Rudimentary Art of Programming & Development

The list as of today:

• ZSNES: A Super NES emulator. It runs on Windows, DOS, Linux, & FreeBSD. ( 15,234,160 downloads)
• VisualBoyAdvance: It is a Gameboy Emulator. It runs on All 32-bit MS Windows (95/98/NT/2000/XP), All POSIX (Linux/BSD/UNIX-like OSes), Linux, OS X, BeOS. ( 9,107,964 downloads)
• Tux Racer: It is a racing game, starring Tux the penguin. ( 2,088,083 downloads)
• Battle of Wesnoth: It is a turn-based strategy game with strong Japanese-influenced graphics. ( 1,663,510 downloads)
• OpenTTD: Open source version of Transport Tycoon Deluxe. This game is easily my favorite. ( 1,198,928 downloads)
• TORCS: The Open Race Car Simulator. Also available on Mac OS X. ( 1,080,376 downloads)
• glTron: Tron-based racing game. ( 947,379 downloads)
• Secret Maryo Chronicles: Very much like Super Mario but with lots more levels & available on almost all OSes. ( 681,365 downloads)
• Freeciv: Open source version of Civilization. ( 642,897 downloads)
• UltraStar: It’s a karaoke game. ( 581,166 downloads)
• Glest: 3D real-time strategy game, looks like original Warcraft. Only for Windows? ( 574,323 downloads)
• AssaultCube: Fun and addicting FPS game. The Cube Engine is lightning fast!! It render so fast on my built-in Intel graphic chip. ( 510,187 downloads)
• Exult: Game engine for running world’s best RPG Ultima 7. Note: gamers must supply the graphics on their own. I’ve blog about this before. ( 493,111 downloads)
• Vdrift: Drifting simulator. Available on most OSes. ( 486,321 downloads)
• UFO: Alien Invasion: I blog about this one before. ( 328,505 downloads)
• FlightGear: It’s flight simulator only for OS X? ( 273,092 downloads)
• FreeCol: Open source colonization. I talked about this one before as well. ( 252,389 downloads)

What Other people think about their favorite OSS games:

• http://akaimbatman.intelligentblogger.com/wordpress/archives/27

I believe many of RAPD loyal readers aware of the existence of DigiBarn museum, but I think it’s good to spread the words anyway.

DigiBarn is very popular, it has been featured by CNET news & Discovery/History Channel. It is initiated by Bruce Damer in 2001. [This is the history page of DigiBarn]

DigiBarn is very complete, it is the complete catalog of hardwares of the past, including Xerox Alto, the computer that REALLY starts the computer revolution.

I highly recommend readers to take the time and have a trip back to memory lane.

References:

• The Museum main page
• Palo Alto Research Center History

What is it?

Callback is an executable code that is passed to other functions as parameter.

Why is it useful?

When doing AJAX stuff it is impossible not to have callbacks. Callbacks are needed because Javascript in a browser is single threaded. Therefore order of execution could be achieved by chaining callbacks.

Reference:

Definition [Wikipedia]

What is it?

Emerge installs packages along with any dependencies (similar to Debian’s apt-get). Emerge works with portage (similar to Ubuntu’s synaptic).

Basic Usage:

emerge -Dup world

Update January 1st, 2008:

Further research shown that both Portage and Emerge were written in Python.

Resources:

• Linux 101
• http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook
• http://devmanual.gentoo.org (Emerge & Ebuild)
• Upgrading to PHP5 in Gentoo
• Others blog on how to install LAMP Gentoo
• Wikipedia – Python

What is it:

Remember X-Com (in the nineties)? Yeah, this is the open source effort to recreate such nostalgic game.

Why should I download it?

Don’t be fooled by open source games, especially this one. It is kicking ass. It looks beautiful and fun to play. Not to mention various different maps and weapons.

Pros:

• Open Source X-Com, fun and free. (+32489739248)
• System Requirement is low. (+2394782398472)

Cons:

• Download size is ridiculous. (-0.0005, everyone has broadband, rite? )

Resource:

Download Page 

What is it:

A PDF Reader. Plain and Simple.

Why?

Don’t you realize how dog slow Acrobat Reader is?

System Requirement:

Windows, I tested myself on Windows XP & Windows on Parallel.

Pros:

• Download file is small (+23847991)
• Loading time is fast (+googol)

Cons:

• Not available on OS X and Linux (0.000), as if those 2 OS need yet another PDF reader.

Resource:

Project’s website 

Unrelated Side Note:

Sumatra, JAVA, Jakarta project, Kupu Kupu project, soon Indonesia becomes the Internet (or Internet becomes Indonesia?). This is irrelevant observation, but interesting nonetheless.

I knew sooner or later someone would have going to make this: geni.com

It’s ajax family tree!!!

Just to inform readers, I attempted to create family social network called bbster (pronounce: baby-ster) last year, in which the main feature is AJAX family tree.

The project failed half way because divorce made re-drawing the family tree rather difficult. Thus, I wonder how geni would handle divorce in their family tree. I was using cakePHP as the project’s framework.

Wow, I knew that someone would thought of it sooner or later, but not this soon.

Congratulation Geni team!

UPDATE:

Obvious glaring fact that I overlook, Geni.com use Flash as opposed to AJAX. Thanks to Scott (smhill) for pointing it out.

is coming (next) summer.

A buddy of mine sent the trailer to me. See it for yourself:

<embed src=”http://www.collegehumor.com/moogaloop/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1770138″ quality=”best” width=”400″ height=”300″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash”></embed>

Editor’s note: Hmm… apparently the embed tag isn’t working properly.

Resource:

College Humor Link

Below is the bullet points of what I’ve read in CIO.com:

1. Mac brings a better overall value proposition. It means, “… In Gartenberg’s opinion, Mac machines compare favorably in pricing to similarly outfitted Windows-enabled systems from OEMs such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo …“
2. Macintosh licensing fees are cheaper. The article only compares number of users customer can have per server box. Xserve gives unlimited users while Windows gives different price points per # of users.
3. Macintosh desktop computer spawn fewer calls to help desk. I think this one is obvious.
4. Macintosh users are more productive workers. I’m not sure about this one… How can you measure something so subjective.
5. Macintosh last longer. That’s probably true.
6. Mac OS X is more secure. Ahh… the classic flamebait. Yes, of course it is more secure… compared to Windows.
7. Macintosh is as cost-effective to administer as Windows.
8. Macintosh box can run multiple OSes, therefore not eliminating your prior investment in different OS.

Reference:

The main Article