Monster attacks Google

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google is about to launch a new App Store, focused around creating software for Google Apps. Google’s plan is to sell software built by third party developers to enhance Google’s suite of apps (e.g. Gmail, Docs, Calendar, Sites, Gtalk). These outside apps could be for adding more security, enhancing word-processing features or porting information into Google Apps.

A Google Apps store would work in the same fashion Android or the iPhone App Stores operate, which developers set a price and Google and the third party share in the revenue. It’s a model that has proven very successful. If it took off, it could create a whole new marketplace and a new stream of income for the largest online search engine. It could even pave the way for app stores within Google’s consumer products.

It has been announced to commence around March, although now that news has broken, it’s likely an official blog post from Google will come sooner. However, The Next Web proclaims that Google already has an “app store” known as Google Solutions Marketplace (http://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/) but ‘Google Apps’ may just sound a bit cooler.

Just for pictures and not finished at that.
Most things are roughed in with the dremel and then hand filed.
Lots of tweaking and more calcamations are being computed.

Still here it is, the gilardoini to polini transformation.

More pictures with case mods, finished product and results in a few days, enjoy

yesterday i finally got the dremel collets i needed to hook up my dremel flex shaft. i was holding off porting my polini exhaust until then so i could get all the angles i wanted inside the exhaust port, making it a lot easier. a pros only porting tip i picked up from peter is to make sure you’re always comfortable the way you hold both the dremel and cylinder. it helps give you a steady hand to avoid having the bit skip around and reduces fatigue (i spent 2.5 hours porting this). having good lighting is also something not to overlook. i have a tendency to get excited and jump right into things, but taking your time and getting set up properly is key to get the porting results you want. *note that i’m pretty anal about this stuff. it might be overkill to some people, but i like to know i’m doing everything i can to ensure good results.

as an extra precaution i put masking tape on the cylinder walls incase the bit skipped (a tip from markryan). no errant bit moves happened, but it took 2 minutes and doesn’t hurt.

then i measured out what i wanted with my micrometer and marked the cylinder with a sharpie. if you want to get really intense/accurate, graham from the cranks has a sweet blog post on creating portmaps and laying them out in the cylinder.

time to grind! slow and steady is the way to go. i started at the cylinder wall and then worked my way down to the bottom of the exhaust port.


the widening and raising extends all the way to the flange

after some re-chamfering and exhaust port polishing, this little duder is ready to race.

Issues when porting or developing an application for ARM Embedded Linux
”Get as much better performance, with the smallest memory footprint”
Similar to any platform for the code to be portable it should

• Program according to standards
• Use intrinsics

• Use inline, embedded assembly
• Use Toolchain specific things.

Example Compilation
GCC Command line

gcc -mcpu=Cortex-A8 -mfloat-abi=softfp -O3 …

RVCT Command line

armcc -cpu=Cortex-A8 -vfp=softvfp+vfpv3 -O3  -Otime …

The ABI for the ARM Architecture is a standard developed by ARM and its partners that explains how compilers, assemblers, linkers, and other similar tools should generate object files and executable files. The “ARM EABI” is an informal name for the ABI for the ARM Architecture.

Portability and Optimizations of GNU Applications for ARM Embedded Linux – http://tree.celinuxforum.org/CelfPubWiki/ELCEurope2008Presentations?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=ARM_EmbeddedLinux_Apps_Port.pdf

What is NEON

ARM NEON technology is a 128 bit SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data)
architecture extension for the ARM CortexTM-A series processors, designed to provide flexible and powerful acceleration for intensive multimedia applications, thereby delivering a significantly enhanced user experience.

Some of the benefits…

• Aligned and unaligned data access allows for efficient vectorization of SIMD operations.
• Support for both integer and floating point operations
• Tight coupling to the ARM core provides a single instruction stream and a unified view of memory, presenting a single development platform target with a simpler tool flow.
• The large NEON register file with its multiple views enables efficient handling of data and minimizes access to memory, enhancing data throughput performance.

Reference:

Portability and Optimizations of GNU Applications for ARM Embedded Linux – http://tree.celinuxforum.org/CelfPubWiki/ELCEurope2008Presentations?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=ARM_EmbeddedLinux_Apps_Port.pdf

Looking for recommendations for how to port a bunch of products from dashCommerce (which appears to have suddenly gone defunct, see my prev post). Im currently looking at database hacking to move some basic data across, but this might be a useful tool for all the dc users who are now stranded with a product that has absolutely no support. Please comment with any suggestions or solutions.

Official press release:

Time, and cost to get an app to market gets faster and more affordable

Golden Gekko, a leading developer and technology provider for cross platform mobile applications, today unveils its new service Tino, that will allow anyone to build a mobile application and bring it to market much faster, and more affordably, than has previously been seen in the mobile app marketplace.

To build a mobile app, a customer can visit www.tinomobile.com and follow five easy steps to build an application of choice. Pricing for Golden Gekko’s Tino starts at as low as £100 which is significantly cheaper than the average £5-10,000 price tag of comparable applications.,
“We are offering Tino as a low cost entry to the mobile app marketplace, and can provide anyone with the tools to build a mobile app, with a process that takes less than an hour,” said Magnus Jern, Golden Gekko’s CEO. “Our Tino customers do not need to be technical experts, as they’ll get an easy step-by-step guide that allows them to self-develop a mobile app on the Web.”

Golden Gekko’s Tino invites everyone to create attractive, powerful mobile applications, that will support 90 per cent of the global mobile handset market,
using any content, external feeds, and rich media. The process is simple, requires no programming, and can be completed in as little as 30. Tino will automatically host and track the number of engagements.

Tino customers will get access to the wealth of experience Golden Gekko has in the mobile applications industry, of serving exciting mobile content on billions of phones worldwide, and developing content for 40 leading global brands including Absolut Vodka, Accenture, Bloomberg, Coca Cola, Disney, European Directories Novartis, Paramount, Perfetti, Sara Lee, Unilever, Universal Pictures and Vodafone.

For more visit http://www.tinomobile.com

GoLang logo

Se abre la veda para portar librerías de C a GoLang.

GoLang incluye una especie de procesador de lenguaje (como puede ser rpcgen para RPC), que genera unos “stubs” y “skels” a partir de una especficación (declaraciones de C).  A esta utilidad se le conoce como Cgo. Bajo la ruta $(GOROOT)/misc/cgo se encuentran dos ejemplos claros.

• stdio: es el “Hola mundo” de Cgo. Sirve para ver cómo funciona el proceso de compilación y empezar a practicar. Hay dos ficheros importantes, “file.go” y “hello.go”.  El fichero que parsea Cgo es “file.go” y en él se implementa un “print(string)“. Como podéis adivinar, “hello.go” utiliza el porting del print implementado en “file.go”.
• gmp: es el porting del TAD BigNum que implementa la librería GMP. Es un ejemplo más real y práctico de Cgo y enseña bien la sintaxis de uso (aunque es sencilla por sí misma).

La sintaxis de un fichero Cgo es como la de un fichero normal de GoLang. Lo único diferente es la inclusión de:

Estas son las palabras mágicas para que Cgo se dé por aludido y empiece a trabajar. Para ello comienza buscando justo en la primera línea anterior a import “comentarios” de C.

En estos comentarios es donde se incluye los tipos de datos, prototipos de función y/o incluso los include en C de la librería que queremos portar.

Si por ejemplo queremos portar la librería D-Bus para GoLang, en nuestro fichero tiene que haber algo parecido a:

Para poder usar los tipos y funciones que ofrece D-Bus sólo tendríamos que establecer el prefijo “C.” al tipo o función en cuestión.

Si en D-Bus existe el tipo “dbus_bool_t” y queremos declarar una variable de ese tipo, la sentencia seria algo como: “var miBool C.dbus_bool_t“.

Por último queda el detalle de la conversión de tipos entre C y GoLang. Para esto existe funciones proporcionadas por la librería de Cgo que permite este tipo de “casting”. Por ejemplo, “CString(cad string) unsafe.Pointer” nos devuelve el archiconocido puntero “char*”.

Una vez que tengamos nuestro archivo Go con el porting de nuestra librería favorita hecho, es necesario generar el paquete. Basta con copiar el Makefile de “gmp”, cambiar el nombre del componente y de los ficheros GoLang asociados.

Lo primero que hará make será parsear con Cgo nuestro fichero de porting. Esto genera unos ficheros que serán compilados con Go y otros que serán compilados con GCC, creando una librería dinámica “.so” que será cargada y usada por el ejecutable que generemos cuando usemos nuestra aplicación.

Lo cierto es que la utilidad Cgo es necesaría para difundir y extender el lenguaje, ya que permite que terceras partes generen muchos portings de librerías enriqueciendo así el framework.

A día de hoy ya existen muchos proyectos de porting de diferentes librerías para gestores de base de datos y creación de ventanas X Windows.

Espero que os animéis a portar librerías

P.D. Cgo al igual que GoLang se encuentran en pañales, es muy probable que encontréis algun bug, en el parseo. Por favor, reportadlo.

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while my derbi motor was apart i figured i’d tinker around with some porting. i’d like to race this motor in the spring/summer, so i want to see what this kit is capable of.

here’s what i planned for the cylinder (65cc pyramid reed metrakit).

i ended up just raising the exhaust 2mm and widening each side 2mm. i want to raise the transfers 1.5mm, but couldn’t get in there with a dremel. it might have to be hand filed. anyone have porting thoughts on that? what do you guys use to get at the innards of a cylinder?

quick bit of porting advice: these dremel tungsten carbide bits turn cast iron into butter.

they’re a bit pricey ($8+), but a totally worth it. having both the straight cylinder and the tapered one is really nice. i clean up after those with a sanding drum. it’s a sweet 1, 2, 3 cast iron combo.

Вот попробовал запустить.

Поблемы:

только в окне с убранным доком,

разрешение не меняется,

вначале игры в слепую надо пропустить несколько начальных роликов эскейпом, потом также вслепую нажать интер пару раз для начала новой игры,

мышь в меню работает только после ввода консольной команды,

в игре у мыши ограничен угол обзора.

Вобщем до выпуска порта еще далеко.

CXSkin port for Mac OS 10.5 & 10.6

Russian language only

torrents.ru

torrentmac.ru

thepiratebay.org

Buku Korek

Sudah banyak yang menunggu MOTOR Plus meluncurkan buku korek 4-tak. Dan inilah saatnya muncul seri perdana untuk panduan porting agar tarikan motor ngacir. Dipersembahkan buat pemula dan mekanik yang sudah senior.

“Mekanik Indonesia butuh buku panduan korek mesin. Yang ada selama ini dalam bahasa Inggris susah dimengerti. Lewat buku ini MOTOR Plus sebagai penerjemahnya,” komentar Tomy Huang dari BRT yang borong iklan di buku yang didukung teori dan analisa lengkap berikut praktiknya.

“Saya kaget melihat buku spesial korek keluaran MOTOR Plus dan langsung beli. Begitu dibaca mudah dipahami. Bahasanya ringan dan mudah dicerna orang awam,” jelas Bono Kartiko S. SE, general manager PT Federal Karyatama, penyalur oli Federal Oil.

Isi buku ini diambil dari rubrik MOTOR Plus namun diatur ulang sistematikanya agar mudah dipelajari. Juga dikembangkan sesuai perkembangan zaman. Buku ini bisa didapat di semua toko buku Gramedia. Atau agen koran terdekat. (sumber:motorplus-online.com)

I’ve been recently playing with the porting to Oracle of a really nice ajax php chat application :  phpfreechat or PfC for short.
This application makes very easy to integrate new types of persistance containers because it abstracts them in class implementations that provide just 3 methods that have to be adapted to the new type of container, and you just need a single table in the database.

I used pear DB classes to get access to the database.

Of course, php has to be compiled with oci extensions that require at least an instant client installation.

I used oracle express edition as DB server on my development server, it is free (as in beer) for development use, and very light on resources.

I had to convert datatypes from Mysql to Oracle and I confess I used phpbb3 oracle sql schema as an inspiration.

Oracle has no autoincrement types so you have to use sequence (+ triggers).

As far as I know, there is no timestamp type (seconds from the epoch)  as well  so I had to improvise some PL/SQL.

Another issue that I had to struggle with is timezones : UTC vs your local time, be careful to calculate time always in the same way.

Now we have a prototype, that is currently in trunk.
It certainly needs some testing and some advice from skilled oracle users, please try it out and let me know any issue, suggestion, idea, insults….

The quickest way to test it is : download the latest stable pfc, get oracle.class.php , drop it in the containers dir , create database and parameters as explained in php file.

Y el nuevo reproductor de Microsoft sigue dando de que hablar, esta vez ya podemos ver el primer juego desarrollado para iPhone, porteado a Zune HD en tan solo 12hs (rápido eh) Se trata del Wordmonger, un juego simple de palabras así tipo sopa de letras si mal no entiendo, y fue porteado exitosamente utilizando la herramienta de MS, XNA.

Eso si, esto seria así mas o menos como una app de Cydia, ya que no se puede instalar desde el Zune Marketplace, solo utilizando el XNA y algún que otro truquillo por ahí, ya que MS al momento no permite este tipo de aplicaciones por cosas de la vida que nunca entenderemos.

Así que si MS quiere competir de verdad verdad, yo creo que tendría que quitar esa estúpida restricción y listo, ya tiene un muy buen reproductor según reviews.

Vía:
Gizmodo.

[1]

Metacello is a package management system for Monticello. A package management system is…

…a collection of tools to automate the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing software packages from a computer. Distributions of Linux and other Unix-like systems typically consist of hundreds or even thousands of distinct software packages; in the former case a package management system is nice, in the latter case it is essential.

Packages are distributions of software and metadata such as the software’s full name, description of its purpose, version number, vendor, checksum, and a list of dependencies necessary for the software to run properly. Upon installation, metadata is stored in a local package database.

A package management system provides a consistent method of installing software…

Last April I finally became fed up with the lack of a decent package management system for Monticello and decided to write my own from scratch. I wanted a package management system for Monticello that was consistent with the important features of Monticello:

• Declarative modeling. A Metacello project has named versions consisting of lists of explicit Monticello package versions. Dependencies are explicitly expressed in terms of named versions of required projects. A required project is a reference to another Metacello project.
• Distributed repositories. Metacello project metadata is represented as instance methods in a class therefore the Metacello project metadata is stored in a Monticello package. As a result, it is easy for distributed groups of developers to collaborate on ad hoc projects.
• Optimistic development. With Monticello-based packages, concurrent updates to the project metadata can be easily managed. Parallel versions of the metadata can be merged just like parallel versions of the code base itself.

Additionally, the following three points are important considerations for Metacello:

• Cross platform operation. Metacello must run on all platforms that support Monticello: currently Squeak, Pharo and GLASS.
• Conditional Monticello package loading. For projects that are expected to run on multiple platforms, it is essential that platform-specific Monticello packages can be conditionally loaded. At the moment, conditional loading is specified based upon the following attributes:
  • #common. Code that is common across all platforms.
  • #squeakCommon. Code that is common to Squeak and Pharo.
  • #squeak. Code that is specific to Squeak.
  • #pharo. Code that is specific to Pharo.
  • #gemstone. Code that is specific to GemStone.

  It should be possible to inject project-specific attributes, so code that is dependent upon attributes not covered by the standard list can be conditionally loaded. For example, in GLASS, different Monticello package versions are loaded based on which version of GemStone/S is running (i.e., version 2.0 versus 3.0).

• Compatible with MC2. It must be possible to manage Metacello projects that are based on alternate Distributed Source Code Management systems like Monticello2.
• MIT license.

[Update: 10/14/2009] Note that with the release of version 1.0-beta.3 of Metacello, some of the following sections are no longer valid . Please read this post for up-to-date information. The outright invalid entries have been struck out.

In the following sections I hope to give a taste of what Metacello can do along with instructions on loading Metacello into Squeak or Pharo, so you can run through the Metacello tutorial:

• The VersionSpec
• Metacello Tools
• GLASS Configuration
• Bootstrapping Metacello
• Tutorial
• Current Status

The VersionSpec

[Update: 10/14/2009] the following section is not completely accurate for the newer versions of Metacello (1.0-beta versions). Please see this discussion for up-to-date information.

Click on the image below to get a full depiction of a version spec.

The metadata for a Metacello project version is kept in a versionSpec which has the following atributes:

• blessing. A version can be tagged with a blessing like #alpha, #beta, #release, #development (or any other tag that is deemed useful). The blessing is used as a version filter. For example the latest version of a Metacello project is currently defined as the latest version whose blessing is not #development.
• description. Useful information about the version.
• packages. A list of Monticello package versions (or project references via required projects) that make up the project.
• repositories. A list of Monticello repositories from which the packages can be loaded.
• groups. An alias for a collection of packages. See Bootstrapping Metacello for some examples of using groups.
• doits. A collection of blocks associated with a Monticello package that are evaluated before and/or after a package is loaded.
• project package. A definition of the Monticello package name and Monticello repository from which the latest project metadata is be loaded.
• required projects. A list of projects that the Metacello project depends upon. A required project spec includes such information as the version of the project, the name of the Metacello project class, the package and repository from which the project metadata is loaded (note the similarity to the project package specification). Heres’ an example of a required project specification:

Any one of the versionSpec attributes may be conditionally modified. Here’s an example package specification that adds  a new Monticello package version for the package ‘Example-Core’ when the #testPlatform attribute is present:

In the #common version spec, the package version ‘Example-Core-anon.14′ is associated with the ‘Example-Core’ package . When the #testPlatform attribute is present, ‘Example-Core.testplatform-anon.15′ overrides ‘Example-Core-anon.14′ in the version spec.

Metacello Tools

[Update: 10/14/2009] Note some of the entries in this section are invalid for later versions of Metacello. Please read this new section for more up-to-date information.

I have developed a minimal set of menu items for working with Metacello.

I started out thinking that I would completely avoid the tools issues and instead rely on workspace scripts, the Class Browser and Monticello Browser for the bulk of the tools support. Over time, I found a handful of operations that deserved to be easier to use, so I whipped up a handful of OB commands and attached them to the MetacelloProject class.

Select a MetacelloProject class and bring up the Class menu:

Save Packages

Finds the dirty Monticello packages that are members of the selected version of the Metacello project and saves them, prompting you for version name and commit comment. After the packages are saved you are prompted to Update Package Methods.

Update Package Methods

Automatically updates the package spec metadata for the selected version (i.e., modifies and compiles the methods with the #packages:attribute: pragma for the appropriate version to match the currently loaded Monticello package versions). After the methods are update you are prompted to Save Project.

Update Package Repositories

Updates the repository group for each Monitcello package associated with the selected version of the Metacello project to include the repository for that package as specified in the version spec.

[Update 8-26-2009 ... more information, if not clearer explanation] When I use Metacello to bootstrap the GemStone Seaside extent, I have TrueRepositories turned off, because I am loading from a disk-based repository (using repositoryOverrides in the loader) so that we don’t _have_ to hit the http repository for every GemStone product build (and for folks using GLASS behind corporate firewalls that don’t have direct access to HTPP repositories). As a result the repositoryGroup is empty for each of the packages. This is a real pain when you start doing development.

‘Update Package Repositories’ scans every package and adds the project repository to the repositoryGroup for each package, so that one doesn’t have to manually do so.

Current Project Version

Displays the current version of the selected Metacello project. The version is calculated by comparing the currently loaded Monticello packages to those specified in the version spec. A leading ‘~’ means that the version is partially loaded (i.e., not all of the packages associated with the project have been loaded into the image).

Load Project Version

Prompts for the version of the selected Metacello project to be loaded. If there are groups associated with the selected version, you are prompted for the group that you would like loaded. When in doubt choose ‘ALL’.

Save Project

Saves the selected Metacello project to the repository specified by the project package of the selected version. You are prompted for version name and commit comment.

Update Project

Loads the latest Monticello package version from the repository specified in the project package of the selected version of the Metacello project. Remember that you are simply loading the Metacello project metadata, so it doesn’t hurt to have the latest metadata loaded. Once the latest version is loaded, you are prompted to Load Project Version.

GLASS Configuration

[Update: 10/14/2009] Note that the information is out-of-date in this section relative to newer versions of Metacello. Please see this post for more up-to-date information.

With Metacello, the configuration of the GLASS appliance goes from this incomprehensible (and pratically uneditable) list of packages:

to a manageable list of Metacello project references:

Best of all, it becomes possible to load a project like Pier into a minimal base image (with only Monticello, Metacllo and OB loaded) using something like the following expression:

(GsPierMetacelloProject version: '1.2') load: { 'Pier Core'. 'Pier AddOns'. }

Not only does Pier get loaded, but all of the projects that Pier depends upon (i.e., Magritte, Seaside, Scriptaculous, etc.) get loaded along with the projects that they depend upon.

For the curious, here are the definitions of the ‘Pier Core’ and ‘Pier AddOns’ groups:

Bootstrapping Metacello

[Update: 10/14/2009] Please see this new section for loading Metacello into an image.

To use Metacello in GLASS, modifications to some base classes are needed, so you will have to wait until I publish a GLASS package to bootstrap Metacello into GLASS.

To bootstrap Metacello into Squeak or Pharo:

1. Load Metacello-All-dkh.10 from http://seaside.gemstone.com/ss/metacello (loads
   Metacello-Core, Metacello-MC, MetacelloProject and OB-Metacello – note that
   Metacello-All needs to have a fairly recent version of OB loaded.
2. Delete the Metacello-All package. It’s only needed to bootstrap Metacello.
3. Execute the following expression in a workspace to load the latest version:

   MetacelloMetacelloProject updateProject.
   MetacelloMetacelloProject latestVersion load.

The #updateProject method performs an Update Project to ensure that you have the most recent Metacello project metadata. The #latestVersion method finds the latest non-development version of Metacello (currently 0.15). The #load method then loads the ‘DEFAULT’ packages for the latest version.

The ‘DEFAULT’ group specifies the bare minimum of packages needed to use Metacello (‘Metacello-Core’, ‘Metacello-MC’, ‘Metacello-Platform’,  and ‘OB-Metacello’).

The ‘Tests’ group specifies the unit test packages for Metacello.

The ‘Samples’ group specifies the package containing some sample Metacello projects including samples for Seaside2.8 and Seaside2.9.

The ‘Tutorial’ group specifies the package containing the Metacello tutorial.

To load the whole Metacello enchilada, you’d execute the following expression:

MetacelloMetacelloProject updateProject.
MetacelloMetacelloProject latestVersion load: 'ALL'.

Tutorial

[Update: 10/14/2009] Please see this new section for loading the Metacello tutorial into an image.

The tutorial covers all of the important Metacello features in some detail. To load the tutorial, execute the following expression:

MetacelloMetacelloProject updateProject.
MetacelloMetacelloProject latestVersion load: 'Tutorial'.

Then open two class  browsers on the MetacelloTutorialProject class. In the left hand browser view the methods in the ‘lessons’ category. In the right hand browser view the ‘–all–’ category. Read the comments in lesson01 through lesson16OtherExamples.

Current Status

[Update: 10/14/2009] Please see this new section for the current status of the Metacello project.

Version 0.15, the curent version of Metacello, is feature complete, but I’m chasing down infant mortality bugs while I am creating the Metacello projects for GLASS. Once I’m happy, I will release a beta version of Metacello along with the final GLASS package which will boot Metacello into GLASS.

A Metacello Users Guide is also in the works and should be available soon.

—–
[1]Photo by kruemi (Creative Commons).

I’ve been using Google Voice (s goog) since it was GrandCentral, and have been quite impressed. But it’s still in beta, and while invitations to the beta are finally becoming available, I understand that they’re still hard to come by.

3jam is billing itself as an alternative to Google Voice, and it’s available today, so I’ve given it a quick spin. This is not a complete review, as there are some of 3jam’s features that I haven’t tried, such as SMS messaging, forwarding to Skype, an API that lets you write your own applications to interact with their service, and “group” numbers that allow multiple users to share voice mail and messaging.

Signing Up and Getting a Number

Signing up for the service is easy. Just select an area code where you want a number and 3jam will display a series of available numbers from which you can pick. You can also enter words to see if you can get a “vanity number” that spells something. You can also port an existing number to the 3jam service for a onetime fee of $25, something that Google Voice doesn’t yet offer. Right now, 3jam is only offering incoming numbers in the continental U.S. If you want an incoming number in another country, you’ll need SkypeIn or another VoIP service.

Pricing

In my opinion, a major weakness of 3jam’s service is its complex pricing structure. For those of us who are used to the clearly-defined packages offered by most cell phone and VoIP providers, it’s bewildering to be confronted with a choice of monthly fees and SMS packages, and to realize that the monthly fees include only a ridiculously small number of incoming minutes (just 30!) and no outgoing minutes at all.

3jam charges a monthly fee ranging from $4.99 per month for a 12-month contract, to $8.99 per month on a monthly basis. Additional minutes, SMS and even transcriptions of voice mails (over the first 30) cost extra. Additional minute rates for calls (apparently both incoming and outgoing) are competitive. The SMS prices are puzzling, though: 5 cents per message to the U.S., but only 4 cents to Uganda or Uzbekistan?

Annoyingly, information about pricing is very difficult to find on 3jam’s web site. The monthly fees are displayed during the sign-up process, but only after you’ve already selected a phone number. A more comprehensive list of pricing seems to be available only in the help section, which I found by doing a search.

By comparison, the Google Voice service does not currently charge a monthly fee, or fees for calls and SMS messages in the U.S. Google Voice charges for international calls at rates that are competitive with other VoIP services. It’s rumored that Google could make the service advertising-supported at some point.

While some people may find 3jam’s à la carte approach to pricing advantageous, I think that businesses will need to know what they can expect to pay; 3jam makes that difficult. The 3jam control panel does offer a running total of calls made and the costs incurred, so users can at least keep track of what they’ve spent.

Setup

Setting up the service is straightforward. You can set incoming calls to the 3jam number to ring on as many as six different phones, not only in the U.S., but in many other locations throughout the world. You can also forward incoming calls to Skype, something that Google Voice doesn’t offer. And you can forward incoming SMS messages to IM services like Google Talk and AIM, which is a nice touch.

3jam offers the ability to import your contacts to its address book from external email accounts like Gmail, and from Outlook, Thunderbird Entourage and .csv files. I was unable to get either Gmail or a .csv import to work, however, and didn’t try the other options.

Quality

Like many VoIP services, sound quality varies from call to call. I had several friends place test calls to me, and we heard occasional echoes, delays and crackles. But generally, call clarity was good — as good as Google Voice, if not better. The transcriptions of voice mails seem to be on a par with Google Voice as well, which is to say, good enough to get the gist of the message, even when some words are missing or incorrect.

Applications

3jam offers three applications that I didn’t try because I’m on a Mac (s aapl). The first is a Windows-only (s msft) desktop application for SMS messaging. (The site mentions a web version, but the link to it doesn’t seem to be working.) There is also a BlackBerry app (s rimm), and a way of having 3jam send messages to you via Twitter.

For people who need maximum flexibility in routing calls and SMS messages, especially internationally, 3jam is likely to be an excellent choice. For those who need to forecast their communication costs, and those who don’t need the international forwarding options, Google Voice is probably a better choice, once it becomes more widely available.

Have you tried 3jam? How does it compare to Google Voice?

I recently read a news story (here) where a “tell-tale programmer” talks about the difficulties of developing games for the Wii.

He argues that the Wii’s lack of processing power & memory in comparison to contemporaries, Xbox 360 & PS3, make it extremely difficult to develop a game that can function on all three systems and stand up (in terms of quality) in it’s own right.

He even goes as far as to say that Apple’s iPhone is more powerful than the Wii itself. A contentious statement indeed!

This may be indicative of  software companies and developers slipping into the mindset that more power = better games.

Well, it makes games look nicer, for sure. But if better looks did, in fact, equal better games then most titles for the Xbox 360 and the PS3 would be outstanding. But the truth is, they aren’t.

In fact, some of them suffer from a lack of imagination and such severe shallow beauty they wouldn’t even make it as a member of Girls Aloud.

The formula for making better games is no secret and has been known for years. But, while keenly observed by some, it is often foolishly ignored by others; “better gameplay = better games”.

Ok, so if the iPhone actually ismore powerful a gaming platform than the Wii, then that’s fair enough, but power has never been a selling point for the Wii (or even an issue for most consumers) and to complain of its’ shortcomings in this area is to completely miss the point. Additionally, for a professional games programmer to complain about it is the equivalent of a bad workman blaming his tools.

First of all, the abilities and power of the top three consoles are very different, it’s not a level playing field and never has been. Nor should it be.

What the Wii lacks in power, it makes up for in innovation. What the Xbox lacks in innovation it makes up for in being the versatile all rounder. And, what the PS3 lack in versatility it makes up for in being cutting edge with it’s Blu Ray drive & HD options. The fact they’re different is crucial to their success.

Since Pong & Space Invaders first appeared there’s never been a time where gaming systems have been equal in terms of power or ability. You quite simply have to tailor your software to fit within the confines of the hardware’s abilities. If you don’t want to, then develop and build your own system and best of luck to you.

If it’s just raw power you want, there’s always a bigger fish, so to speak. And the biggest fish isn’t the biggest for very long. Even as recently as the Nintendo Gameboy.

The Gameboy was, on a purely technical level, the least powerful and least advanced of the competing handhelds of the time (SEGA’s ‘Game Gear, ATARI’s ‘Lynx’ and NEC’s ‘Turbo Express’). What stood it head & shoulders above those technologically superior machines were two important things;

1, software support - it had a ton of great games, and

2, it wasn’t the most extravagantly powerful or advanced handheld on the market so it was relatively cheap to make and priced competitively.

Complaining about a lack of power or memory in the Wii is like knowing you don’t like liquorice, eating it anyway and then complaining that it tastes like liquorice. Or, to put it another (more relevant) way, it’s like taking a hi res picture from your 15 megapixel camera and resizing for the internet at 72DPI - all about scaling and optimisation.

Nintendo have positioned the Wii in the marketplace masterfully. They promote it as a fun console, family friendly, appealing to the ‘casual’ gamer and is more interactive than sitting in front of the telly with a control pad. It sells because of innovation (or gimmicks, depending on your point of view), and fun. Not power.

In fact, it’s great that some developers (Nintendo included) still remember the old school mantra; ‘gameplay is king’ and are innovating ways to keep surprising us.

Now, I have nothing against the XBox or PS3, but no amount of full HD, photo-realism, swanky physics engines or fancy lighting/bloom effects (all of which could also be regarded as gimmicks, albeit next gen spangly shiny ones) can disguise a shoddy title and fool the gamer. After all, ‘you can’t polish a turd’.

Historically, limited hardware has always forced software developers who are willing to push the envelope to improve and innovate rather than just taking a rubbish game, tacking on some fancy bells & whistles (just because they CAN) then selling it based on appearance rather than merit or depth.

A good example of this is the recent ‘Ghostbusters’ game…

It looks great on every platform, but the Wii version was creatively simplified, giving it more of a cartoon appearance (like the old ‘Real Ghostbusters’ cartoon) so it would run well on that platform. One size does not fit all and that is the essence of good porting from a high end graphics platform to a limited or less powerful one.

Fueling this lazy ‘one size fits all’ approach to programming is the lack of any real platform-exclusivity anymore.

To make as much money as possible for the developer it seems every game has to be released on every platform and, as not all platforms are created equal, the results will vary if developers can’t be bothered to optimise their titles to play to the strengths of each system.

Back when you had to ask yourself the question ”Will I the NES or will I the Mastersystem?” or “Maybe the Megadrive… or will I the SNES?”, you faced a straightforward choice over what to expect from your console in terms of power and the games you had access to.

In-house (1st party) developers, like Nintendo’s and SEGA’s (back when they still built & sold hardware) have the luxury of being supported by the giant corporate structure of an established hardware manufacturer (albeit on with excellent reputations for games development) and can concentrate on quality rather than rushing out a title to keep debtors from the door.

External (3rd party) developers are much more time and money conscious. They have to focus more on commercial viability and getting a game developed, finished and on the shelves in time for busy buying periods (like Christmas) than unfeasibly long and deep R&D. As a result, quality often suffers and we end up with a glut of underachieving, over-hyped (and usually buggy) games on the shelves. Obviously this isn’t always the case as 3rd party developers have given us some awesome games recently (Bethesda’s ‘Fallout 3′ and Rockstar’s ‘Grand Theft Auto’ series), but the ratio of hits is disproportionately small when compared to the misses.

If you buy a PS3 now, I’m pretty sure there’s only a handful of games you wouldn’t be able to get on the Xbox, and even then (as with the case of Rockstar games’ ‘GTA IV’) most third party developers will eventually forego the ‘exclusivity’ privilege in order to sell more units. It’s basic business sense to sell you product to the most people as possible.

Unfortunately for the PS3 though, there’s no single game that is so good, only available on the PS3 and has enough appeal to the masses that those masses would buy the system just to play it. Of course, Sony (manufacturer of the PS3) are battling against their own uncharacteristically poor business decisions too. Instead of a regular (and comparatively cheap) DVD drive, they stuck in an expensive Blu-Ray instead.

Turns out nobody really wants this next gen drive if it costs 50% more than the competitor and thus they priced themselves out of the market. This is especially acute due to, as I mentioned earlier,  most games on the PS3 also being available on the cheaper (and far more popular & well supported)  X-Box.

Also, unlike the PS3, the X-box 360 (if you buy a hard drive for it) is backwardly compatible with (most of) your old games from the original X-Box so you don’t have to start your (expensive) games collection off from scratch again.

Then there’s the ‘killer app’ phenomenon. Or, in the PS3’s case; the killer app ‘problem’.

A ‘killer app’ is slang for a game that is so good people will buy whatever system it’s on just to play it and, try as they might, Sony just haven’t got one for the PS3.

Examples of killer apps for previous Playstation generations were the ‘Metal Gear Solid’, ‘Resident Evil’ and ’Gran Turismo’ franchises.

They were not only exclusive to the Playstation but they were so good they were games to buy a Playstation for (killer apps). That seems to have changed this time though as the latest Metal Gear game, ‘Guns Of The Patriots’, while a critical success among hardcore game journalists and similarly hard-core gamers, had its’ initial fire of excitement doused by heavy criticism from non-hardcore franchise fans and the more general gaming media about there being more expositionary cutscenes than actual gameplay (in perhaps another case of programmers making things beautiful rather than fun).

Indeed, the game presents around 30 minutes of relentless opening cinematics before you actually take control and ‘do’ something when first starting to play the game. This kind of detachment from the experience may provide plot and drama but it also removes you from having an active role in the game. Not the kind of game to just pick up & play.

Similarly, Gran Turismo (while an excellent driving simulator) is really not a mainstream game either. To get the most out of it, you need to tinker with your car’s mechanics so much you may as well just study mechanical engineering in real life and make some decent money in F1 instead of staring squinty-eyed at your TV adjusting the slip diff (whatever that is) another few millimetres (if that’s even how you adjust it) to take corners better.

Resident Evil, while it may have started life as a Playstation exclusive, is now selling itself to anyone with a console and a pad. It’s also a great example of how game programmers took an existing game and developed it specifically for the Wii by implementing a fantastic control system unique to the system. It then sold bucketloads. Just shows you what brains can do when brawn is out of the equation.

When a genuine killer app does come along (e.g the aforementioned Grand Theft Auto) exclusivity only benefits the hardware manufacturer as the software developer can’t sell across multiple platforms and thus limiting their audience significantly.

The best killer apps can determine a console’s success or failure. It may already be too late for the PS3 as sales figures continue to underwhelm and maybe the only good thing to come from it will ultimately be a very hard (and expensive) lesson about how not to sell consoles in future.

As an example of the ‘killer app’ in action, the reason I wanted a SNES back in 1992 was because of Super Mario World, the reason I bought an N64 in 1998 was because Goldeneye came with it, I bought a Playstation because of Resident Evil and a Gameboy in the early 90’s because of Tetris.

The original X-Box had Halo & Halo 2. Those games were so huge and well received that when Halo 3 was announced for the X-Box 360, parting with the cash for the new console became an easy decision for gamers (established and newbies); it was just a means to an end in order to play the latest in the series of a smash hit first person shooter. Indeed, it was so huge on launch day that it made news all over the world and many shops had midnight openings to cater for demand.

Now, all this talk of good games determining the success of a console may seem like a tangent that’s moved far away from the original point of this piece (and, to be honest, it kinda is), but if ‘good games maketh the console’ then ‘good gameplay maketh the game’. And this is what it all comes back to; developers complaining about not enough power from the Wii to make the games good enough.

So, to get back to this original point in the form of a metaphor, would the Ford car company complain about having to design a different engine for a Fiesta after they’ve finished the engine design for the Focus Coupe Cabriolet? Of course not. There’s already the understanding that each model, no matter how powerful needs it’s own engine and that engine is specific to the model operating well within it’s class.

Instead, this ‘tell-tale programmer’ has made that Coupe engine, shoehorned it into the Fiesta with little regard and now blames the Fiesta when its’ gearbox, clutch and suspension can’t handle it.

As a consumer, we make a choice whether to buy the Coupe or the Fiesta. That choice will probably come down to a matter of budget, expectation and preference. What we expect regardless though is good performance whatever road we drive it on. I don’t expect to buy a Fiesta and then discover I can’t drive on the motorway because the engine is too small.

If a software company made the decision to develop games then whatever system they develop for will have limitations. So, instead of doing a bad job then blaming the system for not handling it properly, do it right so the system can run it or don’t do it at all.

If the Wii can’t handle it then don’t release it.

Although, before complaining too much, maybe take a look at some of the excellent Wii games that don’t seem to struggle with the hardware to produce fantastic results.  Start with Super Mario Galaxy, Guitar Hero, Zelda, Super Smash Brothers, Resident Evil 4 & Lego Star Wars.

Maybe the lure of a lucrative cross-platform cash-in is too much to resist sometimes, but if games that were previously fine on other systems are ruined and your reputation goes downhill along with it, why bother?

When there is a new System Menu, many people complain that there is no hacks.ini for the new System Menu yet, so they can’t use preloader hacks on the new System Menu. So I decided I’d write a quick tutorial on how to port the hacks from one System Menu to another. This works between different versions and different regions as well. So if you have a Japanese Wii and are annoyed there are no hacks, this will work for you as well.

What you need:

• NUSD
• Key.bin (This is easy, just open a Hex Editor and paste EB E4 2A 22 5E 85 93 E4 48 D9 C5 45 73 81 AA F7 in as a hex string and save as key.bin)
• A hex editor (Any should do, I use XVI32)
• Notepad
• Calculator with Hex function, Windows calculator will do
• Preloader hacks.ini file for any system menu

First thing, get everything listed above. Then fire up NUSD, with key.bin in the same folder, and download the System Menu you have the hacks.ini for and the System Menu you want to port it to. Make sure you tick decrypt as well. The title will be 0000000100000002, and the version depends on which version and region you want. You should be able to find which one you need on wiibrew.org.

Now take a look at the patch, or “hack”, you want to port. (You do them one at a time)
Let’s take for example, the Move Disc Channel hack from System Menu 3.2E

[Move Disc channel]
version=290
offset=0×813A7E84
value=0×60000000

Let’s take a look at that. The first line with the [ and ] is the name. The next line tells preloader which System Menu version this patch is for. The next line is the offset, which tells preloader where in the system menu to patch the value. The final line tells preloader what to make the value at that offset. Now the problem is, the offset is different for different System Menus. And that’s what we need to change.

Now the offset in the hacks.ini is not the one used by hex editors, so we need to do a quick calculation. Open up Windows Calculator and press View>Scientific, then select the Hex option. Then type in the offset from the hack (if there are several, do the first one), and then subtract 0×8132FAE0 from it (NOTE: the 0x simply identifies that a number is in hex. You do not need to type this in Windows Calculator). Now we have the offset we need.

When you download the System Menu with NUSD and tick the decrypt box, you should get a number of .app files. Most of these are U8 archives and you can ignore them, but one is the .dol of the System Menu, and its the one you need. To find it, open all the files over 100KB in size with a Hex Editor and find the one without the U8 header (If you can see “U8″ anywhere in the text side of the Hex Editor, you have one of the U8 archives). The one without the header is the .dol file.

Now open up the decrypted .dol from the System Menu you have the hacks.ini of (in this case 3.2E) in a hex editor. You need to find in your hex editor the option of going to a certain address. In XVI32 it’s under Address>Goto, but different hex editors may vary. Type in the offset we just got in Windows Calculator. This will take you to that address. This shows us what the value should be, before its patched by preloader. You then need to copy 8 numbers (4 little boxes) from that address onwards. Copy this into notepad. You also need to copy several “boxes” either side. Note: If this is 00000000, you cannot port the hack with this method, as that is an advanced patch, and this method is for simple patches.

Now open up the decrypted .dol from the destination System Menu in a hex editor. You now need to search for the hex string you just copied from the last System Menu. Search for it, and when its found, hit search again. Hopefully it wont find it again, meaning this is the place. If it does find it again, go back to the first system menu and copy a few more boxes from either side as well, and try again. Do this until there is only one result.

Now you need to find the offset in this System Menu. So look at the first digit from the string you copied from the original System Menu and find it in the new one. Take down the address of the currently highlighted box. In XVI32, this is displayed in the bottom left corner. Write this down somewhere.

Now go back to Windows calcuator and put it back in Hex. Then type in the address of the value in the new System Menu and add 0×8132FAE0. This gives you the new offset. Then just go into notepad and type up your hacks.ini. You need to add 0x to the answer you got in calculator to get the offset.

[Move Disc Channel]
version=417
offset=0×813AF388
value=0×60000000

(here I ported it to 4.0U, even though it already exists for this System Menu, it was just for the sake of this tutorial)
The first line remains the same. The second line is the new System Menu version, same as the one used for NUSD. The next line is the new offset, and the last line is the value, and that remains the same.

If the hack you are porting contains more than one offset and value, you just do the same for each one.

And then its ready for use. If you do port something to a new System Menu, please post at the wiki on WiiBrew.org

Hopefully this was/will be useful to someone at some stage. If you need me to, I can clarify any parts as well. Just give us a shout.

Oh, and thanks to : Crediar, for making preloader, da_letter_a, for a mentioning something that proved very helpful, WB3000 for NUSD and depeha, for his tutorial on phone port patching at : http://walkmans.wordpress.com/2008/01/07/patch-porting/