The official homepage remains on my gitorious web-automation project. All the other old clones, like the ones on github are outdated and will (hopefully) disappear in time, as the development continues on gitorious.

Have fun

Please enjoy this HQ stream of deceptive video pixels while I explain this fine new piece of trickery

Click here to view the embedded video.

As you can see, this other frustration-driven program lets you climb the ladder of a typical facebook game while drinking coffee or feeding your pet!

So, before starting you need:

1. a dictionary file for your language of choice (1 word per line)
2. a dictionary file with the names of your facebook friends (for the ‘bonus’ levels)
3. a compiler, because I’m not making binary packages this time
4. the source code of AutoGram, published here and available as a tar.gz here.

Build it with your favourite compiler (tested on Linux with gcc and on Windows with msvc) or your favourite IDE (you can download QtCreator if you don’t know what an IDE is and click on the autogram.pro project file). Then Run it and embarass your friends

Here is how the program works:

1. grabs the screen image and cuts off the 6 images representing the letters.  [ScreenCapture.h]
2. recognizes each character by comparing the image to the alphabet and picks the match that has less differential energy. (is like xor-ing 2 pictures and computing the energy of that)  [Ocr.h]
3. performs all the permutations of the characters, to find out all the words that can be made out of the given alphabet. [Scrambler.h]
4. validates with a dictionary to filter out unknown words. the dictionary is the “main language dictionary” if the screen is yellow-ish (indicating normal game) or the “bonus game dictionary” if the screen is red-ish (indicating a bonus game, where all the words are picked from the names of your friends).  [Scrambler.h]
5. injects the words (as keystrokes + return) to the browser window.  [InputUtils.h]
6. there is a timer-based loop that performs the operations 1-5 while updating the GUI.  [WCGame.h contains the logic, AppWidget.h handles the GUI]

If you run AutoGram on a virtual machine, please remember to switch it off after a while! I take no responsability of any score overflow

Again here is the source code, stay tuned for more web automation articles, and enjoy

update: XP/Vista download here

You are happily wasting time on facebook (that site with all the ignore buttons, with noisy stuff from people who call themselves ‘friends’ of you.. you know..) when you unfortunately get hooked up with Biotronic. This flash game is quite nice, but there is a rank ladder on bottom and you’re last. So you play and play … still last, play even more.. still last.. can you see the frustration?! The layman’s answer is to play (aka waste hours) to get better and climb the ladder..

And then there’s the programmer’s answer: I’ll write a Qt program to get me on top!! (yes, and still waste hours ) — Here is the result: BioCheat

Click here to view the embedded video.

The game is in FLASH, so no HTML or DOM tricks, you have to emulate eyes, brains and hands (only 1). Or in other words you have to see, think and act. Or in other words you have to recognize the image, solve the puzzle and send the clicks back.

Not only I became the first among my friends, I was the world #1 for a month (with 5Million points) Then they wisely reset my score to zero (was too high for a human player) and many people started using and modifying BiCheat!

Here is the simple work flow of the program:

Plus when there is near 60% of recognized blocks, a condition telling that the level is finished, we press the “next” button (a mouse click at an absolute position) to go to the next level. Then you can go grooming your cat while BioCheat plays for you.

In the end it’s a machine vs machine fight, not a human-to-machine one

Again here is the source code, stay tuned for more web automation articles, and enjoy