Saturday, June 29, 2002

Nasty Media Player EULA Change -- 1:57 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

With the latest patch for Microsoft's Windows Media Player comes a rather nasty surprise. By agreeing to the EULA, you are agreeing to let M$ install Digital Rights Management software to your OS and disable programs that would be able to circumvent the DRM. Yikes! Words fail me. Thanks Slashdot.

Excuse me while I reboot to Windows and uninstall Windows Media Player.

Apache Vulnerability -- 12:43 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

CERT has released an advisory about a vulnerability in Apache, the software that runs the majority of web servers on the Net. It affects Apache 1.2x, 1.3x, and 2.0x. Check the link for new versions of Apache that fix the problem. Apparently a worm has already been discovered which takes advantage of this exploit. Thanks Ars Technica.

It's the Little Things -- 11:28 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Now that I've been using Linux almost exclusively for some time, there are little things about Windows9x that have become REALLY annoying. One was a pet peeve of mine before I switched over. When I'm going through the Start Menu, if some other program starts running (at boot) or a message window pops up, I'm immediately dropped out of the menu. The Start Menu should never, ever lose focus. Thankfully, KDE nips this one in the bud. I also made the mistake of tweaking my Windows Explorer settings. Now all of my directories are marked "view as web page" so I have to go through and change them all by hand. Blech. Whoever at MS decided that a web page metaphor would be a good idea for a file manager should be shot without trial.

Thursday, June 27, 2002

John Carmack .plan Update -- 10:16 pm CST, Update by The Master

The ubergeek John Carmack updated his .plan with some corrections on his earlier .plan update (story) apologizing for some of his conclusions on Matrox new graphics chipset, and some comments on the new 3DLabs set. If you like mega-deep programming, go there. Now.

A.T. Hun comments: Well, that wasn't much of an apology :) The majority of his comments stand. It was interesting to see how impressed he was with 3DLabs P10 card. It's nice to see other companies keeping the heat on good old NVIDIA. Now if someone would do the same with Creative and their soundcards . . .

The Master comments: Dunno, from Carmack that's quite an apology. It's not often that he's wrong on technical issues with graphics :-)

John Entwistle R.I.P. -- 8:28 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

One of my favorite bass players (I used to play bass back in the day), John Entwistle of The Who, died today in Las Vegas of an apparent heart attack. He was 57. Entwistle didn't jump all over the place like his bandmates. He stood almost completely still and completely shredded. He was one of the first guys who made it cool to be a bass player. I saw this link on Shacknews.

NWN Linux Server Released -- 5:51 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Bioware has released the Linux server for Neverwinter Nights. Hopefully this means that the Linux client won't be far behind. Unfortunately the installation instructions for the server include installing the game in Windows and then copying the data files over. Hopefully that won't be necessary for the Linux client. Of course, I'd be able to do it anyway. It would just be an extra step (or two).

Rob King Interviewlet on RPGDot -- 3:15 pm CST, Update by J.t.Qbe

RPGDot has a short email interview with Rob King, composer for the last 4 Might & Magic games and some of the Heroes games too. It's fun fluff if you like those games. His music for the Might & Magics is some of my all-time favorite game music.

Is Palladium the GPL Killer? -- 9:35 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

That's what The Register thinks anyway. Granted, this article is filled with the usual Register hubris, but there are a lot of good points made. The thing that gets me about Palladium is that it will not exist to enhance my security, but the content providers' security, ensuring that Joe Six Pack isn't doing naughty things with his computer. It assumes tacitly that every computer user is a crook who needs Microsoft's all-powerful hand to keep him in line. Right. Thankfully, I have complete trust and confidence that Microsoft will find a way to screw this up. Although with all the negative press I'm reading, even from more "mainstream" publications, they might never get the chance to screw it up. Thanks Slashdot.

J.t.Qbe comments: Yep, once again Microsoft is making a bid to take computing power out of the hands of the user. Are you ready to place ALL your trust in Microsoft?

But I think it's going to have a very tough time getting off the ground. This thing will need to sell millions to tens of millions in order to be successful, and I don't think that'll fly. Businesses will have to replace their existing PC inventory completely, and that's a LOT of cash. For what? For some extra "security." Average users will have to buy whole new computers. Why? Allegedly to protect from viruses and spam. When users find out what they'll have to give up, they'll say no. I hope so, anyway--there are a lot of sheep out there.

No Old News

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