Stories about: SDL

Bill Kendrick is a software machine. He is the lead designer and developer of New Breed Software, a company creating free and open source games, libraries, tools and utilities across a range of operating systems, mobile devices, hand held and home video consoles. He has personally created a diverse range of classic Web-based games that run across all browsers, and has worked as a professional video game developer since 2003.

Mac users have long gloated that the Mac OS is safer than Windows. The gloating should stop: There's plenty of recent evidence that Vista is, in fact, a safer operating system than Mac OS X.

Mozilla's next update to Firefox will sport several new safer surfing features, the company's chief of security said Wednesday, but users won't see the most important changes.

Window Snyder, chief security officer at open source browser maker Mozilla, is caught in the crosshairs of the raging browser vulnerability battle.

Nerds FC star goal keeper, Trent Apted, takes some time out to tell Computerworld about the geekier side of his life. He discusses his PhD project which is exploring the potential of the "tabletop interface" as a platform for formal and informal face-to-face collaboration, multimedia display and exchange, information visualization and entertainment. He also discusses the highs and lows in the life of a programmer and gives his position on the Java versus C++ and open source versus closed source wars.

For this roundtable discussion, I sought out Linux gaming industry folks who were willing to let me pick their brains. Once I had them, I began the discussion by sending them a list of questions to start us off on what I hoped would be a productive chat. Rather than take up precious page space with commentary, I'll take us right to the more interesting bit, the results of this conversation starter...

We're in that "special" time of year. Shopping time and tempers grow short. Parking spots grow scarce. Frustrations grow and multiply. Even in small towns, it is hard to escape the insanity. Last week in a small town near where I live, a man went berserk in a Wal-Mart parking lot and drove his truck into five other vehicles, presumably cracking under shopping-induced pressure.

Traditionally, scripting languages help administrators manage systems with relatively small scripts. Python is used in this capacity as well as for larger applications such as installation programs. The latest effort, though, uses a library and tools from the PyGame effort to take Python into the realm of interactive gaming.

In keeping with this month's PC World games round-up, we are reviewing a selection of free games for Linux that is sure to provide you with hours of entertainment. As is the case with most Linux software, many games are developed by the open source community and are available as free software. The inspiration for many of these games ranges from clones of classic arcade games to replication of popular Windows games.