Sunrunner20's Blog

Desktop Tower Defense

So, an entirely too addicting flash game has released a new version:
http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/Game.asp

Nintendo DS: The buttons

Well I have found a mostly compatible button for the Nintendo DS original. However, You have to do a little modification: cutting off the side pieces. But thats not hard.

So, here is its mouser page: http://www.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?qs=NJkwmKHMWpHF6LyO14%252bGNA%3d%3d

Spec sheet: http://www.mouser.com/catalog/specsheets/MS-100098.pdf

The search goes on!

Well my DS' left shoulder button decided to fail completely recently, how retarded is that. Whats worse is everybody thinks they can charge you $16 for a replacement switch. Guess what, that isn't even an identical replacement. So, if anybody knows what company uses a "H" logo and makes tactile switchs- I'll replace their shoulder switch for them if they need it.

In the mean while:http://www.components.omron.com/components/web/webfiles.nsf$FILES/family.html?ID=CNEN-6TJQQJ

that is a closer replacement than their solution.

Joomla 1.5.4!

Well a new version of Joomla! has been released, so everybody update your websites! Else, get script kiddie'd when somebody figures out how to put the minor security flaws to good use.

http://www.joomla.org/content/view/5180/1/

Gallery 2's Awful Watermarking Plugin

So, I don't know how many other people share my view but it seems that Gallery2 it’s a good platform overall but it just plain sucks at watermarking its images for several reasons.
First off, you can only apply water marks when you first upload the image, second it won't scale the watermark to the image, third it confuses you with about the first complaint with an option to apply watermarks to the image in the options page. GO GO Gadget Gallery2!

Ugh: The pain!

So, woke up with a kidney stone this morning- no fun. :\

Restoring a Knife

Well, I've been meaning to restore my dad's brother's old survival knife for a while now. So, here are pictures of the handle of the knife. I'm halfway done with the blade, I need to 120 then 600 wet sand it and I'll be done sanding. Hopefully, I'll figure out how to parkerize the base of the blade so it will be preserved and not rust.

Man, I was stupid and forgot about blogging for ages. >_< Guys, I should finish up that black powered series soon.

gg Windows XP

... and my Windows XP install manages to nuke itself. Thus, I've had my first extended stay in Vista. Its acctually not as bad as I thought it would be- so far the only thing I have been unable to locate is the "Up one level" button in explorer. However, configuring sound was a royal pain in the ass. Had to change the settings several times before I could get Teamspeak playback and DoD:S working at the same time.

Black Powder: Carbon (Part 1)

The making of black powder is really simple, however I'm going to spread this out over a few days so I don't spend all my free time on just this. :)

I chose to start with the most interesting part of making black powder- the charcoal. Its actually pretty simple! First, put a few chunks of grilling charcoal in a grill and start them burning. Then you prepare your wood that will be turned into charcoal usable in black powder. To do this find a piece of softwood, I used a small piece of 2x4. Wrap the wood in several layers of aluminum foil to keep air from getting to the wood, then poke a hole about 1/8 of an inch in diameter to let the gases escape. After that, just stick the aluminum foil wrapped wood on the charcoal and you will get something like this once the grilling charcoal has burnt out and your chunk of wood has cooled off:

On the First Day of Spring Break...

Well, some time today I'm going to finish off coding my open source version of a proccess run time timer.

@#$%ing Texas Weather

I Hate Texas weather. It was snowing yesterday afternoon, yet for some reason it is unable to maintain a tempature below freezing long enough to freeze the roads this morning. :\

ARP DOS @ UTD

Apparently my university uses a rather poor method of determining if a computer needs to be removed from the wireless network: ARP requests. I don't know why they have decided to use such an essential element of networking to decide to ban machines. What’s worse is that it would be incredibly easy to turn this "security" method into DOS attack.

The solution? This is one of the best universities in Texas. I think we have the talent, skill and resources to create a smarter system that uses applications like SNORT to monitor activity and use that intelligence to ban systems. Not the over simplified “Hey, that machine produces more ARP packets than this other machine. OK, ban it!”

All 59 Tracks: Reborn

A long time ago I recived a link to a very nice archive of ChipTunes. Unfortunately, it has come to my attention that this wonderful archive no longer exists on the internet. So, with as little searching around, I managed to track down the author of the chiptunes. Thus, with his permission I present All 59 Tracks!

MP3 format

Origional XM/MOD/MP3 format

and web player:

Updated! The stupid serendipity download plugin broke for some reason, sorry guys. Its fixed now.

Carson Beckett

Joy... First they yank us around with a new carson beckett showing up, then they go "oops, he's gonna die again- gotta freeze him!"

What are they doing? Making sure Rachel Luttrell(Teyla Emmagan) gets her maturnity leave? Oh well, I guess this is a side effect of the fact that I watched SG1 seasons 1-5 in a few weeks.