Assassin’s Creed

Yeah, I know I’m late to the party on this one. Just picked it up this weekend for $30. I must say, I’m impressed. I was a huge fan of Splinter Cell on Xbox, and this is beginning to get me excited as well.

If only I can get this Eavesdropping thing down….

I’ll give more details later if something truly cool pops up, but so far I’m loving th graphics & sound on the 360 version. I’m finding myself wishing it was on PSP, too. Weird that it has a DS version, but no PSP love

Firefox 3 scroll wheel finally fixed!!

OK, I’m heading out the door on a trip in a few minutes, but I wanted to post the fix to the scroll issues I’ve been experiencing on Firefox 3 in Linux (see previous posts).

Add the following to your mouse settings of /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier    “Configured Mouse”
Driver        “mouse”
Option        “CorePointer”
Option        “Device”    “/dev/input/mice”
Option        “Protocol”    “ExplorerPS/2″
Option        “ZAxisMapping”    “4 5″
Option        “ButtonMapping” “1 2 3 4 5″
Option         “Buttons”     “5″
Option        “Emulate3Buttons”    “false”
EndSection

I didn’t have 2 of 3 the lines noted above. This is assuming you have a standard 3-button/scrolling mouse thats cheaply available everywhere. Then reload xorg (ctrl+alt+backspace)

Hope this helps. I’m off to blow stuff up over the holiday

Xbox Live thoughts

I received a 12+1 month subscription card to Xbox Live as a part of my Father’s Day gifts. It’s something I’ve been wanting, as I haven’t played against anyone else yet. After entering the card info, and turning my Silver Live account Gold, I’ve played a bit of Gears of War online the past few days.

My, I must say its quite a different game online than off. On Live, the matches are short & brutal. I must’ve played well over an hour spread across 2 nights before I won my 1st kill, and it certainly carried a sense of accomplishment, knowing that this was against another player, rather than the game AI.

Of course, I expected the standard trash talking and adolescent bravado: what else do you expect from gamers with (relative) anonymity? Although, I must admit the high-pitched kid nearly crying because his kill was stolen was a bit more funny than pathetic.

I’ve decided I need to pick up a few more bargain priced online games to try out, maybe GRAW 2, who knows? What I do know, however, is that playing against real people is much more rewarding, and its something I look forward to.

Maybe I’m beginning to understand the appeal of those things people refer to as sports…

Firefox+mouse, Part III - done

OK, I’m weak. After seeing that Firefox 3.0 RTMed today, and that it was finally in the repositories, I installed it again. Not surprisingly, the mouse behaved normally, and I can scroll up & down with impunity. All is good…

But I’m keeping Firefox 2 as a backup

Firefox+mouse, part II

Ok, so after fussing with Firefox 3 for a while, I decided fighting to get basic mouse functioning in a single browser wasn’t worth the fuss. I went back to Firefox 2.0.0.14, and all is well. We’ll see how 3.0 is after another update or 2.

Firefox 3 latest + mouse wheel scroll = ouch

Ok,

I’ve discovered today that Firefox 3.0, aka 3.0~rc1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1 is causing issues with my mouse.
It’s just a standard, cheap 2button+wheel optical mouse (making 5 buttons technically) from logitech. It’s always treated me well.

The problem is, in Firefox if I use the wheel to scroll up, it acts lke I hit the Back button, and the previous page loads. Highly annoying, to say the least.

No, there is no problem with my xorg.It’s been set as both of the following, with no change:
Section “InputDevice”
Identifier    “Configured Mouse”
Driver        “mouse”
Option        “CorePointer”
Option        “Device”    “/dev/input/mice”
Option        “Protocol”    “ExplorerPS/2″
Option        “ZAxisMapping”    “4 5″
Option        “Emulate3Buttons”    “false”
EndSection

and simply as

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier    “Configured Mouse”
Driver        “mouse”
Option        “CorePointer”
EndSection

And yes, I’ve loaded about:config and check the appropriate settings:
mousewheel.horizscroll.withnokey.action = 0
mousewheel.withnokey.action = 0

No change. And, If I load Firefox 2.0.0.14, it behaves fine. So does Konqueror, and any other window browser app. Something is broken in Firefox, and it had better be fixed shortly. I’m not one to complain about FOSS (I haven’t payed for any of it), but this is highly annoying, right on th verge of 3.0 Final. I’ve hunted around, and haven’t found any solution that works. Maybe somebody can provide some insight.

work-obsessed slacker = old-school gamer

I realize I haven’t been active the last couple of weeks. Been bogged down at the office lately.

However, in the midst of that I have found myself playing old(er) games, rather than my shiny Falcon Elite. In fact, She has found me playing Neverwinter Nights natively on my linux box. I’d forgotten how much fun it was, and she was interested in it as well. I may have to pick up another copy to install on her Inspiron so we can play together. Of course, then I’d need to set up my own NWN server

In other news, I’ve found myself playing old-school emulated games on one of my modded xboxes, notably MAME roms, but a few Sega Genesis games as well. My infatuation with Sega goes back to the 16bit era, having owned a Genesis (we played that thing constantly early in our marriage as cheap fun), SegaCD, then Saturn. She is still bitter about the Shining Force III disc ONE cliffhanger Fiasco, and refuses to play any other Shining Force games (except SF CD) until she can someday play the completed discs TWO and THREE. I may have to look into Saturn emulation again…

Kubuntu On The Rainslick Precipice Of Darkness

Yup, a new proprietary RPG released multiplatform. On Windows. On Mac. On Linux. Even on the Xbox 360. Demos available for all platforms
Tycho & Gabe, along with PlayGreenhouse, have released the 1st Episode of On The Rainslick Precipice Of Darkness. For those unfamiliar, you should spend some time reading Tycho’s editorials and Gabe’s comic strips. I love Penny Arcade, and read it every update (Mon/Wed/Fri). I personally find it hysterical myself.

I’ve tried the Linux demo, as well as the 360 version. They both play well, and capture the feel of PA perfectly. Surprisingly, it ran as flawlessly on my Kubuntu box as well as my 360, so I have no complaints. I feel the urge to pick this up for Linux to show my support. At $20 per episode, it seems reasonable. I hear each episode should provide between 8-12 hours of play. Not too shabby, I guess. I’m just excited they threw in a native client. There’s also a thread on the Ubuntu Forums.

Creative Zen V Plus on Kubuntu

OK, I’ve decided to post how I got my Zen working under AmaroK, Gnomad2, etc.

!. Make sure you have mtpfs installed from the repo’s. I’ve never had this package installed before, and connectivity has always been sketchy at best. Install it:
Sudo apt-get install mtpfs
2. Also install libmtp7, available from the repo’s, version 0.2.6.1-2ubuntu1. It’s very important to make sure you have libmtp6 removed if present. Use Synaptic before installing libmtp7 to fully remove libmtp6 prior to installing libmtp7.

I use primarily Amarok, so you need to add it to th devices Amarok sees:
From inside AmaroK
1.Settings >Configure AmaroK
2.Select Media Devices
3.Click Add Device
4. Choose the MTP Device plugin, and give the player a name, like Zen or Creative or MyMP3PlayerIsCoolerThanYours. Whatever.
5. I left the mount point blank. Click OK
6. Back in the main Amarok interface, select Devices on the bottom left, and on the upper menu select MTP Media Device if needed.
7. There’s a colorful little button right above this that says “Connect”. Click it. You know you want to…

Hopefully, your Zen will be detected, and scanned so your contents are displayed. Now, go add some music

Kubuntu Hardy Final Thoughts = Linux Done Right

Alright folks,

After some tweaking, I must say I think I’ve gotten Hardy to be pretty rock solid for my needs.
Restricted Drivers, check
XMMS/streamtuner, check
Liquidweather++, check
Moto4lin, check
Creative Zen V Plus, check (yes, I had a bit of trouble, but I didn’t see much use in posting the fix. Maybe another day)

Most of my daily uses are working great now, either after minimal fuss, or straight out of the box. Since I’m running Kubuntu, it didn’t come with Firefox 3 (or any other flavor), so I use 2.0.0.14, as I know all of my extensions work correctly, and I’m not real impressed by some of the GUI changes in Beta 3 yet.

Now with the summer approaching, I’m considering getting a new laptop for myself (go one for Her for Christmas, running Gutsy). I’ve been pretty impressed by the Inspiron 1420 she’s running, so I’ll likely get one for myself as well.