Xatal

With all of the Left 4 Dead I’ve been playing lately, I’ve been caught up in the online world of the game. Campaign and versus are both a lot of fun.

One thing I noticed was how, occasionally in a game, whoever was playing Louis or Zoey would constantly voice spam a yell/scream, as if the character was being attacked. And it was hilarious, Louis has a hilarious and desperate yell, and Zoey has a bloodcurdling scream. The beginning of this video offers a decent sample of Louis:

I was curious how to do the same, and so I hunted around for a while to find the answer. It’s a very simple process:

Enable the console

1. Open the Settings for Left 4 Dead.
2. Click on “Keyboard Mouse”
3. Set the console to be enabled.

Bind the key

1. Open the console by hitting the “`” key on the keyboard (the one above tab)
2. Type in the following, replacing “p” with whatever key you want to be associated with the sound: bind p “vocalize playerdeath”
3. Hit “Submit”

That’s all there is to it! Just hit whatever key you assigned it to to hear your character yell. This, of course, works for all four of the characters, though Zoey and Louis are the most entertaining by far. I recommend using it in moderation — not everybody finds it funny, and you may be kicked for voice spamming if you scream too much.

[tags]left 4 dead, video games, computer games[/tag]

Web design galleries are the best sources for inspiration

Whenever I’m in the mood for inspiration for web design, I always immediately flock to web design galleries to try to get some ideas. Since these sites feature the up and coming best designs on the Internet, there’s no better source for ideas and inspiration out there than a quality design gallery.

However, there are countless CSS galleries on the Internet, and finding the best ones can actually be pretty tough. After hunting around for a while, I’ve come up with a list of my favorite 35. Keep reading »

According to the LA Times, the UC regents are considering making the admission requirements less steep, mainly by requiring fewer tests and allowing more applications to be reviewed.

The controversy comes in the form of dropping standardized tests like the SAT and ACT — are such tests a good indicator of whether a student is qualified for college or not? Should their importance be lessened, strengthened, or left as it is?

Even if the general admission requirements lessen, that doesn’t mean it will become easier to be admitted. Many UCs, especially Berkeley and LA, are still very tough to get into as it is. All this will do is lessen the admission requirements, allowing more to apply. The number admitted would stay the same.

Personally, I think having more applicants is good, but not requiring several tests will only save students money and time. Avoiding a bad score will help a student’s chances, yes,  but in the end the best way to allow more kids to enter college is simply to have more resources devoted to education.

If you’re using Windows Vista, you may have noticed that the amount of free space on your hard drive seems to steadily decline, even if you haven’t really been adding anything to fill it up.

When I first noticed this, I couldn’t figure out where all of my free space had gone. After doing some searching around online, I found out that the problem mostly was caused by excess System Restore points. After fixing this, I freed up over 20 gigabytes of space on my hard drive!

System Restore is a built-in feature of Windows that allows you to “roll-back” your system to the way it used to be on a certain date. This is useful if you ever install a program that causes your computer to have a meltdown or if you make some other internal change that causes mayhem.

However, if your computer has been running fine for a while and you haven’t had any problems, you really don’t need all of those excess system restore points taking up your precious hard drive space. Here’s how to delete them:

Keep reading »

Asking someone out to prom is always pretty nerve-racking. There’s the fear that she (or he) may already have a date, that she may not be going, or, worst of all, that she just might not want to go with you.

You can’t do a whole lot to prevent the first two, but you can definitely avoid the first one by making sure you ask early enough.

A tough choice comes in trying to figure out when to actually pop the question. If you ask too early, it may seem a bit weird or even be too early for the other person to even consider it. Asking too late runs the risk that he or she may already have a date.

Keep reading »

After much deliberating about which design to go with, I decided on this one. I liked all of them in one way or another, but I think this one provides a simple look for this blog. It’s a pretty flexible layout, and I’ll be able to make changes without too much trouble, I think.

Now that I have two sidebars, I was able to make some changes for the better:

1. Excerpts for recent & most popular posts. Now you can read at a glance the basics of what the most recent and most popular posts are about. I didn’t always put excerpts into posts, so if the list of most popular posts ever changes to an older post that doesn’t have an excerpt, it might look weird. I’ll keep an eye on it and add excerpts as needed.
2. Poll in the sidebar. Polls are always fun! I’ll try to add a new poll every so often to jazz things up. The current poll is going to be related to (what else) the redesign, to maybe get some basic feedback about it.
3. Ask a Question in the sidebar. My inbox has been empty lately! I’m always open to people asking questions about anything — high school, college, WordPress… anything at all. I put a quick input on the right sidebar so you can ask a quick question, should you feel like it.
4. Top Commentators in the sidebar. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, but haven’t really had a chance. To go along with this blog being dofollow, I’ve decided to use a widget to list the top five (for now) commentators each month. These links will also be nofollow free, of course.
5. A changed e-mail newsletter. If you prefer to receive updates via e-mail, I’m now using a new plugin for that. The last plugin never really worked quite right and I gave up on the newsletter, but this new one will hopefully work better.

I’m not entirely finished with the redesign, but I wanted to bring the site back up as soon as I could. Over the course of today and tomorrow, I may be making minute changes here and there, but for the most part, the redesign is finished. If you have any opinions or feedback about it, I would love to hear from you!

At every college I’ve ever taken a tour of, there’s always been several ongoing construction projects on the campus.

For high schools, construction projects are typically a large deal, since the school is small and the construction crew interferes a lot with the day-to-day hustle and bustle of the school. Projects are also usually limited to a renovation, though in cases of large expansion, new wings or buildings may be built.

But at colleges, construction is pretty much ongoing. Due to the larger income from tuition and possibly state funds, colleges have a lot more money at their disposal to keep the campus up-to-date and, as necessary, expanded. This keeps the school modern, attractive, and accommodating for everyone. You know that well-known fact about how the Golden Gate Bridge is always being painted because it’s so large? Think of your college like that: when one project is finished, another project will be needed.

Currently at UCSC, several of the ten colleges are under expansion, a new biomedical building is being built, the library is being renovated, and a dining hall is being redone. Other schools I had seen through tours always had construction going on in some form.

Although the construction can be a bit aggravating (if you’ve never woken up to jackhammers at 7 AM, you are lucky) and a bit of a hassle to have to navigate around, the end product is just about always better than the way things. Whether it’s a whole new building or an improvement to an existing one, be happy to see that your tuition dollars are being well-spent.

There go my grades.

Yesterday I bought Left 4 Dead, the new zombie survival game. Already, I’m hooked.

In Left 4 Dead, you and three other people fight off hordes of zombies as you charge through the levels. The thrill of the game comes from the online play, where you can use microphones and really take on zombies. A game like this has been my dream for years, and I’m glad to finally have a chance at it.

New, Left 4 Dead sells for about $50, but you can buy four copies on Steam for $150. If you can find three other people to split the cost with, it amounts to about $38, which is cheaper.

This is a game worth getting.