Monthly Archives: February 2003

XFree 4.3.0 is out!

Here’s a summary of new features. While it looks nice, I don’t think I’ll be upgrading it manually unless RPMs come out, I’m getting lazy! Still this feature alone is very welcome, ” Support for the RandR extension has been partially integrated into the XFree86 server, providing support for resizing the root window at run-time.”
Before you Windows users exclaim that Windows has done that for years be aware that X is a whole lot more than just a GUI!

Simon Plays Quasar.

Simon Willison played Quasar for the first time! Ah, this brings back memories!
It used to be quite easy to play a decent game of Quasar in Cork City where I live. 2 places in town offered it and for a few years they even maintained their guns and arenas. Not so now. Guns were too expensive to maintain, half the time they didn’t work, and the rest of the time they worked but didn’t fire straight.
I haven’t played a game of Quasar in years! The ducking and running^h^h^h^h walking fast and twisting your body around so your opponent couldn’t hit you. You wouldn’t believe how fast an experienced Quasar player can instinctively twist around so they only present a profile to an attacking opponent! (Limiting the area you can be shot – front, back and gun).
Before I started working fulltime (and sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day) I was a reasonable Quasar player, and saw the look of disbelief on newcomer’s faces when their gun is suddenly telling them they’ve been shot. Of course I was at the receiving end of shots more often than not..
I dread to think how I’d feel after a game of Quasar now, sometimes I could barely stumble out of particularly tough games..

A Look at PHP5

Here’s a review of the upcoming PHP5. *Loads* of new stuff and it’s going to practically be a whole new language to learn. I can’t wait to start working with the new OO features it’ll have. It should make implementing patterns much easier. I wonder what effect it will have on the “home grown” self-taught PHP industry that’s out there? Those that will learn, will stick with it. The others? They’ll spend their time maintaining their PHP4 applications!