So I picked up my copy of Mario Kart for the Wii earlier today. It’s a good game and I think those who want something a bit challenging but nothing too difficult will really like this game. The graphics look really good, I haven’t noticed any pixelation, but then again I’ve been a bit too busy racing to notice too much, so maybe I’m just missing it. Another good thing about the game is the ability to unlock items, maybe this was in the previous ones and I never got around to unlocking them. But there are definite unlockable items which enhances the gameplay.

This version has online features that allow you to connect with friends and pay against them. However, I should not need to enter in a ‘friend code’ in order to play against somebody… this is just wrong… I should be able to browse a channel or startup a ‘quick match’ to go up against somebody, but this is Nintendo..

However, there are a couple of things that do irritate me about the game. First off if you’re in first place you are more likely to get hit by 2 or 3 items, one right after the other. This is just annoying, while it hasn’t cost me any race yet, it’s just poor implementation. Additionally for items there seems to be an exorbitant ratio of banana peels and green shells. While this doesn’t detract from the game play, it just seems like in ordinate amount of the same item.

Overall it’s a good game. Nothing dirty, since it’s nintendo, and it’s good for a quick round and something fun to play. It’s also good if you want to have a tournament. Check it out and see if it’s right for you.

Tags: Annoyances, Mario Kart, Nintendo, wii

mugshot, 1988

Originally uploaded by merlinmann

This is From Merlin Mann’s flickr account. Man, take a look at the hair… what a transformation from this in 1988 to .

So a couple of weeks ago I bought an XBOX 360 Pro version. With the 20GB Hard drive, and the whole thing. I’m debating on getting a 12 Month Xbox Live subscription. I’m debating on getting either just the 12 Month Subscription here or maybe the Xbox Live 360 Camera Bundle. I guess the bundle is actually cheaper overall since buying each component would be more expensive, so I’m just wondering which one to get.. ideas?

Tags: games, Xbox 360, Xbox Live

Ok, so I want to build a webapp… while for most things the stock apache / php / mysql installs on Leopard are great… but not if you want extensions… I need to be able to create PDFs… and so I need to build all of the stuff from source… Let’s see exactly how well that went..

Here are the basics…
Step One… obtain Apache source
Step Two… ./configure apache2 with the necessary options
Step Three install apache2 using the sudo make install command

This went well…. Next Thing to install… PHP
Get Source … do ./configure then sudo make install
That went well… Except for the 4 hours spent trying to get everything needed in order to actually compile the damn thing… but I finally got it working this morning

Mysql…. actually went well…

Now in order to create PDF files I need PDFLib… which will require a rebuild of PHP… I also need to make sure that the ldap extension works for my webapp… and lo and behold… it’s not installed… so now I have to find it…

Find Ldap source… using openldap… And I try and compile that and guess what… it requires Berkeley DB, which is installed on mac by default.. but it’s the wrong version… guess I’ll go and build that… There were well written instructions on how to do that…

download source
decompress
cd build_unix
../dist/configure
sudo make
sudo install

That’s compiling as I write this… I just hope that this works so I can have PDFLib on my server…

With the 10+ hours spent thus far just compiling things I wonder if Leopard server would’ve had any of these issues…

oh well… just the way it goes… I wonder if doing this on a linux box would be any easier…

I’ll keep everybody posted…

Tags: Apache, Leopard, Mac, PDFLib, Source, sudo