Software
An excellent free multiplayer game
There are many great games out there for both PC and console, but there aren’t as many great free ones. This was all changed with the release of Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory; commonly referred to as ET. ET is a WWII-themed multiplayer first person shooter (FPS). There is no single-player mode, but this is no bad thing, since the multiplayer mode is truly exceptional.
ET screenie
You join either the axis or the allies, and then choose a class: either Soldier, Medic, Engineer, Field Ops or Covert Ops. Each class has certain unique abilities (Soldiers can use extra-powerful weapons, Medics can revive and heal, Engineers can destroy and repair objectives, Field Ops can call airstrikes and give ammo and Covert Ops can disguise themselves as the enemy). Each map typically has an objective that has to be completed by one of the teams, or sometimes each team has an objective to complete.
ET screenie
All the game servers are hosted by clans or individuals, meaning they often come with a ready-made community. Despite the game being released in 2003, it is still very popular and has a cult following amongst its regular players.
I play only on one server, those provided by the Buffalo Bad Ass (BBA) clan (of which I am a member). They are generally ranked number one amongst all the ET servers, and are known for having a good friendly bunch of players on.
If you like FPS and multiplayer games, I highly recommend you get your hands on this excellent free game. Head on over to the BBA forums if you need any help to get started, and don’t be put off if you get killed a lot when you first start. We were all noobs once.
The first link below gives you a download for the original installer, it is then worth installing the two additional patches that are also linked.
The problem with Ubuntu
Now, I am a huge fan of Ubuntu. It just works, in fact, I have never ever had it crash on me, whilst good old Vista and XP throws wobblies on the odd occassion. However, I think it has a fundamental flaw. It is written by techies, who know Linux inside out and are very happy with the command line. As such, if you want to do anything more than simple web browsing, IMing and emailing – which maybe most users want to to – then you start to get a little undone. Why? Because anything more slightly advanced requires you to start to know some command line stuff and be happy editing text files.
This includes setting up samba, setting up apache etc etc. Now, one could argue that those kinda things are pretty advanced and if you know about them, then you should be techie enough to be happy with the command line and text files, but I disagree. Looking at Windows, you can do pretty much whatever you want with it and you never have to edit a text file. This seems to be somethhing endemic within Ubuntu.
For example, I was trying to work out how to carry out simple incremental backups of certain folders in Ubuntu. After googling, it appeared that I need to use some command line tools like rsync or rdiff. Now, since I am still not that comfortable with scripts and cron, I just didn’t know what to do. Whereas in Windows, there are a million and one different options, all having a nice GUI. Thus me, being probobly the average Ubuntu user hits a huge barrier, and this is feel is the major problem of Ubuntu. It has not yet fully converted to the idea that simple users need GUIs. However, it is moving towards this belief and is much much more friendly than earlier versions, I just feel until it gets to the point where there is a GUI for every option and tool and all the packages that can be downloaded via synaptics have a GUI then it is going to have problems.
Windows 7 Hysteria
So, news of Windows 7 hits the internets and the tech sites go wild.
Why this obsession with yet another OS, when Vista still has barely bedded in? It seems that people have got use to Vista now – there are hardly any articles produced these days about the woes of Vista, most now are just about the usual tips, tricks and hacks you can do to it to make it work how we want. Funny that, I am sure the same thing happened when XP was first released (everybody freaking about the lack of driver support and all the new features people hated, now though, people love it for its stability and the way you can hack it).
I’m not saying MS shouldn’t develop new versions, but I wish the tech world would just relax a little bit and wait for the RCs, as opposed to desperately hunt out anything new. This to me is the problem with the tech industry, new is always better, even if in many cases it aint.
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