Archive for November, 2008

A lot of people probably have been wondering if there is a way to migrate existing XOOPS users to Joomla 1.5, and there is. Last night I needed to transfer users from a XOOPS 1.02 database to a new Joomla 1.5 database running Community Builder and Fireboard. So I wrote a nifty script to do just that.

So far this script is in beta and both XOOPS and Joomla databases must be on the same host. Make sure to read the readme carefully and pay attention, its nothing fancy and dont get mad at me if you make a mistake, I’ve commented the code only where you need to change a value.

You can download the scripts by clicking xoopsuserstojoomla1_0 <—

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV8oZ0npUy0[/youtube]

I just got back from seeing the movie “Role Models” starring Seann William Scott and Paul Rudd.  The movie was pretty funny, it featured a lot of the faces from “The 40 Year-Old Virgin” and I’m guessing a lot of the writing talent as well.  The synopsis goes something like this:  Two guys who work for an energy drink company have a kind of falling out with johnny law and now have to do community service with a “Big Brothers, Big Sisters” kind of organization or face 30 days in jail.  A constant theme with the movie is constantly referring to their possible jail time as “going to prison” and “getting raped”.

Even though I have never been to either jail or prison (knock on wood), I know there are HUGE differences between the two.

Before I start, one could say that the characters in the movie probably didn’t know these differences, but Paul Rudd’s character “Danny” has dated what appears to be a prosecutor for 7 years… I not only think that he should have known, but also “Beth” would have told him after they got in trouble.

First of all, there is very little fear of getting raped in jail, this should be common sense.  Jail is a place where criminals go that are serving time for less than a year or that are awaiting trial.  Jail would suck, but I wouldn’t really live in fear since it pretty much just houses the kind of people you’d see in a scummy bar… only sober.  I have a lot of friends that have been to jail (lol), their complaints about it mainly consist of loud obnoxious retards, boredom, and… well.. being there instead of home.

Prison is the place the characters in “Role Models” keep referring to, not Jail.  In Prison you would have to deal with fears of large gay men and being shanked (stabbed to death to my nerdy friends).

Also as a bonus, one of their infractions in the movie was assault to a police officer (when they knocked that parking cop off the side of their truck).  I’m pretty sure with even being white in L.A. you would not be able to get off with JUST community service.  Assault on a police officer is not something courts take lightly.  I have a couple of friends who were being chased by a cop when they were joyriding on a 4-wheeler.  The cop knew who both of my friends were, and my idiot friends were shocked when they arrived back to see the cop at my one friend’s house.  The cop tried to clothesline them off the 4-wheeler as they sped past but instead knocked the cop on his ass in the snow.  That was assault on a police officer, even though their intend was to escape.  One of my friends got 3 days in jail, fines and probation, I think the other one was driving because I think he got something like 10 days and a ton of other stuff.

So let that be a lesson to you Hollywood, there are big differences between Jail and Prison– the two names are NOT synonymous.  Look it up.

And to you, the would-be criminal, don’t think you can try to take off in your truck as it’s being towed, knock over a cop, and destroy state property and think all you’ll have to do is hilariously-funny community service with a couple of kids, your ass will go to jail…. but at least it wouldn’t be prison, right?

refundpolicy@flyninja.net

A good friend pointed me to this today.

I’m so excited to see that Flyninja Dot Net makes such an excellent impression on someone, that they simply must copy and paste our about page!  We are trend setting now!!

Looks like being unique returned a 404…

A lot of people are asking if there is going to be a Fallout 3 construction set released.  The answer is convoluted at best.  It would be best assumed that Bethesda will release the Fallout 3 toolkit after major bug fixes and after they produce premium content modules for the game.  There are some pretty good hints that there will be a construction set released, such as the data files option when the game is launched, as well as there being a Fallout3.esm file located in the data directory, similar to Oblivion and Morrowind and how they use the TES Construction Set.

I even attempted to load the fallout3.esm file into the TES construction kit, however the application simply terminated, much like the game, LOL.

I think Bethesda would be really stupid if they did not release a toolkit for modders, the game is set in such a distinctive fucked up world, it would be awesome to see what comes from the public to add to it.  Plus I would like to have a clean house, instead of the trashed one I got in Megaton, if there is already a clean one somewhere, I haven’t got it yet.

As for Bethesda’s comments about a toolkit being released they simply remarked that even though its something theyve done for Oblivion and other games, preparing a construction set takes a lot of time and would cut into production time, yet theyre discussing it.

I say fix those huge release bugs first, release the toolset, and then release premium content.  I’ll keep you all updated on this issue as well as the big fixes. Stay tuned.

Ok, so some of you may know from my previous post that I’ve got Fallout 3, and have been playing it, well I’ve been trying to play it actually, see the game crashes to desktop.

A lot.

Usually 2-20 minutes into the game that I play, so I always save it when I can, still it’s really fucking annoying.  Seeing how Bethesda’s recently deployed v.1.0.0.15 patch does not resolve this issue or even a lot of the issues people are having I had to start researching into troubleshooting the issues myself.  So here I am going to fill you in on what I found so far.   Please be sure to research these issues on your own, and if something happens…bad…it ain’t my fault.

First off in Oblivion you were able to tweak some settings for performance enhancements in a .ini file, same goes for Fallout 3.  In MyDocuments > MyGames > Fallout 3 lies Fallout3.ini open this up in notepad. Your looking for certain parameters to set to different values.

Under [General]

bUseThreadedBlood=1 (default is 0)
bUseThreadedMorpher=1 (default is 0)
bUseThreadedAI=1 (default is 0)
bUseThreadedTempEffects=1 (default is 0)
bUseThreadedParticleSystem=1 (default is 0)
iPreloadSizeLimit=104857600 (default is 26214400)

For those with a 8800 (and other video cards that support Pixel Shader 3.0) find under [Display]

bAllow30Shaders=1 (default is 0)

Under [Audio]

bMultiThreadAudio=1 (default is 0)
iMaxImpactSoundCount=64 (default is 32)

Thanks to Merkaba777 from the Fallout 3 Forums for putting up this info.  Now this has helped some people however I believe most peoples problems with the game are a bit more overwhelming.  I used this to help some of the issues I had, and i had to go back and reset the audio stuff back to default because I was having lag issues with the sounds (I would shoot, and 2 minutes later youd hear it).

I’ve found that turning off the in-game radio is really helpful in minimizing and almost completely getting rid of the crashes, but that just really sucks, the in-game radio is one of the cool aspects of the game.  Other things I’ve found is that uninstalling or adding an exception to ffdshow if you have it installed has fixed some problems, I guess when Fallout 3 is launched ffdshow picks it up, I have no clue why though, I thought the games encoding and codec stuff was all built in so it wouldnt have to depend on 3rd party software.  Nonetheless some people have went as far as rolling back their systems codecs back to default which can be done using this tool, make sure to read the readme and usage stuff.

Other ways include troubleshooting your resolution settings and graphics settings, like turning off intensive ones like HDR and blooming, even though you think your graphics card may be able to handle the game, and in all likleyhood it should, you never know unless you test this stuff out.

There is a fan made fix for sounds and audio, this tool simply uses a new Vorbis encoder version to re-encode the sounds.  May work, I personally have not yet tested this.  But you can get it here.

And unless your totally a n00b at this sort of thing, I’m going to assume you’ve made sure all your hardware drivers are up to date.  Also cleaning your registry always helps speed things up a little, that should always be part of routine maintenance as well.

Post your comments, how you fixed your game, or anything you want to add.  Your input is appreciated.

btw:  I’m more interested in the PC version in case Bethesda releases a contruction set, I’ll be adding Fallout 3 to my Xbox 360 game list soon.

In recent news the Canadian Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare gamer Brandon Crisp was found dead after running away from home when his parents decided it was high time to snatch his Xbox 360 game console on the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday.  They took it from him because it was supposedly getting in the way of his responsibilities and school work etc…

An addict so to speak.

Let me just go on to say, that, as much as I feel remorse for Brandons family and friends for their loss and suffering.  Who in the hell is going to get the blame here?  Will Microsoft or Infinity Ward/Activision?  Or the parents?  I think it would be safe to assume that people will be going on about how these “evil games” and this incident is proof that violent video games should be banned.  Let’s not forget to mention that with games having the ability to social interact through mediums such as Xbox Live and the internet a force of social belonging stretching into an addiction is almost certainty.

I don’t want want to be the harbinger of bad news…but anybody who blames “the game” is weak minded.

Let’s look at the facts here, Brandon was obviously an avid gamer, who particularly liked Call of Duty 4 which is a VERY popular online multiplayer FPS game available on Xbox, PS3 and PC.  CoD4 was released in November of 2007 with an ESRB rating of M, meaning it’s rating was set for “mature” players and people.  Brandon Crisp was 15 years old.  He wouldn’t even be able to get into an R rated movie by himself.  A kid who screams he’s going to run away because his console has been taken, if you ask me, is not made from “mature” cloth.

From another perspective, Brandon’s father, after getting the running away threat from his son, decided to ‘call his bluff; by helping him pack his bags and let him leave.

What the fuck.

I’m a father.  I would never help my child leave in anger in an attempt to call her bluff.  Never, and I mean never should a parent seem to encourage such an act.  Shit, a child/teen would be more inclined to think of it like his parents don’t care and don’t want them, obviously making the situation worse.

Why not just take the video game away?  Why not just cut the Xbox Live subscription?  Parents you have to realize that todays consoles don’t only play video games, they are entertainment systems which play DVD’s, CD’s, stream television and other types of media.  You can watch picture slideshows straight off your computer.  So the real question is, did he throw the fit because the ability to play his game was taken, or was it because his entertainment was being taken.

If you ask me Brandon Crisp’s parents should of been more involved in his activities at the start of his interest, and kept a watchful eye on what was going on, instead of what seems to have been a passive one.

Let me know what you all think.

Anyways I hope you all got out there and did your voting as good sheep do.  You won’t be counting mine.  Anyways here’s a little something for you to enjoy while you wait for the precious results from the election here in the good old United States.