WizzardX's online diary

Miscellaneous updates

2011-07-31T16:58:00.001+02:00

I made myself visit Facebook quickly today. Nothing much too interesting there, so I decided to post a couple of my own things. However, facebook has a 420-character limit, meh. I guess there's still some use for my blog. Here's the whole thing I wanted to post, but which Facebook wouldn't let me: I'm going to start playing Mass Effect sometime soon, I hope. I like the soundtrack. Played some

Concerned about Google+ identity policy

2011-07-24T12:18:00.001+02:00

I was keen on the idea of Google+ before, but I'm not so sure now. I've been reading a lot about this over the past few days, and today this article about Google+ accounts being deleted due to not using your real name. And even worse, there's reports of all your other Google-related accounts (YouTube, Picasa, gmail, etc) being deleted, despite what Google themselves say. Another problem with

Hacking around with RPG Maker VX files again

2011-06-12T22:26:00.004+02:00

RPG Maker VX is pretty sophisticated in some ways - it's appearance is deceptively simple.One thing it's pretty good at (compared to various open source RPG systems I've tinkered with), is non-blocky-looking maps, despite using a square-based grid for editing. It uses a clever technique called autotiles to achieve that.I've seen that kind of nice-looking map editing system before, but it's mostly

Evolution of my text file-based personal organizational system

2011-06-11T19:39:00.004+02:00

I've been interested in methods of keeping organized for a while now.There's always a lot of smaller things that I want to keep track of until a later stage. Some people use a notebook for this, others a journal, a calendar, or special web or PC software. I use text files on a PC.Text files are easy to search, an agnostic format (can open and edit with a million different programs), easy to edit

Blogger doesn't like South Africa :(

2011-06-11T19:24:00.004+02:00

Recently in Blogger (ever since I resumed blogging) I've been having a lot of errors like this: "Illegal post time (format is: hh:mm AM/PM)".It's been pretty annoying. With each new post, I'd get the error, then have to go into the Post Options, and then delete the "Post date and time" text boxes, before Blogger could save or publish posts.I found the solution to that through a Google search,

Made a wiki page for my web-based visual novels

2011-06-11T18:53:00.000+02:00

Wow, it seems like I've been making quite a few web-based Ar tonelico-themed visual novels lately :-)(maybe spending a bit too much time on it - my other hobbies are being neglected, and I'm also behind in keeping up to date with a few friends :<)You can find the wiki page, listing the Web VNs I've worked on, over here.I do still really like Ren'Py (and of course Python), but being web-based

My fan project is famous on google

2011-06-11T18:40:00.000+02:00

I just posted about this on the ARM forum, but I thought I'd put it here in my blog too. And here it is:Google searching for "ar tonelico visual novel" brings up my visual novel project Ar tonelico: An Ordinary Life as the first few results, even ahead of the game itself :P.Yay, I'm famous on Google, for something I'm interested in :D.(admittedly, it's an incredibly niche interest)I guess there

My new car

2011-06-05T13:12:00.000+02:00

Yay, about a week ago I got a new car.It looks like the one on the side (same model). I don't have a camera yet, but if I blog more it might be useful.I'd had my previous car for almost 10 years, but recently when I needed to take it to do a service, the quote was pretty astronomical (about the same value that the car could be traded in for).Though, this higher-than-expected price was likely

About my visual novel-related development hobby

2011-06-05T11:59:00.000+02:00

Oh wow, this is a pretty big can of worms to open. This could become a big wall of text. Oh well, it's my blog so I can go wild :P.(and on a side note - I've realized that it makes more sense to make some smaller blog posts, focused on one subject, rather than some massive wall of text where I dump everything I've been thinking about lately :<. Though, each of those things might get massive in

About the new ARM Blog

2011-06-05T11:42:00.000+02:00

I haven't written here for a while, but starting to write a bit in the ARM Blog has gotten me into the mood for writing a bit here, too.On a side note: Blogger was being incredibly annoying a bit earlier, constantly giving me autosave errors, with a "Illegal post time (format is: hh:mm AM/PM)" message. But I found a"post date and time" post option that blogger populated by itself, cleared that

A virtual machine trick for dual booters

2011-03-13T19:50:00.000+02:00

As I've mentioned previously, my main OS is Linux (Debian Testing to be precise).However, there are times when I need to dual boot over to Windows, when Wine or VirtualBox under Linux aren't sufficient.In the past this meant leaving my Linux work environment behind for the duration of the dual boot. All my settings, notes, customized software, scripts, etc, largely inaccessible while I'm using

Random update

2010-06-19T23:43:00.000+02:00

Writing another blog entry today :-)My current daily routine has me summarizing my numerous journal entries for each day if I have time, and that just so happens to make good blog material. However, I can't guarantee that anyone would actually find these walls of text interesting, or that I'll be updating regularly. I just like to ramble on in general ;-;. [/Deckard Cain]Anyway, today I watched a

Work, anime, and other random things

2010-06-18T22:50:00.000+02:00

Thanks to Melody and Bura for dropping by before and sharing their thoughts on some things I wrote before :-). Your words are appreciated, even if I didn't get around to replying to the most recent comments. The same thing actually happens a fair amount in DT on ARM - where I'll write about some pressing issues, and then people write their thoughtful replies, but I don't follow up (often because

Sick recently

2010-05-30T10:22:00.000+02:00

For the past couple of days I've been under the weather. Flu or cold, not sure which. Okay, just did some research here, and it's a cold. And I'm a bit better informed than before :-)And related, it seems that cold weather doesn't directly cause illness like cold/flu. It seems to be actually caused by people spending more time around each other. Sauce.Anyway, I'm starting to feel better, but

Another year gone by

2010-05-24T22:02:00.000+02:00

It looks like it's already been a year since my last post, lol.Recently I've been keeping a diary of sorts updated on my PC, but I thought it would be good to share some thoughts with the rest of the world :-)In some ways, this past year was very quiet (I have a very quiet offline lifestyle, which suits me), and in other ways crazy busy (especially online and forum-related).Offline, has mostly

A new project

2009-05-02T12:37:00.000+02:00

For a while, I've noticed that the Ar tonelico wiki is missing lots of little details, which ideally would be there too. It has some great info (like, the timelines, and Shurelia's background story), but it could be much more comprehensive.I had been considering starting to update it myself, but since I consider my knowledge of Ar tonelico background to be pretty sketchy, that didn't seem like a

Visual novel for chapters 1-5 released

2009-04-30T01:41:00.005+02:00

Hi again. It's been a few days since my last blog update.Firstly, the visual novel for chapters 1-5 of Dexas' "Ar tonelico: An ordinary life" have been released. Check this forum topic.Thanks to Dexas for posting it. And, thanks to him and Deciare for their help. Dexas wrote the original epic story, and did a lot of graphics tidying-up for the visual novel. Deciare proofread the chapters, and

Are strong feelings really needed for Song Magic?

2009-04-24T13:44:00.005+02:00

One of the big things about Song Magic in the Ar tonelico world, is that Reyvateils feelings have a strong effect on the magic.However, when Mir was created, her creators took measures to remove her feelings, so that her song magic would be stronger.This is a weird paradox. Aquagon surmises that they only took away unnecessary feelings (like doubt, fear, etc), that would make the Song Magic

Ar tonelico 2 hacking information

2009-04-24T13:29:00.003+02:00

Recently I posted a couple of technical game data-hacking questions to the ARM forums. TerraBreaker just replied, giving me a lot of very useful info!After I'm done with the current visual novel game project, I'll definitely be taking a closer look. Things I want to do:1) Extract At2 game music and sounds. I want the former, someone on the forums requested the latter.2) Extract a few GUST games

Phoenix Wright media

2009-04-24T13:22:00.003+02:00

I played the Phoenix Wright games a while ago on Nintendo DS, and really liked it (it's one of my favorite games).Recently I was looking for content from the Phoenix Wright games. I could probably extract data from the NDS roms with the DSLazy tool, but I haven't tried that yet.I did a bit of hunting on the internets, and found two very interesting things:1) There are a few released soundtracks

Back again

2009-04-24T01:20:00.003+02:00

After a long time, I'm starting to make posts here again. Many things have happened since last time. I'll keep this post on the short side (getting pretty late and I need to sleep soon). I'll probably make a follow-up post later. I have a feeling I'll be posting here very regularly in the future.I guess the most important thing recently, has been my joining the A Reyvateil's Melody forums about

XP theme for GNOME

2008-11-21T11:31:00.002+02:00

I've just found an impressive XP theme for Gnome, in a Livehacker article:A colleague tried it on his Ubuntu box, it looks good.http://lifehacker.com/5093100/linux-theme-gets-scarily-close-to-xpWe may use this hack at a future date if we convert XP boxes over to Ubuntu.

Linux Goodness

2006-06-19T19:12:00.000+02:00

First post in the last 6 months. About time I reckon.Last week (and over the weekend) I setup my home PC with Debian GNU/Linux, with a dual boot to Windows XP in case I want to play games (will try to get them working with WINE first).Against common sense I did get Windows XP installed & running correctly as a slave drive. LILO has a nifty "master-boot" option. The relevant section of my /etc/

This & That

2005-12-15T21:51:00.000+02:00

An entry so soon after the last one :-)On Tuesday I watched Doom. I had been waiting years for it to come out! It wasn't groundbreaking, but the game references & gags were very amusing. I laughed the whole way through the "first person shooter" section towards the end.Today at work we had our traditional gift exchange. There was some dispute, as the women wanted to change the usual game to

Some updates

2005-12-12T22:23:00.000+02:00

It's been almost a month since my last update.My flatmate left for Japan on Friday. He wrote me an e-mail from a hotel in Okinawa. He's enjoying his time there.I got some new games today. I'm looking forwards to playing the new Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones (PC). I prefer PS2 games (less problems) but they are more expensive.FNB (First National Bank) blocked my credit card without warning.

Flawless victory... Fatality!

2005-11-22T22:58:00.000+02:00

Another title with absolutely no relevance. When I don't have anything specific to write about I just write whatever first comes to mind.Recently I've been a bit more sociable, despite non-optimal sleeping... This morning felt very weird with my super clean room. So clean & so empty! Today at work was average... hell I can barely remember anything :-/ I finished debugging a linux script which

Terror calaw!

2005-11-21T23:53:00.000+02:00

That's what one of the Protoss units from Star Craft says. Or something like it. Reminds me of Jacky Chan's "Snake's Fist in Eagle's Shadow".This was another long weekend for me. My second Friday off (I'm slowly chipping away at my accumulated leave). Weekend was kind of boring. Spent most of it sleeping - and the rest of the time reading on the web (mainly about legal issues in the USA - DMCA &

Smoker blows up KFC with stompie

2005-11-17T20:47:00.001+02:00

That's the front page title of today's Cape Argus. Further proof that KFC and smoking are bad for your health.Here's the full article:JOHAN SCHRONEN - Staff WriterA PASSING smoker apparently set off a gas blast that ripped throught the KFC outlet in Kuils River early today, leaving him seriously injured.It is believed his tossed cigarette butt ignited gas leaking out of the fast-food outlet. The

Angry Eskom Customer

2005-11-17T20:41:00.002+02:00

Angry Eskom Customer.Very funny. My boss shouts like this sometimes ;-)Here is a transcript, and a translation for international readers.(My Afrikaans is rather poor and some parts of the recording are not clear so there may be mistakes)Language warning: I've censored out the worst language here, but you can hear it in it's full Afrikaans glory, here.TRANSCRIPT:Operator: Can I help you?Mnr Burger

Full Metal Jacket - Drill Sergeant

2005-11-16T20:14:00.000+02:00

Full Metal Jacket - Drill Sergeant

Mysterious mysteries of mysterious mysteries

2005-11-12T17:53:00.000+02:00

A few updates...At work we were reminded to take our leave before March next year. I had 19.5 days due, so I'm taking off every Friday from now until then. And a few Fridays also. So on Thursday I stayed up late. Felt sleepy at around 3 PM so I disconnected from the net (in South Africa our phone rates are very high during office hours) & then slept.It's Saturday now but it feels like a Sunday.

We come in peace

2005-10-03T23:32:00.000+02:00

Today at work - various things, but struggled with getting Quelcom (mp3 tools) to work on the 2.6 Linux kernel. Will work on that again tomorrow.Tonight I did a bit of work on my svk mirror of "cpp_common" (various useful c++ libraries I've developed @ work & home) - now using a sane branching layout, and brought the code up to date (still need to test, etc). Also for the first time in months I

Busy collecting various TV series...

2005-10-02T13:09:00.000+02:00

Been a while since my last post. Something I've been doing the last few months is collecting DVDs of TV series. My first series to be collected: Red Dwarf, up to around season 5. I've collected up to season 4 of Babylon 5. And I've just ordered season 1 of Startrek:TNG. I watched TV a lot when before around 13-14, but have since fallen out of the habit. Too much junk showing & I want to watch

Another Day of Peril

2005-08-30T21:26:00.000+02:00

ph34r m1.For no particular reason. I just like saying that.I was distracted at work today. Work was boring & I kept thinking about other stuff. Had to control myself & not spend too much time on the web.My flatmate becomes engaged today. He and and his fiance-to-be are Muslim so marriage is required before they can live together. In December he and a friend will be visiting Japan for a month.

Adventures in Time and Space

2005-08-30T00:06:00.000+02:00

Greetings hunams. I be playing with the weblog idea. Don't know if I like it yet."Chmmr" comes from one of the best video games ever, Star Control II. Either this is a unique Blog name (w007!), or Blogger is flexible about duplicate blog names.This first post suxx0rs, If I get enthusiastic about weblogging I will improve it.Still very new to weblogging, am still researching the subject. This