Thursday, January 17, 2002

No More Visors -- 12:09 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

VisorCentral got word that Handspring plans to exit the "traditional organizer" market. No word on when they plan to do this, what it will mean for their Visor line of PDAs, or what will happen with their Springboard technology. It may be a risky strategy to go purely with their unproven Treo communicator line. On the other hand, maybe they are simply conceding defeat to PocketPC devices. Whatever the case, I can't say that I'm thrilled with the news.

Microsoft Security? -- 11:44 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Bill Gates apparently wants to make "Microsoft Security" an oxymoron no longer. He issued a memo calling security "more important than any other part of our work." Here's what he plans to do:

The new emphasis on security will include the unprecedented step of stopping development on new operating-system software for the entire month of February and sending the company's 7,000 systems programmers to a special security-training program. The company also plans to re-examine all of its Windows operating-system code in an effort to find security flaws.

Time will tell if this is an actual philosophical shift at the software giant or if it is merely a p.r. ploy. I sincerely hope that it is the former, but I want proof, not words. Thanks Slashdot (N.B. I found a new link to the article since the one on Slashdot's front page is broken).

J.t.Qbe comments: The whole memo is an interesting read--you can catch it at The Register, along with The Register's typically interesting commentary. If you get Usenet, check out the thread on comp.os.vms too. In toto the memo is rather arrogant (so it must be authentic billg), implying that there is no such thing as a secure platform, but Microsoft will be the one to give it to us. And it'll involve .NET. Uh, Bill? VMS? OpenBSD? Oh wait, those don't put cash into his pocket.

Yer All Buffle-headed -- 10:24 am CST, Update by J.t.Qbe

Over at the Baldur's Gate forum on PlanetBaldursGate, there's word that today is Imoen's birthday. I suppose today's as good as any. If you don't have any idea what I'm talking about, "Yer all buffle-headed" is one of her memorable lines from the game. It's meaningless, she's cute, and that combo has ended up in marriage for many of us.

I bought Baldur's Gate on the day it first showed up at Best Buy in Minneapolis at the end of '98. Three times I've tried and failed to like the game, but this fourth time is going well. The secret: BG kind of looks like Diablo, but it isn't Diablo. Play it like Diablo and you'll get slaughtered. Play it as AD&D and you'll have fun.

I really need to get some sleep one of these days.

Tuesday, January 15, 2002

Deus Ex 2 interview -- 8:32 pm CST, Update by The Master

Gamespot has posted an interview with studio director Warren Spector and project leader Harvey Smith, covering some info on DX2. Not much new info on DX2, but some interesting stuff on what is going into the game. I can't wait myself. I just finished playing through DX 1 for the 5th time or so. Didn't even use god mode this time around :-)

No Old News

The Haus is powered by:

All original information on this website is copyright © TheHaus.Net, 1999-2005. The use of original images, text, and/or code from this website without expressed written consent is prohibited. The authors of this site cannot be held responsible for any damage, real or imagined, which comes from the use of information presented on this site. All trademarks used are the properties of their respective owners. This site is not to be used as a floatation device (but if you try, I want a video tape of it).