WWWinamp V4.2 Build 3109
UPDATED: Fixed the download link! Sorry I had the wrong URL in there 
Well, as promised on this fantastic 4th of July weekend I’m delivering everyone a great new version of WWWinamp
Mostly a bug fixer with some improvements to make it easier for people creating their own scripts! There are several users active here on my blog who are creating AJAX enabled skins and it was confusing the rules as to which files were passed to the Scripting Engine and which files were just treated as is.
Well, the rule of thumb in previous versions was that if the file was consided to have a MIME type of “text/html”, it would be sent to the Scripting Engine. This pretty much meant only *.htm and *.html files. At users requests, I’ve added a new configuration key to the WWWinamp.config file (WWWinamp.HTTP.ScriptFiles) which allows users to list which files are actually passed to the Scripting Engine.
Also in this version, I fixed an issue in the WWWinamp.config file which would keep the WCF service from starting.
Because of these changes, I suggest everyone use the WWWinamp.config file packaged with this build and just set back up your default configurations.
If you don’t feel like updating your configuration file.. well.. your WCF service just won’t work and WWWinamp will default back to using “text/html” MIME typed files as scripts. 
Here’s the full changelog:
- [HTTP] Better handling of malformed HTTP Requests
- Added more user friendly help to some of the most commonly reported errors
- Added ability to specify file extensions that are sent to the Scripting Engine
- Increased performance of the Scripting Engine
- Fixed issue with WCF endpoint being misconfigured in the WWWinamp.config file
Cheers!
WWWinamp v4.2 Build 3109 - Download (60k)
New version of WWWinamp coming soon!
Hey Everyone!
I’ve been slammed at my full time work these last couple of months and haven’t been able to give much time or effort into WWWinamp, so I do apologize! BUT, the last couple days I’ve had some free time and I decided to fire back up Visual Studio and give WWWinamp some more love
Currently on the list of fixes additions:
- Speed Improvements in Script Parsing
- Stability Improvements in handling malformed HTTP Request
- Configuration File Fix for WCF Service (Renamed class without fixing endpoint configuration! Oops!)
- Ability to specify which file extensions will be handled as scripts (currently its based on files considered a “text/html” MIME type).
I’m trying to stay on top of any WWWinamp error reports that are sent to me and I’m not always able to respond to each one, so I apologize that I haven’t gotten back to some. I hope my actions in fixing these defects speak louder than words.
If there’s any issues I missed please feel free to send them to WWWINAMP AT ENUSBAUM DOT COM
Cheers!
Samsund NV24HD — Choppy High Definiton Video?
I recently sold my entire DVD collection in order to buy some things I’d actually use around the house. On top of a small upgrade for my desktop computer, I also purchased a new Samsung NV24HD Point and Shoot Camera. I decided that I wanted a Point and Shoot in addition to my SLR because it seemed silly lugging around a giant camera and lens when going to simple events such as a friends birthday party.
One of the selling points for me on the Samsung NV24HD was the fact that it was able to capture high definiton video in 720p (1280×720, MPEG-4 H.264). Combine this with the 16GB Transcend SDHC memory card I bought to use with it, and I now had a point and shoot camera AND an HD video camera that could record over five hours of HD content.
After a couple test trials using my cat among other things, I started to notice when playing back the files using Quicktime on my computer that the video seemed fairly choppy and also the audio would drop out and then come back from time to time.
My first suspect was the memory card thinking that it might not be fast enough to record the video. But the Transcend 16GB SDHC card I purchased was certified Class 6 SDHC (guaranteed minimum 6mbps), which is the fastest you can buy for SDHC cards, so that couldn’t be the issue.
I then tried perhaps using another computer to play back the file, so I fired up my wife’s Black MacBook and used Quicktime on her machine. I had the same issue of choppy playback (at the beginning of the file) as well as the audio dropping out at the same points.
I suspect one of three things:
- This is an incompatibility with the MP4 files generated by the NV24HD and Quicktime, which I should probably e-Mail and ask Samsung about.
- It’s an issue with the memory card I’m using not being able to keep up with the recording device and thus losing data while recording video.
- It’s an issue with the NV24HD itself or an issue with the hardware encoder that’s used to compress the H.264 video stream.
I imagine it takes a bit of CPU power to compress video to 720p real time, and it’s evident on the NV24HD because after shooting continuous video for over five minutes the camera gets noticeably warmer.
ANYWAYS, if you have experienced this issue or have some ideas for a remedy I’m all ears
Cheers!
Out with the XP, in with the Windows 2008 Server!
Last year I wrote a blog entry about how I was done with Windows Vista as a desktop operating system and thusly downgrading to Windows XP Professional. Things over the last year have changed though and it seem more and more applications and drivers are being released and updated for Vista (or newer ;), hah! ). I decided to take a look at my current options being that Windows Vista SP1 was released not so long ago.
Through my research and experiences at work, I actually decided that I would take a stab at running Windows 2008 Enterprise Server as my desktop operating system. In my research I happened across this blog on MSDN by Vijayshinva Karnure which documented the step by step instructions of taking a standard Windows 2008 Server installation and convert it to a Windows Vista like desktop.
I also settled on the 64-bit version of Windows 2008 Server Enterprise because it would allow me to run it in hypervisor mode with Hyper-V enabled, thus allowing me to migrate my Virtual PC VM’s to Hyper-V. Couple this with Hyper-V recently being RTM and I now have a virtualization ready desktop with the latest support for everything Vista!
So far over the past week I haven’t had any issues or concerns while doing development with source control Virtual Machine running a Windows 2003 VM with Team Foundation Server installed running in the background under Hyper-V.
All in all, I’m very happy with this option of operating system. It allows me the convenience of XP (such as running as Administrator with no UNC) as well as the newer features and benefits of Vista (such as DirectX 10, latest drivers and technology). Virtualization is a must have for any developer these days because it gets rid of the need for a test lab of computers. Or even for the home user, it gives an option to perhaps run the Microsoft Zune host service under a Windows XP Virtual Machine to stream music from your NAS to your XBox 360
Hope my experiences and findings are able to help someone else out in the decision on what to do about Vista and their next choice of a desktop Operating System!
Cheers!
Personally.. I’m just done with Ads!
I know this is a little “old hat” to a lot of people out there, but recently my wife was showing me a great Firefox Add-on she’s been using called Adblocker Plus. I thought to myself, FINALLY someone has gotten together and started creating a blacklist for web advertisement which has gotten out of hand. Some websites I’ve visited have well over half of the page content covered with ads for one thing or another.
Once I installed the add-on I realized how hypocritical I was being (and perhaps a little ironic) that the Add-on I just installed was blocking ads from my own blog! It was at this point I decided to strip all ‘for profit’ ads from my blog and decided to just let the user bask in the glory that is my writing without any distractions
Seriously though, it’s a joke. The Google AdWords banner I had on the left hand side has been up now for over six months and I’ve only received about a 0.001% click through rate. And in the last year and a half I’ve been signed up for the program, I haven’t even generated enough clicks to receive a single check from Google. So fuck that program
Anyways, it got me to thinking about how these programs almost poison a lot of the content on the internet because they entice the publisher with the possibility that their seemingly free content can start generating revenue without their having to do anything. The down side is that it’s turning the Internet into a virtual version of the future depicted in Idiocracy.
“Welcome to Costco, I love you.”
So in an effort to clean up and perhaps maintain a little integrity on my corner of the Interweb, as I said, I removed all ‘for profit’ advertising in hopes that it’ll start a massive internet wide movement of bloggers everywhere to let go of their dreams of being Internet Millionaires and accept that the only reason they have advertising is that they know there isn’t a person alive who’d actually pay real money to hear anything they’d have to say!
I Kid! I’m just doing it because I think ads are lame and I don’t want to be a self hater
Cheers!
WWWinamp Ajax Skin v0.2 by dawolf
One of our WWWinamp users, dawolf, has created a rad skin for WWWinamp which has a great UI and is Ajax enabled! This is a great skin and everyone who’s looking to give WWWinamp a more modern look should take a look at his efforts!
You can simply make this skin your default skin by plating it in your Web Root folder or by placing it in a sub-directory in WWWinamp (such as /askin/)
Anyone who has issues with this skin can make bug reports to this post!
Just another great example of the flexibility of WWWinamp in letting people remote control their own copy of WinAmp without being stuck to a single interface design like Winamp Remote or AjaxAmp.
Thanks again to dawolf for all this hard work!
WWWinamp Ajax Skin v0.2 by dawolf - Download (55k)
Click here for the latest information on WWWinamp.
Where have I been?
I’ve been busy, to say the least
About two weeks ago my wife and I decided to make our small family a little bigger by adding a new animal to the mix. Everyone, please welcome Eleanor to the Nusbaum family fold!
She’s a fourteen week old Pug! We got her from Cyndi Daiello from Luv-D Pugs! She’s a small female, so she’s just going to be our baby and not for show. Our eight year old cat Franklin (Get it? Franklin and Eleanor?? ) seems to be non-plussed by the idea of a puppy in the house, but so far has basically avoided any contact with her.
Because she’s basically our new baby I’ve been spending a lot of time putting her on a schedule which will make for easy house training (5:30am wake-up, 10:00pm bed time). She only whined the first night or two but now she sleeps through the night without problem!
Anyways, just thought I’d share why I haven’t been terribly active in my blog as of late. As she grows and learns the rules my wife and I are getting some more of our freedom back
Cheers!
Review — Magic Online v3.0 by Wizards Of The Coast
I’ve been a long time Magic The Gathering player and took to playing Magic Online back in 2003 shortly after the release of version “two-dot-doh!” At the time it was the perfect solution for someone like myself who enjoyed playing Magic but didn’t have the time nor the desire to join my fellow goons at the local comic store for a few casual games of Magic.
Before we dive into a review of Magic Online v3.0, I think a little history of Magic Online from the release of version 2.0 is in order to even fully appreciate WHY Version 3 was brought into existence.
Wizards Of The Coast announced in 2003 that they would be bringing Magic Online in house and it seemed that this could only mean good things for the online community because Wizards would have more more hands on involvement in the Magic Online development. This blew up in their face when Magic Online Version 2.0 was rushed out the door to coincide with the release of Eighth Edition. There were many defects in the client as well as server stability issues which eventually lead Wizards to admit that Version 2.0 was a failure and something drastic needed to be done. In early 2006 Wizards Of The Coast announced that Magic Online III (3.0) was in the works and it had an initial release date of late 2006. Obviously this date slipped many times as Version 3.0 eventually saw the light of day in early April 2008. Why did things take so long? It’s not entirely clear but Magic Online’s current Brand Manager Worth Wollpert has said that the people who made the original design and development decisions for Magic The Gathering Online Version 3.0 were no longer with Wizards Of The Coast, so asking questions of “why was this done over that” or “why did it take so long” will perhaps never be answered.
Anyways, this brings us to today! As I said before, I’ve been playing Magic Online now for the better part of five years and felt that I’d be in a good position to give the new client a once over. The version I’m currently using is Magic Online v3.0.8.2. The new Magic Online client has several notable changes under the hood which I felt were worth mentioning. These changes are:
- DirectX rendering for all objects and animations in game
- Built using the Microsoft .NET Framework
- Includes a 3D Rendering Engine for Avatars
I was actually very pleased that the original powers that be decided to roll with a managed language for a game client. I would say that I aids in development.. but after a three year delay, who really knows! Some could argue that this opens the client up to security issues but it appears that Wizards has taken the proper steps to secure the byte code including obfuscation and relying on server side authentication for all client interaction.
I’ll admit right now that I am a member and lurker of the Magic Online forum over at Wizards Of The Coast, so I’m aware of the current community ‘feedback’ regarding the new client. I think that users on these forums have some excellent feedback and Wizards has been very active with the user community in listening to discovered defects as well as feedback regarding possible changes to the functionality of the user interface. So my hat goes off to the staff at Wizards for making the effort
The client itself when first started is very visually pleasing. The textures used for the window borders and login screen look stunning at the default resolution of 1024×768. What happens if you run at a higher resolution or even a different aspect ratio using a wide screen monitor? Well, things start getting a little messy. Textures are just stretched when you increase the window size (especially on a wide screen), so ‘window wide’ textures such as the top of the menu look distorted and pixelated.
Once inside the client you’ll be pleased to see that Wizards has integrated the previously separate online store now into the client no longer requiring you to navigate to a website in a browser to purchase your online products. This is a welcome change and in my opinion finally unifies Magic Online as a complete online replacement for your local hobby store.
The first item that also sticks out is the ‘dock’ which is located on the right hand side of the client. For better or worse, this replaces the previously used ‘tabs’ that were located at the top of the Magic Online client as well as any minimized windows you might have had, such as PM windows or chat rooms. It allows you to tab through these items now in a single area. You’re also not restricted to the dock and you can ‘float’ these windows anywhere you would like on the screen. A lot of complaints have been filed on the forums about the new ‘vertical chat’ format that caused by the small horizontal space available for text in the dock. There are several work-arounds for this but unfortunately it seems to be the way things are for now.
Gameplay itself hasn’t changed much. One of the biggest complaint from users is the ‘wasted space’ caused by the new game layout. To this, I suggest everyone check out their Game Play Settings (Menu -> Settings -> Game Play) and try one of the new “Game Table Design” options that are provided. As of the writing of this review the options are “Mana Wheel”, “Big Card” and “Compact”. I’m a fan of the compact view because if I float the Chat Window and hide the dock, I’m able to have a sizable playing area.
Did I run into issues while writing this review? Not really. Design issues, of course. But the client itself remained stable and the server has remained online for the most part since launch. There was a single crash since the release of Version 3 but the issues was identified on the back end and resolved. As for design issues, I’m sure you can venture over to the Magic Online forums to read a few users opinions on several of the design decisions made by the powers that be.
I have a few suggestions on the UI which might make for a better user experience:
The Dock - I think it’s a great idea, but was poorly executed. It could be made so much better by changing it a little bit:
- If I float a Window, let me minimize it. Although I’m a friendly guy, I like having a wide screen chat during a game but I’m not always interested in what my opponent has to say. Re-docking it means I have to keep re-floating and resizing it.
- If I click on a tab, don’t reorder them to make it the 1st in the list. This drove me up the wall because every time I clicked on a tab, I’d lose the order of where the other tabs were. Imagine if Firefox or Internet Explorer did this
Casual Rooms - Make selecting a game easier and less like a mouse accuracy test Even filtering by “Waiting” and trying to jump into a game before it disappears or moves is very difficult.
Avatars - For the love of god, please allow models with more polys The previous DOS Magic games from Microprose had better 3D models. I would have almost preferred ‘card art’ quality 2D avatars over these already dated specimens. I’m trying not to be too critical of this but I did almost spit out my Pepsi when I saw that my Royal Assassin avatar now looks like this:
Marketplace - I’m not saying the current incarnation of the Magic Online marketplace will kill the secondary market, but it will make it harder for users to find one another to make trades. Things like the classifides sorting alphabetically will lead to a flood of new bots/traders with user names such as “..TRADING BOT” or “.BUY HERE” in order to get in the top listings. Wizards needs to re-think this design in order to help their product maintain it’s ‘value’.
All suggestions aside, Magic Online 3 is a ‘work in progress’ and is bound to improve with each week that passes. Casual Play still works fine and they’re spawning draft queues now if that’s your bag. I suspect that Premier Events will be online soon and Worth Wollpert said Leagues would be online within a month or so.
So, the quick hits are:
Pros
- Casual Play (both single and multi-player) is still there
- Client and Server seem to both be stable
- Store functionality built into the client
Cons
- Still missing a LOT of features (Leagues, Redemption, New Accounts, Trial Server)
- User Interface still a work in progress, but getting better
- 3D Avatars are laughable to say the least
The down and dirty of it is that if you played Magic Online before, you had your reasons and those reasons probably weren’t because you were in love with the User Interface Like many other users, I wasn’t swept off my feet by Magic Online 3 but it still meets my needs as a player. I hope that as a CONSUMER, Wizards continues to try and improve my experience as a player in order to coax more of my hard earned money from my pockets
Cheers!
Gas Prices — What YOU can do to save some extra $$$
Not exactly IT related but I wanted to get this information out there in hopes that someone else might find it handy
Recently my wife and I purchased Quicken for her Mac so we could keep a tab on our expenses and after tracking trends for a month we were floored to find out that I was spending $350 per month on gas alone! That’s $4,200 per year, or an extra $21,000 over the life of my five year loan! What the hell man!
Of course things will keep getting worse because gas prices here in North County San Diego keep going up! My wife actually had to pay $4.25 per gallon of 91 octane gas for her Mini Cooper! It’s a tiny little car and only takes like 13 gallons, but still cost over $60 to fill it! I was irate!
I thought, as a consumer, what can I do to just save myself money let alone try to stick it to the man. I decided on the following tactics:
- Drive no faster than 65 on the freeways
- Always use cruise control when I could
- Do not use AC/Heater unless it was insanely hot or very, very cold
- Do not use a ‘jackrabbit’ start, and try to gradually accelerate from stops
I figured these would be the easiest things to change that wouldn’t have a major impact on my commute or pocket book. For safe measure, I checked the pressure in my tires and also cleaned my reusable K&N air filter.
Now, I drive a 2004 Acura TSX which has only a four cylinder engine, but it’s a large four cylinder at 2.4 liters. My commute to work is 40 miles round trip with mostly freeways and on average I filled up every six to seven days getting an average of 26.4 miles per gallon.
I’ve now been driving using the above listed method for over three weeks now and I’ve filled up twice. Each tank had the following statistics:
First Tank:
29.5mpg
425 miles traveled
Nine Days Between Fill-ups
Second Tank:
31.5mpg
465 miles traveled
Ten Days Between Fill-ups
These were OUTSTANDING results! If I can keep up this trend I’ll be cutting my monthly gas price in half and saving about $150 per month or $1,800 per year! And the way gas prices keep going up, it’ll continue to save me more money
I suggest you give my above suggestions a try and let me know your results! I think you’ll be shocked at how much money you’ll be saving with these astronomical gas prices.
Cheers!
Does your Juniper VPN client keep disconnecting after you connect?
I had this issue a while back while working from home using my company laptop. Our company utilizes the Juniper VPN client software and up until recently it had been working just fine! One day while working remote my VPN connection kept closing with the error:
“The Network Connect session terminated. Do you want to reconnect? (nc.windows.app.23711).”
I did some Googling and I came across this support manual from Juniper which discusses the error codes/messages returned by the VPN client software and what could be causing the issue. Error code 23711 Juniper describes the problem as:
“The Network Connect client disconnected from the secure gateway because the
client’s routing table was altered.”
I thought to myself, “What the hell could be changing my routing table?” At first I suspected it might have been a VPN tunneling issue with my Apple Airport Extreme but that known issue has been fixed since early 2007. The issue obviously was being caused by something on my company laptop.
I tried different media (wired vs. wireless) and also updated and rolled back different network drivers to no avail. Another long Google search put me upon this blog entry at kevinluck.com where he states:
After a bit of googling I found out that there were complaints about the early betas of CS3 and the Bonjour service that they installed affecting networking. And this is what was causing my problem. If you press Ctrl-Alt-Del and look at your processes then you will find a “mDNSResponder.exe” service running after installing Flash CS3. Ending this process allows you to connect through Network Connect.
Presto! Stopping that Process and eventually uninstalling the Bonjour application from my computer fixed my VPN disconnection problem! A big THANK YOU to kevinluck.com for being a great resource and I hope that this blog entry helps others trouble shoot the same issue I had with our Juniper VPN client!
Lord knows I was ready to pull my hair out
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