Tuesday, May 15, 2001

Somebody slap M$ -- 3:32 pm CST, Update by The Master

Just had a very interesting article sent to me by DT on Microsoft's Upgrade Ultimatum. Read. Discuss. Arm your nukes and pitch at Redmond. Bleargh.

A.T. Hun comments: *cough* Linux *cough*

The Master comments: Unfortunately, it's not that easy. While personal users can afford sacrificing whatever data is locked into M$ proprietary servers and files, businesses cannot. And that is precisely who M$ is attacking to finance their gross profits. So those companies that are now on Microsoft Exchange Server, or any of the other plethora of BackOffice servers, are pretty much stuck there, helpless targets for the Microsoft spider.

Team Haus Update -- 2:12 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Just a quick update on our Team Haus effort. It seems that United Devices finally got the team stats figured out. Team Haus members, check your stats on that page to make sure they are correct. Mine look fine. We have almost reached a full year of CPU time, thanks in large part to Chet "Don't Call Me Skippy" Stuart and Crawl "Just Crawl" Duescher.

Opera 5 for Linux Released -- 10:49 am CST, Update by J.t.Qbe

Yep, you heard it here first: Opera has just released the Linux build of version 5 of its web browser. Get it here.

Is it coincidence? This morning I closed Netscrape on my Windoze box and got a Windows registry error message. Now it won't boot. If I have to reinstall Windows (and bother to reinstall Windows at all), Netscape will no longer be welcome. I've been a Netscape zealot for years, but this is The End.

The Master comments: It never ceases to amaze me how easy Windows makes it to corrupt the most vital portion of the O/S. How about a transactional method of accessing the damn registry, M$?!?

J.t.Qbe comments: When the integrity of the entire OS depends on that file, it should not be so easy to destroy. It should at least be easier to recover. And come on Microsoft: give us TEXT configuration files, not BINARY!!! Binary is a disaster waiting to happen. Oh wait, it already did.

The Master responds: Yes-which is why I argue for at LEAST a transactional model for registry files-all operations on a registry file should be atomic, and logged. If one fails, or the system fails for some reason, the operation should roll back as if it never happened. Better still would be if the registry automatically protected boot-level keys so if one was corrupted it could roll back to whenever the changes began to that key. But, I'm dreaming, so I'll got back to programming now . . .

A.T. Hun comments: I really don't have anything to add other than I feel the almost urgent need to comment.

The Master comments: Ah, you were just feeling left out :-)

Monday, May 14, 2001

Runs Great, Sucks Less -- 7:21 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

ZDNet encourages you to try using Linux as your primary OS in the article Runs Great, Sucks Less. Basically those are the two reasons to give it a whirl. That's still my goal, to convert completely over to Linux. That's a goal that's within my reach now. Thanks Linux Today.

Q3:TA Map Pack 2 Released -- 12:56 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Paul Jaquays updated his .plan with word that id has released their second map pack for Quake III: Team Arena. Here's the goods:

Three months to the day after releasing Team Arena Map Pack 1, we're proud to announce the release of a second map pack for the Quake III Arena game expansion, Quake III: Team Arena. As before, this id-approved map pack contains the work of four mappers from the on-line gaming community. This time, three are conversions of previously released Quake III Arena Capture the Flag maps (Dynatron by Ned Man, Courtyard Conundrum by Casey of Threewave, and Smear Campaign by riscchip). The fourth map (PYRmageddon)is an original map, created for Quake III: Team Arena. These maps have be modified and updated to work with the four Team Arena game types: Capture the Flag, One Flag CTF, Overload, and Harvester.

These maps are an exciting addition to the growing number of maps availablb for Quake III: Team Arena and will make a great addition to the map rotation on any server.

You can download the TA_mappak2 at id's ftp site.

Team Arena Map Pak 2

File size is 17.35 mg. Other download mirrors will be announced here as they become available.

You can snag it from id, or Blue's News.

RealArcade Opens -- 9:25 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Real has opened up their RealArcade service. It offers downloadable and web games, including Monolith's Tex Atomic Big Bot Battles. I'm going to download TABBB. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. Thanks VoodooExtreme.

The Master comments: They had some snapshots of TABBB online someplace or other, and I thought they actually looked pretty good. That won't matter if the gameplay sucks, however.

A.T. Hun comments: Guess what? It crashes on start-up!

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