Live Bookmarks and RSS News Feeds

Check it out. I just read about "Live Bookmarks" being available in Firefox.
Basically, you add a "Live Bookmark". This creates a folder with bookmarks
that are populated based on the RSS newsfeed. For instance, I created a
Live Bookmark to Yahoo News. Under my Yahoo News bookmark folder are URL's
leading to Yahoo News stories. The bookmarks update themselves as the RSS Feed
is updated. This is way cool :)

Windows' Days are numbered on my PC....

Like many other Linux enthusiasts, I kept Windows around on a dual-boot machine for the games. There aren't a lot of Linux native games right now. Without getting into the long, old explanation of that, I'll just say that Winbloze finally pissed me off to the point where I paid for a Transgaming subscription so I could download Cedega, to allow me to run my Windows games on Linux. I had been forced to install Windows Server on my Windows partition for my Win2k Server class for college. After trying to remove the Active Directory and demote the server to a standalone non-AD server, I learned what veterans all know. DCpromo is a joke, you really need to reinstall Windows Server to demote a server. Screw dat, I'm not reinstalling Windows. Again. But now Warcraft III locks up solid after a mere 20 seconds of running. So, my main reason for keeping Windows around is turning out to be non-existant.

Which brings me back to Cedega, the latest name of what used to be called WineX, which was a port of the Wine (Wine is not an emulator) project. WineX focused on running games on Linux. So after downloading & emerging it (that's installing it in Gentoo speak), I happily popped in my Warcraft III Cd. Rubbing my hands together, I contemplated finally freeing my PC from Windows, and having absurdly long uptimes.

The good news is that the install went great. The bad news is that the graphics are too choppy and the game keeps crashing before I can get video settings that work with the display. So last night I went to bed unhappy with ATI and my Radeon 9500.

This morning, there is more good news. Searching the Net for possible solutions, I find some options.
1 - Use a 2.4 kernel. But but... I got a 2.6 working and I love the efficiency. I don't want to resort to this unless I have to
2 - Sell the ATI and get an NVidia. Nope, not going to give up that quickly.
3 - Update the ATI drivers. Apparently, after years of mere lip service, ATI went and hired a bunch of developers for their Linux drivers. They have *gasp* actually been updating their Linux drivers on a semi-regular basis. In this thread on the Gentoo forums there is talk of a driver version 8.10.19 released this month on the 16th. IIRC, not being in front of the good old home PC at the moment, that's newer than the version I had upgraded to just a few weeks ago.

From the release notes, which you can see in the Gentoo thread above, it looks like they are doing some serious bug fixing and design work. Yay! I don't know that if, presented with the choice today, this would convince me to get another ATI vs. Nvidia or something like the XGI Volari series. But it at least makes me feel better about the card I have right now and the possibility of getting Warcraft III going in the near future.

As soon as the games are running stable, Windows, you are gone for good.

Journaling again

The last post I made was shortly before starting the process of buying a house and moving cities. It has been a few months, but it seems like longer. Heh. Currently I'm working at another helpdesk, started the job a few weeks ago. Sitting at a desk all day has the advantage of giving me lots of time to get blogging, research, and other "personal development" etc done. ;) The job is pretty cool, the people are fun, management is supportive, it pays well, and I might even get to move up in the world in the future. I'm certainly not complaining. Besides, I have a mortgage, bills and a tech toy habit to feed so the $$ is appreciated.

Finally finally got the Zaurus to sync with my Linux PC. I'm using the scripts from KEffective to do the syncing. I'm also using KA-Pi (which stands for KAddressbook Platform Independant) and Kontact-Pi on the Linux box, on the Z and my Winderz box at work. It is a thing of beauty - using the same applications on all 3 platforms, and syncing to the full blown Kontact on the Linux side.

As a side note on the Z, I was looking around Sharp's website yesterday. I note that they still don't have much in the way of support for their PDA's, the bastids. The driver software needed for the SL-5600 that I own still can't be found for love or money on the Net anywhere, it only exists on the CD that comes with the unit. The only software on Sharp's own website is for the SL5500. The SL-6000 was released last year, mine was released in 2003, and they still don't have any software or much the in way of any sort of support on their website for them. When you click on the links for downloads for either the 5600 or 6000 they lead you to the 5500 downloads which are circa 2002 and don't really work for the newer models. Come ON Sharp, are you just pissing on your US market for kicks & giggles?

I really like my Z, but whenever I get around to replacing it, I'm going to get another Linux based PDA, perhaps a Palm when their Linux based PDA comes out. I want to have Bluetooth and a wireless NIC inside like the rest of the PDA world. Some other options are

• Acer n20 and n20w - according to this ZDNet review it runs PocketPC OS by M$ - no thanks!
  
• Compaq iPAQ 3900 - HP's current PDA's all seem to be Pocket PC these days. How old is this site anyway? Scrub it, more research later.