The Don's Craptastic World

9Mar/093

Shorten your URL – A small collection of URL shortening services

url

When I prank my friends and don't want them to get alerted by the URL I send them, then I use so called url shortener. I came across aplenty of them. Some bad ones, some very good ones.

I also often use URL shortener when I want to share some eBay auctions. They do have some ridiculous long URLs. There are way to many reasons to list as to why you could or should use an URL shortening service.

Now my favourite of all url shortening services is http://shuurl.com because you get a screenshoted "preview" of what the linked web site looks like. You also get security stats compiled by the SHUURL community (Folks who, eventually, visit and security-rate the site). It helps if you are one of the more paranoid ones (like me).[SHUURL Don Salva's Blog , SHUURL Don Salva's Gallery]

Then there are http://bit.ly, http://tinyarro.ws, http://tinyurl.com, http://is.gd and http://snipr.com who do just that, URL shortening. And many more who I probably forgot to mention.

http://1link.in and http://linkbun.ch on the other hand are special. They allow you to shorten multiple URLs into 1 tiny URL.

http://tr.im and http://burnurl.com also are special. Tr.im shortens your URL and updates your Twitter or Identi.ca status. This service also tracks stats and allows commenting on your URLs. BurnURL however allows stats and social sharing beyond Twitter.

Filed under: Internet, Web Services 3 Comments

7Mar/090

The new gallery, I tells ya, it be done!

What a strange trip it has been...took me about 5 days to migrate my old coppermine gallery from a free webspace hoster to my own paidspace hoster with a whole new gallery software. Hell, I was very close giving up the whole migration, because it was riddled with errors, bugs, failed connections, failed databases, the whole she-bang.

Ladies 'n Gentlemen, I present you

Don Salva's Screenshot Gallery

As you already can guess I'll be hosting a pure Pc Video Games Screenshot Gallery. I'll be continually tweaking and changing minor stuff on it, but I think it's a good start! If you have suggestions mail me or leave a comment!

Filed under: Random-ness No Comments

1Mar/0989

VirtualDub 720p HD settings for YouTube! [Good quality, small file size]

I often record gameplay clips from video games I'm playing with FRAPS. Usually in 1920x1080 resolution depending on the game and the FPS I get with FRAPS running. For transcoding the raw footage to something bearable to upload I usually use only VirtualDub.

Lately I've experimented with settings, and I think I found some good ones. Good video and sound quality with small file size were my goals. I think roughly 100 mb for a 5 min. clip and about 300mb for the full 10 min. in full 720p HD quality is awesome.

I'm still experimenting with sound compression but I think with 192 kb/s AC-3 ACM I have a good start.

Please bear in mind that the higher your resolution is the bigger your file size will be and vice versa. Those 100 mb respectively 300 mb are based on my 1920x1080 resolution!

This guide is intended for 16:10 and 16:9 resolutions. If you're playing on a 4:3 resolution, do not resize down to 1280*720p without maintaining aspect ratio, because the end-result will otherwise look over-stretched/-squeezed.

My settings for VirtualDub are in the picture below. If you want a very detailed explanation what each option does, check this out!

By the way, you have to have the H.264 codec installed to get it working. Download and install the latest VFW-version build here. PAY attention which version you're downloading, x86 (=32bit) or x86_64 (=64bit).

A warning about the Option "Multithreading" -> "Threads" don't set it higher than [# of your CPU Cores * 1.5] because then your whole system will start chugging. For example a Core 2 Duo would be 2 Cores * 1.5 = 3, a Q9550 would be 4 Cores * 1.5 = 6 and an AMD Phenom II X3 would be 3 Cores * 1.5 = 4.5 4.

This is by no means a guarantee that it will or will not work on your system. Each system, its components and its software are unique. You'll probably have to experiment a bit on your own. But those mentioned numbers are a good start.

It also might be necessary for you to adjust the audio volume to your liking. I have -10 dB, because the sound I record is terribad. My onboard sound sucks, period. Some people also experience asynchronous sound, here's how you can fix it.

On a side note: When you have uploaded your clip on YouTube and YouTube processed it the quality then will be lowered again. There's nothing you or I can do about that, it's up to YouTube.

The whole tutorial is also available on YouTube as a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9XOgnaJ_Hs

A few links to my own HD clips:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxijbXfIs4A&hd=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yt35f2WFFY&hd=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe4jCQ8zzz0&hd=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNLlobJbrm8&hd=1

Addendum 16.September 2009: Enabling GPU acceleration
Since version 1.9.4 it is possible to use the GPUs processing power (if your GPU supports it, which most modern GPUs do) as part of whole the transcoding process. This way you can speed up the transcoding process significantly (depending on your compression settings!).

On my computer this cut my transcoding time from an average 1h for a 10 min. clip down to some 40-ish minutes. Under "Options" -> "Preferences" enable "3D accel".

Addendum 23.10.2009: Crashes during encoding
There's currently a problem causing VirtualDub 1.9.4/5/6/7/8/9 to crash under Windows 7 while encoding sometimes. The culprit is 3D accel! Turn it off under "Preferences" -> "3D accel" and enjoy VirtualDub once again!

Addendum 16.05.2010: Option "3d accel" slowing down encoding
I've been getting mixed messages. Apparently using "3d accel" causes it to render slower than usual on some systems. I can confirm that. With 3d accel turned on, a 10min video takes about 1 hour 10-20 minutes, while turned off it takes about 1 hour max. You'll have to experiment on your system!

And if you are running on a multicore cpu, don't forget to enable threading via "Option" -> "Preferences" -> set "Threading" to 1!

Update 27.01.2011:
Updated Setting Screenshot

Filed under: Software, Tips and Tricks 89 Comments

28Feb/097

Must-Have High-Res Texture Packs for Fallout 3

With my system (specs are at the end) I usually play games on 1920 x 1200 with 16xAF and 0xAA (ocassionally 2xAA). Now I love Fallout 3, take my blog name and think .

I usually use High Resolution Textures Mods ranging from 1024x1024 quality upwards to 4096x4096. But bear in mind, higher resolution textures means more graphic card RAM and generally a powerful PC is necessary. If you aren't sure if your PC can handle it don't install every texture pack at once. Install one, test one, install the next one, test the next one, etc.

So far I've come across this packs I really think will up your quality a lot.

Hi-Res Weapons or 4Aces HiRes Weapons, the name says it all. A lot of weapons textures will now be in higher resolution.
Terrain pack and the addon Terrain pack Rocks. Terrain, the most important part of Fallout 3. You'll spend a lot of your time outside.
Rivet City Texture pack, the City Rivet will now look much more detailed!
Megaton Texture pack or Megaton Re-Done Texture pack, enjoy Megaton in a much higher detail.
4Aces HiRes Armor, all armor is higher detail.
High Definition Texture Pack or 4Aces HiRes Pack (Textures and Meshes), then there's the random HD pack. Some other textures you'll want to have. If you are asked to overwrite, decline. Only copy the new textures or overwrite smaller files with bigger files. It usually means the bigger file is the better quality.

To use custom made textures and mods, you need to Invalidate. Which is why you'll need ArchiveInvalidation Invalidated .

With those six Packs you'll up the quality of your Fallout 3 by a lot! Now there are a lot of other small hi-res textures for all sort of stuff. For example for Vault Doors, Historical Documents, Skill Books and much, much more.

Just look for "hi-res Fallout 3" on google.com or Fallout 3 Nexus and you'll be baffled.

My system specs are: CPU: E6600 @ 3GHZ, 9x333 | MoBo: P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP | RAM: 4GB A-Data Vitesta Ext. Edt. 800Mhz@833 | GPU: PowerColor HD4870 1GB

Enjoy your Fallout 3 in much more detail, Don Salva.

PS: Check out this screenshots galleries Fallout 3 & Fallout 3: Operation Anchorage.

PPS: Get the HiRes Texture Packs for all the DLC's too

Addendum 17.05.2010:
Like a lot of people who have large amount of mods, especially texture mods, I've experienced frequent crashes to desktop. This is due the fact that Fallout 3 is a 32Bit game and is programmed in such a way to make use of maximum 2GB of RAM. If you have, say 4GB RAM or more, Fallout 3 makes no use of it.

Fear not, there has been a solution since last year which I completely missed up until a few months ago. Large Address Aware Enabler for FO3 or FO3 RAM Boost. Either one works and reduces the crashes to almost a nonexistence.

Filed under: PC Games 7 Comments

20Feb/090

Say NAY to Key loggers, Trojans, Viruses, Worms 'n more!

red-cross

It never cases to amaze me how revealing and careless people are going on about on the internet. I mean nowadays where Key loggers, Worms, Virus and whatnot are as standard as your daily breakfast.

My dad, again for the umpteenth time, got infected with yet another Worm, this time it was, how could it be different, the Conficker. Of course he keeps his computer up-to-date, his Anti-Virus not so much. And on top of that he uses Internet Explorer.

Don't get me wrong, I did like the Internet Explorer once upon a time when I was just another kid starting out on the internet. Since then I went from Internet Explorer to Netscape, did a migration to Opera and finally found my home in Mozilla, later Firefox.

USE FIREFOX! Even though you have to get used to a totally different UI if you are switching from IE or Opera, it's well worth it in the long run. And here are 2 reasons why:

1. NoScript
2. AdBlock

These 2 addons coupled with Avira-Antivir , and if you really are paranoid, you can trow in Sandboxie, and trust me you are 98% on the safe side.

Of course there always IS and always WILL be a risk of catching a Virus, Key logger, Trojan. There's no 100% guarantee!

So folks, remember, use Firefox, use NoScript, AdBlock, Avira-Antivir and Sandboxie, and you really never have to worry again.

When I play WoW, I often surf the official boards. Occasionally there's some idiot posting Key logger links. By now the fear and paranoia on these boards have risen to such levels where people simply refuse to check out any links they don't know. A good idea indeed, but flawed nevertheless. Almost every link posted there contains useful information. Very, very rarely is it a key logger. Yet the damage of a few have jump started the fears of thousands.

I for one don't have to worry. I click any link I want and never catch anything. My NoScript blocks any script, by standard, unless I specifically allow them to run. Sure I have to spend a little extra time figuring out what this script is and what it does, but it's well worth the trade-off I get in security.

My AdBlock blocks ads, period. No Ads, I don't see any Ads, EVER. Not so long ago, there was a Key logger being distributed simply by an Ad-banner. I don't have to worry about it. Of course it must be said that some awesome and useful sites are financed purely through advertisement. It hurts them if you block all their ads!

I really do believe with the 5 tools mentioned above you are on the safest side possible without compromising too much.

So long, Don Salva

Addendum:
I've been getting e-mails with folks saying a firewall software is missing. I apologize. Let me clarify: If you have a modern hardware router there's no need for a software firewall as there already is one integrated in good, modern routers (I'm not talking about ancient ones, like from 1980 or so).

A firewall software is only necessary if you are paranoid and have the need of a illusory "double security" or if you have no router and are connecting direct to the internet via your personal computer with nothing in between your pc and the internet.

Filed under: Security, Software, Tips and Tricks No Comments

27Jan/090

Status Quo!

Howdy folks,

my apologies for my very long absence. I've got a full plate (exams over exams over exams with attendance seminars over seminars over seminars coupled with practical courses and some more practical courses), absolutely no time to maintain my blog. I'll try to do better this year, I promise. No half year breaks in between.

With that being said, I want, again, to apologize for such a huge gap and absolute radio silence. Now I leave you with a few (ok, I'm kidding!) of my game clips.

So long, Don Salva

PS: Oh yea, I know it's an oxymoron. I've got time to play but no time to maintain a blog? Strange priorities, ain't they?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqyHaD8itNc

Filed under: Random-ness Continue reading