Before the main news, I would just like to say THANK
YOU to the person who uploaded ICQ99a and some other software. As this
person didn't identify (her)himself, I can't say nothing more, except that
I am having problems moving the files from the anonymous incoming directory
to some other place from where they can be downloaded by everyone else.
This is the reason why those files aren't public YET. The whole idea of
my FTP service is a community of users, sharing valuable data amongst them.
Read about this idea here.
I have already e-mailed my web space provider complaining
about the FTP problem.
click on the picture for a double size version of it
This picture was captured with the Matrox Rainbow Runner, attached
to a Matrox Mystique, running under NT4, and obtained from a SONY Hi8
video camera. NT4 is ok for stills, but it simply doesn't work for
running videos. Read the NT4 attack #2.
You can see a lot of my computer room, as it was some hours ago.
The big SAMSUNG 20GLsi monitor dominates the right part of the screen.
You can also see an USA flag, that is there for some 3 years now. It
is not very visible, but below the 3rd calendar, there is a great PANASONIC
camera, some 10 years old, but that keeps working 100% ok and it even
has a HIGH SPEED SHUTTER, that devours light, but can give you beautiful
slow motion video.
The other calendars are: a *very limited edition* of PIRELLI's "women
that man love" series and a *rare* picture (in Europe) of the
Japanese rally championship (Fumio Nutahara driving his Mitsubishi).
More: there is a SCSI scanner, a blue sofa, a chair, a placard
requiring better organization, and for those with great observation
skills, it is also visible one INFINITY REFERENCE 50 loudspeaker, one
MS FF Steering Wheel, and one ENERGY XL-20 speaker.
How is your work environment? Send me a picture of it, and it
will get published. It would be great to have photos of everyone's
working place! Lets start this project :-) Click here, for instructions
on how to send your picture.
BTW, I eat, drink, study, work and sleep @ these 20 square meters
:-)
I am learning new stuff that will help to improve this
website and the other ones I host. Soon, I will be publishing ASP content
(Active Server Pages), with much richer contents and interactivity, than
the current format. One of the things I have in mind is a weekly pool, querying
visitors about their opinions on several matters. The other things are harder
to explain, and much harder to implement.
The BIG problem with actual Internet high interactivity
its the LOAD it puts on both server and client machines. Your navigation
can be slower if you are given the chance to access more features, and it
is more of an ART than of a SCIENCE to reach a perfect balance between content
and speed.
I firmly believe that the current layout and technology
I am using is still the best balance, but that must change. ASP pages *might*
spare me time I have to spend updating all my websites. But when I have the
knowledge to use it, and the resources to publish ASP material, a big question
will rise: will my current web space provider, allow this content on the
server machine? I believe it will. So, I can do nothing more than keep learning
and testing, until the (not so far away) day, when those pages will debut.
This weekend, I've had it with Microsoft Windows NT4
Workstation. It SUCKS! I hate it. I simply hate it!
I wanted to make NT4 work with the following hardware:
1 x P166MMX + 1 TYAN motherboard + several IDE HDs + Creative Labs PC-DVD
Encore DXr2 (with the famous 2x drive) + Matrox M3D (PowerVR PCX2 acceleration)
+ Zoltrix 33.6 Voice Modem + Matrox Mystique (the original) + Matrox Rainbow
Runner + CL Awe32 + 100 Mbps Digital 21140 Fast Ethernet NIC.
And I've MANAGED to put it working with ALL the devices,
except for the Matrox M3D, because the PCX2 chip never was supported, neither
by NEC (the manufacturer), nor by VIDEOLOGIC (the main client) or by Matrox...
shame on them all, because *it was promised* that the PCX2 would, at least,
provide some OpenGL benefits.
It was a hell of fight to put NT4 (+ service pack 4)
booting up 100% ok, with all this hardware. Believe it, or not, the Modem
was one the more problematic pieces of equipment to handle: NT was simply
requesting a stupid file on "module unknown" to make dial-up networking
available, but after much tweaking, it finally decided to allow me some Internet
surfing.
The next big problem (NBP) was the Mystique + Rainbow
Runner (RR) combination. Nightmare #1 was to make NT4 recognize the RR, that,
despite being correctly spotted in the powerdesk software, was simply "not
detected" by the setup files... except for the ones distributed by Matrox
day 31 March 1999! OK, so the RR was up & running... was it not?- Not
quite, because the most interesting bit of the RR is the Zoran chip for hardware
MJPEG (dmb1 variant) realtime, custom compression!... and that feature is
NOT SUPPORTED under NT4... meaning that you can't RECORD and can't PLAY MJPEG
video files, including the ones previously made...
After some Internet browsing, I found 2 sites selling
/ allowing download of their own MJPEG codecs. These sites are PMATRIX and
MORGAN, the MORGAN being the better, with many options available, including
a great MJPEG dmb1 installation. The PMATRIX equivalent requires you to hex
edit a key in the registry, which is something very easy to do, but only
for those with some O.S. experience.
Bla bla bla... some hours later, the RR was OK and PLAYING
MJPEG video files, under NT4!!! Great! But not so great, because the codecs
only allow playback - not recording! #$%@!
So, until now, the "hardware support" of NT4
was: modem hard time; RR not 100% supported, losing its most interesting
thing - the MJPEG recording.
The DVD kit (Encore DXr2) was the NBP that followed.
Again, a hell of a fight to make it 100% ok, but - lets be honest - why do
people currently want DVD on the PC? Answer: to break the region protection
of most of the USA movies. And can we do it with this DXr2 kit? YES we can,
very easily, under Windows 9x... but NOT under NT4. I've managed to find
software that does work under NT4 (to change the region), but it took me
hours of searching...
Bla bla bla... again... the end. As I write (on my main
PC, which is NOT the NT4 machine), NT4 is ok, but it brings me no advantages:
- it doesn't support the hardware, the way I want.
- it is harder to administrate.
- it is slower, with all the multi-OS software, due
to the virtual machine thing.
- it supports less software.
- it CRASHES as easily as Windows 9x, which, in my case,
is not very often (I have 19 days of uptime with Win98!). HOWEVER when it
does crash hard, you CANNOT recover the system to save documents from programs
that were not responsible for the problem.
- Networking has much, much more options, including
authentication per resource, multi-sharing of the same resource, very easy
IP forwarding, etc... and does it work at all? NOT QUITE! Don't ask why,
but while my NT4 PC can access any Windows 9x machine, none Windows 9x can
access shared NT4 HDs, for example. WHY? Does any one have a clue? Please answer
me.
I will probably REFORMAT all the HDs of the NT4 PC and
put Windows 98 on it. NT4 was a big mistake for this machine. Why? RR lacking
support and Networking not working both ways. If it wasn't for this, I would
stick to it, but not this way.
Last week, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold gunned down 12 of
their high school classmates, in what was one of the most horrible
massacres in the USA story. Everyone is looking for an explanation
and, as usual, the "easy explanations" are popping up fast
enough to hit the "media time window" usually allocated
to these bloody matters.
Current profile of the killer students is that they were Hitler
admirers, outcasts, loners... and Doom & Quake fans... STOP
IT!
Doom and Quake, two of the greatest games ever designed, have
nothing to do with it. In fact, I suspect that if Quake 3 was already
available, may be they would be shooting VR stuff, instead of real
life people, BUT, facing the suggestion, I really must confess
that this kind of easy attitude towards videogaming is very worrying,
because videogaming is the NEWEST of the culture forms, and can't
have the public backup that, for example, Painting or even Cinema
now have, UNLESS gamers get united and claim for the 100% positive
effects of their likes. I am starting a "Games
are 100% Positive" campaign, and I expect you to
help me. Thanks.
Question: How can I support this campaign?
Answer: Very, very simple, just put the picture
on the left, on your website, as follows:
