The MON Blogs

The Journey of Bob the Turtle

12 May 2007 – 5:59 pm

No one knew where Bob the Turtle got his name. He didn’t look anything like a turtle and he’d never had anything to do with turtles in his life. When he was a kid his best friend Josie had had a turtle but no one ever called her Josie the Turtle. (They called her Anna the Great Queen of Scotland, but that was a different story) Bob had once asked his mum why he was called Bob the Turtle, but she had just shrugged her shoulders and mumbled something about the Crimean War. And he was sure the Crimean War had nothing to do with turtles, or himself.

It’s not that Bob really minded being called Bob the Turtle, it was just that it was a bit of a mystery to him.

One day Bob the Turtle met Fred. He wasn’t Fred anything, just Fred. Bob the Turtle met him at a Pen salesmen’s conference (Bob the Turtle didn’t sell pens but he was having such a good time at the conference it didn’t seem to matter) Fred was giving a presentation on marketing techniques for felt tip pens in Asia. Few applauded when he was finished.

Bob the Turtle stayed back after the presentation and the two went out for a beer later that night. Bob the Turtle introduced himself as “Bob the Turtle” without a second thought, and Fred accepted the name, with out a second thought, as it had been with every introduction Bob the Turtle had ever made in his life.

After a few beers Fred asked Bob the Turtle if he’d buy a felt tip pen. Bob the Turtle didn’t need a felt tip pen, but then Bob the Turtle didn’t need fourteen copies of Ulysses and yet there they were in the trunk of his car. So Bob bought a fine looking felt tip pen off of Fred and the two parted company.

Later that week Bob the Turtle found the felt tip pen in his the bottom of his backpack that he’d been carrying at the bar that he’d gone to with Fred. The pen had leaked and his bag was ruined.

Bob the Turtle stared at the bottom of his ruined bag, now turned blue because of the ink from the pen. (The rest of the bag was beige)

Just my luck he cursed and he threw the bag into the garbage bin along with the pen.

Bob the Turtle forgot about the bag, the pen and Fred until two years later when he was holidaying in Thailand. Upon checking into a hotel for the night he reached for a pen to sign the cheque for the room and found he had none.

The man at the counter handed him a pen. It was the same type as Fred had given him two years earlier. After signing his cheque Bob the Turtle said to the concierge; “be careful those pens are known to leak”. The concierge thanked Bob the Turtle for his advice.

The next morning Bob the Turtle returned to the desk just in time to notice the concierge and his now ink stained shirt.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you”, said Bob the Turtle as he walked past the concierge.

“I wasn’t planning to” replied the concierge and at that moment Bob the Turtle realised why he was called Bob the Turtle.

Unfortunately he promptly forgot two minutes later when he tripped over a lamp and bumped his head.

Two years later he awoke in a Thai hospital with no recollection of who he was, an ink stain on his hospital gown and a vague hunger for turtle soup.

By Colonel | Posted in Random | Comments Off

Middle of Nowhere News

19 April 2007 – 6:55 pm

A bit of MON news to report.

Last week Devslashtux, Snaykeemcgee, Dex and I got together for a MONSTOCK of sorts. We didn’t actually do any Middle of Nowhere related stuff but I still have some MON news to report.

Devslashtux and I have agreed on a new design for the front page, so that should be sorted out soon. It’s going to make the website much easier to use.

Related to that news is the fact that this post is in the blogs. That’s because when we create the new front page we’ll be scrapping the old news format and simply posting any MON related news in this blog.

We also had a conversation about the possibility of Dex working on a Middle of Nowhere computer game. It’s very pie in the sky stuff at the moment but Dex thinks he’s going to have some spare time next semester because he’ll be doing his placement and thus won’t have any assignments to work on outside his working hours.

So stay tuned for more possible details about that.

So that’s all for now the new front page should be done soon so check back regularly.

Cheers.

By Colonel | Posted in MON Productions | Comments Off

Half-Life 2 Episode One – Troubleshooting, crashes; everything you need to know

30 January 2007 – 12:09 am

A new post regarding Orange Box and Half-Life 2 Episode Two has been posted.

Note: This post is for anyone who has attempted to play Half-Life 2 Episode One and run into various crashes or problems. In my struggles to get the game working on my computer I’ve noticed many forums with threads started by users who are having problems with the game but answers to these problems seem spread out across various forums. I’ll try to be as logical as possible when explaining the various ways to solve these problems.

Update 20th, June 2007: I’ve added some additional information at the bottom of this post for people who reported a problem with pink and black boxes appearing where walls and doors should be. Scroll to the bottom to read.

Update 4th, July 2007: Ensure that you read all the comments after my initial post. This entry now has over 40 comments and many people have submitted additional advice and support in these comments that may help with any problems you’re facing. If a solution to your problem can’t be found in my first post it may be there in the subsequent comments.

Update 1st November 2007: Well this page has gotten more attention then I ever thought. Now with the release of the Orange Box, I’m sure we’re going to start seeing more people coming here asking for advice. I just wanted to make a quick point I haven’t had a chance to buy the Orange Box yet as I’m currently finishing my University Honours Thesis. So I’m not sure if the problems I and many others experienced with Episode One is going to re-surface with Episode Two. So what I wanted to ask was that if anyone has any troubles with Orange Box, or even better some solutions to any problems could you post it in the comments so that others can see and perhaps give some advice or gain some advice. When I finally get a chance to play it I’ll post my comments in a new blog but until then I’ll have to rely on others to provide feedback and advice. Cheers.

Update 5th November 2007: A big props to freakoftheuniverse for discovering a potential fix to the sound looping problem. The link to the fix is available [url=http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.html?p=6764135&postcount=1247]here[/url]. A few responses have verified that this fix does work. A word of warning though, the fix involves editing page pool sizes so make sure you know what you’re doing and are aware of the risks before attempting this fix.

Update 20th November 2007: I’ve posted a new thread for Valve’s new release, The Orange Box. It includes my comments on the game and some solutions to problems I had with crashes during Half-Life 2 Episode Two. If you have any issues with The Orange Box or Half-Life 2 Episode 2 then post them there. The post can be found here

A few days ago I finally got around to purchasing Half-Life 2 Episode One. I’m a huge fan of the ground-breaking Half-Life franchise and was really looking forward to playing the game, especially as I had purchased a laptop between now and when I’d played Half-Life 2 and was eager to see the game on a Direct X 9 video card.

However, much to my dismay I found the game to suffer from numerous crashes and it has taken me quite some time to get the game running stably. What I’ll do first is run through the crashes I experienced and the solutions I came up with before giving my opinion and comments.

The first thing I should note, my computer is a Toshiba Satellite M50/L00. It is a Centrino notebook and has a Pentium M 1.7GHz, 512mb of RAM and an ATI Radeon x600 SE which is a PCI Express, Direct X 9 video card.

So onto the problems. I think I can now split my crashes into two problems:

The first problem I encountered almost immediately. After playing the game with out trouble for the first few minutes I exited to change some preferences and found that I could not return to my saved game or start a new game because the game would freeze when during the loading sequence. It didn’t matter if I changed the settings back to how they had been before I had exited, or whether I changed the resolution it always froze with the loading bar on about 75%.

From reading a variety of forums I’ve found this to be a common problem for people with ATI video cards. (I can’t deny or confirm that the problem occurs with NVIDIA or any other video cards) The loading bar will get to about 75% and the game will freeze.

I found that I could sometimes exit the game by pressing ctrl + alt + delete. Other times I had to shut the computer down by turning it off using the physical switch.

Some times I would find that the game would crash and the following error message would be displayed:

Internal driver error in IDirect3DDevice9::Present()

Some people may have had the game crash during actual play and this error displayed. (Again I can’t confirm or deny this)

As far as I can tell the best way to solve this problem is to update to the latest drivers for your video card. You can download these from the ATI website or from your computer manufacturer’s website. This should solve the problem for you. When I installed the new drivers I was able to successfully load the game.

However, because I have a laptop the standard ATI drivers are not compatible with my laptop getting the latest drivers was a little tricky. For those of you with laptops you should visit your manufacturer’s website and download the latest ATI drivers from there. However, as is often the case you may find there are no up to date drivers available from your manufacturer. This was the case for my so I had to use a program called DHmodtool. What this program does is convert standard ATI catalyst drivers for use on a laptop computer.

The program is available here: http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool/ The website has detailed instructions on its use. (Please note that is using this program you will be using drivers that were not provided by your manufacturer and I accept no responsibility for any damage caused by the use of this program and recommend it only so far as it worked on my computer. Your experience may be different.)

Once you have installed the latest drivers Half-Life 2 Episode One should load. However, if you still cannot progress beyond the loading stage there is another method for playing the game. Open Steam and right-click on Half-Life 2 Episode One. Go to Properties > Set Launch Options and enter -dxlevel 81 and click ok. This will force the game to run in Direct X 8 mode. Once you have done this the game should load, however you will not be able to view the Direct X 9 features such as HDR. However, this option will let you play the game if all else fails.

The second common problem that people experience is the game freezing during the action. I played the game two thirds of the way through when it began to freeze with the sound stuck in a continuous loop. Many people have experienced this problem and from what I have read, many have experienced it at the same point I did. You can read about the technical details of the problem here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_engine#Looping_audio

There are a number of solutions to this problem floating around but before I list them I will guide you through how I solved it.

Click on the start menu and select Run. Type in DXDIAG > ok. This will open the DirectX Diagnostic Tool. Click on the tab labelled Sound. Under the heading Direct X Features is a slider labelled Hardware Sound Acceleration Level. On my computer this was set to Full Acceleration. Reducing this slider to Standard Acceleration appears to have eliminated the looping sound freezing problem.

If this doesn’t work try some of the solutions listed at the Steam forums

Those were the fixes that worked for me. A few other things to try, ensure you’ve updated to the latest version of Direct X which can be downloaded from the Microsoft website. Also I’ve come across a few mentions of people having trouble with older versions of Windows so it’s probably safe to recommend that you have at least Windows XP when playing Episode One. I’ve also read people recommending that users with 64bit CPUs ensure that they use a 64bit operating system.

As this is a relatively recent game, having a decent amount of RAM will probably help avoid any issues although I have noticed people with 1gb and more of RAM reporting these same problems.

So to quickly summarise before I add my comments:

If you’re having trouble starting the game and it keeps crashing when it’s 75% loaded make sure you update to the latest drivers for your video card.

This should also help if you receive the following error message:

Internal driver error in IDirect3DDevice9::Present()

If you’ve updated your drivers and still the game freezes when loading then change the launch properties so that the game loads in Direct X 8. You won’t get all the features but at least you’ll be able to play the game.

If you’re experiencing crashing during the game where the screen freezes and the sound become stuck in a loop then try reducing your level of sound hardware acceleration.

Ok so now my comments.

I must say I was so disappointed to find the game so riddled with crashes, 6 months after its release. Granted it appears I’ve been able to find solutions to the problems after purchasing a game I shouldn’t have to go to so much trouble just to play it.

As I searched for the solution to my problems I read many similar stories on forums and also many comments by users insisting it was a problem with the users hardware not the game itself. However these problems appear far too wide spread to simply be confined to individual hardware issues.

Now granted I should have ensured I had the latest display drivers (something notebook users will understand is often very difficult to do) but prior to purchasing Episode One I had played F.E.A.R, a notoriously taxing game with out any trouble or any need to update my drivers.

What made my experience far more distressing was that initially I had to wait two and a half days for STEAM to automatically download updates and patches for the game. Where I live I don’t have access to the fastest internet technologies I was thus disappointed at being forced to download 100mb plus updates. There was no option to play the game with out updates. In contrast when I installed F.E.A.R it asked me if I wanted to update, but when I saw the size of the download I declined and was able to play the retail version with out any trouble. Granted this stance would prevent me from playing multi-player but I don’t really have that option any way because I only have a 256kb connection.

Unfortunately this experience has tarnished my feelings towards the Half-Life franchise. Which is sad because the game itself is terrific and a worthy successor to Half-Life 2. I will buy the next episode as I love the games. But it won’t be with out apprehension after my latest experience.

For anyone else experiencing these same problems please leave a comment if the solutions I have posted worked or didn’t work so as to help anyone else with similar problems.

If anyone knows of any other problems or solutions I haven’t covered please post them here.

Colonel

*Additional Info*

A couple of people have left comments stating that they had problems with visual artefacts when running Half-Life 2 Episode One with the walls appearing as black and pink check boxes. I’ve searched the Steam Support pages and it would appear that they have a solution to this problem.

To see their solution go to:

The solution involves verifying GCF cache files. I hope this helps anyone experiencing this problem. Since I didn’t actually experience this particular issue when running the game I can’t verify how well it works so anyone who’s had the problem if they could comment on whether the above solution works that would be great.

By Colonel | Posted in Computers and Internet, Entertainment | Comments (112)

The Browser Wars: 2006

19 October 2006 – 9:52 pm

Well, as we’ve been expecitng now for the past couple of years, the latest battle in the ongoing Browser Wars is upon us.
In the Blue corner, Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0. Now with a improved rendering engine, tabbed browsing, feed support and all the goodies that the opponent has had for years.

In the Red corner, Firefox 2.0. The open-source contender; risen from the ashes of Netscape. Featuring a new interface, improved feed support and built in spell checking.

And I’m actually impressed by both of them.

IE has taken a dramatic leap forward. Finally the built-in Windows browser has escaped the ’90′s and has a rendering engine capible of more than basic CSS. It behaves more consistently with more standards-compliant browsers and for web-designers it is going to make our jobs easier (once the concentration of IE6 users falls significantly at least).

Firefox, on the web-design side of things hasn’t changed much, but as far as the end-user is concerned it is more polished and should help with further increasing its installed user-base – especially further into mainstream usage.

This battle has been more quiet than previous battles and may actually help to push this section of the industry forward in a positive way.

Windows Vista Release Candidate 1

14 September 2006 – 11:23 am

As I posted about a few months ago, I couldn’t get Windows Vista Beta 2 to install on my computer. Wether the download had corrupted, burned to DVD incorrectly or my computer is just stuffed may never be known. Since then I’ve not bothered to try again.

A few days ago, I got the link to download Windows Vista Release Candidate 1 and decided to give it another go. This time it downloaded correctly, the MD5 and SHA1 hashes matched and all was good.

The install ran smoothly – except for it not letting me install it on my second hard-drive. Thankfully, Ubuntu is a bit more forgiving than Windows if you move it to a different drive.

It installed remarkably quickly and didn’t require a reboot – a nice feature in the world of Windows reboot-a-thons.

It also managed to detect and automatically install my wireless network card, video card and extra USB ports. However a standard (and common) soundblaster live wasn’t set up until it looked on the internet and downloaded the drivers… But it works now.

The default install of Vista is 7.5GB compared to less than 2.5GB for XP. There are certainly loads of new features, but that’s kind of excessive…

Finally, the Aero Glass interface is very shiny. The faded and blurred window borders and animations are entertaining to play with for a little while, but like those found in the older versions of Windows, I think they’ll find themselves disabled pretty quickly.
Below are some screenshots.

By devslashtux | Posted in Computers and Internet | Comments Off

The Eight Planets

25 August 2006 – 1:27 pm

Yes, that headline does look wrong. It is in fact correct, as of this morning.

Pluto is no-longer a planet according to the International Astronomical Union.

That is all

By devslashtux | Posted in Random | Comments (1)

The Nightingale Flies Again

5 August 2006 – 6:30 pm

Well, it’s a little over one day until 3/4 of the Middle of Nowhere Team head off to beautiful Queenstown, New Zealand! Coming with us of course is the Nightingale who will star in some stunning photos!

It’s so exciting! Look forward to some trip reports when we return!
Nightingale Ski

By devslashtux | Posted in Travel | Comments (2)

Hamburgers are good

27 July 2006 – 1:47 pm

In the spirit of posting about food we’ve recently eaten here are some photos of a hamburger I made for lunch today:

(Click the thumbnails to see the full size image)
Looks good doesn’t it: 1 beef patty, lettuce, mayo, melted swiss cheese, tomato sauce all on a fresh toasted bun

By Colonel | Posted in Random | Comments (1)

The Adventures of P.K. Shaw

27 July 2006 – 12:31 pm

Earlier this morning, Colonel posted a sample chapter of our as-yet-unwritten Middle of Nowhere Self-Help Book. Completely independently, I had decided to post the first part of a new online serial entitled The Adventures of P.K. Shaw

Being a Middle of Nowhere Production, it is severly bizzare and is no-doubt going to induce fear and nausea in its readers.

So without further ado we proudly present Part One of The Adventures of P.K. Shaw!
Read More »

By devslashtux | Posted in Entertainment, Random | Comments (7)

How to behave in a restaurant

27 July 2006 – 11:55 am

From the forever “soon to be published” upcoming Middle of Nowhere self help book titled “Self Help for the Sensitive New Age Moose”

How to behave in a restaurant.

It is inevitable to anyone who wishes to have any sort of social life that they will soon find themselves in a restaurant. For the uninitiated this can be a daunting experience. But do not fear. You can get through it. You only need to follow a few simple steps and before you know it you’ll be restauranteering with the best of them!

Meeting the host.

The first person you will see is the host. Normally this will not be your waiter. He will show you to your table and bring you your menus. The first thing he will ask you is how many people will be joining you that evening. This is so he can find a table suitable for your group. When he asks you it will be normally phrased in question like “How many?” or something to that effect.

Suitable responses you can use include 1, 2, 3, 4, 87 etc. The best option would be to reply with the number of people who will actually be joining you. Unsuitable responses could include I’ll have the chicken curry or could I have the bill thanks.

After you have been shown to your table the best option is to sit down. Standing on the table and shouting “Turnips are not your best colour!” is not an option I would recommend taking at this point.

Deciding on your meal

Once seated with your menus it is time to decide what you want to eat. Take your time. Pick something you actually want to eat. Remember, if it is not on the menu in all most all circumstances this means you cannot eat it tonight. Don’t let this upset you. You can always eat more food when you get home, or failing that, a different day. Consider the price. Don’t order the extra side of potato skins unless you are really ready to face the consequences of this action.

Gentlemen, if you are on a date, you may wish to impress your partner with your extreme knowledge of fine foods by ordering for her. This is not a game. Try to order something she would like not something you think will cause her to run to the bathroom in disgust. It may be funny at the time, but beware, this course of action will probably ensure you will not get lucky tonight.

Ordering

The waiter/waitress will now take your order. It is important to ask for what you actually decided you were going to eat that night. If you want spaghetti, but order a plate of stuffed olives, don’t expect the waiter to read your mind, it is a skill very few waiters are equipped with.

Eating

The next section in this book is on table manners, but in brief, when the waiter brings you your meal it is time to eat it. Putting it through a paper shredder may seem like a good idea now but it will probably only result in a broken paper shredder and a long awkward pause.

Paying

Once you have eaten you have to pay for the meal. “Pay for the meal!” you ask, but unfortunately you are not at home enjoying your mums home cooking and the restaurant staff have usually gone to great trouble to prepare your meal and it would only be fitting that they receive some sort of monetary compensation for their effort.

However if you insist on not paying then don’t despair, there are some ways of getting out if it:

Teach your self to vomit on demand. Tell the waiter you didn’t think the chicken was properly cooked then vomit on him in a timely manner.
Place a hair in the food. The more hairs the merrier and better chance of avoiding the bill.
Set the restaurant on fire, the ensuing chaos should be a big enough distraction to allow you to slip away unnoticed.
If all else has failed it is time to get on your high horse. Start accusing everyone of being against you. Play the race card. Say you were deliberately given a bad meal because of your race. Tell them they are overcharging everyone. Say that the last three patrons were allowed to leave without paying because they knew the waiter who served them. The louder and more obnoxious you get the better. Place your head in other guest’s food. The more rude you get the more likely you will be quietly asked “Please sir could you leave, you are making a scene.”

Equipped with these pointers, you are now ready to face your fears and go to a restaurant. If you get into trouble, don’t panic! Just calmly collect your thoughts, turn to the person next to you and politely ask, “Excuse me sir, but I believe I ordered the herring pie.”

By Colonel | Posted in Random | Comments (2)