Monday, September 16, 2002

UT2K3 Tricks -- 8:59 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

3DGPU posted a list of tricks and special moves for Unreal Tournament 2003. It includes adrenaline moves, cheat codes, and even how to try out the Redeemer super-weapon. As The Master noted earlier, we played a bit of Bombing Run with me hosting a server, him, and four bots. A good time was had by all.

Bleh -- 11:21 am CST, Update by The Master

Spent some time trying out the UT2003 demo yesterday, both offline and online with A.T. This is an awesome game. I've been very off of FPS games the last 6 months or so, and this one really drew me in. Lots of gratuitous gibbage, flaming heads, etc. Wheee >:-)

On another note: I've been working on building a new Haus box. Our current box is fine, but really limits what I can do with it. So, I've been fiddling with a new machine, and while it's been an interesting experience, I have to criticize Red Hat for removing all the good character-based admin tools in RH7. Now, I know a "real" linux junkie would just edit the config files with vi, but I don't need that kind of pain in my life. Pfft.

On ANOTHER note, I've been trying to get up the courage to remove Linux from my home box, and reinstall Windows ME on my extra HD. I've been running Win2K, and while I like it a lot, my older games DON'T. The most annoying being Deus Ex, which does this really cool psycho-mouse routine, then you end up staring at the ceiling while the game runs at 1 frame per year. Eidos has already said they won't do anything about it, so I guess they've lost one of their most successful games to Microsoft's OS migration strategy. Too bad.

J.t.Qbe comments: Interesting--Deus Ex ran just fine on my Win2K computer from work, far better than on my Win98 machine. I'm really fascinated by the lemminglike rush to move to XP, then the complaints that older games won't work on it. Uh, didn't you check that out before you threw more money down the Microsoft toilet? Seems like upgrading to XP is the "poor man's" way to be geeky--not smart enough to take up Unix, so I'll spend money on a new version of Windows!

This last weekend I picked up a used Celeron 400 system for $15, so I installed Mandrake 9 RC2 on it--it's the fastest Linux machine I've ever had. It's certainly the easiest OS installation I've ever see, ANY OS; the only tough part has been configuring my sound card (an old SB AWE64 PnP), and it's always been a problem anyway. For ease of use, Mandrake 9 is very very nice.

The Master comments: Yup, that's why I stopped at Win2K--I needed an O/S for programming that didn't die every 2 seconds, but that caused some game issues. I wasn't expecting Deus Ex to be an issue, so I didn't worry about it. I won't touch XP since all the reports of compatibility issues, not to mention the fact that they just TRASHED that O/S from an interface perspective. If I wanted that much pretty, I could run Gnome for free.

Sunday, September 15, 2002

Minor Security Flaw in Mozilla -- 10:40 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

MozillaZine reports that there is a minor security flaw in all current releases of Mozilla. Basically it allows a website that uses the onUnload Javascript handler to find out what website you are going to. Unfortunately, this issue has been known for awhile, but hasn't been fixed yet.

There is a simple workaround, though. Create a file called user.js (if it doesn't already exist) in the same directory as your prefs.js file. Add this line to it:

user_pref("capability.policy.default.Window.onunload", "noAccess");

As far as security flaws go, this is a rather minor one. I suppose it's only really problem if you visit a porn website right after your church website or something :) Despite the fact that it is minor, I'm very disappointed that it's been known for months, but hasn't been fixed yet.

NFL Week #2 So Far -- 10:24 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Brutal, that's all I can say. Barring a miracle tonight and a win tomorrow, I am going to have my worst weekend with the picks in three seasons. All the games that I went back and forth on, I picked wrong. On top of it all, the Rams choked so my fantasy team lost too. Grr. Eeyore, however, is doing quite nicely. I am a near-comatose 5-9 while she is 8-6.

UPDATE! Let it bleed! With one game left, I'm 5-10, Eeyore is 8-7.

Installing the UT2K3 Demo in Linux -- 8:34 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

BeyondUnreal posted a guide to installing the Unreal Tournament 2003 demo and setting up a dedicated server in Linux. He even supplies IPTables chains for running it behind a firewall. The installation of the demo is pretty straightforward. I like the installation instructions zakk gave on the UT2K3 mailinglist:

1. sh UT2003-Demo-Linux.sh.bin
2. ???
3. Profit!

You have to be a South Park fan to appreciate that one. I know I did!

UT2K3 Demo Patch Today -- 1:56 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The Unreal Technology page has been updated indicating that a patch for the Unreal Tournament 2003 demo will be released today. That will give them the opportunity to test their auto-updater as well as fix some bugs. Blue also pointed to a couple of forum posts. Mark Rein apologized for breaking Voodoo support in the demo. CliffyB posted about how to get rid of the announcer if you find him too annoying. He's over-the-top, but he doesn't bother me.

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