Sunday, April 15, 2001

Security Issues with RPMs -- 7:43 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

SecurityPortal has an article on potential security issues with Linux RPMs. I'm not sure how big of a concern this really is. Even if you compiled the source, you still need to install it as root. Someone could put nasty code in there to destroy your world. I know I don't have the time, inclination, or programming acumen to dig through every file looking for malicious code. Still, the article raises some valid points that would be good to keep in mind. Thanks Slashdot.

New Ask Sweeney -- 5:35 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

VoodooExtreme posted a new Ask (Epic's Tim) Sweeney. As usual, the Q&A column covers a wide variety of topics in Sweeney's strait-to-the-point style. I like this answer in particular:

Mark - Another question for ya. Same thing, Winsock VS DirectPlay8 I don't know of any games using the new DirectPlay8 (Which was completely rewritten). Any news on that? Does DirectPlay actually use Winsock itself?

Tim - The answer here is much easier. DirectPlay is a bloated heap of junk kept alive by who-knows-what internal political forces at Microsoft. Everyone wishes they'd just kill the thing. Windows Sockets (the other Microsoft networking API, by the way!) is much better. All of the other DirectX8 components are excellent, though: Direct3D, DirectSound, and DirectInput.

This comment also startled me, especially with how many in the hardware press have pushed the Kyro II as A Good Thing:

ps - What's your take on the kyro2 and tile based rendering?

Tim - It's a competent TNT2 class chip, and the sorting and alpha-testing artefacts of past generations seem to have been sorted out successfully. But, like every generation of PowerVR hardware before it, it's a day late and a dollar short. It lacks support for basic DirectX7 (yes, 7!) features like cube maps. The kyro developers are cool guys, so it pains me to say that this is just not a viable piece of hardware in the market it's trying to compete in.

Happy Easter! -- 12:13 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Happy Easter to one and all from The Haus! We had my son's baptism today so a zillion of my relatives are over here. The Master is also visiting relatives, but he should be poking his head in later on tonight. Enjoy the day!

Saturday, April 14, 2001

Iomega Settles Lawsuit -- 10:41 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Iomega has settled the lawsuit against them. The suit was a result of the problem with early Zip drives known affectionately as the "clicks of death." Customers who bought Zip drives will be given rebates on various Iomega products. Not the greatest settlement in the world, but it's something.

I received my letter in the mail about this a couple of days ago. My first external Zip got the clicks of death and I replaced it with an internal model. It was cheaper to get a new one than to get my old one fixed. Dunno what (if anything) I'm going to do with the rebate.

AvantGo 4.0 Available -- 9:11 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Version 4.0 of AvantGo is available for download. AvantGo allows PDA owners to view specially formatted web content on their devices. Version 4.0 adds the following new features:

• Support for Windows 2000
• AvantGo Connect (tm) replaces Mobile Link
• Additions to the AvantGo Menu Bar
  • The Multiple Servers Arrow. If you have multiple servers configured on your device, you can easily switch between them by clicking the Multiple Servers arrow next to the Home icon.
  • If you are using AvantGo Wireless, the Progress Bar in the main menu now shows the percentage of the page downloaded.
• Support for 16-bit images

Some of the prompts on AvantGo's site still refer to 3.x. Just ignore them. The version you download will be 4.0. Thanks Visor Central.

And, by the way, don't forget to check out The Haus' AvantGo channel!

Pondering the Imponderable -- 8:54 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

For some reason, I decided to play Quake 2 all the way to the end. I had never even completed the first mission before (I bought it right before Q3A came out to play vs. the Eraser bot and to try it online). It's a reasonably fun game, but the ending was about as lame as it could possibly be. Oh well.

Recently I had tried the 7.52 and 6.50 Detonators with my TNT2 Ultra. The good thing was that they worked with Shogo without locking up. The bad thing (or maybe the intolerable thing) is that both of them cause horrible desktop graphical corruption after running OpenGL apps for a while. I switched back to the ever-faithful 5.22s, which never had that problem. If the corruption remains, I fear the card might be croaking on me. Let's hope not. I don't have the $$ to replace it.

The Master comments: If you want the end of Q2 to be challenging, be sure to NOT bring the BFG, rail or a Quad with you. Gads but that was an easy ending.

Past Two Days' News

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