Have you always wanted to check out that StarCraft game you’d heard so much about, but somehow managed to go nearly twenty years without buying a copy?
Good news! Nearly two decades after its 1998 release, StarCraft is now free. Legally!
Blizzard has just released the original game — plus the Brood Wars expansion — for free for both PC and Mac. You can find it here. Up until a few weeks ago, getting the game with its expansions would’ve cost $10-15 bucks.
The company says they’ve also used this opportunity to improve the game’s anti-cheat system, add “improved compatibility” with Windows 7, 8.1, and 10, and fix a few long lasting bugs.
So why now? The company is about to release a remastered version of the game in just a few months, its graphics/audio overhauled for modern systems. Once that version hits, the original will probably look a bit ancient by comparison — so they might as well use it to win over a few new fans, right?
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Nearly two decades after its 1998 release, StarCraft is now free. Legally! Blizzard has just released the original game — plus the Brood War expansion — for free for both PC and Mac. You can find it here. Up until a few weeks ago, getting the game with its expansion would’ve cost $10-15 bucks. The company says they’ve also used this opportunity to improve the game’s anti-cheat system, add "improved compatibility" with Windows 7, 8.1, and 10, and fix a few long lasting bugs. So why now? The company is about to release a remastered version of the game in just a few months, its graphics/audio overhauled for modern systems. Once that version hits, the original will probably look a bit ancient by comparison — so they might as well use it to win over a few new fans, right?
, you don’t have to spend half a year learning Java or C++ to build a game. You could choose from many tools for various types of games, but one great option for kids (and adults) is MIT’s free Scratch.
in the process. Let’s see what you can create in Scratch, then walk through the steps to creating a simple Mario game.
Meet Scratch
To get started with Scratch, head to the homepage. You should create an account right away so you can save your creations. Click the Join Scratch button in the top-right of the window. Create a username and password, enter your date of birth and gender, then the system will ask for a parent’s email address. Enter your own if you have one, then confirm your address so you can comment on other projects and share yours.
Now, you can jump right in. Click Create on the top toolbar to launch the Scratch editor. If you prefer, you can also download the offline editor to work without an internet connection.
On-Screen Elements
When you launch the editor, you’ll see the below window. Let’s break down its elements (see the full-size image if the small one below is unclear):
Stage — Shows a quick summary of your game. All active sprites and your chosen background will appear here. You can move sprites around if you like. Give your project a name in the field above this.
Backdrop — Here, you can select a background for your game. Choose from Scratch’s library, paint your own, or import a file. You can also grab an image from your PC’s camera, though most people probably won’t need this option.
Sprites — The center for all the sprites in your project. Like backdrops, you can add default ones, create your own, or upload images. Click the little blue i icon on a sprite to rename it, change its angle, or hide it.
Work Area — Where the bulk of your work in Scratch takes place. Use the tabs above (labeled Scripts, Costumes, and Sounds to change what you’re working on.
Scripts is for adding blocks of code, which we’ll cover soon.
Costumes lets you create additional poses for your sprites. This tab will change to Backdrops if you have one selected in area 2, and back to Costumes when you select a Sprite in area 6. A basic image editor lets you make changes to graphics in your game. You can rename assets here too.
Sounds, unsurprisingly, is the center for adding and editing sounds.
Blocks — Depending on which of the three tabs you’ve selected, this area will switch between code blocks, sprite costumes/backdrops, and sound clips.
Control Buttons — The green flag starts your game, while the red stop sign shape ends it. You’ll use these for testing.
Using Blocks
Now that you’ve gotten acquainted with Scratch’s editor, let’s talk about one of the most important bits of the tool — the code blocks. Instead of typing out real code, these blocks let you define the behavior of your elements. They snap together like LEGOs How To Use LEGOs To Manage Your Time Better
, making it easy to see how they affect each other.
Click a sprite from the list on the left and make sure to select the Scripts tab to start dragging blocks for that element. Note that the blocks are color-coded and have edges like a jigsaw puzzle to show how they fit together. The ten categories and what they do are:
Motion — Make the given sprite move, whether by steps, toward another object, or via direct coordinates.
Looks — Lets the sprite hide or show itself, switch costumes, change size, or move between layers.
Sound — Play sounds, change volume, or adjust the tempo.
Pen — Draw with a marker and change its color and shape.
Data — Lets you create your own variables. This comes in extremely handy for elements that Scratch doesn’t have built-in.
Events — Criteria for kicking off other actions, like when you click the green flag or press the space bar. You need these blocks to all your other blocks actually do something!
Control — Loops to repeat an action, perform an if-else statement, or stop something.
Sensing — Place these blocks into others to perform actions when a sprite is touching another element or the user is holding down a key.
Operators — Math elements that let you perform arithmetic or basic Boolean operations on variables.
More Blocks — Make your own blocks if these aren’t enough!
A Simple Example
Let’s take a simple example to illustrate how these blocks fit together, step by step. We’ll make the Scratch cat kick a soccer ball into the goal, and play a sound when it goes in.
First, you need a cool soccer backdrop. Head into the Backdrop section in the bottom-left and click the picture icon to choose one of Scratch’s backdrops. There’s one called Goal1 that will work perfectly. Next, click the sprite icon to add a new pre-made sprite. You should see the Ball-Soccer in the list — double-click it to add it to your sprites.
Now that the graphics are ready, you need to start with some blocks. Select the cat, since he’s the one doing the action. Remember that the Events tab holds many of the starting blocks? Take a look, and you’ll see one that fires when you click the green flag. That’s a perfect starting point — drag it over into the Scripts work area.
Once you start, you want the cat to run over and kick the ball, right? That sounds like something that would fall under the Motion tab. You have several options to make the cat move, such as the Move X steps block. But we can’t guarantee how many steps it will take the cat to reach the ball. There’s a better block for this — try the Glide X secs to block. One second is a fine time, and you’ll need to click on the blue i icon of the soccer ball to see its coordinates. Enter those into the block, and your first action is complete!
Kicking the Ball
Once the cat touches the soccer ball, it should fly into the goal. So, select the soccer ball so you can add some actions to it. Remember that every action must start with an Event — the green flag is fine for this instance. Now, you don’t want the soccer ball to move until the cat touches it. Have a look at the Control category for a block that lets us limit its behavior. The Wait until block sounds about right!
Notice how the Wait until block has an elongated hexagon shape inside it. Many of the Sensing blocks fit this shape, so take a look at those to find the right one. See the touching block at the top of the list? You can drag that right inside the hole inside Wait until. Change the drop-down box to Cat or whatever you named the cat sprite.
Now you just need to make the soccer ball fly into the goal. The Glide X secs to block in the Motion category that we used earlier for the cat will work fine. Snap that block under wait until, and place your mouse pointer over the goal net. You’ll see X and Y coordinates underneath the stage — plug those into the Glide block. The ball should move pretty quickly when kicked, so let’s try 0.5 seconds for the timing.
And the Crowd Goes Wild
The last step is adding sound! Select the Sounds tab above the work area to add a new one. Click the speaker icon under New sound to grab one from Scratch’s library. There’s one called Cheer under the Human category, which is perfect. Double-click it to add, then head back to the workspace for the soccer ball.
You’ll find a block labeled Play sound under the Sound category. Snap that under the glide block, and you’re all done! Click on the green flag to play your animation. The cat will run over to the ball, and when he touches it, the ball flies into the goal and the crowd cheers.
That wasn’t too hard! Now that we’ve dug into how blocks relate and fit together, let’s look at how you can build a Mario game using Scratch.
Creating a Basic Mario Game
The simple soccer example above shows how you can use blocks to control sprites, but it doesn’t have any gameplay, animations, or music. Let’s get more into it and create a simple Mario game. We could spend thousands of words on every aspect of making a game, so we’ll stick to the basics.
Please note: Because I’m not an artist, for the purposes of this tutorial I’m copying Mario sprites from the web. Mario graphics are owned by Nintendo and you should not publish any game using copyrighted sprites. This is presented as an example only.
Import Graphics
The first step is getting your sprites and backgrounds imported into Scratch. Since we’re using images from the web, I’ll download them and then upload them into Scratch. Creating logic so that Mario can jump on enemies to defeat them but dies from touching their sides is too advanced for this tutorial, so we’ll have him collect coins instead.
At the end of the tutorial, I’ll provide a ZIP file with the final assets I used. If you use those you won’t have to worry about the image manipulation instructions in the tutorial. If you want to download everything yourself, carry on. Here are the sprites that I downloaded:
Scratch has a Blue Sky 3 background, which will work fine for our needs.
to save the two Mario frames as separate files — you can ignore the third. Upload the first Mario sprite, then select it and use the Costumes tab to upload the other sprite as his second costume. Give them distinguishable names, like Mario-1 and Mario-2. Add the jumping sprite as another costume for Mario.
Use an image editor to extract the cloud from the image provided above, then upload it as a new sprite. It’s not animated, so you don’t need to add a separate costume.
For the ground, you’ll need a lot of blocks since Mario runs along them. Use Paint.NET to grab the six blocks in the middle of the Ground Blocks image, then save them as a separate file. You’ll need about 12 blocks to cover the entire bottom of the screen once you shrink them to a good size. Thus, you should place two copies of these six blocks side-by-side for your Ground sprite. Upload this and then make two ground sprite duplicates in Scratch.
The coin is an animated GIF, so it’s a little different. Whenever you upload it, Scratch will create costumes for every frame of the animation. This image has 11 total frames, but unfortunately also has a white border around it, which looks off against the blue background. You’ll have to open each costume for the coin inside the Scratch editor. Use the pipette tool to select the blue background color, then use the paint bucket tool to change the white edges of the coin to pale blue.
You’ll need to resize sprites using the Grow and Shrink buttons along the top of the screen, right above the green flag button. Click either button, then click the sprite you want to change on the stage to the left. This will resize all costumes, too. Ballpark them for now; you can fine-tune later.
, we can use a series of blocks to constantly scroll through their costumes so they appear to move.
An animation script looks something like this:
In short, this script sets the coin to its default state when you click the green flag. It then cycles through the frames endlessly, at a speed you set as the FPS variable in the Data tab. Play around with that number if you don’t like the speed.
Uncheck the box next to Coin-FPS in the Data tab (this is a custom variable you create) so it doesn’t show on-screen.
Making Mario Move
Now for the hard part. Many steps are involved in making Mario move, and it’s actually a trick that scrolls the ground blocks to give the appearance of movement. Rather than try to explain every block loop, I’ll provide screenshots of code blocks and explain their highlights.
First, you need to make four variables in the Data tab. All four of these are For all sprites except for Velocity, which is only for Mario:
Gravity is a constant that pulls Mario back to the ground when he jumps.
OnGround keeps track of whether Mario is touching the ground or not.
ScrollX measures the horizontal movement of the screen.
Velocity (Mario only) controls the speed at which Mario jumps.
Animating the Ground
You’ve already made two duplicates of your Ground sprite by right-clicking it and choosing Duplicate. Drag Ground-1 to the far left of the screen, so its leftmost block touches the far left of the screen. Then, drag the other ground sprite(s) to the right of the first one. Line the edges up, and it will look like the ground is one solid piece.
Here’s the code block you’ll need for each Ground sprite:
This places the ground at the bottom of the screen, then simply scrolls the blocks as Mario moves. ScrollX is the position of the blocks; 0 is the default position that launches when you click the green flag. You’ll notice that you can’t move left immediately after you start.
For the second (and further) ground blocks, increment the 0 digit in ScrollX + 480 * 0 by one for each new piece of ground. This will offset it so it scrolls smoothly.
Mario’s Logic
That’s all it takes for the blocks, but Mario has many more code blocks. Here’s what each of them do, with a brief summary:
This block of code changes the ScrollX variable when Mario moves. Whenever you press left or right, Mario faces in the appropriate direction and takes a step, incrementing ScrollX by 3. If you find that Mario flips upside down when you move left, click on the blue i on his sprite and make sure the Rotation style is set to the second option. This will flip him left and right instead of in a circle.
Here we see the code that handles Mario’s costume changes. When Mario is not on the ground, he has the jumping costume. Whenever you’re moving left or right, Mario switches between frames every tenth of a second. Let go of the arrow keys, and Mario defaults to his standard frame.
A simple bit of code that figures out the OnGround variable. If he’s touching one of the ground blocks, OnGround equals 1 (true). When he’s jumping, OnGround is 0 (false).
These two blocks of code handle Mario’s jump velocity. On the left is a block that ensures Mario doesn’t have any momentum if he’s on the ground. If he’s in the air, then his velocity is gradually slowed by gravity, which is a constant value. The right block makes Mario jump whenever you press the space bar. His jump sound plays, and the velocity propels him into the air until gravity takes over.
Our last block of code for Mario is all setup. When you click the green flag to start, the music begins, all variables are set to their default values, and Mario spawns in the middle of the screen.
Collecting Coins
Let’s jump back to the coins. We need to make sure that when Mario grabs one, it makes a sound and disappears. Let’s make a separate script for that — separating scripts by function is an important practice in programming. A big jumble of blocks makes it harder to figure out the problem when something goes wrong.
Here’s our coin collection script:
This is pretty easy: whenever Mario touches a coin, the collection sound plays and the coin hides. In the coin animation code, we’ve placed a Show block so the coins re-appear when you restart.
Scroll Coins and Clouds
You’re almost there! Since Mario doesn’t move but the ground scrolls, we need to make sure that the coins scroll too so Mario can collect them. Here’s how that works:
This places the coin at a Y value (that’s vertical screen position) where Mario can easily grab it. It then uses similar logic to the ground blocks to scroll towards Mario. Note that we’ve increased the scroll rate to 0.75 so that coins move towards Mario quickly. For the second and third coins, we increase the set y to field to -40 and -20 so they’re a little higher up and harder for Mario to grab. In the Set x to block, increase the 150 * 1 to 150 * 3 and 150 * 5 for the second and third coins to place them further to the right, off-screen.
The clouds use a nearly identical block of code:
Again, this places a cloud at a specific height, then scrolls it as Mario moves. For a second cloud that’s in front of Mario instead of behind him, change the set x to block to (ScrollX * 0.1) + (150 * 1), just like the coins.
Add Borders
Because of the way that we implemented the ground and coins, you’ll see coins stuck at the edge of the screen until they scroll into view. This is unsightly, so you should create a quick border sprite that’s the same color as the background to hide this on both the left and right sides.
The easiest way to do this is to right-click on the stage and click Save picture of stage. Open this in Paint.NET and use the pipette tool to select the blue background color. Add a new layer using the bottom-right dialogue. Then, use the rectangle tool to draw a filled blue rectangle on either side of the screen. Cover about a half of each block, then delete the background layer.
Save this as a PNG file and upload it as a new sprite called Border. Since you drew the borders right over the screen, you can line it up perfectly.
Then, you just need a few blocks so that the border is always in front:
Expanding Your Game
Try out the final product below!
We’ve set up just the basics of a Mario game together. You can add lots of elements to your game from here. Try adding Super Mushrooms to power Mario up, making some pits that Mario must clear, or creating an end-level flag. With the building blocks you’ve picked up here, you can add more sprites, variables, and logic to make anything you want. We’re looking forward to seeing what you come up with!
Note that on any Scratch project, you can click See Inside to open the project up in an editor just like you used for your own project. This lets you get a glimpse into the blocks that someone used to make their project work, and can help you out when you get stuck. I’ve made my project available to all, so feel free to view it and have a look at the code if you need some help. I’ve also zipped all the assets I used in this game, so you can download them to save some time.
Afraid of Programming in Code? Try Scratch For Arduino Scratch 4 Arduino allows novices like me to build exciting Arduino projects with a visual interface. It’s simple, it’s fun, and it’ll teach you the fundamental building blocks of programming. Read More
We want to hear from you if you’ve tried out Scratch! Have you expanded our basic Mario game? Leave your questions, comments, and updates in the comments below, please!
Backyard mad scientist Peter Sripol turned a NERF rifle into a souped-up airsoft gun with a fairly large barrel. Then he loaded the gun with all sorts of improvised projectiles, such as AA batteries, 6″ nails, and fireworks. This guy’s going to be just fine in the apocalypse.
Percona announces the GA release of Percona XtraBackup 2.4.7 on April 18, 2017. You can download it from our download site and apt and yum repositories.
Percona XtraBackup enables MySQL backups without blocking user queries, making it ideal for companies with large data sets and mission-critical applications that cannot tolerate long periods of downtime. Offered free as an open source solution, Percona XtraBackup drives down backup costs while providing unique features for MySQL backups.
New features:
Percona XtraBackup now uses hardware accelerated implementation of crc32 where it is supported.
The xbstream binary now supports parallel extraction with the --parallel option.
The xbstream binary now supports following new options: --decrypt, --encrypt-threads, --encrypt-key, and --encrypt-key-file. When --decrypt option is specified xbstream will automatically decrypt encrypted files when extracting input stream. Either --encrypt-key or --encrypt-key-file options must be specified to provide encryption key, but not both. Option --encrypt-threads specifies the number of worker threads doing the encryption, default is 1.
Bugs Fixed:
Backups were missing *.isl files for general tablespace. Bug fixed #1658692.
In 5.7, MySQL changed default checksum algorithm to crc32, while xtrabackup was using innodb. This caused xtrabackup to perform extra checksum calculations which were not needed. Bug fixed #1664405.
For system tablespaces consisting of multiple files xtrabackup updated LSN only in first file. This caused MySQL versions lower than 5.7 to fail on startup. Bug fixed #1669592.
There are two things you should never do if you want to maintain productivity: start clicking on links in Wikipedia, or open Google Earth. There are many, many other ways to waste time on the internet but the amount of work hours lost between those two is probably enough to make most managers weep. Your boss won’t be too pleased, then, to learn that Google Earth’s latest update, revealed today, ratchets up its time-killing potential several notches.
We’ve come a long way since the earliest versions of Google Earth that basically placed a virtual globe in your desktop with some basic mapping and 3D tools. Today’s revision sees a slew of new features that feel both exciting, and long overdue at the same time. The headline news, in my opinion, isn’t technically a feature at all, but the fact that Google Earth is no longer a standalone app for desktop and mobile users, and can be accessed right from a browser (perfect for Chromebooks and education).
There are, of course, a lot of new things you can do with Google Earth that will give even the most experienced virtual tourist something fresh to explore. The first change you’ll notice is the home page. No matter what machine you choose to open Google Earth on, you’ll be presented a menu offering a series of icons: A ship’s wheel, a die, a familiar highlight tag and a share symbol. The last two are somewhat self explanatory, but it’s the first two where most of the fun stuff is.
The ship’s wheel leads you to a section called "Voyager." As that name suggests, this is all about discovery. Google Earth has kinda always been about finding and investigating, but Voyager is about enabling that encouraging that with curated content. Yes, even Google Earth isn’t immune to the current trend for "stories," or in this case, curated tales from around the world (literally). These stories are essentially themed journeys around the planet peppered with rich media such as 360 videos, and Street View (including inside buildings and underwater).
Google partnered with the likes of DigitalGlobe and the BBC at launch to provide some of the more detailed stories, but we’re told these will be regularly updated with new and increasingly more curious adventures. For now, though, the selection of around 40 available looks pretty good, with everything from touring Hemmingway’s favorite haunts to a chance to meet girl muppets around the world (yep, check it out, much fun). Each "voyage" is usually about ten "locations" long, complete with swooping transition around the planet as you progress to the next spot.
Two other features that come along with Voyager, depending how you view it, are "Itineraries" (basically city guides with points of interest), and the option to send a virtual postcard from one of these locations. The postcard feature is unique to mobile (on desktop you’ll just get a share link). A postcard is basically sending an image of a landmark from anywhere on the itinerary. Handy for showing people where to meet perhaps, or sharing a memory with family from a long-forgotten vacation.
Once you’re done diving with sharks or exploring Charles Dickens’ favorite pub, what happens if you run out of things to look at? Well, if you do, first, shame on you. Second the "I’m feeling lucky" feature (represented by the die icon) is for you. Google’s been serving up random webpages with a button of the same name since as long as most of us can remember; Earth’s version is much the same. Click the die, and you’ll be digitally transported to a far-flung corner of the globe where Google will also serve up (the now ubiquitous) "cards" with local trivia.
Google says it has identified about 20,000 locations so far, using its Knowledge Graph to serve up the info on "Knowledge Cards." Much like stories, these locations will also be continually refreshed, so expect the number of random places (deliberately chosen off the beaten track) to grow with time. It’s also possibly the best generator for spontaneous vacations we can think of. Especially if the location it takes you to doesn’t initially convince you, simply click the paper plane icon on the Knowledge Card, and you’ll be whisked off somewhere nearby with more info on that location as well.
Google Earth has always been a great place to quench your wanderlust. As one company representative said "You use Maps to find your way, Earth to get lost." This has never been more true than with the current iteration. In many ways it feels like the beginning of a constantly evolving, flexible version of Encarta. Right now you can’t add your own stories, but you can be sure those types of features will be coming soon enough. When I asked about the potential for a "Google Mars" or a "Google Solar System," one representative gave me the tortured look of someone that’s excited about something, but cannot say (both of these somewhat exist already though don’t forget).
There are, of course, a few things that the new Google Earth is not. And one of those is VR-friendly. It is still available on Steam, but given Google’s investment in this area (DayDream, YouTube 360 etcetera), many hoped that today’s announcement might have had even more of a virtual reality flavor. Alas, not this time, but again, you can be fairly sure this is somewhere on the roadmap.
For now though, Google Earth is growing beyond its position as a desktop curiosity, research tool and data hive, and into the world of original content, discovery and education. The fact that it now lives within your browser is no small thing. It’s Chrome only for now, but Google did say that the base technology (Web Assembly) will soon be fully supported across all four main browsers, at which point you can use Google Earth for web on whatever tickles your fancy.
On mobile you’ll still need to use a dedicated app, but you probably would prefer that anyway. And if you’re worried that the move to a browser tab might mean compromises, don’t be. Google claims about 90-percent of the codebase is the same, no matter how you choose to access it.
In this blog, we’ll look at the mysqlpump utility.
mysqlpump is a utility that performs logical backups (which means backing up your data as SQL statements instead of a raw copy of data files). It was added in MySQL Server version 5.7.8, and can be used to dump a database or a set of databases to a file and then loaded on another SQL server (not necessarily a MySQL server).
Its usage is similar to mysqldump, but it includes a new set of features. Many of the options are the same, but it was written from scratch to avoid being limited to mysqldump compatibility.
The Main Features Include:
To make the dump process faster, it allows parallel processing of databases and objects within databases.
There are more options to customize your dumps and choose which databases and objects to dump (tables, stored programs, user accounts), using the —include–* and —exclude–* parameters.
User accounts can be dumped now as CREATE USER and GRANT statements, instead of inserting directly to the MySQL system database.
Information between the client and the server can be compressed using the —compress option. This feature is very useful for remote backups, as it saves bandwidth and transfer time. You can also compress the output file using —compress–output, which supports ZLIB and LZ4 compression algorithms.
It has an estimated progress indicator. This is really useful to check the current status of the dump process. You can see the total amount of rows dumped and the number of databases completed. It also reports an estimate of the total time to complete the dump.
Creation of secondary indexes for InnoDB tables happens after data load for shorter load times.
Exclude/Include:
This feature provides more control over customizing your dumps, and filter the data that you need. Using this feature, you can be more selective with the data you want to dump (databases, tables, triggers, events, routines, users) and save file size, process time and transferring time while copying/moving the file to another host.
Keep in mind that there are some options that are mutually exclusive: e.g., if you use the —all–databases option, the —exclude–databases parameter won’t take effect. By default, mysqlpump will not dump the following databases unless you specify them using the —include–databases option: INFORMATION_SCHEMA, performance_schema, ndbinfo and sys.
Values for these options need to be declared by comma-separated listing. Using a “%” as a value for any of the exclude/include options acts as a wildcard. For example, you can dump all databases starting with “t” and “p” by adding the option —include–databases=t%,p% to the command line.
For users, routines, triggers and events, mysqlpump has —include–* and —exclude–* options with similar usage. Some specific notes:
Triggers are dumped by default, but you can also filter them using the —include–triggers/ —exclude–triggers options
Routines and events are not dumped by default, and need to be specified in the command line with —routines and —events, or the corresponding —include and —exclude options
Keep in mind that if a stored procedure and a function have the same name, then include/exclude applies to both
Parallel Processing:
This feature allows you to process several databases, and tables within the databases, in parallel. By default, mysqlpump uses one processing queue with two threads. You can increase the number of threads for this default queue with —default–parallelism. Unless you create additional queues, all the databases and/or tables you elect to dump go through the default queue.
To create additional queues you can use the —parallel–schemas option, which takes two parameters: the number of threads for the queue and the sub-set of databases this queue processes. As an example, you could run:
so that schemas c, d, e, f, g and h are processed by the default queue (which uses three threads), and then tables from schemas a and b are processed by a separate queue (that uses four threads). Database names should be included as a comma-separated list:
User accounts can be dumped using this tool. Here’s a comparison of our Percona Tool pt–show–grants versus mysqlpump to check their differences.
By default, mysqlpump doesn’t dump user account definitions (even while dumping the MySQL database). To include user accounts on the dump, you must specify the —users option.
Here’s an example on how use mysqlpump to get only user accounts dumped to a file:
SET CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT=@OLD_CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT;
SET CHARACTER_SET_RESULTS=@OLD_CHARACTER_SET_RESULTS;
SET COLLATION_CONNECTION=@OLD_COLLATION_CONNECTION;
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=@OLD_FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS;
SET UNIQUE_CHECKS=@OLD_UNIQUE_CHECKS;
—Dump endtime:Thu Aug2717:10:102015
Dump completed in823milliseconds
As you can see, above the tool makes sure the session uses known values for timezone and character sets. This won’t affect users, it’s part of the dump process to ensure correctness while restoring on the destination.
Comparing it with pt–show–grants from Percona Toolkit, we can see that mysqlpump dumps the CREATE USER information as well. The statements produced by mysqlpump are the right thing to run to recreate users (and should be the preferred method), especially because of the sql_modeNO_AUTO_CREATE_USERS. If enabled, it renders pt–show–grants useless.
—Dumped from server127.0.0.1via TCP/IP,MySQL5.7.8–rc at2015–08–2717:06:52
—Grants for‘furrywall’@‘localhost’
GRANT USAGE ON*.*TO‘furrywall’@‘localhost’;
—Grants for‘msandbox’@‘127.%’
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON*.*TO‘msandbox’@‘127.%’;
—Grants for‘msandbox’@‘localhost’
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON*.*TO‘msandbox’@‘localhost’;
—Grants for‘msandbox_ro’@‘127.%’
GRANT EXECUTE,SELECT ON*.*TO‘msandbox_ro’@‘127.%’;
—Grants for‘msandbox_ro’@‘localhost’
GRANT EXECUTE,SELECT ON*.*TO‘msandbox_ro’@‘localhost’;
—Grants for‘msandbox_rw’@‘127.%’
GRANT ALTER,CREATE,CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES,DELETE,DROP,EXECUTE,INDEX,INSERT,LOCK TABLES,SELECT,SHOW DATABASES,UPDATE ON*.*TO‘msandbox_rw’@‘127.%’;
—Grants for‘msandbox_rw’@‘localhost’
GRANT ALTER,CREATE,CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES,DELETE,DROP,EXECUTE,INDEX,INSERT,LOCK TABLES,SELECT,SHOW DATABASES,UPDATE ON*.*TO‘msandbox_rw’@‘localhost’;
—Grants for‘root’@‘localhost’
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON*.*TO‘root’@‘localhost’WITH GRANT OPTION;
GRANT PROXY ON”@”TO‘root’@‘localhost’WITH GRANT OPTION;
—Grants for‘rsandbox’@‘127.%’
GRANT REPLICATION SLAVE ON*.*TO‘rsandbox’@‘127.%’;
—Grants for‘testuser’@‘localhost’
GRANT USAGE ON*.*TO‘testuser’@‘localhost’;
Some Miscellaneous Notes:
One of the differences with mysqldump is that mysqlpump adds CREATE DATABASE statements to the dump by default, unless specified with the —no–create–db option.
There’s an important difference on the dump process that is closely related: it includes the database name while adding the CREATE TABLE statement. This causes a problem when trying to use the tool to create a duplicate.
Take a tour of the days when you needed to manually fuss with memory and cache sizes.
MacPaint. There was a time when this was really impressive!
Typing up my magnum opus in MacWrite.
Playing some Solitaire.
Silicon Beach’s original 1986 Dark Castle game.
Getting some Lode Runner.
Developing the next big app in Microsoft Basic.
The Internet Archive is a great resource if you’re looking to play with older PC apps and operating systems—thanks to a JavaScript port of DOSBox, you can run stuff like Mario Teaches Typing and Windows For Workgroups 3.11 right in your browser, giving you a quick and easy way to get some idea of what it was like to use a computer 20 or 25 years ago.
Now, the Internet Archive has some retro computing offerings from the other side of the great Mac/PC divide. Using a version of the PCE PC Emulator that has been ported to JavaScript, people interested in the Mac’s early years can run System 6, System 7, and dozens of old apps, including MacWrite and Microsoft Basic using their browsers.
The hardware that this old black-and-white software would have run on is wholly different from modern Macs—it hearkens back to the pre-PowerPC days when Macs still used the same Motorola 68000-series processors as the original 1984 Macintosh. Even so, the user interface is recognizable even if you’ve only used Macs in our current post-Mac OS X, post-Intel era. Showing mounted volumes on the desktop, the idea of a “trash” can that could hold deleted files until you were sure you wanted to delete them, and the persistent menu bar complete with Apple logo are all still hallmarks of modern Macs. Names like “Finder” have also persisted, even though the modern-day Finder has little in common with the one in System 6 or 7.
The Internet Archive’s sampling of Mac software can be found here. Take a look, even if only to appreciate anew how much more capable today’s computers are compared to what we had three decades ago.
By Tom McHale Tom gives us an introduction to the sport and what it takes getting started in long range shooting.
For this NRA High Power F-Class competition, I used this Masterpiece Arms BA Lite PCR Competition model chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor.
USA –-(Ammoland.com)- What’s hotter than Captain Gastroplasty at a Texas Chili Cookoff? Long range shooting that’s what!
While we throw around the term ͞Long Range Shooting like it’s a discrete sport, it’s really a collection of multiple gun games of varying styles. Sure, they all have extended distance in common, but beyond that, the styles diverge. At risk of offending everyone, I might describe long range shooting as two general types of disciplines.
The methodical and precise ballistic science game. That would be NRA High Power F-Class Shooting.
Running, gunning, and math-based winging it. That would be PRS or Precision Rifle Series.
So let’s clarify those two very broad and probably unfair generalizations by taking a look at these two long range shooting sports. Just to be clear right up front, both rely on shooter skill and consistency, they’re just different regarding which specific skills are most important
Last weekend I had the opportunity to compete in my very first F-Class match. I’ve done lots of long range shooting in all sorts of flat and mountainous conditions out to about 1,500 yards, so I wasn’t overly concerned about my ability to land at least a couple of rounds in the same zip code as the target.
On the other hand, I expected I’d be facing a bunch of grizzled veterans who know this particular game inside and out. As it turned out, both expectations came true.
Getting Started In Long Range Shooting
F-Class is always shot from the prone position, making it a great way for new(er) shooters to getting started in long range shooting.
The match was held at my local shooting facility, Palmetto Gun Club. Carefully checking the online information in advance, I saw the magic words – “Bring what ya got. Come out and shoot!” You see, like most shooting sports, those grizzled veterans like to win, but most of them like to help rookies get involved even more. I quickly determined that there are two classes for NRA Long Range shooting: Open and F/TR. If you choose F/TR, you have to shoot either .223 Remington / 5.56 NATO caliber, and you’re limited to total rifle weight of 18.15 pounds including optics, bipods, and such. You also have to shoot using a sling and/or bipod – no fancy ground-based shooting support devices allowed.
On the other hand, if you want to just give the sport a try and you don’t have a suitable service caliber rifle handy, you can simply enter Open Class. That allows any caliber up to .35 and you can rest your rifle on just about anything.
The 800-yard targets are the ones you can barely see on the right. The row towards the left are just 200 yards.Masterpiece Arms BA Lite PCR Competition Rifle
Since I hadn’t shot this particular combination of rifle, projectile, and optic before, I did some advance ballistic planning using Ballistic’s AE smartphone app. After entering some basic information about the projectile type, velocity from the MPA rifle, scope height, zero distance, and atmospheric conditions, I determined that my bullet would drop exactly 14.89 feet over the 800-yard distance set for this day’s competition. That works out to exactly 21.33 minutes of angle. On the Burris scope, 85 clicks brought me pretty darn close.
While they’re big up close, these targets get kind of tiny at 800 yards.
The elevation or bullet drop part is pretty easy to deal with because gravity is constant. If you put in good numbers, a ballistic program will tell you exactly what adjustments need to be made to get you close to the bullseye, at least vertically. You’ll have to fire a few test shots to account for slight variances in scope precision and such, but that’s fairly easy and unless you have a terrible scope, you’ll be close to start.
The hard part is accounting for the wind. Your ballistic program can also tell you how much your specific bullet will drift based on the wind direction and speed. As an example, the load I used at 800 yards will drift just under 53 inches SIDEWAYS with a 10 mile per hour crosswind. Fortunately, we only had to deal with one to three mile per hour winds coming from the ten to eleven o’clock position that day. As the wind varies shot to shot and can be completely different at any point between shooter and target, wind estimation ability is the skill that separates the rookies from the pros. Even with our very mild conditions, the wind alone could move your shot about three inches give or take. When shooting rifles capable of four-inch groups at 800 yards, that puts the burden on the shooter as much as the equipment. Not only does your sight picture and trigger press technique need to be precise and consistent, you need to make a really good guess at what the wind will do to each and every shot.
I was happy with this result. As you can see, I didn’t fully trust the degree of the left to right wind, so my group favored the right side of the target.
So let’s try to sum up the key points of the NRA F-Class long range sport. You can get started with most anything you already have because the Open Class has a lot of leeway regarding rifle and caliber. You can even start with store-bought ammunition. Got sandbags or a bipod? Then you’re good to go from a shooting rest standpoint. Since F-Class deals with known ranges and target size, many repeat competitors quickly start to optimize equipment. To get the most out of your rifle, you’ll soon want to reload your own cartridges. You’ll also want a purpose-built scope that offers somewhere above 20x magnification with great clarity and a fine reticle for precise shot placement. Oh, NRA F-Class doesn’t allow muzzle breaks or suppressors, so be sure to just use a standard thread protector if your rifle has a threaded barrel.
If your rifle has a flash suppressor installed, I doubt anyone will give you any trouble, but you might find your rifle will shoot better groups if you remove it.
The bottom line getting started In long range shooting is this: If you enjoy precision and tinkering, F-Class will be a great sport for you. While skill is always the ultimate determinant for collecting medals, the right equipment will help you get there too. At your first match, you’ll see all sorts of accuracy enhancing gizmos. If you enjoy playing the equipment game, then F-Class might be for you.
The other major style, Precision Rifle Series, is a bit more like tactical golf with time limits. Competitors have to engage multiple targets at varying distances, and from unusual positions, while the clock is running. You might find yourself shooting from a rooftop or from behind common environmental barriers. While you have to have equipment up to the task and know your ballistics, there’s a lot more emphasis on speed and adaptation to different target scenarios.
We’ll take a closer look at PRS in a future article.
About
Tom McHale is the author of the Insanely Practical Guides book series that guides new and experienced shooters alike in a fun, approachable, and practical way. His books are available in print and eBook format on Amazon. You can also find him on Google+, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
