Microsoft doesn't make its money off Windows... Office is Redmond's cash cow, and you hardly ever hear of leaked Office volume-license keys.
If you ask me, the leaked Windows 2003 Server volume-license key was probably deliberately leaked by MS a marketing tool, similar to how some studios leak albums early on P2P networks as MP3s.
Sysadmins will download Windows 2003, install it on an isolated test box with the leaked key, like it, and go legitimate if their Director accepts the cost/proposal. "See boss, with the new Compatability tab, we can finally migrate our proprietary software from WinNT4 Server!"
Neverwinter Nights is the mother of all timesinks. Do not follow my path unless you have nothing important you want to get done for the next week or so
A week or so? EverCrack's timesinks are measured in years.
Nevertheless, it's great to see a native Linux version of NWN in the works. From what I've seen, running the Windows version in Linux under Wine is not exactly the best gaming experience.
Hopefully BioWare can work some magic and allow people of either platform (Windows or Linux) to play multiplayer together.
You may recall a small game publisher named "American Sammy", the US division of Sammy (of Japan) who churned out a few arcade game releases and even a Gameboy game series (Rolan's Curse 1 & 2).
American Sammy soon realized they sucked at games and got out of the business.
It's kind of interesting that two game makers would unite, one famous for console/arcade games (Sega) and one for it's products after it's gaming attempt (Sammy).
I wonder if Sega of America and American Sammy are merging, too.
While a good idea, it's probably not a cost-cutting one. It will probably take a decade of the energy savings revenue to offset the initial cost of draping your building with the material.
On the flip-side, Levi's could start selling "hot pants"... just don't get caught in the rain while charging your cell phone in your pocket...
Legacy technology in general: Rather than tying up modern systems with legacy technology such as floppy drives and Serial, PS/2, and Parallel Ports, I think it's good that OEMs like DELL are making them non-standard. Odds are, if you need those ports/drives, you will buy the appropriate expansion card/drive to add the ports/drives to your system.
USB: Modern commercial OSes like MacOS X and Windows XP have no problems with modern USB devices, thanks to better driver signing and more experience on the part of hardware makers with learning all the inner workings USB's specs (both 1.0 and 2.0). It took a while for USB to mature, and it will continue to do so.
Odds are, if you're experiencing a problem with USB, it's either the device or your OS is not modern enough.
Floppy Drives: No Windows XP user needs a boot floppy when they can easily boot with their XP CD-ROM and run diagnostics, etc. from the Recovery Console.
Even the MacOS X CD has bootable recovery utilities on it.
All I use my floppy drive for is for the rare time I get paranoid enough to update my machine's ERD. But usually when my system volume goes bad, I just reinstall the OS from scratch.
Remember Arnold's house at the start of Total Recall? They lived in what was essentially a window-less house. Yet the house had many window-like projection panes that displayed realistic outdoor scenery with picture-in-picture tv news, etc.
I actually like most of the SNES ports that are available for the GBA. While I can emulate the entire SNES catalog on my PC, there's something to be said for finally being able to take some of the better titles out on the road. Back in the day, I used to be green with envy at Sega Nomad owners who could take their Genesis carts on the road, regardless of the Nomad's battery life. Portable SF2! YAR!
If you recall, the retro-gaming stint worked well for the Gameboy Color: they ported NES games to the system with great success.
It's become a tradition of mine for the past 12 years to always play thru a new/favorite console/PC RPG from start to finish during "Christmas week".
This year, I've decided to mix it up, playing Dragon Warrior II (the GBC remake version --the save battery in my old NES cart is long dead) on my GBA and doing a few missions in Anarchy Online.
Doom II is much fun on an office LAN. Just let it live happily in a tiny directory (buried somewhere people won't look), customized with maps/mods as desired. Just make sure you got IPX installed on each PC.
Just a few years ago, people were annoyed by links that opened in a new browser window. Some found the feature useful (since a lot of people tend to Right-Click > Open in New Window, for referenced URLs anyway).
The problem with pop-up windows is not in the technology, but in the application.
Windows Update has utilized a pop-up window for years on sub-WinXP systems. While not the most necessary use of a pop-up window, it was fluff that made the Windows Update experience easier on the end user.
When pop-up technology is used for advertising is when people get annoyed. Aside from wasting your time, they can potentially harm your system.
For example, there are some news/info websites that will automatically spawn a pop-up ad window every couple of minutes. Imagine the fun you'd have if you kept your browser open to that page and then idled to go see a movie... only to come back to a desktop littered with memory-hogging pop-ups. A situation that could probably crash any other apps you had running.
Sometimes, the only effective pop-up killer is hitting your browser's "Stop" button once the text of the page has loaded, but not the image/flash banners and script-based pop-ups.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft doesn't make its money off Windows... Office is Redmond's cash cow, and you hardly ever hear of leaked Office volume-license keys.
If you ask me, the leaked Windows 2003 Server volume-license key was probably deliberately leaked by MS a marketing tool, similar to how some studios leak albums early on P2P networks as MP3s.
Sysadmins will download Windows 2003, install it on an isolated test box with the leaked key, like it, and go legitimate if their Director accepts the cost/proposal. "See boss, with the new Compatability tab, we can finally migrate our proprietary software from WinNT4 Server!"
Nevertheless, it's great to see a native Linux version of NWN in the works. From what I've seen, running the Windows version in Linux under Wine is not exactly the best gaming experience.
Hopefully BioWare can work some magic and allow people of either platform (Windows or Linux) to play multiplayer together.
Hurry up NASA... We've only got 60 more years until Zefram Cochrane is supposed to invent Warp Drive!
You may recall a small game publisher named "American Sammy", the US division of Sammy (of Japan) who churned out a few arcade game releases and even a Gameboy game series (Rolan's Curse 1 & 2).
American Sammy soon realized they sucked at games and got out of the business.
It's kind of interesting that two game makers would unite, one famous for console/arcade games (Sega) and one for it's products after it's gaming attempt (Sammy).
I wonder if Sega of America and American Sammy are merging, too.
While a good idea, it's probably not a cost-cutting one. It will probably take a decade of the energy savings revenue to offset the initial cost of draping your building with the material.
On the flip-side, Levi's could start selling "hot pants"... just don't get caught in the rain while charging your cell phone in your pocket...
Mouseover hyperlink. Right-Click > Open in New Window.
There really isn't a need for a Back Button anymore, unless you hate having more than one browser/browser tab open.
Legacy technology in general:
Rather than tying up modern systems with legacy technology such as floppy drives and Serial, PS/2, and Parallel Ports, I think it's good that OEMs like DELL are making them non-standard. Odds are, if you need those ports/drives, you will buy the appropriate expansion card/drive to add the ports/drives to your system.
USB:
Modern commercial OSes like MacOS X and Windows XP have no problems with modern USB devices, thanks to better driver signing and more experience on the part of hardware makers with learning all the inner workings USB's specs (both 1.0 and 2.0). It took a while for USB to mature, and it will continue to do so.
Odds are, if you're experiencing a problem with USB, it's either the device or your OS is not modern enough.
Floppy Drives:
No Windows XP user needs a boot floppy when they can easily boot with their XP CD-ROM and run diagnostics, etc. from the Recovery Console.
Even the MacOS X CD has bootable recovery utilities on it.
All I use my floppy drive for is for the rare time I get paranoid enough to update my machine's ERD. But usually when my system volume goes bad, I just reinstall the OS from scratch.
Remember Arnold's house at the start of Total Recall? They lived in what was essentially a window-less house. Yet the house had many window-like projection panes that displayed realistic outdoor scenery with picture-in-picture tv news, etc.
That's probably what these people are aiming for.
I actually like most of the SNES ports that are available for the GBA. While I can emulate the entire SNES catalog on my PC, there's something to be said for finally being able to take some of the better titles out on the road. Back in the day, I used to be green with envy at Sega Nomad owners who could take their Genesis carts on the road, regardless of the Nomad's battery life. Portable SF2! YAR! If you recall, the retro-gaming stint worked well for the Gameboy Color: they ported NES games to the system with great success.
It's become a tradition of mine for the past 12 years to always play thru a new/favorite console/PC RPG from start to finish during "Christmas week".
This year, I've decided to mix it up, playing Dragon Warrior II (the GBC remake version --the save battery in my old NES cart is long dead) on my GBA and doing a few missions in Anarchy Online.
Doom II is much fun on an office LAN. Just let it live happily in a tiny directory (buried somewhere people won't look), customized with maps/mods as desired. Just make sure you got IPX installed on each PC.
Just a few years ago, people were annoyed by links that opened in a new browser window. Some found the feature useful (since a lot of people tend to Right-Click > Open in New Window, for referenced URLs anyway). The problem with pop-up windows is not in the technology, but in the application. Windows Update has utilized a pop-up window for years on sub-WinXP systems. While not the most necessary use of a pop-up window, it was fluff that made the Windows Update experience easier on the end user. When pop-up technology is used for advertising is when people get annoyed. Aside from wasting your time, they can potentially harm your system. For example, there are some news/info websites that will automatically spawn a pop-up ad window every couple of minutes. Imagine the fun you'd have if you kept your browser open to that page and then idled to go see a movie... only to come back to a desktop littered with memory-hogging pop-ups. A situation that could probably crash any other apps you had running. Sometimes, the only effective pop-up killer is hitting your browser's "Stop" button once the text of the page has loaded, but not the image/flash banners and script-based pop-ups.