Scheduling Overviewer to render your Minecraft server.

I am using Overviewer to render an isometric map of my Minecraft world, and have it scheduled so it updates every hour.  I am using vanilla Minecraft Server 1.7.2 and serving it with McMyAdmin.  To host the Overviewer html I am using Apache with the WAMP stack.

I have a Minecraft server folder on my C drive that is the home to the unpacked Overviewer directory.  Also inside of it is the McMyAdmin files and a second Minecraft folder for the server jar/world files.

In the Overviewer directory we are going to create a runoverviewer.bat that has:

overviewer.exe "C:\Minecraft Server 1.7\Minecraft\world" "C:\wamp\www" >> renderlog.txt

The scripts calls overviewer.exe and passes a couple of options, the first being the location of the server world folder, the second is where to output the rendered html, which is the Apache www root and I want to output to a log file using >>.

The first render took about 30 minutes, but subsequent renders only takes a few minutes.  Make sure you have plenty of space on as my render costs me about 2.5 GB of storage.  To schedule it I am using task scheduler to call the runoverviewer.bat file every hour:

I still have a lot to learn about Overveiwer, there are many options on how and where to render.  There are also ways to make 'signs' that can label different areas, and show the last known location of the player.  As I add these features to my render (hopefully) I will post it.

The End of an Era - RIP WinAMP

http://www.winamp.com/media-player/en

Winamp.com and associated web services will no longer be available past December 20, 2013. Additionally, Winamp Media players will no longer be available for download. Please download the latest version before that date. See release notes for latest improvements to this last release.
Thanks for supporting the Winamp community for over 15 years.

I have been a Winamp user since I was 14 or so and it has been installed on every computer I have owned (even ones I didn't own) since.  Winamp is the reason I got into music.  I remember I would use ripping tools to convert CD's to mp3's, using Winamp to organize my library.  This was in the napster era when digital music was taboo and the music industry, instead of embracing the convenience of mp3's shunned them and forced high priced ($26) CD's upon us.  More importantly, the napster/winamp era let me do something the music industry could never help me with, discover new music.  I was able to branch out from what was on the radio with a few clicks.  Winamp also got me into programming/scripting because of the Advanced Visualization Studio, which was a dynamic graphic display powered by beats of the music that was being played.  I made dozens of visualizations using geometry, loops, variables, it made me interested enough to go to school for computer science, of which I work in IT now.

Thank you Winamp.

Windows 8.1 IE 11 Protip: Disable Protected Mode so you can actually use IE 11

After migrating to Windows 8.1 on an SBS 2011 domain my IE 11 would always crash, getting the following error messages:

Internet Explorer has stopped working

And

We were unable to return you to msn.com

It's actually a really easy fix.  In the IE 11 window click on the Tools gears on the right and select Internet Options.  Under the Security Tab on the Internet zone UNCHECK Enable Protected Mode as shown below.

Click OK and restart IE 11.