Archive for July, 2006

Early this morning (at 1:03 AM to be exact), I bid and won on volume 35 (Doppelgänger) of the Prince Valiant series published by Fantagraphics Publishing. This volume completes my Prince Valiant library, a goal I have been trying to reach for some time now. Once the book arrives, I plan to read it and then go through them in order, beginning with volume 1. I can hardly wait!

I’ve been battling several minor medical problems recently, which has slowed my blog posting efforts. With any luck I will get back to normality sometime soon. The Firefox profile tutorial I’ve been working on is nearly done, and a new release of Googlebar Lite is on the horizon. I’ve also had an idea for a new Windows application that I might write, should I find the energy and motivation to do so. Writing C++ all day for The Man sure makes it tough to do so in one’s spare time.

In other miscellaneous news, I recently purchased some new rims for my car. They replaced the original factory wheels (the standard steel ones with hub-caps). Over time I had lost or broken several of the caps, so I eventually took them all off. As a result, it looked pretty bad. The new rims have improved things quite a bit. I’m looking at buying a Canon A620 digital camera in the very near future, so I’ll try to get a shot or two of them. Lots of picture goodness is heading this way; I can’t wait!

A new release of CoLT is now available, fixing a few bugs and adding a new Turkish (tr-TR) locale.

Version 2.0 of CoLT is now available over at Born Geek. This new release adds two new custom format options for the “Copy Link Text and Location” action, adds support for Firefox 2.0, includes a new Slovak (sk-SK) localization, and more. Also, be sure to check out the new screenshots page for a preview of the extension.

Bug 343825, “Enable official branding and set version to Firefox 2 Beta 1 for upcoming release”, was recently checked in to the 1.8.1 branch. This can only be good news, and a sign that the first beta build of 2.0 is on the verge of being released. Perusing through the change logs over at The Burning Edge, as well as the nightly build notices in the Firefox Builds forum at MozillaZine, yields some cool new features and fixes. The ability to undo closing a tab has recently been added, although you should be forewarned of bug 343801, which causes the history menu to intermittently disappear. Also, passwords are now auto-filled before all images are loaded. This is a great bug fix; no more eBay login trouble!

I am really excited about Firefox 2.0, and when the first beta is officially released, I’ll certainly switch over. The nightly builds have been getting more and more stable, and they’re certainly a joy to use. Thankfully, release day is only getting closer.

I recently ordered a Zalman VF900 VGA cooler for my NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT. As I previously mentioned, the temperatures I’ve been seeing on this card have been incredibly hot. It would probably be safe to say that this was the primary factor in my frequent system crashes, but only time will prove that theory. Well, yesterday the cooler arrived and I installed it. Read on for my thoughts on the card, the results I’ve seen so far, and more.

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Out of what could only be described as sheer boredom, I recently reinstalled the strategy game Rise of Nations. My dad picked this up for free at a conference he attended years ago, and I remember playing through it quite a bit at the time. But I now see why I uninstalled the game: I really suck at it. I’ve never been a fan of strategy games, mostly because I can never figure out how to win. Oh sure, I know the winning conditions, but getting there is another story. On the easiest difficulty setting, I have no problem beating the computer. But ramp up the difficulty just one notch (to the “Easy” setting) and I immediately enter a deadlock. The computer’s army gets too large, and no matter how large I try to make mine, I can’t turn the tide. Out of frustration, I end up cheating and dropping nuclear bombs on the enemy, wiping out their entire population (an act which is surprisingly enjoyable).

I’m certain that the word “strategy” has some part to play in beating the computer, but I apparently don’t have that ability. Give me fast and furious action please. This strategy stuff is for the birds.