programming

Ryan1 Comment on programmingphp, wow

Haven’t posted in a while, not much going on. Currently the only thing half way interesting is a small web application I’m writing. Every few hours it checks the database of World of Warcraft, and saves in a database who is in which guild. When it is done you can see which players switched guilds when. I’ve got all kinds of funny statistics going on in my head that I can generate out of that data. Since there is no list of all characters oder guilds on a realm, I wrote it to automatically expand the checks when it discovers new characters or guilds. Currently it is watching about 2000 horde players in the EU realm Kil’jaeden. Given the high fluctuation of people joining or leaving guilds, I’d say that after about 2 weeks I should have about 80% of the larger guilds on the realm.

Not much I can show right now since I’ve only written the back end (database, and script to scan and save data). No front end yet, I still have about a week or two till enough data has been saved to actually write and test a front end.

Photoshop Express

Ryanadobe, online, Phodoshop

Photoshop Express seems to have finally gone online https://www.photoshop.com/express/landing.html An online (web application) version of Photoshop. Of course with only a basic variaty of functions, but still plenty useful.
After registering you get 2GB of space for uploading/editing pictures. Uploaded pictures can either be defined private, or can be public and displayed in a gallery. The only technical requirements are a current browser with flash player 9 installed.

Cisco reverse telnet (AUX -> CON)

Ryanaux, cisco, con, telnet

Let me jot this down before I forget it again, I’ve looked this up so often 😉
First we hook up the CON port of the borked device with the AUX port of a working router (the normal Cisco console cable with RJ45 connectors on both ends). Then we go to the router and configure it’s AUX port with these settings:

# conf t
# line aux 0
(config-line)# modem InOut
(config-line)# transport preferred all
(config-line)# transport input all
(config-line)# transport output all
(config-line)# stopbits 1
(config-line)# end

The router has to have a loopback address and it must be up (duh). Now we have to find out which port we are going to have to telnet to. Do a show line from the enable mode, the output should look something like this:

Tty Typ Tx/Rx A Modem
0 CTY – –
* 97 AUX 9600/9600 – inout
* 98 VTY – –

Our line is number 97, telnet to the loopback address and port 2000+our line. If our loopback had the IP 192.168.100.200 the command would be telnet 192.168.100.200 2097

Portable Applications

Ryanportable applications, USB

I stumbled upon http://portableapps.com/ a few days ago, and now I have a whole lot of nice applications on my 1GB USB stick. Besides the applications provided by the website, I also have Skype and Photoshop running on my USB stick. After Playing around with the menu a bit, I found a unofficial mod called Portable Apps Menu Mod R31 which is definitely a must for anyone wanting to customize the menu (nice theme support, ability to hide applications from the menu, categories, …). I few minutes ago I even found a theme site for the mentioned menu mod.

I choose Adobe Photoshop 6.0, since it doesn’t really care where it is started from, and is still fairly “small”. Definitely something I’d suggest for anyone with a licence for that version (should be possible to obtain one cheaply since it is pretty outdated).

Skype was a bit more of a challenge to get running off my USB Stick. I followed these instructions to make a batch file to start skype, and used this tool to convert the .bat to a .exec (since the Portable Apps Menu only looks for .exe files)

[Edit]
I just found a “loader” for Ultraedit: http://usb.smithtech.us/apps/index.php This is very cool, since I love this editor, and it has always been a pain to only be able to use it at home.
Another good site for portable applications is http://www.portablefreeware.com

biking & climbing

Ryanbiking, climbing

I started off my 2008 biking season with one of my standard 30km routes (biking to work doesn’t count, that’s only 2km away). It seems I’m pretty much out of shape after this last winter. I felt pretty dead afterwards. My goal will be doing 100Km a week in summer (split up over a few days, probably 2x30Km and a 40Km).

My climbing is getting better too, although I still have problems with anything that isn’t straight upwards (in overhanging situations, I can’t seem to build up enough body tension). I’ve lost a bit over 5kg since January and my percentage of muscle mass stayed the same, so I’m pretty pleased with that so far. Another 6Kg and I’ll be able to do routes unthinkable now. May goal is to get down to 78Kg, but that’s long term, maybe I’ll be there by the end of the year, depends on how much biking, climbing and swimming I do this summer.