Not dead yet, not buying Halo 3 yet either
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I’ve been busy during the day posting at the Web Community Forum blog and inhabiting the virtual halls of our Facebook group (and others like it), but my normal personal blogging time trying to fix an unbelievably screwed up Media Center (I think the HDD I bought has gone bad…which is bad - that includes about a month’s worth of time ripping DVDs to an easy-to-use digital menu).
This is all a result of The Big Move, which has been going on for the past week and a half, during which time I’ve transplanted most of my junk valuable property to my new house in Seattle.
That also means I no longer have an Xbox 360, and moving in to new places is always expensive, so that means not buying one (or, consequently, Halo 3) for at least a little while.
In any case - to all of you who are picking up your copies in the next few hours: enjoy. And invite me over to play ;)
I’ll try to get back to blogging regularly pretty soon.
You can add non-Steam games to the steam game launcher!
This is sweet. 90% of the time I go to play a game, I’m doing it through the Steam launcher, not through the Start Menu or even the Vista games folder (good idea, but still a bit clunky).
It turns out that you can add non-steam games (I just added EVE Online, C&C General, and Dawn of War - one of which technically I could have bought on Steam) to the games list. If you’re in your small games window and you click on the Games menu, you’ll see the option to “Add a non-Steam game to My Games list…”
And if you click on that, it brings up a self-populating list of what looks like every executable that Steam can find:
Is there any way to activate an iphone without buying a plan?
I want to buy an iphone and unlock it with the free unlock software, but I don’t want to have to buy a plan just to avoid buying a plan…
does anyone know if there’s a way around this?
has anyone I know successfully performed a software unlock of their iphone?
[Update: i found ways to activate the phone. Now I’m just a little confused about the process.
As best I can tell, I’ll need to:
1. Buy an iPhone
2. Download the activate software
3. Use it to Jailbreak my iPhone
4. Use it to perform the activation
5. Download the Unlock GUI software
6. Copy it over to the iPhone
7. Run the Unlock program
8. Un-Jailbreak my iPhone
and then I’m good to go? I feel like I’m missing some of the technical steps here. For example, none of the “unlock your iphone” tutorials say that you have to jailbreak your iPhone, but jailbreaking it (i think) means being able to write to it.
So should I un-jailbreak after activating it? Probably. Its in those directions. Guh. I wish someone would write a tutorial that is unmistakeably easy.
]
[[ If you’ve software unlocked your iPhone, please ping me: j at jason-preston.com. I’d love to have some guidance on the process! ]]
Downloading EVE Online trial
Am I making a huge mistake? I’ve heard from many people that EVE is one of the more life-consuming MMORPGs, and, after all, it was only a year ago that I finally gave up on World of Warcraft.
I should probably just reinstall Freelancer.
But I have a huge, and I mean HUGE soft spot for games that revolve around spaceships. They just look so cool. I remember logging hours and hours of Escape Velocity, then Privateer, then Privateer 2, and then Freelancer.
This is probably a mistake. But it looks so cool!
Phishing on Xbox Live
So according to Kotaku, which I finally had enough time to browse through today, Microsoft has admitted that people are trying to steal info from gamers on Xbox Live.
I don’t use Xbox Live, because I’m a cheap bastard smart gamer and I like to play my games online for free, so what amuses me about this post is the commentary:
There’s only so much any company can do to protect customers who are willing to re-enter personal info at the drop of a hat, but for all the sacrifices we make on the closed LIVE platform, it’s supposed to be an experience free from the everyday burdens of a PC.
I get the “idiot-proof” theory of making things. It does make a certain amount of sense to make sure that everyone, no matter how dumb they are or how little they know about the “conventional” way of working technology, can use it.
But on the other hand, people will always try to dupe them. So really, the more idiots you have on your network, the less secure it is. You with me?
Team Fortress 2 open beta on September 17th - just buy the Orange Box?
Valve pushed another press release to my inbox today about the pre-release of The Orange Box (read: available now).
September 11, 2007 -The Orange Box-featuring Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2, and Portal, as well as the complete Half-Life 2 experience to date-is now available for pre-purchase via Steam, a leading online platform for the distribution of PC games. Those who pre-purchase the PC edition via Steam before October 10th will save 10% off the $49.95 regular price and get exclusive access to the Team Fortress 2 beta.
As someone who already owns practically everything Valve has put out on Steam, though, I’m hoping that the $49.95 (even with 10% off) is the price for people who want HL2 as well (it’s almost certainly not).
Twitter in my sidebar
Over the past several months I’ve gone from not understanding and not wanting to use Twitter to finding it an essential part of my daily info-gathering and blog-fodder-finding. There’s a lot to like about Twitter.
I’m also signed up for Pownce, thanks to an invite from Tris, but I have yet to figure that service out, either. From what I hear all over the place, Pownce has a feature set that kicks Twitter’s ass, but (and I think I’ve said this before, but I don’t know where) it looks a bit too complicated at the moment.
I agree with Fred in his comment on his own blog:
pownce may be “killing” twitter in your eyes, but not in mine. I use both every day and I find pownce too complicated. the only thing i really use pownce for is sending big files to my friends and i use pando for that even more.
One of my favorite things about Twitter is that there is essentially one thing you can do: type a 140 character message to your friends. It’s hard to get lost doing that. There’s a bunch of icons in the sidebar that say who my friends are, and I can add anyone with one click when I am looking at their Twitter page.
So much posting today
Just in case anybody thinks I’m being lazy and just not blogging today, here’s a list of what’s flown from these fingers:
- Use Link Love to show people some link love
- Rodney Rumford Speaking at the Web Community Forum 2007
- Your dose of humor for the (yester)day
- Is anyone tracking their incoming Twitter links?
- Scratching my head about the Wal Mart group
- Twitter in my sidebar
…and of course, this post here. But that’s kind of like cheating, so I won’t count it. These are all excellent reads, so I suggest you click away ;)
Two of my favorite Terry Pratchett quotes
“The Duke had a mind that ticked like a clock and, like a clock, it regularly went cuckoo.”
“In the village of Razorback a cat gave birth to a two-headed kitten, but since Greebo, by dint of considerable effort, was every male ancestor for the last thirty generations this probably wasn’t all that portentous.”
American Express Tina Fey Commercial: actually funny
I’ve been watching the US Open coverage, and this is one of the commercials they’ve been playing all the time. For some reason, I can’t stop laughing at the spot 36 seconds in, where the guy goes “that makes sense.”
Happy Friday
It’s Friday and, at least in Seattle, it’s really sunny.
Happy Friday everyone.
Am I the only one who doesn’t care about Rock Band?
Harmonix recently announced that, in an appropriately rock-band themed move, they’re going on a country-wide tour with the game that everyone and their donkey is salivating over:
New York, NY – September 6, 2007 – Harmonix, the leading developer of music-based games, and MTV Games, a division of Viacom’s MTV Networks (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B), along with distribution partner Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS), announced today that Rock Band™ is hitting the road on a coast-to-coast tour to give consumers the chance to try the award winning game everyone is talking about before it comes out. In addition, budding musicians can choose to participate in a “Rock Off” audition for an opportunity to appear on MTV’s TRL. Two selected bands will participate in a live “Battle of the Bands,” with the top group being asked to open for one of rock’s biggest bands at the Rock Band launch concert this Holiday 2007.
Maybe it’s because I’m on a one-man crusade against the (re)-rise of console game prices, especially when most of that is going to offset the costs of idiotic marketing and packaging costs, and developers are starting to see additional revenue from advertisements (but drop the box price because the game is subsidized…oh no! never!)
iPod Touch: very tempting
As far as I can tell, there’s only one thing missing from the iPod Touch, and no, it’s not the ability to make phone calls.
It’s the ability to get online when there isn’t a wi-fi network.
It’s very slick, and it’s very cool, but if there’s a wi-fi network around, I’m going to use my laptop. I understand that you can’t just up and create an internet connection - you need a cell network for that. It makes me sad.
Aside from that, this iPod is amazingly sweet looking.
Game Library: Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin thoughts
As a quick and entirely unrelated side note, too many games have named sequels. It makes my post titles look awkward with two colons.
But on to Castlevania. I remember playing Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest (see, more colons!) on my trusty NES way back in the day. I’ve actually been tempted recently to pull it out and give it another whirl.
This newer DS title follows the classic side-scrolling, whip-toting, skeleton-bone-throwing format that made the older games so fun. My one real complaint, and it is kind of a big one, is that the control scheme is pretty clunky, and comes with no instructions.
Sure, the arrows take you in the right direction, and there’s no mistaking the jump button or the basic attack button, but there are some funky things going on with needed to tell your partner to stand in one place, or using some special summoning or lightning skill that just isn’t ever explained.
Everyone’s a (casual) gamer
I spotted a press release today that probably landed in at least 8-bazillion other people’s inboxes, talking about a study PopCap Games put together on the game playing habits of white-collar workers:
Among the 7,102 consumers who answered the survey, 40% were identified as “white collar” workers. With conservative estimates pegging the casual games market at over 200 million people, this representative sample suggests that as many as 80 million white collar workers play casual games. Of those white collar workers surveyed, nearly a quarter (24%) said they play “at work” – with fully 35% of CEOs, CFOs and other senior executives saying they play at work.
Now, if you’re interested in what a “casual” game is, you’d probably do better to read through this past month’s Round Table posts, including mine, about what exactly makes a game “casual” or “hardcore,” and if, or if so, why, anybody even gives a sh*&t about the distinction.
But I digress. The survey is interesting mostly because I don’t think it tells us anything we don’t already assume that we know. I’ve pasted some more stuff after the jump.
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