I have written a short (fun) article about how the timeline of a web designer is.

You can read it on my homepage http://www.erkan.se/the-timeline-of-a-web-designer.asp

My Game Boy collection. Check it out now!

Wow I just re-launched my Game Boy collection site! I spent quite some time on the design of this page so I hope you will like it. Oh and it is completely made in CSS, no tables for the layout. Check it out!

My Game Boy collection

XBOX RoXxXorS

Wow… I bought an XBOX in the middle of 2004 and finally yesterday I upgraded the stock harddrive from 8 to 320 GB! What an improvement!

I also got myself a wireless controller since I prefer to use a joypad in XBOX Media Center. Got me remembering those articles about the original XBOX joypad, many claimed it was too big, and Microsoft released a smaller version of it. I never had any problems with the big XBOX controller, I think it was perfect.

The XBOX is now dead and replaced by the XBOX360 but I predict that the first generation of the console will live on amongst home brewers and non-gamers.

How to brainstorm to get new ideas?

I have written a short article on www.erkan.se about brainstorming. Check it out, I know you will learn something from it if you want an easy way of finding new ideas.

>>How do you brainstorm for getting new ideas?

Sanningen om Posten

This is a post in Swedish and a link to a Swedish page, sorry about that for this time!

Jag har skrivit ihop lite erfarenheter och upplevelser jag upplevde när jag jobbade heltid/deltid/extra som brevbärare parallellt under min studietid.

Läs hela härligheten här -> Jobba på Posten - Sanningen

Lite utdrag:

-Det är förbjudet att dricka alkohol på arbetsplatsen. Efter jobbet går ibland bastun varm i omklädningsrummet och man känner en skarp öldoft som sipprar ut från bastun när man kommer in i omklädningsrummet för att byta om för hemgång.

-Ett riktigt original med 15-20 års erfarenhet från Posten står i sitt distrikt och pruttar öppet inför alla.

-Samma person kissade på bakgårdar till hus på fina gator på övre Östermalm som han delade ut post i. I början trodde jag detta var helt naturligt, alla kan bli jävligt kissnödiga ibland. Sedan insåg jag efter att ha analyserat situationen att han hade druckit öl på turen och därför blivit mycket kissnödig.

Sådär.. jag vet att ni vill läsa resten också... Här kan ni läsa mer om hur det är att jobba på Posten!

Super Mini Amiga 4000 Tower

I thought I would share a picture of an A4000 I had back in 2000. It was a desktop A4000 with a Cyberstorm 060 mk2, CV64-3D, Network card, V-lab, tapestreamer, CD-rom and harddrive plus an Elbox 7 slot Zorro backplane hacked inside a small tower. Less is definitely more in this case. Check out the size of it.

Perhaps you are interested in my new A4000? This time I kept it inside the original desktop case. Check it out at my site with information and articles about Amiga and other computers.

Amiga 500 harddrive

I bought this old Amiga 500 harddrive called AlfaPower for one of my Amiga this week. It is an IDE harddrive controller with a built in memory expansion with up to 8 MB of fast memory. I have been slowly gathering hardware for an Amiga 500 I am planning to build up. As of this week I have this harddrive, a 030 board with FPU and 4 MB memory, a kickstart switch and of course the Amiga.

More web tutorials

Allright, I have been working with homepages for a long time and I have decided to write a lot of tutorials which will hopefully reveal a lot of secrets behind making a sites.

Learning table based web design is not something that is recommended to to but it is important to know even bad tricks to be able to improve and be good at something. That is why I have written a small tutorial where I teach such horrible things as tables inside tables... look out for the 1x1 transparent gif image in the future :-)

You can find the article on erkan.se , just follow the link:

How to do complex web design with tables

Learn how to draw ASCII art

ASCII art is not very popular today. But a nice piece of ASCII art on a website can look very good if used right. Check out my small tutorial where I walk you through sketching out a logo in The Draw, a classic ANSI/ASCI paint package.

How do I draw ASCII art?

Top MS-DOS programs

Ok, here is the latest article on erkan.se

It is a short article about some favorite MS-DOS applications everyone should have (in case you keep an MS-DOS computer around as I do). If programs like 'Norton Commander', 'PKZIP' or 'Cubic Player' rings a bell then check it out asap!

Some favorite MS-DOS programs on erkan.se written by Erkan

Shoot'em'up article no 2

My last article on erkan.se dealt with many parts of the shoot’em’up genre that keep coming back and have become a vital part of the anatomy of a shoot’em’up game.

So I decided to keep on going and write an article about some basic tips in mastering a shoot’em’up game since they can be kind a hard to get into and master.

So read all about some strategy tips for Shoot’em’up games at erkan.se and keep checking back for more interesting articles!

The anatomy of a Shoot Em Up game!

I have written a short article explaining the anatomy of a typical Shoot Em Up game on my website erkan.se

Check it out at:

http://www.erkan.se/anatomy-of-a-shoot-em-up-game.asp

White Japanese Sega Saturn

I was told that this white Saturn that I bought had some problems reading CD’s so the price was low, I had to have it. I thought about swapping the internals out for standard PAL hardware but when I tried it at home it worked fine. There was a surprise inside it to since it had a rare 20-pin mod chip installed. 15 minutes after I got it I was playing “Night Striker” and “Parodius forever” with me. Just to let everyone know, the Saturn is the closest thing to having an arcade at your home without a big and bulky cabinet.

English Russia

I have been following interesting links on the net that end up on the blog “English Russia” for some time now. Take a look it’s a fun blog about Russian things.

I especially like the technology section.

English Russia

White Saturn Wireless Joypad

I got this wireless Saturn controller yesterday. They where only released in Japan so they can be considered rare if you live in Europe like me. There where a lot of different Saturn controllers released but Sega’s original joypad released in Japan is considered the best digital joypad of all the time. So I was excited to know that there was a wireless version of that joypad released but I did not know if I would find one because they are hard to find. I would like to have a second wireless joypad so email me if you have one for sale.

Tomorrow I will get my Japanese white Saturn that I am either going to convert to a PAL Saturn by swapping out the main board with a PAL main board. Of course I am going to install a mod chip and a country cartridge to be able to play Japanese Shoot em Ups and Beat em Ups!

Half-Life: Opposing Force - best FPS game ewar omfg

I finished Half-Life: Opposing Force today and was impressed by how good it was. I think it is definitely better than Half-Life since most of the action is in the Black Mesa underground bunker. Some of the levels where quite good and showed evidence of clever level designers.

I think it was the perfect mix of an action and puzzle game.

Since Opposing Force is about 6 years old some of the graphics do not hold up to today’s games. Most textures washes out when near them and so on, but overall it is still an enjoyable game and the sound effects make up for the old graphics. I should probably go play Half-Life: Blue Shift now!

Collecting Yeti Steel Frames

Thought I would share a picture of my Yetis. One is a 1991 FRO and the other is a 1992 Ultimate I think. These old steel MTB frames are highly collectible and keep there value.

Amiga 500 accelerator 030

While I am in a posting mode for Amiga stuff I thought I would share this picture of an Amiga 500 accelerator, or turbo card as they where also called back in the day. It is a Hurricane 030 and has a Motorola 68030 CPU at 25 MHz and a 25 MHz FPU. This is a really old card so it does not use the more modern 72-pin memory standard but Zip chips, a really weird way of adding more memory. As you can see on the picture this card has 4 MB installed and there is space for 4 MB more, but finding these obscure memory chips could be extremely hard today!

Another cool thing is the switch which lets you switch of the 030 CPU completely and instead runs the Amiga 500 with the original 7.14 MHz 68000 chip. As far as CPU speed goes it is also possible to run a 50 MHz CPU on this card, reaching hi-end workstation speeds of 1991. As with most A500 accelerators this card will work perfectly fine in an Amiga 2000, I have tried it.

This turbo board cost about 1500 dollars back in the day, not many Amiga 500 where expanded with more than 0.5 MB extra memory and an extra floppy drive so these turbo boards are rare!

Amiga explosion!

This was a sweet Amiga deal I secured a couple of years ago. Sadly I do not have anything of it left anymore sans a really nice micro switched mouse. Check it out! BTW if you want to read more about cool Amiga stuff visit Erkans homepage and find out more about the Amiga!

SFF 486, Small Form Factor 486

This is a cool 486 IMHO. I found this on the net a couple of years ago and I just had to have it. Just look how small it is! It has: 486 DX2 66 MHz 32 MB memory 420 MB harddrive 3COM NIC Soundblaster AWE 32 Integrated VGA Two ISA slots Aluminum chassi 3.5 floppy drive Gravis Gamepad I am running MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 on it. I mainly use it to run DOS application and games. I can run CuteFTP in Windows to fetch software from my server so I do not need a CD-ROM. Perfect for DOS gaming.

Wondering how to save energy on your computer, read this article in Swedish about saving energy on your computer.

Exploded can of Cola

Do not put a can of soda in your fridge, or you will hear a loud bang and your cola will be destroyed!

How to be a webprogrammer

Another web project and another late night at the keyboard coding HTML and PHP. If you want to hear it directly from someone with years of knowledge from the web-industry head on over to Erkans web tutorials and other interesting written texts of what its like to work on web-projects.

Read more about this at Erkans homepage in the section Interests.

iPod-Info, the definitive website for every iPod owner!

I have been using an iPod ever since late 2001 and it is my favorite piece of hardware ever. To celebrate this I made an iPod website with information about the iPod nano, shuffle, video and lots of other iPod related things, check out my iPod information page at iPod-Info!

Tiny flash light!

I got this small Maglite Solitaire as a present, it is the smallest Maglite but also the coolest. I am no flash light snob but LED flash lights are all the rage today and classic flash lights like the Maglites are quickly becoming obsolete. But as far as black anodized cool aluminum flash lights go, Maglites are awesome!

HardSID

I thought I would share an old classic with my faithful readers. Back in 2000 I was one of the first buyers of the HardSID card an ISA card with space for a genuine SID chip from a C64. Playing SID tunes on a PC through the SID chip was then possible and I got to tell you how great SID tunes sounded with a true chip instead of lousy emulation. When the ISA slot died so did my use of this card so I sold it. But there are PCI based SID cards for sale today, but I would much prefer an USB version if it would be possible. Much recommended if you like SID tunes, you will notice a dramatic improvement in the sound quality of SID tunes!

Handheld video games mania

I like to collect handheld video games. My favorite at the moment is the Atari Lynx, it is totally awesome!

Back when the Lynx was released it had more advanced games than even the Amiga could have. Games like Blue Thunder and California Games where instant winners. The Lynx might not have been the most popular handheld but the games are still enjoyable.

I have to admit though that I only play Lynx at home. It is a huge handheld and wont fit my pockets, if I play games outside I usually take my PSP or my GBA micro.

Did you know that the Game Boy micro from Nintendo does not play classic black and white Game Boy games or Game Boy Color games?

There is a solution to play older original black and white Game Boy games on the GBA micro, you can find out more about it on the how to play GB games on a GBA micro page.

Out Run 2006 Coast 2 Coast

So Out Run 2006 Coast 2 Coast has been ported to the PC? That is great news actually, arcade games for the PC is not exactly common after the 80’ies went out of style. Sadly.

SEGA is well known for the strong arcade roots, almost every SEGA game feels like a quality arcade title and the new Out Run game does not steer away from this formula.

Anyone looking from an arcade racer should get Out Run 2006 Coast 2 Coast, it is a great game, and as you can see on the screenshot, if you have a monitor capable of 1920x1200 you can run the game in this gorgeous resolution!

Mini Z Overland

These Mini Z Overland cars are very fun! They have realistic suspension and can climb steep home made “mountains”. I am going to make a small trials course for mine.

My messy desk

I bought some old computers and spent the entire Saturday going through what I bought. Some disappointments here and there but one of the Amiga 500’s had a turbo board inside it, now that is rare, not that often you find an Amiga 500 with a 030 25 MHz and 4 MB. It was probably the hottest Saturday during the year, I drank lots of soda and mineral water.

Got an old Swatch

I recently saw an episode of MTV Cribs. There was some guy from Fugees who bragged about his watch collection, I think he had a watch that was worth 1.5 million dollars, or maybe all of his watch was worth that much (he also had an absolutely awful art collection).

You know I would have been more impressed if this so called “pop star” would have created his own watch with his own hands and bragged about it. That would have made me impressed, any idiot with money in his pockets can buy anything and that is not impressive.

Besides a watch is mostly useless these days, need to know what time it is? Check your mobile phone.

With that said here is my “new” Swatch from 1990. It cost a whopping 8 dollars and comes with no guarantee.

Unlocked my PSP

I bought my first game for my PSP last month, GTA – Liberty City Stories. I have already tired playing this game. I am spoilt after having played San Andreas. But the reason I bought it was to downgrade the firmware on my PSP and unlock its true potential as a portable emulator for 8-bit (and some 16-bit) systems.
Thanks to GTA my PSP have firmware 1.5 and I can enjoy homebrew software!

GBA Micro + Flash cart = The win!

My brother traveled to USA for a short vacation, I told him to buy me a GBA Micro since they are a little bit cheaper over there. I got a black one with a silver face plate. I got to tell you it is really nice, the screen is crystal clear and even though it is tiny I have no problem with its size.

As you can see on the picture I am not running an ordinary cartridge with it because I have a flash cart (EFA Linker 512 MBit) that can store games on it. This comes in real handy especially with the Micro because I don’t have to fill my pocket with games cartridges.

Miyata Century frame

I got a Miyata Century frame today. It was an anniversary frame for Miyata celebrating 100 years. It is in size 16 and in mint condition. I unwrapped the frame today as it has been stored since leaving the factory 16 years ago. Made in Japan.

Coming together...

The picture does not show it, but all that is missing is a seatpost in 26.8.

Rebuilding a vintage XT II derailur

It has been a while since I rebuilt a rear derailur. Amazing how much crap can get stuck inside a 15 year old rear derailur.

My Miyata Century MTB frame is in the Post office, I will get it this week. Can't wait!

Incoming: Miyata Century

I will soon get my hands on a NOS Miyata Century MTB frame in size 16. The Miyata Century was available in the market in 1990 booth as a MTB and as a racer and has gold plated aluminium lugs and carbon reinforced aluminium pipes. The frame has been sealed in its package since 1990 and I really look forward to checking out this beautiful frame!
Pics will come.

Drilled out bicycle components

Drilling bicycle components was very popular in the 70’ies. Besides making the bike lighter, it looked cooler!

Stuck seatpost hell

I told you before about my Yeti Ultimate with the stuck seatpost. My hands are now sore and my arms feel tired. After 6-7 hours of hard work I finally won. So what technique did I use?

I cut the post of and left a small stump. Then I took a blade and sawed inside the post. Then I lost my motivation and got a big flat screwdriver and a hammer and hammered away the last piece. Thankfully the frame is still in good shape. I am going to think twice about buying a new frame with stuck seatpost again omg.

My Yeti Ultimate arrived today and I am very excited. Visually it is in good condition considering it’s from 1989. Looking closer there is a crack where the seat tube ends and the seat post is stuck in the frame. The crack in the seat tube is a common problem with old Yetis and won’t give me much headache I suspect, if I can find a competent welder. Having spent the entire evening trying to remove the seat post I suspect this will be the major problem with this bike. But things could be worse, at least there is no rust on the frame.

Incoming: Yeti Ultimate

I will receive a Yeti Ultimate in need of a serious restoration this week. I’m going to post some pictures later in the week. I am probably going to run a straight Shimano Deore XT group on my Ultimate and a Deore DX group on my FRO.

TWM pwnz

TWM pwnz but it sucks you must kill windows instead of a closing button.

Not much is happening at the moment.
I am participating in a Business Writing course this spring, should be interesting.