Osangar

My favorite adventure game (classic) has to be the first game in the series, "Tales of the Unknown", "The Bard's Tale." It came out in the late 80's and I first played it on the Apple ][+. Prior to that game, every game had been a variant on an arcade theme of one kind or another. It was released on several platforms, Commodore 64, IBM PC-DOS, Apple ][gs even had a seperate version from the Apple ][ version. Being a fairly simple game, you can still play it today on modern hardware. The PC-DOS version will run directly on Windows XP and if you're using Linux, check out the DOS emulator, DOSBOX. The DOSBOX project page is here : http://www.dosbox.com/download.php?main=1 You can download version to run on several platforms including Windows (for those older games that won't run on Microsoft Windows XP or others) Mac OSX, IBM's OS2, BeOS, Risc, several varieties of Linux and even FreeBSD. Many of those old abandoned DOS games are still floating around out there on the internet. Not least of which is The Bard's Tale! You can find all three games that were released as well as the construction set: The Bard's Tale Series: 1. Tales of the Unknown 2. The Destiny Knight 3. The Thief of Fate The Bard's Tale Construction Set All of the executable files are here as well as the manuals, code wheels (where needed), hint books and even complete walk-throughs. Yes, it's a straightforward game to play, but there are a multitude of dungeons to explore, and just finding some of the dungeons at all is tricky. You'll need to make maps, which means graphing. Paper is the most immersive, but a spreadsheet program (Excel, OpenOffice's Spreadsheet, etc...) will do nicely too. Be wary when checking out the Adventurer's Guild web site as there are spoiler's, especially in the forum's section. After all, these games have been out for 20 years or so. And even if you played them long ago, they can still be fun to replay. For one thing, you may remember less than you would believe and for another, the nostalgia of killing the Berserker's in Harkyn's Castle, caries a nostalgia all it's own. Have fun!

There is an easier way to get those fonts installed and incidently a lot of other things too. Check out this link: http://www.findingresult.com/?dn=getautomatix.com&pid=9POR3TG0A There are deb packages for Dapper, Edgy and Feisty available and it will provide point and click installation for a host of programs and tools. CD/DVD burning software, IM clients, Open Office, mp3 codecs, video codecs, plug-ins for Firefox, even Photoshop and VMWare. There is a lot more. Using this I can have an Ubuntu box up and running functionally about 20 minutes from completion of the Ubuntu installation, and 95% of that is download time.

Under Windows XP I use Trillian Basic. This let's me pull in accounts from Yahoo, AIM and MSN (when I'm unfortunate enough to have to use it.) But the majority of my contacts are on Yahoo Instant Messenger. Under Linux I usually use GYachE for a Yahoo client. I spent some time with Pidgin but had all sorts of bizarre things happening. Friends seeing me constantly drop and reconnect, font sizes changing and occasionally I wouldn't get messages at all. Not just delayed messages that were delivered the next time it reconnected, they were never received.Meebo is nice, but the draw rate on my linux box is slow and I don't like having to maintain an open web page to use it. It also doesn't seem to get my attention from different virtual desktops and as I consider that a major benefit of Gnome, that's a big drawback.The one I'm waiting for is Trillian Astra. Cerulean Studio's web site hints at the back end being linux compatible. Has anyone heard more about that?

If you're running *nix, Solaris or Mac OSX, Bluefish is fast and full of features. It's aimed at programmer's though, not necessarily the WSIWYG crowd. Ubuntu and Gentoo have pre-built packages available direct from the developer's web site. Here's their link: http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/index.html Oh, and it is free.

I had similar loss of menu's after installing compiz-fusion in Ubuntu 7.04. I'm running an nVidia GeForce 5200 FX, which has pretty well established video drivers. After installing compiz, I lost my menu contents. I could still run everything directly if I navigated directly to it, or could execute from a terminal prompt. As I experienced this almost immediately following a fresh install of Ubuntu I decided to just reinstall Ubuntu and stay away from compiz for the time being. If anyone else has successfully solved this problem, I would appreciate your assistance.Thanks

Over the years I've built 4 pc's and mainly due to price consideration at the time of each used Maxtor hard drives in three of the four. The single exception being a Western Digital. The only failure I've ever had was on a Western Digital drive. The PC I'm writing this from right now is still using an old 40 Gig Maxtor Diamondmax ATA 133 as the primary drive for housing the operating system. That isn't to say that Western Digital is producing poor products. For the last 6 years I've had good luck with those as well and currently have a 200 Gig Western Digital also in this PC. My experience has been that so long as you pick out a hard drive with current technology, right now that would probably be an SATA drive. Get as large as a cache on the drive as there is on the market. And buy from someplace that you don't have to worry about bogus repackaging, you're going to be fine. http://www.sharkyforums.com/forum.php?s=8ff20ea26e1ed634a35563febd03104e is a great enthusiasts hardware site. While their focus is on gaming, if your machine can handle all the latest games, it's going to easily handle nearly anything else. The maintain building guides with specific hardware recommendations for Value, High End and Extreme systems, updating each every two or three months. They also maintain pricing guides for key pieces of hardware such as CPU, Memory, Video Cards, Hard Drives, etc. Here is a link to the most recent pricing guide for Hard Disk drives: http://www.sharkyforums.com/forum.php?s=8ff20ea26e1ed634a35563febd03104e I've built two systems using their guides as a baseline and haven't found their advice to be bad yet on a single product.

I realize this thread is a little old, but it does seem to still draw traffic. I had been using Ubuntu 7.04 dual-booting with Windows XP for 3 or 4 months when a nasty virus knocked out my windows partition. I must say I rather enjoyed that none of my shared data (data stored in separate partitions from either OS, something I *highly* recommend) suffered any ill affects from the virus. Yes I had to scan and clean it, but as everyone is frequently pointing out, Linux isn't often affected by viruses at all. This prompted me to switch for good. I re-installed Ubuntu once, then decided I wanted to change the partition structure and did it once again. The most annoying problems were initial monitor resolution and a handful of issues a single application addressed nicely. For the resolution, search the web (or your manual for the horizontal and vertical refresh rates) for your monitor. After you install Ubuntu open up a terminal window. (Applications>Accessories>Terminal) And type "sudo nautilus". It will then prompt for your password. You'll now have a file manager window open with root privileges. [bE CAREFUL with it. You can do a lot of damage.] Navigate to "/etc/X11" and make a backup copy then open the file "xorg.conf" Scan down until you find a section that looks like this: Section "Monitor" Identifier "Generic Monitor" Option "DPMS" HorizSync 30-65 VertRefresh 50-100 EndSection My horizontal refresh range is 30-65 and my veritcal is 50-100, so I've plugged in those values above. Hit save and restart Ubuntu (or just restart the X Server if you're more savvy, but I thought explaining this might just be confusing.) This should give you a decent refresh rate. You can navigate to (System>Preferences>Screen Resolution) to review. There are also a variety of places where Ubuntu is rough around the edges, or lacking a bit. Automatix will address 99% of these with a simple point and click menu. You just select what you want installed and because it is Ubuntu distribution specific, it will retrieve and install (and even for the most part configure) what you ask for. Examples are mp3 support, video codecs to allow playback of media files you may encounter on the web, plug-ins so Firefox can stream video the way a windows user would expect, a packet of fonts that you're used to seeing on web pages that Microsoft distributes and you can use for free, but Ubuntu can't distribute, gYache - an excellent yahoo chat client, Azureus - an excellent bitTorrent client, installation routines for Adobe Photoshop. The list goes on and on and it's all as easy to install as marking a checkbox next to what you want and clicking start. And in case you're worried, Automatix itself is just as easy to install, click the link and watch it go. http://www.findingresult.com/?dn=getautomatix.com&pid=9POR3TG0A After fixing the refresh rate on your monitor so you have decent resolution and refresh rates, and letting Automatix round off some of the rough edges and fill in a few gaps, you'll have your Ubuntu box running usefully and aesthetically in no time.

If you're willing to write PERL scripts to manage data, then you're probably wanting to create something with more complexity or flexibility than a simple web page has to offer. For that Microsoft Frontpage and many other similar products exist. If you really want to control data, you're going to want to use a database. PERL is terrific, but it's not substitute for a database. What's so special about the SQL family of databases isn't really a good question to ask. The reason the "family" appears to exist is because it's nearly universally acknowledged that SQL (Structured Query Language) is the best basic tool for data access and manipulation and virtually every database supports it in one flavor or another. I've created Microsoft Access databases (which are much easier than most because of the interface it provides for database creation) and also spent the last three years writing SQL code for Microsoft SQL Server. The best reason for most people to get away from Access, would simply be the cost, switch to OpenOffice.org's database application, for example. But if you intend to build a website of your own, and will deal with any significant amount of data, a LAMP setup is tough to beat. (Linux [for the operating system] Apache [for the web server] MySql [for the database application] PHP/PERL [to tie things together]. It's free, as in free beer, not just free speech. It's stable and secure. And there is a plethora of documentation on the web. If you want to stay away from Linux, you still have options. How to implement a LAMP setup is too involved for a web post and besides good writing has already been done. LAMP - http://lamphowto.com/ WAMP Windows/Apache/MySql/PHP-PERL - http://www.php-mysql-tutorial.com/ XXAMP http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/web/tutorials/wa-lamp/wa-lamp.html That last is an integrated product designed to smooth installation of Apache/MySql/PHP-PERL. Distributions for Windows, Linux, Mac OSX and Solaris are offered and it is free of charge.

For Running! Next weekend I'll be running a half-marathon as part of the Denver Marathon event in Colorado. I've been running steadily for about a year mainly for pleasure and weight loss. Both have paid off, I've lost more than 30 pounds and brought my 5k best down to 22:21. I've used Runner's World's SmartCoach online tool for training. The link is here, ( http://rw.runnersworld.com/smartcoach/ ) It's free and it's terrific. You can build any sort of running program from it, from aiming toward running your first 5k, up to 26.2 mile marathon's. Program duration is variable and you can play with it and rebuild it as you make fitness gains as you like. One of the nicest features is that it's easy to provide the foundation data that the program needs to build *accurate* and useful running programs. If you're doing any running currently, you can plug in a time from just about any length event. If you're not, this can be as simple as going for a one mile run and using that time. The program provides steady progression with built in rest and recovery to prevent injury and over-training. There are links for recommended cross-training routines. And advice on how to manage and prevent injury as well as a lot of encouraging reading. Perhaps one of the best things about Runner's World is that it will really help shift your mindset from having a regime to something you do for relaxation, reward and satisfaction. http://rw.runnersworld.com/smartcoach/