DoomBook

Ever wanted audio, text, or video to open up in a different application than whatever Debian has slotted for your default? Want to get down to the nuts and bolts and do it manually?

Well then. Take a look at /etc/gnome/defaults.list for what application is used to open up what extension or mime-type, and bring up the /usr/share/applications/ directory for the configuration files that dictate how that application is going to open up.

For instance, I changed .pls and .mp3 from Totem (possibly the last media application installed) over to audacious2-gtkui for better integration with the look and feel of the gnome desktop.

Just updated the minecraft server to 1.05_02. It should mesh with the client released this morning.

If you’re running a Minecraft server on Linux and you want a simple way to automate starting, stopping, and backing up the server with a single command-line option this might be for you.

These scripts are something I cracked out for the Minecraft server we run here. Feel free to grab a copy and modify them for your own use.

You’ll need basic unix utilities and “screen”, which may not be installed by default. If you’ve got all that, the only thing that it’s necessary to change should be the startup directory setting in the main file.

If you’d like the backups to be run automatically, put the backup script in your crontab file. If you need help doing that, look up “edit vixie crontab how-to” on google. If you’re not using Vixie Cron.. well.. you probably know what you’re doing.

Also note that this was created to be the absolute bare-bones of what you’d need to effectively run and back-up the server. There certainly could be more options, wrappers, MOTD on entry daemons, etc. But they won’t be in these scripts.

If you need to pop into the Minecraft server command line once it’s up and running, type “screen -r” as long as you’ve only got the single screen session running. When you want to leave the server, and exit back to your prompt without closing it down, press CTRL-A CTRL-D.

Hopefully they help, and good luck!

Minecraft Start/Stop/Backup Scripts

300 years in the future everyone’s incorporated. Not just a futuristic take on corporations ala David Louis Edelmen’s Multireal but full owning percentages of people.

Into this steps a man from the dawn of the 21st century, having preserved himself cryogenically in a last crapshoot at cheating death.

Quite a combination of themes, drawing from our current trials and memes combining them with a Rip Van Winkle from our time (in both plot and mechanic) to lend the reader eyes with which to look out at the future.

What we end up with is a solid first novel in a presumed series. It’s got some quirks in how people interact socially, but that’s par for course with science fiction. It’s easily overlooked in light of the excellent writing and storytelling presented. Go read it.

Unincorporated Man, Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin

First a quick note on getting the expansion working. In the modules section of Fallout 3: New Vegas I had to manually enable the module, otherwise it wouldn’t load. Quite a few hours were spent merrily wandering around the wasteland before that box got checked off on a re-load.

Playthrough of Fallout 3 New Vegas’s latest expansion for the PC, Dead Money, has been pretty robust so far.

Game mechanics get introduced that aren’t a part of the normal Fallout 3 game play to add a bit of difficulty to the module. Resting is impossible, resulting in rationing on things like stimpaks. Your inventory gets removed, so there’s no rotating in an auto-cannon to blow your way through the challenging enemy battles.

And the battles actually are challenging with somewhat limited resources and resilient opponents.

Puzzles in the game aren’t especially challenging so far, but that’s not much of a letdown for me. Puzzler elements introduced to FPS games always struck me as out of place, there being only so many times you’re going to run into a door you can’t simply hammer open for one reason or another.

Story elements are in keeping with the wasteland motif and provide some interesting plot to go along with the slug-fest bouts of fighting.

Without giving too much away, you’re dragged over to a hotel to commit a heist with a motley assortment of companions.

About half way in that 10$ purchase is looking pretty good. If it still pans out after the game’s done, you can read about the module in full right here!

Borders has been having trouble paying the bills lately but now it’s official. They’ve filed chapter 11.

Chapter 11 itself isn’t so bad. Skirting a bit of debt obligation has kept quite a few corps from becoming corpses in the past few years (yes, we’re looking at you GM).

But a big box book seller? Will restructuring their debt obligations allow them to regain profitability? Unless they seriously change and tighten up their sales effort around profitable lines of business, probably not.

Writing’s something that happens in the moment, based on your perspective and what you see around you. Stepping out of our hotel in Atlantic City and turning right changed my view of the area a bit.

Cutting just a bit over it was like wandering into a somewhat abandoned inner city. Where the commercial area is still holding up somewhat the real-estate downtown hasn’t. Example One: the area we had to go through to get over to the boardwalk on a trek out to find food.

We took a wrong turn on Atlantic Ave...

Apparently, you’re not supposed to ever leave the casino. And it’s possible the area’s had a hand in making sure you won’t want to.

Housing in the area, what’s left of it, looks like it’s been left-over from the city’s ramshackle beginnings. Functional brick houses that’re still half standing (think row houses with every second house knocked down) soldier on out at the end of the boardwalk.

Quite a bit of the old housing’s been flattened to make way for the next big thing that might never be coming. There’s a huge glass structure, mostly finished, that might never get its last bit of funding to come online. Rows of new-ish condo housing has gone up but still has the marks of being unfinished, solitary marble countertops standing like sentinels on a front lawn.

So what’s all this lead up to? No idea. It might be nothing, Atlantic City not exactly being a crossroads. A bit of a slump and the US populace not wanting to move as far for entertainment. Or it might be a sign of consolidation to more central areas in the future to come.

Not even a sign that asks you to keep out anymore

Finally Back on the Boardwalk

After reading about the impending demise of Atlantic City I’m mildly surprised to find myself there. The Boardwalk appears alive and well in spite of officials pronouncing it DOA on the radio.

Not being much of a gambler, ending up in a boardwalk devoted mostly to pumping coinage into slots is a bit of a surprise. Except they’re not coin slots anymore, but plastic debit card swipeys, which seems like a rather impersonal way to be parted from your cash. You don’t even get to hold it that one last time before the dealer carries it away.

So, Atlantic City… the place itself seems lively for a Saturday during the down season, if not overly full. Apparently people are coming out for some spend after a few years of spend-thrift behavior induced by higher credit limits and the impending doom of layoffs.

Maybe it’s not usually like this, but half the place seems to be overtaken by an IT frat. Slightly doofy looking young guys wandering around in an odd, clashing array of semi-formal looking dazzled took me by surprise. That’s something you don’t even see at the trades these days.

Probably just a coincidence.

It’s no New York. There’re a hell of a lot more ways to loose money; and, unless you’re a casino, not a whole lot of ways to make it. It’s an area of all tourists instead of just the obvious ones. Not a bad place to throw a convention, but I think I’ll be sticking to haunts up in Montreal for the perennial vacation.

Welcome back, everyone out there on the Internets. Today I noticed something rather striking.

When I was looking for setup instructions to get my newly acquired DD-WRT based Buffalo router back on ATT’s DSL network I found a marked lack of decent information.

There were plenty of people complaining about how they couldn’t get it working, but not a single one stating, “here’s the fields you need to fill in”.

Now, there might be some of that on the actual DD-WRT forums. But that’s not what was coming up in Google on the searches. Which is what led to quite a bit of frustration on my part, as I like to have a bit of guidance in advance of actual setup to make everything go smoother.

So! What does it take to get ATT service running over a directly connected DSL router, where you’re ignoring the DSL-Modem bridging device from ATT and directly servicing the line with the new DD-WRT router? Not much. Just put in the user name (generally user@someurl .com) and your password and you should be all set. I’ll check and see what the other settings do (if the compression works or just breaks the line entirely) as I get time.

Another layer of dust falling down on these old websites. Happy New Years all, hope everyone reading this is doing okay.