MW2 - Stimulus Package

New DLC for Modern Warfare 2 is due to be released on the 30th March. It will include 3 new multiplayer maps; Bailout, Storm, Salvage & 2 maps from the first Modern Warfare; Crash and Overgrown.

The DLC is being released on the Xbox 3660 first & will cost 1200 MSP.

Uninstalling Wubi Completely

Recently I found myself running out of disk space so I decided to remove Ubuntu which I had installed using the Wubi installer. Removing Wubi was as easy as uninstalling any other program.

However when I rebooted my computer instead of Windows XP starting immediately, I discovered that the Operating System selection menu was still there, giving me the choice between Ubuntu & XP even though I'd removed Ubuntu.

Solving this problem was quite simple, all I did was follow the steps in this Microsoft article.

All you basically have to do is remove the unwanted OS from your boot.ini file.

You'll see C:\wubildr.mbr = "ubuntu" in the image below on the bottom line. It's that line which needs to be removed from the file. Once you've done that, save the file & reboot the system.

Also, don't worry I'm not going to stop using GNU/Linux. I'll probably be getting a new computer soon & when I do I think I'll be trying out the new version of OpenSUSE.

Popular Science Online

Recently I found this news story which stated that every copy of Popular Science magazine had been put online at Google Books.

The magazines can be found here & the earlier editions feature articles by Charles Darwin & Louis Pasteur.

Shared Library Dependencies

In Linux displaying such information is quite simple as you can use ldd, however in Windows MinGW doesn't come with ldd.

Two good alternatives in Windows are Dependency Walker & Process Explorer plus the former of the two will let you save the output in a text file.

John Carmack & OpenGL

Recently I discovered this post that John Carmack had made back in 1996, where he discusses the differences between OpenGL & Direct3D & concludes that OpenGL is a lot easier to use.

Apparently he still appears to think the same as when he was asked in this 2008 interview whether his new game would be using OpenGL or DirectX, he said...

It’s still OpenGL, although we obviously use a D3D-ish API [on the Xbox 360], and CG on the PS3.

GnuPG GUI

For sometime now I've been using the Command-line versions of GnuPG in Windows & Ubuntu for verifying downloads & encrypting emails.

Recently however I discovered there was a GUI version available, which makes it much easier to use.

The Windows version can be downloaded here & if you want to install the Ubuntu version just type the following in a Terminal...

sudo apt-get install gpa

IE Tab Replacement

Apparently IE Tab is no-longer being developed but there is a replacement version here called Coral IE Tab which does work with the newest version of Firefox.

I've been testing it on some of the Microsoft sites today & it worked fine.

Registry Fix for DVD Drive

Today I discovered that my DVD drive wasn't being recognised by Windows XP.

A quick search on Google brought me to this page on the Microsoft Support site.

After downloading the necessary software the problem was fixed & the drive was working again.

Firefox 3.6 Customizations

I've just installed the new version of Firefox from here.

After watching this video on the Firefox YouTube channel, I visited this site & installed a new theme for the browser.

Onlive: 48 Minute Presentation

More information about the Onlive Gaming System has been released & it's looking very good.

The full 48 minute video can be watched here.

IE8: Opening Links in New Tabs

Recently I thought I'd try out IE8 after using Firefox for a longtime.

One of the first problems I encountered was whenever I clicked on a page link a new Window would open, which was quite annoying.

I eventually discovered that if I clicked on the Tools menu & selected Internet Options. I could then alter the Tab Settings.

The Two settings which are important here are When a pop-up is encountered: which should be set to Always open pop-ups in a new tab & Open links from other programs in: which should be set to A new tab in the current window.

MAG: Comming Soon

MAG, the 256 player FPS for the Playstation 3 is being released at the end of January & definitely looks worth getting. For more News about the Beta release on January 4th go here.

Crackdown Xbox 360 Update

I'd brought Crackdown when I first got my Xbox but hadn't been able to install it to the Hard-drive. Recently however I noticed on the Xbox Dashboard that the full game was available for download

That made me wonder whether an update had been released for the game so it could be installed & it had. This update will probably get more people back playing the game just in time for the sequel.