Big Explosion

This is footage from a test I recently conducted. I just thought some of you might find it interesting:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7568822525362405530

Also, I find it interesting that our president pronounces nuclear as 'nuke-u-lar'. What an ass.

Your world. Delivered. To the NSA.

F.E.A.R.

Every day I venture deep into untold chasms of technology and innovation just for you, special reader, however, most days you're not important enough to me to take time out of my day to tell you about them.

Monday night I finally beat the game 'F.E.A.R.' I started it shortly after it came out, but only recently had the time to finish it. I'm not going to do a review, and I don't have fancy things like 'scoring systems' and 'awards' and 'numbers'. Anyway, most places beat the game in a day, and had a review out before the game was ever released. You don't need me to tell you what they already have.

I will say that even though I was playing it on an older generation video card (GeForce 6600GT), the game still looked beautiful. If you're having any trouble with frame rates, make sure you've got the latest nVidia drivers, and the .4 patch for F.E.A.R. Those two things helped me a great deal.

Anyway, if you haven't played (and finished) F.E.A.R. yet, and you have a computer that can support it (I wouldn't recommend running it with less than a 6600GT/6800), do it. While it didn't get the press of Doom3 or HalfLife2, it's certainly up there.

Initial Impressions of SuSE 10.1

At work, I use a computer with OpenSuSE as an HTTP and MySQL server for various web applications I develop. I also use this same computer to develop those applications. While we are almost completely a Microsoft house, using SuSE provides me with a much more stable server environment, faster response, and of course, we don't have to buy another Windows Server license.

With the release of OpenSuSE 10.1, I figured now would be a good time to update. 10.1 promised FireFox 1.5, MySQL 5.0, and KDE 3.5. Now I know you can download these packages and install them, or use blah-blah installation source, but I'm not a linux-power-user, and I didn't feel like taking the time for these updates.

I downloaded the first 3 CDs for OpenSuSE 10.1, and installed. The installation went very smoothly, and I was happy to see my SATA drives work without having to use compatibility mode, as I did in 10.0. I was also happy to see my graphic card be properly detected and have hardware acceleration work. I set the proxy settings, update settings, and was done. Smooth little 10.1 installation moving right along.

First off, I was very happy with KDE 3.5. I know the average linux user is more interested in console commands than a streamlined GUI, but I sit infront of a computer 12 hours a day, and damn it, I want to enjoy what I'm looking at.

FireFox 1.5 is a very welcome upgrade, and I noticed it comes with a Beagle extension already installed. While my first instinct was to uninstall it, I'm going to leave it and see how it works. I code for Opera 8.5+ and FireFox 1.5, so having my target browser on my development box and server is going to be a big help.

I was treated to one big upfront disappointment, however. Using OpenSuSE 10.0, I was familiar with YaST Online Update, which was a wonderful feature. In OpenSuSE 10.1, I'm having all sorts of problems with it. It is telling me I need updates for things I don't have installed, doesn't find dependencies for things I do have installed, and simply closes itself if I try to just proceed and update my system.

I got a lot of help from the people at alt.os.linux.suse related to this issue, and apparently 10.1 has quite a different package system from 10.0. While there is a lot of potential to this new system, apparently, it isn't helping me. At least not yet. I like my programs up to date with the latest versions, and security fixes. A couple resources I was pointed to:

• This SuSE Diary on blogspot has a pretty detailed guide to setting up the automatic update feature. While I still couldn't get things to work after following this guide, I learned a lot from it, and I think my issue may be the exception, not the norm.
• The SuSE Linux Wiki has a guide on using Smart as a package manager. I'm reluctant to install a different package manager when it seems like 10.1 already has two, but it looks promising, and may be worth trying if anyone else is having this difficulty.
• The Weekly Rant has an article about using y2pmsh, the old SuSE package manger, with SuSE 10.1.
  

I wish we could standardize on a package management system. Some day...

I'll Be Here For A Month

If you've made any attempt to keep up with my blogging, you'll know I've gone through a wide number of options in a short amount of time. This is my style. Stick with one thing too long, you get lazy. So here, in my latest move, you find me at blogger.com. blogger.com has long been a home to a lot of respectable blogs which I have used in the past for news, reviews, and technical advice. My personal reasons for adopting them are as follows, in no particular order:

1. blogger.com is a google project. Google projects energize me. Open source, cutting edge...that's where I want to be. I've been using Google as my primary search engine for years now, and enjoy its reliability. I have also been using Gmail as my primary email for years, and like the direction that it continues to move in. Recently I've been using Google Groups to simplify how I work with newsgroups, and keep more up to date on the latest issues in the forums, and just today I began experimenting with Google Web Toolkit to solve some issues that have come up at work. I have yet to be let down by a Google project.
2. Although I'm not under the illusion that my writings and ramblings are of major global significance, I spend time writing, and I want my words to be safe. Up until now, I have been hosting my blog on my own OpenSuSE computer using Serendipity. I love using OpenSuSE as a web server, as it is very stable, easy to setup and use, and cool to play with, but I admit that I need to keep learning and experimenting, and I don't want to be experimenting on a computer that contains important information. The in-house host moves to the out-house.
3. My personally hosted blog receives about 60 hits a day right now, on average. 40 of those are from countries I have never heard of. While I'm glad that people from Chik'Chan'Baujewhe enjoy my blog, sometimes I do write things which could be useful to people, and the greater exposure offered by blogger will make those rare helpful things I write more available, and that just warms the cockles of my heart.
   

So as I move my blogging over here, my Linux computer will once again become a playground for me, where I will be trying out all kinds of crazy stuff, which I will be posting on here.