SP Happenings #18

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(Originally posted by Sorcerer)

It's funny how when unpredictable things start happening, they keep on coming... I thought last week was going to be pretty uneventful, so I would be able to finish the promised site update early, but think again. In the middle of the week I read about the Circle of Eight site (leading ToEE modding community) having problems finding a host able to support their amount of traffic, so I offered them hosting on our own server, and they accepted. The next couple of days were spent setting them up on our server and tweaking the preferences of their message board for optimal performance, but now they're more or less settled in and running nicely. So, if you are playing The Temple of Elemental Evil, be sure to pay them a visit, because they've already produced a number of fixes and cool tweaks/hacks for the game.

Anyway, after I was done setting up Co8 I got around to playing with the advertising script and adding Co8 to the system, making a "hosted by Sorcerer's Place button" and sending the new code to all our hosted sites to implement (temporarily dropping the pop-ups). Apart from all this fun stuff, I also had to do some preparations for my new uni year, which started this week, and hunt around for a new car door because I had a minor accident in which the passenger door got thoroughly smashed... The repairs should be done by Friday (here's hoping), and if anyone wants to donate to help me pay off the bill, you're very welcome.

Even though I've been pretty busy, as you can see, I still managed to start working on the site update yesterday, so I expect it to go up in the next few days.

Oh, by the way, here's my current pet peeve: after I installed Windows XP I couldn't get my UMAX Astra 3400 scanner to work no matter what, so I checked out UMAX's official site, and since I didn't find anything useful there, shot a mail to their support. I received a prompt reply that indeed, with my version of the bundled drivers & software, the scanner would not run on XP. My only option of getting it to run is to pay UMAX $15 for a new CD with the drivers & software. And this is for a scanner I bought like 2 years ago. I couldn't believe my eyes at first, but once I managed to suppress my anger, I wrote a calm reply back that since UMAX is obviously not interested in properly supporting the products they sell, I will rather get another scanner than pay them for this type of extortion. It's not that there's a great deal of money at stake, but it's the principle of the thing. Imagine NVIDIA or ATI decide not to provide Windows XP drivers for any but their latest graphic cards, and charge everyone else for drivers. No serious company should be able to afford to pull a stunt like this, so consider this a warning if you ever intend to buy an UMAX scanner.

 

(Originally posted by Nazgul)

Why not just try and search for the drivers. There has to be some one out there with them.

Could always look at http://www.driverguide.com/

Nazgul

 

(Originally posted by Sorcerer)

Don't you think I'd do that before *****ing here? Heh. I did, there's only a fake version of the proper drivers floating around, which does not work. But thanks anyway.