Upgrading to Hardy Heron

Finally, mere months behind the rest of humanity, I have upgraded my machine at work to the latest release of Ubuntu. It's too early for any fair impressions but there is one thing that has come up that has annoyed me a great deal and I thought I'd share a solution for it. For some reason the gnome devs have seen fit to remove Multimedia tab from the Removable Drives and Media Preferences window in the Preferences menu which prevents you changing your default actions for when (for example) a CD is inserted. Strangely the icon is still CD, but that's another annoyance.

So how to make this change in Hardy? These options have been moved to the Nautilus Preferences menu (Edit -> Preferences -> Media tab) but thanks to a change in the way mime types are handled in Gnome you may well find your favourite applications are not listed in the drop down lists provided. For some reason you can't manually specify a program to run (thanks guys) so until the various package applications catch up with Gnome and this is done automatically we'll need to make changes to the application's description file.

So:

• Go to /usr/share/applications (or /usr/share/applications/kde for a kde app)
• sudo vi $application.desktop
• Add the appropriate MIME types. I used this line:

MimeType=application/x-ogg;application/ogg;audio/x-scpls;audio/x-mp3;audio/x-mpeg;audio/mpeg;audio/x-mpegurl;application/x-flac;x-content/audio-cdda;x-content/audio-player;

(I was playing with grip in this case and there is almost certainly more than I need here, but I was in a hurry)

• sudo update-desktop-database
• sudo update-mime-database /usr/share/mime
  

Bingo. When you open Nautilus and look at the options menu you should see your application in the list.

Credits:
The solution came from here, I am merely distilling it to avoid having to hunt through pages of comments

Tourist of Albion

I've spent about a week playing through Fable: The Lost Chapters and I just can't decide about it. It's certainly good looking, and the attention to detail in places is lovely but there is something missing.

Ah yes, that's it. A challenge.

So I've hacked my way through the monsters populating the unbelievably weak plot (some generic nonsense about a masked man who looks like a reject from a Shredder convention trying to Destroy The World because He Is Evil) and valiantly managed to ignore the temptation to vaporise the airheads populating the world until I finally faced off against EvilDude himself. I slapped about the supporting minions as you do, charged up my sword with the MultiSlap spell and let fly. And he died. Not took damage, not swore revenge whilst retreating to a new corner. No, he died. Cue rolling credits, me saving the world and then a trip into the expanded areas - something like 3 more hours of happy hacking before a second encounter with EvilDude except now, inexplicably, he's a dragon. Wonderful.

Admittedly this second fight, to finish The Lost Chapters (as opposed to the original Fable) is a bit tougher - I had to hit him maybe 20 times and use a couple of potions - but the main reason it's hard is because the swine flies above your head where you cannot hit him with your sword or even see him because of the restricted camera views and rains fiery doom on you. Ok, so you can shoot him with your bow but for reasons unexplained you don't appear to be able to lock in on him (you can on literally every other badguy in the game) so you're reduced to using the manual aiming on a moving target. Good luck there. Anyway he lands eventually so it's back to MultiSlap with DoomSword and you've won. Cue more credits and everyone lives happily ever after.

So why am I undecided? Well I think I had fun playing Fable. Trouble is, it doesn't seem to know what it's trying to be. Sometimes it's a light hearted rpg, such as when a Demon Door (hiding secret treasures) wishes he was a chest instead. But sometimes it gets very dark, such as when you discover your mother alive and well then spend years in prison being tortured. It moves between these ends of the spectrum with shocking regularity and this really stopped me engaging with the plot or world at any level higher than simply hanging on and wondering what madness would appear next. Such as communing with an oracle by doing the YMCA. I kid you not.

Another barrier comes in the form of the game's bizarre morality. Lionhead have clearly attempted to design a world where you can behave however you like letting you choose your alignment as you go on. However this means you have a Hero Guild happily handing out missions such as "Slaughter The Traders" alongside "Save The Picnic Area From Wasps" and this Hero Guild is central to everyone's life - the residents of Albion seem to exist purly as fodder for these people to chop their way through or around and then massage their ego afterwards. There is no sense that the world operates without you in it which seriously strains any credibility. And why does everyone have a painfully jarring stereotypical west-country accent?

Overall though Fable is good fun. Combat is reasonably intuitive, you have freedom to wander round beating monsters / traders / children / chickens / guards to death with your sword and it requires no brainpower or particular skill to enjoy or progress. A good way to spend an evening unwinding, as long as you're not expecting a game which requires any brains or skill to progress...

Return to Flickr

Due to a variety of reasons, not least my own personal lameness, I have been extremely quiet on Flickr for the last few months. Since I've summoned the enthusiasm to go back and have begun a quest to lower the barriers between me taking a photo and it appearing online. First on my list was a memory card reader. Previously I was using Bluetooth to shift photos around but the software was flawed (Float's Mobile Agent 3 - lovely right until it crashes, which it does with alarming regularity) and Bluetooth just too slow for me. After a false start I now have a Maplin's home brand card reader - don't be put off by the thing needing you to put your card in upside down (of course), once you've worked that it's fast and flawless to a big thank you to the chap in the shop who helped me out.

Secondly I've installed the Flickr Uploadr 3.0.5. I've heard bad things about this (mostly from Phil Wilson) but so far it is working brilliantly for me.

With these bits in place I hope to upload a lot more often, and then to start working my photos a bit more.

Facebook thinks I'm a loser

I think I'm going to have to change my relationship status on facebook as the left menu on my homepage is being filled with adverts for dating websites:

25 and Still Single?
Why not join $latest-slappers-R-us-site?
And look! Here is a picture of someone you'll never meet on our site!

I particularly love that phrase:
"25 and STILL single?!"

Which may as well say "Are you a LOSER?" Thanks facebook - and I thought you cared.

rubygems

Rubygems on Ubuntu seems to break itself when you update:

sudo gem update --system

I've lost track of the number of times I've had to fix this (and inevitably forgotten how to do it each time) so for anyone interested here is the fix:

* Open a terminal
* sudo vi `which gem`
* under the line:
require 'rubygems'
add:
require 'rubygems/gem_runner'

Job done.

I can't remember where I first saw this fix, but I know I've found it here at least once, so thanks for the help Nick.

Leaving Neverwinter

So I've finished Neverwinter Nights 2. Took a while - well over a year including the gap in which I (finally) bought myself a new computer. I chopped my way to the end of this RPG slaying giants, dragons and anything else that got in the way and finally defeated Das Uber Evil - the scarily named King of Shadows. Turns out he wasn't that tough after all. So now my hero, who has become a knight of the realm, ruler of a keep and a member of the Neverwinter Nine (the nine elite warriors who act as bodyguards and advisers to the Lord of the area, not that anyone I met ever cared...) can return home and bathe in the glory of being somewhat leet? Oh no, that would be TOO easy...

I don't know what it is about endings these days. People seem to hate the Happily Ever After ending. You'd think that after several days playing you'd be entitled to hear your chap headed off with the girl to be venerated and respected to the end of his days. But it seems that's too much to ask. Instead
you're politely informed that "whilst trying to escape after killing BigBad, the roof falls in and your party is never heard from again". Thanks guys - I guess this is an attempt to add some mystery to the ending? Maybe set things up for a sequel? Doesn't feel like much of a reward though.

It wouldn't annoy me this much if this game wasn't so close to being great. Storyline (up to this point) is interesting, plenty to do, characters are usual fantasy fare but not too bad for that, control is reasonably intuitive, even the graphics are good. Thing is, for every thing of which you approve there is a tiny niggling thing that makes you doubt the care taken. Mostly, it has to be said, it comes down to the characters. Dialogue is extremely weak. One great example is where you spend a passionate night with the love interest who then totally forgets about it in the next scene and gives you the same conversation options you've had since you met her. Then there is the choreography of the characters when they are speaking. Think back to Monkey Island, where the characters would stand in a room and wiggle their heads whilst talking about things all around them, never pointing or making any indication the object of their discussion was in their immediate vicinity. Now imagine that, but in 3d. Add some vague lip sync and there you have it. It divorces your character from the world they are in and manages to seriously damage the atmosphere the game tries so hard to build.

I'm now playing the expansion pack and I'd have to say the character interaction seems a much happier prospect so I'm tentatively interested in what is going to come next. That said, despite memories coming back from the previous game your character doesn't seem overly bothered his love has gone missing along with all the people he had been travelling with. God forbid the roof falls in again...

Worst Ending Ever?

I've just gone back to Heroes of Might and Magic 4. My esteemed colleague Kelvin Gan would say I'm a sucker for punishment. Right now I'm thinking he's right.

So here's the scene: the final battle of the Nature campaign involves you hacking your way through untold masses of enemy armies to defeat your nemesis - the less-than-scary Lord Harke. You then have to return to your true love who is safely on an island. She'll know how things went because you've previously agreed to use blue sails if you win, or red sails if you lose and someone else is coming with bad news. Rather than, for example, simply waiting a few minutes for the messenger to dock and tell her. Anyway, you stumble upon Harke and his posse of badness hanging around by a small town. I found this a surprise as I was simply exploring. Nevertheless my band of happy psychos cut his army to ribbons and killed him. Cue a piece of dialogue where you spare his life, then rather than simply ending the game with a happy story you have to go hunt down your ship. This is where it gets fun.

You can look up "Scenario Information" at any time. This may tell you more, less or something entirely different from the initial mission brief. In this case it says "Kill Harke. Sail the correct ship back." No hint as to which colour ship that might be. Oh no. So if, like me, it has been some time since you've played the thing you have NO idea how to end the mission successfully. I had to save the game, reload the level to get the briefing back, then reload my save. Great.

Now if you think that's a genius piece of game design how about this: you find the correct ship (blue if you're stuck) and sail over to the island. Then you get a lovely dialogue from some of the other people there saying your love has seen the sails and gone off to kill herself. What? It appears you've sailed the wrong ship. But the game doesn't end? Queue reloading and getting in the other boat - this time you don't even reach the island before being told she's dead. So back to the other boat and we finally find out what's going on. It seems that in order to create a "dramatic" ending the authors decided to have your crew change the sails to the wrong colour! The swines! Anyway, the woman runs off to kill herself but if you go inland (not that there is any reason to do so - you've been told she's dead remember) you trigger another event where you start with a bit of angst before going a bit further and finding out she's not dead after all. Queue happy endings all round. Seriously, what were they thinking when they put this wonderful twist in? Are they just trying to alienate anyone playing for any length of time? A dangerous game considering you can beat the entire game using pretty much the same set of tactics. And there is a lot of game...

That said, this is the game where one of the 6 campaigns ends up with your character having no legs and a miserable-ever-after. You lose your legs in the final cut scene - AFTER you make your last move. No choice, no chance to do anything about it.