MLG Pro Circuit Over at San Diego was the bomb!

Being able to watch the MLG Pro Circuit at San Diego via a gotfrag stream over the weekend was so fun. It made me realize that e-gaming is not all that bad although still in it's in early stages. What made it funner was being able to watch Zyz, a long standing kick ass player in the Burning Blade server, play as a rogue and his team recovering from almost being eliminated to actually winning the competition and taking home $12,000 and 3 HP Blackbirds 02s. The prices weren't too shabby at all.

GotFrag did an excellent coverage of the matches. Rob “voice” Simpson and Jared “vhell” Coulston both did an awesome job with the play by play.

So, look out kids when you're parents tell you to stop playing that game you love so dearly. You'll never know; you might end up getting some extra cash for being good at a vid game that you play with a passion.

For the Burning Blade folks....

It'll be much easier to look for the armory of folks in Burning Blade, right? That is correct because Burning Blade PVP people rocks!

Here's a search engine plugin for World of Warcraft armory -- Burning Blade. Just click on the image image and it will install the search engine for Firefox.

Here are other resources:
http://www.latenightpc.com
http://www.wowarmory.com

Cause I just love my theme...don't you love yours? :)

============================

Update: [March 14, 2008] After scrouring the internet to try to remember which theme inspired it, I finally found it! Eureka! It was by Idlefingers

============================

I thought I would give NetBeans/Ruby (nightly build) for MAC a try after reading George Cook's very convincing article on "Netbeans THE best ruby on rails IDE". Oddly enough, I just got so used to my TextMate theme that I also ported it into Coda awhile back. Now, I felt I had to port it on NetBeans too. It takes 6 steps and 3 xml files. It's really easy and anyone can do it too. It's not as perfect as I'd wish it could be but close enough.

UPDATE: I'm a NetBeans Newb! Here's a link/resource for packaging a theme (etc): http://www.netbeans.org/kb/50/substance-look-and-feel.html. I don't feel like packaging 3 xml files. /woops. Anyway, it's nice to know the folder structure if you're new to NetBeans too.

Here's a screen shot of the theme:

Onward with the steps....

Step 1. Duplicate any existing theme in NetBeans under Preferences / Fonts & Colors; name it whatever you want. I named mine "Karuh Dida" for no particular reason.

Step 2. Open Terminal/iTerm

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cd home
mate .netbeans

Step 3. Folder Structure

Step 4. Copy & paste xml file:
org-netbeans-modules-editor-settings-CustomFontsColors-highlights.xml
into folder => .netbeans/dev/config/Editors/FontsColors/Karuh Dida

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontscolors PUBLIC "-//NetBeans//DTD Editor Fonts and Colors settings 1.1//EN" "http://www.netbeans.org/dtds/EditorFontsColors-1_1.dtd">
<fontscolors>
    <fontcolor bgColor="darkGray" name="guarded"/>
    <fontcolor foreColor="yellow" name="caret-color-insert-mode"/>
    <fontcolor bgColor="ff121e31" foreColor="white" name="status-bar"/>
    <fontcolor bgColor="ff253e5a" name="highlight-caret-row"/>
    <fontcolor foreColor="ffcccccc" name="line-number"/>
    <fontcolor bgColor="ffe0e8f1" name="block-search"/>
    <fontcolor foreColor="ff253e5a" name="code-folding-bar"/>
    <fontcolor bgColor="ff38566f" name="selection"/>
    <fontcolor foreColor="ff253e5a" name="text-limit-line-color"/>
    <fontcolor bgColor="ff38566f" name="highlight-search"/>
    <fontcolor bgColor="ff386f4c" foreColor="white" name="nbeditor-bracesMatching-match">
        <font style="bold"/>
    </fontcolor>
    <fontcolor bgColor="red" name="status-bar-bold"/>
    <fontcolor bgColor="ff38566f" name="inc-search"/>
    <fontcolor bgColor="ff6f3757" foreColor="white" name="nbeditor-bracesMatching-mismatch">
        <font style="bold"/>
    </fontcolor>
    <fontcolor bgColor="ff253e5a" foreColor="white" name="code-folding"/>
</fontscolors>

Step 5. Copy & paste another xml file:
org-netbeans-modules-editor-settings-CustomFontsColors-tokenColorings.xml
into folder => .netbeans/dev/config/Editors/FontsColors/Karuh Dida

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontscolors PUBLIC "-//NetBeans//DTD Editor Fonts and Colors settings 1.1//EN" "http://www.netbeans.org/dtds/EditorFontsColors-1_1.dtd">
<fontscolors>
    <fontcolor name="whitespace"/>
    <fontcolor default="string" name="markup-attribute-value"/>
    <fontcolor bgColor="ff2b2b2b" foreColor="ffdddddd" name="default">
        <font name="Monaco" size="12"/>
    </fontcolor>
    <fontcolor foreColor="ff00ccff" name="operator"/>
    <fontcolor foreColor="ff7b7b7b" name="comment">
        <font style="italic"/>
    </fontcolor>
    <fontcolor bgColor="red" foreColor="white" name="error"/>
    <fontcolor default="keyword" name="markup-element"/>
    <fontcolor default="default" name="entity-reference"/>
    <fontcolor foreColor="ffd27522" name="keyword"/>
    <fontcolor foreColor="white" name="char"/>
    <fontcolor foreColor="ff669933" name="string"/>
    <fontcolor default="identifier" name="field"/>
    <fontcolor name="identifier"/>
    <fontcolor default="field" name="markup-attribute"/>
    <fontcolor default="identifier" foreColor="white" name="method"/>
    <fontcolor foreColor="ffeddd3d" name="number"/>
</fontscolors>

Step 6. Copy & paste 3rd xml file:
org-netbeans-modules-editor-settings-CustomFontsColors-tokenColorings.xml
into folder => .netbeans/dev/config/Editors/text/x-ruby/FontsColors/Karuh Dida

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontscolors PUBLIC "-//NetBeans//DTD Editor Fonts and Colors settings 1.1//EN" "http://www.netbeans.org/dtds/EditorFontsColors-1_1.dtd">
<fontscolors>
    <fontcolor default="number" name="GSF_INT_LITERAL"/>
    <fontcolor default="number" foreColor="ff66cc00" name="GSF_FLOAT_LITERAL"/>
    <fontcolor name="mod-interface"/>
    <fontcolor foreColor="ffd1ceff" name="GSF_INSTANCE">
        <font style="bold"/>
    </fontcolor>
    <fontcolor name="mod-public"/>
    <fontcolor foreColor="ff99006b" name="COMMENT_TODO">
        <font style="bold"/>
    </fontcolor>
    <fontcolor name="mod-constructor">
        <font style="bold"/>
    </fontcolor>
    <fontcolor name="mod-enum"/>
    <fontcolor default="number" name="GSF_DOUBLE_LITERAL"/>
    <fontcolor default="string" name="STRING_TEXT"/>
    <fontcolor default="number" name="GSF_LONG_LITERAL"/>
    <fontcolor foreColor="ffeddd37" name="STRING_ESCAPE">
        <font style="bold"/>
    </fontcolor>
    <fontcolor name="mod-deprecated" strikeThrough="darkGray"/>
    <fontcolor name="mod-annotation-type"/>
    <fontcolor default="comment" foreColor="ffaaaaff" name="COMMENT_RDOC">
        <font style="bold"/>
    </fontcolor>
    <fontcolor default="default" foreColor="blue" name="COMMENT_LINK" underline="blue"/>
    <fontcolor foreColor="ff8aa6c1" name="mod-parameter"/>
    <fontcolor default="whitespace" name="GSF_WHITESPACE"/>
    <fontcolor default="keyword" foreColor="ffdd7522" name="GSF_ANY_KEYWORD"/>
    <fontcolor name="mod-package-private"/>
    <fontcolor name="mod-static">
        <font style="italic"/>
    </fontcolor>
    <fontcolor foreColor="ff99006b" name="GSF_TODO">
        <font style="bold"/>
    </fontcolor>
    <fontcolor default="default" name="COMMENT_BOLD">
        <font style="bold"/>
    </fontcolor>
    <fontcolor default="comment" name="COMMENT_HTMLTAG">
        <font style="bold"/>
    </fontcolor>
    <fontcolor foreColor="ff99ffff" name="GSF_CLASS">
        <font style="bold+italic"/>
    </fontcolor>
    <fontcolor bgColor="ff38566f" name="mark-occurrences"/>
    <fontcolor default="comment" name="COMMENT_TEXT"/>
    <fontcolor default="8AA6C1" name="GSF_ANY_OPERATOR"/>
    <fontcolor foreColor="ffd1ceff" name="GSF_GLOBAL">
        <font style="italic"/>
    </fontcolor>
    <fontcolor foreColor="white" name="mod-field">
        <font style="bold"/>
    </fontcolor>
    <fontcolor foreColor="fff3c55f" name="mod-method">
        <font style="bold"/>
    </fontcolor>
    <fontcolor name="mod-protected"/>
    <fontcolor default="string" name="GSF_STRING_LITERAL"/>
    <fontcolor default="comment" name="GSF_BLOCK_COMMENT"/>
    <fontcolor default="comment" name="GSF_DOCUMENTATION"/>
    <fontcolor name="mod-local-variable"/>
    <fontcolor name="mod-private"/>
    <fontcolor default="error" name="GSF_ERROR"/>
    <fontcolor foreColor="ffca4344" name="GSF_REGEXP_LITERAL"/>
    <fontcolor default="comment" name="GSF_LINE_COMMENT"/>
    <fontcolor foreColor="yellow" name="mod-class"/>
    <fontcolor foreColor="ffcc3333" name="GSF_CONSTANT"/>
    <fontcolor foreColor="ff5098c2" name="GSF_TYPESYMBOL"/>
    <fontcolor name="mod-unused" waveUnderlined="ffff8888"/>
    <fontcolor default="identifier" name="GSF_IDENTIFIER"/>
    <fontcolor foreColor="ffff006b" name="STRING_INVALID" strikeThrough="ffff006b">
        <font style="bold"/>
    </fontcolor>
    <fontcolor default="string" name="QUOTED_STRING_LITERAL"/>
    <fontcolor name="mod-abstract"/>
    <fontcolor default="char" name="GSF_CHAR_LITERAL"/>
    <fontcolor default="default" name="COMMENT_ITALIC">
        <font style="italic"/>
    </fontcolor>
</fontscolors>

Of course, you can take it from here and customize it further. I wish there was an easier way to export/import themes in NetBeans. If you can easily grab TextMate bundles, then themes should be as easy to grab too, right?

As far as how NetBeans ranks in my books, I don't know yet. I still have to find out but I can't stand not seeing my usual theme in it so I spent two hours doing that first. Imagine that!

And here we go after some time collectin'...

Extension of Railscasts Episode 67

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Update: [March 12, 2008] This blog post is outdated so if you found this page using google, I'd recommend reading something more up-to-date. Unfortunately, I don't know where else to refer you right now. I shared my thoughts and experience with the plugin at the time I was using it for a project. Living in the now, you can grab Obie Fernandez's Book "The Rails Way". That comes highly recommended!

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Ryan showed us how to set up restful_authentication a plugin by Rick Olson with his 67th Railscasts Episode: restful_authentication. Pretty awesome! Now, we will extend it to the activation part.

./script/generate authenticated user sessions --include-activation

With the added --include-activation option, more files and codes will be generated to handle "Activation for a User who just registered".

Shall we break them down in steps... baby steps and with codes. I would be happy to do a screencast for this but I dont own a podcast mic yet so lets do it the old school way. I know we're all spoiled by Ryan's RailsCasts and Geoffrey's PeepCodes. We are the little Brats! :)

After generating the files for restful_authentication, follow the 67th episode set up plus these...

Step 1: All about Environment.rb

Open your environment.rb file and set up the following:

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# First, specify the Host that we will be using later for user_notifier.rb
HOST = 'http://www.yourrailsapp.com'

# Second, add the :user_observer
Rails::Initializer.run do |config|
  # The user observer goes inside the Rails::Initializer block
  config.active_record.observers = :user_observer
end

# Third, add your SMTP settings
ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :smtp
ActionMailer::Base.smtp_settings = {
  :address => "mail.yourrailsapp.com",
  :port => 25,
  :domain => "mail.yourrailsapp.com",
  :user_name => "carmelyne@yourrailsapp.com",
  :password => "yourrailsapp",
  :authentication => :login
}

Note: Just a heads up -- if you're on SliceHost like I am, I can't get this to work on just Postfix on Ubuntu. I needed to set up the SMTP settings on the environment.rb file.

Step 2: All about app/models/user_notifier.rb

Now you can see how we set a dryer way to add the HOST via #{HOST}. The codes below is also an example if you've extended it to handle resetting the passwords. Although you will have to add an additional user migration for "password_reset_code" and adding it to your user model/controller codes and more to your routes....
Anyway, code snippets below:

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class UserNotifier < ActionMailer::Base
  def signup_notification(user)
    setup_email(user)
    @subject    += 'Please activate your new account'  
    @body[:url]  = "#{HOST}/activate/#{user.activation_code}"
  
  end
  
  def activation(user)
    setup_email(user)
    @subject    += 'Your account has been activated!'
    @body[:url]  = "Visit #{HOST}!"
  end
  
  def forgot_password(user)
    setup_email(user)
    @subject    += 'You have requested to change your password'
    @body[:url]  = "#{HOST}/reset_password/#{user.password_reset_code}" 
  end

  def reset_password(user)
    setup_email(user)
    @subject    += 'Your password has been reset.'
  end   
  
  protected
    def setup_email(user)
      @recipients  = "#{user.email}"
      @from        = %("/Poke by carmelyne" <CT@yourrailsapp.com>) # Sets the User FROM Name and Email
      @subject     = "[YourRailsApp] "
      @sent_on     = Time.now
      @body[:user] = user
    end
end

Step 3: All about app/views/user_notifier/activation.rhtml

This gets sent out for the activation email so you can change the verbiage to something like this:

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Thank you!

<%= @user.login %>, your account has been activated.  You may now start using the member only features.

<%= @url %>

I think that should be it. :)

I wrote this up to give you an idea for activation. If you extended it way beyond for forgot_password/reset_password, make sure you extend your user model and controller to handle these additional functions. More snippets....

Extras

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# more for routes
map.forgot_password '/forgot_password', :controller => 'users', :action => 'forgot_password'
map.reset_password '/reset_password', :controller => 'users', :action => 'reset_password'

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# app/models/user_observer.rb
class UserObserver < ActiveRecord::Observer
  def after_create(user)
    UserNotifier.deliver_signup_notification(user)
  end

  def after_save(user) 
    UserNotifier.deliver_activation(user) if user.recently_activated?
    UserNotifier.deliver_forgot_password(user) if user.recently_forgot_password?
    UserNotifier.deliver_reset_password(user) if user.recently_reset_password?   
  end
end

Update

But of course, there's a much better resource for the plugins, I was just referred to it after this long post from the man himself => Rick's Stikipad for Acts As Authenticated and RESTful authentication.

The additional methods for activation/forgot_password/reset_password does not fall under REST.

New tools new tool new tools

1. Aliases in bash

I'm a mac newbie. It sounds like a bad thing but it's not. Many moons ago, I only watched people type ss on their terminals and tada! it magically starts the built in webrick/mongrel server. I've been meaning to get aliases working since I converted but never got around to actually doing it. Thankfully, John Nunemaker posted his I Can Has Command Line? article. I can do bash magic now. My bash talk: ss sc a e et sup wu omg inbd idk my bff jill tinf! I think I'll use those for shortcuts anyway. ;p

2. Growl

I am a happy peepcoder. I recently saw the RSPEC Basics PeepCode. Geoffrey had a happy face/ sad face flashing bar on his screen when he would run tests. Oh, I so want. I want! You'll just have to buy the peepcode now, dont you? Anyway, it was Growl. I installed Growl but can't get it to work with autotest. Now I just do "a" to run autotest but I get this error: "177 examples, 0 failures sh: line 1: growlnotify: command not found". Obviously, I missed something here. I copied the .autotest file to ~
I'm off to search for a fix and will post it here too as an update.....

Update:

I knew I was missing something. I had to install growlnotify that came with the install files. (http://growl.info/documentation/growlnotify.php). I got my happy/sad bars now!

3.RSpec

New to RSpec and would you hold it against me if I said lazy with writing test? Ok then no, I love writing tests!!! Learning RSpec makes it easier to do test. I find that I do like BDD. I'm no expert but it's very fun to do, that I can say.

The big picture is with the redirects.

The quick work around...

If you've read my post about FreeImage, then you might be interested to know about the conflict I encountered with a RESTful app on LiteSpeed and using attachment_fu.

This was quite perplexing to be honest. I installed attachment_fu on a restful app, tested on my dev environment which is using Mongrel. I committed to my svn, updated files served on LiteSpeed and uh oh, the upload feature wont work. There's no error message, nothing gets saved at all and returns back as a 200 code. I couldn't debug alas I'm not the all perfect coder either. /wink /wink. I resorted to finding a work around.

First let's get some things clear, the conflict with REST, LiteSpeed and Attachment_fu is on another slice but not on this blog's slice. When I was looking for a work-around the first thing I did was to test the attachment_fu on this blog done by Rick Olson. Justin Palmer did the UI which is great. First, it wouldn't work since I had to give proper permissions to the assigned public image folder. Then everything after that was fine and dandy. Why does it work on here and not on the other slice. I go deep into the code reading line by line but time is running short. I need the upload feature working like yesterday.

For a quick fix, I thought to myself that I will just get LiteSpeed to work with Mongrel for the time being till I get a fix. I visited PickledOnion's excellent blog because he has the LiteSpeed set up goodies. I couldn't find any about Mongrel. That's fine since you really don't need Mongrel if you've chosen LiteSpeed. I emailed Paul aka PickledOnion and told him about my scenario. He said he was looking to getting attachment_fu to work on his project so he'll let me know if he ran into any issues. Us slicers have that special slicer bond. I don't know what that means but OK. ;p

I'm very happy with using LiteSpeed. The free version is good for a simple less traversed site like this blog of mine. Now having said all that, back to the workaround. I went now to the LiteSpeed and Mongrel sites to find some docs on how to set it up. Unfortunately, no docs on LiteSpeed with Mongrel at the LiteSpeed site but there was a short version on the Mongrel site. The one on the Mongrel site is a bit too complex, I can write down my fewer steps for a next blog post. After that, the work around was great. The upload function works under LiteSpeed, Mongrel using attachment_fu.

It continues....

It doesnt stop there. A few nights ago, just one of those long coding nights, I get an email back from Paul saying he has encountered the same issues I was having with LiteSpeed. He's heavy into the detailed configurations and was able to figure out some fixes. He's posted a ticket on the LiteSpeed forums to look into the issue. It looks like the LSapi version has issues with the restful redirects. The LiteSpeed support team is now looking into this so we'll see but for now, I'll be trying Paul's fix. The ticket is right here. It has the fix Paul suggested. I hope they patch it.

Update: (Aug. 5, 2007)

The LiteSpeed Team has updated the LSapi version to perform redirection more intelligently and to do redirect if there is an index file under that directory, otherwise, return it as a 404; that way the URI will be kept when handled by rails dispatcher. The thread

I've tested the LiteSpeed Enterprise version and all works perfectly. Restful Rails app with Attachement_fu on LiteSpeed is a happy little working wonder now.

Unrelated Windows Issue: (Aug. 7, 2007)

If you found this post while looking for a windows solution to error: 'Size is not in the list', I recommend adding the :size option on the model. Starting from 0.kilobytes to your max upload limit as sampled below.

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has_attachment :content_type => :image,
               :size => 0.kilobytes..500.kilobytes

Port Forwarding & connecting remotely to MySQL on your Slice

First, lets set up the forwarding ports using the SSH Tunnel Manager. I usually start with the 29000 ports so there's no conflicts with registered ports. Go to the preferences on SSHTM and add a new connection. Pictures are better than words so here's how the SSHTM set up looks like:

Lastly, setting up CocoaMySQL to connect remotely to the MySQL on your slice using the forwarded ports under preferences:

It's easy and you can easily put two and two together with the screenshots. That's it!

Note:
The SSHTM user/login is generally your server/slice login and the MySQL login is usually different than the sever login so just take note. This set up is for SliceHost but should be general enough to use on other VPS set ups.

FreeImage woes are better than RMagick woes.

First I tried installing FreeImage using this article:
http://seattlerb.rubyforge.org/ImageScience.html

Unfortunately, I get an error with make:

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Source/Metadata/Exif.cpp:498: error: cast from 'BYTE*' to 'DWORD' loses precision
make[1]: *** [Source/Metadata/Exif.o] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/FreeImage'
make: *** [default] Error 2

And If I proceeded with sudo make install, another error:

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make -f Makefile.gnu install 
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/local/src/FreeImage'
install -m 644 -o root -g root Source/FreeImage.h /usr/include
install -m 644 -o root -g root libfreeimage.a /usr/lib
install: cannot stat `libfreeimage.a': No such file or directory
make[1]: *** [install] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/FreeImage'
make: *** [install] Error 2

After Googling awhile I found another repo for FreeImage.

So Let's try this again:

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cd /usr/local/src
sudo wget http://ftp.cica.es/ubuntu/ubuntu/pool/universe/f/freeimage/freeimage_3.9.3.orig.tar.gz
sudo tar -xvf freeimage_3.9.3.orig.tar.gz
cd freeimage-3.9.3.repacked/FreeImage
make
sudo make install

Then I did:

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gem install -y rubyinline
gem install -y image_science

Now off to my attachment_fu and crossing my fingers that it works.... Yup it works.

I'm not sure if freeimage_3.9.3.orig.tar.gz is the latest version but I'm happy enough that it works with attachment_fu.

I really have no idea why I got the errors above but one thing is for sure: It didn't work for me!

Lets do this quickly:

Note: This is not for an upgrade.

1. cd /usr/src
2. sudo wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/18421/ruby-1.8.6.tar.gz
3. sudo tar -xvf ruby-1.8.6.tar.gz
4. cd ruby-1.8.6
5. sudo apt-get install build-essential
6. ./configure
7. make test
8. make
9. sudo make install
10. ruby -v (# == ruby 1.8.6 (2007-03-13 patchlevel 0) [x86_64-linux])
11. irb (# make sure irb works)

Then just do a quick update sweep for ubuntu:

1. apt-get update
2. apt-get dist-upgrade

UPDATE: Getting script/console to work

Error:
/usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/completion.rb:10:in `require’: no such file to load – readline (LoadError)

Eeek now script/console won't work. So let's fix that. We'll go back to the archive and do the following:

1. cd /usr/src/ruby-1.8.6/ext/readline
2. ruby extconf.rb
3. make
4. sudo make install

Do I need a disclaimer? Hey! I was on my own too when I did this compile. ;p

• Part I (MP3, 26 minutes): Women in Development I
• Part II (MP3, 20 minutes): Women in Development II

My apologies. It just didn't cross my mind to post about the Women in Development podcast when it first came out. I had a lot in my plate right after the conference. I was mostly trying to catch up with tasks at work since I'm acting as Lead Developer at PWIM for the time being.

Anyhow, in these podcasts you will hear the views of women on the absence decline of women in development and absence during conferences. Desi shares her vision and goals about where she wants devChix to be. devChix is a collective group of women with backgrounds in Computer Science and Computing. It was so immensely uplifting to be in the company of such great women that day. I enjoyed participating in the discussion. I was more nervous than anything else during the entire podcast session. Mind you, I was sitting two feet away from Geoffrey Grosenbach. Cool, right?

After hearing the podcast again, I think it's time to live up to my nickname "multi-talented". Oh the pressure mounts!

Two days ago, I was im-ed by an old guildie-friend and asked if he could use my old design for the guild site I made back in 2005 for a World of Warcraft Guild on [fill in the blanks] server (Not telling!). Of course, I said yes and he may recycle the design for his DOTA guild but it drew out the memories. Good times raiding and leading 40-man raids on Ventrillo to clear out Molten Core and Black Wing Lair. 98% of raid goers are guys. Oh yes, girls are on the intraweb leading raids. I've had my share. That's our secret. Shhhhh...

This was my design of the site and you can still view what's left of it:

Sorry, some links and CSS may not work anymore on that site.

Below are some of the screen shots I took while playing the game. I played with these screen shots on photoshop to make them more vivid and added "text".

I have more screen shots but that would require digging and resizing so I leave you with just those above. :)

If you're a fan of the tv show Star Trek: The Next Generation and remember those episodes where they simulate worlds virtually in their cabins, then you should check out Photosynth. I feel like this is the start. Seamlessly patch all images to create some 3d-ish environment. Give or take 5-10 years or maybe sooner, we can all step into our virtual domains.

Check out Blaise Aguera y Arcas' demo of Photosynth on TED: www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/129

Download the windows demo: http://labs.live.com/photosynth/installing.htm.

http://msgme.com/ - They have an interesting array of ways to use their service. It might be worth checking out. To test, you can text 67463 with "carmelyne". I can think of some use for msgme as a marketing tool and for getting information. Cool nonetheless.

Single line comments:

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AppleScript (*Hello I am a comment*) 
ASP <% 'Hello I am a comment. %>
Bash # Hello I am a comment 
C // Hello I am a comment
C++ /* Hello I am a comment */
CSS /*  Hello I am a comment */
Coldfusion <!--- Hello I am a comment --->
DOS :: Hello I am a comment 
Erlang % Hello I am a comment 
HTML <!-- Hello I am a comment -->
Java // Hello I am a comment 
JavaScript  /* Hello I am a comment */ 
Liquid {% comment %} Hello I am a comment {% endcomment %} 
Lua -- Hello I am a comment --
Perl # Hello I am a comment  
PHP <?php // Hello I am a comment ?>
Python # Hello I am a comment  
Regex (?#Hello I am a comment)
Rails <%# Hello I am a comment %>
Ruby # Hello I am a comment 
Smarty {* Hello I am a comment *}
XML <!-- Hello I am a comment -->
YAML # Hello I am a comment  

I've been wondering what comment style is used in Liquid.

Got any to share?