REVIEW

I went out and watched I Am Legend today after hearing a lot of good reviews about Will Smith's newest movie. I'm happy to report that I did indeed get my money's worth, as it was a hell of a production!

The premise of the movie is a bit simplistic: A rogue miracle cancer cure mutated into a lethal virus that killed 90% of the human population. Of the remaining 10% of mankind, 9% were mutated into aggressive, blood-thirsty monsters that feasted on the remaining 1% of the humans who were immune to the effects of the virus. As one of the last remaining normal humans, Robert Neville (played by Will Smith) attempts to find a cure and survive in in the now desolate streets of New York.

Be warned, there will be spoilers below this point, so you should probably stop reading if you plan on seeing the movie; I'll mark the end of the spoilers with another line of RED TEXT!

Will Smith did an excellent job of portraying his character as a normal, vulnerable human. There was a scene where Sam(antha), Neville's German Shepard dog, follows a deer straight into one of the many now-abandoned buildings. Robert, seeing his dog run into the pitch-black monster's den, freaks the fuck out, knowing that he could well be ambushed and killed. The dog is the only thing keeping him relatively sane, though, so he goes in after her. Smith's quavering voice and nervous mannerisms during his search for Sam were unexpected; considering some of Smith's previous movies, I half-expected him to go running in guns blazing to save his canine companion. It was nice to see that Will Smith is capable of portraying real human reactions to dangerous situations.

The scenes in the movie were heavy in the CGI department but were very well done. New York City was portrayed as being taken back by nature; three years after the virus decimated the human population, plants reclaimed the ground and wild animals roamed free. The destroyed Brooklyn Bridge was a bit surreal; it really made the point that there was no way Robert was ever going to get off the island without considerable effort.

All the mutated humans were done in CGI. The movie originally used regular humans for the monsters, a la 28 Days Later, but Akiva Goldsman, the director of I Am Legend, was displeased with the too-human portrayal of creatures whose metabolisms and breathing were reflective of those on an eternal adrenaline high:

Robert Neville's change in attitude after the loss of Sam was well executed. Smith did another excellent job of portraying someone whose last vestiges of sanity were buried along side his only companion for the last three years. Again, an impressive display of realism not ought seen in a performance by Will Smith.

I Am Legend also killed off the main character, something that's not often seen in modern-day Hollywood. His heroic act of self-sacrifice ensured that he would be remembered as a legend amongst the survivors colony in that is later revealed to exist in Vermont.

The one thing I thought the movie fell short on was filling in the three-year gap between the discovery and subsequent spread of the virus and the events in the movie. I can only speculate that it was not included due to time constraints or its addition of too much information to the storyline. If the director releases an extended version of this movie when it comes out on DVD, here's hoping he decides to include some of that backstory.

End Spoilers. Hurry up and see it so you can read the rest of my post!

All in all, it's a good movie. This news post is a bit short if you decided to skip the spoilers, and for that I apologize; I suppose this is the only way I can really convince you to go see this outstanding, realistic portrayal of the last man on Earth's struggle to survive in a world filled with the stuff of nightmares ;)

I saw 300 today and I must say WOW! That movie was one of the best movies I've seen in a long time, and it was a welcome pleasure for the senses after the somewhat mild The Number 23. For two hours, I witnessed hundreds of thousands of enemy Persians slaughtered at the hands of a small band of Spartan warriors, and watched in awe as blood sprayed and the heads flew!

The special effects were really something. The landscapes were all bluescreened in; the work done on the various backdrops did a great job of creating the proper environment for the situation. Long expanses of plains laid out in front of the Spartan warriors as they at the began their journey, and desolate beach scenes arose when the Persians stormed the small band of warriors.

300 was based on the events of the Battle of Thermopylae. The location, the enemies, all of them existed and played their part in 480 B.C. There was some lore thrown in for effect, making this movie a historical-fantasy-type movie, but not enough to detract from the believability of events.

This movie gets a 10/10 in my book, and when it comes out on DVD I plan on adding it to my collection of really awesome war movies, right next to Saving Private Ryan. If you haven't seen the movie yet, I IMPLORE you to go see it in theaters and then buy it when it comes out. Its just that good of a movie!

P.S. Because I'm so infatuated with the movie, I created a couple of avatars. You're free to use them, just don't hotlink or claim you made them, as either of those make me really mad! Here they are, all two of them!

Linux enthusiasts abounded at the news of Windows Vista, because pure speculation tells us that they were pleased to see that all of Window Vista's new features were all possible on their beloved linux distributions. Fancy new search? Beagle has that taken care of. Snazzy new UI and special effects? The Beryl Project has you covered (video of Beryl in action here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZD7QraljRfM). And the "best part" about all of this is, ITS ALL FREE!

In the case of Linux, the old adage "you get what you pay for" is the order of the day.

Its been seven months since my last foray into Linux, and yesterday I found myself sacrificing my laptop to test out Kubuntu 7.04, code-named "Feisty Fawn". For those of you who don't know, Kubuntu is the same OS as Ubuntu, except it uses an alternate desktop environment, KDE (instead of Gnome). Part of my motivation to test out Kubuntu originated from many articles I'd read on Digg.com about how easy Ubuntu is to upgrade to, how much better laptop-hardware support has become, and how nice Ubuntu looks after installing and configuring Beryl/Compiz. With Windows Vista's recent price tag set at around $400 (plus or minus $20), I figured, what the hell, why not see if my less-powerful laptop (compared to my tower) can survive on a steady diet of Linux; if Kubuntu received my seal of approval, then I could save myself $200 (OEM is SO much cheaper than Retail!).

Lets start off with installation. Getting Kubuntu onto my laptop was, for the most part, hassle-free. I hit a couple snags installing from a 6.06 Live CD, but the installer did warn me that I was using a beta Live CD installer, so I worked through it and managed to get the OS installed.

A quick reboot later, and I behold! It booted! I proceed to log in, hooked it up to the internet, and played around with all the shiny (literally, the icons were incredibly reminiscent of any Web2.0 company's logo) programs.

I soon noticed a program telling me that I needed to upgrade, and upon clicking the notification, I proceeded to wade through the > 380 files I was told I needed to download. Not wanting to actually read them all, I just hit update and sat back to watch the magic happen...

...for TWO HOURS...

And that was just to download them all! Needless to say, I didn't sit through the entire upgrade process, but by the third hour, all the updates had installed, and I could move on with the experience.

Now, I'm using a copy of Kubuntu 7.04, the version of Kubuntu that comes out...after...the next version of Kubuntu...which isn't out yet...

Go figure.

To cut this (literally) 12-hour-long story down to size, I'm just going to bullet point everything else. Yes, I know its a lazy means of writing an article, but I'm sure you won't mind saving a few minutes:

> Automatix2 is a program designed to easily install MANY Linux programs, including MP3 SUPPORT and DVD PLAYBACK! I got it installed, but it wouldn't run because I wasn't running Ubuntu...that fact STILL confuses me, because as far as I know, Kubuntu IS Ubuntu with a different desktop environment.

> MP3 support had to be installed! I thought there were some freely-available DLL's that one could install for MP3 support, but are all of those in violation of some kind of patent for the MP3 compression algorithm? That could be the case.

> Wireless support for my laptop was non-existent after installing AND upgrading, which was one of the breaking points for me. If I can't move around with my laptop and still get internet, then I can't use the OS, simple as that.

> There is no safe-mode if you screw up the video driver. I learned that the hard way after installing the proprietary ATI driver. Luckily, I knew my way around the console enough to get back into the config file I modified and remove the modification, thus restoring my desktop.

> I had read an article talking about running Windows applications side-by-side Linux apps, something akin to Parallel's Coherence mode for Apple laptops. This was one of the features of Linux that intrigued me, since it held the promise of being able to work with some of the Windows applications I use on a daily basis (Web coding in Webuilder 2006, for example). Unfortunately, after attempting to set up three different virtual machine programs, Linux freaked out (I am almost certain it was because I canceled an installation script half way through the install procedure) and wouldn't install any other VM program I tried. I could have gone in and fixed the problem, but I was at 12th-hour and was too annoyed to proceed much further.

I'm sure there were a few other things that turned me off of the idea of migrating to Linux, but those were the major annoyances. Perhaps I was simply too spoiled with the ease at which I get things done with Windows, or maybe I went into the whole experience expecting not to get anything done. In any case, I reinstalled Windows, upgraded it, and installed the basic list of programs (Gaim, Windows Live Messenger, Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, IZArc, Foxit PDF Reader, Comodo Personal Firewall, AVG Anti-Virus, and some hardware drivers)* in about two hours.

Two hours with Windows[/b] and full hardware usability[/i]...or [b]12 hours with Linux and [i]more time needed to get everything working...

If only I'd know this yesterday! But as those crazy French say, sest la viyay! I mean, c'est la vie!

*All of these programs are freeware, enjoy!

Every once in a while, I'll see some article on Digg about programming font alternatives and I'll find myself thinking, "is that really necessary?" I've been around programming for the last four or five years, and in all that time I've never once moved away from the default Windows IDE font.

For those of you who've never touched programming in a computer language, most programming integrated development environments (IDE) are set to use the monospaced Courier New font. Created in 1955 for typewriters, this font eventually found its way into Windows operating systems as far back as Windows 95. The strength in this font and many of the other monospaced fonts is that the characters all line up vertically. Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

I've compared Courier New to Times New Roman because TNR is widely known as a popular font for word processors. As you can see from the guide lines in the image, all the characters typed in Courier New (the monospaced font) line up, while the characters typed in Times New Roman do not. A benefit to monospacing characters in code is that its possible to easily compare the content of various lines of code. If I want to compare a MySQL database connection string from one file to a similar string in another file, I can just copy-paste the two strings and compare their string length to check for any inconsistencies or differences between the two. With a font like Courier New you'll notices character differences between strings almost immediately.

Since I started coding, I've tried to switch fonts once or twice. I stayed away from TrueType fonts because I liked the look of monospaced characters, but finding a monospaced font I like was difficult. Every time I tried a different font, I thought the text was too small or the characters were too blocky. SOME monospaced fonts even boasted a special tiny size, as though I liked coding at size five font. No matter which font I tried, though, I ALWAYS moved back to Courier New. Call it stubborness, call it security, but I had found my favorite programming font a long time ago.

I suppose the perfect programming font is determined solely by personal preference. Personal experience tells me that, for a word document, non-monotype-fonts such as TNR are perfect because they set up words that look more naturally-spaced, similar to how someone would write. When it comes down to programming, monospace fonts are the way to go because of how neat the code looks easy it is to compare various bits of code. Just my two cents.

I've really dropped the ball recently. Its been, what, a week since the "Possible Downtime"? Well, I have a couple boring things to mention and a bit of a product review, so brace yourself! Excitement abounds in the land of the web designers and techies.

First off, let it be known that I hate LA and its impatient drivers. The only thing that keeps me coming back is getting paid $15/hour for easy work AND the time I spent on the road travelling there (2 hours each way). That is all.

In regards to the title, I've upgraded my blog's backend a bit. For the most part, I believe the front end, the bits of the blogging system that involve input from you the readers is complete. I've addressed spamming from bots, the numerous date problems have all been figured out, and the format of the posts are, I think, organized and easy to read.

The backend, on the other hand, the part that I get to see and use, has been in a state of disarray for a while, with half of the functionality actually implemented. Well, last week I decided to finish the missing components and make it that much easier for me to manage my blog when I'm away from home. I've decided to treat you all with a picture of the admin page, just so you can see what kind of management features I've stuck into my site:

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The Matt's Blog Admin page
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To be honest, there's not much to look at. The categories are self-explanatory, dividing up various tools into their appropriate groups. At the moment, everything with a link works EXCEPT for the "Categories" section. I'm still trying to figure out how to tag my articles to allow for easy searching, so I jumped the gun a bit and made that a working link. The "Comment Control" category will be removed because I've worked in comment deletion into the same page that you edit news posts from. I've found that lot easier to keep track of and delete only the comments I want to delete.

The "Database Connection Settings" link does indeed work, and through that I can...well, I'm sure you can figure out what that's for!

Last but not least, I have the option to "Edit Side Panels", the various link buttons you see to the right of the posts. That's no more than a <textarea> with some HTML in it, and in the future I'll have to flesh that out a bit more to make it more user-friendly.

I would have included pictures of each of the subpages, but I'd rather keep that to myself until I'm ready to release this as software for people to try out and perhaps buy...but that's a ways down the road.

Moving on...

If you've been reading my blog for the past few months, you'll remember this post I made about various freeware programs I use that replace commonly used commercial applications. One of the points I brought to light in that article was that I had yet to find a suitable free replacement for Dreamweaver. I have a bit of an update to that article.

About two weeks ago, I came across Webuilder 2006 by Blumentals Software in another one of my efforts to find a program that was as powerful as Dreamweaver without the cost. At first, I had disregarded this program because it cost money and thus would not have been a suitable FREE replacement for Dreamweaver.

Well, four months after that post, I decided to give Webuilder a try, drunk on the fact that I had just finished up with a client's website and I now had money to spend on such a program. Lets just say that I ended up purchasing the program (for a paltry $50) 5 days after downloading the demo. I was very impressed with what I had seen and experienced, and I am very comfortable in saying that this program could give Dreamweaver a run for its money.

The interface is very customizable. All of the toolbars under the menu items can be added or removed and moved around to suit one's preferences. I prefer a rather spartan coding environment, so alot of the available tools are hidden away. In the screenshot below, you'll notice that the buttons just about mimic the style of toolbars in Microsoft Office applications, and I think this helps the programmer feel more comfortable with his coding environment. The color scheme, fortunately, is customizable, too. Before I got my hands on it, the code used a lot of blues and purple and greys, and it made it difficult to tell where one block of code ended and the other began. I went in and modified the color scheme to use PHP's colors, making it incredibly easier to keep my PHP seperated from my HTML code.

You'll see two other panes to the left and to the right of the code. The Code Explorer to sealed the deal once I saw what it did. In PHP mode, this panel will show you EVERY CUSTOM-CREATED FUNCTION ON THE PAGE! Simply put, I can see all of the functions I've made and reference them without having to find out where they're located on the page. Dreamweaver never had this feature, and looking back I'm surprised that it went this long without it.

The File Explorer to the right is a pretty standard feature in coding environments, and Webuilder goes two steps forward by including FTP connectivity and "Projects" that you can set up to organize all the websites you're working on. Its very nice that all three functions are included in one pane because it keeps most of the program open for the code window.
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Webuilder's IDE, customized to my liking
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Like many other IDE's, Webuilder has a split-screen setup that lets you make changes on top and see the code rendered within Webuilder. The nice thing about the in-program renderer is that you can see the page you're working on in both IE and Firefox without having to have those programs open. I find this feature indispensible because I can see code changes without having to wait for a browser window to open up.
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Split-screen IDE
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Here's some miscellaneous pictures I took of the various features in Webuilder:
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Function hints for custom-created functions
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Publish files to the internet based on when you edited them
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Code hints and completion for CSS!
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So I hope this makes up for the week without a post. I'm going back out to LA with a friend tomorrow to do some more computer work, so I have four more hours of work to look forward to. AND, before I forget, look for tomorrow's big announcement! What could possibly be so amazing that I create this much suspense a day in advance? You'll just have to tune back in tomorrow to find out. For my fellow Americans, I hope you had a pleasant Labor Day, and for my international friends, I hope you had a very nice September 4th!

I went to the doctor today for the first time in...well, its been at least 3 or 4 years. I needed to have a doc sign off that I was in good health for my college so I took the opportunity to get a general physical.

To cut an otherwise boring story short, I'm fine in just about all ways. Lungs and heart checked out, no hernias, and pulse (60 BPM) and blood pressure (117/80, I think, or maybe it was 117/60) all normal. I've never really been a sick person, and I'm guessing all those years of baseball, wrestling, and cross country are paying off in decreased medical bills.

I've gotten addicted to EVE Online recently. They had a 14-day free trial and I had a lot of free time, so I decided to give this space-based MMO a try. I must say, its a very interesting game. Most MMO's have you raising character levels and stats, and equipping various armors and weaponry. EVE deviates a bit from this by removing the concept of levels. Right off the bat, you start training various skills. These skills come into play when you purchase a ship or add various weapons and armor to your ship. Each usable item in the game has various skill requirements, and you must meet each requirement to use the item.

The size of space in ginormous, and EVE does a VERY good job of portraying the size of New Eden (the name of the system the races of EVE inhabit, for more back story check out this page). You navigate by setting destinations and engaging your auto-pilot, which proceeds to navigate the vastness of space to get you to where you want to go. This method of navigation sounds a bit boring to some, but the fact is the time it takes to get from system A to system B can be so long (5, 10 minutes) that you can actually put the game down and let it run its course while you go do some chores or read a book or watch TV. Right now, as I write this, I'm returning to my corporation's headquarters, and I have about another 2 minutes of travelling before I make it there.

Don't count EVE out, I really can't do the game any justice unless I take up a whole two more pages. Just know that this game is very community-based, from system alliances to corporate espionage, all the way up to the very economy that you buy goods from. Demand and supply play strongly into commerce, and you can even follow EVE's "stock market" in-game. Neat stuff!

And before I sign off for the evening, I owe a friend a plug for some skinning he did. First off, a little background: as some of you may know (read: most of my readers), I'm the webmaster for the Deus Ex High Definition Texture Project (HDTP) and have been for a little over a year. Over this last year, the project has been aiming to enhance and recreate (in high-poly models and high-resolution textures) all the weapons, decorations, crates, barrels, and NPC's in the game.

Well, a great deal of progress has been made, and I happen to be good friends with some of the texturers and modellers. One of the modellers, ThalesA7X, was nice enough to do some custom skins of upcoming weapon models for HDTP, and here they are, a lineup of the best Matt's Blog Weaponry available on the blackest of markets!


The always potent Gas Grenade, filled with hot air and ready to kill

Knock off a few baddies with this witty weapon

When you're up against a mech, go with the best

Because you deserve the best...plasma-based weaponry


Recognize anything about the textures? And before I get anyone else mad, I want to thank JC12[/b] for the Gas Grenade, Glock, and LAW models (fan-freaking-tastic work my friend), and [b]Snipamasta for the Plasma Rifle (can't wait to see that baby in-game)! And of course, watch for the official release of these weapons (with appropriate textures of course) sometime in September, if everything goes according to plan :P

And because he did such an awesome job with these, ThalesA7X gets a plug and I make myself out to be an marketing whore...but hey, I have custom weapons and you don't!

Good night everyone!