SingAlong

Mar 25

Rubygems path bug with Ruby 1.9.0

If you ever encounter an error like the one below, it's because

gem_prelude.rb:114:in `push_gem_version_on_load_path': undefined method `<=>' for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)
        from gem_prelude.rb:8:in `gem'
        from /usr/bin/haml:18:in `<main>'

It's some bug. So do this to solve it. Preferbly add it to your .profile

export GEM_HOME=/usr/lib/ruby1.9/gems/1.9.0

export GEM_PATH=$GEM_HOME:/home/singalong/.gem/ruby/1.9.0

When you use ruby 1.8, unset both GEM_HOME and GEM_PATH

Filed under // bug ruby rubygems

Comments [1]

Mar 21

Assassin's Creed 2 PC fixes and solutions for errors/freezes/crashes

I bought Assassin's Creed 2 (PC) last week and experienced a lot of freezes and crashes. No errors though. I have set all my graphics settings to low to play the game since i have a really poor-performing graphics card (8400 GS). I haven't experienced the effects of the Ubisoft servers being down, etc. It just works smoothly. So I'm going to bother about the anti-DRM stuff. Being a programmer, I know it's one way of ensuring that piracy of your software stops. I support it, unless Ubisoft has good servers to keep the gaming experience of it's paying customers smooth. Besides their FAQs state that when they plan to shutdown or stop maintaining the game servers, they'll release a patch to ensure that the users can play the game without the servers :) That's sweet enough.

#1 Game doesn't start/launch after logging in and syncing with online servers

It happens when the Ubisoft launcher is corrupted due to an update or when the saved games are corrupted. Try the below solutions in the same order.

Corrupted launcher: I found this solution on the Ubisoft forums. A few people claimed that it worked for them. Open version.txt in the UbiSoft Game Launcher dir and check the version number. If it's 0115 lower it down to 0109 and then start the game. The launcher should begin updating again and start the game. If it doesn't it means that the saved games are corrupt.

Corrupted saves: Accidentally found this solution after I got fed up waiting for a business day for Ubisoft Support to reply (come one I need my weekend gaming session). Beware of this trick - you'll have to start playing from scratch. In the Ubisoft Game Launcher dir find a dir called storage and with in that find a dir that has an awkward name like yjdsfjksdf (ya some rubbish). And within that you should be able to find another dir that's labeled by a number. This dir contains the saved games. (1.save, 2.save etc). Just delete those saved game files and it should work the next time you start. This is where saving onine comes in handy :) If you aren't saving online like me, just make sure you are constantly backing up the save files so that when it gets corrupted so that you can play it again from one of your recent checkpoints where you backed up instead of starting from scratch.

A little geeky tip... I use Git to backup my saved games. There's a version for Windows called msysgit. Somehow I found a non-code purpose reason to use Git. Haha :)

#2 Freeze during conversation with Uberto and Giovanni (after delivering the first mail)

It happens because the frame rate gets really low and your graphics card isn't able to take the load. I found a solution to this by mere accident (yes... again). Constantly press alt+tab and ctrl+esc until you get to the desktop (note that you are not closing the game, just minimizing it). When this is done it takes some load off your GPU. Get back to the game again. Rinse and repeat this trick whenever you encounter a freeze during the conversation. It happened around 3 times for me. Also make sure you don't delay minimizing the window :) else you'll end up crashing the game and restarting from the previous checkpoint :)

#3 Freeze after receiving hidden blade from Leonardo

It's not a freeze, press 'Q' first instead of '2'. You should hear the royal sound of your hidden blade :)

P.S: There's one crash which I'm not able to figure out how to fix. The scene when Lucy tests Desmond for Ezio's abilities crashes. It's happened around 30 times now. Stupid!

Filed under // Assassin's Creed 2 games

Comments [5]

Mar 1

OpenGL on Android gives me the creeps

I was following the Hello Android ebook and it was creepy tough to even get a basic black screen in your app using OpenGL ES on Android. I don't know how I can handle such tough stuff even for a basic setup coming from a web dev background. Seems like I've gotten to rails a lot :P

At the end of the example in the book I remembered nothing except the fact that I had typed 3 files of Java code to see a black screen. Why not an easier scripting language like Python or Lua or Ruby for Android app dev. Google had to choose this stupid-low and essay-type Java eh?

Filed under // android opengl

Comments [0]

Oct 11

A chat conversation on #startups

I just read this thread http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=874399 and I could relate myself very much to it. I immediately got on the #startups channel and here's the conversation that happened there.

<SingAlong>	I would upvote this thread http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=874399 very much
<SingAlong>	lots of similarities to what has happened to me.
<wheels>	SingAlong: for what it's worth, I've noticed as I've gotten older that the amount of time that I can focus on one project has gotten significantly longer.
<SingAlong>	wheels: There's just one thing that keeps me the way I am... trying new things, the fear of having to work at some body-shopping company instead of being an entrepreneur.
<wheels>	I think I was about 24 before the first time the thought of starting a company even crossed my head.
<swombat>	as long as that's something heavy on your mind, the chances that you will end up there are pretty slim
<swombat>	27 here
<swombat>	well, i did think about it at uni, but a one-off attempt, not renewed until 27
<SingAlong>	wheels: that fear has eaten me up too much. Every day I get older I feel i'm losing my egde, the edge that i'm young enough to learn more and faster.
* raz	launched his first "startup" at 16 :)
<wheels>	SingAlong: that's silly.
<wheels>	raz: Well, I'm not counting my summer lawn mowing business. ;-)
<swombat>	SingAlong: that is silly
<raz>	wheels, it was a webcounter service (you know, those fancy gif's that were the rage in 1999)
<SingAlong>	wheels: i dunno. but i feel some what retarded when I think I have been trying since 14
<swombat>	most human males are pretty retarded around 14
<swombat>	so you're no exception
<SingAlong>	raz: ya I would be calling everything I do a startup if I had not read those dozen "whats a startup?" threads
<raz>	fond memories of how the shared host guy shouted at me over the phone as my highly efficient perl cgi melted his host xD
<swombat>	SingAlong: what you'll probably find is that as you get older, your ability to do stuff expand exponentially. So actually you'll have even more of an edge 10 years from now than you do today
<swombat>	*expands
<swombat>	the fact that you've already been going for 5 years today is huge
<SingAlong>	swombat: woobius is your first?
<wheels>	I think for me it was that earlier on in my life I was more into sampling a lot of things. That's true still, but the rate has slowed.
<swombat>	in 10 years, you'll run circles around people like me and wheels
<swombat>	SingAlong: second, though i also pitched something to a chemical company while i was at uni
<raz>	swombat, not hard to run circles around people in wheelchairs :P
<SingAlong>	swombat: chemical company? what were you trying to make?
<swombat>	an auction site to help them deal with their spot sales
<wheels>	methlab
<SingAlong>	swombat: how was the reception?
<swombat>	the ILOVEYOU virus hit on the day we demoed. All the networks were down during the meeting. Couldn't demo. My partner gave a great presentation about how b2b was going to change the world and was so awesome, and spent about half a slide on what problem we were trying to solve for them.
<swombat>	in hindsight, a great lesson.

UPDATE: I found another thread on HN on a similar topic. The suggestions/advice on this thread http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=838640 are good too. I haven't found the time to read any of these two threads in detail. I just skimmed thru these. I'll post and link to specific comments from those discussion threads in a later blog post.