Javascript Errors Galore!

Until recently, have i generally discovered how many Javascript bugs there are out there on the World Wide Web. Surprisingly, I considered it to be a rather unique event at first, something that happens to me only, or at least, people who happen to have the same browser configuration and hardware as me.

Don't know how i came to that conclusion, but anyway, you can confirm this amazing phenomenon by switching on Javascript debugging. Be awed by the amazing amount of errors that arise as you prowl through the Web.

Basically, it's "Program crappily and it'll still work", but "program while keeping in mind all the pitfalls, and it'll still not be flawless". Awesome ain't it, Javascript? And that continues to puzzle me why hasn't Javascript support been improved yet, and why hasn't enthusiasm on Javascript been doused despite the inconsistencies?

The internet world acts in odd ways... =\

EDIT: For Firefox, go to Tools > Error Console. You'll see a ton of CSS errors there as well. Blogger has tons of them. I wonder who's at fault here: Firefox for rendering so crappily, or Blogger which has so many bugs? I was never a Firefox nor Web technology fan.

Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.

1. Konjiki no Gash Bell OP3 [Mienai Tsubasa] - Takimoto Takayashi
2. Bad Day - David Powter
3. Bleach OP1 [Asterisk] - Orange Range

2d games ARE still commercially viable!

Mmm, Dofus has a new series, called Wakfu. In case you don't know what Dofus is, Dofus is a MMORPG game designed in Flash, featured turn-based third-person fighting. It uses 2d sprites overlaid on an isometric terrain. Isometric terrains are 2d images that look 3d.

Wakfu has just showed how incredible Flash is. The graphics system is terribly awesome, with rich colours to accompany the game. And because it's a 2d game, the game is able to feature many animated scenes that those 3d MMORPGs could never replicate.

I suppose it appeals to a different group of gamers altogether.
And perhaps, the attraction of both games isn't that its anime RPG. RPG gets tiring, no matter how beautiful the graphics are. But that a turn-based fighting system promises a much more interesting and long-term enjoyable gaming experience. Turn-based strategy can be fun sometimes.

See the really really interesting in-game Flash trailer of Wakfu here! Even if you don't like the in-game video, there's this introductory Flash movie that's really high quality. If only all American cartoons looked like that.... http://www.wakfu.com/en/media/video.html

Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.

1. Konjiki no Gash Bell OP3 [Mienai Tsubasa] - Takimoto Takayashi
2. Bad Day - David Powter
3. Bleach OP1 [Asterisk] - Orange Range

:KnGB: Sink pg 2

:KnGB: Sink Pg 2 by ~Cardinal4 on deviantART

Well, tt's done. Took 2 months to do it, on and off, starting from February. Obviously, I couldn't do it while the CTs were on, and obviously, my skill was nowwhere as good then which is why i took so long, working on it when i couldn't stand revising and also honing my head drawing. Which is pretty good now, My only problem now is the back of the head.

Thing i like about Anime is, it provides a really compelling storyline, with great characters with their own slice of history. In a way, fictional as they might be, anime allows one to get in touch with the characters on a more personal level. Plus there's great BGMs that one can love too!

And in case one's fanatism is really die-hard, one can always start drawing them like i do. =D

Y'know, the reason why i got started on fan art drawing is because ..... I wanted to design a 3d anime game! To do that i needed 3d models, so i got myself trying to make a 3d model to test my concept: that i could model 3d, and thus make a 3d game.

I failed. The 2d reference picture sucked like hell, and the 3d model was like cubism art or something. Though i haven't given up on a game yet, i told myself to go 2d instead of 3d, which unfortunately made me a fan artist.

I'm obsessed with producing real-life 3d-ish anime art. There's just something pretty captivating about it. Chibi art as well. I get the most fun out of drawing them. Not that i can say i've done so, but i'm inching there. =)

Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.

1. Konjiki no Gash Bell OP3 [Mienai Tsubasa] - Takimoto Takayashi
2. Bad Day - David Powter
3. Bleach OP1 [Asterisk] - Orange Range

Internet based services are the future?

Reference: http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=199000825

Why Internet services are expanding, and are set to be the next market for big computer players [I meant Apple, Microsoft etc] continues to elude me. Undeniably, yes, we are entering a world where a lot of things are being powered by Flash, AJAX (javascript), and XML. Irrefutably, they have made life, more importantly, online life really easy and facilitated global information communication to a very high level. But are they really a major part of our lives, this magnificent user-friendly web interface that companies are throwing billions onto? I see just a big hoo-ha by big companies to find more ways to make the human race idle.

Flickr, YouTube, Friendster and blogger. For those entertainment sites, we already are spending too much time creating and viewing them. Are we really SOOOOO deprived of photo hosting sites right now? What's so cool about Flickr anyways - more people are using ImageShack and Photobucket. But somehow news agencies simply love to talk about Flickr. Just because it uses fancy Javascripting doesn't make it any better.

Okay, weak argument above. But my point is that, web-based AJAX services are for people to slack off on. For people to find new ways to produce useless content and share it around the way and waste more time viewing them. It's not a viable market. Are you able to foresee the majority of the world population just spending a large portion of their day at these "Internet Services" sites? It's just not going to happen.

What most of us need are secure tools and services. Not like what AJAX provides, which is sooooo weak in encryption. We're never ever going to do anything secure on those technologies.

What most of us don't need are those silly online word processing tools, and similar computer workbench tools. Come on, Windows is ubiquitous. We can practically bring .doc documents anywhere. Unless it's not a Windows. Then again, you have OpenOffice anyway which is multi-platform and can open .doc documents.

Microsoft DOESN'T have a future on online services. There isn't a future to online services unless you love to procrastinate on the web all day, or you're a online advertiser who targets those procrastinators.

Can you imagine a Operation System on the Internet? One that will fail when your internet connection is cut, or lags just because your internet lags? Can you imagine doing anything remotely important on the Internet? People rarely do. Sure we USE the internet as a medium of communication [broadband], much better than a phone line, but we don't DO anything on the internet that's important.

Okay, sorry, but i'm just freaking pissed at what silly things the world is coming up with or working towards.

Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.

1. Konjiki no Gash Bell OP3 [Mienai Tsubasa] - Takimoto Takayashi
2. Bad Day - David Powter
3. Bleach OP1 [Asterisk] - Orange Range

LineArt in Photoshop CS2

It's pretty tough when first learning how to do fanart in Photoshop, or on the computer for any matter. There's quite a few techniques one can employ to make sure you get a well-organised, decent piece of art. These techniques work for Photoshop CS2, and best if you have a tablet plus a decent scan to start with.

First of, a decent scan. Make sure whatever lines you want are pretty visible. Sketch lines often tend to obscure what you want to trace over later, plus you would have to clean up those sketch lines if they're too obvious. So do yourself a favour and clean up those ugly sketch lines now! (before you scan it in!)

Scan in your image at 300dpi, preferably. That gets in the most detail without crashing your computer when Photoshop tries to load it (just kidding, the threshold of your computer is waaay higher). Scan it in as a colour image. Scanners differ quite a bit, so i'm not explaining any further about what settings to set here. Experiment by scanning again and again.

Okay, you're got the scan! Don't mess with the autolevels setting. Don't even touch it. Since you have a pretty good scan, PLUS you're going to ink it over later, don't bother tweaking those settings. They can make your art look really artificially bold and slightly pixelated. To go for the pencilley look, just turn up the Contrast. Following that, go to Adjustments and give your image a faded hue. Faded blue works best - it goes with black and looks kinda greyish, yet isn't greyish so you know you haven't inked that yet.

So now you have really nice scan lines that are sharp, differentiated YET complementing your black digital lines (which you'd be adding soon).

Next, you ink it in! Set up a new empty layer above your scan (please do unlock and rename the default layer PS gave you) and start inking! Remember, your inks are supposed to complement, not replace your scans! Your hard pencil artwork shouldn't go to waste! But ... don't ink too lightly either. It would look too faded. This is where a tablet comes in handy. Feel free to add in additional hatching details that you didn't dare put in using a pencil. The perfect brush in this case would be a fixed opacity brush with pressure-controlled size jitter. I set my tablet sensitivity (at the driver utility in control panel) to highest. Don't wanna to wear out my pen nib by pressing too hard just to get the right brush size.

---

Hotkeys are your friends.
Z for Zoom tool. Press LH mouse to zoom in. Press CTRL to zoom out.
H for Hand tool, when you don't want to use the Navigator panel to move.
B for Brush tool. Press SHIFT B to change to a subset brush. Eg Pencil.
CTRL ALT Z to undo. CTRL SHIFT Z to redo.
I for ink dropper.
R for blur tool.
G for paint bucket.
CTRL D for deselect.
M for marquee.

---

Remember to layer your work. That has got to be one of the most important things. You might think you don't need layers, but chances are, you'd be wishing you had made more layers. By having layers, you can go back to modify a portion of your image without disturbing the rest of it at all!

Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.

1. Konjiki no Gash Bell OP3 [Mienai Tsubasa] - Takimoto Takayashi
2. Bad Day - David Powter
3. Bleach OP1 [Asterisk] - Orange Range

My very own webpage...

I would really want to have my very own webpage.... My current free webpage from byethost.com, for some odd reason, refused to let me login, claiming my username/password was wrong. My site's still there though. I just can't login. Even using FTP.

I want a site with PHP 5... Preferably with subdomain and at least 1GB bandwidth... I don't need databases like MySQL since PHP 5 has this new feature called MySQLLite. It basically uses .txt files to store your data. Sure, it's not very secure and all, since anyone/everyone can see your stored database information. But ... heck.

If I had money I would purchase my own website. There's quite some really cheap deals, like 1Gb space, >5Gb Bandwith, no adverts for under $10/month. I don't dare to go too cheap. 'cause if it's too cheap, chances are it's gonna disappear or suspend service suddenly one day. I want to be able to hold a paid hoster responsible for anything, if i'm to be paying him.

But i'm not going to buy my own webspace. I'm not even going to look for a free webhost either. I'm just ... able to survive on what i have now. To look for a webhost entails research, time, consideration. That would be no problem if I actually have something to put up, but i don't!

I possibly might have some stuff to put up....

Like a Blog Jukebox! To upload music and play music on my blog! But for what? Novelty wears off, and it's just ... novel. That's all.

Like my Fish Fansite! My huge collection of fish profiles and tutorials on burp.byethost33.com! But .... I'm already losing interest/lack of time for my OWN fishes! I'm sure i go care about other fish-related stuff...

Like for me to put up my code and my applications that i created! But i can just use filefront.com or sendafile.com or whatever. I would be able to set up CVS (versioning system) to upload my files, as well as forums, sure but ... too much of a chore. I'm one for open source development, i'm one for sharing of ideas/code, but i'm not one for support management. People do ask the weirdest questions, and more oft than not i show my own ignorance than my ability..

In other words, I have no current needs for my own webspace, or in the future. Nothing. Simply nothing to put up, that cannot be put up elsewhere. Having my own webspace sure sounds mighty fun/interesting/cool, but I'm not a very good designer [programmer, YES!] Maintaining updates by having to recode each page is tiresome. Setting up a dynamic page, like Blogger did, to update news and stuff is too troublesome, as i HATE backend programming. Not having my own server means that to verify each line of code, i need to keep uploading the code onto the server, which takes time. Then i need to refresh the browser, takes some more time. Then if the hoster puts banners that screw up my site, some more time. Then i face limitations and lack of knowledge in server access, .htaccess, blah what you have in servers.

It's really too much work. I'm better off stuck with blogger.com. And windows programming. And flash programming.

I love the latter two. Flash and C# makes it pretty easy to code. Basically, i tailor the application to work perfectly on my computer, without making use of computer-specific code. My computer is not top notch. If it works on mine, it works on yours. If it doesn't work on yours, screw it, I made it work on most computers anyway, yours is an anomaly.

The above, doesn't work for the Internet. It's just about as volatile as you can get.

Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.

1. Konjiki no Gash Bell OP3 [Mienai Tsubasa] - Takimoto Takayashi
2. Bad Day - David Powter
3. Bleach OP1 [Asterisk] - Orange Range

Lackadaisy new comic

Lackadaisy Dysphoria by *tracyjb on deviantART

I honestly think this guy's very good at portraying emotions. Not much of a storyline here, I don't get what's happening either. But even when taken out of context, you'd still marvel at how well you can feel what Freckle is thinking. Awesome-ness...

Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.

1. Konjiki no Gash Bell OP3 [Mienai Tsubasa] - Takimoto Takayashi
2. Bad Day - David Powter
3. Bleach OP1 [Asterisk] - Orange Range

Yahoo's new search

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070405-yahoo-prepares-to-take-on-google-with-new-search-interface.html
Yahoo has a new search feature. It's a search aggregator. It takes search results from multiple search engines and then compiles them on one page, on Yahoo.

That's ..... quite okay, i think? Yes, I would love to have multiple search results collated from various search engines. However...

Using Yahoo's new search engine, Alpha, would require me going out of my way to the Alpha page to use it. They'll have to put it as a option beside their main search bar if anyone's going to be bothered with Alpha.

I have to login to Yahoo, customize my own search page, for me to have results from other pages listed. Alpha's default search engines, the notable ones, are from Wiki, Flickr, Ask.com and YouTube. Disappointing, if any. Not only must I be aware of how search engine's parse their URLs [That's easy. It's in the top of your address bar. But you should see the no of people who don't know that. If i could quote a source i would.], I would also need to actually be bothered to do that. What a chore!

Results in their own separate tabs?! WTH! I have to click on a separate tab listed "YouTube" or "Wikipedia", then using funky scripting [AJAX, which means plenty of pretty slow lag time like Hotmail's. Or maybe fast like Gmail's?], they clear your screen of the default Yahoo search results and put up YouTube's or Wikipedia's search. Hello..... This is totally not making sense. The only reason why I wanted to aggregate searches is because I want to have the most comprehensive results! I don't really need YouTube results, or Wikipedia results! If I wanted Wikipedia, all I have to do is just type Wikipedia along with my search terms in Google! If i wanted YouTube, I'll go YouTube!!! They have featured movies and preview screenshots in their homepage! Thing is, I want my aggregated results ON THE SAME PAGE. I don't want to have them in their own separate pages.

Finally, will my results conflict with each other? Often, I will get multiple results from the same website, as each search engine provides its own variant of the link. Yahoo obviously isn't good enough to filter out results belonging to the same URL. This problem is especially pertinent to Yahoo too. Normally, if the results from the diff engines are all on the same page, it'll be easy to double-check which results are similar and repeated. But if they're on different pages, doing that checking will be a big problem.

On the whole, when I first read about Yahoo's new search, a search aggregator named Alpha, I was having high hopes for Yahoo, though i wasn't expecting it to affect the visitor turnrate much. Now, after having seen their search first-hand, and even without doing so much as a single search, i can safely proclaim, IT SUCKS.

Yahoo, I'm very disappointed in you. You could do a search engine aggregator so much better than that pitiful thing you call Alpha. Alpha? That lousy piece of idea would be better off in the trashbin of concepts than to even be developed.

Take a page out of MetaCrawler.com's book, Yahoo. It's quite a good search engine. Personally, I've been using it as an alternative to Google, far more than i use Yahoo. MetaCrawler is ALSO a search aggregator. However, as you probably would see if you visited MetaCrawler.com, although it does not provide customized searches from diff engines [well, it does, but not very], it does a very good job in collected results from Google and Yahoo and combine them with its own. Metacrawler ftw! compared to Yahoo, that is.

Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.

1. Konjiki no Gash Bell OP3 [Mienai Tsubasa] - Takimoto Takayashi
2. Bad Day - David Powter
3. Bleach OP1 [Asterisk] - Orange Range

Google

Ha.. I'm still too used to my old blog address at livejournal. It was a pretty good blog hoster (and a pretty cool blog too! I think I'm cool. =D If I don't, I'm pretty much screwed aren't I, being pessimistic all day.). It managed to stay off the radar of search engines for a while, but some still found it. I think it was because i didn't wanna disable some "Exclude out of search engine searches" option that had something to do with "meta" html headers. Hm.

Funny how Google controls most stuff around here. I mean the Web. I wouldn't quite remember Youtube being owned by Google if i don't think it hard enough, that's a good job on Google's part. Seriously, I wouldn't want to know Google is omnipresent. If I did, I would probably try to avoid Google places. Y'know, the all, no monopoly! Equality for the underlings of the net~!

Which is why I have Opera, Firefox and Internet Explorer! Internet Explorer for that annoying MSN messenger email popups, Opera for really fast loading, and Firefox for everything else. I don't like Firefox. People are hyping about it like it's so pro, but it's not all that. It has a really sucky RAM drain. Sucks up lots of RAM, especially if you're the "more than two programs" on the taskbar type. [I'mma Photoshop, Firefox, C# IntegratedDevelopmentEnvironment, WinAmp type. =D DRAIN!] Luckily there is a way to change Firefox's config file. 'Bout 3 out of the thousand plus settings, changing 3 of them will relieve RAM.
Opera's really fast, but it's CPU drain. That might be a good thing on most computers, we have more CPU than neccessary. RAM we need it for all the new fangled Web interactive devices that drain RAM, like Flash, ... and Flash. Oh yeah, Java too. But ... my computer has several svchost.exe running in the background, which eats 30% of my CPU. Curse you, you background tasks! I just delete them. Bleh system unstability.

[I have very much given up on centering my content based on my topic title....]

Just borrowed Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Raven Shield and LockDown from Tampines Library. No, I did not go there specially just to borrow it. My dad was looking for some "quotes from ancient chinese philosophers" book there and i just happened to see this huge collection of games that my region doesn't have [Bukit Merah and Queenstown].

My computer was too crap to play LockDown. It hanged. Twice. Just like Battlefield 2.
Raven Shield was laggy. Or that the game is sucky. The random jerking of the camera when moving or rotating really seemed life-like. Or that it has sucky controls. Or my computer sucks. Which is highly unlikely since Raven Shield uses Directx 8.
I was playing training levels, pretty fun. Twice, on 2 assault, 1 sniper training missions, i got a team totally annihilated. First was when i accidentally switched to the sniper team and moved them in sight of the terrorists. The second time was when i didn't see a terrorist at the side he shot my assault them down. I managed to track down the rogue terrorist using my sniper team. But somehow the level didn't clear. I was confused. So i uninstalled the game. =D

Good thing I didn't buy the game years ago. =D

And here's an exciting preview of what i did over the weekend! [Lolz] I like my new painting style. Pretty quick, pretty nice. Emulated the painting style of the cover page of One Piece volume mangas. Much better than cel-shading, much better than CG painting, IMHO.

Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.

1. Konjiki no Gash Bell OP3 [Mienai Tsubasa] - Takimoto Takayashi
2. Bad Day - David Powter
3. Streets of London - Ralph Mctell

Forbidden


Forbidden.

You were denied access because:

Access denied by BlueCoat WebFilter content category. The requested URL belongs to the following category: Art/Culture/Heritage


I typed in DeviantArt.com. WTH. It's ART! What's up with that? So we can view ART on sch computers?! I would think a more appropriate title would be nudity, since half of the time, DeviantART features artistically nude pictures as one of its 4 "Deviations of the Day". You can get more nudity on YouTube.com. Honestly, the school computers are wacked.

I should get a DeviantART pastie on my blog.

Sometimes, i think it's kinda funny. There's this dozen over empty computers, amidst a 2 dozen computers in the computer lab. Why do people still insist on using the computers in the library then?

Convenience? Ignorance? Privacy?

The last point i beg to differ. You're more easily to get noticed in the library if you're watching entertainment or doing something else other than PW or KI or research stuffy.

Plus, in the com lab you can *almost* have your own personal PC. You can put stuff on it, and chances are that it'll be unoccupied when you next come and still access it.

Bad thing? Sure there is. There are no USB ports, no audio plugs. It's all at the back. Bit hard to reach, but if you're using a PC at the side where you can reach the back of the CPU easily it shouldn't be even an issue.

So why am i in the comp lab? I decided to procrastinate. I decided not to study the lastest second econs notes, instead, blog and continuing to investigate the perplexing world of C# and its 3d APIs.

Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.

1. Konjiki no Gash Bell OP3 [Mienai Tsubasa] - Takimoto Takayashi
2. Bad Day - David Powter
3. Bleach OP1 [Asterisk] - Orange Range

H3 Physics

If I had any second thoughts on not dropping H3 Physics before 1st of April, [lolz, curious. I just wonder. If you walk into the staff room on 1st April and said you wanted to drop a subject, it probably would be reasonable to say, "April Fools!" halfway and just walk out. =D ] I guess I don't have any now.

It feels good to be able to deal with really tough question. Well, at least, they look kinda tough... But at any rate, it was an enjoyable test. A really enjoyable test. Physics CT and Chem were also enjoyable tests, but unfortunately you're graded for that so it certainly sucked big time to know you didn't do the least bit well in it, even though it was fun trying them.

Physics is especially fun/rewarding. They have these "Prove that" questions that are really satisfying when you finish the question. You feel good having solved the question. You feel even better knowing you solved it correctly - hey, you got what the question asked for, word for word! There isn't much Maths involved, just a bunch of algebraic substitution, but then there aren't much marks involved either. =X

And it was enlightening as well. During the test, I got like 2-4 concepts cleared up while i was doing the question. And damn lucky, I realised why the heck we needed to integrate wave functions last minute: To find the probability density of the electron appearing there, we need to find the area it would appear in, under the graph of the probability curve. I didn't manage to find the numerical answer, but i got the sketch of the curve nailed down. And there i was thinking i needed to draw not the curve, but the integral of the curve instead. D=

And yes, the theory of exclusion which applies for luxury goods. They aren't luxurious anymore if everyone's taking them. One would instinctively take pride in what they have if what they have is something others do not have. It works vice-versa, with being happy with not having. Yup, so .... H3 Physics is ... an exclusive product? It certainly is motivating to think of it that way. Despite it being entirely possible and even expected, that anyone who attends the lectures like the rest of us will be able to do the questions just fine, nevertheless it feels good to be one of the sole few brave souls who dared to take, as well as persevere in taking H3 Physics. =D And i guess H3 Physics is not as doomed to being a useless subject except for a teaching career as i thought. The function of a laser, which makes use of the Quantum Theory of Light, is definitely useful somewhere in Electrical Engineering.

Konjiki no Gash Bell rocks!! Don't say it ain't.

1. Konjiki no Gash Bell OP3 [Mienai Tsubasa] - Takimoto Takayashi
2. Bad Day - David Powter
3. Bleach OP1 [Asterisk] - Orange Range