Well, I’ve decided to make this my last official Mac related post. I have been getting quite a few hits and I hope I’ve helped more than a few people. This post is being duplicated on my homepage, and that is where you’ll find future updates. I’ve made the switch so I’m not sure it is fair to put as many of my day to day thoughts here as they are moving from “How do I do X” to things about my programming and other topics.
I do have a bit to talk about, but since this is a transitional post, some of it won’t be strictly Mac related. But let’s start with that favorite of adventurous sushi eaters: Fugu. Yesterday (or so) I mentioned my problem using Fugu. Well I later decided to log into my site with SSH and discovered that my password didn’t work (the same error Fugu gave me). Not only that, they took down telnet (a good decision really) so I couldn’t get to a shell. So about half and hour after e-mailing support they found and fixed an error in the system password file and now I can log in again. I used Fugu some and it is quite nice. I think I’ll delete Cyberduck.
The reason that I needed SSH was to try to install a CGI script, but that leads to me a problem. A few years ago you couldn’t throw a stone on the ‘net without hitting a free CGI counter script. I have spent the past two days searching and I can not find one that doesn’t need SSI and actually works. I would REALLY like to put a counter on my pages but I don’t want to have to use SSI or Java or anything like that. How hard can it be to find such a thing? Even one of my old favorite links, Matt’s Script Archive, doesn’t have one that works (I’d need some program called “fly” that I can’t find). Does ANYONE know of one? I just want a simple script where you put a link on the bottom of your page (in the form of an “<img>” tag) and it shows up. I don’t want SSI. I don’t want Java. I don’t want JavaScript. I don’t need visitor tracking, multiple counts, log analyzers, or anything else. Just a simple counter. If you know of one, PLEASE e-mail me.
Back to the Mac for a while. I thought it would be nice to have a game or two on here. I’m thinking of buying Gish, but I haven’t gotten to it. I played the demo on my PC (it didn’t run that well) and I’d love to play it. I also wanted a copy of SimCity 4 and SC4: Rush Hour. I had those on my PC but they didn’t run very well either. But now that I have a 1.67 GHz processor and a gig of RAM, it should run quite well. Well a little searching turned up something disturbing. Despite the fact the game has been out on the Mac since the middle of 2003, it STILL COSTS $50 (plus another $30 for Rush Hour). I’m not going to pay $70 for a game I’ve already bought. You can buy Doom 3 for the PC for $30 now, why should I have to pay $70 for a game that is almost 2 years old? What a rip off. Just serves to remind me of how much I HATE EA and how much nicer the “old” days of Maxis were.
With this trimester almost over at school, I should have a little more time for things lately. I’ve been doing more programming but running into OpenGL problems. I need a way to capture screenshots (or better yet videos) of stuff happening on my desktop that include OpenGL in them. I’ll have to go searching, but I’m worried that I’ll have to pay for such a program. I’ve been meaning to take up the guitar (got one for Christmas), so I’ll have to call a local guy about lessons. I guess that’s about it for today. Gotta go.
