a iTunes REPL

(tags emacs, iTunes, COM, Ruby)

While trying to figure out those playlist sorting order, I came across something nifty, but perhaps not so surprising. Since Apple provided the iTunes COM for Windows SDK , that means any programming language that implements Component Object Model (COM) can interface with iTunes and do programatic things. The documentation mentions the usual Windows scripting languages (Visual Basic, VBScript, JScript, Perl). But I do Ruby here. Interactively.

What are we looking at here? Well, Emacs (called Meadow here), is running an "inferior" (child process of Emacs)Ruby  in one of its buffers. This Ruby is running a REPL (Read Eval Print Loop) session called irb. From there, through a command line like interface, I grab a COM interface to iTunes and figure out how many tracks I have, how many times I've played my favorite song, the last time I played it, and when I added it.

A REPL can be a lifesaver. In the seminal Practical Common Lisp book, the second chapter is dedicated to the introduction to the language with a hands on REPL session. It even mentions the ultimate remote debugging situation, debugging software problems on the Deep Space 1 spacecraft live via REPL, no doubt appealing to its usefulness.

This interface is helping figure out that playlist sorting order by helping me create a script which will create a bunch of playlists, about 196 in all. More details another time.

(Those Ruby observant will notice I did a "puts favoriteTrack.Location" instead of "favoriteTrack.Location" and let irb try to print it. If I did so, the string is printed as garbage because Ruby does not convert the answer from UTF-16. "puts" lets Windows do it for us.)

iPod 5.5 at Tplus 1 month and 4 months

(tags iPod, review, DVD, ripping, music, gripe, bug)

I was going to write something about living with my new iPod... but I didn't publish it until now. Heh the new iPod is a phone. Never going see it here in Japan.

iPod refresh at Tplus 1 month (originally created at 2006/10/23T12:46 Mon)

I've finished pretty much with Cubis 2 on iPod, after not having much success with the difficulty level after "rookie". I also bought that Majjong but it's just not as fun. There's a way to make things disappear that is both fun and sustainable, and Mahjong is not it. As far as my iPod gaming is concerned, it was just a flash in the pan and the majority of the experience is not going to be good.

I have, though, studied up on how to convert my DVDs to iPod readable format. The tale starts with searching the DVD mastering software section. I didn't know exactly what I needed to do to convert stuff, but I knew that the copy protection was a big obstacle. I first bought a guide "mook" (== magazine + book) which had pictures going through the whole process (starting with a picture of a hand placing the CD into the drive). It's one of those "even a monkey can do it" series (I swear that's part of the title), complete with advertisements for penis enlargement and phone sex services. One good thing about this mook is that it had a CD-ROM with all the necessary tools on it: DVD decrypter, DVD shrink, etc. None of the Internet sites I visited to study up showed me the ABCs like this book.

I first ripped some Aya Matsuura (松浦亜弥) music video, then the subtitled version (jp) of Singing In The Rain (雨に歌えば) that I got for 500 yen. Long ripping times. No one-touch or scriptable method.

After having some success with DVD decrypter and 3GRP converter at 320 by 240 (QVGA), I remembered that the iPod G5.5 supports 640 by 480 (VGA). I decided to standardize on this size, so I can watch on the PC and iPod without too much pain. Unfortunately the mook couldn't help me with this new stuff, but I gathered enough courage from the success to find iPodDrop. This program is little more than a shell for a properly compiled (eg. non-Cygwin) ffmpeg.exe for Windows, but it open-source so its promising. Here though I don't have much success with getting a quality picture. The backgrounds have blocky artifacts. I tried converting one of my favorite videos, Fortune by Nami Tamaki, but the red sails are just blocky. Also the video sizes are horrendous, 70MB for 3 minutes with MPEG4. Yeah I know that music videos have scene changes at 2 times a second but still... The QVGA sized videos I made before weigh in at under 10 MB for 3 minutes with H.264 encoding. Since both of these tools use ffmpeg, maybe it's just a matter of figuring out the right switches. Also the iTunes checks the file for the right encoding rates and sizes, so there's that mine field to figure out as well.

So now that I have another media reservoir to tap into, I've been digging through my DVDs. I figure short music videos will be good for right now. I have a (very scary) junk load of Hello! Project, Morning Musume, Aya Matsuura, Miki "Mikitty" Fujimoto (藤本美貴), and Koharu Kusumi (久住小春). I converted some of the palatable ones first. I also have some Shiina Ringo, Kiroro, Ulfuls, Anzen Chitai, Stray Cats, George Winston, etc etc that I should rip so that I can actually show people my iPod.

And when the music videos are done, maybe it's time to start ripping TV series (ER) and anime (Mushishi, Card Captor Sakura, Kaleido Star, Kamichu!, etc) that I just don't feel like watching right now. That would entail actually touching the DVDs which I don't feel like handling right now. I suppose this does not compute.

Let's go back and write down the annoyances about the iPod G3 and see if they are fixed now:

Annoyances	G3	G5.5
4KB notes limit.	yes	yes
Notes display rapidly disappears.	yes	yes
Whenever I plug in headphones, I hear a short burst of static.	yes	yes
When I select and play a song from a play list, sometimes it skips that song and goes to the next song.	yes	no (FIXED)
If I want a song to be counted as played, I have to manually fast forward to the end of the song. (This is iTunes/iPod spec?)	yes	yes
When I disconnect the iPod from the PC, it takes a long time (1-2 mins) for iPod to become responsive:	yes	yes
The backlight is always on when connected to the USB. (bug?)	no	yes (NEW)
The scroll wheel is too sensitive for setting ratings (stars).	yes	yes
The order for the Japanese artists names is unknown.	yes	yes
The order for the playlists with ASCII non-letters and Japanese, as well as static and smart playlists, is unknown.	yes	yes
The order for the playlists is not the same between the iTunes and the iPod.	yes	yes
When playing a song, I can't see the full album name or artist name because they don't scroll like title.	yes	yes
There's no easy way to return to the currently playing playlist (not song) after bumbling around with menus.	yes	yes
Folder Playlists don't transfer from iTunes to the iPod	yes	yes

And how about a round of new annoyances?

• Video has some wierd tags (episode id, episode num) that I haven't figured out yet for my particular use pattern of music videos.
• Video can be tagged with the regular audio tags but the iPod doesn't use them (well).
• Video in general cannot be rated (starred) from iPod.
• Can't search Japanese anything like for English/ASCII.
• Sometimes the iPod freezes on the start of video playback, and I have to reset the iPod. (This is rare though.)
• Can't use it with TrueCrypt.
• Still unable to backup save the criteria for all Smart Playlists, and the iTunes COM for Windows SDK (though updated to iTunes 7.0) still doesn't provide a programmatic interface to them.

If it sounds like I hate my iPod, its just because its already high level of quality causes me to expect a lot from it.

So much for my opinion at Tplus 1 month.

I'm still using it at 4 months, but I'm not ripping any DVDs. I am mainly just doing a lot of music, and I have already got a lot of music album cover pictures attached to my music files. With close to 50GB of music now, it's kinda hard to find songs I want to listen to. I've defined about a hundred playlists, so I can find the stuff I recently ripped within the last year, etc. I've even identified what songs I still haven't played.... 10GB of stuff, whoa. For example, I listened to can/goo's CD for the first time, even though I went to their concert more than two years ago. Sure I can find stuff like that while I'm using iTunes, but not while I'm on the iPod.

Stay tuned for something I figured out: Sort order of playlists.

Emacs inspiration

(tags emacs, blog)

Emacs user-level customization seems to be more lively these days. At the forefront is jao's minor emacs wizardry, who has shown me in just a couple of posts, that I haven't been trying to explore all parts of emacs at all.

(User-level) macros, folding, eval and replace anywhere, emacs and w3m with gmail, imenu.

It's not just the jao's posts that are inspirational, but the comment threads attract the emacs worshipers. This blog has gotten me to subscribe to Planet Emacsen, with some nice gems like Maximize on Startup from M-x all-things-emacs.

I was considering just starting a emacs only blog, but I don't have much knowledge. I did already contribute some to Emacs Wiki. Acutally, fellow emacs users swap the usually monolithic emacs configuration file .emacs, but I adopted a multi-file approach, using the standard ${HOME}/.emacs.d instead. I am at around 140KB of personal customizations and code. Surely there is something interesting in there.

Crazy Happy (>o<)/

(tags art, Kasimasi)

The station on the way to work is dreary gray. But there are two glass case displays that for community display that local people can use to show off their creations. Schoolkids show their cute art and college people bring out their technical projects such as robots or model house architecture. I recall they had a big slide rule one time, but I can't remember where I put that picture. This time though, there was a really funny artwork I just had to show:

Basically, it's a parody of the crazy Japanese TV commercial style mixed with parody of a beverage advertisement. But to me, an orange haired happy face like this (>o<)/ reminds me of Hazumu from Kasimasi. The below is the closest example I could find, but in Ayuki scenario ending of the PS2 game, Hazumu goes totally crazy happy, like the above.

Ruby (and Rails) full steam ahead

(tags programming, Ruby, book, ECsite, digital, PDF, webdev)

I was jazzed up on the news that the recently released Ruby On Rails 1.2 had some better support for UTF-8. RoR's front man DHH posted the high-level changelog on his blog: "Riding Rails: Rails 1.2: REST admiration, HTTP lovefest, and UTF-8 celebrations". Through a library, Ruby is working better on i18n issues, sweet.

I'm still not competent in Rails at all, so I decided to buy the Agile Web Development with Rails book, second edition on PDF only. While I was at it, I picked up Best of Ruby Quiz. Totally instant gratification, and with two monitors, reading shouldn't be a hassle. A little bit annoying that my name is on each page of the books, and my mind goes into a stupid thought cycle justifying these fairly open PDFs.

Gah, I should quit gaming, quit IRC, quit my blog, and just exercise the funk out out of my programming.

Lovely Lovely Treasure Boxes and Insta-buy failed

(tags character goods, showcase, DVD, promotion, Sofmap, Nipponbashi, used, game, Ikaruga)

Sofmap Saurus 1 in Nanba "Den-Den Town" has the "Treasure Box" floor, a floor full of show cases. Lucky I saw some Rozen Maiden (ローゼンメイデン) related goods, the "Ashiya Ningyou Kanshasai" pencil card shown below:

I really like this illustration because Hina-Ichigo (pink, middle) is really cute in it. Tomoe in the miko dress is a doll as well, but it seems out of character. Jun and Shinku (right) just look out of place. It was 1000 yen, which I thought was a rip off after I saw that it had some deep scratches. Thems the breaks in the world of pencil card collecting. I wasn't able to go to that Rozen Maiden event, ugh.

In the same case, there were promotional DVDs for recent/upcoming anime series. I grabbed Asatte no Houkou (あさっての方向) and Saint October (セイントオクトーバー). The latter is some "gothic lolita" themed fight adventure from Konami. Gos-gos rori rori, indeed.

While in Nipponbashi "Den-den Town" I happened to see a couple of copies of Silhouette Mirage for the PlayStation 1. As a Ikaruga fan, owning this game would be a logical extension, due to the fact that Ikaruga's color gimmick gameplay was extended from this game. But alas, I couldn't get myself to "Buy it now!" for 9200 yen. Maybe next time.

The hunt is the game

(tags game, remake, 1980s, PlayStation, shopping, PlayStation 2, failure)

I'm hanging out irc channel #insertcredit for the fun of it these days. There was one discussion about a new PlayStation 2 game coming out based on that famous PC 80s text adventure game Rogue, called Rogue Hearts Dungeon (ローグ ハーツ ダンジョン). It was recently announced (Impress GameWatch).

This new one is from Compile Heart and will retail for 6000 yen. It has character art with "ahoge" (アホ毛) hairstyles. Then again, the main character in the original was represented with an @ (at) symbol. Look at that symbol closely. Now that's some old school ahoge there.

Then jiji from namakoteam showed up in the chat and proceed to school us on the Simple series take of a Rogue remake. He mentioned the Simple 1500 Vol. 28 The Dungeon RPG for the PlayStation 1, and Simple 2000 Vol. 20 The Dungeon RPG (The ダンジョンRPG 忍 ～魔物の魔物の棲む城～) for the PlayStation 2. The Amazon reviews of the latter pointed out the former was a better title.

I wanted to see if I could find this game in the shops. It turns out it was harder than I thought.

I was not able to find it new or used at my local stores, so I travelled to Nipponbashi "Den-den Town". None of my usual haunts had it new. In fact, there were little if any new PS1 games displays. I lucked out at a place called A-too! next to Ninomiya's struggling hobby store. There were two copies in a glass case with a prominent 500 yen sticker on each. Obviously this was their last new games for the PS1, hurrah hurrah.

The glass case also held things normally considered rare, such as that Famicom Mini Series (for GameBoy Advance) with Club Nintendo only binders (only 30000 yen each! 90000 for all thirty games and the 3 binders!). This is the same place with the Tecmo Classic Arcade for the Xbox at 10000 yen. Since this place is so expensive, I never go here.

So I asked for both copies but the stupid clerk enforced their 1-copy-per-customer rule. Come on, who else is going to buy this Simple game?

Next time I go there I'm going to bring another 500 yen coin and grab that other copy, yeah.

Thus the picture above. Like I'm going to play a PlayStation 1 game now, yeah right.

Mission accomplished: Animate AV Fair Winter 2007

(tags telephone card, anime, Animate, ECsite, gift)

Animate once again comes up with the evil marketing plan with their "AV Fair Winter 2007" (2007年 アニメイト 冬のAVまつり). Buy any AV related goods such as anime DVDs or soundtracks, CD dramas, and you get scratch cards, 1 per 1000 yen. Scratch it off to get anywhere from 1 to 5 points. Hey, I did this before (2006/08, 2003/12).

This time, though, the mission is accomplished. Behold!

These aren't telephone cards, but more useful "library cards" (図書カード). They are (from left) "Shana" 「灼眼のシャナ」, "Nanoha A's" 「なのは A's」, and "Zero no Tsukaima" 「ゼロの使い魔」. Each of them is 40 points.

I had a good string of luck this time:

2, 4, and 2 points.

2, 2, 2, 2, 5, and 5 points.

The first card I wanted was "Nanoha A's". I thought I'd stop there. Then I got the idea of getting another card. Luckily I lucked out with the multi-point cards and a mint condition used "Shana" at Books Lashinbang (Nipponbashi). So I got the "Zero" with the second set of 40 points, and bought the "Shana" at 3000 yen. So I "cheated".

And I still have some points left... What to do, what to do.

The new evil: Stick Posters (スティックポスター) - a preview

(tags anime, illustration, stick poster, collection, character goods)

This is a binder for Stick Posters (スティックポスター). The Stick Posters are a new sort of collectable, just like trading cards and telephone cards, created by AquaPlus (famous for To Heart). I think they have been out since the middle of 2006, though I've been trying to ignore them.

This binder cost 3000 yen, an outrageous price. This particular binder is illustrated by Peach Pit, of Rozen Maiden fame.

In fact, it was released at the same time as the Rozen Maiden Stick Poster collection set, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Why did I buy this binder? Tune in next time for more exciting developments!

My First GPS (AmbiCom GPS Navigation Receiver GPS-USB)

(tags timekeeping, GPS, hardware, Windows)

 The GPS unit I ordered, the AmbiCom GPS Navigation Receiver, came in today. Yes! Let's setup a NTP server!

Mount it outside:

It's a USB device, so hook it up to the computer and install the drivers. (The included CD is useless...) It's (virtually) connected to the COM3 serial port, woopie:

Test it out. Can you see satellites? Does it output NMEA 0813 messages?

Yes, it's not a dud! It's tracking a bunch of satellites, I think. At least the time is right and the lat/long is what I expect.

Let's move it over to the stable computer, Project Asobi, and set up the NTP server. The relevant configuration is in the ntp.conf file.

## Local GPS clock
# AmbiCom GP Navigation Receiver GPS-USB
server 127.127.20.3 prefer mode 7
fudge 127.127.20.3 stratum 0

## Statistic settings
# Windows example:
driftfile "D:\Program Files\NTP\etc\ntp.drift"
enable stats
statsdir "D:\Program Files\NTP\stats\"
# stupid statsdir needs the backslash
# quote is here for stupid emacs"
statistics loopstats clockstats

## Allowed NTP clients
restrict default ignore
restrict 127.0.0.1
restrict 192.168.0.0 mask 255.255.0.0


(info and guidance from zaitcev, thanks)

And... let's debug it on the command line first:

z:\Cliff>"D:\Program Files\NTP\bin\ntpd.exe" -n -M -g
  -c "D:\Program Files\NTP\etc\ntp.conf"
  -l "D:\Program Files\NTP\stats\general-log.txt"

Will the reference NTP server software ported by Meinburg recognize this serial device and use it to sync?

Yes! No problem! Let's sync the whole network to it.

Wait, from my other computer, it's about two seconds off from their reported NTP time:

Z:\Cliff>ntpq -p
     remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset  jitter
==============================================================================
 ring.aist.go.jp .INIT.          16 u    -   64    0    0.000    0.000   0.000
 ring.sakura.ad. .INIT.          16 u    -   64    0    0.000    0.000   0.000
 ring.yamanashi. .INIT.          16 u    -   64    0    0.000    0.000   0.000
xasobi           .GPS.            1 u   39   64  377    0.413  -99.557  26.489
 SUGAR           .INIT.          16 u    -   64    0    0.000    0.000   0.000
xrabic           xxx.xxx.xxx.xx   3 u   49   64  377    2.491  1932.77  14.958

The problems are shown in underline. The "x" at the very front means that this computer's NTP server disregarded the foreign server's time info. Why?!? Don't tell me I have to set a time offset calibration factor or reverse the polarity (Star Trek joke).

Well I haven't resolved the problem, but it's a start. Unfortunately, I'm outta time! Tune back next time and maybe I'll have figured out why this is not in agreement.

Another difference: Rie Kugimiya and Ui Miyazaki

(tags anime, seiyuu, failure)

I was enjoying Louise's song "Follow Me!" from a Zero no Tsukaima (「ゼロの使い魔」) drama CD. Unfortunately, I thought that Louise was voiced by the same gal who did Aisha in D.C.S.S. Wrong!

Rie Kugimiya (釘宮理恵) voices Louise. She is a veteran anime seiyuu. She also did Shana from Shakugan no Shana (「灼眼のシャナ」). I suppose I should remember her from Pitaten (「ぴたテン」) as Koboshi-chan as well, but I can't tell the difference.

Ui Miyazaki (宮崎羽衣) voices Aisha. She is a relative newcomer. I heard her in Gift and Strawberry Panic, but I can't remember her.

My ears must be bad. I'm no seiyuu otaku.

Delete "WinDir" at your own risk

(tags Windows, Input Method Editor, environment variable, failure)

I booted up my computers at work this morning and was greeted with the inability to input Japanese via the MS IME (Microsoft Input Method Editor). I do crazy things with my keyboard, like remap Caps Lock as Control, use the IME Watcher for XP, do Windows key mods with HotKeyPlus and Mado Tsukai no Yuuutsuu. I even suspected Synergy, which gets wonky with the control and shift key sometimes.

The day before I was cleaning up the computers in some wierd fashion relating to environment variables (envvars). Then I remembered that I deleted the "WinDir" System envvar, because there already was a "SystemRoot" System envvar and I obviously (smacks forehead) made this "new" "WinDir" for my own funky utilities.

Bad move:

What is this "WinDir" envvar and what is the difference between it and the "SystemRoot"? It turns out that the "Windir" envvar is a Windows 3.0-ism, defined for the benefit of applications who need to know if they're running under Windows. It's been with us since 1990! Go do a search in your Windows registry for "Windir" and see how the "Manage" command in your "My Computer" uses the "Windir" envvar to launch the Computer Management Snap-In. In other words, it's very necessary.

The "SystemRoot" is also an oldie but goodie. It points to the parent directory of the "system" folder of the Windows OS (according to Commenter "KC" on Joel on Software Discussion Group), which is usually "WinDir" but could be on a seperate network share in the good ol' days of network-booted 16-bit Windows! (according to Raymond Chen's "Why is there a separate GetSystemDirectory function?")

I could gripe that I shouldn't be able to modify or delete "WinDir", but maybe there's a use case. Anyway, enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot.

Magical Amber (まじあん): Tobi Tsukihime alternate game mode, complete "making" and strategy guide, "Hell" replay

(tags game, shmup, Windows, doujin, side-scroll, yoko, replay-data, programming, book)

Have you played Tobi Tsukihime (とびつきひめ: TTh)? If not I urge you to get over your side-scrolling shmup aversion, and buy a copy. This is a high quality doujin shmup, a frenetic hyper visual overload of sprites and light with cuteness, with some relation to the commercial ecchi Windows shmup Tobi D+vine (とびでばいん). Did mention that the music rocks? Only a couple million times.

01Step recently released Magical Amber (まじあん), a new take on the TTh shmup game. The same page has the 25MB demo, so check it out. It's not a totally new game, because it reuses the backgrounds, enemy sprites, animations, music and sound effects. The story cut scenes are gone. But it replaces your shooting pattern, enemy shooting patterns, and scoring mechanism. It feels new. The tempo isn't changed however. MA tempts you with point hoarding at the same places as TTh. No experience with TTh is necessary, though.

Did you like that orb/spinning cat thing that you could shoot to capture areas and destroy enemies in TTh? It's gone in MA. It was pretty interesting and visually appealing but they experimented with a new game type here, that slow-ship + blue penetrating laser, which is a meme from the Raiden series and countless other shmup games.

Do you like Mushihime-sama style disappearing bullets? Do you like purple enemy bullets raining down on you like danmaku curtain fire? Do you like the sound of leveling up, leveling up to get temporary invisibility, hit indicators flashing in like Psyvariar's Buzz count? Do you like the miasma of "+100" sprites overloading the screen? MA fulfills this and more.

MA is part of 01Step's Comic Market 71 offering, which is the Tobi Tsukihime Reader (とびつきひめ 読書), a strategy guide and breakdown book of TTh. The whole set was about 2000 yen by Tora No Ana proxy. MA is on the CD-ROM, which also includes that Hell Replay video that I wanted back at Comic Market 70.

That TTh Reader book is amazing. Its a virtual love fest for all aspects of the game. This is the first time I've ever seen a fully detailed breakdown of the TTh scoring, sprites and sprite animation, story, music, and programming. I mean, what other shmup book explains the event loop programming constructs necessary for DirectX and Windows gaming?

In his blog entry for 2007-01-05, "mu", the main programmer, explains there wasn't many examples of a book on the general programming market that explains game making from start to finish, so this is the reason he wrote the TTh Reader. He's hoping that this could start a trend within doujin shmup makers of releasing strategy guides, with a nod to French-Bread (フランスパン) (famous for Bike Banditz).

Illustrations by Naoki Honda (本田直樹) also adorn the book, but there's nothing new. I thought Honda wasn't well known, but it turns out his ecchi illustrations adorn the covers of the monthly adult manga magazine Comic Momohime (COMIC桃姫) ever since its inception on 2000! I wanna see more non-adult stuff from him.

There's nothing new about the sound effect and music department manned by Masashi ”MSS" Yano (矢野雅士), pity. Most of the detail was already covered by the Tobi Tsukihime Soundtrack paper insert.

This is the prefect send off for this doujin game. I highly recommend this purchase. Any game creator enthusiast from the programmer viewpoint should read into this book. It was sad that at my local Tora no Ana the books weren't moving but then again, that was the first day. "Mu" doesn't have any plans to create any reprints, so get your copy while they're still there.

That Windows Run Dialog Box and quick program launching

(tags Windows XP, keyboard, command-line, environment variable)

I've been clearing my backlog of RSS feeds. I haven't read LifeHacker since 2006/07. Ugh. But there are gems almost every other post. I figured out some new things about the Windows Run dialog box from "Quick launch apps from the Run box" (2006/07/28). But let me list all the things that I know as well:

• The Run dialog box is brought up by Windows+R.
• You can run many programs just by typing the name and hitting Enter. Here let me show off my esoteric memorization skills:
  • cmd : Command Window
  • iexplore : Internet Explorer
  • explorer : Window Explorer (but you should just press Windows+R)
  • appwiz.cpl : Add or Remove Programs Control Panel
  • compmgmt.msc : Computer Management Snap In
  • services.msc : Services Snap In (but you could use net query or sc at the command line)
  • mstsc : Remote Desktop Client
  • gpedit.msc : Group Policy Editor Snap In
  • lusrmgr.msc : Local Users and Groups Snap In
  • a million more but I can't remember them
• You can drag a file from an Explorer window and the pathname will be inserted into the dialog.
• It searches the "Path" environment variable (System and User combined).

Here's where it gets interesting. If you craft your Path Environment variable just right, you can add your own programs. Let's enumerate the mechanism:

• The System Environment Variable "Path" can accept references to other variables (eg. %SYSINTERNALS%) as long as they are System Environment Variables. Likewise, the same goes for User Environment Variable "Path". However, you cannot mix and match System and User variables.
• The User Environment Variable "Path" is added after the System Environment Variable "Path".
• Your fun keyboard apps that intercept and proxy actions like WinKey (defunct), HotKeyPlus, Mado Tsukai no Yuuutsuu do not pick up Environment Variable changes, and they need to be restarted. But of course, Windows Explorer does. Why!?
• You can create a folder (C:\my shortcuts), stick that in your Path, and places shortcuts of program files in there to run them directly. (This is the LifeHacker nugget) Just make sure your "PATHEXT" System Environment Variable has ".lnk" in there.

Now to put interesting programs in the path. dd, md5deep, nemesis, putty, sqlite, SysInternals, etc.

Google Reader still not ready for my time

(tags RSS, viewer, online application)

Google Reader still doesn't do Sort by Oldest on a global basis. Coupled with all the niceties sorely lacking compared to Bloglines (subs list view/hide, automatic subs update, flawless import of my feeds from OPML, manual sorting options), I'll be sticking with Bloglines for now. Not that Bloglines is perfect, though.

Experts and fans

(tags game, Street Fighter, video, Animal Crossing, review, character goods)

Another dump browser tabs post.

Retro Gaming with racketboy links to Sirlin's Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo tutorial videos. These videos were released around the time of that Xbox and PS2 Capcom Classics Collections Volume 2 (2006/11). I picked up a copy and Dhalsim whips me hard. I must admit that I learn a lot: "piano rolls", delayed inputs and other stuff. I think the sum of my SF knowledge ends at the middle of the Intermediate tutorial.

Another feel good post about Animal Crossing: Wild World, where UK: Resistance named it as "the only game of 2006". I don't have 17 million bells in my account, but I'm already a platinum member at Nookington's, so ha ha... But I don't have a picture of K.K. Slider, so I lose.

Speaking of which, the Animal Crossing movie, Doubutsu no Mori (劇場版どうぶつの森) has a poster page where you can download images of the posters and free wallpaper. Very cute. Just today I picked up the soundtrack at Animate, so I should make Doubutsu no Mori movie character goods post soon.

dotstream

(tags game, GameBoy Advance, race)

I was hoping dotstream (GBA) was some kind of shmup in Nintendo clothing. But it's a racer. I got past the first stage on reflex and as racing games go, the memorization kicked in, so I couldn't get nowhere. Well at least it gave me game on the Game Boy Micro.

It's not an ordinary racer. What was funny is that I kept the A button held down even though its not necessary. There's a turbo boost. You can slipstream. We call that buzzing or scratching in shmup parlance. There's also formation game mode that just was darn hard to excel at. It's got wierd, algorithmic music in some modes.

What else can I remember after playing it two weeks ago? It was only 1000 yen... Other than that, if you like minimalism and lines and memorization, this is another one for ya.

I liked it so much I bought another! (LG L1952 monitor redux)

(tags hardware, monitor)

Actually, I bought a second monitor, the same exact model as the first one. Two screens!

I did calculation for the DPI. Since this is a 19 inch monitor with only SXGA resolution (1280x1024), it turns out the screen is about 86.27 DPI. Windows assumes 96 DPI. Everything looks bigger with this monitor!

This is far from a future proof purchase. I can think of a couple of drawbacks already.

• - Aspect ratio is 5:4! Instead of 4:3! Instead of 16:9!
• - SXGA! Instead of SXGA+ (1400x1050 4:3)! Instead of UXGA (1600x1200 4:3)!
• - 108oi isn't supported by any stretch of the imagination. More like a shrinkage.
• - No support HDMI, for when I decided to dip into Blu-Ray/HD-DVD anime releases.
• - Can't play console games that require Composite or S-Video input (unlike my Dinner LCD)

But, still, two screens! This is much better than my work computer(s), where I have to use Synergy (mouse and keyboard multiplexer) to simulate working with two screens by using two separate computers. Just the other day:

• I was working with the GIMP, trying to "[Simulate] Shallow Depth of Field with The GIMP", and the toolbox thing and help and Internet tutorial was on the other screen. Excellent!
• I was typing my blog, and my images and reference links were on the browser on the other monitor! Morale improved!
• I was playing Unreal Tournament 2004 on my main screen while the side screen showed me process info and bandwidth usage. Customer satisfaction!
• I was reading Slashdot on one screen, while my iTunes was displaying track info. Productivity boost!

There are still some usage problems I haven't anticipated:

• - Pressing Alt in Unreal Tournament 2004 allows me to move the mouse to the second monitor. I am so pwned, passive tense.
• - I want to quickly change applications by pressing Alt-TAB, but the hint popup is off on the other monitor.
• - Do I want to put the browser on the left monitor or the right one this time?
• - There's no task bar on the second monitor. How am I going to pop up the stupid app?!
• - Explorer windows now pop up according to this algorithm:
  <script language="ruby">rand < 0.5 ? :left : :right</script>

I suppose my craziness was started by Coding Horror. He had a "Joining The Prestigious Three Monitor Club" post, followed by "LCD Progress". I dismissed over "Will your next computer monitor be a HDTV?" and "Is your PC capable of Hi-Def?" because I'm currently going through a Luddite phase, if you can believe it. (Wii in 2007, anyone?) I also remember something about "Remote Desktop Tips and Tricks" where he gives a how to guide on running a Remote Desktop session maximized to a particular monitor. Coding Horror is the bomb.

Suppose I bought a third monitor? One problem is there's no more desk space. Another problem would be hooking it up. My Radeon 9600 based video card (3 years old OMG LOLz) has two outputs: VGA and DVI-I. I would need to add a second video card. Well, I only need to throw away 6000+ yen on a PCI (not PCIe, not PCI-X) based card, oh thrills. I must insist on DVI-I output, please. What's this? ATI Radeon X1300 PCI 128 MB DDR2 as RX1300-LP128H? Kurouto Shikou (玄人志向) FTW.

(Dang, you'd think I just discovered the <ul> html tag just today.)

(not that) Obsessed with accurate time: Contemplating building a NTP server slaved to GPS

(tags timekeeping, GPS, hardware)

I have a fascination with accurate time. I remember when I was young, I used to call the time service to get the correct time to set various house clocks. ("At the tone, Pacific Standard Time will be twelve, forty-eight, and fifty seconds. BEEP") When I got Internet-savvy (is that a dated word or what?), I found out about the Network Time Protocol project (NTP). One focus, apart from maintaining the specification, is to publish accurate time over the Internet, for lower accuracy timing devices such as desktop PCs.

There is a lot of infomation out there for time synchronization. There is the NTP Public Services Project, the Japan Standard Time Project (日本標準時プロジェクト), then there are "time nuts". Check out the guy with his own cesium based "atomic clock" in his house. There is overkill, but then again this guy can never have enough overkill. I find that once you get the itch to get more accurate time, you run up against the "time nuts" sites real fast. They are filled with esoteric incantations, wierd squiggly graphs and hardware pr0n, but not much basic (intermediate?) knowledge.

Currently I use NTP public servers and the Meinberg NTP server and monitoring software on Windows XP. It generates nice graphs. The below shows that my computer has kept time within 0.1 seconds from a public NTP server (stratum 2).

I only recently began thinking about making my own time server, just for kicks. But this involves substituting the Internet for another reference clock. There are many options for various levels of tolerance and drawbacks, such as using radio and GPS, as well as using your own timing device (crystal oscillator, atomic clock!). Being a software guy with minimal hardware knowledge, I am considering a USB connected GPS receiver, since it receives time information from the multiple "atomic clocks" in orbit, the GPS satellites and should require only antenna setup.

Crudely summarizing, there are important concepts to remember when building a time server.

1. Time provider (example: NTP stratum 2 servers, GPS device)
   With public NTP stratum servers, all you have to do make sure you are connected to the Internet and can receive NTP/SNTP packets. In contrast, the GPS device must be able to output time in a machine-coherent and continous pattern. Typically, desirable devices output time every 1 second or less.
   
2. Time message protocol (example: NTP via Internet, NMEA 0138 via serial or USB interface)
   Within the NTP hierarchy, you use NTP. For your own time server there are many standards based on the type of reference clock device. Currently, the NTP server software supports many devices, from specialized to generic. One generic device type is called "Generic NMEA GPS Receiver", which has a message protocol that is now popular enough that many off-the-shelf Windows mapping software supports directly.
   
3. Time consumer (example: NTP server software)
   Basically my example revolves around the reference NTP server software, because it has the ability to act as a server and also discipline (maintain accuracy) the local software clock. But it is possible to substitute a SNTP client, which merely brute forces synchronization. The w32time service in Windows XP is an example of an SNTP client. Take a look at Coding Horror's "Keeping Time on the PC" to improving the query time of that client.

It is possible to buy a USB connected GPS receiver for less than 10000 yen nowadays. Make sure it has the NMEA 0138 output protocol. Unfortunately, since the Windows ports of the NTP server software (on the surface? checkout ntpd/refclock_nmea.c:61) does not support anything other than the undisciplined clock, you may have to repurpose a FreeBSD or Linux box for NTP. And no, you can't use a Virtual Machine for the task.

It doesn't seem insurmountable, it just takes some patience and more hardware. And time! Ack!

Tsundere love: "Takako Itsukushima" figure, novel, goods

(tags figure, anime, game, PlayStation 2, telephone card, bishojo, tsundere)

Takako: You are my rival! (cold stare)

I wouldn't want to fight her over a battle of wits.

Ah, yeah, that was a failed photo-op.

Anyway, Otome Wa Boku Ni Koishiteru (「乙女(おとめ)はお姉さま(僕)に恋してる」, my trans (flaky convoluted): Girls in Love With Elder Sister (Who Is Really A Guy)) that 2006/10 anime is over but I've gone crazy over tsundere princess Takako Itsukushima (厳島貴子). I even bought the Saito Fumiki (斉藤史樹) figure published by Alter Limited, pictured above and below. Here's some photo reviews at other places like Jouji Reso-su Busoku (常時リソース不足), Senaka (せなか).

Takako is one of the traditional tsundere examples. Takako is the student council president (seito kaicho 生徒会長) of the all-girls high school in this shojo-themed love story. She adopts a rival stance towards the newcomer Mizuho, the enigmatic but alluringly elegant transfer student who just happens to be a guy (let's forget this plot detail for the sake of introduction). But Mizuho doesn't act clearly as a rival or as a friend, and Takako begins to develop romantic feelings towards Mizuho. "Tsun" because she can't read Mizuho. "Dere" because despite the doubt, she feels attracted to Mizuho.

Regarding Mizuho (瑞穂), I always thought that it was strictly a girl's name. Can it really be used for a guy?

Otome Wa Boku Ni Koishiteru (JP wikipedia) was originally an adult ecchi PC game. When converting to consumer mainstream, the porters first change the title from "virgin" (shojo, 処女) to "maiden" (otome, 乙女) (both kanji have the furigana "otome" as a forced reading). Both the PlayStation 2 game and the anime use this new title.

Because I loved the anime, which was essentially the "Takako" scenario from the game, I wanted to play it. But it was quicker just to read the novel (shown above). Actually I bought the novel after watching the second to last episode, and finished reading it just before watching the final episode. The novel goes into more events and more depth, and makes the anime feel rushed. Now that both the book and anime are over, I don't feel like reading any other scenario, since they don't seem as interesting.

Finally, around the time the PlayStation 2 game came out (2005/12), that Takako telephone card (photo lower left) which was a Gamers exclusive, tempted me to buy the game. But since I decided to pass on it, I picked up just the telephone card later somewhere in Nipponbashi Den Den Town, probably Books Lashinbang. I think the same goes for the other telephone card.

BTW, the other person in those pictures is supposed to Mizuho. Does that look like a guy to you?

I am planning to buy this anime series at Gamers, with yet another telephone card omake "carrot", mainly because of the high visual quality and the scenario/story. As a DVD exclusive, there will be one more non-broadcast episode tacked onto the 4th DVD.

Personally I think the voice actresses on this one don't add anything special to the story, even though my favorite seiyuu Yui Horie (堀江由衣) voices Mizuho and Masumi Asano (浅野真澄) voices Mariya. Horie doesn't do a convincing job of making me believe that Mizuho is a guy, but then again, the whole story is a rip of a shojo fantasy, albeit made palatable to guys with bishojo tendancies. I rather enjoy Asano's Mariya, because she is active and outgoing and off the wall. Who voices Takako? Chiaki Takahashi (たかはし智秋), who for the life of me I can't remember what other roles she did. But I know she's in IdolM@ster. Um, I am ambivalent actually.

One type of finish: Sudoku 2 Deluxe

(tags complete, Sudoku, Dual Screen)

Sudoku 2 Deluxe (パズルシリーズ Vol.9 数独２ Deluxe). I put in about 6 hours over the last two days, grabbing all the medals. The last medal was Platinum just like the previous game, but it required you to finish the board in 7 minutes. Not a problem:

Cleared! Now only 350+ boards to go to completely finish the game. LOL. At probably 14 minutes average... About 81 hours. Not a problem.

The star system is in this version. I believe it was introduced in the US version of the first Sudoku. It has helped me become a bit faster. You get full stars if you finish a board in 5 (Easy), 10 (Normal), 20 (Hard), ? (Very Hard) minutes. My Easy board finishes are mainly 1 star off, which infuriates me to no end. I get more perfect stars on the Normal, Hard level, and I haven't dropped a Very Hard level yet. wo_Ot! On the non-perfect boards, I'm just going to take a picture of them and fill it in later.

At first I didn't like the new graphics, but I've grown to like it. The numbers are fuzzy but the board is bigger. I don't like the color schemes, but they don't get in the way. I haven't scratched the surface on the improvements on this game, but I'll save it for next related post.

The commute is going to be counting, over and over again. Speed up!

(edit: spelling checking revealed 2 errors)

You and I Both: Jason Mraz

(tags music, video, USA, San Diego)

Before purchasing that new monitor I was comparing it to the others. They were all showing a bunch of US music artist video clips, but one of them kept stealing my attention from the evaluation: Jason Mraz's "You and I Both" (swiped video). I wanted to watch that video again. There was just something about his voice that called me again. To me, it sounded "honest". Luckily the music video credits displayed and I wrote it. Got home, checked the Wikipedia page, which led to his official page, and some swiped clips. I did more random listening, and his live "Sleep All Day" at the House of Blues blew me away, while the "The Remedy" on the Caroline Rhea show was just powerful. (In fact I better stop now so I can finish this post.)

One thing I found interesting is that he won Artist of the Year multiple times at the my home town's San Diego Music Awards. Ah the things I miss.

Where has this guy been? Or, where I been? Actually Jason Mraz's CDs have been released in Japan already. So I made it a point to check out every CD shop in Nipponbashi while looking around for the normal otaku stuff. I finally found his first official album Waiting For My Rocket To Come at Disc Plaza. w00t! I kept humming that half remembered tune all the way back home. Tried to find something similiar but yeah, George O'Sullivan isn't close. Ripped that CD up and now I'm worried of over-playing it.

Fear

(tags Sudoku, Dual Screen)

It's out. Sudoku 2 Deluxe (パズルシリーズ Vol.9 数独２ Deluxe).

Fear ... for my free time. I'm not even done with the Brain Age's Sudoku puzzles and I wanna move onto this one. Heh.

Comic Market 71: happy by proxy

(tags Comic Market, doujin, game, shmup, music, Yuiko Tokumi)

Even if I don't go to Comic Market, I still anticipate the new releases and buy the interesting stuff by proxy. CM 71 has come and gone, but you can still make lines in doujin stores on the 3rd day, 16:00 hours.

This time I looked forward to 01 Step's newest release, the Tobi Tsukihime Reader (「とびつきひめ 読本」) which included the shmup game MajiAn (まじあん, short for Magical Amber). More on this book and game later, but in a word, it rocks! I liked it so much I bought two!

I also bought dBu Music's newest arrange CD I can't get to the second level!! (「２面に進めませんっ！！」, my trans). Aside from the really cute cover illustration (moe tags: zettai ryouiki, twin tail), this CD is a collection of stage 1 tracks from various shooting games (shmup) ranging from commercial games like Psyvariar, Rayforce, Radiant Silvergun, and doujin games like Suguri (スグリ), Shuusougyoku (秋霜玉), Imperishable Night (東方永夜抄). BTW, the latter two are originally ZUN created tracks. There seems to be a million ZUN inspired arrange CDs out there, ugh. Remember dBu music contributed 4?

Lastly I was able to get the AliBat (Alice Battle Record of Rozen War) version 1.5 doujin game. This is a Rozen Maiden inspired 3d battle game, not a shmup. Think Powerstone. And I didn't have to wait in long lines, hahaha. But is it really worth the 3000 yen?

Today  I'm going to head out to Nipponbashi to check out any other doujinshi or doujin games or CM related character goods I missed. Ichigo Mashimaro (苺ましまろ) had a telephone card set release, and I can't wait to see the newest illustrator Yuiko Tokumi (篤見唯子, doujin group 薄荷屋) work, if any, probably a calendar. Oh wait, she made a typo on her newest release... "Winter 1996". Hahaha. Which reminds me, I bought her first commercial illustration book, the recently released one with lots of Bottle Fairy (瓶詰妖精) love, but I still haven't cracked it. La la la, LA LA!

best and worst of 2006

(tags review)

Gotta get this done before 2007. Whoops. Well, it feels stale already anyway. Anyway, I drop all pretenses of being worldly, so here's my year:

Best game (overall): Sudoku

What can I say, I still want to play it even after saying no more Sudoku forever, unlike Animal Crossing... which makes me feel guilty for skipping Autumn.

(runners up: Animal Crossing, Rhythm Tengoku, Final Fantasy XII)

Best anime into game: Kasimasi Girl Meets Girl: First summer Story (かしまし　～ガール・ミーツ・ガール～　「初めての夏物語。」)

Even though I had some fun with Rozen Maiden: Duellwalzer, and Princess Princess - Watashitachi no Abunai Houkago, Kasimasi takes the cake because its well rounded.

Best portable game: Sudoku

See above "Best game (overall)".

(runners up: Animal Crossing, Rhythm Tengoku)

Best console game: Final Fantasy XII

Enough to waste 150+ hours on. Enough to change my opinion of console RPGs. This is my final Final Fantasy.

(runners up: Kasimasi, Princess Princess)

Best PC game: Tobi Tsukihime

Reaffirmed my side scrolling shmup love, with a killer soundtrack.

(runners up: Titanion)

I wish I played this game I stacked: Ookami

I don't know why I don't just open the darn game.

(runners up: Under Defeat, Elite Beat Agents, a million others)

Best anime: Kasimasi Girl Meets Girl

Out of all the boy becomes/"dresses as" a girl animes this year, well, okay, this one takes the cake. With two endings, a super star voice cast, and great artwork, it's hard to put this one down.

(runners up: Fushigi Boshi no Futago Hime, Princess Princess)

Best voice actress: Yui Horie (堀江由衣)

Voice of Kasimasi's Yasuna, School Rumble Second Semester's Airi, Zero No Tsukaima's Siesta, Otome wa Boku Ni Koishiteru's Mizuho, and Doubutsu no Mori's (Animal Crossing) Ai, and a million more. (pictured: middle)

(runners up: Yuuko Goto (後藤邑子), Hitomi Nabatame (生田目仁美))

Best voice actor: Tomokazu Sugita (杉田智和)

Sugita as Mayama in Honey and Clover just makes me melt. Did I just say that?!?!

(runners up: Jun Fukuyama (福山潤))

Best music artist (vocal): Mao Yuu (ゆうまお)

Great voice, well deserved break for this veteran (anime) songwriter.

(runners up: Crocro, Kotoko, too many)

Best music artist (instrumental): Masashi Yano (矢野雅士）

Just when I start noticing him, he has to exit, stage right.

(runners up: dBu music)

Best movie: Toki o Kakeru Shojo (時をかける少女)

Well it beats out Doubutsu no Mori (Animal Crossing) and Brokeback Mountain. I guess I don't go to the movies much.

Best figure: Card Captor Sakura DVD-Box Omake Figure "Sakura"

Cuteness!

(runners up: "Inku Nijihara", "Lucy Maria Misora")

Best gadget: iPod 5.5 80GB

I use this everyday for play and hobby. I'd be lost without it.

(runners up: Microsoft Wireless Notebook Present Mouse 8000, Sony DSC-T9 Digital Camera)

Best programming language: Ruby

Gotta remember the programming spirit, and Ruby glues it together for me.

(runners up: Javascript, C)

Best blogger: The Old New Thing by Raymond Chen

It's one thing to be consistently interesting and insightful. It's another to click every single post just to find out more nuggets of gold in the comment thread. With this blog you learn just what "compatible" means in terms of the most complex commercial software available, Microsoft Windows. Any programmer who has to design an UI or API must read this.

(runners up: Coding Horror by Jeff Atwood, Game | Life by Wired's Chris Kohler and others)

Stuff I wish I didn't waste my time on: my blog

I'm at a loss for words.

(runners up: events in Tokyo, live concerts where no one claps, telephone cards I look at only once...)

(edit: added link to Tobi Tsukihime, added Best Blogger, runners up smaller, added picture for Best gadget)