Open Source Windows and Linux Games

Have you ever felt the urge to kill off your time while you are working? A sense to release your tension from boring repetitive work at the office (or at home)?

Of all those burden and urge, you might have downloaded games from the internet and scored a few good round out of it, only to find out finally that you cant write your name on the high score list because you need to register first.

How many times you came across games you downloaded from the internet which impose delayed “unregistered” splash screen, denied you from high score list or even stopped working after a few days of installing?

The game locked you out from your own windows system, and some even installs malicious adware or malware that contaminate your windows!

Well not anymore if you choose the way of the Free (as in freedom and beer) path.

New Breed Software Inc.
Enter New Breed Software, a software company that embrace Free and Open Source ideology. The company was established in 1993, and it have been releasing numerous number of open source desktop games for various operating system including Windows, Linux and Atari.

Circus Linux

Their selection of games is quite good and moreover is Free! The games are not only nice and small, but they also come with complete source code and covered under the GNU General Public License.

Mad Bomber, New Breed Software

Another place to seek FOSS games is at the LGames project hosted at Sourceforge.net. Most of the game listed here are rather clone of popular arcade games, excepts they comes with source codes and installer.

lbreakout2

LTris

The website also features few javascripts and online games such as OCC, LBill, LCarrot, LMemory, etc for those who rather want to play the games online.

Most of the games featured on the website mentioned here are created by the portable libSDL (Simple Direct Media Library) which ease of the process of developing the games across numerous platform. The library are licensed under GNU Lesser General Public License and you can download the libSDL from it’s project website.
SDL Simple Direct Media

The libSDL website feature a directory which list games and applications developed using libSDL. You can find other games for your favorite operating system (but not neccessarily FOSS) in it’s Games Directory page.

Most of this games listed here works in Microsoft Windows environment and under GNU/Linux operating systems.

Finally, just remember although the games mentioned here does not require any payments or registration but the developers of the games mentioned here still spend a lot of efforts and time to perfect them.

Please show your appreciation when you can and donate a few bucks to them. I’m sure they will return your gesture :)

MacOSX Intel machine can run Windows XP

MacOSX Intel machine can run Windows XP, well, at least on Apple MacOSX intel machine Developer’s kit.

The Apple Development Platform ADP2,1, as the systems are officially designated, features 3.6GHz Pentium 4 processors with 2MB of L2 cache operating on an 800MHz bus with 1GB of RAM. Apple has been offering the Intel-based machines as part of a special $999 developer kit

Apple System Profiler includes a new line under Hardware listing CPU Features; for the 3.6GHz Pentium 4 this comprises a rather lengthy list of technical acronyms: FPU, VME, DE, PSE, TSC, MSR, PAE, MCE, CX8, APIC, SEP, MTRR, PGE, MCA, CMOV, PAT, PSE36, CLFSH, DS, SCPI, MMX, FXSR, SSE, SEE2, SS, HTT, TM, SSE3, MON, DSCPL, EST, TM2, CX16, and TPR.
MacOSX Intel Motherboard

The motherboard on the system is unmarked except for the word Barracuda. The system’s internals are housed inside a case similar to Apple’s Power Mac G5 systems but with a different configuration of fans.
MacOSX Intel Motherboard PCI

Sources have indicated that Apple will employ an EDID chip on the motherboard of Intel-based Macs that Mac OS X will look for and must handshake with first in order to boot. Such an approach, similar to hardware dongles, could theoretically be defeated, although it’s unknown what level of sophistication Apple will employ.

Windows will Include built-in RSS Reader

Microsoft makes yet another announcement about it’s future version of Windows. This time, Microsoft said it will feature a built-in internet data feed which include RSS feed.

The reader will be integrated within Internet Explorer Web browser in Longhorn to make it easy for people to find, much like Apple Computer Inc. has done with its Safari browser.

Microsoft RSS Reader Screenshot

Among the feature of Microsoft RSS Feed are, Common RSS Feed List, Common RSS Data Store and RSS Platform Sync Engine.To enhance user experience, Microsoft borrowed some of the idea from popular browser to include list extension to it’s RSS Reader.

According to Microsoft, the use of Simple List Extensions can enhance RSS to capture information critical to representing lists such as ordering of items. By using these extensions, applications can become aware of changes in a list, such as when an item has changed position or has been removed from the list altogether.

The Simple List Extensions also can allows publishers to embed useful information about the list itself. For example, an online retailer can supply additional information about each item in a list such as price, sales rank, average customer rating and type of merchandise. The extensions enable richer flexibility and capability for sorting and ordering. This enables users to sort their friends? wish lists by sales rank or popularity.

Microsft however, make a strategic move to put those list extensions technology into “creative commons” license. This will let the company retain some intellectual property rights while encouraging broader use of the technology.

A rather lengthy demo about Longhorn and IE7 (which feature the RSS Reader)can be viewed here

p/s : Seems Microsoft is playing it’s “Embrace and Extends” game again, this time by hiding behind Creative Commons License.

References :
1. Microsoft.com
2. Future Windows Will Include RSS Support

Nokia favours BSD for its development

BSD Setan
Nokia enters the BSD camp by ZDNet‘s Dana Blankenhorn — Amid all the hoopla about Nokia tying up with Apple and open source, developing a version of the Safari browser for its Series 60 cell phones, what has not been mentioned is its impact on the continuing BSD vs. GPL debate.Apple’s own open source work is strictly under the BSD.

Sounds like even though Nokia show its support towards Linux kernel development by announcing it’s support for the Linux kernel, somehow Nokia is now playing safe with open source, by involving itself with BSD-style licenses development.

Business strategy i presume….

Fasa bulan dan tarikh hijrah di desktop anda ! ~

A’kum…

Hari ini aku nak presentkan salah satu produk aku yang agak lama di publishkan sebagai salah satu software open source di bawah lesen GNU General Public License.

Traymoon adalah aplikasi System-Tray yang memaparkan fasa bulan dan tarikh dalam bulan hijrah.

Screenshot Traymoon 0.1.0

Rekabentuk traymoon yang mudah dan ringkas membolehkan ia diletakkan di system tray dengan membolehkan pengguna melihat peredaran fasa bulan serta tarikh hijrah di desktop hanya dengan meletakkan mouse-pointer di atas ikon traymoon.

System tray, Traymoon 0.1.0

Traymoon dibina menggunakan bahasa pengaturcaraan C bersama win32 api, dan dikompil oleh Microsoft Visual C++ 7.1 (tanpa memerlukan msvcrt7x.dll).

Saiz yang compact dan tidak memerlukan penggunaan *.dll tambahan (spt .NET runtime, Java runtime dan VB) membuatkan traymoon tidak memerlukan ruang ingatan yang besar dan boleh di larikan di mana-mana spec komputer tanpa sebarang masalah keupayaan (Low-CPU Utilization)

Lawatilah halaman Projek Traymoon untuk versi terkini Traymoon.

Links :
Download Traymoon 0.1.0
Project Page Traymoon