Digital Nocturne

Yesterday, (November 20) Microsoft celebrated its 20th birthday. Twenty years after the initial release of Windows™ 1.0, we have witnessed how Windows transformed from one version to another.

My first encounter with Windows was Windows 95. I was able to play with computers running Windows™ 3.1 back in elementary school days and it was too dull to look at. Windows™ 95 improved a lot of Windows™ 3.1’s shortcomings. Even though it is slow, it was intuitive (take note it was considered fast during those time)! It has the best support for softwares and games, which I really liked. I installed a lot of kiddie games in my ancient Pentium 1 machine. MS-DOS was still widely used in applications during those days and internet was just on its way. I bought my second PC with Windows™ 98 installed in it, and the GUI of Windows™ 98 is a lot better compared to Windows™ 95. It ships with so many bundled applications and default softwares like media player and internet browser. I was just building my interest in computing back then. I hated Windows™ 98 because it gave my PC a lot of problems. I started using utilities to clean up my PC but it was useless. Apparently, using Windows™ NT was not the best solution as I could not install my precious games in my PC, so I adopted Windows™ ME. And so Windows™ ME came…it was more like a curse than a blessing. It’s the most bugged Windows ever after all. I was introduced to Linux after several months; my very first distro was RedHat 6.0. Its functionality was still far from Windows but I gained some interest in alternative operating systems. Soon I realized that Windows is unparalleled not only in UI, but also in customer base (of course, it is supposed to be fool-proof OS). With my 3rd PC on its way, running in Pentium 4, I got Windows™ XP soon. I guess I still can’t use a full-pledged Linux until this very moment. Windows™ XP provided the biggest upgrade since Windows™ 98 and became my prefered OS. It is very stable compared to Windows™ 98 because it boasts new kernel derived from Windows™ NT / 2000. I still think that Windows™ is the best OS for normal day to day computer activities. I reserve Linux for specialized computing.

Windows became part of my life for at least 10 years already; Linux, only 4 years (obviously I have a lot of catching up to do with Linux) but my point here is — the ubiquitous Windows operating system managed to become the number one software I use everyday without me acknowledging it. I’m probably not in the IT industry today without Windows (well, perhaps Linux would but the chances are very slim).

Now, time for trivia! DownloadSquad has 20 interesting trivia about Windows™ 1.0. It’s worth checking out.

Links:
20 things you didn’t know about Windows 1.0
Windows Desktop Products History

All the best PHP Editors reviewed; with voting.

(At the time of my posting, I seems that the site is down because it got hammered with a lot of users coming from Digg)

read more | digg story

Sun Java Studio Creator 2 is so cool. I had the privilege to download it because I registered at Sun’s Early Access program. It seems that Sun is aiming at Visual Studio. Take note, this IDE is free! This Java IDE functions like Visual Studio with drag and drop feature and automated code generation. It supports a lot databases and features intellisense. It really behaves like and looks like Visual Studio IDE. Not only that, it is also meant for rapid deployment! It comes with different export containers so you can deploy your web archive file (WAR) or servlets without any code modifcation. That’s the good thing about Java — you are forced to code with standards.

Link:
http://developers.sun.com/prodtech/javatools/jscreator/index.jsp
Flash presentation of Java Studio Creator 2
Java, IDE, J2SE, J2EE

Need for Speed: Most Wanted is the best NFS game I have played so far. I downloaded and played the demo, and it’s stuck in my head. In this game, cars are like weapons; they can be lethal. As the title suggests, this is a speedy car-chase driving simulation game which is more than a sequel to NFS Underground 2. Police are everywhere and they stop at nothing to pursue you. This game is a fusion of Underground and Hot Pursuit series.

In NFS Most Wanted you’ll have an option to do races and milestones. Races are similar to previous NFS titles where you need to prove your car performance in Sprint, Circuit or Knockout races. Milestones are more aggressive type of race that gives your car bad reputation so that your name will be added more easily in the blacklist. When you win races you get cash and when you defeat a Blacklist racer you’ll get unique upgrades and special incentives (jail pass, extra cash, etc). Your goal is to beat Blacklist # 1 – RAZOR who nearly ended your career in underground racing.

NFS Most Wanted features Josie Maran as Mia Townsend, your lovely guide and your number one motivator in the game. Most CGs are shown in cutscenes which are very flashy with grunge and graffiti artwork. The graphics is crisp even though I am using a lousy video card. Surely those gamers with powerful graphics card and processor will appreciate this game much more.

The gameplay you learned in NSF Underground 2 could be easily used in NFS Most Wanted because there are certain elements in the game that are very similar in both titles – the upgrade system, open road / openworld driving, and messaging system. The innovations that were added gives this title a Max Payne effect. EA call it Game Breaker. It runs the game in slow motion and split second timing for several seconds, making wild turns and aggressive evasion easier. The police and racers’ AI should have been better, but that would make the game harder. I think this game is more difficult than NFS Underground 2 because all escapes need tactical mastery and highly skilled eye-hand coordination.

This game is already available in PC, PS2, PSP, Xbox, Xbox 360, Gamecube, Nintendo DS and GBA.

Official website: http://www.needforspeed.com

This scaled down version of UNIX was written using JavaScript. It’s very cool! The terminal feels like and looks like a real UNIX command line interface, except that it is in your browser.

Link:
http://www.masswerk.at/jsuix/

Can you guess what the root password is?

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I was digging for news when I found this at Digg.com.

Salary is one of the motivating factor in pursuing career — but not always. Anyway, here’s the guide so that you can figure out what’s the trend in America. The statistics are quite different in the Philippines because there are some gap between the latest technologies widely used in US compare to mainstream technologies used in the Philippines.

Links:
http://www.networkworld.com/details/7622.html
Direct link to pdf file

I opened an account in The Spoke yesterday just to try it out. The first reason why I really don’t like adopting hosted blogs is the limitation of its look and feel. It’s hard to modify or it is not customizable at all. I still prefer customizing my own blog and writing anything under the sun in my very own domain name. The second reason is blogging in your own domain gives you some degree of authority in your own domain whereas you don’t have that authority when you are just renting in a free hosted blog site.

I just didn’t realize that most people there are Microsoft zealots, then I posted a news about Firefox 1.5 RC3 (similar to my previous entry here) … we’ll guess what, The Spoke is probably not the best place to talk about non-Microsoft products but I don’t give a damn. People shouldn’t be close minded about these great softwares. That’s all I can say for now.

Still, the Spoke is a great community to blog with. There are lots of bloggers and technology evangelists writing their own articles and opinions about the latest news and happenings in technology.

Link:
http://www.thespoke.net