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So I was having a little trouble adding a USB device permanently to a Virtual Machine guest with VirtualBox. The trick is to use the VBoxManage command to add a USB filter into the Machine’s configuration which will automagically attach whenever the VM is run.

First, find a list of all usb devices on the host, remembering to run these commands as the user your VirtualBox machine is under. In this example we’ll be using a Canon MX7600 printer as a test USB device.

$ VBoxManage list usbhost

UUID:               6bac41f4-cc44-40e4-a726-4d9655a49f63
VendorId:           0x04a9 (04A9)
ProductId:          0x171c (171C)
Revision:           1.3 (0103)
Manufacturer:       Canon
Product:            MX7600 series
SerialNumber:       102787
Address:            /proc/bus/usb/007/004
Current State:      Captured

Now we use the details of the USB device to filter adding into our VirtualBox machine. In this case our VirtualMachine name is winxp.

The usbfilter command requires four options at a minimum.

VBoxManage usbfilter        add
--target ||global
--name
--action ignore|hold (global filters only)
[--active yes|no] (yes)
[--vendorid ] (null)
[--productid ] (null)
[--revision ] (null)
[--manufacturer ] (null)
[--product ] (null)
[--remote yes|no] (null, VM filters only)
[--serialnumber ] (null)
[--maskedinterfaces ]

So armed with this info let’s add our device.

VBoxManage usbfilter add 0 –target winxp –name canonmx7600 –action hold –active yes –vendorid 04A9 –productid 171C –revision 0103 –manufacturer Canon –product “MX7600 series” –serialnumber 102787

Photos for this event: http://lansmash.com/v/album/2009/OzHadou2009/

Youtube clips here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=80389EA68EEB356A

I’m not much of a fighting game competitor. Truth be told I’m terrible at fighting games, but I love them so, so much. With our new partnership with OzHadou and the introduction of competitive fighting tournaments such as Street Fighter 4 at our events I thought it would be a good chance to meet up face to face with our mates in Sydney!

Meeting up with Slapper Joe in Sydney CBD early Saturday morning we took a Bus to the University where OHN8 was held. A bunch of consoles were setup with screen for gamers to play throughout Saturday, and were free to play any game they wished. I’d have to say 80% of the machines were running Street Fighter 4 though, all practising for the Sunday tournament.

It was great to meet up with the organisers that make these events possible and to chat with them about the same issues and woes we’ve faced up in Brisbane in LanSmash. So many friendly and awesome people in Sydney.

I was toting the LS Capture box to capture HD footage at the event to try and capture some gameplay. It mostly survived the trip via Qantas baggage handlers, and was back in action after some strategically used gaffer tape. The OHN8 venue is a converted Uni food court and was quite spacious for the guestimated 120-150 gamers rock up. Luckily, I scavenged a trolly and with a bit more tape constructed the LS Mobile Capture Rig of Doom.

Saturday night I was giving the task to record the SF2:HDR finals as best I could. There was a minor issue arise that the PA system used to play to the audience was only in Mono, and only having one channel made it quite frustrating to watch. Luckily one of the organisers had a soldering iron handy, so I cut together a Stereo to Mono converter which held up long enough for the final 8 matches.

Such a long day on Saturday… Street Fighter 2 finished at around 23:30 and the the Tekken6 1v1 finals went on to around 1AM. Exhausting because there was SF4 finals to be run on Sunday!

The national aspect of this event was awesome, with gamers representing their states and proud of the rivalry. Of course being in Sydney there was quite a bit of heckling against non-NSW players. It was great to see though, very entertaining to watch.

From Queensland I saw quite a few familiar faces that come to the LS events. Haichii, Colin, Kumar, Tom, Tyrone, Vlad, and Murete were all representing their state.

Unfortunately for QLD we were only able to have one of us make it in the Top Eight for the Street Fighter 4 finals which was Kumar. He fought hard against HumanBomb but was knocked out (youtube video here). I have no doubt though with more training and more players here in Brisbane we’ll be able to do better in future national events.

No doubt that Melbourne has definitely one of the most competitive scenes in Australia. With regular events such as Couch Warrior’s run in VIC we’re seeing quite a few players with high skills learning from each other.

I had to catch a flight at 9PM on Sunday so I missed out on the SF4 finals. It was between HumanBomb (Sydney) and ToXY (Melbourne); both highly skilled and respected players. Check out this Youtube clip of their finals match.

Ultimately it was HumanBomb who seized victory. Overall I’d have to say it was a victory for Victoria though as they claimed 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th place in the SF4 top 8.   

Thanks to OzHadou for letting us in to capture this event!

Quote of the day “Can you check this monitor for me Web?” – Wilko, after crushing his beloved 24″ Dell LCD …

When: July 2009
Photos: http://www.lansmash.com/v/album/2009/WinterSmash2009/

Our first Winter LAN at our new home QSAC! Big props to the volunteers who helped setup on Friday afternoon, I think this is the first time we have had so many volunteers take the day off work to help setup on Friday.

Saturday filled the gaming seats with over 140 gamers walking through the door. Thanks to all gamers who were patiently waiting out the door as we processed everyone in. We’re looking into prepaid options in the future to help streamline the wait, but with out efficient girls at the door we managed to push everyone in under 30 minutes.

QGaming’s CounterStrike Source tournament rolled on smoothly with excellent coverage from GameStah’s Boomser and TobiWanKenobi. It’s a rariety for these tournaments to run on time, so props to QGaming and the CSS gamers for knowing their stuff.

There were lot’s of public games played through-out Saturday and a ton of linux iso sharing to boot. UT2004 made a brief comeback and reminded me just how poor I am at precision FPS games after years of no practice. It is as fun as it was five years ago though, so it was fantastic to give it a whirl. No doubt we’ll be bringing back the LS UT2004 Last Man Standing comps in the next Smash.

Even with a large chunk of the team off oversea’s to compete in Evo2k the Smash Bro boys had a decent tournament turn out!

Some might remember this as the ‘Swine Flu Smash’ however, as there have been numerous reports of gamers falling ill after the weekend passed. I’m sure it was just the awesomeness of the event overloading gamers immune systems.

Early Sunday morning was hard to get out of bed on a cold winters day and the numbers showed with only around 70 gamers filling the halls. No matter though, as there was plenty of gaming action through-out the day.

The Halo 3 2v2 started a little late with the tournament organiser issues but MasterCyl stepped in play to kick off the comp. Halo was jam packed full of gameplay and I am always surprised at how much Halo these gamers want to play. I think quite a few opted out of lunch just to cram in as much Halo they can!

TF2 3v3 Arena was the competitive tournament of the day for the PC side and boy was it fun. I think this format works best at the LAN rather then the traditional 6v6 style games played online. 3v3 allows for a much faster paced game and the team co-ordination is a lot simpler to run then a full on 6v6.

Oh yes, and MadMoose had a message to give all those that didn’t come to WinterSmash this time round.

Results

QGaming CounterStrike Source 5v5

LS Team Fortress 3v3 Arena

After waving off to Mykono’s we set sail to our next and final Greek Island, the stunning Santarini. Santarini is supposedly one of my most naturally beautiful Greek Island and is a little bit unstable as it surrounds and underwater volcano that last went off over 4,000 years ago that blew up the island so high that chunks of it have been found as far as Greenland.

Coming into port at Santarini, you can get an idea of scale of this island…

Those white dots on the top is not snow but a bustling town of white houses, and that 10 story cruise liner is about a kilometre from the coast line.

We soon docked and jumped on to the bustling port and set to find our ride.
Can you spot the sign for “Smith & Williams”… It’s there somewhere…

Jumping on the bus I sucked in my stomach as we drove on the tight windy roads up the mountain. I’m not sure what possessed the original inhabitants to build up such a high mountain and carve out an existence here. I think it has to do with the islands surrounding in such a way to make a perfect port about 2000 years ago, but the Volcano has caused earthquakes sinking parts so it’s not so perfect now-days.

In any case, Santarini is simply breathtaking!

The weather has taken a turn for the worse and settled in for a very miserable, windy, cold and wet two days. The girls didn’t want to leave the warm and cosy Hotel Charisi, so Ben and I set on an adventure to explore as much as we could come rain hail or shine!

Unfortunately I don’t have very many photo’s to detail the exploration as we spent the day mostly on scooters. I did take a couple of movies holding the camera with on hand and driving with the other, however these will have to wait until I return to Australia to be youtube-a-rized.   

Have a guess which way is correct with this sign?

If you said right, you’d be wrong! It does take you to a ‘look out’ to see Super Paradise beach but doesn’t actually take you to the beach itself. No matter we just wanted to see what it looked like, but it was quite fun to see other tourists drive by, stop, scratch their heads and then roll the dice to decide which way they’d drive.

Feral cats are everywhere on the island. I saw one during lunch walk past with a lizard tail wiggling widely out of its mouth. The locals seem to love these feral cats which does worry me somewhat. If this were Australia it would be shotgun season to try and protect the local environment. I guess in some way the cats are kind of ‘native’ if you consider they’ve probably been here for over 1000 or so years like humans have. But it’s a bit strange none-the-less.

Ben and I travelled around 90 kilometers and when you consider the island’s edges is 119 kilometers we saw quite a bit of it! At the top of the island there is a beach that is kind of a basin for all wash up, and with not a soul around we decided to explore as best we can from the comfort of our scooter seats.

You’ll have to wait for various antics on youtube of us testing the bikes off-road capabilities when I get back to the land of Oz.

Unfortunately the weather was so bad and the water so choppy that the day we were due to head out to our next island our boat was cancelled. This was a pain, but Ben and I were ready to brave the wind and rain to bring the girls back pizza and watch some movies on my laptop.

Again the hotel we stayed at was very homey and accommodating handing us plates, cutlery, and cups every time we had a meal in the open area there. It was great to relax and recharge our batteries as the wind howled outside bashing on the windows.

Of course I would have preferred sun-shine and less wind, but we did had an awesome time anyhow!

Waking up to a bright and sunny Mykonos we took advantage of the beautiful weather and decided to explore the island as best we can. First order of business was to teach Ben how to operate a scooter, and convince the hire shop that his Australian Motorcycle Learner’s would qualify him to ride one… Good news is, Ben is a quick study and we were on the road!

Of course, the only problem is to figure out exactly -how- to get where you want to go. The Map we had was fairly useless as it was designed for kids with colouring in pencils and had no detail whatsoever. No mater, we couldn’t get -that- lost and luckily our hotel was close to the main town.

The problem with Mykono’s streets is that most of them are dead ends. You may think you’ll be able to reach your intended destination if you head in the right direction and indeed you’ll be damn close and see it but encounter rocky mountains or man-made walls.   

It mattered not though as we had so much fun exploring the old tight roads and weaving through traffic.

The girls were a little concerned riding on these old noisy scooters. It is the way to travel on this island though as many lanes are two way but are only big enough for a single car. So unless you’re a local and know the tricks I think scooters are the way to go. Plus the top speed on the island is officially 60km/h, but you wouldn’t know it looking at the traffic.

I’m not sure if there is any official police presence on the island, as it seems everyone does what they want to do. Our guide warned us to wear our helmets or face $350euro fine. To be honest, I think our heads our worth more then any damn fine and I find it silly for so many cyclist riding around without the right gear.
The whole island has a feeling of a bit of the ‘wild-west’ in terms of lack of law and order. Nothing serious, indeed it’s a great feeling laid-back carelessness that’s just what we need to kick back and relax.

In the evening we decided to head up to the lighthouse which we’re told has the best view of Sunsets on the islands. Unfortunately for us we never quite made it to the light-house. We got to about 200-meters of it from the wrong road, but it was breath-taking view none-the-less.   

Here’s three of us looking at the various wonders from the top of the mountain with Cara taking the happy snap. Speaking for my beautiful wife here she is with me as the Sun as finally settling.

You can tell the weather is a little bit cold. It’s nice and warm when the Sun is out but a bit chilly and very windy otherwise. I loved running around on the Scooters exploring this island with Cara sitting behind as a pillion rider.

I’ve always favoured visiting new places on two wheels instead of four. You can see more, feel more, smell more, and if you want to stop you can park virtually anywhere. To be honest we took these little scooters father and on far more steep and rocky roads then they were originally intended. There were a few moments with two people on a single scooter simply didn’t work as we ascended some very steep peaks.

So naturally the girls had to jump off as Ben and I raced up to see if the view was worth it!