• compguyaug.com
• cafeworldhelper.com
• nonogramsonline.com
• urpuzzled.com

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When I speak of memory, I’m speaking of RAM, not the hard drive. RAM forgets everything when the computer turns off. The hard drive stores the programs, music, e-mails, etc. while the computer is off. At least until the hard drive fails, and it will one day. Reason #1 to Make Backups!

Every program uses RAM. It’s impossible to run a program without copying it to RAM first. On top of that, when a program needs more RAM, it requests it from the operating system. Once the program exits, the OS should release that RAM so another program can use it. Sadly, this is not always the case.

Checking for Leaks

It’s quite easy to check for memory leaks for a specific program. If you’re running Windows:

1. Right click on the task bar and select task manager
2. Click on the Processes tab
3. Select Options -> Select Columns…
4. Check the VM Size and Mem Usage
5. Click OK
6. Run the program, if its not already running
7. Keep a watch on it’s statistics
8. If the VM Size and/or Mem Usage keeps going up and not going down, that program has a memory leak!

Note: Once you do steps 3-5, you won’t have to do them again on that computer.

Using Linux or MacOS:

1. Open a command prompt
2. Run: top
3. The columns to watch at Virt(ual Memory) and  Res(idual Memory)
4. Run the program, if its not already running
5. Keep a watch on it’s statistics
6. If Virt and/or Res keeps going up and not going down, that program has a memory leak!

Note: Press h for help while running top.

Most Leaks Occur in the Browser

Sadly, tons websites have memory leaks. To check for this:

1. Do steps 1-5 above or run top
2. Load up your browser
3. Go directly to Google.com(No Leaks There!)
4. Check the VM Size and Mem Usage
5. Go to a site that regularly slows your browser down
6. Check the numbers, they should have gone up
7. Go back to Google.com
8. Check the numbers again

If they don’t go down at all, you can almost guarantee that that website has at least one memory leak. I’ve noticed this is especially true for Cafe World and Frontierville on Facebook, but almost all flash-based game will have memory leaks because flash has memory leaks. That is why the newer versions of Firefox runs flash as a separate program.

Luckily, all you have to do is restart your browser and those numbers will be reset. Setting your homepage to something simple that doesn’t leak, about:blank is good, can help too.

Memory Leaks Are NOT Dangerous

These leaks are not dangerous, just frustrating and annoying. Restarting the program or computer will speed things back up. That’s not a permanent solution, but it is usually the easiest fix.

Another option is to call tech support, but most of the time they can’t do anything for you except forward your complaint to the proper department and tell you to restart your computer or the program. If you choose this option, make sure to have all your number written down before you even call.

Sometimes, the best solution is to just stop using that program or website. Find an alternative that doesn’t have memory leaks. You might even find a gem in the rough.

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1. Drag a program from the start menu to the desktop.
   This is great if you use something all the time, but the program did not install a desktop icon. Note: Putting freecell on your desktop may be hazardous to your productivity.
2. Drag a folder/file/program to the start menu.
   You can´t just drop it anywhere on the start menu, as parts of it were written in stone.
3. Drag a tab in Firefox to the Bookmark menu.
   This makes bookmarks super easy. You can even drag the tab to the bookmark toolbar.

Pointer Clues

When you drag and drop, your mouse pointer will change. If you are not allowed to drop something somewhere, you will have a no sign (like no smoking). If you are allowed to drop something there, you will have a normal pointer with a dashed box. Usually, a black line will show where the item will drop.

Right-Click Drag and Drop

If you use the right mouse button instead of the left, when you drop the item you will see a little menu. This will ask if you want to copy, move, create a shortcut, or cancel. Most of the time, Windows will move the item. Sometimes a copy is made. If you right-drag it, you can decide.

Middle-Click

Sadly, the scroll wheel, sometimes called the middle button, does not drag and drop. It does have some pretty cool uses though, including opening a link in a new tab.

One Final Clickity Note

Always use the left mouse button, unless told specifically to use another button.

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I’ve got another cheat for all you cafe world fans.

If you turn your stove toward a wall or table or another stove, you will not have to walk to the stove. Ever. In fact, the only place your character will walk to is a serving table.

Bonus Tip

Max your buzz rating to 105.0 by making sure no customer leaves without food. Following my original Cafe World post, will almost ensure this.

Once your employees are boxed in, if anyone leaves without food, (re)move the table/chair where that person was sitting.

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UPDATE 2/6/2010: Cafe World upgraded their game this past week. Instead of a plant, you must use a chair or  table now to block your employees.

Recently, I’ve been playing Cafe World on Facebook. It’s one of those games that you play in spurts, cooking food. It’s quite addicting, and leveling goes fairly quick. I’ve figured out an easy cheat that anyone can do.

You can block your employees behind serving counters and they don’t have to walk to the tables. They pick up the food and it magically appears on the table. Also, the employee will “clean” the counter directly in front of them, leaving all servings there and a plate in the dining room disappears.

There is a trick to doing this. You have to block them in with a small object. I use a plant:

The plant was even a gift from a neighbor. This is super simple and can help raise your buzz rating.

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I changed the timezone for the mysql session of the web app. It’s quite simple. The app uses good programming practices, so there’s only 1 place that I had to modify: immediately after the database connect & select db. These two lines now run as well:

mysql_query( 'SET time_zone = \'-8:00\'' );
date_default_timezone_set( 'America/Los_Angeles' );

My timezone is -5:00 (EST), so I set the timezone to -8:00 (PST). That gives me until 3AM local time to complete the tasks. If only there was a way to set the timezone of a particular database or user.

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I’m currently watching the news on WJBF, the only channel I get b/c I haven’t fully setup my antenna. Using xvmc is fairly simple:

mplayer -vc ffmpegmc12 -vo xvmc -framedrop dvb://WJBF-DT

I add -framedrop to keep the video and audio sync’ed.  Mplayer will rant about waiting for retrace. Using OpenGL is actually better, for me at least.

mplayer -vo gl2 -framedrop dvb://WJBF-DT

It dropped 14 frames at the beginning, but hasn’t dropped another in 10 minutes. XvMC would have crapped out by now. A/V sync is still perfect. I’ve even got it full screen and it’s resizing from 1280×720 (720 HD resolution) to 1440×900.

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Today, I discovered a new trick … SSH X11 Forwarding. Now, I can play video on my desktop right from my netbook. It’s wonderful and very simple!

In the following instructions, the “A” refers to the computer playing the video and “B” refers to any other computer.

1. Make sure “X11Forwarding Yes” is in your sshd_config file on computer A. Restart sshd if you had to uncomment/add it.
2. On B, run `ssh -XC A`
3. In the ssh session, type `DISPLAY=:0.0`.
4. Now run mplayer or any other video player in the  ssh session and it will play on computer A.

If you want  to have a program run on computer A and use the screen on computer B, the process is very similar:

1. Make sure “X11Forwarding Yes” is in your sshd_config file on computer A. Restart sshd if you had to uncomment/add it.
2. On B, run `xhost A`
3. On B, run `ssh -XC A`
4. Now run mplayer or any other video player in the  ssh session and it will play on computer A.

Step 2 authorizes use of the current display by computer A and only needs to be run once. Also, note that the display variable doesn’t need to be set when using B’s screen.

Mplayer works wonderfully when playing on my desktop, plus I control it via the ssh session. It has tons of keyboard shortcuts. The ones I use the most are space for pause and the arrow keys for skipping around.

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/usr/bin/mencoder dvb://$1 -ovc copy -oac copy -o "$2.mpeg" -endpos $3

All this does is copy the video and audio streams directly to the disk. The three parameters are  the station name, as stated in ~/.mplayer/channels.conf, the filename and the end position. This end position can be the number or seconds to record, or a time format of hh:mm:ss. This makes recording fairly simple within the cron.

The encode.sh script contains:

/usr/bin/mencoder -vf scale=640:-2 -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=1700:threads=2 \
 -oac copy "$1" -o "$1.avi"

This, slightly more complex use of mencoder, will scale the video to 640 wide, the height calculated to keep the aspect ratio. The video is encoded into xvid at 1700kbps using 2 threads. To speed up the encoding process, the audio is not re-encoded, but copied as is.

You will need to play with the number of xvid threads to find the best fps. I have a dual-core and it encodes the fastest with 2 threads. It does need to be an integer, and most dual-cores will work best at 2.

Then, two lines are required in the cron to record and encode the program:

59 19 * * 1 /dvr/record.sh WAGTNBC /dvr/shows/heroes 01:03:00
05 20 * * 1 /dvr/encode.sh /dvr/shows/heroes.mpeg

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As with any linux tool, there a tons of bells and whistles. This makes the learning curve kind of steep, but with a bit of determination anyone can make sense of it. Without further ado, here’s the cheat sheet:

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