Wednesday, October 29, 2008

found + lost

I was just rummaging through some old photos when I dug this out.

Photobucket

It was probably done up by yours truly some time when I was in Secondary 2 or 3... on Paintshop Pro! Yes, that was the weapon of choice for people who couldn't afford Photoshop back then. And this was actually before the term "photoshopped" was popularised. Jasc has since been bought over by Corel.

Embarrassing, yes. But definitely an amusing gem. LOL!

Optoma announces Pico Projector | Krunker

Yes I know this piece of news came out in June but better late than never! Just spotted this mini projector on the Channel 8 evening news. It's so portable isn't it? They demonstrated it by connecting the device to an iPhone, and throwing the images on to a wall. Very nice.


But in any case, I'll have you know that as far back as 2005, I had already done something similar!

Photobucket

In Photoshop of course. Hehehe... gotcha! Despite the fact that I was still using my Nokia 6230 back then, but hey at least this goes to show that I have foresight! xD

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

purchase rant

So I just bought this pre-N router last Saturday. From Sim Lim Square no less. And it came out of the box faulty! I was on the phone with the tech support (fortunately a 24-hour hotline was available) for well over 45mins. I ran through the various steps with the (angmoh, I think) lady and finally she had to confirm my case with her supervisor. And they at last decided that there was nothing else they could do for me but to change a new one for me. This said, I have to pop by their RMA (Return Merchandise Authorisation, buggy semantics, I know) Centre today or something if I want my money's worth of the damn device.

Let's hope it's not too much of a hassle...

Friday, October 17, 2008

oil prices drop

but... i thought that the dropping of prices of anything is suppose to be a good thing!?

Thursday, October 16, 2008

melamine and the world

Food for thought:

You may have already heard of the uproar caused by some unscrupulous people in China, adding melamine into their milk for a profit.

While most of it has been rather scientific, how this incident has been causing a ripple effect around the world (mostly Asia) is a good example of why it's a bad thing having a single entity monopolising a particular corner of the consumer market. Hence it is over-rated for multi-national conglomerates and racists alike, to be stamping out their "competition". Because as it is apparent enough, the larger a system, the more moving parts is contains, the higher its chances for failure.

The fail-safe of the world is in its diversity. Having multiple sources of the milk produce has fortunately given the world some space for error. Although these other dairy farms are not sufficient to balance up the shortage of milk in the market due to the China dairy products being taken off the shelf, they certainly have had a hand in cushioning the impact of the scandalous news.

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Silkroad Online Automated Login

I play Silkroad Online. They aren't exactly the best of MMORPGs around, but I'm in nonetheless. This post is about a (semi-) auto login script I came up with for my own convenience. Nothing special, it's just a combination of mouse clicks and keystrokes that the script can do on your behalf.

This is not a hack, and I don't believe there is anything illegal about it. The script stops after clicking on the "Connect" button in the login page.

Firstly download the AutoIt3 scripting utility here.

Next, copy the following codes for sro_login.au3 into a text file named sro_login.au3 (duh) and if it can't find sro_login.ini in the same folder when you run it for the first time, you will be prompted for your username and password. Your credentials will then be stored (unencrypted!) in the said .ini file for subsequent use.

Then create a shortcut to trigger the .au3 script instead of using your usual SRO shortcut. You may also want to choose the SRO icon for this shortcut too.

Here's what it does in summary:
  1. Run Silkroad.exe (the launcher)
  2. Waits until the "News" gets loaded
  3. Clicks on the Start button
  4. Waits for 10.5s so that the cinematics start playing
  5. Fills in your username and password to login
  6. Quit

sro_login.ini (the main script will prompt you to create this on first run)

[SRO_Client]
username=enter_your_own_username
password=enter_your_own_password


sro_login.au3


;Author: Ken Kum, 2008.
;Email: shiver.me.timbers.sg@gmail.com
;License: LGPL.
;Version: 1.0


$ini_filename = StringReplace(@ScriptName, "au3", "ini")
$sro_client_var = "SRO_Client"

$launcher_title = "Silkroad Online Launcher"
$client_filename = "sro_client.exe"
$USERNAME_KEY = "username"

$PASSWORD_KEY = "password"
$username = IniRead($ini_filename, $sro_client_var, $USERNAME_KEY, "")

$pwd = IniRead($ini_filename, $sro_client_var, $PASSWORD_KEY, "")

$exe_filename = @ProgramFilesDir & "\Silkroad\Silkroad.exe"

;Create ini file if not found
if FileExists($ini_filename) = 0 Then

$username = InputBox("Creating ini file...", "Username:", "", "", 150, 120)

if @error = 1 Then
MsgBox(0, "Create failed!", "Unable to proceed without ini file. Quitting.")

Exit
EndIf

$pwd = InputBox("Creating ini file...", "Password (Stored unencrypted!):", "", "*", 200, 120)

if @error = 1 Then
MsgBox(0, "Create failed!", "Unable to proceed without ini file. Quitting.")

Exit
EndIf

if not $username = "" and not $pwd = "" Then

IniWrite($ini_filename, $sro_client_var, $USERNAME_KEY, $username)

IniWrite($ini_filename, $sro_client_var, $PASSWORD_KEY, $pwd)

EndIf
EndIf

;Validate credentials
if $username = "" or $pwd = "" Then

MsgBox(0, "Unable to continue", "Error reading INI file {" & $ini_filename & "} !")

Exit
EndIf

;Run launcher
Run($exe_filename)
if WinWaitActive($launcher_title) = 0 Then

Exit
EndIf
if WinActivate("Silkroad") = 0 Then

Exit
EndIf

;Wait for News to be ready
$dimensions = WinGetPos($launcher_title)

if $dimensions = 0 Then
Exit
EndIf
$timeout = TimerInit()

$checksum = PixelChecksum($dimensions[0], $dimensions[1], $dimensions[0] + 300, $dimensions[1] + 100)

while $checksum = PixelChecksum($dimensions[0], $dimensions[1], $dimensions[0] + 300, $dimensions[1] + 100)

Sleep(1000)
if TimerDiff($timeout) > 15000 Then

Exit
EndIf
WEnd

;Click on Start button in launcher
MouseClick("left", $dimensions[0] + 615, $dimensions[1] + 355)

if ProcessWait($client_filename, 60) = 0 Then
Exit

MsgBox(0, "Login Process", "Failed. Quitting!")
EndIf

;Wait for cinematics to load

Sleep(11000)

;Enter credentials
if WinActivate($sro_client_var) Then

if WinActive($sro_client_var) Then
Send("{SPACE}")

sleep(500)
Send($username)

sleep(500)
Send("{TAB}")

sleep(500)
Send($pwd)

sleep(500)
Send("{ENTER}")

;Pass control back to user for Captcha image
EndIf
EndIf

Exit


And that's it, you're good to go. I know it's somewhat primitive, but hey it works for me. Give it a spin and let me know if you like it!

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Christmas and (my next) Birthday came early this year




Wheee~! rach bought me a Diamond! Yes, the HTC (Diamond) Touch Pro! I'm so ecstatic over it now... It's the next version of my previous Dopod 838Pro (which is being used by rach now since she traded in her Samsung G800) with Windows Mobile 6.1 and practically the newest phone in town now! xD

Although yes, I know it's waaaaay ahead of the festive season and my birthday isn't until January. But I'd accept it nonetheless... hehe

Thanks sweetie!

Friday, October 03, 2008

new cable modem

I'm having this super-duper-extra-long-weekend since the public holiday that is Hari Raya Puasa yesterday.

The thing is, today started off on the wrong foot somehow. Rach stayed over and we'd intended to get her chauffeured to work by yours truly in the morning, but she woke up with a cold.

Then the cable modem refused to cooperate. After some coming and going with the tech support on the phone, I got us an appointment tomorrow morning with a field technician to come take a look. Then clever Rach called them up again and probed to get them to come down by today. So we were about to head out to send her to a nearby clinic. Fortunately, moments just before we stepped out, the cable company called my dad, and I took over. They said they were able to squeeze in for the guy to come within the next 2 hours. It was 11am by then.

Sending Rach to the clinic and returning home soon after, the guy showed up at the door with a new cable modem. Fair enough, I accepted the deal and "purchased" the replacement. The payment can be done via our monthly bill of course.

And my morning was thus over and done with. Fetching Rach home from the clinic with our lunch, she got sedated shortly after taking her medicine. So my afternoon was spent gaming. I'd call it "grinding" because the process was kinda painful (metaphorically) and slow.

And hey, all that, and I managed to squeeze in an hour or so of work at home too!