BSD & Gaming

Photoshop is a really powerful application, and the recent versions have some pretty amazing capabilities. The downside for somebody like me is the cost of it. While many software applications give discounts to students, that doesn’t help me because my student days are long since over. Even if I had a student discount it still requires an investment which I need for other things given the state of the economy. If I was a professional in a position where the expense was necessary it’d be worth it. However I’ve been using a free open source alternative that does everything I’ve needed so far.. The Gimp.

The Gimp has been around a really long time, I’ve been using it off and on for ages now. While I love the fact that there is a version available for FreeBSD, PCBSD, or the various linux flavors, there are even downloads compatible with Windows making it available to a huge audience. It is a quite powerful image manipulation program in it’s own right with plenty of free plugins, filters, and brushes to suit your needs.

The Gimp’s layout can throw people off balance if they are used to photoshop. Even though many of the features and tools are the same in function, they may have a different name or place to find them that can be confusing for photoshop users. There is a version available that tries to ease that learning curve with a more familiar layout called GimpShop. Since I am not a photoshop user I’ve never tried GIMPshop, but for someone interested in trying an alternative or wanting to transition over to free software it might be worth looking into.

The Gimp definitely has a slot in my “must have software” list and I think if you give it a shot I believe you’ll like it as well.

The Gimp – [LINK]

GimpShop – [LINK]

In a New York Times article Amazon.com says it was selling 143 eBooks for every 100 paper copies and now sales are on the increase hitting 180 per 100. I can understand why sales are up from my own perspective. I love to read …and I love books! However years of lugging around tons of books every time I move has been a nightmare, being able to have all those hundreds of pounds of books on a few data disks…. it’s just too convenient.

It’s not an easy choice when you sentimentalize hard-copy books the way some of us do. Some books in my collection were gifts from people and those are especially hard to consider getting rid of. Every book holds a memory for me, not just the work itself…  where I was, what I was doing and experiencing at the time when I read it. That experience doesn’t hold for me with the digital editions. Getting rid of my hard-copy versions is something I’ve been contemplating for some time now but not a choice I’ve been able to make yet.

NYT’s story is here – [LINK]

I finally got around to typing up what I did to get STO running on my BSD laptop. It’s quick and dirty but covers the basics.

If you want to get the details just click on article #5 to the right or click on this – [LINK]

Remember when a handheld computer was just a PDA and not a phone/camera/mini texting tool/blah blah blah as well? Personally I hate cell phones let alone text messaging, and I don’t have any real use for either. OK… I admit I have a cheap ass “pay as you go” cell shoved down into the bottom of my backpack just in case of emergency, but I don’t want it to do anything else. I love the sense of freedom I get when I accidentally leave the dam phone at home. Just try to find a stand alone PDA today, I don’t really see any except for used ones.

I had a Palm Vx for years, I loved it! Light, thin, and portable with a ton of accessories that could slip into a shirt pocket without feeling like you just put a ten pound brick in there. As time went on features like a flash card slot, sound port, and wireless capability were added to the genre – all good stuff. Then they stuffed in a cell phone too – bleh! Don’t get me started on iPads and netbooks, they’re not what I want. It’d be nice if someone served the niche market I’m in. But I know it won’t ever be profitable again with today’s market so I’ll have to settle for something else.

Yayyyy for Chuck & Sarah – it’s about damn time. Initially I was really worried about how season 3 would shape up but I’m glad to report it’s turned out great. IMO I think this is one of the few really good shows currently on TV.

Just recently stumbled on this great little film starring the Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend . Love the Venture Brothers and the youtube video someone put together is odd in a way but very cool.

Check it out! – [LINK]

Wow – talk about intense. Chuck has definitely changed to a more serious tone with it’s story line. The show always leaves me wanting more. I hope it continues to stay around for a while.

Great info and news about the show here – [LINK]

Ok I finally got it up and running, it’s far from ideal, there are definitely some bugs but it is running. I’ll put together and post the full details in a few days once I’ve had time to tweak it some more and see what I can accomplish.

Basically a combination of following the details found on WineHQ [LINK], some hacks, and lots of lost sleep. The sound or lack of it is the one major hurdle I’ve hit so far, the game doesn’t think there is a sound driver/card setup. However if you check the details on the WineHQ link above you will see it is a WINE bug not specific to Fallout 3 that I hope they will remedy in the not too distant future.

I have to say I’m thrilled just to have it running at all. Now if I can load up all my favorite mods and have them work I’ll be a happy post-apocalyptic camper! Say that three times fast and you get a free box of ‘Cheesy Poofs‘!

Time to sleep – g’night!

I tried, I really tried with Firefox 3 to learn to like the “Awesome Bar“. To begin with, the name bugged me, “awesome bar”… really?

Ok be good, that voice in my head told me in that sickening patronizing tone that is so prevalent in today’s politically correct culture.  The voice continued to badger me with guilt saying – just give it a try and stay open minded.

Grumbles…. fine fine whatever.

I’m a card carrying member of the “If it ain’t broke, don’t goddam fix it!” and the “Keep It Simple…ya Stupid idiot!” groups. SO, needless to say every time I hear about how someone somewhere gets what they think is a bright idea, usually in my world….it ain’t.

Well here I am many many, months later and my final conclusion? It sucks the big one. It almost never gives me anything related to what I want. Instead of saving me time it wastes it by feeding me useless crap to look at.  I end up typing the URL by hand if I know it or hitting up a search engine to find it.

Fine… it’s faster that way anyhow… so how do I get rid of it? Ahhhh the ever helpful about:config

Search for browser.urlbar.maxRichResults and change the value to “-1“, you can change it to “0” which most sites suggest, but I find it creates a slight flicker at the bottom of the URL entry field. By using a value of “-1” that flicker does not appear for me.

If you haven’t already found SomaFM yourself,  you should really give it a listen.

SomaFM is a listener-supported, commercial-free internet-only radio station. This means no advertising or annoying commercial interruptions.

My two personal favorite stations are “Mission Control” and “Space Station”. There’s plenty more to choose from so it’s definitely worth taking a look.

You can find SomaFM here – [LINK]

For those on operating systems besides something windows based, you can listen with the VLC media player.