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September 2002

Friday, September 27, 2002

That Crazy KLEZ Virus Nine11 @ 11:55 Comments

Cage and I have been gettin' a few odd variants of the KLEZ virus sent to us over the past few weeks. They're looking more like hand jobs than the random garble usually associated with with the virus. One was even bounced as an undeliverable Email from our web host, which probably means someone is trying to hack the site or host, or they're trying to tap into our Email server. Either way, the Email text is getting pretty interesting. Here's the latest, which had an attachment called "VALUE.scr".

Klez.E is the most common world-wide spreading worm.It's very dangerous by corrupting your files.
Because of its very smart stealth and anti-anti-virus technic,most common AV software can't detect or clean it.
We developed this free immunity tool to defeat the malicious virus.
You only need to run this tool once,and then Klez will never come into your PC.
NOTE: Because this tool acts as a fake Klez to fool the real worm,some AV monitor maybe cry when you run it.
If so,Ignore the warning,and select 'continue'.
If you have any question,please mail to me.

Thursday, September 26, 2002

Got OS? Nine11 @ 12:21 Comments

One boy, one computer, 37 OSes! [WARNING] This will only appeal to the geekiest among us.

Wednesday, September 25, 2002

The New Mini-Mod King Nine11 @ 12:37 Comments

There's a new Mod King of the mini form factor world. Check it. You won't regret it!

Monday, September 23, 2002

Control Freak Nine11 @ 8:17 Comments

I spent a little time with Battlefield 1942 last night. The graphics are fair and the game looks fun and all, but the control scheme is wacky. Since you can run around, drive things, fly other things, and pop off rounds from fixed guns, there are keyboard mappings for each.

Basically, there are 4 full-figured layouts to do everything in the game with few keys common between them. Sound weird? It is. I knew people were saying things like "it's hard trying to fly stuff with the mouse", but no one said a damn thing about the keyboard. It's like four completely different sets of keys depending on what you wanna do. Don't get me started on all the other stuff you have to do on occasion... like shoot.

So, here I am on a fresh boot of the game and staring at the options screen. Since I wanna run around and ventilate some Japs, I change the infantry keyboard scheme from W,S,A,D to F,D,middle-mouse, right-mouse (don't ask, it works for me). Oh goody, there's a keyboard conflict but the game won't tell me which two mappings are fighting for the same key. Dig through four layers of control options to find the conflict and make a change... and I get another keyboard conflict.

I finally get the game running and I'm staring at a screen with a mini-map of the Battle of Midway. Everyone is in Higgins Boats, landing on the shore, and shootin' Japs. I'm looking at a mini-map with an error message telling me I didn't choose a spawn point. I hit keys like a mad man and nothing, so I swallow my pride as I flip through the manual. Way back on page 32 (of 36 pages, including credits) are the instructions for the Spawn Interface. Call me crazy, but I think that should've been mentioned somewhere before page 10.

Now I'm on the deck of some big gunship and running around. I can see the battle in the distance, but how the heck do I get over there? I wanna play too! Had I ran to the back of the ship, I would've found some Higgins Boats. Instead, I jump into the ocean with maniac zeal and breast stroke myself into a frenzy.

"Oh, look. Here comes a Zero. That looks pretty cool. Bet he's gonna lay some smack on that ship I just bailed from. Ha ha, suckers! Ten more seconds and I'll be on the sand while those other guys are feedin' fish. Hey, what's that little spec heading toward me?" Boom!

I'm at the Spawn Interface again playing pick a winner. Unfortunately, it doesn't label anything, so I choose some blip which wasn't anywhere near that blip I clicked on before. My new choice places me on solid ground with a big 'ol gun in my mitts. Finally, I get to shoot stuff!

I run around and find some other Allies (good guys) going at it with some Axis (Japs) infantry (grunts). I head over there and pop off a few rounds from what looks like a Browning Automatic Rifle. If I'm correct, the BAR was a fairly accurate and reliable weapon. Well, mine must be a beta copy because it can't hit the broad-side of a barn with a nuclear warhead. Takes half a clip to smear each of those queers. Mrrrrr...

Next, I duck under a bridge and wade across some water to avoid the hot lead above. I'd won the attention of the entire Jap nation so I'm trying to shoot my way across this brook, and it seems strafe doesn't work in water.

I'm at the Spawn Interface again trying to decide which blip will be my new friend. I land on an aircraft carrier and there's a fighter sitting right in front of me. I make a mad-dash for it and hop on the wing. A "Tooltip" pops up and let's me know I can tap the W key to get in. Well, that's handy... and where the heck were you before Mr Tooltip? No big deal, it's all good.

Good thing I'd set the movement keys for aircraft. Up arrow for foreword, back arrow to slow down, and right/left arrows for the rudder. Everyone said the mouse "flys" the thing, so I didn't bother changing it. Stab the up arrow and we're off the deck, woohoo! Pull back on the mouse for some altitude, and nothing. Pull, pull, pull, crash. D'oh!

The W key will let you do some other weird stuff like fight for the controls of a Higgins Boat. Of course, I always lose in a fight when it really matters but this game won't give me a clue. It gives me the view from the driver's seat but none of the control. I didn't even know there was another guy in there till I W'd out and turned all the way around to see his stony face behind the wheel.

I can say a lot of four letter words about this game, but I bet you already know what they are. It's too bad because BF-1942 has so much potential, but the development team was out to lunch when they came up with that screwy keyboard scheme. The default layout would probably work if you belong to MENSA and could remember all those keystrokes or are flexible enough to use the defaults, but I guess I'm too stoopid and rigid to do either.

Saturday, September 21, 2002

Droppin' Ass Nine11 @ 13:03 Comments

Saw this mentioned over at [H]. They dropped 50 pounds of Silly Putty from a parking structure. Looks more like Rosie's ass, if it were turned into a mass of bouncing clay. Whoa, what a mental picture!

Quote Of The Day Nine11 @ 10:44 Comments

This one's pinched from a review of The Liars latest album. The review was fairly positive but, after listening to a few clips, I think this line is pretty close to the mark.

Maybe this is a statement, maybe they're killing time, and maybe it's just the sound of a band crawling up its own ass.

Friday, September 20, 2002

Puters, Puters, Everywhere Nine11 @ 13:15 Comments

I spent the past few days putting together my wife's puter and wireless home network. Dang project ended up being more costly than we expected, so I've been saving up for a body fluid donation later today to curb the financial strain... if not, my frustration.

The thing ended up being a weird mishmash of high-end parts, a few old ones, and some budget-minded ones. The main parts consist of the Viewsonic VX900 19" LCD display, ASUS A7N266-VM nFORCE 220 mobo, AthlonXP 2200+, 512MB Corsair "Value" DDR, Seagate 80G HD, and my old ELSA Gladiac GeForce 2 (a little better than the on-board GF2MX graphics) and Creative FPS2000 4.1 speakers. Got the wireless Linksys WLAN pumpin' too, and things seem to shoot back 'n forth consistently at 11Mbps.

Everything's black and silver, and I crammed all the main stuff in a black Micro ATX case, which is kinda cute... in a geeky way. Now I just gotta drag the little woman into the 21st Century and teach her the ins-and-outs of WindowsXP. Having spent a few hours in front of the silicon beast (the puter, not my wife... but sounds like a good punch line), I can't believe Windows is so much easier to explain than DOS!

Why Games Suck Nine11 @ 10:28 Comments

Ever wonder why some games suck? Well, it's probably this guy's fault. He probably wouldn't know what fun is if he won the lottery and had a free pass to every Pac-10 sorority house. Sheesh! Ganked from Quarter to Three.

Instead of hard-coding lots of features into the game as special, unrelated use-cases, the systemic paradigm tries to create global patterns which provide emergent gameplay, and the ability to create alternative strategies using the level's resources. Somehow the idea can be implemented as an extension to rule-based systems or finite-state machines, with many systems existing in parallel, and feedback loops connecting them.

Tuesday, September 17, 2002

UT2K3 Demo Patch Nine11 @ 8:50 Comments

Things sure have changed over the years. A patch for a demo was never heard of till a few years ago, but it seems fairly common today. Makes me think "public demo" is just a polite way of saying "public beta" cuz there wouldn't be any patches if the damn games were finished, right? Anyway, there's a patch for Unreal Tournamnet 2003 which has a little something for everyone. Check it:

- Fixed support for Voodoo3 / Matrox G400.
- Fixed initial framerate hitches in network play.
- Fixed the jittery screen updates in the server browser when sorting by ping.
- Fixed a possible DoS attack in the server code.
- Fixed a few other minor potential crashes.

Friday, September 13, 2002

UT2003 Demo Out Cage @ 22:27 Comments

The UT 2003 Demo has finally made it out. The Official download page has a bunch of spots to grab it from.

If you go the Nvidia multipart zip file route you will need WinZip 8.1 - nothing else seems to work. You can grab WinZip from here. Note: I had to rename the first file, and remove the .zip extension before it would work. If you are able to get the demo all in one piece you are probably better off.

My early impression is that it feels and looks a lot like a mix between Quake3 Arena and Unreal Tournament. Yes, it does look nicer, but the demo does not include the highest level of detail textures (in order to get the demo size reasonable).

The server that I played on was set for turbo mode, which was not that satisfying. Yeah, I did pretty well, but it was pretty mindless. I never cared for Unreal Tournament in Turbo mode, which is one reason I moved on to something else.

Yep, it's worth the download, but it moved UT2K3 off my "must buy" list for the moment.

At 1280x1024 with all details maxed, my P4 2.6 + GHz system with 1 GB of PC2100 RAM and a GeForce 4400 ran at an avg. of 50+ FPS. That's over 50+ FPS in a big firefight on-line, with lots of stuff going on. My last computer upgrade appears to have been adequate - until at least when Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 3 hits the scene.

Picture Worth 1,000 Words Nine11 @ 17:34 Comments

Here's some fan art inspired by the possible release of the Unreal Tournament 2003 demo tonight.

Tuesday, September 10, 2002

Momentary Lapse Of Reason Nine11 @ 9:18 Comments

Ort and Dela are at it again. What a couple of weirdos. Reminds me of some stoopid stuff I did when I was young... not that I ever grew up.

UT2003 Demo "Real Soon Now!" Cage @ 8:00 Comments

According to this post on Infogames forums, the demo for Unreal Tournament 2003 should be done soon. Per Mark Rein from the UT2K3 Team:

"Hi Folks,

The demo is nearly ready to go. It should be out sometime within the next few days. Keep watching this space (the stickies) for an announcement. When it's ready we'll just be releasing it randomly to a few major sites so that hopefully it will spread like wildfire and everyone will be able to get it from their favorite games site. There won't be any special exclusives or anything like that. We want everyone to be enjoying it the minute it goes live.

More details to follow, keep watching this space."

At least he didn't say "just a couple more weeks" this time. I'm gettting a warm feeling all...... no, that's just my depends getting full again.

The official Unreal Tournament 2003 web site should point you to the demo once it's out. So, you just gotta ask yourself, "do you feel lucky, punk?" or will the demo require a system upgrade to play well?

From what I've seen, the tech demo runs like bad Mexican food. From what I've heard, the actual game will run on a variety of systems. Who actually knows what's goin' on?! -Nine11

Monday, September 9, 2002

P4 3.6GHz Preview Nine11 @ 7:48 Comments

Tom's Hardware wrapped their mittens around a set of Pre-production P4 processors including the 3.6GHz part, which should hit the scene during the first half of '03. Damn thing moves faster than picante salsa through a toddler. Unfortunately, the new P4 has to run on RDRAM 1066 and 166 FSB for the best performance. Definitely not a bang-for-the-buck system.

While the big boy won't show his face till some time in '03, the 3.06GHz P4 is set to be released this November. I figure Intel has to boost their raw speed advantage over AMD before the 64-bit Claw Hammer makes it to our desktops, and AMD's architectural changes always seem to spice things up a bit.

Thursday, September 5, 2002

CGW & Rotten Apples Nine11 @ 8:44 Comments

Got on my soapbox this morning and shot an Email at Computer Gaming World. I'd like to know the exact brand of crack William O'neil is smoking because it's gotta be strong... he digs the Apple G4 as a gaming rig!

I've been a subscriber to CGW for about 7 years and have to say you've got a great magazine. The new layout and super-sized screenshots are a big bonus in my book. There's also more to life than gaming, and I enjoy reading Jeff Green's take on things as well as other slight diversions your magazine offers. However, your tech section seems to be a bit hard to swallow.

William O'neal's opinions "outside the beige box" are something which I need to take with a few grains of salt. In the October issue, he endorsed the new Apple G4 as a viable gaming platform despite the lack of software titles. Also, the price vs. performance doesn't seem very attractive. Three grand and it still needs a video card upgrade? For that price, I could build or buy a PC with much more power and have plenty of games to choose from. The G4 may be fine for certain applications, old games, women, or gay men (because it's "cute"), but not for any serious gamer.

If you want to know what real gamers think of Macs, take a look at the following link.

I could pick apart other stuff as well, but I'm sure you're gonna get plenty of flaming letters from other readers. Overall, I'm pleased and won't go tossing around threats about canceling my subscription. I'll just keep a salt shaker handy.

-Brett Oetting

Wednesday, September 4, 2002

Quote Of The Day Nine11 @ 9:19 Comments

Nabbed this one from [H], who gank'd it from Tech Report. Let's call it a geek manage.

Even with the latest drivers and a fast Pentium 4 system, the Matrox Parhelia still runs like a fat kid in gym class.

Debacle Of The Day Nine11 @ 8:56 Comments

This is a must read for anyone who's been screwed ordering online. Heck, it's a good read even if ya haven't been in this situation.

UT2K3 Demo Someday Soon Nine11 @ 8:33 Comments

Noticed this one over at Blue's. CliffyB posted some stuff about nearing completion of the Unreal Tournament 2003 demo, and it'll be ready in about two weeks. Maybe more. Maybe less. To me, it sounded more like they're trying to finish the game rather than trying to finish the demo. Most game developers these days pop off a demo well after the game's completed and released to retail outlets, but that's not such a big deal in this case. UT2K3 is kind of a no-brainer and there really aren't any other shooters burnin' up the Net, but it would be nice to get a demo to fart around with.

New Lian-Li Boxes Nine11 @ 8:22 Comments

Dan's Data got to review a new set of Lian-Li boxes, and geeks everywhere will be salivating like Pavlov's dog. Honestly, it takes another type of box to get my motor runnin', but Cage keeps saying something about this being a family site and I'd better leave it alone. Anyway, the new Lian-Li PC-6087, PC-6089, and PC-6090 sport all sorts of windows, fans, LED lighting, and frosted acrylic panels. Honestly, I could do without the acrylic panels, but that's just me.

Monday, September 2, 2002

Laugh Of The Day Nine11 @ 9:35 Comments

This one's taken from a book I've been reading this weekend called Hit List by Lawrence Block. This hitman, named Keller, is picking up on a woman he met in an art gallery and the conversation goes like this:

"Well, I still live downtown," she said, "and I still wear black. But I don't drink myself stupid, and I don't hurt my ears listening to loud music..."

"Or go to bed with strangers?"

"It depends," she said. "How strange are you?"

Sunday, September 1, 2002

Blue Meanie! Nine11 @ 9:23 Comments

I don't think I'd go and use these particular parts, but this is the smallest working desktop PC I've seen to date. Looks fairly slick too!