chrisbekas.com

Looks like valve has released an update for HL2. Somehow, I don’t feel too optimistic about it, especially when they recommend we take our graphics settings down to minimise the problem — I’m sorry, but that’s not a solution; graphics high or low, the game should not be crashing and behaving the way it does.

I decided to re-install the whole thing last night hoping it will improve, only to find out it made it even worst (now I can’t even load the first level at all!). It’s not so much the audio stuttering for me, but the constant crashing, runtime errors and the in-famous (now) “memory could not be read” errors. I’ll try the patch tonight and see…

You know, after all this time I didn’t realise you could run both the R5 and R6 client at the same time (I move from one to the other many times a day). As long as you launch the R5 client first, and then the R6 client, both should run fine (including designer for each). I’m probably the last Domino developer on the planet that didn’t know about this!

Strange, but it appears that the tons of spam I’d get in my comments each day has slowly diminished - all thanks to MT-Blacklist I guess and keeping that up to date with new domains that constantly come through. Moving to Movable Type 3.1 has also been on the cards for some time as it has better spam control and also means I can upgrade to MT-Blacklist 2.0.

Another anti-spam trick (via mezzoblue) is the open proxy comment filter recently ported to MovableType 3.1 (looks neat; not sure how to installed it yet).

Look, I know I’ve had Halo 2 for a few days now, but that doesn’t mean I can’t drop it for Half-Life 2! It’s finally released (following last year’s dramas with the leaked source code and all) and promises to be worth the wait. I grabbed the collector’s edition which includes a t-shirt (XL of course!), Counter Strike: Source and a few other goodies. You want to have your internet connection working though, as the game needs to be activated before Gordon Freeman can grab his crowbar. Ben over at coresite.org has some early experiences.

*Update: It appears that there’s a widespread issue with HL2: audio stuttering and crashing to the desktop, which I’m also experiencing. Sometimes I can get 10-15 mins of playtime before it crashes (seems to happen a lot during loading), other times it crashes right on the menu. There’s no particular pattern with the hardware either, AMD or Intel, nVidia or ATI, it’s a mixed bag alright - the valve forums are currently running hot, and there’s no specific solution yet. Looks like we’ll have to wait for a patch… Come on Valve, we’ve waited so long for this!

*Update: this site has the whole wrap on the issue - at least valve are aware of it and working on a fix.

I like this wallpaper… so good of Linny to write!

It’s here, and it’s coming home tonight with Ange. Not just your standard Halo 2 box I might add - the collectors edition box in a groovy package. Future blog postings are uncertain, until game completion Thanks Adrian for getting it for me!

I’m rather annoyed with myself for not posting any sensible updates for a while; I guess I’ve been busy with the other site, our official Melbourne GPL League. Since I volunteered to build the site and find a suitable blogging software to use as well as find time to practice for the races and run the site, my time was somewhat limited.

Instead of using MovableType, I went with xBlogLite, a free (and small) PHP based blog system, that was just perfect for what I wanted. Sure, it doesn’t have MovableType’s long list of features, but it sure is capable (it doesn’t even use a database, it’s all text files!).

Now, I’m yet to finish my long-overdue article on PGP for Lotus Notes I started a few weeks ago, so with a bit of luck that’ll be the next thing I’ll be working on.