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Foresight Website Maintenance

The Foresight website, including the home page, wiki and issue tracker are under going some much needed maintenance this weekend. We are getting Confluence, our wiki, upgraded to handle more users and have the latest version among other things.

Our apologies for the inconvenience.

A bug-hunting we will go

We had a really good Foresight developer meeting a few weeks ago, and one of the outcomes is to start scheduling week long sprints to accomplish some tasks.

First up, is Bug Hunting Week.

Foresight Bug Hunting Week

With 2.0 on the horizon, it’s time to get JIRA, our issue tracker, cleaned up, and tackle all the outstanding issues in 1.4 (and older) and make sure that if the issue hasn’t been resolved, it’s at least assigned to a developer.

Want to help? Join us in #foresight-qa on Freenode or visit the wiki pages to learn more.

Buying Spree

I’ve been on a bit of a buying spree for CD’s over the last month or two, especially picking up a lot of indie bands.

In no particular order:

  • The New Pornographers, Challengers: One of the best albums I’ve bought in a long time. I’ve always like the New Pornographers, but it wasn’t a disc I would spin over and over. This disc is amazing – Neko Case and the whole gang did a heck of a job writing some very memorable songs that are guaranteed to get stuck in your head. My favorite track by far is All the Old Showstoppers.
  • Rilo Kiley, Under the Blacklight: I bought this and the Challengers on the same day, and both of these have vied for the same playing time, with Under the Blacklight probably getting the edge in total playtime. I was introduced to Rilo Kiley a few years ago on 89.3 The Current, and ended up getting their last release free from the station at a volunteer opportunity. I really liked, but this disc is a major step forward. The title track, Under the Blacklight, 15, Smoke Detector and Give a Little Love are standout tracks. (I also picked up Take Offs and Landings, their second album but first released commercially.)
  • Interpol, Antics: Very similar to their last album, but it seems a touch more mellow. I need to listen to this one more.
  • Tegan and Sara, The Con: I absolutely adored their last disc, but this one doesn’t live up to that. The Con is more of a concept album, and while not a departure from the twins’ signature sound, it doesn’t have the 2 or 3 songs that you couldn’t get out of your head that So Jealous did.
  • Fountains of Wayne, Traffic and Weather: I don’t think these guys get the credit they deserve. They write catchy pop alternative songs with interesting lyrics, but all that everyone remembers them for is “Stacy’s Mom”. Good album, on par with their last effort.
  • Dolores O’Riordan, Are You Listening?: The former frontwoman for the Cranberries unleases a solo album that was 3 or 4 years in the making, and it was worth the wait. If you ever liked the Cranberries even just a little, pick this up. Ms. O’Riordan’s songwriting and lyrics have matured, and this album has it all, from mellow to rockin’ out.
  • Garbage, Absolute Garbage (Special Edition): Greatest hit collection from the alternative band from Madison, WI. I’ve seen Garbage live a few times, and they have always been one of my favorite bands. From Butch Vig’s catchy pop sound to Shirley Manson growling or purring, Garbage is the real thing. I made sure to pick up the Special Edition and get the second disc of remixes, which were a bit of a disapopintment. But I’ll give it to Garbage, the songs collected for the greatest hits album were perfect.
  • The Donna’s, Bitchin’: The follow up to Gold Medal, this all girl band left their label and is publishing this independently. They’ve cranked the amps up to 11 for this album, and are rocking even harder. What I love about this album is the classic 80’s hair band feel The Donna’s bring. While not over the top, most songs are anthem rock songs without going too over the top. I highly recommend this album. (I have a friend who digs The Donna’s for the song Take it Off from the Gold Medal release, as he can play it on Guitar Hero).
  • White Light Riot, Atomism: This local band from Minneapolis has been getting some airplay on 89.3, and have an indie sound that’s a little harder than some of the current indie favorites out there, and a couple of the songs are pretty catchy. Due to some of the favorites above I haven’t listened to it as much as I’ve wanted, but I’ve been happy the few times so far that I have.
  • Bruce Springsteen, Magic: I was blown away by Radio Nowhere, the first single from the album, and unfortunately the rest of the album doesn’t sound like it. I’m a Springsteen fan though, and while the rest of the songs don’t rock as hard as that one as it mellows out a bit, the rest of the album is good. If you liked The Rising, you’ll like this release.

I need to go buy the new Radiohead album off their website now. I’ve also been poking around Amazon’s store, and they are promising an album downloader for Linux. I’m really looking to give that a try. But more on physical vs. digital another time.

More on the waiting game aka Quake Wars

I, like Phoronix, thought the Linux client was days away, but it’s weeks according to a post I saw on Linux-Gaming.net this morning:

I’ve also been making steady progress with the Linux Client, and it’s coming along really well. We’ve been running a closed-beta test for ‘friends and family’ for a little while, and for the past couple of weeks have had a fully functional version of the demo running. The closed-beta testers are now able to play alongside Windows players on the same version, with full Punkbuster support. The major systems including the renderer and audio are working great, and performance has been good on both the NVIDIA and ATI graphics cards.

Alongside my other responsibilities at id, my focus now is on optimization for the Linux Client. If everything goes to plan, we should have the Linux Client ready for release in just a few weeks.

Read TTimo’s full post here.

Darn. Well, I have tons of stuff to do with Foresight right now anyway, but it would have been fun to have some time to play before my new job starts in a couple weeks!

Foresight Wiki

The Foresight wiki is unavailable for adding content for a few days. All wiki content is still viewable, but you can’t edit or add content until after we perform an upgrade, which will hopefully be completed by the end of the weekend.

Our apologies!

Waiting Game: Quake Wars

I picked up a copy of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.

Now I’m just playing the waiting game for the Linux binary so I can play it.

I think the actual game is more fun.

But I wanted to make a statement by picking up the game during release week – it’s important to me to support commercial game companies who make Linux compatible games.

Rolling releases

Over the next month or two, you may hear a lot of news about upcoming releases of various Linux distributions.

But what if you could do things differently? What if you could have a Linux distribution that wasn’t tied to a specific date twice a year to update your packages and your distribution? What if you wanted access to the latest Banshee for example that will be out later this year and not wait until next spring? Why mess around with backports or unstable respositories just to gain access to the latest release of a package that features a bug fix you need?

Try a Linux distribution that features a rolling release. Try Foresight Linux. Yes, we have a “formal” release when GNOME releases every 6 months, but when a package has an update, it’s probably updated before you even notice, and just one conary updateall away from being included in your desktop. The latest packages will give you access to the latest features, and better yet, the latest bug fixes of any given package. With Foresight Linux 2.0 on the horizon, we will be adding a more formal QA process, so don’t let the “but we need months of testing” stop you from updating. Point releases come out every couple months, but mostly to update the downloadable media including install CDs / DVD and live media such as Live CDs or VMWare images. The magic of conary will keep all of your installed packages up to date.

Additionally, if something doesn’t work, Conary is an innovative package manager that features a rollback feature – from the command line type sudo conary rollback 1 and you’ll be right back to where you were before you installed that last package.

There can be better ways of doing things. And a rolling release is a better way.