* Voyager Shots (12:40 PM, EST)
Voodoo Extreme has posted two new shots of the upcoming Star Trek Voyager game.
http://www.voodooextreme.com/images/voyager/voyager1.html
http://www.voodooextreme.com/images/voyager/voyager2.html

* DNA Computers - Be Afraid, Very Afraid
This article explains in some detail how they currently have working computers based on DNA. Pair this with ckloning and we're going to have some scary crap in the next 10-20 years... http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG19990709S0016

* Lord Of The Rings Movie (9:55 AM, EST)
For all you Lord Of The Rings fans this awesome trilogy is being remade.. WITH LIVE ACTORS. Yuppers, this is very cool. And as is the case with new movies there is a website, with some pictures (although hiding deails). http://www.lordoftherings.net/main.html

* Gamespy 2.13
Same as 2.12, but for unregistered users... Kingpin support :) http://www.gamespy.com/download/

* ANIMEATANDPOTATOES Opens Banquets Section
Listing anime conventions, some might be near you... http://members.xoom.com/animeat/index.html

* Hotkeys Version 1.5
Hotkeys rule, with a mere button press I am playing Quake :)

Hotkeys is similar to the Microsoft Intellitype software, in that it gives you fast and easy access to a lot of common Windows 95 elements through keyboard shortcuts. Use it to define hotkeys to launch applications such as Control Panel applets or frequently used programs; send keystrokes to other applications; exit Windows, log-off Windows, or reboot your computer; switch to one of Hotkeys' built-in virtual clipboards; quickly access some of Hotkeys' internal functions such as its editor or hotkey list. Hotkeys works with nearly every key on your keyboard, including that seldom-used Windows key.

http://members.xoom.com/PostcardWare/hotkeys.htm

* QuickStart 2.41
Well the final version already had a bug, so here's the Final final version... :)
http://ssi.telefragged.com/

* Winamp 2.24
Additions and fixes:

- WSZ (Winamp Skin Zip) handling (simply open a .WSZ file in explorer to have it installed)
- Two distributions (one with WMA and ASFS, one without)
- Better equalizer presets
- Better shuffle logic
- Better docking code
- Better support for invalid ID3v2 tags (for people putting invalid tags on)
- Minibrowser optimizations
- Fixed occasional random crashes from 2.23

http://www.winamp.com/index.phtml

* Seti@Home 1.06
Look for E.T. more efficiently:

- Further support for firewalls/proxies.
- Windows - No longer need to kill the client for upgrade installation.
- Mac - Fixed the "looping" bug which caused work units to be sent and results returned without any analysis being * done.
- Mac - Fixed the missing AppearanceLib bug which caused older OS's to fail during installation.

http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu

* Old School Gaming
Saw this on Fadz's and it's too cool to not mention.

BieberSoft makes original freeware games you won't find anywhere else. Ever want to make your own Nintendo game? Everyone does, and you'll also find homemade renditions of classic games from yesterday. This page is for Old School video game fans everywhere!
http://biebersoft.pcgameworld.com/

* Optimizing Internet Connections (a.k.a. How to Get Good Pings)
I saw this page a while back, and although I am a connection guru myself, not everyone knows that most of their lag can be fixed right at home. If you follow these steps and don't get better pings then:
A) You're dumb.
B) Go ISP shopping. :)
http://home.inreach.com/echevarr/pingpage.htm

* #133 Slacking Is A Fulltime Job
Zzzzzzzz... Wha?

* LINK OF THE DAY
Strange Company. They make movies with 3D engines (Q1, Q2 etc). An  interesting thing is the Strangesaver which plays Q1 and Q2 demos as a screensaver,,,,
 
 
 

MONDAY, JULY 12, 1999

* Lagged Out Delays
Been a busy week and since I'm too poor to buy a tablet, I'll have to post it tommorow... Maybe tonight...

* Matrix To Be Trilogy :) (12:35 PM, EST)
J2 mentioned this to me a couple monthes ago from a fella he knows with connections, and now it's confirmed.. More Matrix WHOOHOO!
The film's co-director Andy Wachowski hinted last month that the movie was always intended to be one of a three-part series.

"We always conceived The Matrix as a trilogy," he told a Canadian newspaper.

"We could do a prequel and a sequel to this episode or two prequels or two sequels.

"The story and characters lend themselves to any number of permutations and combinations."

The poop: http://entertainment.news.com.au/news/4268771.htm

* exist - A One Man Game
This fella is making a FPS game with al the current features - fog, directional lighting etc all by himself. And the screenshots show that he's got some mad skillz. Check out the exist page: http://exist.starix.net/

Also Sam Hell caught up with exist's creator Mike Fricker for his ten question interview: http://www.shugashack.com/samhell/

* Quickstart v.2.40 'final'
Unless bugs appear and force a patch, this is the final version of this top 'o the line Eraserbot frontend.
http://ssi.telefragged.com/

* Kingpin Patch Status
Ridah:
Here is a list of the notable changes in the upcoming Kingpin v1.1 patch:

+ Fixed long level loads
+ Fixed pauses during multiplay
+ Fixed erratic mouse during multiplay
+ Optimized support for Vertex Arrays, significant rendering gains on supported cards
+ Allow access to consol while in multiplayer game
+ Only play intro once
+ Optimized scoreboard, fits more players
+ Fixed invalid model causing a thug model with sewer rat skin during teamplay
+ Fixed gibbing characters in single player mode causes character to dissapear
+ Completely disallowed alt-tab, causes several video drivers to hang the system
+ Added "maxrate" setting for servers
+ Pain skins on buddies in single player
+ Allow for multiple CD drives

Why am I posting this here and now? Well, in the interests of making the patch as complete as possible, if anyone knows of any other problems that aren't mentioned here, then send them to me, and I'll try and roll them into this patch.

The linux server release seemed to go down without a hitch, which is encouraging. Therefore, consider last week's release out of beta. I will make sure an updated server is available along with the updated clients, since they will not be backwards compatible.

* Kingpin Secret
Found this on Planet Kingpin:

While kickin' some butt the other day in some DM action i noticed something sticking over the edge of a roof in map kpdm4 (Urban Decay). So curious to what it is i rocket jumped onto this bit of roof and it turned out to be a grenade launcher and some grenades. But looking around i noticed a doorway on a higher bit of roof, but i had never been through it at all. So i decided to find out what it was, and low and behold i found a secret door the leaded me straight to that bit of roof. Rather than me try explain how to get there i made a small demo showing you where it is. You can grab the demo right here, all you have to do is make a 'demos' folder in the 'main' directory thats within the kingpin folder. Then run it by typing 'map secret.dm2' in the console. Hope to see you up there sometime :)

* Bits On The SDMI
Read this article on MP3.com about the impact of software/hardware manufacturers on the SDMI, here's some snips:

"We hauled the recording industry and the electronics industry into a room and made it clear to them in a way that we couldn't in front of 150 people that you cannot ban one form of compressed music," says Burger. "They agreed."

Burger explains that one potential way to secure CDs without crippling their playback on existing stereos and portable units would be by using a pair of digital watermarks. Each new CD would contain a fragile watermark, and another, more robust watermark. When a consumer decides to rip a and encode a file--which they will still be able to do in a limited capacity under SDMI guidelines--the fragile watermark will be destroyed during the compression process.

Ripping can be done once with authorized playback on a consumer's SDMI software/hardware player, but any illegally transported files will be halted. The SDMI player knows that it's not a legal MP3 file by identifying the robust watermark and noting that it has lost the fragile watermark.

The trick with this particular proposal is that there must be a physical CD in-hand in order to rip and encode. Of course, a user could still let a friend borrow his or her CDs to rip and encode with their SDMI-approved equipment. The hope here is that this will cut down on the illegal "super-distribution" of files passed along quickly and easily over the web.

More: http://www.mp3.com/news/291.html

* WallpaperChanger 1.85 Beta
This is a simple but powerful tool to set wallpapers in Win9x. You can make have a different one each time you startup, or random changes, or rresize or:

* JPEG / GIF - Support
* AutoColor / AutoTile
* Multiuser support
* Icon transparency
* Picturelists
* Just a plain .exe

http://www.fh-zwickau.de/%7Eplei/wpc/index.html

* Q3A Weapons Guide
A guide to all the guns it the current (1.05) version of the Q3ATest. There's a decent bit on my favorite gun, the Railgun..
http://www.q3center.com/ot/wep.html

* The Hacker's Diet
I'm not a Telechubby, but for those of you who are:
The Hacker's Diet, notwithstanding its silly subtitle, is a serious book about how to lose weight and permanently maintain whatever weight you desire. It treats dieting and weight control from an engineering and management standpoint, and provides the tools and an understanding of why they work and how to use them that permit the reader to gain control of their own weight. The book is intended primarily for busy, successful engineers, programmers, and managers who have struggled unsuccessfully in the past to lose weight and avoid re-gaining it.
http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/

* #132 It's The Little Things That Slip By That Cause Our Undoing...
abraxas... You overlooked something, the person who emailed you did not put who they were on the email, so you could only know who it was from their email address. And I'm one of a very small list who knows that address 'friend'.

* LINK OF THE DAY
Gore Theatre. You know what it is...