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TF2: de-rez: Team Fortress 2

I found this Team Fortress 2 video here, thanks to ubercharged.net:

TF2: “Your Performance As”

I found this on “Kovorka’z Gravel Pit” and like it, so here it is:

I’ve been trying to get back into playing as Spy, I think I’m in the middle of the graph at the moment ;)

PHP-SciTE

As a PHP developer I’ve tried many different IDEs but have always ended going back to SciTE. I started using a version with modifications by Bruce Dodson, but got frustrated with it not listing PHP files in the default “File Open” window, and not recognizing PHP5 files as PHP files, so I got to tinkering.

I changed the font and colours (for PHP files anyway), removed the other languages, enabled the auto-complete dropdown, changed the menus, included the PHP binary to check files for syntax errors, and included phpStylist to beautify source code. I also made a new icon, and added the latest “php.api”, and made F1 (help) open the PHP manual (included).

TF2: Gogol Rush video

Another really good (funny) TF2 video, called “Gogol Rush” :)

CleanMem

I just read about a program called “CleanMem” on gHacks.net, it’s a little program (36kb) that reduces the amount of memory that running programs use. There are lots of programs out there that claim to do the same thing that work by filling your memory, forcing stuff to be moved out and into a file on your hard drive. This program’s different, because (from what I can tell) it tells Windows to reduce the amount of total memory a program’s using… so it literally changes the amount of memory a program uses, not where a program’s memory is currently stored.

I’ve tried it, and it seems to work great, so I’d definitely recomment it :) did I mention that it’s freeware? Download it here: http://www.pcwintech.com/node/145

MySQL auto-timestamping triggers

I used to be dead against things like triggers… mainly because I hated coding them (and SQL) back when I learnt Oracle PL/SQL at college, and I’ve always been a “bare-minimum, must-be-backward-compatible, code-it-yourself” programmer… but now I’ve decided it’s just much easier to use them, and it’s not my fault if people refuse to upgrade to MySQL 5.

So here’s my niffty trigger code for the day, which automatically updates the “last_updated” (timestamp) field in a table, when a record is inserted or updated:

CREATE TRIGGER `database_name`.`last_updated_insert_trigger`
BEFORE INSERT ON `database_name`.`table_name` FOR EACH ROW SET new.last_updated := UNIX_TIMESTAMP();

CREATE TRIGGER `database_name`.`last_updated_update_trigger`
BEFORE UPDATE ON `database_name`.`table_name` FOR EACH ROW SET new.last_updated := UNIX_TIMESTAMP();

There’s probably a better way to do this (and I think you can combine both triggers, using “OR BEFORE UPDATE”?) but this is the first I’ve worked with triggers in MySQL and I’m too lazy to fiddle. Hope it helps. As I’m sure you can guess, `database_name` is your database name, `last_updated_update_trigger` is the name of your trigger, `table_name` is your table name, and `last_updated` is your field name that will contain the timestamp.

Hypn’s QFG2VGA Beard Hack

I wrote a hack that lets you keep selling the Whirling Dervish’s beard to Keapon Laffin in the remake of Quest for Glory 2, like you could do in the original version of the game (it was a bug). It’s probably really buggy, and might crash your game and/or corrupt your save game(s) so use at your own risk – and what ever you do, please do NOT report bugs while using this hack on the AGDInteractive forums… this hack is not their doing/fault/problem/whatever.

That said, feel free to download: Hypn’s QFG2VGA Beard Hack v1.0.zip (3kb)

UPDATE: this hack only works on version 1.0 of QFG2VGA, and not on the latest version they’ve released.

Quest for Glory (fan) art

There’s a thread on the Quest for Glory 2 remake’s forum dedicated to fan art – which I saw today for the first time. One of the forum members, by the name of “Lady Pyro”, has some incredible sketches that are definitely worth checking out.

My two favourite are below, along with coloured in versions by Hollister. Check out the thread here: QFG Artwork

Google Chrome

So Google have released their own browser, called “Chrome” – am I the only one who thinks it’s logo looks like a Pokeball (from Pokemon)?

You can download it from here: http://www.google.com/chrome

Quest for Glory 2 Remake: Blue Frog and items

I found a few extra items in the Quest for Glory 2 remake, including the elusive Blue Frog (which allowed you to cheat, in the original – “suck blue frog” anyone?)… Apparently you get it using the bellows with the air elemental in, and use it by pressing F10, or something like that?