Tuesday, December 19, 2000

XFree86 4.0.2 Released -- 11:40 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Slashdot is reporting that XFree86 4.0.2, the popular free version of the X windowing system, has been released. It includes a bunch of new fixes. A complete list of the changes can be found here. Hopefully Mandrakesoft will have the new packages up soon so I can update.

Mac Q3:TA Demo and re:CD Keys -- 11:24 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

id's Graeme Devine updated his .plan with news of the release of the Quake III: Team Arena demo for the Macintosh.

I've posted the Mac Team Arena demo up at:

ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/teamarena/mac

He also gives some information on problems some people are experiencing with CD-keys in Q3A and Q3:TA, as well as some common solutions.

Mac Q3A 1.27g Beta Patch -- 2:53 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

id Software has released a beta version of the 1.27g patch for Quake III Arena for the Macintosh. It is a 17.6M download. Please note that it is beta, so if beta software makes you itchy, you might want to wait for awhile. Thanks Blue.

More Helpful PalmOS Software -- 10:10 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I have been searching for a decent program for my Handspring Visor that would allow me to keep track of birthdays and anniversaries by tying in to the built-in Date Book. I think I found just such a program in Happy Days. You enter all the information in a custom field in the built-in address book, then Happy Days reads all the information and adds the events to the Date Book, the To Do List, or both. It doesn't necessarily have the slickest interface in the world, and some of the docs suffer a bit in translation since the author is Korean. But once you figure it out, it is pretty powerful. Best of all it is open-source, released under the terms of the GPL.

Monday, December 18, 2000

NFL Week #16 Final -- 11:23 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Did I mention that Warrick Dunn is my hero? Not only did he save me from the humiliation of a sub-.500 week, he also gave my Lions control of their own destiny for the playoffs. If the Lions win next Sunday, they are in and the defending Super Bowl champs are out.

At any rate, Eeyore and I were both 8-7. That brings my overall record to 148-85 (.635) and Eeyore is 120-98 (.550). Only one week left in the regular season!

3dfx Obituary -- 7:03 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Gamecenter posted an obituary for 3dfx. It covers the history of the company, from what made it great to what made it fall. I question their timeline on a few issues, but it is a good summary. The good news for 3dfx folks is that NVIDIA announced that they were going to extend over 100 job offers to former 3dfx staff. Thanks VoodooExtreme.

This is another article where Rendition's Verite 1000 and 2000 series chips could have been mentioned more. They were a legitimate player in the 3D field until they fell on their faces with the 3000 series. In the cutthroat world of computing, you are only one product cycle away from extinction.

Q3A 1.27g Single Player Bug -- 5:23 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I came across a bug in Quake III Arena single player with the 1.27g patch. Instead of using the frag limit for that level, it uses whatever the fraglimit cvar is set to. There are only two ways around this:

1. Manually set fraglimit to whatever it should be for that level before you start it. The problem is that you need to know what it is supposed to be first.
2. Once the map starts, pull down the console, type map_restart, and hit return. That will restart the map (duh) with a five second countdown and set the fraglimit to what it should be. Thankfully, with the new patch it doesn't have to load the entire level, all the entities, and all the models all over again.

UPDATE! 12/19 I've found that option #2 doesn't always work, especially if timelimit or fraglimit have already been set. It also has produced some weird errors for me (like on q3tourney2 where I ended up fighting two Hunters).

Pondering the Imponderable -- 12:07 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I found out what was causing any version of WinAmp > 2.64 to GPF on me. I had an old DSP effect plug-in running that doesn't seem to like the newer WinAmps all that much. I tried to download the new version but the link on the plug-in's site is broken. Go figure.

I looked at some other plug-ins like this. I don't understand how people try to get away with charging $20 for a plug-in to a free program. Maybe I'm just getting too used to open-source stuff in Linux.

In other news, we're supposed to get up to another half-foot of snow today. Better saddle up the tauntauns.

Past Two Days' News

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