Omnimaga

Omnimaga => News => Topic started by: Hot_Dog on April 29, 2011, 01:54:53 pm

Title: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: Hot_Dog on April 29, 2011, 01:54:53 pm
I know that everyone is going to be sad to see this, and I can't tell you how sorry I am.  But my laptop was stolen.  All my current work--except backups--were on my laptop.  I am afraid that I will not be able to finish Seek and Destroy or Correlation, not by myself at the very least.  This is because I lost several weeks of work, and I am not persistent enough to redo everything I had previously fixed.

I promise you that THIS IS NOT THE END of my contributions to this website.  I have a small project I plan to work on, codenamed Crabcake.  It's a secret one, but I'll let you know what it is in time.  Furthermore, I will be touching up my ASM lessons to make them error-free and easier for people to get help with.  An Xlib version of Calsiah is not unreasonable either.

Also, I will heavily comment source code for Seek and Destroy and Correlation Beta, and release the source code to people on this website.  If you want to work on it, be my guest.  But unless my laptop magically returns, I am not able to continue working on them on my own.

Thank you all for understanding, and I am very sorry that it has come to this.  Runer112, Iambian, Cooliojaz, Matthias and Buckeye Dude, thank you all for the time you spent to help me, and I am sorry that you spent time and hard work giving to projects that just halted.  I can't tell you how upset that I asked for help only to have it go down the tubes
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: Munchor on April 29, 2011, 01:57:40 pm
Oh my, this is terrible. Having our laptops stolen sucks, especially because you were working on a few major projects for the community (SAD and Correlation). I hope someone decides to take them as you don't seem to want to rewrite them.

I wish you good luck getting the laptop and getting back to work :D

I also await that secret project and the lessons improvement :)
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: Jim Bauwens on April 29, 2011, 01:57:47 pm
Any chance you had some service running on your computer that might help track it down?
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: Hot_Dog on April 29, 2011, 01:58:42 pm
Any chance you had some service running on your computer that might help track it down?

Not likely, especially since it is heavily password-protected
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: aeTIos on April 29, 2011, 01:59:19 pm
 :o :o :o :'( :'( :'( :'(

This is really awful... Your projects looked so cool!
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: Jim Bauwens on April 29, 2011, 02:01:17 pm
Hmm, to bad, they probably will reformat it, unless they are smart enough to know how to remove passwords.
If this is the case, and you are lucky enough to have a gmail account (with autologin), you might want to look at the list of ip's that have accessed it. If you are very very lucky, you might see the IP of the thief.
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: Geekboy1011 on April 29, 2011, 02:04:12 pm
Dam this sucks so hard ;.;
/me hugs a Hot_Dog
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: Ashbad on April 29, 2011, 02:50:26 pm
This is just beyond horrible... :( :(

I hope you get it back.  I know that may be highly unlikely, but best wishes anyways.  Don't feel too bad about it as it's not your fault in any shape, way or form.

I only hope you're okay after this, as I'm sure this was a horrible blow to your emotions, I personally would have gone beserk over this x.x
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: Hot_Dog on April 29, 2011, 02:58:24 pm
I only hope you're okay after this, as I'm sure this was a horrible blow to your emotions, I personally would have gone beserk over this x.x

Actually, the thing I'm really mad / emotional about is that I wasn't thinking...I just set that laptop next to my suitcase, and I walked off with the suitcase but not the laptop!
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: annoyingcalc on April 29, 2011, 03:25:36 pm
Sorry to hear that VERY SORRY :o :o :o :o :o :o :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'(

 and try what jimbauwens said :

Hmm, to bad, they probably will reformat it, unless they are smart enough to know how to remove passwords.
If this is the case, and you are lucky enough to have a gmail account (with autologin), you might want to look at the list of ip's that have accessed it. If you are very very lucky, you might see the IP of the thief.

hopefully it works


Embarrasing mistake : I said hopefukky :-[ :-[ :-[

Edit ::::::::: do you have it backed up on your calculator You could send it to your computer from there


annoyingorange gives hot dog as many hot dogs as he likes  
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: Silver Shadow on April 29, 2011, 03:38:26 pm
I only hope you're okay after this, as I'm sure this was a horrible blow to your emotions, I personally would have gone beserk over this x.x

Actually, the thing I'm really mad / emotional about is that I wasn't thinking...I just set that laptop next to my suitcase, and I walked off with the suitcase but not the laptop!
*facepalms*

Sorry to hear, so many projects stopped because of that... :( Don't despair, I'm sure there will be lots of people who will want to help you finish them.

I would've thought that with calc84's incident people would start backuping, but oh well.
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: Juju on April 29, 2011, 03:48:15 pm
Well, that sucks.

Things like that happened to me as well, but nothing important was lost, fortunately.
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: Freyaday on April 29, 2011, 03:57:41 pm
:'(/me mourns
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: Broseph Radson on April 29, 2011, 04:09:13 pm
Oh man :( sorry to hear
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: JosJuice on April 29, 2011, 04:11:45 pm
do you have it backed up on your calculator You could send it to your computer from there
Only the executable code is stored there, not the source code...
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: FinaleTI on April 29, 2011, 04:14:11 pm
Wow. I'm so sorry. I've had some bad things happen to me, but I can't imagine losing my laptop. It'd be like losing my calculator...

I do look forward to Project Crabcake and the ASM tutorial touch-ups, though.
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: apcalc on April 29, 2011, 04:23:33 pm
I'm so sorry to hear this Hot_Dog. :(

I hope everything works out for you in this situation! :)
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 29, 2011, 05:00:08 pm
I'M sorry to hear that. I was looking forward for S.A.D for so long and Correlation seemed so close to completion. I hope you reconsider and continue them at one point. I hate thieves...

However no offense, I do not feel as sorry as I would normally, because absolutely no recent backup of S.A.D and a few others were done, and me and many other people here have been trying hard to remind people to learn to backup their work on multiple storage mediums, especially after the calc84maniac data loss incident. As someone above said, I would have thought that people learned for that, and given you had a laptop, this automatically means flash drives that aren't under the wrath of parents could've been used to copy the most recent progress on SAD and other projects, so a data loss was not inevitable like it was with Illusiat 12, Cubes, MFQT or to a lesser extent KnightOS/Mosaic.
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: Hot_Dog on April 29, 2011, 05:06:10 pm

However no offense, I do not feel as sorry as I would normally, because absolutely no recent backup of S.A.D and a few others were done, and me and many other people here have been trying hard to remind people to learn to backup their work on multiple storage mediums, especially after the calc84maniac data loss incident. As someone above said, I would have thought that people learned for that, and given you had a laptop, this automatically means flash drives that aren't under the wrath of parents could've been used to copy the most recent progress on SAD and other projects, so a data loss was not inevitable like it was with Illusiat 12, Cubes, MFQT or to a lesser extent KnightOS/Mosaic.

SAD I actually backed up quite frequently (though not recently), same with the ASM lessons.  However, I do confess, I did not back up Correlation.  But there's no need to rub it in.
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: Compynerd255 on April 29, 2011, 05:16:33 pm
That really sucks. I hope that you had nothing really serious posted on there, because they could really do bad things to your identity if they knew how to get in. All besides, you can't get anything done, and your projects are lost.
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 29, 2011, 05:17:29 pm
Well I mean, you said SAD can't be finished because the backup is outdated, yet the project did not get updated since about half a year ago, which means that your last backup was even longer before. I'M just disappointed because on Omni I told people so many times to backup and not rely solely on groups/auto axe backup/calcutil/archive/computer hard drive, yet that stuff still happens regularly, even with veteran users. Even if your laptop did not get stolen, tomorrow the hard drive could have fried or you could have gotten a bad virus that corrupted your entire data. With projects like Cubes, this is different, because the author has no computer access at home and at school it's very easy to forget your flash drives behind computers, and his parents clears his calc memory from time to time, which is his only real source of backup for his projects.

Anyway, no hard feelings held. I am mostly mad at those stupid thieves who have no respect for other people. At least couldn't they just go try to grab stuff in a store/warehouse if they absolutely want to steal? Not that I encourage people to steal, but I mean you don't do that to other people.

ANyway, I hope you manage to find your laptop again or a solution to your project issues.

Also yeah I think you should maybe change your passwords and stuff if you often logged in to sites like here or even online stores, in case.
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: AngelFish on April 29, 2011, 05:51:31 pm
do you have it backed up on your calculator You could send it to your computer from there
Only the executable code is stored there, not the source code...

It's often extremely difficult to recover source code from executable files :-\

Sorry to hear about this, Hot_Dog. I hope you can get a new laptop and start some new projects soon :)
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: FinaleTI on April 29, 2011, 05:54:30 pm
do you have it backed up on your calculator You could send it to your computer from there
Only the executable code is stored there, not the source code...

It's often extremely difficult to recover source code from executable files :-\
And even if you can disassemble it, you might not understand it without your comments.
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 29, 2011, 05:56:21 pm
Yeah true, plus I think label names get lost.

Either way, I hope the projects revives or that somebody can help on them. I also hope Hot Dog can manage to track down the thief or the laptop
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: AngelFish on April 29, 2011, 05:57:27 pm
do you have it backed up on your calculator You could send it to your computer from there
Only the executable code is stored there, not the source code...

It's often extremely difficult to recover source code from executable files :-\
And even if you can disassemble it, you might not understand it without your comments.

That's pretty much what I meant, along with the labels, modularization of code, the fact that some assemblers like to insert new things that weren't in the source, rearrange code, etc...
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 29, 2011, 06:02:28 pm
Do you mean they can screw the code up?
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: Deep Toaster on April 29, 2011, 06:30:53 pm
Man, that really sucks. Sorry to hear, Hot_Dog. Hope you can get it back somehow.

I only hope you're okay after this, as I'm sure this was a horrible blow to your emotions, I personally would have gone beserk over this x.x

Actually, the thing I'm really mad / emotional about is that I wasn't thinking...I just set that laptop next to my suitcase, and I walked off with the suitcase but not the laptop!

I once lost my calculator by doing almost exactly that, if that makes you feel any better :-\
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: AngelFish on April 29, 2011, 06:35:13 pm
Do you mean they can screw the code up?

No, the code still works, but it doesn't look exactly like the source does all the time.
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: shmibs on April 29, 2011, 06:40:01 pm
D=
DD=

um... oh dear. that's a bit disappointing. then again, i probably shouldn't be complaining because it was your projects (and machine) that were stolen. good luck on finding a replacement computer.
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 29, 2011, 07:06:05 pm
Do you mean they can screw the code up?

No, the code still works, but it doesn't look exactly like the source does all the time.
Ah ok. Still an hinderance, though, for the user. I feel bad for Hot Dog with the amount of work spent on his projects.
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: alberthrocks on April 29, 2011, 08:07:40 pm
I'm saddened by this event, as many of your projects have been awesome (even if I hadn't gotten any chance to test them).
I'm sorry to hear that. :( I hope that you may find your computer again, and if not, wish you luck on Project Crabcake (hey, that's MD's favorite food!), and potentially any efforts if you decide to restart a lost project in the future.

I can't (and won't) blame you for the loss - I hardly backup at all. Personally, it's kind of a hassle to backup from the calc. TI-Connect dies randomly, transfers slowly, and makes you want to pull out your hair. If you're luckier, you'll have TiLP, but it loves to crash a lot with transfers unless you are using the latest SVN version. (This, btw, applies for BASIC, AXE, and occasionally Mimas ASM projects.) This also could be very hard if parents don't like you and your calc. :P

I also find it sometimes time consuming to backup on a flash drive. First, you have to not lose the flash drive in the first place, then stick it in, copy files, and then *eject* and pull it out. (Don't just yank it out - if you are unfortunate like me, you'll learn to respect that rule with FS damage.) OK, that's not too hard, and only if you're lazy you'll think that way. Which pretty much encompasses the whole community.

We don't backup... at least not automatically. If someone asks us to, then most of the time we would. We assume that nothing bad will happen.... but obviously, that's a big fat lie. Hot_Dog's laptop got stolen, calc84's data lost. I think it's just another jarring reminder to backup, backup, backup!

For (most) program projects, I use Dropbox to backup. It may seem scary to install it first (if you are that kind of person), but once it's set up, simply copy your files in the special Dropbox folder, and it'll sync automatically! :) For more redundancy, set it up on multiple computers. They will sync with any computer's changes.
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 29, 2011, 08:16:02 pm
Hmm in my case i have to remove the flash drives directly because no icon to eject them show up ??? I personally don't mind backing up on a flash drive, but I personally prefer to just zip my files then upload the file on i-lost-the-ga.me (although it's better to password-protect your stuff when uploading online, even if in an unavailable folder).

For quick backups, I usually create a copy of my program on-calc or a new folder copy on my computer, but when it comes time to do a real backup, I do it at the end of the day or the week, depending of how many updates I made.

I guess remembering that is just one hard thing, which is why some people use automated backup softwares. I usually hate to do it because it can slow me down in development, especially when TI-Connect stops working, but usually I

By the way, for people who got two calcs, backing up between each calc is A GOOD solution too, unless you use a TI-Nspire (in which case, if your batteries are low, you're screwed, as it won't even let you send files at all anymore, unlike a real 84+). When I worked on Illusiat 13, I always had my 83+ nearby, ready to send a copy of the game on it (after doing a full mem reset everytime to avoid the 2 minutes garbage collect). In fact I did that on my 83+SE too back in the days. Every few hour I would just link both calcs and send my stuff.
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: Yeong on April 29, 2011, 08:25:28 pm
Oh no! You got to be kidding meh!  :o
I feel really sorry for your loss. (S.A.D. -> One of the reason that I joined Omnimaga for)
I wish you good luck on project Crabcake.

Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: ralphdspam on April 29, 2011, 08:28:24 pm
Oh, sorry to hear. :(

We should all take care to back up in case of the worst. 

Hot_Dog, I hope your new project turns out well. 
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: TIfanx1999 on April 29, 2011, 08:38:56 pm
Wow, I feel for ya man. This really freakin blows. Did you have any sort fo replacment plan or insurance on your laptop? I can only hope that you did, or if not that you have some money put aside for a decent replacment. I'm also sad that correlation (which I was looking foward to playing with) and SAD which was a masterpiece in the makin had to be dropped. Those are still of course secondary to the stolen laptop. What an unfortunate incident. ):
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: Hot_Dog on April 29, 2011, 09:34:32 pm
It brings a tear to my eye that SAD was a "masterpiece" :'(  But it doesn't help that it had a long way to go. 

Needless to say, my ASM lessons are helping people, so with heavy comments I hope that it can be continued.
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 29, 2011, 10:22:08 pm
It especially sucks that it had like 2 or 3 years in the works or something (since you joined UTI far before Omni and had it in the works already, although in BASIC). And Correlation is completely gone now x.x
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: Hot_Dog on April 29, 2011, 10:22:58 pm
And Correlation is completely gone now x.x

Not true.  I have the complete code to the beta.  Only a few bug fixes are missing.
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 29, 2011, 10:37:07 pm
Oh, because in your previous posts it seemed to imply you lost everything including the beta code and stuff ???. This is why I was disappointed at the lack of backups actually. I guess I was wrong then.
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: Hot_Dog on April 29, 2011, 10:38:02 pm
Oh, because in your previous posts it seemed to imply you lost everything including the beta code and stuff ???. This is why I was disappointed at the lack of backups actually. I guess I was wrong then.

No worries.  My problem was I didn't keep up with the backups.  And I just hate doing something twice.
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: ralphdspam on April 29, 2011, 11:29:27 pm
Needless to say, my ASM lessons are helping people, so with heavy comments I hope that it can be continued.

I hope you do continue with the ASM lessons.  They are really helpful and easily understandable. :)
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: ztrumpet on April 30, 2011, 12:07:34 am
Man, this is too bad.  I'm sorry, Hot Dog.  Good luck getting everything that you had on there unrelated to calc stuff back, and finding a new laptop to replace that one.
As for the calc projects, this is a blow.  I was looking forward to coding in Correlation, and I've supported SAD since the beginning, even after I believe I tried to discourage you from attempting it as a "beginner" project (that's on UTI, if anyone's taking notes).  I wish you the best of luck. :-\
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: Madskillz on April 30, 2011, 03:11:21 pm
Sorry to hear about your laptop being stolen. Also sorry to hear you lost a lot of your work. You had some great projects in the works that's for sure.
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: yunhua98 on April 30, 2011, 10:10:49 pm
That'svery sorry to hear, man.  :(  Does this mean no Correlation testing anymore?  :(
Title: Re: Stolen Laptop. All unfinished projects canceled and will be available as is.
Post by: Hot_Dog on April 30, 2011, 11:31:39 pm
Does this mean no Correlation testing anymore?  :(

Not for now.  However, I doubt Correlation will be discontinued altogether.