Recently in Computers Category

Shaun Inman (an immensely brilliant person, who I have nothing to do with (besides buying everything he makes)) posted a quick recap of his latest creation - Noises Entertainment System / NoiseES for iPhone and iPod Touch (iTunes Link). He tells us that in Horror Vacui 2 (iTunes Link) there is an Easter Egg for Mimeoverse (his unreleased, awesome-looking side-scrolling game). I couldn't find any help on Google as to what the Easter Egg might be, so took a couple minutes to figure it out myself. If you'd like to do it yourself, the secret lies in the source code of the Horror Vacui 2 mini site. You'll need to decode that base64 png mentioned in the code.secret javascript… or just look at the image I created (with some help from this decoder):

Just go into the options of Horror Vacui 2, and select the options in that order. For you non-graphical people, when in the options, tap the small playing board, large playing board, flip draw style, roulette draw style, small playing board, flip draw style (or 2, 1, 4, 3, 2, 4). You'll be graced with four playing styles of Jaunt, Fortress, and King (sorry, all you fans of Under). Anyway, just thought I could share. Enjoy!

I've been contemplating some form of an E-Book Reader for a number of months. I go back and forth between a Nook and a Kindle (though I suppose I could consider a Sony Digital Reader as well (Amazon Link)). I've had an iPhone for years and although I love it, I'm completely convinced that nobody should read a book on a backlight device. If you've tried, I can only imagine you've had a similar experience to mine - it sucks, and your eyes get tired (especially considering I do most of my book-reading in bed). E Ink is the way to go (which both the Kindle and Nook (the black and white one) have).

No matter what the device is, however, I have complaints with DRM (the way they don't let you copy your digital books to other devices you own). Much like music, and how I listen to it on any number of devices, or places, I don't want to be limited to where I can read or reference digital books (I won't go into the discussion about how physical books are irreplaceable). With that in mind, I wanted to find a way to remove the copy-protection from the books I buy. If I buy it on Barnes & Noble, I'd like to reference it on my iPhone, or maybe on a Kindle (which I don't own). Or, if I buy it on Amazon, I'd like to read it on a Nook or my phone. You get the point. To that end, I found a couple invaluable resources for doing doing just that, and wanted to pass them along.

• I♥Cabbages is obviously interested in (and immensely skilled at) reverse engineering, specifically the copy protection around digital books.
• Darkreverser's blog is the treasure trove for the tools needed to remove the DRM from the books you buy. Obviously not adept at blogging, he opts to post updates to the tools in the comments, so read there for the newest tools (here, as of this writing).
• The tools you download are GUI Python scripts, which you'll run on your desktop. You'll probably need some extra tools installed to be able to do that:
  • Mac users need to download a copy of Xcode
  • Windows users, they recommend ActiveState's Active Python Version 2.X (32 bit).
• Calibre is the best (free) way to convert your books from one format to another. It has far more features than I understand, but it's easy enough to figure out the basics.

I've already bought books from both stores, and these handy tools have allowed me the freedom to read them where I choose. Now, I can buy where the price is better, and read wherever I choose. Don't mistake this blog post or my intentions. Don't steal books. My interest in removing copy protection is to let me read where I choose, not to let others read what I choose.

P.S. I promise not to post something immensely geeky to my blog tomorrow… but you should subscribe to my Links feed as well.

P.P.S. Have you played Minecraft yet? It's immensely pointless and addicting. Don't miss out on Minepedia to answer your questions, and Brown & Bloom to help things look better.

I've made a (practically completely useless) T-SQL ASCII Text Art Generator. Despite my affection for all things Apple, during the day people pay me to be a Microsoft/Windows geek - specifically a T-SQL and Microsoft's SQL Server (and Reporting/Intelligence Services) geek. I needed a little brush-up on loops, and went overboard to make this thing. If you feed in the right stuff, you'll end up with useless things like this:

88""Yb 888888 8888b.  88""Yb  dP"Yb  
88__dP 88__    8I  Yb 88__dP dP   Yb 
88"""  88""    8I  dY 88"Yb  Yb   dP 
88     888888 8888Y"  88  Yb  YbodP  

I've made the code available for your useless purposes (and I offer no waranty or support for this stuff). You can see the clean version here and the more easily editable version here. I've licensed the code under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike. Copy, distribute, transmit, adapt the work, so long as you give me credit for the original, and if you distribute this (or a variation) that you have a similar license. I have no clue how well it'll work in MySQL, but I'm sure somebody can find out. No matter what, enjoy.

Movable Type 5 came out recently. I know you care. In reality, you probably didn't notice, but I figure that I'm as qualified as anybody else to give a review of the CMS which powers my site. From my limited experience, here are the key changes or additions to Movable Type 5:

• Sites
• Revision History
• Dashboard

I'll set out right now what type of site I personally host - I am a one author, multi-blog content sharing, action streaming, stat-tracking, lessn-shortening, non-asset managing, non-user registering, funky content incorporating site. I'm writing about me. I know what a handful of other people do/use on their installations of Movable Type - because they've told me, I've figured it out, or, I built their site. If you're into this sort of thing, or have any interest - read on. Otherwise, I feel no offense at you going on to the next item in your feed reader. I'll soon return to some long overdue pictures of my kids in the next post and I won't talk about our car accident (very much). I promise.