Friday, July 14, 2000

M$: Standards, Schmandards -- 5:43 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

CNet is reporting, much to no one's surprise, that Internet Explorer 5.5 ignores Web standards. Once again, they are using their market share to add proprietary functions to drive competition out of business. Here's a quote:

Microsoft has long stated its commitment to following industry standards, including CSS and HTML. But preliminary data collected by the WaSP [Web Standards Project] showed that IE 5.5 performs poorly against compliance tests, failing 7 out of 13 in the case of CSS.

Stop me if this sounds familiar. Of course M$ will say it's just "freedom to innovate". I say it's just beating people over the head until their ideas sound good. C'mon, Mozilla, we need a savior here. Thanks Stomped.

Check Out the Yopy -- 1:04 pm CST, Update by J.t.Qbe

The Yopy is a soon-to-be-released Linux-based PDA. It'll have power too: 206MHz CPU, 32 MB RAM, 320x240 color screen, USB and serial ports, 3D audio and more! Read all about it over at All Linux Devices.

Hmmm, maybe my NEXT PDA won't be PalmOS-based after all. . .

A.T. Hun comments: . . . except that this has "Big, Gigantic Flop" written all over it. Apparently these folks didn't do their homework and learn from WinCE. It's falling into the same traps--trying to do too much. How many batteries will you need to power one of these monstrosities and how long will they last? Plus, how much is it going to cost? My guess: a lot, most likely in WinCE instead of Palm territory. I think I'll file this one in the "sounds cool, but no thanks" category. My $.02, slightly more in Canada.

J.t.Qbe comments: A guy at work was guessing they'd cost around $1K. I think the cost will be similar to WinCE toys. I'll buy one when my PDA game sells its millionth copy. Till then, I'm in no rush.

I agree though--handhelds are nice machines (my Visor is more powerful than the '286 I bought in '88) but you really don't want to do EVERYTHING with them. You can run Word and Excel on WinCE trinkets. But why? Why? Why? If you have that much need to run power apps on the go, get a laptop! (Just my 18,354 pesos)

Ask Sweeney -- 9:53 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Voodoo Extreme has posted another question and answer session with Epic's Tim Sweeney. Topics include scripting languages, background for working at a place like Epic, and "generic" programming. Heavy stuff, but worth a look.

Unreal 226Final Patch -- 9:32 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Using the words from the Unreal Technology Page, Hell has officially frozen over. Epic has released the 226Final patch for Unreal (7.2M), bringing its Direct3D and sound up to the same level as Unreal Tournament. Hmm. May have to go back to Software Etc. and pick up that copy for $9.99. Here's a list of mirrors: Unreal Universe, Planet Unreal (assuming FilePlanet will work), Unreality.org, Xtreme Network, Blue's News. Whilst you are downloading, you can read the release notes. Thanks Jeh.

Check out that spyware! -- 8:25 am CST, Update by The Master

In Steve Gibson's GRC Newsletter, Steve talks about the latest spyware being distributed. NetZip Download Demon, Netscape Smart Download, and Real's Real Download:

By watching the "packet traffic" flowing in and out of one of my machines while downloading a file through the Internet, I verified the rumors which you may have heard regarding these programs: All of these programs immediately tag your computer with a unique ID, after which EVERY SINGLE FILE you download from ANYWHERE on the Internet (even places that might not be anyone else's business) is immediately reported back to the program's source where it is logged and recorded along with your machine's unique ID. They also have the opportunity to capture and record your machine's unique Internet IP address.

Wonderful news, huh? Gotta love the massive invasions of privacy inherant in the internet nowadays . . .

Bleh -- 8:22 am CST, Update by The Master

For anyone who used to read my history posts, I've added a link at the top of the site for my history database. I'm still working on adding features, but for now it at least duplicates my older efforts in the news page. I will be adding search and movement functions shortly.

Thursday, July 13, 2000

Unofficial Shogo Patch -- 4:54 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Once again, leave it to the Shogo community to do Monolith's work for them. Ghost[GC] rewrote part of Shogo's DirectDraw code, making it compatible with DirectX 7. The result is that Shogo no longer locks up for me! You can download the 542K patch from PlanetShogo. Just unzip the shogop5.rez file into your /Shogo directory and fire the game up. I had Shogo running for about two hours this afternoon and it was rock solid the whole time. I'm going to do some more testing, but right now it looks awesome. If you are having video-related lockups in Shogo (and particularly if you have an NVIDIA-based video card), download this patch now. Highly recommended.

NVIDIA XFree86 4.0.x Drivers -- 10:06 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

NVIDIA has finally updated their Linux driver pages with information on the new .9-4 version of the XFree86 4.0.x driver. They updated their FAQ to reflect the recent changes. RPMs and tarballs are available from ftp://ftp1.detonator.nvidia.com/pub/drivers/english/XFree86_40/0.9-4/

Bzzztttt... -- 9:56 am CST, Update by The Master

The NOAA estimates a 40% chance of major geomagnetic activity between Wednesday and Friday due to coronal mass ejections (CMEs). It is possible that the 'northern lights' may be seen over a wider area during this time and satellite communications may be adversely affected.

Gotta love solar activity-it's so wonderful when our satellites go bzzt :-)

Thanks J.

id Master Server Downtime -- 9:37 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

id's Christian Antkow made a post on the Shugashack forums warning of some downtime with the id master server while they make the final move to their new offices. Here's the word:

If all goes according to plan, we will be getting our DS3 turned up at the new offices today. This means that all of our key servers (including the Q3A Master) will be down between the times of 11am and approximately 1pm CST. If you can't connect to our Q3A master server, or if authorization takes a little bit longer than expected, that's why.

Just a heads up.

-Xian

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