Morten's Blog

Great tune by Frightened Rabbit from Scotland. You can find more from them on Spotify.

Another excellent tune from The Tragically Hip. This one starring the golden trio from The Trailer Park Boys. These guys almost makes one proud of only living 3.600 kilometers from the border of Canada.

I first heard The Tragically Hip in The Trailer Park Boys series. I hope they get (more) on Spotify soon, one song is just not enough! But releasing more on youtube is a start though.

Thanks to IgniterMedia for this great compilation. See here for a text version.

This is a simple Python module that stores highscores in an SQLite database in the same folder as the module. It’s far from watertight so tweak it according to your needs. Read source for examples.

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I’ve been playing Guild Wars quite a lot this summer. And although great as it is, the Guild Wars soundtrack can get a bit old at times, so I went looking for some good role-playing background music on Google. I found some lists of recommendations here and there, but they contained mostly death metal, which is utter garbarge. So I started compiling a Spotify list of what is, in my opinion, good background music for RPG.

Get the list here. It includes among others; Vangelis, Jesper Kyd, Danny Elfman, Jerry Goldsmith and Philip Glass.

The list will be evolving as i come across good albums or tunes. If you know an album or song that would fit amongst the others i would appreciate feedback. I apologize beforehand if any tunes are unsuited for RPG, as i’ve grabbed whole albums and have not listened to the entire collection.

Spam in a can

Lately I’ve received a number of messages from bots using other people’s hacked MSN accounts. The link they were pushing was basically an email confirmation link, clicking it would have told them that my e-mail address was valid, and surely landed me in some spammer’s e-mail lists. So instead i decided to try and mess around a little, and thus this little Python program was written.

It generates random fake e-mails, from three text lists, and sends them to the spammer using their own validator link, trough the Tor proxy network; making it harder to block  or locate you.

Download it here . Use it at your own risk or don’t use it at all, read the disclaimer in the source. Feel free to do whatever the heck you want with it, just don’t come back crying if you make a booboo.

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Spotify logo

This is a pretty easy way to automatically rip music from Spotify using AV Voice Changer 6. DO NOT DO THIS, YOU WILL BE IN VIOLATION OF THE SPOTIFY END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT!

What you would need:

• A Spotify account and the Spotify client
• Audio4fun’s AV Voice Changer Software Diamond 6

Voice Changer is intended to be just that, a voice changer. It can make you sound like a cartoon mosquito or one of those creepy kidnappers from the movies, in real time. But the feature we would want is Voice Changer’s sound recording function which would allow us to record the tunes streamed from Spotify into separate files with the compression method of our choosing.

Start up the Spotify client and log in. Find a couple of tunes you like and put them in a playlist. Check that the music plays ok and without lag. Disconnect your microphone, and make sure there won’t be anything else making sound on your computer. Start up Voice Changer and verify that the audio from Spotify registers in Voice Changer’s volume meter. We don’t want our tunes to sound like smurf songs, so just turn off all the effects by clicking the On/Off button.

Voice Changer interface

Stop the music from playing for a moment and click Voice Changer’s Recorder button. A small window should open up, looking something like this:

Voice Changer's recorder window

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Ever wanted to record your Super Mario skills on the Super Nintendo console, without the console? Don’t worry, most of todays computers are powerful enough to pretend being, or emulate, a console machine. Most likely so is your’s.  And you’re in luck, Super Nintendo is one of, if not the best, emulated console system there is. All you basically need is an emulator, the piece of software that magically turns your PC into a good ol’ console; and the ROM file of your favorite game. The game ROM’s are in most cases copyrighted, so i can’t nor won’t supply you with those. Make sure you own the game cartridge, or else you might find yourself in violation of copyright laws.

The things you will need:

• A Super Nintendo emulator for Windows called ZSnes, coded by zsKnight and _Demo_ *
  
• The ROM image from your favorite SNES game. Look around, they are not that hard to find.
• MEncoder by Gianluigi Tiesi

* At the time of writing, ZSnes has reached version 1.51

Copy your ROM image(s) to any folder. Preferably one that doesn’t require you to click trough too many folders to get to it.

Installing the software is pretty straightforward, just extract the two archives, each into their own folders. It might work having ZSnes and MEncoder in the same folder, but i haven’t tried it. Also, i think that’s a little messy. You are going to add the MEncoder location to window’s PATH environment variable instead, so remember the location where you extracted it. Follow the instructions below as the procedure differs a little depending on what version of Windows you are using.

Edit your Path environment variable

For Windows Vista you can go to the Control panel and click on the System icon, select Advanced System Settings in the left menu and then the “Environment variables” button. Then, in the list under “System Variables”, look for Path (might be lower- or uppercase). When you have found it, edit it and add the location of the folder where the MEncoder executable file is located. Remember to add the semicolon that is needed to separate the various folders listed in the Path string. Click OK, and your done.

(How to set the path in Windows 2000 / Windows XP)

When that’s all done, let’s start up ZSnes and configure it a little. The main things to check out is the Screen Resolution, Filters and Input

Choose your optimal screen preferences under “Video” in the Config menu. I have a widescreen and wanted ZSnes to fill the screen completely, so i made a custom screen setting it to 1360×768 with the DS F option (check the legend for description). Choose the Filter that you feel gives the best result. Configure your Input, and let’s load up a game already! Click GAME in the top menu, and select LOAD. Then browse to the folder where you copied or extracted the ROM file(s), select the game you want to play and click the LOAD button. If the game runs, great! if it doesn’t, seek help! (Read More..)

Nintendo Wii Console

I recently bought the classic game, Bubble Bobble, from Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console shop. But when the game was downloaded, and i attempted to run it, i was greeted with a green crash-looking screen. I could hear the game’s sounds in the background, and response from the controller, but the screen was fubar. I was using a component cable, and with a composite cable the problem went away. But after spending 50 bucks on the component cable, and seeing the trashy colors from composite signal, i didn’t want to give up right away. I googled long before i found a solution that worked for me:

1. Click Wii Options in the Wii Menu
2. Click Wii Settings
3. Click Screen
4. Click Widescreen Settings
5. Select 4:3 format and Confirm
6. Click Tv Type
7. Select 50Hz and Confirm
8. Exit to Wii Menu
9. The Virtual Console game should now start
10. If not done already, connect your Nunchuck to your Wiimote
11. In the HOME Menu, select Operations Guide
12. Move the pointer away from any buttons on the screen, and press Z+A+1 (or 2) simultaneously
13. If you hear a ping sound, you should be set to go.
14. Exit to Wii Menu
15. Reverse changes made in step 1-7, choosing the correct settings
16. The game should now run fine

This fix might not work with all Virtual Console games. I don’t even know what it does, but it worked for my Bubble Bobble.

Screenshot of the map

This is a map for the Half-Life mod called Ricochet. Download the zip file, and follow the instructions in the readme.txt file.

The map was intended to be a team based death-match map, but it also works as a free-for-all death-match map.

Download it here

Ostrov (The Island)

If you are up for a good movie this weekend, i can highly recommend the russian movie “Ostrov“, released in 2006.

It’s about a sailor named Anatoli (Timofei Tribuntsev), who during the second world war gets captured by a German patrol boat, along with his captain Tikhon on a small coal freighter. He’s given the choice between shooting Thikon and live, or die himself.

He shoots, and the Germans leave him on the boat. But not before they’ve put explosive charges all over the freighter. The boat explodes, and Anatoli is fortunate to be found alive on the beach by some Orthodox munks. And he settles down there after his recovery.

We then follow an older Anatoli (Pyotr Mamonov) from the year 1976, still living at the monastery, in the boiler hut located on a small island. He is constantly haunted by the fact that he shot his captain and friend, Thikon. He has also become quite eccentric over the years, to put it mildly, and a nuisance to many of the other munks. And while he appears at times to be stark raving mad, there is strange logic to his behavior. People come from far away to see him, asking for help with all kinds of problems; from unwanted pregnancies to demon possessions.

The movie shows a man with strong faith and a hunger for salvation. It is full of good moments and humor.

I give it 5 out of 6.

You can get it at Amazon.com

Eclipse is an Open Source IDE mainly used for Java development; but with the Pydev plug-in installed it becomes a powerful Python IDE. I will now show you how to get Eclipse ready for your Python code.

1. Installing Python

Before we get started, you should check whether or not Python is already installed on your computer. Look for a folder called Python25 or something similar on your C:\ partition, also check the Add/Remove Programs list in the Windows Control Panel for any Python entries.

If Python is not installed, let’s go to www.python.org and download a copy. There are newer versions, but we’ll download Python 2.5.2 to get compatibility with many extensions. You may want to download a newer release if your not too concerned about that.

Execute the Python installer you downloaded, and follow the instructions. The default installation path is “C:\Python25“. And unless that causes problems, leave it as it is.

2. Installing Java

Eclipse requires Java. So unless it’s already installed on your system, you need to get it from www.java.com, and install it before you continue.

3. Installing Eclipse

Let’s install the Eclipse IDE. Head over to www.eclipse.org and look for Eclipse Classic which will be the release we’ll download and use.

At the time of writing, Eclipse for Windows is released as a zip archive. You’ll need to extract the folder inside the zip archive, called “eclipse“. I recommend clicking on the archive to open it, and just drag the folder to a proper destination on your computer, such as the “C:\Program Files” folder. (Read More..)