This kicks so much ass it’s not even funny.

Tags: dragon, everquest 2, expansion, shadow of odyssey

Very cool Shenmue artwork.

This would be great to have in the living room. Check out the Portuguese forums where I found it for more information.

Tags: artwork, dreamcast, hong kong, painting, revenge, ryo, ryo hazuki, sega, shenmue, shenmue 2, shenmue ii, videogame art, xbox

Everquest 2: The Shadow Odyssey

Some of these screenshots of the upcoming EQ2 expansion courtesy of Tom’s Games and the official Everquest 2 website. Love the colors, updated graphics and detail, and increased focus on creating a unique and foreboding atmosphere to explore. I’m looking forward to this one.

Everquest 2 is running a 14-day free trial. Check it out here.

Tags: eq 2, eq2, everquest 2, expansion, shadow odyssey, sony online entertainment

For History’s Sake

Similar to how we frequently display the front-page headlines of past newspapers during historical events, I submit this 2.0 version for our children and our children’s children:

Tags: 2008, black, election, first, history, obama, preserved, president

Playing Everquest 2 Again. Sooo fun!

While you’re checking out information on “The Shadow Odyssey” expansion coming out in less than 2 weeks, watch this vid and have a laugh.

Tags: eq2, everquest 2, everquest2, mmorpg, sony online entertainment

Alien Shooter: Vengeance

Must have. Must play.

Talk about a hidden gem. I have been a longtime subscriber to GameTap, and I don’t know how this one slipped through the cracks. This game was recently added to the GameTap library, and since starting to play it, I can’t put it down. The game I’m referring to, of course, is Alien Shooter: Vengeance from Sigma Team and CDV. This PC game came out in February of 2007 and it seems like I’m only hearing of it now. Either I’m out-of-touch or this game never became popular. If you’re into fun gameplay (which is a trait that is sorely lacking in most games today), you can find much enjoyment in Alien Shooter: Vengeance. First off, it’s an isometric shooter game with RPG elements. I describe it to friends as Diablo 2 meets Smash TV. It’s got great graphics, loads of varied enemies, wicked music, and simple controls.

You start off by creating a character and picking attributes that define how you’ll play. There are neat skills such as ‘enhanced learning’, which will level you up faster than normal and ‘vampire’, which lets you drain the life from enemies and add it to your own. Each time you level you earn a number of ability points, which you can then add to your skills.

There are numerous weapons in the game including, among others, flamethrowers, machine guns, pitsols, rifles, and shotguns. In addition to causing carnage with your handheld weapons, you will also be given the opportunity to pilot several vehicles including a tank and a jeep with a gun turret. This is the game that just keeps on giving.

I am still playing through the single-player story mode, but there are two other modes to go with including an arcade “Survival” mode (which I assume is wave upon wave of enemy until you perish), and Multiplayer. I can see this being a popular game at LAN parties.

If you have GameTap, I definitely recommend you download this game and try it today. If you don’t have GameTap, AS:V is available at many retailers and can be had for less than $20 in most cases.

Happy shooting!

Tags: alien shooter, alien shooter 2, alien shooter vengeance, asv, awesome, cdv, russia, sigma team, vengeance

Sonic Unleashed Looks Awesome

I have to admit I’m jealous of the Xbox 360, Wii, and PS3 owners out there who get to experience the upcoming Sonic Unleashed game being developed right now. I’m a huge fan of Sonic the Hedgehog games — especially Sonic Adventure. I remember playing the Dreamcast game and competing in first stage speed runs online using the built-in 56k modem

At any rate, check out the gameplay footage for the new game: Sonic Unleashed.

According to Wikipedia, the game should be coming out in North America on November 18th, 2008. Good stuff!

3rd person 3D

2.5D, F-Yeah!

Tags: 360, hedgehog, nintendo, ps3, sega, sonic adventure, sonic unleashed, tails, wii, xbox

Aptana Color Themes

Aptana Studio Rules

When I develop at home and at work I use Aptana Studio. I purchased a license for myself at home and I use the community edition (read: free version) at work. It’s a wonderful editor with a ton of features and great community. One thing it lacks, however, is a good set of themes, out-of-the-box.

So what, you ask? Just go and download some third-party custom themes from the web!

Pishaw! It’s not that easy. I’ve done a few Google searches but not a whole lot turns up, to be honest. And that’s a shame because I bet a lot of developers are in the same boat as me.

I’ve been tinkering with themes over the past few weeks and I’ve decided to start releasing some on my site for everyone to use. The themes page will grow over time as I continue to release themes. I’d appreciate any feedback you have. The Aptana Themes page is not only for my themes, they also include some of the best themes I’ve found around the web. If you have a theme you’d like me to put up, send it to me and I’ll do just that.

Anyway, without further ado, I present the Aptana Themes page!

Tags: aptana themes, colors, open source, php, phpdoc, styles, themes

Know What? GameCube is $39 Canadian, new.

Go to Zellers and buy a GameCube. It comes with Paper Mario 2. If you’ve already got one, pick one up for your parents and get them WarioWare used for $15. It’s what I did this weekend and it’s been hella fun at the Rockefeller household this Thanksgiving You don’t even need a memory card if your parents are new to games since they’re just getting started anyway.

Enjoy!

New to Elgg? Need help? Come chat on IRC.

Part of the fun of working on open-source projects is the fact you get to connect with other developers all over the world in a collaborative fashion. Using Internet Relay Chat (IRC), you can connect to other Elgg developers for help or discussion.

If you’re new to IRC, check out the wikipedia article on the subject and download a good IRC client (for Windows) (for Linux KDE).

To connect to the Elgg channel, connect to irc.freenode.org. Then, join channel #elgg.

See you there!

Tags: chat, discussion, elgg, help, internet relay chat, irc, irc.freenode.org, mirc, open source, social networking, support, visual irc, wikipedia

Response much? 1562 calls per minute to CRTC for do-not-call list on first day.

At that rate, they would have run through every single Canadian in 320 hours.

I’m glad that the CRTC has taken this step. It’s been in works for a long time. It’s not perfect as many have pointed out, but it’s a great start.

For those outside of Canada, the CRTC is the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. They are the Canadian version of the American FCC. Basically they manage the airwaves, give out licenses to broadcast, that type of thing.

If you are Canadian and haven’t added yourself to the Federal Do-Not-Call list yet, you can do so by visiting this website. Please note that because of the torrent of traffic visiting the site, it may be unavailable for a while.

I was able to get one telephone number into the system then it sent me to an error page.

Good luck!

Tags: calls, charities, commission, complaints, crtc, do-not-call, marketing, problems, telemarketers, telephone calls

PHP FreeBSD 6.1 core dump in free() error

The problem

I’ve been grappling with a php error for a couple of years now on one of my FreeBSD boxes. No matter which extensions I install, no matter which version of PHP I install, and no matter how updated my ports setup is, I still receive this error:

php in free(): error: junk pointer, too high to make sense
exited on signal 6 (core dumped)

It wasn’t until today that I was able to find a solution thanks to this link:http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2006-November/030965.html .

The Solution

In your extensions.ini file located in /usr/local/etc/php/extensions.ini make sure these three extensions are in this order:

extension=mysql.so
extension=imap.so
extension=sockets.so

That’s it! Solved. Does anyone know why this occurs?

Female Counterpart Now Uses Linux

After a frustrating stint with Windows Vista and seeing my enjoyment whilst using Linux, Amy (my girlfriend) has decided to take the plunge and install Mandriva. This is a small recount of what transpired during that introductory period.

I downloaded the release candidate for the new Mandriva 2009.0, burned it to a CD, and attempted to boot up. Unfortunately, there appeared to be several bugs remaining in this distro: After showing the initial Mandriva loading screen, it went straight to a flickering cursor in the top-left of the screen. Oh well, it is a release candidate. “A ha!”, I thought, “I know what to do.” I had this same problem with the last version on my laptop. I can install it with the ACPI option turned off. (It was at this point that I realized that this was an example of what separates a Linux user from the rest of the world — The rest of the world would throw the disc in the trash and NEVER come back. Me? I was tinkering, trying to get it to work and enjoying every minute.) acpi=off? No. Hmm.

What?

Sensing that my girlfriend was slightly disappointed, I decided to go to plan B and download last season’s stable release — 2008.1. In my opinion, this is the best release of Mandriva Linux to-date.

I downloaded the ISO for Mandriva Linux 2008.1, burned it, and awaited the dreaded blinking cursor yet again. Success! The blinking cursor was nowhere to be found. It went straight into KDE without a hiccup. I walked her through installing it to her hard disc using the “Live Install” icon on the desktop and everything went swell from then on.

I have installed Linux quite a few times over the years on computers of friends and family. It never seems to last past the 15 minute “oh, that’s neat…” phase. I am happy to announce that Amy, two days later, is still using Linux and is very happily zooming around in KDE thanks to Compiz Fusion and all the hard work that has gone into making Mandriva Linux. Thanks, guys and gals!

Amy does all of her web browsing and chatting using Firefox 3 and Kopete. We decided to leave Vista installed so she could dual-boot into Windows and play Team Fortress 2.  As I’ve blogged before, games seem to be the factor holding mainstream Linux adoption back.

I will continue to post articles about this experiment with Linux as time goes on.  In the mean-time: If you haven’t yet converted your girlfriend to Linux, what are you waiting for?

Tags: 2008.1, 2009.0, first time, linux, mandriva, newb, release candidate

Mandriva 2009.0 Is Almost Here!

The newest version of Mandriva is almost here! Released just a few days ago, the second release candidate of Mandriva includes the long awaited switch to KDE4. A release candidate, for those not aware, is the versions of Mandriva (and other software) that are considered nearest to the final cut. Once these final few versions pass with a minimum of bug reports, the software is released in full.

If you’re interested in trying out Mandriva Linux, you should try last season’s stable 2008.1 version. If you’re a current Mandriva user and want to see the latest and greatest (at the risk of system stability), check out 2009.0 RC2.

For more information, check out the DistroWatch page for Mandriva Linux.

See what KDE4 is all about:

Tags: kde4, linux, mandriva, mandriva 2009.0, new version, rc2, release candidate 2

51st Blog Post!

I typically try to avoid posting personal articles but I feel that I should let you know that this post is my 51st post on this blog so far. Yay!

It’s been a fun 5 months since I started doing this and I have to say that I’ve learned quite a bit both about writing but also how hard it is to keep a set posting schedule. I’m on-track for posting 50% of the days in this month, but I cannot stress how incredibly hard of a task that is to achieve when you only blog part-time.

I figured to commemorate this occasion, I should link to a few of my most popular articles thus far.

First and foremost, the most popular article on this blog is How to eliminate unwanted characters from a string in PHP. In the world of a web developer, your skill levels increase faster than the world spins. If I were to write the same article again today, the code would be much, much cleaner. It’s almost embarassing how un-optimized that code is. But, you have to start somewhere!

A close second is Securing your Input Forms From MySQL Injection Attacks. This subject has always fascinated me. The first PHP book I ever read had a huge section dedicated to thwarting attacks from user input. I guess ever since it’s just been instilled in my blood to look at user input with intense suspicion.

Finally on a funnier note, my third most popular article is Top 5 Office Don’ts. This one got a lot of negative reaction on DZone but maybe they just have bad office etiquette and took offense. Either that or they have no sense of humor.

I’d like to thank all of my readers young and old and hope you’ll all be here for the next 50 articles.

Thank you and see you again soon!

Tags: 50 posts, articles, blog, celebration, yay