Because I like beautiful girls.

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Things Seen Today

Happy Things....
Nagato x NanaDro .... 萌え

Scary Things....
DirectX installing on my Mac
Overlooked Things...

What does this Dock say about me? (Post below)

Little Busters! Converted Edition: Lame Name

PCで発売された恋愛アドベンチャーゲームをプレイステーション2で『リトルバスターズ! コンバーティッド エディション』 - ファミ通.com

PSP and PS2 versions of Little Busters! have been announced with the title "Converted Version". Seriously. Seems to be the EX version with no ecstasy ;)

I could care sooo much less..................... I'm still crawling through the first version and I prefer computer games (and 18+ content).

Anyhow, if Key adds more CG I'll be pissed because then I'll want it XD

Friday, February 27, 2009

More on WINE, CrossOver and how to stay the hell away from Microsoft

My last two posts have been on two solutions on running Windows software without Windows. Both technologies described use the WINE project as their base. WINE (Wine Is Not an Emulator) is a very old (but active) open-source interpreter to let Windows stuff run on other systems. More on that at WineHQ

Darwine : Free (libre) Mac binaries (application) to implement WINE. No interface, you simply run set WineHelper to handle the files and run them. Everything is ran through XQuartz. Uses one big hidden "virtual C drive" in your user folder, so be prepared to enable hidden files in finder alot. Not as bad as it sounds : when it works it works and when it doesn't WineHelper makes nice long log files to stare at confused :)

CrossOver: Proprietary WINE interface with lots of help files and GUI goodness. Easy menus to choose the version of Windows you need and supports many different bottles (virtual C drives) kept in the library. Uses XQuartz but doesn't make it obvious (no dock icon/menu bar etc messiness).

Obviously, Darwine is free and that's a good thing. If you've read my posts this is the WINE solution I am experimenting with, I do not plan to buy CrossOver. It is easier for me to just muck around with free software I can download and install infinitely on any computer at any time. I like to break things and just reinstall them over and over, its like a puzzle and I learn from each step.

Since the core technology is shared, anything Darwine can do CrossOver can do. Conversly, anything CrossOver can do Darwine can do. I would never recommend Darwine to a non-power user: its just not practical. I would direct them to CrossOver. Likewise I would not tll a power user to use CrossOver I would point them to Darwine. This are different solutions.

I love the open-source ideal and the community but I also understand the incentives of proprietary works. Apple is practically the polar opposite of open-source after all, with their very closed OS and hardware, but I love Leopard and iWork and use them over Linux and OpenOffice.org .

Lastly, as most people here know, I have a dual boot Windows/Mac system in place. I do not run a single critical program exclusively on WINE. I can break things and it doesn't matter the slightest cause the same program is on a perfectly good Windows install. Most importantly, I am familar with Windows, how things are stored and called and why things would and wouldn't work. I grew up on Windows and use it almost daily (sadly). A lot of mac users aren't. Obviously the transparency of Darwine is useless to someone who does not understand Windows.

So I just want to clarify my position on these two technologies. I am not doing this to promote CrossOver. I actually just wanted to write a feedback letter for the trial (a request of thiers of every person who tries the software; quite fair) and felt it would be easiest to post my thoughts here as well.

So my conclusion is:

CrossOver for the average Joe
Darwine for the power user who's Windows-literate.

Also, CodeWeavers has fantastic customer support (I emailed them about feedback and they even posted here) and a remarkable "Truth in Advertising Approach".

Read on:
http://www.codeweavers.com/products/differences/
http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxmac/truth_in_advertising/

Monday, February 23, 2009

Found! Working Darwine builds for OS X

Darwine builds for OS X
It works..... I have tried Darwine many times before to no success. After my failure with CrossOver I consulted WINEHQ again. This time I found a build that works. Definitely try this before CrossOver.
The chat windows jumps down half an inch every time you click it. Minor annoyance. Did not happen in CrossOver which uses WINE and X11/Quartz as well.
Same output as CrossOver, I'm thinking the sound issues might be part of the audio files. Obviously, fonts work now.


CrossOver Mac : Promising but One Fatal Flaw [updated]

Note: Some kind folk who sleep the proper number of hours per night pointed out you can launch programs from Finder (Open With) to run non-installer programs from CrossOver. I'm still sticking with Darwine but this is an important feature I missed. Bold text is new.

CrossOver is a commercial Wine implementation. Its designed to make installing and running Windows programs easy.

Installing Windows programs. NOT running them, installing them so crossover can run them. This is CrossOver's biggest issue..... it needs an installer. So all those fun doujin games: no installer no luck. That cool app from the internet? No installer no luck. Or so I thought until others told me you can use the Finder Open-With -> Choose (However, CO did not appear in the normal open-with menu for me). A menu item for this IN CrossOver would do wonders since that's where I looked first.

For installers, InstallShield seems to work great with it. Font support is practically non existent however. I have no idea how to add fonts. I could only get one application to install... a LabQuest emulator I had for science class. It would not run because it couldn't preform hardware check. I had issues with the InstallShield installer for ONE however, it might same issue that occurs when attempting to install on EN Windows or it might not; I localize my Windows for games.

Now its a slick program, supported apps like Steam, Office, Quicken... they probably work great. But its so limited by its pre-set boundries making Japanese programs or hobby programs run is flat out impossible. Window management is handled by X11/Quartz it seems and no complains there.

I was able to make Casual Romance Club run by telling CO it was an installer. Not an ideal setup and sorely in need of fonts. According to Libido, CRC doesn't need Japanese fonts unless translation is turned on. Even so, the english should display without issues but...

English text in loading screen: Squares. I quit it at this point.

Restarted: It remembered the name I gave it seems. Still no text.
Music was fine. Images were fine. No lag.

Attack of the squares. The soundtrack squeaked when I advanced the text quickly. This game only has key lines voiced. Notice, its running as in installer in CrossOver. Not ideal.

Everything works perfectly except text.

Voices are fine. If it would just let me run the program as a program (and I then I would tweak the fonts) I imagine the game would run perfectly. (see note)

Don't even look for the Japanese version of CrossOver... its 11550 yen if you can find it. Thats almost twice as much as the English version!

Obviously WINE has great potential, the CrossOver interface to it just doesn't work for these sorts of games at this point.

Doujin Games and Apple Photo Books

Well my photo book orders from Apple came today! I ordered 3 of a photo book of my trip to Japan (for various family members) and 1 personalized copy of the same book (for my grandma). Very nice books, very nice packaging. Up to two books fit in each gray Apple box (see below) so I received 3 nice boxes total in two shipments (personalized was shipped separately but came the same day) I also previously ordered a card to match the book for my grandma and it too was printed quite nice.

My family's personal copy of the book in front of the three boxed copies to send out. (the yellow stickies are added by me, not Apple). I adore the strong boxes Apple provides, they are reinforced on the sides and look just as nice as the iPod or other product packaging despite being for an outsourced (Kodak?) minor product line. To the side are the two doujin games by Champange I ordered from Himeya on their EMS mailing envelope. I'm quite excited to try these out later tonight.

A close up on a page, we took all the photo's ourselves.

Some cute teddy bears that have nothing to do with anything. The brown one is from Borders and the little white one was a Valentines gift. She's my nicest bear :3

Friday, February 20, 2009

FailShare

Please tell me WHY THIS EXISTS!!!!



YES THOSE ARE WINDOWS INSTALLERS BURIED INSIDE MY MAC APP. To make it worse.....Mac installers are in there as well....

Join me in telling Flip Video to stop coding while drunk....


Flip Video

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Seashore - MSPaint on Mac without the suck

Seashore - About

Note: Windows people go check out paint.net

I love GIMP. Its great. But do I NEED to run X11 just to scribble on an image? Where is my image editor, Apple?

Now I have SeaShore. Even better, it uses GIMP's file format!

Easy, quick program that is built in Cocoa (mac native) and it runs like a dream. My new best friend XD Oh and its small! 12 MB after I installed the SVG converter (which is a large chunk of that size)!

I will still keep GIMP for the serious work but SeaShore is great for everything else.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

涼宮ハルヒちゃんの憂鬱

YouTube - 「涼宮ハルヒちゃんの憂鬱」オープニング

Check these Haruhi webisodes out, both for "Haruhi-chan" and "Nyoron Churuya-san"

Each episode is taken down when its replaced so watch them quickly!

Yuki plays eroge in episode 2 ^_^

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

My Desktop as of right now



Posting such things seems popular to do and most importantly personally enjoyable. Link to yours in the comments, I would love to see what everyone chooses :)

Learning to Change, Changing to Learn

Pearson Foundation: Learning to Change, Changing to Learn

I auditioned for this video and made the cut :) I am the girl talking about MS Bob. This interview was fun because I had just gotten my MBP and all the videographers wanted to check it out (the unibody was just released).

Sorry, I posted this to another blog first... gotta check my quick post settings before clicking OK!

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

MacHeist : Free Software for doing puzzles

MacHeist

Amazingly fun alternate reality game on its third big run. Solve puzzles and find clues of a conspiracy to earn shareware for free. The community takes the ARG seriously but is laidback and welcome to newcomers.

Please note MacHeist has required editing and running Macintosh applications and could end up being impossible to complete from Windows without assistance. Moreover the prizes are for mac as well.

BLUE TEAM WILL WIN!

Sunday, February 8, 2009

iTunes Movies

I have an iPod Mini so I only use iTunes for Music, it is iTUNES after all.

But I was curious and found that if I did add a video to iTunes it goes in [home]/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Movies/ not the infinitely more logical [home]/Movies. This extra folder itunes makes adds another level of confusion when using spotlight and generally doesn't make sense. When putting photos on an ipod they come straight from iPhoto right? Again, I don't have a supported one.

Because of the mass love of iTunes, FrontRow shows movies in Music before movies in.... Movies.

My point is... Apple should put movies in [home]/Movies or [home]/Movies/iTunes Movies or somewhere beisdes the music folder. Does Windows have a equivalent My Videos?

Any thoughts?

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Clannad Deskmat and Champange~

Champange is a very nice doujin circle I have blogged about before. I just ordered two of thier new releases from Himeya:Little Royale EX and Sayauchi (which I custom ordered but Himeya opted to add to the shop proper.).

I also got my Clannad deskmat today, surprisingly high quality with a micro weave front and plastic coated back.




Useless? Certainly. But she makes me smile. :)

Monday, February 2, 2009

A Friend's Figure Collection

These are two pictures of my friend's figures. I suspect he took them just because I keep bugging him for photos:
As you can see, he's quite the Negima fan.
I seem to be a (bad?) influence, since quite a few of the figures there I had a part in acquiring (from sending links to reselling my own). I piggybacked a Clannad deskmat on to the order for those LB! figures and will have that by the end of the week :)

Update: I have many of my figures on that same model of bookcase XD