Author: Chris A. Matenaers

Working in Digital Marketing, strong liberal world-views & privacy advocate. My hobbies are scuba-diving and coding. I'm also a huge Star Wars fan.

Quake Live now for Linux

I have been playing ID software’s ego shooter since the years of Doom. Back then I wasn’t really ‘hooked’ and found ego shooter a rather dull waste of time.

Although, I did went on playing Doom 2 and it’s franchise, but again for lack of something better to do.

When I first saw Quake with it’s very pixelated graphics, I immediately disliked it. It wasn’t until me and my friends started patching computers into a network, using Coax cables at the time, that I learned that mouseaim and strafing opened a new dimension to Doom legacy…
When I then saw the game in GL mode, I realised the potential the game had… Shadows and pixel free animation was such a great improvement to the game.


Shortly afterwards I got hooked. I played all the expansions, with my favourite one being Painkiller, a multiplayer only mod. It featured the can of beans (gave you 100 HP, but made you fart), the bear trap and the gravity orb. It was good fun and we had lots of laughs when we were playing it some years ago. I even played Alien Quake, which was so dark and scary, it made me jump everytime I saw (or could hear) and enemy.


I played SO much that I was by far the best in my league of friends. I started playing online, even went to a few tournaments and bigger events.

Then came the long awaited Quake 2 in 1997.

It was different. A lot different. Apart from my usual problem of not having a high end machine to play the game, it was also a lot slower then Quake. The rocket launcher was not as strong anymore, the
jumps didn’t seem to be as powerful (although I found out that they were better than in Quake, but way too late) and noone really wanted to spend much time playing it.
Needless to say, I finished my way through the story mode and then never played it again. I saw people playing it on LAN parties, but I stuck to good old Quake or played Blobby :)…

Two years later, in 1999, ID software released the best ego shooter the world has seen to this day: Quake 3 Arena.


But at the time it was out and new and people were playing it religiously, I didn’t have a computer that was able to support that game. In later years, when it was still ‘in’, my computer was good enough to play it and I developed some half way decent skills. I played with friends till the early dawn, went out and played on LAN party tournaments and even got into moderate ranks from time to time.


But I couldn’t play online (because T-Online didn’t have a proper ping). The usual mods came out, within them a few really good one: Challenge Pro Mode Arena, another Painkiller and the engine was used in pretty much any ego-shooter you could think of.
In the meantime, Quake 3 developed into somewhat of a religion. Even girls were starting to play Quake 3! But it got worse: people weren’t afraid anymore to admit to being excessive gamers, in fact some even painted to logo on their skin:

(but there were also pretty ones)

A few years later and I had a very decent Quake 3 able machine, but guess what: nobody played anymore :(… I found a few people to give me a game on rare occasions, but these poor guys had no Quake experience and lost constantly, even when I tried to let them win. I had moved countries twice and playing with the old team was nearly impossible.

Eventually I migrated to Linux and by that time discovered OpenArena, which was good fun and had a nice community, but that community was small and you often couldn’t get games going. Still, I was very fond of the usual playmates 🙂

In my frustration I tried Quake 4, a title I actually bought – don’t ask me why…


Until I heated rumors about Quake Live: Quake 3 but browser based! How cool was that idea? I got my beta account fairly quickly and even installed Windoze to play it, but eventually gave up on the dual boot, as I never started Windows. Now, another 7 month down the line, there is a Linux native Firefox plugin for Quake Live. My prayers to the ID software god have been heard!


I haven’t been playing all that much, as i hardly have time for it. It’s still a great game and it’s always good to play it with some familiar faces…
I hope you will join me online for some frags soon. Play the best ego shooter in your bowser: Quake Live! If you want to connect with me, my in-game name is: d3ngar (surprise!).

UVC webcam upside down image

I have a laptop with a buld-in webcam. This would normally be all well and good, but the damn thing has a problem with the picture being upside down…

If you have the same problem, here is the solution:

  1. Download the new uvcvideo from here and extract it.
  2. Extract the file (tar xjvf uvcvideo.tar.bz2)
  3. Get one of the patches: 1_mirrored, 1_notMirrored, 2_mirrored, 2_notMirrored (courtesy of arjos85)
  4. Save the patch in the folder ~/linux/drivers/media/video/uvc/uvc_video.c (~ is the path to the just downloaded and extracted driver)
  5. Then run: patch -p0 < [your_patch]
  6. Now build the module: make && make install
  7. load it with: modprobe uvcvideo

Now everything should be working correctly. Try it with Skype or Cheese!

Let me know if there were any problems…

Malware removal: PersonalAV

A friend of mine contacted me today with this issue:
PersonalAV – a malware programme she accidentally installed and can’t get rid of.

Here are some instructions to get rid of the programme, but I don’t know if it comes with any additional Trojans or something…

Step 1: Kill the running processes.

Go to the Task Manager:
right click on free space in the windows panel OR:
Press Ctrl + Alt + Del to get into a menu and choose the Task Manager

End the following processes:
PersonalAv.exe
services.exe
PerAvir.exe
winlogon.exe
services.exe

Step 2: Remove registry keys:

Start > Run > ‘regedit’ > Enter.
Search for the following keys and remove them:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUninstallPersonal Antivirus_is1
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetEnumRootLEGACY_ITGRDENGINE
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesITGrdEngine
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftInternet Explorer “PrS”
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRun “Personal Antivirus”

Step 3: Remove the programme files:

I have written two scripts that will do this work for you. Use either Windoze XP or Windoze Vista…

You can also manually delete them:
PersonalAv.exe
c:Documents and SettingsAll UsersDesktopPersonal Antivirus.lnk
c:Documents and SettingsAll UsersStart MenuProgramsPersonal Antivirus
c:Documents and SettingsAll UsersStart MenuProgramsPersonal AntivirusPersonal Antivirus Home Page.lnk
c:Documents and SettingsAll UsersStart MenuProgramsPersonal AntivirusPersonal Antivirus.lnk
c:Documents and SettingsAll UsersStart MenuProgramsPersonal AntivirusPurchase License.lnk
%UserProfile%Application DataMicrosoftInternet ExplorerQuick LaunchPersonal Antivirus.lnk
%UserProfile%Application DataPersonal Antivirus
%UserProfile%Application DataPersonal Antivirussettings.ini
%UserProfile%Application DataPersonal Antivirusuill.ini
%UserProfile%Application DataPersonal Antivirusunins000.exe
%UserProfile%Application DataPersonal AntivirusUninstall Personal Antivirus.lnk
%UserProfile%Application DataPersonal Antivirusdb
%UserProfile%Application DataPersonal Antivirusdbconfig.cfg
%UserProfile%Application DataPersonal AntivirusdbTimeout.inf
%UserProfile%Application DataPersonal AntivirusdbUrls.inf
%UserProfile%Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftWindowslog.txt
%UserProfile%Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftWindowspguard.ini
%UserProfile%Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftWindowsservices.exe
c:Program FilesPersonal Antivirus
c:Program FilesPersonal Antivirusactivate.ico
c:Program FilesPersonal AntivirusExplorer.ico
c:Program FilesPersonal AntivirusPerAvir.exe
c:Program FilesPersonal Antivirusunins000.dat
c:Program FilesPersonal Antivirusuninstall.ico
c:Program FilesPersonal Antivirusworking.log
c:Program FilesPersonal Antivirusdb
c:Program FilesPersonal AntivirusdbDBInfo.ver
c:Program FilesPersonal Antivirusdbia080614.db
c:Program FilesPersonal Antivirusdbia080618x.db
c:Program FilesPersonal AntivirusLanguages
c:Program FilesPersonal AntivirusLanguagesIAEs.lng
c:Program FilesPersonal AntivirusLanguagesIAFr.lng
c:Program FilesPersonal AntivirusLanguagesIAGer.lng
c:Program FilesPersonal AntivirusLanguagesIAIt.lng
c:WINDOWSsystem32log.txt
%UserProfile%Application DataMicrosoftWindowswinlogon.exe
%UserProfile%Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftInternet ExploreriGSh.png
%UserProfile%Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftInternet ExploreriMSh.png
%UserProfile%Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftInternet ExploreriPSh.png
%UserProfile%Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftInternet Exploreriv.exe
%UserProfile%Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftWindowslog.txt
%UserProfile%Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftWindowspguard.ini
%UserProfile%Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftWindowsservices.exe

Good luck!

However, if you don’t want to do all this and are contemplating reinstalling Windows anyways, make the right decision and install a different OS altogether…

URL for your Dynamic home IP

To be able to connect to computers or servers on the internet, you will have to be able to reach that computers IP address. You might want to connect to your home computer from anywhere in the world, but the IP your ISP gives you changes from time to time.

This is quite common and, unless you constantly carry a note with your IP, you won’t be able to make use of your home computer.
I myself run various services that are remotely available from my home desktop computer: FTP server, VNC server, MySQL, Torrent interface and there are many more soon to come.

To bypass the problem of a variable IP, you will need to use a service like DynDNS. There are many other free service provider out there, I just happen to chose this one.
DynDNS is a free service that, upon updating through their API or interface, makes a record of your IP address and routes that to a URL that you can access through the internet.

Step 1: Simply create an account!

Firewalls and / or routers:
Most commonly people have a router these days. A router acts like a firewall and will not let incoming transfers through, unless it specifically has been set-up to do so and to a specific internal IP. In some cases you can also use the DMZ (DeMilitarised Zone) of the router / firewall. The DMZ will channel all incoming requests through to set IP as if the machine would be connected straight to your external IP. This is not recommended unless you use a software firewall in addition to protect yourself.

Use NAT (Network Address Translation) or how it is called in my router ‘Application Sharing’ to map the incoming requests from any port to a specific internal IP and port. In most cases FTP will run on 21, for example. VNC will run on 5901…
If you use a software firewall, open the same ports on your software firewall. In the Windoze firewall, you have to use ‘Exceptions’, I think (although I haven’t done this in a while).

Step 2: Punch holes in your firewall

Now the last step: You will have to auto-update the DynDNS site from time to time. Most of the newer routers have a feature build in to update Dynamic DNS. You simply select your DynDNS service and add your username and password. Otherwise, you might need to install a programme that will make these updates for you.
There is a list of update tools on the DynDNS website here.

Step 3: Add service to auto update your IP with dynamic DNS host

Transdroid – Connect to your home computers torrent client

Hi,

This is a recommendation for those of you using an Google Android Phone, such as my HTC Magic:

I often find myself talking about a programme or tool or something that I want to get from torrents while I’m on the road or at friends places. Of course, so far, I wasn’t able to download that then right away and once I got back home, I totally forgotten about said download.

But the solution is here: with Transdroid, a free and easy to use application you can now track the status of your torrents, search torrents while on the go and add torrents to the tracker while you are out and about.

How to get it? – Transdroid is available through the Android Market.

It works with the most commen torrent clients, I use Transdroid with Transmission, the standard Gnome / ubuntu torrent client.

Setup was easy and a guide can be found on the transdroid-blog. This will get you going while you are in the range of your local network (eg. you connect your android phone to your home wireless), but to truly use it on-the-go, you will have to have a web-URL or static URL for your machine that is available from the net.

Here is how you can get one if you are connect through a common ISP that provides dynamic IPs…

eBay initiative: Demand an end to unfair trade practices

Hi,

I received an email from eBay this morning, informing me about a petition they want their users to sign.
I can only recommend everyone signs it as it is, in my opinion, a very important part of retaining your rights and a free market – it’s about the sale of branded goods.

We all know that there are more counterfeit products on the markets than genuine ones. I myself tend to buy branded goods, although they have to be reasonably priced. I also buy ‘counterfeit’ products – or ‘like’ products – not because I want to damage the brand that’s been copied, but because I like their product, but find that less quality at a much more affordable price is what I’m happy with.

Who expects to buy a genuine Armani jacket for £15? – Someone incredibly stupid! But if it’s nice, I would buy it, well aware that it’s fake, but I’m happy with purchasing it.
When Armani says that this damages their profits, they clearly do not understand that I would never pay £500 for the same item, no matter how wealthy I am. I am clearly not their target consumer. Nor would I go and claim that this is a genuine product or do I care what the label says.

While I do buy counterfeit and often prefer counterfeits to the real brand, I encourage the purchase of those products from countries that have ethical workplace policies: no child labour, fair wages…

There is another side to it. The bigger brands are trying to eliminate the re-sale of their products through eBay alltogether. This is not because they fear for their brand name, but simply because of their greed. If you really want Prada, but can’t get it used, you will have to purchase it new.
This not only puts pressure on your wallet, it also infringes on your rights as owner of the products.
When you buy something it becomes rightfully yours… You should be allowed to wear, show off, sell or destroy the product as you please. It’s yours.

Once authorities take away your rights to your own property, what could that mean? – You would own a watch, but will later be forbidden to look at it; you have dog food; but you aren’t allowed to feed it to your dog, throw it away or consume it yourself; you have a bank account, but won’t be allowed to get money off it; you have a house, but won’t be allowed to live in it. The abstractions are endless, but it’s important to understand the concept: if something is yours, you should have all rights to do with itas you please as long as you don’t harm others…

For all these reasons, I encourage you to sign the eBay petition!

Trees that smell like semen

Hi,

As you may know, if you follow my Twitter updates, I recently complained that Hyde Park smells of semen all day, especially around the Serpentine. I cycle through there morning and evening and endure more or less endure the stench, but had very few people believe my plight.

For days I thought something perverted is happening near the serpentine, but thanks to a work colleague, I found out that it’s actually true.

Apparently the Bradford Pear and a few varieties smell strongly like spunk when in bloom.
Here is a picture, unfortunately it’s not the most brilliant quality:
Although the wikipedia article does not mention the smell, there are plenty of other sources on the net that do mention it, plus, it’s on Y!Answers.

I read that this pear tree is preferred in urban areas, because it grows higher and not so wide as the average pear tree.

Publish Post


On the other hand, I wonder why the park authorities didn’t plan ahead for this and chose to use other trees use that don’t smell like the jizz?

Gourmet Burger Kitchen Voucher

I thought I share this voucher with you.

If you want the PDF version for better print, you can use this link.

It’s two for one, where GBK promises to pay for the more expensive burger of your choice. Offer is valid until Sunday the 28th of June.

I tried it yesterday, having a nice burger in the evening sun in Chiswick. Very nice.