blog.ryara.net

IMPORTANT: Turns out I was wrong about why SDL_gfx doesn’t compile – thanks to sweetlilmre for pointing it out.

I strongly suggest using his suggestions for steps 2 and 8, whereas step 4 merely is a matter of preference. You should probably skip step 10 as well, since static_cast() is not C, but C++.

Sadly there are no officially provided binaries for SDL_gfx (unlike most other SDL_* libraries), and so I had to compile it myself. SDL_gfx, however has just about no documentation telling you how to do this – and the methods provided doesn’t even work.

Since it took me a while to get this working, so I thought I’d write it down for future reference.

1. Download and unpack the source package.
2. Rename *.c to *.cpp. This is to solve what seems to be this bug, that supposedly was fixed in VS6.
3. Extract sdlgfx.vcproj from ‘Other Builds\VisualC7.zip’ into the source directory and open it, and go through the Conversion Wizard.
4. Remove the source files from the project, and then add the *.cpp files and the *.h files to the project. This is needed because the paths in the original project file are incorrect.
5. Change target to Release.
6. Add SDL.lib to Linker -> Input -> Additional Dependencies in the project properties.
7. Add BUILD_DLL to C/C++ -> Preprocessor -> Preprocessor Definitions.
8. In SDL_gfxPrimitives, replace

#ifdef WIN32

#endif

with

#define lrint(x) (floor(x+(x>0) ? 0.5 : -0.5))

(As per this site)
9. Compile, and save the solution somewhere when asked to.
10. There should be 4 compilation errors, all of which can be solved by using static_cast<>():
SDL_rotozoom.cpp (Line 501) becomes:
pc = static_cast<tColorRGBA*>(dst->pixels);
SDL_rotozoom.cpp (Line 657) becomes:
pc = static_cast<tColorY*>(dst->pixels);
SDL_gfxPrimitives.cpp (Line 3105) becomes:
sab = sqrt(static_cast<double>(a2 + b2));
SDL_gfxPrimitives.cpp (Line 4289) becomes:
currentFontdata = static_cast<const unsigned char*>(fontdata);
11. Compile. The project should now compile correctly, and you will find sdlgfx.dll and sdlgfx.lib in the Release sub-folder of your source directory.

Now, this is all good, but I would really prefer either official binaries, *or* fixes to the code problems, and instructions that are actually up to date.

Since there was interest I’ve now uploaded my binaries as well. It’s SDL_gfx-2.0.17 compiled against SDL-1.2.13, and can be downloaded here.

Since I had a some time on my hands I decided to make a web page that cycles through a collection of flash movies and shows each one for a specified amount of time.

It should work in most modern browsers – I’ve verified with Opera and Firefox (Internet Explorer doesn’t work).

You can find the source of the page here, and a sample of it in use here.

I finally got SSBB working, and here’s how. But let’s start with what does NOT work.

First, my setup:
PAL Wii with latest firmware (Bought on the release date)
WiiKey (Firmware 1.9s)

Try 1 (No go):
Enabling update blocker on the WiiKey:
Doesn’t work, from reading a litte on the net I found out that you have to enable dev mode as well.

Try 2 (A bit better):
Enabled dev mode as well as the update blocker on the WiiKey. The disc loads correctly, but when you try to start it you just get a black screen.

Try 3 (Almost there):
Got a tip to try it in 50hz mode. Did that, and… it works. However the game runs awfully slow, and you get audio artefacts from some sounds which means it’s not really playable.

Try 4 (Success!):
Decided to try FreeLoader for Wii. I disabled update blocker and dev mode on the WiiKey, and changed back to 60hz.
First I went to the disc screen and inserted the FreeLoader disc and waited for it to load (you may see some graphic artefacts during this time). Then I ejected the FreeLoader disc and inserted my SMBB disc and started it. And it worked fine.

If you get a white screen saying the disc can’t be read after the “Loading…” message you’re propably suffering from a bad burn.

One thing I really don’t like is libraries that lacks documentation. Which, incidentally, is exactly what ruby’s readline module does.

Happily, however, I found this post which explains at least the basic usage – thank you, Adam!

You sometimes want announce what music you’re playing on IRC, but when using irssi on a remote server this becomes something of a problem. Therefore I wrote a script for irssi that track info for the currently playing track from last.fm, and prints it to the current channel.

To use the script:
1. Get it and place it in your ~/.irssi/scripts folder.
2. Optionally place a symlink to it in ~/.irssi/scripts/autorun directory to load it automatically when you start irssi.
3. Edit the file and change the $lastfmuser variable to your Last.fm username.
4. Load the script in irssi: /RUN npScriptLastFm.pl
5. You can now use the script by using the command /np

As written in the file itselft it’s distributed under the MIT license.
Hope you’ll find it useful.

Update 2: It is no longer recommended to use this script. See this comment for details and a better alternative.

Update 1: Thanks to Salminen (see comments), the script should now be working, I’ve updated the link so it points to the working version.

This is something I’ve wanted for quite some time: the new style Last.fm plugin takes Last.fm integration to Rhythmbox. Download here. You can install it by following these steps:
1. Add PORTDIR_OVERLAY=”/usr/local/portage/” to your make.conf
2. Run ‘mkdir -p /usr/local/portage’
3. Download the ebuild package from the link above and unpack it: tar xvjf new-style-lastfm-ebuild.tar.bz2 -C /usr/local/portage/
4. Emerging rhythmbox as you normally would.

And that should be it. Also, as the author of the patch writes, remember to only have one of the Last.fm plugins enabled at any time.