2010 Jan 5, 7:42
I've made a WPAD server Fiddler extension and in a fit of creativity I've named it: WPAD Server Fiddler
Extension.
Of course you know about Fiddler, Eric's awesome HTTP debugger tool, the HTTP proxy that lets you inspect, visualize and modify the
HTTP traffic that flows through it. And on the subject you've probably definitely heard of WPAD, the Web Proxy Auto Discovery protocol
that allows web browsers like IE to use DHCP or DNS to automatically discover HTTP proxies on their network. While working on a particularly nasty WPAD bug towards the end of IE8 I really wished I
had a way to see the WPAD requests and responses and modify PAC responses in Fiddler. Well the wishes of me of the past are now fulfilled by present day me as this Fiddler extension will respond to
WPAD DHCP requests telling those clients (by default) that Fiddler is their proxy.
When I started working on this project I didn't really understand how DHCP worked especially with respect to WPAD. I won't bore you with my misconceptions: it works by having your one DHCP server
on your network respond to regular DHCP requests as well as WPAD DHCP requests. And Windows I've found runs a DHCP client service (you can start/stop it via Start|Run|'services.msc', scroll to DHCP
Client or via the command line with "net start/stop 'DHCP Client'") that caches DHCP server responses making it just slightly more difficult to test and debug my extension. If a Windows app uses
the DHCP client APIs to ask for the WPAD option, this service will send out a DHCP request and take the first DHCP server response it gets. That means that if you're on a network with a DHCP
server, my extension will be racing to respond to the client. If the DHCP server wins then the client ignores the WPAD response from my extension.
Various documents and tools I found useful while working on this:
proxy fiddler http technical debug wpad pac tool dhcp 2010 Jan 5, 1:47
The New Super Mario Bros. Wii is a great game. Its the fun of old school Mario with the addition of great graphics and the kind of multiplayer I've wanted for Mario since playing the original as a
child: its got up to four player simultaneous cooperative multiplayer. I recommend it to anyone who has enjoyed Mario in the past. Watch this amazing video of level 1-3 you can unlock in the game.
As noted elsewhere, multiple players attempting to navigate platforms, grab power ups, and throw turtle shells creates new
challenges but along with that there's new ways to be incredibly cheap.
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Jumping Higher
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A second player means a head one can jump on to reach higher locations. Jump on your friend's head at the apex of their jump while holding down the jump button yourself for maximum jumping. In
the game you can also grab other players and hold them over your head. This is useful for reaching the top of the flagpole at the end of levels. On that same line, if the player you grab has a
flying cap you can now use them to fly in the same manner you would use a flying block which makes it easy to get two players to the top of the finish flagpole if only one of you has a flying
cap.
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Power-Ups
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Normal power-up blocks now spawn enough power-ups for everyone. A mushroom is spawned for each small player and full power-ups for the rest, except in the case everyone is small: then one of the
power-ups is a full power-up. If there's two players and you're both small, the full power-up always jumps out of the block to the right. Some hidden power-up blocks only give out one power-up
and in that case its a mushroom or not based on the player who hits the block - so be sure that a big player hits that if you have one.
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Death & Bubbles
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When a player dies but at least one other player lives the dead player comes back in a limbo bubble from which they must be released before they may play again. Because of this, in a tough spot
you can send one player in and leave a second behind. If the first dies you don't lose your place in the level and the first comes back in a bubble ready to try again. For instance, if you're
trying to get the last star coin in 2-1 which sits just above the abyss, one player can just jump to their death for it and as long as another player lives you've collected the coin. However you
need not sacrifice your life to do this: you can press down and 'a' to force yourself into a bubble saving yourself from death. This is true in general as long as you have enough time to see your
death coming. This is also useful if one player runs ahead to the right. The screen will expand a bit but then it will just move to the right following the player in the lead. Players left behind
walls or now forced into lava pits will die unless they use the bubble.
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Misc.
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- If all players hit the ground at the same time from a ground pound it acts like hitting a pow block, killing the enemies on the screen.
- If you hold a player who has a projectile power over your head they can still use their power.
- Bubbles can be popped by hitting them with your fire or ice projectiles as well as thrown shells or blocks.
- All players get the extra lives from anyone collecting 100 coins or finishing a level with more than 7 enemies on the screen.
multiplayer mario wii 2009 Dec 23, 10:02"These designs are reproductions of Eiffel's original designs included in his book "The 300 Meter Tower", Lemercier publications, Paris 1900."
design architecture blueprints france eiffel eiffel-tower retro visualization illustration 2009 Dec 16, 9:41"This sort of model should remind you of 1-piece click-out toys packaged with action figures such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Michael Johansson specializes in parodying this particular moment in
toydom by creating life-sized models with that molded-plastic “break-apart and play” action specifically in mind."
art sculpture design product commodity parody 2009 Nov 23, 11:47'Bill Gates is being taken on a guided tour of the product support department's new office building...Bill puts on a headset, sits down, and answers the phone. "Hello, this is Microsoft Product
Support, William speaking. How can I help you?"'
humor microsoft bill-gates raymond-chen support history 2009 Nov 20, 7:03Whiteboard paint. As in, turn a surface into a whiteboard by applying this paint.
product paint whiteboard wishlist 2009 Oct 15, 6:29Visualization of the fields created by RFID products
video rfid visualization 2009 Sep 25, 2:19
Irritatingly out of line with what their commercials say, in my area Comcast, under the covers of the national
broadcast digital switch, is sneaking in their own switch to digital, moving channels above 30 to their own digital format. Previously, I had Windows 7 Media Center running on a PC with a Hauppauge PVR500 which can decode two television signals at once setup to record shows I like. The XBox 360 works
great as a Media Center client letting me easily watch the recorded shows over my home network on my normal TV.
Unfortunately with Comcast's change, now one needs a cable box or a Comcast digital to analog converter in order to view their signal, but Comcast is offering up to two free converters for those
who'd like them. The second of my two free converters I hooked up to the Media Center PC and I got the IR Blaster that came with my Hauppauge out of the garage. I plugged in the USB IR Blaster to
my PC, connected one of the IR transmitters to the 1st port on the IR Blaster, and sat the IR transmitter next to the converter's IR receiver. I went through the Media Center TV setup again and
happily it was able to figure out how to correctly change the channel on the converter. So I can record now, however:
- I can only record one thing at a time now
- Changing the channel is slow taking many seconds (no flipping through channels for me)
- The Hauppauge card can't know if the channel change worked. So if it tries to change to HBO (I get it for free with one of the Comcast packages) which is encrypted and the converted won't show,
the channel doesn't change but the PC doesn't know it and ends up recording some other channel.
To fix (3) I need to manually go through and remove channels I don't have from the Media Center. To fix (1) I may be able to get a second IR transmitter, a third digital converter, hook it up to
one of the other inputs on my Hauppauge, and go back through the Media Center TV setup. There's no fix for (2) but that's not so bad. All in all, its just generally frustrating that they're breaking
my setup with no obvious benefit.
digital tv hauppauge mce cable windows media center comcast 2009 Sep 1, 4:57"Protect the wonderful convenience of RFID enabled cards with the Flipside Wallet." Looks like the Jimi but does RFID shielding and looks fat enough to hold US paper money folded once
vertically.
product wallet rfid 2009 Aug 12, 4:55"As a browser supplier, we want people to switch to the latest version of IE...", "Dropping support for IE6 is not an option because we committed to supporting the IE included with Windows for the
lifespan of the product.", followed by a large number of comments from irate webdevs who missed the point.
blog microsoft ie ie6 dean-hachamovitch technical 2009 Jul 6, 2:06"Considering the similarity of its ingredients, canned dog food could be a suitable and inexpensive substitute for pate or processed blended meat products such as Spam or liverwurst... Although 72%
of subjects ranked the dog food as the worst of the five samples in terms of taste... subjects were not better than random at correctly identifying the dog food."
humor science statistics food culture research study paper 2009 Jun 20, 9:45"When the scan button is pressed on the product, nothing happens. The scan button does not work correctly." The workarounds are all basically, "don't use that button then." They say their Vista
driver doesn't support sending the appropriate event. Lame.
vista hp scanner driver lame technical 2009 Jun 12, 9:02"Because linking to sources and resources is the key gesture to being a citizen of the Web and not just a product on the Web...If, on the other hand, you want to embrace the traits that make blogs,
Twitter, and so many other online communication tools a vital part of the daily life of your readers, your news site shouldn't feel like an endpoint in the conversation. It should feel like the
beginning."
via:sambrook journalism news internet web article link 2009 May 29, 2:50
I like the idea of QR codes, encoding URLs and placing them
on real world objects, but the QR codes themselves are kind of ugly. To make them less obvious I thought I could spray QR codes on to an object with an infrared reflective paint and shine infrared
light on the QR codes, since most cameras, for instance the camera in my G1 phone, pick up infrared that our eyes do not.
In my search for infrared paint I've found a seller of IR ink (via programming forum) and an Infrared Paint Recipe (via IR FAQ).
In looking for this paint I've found that it comes up a lot in relation to the military for things like paint markers that are visible at
night with proper equipment, and paint that absorbs IR light to make vehicles less obvious to night vision goggles. Even though the first
reflects infrared light and the second absorbs it websites end up refering to both as infrared paint which made it difficult to search.
Additionally I found links to some other geeky infrared projects:
ir paint technical ir infrared qr qr code 2009 Apr 7, 5:29"In response to the overwhelming demand for this made-up product, ThinkGeek has posted the following: ATTN Tauntaun Fanatics! Due to an overwhelming tsunami of requests from YOU THE PEOPLE, we have
decided to TRY and bring this to life."
humor starwars thinkgeek awesome 2009 Feb 14, 5:41"Now, you can simply add this link tag to specify your preferred version... and Google will understand that the duplicates all refer to the canonical URL:
http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish. Additional URL properties, like PageRank and related signals, are transferred as well."
via:mattb google link html url uri canonical canonicalization web 2009 Jan 19, 3:18"Perth street art production group Ololo approached the construction manager of an inner-city skyscraper when they heard he hated the grey walls of the recently built Condor Tower five-storey car
park. The three creative friends - Hurben, Shensing and Griv proposed a far more whimsical and creative solution to the bare walls, by allowing the group and their friends to embellish the interior
with street art-inspired murals."
graffiti streetart art cultural-disobediance
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