I found the following simple commands very helpful to iterate through a large log file and collect specific information out of it. It has many uses, so I will keep this as vanilla as possible.

In my situation, I ended up using substr() to look for specific log messages and pluck out some key data I needed.

The following simple script will setup each line of the file in the $line variable. You can put your own code below that to perform whatever work you need.

Open a file and read one line at a time

<?php
	$file = fopen("path/to/my/file.log", 'r');
 
	while( !feof( $file ) )
	{
		$line = fgets($file);
 
		/* Do your work here */
	}
 
	fclose($file);
?>

Note: I used the ‘r’ flag on the fopen function. This is purely for reading the file. You can use ‘r+’ if you would like to edit the file, or consult the PHP manual on fopen for all the flags available.

If you have any questions, let me know below!

This is the 20th article of SolidlyStated’s longest running series: The Logitech G27 Racing Wheel for Casual Racing Gamers. Today, as a special request, I have set up the G27 to play Euro Truck Simulator 2.

While not a title I would normally review, I found this oddly fun and well built to use your Logitech Wheel with. The game has plenty of features and is well-polished, even including a wizard for setting up the G27 or even G25.

This simulator is sold worldwide in many languages and has you driving big rigs around Europe exclusively, building a career out of hauling loads and making deadlines. I even got a speeding ticket on my first job.

Solid Tip: Looking for G27 drivers or Logitech Profiler software? Get it here.

Euro Truck Simulator 2 G27 Settings

This is one of the more straight-forward setups I have done. The game automatically recognized the G27 and I only use the profiler to set up the 900° steering (the game defaults at 200, which is way to tight for a large truck).

• Open the Logitech Profiler
• Select New > Profile
• Add eurotrucks2.exe as a new game
• Open Specific Game Settings
• Leave force feedback settings alone
• Check ‘Use Special Steering Wheel Settings’
• Set ‘Degrees of Rotation’ to 900
• Start game and use the ‘Input Wizard’ as shown below

Euro Truck Simulator 2 Input Wizard

Select ‘Controllers,’ obviously.

Select your Shifter. The G27 can use any of these, but H-Shifter is all you want for a simulation.

Select your type of transmission. I choose the basic Range and it seems to work out fine.

This completes the basic wizard setup. You can continue into Advanced settings if you like.

Here you can see all your settings in action. There is nothing to change here at the moment. Click ‘Next.’

This screen shows you gear selection setup. By default, ‘Button 0′ is assigned to toggle gears 1-6 to 7-12.

‘Button 0′ is the first red button on the shifter. (‘Button 1′ is the second)

That finishes the wizard.

Changing Controls Later

All of your force feedback, steering sensitivity, and steering linearity settings are all set to good defaults. Drive around for awhile before determining if you want to change any of these. The 900° setting in the Logitech profile makes the steering perform very well.

You can pause the game and select Options > Controls to change these at any time.

On the job!

“Slay Dragons”

Original High Res

View Image

“Rawr”

Taken from an original photo and genetically altered in Photoshop.

Variant, titled “Law of the Jungle”

Here we see the characters traversing the icy wastes of Tau Volantis… which strangely resembles much of the eastern United States this winter.

Dead Space 2 on Ice

No, it’s not the live action ice skating version of Dead Space, its just Dead Space 3. You might actually think you are watching Dead Space 1 or 2 because it’s so similar. Hopefully, we will get more than just snow.

It looks like the action is much more ramped up along with some other alterations, which may be a positive or negative, depending on what you enjoy about the series. Co-op will definitely be a welcome addition, as will the new weapon crafting system. The whole power node concept was never very satisfying.

Gameplay Video by IGN

Get more info at http://deadspace.com/. DS3 is available for pre-order now, but we will have to wait until February 13, 2013 for release in North America.

While the video gives the feel of ‘more of the same’ for the franchise, you also get a slew of new weapons and attachments, the new environments (how about grappling hooks instead of Zero-G), and co-op gameplay.

I bet Isaac Clarke is starting to feel like Bruce Willis in Die Hard, who quipped ‘how can the same shit happen to the same guy twice?’ … and that was after just 2 movies.

One Line Setup of 404 Page

It doesn’t get any easier than this. You can, of course, name your page anything you want and use a different path. I find it easiest to simply call it /404.php (or whatever language you use) and leave it right at the root, which is also where your .htaccess file will reside.

ErrorDocument 404 /404.php

The Problem

At seemingly random times, I found that my web application would redirect me to my custom 404 page for no reason at all. All pages involved actually existed, but the program was nonetheless sending me to my own error page.

After spending a good hour wondering why some of my SESSION variables were getting setup incorrectly, I decided to go check the Apache logs. The site I was building was on GoDaddy using Deluxe Hosting, and the Apache logs aren’t the easiest to work with. If I had just been looking at Firebug, or other browser debugger, I could have immediately seen the answer.

The Culprit

If you have full control over your Apache logs, check to see if you happen to be inadvertently generating 404 errors with external files, such as shown below. Since you now have a custom 404 page, everything goes there. That means that if you have an unused image in a CSS file that has never been uploaded or a script being called that no longer exists on the server, it will generate a 404 error and actually load your custom 404 page “behind the scenes.”

What’s worse is that this all happens after the server-side code (PHP,ASP,Java,etc) has done it’s part and returned data to the screen. I had some variables that I echoed out and were correct, but were getting changed because the 404 page was loading in the background (after the fact).

How to Fix it

The answer here is obvious. Remove any references to files that don’t exist. Easier said than done, of course. As you can see, it happened to me and I try to be as vigilant as possible.

In my case, I had copied a large chunk of a CSS file from another project to reuse some of the classes, but not all of them. Therefore I ended up with image calls to stuff that didn’t exist, which fired my custom 404 page.

The easiest way to help yourself out and build better web pages is to leave a debugger open at all times (my favorite is Firebug on Firefox when developing) and you will see a red 404 entry pop up for anything on the page that doesn’t exist.

The Kindle Fire HD is lacking in the instruction manual department (and no doubt geared towards people just purchasing books using the Kindle store), but adding “books” to your Kindle is easy. I say books in quotes because the Amazon Kindle Fire separates “books” from “documents” for whatever reason, even though they may be one or the other, semantically. Even though you may have multiple books in varying file formats, Kindle Fire will only place .AZW files under the actual books section of your Kindle.

All of your PDF, RTF, ePub, Mobi, etc will be under the “Docs” section instead of “Books.” While minor, I found this annoying. Apple iBooks will place them all on my bookshelf together – with cover art no less.

The good news is that once you open a book on your device, it usually treats them the same. You have full control over visuals, bookmarks, navigation, and notes. PDF documents are an exception to this, as is the nature of a PDF. PDFs do not have these features (I miss black with white text), but Amazon does include a way to convert PDF to AZW format, which is a roll of the dice in my experience.

How to add books to Kindle Fire HD

There are five ways of transferring books to your device. They can be hit or miss, depending on format. The popular ePub format and the obscure LIT format are out of luck via a direct transfer. However, ePub can be easily converted (see down below).

Disclaimer- I use PC for these tests and cannot confirm how Mac treats it. I imagine it is similar.

• Drag and Drop AZW books through USB connection
• Send to Kindle through email
• Send to Kindle through web browser
• Send to Kindle through desktop application
• Send to Kindle through another Android device
• Bonus: Support for ePub format books

Method 1: Drag and Drop AZW Books

The most direct way to transfer a book. Simply plug your Kindle Fire into your computer and drag your files into your books section. Of course, this method (for whatever reason) only works with Amazon format files. I had some of these on my PC and I simply dropped them into Computer\Kindle\Internal storage\Books (in Windows).

If you try to drop the other file formats into Documents or Books, nothing happens.

Method 2: Send to Kindle with Email

Solid Tip: You can send up to 25 files at a time to your device!

This is what most people will end up doing with their current books. You can send the below formats to your kindle device at your custom Kindle email address:

This cool feature is known as the
“Kindle Personal Document Service.”

• Amazon (.azw)
• Adobe Portable Document Format (.pdf) *
• Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx)
• Rich Text Format (.rtf)
• HTML (.htm, .html)
• Text (.txt) documents
• Archives(zip , x-zip) and compressed archive
• Mobi book

• 1. Add your email address as an approved sender on your Amazon account.
• Your Account > Manage your Kindle > Personal Document Settings > Approved Personal Document Email List
• 2. Send an email with the document attachment to your @kindle.com email address
• 3. If document is PDF, put “convert” as subject line and Amazon will attempt to make it an AZW doc (experimental).

* Solid Tip: PDF documents don’t have the features of other document types on Kindle (font, color, navigation, bookmarks, notes). Try to the use the “convert” option above to get those features when you mail the document. It is “experimental” and might show the document as garbage text, but worked for most of my PDF tests.

Amazon help for sending to Kindle via email.

Method 3. Send to Kindle Desktop Program

This little jewel, an official desktop app for BOTH PC and Mac, will automatically convert files to the right format and send them to your device using either your local Wi-Fi connection or Whispernet. It supports the following formats:

• Amazon (.azw)
• Adobe Portable Document Format (.pdf) *
• Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx)
• Rich Text Format (.rtf)
• HTML (.htm, .html)
• Text (.txt) documents
• Mobi book

Simply right-click (open a context menu) the file and you will see your “Send to Kindle” menu option.

Amazon help for the Send to Kindle desktop application.

Method 4. Send to Kindle with Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome

We are talking about books here, but sometimes you want to send web documents (news articles, blog posts, etc) to your device for reading later. Amazon has also provided a couple of helpful browser extensions to send to Kindle. It works similar to the desktop app, but lets you send web documents right to your device.

It provides a nifty preview of your selected content before you send.

Amazon help for the Send to Kindle – Google Chrome extension.

Amazon help for the Send to Kindle – Mozilla Firefox extension.

Method 5. Send to Kindle with Android devices

Other Android devices – tablets and smartphones – can send to your Kindle device with their built-in share features.

Using the “Kindle for Android” app, send documents to your Kindle device using the share button found in many popular Android apps on your smartphone or tablet. You’ll be able to read them anytime, everywhere on Kindle devices and Kindle free reading apps.

Popular Android apps that support sharing with Send to Kindle for Android include:

• Adobe Reader – Send PDF documents to your Kindle from this PDF viewing app.
• Documents To Go – Send Microsoft Word documents from this document editing app.
• ES File Explorer – Send images and documents to Kindle from this file manager app.

Supported File Types:

• Microsoft Word (.DOC, .DOCX)
• PDF (.PDF)
• Images (.JPG, .JPEG, .GIF, .PNG, .BMP)
• Kindle Format (.MOBI, .AZW)

Amazon help for the Send to Kindle – Android.

What about my ePub books?!

Don’t worry! There are multiple options for reading your ePub books (or other less, popular formats).

Amazon’s app store has a few ePub reading apps, but Amazon hides most of them from showing up on Kindle Fire, saying they aren’t compatible. However, they work fine when “sideloaded.” Sideloading means downloading and adding an app on your own, outside of the app store, which is beyond the scope of this article. For the technically-minded user, that is a fourth option for ePub and probably recommended.

ePub option #1 – Download Calibre. Calibre is a free tool that lets you manage and convert all types of Ebooks. Lots of bells and whistles. You can make your ePub files into Kindle versions.

ePub option #2 – 2epub.com A quick, free, online converter. No bells or whistles, but fast and simple. You can make your ePub files into Kindle versions here also.

ePub option #3 – Amazon now *officially* supports the Overdrive Media Console app, for free, in it’s app store. This app will allow you to download ePub books using an Adobe ID from libraries everywhere.

I won’t touch on DRM (digital rights management) in this article, but if you have specific questions about trying to get your DRM-controlled content onto your device, feel free to ask in the comments.

Another glorious day in the corps

In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream

“… this first-person shooter is steeped in the eerie, claustrophobic and terrifying atmosphere that made the Aliens films successful worldwide. You and your friends will become the most badass military outfit in the galaxy – the US Colonial Marines. It’s down to you to not just survive but wipe out the Xeno infestation.”

Check out more trailers or get info at:
http://www.sega.com/alienscolonialmarines/.

Colonial Marines is available for pre-order now, but we will have to wait until February 12th, 2013 to see if anyone can hear you scream. Pre-orders come in 2 flavors, “Collector’s Edition” and “Limited Edition.”

Limited Edition
Limited Edition gets you Aliens movie characters (playable), Ripley’s duct-taped flamethrower/M41-A combo, and soldier customizations.

Collector’s Edition
The Collector’s Edition gets you all the Limited Edition goodies, plus a USCM Dossier, Powerloader statue, Xeno Hive box, and more in-game content, including the Easter egg item “Sonic Electronic Ball Breakers.”

Solid Tip: The Collector’s Edition is NOT available for PC. Only 360 and PS3.

image by SEGA/Gearbox