The ScooterBlog

Here’s some random links for LifeHacker that caught my eye:

• How to convert a video to iPod with one click using Videora
  
• Managing your iPod without iTunes with Yamipod
• How to wake up with the alarm when you want to.
• How to stir cocoa for the maximum effect.
• Saving bits of the web with the Scrapbook FireFox Extension
• eBay Express opens - Half.Com with an eBay name?
  
• The art of leveraged barganing (especially in Cell Phones)
  
• Yahoo’s Top 10 XP Tips … EVER!
  
• Repairing a small hole in drywall … I needed this once.
  
• RIAA going after college campuses (but they can’t do much)

This is a cool little chart … it charts out if you want freeware or a Web 2.0 site for something and then suggests a program or place for it. For those of you who want Open Source (and in the case of this list, smaller profile open source stuff, as I don’t see FireFox or other big programs on there)

I Want Freeware To …

I want Web 2.0 That …

Finally played a little bit more XBox 360 last night, and got to play a little bit of Call Of Duty 2, and a lot of Burnout Revenge on the 360 … wow is it good! I have not played much of it on the original generation systems, more as a function of time.

Danielle got into the fun too! I’ve definitely found the game to get her involved in, cause it’s simple to play (even on a 360 controller), fast paced, but still understandable, even if you don’t completely know what you’re doing.

So much for my plan to start her with Pac Man!

So here is my crazy idea for today. Grant you, I don’t think it exists, and I’d love for someone to prove me wrong on it, and it would need a cable like I haven’t ever seen before, and it would open up a new world of stuff to the iPod, some of which I think can be done anyways.

Why not a cable that links 2 iPod’s together!

Why would you want this? Well, you could use it to transfer files from one iPod user to another. NOT music (although I’m sure someone would hack it), but instead the general files that you place on one like a disk drive, contacts, maybe even things known to be free like podcasts. It would certainly be cool if I could give someone who never knew about Game Junkie a copy of their podcast as proof of the things they do.

That’s the main thing I could see being cool. I can also see why most companies would shy away from such a thing … piracy concerns mostly. But, like any product of this type, while you can think up many unauthorized uses, there are just as many good legitimate uses of being able to transfer back and forth from large hard drives on the go.

The cable problem? Simple … I’ve never seen a cable with a dock connector on either side of it.

Thoughts? Ideas? Am I nuts or would this actually be cool?

Found some great blog posts on this today so I thought I would share.

Most Windows XP users know that you can set up your machine to be a terminal server for yourself should you need to access that computer from another one. However, the service right out of the box has some limits. It only allows a computer running XP Pro to act as a server (although anyone can connect with any OS), and it only allows one computer to be connected at a time.

Thanks to the wonderous coolness that is digg.com, I discovered that patches exist to allow Remote Desktops in Xp Home, and extend its functionality to include allowing multiple machines to remote into a single other machine. So if you have a powerhouse computer sitting in the closet, now three people can use it simultaneously for something like e-mail or web access.

This link is to the “dugg” article. Check the comments, there’s a lot more on the subject and some better patches out there.

Nintendo has two companies to look at to know why their Virtual Console is going to succeed: Microsoft and Apple, and here’s why:

• Both companies are beginning to show the way that digital distribution is the wave of the future, both for what is there now and what is already existing. Microsoft’s Live Arcade has proven to be one of the great successes of the 360 so far, and the success of the iTunes Music Store (and even limited growth of music subscription services) shows that the ability to get what you want right then, even if it’s nothing more then a digital file, is very accepted.
• IF it’s priced right, they will come. I personally would pay $2.99 per game or $9.99 a month for a subscription, but you can’t be nieve enough to think Nintendo isn’t going to add something to the equation over and above just some retro games. I would have to think that online multiplayer, maybe (just maybe) even the ability to download games to the DS, would be something that become part of the package, and would make such a price downright reasonable. People are already paying upwards of $10 to $15 for Live Arcade games, Nintendo is going to come out looking affordable no matter how you slice it.

Those are really just the business side reasons of why I think it’s going to work. Nintendo’s Revolution isn’t going to be the #1 console of this next generation, nor does it need or desire to be. As long as it has a dedicated and sizable user base (which it will), we’re going to see great things out of this product and its online capabilities.

P.S. - I didn’t get a 360 at launch, prolly will not get a PS3 at launch. I am getting a Revolution at launch!!

5 weekends in Columbus, and exactly one of them spent entirely in town … this one! Not that it wasn’t without lots of stuff for me to do.

• I’m still fussing with my computers. Turns out one of the two isn’t capable of holding a drive larger then 300 GB, and my main PC seems to either have a PCI bus that’s having issues or is simply unable to keep USB drives stable, thus I’m dropping my want to have a ton of external USB drives. The bad part of that? In order for me to hook the two 300 GB drives I have to a single computer, the only open spot is on the RAID slot, and it wants to stripe them together! That’s fine, except I have to clear two nearly full hard drives off. TONS OF BURNING! I’ve begun, and it will get done, but it’ll be hell getting there.
• Watched a couple of movies with Danielle too and spend some time with our friends Cindy and Scott up here playing Euchre. Me and Scott have extremely similar competitive and loony personalities, which means along with beating Danielle and Cindy at euchre, we prolly drove them to the brink of insanity too!

Maybe more later, I may post why I think the Nintendo Virtual Console (as the XBox Live Arcade has been) will be a massive success.

So you’re looking for a reality check, here’s the article to show it … prominent arts activist, has been running the local arts council for the last 22 years, makes one wrong step after driving an older woman home from an event, falls 5 stories, dead just like that. Danielle’s dad works at where this happened and was on the scene to try and help, and I can only imagine how much of a scary thing to see what he had to must be.

Needless to say, that’s not much of a way to start an Easter Sunday. The rest was fine, travelled up to Bowling Green to see Danielle’s side of the family, and that went alright, but more then anything now, even on Monday morning, I’m just tired!

More later on when I wake up more.

Two quickies that I had on my plate:

I just tried Brain Age for the first time, and I am not proud to admit that it registered my DS Brain Age at 50! Guess I have some training to do!

Also, found a link to someone who modded their PSP to make it more palatable for fighting games and homebrew efforts, important especially with all of the Capcom re-releases coming out. You can look at the mod here.

So most of you know, and some of you have seen, the 10 x 10 storage bin that houses most of my gaming stuff; the things I have referred to as “a whole lot of stuff” on many occasions. But in the month that I have been here, I haven’t really had a reason to go into the storage bin and start digging for something I needed … until Sunday night.

I decided that it was time to get my video game systems hooked up. The operation needed a couple of system specific cords, but more then anything, it needed my old Mad Catz Component video switch. The logic was simple: I could install these systems one by one, but it makes sense to do all the wiring right now, so that should I need to switch out a system, it will be a very painless process. When I went to the storage bin on Sunday, I dug for about 20 minutes, couldn’t find the cable.

So when I went last night (Tuesday), I was determined to find this and any other cable I might need. After going through every box I had in there, burying myself within the tubs in the storage bin, it took me going through a tub buried in the back of the storage bin a second time to find the component switch. Along the way, I found a lot of tubs containing games, cables, and other items that I knew I would use first, so those did get moved to the front, and I also found some nick-nack stuff that I could use pretty soon too (like my blue Dreamcast!)

So it ended up being for more then just the need to get this cable, but boy it wasn’t easy!