Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, he builds web games on the cheap

Read Don Reisinger's article "Weekend project: Build your own online game" at CNET for learning how to build free web games that you can post on Facebook or to your friends.

I think I talked about Popfly before, but I cannot remember whether it was in an earlier entry on Tail Chasers?

OrientationListener has been deprecated

Use OrientationEventListener instead to check the orientation of the Android phone screen.

Yeah! We are on 1.5

The Retriever popped over to upgrade my phone to 1.5. He had nobly sacrificed his Andy to the cause first. Wasn't it sweet of him?

I was devastated when my themes didn't show up in the phone. Tried googling the error and found out that in onCreate(), I have to move the setTheme() above the super.onCreate(), instead of before, where it is like in 1.1:

protected void onCreate(*blah blah*)
{
setTheme (*blah blah*);
super.onCreate(*blah blah*);
setTheme(*blah blah*);
...
setContentView(*blah blah*);
}

Hot Tips Coding & News 23 May 2009 - 29 May 2009

Learn how to build websites from scratch
Quackit Webmaster Tutorials
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A tale of Google, Micro$oft and me (told by my boss)

This morning I was talking to my immediate boss and grumbling that I was rejected by Google. ( I was kidding, I was whining that they haven't given me the developer account to the Google Wave sandbox). No, I haven't had the balls to apply yet, I was still hoping that my idea of pimping the guys would hold water. He thought that I actually applied, and was gloating because I was rejected by Micro$oft less than a year ago.

He reminded me of the time when we were at Micro$oft for a meeting (so ironic, we almost had a collaboration with them six months after my rejection. I was kidding with my office crowd that I was going there to stare at all of them to see who took my job) and he illustrated a very funny diagram of me staring between the bars at Micro$oft Singapore's 22nd floor out at the opposite building where the Google office was. (I actually did, while waiting for the counterpart to show up for the meeting, much to the consternation of the receptionist. Those bars were very narrow)

I realised now that I made a mistake staring across and I pointed that out in my boss' erronous drawing. What I should have been doing should be looking up. Google is on the 38th Floor of the 1 Raffles Quay. Don't know who the hell are the people I have been staring at instead.

Google Wave - a little Twitter, a little Facebook, a little of Everything?

Move over, all you Social Networking tools and sites. Google Wave is here.

Google Wave appeared during the Google I/O conference.

[source:google]

What is the Google Wave? According to Tom Krazit from CNET, "It's a little bit Twitter, a little bit Friendfeed, and a little bit Facebook all in one service, allowing you to send direct messages to online contacts with real-time replies, share photos or documents, and add or delete members of the conversation as needed."

And it's going to be opened up to developers for adding on before it's officially released to end users. Btw you can watch the Wave Preview here, but it is a huge pain to load, all 1 hour, 20 minutes and 11 seconds of it.

Roger Grimes' Password Calculator Spreadsheet

Roger Grimes has built a password calculator spreadsheet that shows the success rate of real-world password-guessing attacks. You can use four different password entropy models: one developed by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), one by Jesper Johannson, (who wrote the "Great Debates: Passwords vs. Passphrases" series), one by CE Sharon and the Perfect Entropy Model.

Read more here.

So what Wasabi Tei's Chef Grump was serving

As I was saying, we were at Sembawang Shopping Centre's Daiso outlet. I checked out the Bento section, as my usual wont, and B1 bought me some cute little containers to separate the different flavors. I was especially attracted by the animal-head sauce containers.

[source:keropok.com]

I finally found out what the ingredient in the starter the Wasabi Tei Chef Pehpeh usually serves, was exactly. It's called Renji de Nimono Hijiki, and contains the petrified Hijiki seaweed and carrots.

Preparation is super easy. Just add 70ml (actually should be more) water to it and zap it in a 600W microwave in 1 min. After tasting it, I think it tastes exactly like the way the uncle serves it, missing the roasted meat bits that the uncle boils down with the seaweed. Somewhat addictive if you like the savory taste.

Before cooking:


After cooking:

The New and Improved Sembawang Plaza

We went to the new Sembawang Shopping Centre today. They refurbished the place last year, and the only shops I missed there were the Thai seafood restaurant "Taste of Thailand" and the Funland (with all the machines leftover from the other closed outlets). I had loved parking my car secretly in the landed residential area behind, and playing their Para Para there, because no one ever visited that place. The new and improved Sembawang Shopping Centre now has a weekday lunch hour shuttle to the industrial area, and all-week shuttle to Khatib, Yishun and Sembawang train stations. Amazing service.

On top of that, they have slightly less predictable tenants, like Ashton's Specialties (long queues. Their sides aren't too bad, but NEVER order baked potato. You will get mayo, bacon bits and spring onions a little pat of sweet butter. Yuk!!!), MOF cafe, Daiso (another post) etc. And... the family-friendly they have a Splash Park. Haha. They have a cute little "car-wash".. where the kiddies can dash through. Even B1 was impressed, after his initial reluctance to check it out.

Saturday Munchies 7 - Simple Lunch

Woke up late, was still doing the bloody wedding montage (seriously, calculating all the hours I spent so far and based on my charge rate, the thing costs as least S$2K now), when B1 called and whined about his hunger.

So I made a bento. Despite how sad looking the bento is, it still took me about 1.5 hours from start to finish. Clockwise from top left: star-shaped boiled egg (I tried the online advice of stirring the eggs while boiling in a vain attempt to keep the yolk centre, and B1 didn't even notice the shape *sigh*), ribbon tie pasta salad with carrot and corn, grilled asparagus rolls, and sausage rolls.

Learn how to code iPhone by Stanford U

You need to have iTunes on your computer in order to access this free iPhone course by Stanford U.

Who knew the Deutsche could teach us the love of $$?!!!

Disclaimer: NSFW!!! This great stuff is brought to you by Bontrust Finance, apparently the only German enterprise that can teach you the real way to multiply moolah.

Sunday(?) Munchies 1 - Rice Dumpling Mania

It's the time of the year again. Dumpling Yum Yum!!!

This year I merged my two concoctions, 三杯鸡 and Nutty Spores into one flavor. The ingredients I am using are glutinous rice (fried with five spice and dark soya sauce), ginger, red onion, chicken ( very regretful, this year I used breast meat, instead of thigh meat, cos I was too lazy to debone the thighs. And damn, can the difference be more obvious, despite +10 hrs marination *secret recipe*), garlic, endamame, braised peanuts. Then I boiled the dumplings.

Conspiracy Thoughts -> Man with Car == Man with Girlfriend?

I am not quite sure about this. But it seems to be that the probability that a guy (no matter how ugly, short, fat or stupid) he is, as long as he has a car, he has a girlfriend. Of course we are not talking Chery QQ, but a Toyota Vios minimum. But seriously a man with a car == a man with Girlfriend. Note: the car must be his in order for this statement to be true.

I don't think I have ever seen a guy with a car and no chick. Unless there is something so seriously wrong with him. Like very nasty or very plus-sized. But even if so, the likelihood that he at least had a girlfriend before is very high. It could be that his ugly personality that run her off. Is that why car adverts don't target at lonely men. Buy a Car, Get a Chick.

I think the last time someone brought this up with me, was our old friend Labrador. Hmm, I wonder how is he now. Good Game you have his number? The last time he called, he was doing the Flyer. Wow, that was bloody long ago.

Anyway, he said this to me. I didn't want to think the chicks were that mercenary. Even now, I prefer to give girls the benefit of the doubt and say they are just being efficient. Sigh.

Debugging on my Dev Phone

Well Done Stupid

I am still pretty upset about not submitting on time esp since I have been burning midnight oil trying to finish it.

So I decided to upgrade my android sdk and adt on my Eclipse to 1.5 (last updated was 1.1), as well as begin debugging on my phone (I have been using my Emulator).

Well, after wasting like 1 hour waiting for that shit to download, and setting it up, I realised my phone is 1.0. So now I have to downgrade my project (thank god I didn't delete the 1.1 SDK) and upgrade my phone to 1.1. Because bloody 1.5 apparently blocks Android Market (paid and unpaid). Of course, I am referring to the non-GE version. But it reminded me about the shit that happened a few weeks ago when paid apps were blocked from dev phones like mine.

Therefore I am leery now. Will leave to other braver souls to tread water first. In the meantime, I have to settle my phone nonsense.

Chris Moor says that 1.5 will break the app if bad techniques are used. Google has advised to avoid these five techniques:

1. Using Internal APIs
2. Directly Manipulating Settings
3. Going Overboard with Layouts
4. Bad Hardware Assumptions
5. Incautious Rotations

Crap. I am guilty of 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Detroit Metal City really rox!!!

Negishi-kun always wanted to become a trendy singer (I am not quite sure what the Japanese's idea of being trendy is, all I know is... it looks pretty gay). He left his hometown in Oita Prefecture to go to college, and after graduation, strums his gay trendy little tunes at a little junction. He tells his mother he is working at a flower shop (apparently you need a college degree to be a florist?), but actually he is a death rock singer. He deeply resents his Sir Krauser II persona, and the music he plays goes against his desires to be a gay trendy singer, singing offensively diabetic tunes like "My Sweet Love".

"I wake up one morning
You're baking a cheese tart
My sweet baby
That's you
My true love
Let's head out to the trendy part of town
Cheese tart in the hand
You're skipping by my side."

*Gag*

Contrast this with lines from his hit single "Put aside my wrath" (less offensive than the other song) as Sir Krauser II:
"...
I shall punish you for your crimes
I'm a messenger from Hell
I shall tear you from limb to limb
Am I to put aside my wrath?"

Typical Japanese movie with twisted Japanese logic, but endearing nonetheless. Haha, his "This won't make me wet" manager is the queen after my heart.