Here’s the screenshot of my home computer. This shot is RedHat Linux with GNOME 2.0. I’m playing Final Fantasy 3 using ZSNES, while watching the second short film from the Animatrix. If you’re into anime and you haven’t watched any of the Animatrix yet, you should really check it out.
Naysayers often claim that there aren’t any games or multimedia applications for Linux, so I thought I’d dispel that myth.
Now I’m off to write a paper – spring break is over so I’m back in class next week.
Here’s quick screenshot of my desktop at work running Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 and GNOME 2.2.1. I’m just doing normal stuff – browsing the web, listening to DMB, and browsing files. The theme is called Ocean Dream.
I’m running RedHat Linux at home. I’ll try to post a screenshot of it tonight.
It finally happened. The Beta version of NeverWinter Nights has finally been released for Linux.
I’ve been using Linux off-and-on for a long time now – since the days of RedHat 5.2. Recently there have been huge improvements in Linux on the desktop. I really like the GNOME desktop environment. OpenOffice.org does everything I need as far as word processing and spreadsheets. Everyone knows Mozilla is the best web browser ever. Not to mention that I’m much more productive on Linux as a programmer.
So the question is why wasn’t I using LInux all the time. There were two things stopping me – Microsoft Money and games. I’ve recently started playing around with GNUCash, and it really has the potential to replace Microsoft Money for my needs. Now that NeverWinter Nights is available for Linux, I really don’t have any more excuses.
I’m writing this post from Linux (RedHat 8.0 that has been heavily customized), and I plan on continuing to run Linux until I find a compelling reason to go back to Windows. I’ll post some screenshots of Linux once I finish downloading NeverWinter Nights, so people who aren’t familiar with it can see what free software is capable of…
Back on March 2, I posted pictures of the snow and ice. Now, two weeks later, the tree in our back yard is in full bloom. Paige took some great pictures of it over the weekend.
We think this is a Bradford Pear tree, maybe some tree expert could set us straight. I’m using this last picture as wallpaper on my computer. I love the sharp white flowers against the blurry background.
Paige has taken so many pictures of the flowers around our house that I have enough to fill a gallery. I’ll try to get that added soon, along with a gallery of some of our cloud and sunset pictures.
I uploaded my fifth tutorial last night. This one is called Managing Game States in C++. Maybe one of these days I’ll write a book.
I still have a little bit of cleaning up to do in the text of this tutorial, and some parts will need to be explained more clearly. But, the code should be good enough to explain exactly what’s going on.
I’ve already gotten some nice feedback on my Lua tutorials, and I’m interested in hearing what people think of this one.
Geoff and Tony stopped by for a visit during spring break. I somehow managed to take pictures of both of them without goofy looks on their face.
I’m getting much better at surprise photography.
I’ve added a new tutorial to the site. This one covers the Simple DirectMedia Layer. SDL is a library for creating cross-platform multimedia programs. If you’re interesting in learning how to write games that work on Windows, Linux, and MacOS, this will get your started.
The beginning of my projects page is online now. It lists a few things I’m working on right now, plus a couple of my first ever programs. I’ll add more screenshots to that page when I get more time.
Also, I’m finished with all of my tests this week, and I have a week off from school. I really like going to school, but it’ll be nice to not have to drive over 300 miles next week.
Very observant readers will notice a new link under navigation called tutorials. This is where I’m planning to put a lot of the things I’ve written about programming and system administration. There will be another new section added soon for my projects.
Right now, the only available tutorials deal with the Lua scripting language. If you’re a programmer interested in integrating Lua into your C or C++ programs, this will be wonderful news for you. If you aren’t, this will probably just give you a headache…
Paige and I have the worst luck with restaurants. It seems like no matter where we go to eat, something always goes wrong. We haven’t been back to the “big cow” in years – not since Paige found a worm in her salad. Technically it was a caterpillar, but I won’t bring that up here…
Anyway, last night we thought we’d try the new place down the road from us called Wing-N-It. It’s a cute little burger and wings place that looks like a hanger. There’s even a dirty old airplane inside, raised on a platform that almost touches the ceiling.
We ordered two burgers without onions, two drinks, an order of fries, and an order of wings. Surely they could whip that up in five minutes. It took about 30 minutes to get our meal, and four different people came to the table to ask what we ordered and tell us that they messed up. It seems they gave our order to someone in the drive through – twice.
We did get some work done around the house yesterday. We finally dug up all of our rose bushes. They were mangled beyond repair. Here I am burning them –
That’s one of the great benefits of living outside of town. You can set things on fire pretty much any time you want.