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Post by energythief on Mar 14, 2006 22:19:06 GMT -5
Although no 3rd-party software is required to solve any of the puzzles in Enigma, there are some additional programs that many players use to make life a little easier... this thread is to share tools that help you play the game!
P.S. As mentioned in the main page of the puzzle, this puzzle was made using a Windows-based PC with Internet Explorer. If anyone would like to post programs suitable for other browsers/operating systems, please do so!
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Post by energythief on Mar 14, 2006 22:33:56 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300] Image Editors[/glow] One of the most useful types of programs is the image editor, which can help manipulate, distort, or otherwise alter an image. Many image editors allow the crucial ability to affect brightness or contrast, which is otherwise hard to achieve without actually changing monitor settings. GIMPGIMP, a free download, is available for a variety of operating systems, including Mac and Linux. It can be downloaded from www.gimp.org/. PhotoshopThe Grand Poobah of image editing programs - complicated, expensive, but incredibly powerful. The raw power it offers is amazing, but is really a bit of overkill for this puzzle - much like swatting a fly with a bazooka. However, you can try it out at www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/tryout.html. Microsoft Photo EditorMany versions of Microsoft Office come with Photo Editor, a surprisingly adequate editor. If you're using Office, look at your Office Tools... you might have this sitting within easy reach!
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Post by brian on Mar 28, 2006 12:13:28 GMT -5
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Post by Tails_155 (DJ T-Rey) on May 25, 2006 17:00:35 GMT -5
MSN messenger makes it easer to converse with people.... sometimes (USUALLY THEY'RE NOT THERE (you know who you are ))
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Post by energythief on May 27, 2006 15:38:18 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300] Manipulating Files[/glow] Some of the puzzles in the game require files to be manipluated or examined somehow. For image files, getting these is no sweat... simply right-clicking on the image gives options like "Copy" and "Save Picture As...". However, what about other types of files (like sound, text, etc.)? There are a number of options: #1: Type the filename into the URL.This is potentially the easiest way to grab a file, as many computers will either display a text file right in the browser, or prompt you to save it somewhere. However, depending on the configuration of your PC, this might not work as you intend - sound files often just play in your default music player, for example. #2: Capture it some other wayI'll focus on sound files again, as this is really aimed at capturing those. While a file is playing a sound recording program can be used to capture the sound as it plays, and it can then be saved, played with, etc. This works with images too, as you can use a screen capture command to snag the image. This is really of limited usefulness, because often you'll need to examine the actual file, not just how it looks or sounds. #3: Grab it through HTMLThis is by far my favorite, and I recommend everyone create a simple tool that will help you time and again in many online puzzles, not just Enigma. What you do is open Notepad and create a simple text file that looks like this: <html> <body> <a href="FILENAME_AND_PATH">Right-click here!</a> </body> </html> Save the file as "filetool.htm". You might get a question asking if you want to change the extension... well, yeah, you sure do. Where you see FILENAME_AND_PATH above, you need to change that to reflect the full path to the file you want. For example, to grab the puzzle's intro image, you'd enter: members.shaw.ca/enigmapuzzle/questionmark.jpgbetween the quotation marks. Now when you double-click that file you've made, you'll see a blank web page with a single link. Right-click the link and "Save Target As..." and you can snag whatever file you needed and save it to your PC for further inspection. Anytime you need a new file, simply use Notepad to re-open your filetool.htm file, and change the FILENAME_AND_PATH section to reflect the new file you need. Easy peezy, lemon squeezy.
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Post by Tails_155 (DJ T-Rey) on May 27, 2006 18:50:06 GMT -5
another one... useful at least for some levels Annagram ServiceHey, no spoilers. Part of the solving is to figure out what to do when. -et
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Post by energythief on May 28, 2006 12:33:38 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300]Sound Editors[/glow] There's not much by way of sound-manipulation tools in a default Windows setup, but there is one:
Sound Recorder This handy utility allows you to record sound from other sources (like a microphone, etc.), and perform some basic operations, like increasing or decreasing the speed, cropping/trimming the recording, or even reversing its direction.
You can most commonly find it through the following path:
Start Menu > Programs > Accessories > Entertainment
or, go to Start Menu > Run and type in "sndrec32".[/url].
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Post by Tails_155 (DJ T-Rey) on May 29, 2006 21:18:29 GMT -5
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Post by phlakk on May 30, 2006 1:50:27 GMT -5
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Post by Tails_155 (DJ T-Rey) on May 30, 2006 15:58:00 GMT -5
ah yes... if you have FireFox somewhere there is an addon that translates from all kinds of stuff
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Post by scooter on Jun 1, 2006 14:58:59 GMT -5
Wait, are you saying someone programmed a function to allow you to translate directly from L337 into Latin??? How insane is that? ... Oh, wait, that means it puts it in normal english letters, right? It thought it meant you could type in "P3AC3 D00D" and it would print out "pax vobiscum" or something like that. Doh.
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Post by Geek-A-Zoid on Jun 1, 2006 16:03:39 GMT -5
hey tails could you tell me the specific names of the addons that would be good for me
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Post by Tails_155 (DJ T-Rey) on Jun 1, 2006 23:27:48 GMT -5
Leetkey... and Translate..... (that's all it says =\ =/)
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Post by judyg8or on Jun 22, 2006 5:51:10 GMT -5
I use Wikipedia a lot. www.wikipedia.comI find it useful because of all the links in the articles, helps you to get from point 'A' to point 'Q' which is often the case with puzzles
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Post by Tails_155 (DJ T-Rey) on Jun 30, 2006 0:05:55 GMT -5
or even from point A to point ZQ... depending on the puzzle yes Wikipedia and Google are very useful
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Post by ricfaith on Jul 13, 2006 22:05:10 GMT -5
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Post by Amynthis on Jul 14, 2006 9:58:32 GMT -5
Haven't tried the other two, but I've used Andy's anagram solver very often, myself
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Post by Tails_155 (DJ T-Rey) on Jul 19, 2006 16:47:23 GMT -5
you know from the Anagram Site thread... I apparently dun need one of those because I seem to be able to find names from nothing
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Post by Amynthis on Oct 4, 2006 17:46:24 GMT -5
For all you mozilla users out there, this link addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1419/ might be helpful. You can have tabs display a page as it would be displayed in IE, while using firefox. No more certain levels not working right! You can go into options and change the options so that any site starting with members.shaw.ca will automatically load in IE. (credit to mirror2liquid for finding it)
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Post by Tails_155 (DJ T-Rey) on Oct 4, 2006 18:54:24 GMT -5
+karma for u and mirror (gotta wait an hour M2L )
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