Thursday, August 10, 2000

Will The Real Qbe Please Stand Up? -- 10:24 pm CST, Update by J.t.Qbe

A friend sent me an email today and asked if I'd copywrited the name "Qbe." Of course not. Too bad--it seems that the venerable name has been taken for the name of a new computer-like device called "The Qbe". You can take a look at http://www.qbenet.com. Hmmm, maybe they'll send me one for free as compensation for seeing my name commercialized.

The Master comments: Please stand up, please stand up, please stand up *shrick*

Spinal Tap Rerelease! -- 9:32 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I saw this on T.V. the other day, but someone at Slashdot got a link to the official announcement that Spinal Tap is going to be rereleased on VHS and DVD. All kinds of extra goodies will be added. Spinal Tap is one of my all-time favorite movies. My favorite part is the two-word review of their album Shark Sandwich. Time to sharpen my credit card!

J.t.Qbe comments: "Stonehenge: where the demons dwell, where the banshees live and they do live well. . ." I think my favorite Spinal Tap album is "Intravenous de Milo". "But this one goes to 11." (J.t. has random Spinal Tap flashbacks)

Deus Ex special report -- 9:16 pm CST, Update by The Master

IGN's RPG Vault has an article entitled "Deus Ex Special Report," which is a "behind the scenes making of" interview with several team members from Ion Storm Austin, including Warren Spector.

As soon as I can actaully get ahead a bit, I intend to do a review of DX for The Haus. Unfortunately, I'm currently stuck in the fourth mission and need to work my way though it. Up side is I'm getting a lot of enjoyment out of the plot twists in the game. If you don't have it, get it. Five stars so far :-)

Daikatana map pack released -- 9:05 pm CST, Update by The Master

The promised Diakatana map pack has been released, containing 11 new multiplayer maps. It weighs in at a wopping 17.8 MB, so for those who actually like DK, go nuts.

A.T. Hun comments: YES! Even more frogs and mosquitos!

IIS security? Sure. When pigs fly. -- 8:54 am CST, Update by The Master

Okay, I know there are people out there foolish enough to be using IIS on Windows NT for their web server. Here's a tip. REMOVE any ISAPI filters for the .htr, .htw, and .idc extensions from your servers. NOW. Why? Hackers like being able to download anything from your server anytime they like. And guess what? These three extension processors let them do just that. And it ignores your security settings too! Gotta love IIS.

Get your geekcode -- 8:52 am CST, Update by The Master

For those who are geeky, check out the geek code, an online method of categorizing your geekiness. I had done this for myself a while ago, and it's worth a chuckle. Pretty sure I still have mine up on my homepage. Thanks UF for the reminder.

Wednesday, August 9, 2000

Micro$oft Moving Hotmail to Win2K -- 10:45 pm CST, Update by J.t.Qbe

Linux Today posted this news story about Micro$oft's conversion of Hotmail to Windows 2K. A few years ago, Micros~1 bought Hotmail and tried to move it from its Solaris platform to Windows NT. Quicker than a blue screen o' death, they had it back on Unix. For a few years now, it's been running on FreeBSD and Solaris, much to Micro$oft's embarrassment.

No more! To prove that Win2K is ready for enterprise use ("Blast it, Cap'n! The servers crashed and took the warp drive with 'em! Not even I'm that great a miracle worker!"), Micros~1 is moving Hotmail to run on Win2K servers. M$ claims that this will provide greater uptime and better service than the current BSD platform. To comment, I only have two words: har har!

Whopping Great John Carmack Interview -- 9:01 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Gamecenter has posted the first half of their big ol' interview with id's John Carmack at QuakeCon. The Dreamcast port is the main topic of conversation, but other programming-related topics are touched upon. As always, Carmack proves himself to be one clever, if verbose, guy. Thanks Blue's News.

Thief Gets a Stay of Execution -- 8:56 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

This press release declares formally what had been rumored for some time. Eidos Interactive has purchased the rights to the Thief series of games. Development has been turned over to ION Storm's Warren Spector, the man behind Deus Ex. No date has been given for Thief 3 and, given ION Storm's recent problems with meeting deadlines, don't expect one either. Thanks Blue.

Linux Gaming Market -- 4:27 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

John Carmack made a post on Slashdot talking about the market for Linux games. Sales of the Linux version of Quake III Arena were disappointing. Carmack offers what may be some reasons for this. In my case, the big issues were cost and availability. If I wanted to get the Linux version I had to pay twice as much and order it from an online store I had never heard of before. Thanks Shugashack.

J.t.Qbe comments: Up here in da Twin Cities, ya, you can get a fair selection of Loki ports at Electronics Boutique and even a few at Software Etc. Prices are about the same as the Window$ versions. Dat's purdy good, ya know (J.t. practices his Fargo accent)

Further Fun with OpenVMS -- 9:57 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The third and final (for now!) part of J.t.Qbe's series on VAX and OpenVMS has been posted. This part deals with installing OpenVMS. If you like computers, or are interested in the history of operating systems, or are a carbon-based life form, then you definitely want to check out this article! While you are at it, you might just want to check out part one and part two as well!

As a matter of fact, you could very well read all our Alternate OS articles! You might become so terribly intelligent that your boss just has to give you up to a million-dollar raise! Realize, of course, that the phrase "up to" clearly includes "none whatsoever," but do you want to take that risk?!?!

The Master comments: Okay-and you give me grief about hyperbole. Oh, and I remember the days of CD caddies. Heck, The Haus has my old Mitsumi 3x SCSI CD-ROM in it. With caddy :-)

Interview with David Braben -- 9:44 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Barry's World posted an interview with Frontier Developments' David Braben. Braben is perhaps best known as the co-author of J.t.Qbe's and my favorite game back in the day, Elite. The interview talks about the good old days and their upcoming plans, including news about Elite 4. Thanks Voodoo Extreme.

J.t.Qbe comments: Elite 4 is one of the few games which will make me upgrade my PC next year (Morrowind is the other). I hope the flight mechanics are more manageable (i.e. less realistic) than in the Frontier games (Elite 2 and 3), otherwise it'll extremely frustrating to fly!

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