Minecraft Archive 12w40a

Changelog below:

• Added Swamp Hut structures, for Witches to spawn in^[2]
• Added superflat preset "Redstone Ready" with a 52 layers of sandstone, 3 layers of stone, and 1 layer of bedrock
• Flatworld configuration now allows you to generate trees, strongholds etc
  • Now pumpkins, tall grass, flowers, trees, mineshafts, dungeons, strongholds, lakes, desert wells, ravines and ores will spawn on superflat maps^[3]
• Custom Item naming NBT tags (intended for custom map makers)^[4]
  • Using the NBT, it is possible to add custom names to items, as well as a lore list for that item
• Better inventory management
  • The pick block action now works on items
  • Pressing the 1-9 hotkeys while hovering over an item will put that item into the inventory bar
  • In creative mode, you can now shift-click items from the hotbar to the survival inventory screen
• The left-click action will no longer open doors, pull levers, push buttons or open trapdoors. Use the right mouse button!
• Firespread has been slightly nerfed again to prevent infinitely spreading fires
• Beacon Texture altered, as well as the beam.
• Eye of Ender can now be used in superflat worlds. (only if stronghold generation is enabled)
• Slimes now spawn in Swamp biomes at low light level.

Download (Mojang)

Download (Mediafire)

My GitHub Page

Octocat

Github, the social coding platform is a pretty cool website. The idea of the website is to make it much easier to have a open source life collaboration over the internet with complete strangers. It's free as long as you don't mind having the rest of the world able to look at what you put on there, though more often than not it's just individuals using it for their own projects version control.

The official mascot of the website is the "octocat" (pictured right).

The Github system is based on git (DUH) and is quite easy to learn and use, even for newbies. Here is a tutorial that I found useful.

Github hosts some really cool programs, they host the source code for the popular internet site reddit, they also host the up-coming Project Hawkthorne the side scroller game based on an episode of the NBC sitcom Community.

My Page

I have several side projects running at the current time, I have started work on a ALEKS competitor, as previously mentioned. I also am starting to download the source of projects hosted on others sites, like dwm over on suckless, and put them onto github. I'm doing this because I think that out of all the version control services git/github is the best (in my experience). The last thing that I am working on at the moment is a Box.com client for the Linux desktop. The idea behind this client is that instead of doing the traditional WebDavFS approach it would be written using only the offical Box.com APIS.

ALEKS Competitor

ALEKS Competitor

Today I started work on making a ALEKS competitor. Why? Because it needed to be done, they have ignored my complaints (and those of others) for too long, they need to know that we don't need them. This project that I have started on does not yet have a name, over on github I just used one of the randomly suggested names, that might end up being the name just for fun.

Features

So far I have made many features, the main site will be written in PHP and the questions and answers will be stored in XML format. The XML will be stored server side, and protected from the general public so that they can't just download the file and get all the anwsers. As of right now there are only 2 types of questions supported, multiple choice and fill in the blank, these can either be delivered all at once, 5 at a time or one by one, depending on how you write the delivery. There will eventually be a API, there sorta is one already taking shape for displaying the questions.

Planned Features

I plan to add everything that ALEKS has, all in good time right now I'm concentrating on the way that the questions will be written and delivered, the XML already has a format that for now serves it's purposes quite well.

There is no download but just cloning the repository into a php server directory with the php simplexml module installed and going to the "index.php" page should work about the same for you as it does for me.

[How-to] ALEKS on Ubuntu

Having to do ALEKS for my classes was one of the major hindrances that was stopping me from making the full switch to the (in my opinion) far superior GNU/Linux platform. But now I have found a solution to the problem, that is much better than their "streaming" option or the instructions that they have on their website for GNU/Linux, which still refer to netscape!

1. Install (if you haven't already) the appropriate java package for you GNU/Linux distribution. In my case I believe it was just the wrapper package "default-java"
2. Download the aleksPack10.jar 
3. Copy it (with sudo or root perms) to "/usr/lib/jvm/default-java/jre/lib/ext
4. Do your ALEKS!

 If this helped you and you are (understandably) mad about the ALEKS Corporation's lack of support please take the time to fill out a support ticket complaining about the lack of  GNU/Linux support that they offer you. I like to file the "technical problems" as it seems that they will get back to you sooner, even if it is only to say that it's not officially supported.



Comments, questions or suggestions? Leave them below!

Exclusive Cubby Invite

Well the title says it all, send me a email or leave a comment and I will send you an invite (only 5 available)

Cubby

From LogMeIn.com allows a dropbox like service with all of the same features except one, a Linux client which for me and many others makes it for the most part quite unusable. You can't even get to the website version of the service wihtout first logging in on the desktop one. Running the .exe under wine does not work either, there are problems with the way that it connects and authenticates to the cubby.com servers as far as I can tell. Since it's in beta there is no publicly available API for people to make their own clients like with Box.com.

Download Any Youtube Video

There are many online sites that claim to offer the same functionality as youtube-dl but many of them are currently broken either due to neglect or youtube has fixed the exploits that they are using.

youtube-dl

youtube-dl is a python based Youtube downloader. It's cross platform and all it requires is python 2.(x>6). After downloading the latest file you have to open a command line and there are many options for the program but you only have to paste the video url and it will download the file in the highest possible quality.

youtube-dl -t http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR7Fyn-KPck

In the case above the -t option will name the file using the page title, in this case it would be "More_Theatre_of_Life_Breaking_Bad_Spoiler-tR7Fyn-KPck.mp4". 

Questions? Comments? Leave them below! Would you want a GUI version? Here's one that I found.

Online Music Streaming Services

In this field I see that there are really 4 competitors,

1. Pandora
2. Spotify
3. Grooveshark
4. Last.fm 

There certiantly are more than that but the other notable ones are only by pay services and, well, I've never been one to pay for music, anyway anyhow. My personal favorite out of these is the Pandora service, I've been using it for quite a few years and has been quite good and the music never gets old for me. There are always new songs on the stations etc.

Pandora

My favorite, has a nice site, even though it still uses Adobe Flash (the horror!) for the music playing. Also has a free to use Android and iOS app which makes streaming away from the computer convient and easy. As far as desktop apps go Pandora has 'em beat when it comes to linux desktop clients. For linux there is Pithos, which supports most if not all of the main features of the website. In addition with pithos there are no ads! Like I usually say if you really do support what the company is doing than you should show them by buying their services.

Spotify

 Spotify, arrived in the US to much fanfare, but I like many others was disappointed by the requirement of having to have a facebook account to register with spotify. In addition to this facebook has now integrated what you play and what other people play so that everyone can see what you have been listening to. This is not so much a matter of that I don't want other people to know what kind of music I listen to but another unecessary and trival thing that will fill my facebook feed. The desktop client is as good as any, it like many other things these days is trying to become more "social". For mobile Spotify is on par with most of the other services; they offer the "radio" feature for non-premium users.

Grooveshark

With their recently reinstated mobile app grooveshark looks like most of the other players listed here. Like others here the website version of this service uses Adobe's Flash player. But there is a html5 beta version that you can try. It's basically just the mobile version of the site. There is a desktop version, I have never used I personally so I can't talk.

Last.fm

  Last.fm definetly focuses more on the radio and the exploring new artist than just the listening to what you want. Last.fm is also about the live shows; it will try and sell you tickets to a concert of a band that you are listening to if you are in the area. This can be a good or a bad thing, it depends on who you are.