DG's misc. help

[DarkGrievous7145]

Rather not bloat the forums with a thousand threads everytime I run into a simple problem, so I'll create a catch-all for them, instead

So, I was taking care of a game on my Kongregate Playlist.

Decided it's worthy enough of a rip.


I opened it up to discover it uses hueshifting on certain assets (probably to reduce filesize)

I found the values by which the hues are being shifted.

My question is this:
Should I upload the hue-shifted versions of sprites? or only the originals?

screenshot:
   

[Skyla Doragono]

Personally, I'd upload whichever version that appears in the game.

[puggsoy]

I'd actually say the opposite, to upload the original sprites. After all, we don't upload scaled versions of sprites that are scaled in-game.

That said, the best choice could also be to just upload both versions, provided there isn't a huge amount of them. Or make a note on the sheet/in the .zip on how the game hue-shifts them.

[DarkGrievous7145]

I'd actually say the opposite, to upload the original sprites. After all, we don't upload scaled versions of sprites that are scaled in-game.

That said, the best choice could also be to just upload both versions, provided there isn't a huge amount of them. Or make a note on the sheet/in the .zip on how the game hue-shifts them.

I don't think they would add significant file size. I'll test that later.
.swf's as-is are bound to size constraints, since larger files tend to be un-playable
most of the graphics that would have any affects applied to them are pretty small.
The largest one is probably that one from the screenshot, and it's 128x128
The screenshot also has the list of hue-shift values. (which were split across 3 scripts)

[DarkGrievous7145]

when opening the temp folder to open a .zip file that chose not to open when it was downloaded, this was encountered.

 I am not sure from where it originated, but I am guessing it must've been a game
Any idea which one???

[DarkGrievous7145]

Ok, so quite a while ago, I grabbed all of the "important" graphics from the MineCraft Hour of Code.

I am unsure whether to post them anywhere here or not.

What does everyone else think on this matter?
Should I submit them to TSR?
Should I upload them somewhere else and link them from the forums?

And another question is, assuming the assets are still on Code.org's servers, should I also include the .json files for each sprite sheet? I am pretty sure the sprite sheets were created with texturepacker, so those JSON files are somewhat required to make easy use of them. However, this likely would add some pretty significant filesize to the resulting .zip

[puggsoy]

Actually, generally we try and get sheets like those in a more usable form using the .json (or other animation) files, and then upload them like that. Including animation files is generally discouraged, it's better if the sprites are already in an easily usable and viewable format. Also, if the sheets aren't too many, sprite sheets are preferred to .zips.

[DarkGrievous7145]

Makes sense, actually.
I'd probably need someone else to parse the animation files, though.
(again, assuming they're still online)

And what about MC Hour of Code even being eligible for submission here?
It doesn't classify necessarily as a "game" , not in the "traditional" sense, anyways.
By definition of what's generally called a "game" , I suppose it would fit.

[puggsoy]

If you want help maybe make a thread in Ripping Help and (obviously) uploading the files, and we can try help. I suggest that instead of just posting it in this thread as you might get a bit more help there.

[DarkGrievous7145]

right when I'm about to go to bed, I end-up with the Windows disk space warning, oh, and stuff nearly crashing because of several updaters running at once. Those all got shut-down, but the disk space went from 0.9 gigs to a little over 200.

Little over a day after I moved some very large files to my ext. drive.
The disk space shouldn't be super low.

I checked the temp folder
Which brings me to my reason for this post.
I found a bunch of folders in the temp folder with screenshots in them.
Now, from what I can tell, they all do seem to coincide with a time I pressed printscreen.
What bothers me, though, is I've not seen screenies in temp before, and I'm relatively sure a few of these might pre-date the last time I cleaned the temp folder.

I did a quick google search to see if there was anything about the possibilities of it being a virus or spyware, but I couldn't find anything conlusive. I didn't have a hard time removing said screenies, except a few were apprently locked by windows explorer. This isn't particularly suspicious to me, though, as explorer is notorious for corrupted locking handles. These were removed, still, since I installed unlocker due to getting damn tired of being unable to organize those select few of my files and folders that get randomly perma-locked. Anyways, the one result that seemed like it might have some information did mention that if they were nasty things, prob would be harder to remove. But even this, I'm not sure of.

Anyone have any idea why screenshots would suddenly start appearing in temp? Besides this is a waste of space, I obviously do not like the idea that those are being retained. Some of the screenshots I take have somewhat sensitive information, like my private email address, or the "spam filter key" to my only currently active yahoo email address. It seems odd they'd just suddenly start appearing in the temp folder. Far as I can tell, nothing with critical details was archived/potentially leaked, but still... I'm pretty sure that screenshots are only supposed to be stored either in memory or the clipboard cache, (both extremely temporary) unless explicitly saved by the user, right?

[DarkGrievous7145]

I haven't seen any more screenshots in temp lately

now, something i've meant to ask for a while.

While we were on vacation, the resort we stayed at had wifi for us to look up to.
Despite this, however, my mom's data use on her iphone still went up. Somehow, it was up to like 75% by the time we returned. We know, or at least, are pretty sure, that the phone was using the resort's wifi most of the time. Yet, if this is the case, why did the data continue to get used?

[DarkGrievous7145]

and another phone issue...

MESSENGER...

there any way to fix it?
My mom cannot open it, though the alerts from it still come in
multiple attempts have been made to update it, both when the phone was logged-into a wifi network, and when it was just using the data straight from the service provider. I've read various things about how to supposedly fix it, none have worked. I've read reviews saying that app is just a worthless piece of trash that doesn't particularly work at all...

So, any ideas?

[Kosheh]

...somehow, I'm not shocked these weren't answered. All anyone knows about on this dang forum is that Nintendo games go into the cart slot

Anyone have any idea why screenshots would suddenly start appearing in temp? Besides this is a waste of space, I obviously do not like the idea that those are being retained. Some of the screenshots I take have somewhat sensitive information, like my private email address, or the "spam filter key" to my only currently active yahoo email address. It seems odd they'd just suddenly start appearing in the temp folder. Far as I can tell, nothing with critical details was archived/potentially leaked, but still... I'm pretty sure that screenshots are only supposed to be stored either in memory or the clipboard cache, (both extremely temporary) unless explicitly saved by the user, right?

Well, you kinda answered your own question. They're going somewhere, and not being deleted. lol


You might want to try cleaning up your temporary files. There's a menu in Windows that lets you clean up your caches and Windows Updates stuff, etc. called "Disk Cleanup". 
Might be worth taking a look.

I'd suggest Piriform's two free apps: CCleaner (first C's for Crap - it cleans all the crap up, including old registry keys) and Defraggler (a little better, and friendlier than MS' defragmentation tool).
Since you're using one of the few hundred PCs in the US running XP, it's not a bad idea to actually do this once in a while since your OS doesn't do it manually.

I haven't seen any more screenshots in temp lately

now, something i've meant to ask for a while.

While we were on vacation, the resort we stayed at had wifi for us to look up to.
Despite this, however, my mom's data use on her iphone still went up. Somehow, it was up to like 75% by the time we returned. We know, or at least, are pretty sure, that the phone was using the resort's wifi most of the time. Yet, if this is the case, why did the data continue to get used?

There's a setting on your iPhone circa 5 that causes you to still use data whilst being connected to Wifi (for like connection services and whatnot) and the reason being is that it'll automatically choose the other based on which has better speeds. That feature's called "Wifi Assist". So if your LTE is getting 20Mbps down while the hotel Wifi has 5Mbps up, it's going to continue using LTE - and use the Wifi to compensate for like the 5Mbps of speed.

To turn it off, go to Settings > Mobile Data then scroll to the bottom of the page. You can turn off "Wifi Assist" from there.

and another phone issue...

MESSENGER...

there any way to fix it?
My mom cannot open it, though the alerts from it still come in
multiple attempts have been made to update it, both when the phone was logged-into a wifi network, and when it was just using the data straight from the service provider. I've read various things about how to supposedly fix it, none have worked. I've read reviews saying that app is just a worthless piece of trash that doesn't particularly work at all...

So, any ideas?

Cache is borked? Uninstall the app and reinstall it. It'll wipe that cache right up. Messenger's data is stored on Facebook's servers, so it's not like you're going to lose anything

...also, you're going to inherit this phone once she upgrades, right ;D

[DarkGrievous7145]

...somehow, I'm not shocked these weren't answered. All anyone knows about on this dang forum is that Nintendo games go into the cart slot

Anyone have any idea why screenshots would suddenly start appearing in temp? Besides this is a waste of space, I obviously do not like the idea that those are being retained. Some of the screenshots I take have somewhat sensitive information, like my private email address, or the "spam filter key" to my only currently active yahoo email address. It seems odd they'd just suddenly start appearing in the temp folder. Far as I can tell, nothing with critical details was archived/potentially leaked, but still... I'm pretty sure that screenshots are only supposed to be stored either in memory or the clipboard cache, (both extremely temporary) unless explicitly saved by the user, right?

Well, you kinda answered your own question. They're going somewhere, and not being deleted. lol


You might want to try cleaning up your temporary files. There's a menu in Windows that lets you clean up your caches and Windows Updates stuff, etc. called "Disk Cleanup". 
Might be worth taking a look.

I'd suggest Piriform's two free apps: CCleaner (first C's for Crap - it cleans all the crap up, including old registry keys) and Defraggler (a little better, and friendlier than MS' defragmentation tool).
Since you're using one of the few hundred PCs in the US running XP, it's not a bad idea to actually do this once in a while since your OS doesn't do it manually.

I haven't seen any more screenshots in temp lately

now, something i've meant to ask for a while.

While we were on vacation, the resort we stayed at had wifi for us to look up to.
Despite this, however, my mom's data use on her iphone still went up. Somehow, it was up to like 75% by the time we returned. We know, or at least, are pretty sure, that the phone was using the resort's wifi most of the time. Yet, if this is the case, why did the data continue to get used?

There's a setting on your iPhone circa 5 that causes you to still use data whilst being connected to Wifi (for like connection services and whatnot) and the reason being is that it'll automatically choose the other based on which has better speeds. That feature's called "Wifi Assist". So if your LTE is getting 20Mbps down while the hotel Wifi has 5Mbps up, it's going to continue using LTE - and use the Wifi to compensate for like the 5Mbps of speed.

To turn it off, go to Settings > Mobile Data then scroll to the bottom of the page. You can turn off "Wifi Assist" from there.

and another phone issue...

MESSENGER...

there any way to fix it?
My mom cannot open it, though the alerts from it still come in
multiple attempts have been made to update it, both when the phone was logged-into a wifi network, and when it was just using the data straight from the service provider. I've read various things about how to supposedly fix it, none have worked. I've read reviews saying that app is just a worthless piece of trash that doesn't particularly work at all...

So, any ideas?

Cache is borked? Uninstall the app and reinstall it. It'll wipe that cache right up. Messenger's data is stored on Facebook's servers, so it's not like you're going to lose anything

...also, you're going to inherit this phone once she upgrades, right ;D

1.
I'll have to check that out

2.
hmm... Well, we'll see... also, I'm currently the scapegoat since it just happened to quit working after hooking-up to the wifi, supposedly. But the dates also coincide with the recent updates no one likes, so...
(being the house I.T. guy is just awesome... >.>)

3.
umm... I actually am not on the smartphone/tablet hype train
I'd de-rail them if I could
IDK, maybe, maybe not...
I might even end-up with my own, then rarely/never use it!

[DarkGrievous7145]

no luck with the wifi thing
It's an iphone 6S, btw, if memory serves