Some cool games in flash:

Final Fantasy in Flash

Xiao Xiao Shooter

Not a game, but I love this animation: Door Steps by Lodger.

An article reviewing the majority of current mac backup software reaches an uncomfortable conclusion: (Most)Mac Backup Software [is] Harmful

The surprising conclusion is that almost all Macintosh backup or cloning programs do not fulfill their primary purpose, i.e., they are not able to restore files with all associated metadata. This is despite the fact that many of the tools are advertised as “safe”, “accurate”, “bug-free”, etc. The tools that fail are harmful because they generate a false sense of security. Even more exasperating is that many of these tools cost (significant amounts of) money. The only laudable exception is the great SuperDuper application, which performs flawlessly.

Funnily enough, as is sadly too often the case, SuperDuper is free (with added features for money), whereas many of the other applications reviewed are not.

Happy Place is the most beautiful processing project I have ever seen.

Until I saw Substrate.

via Gallery of Computation

I had some problems with tcsh on my Mac, and I got sick of it. I read Using the shell Terminal in Mac OS X by A.P. Lawrence, and switched my shell to be /bin/bash. And now all that ruby and rails stuff works, and I don’t even have to ~/.bash_login first!

I bet you were terribly worried.

A classmate just tipped me off to a decent looking free code editor context. Sometimes there’s not much more to say.

OGLE: OpenGLExtractor by Eyebeam R&D is a cool 3d capture app “that allows for the capture and re-use of 3D geometry data from 3D graphics applications running on Microsoft Windows.”

Basically, that means you can run this software while running say a video game, and it will capture the 3d models that are displayed.

Weird! (some cleanup required, apparently).

Some sites that show the extent of photo retouching:

Media Photoshop Retouching

Glenn Feron - The Art of Retouching

Greg Apodaca’s Digital Portfolio

There’s a nice collection of ruby on rails resources over at eDevil’s blog. Path: eDevil%u2019s weblog » Blog Archive » Ruby on Rails resources

Oh, ruby!

Flashier Flash (I know, I know) is a webite that has tutorials on making tile based games, which I need to figure out for my final project.

Steve’s Tutes has actionscript 2.0 game programming info.

why the lucky stiff wrote the (poignant) guide to ruby, mentioned below. I enjoy his website, and it does not often mention ruby, or rails: .c( whytheluckystiff )o.

Hmm, I should remember that sometimes the official site for a technology often has the beginners guide that everyone else will assume you read. I just found StartAtTheBeginning in Ruby on Rails at the official Ruby on Rails Wiki.

Have you noticed a general upward curve regarding the total number of occurrences of the phrase “ruby on rails” around here? I sure have, and I wish I could explain it.

For a language that is 10 times easier (or was it faster?) than other web app development frameworks, Ruby on Rails is a real pain to install on OS X…. and it doesn’t seem like it’s much better on other platforms.

But as my 3 dear readers know (hello Scott, Damian and Chris) I am not above any command line geekery!

If you need to get “rolling” with “ruby on rails” (what is it about this language and all the cutesy phrases?), check out these articles:

Hivelogic: Articles: Building Ruby, Rails, LightTPD, and MySQL on Tiger — This is the same as the one I blogged on the 27th…I found this pretty easy to follow, except that when I was done I had no idea how to get started, which in my mind is a fairly large hole in a tutorial. A big problem with the Ruby crowd seems to be that they often think you already have a rails app, or know what you’re doing.

Rolling with Ruby on Rails on Mac OS X Tiger (for beginners) — This one’s a bit better for the newb, because it walks you through creating a blank ruby app. And then stops. But at least by following it from the part where he modifies /etc/httpd/httpd.conf it gets you able to open said blank ruby app via http://localhost/app. So you’ve got that going for you there.

MySQL Bindings for Ruby under Mac OS X Tiger picks up where the former left off, but is basically just some help on installing/configuring MySQL & the ruby bindings. If you worked through the first article up top, this is already done.

ONLamp.com — Rolling with Ruby on Rails walks you through making a cookbook, although it assumes you’re on a Windows box. So you sort of have to play along, like you are.

I’ve been enjoying reading Why%u2019s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby, which is the most bizarre thing about a programming language I’ve ever read. But it’s a good read, and I think it lays out the case for why Ruby is interesting in a non-Web2.0alicious and non-CompSci manner.

It’s more like talking to a guy on mushrooms, but at least he’s basically coherent.