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User Accounts October 6, 2008 at 11:38pm |
| For any wondering, I removed the user section of the site, I decided that maintaining user accounts was a little overkill. Your comments are still there, and you can still comment, the creation of a profile just has been removed, if you have any thoughts, let me know. |
 | What Constitutes a Fanboy? April 14, 2008 8:16pm in thoughts |
Some of those that know me could possibly call me a fanboy of both Apple, Linux, or the XBOX (yes, I know the last one is almost a contradiction in terms since its made by Microsoft and I tend to favor Microsoft's competition over its Windows OS). I however take a different stand. I don't consider myself a fanboy of Apple, Linux, or XBOX. Yes, I love my Mac, my iPod, my iPhone, my Linux server, and my XBOX 360, but does preferring one platform over another really make you a fanboy? So this leads me to my question: What exactly constitutes a fanboy? I've heard some people say that if you prefer company A's product over company B's, then you are a Company A fanboy. I don't believe this is true. To be a fanboy in my opinion, you must love a product so much that you will jump on any opportunity to badmouth any competition, ignoring anything that the competition might actually be doing better than your product. Fanboys tend to be relatively close-minded on issues surrounding whatever it is that their product or company is involved in. We'll take the gaming consoles for the example. A Microsoft XBOX fanboy would be so into the XBOX that he would be blind and try to find a negative spin on anything that Sony or Nintendo might come out with for the PS3 or Wii, even if what Nintendo or Sony does is better than how Microsoft happens to do it for the 360. I'll say it first, being ignorant goes nowhere, and fanboism is no exception. Take me for example, I much prefer OS X over Windows, hands down, no second guessing with pretty much no competition. Do I hate Windows? Do I hate Microsoft? No, I don't. I don't like some of the things Microsoft does, I don't like some of the ways Windows does what it does, but that doesn't mean I hate them. And even though I love OS X, I still dislike some of Apple's practices. And this is pretty much the core reason why I don't consider myself a fanboy. I recognize Windows strengths, despite my fondness towards both of it's competitors, OS X and Linux. And the same goes towards Sony's PS3 and Nintendo's Wii compared to my preferred console, the XBOX 360. In the end competition is what drives markets, and operating systems and gaming consoles are no exception. Without competition, there would be less motivation for companies to improve upon their product lines. Can you imagine still working on machines with Windows 98 if Linux or Mac weren't around and Microsoft was less motivated to come up with something new? I'm sure that's an extreme situation that probably wouldn't have happened, but competition drives innovation and innovation leads to improvements. So the next time you immediately want to bash a competing site, product, or company, look at it and see what it is all about. Don't just jump to conclusions and bash it blindly. It may be competing with your sacred product, but it may have its own strengths, and in a roundabout way, may very well lead to improvements for your side of the fence. |
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| Bye Bye XBOX February 06, 2008 1:04pm in life |
So I just dropped off my XBOX 360 at UPS today to be shipped back to Microsoft for repair or replacement. I'm kind of hoping they end up giving me a new version of the 360 as a replacement. The new chips run cooler and of course with the new ones, you get HDMI output as well. Looking at it from a business standpoint it makes sense as well. The new systems have a lower failure rate which would mean having to replace fewer systems. It's gotta be cheaper then sending out more of the 1st gen 360s that are said to have as high as a 30% failure rate. Either way, it does kind of suck and I'm hoping I get mine back soon, I want to play some Vegas, COD4, and I definitely want to start up Mass Effect. In the meantime though I have plenty of other options. I still need to beat Uncharted and of course Super Mario Galaxy, and of course World of Warcraft. But even outside of gaming world, I got other stuff I would like to work on. I'm looking into redoing my blog manager for this site, I just sstarted setting up my media database and web portal for my games, movies, music, etc. I decided for that I'm going to use ASP.NET and Microsoft SQL Server to switch things up as well as delve more into the technology. I'm also going to be delving a bit into game design so even without the 360, I'll have plenty to do. |
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| Busy busy busy January 30, 2008 10:52am in life |
I've been keeping busy over the last couple weeks doing this and that. Last thursday was the normal poker night which went well, ended up breaking even so I can't complain about that. Was a big turnout too...6 people, Bailey, Kat, Brian, Rachael, Cass, me. I had a good time so I can't complain about that. I'm hoping I can sort things out with Steve, had a little squabble with him over a game of poker a couple weeks ago. It sucks but in the end, I still feel I was right and I have corroborated that as well. Weekend was rather lazy, sadly I got the Red Rings of Death for my 360 which sucks, but I can survive for a couple weeks without my XBOX. I look at it this way, it will give me time to play other games, as well as working on other things that I've been putting off. On another note, if you have a PS3, make sure you pick up Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. The game is amazing, graphics-wise, gameplay-wise, and story-wise. Monday night I went to the scout meeting, helped their fire building competition. Went well, I'm glad I'm getting more involved in it. I know I'm going camping this weekend so that should be a good time. Eric's running it too so it'll be fun to see what he can do. I found a bunch of tutorials on game design so I think I'll spend some time reading over those and see if I can't get something started. I think I have an idea of what I want to do, so hopefully the tutorials could help me out. Here's the link if anyone's interested: http://gpwiki.org/. Not sure how good they are just yet, but so far it seems to be a good start. I got my subversion repository set up on my server for my code for my website and should be able to use it for anything else as well. I created a new tree last night for a version 3 of my site, not sure when that's going to get any real progress. I know what I want to do, just trying to figure out how to do it. Will have to read up on things to get it done. |
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| Uh Oh ... January 28, 2008 8:41am in tech |
So I got the dreaded Red Rings of Death last night which sucks. My XBOX 360 decided for whatever reason it didn't want to work anymore. After leaving it unplugged for about an hour and plugging it back in, it does seem to be working right now, but I don't know how much I trust it, so I'll be sending it in anyway. Two plus years after buying it and Microsoft still covers it...sweet. It's the 2nd time that my XBOX 360 has done this, which is kinda annoying, but at least Microsoft is good about it. My first experience with 360 problems went very well. Microsoft tech support for it helped me out a lot. First they thought it was the hard drive so within two days I got a new hard drive for my 360. Well it turns out, that the hard drive was not the problem. I called them back and it was deemed neccessary to send the console in. Two days later I got the empty box, and 2 weeks later I had a new 360 console. The console failing rate shouldn't be so high, but at the same time, the way Microsoft has been with fixing the consoles that do break is admirable. Tech support was very good in helping me out both times, and the response and pickup times to actually talk with a human being was also good, I think I waited like 2-3 minutes before a human picked up. Compared to my experiences with AT&T and various other tech support calls, 2-3 minutes is pretty damned good. So for like 2-3 weeks, I'll be without my XBOX 360 which should give me time to work on other projects I have on my plate. |
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| It's Time for Microsoft to Reverse Stance on XBOX 360 Hard Drive November 19, 2007 1:38pm in gaming |
When Microsoft released the XBOX 360 in 2005, they released 2 versions of it: the Core Version, and the Premium Version. The Premium had a 20GB Hard Drive and Backwards Compatibility, the Core did not. The core relied on memory cards to save user data. At first glance, this seems like it wouldn't be a problem. Today, while not completely a problem, could cause issues in the future, possibly closer than one might think. The problem is, that a lot of games today require the caching of data to help store levels in games to allow for quicker transitions, to decrease load times, and to generally improve game performance. This caching becomes impossible to do without a hard drive connected to a system as a memory card, while good for game saves, just can't cut it when it comes to caching game data. One might think, well, just require those games to be played on a system that has a hard drive. I personally agree with that. I think that hard drives should become neccessary for certain games. Microsoft on the other hand does not. Their requirements for games state that every game should be developed for both versions of the system. The games should be playable on both systems with and without a hard drive. This, while sounding limiting is a double-edged sword. Yes, games should be playable on both systems as to not alienate one base. At the same time however, if playing without a hard drive brings up significant load times and generally decreases smooth gameplay, where do you draw the line? One game that this has been noted on, is the game Mass Effect, due out this week. From various reviews, it does appear that there are significant load times that have been cleverly hidden in elevator rides. While cleverily hidden and perhaps less notable to the casual gamer, these long elevator rides are there and have to be to allow it playable on both systems. I see two possible solutions to this problem. The first is something that I don't really see Microsoft doing. I think it might be in Microsoft's best interest to put some games on a "must have hard drive" classification. While unfair to those without the hard drive, if they aren't a casual gamer, they'd probably have the hard drive anyway, as I believe the Premium, Elite, and now the Halo Edition of the XBOX 360 have sold more than the core version. The second option is to either make caching a setting that can be able to be turned on and off, or a setting that can automatically detect the presence of a hard drive and change itself accordingly. It's an interesting prospect that I'm not sure we'll see a solution to in the near future, but I still hold firm that Microsoft should do something, be it reversing their stance towards developers and the hard drive, or work with developers to create a cache setting on games. This could be a limiting factor for future games and projects. Another limiting factor may be the limited size of the DVD, but that could be fixed later if Microsoft can work with HD DVD and start putting games on that. This might already be part of their future plans as rumor has a future 360 to come with an HD DVD drive instead of a DVD drive installed. |
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