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GnuBoy – Play Classic GameBoy Games in your Computer

I don’t know if any of you ever had one of these back in the 90s. It’s a sort of handheld game console, veteran gamers might recognise it as a GameBoy console. Too bad in those days i can’t afford the luxury to buy one of those game console :p, thus I occasionally borrowed my friends’ GameBoy and logged many hours with it.

Why I suddenly blog about GameBoy? Because one fine day, I find myself curious about the gnuboy package included in my Ubuntu universe repository. The package reads

gnuboy emulates the Color GameBoy handheld console in portable C, with interfaces for X11, Linux fbcon and svgalib, SDL, DOS, and Windows, with other ports planned in the future

So I decided to try the out the gnuboy emulator and try to relive Nintendo GameBoy feeling. The gnuboy itself is flexible and supports SDL, X11, svgalib and fbcon display. However, I chose the SDL version because I like how games are implemented in libSDL. Suprisingly, the game I’m trying to play was emulated faithfully without noticeable bugs or artifacts (besides the retro 90s look), I could say that this is one of the best game emulator that I ever tried besides DosBox which provides emulation for DOS games.

Where to get GameBoy ROM files ?

Legally, you need to actually own the game in order to have the ROM . However there is a place where you can get legal GameBoy ROM files which is here : http://www.pdroms.de, and here : jaymzroo 86 site.

Where you can get gnuboy ?

You only need to enable multiverse/universe software repository if you are using Ubuntu. Try to check your software repository under games or emulator if you are using other GNU/Linux distributions. There’s gnuboy ports exist for FreeBSD under emulators.

The source code for gnuboy can be located at http://brightrain.aerifal.cx/~laguna/, if you are interested to compile it from scratch. Microsoft Windows user can make use of these precompiled binaries http://brightrain.aerifal.cx/~laguna/windows/

Happy gaming!

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Track Amazon Product with RSStalker.com


 I found this site after surfing aimlessly for an hour straight. At first I thought the site is about typical social bookmarking or just another RSS aggregator, but after close inspection I found out that this Web 2.0 website offer a free service to track various Amazon products via news feeds.

Users can track Amazon products wishlist, latest Amazon products and top 25 Amazon products price changes by category, these services are provided free without registration by RSStalker.com.

RSStalker.com provides XML based RSS feeds to track price changes of Amazon products. Generate a feed for a single product or for an entire wishlist. Add it to your favorite aggregator and you will be automatically notified when the price changes. Simply unsubscribe to the feed when you are done.

Price watching is also great for stuff you’ve already bought. Amazon.com doesn’t advertise it, but they have a 30 day price drop policy. If you bought something from them and they lower the price within 30 days, just fill out a form and they’ll refund you the difference. See the FAQ for details.

RSStalker.com (pronounced RSS Stalker), provide these services for free and without any advertisement on it’s website. However there’s one catch, they provide you with these service in hopes that you will click their affiliate link in the feed when you want to make your purchase, thus earning them a fraction of the sales.

Nice strategy indeed :)

Anyway, I praise the guy behind RSStalker.com for going to this length to provide us with a good service and a nice Web 2.0 website.

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Spammers are using TinyURL.com to escape spam filters

I recently found out that besides the new breed of spam bots which emulate human surfing behavior and sporting javascript support. Spammers now developed a new tactic by concealing their url behind TinyURL.com redirection service.

I hope TinyURL administrators will take note of these service abuse, and devise a plan to reduce spammers from using their service to spread their spammy URL around.

For the time being, I’ll be more watchful and configure my anti-spam software to filter out urls that uses TinyURL service. I personally don’t use TinyURL service, and only occasionally surfed to tinyurl addresses when I’m certain it was given by a reputable source (and it must be from a human!)

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Dangers of Free Trade Agreement to Malaysian ICT Industry

FTA includes certain clause that will drive our local software company out of business, please don’t let this happen! Do not let what has happened to Australia happen to our ICT industry.

FTA will indirectly let US impose their laws (like DMCA) in our country by letting foreign companies to sue our government, this is clearly unacceptable for a sovereign country like Malaysia. Our ICT industry is endangered by (software) patents infringement lawsuit by US mega-corporations, effectively driving our local ICT companies out of business.

Forget about e-commerce or e-niaga, as a typical e-commerce website are covered in a shitload of patents (See: Patented Webshop). Our local entrepreneur websites will risk patent lawsuits from some faceless foreign companies right in our own soil!

Read more at Free Trade Agreements and ICT Industry

p/s: There’s no doubt that FTA with US will work great for our country, but there are certain clauses which are unacceptable to our local ICT businesses, this is because softwares themselves are unique in nature than other tangible products, and certain terms such Intellectual Property has blurry meaning concerning this issue.

Please read this too
What other people say about FTA with US and ICT industry in Malaysia

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The meaning of ‘terror’ in colloquial Malay

If you are living in Malaysia and has a lot of Malay friends, there’s chances that you may encountered these kind of conversation/dialog

A : kau ni memang terror la.
B : Eh aku mana terror bab-bab ni, kau tanya Lim tu

C: mamat tu buat wheelie time korner maut, terror betul !

D: Kena terror jugak nak jawab soalan-soalan ni

In a webster terror means :
terror
n 1: an overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety [syn: panic]
2: a person who inspires fear or dread; “he was the terror of
the neighborhood” [syn: scourge, threat]
3: a very troublesome child [syn: brat, little terror, holy
terror]

I guess some of you may already know what this ‘terror’ means in the context of conversation. Usually in colloqual Malay, terror means clever,skillful or an expert. I’ve heard this kind of use since before I enter primary school.

The thing is, I can’t help but wonder how this word has come to use widely in malaysian community to describe somebody who are clever, skillful or with expertise. Could it be misinterpretation from an older generation?

What would you call somebody who is an expert in (let’s say) farming ? a terrorist farmer?

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Readable Ubuntu (Breezy Badger) root password

ubuntu

Ubuntu Breezy users, a new security problem has surfaced where root password is readable to the world by merely executing this command :

mypapit@enterprise:~$ grep -r rootpassword /var

Users are advised to update their Breezy installations (via automatic updates) as soon as possible to counter the bug. The problem has been fixed in Ubuntu 6.04 (Drapper Drake).

Link to bug #34606