Front View

When used for gaming, laptops tend to over heat, and eventually they destroy their video cards. My Alienware m15x laptop, while it seems to have good cooling, has had 4 new video cards in the last 3 years. I have wanted to use a desktop for gaming, but prefer to do most of my playing from the comfort of my recliner. Here is the start of an idea to accomplish that. Missing from the renderings are the arm that holds the monitor from the case to the right of the recliner to the monitor in front of me. As  you can see the computer case is very large. I’ve provided for a UPS in the cabinet since in my area all my computers require a UPS due to frequent power glitches that would cause an unprotected computer to reboot. Click on pictures for larger views.

The arm will be mounted at the front left corner of the side cabinet. Notice that the cabinet projects forward of the side of the chair to allow the arm to reach to the side. The side reach must be about 22-24 inches. The base of the monitor will be slightly above the level of the side cabinet. The cabinet has a platform for the computer, which is raised above the floor by 3 inches to minimize dust intake. The cabinet design does not surround the computer case to allow for adequate cooling. The computer is built with a HAF-X, which is larger than would be ideal in this application. The computer is liquid cooled with fans that blow straight out the top. This makes placing the case inside a cabinet less desirable. Despite the size of the case and the number of fans, the computer is quiet, so I do not expect problems viewing TV this close to the computer. In fact it may be quieter then my current setup, since the laptop lap table has a fan which is quite loud. The HAF-X case may actually be quieter.

Here’s a view from the rear. The keyboard, mouse and gaming keypad will be held on a light wood table on the lap. Only the keyboard is shown in this rendering. The monitor I have chosen is a 20 inch Acer model with a VESA mount at the back, a DVI connection and a resolution of 1600×900. The Alienware m15x has a resolution of 1920×1200, but that resolution is not required for a great gaming experience. The larger screen will make seeing the interface details much easier. Sometimes I have to actually use a magnifier to see details on the laptop which has a 15 inch screen.

Rear View

Notice the rear of the cabinet has openings at the top and bottom to allow adequate circulation for the UPS. Also the cabinet will have a shelf for the sub-woofer for the 3 channel sound system. I want the gaming sound separate from the TV, and 2 channels and a sub-woofer will be plenty of fidelity. More to come as I choose an arm and finalize the design.

Here is an arm I’m considering by Innovative at lcdarms.com.

7Flex Arm by LcdArms

Update:

Here’s a render with the arm in place:

Arm in Place

- windy

AlienFX Fusion Woops

Based on a forum post, the AlienFX hardware now works, but if you use this software on Win 7 x64, there appears to be a problem.

It was indicated that the Alien Fusion component would not work, but the problem is that there is a memory leak or other problem that causes the program to apparently grow without bound. After several hours, I found that the AlienFusionController.exe was 1.7GB image size in memory. Clearly a problem.

AlienFusionController.exe out of control

After some experimentation, I figured out a workaround to disable the Fusion component and still be able to use the AlienFX theme editor so the lights can be changed.

Here are the steps for the workaround.

1. Rename the AlienFusionController.exe in C:\Program Files\Alienware\Command Center to something else, for example AlienFusionController.exexx, to prevent it from being launched.
2. In the services panel, disable the AlienFusion service, and stop it.
3. Stop the AlienFusionController.exe process from the Task Manager, or reboot at this point the AlienFusionController.exe will not be running.
4. You will no longer be able to launch the AlienFX Editor from the AlienHead in the notification bar at this point. But that’s ok. Create a shortcut to C:/Program%20Files/Alienware/Command%20Center/AlienwareAlienFXEditor.exe on your desktop or pin it to your start menu.

Problem solved. The editor works fine, the alien head in the notification bar may be non-functional, but no memory hogged by the AlienFusionController.

Enjoy,

Windy

AlienFX Head

I assume you have been following the continuing saga of the non-working AlienFX under Win7 / Vista x64.

OMG.. A fellow from the UK had a solution for his Alienware ALX-58 system. So I got his private download and it works just fine.

Here is a post that contains the downloads in a later reply that I used.

So no board to make, no more hassles and it even supports the animation of the zones that I have.

Wheew.

I can’t believe that Alienware support were completely out to lunch that they had a solution all the time.

- w

Board with Programming

After considering the previous design for an AlienFX static lighting board, I have come up with a new design that simplifies the layout and the programming of the board. The previous design used pin headers and jumpers and required resistors on the board. This design uses socket headers and is programmed by inserting resistors and wires.

Programming

As you can see in the render to the right, female socket headers allow the board to be programmed by inserting resistors or wires to connect either +5V, or GND to any of the pins of the LED case cables.

Note also that the HD Active and PWR ON signals are routed to headers to allow them to be  bridged to LEDs. In the rendering above, the green and blue wires are jumpers for these signals to the LED cable for the Front of the case.

This design has the advantage that it can’t be Wrong. All the programming of the board is discovered after the board is constructed and the resistor values and the connections required are all made up with jumper wires. I’m assuming that the resistors should be about 1K ohms since the 5v would provide 50ma to the LED. If the LEDs require more or less current, the resistors can easily be replaced.

Note that the only female headers available are 32 circuit rather than the 34 circuit type that are the IDC standard [floppy cable apparently], so a 4pin header is added at the end to program the last 2 pins of each cable. If at board layout time, a 34 circuit header is available, then the layout is slightly simpler.

Board Views

Here are some views of the board as currently envisioned.

You can follow my progress here on the blog. Just search for AlienFX in the blog search box.

- windy

AlienFX Side Light

The AlienFX Lighting feature of older Alienware desktop systems – 2006-2008 – is not supported by Alienware for Vista x64 or Windows 7 x64. These operating systems are required to support memory beyond 2.7GB or 3.x GB depending on the motherboard of the system. This means that any system that has been upgraded does not have a working AlienFX lighting feature. This was discussed this in detail in a previous post.

Since I plan to get another decade or so of use from my Alienware P2 case, I’m designing a static lighting solution for my system. By static I mean a board that mates with the existing connectors for power and LEDs, and allows setting the colors, but does not support animation, and does not require any drivers, or USB connection. Anyone with this case and a recent version of Windows or Linux, will benefit from a lighting solution.

Goals for the Design

The goals for this design are:

• Support the Alienware P2 case and use the existing mounting, power, and LED connections.
• Not require any drivers, operating system support, or USB connection.
• Allow the colors of the various zones to be changed manually by changing jumpers.
• Be flexible so that the design does not require detailed determination of the LED wiring before the board is built.

A First Cut at a Design

Here is a first idea for a board layout. The dimensions may not be exact since I have not measured the AlienFX board, but they are approximate based on the pin separation of the MOLEX power connector.

AlienFX Static Board

Connectors

The connectors are the same as the AlienFX board from Alienware.

• The power connector is a traditional Hard Drive power connector.
• The LED connectors are IDC Floppy headers, 34pin and keyed. The headers for the Front and Left of the case are vertical and the header for the Right is a right angle version.
• There is a header for the Power LED, HD Activity LED and GND. Apparently these are inputs to the board from the motherboard so that these signals are mixed with the AlienFX colors/ animations for the Front zone. More investigation is required for how this should be handled.

Patch Headers

In order to control the LEDs, jumpers are placed on headers to connect either +5V or GND to the connections in the IDC headers. Of course the +5V is current limited with a resistor to drive the LEDs.

For each LED header of 34 pins, there are 5 rows of 17 pins: +5v, Signal, GND, Signal, +5v. The headers are placed so that .1″ jumper blocks can connect either +5 or GND to each signal pin. It will not be possible using these jumpers to connect GND to both a pin and it’s complement. For example, pins 1 and 18 or 5 and 23. If this is required a jumper wire will be required.

Outstanding Questions

There are several questions remaining:

• How to handle the HD and Power LEDs. Perhaps just allowing these to be jumpered directly to the Front zone will suffice. An extra header and wire jumpers might suffice.
• Looking at the wiring of the LEDs to determine whether the suggested jumpering system will require too many wire jumpers.
• Determining the resistance required to limit the current to the LEDs.

A friend of mine may be able to help layout the board and then I’ll need to contact a board fabricator to build a few prototype boards.

- Windy

Update Screen Failed

If you see this, then you can play the game, as long as you don’t need an update. But the update process clearly won’t work.

The problem might be a bad proxy. While surfing the web, I tripped over a bad site that tried to install a backdoor on my computer. As it turned out, Microsoft Security Essentials caught the bad code and removed it.

Backdoor Caught

Back Door Removed

But what MS Security Essentials did not do was fix up the proxies that this backdoor put in the browsers. I use Firefox, so I found that one right away and removed it. Apparently this backdoor sets a proxy to itself running on the local machine. So when the backdoor is removed, then the proxies don’t work and the browser is broken.

Since I use Firefox for browsing, I discovered and repaired that right away, but Internet Explorer was “proxied” too and I didn’t see that one. But it broke the starter window of Jade Dynasty – and I’m sure lots of other MMOs – since they use MS IE to show the ads and update.

Here’s how to fix MS IE.

Under Tools >> Internet Options Choose the Connections tab.

Internet Options - Connections Tab

Click on LAN settings.

LAN Settings, Proxy Enabled

If things are broken, you may see Proxy Server Enabled. You need to disable the Proxy Server, which you probably don’t need. Click Advanced.

Proxy Settings with Backdoor

This shows a back door in the proxy server settings. Your port number may vary. This is only an example not the actual port I saw in the attack. Clean out the settings and click OK.

Clean Proxy Settings

Now you will see this warning.

Proxy Warning

But that’s fine since y ou are disabling the proxy connection. Click YES to disable the proxy connections.

Now you will see this.

LAN settings

Click OK. And OK again on this screen.

Internet Options - connections

Now all should be well.

Working Again

This is just a suggestion for something to check. Perhaps your problem is different or you need to use a proxy setting.

Hope it works for you. It did for me.

- ww

With over 2000 images in my photo site, it seemed useful to generate a Google Sitemap for the Coppermine gallery. After some searching a plug-in turned up in the Coppermine Forums.

This plug-in is fairly primitive and when I tried it, it failed with an error on Google. Google produced an error about the first URI produced by the script. Also, the entire sitemap was produced as one single line, so error messages or looking at the sitemap with an editor were not user friendly.

I have repaired the script and you can find the new version by the link below. It is advertised to work for CPG 1.2.x, 1.3.x and 1.4.x. For more information, read the forum post above.

To use the script, unzip and upload it to the base coppermine directory on your site and then activate it from the browser with a URL like: http://www.yourdomain.com/cpg144/sitemap.php

Then visit the Google Webmasters Site,

1. create an account, or log in with your google email account,
2. add your site, using the Coppermine base directory, and
3. then verify your site using one of the methods provided and finally
4. point to your sitemap to tell google about it.

Here is the fixed script.

d

After some study, writing a new import method wasn’t that hard. The enclosed zip file contains two modified php files and a new import file. It worked to import about 130 events into WebCalendar 1.0.4.
I never used repeating events, so no provision is made to import repeating events into WebCalendar.

Chaos Manager has some limitations.

• It cannot be accessed from multiple systems, although it will synch up with a PDA.
• It does not store event durations, but only an event time.
• For some reason, Chaos Manager csv files are not comma delimited but semi-colon delimited.

Download the new import code.
ChaosManagerImport.zip

Cheers,
darrell

I didn’t write this. Credits are in the file.
I tried to contact the author, but his site is down.
And he is greek.

I have tested this with CM 1.4.3 and it works.
To install, copy it to the coppermine base directory.

You can choose various types of feeds by using the following:

http://www.yoursite.com/coppermine/rss.php?album=xxx

where xxx is:

• lastcom – last comments
• lastup – last uploaded
• topn – most viewed
• toprated – top rated
• lasthits – recent hits
• if http://www.yoursite.com/coppermine/rss.php alone is used, then some random pictures are presented.

Edit the file to change the number of thumbs in the feed.

The script is RSS 2.0 compliant and works with feedreader.

Apologies to the author if he doesn’t like me passing this on.
I found it in his coppermine integration for joomla.

Cheers,

Coppermine RSS feeder

The convert.php module for conversion from other boards to SMF has at least two problems:

• A field in the board table called lastUpdated is referenced. No such field exists in RC2 versions of the table.
• A last step attempts to set the image width/height of attachment and avatar images. However, this code does not correctly set the full file path and the step fails in an infinite loop at the end of the process if there are missing avatar images.

As far as I know this is a complete fix for the problems. After running this version, the attachments correctly display as images in the posts. Missing images have width/height set to [20,20] to avoid the loop.
Fixed Convert 1.1RC2

Here’s the link back to the SMF boards: 1.1Converters

djd

Here’s a fix that I’ve made to the phpBB2_to_smf.php converter.
I’ve done a conversion from phpBB2 2.0.18 with attachments to SMF 1.1RC2 and it appears to work. I would not say that it was thoroughly tested.
The memberlist failed without the fixes that I’ve included.

• There were field name changes in the SMF members table. im_xxx changed to pm_xxx and this caused a silent failure in the INSERT’s.
• Also the version number needed to be changed from 1.0.5 to 1.1.99 [maybe , but this works.].

You can download it here: Fix to phpBB2 to SMF converter

enjoy,
djd