Simple additions

I got my copy of FIFA08 this morning, and I'm having plenty of fun. The gameplay is much less robotic, and pretty flowing once you get used to it, the online play doesn't lag on bit (unlike the mode tacked on the FIFA07 PS2 version). PES fanatics should try it before they knock it. For music lovers, the EA Trax include stuff like Yonderboi, Travis, CSS. I particularly like The Hoosiers and Wir sind Helden. The Play like a Pro mode, where you play a single player in a game is also quite something. Get sick like in an FPS when the screen starts shaking and your view narrowing when you're sprinting the ball at your feet.

I've been playing with the rest of the PS3 as well. Rhythmbox' UPNP plugin doesn't work yet, seems to be something related to the way Coherence sets up its mainloop, but I've been able to play a few recordings direct from my MythTV machine (although the MPEG-2 decoder of the PS3 seems to be sub-par for slightly broken streams).

I'm hadessuk on there, if you fancy a game of FIFA, or a conversation typed at the speed of a tortoise.

Zonbu does run Totem

The guys at Zonbu finally fixed their multimedia page to mention they use Totem for DVD playback, after I e-mailed them a couple of months ago. And obviously, they don't use KDE but XFCE. Mr. Fourdan told me so himself... a couple of times.

14 years ago

Just like Thomas, I can remember when I bought my first CD. 14 years ago, I was 14 and bought my first CD (a single) with my hard-earned money (ie. pocket money), in the supermarket near my new school.

I can still remember the beautiful words and the great bass. So beautiful I could cry.

Thank you Culture Beat.

I know what I want and I want it now
I want you 'cause I'm Mr Vain

More website videos and sports

This week-end, I added yet a bit more functionality to our NarrowSpace plugin (ie. the QuickTime compatibility plugin), implementing another bunch of missing Javascript functions.

If you have a website where some buttons don't work, take a look at the output of your web browser (using firefox -debug for Firefox, mozilla -debug for Mozilla, etc.), and you might see things like:

** Message: WARNING: Site uses unimplemented function 'totemINarrowSpacePlayer::GetRate'

Then file a bug against Totem's browser plugin component, with the debug output messages, and the URL to access the page in question. Hopefully, we'll be able to implement the missing functionality, as we've done for the Apple site above.

As for sports, I caught the France - Italy game on Saturday in a local French pub, after having watched England - Israel. And my cousin has made the Solheim Cup team this year (it's the Woman's equivalent to the Ryder Cup). Starts on Friday, I hope she does well.

5 years ago

I found this e-mail in my Inbox today.


Dear Bastien Nocera,

Commitment is a core value at Red Hat because our success depends on dedicated individuals. We would like to thank you for your expression of commitment in achieving 5 years of loyal service. Congratulations on reaching this milestone in your Red Hat career.

Thank you

When I was 16-17, I wanted to work with Linux, and Red Hat was the Linux company, and it still is. And I'm glad I spent 4 years working for the support organisation, I learnt a lot, even though I'm still nodding my way through when Bryn or Jose explain some intricate device-mapper or PAM stuff they've been working on. I don't think I'm done learning.

MythTV setup

I spend a bit of time yesterday and today, in between watching footie games, setting up my Mac Mini as a MythTV machine, after having tried it out successfully on my laptop.

The low-down:

• I needed to buy a USB keyboard with a proper cable. My 2 wireless USB Logitech keyboards weren't kicking off early enough to be able to press 'C' to boot from the CD.
• Colin's guide to installing Fedora on the Mac Mini is still up-to-date, pretty much.
• Getting the display to work (ie. outputting to the TV) was a real pain. The DVI-to-HDMI output didn't work under Linux (and even if it would, it would have clipped the image to the 720p resolution, 1280x720, when the full resolution is 1280x768). The manual only advertises 1024x768 as a resolution for the VGA input, but a lot more got listed when using my laptop with the XRandR 1.2-capable drivers. 1280x768 works.
  
• Wireless works, given the right version of the firmware.
• MythTV is pretty easy to install if you follow Jarod's guide to the install (the RPM is mythtv as opposed to mythtv-suite).
• I already had the firmware for my DVB-T tuner, I don't remember where I got it...
• I wondered what the reason for no menu items was when starting MythTV, but a quick Google fixed it.

I'm sure there's plenty to be done still. I'll probably switch to a different recording solution, if Sony's PlayTV ends up being any good. Now to get recording and fill the HD up a bit.

Does anyone know where I can get screen quirks added, so that people don't struggle like I did setting X up?

Random links

Jeez, I'm bad at blogging.This afternoon's footie game brought up some interesting new connections. But after watching MOTD, Philip pointed me to this bug. Peculiar choice of videos to watch.

I've also written a small bookmarklet so that I can swarm (mugshot parlance) with Epiphany. And my VAIO's gone.

A year-old picture, FIFA isn't quite tuned up for my first season as a manager