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So, 0.2 is here. Now JabberDS can be used with GTalk account. As there is no RSA keypair generation in JabberDS, one should provide RSA private key and certificate for TLS to work.. Though you can use provided test pair(though it won’t be very secure 🙂 ). See archive and data/jabberds.xml for reference. Also i’ve added some screenshots on JabberDS page.

Changelog:
-fixed: incorrect authentication when “server” differs from server part of JID
-new: response to “jabber:iq:version”
-new: “feature-not-implemented” response for unsupported “get” iqs
-new: TLS support

Thanks to http://www.dev-fr.org for the news.

http://theli.is-a-geek.org/blog/

By Shahzad Sahaib with 0 comments

PALib (03-02-2008) (Community Update) (NDS misc)

Added Feb 4, 2008, Under: Nintendo DS

A new release of PALib is here, it’s a programming library useful for mostly game coders.

Release notes:

PALIB 080203 “Community Release” – BETA

Read this before using Palib!

— BACKGROUND —

Each new version of devkitARM had the disadvantage of breaking up PALib’s sound support for some linker.
The main problem with the sound was that the modplayer on the arm7 was difficult to maintain, and Mollusk didn’t have time to maintain this project.

There were some scenarios, resulting from the fact that the latest working PALib version was PAlib070717 + devkitARM r20:

a) Windows XP and Linux users who didn’t need support for new libraries such as Noda’s ASLib or future libraries compiled with devkitARM r21
were continuing to use the old PALib with devkitARM r20.
b) Windows Vista users couldn’t use PAlib compiled as it was, since devkitARM r20 doesn’t support Vista. There is a hack to do that but the authors
of devkitARM discourage it’s use. Using this hack will lead to a working PALib, but with the disadvantages of scenario a.
c) User who wanted PALib with bugfixes, new features, devkitARM r21, Vista, sound working, and new external lib support were waiting for a new PALib release.

For this one.

— THE PRESENT —

After months of work we are proud to announce the new development version of PALib,
code named “Community Release”, thanks to the efforts of (in no particular order):
Noda, Tom, Scognito, Michoko and others.

Since this is a new development release it may contain some bugs, but that’s normal since we cannot test every example with every card, so
please help us to improve it by reporting bugs and sending patches!

So what does this release offer?

* DevkitARM r21 compatibilty -> Vista support
* Support for the following libraries:
* ASLib by Noda (sound and mp3 playback)
* Modplayer by hitchhikr
* Liblobby by MightyMax and others (DS<->DS networking) (external download)
* Mikmod by Stonebone (mod, s3m, it, etc. playback) (external download)
* EFSLib by Noda (embedded file system superior to GBFS / PAFS) (external download)
* New examples:
* PAlibExamples/FAT: EFS_Lib, Locate
* PAlibExamples/Sound: ASLib_General, ASLib_using_EFSLib, SoundPlayback, MikMod
* PAlibExamples/Wifi: libLobby
* A new Makefile:
* Ability to choose the arm7 core (see below)
* WIFI icon (which is never shown) no longer included -> .nds files work with no$gba, Supercard SD, etc. The .sc.nds file is no longer needed.
* Other small things (doc compatible with latest doxygen, dsFont tool included, cleanup, etc.)
* Many bugfixes

The changelog covers everything in more detail, but it’s too long to list it here – it is included in the download.

As for the sounds, your old projects will probably not work, since the sound part is completely redone,
featuring Noda’s cool ASLib as the standard way of sound output.

— INSTALLING —

Since this is a beta release, it comes without the installer, so uninstall the old PALib (5 directories) and put there the new ones from the archive.
To add the external libraries (mikmod, liblobby, efs) you can download them from the download section or
directly from the authors to get the latest versions (but you will need a SVN client for liblobby).
Instructions on where to get and where to put the libraries are in install.txt in the PALib folder.

— PORTING YOUR PROJECTS —

These guidelines help you in porting your projects to the new version.

* Backup your old project 😉
* Do a make clean in the project dir
* Replace your project Makefile by the one in the PALibTemplate directory
* Edit it (instructions are inside)
* Do a make

Why editing Makefiles?

In this release there are various arm7 cores, because a single one cannot support mod + wifi + ds to ds wireles + mp3 + mikmod.
There are many, you can choose which one fits your needs, just select which one you prefer among these:

* mod + dswifi
* mod + liblobby
* mp3 + dswifi
* mp3 + liblobby
* mikmod + dswifi

You can also add support for EFS, just uncomment the USE_EFS line in the Makefile and follow the efs example on how to build it.

As for sounds:

PA_PlaySimpleSound(file, channel) and PA_PlaySoundRepeat(file, channel) are now replaced by
PA_PlaySimpleSound(file) and PA_PlaySoundRepeat(file).

This is because AS_Lib chooses the channel for sound playback itself, you can’t specify it.
You can get the used channel as the return value of PA_PlaySimpleSound, though.
So please check through your sources and make sure that when using functions to set volume, pan, etc. of sounds,
your program doesn’t assume that a sound effect is played on a specific channel, but passes in the channel obtained from PA_PlaySimpleSound / PA_PlaySoundRepeat.

However, these functions are only wrappers for the ASLib sound functions –
if you want to use the full potential of ASLib, you have to call its functions directly.
You can find more information on them in the “Sound and MP3 functions” section in the documentation.

— THANKS —

A big thanks to goes to Mollusk as usual, for his great library.
Thanks also to all people who helped us to do this release.

Long life to PALib!

http://palib.info/forum/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=4195&forum=41

By Shahzad Sahaib with 0 comments

Lockjaw v0.42 (NDS Game)

Added Feb 3, 2008, Under: Nintendo DS

Who needs Super Bowl XLII when you have what could be the world’s most customizable Tetris clone?

Changes:

Docs: Most of TODO.txt has been converted to a numbered list of bugs (bug 0100).
An off-by-1/65536 error in enter below ceiling was fixed. This means it doesn’t give one extra row of room to slide on at the top of the well (reported by Caithness and Kukuunen).
In case of a block out, draws the offending piece in the well before entering game over animation.
Extra 5-frame cascade delay removed.
With Lockdown set to Step reset, lock delay resets on the first floor kick.
Tengen rotation system tries kicking one space to the left (requested by zaphod77).
Options’ names and values are looked up from fourCCs for future localizability.
Options: Names of speeds in fractions of 1G are computed.
Options skips unpacking options with a value of 255. This allows multiple pref structures to be unpacked on top of each other, and each overrides the ones before it.
Debrief displays options on a second page.
Debrief correctly displays soft drop speed as a fraction (0.41 regression, reported by Lardarse).
Debrief: PC specific parts moved to separate source code file.
Debrief uses a lower-level function to format ISO 8601 date and time so as not to bring in the floating-point library’s space overhead on platforms without an FPU.
Debrief plays a sound when turning the page.
PC: Delay for holding Esc to quit no longer depends on display refresh rate. Instead, it uses the global 60 Hz timer (reported by Sara).
PC: Draws speedometer even when preview is at right, as long as there is room, that is, 3 or fewer next pieces (requested by Cubicz).
PC: Gimmick choice moved to Options to match GBA/DS.
PC: Select scenario before starting game (bug 0041).
PC options uses standardized GBA names (OPTIONS_*) instead of PC names (LJPREFS_*).
PC options Shift sound scale, Side, and Next position moved to skin.
PC options sets initial options using initOptions() from GBA/DS. Incidentally, this restores the initial randomizer to bag (0.41 regression and may make similar regressions less likely.
PC options uses unpackOptions() from GBA/DS.
PC options sound is also routed through the cross-platform sound manager.
PC: lj.ini uses fourCCs as names for easier saving and loading.
PC: Switching between windowed and full screen in Options no longer needs the user to restart the program.
PC: Skin controls window width and height (requested by Bloodstar).
PC: LJVorbis doesn’t crash if polled while the music is stopped. This can happen when cross-platform code plays sound effects during debrief.
PC: Skin sets screen resolution (bug 0017).
PC/DS: Displays a description of some option values in addition to descriptions of options themselves.
GBA/DS: Options disabled on the PC are disabled here.
GBA: Menus are faster now that part of the text engine has been moved to fast RAM.
DS: Plays sound for game over (bug 0064).
DS: Options displayed on touch screen for future touch operation.
DS: Displays debrief after game ends (bug 0031).

Thanks to tepples himself for the news: //phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=412

http://www.pineight.com/lj/

By Shahzad Sahaib with 0 comments

Death (03-02-2008) (NDS Game)

Added Feb 3, 2008, Under: Nintendo DS

iprice has borrowed some MD2 files from polycount and spent a few hours making a simple Rails shooter called “Death”.

Thanks to http://www.dev-fr.org for the news.

http://forum.gbadev.org/viewtopic.php?t=14970

By Shahzad Sahaib with 0 comments

Ultra-FastReflexes v0.2 (NDS Game)

Added Feb 3, 2008, Under: Nintendo DS

Montspy has updated his reflex game Ultra-FastReflexes. Press the appearing symbol on the screen as fast as possible on your pad to gain lots of points.