Category: Windows (Page 3 of 22)

لمحة إلى ويندوز 11

منذ بضعة أيام أعلنت ميكروسوفت عن نظام تشغيلها الأخير ويندوز 11 الذي يأتي بواجهة محدثة كليا (بالنسبة لميكروسوفت، عن نفسي أنا أراها نسخة من KDE Plasma) وخصائص جديدة مثل دعم تطبيقات أندرويد مباشرة من داخل النظام.

هذه التدوينة تحتوي بعض التعليقات حول النظام من منظور خارجي. في الواقع لا أنتوي الترقية إلى ويندوز 11 على جهازي في أي وقت قريب. وسأذكر السبب في نهاية التدوينة.

  1.  لا يمكن الوثوق بشركات التقنية الكبرى

    تذكر عندما روجت ميكروسوفت لويندوز 10 على أنه آخر نظام تشغيل ستصدره؟ وأن ويندوز 10 سيكون خدمة باشتراك سنوي بدلا من ترخيص مدى الحياة؟ جيد! لأنه يبدو أن ميكروسوفت لا تذكر ذلك الوعد على الإطلاق! ما يعنيه إطلاق ويندوز 11 بالنسبة لي هو أن ويندوز 12 قيد الإعداد. ربما إن كان الوعد غير منطقي فالسؤال لماذا طرحته ميكروسوفت من الأٍساس؟

  2. جدل حول مواصفات المعالجات الدنيا

    نشرت ميكروسوفت قائمة مبدئية للمعالجات التي يدعمها النظام الجديد. أقدمها هو معالج انتل من الجيل السابع من سنة 2018. حسب هذه القائمة فإن ميكروسوفت تعتبر أي معالج أقدم من 2018 غير جدير بالترقية! يأتي هذا الأمر في وسط ركود عالمي متأثر بجائحة كورونا وأزمة رقائق رفعت أسعار السيارات والهواتف والحواسيب! أنا متأكد بنسبة 100% أن هناك طرقًا للالتفاف حول هذا القيد وأن ميكروسوفت ستتراجع لاحقًا وتوسع شريحة المعالجات التي تستقبل النظام. لكن هذه سابقة لميكروسوفت التي لم تشترط من قبل جيل المعالج من ضمن المواصفات الدنيا. لماذا هذا الإقصاء من ميكروسوفت لقاعدة مستخدميها؟

لماذا لا أنتوي الترقية أو حتى التجربة؟

جهازي (الذي به معالج على القائمة بالمناسبة) وعليه نسخة أصلية من ويندوز 10 يعمل بشكل جيد والحمد لله. ليس هناك أي من الميزات التي روّج لها على ويندوز 11 تشدني وتثير اهتمامي لدرجة مخاطرتي بإعداداتي وعملي لكي أقوم بالتجربة.

هل هذا يعني أن ويندوز 11 سيء؟

لا طبعًا! أنى لي أن أحكم على نظام تشغيل دون تجربته؟ ولكنه لا يعني أنه جيد بالضرورة. كشخص درس البرمجة أنا أقدر أي عمل برمجي والمجهود الذي يوضع فيه. قد يكون هذا النظام أفضل نظام تشغيل من ميكروسوفت حتى الساعة.

هل إطلاق نظام تشغيل جديد يعني انتهاء ما قبله؟

لا! ويندوز 8.1 لا يزال يتمتع بدعم مطوّل حتى 2023. وويندوز 10 من المفترض أن يتمتع بدورة دعم طويلة كذلك حتى 2025.

وحتى إن انتهى دعم نظام تشغيل. من قال أنه لن يعمل بعد ذلك؟

بإمكانك التحول للينكس في أي وقت والاستمتاع بدعم طويل وخدمة رائعة بالمجان. وبإمكان ميكروسوفت ممارسة الإقصاء على من تشاء.

ختامًا

هل قمت بتجربة ويندوز 11؟ ما أكثر ميزة شدت انتباهك فيه؟ هل تنصح به؟ شاركني برأيك في قسم التعليقات.

My Gaming Renaissance

I’ve wrote many times on this blog that I’ve lost the urge to game, that gaming was becoming a forced obligation that I push myself to do in all manners of productivity tools: (Chains and to do lists). Then I thought that I found my second wind gaming. That was hardly the case. This wasn’t me trying to adapt a new past time, it’s a different thing altogether.

More than leisure

I was going through a rough patch in my life. I’ve been displaced and lost my job in the process, and on-top of that a massive quarantine has hit the world and everyone was sitting home for days on end. I’ve sat home for so long that my car battery died and couldn’t start it anymore! – Luckily we got that fixed -.

What does this have to do with gaming you might ask? A whole lot actually..

I needed something to pass the time. Keep me sharp and motivated. But since I was feeling down and didn’t feel like doing much, it had to be something easy to pickup.
What better thing than my life long friend, video games.

It was a bit odd at first. The process of re learning something that I already knew and forgot. It took a bit of getting used to, but once I settled on my bike. I was good to go! I spent a lot of time playing video games, staying inside and minding my own business. I think that is a win.

 

My gaming setup. Ain’t much but its honest work

 

Gaming helped get my mind stop overthinking about life issues. Kept me busy doing something somewhat productive. It doesn’t compare to reading 100 books a year, but it sure feels great!
I think I’ve done more gaming in two months than I’ve done the entire past decade combined!

Why was I hitting a major wall when it came to gaming?

In a previous post I’ve listed a bunch of ways to make the gaming experience more enjoyable. Most of those things I didn’t have access to at that time. So I had to make do with what I had. I’ve also received a bunch of tips off Reddit that I followed.

I’ve watched a Youtube video that got to the bottom of my issue and directed my attention to a very obvious issue that I have:

A lot of my games really suck!

Some games are truly free (free as in freedom not free beer) however, the graphics are choppy and the sound is a nightmare. It’s very rare when you find a totally free game that is very good – Wesnoth is one -.

The fact that I was trying to game on Linux didn’t help much either – I know that this is the year 2020 and that gaming on Linux took massive leaps towards the future with Steam, Vulkan, Lutris, etc – . It’s just not working for me. I love Linux and I love playing video games and it doesn’t seem like the two can exist under one simple scheme.
There are thousands of games out there, everyone is bound to find their cup of tea. I just needed to find mine.

Rediscovering my roots

I started by replaying a game from my past that I found very engaging and stimulating. NFS Most Wanted. Beating the game warmed me up nicely for a much bigger experience.

This ordeal that I was going through reminded me of something that I’ve long forgotten. That gaming was an escape for me from the stress of everyday life. That gaming was there for me when goings were tough. That I made good friends and great times through gaming.

Needless to say that this cemented gaming as a popular pastime for me. Much better than watching TV for example. I’m also thinking of upgrading my gaming setup. Any suggestions?

Do you play video games? What’s your platform of choice? What game are you currently playing? Let me know in the comments section below.

Game of the week presents: Brawlhalla 3.20

This is a game that I discovered very recently (despite it being released over 6 years ago) and by pure coincidence. An action fighting game that is a twist of the “Super Smash Bros” series of games.

The goal is very simple: Knock your foes off the platform 3 times to win.

Important notice

My review is kept strictly to the offline 3.20 version. I didn’t play online against real people or entered contests. I think you need to add it to your steam library to do that, and since this is a side-loaded game. Those features are not available.

Game pros

1. Has an immediate pick up and play appeal. No complex story or learning needed. I didn’t play a whole lot of it but I immediately grasped the basics, and the rest is sure to follow!
2. A colorful roaster of characters. With a lot of customization options. Some are from fantasy tropes like Ogres, so if you played other games like Wesnoth. You’ll feel right at home with this one. With nearly 40 characters to choose from, each with their own stats and special weapons.

3. Good looking graphics and animations.
4. The game has a huge following online and recently reached 40 million active players online according to Brawlhalla’s own post on their blog.
5. Download size is small (sadly this still matters here in 2020, sigh..). 255 Mbs to be exact.
6. Free to play. That’s the coolest part.

Game cons

This version is for Windows only. It could be played on Wine for Linux systems but native game play is always better.

Top tip: Use a game pad, it is much more fun that way.

Download

The game can be downloaded from this link. It’s compressed as a .7z for optimal compression. Most archiving software should be able to extract it. But if you face any problems, download 7zip from this link.

Final words

This was the latest installment of Game of the Week. Hopefully you enjoyed this bit. Let me know what do you think in the comments section below, and I’ll catch you in the next one.

 

 

Jumpcraft 3.7 Professional edition review and download

Jumpcraft (formerly known as Platform Studio) is a game creation program that makes it very easy for you to develop a game. Very similar to Game maker and Gdevelop. In this post I’ll talk about what makes it stand out, how I got it and the demise of Jumpcraft .

 

What makes Jumpcraft stand out from the game development bunch?

Jumpcraft is much easier to use than the rest of the aforementioned softwares. In fact it takes very little knowledge to develop a playable game, in fact you can drag random items from the tool box and debug it to have the game running with menus and title screen.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise. It’s originally targeted for schools to teach students how to make simple games. Ease of use was a key factor in design (and in me choosing this software over competitors).

Al thought it’s guided mainly for kids. You can use VB.Net for some “Power coding”. So it has some power under the hood.

The main interface

 

How did I get a hold of it?

At that time I was preparing for my graduation project. I chose to make an educational video game and initially tried buying a licensed copy of Game maker. I didn’t have a visa at the time so I had a friend purchase a license for me. But things didn’t go that smooth.
His visa was hacked somehow and the hacker sent us a pirated copy of Game maker. After a lengthily exchange with the bank and YoYo games. Everything was settled.
The receipt I got from the post office.
I came across Jumpcraft and wrote to them about their “flexible” payment options. I suggested to send them the price of the license in a registered letter and they would e-mail me the license when it arrives. So I went to the post office and sent them the sum of 50$ by mail. I got my license after a month and a half of waiting.

Jumpcraft down falls

No updates

The software had no updates for the longest of time. I bought the 3.7 version of Jumpcraft which was released in 2010 according to the license. I emailed them countless times asking for an update and they never responded to my many requests. I even asked for them to open source it or release it as abandon-ware. There was no response from the company.
Update : On the 4th of May 2021 Andrew open sourced Jump Craft! Details can be found here.

No support

The forums were taken down due to “spam” related issues. There was no place to ask for solutions or get help what so ever. The only shred of help was the help file bundled with the software.
The actual e-mail I was sent telling me about the spam

False advertising

The “Professional” version came with a photo-shop like program to edit pictures. Which turned out to be an old version of Gimp! Not even supporting single window mode..
Pricing plans compared

Confusing pricing plans

I was given the “standard edition” for free. But that didn’t compile or produce an exe file of the game. It was utterly useless. Then when it came time to pay I upgraded from Standard to Professional paying the full price of Professional.

Constant crashes

It crashed very often. Trying to create the game became near impossible to achieve. Clicking randomly on the screen caused the ill-fated program to crash like a maniac.

No Linux version, of course

After converting to Linux the software was useless. The development stopped in 2010. I don’t think the developer even heard of Linux, let alone being willing to develop a version for it.
I managed to run it on wine by installing all the prerequisites needed for it work.

The website no longer exists

If you go to the website you will find that it’s for sale. All traces of it were expunged from the web. The only way to actually view the site is to use the wayback machine. You can’t download the standard version (rated at 15$) or anything.
Here is a snapshot if you are interested from wayback machine. 
I’ve blogged about something similar in Arabic. When a commercial software is no longer supported.

 

Final thoughts

I don’t regret buying a software to do my graduation project. It will always be a memorable experience.

Update: On the 12th of May 2020 Andrew wrote back to me saying he moved on to other projects and that he doesn’t have time to maintain it anymore. Confirming the dead status of Jumpcraft.

 

Download

You can download Jump Craft 3.7 PRO from here.

Or from here.

To access the RPG tutorial made by Andrew (Pro Perk), download from here. 

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