Yes, I've decided to open-source my GhostInfoceptor and have disbanded the original GhostInfoceptor which was written in Python and renamed it as JGhostInfoceptor written in (yep you guessed it) Java.
So far I'm very pleased with how Java deals with buffers and it's garbage collection. It parses the log file very quickly and I believe it could be quite easy to make this application multi-threaded if I needed to.
Anyways I am using GIT for the distributed version control system as I really like it's philosophy and helps me keep track of everything quite easily.
You're all welcome to fork my repository and start making your improvements to propose and I will gladly take the time to consider third-party improvements.
JGhostInfoceptor Repository link
Monday, April 27, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Quake is back, play for free!
I just recently discovered Quake Live where you can play Quake straight from your web browser, not only is it a very solid implementation of the game, it's extremely fast and I absolutely have zero problems getting into the game and playing.
I suggest you all give it a try if you were ever into Quake!
I suggest you all give it a try if you were ever into Quake!
Friday, April 17, 2009
DOTA.HK in trouble with Warden, exit Python, enter Java.
Well it's not secret that we've run into problems at dota.hk getting out hosting platform compliant with Warden. In fact none of us at dota.hk are developers for Ghost++, which is okay, Ghost++ itself has a pretty big pool of developers willing to help out. So support for Warden should be in by the end of the month. I was never scared that we would not find a solution, in fact I'm very happy that Blizzard has done something to fight against Maphack once and for all.
I know for fact Blizzard has nothing against bots that only enhance the experience for users on Battle.net, in fact I remember during the Diablo and Starcraft days that Blizzard actually came out with a source code for developers to develop their own chat bots (this was before we even needed cd-keys to have a chat bot on battle.net).
Right before this happened though I was working on an application I wrote in Python that was finished but was very hard to deploy on multiple servers because of my poor application design. Basically I had to edit a lot of variables within the script for each server.
Example:
NTTHK: config_name = 1Last_update
HKNET: config_name = 2Last_update.
Gosh was that annoying. I wasn't really concerned about the application design, just so long as it worked. Well I'm through with that and have come to a conclusion that using Python to write server-side applications is not the greatest idea, well maybe if it was one server, but not if I was writing for 6 servers that also probably needed to be updated from time to time.
Another problem with Python is that there is no decent IDE's out for it, you have no idea how annoying it is keeping track of indentions. This is how I immediately fell in love with Java+Eclipse. Java and Python are both cross platform which is very important for me as a Linux user in a Windows world. However I think the Java virtual machine is much better than Python's interpreter, because it's very hard to write a application which has problems because of how well the debug system in Java is. I don't have to worry about installing the MySQLdb module, SQLite module on every damn server and Java's C++ (OOP) style syntax makes writing huge applications much more readible and forces good programming practice.
Modular programming in Python is also a huge pain in the ass because you need to define the document folder for where you want to import your custom modules from, this varies from server to server and as far as I know there's no way to automatically determine a path. Don't get my wrong, I love python; but I guess all languages have their ups and downs.
So in a way, I'm relieved that our bots aren't functioning correctly at the moment. It gave me some time to look into using another language to write the application I needed to write. It gave me time to just take a break from all this development and just do some research which was a relief. I guess the biggest task that developers must face is staying on top of their game by constantly forcing themselves to learn new things.
So for the time being, I did some further database optimizations to DOTA.HK V2 to extend it's lifespan, because it looks like we're going to have to delay the release of DOTA.HK v3.
I know for fact Blizzard has nothing against bots that only enhance the experience for users on Battle.net, in fact I remember during the Diablo and Starcraft days that Blizzard actually came out with a source code for developers to develop their own chat bots (this was before we even needed cd-keys to have a chat bot on battle.net).
Right before this happened though I was working on an application I wrote in Python that was finished but was very hard to deploy on multiple servers because of my poor application design. Basically I had to edit a lot of variables within the script for each server.
Example:
NTTHK: config_name = 1Last_update
HKNET: config_name = 2Last_update.
Gosh was that annoying. I wasn't really concerned about the application design, just so long as it worked. Well I'm through with that and have come to a conclusion that using Python to write server-side applications is not the greatest idea, well maybe if it was one server, but not if I was writing for 6 servers that also probably needed to be updated from time to time.
Another problem with Python is that there is no decent IDE's out for it, you have no idea how annoying it is keeping track of indentions. This is how I immediately fell in love with Java+Eclipse. Java and Python are both cross platform which is very important for me as a Linux user in a Windows world. However I think the Java virtual machine is much better than Python's interpreter, because it's very hard to write a application which has problems because of how well the debug system in Java is. I don't have to worry about installing the MySQLdb module, SQLite module on every damn server and Java's C++ (OOP) style syntax makes writing huge applications much more readible and forces good programming practice.
Modular programming in Python is also a huge pain in the ass because you need to define the document folder for where you want to import your custom modules from, this varies from server to server and as far as I know there's no way to automatically determine a path. Don't get my wrong, I love python; but I guess all languages have their ups and downs.
So in a way, I'm relieved that our bots aren't functioning correctly at the moment. It gave me some time to look into using another language to write the application I needed to write. It gave me time to just take a break from all this development and just do some research which was a relief. I guess the biggest task that developers must face is staying on top of their game by constantly forcing themselves to learn new things.
So for the time being, I did some further database optimizations to DOTA.HK V2 to extend it's lifespan, because it looks like we're going to have to delay the release of DOTA.HK v3.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Kongregate is my time killer.
Got time to burn? Bored? Look no further, I have found our solution! Meet Kongregate, it's a web portal for games, with an achievement system similar to the one on Xbox Live with thousands of different games to play... All for the price of $0.00. What's the catch? Some ads here and there and less time with your friends and family, unless they're hooked on Kongregate too!
Don't forget to tell them fivetwentysix was your referrer! Back to playing some Platform Racing 2. *hehehe.*
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Mibbit is the answer to keeping IRC popular
I've always been an IRC guy and maybe that makes me a little biased on this topic. But over the years, I come to love IRC more and more each time I use it. It's ability to connect hundreds of people chatting simultaneously is still astonishing.
It's no surprise that IRC might not appeal to the new day and age with clients like Xchat, Mirc; however Mibbit has done an outstanding job at making IRC very approachable for an IRC newbie.
Not only is Mibbit a very fast IRC client, it's also browser based built with AJAX technologies. That means you can sign in to your Mibbit profile from any computer with a web browser.
The only downside to Mibbit is that it's not a stand alone client. Apart from that Mibbit is as good of a client as it'll get!
Sunday, May 4, 2008
The last.fm radio station
It seems like the world wide web has been socially interactive since we can remember ever using the internet on a daily basis. It started with groups like AOL, communication software like ICQ, online gaming platforms like Battle.net, and web sites like CNET. Seven years ago Yahoo decided to make a legal attempt at bringing commercial music to the web in the form of an online web radio station. Unfortunately this service was filled with advertisements, bad sound quality, bad portability (Uses and Requires closed-source Microsoft technologies).
A lot of the web has been talking about last.fm and I decided to give it a try just recently, and in response I would like to give it two thumbs up!
It's simple, it's great, it's cross platform, it's free, and it does what it's suppose to do, play music!
In my opinion, what makes last.fm really stand out is that it has a very noncommercial feel to it, ads are at the bottom of the web-site, the last.fm client which can be compiled for pretty much any platform Win/Linux/Mac has no advertisements on it.
The standalone client really deserves recognition, it is open-source so that means anyone can look at the code and modify it to their pleasing. You can even turn it into a plug in for your favorite media player. Last.fm is definitely a great tool for all of us to use and I am very thankful.
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