Forged Defiance

Here’s a handy little feature that I find useful.  If you ever play around with the size or location of the iTunes window and want to make it fit the screen better, simply follow the instructions:

If you’re on Windows:

hold Shift and either double-click the title bar or single-click the maximise button  (The title bar is the small bar at the top that says “iTunes” in the middle.)

If you’re on Mac OS:

hold Option and click the Zoom (+) button

This’ll reset the size and position to its default for your screen resolution.  Assuming you haven’t changed screen resolution since installing it, it’ll look just as it did when you first installed it — nearly filling the entire screen, but not quite.  It’s also a very useful shortcut if you ever change your screen resolution.

Doing the operation a second time will move the iTunes window back to where it was before you started reading this article and messing with it.  Simple!

That was a mouthful of a title.

Over time I’ve played and thoroughly enjoyed the Ace Attorney series of games, from Phoenix Wright to Apollo Justice.  But for those of you familiar to the series, you’ll notice that this is the soundtrack for the third game in the series.  So why have I posted this one?

You see, this soundtrack posting has a small story behind it.  A while back a perfectionist of a soundtrack ripper called TheRedPriest ripped the soundtrack and uploaded it to his website.  He gets wound up by pops and blips in tracks — I can relate to that…

Anyway, unfortunately like so many good things on the web, the website went offline!  Luckily, a member of the forum called GUI uploaded the soundtrack and all was good within the world.

Since I hate having just one mirror for things that have had so much time and effort put into them, and because I like the soundtrack so much, I decided to host the soundtrack for myself.

Just to make it clear: I did not rip this soundtrack or have any input in its ripping!  I am but a simple mirror, wanting to preserve the great work of a video game soundtrack ripper.

Hope that everyone enjoys this as much as I do.

Download the Phoenix Wright — Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations soundtrack.

Here’s a rather funky photo I took at Mottisfont Abbey National Trust garden.  I love the shape of this flower — I don’t think I’d seen anything quite like it until that day.  Doesn’t it look like some kind of space-faring organism?  I’ve probably seen something that looks like it in Star Trek…

It also seems to remind me of an enemy from Metroid…  Although since I can’t remember the enemy or the real name of this plant, I’m just going to call it a Blooper for now.

Edit 2009-06-20: Boldly Growing is totally a better name.

Have you ever somehow managed to break the Gadget file association in Windows Vista?  I have somehow, and that means that you can no longer install gadgets.  Double-clicking a .gadget file does nothing, and the Sidebar offers no option to install gadgets itself!

If you try to re-associate the files with Windows Sidebar by telling to Open With… and navigating to the Sidebar executable, you’ll have found that that doesn’t help — all it does is bring the Sidebar to focus, but doesn’t install the gadget.

Fortunately, help is at hand: all you need to do is **download the following archive **and apply the registry entries by double-clicking the .reg file inside the archive, and saying Yes at the prompt.

Download Gadget Association registry entries.

All I did was export the corresponding keys from the registry on a Vista machine with a working Sidebar — nothing else!

Hope this helps others like it has me.

Update 2010-03-04: Added another potential solution courtesy of Blazt in the comments. Thanks!

So, you have a phone with root permissions?  Finding whenever a program requests root permissions the Superuser Permissions program hangs (usually with a black screen or even a force close) at the “SU request” screen?

Fortunately there are a couple of things you can try, which I’ll detail for you.

First, make sure USB Debugging is enabled.  To do that:

1. Press the Home button.
2. Press the Menu button.
3. Select Settings > Applications > Development.
4. Make sure that USB Debugging is checked.  If not, check it.

If that fixes your problem, you are done!  If not, then you can try clearing the Superuser Permissions data.  This is just any options you have set within the app and whether or not particular apps are always allowed or blocked — you won’t lose any of your other data, and it’s easy to allow/deny stuff again.

To clear the data:

1. Press the Home button.
2. Press the Menu button.
3. Select Settings > Applications > Manage applications.
4. Find Superuser Permissions on the list.  Tap it.
5. Tap “Clear data” and “Clear cache” if they’re enabled.

This should prevent any hangs with Superuser Permissions in the future.

This works on the HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1) with the 1.5 and 1.6 firmwares, and presumably other Android devices with the Superuser Permissions app.

If you’ve ever got your PIN code wrong too many times and got your SIM locked, you were probably as surprised as I was when Android gives you no option to unlock the phone! Fortunately there’s an answer.

To unlock your Android-based device go to the Emergency Call screen and enter in the following (replace the angled brackets with the appropriate info):

So for example:

As a side effect this should work on any SIM-containing device at a screen where you can enter phone numbers, not just devices running the Android OS.  As of writing, Android-based devices are the HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1) and HTC Magic.

And make sure you keep your PUK code secret — anyone can override your PIN with their own using it!

Thanks to theWeir for posting that solution.

Ah, Advance Wars 2.  What is it about you I thought was so amazing?  The lovable, single-minded cast?  The deep turn-based strategy?  The little battle animations of infantry flying off the screen?

Well, okay, all of those things are very good reasons to love the game, but there’s another one that sticks out for me too.

The soundtrack!

Once I completed the normal campaign and could buy the Sound Room, that was it.  Time and again I’ve inserted the cart into my GBA purely for the reason of enjoying the music on an infinite loop.

Yes, I am that way inclined as a person, but there’s something about this soundtrack that keeps me coming back.  I’m not sure if it’s the enthusiastic beats or the simple, catchy tunes, but this is one soundtrack I struggle to put down.

But anyway, enough of me rambling about game soundtracks; judge for yourself!  Ripped by yours truly and packaged as 192kbps MP3s, the Advance Wars 2 soundtrack is one you should definitely have in your library if you enjoy the game or the kind of music you get from a GBA.

Download the Advance Wars 2 Soundtrack.

Also available from another site I co-run, Black Hole Headquarters.

Hello, and welcome to the first post of my blog!

You’ve probably found yourself here looking for soundtracks or computer tips or something, in which case go crazy clicking around!  This is the first post, so it can’t really have that much interesting stuff in it.

Wait.  You mean you’re reading this post because you’re interested in what I have to say?

Okay!  If that’s the case, then let me talk to you about, well, first posts.  You see, I’ve been reading first posts and about how to write good first posts a lot lately, and if it’s one thing that struck me, it’s this: there is no single good way.

To elaborate on that, there is no single good way to introduce a blog; it depends on what effect you’re going for.

If you’re a techno-centric blog, then you can either jump straight in with your first article, or introduce the blog with what you’re going to write about and feature in the coming posts.

If you’re opening a quasi-professional blog with personal touches, then your introduction to the blogosphere might be a demonstration of your recent work and your writing abilities (be it prose or code).  Or maybe it’ll be a friendly introduction to yourself, talking about what interests you at the moment.  People like to relate to others, especially if they can imagine meeting and getting along with you in pub. Maybe they already do!

And if you’re opening a Livejournal blog for noting down your day-to-day activities and rants…  Well, you can do anything.

I’ve seen bloggers talk about themselves and what they do in their first posts.  Others talk about their current interests.  Some religion.  Some rants (they seem particularly popular).  Others launch into their usual rhythm so well that you click further into their archive, only to realise that was their first post.

In any case, the one thing they all have in common is that, except for being a first post, they don’t.  It’s as simple as that.

In my case, I’ve chosen to talk about first posts themselves.  It struck me as the right thing to do, because I find it kinda interesting.  After all, everyone is different.

That and, well, it was about time I did something to man up and release this website.

Writing blog posts is one such activity.

Yeah.

PS: Notice how I future-proofed the post? Mhmm.