Otaku No Zoku

So I just wrapped up the review of Macromedia Director MX for Game Developer magazine. To be honest, I was not kind. I was expecting great things. The last time I used Director was in the distant past when it was still version two. Read the review for more information. I’m also working my way through a review of Macromedia Flash MX 2004, and I have to say I am much happier with that package. The interface works. The scripting language makes sense. The price point is lower. It is just so much better all round.

I’ve been toying with the idea of re-installing my Windows XP on my notebook, it’s beginning to creak after a year of having software installed & un-installed and I don’t really relish the task, it means two whole days of downtime spent installing, configuring and tweaking to put it back to a usable state. I absolutely loathe the Windows XP interface, it’s definitely the “Small Word, Big Print Choice for People with Learning Difficulties” of the OS world.

During the past week I have also been toying with the idea of obtaining a cheap notebook computer from EBay, something in the range of 400Mhz with 64MB RAM so that I could use it to install all the different web browser versions to test against a web site I am building for my business without fouling up my main development machine with multiple versions of Netscape, IE and Opera. A low powered notebook computer would also be ideal for testing the games on without having lots of QA machines using up valuable office space. Old notebooks of mine that I have outgrown have a tendency to be donated to family.

So I’ve been putting off both of these unpleasant tasks for a while now when the perfect opportunity turned up via FedEx on Wednesday of this week. A new & shiny, albeit shiny black, Alienware 51-m notebook to review. I already have last year’s model and with the OS re-install nagging at the back of my mind I get to install all the software on to the new machine and tweak the settings without any real downtime. I can do it as a side project while I continue the more profitable day-to-day activities. Once I have everything moved over to the new machine I’ll wipe off the hard drive on my current notebook and send it in for repair, it’s acquired a few nagging hardware problems over the past year, a broken catch on the lid, a squeaky fan in the power supply, cracking in the case at one of the hinges. Silly little things that are more annoyance than threatening. Once I get that back I need to figure out how to quickly configure the software on there so that it’s identical to the new notebook.

The new notebook has a 60GB hard drive in it, the older one only a 40GB, and even with all my development tools, artwork, audio and writing the smaller HD is nowhere near full so I just need to investigate software packages that let you migrate your old OS to a new machine, this time going from the new machine to the “old” machine, and from a larger HD to a smaller HD.

Now here’s the exciting part of this new Alienware notebook, and it’s not the 128MB ATI Radeon 9000 graphics solution which I was rather disappointed at because I have the 64MB version in my other notebook. It’s the Intel 3.06 GHz Hyperthreading CPU with the ultra-fast front-side bus that means that it runs considerably faster than my almost identically specced 2.8GHz laptop from the same manufacturer. Far faster than the mere ~9% CPU clock increase would indicate.

No matter how fast the CPU is Microsoft will no doubt bring my productivity to a complete halt within the next five or so days either way. Dungeon Siege : Legends of Aranna is to be released on the 12th of November (no review copy! Damn you Microsoft, what must I do to get this?) And I’ll no doubt waste many productive hours playing that instead.

— Justin Lloyd

I am currently working on my fourth piece for Game Developer Magazine. You can find the current piece in this month’s issue and also on the Gamasutra website. I don’t know when the full 3,800 word article with data tables will be made available, currently only the shortened 950 word cut-down version has been published on the website. It’s just a matter of waiting.

On Monday night, 24th February I attended an IGDA meeting at the Los Angeles Institute of Art.

Tom Sloper, an ex-Activision, ex-colleague of mine; Jim Charne, another Activision alumni from the Atari 2600 days; and Jeff Lander who all graciously presented a “sneak preview” of the panels they will be hosting at Game Developer’s Conference the first week of March.

I used my Sony CLIE NX70V to do an impromptu video shoot of the preview talks. In the brief preparation time I had I didn’t have a particularly good place set up to shoot from, so the Sony CLIE alternated between being propped up on a desk and being balanced on my knee. And we all know how bad my camera work is even under ideal circumstances.

The clip of Jeff Lander got cut short by two minutes when the Palm Pilot decided to power itself down at the 20% battery remaining level. Which I’ve never had it do in the past. Might have had something to do with leaving the 802.11b WiFi card stuck in the communications slot.

The video is in Quicktime 6 format, the first clip is ~45MB and the second ~25MB so you may want to right click on the links and “Save As…” to view them offline at a later time.

DOWNLOAD

Click here for the video (Quicktime) for Tom Sloper’s & Jim Charne’s presentations.

Warning: This video is 43MB in length and runs for approximately forty six minutes. I suggest you download to your local computer before attempting to play the video.

Click here for the video (Quicktime) for Jeff Lander’s presentation.

Warning: This video is 25MB in length and runs for approximately twenty seven minutes. I suggest you download to your local computer before attempting to play the video.

— Justin Lloyd