The Web Place of Richard Green

A small collection of information about software projects, software development resources, and obscure software, among other things.

Audiobook Projects

The Audiobooks of Oz CD-ROMs

In 2010, I designed and produced a custom-labeled cross-platform CD-ROM that contained four audiobooks from the LibriVox project in the form of Ogg Vorbis audio files. (The Ogg Vorbis audio format is designed to be free of licensing restrictions.) Multiple copies of this disc were produced and made available to others. The audiobooks were of the following L. Frank Baum stories: "The Marvelous Land of Oz" (published in 1904), "Ozma of Oz" (published in 1907), "The Magic of Oz" (published in 1919), and "Glinda of Oz" (published in 1920.) A number of accompanying HTML pages and period illustrations were included on the disc, and copies of the Mozilla Firefox Web browser were included to facilitate the playback of Ogg Vorbis audio. On the technical side, audio playback was implemented with HTML5 support for embedded audio, along with the Cortado Java applet as a fallback.

Later on, I produced a subsequent disc that had a similar design but with a different selection of audiobooks, namely the L. Frank Baum stories of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" (published in 1900), "The Emerald City of Oz" (published in 1910), "The Patchwork Girl of Oz" (published in 1913), and "Little Wizard Stories of Oz" (published in 1913.) The audiobook of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" had been recorded in the form of a dramatic reading with multiple character parts by the LibriVox project. As with the previous disc, this CD-ROM was made available to others.

Some of the content from the Audiobooks of Oz CD-ROM discs is available for download in the form of archive files. Note that the content included in the archives consists mostly of images (including period illustrations) and HTML files; the archives do not contain all of the software and audio files that were included on the Audiobooks of Oz CD-ROM discs. Also, the exact content of the Audiobooks of Oz CD-ROM discs has changed over time. These archives contain material that may be subject to copyright issues outside the USA. If you are located outside the USA, please check copyright laws before downloading these archives.
Download the Audiobooks of Oz CD-ROM (Volume 1) partial content archive (2.3MB)
Download the Audiobooks of Oz CD-ROM (Volume 2) partial content archive (2.6MB)

Software Projects

Information is given below about software projects that I have publicly released at one time or another. To unpack the contents of archive files that have been downloaded, the StuffIt Expander utility or the MacZip utility may be of use.

The CounterPoison game

In the mid 1990s, I released this game for the MacOS platform. The game had black-and-white graphics and was produced using the Microsoft QuickBASIC software. In this two-player board game, there were twelve removable counters, and each player removed one or two of the counters per turn, in a manner similar to the Nim game. (The CounterPoison game also featured a "poison" counter, and the player left with only this counter would lose the game.) In addition to the ability for two persons to play against each other, the game supported a computer opponent that could be configured to play in one of three modes.
View a screenshot of the CounterPoison game window

The RetroShark game

In February 2011, I released this game for the MacOS platform. In the RetroShark game, the character of Hiram ("Hee-ram") Hero must be guided along a wooden causeway to escape from a deserted island. The catch is the shark-infested water around the causeway, which must be avoided at all costs. The game featured digitized audio, color graphics, mouse control, and the ability to adjust the causeway layout, among other things. In particular, the game featured three difficulty levels, with the ability to use a built-in causeway layout or to randomly generate a new causeway layout for the chosen difficulty level.
System Requirements: The RetroShark game was designed for the Mac OS9 platform (prior versions of the MacOS system software may also work) and requires a monitor that is capable of at least 256 colors and/or grays. (Among other things, the development of the RetroShark game started before the arrival of the Mac OSX platform.) Under the Classic Environment, which is sometimes available on PowerPC-based systems with Mac OSX versions up to 10.4, the game runs but the character movement may be less responsive than it would be otherwise. Intel-based Macintosh systems are not supported.
View the RetroShark game page at Macgamefiles.com
Download version 1.0 of the RetroShark game (208KB)
View a screenshot of the RetroShark game
View a second screenshot of the RetroShark game

Free/Open-Source Software

In addition to the items listed below, I have made contributions to certain other free/open-source software projects.

The Encrypted Folders software

The Encrypted Folders software was originally released by Steve Oliver (though the software is no longer mentioned on his Web site) and is designed to provide increased security on the Mac OSX platform by augmenting the FileVault feature and encrypting certain temporary storage locations, such as the /private/tmp, /private/var/tmp, and /private/var/folders directories. The encryption process involves encrypted disk images which are union-mounted onto certain directories with passwords for the disk images being generated via /dev/urandom. Note that the Encrypted Folders software does not provide full disk encryption and is not free of issues; this software has been made available here as an experimental project which may be of interest to experienced users. Both the original Encrypted Folders software and a modified version that I produced are included in the archive.
System Requirements: A version of the Mac OSX platform from 10.4 through 10.5.8 is recommended. Later versions of the Mac OSX platform may not work with the Encrypted Folders software.
Download the Encrypted Folders software (32KB; last updated on January 28, 2012)

Themes for the GNOME Robots game

For the GNOME Robots game, which is available on various GNU/Linux distributions among other places, I produced a set of four new graphical themes. In the GNOME Robots game, the player must avoid a group of enemy robots (or other hazards) that move towards the player with every step. The new themes feature hazards in the form of anthills, water spills, stormclouds, and toasters. On GNU/Linux distributions that support a package manager, it may be possible to add the new themes by installing version 3.0 or later of the gnome-games-extra-data package. The themes are also available for download below.
Download the new themes for the GNOME Robots game (28KB)
View a screenshot of the GNOME Robots game with the anthills theme
View a screenshot of the GNOME Robots game with the spills theme
View a screenshot of the GNOME Robots game with the stormclouds theme
View a screenshot of the GNOME Robots game with the toasters theme

Software Development Resources

These third-party articles and other resources may be of particular interest to individual software developers.

• iDevGames.com - Bakudanjin Postmortem (This is an archived article from The Wayback Machine)
  A behind-the-scenes look at the development process of a Macintosh arcade game, Bakudanjin, that was released as shareware. On a related note, the iDevGames site also has postmortem reports for a number of other games.
• Designing File Formats
• The Free Software Definition
  With software, "free" can sometimes mean "freedom" as opposed to "zero cost."
• Google blocks Tetris clones from Android market
  The issues described in this article may be worth noting when it comes to developing games that are similar to the Tetris game. Along these lines, the history of the Tetris game may also be of interest.
• The Mod Squad: Star Wars Quake: The Call of the Force
  The tale of the Star Wars Quake game modification may illustrate certain pitfalls to be avoided when it comes to collaboratively developed software projects.
• Rezilla
  A no-cost resource editor for the Mac OSX platform.
• Royalty-free sound effects from Partners in Rhyme
  Prerecorded sound effects can be useful for entertainment software projects. SoundJay.com is another source of reusable sound effects.
• Talking with John Calhoun
  An interview with software developer John Calhoun that was done by Chris Klimas of the Crunchable.net site.
• The Tuffy font
  A public domain font.

Unusual and Obscure Software and Electronic Games

• The Action 52 video game
  A collection of fifty-two video games in one game cartridge.
• Digital Spelunking at America Online
  Tom Owad of Applefritter talks about looking for files in old (and sometimes forgotten) libraries on the America Online (AOL) service.
• Experiences with the VG Pocket Max System
  Information about the VG Pocket Max video gaming system, including screenshots, commentary, and information about some of the games on the system.
• Obscure Software Titles
  A list that I assembled, featuring descriptions and other details about more than seventy software titles that seem to have fallen into obscurity.
• The Poly Play arcade machine
  A video game arcade machine from East Germany in the 1980s. Along similar lines, the Russian TIA-MC-1 video game hardware and various Soviet-era arcade games may also be of interest.

Third-Party Articles and Writings

Security and Privacy

• Bebo kids will value privacy when they see adults do too
  In this article from the UK, Cory Doctorow puts forth the view that young people are less likely to treat privacy as being important when adults seem highly willing to give up privacy.
• Crypto-Gram - September 30, 2001
  A special issue of the Crypto-Gram newsletter from Bruce Schneier; this issue talks about security aspects and security issues that relate to the September 11, 2001 attacks and the aftereffects on homeland security policy.
• The DMCA Should Not Protect Spyware
  In at least one case, did copyright-related legalities interfere with security research?
• Ixquick Search Engine
  The Ixquick metasearch engine puts an emphasis on privacy and includes support for searches via HTTPS (encrypted) connections.
• Pat Calahan's analysis of Rudy Giuliani's 2008 homeland security essay
• Public Photography Laws
  Public photography may be more of a security benefit than a security threat.
• Schneier on Security: Recognizing "Hinky" vs. Citizen Informants
  In this writing, Bruce Schneier puts forth the view that persons who can almost intuitively recognize things that are "out of place" due to the person's expertise or training in a particular area will work better at detecting suspicious circumstances than persons who are encouraged to report things that are "different."
• Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have 'Nothing to Hide'
  An article from Daniel J. Solove about aspects of privacy.

Change and Politics

• False Ads: There Oughta Be A Law! - Or Maybe Not
  If US political ads seem to be less than honest at times, it may not be one's imagination.
• snopes.com: Petitions
  Real letters (not form letters) may be more effective than online petitions at encouraging change.
• VerifiedVoting.org
  With regard to the US, VerifiedVoting.org supports voting methods that are publicly verifiable and which are reliable.

Other Topics

• The Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments
  For those who want to do actual chemistry and "who can no longer get real chemistry sets," Robert Bruce Thompson's book on home chemistry experiments may be of interest.
• Killing One Monster, Unleashing Another: Reflections on Revenge and Revelry
  Tim Wise talks about the death of Osama bin Laden, revelry and implications with regard to societal mentality.
• Reasons Not to Use a Creative Commons -NC (NonCommercial) License
  For content that is permissively licensed, restricting reuse to non-commercial activities may limit its usefulness, among other issues.
• Reflections on the 10th Anniversary of the Sonny Bono Act
  In 1998, the Sonny Bono Act extended copyright durations in the US, including the copyrights for certain works that had been originally published in the mid 1920s.
• Unsafe at any Amperage?
  Although Make magazine has covered such projects as an AC-powered electromagnetic aluminum levitator, concern arose with Make's technical advisory board in the circumstance of a "dangerously cool" (and very high voltage) "antigravity" lifter project, leading to a discussion about empowerment of readers vs risks and liability and an eventual decision to not publish the project.

Credits

This web page is copyright © 2010-2012 by Richard Green. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited. The icon and screenshots of the CounterPoison game and the RetroShark game are copyrighted by Richard Green. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. To contact the webmaster, please e-mail richard at thedoorintomorning dot com. There is also a contact form for the webmaster of this site. If you are a known person and you are interested in encrypted e-mail communication using the OpenPGP standard, please let me know. This page was last updated on May 7, 2012.

The photo of the abandoned buildings in the ghost town of Orla, Texas, USA is derived from an existing photo that is copyrighted by Shunpiker and which was published by Shunpiker under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License, among other licensing options. For use on this page, the existing photo was modified by Richard Green, with the most recent modifications performed on August 13, 2011.

This page features a link to an image of Dorothy picking a lunch box. The image is derived from an illustration in the Google Books edition of the book Ozma of Oz, on page 41 of the book. This book is out of copyright in the USA, but foreign copyrights may apply.

This page features links to several screenshots of the GNOME Robots game. The GNOME Robots game is licensed under version 2 of the GNU General Public License (or, at your option, any later version of the license as published by the Free Software Foundation.) The anthills, spills, stormclouds, and toasters themes for the GNOME Robots game are copyright © 2010 by Richard Green and are licensed under version 3 of the GNU General Public License (or, at your option, any later version of the license as published by the Free Software Foundation.)