Final Puyo, game for N900

Its took time for me to update my game with final version, because mostly this time I was busy in reading books but as soon as I got time. I fixed performance problem in game, implemented scoring system and done some minor modification.

Performance problem was kind on ignorance from my side than actually a problem. I was drawing a large image in small area every now and than. So most time was going in to scaling image to make it fit to draw in small area. I reduced my image size to draw area and from then onwards game is running smooth on N900.
 
Here is link to debian file,for you to try on you N900.Please make sure that you have qt 4.6 installed before installing this debian package. I am also planning to ad this game on maemo extra devel repository, then onwards you will be able to download game from N900's application manager.

To play game shake phone left or right to move falling smilies accordingly. Goal is to arrange smiley of same color in horizontal,vertical or square of four to make them disappear.Game is vary simple and dose not support rotation of smiles and dose not change speed with time. Game will end smiley touch top of board.

Following are few snaps from new Puyo.

How to make 3D Glasses

I came across this video that shows how to create 3D glasses. Using this glasses we can view 3d videos on you tube. Its quite easy to create this glasses, using transparent plastic cover and blue and red marker we can easily create this glasses.




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Make 3D Picture Glasses Fast And Easy! - The top video clips of the week are here

Reaction game for N900 to measure brain's reaction time

While working on improving performance of Puyo game, to bring some freshness to my mind I thought to divert my attention to some other activity, so I thought to create another simple game that helps to measure and  improve brain's reaction time.

Game will show you a blue rectangle at random place and you have to touch that rectangle within some time limit. If you manage to touch it than it increase your point. More  points mean better reaction time. If you get points more than 55 than it mean you have awesome reaction time.

If you want to download game and try it on your N900 then here is link.

Here are snaps from game.

New improved Puyo on Gitorious

I have updated Puyo game with nice look and feel. I have also added small animation effect using simple timer technique. Corrected few bugs and implemented new features and improved motion sensing code.

Here are few snaps from improved Puyo.

I have not uploaded new debian package here because I still want to change code to improve performance and also want to add scoring system for game.
 
But I have created repository for puyo game on Gitorious, so every body can view puyo game code. have a look. Following is link to puyo project.

http://gitorious.org/kunaltest/puyo

Nokia Symbian^3 User Interface Demo

This is how new Symbian UI will look for upcoming device. Check out demo for Nokia Symbian 3 UI.

Logitech Touch mouse for iPod touch and iPhone

Today I was playing with my iPod touch and thought to try out some free application from Apple App store. while i was browsing through App store one application caught my attention. Its name is Touch Mouse, application is from Logitech. What it does is , its convert your iPod touch or iPhone into mouse pad, experience is kind of mouse pad that comes with MAC laptop.

You have to install client application on your iPod and then need to install server application on PC or MAC (no Linux support :( ). Once you installed both application, client application will connect to sever application over wifi network and then you can use you iPod as mouse and in addition is also work as keyboard as well.

I tried it with my XP installation over VMWare and on XP it works like charm. I tried to install this application on my Ubuntu machine using wine. On wine mouse movement works fine but its not able to detect button press.

If you decide to try this out here is link.

GoogleTransit from Google maps - new free service

Google Maps launches new free service called GoogleTransit that shows information about the routes and the timings of public transport available in the cities.

For example in New Delhi Google Transit not only provide a map of the Delhi Metro route but also gives the information on timings, station locations, frequency of service, time taken for travel and even ticket fares. Thought this service is not available in Bangalore yet.

Struggling with Grub-rescue

I am having two hard disk on my desktop, so just for fun I tried to install newer version of Ubuntu (Ubuntu 10.04 LTS: The Lucid Lynx) on another hard disk and wanted to dual boot.

During installation I don't know what goes wrong but i corrupted my original boot entry and after installation i was not able to see my original Ubuntu installation on  boot entry. And to my horror i was seeing strange grub-rescue prompt.

I thought I lost my previous installation and I will not able to use my new installation as well. but then after searching a while I found following commands using which I was able to boot into my both installation.

If you encounter this prompt then don't panic there are plenty of way out. I just figured out one way. Not a permanent solution but will work till I found permanent solution.

Type "ls" command on "grub rescue" prompt, it will display available partition on and available hard disk on machine.

It will show something like following

grub rescue> ls
(hd0) (hd0,1) (hd0,2) (hd0,3)

"Set" command will show you current boot entry, something like following

grub rescue> set
prefix=(hd0,1)/boot/grub
root=hd0,1
To see content inside partition, give following command.



grub rescue> ls (hd0,1)/
./ ../ lost+found/ boot/ sources/ /scripts/ /tools/ /dev proc/ sys/ bin/ etc/
home/ lib/ mnt/ opt/ media/ sbin/ srv/ var/ root/ tmp/ usr/ antarix/ README log/
So this way you can be sure if you have lost any data or not. I my case everything was fine.
So now I wanted to boot into my  installation on hd0. For that i used "insmod" command.
insmod /boot/grub/normal.mod
It will load grub module in to normal mod, you can press tab twice to see list of available option or type help.
And after  grub loaded in to normal mode I used "normal" command and my older installation of Ubuntu started to boot.

Turn N900 to WiFi hotspot using JoikuSpot

Joiku has release beta version of JoikuSpot for linux and maemo platform. By using JoikuSpot you can turn your N900 to WiFi hotspot and can share your 3G connection or Gprs connection with other device like iPod, Laptop or other mobile phone.

I  tried to install this on my N900. Initially I had some problem downloading software to my device but after installation it worked awesome. Configuration is quite easy, you can start using it just after installation with default option. Or if you prefer to configure security , implement NAT option or choose IP range , it allows you to change those parameter as well.

If you want to try it out download it from here.

Here are snaps of JoikuSpot working on my N900. 

Puyo game for N900, created using Qt

I have created simple game named Puyo for N900 using Qt, its kind of Tatris game. It use N900's accelerometer to move smiles left or right and smiles will disappear if three or more smilies with same color appear in row or column.

Here are screenshots of my little game. Its still under development and might have some bugs. If you want to try this game, I am attaching debian installer and also instruction for installation.

Download debian package from here. This package depends on Maemo Qt Extra Library , so you need to install Qt extra library as well. Find instruction here to install Maemo Qt Extra library.

You will also need root access to install this debian packge. If you don't have root access to device, Install rootsh script from application manager that will help you to get root access.

Taking screenshot of Screen on N900

I have created one application on my N900 and wanted to take screen shot of that application while it is running on N900. I tried to search such application on application manager but was not able to find such application. So i tried to Google for this and after searching while I found that N900 already have screen capture utility installed and to capture screen there is special key combination. Key combination is CTRL + SHIFT + P.  By pressing this key combination this utility will capture screen and save image in /Images/Screenshots  folder.

Here is my sample screenshot.

Changing image color using GIMP image editor

I was creating some Qt application and i needed some cool graphics. I searched internet and found one cool image but i needed that image in four color. I tried to search more but was not able to find that image in other color. So i decided to change color of image that found.

I used GIMP image editor installed on Ubuntu 9.10 64 bit machine.

I used following image and wanted another such image with red color.

Here are the steps for changing color using GIMP.

1) Open image in GIMP tool. 

2) Select Hue-saturation option from color menu ( color-> Hue-saturation )

 It will show pop-up menu like following.

3) Choose primary color that you want to change. I choose the green color here.

4) Now try to change Hue value. It will change image color. Set Hue value  to set your chosen color. Here is my result.

5) In image there is yellow color as well, to change yellow color to red, i selected yellow color as primary color and adjusted Hue to change color to red. Here is my result after that.

So this was it, I manged to change color of my image from green to red.

Free book on Qt C++ and design pattern

I found this free online book which provide very good overview of design pattern and is very good source of learning Qt and C++.

here is link Introduction to Design Patterns in C++ with Qt4.