So after a while going laptopless, except for some days last semester so I can do CMPT 470 stuff (borrowed off my dad), I think it’s time to go and buy myself a new laptop for productivity reasons. My main uses for it would be to get development done on it, whether it be Web development like how I work now, or software development. I don’t plan on doing too much graphics stuff (I’m not that great at it) either.

But then again, my requirements for a laptop would be somewhat demanding.

• Really really really good battery life. As an example, the borrowed laptop can run for 4 hours while running off my boot drive, which is the 30 GB drive from my first laptop that I got for free with xubuntu installed. If possible, I’d like to get it up and high as possible…
• Durable. I generally like to make full use of whatever I use and given the fact that a laptop is a portable computer, I find myself using it all over the place, from my desk at home to a couch in the CS common room to the bus. What use is it if you need to be extremely delicate with it?
• Warranty and service that doesn’t toss you all over the place. I just speak from experience with Dell Tech Support. I absolutely hate having to call them just because they don’t really give you a permanent solution to your problem. For example, with my dad’s laptop right now, it’s got a screen issue where the laptop screen just dims itself out. The tech’s fix was to set something in the registry to have it not shut down the screen. Maybe it’s just me and not wanting to just tell the tech to screw off and die and let me return the thing to depot for repair.

Anyone have any recommendations? New laptop preferred.

First things first, I will be at SFU next semester. Luckily for my sanity, I won’t be taking classes, but rather doing my co-op term with the School of Computing Science.

Lightning Round went nicely for me. The week after finals were over, I had six interviews over the span of four days for various people, mainly in the public sector side of things (ie. government and government-affiliated groups). However, by Tuesday, when I had four interviews, I already had a job offer from the school. Other offers trickled through, including one from the SFU library doing development on their projects, such as the Public Knowledge Project, as well as one from the Provincial Health Services Authority, associated with the province of BC, doing development in .Net.

All the offers had something interesting to offer and something to learn. For example, working with the PHSA would have given me a chance to learn C#. Working with the library would have given me valuable software development experience

But what set the school apart from the rest was simply because it gave me numerous opportunities to develop myself in areas that I know I am lacking in; namely people skills. Since the job is around 60-70% recruitment (of students), it gives me a chance to work on things like public presentations, which usually make me nervous.

It is with this mindset that made me decide on that for my co-op term. This starts on Thursday.

So to pass the time, through a referral from Marcel, I am working on a contract job for a friend of his, working on a restaurant guide website written on PHP with the Fusebox framework. It’s an interesting framework and I can’t really say too much about it yet, having only worked on it for a few days, mainly making fairly specific changes. The circuit system with fuses and all does seem quite interesting though, to say the least.

Well, looks like things would be busy.

I need to pick up my parents from the airport tonight after their trip to Las Vegas.

Tomorrow is a Scouting Centennial Celebration held by the Vancouver East Area (ie. the area which my group belongs to), so I’ll need to wake up early (just like the past few days) and help setup and oversee the booths our group is running.

Then on Sunday, we have the WCCCLC pre-camp meeting, then work, work, work, with WCCCLC over the Labour Day long weekend.

I think I’m going to be sleep deprived. Best get used to it..

Some other things have attracted my attention in the set of releases

Gundemonium Recollection

Link: http://www20.cds.ne.jp/~murasame/games/re_gundemonium.htm

This is a horizontal shooter (think R-Type or Zero Wing of “All Your Base” fame to get an idea of what that is) in the 弾幕 (danmaku) style, which means a small hit box for you and quite a lot of projectiles. You control girls with guns that can fly and have magic to a degree.

Depending on who you use (you can choose between the main character Eryth (from what I can tell she is the main character) or create a custom character out of the four Earl Types (you can customize their primary weapon, their special ability, and their bomb attack).

東方風神録 ~ Mountain of Faith

Link: http://www16.big.or.jp/~zun/html/th10dl.html

This is the tenth game in the 東方 (Touhou) series. I haven’t ever played anything in the series before, but it looks like a very intense 弾幕 (danmaku) game. And damn straight it is. The music goes well with it nicely, the boss attack patterns are complex and make for a challenging game.

You choose between two characters and for each character, one out of three styles, which dictates your weapon evolution path and your bomb attack (I think; I don’t really use the bomb ability because it costs you in firepower), called a Spell Card. In reality however, your weapon does not evolve, but you get these satellites around your character which shoot extra shots, dependent on your style. Focusing will make you move slower, reveals your hitbox (for better dodging ability), and changes your support shots into its secondary mode, which is quite useful.

The game is challenging, but very fun and enjoyable. Try it if you can.

So Comiket 72 happened a few days ago and as a result, a flood of torrents of games released were posted. (just search for C72; games are usually categorized under “Other”).

As some may know, I really really like shooting games. And they’re quite popular over in Japan. So of course, after coming across some postings about some games to expect from C72, I went off and got myself some games and while I’m at it, some reviews of sorts.

So here we go!

Ether Vapor

Link: http://edelweiss.sakura.ne.jp/works/works.html (Ether Vapor is in the first section; the links there from top to bottom are “Introduction”, “Screenshots”, “Download”, “Development Log” (an educated guess; can’t translate that…), “Staff List”)

Download Link: http://edelwiss.sakura.ne.jp/works/ethervapor/download.html (note that the demo they released, v1.08, at C72 isn’t posted there)

One’s first impressions on this game is probably going to be “ooo.. pretty graphics“. And yes, Edelwiss’s Ether Vapor has that. But it’s also quite fun. Your ship has three different weapons mounted on: a vulcan gun (Gatling), a multi-directional weapon (Winder), and a homing laser weapon (Lock On).

Each of the weapons also has a charge up attack. So for Gatling, charging it up would get you a powerful shot (Gatling: Pierce). Charging up Winder will give you an explosive radius around your ship (Winder: Radiate) that damages nearby enemies as well as taking out nearby enemy projectiles, which is quite handy when you’re in a bind. Somehow, I haven’t been able to charge up Lock On, but from the look of the screenshot (can’t read the Japanese, too much kanji), Lock On: Cascade seems to either do something like Winder: Radiate or perhaps stronger shots.

The most memorable part of this game so far was probably the bonus section in the first mission where you had to shoot down enemy missiles with the lock on weapon. The game moves the camera and switches the controls a bit to allow you to do so efficiently.

Magical Cannon Girl

Link: http://www.kit-station.com/mcg/index.html

A shmup game that involves a magical girl who can attack with regular shots as well as a charge up magical cannon attack. What are her opponents? Pink and blue blobs that remind me of the Porings in the Ragnarok Online universe, except they have wings (yes, I know Angelring has wings, but your typical Poring doesn’t).

Of course, there are other enemies out and about too, but I’ll leave those for you to figure out. It’s quite a challenging game, like most Japanese games. And of course, you have your boss battles at the end of a stage.

Basically, you control レベッカ (Rebecca), a magical girl. My Japanese isn’t that great, so I don’t really know the story, but somewhere in the middle of the first mission, you encounter some mythical beast of some kind named ラファ (Rafa) who helps you.

Speaking of magical girls, and ones with destructive powers similar to Magical Cannon Girl..

Nanoha Taiken -Lyrical Nanoha- 2nd Chu

Download Link: http://www5b.biglobe.ne.jp/~aoi_pg/download/dl.htm (click the last link in Internet Explorer; it doesn’t work properly with Firefox)

魔法少女リリカルなのは (Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha) fans rejoice! This is a shooting game based off of the Nanoha universe. If you’ve played the first game, which is based on the A’s storyline and involves the player selecting either Nanoha or Fate and fighting all the Wolkenritter, including the original Reinforce.

This newer version introduces tag team play into the mix. The demo appears to let you only play with the Nanoha/Vita pairing, but I could be wrong and Fate/Signum and Hayate/Reinforce II might be unlockables. But then again, it’s a demo, so maybe they aren’t unlockable. Anyone care to find out and let me know?

As for the story, no freaking clue. But you end up fighting Arf and Signum as bosses in the two stages that are part of the demo.

That’s all I’ve grabbed and played so far. Hopefully more stuff shows up on Tokyo Toshokan over time.

The Overdriven Zone has started its move out of the in-house server to Dreamhost. Thanks to Curtis, who has let me use some of his server space and such for things, I now have my blog, and soon, my website (when completed), on something that would probably be much faster (save for myself).

So, since the URL has now changed to take advantage of my domain that I have had for well over a year now, some people will need to change their links.

Given time, which I should have an OK amount of outside of going to interviews for co-op Lightning Round and such unless something big comes up, here’s a to-do list.

• Design a scheme
• Create my website (I have the levels of navigation and everything already thought out for it) – just so you know, its going to be one of those sites for work searching purposes.
• Make WordPress work with the scheme (ie. create WP theme to make Curtis stop telling me to make my blog look different)

After that, then I guess it’s time to bring projects off the shelf where they are collecting dust and get to work with them.

Fun times. Fun times.

Dominic Lau is currently a 4th year Computing Science major studying at Simon Fraser University. He goes online by the alias Overdrive.

More to come soon.