Isn't this just great news?
It was just painful to see adventure games die as they did. They were my favorite type of game back in the days, and Lucas Arts was the best of all. Sure, I started out with dialog adventures like the famousInfocom games and then the mixed gfx-txt adventures from Sierra but after playing one Lucas game I was sold for ever.

Never had more fun playing a game then the Monkey Island series. I played this game together with 5 friends and even after finishing it it came up in discussions every now and then. Talk like a pirate day brought back the good memories as well, and just then I read the good news. Sam & Max was not their best adventure, but it was a good typical wacky Lucas type of game.

Ron Gilbert, you are a pain in the backside, sir!

A few days ago the new Nintendo controller was presented to the world. Certainly exciting as several spoof articles were released in the last year, and none of them were correct.

When I saw the pictures for the first time, I didn't know what to think. It is the most radical change in console controller history ever. My first thought was that most games probably would use it in horizontal mode (mimicking the old NES controllers),and it took me a while to realize how neat the whole idea was.

Admit it, the first time you played a game on console you couldn't keep your hands still, and the controller moved along with the action on the screen. Soon enough you learn not to do this and just laugh at the next kid who discovers games for the first time.
It is such a great idea, because it is so natural. I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo got this idea from watching kids play games for the first time. This idea is great and good for the same reason the analog buttons on the PS2 pads are so neat.

The idea there was that the pressure on the button would have an impact in game, like the gas pedal in a car, the impact of punches, the hight of jumps etc. Though it seems this feature is not used much, so we'll just have to see how much this revolutionary controller from Nintendo catches on.

I'm a dad, yeeh! World, say hello to; Daan my baby boy.

Seems like a never ending story. I already discussed some of the points previously, but I want to touch on something different now; the filesystem.

If I try to understand the point that this guy is making I fail to see how it is better. What he and a lot of people are saying is that each application should have its own directory separated from the rest of the programs. Wrong! Again, this is thinking Windows, where indeed you install each program in a separate directory. God forbid if you put them all in one or two folders.

Important to know is that filesystems are outdated. Sure you need them, but who cares how they are organized? If I install me application through Synaptic it is added in my menu and just works automagically. Why should I care about where all the files are located, all I want to do is use that program.

What about user data? This is already taken care of in every Unix, each user has his own directory, called home to populate with anything he wants. Ubuntu takes the right approach and will try to guide the user into only his home directory with his own personal stuff in it. Browsing the whole drive is possible, but not many people will access it (this proves the point again that nobody is interested in what the OS does with programs).

How the user structures his data is unimportant. If you haven't figured it out yet, the way data is displayed to users has changed. Programs like F-Spot, Rhythmbox, Evolution and Beagle all take care of data sorting and searching for you. No longer is it necessary to create deeply nested directory structures which are mostly lagging in efficiency anyway.

Still, to provide all these features the filesystem needs to be good, stable, fast and recover easy from errors or failures. Luckily Linux already provides several of these, unlike other systems out there which require the user to spend time managing the filesystem.

Once again this years edition of Rock Werchter has finished. This is not, for me personally, the best festival in Belgium, but it is certainly the biggest in number of visitors. Since a few years now it lasts for 4 days and the music is spread out over 2 stages, the main and the pyramid stage. Although the weather was horrible, the music was extremely good.

On the Thursday we had New Order doing their thing. They brought a good mix of old and new songs, ofcourse the crowd went wild when they played Blue Monday. The band itself hates this song and feels Temptation is better while at the same time I think Bizarre love triangle is their greatest, it was also the best performed number of the excellent set. Next up was Ozark Henry, an old time favorite of mine. One of the best performing Belgian artists and a real musical talent. The songs were played perfectly, but seemed lost on the big main stage. The band was having a good time for sure, but somehow it didn't seem to translate to the public. Best performed song of the set was Intersexual. The surprise and certainly in the top 3 of best gigs this year is courtesy of Kraftwerk. They blew me away. Those old German geezers still performed with a minimal of content but a perfect, spotless, amazing set. Best songs in the set where Man machine and Radio activity, although when they started The model the crowd went through the roof. If you get the change to see them perform, don't hesitate!

The next day Garbage wasn't doing to bad, although it seemed they had a hard time getting the people in the right mood, although that didn't stop Shirley Manson to show us her ass, yep, nothing beats showing your ass in front of 70.000 people, except playing a great version of Push it. As far as I know, the only Dutch singing band on Werchter this year was Monza, which is a reincarnation of Noordkaap. People who know Stijn Meuris, know he is a real performer. It seems like he gets consumed by his own music once he is on stage, this time it was not different. Funny was the way they dressed up, like a band from the 60's or something, looking like they walked out of a bad episode of Happy Days. The set was dead on; new work, older work and even several oldies from the Noordkaap repertoire. Ik hou van U had the usual effect, although Panamarenko was my favorite. The happy punk songs and excellent show of Greenday did nothing but confirm this had been a great second day. The band sure knows how to entertain, fireworks, interaction with the crowd, and although I saw them already once and this was mostly a rehash it didn't bore for one second. Again they selected 3 people to come on stage and play a song, this time they even gave away their guitar. And although it is a punk band and they are naughty they are mostly entertaining and I'm sure they gain a few fans each time. It is difficult to pick their best performed song, but if I had to pick one, it would probably be Boulevard of broken dreams.

Everybody who knows me, should know that Millionaire is one of my favorite bands, since Tim Vanhamel is an ex Evil Superstar and he is not afraid of trying new things and touching the boundaries of musical genres. Anyway, after a few songs Mauro came on stage and played one song along. Great, great, great! The set however was mostly made up out of new songs, so I didn't know that many of them. Played very loud and required some effort to appreciate. Surprise nr.2 of the festival was Interpol, as I don't really like their songs when played on the radio, they are not bad at all, but they seem a bit over-hyped. Still I must confess to being totally blown away by the set they played. Perfectly played, enjoyable music and the crowd loved every second of it. Although there wasn't much going on on stage, except some light effects, the music did all it had to do and impressed. Best performed song was Evil. Go see this band if you get the chance.

Zita swoon is really transforming as a band, going back to their roots, which are Moondog Jr. Gone are the days of disco and Banana Queens, back are the gentle, relaxed songs. I really like this band, no matter how they play their music, however some of their songs don't translate to this relaxed musical way of playing (like banana queen), but the overall set was beautifull, an oasis of love and wisdom. The side effect of playing this way is that the crowd is not easily pumped up, so it was difficult for them to get interaction at some times. Still it rates as one of the best performances this year, best played song was Jintro and the great Luna. I like the Foo's more then Nirvana. And it seems there is nothing that can get in the way of these party animals. What a perfect set! This was not the first time I saw them, but certainly the best. Although the sound was hard, rough and loud it was also very clear and perfectly performed. Best song; My hero

Bands that should be avoided at all costs are: Snoop dogg, Within temptation, Faithless, Audioslave and propably others but I didn't have a change to see everything.

Every time I read something like this I grumble. The problem is that there is no problem, at least not with Linux. The problem, again, is the people using the system, but they are not to blame either, because they have been 'raised' this way after years and years of windows usage (probably this will be valid for Apple as well).

When people slide over from the windows platform, to give Linux a try, the list of questions you'll get is mostly something like this: don't I need an anti-virus? don't I need to defrag my disk? don't I have to use anti-spyware and ofcourse; how do install this program/driver. The answer to all these questions is, you don't need any of this stuff. You don't need to install drivers, you don't need to install software. Most of the stuff everyday people might need is basically installed by default, and the things that might be missing are probably available as an installable package from your distro.

I show people how they can find software, using synaptic (which is included on ubuntu, debian and a lot of others). Still this knowledge is lost as soon as they do need some extra package and what is the first thing they do? The windows reflex, roaming the net looking for the program which might perform the needed tasks. After reminding them to use the included tool for looking for programs they use it, but the next time they are roaming the net again. Seems like a hard habit to break.

Still, after a while it settles in, and in case of ubuntu with all repositories enabled, it really amazes them. People don't realize what advantages this system brings. The software is integrated perfectly into that distro version you are using, it is secure, a very fast way to get extra software and keep it up to date automatically. The same is true for drivers, need to install a driver? No! Your distro should support it out of the box, if not you should not have bought that piece of hardware at all (though, it could get supported in the future, but who can predict the future).

This is all good for OSS, but what about commercial software? Well, there is no problem either. There are a bunch of games available on Linux like nwn, the UT series, Doom 3 and more. Let me tell you how the install of these games works; they come with an installer that pops up a graphical window that allows me to choose a destination directory, and after transferring all files from CD, to add menu entries. At the end of this procedure, I select the game from my menu and it works (what else did you expect). Nothing difficult or different from the windows platform (this procedure is also valid for other commercial programs which I tried, although they use different installers).

Does this mean you cannot toy around with source tar files anymore? Hell no! But if you are doing that, I suppose you know what you are doing anyway, and you will not be making foolish comments about the fact that installing software is difficult. Computer savvy people will always want to tinker with their machines, and they can do so, to the full. These people also exist on windows and they do things no normal would do on that OS either. To end my story, I just want to say that installing is only part of the game, try removing stuff and see who is the clear winner each time!

It has got to end, the heat is unbearable. I thought it was hot last year, but that was not a real heatwave, or at least that is what they are telling us now (although they called it a heatwave last year too, it seems it did not qualify).

During this heat a lot of people are losing their sanity and start attacking other people. It seems it is turning us all into zombies like in the 'Dawn of the Dead' movie (the old one, because everybody moves real slow in this heat).
We already had several shootings and traffic aggression is rising every day. My dear colleague even attacked our manager with a football this afternoon, truly amazing.

Our water supply is running out and in some cities they have to hand out water in bottles. At the same time we are no longer allowed to wash our cars, water our gardens or most other watery stuff. If you do, you can get a fine or even prison time. As you can imagine the Tom Cruise incident has caused serious controversy here, as precious water should not be used in pranks or spilled during these days.

You can help! Send as much water as you can to Belgium, we and our dry tongues will thank you.