I have been trying to use the latest version of Ubuntu, version 8.04, and I have come into a few serious issues. I know it is still in beta form but if these errors are not corrected there is no way I can fully switch over on my laptop. First off there are few new things that I like, for one Wubi integration just makes too much sense not to do and the installation takes under 30min and is a real joy to do. Also on of the things I really like is the new sense of polish I see throughout the system, its still not pretty but it has more of a continuous fell about it.

Ok now to the biggest issue I faced.

My laptop has a Dell 1390 wlan wireless card that up to 7.10 was a hassle to get running but with the integration of the new restricted drivers I was able to get it to run with two clicks and a reboot, but not so much now. Ubuntu still finds the card and installs the drivers, I think, but before it lets me click the “use” checkbox it tells I need to restart, which I did but it keeps telling me to restart, a never ending loop of restarts is never fun to run into. The only I did with Ubuntu was install it via Wubi which may lay my problems because the wireless light was already one during the installation and first run, unlike with 7.10 in which the light didn’t come on until after I installed the drivers. I will be testing this issue later in the day with Kubuntu and will update this post if anything is different.

Hopefully this issue will be fixed before its released this later this month.

April Fool’s! Just keeping you guys alert for obvious fake stories you will encounter throughout the day. I wonder what Google is going to do today? It is always the best at April Fool’s jokes. Also if you find any April Fool’s jokes online please leave them as a comment and share them with the community.

(p.s. The headline is faux for those who didn’t realize.)

My friend Chris, not Pirillo, is a long time Windows user who just recently bought his first Mac — a MacBook Pro. He has used a Mac off and on the past year at school but has never “lived” with it at home nor has he been without Windows must of his computing life, here is just some of his first impressions of OS X Leopard, mostly the dock.

i think that one of the most innovative and useful aspects of a mac is definitely the dock. the convienence of the dock makes window’s taskbar comparable to a rock and chisel and, i honestly believe, outweighs the combination of using the taskbar and desktop together. Apart from being very eye-appealing, the dock allows me to use stacks in way that makes windows explorer seem almost ridiculous.

i have countless items available to me at one or at the most two clicks away in manner so convenient and compact that it makes you want to dread the next time you have to use windows.
i find the use of the dock very comparable to the first time i opened a new tab on Firefox.. it allowed me to have several windows open without cluttering my taskbar.

It could be argued that the taskbar groups applications together when you have multiple windows open, but to me it was a hassle even BEFORE i had adapted to a mac.. with a mac i have the option of using expose to quickly access my running programs or just click on the application of the window that i want to go to, to quickly bring up all of the windows i have running on the application.

and those are just a few thoughts i have on the dock.. mac os x has SO MANY details that make me fall in love with it.

I upgraded Vista to SP1 a week ago today and my experience so far has been mixed. A few things run faster here and there but somethings are now unresponsive and sometimes to frustrating to even want to deal with. Here is a list of the top 3 things I have noticed about Vista SP1.


1. Games run smoother. Running the same drivers before SP1 my computer will now play games at the same speed of XP. Before I was unable to play games like Sonic Heros, just tested the game not a fan of it at all, Call of Duty 1 works flawlessly now and Elder Scrolls 3 Morrowind seems to run fine but with a few issues with DirectX 10.


2. Network sharing is hit or miss now. For some reason I cannot move some files between computer on my home network. Its not like the files are large most are simple text and HTML documents and for what ever reason I cannot move them. This is not alwalys the case but it happens almost 40% of the time.


3. Better responsiveness. The ol computer seems to run a little faster and I have less errors than before. A lot of the small bugs are gone but its still not perfect.


While still not perfect SP1 fixes a good bit of the issues I have had with Vista but its still not enough for me to keep as my primary OS on my laptop so Kubuntu 8.04 I will be seeing you next month.

Recently I have discovered a game that is so great it’s a mystery as to why it’s free and is not being played by everyone with a PC. The game is Alien Arena.

This free FPS is built on the Quake 2 engine and plays just as well, if not better then that of Quake 3 and even the newest installment of Unreal Tournament. The game moves fast, looks great, lightweight(just under 200 MB!), and features a wealth of add ons and mods. But the best part of Alien Arena is the art.

The game features characters that resemble the old Hollywood depictions of aliens. The games graphics also are impressive. I can only play the game on the lowest of settings but it still looks great and the frame rate is solid throughout some of the more intense moments of the game. I was able to see the game at the highest of settings and it was just stunning to see, with reflections in water and ultra high rez textures this game is a stunner. As for game play if you have played Quake before you will feel at home, the controls are tight and one of the best things about the game play is the fact that each weapon as a secondary shot which makes any weapon a dual threat. Also on some leavels you can ride around in small ships but it doesn’t feel that well and the controls need to be improved but thats my only complaint.

If you are looking for a fun game to pick up any time then do yourself a favor and download Alien Arena ‘08,
I give it a 4/5.

You can download the game here for Windows and Linux.

You can download the accessory pack for Windows here.

If you have ten minutes to kill, trust me you will never get these ten minutes back, then you should watch this video of two nerds arguing over Xbox Live after a friendly game of Halo 2. The losers of this match that they hosted blame the other team for modding and cheating to beat them and lash out on the “cheaters” after the match and thats where the nerd fun comes in. This video features some choice words, so kids, you’ve been warned.

As I pointed out a week ago that Amazon was showing a shipping date of March 18 for Windows Vista with SP1, well today is the 18th and they are now shipping Windows Vista with SP1, and for a lower price I might add. I am not sure if the update will become released today for current users but I am sure it will be here by weeks end. This is a huge deal for Microsoft and its customers because SP1 is supposted to bring better driver support and fix some general bugs with the system. Remember it took Windows XP SP2 to finally get a good reliable system so lets hope Microsoft hits a home run with SP1 for Vista.

Since I am not running Vista at this present time let me know if you get the update and let us know if SP1 makes any difference at all via a comment.

So look at you, you got your new shiny PC and your ready to play some awesome new PC games like Call of Duty 4 and Crysis, but can you? Getting into PC gaming can be a little tricky for new comers and sometimes confusing, so here are 5 things to look for before getting into gaming.

5. How much RAM do you have? RAM is temp memory in which your open applications use to run with, so the more the better. If you are running Windows Vista I would run at least 2 gigs of RAM and in Windows XP I would choose 1 gig but I would go on the safe side and up grade to at least run DirectX 10 games. RAM is one of the most important things in PC gaming and PCs in general.

4. Check the games system requirements. If a game says needs at least 256mb video card and you have a 128 chances are you wont be able to run it in its full glory. Most likely you will receive a low FPS and in some cases the game wont even load. So make sure you have at least the requirements but more always helps.

3. XP Or Vista? Most new games will be made for Vista so you will probably want to buy it but some older games don’t run very smooth on it, like GTA: San Andreas in my case. XP at this point has better driver support so its a safe bet that you can run your games in their full glory on the system so you should wait until SP1 of Vista is released later in the month.

2. Don’t be cheap, go Dual Core. At this point playing games are best suited to have two processors. Of course older games run fine without two so if you are going to go with a solo processor don’t go below 2.8ghz.

1. The most important thing of all in gaming, YOUR VIDEO CARD!!! Make sure your video card is not integrated graphics, like mine :(, because you will want a at least a PCI card with its own built in RAM. At this point you can find a cheap Nividia card like the GeForce 5500 for about $50 and it can play most games before 2006 but I would recommend the Geforce 7800, which can handle most games on the market today. Also do not buy a video card with less than 256mb of built in memory because most games require at least that much.

Do you have any other pointers for people looking to get into PC gaming? If so leave it as a comment!

After buying my G4 iMac I knew instantly that their was going to be a problem wtih me not being able to upgrade a lot of the components like the video card so now I am looking to buy my next Mac, a G4 Powermac. Now I know its not a “stunner” these days but I am broke and cheap so it fits my needs perfectly.

So why buy an old machine like that?

Well I plan to use it for soft gaming like playing some of my favorite older games like Warcraft 2 and 3 and also play newer games like World of Warcraft, as you can tell I am a Warcraft fan. So I plan to spend around $100 on the system itself and then another $100 or so on a powerful ATI 9800 video card to get the most out of my games.

Why get a Mac instead of a PC for gaming?

Well I am starting to convert over to Mac full time and I would like to start to work with the insides on them and learn all of the in’s and out’s on the older models, plus its fun. I also like using OS X for “heavy” programs because I know that it doesn’t use that much CPU and RAM and runs smooth with big programs.

So when I get my new Mac in a couple of months I might do a video on me upgrading the beast. If you know of any places online that has these machines for cheap let me know via a comment.

One of my favorite games of all time is Grand Theft Auto 3, I had it for the PS2, Xbox, and now the PC. It worked great on my laptop when XP was installed but the new drivers for Vista, well thats a different story. The game would freeze up and after exiting out of it I had a whole list of errors concerning the card not responding. After searching the web for a bit I found a fix for popular games GTA 3 and World of Warcraft. Its rather simple all you have to do is download the newest drivers, that do not appear in the Windows Update by the way, from the Intel site.

But here’s the tricky part.

You have to install the update the manual way by doing the following.

First download the Zip version of the driver not the .EXE one.

This comes straight from the installation readme that comes with the package.

1. Click “Start” then right click on “Computer” button and then choose Manage.

2. Permit the User Account Control to run by selecting the “continue” button. When the Computer Management window opens select the “device manager” icon.
   1. (NOTE: IF UPDATING DRIVER GO TO STEP 3B) Double click “Video Controller (VGA Compatible)”. (Go To STEP 4)

   2. Select “Display adapters” then Double click on the graphics controller shown.
3. Click on “driver” tab and select “Update Driver”.
4. Select the following option: “Browse my computer for driver software.”
5. Select the following option: “Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer.”
6. Click on the “Have Disk…” button and then the “Browse” button.
7. Enter the directory where you unzipped the file you downloaded, and then enter the “Graphics” subdirectory. Locate and highlight the “igdlh.INF” (if 32-bit) or “igdlh64.INF” (if 64-bit). Click on the “Open” button.
8. Click on the “OK” button. A window listing all of the available display types should open. Select the display adapter that your system contains and then click on the “Next” button.
9. Click on the “Next” button. The operating system will install the driver. Click on the “Finish” button when done.
10. Click on the “Close” button and then click on the “Yes” button to reboot. The driver should now be loaded.

Now after you reboot you should be able to play all of your favorite games without any issues, but remember — its integrated graphics — so don’t expect to run anything “too powerful.”