John Lamansky

Google has recently published their 2005 end-of-year Zeitgeist. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Google’s Zeitgeists, they are fun analyses of Google searches made over a certain time period. Quite interesting. However, something that might be cool to see in a Google Zeitgeist is a list of the top 10 searches, period. And not just top 10 searches in certain categories.

Cool! This is my 100th blog post.

Probably few of you know that Windows 95 came with an entertaining 3D hovercar “capture-the-flag” game. It was called, appropriately, “Hover!” In the game you drive your hovercraft around (named, not surprisingly, the “Hover 950″) and try to capture the AI’s flags while guarding your own flags from the AI.

Hover was not installed with Windows 95 by default, but rather was buried on the Windows 95 CD-ROM. Much like Microsoft’s Backup program is buried in the Windows XP Home Edition CD-ROM.

Thankfully, at the time when our family had our Windows 95 computer, I had enough computer knowledge to take the program off of the CD-ROM and save it. I don’t even remember how, when, or why; so long ago it was (5+ years ago). I’m just glad I did, considering our Windows 95 CD has long since been lost.

Hover has been passed down our lineage of computers and I still have a playable copy today (Figure). It appears I’m really lucky to have a copy; I did a Google search and it looks like there are a lot of people that want one. (No, I’m not going to give a copy to anyone that wants one. The game was included with Windows 95, so I don’t think that it would be legal for me to distribute a game that was included with a commercial operating system. If you own a Windows 95 CD, do a search for “hover.exe” to find it. If you don’t, you can buy a CD on eBay for under $10; make sure it’s not an upgrade CD.)

I find it very amazing that this game works on both Windows 95 and XP, and probably all operating systems in between. So that means I can still play it!

Anyway, enough with the fond memories. Let’s play the game!

When I first start the game, it gives me a nice warning — complete with a Windows XP exclamation icon — that my 16-million-color display just won’t cut it. I need 256 colors (Figure). Yawn. Couldn’t those Microsoft people just have used the >= operator instead of == when they were programming?

The splash screen, shown at the top of the post, looks pretty cool, although the image quality isn’t the best (Figure).

After the splash screen is finished splashing — that is, after it goes away — the Quick Help dialog appears (Figure). After that, I’m ready to start (Figure).

Naturally, I start out at level 1, with mountains rising above a maze that looks as if it were set in the Medieval period (Figure). Although the mountains look quite pretty, to tell you the truth I didn’t even notice the mountains until I started taking screenshots for this post.

Level 1 is complete with stairs (Figure) and platforms (Figure). There are special squares that you can run over (Figure), some of them good and some of them bad. There are also floating bubbles (don’t know what else to call them) (Figure), that when run into, can do one of several different things: temporarily speed up or slow down your hovercraft, temporarily remove any effects that special squares have on you, or give you a special tool: a wall (a temporarily-existing wall that can be used to block enemies), a spring (used for bouncing, of course), or a cloak (makes your hovercraft temporarily invisible).

Soon I spot one of my automatically-positioned red flags (Figure), but an enemy hovercraft (Figure) hones in and swoops it away. Darn.

I moved on to level 2. Though I didn’t take the time to finish level 1. I used Hover’s “Start At” dialog box (Figure) to jump ahead.

Level 2 is set in a busy-city setting (Figure). After that comes level 3, set in an enclosed aquatic-themed environment (Figure).

When you get to level 4, it’s the same medieval-themed maze from level 1 (Figure). And the levels keep cycling through the environments, unless you set the “maze type” setting to “random” instead of “sequential” in the “Customize Game” dialog box (Figure).

I checked the default high scores list (Figure) to see if there were any special names in the list. Nope, no “Bill Gates” entry in sight.

However, I found something else that was very interesting and rather amusing. The “About Hover!” dialog, accessed by clicking “About Hover!” on the Help menu, says that Hover is part of Windows XP! (Figure) Hover obviously utilizes the same “About” dialogs that other Windows utilities did (in 95) and still do (in XP).

Still on the topic of “About Hover,” I also took a screenshot of the “Version” tab in the Properties dialog for the hover.exe file (Figure) .

The Help menu (Figure) gives a slew of options. However, the Help Topics dialog doesn’t have a lot of documentation, though it has a fair amount (Figure). And the “How to Use Help” (read: “Help on Using Help”), which I would assume would help me to use the help system, opens help documentation in the help system! (Figure) Not very helpful. No sir.

Hover is a cool game, with graphics that were certainly exceptional for its time, but I’ve been thinking: Why did Microsoft hide Hover on the Windows 95 disk? And why did Microsoft not include Hover in any future Windows versions?

Hmm… the unsolved mysteries in the Legend of Microsoft Hover.

Both WordPress and its home page have recently undergone major updates. WordPress.org received a redesign several days ago, and WordPress 2.0 was released just yesterday. Some new features in WordPress 2.0 include a WYSIWYG blog post editor, AJAX functionality in the admin interface, and the ability to comment on images in posts.

To my dissapointment, I can’t upgrade to WordPress 2.0 immediately because I’m using a Fantastico installation. So I need to wait until my web host provides a version 2.0 upgrade via Fantastico. When I am able to upgrade, I’ll let you know what I think of this major WordPress update. Until then, be sure to let me know what you think of the new version if you’ve had experience with it.

I have four words to say: “That movie is awesome!” Here are some things I really like about the movie The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe:

• Follows the book very closely.
• The beavers in the movie add a great sense of humor to the story.
• Really good music.
• Good acting especially by the actor playing Lucy and by the actor playing Jadis (the White Witch).
• Beautiful Narnian environment.
• Nice visual touches here and there that really add to the story.
• Great visual effects; computer-generated characters are quite realistic.

After seeing the movie, I’ve decided that I would really like to read the Chronicles of Narnia books again. I also left feeling excited to see the next movie, Prince Caspian.

I think that if there are any noteworthy flaws in the movie, it would be flaws of omission; that is, things that could have been done to make the movie better.

But despite that, I think this movie is excellent! It’s one of the best movies I’ve seen. I’d probably give this movie 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Rating: 4.5 Stars

Google has released a special data layer for Google Earth that supposedly uses a Santa Radar to track the location of Santa Claus and his fleet of aerodynamic reindeer.

To use the radar, first you’ll need to download Google Earth if you don’t have it already. Then you’ll need to download and open the Santa Radar data layer. Have fun!

For today’s DYK: Did you know that the word “Christmas” is a combination of two words: “Christ” and “Mass” ? If you find etymological details interesting, then check out the first section of the New Advent Christmas entry.

Merry Christmas Eve everyone!

I’ve decided to change the email subscription system to use a WordPress plugin instead of FeedBlitz. Since FeedBlitz requires account registration, it’s a real pain to subscribe via email if you don’t already have a FeedBlitz account.

With the new system, all you have to do is enter your email address in the box on the sidebar, click the OK button, and then click the link in the confirmation email that will be sent to your address. Then tada! You’ll be notified of any new posts on this blog. Enjoy!

SuperSite for Windows has posted a four-part review on the lastest Windows Vista preview release: December 2005 CTP, also known as Build 5270. The site has given the release a rating of 5 stars, compared to a 4 star rating given to both Windows XP and Mac OS X 10.4.

There are going to be a lot of cool new things in Vista: a calendar application, a digital photo management application, new Smart Fetch technology that lets you expand your computer’s RAM via USB, and lots more.

Here are the links to the different parts of the review:
Part 1: Setup and User Interface
Part 2: Bundled Applications
Part 3: New Features
Part 4: Wrapping Up

Earlier this month we were at a hotel while our mom attended tax school. One of the biggest highlights of staying at that hotel is going swimming. My siblings, my dad, and I went swimming twice, and were at the pool for a total of about 4-6 hours.

But soon after we went swimming the first time, my siblings and I started to have rashes on our skin. We didn’t think much of it, but after we went swimming a second time, the rashes grew larger. The rashes were there for days! We never had any trouble with rashes after swimming before. About a week later, I smelled my skin and I could still smell chlorine. Eek!

And several days after we came back from the hotel, we realized that my blue swimming suit had faded to the point that it had turned completely brown! At first my mom thought we had brought home someone else’s swimming suit, but it was unmistakeably mine.

Needless to say, that swimming pool had way too much chlorine in it. But if chlorine is capable of doing those things… I’m going to be a little more reluctant about going swimming next time.