I had recently installed FreeBSD and as in the past, eventually became tired of the ports system so I decided use that disk space to install something else. I had recently been fairly bored with Operating Systems so I was a bit more flexible with trying out something else. In came the Gnome version of Linux Mint…

The Install

Installation is quite easy, pretty much the same as Ubuntu where you can install it from the live cd boot. It offers custom partitioning which is a must and also adds some extra configurations post install like a small window box for setting up your optional root password and such.

Applications

The usual line up you would expect is here. You get the Gimp for detailed image editing, Brasero for cd/dvd burning, Firefox, Openoffice, Pidgin, Transmission (for torrents), Rhythmbox for audio, Totem for video and a host of other Administrative configuration tools. Linux Mint adds a few extras as well in their control center such as Envy for propritary drivers and also a tool for managing Windows Wireless drivers which I personally think should be default on any distro wanting to gain mass acceptance.

Package Management

Mint comes with its own method of updating but also includes Synaptic which is great to have some variety but could be confusing to newer users who may not know which one to use. I know Ubuntu has both Synaptic and also the Update Manager which are both great tools, but it might be better to combine them into one since they can do some of the same things. Of course its up to the user to decide which is best and choice is always nice, but perhaps having a one time wizard after the install to configure your preference would be a good idea. Having said all that, I’ve had Linux Mint installed for a couple weeks at least and using Synaptic I have noticed that there have not been many updates at all. I will need to look into this more, but I would have thought that there would have been more package updates at least for the applications.

Stability and Performance

Overall, I have found Linux Mint very stable and actually it is faster than I expected. I would definitely say it is faster than Ubuntu even. This was rather surprising to me as I had a preconceived notion that it would be slower if anything since it had some of its own tools added and had a reputation for being more complete out of the box after the install.

Longevity

A lot of times I install distros and then later on, I will install something else over top of it. I don’t plan on doing this with Linux Mint. I am interested in seeing how well it gets maintained, updated and enhanced.

Overall

If you are considering installing a new distro and want something easy with good performance, Linux Mint is definitely worth a look. The only concern I have with it compared to Ubuntu is longevity. I hope it continues to be maintained. Canonical has proven that they are here to stay with offering 5 years of support for each of their LTS versions of Ubuntu. I hope Linux Mint can enjoy the same kind of long term success.

Here is a quick rundown…

The main event was Georges St. Pierre in his first title defense since regaining the welterweight championship from Matt Serra. GSP started off against Fitch very aggressive and did a lot of damage in the first round. Despite all of the talk about Fitch being tough, surely a lot of observers including myself were surprised that Fitch made it out of the first round. Not only did Fitch make it out of the first, he endured 5 full rounds of beatings until GSP was awarded with a unanimous lopsided decision. Fitch commented in a post fight interview saying that GSP was essentially too fast for him and after the first round, he had vision problems which plagued him for the remainder of the onslaught. After the fight, BJ Penn entered the Octagon and seemed extremely eager to set up a rematch between himself and GSP. GSP of course obliged but it will up to the UFC. BJ will need to move up to welterweight as he has done in the past. GSP vs Penn may be one of the biggest draws in UFC history if it comes to fruition.

Similarly, Brock Lesnar was equally dominant over Heath Herring. Lesnar opened the first round with a flying knee and later connected on a punch that sent Herring not only to the ground but head over feet toward the cage. Herring’s vantage point upon his vision returning to normal would have seen Lesnar charging toward the vulnerable Herring. What a sight that must have been even for a veteran of over 40 fights like Herring! Lesnar continued a dominating performance for the duration, focusing on his smothering wrestling scoring a unanimous 30-26 decision. Lesnar could be the answer to the sometimes dull heavyweight division. Lesnar has personality evidenced by his head nodding along with the crowd chanting for him during the battle as well as his excitement of watching his own replays after the fight. Although Lesnar was completely effective in nullifying any offense strategized by Herring, he obviously is very young in his MMA career at 2-1 and needs to work on some techniques. Lesnar had numerous opportunities to put in hooks while on top and never did so. It was quite possible he could have choked out or arm barred Herring but instead Lesnar used his amateur wrestling skills to smother Herring and beat him mercilessly. While this may look intimidating to some MMA competitors watching, Lesnar will need to become more well rounded as surely he is aware and working on.

Kenny Florian vs Roger Huerta was almost a carbon copy of the GSP vs Fitch fight. It was very obvious that Florian was the far more cerebral and technical fighter while Huerta revealed that he was limited to being a brawler. Huerta will have a great future, but needs to learn more technique.

Also on the card:

Demian Maia defeated Jason MacDonald by a choke in the third round.
Tamdan McCrory beat Luke Cummo by unanimous decision in what Joe Rogan called “The Battle of the Geeks”
Cheick Kongo proved too much for Dan Evenson with a TKO victory at 4:55 of the third round.
Rob Emerson disposed of an over aggressive Manny Gamburyan at 12 seconds of the first round with strikes.

check the UFC website for more results.

Overall I went 7 out of 10 on my picks.

Ubuntu  - I’ve done several installs for people lately on newer systems and they just work. Even webcams are working instantly right after installing ‘Cheese’.

Arch Linux - I’ve had Arch installed on several boxes at home for about 5 years. It runs solidly. I use custom kernels (2.6.26) and use 32 bit and 64 bit. I don’t need nor want to make any drastic changes to them.

I’m not saying this is a bad thing, in fact it is quite good, but it does take away the challenge I used to enjoy.

So, when I get into the mood to break something and then try to fix it, I think of using Ubuntu Alpha releases but as mentioned in an earlier post, even those don’t cause me any issues anymore.Moreso than fixing things I’d like to try something that offers some unique value in doing things differently.

I do try out some different distros here and there but I am not really finding anything unique enough to pique my interest. Recently I’ve tried OpenSolaris (just because) and it was a disaster and pretty much unusable (very slow package manager, missing common packages I wanted). I did an upgrade and it wouldn’t boot afterwards.  I also tried OpenSuSE 11, Mandriva Spring and Mint. That’s the story with Linux lately. At one time I did set up a box in only command line and I currently use a custom built Linux router as well. What else is there?

OK, so there is OSX. I’ve used OSX86 and it is a decent OS. I really don’t have anything negative to say about it. I do miss a lot of things that I have in Linux when I use OSX but I understand that it is a designed in a specific manner so I can’t criticize the product but perhaps the concept but I’m not even going to do that. The truth is that it’s decent enough, but doesn’t provide me with anything really interesting and innovative in terms of configuration and such. Also, I am of the belief to truly get the full OSX experience, one needs to switch over to it fully which I am not prepared to do right now and likely never.

In terms of Windows, I’ve made my comments on Vista already and I’m pretty tired of XP. In fact, I would be all over using Vista at work if the opportunity presented itself (assuming Linux was not an option either).

So, where does that leave things now? If anyone has any suggestions, I’m open to trying something out, but I’d like to try something that is unique somehow and offers some kind of benefit or optimization. I’ve tried just about every desktop environment and window manager as well.

Firstly, my initial disclaimer is that while there will be technical information in this article, it is also based on opinion and personal experience and therefore if anything, it is a personal account of the usefulness or lack thereof of a swap partition and thoughts, ideas and assertions are welcome.

When I first started using Linux many years ago (maybe 6 now), one its distinct unique qualities was the use of a Swap partition. Initially, I didn’t ask too many questions as I was eager to leave behind the OS that had caused me frustration over the past years. As time went on and I gained more experiences with Linux, I continually would use a swap partition on any new installs and would be asked by anyone for whom I created a set up about the reason for creating this swap partition.

In basic terms I was always told that the purpose of the swap partition was mainly to allow the system access to more memory if your RAM was used up. Therefore, this was useful on systems with low amounts of memory or on machines where there would be a lot of RAM usage thus causing it to be fully used and therefore require additional memory which swap would provide.

Even with older machines or ones lacking RAM, I observed that swap was barely used. Typically on systems with at least 1GB of RAM, I never see any swap used. I suppose this could happen if there was a great deal of memory usage due to intense audio, video, compiling or some other kind of processing.

Newer machines will often have 2 CPU cores and at least 1GB of ram and usually I recommend that at least 2GB of RAM is a decent amount for a newer machine. Considering the processing power and inexpensive nature of adding more RAM, what happens to swap? Swap once had a purpose on older machines but now it seems that it is not only becoming unnecessary but also a burden perhaps?

Swap can have some negative affects as well. With the size of new hard drives these days using up 512mb or 1GB or swap space is certainly not an issue but if you like to use all Primary Partitions like me, then all of a sudden out of the gate you are down 1 of 4 Primary Partitions used on a hard drive (I’ve heard there are ways around this but I am not including using third party software to create more Primary Partitions). So, for example, you are building a custom machine where you want several Primary partitions for a particular reason such as:

swap

/boot (to store your kernel and boot settings)

/ (your root filesystem)

/home (a separate home partition to keep your personal files on their own or even to share it with another distro installed on the same machine)

/var (separate log files or perhaps used for package building)

/usr (holds the majority of your application executables and global application settings in /usr/share)

/opt (could be used for applications you compile youself placed in a different directory other than /usr/ to keep them separated)

Clearly, partitioning is a personal choice and the decision is based upon your specific usage. However; if you use a swap partition, all of a sudden you are losing 1 primary partition. So, unless you create logical or extended partitions, it could be that one of your planned partitions is negated.

Swap Partition Pros:

May help speed up older machines lacking memory

May help speed up machines that require an industrial amount of processing (high tech audio, video or compiling) while performing other tasks

Makes your install ‘feel’ more like nix

Swap Partition Cons:

Uses up space and a primary partition

Disk Thrashing over time can damage your hard drive

Accessing the hard drive to use virtual memory is slower than RAM

Alternatives:

If you don’t want or need to use a swap partition, you can instead use a swap file. I am not going to post any links on how to do this right now, but if you do a web search for it, you can find lots of examples.

Although I do not plan on changing any of my current long running configurations as my swap partitions are typically the first partition in my table, I do not plan on using them anymore on any new systems - especially any that I plan on which I have multiboot configurations. I have one now where I can share the swap partition, but more than once I have wished that I did not create the swap partition in the first place. To me, there does not seem to be a need to use such a thing on a dual core machine with 4GB of RAM, better yet, it seems like a waste of a primary partition.

I think I’ve been testing the Ubuntu releases including all Alphas and Betas since probably Dapper Drake which was released in August of 2006. I do have to mention that I do not currently run Ubuntu as my main OS (Arch is awarded this position), however; I do support what Canonical is trying to do with Ubuntu and like to keep updated on its progress. So, the following are general tips on how to prevent breakage, fix issues and all the while enjoy the fact that you are running the most up to date version of Ubuntu available.

** Quick tip - do not delete your previous kernel and also backup your /etc/X11/xorg.conf to be extra safe

How do you upgrade to the next version when it is in Alpha or Beta?

You can do this in a couple of ways. If you prefer the graphical method, you can press Alt-F2 to bring up a run dialog box and type update-manager -d which will open up your Update Manager (assuming you have it installed) and give you the option to click on the button representing the next version. Another method is to use your terminal and type apt-get dist-upgrade which should find your latest version (although I have not tested this with Alphas so I cannot say for sure). As well, I believe that Synaptic would be able to get you to the next version as well even if it is a development version by allowing that preference.

Possible issue and their remedies:

Missing a dependency - Sometimes during upgrading, you will get a report that a dependency is missing. This is typically because the mirrors have not finished syncing. Your choices here are to simply wait until all of the packages are available (if you don’t clear your Apt cache then you can just download the missing packages instead of doing the whole lot again) or if you are really impatient, you can browse the various mirrors and try to download the individual packages and then install them using command line (dpkg -i pkgname) or by double clicking on the package icon which should prompt a GUI installer. Usually Apt is pretty good at giving you hints at how to fix the issue if one pops up so this is why I prefer to do these upgrades via the CLI (other than the initial upgrade to the next distro version).

Cannot Stop Service so Upgrade Fails - This has happened to me a few times. I like to run systems very optimized so I tend to eradicate services that I do not need. Although I can use B.U.M. to stop them, sometimes I prefer the old fashioned but more effective method of rc-update.d -f servicename remove which will remove the service from all runlevels and give you nice clear terminal output showing this has been done. While this is great for optimizing your system by ridding it of known unwanted services (ie - laptop services on a desktop), sometimes this causes some confusion when trying to move from one Ubuntu version to the next. I’ve seen Ubuntu try to stop a service and fail (because it was removed from runlevels or perhaps it isnt running) and then leave you in the cold. My solution for this is to simply repeat your original process of installing the service, allowing it to run temporarily and then disabling it after the upgrade. It is a bit tedious but it seems to get the job done.

Nvidia (I don’t use ATI) - I ALWAYS seem to run into an issue with Ubuntu and Nvidia during these upgrades. Between the combination of different kernel upgrades, restricted modules upgrades and the Nvidia driver upgrades, it tends to cause issues every single time I upgrade. I am happy to say that with Intrepid Ibex I only encountered one minor issue with this where I waited for a new repository sync and then my Nvidia driver worked. However, in the past I have had to go to the Nvidia website and manually install the driver. I would then keep testing the various incantations of the Ubuntu packaged Nvidia driver along with the linux-modules-restricted package with the corresponding kernel until it would work. The last time around was the worst as it only seemed to get resolved at Beta 3 if I recall correctly.

Application Issues - Well, these are testing versions of applications so I don’t expect perfection, but I will often get some really nice features that were not available in previous releases.

Xorg Issues - Very rarely but at least once I have had my X server screwed up by doing an upgrade. Nonetheless backing up your previous /etc/X11/xorg.conf as stated above is a good idea. This could mean no access to the proper resolution or even perhaps no access to X itself (dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg didn’t work).

That’s about all I can think of for now. Perhaps others have other issues they have run into? Maybe I forgot some that I experience, but these are the most common ones. None of them were showstoppers for me as I was able to fix them all or find a way around them. Not bad for Alphas. It seems it is becoming increasingly more difficult to find broken systems around my place. I used to enjoy playing around with them and getting them to work somehow. Ubuntu appears not to offer this feature (anymore?). For me, that can be a little bit disappointing in the sense that there isn’t much of a challenge, but overall its great because it means that the system is still fairly solid even in its most vulnerable state.

the following needs to be done in a terminal as your regular user (not root) in your user’s home directory

rm .recently-used.xbel
mkdir .recently-used.xbel

This in effect will disable your Recent Documents from your Gnome Menu.

What is strange about this is that a bug report has been filed since early 2005 and then option has still not been added.

To do my part, I registered on the bugtracker and re-iterated the option. If you want this added then the only way is to let them know on the launchpad. If you find the exclusion of disabling this feature annoying then make a comment on the bug tracker. After all, complaining is better defended when you actually do something productive to change the original annoyance

Hopefully this sells well and BestBuy continue to do this. Apparently 60 days of support and a light booklet come with this edition. More pics can be found here and here.

I am considering buying one if I can find one around here just to offer support.

With all of that said, I believe that the text area resizing feature was once again added in a later release. While sometimes I can be forgiving, there is a fundamental reason why I choose to use Linux that I really appreciate which is not being force fed any features or lack thereof. It is for this reason that I quickly adopted the fork of Pidgin called FunPidgin. Funpidgin developers advertise on their site that “Unlike the Pidgin developers, we believe the user should have the final say in what goes into the program.” To me, this is a huge selling point. Even though the Pidgin developers may have added in the said feature in the end after a ridiculously long standoff, the feeling that this disregard for the average user still lingers strongly enough for me that I will likely never return to the original especially as long as there is an alternative and one with several more features at that!

I have recently uploaded the necessary packages to switch to Carrier on the ELG Arch Linux repositories for those in the know. This is available on 32 bit and 64 bit repos. For those who just want to install it manually, you will now need two packages: Webkit and Carrier for 32 bit systems from this directory and Webkit and Carrier for 64 bit systems from this directory. These can be installed using pacman -U pkgname in the corresponding order. Special thanks to Connor Behan who is one of the developers for FunPidgin/Carrier and put the effort into making a pkgbuild for Arch Linux users.

Among many reasons why I use Linux is the freedom from the large proprietary company that invariably will shove their ideas down their throat akin to a mother bird feeding her young worms or perhaps unsavory droppings.

I have been doing PC work on the side for many years so I have to admit that I am quite tired of XP so that is one bias of mine. I have read criticisms aplenty about Vista citing its incompatibility with software and hardware along with its UAC (which prompts the user to approve any admin actions) and flashy Aero theme which many have scorned for eating up too many resources. While there is some truth to all of those claims and others, I am not going to regurgitate them here.

Instead, I’d like to discuss the mistake that Microsoft made that people don’t really talk about. Microsoft has made a huge mistake with their system requirements for Vista which they have posted on their own website. Microsoft claims the following as minimum requirements:

• A modern processor (at least 800MHz).
• 512 MB of system memory.
• A graphics processor that is DirectX 9 capable.

To me, this is plain foolish. Sure, a major criticism of the masses prior to Vista being released was their crazy hardware expectations. Realistically, I do not find the requirements to run Vista unreasonable - and I’m not even talking about the ones Microsoft recommends. I’m talking about what I would recommend:

• CPU preferably dual core but at least 2 Ghz or equivalent if not dual core
• 2GB of memory
• An add on graphics card with at least 256mb of its own memory manufactured within the last 2 years

I know there can be some scrutiny over these recommendations, however; times have changed and while some people may expect a new operating system to run on even lower specified hardware than one may currently own, newer features sometimes require more power. Vista Aero is a much nicer and more professional looking interface than XP in my opinion. It was time for the masses that use Windows to evolve. Of course I am not going to complain about those users who moved to Linux or Mac either

The point of what I’m saying goes back to Microsoft making a poor decision about their hardware specifications and then communicating this to the Vendors. Here is an example: I recently worked on a computer where someone said they hated the installed Vista mainly because it was too slow. The first thing I noticed was that this brand new machine was that it had only 512mb of memory. It had an AMD 3800 Sempron processor and an onboard video card. To me, Microsoft is basically asking the user to get frustrated with this setup. I bet if I upgraded the ram to 2gb even, the user would have a much different experience. Also, if I added a modern video card independent of being onboard, it would not only improve the resolution but also the usability of the interface by quite a bit.

If Microsoft really wanted Vista to be successul then they should have made the requirements higher and enforced vendors to do the same. If every PC shipped with Vista had a decent processor, adequate ram and a proper video card, the reviews for Vista may have taken a different tone. I’m sure people would criticized the OS for demanding too much, but realistically speaking, Apple doesn’t release any new machines with poor specifications that cause OSX to run sluggishly so perhaps Microsoft would just be lumped into the same category. I think perhaps being seen as a bit of a standoffish or expectant company for requiring higher specs would have been much better than the collective masses viewing its release as a failure.

This blog post was written on a Linux machine, but I would have done it on a Vista machine instead of an XP machine given the proper hardware if those two were my only choices.

Is Vista truly a failure or was its inauspicious release just doomed to failure based on performance issues due to weak hardware causing the masses to snowball negative publicity until it was buried?

I received some responses to my article and decided that I could look into the distros that I had listed under the CD/DVD method in more detail to see where they stood. This article is about Mandriva.

As a disclaimer, Mandrake/Mandriva and I historically did not get along well. Back in the days when the defacto easy distro race was between Red Hat and Mandrake, I always managed to get Red Hat to work very well, but I could never get Mandrake (then) to work properly. I knew people who swore by it, but it was never a good fit for me. I don’t have any bias toward Mandrake/Mandriva these days though as I don’t use it regularly on any of my boxes.

Due to my inactivity with Mandriva, I feel quite apt to evaluate it from a newbie perspective which is ideal for the type of experiment I am conducting - What it is like for a newbie to upgrade Mandriva to the latest version?

I have to also admit that I was given some tips via email on certain commands and such so I may appear a bit more familiar with things than my inexperience with Mandriva realistically would have elicited.

On to the test….

The first thing I did (upon recommendation) was download Mandriva 2008.0 Live CD for Gnome and the aim was upgrade it to Mandriva 2008.1. The point of this test is not to evaluate Mandriva as a distro, but I will make some comments along the way about my observations.

I managed to install Mandriva to my system and generally speaking the install went well. There is a very convenient Install button the desktop which was nice to see as that seems to be quite a friendly method. I was also impressed that not only did the live cd recognize that I had an Nvidia graphics card, but it also loaded the driver for me. So far, so good. I set up custom partitioning as I typically do. I recall feeling a bit off about the partitioning wizard though. Unfortunately I did not do any screenshots, but it seemed a bit too quick on formatting without double checking with the user on whether that was really what they wanted. A confirmation would help, I think. I can’t really dwell on it though since I didn’t take any screenshots of that scenario. The install went well otherwise and was done in about 5-10 mins on my AMD XP 3800 with 4GB memory. One thing that really bothered me was that I was forced to install a bootloader. I was given the option to install to the mbr or any other partition I wanted, but there was no option to bypass installing a bootloader. Maybe this was added to the 2008.1 installer? I added Mandriva to my bootloader on a different distro and was able to boot up fine.

Upon booting up for the first time I had to go through the paces of a first time boot configuration wizard. I have seen this before with other distros so it was no big deal. There was a small part about registering with Mandriva which made me feel like it was a bit commercial but there was an option to skip it so that was short lived.

When I arrived at the desktop, I was surprised to see some really odds things which I will list here (click on the text in each line for corresponding screenshots):

• Only 1GB of my 4GB of Memory was recognized (high memory support enabled in kernel by default?)
• Fonts were set at 60 DPI (I changed them to 96 and things were much better)
• Nvidia Driver was running but maybe my monitor detection didn’t work so well as my 22″ LCD had a max resolution of 1024×768. I ended up editing the xorg.conf file to get 1680×1050.
• The special Mandriva Gnome menu had some major redundancies here and here.

And onto the upgrade procedure. I didn’t see any pop up in the Gnome toolbar or anywhere in the menu indicating how to move to the next version. It was recommended to me to use the easyrpmi website to upgrade my version. I proceeded to (text is linked to screenshots again):

(keep in mind that I needed to use the “old” easyurpmi website since I was using 2008.0 or older)

• Pick the version of Mandriva I was using
• Select the Mirrors and Repositories I wanted
• Copy and Paste the output provided by the website into a root terminal

I was already feeling that this was quite the laborious process compared to other methods, but I continued on, undaunted and determined to give a fair evaluation.

I opened a terminal and became the almighty root user and copied the information as instructed. It went through some terminal lines and then stopped after only updating 2 additional packages - one of which was urpmi. I decided that I was going to try the same command again. This time it wanted to update 216 packages - now we’re getting somewhere. I let all of the packages update and rebooted for good measure and was disappointed when I didn’t see any evidence of being at the aim of 2008.1. So, I made sure my updates were completely done but that didn’t make any difference:

• My kernel was old
• My Firefox version was old
• My Gnome version was old
• My Nvidia driver was outdated
• My release was still at 2008.0

Easily, I am no expert at Mandriva, but I have been using Linux for several years (although anyone who reads this article only would think I’m a newbie for sure), however; the idea for this test was for a new user to the distro to be able to upgrade to the next version. I wasn’t able to do it so that doesn’t bode well for total neophtyes in my opinion. I know that I could have missed some steps or done some things wrong, there is no doubt about that, however; the point is that I should be able to do this upgrade notwithstanding or at least that was my hope. Any distro with rolling release cycles (although perhaps more difficult to set up, will automatically update you to the next version and while they may not do so in a 100% problem fashion all the time, I find them generally very stable). Ubuntu, for example, that has Update Manager which is a built in upgrade system and alerts you to moving to the next available version (not just package updates).

Mandriva could really use a step up in this department if it wants to capture more new users, but of course, that all depends on the intentions of the powers that be at Mandriva. If that is not the goal, then so be it, but it would be a great feature to add nonetheless.

The good news is that Mandriva is almost there. They have a graphical update tool that integrates nicely into the Gnome toolbar (green circular checkmark beside the volume speaker icon) and also some decent output of what is available for updating. The part that is missing is how to get to the next version.

I sincerely hope this is something that gets added to the Mandriva distribution as it will make it more accessible to more users.

I’m going to classify three categories here. The first is the rolling release cycle which basically renders a new ISO of the latest version which is only really useful to new installs because the distro gets automatically updated to the latest version through the package manager on an ongoing basis so there is no need for anything else.  The second is the distro specific upgrade tool. The third is the cd/dvd method. I know I will miss quite a few derivatives and such but you get the point.

Here are the categories…

Rolling Release

Arch
Gentoo
Slackware?
Others?

Upgrade Tool

Debian (dist-upgrade)
Ubuntu (GUI upgrade tool)

CD/DVD Method

Fedora?
SuSE?
Mandriva?

As far as I last checked, these were correct. I personally prefer the rolling release cycle method, but I do really appreciate that Debian and Ubuntu have their respective methods. I keep an Ubuntu install around on a backup box just to stay acclimated with how it is progressing and I do like it very much overall. I just prefer Arch as it seems to have less interference of built in system tools which is to my liking.

However, if memory serves me correctly, Fedora, SuSE and Mandriva all use the CD/DVD method. I know that Fedora can be upgraded through Yum but it is almost expected to have broken packages that need to be manually removed before the upgrade.

Maybe it’s just me but I find it unacceptable that any major Linux distro would expect someone to have to download a CD/DVD in order to upgrade. With today’s fast internet speeds and powerful systems, having the option and the convenience of issuing a few simple terminal commands (apt-get dist-upgrade, pacman -Syu etc) seems like a requisite feature. While I do think it is a good idea to release a CD/DVD (for dial up users etc), each major distro should have a built in option that is expected to work well to get the user to the next release version. I look at some of these major distros and really appreciate the work they put into not only making their product better, but also fixing bugs in desktop environments and keep getting blocked by this absence of a proper upgrade method when I think about the potential they could have to be on one of my backup boxes for more than just a testing stint or perhaps on one of my customer’s machines. I have installed Ubuntu for several customers and find it easy to upgrade and maintain. I could even log in remotely and do the upgrade process for them or even walk them through the literal handful of button clicks to do it themselves. Then I think about what it would be like if that was not an option and the CD/DVD method was the only safe way to upgrade. I would need to download it and burn it myself and then go over to their place and run the install and sit and wait for it to make sure everything went well. I am talking about doing this sort of thing for Linux neophytes.

Of course there is the supposition that there aren’t any decisive deal-breakers between the majors anymore which is why I can pick on something like an upgrade process. All of them basically use a fairly new kernel, new desktop environments and offer the user the choice when installing. They all seem to have access to using a variety of different file systems (not that a lot of people seem to care about that much anymore except for expert users). All have done well to make a large amount of major packages available to their users and each comes with a decent set of GUI configuration tools. I suppose I could mention that some come with all of the codecs needed to play mp3’s and videos, but that is more of a legal issue so I am giving it a mulligan.  There really isn’t much that distinguishes each of the majors from one another anymore other than say the distro artwork, the installer (seems all of them are easy enough these days) and perhaps which parent company with which it is associated. It seems to me that with all of the effort put into making a complete distro, an easy upgrade process should come as a staple item.

On a positive note, my personal litmus test for determining the quality of a distro is whether I believe I could use it long term if my precious Arch was no longer available. I am happy to say that I have no intention of doing any distro hopping for my main boxes. I’ve been running Arch solid without a reinstall for around 5 years amidst many hardware changes. However, I do feel like I would have a nice choice between some really well polished distros out there if my selection was limited. All things considered, since each seems to be on a fairly level playing field, the one that would win out would be one with an easy way to upgrade. In the course of using Ubuntu on a backup box, I’ve noticed that not only was I able to upgrade from each major release to the next, but I was also able to run through all of the alpha testing which was great (much fewer issues with the alpha releases than I expected by the way).

For any major out there — please remove your deal-breaker if you are only offering your users the CD/DVD method for upgrading. Give the users a proper, tested choice to upgrade via the internet.

OK, I’m done.

One of the major advantages of using Firefox is the accessibility to a variety of great add-ons. One of the major disadvantages is that some of these add-ons don’t get updated as frequently as you may like. Here are the add-ons I used and results of upgrading:

FireFTP is an FTP client built into FireFox. There was only a development version that was compatible with FF3 until a new release on June 17th. I like using this built in plugin as it provides the basic but necessary features. It would have been nice to have a proper release during the earlier FF3 betas, but at least the developer came through once the official FF3 came out.

AdBlock Plus is a great plugin that not only can block ads and flash content but also consequently makes web browsing faster due to not loading unnecessary garbage. This is one of the best plugins available and perhaps even a necessity. If I recall correctly, this plugin was available during the beta stages as well.

TabMix Plus became a quick favorite of mine after I realized that Tabbrowser Preferences was a dead product as it hadn’t been updated since October of 2006. It was a great plugin that offered the ability to open a new tab using your homepage instead of just a blank page. This was really the main option I wanted. Unfortunately, since it has not been updated, it is no longer compatible with FF3. I ended up finding TabMix Plus when I was looking through the add-on page for Tabbrowser Preferences. I’ve come to like TabMix Plus better in many ways. It has numerous more options and does of course include the homepage new tab option. Right now it seems only a development build is available, but at least it works fine with FF3. You can download the development build here.

Download StatusBar is something I’ve been using for quite a while. It is a highly configurable download bar that appears in the bottom left of the FF window and shows you progress of your downloads. It is quite handy and a lot more elegant and less clunky than the separate download window that FF provides. This add-on works fine with FF3.

Overall, I’m a bit disappointed in some ways with the lack of development of some of the plugins, but one has to remember that these are hobbiest projects sometimes so therefore there cannot be expecations placed on the developers to get these updated. It would be nice to have a smoother upgrade including all of the previous add-ons but it is nice to find ones that are equivalent or even better such as the case for me.

Either way, find a way to upgrade to FF3 and find comparable or better plugins as the upgrade to FF3 is worth it.

In the main event, Alves looked ripped and bigger than Hughes and it showed as he seemed more powerful in the match. In fact, Hughes looked overmatched in just about every category of this fight. Hughes was scarcely ever able to get Alves to the ground and when it happened, Hughes wasn’t able to punish Alves at all. It was Hughes who looked beaten and battered. After the fight which ended in the second round with running knee into Hughes head, Alves asked Dana White for a title fight during his interview with Joe Rogan. Alves didn’t get down on his knees but he made it clear that was he ready to take on the winner of GSP vs. Fitch.

There were a lot of unhappy fans due to what many considered a premature stoppage in the first round. Vera looked more like his old self landing knees, kicks and punches and working his Muay Thai but ended up getting mounted by Werdum and eating several unanswered punches right before the first round was set to end. Granted, Vera was in an awkward position, however; he was intelligently defending himself in my opinion. He had his hands actively covering up and there were only 15 seconds in the round when referee Dan Miragliotta called an end to the matchup. Vera immediately was distraught and frustrated by the stoppage saying he was fine to fight. The crown in London at the o2 Arena chorussed in boos obviously appalled at the result. Joe Rogan even admitted that he felt the stoppage was premature. The really interesting part about this conclusion was the fact that Miragliotta officiated the Kimbo Slice vs James Thompson fight where Thompson had Slice mounted in the second round for well over a minute and threw over 70 unanswered punches and elbows yet Miragliotta allowed that fight to continue. This seems incredibly inconsistent. It’s very unfortunate for Vera as he looked quite good in this performance and this fight was meant to get him back on track, but instead, this will take him farther away from the title shot he wants. Perhaps it’s a good time to move to light heavyweight? The main thing is that the heavyweight division is somewhat weak with Arlovski, Sylvia and Couture gone which may keep Vera in that class.

The only other fight I want to comment on is Michael "The Count" Bisping vs Jason Day. Bisping moved down to middleweight and fought Charles McCarthy (Captain Miserable as some call him) and sent him into retirement at a relatively young age of 27. This was Bispings second time out at middleweight and he took on Jason Day who looked great in his first UFC appearance, dismantling the very skilled Alan "The Talent" Belcher. With that said, Bisping looked to be in great shape, came in with a lot of energy and swarmed Day the entire fight and came out with a dominating first round victory. After seeing this, I would really like to see Rich Franklin vs Michael Bisping. Bisping was very impressive in this victory.

Overall, it wasn’t a favorite card of mine. There were a lot of problems with injuries in terms of the main event so it didn’t end up being the original matchups many were anticipating, but it was fairly entertaining nonetheless. The Vera fight was nothing short of a rip off in my opinion in terms of the premature stoppage. While it is the job of the referee to protect the fighters, these guys train very hard and it is their livelihood on the line when they are competing. It’s a tough job, but it’s important to give a guy a chance to come back in a fight. Dan Miragliotta at times looks like an amateur compared to the likes of Yves Lavigne or even Herb Dean. While Miragliotta may be ‘big’, he is also no ‘big’ John McCarthy.  The UFC needs to sort this guy out and do it fast.

The first fight was between Brett “The Grim” Rogers and Jon Murphy. This fight took only 61 seconds before Murphy was caught with a haymaker and the fight was stopped. Rogers is on a knockout win streak and seems poised for a shot at Kimbo Slice.

Smokin Joe Villasenor managed to dismantle Phil Baroni about a minute and a half into the fight. Baroni, who is know for his ripped physique and entertaining ring entrances and trash talking, is now at 10-10 and clearly very disappointed with the outcome of the fight. Baroni was very emotional at the post fight press conference when speaking about the unswerving support of legend Mark ‘The Hammer” Coleman. It is unclear what will happen with Baroni from here.

In the only women’s fight of the night, Gina Carano managed to outlast Kaitlyn Young to earn a victory. It was pretty clear as the fight grew longer that Carano was too powerful for Young. Carano weighed in at 144.5 lbs for this fight which was more than the 140 lb limit. This is something that is commonplace for Carano as she has been over the weight limit for her last 4 fights. This means that either Carano has not learned how to cut enough weight yet or perhaps that there needs to be some leeway with weight classes for women. Perhaps upping the current weight class to 150 lbs or perhaps creating a different division would be a good idea. Like men, not all women are meant to be in the same weight category and forcing them to do so can result in unhealthy and unfit fighters as they would be so dehydrated from cutting weight that it would affect their performance in the right and their health. Also, if the women really want to be taken seriously, they need to fight full 5 minute rounds. Otherwise, it will be the classic argument of not playing on the same field.

In my opinion the best fight of the night was between Scott “Hands of Steel” Smith and “Ruthless” Robbie Lawler. There was some drama with this fight as at times fans were heard booing the action which probably irritated any true fans as the action was fast paced and both competitors clearly came to put on a good show. To the casual fans - these are professional athletes that train full time, you will not see them swinging wildly 100% of the time. There is a lot of technique that goes into the performance. The excitement lies in the  impending result, not in the actual one haymaker that may flatten an opponent. The eagerness is in knowing that these guys have the capacity and talent to make this happen.
This fight ended part way through the third round when Smith was accidentally poked in the eye by Lawler. Lawler immediately acknowledged it and apologized. The rules state that Smith gets up to 5 minutes to recover. During this time, a doctor came into examine Smith upon which she was told by Smith on two occasions that he could not see out of the affected eye. If Smith wanted the fight to continue, this was a huge mistake. This is where the rules perhaps some adjustment or clarifying. Smith felt that although he could not see properly, he would have the full 5 minutes and then make a determination at that point. Smith clearly did not expect the fight to be stopped. One of two things needs to happen to make this situation right in the future: 1) Smith needs to keep his mouth shut when talking to the Dr. who is bound by the rules to make a decision on the fight should Smith give any self-diagnosis that would result in the fight being stopped, or 2) The Dr. needs to consider anything mentioned by the fighter initially as a tentative assessment and offer re-evaluation after the full 5 minutes unless the fighter clearly states that he cannot continue. As disappointing this result was to many fans (including myself at the time), a rematch is almost a guarantee. Overall, I am glad with the outcome because I have seen way too many fights where someone gets poked in the eye and then does not fight the same afterwards and loses. The fans generally consider this result as gospel, however; I always wonder if things would have been different if the eye poke never took place. A rematch gives fans the opportunity to see truly who the better fighter will be. So, while I do believe that the rules need to be amended, it will end up better overall for the sport in the end.
A side note for this fight is that I believed that it should have been the main event. It was a title fight and both competitors are at the top of their game and proven fighters.

Lastly the main event was between Kimbo Slice and James “The Colossus” Thompson. I don’t have much to say about this one. Kimbo ended up winning due to referee stoppage in the third round. I do believe that it was a very even fight overall until then. As per MMA rules, the fight should have been stopped at the end of the second round due to Thompson delivering numerous unanswered and undefended elbows and punches while on top of Kimbo. This scene lasted for well over a minute with no referee intervention.
Ironically, the fight did end with Kimbo punching Thompson’s massive cauliflower ear resulting in blood squirting and followed up by further haymakers causing the referee to call the fight over. Thompson was so disgusted with the decision to stop the fight that he put his hand in the face of the referee in frustration. Mauro Ranallo, one of the announcers, mentioned Thompson’s cauliflower ear on numerous occasions while commentating the fight. This will definitely go down in controversy but EliteXC still has the Kimbo hype intact so they should be happy about that.

Overall, it was a good showing. The main points were that the fans require further education, the women’s division needs some adjustments and more events to come will help dictate whether CBS will consider this a good investment.

On another note, I was disappointed to see that Gina Carono did not make weight for this event. She was fined 12.5% of her purse which will go to Kaitlin Young who will allow the fight to go ahead anyway.

Kimbo Slice vs James “Colossus” Thompson will be the main event although I believe the real fight to watch will be Robbie Lawler vs Scott Smith. Both throw very heavy hands and are veterans of the game. Lawler is champion right now so that adds to the intensity of the fight.

Initially, I will discuss the Tito Ortiz fight with Lyoto Machida in some detail and then make some comments on Tito and his past, present and future. Yes, I have watched the Ortiz / Lyoto fight a few times.

A lot of MMA fans feel that Tito Ortiz is not the fighter he once was. I am not sure I agree with that. Apart from injuries, I believe that Tito Ortiz is not far at all from being the quality of fighter he was when he was champion. The difference we are seeing is that his competition is much better well rounded. Tito surely has trained submissions (as we saw during the Lyoto fight) but I am not sure I have seen much of anything else in terms of refining his skills. I haven’t seen any improvement in his standup over the years. The other thing one has to wonder is whether Tito training himself with his usual cohorts is a good idea or not. The best fighters tend to move from one camp to another over the years to refine their skills in myriad categories. I can’t recall Tito ever doing such a thing.

Was Lyoto elusive or did he run? There seems to be a stark contrast between fans who differ on this topic. Fans are really passionate and are staunch in their opinions on whether Lyoto found intelligently or whether he ran away from Ortiz. For what it’s worth, it was a bit of both. There is merit to Lyoto avoiding Tito’s aggression in the cage as an intelligent strategy. After all, counter punching is the very thing that wins fights for Chuck Liddell. Having said that, the problem with Machida doing this is that he doesn’t have that impending doom factor of a Liddell or Anderson Silva where we are anticipating the unavoidable dismantling by the elusive counter puncher. Tito Ortiz came into this game as an alternate originally and was able to ride the wave through being a champion for several years and one of the most recognizable faces in all of MMA. Ortiz knows how to hype his fights and he draws fans to pay per views and events.  Let me put it this way: I bought this PPV in HD and it cost me $54.99. If Tito Ortiz wasn’t fighting on the card, I probably wouldn’t have splurged. As much as I can respect Machida, I would not be too excited to see him fight again. I think he has great potential, but he needs to add a lot of aggression to his game. He needs to be elusive when necessary, but most importantly, aggressive as well whenever possible.

What happens to Tito now? In the post fight interview, Ortiz did say that he hasn’t decided on what he is doing after the fight. I do not think Ortiz will be back with the UFC and while I am a fan of Ortiz and believe he can bring in a lot of fans and money to the box office, I do not believe the UFC is a good venue for him anymore. Likewise, I do not believe that the UFC would be smart to continue to invest in Ortiz. Ortiz has not done anything spectacular in terms of wins over the past fews years with the exception of the Shamrock rivalry. I believe Ortiz would be much more successful fighting in another company where he would be able to showcase his showmanship and fighting skills against opponents that he would be more likely to dominate. The UFC has become a lot about who wins the fight regardless of style or entertainment value and while there is nothing wrong with that and I don’t say that as a criticism although it does result in some boring fights sometimes, it is not a good place for Ortiz to be.

Ortiz has a lot of stuff on his plate. He is doing a book tour and continues the Punishment clothing line as well as mentioned getting back into training with a group of people. Ortiz may mourn his legacy in the UFC but he eventually will be too busy to think about due to other exciting future ventures.

Good luck Tito. Thanks for all of those years you gave the fans and I personally look forward to seeing more of the Huntington Beach Bad boy!

And on to the fights…

First up on the televised event was Thiago Silva vs Antonio Mendes. I had picked Silva and I was rather concerned when he was caught with a high kick and was rocked but he kept his composure and ended up catching Mendes with enough strikes and ended the fight with some ground and pound causing Mendes to tap. I picked Silva to win putting me at 1-0.

Surprisingly the next fight was Tito Ortiz vs Lyoto Machida. This seemed more like it would be played out later in the night considering the popularity of Ortiz (whether you love him or hate him). Unfortunately this ended up a boring fight. Can’t really blame Ortiz for that as he did try to engage with Machida but Machida was extremely evasive and avoided most of Ortiz’ punishment. Surely Ortiz wasn’t happy with being decisioned by Lyoto. Probably the most exciting part of the fight was within the last minute of the third round when Ortiz had Machida in a triangle and then transitioned to an arm bar. It seemed that Ortiz had it hooked in, but somehow Machida slipped out perhaps using the sweat to slip out. Tito was given the mic after the fight and called his interactions with Dana White ‘bullshit’ but was sure to thank the Fertittas for their support. Ortiz was very gracious to the fans. Strangely enough when Joe Rogan asked whether this was really Ortiz’ last fight in the UFC, Tito said he wasn’t sure and would decide over the next couple of weeks. A quick funny sidenote in the fight was when Yves Lavigne slipped and fell on his ass. I had picked Ortiz with my heart and not my head so this led me to 1-1.

The next fight was Wilson Gouveia vs Goran Reljic. Reljic came in undefeated for his UFC debut. Goran trains with Mirko Cro Cop and this showed with his hard kicks to Gouveia’s head all on the right side. Soon enough Wilson’s right arm was bruised. This fight went back and forth with Relic seeming to have the upper hand for the first while until Wilson took over and looked dominant until getting caught with a punch to his temple putting him on the ground and eventually losing via stoppage. I picked Gouveia so this loss lowered my tally to 1-2.

Keith Jardine indicated that he was surprised to see that we was an underdog for this fight against Wanderlei Silva. Wanderlei has had 3 fights in the UFC and has lost them all. In his defense, these were all against top notch opponents. Dana White has openly expressed his admiration for Wanderlei’s fighting style in that he fights to put on a good show, win or lose. With that said, Wanderlei really needed this win as his back was against the wall with these 3 prior losses. Jardine also claimed that his standup was better than Silva’s. The fight opened very aggressively with the two exchanging punches. Silva looked dominant again like his days in Pride catching Jardine with a punch that knocked him down and then Silva lived up to his “Axe Murderer” moniker by swarming on Jardine resulting in a referee stoppage just 36 seconds into the first round. Jardine was down for quite some time before being able to walk out of the Octagon under his own power. Silva was extremely gracious in his victory complimenting Jardine and thanking the UFC for the opportunity to fight as well as the crowd in attendance for their support of such a great sport. I picked Silva. Back to even at 2-2.

In the main event, Sean Sherk entered the octagon first with a record of 35-2-1 with his only losses to Matt Hughes and Georges St. Pierre at 170 lbs. Upon entering the octagon, Sherk looked ripped as usual. Throughout the course of the first 3 rounds Penn took advantage of his reach and hit Sherk with numerous jabs and Sherk ended up coming up short on the striking yet continued with the same gameplan.  At the end of the third round Sherk made the same mistake he made against Franca by ducking his head when his opponent came at him and BJ caught him with a knee to the head that stunned Sherk and then Penn followed it up with a series of blows as the bell sounded ending the round. It was determined that Sherk couldn’t continue and BJ was crowned the undisputed lightweight champion. BJ had nothing but respectful words for Sherk after the fight. Sherk, who was disappointed, did say that he would continue fighting and made a point of thanking his loyal fans that stuck by him over the past 10 months.

Overall, it was a decent PPV. I was personally disappointed with some of the results, but I have to admit that I was not surprised at all.

I actually ordered this PPV as it was shown FINALLY in HD by Rogers. Of course, the HD channel was $10 more expensive. Even though some may view this as unreasonable, the HD version is a great deal clearer than the regular version so I went for it. Plus, it was Ortiz’ last UFC fight.

M1-Global was an ill fated attempted at merging Russian and North American promotions.  As with any businesses, the result from failing can create something much more successful and promising than the intention of the original endeavor. Enter Affliction.

The major complaint of certain fighters in the UFC lately have been that they are underpaid, under promoted and too restricted by their contracts. Affliction may be trying to revolutionize the sport by avoiding all of these problems. Tim Sylvia has expressed that he appreciates freedom in his contract so that he may fight in other organizations. He does make a good point in that if he fights and he does incur any injuries that require lengthy healing, he may be able to fight again shortly thereafter and consequently make more money in a short amount of time and have the opportunity to either continue momentum after a win or recover following a loss.

What gives Affliction a lot of promise is putting together a great card full of competitors that were either ousted by the UFC or estranged from there:

MAIN CARD (PAY PER VIEW)

• Fedor Emelianenko vs. Tim Sylvia
• Josh Barnett vs. Pedro Rizzo
• Ben Rothwell vs. TBA
• Paul Buentello vs. Aleksander Emelianenko
• Matt Lindland vs. Fabio Nascimento
• Renato “Babalu” Sobral vs. Mike Whitehead

PRELIMINARY CARD

• Ray Lazama vs. Justin Levens
• Mark Hominick vs. Savant Young
• J.J. Ambrose vs. Patrick Speight
• Brett Cooper vs. Mike Pyle

This card gives everyone the opportunity to see whether the hype behind Fedor is deserved or not as he is fighting a former UFC champion who has proven himself as one of the best heavyweights over the past several years (despite the Tim haters opinions).

I am really excited to see Babalu fighting again. He was supposed to fight Vernon Tiger White not too long ago but that show was cancelled due to financial reasons on behalf of the company. I will very interested to see how he does against Mike Whitehead who is a talented opponent.

The matchup of Paul Buentello vs Alexsander Emelianenko could be a real war as well. It’s great to see Mark Hominick back in action again also.

The MMA world is getting bigger and Affliction is just one way of realizing the growth of the sport.

Affliction Banned will be available to watch on July 19th on Pay Per View. There could be connections with HDNet in the future as well for airing events.

Check out the event trailer

I always laugh when I see this. Classic. Charles McCarthy lost to Michael Bisping and decided to go into early retirement to focus on coaching instead.

With all that said, many players have reported no issues whatsoever and I am one of them I am happy to say. (note - I did upgrade my hard drive in my PS3 so I am no longer using the stock 40GB).

The game itself is extremely well done for the following reasons (my comments relate to only a 5% completion):

• It’s easy to play: practically anyone can pick up a controller and go through the motions of advancing the game. When you are given a mission you will see yellow line on the map which you follow to your destination (this is quite doable unlike Burnout Paradise at times when you are going mach 10).
• Keep enough of the old and bring in the new: Rockstar didn’t forget why the GTA series was so popular so they made sure to keep it familiar to its predecessors but also incorporate new features. In this installment, you can get in just about any vehicle you want, drive motorcycles (including doing stunts), control speedboats and helicopters (training is provided). The game has a linear yet unrestricting feel. You can explore the entire city if you like just by driving around, but whenever you want, you can select a mission and receive detailed instructions on how to accomplish it.
• Although not all of the music is my taste, Rockstar did a nice job of including a great deal of tracks for various palates.  You can feel free to change the radio station as you are driving with a quick toggle of the directional pad. (Vagabond by Greenskeepers is definitely a standout for me)
• It all adds up: The plot starts out with Roman welcoming his cousin Niko to America under the pretense that Roman was a big shot and rich. Niko soon finds out that this is horse puckey but decides to find a way to make things work for himself. The storyline stays true to itself.
• Accessories: The game feels very feature rich and the attention to detail is incredible. You can turn the TV on in your apartment and watch seemingly endless shows and commercials which provide a nice satire to various real life experiences ranging from shaving implements to republican crusades. You can go buy new clothes, buy hot dogs and hamburgers from local stands or perhaps enjoy some activities like bowling, darts or visit a strip bar or night club.
• Integration of Six Axis: This is used for steering your boat, flying the helicopter, riding the motorcycle, bowling and a variety of other activities. It is clear that Rockstar thought about giving PS3 owners a ful experience.
• What’s in the box? Although I didn’t feel it was necessary to spend the extra $30 to get the included jewelry box package, the standard GTA4 packaging is quite enough. It is the only game I have bought so far that needed to place some of the contents on the outside of the plastic disc holder. You receive a full map of Liberty City and fully detailed booklets on the game and controls.
• Playability: Although I am only concentrating on the single player campaign right now, GTA4 does offer online play. The single player experience is quite good in the sense that the graphics are very good (but not jaw dropping) and the frame rate seems to keep steady. For the PS3 version, you are forced to copy about 3GB worth of data to your hard drive and for some this may seem like a lot, however; with a 250GB drive in my system, I don’t have any concerns about this as I know it will speed up the gameplay and make things smooth. For those who complain about this - please remember that you have the more premium system compared to an Xbox 360 and a Blu-Ray disc can hold up to 50GB of data while even a dual layer DVD maxes as just over 8. Something has to give.

Overall I was a bit surprised at how easy it was to start the game and get into it. I somewhat expected to start playing it and put it down after several minutes and move onto something else. After 3 hours uninterrupted, I finally decided to get some other things done. I fully expect this game to fulfill any expectations its consumers may have. We need to keep in mind that with the ability to DLC (downloadable content), the possibilities are endless when it comes to enhancements. This will be game of the year (at least of any game with a Mature rating).

Stop doubting! Believe the hype  - go and buy this game!

This stance of ensuring users’ sentiments were slated as secondary irritated many users. It bothered people enough that they sought out a way to fix this problem themselves. There was a plugin developed and another hack to get the resizing text box function to work again. Funpidgin incorporates the text box resizing plugin as an option for the user. This would have been incredibly easy for the Pidgin developers to do as well, however; it seems that they took a philosophical hardline and decided not to included as they considered their new predictive automatically resizing text box to be more advanced. Some users felt that this sentiment sent a strong ‘we know what is better for you than you do’ message, driving them to make negative comments and move away from Pidgin software.

The Funpidin developers have promised to listen to the users and take their requests seriously. Luckily because we are dealing with open source, we have this option for all users.

Ultimately, the choice is yours. I made my choice. I am chatting with friends using Funpidgin right now. I probably will never use the original Pidgin ever again.

St. Pierre went through the death of a young cousin and endured a serious illness suffered by his father. These are undoubtedly very traumatic events, yet, it would be fairly unheard of to call off a fight due to mental anguish. Typical fans would expect a physical injury to be the sole reason for delaying a bout.

In terms of a prediction, it is foolish to go against St. Pierre this time, although surely anyone who is on the Serra bandwagon will end up looking genius if he wins again. This time has all the right ingredients to be a different outcome. St. Pierre is no longer dealing with those emotional issues and in fact hired a sports psychologist to help with straightening out some things. Anyone who squaks at this method lacks the capacity to understand the pressure that St. Pierre who is still fairly young at 26 is under. Having a solid foundation in terms of dialog is definitely an asset. Georges also has had 2 fights since his last fight with Serra. He beat Josh Koschek and destroyed the greatest Welterweight of all time - Matt Hughes. St. Pierre is hungrier now more than ever. You can compare this to BJ Penn’s past. BJ was able to get by on his talent and therefore didn’t train as hard as he could have, this is not necessarily a carbon copy of those events, however; St. Pierre understands much better now what it takes to stay on top. Of course none of these claims discredit Serra. In fact, out of the entire Welterweight division, Serra may be the fighter with the best chance to hang with Georges in the Octagon. Serra is very underestimated. People generally still don’t give him enough credit even though he won the Ultimate Fighter TV show and then beat the champ. The kind of mental toughness and belief in yourself to accomplish that along with a black belt in BJJ are true assets that very few combatants possess.  I can’t resist - St.Pierre with a first round TKO. It must be so. This also sets up Serra vs Hughes which Hughes has already requested due to ‘unfinished business’.

I’ve been a Rich Franklin fan for a long time and I genuinely empathize with the personal struggles he has faced over the past year or so. It has been a collapse for Rich in that he was the defending Middleweight Champion with no one in sight that could defeat him. Everything changed. His father died unexpectedly which was a devastating loss. Also, Anderson Silva came along and as much as Rich respects Silva, surely he would be much happier had Silva never come to the UFC. Rich suffered a brutal loss to Silva and then fought his way back to a title shot in his hometown of Cincinnati. This resulted in virtually the same outcome - even the trademark broken nose was administered. This time around, Rich faces a fellow victim of Anderson Silva in Travis Lutter - another winner of The Ultimate Fighter TV show. This should be an interesting fight. Each fighter has been open about his strategy. Lutter wants to take it to the ground and Rich would rather stand and kickbox. Both fighters really need a victory - this is likely Lutter’s last run at success in the UFC and Rich needs to keep himself in the upper echelon of the weight class. Although the fan in me would somewhat like to see Lutter win if only because he may get a rematch with Anderson Silva - and I truly believe he may be the only one who can beat the Spider (he came close last time and that was after a terrible weight cutting that cause it to be a non-title bout), I am going to have to go with Franklin in this one. I just think Rich is too strong for Lutter. Rich was able to make pretty good work of Yushin Okama who was touted as the physically strongest fighter in the division, so Lutter will suffer the same fate, I believe. The only way to beat Franklin is to out skill him on the feet like Silva has done.

Here is the full card: (my picks are in bold)

Main card (televised):

185 lbs.: Rich Franklin (22-3) vs. Travis Lutter (9-4)
185 lbs.: Kalib Starnes (8-2-1) vs. Nate Quarry (9-2)
185 lbs.: Michael Bisping (15-1) vs. Charles McCarthy (10-4)
155 lbs.: Mac Danzig (17-4-1) vs. Mark Bocek (5-1)

Under card (may not be broadcast):

185 lbs.: Jason MacDonald (19-9) vs. Joe Doerksen (39-11)
185 lbs.: Alan Belcher (12-4) vs. Jason Day (15-5)
155 lbs.: Sam Stout (13-3-1) vs. Rich Clementi (30-12-1)
170 lbs.: Jonathan Goulet (21-9) vs. Kuniyoshi Hironaka (11-4)
265 lbs.: Cain Velasquez (2-0) vs. Brad Morris (10-2)
185 lbs.: Ed Herman (14-5) vs. Demian Maia (6-0)

And once again, Rogers disappoints by not showing this in HD

There are now separate buttons for settings, plugins and users which appear on each page in the top right which makes them easier to reach.

The upgrade process was quite easy as usual and went off with no hitches. If you are a Wordpress user and haven’t upgraded yet, then this might be the one to try. Obviously you want to back up all of your files first as per usual, but once you upgrade, you probably won’t want to go back.

Great work by the Wordpress team in making it the defacto blogging software in my opinion.

I truly believe this was the cause of several fights results. Notably, Tim Boetsch completely gassed which was very unexpected and I believe this caused him to lose.

Kenny Florian was very impressive in his fight against Joe Lauzon. I expected it to be a lot closer and actually picked Lauzon to win as Florian hadn’t looked all that great to me recently. Perhaps Florian is back on track?

Thiago Alves caught Karo Parisyan with a knee to the face that dropped him and he was not defending himself momentarily and it was stopped by the referee. Parisyan was very upset with the stoppage. There are a lot of Karo haters out there that criticize him for putting on boring fights and eking out wins. This win by Alves will surely make them happy. Parisyan is now even further away from a title shot now that he was once poised to receive in the past but was unable to compete due to injury.

Houston Alexander got knocked out in 8 seconds which started with a superman punch from James Irvin followed by a solid connecting punch while Alexander was down which cemented the victory. Alexander claims he was fine and pled to Steve Mazzagatti that it was stopped prematurely.

Probably the fight of the night (although I haven’t seen the rest of the undercard) would be Nate Diaz vs Kurt Pellegrino. This fight was action packed from the start and teetered back and forth with momentum until Diaz finally through ‘Batman’ into his patented triangle choke upon which locking up, Diaz threw his arms out signifying victory and also flexed to place an exclamation point on his impending win.

It was awesome to see free UFC on Spike for 3 hours which is what the fans asked for in droves. It was great to see them respond and I’m sure the ratings will indicate that it was worth it. As mentioned though, I would never again put on a show in Denver again. Also, while I’m asking for favors - how about showing this in HD? Now that would be amazing!