Author Minsang Kim

Hori Real Arcade Pro (R.A.P.) VX SA (Xbox 360) – Bottom panel screws

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Hori R.A.P. VX SA

If you need replacement screws for the bottom panel – the original ones are quite soft – I used

  • Sheet Metal Screw #4 x 3/8″ (Type A)

You can find this at Home Depot. The head doesn’t really matter.

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Top – original screw, Bottom – one from Home Depot.

Some modders will try to sell you a flat-ended screw (“Type B”) at a rip-off level prices – don’t buy that. You don’t need self-tapping or self-drilling screws either (has drill-bit end). You already have the hole.

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Do a local backup of OneNote notebooks on SkyDrive

Minsang Kim

Before I begin, it’s probably worth mentioning while I’m a Microsoft employee, this is a personal blog.

skydrive

You might have noticed that OneNote notebooks stored on SkyDrive or SkyDrive Pro tends to sync down to your computer as “Internet Shortcut”.  It’s basically a short cut to the URL somewhere on skydrive.com.

You’re probably asking why – it’s because OneNote already knows how to talk over SkyDrive / SkyDrive Pro more efficiently than doing it over file-based synchronization.

Well that’s fine, until you have this problem: you have a personal requirement to always have local copies of cloud-backed services! You can easily accomplish this (for any file-based cloud syncing service, like Dropbox) by having your sync folder added to your Document Library, and having File History back these up to an external drive. However, backing up a shortcut to URL isn’t really that useful.

Here’s what you can do. Open OneNote 2013, go to File, Options, then Save & Backup.

steps

Click on Backup Folder in the list, and click on Modify. Change the folder to be a folder that you’re backing up (My Documents\OneNote Backup is a good place).

To initiate a backup, click on [Back Up All Notebooks Now]. Optionally, change the frequency of your backups.

That’s it. I guess the only downside is that if you never open OneNote, backups won’t be initiated.

Release of Dominion Shuffler, Dominion deck randomizer app for Windows 8 / RT

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screenshot_04092013_181142

screenshot_04092013_181156

screenshot_04092013_181208

http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/app/dominion-shuffler/2c95e635-bd65-4878-9e8c-ab2db19ab16f

This was actually released to the store about a month ago, I just forgot to put up an entry for it.

It was yet another weekend project that took slightly longer than a weekend.

This was written in WinJS. I used my Surface RT and my desktop computer as test platform, but I’m sure it scales well to various screen resolutions based on my experience with the simulator.

A trip to: Full Tilt Ice Cream in Ballard

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I saw a few videos on YouTube of people playing Tetris Grand Master 2 and Pop’n Music at Full Tilt Ice Cream in Ballard, WA. So I decided to go there to check it out today.

Left: MvC2, right: Neo Geo MVS with Metal Slug games (and others)

When I walked in, I saw a Ms. Pac Man cabinet, and the two machines pictured above. Walk in a bit, and there’s about 10 pinball machines. I have no interest in these, however…

Continue reading “A trip to: Full Tilt Ice Cream in Ballard” →

Completely Useless Rhythm Game Trivia: Extravaganza

Minsang Kim 2 Comments

Here’s some useless trivia for Pump It Up.

Pump It Up, a DDR clone by Korean company Andamiro, was released in October 1999.  Couple months later in December, Andamiro released a 2nd version, Pump It Up: The 2nd Dance Floor. The sequel contained a hidden song called Extravaganza.

Here’s how to access it:

  1. On the machine, get a S-Rank on song Hate (Korean title: 싫어) 100 times. Full combo gives you an S-Rank.
  2. When #1 is done, a hidden song Koul will appear in 2nd stage. S-rank this song 100 times.
  3. Extravaganza will now appear in 4th stage.

Yeah, it’s pretty crazy. Not many people knew at the time that PIU2 had hidden songs at all – I didn’t either. At the time, it was considered to be the hardest song on Pump It Up! That is, of course, until 3rd Stage (OBG) came out in May of 2000.

Anyways, here’s the actual trivia for Extravaganza: it’s a complete rip off.

Continue reading “Completely Useless Rhythm Game Trivia: Extravaganza” →

State of Rhythm Games in Seattle Gameworks

Minsang Kim 3 Comments

After several months in Canada, I’m back in Seattle. I searched a lot to find out how Gameworks has changed since last year, but I found nothing, so here’s a post after a visit so people can find their way through search engines. This post is about Gameworks in downtown Seattle, WA.

  • Gameworks has DJMAX Technika 3, running in perfect condition. It’s connected to the web, and accepts IC cards. It’s 4 credits, which works out to be about 50 cents – an amazing deal considering places like SVGL charge $1. The volume level is average, and it’s not helped by the fact that Taiko and pop’n are right near it. But you can always work around it by using headphones.
  • They also sell Technika 3 IC cards at the counter. They had 5 different designs. They don’t actually have it at the cashier, so just ask them and they’ll bring it up for you. It’s $6 + tax.
  • pop’n music FEVER (14) is running. The buttons are in very good condition, and the screen is okay (although slightly CRT-morphed) Last year, the buttons were complete crap, but according to people at pnwbemani.net it’s been fixed a couple months ago. It’s 8 credits, which is about $1. It’s also a couple meters away from Technika 3 and speakers are really loud, so it’s easy to hear.
  • guitarfreaks & drummania is still running 11th/10th mix. The screen on guitarfreaks is very blurry, and the drums are in typical “abused” condition (i.e., the symbals don’t register 100%). The effectors knobs on guitars are, of course, missing.
  • Dancemaniax is moved to upstairs where Technika 3 is. I can’t comment on sensor quality but I think it works as intended
  • Taiko was also moved, placed between Technika and Dancemaniax. The drums are abused by hell by children playing it, so don’t expect much. I forgot which version it is, but if I had to guess it’s between 6~8 (2005~2006 era) because it was playing Anpanman as default selection, and most people don’t know how to switch songs (or how to even hit blue notes – I’ve seen people hit the plastic side of the drum really hard, that can’t be good for the machine)
  • There are still a bunch of DDR machines downstairs in a room. I saw X2 and Extreme, and there are other versions as well. I wouldn’t expect the panels to be in good quality, since it’s Gameworks.