I am happy to announce that I finally got my new laptop this week, and with my laptop AMD was kind enough to send me a coupon for a free Dirt3 game via steam. I myself don't really want this game but if anybody else does, well I have the contest for you

The contest will end in one week ( 7:00am MST Friday December 2, 2011 ).
The contest will be to showcase your image editing abilities instead of programming as we usually do

So here are the rules:
Your entered picture must be original, and made only by you.
You can use other images as resources in yours, so long as they do not make up the majority of your entry. ( So no one image source and then just apply a filter or two )
You have to enter it before the deadline or you will be disqualified.
You must be older then 16 ( Small print on the coupon. Sorry guys )
Your image must stick to the theme.
No breaking any laws or any rules on the forum with your image. ( So no pr0n etc ).
There may be country restrictions on who can receive it. Not sure if there is though. The coupon doesn't say.

What I want from you guys is an image that embodies Omnimaga. So it embodies it's values, it symbolizes the community etc. Be creative, just make it have to do with Omnimaga.

also, here is the rest of the fine print:

The winner will get the coupon code as well as have their artwork displayed in the news post talking about the winner ( you can plug your website if you want in that as well ). Your artwork is still yours and Omnimaga/Eeems do not claim any rights to any artwork entered into the contest. I just want to see what you guys can come up with in a week

Hey guys, so I've usually been on anywhere from 12pm-2am MST but starting this coming up Monday my normal schedule will drastically change. The reason is that I've just recently gotten a job working night shift at a Hardware/Home improvements/Gardening store. So I have no idea exactly when I'll be up anymore as I'll be adjusting to working 10pm to 6am MST.
Just so you guys know why my online time is going to be very different then normal.

Yay Money!
( Btw, I'll probably be saving some of my money specifically for paying Omni's bills ( although not all of it ) )

Assembler
So one of the issues with developing z80 in linux is that you have to find a good assembler. There are a few out there, but usually they have to be run with wine or they do not have all the great additions that modern assemblers have.
Well you can compile Spasm from source to run on any linux system and not only get the speed gain, but all the nice features! (SVN)

Editing
So now you have an assembler. What now? Well you need to be able to edit your files, now any text editor will do, but syntax highlighting really helps. (gedit) (kate)

Making assembling easier
So it's annoying to type out ./spasm <input> <output> all the time. Why don't we make a script to do it for us?

#!/bin/bash
path/to/spasm flags path/to/input path/to/output

There we go, nice and simple! now you can chmod +x path/to/script it and you can execute it however you like ( so command line or double clicking it ).

Debugging
So now we want to fix our errors, what do we do? wxwabbitemu, while certainly great for emulating, does not have any debugging capabilities yet. So you can use that for things that require you to test responsiveness. For all the hardcore debugging you still need to use wine and wabbitemu.

Conclusion
Now we can easily program z80 on linux, and with TiLP we can also send to our calc to test on real hardware. Z80 dev isn't just for windows anymore!

EDIT: You can get a pre-built copy here of spasm for Ubuntu/Mint (Download)

As of today DJ_O has decided to change his moderator role and will now only be posting news and making minor site updates. He will no longer take part in moderating decisions.
His decision to remove himself from moderating responsibilities has been due to an increased feeling of uselessness when it comes to what actions he has taken and from criticism by other members becoming too much. His health is also suffering so give him the best of wishes and lets do our best to fill the shoes that he has left in terms of moderating.

Post your questions, suggestions and bug reports here please

So if you have been following my twitter feed you know I've been working on something other then a calc project atm
So without further ado, here it is:I've been working on a webapp for Omnimaga's music, I don't have it setup to use the downloads section quite yet, but I will enable it eventually for that. The webapp itself is still unfinished, and not hosted, but it can search through the songs, play the music, pause the music, seek through the music and display the dynamically loaded home where news can be posted. I will eventually host this (when I get it working with Omnimaga's folders, but that would mean I'd have to host on Omnimaga for it to work.
If you are interested in learning what I used to make this go check out the Sencha Touch framework and feel free to ask me for help if you want to start developing with it
The webapp will work on all webkit enabled browsers, so Google Chrome, Safari, Mobile Safari and the webkit based browsers on android and blackberry devices.

As announced by TI-BANK, Datamath has posted pictures of the real TI-Nspire CX calculator models, although per TI's request, they were asked to not show the inside of the calculator yet.

http://www.datamath.org/Graphing/NSpire_CX_P1.htm
http://www.datamath.org/Graphing/NSpire_CX_CAS_P1.htm
http://www.datamath.org/Graphing/NSpire_CX_EZ.htm

According to people who tried the prototypes themselves, the screen is not as dark in person as it was from photos posted on TI-BANK a few days ago, and even from weird angles, the calculator screen looks pretty readable:


(image found on TI-BANK forums)

The dark screen was most likely due to the calculator pictures being made with a scanner or the back-light being disabled. This means the screen doesn't have the problems some of us feared. Unless it's a passive, blurry LCD like some MP3 players, the screen quality should be on-par with the Casio Prizm.

Also, according to TI-BANK, the OS 3.0 found in prototype models has a size similar to OS 2.1. With nothing installed on the CAS mode, there is about 101.7 MB free. The CAS OS seems to be 13.5 MB large and the regular model one 15.2 MB. We do not know if the TI-84 Plus emulator is included in the latter. If it is, then there is a possibility that both TI-Nspire and TI-Nspire CX models use the same OS file.

Now that we have an idea of how the LCD brightness is and how big the OS is so far, we do hope that battery power usage will have been improved as well. Some people reports that good batteries lasts about two weeks on a TI-Nspire running Ndless programs on a regular basis, while a Casio Prizm running several SH3 assembly programs still use the battery set that came with it when bought 2.5 months ago.

Also it appears the calculator is already for sale for teachers and school at http://www.calculatrices.ch/Info.cfm?modell=TINCXCASTE&e=1

Due to recent incidents I have decided to do a massive restructure to IRC.
The channel is, for now going to be invite only as we get things set up. OmnomIRC will eventually be connected, but at the moment it will not.

We are no longer going to voice everybody in the channel, in fact the channel will be in private mode (or whatever it's called) continually, so no non-voiced members can chat. New joiners will have to request voice from ops and it will be at the ops discretion.
While we do want to help people, I think that this sort of instant communication where people can be hurt quite easily should be limited for those who we know wont hurt others. People who have proven themselves to be good will be given ident from netbot so they can autovoice.
The greet bot will now give a greet to all members who join with more information then just the link to the rules, but some more outlining some more specifics, and information on how to ident for those who can. Also who holds ops in the channel will be re-thought, more may be added, some may be taken away, no promises as of yet.

This restructure can be changed in the near future, but first all the admins need to have a discussion about it and until then the rules outlined above are to be followed.

There will be no complaints about this change especially since it is not final yet and the decision is final that there will be restructuring due to what has happened.

Thank you for your patience in this transition.
On behalf of the Omnimaga staff
Nathaniel "Eeems" van Diepen