boards
+ Various improvements of compatibility with SGF files that don't conform to standards; generally increased poor formatting tolerance

Silence O'Clock 1.3

2011-03-25T09:24:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update to point out that I released v1.3 of my Silence O'Clock app today. This version brings a slew of bug fixes that have been waiting a long time to see the light of day. I would love to have pushed them out sooner, but have been swamped with work for my various classes and have just had zero time to myself. Hopefully I'll get some more time soon, because I have a lot of exciting ideas for WeGoIgo, not to mention my games.

Full changelog:

* Fix: Incorrect group being checked when editing the group
of an existing period
* Fix: "No group selected" error message when creating a new group
* Fix: Toggle boxes showing incorrect state after opening/closing a group
* Fix: The default hour settings when creating a silence period were wonky,
and caused a FC if in 24-hour time.

WeGoIgo 1.10

2011-02-13T14:57:00.000-08:00

Didn't I say I wasn't going to be working as much on this for a while? Ah, well.

Version 1.10 brings some pretty nice improvements, like faster draw speeds for games with lots of stones (noticeable when using the magnifying glass), a more comprehensible stone toggling functionality when trying to use the "score" button on games (note that this is still NOT that accurate, and should be used more for visualization), and a comments popup window, that might be helpful if your device has a small screen.

In other news, apparently my developer's info thing hadn't updated when I posted yesterday, as WeGoIgo Lite now shows over 1700 downloads. I'm very excited by this! I also received the following review, which made my day:

This has the potential to be the best Go study tool on any mobile device. Keep up the great work.

Thanks, Mark, for your support!

As usual, the full changelog is after the break.

* Fix: Board Coordinate numbering follows convention properly now
* Fix: Sped up drawing when there are many stones on the board
+ Improved the stone toggling algorithm when scoring games. Note that this still very approximate, and should probably NOT be used for official score-keeping!
+ "Comments" button on the options menu when reviewing a game, Joseki, or Tsumego to open a window for viewing comments.... Should help people with smaller screens that don't have much room for the comments box.

WeGoIgo 1.9

2011-02-11T13:31:00.000-08:00

Released version 1.9 of WeGoIgo today. Not many huge changes, but several bug fixes.

Among the "nice new things," the circle magnifying glass will now properly "look at" points in the corners, and there are some coordinates on the side of the board, to help with reviewing games. They're kinda small (especially on phones with small screens), but there's not a whole lot of room, and I'm trying to maximize stone space, so it's easier to place stones where you want to. It's better than nothing, right?

Also, I'm excited to announce that WeGoIgo is now in the 50-100 downloads range. Thank you to everyone for your support! The lite version is almost at 1500 downloads-- wow!

Full change log after the break

* Fix: Crashing when various SGF-loading errors occur
* Fix: Help file showed wrong default location for archive files
* Fix: Potential crash when loading archive games
* Fix: The magnifying glass can now "see" the corner points
* Change: Order of handicaps is now more sensible
* Change: Added a title to the Tsumego context menu
+ Board Coordinates now show when playing/review games, and for Joseki. They're a bit small, but there's not much space.

Silence O'Clock

2011-02-10T14:39:00.000-08:00

Today I published a simple app to automatically set your phone to silent (or vibrate) mode. The one I had been using didn't have a toggle feature, so if you wanted to temporarily disable some setting (like classes, when going on break), you had to delete it, and then add it back later-- a huge pain! In response to this frustration, I sat down and wrote this app. Not only can you toggle individual Silence Periods, but each Period belongs to a Group, which you can toggle in order to disable or enable every Period that belongs to it at once-- Now, I can just put all of my Silent Periods for class in a group, and just toggle that checkbox on breaks. Perfect!

Silence O'Clock is just $0.99 in the Market. I'll probably release a free version with limited features (probably just a single group, for example) at some point in the future.

WeGoIgo 500+

2011-01-15T16:58:00.000-08:00

Nothing too substantial to report today, but I was excited enough that I thought I'd share: I was happily surprised today when I loaded up the Android Developer's page, to see that WeGoIgo Lite has seen over 500 total downloads. I would be even happier to see that many purchases of the paid version, but I can't complain ;) This project was always a labor of love, and the fact that I'm getting any money out of it at all is a truly exciting thing, and a first for me-- the vast majority of my pet projects haven't left the safety of my harddrive.

In other news, I've come up with what, I hope, will be a very fun and interesting new game, and one which, to my knowledge, will be pretty unique, too. I don't want to reveal anything yet-- it's little more than a freshly created project in Eclipse and an idea in my head, but I thought I'd throw it out there that I'm developing more than just WeGo.

That being said, my frantic update pace from the first couple weeks is sure to fall-- University is starting up again in a few days, in addition to this new project-- but fear not! I am still very interested in improving WeGo, and my To-Do list for it is by no means empty.

Thanks to everyone who's purchased my app and supported it so far, and a special extra thanks to everyone sending me constructive emails with suggestions and bug reports!

WeGoIgo 1.7

2011-01-02T18:46:00.000-08:00

Today I've released v1.7 of my Go app. While functionally there's just a minor bug fix, there are a couple graphical changes that combine to (I think) represent a drastic improvement. First and easiest is the addition of shadows to the stones. This was a sort of "while I'm at it" thing, but I think it looks really nice, and gives a depth to the board that wasn't there before.

Next, I've changed the zoom box/magnifying glass drastically. It's no longer a (rather ugly) rounded square, but a circle. In addition, it has a nice shadow, and a light shine, giving it some depth as well. I'd received some complaints that the zoom box was more confusing than helpful, because it wasn't much different from the rest of the board, and I hope that these changes will help to ameliorate that situation.

Updated screenshots and full changelog after the break.

+ Stones now have shadows!
* Change: Zoom box is now circular, and (I hope) more clearly
distinguishable from the rest of the board
* Fix: Move numbering was incorrect when loading single games

Some closeups of the shadows

The magnifying glass in action!

Happy New Year and WeGoIgo 1.6

2011-01-01T16:29:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, everyone! Here's hoping 2011 treats us all well.

In App news, I just pushed out WeGoIgo v1.6 for both lite and paid versions. This release has a slew of fixes and a preference to flip the positioning of the zoom box-- this should be relevant for anyone who thinks the tilt-sensor puts the box on the wrong side, or for those just using static positioning but hold their phone in the other hand.

+ New preference to flip the position of the zoom box
* Fix: The FolderPrefs now sorts case-insensitive-ly
* Fix: Importing Tsumego/Archive collections from the
Acceptor (File manager interface) no longer crashes
* Fix: Folder preferences are properly respected in the Acceptor
* Fix: "Next Unsolved" preference ignored solved problems

Updates and Ads

2010-12-30T13:57:00.000-08:00

Today, I released a free, ad-based version of my WeGoIgo app, known on the market as "WeGoIgo Lite." I know I love free apps myself, and don't mind wading through ads, so I thought I would bring that option to users of my own app. The users of the paid version of my app will always have precedence over those of the free version (They are paying money, after all!), but I don't plan on crippling the free version by removing features-- hopefully this is good news to everyone. I do reserve the right to include games/go problem sets ONLY in the paid version, as a thank you-- but I haven't gotten to that point-- I'll let you know when I do. To clarify, the paid version is still on the market, and still is ad-free. The "Lite" version is must to give people another option.

In other news, I've released several updates since the original upload, with a few changes, several fixes, and a couple of new fixes.

Full change log until now after the break.

Version 1.5
* Fix: Canceling the loading of a file caused a crash
* Fix: Description of New Game reflects ability to play AI now
+ Help entry linking to Go tutorials

Version 1.4
* Fix: Crashing/Slow-down issues related to undo when playing AI
* Change: Removed go to start/go to end menu items in Play Game mode

Version 1.3
+ Allow AI level selection (Assumes support for non-standard
    GTP "level" command introduced by GNU Go)
+ "Pass" command when playing games.
+ If AI and player both pass, the score is evaluated and
    displayed. It is also included in the sgf file if you
    choose to save your game. Note that this ONLY happens
    if playing an AI! WeGoIgo doesn't yet have reliable
    built-in scoring

Version 1.2
* Fix: Joseki loading; it caches the file on
    the first load, so each load after should be
    instantaneous. Navigating moves is a bit sluggish,
    but that can be optimize that further in the future

Version 1.1
+ New Help entry on the Score button
* Fix: Folder selection in preferences

Version 1.0
+ Initial Market post

WeGoIgo

2010-12-19T20:30:00.001-08:00

I just released my first Android app onto the Market today, called WeGoIgo. I wrote a pretty detailed description about it on the Market, so I won't waste too much space here, but I wanted to put this here as a placeholder. Any future posts about the app will go under the tag WeGoIgo. Anyone who came here from the link on the Market may feel free to comment on this (or future) posts with feedback.

Screenshots after the break

The Ear Reddening Game in WeGoIgo

Tsumego Selection

Jump breaks? What?

2010-01-18T23:47:00.000-08:00

Long time no see! Happy way-belated New Year's and whatnot.

So I just discovered that blogger finally supports jump breaks. This is the stuff that some news sites/blogs have where they say "More after the break" and there's a link with "Read more" or something. I've always wanted that for this blog, because coding stuff tends to take more page real estate than I want it to, and now I can. So, maybe I'll post more. Who knows.

I've been up to various things since the last I posted. Some more latte, lots of coding.... In particular, I've been working on my own custom forum software. Its purpose is not to be more sophisticated or even as sophisticated as, say, phpBB, but to be lightweight, quick, and with nice features. It's tailored to forum-based role playing, which I do with my friends. To this end, it loads new replies to topics in real time (more or less) and supports drafts of posts, so you never have to worry about losing your post again!

I also finally went through and abstracted the network stuff from my series tracker, so I'm one step away from freeing the thing from my old, crappy TCP library which it had been entrenched in. (Also, it should be a bit more efficient and quick, though not noticably so.)

I'm sure there's more, but that's enough for now

PS: The more on the jump breaks here: http://buzz.blogger.com/2009/09/you-might-as-well-jump.html

Latte art 29 & 31

2009-11-08T14:46:00.000-08:00

These are fairly old, but I'd forgotten to post them, and randomly decided to go ahead and do that.

Enjoy!

Latte art 29 -- Rosetta

Latte Art 31 - Rosetta

Latte art 27

2009-09-27T22:04:00.000-07:00

Poured 27 Sept 09 -- Rosetta.

I finally have my camera, so after a long break I was able to snap a shot of some latte art. Great timing, because this might be my best one yet :)

Enjoy!

Start your Mediatomb transcode where you want!

2009-09-23T12:18:00.000-07:00

One issue with using Mediatomb and transcoding to watch videos on the PS3 is that, if your network cuts out, the video stops, and you have to start all over again. Oh yeah, and Mediatomb doesn't support fast-forwarding for transcoded files.

Luckily, both programs I've been using to transcode support a "start offset" setting. For VLC, the commandline flag is "--start-time" and for mencoder it's "-ss".

Sure, we could edit our transcoder script every time we want to start somewhere other than the beginning, but that's a pain in the butt, especially if it's in a write-protected directory and you have to sudo.

So, what I did in my mencoder transcoding script (See the last post I made, or go here: http://pastie.org/627856) was try to load a file that contains a number -- the number seconds we want to delay start. This can be any file, so long as you make your transcode script point to that file.

To populate this file, I threw together a quick script. You can put this anywhere, particularly /usr/bin if you want to be able to run it easily on command line. Mine's just in my home directory for now. The script takes a single argument, which is the number of minutes to offset start. It accepts a decimal number as well, so you can do .5 for 30 seconds, etc. Anyway, here it is:
(http://pastie.org/627873)

Make sure the variable OFFSET_FILE at the top points to the same one that gets read by your transcoder script! Also, you may need to make sure that you have "bc" installed for the floating point math.

If you put the script in /usr/bin/mediatomb_delay, then you can run it easily like this:

mediatomb_delay 55.5

This will tell mediatomb to start transcoding from 55 minutes and 30 seconds.

Enjoy!

Mediatomb + Mencoder

2009-09-23T12:00:00.001-07:00

In my previous post on Mediatomb, I was using VLC to transcode the videos with the subtitles attached. This works the vast majority of the time, but sometimes the subtitles contain non-standard symbols, such as the curly quotes (They are the ones that are curved inward toward the text, unlike the standard quote symbol which is strictly vertical; I'm not sure what these are actually called) or an ellipses character, that you might see when using Microsoft Word. Unfortunately, VLC doesn't seem to support these characters (at least, my version doesn't) and instead of silently ignoring them, it leaves off any line containing them. Consequently, some shows end up with lots of un-subtitled parts, which can be a problem if I watch a Korean show, for example, as I don't know much more than the very basics.

What I'd been doing was using a script to temporarily strip out these characters into a separate file, keeping a copy of the original to be replaced fifteen or so seconds later, once the fixed file had been read. This works pretty well, but then of course you're often missing quotes, apostrophes and ellipses. Furthermore, this also sometimes failed miserably, resulting in the subtitle file being completely erased. In addition, I came across several videos that VLC simply refused to play.

My solution? Switch to mencoder. It was temporary at first, but now that I've uncovered the subtitle options and gotten them to display as I like, I'm much happier. So far, I've had no problems with videos not getting playing, and it even reads the characters that VLC choked on!

Enough talking, let's get down to business!

I got started with the guide here: http://psyklops.blogspot.com/2009/01/mediatomb-and-ps3-with-mencoder.html

The problem is that mencoder didn't seem to want to load my subtitle files automatically. Fortunately, I'd already written a bash script to find the subtitle file for a video (It's brute force, but it works), so I was able to simply throw it in. Even if the subtitle file isn't found, mencoder doesn't complain, so the same transcode script works even if there are no subtitles!

I wasn't able to find all the subtitle options on the mencoder website, but you can see them here: http://linux.die.net/man/1/mencoder

Another thing that's changed from my old post is the start offset. I forgot to update the old post, but I wrote a quick script that saves the offset into a file, which gets read when the stream starts and deleted later so you don't have to worry about it. I'll post about that next. If you want to use it, make sure to replace the /home/YOURNAME/ with the path to your home directory!

Here's my /usr/bin/mediatomb-transcode-video:
(http://pastie.org/627856)

Using Thinkpad Dock Events

2009-09-15T08:56:00.000-07:00

I've been using this for a while, but I always seem to forget to post up my coding stuff, so I thought I'd go ahead and throw this one up now.

If you don't know, I use a Thinkpad T61 laptop with one of their docks, into which I plug my external harddrives and mouse, etc. The nice thing about this is that it's really easy to just take out my laptop when I need it for class -- I don't have to unplug the ethernet cable, the usb drives, etc. one by one. The downside is that when I take it out, all of the entries in the Mediatomb database disappear! (I mentioned this in an earlier post when I discussed my Mediatomb config file.) Since I have the directories saved in the config file for Mediatomb, I need only restart the server to have it add them back in. But, it got to be a pain to call up a terminal and reset the server, so I decided to look into automation. Check out what I found after the break.

I found a great resource here. That tells you basically all you need to know, but I'll go over it really quick here as well.

1. First, open a terminal or a file browser and go to /etc/udev/. If you have a rules.d folder inside, go there. Next, create a file like "55-thinkpad-t61.rules". I'm not sure if the filename matters, but since I have a t61, that's what I used. In that file, paste the following:


# run a script on dock/undock
KERNEL=="dock.0", ATTR{docked}=="1", RUN+="/home/dhleong/code/ondock 1"
KERNEL=="dock.0", ATTR{docked}=="0", RUN+="/home/dhleong/code/ondock 0"

Note that you should replace your own path in place of /home/dhleong/code. That's just where I decided to put my file.

Next, create the file you pointed to in the RUN+="" section above. For me, this would be /home/dhleong/code/ondock

Into that file, paste the following:
(http://pastie.org/617576)

Notice the while loop at line 15. There, I'm waiting for one of my externals to get re-mounted. After all, Mediatomb won't be able to find the files if the harddrive isn't connected! You should replace this with the names of one of your harddrives, if you want to use this script for that.

Last, is the line 21. This is a script I wrote to restart Mediatomb. It's quite simple, and I've replicated it here:
(http://pastie.org/617579)

That's it! Just don't forget to chmod +x all the scripts, so that they're executable.

SHRPG - Major update

2009-08-09T14:37:00.000-07:00

I've just posted the biggest update on my SHRPG project over at the SHPRG Development Blog. It's some pretty exciting stuff, as it means the game will soon be in a privately testable state. Check out the post, if you're interested.

In other news, I just got back from a vacation with my family to Deep Creek in Maryland. It was a blast, but I'm glad to have internet again. It's not that I really missed it -- I was having a lot of fun hanging out with my parents and siblings and playing with the nieces and nephews -- but I'm still glad to be able to check my email and stuff again!

Probably the most memorable thing we did was a Kayak trip on (I think) the Savage River Reservoir. It was about four hours, with a break in the middle for a picnic lunch. I'm not usually a fan of picnics, because you have to be eating with the bugs -- and we were, let there be no doubt -- but I still managed to enjoy it, and the food was actually quite good. Right after lunch, before going back out on the water, the guide took out his spotting scope and showed us a bald eagle's nest. One of the eagles was waiting right there next to it -- how cool is that?

Anyway, that's about it. Maybe I'll post more about the trip later, but probably not. Oh well ;)

Series Tracker update

2009-06-27T14:01:00.000-07:00

I've finally gotten around to uploading a .tar.gz file with the latest version of my SeriesTracker to the google code page. Head on over there if you're interested.

This latest version brings a new templating system that seems to work (I've been using it without problems for a few weeks!) and a slew of bug fixes. The new download includes the default css file, as well as the default template files, all in one convenient package.

I also starting writing up a description of the templating system that I used, for anyone who wants to try their hand at making their own. I recommend just customizing the css file, but I'm sure there are some enterprising people that like to fiddle with stuff, so i thought I'd show people how.

That's about it for now. I started work on monday, so I've generally been too busy/tired to make any real progress on my own projects. We'll see what happens.

SHRPG back from the dead

2009-06-07T19:01:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post about my SHRPG project.

SHRPG (SilverHearts RPG) is an online, browser-based game that I'm developing. It plays like an old-school MUD, but will have some interface conveniences using Web2.0 technology. The goal of the game is to be able to create a character of any type (Jedi? Shinigami? Saiyan?). Basically, I was frustrated because it is really impossible to find a game that has exactly what I want. With this game, I hope it will be possible for everyone to create exactly the sort of character they want to play.

It's been about four months since I last posted an update on the blog, but I definitely have NOT given up on it! This post, and the one on that developer blog, are mostly just to prove that :)

Check out the (currently almost completely empty) website here, or head straight to the developer blog here.

Mediatomb -- Making it work

2009-05-26T08:23:00.000-07:00

After I dual-booted my laptop with Linux Mint, there was just one thing that kept me booting back into Windows on a fairly regular basis. That is, I really enjoy watching Asian dramas. But, rather than watching them on my little laptop screen, I would much prefer to stream them to my PS3 so I can watch on my TV. In Windows, in combination with my SeriesTracker program, I would accomplish this using TVersity. In Linux, however, I just couldn't get anything to work right. I tried FUPPES with no luck whatsoever, and MediaTomb would stream, but wouldn't put the subtitles on for me like TVersity would.

Fortunately, after several tries, I discovered a solution. To save anyone in a similar situation to myself, I thought I would post my full settings, so nobody will have to surf Google for hours and mess around a lot like I did. Check it out after the break

Here is my config file (~/.mediatomb/config.xml):
(http://pastie.org/490105)

Note of course that you'll have to change the information on how you store your data (I used MySQL because I happen to have a server running for various other stuff, but you can certainly just use SQLite). Also, I used the <autoscan> tag because my files are on an external harddrive, and I would have to re-add the folders every time I removed the drives and reconnected. This saved some headaches there.

Here's my transcribe script (/usr/bin/mediatomb-transcode-video):
(http://pastie.org/490130)

Note here the two commented-out lines. Those run some scripts I wrote to clean up subtitle files that have non-printing characters in them, as those cause VLC to skip that whole line -- a problem when you don't speak very much Korean! I'll probably post those later.

Also, there's a variable START_OFFSET which is interesting. MediaTomb has an unfortunate problem where you can't probably pause/play or, well, anything when using PS3. So, if your router is crappy, as mine is, and your network gets interrupted while you're watching a show, which it has to me, you'll be able to change this variable and start the stream again, starting where you left off. It is in SECONDS. Also, don't forget to set back to 0 when you're done.

Enjoy!

Series Tracker shows images!

2009-05-13T20:40:00.001-07:00

Well, I just put it up today and I've already made an update. The SeriesTracker server software now sends images properly, so if you want to play with the .css file to change the appearance, you can now have images in the background if you like!

Series Tracker -- Now on Google Code

2009-05-13T18:38:00.000-07:00

Now that I'm finally done with finals, I got around to making a Google Code project page for my SeriesTracker. On there you can find more info about the project history, and I'll try to post up a download sometime soon.

Check it out here: http://code.google.com/p/seriestrackerv5/

Latte art 23 & 24

2009-05-08T22:10:00.000-07:00

Both poured on 7 May 09.

Rosetta:

It's a bit crooked, but otherwise looking good :)

Part 2 after the break.

Heart:

It's kind of hard to see (read: really hard), but it's sort of there. It's a good start, anyway...?

I'll try to post about my programming stuff after finals are over. Seriously.

Latte art 22 -- Rosetta

2009-05-04T22:58:00.000-07:00

Things are starting a bit slow around here because it's Finals time at my college, but I randomly decided to go ahead and start things off with a piece of latte art. While obviously this is the first piece of latte art on here, I've decided to stick with the actual name of the file for the title here -- this is the 22nd bit of latte art that I have a picture saved of on my computer.

Anyway, enjoy!

Series Tracker

2009-05-02T09:51:00.000-07:00

This is the first post about my Series Tracker project, one of my oldest and most updated/redone programming projects.

About:
I watch a lot of Asian shows (http://www.daddicts.com). And, I have a tendency not to pick one series and watch it all the way through before moving on to the next. Therefore, instead of trying to write down what episode I'm on for each series I'm watching, and then have to go through the folders to find it and load it, I decided to write a program to take care of all that for me.

I won't go into the history of this project just now, but I will mention that the Series Tracker is currently in its 5th iteration. More information (and possibly downloads) to come later.

Welcome!

2009-05-02T09:34:00.000-07:00

Well, this is my first post here at daAPL. Here you can expect to see me talk about some of my more interesting programming projects, such as my series tracker, a web-based mmorpg I'm working on, wii homebrew projects, etc. Also, you can look forward to me posting pictures of some latte art that I make as I progress in the learning process. Maybe I'll even talk about random stuff, but I suspect that may be a bit more rare.

I'll try to tag each post with the appropriate project name, so if you're interested in any particular project, you should be able to just click on the link under "Tags" over there on the sidebar.