Monday, December 23, 2013

Linux Award

Linux Game Awards voting open now!

2 comments
Quietly in the background a group of open-source and Linux enthusiast websites (full disclosure: including FreeGamer ;) ) has developed a new platform for promoting open-source games: http://www.linuxgameawards.org/

One of its regular features will be a monthly award and a related promotion drive for the winner on all affiliated sites.

Project of the Month January 2014

As a start, our community came up with the first 10 nominees for the January 2014 award and you can now vote for your favorite game of those here.

P.S.: One of the nominated projects, SuperTuxKart, had a new release today also. Don't forget to check it out and vote for them if you like it.

ZELDA

Zelda can now be free as in freedom

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Not only from the clutches of Ganondorf, but also from the dominion of proprietary software. All thanks to the magnificent Solarus Engine, a GPLedSDL-based, 2D action RPG engine. This amazing project aims to provide a stable and easily customizable platform for users to create their own Zelda-like games, and so far, I must say, I am darn impressed by what I've seen. The engine already has two incredible launching titles, named The Legend of Zelda: Mystery of Solarus DX, and a parody of the former, Mystery of Solarus XD. Both are true love letters to the classic SNES RPG, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and amazing and enjoyable games on their own.

Mystery of Solarus DX

But hark, the mere words of a mortal make no justice to the grandiosity of this undertaking. Sheathe thy sword, get thy green cap and ready yourself to adventure! You can start by marching straight to the Solarus download section, or, if your intentions are more creative, you can check the various sources here, and the quest editor here.



Code License: GPLv3
Mystery of Solarus DX Artwork License: Mixed  (original Solarus assets under CC-BY-SA, but the game also uses spritework taken directly the A Link to the Past rom)

OCTAFORGE

Progress on Octaforge

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One of the newer engine/game projects I have been following closely is Octaforge. It is basically a fork of Tesseract, which in turn is an graphic improvement project by the makers of the well known Cube2 engine.

The main difference with Octaforge is that aims to become a game SDK and platform for easy creation of mods; And one of its prime new features for this is full scriptability with Lua.

Read about their progress on the latest beta here, which also includes this nice video showcasing the new player model and an test map:

Tales of

The great roguelike RPG Tales of Maj'Eyal (ToME) is available as a new version (1.1.0) nicknamed "Full Steam Ahead". Here is a slightly older trailer for version 1.0.5.:



Release highlights:

  • New necromancer tree: Animus
  • All achievements now feature beautiful 128x128 images
  • Improved Alchemist interaction with its golem
  • Tons of fixes and balance adjustements
  • Many improvements for addon creators, including a way to enable debug mode and a tool (inthe debug menu) to register and upload addons to te4.org directly from the game.
  • Includes a Fez. Fezzes are cool!
Interestingly it has also been "greenlit" on the popular game distribution channel Steam, so if you want to donate to the developers you can also do it by buying ToME through this channel. The currently discounted version includes a DLC with an updated UI (and the hint for a Steampunk themed extension) which seems to me like a planned way of funding the development of the game in the future.

Lets Play

Let's Play (LP) is an uprising form of previewing and experiencing video games.

While a review summarizes the experience, a LP allows to look a player over their shoulder and indirectly experience the game from one perspective in its entirety - if both Let's Player and viewer have the endurance. 

LPs have many styles: non-commented, informational, humorous... And their production quality varies too, be it video, audio or presentation.

Example of a Let's Play video in its natural environment

Some creators of LPs ("LPers") earn money using YouTube's monetization features. When they do, YouTube's semi-automatic moderation process starts paying more attention to the videos' compliance with copyright.

Sometimes, LPers will contact game developers to receive permission to create LPs. To many creators of games, LPs are a welcome form of promotion and they will always say yes.

Clint Bellanger of FLARE released a Let's Play policy, which elegantly covers both the situation in which a game's art assets are CC-BY-SA 3.0 licensed and where all copyright belongs to one person.

FLARE is a collaborative effort of many artists who agreed to release their art under CC-BY-SA 3.0 and I think that FLARE's LP policy reflects the intention of the license very well.

A complicated case might be a game which contains art that is under the GPL, which could be interpreted in a way, that requires the resulting video, as well as video project files to be made available under GPL as well.

In theory, any LP could be considered "fair use". However, for-profit use and use of large portions of a work are often considered as not being "fair use" - for example by YouTube.

For game designers, I consider LPs to be a valuable resource, allowing to look up features or part-experience gameplay, where acquiring, installing and playing the game would be impossible, due to time restrictions.

I recommend looking up games that you have fond memories of or which you always wanted to try but the installation effort was too high on lparchive.org or just YouTube's search function with "let's play" in the query.

If YouTube's HTML5 doesn't work for you, youtube-dl will allow you to circumvent flash player issues (monetized YouTube videos appear to require flash).
Logitech Webcam Method

My first method that I've posted. This should work for any webcam that is under $80. Just finished myself and I'm having one shipped.
Hidden:
Find out which webcam you want to try and SE, and make sure it isn't too expensive or they may require you to box it. First you're going to need the PID, M/N, and the P/N.

You can find the M/N and the P/N on the logitech website. Just google something along the lines of "(Your Webcam) P/N | M/N" It should be the first to pop up. As for the PID you can just google that as well, it shouldn't be that easy to find. If you can't for some reason find the PID try asking around on the forums if anybody has one for the model you want and would be willing to trade or give it away to you.

Go to the logitech support website and fill out the form providing all the info. It will require you to make an account, I used a faux name and didn't enter any details about the address. When you fill out the form say something like the webcam you got has a crack in the lens and you can hardly see shit out of it. Also be sure to tell them you tried taking it back to whichever store you bought if from (eg Best Buy) and they wouldn't accept it so you threw you reciept outside the store in anger.

Once they get back to you they will probably ask for the PID, M/N, and P/N. Either give them the info again or say you already included it in the form. They will also ask for a shipping address, make sure to use the name on the logitech account. Put the rest as your real info or wherever you want the packaged shipped. (Not sure if this makes a difference but what I did was I put an address a few houses up from mine and after I sent them the picture I asked if they could change the shipping address to where I wanted it before they confirmed that they'd give me a replacement.)

After this, they will ask you to take a picture of the webcam with your incident number written next to it. To get this you can try to look up your webcam on google or you can go to youtube or some other video site and look up "(Your Webcam) unboxing." I prefer to find a video with a low view count. You may have to go through a few until you find the right one. Wait for a moment in the video to take a screenshot (I use Gyazo) of your webcam. Save it.

You'll need some slight knowledge in Photoshop for this.
Here's a tutorial on how to write your incident number, all credit to LegendJo:
http://socialengineered.net/showthread.p...ht=receipt

Once you finish simply send them the picture. They should get back to you in a few days saying they will send you a replacement. You'll get another email with the tracking information. That's basically it. I would imagine this method would work on most products, not just webcams.

Worked for me first try, try posing as a girl, it actually helps. Maybe your fiance is stationed out somewhere and you really want to see them etc.

HP METHOD

HP METHOD [HIGH QUALITY/DETAILED] [UNSATURATED & WORKING AS OF DEC 2013]

Hidden:
Dear my fellow Social Engineered user's, I've decided it's time for my journey when it comes to this aspect of social engineering to end. I've gained quite a lot of knowledge from fellow user's over the past while which had helped me through some hard times when I had very little. Please use this guide if you need to make some extra cash as it's easy money, hope this helps out the community as a whole, enjoy.

P.S - If you made money of this guide and are upgraded don't be a fucking Jew, share the love.

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what to keep in mind before beginning

1. never use the same email or phone # or serial #.

2. the serial number ALG is CNT23930[Number][Letter] or for example CNT239307U & the model number will always be A9F77AA.

3. remember not to get greedy only do one monitor at a time per address or else the other order will be cancelled.

4. Be aware that most companies now adays do bill once in awhile so don't rape it to your home address, use drops instead!!!

5. When using a vanilla visa make sure to register it online with the same info on it as the drop. (This does not require ID or a fee of any sort)

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chat support steps

1. chat with a representative online to obtain a reference number which should start with an 8

2. link to chat support - http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/weInp...%26pl%3D2G

3. now use the serial number you made and the model number provided above.

4. now you will come to a page asking for some personal info enter the info then enter the reason for wanting to speak with an agent being that the monitor is not working anymore.

6. now you speak with the agent, explain the problem, confirm the info, if they ask you if the adapter is warm or not say it does warm up. if he doesn't say it needs to be replaced leave the chat and start a new one. By the end of the chat he should ask for some info such as address, phone #, email, and the name give all the info then get the reference number once you have that you can leave the chat.

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Phone Call Steps

1. now you have to call into HP call 18004746836 then for which options to choose say technical support > desktop > pavellion then you will wait on hold for an agent.

2. once you begin talking to the agent tell him your monitor is no longer powering on, you tried troubleshooting with an online chat support agent and it will still notwork and that he said you need to talk to a HARDWARE SUPERVISOR in order to get it replaced, at this point you'll then give him the reference number and confirm some account info.

3. then he may ask you some questions about the monitor such as if there
is a light on the adapter or anywhere on the monitor say no there is not, if he asks if the power adapter is getting warm say yes it is, also mention all the trouble shooting you did with the other agent.

4. he should now be finishing up his notes, and transfering you to the hardware supervisor.

5. now what you both will do with the supervisor is confirm the account
info/troubleshooting steps and then you will give her the card details, she will confirm the order then give you an order number and youre done! also just to let you know prepaid visa's do work with HP as long as it has $1 for an authorization charge.


Notes for call


1. sweet talk the supervisor since it might get you faster shipping.

2. these people are usually indians so if you mess up it's ok they are fucking idiots and will probably think nothing of it.

3. call should only take between 30-40 mins for beginners

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MONITOR POWER ADAPTER/CABLE SE STEPS

1. Go here: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/weInp...%26pl%3D2G

2. tell them that your monitor is no longer turning on and mention some generic troubleshooting steps youve preformed.

3. the agent will ask you to confirm some information confirm it

4. they should now ask for some more info (name, timezone, phone #) and then create an order, now get the order number and you're good to go!

now remember don't do the power SE or another monitor SE to the same address until the first monitor has been shipped out, this is to prevent the monitor order from being cancelled.

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Other serial number ALG'S THAT WORK AS WELL!

21" LED - S/N = 3CQ23114[LETTER][#] | MODEL = LL649A
HP ENVY 100 Printer - S/N = CN135J20[LETTER][LETTER] | MODEL = CN517A

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thanks for reading this guide hope you all enjoyed it & remember to do as many as you want as they have a high amount of monitors in stock at the moment and it's quite easy to do.

If you enjoyed this guide please leave me a thanks as it took me awhile to put together and get the algorithm's correct.

One last thing I would like to say is fuck the police, never become a rat. What you do is on you and don't be a coward if you do you are not a man but a cowardly child who wants to take the easy way out.

ABOUT ME

Well i am just a dude sitting here and typing for no reason other than to make a few bucks

Free Picture Software

Photography is surely fun, but you’ll really need to rely on softwares and applications to take care of those thousands of digital photos output from your DSLR or digital camera. All those work from editing, renaming, archiving will need to be done properly so it ease future retrieving. Let’s keep the fun part with photo taking, and leave the photo managing part to these pretty cool photo managingsoftware. Here’s 10 photo management software should at least know. Full list after jump.
  1. Google Picasa

    Google Picasa
    Picasa is a free software download from Google that helps you to locate and organize all the photos on your computer, edit and add effects to your photos with a few simple clicks and share your photos with others through email and print. It’s fast, easy and free.
  2. Cam2pc

    The cam2pc image browser
    The cam2pc image browser
    Enhance and fix your images in a few clicks!

    Enhance and fix your images in a few clicks!
    Cam2pc is the digital imaging solution that will make using your digital camera a snap! From picture download and media organization to image retouching and media sharing, cam2pc offers all the features you might think of when working with your digital media.
  3. DigiBookShelf

    Flick Upload
    DigiBookShelf enables you to display and manage photos in a virtual album, using a virtual bookshelf interface. The photos are displayed as thumbnails and you can add text and sound comments to each image.
  4. IrfanView

    IrfanView
    IrfanView is trying to create new and/or interesting features in its own way, unlike some other graphic viewers, whose whole “creativity” is based on feature cloning, stealing of ideas and whole dialogs from ACDSee and/or IrfanView!
  5. Faststone Image Viewer

    Faststone Image Viewer
    FastStone Image Viewer is a fast, stable, user-friendly image browser, converter and editor. It has a nice array of features that include image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping and color adjustments.
  6. XnView

    XnViewer
    XnView is a fast multi-format graphics browser, viewer, and converter. It can read more than 400 file formats.
  7. Album Burger Photograph
    Screenshot Captor
    Screenshot Captor
    With Album Burger Photograph, you can create as many photograph  albums as you wish and you can add as many pages and photographs to complete your category.  In addition to this, you can classify, identify, comment and classify each album, each page and each photograph.
  8. Studio Line Photo Basic 3

    Beneton Movie GIF
    Studio Line Photo Basic 3 allows you to add descriptions to your images, send photos per email in just the right size, print high- quality copies, display slide-shows, publish web-galleries, safe-keep your images on CD or DVD.
  9. Preclick Gold Photo Organizer

    Preclick Gold Photo Organizer
    Preclick allows you to mak it easy to organize, edit, print, preserve, and share your digital photos.SmartPhoto technology enables you to use captions and keywords for speedy searching and sorting.
  10. Pictomio

    Pictomia
    Pictomia 3D
    Pictomio is Freeware and sets new standards for 3D accelerated browsing of your photo and video collection.