Titan's blog

Happy New Year!

2005-12-31T20:56:00.001+02:00

Happy new year to all of you reading this blog!

I wish you all the best and happy blog-reading/blogging in 2006.

Everybody wants widgets

2005-12-15T14:04:00.000+02:00

Apple had them through Dashboard.
Linux had them with Karamba & SuperKaramba.
OS X and Windows had them with Samurize, DesktopX or Konfabulator (from now on Yahoo Widgets),
Microsoft has them with Gadgets (don't worry, it's the same stuff)
Firefox has them with Firefoxit.

Google wants it too... so here is Google Homepage API. (see some examples)

Incredible what desktop & web customization can do.

"Not enough mana!"

2005-12-13T18:09:00.000+02:00

1 - 0.9 - 0.1 = 0? Apparently not! (there is this joke: Q: when 2 + 2 = 5? A: for large values of 2)

And speaking of errors in real life...Fake or Photo?

Computers are getting a hard time removing the error in a simple computation, but have a hard time trying to represent imperfect things from real life...

Update:
Seems to me, no one has this wright (and probably never will because of that floating point binary representation)

Google's Calculator: 1 - 0.9 - 0.1 = -2.77555756 × 10^-17
Ruby: 1 - 0.9 - 0.1 = -2.77555756156289e-17
PHP(4.4): 1 - 0.9 - 0.1 = -2.7755575615629e-17
JavaScript:1 - 0.9 - 0.1 = -2.7755575615628914e-17
VbScript: 1 - 0.9 - 0.1 = -2,77555756156289E-17
Java2: 1 - 0.9 - 0.1 = -2.7755575615628914E-17
Perl 5: 1 - 0.9 - 0.1 = -2.77555756156289e-017
C#: 1 - 0.9 - 0.1 = -2.7755575615628914E-17
VC++: 1 - 0.9 - 0.1 = -2.7755575615628914e-017

Instead, 1 - 0.1 - 0.9 = 0, at least in VC++, C# and Google's Calculator...

Game reviews

2005-11-28T23:10:00.001+02:00

I've recently written about "the reviews". It's a hard subject because the notion "review" is very wide and everybody's doing it in all kinds of ways. It's hard to really decide what a review should be like.

So I watch these games which will become "the next big thing": Q4, NFS:MW, The Movies, B&W 2, F.E.A.R., Civ 4, AOE 3, Gun, PJ KK and others... This month 3 little screenshots. The gaming sites are shouting from their lungs: "Extra! Extra! Read all about it!..." And you read, because it's gonna be "the next big thing" and you don't want to miss it. And 3 months of waiting, but wait! There is some kind of rumor, posted on a site that the game will be launched 3 days earlier or 2 months later. And "the connoisseurs" are launching a debate: "Yes! I knew it all along!", or "this means: The end of life on Earth as we know it...". The game is beta, more news, the game is almost gold, even more news, the game is launched.... "Aaaaa.... It kind'a sucks! It's not The Game we all have been waiting for! It's the biggest disappointment since Network-Computing!"...

I don't really understand why all these great games (because they are) are treated like this: brutal. I know that a game is made by uniting the talents of many great people. A game is all about creation, all about ingenuity, all about professionals dedicating 2-3 or 4 years of their life creating a game. It's not all about "the gameplay it's good, but it gets a 6", it's not all about "the graphics are great, but not innovating enough so it will get a 8", it's not all about "the music is good, the voice acting is good, but it lacks that dynamic... so it can't get more than a mediocre 7".

A game is as interesting to do as a movie, in fact can be more entertaining (it is really hard to define what this more can be). It has a story (even a shallow one), it has content, it has game mechanics, it has presentation, it has sound... A game shares a lot with art but it's interactive.

Ok, I realize that NFS:MW has an addictive gameplay but it's kind of boring after the first 25 races, I realize that Q4 has a stupid "enter the room, clear the bad guys, go to the next room", I realize Gun has a engine that manages like a fraction of a fraction the space GTA:SA has ... but these games don't deserve such hard reviews.

It's hard to create the perfect game because it's about entertaining, it's about tastes, it's about a personal experience that you may enjoy, or not. It's hard to define the perfect gameplay. You can get it right for the first time, but it will still leave room for improvement. It's hard to create an accessible game but tough to master. It's hard to introduce a dazzling story that's totally original (some would find it interesting, other would find it hard to track). It's easier to develop further your game into a sequel, but it's hard also because it has to be something new and better than the previews title. It's hard to create an intense game with lots of cool action, cinematic experience and to take many-many hours to solve, but not feel the pain of repetitive actions (remember Max Payne? also, remember Halo's Library level?)

So how should a reviewer give marks for graphics, audio, gameplay, replayability, presentation if all it's remarks are subjective. If I'll buy a gaming magazine or read an online review on a high rated gaming site I'll suppose the reviews are there and present the official opinion of that publication. But it's certainly not so, because all these reviews are created by an individual ready to play that game 'till the end an then write his impressions about it. Some are more professional, some are more subjective. Bear in mind the author is usually a gamer that plays lots of games of that particular genre, and a few others (ex: he plays FPSs, platforms and strategies but doesn't play RPGs, sport games or simulations...) so he's pretty severe in his area of expertise. He is an expert of that genre, so knows what he likes or dislikes, is always ready for something new, and wants a lengthy experience. He'll always ignore if that particular experience has an abrupt learning curve. He'll always subtract points from the beginning for a clone or a sequel. And that's not such a good thing to do.

In fact, what a 9 should mean? Gamespot gives a good for a 7, a great for a 8, and a superb for a 9. Are there any 10s (perfect)? Yes, but I don't know how they got there. [one comment: in the Top Games of all time-all platforms number 1, 5 & 6 are Tony Hawk games. Man, somebody at Gamespot sure loves those games!]
Another way to score games seems to be comparative marks: "The Chronicles of Riddick is better than Doom III but less than Half-Life 2" but it's completely subjective and those words really seem not to say anything about that game in particular.

Looking through IMBD's Top 250, you'll see the highest score of 9.0 - rating from 143,911 votes in the day I write this article. And that's the way it really should be! Let the people decide. Let the viewers decide. Let the public decide.

So, I'll repeat to you: "LET THE GAMERS DECIDE!"

About "The reviews"

2005-11-08T13:10:00.000+02:00

At least a couple of times you've read "a review". There are comments, opinions, quick reviews, user reviews, detailed reviews and professional reviews. A review can be written in a magazine, online (in some blog, in some e-commerce site, in a specialized site, wherever), video or just audio (video reviews - TV or a site, audio reviews - radio, podcast or even your friend).

Every time I'm going to buy something, or view a movie, go somewhere for the first time, eat someplace new, read a book... I kind'a have to get a review. I mean, I don't have enough money or time to spend on crap. And so, you're in a continuous search for reviews: luckily someone had seen or experienced that very something you're interested in, and will tell you all about it, BUT! from his perspective.

LCD Monitor...

I recently bought a 19" LCD TFT - Samsung 960BF. This monitor was produced in September and I bought it in October. The product was that new that I could not find any reviews on the net. I read although many reviews on 930BF model that had all the specifications identical to 960BF, except for the pivoting stand of the later. Many reviews were unprofessional: they brag about the looks and software package more than the test itself - which I suppose MUST be looking at the damn display with a lot of attention. They say: "I did not notice any trailing" (techspot.com - the author of the review says it used to be a professional mechanic, so it figures), "I had no issues while watching Star Wars VI" and "no ghosting issues noted" (modthebox.com - Gold Sponsor: Samsung Canada tells you something?), "There was no ghosting that I could find at all" (dreamwarecomputers.com), "I never encounter any ghosting or other negative effects" and "it works well with movies" (nordichardware.com). Instead, BeHardware (behardware.com) writes: "The most finicky users will still notice some afterglow" and "there is a strong twinkling effect in videos", and the test take more than half of the article not 10-15% like the others (even took some pictures with a digital camera and compared afterglow effect and viewing angles from different monitors). Tom's Hardware (tomshardware.com) has even harder article about 930BF with a graphic of the characteristic monitor's response time and enough cynicism to make a mature man cry.

It's that hard to simply look at this monitor and recognize some basic afterglow or ghosting effect? It's hard to make a good (relevant test) for these effects, but are simple enough tests you can create to reveal them.

My simple tests reveal low to moderate afterglow and tinkering effect in 960BF. It will certainly upset you if you're asking me.

TV Tuner...

I want to buy a TV tuner. So what do I buy? I can acquire a 35$ Leadtek TV Tuner (old school) ... or a 110$ one with the latest and greatest chipset on the market?

But what is the latest and greatest chipset on the market? Is it any good? I don't know! So what do I do? I read a review!

Ok... A professional one will tell you all about the factors implied in the TV signal reception, hardware recording, tuner features, final image quality, software quality, package value, etc. A bad one will tell you what kind of wires are included in the package and if the alkaline batteries are included in the box, and at the end will throw a "and it's picture quality is great!".

But how you define small, little, great, fast, slow...

Digital Camera...

I've also purchased a new digital camera Sony DSC-H1 (a 5.1MP megazoom camera). I've read reviews and opinions on the forums for a whole month. And I've convinced myself that this is the camera I'll going to buy. I had a hard time choosing between Canon S2 IS and Sony DSC-H1. The best part is that I've previously owned a Canon A95 (a good camera by the way...). I've lost it in my honeymoon in Greece and I've used it for more than 6 months. It was my real introduction into digital photography. I therefore knew what I needed most from a digital camera and I knew what are the weakest points of a compact. I personally don't emphasize so much on movie mode, but I want less noise in my pictures, I don't need more than 5MP, but I want fast lenses and optical zoom more than 3x, I don't need that many automatic programs but I want more programmability, I don't want 1000 AF points but a fast and predictable AF system... etc.

Everyone will throw you some comparison terms that advantages one side or the other, but in the end, you'll have to consider your needs and balance all the clues you've got.

Conclusion?

There are certain organizations (special sites, publications, TV or radio stations, etc.) that do a professional job and that you can trust. It's pretty hard to find a trusty review source and when you find it, stick to it. There are lots more organizations and individuals that do a lousy job reviewing stuff. You should remember and only trust them when the review level will be technically appropriate.

Also, ambiguous meta-words like fast/slow, small/big, easy/hard should be carefully analyzed.

In my experience, on the tech & gaming side, trustworthy will be: Gamespot, DPreview, Tom's Hardware, BeHardware, Anandtech. Do you happen to know other? Please share them.

What about those codecs?

2005-11-03T18:19:00.000+02:00

Plug-ins are good. And that's it.

Ok... We have powerful processors, we have a thirst for multimedia, lots of gigs filled with digital videos and music. We sure have multimedia viewers, media-centers, media-libraries, media-jukeboxes, etc. We sure have lots of codecs, that conflict with each other, that have unknown and not so obvious advantages and edges over each-other. We also have a need for new codecs... But codecs are good. We don't have a good, unified system to manage them (because of the different politics implied in using these codecs), but we have codec packs, and smart media players.

The first videoplayer I used, was in Windows 3.1. It was hard to use but in Windows 95 Windows Media Player stuck it's head out (first as an ActiveMovie player - strongly related with DirectX's DirectShow). Windows Media Player was the first really good/neat Microsoft product in W95. But at version 7, Microsoft did it again! No more old good, fast, tweak-able Media Player, but buggy, fat & slow Windows Media Player 7. And from that point forward the things got only worse.

Windows Media Classic it's a FREE (as in "Open Source") player, with an appearance close to the old Media Player. Even the numbering respects it's predecessor: the current version is named Media Player Classic 6.4.8.5. It's small, fast, single file exe, no installation needed, has tons of features:

GDI Rendering, Overlay, DirectX 7/9
HLSL shaders & Bicubic Resizing - with DX rendering only
Configurable screen resolution & refresh rate for full screen
Subtitles, Access to a "Subtitle Database" - getting & submitting them
Remoting through WinLIRC & Web, Full configurable keyboard shortcuts
Overriding for codecs - Prefer, Block, Set merit for any listed codec
Lots of built-in codecs (DTS, AC3, MP4, MPEG1/2 Audio/Video, OGG, AAC, SHOUTCast...)
Support for Flash, QuickTime, RealMedia & M4V (if codecs are present on your computer)
Playlist
Support for VCDs & DVDs, Video Cameras/Devices
After Playback - Close, Stand By, Hibernate, ...
Settings kept either in .ini file or in registry

This player is really amazing. I've been using it for some years and is the only player I need and use. Together with QuickTime Alternative, Real Alternative & K-Lite Codec Pack this program is the definitive winner. I've tried VCL, bsPlayer or Red-Light, but MPC always wins for me.

If you have a PS 2.0 compatible video-card (like I do - ATI 9600XT) you should try those shaders:

The original picture

The MPC built in editor (it compiles on the fly/as you type - no compile button there!: just type and it's right there on the screen)

MPC shader example: spotlight

MPC shader example: emboss

MPC shader example: sphere

MPC slightly modified shader example: wave

My own shader: colored spotlight

My own shader: reflect

I've created a number of these shaders like colored spotlight, reflect, different deinterlacers/blur, sharpen, bloom and it's realy cool what you can do with a few lines of code.

Back in business...

2005-10-31T11:10:00.000+02:00

For all of you who lately visited my blog and didn't find an update for a whole month I apologize. I had some important things to handle (my marriage is one) and a thousand of little things. So, starting from now I'm back in business. Stay focused!

Update: I've created a new blog for a few pictures from our wedding and honey-moon. Everyone's invited. :)

Is Google better?

2005-09-30T16:04:00.000+03:00

Apparently Google clearly dominates the online search market. Ok, from the simple user's point of view this is not that evident. I use it, you use it... According to Business Report, Google is lead with 48%, Yahoo follows with 24% and MSN is the third competitor with 14%. That's more than Yahoo 's and MSN's market share added up. And that's huge. (BusinessWeek stated almost the same numbers last year)

But this share is assured by several factors: one of them is the fact that "Google is better". Dirk Lewandowski, Henry Wahlig and Gunnar Meyer-Bautor at the Heinrich Heine University in Dusseldorf have decided to analyze the search engines by looking at the database update rate.
Their study included the main search engines - MSN, Google and Yahoo. The 38 sites were chosen among portal, news and lifestyle sites. The conclusions were that Google succeeds to index daily the highest number of updated pages, while MSN is the only one capable of indexing all the changes within 20 days. Yahoo has the most chaotic update mode, in both frequency and number of pages. (still, the results are stated to be true only for the german version of these SE)

Google does not only hold the first position in our overall ranking. When focusing on the indexing patterns this engine is superior since the first look at the results is impressive: No other search engine updates so many sites as constantly fast as Google.

Some interesting infos raised, when Opera 8.5 went free: Google is an important partner of Opera Software - because of the little search gizmo located in the browser, that's defaulted to Google's search engine, and for every search that originates from this browser, Google will give something back to Opera Software. That's how business goes.

The rumors turned out to be true: Google has started a beta program for secure wireless communication (now just in San Francisco, later, NY will follow). Nobody knows what Google will do next, but apparently has to do something with the company's image.

NASA announces that Google will be an active partner of the agency ("09.28.05 - NASA Takes Google on Journey into Space"). That's a very positive image element. People will say: "well, if NASA trusts Google, then Google must hold some pretty interesting technologies. You can trust it, even up there, in space!".

Google hires people for [tam-tada-dam...]: GoogleTV. That's nice. Another good image there. And for the media part of the information, Google indexes a lot of TV shows on it's own servers. Yes, that's right: Google records lots of these shows and lets you play them online on Google Video.

Also, Google dominates in machine translation tests. Google scored the highest in Arabic-to-English and Chinese-to-English translation tests conducted by the National Institute of Science and Technology. The other two contestants were: IBM and University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute.

Google has also lots of cool features, and, the most important thing, ever adding or improving them (maps.google.com, Google Desktop Search, Google Earth, Google Hello, Google Talk, Gmail, Google Translate, etc.). But the most accessible and useful of them remains simply Google. It has a clean start page, no ads, no lots of links, no banners. For the ones who want a more portal-like approach: Interactive Google.

So, is Google better? I think, at least for the moment, it is. Comments anyone?

Openness - the way things should be

2005-09-20T16:22:00.000+03:00

GNU is all about openness, freedom of thinking, of using products, of modifying those to suit you best and all about sharing with the world. GNU took the hacker's way to the next level: learn/experience - engineer - share. "Open <*>" must manifest itself in a community. If the community is healthy, the product will be healthy too. We saw this in GNU products (GNOME, GIMP, and GCC), Linux (core and all the distros), KDE, OpenOffice, Mozilla (Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird, etc.) and all those great/successful product that benefit from a cool community (a ton of those products).

Google started with openness in mind. Google is free. Gmail is free. Google-Maps is free. GDS is free. Google-Talk is free. They also bought great commercial products and shared them for free: Picasa, Blogger, Hello, Keyhole/Google Earth. They have great, free products and the company image benefits from this large users community.

Now, the biggest software company (aka Micro$oft) decides that closed doors is not in fashion today. Those days are over. It started about 1.5-1 year ago with MSDN TV (videos taken to developers in Redmond about some of the products Microsoft is working on). Now they have blogs for every product, blogs of the employees, they have Channel9 (great site), they have pages for the products in beta stage, they share a lot of resources for the new technologies introduced... No accounts, no passwords, no passports. Just information.

In the last few months I've experienced an explosion of info originating at msdn.com or microsoft.com, all aimed at creating a real community. In the past years PDC was covered by few general articles, which gave us a bulrush image about what's going on. Now, great videos exposing featuring APIs, SDKs, Frameworks, products or technologies are posted on Channel9.

Great job Microsoft. Keep it up. Open even more.

Opera is now FREE

2005-09-20T14:04:00.000+03:00

Opera Software had permanently removed the ad banner and licensing fee from its award-winning Web browser. The ad-free, full-featured Opera browser is now available for download - completely free of charge at http://www.opera.com.

Opera fans around the globe made this day possible. As we grow our userbase, our mission and our promise remain steadfast: we will always offer the best Internet experience to our users - on any device. Today this mission gains new ground.

Jon S. von Tetzchner
Co-founder -- CEO

Opera has removed the banners, found within our browser, and the licensing fee. Opera’s growth, due to tremendous worldwide customer support, has made today’s milestone an achievable goal.

MP3 Player? Anyone?

2005-09-16T14:57:00.000+03:00

MP3 players are pure fashion these days. Everybody has to get one.

After iPod nano, that slick player from Apple (in fact, people just buys it because of it's looks :) ), one small contender appears mobiBlue DAH-1500i.

It's a fantastic gizmo:

only 24 mm³ (24x24x24)
1GB Flash (it has also a smaller brother that has only 512MB)
tiny full graphical OLED display
mp3/wma player
FM radio (there is also a version of 1500i that has no FM radio...)
built in microphone
equalizer (20 presets)
SRS algorithm
USB 2.0 connectivity
you can see it as a Flash-Drive
many colors (many versions: red, orange, blue, white, black...)
the price is also tiny (129$ for this full featured model, and 99$ for the 512MB model)

You can read a full review at PC Magazine.

mobiBlue? Anyone?

For real?

2005-09-15T15:18:00.000+03:00

I don't know what to believe of this. To me it seems like a scam or something. Too many "the renowned prof. dr. - you've never heard of him name - has a running prototype of the incredible - put a very big number here - storage device that will change the world. Soon his invention will enter the mass production", and you'll ever wander "what happened with that incredible - put the same very big number here - storage device that they should have been released many years ago???".

Today it's time for...."tam-dada-dam"...:

WORLD'S FIRST CONSUMER WIRELESS SUPER
NOTEBOOK COMPUTER, THE AtomChipÃÂ® SG220-2

The system is further detailed as:

Processor: 6.8GHZ CPU AtomChip® Quantum® II processor
System Compliance: Two Operating Systems (Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional and Linux®)
Memory: 1TB Quantum-Optical non-volatile RAM (NvIOpSRAM-SODIMM 200-pin)

Storage: 2TB non-volatile Quantum RAM (NvIOpRAM-ATA IDE)
Optical Drive: DVD Super Multi
LCD Display: 12.1Ã” WXGA (1280 x 800, 16:10) TFT Glare Type LCD display with 1.3 Mega pixel CMOS camera
Video & Graphics: Two Integrated graphic controllers [Intel®855GME internal graphics, support Intel® DVMT (Dynamic Video Memory Technology) and AtomChip® DVM (Dynamic Video Memory)]
Communication: 10/100 Base-T LAN on board, MDC Fax/Modem V.90/V.92 on Board, 802.11a/802.11b/802.11g WLAN, Intel® PRO/Wireless 2100/2200BG/2915ABG network connection, WiFi, Bluetoth, GPRS -witantennatoth antena, CMOS camera with USB interface, Mega pixel resolution CMOS image
Pointing Device: Synaptics touchpad with 4 way scrolling button
Application Launch Key: E-mail, Internet, Capture, WLAN
LED Status Indicator: Power, Suspend/Resume, Battery Charging Status, Quantum Storage Access, Num Lock mode, Caps Lock mode, Scroll Lock mode, WLAN Lock mode
Keyboard: 3.0mm travel, inverted-T, 88keys with 2 windows key (Internet & Microsoft For Connectivity)
Interface Ports Front Side: One 4-in-1 card reader slot (support SDIO/SD/MS Pro/MS), Audio line out, Stereo Microphone-in
Interface Ports Left Side: LAN port, Modem port, SVGA–out port, One Type II PCMCIA slot (support CardBus), 1394A port (mini jack)
Interface Ports Right Side: USB 2.0 ports x 3
Interface Port Rear Side: DC-in, Kensington Lock / Audio: Built-in two stereo speakers and Built-in Microphone
AC Adapter (Input: 100-240V AC, 50-60Hz, 1.5A. Output: 20V DC, 2.5A, 50W)
Battery: 6 cell Li-lon battery pack. Battery Charge: 3 hrs charge time to 100% capacity while system off and 4 hrs charge time while system on. Battery Life: Approximately 8 hours for AtomChip® Quantum® II processor and 3 hours for 4 x Intel® Pentium® M processors 1.7CHz (??? and 1.7GHz x 4 = 6.8GHz ???)
BIOS: AMI, Support PnP, password, Bootable from USB and DVD
Power Management: ACPI 2.0 compliance
Smart Battery System Support
Security: Kensington Lock
Size: 320.0(W) x 242.0(D) x 22.0(H)mm/28.0mm (front/back)
Weight: 1.9kg(when fully equipped with AtomChip® Quantum® II processor) and 2,20kg(when fully equipped with 4 x Intel® Pentium® M processors)
Packing Accessories: Quick Guide, Support CD (Driver, Utility, Manual), AC Adapter, Power Cord, Battery Pack, BOSE Headphone Music System with noise Cancelling.

And, to be sure,

Due to a change of management of the company Computechnics Atom Chip Corporate SDN BHD (Malaysia), devastating flood in the region in the Fall of 2004 and other reasons the contracts with the suppliers of components were not concluded and serial release of SG111 and SG220 was not begun.

Star Wars: Republic Commado

2005-09-14T02:21:00.000+03:00

Ok. There have been more than 6 months when this game showed up in the stands. You've probably played it (in march there aren't so game launches), but I've decided only two days ago to try it. It sounded nice on GameSpot and wanted to give it a run, just to be sure that I don't miss one of the thousands Star Wars games (kind of a joke, though it yields a little bit of truth).

To be short, this game has it's own vision of the SW Universe but remains consistent with it. It's not about spaceships/flying through space game, and it's doesn't feature any Jedi or either the Force's presence.
It's a team tactical 1st person shooter. I'm inclined to say it has something to to with Halo (life system, weapon system), Star Trek: Elite Force 2 (team based action), Star Wars: Battlefront (same frenetic action), Full Spectrum Warrior (good tactical control).

You're "38"/"three-eight" (more like a "Master Cheef"), and together with "07", "40" and "62" you form a fearsome Republic Commando. You get to shoot dudes throughout the game (placed somewhere in the Clone Wars), to save the great Republic from these bad-bad factions.

Here are some of my points on this game:

+ it comes on two CDs (it came as a surprise because you rarely see a game on just two CDs)
- it has an awful loud sound when the interface pops up (autorun/launcher program)
+ cool graphics:
- + nice bumpmapping
- + nice specular highlights
- + good explosions FXs
- + very cool softshadows (even if sometimes they project awful on some surfaces)
- + impressive lightmapping rendering and detail
- + good dynamic lighting effects (lights/shadows projections, though if you try to observe in detail these lights over let's say some rocks, at night, you'll be surprised of the strange effect..)
- + bloom effect
+ very good level design
- + the levels look great, are very detailed, not that repetitive
- + you cannot get stuck on a level
- + easy to get a sense of the environment
- + the health units have convenient locations
- + the objectives are very clear and you don't have to run from here to there only to open a door
- + the missions are pretty straight forward
- + plenty of monsters to kill
- + though heavily scripted, the action pacing is perfect
+ very good models & animations
- + cursive and very convincing animations
- + motion capture in all commando's animations (true to the real commandos's movement)
- + even when recharging, some interesting sprites appear
- + good variety of monsters with good animations and design
- + you can shoot and rip limbs from your enemy, lots of them show partial damage (flying helmets, pieces of armor)
- + good weapons design
+ excellent game design & programming
- + the Halo like energy shield & life are simply "the way it should be" (it gives you a little bit of slack, a little bit of courage that you'll not be punished for every hot-headed decision, but it doesn't let you cross the line too much)
- + Revive! Great idea!
- + game over only when the hole party is dead (very cool)
- + very good own forces AI (impressive I'd say: they fight for themselves, they watch their own back and others, they heal themselves, they revive their comrades)
- + very easy to command to your party the actions you want them to performs or to perform the way you want them
- + nice hud display (easy to read infos and easy to give commands to your party)
- + commando chat :)
- + very short & not that difficult learning curve
- + not so many guns, but very efficient (4 own guns + 1 monster's gun)
- + different grenades for different monsters
- + you can shoot with turrets and some of the monster's weapons
- + ragdoll physics (good physics, ragdolls will stay until you face the opposite way or shoot them to destruction, nice effect of the explosives on ragdolls - either dead or alive)
- + extra content means mostly "making of RC". Cool!
- - twice, in the game, one of your team just stuck into the level/objects. Nothing violent, it seemed that he would want to respond, but never left that place again. Had to restart the level... :(
+ impressive sound
- + very good Star Wars like themes
- + in tone with the action
- + very good sound FXs
- - sometimes the sound traps trigger earlier than they should (like: your player says: "watch those rocket turrets!" and you're like: "where dude?...." and after you take a corner see a rocket turret and you've figured it :) )
+ gameplay experience
- - pretty linear
- + very intense
- + you'll not have the opportunity to boor
- + very good feeling when you play the game (feel like one elite trooper engaged in a cruel war)
- + feel very confident of your chance of success and good to feel your comrades around
- - very short (only three campains)
- weak multiplayer
- - no bots
- - few game modes

New Linux distro?

2005-09-12T14:55:00.000+03:00

These last years have really taught us about openness/open-source/free-software etc.
I've been onto Linux since first distributions of Slackware, back in 1996... I've been testing different Linux or Unix distributions every now and then, mainly testing their progress.

Mandrake impressed me in 1999, when it shipped out of the box with i586 compiled kernel and packets. Then I saw that an easy Linux distribution doesn't really have to be named redHat to be stable and reliable. And what about that really cool installer, way over redHat's Anaconda. Version after version they improved their config tools (hardDrake, drakeConf), distribution packages and introduced nice small features - back then there were some of them where very innovative and cool - like: lilo graphical mode, graphical console, graphical console with a cool background, graphical booting with progressbar indicator, nice little graphical fdisk utility even in the installer, etc.
I've tried SuSE in 1998 and in 2001 and I was disappointed (first contact was with a German version of SuSE and it was painfully hard on me and in 2001 Mandrake or Slackware seemed to me as a better choice). Last year I've tried version 9.1 and was very impressed. The only drawback it had: little support for developers, witch was very bad.
I've never really liked RedHat or Fedora simply because of the multimedia glitches and various licensed technologies problems (as no mp3 decoding capabilities, no ntfs support)
Slackware was as always more of a distribution for experts: with it's sober installer and minimalist media. Instead was bitchin' fast and very good choice for systems with little resources. Worked great for me.
Lindows was always a joke of a Linux distribution. All that debate on "running windows apps capability right out of the box" (aka "we ship our system with wine, but you'll have to configure it by hand and then you'll have to run it by yourself. Cool!") and "click-and-run" system (aka "click-go-to-our-website-buy-pay-download-and-run" - cool acronym.
QNX was bliss when I first saw a QNX distribution on a single diskette (1.44MB). Way cool! All you had to do is to write the image on a diskette, then boot with it and there you had it: a realtime os, a cool graphical interface, network support, modem support, a browser and few other applications. You had to be impressed! A later version (6.1) wasn't that big of a fuss, because it already diverged so much from the regular Linux distributions that it's about worthless for a simple home/power user.
I've tested a FreeBSD in 2003 and more recently a 5.3. cool system, an X system that was way faster that anything in that moment
Knoppix launched a new style: Live Distros. A very cool and practical idea, also reasonably flexible and fast. Tons of packets at a click-of-a-button distance away from you.

Mini-Distros:

Damn Small Linux (DSL) & QEMU - nice small distro, with lots of packages, and weights less than 64MB (~50). With QEMU you can run Linux in a virtual-machine on top of Windows for example. (to be noted that QEMU supports multiple platforms)
Shinux - Very cool French distro. The full version is about 154MB large but has very good hardware support and lots of good packets. It's a little bit multimedia oriented but it's a nice little distro for all purposes.

I've tested last month few distributions:

SuSE 9.3 - At some point tried version 9.1 and was very impressed. 9.3 it's only better. It's solid, has good support (no mp3 support right of the box :( ) for hardware (YaST it's a hell of a application, I tell you that!), lots of good packages and good updates support. This distribution it very polished, even than Mandrake's. Lots of customizations, lots of eye candy, lots of nice little features that make your life easier. Very recommended. Now it's free. OpenSuse it's more like a Fedora distro, and 10.0 it's in my opinion the bleeding edge now.
Mandriva 2005 LE - I would be absurd to tell you that I've tried them all since 8.0, but I've had my share of Mandrake because it was the best distribution in my opinion: fast, good hardware support, good config tools, lots of polish, good distribution (lots of good packets), good update support and good developer tools. Very recommended.
Ubuntu 5.04 - I've heard so much about this distro that I had to try it. Ubuntu stands for "humanity to others" or "I am what I am because of who we all are". It means that this distribution will have the same support for everyone, for free. I've tried it on, but no luck with my video board (ATI 9600XT), no luck with my sound card (Audigy 1), a pretty small installer with little room to chose your packages at the install time... What should I say, I didn't feel too good. It's like you're somehow restricted to use its full power only because lots of people will have a hard time installing a Linux distro (which it's not the case anymore for many assortments of Linux).

I've heard of these distros (which determined me to write this article), and I'm determined to have a look at them in the near future. If you get to play with them, please let me know.

Elive 0.3 (Enlightment Live) - Looks cool, loved the avi with E17 demo (lots of eye candy)
Open Solaris - the greatest UNIX that I know of. Now Sun decide that it's wonder baby will be free, for everyone (the x86 version was free since v8.0 but now it's Open Source. Cool!)

Some cool sites that you have to dig for yourselves:

DistroWatch - the first site regarding Linux distros.
Linux Planet - good Linux related articles. And something related to my article here.
Linux Magazine - some good articles

iPod nano & iTunes 5.0

2005-09-08T12:09:00.000+03:00

Hmmm. Jobs gave us iPod, then iPod mini, then iPod Photo then iPod shuffle, now iPod nano. It looks very cool. It's like and shuffle with 1.5" color screen (176x132 px). It comes in two colors: white and black and can now display photos, has a separate podcast section, a stopwatch, a 4 digit password protection. Lasts as long as 14 hours, weights only 42 grams.
Also, iPod mini, has disappeared from apple store... too bad.
Tech specs:

Holds up to 1,000 songs and full-color album art
Only 3.5 x 1.6 x 0.27 inches and 1.5 ounces
Bright 1.5-inch color LCD display
Up to 14 hours of battery life
Apple Click Wheel
Charges and syncs via USB
Accessory-compatible Dock connector
Completely skip-free playback
Works with Mac OS X or Windows 2000/XP
Plays music, podcasts and audiobooks
Holds up to 25,000 photos
Syncs contacts, calendars and to-do lists

Comes in two disk sizes: 2GB (199$) and 4GB (249$).

Another news: iTunes 5.0. Don't expect to find major changes, though it looks a little better.

Update:
- How to crack-open your iPod nano (a movie from Kevin Rose - Diggnation)
- Stevie's Little Wonder (article by Time magazine)
- Nono Rocks, ROKR Flops (article by BetaNews)
- iPod nano (stress-testing the nano :) by ArsTechnica)
- iPod nano video review (by CNet)
- inside an iPod nano (gallery by PCWatch)

Podcasts are good for your health :)

2005-09-08T11:17:00.000+03:00

I've started listening to podcasts about 3 weeks ago. The first didn't impress me at all, but I've searched better content and I've found some interesting podcasts. Here's a list of what I'm currently watching:

The Bitterest Pill : comedy : Dan Klass = A professional actor, did a little bit of stand-up comedy and now it's staying home watching his kids, and from time to time takes an audition. Sometimes his 6 year old son, Hudson, comes into show... A podcast about family, life, TV shows casts, etc.
This Week In Tech (aka TWiT) : technology : Leo Laporte (and the TWiT army: Patrick Norton, John C. Dvorak, David Prager, Kevin Rose, etc.) = Fun discutions about technology and this week's tech news
Diggnation : technology, science, beer, fun stuff : Jay Adelson & Kevin Rose = These two guys launched themselves with "The Broken", nice mini hacking shows, then Kevin worked for Tech TV and for G4TV. Now they launched Revision3 and Digg. All the subjects come from Digg.com, and they're proposed by the readers.
NOVA : science : NOVA / PBS = Small essays about science (mostly physics) at an intermediate level.

The HotSpot : games : Rich Gallup, Bob Colayco, GameSpot Staff = Discussions about games and what's happening in the gaming industry. Very good, professional, right to the point news.

Update:
People asked about these podcasts: what are these podcasts? what you can do with them? how you can play them? are they any good?

In my opinion, podcasts resemble with radio shows, only they are posted as an mp3s. A lot like radio on demand. These podcasts are created and then submitted by the author to a podcast directory. Here they became available as episodes, for everyone to download them.

The big difference to radio is that once downloaded, an episode can be listened whenever you want, wherever you want, you can skip through the show and usually there are no ads and no fees whatsoever.

Every podcast has a description, as well as every podcast episode has it's own description. You can "subscribe" to a podcast and the episodes will be automatically downloaded as soon as a new file becomes available on the server. After you've downloaded it, you can listen to it on a computer, you can upload it on your portable mp3 player or you can burn it on a CD and listen to it while you're driving.

Cool huh?

Podcast players:

iTunes (>=4.9) - has a nice presentation and is really easy to use
Ziepod - somehow good

That's it! Now go fetch your podcasts!

No more Apple mysteries

2005-09-05T17:28:00.000+03:00

As you saw in a past article, G5 vs x86, there were few interesting points about G5 and Darwin. In two words: they sucked.
This time, the same guy edited a second part where he revises his previews article in light of new infos and ideas that he confronted in this while, and in few words the article spells: G5 isn't so bad after all (even it's left behind by x86), but Darwin surely sucks.

Google Maps Guestmap Service

2005-09-01T11:24:00.000+03:00

I discovered today a new cool & fun way to track my guests: Guestmap
Please sign on my guestmap here: (as a popup window) or (as a standard window)
You can track me in Bucharest, Romania as "Titan" :)

It's offered as a free service by MyGuestmap Team. Try it out for yourself!

World Wide Google

2005-08-30T12:29:00.000+03:00

Google hires a lot of PHDs. Google hires a lot of very good programmers. Google always buys something. Google always manages around it's stock. Google is always on the move. Google always invents something. Google always thinks big.

Google is hard at work on a nation-wide (US) high-capacity data network, buying up unused fiber lines and cheap backbone access to really flesh out their capacity. B2 theorizes this could result in a massive digital video db, on-demand television (IPTV) system, or free ad-based WiFi network.

Could Google really power not just Internet search, but a sizable portion of the Internet?

Related stories:
engadget: GoogleNet - massive Google WiFi in the works?
The Register: GoogleNet - the ultimate embrace and extend? & World Wide Google
The Register: Google puts the break on Web Accelerator
Daily Wireless: GoogleNet?

WinFS beta available to MSDN subscribers

2005-08-30T10:50:00.000+03:00

Although it didn't make the cut for Windows Vista, a beta of Microsoft's next-gen WinFS file system has been made available to members of the Microsoft Developer Network. The availability of this first beta release doesn't indicate that WinFS will arrive earlier than expected, though. According to Microsoft, the file system will still be in beta when Windows Vista ships next year.

Link to the original article.

G5 vs x86?

2005-08-23T11:58:00.000+03:00

I've just got my eyes over an interesting article 'bout what G5 and OS X can and cannot do. Apparently, G5 is the most successful processor in the G series (and perhaps even in the PowerPC series), BUT the x86 outstands it (I would say, by far). Mac OS X (Darwin 8.1, Mach kernel 3) cannot compete with it's free adversary: Linux, even they have a little bit of common ground (FreeBSD 4.4 was the model and base for Mach kernel). they are both: 'NIXes.

I can run two conclusions:
1. If OS X is so successful on the client side, maybe these rumors of OS X ported on x86 are not so far from truth after all, and OS X should be even faster than on Mac.
2. If XBox 360 has 3 PowerPC cores it will be, as Carmack said it will be, "about 50% slower than a high end x86 machine). So that's not that good.

Windows update without IE?

2005-08-22T15:18:00.000+03:00

Yes! They say it's possible. You can use it with Firefox, Netscape, Mozilla or Opera. It pretty much works as IE (download a plugin, check the local system, present a list of updates...) but without IE :). I've tied it myself but I was already "up to date!", so I couldn't see any "real" action.

You can access it here. And, let's hope it lasts.

I wonder how it's going to handle Genuine Windows Adavantage...

Update
On a clean system, being kicked off by the Genuine Windows Advantage system (dam!), I logged on this site, I chose Firefox from the alternative list of browsers (it detected that I use IE and proposed an alternative), I downloaded it, installed it, logged back to the site using Firefox and started downloading updates. After installing the first 3, Firefox says "ok, we have an situation here... Firefox Is Down/Dead!". Ok, no problem, logged back, started the update (all the downloaded updates were already on my disk, so a download wasn't necessary. A few installations and "Bang!", believe it or not, Firefox is down on the battlefield, doing it's job? After a few sessions of this kind, and few restarts later (you need to restart because some of the patches will not be effective until you reboot - but no info about this, you have to figure it for yourself) you have all the updates provided by the site (possibly all the updates in Windows Update?)

Hey! I had little problems but not major ones. Firefox is unstable (low probability) or this plugin is doing some powerful stuff to Firefox...

Reporting on the battlefield: GWA was defeated

Quake 3 Sources Out

2005-08-22T14:26:00.000+03:00

Ok, I'm a little late, but I had (and still have) all this stuff on my head. As you know, Carmack hold his word and released Q3 Source (3.32b) & Q3Radiant. That's awesome! (you can look at a bunch of neat stuff in their ftp)
I took a short look at the sources. C. That's a little depressing :( (Doom3 is implemented in C++, maybe in about 4 years from now...) Still, there are important lessons to learn from this. The code is clean, has relevant comments all over and it's just cool that you can do what you want with it. (Ok, I'm a little over excited, but I'll be fine)

For all you people who just want to do a Mod, and not deep modify the engine, you can look at this very good page: code3arena. A lot of very good and gradual tutorials about q3 moding are presented.

Doom 4 iPod?

2005-08-17T15:52:00.000+03:00

Hey! Have you heard of pozilla? If not, you've just lost 1/2 of your life. Well, Doom has been ported on podzilla. So it is a little sluggish so it's hard to control, but what the hell? It's Doom on a mp3 player!

The really cool thing it's the engineering related stuff, not the app. You really can do so much with Linux & free software, even it's on a crappy hardware.

Ok, Stallman gave us GNU, FSF & GPL, Torvals gave us Linux, Carmak gave us Doom, Leach gave us podzilla and now, guess what? Doom 4 iPod. "You've come a long way baby!" (Fatboy Slim).

You can read more, see pictures, watch some videos or download it here.

Another interesting site is about Doom modifications. Nice to see an old legend still kicking a leg after such a long time.

Archy

2005-08-17T12:54:00.000+03:00

Archy it's an eccentric interface/platform, built in mind with some interesting philosophy like "Your Data is Sacred", "Your Train of Thought is Sacred", "A Computer Should Not Make You Do More Work Than Is Necessary" etc. It was invented by Jef Raskin (created the Macintosh project). For now, a alpha build is available and kinda' works only on WindowsXP (and I tend to believe them), but Linux and OsX are in progress.

I tried it for a bit... what can I say... "weird" it's the first word that comes out of my mind. No fancy interface, just keys. Is Jef the creator of vi too?

John Carmack's QuakeCon 2005 keynote

2005-08-16T13:20:00.000+03:00

You all know John. A few interesting subjects (I'm exaggerating a little bit, but a little about these is mentioned):
- Multithreading
- PC vs Consoles
- XBox 360 vs PS3
- Physics acceleration
- Small budget & Creativity vs Safe play & Big (read Bloated) budget
- But what about Q3 sources?
- Nice features to have in next gen video-boards

Read more in Tech news
Update
Or better... download the movie
Or, if you don't want 'bout 250MB on your drive just to see Carmack speaking for 90 minutes (but hey! you're missing "The man!" :) ) you can read a very good article about what he had to say!