Happy New Year!

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

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!"

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

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"

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?

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...

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?

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

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

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.