Esse Quam Videri

More fun with webapps: Linking to files from Internet Explorer

2011-12-16T18:48:00.000+01:00

I'm on a nerdy roll. Let's keep it that way.
So today at work I came across a fascinating (let's just call it fascinating and leave it at that) problem with (obviously) Internet Explorer. We've got a system that links the user to Excel-files, which has always worked fine. Something we did recently caused this to stop working with IE, although it kept working fine in other browsers. Of course, there was no logical error message either, the user was told that the file could not be found or something along those lines.
I googled this error message, because that's what you do. All I got was fixes for files served over SSL, which was not the case here. But it is apparent that serving binary files to users over SSL (yet again, in Internet Explorer) is another world of pain.
That pain is not my story though. Mine is how I couldn't find any indication of what MY problem was. This meant I was forced to actually think for once.
I won't go into details about my train of thought, but I ended up trying different methods of linking. The initial (and problematic) version opened the link using window.open(url) - the alternative is to rather just redirect the current window to the target page with window.href(url). This worked fine. Testing a bit further back and forth (and reading up on the subject), I came to the conclusion that Internet Explorer disallows access to binary files linked via a new window. This is apparently a security measure. I can't for the life of me figure out the reasoning behind this. It could've been popup-related, but html documents are accepted. Only binaries are blocked. So why block binaries via popups when they can be redirected to directly?

Absolute Positioning bug in Internet Explorer

2011-12-15T10:30:00.001+01:00

I've struggled with this headache for a short while now: An absolute positioned element just would not appear when loading the webpage in internet explorer 8 (although I think due to some compatibility mode, it emulates 5.5 or 6.0). No guides on the internet seemed to help out, but when I tried using the "Developer Tools" I found that disabling the "position:absolute" property and then reenabling it caused the item to be properly drawn.
What I ended up with was this little script, which looks and sounds rather moronic but surely works:

<script>
      $('.myDiv').css('position','relative');
      $('.myDiv').css('position','absolute');
</script >

BadAss: The Boss Themes Album

2011-12-07T21:02:00.003+01:00

If you've read my blog before you may already know what OverClocked ReMix (OCR) is, and what they do. If you don't.. well, it's pretty straightforward, really. Video game music, rearranged and taken to the next level. This most recent release is an album focused on boss themes. It's the 30th album project from OCR, and the very first one I've participated in.
If this sounds appealing to you, head over to the project site right now!

Illogical Restrictions

2011-08-27T13:27:00.000+02:00

Most of the people who read this blog are geeks, and will probably immediately know what I mean with this post. The subject in mind is restrictions that are imposed with little or no logical reasoning behind it. More specifically, I'm thinking about product release dates and region locking. This is particularily prominent when it comes to video games and movies.

We live in an age where digital distribution is taking over, and many of the bigger corporations have no idea how to deal with it. When it comes to both video games and movies, region locking has become standard as a way of fighting piracy. However, this only battles physical piracy (not the kind with pirate ships, mind you. I mean sales of physical copies of movies and the likes), and poorly at that. Practically every DVD player can be "region unlocked", and while I worked in a hi-fi store I noticed that the possibility to unlock the players were a major factor for sales. When Blu-Ray players came along, they could still be unlocked for the DVD part, but not for the Blu-Ray part. I seem to recall there being one particular player that could be unlocked for Blu-Ray movies as well, and it sold so much better because of that.

Now let's have a look at video games. Some of my favourite game series are developed in Japan. Back in the 1990's, there were games they didn't bother releasing outside Japan at all, although I don't know why. Maybe they didn't think the games would catch on. Anyways, when the games became more international, there was naturally quite a delay between the Japanese release dates and the ones in the US and Europe. The games had to be translated and localized, after all. And since certain European countries aren't content with games in English (I think Germany and France were the two major ones, but I always ignored the non-English selections on language selection screens so I can't remember), European releases were usually last.
This is a logical explanation for different release dates. But what about the western developers?

The point I'm trying to get to is that most of this distribution is digital today. Information flows more freely than ever, thanks to how widespread the usage of the internet has become. Sure there are sales of physical copies as well, but the distribution there is so streamlined that gamers have their copies in their hands by the time those who bought the digital copy are allowed to start playing or downloading.
Still they impose different release dates for the different parts of the world. I'll take Deus Ex: Human Revolution as a recent example, because that one bugged me. I bought the game from Steam a couple of weeks ago, and downloaded ("pre-loaded" it, as it's called) it to be ready for the release. I was still restricted to wait until the European release date to play it. When the americans got to play it on Tuesday, Europeans had to wait until Friday. No other reason than that there were different release dates. Proving this point, a friend of mine told me it was possible to connect to Steam through a proxy, so that Steam sees your IP address as coming from the US, and you'd be able to play the game. The same installation, same files. What could possibly be a good reason for this?
I know this issue can be attributed to impatience on my part, but the idea of it all truly bothers me.

And what about the region locking? There are certain movies that have never been released in a European format, such as the Invader Zim series and Metalocalypse. Oh, Europeans want to watch it? Tough luck.

This post is a "fuck you" to those responsible for keeping up the practice of locking content to regions. It's all I can do, vent my opinions to the internet and then forget about it afterwards. The dinosaurs will die, given time. I just wish the time would come sooner.

Musically Inclined

2011-08-17T22:14:00.001+02:00

For those of you who care about my musical endeavours, the album project Maverick Rising (which I'm a part of, should there be any doubt) is closing in on a release date. Tracks have been mastered, and there's a final evaluation phase left before everything is wrapped up.
After listening through what I guess I could call the release candidate, I've begun to feel that my own track isn't on par with the rest. There is so much talent on this album that I almost feel honored to be a part of it too.

I have to mention Stemage's latest album as well. It's called Zero Over Zero, and has been called everything from indie to grunge to post-rock to metal, and I'm not very good with genre classifications myself so I'll stay out of that one. The album is focused mostly on rhytm guitar and drums, and Stemage really is a master of drum tracks. I suspect I'll keep listening to this album for a very long time. Bandcamp has a preview function, so you have no reason not to check it out if you're interested so far ;)

The Digital Hivemind

2011-08-06T13:07:00.000+02:00

Recent events in Norway (which I described briefly in my last entry) have proven that society, or more importantly the flow of information, has changed. With smartphones and mobile internet, not to mention social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, information got out about the attack a very short time after it started. The cries for help are still there, posted as public announcements rather than private calls to the police.
This kind of information flow reminds me of the concept of hiveminds, and in many ways we're on our way there. While information used to move between single nodes (in this case, single persons), there are currently central sources of information that people connect to instead. Today when something happens, one can say that the central source is notified and it instantly spreads to practically everyone.
But there's more to it than that!
For a while now I've been pondering my own declining memory. I'm completely useless when it comes to memorizing things. After reading about recent studies it's begun to dawn on me; we as a species are beginning to outsource the storage of information. Rather than remember e.g. how a car engine works, we're remembering how to retrieve that information. With our devices at hand, we can retrieve more information than ever before in mere moments. Of course, the negative side of this is that it's slower than what it would be if one had it memorized, and without our gadgets we're stranded.

This is a very fascinating subject, and I'll get back to it.

The Tragedy

2011-07-28T12:19:00.001+02:00

Certainly you've heard of what happened in Norway last week by now. I thought of trying to keep non-Norwegians informed by translating news here, but my friend Audun has done a much better job. In short, if you feel the need for more insight, you can read his posts here (he goes by the name Akumu there).

I'm still in disbelief. Since it happened, Norway has been in a collective state of shock, and everything has revolved around the incident. I've been reading blog posts from survivors and can almost imagine what it must've been like to be there (although one can never really understand what it must be like without actually experiencing it).
If there is one thing I can say, it's that the reactions make me proud to be Norwegian.

Silent Hill

2011-06-11T23:57:00.000+02:00

I'm a fan of the Silent Hill series of games. I'm not too good at playing horror games, but the atmosphere in this series really is perfect. Some of the credit for this goes to composer and sound designer Akira Yamaoka.
Now, the next Silent Hill game (Silent Hill: Downpour) is apparently being scored by Daniel Licht, famous for the soundtrack to the TV show Dexter. In addition, the band Korn will be performing this game's theme song.
I'm anxious to see the end result. Will Licht's music change the feel of the game? Will he be able to recreate the atmosphere Yamaoka has given us?

To celebrate Yamaoka's music (or just because it was about time I did a Silent Hill cover), I've recorded a cover version of one of the more popular themes from Silent Hill 2 - The track is called Promise, and here's my take on it.
I entered Dwelling of Duels with it last month, and got enough feedback to retouch the track properly.
It's my first time utilizing an acoustic guitar in a track, I'm very content with the result.

A Change of Priorities

2011-04-19T14:29:00.000+02:00

I've always been writing about music, games and programming in this blog. So what happens when those suddenly have to step back due to other priorities? Lately my life has been all about school, work and dogs. We've already started working on exams, and some of them are quite overwhelming. This week our dog Nemi has gotten a little sister, named Java. Having a puppy easily becomes *everything* in one's life. In other words, while we adapt to our new situation, all I'll be talking about will probably be our wonderful new piranha dog (because seriously, puppy teeth are SHARP).

But hey, I won't forget completely about music. I'm reworking some old tracks, as well as working on a couple of new ones. They'll be finished some day. Until then, one can only eagerly await the Maverick Rising project over at OverClocked ReMix.

The Truth In Pictures

2011-03-25T11:02:00.000+01:00

As I wrote in my previous post, we've been painting and renovating our new apartment lately. Because I'm not much for suspense, I'm posting the "final" picture first. That's right, this is how good our new living room looks. It just occurred to me that we only have shots of the living room, none of the amazingly large kitchen we have, but that'll have to do for now. It's still full of paint buckets and the likes anyways, so it's not all that to look at. Who knows, maybe the first shots of the kitchen will be from our housewarming party.

Apartment

2011-03-22T15:42:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since last post. Inspiration doesn't seem to seize me as often as before, although it may be because I've got plenty of other things to focus on these days.
One of those things is the new apartment. The missus and I are moving back to our hometown Drammen, and have gotten a rather nice apartment that we're currently fixing up and painting. It's shaping up rather nicely, and we'll be posting before-and-after photos of the process later on.

School's getting heavy lately, with several large projects swamping up my time. I'm really looking forward to summer, when I'll be finished.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood - Lessons Learned

2011-02-18T11:15:00.003+01:00

To start off, the Assassin's Creed games are absolutely brilliant, and I really love Brotherhood. Still, there are some small issues that really irk me.

Customization
In AC:B, you get to recruit new assassins and send them on missions. It's a kind of mini-game, where they start out at level 1 as you recruit them, and then they level up by completing these missions. They then gain skill points that you get to use for armor or weapons for them. You can also assign different color schemes to their outfits, something I took great advantage of (although I would've enjoyed even further customization). However, as they reach their maximum level (9), they fill up all their skills. There's no longer any distinction. Also, as they become fully fledged assassins one also loses the possibility of assigning colors. One of my "favourite" recruits had covered up the lower part of his face, but that also disappeared when he became a full assassin. From customization to a complete uniform group of goons, that is rather disappointing. To top it off, the mini-game ceases to be relevant once you've levelled them all up to the max level, which doesn't really take very long. I see this as a mini-game with potential to keep the player's attention even after having completed the actual game, kind of like what blitzball was in Final Fantasy X (maybe it's a bad example, but I know I played it for quite a while).

Making sense
They've done a great job with cues in the Assassin's Creed games. Everything blends in very well, e.g. ramps that can start off free runs have a single white cloth hanging over them, catching the user's attention without looking unnatural. However, not everything makes sense. The core of the gameplay in the AC series is the focus on freedom of movement, which involves a lot of climbing walls and the likes. This is also what they seem to focus on when designing levels. This means that some levels don't make any sense, such as one I just played through: I was to climb a tower to obtain a war machine kept at the top. To get up there, I had to climb to the roof of one building just to find an entrance to the tower. Then once inside this tower, I had to scale the walls because there were no stairs or the likes. But this tower had no exit to the roof, where the war machine apparently was stored. Hell no, I had to jump out a window, climb around the structure and then finally up to the roof, where THREE GUARDS ARE JUST STANDING AROUND. Also the war machine was there. But what the hell? How did they get up there? How did they get that machine up there? Who thought this shit through?

Progression
As you proceed through the game, you unlock more armor and weapons at the blacksmith. At the same time, special equipment is also available by completing a "quest", which involves gathering specific items that you'll only find at a certain point in the game anyways. It'd been a great idea if it was a small mission, but the use of items for it is just silly IMO. This also means that you have to reach a specific point in the game to be able to unlock both the special armor from dungeons (Romulus) and the store-quest armor. Basically, the store-quest armor is rendered useless already by the time you can get it. The same held true for Assassin's Creed 2.

Finally, that fucking flying mission. I just had to mention it because of the level of frustration involved.

Conundrum

2011-02-08T23:33:00.000+01:00

While working on a given assignment in my Flash/actionscript course, I came across a neat problem. I've got a function that creates a given type of object (a tile, in fact), depending on what sort of variable I call the function with. This feels sort of difficult to explain, so let me go straight to my example:

function addblock(type:int){
switch(type) {
case 1: var newblock = new mc_asphalt(); break;
case 2:var newblock = new mc_dirt(); break;
default: var newblock = new mc_asphalt();
}
addchild(newblock);

As you see, I either create a block consisting of the movie clip mc_asphalt, or of mc_dirt (the real version has even more types, but that's irrelevant right now). Anyways. This compiles and runs, but I get some errors. Because I declare the variable in a switch, the compiler reads it as me trying to declare the same variable several times in sequence. The error message is "Duplicate variable definition".
The easiest way around this would surely be to spread it out to different functions, one for each type of block, but that'll involve a lot of copying and pasting, and redundant code. So, where does this leave me?

As Promised, Pavane

2011-01-31T22:30:00.000+01:00

In my previous post I mentioned the track by Maurice Ravel called Pavane For A Dead Princess, and that I was working on a recording of it. Here's the beginning of my tribute, Pavane For A Dead Princess (Part I).It's a long song, so this is just a small taste of it. It'll do for now though.

Wish You Were Here

2011-01-27T20:00:00.001+01:00

The burial is over. You never really know what to say in situations like these. After the initial shock, the days passed slowly and in a blur. Now, after this, days will be going back to normal. Daily life will go on as before as if nothing happened, save for that one void in everyone's life. Some things may be slightly changed, such as relationships within the family. If there is one thing you can say for certain, it is that tragedies bring families closer together.

To round off this post, here's a rerun of Ravel's Pavane Pour Une Infante Défunte which was played during the ceremony. A track I'll be working on my own arrangement of soon, as a final tribute of sorts..

Christmas Is Already Long Gone

2011-01-11T18:39:00.000+01:00

I don't know what became of my christmas.
The time after christmas eve has gone pretty fast, and now I'm back in the lecture hall. This time we're learning about Flash. My first lesson was that Flash has changed from back in 2004 when I attended a basic course. My old games still work, but the conventions have changed. Rather than change them, I'll be starting from scratch with new projects, and I'll take my time re-learning everything. I'm thinking of posting some tutorial files here as I progress, if anyone's interested.

As for music, I haven't made a decent track for Dwelling of Duels in a year. I was planning to do something spectacular for this month's contest, but I'm not getting anywhere with any of my projects, and have decided to rather complete something proper than to enter just for the sake of entering. I rather keep working on my old tracks, touching them up and getting them ready for a collected album.

Today's discovery:
I feel a need to share this. It's not anything grand, but it might just be the best marinade for chicken I've ever eaten, and it's really simple: Olive oil, thyme, some garlic, lemon extract and a pinch of cumin. Seriously, if you haven't tried it, do so. I let it rest for 6 or 7 hours, but it probably doesn't need more than one or two (or even less? What do I know?).

Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy

2010-12-19T00:33:00.000+01:00

Does anyone remember this game?
It was a pretty big deal around the time it was released, but afterwards it seems to have just been forgotten. It's a modern day scifi/fantasy game, delving into the occult and into something that I don't quite understand yet, and can only describe as a scifi/fantasy mythology.
The description of the very first sequence of the game was enough to get me interested: You start out as a disoriented guy who finds himself standing over a dead guy, knife in his hand, and full of blood. The guy (Lucas, as he's called) can't remember clearly what has happened, only that he needs to get the hell out of there. You can choose a variety of actions to try to clean up after yourself, such as mopping the floor, hiding the body and getting rid of the knife. The sequence is timed, and after a while a corner of the screen is filled with the picture of a police officer getting up from his seat and walking towards the bathroom. That's your cue to get Lucas out of there, in case you were wondering.
Now, for the hook: As Lucas escapes the restaurant, you suddenly control two detectives who have arrived to investigate this murder. In other words, you're playing both sides of this little scenario.

Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy is presented more as a movie than a game. Every scene is.. Hum, can "cinematic" be used as a descriptive word? If not, I'm sure you still get what I'm trying to say. This has its upsides and downsides. Watching someone play through the game is great, however playing it is not all that fun:
Moving is somewhat awkward, but I can live with that. You move around with the arrow keys, and hold shift to run. Sometimes the camera angles are alright, other times they can be a pain.
Interacting with objects requres holding down a mouse button and performing certain gestures. This can be quite bothersome at times, such as when you're climbing a fence in one particular sequence, every little move requires a "to the side and circle around to the top" kind of mouse gesture. Every stretch of the arm requires this. But what really, REALLY irks me is the "action" controls. E.g. in tense situations you'll need to actually control the character's breath. These are actually great sequences, such as where one of the characters has to find something in a dark cellar and is struggling with claustrophobia. A simple task and sequence, yet made dark and frightening to match the character's point of view. But controlling the character in this sequence suddenly turns all the controls upside down. While you've normally used the arrow keys to move, you suddenly see everything in a first-person view and need to use the arrow keys for left and right to keep the character breathing properly. Some time was spent trying several other keys, before I actually looked it up on the internet. Turns out you have to hold down the right mouse button and then turn with the mouse, while still using the arrow keys for forwards and backwards. Yes, this while juggling the breath.

Oh, and finally, the controls used in more action-filled sequences, as well as some simpler ones: You get two wheels popping up on the screen. They've got four buttons each, up/down/left/right. Fair enough. What I did not get, however, was how they related to keys on the keyboard. After failing plenty of these sequences, being optional ones early on in the game, I finally had to figure it out properly in a sequence where I got a game over if I couldn't do it. Turns out I was half right: The arrow keys were necessary. I had expected it to be WASD and arrow keys, instead it was arrow keys and keypad. It's logical enough now that I think it over, but I was quite annoyed at the time.

Anyways, I absolutely love the story and characters so far. This time I need to actually play through the entire game. Therefore I'll take my leave now. While you wait for a new blog post, why don't you buy the game and play it for yourself? It's only 9 euros on Steam.

[XML/AJAX] Fetching An RSS Feed For Local Use

2010-11-29T22:12:00.000+01:00

I wrote about this earlier, although I didn't post the code due to an extension of the deadline. Now everyone seems to have delivered, and in a year or two we might get to know if we did well. Meanwhile, since this works and seems to be a good example, I'll post my work here:

Our assignment was to fetch an external RSS feed, and handle and present it locally by using only HTML and JavaScript (more specifically, by using XMLHttpRequest).
The one we used is this one. Bear in mind that it's in Norwegian.
An RSS feed is XML-formatted, and feeds are similar enough that this script should work on all feeds. Unless I'm terribly wrong, in which case I need to be berated.

The first snag, which actually took quite some time to figure out (I know, this is your cue to laugh at us. We were young and didn't know better.), was that we couldn't seem to access the feed through JavaScript alone. It turned out, after quite some time of googling, to be a security issue with XmlHttpRequest: One isn't allowed to fetch content from a domain different from the one running the script. After consulting the lecturer, we were allowed to find alternative means of doing it, and to use php to support the script.
My result is a really simple php script, followed by a somewhat less simple javascript:

By the way, showing code here is more of a hassle that it's worth, so you might as well just check out the scripts here and here. Seriously, posting code here is such a pain.

Here's the simple php file, getxml.php:

<br /><?php $xml = simplexml_load_file('http://www.oslo.kommune.no/rss.php'); echo($xml->asXML()); <br />?> <br />
I don't see any way to explain this script more easily than it already is, it fetches the external content and shows this file(the php-file) as a pure XML-formatted document.

Next up is the annoying part, because it's longer. I'm also transcribing this from my laptop to my desktop computer by hand, because file transfer is for sissies.

<br /><html> <br /><head> <br /><br /><script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"> //Browser Support Code function ajaxFunction(){ var ajaxRequest; try{ // Opera 8.0+, Firefox, Safari ajaxRequest = new XMLHttpRequest(); ajaxRequest.overrideMimeType("text/xml"); } catch (e){ // Internet Explorer Browsers try{ ajaxRequest = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP"); } catch (e) { try{ ajaxRequest = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP"); } catch (e){ alert("Browser unable to handle AJAX."); return false; } } } ajaxRequest.onreadystatechange = function(){ if(ajaxRequest.readyState == 4){ var xmlDoc = ajaxRequest.responseXML; var textToPage = ""; for(var i=1;i<3;i++){ textToPage += "<h3> "+xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName('title')[i].childNodes[0].nodeValue+"</h3>" +"<p> "+xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName('description')[i].childNodes[0].nodeValue+"</p>" +"<p> <font size='2'>"+xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName('pubDate')[i].childNodes[0].nodeValue+"</font></p>"; } document.getElementById('swapthis').innerHTML = textToPage; } } ajaxRequest.open("GET", "getxml.php", true); ajaxRequest.send(null); } </script> <br /></head> <br /><body onLoad="ajaxFunction()"> <br /><h1>XML/RSS Fetched Via JavaScript</h1><p><br /><div id="swapthis"></div><br /></body> <br /></html> <br />

The Pit And The Pendulum

2010-11-29T15:00:00.004+01:00

(Dramatic E.A.Poe reference intended)

I guess there's a first for everything.
Today I've probably failed my first written exam. Having spent the last few days studying every subject from my notes in depth, aiming to understand it rather than just memorize it (because seriously, I'm unable to memorize stuff. I wouldn't even be able to get up in the morning without a note reminding me to do it), I felt as ready as ever when I walked to school today.
We got our exam papers handed to us, and after opening it up I just sat there, paralyzed, for about half an hour. I didn't know this shit. Despite furious reading, I'd managed to miss one specific topic, on which 50% of the exam results relied.
The process from query to execution, with focus on "the canonical query graph", is something I can barely remember being touched in our lectures. Now that I no longer sit in front of a jury with my life hanging by a thread, I at least remember that the syntax must be processed and verified, but that doesn't cut it anyways.

I need to vent. I'll probably be over this in a few hours, so just bear with my bitching. I guess this is what follows disappointment and frustration.

I've felt that I mastered this course. I know most of the course material well, and I can handle a database as most of the deeper functionality is automated and hard-coded into the system. It seems to me like this is some kind of joke, that a course called "Practical database administration" (yeah, it says practical) is a deeply theoretical course. It's the kind of joke I don't understand, unless the one behind it all has a face like this:

The Black Mages - Disbanded?

2010-11-23T15:29:00.002+01:00

Since I'm quoting news from August, I'm sure some have heard this by now. I, however, had not. It seems like the group called The Black Mages, who play hard rock versions of tracks from the Final Fantasy series, has been disbanded. Surely the first feelings to come to mind must be pain, rage and disgust, but all hope is not lost. "Uematsu has recently assured fans that he will continue to perform rock arrangements of his music."
He's got a new band, called Earthbound Papas, which doesn't really sound as heavy as The Black Mages. Nor does it seem to be. You can listen to their take on Dancing Mad here, from their Distant Worlds II concert in Stockholm (An Arnie Roth concert, I love that guy). It's an orchestral take on it, and I'm not yet certain if it's representative of the band otherwise. Time will tell.

Story at Square Enix Music Online

Dropbox, And Why I Love It

2010-11-22T22:53:00.005+01:00

Dropbox is a very, VERY handy application. It makes synchronization (and sharing, if you want) of your files between computers really easy, working quietly in the background like a personal secretary.
Case in point: I use a laptop whenever I'm at school, while at home I stick to my desktop computer. Before I discovered Dropbox I had to transfer the files via an USB stick, which was kind of a bother. Nowadays I keep my school documents in the Dropbox folder, which means there's always a backup of it available online, and it syncs automatically to my other computer that also runs the program.
The sharing function is also a godsend. In your dropbox you have a folder called "Public". Whenever you put something in that folder, you can get a URL for it via the web interface to share it with anyone else (granted they're connected to the internet). You just put it in the folder and wait for it to upload! If you've ever worked with other services (especially the free versions) like rapidshare, you know that it's kind of bothersome. Sometimes I have the need to send large files to people, like wav-exports of every single track of a music project. Last time I did that the file ended up at about 450mb. Dropbox handled that gracefully.

If you have the need of an online backup of your work, syncronizing files between your computers or a way to send files over the internet easily, Dropbox might just be as interesting to you as it is to me. It's worth checking out.
If you sign up for the service using this link, you will automatically get 250mb extra storage space as a referral bonus. So will I.

xmldotphp

2010-11-15T19:42:00.005+01:00

It's been a busy week.
Most importantly, there's been an assignment based on XML/AJAX for my XML class. It started out pretty easy, as our first task was to fetch an external RSS feed and output it via PHP. I guess PHP is one of my strongest points so far, so that was cake. The second part, however, was to fetch the same feed by using JavaScript, more specifically by using XMLHttpRequest (which is a central part in what's called AJAX).
Now, I won't lie. We were stuck on this part for days. We found example upon example, but none would work for us. I began to suspect that the examples were outdated, but one of my fellow students eventually found out that one can't do such a request to an external domain at all. That gave me another kickstart, as I realized that I could write a very quick script in PHP that fetches the XML-file and serves it up locally.
This realization and kickstart hit me some hours before our deadline, and I finished it just in time to deliver it. However, today I was told that due to some other students' laziness, the deadline has been extended by one week. If that's not frustrating, I don't know what is.
I was planning to post the code here, but since the deadline is still running, I don't intend to make it easier for the others.

Now I'm finishing up my article regarding the change from physical to digital distribution for one of my classes. I need to finish that in time for our exam cases, which we get on wednesday. Then it's rapid-fire exams until December 7th, after which I can finally relax and enjoy ramping up to christmas. Maybe I'll have some time for recording, and to learn how to play the guitar. Since World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is coming out, I also expect to check that out.

I've recently updated my artist description on last.fm, not that I believe anyone really cares. I figured it needed a slight update, and I read about how to use tags to your advantage, so there.

In related news, I've teamed up with Sixto Sounds to finish my track for the Maverick Rising project, which is a pretty awesome Mega Man X series arrangement album with mostly metal and hard rock. It's said to be released in January-ish. I'll keep you posted.

Introducing Nemi!

2010-10-13T22:07:00.003+02:00

This is our dog, Nemi. She's a 4 months old whippet, and is quite possibly the most beautiful dog ever. She's also a geeky dog, which should be quite natural with as geeky parents as us, and she watches the screen intently when we play Xbox. She's also smart enough to keep her own blog, which is available here. Do mind that it is in norwegian, as we haven't had the time to teach her english yet. There are also more pictures there.

She had a rough start. Her mother was in labour for longer than she was supposed to, and when the puppies started coming the first ones were dead, probably from being stuck in the birth canal for too long. End of story is that three were saved with a caesarian section (isn't that what it's called?), two girls and one boy. Nemi stuck out at once, with her very fair blue/gray fur and the neck markings. Her personality too, of course, being both sweet, tough, adventurous and somewhat stubborn.

Games That Rock: Duke Nukem 3D

2010-10-02T21:49:00.004+02:00

I want to say that this game needs no introduction. I really, really wish I could say that. However, comments to recent news articles have taught me that there are now gamers young enough to never have experienced this game, yet old enough to read gaming news. This really blows my mind.

This game has become a topic again recently, as the sequel called Duke Nukem Forever (which has been in development hell for 12 years or so) has been picked up by developer Gearbox and is finally close to an actual release.

As one of the early FPSes, this game helped shape a genre. It's a fun, over the top game where the protagonist is a macho character who spews one-liners like a digital incarnation of Arnold Swarzenegger. Equipped with tools such as holo-Dukes (to confuse enemies), jetpacks, steroids and a mighty foot, you're out to rid earth of alien scum that's invading. Oh, and to free all the captured babes.
This game had interesting new features such as functioning mirrors (that even bounced certain types of projectiles, such as the shrink ray), toilets you could use (hey, it's a fun quirk, and it's interactivity), breakable stuff such as monitors, windows, chairs, and some places even walls.

I don't know about the FPSes before, but at least Duke3D had a bundled level editor called Build. I spent countless afternoons building levels for this game. It was simple enough that I could use it, since it was mostly top-down editing, no 3D editing as newer game level editors have. I must've been about 10-12 years old around this time, and had more than enough time to spend doing this. I reckon I learned more from that than I did from school back then.

Instant Intellectual, Just Add Glasses

2010-09-20T20:56:00.005+02:00

For today's post I'll start you off with a picture:

This is your regular monday morning tiredface. When gazing upon it you may find yourself thinking "oh, here we've got some rather regular geek, although a strikingly handsome one". Something along those lines.
Anyways, my point is that I look very plain and regular here (my t-shirt is awesome though). Now, carry on to the image below.

Oh my god! The headline spoke truth! With the mere addition of a pair of finely crafted pieces of glass held together by a small steel frame, I suddenly look more intelligent and geeky. I could even have swapped my t-shirt for a Nike t-shirt or something like that (what do non-geeks even wear?), and still look geekier.

It's strange. A couple of months ago, it would never have occurred to me that I could perhaps need glasses. I just figured that some blurring is natural at a distance, or that it was from other causes such as mist/heat, poor projectors, space aliens from outer space and such.
It was only when I tried on a pair of glasses and actually noticed I could see more clearly at a distance that I realized my eyes might no longer be of the A+ brilliance they might have been at one point in life. I got my eyes checked last week, and today I got my glasses. I actually think they look pretty stylish.

Completely unrelated, I've got a huge backlog of games to play now. For some odd reason I don't have much time for gaming anymore. I get new ideas for music projects all the time, and most of them are things I start up, get about halfway with, and then I get completely stuck and follow up some other (usually new) project instead. And of course there's schoolwork. My bachelor's degree assignment, a web-basedproject management system, is in its beginning stages.
The point I was trying to reach was this: I've got a list of the games I've bought the last year that I still have yet to play through (Cursed Steam summer sale):
-Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
-The Witcher
-Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy
-Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
-Left 4 Dead 2 (I should at least play through the campaigns in single player)
-The re-releases of the Monkey Island classics

I could write a bit about my audio projects here as well, but I want some of them to be surprises when I finish them (also I might get stuck and stop working on certain projects for a really long time, so I'm not gonna tease tracks I may not finish). One thing I can say is that my Castlevania tribute is finished, and will appear on an album that will hopefully be released in time for christmas.

At The Gates

2010-09-13T11:04:00.002+02:00

One of the things I remember best about last Thursday is Jerry Only yelling "Nice shot, asshole!" to someone in the crowd.
A plastic glass of beer had barely missed Misfits drummer Robo's head and hit the wall behind him. Shit like this is why I'm glad I'm never going to be a performing musician. I mean, shit. If someone had hit any of my gear with a glass of beer, I'd want their blood.

This was my second Misfits concert ever, and my better half's first one. They've been one of my very favourite bands for years, and although the band's current incarnation isn't quite the same as what it once was, they still rock live. It baffles me that a 3-piece band can create such a solid wall of sound. What else baffles me is how they manage to play their tracks (especially the older ones, from the Glenn Danzig era) about twice as fast as the album versions.

With both Robo and Dez Cadena's history in the band Black Flag, I sort of expected them to do at least one Black Flag song.. And so they did. This seems to have become standard practice, and I don't mind at all.

Unfortunately we had to leave early to catch the train back home, and we left just as they started playing the title track from their new album, Land of the Dead. I still haven't heard this album, and they didn't have it for sale in the merchandise booth either. That was sort of a let-down. On the other hand, I did get my hands on at least one CD. One of the warm-up bands, Sir Reg, impressed us enough for us to go and buy their album. They kind of remind me of Dropkick Murphys.

Beta this and beta that

2010-09-07T13:39:00.006+02:00

Most of you know I participate in a competition known as Dwelling of Duels from time to time. A little while ago, the server this competition was hosted on went down, and the listeners were pretty much scattered. An emergency solution was set up, and a crack team of dedicated people took upon themselves the task of building a new, better site, giving the whole competition a kind of revival.
The result of this, my droogies, is a brand new site (that is still in beta, mind you), found at www.dwellingofduels.net! There are lots of functions that are still being developed, and UI bugs are being ironed out.

Apparently there's also an awesome Dwelling of Duels t-shirt on its way, with Dan "Danimal Cannon" from Metroid Metal showing off the very first one during their concert at the Penny-Arcade Expo (more clips), which was last night or something.

Speaking of beta-testing, I've tested the open beta of Final Fantasy XIV for a little while. It's a really beautiful game, the character models, animations, atmosphere and cinematics are all fantastic. However, it's a very demanding game, and I can apparently barely run it at minimum settings, getting 12-15 frames per second in the more crowded areas.
The learning curve is rather high, and the pacing in the game is relatively slow. The battle system is really fun, as there is no auto-attack feature. You have to stay focused, unlike in its predecessor. Battles are also over faster than before.
However, the interface in the game is clunky and slow, and might be enough to drive some potential players away. It seems the interface elements are driven by the game server, or something, because it takes several seconds to load menus and maps. The game also feels more designed for consoles, also like its predecessor, which means playing it with keyboard&mouse actually feels unintuitive, slow and difficult.

I will keep testing this. Hopefully, most issues I have with the game will be smoothened out after a couple of months. It looks very promising, although it caters to a completely different market segment than World of Warcraft does (which will come as a big surprise to many, I'm sure).

I'm playing with some people from the Something Awful forums on the Figaro server, for those who are interested.
Now, have some screenshots.

Time For Updates

2010-08-30T10:25:00.003+02:00

First up today I'll write again what I've written on the facebook-page for my music. My track Sephiroth's Deliverance has been adapted to Rock Band 2 as a custom track. Although I haven't played those games much myself, I can imagine it'd be interesting to play.
Check out the youtube clips here:
Guitar/bass
Drums

Download the custom set here

So.
School's started up again, and I'm trying to find a good project to work on for my bachelor's degree. This is going to be an interesting semester, with XML and Oracle-database courses. Those are things I really look forward to learning more about. I would suppose they're even pretty essential for any kind of IT-related job.

In other news, some of you already know I'm following Square-Enix's new MMO (Final Fantasy XIV) very closely, and apparently the beta testing is opening up for everyone this wednesday. The game is due to be released in the end of September, and hopefully the beta test will last until then. I've got very high hopes about this game.

The Dark Side Of The Moon - Now In 8-Bit

2010-07-30T19:58:00.005+02:00

I know, I know. Old news by now.
Thing is, this is one of those stories that caught my interest just enough for me to download it, yet not enough to actually listen to it. Now I finally got to it, and you can too! Just click here.

So anyways. This is a great translation of the classic Dark Side of the Moon album by that one band, Pink Floyd or something, updated for the modern era through what is generally known as chiptunes. The nuances and moods are all taken in, although this has got a rather different feel to it. All in all it's a brilliant project that couldn't have been executed the slightest bit better. If nothing else, you should check it out for the technical aspects (transcribing and translating such a track is no trivial task).

For those who don't know what chiptunes is, it's a genre based on the new generation of High Definition© sound. It can only be generated by certain chips such as the Ricoh 2A03 (to name one), hence the name.

Completing Projects

2010-07-22T22:27:00.003+02:00

I've always been horrible at completing projects.
Ever since I was a kid, dabbling with basic HTML and starting websites that I never got around to finish. This evolved to software projects, game concepts, novels (really), and was a habit I thought I was finally getting rid of when I started working with music.
What got me started with music was Dwelling of Duels (temporary website, due to issues with the hosting), and unlike earlier projects I actually had a deadline here (for those not familiar with DoD, you've got one month to record a track). This boosted my productivity alot, even though I've only participated a few times.

Recently, though, I've been starting up more projects than I can keep track of. A while ago someone told me to not force the track to completion if I feel completely stuck, and rather work with another project for a while. This is pretty much what I've been doing. The major disadvantage is the complete absense of instant gratification. I've got some awesome projects going, I know they'll rock when they're finished, but right now there's no satisfaction. There won't be for months.

In positive news, I've got an album in the works. It's about 60% finished, and I probably won't mention it again until it's done, but there you have it.

Well, that's it for this update, check out my website if you haven't already, I'm rather proud of the system I've got going there. And the music.

Unleashed

2010-06-27T22:09:00.003+02:00

Two things to discuss today: Dwelling of Duels and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

Those of you who follow Dwelling of Duels may have noticed that the server it's hosted on (vgmix.com) is down. As nobody seems able to get in touch with Virt, who's running the server, a temporary solution has been set up at the Bossies Wiki. Also, even if you don't usually follow Dwelling of Duels, you should check it out today. Specifically, the track called Prancing Dad (a remix of the track Dancing Mad from Final Fantasy VI). I don't think I've ever been blown away this badly by a track. My own hopes of doing an awesome rendition of Dancing Mad have now been blown to tiny hope-shaped bits.

Also blowing me away is the game The Force Unleashed. I've never been a hardcore Star Wars fan, being merely geeky enough to know the movies fairly well. However, I've heard some positive things about this game, and when Steam decided to throw a super sale in my direction, I just had to pick it up. Just to be sure it's a game I'd play, I checked out some gameplay clips on YouTube. All I can say is that this game looks absolutely amazing (and fun!).

Awesome Games: Shatterhand

2010-06-25T00:20:00.002+02:00

With nothing better to write about these days, I'll keep on revisiting old favourite games. I could write about awesome upcoming games, but after getting hyped up about Borderlands and then not caring for more than half an hour when I finally got to try it, I've learned my lesson. Play the game first, confirm its awesomeness, and THEN write about it.

So, the subject of the day is a classic game for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It's a side-scrolling action game with a twist: Your only weapons are your fists and a companion robot that hovers above you. The type of robot (and its attack) varies, depending on the combination of symbols you collect. On duplicating the same set of symbols twice you become Robocop Norris-Lee for a limited amount of time.

The game has a story, but I honestly never really caught it. The story has been changed, along with some of the graphics and levels, from the Japanese version. The original is based on a TV show called Solbrain, but I suppose this was changed due to the show not being well-known (or even available) outside Japan.

As previously mentioned, the game is a side-scroller, and thus it's all relatively simple. You're a guy with metal fists, and you're apparently hunting someone down. Did I mention you can punch oncoming bullets? You can. And this is not even the most awesome part of this game.

I suppose some of you saw this coming: The music.
It's intense, melodic, and really gets the player pumped.
Also, it makes for great metal remixes. I've done one, SnappleMan has done several, and it's been a recurring classic in Dwelling of Duels as well I II III IV.

On a sidenote, it seems my favourite game soundtracks are all in very different styles: Shatterhand (8-bit), Total Annihilation (classical), Quake II (industrial metal), and then Chrono Trigger and the Final Fantasy games, which I can't really classify.

Back to the topic at hand, I'm under the impression that Shatterhand is a somewhat difficult game. I might be wrong, it might just be me being horrible at games, but I never completed this game. Having spent countless days and evenings at home or at my neighbour's place, the furthest we ever got was to the final boss. It didn't end well.

Awesome Games: Quake II

2010-06-15T15:51:00.002+02:00

It's about time I did some features on older games I really love. While the majority of them seems to be JRPGs, there's a pretty solid intersection of genres overall. I'll be starting out with a FPS released in 1997; Quake II.

At this time you might think "Why Quake II? What's so special about that game? There are so many other games that have paved the way."
I must admit I love Doom and the original Quake as well, but to me Quake II was special. Where the previously mentioned games were more cartoony and fantasy-inspired, this one is dark, gritty and angry. You find yourself traversing rusting industrial complexes where biomechanical aliens are torturing and brutally slaughtering your fellow soldiers. There's blood and rust, metallic scraping sounds from the alien creatures, screams from those who aren't yet dead, and a soundtrack of industrial metal that really drives you onwards.

The soundtrack is one of my favourites, and it fits the game like a glove. Not only that, but it's a brilliantaddition to any metal playlist. If you haven't already, check out the artist (Sonic Mayhem). Here are also a couple of the tracks: Descent Into Cerberon, Quad Machine, Kill Ratio, Operation Overlord.

Furthermore, the game showcased some fresh new ideas that I haven't seen in any other games myself, and which modern FPSes honestly could've utilized more. First up is the part with enemies who fire some final shots when they die. This is a pretty static animation, thus they fire in a straight line, there should be no such limitations today. Next up is the recoil on the machine guns. I was blown away when I first tried the game and found that if I just aimed and started firing, I would soon be pointing the gun at the roof.
Enemies getting visible wounds was also a new and exciting concept at this time, although I seem to recall GoldenEye (N64) doing the same thing the very same year.

As previously mentioned, I love the design of the game. It's all very harsh, and the game has a dark, agressive mood that's consistent all the way through. Don't get me wrong, I love games with bright, vibrant colors as well, but in this case that wouldn't sit quite right.

More Shameless Self-Promotion

2010-06-04T12:32:00.003+02:00

That's right, I'm posting this here too.
I've started using SoundCloud as a place to upload my music. It's not that my own website is bad (well, in all honesty, it is), but I'm working on a new and updated site that I might get up and running over the summer, so what's there right now is just temporary.
But to the point: Here's my music (and you can also be a fan, or "like" it on Facebook). These are the tracks that I'm actually content with, and the two tracks Sephiroth's Deliverance and All Existence Denied are the two I feel I've really managed to mix right.

The (second) 3D Failure

2010-05-05T18:59:00.002+02:00

I've finally gotten a proper demonstration of the new 3D monitors from one of the major providers. I've seen what 3d has to offer and how it works, but I'm not at all impressed.

I guess 3D is one of the major technology hypes right now, just like it was about ten years ago or so. The big difference this time is that they've gone more thoroughly through with everything, meaning they've gotten most major movie studios in on it.

There are several problems with 3D; It still demands glasses (which demand power to sync with the monitors, not to mention that they look absolutely silly), it may cause dizziness and confusion with some people, it doesn't really enrich the movie experience (at least not in my eyes), and it simply looks bad. Seriously. The 3D effect is there, but the foreground layers feel more like cardboard cutouts than anything else. It's more distracting than immersive.

There it is, finally some venting again after months of silence. I haven't had alot to write about lately, so the arrival of 3D TVs has had one positive effect.

Winds of Nochangeatall

2010-03-18T14:46:00.003+01:00

Time's been dragging on since January started. New semester, new courses, yet minimal progress. There's been very little to do at school, and it seems that fact has almost killed the enormous momentum I've had since I started school and moved here. As long as my schedule's been full, I've followed up tons of projects, both personal and school-related ones. Recently I've only done what I absolutely have to. Now that I've realized this, however, it's time to buckle up and get those projects going again.

I've gotten into industrial metal lately, something I haven't cared all that much about before. I've got to give it a shot, to compose and mix an industrial metal track. It's new ground, but I'm certain I'll get something interesting out of it (even if it ends up something completely different, as my musical projects for some reason tend to do).

Speaking of musical projects, one thing I've gotten out of this year so far is finalizing the mix of my track Sephiroth's Deliverance (a thrash metal take on a couple of themes from Final Fantasy VII). You can hear it on last.fm, which is awesome.

Video Games and the Hype Machine

2010-03-03T09:39:00.005+01:00

I think Final Fantasy XIII is coming out next week. Once, I really cared, I was anxious to get my hands on that game. It's been what, 4 years since it was announced? And it's been 3 years since screenshots and eventually trailers started surfacing. Other sites have discussed this phenomena lately, how games are marketed too early nowadays. Interest and anticipation will only hold for so long. If you follow any kind of gaming news, you'll be bombarded by information about the content of the game a long time before it's released. I've gone through games thinking "oh, that's the scene they showed in that one trailer" many times more than I should.
I gotta stop following gaming news. That's the easy solution.

Also, I'm addicted to Nine Inch Nails these days.

Will you bite the hand that feeds you? Will you stay down on your knees?

Holy shit new layout

2010-02-08T19:26:00.002+01:00

Custom layouts seem to destroy things. I'll be toying around with this one for a while anyways. See if it's worth the hassle. I really like the style, so at the very least I'll have to borrow some elements from it.

Magfest 8

2010-01-10T17:37:00.001+01:00

Two weeks have passed since I returned to Norway from Magfest 8.
I'd like to tell you all about the trip, but words alone cannot describe it.
I've met so many brilliant people and attended so many awesome shows, I can't choose not to go next year.
The very basics of the trip: I've met up with people known from Dwelling of Duels and OCRemix, hung out in New York, gotten my lowest placement in DoD ever (with my best track ever), dressed elegant, gathered swag (some CDs and a Metroid Metal t-shirt, the ATM at the hotel wouldn't take my card so I didn't get to buy as many CDs as I planned), and basically just had an awesome time.
Apparently I talked English in my sleep when I got back home. It felt really good to get used to talking (and thinking) in English.

Unfortunately, I'm at a loss for words these days. I have no idea what more to write.

Life As I Know It

2009-12-04T00:46:00.005+01:00

It's been almost a month since my last post. Nothing significant has happened since then. I've been getting through my exams, and now I'm down to two presentations left until this semester is over with. On spare time I've been playing more Dragon Age than I should, and recording less music than I should. Of course, I've got to turn that trend. Magfest is coming up, which means my entry to Dwelling of Duels this month will have to rock. There's a live listening party for the contest at Magfest, for those who were wondering.

December has hit us again. That means I'm stalking the internet for christmas calendars and free stuff. Also there's snow outside, not that it should make any difference to one such as myself. But snow there is. Outside. On the ground. And in the air.

I want to write a short review of Dragon Age later, but perhaps the internet has enough articles about the game now? Short version: Brilliant game that got me completely hooked right off the bat. Too simple character progression. Too few and simple choices (usually binary), although there are some interesting and well-done situations here and there.

Developers: Instead of shoving money at things like facial animations and full voice acting, focus more on the script, and on diversity. Live up to the "spiritual successor of Baldur's Gate" moniker.

brb dragon age

2009-11-10T22:40:00.003+01:00

Putting my life on hold. Dragon Age rocks.

Saving a link .

Speakers Must Match Curtains

2009-10-31T13:01:00.003+01:00

You know what really bothers me?
Men who have become their wife's bitch.

I'm a clerk in a store specializing in hi-fi. I see this shit alot. Random male, late 20's or early 30's, comes in looking for something small and compact that the wife will allow in the living room. Sometimes they even bring their wife, which is a more interesting situation really. Usually the wives who actually bother to come with them will end up slightly enthusiastic about the process themselves, but those who don't.. Well, it's fun to watch grown men in the role of a kid nagging mommy for a new toy. It's also very bothersome.

I wish someone would say something along the lines of "Fuck you, woman! I'm buying this for me, not you!". That'd be great fun.

Tro Rätt, Tro Fel

2009-10-15T17:33:00.004+02:00

It's been a while since my last post. I haven't really had anything of substance to write about lately. That hasn't changed, but another post here is over due.

What's new? Well, one major event at the very least: Swedish folk punk band Dia Psalma is playing in my hometown tomorrow. I've been listening to them for ages, but I've never had the chance to see them live. Now they're coming directly to my hometown instead of playing in Oslo. My local venue, Union Scene, is really great at booking awesome artists that aren't necessarily "current affairs". They're having Evergrey on stage soon too, which I'd go to as well if it hadn't been for a rather expensive ticket price. Oh, and Procol Harum played there recently. Or are they playing soon? No matter, I'm not into them enough to go see that show.
What was I saying? Dia Psalma is playing a show, and they're awesome. I'll have to make sure to pick up their albums there, if they've got a merch booth. I've had trouble finding them in regular stores.

This month in gaming:
Brütal Legend was launched today. Reviews are showing up everywhere, and it seems people are generally positive, but that the game apparently has RTS elements that kind of ruin the flow of the game for some. I haven't picked the game up myself yet. I do want it, and I'm a great Schafer fan, but I can't afford buying new games as long as I'm saving up cash for MAGFest. Just the trip from Norway to the US is about 5000kr. Maybe more.
Borderlands is coming along nicely. The launch is not far away now. October 30th. This is another game that won me over instantly with its brilliant art style. It's like Fallout 3, but more cartoony and less desolate (FO3 was too desolate, really). It really looks FUN!
Dragon Age: Origins is also drawing closer to release (November 6th). They released a standalone character creator yesterday, so eager players can have their characters all ready-made when the game finally arrives. This game seems cool, but I'll need to see more of its actual gameplay.

Kalla sinnen och härdat stål, är det vårat mål?

Symphonic Fantasies (Or HOLY SHIT I MET UEMATSU!)

2009-09-15T00:01:00.006+02:00

This weekend was rad. I went to the Köln Philharmonic in Germany with my girlfriend and a friend to watch Symphonic Fantasies, a concert of arranged music from the games Kingdom Hearts, Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger/Cross and Final Fantasy.
When this concert was first announced, my friend Audun asked me if I wanted to join him to Germany to catch this. Not only was it to be a great show, but there were also rumors that Nobuo Uematsu would be attending. A chance to meet Uematsu and have something signed was reason enough for me to go. The concert itself would be reason enough for me to go.

Saturday came, and we caught a plane full of ravers to Weeze, Düsseldorf. Apparently there was a rave going on around there that night. From the airport we had to take a shuttlebus to a town called something like Kevlar, Kevelar, Kaevelar or the likes. Our instructions had been simple, catch the train to Köln from Kevlar. When a train came, the sign in front of it said Düsseldorf, which was the direction it was coming from. None of the timetables were of any real help, and when we finally hopped on a train after talking to someone working at the station, we were told by the conductor that we'd have to switch trains and blah blah. Apparently they aren't very good at the whole "informing people" business.

Shits and poops. We finally got to Köln, were awesomely impressed by the huge dome there, and then scurried over to the concert hall. Because of the train business, we were late for the signing that was to take place, but the four composers were still at the tables when we arrived. There were lines in front of them all, but Uematsu's line went through the entire lobby. They packed up and left after a short while, leaving alot of fans disappointed. I was very disappointed myself, but at least I'd gotten to see Uematsu in real life, right?

We went on to watch the concert. The music was split into four suites, one for each game / series. First up was Kingdom Hearts, which I didn't have much of a connection to other than playing through the first game once. The arrangement was still brilliant, and the way the themes fit together.. Beautiful!
The next suite was of Secret of Mana, which I haven't played in ages. I don't really know the music from those games either, so I could only enjoy this as a "regular" orchestral piece.
After a short break we returned for the two suites I'd been waiting for. The piece with Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross music was, just like the rest, brilliantly arranged, with mellow sections building up into stronger ones, and parts like Lavos' Theme (the final battle) were simply epic.
Finally, the biggest one. Final Fantasy. An orchestral harp started the arrangement with the prelude, which I guess is pretty much to be expected. Then it paced back and forth between tracks like Bombing Mission (VII), Phantom Forest (VI), the battle theme from VII (a wonderful rendition!) and Battle At The Big Bridge (V) while teasing One-Winged Angel once and then, playing just a short segment of it before going off onto another track like the Chocobo Theme (which they went back to several times). It was a funny and playful arrangement, yet still very powerful. Then about 15 minutes of clapping followed. At least it felt that way.

Oh, and they did an encore. You'll need to see it for yourself. Suffice to say, it's a Final Boss medley, and yes, that also means One-Winged Angel (with an extended drum solo in the middle). Grand, in the true meaning of the word.

After the concert, I felt fulfiled. The trip had been worth it. This has to mean the blog post is over, right?

..but it's not!
My friend Audun knew someone of importance to this event. When we went to a bar after the event, I thought nothing of it. When the bar proved to be in the lobby of the Hilton hotel, I started wondering. Maybe we were to meet his contact or something?
About an hour later, I recognized Nobuo Uematsu (pretty easy to recognize due to his headwear, see the picture) walking into the room with a few others! The others seemed to be none other than Yoko Shimomura, Yasunori Mitsuda and Hiroki Kikuta, and their crew. Kikuta was also easily recognizable in the red shirt he was wearing.

Other people present were Jonne Valtonen (the Finnish guy who did the arrangements), Arnie Roth, percussionist Rony Barrak and local pianist Benyamin Nuss.

I tried to talk to Mitsuda, but his English was rather poor so that didn't work out too well. He signed my concert ticket though.
Uematsu was alot more talkative. I'd heard beforehand that he's a very down-to-earth guy, nice, humorous and humble. Those stories were true. We talked about the show, upcoming shows, the Black Mages and his music, and I wasn't even close to the level of starstruck I should've been in his vincinity. My friend Audun gave Uematsu (or, actually all four of the composers) a bar of premium Norwegian chocolate.
When we started talking about Kikuta, and how we didn't want to wake him up just to talk to him (he had fallen asleep in a couch nearby), Uematsu told us "no problem" and ran over to him, saying "Kikuta-san, wake up wake up wake up!". It was a hilarious scene, even more so because it was Uematsu.

Did I mention that Catharina had her DS signed by all four composers? She did. Now it's pure nerd gold. We'll need to frame it and buy a new one to use.

More pictures:

Eagerly awaiting the show.

The DS while Uematsu still was the only one who had signed it.

Computer Repair Flowcharts

2009-09-03T09:51:00.000+02:00

This site is pretty brilliant.

Get rid of those pesky install discs

2009-08-31T09:20:00.002+02:00

You want to keep your Windows installers on flash drives instead of CDs/DVDs?
I've recently discovered a brilliant program: WinToFlash. Discs can get scratches, and for iso-deployment of OS installers (we get academic versions of Windows through school that are delivered as a downloaded iso-file), this is the perfect solution. For something as crucial as an OS installation package, I don't trust discs I burn myself. There's too high an error rate. Finally I've got a solution! Nifty!

Video Game Metal

2009-08-03T15:15:00.004+02:00

I've been participating in Dwelling of Duels for more than a year now. In that one year, I feel I've grown alot as a musician. I've tried covering several musical styles, although the guitar is always the core of it and it usually ends up feeling like rock/metal anyways.

So, with one year of recording music behind me, I'll post a summary of my tracks here, linking to the latest mix on each one (as I've had some work done on most of them even after submitting it to DoD).

Short version: Download my FF8 track (All Existence Denied). It's my best track evar.

Debut: Gradius III - Stuck in the Crystal Maze

My first submission, worked out from a MIDI I found somewhere. The theme for the current Dwelling of Duels was Gradius, so I collected all the MIDI files I could find and listened through them to find something to work with. This one stood out. Afterwards I found out that it was only available in the arcade version of the game, after actually forcing myself to play through the entire game on a SNES-emulator. The version of the track I'm linking to is a very recent remaster of it, done with the help of OverClocked ReMix artist Hy Bound.

Final Fantasy VI - A Monument To Non-existence (Kefka's Theme)
A very heavy (and kind of liberal) take on Kefka's Theme from FFVI, this track started out as a test of how heavy a track I could make. It was inspired by the cartoon Metalocalypse, which is blacker than the blackest black, times infinity.

Final Fantasy X - My Story is a Different One (To Zanarkand)
I've always wanted to cover this track. It's a beautiful and emotional track, and I wanted to capture the same feeling in my interpretation of it here. At the same time, I wanted to give it a somewhat personal touch. Also, I wanted to have Tidus' sad monologue in the midsection, and I was certain that it was available on the soundtrack CD. Close to the deadline I found out that it was only available in japanese, though, so I had to make do with gibberish. I plan to redo this track, touch up the sound slightly (especially the guitar) and perhaps expand the track, and record a proper monologue for the midsection.

Shatterhand - Shatter This! (Stage 1)
Shatterhand might just be the awesomest game ever. It's awesomer than me, you, Mr.T and MacGuyver combined. You walk around, punch people, enslave robots, and sometimes even become a robot yourself. Someone's shooting at you? Well, punch the damn bullet!
Oh, and the music in the game is also awesome. This track is just begging for a proper metalization. I'd been thinking of covering this track for a long time, so it was about time I did it. Unfortunately I wasn't very happy with the result, as most of the track was great, but I couldn't manage to do the guitar parts properly. It went too fast, and was all over the fretboard. My guitar sound was also suffering from a lack of intonation after tuning it down to D (or even further?). This is another track I'm going to rework severely in the future.

Chrono Trigger - Facing Dark Eternal (Battle With Magus)
This track had already gotten awesome treatments by several artists. However, nobody gave it the "intense boss battle" treatment I figured it should have, so I took up the task myself. Very inspired by Darangen's "Atonement" (which is my favourite take of the track), I set up an intensified arrangement of the track. I might have brickwalled it a bit much, so I'm planning to go back and remix this track as well, to get a clearer version of it.

Final Fantasy VIII - All Existence Denied: The Extreme (The Extreme)
I actually started working on this track even before the Gradius-track. I only had the intro down, though, and had given up on it until I took it up in May '09. With fresh ideas and refined skills, I proceeded to complete the track, and this ended up as my best track ever. I got LuIzA to record some quotes from the battle this track is from, and ran it through some effects that made it even more awesome.

Castlevania II - Message of Darkness (Password Screen)
My very latest track. I'm not really sure what to say about this one. It was a very simple and short arrangement, and I dragged it out to give it more "life".

Borderlands, the FPSRPG (Now edited for convenience)

2009-07-24T19:39:00.004+02:00

There's a trailer out now. Honestly though, they had me hooked when they released the first screenshot. A perfect graphical style, a solid dose of (exactly my type of) humor, and a game that really looks fun to play.

Noting down the apparent release date:
20/10 - 2009
I will remember this. I'll be standing ready, wallet in hand.

Minor edit, 29/07/2009
Holy shit, it shoots rockets! Kotaku has a short preview of the game. It still sounds like fun and awesomeness.

Final Fantasy IV - Echoes of Betrayal, Light of Redemption

2009-07-18T17:22:00.006+02:00

Another Overclocked Remix project is complete. Get it here. If you love Final Fantasy, music, video games, anything at all, you have no reason not to fetch it this very instant. You'll thank me later.

Swine Flu Kills Fatties, Also Diet Coke Sucks

2009-07-13T10:56:00.003+02:00

Caught your eye?
Good.

I think I pulled a tabloid: The title is misleading, but it sounds awesome. Here's the real story. The core of it? The swine flu is apparently more dangerous to fat people than to others. Other influenzas apparently don't care if you're fat or not, but this one does. Of course, it's only natural that obesity is a sign of, or leads to health problems.

There was also an interesting comment below the article:

Diet drinks - stay the hell away from them. Ever see slim people in the supermarket buying diet coke? no - its always the huge people. Diet drinks have less calories, but there's an interesting littlel experiment they did, where two groups of rats were allowed to eat as much as they wanted - one group was given diet drinks, and the other normal non diet drinks. The ones on diet drinks porked up. The theory: The sweetners give your body signals to get ready to deal with a lot of sugar. When the sugar doesnt arrive, your body goes "Holy crap - we're starving! better eat more!"
So diet drinks may actually make you fatter by making you have a bigger appetite. Here's a not very authoritive link http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/06/its_been_recognized_for_a.php to one article about this - Im sure with a more thorough search the actual paper would turn up somewhere.

..so yeah. Toughen up, fatty. And don't drink diet coke.

Meedley meedley

2009-07-09T20:17:00.003+02:00

Ibanez RG 2570 Prestige

It's mine now. Finally!
This guitar plays like a dream, feels like a dream, and looks like a dream. Oh, and the sound! Delightful sound from its active humbuckers. I'll be posting some audio clips some day. For now though, how about a poor quality video clip?

Peace

2009-06-26T01:03:00.002+02:00

'nuff said.

Prototype (Me Smash!)

2009-06-20T12:03:00.002+02:00

Quoting Penny Arcade, "In Prototype you can do a karate kick on a helicopter. What the fuck else do you want!?"

This is true. I've spent an evening or two with the game now, and feel the need to express my opinion. First up, let me describe the first ten minutes or so of the game:

The player starts out in a city street where total panic has erupted, there are civillians and zombies everywhere. You know what this means, right? Massive genocide/zombiecide. You can kill anyone. You can pick them up and toss them at each others as well. You can also pick up cars though, and toss them around instead. When fighting enemy military you can pick up any of their guns and use them yourself, although it seems the core of the game is your fighting abilities. Did I mention that if you're low on HP, you can grab and consume anyone around you for health? You'll also get to steal their appearance by doing that.
I've failed to mention the general movement. There's parkour, and you can run up walls. Can you imagine the awesomeness of being chased by a helicopter, only to run up the wall of the nearest skyscraper and lunge off and karate kick it out of the sky? Yeah.
If that doesn't strike your fancy, you can also toss cars at them.

So, after some minutes of fun, you get to see the "shapeshifting" abilities (or, I don't know if I should describe it as that..), since the character can morph his hands into giant claws, a whip, or huge clubs at his will. They all work in different ways, and have kind of distinct uses. Claws for heavy damage to the hunter mutants you encounter, the whip for flying stuff, and clubs for tanks and buildings(?).

The gameplay has some slight stealth elements (take military officers' identities to enter military bases, and such), but it's not a very advanced system. It's very fun though.

Finally, you can hijack tanks. After gaining that ability, I've come to the conclusion that this game can be described as a blend of GTA and Assassin's Creed elements, with a huge dose of awesome.

I've seen quite the number of complaints about the graphics, but personally I couldn't care less about the "cutting-edge" photorealism that some pursue. This game uses the system resources to have huge amounts of actors on screen at the same time. I would only dare guess the amounts of people I saw around me just during the first ten minutes of the game.

A New Sense of Purpose?

2009-06-02T21:06:00.002+02:00

The memories of one of my absolute favourite games came back to me today, a game which I had forgotten about entirely for some reason. What sparked its return was the name Vhalior, which I don't even know how or why my mind brought up. For those who don't recognize the name, it's one of the characters in the game Planescape: Torment.

I figured that such a long time after its initial release, maybe there would be some news of a sequel or the likes, so I started googling. While I found nothing of the sorts (sadly), I found a very interesting article about the sound design of the game.
I've always been fascinated by sound design, and auditory experiments in general. Some parts of this article inspired me a great deal, like creating ambient sounds by thoroughly warping the sound of a roaring bear.

I want to start experimenting more with *sound*. I still have a ways to go when it comes to music, but that isn't my only interest. Speaking of which, I didn't place too well in this month's Dwelling of Duels, but I'm very content with my arrangement. It got 14th place, and here's the download link for those who are interested.

The Secret of Monkey Island - Remake!

2009-06-01T20:12:00.003+02:00

There's also a new game in the works. Apparently it'll be episodic.
But they'll be remaking the first game in the series, meaning new graphics, remastered music and voices. It's quite possible that they'll follow it up with a remake of the second game as well. Joy!

Read it at Kotaku
For video clips and a better look at it, click here. Watch the developer's commentary. Just do it. I absolutely love the art style, seemingly an advancement of the style in the Curse of Monkey Island (the third game). Instead of appalling 3d, it's got a very charming and atmospheric hand-painted look. This is the direction game visuals should take.

Advent Children Complete

2009-05-18T17:51:00.001+02:00

I've realized that the copy of Final Fantasy: Advent Children released on DVD is nothing more than an early rough draft of the movie. By now, most people (myself included) have come to terms with the movie being a patchwork of cool action sequences. The plot never made any real sense, and important plot elements went unexplained.
Today I saw the "new and revised/extended" version, known as Advent Children Complete. They have added more scenes so the plot actually flows, in addition to having changed and extended some of the old scenes. The characters now get scratches and bruises, and the motorcycles have all gotten new paint jobs. At least I believe so, Fenrir (Cloud's bike) surely looks alot better this time around. Tseng and Elena, who are only seen in brief glimpses in the old version, are now participating in several scenes.
The climax of the movie has also been changed a bit, but I won't write any spoilers.

If I ever buy myself a Blu-Ray player, this movie will be the first one in my collection.

More Powerful Than God: How The PlayStation Came Into Existence

2009-04-26T11:32:00.002+02:00

Interesting article in the Edge magazine. If you care about this sort of thing, you really ought to read it.

Shameless Promotion

2009-04-23T16:03:00.003+02:00

I've created a MySpace profile for my music. I'm not sure if I'll upload my original works there yet, but at the very least I'll be showing off my video game covers (of which most will be tracks from Dwelling of Duels) there. My genres span from melodic rock to more thrashy metal, but I'll be experimenting with other genres in the future. Sooner or later I will try to make a Prodigy-inspired DnB-type track. I'd try ambient as well, but that's just boring.

FFXI - Return To Vana'Diel, Another Of Those Campaigns

2009-04-20T13:46:00.003+02:00

Well, I just got an email from SQUARE ENIX. It seems they've got yet another campaign going to try to pull old addicts back into the world of Vana'Diel. This time, though, they can apparently restore previously deleted characters. They can even restore previously deleted characters whose content ID has been reused! My question is, why the HELL did they refuse to do such transactions earlier? They claimed it was not possible. Sure, I expect that all their "deleted" data just recently came floating to the surface. That's how data works, after all.

A long long time ago, when life was easy and free time was a-plenty, I was an avid FFXI gamer. I would stay up until the early hours of day, waiting for the japanese people I sometimes played with to log on. Most of the time I played with my close group of friends though, and playing this game without them would never have worked.
I ended up burning my interest in the game out. I worked hard to gather the money to buy the (at that time) best possible armor for my character. When I bought it, however, my interest died. Everything became numbers, which became irrelevant. So I quit the game.
At the same time, another friend wanted to try the game. I gave him my account, and he deleted (or maybe I did that myself) my character and started from scratch.

A year or so later I wanted to give the game another go. There was one of these "Return to Vana'Diel" campaigns running, and I had a hope that the result of my constant focus through two years could be retrieved. However, they claimed that was not possible. Therefore I actually started a new account and tried my best to start over. Knowing that I'd been through all this tedium before, I couldn't manage to continue. There's a big motivational difference between regaining lost ground and exploring new ground, after all. I gave up again.

As we see now, they weren't unable to do this back then. I suppose they were just unable to create an automated process for it, or didn't see a need for it.

Now, it's too late for them. FFXI is dated, and even though it's a beautiful and complex game-world that I still have very fond memories of and haven't seen anything remotely close to ever since, it lacks the level of appeal a game should have. 18-hour boss fights? No thanks. Spending days to find a group to grind with for a couple of hours? No thanks.
(Also, the game engine felt far from optimized, pacing was slow enough to have to do other things while playing to not get bored (like watching a movie, or playing another game on the Playstation), the system was quirky. The PlayOnline platform wasn't very well executed IMO.)

Noteflight - An Alternative To Tools Such As Guitar Pro?

2009-04-18T11:11:00.002+02:00

Noteflight
Blog about Noteflight

So Noteflight is an online music notation editor. It looks pretty nice, and I wonder if it can replace Guitar Pro.

Guitar Necks Can Make A Big Difference

2009-04-17T23:01:00.005+02:00

Warning: This post is, contrary to the other ones I've posted lately, not very serious. If you're here for serious reading.. Well, then just close your browser and step away from the computer. You might want to wash your hands as well. I'm just saying.

I've got two guitars. The Warlock was my first guitar ever, and I've fitted it with a really heavy humbucker for that soulcrushing sound. Practically all my recordings have been done with that one. In the beginning I mostly used the Ibanez for more mellow passages, where there was a need for a single-coil pickup. It isn't capable of delivering properly heavy sound.
As I've been using the Warlock for the most part, that's also the guitar I've been used to playing. Around christmastime I brought the Warlock to my grandparents' place to have something to play there as well, and then I haven't gotten around to bring it back home yet. This naturally lead to me using the Ibanez more.
Today, I picked up the Warlock again, and playing it wasn't as good as before. I really play better and faster on the Ibanez. This means that while the Warlock is still godly for rhytm playing, I ought to use the Ibanez for lead guitars. The only issue is that the neck is somewhat bent, and the techs at my local guitar store didn't think it was possible to fix it. I'll have to try to map out where the effect shows, and then just avoid those frets. Or sell the guitar off and buy a new one. We'll see.

Thoughts

2009-04-17T12:58:00.009+02:00

The thoughts I've written about in my post about "Internet and making money" reach the issue of file sharing and the "Spectrial" (The Pirate Bay trial) as well.

First there's one thing I need to state clearly. In this modern age, music is considered a product. Personally, I don't consider music a product, at least not in this sense. In the days of the record industry's monopoly, one had to buy CDs for access to the music. They still stick to this idea today, although they've expanded so that one can buy a heavily restricted digital file (mp3, isn't it? I've never bought music digitally, so I don't know all the options). Now people no longer have to buy a whole mediocre album to get that one song they like. This must be a hard blow to the major labels. Another hard blow is the fact that today's easy access to information makes it easy for the small artists to reach out. Popular media is still dominated by "pop music", by which I mean music heavily marketed by the major labels. No independent artists or smaller labels can afford such advertising, nor do they really need it. MTV no longer needs to tell us what to listen to, because we can find absolutely anything we want on the internet. The reason CDs cost as much as they do is because they need to make up for the advertising costs, and managerial costs from its journey through the label's hierarchy. Another factor is the cost of engineering the album itself, with facilities and personell, but that's a logical cost that is necessary for an album.

I still buy CDs, as does practically every other person with an active interest in music. This is not simply for access to the music, it is also a way to prove one's connection to the band/artist. I'm a fan of The Prodigy, therefore I own close to all the albums they've ever released, and it's the same with e.g. Dream Theater and Bad Religion. CDs are "stamps". You can't call yourself a "true" fan of band X if you don't have any of their CDs in your shelf. Your shelf tells people who you are. CDs are products. The music on them is not. Band t-shirts are products. Concerts are "products" (or, following the definitions from my earlier post, concerts are Services). The music itself, as data/information, is something you can't control once it's public. This shows up in several discussions these days, like the "Rickroll" phenomenon. Quick link related to that debate. In my opinion, people being fooled to watch a cheesy 80's music video on youtube isn't something that should earn any kind of revenue. It has however renewed the song's attention, so maybe some more people actually buy the album now.

iPods have become a lifestyle product, perhaps even moreso than the Sony Walkman and such. "Everyone" listens to mp3. One can't get away from the fact that alot of the mp3 present on the majority of iPods is in fact downloaded "illegaly". This is the "free flow of information" in action. Of course, everyone wants to be paid for their work, but looking at it from another perspective, I would personally NEVER want people to have to pay to listen to anything I've created. When I make music, I make it for people to listen to it. Perhaps it's this agenda that spurred this whole post. I make music because I enjoy it, and believe others may enjoy it as well, not to make money or anything of the likes.

Making and distributing music is easier than ever. About 200 bucks is all you need to get started nowadays, and the internet is after all a repository of knowledge. You can really learn alot just from reading. Considering the "supply and demand" models, I can't see music as a logical product anymore. Anyone can make decent music on a hobby-basis now, which makes it easier to have a full-time job and still have time and resources for music. Of course, this is already standard practice, as artists usually don't make enough money from their music to get by without any other source of income. The exception is of course those who people believe to be musicians, but who are really just products fronting some music. Yeah, this means the pop idols who are "living the life", those you read about in your celebrity magazines.

I'm probably stepping on alot of toes now, especially since I'm not part of the music industry, nor do I make particularily good music. I'm active in several online communities centered around creating music, and there's talent all over the place. Most of these people are just hobbyists, still they make music good enough to fill any of my playlists. And their music is free, to boot! This must mean it's stealing potential earnings from the RIAA! These people must be stopped!

Seriously. FUCK the RIAA. While I'm at it, fuck the "I heart celebrities and want to know everything about their lives" pop culture.

[Edited in, from my forumpost on ocremix]
I'm getting very annoyed by the continued use of the "lost revenue" argument. Someone who's slightly interested, or maybe just curious about a product will not go ahead and buy it just like that. If you're very interested, you might go through the effort of going downtown to find a record store and listen to the album if they have it, but I think people do download stuff somewhat randomly because it might "sound somewhat interesting".

Most of the bands I listen to are bands I was kind of curious about at first, but not curious enough to look for a store online that has their albums (because most local record shops only have pop music).

Bacon Is Delicious, Dangerous

2009-04-17T11:26:00.002+02:00

Some may already have seen the flaming sword of bacon (or the bacon torch) by now. Those who haven't.. well, you're in for a treat. As if that wasn't enough, how about a bacon AK-47 as well? That last one isn't functional in any way, if you were wondering. If it were, though, it would be shooting tiny hollow-tip bacon pellets.

I want to write more. Particularily about the Pirate Bay trial, now that they've all been convicted. However, I don't really know enough about the case to make any serious points yet, except for the fact that they're being eaten by dying dinosaurs. The RIAA is going down, but far from fast enough.

The Internet And Making Money

2009-04-16T07:55:00.003+02:00

A common question these days seems to be "how can I make money with my website?". Well, the internet has a free flow of information. Any static information you want to sell can (and most likely will) be found for free shortly after opening the flood gates. I suppose there will always be some paying customers, but no matter. Access to information is only becoming easier. With the web 2.0 hype, social engineering must also be easier than ever. It's getting harder to hold information back, as more and more services become digitalized as well.

So.. What attracts customers today? Services. An example could be Diablo 2. I'm sure there are huge amounts of people who have downloaded this game illegaly. Still, there are also huge amounts of people who buy it, and it STILL graces most stores' shelves. This is because of the service called Battle.Net. You can't play the game online without proper authentication. Online gaming is a service that seems to be thriving. They don't provide information, they provide a service people find entertaining enough to pay for.

I consider the internet these days a giant billboard. Everyone's fighting for attention, people, corporations, advertisers. The fact that advertisements have to compete with even the regular people seems to force obtrusive methods like popups, popunders and ruining websites by burying them in ads. I do not believe ads are the future.
Still, today the only revenue for "regular" sites seems to be ads. Apparently that's what The Pirate Bay earned money from as well. I can't think of any other way one could earn money directly on a website. You'll have to do something more than just serve people information.

The business model I see for websites is the use of money to construct it, and then the website gathering attention. Is there really anything else it *could* gather?

Climbing The Curve

2009-04-15T22:05:00.003+02:00

A while ago I read about how it's easy to set up a webserver nowadays. My goal when it comes to education and IT is web development and server management, so I figured it was time I tried. Also my old audio workstation had become too unstable for recording, so it was just sitting there.

Ubuntu Server 8.10 enters the stage.
That's right, I set it up as an Ubuntu server doing small-time web stuff like what we're working with at school at the moment (MySQL) and PHP (which we'll hopefully be working with in next semester's web systems class). I think it's called LAMP, that is Apache&MySQL&PHP (isn't it?). I'm just toying around with small (very small) PHP scripts right now, hopefully enough to get me somewhat comfortable with it. The server only runs on a local network, so I won't have to worry about how to fight off pirates or the likes just yet.

I've set up phpMyAdmin after some slight issues today (it didn't add anything to apache.conf, so I wasn't getting anywhere at first. I'm too much a novice to figure out such things myself. Luckily, Google is my friend), and got some test-databases running. Writing SQL queries is something I do enough of at school, it's not *exciting* in any way. I've gotten a MySQL server running, *that's* what excites me here. Now I can try development for web with php-support and full access to database administration. Before this I've had to spend SEVERAL seconds firing up an FTP client and uploading the php-files every time I want to give my changes a test run.
..oh shit, I still have to do exactly the same, just to a different server. Well, no harm done to anyone.

I named my server Onyx. I like that word.

Analytics

2009-04-15T17:21:00.004+02:00

I enjoy checking out the traffic statistics for this blog. Today I noticed multiple visitors from google using the keywords "master chief chef". Further examination showed me that these visitors were from the US. Please, tell me they didn't search for that because they don't know their own language well enough to separate the words "chief" and "chef".

Another visitor had apparently searched for "looking for an awesome rts with navy air and ground units". Really. He landed on my post about Total Annihilation though, so he really got an awesome rts with navy air and ground units.

Lost Odyssey Revisited

2009-04-07T16:04:00.002+02:00

"But general, our own soldiers are in the line of fire!"
"Well, then they better know how to dodge arrows!"

Lost Odyssey is a game worth countless playthroughs. It's the *real* successor to Final Fantasy X, although the style is somewhat different from the Final Fantasy series. The characters here feel more like the focus has been personality, rather than their pasts and abilities. Also, the music lives up to that of the Final Fantasy series, still with Nobuo Uematsu writing the score. Somewhat related, there's an utterly awesome metal remix of one of this game's tracks available.

So I'm playing through the game again. The first time, it was my girlfriend playing, and I missed some small parts of storyline here and there. This time around there won't be as much trouble, as we know how the game works now. There was one boss fight we struggled with for hours on our first playthrough, while it went down easily this time. The biggest difference was the paralysis immunity I'd aquired through a "hidden" item in the area leading towards the boss. I also take more advantage of weaknesses this time.

I really enjoy playing this. I know what's going to happen, but I still enjoy every second of the cutscenes and gameplay that lead me there.

Diablo III Interface Is Tidy, WoW-Inspired

2009-03-31T09:21:00.003+02:00

UI-screenshots have probably been posted before, but I haven't given it proper attention until now. I read a story at Kotaku about how Blizzard took inspiration from their WoW-UI when they made the one for D3. For instance, inventory management seems improved, no Horadric Cube to lug around anymore. There are also WoW-style action buttons, with WoW-style graphics (that'll piss off the fanboys, but bugger them anyways). That means, instead of simple buttons with only a simple white icon, there will now be colored icons that can be told apart much easier, especially when there are many of them in a row on the bottom of the screen.
The whole interface looks very sleek from the screenshots.

Source

Understanding Network Issues

2009-03-28T01:03:00.002+01:00

Something's fishy about the network connection I'm currently using.
It's a fiber broadband connection which has given me stunning results before, but when I fired up my laptop today I've had nothing but slowdowns and random dropouts. The thing is, when I run any of the speed tests available on the internet, I get the regular results of between 6000 and 10000 kbps down. These slowdowns and dropouts affect all kinds of sites, anything from Norway to Australia.
Could it be that the router needs rest, or a reboot for some reason or other? Perhaps the modem, even?

Defining the slowdown: Ubuntu updates from their Norwegian fileserver took two hours to stabilize a connection for, and then it stabilized at 20kbps. For a torrent, I've peaked at 65kbps for a tiny moment, with random ups and downs between 20 and 40.

The Last.fm Changes

2009-03-25T15:21:00.002+01:00

It's been decided that the last.fm radio will now be a subscriber-only feature, unless you live in Germany, UK or the US. The newspost around this wasn't as informative as I'd like, and it quickly drowned in hateful comments. I guess that's what you get when you give people a service for free, then suddenly request to get paid for it. Personally, I've never cared about the radio feature, but from what I can gather, this will severely limit the previews and free tracks as well. As it is now, I'm uploading my music on last.fm because I want people to have access to it for free. If they suddenly want people to pay for content I've made available for free, that's a conflict of interest. Also, with Spotify being free, I see no reason why anyone would want to pay for last.fm radio.

The Only RTS I'll Ever Love

2009-03-23T14:13:00.003+01:00

This is a post about Total Annihilation. For those who haven't played it, it's an RTS (real-time strategy) game from 1997, with two robot factions locked in eternal war. Both sides are broken beyond repair, and it seems all they can do is keep fighting.

I have fond memories of this game. I first discovered it on a demo CD from a computer magazine, and I truly exhausted that demo. I believe it had three or four levels of restricted gameplay, where at least the final level was a typical "build & conquer" scenario. While the full game has two tiers of naval units, aerial units, walking robots and vehicles, this demo only had access to level 1 robots and vehicles (And on only one side, to boot). I avoided reaching the objectives on purpose, and rather collected (and spent) ALL the resources on the maps, and built structures all over. I had nothing to defend myself against, but I made quite advanced defences nonetheless. I also managed to convert some enemy structures, and thus gained a certain access to enemy units as well.
This was 1997, games were as expensive as now, and I didn't get games very often. I kept playing the demo for a long time.

Fast-forward. Kingdoms had not yet been released, so it must've been late 1998 / early 1999. Ten years ago now? That's harsh. Anyways, this is when I finally got to buy the full version of the game. Fun times were had. The game has an amazing orchestral soundtrack, which I have often wanted to honour with an awesome cover/remix (although I still lack that level of expertise). It also has just the right balance of simple/advanced gameplay, and brilliant pacing. I played alot of different RTS games back then, as I threw myself at every single demo that came with my magazines, but none felt "right" to me the way Total Annihilation did.

I suppose the gameplay is pretty standard for an RTS. You gather resources, build units, and patrol for more resources while you defend against enemies (and attack enemies). You've got ground units, naval units and aerial units, level one and two, as mentioned before. Things have different build times and resource costs, which somewhat evens out the differences. Unfortunately, it was all too easy to build a huge air fleet and demolish the enemy early on. When both sides have had time to build proper defences you'll begin to see truly epic battles, and nothing is as impressive as a Warlord-ship bombarding the shore from afar while flying units duke it out above.
Drawbacks (that might have appeared with the expansion pack, I don't quite remember) were when they introduced hovercrafts and nukes. Different units for different terrain is the only winner IMO, and I wish you could've been able to block certain units when creating multiplayer games.

What I saw of Supreme Commander, the spiritual sequel to this game, was alot more expansive than the original game. I haven't really played it, so I can't say that much about it, but it didn't have the visual charm of the original.

Whoever has the license for this game now, I hope they'll follow it up some day. I still have not tried any RTS that's been nearly as fun as Total Annihilation.

Job Application Etiquette

2009-03-19T15:30:00.003+01:00

I read through this article just now, and I'll have to admit that some of the points here took me by surprise. Most of the points were obvious, of course, like dressing the part, not bad-mouthing earlier aqueintances, avoiding misspellings in ones resume and not having a stupid email-address. One does want to give a good impression of being serious about it, after all.
I'll have to admit that I haven't seen alot of job interviews, and about three times out of five, I've gotten the job I was there for. I'm still just a kid though, and these job interviews haven't been for professional jobs (I believe it's all been clerk-type jobs).
If there's a set etiquette for "higher level" jobs, how does one learn about it? Is it really a custom to send a "thank you for the interview" letter?

Edit: So, it's in the clear. It's not custom to send any silly "thanks for the interview" letter. I'm glad I'm a skeptical reader.

Thomas Tries Last Remnant, Shivers

2009-03-16T15:13:00.003+01:00

A short while ago, a demo version of the new Square-Enix game The Last Remnant hit Steam, and like any other faithful Squeenix-fan I was all over it. The first thing that struck me was the fact that the menus used the Xbox-controller-icons for navigation, which to me indicates a lazy port. After booting up the game I was thrown into a world that for some reason reminded me of Final Fantasy XI, but with better graphics. I couldn't get into the characters at all, at least not in this demo, and the controls were painful. Running randomly around got me further in what I'm sure they intended to be "the story", and I found myself in a dungeon.
As dungeons tend to mean battles, I braced myself. This game has monsters on the "overworld", so they aren't entirely random. You press a button to initiate battle, and it affects a certain area around you. If you don't manage to initiate battle before the monster reaches you, it becomes an ambush (I suppose). This initiates a BATTLE. Battles are seemingly real-time (not entirely sure, nor do I care anymore), and the battle GUI is horrible. For the first five battles, I couldn't make out what was what, other than the action menu that comes up when a character can act. When I killed off the creatures I'd been fighting, more came running. I'm not sure if that was because they were in the same room or if it was scripted for some random reason, but it wasn't anything I could've seen at any rate.

This game had absolutely nothing to give me. For the first time ever, I felt that a game had thoroughly wasted my time. And, at that, a Square-Enix game!

OverClocked ReMix Releases Summoning Of Spirits

2009-03-10T11:28:00.004+01:00

The people over at OC ReMix have released yet another album project, this one for the Tales series (you know, Tales of Phantasia and such). Like always, it covers a broad range of musical styles, and I personally believe that anything Sixto Sounds touches turns into solid gold. Shred-gold.

Torrent (contains both FLAC and MP3, so be aware)
Website for Summoning of Spirits

This is it. Grab the torrent. Not having played the games really isn't an excuse. I have only played Tales of Phantasia myself, and I enjoy all the tracks anyways.

XOC & Heavy Friends Part 3: The Sumo Anagram Fiend

2009-02-21T10:31:00.003+01:00

In music-related news, XOC's third installment of his Heavy Friends project is finished. Check it out here. I haven't had the time to listen through it myself yet, but I'll be getting there very very soon. In short, people have supplied him with tons of randomly recorded samples, from instruments to toys. Everything goes. He has then proceeded to transform it all into musical goodness. You'll regret not checking it out.

Gobliiins 4!

2009-02-10T12:50:00.002+01:00

So, after 14 years, a new sequel to the Gobliiins series is in development. I grew up with fond memories of the adventures of Blount the goblin, and I'm not really sure whether I should be positive or negative to this sequel.

Source 1 (Norwegian)
Source 2 (Official site, but in French)

Working With Sonar

2009-02-09T20:48:00.004+01:00

Last time I tried Sonar was on my laptop, which didn't really result in much. I tried it a couple of times, toying around with some basic softsynths. My Native Instruments Rig Kontrol unit didn't perform too well for some reason, so I didn't try any recording. Anyways, now I've installed the demo on my desktop computer, and since NI finally has released Vista64-compatible drivers, I've finally gotten stuff up and running on that machine. That is, I've got Guitar Rig and the Sonar 7 demo, anyways. Sonar has some nifty features, like the midi editor which is alot faster than the one in Cubase (direct editing, you don't have to double-click the midi track to enter piano-roll-editor), and the stacking of multiple recordings. Unfortunately, the rest of the workflow is very difficult to get used to for me, and there's a multitude of buttons everywhere. Managing VST instruments is slower and more difficult as well.

..Cubase does cost about three times what Sonar costs, so they might cancel each others out that way, but I still prefer working in Cubase. I just hope they'll draw some inspiration from these two wonderful features.

Small edit: I forgot to mention the performance boost. I'm not sure if the computer is really *that* much more powerful, but Sonar showed 0-10% CPU usage while using two instances of Guitar Rig. On my old workstation, I can't have any other instruments/plugins active when I've got two Guitar Rig instances going. There's a 3,2ghz single core vs a 3,2ghz dual core 64-bit cpu.

Interview With Nobuo Uematsu

2009-01-30T00:23:00.003+01:00

This might be old news to some, but I found this interview to be very interesting. Uematsu had some very inspirational words to say near the end, too.

..also, my music is on MySpace now.

Spectrum Analyzer - Voxengo SPAN

2009-01-25T17:55:00.003+01:00

I downloaded this ages ago, but forgot to install it. I've been in dire need of a real-time spectrum analyzer for quite a while now, and finally I tried this today. It does exactly what I want, the way I want it to. I hope this can help me take my mixes to the levels I want them to. I know I'll be learning alot.

Voxengo SPAN VST-plugin

News From Norway

2009-01-24T12:20:00.003+01:00

Yesterday there was a story in the news about a relatively high-ranking police officer who shot his ex (who had just moved away from him) and then himself. He'd used a service gun (which is logical enough), but the one he used was not his own. Therefore they have to revise their routines when it comes to weapons. What they seem to forget is that he *was* a high ranking officer, in a position of trust, and this is an exceptional case.

Normally a police officer in Norway is not allowed to carry arms. They do however have access to them through a locker to which only the chief has the key. I fear that after this, they'll only be allowed to use feather dusters. Organized crime seems to thrive in Norway, because no matter how nicely we ask them to leave, they just won't.

Hey, That's True! Official Game Websites Suck!

2009-01-21T23:12:00.004+01:00

Five Ways Game Sites Can Improve

Yeah, this has been grinding my gears, but never enough for me to rant about it or anything. I've just learned to stay away from anything that hints at being an "official" game website. Major developers do this, like Square-Enix for instance. Ubisoft as well.

One official game website that really works the way an official game website should is the one of Fallout 3. Go ahead, check it out right now. Now that's a nice, functional website without any bloat or "noise" like rampant animations and scripts.

Watch and learn, developers. Please.

A Time For Change

2009-01-21T07:32:00.003+01:00

So, Obama has finally had the honor of moving into the white house. Personally, I've only skimmed through his grand speech, but I hope he really stands for what he's been preaching all this time. I guess that's all I really have to say about this. Congratulations.

..allright, so I only posted this to use the Chrono Trigger image.

The SaGa Game Series Are 20 Years Old

2009-01-20T10:21:00.002+01:00

Square-Enix has made a retrospective of the SaGa series, which both brings back memories and has given me interest in the newer games. I've only played the early ones, with the last one being Romancing SaGa 2. This has revived my interest in those games, and I will now have to look up every single one and see if they've been released outside Japan.

..of course, the article that redirected me to that link first sent me here. In short, they're remaking the second game in the series for the Nintendo DS. Unfortunately for me, it's still the DS, like every other old game they remake/re-release, and it's getting that same ugly 3D treatment. I don't like it. Pixel art is cute. 3D is not.

I might have to get a DS sometime anyways, since they've released Chrono Trigger for it. I have to own Chrono Trigger.

Guitar Rig Update 3.2 - Finally Vista64 Compatibility

2009-01-15T10:33:00.002+01:00

Newspost.

While I'm still stuck with GR2 myself, it's gotten Vista64 support as well! There are drivers for Rig Kontrol 2, but no updates for the exe, so I suppose the drivers were the only issue.

Original Tracks In The Works

2009-01-13T16:21:00.004+01:00

With some free time on my hands this early morning, I decided to sit down with some of my old music projects that I haven't gotten around to completing. They mark my discovery of strings and pads, and go in a somewhat different direction than my tracks usually do. I believe they both started out as exercises in layering and minimalism. I exported them as mp3s with a simple soundfont-based converter to avoid anyone ripping it. Bear with me.

Tracks are found here.

The first track, Temple, is something I thought could fit as background music in a dungeon or mysterious temple in some video game. I might even use the midi file for that purpose. I started working on it on the bus, with the volume muted. That's the easiest way to avoid using the same modes over and over, at least in my experience. I consider this track finished, arrangement-wise. I will do a full audio version of it some time in the future.

The second track, Becoming, is closer to my regular style. I'm going to expand this track further before doing any recording, but I really like what I've done so far.

..I've also updated my mockup site, because I might as well keep an updated tracklist there. I'm probably a bigger fan of my tracks Crystal Maze and Monument than anyone else, but that's alright.

Padding Our Children With Cotton?

2009-01-12T14:22:00.003+01:00

Slipp bomullsbarna fri!

Text from Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten. This text describes a problem I've had some slight thoughts about myself, although my thoughts were just basics like "what the hell" and "why?".

The POV of this text is a person who's seemingly grown up in Oslo, and still concerns that area. I can understand that a parent doesn't want their kid walking around Oslo, hell, I can understand that a grown person doesn't want to walk around in Oslo. Still, the article has some good points. Some central points concern the fact that parents overprotect their kids, which leads to a whole generation of people without the least bit of ability to take care of themselves. They also end up with a lower threshold for e.g. pain and hardships than the earlier generations.

I have no idea why or how, but even though I've been a rather spoiled child myself, I am now the type of person who takes issues by the horns and works hard to make the best of my life.

New Year, New Games

2009-01-05T21:03:00.002+01:00

So it's 2009. The last possible year 200X. Still no Mega Man saving the human race from extinction. What ever will we do?

I've gotten two new games lately; Gothic 3 (or, Gothic Universe really) and Prince of Persia (the new one, you know). I've invested about 2 days of gaming in the two games, juggling them a bit around.

Prince of Persia 2008
I still think it's stupid to use exactly the same name as the "original" game. Now, this new game is beautiful. I won't believe anyone who says they think otherwise, because this is one of the most visually pleasing games in a very long time. The look is based on cel-shading, but after what I've gathered it's got more details than regular cel-shading would allow. It's an easy game, and basically it's just lots of free running (you know, with jumping and climbing) with some combat thrown in as an afterthought. The combat system feels a bit sluggish and simple. You can't die, as your sidekick rescues you from every fatal situation, but this fills the enemy's health back to full. Not that health always matters either, by grabbing the enemy (which throws him into the air) and then stabbing him you'll insta-kill him anyways. This always works on regular enemies, while grabbing never works on bosses. They'll just have to be pummeled with regular attacks.
The world in this game does feel lonely and desolate. The storyline is served through the conversations with the sidekick, usually before/while/after a boss fight. Assassin's Creed, which shares the same base engine, has a more interesting world simply because there are other people everywhere. It's a living world. PoP is pretty much a modern platformer. You'll see the same slopes over and over (same model, different textures), you'll climb vines with different textures, you'll wallrun past the same scratched-wall-texture countless times. All in all, there's not much diversity. It's a fun game, not a deep, immersive one. And as a game designed for fun, it's a winner.

Gothic 3
Well.. Look at how much I wrote about PoP. Now it's time to treat Gothic 3. I loved the previous games, so I've been wanting to play this for a very long time. Reading up on the internet after getting it, I see it's gotten some bad press due to alot of bugs, and is a game people either love or hate. The graphics aren't great, so I was stunned by the fact that even fully patched, it's still choppy and freezes at times on my monster computer. I let that run though. I've been gaming on underperforming computers most of my life, I can handle an occasional freeze. The freedom in this game has amazed me this far. You can go anywhere, you have access to high-level equipment from the very start, and character development is pretty easy (you can't make a "broken" character). Also, since several towns in the world of G3 has been occupied by orcs, I've had the joy of cleaning out an entire town, WITHOUT breaking the game! Quite the contrary, I got a quest done and progressed in the game by doing it! I did so many town raids in Oblivion and Morrowind (just breaking out of the old habits, without saving afterwards), now finally there's a game where you can do that for game progress!
Now, the combat system still feels like an early beta though. When I finally learned the controls properly, I learned that most of the moves are pointless. I cleared out two arenas (one-on-one fights for cash and rewards) without taking a single hit. Lots of quick attacks that the enemy never gets the chance to counter, and some regular hits thrown in every now and then to make their health deplete faster. This is a double-edged sword though. Beasts never try to defent, and therefore fight very agressively. Due to stun-animations when being hurt, if a beast gets close to you you'll very likely be stunlocked to death. Maybe if they hadn't made blocking so slow, it'd give the player the possibility to break a stunlock by blocking, throwing the enemy back for a moment.
Gothic 3 is a good game, but it still belongs in early beta testing. There are some ugly issues like memory leaks a-plenty, stuttering and glitching, even on very powerful systems. Combat should've been more developed, especially since they chose to make it different than in the earlier games.

Now, rather than play more, I shall lie down on the couch with my book on database structure. The course covering that will start on Thursday, and I have great plans already.

Gaming News

2008-12-16T12:55:00.004+01:00

I was terrified when I heard that EA "saved" Brutal Legend, but at least that means the game will be coming out. As I'm sure they'll be stupid enough to infest the game with obtrusive DRM, I guess I won't be paying for this game after all.However, the new trailer does look awesome, all they really need to do is to keep the game free of EAIDS and it'll rock the gaming world!

In other news, there's a teaser out for the Dante's Inferno game. After what I've come to understand, it'll be a God of War clone, just without the cool parts. I read something about survival horror, but if that teaser was for a survival horror game, it's utterly laughable. I won't even link you to the teaser, I'll rather give you a short description: "This is based on Dante's Inferno. It's about hell. Hell is cool. Demons, demons, generic character with gimmicky cross."

These are old news to some by now, but I'm a bit short on time these days. There's exams, work, christmas, and I'm also trying to do a Dwelling of Duels entry this month.

Also, I just earned this:

Fallout 3: The G.E.C.K. Is Out!

2008-12-12T14:43:00.004+01:00

..and this is where you find it. It probably won't run very smoothly on my laptop, so I won't test it properly until I get it up on my desktop computer. The wiki is great though, and it should be pretty easy to get into it if you just read up on the functions.

Prince Of Persia?

2008-12-12T14:08:00.002+01:00

I read a review of the new Prince of Persia game today. It seems to do well, and I've loved what I've seen of the visual style from screenshots and the likes. So, I decided to read some further reviews of it, and suddenly realized that it's just called Prince of Persia. I would've expected some.. what do you call it? Sub-title? It's not like someone will find old floppy disks with the original under their christmas tree this year, but still. I'll refer to this game as Prince of Persia 2008 from now on.

..oh, and I think I want this game.

Today's Timewasters

2008-12-07T00:32:00.004+01:00

Hell of Sand - Incredibly fascinating game/sim, using Java.
Choke on my Groundhog, YOU BASTARD ROBOTS! - I never got as far as downloading it, but I loved the way it looked.

In other news, I got my Year 200X album and t-shirt earlier this week, great stuff. They're playing at MAGFest, which I won't be going to this year. Hopefully I'll catch it next year though. This is proper video game metal.

Today's song recommendation is Kaizers Orchestra - 170. It's sort of stuck in my head now. It's a sad story about a young man sent out in the war, leaving his pregnant wife at home. He's sent out ahead to scout, and they never get an answer. The tone of the song makes it very unlikely that the story ends happily with him running back home. 'nuff said.

170 er det klart, er det klart?
170 me vente på et svar!

Dissidia Randomness

2008-11-29T19:36:00.002+01:00

Watch this clip. To me, this jumble looks completely incoherent, although the character models are cool. Gameplay didn't exactly look promising, although I haven't ever cared about this game.

Fallout 3: The Garden of Eden Creation Kit Is Coming

2008-11-25T19:40:00.003+01:00

The official Fallout 3 editor is hitting the PC market next month, and it will be free. Additionally there'll be some downloadable content for the game, three "episodes" throughout the first three months of 2009. If I read this correctly it'll only be available for PC and X360.

I had some fun with the Oblivion editor, I'm sure this'll be just as interesting. I do have my limitations, of course, so I won't be making any epic new adventures of grandeur, but I might build some basic buildings/ruins and stock them full of enemies and goodies. That's pretty fun.

Link

The Rape Of The Wheel Of Time Series?

2008-11-12T23:50:00.005+01:00

Well, maybe not. I guess it all depends.
What's that? You don't know what I'm talking about?

First up we heard about Universal Pictures landing exclusive rights to adapt The Wheel Of Time to the big screen. I've written about that before. Of course there's a chance that they'll get it right, but I'm no optimist when it comes to such. Anyways, today's post is about the newer announcement. Apparently Red Eagle Entertainment (the group that's making graphic novels for the series) is planning to establish a game studio to develop games to go alongside the film adaptions. I guess as long as this isn't going through EA, there's still hope. All those horrible Hollywood-movie-games put the human race to shame. Really.

Shit, forgot link. Here.

Hardly Everlasting

2008-11-11T22:19:00.003+01:00

Time's been passing way too fast lately. It's been 3 months since I moved to Hønefoss with my significant other. I don't know exactly what it is, if it's all the work, or the duties that follow when you're living on your own, or if it's school, or a combination of it all. We're already closing in on the exams. We actually got our first exam case today.

I've been toying around with websites, or rather basic ideas. I tried to edit my father's file lister php script, although with little luck. I applied CSS without issue, but that's really as far as I got. I suppose I need to start on the very bottom with php, whenever the opportunity arises. There's a web development course lasting two semesters starting next fall, so I suppose I'll be learning it there. One long-term goal is to develop a multi-user web interface, perhaps a bit like VGMix. If VGMix itself isn't back to its former glory by then, I'll participate in getting everything going there.
As for now.. Well, this is as far as I've gotten. Don't mind the Reflexi Solutions bit, that's a silly school project's hastily built emergency website.

I'd forgotten about the flash games I made, but they're actually really cool. As in, cool ideas, cool functions.

Grim Fandango Puzzle Document!

2008-11-06T13:29:00.002+01:00

So this is how they write this type of games? Map out the puzzles they want to have, then build the story? Or is it the other way around?

Anyways, any Grim Fandango fan would love to read this document. It's right here.

Gamers Enjoy Their Disc Packaging

2008-10-28T23:00:00.004+01:00

Stolen from Kotaku, who in turn took it from somewhere else. Hey, we're on the internet.

The rise of Steam has proven this to not always be true, but packaging is wonderful. I've always loved the stuff that comes in the box with the game, like maps and lore-based manuals (rather than pure technical ones). You can't frame bytes and hang them on your wall. Of course, those who live with a female probably can't frame any geek-toys and hang them on walls, save perhaps the bathroom if you're lucky.

I sidetracked, but this was a fun article. Read it if this sort of stuff interests you.

Hey, speaking of packaging! I just got a notice that my Fallout 3 collector's edition is in the mail! That means only about two days of postal service horrors, then I'll be playing the game myself!

Max Payne Movie And Fallout

2008-10-26T21:14:00.003+01:00

I may be a bit late with my Max Payne movie opinion, but I didn't ride the hype wave (if you can even call it that) enough to really care about seeing it. I did end up seeing it today though.

As an action flick, Max Payne was.. sub-par, but okay. There were just alot of bad decisions, and the person who did the casting should've been fired. Marky Mark as Max Payne? Come on! The visuals were IMO headed in the right direction, but they blew it all with their silly over-the-top demon stuff. Last, but not the least, it should've had the heavy-headed painkiller-munching feeling of the games. Narratives like the ones throughout the games would've given the movie a solid boost of atmosphere. With a heavily drugged protagonist, the bullet-time would've fit better in as well. I saw two uses of it (or, rather 1,5 uses) in the movie, and the first of those two felt forced and tacked on for the gimmick's sake.
As a movie adaption of a rather cinematic game, I'll give Max Payne an F. You could've made it, but you totally blew it.

Enough Max Payne.
Time for Fallout!

GameTrailers has made/posted a Fallout Retrospective, which you really ought to take a look at if you're interested in the new marvel that is Fallout 3. Yes, I am hyping Fallout 3 before I've even tried it myself. So sue me. Anyways, this movie takes you through the history of the Fallout games, and is funny to boot. Check it out here.

200

2008-10-25T12:25:00.002+02:00

This is 200th post in this blog. Milk and cookies for everyone.

I'm currently counting hours, waiting for Fallout 3 to hit my mailbox in a few days. Today I might pick up Fable II, and I'm sure that'd help pad out the wait. I've been testing out some of the free Half-Life 2 multiplayer mods that were released on Steam, but so far Zombie Panic is the only one that was fun to play. Unfortunately something's off when it comes to my laptop's WLAN reciever, as I keep getting solid lag spikes when I use wireless. Hooked up a cable, and nothing's been twitchy ever since.

..now for something that struck me last night: With a world of information at our fingertips, what could possibly be an excuse for ignorance nowadays?

Typing Words On A Computer

2008-10-21T09:26:00.003+02:00

It's fantastic! I'm typing words on a computer, and letters appear almost as if I'd be writing. All this new technology is really getting to me. Back when I was a kid, you had to carve your own keyboard, and shout out the letters as you typed so someone could note them down on a piece of paper for you.

The ability to use links in text documents is really practical, but I fear my papers are going to end up with more links than regular text when I've finished adding my sources.

Sidenote: Gordian Knot rocks as always, as does Return to Forever.