I was looking forward to Halo ODST. I even pre-ordered it from Amazon. Now I’ve played it and I’m very disappointed. It’s standard Halo 3 fare. Some graphics are slightly improved and there are minor changes, but, oh dear it is boring. I’ve played it for a few hours now and the monotonous streets of New Mombasa are so samey-samey that nowhere really stands out. Making my way through dark corridors with little to see and even less happening is even worse. You stumble upon enemy groups on the streets and blast away at them from a distance until your […]
WordPress
Pigs help translate your plugin
I’m in the middle of translating the WP Super Cache plugin (one of my goals before a 1.0 release). The docs make it easy to understand how to do it, but it is such a chore when there is so much text. According to Vim, I’m about 25% of the way through wp-cache.php Checking to make sure that all the strings are translated is tiresome but the Pig Latin plugin makes it easier to spot untranslatable strings: There will be a new release of supercache soon, but check out the download page and grab the development version if you want […]
Linux
Ubuntu? Laptop? Intel Graphics? Speed Boost!
If you’re using the latest version of Ubuntu, Jaunty Jackalope, or version 9.04 and you use a laptop with an Intel graphics chip like I do in my Dell D630 you may have gotten used to to the God awful video performance since you upgraded from the previous release. I had. I had forgotten that windows aren’t supposed to tear when you drag them, and that yes, the underpowered chipset in my laptop can sort of handle the special effects in Compiz. What changed? The new drivers in 9.04 did. Intel are apparently reshaping how their drivers work but while […]
Ireland
Missing months of expenses
So, here I am working on my end of year accounts with the help of my wife and I read Gavin’s unbelievable report that the Dail, our national parliament, has lost 29 months worth (over 7 years) of expenses data for Irish politicians! You’d think that after almost 100 years in existence they might have got something as simple as storing expense sheets down to a fine art? Why is this not so bad? Well the news aspect firstly. The Houses of the Oireachtas have so far been unable to locate expenses data for a combined period of 29 months. […]
WordPress
WordPress Upgrade Notifications by Email
This weekend will go down in history. It’s the first time I’ve been seriously sick in well over 5 years. A bug infected my son on Wednesday, but he got over it quickly enough. Then the same bug hit my wife and I on Sunday morning and we’re just getting over it now. Odd that a worm attacks software I work on and I get very sick at the same time. Unfortunately I couldn’t run an exploit scanner and remove the bug but my body’s defenses took care of the bugs eventually. All this leads me to a handy little […]
Games , Humour
Huge Xbox 360 price hike on the way
Well, this is shocking. I’m glad I bought my Xbox 360 a while back before this price hike went into effect. For those who don’t know, visit the Xbox 360 Elite page for Ireland. See that price? Looks like we get gouged yet again with sky high prices in rip off Ireland. *sigh* I bet you thought the minor price hike in the UK was bad. At least Microsoft could blame a weak currency but we’re in the Eurozone for crying out loud! (via) PS. I can recommend without reservation the new Batman game. I’m a few hours into it […]