Archive for November, 2005

Firefox 1.5 has been released! If you haven’t updated already, get to it!

To help celebrate this most excellent occasion, I’ve released a new version of Googlebar Lite. Version 3.2 adds a new Catalan (ca-ES) translation, the ability to remove individual items from the search history, a few usability tweaks, and several bug fixes. Next stop, some updates to the toolbar tutorial!

This holiday weekend, I made some progress on the next version of Paper Plus, my wallpaper changing program. There are a number of improvements that I want to make to the program, which will hopefully make it a little easier to use. I specifically want the program to:

• Run in the system tray
• Change the wallpaper on Windows startup
• Change the wallpaper every X minutes / hours

I got the first item working this past weekend, and I hope to get the other two working soon. These features will certainly be a welcome addition to the program, making it somewhat more user friendly.

So I did indeed pick up Quake 4, and at quite a bargain price ($30 at Target on Black Friday; there were shockingly fewer people out shopping than I had anticipated). So far, this game has been very enjoyable. The action is fast paced, the story is moderately interesting, and the levels aren’t quite as dark as in Doom 3. In short, this is the game that Doom 3 should have been. One of the in-game sequences is incredibly painful to watch. Without giving too much away, let me say that you will most likely wince in pain as you watch what happens. I know I did.

Having run through all of my computer games, it’s high time to get a new one. But I’m not quite sure what to get. Splinter Cell 3 looks nice, but the copy protection software Ubisoft used for the game sounds eerily reminiscent of spyware. F.E.A.R. looks cool as well, but the demo was a little sluggish and I hear the game is very short. The top runner for me is currently Quake 4, of which I’ve read good reviews. Any suggestions for a new game? All genres are welcome (although I’m clearly an action fan).

I gave Movable Type a brief try this weekend, and it doesn’t look like it’s what I need for Born Geek. MT is too “post driven” and doesn’t seem to handle static pages very well. I think the main problem is that Born Geek isn’t a blog, and MT was made especially for the blogging paradigm. As such, I am continuing my quest for a decent CMS.

After doing some brief research, I have found two solutions that might work well: Drupal and Typo3. Both are open source CMS’s (which is appealing), and both have relatively nice looking interfaces. The Drupal website is a little cleaner than Typo3, and I found Drupal first, so I think I’ll give it the initial try. I am somewhat tempted to just use WordPress (the system that powers this blog), although I dislike the fact that it builds pages on the fly (something I’d like to avoid with Born Geek’s static content).

Do you know of an inexpensive, reliable, CMS system that would work well with a static, page-based website (i.e. Born Geek)? If so, your comments would be greatly appreciated!

Sony just can’t catch a break, can they? First, we hear reports about the Sony DRM installing a rootkit. Then comes news of said rootkit phoning home, as well as indications of a trojan exploiting this technology. And finally, there’s news of a giant security hole in the rootkit removal software.

Although I’ve owned a few of their products, I’ve never been a fan of Sony. They try too hard to force their own proprietary ’standards’ upon the industry, yet they always seem to fail in this endeavor. Sony certainly must have a substantial back catalog of failed technologies (as I’m sure many large companies do). Somehow, I don’t feel sorry for them during this time of crisis. In these days of juggernauts like Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and McDonald’s, it’s nice to occasionally see one of them stumble and fall.

I’m a great fan of the late Jeremy Brett, who is the only Sherlock Holmes I will ever recognize. His portrayal of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective is as good as acting gets. In my humble opinion, no other actor has ever portrayed a character as accurately as Mr. Brett portrayed Holmes. He captures every nuance from the books, and matches exactly what I feel Conan Doyle was striving to create. I have only one collection of DVDs to go in completing my set: The Sherlock Holmes Feature Film collection. And I can’t wait to get it!