The ScooterBlog

Microsoft seems to be getting on the ball finally with fixing up some of the nagging bugs and performance issues that are in Vista. Through those tubes we love to call the InterWeb, they have released two patches currently in the “hotfix” stage that are called Performance and Reliability Packs.

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One of the big things I’ve been dealing with at work over the past couple of weeks is installation issues for Adobe Creative Suite 3. It’s a very cool and powerful set of applications for graphics, publishing, and other functions. However, it is by far one of the slowest and at times, most painful installations I have had to deal with. Past the jump. I’ll go over a couple of blog sites and tools that have helped me in the pursuit to fix the problem.

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Nothing like finding a way for Microsoft to give you free stuff, even if takes forever and a day to do it. Courtesy of Betanews, Microsoft’s new secret weapon to increase their success in the search engine wars is to rig them, with casual games.

The idea is simple … you play casual word games at the Live Search Club and get tickets, and every time you complete one of the words or questions, Live Search fires off a search in the bottom half of the window. Why would people put up with this? Why prizes, of course! All the way up to a Microsoft Zune when you amass 25,000 points. It’ll take awhile, considering that Clucktionary, their most popular word game, gives 20 points for a game that lasts about 2-3 minutes (if you bring scrabble-style help to the table).

Nonetheless, it’s nice mindless fun, and hey, maybe if I get bored, I’ll get that Microsoft Zune after all.

It’s 2007, nearly 20 years since I first owned a Nintendo of my own, and a good 22 years into my gaming life, which began on the wonderful Commodore 64, a hand-me-down from my brother. It goes without saying that I’ve played a lot of games … and forgotten about quite a few of them too.

Every now and then, I would try and think up a certain game that I used to play on the Commodore. It was a jungle style game, racing to get to the end of a level with the most points. I never played it beyond the third or fourth level, but then again, I was six at the time!

Seeing a couple of other Commodore games led me to look for this game again, and for the first time in a few years, I found it this time. Floyd Of The Jungle … and heck, when I was asking my co-worker Jonathon about it when we were talking about, he said he’d played it too!

So, I ask everyone reading … what’s the best game you couldn’t remember the name of as you got older?

So I went a little nuts with LifeHacker! Here’s the favorites for today.

• Their How To section has some pretty good tips and tricks today, including how to setup your own computer-to-computer wireless network (and securely too, which is just as important when you’re sharing your own connection in a pinch and don’t want others prying in), optimizing videos in YouTube (important due to the loss of quality you can get with Flash Video Format), and reclaiming your name online, should you not want your MySpace page to be the first thing people see!
• Their iTunes category is loaded up all the time, especially with tips on how to stream your music anywhere you want, because even though Apple doesn’t like your iTunes streaming everywhere, it is awful handy to have.
• Did we mention their Mashup section is pretty good too? The top listing here is one which lets you track the approximate location of a phone number using both the area code and exchange. Grant you, this isn’t as useful now as it was, seeing that phone numbers go everywhere and are as much virtual as everything else is now, but for home lines, it has uses.
• My three other current categories of choice that will net you TONS of stuff to look at? Their Top 10 Lists, their Optimizations, and Featured Downloads. One could keep immersed for weeks with just a couple of days worth of these things.
  (I specifically found the Featured Downloads section through finding a MP3 to iPod Audiobook Converter app, which might just be something that spurs on another entry!)

I was lucky enough recently to get a chance to try GrandCentral, which is now a Google property (seems like anything worth anything on the ‘net ends up in their hands at this point). The purpose of the app is very simple … it gives you a phone number that acts as a convergence of all of your other phone numbers (actually, a total of six, if you have that many). You use your same phones with this new number, and you have full control of everything.

On the surface, this seems like a solution waiting for a problem. What’s wrong with your current numbers, feature laden as they likely are? Well, they change. You may be trying a new service out (Skype or some other VoIP), or you work many different places (or live many different places). GrandCentral gives you that one constant number while every other number around you can change. This of course was a bigger deal before the days of phone number portability, but as the process isn’t foolproof (or necessarily easy) to do now, this provides a nice solution.

Having a constant phone number is really only the added benefit of what this does. The other nice thing? Complete call routing. When someone calls you, you can program the site to call as many (or as few) of your numbers as you would like, and it’s configurable all the way down to individual callers. The same goes for voice mail (which is all visual, like the iPhone) … you can have special messages for certain callers, groups, or one universal message as a whole. Oh yes, and when the telemarketers call? It has a spam filter which you can enable which will act like your line has been disconnected, you can send those callers straight to voicemail, or just filter their calls. In other words, you have full power of your phone, not the other way around.

You can even record phone calls (all legal … it plays a message noting this fact when you hit the button), great for customer service fiascos, and can also use a feature that allows you to switch phones (as in, different phone-number phones) mid call! If you get home and want to turn the cell phone off, you can easily swap the call to your home phone, problem solved.

The other pro for some cell phone users? When you use GrandCentral to make a call, since their service calls you, it’s always an incoming call (from your number). If you get free incoming calls, it’s a way to cut your cell phone usage WAY down. Have a MyFaves type setup? Add your GrandCentral number, get every call you make with it for free!

Surely, there must be a disadvantage somewhere, and there is. It takes a lot of setup, and someone who is not computer savvy is going to struggle with getting this setup. GrandCentral has great features that anyone can use, but it’s definitely positioned to the hardcore user who wants full control of everything phone wise. Thus, I love it, some people I know wouldn’t.

I’m usually not in the position to tell anyone I told you so … but, I told you so!

It is now official that the “price cut” was nothing more than a used-car or discount-appliance store type inventory closeout sale, so that they can release their new version of the system and get back to business as usual. Don’t get me wrong, you can view the inclusion of one game and 20 more gigs of Linux room storage space, even with the exclusion of the hardware PS2 chip (which I’m on the record as strongly disliking) would be a better deal, but in the end I buy the perception of it being a news grab and sniveling move to be reality.

It’s evident from Jack Tretton’s comments and interviews that he views the PS3 still as the best of the best, and that we should all just know that, get the system, and keep on drinking the Kool-Aid. That kind of delusion seems best at play here when in the end, the fanboys can scream “price cut”, and the realists can realize that it’s far from it. That kind of delusion will allow Sony to continue to scream towards third in a three-system race without them even realizing it (until it’s too late).

Wake me up when the August and September sales numbers come out and Sony loses their comparability with a 360 Elite system once again. I sense their July gains will be very short lived.

And Microsoft, listen up! I’m calling it right now. You will lower the 360 price on or around November 1st, and should you do that with your new cooler chips and more efficient manufacturing process, it’ll be as good as firing a sawed-off shotgun right into the heart of Sony’s chances to catch up.

Update (7 PM): A good read of the full interview of David Reeves, the Sony Europe exec who let this out of the bag, shows that in truth, there is not drastic difference between the end result of the new packages in Europe and North America, except the new package in Europe was never brought out as a price cut

Europe’s new package? The system, two games and an extra SIXAXIS for 500 Euros. It’s important to also know that they have always has the “software emulation” version of PS2’s compatibility, so what they were given, and advertised to by Sony is a value-added, not a price cut. Of course the older version of the system will drop in price, but will do so at the discretion of retailer. That’s not drastically different than North America, except that Sony isn’t trying to tell you it’s a price cut, they’re giving you an honest take as to what it is and letting the market do the rest. Bagder said that the interview in the comments was skitophrenic … maybe instead it exposes Jack Tretton’s comments as such.

In the same way that I come into a Sony press conference with admitted preconceived notions that I need to be more impressed, I come into a Nintendo press conference knowing I’ll see things that I want and must have, and will thus like them a bit more. The general opinion of the press on this conference was that it had shortcomings: not a lot of third party stuff, not a lot of new IP’s. But, Nintendo does what it does well, and this was no exception. Without fail, I want almost all of the games they mentioned in this meeting:

• Super Mario Galaxy will be the true coming out party for Mario on a system, as it should be, and will undoubtedly be the best Mario platformer since the Nintendo 64. Grant you, when Super Mario Sunshine is the only competition, it better be solid.
• Wiifit looks like the kind of program that I’d be leary to pay $50 for because it could be well used for a week and then sit, but I still want it because I need it, anything to help getting in shape (and leverage stuff I have in a cool way) has value.
• They really can’t start their online service soon enough. Madden 08 online, Mario Kart, and the new Medal Of Honor game’s online systems (Pokemon too!) need this for the system to continue to thrive.
• Nintendo’s official steering wheel and zapper? Sure, I’ll bite and try them, but they best be well supported. If Nintendo’s making an official wheel, a lot of racing games should have motion controls to use it. Those initial games taking advantage (Medal Of Honor and Mario Kart) are must buys, I hope to see plenty more titles making sure that these hunks of plastic don’t sit in my storage bin.
• Metroid Prime 3 and Super Smash Bros. Brawl … nothing more needs to be said, buy them now!
• The Wii’s wireless guitar also brings up an interesting thought. What system will I buy Guitar Hero 3 for? I’m still leaning towards a 360 version for achievements and better online support, but a wireless guitar does tempt one to change.

Per above, all of these things in my mind are seen with the glass half full, and with the knowledge that they don’t need to do anything with the hardware to ensure continued success. Of course that’s biased, that’s why this is a blog, not a news site!

The DS Lite is still rocking the house, the Wii can’t stay on shelves, so there’s no reason to mess with good things there. As long as the three dreaded words for Nintendo don’t fade away (third party support), these systems will continue to be just fine, and my status as a card carrying Nintendo fanboy will continue.

(I know, I know. Nintendo’s was before this, I’ll get that one up today too. This Sony one will be short.)

With Sony’s big chip already played in the form of a $100 price drop / SKU change, what was left for this news conference was all about software and Playstation Home, their bastard love child of XBox Live and Second Life. The prevailing thought for me throughout everything they announced was “that’s nice.” Certainly not that I disliked what I saw, but nothing there came off as the killer app that will cause me to stop saving for the other gaming stuff I want to get a PS3.

• Home does look very nice, but it better when they’ve stole the best parts of Twitter, Myspace, and Second Life, and a little bit of the Live network to boot! For me, it’s all stuff I don’t need though, so it will be another toy to mess with in the PS3 framework, not the central start of my gaming day.
• All of the software looks good, but per above, the killer app isn’t there yet. Killzone 2 looks impressive, but Halo 3 is going to hit the market and could well drown it before it has a chance to succeed. Their exclusives from the predictable series are nice, but other than Metal Gear Solid 4, the only killer exclusive they have left, I can take or leave all of it. The one game that could be a killer app is Gran Turismo 5. Even though I love Forza 2, a well done Polyphony Studios game could blow it out of the water, and be the game that would put the PS3’s 1080p capabilities on the map. But, knowing the studio, we may not see the finished product until 2009.
• Reduced size and weight PSP? New battery? That’s nice. Mine has the open firmware on it and I can play old PSX games on it and emulators! The new design system may be as much to keep the hackers out as it is to give the PSP a new life. Wake me up when Gran Turismo Mobile gets released, cause it’s been promised for three and a half years now.
• Bagder’s take on the NCSoft announcement is right on, but the assumption that only the Playstation Network can only handle an NCSoft game is ridiculous. While Microsoft’s Live is a more closed platform, they’ve proven with Final Fantasy XI that they will release a game that goes out of the box of a normal Live experience and can be driven as much by the hard drive as it is a DVD disc. If this agreement is in place, it should have been a huge deal for Sony instead of an afterthought annoucement. It makes ya wonder.

So true, I come into the Sony announcement without a PS3, with a PSP that’s more for homebrew than Sony stuff, and they would have needed to just “wow” me to make me save for a PS3 right now, and that didn’t happen. Let’s push together for that $399 price drop a little early, shall we?!

Today I propose a new name for the new E3 … Min-E3 is nice, but in the tradition of Nintendo, I’m going to refer to it as “E3 Lite”. It’s got a ring to it.

Anyways, Microsoft’s press conference was last night. There’s no point in doing a huge re-hash of everything covered; Joystiq, Kotaku, and even Bagder’s rundown do a fine enough job of giving you the news. My takes on everything would be:

• Not shocked about the new controller colors … but not fishing for ‘em either. I got my four pads back in the “white only” days of 360 pads, and I’m not desperate to get new opaque colors to set them apart. Now if they had that cool translucency thing going on like the XBox ones did, then we’re on to something! But yeah, not a need, considering my last 2 new ones cost less total ($40) than a new one ($50) now.
• Gears and Viva Pinata on the PC look like great idea. Wouldn’t Viva Pinata make a great game for PC / 360 combined multiplayer? Seems like a perfect fit. The level editor in Gears could be a lot of fun too (should I ever have a capable system!)
• The Messenger Kit is $30 I surely don’t need to spend, but totally will! I might use it as much as I use my Vista Controller Box (zero), but yet I still must have it. Curse this gadget addiction!
• The XBLA content will continue to be cool things that I’m going to enjoy playing, and I’m so glad they are continuing to support this.
• The Halo System SKU will also be fun for the hardcore players, but it will have a better effect for me and a lot of friends. It will drive the cost of used 360 systems down because I would expect a large percentage of the people buying that system to be previous 360 owners. I hope it’s Elite hardware, and it better come with the drive transfer cable.
• The games are all exciting, but at the same time, they’re games I see myself wanting and never finishing, longer lasting RPG’s that my attention span sometimes doesn’t agree with. Still, RPG’s on the 360 is huge.

If the price drop doesn’t end up happening at E3, and it’s looking like it won’t, my bet is on the price drop to hit on November 1st, just in time for the holiday season and in time to give 360 a boost which could knock out Sony, and give it some more legs against the Wii.

Those are the thoughts. Nintendo and Sony coming later. The Sony conference has started as of when I finish this entry (2:40 PM)