This may be a running blog entry. So far the first problem I ran into was getting the 'configure' script to run correctly. The error I kept getting was that my C compiler did not create executables. The problem was that Solaris has a native 'cc' compiler in the /usr/ucb/bin directory. Apparently Berkeley DB configuration always looks for the native compiler before looking for 'gcc'. So the answer was to set the CC environment variable to 'gcc' and then everything worked. Of course this presuemes that gcc is installed. I have been amazed at the amount of 'stuff' I had to install on Solaris after the initial install. The Solaris package management system leaves much to be desired (as far as I can tell -- maybe I'm just missing something). I was reduced to the old method of trying to install a package, check the dependency errors, then tracking back to install the dependicies first, etc. It took a while to setup all the tools that I was used to getting when would work on a clean RedHat install.
I preordered the Crysis video game from the EA store so I could get the demo a little earlier and not get bogged down with swamped file servers, So I downlaoded the demo last night. I was able to decrypt it this morning. I then ran the installation...so far so good...and then I tried to run it and.....wham! You need to be logged into the EA Download Manager to authenitcate your copy of this game. The only problem is....I was logged in. I logged out and logged in, I shutdown the download manager and restarted and logged in, i rebiooted my whole computer and relogged in. But all in vain...ah well. I develop software for a living and so I'm spympatheitc to all the difficulties of developing software. But I can say from a developer stand point that there's not many things more frustating than to spend months and months developoing some very difficult code only to have the final product experience "screwed up" by a third party distribution mechanism. So, I feel sorry fopr Crytek but not for EA.
So until I get my demo working...here's a video to help alleivate the frustration.
I think the big question with iPhone is: how long will it take to get my hands on one? Yeah, sure it comes out on June 29th; but that's for the "special" people (read insanely rich folks who can afford to pay other people to wait in line for them). I'm talking about for us normal shmos. The guys who just think it's cool and are willing to sacrifice a month's worth of meals in order to afford one. All I can say is I'll proabably be eating well for a while.
It's been 17 year since the Tiananmen Square massacre, and apparently there is a renewed interest in it as a result of Chinese government officials trying to publicly deny that it ever happened. Here's some interesting pieces on it.
I bought one of these a few weeks back and have been very impressed with the versatility and useability of this device. I found the main interface to be very intiutive and have used the online content (news, weather, etc) many times as an alternative to browsing the web. Certainly the most innovative aspect of the device is the remote, which definitely changes game play and makes it far more engrossing (IMHO). All in all I think the Wii is a huge winner and the way it is selling in contrast to the PS3 I think it also shows that innovation can trump raw power when it is done right. To me, the PS3's selling point is that it does basically what the PS2 did only faster and more detailed (of course there's more to it than that but that's the message that comes across to consumers) whereas the Wii has been marketed as a new kind of console and I gthink people are, by default, curious about it and when they actually use it they are impressed with it (i.e., it lives up to the hype).
I remember when I was a teenager watching Tony Dorsett play for the University of Pittsburgh. Now his son, 33 year old Anthony Dorsett, is trying to relive his NFL glory days by playing for the CFL. Nothing against Anthony, I hope he does well. But this makes me feel ancient!!
I love the idea of Fred Thompson getting in the race. I don't know if he'll get the nomination, but I think he brings a little bit more "conservatism" into the mix of main players. I think that currently there are only really three main candidates: McCain, Giuliani, and Romney. If Thompson enters into the race, I would rate him and Romney as the two top "conservative" candidates. I think of McCain and Giuliani each have their own "liberal" baggage. Primarily, McCain has the whole McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform issue that I don't think hwe'll be able to shake. Too many conservatives regard this, and rightly so I believe, as an attack on free speech and McCain's name is right on the top of it. As far as Giuliani goes, he's got a whole hose of social issues (gay narriage, abortion, etc) in which he leans pretty far to the left; much farther than most conservatives will be able to deal with I think. He even has problems with some hot-button political issues, like gun control, which will be an even greater drag on his candidacy. If I were to prognosticate at this point, I would say that either Romney or Thompson will get the nomination; although I admit that such predictions are about as reliable as hurricane season forcasts a year in advance. Still, it's fun to guess.
Here are some interesting articles on the problem of spam email. The first one below talks about how 70% of all email coming from Asia is spam (not something to be proud of). The seond deals with a major spam arrest which just recently occurred. I sure hope we can make some headway against this problem.
I think this is a neat idea and I'm curious to see how well it catches on. I am an avid iTunes customer, but I pretty much stick to my computer and my iPod. But even for me the main benefit would be that, hopefully, iTunes would not have to validate the digital rights on my purchased content before syncing my iPod. I don't know how many times I've gone to sync with iTunes and it ended up deleting all my purchased content from the iPod because it said that I wasn't authorized access the material. Of course I was authorized but I had to re-authorize in order to get it to resync back to my iPod. It's not so bad if you only have a little bit of data, but I store TV shows on my iPod and each one is almost half a gig. So resyncing can take a while. Anyway, this non-DRM material may be worth getting just to avoid that problem. I'm also interested to see how it affects the piracy market. From what I've read, the name of the purchaser of the content is still encoded in the file so haphazardly sharing these non-DRM songs around will not be an anonymous escapade.
I wonder how much pollution this volcano puts out per year. Perhaps Al Gore should make the state of Hawaii fork over some carbon credits for this baby.
