Norse Technologies Knowledge Base Free Knowledge Articles

One of our most important clients asked for an assessment of Adobe Flash multiplayer online game development and its viability.

Our researchers took a look at the current landscape of the MMO Flash world, and their findings may be of interest to anyone wanting to know how to create a multiplayer online Flash game. For the moment, though, let’s cut to the chase for those who don’t want to read too far; Making a multiplayer online game, for mass usage, is a huge undertaking with the potential to require significant amounts of money to get up-and-running… i.e. it is not a venture for the weekender or the kid who made one Flash animation and now wants to take on Club Penguin or the likes. If, however, you are a brave and tenacious soul, with a thirst for knowledge and huge challenges, and the ability to follow through on a project that does not pay a penny for years, then you might want to start with deciding on a server technology.

Servers for multiplayer online games using Flash are essentially XML socket servers. This means that it allows the gamer’s interface (i.e. client) to make socket connections, via the Internet network, into the server. You might want to look at ElectroServer 4, or if you know Microsoft C# (c-sharp) try this page: http://playerio.com/documentation/tutorials/building-flash-multiplayer-games-tutorial/

Beyond a server, you’ll need some very solid AcrionScript 3 and Flash animation skills.

If you just want to tinker, or get involved with making games with minimal effort, but still requiring some Flash skills, try spogg.com where you can can get help and documentation for getting started from day 1, and find an atmosphere of encouragement for the beginning multiplayer game developer who is leaning toward Adobe Flash as the medium.

Posted under Uncategorized

For those who hack a lot of Linux at the command line interface, backing up files such as config files before editing is a good habit to have. IMHO anyway. So to save time, a little script can be written, chmod +x, and placed into /usr/local/bin or some other that users have in their executable shell PATH. I name mine “bu” to make it easy, and it takes one command line argument which is the filename of the file you want to make a backup copy of. It is called by running something like $ bu myfile

Here’s the code. Comments welcome The code creates a timecode based on today’s date and the current time to the second, and appends that to the original filename. The a copy is saved with this new “timestamped” backup filename, right in the same directory. Easy-peasy! 

#!/bin/bash
OLDFILENAME=$1
DATECODE=$(date +%Y%m%d)
TIMECODE=$(date +%H%M%S)
NEWFILENAME="${OLDFILENAME}_backup${DATECODE}-$TIMECODE"
cp $OLDFILENAME $NEWFILENAME
SUCCESS=$?
if [ $SUCCESS -eq 0 ];then
 echo "OK! Copied \"$OLDFILENAME\" to \"$NEWFILENAME\""
else
 echo "FAIL! You'll need to try again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
fi

Posted under Linux

Using Adobe Illustrator CS4 (this procedure may also apply to CS3 and earlier versions, please let me know if it does) you can make a neat little object that looks like it is curved, rounded, and shiny, with a light shine highlight and edge darkening effect to get the full depth.

1. Start with an image layer, containing the image that will be the skin of the object (which is in our case a round convex button).
2. Put a new layer under it.
3. On the new layer create a circle (Ellipse (L) tool and hold Shift to force circular, hold Alt to anchor center point of ellipse while manipulating the size) that encompasses the part of the image that whall be visible on the final “button” to be created.
4. Create a radial gradient in the circle. Make it lighter in the center.
5. Create a new layer between the image layer and the circle layer.
6. Create another circle on this layer, a bit smaller than the last one, and shifted down a bit so it almost touches on the lower boundary of the circles.
7. On the same layer create an ellipse that is larger than the circle, but leaves a crescent at the top of the button, for the shine.
8. Using the layers box, and holding Shift, select both these layers. Then click Pathfinder > Subtract From Shape. This trims out all but the crescent.  (If it does the opposite, Undo (Ctrl-Z) back and reverse the order stacking order of the circle and ellipse on this layer, and try this step again.)
9. Create a new layer between the image layer and the original circle layer.
10. On this layer create a rectangle that covers the entire crescent.
11. In the rectangle, create a white-down-to-black gradient (at -90 deg.) using the standard black and white color pair.
12. Using the layers box again, select both the rectangle and crescent layers.
13. On the Transparency panel dropdown (located in the right-corner of the panel) menu selet Make Opacity Mask.
14. Select the original circle and copy it.
15. Select the image layer, and paste the circle using Ctrl-F.
16. Select the pasted circle. Remove the fill and stroke from it.
17. Select the entire image layer (which selects all sublayers too) and do Ctrl-7 to create a clipping mask. Now your button looks round.
18. Create a new layer above the image layer, but under the shine layer.
19. Paste the circle again into this new layer.
20. Convert the fill to a B&W gradient.
21. On the gradient, move the center nugget toward the black as far as it will go. This creates a domed shadow effect.
22. In the Transparency panel, select Mode of Multiply, then select Opacity of 20%.

Viola! Now you have a round  button that looks roundy and shiny.  Rotate the crescent layer to change the direction of light in the shine.

Great Adobe Illustrator tutorial I got this metod… thank you Veerle!

Posted under Graphic, Uncategorized, WebDev

I found some nice information on which browsers are being used, which resolutions and operating systems are running them, what desktop resolutions they have, etc. Very nice. See how fast Vista is losing usership…

• Browsers
• Browser displays
• Operating Systems

Info courtesy W3Schools

Posted under Browsers, Network, Operating System, WebDev

Sometimes in testing network settings and authentication ( for instance when setting up a Samba server and users on a CentOS, Ubuntu, or Feroda Linux system) I often find it useful to force my Windows PC client to “forget” the login username and password that it has on record, for the current session, so that I may login again with another username/password combo. Easily accomplished, this Windows trick works on all modern Microsoft operating systems.

The situation: You need to login again to a network share on a Windows file server, or a Linux server,  without rebooting the client computer.

The fix: Disconnect from the shares using the NET command.

1. Open a command prompt. (My favorite way is: Win-R, type cmd, press Enter)
2. Type NET USE * /DELETE
3. It will prompt you for verification, type Y and Enter.

That’s it! Enjoy, and may your login be forgotten!

Courtesy, Microsoft: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308582

Posted under Microsoft, Network, Software, Windows

Start the PHP file with this:

<?php
/*
Template Name: Snarfer
*/
?>

Posted under WebDev, WordPress

The most awesome emulator of all time, puTTY.exe, just got even easier to use. Along with loggiong automatically into a SSH session add the Windows shortcut that loads a saved session and launches it, now you have one click shell access to your Linux host from your Windows PC.

Here’s how:

1. Download puTTY.exe
2. Save it to the folder  C:\puTTY\
3. Open a Windows Explorer window in C:\puTTY\
4. Run puTTY.exe once, and create a “saved session”, making note of what you name it. My example below uses the name my neatly named Saved Session
5. Right-click-drag puTTY.exe and drop it next to itself, this creates a shortcut to the .exe file.
6. Right-click the shortcut you just created, on the popup menu click Properties.
7. In the Target box, add -load “your-saved-session-name” after C:\putty\putty.exe
8. The final content in the target box should look like:

   C:\putty\putty.exe -load "my neatly named Saved Session"

9. Save the shortcut. Viola! Move or copy this shortcut anywhere you like (e.g. your Desktop, your QuickLaunch toolbar, your custom explorer toolbar, etc.) and you have 1-click access to a command prompt on your Linux / Unix host.

Enjoy!

Posted under Apple, Freeware, Linux, Microsoft, Network, Software, WebDev, ZyXel

So, you have a Windows system that gets a BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) during bootup, and you can’t see what it says before it disappears. Not a big deal, except that the system won’t boot into safe mode either, so you can’t do the regular method, using the Windows GUI, to set the system properties settings so that the system does not automatically reboot when the blue screen appears. Yikes! Well, if you want to stop the system from rebooting beforee you can get the STOP: codes, and find out how to fix the problem, here is a really neat way:

How To Disable Automatic Restart For BSOD If You Are Unable To Get Into Windows

Download UBCD  here

Another neat tip from a Japanese Lenovo support board, save me some work today (use Google to translate):

Need to Repair Install Windows (second R during setup) when STOP: 0 × 0000007B (0 × F789EA94, 0) / INACESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE occurs on restore of OS onto new hardware / storage controller.

Thanks all for the help!

Posted under Hardware, Microsoft, Operating System, Software

Many thanks to Jon Lee at jonlee.ca for this excellent procedure allowing for the automtic login of a session using SSH and puTTY.exe terminal emulator. You da man!

——————————-

From his site:

As many web developers can attest to, logging into your server through SSH (Secure Shell) is one of the more common day-to-day tasks (you can even use it as a secure tunnel for your traffic). It only makes sense to automate this process which in turn can save many many keystrokes.

This how-to is written with PuTTY and Windows in mind and requires several other tools that are available from PuTTY’s website. So from their download page, make sure you have these files:

• PuTTY (putty.exe)
• PuTTYgen (puttygen.exe)

Then to automate SSH login, do the following:

1. Run PuTTYgen.
2. Select SSH-2 DSA as the Type of Key to generate.
3. Click generate and move your mouse around to generate randomness.
4. Click “Save Private Key” and save it somewhere on your computer.
5. Copy the entire content inside the box to your clipboard (this is your generated public key).
6. Login to your SSH server.
7. Create the file ~/.ssh/authorized_keys containing the generated public key (from step 3) on a single line.
8. Make this file readable (chmod 755).
9. Then open up PuTTY and navigate to Connection->Data and fill in the auto-login username.
10. Navigate to Connection->SSH->Auth and under Private-key, browse to the file you had saved earlier on your computer.

That’s it! Now you can try logging in to your SSH server and it should login automatically. If it works, make sure you save your session so you don’t have to repeat these steps every time!

Hopefully these steps work for everyone! Let me know if there are any problems.

——————————-

Had some problems with a CentOS5 server not accepting keys… found that this server was being finicky for some reason, and used this article on how to generate the keys on the Linux server, and then import the public key to the client Windows box. To make it automatically login simply do not enter any passphrase. This is probably a huge security risk or something like that, but if you’re using it on a secured LAN then perhaps it’s ok.

Posted under Linux, Network

The following is totally copied from myfixes.com excellent article.

This article applies to the following type of errors:

Resolution:

A. Boot the system into the Recovery Console and CHKDSK

B. Perform the System Restore
Inside the Recovery Console type the following commands to change the directory to the system restore directory:

If you get an Access Denied error:click here
If you don’t get an Access Denied error :

If there is no _resto~1 folder or if there are no restore points inside it:click here

If the _resto~1 folder exists, inside it there are several folders named RP1, RP2. These are restore points. RP1 is the oldest restore point. You can use

to view what RP folders are available. If no restore points are available click here. Otherwise choose the most convenient RP folder. Supposing we have RP3 available let’s type in:

Change the directory to snapshot:

Restore the main registry branches. If you are being asked if you want to overwrite type in y to agree.

Type exit to reboot the system. Start the computer normally

Based on:
The support.microsoft.com article:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q307545&ID=KB;EN-US;Q307545

The icompute.info article:
http://www.icompute.info/System_restore_from_xp_cd.htm

Posted under Microsoft