After some searching though, I found a way to start a VM from the command-line, and then threw that in HKCU\….\Run to start up when I log in. It’s surprisingly simple:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmrun.exe" -T ws start "D:\Virtual Machines\Debian\Debian.vmx" nogui

Since I autologin, now I only need to worry about not turning my computer on.

Even with only 5 versions, it was still quite messy.

I had heard of GitHub before, and after asking in the Hak5 IRC Channel, I figured I would give it a try, however I ran into a small hiccup.

When signing up, it asked for an SSH public key. Problem is, I already have a SSH keypair for connecting to the servers at my University. Some quick googling showed that ~/.ssh/config could solve my problems, so I generated a key pair, moved the keys around, and set up ~/.ssh/config as follows:

Host <uni server non-FQDN>
HostName <uni server FQDN>
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/keys/<uni server FQDN>/id_rsa
PasswordAuthentication no
Port 22
User <username>

Host github
HostName github.com
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/keys/github.com/id_rsa
Port 22
User git
TCPKeepAlive yes
IdentitiesOnly yes

However, a small yet strange problem stopped me later. Going through the instructions to set up a repository, I simply has to run “git push origin master”, and everything would supposedly get uploaded to GitHub. In practice, it gave me a SSH key error.

Some more googling showed that if I could SSH as git@githib.com, “git push origin master” should work. Yet wierdly, I could SSH in normally, but git still threw a tantrum.

After some 20 minutes of messing with it, I tried changing “Host github” in ~/.ssh/config to “Host github.com”. It worked.

I hate it how the smallest bugs can cause the wierdest issues. Often (in my experience) when a strange and complex bug pops up, it’s a small thing that caused it.

Oh well. At least I managed to get PsyDuk up on GitHub, and learned how to set up multiple SSH keypairs. That’ll come in useful.

The new Steam Client

Firstly, Steam is essentially a tabbed interface. In the previous version, there was a visual indicator of these tabs – the buttons to switch tabs look like tabs. In the new version, there are simply 5 massive strings of text across the top of the client, with the text representing the active tab glowing. Clicking on these, switches ‘tabs’. The fact that those strings of text control what is shown in the client is not obvious immediately, rather it’s an association which the user makes after clicking on them. John McCaskey, a software developer for Valve, replied on the forums by saying:

We are certainly aware that the use of typography without tab outlines or such is non-standard and perhaps not as obvious as full on tabs in the main nav area. We went through several iterations on this and settled on the hover glow effect as being pretty effective at communicating that the items were navigation elements and overall feedback is that the vast majority of people are discovering and using them without issue. The barrier for use is also really only one time as a switching cost to the new UI; that is once you learn they are navigation elements once there is no longer any confusion, so we think this isn’t too big of an issue and that overall users will appreciate the more elegant look and feel in the long run.

Tabs in Google Chrome - tabs done right

The problem is, it’s a one-time barrier for use. But that’s exactly the problem, it’s a barrier. Users are typically lazy, and they don’t want to spend time relearning a program they’ve been using for months or years. And while it may have a “more elegant look and feel”, it is not immediately apparent that the user can interact with it. Traditionally, text has been used to display data, and icons, or text with icons, are used to display something which the user can interact with, such as a button or toolbar icon.

This is, in my opinion, one of the reasons why Cocoa Touch has been a huge success. In Cocoa Touch, it is immediately apparent what will do something when you touch it, and what will not. Cocoa Touch is so intuitive that there are videos of toddlers and even cats using iPhone OS. In the new Steam client, there is no such distinction between interactive and non-interactive controls.

Another example is in details view mode of the games list. In the right-hand side pane, there is a row of avatars depicting friends who own the game, and if the user has more friends who own the game than can fit on screen, the last avatar is replaced with a “+18” button (for example), where 18 is the numbers of friends who cannot fit on screen. That button, however, looks nothing like the actual buttons seen around the client, and indeed I only discovered that it was a button, when another user was complaining on the forums that it made the button below it redundant. The new Steam client is not user-friendly, and there is no clear distinction between what the user can interact with, and what they cannot.

Details View in the new Steam Client

This even extends to the menu bar. In Mac OS X, an application’s menu bar is at the top of the screen, uniform for all applications, and its title bar is at the top of the window. In Windows, the title bar is at the top of the screen, and the menu bar is directly under it. Steam does not respect either of these guidelines in its Windows version. Some Steam windows have a menu bar at the top and no title bar, while some windows have a title bar at the top and no menu bar. There is also no clear visual distinction between which window has a title bar, and which window has a menu bar. The main Steam window has what is evidently a menu bar, as the bits of text which comprise it contain strings which are common to many menus, namely “View” and “Help”. The Servers and Settings dialogs, however, have a title bar, and “Servers” and “Settings” cannot be interacted with. The Friends list is the most confusing, however, as the word “Friends” at the top of the window, which what users presume to be a title bar, is actually a menu bar. I only realised this when I rolled my mouse over it (to get to a different control), and it changed.

Friends list in the new Steam Client

Additionally, there is no visual connection between a menu, and the menu bar item which opened it. Clicking on a menu bar item causes a menu to appear, however there is a clear gap between the two. Like the tabbed interface, the connection between the two controls is one which the user makes, not one which is made for them.

John McCaskey’s answer to the menu bar was:

Same general thinking goes for the menu items. We’ve saved space by not having a separate title bar area. It’s non-standard, but we think it works and haven’t had much feedback about confusion with it.

So, Valve have saved space in the new client at the expense of usability. I’m sure saving space wasn’t at the forefront of their minds, considering that the first beta release of the new client had massive wasted space issues. (via Sciss0rz)

Valve seems to have forgotten one of the rules of software design: You are not your customer. Whilst the smart brains on the software development team can easily use the new interface – the one they designed – many users are now finding it hard to use. Whilst most of the complaints from lazy users will blow over in days if not weeks – just like changes in Youtube and Facebook – as these users get used to the new client, the fact remains that the new Steam is horribly user-unfriendly and unintuitive, especially for newcomers.

Updates to Portal have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted.

Portal

• Added valuable asset retrieval

I’ll keep this page updated as more unfolds.

Update: Finishing the game, after having unlocked “Transmission Recieved”, yields a new ending scene and further teaser to a sequel.

Update 2: The “valuable asset” is Chell, who is retrieved at the end of the game by some sort of robot. Cave Johnson? An Android? Whatever it is sounds male.

Update 3: Less than 2 hours before the update, the login banner on the BBS changed to read:

SYSTEM DUMP DATA BACK-PRESSURE LOW: ALTERNATE RETRIEVAL PENDING

Updates to Portal have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted.

Portal

• Changed radio transmission frequency to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations

Eager to see what this was about, I hit up the Steam Forums to see what it was all about. I was not expecting dinosaurs and elephant greens.

Transmission Recieved

The first clue was given by eatpie75, who noticed that there was a new achievement, “Transmission Recieved”. The achievement description simply read “..?”. SirPorkChop noticed that the radios ingame were given a red light, and KeRupTion posted that you can progress towards unlocking the new achievement by standing on the button in the first test chamber, while holding the radio. The light on the radio then turned green, and morse code was played. Note that this only happens once you have completed Portal.

Dinosaurs

There were also 26 new WAV files included in the update, first mentioned by BillyTheRatKing, named dinosaur1.wav through dinosaur26.wav. Shrewsbury posted a screenshot of the second radio, in test chamber 2. It didn’t take long to realise that there were an additional 25 radios planted throughout the game, and each one played the corresponding WAV file when taken to a specific location in it’s test chamber. When near the location, but not withing the sound-playing area, the radio simply played static.

• Klusark decoded the first WAV file as “INTERIOR TRANSMISSION ACTIVE EXTERNAL DATA LINE ACTIVE MESSAGE DIGEST ACTIVE”.
• SilverWolf decoded dinosaur12.wav as “SYSTEM DATA DUMP ACTIVE USER BACKUP ACTIVE PASSWORD BACKUP ACTIVE”
• SilverWolf also decoded dinosaur17.wav as “BEEP BEEEP BEEP BEEP BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP BEEP BEEEP BEEP BEEP”, which is in turn Morse Code for “LOL”.
• Crazydog115 decoded dinosaur5.wav as “9E107D9D372BB6826BD81D3542A419D6″, which is the MD5 hash of “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”.

Back in the days of Dial-Up, did you ever pick up the phone while the modem was connected, and listen to the data transmission? That’s what the remaining Dinosaur WAVs sounded like, and Z-95 suggested they were SSTV. I had never heard of SSTV before, but Wikipedia quickly informed me that it was:

Slow-scan television (SSTV) is a picture transmission method used mainly by amateur radio operators, to transmit and receive static pictures via radio in monochrome or color.

Z-95 then confirmed that dinosaur2.wav was indeed SSTV, and Don818 on FacePunch posted that the letters and numbers in the SSTV images made up the string “9459C6CAC8C203B8128B7CC63068D4FD”, which is the MD5 hash of (425) 822-5251. That number is registered to a landline in Kirkland (near Seattle), which is where Valve was founded.

The BBS

To access the BBS hosted at that number, you need a 56K modem, and software such as HyperTerminal. The username and password, as given in dinosaur12.wav, are “backup” and “backup” respectively. No username and password combination worked for a good while, and Robin Walker was quoted as saying:

Nobody is looking in the right place. You need to look beneath the elephant green for the login information.

Yet after a while, backup/backup worked. Upon logging in, ASCII art is shown, sometimes with some text such as “Human Enrichment & Testing Initiative, Resource Acquisitions”, apparently an Aperture Science document. BBS logs can be found at http://kevin.fobby.net/portal_puzzle/raw_bbs_logs/xkeeper_turns_back_to_binary/ and all over the Steam Forums and other forums, as well as enhanced versions of the ASCII art, and what they (supposedly) represent.

Update:

• Earlier today Portal was updated to change the ending scene. More info can be found here.
• BBS Dumps can be found at http://kevin.fobby.net/portal_puzzle/bbs_dump_pictures/
• The BBS now displays a progress bar, with a humorous ETA. Projected completion is March 5th, 2010 12:30PM PST, more info can be found at http://portalwiki.net/index.php?title=The_Progress_Bar

(Yes, I’m still having issues with WordPress, source code, and indentation. If you know how to get source code to indent properly in wordpress, please let me know.)

Yet all of these systems stand alone. There has been no integration between the different systems. While mobile devices are now suddenly able to do many tasks which would traditionally be performed by a computer – for example, iWork on the iPad, or even just IRC on a smartphone – there should be a way to seamlessly move between the different platforms.

For instance, I should be able to be chatting to my friends on my desktop, and be able to move the conversation to my phone without having to close the chat on my desktop, log in from my phone, find the friends I was talking to on my phone, and open the chat ‘windows’ again. Ideally, there would be a button to push it to a phone which has already been paired with the computer. Confirm the action on the phone, and suddenly you have the conversations now on your phone in your mobile chat application, complete with the conversation log from your desktop.

Just being able to seamlessly push running applications between computers and/or mobile devices would be great for almost anyone on-the-go.

Essentially, I would love a way to interface with an application on one system from another computer (in a simpler form than X11 forwarding), or even pushing the entire live application to another computer, no longer running at all on the system it was launched on.

I suppose until someone high-up in the industry gets the same idea, or an easy-to-implement standard is formed, this will just remain a dream. I do, however, believe that this or something similar would give mobile computing a push forwards for mainstream consumers.

I also wanted to code a basic bot for IRC. I borrowed Python for Dummies from my local library, searched Google, and used Wireshark to see what goes on behind-the-scenes with IRC. Whilst I’m still working on my ‘Psyduck’ bot, I thought I would share an uptime bot I made for a fellow Zone-9′er. The bot simply reports the uptime of the machine it’s running from.

To get the bot to identify with NickServ, uncomment lines 12 and 52. This only works under Linux (and possibly other unix-based OSes).

I had the code posted here, until I noticed that WordPress or one of it’s components was stuffing up the indentation – and indentation is critical for a Python program with nested whiles, fors and ifs. Until I can figure out how to get it up here, I’ve uploaded it to Pastebin. The Uptime Bot can be found at http://python.pastebin.com/f51419840

Tip: Apparently Google Chrome has pasting issues with TinyMCE. I can confirm this for Google Chrome 4.0.294.0 (unstable) under Linux – use a different browser when pasting stuff to WordPress.

I’m an Australian geek with a passion for all forms of Information Technology, but mostly with the internet and computer networking. I enjoy experimenting, learning and tinkering, and fixing what ought to be working. I intend to blog about my work and experimentation with computers, and share any tips or tricks I pick up as I slowly wade my way through the ocean which is IT.