Still taming the damn penguin

Been experiencing the best and worst things you can see in the IT world :D
Well, I've been trying to enlarge my Linux partition. There are 2 ways to do it: creating another partition for /home or a fresh install. I decided to do a fresh install because I wanted to fix some trivial problem with KDE sound (but later on it turned out to be a bad choice :().
Since Windows was crappy I decided to do a fresh reinstall for it too. The sucker could not boot from slave drive, so I had to install it to the master drive. On the secondary drive I had 30GB for Linux and 45GB for data.
After backing up the data, I got myself a 3-CD version of Mandriva 2008 beta 1. Installation went smooth, the only thing that annoyed me was that I had to switch too often between CDs - they should have distributed the packages cleverer :P
As all packages have been installed, I was taken to the configuration screen. To my surprise, there was no graphical lilo bootloader, and although I could choose grub-graphic, it still complained that some packages were missing. So I had no choice but to choose lilo-text as the bootloader.
The text version was really awful. As I logged into the system, I found myself in IceWM. There were no KDE nor fluxbox although I was sure that I had choosen to install them.
OK, I'm no fan of Gnome, I didn't install it either, and IceWM really sucked. Also I noticed that the 3-CD version was much smaller than the DVD one. Unfortunately I don't have a DVD burner, and the DVD image was too big for my damn connection. Therefore I decided to switch back to 2007 and wait for the official version later this year...

(To be continued)

New Java applet challenge

Just created a quick one for the new pyramid. Named "Chamber door". Not as hard as the others I have made but it goes really well with the ancient Egyptian background ;)
Create an account at the new pyramid, defeat the first 4 levels to give it a try guys :D

bbq project - fourth release

Hey guys, it's been a long time.
I have been quite busy (mostly reading HP7 :P) so there hasn't been much update to the bbq project.
Anyway, a new version has just been released. Features including new items, new monsters and a new mechanism for monster spawning (mostly to control farming :P)
Oh and sniperkid now provides the new host so bbq can be up most of the time ;)
Also, I have started playing at a new challenge site: The new pyramid. Quite interesting. However with my skills and experience I have climbed to the 2nd place within only 9 days :)
Come challenge me there!

Yet another blog

Hey dude, are you out of mind? You have too many blogs already! Why create a new one?

Hehe true. But since I'm working on too many different things I believe I really need a new blog. This one will be about problems I encounter on my projects (and surely the solutions to them). I hope this will help those who encounter the same problem as me.

Now let's get onto the first problem.

Since the return of an old friend who was fighting alongside with me in the fierce battle to wipe out all the evilness in this world, I am now working on a new project - Enfair (you'll hear more details about it soon :P). The project makes use of 2 common libraries - JSF and MyFaces Tomahawk. On his comp everything went smoothly without any problem. But on mine the stupid thing always refused to work by throwing a crazy exception:

07/07/04 16:50:43 oracle.classloader.util.AnnotatedClassNotFoundException:

     Missing class: [Ljava.lang.String;

   Dependent class: com.sun.faces.config.ConfigureListener
            Loader: current-workspace-app.web.Tomahawk-Project1-webapp:0.0.0
       Code-Source: .../jdevstudio10132/jdev/mywork/Tomahawk/Project1/public_html/WEB-INF/lib/jsf-impl.jar
     Configuration: WEB-INF/lib/ directory in .../jdevstudio10132/jdev/mywork/Tomahawk/Project1/public_html/WEB-INF/lib

This load was initiated at current-workspace-app.web.Tomahawk-Project1-webapp:0.0.0 using the loadClass() method.

Been trying to resolve the problem without any luck, I tried deploying the project to Tomcat. A similar exception is thrown:

java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: [Ljava.lang.String;
   at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.loadClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1358)
   at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.loadClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1204)

It has been bugging me for quite a while until I entered the right keyword on Google and found the solution.

The problem was that Tomahawk and the JSF library bundled with JDeveloper were not fully compatible in Java 6. Fortunately there have been a new patch from https://javaserverfaces.dev.java.net to fix it. I downloaded version 1.2_04 P02 (23 May 2007) and it runs like a charm now :)

So scary how a tiny problem could lead to a big disaster.

bbq project third release!

Finally! The nasty bugs with the listeners have been fixed! Wrong use of finalize method surely lead to disasters.
Anyway, enjoy the new stable release! There have been too many features added since the second release so you should refer to the version history for more details.

Challenge solved!! New Steganabara version soon :D

Finally solved Stegano 36: "You are granted a license!" [made by BaRa]. A crazy chall!
Anyway, it inspired me to continue working on Steganabara, once again :P
Well the next version will be a bugfix, which makes it fully functioning under Windows :P
There's no planned new features yet, but maybe the CryptoBox will be improved too

Something before the end of the month :P

Well here I am again, trying to post something before June comes.
If you're looking for something new, this really is the right place.

The bbq rpg is still going fine as ever. We now have level 5 spells and a whole load of new monsters and items. Most noticeable is the new combination of items and the addition of healing items. A supermarket will be there soon enough. And the trading feature is almost complete.
The bad news is that there are bugs in the bj and hangman modules that I haven't been able to fix. So the next official release will be delayed a bit.
Oh, before I forget to mention, I managed to find a cvs host for it at CVSDude, and now bbq can be online longer being co-hosted by theAnswer and Gizmore.

In the meantime, I am now a JBB moderator leading a few exams. Hopefully we'll have new Swing exams soon :)

The last thing I want to mention in this post is that I have come back to hackquest and solved all the Linux challenges there! gdb rocks!
Maybe I'll solve all the Linux challs @ tbs soon.

Long time again - am I too lazy?

Nope, just because I have been working on the bbq project everyday :P

We have some big updates and a new release will surely come out this month.

Notably are the addition of items, mvp monster bosses, spells up to level 4, autoheal and autospell.
The cool smiley :D has been used wisely for dueling too :D.

Don't forget to check the website for the cool new features. I'll update a version history soon enough so you can know what's actually going on (and maybe make some contribution :P)

Any comments/suggestions are welcome!

bbq RPG goes official

Hey guys,

Finally the first official release of the bbq RPG. Now you can actually fight monsters with your friends :) At the moment only basic level 1 spells are available, but more will be added later.

More details about the game can be found here. Come join us on #tbs-botzone @ irc.idlemonkeys.net now!

At the moment the game is only available when I'm online. Maybe I'll find a (free) IRC bot host? :P

More updates :)

Hey guys,
Some new updates from my projects :)

Firstly, the website has been completely updated to comply with XHTML 1.0 Strict :) And it's now 100% table-less (if you click on the validation icon it'll say it's no 100% - stupid freewebs ads, I'll do something to have it changed)

Secondly, Steganabara 1.0.8.2 has been released. Well, not a public release btw :P Other than me, theAnswer has the only copy :P Just a minor bug fix for the drag & drop feature support for Windows. If you are using another desktop environment other than KDE/Windows, and for some weird reason the feature isn't working, feel free to drop me a mail :)

Thirdly, and our featured update today :) An update from the bbq project. There's no update to the bbq rpg and atm the Lamb-shadowrun is taking advantages. But a new bbq game is now catching the attentions :) Yes, it's the arcade game hangman that has been revived in an irc context :) There has been many attempts from theAnswer to cheat on the game, but on-time updates have been release to stop them all :) Come get hung at #tbs-botzone now!

Steganabara 1.0.8

Hey guys,
Steganabara 1.0.8 is out :)
It now provides full drag & drop support, with a brand new feature: color explorer (idea shamelessly taken from Phas :P)

Next major release will be 1.1. If you have any cool idea that should be implemented, start contributing now :)

Oh and in the meantime I'm upgrading my website to using table-less layout - Yay for the new W3C standard :) Once it is done then maybe we'll be migrating to a new webhost - searix for better performance :)

That's it for now! Stay tuned for the next chapter :)

Steganabara official release - 1.0.6

Hey guys,

The Steganabara project first official release - 1.0.6.
Almost all features mentioned in the last post have been implemented.
Drag and drop support will be added soon.

Download the new release now and play with various new features of the color map/table at http://www.freewebs.com/quangntenemy/steganabara/Steganabara.jar

Steganabara - official release

Hey guys,

I'm working on the Steganabara project again :)

There will be an official release this month, featuring:
- Drag & drop support (yay XD)
- Color chooser (no need to type the hex color anymore)
- Visual bit mask selector (no need for that long 0s and 1s sequence :P)
- Quick color map chooser (yes, you can view the color map for every color from the color table now)

Stay tuned for the next chapter :D

Brown belt

Finally got the cool brown belt.
Wasn't too hard with my skills :)
What's my next target? There's still the huge J2EE part to conquer. And the bbq project of course ;)

J2SE = yummy :)

Finally got all available Java SE exams passed at JBB.
What's cool is that I got 100% in the Reflection exams, both beta and real.
Maybe it's because I have made extended use of it in my bbq project :)
Only 2 more points to get brown.
Maybe my next target will be.. JUnit - Basic.

bbq project first release

Hey guys, we have a good news and a bad news today.

The good news is from the bbq project. The first release (25 Mar 2007) is now available at http://www.freewebs.com/quangntenemy/bbq. Download one and start customizing it for the #tbs-botzone contest now :)

The bad news is also from the bbq project. Yesterday my bot lost 14 games in a row (well, there were 2 pushes though) and lost all the money :( (almost $400k) Now I have to start from scratch again. In other words, every candidate has equal chance now :P

Anyway, I'm starting to work on the IRC-PRG project :P Setting up MySQL and designing the tables at the moment. Coding will start soon.

Stay tuned for the next chapter :)

A visit from Microsoft?

Today when I was looking at the log to see how popular my blog was, I noticed this special link.
Yes, my blog got a hit from a guy from M$.

What happened to the computer world? Did Mr Gates suddenly wake up in the morning and noticed that their so-called innovative operating system Windows Vista and the Java rip-off .Net framework were a failure and decided to follow the path of the penguin in the open source world? :) Or was that just a M$ employee who got bored with the noob stuff at work and roamed the Internet looking for some fun? Or just a stupid crawler that was just leeching off my site?

Looking into more details, that guy came to my site via a Google search with my nickname as the keyword. There was some information about the screen resolution, color depth and javascript enabled so I guess that shouldn't be a crawler :P

Anyway, whoever it is, I suppose the mysterious visitor will reveal himself soon enough :P

Long time 2 :D

Hey guys, it's been a long time once again :D

I have been quite busy both at work and home :) The .Net project at work was quite easy for a 1337 like me, but it's quite time-consuming :( At home I am still working on the cute bot bbq :D

We're having an official irc channel for botting :D It used to be #tbs-traders but now we have moved to #tbs-botzone because Inferno didn't like that name :P

At the moment the botzone members are working on 3 projects. theAnswer, Gizmore, jmoncayo and matrixman are working on the so-called "Lamb project", which is coded in php with the power of MySQL. They even have a homepage for it, click here if you're interested :) ch0wch0w is working dependently on his ch0wb0t whose ability is still unknown :P And myself, as you already know, am working on the bbq bot which is written in Java using the irc module provided by PircBot.

Our first target is to win $1 million from playing blackjack with Shepp. At the moment my bot seems to be leading with $167142 in the bank after 2837 games. theAnswer and Gizmore's bots are still far away after losing all their money, both have played around 1000 games. Other players' status are unknown. But our result is still so far from the legendary No0ther1 who had played 201801 games, and won more than $1 million but unfortunately lost them all :P

As I only have 1-2 hours spare to work on the bot each day, my bot hasn't progress so far. At the moment it needs a little refactoring due to bad design - something that always happens when you try to solve an AI problem with some quick and dirty code :P Hopefully after this last refactoring my bot will become stable and available for non-commercial purpose soon :)

What's more, after our bots going stable, we're planning to write an irc-based RPG :) Come join us anytime soon on #tbs-botzone at irc.idlemonkeys.net :)

Problem with KDE sound

Is KDE your favourite desktop environment? I'm using it because it's much cooler than Gnome :P
As a penguin tamer, I always read the cool Linux articles by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols. One of my favourite was his article titled "Little Red Riding Tux meets the Big Bad Wolf". The podcast was so cool that I wanted to make it my KDE startup theme so that I can hear it everytime I start my Linux box ;)
Unfortunately, for some weird reason, KDE just refused to play it :P Maybe because of the file being stored in mp3 format. What's even worse, it caused my sound driver to stop working -.- And for some weird reason, even when I reseted the sound theme to default, sometimes the old config still popped out of nowhere.
Care less about the KDE config bug :P Atm all I need is a way to get my sound working without having to restart KDE. A simple solution is to restart the sound driver. As I am using alsa, the command is

service alsa restart

That's it for now! Have fun taming your penguin guys ;)

Long time

Hey guys, here's a new post again :D
It's been quite a long time since the last post, what have I been up to? :P
I had a quite busy week with a new .Net project at work and an IRC bot project at home. I've been looking for a PhD opportunity too, since it's now that time of the year again :P
Throw away the boring technical stuff, the bot is the main theme today :D
If you still remember, I have been using the Pyborg IRC bot by Tom Morton for quite a while. Recently the need for it grows stronger and the BADC0DED Python code is quite hard to maintain, so I decided to start a new Java project for it :)
My new bot uses PircBot as the core IRC module. At the moment the core is almost complete with a secure user system and a flexible command system :) What's cool is that commands can be updated on-the-fly (i.e no need to restart the bot everytime a command is added/updated) :D Maybe in the future there'll be needs for observer ability - so that messages sent to the bot will be forwarded to different observers for misc processing :)
At the moment the bot is named bbq but I'm not quite content with it :P Maybe it needs another cool and cute name? :P Any idea?