Today, I finally took the time to download and test-drive the Kororaa Xgl Live CD. This is a Linux live CD made for the sole purpose of showcasing Xgl. And, what can I say, it does that job great. They even packed the latest nVidia and ATI drivers on the CD, so it works accelerated on commodity hardware without requiring to download and install the drivers first. Only two minutes after booting, I got a nice, clean GNOME 2.12 desktop that didn’t look special in the first place. But clicking a menu or opening a window starts to show the difference …
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I just released MPUI 1.1.6. This is mainly a small bugfix release that only adds very few features. The next big step will be the rewrite of the options/configuration system.

For those who are interested in helping with MPUI (besides what is written on MPUI’s website), I do have two other tasks left to do:

1. This is for everyone: I need lots of example files to test with. If you have small (~10MB max) media files in exotic formats (mkv? nut?), with exotic configurations (17 audio tracks? embedded subtitles?) or exotic codecs (vp6? snow?), please make them available to me. Do NOT send me e-mails with attached media files unless I ask for it! In particular, I could need auxiliary subtitle files in all those ugly formats that exist (vobsub? ssa? whatever, I don’t even know them all). I do not care about the content of the files (porn? :), as long as it’s no illegal stuff.
2. I could need help from someone who is good at creating icons, pictograms and all that stuff. I’d like to replace the minimalistic MPUI icons with nice and modern true-color ones. If you have some experience in painting or drawing images at 16×16 pixels and would like to improve MPUI’s looks, please send me an e-mail so we can discuss the details.

During my school time and in the first years of university, I used to play computer games about as often as I did programming. But with the age came the seriousness – if I do play today, it’s mostly one of the classic games I fell in love with years ago. The only exception is the tiny amount of about two single-player 3D shooters per year, not only because I like the genre but I also want to see how the graphics improve over the time. So it’s not surprising that there are almost exclusively »triple A« titles on my agenda: Doom 3, Half-Life 2, Quake 4 and F.E.A.R. are the titles I played over the last two years. You may have noticed that one important game is missing: Far Cry. I always wanted to play it, but I didn’t have a decent graphics card back than and hence, I somehow missed it when it came out. Now I do have a strong enough PC and last month, I finally found – by accident – a low-price re-release version in an electronics store. However, I didn’t (and still don’t) have much time to play, but yesterday, I decided that if I don’t have time, I have to take it.
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Exactly one month ago, I released MPUI 1.1.4. The first bug reports came in only one day after the release, so I planned that 1.1.5 shall be a bugfix release some days later. For reasons I can’t remember, I missed this date. This may be in part due to the fact that my TODO list grew, no, it exploded because of countless suggestions I received. In addition, there were the preparations for the CLT that left almost no time for other stuff.

In the time that was left, I started to implement the lesser features (as in »requiring the least time to implement«) on my list. If I hadn’t decided to draw the line today, development of 1.1.5 would have continued forever, I guess.
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For three or four years now, I’ve been regularly visiting CeBIT (for the uninformed: world’s largest computer fair), usually with an excursion organized by the university and sponsored by some local companies. Of course, I can’t use this comfortable and cheap way any longer. But since I work in Hannover now, getting to CeBIT isn’t hard. So I took most of my overtime and left work after lunch today. After a long tram ride, I had about 4 hours time to visit the exposition. This is much less than I’m used to, so I visited the halls in a well-planned order.
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Today, the CLT (Chemnitzer Linux-Tage) ended. This is the local linux event (actually the second largest of Germany) I attend every year and have been contributing for three years now. This year, I was again at »Praxis Dr. Tux«, some kind of »live help center« where people can bring their computers and get some help with their problems from experienced users. In addition, I did a comparison (German text) of some distributions targeted at novice users, which was a great success — there were not enough seats for all attendees. In particular, CENSORED got a lot of attention, especially because danimo did a great deal of advertisement. I also did an extra, unplanned presentation on CENSORED at the »Linux night« that was quite a success, too.

OK, I have to stop now, the #s2000 folks are bugging me to leave the place now …