~Dos à la nuit

(4/12/15 - freestyle exercise)

    Eslin se redresse. Les larges pans rouge, beige et chocolat de son manteau luxueux glissent et claquent dans le vent. Entre ses mèches bouclées agitées comme d'une aura propre, son regard était plus perçant que jamais. Comme d'habitude, elle détourne les yeux presque aussitôt, mais suffisamment lentement pour que je me sente tout de même troublé. Par sagesse ou par idiotie, j'opte pour le silence. Le croassement aigu affreux des grosses mouettes grises vint le combler piètrement. On n'entendait plus rien du coté du Roc mais le bon aubergiste donnait de la lyre dans son arrière cuisine. J'inspirai et retint de justesse un soupir.
    Elle reporte son attention sur moi sans vraiment parvenir à fixer son regard. Regard gris égaré sur ciel bleu si froid. Les derniers rayons du soleil seuls paraient sa coiffure défaite de fils d'un beige étincelant.
    "En vérité mon père, je pense que l'intelligence n'est pas en option. Elle est plus nécessaire que l'eau pour la fleur."

(prompt:
"La foi est toujours, selon le mot du père Cardonnel une protestation, une insurrection.
Je ne veux pas, disait JC, Eslin, me laisser entrainer ni en moi, ni à propos des autres, par les forces nocturnes qui découragent de tenter tout autre pas... Je crois que nous avons tous besoin d'être aimés pour croître et grandir ; que l'amitié et l'intelligence nous sont plus nécessaires que l'eau pour la fleur et le pain pour l'enfant.")

[French] EVE Online Flash-Fan-Fic II

et maintenant... la photo de nos deux protagonistes :

Lady Asa Kavees - Pilot License no 94222522

Jan Torvald - Pilot License no 95825851

***

Lady Asa Kavees écrasait méthodiquement les feuilles de thé au fond de sa tasse en céramique. Elle était préoccupée. Jan Torvald était un poulain prometteur, mais Lady Kavees ne se faisait pas d'illusion sur sa loyauté. L'arrogante jeune fille lui causerait du tord à la première occasion.
        Elle eut un soupir de lassitude contrastant avec son apparente jeunesse. Elle repêcha les feuilles qui faisaient grise mine au fond de sa tasse.
        Pour se vider l'esprit, elle écarta son plateau à thé et répandit les feuilles sur la table. Puis elle leva théière et fit couler un peu de thé amer sur les débris. Les feuilles malmenées reprirent un peu de volume Lady Kavees les étala du bout des doigts en entonnant une grave mélopée. Cela la détendait toujours de pratiquer un peu.
        Il était regrettable qu'elle aie moins de temps à consacrer à la bonne aventure en ce moment. C'était le prix à payer pour une affaire juteuse.

Une heure plus tard, elle se leva raidement, jeta les feuilles de thé usagées et sortit. Après le calme et la lumière tamisée de son salon, l'éclairage vif et l'animation de la rue l'étourdirent. Elle n'avait même pas encore eu le temps de déployer son auvent, avec la visite de cette peste si tôt...

    "Marcus, dit-elle à l'interface numérique de son échope, si la marquise venait à se présenter en mon absence, fait-lui bon accueil. Malheureusement, le marché aux épices n'attend pas !"

Sans attendre de réponse, elle s'éloigna d'un pas assuré en direction des ascenseurs.
        Cela faisait suffisamment longtemps qu'elle travaillait son allure faussement aristocratique pour que le beau monde n'y voie que du feu dans les galeries supérieures de la station orbitale d'Oris. Une planète que d'aucun appelaient également Amarr VIII, située au centre trépidant de l'empire.

***

à suivre...

[French] EVE Online Flash-Fan-Fic I

desolee pour les accents... j'espere que ca gene pas trop, je les mettrai dans les suivants.

***

Jan sortit du salon de Lady Kavees avec une absence d'empressement etudiee. L'affaire etait dans la poche, avec son avenir radieux autant que glorieux, elle n'avait plus qu'a entretenir son image et repondre a ses promesses periodiquement. Quelle satisfaction que Mme Kavees, son premier choix, se soit revelee le pigeon ideal !

        La jeune Amarr fronca le nez en appuyant cette pensee. Son plan necessitait une bonne poire, et si elle reussissait la femme s'en sortirai bien elle aussi, voila tout. Elle n'avait rien d'une dame noble de toute maniere, malgre ses manieres travaillees. Pas de raison de se sentir coupable.

Jan etait issue de la haute aristocratie. Ce qu'elle avait toujours juge primordial sur la richesse. Car en dehors de la maison familliale et de ses meubles, sa branche de la dynastie Amarr ne possedait plus rien depuis longtemps.

        Malheureusement, ils n'etaient pas les seuls. Beaucoup, avec le fletrissement progressif de l'empire face aux democraties intersolaires, en etaient venus a s'habituer a une oisivete doree, allant de salon en salon, seulement c'etaient des salons que ne frequentaient que ce genre d'aristocrate dechu. Ils ne pouvaient donc pas compter sur leurs pairs pour les aider a equilibrer la balance.

Son pere, le Marquis et Prefet de l'Empire Lord Brulia, avait investi plusieurs meubles et bijoux --qui commencaient a se faire rares dans la maison-- afin de lui payer la meilleure education possible. Il se trouvait que c'etait egalement la plus redoutable. Combats spaciaux, politique, industrie, manipulation, tout cela nourrissait sa personalite brulante et ambitieuse. Ainsi il etait ecrit que Lady Janne Torva Brulia etait celle qui reconquerirait l'honeur de sa famille.

Pour ce faire, elle venait de se vendre en tant que contracteur aupres de "Lady" Kavees. Elle etait desormais et jusqu'a ce qu'elle ai les moyens de passer a l'etape superieure Miss Jan Torvald, pilote a tout faire. Sa premiere entreprise concernait... le minage d'asteroides. Avec elle dans le role du mineur. Il faudra simplement s’assurer que personne n'entende jamais parler de cette histoire.

        Consciencieusement.

Janne Torva Brulia savait parfaitement ce qu'elle avait a faire pour atteindre ses fins. Et elle n'allait certainement pas reculer de peur de se salir les mains passagerement.

***

a suivre....

[QUICK REVIEW] Christopher Priest's The Inverted World: An edited draft rather than a book

This is the (french) edition I read

 

★☆☆☆☆ - Disastrous

Numbers! (gotta love them)

  ♣  370 pages
  ♤  5 parts : 2 long ones (>2/3 of the book), and 3 short ones. Oddly enough, in the last one we follow another character than the one followed in the first 4. Yes, I agree, WTF happened with the cutting up?
  ♥  Also, chapters lenght range between 3 pages (overly short) and 10 pages (which remains short)
  ♢  About 90K words in total

My most definitive opinion

90K seems short for a SF novel, but we've seen shorter and very good, from M. Dick for example. However this one has everything wrong, except for the intriguing concept. It makes for a mystery aura all throughout the book, but that is never dissipated. Except maybe --maybe!-- if you love maths. I personally couldn't visualize what the obscure explanations described. Even when the author is not using maths formulas to describe the world, it is awkward and impenetrable.

        And it's the same for the rest: inelegant. Like a polished first draft. Readable, but a draft. Please, don't read it EXCEPT if you're a mathematician interested in weird universe topology. In that case, it might actually prove itself quite likable.

What did we learn?!

This novel opened my eyes on the major importance of good screenplay, hence planed coincidences. Without it, any story, even with a great concept, looses depth and ends up with flat characters, boring action, and a frustrated reader.

        Today's conclusion: Shit needs to happen. Fast! Why wait? Your reader doesn't want to wait. The best TV show are those in which Murphy's law is best represented --id est when shit happens all the time... Like in M. Selfridge! Gotta love that show.

That's it guys! I hope to see you next time for a review of Jaworski's Winning The War, which is awesome... for now! (hopefully soon enough, as it's over 900 pages)
Cheers!

June 29th - English excerpt

R - How did you get this job ?
C - What job ?
- The archeology vamp.
- It's not a job. It's just something I do. (as she remain silent:) They said as I'm here, I could make myself useful. And I saw no reason to say no.
- ...well I think you're the first and only free man I've ever met.
- I don't think I'm so special.
- You don't know humans, Colvert. You don't know what you're talking about --she added, laughing. You know what, I'd never thought I'd say this one day, but that's kinda cute.
And he never thought it was possible, but her smile then warmed his heart more than anything he'd known before. That was before she added:
- Hey, you're still a dick, don't get so high about yourself.
- I'm not getting high about myself.
- ...and stop answering like a fucking automated voicemail.
- ...right.

Co-écriture : "Aymie et l'Ogre" - Le début de la suite

AYMIE ET L’OGRE

UNE NOUVELLE DE PAULINA STRANGE ET THE ROB

AVEC : AYMIE CHARKSTONE ET MORPEUG L’OGRE

DANS LEURS PROPRES RÔLES 

- Partie ii -

(Première partie ici)

Le garçon se pétrifia, puis leva lentement les yeux, la bouche grande ouverte.

« Euuuh… bégaya-t-il. V… vous êtes le… propriétaire du véhicule ? »

« Et pis ? »

    Il y avait quelque chose de terriblement menaçant dans ces deux mots, prononcés sur un ton caverneux.

    Aymie était pétrifié. L'individu le toisait de toute sa hauteur (au mois deux fois sa taille).

« T'as un problème, minus ? »

    Le garçon détacha son regard d'une boucle de ceinture prête à craquer sous le poids de son ventre proéminent pour lever les yeux vers le visage de l'individu.

    Sur celui-ci s'étalait une large bouche féroce, dont le rictus dévoilait deux rangées de dents acérées autant que jaunies. Deux points noirs d'encre le dévisageaient alors qu'un souffle puissant sortait de son nez porcin. L'ogre (car c’en était visiblement un) dégageait une odeur nauséabonde, à moins qu'il ne s'agisse simplement de l'odeur habituelle des bas-fonds de Kartacsie. Il tenait dans une immense main droite une chope de bière qu'il vida d'une gorgée avant de toiser à nouveau Aymie.

« Euh... votre carriole est en infraction... Votre procès verbal s'élève à un million de piensetans et euh... — Aymie fit mine de vérifier ce qu'il avait inscrit sur son carnet — emprisonnement à perpétuité. Vous souhaitez régler en espèces ou en quatre fois avec 15% de frais ? » ajouta-t-il d'une petite voix étranglée.

    L'ogre jeta sa choppe par dessus son épaule et abattit sa main sur l'épaule du garçon. On entendit un bruit de verre brisé lorsque la chope alla s'encastrer dans l'unique fenêtre de la taverne dont il venait de sortir et d'où s'éleva une flopée de jurons et de « Ouah l'autre !* » outrés. Aymie se raidit et ferma les yeux, persuadé que sa dernière heure était venue.

    Quelques secondes passèrent.

    Trouvant la fin longue à arriver, Aymie se risqua à entrouvrir prudemment les paupières, pour découvrir de grosses larmes rouler sur les joues verdâtres de l'ogre. Bientôt, il éclata carrément en sanglots, sous les yeux éberlués du garçon.

    L'ogre paraissait soudain inconsolable, si bien qu'il sembla de mise de lui demander ce qui l'accablait tant.

« Ah mon p'tit gars, les temps sont rudes ! Ah, ça oui ils sont rudes... Son propos se perdit en un grommellement indistinct.

– Je dois prendre ça pour un règlement en quatre fois ? Tenta Aymie.

– T'as pas bien compris, mon p'tit gars. Enfin, t'as l'air d'un type bien, toi ! Viens là, je vais te raconter mon histoire... »

    Et sans attendre de réponse, il souleva Aymie de terre et l'embarqua à l'avant de sa carriole qu'il remit en route d'un grand coup de rênes. Aymie voulu protester d'un « Ouah l'autre ! », mais le bringuebalement de la carriole lui souleva le cœur.

« Ecoute, j'vais pas pouvoir payer. Y fut un temps, p't'êt', mais on m'a escroqué ! Maint'nant c'est la ruine... — Soupir — Tu t'rends compte ? S'exclama-t-il en donnant un grand coup de rêne, provoquant une secousse encore plus brusque que les autres, risquant de faire valser Aymie par dessus bord et d'embarquer un réverbère au passage.

« J'voulais me ranger. Pis y'a ce type qu'a proposé un business de cactus... Rigole pas, vu comme on se les arrachait à prix d'or la saison dernière quand c'était particulièrement à la mode, ça semblait un bon plan. Une affaire qui marche, et tranquille qu'y disait ! Tu parles ! Ca pousse pas ces cochonneries ! Ma femme m'avait bien dit que le sable d'ici, c'était pas Desertika... Avant, ma femme, elle tenait un bordel. C'tait une femme d'affaire respectable, tu vois ! »

    L'ogre étouffa un sanglot.

« C'est fini les p'tites tenues ! Y m'reste plus qu'ces maudits cactus qui poussent pas... Moi j'te l'dis, du temps du Chevalier de l'Apocalypse, ça s'rait jamais arrivé... Jamais ! »

    Aymie sursauta en entendant prononcer son ancien patronyme de chef de gang. Il regarda l'ogre plus attentivement et, malgré sa barbe crasseuse, reconnu un de ses anciens associés

« Morpeug ? »

    L'ogre arrêta violemment la carriole, emportant cette fois pour de bon un réverbère dans la manœuvre  Il regarda son passager comme s'il le voyait pour la première fois.
« C'est moi... Le Chevalier de l'Apocalypse... Repris Aymie pour combler le silence qui s'ensuivit.– La vache ! s'écria l'ogre, sous le choc. Je t'avais pas reconnu sans le manteau clouté ! Pis c'est quoi cette tignasse ridicule ? »

(à suivre)

* [NdT : « Ouah l'autre », expression favorite des ivrognes et des mendiants de Kartacsie, le plus souvent utilisée pour exprimer son mécontentement]

Hits PlayJam 3 - Game Jam by Le Monde

#hitsplayjam

As mentioned before, this weekend was taking place the Hits PlayJam 2013, third edition, organised by the french newspaper Le Monde!

(presentation of the event: http://playtime.blog.lemonde.fr/hits-playtime-3-continue/ (french))

This event is actually part of a bigger one, the Hit Playtime, that lasts for a month if I am not mistaking, and in which I wasn't part (but very interesting games were produced that you should check out!)

I was participating in this event together with a wonderful dreamteam: my friends Bobo (@Bobo_oh) and Mouf (@SuperMouf) and my love Glennie (@ORPH4NUS).

Great event, great people... great everything

It was overall hilarious and went extremely well. But let me tell that story from the beginning... *grin*

I don't have many pictures yet, and I hope I will have some more in the coming days to fill this article with the same joy that we had at the actual event!

The event was dematerialized, which means we could work on it anywhere we wanted (and also that it was completely free). We chose to set up our base camp at the NEF, a paper RPG event that was taking place at the same time in my school (http://la-nef.net/ (french))

As you can guess, the atmosphere was very festive, and the place full of more or less weird people, all of them being absolutely nice. 

There was also a video game room, and somebody even surprised me with the Starcraft 2 board game -that looks absolutely terrific but sadly I had no time for it...

Each team needed to produce content to feed the WIP page on Le Monde's website and their tweet feed where we could discuss quite easily with other jammers. Each team also needed a logo: our team, the great Salmons&&Robots had a pixellated mechanical salmon I drew, but this is an other story (which is told here)

That one, remember?

Then we got the theme. It is this video, that I encourage you to watch: http://youtu.be/BPQChOLC3c8

We personally all felt dizzy after looking at just a few minutes... No need to tell you how hard it felt in the beginning to get started... But at least it wasn't like in these game jams where the theme is so open that you have too many ideas you can't choose between. Afterwards, I'd definitely say that this has been very interesting and reflective.

Furthermore this video turns out to be a major brick in the progress of special effects, as well as inspiring a lot of people. The director, Zbigniew Rybczyński eventually won an Oscar for it.

Guys, I think I grasp something here!

The rest is just regular jamming... Throwing in every direction random ideas... Discussing the darkest game mechanics... Hot drinks! Having all king of annoying technical issues... Rethinking the game entirely... and more hot drinks. In one word, it was as fabulous as a good game jam spent with friends in an awesome event.

"We're beta-testin' yo!" -with an anonymous tester

My favorite things

• The theme was terribly harsh, but the game concepts that we took out of it are really interesting and original. It was also awesome to be able to put salmons and robots in there x)
• Saturday night went we were already kinda tired and Boris started to play electronic accordion on his sythe and we couldn't stop laughing. He was so close from being a travelling entertainer...
• Totally not related, but that dragon plush that the people from the bar were carrying around on their shoulder was so cool!
• Although it would maybe be even nicer with an additional IRC chat in this situation, the well organized twitter feed that allowed us to stay tuned with what the others were producing was very neat. We never felt like we were on our own, it's like the whole community was bragging in our browser all along :P 

*** CONCLUSION ***

For more information about The Salmon Factory, the 2-players tablet game that we are currently finishing up, please stay tuned with twitter, or our Pinterest board that you can find here: http://pinterest.com/adelievanneste/the-salmon-factory/

We are going for a polished product that we will release on the Play Store... eventually soon ;)

I will also be publishing a separate article about that game, our game design process, and my first experience as an artist!

LaTeX ** ERROR ** Log file not found! on Texmaker

Sad!

You may have crossed this error message when trying to compile and preview a new document for the first time. Don't panic! It's simple.

The log file is a file that goes along every LaTeX file. It is automatically generated and specific to a file.
It gives information about what the document is and how to process it, like for example the name and version number of the compiler to use.


What's most likely happening here is that there is a problem while trying to compile because without an indication from a specific log file, neither your system nor Texmaker know what to do with the file or where the compiler is...

-> Either because you just don't have a LaTeX compiler installed
Texmaker is just a (very good) LaTeX editor, it does not come with an engine to create actual pdf... If you didn't install anything else than Texmaker, you are therefore missing a LaTeX distribution.
In that case I recommend MikTeX if you are running Windows (miktex.org/), or Live TeX if you run an UNIX system (www.tug.org/texlive/)

-> Or because you didn't add it's path to your environment variables
This you should do in either case. Just add this path to your environment variables:
     [location of your miktex folder]\MiKTeX 2.9\miktex\bin
This step is required to use the builtin functionality of your LaTeX editor to create a new file from an other existing LaTeX file, or to create a new file by copying an other manually. Just because the log file is intimately specific to its LaTeX file ;)

Hope that helps ;)

--
FAQ
LaTeX?
http://latex-project.org/intro.html

What is Texmaker?
My favorite LaTeX editor, check it out at http://www.xm1math.net/texmaker/
It is free and easy to use!

Where to get help?
http://tex.stackexchange.com/ is THE place.

--
More information
on the topic:
http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/63999/texmaker-windows-version-first-use-error-log-file-not-found
on the log file:
http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/32213/understanding-the-log-file

A mechanical salmon as a symbol

Hello world!

It's been a while since the last time I did some pixel art... In the meanwhile I was concentrating on learning to use Unity and keep up with my schoolwork. However now ART is BACK (!) with the upcoming game jam organized by Le Monde (see http://playtime.blog.lemonde.fr/hits-playtime-3-continue/).
     I will be participating to this event together with my friends Boris (@Bobo_oh), Raymond (@SuperMouf), and my love, Glennie (@ORPH4NUS).

The story of the team and how we came up with its marvellous name is quite interesting... Raymond was the first to know about the event and immediately told Boris. They decided right away to make something for android, as we are all google fans around here.
     Then they eventually had an argument because Ray wanted to do something in 3D but Boris wanted to do something more oldschool, like, say, hardcoded in java and visually pixelated. They finally came up with the agreement that the game will be in pixelated 2D, at the price that there must be (a) salmon(s) in it. A pretty good deal if you ask me.
     Boris told me about the event and the salmon(s) during the next lesson. I was immediately integrating the team, as a coder and a pixel artist. Therefore I declared that if Raymond could have salmon(s) in the game project, well I wanted (a) robot(s)! If that's so, Boris also added a constraint: the game must end up fun but philosophical...
     A little while later, I told Glen about the game jam, and he decided to join the team as well. If he has to give any, he announced that his condition is "time"...


Why so many constraints before we even know the theme?

I actually don't think this kind of conditions are a restriction to imagination. I have two reasons:

•  First, they are not too precise. For example with the salmon thing, we can have just one salmon or a thousand, a salmon hero or just some random fish NPC in the background... In that case this is more of a suggestion that simulates imagination. It presents itself as a challenge: Can you integrate something that silly in your design and still make an awesome game out of it? Hell, yeah, I bet we can! Be prepared for something you never saw before ;p

•  Second, it gives everybody in the team a good hand on the end product. Maybe some of us are more imaginative than others, or some are better designers, or speak better... These little constraints give everybody the same great power to tell what is going to be in the game. Hence even if you didn't have that much inspiration on the moment or the other team members didn't adhere to your ideas, you can still be proud that the finished product integrates something you suggested!

After all these adventures, we eventually decided to marvellously name our team:

Salmons&&Robots

     The double '&' is there to reinforce the nerdiness of the entire team <3

Enough suspence, here are various stuff I created for our file:

Personalized avatars

Our team's avatar

   

Color study

Global Game Jam 2013 in Antwerp (Feedback)

Oookay! Before I forget everything about it, let's talk about this great experience i lived this weekend: the Global Game Jam 2013! (#GGJ2013)

The GGJ is happening all around the world at the same time, and I was myself in Antwerp, Belgium, to rock with my soulmate :D

Our game jam was organised by the game-making company GriN, who did an awesome job o/ We were around 70 and that's the coolest game jam I've participated in!

Note: Website of the game jam

1/ Cool people!

Find Boris

"This year was the biggest game jam we've made" say Wim Wouters, the CEO of GriN. It's not only about the number of people that were actually there, but also about the average skill and motivation of everybody.

There were a lot of pro, and I could even meet a teacher from DAE school, the famous Gamedev school in Belgium!

Anyway, I met a lot of cool people, and learned a lot. There was also people I begin to know well, like Boris Warembourg or Hannes Delbeke :-)

2/ Cool games!

You can check out the awesome games everybody made here!

Kingerdarten Killer Klub

Special mention for a few games that i like:
- The Living Game, a game that is evolving depending on how you like the auto-generated levels. I find the idea very cool, and also the old school 3/4 view sprites are awesome <3
- Ultimate Care Bear Love Rampage, which is just... wtf and epileptic-agressive. Another arcade game!
- Kindergarten Killer Klub, which team was full pro. A very well polished game with a fun concept and gameplay. The kind of game you would love to play online with your friends :)
- Flicker, an interesting game which plays with lights, made by these cool guys o/
- You Have One Minute To Save The World, as said, you have one minute to find and destroy the alien missile that will be launch in 1 minute to destroy the Earth... Intuitive gameplay!

3/ Cool tech!

During all weekend, there was cutting-edge devices in demonstration, like the IIID face scanner which makes a 3D model of your head when you stand inside for a few seconds. 

You can make crazy faces, print it with a 3D printer, and be proud of yourself

There was also homemade classy devices, like the 4-players coffee table (loved the design of the table (an old fashioned wooden table)) (video here), ooor the Winnitron!

THE Winnitron

It's a free Arcade that you can build yourself out of a computer and play cool games with! At least three of the game developed this weekend were playable on the Winnitron, including mine :D And it looks so good in its wooden cabin... Thanks Thomas and Hannes Deville for showing up this cool device!!!

Official website of Winnitron : http://winnitron.ca/

Website of Winnitron Belgium : http://www.winnitronbe.hannesdeville.be/

Video made during the game jam:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3gLDmCb7ias

4/ Cheerleaders!

Woohoo!

Oh did I mention? There were indeed cheerleaders giving a show in the middle of the game jam! And then they brought delicious muffins! It was really awesome and refreshing, nobody felt tired anymore after that :D  (And the muffins were really damn good) Thanks Wim!

[How to] Add your Twitter feed to your blog - Picture tutorial

Hello everyone!

As you may notice on the bottom right corner of the page, I added my Twitter feed to The rob Point ;-)
I spent quite a long time searching for a plugin, a lot of them didn't work for some reasons... Finally I discovered that I just had to use a plugin from my Twitter account, which is really easy to implement :D

So here you go, this is how we add a twitter feed to one's blog or website in three simple steps:
(note that this also works if you want to obtain the feed of a random other person on Twitter)


//1/ Create the widget in your Twitter account

To achieve that, just go to the "Edit profile" menu, and click on the "Widget" tab...

Then hit the "Create new" button!

//2/ Configuration

Enter the username of the person you want to follow the feed here, e.g. you if you want yours

If you want to add the widget to a banner or to the side of your page, I recommend you adjust its height. Note that the width is automatically adjusted

To suit your blog theme, it is a good idea to change the color of the links in the widget...

This step is a bit tricky if you're using a platform that adapt the url to the country of the reader (like me). In that case, you should put various urls like in the example, or the widget won't work in the excluded countries. I didn't found a better way to do it until now...

Don't forget to save. You will be able to edit these properties at anytime. ;-)

//3/ Add the widget to your blog or website!

This step varies depending on your editing interface. I'll show it in pictures for blogger, but i think the steps are almost the same on every platform ;-)

Click on the widget's html code below the preview panel to select it, and copy it

Create a blank widget in your blog administration panel

Note: If you use brute html to modify your blog model, you can always copy the code straight in your html file and it will work anyway

Add the html code from your Twitter widget in your blog's blank widget :-)

Note: You don't have to add a title, because the widget already includes one, so it will look weird...

                                                 

And there you go! :D

This widget can take any width, so if you want you can also easily use it on a dedicated page, or on top (or bottom) of your page as a banner. You'll just have to put in the correct height in Twitter.

Note that if you want to modify your widget, the only way to do it is via your twitter account. The html code is only to get the widget configuration from Twitter.

I hope these helps some of you!

And... a very happy new year 2013, to all of you! ;-)

Canarticho de Noël ! Christmas Farfetch’d! :D

Merry Christmas!

What a great period of the year... Family, presents, ...everything! (/me is gonna get a new screen, mouhahahah)

To celebrate, i modified my awesome Farfetch’d theme to make a Christmas version: (as you may have already noticed if you come on this blog regularly, which is improbable, so here you go:)

NOTE: Apparently blogger has an issue with theme modification, so you won't be able to see this theme on the blog until i manage to fix it manually :-( EDIT: Fixed

      Before:

Farfetch'd

     After:

Christmas Farfetch’d

I used this palette:                In addition to the original palette of Farfetch’d:       

                                                             

As you can see, I added a Santa hat and a Christmas ball, and i changed the colors of the vegetable so that it fits the new image & theme.

An obvious mistake in this picture is that the Christmas ball has too many colors. It has 5 colors tone of red, which is at least one unnecessary color, i'll say the border one. But i wanted to draw something fancy for this ball... On the contrary, the hat is clear : red 3 tones, b&w 2 tones + black.

Anyway, i hope you like it!! And don't hesitate to give feedback, as apparently my pixart skills need some improvement. ;-)

Cheers!


Complete image :

[ASM] How to use the windows API in NASM

Hellooow everybody! ;-)

Today I will give you a short guide on how to use windows API in ASM programming! (at least in programs compiled with NASM because this is the one I'm using and as I'm quite noob about the different versions of asm, I prefer not risk to tell wrong things) This is because I wanted to learn some asm stuff and make little programs on windows, and quickly realized that windows was too protected to use pure asm and that we need to use the windows C++ API, including console I/O.

What is the windows API?

It's a library of C++ functions. You have to use it if you want to make any program on windows. So that means you will have to call these functions in your asm code.

It's called kernel32.dll for 32bits systems, and normally it's in the path :-)

Here is the official documentation:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ff818516%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

Here is the documentation for console stuff:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms682087%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

How to call a windows API function in asm?

1) Don't forget the header!

You have to declare any function you want to use in your code by specifying them as external functions. Basically at this point all you have to do is to put a line like this in the begining of your file:

  extern    Function1Name, Function2Name, FunctionNName

example (console I/O):

  extern    ExitProcess, GetStdHandle, WriteConsoleA, ReadConsoleInputA

/!\ If you want to use any windows constant in the function calls, you also have to declare those.

For example for the GetStdHandle, these can come in handy :

  STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE    equ -11
  STD_INPUT_HANDLE     equ -10

But of course you can directly pass the constant value as an argument (if you wanna do it in the hardcore way :p) 

2) Function calls in asm

Function calls in asm aren't really more complicated than in any other language. You just have to pass the arguments the function needs and call the function's name.

In asm your pass the arguments by pushing them on top of the stack:

  push    arg

(more info about the stack: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_%28abstract_data_type%29)

/!\ Always remember that as the stack goes decreasing, (unlike a stack of papers) you have to pass the arguments in the reverse order:

  push    arg3

  push    arg2

  push    arg1

Once all the arguments are sent to the stack, you can call the function:

  call    function

Example: WriteConsole call

  push    NULL

  push    buffer_out

  push    msg.len

  push    msg

  push    dword[handleOut]

  call    WriteConsoleA

How to compile and link a program that uses win API functions? (using nasm and golink)

This is the easy part! Just open a console and eventually cd in the right directory.

To compile, type something like:

>> nasm -f win32 yourProgram.asm -o yourProgram.obj

and to link the library using golink:

>> GoLink.exe /console /entry starting_point_of_your_asm_program yourProgram.obj kernell32.dll

Or, you can do a makefile:

  yourProgram: yourProgram.obj

  GoLink.exe /console /entry starting_point_of_your_asm_program yourProgram.obj kernell32.dll

  yourProgram.obj: yourProgram.asm 

  nasm -f win32 yourProgram.asm -o yourProgram.obj

NB: 

If you don't already know GoLink, it's a linker, which means it's able to link your file with the libraries you want. (in this case the kernel32.dll file)

You can download it here: (direct download of last version)

http://www.godevtool.com/Golink.zip

Manual:

http://www.godevtool.com/GolinkHelp/GoLink.htm

NB2:

In order to use these commands, the source folders for nasm and GoLink.exe have to be in the path. So when you install them don't forget to add these at the end of the path variable. (right click on computer => advanced system parameters => environment variables... => find "path" in the system variables table, hit "modify" and add your new paths at the end, separated by a ';')

Working example: system("pause")

  STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE   equ -11

  STD_INPUT_HANDLE    equ -10
  NULL                equ 0  global start
  extern ExitProcess, GetStdHandle, WriteConsoleA, ReadConsoleInputA

  section .data    ;message we want to display on console
  msg                 db "Press a key to continue...", 13, 10, 0
  msg.len             equ $ - msg
  consoleInHandle     dd 1

  section .bss     ;buffers declaration
  buffer_out          resd 2
  buffer_in           resb 32

  section .text
    start:       ;starting point of our program
        push    STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE
        call    GetStdHandle   ;call to get a handle to the
        push    NULL           ;specified mode (input, output...)
        push    buffer_out
        push    msg.len
        push    msg
        push    eax            ;contains the GetStdHandle result
        call    WriteConsoleA  ;call to print our msg in console

    read:
        push    STD_INPUT_HANDLE
        call    GetStdHandle        ;new call to get input handle
        push    NULL
        push    1
        push    buffer_in
        push    eax
        call    ReadConsoleInputA   ;call to detect user input
                                    ;this function will wait til
    exit:                           ;it detects enough keypresses

        push    NULL                ;(in this case, 1)
        call    ExitProcess

Manual pages for the functions used in this code:

- ExitProcess

 http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms682658%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

- GetStdHandle

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms683231%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

- WriteConsole (A stands for ANSI version)

 http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms687401%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

- ReadConsoleInput (A stands for ANSI version)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms684961%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

I hope this helped some of you! See ya around and have fun coding ;-)

Additional source for this article:

This thread I posted on stackoverflow.com when I was having a hard time understanding all this: ;-p

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13571791/assembly-dealing-with-user-input-in-windows-nasm