Chomper Stomping

Hello readers!

As part of my re-organization process, I am moving my blog to:

http://blog.chomperstomp.com

Please make note of this. I’ll be deleting this copy of the blog after a few weeks.

Thanks for reading!

For the past four months I’ve been hosting this site on an IUPUI server. That was supposed to be temporary. As in, I’ll just throw it up there for a week or so. Well, a week turned into weeks into a month into months until finally I bit the bullet and got a Dreamhost account.

I compared all of the major hosting services out there (that I knew of):

doteasy.com

webhost4life.com

dreamhost.com

Dreamhost was by far the best of the three.

Highlights: 500GB disk space, 5TB/mo bandwidth allowance, one click installs (wordpress/phpbb/mediawiki/etc), subversion, unlimited fully hosted domains/subdomains at no extra charge, unlimited MySQL accounts. All this and more starting at a mere $6/mo. Wha??? yep.

So, what does this mean?

1. My website is now hosted entirely at chomperstomp.com. No more of that crazy corsair.cs.iupu.edu:18041/chomperStomp/ crap.

2. The looooong awaited launch of http://www.statusbarcalculator.com as well as active development on v2.0 of my little Firefox extension in preparation of the release of FF3.0.

3. A forums (coming soon) where people can come to ask me questions on flash app development that I can’t answer.

4. My Google Gadget will start working again (anyone who wants to, please leave a comment at that link with your thoughts on the gadget. Someone tore it up and it’d be nice to get one or two comments at least saying it’s not horrible).

5. New games coming in the near future (FINALLY).

6. More programming related, tutorial style, blog posts. Starting with a slew of “how I created my FF extension” posts, followed by “how I’m upgrading my FF extension”, topped off with a journal of my progress on either finishing one of my many un-finished game, or a whole new game entirely.

7. Updating the website in the very near future (also a big FINALLY).

If you are interested in helping out with any of my projects, just drop a comment here, or shoot me an e-mail. I use gMail, and my username is cmcculloh (you’ll figure the address out).

Also, if you are considering signing up for a dreamhost account, please do it through this link so I can get monies (the info on the picture is wrong though, their features have gotten better since they made this link):

Ok, for the second time in my life I’m strongly motivated to learn to be (instead of a hacker) a cracker. That is, I’m motivated to do things that “the government” would describe as being “illegal”.

You see, last night, and for the past three days, I’ve been trying to watch movies from my computer on my TV. I am trying out the feature on Netflix that allows the instant download of movies for you to watch on your computer. For some reason, each time I tried to watch a movie through the online player, it gave me a DRM error. I tried the “DRM Reset” utility that they gave me, and it still didn’t work. I uninstalled iTunes and renamed my DRM folder in windows, and even ran a tool that warned it would break every program on my computer by de-registering them or something, and still no go. I completely uninstalled and reinstalled windows media player and IE. Still nothing. I called Netflix, but there was an estimated 30 minute hold time, and I didn’t feel like waiting that long.

I finally (frustrated and defeated) threw a DVD into the computer and popped open windows media center to watch it (my dvd player doesn’t have component out, it just has the red, yellow, white ones, so my computer has better video quality, which is why I wanted to watch from it). The DVD had some sort of double vision thing going on so you couldn’t watch it. It was then that I realized that simply because of the fact that I was watching the video output feed on my TV instead of a computer monitor, it was preventing me from viewing the movies.

This has gotten ridiculous. Why in the world would it not let me view a DVD that I own from my computer onto my tv? That doesn’t even make sense. I plugged my computer monitor in instead and Netflix worked just fine, as did the DVD.

This is Microsoft violating my freedom. This is the sort of thing that makes me extremely sympathetic to crackers. This is the sort of thing that creates crackers. I will next be installing Linux on an old box and popping in a nice video card to see if I can watch DVDs from it on my TV.

I have already been making use of anyDVD from SlySoft (a cracker tool I paid $50 for) to burn DVDs to my iPhone (because of the stupid DRM on the DVDs). I’ve never been a supporter of people stealing music and movies, but I’m seriously considering investigating IP cloaking software, and bit-torrent tools that will allow me to illegally download movies that I legally have every right to watch (because I have purchased them), but that some moron decided I “wasn’t allowed” to watch from my computer to my TV.

I feel like Hollywood or Microsoft should pay me $500 for the time they took away from me for their foolishness. I also feel like whatever programmer designed and wrote this DRM should be banned from ever touching a computer again. Shouldn’t programmers have to take some sort of hippocratic oath that keeps them from writing ill-conceived software like this?

I hereby swear that I will never produce software that:

1. Sends spam e-mail

2. Keeps people from doing whatever they want with whatever they legally purchase

I know, I know, DRM keeps people from “pirating” movies/software/whatever. But DRM is like designing a restaurant that makes it so that you can’t sample food from other people’s plates (or share plates). Trying to hand-cuff people and take away their freedom will only inspire them to fight (and hate) you more. Appealing to their moral goodness and endearing them to you will go much further than DRM ever would. Right now, I feel like I don’t care if people steal movies, because I can see scenarios (like mine) where you just have no choice. But if everything were DRM free, then society as a whole would be free to shun thieves since there would be absolutely no reason for any good moral person to steal.

I know this isn’t the best argument, but basically this whole post is just to express my disgust with Microsoft/Hollywood/DRM and to put it out there that you can not watch Netflix movies from your computer on your TV because of DRM and to say how much I hate that. I’d make this post much better, but it doesn’t deserve any more time than it has already sucked out of my life. Oh, and good job Netflix, I’ll be canceling. You just lost a customer because of your stupid DRM…

If anyone knows a solution to my problems, please feel free to comment. Thanks.

I’m curious about what exactly at&t is planning on doing with my data packets. If they are going to have a person physically looking at the information packets, that’s one thing. If they are going to have a bot running algorithms on the packets to determine if you are participating in illegal activity, that’s another (slightly less alarming) thing altogether. G-mail already sort of does this with text-ads (reads your e-mails).

Do I want a bot deciding if what I’m sending is legal or not? Not really. I think that data-packets should be treated the same way an envelope that I seal and mail is treated, because that’s the exact same thing, it’s the modern equivalent of a letter/package.

I could understand if at&t were offering a free internet service, and needed to scan all my data packets looking for keywords so that they could target advertisements at me (I wouldn’t use this service, but if I did, it’d be my choice to do so, and thus allow them to see my packets).

I could also understand if at&t were inspecting headers to check them against a black-list of viruses to make my browsing experience more secure. But that wouldn’t require them to review the whole packet, just the headers. I’m not sure, but I think my firewall does this already (although I bought that and it’s mine, so that’s just me scanning my own e-mails).

G-mail already reads all of my message to determine if they are spam or not (a bot does this).

Here’s the thing, I use Comcast, so this doesn’t effect my home computer. It does effect my iPhone though since that’s through at&t. I know that the eschelon system already listens to my phone calls, but unless I get flagged no person ever hears them. And even if I got flagged (however that happens), I sincerely doubt anyone would ever hear the conversation that got me flagged. It would probably only come up if I dropped a nuke on cuba (or something like that) and even then John Q Public would never hear it, just some dweebs in the CIA who would use it to ship me off to Guantanimo before I was hanged or something, which (let’s face it) is exactly what should happen. Perhaps I am just naive though. Perhaps big-brother really is sitting there listening to all of my phone calls…

Anyways, another very important point should now be made: AT&T is not the government, and they should be allowed to do anything they want with their computer equipment that I pay them to let me use. If they don’t have a premium plan that allows you to pay them not to look at your packets, and you are afraid to have them look at your packets, get the premium plan. If they don’t, go with Comcast or Road-Runner (don’t even get me started of the government enforced monopoly debacle that is Cable though) or satellite.

The only reasons I can think of for AT&T sniffing your data:

1. To throttle back large downloads to make common web browsing blazing fast.

2. Because the government (and RIAA, etc) is forcing/pressuring them to to catch criminals.

3. So that they can give preferential treatment to customers who pay a premium.

I’m sure there are other reasons, but these are the three off the top of my head. Number 1 & 3 are A-OK with me. I’ll choose someone else who isn’t doing that over AT&T every day of the week, but that doesn’t mean that I think that the government should even blink at AT&T making decisions about how data is passed along their equipment.

Reason number 2 scares me. The reason it scares me is because what if some day the government decided that Christianity was illegal? Or perhaps they decide that you can go to jail for questioning the government? Or what if they decide that “hacker” tools (like… say… Linux?) are illegal? Or what if they decide that dissing rap music (or something) qualifies as “hate speech” and can get you a fine/prison term? Going along this line of thinking, you can come up with all sorts of reasons why number 2 is a horrible horrible thing. Sure the government is “ok” right now, but in the future, if calling abortion murder, or saying that homosexuality is a sin, is qualified as hate speech and can earn you a prison term, what then? Welcome to 1984.

So it’s important to note the reasons behind what AT&T is doing. If they are doing it because of any sort of government involvement, then it’s the government that needs brought down, not AT&T. If they are doing it over their own stupidity, then I don’t give two shakes of a rat’s tail, because I believe in corporate freedom, and the freedom of a corporation to do something that I consider so utterly stupid that it brings that corporation to ruin, because who knows, it might just work. I would have thought that Kodak dumping film and going all digital was stupid, and it seems to be working fine. If you don’t like them “invading” your privacy, don’t use their system.

We are also forgetting the fact that telephones used to be linked so that you could pick one up and hear every word every neighbor on your block was saying, and that telephone operators used to listen in on the entire conversation and do all of the dialing for you. We are just to young to have that collective memory. We as a society today have the highest expectation of privacy in the history of the earth. The only reason you should be alarmed at a privacy invasion is if it is by an entity that has the ability to lock you up, or even murder you. AT&T can do neither. The government could do both without breaking a sweat. That’s why I’m a conservative (because we are for shrinking the government and making it extremely hard to do either. Thus limiting the government’s privacy from you, and maximizing your privacy from them. Get the government out of your life).

I’ve always wanted to know how to build little electronic things.

When we were kids, my brother built a robot. I thought it was the coolest thing ever (I still think it’s pretty rad that he did it). That’s the kind of thing I always wanted to do, but for some reason never did. Until now that is…

A month or so back I noticed a slashdot story about a digg button kit. Basically, it’s a little circuit board with an LED display and a button. When you press the button, it increments the three digit display counter by 1. So it can count from 0 to 999. I knew I had to have one. Not only because it was awesome, but because it was something I could finally do to move me along the path to finally building that robot.

Earlier this week I got the kit in the mail, and I must admit I was a little disappointed at the size of it. I was expecting it to be about 4x larger than it actually was.

Last night I went to Radio Shack and got all of the stuff that the site said I would need to build it, and then I came home and built it while I watched The Biggest Loser.

Some thoughts… I’ll make a “top ten things to know” list:

1. It was way way easier than I thought it would be.

2. I didn’t have good lighting. You should really get good lighting. This was the most difficult thing about the whole project.

3. The equipment was surprisingly cheap.

4. The “Third Hand and Soldering Iron Holder” was the most essential piece of equipment (other than the soldering iron itself). Tape is also almost crucial in this too…

5. I never even opened the Multimeter and have no idea why I was told to buy it.

6. Solder melts and hardens extremely quickly. We are talking like .1 of a second to change states. As soon as you touch it to the iron, it melts. As soon as you remove the iron it hardens. This means sometimes you will end up with the roll of solder literally soldered to the board and have to use the iron to remelt it.

7. No, you aren’t melting the board. It’s going to be ok. Even if the board is turning brown around the component you are soldering and you are sure you just have to be ruining the whole thing, it’s probably ok.

8. You will need the needle nose pliers to hold the battery thingy while you sloppily attempt (unsuccessfully) to solder it perfectly in place. I have no idea if I did this right, and I ended up with these weird little balls of solder. Only the tab on the right ended up with solder between the battery holder and the board.

9. Splurge and get the $5 plastic cover. It makes it so much more refined looking, plus it will stand up on it’s own on your desk. (actually putting the plastic cover onto the board is the hardest part of the whole project though).

10. Make sure to actually wet your sponge (I forgot to wet mine and ended up burning the crap out of it and getting burnt sponge all over my iron, and was too excited to stop and go wet it because I’m a huge dorky nerd).

And now a few questions I wish I had had someone who knew what they were doing there to answer at the time:

1. Is this enough solder? Too much?

2. Just how durable is this board? How long would it take to ruin it by touching the iron to it? Where can I touch the iron to it and not ruin it? Is it ok if the solder drips on the board somehow and not just on the exposed metal or whatever the silver stuff on the board that I’m soldering to is?

3. Did I do this battery thing right? It doesn’t seem like it would stay, but I have no idea. I have neat little balls of solder and on the pictures on the site it looks like they smeared it around… Did they? Should I have? Or were they just messy?

4. How close can you clip to the board and not mess it up?

5. Is the smoke from the solder poisonous? How careful should I be not to breath it in?

One thing I wish that the package had come with was a detailed explanation of what everything is, what it does, and why I’m doing what I’m doing. It was sort of just like advanced magic legos. I know I did it, but I have no idea why it worked. It did give me a little push towards finally building that robot, but since I don’t understand the magic behind it, it just gives me a small amount of confidence in my soldering abilities rather than any actual real understanding about circuit boards.

The main thing I want to know is, can I make one of these little controller chip things? How do I get started? I suppose it has inspired me to ask these questions though, and I think that was it’s goal. All in all, I had a lot of fun. Thanks Adafruit!

Total time to complete project: About 90 minutes (was watching tv and getting up on commercials to go and look at the instructions on my computer in the other room to confirm I wasn’t ruining everything).

I highly recommend it. If any of my nerdy friends wants to make their own, just order a kit from the site and come on over. I’ve got the tools and the solder, so it will only cost you $18 (with S&H) instead of $75 (for all the equipment).

I’m going to put mine on my cubicle and make people press it every time they ask me for advice/help. This has also inspired me to make a score board (with two counters and buttons) for the “Duck V World” game in my office. Right now we are really low tech and just write the score on a whiteboard. It only increments by one per day though, so this sort of thing would be perfect for it.

Alex Papadimoulis sent me some new stickers the other day. He is the proprietor of thedailywtf.com, which recently went through a name change, followed immediately by a name change-back. I think we all know what it stands for, but the name change was in an effort to (imo) “professionalize” his blog. He changed it to worseThanFailure.com for a while. I really liked that change. But it’s back to the old meaning of the wtf acronym for him.

Anyways, I sent him a few self addressed self stamped envelopes, and he sent me back about 12 stickers. Then when he switched names, since he had my business card laying around (cool, he kept it!) he went ahead and sent me four more stickers with the old new name (thedailywtf.com).

So I’ve placed the new sticker on my server rack along with the old one.

Then I noticed that he was accepting submissions of people’s placement of his stickers. Since I treat my server rack like a big lunch box or something, I took a snapshot of it’s current state, and submitted away. He promptly posted it on his site. Sweet! Too bad I hadn’t made a chomperstomp.com sticker yet so I could have gotten some free promotion. Well, on second thought, good thing because this site is no where near ready for anyone other than the few of you who know me IRL to see…

Still really cool though. This all is somewhat a result of the horrible first job I had that ended up as an epic saga on his site.

Did you ever stop to think about paperboy? What were all those people doing running around trying to hinder you delivering their papers to them? How sits down and goes “I’ve got it! I’m going to make a game about delivering newspapers!”

It just goes to show you can make a game about anything. You just have to be creative.

Anywho, here is the whole point of this post:

In honor of Christmas, I’d like to share a gift with the person who reads my blog. Free Valve Games.

http://www.steampowered.com/ati_offer1a/

That gives you free Half-life 2 lost coast, and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch. Your welcome. You also get 50% off of HL2 and HL2:E1. It’s so worth it. If you don’t own them, take advantage of this while you can.

Merry Christmas.

ps. I found this while updating my ATI Drivers X1300 drivers for Windows Vista…

This is one of the most awesome things I have ever seen.

You can check the guy’s website out here.

If you are one of those people who just don’t care about video games, then think about it this way:

Let’s say your parents/grandparents/whatever live in… Pennsylvania, and say that you live in Indiana. What if you could just put on your glasses, put in your ear-piece, and call them on the tv phone. Then if you walk around your room, your perspective will change. It will look 3d (even though it’s not). It will be as if they are standing just on the other side of a window.

Think about if you are in the army, flying a plan… sitting at a desk. It could look exactly like you were in the cock-pit. I know we have technology now that lets you fly remotely, but it’s not this realistic.

I’m sure there is stuff like this out there already, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen it. Plus, all this costs is about $400. That’s it. You could feasibly set any of this stuff up for under 1 grand (you’d need two wii’s, the glasses, 4 wiimotes, and some special camera rig for the tv phone).

This is just amazing…

Check it out.

 ”Microsoft will release the first beta of Internet Explorer 8 in the first half of 2008 that will have full support for web standards”

Yeah right. I’ll believe it when I see it. The cake is a lie. [insert your own disbelief cliches here].

After hating and struggling with IE for my entire development life (oh about 11 years) I just don’t believe that IE 8 will truly be the holy grail of browsers. Last time I checked, even the uber standards compliant Opera browser didn’t pass the standards test. Firefox doesn’t but is still closer than IE. There is just no way that they will have, in one year made IE fully standards compliant. And which standards? HTML 5? HTML 4.1 Strict? XHTML 1.0 Strict? XHTML 1.1 Strict? HTML 4 Loose? All of the above?!?

It’s just too good to be true…