Logo by Tom Purves

9:45 PM
Andrea Electronics headsets
I'm thinking about picking up one of these from Onsale.com so I can use it for video/audio conferencing.   They're going for about $20-25 there, which is about half of they normally cost.   They are ultralight headsets with active noise cancellation.  Nice, eh?   The model number being sold is the ANC-500.

Andrea Electronics' website

Ethernet weirdness
I've had a couple of weird instances lately where my ethernet card has just cut out altogether, forcing a reboot.  Ther problem is extremely rare.   Soft reboots don't do it either, NT locks at the blue boot screen unless I hard reset.  Almost certainly some sort of hardware issue.  Bad news, huh?  I wish I had another PCI Ethernet card I could try...I'm not really in the mood to spend more money on my computer at the moment.

I actually had the problem before in Win95 for quite a long time.  However, it seemed to go away in NT, so I just ignored it.  Now that it really seems to be acting up, maybe I'll see if I can get a warranty replacement.

4:29 PM
Wing Commander Prophecy test available
I haven't played Wing Commander since I quit WC3 in the middle of playing it.  It was getting a little old, you know?  This should have at least 3Dfx support, though, so it might be worth checking out.  It's about 13MB.  The EA site is a little overloaded, so you might want to try the O3Dfx link instead.

Direct download for Wing Commander Prophecy test - from EA
Direct download - from Operation 3Dfx

2:09 PM
Articles on Intel's price cuts
Hey, thanks to everybody who sent in URL's for those articles!  I really appreciate it.  The News.com article has info on AMD's price cuts, while BootNet has a nice big comprehensive list of Intel's.

News.com's article
BootNet's article

VideoLogic's SonicStorm
Oh my!  Well, while I was browsing the aforementioned BootNet article I ran into an article on this new sound card from VideoLogic.  Now this guy looks nice!  It supports multiple audio streams and true 3D positional audio, as well as the DLS specification (it's a PCI card, of course).  At $99, it is quite affordable.   It's also supposed to have NT drivers, although, as is the case with anybody claiming to have NT support, I'm going to wait and see about that.

If all this is true, it looks to be a better deal than my Daytona PCI by far.  I think Turtle Beach is just slapping their name on a third-party creation and charging more.  However, removing the Daytona PCI from my computer looks to be more trouble than it's worth at this point.  The fact is, it does what I expected it to do...the only thing I'm disappointed in is the fact that there appear to be lower-cost implementations from other companies.  I did look for a while trying to find these rumored SonicVibes-based no-name cards, but I can't find anybody on the net who sells them.  I don't even know if it's possible to return stuff to NECX anyway!  Plus, the SonicStorm is not due to be out for another few weeks.   All in all, I don't think it's worth the trouble to worry about it at this point.

According to BootNet, the SonicStorm uses the Maestro-1 from ESS Technology.  You can surf over there to get a better idea of what the chip is capable of.

Specs for the VideoLogic SonicStorm

1:02 AM
Upcoming price cuts from Intel
Intel's ritualistic price cuts for November are officially due this coming Monday.  Pentium II prices should drop a good deal with this round of cuts...PPro's are unfortunately probably not going to drop much.  I'll post the real prices as they become available.  Actually, I could have sworn I saw an expected price list before but for the life of me I can't find a single article about it now.

Voodoo 2 speculation
Supposedly there is going to be a major announcement regarding Voodoo 2 within the next week.  It will be interesting to see just how much 3Dfx can leapfrog the competition.  Just to refresh your memories, Voodoo 2 is going to be 3Dfx's next-generation 3D-only solution, similar to Voodoo Graphics today.  Banshee will be an integrated 2D/3D product.

Zerg info up at Blizzard
The unit info for the Zerg race in Starcraft has just been posted on Blizzard's Starcraft website.  Go check it out.

2:41 PM
New 14/32X CD-ROM from Plextor?
As if people were actually managing to take advantage of 24X drives, Plextor has just announced their new 14/32X speed UltraPleX.  The drive will actually be Ultra-SCSI, supporting transfer interface rates of 20MB/sec.  14/32X refers to the fact that the drive reads the inside of the disc more slowly than the outside, since the disc is spinning at a constant angular rate.  Speaking of spinning, the drive supposedly spins the disc at an amazing 6890 RPM!  I thought hard drive manufacturers were having a hard time doing this economically, but CD-ROM's don't have a problem with it?  I don't quite understand this yet.

http://www.plextor.com/ultrapr.htm

1:59 PM
Porn=Money?
Yeah, I knew porn on the Internet (or the more humorous way of referring to it, pron!) was profitable.  But I didn't really know it was THAT profitable!   Look at the story on ZDNet, I can't believe how much money they make!   Honestly, I don't know what else to say?

ZDNet's story

3:29 PM
Libretto 70 announced in Japan
For you fellow-lovers of the sub-sub-notebook, the Libretto 70 has just been announced in Japan.  120 MHz MMX Pentium, 1.6GB HD and 2-3 hrs battery life.   Also greater travel on the keys.  Luckily, the Libretto 50 has become a raging success here in the States, so perhaps we may get to see this beast or its successor (I've noticed the Libretto gets a lot of incremental model upgrades in Japan that might not cut it here). 

2:22 PM
QuakeWorld 2.10 and GL Quake 0.96 released
Bug fixes mostly.  With Quake 2 coming out, this probably is the last you'll be seeing of the original Quake.  Honestly, aren't you sick of it by now?   They should make GL Quake version 1.0, at least to give it a sense of finality, don't you think?

QuakeWorld 2.10 Client for Win95/NT
QuakeWorld 2.10 Server for Win95/NT
GL Quake 0.96

ID's FTP Site - for other platforms and assorted goodies

Join the RC5-64 challenge!
That's right, the next key cracking effort is under way, and with a key size of 2 to the 64th, this one is going to take a lot longer!  Head on over to http://www.distributed.net/rc5 for more info or straight to the RC5-64 clients page so you can get started cracking those keys!  I've got the NT service going right now on my computer and I can't even tell it's running.  So put those wasted CPU cycles to use!

Xing MPEG Encoder V2.1 released
It's a commercial product from Xing Technology but it's easily the most convenient and fastest encoder I've seen to date.   I don't have enough experience with encoders to know whether the output is high quality or not but it certainly looks good to me!  You can judge for yourself from some of the video captures I've done (go the the Videos section in the sidebar).   This new version features support for converting from the Quicktime format and MPEG Layer III audio encoding!?!  That was a curveball for me, but I definitely score that as a plus.

11:45 PM
Stock market follies
I guess I ought to mention that the stock market (Dow) dropped over 500 points yesterday, and rose about 350 today.  What a scare, huh?  I think everytime there's a huge drop in the stock market, you should drop everything and buy well-known stocks like mad.

Promise's Ultra-ATA RAID controller
I've known about this product for a while but it hasn't really excited me too much.  I guess I'm a little skeptical until I see the thing in action...plus I already spent my money on the HD, I don't really feel like spending more right now.   To be short, the controller supports RAID'ing together EIDE drives in a RAID configuration, which means you can make one big drive out of smaller ones and stripe them for high throughput.  Whether or not this will perform as well as SCSI implementations do remains to be seen.

Promise Technology's website

1:22 PM
More observations on the MobilePro 400
I really do like this little guy.  The fact that it has Word and Excel on there is basically enough to get 90% of whatever you'd like to get done on the go.  I actually had a chance to use this thing in a "real life setting" and it was actually convenient and I was glad I had it with me.  It beats the holy hell out of paying $1000 for a big clunky laptop.

Now for the bad stuff, though.  The screen obviously doesn't hold up that well under low light conditions or even slightly shadowy.  You really have to squint or angle the screen properly if the lighting isn't right.  The MobilePro 450 has backlighting, but I don't see those selling for anywhere close to $69.

The keys are small, which is to be expected.  However, they are those floppy "$10 calculator" keys instead of plastic injection molded keys.  Think of those cheap Casio calculators where the keys are made of soft plastic and collapse if you press even the corner of it.  That's bad.  Ever seen an HP calculator?  Solid clicky one press feel.  That's how the keys should be.  I find myself double typing characters a lot.

Microsoft Pocket Streets 98 is COOL.  You can enter a street and have it find it for you, but what makes it cool is obviously the fact that this thing can go anywhere with you where you are most likely to need it.  There are a limited number of free downloadable maps available, but if you have the actual program for the PC, you can generate your own maps for any section of the country you like.  The maps are quite big, though...on the order of several hundred KB.

Speaking of storage, it's adequate, but not great.  With the 4MB RAM split between runtime memory and storage, you don't really have much room to get beyond the basic productivity stuff into the neato junk like web browsing and heavy e-mail and applications like Pocket Streets.  Flash memory cards are inordinately expensive...at least $160-170 for a 5MB card and around $800 for a 40MB!  I haven't the slightest idea why.

I haven't had a chance to try the e-mail/Internet browsing features yet.  I don't have a PC Card modem and I don't have way to hook my external modem up to the H/PC either without buying a new cable.

12:53 PM
Intel & Digital settle lawsuit
The war is over.  Both companies have agreed to a 10-year cross license of techonogies and Digital has agreed to sell its semiconductor manufactoring operations to Intel for $700 million dollars.  Intel's will also be making unspecified payments to Digital, although according to Intel it won't affect the bottome line significantly.  Digital has agreed to support the IA-64 architecture and help port Digital UNIX and Windows NT stuff to IA-64.

ZDNet's story
Infoworld's story

Is UO dead?
Some might argue that it was never alive.  It's definitely still in heavy development.  Problem #1, there's nothing to do but build up your character and fight stuff.  Fighting would be ok if it was, say, more tactical.  If you ask me, double-clicking and waiting to see who dies first isn't very interesting.   Gameplay balance issues in the game are far too off center and I guess Origin must again be run by artists because apparently they don't know how to fix them.  Not to mention user interface issues like accidentally double-clicking on the wrong guy during combat and watching your notoriety drop 3 levels.  (Hint for dumbass game designers: set a toggle button for attacking good people or players).  If you want a good example of game design, look at Fallout.  Great manual, skills that actually do something, a game with substance.  Granted, it's not multiplayer.  But a lot of these things could still be in UO.   If I wanted to play a game where all I do is walk around beating up other people, I'd probably wait for Starcraft or Fireteam, where skill might actually be involved.  God forbid that should happen!

Microsoft sues Sun
Well, I suppose we knew this was coming.  No details yet.  By the way, what's the difference between somebody "categorically denying" something and somebody "uncategorically denying" something?  Must be another one of those flammable/inflammable things.

1:19 AM
Starcraft beta in a few days
Oo!  Oo!  Very soon now.  The deal is, it's going to be 1000 people randomly selected from the people who sign up over the specified 6-hour period.  Don't sign up, I want to have a better chance of getting in  :-)   Mind...bleary...too much reading...cursed exams...

1:15 AM
Fallout rocks
I'm sure you knew this already if you are into games at all, but anyhow, I just had to say it.  This game harkens back to the old days of RPG's where you have tons of skills that you can apply, sophisticated stat based character development, and plenty of quests and turn-based tactical combat to keep you occupied.  The story and mood of the game is rich and highly addictive.  They didn't skimp on the graphics, either!  Probably the first RPG I've enjoyed on the PC since Lands of Lore 4-5 years ago.  This game is a major portion of the reason why I haven't managed to update for the past day or two.  Heh!

Glide 2.43 released
Not sure what's different, really.  Better Rush support, perhaps?   Word is that it is a little faster, from what I see so far.

Glide 2.43 runtimes - ftp://ftp.3dfx.com/pub/glide/grtvgr.exe

Exams coming up
Just to let you guys know, I've got an exam tomorrow that I need to do a boatload of reading for.  Ouch!

N64's for $50 w/ trade in
Basically, you trade in 6 Playstation games and EB and you can get a Nintendo 64 for just $50.  Two problems for me, though.  One, I don't have six American Playstation games and two, I don't really want an N64.  Maybe you do, though, I don't know.

Next Generation's story