Archive for the 'Old Archive' Category

August 4th, 2005

Hello everybody! How are you all?

I’m Nathan. I’ll be running this blog, though not writing for it. Clete2 has decided to discontinue blogging (at least for now), but that doesn’t mean that The Linux Blog should die. There are a few changes, though, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.

Firstly, I’ve created a basic design for the blog. It should give a bit more of a personal feel compared to the skin that Clete2 downloaded and installed before. There are a few quirks in the design on some of the subpages which will slowly get ironed out, but for now it’ll do.

Secondly, The Linux Blog needs a writer. I’ll do all of the other stuff (promotion, deleting comment spam, handling everything), I just need someone to do the writing. If anyone is interested, please add a comment here and I’ll drop you an e-mail.

Lastly, I’ve recategorized the site. The Linux Blog will no longer keep a gaming category, or a personal category. I’ve moved all of the existing posts (except those in the Linux, Technology, and Windows categories) into the “Archives” category, and have created several new categories. (This post is categorized under “Old Archive” too, so that people viewing that category have an idea of what’s going on.)

If you see any bugs, feel free to add a comment to this post and let me know. I’ll try and fix them.

Thanks!

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May 15th, 2005

After over half a year of inactivity, Legends 0.4.1c (a Tribes-like open-source game) is released!

Here’s a list of new features:

* In-game Admin setup system with plug-ins (Base Rape, Team Damage, Tourney)
* Observer Camera
* 3rd Person Reticle
* Explosions and Destroyed art for turret & inventory station.
* New Plasma Turret: model, sounds, team skins and script
* New Inventory Station: model, team skins and script
* New transitory GUI to improve art quality while developing a better GUI with new exe.
* New maps (Roughland and Ocular) for CTF
* Map updates (new skies, terrain etc)
* Deployable Station added with temporary art
* Server crash fixes on mission change
* Bugs fixed which were causing server lag � inventory accessing pause, plasma turrets etc
* Simplified Server/Client Prefs files into one Prefs.cs file, moved adminuserlist.cs to /prefs
* A lot of script changes and fixes (including the Arena Gametype)

Download here!

There are Linux and Windows clients (and servers) available for download.

Filed under Old Archive by Clete R. Blackwell 2
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April 14th, 2005

A while back, Microsoft said that it would remove the “temporary blocking mechanism,” which allowed users to opt-out of installing Windows XP Service Pack 2, on April 12th. From what was lead to believe by what I read, I assumed there would be no stopping the installation of SP2 besides turning automatic updates off entirely. I keep the updates on ( in fact, I received a minor patch today) and don’t keep any updates blocked. I have no received any mention of the updater attempting to download or install SP2.

So what happened April 12th?

P.S. I would try to see if it forced me to when installing updates using their online Windows Update, but it appears to be broken (in IE).

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April 11th, 2005

After a great week at the Masters, I’m home.

I went 6 out of 7 days, the most I have ever been and I probably had more fun watching this year than any other year that I remember.

On Sunday, I had a chair put down on 18 green for me. I managed to get a seat in the third row in the back of the green, which turned out to be an awesome spot and possibly the best spot on the green. There must have been over 30 rows behind me, so the third row is a great place to be.

I would had rather have Chris DiMarco win instead of another Tiger win, but there is always next year. In fact, I never want Tiger to win again; let’s see someone else who doesn’t have a bad attitude win. Nevertheless, I had a lot of fun and am rooting for Chris, Phil, and a few others next year.

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March 11th, 2005

This is our final in-depth look at the upcoming player-versus-player systems planned for World of Warcraft, and it deals with the new Honor System and Rewards. When these systems are deployed, there will be many more incentives for players to fight each other than just the thrill of the kill. And honorable PvP players will receive just rewards for fighting players that are of appropriate levels. We’re in the midst of testing these systems, but there is already a lot that we can share with you.

As we have mentioned before, when you kill other players or aggressive PvP-enabled non-player characters (NPCs) in your level range, you will receive an honorable kill. All your honorable kills for a week are then calculated to give you an honor score for that week, which then translates into an honor ranking. This honor ranking carries with it titles and material rewards, and eventually, officer status and other perks.

[…]

Schweet.

After this post, I am limiting the amount of gaming content on The Linux Blog. If you would like to read my gaming posts (some will be here, but not many), please check out my profile on Great Big Blog.

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March 3rd, 2005

Years ago, the main Linux projects, KDE and GNOME started. Today, they are growing steadily along with the rest of Linux. Linux is growing fast (in development and user amounts), but can it keep up ease of use for the majority of people who know little to nothing about computers?

Personally, I have been with Linux and computers so long that large issues for most people are minute or non-existent issues for me. I haven’t really looked into the topic of ease-of-use for a very long time. Hey, I’m using Gentoo, I don’t care about “easy,” I just want to make it look, run, and perform well, while having fun tweaking, fixing things, and helping the community. Since I have not followed GNOME much, this will be mostly about KDE.

Kicking off with window grouping (when you have many windows open, it groups similar ones). In Windows XP, right-click on the taskbar, click properties, and uncheck window grouping. Simple enough, yet I know quite a few people who can’t even do that. In KDE, you have choice. You can always group, sometimes group, or never group. It is obtained in a similar fashion by right-clicking the taskbar, clicking taskbar properties, and choosing the approporiate option.

At KDE’s first boot (under the username you logged in with), you go through a simple wizard, much like the Windows one, but has more choices and options, such as which style to use, what effects to use, etc. It adequately explains about the styles and you can even preview them and choose one to your liking. With effects, it’s really simple if you don’t have the time or knowlege to choose what you want, as it will automatically adjust based on your system’s specifications, which Windows also incorporates. Both window managers (we are considering the Windows interface a window manager) will ask you about what language and country you wish to use, though KDE has more options, as Microsoft expects you to buy the correct version for your language (not saying that it is impossible to change the language afterwords). For example, KDE will have options for all of the continents (that is, if you have the localization package installed or it came by default), while for me, Windows has only North America.

When arranging icons on your desktop, Windows can be confusing. I have never figured out how it works. I set it to snap to grid, auto arrange, and arrange by name, but I still have “DarkSpace” on the bottom of the first row, then things like “FarCry” and “Mozilla Firefox” on the second row, and then on the third row, “Doom 3 Demo.” In other words, it will not arrange correctly. It’s just plain confusing even to experienced users. KDE, on the other hand, is easy to use in the area, easily arranging icons either vertically or horizontally and sorting by name, size, or other.

Theming in Windows is extremely easy. Simply open up your desktop properties, change to the appearence tab, and change your style. It is customizable, but only to a certain extent. As of now, there are not many Windows themes out that do not require third-party applications. KDE is fairly easy as well, but more thorough. Opening the desktop properties, and changing multiple aspects of the theme. You can enable/disable most options and/or edit most of the schematics as well.

KDE wins hands-down in the area of multiple desktops. That is, where you can select a window and set it to another “desktop,” where you then click on a button in the taskbar to pull it up again (change “desktops”), which also minimizes the current windows in the current “desktop.” You can easily customize almost any features about it that you want. I won’t spend all day on this point, as you cannot even compare the two, as Windows does not have it by default. For Windows, you will need a third-party application.

Installing programs in Windows, generally, is much easier than in Linux. It all depends on your distribution. If you have Gentoo, it is relatively easy, when it works, that is. A simple emerge x. Same goes for Debian. Then you get into what people call the “newbie” distributions. Mandrake, Fedora, and SuSE just to name a few. They use mostly RPMs, which are fairly easy as well, but some Mandrake RPMs are not SuSE compatiable and such. In Windows, most programs have graphical installers, whereas generally, only programs like Firefox or OpenOffice.org in Linux do. One would guess that the reason for this is that most distributions come with almost all of the packages you will ever need on their installer CD. No need, really. Most programs will be straight-up with you, asking you where to install it and giving you a range of options. There really isn’t too much competition in this area. Hands-down Windows, that is, until Linux developers begin to write more installers.

For users who have more than a minimum amount of knowledge in computers, both control centers are great tools, but for those who have minimum knowledge, they can both become frustrating. Windows has its new menu system in XP, which is nice, but it is still hard to find things. It’s so simplistic that it is not simple at all, if that makes any sense. KDE has nearly the same problem.

Linux has progressed greatly in the years since its beginning, but so has Windows. There is a constant battle for the desktop. Microsoft plans to release its new operating system, Longhorn, in the coming years, but by then, KDE will have QT4 released along with a whole new version. KDE 3.4 has great improvements as well. Is Linux (or should I say KDE) friendly enough? Almost. Is Windows friendly enough? Yes. Should the average user need to learn a little bit more about computers? Yes, but this is debatable (you may find that Linux users will say mostly yes, while Windows users will shout a resounding no).

Filed under Linux, Old Archive by Clete R. Blackwell 2
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March 2nd, 2005

Yesterday, I posted a contest on here and Sharky Forums for my 10-day guest pass.

Sometime between 11PM EST last night and when I woke up this morning, taggart6 of Sharky Forums (stemms from Sharky Extreme) won and has confirmed it.

Thanks for trying.

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March 1st, 2005

I have a 10-day World of Warcraft trial pass. All the people I tried to give it to declined, so I have made a “contest.”

It’s very simplistic. Don’t try to abuse it, please.

Just visit:

https://linux-blogger.com/boringcontest.php

and it will tell you if you have won or not. If you win, you get an image that appears blank, but is actually one of the easiest image puzzles posted here a while ago. You have a 1 in 100 chance. You may try once per hour.

If you cannot figure out the puzzle, e-mail me ([email protected] or the one supplied on the page). If you need the World of Warcraft CDs, contact me as well.

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February 23rd, 2005

Click to enlarge.

Source Update

Source Update

Source Update

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February 21st, 2005

The intent of this alert is to provide you with a reminder about the upcoming deadline around the date on which Automatic Updates (AU) and Windows Update (WU) will deliver Windows XP SP2 regardless of the presence of the blocking mechanism. This dateline is quickly approaching.

Based on customer feedback, Microsoft provided the ability to temporarily block the delivery of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) via Automatic Update (AU) and Windows Update (WU) in August 2004, so that our customers can complete their testing and implementation of their deployment mechanism for SP2.

Beginning 12 April 2005 this temporarily blocking mechanism will expire and systems with Automatic Update enabled or interactively download SP2 via Windows Update will begin receiving SP2. Note that this is also the scheduled day for the monthly cumulative release of security updates.

Microsoft strongly encourage customers to take the appropriate steps to implement SP2 deployment decisions by that time. More information and guidance about this temporary blocking mechanism at source.

Article.

Time to turn off automatic updates, as Windows XP Service Pack 2 will be forced. What I mean by forced is not what it sounds, but you cannot “ignore” it as before, where you could uncheck it and tell it not to remind you of updates again. I would have to recommend turning automatic updates off by April 12th.

Filed under Old Archive by Clete R. Blackwell 2
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