| 2kchina | Unlocks the 2K China team |
| 2ksports | Unlocks the 2KSports team |
| payrespect | Unlocks the ABA ball |
| nba2k | Unlocks the NBA 2K development team |
| vcteam | Unlocks the VC squad |
| classicthreads | Unlock alternate jerseys |
| Blazers “Rip City” uniform | |
| eydonscar | Unlocks new secondary road uniforms for the Grizzlies, Hawks, Mavericks and Rockets |
| ycprtii | Unlocks the Trail Blazers “Rip City” home uniforms |
| wasshcicsl | Hardwood Classics uniforms / CLE / GS / MIN / ORL / POR / TOR / UTA |
This update for iPhone and iPod touch contains bug fixes and improvements, including the following:
• Improves accuracy of reported battery level on iPhone 3GS
• Resolves issue where third-party apps would not launch in some instances
• Fixes bug that may cause an app to crash when using the Japanese Kana keyboard
Products compatible with this software update:
• iPhone (all models)
• iPod touch (all models)
For feature descriptions and complete instructions, see the user guides for iPhone and iPod touch at:
http://support.apple.com/manuals/iphone
http://support.apple.com/manuals/ipodtouch
For more information about iPhone and iPod touch, go to:
http://www.apple.com/iphone
http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch
To troubleshoot your iPhone or iPod touch, or to view additional support information go to:
http://www.apple.com/support/iphone
http://www.apple.com/support/ipodtouch
For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website:
By default, Windows Internet Explorer 7 and earlier versions limit the number of files that you can download at one time to two.
Windows Internet Explorer 8 limits the number of files that you can download at one time to six. This change reflects the faster connection speeds that are now typical for most users. For dial-up connections, the limits from earlier versions still apply.
This article helps you increase the number of files that you can download at one time to 10.
This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs.
To increase the number of files that you can download at one time to 10, follow these steps:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\ Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Internet Settings
Value name: MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server Value data: 10 Base: Decimal Value Name: MaxConnectionsPerServer Value data: 10 Base: Decimal
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Internet Explorer\ MAIN\ FeatureControl\ FEATURE_MAXCONNECTIONSPERSERVER
Value name: iexplore.exe Value data: 10 Base: Decimal
Note set this value to the connection limit that you want for HTTP 1.1 connections. By setting the value to 10, you increase the connection limit to 10.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Internet Explorer\ MAIN\ FeatureControl\ FEATURE_MAXCONNECTIONSPER1_0SERVER
Value name: iexplore.exe Value data: 10 Base: Decimal
Note set this value to the connection limit that you want for HTTP 1.1 connections. By setting the value to 10, you increase the connection limit to 10.
Over the years I’ve met many developers and got to know many different programming styles. Here are some of the odd ones. Do you know someone like that?
It is a programming style where the developer tries random shots at the code. “Well, this method call is failing…. I’ll try changing this parameter from false to true!” Then of course it doesn’t work and the developer goes: “Well, maybe I could just comment out the whole method call!” and so on. It can go on forever until it works by pure chance or the developer is rescued by a peer who points the correct solution.
A regular developer can go crazy in a few hours if he finds himself pairing with a shotgun programmer. It can drive you NUTS. Two shotgun programmers should never do pair programming together, because their destructive results are magnified when they work together.
It is a mild form of Shotgun Programming, and it is surprising to see how common it is. I think this category encompasses the majority of developers worldwide by a wide margin. It happens when the developers doesn’t really understand what he is doing, but things work. The dev codes some more, and the program still works. Since this is happening by accident, at some point something will break and the dev will have no idea on how to fix it. At this point, he usually has 2 courses of action: stop and understand what he did, in order to find the cause of the error, or, most likely, engage into Shotgun Programming to try to fix the problem.
Test Driven Development came to the rescue of the millions of programmers by accident. Now, you have an excuse to be program by accident: as long as the tests pass, you are good. Don’t get me wrong, Test Driven Development is a Good Thing, and it limits the damage that can be caused by Programming by Accident.
The term comes from the Cargo Cults that appeared in many pacific islands during World War II. During the war, the US used the illands as bases and built airstrips for their cargo planes. The natives were amazed by the planes who brought all those goods and food. When the war was over, the planes disappeared, and the natives built their own air strips, with bamboo control towers, in the hope that if they did exactly like the white men did, the planes would return and bring back the beloved cargo.
Cargo cult programming is the practice of applying a popular solution just because everybody else is doing and it seems to work form them, but without understanding why it is being done that way. Lots of people engaged on it during the first years of J2EE by overusing EJBs and Entity Beans, for example.
This style is very common specially among junior developers. One day you are assigned a task to fix a NullPointerException, so you just go to the line of code where the exception is generated and surrounds it with a if (reference != null).
It may very well work but you didn’t solve the cause of the bug, you just hid it until it comes back to haunt you again. What you should have done is to go back and fix the problem that caused the reference to be null in the first place.
As the name says, it is the programming style where you use design patterns for EVERYTHING. Your code is full of Facade this, Observer that, Strategy whatever, Adapter, blah blah blah. It reaches a point where you have to dig real deep to find the code that does the actual job in the middle of the Design Pattern Tangle.
When working on a bug, the Surgical Programmer investigates the cause. And then the cause’s cause. Then, he investigates the consequences of changing the code that is causing the other code to cause the other code to fail. Then he does a text search to find all usages of that class in the code, just in case. And for each match, he does another text search to find what uses the usage’s usage. Then he writes unit tests for 30 different possible scenarios, even those that don’t have anything to do with the bug he is fixing. In the end, full of confidence and with surgical precision, he fixes a typo.
In the meantime, the regular programmer fixed five other bugs.
It is the programmer that has an extreme itch to refactor everything he touches. It is the kind of programmer that, the night before shipping, when fixing a typo in an error message, changes 10 classes, refactors other 20, plus changes the build script and 5 deployment descriptors. Products that are worked on by Butcher programmers never get released! Avoid hiring these types of programmers at all costs.
When possible, plan your purchases by using the following list to score the best deals:
Introduction The House of the Dead Overkill is the latest installment of the successful House of the Dead series published by SEGA (Service Games). It is available exclusively on the Nintendo Wii as of 2009 February 11. It uses one or two Wii remotes (the nunchuk is optional) to play. Up to two players may play in co-op mode or single character “dual wield” mode, or a single player may play through the game (in this case, the game will animate the weapon being used).
The game progresses using a rail system common to all light gun games. There are no alternating paths in House of the Dead Overkill. The player or players must kill off all opposition (zombies) to advance from one scene to the next. At the end of every stage, there is a boss zombie who requires some good aim and powerful weapons to defeat.
Players earn money upon clearing a stage to purchase new weapons or to upgrade weapons already on hand. Each player may select up to two weapons to bring into each stage. There are six stages in the Story Mode and Director’s Cut of the game. Any completed stage may be replayed for a better score (and hence more money).
Upon completing House of the Dead Overkill, players will unlock the Director’s Cut of the game. The Director’s Cut has longer versions of the Story Mode stages as well as different path of the rail. More enemies are also present in the Director’s Cut version of the stages. A player’s collection of money and weapons in the Director’s Cut gun shop is separate from the Story Mode gun shop.
Other unlockable options on completing Story Mode and Director’s Cut include:
dual wield (one character, two weapons), extra mutants (extra enemies in Story Mode stages), and two additional weapons (the Hand Cannon and the Minigun).
All the criteria for unlocking each extra piece of content is described in the Extra Content menu (this menu is accessible from both Story Mode and Director’s Cut). Some notable criteria are:
(|) Earn $10,000 in your Story Mode account.
(|) Achieve accuracy of 70% and 90% for all stages in Story Mode.
(|) Shoot all golden brains in Story Mode and Director’s Cut.
(|) Save all civilians in Story Mode and Director’s Cut.
(|) Complete the Carnival level using only the AMS Magnum.
(|) Please consult the extras menu for other criteria.
Complete Story Mode to unlock the Hand Cannon in story mode and Director’s Cut.
Complete Story Mode to unlock Director’s Cut Mode. Note that the weapons and money you earn in Director’s Cut is separate from what you’ve earned in Story mode.
Complete the Director’s Cut to unlock the minigun in the gun shop for Story and Director’s Cut modes.
All the achievements in the game are listed in the Extra Contents menu (the extra videos, music, images, and 3D models). Simply perform the task required to unlock the item.
Unlock one-player dual wield mode (two remotes but one lifebar) by completing Director’s Cut. This mode will be available in both Story and Director’s Cut modes.
Complete Story mode to unlock extra mutants in Story mode (Director’s Cut already uses extra mutants).
Tailor you high scores to rack in the bonus for “beating the high score”. If you cannot top your high score in a stage any more, you will not earn money for buying guns in the shop.
To get a consistent Goregasm combo, purchase and upgrade the autoshotgun to the maximum. All you need is one hit on most zombies to kill them, giving you one shot, one kill capability.
Activate Dual Wield in a profile where it’s been unlocked, then quit and restart a new game. You will be able to play Dual Wield mode in the new profile.
Kill 50+ mutants with your Wii remote held sideways in one level to get an odd bonus of $1337.
House of the Dead Overkill values accuracy for high scores. The scoring of successful hits depends on the location shot on a zombie, as well as achieving consecutive shots on multiple zombies. A head shot will be worth more than a shot on the torso or appendage. Shooting enemies without missing will result in a higher score bonus (for each zombie killed) after every five zombie kills.
Extreme Violence 5 consecutive kills (100 bonus pts/kill thereafter) Hardcore Violence 10 consecutive kills (200 bonus pts/kill thereafter) Ultra Violence 15 consecutive kills (300 bonus pts/kill thereafter) Psychotic 20 consecutive kills (500 bonus pts/kill thereafter) GOREGASM 25 consecutive kills (1000 bonus pts/kill thereafter)
A player’s current level of combos are reset when he is injured by an enemy or if he misses hitting a valid target with his weapon. A valid target may not always be necessarily a zombie. Golden brains, slo-mo genomes, health kits, and grenades count as valid targets to maintain a player’s combo, but does not add or subtract from his combo score. Additionally, some environmental objects also serve as valid targets.
With very few exceptions, the autoshotgun ($6500) is possibly the only weapon you will need to achieve high scores and kill combos. Increasing its other qualities puts the weapon in line with the Xbox blaster-modified shotgun in House of the Dead 3 (a combat shotgun that fires like an assault rifle). The spread and power of the weapon will be enough to kill almost all zombies with a single shot, keep civilians alive, and pick-up hard to get items. After it is unlocked, the hand cannon is also a good weapon, having the same damage potential as the autoshotgun but with only seven shots instead of eight.
| Weapon Comparison Chart |
| Name | Cost | Starting Bonus | Max Bullets | Cost to Upgrade | Fire Rate | Notes |
| AMS Magnum | Free | Silver Fire Rate | 12 | $3,750 | Fast | This is your default weapon and worth upgrading if you hold off for the Auto Shotgun or Hand Cannon. |
| Hand Cannon | $5,500 | Max Damage | 8 | $4,950 | Slow | This weapon is great for scoring combos as most of its shots are one-hit kills. However, it fires a bit more slowly than the auto shotgun, and doesn’t have as wide a range. |
| Shotgun | $1,800 | None | 7 | $6,200 | Slow | A good weapon, if not for the Auto Shotgun, which carries one precious round more — and that matters. |
| Automatic Shotgun | $6,500 | Max Fire Rate / Silver Damage | 8 | $5,700 | Fast | The best weapon in the game for combos. One hit kills, large clip, wide range — you’re best off saving for this one and fully upgrading it. |
| SMG | $1,225 | Max Fire Rate / Silver Clip Size | 45 | $6,450 | Fast | Forget about combos, this gun fires in bursts of three, making missing zombies easy even if you are a good shot. |
| Assault Rifle | $4,600 | Max Fire Rate / Silver Damage | 45 | $6,500 | Fast | Once again, you will not get combos with this, so what’s the point? |
| Minigun | $15,000 | Max everything | ∞ | 0 | Fast | This entertaining weapon is featured in the final boss fight and can be unlocked for the main game. It’s expensive and makes combos nigh impossible due to its sluggish aim and fast bullets. However, it is good for collecting those golden brains! |
The principal problem is the eventual petering out of money as players play through stages and set insanely high scores. There is space for approximately a dozen names on the high score tables for each of the 12 stages (Story and Director’s). Outdoing the lowest score on the high score table for a stage earns a player $100 (more if the placement is high). Should this continue, a player may fill up the table with impossible to beat scores and hence, earn no more money for his effort.
Since some of the weapons are not only expensive, but require upgrades, a player needs to earn approximately $50,000 for both the weapons and the upgrades in Story Mode and in Director’s Cut (the gun shopo accounts and arsenals are separate). Shooting golden brains, saving civilians, and getting combos will earn a progressively higher score. If a player wants to insure he does not set an excessively high score, he may quit the stage early (having surpassed the minimum high score) and save his profile.
There are rare cases where the game will freeze in the middle of playing.
There are two kinds of this behavior: freezing (the music or sound stops completely and the whole game is paused) and hanging (where the music is still going, but the game refuses to progress on the rail).
For freezing, the chances are that the Wii has been running for a while and has stopped functioning temporarily. Should this occur only with House of the Dead Overkill, but not other Wii disc-run software, it may be a defective game disc. Please call Nintendo’s customer service hotline for a solution.
If the game is hanging, make sure to look around the screen for zombies that may have been amputated but are still alive. If the game’s option “Danger Camera” is set to toggle (default), press D-Pad Up to allow the character to look around while aiming at the edges of the TV screen. For the best performance on House of the Dead Overkill, it is recommended to have the Danger Camera option set to “always on.” Once the aiming sight turns red, it will likely be a zombie that was missed in the frentic action. Killing all zombies in the current scene will allow the rail to progress.
This should occur on the rarest of occasions (or not at all). This happens when the Nintendo Wii has been run for long periods of time and not allowed a chance for its internals to operate at optimum conditions (approximately 65 degrees Farenheit). Allow the system to cool down before using it again. If the problem persists, please call Nintendo’s customer service hotline for a solution.
House of the Dead Overkill is rated by the ESRB as M for “mature” audiences in the United States. Aside from the violent nature of the action, there are sexual and language material that may be unsuitable for minors. Please consult the ESRB (www.esrb.org) for more information about electronic software ratings in the United States.
The first page provides free online Christmas music downloads, primarily from independent artists. For 2009, five new musicians have been listed, including The Snoflowerz and Silvia Fleming.
Songs are filed into the categories “Contemporary Vocal” and “Traditional Vocal“, with a total of 10 and 11 songs, respectively. To download an mp3, go to the respective category, right-click on the Download button and select “Save Link As…” from the pie menu.
At New Christmas Music you will find new (contemporary) Christmas songs, traditional Christmas carols, Christmas plays and Christmas CDs.
Songs are available in up to three different formats: mp3, wma, and midi. To download, proceed as described previously.
This page contains mp3’s, midis and scores. You can browse songs by the categories traditional vocal or instrumental, contemporary vocal or instrumental, and midi. Recently added files are featured on the start page.
You can listen to the songs through Winamp by clicking the respective button. To download, proceed as described before.
Each year, the Garritan Community compiles a Christmas album.
At the point of writing this article, volume 6 for 2009 was not yet released.
However, volumes 1 through 5 from previous years are available for download. Each album contains up to 21 songs. A free cover and CD label design are provided for printing.
Songs of the current volume can be previewed through the web music player.
In 2005 Uwe Hermann first posted a list of 10 + 100 Creative Commons Christmas Songs.
He’s been updating the list regularly since then and it meanwhile contains over 250 songs.
The list links both to the artist website and to the download page. Follow the song title link to obtain the mp3. Some links point directly to the file, others to a compilation, and some links may even be outdated.
Christmas Gifts features 11 songs courtesy of Kevin McLeod. They are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.
You can download the files by using the right-click / save as method, described above.
The site also provides a free Christmas Carols E-Book in PDF format, which contains the lyrics for dozens of songs. There is a link for sheet music and a midi file included with each song in the top right of the respective page.
A-M Classical shares a small selection of songs that were released under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
Right-click and select “Save Link As…” to download.
mfiles provides free mp3 downloads of Christmas Carols. Currently, there are 19 songs to choose from.
The music is available in midi and mp3, and you can print the sheet music. As with most sites in this list, download is available through right-click and “Save Link As…”.
The site provides Christmas Carols in midi format and the matching lyrics to print and/or download.
To download the midis, right-click on the “Listen” links and select “Save Link As…” from the pie menu.
Free-Loops features free Christmas sounds, among midis and regular songs.
Sounds include bells, falling snow, a drum loop, and Santa complaining about the chimney.
Jingle Bell Jukebox allows you to listen to entire albums worth of free online Christmas music.
The archive contains nine albums, including Dean Martin’s “My Kind of Christmas”, Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas”, and Amy Grant’s “A Christmas Album”.
You can skip songs and switch between albums. Each album is played in a loop.
Radioio has launched three channels dedicated to holiday music. They are Christmas Traditions, Country Christmas, and Today’s Christmas.
The player is simple and easy to use. You can choose a bitrate (64 or 32), see which song is being played, which other songs were played recently, and quickly change to another holiday channel through a menu on the left (not shown below).
AOL radio features a great selection of radio stations, including Christmas music.
The link above directs you to a site listing them all. Click the play button next to a station to launch the player.
Inside the player you can also switch between categories and stations.
If you like a channel, you can add it to your presets through the menu at the bottom right. All your presets are listed on the right (not shown in the image above).
SHOUTcast is powered by AOL music, but the selection of stations is different. There are actually less Christmas-themed stations, however I prefer the options. You can use the web player or listen to the stations in Winamp and other players.
The web player allows to switch between related stations.
Web-Radio also has a selection of stations dedicated to Christmas.
Click on the Web-Radio Player to open it in a new tab or window, then select your Christmas station and enjoy.
Web-Radio offers a Toolbar for IE and Firefox, which comes with a lot of ad material and does not include its Christmas stations.
Last.fm radio stations can be played without creating an account. You can use the radio station I linked to or search for your own. Other Last.fm Christmas-themed stations include Christmas, Weihnachten (German), Noël (French) or Navidad (Spanish).
If you want to block a song you can’t stand, such as Wham’s Last Christmas, you have to log in.
The easiest to use site to listen to free online Christmas music is Christmas Radio.
You can choose from nine different Christmas-themed radio stations, including Christmas Classics, Christmas Rock, and the Top 40 of Christmas songs.
Songs are played on site through JW FLV Media Player.
A neat little extra is the word cloud to display the headline in different languages.
AccuHolidays features a long list of holiday music radio stations, for example Holiday on Broadway, Quiet Christmas Eve, Blue and White Christmas, and Celtic Christmas.
Select a station from the site to launch the AccuHolidays player. Alternatively, you can build your own music mix, i.e. mix all your favorite stations. The player shows the current song and you can quickly switch to other channels or modify the list of artists (read: ban artists) used for this station.
I love the option to remove artists from the playlist. Goodbye Celine!
TipsRemain happy when you are in the sewers on the way to the Ghost Witch’s lair. Then hit Pac-Man with your slingshot once to make him angry, and use that slingshot to direct him to a hole in the wall. In this hole there are two burglars. Pac-Man will then chase them out. Have Pac-Man move to the left by pressing the D-pad left and the Y button at the same time. Use the slingshot on the left-most wall until it spins and then “bam” a secret path with a mine cart appears!
Hold Select and press X at the item screen.
Level Password
1 [Pac-Man icon]WFTW5W
2 [Pac-Man icon]WGW45W
3 [Pac-Man icon]WFTWX4
Gum Monster 9YGZ11P
Select the password option on the main menu and enter. Note that “pac” denotes using the Pac-Man symbol. These passwords are great if you’re hunting for percentages.
Passwords:
FYpacW4XW : Begin level 1
ZYVW4Vpac : Start at Lucy’s room.
FFpacD3TW : Start at Old Arcade, left side.
ZYVWMVT : Start at Old Arcade, right side.
FYTW4XC : Start at Old Game Center
YFpacW4XW : Start at Pac-man’s house, left side.
pacFpacV5TW : Start at Pac-man’s house, right side.
ZYBW4VT : Start at Pac-man’s room.
ZYpacC2VT : Start at Park, left side.
FYBD3WW : Start at Park, right side.
YFTWMXW : Start at Stock Farm, left side.
FFVXNTW : Start at Stock Farm, right side.
ZYVC4VT : Start at Village Way, exiting Lucy’s house.
FYTC4XW : Start at Village Way, left side.
YFTC4XW : Start at Village Way, right side.
FODWW5W : Level 2
BWHY37Y : Level 3
JWGOVZ6 : Level 4
FFTDB2W : Mine Cart Level
PCMNPTT : Pattern Test
BGMRQST : Sound Test
Enter TRLMDPW as a password, to open up Time Trial Mode.
Enter PCMMDPW as a password, to unlock the old school Pac-Man arcade game.
Enter MSPCMND as a password, to unlock the old school Ms. Pac-Man arcade game.
SOLID Development Principles
S.O.L.I.D. is a collection of best-practice object-oriented design principles that you can apply to your design to accomplish various desirable goals like loose-coupling, higher maintainability, intuitive location of interesting code, etc.
S.O.L.I.D. is an acronym for the following principles (which are, themselves acronyms — confused yet?).
SRP – THERE SHOULD NEVER BE MORE THAN ONE REASON FOR A CLASS TO CHANGE.
OCP – SOFTWARE ENTITIES (CLASSES, MODULES, FUNCTIONS, ETC.) SHOULD BE OPEN FOR EXTENSION BUT CLOSED FOR MODIFICATION.
LSP – FUNCTIONS THAT USE … REFERENCES TO BASE CLASSES MUST BE ABLE TO USE OBJECTS OF DERIVED CLASSES WITHOUT KNOWING IT.
ISP – CLIENTS SHOULD NOT BE FORCED TO DEPEND UPON INTERFACES THAT THEY DO NOT USE
DIP – HIGH LEVEL MODULES SHOULD NOT DEPEND UPON LOW LEVEL MODULES. BOTH SHOULD DEPEND UPON ABSTRACTION. ABSTRACTIONS SHOULD NOT DEPEND UPON DETAILS. DETAILS SHOULD DEPEND UPON ABSTRACTIONS
