The new version of Pidgin has just been released for download and contains a lot of bug fixes. One of the most important new features from my standpoint is the inclusion of MSNP 15 protocol support for MSN. This means that MSN in Pidgin now supports offline messaging and personal status messages amongst other things. For the full changelog go here. the new version of Pidgin can be downloaded here.
Monthly Archive for August, 2008
So another playthrough of Gears of War has come and gone. This past Saturday I managed to finish off the co op campaign with my friend Stu on hardcore which makes this the fifth or sixth time I’ve played through the game. For a two year old game its still damn good looking and oodles of fun to play. The cover system the Marcus and Dom use in the game is brilliantly implemented and its always easy to find the closest bit of cover without throwing your controller through the window. The team dynamic is also very well done with both players having to contribute equally to get through the game. Graphically the Unreal engine has not aged at all and the game features some of the most beautiful eye candy you will ever see to this day. The soundtrack is also epic in scale and manages to capture the feeling of your little band of gears being caught up in a larger conflict raging on against the Locust horde.
I cannot find another game that comes anywhere close to Gears for the the sheer exhilaration of co op play. Thankfully the sequel is due for release and is looking even more awesome with some set pieces of epic magnitude making gamers salivate at the prospect of playing the game upon its November release. This is definitely one game that I’ll grab on release as soon as possible.
My Jabber client of choice, Psi, has just had an update with the release of the 0.12 version. A quick breakdown of the new features of this release from the website announcement:
- Multi-user chat windows now join one on one chat windows and can be opened in tabbed form, either sharing a window, or separately.
- The roster search has been updated, and now triggers a filter when typing into the roster window.
- An XML ringbuffer is now used, allowing access to already received XML in the XML console.
- When resolving a name for new contacts, the full name is now used if the nick name is missing from the vcard.
- Auto-connect on wake is now an independent option.
- MUCs can now be bookmarked, and auto-joined.
- The old config.xml file has been dropped in favour of the new options.xml format – all options in Psi can now be configured from the Advanced options pane (no more hand-editing of config files is required).
- Vcard avatars are now transmitted for the benefit of legacy clients and servers not supporting PEP.
- A new diagnostics group is available in the help menu, to allow debugging problems with the QCA security layer.
- Launching several instances of the same profile on Windows and Unices with DBUS now behaves more sensibly.
- On X11, the taskbar should now flash on new messages for compliant window managers.
You can download the client here. If you’re interested in signing up for a free Jabber IM account then here are some links you might find helpful:
I’ve been meaning to change my ringtone of late so it was was with some happiness that I stumbled upon this article detailing the top 20 ringtones and message alerts for geeks. Being a bona fide geek myself I immediately downloaded the lot. I’ve opted for the TIE fighter theme and the MGS codec alert as my two tones.
As some of you may have noticed, I’ve been a bit lax of late with updates. Unfortunately a slew of work has landed on my desk making it harder for me to get regular updates out there. This past weekend though I decided that my blog needed a bit of freshening up. As a result of this you’ll notice that I’ve added a new blogroll link category on the sidebar. Called My Profiles, all the links there refer to my presence on other internet sites. I’ve also added my Xbox gamertag towards the bottom of the sidebar so my readers can keep up to date on what games I’m playing and maybe even send me a friend request if you’re a fellow Xbox gamer 
The last major change was the move to a new theme. My old Cutline theme was great as I loved its minimalist approach but to my eyes the green text used in some of the input fields is a bit off putting. So I decided to move through to the tried and trusted K2-Lite theme which is a minimalist version of the default Wordpress theme.
One of my main concerns with Pidgin is that their MSN protocol support has been basic at best with only MSNP 9 support being present. That is about to change with news that MSNP 15 support is finally ready to roll out for the next version of Pidgin. MSNP 15 is the version of Microsoft’s notification protocol that is found in version 8.1 of their Messenger client. This introduced roaming features in which the user picture and details could be retrieved online when signing in from different locations. Other features that it will introduce for the first time to Pidgin is the ability to read and set status messages as well as Now Playing fields for MSN contacts. It will also update the login used to be better suited to the new Messenger systems hopefully alleviating a lot of hassles that users might have had before. Hopefully this improved MSN support will encourage more users to try out Pidgin. As usual, download Pidgin here.
For the last 7 months or so since my new laptop has been in use at work I’ce steadfastly stuck to using the trackpad that comes as standard. While it might not be as easy to use or as precise as an actual mouse I’ve managed jsut fine with it till now. Of course as soon as someone else tried to use my laptop at work they let loose with a stream of expletives and forced me to purchase a mouse. So lo and behold I found myself at my local branch of Incredible Connection with a Microsoft notebook mouse in hand. Come the next day I installed it easily enough and began working. What a difference a mouse makes! No longer am I struggling to drag selections around the screen or frantically trying to accurately position my mouse any longer
(One thing that irked me was when I first tried installing a no name USB mouse Vista refused to use it as the drivers were apparently too old. Yet it is a basic USB mouse, so Vista once again shows how great it is) 
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