18-March-1999 [Artur Marques]
Today's contents, for now, are: #1) GIL 1.1 in glorious 555 sprites #2) Y2K, Portugal & Maine #3) Internet Explorer 5.001 debuts #4) Netscape? Are you there? #5) I am running a Pentium-3 @ 450 #5) Tomorrow, BIG NOVELTIES. Plus, the usual pictures of the day.
GIL 1.1 in glorious 555 sprites
SKisahsm@aol.com [Sara] has discovered why she was getting strange colors with her GIL. Her system goes all color' weird with my default 565 sprites' format, so she converted the sprites to the alternative 555 format and everything is perfect! Go to my public computer projects (or directly to the GIL page) and download the new version of GIL. Remember to pay a visit to http://members.xoom.com/SKisahsm/ for some of the available GIL's babies.
While talking with my friends António Baltazar and Jorge Constantino, this afternoon, we ended up speculating about the Y2K problem. How seriously can it affect our particular existence? If something goes wrong, what will be the worst place to be next to? Well, Portugal has got to be one of the safest places in the world, in what comes to the Y2K problem, since we have no nuclear power plants, no nuclear nothing, and a relatively young computational infrastructure.
However, the state of Maine, in the USA, is giving us all the example of how worried we should be: state legislator Belinda Gerry has proposed a 50 million dollars budget for facing just the if it really goes wrong scenario. This pile of money will be spent in a pile of rice and beans... that would need 3 times the volume of the whole Colombo building - Portugal's biggest commercial center, and one of the hugest in Europe - to be stored. We are talking of 124000 tons of food!
Each Maine habitant would have right to 100 kg of it, the day after the everything did go wrong moment. It seems that the Loring Air Force base is big enough to handle the task, although it is not at the service, since 1992.
The idea will probably never be implemented, because of the tremendous effort it would demand: transportation, storing, vigilance, conservation... and the chance of everything going OK. See you in a few months...
Internet Explorer 5.001 debuts
It is now some hours old, but the latest version of the most popular Internet browser, Microsoft's IE5, is available for download. Portuguese magazine PC-GUIA will be one the first, world wide, to publish it in CDROM. As the May edition of the publication is being prepared, Microsoft is making available the new browser, that is guaranteed to make an appearance on CD-GUIA.
IE5 comes with Media Player 6 and some Outlook Express security fixes, but that stuff was already available, some 2 weeks ago. IE5 gives some steps backwards, and some steps forwards. Backwards: the push technology, used for channels in IE4, didn't really got user's attention and it is not improved, or even promoted; there is no Active Desktop update. Forwards: XSL is 100% supported; faster rendering of web pages; new versions for all the companion software applications; improved O.S. integration (check that "browser services being prepared" install message). Neutral: a new toolbar named "Radio", that links to many Internet radio stations.
Sure Netscape is there. Wherever there is. IE5 is here, and Navigator 5 is not. One year after making the source code for Mozilla available, Netscape has still not announced the next version of its browser. Is this good news, or bad news? Are they doing something very different, or did they lose it? Only time will tell.
I am running a Pentium-3 @ 450
I've finally installed the P3 @ 450 on my PC.
If I've done it last week, it would have costed me 15000 ESCUDOS less (82 USD). Why? #1) the P3 is getting more expensive, as distributors watch more and more consumers wanting the latest gear; #2) the P2 is getting cheaper. I gave away my P2-400 and today it is selling much cheaper than it was last week... so there went my money. Besides the famous KNI novelty (Katmay New Instructions), the P3 is lighter, runs cooler, has different bus design, and features a 225 Mhz bus for its 512K integrated L2 cache.
I've scanned the box where my P3 came, and I am making the front and the back covers available for you to wonder at, just in case you have never seen a processor box, which is quite a natural thing to happen, since most dealers sell a PC without giving away most of the documentation they should. Check the pictures of the day.
Tomorrow I will not be working @ ESGS (Escola Superior de Gestão de Santarém), because it is a local holiday at Santarém. I am still not sure if I will go to Lisbon, where I study, but, either way, I will probably have the time to IMPROVE this website and debut APAA (Associação Portuguesa dos Astrónomos Amadores) and / or ALAIN PROST RACING, in this server. You just wait!
More: Sandra Tomás, from Portugal, reacted to the GUNS N' ROSES picture of March, 16. She is not one of the girls in the picture, but she was at the (in)famous concert, so it's time for the whole story...
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Pictures of the day: [click on the pictures for FULL PAGE versions] This is the front cover of a PENTIUM-3 In-A-Box. The package includes: the processor; the 3 Year Limited Warranty; the installation manual; the power cable for the fan; a P3 glue stamp. |
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This is the back cover of a PENTIUM-3 In-A-Box. There you can read some jargon, such as the 225 Mhz L2 chache bus, the SIMD thing, MMX, bla bla bla. |
