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Microsoft

Take back the web!

I’ve been meaning for a while to blog about Mozilla’s Firefox . A week or two back they released 1.0 Preview Release 1, and it blew away their previous version. The built-in RSS reader is worth it alone.

Tabbed browsing, built-in Google search bar, built-in pop-up blocking, and most of all, speed. This is true innovation in software development.

They had a goal of 1 million downloads in 10 days, and almost doubled that. Even a few friends of mine who aren’t aware or believe in the open source movement use Firefox. This is the kind of application that will educate people to the beauty of open source.

Get Firefox today!

Get Firefox!

Linux Gaming

This article sums up most of my views of gaming on Linux.

I have 2 machines that still run XP – one for gaming, the other I used to 2box my other Everquest account back in the day. It still has a bunch of music I need to transfer to my server, but other than that, I keep telling myself it will be for video editing as that’s the only other thing Linux isn’t as good as Windows still.

But back to Linux gaming: As I game less and less now, I realize I have to get my basement done, as my using my high end computer for non-gaming tasks drives me nuts in Windows. For the last two weeks I’ve seriously considered wiping my XP partition, or at the least making it dual boot. But I’m lazy, though I’m getting closer every day. As I look at what games I play, only Doom 3 has the potential to be played on Linux. If I only ran Linux, I’d have UT2k4 there as well. I had great success with NeverWinter Nights on Linux, but other than that, there are no RPG choices. As I debate EQ2 and World of Warcraft, neither will play on Linux.

Is playing games on the X-box my only choice? (If I were to only run Linux).

I absolutely agree with the article regarding WINE. WINE is not an option for Linux gaming, and for developers it’s a cop-out. Yes, I understand DirectX has matured better and faster than OpenGL. But if major games can work natively on Mac OSX, is Linux that far out of reach?

Yahoo Radio & MNF

Speaking of Yahoo Radio yesterday, what a disappointing service.

From a broadcast perspective, it’s gotten better. It used to be when they cut to commercial, it was dead air with no sound. Now you get local commercials.

But I’m a geek – I use Red Hat 9 on the box I listen to the game on. Well, doesn’t work with Linux. Fine. Use the KVM and pull up the other Windows box. Fire up Mozilla Firebird and go back and try and load it and Yahoo tells me I’m not running the right OS again. Takes me a few minutes to realize that I’m running the right OS, just not the right browser. Fire up IE, and bam, get the popup to choose RealOne or WMP as my player. Their OS / player detection page needs to define better the problem. And they should at least be Mozilla compliant. (Hmm, just thought of putting the plugin information in for WMP, but I don’t think that would fix it anyway).

And how about those Colts last night? By the definition of the Leaping rule as Al Michaels read on TV, Simeon Rice did break the rule – even if he landed late. But even to that point, for the Colts to score 3 TDs in 3:44, on the Bucs Defense, is amazing.

Sitting around watching the game last night, we all looked at each other and said this was a defining moment for Peyton Manning – and it was. Good for Dungy, especially after how the Glazers screwed him.

Criticism

I’m sometimes criticized for my liberal beliefs. That doesn’t bug me, especially in these times. Without getting into politics, one of the favorite ways to poke fun at me is for my technology views, especially when they’re viewed as paranoia. (See the links on right hand side of Silwenae.com.)

However, there is a story up at Kuro5hin discussing spyware, adware, and digital rights management. The article starts out with good definitions of each and then some editorial content. While the article tries to delicately avoid all-out Microsoft bashing, there is some, but the article describes very well the state of digital rights today, and some of the things being done to curtail our fair use rights.

So go ahead and make fun of me for using Linux. But at least read the article and understand some of the concerns. While parts of the article might be on the edge, some parts are right on, and these things paint a picture of what could come – if we don’t speak up.

Stupid Winamp

Why can’t Winamp stream Ogg files correctly? Very annoying. Well, it’s still a step up from Windows Media Player that can’t even play Ogg files.

All Hail Zinf! (Formerly FreeAmp) which can stream Ogg files in Windows.