Eve Online so far has been quite an amazing experience and no major crashes using Linux. Also as a test I enabled Compiz and there were no problems. Compiz basically enabled 3D effects on your desktop. For instance windows explode when closed or wobble when moved. All pure eye candy but still good to show off.

I had Eve running for 4 hours non stop. Eve Online is also very good for making nice wallpaper. Something I don't normally do. So I thought I'd share the results.

Sorry I just had to ask this question. I think I have seen a similar titled article in the past but this is mine and is my opinion so argue the toss but you won't change me.

It's no secret I am a Linux user. I have been aware of the name Linux since windows 3.1. I read a little column in .EXE Magazine in 1994 and it always intrigued me. But back then internet access was pretty much non existent in the UK save for BBS systems so getting hold of it would have been no go. Apart from which it was pretty much useless for the average person, although I was a good programmer back then.

After writing my last entry with eye candy in 3D desktops it made me think more. This article is best treated as the opposite view of a regular Windows user using Linux. Also before I get harrassed Linux is actually called GNU/Linux but I am not going to repeat that everytime so from here on Linux actually means a distribution based on the GNU/Linux kernel. Linux is actually a GNU project. GNU/Linux really means the Linux kernel, the actual operating system. But most people, incorrect or not, refer to Linux as the complete package of the operating system, the window manager, desktop environment and applications that run on top of it. This is also how I will also incorrectly refer to it. For more information see GNU.org website.

All right I admit this is pure eye candy but it looks so cool. I have been using Linux in one form or another since 1996 and started using it exclusively as my desktop since September 2nd  2002. Yes I can pin point the date as that was my ill fated decision to become self employed, At the time I needed to use legal software and Linux had everything I needed. A free office suite in the form of OpenOffice, an accounts package and a PHP/HTML/CSS development environment.

However since then, what is known as Linux has come a long way. I am currently using Fedora 9. It suits my needs perfectly. But just recently I have been playing around with 3D desktop settings provided by Compiz, 3D compositing window manager. I thought I would share a couple of screenshots I took. Both are from using a plugin called Expo. It takes the virtual windows on the desktop, zooms out and puts each desktop next to each other. Complete with reflections and a slight curve.

This first one I was just testing the limits. Here two movies are playing full screen, one in each virtual desktop. Yes I know it's completely pointless but then again so is Windows Vista yet people actually 'BUY' that. What's cool about this is whilst the movies are playing the reflections are also kept updated too,

This next screen shot is showing a really cool game I have been waiting anxiously for called World Of Goo. It's a brilliant game and has been given awards. Please buy this game to support indie game development. It's only £12. It will be available on Nintendo's Wii as well.

Anyway, this again is showing the game playing in real time with reflections. I suppose again it's not practical but it could be useful if you have multiple applications running and you want to switch to the one you want. This works by moving the mouse to the top left and the screen zooms out to show all desktops. All you have to do is double click the window you want.

So there you go. People are quite shallow and eye candy is what marketing is all about.

I just had to point this out as it made me laugh and realise I am obviously not the only one concerned with the mental state of our own Home Secretary, Jaqui Smith.

The Register has an article about the demise of a 'yoof' website which was designed to get the opinions of the 'yoof' of the nation's opinion on ID cards. Here is the link and title: Wacky Jacqui's yoof ID site goes silent

For the last few years I know I have been getting out of shape. As a programmer most of my activity is in front of a screen.  I recently went to Edinburgh where most of it is walkable. I also took the opportunity to climb up Scotts Monument to see an amazing view. Then if that wasn't knackering enough I had to rush up Princes Street which is a mile long. It was at that point I realised I need to get back into shape. I was a sweaty mess and I didn't like it. Although as a family we go out to lots of places like Dartmoor it, hasn't boosted my fitness.

A few years a go I bought a Gazelle Air Walker endorsed by someone called Tony Little. I used it a few times. It was big bulky and I hardly felt I was doing anything. I now have a large bulky coat/clothes/junk hanger in the hallway! I kept meaning to use it but it's just so much hassle for little gain.

However a friend recently gave me something much more useful and I am now a massive advocate. Although I did complain about having more junk.

Not only is Stephen Fry a top all round intelligent bloke, he is also a supporter of free software. And being as intelligent as he is appreciates what it means to society as a whole.

For more information visit http://www.gnu.org/fry/ . Here is his birthday message and for those who don't know I'll leave it to Mr. Fry to explain;

I have tried out quite a few chat rooms over the years from plain text to isometric and some 3d ones. With the exception of the text based systems, none of the alternative chat systems seemed to be easy to use.

Most of the chat systems I looked at always seemed too fiddly or slow, or full of 'yoof' who skipped  English lessons. I have also tried Second Life and tried to like it but it is just full of morons, to be quite frank. I don't want to be discover my inner 'furry' or some hidden transexual...no comments please. I don't want to be a shop keeper who hangs around all day waiting for some one to virtually buy something. Honestly, the first time I tried second life someone appeared and tried to sell me stuff. I asked him about it and seriously that is what he spent his Saturdays doing. Oh and I certainly don't want to get involved in virtual sex. Honestly for those who have never tried it, real sex is great and you can burn calories.

One thing Second Life has going for it is it's economy which you can make real money and it's level of customisation. You can make your own objects and clothes inside Second Life. Can't fault that.

So why am I writing about Google's Lively? Well so far personally this has to be the best I have used in terms of practicality. It just works. Admittedly it is beta and has a few flaws. The one thing I liked the most is you create your own rooms and that's it. There is no world as such. Just you and your room. You can add objects to the room to make it more interesting. Things like tables, chairs and lamps can be put down and moved around. You can also add projectors and TV's which can stream YouTube movies live. Excellent. Also you can hang picture frames and link to external images, such as Picassa. I linked to my Flickr gallery though.

Currently it's not possible to create you own content and rooms but that is something planned for the future. From what I can tell you will be able to use Google's SketchUp to design a room. This is quite handy as it's easy to use. Content will be able to be created from a variety of 3D applications.

From a chat point of view it is pretty good. What made me laugh a lot when I invited a friend into my newly built room was the ability to interact with another Avatar. For instance punching and kicking or holding hands and patting on the back. Brilliant. The text appears as bubbles above the head of the avatars. This is ok but I found it a little awkward to see when the side bar was open and trying to move my avatar around to see them. Having said that Avatar control is simple. You can double click on a space and your avatar just appears there. No messing around walking to the spot

What's more interesting about Lively is that rooms have been designed to be embedded into a website. This means you can have your own personal space, my test room is below. In order to enter a room you will need to install a small plugin for your browser but shouldn't take more than a minute. Each room has it's own url and I believe it's possible to make objects in a room a link to another room so you can build up a network of rooms. By making it more personal for me has made it more useful and fun. I can invite my friends to my own space instead of turning up in one giant venue. Having said that there are plenty of public rooms available on Lively's website. There are plenty of cafes and bars for example.

Another great touch is the use of emoticons and IRC style / commands. For instance typing ";-)" makes your avatar wink, ":-P" sticks tongue out, typing LOL and your avatar laughs, ROTFL and your avatar rolls on the floor laughing. To quickly use animations you can type it's name. For example typing /wave, /bow, /flirt will make your character perform those actions. Absolutely brilliant.

So as you can tell I am quite excited by it. But what's in it for Google? Well if you read all the above then you will notice how many Google products I mentioned. All this personal information being in the hands of one company could be slightly worrying. How much you trust Google is a matter of personal taste but linking all these products in and you can't help thinking 'How cool!'.

Update 28 April 2008: I would like to add that with one point to me it appears I am not alone in my thoughts regarding price fixing: OFT in new supermarket crackdown

It's been pointed out to me that I have been very angry recently so excuse the tone in this little write up rant. But it's not really surprising with the state of this country. You're not even allowed to be proud to be a white heterosexual male. It's ok to have gay days or black music only clubs. Banks have been ripping me off for years. Go to prison and you have a great time. If you're foreign, commit crime and then get a threat of deportation then you get human fucking rights lawyers sort it out. This labour government has been screwing the country over for the last 10 years. I didn't vote these lunatics in. But I digress.

My recent bout of anger has come from the fact that not only are foreigners, banks and the government ripping me off, so are supermarkets. It's obvious the cost of living has increased over the last year or two, quite dramatically. Petrol prices are up and food prices are up. So, along with many people at the moment, I re-assessed where our finances are being hit. Apart from the usual petrol, electric, gas, water and council tax it seems the culprit is actually food. For the last 7 years or so my partner and I have been shopping at Tesco. We bought into the idea of earning points on that little card so we could get more deals and points towards shopping, or indeed a 'free' shop later on. But that has pretty much ended.

I was a supporter of Tesco. It is one of the few British success stories. I'm a patriotic Brit, no that doesn't mean I am racist. I was proud of a British company actually being successful. But having looked at where our money is going it seems a lot is on our food budget. I'm not fat although I eat more than I should. We survived on a quarter of what our combined income was 7 years ago. See a pattern in there anywhere?

Now that I am getting better at my photography I thought it would be nice to meet up with fellow 'togs. I hang around in a Facebook group for photographers in Plymouth setup by Andy Laidlaw, a Plymouth based photographer. He had arranged the first Plymouth (Facebook) Photography Group meeting on Sunday, 30th March 2008.

The idea was to meet up at the Plume of Feathers at Princetown for lunch and drinks. Only a few turned up in the end but we had good fun. Howard Nowlan also joined along with Kat and Pete Welsh. After the introductions we set off on a journey of photo taking mayhem. Well not quite but it was fun. Pete had a top secret location in mind so we all followed in a convoy through narrow winding roads. Andy had to keep stopping, I thought he needed to keep using the bathroom at first. But not quite, his keen photographer's eye kept seeing things to snap.

We eventually arrived at our destination which was a nice woodland area with a river running through it and a nice picturesque bridge over it. I shan't be divulging the location.

With the weather being perfect for once we all set off on our own agendas. I kind of snapped randomly really. Watching Pete at work was quite good as I picked up a couple of tips. Pete has a great portfolio and definitely a good eye. Whilst Howard and Andy had modelling in mind, after all Kat was there.

Well seeing as I had brought my family we soon had to leave as the kids had school then next day. But seeing as The Plume of Feathers was on the way we thought we would avoid cooking at home and have dinner there. As usual it was great. It's not often I don't finish a meal.

Natural Light Workshop Photos

I had the opportunity to attend a photography workshop focusing on the use of natural light for portraiture work. I was invited to attend by Howard Nowlan after expressing my interest in learning more about portrait work.

So when I first arrived I was extremely nervous. This is the first time I have done anything like this let alone working with a model, Kat who was easy to work with and get on with. I also only realised after the session that my camera (Nikon D40) does have a black and white option. For some reason I got it in my head that it didn't have one as it is only an entry level DSLR. This wasn't a major issue as I converted to black and white during post processing.

Also helping out were Maureen Douglas-Green and Tony Smith who gave great inspiration and mini lectures.

So after listening to Howards introduction and pointers we got straight into it......

I have just recently started playing a game called Glest. I was aware of it some time ago but couldn't get it working on my Linux Desktop at the time (I now use Fedora 7). But one day I tapped in yum install glest and there it was. So looks like it is being actively built for various Linux distributions, which is nice! It is also available on Windows but I have not seen an OS X version.

I had an opportunity to test out VirtualBox on a server at work with Fedora Core 6. Due to a hardrive crash our sales system was unable to send pricing to the website.

Whilst trying to build the system from backups I came across problems due to missing libraries which I couldn't resolve using various compatible libraries which I needed for a custom Apache build. I was already aware of VirtualBox and went to check out their website and saw they had a new release 1.5. So I promptly installed it on my newly built Fedore Core 6 server. This concept isn't new. VMWare Inc. have been offering virtualisation products for quite some time now and are really mature products. However VMWare offer premium products and not suited for casual users. VirtualBox on the other hand is available as a free product and also an open source community edition.

There are only a few steps to be aware of before installing or running VirtualBox. First up is making sure you have gcc and the kernel sources available. So a quick yum install gcc and yum install kernel-devel sorted this out so VirtualBox could do a custom kernel module.

Using Wine 0.9.41 I have finally managed to get Republic: The Revolution running on my Linux distribution, Fedora Core 6. Unfortunately this game was not really that popular due the use of a brain being required. Bit of shame as it is a great idea, beautifully presented and has a great soundtrack. I have not really played it that much as Windows is not my primary operating system. It was only there to keep the missus happy with Sims 2

Everything seems to work ok but it is really slow though. Maybe another couple of more updates to WINE and hopefully will be smooth. I think this is a DirectX 8 game so there may be hope.

I thought I should make a note of a problem I had running UFO:AI 32bit on Fedora Core 6 64bit edition. Hopefully this may help others.

I couldn't find any specific version of UFO:AI for FC6 so I grabbed the binary avsilable on sourceforge onthe UFO:AI downloads page. After extracting the archive and running ufoai I kept getting a error complaining that UFO:AI requires SDL_ttf. When checking it appears it was installed but after some poking around not the i386 version which for some reason didn't get installed. The only way I could find to install it was to get it straight from Fedora extras download. After installing this UFO:AI ran perfectly

Whilst I was looking at those other games I came across a game which I bookmarked before called AstroMenace from an independant games company in the Ukraine called ViewWizard Games but just found out there is a free version for Linux. I played this for a good couple of hours and was really hooked. The screenshot doesn't do it justice.