October 2002

+ Saturday - October 26, 2002

I recently thought I should get started again on my arcade frontend. I was pretty happy because I had some new ideas I thought would work, but it turns out all of them were dead ends.

The first idea I had was actually using a web browser as a pseudo file browser for all my roms. I figured that through the use of "helper applications" I could map file types to certain apps and then just use href's to link to files on my local machine to load up games.

Of course, being a fan of Mozilla I tried it on there first. No go. Mozilla actually tries to "download" files you already have on your hard drive and use the new copy. This would be no good because I would be creating tons of new files every time I played a game. Beyond that, when downloading, Mozilla screws with the type/creator codes on my Mac and won't launch it in the right helper. A quick trip to Bugzilla proved this is something they're going to take forever to fix (it's been in the bug DB for a year and a half now).

So I thought I'd test the same thing with IE. Sweet, it works like it should. And I also found out that IE/Mac will parse an XML document with XSL. Even better...or so I thought. The XSL implimentation is very lacking, and kills the browser all together on OS X. Not good. Funny enough, Mozilla has excellect XSL support and is everything I need...but there's that damn file download problem.

Fine I say, I'll just worry about my control panel next. So I started looking into keyboard encoders, the best by far being the I-PAC, which has a great Mac utility for setting keys. Only problem is it doesn't support the Command key. Ok, and how am I supposed to quit a program or close a window without that? Ugh.

All these little tiny things preventing me from building everything I want. I suppose this project is going to take a lot longer than I anticipated.

+ Thursday - October 24, 2002

What's this? Microsoft uses Macs for their Bungie game sound studio? Isn't this a little like finding a Coke machine in a Pepsi plant?

+ Tuesday - October 22, 2002

It seems like every day I get company wide emails sent out by some rubes talking about either war or politics, trying to speak for everyone and tell them how they should think. Emails that say I need to attend an anti-war ralley (but what if I support the war?), and emails stating I need to contribute to Paul Welstone's campaign so he wins (but what if I support someone else?).

If I had gotten just one email on this I'd be fine, but every day I get "updates" on "our" progress in this "fight". Our progress? I don't remember signing anything when I got hired saying I suppored any certain person or ideal.

Today was the kicker though. I got another company wide email from someone who somehow was able to mix in both support for Paul Welstone's campaign and anti-war sentiments in the same sentance. I've had enough. I'm about this close to pulling a Scotty and sending an email back to everyone titled "Unsubscubre".

+ Sunday - October 20, 2002

Last night I went to see Quake! Doom! Sims! at the Walker. I was anticipating the event because it had to do with video games, specifically, making movies with them. Perhaps I'm just too into the gaming world, but I wasn't impressed. The entire time I was sitting there I was wondering why this was being presented. It's not the fact that I don't consider it some form of art, but for it to have a forum such as this puzzled me.

Perhaps it was because the movies weren't very well done. I understand that it's the concept behind the piece sometimes more than it is the piece itself, but I couldn't help but think the only real concept here was "Why? Because we can". It reminded me a lot of people who have video cameras and make wannabe crappy home movies. And I'm not talking about independant films, I'm talking about campy, "two college kids with way too much free time and dad's 8mm" movies.

Maybe I just missed the point. I've see way too many "movies" in games the way it is (hell, new Final Fantasy games are basically stand alone movies these days anyway), so the concept for me is nothing new. And the fact that these people somehow made a new experience by modifying and playing back game engine hacks, well, people have been doing that for decades.

That's not to say these aren't valid things to do, and that some of them weren't interesting or funny, or both. They just didn't strike me as particularly noteworthy, especially in a forum such as the Walker.

+ Saturday - October 19, 2002

Recently I happened upon the group 8-Bit Constructin Set. Being a big fan of video game music, this was right up my alley. The one record they have out is quite good (I'd reccommend downoading the SauceMaster MP3), but also has an interesting twist to it. On the album are actual programs that you can run on an old school Atari or Commodore computer (if you copy them to a tape drive). That's one wicked use of vinyl.

After peaking around the Beige Records site (the label 8BCS is on), I also came across Cory Arcangel's page, which has some pretty awesome computer hack art. Definitely something you don't want to miss if you're into that sort of thing.

+ Tuesday - October 15, 2002

I just updated to Moveable Type 2.5, which happens to add search functionality, and as such, I've added search to vitaflo. It basically works like Google does, and also allows you to use regular expressions if you so desire. The result list looks pretty much like the layout of this page, except that it uses excerpts instead of the full text, but linking to the archive is the same (via the "+" sign).

+ Friday - October 11, 2002

Ok, that's it, I need OS X at home. After everyone talking about OS X at dinner tonight w/ the guys, I want the damn thing at home so I can tweak to my hearts content. I mean, having it at work is nice, but it's like the first hit of crack keeping you coming back for more. I can't do everything I want to try at work because, well, I'm at work. The main thing I'd like to do is write an arcade front end app in Cocoa using the dev tools and Project Builder. The problem is I need new hardware to get OS X. I have the money, but I really want to wait for the IBM GPUL Macs that are supposed to be coming out in a year. Oh well, it'll happen...someday.

+ Wednesday - October 9, 2002

So, we got the new server up and running and you're now viewing this site on it. I must say it's much faster. I doubt you'll notice much of a difference, but at least for me, doing scripts and whatnot it's killer. Plus I now have Spamassassin hooked up so I can actually get email from my other domains and bcc's now. It's quite swank. Expect some outages in the next few weeks tho as we tranfer things around and all that jazz (not that you're on the edge of your seat to read the shit I write, but still).

+ Monday - October 7, 2002

Packers: 34
Chicago: 21

Monday Night Football

Can it really get any better?

+ Sunday - October 6, 2002

I got the 2nd Edition of the O'Reilly DHTML book in the mail the other day and after a few days of reading, I must say this is by far the best book I've ever owned. Most people know of my love affair with the first edition, and while I thought a 2nd edition would be better, I didn't think it would be as good as it is.

First of all it's thick. 1400 pages. 1400 pages full of syntax references, quirks, tips, tricks, cross references, coding practices, etc. I don't even think they should call it a DHTML book. That's just to limiting. It's more like "every single thing you can do in a browser".

+ Wednesday - October 2, 2002

Funniest thing I heard at work today, when we were trying to do something in Netscape 4:

"Today we're gonna browse like it's 1999."