Continue reading »]]> I just learned about this crazy nonsense you can do in Portal 2… it’s a glitch that literally allows you to fly through the map without using any HAXX0R1NG or other cheat codes. I put, what I saw in other vids, to a test… I think a fitting name is the “I Believe I Can Fly” Glitch.

Like I said I tested it, and in fact, it does work in the current PS3 retail version.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=C174uzcLE_I

“If the laws of physics do not apply in the future, then god help you.” - Cave Johnson

I know my hair is in the way… it always is

// UPDATE

Here are some pitfalls also to be aware of:

- Releasing the Crouch button cancels the effect
- While in Fly Glitch state, shooting a Portal on a portal-compatible surface, cancels the effect
- Touching or going through a Portal, also cancels the effect
- For some reason, sometimes, turning the right analogue stick cancels the effect

However, you can indeed fly out of bounds, do a Peek-A-Portal there, and solve the puzzle that way. In the chamber after the one you see in the video (I think), you could literally skip all the nonsense with the Propulsion Gel Ramp etc., since the exit is always open and you only have to get to it.

// UPDATE 2

At least for the chamber you see in the video, you cannot go out of bounds when in Fly Glitch state. I tested this by flying around in the chamber on different altitudes - there seems to be some sort of invisible glass wall on the left and right in the big void between the platform that is covered in Repulsion Gel and the Exit. It will literally not let you through.

Continue reading »]]> A while ago, I posted instructions that enables a broad range of normal Intel-based computers to run Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

The installation method I used is the one from TonyMac. The method does not require access to a Mac, no fiddling with cryptic Terminal command lines. It is by far, hands down, the most successful and most complete functioning method, it is even somewhat legit.

It’s almost as straightforward as installing Windows 7… but to some, like it was the case with me, there are some pitfalls to be aware of.

Follow TonyMac’s guide with the BIOS settings, and boot with the iBoot CD. You may find that the Snow Leopard DVD shows up with an hard drive icon, and if you attempt to boot from it, you’ll see something pretty nasty – something like this:

If you so happen to have Windows 7 on that drive, that appears to be the most likely cause for this problem. But don’t worry. You can still reach the Promised Land! Just do this neat little trick.

Turn off the machine. Open it up – and unplug the SATA cable that is connected to the hard drive (seriously, do it).

Then boot with iBoot, once you’re in the boot menu, Windows 7 should have vanished. Put in Snow Leopard as before, hit F5, but this time, it suddenly is a DVD. OMGNOWAIBBQ!!

Let the drive stop spinning and hit enter – Snow Leopard will boot, automagically! Now reconnect the SATA cable BEFORE it reaches the Installer.

Install as normal, boot once again with iBoot – but select the Snow Leopard partition, update to 10.6.7 with the Combo Updater, run MultiBeast to make your install boot from HD (also select the right kext’s if you need them).

You should now be on your way to Wonderland… I hope this helped someone out there.

My config: The SE51.net Hackintosh Issue

Continue reading »]]> In this day and age, 4GB of RAM is not so uncommon in computers. Some new ones when you buy them, have it. But then, most of them only come with a 32-bit system. Depending on what hardware the machine has, you’ll mostly see something around 3.2-3.5 GB of RAM available. So where did the RAM go? My computer broken or what? I just spent good money on it.

Your computer is not broken. It has to do with a limitation of 32-bit chips. They can only handle 4 GB of RAM:

2 ^ 32 = 4,294,967,296

I’m going to leave out all the technical details, let’s just say the OS needs some of RAM near the end for the devices in the machine.

On Windows, so I heard, you can get around it using the /PAE switch in boot.ini – this however won’t work on Windows 7, mind you (has no boot.ini).

If you use an Ubuntu with 32-bit – but have 4 GB or even more RAM installed, chances are you have the 3.2 GB RAM Problem. Luckily, at least for Ubuntu users, there’s a quick fix to give you access to 4 GB and more, automagically. Open a terminal, and type:

sudo apt-get install linux-generic-pae linux-headers-generic-pae

Then reboot. Enjoy your 4, 8 or even more GB on 32-bit.

Original source:
Ubuntu 4 GB RAM limitation and solution

Continue reading »]]> So in the moment I’m working on something that requires relatively smooth animations, so I figured the best way to do that is to do that with either – a timer, or super-slow drawing steps (meaning instead of moving at least 1 px in a certain amount of time, use no timer but increase pixel location by fractions).

Now in Cocoa (Objective-C to be precise) there are two ways to accomplish this. The one that follows appears to be flawed. So if you do

[[NSRunLoop currentRunLoop]
runUntilDate: [NSDate dateWithTimeIntervalSinceNow: 0.1]];

(where 0.1 is 0.1 seconds), it appears to spike memory usage and increase garbage. My application used 23 MB at opening – but when animating using this code, I suddenly used up a whopping 800 MB after 5 seconds of animation.

So my advise is to use this method, which basically has the same effect. However you also need to define a method, define if the timer repeats or not, and the time frame.

NSTimer *timer = [NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval: 0.1
target: self
selector: @selector(animate)
userInfo: nil
repeats: YES];

[timer fire];

No idea what userInfo is needed for… just leave it at nil. This method does not increase memory usage at all.

Continue reading »]]> So a while ago I came across a page that explained you how to install Mac OS X Snow Leopard on your PC. This is a very ambitious project, so I gathered some data before I actually went ahead and tried it. The short version is that I eventually succeeded. I’m typing this post from my Hackintosh, which I ironically named “Maclax”, as an homage to Madlax and the Mac.

So… here’s what you need to do.

0) Make sure you have a fairly recent Intel chip, and make sure you can set your HD mode to AHCI. Do not proceed further if you cannot set this in BIOS.

1) Go out and actually buy Mac OS X Snow Leopard. It’s only 30 Euro/Dollars, not 130 Euro/Dollars like previous versions. However this is only because Snow Leopard has no new major features compared to Leopard – so go get it.

2) Download and burn iBoot. iBoot NVIDIA – iBoot ATI – iBoot Supported – iBoot NVIDIA is the most complete solution and has been reported to work best. If you have an Intel Chip Apple is using, you might wanna try iBoot Supported.

3) Insert the burned iBoot CD into your drive and boot with it.

4) Once you see the screen, remove your iBoot CD and put in Snow Leopard. Press F5 and it should show the DVD. Select it.

5) Format the drive in your computer with 1 partition, and select GUID Partition Table.

6) Install OS X as normal.

7) You might get a “Installation Failed” screen – don’t worry! That’s normal since we are on a patched kernel. With iBoot Supported though, you’ll get a success screen (Vanilla kernel).
Restart. Put in your iBoot CD. Boot with it and select your Snow Leopard drive.

9) Set up your computer.

10) Download Multibeast. Unpack anywhere you want.

11) Run the program and select EasyBeast. Go through the other options – BUT BE CAREFUL!!

12) Install the selected options and mods, as well as kexts.

13) Reboot and remove iBoot

14) ???

15) Profit!!

If everything went well you are now sitting on a Hackintosh. Rejoice!!

My machine is now running 10.6.4 – but at the time of the taking of the pics, it was 10.6.3.

More details about that procedure here. This is basically how I did it.

Continue reading »]]> Admittedly, I do like the current iMac design a bit. I had a screen lying around, with which I had no idea what I should do with it. So I had the idea to take it apart and do something cool with it. To be precise, it’s a LG Flatron 19-inch widescreen. Looks like this when you buy it:

So I removed the plastic casing, leaving me with the actual monitor unit. I went into a DIY and looked for a frame with at least that size or larger, and found a good one. I took the frame apart, so that I only had the glass. Made some marks on the glass about the size and started cutting. After that, I painted the front plastic shell black, “overwriting” things like the LG logo and the “Flatron” identifier in the top left. Inserting the glass was no problem since it had the correct dimensions.

This is what it looks like now.

Kinda cool eh?

Mounted and ready for prime time. It’s now playing music videos all the time. With the glass in front it suddenly looks far more expensive. =)

Continue reading »]]> While I was fairly impressed at the features of the new iOS 4 for iPhone and iTouch, I was equally as PISSED that people who have older models could not avail of THE most attractive features in the new software for Apple’s mobile devices (apparently you require out-of-this-world CPU to render a wallpaper and some shadows which is why it was omitted on the 3G). Also, I grew a bit tired to boot a VM of XP or boot Vista on the other partition, just to synchronize the phone with iTunes. For this reason, I sat down and wondered if iOS 4 can already be jailbroken.

And yes it can =)

So to make a long story short, follow these instructions and you can be a happy camper – if you care about things that others have on their shiny 3Gs’s and iPhone 4′s. These instructions are FOR THE 3G ONLY!!

WARNING: If you are looking to unlock (remove carrier restrictions), STOP READING HERE!!! This is only for activated iPhones using official carriers.

If you already updated to iOS 4.0.2, you might be out of luck… best to back up your phone before you try this.

1.) Download the IPSW of iOS 4, here.

2.) Download the Redsn0w jailbreak tool, here for Windows or here for Mac.

3.) To be on the safe side, close iTunes.

4.) Turn your phone off completely.

5.) Start Redsn0w and direct it to the firmware you downloaded earlier.

6.) Once the iOS firmware is verified, you’ll see a screen with some options – most of which you will want. Like “enable Multitasking” etc.

7.) Connect your phone. Best with the cable as you need to perform a certain procedure next.

8.) Redsn0w will tell you PRECISELY what to press and when to enter DFU mode. It is a very special technical mode meant for Apple engineers… Once you entered this mode of operation, Redsn0w will do the rest for you.

9.) If everything was successful, your screen will show up something like “Downloading Jailbreak Data…”. This will take a while, so watch some YouTube.

10.) Once it completes your phone will reboot. Everything will be left intact, the way it was! Except that now you have Cydia as additional App Store on the display. Rejoice!!

Cydia is the community powered App Store, in case you didn’t know. It contains thousands of apps that either have not been approved by Apple, or the developers can’t afford the 99$ Developer Membership to officially release apps on the real App Store. Most are free, but some are commercial. Those that are… Have a good reason for it. xPod and iFile for example. No matter what you install, you should get the “Backgrounder” app which enables multitasking for older apps and apps that don’t natively support the Apple way. That one is free.

Once it completes you will probably notice that the phone chose a random image as home screen background… you can change that like you can on the 3Gs and 4G through the settings =)

This is how I did it, and this my iPhone 3G:

Cool eh? Hope this helps some people.

PS: Icon animation with background enabled isn’t as sluggish as you might think.

Continue reading »]]> So after I got a dynamic database running that allows you to browse through all available items in EVE, I sat down for another project. This time I wanted it to be something more epic and something that has not been done before, at least not that I know of.

Pretty recently I learned about the pretty amazing capabilities of the in-game browser of EVE Online. It has certain Javascript-calls built-in that allow to directly access in-game windows, information, or even directly manipulate your gameplay. For example it is possible to alter your course from the built-in browser. I thought this could be pretty cool when combined with something fancy.

Of course there is an in-game map in 3D and so on, but it is very limited as to what information it can provide. So I decided to bring that map to the browser. In 2D at least. The result is Cerberus Maps, a web-based map of the EVE-Universe. Why Cerberus? Because the corp I have founded and that I am in is called Cerberus Network.

First of all you need to sit down and get the basics straight, like zooming and moving – that was easy. The real problem is to accurately calculate the position of each system, on the map. This was quite an interesting challenge, seeing that CCP stores spatial coordinates in exponential values. The engine I for that is something I’m so proud of, I gave it a name… in fact, so proud, that I just had to give it some metal.

But just talking about it is boring. I’d love to show the stuff to you! Some screenies.

Maps in the in-game browser. Since the browser has a modified Chrome under the hood, this is no problem. The map is completely movable, the “+” and “-” buttons zoom in and out. The dots represent a solar system, each with its own stations, planets, asteroid belts, and moons. They are also colored by their security level. The more red they are, the less secure they are. When the mouse hovers over one, the name and security level is shown (very true to actual in-game mechanic). Hovering also automatically fills the search field.

Clicking the “Search” button displays the Detailed Information pane. Useful data is displayed such as Stargate connections, their securities, and in which region and constellation they are located. Stations and planets are linked. In this example I clicked a link for a station, which opened the in-game info for that location.

When you click on the link of the system you are viewing, the autopilot of your ship will set a course to that system. If however you are unsure what the route looks like, you can click the Map icon beside the name, which will open the in-game map without setting a course – but it will tell you how far it is on your current autopilot setting.

And that’s all I wanted to show you right now. Over time I’ll improve it, but I guess for now it’s a pretty good start.

Have fun!
Cerberus Maps

IGB will request trust. You have to accept this as otherwise the navigation functions will not work.

CAPTAIN’S BLOG, SUPPLEMENTAL

Those that came before us:
Landmark Support has now been added for in-game browser. The top-right now has a checkbox which will enable landmark beacons. Clicking on one will open more information about the landmark.