MiDWaN

mfilos Amiga Blog: A4000: Mobo got a nice service :)

2012-01-23T21:22:00.000+01:00

mfilos Amiga Blog: A4000: Mobo got a nice service :): As I said in my previous article, I was without my A4000 mobo for about 2 weeks due to sending it to Cosmos for general repairs. The mobo...

Another day in the airport

2012-01-22T16:33:00.001+01:00

Another day in the airport, a photo by MiDWaN on Flickr.

Another day in the airport

Frozen lake

2012-01-22T14:21:00.001+01:00

Frozen lake, a photo by MiDWaN on Flickr.

Frozen lake

MySQL with Greek and UTF-8

2012-01-15T21:52:00.000+01:00

I recently went through the trouble of converting the Amigahellas forum database to Unicode. Since the process was kind of tricky and it ended up taking up several hours of my time to complete, I thought I'd post what I did here in case anyone else is looking to do the same thing...

First things first: Description of the problem
The database was originally an old Xoops 2 database, which was recently imported / converted to vBulletin Suite 4. The old database was in the "latin1_swedish_ci" character set (which was actually the default character set for MySQL back in those days) yet it contained Greek characters (the forum is Greek) along with Latin characters. During the conversion to vBulletin 4, we kept the same encoding to make sure things went smoothly and no information would be lost. But eventually I knew it would be best to move to Unicode sooner rather than later. Besides, it was a good opportunity to expand my knowledge in this field. ;-)

So I had a Latin1 database of roughly 110 MBytes in size in my hands which I wanted to convert to UTF-8. Sounds simple enough, doesn't it? Well, it isn't.

Preparation, research and first tests.
After searching on the web a bit, then searching a bit more, then a lot more, I found out many people were facing problems and having headaches with similar conversions. I decided to give it a try anyway. Most people claimed that if convert the tables to another collation and character set, you may just get what you need and be done with it.

Naturally, it very rarely is that easy (one of Murphy's Laws I guess).

When I tried viewing the table entries on the live server, all Greek characters look "scrambled". For example like this line:

EÃÃ¡ Ã°Ã¯Ã«Ã©Ã´Ã©Ã³Ã¬Ã©ÃªÃ¼ Ã³Ã¯Ãª Ã´Ã¯ Ã¥Ã°Ã¡Ã¨Ã¡ , ÃÃ¯Ã¬Ã©Ã¦Ã¡ Ã¯Ã´Ã© Ã¬Ã°Ã§ÃªÃ¡ Ã³Ã´Ã¯ amiga.org!

The above line should look like this:

Eνα πολιτισμικό σοκ το επαθα , νομιζα οτι μπηκα στο amiga.org!

So it's not only that I wanted to move things to Unicode, it was important to have the proper characters showing up first. Note that the text was displaying correctly on the website of course, but that's because the site's header was set to specify the encoding as "ISO-8859-7" (Greek). Greek and Latin1 characters would show normally, but anything else would not (for example something in Swedish like "skål" would display garbage).

When trying to convert a table to another collation using the MySQL command "CONVERT", I got more scrambled text as a result. It didn't work for me and I needed to know why. But where do I start?

To keep it safe, I decided to install a local MySQL server and grab a fresh dump of the database from our live server. (BTW, I highly recommend the Heidi SQL tool if you're using Windows). Then I got a sample of the data to investigate further. I figured that if I find out what sequence of encoding/converting would result in the characters displaying correctly (i.e. in Greek), then I can use the same steps on the whole database itself.

And so I started testing with that sample of text, converting it until I got what was going on with it. A few hours later, the mystery was solved...

It appears that the text was actually UTF-8 encoded Latin1 characters, since our new database server had UTF-8 set by default for all new databases, even if the tables themselves were created as "Latin1_swedish_ci" collations. A simple test proved that, by entering the text in a Unicode converter and changing it from UTF-8 to Latin1, I got the following results:

Eíá ðïëéôéóìéêü óïê ôï åðáèá , íïìéæá ïôé ìðçêá óôï amiga.org!

Now, we're not quite there yet (the text above is not Greek) but at least we are making progress!

I recognized the above text as Latin1 containing Greek characters so to make sure, I placed that text in another converter and changed it to ISO-8859-7 (Greek). Here are the results:

Eνα πολιτισμικό σοκ το επαθα , νομιζα οτι μπηκα στο amiga.org!

Voila! We have the proper Greek showing up!

Making the changes in the database

Now that I had a specific step-by-step plan to get the Greek characters showing, I needed to adjust those steps in the database itself. I needed to get the whole database converted from UTF-8 to Latin1, then from Latin1 to Greek and finally from Greek back to UTF-8 again (so we'd get the Greek characters showing up properly in the tables).

Here are the steps I took to accomplish that:

- Closed the Forum on the live server.

- Got a fresh dump of the database from the live server.

- Restored the dump on my local MySQL server to perform the conversions locally (never work on a live server itself!).

- Exported the database from my local server to forced Latin1 encoding, using the following MySQL command:

mysqldump -h HOSTNAME -u USERNAME -pPASSWORD --opt --quote-names --skip-set-charset --default-character-set=latin1 AMIGAHELLAS_VBULLETIN4 > dump_latin1.sql

(needless to say, you need to change the above variables like "Hostname", "Username", "Password" and filenames according to your needs).

- Re-imported the "dump_latin1.sql" in my local server with forced UTF-8 encoding, using the following command:

mysql -h HOSTNAME -u USERNAME -pPASSWORD --default-character-set=utf8 AMIGAHELLAS_VBULLETIN4 < dump_latin1.sql

This step would mean that the characters in the file would be treated as Unicode and will be automatically converted to such while importing.

- Next, I exported a new dump (once again) from the local server using the same command as above (mysqldump ...), again in Latin1. After this step, we should be seeing the "Latin1" characters in the file instead of the Unicode ones, as I did during my sample test after changing the encoding from UTF-8 to Latin1.

- Now we need to convert this dump file to Greek and then back to UTF-8 again. To do that, I used the highly recommended Notepad++ application, but you can do this step in any other way you choose...
Open the latest dump file in Notepad++ and change Character Set to "Greek -> ISO-8859-7" (menu Encoding->Character Sets->Greek->ISO-8859-7).

- Convert the document to UTF-8 (menu Encoding->Convert to UTF-8).

- Next up, we need to replace any instances of "latin1" with "utf8" and "latin1_bin" with "utf8_general_ci" in the document. I did a search and replace with Notepad++ to do that. The reason for this step is to have the database loaded as UTF-8 when it's restored on the server, since that's what we've converted it to now!

- Finally, save the dump file with a new filename. I chose to name it "dump_utf8.sql".

- Test restore the file on the local server. After it's done, the table contents should be displaying proper Greek when browsing the database.

- Assuming the above step was successful, restore the "dump_utf8.sql" file on the live server.

Congratulations, your database is now in Unicode having proper Greek in it!

I wasn't completely done however. vBulletin needed a few changes to accommodate for the difference in the database encoding. So I needed to take a few extra steps to have the text appearing correctly:

- In the vBulletin Admin panel, go to Languages and for each Language change the encoding to "UTF-8" instead of the previous "ISO-8859-7". That will change the header in the HTML code pushed to the browser.

- Edit the "/includes/config.php" file on the vBulletin installation, find the "mysqli" line and uncomment it. This will enable utf-8 as default encoding for vBulletin itself.

- Finally, I needed to do another upgrade of vBulletin (using their built-in upgrade system) to update all the tables and have the text appearing correctly. I'm not sure why this step is necessary, but it seems to be otherwise I got blanks and missing text on the pages, although the text was normal in the database itself.

And that's it! The whole process took me 2 days (mostly researching and testing) but the actual conversion process was about 2 hours worth of work. Once you know what you need to do, it's much easier. Hopefully this will serve someone else as a guide as well and save someone a bit of headaches and wasted hours...

2012-01-07T16:38:00.001+01:00

These Greek Mythology Flash Games Are Eternal Torture [Hot Flashes]

Ice statue at Liseberg

2011-12-18T14:53:00.001+01:00

Ice statue at Liseberg, a photo by MiDWaN on Flickr.

Ice statue at Liseberg

Liseberg xmas market

2011-12-11T20:52:00.001+01:00

Liseberg xmas market, a photo by MiDWaN on Flickr.

Liseberg xmas market

Finally some snow

2011-12-06T09:21:00.001+01:00

Finally some snow, a photo by MiDWaN on Flickr.

Finally some snow

Xmas street music

2011-12-05T22:56:00.001+01:00

Xmas street music, a photo by MiDWaN on Flickr.

Xmas street music

Icy cold sunny day

2011-11-16T09:19:00.001+01:00

Icy cold sunny day, a photo by MiDWaN on Flickr.

Icy cold sunny day

Biking in the forest

2011-11-13T18:32:00.001+01:00

Biking in the forest, a photo by MiDWaN on Flickr.

Biking in the forest

Tracks in Autumn

2011-10-31T02:28:00.001+01:00

Tracks in Autumn, a photo by MiDWaN on Flickr.

Tracks in Autumn

Mmm, pizza!

2011-10-26T03:44:00.001+02:00

Mmm, pizza!, a photo by MiDWaN on Flickr.

Mmm, pizza!

World of keys

2011-10-25T19:57:00.001+02:00

World of keys, a photo by MiDWaN on Flickr.

World of keys

Howlin

2011-10-25T03:43:00.001+02:00

Howlin, a photo by MiDWaN on Flickr.

Howlin

In a bar in Boston

2011-10-24T01:22:00.001+02:00

In a bar in Boston, a photo by MiDWaN on Flickr.

In a bar in Boston

2011-10-21T19:08:00.001+02:00

Scratchbuilt: MV Agusta 750 S

Regular size coke?

2011-10-19T20:07:00.001+02:00

Regular size coke?, a photo by MiDWaN on Flickr.

Regular size coke?

2011-10-01T20:03:00.001+02:00

A fantastic video by Cool_AmigaN, from Amigahellas. Enjoy it on HD resolution and make sure you raise the sound volume all the way up!

Autumn leaves

2011-10-01T15:49:00.003+02:00

Coffee and cake

2011-10-01T15:49:00.001+02:00

Coffee and cake, a photo by MiDWaN on Flickr.

Coffee and cake

2011-09-10T16:01:00.001+02:00

Super Space: Royal Observatory’s Astronomy Photo Winners

Over the bridge

2011-08-28T22:12:00.001+02:00

Over the bridge, a photo by MiDWaN on Flickr.

Over the bridge

Jazz band on the street

2011-08-20T11:55:00.001+02:00

Jazz band on the street, a photo by MiDWaN on Flickr.

Jazz band on the street

My beach

2011-08-13T16:14:00.001+02:00

Fruits on the table

2011-08-10T12:44:00.001+02:00

Lovely sunsets

2011-08-06T21:44:00.001+02:00

Part of every day's schedule

Opus 10

2011-05-05T21:55:00.001+02:00

One of my favorite applications has been updated. Directory Opus has had a major release reaching version 10.

If you've lived long enough to experience the good Amiga days, you might remember the best file handler there ever was: Directory Opus. There simply wasn't anything else that came close to the power, customization and effective usability of DOpus. Sadly the Amiga perished since then (after several failed attempts to revive the platform from different -but not serious enough obviously- companies) but the glory of Directory Opus survived by crossing over to the Windows platform.

If you use Windows and are a bit over mediocre user (meaning you know how to handle your files and such) you have to give Opus a try. It will blow your mind out with it's features and it's very possible you'll end up like me, not being able to work without it!

If you can only spend some money on an application, this is the one.

Visit the blog for more news and the feature list: http://blog.dopus.com/

The weather in Göteborg

2011-03-11T15:36:00.000+01:00

Apparently, the weather is one of the favorite subjects of discussion here in Sweden. And I'm starting to see why...

Weather can change dramatically over just a few hours during the day. I have witnessed about 3 seasons changing in a single day sometimes...

For example, this morning the view from my window was like this:

Would you actually expect it to turn out to this, just a few hours later?

I know, me neither... :-)

I think it's rather chilly outside...

2011-03-07T19:21:00.001+01:00

Welcome Angela

2011-03-05T11:06:00.000+01:00

She's a bit shy as you can see, but sweet as candy. The new member of the family is female (for a change) and loves to play around like all puppies do.

It's time for another browser test

2011-03-05T01:58:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since my last browser showdown, so I thought to give it another try today, with the latest and greatest versions of Safari, Chrome and Firefox. I also decided to do a more comprehensive test, using more than one benchmark to get the final results.

As usual, the test would be run on my main platform which is a MacBook Pro running Mac OS X on an Intel 2.66GHz Dual Core processor with 4GB or RAM.

The browsers to be tested and their current versions (in March 2011) are as follows:

Safari v5.0.3 - Apple's WebKit based browser used to be the fastest in javascript and launch time (under MacOS X only, the case was a bit different under Windows 7).
Google Chrome 9.0.597.107 - Google's own browser is also based on WebKit and is being updated regularly with speed and other improvements. One of the latest additions is the so-called "applications", something similar to Mozilla's "Extensions" which add more functionality to the browser experience.
Firefox 4.0b12 - Mozilla's best new offer, Firefox 4 is being redesigned to be lighter, faster and improved on all fronts. Earlier versions where kind of buggy from time to time, but work is continuing steadily and it's getting better and better. After all, it's still in beta. How does it compare to the other browsers though?

Choosing a way to measure each browser's performance against another, is kind of tricky. Different tests provide different results sometimes, so my guess was to pass all 3 browsers from several tests and average out the results. Hopefully, one will come on top of the others.

First test was Futuremark's "Peacekeeper" which according to wikipedia is:

Peacekeeper

Online speed test by Futuremark, mainly using rendering, mathematical and memory operations. Takes approx. 5 minutes for execution and tells results of other browsers with different CPUs. Does not respect operating system.

The results of the three browsers were:

As you can see, Google Chrome clearly wins this one out, with a difference. Safari and Firefox give similar results, with Safari being slightly ahead.

Moving on to the next test, "Speed-Battle". Wikipedia mentions:

Speed-Battle

Test of JavaScript engine using simple algorithms. Displays results of other visitors (best, average, poorest) with same operating system and browser version.

The results of the three browsers where:

Safari:

Chrome:

Firefox 4:

There's a big difference here, but not in the way you would expect. Safari comes first with more than double the number, compared to the similar results of Chrome and Firefox 4. Interesting, considering that both Safari and Chrome are based on WebKit, yet the numbers shown don't reflect that. It could be that some sort of special optimization was playing part here, in favor of Safari.

Moving on to the next test then, and that would be V8:

V8

JavaScript test suite by Google, used to optimize Google Chrome web browser. Chrome achieves ten times better results than Firefox with this benchmark. Does not test rendering performance.

and the results are:

Safari

Chrome

and Firefox 4

No big surprises here, since it's a Google benchmark it's rather expected for Chrome to perform better than the competition. However, I didn't expect Safari to be so far behind...

Next up, we have SunSpider:

SunSpider
The test suite is a component of the WebKit rendering engine by Apple. As WebKit is used by Google Chrome and Safari, these browsers achieve good results with SunSpider (2-3 times faster than Firefox). Takes approx. 2 minutes for execution and does not test rendering performance.

results were as follows:

Safari:
--------------------------------------------
Total: 275.5ms +/- 0.8%
--------------------------------------------

Chrome:
--------------------------------------------

Total: 274.5ms +/- 0.5%

--------------------------------------------

Firefox 4:
--------------------------------------------

Total: 274.8ms +/- 1.1%

--------------------------------------------

All in all, very similar results on all browsers. Considering this is a WebKit test, I believe congratulations are in order for the Firefox team, as their browser performed equally well.

The next test in line was Dromaeo. According to Wikipedia, it's a

"Mozilla test suite based on SunSpider tests. Takes several minutes for execution and displays very detailed information about every single test task."

The Recommended Performance tests where chosen with the results for the browsers being:

Safari: 262.45runs/s (Total)
Chrome: 394.24runs/s (Total)
Firefox 4: 339.28runs/s (Total)

Interestingly enough, even though it's a Mozilla test suite, Google's Chrome takes the cake! Although not with a huge difference, it's still way ahead than Safari which looks like it needs an update to stay in the race with the fastest 2.

Last but not least, we have the Kraken Javascript Benchmark. Created by Mozilla to test the next generation Javascript heavy loads, one might expect Firefox to top the rest two competitors:

Safari:
-----------------------------------------------
Total: 11756.9ms +/- 0.8%
-----------------------------------------------
Chrome:
-----------------------------------------------
Total: 15218.2ms +/- 0.7%
-----------------------------------------------

Firefox 4:
-----------------------------------------------
Total: 5963.6ms +/- 0.7%
-----------------------------------------------

Indeed, the difference is there and it's huge! What's interesting is also the better performance of Safari compared to Chrome on this benchmark.

Conclusion
It hard to pick a browser as the best of them all and be done with it. It would also be kind of boring. :-)

If we take into account the performance from the above tests, Chrome is King. Firefox 4 beta is shaping up to be a real contestant, although still needs some work and improvement here and there. Safari sadly seems to be in need of optimization in order to stay up-to-date with the rest.

Of course, one doesn't choose a browser simply from performance results shown from some benchmarks. Other things come into play, such as the unique features of each browser (user interface, bookmark syncing, extensions to name but a few). And in that area too, Google's Chrome gets my vote.
The ability to effortlessly sync data between platforms (I also use Chrome on other machines), the good performance and the live website translation just make this the best choice for my needs. Needless to say, your mileage may vary... ;-)

Goodbye, old friend...

2011-02-26T21:42:00.000+01:00

Thanks for all the wonderful memories. I hope you felt as loved as we all felt from you through all those years...

Super Methane Bros

2011-02-10T12:26:00.002+01:00

I had a dream about this game today... The memories that never die. :-)

So long, and thanks for all the fish...

2011-02-07T22:07:00.000+01:00

It's been a long time coming, but the final decision has finally been taken. In the beginning of March, I will be leaving this God forsaken country and moving to Sweden.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

PS: People that have my cell number will receive an SMS when I get a new one.

Amigathering 6 teaser trailer

2011-01-24T13:32:00.000+01:00

Amigahellas, the magazine: Issue #16

2010-12-25T12:19:00.002+01:00

The new, Christmas issue of "Amigahellas, the magazine" is now online! You can grab it at http://mag.amigahellas.gr as usual.
This issue contents include:

Retro review: Nuclear War
Interview with Craig Wuest, a high energy physicist with Amigas (also available in english language here)
Howto: Hard disks on Amiga (A1000)
Howto: Music on Amiga (Octamed Soundstudio part 2)
Howto: A600GRL project (Amiga 600 custom laptop)

and of course the latest news specially prepared by the team of Amigahellas...

"Only Amiga" 25th Anniversary Animated Tribute by Eric Schwartz

2010-11-23T10:20:00.000+01:00

Amiga meets piano

2010-11-08T19:40:00.001+01:00

I came upon a rare musical gem today, which I'd like to share. AMIworx is a german website which hosts a few piano covers from classic Amiga games (named them "Amiga meets Piano"). And they're pretty good as well. Apparently they've been doing this since 2008, but I only found out about them today.

And they have a new album dated 2010 out as well. Enjoy the music and nostalgia here.

Ένα ξεχωριστό ημερολόγιο

2010-11-06T19:32:00.000+01:00

Blogs υπάρχουν πολλά, ΝΟΥΝΟΥ όμως... ερχμ, παραφέρθηκα.
Ένα ακόμα λοιπόν ιστολόγιο προστέθηκε στα άπειρα τόσα που υπήρχαν μέχρι χθες. Αυτό όμως έχει κάτι διαφορετικό, έναν άλλον αέρα αλλαγής και αισιοδοξίας για τον τόπο... ερχμ, παραφέρθηκα πάλι.

Εντάξει λοιπόν, με λίγα λόγια, υποδεχθείτε το ημερολόγιο της Βανέσσας! Οι καθημερινές ιστορίες ενός yorkshire terrier, όπως βλέπει τα πράγματα με τα δικά της μάτια...

Facebook page is up!

2010-10-14T22:38:00.000+02:00

It took some time to get there, mainly because of many things that had to be done first, but the first version at least is finished!

Blitter Studio is live, and so is it's Facebook page.

If you like what you see, please ...em, "like" it as well. ;-)

C64 Amiga International Karate +

2010-10-02T12:14:00.000+02:00

Civilization V

2010-10-01T13:04:00.000+02:00

I had the chance to get my hands dirty with an new release of an old classic - Civilization, now in it's 5th incarnation.

I used to play Civilization back in the day when it was first released, and I can still remember the excitement of steering your virtual people to the direction you wish and trying to survive in a world of conflicts, diplomacy, espionage and ...civilization. Not rarely did I miss a few good hours of sleep over it I should also say.

I got hooked again with Civ IV a few years back, as it was the first one to feel as good as the original (2 and 3 were not that good for my taste).

So now version 5 (or Civilization V as it's officially called) is released and it promises a fresh new look on the well known and appreciated values that made the original such a hit. Does it live up to the hype?

The short answer? Hell yes!

The slightly longer answer is that it does feel like a fresh new approach to the same idea, yet similar enough to what we already know to feel familiar. The vastly improved graphics are the first thing you notice, but beyond that the true gem of the unique gameplay is still there, polished and renewed.

A few things have changed here and there (Politics especially has changed), others remain more or less the same. I liked the way that gold now has some more meaning than previous versions, since you can use it for more things. The user interface has been improved as well, it's much easier to navigate through all the information pages without getting lost or feeling that you're missing something. Overall, I did find it a bit easier to beat on the "Chieftain" difficulty level, which might be good news for inexperienced players, while you can always bump up the difficulty if you have the guts and you're looking for a bit more challenge.

All in all, I have no choice than to recommend this game as high as possible, especially if you like turn-based strategy games. You won't find many gems better that this out there.

Civilization V official site

Mozilla unleashes the Kraken

2010-09-16T10:10:00.001+02:00

Mozilla created a web browser benchmark named Kraken, testing the javascript capabilities (js speed basically) of modern web standards.
Visit it and test your browser's speed here

As a reference point, on my Macbook pro 17" and Snow Leopard I got the following results:

Safari 5.0.2: 11871.9ms
Chrome 6.0.472.59: 16355.3ms
Firefox 3.6.8: 20502.5ms

So it seems Safari is still the fastest on Mac OS X.

Color Cycling made cool again with HTML5

2010-09-15T23:48:00.000+02:00

Back in the glorious Amiga days, when Deluxe Paint reigned supreme (I believe it was around 1986), there was a technique called "color cycling". To put in simply, it allowed an image to "cycle" some colors from its palette, creating some interesting effects in the process.

Back then, the Amiga could do it with no special hardware other than what it already had (a Motorola 68000 processor running at 7.14MHz, a custom chipset for everything else). But with the demise of the platform in the more recent years, this technique seemed to be lost for ever.

Or has it? Maybe history has a funny way of repeating itself or something, but HTML5 allows for the same special effect today. Not only that, Mark Ferrari has some excellent artwork showcasing exactly that effect, shown here (modern browser needed).

Enjoy the nostalgia!

Transformers short video

2010-09-14T18:43:00.000+02:00

A nothing short of amazing short video, inspired by the Transformers films. Created by this guy.

Fired up my Amiga yesterday

2010-09-11T09:18:00.000+02:00

In a sudden inspiration that doesn't happen too often lately, I fired up the old Amiga yesterday. My good old trusty A4000 is always sitting there besides me on the desk, but very rarely do I give her some attention, much less power her on. Which is kind of sad really, considering all the happy memories I still have from years past, when it was my main computer. But times do change whether we like it or not and so must we...

I haven't completely neglected her though, giving her some important hardware upgrades from time to time, which included a scandoubler/flickerfixer (Indivision AGA) so I can connect her to any modern LCD monitor, a USB2.0 card (Deneb) so I can use USB sticks and disks, a USB to Ethernet adaptor (from LinkSYS) so that I could plug her on the home network, a SCSI to IDE adaptor (so that I could have zero CPU usage on disk access AND cheap easy-to-find hard disks) and in my latest project i did try to replace the hard disk altogether with a CF card (although that didn't completely work out -yet).

Software-wise, I completed my project of using the excellent AmiKit package on her, while using the knowledge gained to write a special how-to article (published on Amigahellas - the magazine issue #12 and online on AmiKit's official website). Besides that, I come back to update various tools every now and then. I usually keep the updates from Aminet at hand and when I gather enough of them, I power on the old lady and give her some fresh air of Amiga software.

Yesterday was one of those days.

A new version of exec.library is available on Aminet, along with new versions of AFA OS, diskimage.device, TLSFMem and some other goodies. The excitement for me is that, owning the Deneb card, I can put the new exec directly on it's flashable ROM and have it available from cold boot, therefore doing away with the need for the customary reboot after Setpatch.

It took me a few good hours to finish everything, what with discovering that the ethernet cable the Amiga was connected to was dead (aaargh!) and Amiga Explorer (from the excellent Amiga Forever package) is horribly slow even over an ethernet connection (tried copying about 5MB - it reported it would take a day!). The experience included a dreadful scene where my miggy was stuck in reboot-limbo, after flashing the Deneb with the new exec and all but forgetting to look at the startup-sequence for any previous patches that might interfere with it. I had to open the case and manually disable the ROM with the jumper setting to fix that...

In the end though, the operation was a success. I noted that a few lines have to be commented out in "Startup-Sequence" for the system to boot normally. For anyone who might do the same, let me save you some time and headaches by sharing those changes:

- iTagLife (patches utility.library - not 100% sure it causes problems, but I disabled it just to be safe)
- PatchAsl (patches all asl.library requesters and displays MUI ones instead)
- MemTrailer (AmiKit's comments mention that this offers partial memory protection. Disabled just to be safe).

If you like custom t-shirts...

2010-09-03T12:00:00.000+02:00

For some reason, I always dreamed about designing my own custom t-shirts and then wearing them. In public. Maybe that's an issue I should look into, I know...

Ahem, anyway... I have good news for everyone who regretted not getting a custom Amigathering T-shirt, or for those who wore them until their colors faded to a sun-burned grey. We're planning on offering all those old designs, along with new ones, on the soon-to-be-announced Blitter Studio store. Hell, we'll throw in those custom mousepads and coffee mugs as well.

I'm also planning on releasing several custom-made designs of my own, along with everyone else who's interested in contributing. Those will probably show up later though, as they come along.

More on the subject when we've got everything up and running!

New design! New era!

2010-08-27T22:49:00.000+02:00

As you may have noticed, the blog went under a new design. It's been a long time coming, but it's here at last!

Besides that, there's also that piece of news I promised...

Well, the first few small steps have been made with more to follow as we move forward. After many years of freelance work or employment, I decided to combine my experience and love into my own web design & photography company. So, I'm very proud to announce the birth of Blitter Studio.

The name comes from old times (if you can guess where from, I'll buy you a drink) and it stuck with me. The website is online with only the most basic content for now, with plans to enrich it in due time. Important partnerships are already in place, so the wheels have (slowly) started rolling.

Twitter and Facebook accounts are online as well, but I'll let you know about those as soon as more content is available... ;-)

If you'd be interested in joining our team or you'd like us to look into a project for you, please contact us using the form on the official site for now.

Something wonderful has happened

2010-07-30T13:29:00.000+02:00

Something wonderful has happened... your computer is alive!

If you're around 30 years old, you may remember the above message from the golden days of computing (that's the 85-90's era). If not, let me explain it to you:

Back in those days, computer viruses where rather new and innocent. The first one that appeared for the Commodore AMIGA computer, in November 1987, did something rather silly by today's standards:
Every 15th reboot (yes, computers could simply reboot back then, not having to go through the horrible "shut down" process), it would display a message on screen that went like this:

"Something wonderful has happened... Your AMIGA is alive!!! and, even better... some of your disks are infected by a VIRUS!!! Another masterpiece of the mega-mighty SCA".

Now, it may seem rather silly for a virus to announce itself or even more, give the name of the group that created it, but keep in mind those where the 80s and silly things were considered pretty normal back then. Besides, it was all about glory and fame, so announcing yourself on every computer you could do so, seemed the best way to do it. Remember, the Internet wasn't around!

So, why did I bring that up? Partly because I remembered it these days, partly because I had something to say that needed a good opening line I guess. :-)

After years of thinking about it and not being sure, I decided to take the next step in my professional career and start my own business. I am fully aware it will be hard, probably harder than I can imagine, it will demand time, resources and most of the time will look like it's not going anywhere (in the beginning at least). Still, I want to give a fair shot to it, even if it doesn't work out. At least I would have tried!

So here I am, announcing the beginning of something new in my life. Wish me luck!

More details, as well as a link to the fully operational site (once it's finished) will be posted here soon(ish).

Oh, and if you're still wondering about the SCA virus, Wikipedia has a full article on it.

California Superbike School Levels 2-4

2010-07-29T08:14:00.000+02:00

Reality distortion field remains strong with Steve Jobs after antennagate

2010-07-21T11:18:00.000+02:00

California Superbike School Level1

2010-07-09T17:33:00.000+02:00

Amigathering 2010

2010-03-11T21:57:00.003+01:00

Amigathering 2010 - Live After Commodore

Η Commodore μπορεί να πέθανε αλλά το Amigathering επιστρέφει στο βορρά για μία ακόμη φορά! Στις 24 και 25 Απριλίου θα διεξαχθεί στη Θεσσαλονίκη η ενδέκατη συγκέντρωση των ελλήνων χρηστών Amiga και των υπολογιστών τους. Στο χώρο τον οποίο προφέρει ευγενικά η AmiMac θα μπορέσετε να συζητήσετε, να χρησιμοποιήσετε τα μηχανήματα των παρευρισκομένων και να παρουσιάσετε τα δικά σας. Δε θα λείψουν οι διαγωνιμοί Kick Off, Sensible και όχι μόνο, οπότε όσοι πιστεύουν ότι δε μπορούν να παίξουν χωρίς το PacMan τους, ας μη ξεχάσουν να το φέρουν!

Προκειμένου να εξασφαλίσετε χώρο για το μηχάνημά σας επικοινωνήστε με το info@amigathering.gr.

Διεύθυνση: AmiMac, Τυρολόης 30, Άνω Τούμπα, Θεσσαλονίκη (Χάρτης)

The Fall of Greece

2010-03-07T10:37:00.001+01:00

An excellent article by Diana Johnstone, describing the current situation in Greece, how it got here and where it seems to be going...

To put it simply, the Greek crisis shows what happens when a weak member of this Union is in trouble. It is the same as what happens on the world scale, where there is no such morally pretentious union perpetually congratulating itself on its devotion to human rights. The economically strong protect their own interests at the expense of the economically weak.

The Facebook tomorrow

2010-02-26T18:44:00.001+01:00

DS Games - E3 2010 - Guitar Hero 5

Amigahellas - The magazine issue 14

2010-01-01T13:59:00.002+01:00

The final issue of 2009 is online, just in time for new year!

Get it for free from the official site.

Elite: The way games where...

2009-12-30T14:06:00.001+01:00

50 Years of Space Exploration

2009-10-29T13:06:00.001+01:00

50 Years of Space Exploration
Originally uploaded by Adam Crowe

Monty Python: Almost the truth

2009-10-27T18:20:00.001+01:00

In celebration of their 40th anniversary, Monty Python has just released “Monty Python: Almost the Truth – The Lawyer’s Cut”, a 3 DVD documentary chronicling the history of Monty Python, including new interviews with the cast.

Wanna ride the Google Wave?

2009-10-05T12:22:00.001+02:00

2009 season is over (for me)

2009-09-23T10:22:00.005+02:00

What seems to be the last school for me this year is over and boy was it fun.

I haven't been on the track for several months, so I wasn't really sure how I'd do. Luckily though, the moment I sat on the R6's comfy seat it all came back to me.

The weather was ideal for a day on the track as well, being cloudy and just cool enough.

As the English chaps would say, "jolly good fun!". :-)

photo courtesy of Stelios Efremopoulos (many thanks!)

First day at Boot Camp

2009-09-20T10:41:00.003+02:00

I finally gave in...

After several months without any need or use for it, I finally decided to give Apple's Boot Camp a try. The reason was pretty simple: Games :-)

Yeap, as I said, I finally gave in. I wanted to play a game or two on my MacBook Pro, please forgive me...

The procedure lasted about an hour for the partitioning and installation of a copy of Windows 7. That part was fairly easy and straightforward, just start the BootCamp Assistant for MacOS X's Utilities and follow the instructions.

Windows 7 x64 installed normally, as it did on my normal PC. After that, you have to install Apple's Boot Camp drivers in order to have a fully functional multi-touch trackpad, sound support and all the other Mac's hardware working as it should. You have to use Mac OS X's DVD for that, as for some silly reason the drivers are not available anywhere else online (argh!).

The good news is that with Snow Leopard it's now possible to read Mac HFS volumes under Windows, so you can easily exchange files to and from your other partition. Pretty handy sometimes...

Following that, I installed a few basic tools I always use (like 7-zip, Directory Opus, Firefox, etc.) and the Steam client (yes, I buy most of my games from Steam). A few minutes later, I was ready to download and play "The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition"!

By the way, if you've never seen it before or if you know and like the original Monkey Island, I urge you to check out the Special Edition yourself. It's only 5 Euros on Steam right now...

Jesus Hates Zombies

2009-09-18T10:40:00.002+02:00

Jesus Hates Zombies
Originally uploaded by Ben Templesmith

If video games were realistic...

2009-09-17T13:25:00.003+02:00

We've all played games now and then. Some of them claimed to be more realistic than others, but are they really?

If you want to see more, have a look at the article on Cracked.com

James Burke's "Connections"

2009-09-09T10:29:00.001+02:00

I discovered this fascinating episode of a tv program that used to air during the 70s, on the BBC, thanks to Warren Ellis... ;-)

I wish I could watch that as a kid. Better late than never I guess...

The Mystery of Chessboxing

2009-09-08T11:26:00.000+02:00

Express Yourself

2009-09-05T09:56:00.002+02:00

Express Yourself
Originally uploaded by Katie West!

WTF?

2009-08-26T15:50:00.000+02:00

8-bit Trip stop-motion video

2009-08-24T16:53:00.001+02:00

Ultra Deep Field in 3D

2009-08-13T00:47:00.000+02:00

Attention!

2009-08-12T01:37:00.002+02:00

found on riotclitshave. As usual.

A few years after...

2009-08-06T13:00:00.000+02:00

found on riotclitshave

Games you have to buy

2009-08-01T14:50:00.003+02:00

If you love the good old times of gaming, if you've played titles such as "Alien Breed" and "The Lost Vikings" (and loved them), if you have Amiga blood running through your veins (or always wanted to), then be sure to check out these fine specimens:

Both of them come from the Finnish company "Frozenbyte" and something tells me they've been playing with Amigas back in the days.. ;-)

Simon's Cat in "Fly Guy"

2009-07-25T16:42:00.000+02:00

Revenge

2009-07-18T23:33:00.000+02:00

Revenge from lernert Engelberts on Vimeo.

Sperm Travels Faster Toward Attractive Females: Discovery News

2009-07-11T12:46:00.001+02:00

Sperm Travels Faster Toward Attractive Females: Discovery News

Posted using ShareThis

Fawlty Towers - Germans

2009-07-08T12:52:00.001+02:00

Deadline - Another stop-motion video

2009-06-18T07:38:00.000+02:00

And here's the Making of...

I never wanted to be a blogger actually...

2009-06-11T01:34:00.000+02:00

Seriously scary games

2009-06-08T02:21:00.004+02:00

Well, you don't really get a lot of those. Seriously, in the last few years not even supposedly "scary movies" do the trick for me. As for games in that category, there have been a few (like the original Silent Hill) which hit the point and really got me into that creepy atmosphere and on-your-toes readiness which makes you want to just close your eyes and stop seeing altogether. But of course you never do...

Steam had a special offer this weekend, giving away the three Penumbra games for a ridiculously low price of 5 euros. I'd never had the chance to check Penumbra out before, so I thought "what the hell"...

And what a surprise that turned out to be!

This is not your average action-horror FPS game. Instead, Penumbra uses a first person perspective and an incredible physics engine to put you in the shoes of the game's character, and then leaves you trying to survive and try to find out what the hell is going on... :-)

And I can assure you, finding your place in a tight spot without any rocket launchers can be a really terrifying experience...

Two thumbs up for Penumbra from me, definitely give it a shot if you like a good horror-adventure-survival game.

Speaking of Bruno...

2009-06-03T12:04:00.001+02:00

Here's the official trailer, from the upcoming movie website

Bruno strikes again

2009-06-02T21:08:00.001+02:00

MTV Shows

SLR camera or video camera?

2009-05-31T22:29:00.001+02:00

static : pulse from Samuel Cockedey on Vimeo.

Scenes from a rooftop from Paul Johannessen on Vimeo.

Not sure? Both were done with SLR cameras instead of video cameras. From core77.com:

Object convergence of a different sort. Nowadays technology is blurring the line between SLR cameras and video cameras, not only in the physical design of the cameras themselves, but the post-processing tech that enables us to do things like create video by piecing together stills.

…[the] two videos embedded below are different in that they were rendered out of still frames. The first is more sober and meditative, and the second one is a totally nutty must-see–it was shot tilt-shift style, and viewing it makes us look, well, small as a species.

Sorry I'm late

2009-05-31T20:05:00.000+02:00

“Sorry I’m Late” is a wonderful stop-motion animated film made by Tomas Mankovsky that was shot from above using still camera on the ceiling. Here’s how it was made.

(from Laughing Squid)

Is it my fault?

2009-05-28T21:50:00.002+02:00

...that I want to go back there?

(photo kindly provided by Stelios Efremopoulos)

Isle of Man 2009 promo

2009-05-26T12:31:00.001+02:00

My new favorite station

2009-05-25T19:11:00.000+02:00

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Orgasm

2009-05-21T23:29:00.000+02:00

from Violetblue's blog

David Lynch presents Interview Project

2009-05-18T21:44:00.001+02:00

On June 1st David Lynch is launching his new documentary series “Interview Project”, a 20,000 mile roadtrip around the United Sates over 70 days featuring 121 short profiles of different people from all walks of life.

Entertainment Weekly has posted a preview of one of the episodes.

Amigahellas, The magazine

2009-05-16T20:47:00.003+02:00

The new issue of Amigahellas, the Magazine is out.

In issue 12, you'll find the following articles:

- Amikit on (real) Amiga! A step by step guide.
- Ultimate A1200 mod, part 3
- Video and presentations on Amiga, part 2
- Music on the Amiga, part 3
- A600GRL project, part 2

As usual, you can get the new issue for free in PDF form from the official site, here.

Wolverine claws suck

2009-05-14T22:45:00.002+02:00

Wolverine's Claws Suck - The most popular videos are here

Advertising

2009-05-14T13:44:00.001+02:00

Just another day

2009-05-13T16:07:00.003+02:00

"...Waiting for the winter sun, and the cold light of day

The misty ghosts of childhood fears

The pressure is building, and I cant stay away

I throw myself into the sea

Release the wave, let it wash over me

To face the fear I once believed

The tears of the dragon, for you and for me..."

-- Tears of the Dragon, Bruce Dickinson.

Short Surreal Film Promoting Adobe’s CS4 & The Andalusian Dog That Inspired It

2009-05-07T23:31:00.000+02:00

Find more videos like this on AdGabber

Yes Make The Small Child Touch The Dead Skin

2009-05-01T14:57:00.002+02:00

Yes Make The Small Child Touch The Dead Skin

"The baby wanders toward the water. She stumbles on the slippery riverbank and slides into a slurry of clay, sand, and fresh snowmelt. She struggles to free herself, but every movement drags her deeper. The mud gets in her mouth, her trunk, her eyes; disoriented, she gasps for breath but gets a mouthful of muck instead. Coughing, gagging, caught in a riptide of panic, she makes a dreadful high-pitched shriek that brings her mother running. Inhaling with all her force, the calf sucks the mud deep into her trachea, sealing her lungs. By the time her mother reaches the bank, the baby is partially submerged in the ice-cold mire and flailing feebly, rapidly sliding into shock. The mother screams and mills on the soft bank..."

"AAAAAAAAA"

TOUCH THE FUCKING ELEPHANT

"AAAAAA NO DON’T MAKE ME AAAAAAA MUMMY"

I AM YOUR FUCKING MUMMY TOUCH THE FUCKING ELEPHANT

Posted using ShareThis

The Hunt for Gollum

2009-05-01T14:36:00.001+02:00

Trailer 2 - The Hunt For Gollum [2]
by HuntForGollum

The Geomagnetic Apocalypse

2009-04-25T23:00:00.002+02:00

For scary speculation about the end of civilization in 2012, people usually turn to followers of cryptic Mayan prophecy, not scientists. But that's exactly what a group of NASA-assembled researchers described in a chilling report issued earlier this year on the destructive potential of solar storms.

read the full article on Wired.com

Clowns and Cops frozen in time

2009-04-25T13:16:00.002+02:00

Created for Tribal DDB, Amsterdam, the interactive campaign -- which launches today atwww.cinema.philips.com -- promotes Philips’ latest entrant into the television market, the CINEMA 21:9. Since the television’s 21:9 frame lends itself so readily to film, Tribal DDB, Amsterdam commissioned Stink Digital to create a piece of filmed content that could hold its own with Hollywood’s best. Stink Digital director Adam Berg responded with an idea for an epic ‘frozen moment’ cops and robbers shootout sequence that included clowns, explosions, a decimated hospital, and plenty of broken glass, bullet casings and money.

Instant Adventure gaming

2009-04-23T22:44:00.003+02:00

Remember the good old days?

What? What do you mean "what good old days"? The days of adventure games on computers of course, when gameplay was the decisive factor instead of fancy graphics.

It's time to rejoice people, because Sarien.net is here. Re-live those moments with Larry in the bar, along with other players if you like (yes, we now have multiplayer... it's 2009 you know!), all from the comfort of your web browser.

It even works on iPod's Safari. I'm touched...

"The best Leisure Suit Larry since Love for Sail" - Al Lowe