Out now.

SEQUENTIAL Pictures \ Star Wars Episode III: A Lost Hope [Revenge of the Sith parody]

Courtesy of MrLithic, a quality parody of Star Wars – definitely worth a watch.

mrBen

Well, this weekend I managed to do 3 things that I have never done before: create a software RAID, utilise Samba, and install Windows XP.

The last version of Windows that I can recall actually installing was my Win95 upgrade. It’s been an eye opener to look at a newer version, although I should hasten to add, for my regular readers, that it wasn’t on one of my machines….. Here are some observations:

• For all people bang on about Linux installation, Windows XP doesn’t jump straight into a graphical environment, nor does it provide a handy partition manager. In fact, you could pretty much compare WinXP with Ubuntu for the first half of its install.
• One of the installs I attempted was using a custom disk provided by a computer manufacturer. Admittedly it was not on the machine that it came with, but it provided very little feedback on what it was doing, and whether any errors were being thrown. In fact, the reinstall was due to a failing Windows boot, which also provided scarce information as to the source of the problem. Custom install disks are bad, and always have been – we should get genuine MS media if we buy a computer – make sure you do.
• An attempted restore completely failed to restore effectively. I still wonder why, by default, there isn’t an option to create a seperate partition for user data (/home/username on Linux, or C:Documents and Settingsusername on Windows). Admittedly, Windows has more of an excuse here, given that it’s way of mapping drives to letters is slighltly more unwieldy than Linux’s.
• From what I can tell, Windows Update is essentially a server-side ActiveX script – I can’t understand (given that MS is already leeching huge chunks of data of your machine) why they don’t implement a small client that holds up-to-date information about your system, which it can then pass to the server in order to download the relevant updates. (Maybe I’ve misconstrued what it does, though – feel free to enlighten me) I would also recommend, given the bad press on the web about machines getting infected before they’ve had time to download the patches, that MS incorporate an automatic update as part of the install (like many Linux distros…..).
• I am slightly sceptical about the ‘optional’ registration with MS that comes after the product activation – part of me wonders whether or not they won’t get the ‘optional’ information from the system anyway.

For those of you not familiar with RAID, here is a quick summary: A ‘Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks’ is basically a series of physical drives that appear as a single disk to the computer. There are different types of RAID, for different purposes. This weekend I was playing with RAID-1, aka ‘Mirroring’ whereby you use 2 disks, and everything is written to both disks. Thus if one fails, all the data is on another.
These days you can buy relatively cheap ‘hardware RAID’ cards, which do all the magic of deciding where to write data themselves. However, a cheaper option is to use Linux’s software RAID support. And here I must take my hat of to the excellent How-To provided by the Linux Documentation Project. Of this How-To only one page was required for me to get everything running. Once the RAID device is created (in my case from 2 partitions, one on each disk), it’s just a matter of syncing them. Then you have your RAID device (/dev/md0) which you can treat like any other disk device – format it, and the mount it. I couldn’t believe how easy it was.

Lastly, I wanted to setup Samba. Samba is a piece of software that allows Linux machines to use the SMB protocol, which is a Window protocol for networking. Simply put, it allows Linux machines to pretend they are Windows machines to the network. In my case, the idea was to allow the aforementioned RAID device to be available to the whole network, thus creating a single repository for vital information that is properly backed up.
Samba was a little trickier to setup, although I have to admit that Debian did most of the hard work. Here are a few pointers from my installation:

• From what I could tell, no passwords were set initially for any users. Run smbpasswd to set these. Also, check that the user(s) you are wanting to use is already in the /etc/samba/smbpasswd file
• Check that the user you are using has permission for the directory you are sharing
• Make sure that you spell writeable the incorrect way (writable) otherwise it won’t be
• The name of your share is the bit in the square brackets at the top of its definition. Your hostname becomes the servername, although it appears to be capitalised (eg mine was \Debian\public)

The last piece of computer-y action that happened this weekend was that I installed Ubuntu on Heather’s new computer (PIII-800, 128MB RAM, 30GB hdd). She’s been using Thunderbird, Firefox and OpenOffice.org for a while now, so I hope that the transition will be relatively easy. Plus I’ve installed Scribus, which looks like it’s become a top-quality DTP suite in the last couple of year. More on that later.

mrBen

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry, got a wee bit carried away there…

This is another comic book adaptation, this time focused on Marvel Comics’ “The Punisher”.

It’s the story of Frank Castle, a FBI chap who loses his family to those pesky organised crime people. You know the type.

So Frank dons the Kevlar Vest of Doom, the Automatic Weaponry of Vengeance and the Scary Skull T-Shirt of Punishment to deal with them.

For those of you who care, Thomas Jane (Deep Blue Sea) is Frank Castle and John Travolta (Battlefield Earth) is the chief bad guy and I can’t really remember the directors name. There’s a very good chance that you’ve never heard of him anyway…

It’s not a traditional action flick, it has more in common with the Sergio Leone / Sam Peckinpah westerns. It’s violent without being glamourous, like so many action films are, it’s funny in a very subtle way and does Frank punish everyone who needs punishment? Oh, yes.

BigAl

I’ve had a busy couple of days with computers, what with 2 machines going done in the space of 24 hours to mysterious symptoms. That, coupled with an interesting interview on The Linux Link Tech Show stimulated a couple of thoughts in my mind.

Future-proofing

10 years ago this was one of the buzzwords that got a lot of airtime, particular in companies, but also used in PC sales shops. The idea was that if you spent extra money now you would get a machine that would last for longer. I had a think about this over the last couple of days, and here is the conclusion I have come to:

Future Proofing is a Myth

Why?

• Regardless of how powerful your machine is today, it will be out of date in 12 months time
• Regardless of how powerful your machine is today, the next software release (from Redmond (when it eventually arrives)) will suck the life out of it
• No matter what you buy, the lifespan of the components is unlikely to increase much – the chances are that _something_ is going to fail

Now – maybe I am pushing a point here, but if you _really_ want to ‘futureproof’ your next purchase, make sure that it (and by extension you) can run Linux. Why? Because a) Linux is the future and b) Linux will always run better on old machines than Windows. I am still running the PC that I bought in 1999 (well – the new motherboard and CPU that was required when I fried the old one – PII 300) as a firewall, and it does the job admirably. I’m about to install a file server, which will be in another PII box. The cost? £0. Because apparently old boxes are worth nothing…..

Conditioning

We all know that software and hardware are different, don’t we. And yet so often I see people acting in a completely opposite way – software failures, or even just slow and unstable software, is regarded as a hardware problem; either it’s broken or it’s ‘old’ and needs replaced. How frequent are real hardware failures in computing? I reckon that it’s probably a lot less frequent that we would first imagine. Yes, hardware fails, and yes, when it happens it’s bad news. But we have become conditioned to attribute certain things to hardware, when, in fact, they are software.

This is just one example of the conditioning that we have received when we have entered into the “Wintel” cycle. Here are some more:

• Old = useless (as mentioned above). Even more ‘destructive’ is the belief that new software cannot run on old machines. While this may be the case with certain kinds of applications, particularly games, there are many cases where this is not really the case; when I put Linux on an “old” machine, it is not “old” Linux I am using, but rather the most up-to-date available.
• Rebooting is a necessity. Whenever a (Windows) user experiences an issue, they attempt a reboot to resolve the issue. It’s become ingrained in our thinking and culture. <insert ironic laughter from Mac and Linux users>
• Linux will never be better than Windows. Sometimes, when I talk to people, there is this obvious belief that Linux will never be better than Windows, because it is made by “hobbyists”. But there are 2 questions that I have about this now:
  • Is Linux not already better than Windows (at least for some things)?
  • Now that/when*Delete as applicable Linux is better than Windows, how will Windows ever catch up? It’s not like they aren’t pouring huge amounts of resource into it, but the pace of development is still so much quicker for Linux because of the sheer economies of scale when it comes to developers
• Expensive = Good, Most Expensive = Best. Not true – so not true.

Laptops and Desktops

People like laptops. People think that laptops are cool (which is true). But, and let’s be very clear about this, laptops are not, and never will be, desktops. While there are some very powerful laptops out there, the fact remains that there are constraints on laptops that will never go away – they need to be small and light, and they can’t get too hot. As a consequence, laptops will:

• Never be as fast as the best available desktop
• Never be as adaptable or upgradable as desktops
• Will always be more expensive than an equivalent desktop

To keep a balance, I must admit that laptops are a) very convenient, and b) look cooler, than desktops. And I still really want to get hold of an Oqo……

So what is my point here?
I guess my main point is that, while I like having a laptop for my work, I’m not sure I’m ever going to replace my desktop machine with one. And, more importantly, I think that it is important to recognise that if you are wanting to run intensive applications, you’re probably better off with a desktop, unless you really need the portability. Ideally, you should have both I think that we are going to begin to see a decline in laptops, as more people move to palmtops, especially now that palmtops are becoming more and more powerful, and able to offer all the kinds of applications that you would want to use on the move. Make sure you make the right choice when you decide. Which leads me nicely into:

mrBen’s guide to buying a computer

Here are some of my top tips to buying a computer:

• Know what you need, not necessarily what you want. Be realistic – it’s all very well paying an extra few hundred pounds for that fancy graphics card, but then never playing games.
• Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you will do new things with your new computer – buy a computer for what you do now. (If you are buying a computer for the first time, then look at the most common usages for computers – word processing, internet (email, web, chat) and games)
• Know what your negotiables are, and what are your must-haves. Again, be realistic.
• Set a top figure, and work backwards from there – as a rule of thumb I usually would set a top figure, and then knock a chunk of money off for warranty and memory, and then look for the range on offer for that price.
• Always buy more memory, you will never regret it, and the default amount is never enough. If buying a laptop, always buy extended warranty – it’ll probably set you back >£100, but it’ll be worth every penny.
• Unless you _really_ need Microsoft Office (and 95% of the world don’t), don’t buy a package with it, as you will pay. OpenOffice.org will more than likely fill your needs. Better to have to buy software later that you need, than buy software that you never use.
• Stick to the minimal hardware where possible – much of it is cheap kit, and, let’s face it, scanners are a lot like toastie-makers – endlessly fun for about 2 weeks……
• Avoid high-street retailers – costs will be high. But you are likely to get better warranty and more security from a brand name. Especially relevant for laptops.

Oh – and you may as well check whether or not it’s Linux compatible, a bit of futureproofing never hurt

mrBen

…Because that’s what I might be selling in a few months time.

I’ve had the idea in my head for a few years now that I’d like to set up my own comic shop and it’s only now that I’m geting the finger out anf giving it a try.

I know it’s going to be damn hard work but promoting the comic book medium is something that’s really important to me, and it’s not easy doing this in a place like the UK where every other person still thinks comics are for wee kids. It’s that kind of narrowminded thinking I’m going to have to fight against.

I have several ideas for marketing the store as an alternative to the other comic shops in Glasgow. There are 5 shops I know of in Glasgow at the moment.

• Forbidden Planet: This is the big one. Usually it’s cluttered with neds (in a comic shop, what are they thinking?) and it’s the big hitter in Glasgow.
• A1: This resembles a toyshop more than anything and the staff tend to out number the customers. It’s still good for comics though.
• Future Shock: Close to the West End of Glasgow this messy wee shop is best avoided. It has a back issue collection which, quite frankly, has seen better days and the comics and books are generally a mess.
• Plagarist Comics: Just off Byres Road they have a great collection of back issues. i know that the used to do a few comics but I’m not sure they still do.
• The guy in “Collectables” in Parnie Street, just along from A1: It’s only back issues this guy does and he has a really good selection.

So who will I be up against?
Well, I’d like to wrestle the customer base off scary FutureShock guy and seeing as i’m going (hopefully) to be based in the West End / Partick area there’s the student element, I’m aiming for that as well.

Word of mouth is going to be the main draw i think…

But I have a meeting with a guy from Small Business Gateway this afternoon, so I’ll see how that goes.

BigAl

I decided to be on the ‘cutting edge’ again and implemented a new feature into the blog.

Gravatars are globally recognised avatars, where avatars are the little pictures that you have next to your name on forums and the like. Gratavars mean that you have a single picture that is used whenever you use your email address to make a post on a blog/site.

I thought it was a cool idea (thanks to Aq for pointing it out) and so they are now activated on the comments here.

On a seperate note, Happy Birthday wishes to Heather for yesterday

mrBen

Given that I am coming into the last few levels of Return to Castle Wolfenstein (RtCW) I thought I would begin my review of the game now, and then write the second part once it is done.

For those of you unfamiliar with the history and premise of this game, here is a brief rundown. Wolfenstein 3D was released by id software a long time ago, but was one of the first really popular First Person Shooter (FPS) games. id went on to create such masterpieces as the Doom and Quake series. RtCW is a return to their roots as much as anything. Based on the same engine as Quake 3 Arena, and with a plot-line that is less of a sequel, and more of a rewrite, of the original. You play Agent Blaskowicz, who has been captured in Castle Wolfenstein, and has to escape, and then gather information on the various paranormal, genetic and robotic experiments that the Nazi’s are undertaking on the way.

I’ve been playing it for just over 2 weeks now, and I’m using the Linux version, having bought the Extended Edition, although I would imagine that most of the details will be the same for any version. I won’t cover Enemy Territory, or the multiplayer options, here.

Cons
One of the most annoying aspects of this game is the save/load dialog. I know it may seem like a small thing, but if, like me, you save often, and also keep many save games (I’m on 49 at the moment) it is one of the few aspects that keeps coming back. There are 2 main issues: the mouse pointer is not very accurate, meaning that it can be very frustrating to actually get it to click what you want it to, and also that there are not suitable defaults . I want to be able to hit the save option in the menu, and then, if I’m using the ‘current’ save game, to hit ‘Save’, and then ‘OK’ to confirm that I want to overwrite. Instead, I have to click onto another save game (which can be tricky) and then click the ‘current’ save game, and then Save -> OK. Very annoying.

The AI on some of the characters is not, perhaps, as good as it should be. In some cases, in particular with a couple of the end-of-level baddies, it was possible to stand in a certain place without being followed, and just pop out, fire a few rounds into the enemy, and then pop back in. However, on the whole the AI is a Pro, not a Con (see below)

Lastly, and this is probably more a reflection on the age of the game, rather than anything else, the cut-scene graphics were a little bit blocky and samey. But that, all things considered, is a minor thing.

Pros
I left the Pros until last, because I want you to remember all the good things about this game. Because it’s excellent – probably one of the most enjoyable single-player FPSs I have played, including Half-Life. So what makes this game _so_ good?

• Level Design: Of all the good bits, this is the thing that makes the game so playable. The game is divided into missions, and the missions into levels. Each level has a set of objectives. However, it is the design and pace of these levels that makes it. Some are all-out shooting, others are stealth, where indiscriminate shooting is likely to lead to failure. Some are in dark castles or catacombs, others in wide open forests. Lastly, and this is the key point, all of the levels are short. This keeps you going for much longer, as you feel like you are making progress. While I can also see the benefit of the Half-Life style, where everything is seamless, the RtCW kept me wanting to come back for more. Plus, the end-of-level stats, especially the number of secret areas that you failed to find, is likely to make you want to go back and play the levels again.
• Difficulty: I am not the best game player, I admit. But I would like to think that I can complete a game on the ‘Medium’ setting. RtCW makes me believe that. Some bits I have found hard, but always there have been moments in a level/mission that have been easier, just to draw me back in. (I may, of course, revise this depending on whether I complete it ). I also feel like my FPS are being gradually improved as the game goes on.
• AI: Each of the different types of enemy reacts in different ways. Some of the ‘elite’ troops are downright sneaky – waiting until they can hear you reloading before popping a few rounds in your arse. Plus they move differently – the female guards will often fire some rounds, and then roll behind cover. One guard dropped his rifle as I shot him, then proceeded to pull out a revolver and pop a few caps in my direction! Accuracy varies between characters too.
• Secret Areas: I still remember running round the basic rooms in Wolf3D pushing the walls to see if there were secret areas. RtCW takes this to a modern level – levers behind paintings, books that pull out of bookcases, even the traditional moving wall-sconce candlestick. I love this kind of stuff, especially in the castle levels, and it just adds another element of fun
• Details: The devil is, apparently, in the details. Probably the thing that is best about RtCW is the details, the little things that really make it work. Whether its the overheard conversation of Nazi guards just before you pop round the corner with your MP40 blazing, the bits of everyday paraphenalia left lying around, or the notes from the High Command to their troops, everything submerges you into the game.

Conclusion
RtCW is not just a single-player game tagged on to something designed as multiplayer. It is massively absorbing and addictive game, which retains its quality even a couple of years after its initial release. If I do manage to finish it, it will be the first game that has held me that well since Tomb Raider 2, all of 4-or-so years ago.

Part 2 to be released, hopefully, in 10-14 days times

mrBen

Well – I’ve had my fill of trains in the last 24 hours.

On Tuesday night my train was delayed because of a points failure. It was bad enough that it was delayed, but what made it unbearable was the fact that:

• we never really got reliable or realistic information about the length of the delay. Initially they said 10 minutes, but it turned into over an hour.
• The train eventually went _back_ by 3 stops, having announced that buses would be laid on. So we stood in the cold for 10 minutes, waiting for buses that never turned up, only to be told that the points issue had been resolved and we could get back on the train

Today (Wednesday) things only got worse. I arrived at Partick to be told that there were no trains, and they wouldn’t start until after they had checked the lines. So I went home. The sequence of events following went a bit like this:

• At 9.50 I phoned the information line, to be told that the Wemyss Bay trains were running, but that Partick-Central was a no-go
• At 10am I left, got a bus to Partick and then a free tube ticket
• At 10.30 I arrived at Central, only to discover that the 10.50 Wemyss Bay train was cancelled.
• At 10.40 it was announced that people for Wemyss Bay (and a range of other services) should go out and on to buses. I asked a member of staff, who advised that the bus would take me to Paisley, whereupon I could get on the normal service.
• At 11.00ish I arrived at Paisley. 10 minutes later we were advised that, while there were trains to Greenock, the rest of the Wemyss Bay line was not available, and that passengers were expected to make (and pay) their own way from there. So I gave in.

Now – I understand that we have been having a freak weather moment, and so I can understand that things are tricky. However, what I find massively unacceptable is the complete lack of information available to customers. The ScotRail website only changed it’s ‘Urgent’ notice from ‘all services are delayed’ to ‘the majority of services are running’ at 1830 tonight. No interim messages indicating which lines were reopening and which were not.

We live in a so-called ‘information age,’ and yet there was no information, and seemingly not just for customers, but for staff as well. Worse, the information that was presented was often incomplete or incorrect.

mrBen

So what’s happening on the comics front this year? Do you care? Do I?

Well, of course. Apart from being an avid fan of all things comic-related I’m quite passionate about encouraging it in others. In Blighty it is an sadly overlooked medium…

So what’s out and worth a look at the mo?

The New Avengers
No, nothing to do with Gareth Hunt and Joanna Lumley. This is the new series of Marvel’s The Avengers (hence the name). The old series finished with some huge crossover which I avoided having given up on the Avengers since the late 80’s.
This New Avengers, however, is a brand new ball game. I’ve only read the 1st issue (the 2nd should be due out now) and it builds nicely on the ashes of the old. It’s meant to be the start of a 500 issue series. We’ll see how far I get.

Green Lantern: Rebirth
My personal favourite. The last series of Green Lantern finished a few months ago with a whimper and after 10 years of patchy writing this 6 issue miniseries is like a breath of fresh air. The series, which is at issue 3, is gearing up to be the greatest GL story in years. It’s kept all the popular characters from over the years and is doing what hasn’t ever been done previously. It’s actually developing the characters.
Whoo, it’s all good.

The Legion of Super-Heroes
Hmm. The first issue of the new series has not long come out and I didn’t ever see myself geting into it. All the previous LSH stuff I’d read has always left me cold so I was as surprised as any one as I reached for issue 1.
It’s a relaunch of the series from the start, which pretty much means that unlike New Avenger which carries on from the previous Avengers series, LSH is starting again. From the beginning.
A new writer and artist team are driving this one and, from the first issue, I can see I’m really going to get into this.

That’s all?

Yeah. I’m at work just now. I’ll have to head home to dig out the rest of my current recommendations.

Or is that just another excuse to spend the evening reading comics?

BigAl

In mid-1997 I took delivery of my first PC from a friend – a speedy 486, with 8MB RAM and a whopping 1MB Orchid graphics card. (Oh, and Windows 3.1) A couple of other friends, and a quick mail order, contributed my first ever upgrades: an extra 16MB RAM, a processor upgrade to a DX2 66 (which I, at one point, overclocked to 100Mhz), a Reveal CDROM+SoundCard combo (nasty) and, most importantly, a US Robotics Sportster Winmodem – 33k, but firmware upgraded to 56k. A quick visit to Freeserve and I was on the internet.

OK – so this wasn’t my first encounter with the internet, but, nostalgia aside, it’s very interesting to think back to those times, and what the internet was at that point, and where it is now.

Back then the killer feature was probably email – everyone at university had email addresses, and with the advent of local-rate ISPs more and more people were getting online with email. Lots of people had “homepages” – usually a page with a horrible wallpaper, and a little sign saying ‘under construction’. Some of the big companies had webpages – ibm.com just celebrated its 10th anniversary – but none of the little ones did. The big search engine was Yahoo; Google was but a mere glimmer in its creators’ eyes. Webmail was barely in existence – hotmail was on the rise, but, IIRC, wasn’t owned by Microsoft at that point.

So, what did _I_ use the internet for? Well, I downloaded some freeware, and stuff like that. (I was a big fan of Calmira for a long while) I read a lot of stuff, too, I suppose. I did a bit of HTML work, but nothing really serious. But, to be honest, I don’t remember it being a big part of my computer experience at that point.

Fast forward to the present – all of 7 years later – and now look at the net: it’s the first port of call before buying many purchases, and, for me at least, I do more shopping on the net than anywhere else. It has become a vital source of information – cinema times, maps, news, sport. It has become a vast community of people (“netizens”?). Most people are connected to the net, and an increasing number have broadband, ‘always on’ connections. Instant messaging has become prevelent, as has ‘blogging’. Interestingly, I would say that _less_ people have homepages, but that the overall quality has risen as a result. Google, who for me took over from Yahoo as my preference somewhere in 1998, is still the search engine by which others are judged. Netscape died and resurrected itself via the Mozilla project, finally giving us the cutting edge product that is Firefox. Amazon revolutionised online shopping, as did eBay. MP3s arrived, along with online music stores. Video over the net is getting there, and VoIP (Voice over IP) is on the brink. Online gaming is bigger than ever.

And me? It’s definitely my primary source of information on any topic. I shop online. Email is still important, but has been joined by IRC, Forums and IRC as places where I meet and chat with people. Email, in many ways, is personal communication with certain people that I know. Whereas 7 years ago my primary sources of software were shops and magazine CDs, the internet now takes that place. It was certainly one of the main things that aided my move to Linux – at the point where I was able to get online in Linux, I ceased to need Windows for anything other than games, which were only a minor part of my computer usage.

So – after all this rambling – can we learn anything? Can we predict where the internet is going to go? Here are some thoughts:

• Desktop integration – more and more I believe that the internet is going to simply become part of our basic computer experience. This is eased by broadband, but I believe that things like remote storage will become more and more common.
• ‘Any machine’ experience – many companies are interested in ‘hot desking’ and home working. Eventually this will have knock on effects in the ‘home’ market too – use any machine, but have the same desktop experience.
• Media streaming – as speeds get better, why bother going down to Blockbuster when you can just stream the video direct to your TV?
• VoIP is going to be big business soon, I reckon. Things like SIPhones and Skype are the tip of the iceberg.
• As I’ve mentioned in a previous prediction, I think that video-casting via RSS is going to kick in (for those than can afford the bandwidth ) and we will begin to see independent TV shows, much like the radio shows we see now
• IPv6 – version 6 of the Internet Protocol. For those of you less technically inclined than myself – when you type in an internet URL like www.jedimoose.org, it ‘resolves’ into a numeric address (like a kind of postcode for an internet address) which allows your computer to find the computer on which the information is stored. Currently, with IPv4, this consists of 4 different numbers in the range of 0-255 (eg 255.132.64.1). Problem is that we are running out of these, and things like VoIP doesn’t help. IPv6 replaces the 4 numbers with 6, which gives millions of more combinations. Converting everything over to IPv6 is a big job, but it is going to happen, and businesses will be pushing for it to be soon.

I leave you with a question – will the internet always be the way it is now, only ‘better’ or will it ever become some thing unrecognisable from the form it is in now. I’ve become a reasonably avid reader of Tom Clancy’s (spin-off) “Net Force” series, which suggests that the ‘browsers’ of the future are, in fact, Virtual Reality, and that we can shape the browsing experience to match our own personal preferences. Anybody got a glimpse of the internet in 2012?

mrBen

As many of you will know, I have been playing Enemy Territory for a few weeks now, and thoroughly enjoying it. So much so, that I decided I wanted a copy of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, the single-player game upon which it is based. Here starts the fun.

The Linux installation instructions advise that there are 2 type of RtCW – the ’standard’ edition and the ‘Game of the Year (GOTY)’ edition. These differ in 1 major way – the ‘normal’ edition requires that you install it on a Windows machine, download a hefty binary, and then copy a set of files from the Windows machine to my Linux box. Not impossible, but not fun either. The GOTY edition, however, just requires you to copy across the .pk3 files, and download a ~10MB binary.

However, the GOTY edition does not appear to have been marketted in the UK – we have the ‘Extended’ and ‘Special’ editions. But which of these is the same kind of file format as the GOTY edition, I hear you cry. Exactly!

I emailed Activision via their website, asking this exact question. They then emailed to tell me that UK questions should be directed to Activision UK. They didn’t bother to simply forward my mail, or even (shock horror) send a quick internal message to find out. No. They emailed me to tell me to email their other branch, and closed the ticket. Activision UK simply said that they didn’t support Linux. I emailed back saying that this was not really a Linux question, but rather a question about the marketting of their products. I have had no reply.

At the weekend I bought a copy of the ‘Extended Edition’ from a local PC shop (thus providing Activision and id Software with a bit of income) without knowing the answer. I now know the answer

The Extended Edition of RtCW follows the same format as the ‘GOTY’ edition, and thus you can perform a Linux only install using the relevant GOTY binary, which is available to download from a few places – I got mine from 3dgamers.net IIRC.

A quick footnote should go here to say that this game is excellent. I mean really, really good. The levels are short enough to keep you really addicted, and the enemys and puzzles get just a little harder each time. I didn’t really like any of the zombie stuff, but am very much looking forward to a couple of the more stealthy levels, which I should hit by the weekend Installing on Linux is a doddle, and it runs perfectly.

mrBen

I reckon January 1st was national ‘Hand Ball’ day, given the number of controversial incidents involving hand ball during the days football.

But, like the Murphys, I’m not bitter

I thought it was high time I pontificated on one of the more controversial topics that crops up on days like Saturday in football – television replays. More and more sports are using them now (cricket, rugby and american football, to name 3) but football has steadfastly refused to do so, and for some quite good reasons. However, I would like to suggest a scheme whereby television replays can be used without adversely affecting the game:

Television replays are only used in 1 of 2 circumstances:
1. When requested by the referee when neither himself or the linesman has seen an incident in the penalty area.
2. Each manager can call for 1 replay per match to challenge a decision by the referee.

In both instances, play must have stopped for this to happen.

(FYI option 1 is similar to what happens in cricket, and option 2 is something that has been introduced in American Football).

This means that there will not be thousands of replays in every game, but it also gives the manager an opportunity to correct a bad decision, but no opportunity to abuse the system. It’s not foolproof, but I believe that it could have helped in all the incidents on Saturday.

mrBen