Xbox Live Gamercard API
So, got decided to join most of my friends and I got an Xbox 360. Me being me though, I got interested in the way that all the information about your “Gamertag” is stored an accessible on the xbox.com website. Wouldn’t it be fun to do something with this data!
As it turns out, I was beaten to the post by Duncan MacKensie (http://duncanmackenzie.net/Blog/put-up-a-rest-api-for-xbox-gamertag-data) who hosts a webservice to retrieve gamer data from Microsoft. I could find no details about how this service works, where the data comes from or anything! Either he has a relationship with Microsoft, or he scrapes xbox.com but either way, the data seems pretty consistent and reliable. Actually it turns out this information was right there on his website… http://www.duncanmackenzie.net/Blog/if-you-are-wondering-where-i-get-my-xbox-live-info So he gets it as part of his membership to the Xbox Community Developer Program.
However, the webservice is great, and returns XML which is fine, but I thought it would be more useful to me to have a PHP API for this data. So I wrote one which retrieves data from Duncans webservice.
ZFS-FUSE and OpenSolaris and why Google Groups are such a good resource…
As my last post said, I’m using ZFS and love the way it works, but am having trouble with the performance of ZFS-FUSE. It’s not unusable, I just expected more.
So I thought, OpenSolaris. It’s the original implementation of the filesystem it must be great, so I export my zpools and boot from the LiveCD (another great reason to try it).
However it wasn’t going to be that easy… When I try to import my zpools in Solaris I get errors stating the vdev’s are corrupt! Something like:
status: One or more devices contains corrupted data.
action: The pool cannot be imported due to damaged devices or data.
Scared I boot back to linux.
Why didn’t I know about ZFS before?
I have a fileserver at home. I have done for many years now. The first incarnation was based on Fedora Core 3 (which will tell you *exactly* how long ago that was…) and was very simple. I had an old Xbox HDD (8GB Seagate) and 2 shiny new 200GB Western Digiatl drives for storage.
This was also my first major experience with Linux as a whole, so I was trying to keep things simple. So I did a default type install, with LVM on the 2×200GB disks to give one logical 400GB partition.
All was fine and dandy until I wanted to upgrade a couple of years later and not knowing much about LVM, wiped all my data. Yes, ALL my data. I had some important stuff backed up, but a lot of non-critical but frustrating to lose data (many GBs of painstakingly ripped and encoded CDs and Audiobooks for example).
What people misunderstand about Google Wave
I had heard about Google Wave, had a quick look at their UI, thought “shiny” and not really paid it much attention. Then I was reminded of it again recently and so I had another look, watched the Keynote Speech that they gave at the Google I/O 2009 and had a bit of a look around the web for related articles.
And I got really excited and really angry.
I got angry, because most people weren’t excited for the right reasons, or were dismissive / “anti” because they didn’t really see what Google has done.
But because I am so excited about Wave (not just Google Wave), I thought I’d post this to help you understand what Google Wave actually is and what it isn’t.
What Google Wave isn’t
Google Wave isn’t Wave.
Fantastic Contraption
Oh my god. I can’t believe how addictive this game is. http://fantasticcontraption.com/. The simplicity of it really appeals to me. The idea is to move a pink block from one area on the course to another, and you do so by building a contraption from wheels and connectors. that’s pretty much it!
Doesn’t sound like much, but if you are like me, you’ll not only want to finish all the levels but also go back and experiment with loads of other different ways to finish in the vain hope of finding the perfect solution. A solution that excels by being so simple, or so elegant. So unusual, or so complex. I could play for hours. But I won’t go on for hours.
I will leave you with some of the best contraptions I have managed to come up with, and the first one you should really vote as amazing, because (and I know this sounds a bit arrogant) is ingenious!
- unusual technique! See if you can guess how it works before you start it!
- Minimalistic elegance, perfect timing.
- I saw a solution with more than one spinny thing, but this seemed a cooler solution (notice the pole to slow down the last ball slightly…)
- A cool way to do “The Ball”
That’s all for the moment, but I’m sure I’ll post more contraptions in the future…