Blake Patterson

MacCenral Online has posted an article informing us that, contrary to an earlier usenet posting by Graeme Devine (chief designer at id), Quake III Arena is not going to be immediately available for Mac OS X DP4. It seems there are some OS issues that prove to be significant stumbling blocks for id and partner in the conversion, Omni Development, Inc. ...

Blizzard, yesterday, issued a press release announcing that Diablo II has finally gone gold. A long time in coming, this really should be one mindblowing game. Providing a far more expansive and rich world than the original Diablo (one of the best games ever, where it appears that a team of hardcore developers saw Rogue/Moria/Hack, loved it, became posessed by satan, and spit out a...

ComputerAndVideoGames.com has posted a report that has taken me totally by surprise. Sony has just announced the PS One, a Playstation 1/3 the size of the current unit that's able to be connected to a mobile phone network. They are even offering an attachable, color LCD display for this thing. It's quite a piece of industrial design work as well--a very sleek looking little box. I'd not even ...

A user comment over at MacWindows explains how the AirPort BaseStation can effectively be used as a Cable/DSL router (IP-masquerade style). So, while it looks, to your provider, like you're only using one IP address (that of the BaseStation), you might actually have, say, 5 machines, each with its own IP, sitting behind the AirPort. Naughty, naughty... Personally, I use this magical...

Though it's been online for a while, I spent some time going back through Object Farm's excellent article, "Where 1 + 1 = 3." It explains how Apple got from the more traditional Mac OS 9 to the superpowerful Mac OS X, and does not ignore the significant of NeXT's Openstep or Mac OS X Server in the process. I consider it the most pleasant to read and information-packed account...

HolyMac has a recent article which touches upon the perceived performance advantage of some of today's x86-compatible processors vs. the PowerPC (which is admittedly lagging in the MHz department). I must say in agreement with this article that Joe Consumer heading into CompUSA is almost certainly going to look only at clockspeed as a means of estimating the performance of this...

I haven't even fully figured out Riven and here those rendering madmen, the Miller brothers, are getting ready to release Myst III: Exile unto the world (Q1 2001). I know it's a pretty divided crowd as far as the love/hatred of Myst, but I still maintain that the 17 hours it took us (I had a partner) to solve that first game of what's now "the Myst trilogy", was the best gaming experience I've...

Mac3D Dot Com describes, here, the various firmware updates that Apple released yesterday. Get 'em while they're...

MacUser UK has an article describing RealNetworks' "QuickTime Killer," RealSystem 8. Supposedly they've improved the efficiency of their streaming video system and have come up with what market-research director, Rick Doherty calls, "an extreme challenge for Apple." I wonder if they've come up with even more innovative ways to shove advertising down users' throats while they were at it?...

Sierra just placed their Tribes 2 page online, reports Mac Gamers' Ledge. With screenshots and all sorts of info about the game, this is a great way to get a feel for this incredible, forthcoming PC/Mac/ Linux game. Tribes 2 looks as though it will indeed not only live up to, but surpass the splendor of the original, unique PC-only...

Low End Mac has a recent article making some helpful suggestions for those looking to pull those old '030 (and '020)-based Macs out of the closet and use them for a bit of good old fashioned gaming fun. Nice article, given the dirt-cheap availability of older Macs on eBay these days. Ahh...I can think back to the days of hours and hours of Spectre on my old Mac LC. ...sigh of nostalgia......

There wouldn't be any room for real rumors or news if we reported on every interesting thing seen on eBay, but this just seems out there enough to pass on to everyone.... Someone is auctioning a "mint," original Macintosh 128K computer with a greenscreen picture tube. We've never seen anything like it--one of the original Macs with something other than its famous, easy-on-the-eyes, slightly...

We mentioned earlier that Epic was soon going to release the Inoxx Pack, a level expansion pack for Unreal Tournament that contains, among other new levels, Facing Worlds II. Well, it will be released today. The folks at MacGamer's Ledge report that it will be available later this afternoon at Gamecenter.com. Get...

The folks over at Low End Mac have a piece discussing the rumor that, in the spirit of Thinking Different, the next batch of PowerBooks will contain a backlight for its translucent keyboard. This backlight will not use one of the traditional methods of illumination that spring right to mind, but will use chemical-based bioluminescence, assisted by a small trickle of electricity. Interesting. We...

MacNN has posted an article giving some background on the cloak and dagger PowerMac G4 ad that turns out to indeed be a fake (as far as it not coming from Apple). It's a super fine ad though. I'd love to see that during Friends....

id software has just released an upgrade to Quake III Arena. Apparently a rather serious security hole was found in the current version, whereby a server operator with malicious intentions could erase files from client machines. So...a word to the wise would be to grab the update ASAP! get it:  Quake III Arena 1.1.7 Updater ...

Mac Gamers Ledge has posted a review of Saitek's Cyborg 3D USB joystick. A reasonably priced stick that can actually be adjusted to fit a particular person's hand, the Cyborg 3D is the only stick taking up a port on my USB hub. Talk about a killer session of Falcon 5...super control. Check it out. ...

Let's see, I've got an Apple logo in my car's rear window, an iMac t-shirt, an Apple keychain, and still have the then-en-vogue wooden cutout of my name with Apple logo on the side from the mid 80's still sitting on my Apple IIgs. (Well...maybe it wasn't so en vogue...) What've you got? If I've got you beat, then jump over to RedLightRunner, suppliers of a plethora of Apple logo'ed items...

If you follow Slashdot or the Linux community in general, you've likely heard of the Netpliance i-opener, a "web-only" machine that was revealed to be "hackable" into a functional Linux (or Win95/98/NT, BeOS, etc.) machine by clever fellow Ken Segler, on his Linux-Hacker site. Well, it looks like he's found new prey. The WebSurfer Pro from Innovator, available for $50. Instructions on how ...

A recent CNET article indicates that Palm is aiming towards their devices becoming wireless "communications devices" and that along the way, will switch over from the current Motorola DragonBall EZ processor (with a 68EC000 core) to a much more powerful unit designed by ARM (England's Advancd RISC Machines) and sold by Intel and others. As many of us are aware, the Newton MessagePad was the...