One of our fans of the PowerScripting Podcast, Sean Kearney, aka ye110wbeard has produced a theme song for the show. It’s sung to the tune of “Panama”, by Van Halen, and he did a great job.  Apparently, he downloaded all of the episodes in order to come up with clips he could insert into the song.  I love the part where I introduce “the Dread Pirate Ed Wilson” 

Please go check out Sean’s podcast (full of other silly songs) and his blog. This guy is crazy, but in a good way.

Here are some of my other favorites of his:

• PowerShell Wizard
• The “Dead Cisco Sketch”

This gem happened today on the #powershell IRC channel.

[13:34:56] <vcarter> Can you manage Windows Mojave with PowerShell?
[13:35:07] <vcarter> Asking for a friend
[13:35:18] <neiljmorrow> There is a new version of Powershell
[13:35:27] <neiljmorrow> Called Gonad.
[13:35:38] <vcarter> Is it easier to use than Monad?
[13:35:54] <Jaykul> no, but it’s cross platform
[13:36:05] <Jaykul> runs on Vista, XP, Mohave, and even OSX
[13:36:21] <meson> Gonad = GNU + Monad.

I haven’t written any non-PowerShell posts lately, as some may have noticed.  The weather is great today, and I’m home working on my book, and before I got into it I thought I’d spend a few paragraphs sharing some things I’ve been playing with lately.

Live Mesh

Available at mesh.com, Live Mesh is Microsoft’s sync platform which they seem to have a lot of great plans for. We’ll see. In the meantime, the desktop client makes a solid folder sync / p2p app so I’ve been using it for a while to sync my PowerShell profile across multiple machines. Just this past week at PDC, Microsoft released a new version of the client (ooh and added some videos), and has added a Windows Mobile app as well.  I’m underwhelmed so far, but I’m actually still interested so will continue to play with it. In particular, I’m a bit inspired by what Dale Lane is doing with it on his eighty-million devices.

Wakoopa

I just found this social network site Wakoopa which tracks what software you use and—not sure what else yet. I saw it linked on Dale’s blog, so thanks twice over, buddy.  As most of you know, I’m a hardcore software junkie, so this is right down my alley-wick, to mix a metaphor.  I’ve just started setting up a profile, we’ll see if I remain interested in it.

StackOverflow

I setup a profile on StackOverflow when it was still in closed beta, and I’ve been visiting the site pretty regularly ever since. It’s a Q&A site, somewhat like Expert Exchange, but it’s very lightweight  in feel, yet heavy on the web 2.0 GUI stuff, which I like. The site is aimed (heavily) towards developers, but I’m finding that PowerShell is fitting pretty well so that works for me.

New Toys?

I’m thinking of getting two toys for Christmas (they’ll really be sort of for/from my wife and vice versa, not sure who will get more time on which):

• Chumby – a cute little net-enabled streaming music box with widgets and alarm clock features
• iPod Touch – well, everyone knows what these are

Music

As always, you can find the music I’ve been listening to lately on Last.FM. Some notables:

• New and old Metallica
• Irish & Celtic music (thanks Oisin!)
• and a ton of other stuff

Well, I think it’s really him. I can dream.

It started with a notification from Captain Hammer that the soundtrack for the awesome Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog was up on iTunes (warning: link will open iTunes):

I reply and refer to a line from the show:

His reply:

That’s ok, it’s early yet, so I remind him who the hammer really is:

And then I receive a message showing what can only be Nathan Fillion’s true self:

How cool is that?

$romeo = [xml] (Get-Content .\r_and_j.xml)
$romeo.PLAY.ACT | select -exp scene | select -exp speech |
    ? { $_.speaker -eq 'NURSE' } | select -first 3 | fl

SPEAKER : Nurse
LINE    : {Now, by my maidenhead, at twelve year old,, I bade her come. What,
           lamb! what, ladybird!, God forbid! where's this girl? What, Juliet
          !}

SPEAKER : Nurse
LINE    : Your mother.

SPEAKER : Nurse
LINE    : Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.

Thanks to Wassim from Microsoft for passing the XML along.  I think the original work is out of copyright by now. 

Check out the cool write up on PopSci.com

<Gaurhoth> Powershell isn’t divine. It can’t work miracles
*halr9000 scoffs
<halr9000> I think miracle support is built-in to V2
<K5WTF> get-miracle
<K5WTF> get-DeletedADuser -Miracle:$True
<Gaurhoth> heh
<K5WTF> Resurect-Server
<Gaurhoth> That’s v7 not v2
<K5WTF> whole new line of verbs open up when you include miracle support
<Gaurhoth> Exorcise-FoulBug
<K5WTF> Smite-User
<halr9000> lol
<Gaurhoth> that’s destined to be my favorite!
<Gaurhoth> Smite-User -user $user -type Brimstone

Dry Fire is a very cool flash game.  Think BFG.  I scored 460,422.

Scratch (read story)

A free programming tool that allows anyone to create their own animated stories, video games and interactive artworks has been developed.

Primarily aimed at children, Scratch does not require prior knowledge of complex computer languages.

Instead, it uses a simple graphical interface that allows programs to be assembled like building blocks.

Also check out Gamemaker (http://www.yoyogames.com/make) (thanks Keith) which seems to be more full-featured, but I don’t know how easy it is to use.  I’m thinking of using some of these types of tools to introduce my boys to computer programming.

I happened upon ScummVM again recently and wanted to try it on my Windows Mobile PDA only to find out that it’s shipped in a .ZIP file rather than the conventional installers most people prefer.  So, I made one. 

Below are .CAB and .EXE installers for ScummVM 0.10. They were created using the excellent Installation Creator software by Aperitto Software. Here’s the files:

• scummvm-0.10.0-WinCE.cab
  • This is the installer that you can copy to your device and run, or install OTA (over-the-air) if you have network access from your device.

• scummvm-0.10.0-WinCE.exe
  • This installer runs from your Windows PC and will install the program using Activesync.

• scummvm-0.10.0-WinCE.pci
  
  • This is the project file I used with Installation Creator to create the above files.

My new favorite obsession on the computer is Transcendence, a space RPG in the likes of Tradewars, Elite, Space Trader [Palm OS version pictured at right, also available for the Pocket PC], or Freelancer .

Here’s the plot intro from the Transcendence website:

The call of the threat-scanner wakes you out of autopilot. A lone pirate ship, a Viking-class by the looks of it, approaches at full power, its turbolaser blasting away. You thrust towards it, aiming your slam cannon at its path. As you wait for the ship to come closer, you consider how you’ll loot the inevitable wreck. The Viking is sure to have some fuel, which you desperately need. And if you’re lucky, maybe the turbolaser will survive intact. You will need it if you are to survive the journey to the Galactic Core. At the right moment you open up with the slam cannon. Its deep thumps echo throughout your ship, and flame flowers bloom out of the Viking‘s hull.

The game actually has a lot of similarity to Nethack (here’s a Nethack screenshot: “@”) which has always been a favorite of mine. Like Nethack, it’s an action RPG. Like Nethack, the interface is simplistic compared to today’s 3D accelerated graphics. And most importantly, also like Nethack, the playability far surpasses most other games out there. Otherwise it wouldn’t be worth it because Transcendence doesn’t bring anything new to the table per se. But it’s the total package

I don’t have time to write a proper review although I really want to. It’s an extremely sold game with tons of variety in the spaceships you face, as well as the quests, weapons, armor, and miscellaneous equipment that you need out in the wild galaxy.

You owe it to yourself to check this out. And if you are on Linux, this game is not that intensive, it may very well run in WINE. Let me know if you get that to work.

Go get it!

Plasma Pong.  Screenshot says it all.

Plus, there’s a wicked cool sandbox mode where you get to play with all the plasma and particle effects.  It’s very mesmerizing.

This is some funny stuff. 

Here’s some notable examples:

And my favorite:

Ok, this is awesome.  Check out these EGP guys.  Lots of cool physics games.  Some are pretty gruesome but I kinda like gruesome sometimes.    Screenies:

Seanbaby.com – EGM’s Crapstravaganza: The 20 Worst Games of All Time

While you control your chosen character, the other seven somehow vanish leaving you to get savagely kicked in the shins by yourself. It’s hard to say where they go, but judging by how hard it is for you to move, I’d guess they’re all strapped to your body. “It’s my turn to fight the night’s evil minions! Thief, form Swindling Codpiece! Wizard, strap yourself on and form Magician Pants! Dwarf, hug my torso to form Hobbit Sweater!”

ROFLOLMAOBBQ!!!1111

DigYourOwnGrave Online Games – Ragdoll Avalanche

Fun little game.

As seen on Download.com’s time wasters: PENDULUMECA[ペンデュラメカ]. (I like having this Asides thing.)