Brian's Bits

Everyone in the blogging world is probably familiar with YouTube - the super popular online video site that allows sharing of movies. They've done a great job in making it very simple for people to include these little clips in the pages and blogs. So what's my gripe? They've recently upgraded their movie player to the newest version of Flash - which is incompatible with all previous versions. Now, all these movies are broken for people that haven't upgraded.
No big deal - the changing of times. You should expect an upgrade will be necessary from time to time. My gripe isn't really with YouTube - they're apparently adding features. Innovation on the Internet is absolutely imperative for survival. It'd be nice if they had a fall-back, but whatever.
My gripe is with Macromedia and closed standards in general. I'm using Linux exclusively. It's obviously been A) too difficult and / or B) not worth the expense to support my platform. This now means that these services are rendered useless for me and all other Linux users. This reminds me of years past when Microsoft and Netscape were fighting to add proprietary elements of HTML to then have a strangle-hold on all net surfers. If there were an open standard on these Flash files, someone (either a corporate entity or volunteers) would have an opportunity to port the player, or otherwise create some kind of fall-back. Of course, I wouldn't expect Macromedia to think it's reasonable to give out their source-code, but the situation in itself is a bit troubling.
In summation: screw Flash.

So, it seems I had lost focus of this little page. I think some of my attention was a bit too focused on the frontpage, Choose Opera and of course, the Mustache Club sections. Well, seeing that I am no longer competing in the Mustache Competition, I may find more time to dedicate to my own personal page.
The tragic part of all this is the fact that facial hair has become more interesting than my own personal life. I guess that's what I get for being a nerd.
So, in the last two weeks or so, nothing terribly exciting has happened. But, if you're bored enough to read, here are some of the things I've been thinking about:

Sony added DRM software (or as the mob likes to call "rootkit") that seems to have rubbed people the wrong way. Had I bought a Sony CD, and had I been running Windows...and I had I tried to play that CD in my computer and wanted to install a proprietary player, I probably would have been pissed too. Well, I guess I'm safe, but I've lost a lot of respect for Sony.

AOL instant messenger has added bots to everyone's buddy list to "help" consumers find their way to great bargains (or something...). Seems funny, you know, having a buddy list and seeing things put on there that are not my buddies. But, I guess when a company loses 300 customers per hour, they've got to do something to get revenue. I can't say I blame them. After all, I run GAIM and am not subjected to their advertisements. I guess because of this, I should feel a bit responsible. So, I figure my negative feelings + my guilt = cancelling each other out for the time being.

I bought Cedega some time ago, and have actually been pretty satisfied with it, until their newest release - version 5. If you're familiar with Cedega at all, you might know they had a little app called Point 2 Play (P2P) that made installing games supposedly easier. I thought it was just a bit bloaty, and was more partial to the command line cedega. With version 5, however, it's all been integrated into one package. I suppose this would make life easier for new users, as it may be more intuitive. Unfortunately, it's alienated some of the existing userbase. I still haven't decided if I'm going to cancel my subscription (you don't buy the software, you subscribe to it), but I'm considering it. Those not familiar with Cedega (formerly WineX), it's just a fork of Wine - a Windows compatibility layer for Linux, that allows you to play DirectX games. Basically, makes Linux thinks it's Windows so you can play games.

I bought Halflife Source, HL2, Day of Defeat and Counterstrike (it's all one package), and wanted to replay HL1 before moving onto the sequel. So far, I've finished HL1 and have *just* started HL2. Unfortunately, Quake 4 also just came out. A new (native) Linux client just came out the other day too. Being that Q4 is native, I figure it deserves a bit of my attention (that, and I've played HL2 all the way through previously). I must say, I'm very impressed with Q4. Graphics are great, easy install and great performance on Linux, decent story (decent enough anyway), and most importantly: it's fun. If you buy a game this year, I'd say Q4 would be a good one to pick up.

I've been formatting computers like crazy it seems. My desktop is pretty cozy now running Ubuntu 5.10 (no, I'm not going to call it some silly name). I've been using Ubuntu since the first official release. Undoubtedly, there is a big "bandwagon" push of it. Aside from the hype, I'd say I'm pretty satisfied. I've got it running on this computer (my gaming machine), an 866 which will be a server / toy, a Poweredge server that belongs to a company my roommate works for (we're setting up LAMP and a CRM system, or some nonsense), and hopefully my work laptop soon (still have to make sure it's okay with the sys admin people).

With all this Linux and server business, I've been writing a few scripts to automate some simple / repetitive tasks. Some are just simple prompts so my (n00b) roommate can do basic administration tasks. Problem with these scripts is that I have a tendency of depending on them and using them for a long period, then I forget how the task is actually done without them. So, I spend all this time to learn new things of Linux so I can automate and forget them. Kinda funny, I guess.

With all this nerdy stuff going on, I've also had a resurrection of some of my web nerdiness. I admit, I'm not a hardcore programmer, and well...not especially skilled. It's still fun, and I guess that's what counts. I've been working on a few websites. Most for fun, some for friends. I'm a fan of XHTML, CSS and PHP. Hopefully I'll have something decent made before too long. Much of this depends on getting that aforementioned 866 in running order.

This is possibly the longest post in known history, so I'll stop here before my fingers turn to bloody little stumps.