Posts Tagged ‘existence’

Play Heroes of Might and Magic 3 on Android – Another great strategy game classic to play on Android mobile phone

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2014

heroes_of_might_and_magic_3_on_android_platform
Android mobile platform is awesome
as it resurrects the days of true gaming by enabling us to play ports of most influential computer games of our youth.
A short time after figuring out about existence of my favourite computer strategy game Heroes of Might and Magic 2 for Android mobiel devices.

heroes-of-might-and-magic-3-android-usual-game-play-among-best-strategy-games-for-android-platform

I got curious whether someone had ported also the successor verion of Heroes of Might and Magic II  strategy role play turn-based games sequels – Heroes of Might and Magic (HOMM) III.
And was striken even Heroes of Might and Magic 3 game port is already available!
To play HOMM 3 you need to install VCMI application on your android phone or tablet, if you search it directly from GooglePlayer Store you will notice 2 VCMI versions, be careful as one of the applications is already depreciated and is not working. VCMI app is based on the open source VCMI engine (check out VCMI wiki here) – attempt to rewrite entire Heroes of Might and Magic 3 from scratch!

To play Heroes 3 on your Android device you will need to have original HoMM3 files.
Once you run VCMI app for a first time you will be get a pop-up instructing you to follow Game files Android install instructions from this page.

heroes-of-might-and-magic-3-in-town-screenshot-android-phone-device

Heroes of Might and Magic 3's graphics and music (all stored in the modern for that time mp3 music format) was strikingly innovative for its release time (HOMM3 was published in y. 1999).

heroes_of_might_and_magic_iii-running-on-your-anroid-device

I still remember the many days and night spent together with friends and my sister playing maniacally Heroes 3. Though Heroes 3 doesn't make in imprint in my mind just like Heroes 2, from my gamer period years 1999 to 2001.

Heroes 3 was one of the games I and many of my friends (at that time aged 17 – 18 yeard old). The game plot is not that different from Heroes 3 – you command an army of mythical creatures from different nations mythologies and from various ages. Heroes are given a choice of skills to upgrade upon levelling up, as well as becoming better at combat or the use of magic. Yiou command the hero over a map with sources, you get the resources to build new structures and army. There are artifacts all around you can get to make your hero strength greater, there is level of wisdom and varios other skills you can raise. You can buy multiple heroes and build strong armies and fight other player armies. Each player has his own number of belongings (castles, villages, mines etc.). The game includes plenty of mystic beings. Just like Heroes 2, a different "races" / castles / armies exist, just to mention few you can play with: Castle, Rampant, Tower, Inferno, Necropolis, Dungeon, Stronghold, Fortress Conflux

heroes-of-mignt-and-magic-3-finally-on-android

Game Storyline

Heroes 3 story line unfolds across 7 playable campaigns all set upon the imaginery continent of Antagarich. During the campaigns, the story is told from alternating points of view, giving players the opportunity to play as each of the town alignments.

Following the disappearance of King Roland Ironfist of Enroth, his wife, Queen Catherine, is left to rule the realm. In the meantime, her father, King Gryphonheart of Erathia, is assassinated. Without their beloved King, the kingdom of Erathia falls to the dark forces of Nighon and Eeofol. Queen Catherine returns home to Antagarich seeking to rally the people of her homeland and lead them against the evil that has ravaged their nation.

Erathia's capital of Steadwick is sacked by the dungeon lords of Nighon and the Kreegans of Eeofol. Meanwhile, the nations of Tatalia and Krewlod skirmish at the western border, seizing the chance to expand their territory. Catherine's first task is to establish a foothold in the conquered kingdom by enlisting the aid of allies. The wizards of Bracada and the elves of AvLee answer her call, and together they push towards Steadwick and eventually retake it, quickly quelling the border war in the west. Soon after, Lucifer Kreegan, a commander in the Eeofol armies, sends an envoy to Erathia claiming that Roland Ironfist is captive within their territories. AvLee invades Eeofol, but fails to rescue Roland, who is transported to their northern holdings. Afterwards, Catherine invades Nighon, pushing the dungeon armies back to their island home.

In the meantime, the necromancers of Deyja, having been responsible for the assassination of King Gryphonheart, plot to revive his corpse as a lich. They plan to use his wisdom in leading their own armies of the undead. However, King Gryphonheart's will proves too much for the necromancers even in his corrupted state, and he becomes a rogue lich. Having little other recourse, Queen Catherine is forced to ally herself with the necromancers and together they set out to destroy the lich of King Gryphonheart before he becomes too powerful.

A final bonus campaign, accessible only after the main campaigns are complete, tells the story of separatists living in the Contested Lands, a war-torn border between Erathia and AvLee. Tired of the skirmishes that bring unrest to their homelands, they join together to fight for independence from the two large kingdoms. It is later implied that this rising was orchestrated by Archibald Ironfist, the antagonist of Heroes of Might and Magic II.

Why Russophobes hates Putin – How situation changed in Russia during Vladimir Putin presidency

Thursday, April 3rd, 2014

why-Russophobes-hates-putin-how-situation-changed-in-Russia-during-putin-reign

POSITIVE RESULTS  FOR RUSSIA DURING REIGN OF VLADIMIR PUTIN

  • For last 12 years of government Putin increated Russia's budget 22 times.
  • Increated warfare spendings 30 times.
  • Increated GDP 12 times (by GDP Russia moved from 36th to 6th place in the World).
  • Increated Russian golden reserves 48 times.
  • Returned back 256 oil, petrol and other natural resources sources / mine-yards (under non-Russian government curretnly are only 3 of
  • Russia's source for natural resources.
  • Nationalized 65% of oil industry and 95% of gas industry.
  • For a 5th consequential year 2nd / 3rd place in export of grain (just for a comparison USA is currently ranked 4th largest weed exporter). The avarage sallary of national institution employed increased 18.5 times.
  • Avarage pension increased 14 times.
  • Reduce of population decreased from 1.5 million per year in year 1999 to 21 000 in 2011, i.e. 71 times.
  • Prohibited deputies in Government to have bank accounts in foreign banks.Prevented American attack against Syria.
  • Put an end to war in Chechnya.


From January y. 2000 to present times Russian ruble rate changed from 28 Rubles per dollar to 29 Rubles per dollar – i.e. severe inflation in Russia ended.Present day Russia is a normal European country not that poor country where approimate pension was 20 dollars and where masters was the financial pyramids and the International Monatery Fund

In 1992 Eltsin cancelled completely export duty of oil products.
In 23 January E. Primakov government forced again oil taxes.
In export price of 9.5 dollars per barrel custom taxes were 2.5 euro per tone and in price 12,5 dollars per barrel 5 euro / tone.Such a minor increase in taxes produced 14 billion rubles in already empty Russian budget.

In August 1999 Eltsin assigned Putin for prime minister.
In just a month later the export taxes Putin increased duty taxes to 7.5 euro/tone and in 8 december to 15 euro/tone. Till then incomes from oil taxes has been steadily increasing and nowadays exporters calculate in national budget half of incomes origin from oil prices and export taxes.
From January to November 2007 Russian customs influxed in national budget 2.57 trillion Rubles.
Oil export takes has drastically raised incomes of citizens.This had major impact on construction business.All Russia nowadays is in reality enormous "construction yard", to illustrate from January to September 2007 375 009 homes were built occupying 34 million square meters.
Cement factories cannot satisfy local market requirements and Russia is forced to import cement from China.
Increased incomes of population led to increase in estates search, this increased apartment prices and as a consequence increased incomes from building activies.
Result is in consutriction business are invested enormous amounts of capital and a real construction boom is observed.
Another consequence of increased income was increase in demand for automobiles. Just for 2006 the quantity of demanded automobiles in Russia increased with 45% and reached 32 billion dollars with a count of sold new cars numbering 2 million. By indicator of sold new cars Russia orders on 5th place after in Europe taking place right after Germany, Great Britain, Italy and France.

Currently are being build a couple of new automobile plants, and existing ones increase production volume.
All this is consequence of increase in demand and therefore from increase in citizens income.

rn>For 10 years budets expenditure for social politics (pensions and social help) increased with 30%.

Before Putin pensions were under existence-minimum with appr. 25% and in 90th pensions were not paid at all.
Now pensions are 50% above existence-minimum and is constantly increasing.
In 2000 approximate sallary in Russia was 2223 Rubles (appr. 80 dollars).
Now approximate sallary in Russia 19174 rubles (apprx. 660 dollars).
Purchase of domestic goods for 10 years increased 10 times. Number of own automobilse increased 3 times.
Putin nationalized YUKOS, without 'making nervous' emering Russian busness in a market manner – with bankruptcy and auction. All this happened lawful, following laws adopted by democratic parliament.
The president doesn't have the right to use other  means. Formal occasion for arest of Hodorkovski were taxation frauds of YUKOS. In such machinations are involved practically all large private companies and this is the reason why nobody believes that excuse. It is unbelievable. However Putin simply defended Russia's interests.

 

 

Putin_russia_speech_and-the-russian-flag-a-primer-for-honest-politic


The proof for that is transmission of actives of YUKOS to national corporation "Rosneft". It would have been more righteous if this actives were just confiscated … but there are laws and Putin had just stick to them. After all the President can't go out of framework of his jurisdiction.
It can be just added that after Khodorkovsky  was injailed, collectivity (incomes)of taxes of ex-actives of YUKOS increased 80 TIMES!
In y. 2004 Putin finally removed law "Agreement for Separation of Production  (Separation Agreement)". This law was annexed during Eltsin's regime, in order to benefit Oligarchs (Khodorkovsky, Gusinsky, Beresovsky etc.) in order to make possible Russian oil reserves to be possessed by Western (American and British) oil corporations.
By the power of this law Russian oil and natural fields went into international jurisdiction, and therefore the money from Russian oil doesn't entered budget of Russia but influxed in Western companies.
Money from oil drills went mainly into Dutch "Shell" for covering of corporation expenses. Only after something remained from that they sold it to Russia. In 2006 Putin declared following in that connection "And now we don't get anything from them and if they increase their profit we will not receive it even in 10 years from now."
In fact to this moment Russia didn't get any money from their own oil.
After the law was removed in 2004, revenues in budeg increased from 3 to 4 times.
After cancellation of contracts for oil fields "Sakhalin-1" and "Sakhalin-2" Russia's loans to American company calculated to 700 million dollars, for that time this was too much. The whole Anglo-Saxon world pricked against Putin because of a simple reason: "UK planned to assure its oil reserves for years to come in expense of Russia – only Germany and France who didn't have a direct interest in that process kept neutral …
In 1992 – 1995 the head aparatus of Russia formed its view based on foreign advisors. All legislation from 1990's was hence written by them. In Russian country administration was working 10 000 foreign coaches.  George Soros was financing writting of student history books where the Battle for Stalingrad was mentioned in only 2 pages and about the meeting between Elbe and Soviet and American soldiers (Elbe Day) in 10 pages.

 

Russian_Army_meeting_American_Army-Elba-day


: In that mournful times on pupils notebook you can see portrainst of 4 American presidents of USA.
Until this very day there are left relics from that anti-Russian propaganda but hopefully with time Putin will throw away american propaganda from education system.
But why Putin cannot immediately dismiss all this hostile to Russia clerks? The reason is simple: Constitution of Russia written under dictation of Western coaches, does not allow quick changse into it.
Nowadays the President is just one of many clerks with resticted power. Yes truly president power is a bit bigger than other clerks, but country head can't influence everything. The president can't even define his ministers, even though by law this is part of his jurisdiction.

Overfulfilment of budet in times of Putin govern allowed craetion of country Stabilization fund. Nowdays is collected huge golden-currency reserve and practically Russia doesn't have external debt.

War in Kavkaz is over, separatists were destroyed. All famous terrorist leaders were liquidated physically.
Even Zelimkhan_Yandarbiyev was killed in Qatar, Basaev and Umarov were also destoyed. Putin promised "to drawn them if necessary even in their own toilet dish" and he fulfilled his promise. Of course, separatism is not completely destroyed, such conflicts cannot be quickly solved, but nowadays situation in Kakvaz is the best possible. If Chechnya's elite feels the power of Moscow and benefits of being a surrender – then separatism will fade away. This is exactly what happens. The attempts of western spy centrals to supply terrorists are still leading to separate terr. acts but this is the maximum – there will be no war anymore.
 
For 10 years Putin increased political influence of Russia in world and lifted its image. Today Russia follows its own interests, and not Western ones.
It is not coincidence that Putin was recognized as the most influential world politic of 2013. He prevented Russia's devastation led country out of catastrophe caused by Gorbachov and Eltsin. That's the rason why Western Medias abhor him and compare him with devil.
Everyone interested in political life in Russia seems, that the battle against corruption took unforeseen measures.
At least 2-3 times weekly on TV are shown arrests  of clergy and policeman and news inform about sentences against government employees.
Lets not forget Crimea, here is how it was given to Ukraine.

In 1992 on signature of Treaty of Belovesh for dissolution of USSR Ukrainian representative Leonid Kravchuk noticed that Boris Eltsin is "in play with Vodka" and is delaying signature, he urged him with words: –

"Borya if you like take Crimea, please just  sign the contract!".

Drunk Eltsin nobly waved hand:

"What for I need Crimea? Here it is your present!"

And signed and by one scratch he "killed" efforts of Prince Grigory Potemkin, Catherina the Great, heros of Sevastopol in 1856, heroes defenders of Sevastopol in 1941 …

Few days ago Putin removed consequences of this "joke with history" – and people of Crimea sung and danced on squares, returning to their motherland.
 

Here is Why Russophobes hates Putin!

 

 

Source Materials from http://rublogers.ru
Translated by: Georgi Georgiev
This translation is copyrighted and copying can only be done with explicit allowance of author Author or link to original translation
http://rublogers.ru/

 

Apache SSLCertificateChainFile adding SSL with Certificate Chain / What is Certificate Chain

Friday, January 31st, 2014

configure-apache-ssl-certificate-chain-ssl-certificate-keychain-each-signing-each-other

If you work in a big company with large network infrastructure who has to deal with SSL Certificates you will sooner or later will have to learn about existence of SSL Certificate Chains.
Its worthy thus to know what is SSL Certificate Chains and how such a chain is configured in Apache?

Personal SSL certificates (certificates issued to an individual or a company) can be used by clients to uniquely identify themselves when they are involved in starting an SSL connection.
SSL Certificate file contains X.509 certificate, which, in turn, contains a public key used for encryption.
Each personal certificate has zero or more certificate chains of certification authority certificates that extend back to the root certification authority.
 

Certificate R (Root Certification Authority)
|
| represents issuer of
V
Certificate I1 (Intermediate Certification Authority)
|
| represents issuer of
V
Certificate I2 (A subsidiary Intermediate Certification Authority)
|
| represents issuer of
V
Certificate I3 (A further subsidiary Intermediate Certification Authority)
|
| represents issuer of
V
Certificate P (A personal certificate that is used to identify its owner 
on an SSL handshake)

Certificate chains are used to verify the authenticity of each certificate in that chain, including the personal certificate. Each certificate in the chain is validated using its 'parent' certificate, which in turn is validated using the next certificate up the chain, and so on, from the personal certificate up to the root certification authority certificate.

Now after explaining thoroughfully what is SSL Certificate Chain, here is how to configure a SSL Certificate in Apache Webserver.

Open apache2.conf or httpd.conf (depending on GNU / Linux distribution) and add to it;

  SSLEngine On
   SSLCertificateFile conf/cert/webserver-host.crt
   SSLCertificateKeyFile conf/cert/webserver-host.key
   SSLCertificateChainFile conf/cert/internet-v4.crt
   # SSLCertificateChainFile conf/cert/intranet-v3.crt
   SSLOptions +StdEnvVars +OptRenegotiate +ExportCertData

SSLCertificateChainFile conf/cert/chain-cert.crt
loads a chain of separate Personal SSL certificates each signing each other on different levels, chain is leading to top ROOT CA (Certificate Authority).

Happy Birthday GNU – Celebrating 30 years of Free Software and Computer Freedom!

Friday, September 27th, 2013

GNU GNU is not UNIX project logo - Happy Birthday GNU

On 27 of September this year (2013) Richard Stallman's GNU Project celebrates its 30 years Anniversary! Richard started the GNU Project and devoted his last 30 years of his life and thanks to him now we have free software. His work is remarkable. Million of GNU / Linux System Administrators and Programmers (including me in this number) round the world today has a daily income thanks to RMS. Interestingly the GNU Project was started in year I was born in the distant 1983. In fact the GNU Project is older than me with a couple of days (I'm born on 8-th of October 1983! :). Probably it is not a coincidence that I got so interested in Free Software GNU and Software freedom as the project was started so near my birthdate 🙂

Here is how RMS Announced the existence of GNU project and the general philosophy behind it:
 

I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it. I cannot in good conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license agreement.

So that I can continue to use computers without violating my principles, I have decided to put together a sufficient body of free software so that I will be able to get along without any software that is not free.

You can read whole original Stallman announcement here

Stallman's GNU Project is a good example how a single man who believes in something can change the world, by sticking to his believes. We all know Stallman is a true hacker legend, besides that as a friend used to say RMS is one of the greatest philosophers of our times.  Stallman doesn't have kids but according to his words for him the GNU Project is like his Child. His Virtual Child gave chance to millions of people around the world to study source codes and develop in their career. Even his child gave birth to thousands of hundred other "hacker" childs 🙂

Again, Happy Birthday GNU!!!
I wish Stallman another 30 years of work in field of protection of Human Liberty and Software Rights!
 

PeaZip good Windows and Linux free software alternative to non-free WinRar and WinZip archiver tools

Thursday, June 27th, 2013

peazip extract rar and zip files Winrar Winzip good alternative program free windows linux freebsd graphic software

Until recently it was almost impossible to have Microsoft Windows without WinRar and WinZip archiver programs installed.
Though both can be used as trial versions for personal use for commercial use one had to purchase license. It is pretty annoying that each time you run Winrar you get reminded you're using its trial version. As I'm trying to substitute all non-free software with free software even whether I have to install or maintain Windows, just recently I found out about existence of PeaZip – Free Zip file utility / Free Rar Extractor.

Besides being open source software PeaZip and supports Windows it is also available prepackaged for Linux / BSD as well.
PeaZip supports unarchiving of 150 archive file types, and by installing it you save time otherwise spend in installing two separate tools on Windows. It can do plenty of other useful stuff for instance joining / splitting files ending in suffix (001, 002, 003) etc. as well as splitting archives in parts (…part1, …part2, …part3 …), create self-extracting (.exe) archives, do multiple archives at once.

Peazip Windows Linux rar zip archives create and extract supported basic formats screenshot

Here is list of  most popular archive file types supported to browse / test / archive / dearchive:

7z, bz, bz2, bzip2, tbz2, tbz, gz, gzip, tgz, tpz, tar, zip, zipx, z01, smzip, arj, cab, chm, chi, chq, chw, hxs, hxi, hxr, hxq, hxw, lit, cpio, deb, lzh, lha, rar, r01, 00, rpm, z, taz, tz, iso, jar, ear, war, lha, pet, pup, pak, pk3, pk4, slp, [Content], xpi, wim, u3p, lzma86, lzma, udf, xar, dmg, hfs, part1, split, swm, tpz, kmz, xz, txz, vhd, mslz, apm, mbr, fat, ntfs, exe, dll, sys, msi, msp, ods, ots, odm, oth, oxt, odb, odf, odg, otg, odp, otp, odt, ott, gnm, doc, dot, xls, xlt, ppt, pps, pot, docx, dotx, xlsx, xltx, swf, flv, quad, balz, zpaq, paq8f, paq8jd, paq8l, paq8o, lpaq1, lpaq5, lpaq8, ace, arc, wrc, 001, pea, cbz, cbr, cba, cb7, cbt …

Even better PeaZip has ports for both 32 and 64 bit Windows (XP / Vista / 7 and 8), Linux and *BSD. Official PeaZip download page is on Sourceforge here

peazip winrar winzip unarchive all in one unarchive windows linux freebsd program screenshot

Next time you need multi-format unarchive program on a new Windows install, give it a try.
PeaZip has good compitability with new versions of WinRar and WinZip archived files, so it is not very likely you will ever in future need these proprietary applications.
One note to make is during install as most software, it offers installing some useless stuff like "Free Smilies" and a Toolbar, make sure you don't click Next by mistake – ( un-tick them ) !

peazip-installation-process-registryreviver-offer

peazip install screenshot get the free smileys we love extension screenshot

For Linux users on PeaZip's website there is package in deb, rpm and tgz. Packages are available with builds for GNOME graphical environment with GTK2 lib or KDE QT.

I tried installing PeaZip  on my Debian 7 Wheezy downloading deb provided by Sourceforge, but install failed with error:

noah:~# dpkg -i peazip_5.0.LINUX.GTK2-2_all.deb
Selecting previously unselected package peazip.
(Reading database … 226682 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking peazip (from peazip_5.0.LINUX.GTK2-2_all.deb) …
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of peazip:
 peazip depends on libgmp3c2; however:
  Package libgmp3c2 is not installed.

dpkg: error processing peazip (–install):
 dependency problems – leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 peazip

In previous Debian release Squeeze there was package libgmp3c2 but it is no longer available from repos on Wheezy. Thus to install it on Wheezy I used Universal Linux .TGZ Package and just extracted it in root directory ( / ):

noah:~# cd /
noah:/# links http://sourceforge.net/projects/peazip/files/5.0/peazip-5.0.LINUX.GTK2.tgz/download
noah:~# tar -zxf peazip-5.0.LINUX.GTK2.tgz

To run it:

hipo@noah~:$ /usr/local/bin/peazip

PeaZip on Debian Gnu Linux screenshot rar unrar zip unzip archive dearchive ms windows and linux free instrument
PeaZip's archive / unarchive operation speed compared to CPU use and memory consumption is fast, though it eats a bit more ram than GNOME's default Archive ToolFile Roller.

Peazip rar zip archive unarchive windows linux program archiving zip file screenshot

Thanks God for PeaZip! Buy-buy forver to Winrar and Winzip 🙂

Workrave – Preverve health from RSI (Computer caused Repetitive Strain Injury) on Linux and Windows

Tuesday, June 25th, 2013

Prevent and heal repetitive strain injury RSI with workrave on Windows and Linux

Huge part of people professions nowadays includes being in front of PC Screen for almost a day. Staying on computer is addictive and even after job is done many people came back in front of the PC screen to play some games or just read something. Many might not know that this computer hanging is a costly thing as it slowly reflects negative our health and living balance. For geeky people who work in IT profession the threat is even bigger as we ITs tend to spend even more time in front of computers. The risk therefore for catching RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury), whether you have to deal with computers daily is very real.

For those who hear for RSI for first time, here is what it is as described in Wikipedia:
 

Repetitive strain injuries (RSIs) are "injuries to the musculoskeletal and nervous systems that may be caused by repetitive tasks, forceful exertions, vibrations, mechanical compression, or sustained or awkward positions"

For more on RSI check out Wikipedia Article here.

Thanksfully RSI is possible to reverse as well as prevent by giving regular breaks from computer screen on timely base and even can be configured to limit time you will spend on the PC. 

Just recently I found out about existence of  Workrave – program which helps you in reminding, when you have to give breaks from computer and makes you limit yourself on how long you use the PC.

Workrave is available for both Windows and Linux OS.

debian:~# apt-cache show workrave | grep -i description -A 3

Description-en: Repetitive Strain Injury prevention tool
 Workrave is a program that assists in the recovery and prevention of
 Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). The program frequently alerts you to
 take micro-pauses, rest breaks and restricts you to your daily limit.

To give it a try on Debian / Ubuntu Linux, install with usual:

debian:~# apt-get install --yes workrave
...

Launch it by running:

hipo@debian:~$ workrave

or via GNOME menus:

Applications -> Universal Access -> Workrave

Once launched Workrave applet appears right on in GNOME main panel. Below is screenshot of it.
Workrave applet in Gnome debian Linux screenshot

Clicking on the sheep image, there are plenty of configuration menus from which to choose how Workrave will further behave. Its default behavior is quite agressive and suggests breaks too often so if you choose to follow default configuration you will quickly be bored and probably remove it from computer. Hence re-configuring Workrave to remind for breaks every one hour is a good timing in my opinion:

Configuring workrave to remind for breaks from computer every one hour screenshot

Workrave time for micro break screenshot

 

 

Workrave includes reminder with neck movement exercises, which if followed can severely de-stress and keep your neck healthy.

workrave prevent repetitive strain injury neck exercises screenshot gnu / linux

workrave prevent repetitive strain injury neck exercises screenshot gnu / linux and windows

The program has even statistics on how much breaks you take, how long it was used and various other interesting info, below is screenshot from statistics window:

Workrave usage statistics GNU Linux screenshot

 

Playing Mame Arcade old school games on Debian Wheezy 7.0 Linux

Wednesday, May 29th, 2013

Play arcade games on Debian GNU Linux 7 Wheezy Tux arcade logo

To play the good old arcade on Debian Linux in previous releases I used GNOME's xmame frontend gxmame in Debian 5.0 Lenny and in Debian 6.0 gxmame was no longer working fine so I was using a KDE package frontend called kamefu.

Yesterday I just re-installed my laptop with latest stable Debian 7 Wheezy and after installing re-installing all packages I regularly use it happened gxmame and kamefu are no longer available in Debian 7. It was kinda of shocking since I already so much get accustomed to kamefu that I don't want to switch to other Mame GNOME GUI frontend.

I tried building kamefu from source (btw kamefu is still in very early development stage 0.1 with no luck). After the epic fail and my laziness to look for what kind of header files part of KDE I have to install. I read what is written on Mame in Debian Wiki here and found out about existence of new package in Debian 7 – gnome-video-arcade, as well understand the so far well knon xmame package is substituted by one called mame. Though name changed mame is not much different from xmame. In theory mame pack should be complete substitute for xmame but in practice my experiments showed xmame was running much more ROM files than the new mame binary.

Here is what I did to have running most of my Mame ROm files on Debian 7 Linux;
 

1. Install mame gnome-video-arcade, mame-tools and xmame-tools debs

noah:~$ apt-get --yes install mame mame-tools xmame-tools
...


2. Create default config file for mame bin
noah:~$ cd .mame
noah:~/.mame$ mame -cc

mame -cc command generates mame.ini config file;

noah:~/mame$ ls -al mame.ini
-rw-r--r-- 1 hipo hipo 6660 май 25 18:31 mame.ini

3.Add location to Mame Rom files in config file

noah:~/mame$ vim mame.ini

Near beginning of file there is section:

 

#
# CORE SEARCH PATH OPTIONS
#
rompath                   $HOME/mame/roms;/usr/local/share/games/mame/roms;/usr/share/games/mame/roms;

At the end of rompath include location of MAME ROMs in my case ROMS are located in;
/disk/Games/Mames/roms
 

rompath                   $HOME/mame/roms;/usr/local/share/games/mame/roms;/usr/share/games/mame/roms;/disk/Games/Mames/roms;

Further on to test which ROMS will work and which not compatible;

noah:~/mame$ mame -verifyroms |grep -i good
1941j       : yi22b.1a (279 bytes) - NOT FOUND - NO GOOD DUMP KNOWN
romset 1942a [1942] is good
1943        : bm.7k (65536 bytes) - NOT FOUND - NO GOOD DUMP KNOWN
1943kai     : bm.7k (65536 bytes) - NOT FOUND - NO GOOD DUMP KNOWN
1943u       : bm.7k (65536 bytes) - NOT FOUND - NO GOOD DUMP KNOWN
romset 1944 is good
romset 1944j [1944] is good
romset 280zzzap is good
romset 3kokushi is good
romset 3stooges is good
romset 4dwarrio is good
.....

 

4. Launch gnome-video-arcade binary

noah:~/.mame$ gnome-video-arcade

On first run, you will have to wait a about 10 minutes for program to Index all Rom files it loads up the CPU severely and looks like the program is hanged …

GNOME video arcade debian Linux play arcade games GUI program screenshot
 

As you can see the interface is very simplistic, there is Preferences (menu) but there is almost nothing to configure;

GNOME Video arcade Debian Linux preferences general

AA
Gnome video arcade games on debian linux preferences columns One very unpleasent thing is many of the best games didn't work anymore. Some great arcade games like Punisher, Captain Command, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs who worked perfectly fine on old xmame + kamefu, don't work anymore with mame + gnome-video-arcade.

Besides its simplicty gnome-video-arcade has the precious feature to Record Played Games. To record yourself playing and later replay it use menus;

Game -> Record

or use shortcut (CTRL+R)

Tracking daily Tasks (Work) with TimeTracker on Debian GNU / Linux with GNOME environment

Thursday, January 31st, 2013

Linux task tracking time and task tracking on Linux desktop Ubuntu Debian Fedora time tracker (hamster) task manager tool

Whether you're a self employed free-lancer, a manager using Linux as a desktop or just a freaky enthusiast concerned of tracking, optimizing and future spending his time efficiently you will definitely need to know of existence of GNOME little tool called Time Tracker.

Time Tracker is installed on Debian GNU / Linux by installing a package hamster-applet.
The Official name under which time tracker is popular is Project Hamster – check out site here.
hamster-applet version installed on my Debian stable Squeeze as of time of writing is a bit obsolete cause Hamster Project Time Tracking tool is official part of GNOME and already Debian Squeeze GNOME version is about 2 years old (still running GNOME 2.30.2).  In future Debian releases and current Debian unstable releases, the package under which it is installed is hamster-time-tracker

Below is package description;

hipo@noah:~$ apt-cache show hamster-applet | grep -i desc -A 7
Description: time tracking applet for GNOME
 Project Hamster helps you to keep track of how much time you spend on various
 activities during the day.  Whenever you move from one task to another, you
 change your current activity in the GNOME applet.
 .
 It can present graphical statistics of how long you have spent on each task,
 and may be useful for project management or keeping employee timesheets.
Homepage: http://live.gnome.org/ProjectHamster
I've not tested it on Fedora and RPM based Linux distributions but I assume there Time Tracker should be installed as part of GNOME.

Hamster Time Tracker can be set as applet in GNOME as well as can be run straight from gnome-terminal with:

$ hamster-standalone

or

$ gnome-time-tracker

Hamster Time Tracker is programmed in Python and uses GNOME GTK2 interface, actually above 2 commands are python scripts.

To use GNOME applet in GNOME2, just add it to GNOME panel by pressing on Panel with right mouse button and selecting;

Add to Panel -> Project Hamster

Below is example, of Time Tracker applet in action. No Activity indicates there is no current started work on Task. It is pretty easy to add new Tasks and bind tags to it. Type Activity (type), the tags and click Start Tracking. Activity is tracked from this moment until stopped.

Hamster time-tracker linux task manager application

Time Tracker supports also Task tagging as well as sorting separate tasks into task Categories, this is done by pressing on little paper with pencil icon located right of each task.

Standalone application hamster-standalone, also has support for statistics, however to generate statistics for your Tasks and work habits you need to use the soft and have data for at least 1 week time. To get statistics follow use menus:

Tracking -> Statistics


It  has also nice Task reporting embedded to get Report through pressing CTRL+0;

Tracking -> Overview

overview Task reporting time tracker Debian Linux

Using Save Report button reports, can be exported to HTML files, so it is quite easily to export statistics over worked time to lets say a Samba Share, or hard disk configured to be visible via WebServer so you can get information about your work efficiency via Web.

Program also supports automatic stop of certain Task tracking in case if computer is inactive for a while. For those who tend to remember what kind of task is active, there is embedded auto reminder timer to set from Preferences

hamster time-tracker preferences screenshot Debian GNU Linux

WorkSpaces
tab from preferences allows configuring Time Tracker to automatically stop / start Task on Switch Workspace action.

Time Tracker is good software for anyone looking for good Task Management (non-centralized) software for Office Company environment working with Free Software. Hamster Project – Time Tracker still lacks support for centralized server reporting auto-upload and multiple employees stats generation however if from multiple computers reports are send to e certain e-mail account to process reports it will be relatively easy and cheap to embed it for multiple Office employees Task Tracking and preparing Employee worked Tasks hours / efficiency in Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly reports. For big projects, where planning and GANTT charts are required it is useful to use reports from Time Tracker together with Linux Project Planning (Microsoft Planner) like tools – Trac, Gantt Project or Task Juggler

 

His all Holiness Patriarch Maxim Patriarch of Bulgarian Orthodox Church – a silent life of a holy man who headed the Bulgarian Church in one of its most difficult times of 12 centuries existence

Friday, December 21st, 2012

 

On Saturday 15.12.2012, 40 days has passed since our first along equal Bishops patriarch Maxim passed to the Lord Jesus Christ. Just like his humile living his passing to Christ went in humility and without much publicity.

 

 

The "death-remembrance" prayer service was served 40 days after his passing to Christ in his favorite monastery the Troyan Monastery.

Troyan monastery the monastery where the holy body of patriarch Maxim of Bulgaria was buried and his memory remembrance service was served

Many  people blamed the patriarch for not being canonically chosen for breaking the Church order for being responsible for the bad state of our Bulgarian Orthodox Church, for all the mostly bad things that happened in our country over the last 21 years since the fall of communism regime.

Our patriarch, however behaved like a true, monk he keep silent in all people's lies on his account, he kept silent when people has called him agent of the Social regime, he just kept silent for all except for things which were directly being enforced against the Church canonical apostle's succession and the ancient Orthodox Church tradition and liturgical Church slavonic language and the centuries kept since the baptismal of Bulgaria Church order and canonical rules.

He was a head on the "ruling steel" of the Church during a severe communism atheistic regime and even though the multiple attempts of communist power to destroy the Church from within by installing many priests and bishops as their spies, and doing all in the party's power to make people disbelief the Church and trust in communism, they all failed and the Church win. The Church win just in accordance with Christ's words as the Lord Jesus Christ said in his Holy Gospel – "The gates of hell will not prevail over my Church".

Besides being ahead of the Bulgarian Church in this difficult times of trial for the Church, our patriarch's care for the Church continued even after fall of communism in times. Under Patriarch's Maxim Patarichship, the BOC (Bulgarian Orthodox Church) has survived over the difficult times of great Schism which continued in its peak from 1997 to 1998, though the schism itself in some kind existed without much publicity from years 1992 to 1998. The Schism in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church was caused by some regularly chosen Bishops, who claimed that patriarch Maxim which was chosen during Communism was not chosen according to canons but chosen by Communists.

One of the Bulgarian Orthodox Chruch (Holy Synod) Metropolitans self-proclaimed himself as patriarch claiming that he was supposed to be chosen as patriarch but the communists change it in favour of Maxim. It was God's providence (not without the prayers of many and the prayers of his holiness Maxim) which solved the created long lasting conflict inside the Bulgarian Church.
The self-proclaimed "Patriarch" Pimen died and the Bulgarian Police force came to power and put out a few of the left shismatic priests who had occupied over some of the Church buildings and claimed the Church buildings belonged still to the Schismatic Synod and not to the regular Bulgarian Orthodox Church Synod headed by Maxim. It is very interesting fact that just in short it appeared Patriarch Maxim (even though the accusations) has never had a dossier and according to communist archives is not in the list of the Bishops who have signed a declaracy to be working with the Communist Government and behave according to the planned agendas of the Communist Authorities.

Patriarch Maxim of Bulgarian Orthodox Church a holy man of our times

This is the best evidence that patriarch Maxim was a Holy Man not chosen by communists as many pseudo-Orthodox Christians and even a lot of devoted ones were deluded to believe but chosen by God's great providence of the Bulgarian nation and the autocephalous BOC. It is interesting facts concerning the schism in the Church during 1997-1998, that many don't know but can be clearly researched in the many documentations (video materials, archives and newspapers) that the ruling then "Democratic Party" – Syiuz na Demokratichnite Sili (Съюз на Демократичните Сили) – (SDS), has carefully fostered and was initiator of the Shism in our Church.

The reason for the schism was evident there were people who didn't wanted the Bulgarians to go to Church and have faith, and more concretely there were people not wanting Bulgaria to have a strong Orthodox Church and the climate after communism fall was giving an opportunity for BOC to rise and lead many of the BG populations who were baptized but never had the opportunity to attend the Church and get to know the Church teaching due to the atheistic communist regime back in the "bosom" of the Church.

Bulgarian politics from The Democratic – "Blue Party" – SDS (Syiuz na Demokratichnite Sili – Ally of Democratic Forces), were openly supporting the so called "Alternative Church Synod", leaded by Pimen, even until the moment where the sanity and God's providence overbear and the schismatics (many of which had their illegal business with prostitution or narcotics), were driven out of the Church and many of which in their attempt to escape police trial went abroad in the "Western World", stealing a big multitudes of Church money. During the whole schism the Church's all bank accounts were frozen. So during those almost 1.5 year during "schism", Church's money couldn't be used by the Church.

Just to give you an idea on how bad and harmful to the Church this was, imagine if some a government of USA "froze up", all accounts belonging to a big company provider lets say IBM. Imagine what would be the eventual short time consequences for IBM – the answer is their business will probably be broken so badly, that after that it is not very likely they recover. However as the Church is not a normal organization but is an organization established by the Saviour Jesus Christ himself and lead by the Holy Spirit, all this couldn't destroy the Church.

Yes it is true it badly harmed the Church, and the Churches went empty, it is true that the confidence in the Church authority was damaged, but the Church itself continued operating and even after the few consequential years of desolation in which mostly noone visited the Church except on big feasts (and even on big feasts was scared to go to Church because could happen to be in a Schismatic Church) – as for regular people there was no clear understanding which of the Church buildings belongs to Patriarch Maxim's Canonical old times synod in which they baptized and which belongs to the self proclaimed Pimen and his assembly of deluded good Christians (most of which came back to Church) and the big part of wolf's in sheep's clothes which wanted to use the Church as aim to advance their power authority in society and financial acquisitions.

The shism is a topic which is little researched and little spoken of after that as Patriarch Maxim with his monk's silence was able to mitigate the harshness of the situation so just 14 years after almost no-one in Bulgaria remembers the times of Schism – except ofcourse the Christians who lived over it.
As with many of the great saints patriarch Maxim went mostly unnoticed by society and his death hour was little spoken and not quickly forgotten. However historically I'm sure he will always, be remembered as the person who take the "Church" ship over one of their hardest historical times since y. 870 to present time.

Patriarch Maxim led the Church in year 1971 – 2012, 1971 to about 1985, were years of severe communism, where police was prohibiting people to visit the Churches and pray or take the sacraments. If one does so he often lost his, job or was asked to go to police for a check up. Some devoted Christians were severely threatened and some were sent to the state Prisons like Belene.
During his reign-ship patriarch Maxim had to rule over a Church without layman, the word Church itself comes after Ecclesia (A gathering of the faithful), during Patriarch Maxim's reign he had to however rule over a Church which from a good working huge Ecclesia (a gathering of believing people), to a Ecclesia of mostly few thousands of priests and maybe few thousands of old people who, were under a pension and therefore were allowed to go to Church and pray or take active participation in the Church.

The huge consequence of this is evident in the Bulgarian Church even to this day, as the Church is mostly filled with old people and you can rarely see a young people or families visiting the Church. Bulgarian devoted youngsters, therefore even joke-up saying that our Church is a "grandma's Church". Even though the empty Churches and the unbelief of many still, many people are baptized and are continuously being baptized in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church even to this where most of the Bulgarian population is Orthodox and had received the initial grace of Christ. Thus even though due to the little layman attendance, the Church is not in bloom still it is living in most of the Bulgarians and their families and in that sense it is still in continous bloom. Also it is a good idea that we Bulgarians, take an honest look to ourselves and ask ourselves the question is the weak state of the Bulgarian Church attendance, due to the non-stop journalist made-up scands, or it is because of us which we didn't supported our Church both financially and with our participation in Holy Sacraments and Church life and deeds.

Currency converter Free Desktop Software for Microsoft Windows

Saturday, December 8th, 2012

Business or not a business entity, in the mostly globalized world it is almost inevitable to go on at least monthly basis without a need for some kind of currency convertion. Of course there are plenty of websites allowing Free Money Convertion services out there. However as I'm not a big fan of the Software as a Service (SAS). I don't like other people to be able to sniff what kind of money, amounts I'm intending to convert as well as I don't like google or other search engine to profile me how frequently I'm converting or intending to convert money. Thus today I did a quick research what kind of Free and  Open Source Software FOSS is available to do the money convertion operation custom on my own webserver or my desktop PC. Though It was not exactly what I was looking for I found a Windows Desktop Software -CConverter which is capable of convertions between mostly if not all Currencies around the world. I'm not a m$ Windows user myself, but I was glad to know a Free Software exists for the task. CConverter is definitely a piece of soft useful for Businesses and People. In future if I do my own business it would be nice to know of this little handy soft existence and I will put it in action (to save costs) and add confidentiality to my business money transaction / convertions. Below is the two screenshots of CConverter I found on the project's sourceforge website:

Desktop Currency converter program cconverter windows desktop currency converter program

cconverter money desktop currency converter m$ windows software in action $$$