Portable Frozen Bubble on Microsoft Windows

Portable Installation walk-through for Frozen Bubble 2.2.1beta1 on Microsoft Windows

It is a bit complex. 
Perhaps best overall would be to use a live CD of Linux or install a Linux distribution.  Then frozen bubble, and many other games and programs, would be just a few clicks away.
Check first if a Windows version is available at www.frozen-bubble.org/.
Also, if you know someone who has the portable version already, copying it seems to work.  It is GPL, so it is legally free to copy.  The compressed size is 94.3MB, so I have not mirrored it on-line.  (Probably it can be made a lot smaller by trimming out downloaded sources, and unneeded perl modules.)

Both regular installation & a portable installation are possible.
I used the portable version, allowing putting it on a removable drive and running from any Windows computer.  This needs slightly more set-up however. 

Regular instructions
mirrored from Frozen Bubble on FaceBook.
----------------------------------------
Windows Install:
1. Download and install Strawberry Perl @ http://strawberryperl.com/
2. After install press Windows key + R.
3. type: cpan Games::FrozenBubble (Step 3 takes about 30mins to download and install.)
4. Press Windows key + R
5. type: frozen-bubble
Do step 4 and 5 each time to launch the game or create a .bat file to launch it.
----------------------------------------
Updating is done by just re-running: cpan Games::FrozenBubble

Portable Frozen Bubble for Windows:
The portable installation walk-through below is an expansion and modification of the regular installation.

System Requirements: About 399 MB.
Other requirements unknown.  Refer to Strawberry Perl, and perhaps SDL.

Installation:
1. Download Strawberry Perl portable.
It can be found at http://strawberryperl.com/
I used "strawberry-perl-5.12.3.0-portable.zip".  It is 54.4 MB.
2. As described in "README.portable.txt", extract strawberry portable ZIP into e.g. c:\myperl\
  Note: choose a directory name without spaces and non us-ascii characters.
3. Double click / run "portableshell.bat"
4. Enter in cmd window : cpan Games::FrozenBubble
If it seems like it had errors, or if later steps do not seem to work, running it again might fix problems. 
5. Wait until complete.  Can take 30 minutes to a couple hours to download and configure, depending on network speed and computer speed.
6. Enter: frozen-bubble
7. To exit game, press Esc.
8. To exit cmd window, enter: exit

Running basically installed game:
A. Find directory of Strawberry Perl portable.
B. Double click / run "portableshell.bat"
C. Enter: frozen-bubble
D. To exit game, press Esc.
E. To exit cmd window, enter: exit

Intermediate level of installation:
F. Copy "portableshell.bat" to "frozen-bubble-start.bat".
G. Edit in WordPad (under All Programs, Accessories) or other favorite text editor that handles Unix format files.  (Notepad will not work.)
H. Change last line from:
---
cmd
---
to
---
echo Starting frozen-bubble...
frozen-bubble
---
I. Save as text.
J. Click and drag "frozen-bubble-start.bat" to start menu, all programs, and place it where on the menu you would like it.  A shortcut copy will be created.
K. Now select "frozen-bubble-start.bat" or "Shortcut to frozen-bubble-start" in the menu to start Frozen Bubble.
L. To change the name in the menu, right click on the "Shortcut to frozen-bubble-start" menu item, and select "Rename".

Advanced level of installation:
M. To change the icon, right click on the "Shortcut to frozen-bubble-start" menu item, and select "Properties", then "Change icon".
Files convertable into a windows icon with Gimp can be found at someplace like:
...\strawberry-perl-5.12.3.0-portable\cpan\build\Games-FrozenBubble-2.212-yVOabf\share\icons

Enjoy!


Other Notes:
It seems that this is not exactly the official frozen bubble, as some tweaks were made to it.  So it should be considered an unoffical port, until something is available from the main frozen bubble web site.

I could create a batch script file to do basic and part of intermediate installation, which would depend on wget.exe.  However, it would require updating the stawberry perl link occasionally, and I hope the below walk-through is simple enough.  Once the 2.2.1 version becomes considered stable (or before), I hope a fancier Windows-style installer will become available.  I do not have experience with creating such installers.

Possible options investigated:
    Via Stawberry perl
     WinXP available, but older windows seem to not be supported; Linux boot USB/CD better in that case.
        Works!  Not widely obvious how though.  Hence I wrote it up.
    Live CD easiest?
     bootable for speed
     Emulateable via qemu for quick testing, easier use.
        Gives other programs, like gcompris, as well.
         GCompris not freely available on Windows.
        DouDou Linux seems a good choice for CD bootable.
    FB-win32 @ Sourceforge
        need perl 5.6.*,
         but no longer freely available from FB-win's linked to site.
    Brothersoft at http://www.brothersoft.com/games/frozen-bubble-download.html
     BAD source; tries to install ad-ware.
     AND: labelled as 2.2.0 for windows,
     but 2.2.0 supposedly not for windows.
     but in a bz2 archive, so hard to use, if possbile at all.
     Strongly suspect it is the Unix environment files.

This walk-through is placed in public domain, as described at the  Creative Commons Public Domain page.

Published Revision 2011-05-29-1750EDT

Recommendations for viewing content on BlogSpot

I have decided to start placing some content on blogspot.  It has become clear to me that I will not make the effort to post up items on my personal web site.  Blogspot has disadvantages, but it seems that distributing information via non-optimal means is better than hoarding information due to laziness and unwillingness to spend the time to do it the better way.

I want to discuss some of the disadvantages I see, and ways readers can minimize them.

The company behind blogspot, Google, is one of the original crowd-sourcing companies.  Google does a lot well, both technologically, and in customer relations.  I highly appreciate their Data Liberation Project.  Their option to allow export of data from blogspot is one reason I chose to use their blog site.  However, they also only selectively give back the benefits gained from consumers.  Much of the data collected is restricted in use for the general public. 
To reduce the amount of information given, I recommend opting out of tracking for advertising
To reduce the amount of web page popularity (number of hits) info given to Google, and to save overall bandwidth, I recommend using a caching web proxy, such as Squid.  I have not used Squid since about 2002.  I am have not recently to set it up, because much of my personal computer web browsing is done by dial-up modem.  So instead I use .
Frequently logging out of blogspot / Google services would also reduce the information given.  However, I can not recommend going through the effort unless you care strongly about privacy.

I care more about textual and informational content than form.  I do not know if I will ever customize the appearance of blogspot.  However, others may not like the appearance of the color scheme, default or otherwise.  Or perhaps some other aspect of the layout does not match your desire.  Reading blogs in a RSS feed reader allows some choice in this.  It focuses on the content rather than the extra added items.  The online reader I use is Google Reader, mainly out of convenience.  Others, both online services and installable programs, are available.  I recommend installable programs when possible / not significantly more difficult.  Having the program on a hard drive reduces concerns of a service disappearing, or data being used in undesirable ways.  Most mail readers and web browsers have RSS reading functions built in.

Advertising concerns seem to no longer apply to blogspot, but it does to many free hosted pages.  I do not see any advertising on my blogspot site, and I will not purposely put it on.
Advertising should not be supported in my opinion.  I forget if saying this on blogspot violates my terms of agreement or not.  If someone cares to confirm, please let me know.  I feel advertising might have value, but I am not sure of that.  I feel advertising as done in the current culture is taking advantage of those with weak self control or intelligence.  It places temptations in front of people.  It often uses sexually attractive women to attract.  It slows down web browsing on the low-bandwidth dial-up connection I typically use.  It wastes bandwidth on all connections, as it is not content directly related to my request.
To avoid advertising, I use Adblock Plus.  I suspect pointing users to advertising blocking software violates the usage agreement terms.  If so, please let me know.
Another method to reduce advertising is to browse with images turned off.  To quickly toggle this setting in IceWeasel and FireFox, I use Image-Show-Hide Add-on.  Disabling images does not eliminate text advertisements, but I find the most bothersome advertisements are picture based.

Having documented these items, I consider readers of blogspot content fairly warned and somewhat armed.

Important topics to think about

I feel some items that should be publicized, promoted, and seriously considered by all:
1. The claims of Jesus the Christ to be the way to heaven and to be the supreme leader, as expressed in Christianity, summarized in the first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 15 verses 3-8.
2. The constitution of the United States of America, including its amendments, especially the second, first, and fourth.  Eric Raymond has written up and collected good support of bearing arms.

In addition, some items that should be publicized, promoted, and seriously considered by most:
3. Dvorak keyboard layout, explained well at DVZine.
4. Freely shareable s/w, as supported by the Free Software Foundation, and other shareable content available under Creative Commons or other licensing.

If you wish any more information on any of these, or more of my personal reasoning, feel free to ask me.  There is plenty of on-line information, along with plenty of misleading on-line information.
Sincerely,
Howard Abbey