Archive for February, 2006

I’ve tweaked a few things here at the site. The front page now shows the last 7 stories (vs. the last 5), as does the RSS feed. I’m carefully considering designing my own WordPress theme, although I’m not real sure how I’ll go about testing such a thing. Perhaps I can hijack my old Movable Type database and create a “sandbox” of sorts to allow me to play (without messing up the live site). I have some great ideas, inspired by some stuff that Dan Cederholm has done.

Fact: Mr. Cederholm is a genius.

I have recently been toying with the idea of upgrading my personal computer (although I don’t use it near as much as I used to). I’d like to double my system memory, get a faster processor (a new motherboard as a result), and replace my SATA hard drives (which have been surprisingly disappointing).

The problem is that computer hardware is complicated, and it’s getting more so all the time. I remember spending weeks researching various options for my last major upgrade; and that was well over two years ago! Since that time, processor model numbers have become increasingly complicated and motherboard options seem to have multiplied several times. Adding to my frustration are hardware review sites such as Anandtech and Tom’s Hardware, both of which make the assumption that readers spend each and every day staying up to date with hardware trends. Don’t they realize that there are those of us who look at hardware on an incredibly infrequent basis? Thankfully, Tom’s Hardware has some charts that they keep updated on a semi-regular basis for graphics cards, processors, and hard drives. The benchmarks within them are handy for people like me, who just want to get a feel for where things are.

I am thinking about moving to an AMD processor this time around. I’ve always used Intel Pentium chips, but the AMD solutions seem way more affordable. Can anyone recommend an AMD CPU / motherboard combination that would work well for gaming? It clearly needs to be faster than my current setup (P4 - 2.8GHz), but I don’t want to pay thousands of dollars for it. Why can’t any of this stuff be easy?

One of the hidden gems in Firefox is the live bookmarks feature. I have only recently begun using it, and I can’t see how I ever lived without it. Keeping track of multiple blogs and websites has never been easier, and the integration right into the bookmarks system is so incredibly seamless. I don’t doubt that there are more powerful feed aggregator applications, but this feature is just what the doctor ordered for my needs. Now to find more sites to add to my list…

Every year, I forget how cheesy and how over-produced the Super Bowl really is. It’s not until the pre-game show really gets going that I sadly remember. This year’s tragedy with the legendary Stevie Wonder is a testament to how cheesy things have gotten. Let’s let Stevie play two of his songs: all the way through. Playing 10 second interludes of 50 songs, while rotating musical “stars” on and off the stage, is an insult to Mr. Wonder’s incredible talent. It cheapens what he’s done for the music world. Can’t we save the embarassment?

Sadly, the Super Bowl isn’t the only thing that’s this cheesy in the sports world. The Daytona 500 is just as over-produced. All the “pre-game” hype is just that: hype. I can’t believe that there are sports fans out there that want to see touchy-feely stuff before the game. Who exactly are they trying to market this stuff to? I’m clearly not the intended audience. Or perhaps I’m just too high brow.

Update: Well, there appears to be some hope. The half-time show with The Rolling Stones was done exactly as it should be. A few songs were played all the way through … and a good time was had by all.

I checked out a couple of single player modifications for Half-Life 2 this morning. I highly recommend both.

MINERVA
Although there’s only one level at the moment, MINERVA’s episodic content concept is interesting. The story is intruiging, the level is very well designed, and the action feels very much like the original game. As you progress, you receive cryptic messages from an unknown contact. Is it the G-Man? Or someone else? I guess we’ll have to wait to find out.

Eclipse
This might be considered to be a “total conversion” more than anything else. Eclipse is unlike Half-Life 2 in every regard. Although it’s a little short, the gameplay is fun, the effects are well executed, and the artwork is incredible. The levels ran a tad slowly on my machine, but it was a fun diversion. The single weakest point in my mind is the story line; it’s as thin as any I’ve played in a long time. But this mod has to be played to be fully appreciated. There are a few puzzles that will make you scratch your head at first, and the game makes excellent use of the Source engine’s physics capabilities.

Are there any other recommended single player mods out there? If so, please let me know!

I am finally taking the time to update my toolbar extension tutorial for Firefox. The new version will feature all of the great new development improvements featured in Firefox 1.5 (development has gotten a whole lot easier). In updating the tutorial, I’ve already learned a few things that I didn’t already know. For example, extensions no longer need to make use of GUID’s; the format extensionname@yoursite.com can be used instead. That change alone makes things so much easier to understand.

I have no idea when the updated tutorial will open up to you, the reader, but it will hopefully be sometime soon. I’m currently working on rewriting section 2 (Creating the Framework). It just so happens to be the section that requires the most revamping. As a result of the tutorial focusing on Firefox 1.5, I’ll be throwing support for Firefox 1.0.x to the wind. My decision to do so is based on the new development features provided by 1.5. They alone outweigh the loss of 1.0.x support in my eyes; hopefully you agree on that point as well.

I’ve ditched WordPress 2.0.1. As a result, I lost the post I made last night. The gist of it was that Firefox 1.5.0.1 was released, and that you should update; just look at this list of changes!

The holy grail of CSS layouts has apparently been located by one Matthew Levine. Although I personally had never been searching for it, I was aware that people were. A number of potential grail candidates had apparently surfaced over time, but none have been as simple and elegant as the one found most recently.

This finding illustrates one of the main problems with CSS: columns. Placing content into columns is tough to begin with (even if we make use of illegitimate table layouts). Fortunately, CSS3 plans to add native column support. Unfortunately, support for that is still years down the road. And Microsoft is likely to never support it; they only support the “standards” for which they are sole author. Regardless, a tip of the hat to Matthew for sharing this gem with us. The world will never be the same.