Xavi Esteve » free

Twitter Website Template for Adobe Fireworks CS5 (inc. layers, guides, gradients, etc.)

Xavi — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 10:19:59 +0000

Since I discovered Macromedia Fireworks some years ago I moved from Photoshop to Fireworks and I am a big fan and supporter of it, the learning curve is smooth and it is much quicker and easier to work with images. I’ve also been converting web designers to the yellow side by explaining how much better, faster and simpler is Fireworks compared to Photoshop. And whenever I stumble upon another Fireworks fan in events or conferences, a little light brights inside my heart.

I am proud to be releasing a freebie for all the fans of Fireworks today. It is the new Twitter website template as a multilayered Adobe Fireworks CS5 PNG file. The PNG has been designed to be pixel perfect and following the colour and transparencies specified in the HTML/CSS. Everything is organized into folders and layers (see end of post), friendly named, guides and the Twitter CSS sprite map with all the extra icons are included to help you snap everything to the grid and design your own Twitter website-based and learn more about their web design.

License

This template is released free to use for both personal and commercial use, free for you to use and base your work on. No attribution is required although appreciated. If you want to share this template you should not host the source file directly on any website but link to this page (since I keep improving the file, having several copies spread around the Internet will create confusion among users).

Download the Twitter template

Right click the button and select “Save As”:

Twitter Template for Adobe Fireworks CS5 (1.90MB)

If you have any questions, feedback or ideas please post a comment below.

Thanks for using Fireworks!

Fixed Website Fold height (minimal Javascript Plugin, jQuery)

Xavi — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 06:22:10 +0000

FoldResizer is a Javascript plugin that will keep anything you want above the fold without worrying about your visitors screen size. The plugin is very easy to install and it works by resizing a

and allowing you to decide how much space left you need. Here are some examples:

These are screenshots of the same website loaded in different screen sizes, as you can see, the fold is always in the same place, displaying the same content for each user and having full control on what you want to show to them. Always keeping what matters above the fold.

Features

Cross-browser – Works in Firefox, Chrome, Safari, IE (including IE6)
No plugins required – Just 100% pure Javascript
Instant loading – No need to wait for the page to be loaded completely
Small size – Less than 0.2KB

Instructions

Include the script file and call the function by passing the parameters:

foldresizer(‘containerID’, freeheight, minheight);

ID of the container to be resized
How many pixels height to leave free
Minimum size of the resized container (default 0)

Example:

Note that this plugin is purely JavaScript and does not rely on jQuery or any other plugins so you can call it in your while the page is loading and users will not notice any page redrawing or resizing.

Demo

See the plugin working live at the SFP Group website. Resize your browser window and reload the page to see how it always keeps the fold fixed.

Download

Download the script by right clicking on the links and clicking ‘Save as’:

FoldResizer Minified version (0.95KB) (recommended)
FoldResizer Maxified version (1.5KB)

Creative Commons image Search Tool (autotags and resizes)

Xavi — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 13:52:36 +0000

Direct link to the tool: Flicksourcer

Jonathan Foucher created Flickholdr a few weeks ago and I am impressed by how good the system is. It is not like other dummy image generators where you get a grey box or images of cats, it allows you to source random Creative Commons images from Flickr or even keyword relevant ones, scale them to your desired size and add a Copyright tag with the authors name automatically.

Flickholdr is mainly designed to be used as a placeholder image tool although I had been using it a couple times to source images for live posts in a quick way, allowing me to save time browsing Flickr for free licensed images and scaling them in Fireworks/Photoshop. The minor problem I had with Flickholdr is that I had to keep changing the URL manually one by one and finding the perfect image was quite tedious.

So I came up with this little script that loads several images in one click. You specify the image size, some relevant keywords (optional) and the quantity of images to generate. Try to keep the quantity number as low as possible since Jonathan shares the service for free and if many requests are made it can turn the service slow for other users.

Find the generator tool here:

Flicksourcer http://xaviesteve.com/pro/flicksourcer/

You can also download the source code completely for free since it has been coded using JavaScript, jQuery and HTML. If you host it in your site remember to mention and link back to Jonathan and to myself (CC-by-sa 3.0).

Another related tool

Are you constantly creating mockups and wireframes? Check out Real Ipsum, a topic oriented English dummy text generator that generates random English text which looks better than Lorem ipsum. And the bookmarklet grabs keywords from the website you choose so the text is completely relevant. Also generates people and company names, random dates, colours, etc. Check it out!

Free Social Media Icons Vectorial Pack in Fireworks PNG

Xavi — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 11:55:16 +0000

I am redesigning my website and created these social media icons pack for it. While I finish designing and developing the website as a side project I thought it would be good to share the icons free to the community so anyone can use them for their projects too.

The file is in Fireworks PNG format and all of the icons in it are vectors (you can make them bigger, smaller, etc.), I have added some Fireworks effects to them as an example although you can elaborate them much further. It includes icons for:

Twitter
RSS feed
Behance
LinkedIn
Facebook
StumbleUpon
Last.fm
Spotify

This free social media icon pack is released under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attributive Share-Alike license. This means that you can use them for both personal and commercial use while keeping them open and giving me a link back.
You can download the Fireworks editable PNG from here (Right click > Save file as…):

Adobe Fireworks Free Social Media Icons Pack (1,2MB)

Feel free to request more icons and web services.

Set up an effective small business team online for free

Xavi — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 16:20:42 +0000

Some of my clients, specially small companies that are creating an online presence, do not know about the benefits of the Internet as a great organizational and communication tool to become more effective. I’ve seen that most of the members of the team are still not using any of the advantages of the free Internet tools at all. They’ll keep working the traditional way: all documents as Microsoft Word/Excel and communicating through their Hotmails into a massive pile of disorganized and indigestible emails. Or one-to-one mobile calls several times a day with each member which costs a fortune.

Initial Setup

These are the fundamental tools that each team should have in order to effectively work and communicate. And they are all free.

1. GMail everyone

It’s not just an email client. GMail is the most powerful and effective communication tool around. Apart from sending emails and allowing you to manage multiple email addresses through just one place, it also includes a text and video chat as well as allowing you to send and receive big files, preview data and work seamlessly with Google Docs and Google Calendar. So even if Hotmail has now a super cool revamped design, every team member should get a Google Mail account and start using it right now. If you have always used Hotmail or Yahoo or another email client, it may be a bit overwhelming to have two email accounts now, but start using it for your business for now and you will soon realize the benefits of it.

2. Google Groups email

Next big step forward: Create a Google Groups email and add everyone’s email to it. Now, sending an email to mysuperteamname@googlegroups.com will send the email to everyone in that list and you will avoid typing in emails one by one for every email you compose as well as avoiding mistakes.

4. Google Docs

Now that we have emails controlled and nicely organized, we need to organize documents too. Since everyone now has a Google Account (you get a Google Account when creating a GMail account), head to Google Docs and create a new Collection (that’s how folders are called in GDocs), name it MySuperTeamName and share it with everyone’s by typing their Google email address. You can now create Words, Excels, Powerpoints and drawings via the web browser. Everyone will have access to all the documents there and be able to edit them simultaneously from any computer at any time! Which means no more disorganized versions and revisions that get replaced, lost and duplicated every time someone wants to work on it, automatic backups and revisions of all files, etc.

3. Dropbox

We have documents solved now. Let’s get through the files like photos, logos and PDFs. Dropbox allows you to share a folder in your computer with everyone, for free. You just need to create a Dropbox account (use this link to get an extra 250MB) now and download the software. Then go to the website interface, create a folder and share it with everyone in your team by typing their email address.

5. Google Calendar

How about scheduling meetings, milestones and deadlines? Google Calendar is the solution. Head to Google Calendar and create a private Calendar. Then share it with your team and start organizing your time. Create meeting requests (which everyone can accept/decline), receive reminders by SMS and even attach a map to the meeting place. By the way, you can also synchronize it with Microsoft Outlook.

6. Skype

Finally, avoid the expensive cost of calls by calling through Skype. You can also create conference calls so you can all speak at the same time from any place in the world, be it home, office or a beach in Hawaii.

Useful links

Here you have the step by step links to get yourself going:

Photo by brraveheart

Best Discovery Music blogs with Online Player and direct Free Mp3 Downloads

Xavi — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:47:16 +0000

Here’s a little list of music blogs that post about new songs that you can listen in situ and download the track if needed.

Aurgasm.us

Music genres: electronic, folk, funk, jazz, pop, reggae, soul
Update freq: unknown
Mp3 downloads: Yes

Chilled music you have never heard about from.

http://aurgasm.us

Randomfoo.net

Music genres: indie, pop, electronic, folk
Update freq: occasionally
Mp3 downloads: Yes

This is the personal blog from Leonard where he posts some of his latest discoveries in music. Very nice taste.

http://randomfoo.net

DataSapiens

Music genres: house, techno, dance
Update freq: every day
Mp3 downloads: Yes

An electronic music blog updated every day. It is not in english but it has the option to googletranslate it.

http://blog.datasapiens.net

Lets Sexy Fighting

Music genres: indie, folk, electro, hip-hop
Update freq: 2-4 days
Mp3 downloads: Yes

Electro music blog.

http://letssexyfighting.blogspot.com/

Disco Dust

Music genres: indie, electro, pop
Update freq: 1-3 days
Mp3 downloads: Yes

http://discodust.blogspot.com/

Electronic Austin

Music genres: indie, folk, electro, hip-hop
Update freq: 3-7 days
Mp3 downloads: Yes

The only thing I don’t like about this blog is that it starts playing music automatically.

http://electronicaustin.com/

Check the comments for more Music Blogs and feel free to note down any recommendations (provide music genres and update frequency).

Top photo by Mike

Cosas que debes saber al descargar programas para evitar virus y spyware

Xavi — Fri, 29 May 2009 14:23:37 +0000

Antes de nada advertir de que obtener copias completas de software de pago sin pagar por una licencia válida es ilegal y no apoyo estas acciones aunque comprendo que en determinadas ocasiones, por ejemplo siendo estudiante, le es a uno imposible costearse una copia original de los programas necesarios para estudiar ya que pueden llegar a valer entre 200€ y 500€.

Esta es la razón por la que escribo este artículo, porque ya que algunos os acabaréis descargando los programas ilegalmente, que sepáis a lo que os arriesgáis ya que hay personas que aprovechan para introducir virus, troyanos y malware en los archivos descargados.

Atención: Cuando quieras bajarte algo de software, recuerda que tendrás que acabar abriendo un ejecutable (EXE, MSI, COM, BAT, APP…) y se debe ir con mucho cuidado que no sea o contenga virus o malware.

Lo primero de todo: Buscar alternativas de código libre

Lo que puedes hacer antes de nada es buscar en SourceForge a ver si hay alguna aplicación parecida pero de código libre. Suelen ser 100% libres de virus, “gratuitas” para su uso y desarrolladas por la comunidad de internautas dispuesta a ayudarte en cualquier problema o duda. Puede que no hayan, no sean suficientemente potentes, no te convenzan o sólo esten en inglés. Entonces sigue leyendo…

¿Qué es el shareware, las demos, trials, parches y cracks?

La mayoría de los programas de pago (llamados shareware) los podrás utilizar sólo durante una semana, un mes, unos días… o tendrán limitaciones en su uso (no te dejará guardar tus trabajos o algunas características no estarán disponibles). Se les llama “demo version“, “trial version“, “30-day try out” y otros parecidos…

Los parches o cracks son archivos del programa modificados a los que se les ha quitado la limitación para que no detecte que no has pagado por él, normalmente es un archivo con extension .EXE o .DLL.

En muchas ocasiones, cuando compras un programa de pago te dan una clave o contraseña secreta que sólo tienes tú. Ésta se la introduces al programa y la empresa sabe que lo has comprado y te ofrecen el programa sin limitaciones. Los keygen o key generators o serials son generadores de estas claves (contraseñas).

Ten en cuenta que algunos programas sólo funcionan con parches o cracks mientras que para otros necesitarás un serial y/o un crack… A veces incluso tendrás que modificar varios archivos o configurar tu sistema de cierta manera. Ten cuidado con ello, haz una copia de todo lo que modifiques por si luego no funciona poder dejarlo todo como estaba antes.

¿Qué necesitas para instalar software gratis?

Lo que necesitas para que un programa de pago funcione al 100% son dos cosas:

El programa instalable
El crack, serial y/o parche: lo que hacen es engañar al programa diciéndole que tú has pagado por él.
Una vez engañado, se activarán todas las funciones y podrás utilizarlo para siempre.

Pasos para descargar

Conocer las versiones

Visita siempre la página oficial de la empresa en busca de su versión más reciente y su fecha de salida al mercado y anótalo en un papel.

Descargar el programa ejecutable

Lo mejor es descargarse la versión de prueba (demo, trial) de la página oficial y después buscar el crack o serial.

Lo más común es descargarte el crack, serial o parche, y luego el instalador. A veces ya viene el programa crackeado o te descargas todo junto dentro de una carpeta comprimida (extensiones Zip, Rar, 7z, Ace…).

¿Cómo descargar los cracks, parches o serials?

Hay varios métodos. Quizás el más fácil es el de P2P (eMule, Ares, Kazaa, Limewire…) aunque también existen los Torrents (uTorrent, Azureus, BitTorrent…) y otros métodos.

Sistema P2P: Si utilizas P2P, bájate la última versión de estos programas de la página oficial (sigue los enlaces que pongo) y NUNCA pruebes versiones raras que digan que van más rápido, es mentira y simplemente te engañan para que te lo descargues, tampoco te lo descargues desde Softonic ni sitios así. Una vez lo tengas funcionando, tengas los puertos abiertos, etc… es tan fácil como utilizar el buscador que lleva el programa para encontrar cosas. Recomendado para principiantes en el mundillo de las descargas.
Sistema Torrent: Es diferente al P2P ya que el programa de descarga de Torrents no tiene buscador. Tienes que buscar por Internet los archivos .torrent y abrirlos (contienen la información necesaria para que el programa de descarga de Torrents empiece a descargar). Lo bueno de los Torrents es que encuentras comentarios de la gente en los foros y páginas de búsqueda y descarga de Torrents que ayudan mucho ya que avisan de si funciona o no, de si contiene virus, etc. Ah, recuerda que hay mala gente que se dedica a publicar mentiras en los comentarios, utiliza el sentido común y juzga por tí mismo. La mejor página de búsqueda de Torrents hasta el momento es The Pirate Bay.

Una vez elijas un método, investiga sobre las diferentes versiones disponibles. Nunca te descargues versiones que anuncien ser posteriores a las de la página oficial de la empresa, normalmente son trampas. Y si la fecha de salida es de menos de un mes mejor que escojas una versión anterior, al equipo de crackers (programadores que se dedican a crear cracks o keygens) todavía no les debe haber dado tiempo a crackearlo y testearlo para que funcione bien así que no te arriesgues.

Como norma general, si un usuario se descarga un crack/parche que no funciona o es un virus, lo borrará. Si funciona se lo quedará. Observa cuánta gente tiene ya ese archivo, cuanta más gente, más fiable. En los torrents se les llama “Seeders” a los que tienen el archivo. En P2P serán “Fuentes”, “Clientes” o alguna palabra parecida. Si descargas con Torrents mira a ver si la gente ha comentado sobre el archivo. Cosas como “fake” o “virus” te indicarán que alguien ya lo ha probado y no funcionaba.

Los cracks (copias del programa o archivo original pero a la que le quitan las funciones de protección y detección de copias falsas así que suelen ser un poco más pequeños) suelen ser del tamaño parecido al programa que crackean/reemplazan. Varían un 5-10% en su tamaño. Así que si las instrucciones del crack te piden que reemplaces el archivo azul.EXE por crack.EXE y este último es tres veces mayor en tamaño… sospecha.

Una vez lo tengas descargado

Es muy importante actualizar tu antivirus con la última versión disponible y analizar los archivos descargados detenidamente antes de abrir nada. Si no tienes antivirus, existen de gratuitos (que a veces van incluso mejor que los de pago), te recomiendo AVG Free Antivirus (llevo varios años usándolo y supera de creces a muchos otros). También puedes utilizar un anti-spyware y/o anti-rootkit (busca en Google).

Agradece el esfuerzo a sus autores

Si después de utilizar el programa durante un tiempo tienes algunos ahorros, agradece a sus autores las horas que han dedicado a desarrollar el programa comprándoles una copia legal (siempre desde la web oficial) o haciendo una donación. Muchos de estos autores no son grandes compañías que facturan millones al año, son gente que vive de pasarse horas delante del ordenador tecleando código y a la que también le cuesta llegar a fin de mes para pagarse el piso y una cervecita de vez en cuando.

Y si realmente no tienes ni un duro, siempre puedes enviarle un e-mail de agradecimiento al autor del programa, que aunque parezca que no, los programadores son seres humanos con sentimientos y un e-mail dando las gracias siempre es agradecido :-)

Learn Tremulous in 5 minutes Tutorial (or how to understand and play decently in 5 minutes)

Xavi — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 21:29:25 +0000

PRO PLAYERS READ THIS FIRST: I’ve been a Tremulous player and a high level admin of some of the most popular servers in Tremulous for several years. Actually, I’ve spend months only dedicating to this game have seen tons of players not understanding the basics of this fast paced strategy game that I decided to write this guide to clear some things out. You are NOT playing Counter Strike or Halo, this is Tremulous. A mix between FPS and strategy games. This article is a quick guide for newbies. Experienced players may learn something but don’t start trolling on how good you are or how whatever sucks, this is intended to give a general idea of the game, go to Trem forums to discuss your super skills and your 5 kills per minute ratio.
Disclaimer: This article refers to Tremulous 1.1, while most of the information and tactics described here are valid and very useful, there are some slight changes in the most recent version of the game like the credit algorithm or the price of stuff that have changed to balance the game. Read the comments for more information or check the changelog.

What’s Tremulous about?

It’s aliens versus humans. Aliens can evolve into bigger creatures and humans can buy weapons and armors. Both teams have bases. Those bases work like StarCraft, Age of Empires or other similar games. There are buildings that heal, others attack, defend or power units…

The game is very very very intense and awesomely fast (you can die in 2 seconds or survive for 30 minutes without dying). Rounds can last from 5 minutes to 2 or 3 hours (really, it has happened more than once to start a round, play a bit, do something else, get out to the pub and meet with friends, get back to Trem and continue the same game).

By the way, Tremulous is totally free to download and play. The code source of the game is open too.

Tremulous is a team based game

One thing is clear, you can’t win without working together with your team. When attacking, try to go in groups. If someone says “help at base”, go back to base and help. If you’ve got some spare money, donate it to the team (you will get it back).

Evos/Credits

Those two are Tremulous free money. Evos are for aliens and go from 0 to 9. Credits are for humans and go from 0 to 2000. You earn 175 credits when you kill an alien (if you do half damage you get half, etc.) and you get 1 evo when you kill a human.

Stages

Stages are phases of the game. There are 3 and you begin on Stage 1. To go to the next stage you need to kill enemies (the number of kills depends on the number of players). Stages 2 and 3 provide your team with new evolutions or weapons/armors. Same goes for the other team so do not get killed.

Life (health points)

Aliens regenerate automatically every second their health points. Being near a Tyrant (without being one) will heal you faster. The buildings also regenerate automatically.

Humans wear an injection, when used it, it will restore your health. Once you use your injection, you need to step onto the Medistation. Only one human can heal at a time, wait your turn. Once your life is restored, you get another injection. The buildings need a builder to repair them (hold right click while carrying the construction kit).

What are the aliens?

First of all, remember this:

Aim to the head and don’t stand still neither in front of the human, always try to find his back or flank them

You can only begin (spawn) with Dretch or Granger (the builder). Pick Dretch. When you get some evos pick Dragoon (3 evos), then Tyrant (5 evos). Aliens have a radar by default and can see proximity enemies (blue spots) and buildings (red spots).

Dretch (free, 25hp, stage 1): This is the basic one. It is fast and small which makes you less aimable but you’ve got only 25hp (same as 5 rifle bullet shots). To kill humans you just need to touch them and you will bite automatically. Aim to his head to increase the damage drastically. You must master the dretch first of all, if you are good with dretch you will be feared in duels and clan wars.
Basilisk (1 evo, 75hp, stage 1): This one is really hard to master. Do not evolve into this during your first months playing Trem. Wait to get the Dragoon.
Marauder (2 evos, 150hp, stage 1): This one is a bit hard. Do not evolve into this. Wait to get the Dragoon.
Dragoon (3 evos, 200hp, stage 1): Hold right click, wait 1-3 seconds and release it to jump. While jumping like this, if you hit a human, you will harm him (even kill him). This is the first attack. The second one is the left click. Don’t forget what I told you: aim to the head and don’t stand still even less in front of the human, try to find his back.
Advanced Basilisk (2 evos, 100hp, stage 2): hard one to master. The difference with the normal Basilisk is that this one throws toxic gas.
Advanced Marauder (3 evos, 175hp, stage 2): like the normal marauder but can electrify (although it is spectacular, it is really weak and a waste of time).
Advanced Dragoon (4 evos, 250hp, stage 3): it jumps a lot more than the normal Dragoon. It can also snip projectiles. The advanced dragoon is good for snipping buildings. You need to master the normal Dragoon first to attack humans with it. Bet for the Tyrant.
Tyrant (5 evos, 400hp, stage 3): This one rocks. When attacking, do not stay at aim of fire for more than 5 seconds, start killing one human and run away when your health is below 150hp (keep a look at your remaining HP every time you “rush”/attack). Watch your HP and estimate how long you can keep being shoot. Oh, and never ever stand still while destroying a building (Lucifer cannon can deal huge amounts of damage), keep moving side to side with random movements. You can attack with left click or hold right click, walk forward and release it to sprint (you can also kill like this although only do this when humans are not very well protected).

Humans

As a human you begin choosing Rifle or Builder. Choose Rifle and stay away from aliens, distance is your greatest advantage. Once you kill some aliens you will gain credits. Go to the Armoury (green box near the Medistation) and sell your Rifle (press Q and select Rifle to sell it). You can buy:

Weapons:

Pain Saw (100 credits): Do not get this one yet.
Rifle (free): The
Shotgun (150 c): 8 short-distance shots. Get this if there are a lot of dragoons.
Lasgun (250 c): 200 precision but weak shots. Perfect for dretches and small aliens. Similar to a Rifle but you won’t run out of ammunition (as a newbie, you will be killed before).
Pulse Rifle: Do not get this one yet, you need to calculate enemy movements and this takes time.
Mass driver (350 c): 7 precision shots. You deal 70hp aproximately with each shot. You’d better improve your aim before buying this.
Chaingun (400 c): 300 bullets. Mid-distance. Get BattleSuit or crouch to aim better.
Flamer: This one is quite a waste of credits. You will kill yourself. Only get it when there are a lot of dretches.
Lucifer Cannon (700 c): It is awesomly powerful but very slow. Try to aim where the alien will be in the next 3-5 seconds. Do not die, it’s 700 credits worth. Spec experienced players to master it. In close maps it’s really useful to get the Helmet for its radar capabilities.
Grenade: Quite a waste for newbies, spec experienced players before using them.

Armor and tools:

Light armor (70 c): Not really useful with dretches but useful to prevent Dragoon pounces.
Helmet (150 c): Buy this! Without this, dretches can kill you nearly instantly (96hp in one bite) and dragoons in 1 hit. You also get a Radar which is really worth it.
BattleSuit (400 c): High protection (a Tyrant needs 3 hits to kill you) but very noisy and can’t crouch. You will feel safe although don’t overestimate yourself.
Jetpack: Don’t waste your money on this, or try it just for fun. It can be really useful for specific maps but can also be very annoying and pointless in some games. In some servers they have limited fuel so be careful.

Building

This is another sweet feature about Tremulous and what makes it the best free game ever. You can play to kill (as the common 1st person fast paced shooter games), but you can also build and study base tactics.

Although sounds promising, as a newbie forget about that for now, first learn to kill and let other experienced builders do their job in base architecture tactics. Observe them and look at their different defense designs on every map (building positions can be optimized every Stage but it takes time and experience to master this).

Important concepts about Tremulous (read this!)

Blocker

The basics in Tremulous are to kill and not die (aka feed). That’s why players go to attack and then go back. Do not block your teammates escape way by staying close to their back. This is illegal and you can be kicked for it.

Feeder

We said the game was about killing and not getting killed. You should avoid getting killed besides killing. If you die a lot, you just give stupid advantage to your enemies. Try not to be so Rambo and do not attack alone (specially humans). Teammates may complain if you feed (get killed) a lot and may vote to kick you.

Bleeder

Some servers have Friendly Fire ON and some have it OFF. If it is ON, when aiming at the enemy, you may accidentally hit one of your teammates. Try to avoid that. It is sadly easy to kill and be killed by your teammates. Imagine you just bought the best equipment wasting 1000 credits and someone behind you kills you. Those credits/evos are lost. And you may also loose credits/evos in compensation to the teamkill.

Camper

This game is about bases, and the fun of it is to attack-deffend-attack-deffend. If you just stay at your base, you ruin the game since the enemy can’t attack (it is suicide to go inside a base with 5 players and 7 machine gun turrets aiming at you, you may expect to last 5 seconds with Tyrant, honestly), neither defend (because you are still at your base) and the game stops. You can be kicked for this.

Jetcamper

Same as camper but flying with a Jetpack staying at the same room/area waiting for enemies to come.

Battlegranger

Builders are not designed to kill, so don’t ever get away from your base while being a builder. You will just feed, hence, make your team loose the match and get kicked or hated.

Deconner

Deconstructing structures stupidly and repetitively without building others is considered “deconning”. Some newbie or bored silly players try to ruin the game by deconning and leaving a team defenceless.

Don’t do this, nowadays servers incorporate commands to revert deconstructions by pressing just one key. This also means getting banned PERMANENTLY.

Voting system

Another nice thing about Tremulous is democracy power. You and all the players can vote for whatever they want. You vote by pressing F1 for Yes and F2 for No.

Change or restart the map
Extend the time limit or call Sudden Death
Run polls (about anything you like)
Kick or mute a player
Deny a player from building

Teamvotes are also available. You can vote through F3 and F4 (or by pressing Escape and following the menu).

Sudden Death

To avoid boring games, there is Sudden Death that disallows everyone to build anything. So when a structure is destroyed, it can’t be reconstructed. This makes the game end quickly.

Become a pro

Best advice is to spec the top players of each team. That is the best way to learn how to move, aim, etc. Do not play modded servers (try to avoid Unlimited ones). Master the Dretch, Dragoon and Tyrant and the Rifle, Shotgun and Lucifer Cannon.

As an alien, aim to the head and understand the radar.

As a human, keep distance and understand the radar (free when buying helmet).

Want more?

Ok, now you know everything to start. Have a look at the Tremulous area to learn cool stuff or Tremulous bind and autoexec to master the art of key binds or the admin tricks if you are a server admin. You can also search for more advanced Tremulous tutorials.

Also, once you’ve played for at least 6 months, consider entering a Clan, there is a big bunch of them around the Internet, request becoming an admin of your favorite server and visit the official Tremulous forum, there are a lot of good tutorials and guides there.

DownTape – The instant mp3 downloader

Xavi — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 18:40:34 +0000

Note: This post is very old. Downtape is not working anymore.

DownTape is an interesting tool for listening and downloading mp3 files in an easy and fast way.

It works really simple and familiar, you just need to type in a song or artist and DownTape will show you a list of mp3′s ready to play online or download.

Online player

You can hear the song before downloading to ensure it is the one you want.

Direct download link

By clicking the big blue title of the song, a download window will popup. Just press Ok and save it wherever you want.

Quick links

Some direct links are provided for each song:

Megaupload search for albums based on the artist.
Read the lyrics of the song.
Watch the song videoclip at YouTube.
Learn more about the artist at Wikipedia.
View musical information and similar artists at Last.fm.
Visit the artist official website.
View the artist MySpace profile.
Listen more songs from the artist at FavTape.
Buy the album at Amazon.

Multiple search list

You can search multiple artists or songs by separating them by commas (i.e. “the postal service,let it be,the beatles,minimal techno”).

Saved information

The next time you visit DownTape, your last search query will be available. You can also save some notes at the big textbox at the bottom of the website.

AudioTuts

Xavi — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 11:41:33 +0000

AudioTuts is a really interesting website for those who like to expermient with music. Among tones of tutorials and DJ stuff, you should have a look at the 240 Free Albums and Mashups list. There you can find links to the best mashups in 2005, 2006 and 2007. There is also an album created just from Scissor Sister‘s mashups. Give it a try and start downloading them!