Some Sunday Links – 12/02/2007
Hello and welcome to a slightly more regular edition of Some Sunday Links.
The latest version of Wordpress is now out and actually, to be honest, has been out for sometime. But I’m going to briefly mention that and then try and upgrade before next weekend. Erk. Lets hope I’m still here.
For quite a while now, I’ve been meaning to throw some webcomic reviews into the mix on these sunday posts. So, for the last few days I’ve been going through the Player Versus Player archives. In the interested of research you understand? Right! Riiiiiight. Player Versus Player, or PvP as it is more commonly known has been around since 1998. It has undergone quite a few visual changes since it started back then. Black and white has been replaced by colour. The way the characters are drawn has been overhauled once and gradual tweaks are generally always happening. However, the general quality of the storylines hasn’t diminished. The comic is always good to read.
Like many webcomics, PvP started off as a mainly gaming comic, detailing the adventures of a group of journalists at a gaming magazine. Doesn’t sound like the greatest story in the world, but as I said, PvP is well written and complemented by good solid artwork. the main characters are the editor, Cole, the art editor, Brent, a senior columnist, Jade and Francis, a teenager working at the magazine, who runs the techical side of things. And there is the troll, Skull. Skull is a mythical creature from Ultima Online, he is technically an intern at the office, but is generally a mascot.
There is a rather large supporting cast, but instead of boring you with endless details, I’ll just advise you to start at the beginning and work your way forwards.
Vista? Vistaschmista! It is all about Vienna now. Yup, that’s right, Microsoft have given their next version of the Windows operating system a codename. It had previously been blackcomb, which was announced in 2000, but due to the monumental cock-up with Vista, they’ve renamed it and re-jigged it. According to Ben Fathi, the corporate vice-president of development, it is scheduled for late 2009. Thats about 2 and a half years from now. I can’t quite believe that they’re going to try and foist another OS on us that soon. They are currently having quite a battle to convince most people that switching to Vista is a worthwhile idea.
I’ve not been checking some of my favourite blogs recently so I’ve managed too miss several of Steve Yegge’s most recent posts. I’ll go through them and provide some hit and miss commentary on them next week.
There has been a bit of a kerfuffle over Wikipedia this week. If you believe the hype, Wikipedia and by extension the whole Wikimedia foundation has the cash to run it’s servers for a few more months and then poof! It vanishes in a puff of smoke. However saner heads have prevailed and a slightly more accurate quote has emerged from the darkness courtesy of Laurence Haug. A few people have commented on the usual effect of the blogosphere distorting the original quote. Noting that it is often better to quote those who were actually there and not those who weren’t. Oh well, I’m sure someone somewhere has learnt a lesson from it…