ModStomp – Games & Gadgets & Stuff!

LDS Scriptures on Kindle and BlackBerry

Published by Zarch December 2nd, 2009 in Gadgets and Random. 4 Comments

My wife gave me a Kindle as my Christmas present (I know it’s not Christmas yet, but I have very little self control). After trying out a variety of free content, I wanted to try to find the LDS Scriptures (Book of Mormon, Bible, Doctrine & Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price) in a format I could use with the Kindle.

I’ve always liked having scriptures on my PDA or phone, but since moving to a BlackBerry from Windows Mobile, it’s been a bit of a pain. The only real option is MobiPocket, which I’ve found to be a little clunky and slow, even on a relatively fast BlackBerry (Curve 8900). I used YanCEyWare on Windows Mobile; if you’re on a WinMo phone, it’s head and shoulders the best solution.

Anyway, back to the Kindle. If you’re looking in Amazon’s Kindle store, you’ll see a few options with rather idiotic reviews and no details about what’s contained. My key requirements were semi-decent speed, inline links to footnotes and cross-references, and sizable text.

Well, the answer is to use the BlackBerry version provided by LDSBookClub.com. This is a partially stupid option, but you can get the file for free this way. The reason it’s stupid is because you have to download an executable in order to get the file itself, and it’s not set up to really just “work” for your Kindle. Not tricky, but honestly, it’s just a little shady to take a publication the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints makes available for free and use it as a loss leader for your own sales. Just make the file available.

Anyway, once you’ve gone through their installer, you should have the file stores someplace on your hard drive. You can run their launcher, right-click on the “LDS Scriptures” book in the MobiPocket PC app, and select “Open Containing Folder”. That will put you right there. Take the file (LDS Scriptures – Blackberry.prc) and drop it in your Kindle’s documents folder. Voila. It’s a very workable, well-linked set of Scriptures for your Kindle.

I hope this helps save someone some time and effort (not to mention some money).

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Google Latitude Fun

Published by Zarch March 12th, 2009 in Random. 0 Comments

Well, it’s a neat app, I guess, except for one question. Why am I in New York instead of Utah? I remember waking up in Utah. . . 3-12-2009-9-42-29-am

Debunking the Gnaw Fold Diablo 3 Myth

Published by Zarch January 14th, 2009 in Games, Geek Fun and Random. 6 Comments

As with all these fun things, there are kernels of truth. Diablo does tend to drop Dol runes. "Trout" does have a root in Greek meaning "nibble" or "gnaw".

First, the hit points. Diablo in Normal Mode of Diablo 2 has 13818 hit points (according to the useful Diablo Wiki). So we can rule out that little piece of numerology.

Second, the error message. We need to see a screen shot of the error before we can really be confident. Otherwise, someone is just playing around with hex.

Third, the item. I’ve never encountered a "Gnaw Fold" ring in my play, and I can’t see a note of it in the item lists I’ve checked. Though I’m open to the idea, I don’t think it exists. The solution might be to install and not update, then play through single-player in an attempt to find it. . .maybe someone else has the time.

So, with no item, we can’t test the theory and get a screenshot. I call this a fun myth until someone can show me otherwise.

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Surprise TF2 Update!

Published by Zarch December 11th, 2008 in Games. 0 Comments

Bless those handsome devils at Valve! Looks like the Demoman is nerfed a little, and spies (I hate them so much!) and engies get a little boost. Here are the official changes (I’ve bolded the ones I found interesting):

The Engineer’s teleporters can now be upgraded to level three. It will recharge faster the higher level it is
The Engineer’s dispensers can now be upgraded to level three. It will give out metal and heal faster as it is upgraded
Spies will be able to recharge their cloaking ability by picking up ammo off of the ground or from health cabinets
Some changes to the second part of the first stage of Goldrush to give the attackers more of an advantage
Any weapons that fire bullets (shotguns, sniper’s machine gun, heavy’s minigun, etc.) can now break apart the Demoman’s stickybombs
The icon on the HUD for a person calling for Medic will now give more information to the medic (if the target is low on health, on fire, etc.)
Added an achievement tracker that will allow people to choose specific achievements that they are trying to get
There is now a custom icon for death messages when the player was killed from a critical hit
Added a new particle effect for when a player enters the water
Added smoke to the feet of a rocket jumping soldier
Players will now have some particles swirling around them so other players can see when they are overhealed

Kudos to the guys at Valve for sneaking a nice little update in.

The Irony of the Open X Package Opener

Published by Zarch June 12th, 2008 in Gadgets and Random. 1 Comment

I was shopping on ThinkGeek the other day, and had some points to have this thrown in with my order. Either that, or it was cheap enough that I thought I’d throw it in the cart. Me no remember so good none.

Anyhoo, everyone hates those crazy impossible packages, right? Here’s where the IRONY attacks.

The device designed to save us from this terrible packaging comes in exactly the packaging it decries. Looks like I’ll be using my poor teeth once more, like the lady seen here.

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I See You…

Published by Rudeboy April 24th, 2008 in Geek Fun and Random. 1 Comment

It’s not a great picture, but I got a phone snap of a Google Street View car on the freeway the other day. Nothing special, just thought I’d share.

Analog USB Gauges How-to

Published by Zarch February 4th, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

A clever blogger for diylife.com has posted a really nice how-to for adding analog gauges to your PC, including the needed USB hardware and some great advice for finding old gauges to work with. If that’s something of interest to you, check out the full post for all the details.

Grammar for Bloggers: Possessive or Plural?

Published by Zarch January 16th, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Today’s article comes from Autoblog. Here’s the line that prompted a post:

The economy appears to be swooning, and before we land softly (or crash hard), company’s have begun to circle their wagons and reduce unnecessary spending.

Leaving aside the questionable sentence construction, let’s address the apostrophe problem in the word "company’s". The correct plural of "company" is "companies". You can, if you want, use an apostrophe to indicate plurals of letters or numbers: mind your p’s and q’s, x’s and o’s, crazy 8’s, and so forth. That’s not a hard and fast rule, however; there’s some disagreement among the Masters of Grammar (such as they are).

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Grammar for Bloggers: "Line Up" vs. "Lineup"

Published by Zarch January 15th, 2008 in Gripes and Random. 0 Comments

Welcome to a snarky new series. A beautiful thing about the advent of blogging is the availability of so many sources for getting news and information. The trouble is, many of our friends in the blogosphere have some difficulty with the written language. This can be a barrier to adoption for the snobbier sections of the community, so I’m here to help. The goal is not to aggravate or annoy; I’m hoping to provide some tips that will be helpful.

Today’s example comes from Engadget: "Zealots lineup for Jobs’ keynote". The word "lineup" is always a noun; it could define a company’s range of products, or a viewing gallery of suspects at the local precinct. When used as a verb, the words "line" and "up" need to be separated.

The apostrophe at the end of "Jobs" is correct; you could get away with "Jobs’s" as well, but I agree with the poster here. We’ll probably have to get into apostrophes at some point, but not today.

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Uniden PCW100 Driver

Published by Zarch December 25th, 2007 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

A company that limits access to driver downloads is a company that doesn’t appreciate its customers. Today, I was trying to find a simple driver for a little USB 801.11b network card to patch a hole in my network. Couldn’t find it anywhere. I finally had to go to Uniden’s website, where I was forced to register, with mailing address being a required field. Um, no. Anyway, if you’re looking for a driver for your Uniden PCW100, it’s right here. At least until they send a C & D.