Friday, March 30, 2001

Pondering the Imponderable -- 6:44 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I finally got the Half-Life: Blue Shift movie to download (I had to get it from FilePlanet). The high definition enhancements look pretty cool. It also noted that Opposing Force will be included with Blue Shift. Just another reason for me to get it. Of course, as I said before, I really should get back to finishing the original Half-Life.

IE 5.01/5.5 Exploit -- 3:05 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

A new exploit has been found in Internet Explorer 5.01 and 5.5. I could rather easily allow someone to execute an email attachment or a file embedded in a web page if it were given a bad MIME header. Check out this M$ security bulletin to download a patch. Thanks Slashdot.

WWII Online Interview -- 2:33 pm CST, Update by The Master

There's an interview on MacNN with some folks from Cornered Rat Software, developers of World War II Online. This looks like a cool game, I hope it's (a) reasonably priced and (b) accessible, since this is right up my alley >:-)

Thursday, March 29, 2001

More M$ Licensing Fun -- 10:09 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

InternetWeek writes of the trials and travails a company must go through to make sure you have licenses for all your Microsoft software. Microsoft deserves to be paid if someone wants to use their software, but I don't remember them being named the fourth branch of government. I don't know if I've ever known a company to show such utter contempt for their customers. Thanks Linux Today.

J.t.Qbe comments: Not "customers," A.t. Microsoft deals with "consumers," faceless masses who exist solely to pay money to Microsoft. When Micros~1 says "jump," you're supposed to ask "How high?" It's only a matter of time before more and more get off the merry-go-round. Mexico City, for example, is scrapping its use of Microsoft software and going to Linux, planning to save millions. Ditto for Mexico's schools. It's only the beginning.

Blue Shift for the PC -- 9:14 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Gearbox has announced that they will be releasing Half-Life: Blue Shift for the PC. Previously Blue Shift was supposed to be Dreamcast only. In addition to a whole new episode, it will add "high definition" versions of the Half-Life weapons and characters. A movie containing gameplay footage is available for download. Cool stuff for Half-Life fans! I suppose this means I should finally finish the original game sometime. Thanks Stomped.

BGII Wrap-Up -- 8:48 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The CEOs of Bioware wrote a wrap-up of Baldur's Gate II for Gamespot. It's sort of like Gamasutra's postmortems, but this one mainly focuses on the lessons learned during the production of BGII. Thanks Blue.

Sadly, I don't know that I have the patience to put in the kind of investment of time and effort necessary to play BGII. I think the first person shooters have ruined my attention span. Having said that, I wish I could play BGII in purely turn-based mode. I prefer to be able to sit back and think about my next move. Granted, you can pause the action, but it's not the same thing.

J.t.Qbe comments: You're right--it isn't. I only played a bit of Baldur's Gate; couldn't stand the "real-time action." Same for Planescape:Torment. I want to like these games, but the obligatory real-time element spoils it. IMHO.

Past Two Days' News

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