Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Merijn.org down, relocated at CastleCops

For those who are wondering why my website at Merijn.org is down: the legal owner of the domain (who is also the owner of SpywareInfo) is missing, and the domain expired. I am in the process of procuring the domain from GoDaddy as soon as it becomes available to me.

Meanwhile, a complete mirror is available at merijn.castlecops.com. A generous thanks to Paul Laudanski for this.

Update April 7th 2009: For those who still don't know it from everywhere else I've put up notices, my website is back online at www.merijn.nu and will stay there. The hosting and domain name are completely owned by me and I don't expect any problems like with merijn.org. Thanks to cnm once again for all the trouble I've caused him and his grandson.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

How to fix Windows Update Error 0x8ddd0004

I just spent about half a day fixing up a computer that had been struck with the AVG user32.dll false positive, where most of the time was taken up by figuring out why the hell WindowsUpdate wouldn't run. It kept stopping the scan, with the error message 'Error 0x8ddd0004' and some useless instructions for fixing it.

Here are some possible solutions, if you do all of these it is guaranteed to work. After each step close all browsers and open WindowsUpdate to see if it worked yet.

Make sure you have Administrator rights


Perhaps the simplest step of all. Go to Start > Control Panel > User Accounts and make sure the account you're currently logged in as is classified as 'Administrator'.

Update Flash


Since it's the easiest, try this first. I have no idea why, but this one worked for me. Head over to Adobe.com and click the 'Get Adobe Flash Player' link. If you don't use MSIE for this, make sure you close all browsers and all Flash-enabled programs before you run the manual installer.

While you're there, upgrade to the latest Shockwave Player too by clicking the 'Get Adobe Shockwave Player' link or banner. Again, close all browsers if you use the manual installer.

Re-register all WindowsUpdate DLLs


From Virtual Dr.:
  • Go to Start > Run and type each of the following, hit Enter, Enter again and repeat.
  • regsvr32 JSCRIPT.DLL
  • regsvr32 MSXML3.DLL
  • regsvr32 ATL.DLL
  • regsvr32 WUAPI.DLL
  • regsvr32 WUAUENG.DLL
  • regsvr32 WUAUENG1.DLL
  • regsvr32 WUCLTUI.DLL
  • regsvr32 WUPS.DLL
  • regsvr32 WUWEB.DLL

Manually reinstall the WindowsUpdate agent


To reinstall the WindowsUpdate files, run this installer from Microsoft:
http://download.windowsupdate.com/v6/windowsupdate/redist/standalone/WindowsUpdateAgent20-x86.exe (64-bit version here)

Let WindowsUpdate reinstall the ActiveX component


I put this one last, because I have a feeling it resets much more than just the WindowsUpdate ActiveX component. Use with care.
To do this, you first need to disable the two WindowsUpdate services. Go to Start > Run > services.msc. Select Automatic Updates and click the 'Stop' link. Select Background Intelligent Transfer service and click the 'Stop' link.
Now open Explorer and open the Windows directory. Find the folder 'SoftwareDistribution' and rename it to something like 'SoftwareDistribution_old'.
Go back to the Services window and start both services again.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Wii vs. Xbox360

Four days ago I bought an Xbox 360 specifically for the insane discount it got in Europe (€200 for the Pro model, down from €270) and for Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Band 2. Since neither of those games are out yet, I resorted to Xbox Live Arcade games (downloadable games) and second-hand classics on eBay such as Halo 3 and Burnout Paradise.

Things that I really notice about the Xbox:


  • Demos and trials. For almost EVERY game, you can first download a demo/trial version to see if it's any good. The Burnout Paradise demo is extremely convincing, for example.

  • The 60GB hard drive. The Wii doesn't have one.

  • The headset. On a whim, I plugged it in during a game of Carcasonne and almost jumped out of the seat when my '..hello?' was quickly answered by a very British 'hay'.

  • Achievements are great fun!

  • The Xbox 360 crashed twice in two days. Not sure if this is a ventilation issue, there is no indication of why it crashes after rebooting. For comparison, my Wii has crashed twice, in two years (not counting the proof-of-concept Opera/Youtube/Flash exploit I tried once). This is not good.

Friday, September 05, 2008

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Jumping on the bandwagon: Google Chrome

Today, Google decided to release their own browser Google Chrome, which is accompanied by a cute, very detailed and pretty technical comic book (!). While taking it for a spin I noticed a lot of blogs talking about it (Ars Technica, Tweakers.net, Slashdot, Sunbelt, F-Secure, GeeksToGo), so here are my two cents. This post will be updated while I try this thing out.

Pro:


  • The user interface is very minimal and still very good. You can do most of your web browsing with Google Chrome despite it not even having a menu bar. The address bar ('Omnibar'? Whatever) works very good, for both searching and typing. The new tab starting page is very much like Opera's Speed Dial, but picks pages to display there automatically.

  • It uses the Webkit rendering engine, which is the basis for Safari and very fast. However, Webkit recently switched to using the SquirrelFish javascript VM, improving their Javascript performance 1.6 times. Google chose to pick a different Javascript VM called V8 which is even faster! GMail is INSANELY fast in this Chrome browser (and I'm used to Opera, which is already very fast).

  • It uses (parts of) Mozilla Firefox, and probably also the anti-malware and anti-phishing protection Google built in conjunction with Mozilla.

  • It uses separate processes for each tab, and also for each plugin. This makes it easy to identify which tab/plugin is a memory hog (see the next bullet), and also to recover from a tab crashing since it doesn't take down the entire browser (something that was also added to the IE8 beta 2 released August 28).

  • It has a little Task Manager that shows memory and CPU information about each tag, while about:memory shows a detailed view.


Con:

  • I just accidentally dragged a tab and it changed into a new window with that tab. It's not really clear how to put it back into the original window. Some fidgeting shows that you have to drag the single tab itself back to the original window.

  • No plugins, very bare-bones. I miss my keyboard shortcuts, mouse gestures and ad-blocking.

  • Since it's based on the Webkit rendering engine, it's vulnerable to the same exploits. The carpet-bombing exploit (that has already been fixed in recent Webkit versions) is present in Google Chrome. There's also a ridiculously simple bug that crashes all tabs (yes, you heard that right) when you navigate to a URL with an undefined handler and a percent (%) sign in it.

  • While it's based on a recent Webkit version, it scores very poorly on the ACID3 test - only 55%.

Overall: The Google Chrome browser is very, very good. Google is the perfect company to create a browser, and they have thought about this a lot during development.

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Speed Racer (2008)

Speed Racer (2008) was a fun movie, but there is no excuse - repeat NO EXCUSE - in this entire universe filled with the most crazy shit you can imagine, to have a trained monkey in a movie that was created in the year 2008. It was the most annoying, stupid, childish and unfunny character I have ever seen in a movie. Even Chimp Chimp managed to be more entertaining than that stupid, retarded, fat ape-like creature in the movie that was called Squirtle or Spittle or Spermle or whatever his name was. Every time he was on the fucking screen I wanted to reach out and strangle his chubby little neck, to break his skull, to stuff his mouth with rat poison and shove the monkey up his ass. That shit was probably barely mildly funny when it was originally done in 1967, 40 FUCKING YEARS AGO, but GOD. Wachowski Brothers EPIC FAIL.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

PETA attempts to out-stupid Jessica Simpson

Yesterday, Jessica Simpson was photographed wearing a shirt that says 'real girls eat meat'. Now this might have been an ironic T-shirt, but I'm sure Jessica doesn't know what that means so it's most likely not.

Today, PETA responded by posting 5 Reasons Why Only Stupid Girls Brag About Eating Meat (capitalization theirs) on their blog. The list is arguably even stupider than Jessica Simpson is rumoured to be. Here are the five 'reasons', with explanations why they are wrong.

1. Meat increases the risk of breast cancer.
The article mentioned was indeed published in the British Journal of Cancer in 2007 by Taylor, Burley et al. and finds a association between eating meat and the risk of breast cancer in pre- and post-menopausal women. However, sources indicate that the effect was not significant and inconclusive.

2. Real girls don't support animal abuse.
Celebrities (obviously) do not represent the world population, so if 'huge numbers of celebtrities are ditching meat' that does not mean everyone is. The latest numbers indicate 6.7% of Americans were vegetarian in 2006. In India, over 57% of the population is vegetarian.

3. The meat industry is destroying the Earth.
The quote used here is in The Times, from the Prince of Wales and is from 2005. In the exact same article, the Prince is criticized as being hypocritical since he spends large amounts of money but speaks out for less spending. His comments are in no way connected to animal cruelty or vegetarianism. He also has a ranch with 100 chickens.

4. Meat will make you fat.
I guess I'll just eat the fries then whenever I'm at McDonalds? This is rubbish, anything taken in excess will make you fat. Including a vegetarian diet.

5. Eating meat steals food from starving kids.
So it's OK for starving kids to eat meat?

Basically, PETA blasted Jessica Simpsons for being seen wearing a T-shirt advocating meat consumption, without: asking if she agrees with it, asking if it was a joke, asking if she was not a vegetarian, asking if she wanted their advice, or even asking, I don't know, if she even eats meat that much. If this isn't the stupidest form of hypocrisy then I don't know what.

Monday, May 05, 2008

Jack Thompson tells on Take Two, emails his mom

In the most hilarious move of anti-videogame-crusader attorney Jack Thompson yet, he responded to the GTA IV 'murder simulator' by sending an email to Take Two chairman Strauss Zelnick's mom. The email is filled with the usual falsehoods and draconian exaggerations. Following is the email itself as well as the actual facts.


Dear Mrs. Zelnick:
Your son, as you may know (or maybe you don’t know), is Chairman of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., whose most popular video games are the Grand Theft Auto murder simulator games banned in some countries but sold to children here.


Currently, GTA 3 and GTA: San Andreas are banned in Australia because of the Hot Coffee drama.
GTA IV is banned in the United Arab Emirates.
GTA 3, GTA: San Andreas and GTA IV all are rated M for Mature, meaning it is illegal to sell it to people under the age of 17. Note that children are generally younger than 17.

Your son last week was reported to have said the following about Grand Theft Auto IV, due to be released Tuesday, April 29:
"We’ve already received numerous [GTA IV] reviews, and to a one, they are perfect scores. My mom couldn’t write better reviews…"
Taking your son’s thought, I would encourage you either to play this game or have an adroit video gamer play it for you. Some of the latter gamers are on death row, so try to find one out in the civilian population who hasn’t killed someone yet.


Devin Moore, who was sentenced to death for killing three police officers while trying to escape custody, claimed to be influenced by GTA: Vice City. The Inquirer claims he made this up. His victim's families seem more concerned with suing Take-Two, Rock Star, Wal-Mart and Gamestop than with mourning.
Note that this is the only known case of a criminal on death row who ever blamed GTA.

What you will see in your son’s game, if this iteration of GTA is anything like its predecessors, ..


Jack Thompson apparently hasn't even seen the game.

..is incredible interactive violence aimed at police officers (whom you can shoot in the head and see the blood spray), innocent bystanders (whom you can run over with your car just for the heck of it), and of course the plentiful female prostitutes you can have sex with and then filet with a knife or stomp with your feet in order to get your money back. Experts note that the recent plethora of cop killings is caused in part by your darling son’s entrepreneurial energy. There are three policemen dead in Alabama because of Grand Theft Auto. I was on 60 Minutes about it. I hope Strauss has provided you with a flat screen tv to see the grief of the bereaved families that fills the screen.


Literature that supports the theory that violent video games leads to violent behaviour is flimsy at best. The most recent study even shows that playing violent videogames relaxes you.

Also note that GTA IV has no option to 'stomp prostitutes with your feet'.

The pornography and violence that your son trafficks in is the kind of stuff that most mothers would be ashamed to see their son putting into the hands of other mothers’ children, but, hey, your son Strauss has recently assured the world that he is "a Boy Scout, everybody knows that." I’d love to see the merit badges that Scout Troop handed out. Is there a Ted Bundy merit badge? If so, your loving son deserves one now. It should be red and green, for obvious reasons.


The 'pornography' refers to the Hot Coffee mod again, which ironically was originally only some suggestive fully-clothed grinding but modified by a gamer (!) to remove clothes on the participants. This content has been removed from GTA: San Andreas in 2005 allowing the game to keep its M rating.

The quote from Zelnick is from the Breakout Performance financial blog where it is a response to accussations that Zelnick received an high yearly bonus on his employment contract.

With Passover having just come and gone, it is appropriate to note the following from the Old Testament, Proverbs 22:6:
"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."
Mrs. Zelnick, did you train up your son, Strauss, to make millions of dollars by pushing Mature-rated video games to children? Any kid can go right to little Strauss’ corporate web site and buy GTA IV with no age verification. Strauss is even marketing the new Grand Theft Auto IV on World Wrestling Entertainment tv shows seen by millions of kids. If you trained up Strauss to do this, then shame on you.


Again, selling Mature-rated games to children is illegal. While the Take-Two website requires entering your date of birth, anything can be entered as long as the age is over 17.

The Take-Two website doesn't actually sell the game online, it only redirects to the online stores that sell it, such as Amazon. Since online stores generally use websites, it would be impossible to buy GTA IV without a credit card, which children rarely have.

The commercials for GTA IV are all suitable for minors (no adult content) and clearly mention the M for Mature rating. Note that WWE matches are usually wall-to-wall violence, unlike GTA IV.

But maybe the explanation for your son’s corporate sociopathy is to be found in Old Testament Proverb 29:15:
"The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame."
Maybe you, Mrs. Zelnick, were so taken by your handsome son that you spared the rod and spoiled the child. That would explain why he has brought you, by the way he presently acts, "to shame."
There’s another mother you would do well to talk to. Mrs. Crump in Alabama had a son who was a police officer. He’s now dead because a teenaged boy unwittingly trained himself to kill him on Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. She has a grief she carries every day that only a mother can know. There are other such mothers in the heartland of America whose inhabitants your son simply sees as commercial targets.


The $600 million 'GTA killer' court case by Mrs. Crump and others has been dismissed by court in 2006. Note that while Jack Thompson was the practicing attorney for this lawsuit, he withdrew from the suit long before its dismissal.

As mentioned before, playing a violent videogame has not been proven to induce violent behaviour. Also, clicking a mouse button for several hours hardly trains a gamer to break into a car, hotwire it, disarm a police officer and fire a handgun.

Note that Devin Moore was 16 years old at the time of the shootings and thus was either illegaly sold GTA by a shopkeeper, or bought the game by his parents. Either possibility would place the blame elsewhere than at Devin Moore himself.

Your son, this very moment, is doing everything he possibly can to sell as many copies of GTA IV to teen boys in the United States, a country in which your son claims you raised him to be "a Boy Scout." More like the Hitler Youth, I would say.
Happy Mother’s day, Mrs. Zelnick, which this year is May 11, two weeks after your son unleashes porn and violence upon other mothers’ boys. I’m sure you’re very proud.

Sincerely, Jack Thompson"



Note the lack of 'attorney at law', since Jack Thompson's license to practice law was revoked in 2005.

I can't even begin to comprehend why Jack Thompson suddenly places the blame for the murder of three police officers squarely in the lap of a retired mother of a very successful businessman, as well as liking her to Adolf Hitler.

Monday, March 24, 2008

ACID, ACID2 and ACID3 test results for all popular browsers by date

Since the ACID3 test was released by the Web Standards Project on March 3, lots of companies have scrambled to update their browsers to perform better on the test. No one browser has passed the test since it was released, though there seems to be a neck-to-neck race between Safari, Firefox and Opera. All three are putting out new betas (in different paces) that score better and better.

Since this seems so much like a race, I felt like putting up an overview. I tested all three ACID tests on current and older versions of Netscape, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Safari (for Windows) and determined as accurate as possible when each browser passed each test for the first time. I will update the ACID3 test results when they become available.

Some data taken from Anomalous Anomaly.


ACID1 test:

ACID1 test results

Notes:

  • I couldn't find when Safari first passed the ACID1 test. Windows builds only started at version 3.0, and I don't have a Mac.
  • It's possible Internet Explorer passed the test with an earlier 6.0 build, but it's both very hard to find them and very hard to get them running without messing up your system.


ACID2 test:


ACID2 test results

Notes:

  • Netscape never passed the ACID2 test before it was discontinued. Its final result looks like this. If that looks a lot like what the latest stable Firefox renders, remember that Netscape switched to the latest (stable) Gecko engine, also used by Firefox, before putting out the last build.
  • Safari and Opera passed this test first, and it took Firefox and Internet Explorer so long to accomplish this feat, that only their recent betas pass it now. How embarrassing.


ACID3 test:


ACID3 test results

Notes:

  • The red line marks the releae of the ACID3 test. To see a big picture that goes back all the way to 1997, see here. It has several peaks where browsers performed worse with new versions, and I have no idea why.
  • Almost every browser picked up on the ACID3 test and updated their browsers. Only Internet Explorer didn't, and that's probably only because they just put out the first beta of IE 8 three days after ACID3 was released, along with several proud posts that it passed ACID2.
  • The switch to the latest Gecko rendering engine by Netscape can be seen very nicely here, as the Netscape line merges into the Firefox line with the last Netscape version.
  • Not pictured: the Firefox score drop from 59% to 52% since they released 3.0 beta 1 (on a newer rendering engine) earlier than 2.0.0.12 (with the old rendering engine).
  • Opera is making a GIANT leap several weeks before ACID3 was released, which shows that they were putting a lot of effort into being compliant even before the test was released.
  • Safari is putting a lot of effort into passing the ACID3 test right now. Each Webkit nightly is scoring better.


TODO: maybe I'll add the CSS3 selector test later on.


UPDATES:

  • March 26: New Firefox 2.0.0.13 scores no better on ACID3. Webkit nightly r31306 goes from 95% to 96%.

  • March 26 again: THE RACE HAS BEEN WON! Both the latest Webkit nightly and the current internal Opera build now pass 100% of the ACID3 test! Congratulations to both teams. Opera wins for having a 100% score just hours before Webkit did. Webkit takes the medal for having the first publicly available build that passes ACID3 - Opera promises the public build later this week.

  • March 27: It seems Opera is generally credited with the first Acid3 100% pass, and that Safari's Webkit cheated by implementing only the part of the SMIL protocol that was required to pass the relevant test.

  • March 28: Opera made their internal WinGogi build available (the one that scores 100% on Acid3) and I added it to the graph. It's the peak on 26 March, obviously. Most of the Acid3 changes will not be in the Kestrel engine scheduled for Opera 9.5, which explains why the latest 9.5 alpha build scores just 79%.

  • April 2nd: Firefox 3.0 beta 5 scores 71% over the 68% of beta 4.

  • April 17th: Firefox 2.0.0.0.14 scores 53% over the 52% of 2.0.0.13. It seems clear they are focusing more on Firefox 3 for standards compliance now.

  • April 18th: Safari 3.1.1 scores 74% as opposed to the last 3.1 version. The latest Opera weekly build scores 79% like its predecessors. I've updated the Acid3 graph to show the results the latest version of each browser gives, even if this is a stable version and a better scoring beta was released earlier. If I have some time left later I'll split the lines into stable and beta.

  • April 25th: Opera 9.5 beta 2 scores 79% like its predecessors.

  • May 17th: Mozilla Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 scores no higher than the betas: 71%.

  • June 5th: Mozilla Firefox 3 Release Candidate 2 still only at 71%. It doesn't seem like FireFox 3 will score any higher than this.

  • June 10th: Opera 9.5 RC scores 83%. Their latest weekly builds have been slowly creeping up on the Acid3 test.

  • June 12th: Opera 9.5 was released today and it scores 83% on Acid3.

  • June 20th: Safari 3.1.2 scores 75% over the previous version's 74%.

  • July 31st: The Firefox 3.1 alpha Shiretoko scores a surprising 83%, bringing it on par with Opera.

  • September 6th: Added Google Chrome to the list. It seems to update discretely, I got only 55% on the first version but reinstalling today yielded 77% (or sometimes 79%) and the build number had changed from 1583 to 1798. The Safari 4.0 beta from June 10th scores 100%!

  • September 8th: Mozilla Firefox 3.1 alpha 2 and Opera 9.60 beta 1 RC were both released on September 5th and both score 85%!

  • October 8th: While Google Chrome is still on 79%, the latest Chromium nightly builds have updated the Webkit engine version on October 1st, and it's scoring 100% on ACID3 since build 2778! There's only one timing issue (test 26) and the image doesn't look like the reference pic completely - big red cross in top-right corner and 'linktest failed' below the score). Chromium is already at build 3001 at the time of writing, so expect the official Google Chrome builds to duplicate this soon.

  • October 15th: Mozilla Firefox 3.1 beta 1 is out and scores 89%, finally passing Opera for the first time since March.

  • December 4th: Opera 10 alpha 1 was released today and it scores 100%, as expected. It's also MUCH quicker than the WinGogi build they put out sometime ago.

  • December 8th: Mozilla Firefox 3.1 beta 2 scores 93%.

Sunday, March 02, 2008

How to use the Wii Guitar Hero III guitar on Guitar Hero III for the PC

Right! I'm going to explain to you how to get the Les Paul from Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for the Nintendo Wii to work with Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for the PC. I took a lot of this from the Wiihacks post on using your Wiimote as a mouse in Windows so if something isn't clear enough, go read that first.


*UPDATE* March 6: the GlovePIE script is now DONE. I just added the correct keybinding to the + key (Backspace instead of Escape) and changed the whammy code to use the mouse for whammying. It's not as smooth as I'd like, but it's the best you can get.
*UPDATE* March 5: updated the script to be three times shorter, and added support for Star Power activation by tilting the guitar. The Wiimote will also rumble for a second when you do this, somewhat like it does in GH3 for the Wii. Yay!


Why?

Because GH3 for the PC has better graphics and STEREO SOUND, and I wanted to see if it could be done. These guys got most of it working and I've had some tips from them. You've all seen the videos of people using the Wiimote as a mouse, and some of you probably have seen some of Johnny Chung Lee's videos where he uses the Wiimote as cheap implementations of head tracking solutions and multi-touch whiteboard screens.
I got the whole thing working in about an hour, on Windows XP. The GlovePIE script (which is completely my own) took about three days work off and on.


What do I need?

You're going to need the following things:

  • A Nintendo Wii controller and a Wii Les Paul guitar controller, obviously.

  • Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for the PC

  • A bluetooth adapter or USB dongle - If your computer doesn't already have one (look in the Device Manager to check this), you can get a cheap one that plugs into your USB port from eBay. I got one for $1 and it works fine.

  • BlueTooth drivers - If your computer doesn't have them already (Windows Vista should) and the above bluetooth adapter/dongle didn't have a driver CD included, get the free BlueSoleil drivers.

  • GlovePIE 0.30 or newer - this interprets the signals from the Wiimote and can map them to key presses. Version 0.30 added support for the Wii guitar.

  • A bit of persistence to get the GlovePIE script to work right :-)

Connect the Wiimote to your PC via Bluetooth

This should be the easiest part. Plug the Bluetooth dongle in if you have one, then install the BlueSoleil drivers. The Microsoft Bluetooth stack will NOT work, unless have a Bluetooth device that is in the list of compatible devices on the WiiBrew wiki.


Once the Bluetooth part is setup, put the Wiimote in discovery mode by pressing 1+2, then let your Bluetooth device on the PC discover it. It should find something like Nintendo RVL-CNT-01, which offers a Human Interface Device (HDI) service. If the Wiimote LEDs stop flashing, press them again until your PC finds the Wiimote and the service. When that's done, connect to the HID service.


Setup GlovePIE to use the Wiimote

Now that the Wiimote is connected to your PC, open up GlovePIE. Go to File > Open and open the script called TestWiimote.PIE in the OldScripts folder. Now click RUN and wave around your Wiimote. There should be numbers changing in the debug window in response to your waving. If they don't change, either your Wiimote is not connected properly, or your Bluetooth stack is incompatible with the Wiimote.


If you got GlovePIE working, you can try this mouse script from the Wii Hacks blog and fiddle around with it. Tilting your Wiimote should control the mouse cursor, and it should make the Wiimote vibrate when you hit the screen. A and B control the mouse buttons.


Setup GlovePIE to use the Wii guitar controller

Now for the hard part. You'll need a custom script to interpret the signals from the Wii guitar and map them to keys on your keyboard. The script I wrote to do this is below, you can copy and paste it into GlovePIE (don't forget to save it) and change it to your liking.



Key.Ctrl = False
Key.LeftShift = False
Key.LeftAlt = False
Key.RightAlt = False

debug = 'whammy=' + wiimote.Guitar.WhammyBar + ', pitch=' + RemoveUnits(Wiimote.Pitch)

//change these to your liking (use debug info)
var.whammythreshold = 0.55
var.starpowerangle = 50

//bind frets to V-C-X-Z etc
Keyboard.V = Wiimote.Guitar.Fret1
Keyboard.C = Wiimote.Guitar.Fret2
Keyboard.X = Wiimote.Guitar.Fret3
Keyboard.Z = Wiimote.Guitar.Fret4
Keyboard.A = Wiimote.Guitar.Fret5
//make the 4 wiimote leds light up with the first 4 frets
Wiimote.Led1 = Wiimote.Guitar.Fret1
Wiimote.Led2 = Wiimote.Guitar.Fret2
Wiimote.Led3 = Wiimote.Guitar.Fret3
Wiimote.Led4 = Wiimote.Guitar.Fret4
//other mappings
Keyboard.Space = Wiimote.Guitar.Minus
Keyboard.W = Wiimote.Guitar.StrumDown
Keyboard.E = Wiimote.Guitar.StrumUp
Keyboard.Backspace = Wiimote.Guitar.Plus

//make whammy when whammy is pushed
If Wiimote.Guitar.WhammyBar > var.whammythreshold
   Mouse.x = Wiimote.Guitar.WhammyBar
EndIf
//push star power button when guitar is tilted
If RemoveUnits(Wiimote.Pitch) > var.starpowerangle
   Key.Space = True
   Wiimote.Rumble = True
   Wait 1000 ms
   Key.Space = False
   Wiimote.Rumble = False
EndIf

A few things to note on this script:

It maps most of the Wii guitar controls to the default mappings of GH3 for the PC. E.g. the frets G-R-Y-B-O are mapped to V, C, X, Z and A. Look around in the script, it's really easy to do.


To configure the whammy, run the script and look at the debug value for the whammy bar. My guitar gave a value of 0.55 for the whammy bar in rest, so you'll only want GlovePIE to send it to GH3 when a value greater than 0.55 is registered (or it'll be constantly whammying). Change the line 'var.whammythreshold = ...' so that it has the value there that your whammy bar sends while in rest.


If you tilt the guitar higher than 50 degrees, Star Power is activated. If you like it better when it's at 30 degrees, or 90 degrees, change the var.starpowerangle value. Use the debug value to find your best angle.


Whichever mappings you use in the script doesn't really matter, as long as you configure GH3 for the PC to use the same mappings. So if you have the script setup to send 'Q' when you press the orange fret, setup GH3 for PC so that the 'Q' presses the orange fret.


Other stuff you can do


Besides accomplishing this great feat, you can:

  • Plug your bigass flatscreen into the PC, set it as the primary screen and rock out in an even higher resolution!

  • Add new songs to GH3! This is possible in the PC version only (at least with minimal effort). See this thread on the ScoreHero forums. I've already added a few songs, and it turns out to work best when you have FretsOnFire songs to be imported - those already have separate channels for song/rhythm/guitar sounds, though it is also possible with normal mp3 files.

That's it!

Using this setup, I got my Wii guitar working great with GH3 for the PC. You might not be able to get the same scores since the Bluetooth connection sometimes seems to drop things or lag a bit, but it's great for getting that extra graphics quality boost that you won't get on the Wii. :-) Have fun!

Monday, February 11, 2008

MSIE is extremely dumb

While finishing up my personal homepage at www.merijnbellekom.nl with a fancy resumé, I noticed that, of all browsers, Microsoft Internet Explorer doesn't understand a self-closing Javascript tag!

HOW

HARD

CAN IT BE

Workaround: don't use self-closing script tags. Sigh.