Wednesday, October 27, 2010

The end of LimeWire

For those that didn't know, Limewire is the front-end software for peer 2 peer access on the Gnutella network.  In other words, this court order that came down a little while ago to kill off limewire will essentially have no effect, other than forcing users to use a different client... like frostwire.  The same content everyone was uploading and downloading is still out there, but now people need to use a different client.

It's like saying "you can no longer watch cable television using sony televisions"... ok, so I go to the store (or internet in this context...) and get a different brand... the cable is still being transmitted, I just need a new device -- or software in this case.

You can see for yourself the notice on limewire's homepage:
http://www.limewire.com/

If you're interested in a new brand to the gnutella network, here's some alternatives:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnutella#Software

If you liked limewire, try frostwire (see link above).

So, they get one client shut down... what about IRC outlets, usenet, other P2P networks...?  Even if they sued, court ordered, and even murdered everyone, it will just come back; they are fighting a losing battle and charging their legitimate users a premium to do it. 

Personally, I just listen/watch stuff on youtube (or google video) -- yea Vevo is annoying, but hey, it's free to use/listen and I'm not using torrents... almost anything is found, named correctly, and I can listen to it as long as I have internet.

PC vs Mac Part 4/4 (windows)

The dominant force on "PCs" from over the past 25ish years all through today, microsoft windows.  Practically everyone has at least been exposed to it in some form throughout their lives.  Why this high exposure rate exists is kind of controversial, but if I remember right, microsoft basically gave away Windows 2.x to anyone and everyone and turned a blind eye to "pirating".  I guess they also bought out their early competitors, invested in apple stock, borrowed ideas and did some other stuff that would essentially guarantee that most people would use windows, especially in the business environment.

Today, computers running windows are known to be very customizable at the hardware level.  I will admit, one of the good things about windows is that I can create a computer with almost any component of hardware (as long as they are compatible with each other at the hardware level of course), slap windows on the machine, and it just works for the most part.  Sure, sometimes I have to download an updated driver or two from the internet, but that's usually not a big problem.  There were some snags in earlier versions of windows (win 95, 98, ME, vista) that sometimes caused a lot of headaches, but for the most part, in win XP and win 7, those seem to be mostly resolved.

Because of its high market share, many game developers target this operating system for "PC gaming".  This is both a blessing, and a curse at the same time.  Windows provides literally tons of drivers and compatibility software to make sure, well for the most part, that windows and software run on windows can utilize your hardware.  Unfortunately, it is almost inconceivable to imagine the millions or even billions of possible combinations of hardware that could exist in the world.

Windows attempts to "guarantee" that software built to run on a "PC" will just work, as is evident with their DirectX software (which is a whole other issue I might talk about later).  Back in the DOS days, software developers could get "direct access" to your hardware more or less -- specifically your graphics card.  This allowed amazing performance and disasterous situations when the software didn't talk to every individual card exactly correctly.  Windows attempted to fix this situation by forcing all software to "talk through it" first before communicating with any hardware in the computer, so that it could provide a translation like service.  This process is a bit complicated, so I'll skip it for now.

I was talking about games, so yes, windows is generally known as the "gaming platform" of choice when it comes to playing games on computers.  Developers have to spend a lot of their development time on compatibility issues since there's so many different hardware combinations out there.  For example, Intel CPUs versus AMD CPUs, each have their own defined behavior for various opertions, specifically for things like significant digits or when "rounding" numbers using decimal numbers (floating point).

Ever wonder why you might fall through a floor in some game?  Well, that bug might only affect Intel CPUs... or just a subset of Intel CPUs and without a hardware collection for this situation that the software developers could test their software on, that bug will likely ship in to the released product, forcing a maintenence patch sooner or later to fix it.  With macs, this problem is vastly reduced because of substantially less "hardware profiles".  So, while enabling the end user to have almost unlimited choices in terms of differing hardware, every combination poses an interesting and unique challenge for software developers and gives rise to the idea that "windows software is buggy" in general.  Heck, even windows itself has been historically known to be "unstable", "buggy", and "unreliable"... now, I'm not trying to sound like a windows "fan boy", but I can't completely blame windows for having this reputation... for what it is doing, it does a pretty good job mangling the vast quantity of potentially incompatible hardware, and working... well, for the most part.

Not only are games targeting the windows market share, but basically every business entity in the world attempts to make software for it -- including hardware vendors that make drivers.  This is what kills the linux market, when the hardware vendors either have lax support for their linux line of drivers or have none at all, leaving driver support up to some crazy community member to make the driver in their spare time at home and hope they share it with the rest of the world (thankfully, they usually do).  So, it is a bit of a misnomer to think that windows is a "superior" product when they clearly have a lot more time, money, and resources in terms of people supporting the project in the form of tech support, drivers, and compatibility efforts.

Another annoying, yet possibly humorous, thing about windows is the amount of popup questions.  "Are you sure you want to cancel this operation?", "Clicking this will install malware on your system, yes or no"... stuff like this... then sometimes you get a train of popup questions... or popup ads... or other annoying questions.  The newer versions of windows uses the user access controls, which means it will ask a non-administrator user for their password essentially everytime they want to do almost anything other than browse the internet.  Naturally the best idea that most people use is simply use ONLY the administrator account to "reduce the number of popups and questions".  Brilliant.  With that said, let's talk about viruses and other malware.  Again, this is NOT a good marketing ploy by other product lines to say they have less viruses.  Like all software vendors that want to target the dominant market player, so to do virus writers target windows.  Usually, windows will realize that some software needs administrative rights to do something malicious on your system... like a good operating system, windows will deny access to it (like writing something to your system folders), so it will ask your permission to install or do what the malware wants to do.  Problem is, since lots of windows users use their admin accounts, this happens automatically.  Congratulations on your new virus and being part of a botnet.

On the "grandma frieldy" scale, I'm going to give the newer versions of windows a 5/10.  It's pretty easy to set up, but using it is actually not very straightforward.  Almost every application has its own idea with how best to "guide users" through their own configuration and setting up... this process is by far not the same for almost every software, including most software itself from microsoft.  A standard process is essential, especially in stuff like business, so people get used to the idea of how to work things.  Every time a new version of a microsoft product comes out, they change significant enough stuff to alienate almost all users except the most fluent people already with computers (they can adapt easier to change I guess).  I've heard countless times in small businesses that when a new version of MS Office comes out that they have to send everyone to training classes again because they have to learn the software all over again (and pay a hefty price for the software upgrade anyways).

Oh, that's another thing.  Windows users are essentially paying for upgrades in almost a subscription like fashion.  Are the various versions of windows unique product unto themselves, or is the latest version of windows exactly that?  Well, their build numbers would seem to say that windows XP was the next version after windows ME, which was the upgrade to 98... so to is Vista to XP, win7 to vista, etc... in "free" operating systems, or other software in general, you don't pay for upgrades, maybe for support.  You go to their website and download a patch, and you're good.  Microsoft's software is definitely not like this almost at all, they've been charging their userbase ever since the windows 3.x days (before win95) then without paying for upgrades, they phase you out until you pay up again for the latest versions.  This is what came to be known as "forced upgrades".

Sure, you can still use windows 3.1 today if you didn't want to upgrade, in fact, you could reasonably argue that you would get less viruses and be "smart" about computing.  I'll leave that as something to think about to the reader.

Developing on DOS was awesome, it came with BASIC (which I started on in my own programming when I was 7 years old)... nowadays, you have to either get Visual Studio, or one of the many free alternatives like http://www.codeblocks.org/.  Of course, you can always go with one of the .Net products (not really my forte`).  Since I make games on windows (and mac, and linux) I will have to admit that making the software, sure, is relatively easy thanks to copious amounts of information on the internet, and MSDN (which I didn't have to sign my soul away for to read -- no thanks to you Apple and xcode ffs).  Yet, when it comes to testing my software on other people's systems... that's when the problems strike (read above) and forces me to spend a LOT of time on compatibility issues, especially pertaining to graphics development.

In summary, windows is a good OS for gaming and general productivity with "office-like" use.  It is a general solution to computing needs and has the benefit of being widely supported throughout the world.  It's flexibility with tons of hardware is both its greatest benefit as well as its greatest folly.  It's likely the easiest to install of the operating systems I reviewed, but it has lots of downfalls as you use it.  I didn't even touch the "server line" of the win operating system for a couple reasons, I simply don't use them enough to make an educated opinion about them.  I generally see other operating systems as vastly superior in this area than microsofts line (and much, MUCH cheaper).

So, hopefully by now, you, the reader, will have a better appreciation (if you read all this anyways haha) for why the idea of "PC vs Mac" is inane.  I compared three different "PCs" and they each had their ups and downs.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

PC vs Mac Part 3/4 (mac)

Of all the different "PCs" I've used over the years, Macs would definitely rank in the least used category -- even less than linux.  I remember back in the day in elementary school using them to learn about animation (hypercard) and doing these geography tests and stuff like that.  Fast forward a lot of years, and I've really only been exposed to my mac book air (which wasn't cheap).

At some point in time, Apple decided to go with the "PowerPC" architecture, meaning Intel and nvidia would become basically the main provider of hardware for the mac operating system.  That's right, the same manufacturers that all those windows users use, Mac's use the same (again, making the argument of Mac vs Pc kind of dumb).


Ok, with that out of the way, I must admit that my exposure to macs is pretty limited.  I'm actually using it right now to type up this blog entry and this is pretty much where I prefer using it... in daily stuff like checking email, trolling message boards, that kinda stuff.  It also helps that it's a laptop (or nettop, or whatever the buzzword is for these small things are).  I'll not even bother arguing about the portability since that's kind of a moot point since all laptops inherently have the same qualities irrespective of the operating system.  One thing I will point out; however, is that the track pad on this macbook air is awesome for how large it is and how slick the whole thing is put together in general.

Again, growing up with windows computers, I sort of got used to the idea of right clicking and how to interact with my computer through the control panel, how to run dos games (back in the win 3.1 era, etc), how to make desktop shortcuts... etc... well, now all of this is basically gone... well, not gone, but now different.  I think the relearning curve is enough usually to make a lot of computer people immediately throw a mac in the "I don't want to learn the difference" category.  This is ok, I was like that too.

So, let's get to the meat and bones of the mac article.  I will say that my linux background helped a lot (OS X is based on the BSD kernel I believe)... but that's not to say it was required.  One of my first tasks to using a mac was learning how to program for one.  My primary reason for having a mac was to port windows software (games) to it.  I found it practically insulting that I was *required* to sign a developer agreement with apple before I could even get development tools.  I couldn't just get GNU tools, or linux tools or anything without having to sign this dumb agreement first.  That was a huge strike against Apple for me in general.  After I downloaded XCode (which I don't really use) I could finally get some development toolchains, including the familiar GNU tools (gcc, make, etc).

I played with XCode a bit and it seems alright, but wow, there's enough Mac specific stuff in there that it was a bit overwhelming.  What was a universal binary?  I can pack multiple binary types in a program?  How do I make an APP bundle?  How do link static libraries to my program?  Why can't I just use g++ like normal?  There was a lot of questions to be asked and it took me quite a while to figure them out (hint: I'm using my linux dev environment and basically skipped out on XCode).  Now, before I make some Mac user angry about this, I will admit XCode seems like ok software, I just haven't had time to give it a fair chance.  Remember, my primary reason for developing on Mac was to port windows and linux software, since I already have makefiles and lots of GNU stuff setup, it was simply easier for me to go with what was familiar and already provided.

Anyways, back to the Mac itself.  Once I learned the basic tricks, like right clicking is holding down CTRL and clicking the mouse button, it was pretty easy to do stuff.  The "grandma friendly" scale, I'll give a 8/10.  You basically have few "complicated" options to do anything and I found the walkthroughs for various software (including setting up the machine) incredibly straight-forward and easy to understand.  It was plain english and that's what I feel is a worth while thing to give to the... uhh.. less technical.

At one point I had to enable the root user (which is disabled at first) to do something (I think it was to enable multiple user accounts on the machine if I remember right?).  A walkthrough with how to do this can be found on Apple's site:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1528

Once that was done, I was back to "almost linux" land using more familiar things, albeit simplified.

One of the next "nice" features was the automatic software update that OS X likes to do constantly.  Ironic that windows update I always disable, yet allow the mac to basically do the same and I'm happy about it.  I found over the years too many problems with microsoft sending bad updates that I turned it off years ago and never looked back.

Now for the huge issue with Macs.  The hardware options are limited and incredibly (and even unexplainably?) expensive.  This is both a huge folly yet a major advantage at the same time.  Yes, you heard me windows users, the lack of hardware options is actually a good thing but probably for a reason you're not expecting.

When I'm programming software for a mac, it is basically guaranteed to work on all macs that match the operating system's version or higher.  If I'm programming an OpenGL application, I don't have to worry about the vast majority of the game "not working" on someone's computer, because we're all running more or less "standard" hardware.  On top of that, the system actually runs more efficiently because it's not "bogged down" with drivers, "dll hell", and version incompatibilities.  I've spent significantly less time worrying about software compatibility issues on macs than on windows computers (or linux for that matter).  This is almost the same argument for why developing for game consoles is easier than for computers, because they run standard hardware, I don't have to worry about the massive amount of complex problems with an almost unfathomable amount of hardware variations among users.


Without really getting in to it, know that developing for Macs requires less time in general testing and coding for very complicated hardware compatibility issues.  If my software works on a mac, it will probably work for a good majority of them, and if it doesn't, it will require very little time and effort to enable reasonable compatibility.  Windows/Linux systems, this is no where near the case.

Again, standardized hardware vastly simplifies a software developer's job and basically ensures a wider adoption of their software for that platform.  I'll explain more of these problems on windows machines in the next article.

All in all, running OS X is a pretty good system.  The hardware required to run it is both limited and expensive.  I'm unable to pop open the cover and replace parts in and out without voiding warranties.  On the plus side, Apple seems pretty forgiving if your system dies within the warranty (and even sometimes even outside the warranty period).

The system is definitely simplified for people that don't need to know a whole lot about computers to use one.  If you can afford it, I would highly recommend getting them for people that like one button mice and the almost total inability to damage their own system inadvertently.

Finally, I'm going to say the idea that "macs get less viruses" is an insane argument for why "Macs are better".  This is the same reason why there are more games for windows computers; it all comes down to market share.  All computers run programs -- well at least ones with operating systems anyways I would hope.  Because of this, all computers can run viruses.  The author of any software looks at their market.  If their market is substantially more windows than macs, they will likely focus their efforts on making viruses for windows.  This is pretty basic business sense.

I am saying that yes, there are less viruses for macs than windows, but this is a false sense of security.

In summary, less options, less complexity, more expensive, very easy to learn if you give it a chance.  Recommended for casual users and people using it for anything other than games (again, due to market share).

Part 4

Friday, October 22, 2010

PC vs Mac Part 2/4 (linux)

I'm going to start off with the underdog of the major operating systems -- linux.  That's right, your friendly neighborhood penguin comes in first.

Where to start, well, let's look at the major attractions of linux; it's free.  Yep, you can download the newest version right off the internet, no charge, and you'll never have to purchase upgrades.  It also has a huge reputation for being computer savvy oriented (for both good and bad reasons).  Being based on the Unix design, people safely assume it is ideal for a multi-user environment, especially over a network.  License fees for hosting services? Nada, nope, nothing.  The included GNU tools and developer environment is outstanding as well that come with basically every distribution.

So, to get started with linux, I mentioned you could download it (or order a cd rom for a couple $USD).  Where do you go?  Well, http://www.linux.org/ is apparently THE place to go, but it might be a little confusing what to do and how to "get linux".

I mentioned all the good things about linux already right?  Well, it only gets more rough from here on out.  You don't really want linux exactly, you will likely want something called a distribution, or "flavor", of linux.  You can also use linux without even installing it on your hard drive with things called "live CDs". 

Confused yet?  Well, it gets worse still.  When you research and figure out what distribution you want, you have to go to their respective website, download what you must, run some sort of install program (probably booting off of a cd in the process), installing packages or other software, configuring your hard drives
with partitions, and a bunch of other things.  Many distributions simplify this process these days and you can usually just click on "next" or "accept" most of the time and it will try to figure everything out for you.  To be completely fair, when you install windows on a computer, it does basically the same thing, but windows has long since "simplified" this process so that the user almost never sees or configures what is happening.  This whole process is flavor dependant, so your mileage may vary.  This is also just for installing the kernel with supporting programs, this doesn't necessarily mean you'll be getting a windows-like system (Xwindows / X11) or window manager (Gnome, KDE, xfce, fluxbox, etc) without going through some nightmare with drivers and configuration first.  Of all the linux systems I've set up, I'd say about 50% of them have given me significant headaches when it came to setting up X and a window manager.

Historically and comparatively speaking, linux (or freeBSD, etc), has had pretty bad driver support from vendors and is usually the main source of problems; compared to an OS like windows.  What is a driver? It's basically software that allows your Operating System to talk to a piece of hardware in a language it understands.  Without an official driver, community members usually have to make their own and then distribute it to the internet as a whole, essentially doing what the vendor failed to do (for whatever reason).

I've personally used mandriva, slackware, ubuntu, and some other obscure distribution that I don't even remember.  These are all "linux", but the difference is simply how much stuff is done for you, ease of install, and the software that gets bundled with it (including drivers).  "Linux" itself is simply the kernel that manages your devices, memory, scheduling, input/output, and other basic mechanisms of how to make your computing hardware work... EVERYTHING else is done by software that you install (and could be mostly done for you based on your distribution).

As I'm sure you can tell by now, this isn't for someone that is computer shy.  My "grandma friendly" scale ranks linux at a 1/10 with 10 being she could start using it today and figure out how to email someone that same day.

Now, this isn't to say that someone a little more technically inclined couldn't set up a linux station for family members and keep everything simplified and give it to grandma "pre-configured".  Lemme tell ya though, if you had to do phone tech support for them though... linux could be a nightmare... thankfully, linux has been "multi-user" friendly for... well, since forever, meaning it is quite easy to configure a system to allow for you to remotely log in and fix things that need to be fixed without anyone else having to know what you're doing or why... all while without loading up a Graphical User Interface (GUI) and using bandwidth incredibly efficiently.  Doing this remote fix with a windows install could be a nightmare in terms of having to use remote desktop or "hacking tools" like back orifice, or some other remote admin tool, and usually for an extra price on top of that.

In terms of programming, linux ranks easily 10/10.  Most development tools are available right out of the box with basically all distributions as well as the most used toolchains to make software.  Things you might be missing can easily be gotten off the internet and for free.  Everything GNU (GNU is not Unix btw) is essentially free for using in whatever way you want and you're basically ready to rock n' roll straight away.  If  programming, scripting, system administering, or network [services] administering isn't your thing... then this doesn't really mean much to you, especially if the idea of downloading a program's source code and compiling it yourself confuses or scares you... yea, stay away.

As a "techie" myself, I'm going to defend this process a bit, by compiling your own software you guarantee maximum compatibility with your hardware and other features that might be unique to your system.  Windows programs you download a pre-compiled binary and everything "just works"... linux compiling can, and does, require some extra effort on the end-users behalf to figure out what flags to use, what conditional compilation could be needed... what dependant libraries am I missing and all sorts of things like this.  Again, a casual user, stay away, for the more technically inclined, this is a feature, not a bad thing (albeit, could be time consuming).  A side benefit of the inconvenience is that you might be able to squeeze out a little more performance from software that you compile yourself for your own system since the compiler can take advantage of it's own optimizations based on your hardware.

Running games on linux... well, who am I kidding, is horrendous.  Wine is a project that attempts to emulate the windows API and directX essentially so as to allow a windows program to run on your linux installation, but that's about as far as it gets.  Loki software tried to make a business out of converting windows games to linux... I believe they went out of business.  There ARE games out there for linux, but large game studios do not have enough motivation to make games for it.  Specifically, the market share for this OS is pitiful at best, leaving games that are compatible for linux as a nice "feature" if the developer and publisher allow for time to do it, just for giggles essentially.

One final note, linux, itself, runs almost on any hardware and with amazing performance.  Have an old system?  Throw linux on it and make it useful on your network.  If you're ok with spending a bit of time messing around with it, linux is an amazing and versatile operating system.  That "freedom" comes at a price though.  Reading through tech documents, install manuals, community forums, and all sorts of craziness could ensue, but the end result is a computer that can do almost anything with a minimal amount of raw hardware power... well, except playing most commercial games.

Not bad for a "PC", right?



An honorable mention goes to OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and NetBSD.  I've used these three as well for a long time.  These are NOT linux, but can essentially be used instead of linux.  You'll have to do your own research and homework to figure out more about these and I highly recommend checking them out if a new OS is what you're looking for to match your needs.

Part 3

PC vs Mac Part 1/4

Ok, I just have to rant about this.  Mostly because I can't stand people arguing over this.  First, a PC is short for a Personal Computer.  Those dumb ads on the tv have convinced a lot of people that PC's run Windows... and Macs run on.. uhh.. well... macs?  Truth be told, a "PC" is just a computer that most people use.  The operating system, Windows, Mac, Linux, etc is just that... the operating system.

This tangent is going to be relatively long based on my own experience with the three different types of operating systems over the last 30 years.  Now mind you, I've been programming on all 3 of them as well, so we'll take a look at the positives and negatives of each system, then go off about what it's like for a software developer to use and program for each.  I also do a hefty portion of system and network administering, so I'll throw in some of that aspect as well during the reviews.  Naturally, the "Techie" guy of the family is also usually the "go-to" guy for when someone has a system that needs upgrading/fixes or whatever... so some honorable mentions for "grandma friendly" will be in there also.

So, sit back and get ready tear your eyes out over my personal review of the 3 systems in question, Windows, Mac, and Linux and how they rack and stack with each other and hopefully by the end, you too will understand that the PC vs Mac thing is ridiculous.

Part 2 here

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Facebook makes money off of you and your information

Social websites make money off of selling your information to internet tracking companies for trend analysis, data mining, personal profiling, and all sorts of things like this.

I'm actually shocked when I see some random shmoe actually surprised that "facebook doesn't care about my privacy omg!"... guys, you're voluntarily giving your personal information and information about your "friends" to a corporation.  Even when you select going "private", which I hear a couple of my friends claim so smugly, is all they need and they'll be fine.  Wrong, your information will be, and will forever be, at the mercy of internet companies, companies, malicious users, the government... and pretty much anyone else interested in your information.

To be totally honest, I'm all for companies looking you up on facebook when they want to know about you for a job.  If I'm going to hire someone, you bet I'll be looking for information they willingly gave to the entire internet to know about things I couldn't ask about in a formal interview (likely because it's against the law).  I've heard countless times people "don't know why I didn't get that job"... then look them up on facebook and you see tons of party pics, alchohol, drugs, you name it...

"But I set my stuff to private!" is a ridiculous false sense of security.  Everything you put on the internet can be found, tracked down, and exploited by someone with enough know how and motivation. I've seen countless reports of people "hacking" other people's facebook pages and guess what happens?? All that "private" information you thought you had is out the window. 

Now, I'm not saying exploiting people's information is always a bad thing.  As a corporation, I definitely want to know about potential customers, demographics, trends, what's popular, and all that stuff so that I know how to target marketing efforts and make the most money I can possibly make.  For these reasons, people (like facebook) sell your information to these people, it gets compiled to data lists that are used (or resold to other companies) so that tons of people have some, most, or all the information about you.  It all started with you voluntarily giving information up about yourself.

So, who owns your information?  Do you?  Do you even know how many people in the world have your information?  Do you care that people know what your lifestyle is?  What interests you have?  If I'm a company and I bought an internet mailing list per se, I would believe I own your information and I could do whatever I want with it, including selling it or giving it to subsidaries...


http://www.infoworld.com/d/the-industry-standard/why-facebook-selling-you-out-and-wont-stop-322

Internet Explorer 6

I really can't believe people use IE6 still... I mean, I have it somewhere on my windows XP systems and I absolutely hate it when some application I run opens it thinking it's my default browser (like if it's trying to hijack my system or something crazy).  Ya know, the same garbage when applications thinks it is neato to open outlook express as your email client... zomg get with the times people... btw, who still uses offline mail readers anyways? gmail and most any web-based email client is pretty much superior in every way, especially in ease of use and accessing your mail accounts from basically anywhere with no setup or trouble with getting messages you "accidentally" downloaded in your mail browser.

So yea, anyways, back to the IE6 rant... I still have it somewhere like I said, mostly because I don't even wanna bother with doing that whole genuine advantage crap for microsoft just to update a browser I don't use... what a pain in the ass.  I read an article a while ago that businesses still use this browser.  I can see the business logic (much to the dismay of my programmer side) behind still using the dated product.  It works and don't fix things that aren't broken.  To be honest, I really have no idea even where to start with how to argue with this beause anyone you're trying to convince probably doesn't know enough about computers to care or understand what you're talking about.  I guess they can enjoy being part of botnets and getting virus after virus... I guess the positive side is that it keeps IT disaster recovery teams employed... which I suppose is good thing.

On the 29th of October (after this blog, here is an article about IE6 addiction):
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9193901/IE6_addiction_throws_monkey_wrench_into_Windows_7_migration

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

First look at Drupal 7

I noticed on slashdot earlier today that a new version of Drupal is suppose to be... coming out?  I guess it was a book about the new version, even though it is still in beta stage. 

Yet, I couldn't help but ask myself.. wtf is a Drupal?!  I snagged the latest beta, threw it on a webserver and starting digging in.  I'm going to have to admit, I'm pretty new to "content management systems"... in english that basically means it attempts to organize and make websites for you so that you don't have to sit around coding php and talking to databases all while making it look pretty.  It seems neat so far, integrating kind of like a blog, comment, forum system all smashed together with the ability to put "blocks" down for content.

I played with it for probably about an hour and I suppose I'll look in to it more later, but it seems to have promise.  I think I agree with another reviewer that the administration of drupal needs a little work still with buttons all over the place; sometimes they are on the left, sometimes in the upper right, sometimes this color, sometimes that color... it's not very stream-lined... but I suppose I could get use to it.

Drupal can be found here:
http://drupal.org/
The latest beta, at the time of this writing, is here:
http://drupal.org/node/934174

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

All my systems

I'm actually asked this quite a bit, "how many systems do I have?", and "what do you use them for?"

Well, here's a list -

3 systems running windows xp - games, development, testing software, etc

1 AMD FX55 running Ubuntu - server development, databases, programming

1 FitPC running some flavor of linux - various network services, bots, etc

1 laptop running vista - dislike vista, used for software testing mostly, and checking my own sanity

1 mac book air - my system away from all my other systems, used for email, blogging, chatting, development, porting windows software, testing mac builds

There we have it, 7 computers in total running a mix of windows, linux, and mac software. Personally, I really like the Mac, even though it took some getting use to.  I will admit the system was not the cheapest thing in the world, but I don't regret making the purchase either.  To me, it was a perfect balance of computing horsepower, physical weight and size (portability is nice for roadtrips, etc), and I love the keyboard on that thing.

I could probably write a lot about the various "PC versus MAC" thing, but I'll save that for another time.  I'll just say that both are nice for what I use them for.

I forgot to mention in my original post that I also have a couple "retired" systems that ran FreeBSD, NetBSD, slackware, and some other OS's... most of them are in pieces in the closets or recycled, literally, at the computer deconstruction place near downtown.

All the old stuff

Ok, relatively new to this blogger thing... so I guess a post explaining everything is in order.  First, www.eondev.net is a website dedicated to game design and development.  We are a small team of people that are basically obsessed with making video games.  Right now, we are working on the Eonos:DG project which is a sidescroller game with the intention of making it an MMO -- an early development video can be found here:
First youtube video

Some screenshots that have been taken over development can also be found here.

Eventually we'll expand in to more games, but this is our flagship product.  I'll be using this blog to talk about development mostly, new features we've added to the development builds, rants about programming and designing, stuff like this... maybe a techie article or two, I don't know yet... maybe if anything this will be a magnet for spamming comments and e-fighting; again, I don't know... just know that the original intention of the blog was to allow me a faster and easier way to write down stuff about development and a place to vent.

We also have a forum set up for those more inclined to have another username and password to the ever "social internet" and want to start to contribute.

A very early single player demo can also be found on our downloads page. There is an older build for MAC OS X and the newer build for windows.  We'll likely do linux support as well later on when I get more time.

If you like what you see and want to start being part of the community, and possibly even get your voice heard for design considerations, head over to our forums and sign up!

Oh, here's a picture of an old build to at least give you guys an idea of what this is all about... more can be found on eondev.net