Most of the time I’ll ignore the crazy and stupid comments that appear on Youtube but while listening to Bill Nye on this video I glanced at the comments.
Oh no. It’s true. Youtube makes you stupid.
Author Archives: Donncha
The Wonderful End of the World grows Companion Cubes
As part of the Potato Sack promotion last year a number of indie games received updates featuring content from Valve games. I didn’t take much notice of them at the time but I just found out that The Wonderful End of the World got a secret level with companion cubes! Love the cover of the similarly named Portal song!
Hide the annoying IRC bits in Xchat
I’m a big fan of Xchat (Windows version), an IRC client I’ve used for over a decade in Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. Here’s some tricks that you might find useful if you use IRC:
Hide the join/part/quit messages. If your IRC channel is busy you’ll know how annoying these are. The xkcd wiki has instructions for other IRC clients.
All channels: /set irc_conf_mode on
One channel: Right click on a channel, “Settings->Hide join/part messages” (src)
Hide the “UserX is known as UserY” messages. Users have scripts or use ZNC that will rename themselves when they go away or disconnect from the proxy. On a busy channel this can generate a huge amount of text.
Settings > advanced > text events
highlight “change nick”
in text box below, highlight that text and delete
press enter
click “ok” (src)
Many more tips here of course but I think the first tip above is the most useful, at least for me!
The happiest kid on Earth
WP Super Cache 1.2
UPDATE! I have just updated the plugin version number to 1.2. Thanks to everyone who tested it!
A new version of WP Super Cache is almost out and here are the changes in this full page caching plugin for WordPress.
OH! Hang on. Almost out? Yeah. I’m going to release it tomorrow but I would love a couple of hardy folks to try it first. People on the forums have been using the development version for several weeks without incident but I would really appreciate it if a few more tried it before the general public gets it. You know what to do, I don’t need to explain. Here’s wp-super-cache.zip. This is the version running on this very site right now and it’s very stable. Go at it! I’ll update this post in the morning, UTC. Thanks.
So, those changes eh?
- Garbage collection of old cache files is significantly improved. I added a scheduled job that keeps an eye on things and restarts the job if necessary. Also, if you enable caching from the Easy page garbage collection will be enabled too.
- Editors can delete single cached files from the admin bar now. (thread)
- Fixed the cached page counter on the settings page (thread)
- Some sites that updated to 1.0 experienced too much garbage collection. There are still stragglers out there who haven’t upgraded but that’s fixed now! (thread)
- Supercached mobile files are now used as there was a tiny little typo that needed fixing. (thread)
- If your site is in a directory and you saw problems updating a page then that should be fixed now. (thread)
- The deactivate hook has been changed so your configuration isn’t hosed when you upgrade. Unfortunately this will only happen after you do this upgrade.
- Some sites use custom cookies with the LOGGED_IN_COOKIE constant. Added support for that.
- Added support for WPTouch Pro, but it appears to be flaky still. Anyone have time to work on that? I don’t.
- Some sites had problems with scheduled posts. For some reason the plugin thought the post was in draft mode and then because it only checked the same post once, when the post magically became published the cache wasn’t cleared. That’s fixed, thanks to the debug logging of several patient users.
- And more bug fixes and translation updates.
If you have problems the first place to look should be the forums (or try here too where things lived for a long time). Chances are someone else had the same issue before you and maybe they fixed it.
Commodore 64: 8 Bit Legend
Impressive video showing off some of the most popular games of the C64 and the biggest or most famous groups in the C64 demoscene. Must have taken ages to make.
Skip forward to 10:00 into the video for a message from Jim Butterfield. Though recorded in the 80’s I presume, the message still applies. Programming can be fun.
(via Jaz)
C64 fans will like this theme
If you’re a fan of that strikingly handsome and powerful computer, the Commodore 64, you will no doubt be itching to try this Commodore theme for WordPress. It turns your blog into what every C64 owner saw when they powered on the computer. I’m disappointed it doesn’t retain the 40 character line but I guess some exceptions had to be made “in the name of progress”. We didn’t have Youtube back then either but if we did you can be sure it would be full of dodgy VHS copies of Glenroe and Cheers.
Of much more interest to a certain demographic would be a WordPress theme that embeds blog posts in an Amiga intro or C64 intro using HTML5? Someone will read a DYCP version of this post, right?
(Thanks Ian for the link!)
Control your Android phone with a PS3 controller
Now, this isn’t going to work on all phones but the Sixaxis Controller Android app allows you to replicate touch, keyboard and mouse controls on your Android phone. I used it briefly with a profile from here to control Minecraft. The profile is for the SGS3 so I need to adjust it slightly for the smaller screen of my Galaxy S 2 but it worked reasonably well.
Check if your phone is compatible by using this free compatibility checker first. You pair the controller with your phone by using your PC first to set the “master MAC address”, then hope the phone pairs. It’s not for the faint hearted but it does work.
Also keep an eye on this Reddit thread.
Play Speccy Games Online
Ah no, not another retro post? Oh yes! ZX Spectrum.net will give you a reason to run Java again if you were a fan of the rubber keyed micro. Thanks Paolo for the link!
Deep in her Eyes
I knew this song was familiar when I first heard it. It’s the theme tune to the game Uplink which I haven’t actually played at all but I had the OST from some game bundle.
Turns out it was used in a party invite for Assembly ’94. It was a favourite of mine from back then. You can download the brilliant .s3m version here.
Anyone else have fond memories of the MOD scene? The top favourites on modarchives.org will help!