With the movers coming Tuesday afternoon, anything and everything in sight is being placed in a box. Most of our stuff gets packed Tuesday, and the rest gets packed Wednesday morning. Later that same day, we close on our current house and on the new one. Then everything gets moved in to the new house after that. I'm definitely looking forward to the end of all that.

I still have a decent amount of stuff to pack in my room, although I have made excellent progress. I would estimate that I'm nearly 85% done. But with tomorrow evening being the only time I have to finish everything, I'm beginning to panic a little bit. I know I'll get it done - it just seems so overwhelming now. There's no telling how many boxes I've already packed. 15? 20? 25? It's a lot, I know that. And so much of it is junk!

This is my last post from this house (my computer gets packed up tomorrow night when I get home from work). And please note that I will be "off the air" for several days. With any luck, I can continue to make blog posts from work. But don't expect any progress on the Born Geek front: updates there will most likely resume in a week (or two).

The demo for Serious Sam 2 is out, and I finally got a chance to play it last night. For whatever it's worth, here are my impressions:

The Good

• Cool, cartoon-style environments. I've seen a lot of discussion on this point, and virtually everyone thinks the art direction is poorly done. Considering that virtually every computer game today is striving for ultra-realism, I think this is a breath of fresh air. It's something original. What a concept!
• Loads of weapons. The demo showcases a number of really neat weapons, including the parrot bomb (of which you only get one round - so make it count).
• Fast paced action. Just like the Serious Sam days of old.

The Bad

• Can you say "Console Port"? It is blatantly obvious that Serious Sam 2 is being developed for consoles. The user interface with the game menus is horrible, especially when it comes to changing key bindings. If there's anything I hate, it's a poorly done "port".
• The demo is way too short. I certainly hope the other game levels aren't this anemic.
• Cut scenes are really shoddy in quality. Couldn't they have just used the game engine for these cut scenes, instead of this low-resolution pre-rendered crap?
• Sam did virtually no wise-cracking through the entire demo! What have you done with the Sam I once knew?!?

The full game will be released in a few weeks (October 10 is one date I've seen), and I do plan on picking it up. Will it be worth the $30 asking price? I certainly hope so. Perhaps the rough points will have been smoothed down in the final product. Let's just hope they don't mess with the core Serious Sam formula. That would be a crime against nature.

My family and I move one week from today, so we're beginning to kick our packing efforts into high gear. Until one packs up all of his belongings, one doesn't realize how much junk has accumulated through the years. I've packed up a total of five fairly large boxes so far, and their contents consist of only my books and computer game boxes. A tiny ripple in a very large pond.

Fortunately, I'm moving up in room size. I outgrew my current room a number of years ago, so it's well past time to have something larger. My new room provides substantially more real estate (having two closets will help tremendously), so I won't be nearly as cramped as I am currently. As soon as I have a sizable down payment stored away in the bank, I'll get a place of my own (and then I'll really be moving up)!

Unfortunately, all of this activity is hurting my Googlebar Lite 3.0 efforts. We are unlikely to have internet connectivity for a few days at the new house, so that won't help matters (although I can still work behind the scenes). So, don't be surprised if version 3.0 shows up later than expected.

According to the story over at Slashdot, it appears that the Opera web browser is now available for free. This should be an interesting thing to watch over the coming weeks. Will large numbers of Firefox users switch to Opera? I know that I certainly won't, but a number of Slashdot comments already indicate that at least some portion of the Firefox community is (and will be) making the switch. I don't see anything in Opera that immediately jumps out and says, "You should try me now!" Is there something I'm missing? Or is Firefox still the best little browser in the world?

Here's a small but handy Firefox tip for "safekeeping" your bookmarks. It also lets you share your bookmarks across multiple profiles!

1. Navigate to your Firefox profile directory. On Windows, this is usually located somewhere similar to the following: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\
2. Copy your bookmarks.html file and paste it in a safe location elsewhere on your hard drive.
3. Back in your profile directory, create a text file called user.js (if one does not already exist). Open the file for editing in your favorite text editor (avoid word processors like Microsoft Word).
4. Add the following line of text to this file, changing the path to the appropriate location (wherever you copied your bookmarks to earlier): user_pref("browser.bookmarks.file", "C:\Path to Bookmarks File\bookmarks.html");
5. Save the file and restart your browser!

You can use this trick in multiple profiles, allowing them to all point to the same bookmarks file. Additionally, it helps to safeguard against possibly losing your bookmarks if your profile becomes corrupt.

Scott Berkun used to work for Microsoft on the Internet Explorer web browser. So if there is anyone around who can appreciate the machinery behind the web browsing experience, it's him. Scott recently switched to using Firefox as his primary web browser (his article explains why he made the change). But more interestingly, he provides several things he sees wrong with Firefox. Several of his points are right on target (there is some broken-ness in the Firefox world), and several of his points are a little off the mark (a few of his problems can be solved with extensions).

But Scott has class. He recently posted a followup article, clarifying a number of questions raised by the first one. In it, he admits that after he heard from a number of Firefox users, he saw that some of his views warranted another look. And he also (correctly) points out that there is still inherit broken-ness in the browsing world as a whole. Thanks for an insightful post, Scott. And here's to your switch to Firefox: you won't regret it.

I just won 10 more Prince Valiant books at eBay, bringing my library to a total of 27 titles out of the available 50 (the auction I won was actually for 14 books, but I already have four of them). The price per book in this auction was fairly reasonable: only $11.75 each! I've found that buying the books in bulk is the only way to get them at a reasonable price.

Unfortunately, this lot of books was listed in "fair" condition and the picture provided didn't fully show their actual state (at least the spines look to be in decent shape). I guess I'll see what condition they are in when I get them. The beautiful thing about eBay is that I can always turn around and sell them to someone else if I don't like them.

Interestingly enough, I'm still awaiting my order of volume #2 from Amazon. They apparently don't have any, so they have delayed my order for some time (up to November if I recall correctly). But I'm willing to wait - the early volumes are hard to get, especially at the low price of just over $11.00!

New Cheat Commandos!

I have recently come across two computing articles that I highly recommend:

Code Craft: Freedom Languages Author Kevin Barnes discusses the differences between the "safety" programming languages (C++, Java, etc.) and the "freedom" languages (Perl, Python, etc.). His points are well organized, his argument well written, and the article highly insightful.

The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security Recently featured on Slashdot, this article points out exactly what's wrong in computer security. Allow the following quote to provide a taste of this excellent work:

"...if the conventional wisdom was working, the rate of systems being compromised would be going down, wouldn't it?"

Want a good laugh? Head over to the Thorax Corporation's website, created by The Brothers Chaps (the masterminds behind Homestar Runner). You won't regret it.

A day or two ago, I replaced my primary Firefox install with the 1.5 Beta release. This afternoon, I went back to 1.0.6. As excited as I am about the upcoming 1.5 release, this beta simply has too many problems to switch to it full time. Too many errors crop up in the JavaScript console, too many extensions and themes do not yet work with it, and its overall stability is questionable (the beta crashed on me minutes after installing it for the first time). I think I might go back to running the nightly branch builds on my "nightly" profile. Had I been thinking clearly at the time, I would have used this profile with the beta install. Unfortunately, I contaminated my normal profile instead. So now I'm having to build a new one. sigh

Such is the price of progress.

Asa Dotzler reported yesterday that Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 is now available to download. Apparently, the beta has revved the maxVersion for extensions to 1.4. As such, I will no doubt need to check that Googlebar Lite still works and get a new version out the door (with updated version support).

This is an exciting time for Firefox users! The Beta release of 1.5 includes a host of new features and thousands of bug fixes, making the best browser in the world even better. Improved accessibility will also help those who make use of screen-readers, making their lives much easier.

Seeing as it has been a long time since I last made a backup of stuff on my computer system (the last one I did was on April 17th), I decided that it was well past time to make another. In the process of doing so, I had the opportunity to do a little "fall cleaning" on my computer. I have since learned that my computer is surprisingly unorganized.

A number of redundant files were lying around (mostly stuff that can be recreated from other files that I have). So this was the first batch of stuff to be discarded. I also had a ton of really old stuff, some of it dating back to my early "JGB Productions" days. I zipped up all of said old stuff (so it wouldn't lie fallow anymore), and then placed it in a safe place: just in case. There were a number of instances where files just needed to be zipped up: one folder of server logs was well over 110 MB and, after compression, was a mere 4 MB.

I believe I removed between 1000 and 1500 files in the process. Unfortunately, I didn't calculate the entire disk savings, but it must be upwards of 1 GB or more (a number of duplicate MP3's were also tossed out). All in all, the experience was a good one for me. Not only have I backed up vital data, I've tidied up my virtual home. It sure feels good to get clean!

I have just finished playing through Far Cry again (for the fifth or sixth time), and I thoroughly enjoyed the game all over again. Running with all of the extra eye candy made this time around particularly special (although my old Radeon 9700 Pro did a decent job). I had forgotten how difficult the game can be. The final two levels are insanely hard, and the ending (sadly) isn’t worth all the trouble. But the game’s atmosphere makes it all worthwhile. This was the first modern shooter that really floored me with its presentation, and I still consider it to be one of the best action games available today (only Half-Life 2 eclipses it in my book). Loads of fun!

So I'm playing through Far Cry again, this time with all the eye candy turned way up. This is all thanks to the wonder that is the GeForce 6800 GT. It's absolutely fan-freaking-tastic. But I digress...

I had just arrived at Rebellion, quite possibly the biggest map in the game. After clearing the first area of the map, I begin the long journey to the other side. As I round a bend in the road, the screen goes corrupt (in an incredibly wicked way) and my system hangs. Performing the three finger salute did absolutely nothing, so I was forced to perform a hard reset. So now I'm booting up my machine, everything is fine, and BAM - as soon as I reach the Windows desktop, I have the same problem. Complete and utter destruction of my screen. Again, keyboard control is highly unresponsive.

At this point I power down the machine and open up the case. Could the graphics card be getting too hot? I am pushing it rather hard. After waiting a few seconds, I power up again and all is well. I didn't try loading up Far Cry again, but I plan to give it another go tonight. Has anyone ever seen this issue? I updated my chipset drivers last night (after the crash), and I also patched Far Cry (I was running 1.3, and am now at 1.33), thinking that might help in some way. Hopefully this problem isn't an ominous omen of some sort. I certainly don't want to replace this awesome piece of hardware.

(Apologies if this post jumps from one topic to another; I have a great deal on my mind).

For an incredibly long 13 weeks, my family has been trying to sell our house. Anytime anyone wanted to view it, we would end up having to go somewhere. It didn't take very long to run out of places to visit so, needless to say, we quickly became quite bored of this routine. My mother is particularly tired of it, since she stays home during the day. So every time someone came to view the house, she would have to leave. Thankfully, we have just received our first offer for the house. The folks want to close in an incredibly short amount of time, so I expect things to get hectic around here very shortly. Please bear with me if my posts become erratic. I may not have internet connectivity for a few days (something I already loathe), so updates may be few and far between for a short while.

I continue to make excellent progress on Googlebar Lite 2.2. Just tonight I fixed a lurking bug that was recently reported, added a brand new option, and made several other miscellaneous changes. Some strings need to be translated, and a new feature or two may still need to be added, but this release is already shaping up to be a good one.

Various theme tweaks continue at this site. I located a very inefficient styling problem earlier this week (regarding the background rendering for each page), and squashed that bug. I’m not happy with the way comments are styled, so I plan to alter that in the coming days. I also hope to eventually get a contact page up on this site. Other general improvements are also planned.

Jessie went away last summer, a couple of months ago. After all our time together, it was hard to see her go. She called me right up when she arrived, asked me one more time to come. A living on an L.A. freeway ain’t my kind of having fun.

I think I’d rather be a cowboy. I think I’d rather ride the range. I think I’d rather be a cowboy than to lay me down in love and lady’s chains.

We were just beginning, it was such an easy way. Laying back up in the mountains making songs for sunny days. She got tired of picking daisies and cooking my meals for me. She can live the life she wants to, yes, it’s all right with me.

I think I’d rather be a cowboy. I think I’d rather ride the range. I think I’d rather be a cowboy than to lay me down in love and lady’s chains.

I’d rather live on the side of a mountain than wander through canyons of concrete and steel. I’d rather laugh with the rain and sunshine and lay down my sundown in some starry field.

Oh, but I miss her in the morning when I awake alone. The absence of her laughter is a cold and empty sound. But her memory always makes me smile and I want you to know, I love her, yes I love her; just enough to let her go.

I think I’d rather be a cowboy. I think I’d rather ride the range. I think I’d rather be a cowboy than to lay me down in love and lady’s chains. I think I’d rather be a cowboy. I think I’d rather ride the range. I think I’d rather be a cowboy than to lay me down in love and lady’s chains.

Jeffrey Zeldman, author of the incredibly eye-opening book Designing With Web Standards, has recently redesigned announced the redesign of the excellent web magazine A List Apart. This website has provided a wealth of knowledge for me as far as web design goes, so I highly recommend checking it out if you have not already. And bookmark it while you're there: you won't regret it.

Edit: After reading the article discussing the new design of A List Apart, I realized that Jason Santa Maria is the actual site designer, not Zeldman. My apologies.

Before I ever began my programming career, I had a sneaking suspicion that an abundance of coding at work would lead to decreased programming activity at home. And I fear that this is indeed becoming the case with me. I write a mixture of C++ and Perl all day long, five days a week. This level of productivity really taxes my mind, and it has recently resulted in an increase of non-computing related activity each evening. I’m reading books more often (Prince Valiant has certainly helped in that arena), and I’m watching more TV than I used to. I even occasionally go outside! Things like Googlebar Lite and my toolbar tutorial are slipping as a result. I dislike it, but my motivation for programming after 5:00 PM has dropped greatly. Weekends provide some level of salvation, but is that enough?

As I previously promised, I have created a web page that conveys my humble Prince Valiant book collection. (This page has been removed, since I now own the entire collection.) There are a total of 50 volumes in the Fantagraphics line, and I have but 11 of them (4 more should be arriving by mail in the next 2 or 3 weeks). Adding on to this sort of collection is part of the fun, and is a bit like hunting for Easter eggs. I'm just amazed at how much the early volumes sell for on eBay. I have seen several of the earliest volumes (1-7) go for as much as $70 a piece recently, so obtaining this entire collection will eventually cost me. However, I suppose it's good for a man to have some sort of hobby, and these books have certainly been an enjoyable way for me to spend my time. And it's a welcome departure from programming and computer gaming!