Non-free/Non-FOSS software = monopolised dictatorship over its consumers

I used to think Apple was the "Mc Donald's" of technology, now I like to place Apple (and non-free software/hardware in general) to the worst components of communism and consumerism combined; They dictate to their consumers one way of thinking. Apple don't even give much in terms of customisation (even the colours are pretty much locked in iOS).

Propitiatory software in general grasps its consumers with an iron fist with only one intent in mind; locking in users into pay the greedy company as much as possible, without granting the user any freedom to improve/adapt/fix the software to their specific uses.

People consume propitiatory software, and are therefore 'consumers'.
People use FOSS/free-software, and are therefore 'users'.
Which would you prefer?

Overall you could think of it as a monopolised dictatorship that managed to white-wash their consumers into thinking things are 'different'/better?

Introducing and deriving the idea of Jelly Chef as a Sokoban game

This post continues on my endeavour to understand what is involved create a mobile game by creating and deploying a simple mobile game. This post continues on from my previous entry post.

In an attempt to create a more interesting slant on the game of Sokoban I considered to change the boxes. I found boxes to be dull and uninteresting. They appear in many Sokoban titles as the original game (as created by Hiroyuki Imabayashi, in 1982) was based on the problem of transporting and organising creates of boxes in a warehouse. In fact the name Sokoban means "Warehouse worker" in Japanese.

So I started looking at a replacement to the box. I found jelly to be an interesting object to use. It is fragile, so you have to be careful on how you move it, you can't easily pull it for example, which is a characteristic to Sokoban game-play. I guess also (although I have not tried it myself), pushing two jellies at a time might work out to be messy. Again that is another characteristic. And I liked the idea of the jelly wobbling about as you pushed it around.


Immediately the idea of using a classically shaped jelly came to mind, as below:

The colours of the jelly set the theme and colour tone to the game overall too.

Of course the X's which mark where the box should go naturally should be plates. The classic English children's song "Jelly on the plate" is a nice link in to that too. So plates it was to be, and fairly easy to create using a 3D software.

Now for the character of the game, the classic warehouse worker needed to be something related to foods, deserts, jelly... As it was serving up jelly onto plates, I thought of a waiter, but to give more visual features to the character, I considered a classic chef's hat would suffice. 

So it was, "Jelly Chef" would be the title of this simple (yet slightly obsessive) exercise.

Slowly making the shift to GNU/Linux and ultimately freedom in software

So you want to consider a move from propriety software. You've had enough of imprisoning software, and want seek out software which does not undermine your freedom?

Well done! You've made the first step by making the decision or at least acknowledging that there are better ways to do your personal computing without sacrificing liberty!

Now if you are a Windows and/or Mac OS "consumer" and wish to simply become a "user" of a freedom abiding operating system then many, will find the process daunting and frustrating. 

Even if you managing to just checkout a VM image or LiveDVD of a Linux, it will feel like someone just lobbed a big bag of potatoes to catch. Those potatoes are simply going to fall all over the floor; You simply aren't going to cope with all the changes. Even basic work which you know you can do in 2 mins on propriety software is going to take 20 minutes the first time.

My suggestion is to take an empty bag (which we can say is the idea or motive to want to make the move), stay in your familiar OS and instead of putting in the rotten potatoes (say proprietary software), and reach out to GNU or other such free alternatives (the good potatoes) that are supported by your 'comfy' operating system *and* GNU/Linux. That way the small changes of adding new potatoes to your bag will be such that you wont drop them. Far easier than trying to catch them all in one shot. And when you are inevitably ready to make the shift to a free OS, you'll already have your at least bag half full, and will find the process a lot smoother.

By all means keep the familiar software packages around while you investigate the alternatives.

Here are some suggestions which you can start checking out today:

Instead of MS Office, try OpenOffice. StarOffice, or many of the alternatives out there. If you are not that reliant on MS Office, then just uninstall it now.

I don't need to say this, but delete the Internet Explorer and/or Safari icon from your desktop. Use Firefox, Opera or at least Chrome. You simply don't need Internet Explorer or Safari, no excuses on that one.

For the creative people, if you are an Adobe consumer, try GIMP (Photoshop alternative), Inkscape (for Illustrators). There are plenty freedom fighting alternatives out there. Seek them out and you shall find something to replace with.

Skype? Oh dear, this indeed is a bad potato and its frustrating how many people are reliant on this one. Even though its available on Linux, it does not respect your freedom, its source code is not available, you don't know or can't confirm what is happening in this software. Its basically not to be trusted. Get out if/while you can! Its difficult because most of your contacts on there will not be that willing to swap to another IM just for you. The least you can do is make them aware of their imprisonment that that their freedoms are being violated and that there are alternatives. 
I recommend Jit.si. They recently announced Google Hangout like web based video conferences. Perhaps at least if you can just to get Google Hangouts for now, then that is one step away from Skype.

Software Developers? I am a developer myself and have actively made a career path which supports my morals in software. First step is at least find a GNU text editor or IDE. If you are a .NET developer, then oh dear! (Don't worry I used to be one, so don't be insulted). Consider looking into more different languages and start to untie the grip of Microsoft's iron fist you may or may not have found your neck to be entangled in. If you are a developer then there are plenty of options out there and I will leave the investigations up to you. Python is a language worth checking out.

For more advanced software then checkout the numerous tutorials to help you get in to the new software. If there are features you want, request them to developers. That's the idea and what is meant by 'freedom' in software. If you really want a feature in the software you use, its fairly to get in in. Consider that possibility with propriety software? Keep dreaming! They only adhere to the masses.


If you've already tried making the sift to GNU/Linux a few times, but had to default back to Windows or Mac OS. Then take the suggestions of small incremental changes and bite size learning curves.

Making small steps is worth the effort. Its a long and gradual change, and the aim is unbuckling yourself from the slavery and savagery that is rife in the non-free computing world.

Free society? Free yourself!

Exercise to develope and promote a simple mobile game

In an effort to understand what is involved in developing a mobile game and get it noticed I decided to try out developing a small game.

I hope to document all my efforts, mistakes, challenges and solutions. The main idea of the first little game is to understand what's involved and to learn from the whole process. Perhaps it will lead on to developing and promoting a better game in the future, but for now, the idea is for a trial run of the complete process. Add some polish to a simple game idea, and lets see how it goes.

When I first got into Unity3D one of my early projects was converting an old DirectX 9 VB.net game into Unity3D. That process helped me find my way around Unity3D and get up to speed with C# (the superior Unity3D supported language).

That early project was a 2D grid based puzzle game called Repton Returns. As based on the 8-bit classic Repton (like Bouder-dash). However I wanted to focus on an even more simplified game for the process of learning mobile games development, and so I chose the Sokoban transform puzzle game. I enjoyed playing the little Windows version of this genre named Boxworld, and thought it was simple yet interesting enough for the exercise.

However, of course it had to be one up from some of the Sokoban games that can be found already on the store, I noticed most of them faired poorly in terms of graphics and presentation. I guess its not critical for this type of game, but making the graphics 3D seemed an attractive direction to turn.

So using the now re-factored Repton code to manage loading in a 2D grid level, and moving objects about within such levels, it didn't take long at all to derive a basic prototype of the game in motion.

Skype Vs. GNU freedom

In light of recent concerns with Skype I have been reading up on alternatives and the ideal of a GNU implementation.

For now I would highly recommend moving away from Skype as much as you can. Some alternative clients include jitsi.org  and pidgin.im are definite recommendations. They are both free software, free as in freedom as defined by the GNU license philosophy. There is another proprietary service called LINE, which I never came across before. It is commercial software in full glory, but considering it is not a US company, and that is was set up in direct response to the Tōhoku earthquake makes it at least note-worthy.

If you need to call telephones then voipcheap.com might be worth looking to (they have better rates than Skype too, but sadly not GNU).

I never really looked into GNU, so recently sat through some rather long lectures of Richard Stallman presenting the idea of free software and how it is implemented in the GNU license. All I can say is that he is a genius, and has some very sensible ideas that ideally should be a more widespread general understanding for all.

He strongly puts forward the idea that software running on your hardware should be free, free to change, free to see, and in every sense of the word freedom. That doesn't mean GNU software can be obtained for no charge. If anything being open and free (as in freedom) has the potential to make more money than proprietary software. That is, as Richard suggests, is dependent on understandings and social behaviour.

Such understandings in terms of human rights and software are still not understood by most users of software, which is why big companies are still able to shove software down the throats of what they consider to be 'consumers', and then hand-cuff them to their product for the rest of the said consumer's lifespan.

When you see the world in this way, you naturally conclude to yourself; why should we suffer this kind of treatment? With regards to Skype, monitoring instant messages without the user's consent really is in violation of human rights. And the fact that this feature can be hidden away in any propriety software adds the final scoop to the mountain of sh*t of abuse users have to accept on a daily basis.

Conclusion: Richard Stallman's lectures are at least food-for-thought for anyone who uses computing on a daily-basis and I urge everyone to at least watch / read-up on the ideals behind GNU.

His points were enough to make me rethink what software I use. Now I just need to figure how to smoothly move away from all these hand-cuffs I've found myself chained to, without effecting business, and set myself free in a world dominated by the monetary system (at least in a software sense).

Baidu finally pushing users to upgrade from IE6

Finally there seems to be an initiative to push mainline China users into the 21st Century on the web.

If you browser Baidu.com with Internet Explorer 6, then you'll find a message attached to the front page:

Interestingly they only link to IE8, and some other Chinese related browser, which by the way are all power by IE. (The browser simply use an IE8 component to display the pages, the interface is all custom, but it is kind of cheating in my opinion).

What about Chrome, Firefox, Opera, etc..?  Well a lot of Chinese websites relay on (horrible) ActiveX components. Even the main Chinese bank (Bank of China), requires an IE ActiveX component to be installed if you want to do online transactions. If you are running Linux, BSD or Mac then you are screwed.

China just isn't ready for the rest of the world. When you apply this statement to the Internet world, then  websites and the browser situation is just the tip of the iceberg.

Perhaps this closed, basis directional way of business will do China wonders in the short-term. They certainly want to keep things 'their own way' and try to avoid following things from outside as much as possible. But in the long run, the world is a interlinked web of financial and data transactions. Long-term growth for China may be hampered, they there are actually already signs of slow-down in the news.

For this reason, I think India is going to be better off in the long, they are far more open and more innovative in many ways. Economist Yasheng Huang seems to agree with this view too.

Better workflow: From design to production

Today I was looking at a better way to improve workflow with regards to converting designs to in-app screens.

This artical caught my eye stating:
"A great workflow can really make the difference between a project succeeding and a project failing. You can have the best designers and developers on a project...".

It seems Adobe Device Central and Adobe Fireworks seems to great for working with the same project that has multiple screen sizes at design time.

This relates to my post on PPI / DPI and resolutions.