Month: June 2007

Halo 2 on Vista problems

Delta HaloMy installation of Halo 2 on Vista is not working. I get to the part where the Arbiter gets pushed off the ledge when Keyes gets captured and he loses the icon.

The game complains about needing the DVD, I insert it and I have to repeat the whole level. Twice. I’m taking a break but that is really a pain in the ass. I may re-install it and see if that fixes the problem.

So far the game is “okay”.

Kids pictures from trip

Saturday we drove to Lancaster County to have a “Day out with Thomas”. We gave the kids a camera each and here are some of the pictures that they took.

First the girl: she’s going to be 4 at the end of the month.

MINI Cooper on the road small

She likes MINI’s, go figure.

Boy taking picture small

Nice picture of the boy taking a picture.

Now for some of my 5 year old son’s pictures:

Boy’s MINI picture small

He also likes MINIs.

Here is when he discovered the record button.

They did more, I’ll upload the keepers to Flickr.

Safari 3 beta, safer and faster?

Security. Sweet.

Safari Security

Security on Safari 3 Beta. Not so sweet.

BetaNews | ‘Day One’ for Safari for Windows Becomes Zero-Day Nightmare

Speed! Sweet.

Safari Speed

Speed. Can’t see the increase myself. Not so sweet.

Joel on Software: Apple Safari for Windows: The world’s slowest web browser

Joel updates the post a few times regarding the speed thing. I get a kick out of his “Safari even managed to bring the inferior font rendering of the OS X platform to Windows, no easy trick.”

I’ve already removed it from my system. When I need to check a web page for how it displays, I use Firefox, Internet Explorer 7, and Opera 9. If I could easily swing it I would also check with Internet Explorer 6. I guess having a working Safari on Windows would be useful, but I’ll wait for it to come out of beta.

The claims of better, faster, more secure just irks me. It would not have been that difficult to have someone reputable ethically hack Safari 3 beta before releasing it. Given the large number of security folks who are “Give me Mac or give me death!” I’m sure they could have found some good volunteers.

Images lifted from Apple’s Safari web page.

Safari 3 beta for Windows

Safari iconYou can download Safari 3 for Windows beta here.

I’m not sure why this would matter for Apple. It’s a prettier browser (the font rendering is very anti-aliased) but this beta did bad things when I tried to write this blog entry using the built in WordPress editor. What’s the point for Apple? Will Safari make a Vista user buy a Mac?

It’s like Firefox without the extensions. It’s supposed to be faster but I’m just not seeing it on my PC.

Halo 2 on Vista

Halo 2 for Vista screenshotMicrosoft could have done better for a Vista only game.

Two weeks ago I was at my in-laws house. My nephew has an old Xbox (not the 360) and was playing Halo. It was a little retro compared with Gears of War but it looked okay. So for $20 at Best Buy I picked up the original Halo Combat Evolved for my PC. I completed it quickly enough and had some fun.

Plasma grenades sticking onto the bad guys was fun; sometimes the little grunts would shout “Not again!”

Halo 2 for Vista came out and I picked it up too. It’s okay. It’s not as visually entertaining as Unreal Tournament 2004, and the Marines have already run me over in a Warthog.

Just like an original Xbox game, it feels a little retro but displayed in wide screen. So far the game play is acceptable, just not anything to get excited about. It plays better than the original Halo but there is nothing that I can see that justifies it being a Vista only game.

Microsoft should have gone with a port of Gears of War, now THAT would have been very cool.

Screenshot taken from Microsoft’s Halo 2 for Vista website.