Hypn.za.net | @hypn

Prince of Persia – Source Code Notes

Here’s some retro geeky awesomeness… Prince of Persia source code notes!

Download (404kb)

WoW – “Market Watcher” addon

I found an addon yesterday, called “Market Watcher“, which monitors Auction House prices of items you set and then draws graphs so you can see how the prices have changed. From the site:

Market Watcher is an addon that scans the auction house and records data for specified items and assists in daily auction house shopping in general. When the addon is set to record, a price history can be displayed to assist in determining a value for items of interest.

What makes Market Watcher unique from other auction house addons is that it records multiple scans instead of just the most recent. This obviously uses a great deal of memory, so only scans of items specified by the user will be recorded. The saving of multiple scans allows for a more accurate determination of value, and allows the addon to deduce if some auctions were actually sold, so you can see which auctions are actually selling as opposed to basing a value off the prices of auctions that may not be selling at all.

While it’s a great addon, it does something I don’t like: it doesn’t let you open your trade skill windows while the Auction House window is open – the reason for this is because (normally) opening a trade skill window closes the Auction House window, but if you’re using the Auctioneer addon there’s an option to “protect auction house window” to allow you to have both open. To remove this “protection”/”feature” of Market Watcher, open “MarketWatcher.lua” in your “Interface\AddOns\MarketWatcher” folder, and find “UIParent:UnregisterEvent(“TRADE_SKILL_SHOW”);” (line 255 in the 5th Aug 2009 version) and put two minus signs (–) in front, to comment it out.

You’ll need to restart WoW, or do a “/reloadui” to apply these changes.

WoW Item Info desktop app

Just a quick post to tell you about a new app we’ve made, called “WoW Item Info” (we’ll probably re-name it), which lets you view a World of Warcraft item’s info anyway – it’s a program with runs in your system tray, and when you highlight text (the item name) and press Windows key and W (Win+W) if fetches the item info from WowHead.com and displays it. There may still be a lot of bugs, and there will be a new version released shortly.

Note: Might not work in Skype, depending on your “Pressing Ctrl+V will” settings (under “IM & SMS”, under “Show advanced options”)

UPDATE: Fixed an issue reading in the icon, preventing the program from working :| Will probably release a new version shortly with a better quality (larger) icon.

Credits:
AutoHotKey – http://www.autohotkey.com
WowHead’s API – http://www.wowhead.com
Titan’s “xpath” – http://www.autohotkey.net/~Titan/#xpath

Download: WowItemInfo1.1.zip (201kb)

Greets to:
Ultrazor, Kymeara and Durgath. Taera (various EU realms)
GameThreat (http://www.gamethreat.net)
“Pap en Vleis” on Twilight’s Hammer EU (http://www.papenvleis.za.net)
“Murder of Crows” on Bronzebeard EU (http://www.murderofcrows.ws)

Hypn’s Plants VS Zombies Trainer

Hypn’s Plants VS Zombies Trainer v1.00

Features:
* start each level with 9999 sun
* get  9999 sun from each sun
* build for free (must have enough sun to build the plant though)
* instant cool-down after building a plant
* invincible plants (don’t take damage)
* all plants start cooled-down at the beginning of a level
* one shot kills zombies (cone/helmet/etc zombies take 2 shots)
* start a level even if you haven’t filled your plant slots

Hacks can be enabled/disabled individually, or all at once.

Download: Hypn’s Plants VS Zombies Trainer.zip (4kb)

Plants VS Zombies official site

USB Webserver 8.0 (unofficial)

UPDATE (15 July 2010): An “official” version of USB Webserver 8 has been released, please use this instead of my “unofficial” version. You can download it from http://www.usbwebserver.net/

This is an unofficial updated version of USB Webserver. The original USB Webserver was created by http://www.usbwebserver.nl – but their site is currently down, and they haven’t released an update for a while.

This version contains:

Apache: 2.2.11
PHP: 5.2.10-dev (with GD and cURL)
MySQL: 5.1.30-community (with InnoDB)

It defaults to “English” (the original was “Dutch”), and you may need to change the ports if you have been using USB Webserver previously.

Download: “USB Webserver 8.0 (unofficial).zip” (17.6mb)

(and yes, I know the main USB Webserver screen still says “USB Webserver 7.0″ – ignore that :P)

memcache on PHP 5.2.*

I decided I wanted to start using memcached because it’s really awesome, but really struggled to get it working in Windows on PHP 5.2.3 because I couldn’t find the stupid “php_memcache.dll” file I needed (at the time of writing this, Pecl4Win is down… which happens to be where the official PHP documentation tells you to get it from – great).

Luckily I came across this blog post, which not only tells you how to to install the extension (adding 1 line to your “php.ini” file) but also linked to a PHP 5.2.* version of the it. I decided to mirror it, for anyone else trying to find it:

php_memcache.dll (49kb)

FileZilla 3.2.3.1 Annoyances Fix

I’ve been using FileZilla 2 for ages, but changed to FileZilla 3 yesterday (previously version 3 didn’t allow you to edit a file by double clicking on it ?!?!?! which it finally does). I hadn’t been using it for very long when I found some two things that REALLY annoyed me (specifically version 3.2.3.1):

A Fractal Universe?

I found this article this morning, about some scientists who suggest that the universe is laid out in a fractal pattern… which is pretty hectic. Of course this challenges the current “big bang” theory, so “Many cosmologists find fault with their analysis, largely because a fractal matter distribution out to such huge scales undermines the standard model of cosmology“, even though “Nearly all physicists agree that on relatively small scales the distribution is fractal-like” – what amuses me is how religious people are mocked for, and accused of, holding onto their beliefs and disregarding “scientific evidence”, yet it seems the same thing’s happening here? Who cares if it goes against the standard model of cosmology… investigate, and update – isn’t that what science is meant to be about?

The problem, however, is that “According to the accepted story of cosmic evolution, there simply hasn’t been enough time since the big bang nearly 14 billion years ago for gravity to build up such large structures” – unlucky.

FireFox 3.1 beta: classic Ctrl+Tab

FireFox 3.1 beta has just been released (portable version available here), and the “Ctrl+Tab” (for switching between browser tabs) has been changed to work and look more like “Alt+Tab” in Windows… showing you a picture of each tab you have open and allowing you to switch between them. Or as they put it “A new tab-switching shortcut that shows previews of the tab you’re switching to” – gee, thanks.

Personally, I HATE this new functionality – hasn’t anyone ever heard of that say “if it aint broke, don’t fix it”? I’m all for adding new functionality and allowing people to choose if they want to use it, but don’t change how a person interacts with a program (though personally I would’ve preferred it was a separate addon). I use Ctrl+Tab all the time, and the way it works now does not suit me. You can still scroll between tabs the “old way” using “Ctrl+PageUp” and “Ctrl+PageDown” – so now a one-handed action requires two hands… thanks alot. Clearly people are more concerned with things looking pretty than being functional.

Anyway, the point of this post is to tell you how to disable this new functionality, so it works like it used to. Go to “about:config” and type “ctrltab” in the filter bar, then set:

1) “browser.ctrlTab.mostRecentlyUsed” to “false”
2) “browser.ctrlTab.recentlyUsedLimit” to “0”
3) “browser.ctrlTab.smoothScroll” to “false”

You might need to restart FireFox for the changes to take effect.

I’m left wondering how much time was spent coding this nice new little “feature”, and how much it increased the filesize and memory usage of FireFox. Bad Mozilla. Maybe one day I’ll have to switch to “Links” (which looks like this). How about you spend more time worrying about standards compliance, CSS3, and passing that Acid test, and less time on making thing looks pretty, huh? Just a thought.

Useful Windows tools (that I can’t live without)

I use a couple of programs that I probably couldn’t live without… most of them are portable (or can just be run without needing to be installed), and all of them are free. Combined they weigh in at under 20mb – a very small price to pay for the functionality.

I’ve listed them in alphabetical order, and will provide a brief description of what they do and why I use them, but it’s up to you to read more about them and try them out:

allSnap – enabled “window snapping”, like WinAmp and Steam do… just helps with positioning windows on the screen

DisplayFusion – allows you to set different wallpapers on different monitors and provides hotkeys for moving windows between monitors, when you have more than 1 monitor (yes, I know, you could just use UltraMon, but it’s not free – though it does offer more features)

Hamachi – allows you to “network” computers over the internet, works through all kinds of network setups and firewalls

KatMouse – by default Windows scrolls the “active” part of the “active” window when you use your mouse scroll whell, this program scrolls whatever’s under your mouse

Launchy – basically a “Run” menu on steroids, you tell it the directories and file types to monitor and it makes launching files or apps incredibly quick and easy

PowerMenu – provides extra menu items when right-clicking on items in the taskbar, allowing you to adjust a program’s transparency, minimize it to the system tray, make it “always on top” and adjust it’s priority

ProcessTamer – monitors running programs and lowers the priority of any using too much CPU usage so your PC doesn’t slow down or freeze (only started using this today, but it looks like a keeper)

StrokeIt – gives Windows “mouse gestures” (you hold down your right mouse button and drawing shapes/letters) to execute commands, maximize/minimize windows etc (DEFINITELY can’t live without this one)

Taskbarshuffle – allows you to reposition items on your taskbar or in your system tray by dragging them, and close them by clicking your middle mouse button (like FireFox tabs)

UltraVNC – allows you remotely access/control your computers (I use this with Hamachi to access my home pc from work and visa versa)

Unlocker – when ever you get a “file in use” error (eg: when trying to move or delete a file) this program will tell you what’s using the file and allow you to close that program or unlock the file

I hope you find these tools useful :)