A couple of days ago I got tempted play The Longest Journey again on my laptop. So I installed it (I have the 4 CD version) on my 64-bit Windows 7, and started the shortcut it placed on my desktop. nothing happened. The shortcut pointed to a launcher.exe in the game’s folder, not the main game’s executable. So I created a shortcut to the main exe (game.exe) and ran it. The game started, but it was slow and laggy as hell right from the beginning video, and I couldn’t even start the task manager to kill it. so I had to turn off my laptop the hard way: by holding the power button. I restarted the system and launched the game again, it was still laggy, but I tried to start a new game, and that was when the game crashed. Anyway, after a while I found the solution to run The Longest Journey on Windows 7…

Step by Step Solution:

• Install the game, after the game is installed, the installer asks to install DirectX 7; say yes.
• Apply the Station Fix patch. (Unrelated to this problem, but fixes an annoying bug later in the game.)
• Create a shortcut to the main executable (game.exe)
• Right-click on the shortcut, go to the Compatibility tab, Set the Run this program in compatibility mode for section to Windows 2000. there’s no need to check the other boxes like Run as an administrator, Run in 640x480 resolution, etc.
• Launch the shortcut, a settings Dialog box will open.  Uncheck the Enable 3D Acceleration box. then click Advanced.

• In the Troubleshooting section, check the Force Single Buffer box.

• This should do the trick. Click Okay, and start the game. It should run smooth now.

This solution works on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7, and is tested on Radeon HD and GeForce cards. However if the game is still a little laggy (Happened when I tested the game on a system with a GeForce GPU) turn off the Antialiasing from your graphics control panel.

Have fun playing one of the best adventure games ever!

So, I’ve had this “Vertical Lines” problem with my laptop for quite some time; When I moved my mouse between two monitors in a Dual-display setup a lot, something like what you see in this picture would happen to me and I had to restart my computer.

I think I solved this annoying problem by turning off the ATI PowerPlay feature from the Catalyst Control Center. so there you go, Internet. Hope this helps.

When you’re a programmer, people ask you this question a lot. I found this interesting blog post while I was surfing the web today; It’s not much different from how I and many others found our way into programming and making games…

(Source: http://devlicio.us/blogs/anne_epstein/archive/2010/06/19/why-i-m-a-programmer.aspx)

Why I'm a programmer

“I don't know if you can say I'm a programmer solely because of my dad(by training a physicist and by profession an engineer), but he was a big part of getting me there.  I had my first experiences with a computer when I was very young, no older than 4 or 5- my dad would write small games games for me on the TRS-80: One of them was a spelling game: a word would flash for a moment on the screen, and then I'd type in the word, and the program would say whether I'd spelled the word right-this was obviously cool for both of us.  He also showed me how he could tweak the game-add new words, adjust timing, etc.  When I was just a bit older, my dad got me a kids' book on BASIC , and I went through most of the programs in there, running them on that TRS-80 by repeatedly listing them out to look over the code, and editing by individual line. vi would have been full-screen luxury, but the line editor was all I knew, so it was great! (Yup, one of those programs was a choose your own adventure game). 

Aside from the actual programming, my dad's interest in computers kind of infiltrated the house-there were occasional cassette tapes labeled with program names and printed program listings lying around in drawers near the computer, and we tied up the tomato plants in the backyard with tape from spools of old reel-to-reel that was being thrown out at his office.  (We also tied up the dog with some aircraft carrier deck emergency barricade line, but that's another story)  Later on, when we finally replaced the TRS-80 with a Gateway 486 and the new computer's CPU turned out to be defective, I remember him replacing that chip while I hung out nearby. (It seemed perfectly normal to crack open and poke at the insides of a computer on the coffee table, though I'm now pretty sure Gateway would have done it for him, had he wanted to ship the machine back)  Not to mention tons of hacking that autoexec.bat together once that computer was finally working...I of course helped through all these things!
By the time I was in middle school or so, my dad had made his way to management.  I have many memories of the walks my dad and I would go on together, when he'd tell me about what he was learning for work at the time.  He spent many walks telling me about Total Quality Management(a blatant generalization might be to call it a second cousin of Lean), and how they were trying to use it in the Navy.  I remember him telling me that when one stepped back and looked at results, TQM looked like a better way to do things, but a lot of people were resistant.  I asked, "but if it's better, why don't they want to use it? Why won't they at least give it a try?"  (heh, a question I've asked myself about all sorts of things again many times later on.) He said something like "some people get comfortable doing things the way they've always done them, and they don't want to try things another way."  This answer frustrated me-it seemed so absurd, it couldn't possibly be true.  I believe it now; it still frustrates me, but I understand it better.
I can't say my dad ever *tried* to make me a programmer-he just showed me things that interested him.  My experience growing up is not unlike those of many other programmers I've met-if anything, it may be notable that my dad didn't differentiate at all in showing me and my brother these things up to our individual levels of interest. I never got the idea that I should be any less interested in computers, in airplanes, or in helping to build furniture, than I was in my ballet lessons or drawing.  I'm very appreciative of that-I didn't have any idea that some of my interests were perhaps "boy" things, and I don't think I really understood that my perception was maybe not the norm until I was older.  By that time, well, I liked what I liked, and I'm glad things worked out as they did.  Thanks, Dad!”

“Is performance still an issue in this era of cheap 486 computers and super-fast Pentium computers? You bet,

How many programs that you use really run so fast that you wouldn’t be happier if they ran faster?

We’re so used to slow software that when a compile-and-link sequence that took two minutes on a PC takes just ten seconds on a 486 computer, we’re ecstatic - when in truth we should be settling for nothing less than instantaneous response.”

RedBulb is now on CodePlex.

I’ve polished and uploaded the project on http://redbulb.codeplex.com

Documentation and Samples are coming soon. I just have to take some time and learn how to use this CodePlex thing.

Spectrum from Saeed Afshari on Vimeo.