Phew
Well, that’s the categories all announced for the RR competition. We’ve still got a few aces up our sleeves to give out before the rules, but at least folks can see what we’re looking for this year… sort of 
Vista Frustrations
I’ve been running Vista now for the best part of 12 months, and for the most part I’ve been incredibly happy with it. I know a lot of people don’t see the point, but up until the past week I’ve found it a step up in usability from XP - even despite Aero being unwilling to play ball with my 2900 card properly.
For some unknown reason, a recent update decided that I really wanted UAC back on, despite it being one of the first things I turned off. Sure, I know the security risks but not having to endure endless confirmations makes a massive difference in how comfortably and efficiently I can operate. And despite reading endless bullshit on forums from UAC zealots, it’s my fucking machine and I choose to have it off. And UAC.
Only, since I turned it back off this time, Vista has decided that I really should have it back on. How so? By opting to decide that I don’t have permission to do certain actions on the machine, presenting me with a confirmation box that includes the options “Retry” or “Cancel”, one of which does absolutely fuck diddly squit. Can you guess which one, dear readers?
Now, it wouldn’t be quite so bad if I was attempting obtuse things with the machine or trying to do something a little off the wall. I’m not though. I’m talking about things which you would imagine are pretty darn fucking basic. Copy and pasting, cut and pasting, renaming folders, deleting folders, moving fucking files about. The things which, by all means, are precisely what you should be able to do with a GUI operating system. The whole reason these fucking things exist.
In one fell swoop, Vista has managed to render itself near enough useless as an operating system by deciding that I, the administrator, cannot copy and paste, cannot cut and paste, cannot rename folders, cannot delete folders, move files into folders without some imaginary permission. Precisely whom do I need permission from to use my own computer now?
A quick gander around the internet turns up two solutions:
1. I turn UAC back on so I can request permission to do the actions.
2. I set all the file permissions individually as ownership doesn’t appear to be enough.
Well, that’s just fucking fantastic. I realise that encouraging UAC is a good thing if it keeps people from contracting fuck knows what from browsing shittycockwarez.com trying to download isuckgoats.avi despite a million warning signs, or even helping defend against the recent wave of web page exploits that have blighted blogs and forums but to render the operating system as good as useless for those who choose not to use UAC?
What madness is this and why now, after 12 months of absolute smooth running with UAC off does Vista now decide that I’m not capable of making sensible choices with regards to how I handle my own files?
If you’re lucky enough to have avoided the “You need permission to perform this action” message, thank your lucky stars. If, like me, it’s appeared and won’t fuck the fuck off back to where it came from, I’m sorry. Someone making decisions at MS needs to buy a clue because this verges on the completely intolerable.
This Bionic Commando PC thing…
It’s a fucking quid. Jesus, Internet.
Bumcakes
Still busy, still short on time to do stuff so absolutely zero progression made on any of my games (again). On the bright side, I’ve just received some very nice pictures from a nice gentleman that’ll hopefully be fleshed out into a game soon enough. It’s one of those moments where I don’t want my mouth to run away with me Molyneux style in case either of us hit a brick wall on it, but I’m hoping it’ll keep me amused during the compo period inbetween shouting at people…
Ah yes, the competition. Aside from the RR servers taking a turn for the tipping over recently (our traffic has increased by a third in the past two months and still seems to be on the up which certainly isn’t helping matters) which I’ve been looking into solving and sucks up more time than I’d like to spend on something so utterly, utterly, boring - a lot of time has been spent preparing the latest RR compo.
We’ve had an unbelievable response from sponsors this time round. I thought Andy (Caff) did a really smart job last time of raising some nice stuff to give away, but he’s outdone himself this year. We’ve got some seriously nice tech to hand over, a handful or two of games and a ruck of nice software and cash to hand out this time round. Last time I did a quick tally up, we were sitting around the £4,000 mark, which is fucking ace. This years sponsors are brilliant!
Aside from having to shuffle this round accordingly and answer the odd query for Andy to get back to the sponsors with a response, I’ve been burrowing away on my side of things. Getting all the judges information together, banging the rules together and organising what we’re up to this year. Given we’re going for a much wider scope than any of the previous competitions (i.e. - not just sticking with straight remakes but I’ve just said too much already) it’s been a bit more work than the previous ones but I’m hoping that it’ll be an attractive enough combination of smart prizes and smart rules that encourage a bit of creativity that the pay off at the end of it all will be well worth the time and effort we’ve expended on it. There’s been a rather enthusiastic discussion going on in the top secret Admin parts of RR over what we’re attempting, I just hope loads more people can get on board because of it.
On a lighter note, I spent an hour or so earlier trying to see what kind of a state Llamazap was in under emulation. I knew it wasn’t exactly what you’d call “fully playable” and my first thoughts (as I posted on RR earlier) being that it was in a bit of a state. Luckily, it turns out that I’d been using what looked like a slightly older dump of the game that was seriously work in progress. A bit of a tootle round the internet turned up a much nicer full version of the game. Woohoo. So, that’s something for me to have a gander at tomorrow although I believe Falcon emulation hasn’t got sound yet, which is a shame…
Usenetters!
I don’t mind you slinging our stuff around usenet. Really, I don’t, but do me a favour please.
Show some quality control.
Handing out Hitm4n’s Arse Rummaging Hamster to all and sundry is nothing to be proud of
Thanks!
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