A little while ago, I got ODST thanks to  my awesome gaming BFF and it is pretty cool. I like playing as an ODST, and I certainly like seeing a different side of the UNSC. The game is darker, scarier, more intense, and even a little harder. The Campaign is a bit too short for my liking. Total Campaign playtime on normal was about 3 1/2 hours for one full run through. I’ve had quite a bit of fun though going back to get all the audio logs, the ‘naughty, naughty’ achievement and it’s counterpart, ‘Good Samaritan’ for deciding whether killing things that are new and different is good, or bad.

Firefight is also an amazing experience, and was definitely something different to add to the general halo experience.  Firefight seems like it can just go on for as long as you can last without losing all your lives, and therefore, the game. My first match of firefight, on lost platoon with 3 players lasted 3 hours! We actually ended up just screwing around in the end and losing all our lives, because we just didn’t want to keep going for fear that it would go on FOOOOREEEVVVEERRR!!!

I think one thing I noticed about ODST, isn’t actually about ODST itself. When I am playing ODST and switch back to playing Halo 3, It’s terribly hard to get used to being a Spartan again. I jump off buildings expecting to lose my shields, wonder where I’m gonna get a health pack, and forget how awesome my Battle Rifle is.

Overall, I really enjoy playing ODST and see myself going back to play it again and again in the future, because while it is halo, it’s completely different, with the same enjoyability. Awesome Game!

Scribblenauts is probably the most creative game I’ve played all year. Basically you are a boy named Maxwell who has to solve puzzles to collect ’starites’ and to do this you spawn objects by using an on screen keyboard or writing the objects name on the touch screen. So far there have been very few things I have entered that didn’t give me an object. Most of the objects appear to be usable, though I have found a few that you can’t really use. If you spawn a lasso, you can pick it up and “wrangle” a starite with it, which is cool. There are also quite a few internet ‘memes’ that can be spawned. I’m not going to tell you what they are, but I’m sure you can figure it out yourself.

One thing that I found completely interesting was spawnable character interactions. I spawned a ninja and a pirate and they fought. The ninja of course won because ninjas are much cooler than pirates. Ninja propaganda aside though, there are many other interactions like this. If you spawn a cop and a robber or a cop and a ‘bad guy’ the cop will kill the bad guy or the robber. If you spawn a vampire or a goth (the goth shows up as a vampire, much to my amusement) and a cheerleader (and possibly any other spawnable character) the vampire/goth will ‘eat’ the cheerleader, turning her all vampy like him. Some spawnable characters also interact with objects by themselves, given the right tools. If you give a fireman a fire hose and then spawn a fire in front of him, he will put it out. Or if you spawn a robber and a brick of gold in front of him the robber will steal it. If you then spawn another robber the second robber will kill the first robber and take the brick of gold from him. This of course leads to infinite amounts of amusement and I haven’t even started the game yet! This is great because the front screen (the start screen) is just one huge sandbox for you to play in. You can even change the scene and unlock more scenes by spawning objects.

The game play is fun, though some of the levels are a bit fiddly. Sometimes the most obvious way to solve the puzzle doesn’t work and you have to think of a new way, but thinking outside the box usually always works and gets you more ’style’ points which is great. Starting out in “The Gardens” the puzzles aren’t terribly hard, but even toward the end of The Gardens the puzzles start to get a big challenging. After doing the puzzles initially you can come back for a second try on advanced mode which requires you to solve the puzzle 3 times in a row without using an object you used before on the puzzle. This can be difficult and slightly tedious. However it can also be fun. On one of the last puzzles of the level I spent nearly an hour wracking my brain for new ways to do the same puzzle and once I figured it out (Brain Blast!) I was so satisfied with myself. Besides the puzzle mode, there is also an adventure mode, though to me it just seems like more of the same.  The differences between the two modes are negligible at best. Some might argue and say that they are definitely two different modes and the puzzles are completely different, but they really are still just puzzles. I would have liked to see more ‘run through a level and spawn things to fight bad guys and save the princess (or starite, as the case may be) to win the game’ type of thing and maybe I will later into the game, as I certainly haven’t finished it yet, but my hopes aren’t very high.

Overall though, the game is great. I love it and have already spent hours playing it (some of those hours spent not even starting the game, just playing around in sandbox mode) which is more than I spent on drawn to life all together. Scribblenauts has definitely won my heart.

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The next game in my game queue is Mini Ninjas DS. It was supposed to technically be played before Scribblenauts, but Scribblenauts line jumped straight into my ds when it came out and I just couldn’t tell it no.

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Sadly Edward Cullen is not spawnable.

I thought that I should talk more about my super awesome dell mini 10v now that I’ve had it for like a week.

There are certainly some upsides and some downsides to netbooks in general and some awesome and not so awesome things specific to this netbook. Let me first say that I love the thing. It is cute, pink, and even though it still remains nameless, we have definitely bonded in the past week. I’ve used it to blog, and work, surf the internet, watch videos on Hulu and Netflix, play games, listen to music, and even read a book or two! It has taken over the place of my Nokia n800 tablet, I don’t even use it anymore, and will be selling it soon actually (so if anyone wants a great condition (always had a screen protector on it) Nokia n800 with its accessories and box, an awesome leather case, and a bluetooth keyboard, for like $100 say it!)  which is sad news for my n800 but it will just have to learn to deal. I’m sure I’ll find it a good home.  Okay, now that all that’s out of the way, let me get a rundown of the specs of my 10v out here.

10.1″ Widescreen Display (1024×600)
Intel® Atom Processor® N270 (1.6GHz/533Mhz FSB/512K cache)
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950
1GB DDR2 SDRAM
160GB, 2.5inch, 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
Integrated 1.3M Pixel Webcam

It’s decently spec’d for a netbook. I will probably bump the ram up to 2 gigs myself later on to give it a little speed boost, but it really is okay. It’s good for what it does. Sometimes it is a little slow on certain things (those crazy Facebook games like Farmville make it sad) but other than that it is snappy for basic web browsing, and even writing a blog like I am doing with it currently.

It’s keyboard isn’t cramped like many people complain that netbooks are. I believe dell says it is 92% of the size of a normal (I assume by normal they mean a 15 inch?) laptop keyboard which is actually really great. The first 5 minutes of use on it were a bit tricky for me as I would hit a instead of s and the typical typos that you would expect when you are moving to a smaller keyboard but I quickly adjusted and it feels quite nice now. I certainly don’t feel cramped at all. Another cool thing about the keyboard of the Dell Mini 10v (and possibly other dell minis but I don’t know) is the Function keys. First the Fn button is in the right place, as I’ve heard it isn’t on some netbooks, but you don’t have to push it for the volume, brightness, print screen, etc. you actually have to push it to hit the F buttons (like F5 or F11) I’ve actually found this to be a really nice change because I definitely use the volume and brightness buttons quite a bit more than I do the F keys.

The trackpad is also interesting on this netbook in that it doesn’t have buttons separated from the pad like most netbooks and laptops do. The buttons are actually built into the trackpad. The Buttons are also touch sensitive like the rest of the pad. I understand some people don’t like this, but I really enjoy it because it is not only more aesthetically pleasing, but it feels great too. The trackpad also has multi-touch, gestures, and two finger scrolling, though I haven’t really gotten into any of that yet.

Most netbooks use an awkward resolution of 1024×600 (though some don’t, like the first HP mini and the Dell Mini 12) and this one is no exception. The resolution is awkward at best. It feels odd, and sometimes viewing certain webpages may look a little different. I have found that going full screen is the best choice when a website doesn’t seem viewable.

The 10v comes with a 3 cell battery which seems to last nearly 4 hours for me when I am doing normal web browsing activities and around 2 hours when I am watching a movie (Hulu ftw) full-screen. This isn’t bad at all. If you don’t like that though you can get an upgraded battery from dell, though it lifts the notebook up a bit, and make it last a bit more than 6 hours.  Some say it is easier to type with the 6 cell battery because of the angle that it puts the keyboard at. It’s worth a look, I guess.

One of my favorite…features, though I’m not sure it can really be called a feature is the power supply. You’ve seen a normal notebook power supply with its long rectangular piece that you connect a second cable to. They aren’t terribly portable. They take up too much room. They are hard to wrap up and stick into a bag. The power supply that comes with the Dell mini 10v is awesome! It’s just one piece and is more like a larger cell phone  adapter than a normal laptop power supply.  They also come with a cord control thing on it (you know, little velcro strip you wrap around the cord and secure it to itself) for easy wrap up. Or at least mine did.

It’s a very quiet laptop also. It doesn’t have fans inside it at all. Instead it seems to just have a few extra ventilation holes. It does run a little warm at times. Especially when I am watching video.  It seems to only get warm under the right palm rest/right ctrl key area, though I’m not sure what is under there and don’t have any plans to take it apart in the near future. I will probably eventually find this out when I go to upgrade to 2 gigs of ram, because the upgrade requires quite a bit of work. At least it is upgradable though, unlike the Mini 10. It never gets overly warm though. I imagine the lack of fans also lends to its excellent battery life.

Overall, it’s a great little machine, and if you go through Dell Outlet you can get it for a great deal.

I need a bit of a breather first. I finally finished WITHIN THE BUDDING GROVE yesterday. The second half had much more in the way of a linear story. The first part, as I indicated previously, was somewhat less easily read as the narrator agonized and philosophized ad nauseum about the loss of his first major love (crush?), Miss Gilberte. Of course, Volume 2 ends with him falling hopelessly and helplessly in love with Miss Albertine….so there will be plenty of time and room for further agonizing, contretemps, and moral allegations with recriminations. Life is good. Actually, I thoroughly enjoyed (let’s just call it “2″) BUDDING GROVE. Again, his writing is lyrical and, yes, precise despite the verbosity. Such a philosopher on the vicissitudes of day to day existence.

I was in Santa Fe again this week. Guess what the Starbucks there had? You guessed it–Madelines. Le bonheur vivre. As you may or may not know, dear reader, the impetus for the narrator in Vol. 1 to begin his “remembrance of things past” is biting into a madeline which stirs the many memories of eating one as a child. This little patisserie is forever linked with Proust’s great novel.

So what to read next? Being toward the end of my vacation, it’ll probably be something light… I did purchase a very small “illustrated” volume on Proust’s life at the Borders in Santa Fe to peruse in my spare time…. Au revoir for now.

I went to MacWorld 2008 yesterday (Wednesday). This was my first time at any Mac event so it was an interesting experience.
First off, I did get the chance to handle the MacBook Air and I am not too impressed with it, and here are my thoughts.

1) There are no firewire ports.
2) There is no Network Plug.
3) The battery is built in.
4) The missing optical drive is just not cool.

I think it’s important to have some firewire ports for certain reasons. First, since the hard drive is obviously built in with no easy access to it, having the MacBook Air will make data recovery situations virtually impossible. I have worked in the data recovery business and I think not having any easy / exclusive access to the hard drive is a bad idea. Also, it eliminates remote reinstallation of the OS through firewire which again I think is a bad idea. I think that having a firewire port for failsafe type operations is extremely important in case things go south with the Notebook.

Not having a network plus I think is something bad waiting to happen. For example, software installation relies on the Wireless card. What if the wireless card goes sour? You would not only be looking at a notebook that would be internet-less but also a laptop that can not have software installed on it. That would suck if the laptop is out of warranty, you just purchased your new Adobe Suite and the card burns out. Bad combo. With laptop network connectivity, you should always have 2 ways of getting into the laptop.

The battery being built in is just bad. There have been many people who have experienced the issue where the laptop freezes and the power button does not work. Detaching the laptop battery and reattaching it gives the laptop a good cold reboot to resolve the issue. Since the battery is built in, how are you gonna do a hardware reset if the laptop has a little glitch. Not good.

The missing optical drive is just a way of apple saying, “Our product is cool, especially without an optical drive”. Sure they have the remote installation of software using a different computer, but that’s just a jenky way of getting around it. Apple tries to make having a missing optical drive look cool but fail miserably. What if you want to burn a CD? What if a client has all their reports on a CD? Especially with the price tag attached to this laptop.

I wish I had more than a few hours to explore all the booths in great detail, but we did have to skim through both the South Hall and the West Hall. Either way, I look forward to next year and dedicating more time into the Expo.

I never considered myself to be a MySQL buff. In fact I don’t think I really am a SQL buff of any sort. when trying to first learn SQL about 4 years ago, I don’t think I lasted a week before I gave up considering MySQL to be extremely boring. Trust me … it is. However the power behind it is amazing. It’s like this…

Drinking water is boring. Water tastes boring. Water is boring. But when you get a lot of it, it’s really powerful and can’t be ignored. SQL is like that. It’s rather boring on the surface, but if you can harness the power of it and use it, then it can be an amazing tool, useful and something that can just be the best thing since sliced bread.

A coworker and I were working on a SQL project we started a couple weeks ago. It was amazing the progress a co-worker and I completed with some SQL queries that he came up with that resulted from a ‘how do you do this’ question. He was working on importing data into SQL from a text file. During that process, we learned what and what not to do for an import of data.

For Example, Did you know that if you perform a ‘Load Data’ query, SQL will import data. No matter what it is. As a dummy subject, I imported ‘notepad.exe’ into my SQL database. Yes, it does import, and no it’s not pretty. All this gook went into the database and god knows why SQL doesn’t check to see if it’s correct. I’m under the assumption that it just assumes you know what you are doing. Well apparently it assumes I like importing ‘.exe’ files into databases randomly.

The support file for data imports on the MySQL page is really not too helpful. It mentions seperating data by ‘tabs’ which in turn doesn’t work. We of course put tabs between the data sets. However, Instead of seperating the data into their appropriate fields, MySQL put all the imported data into one field set. I can’t tell whether the documentation people are not keeping up with the programmers or the programms just can’t tell which ass their heads are in, but I don’t think the instructions they gave us worked.

Through bad imported data and learning processes, my time working on MySQL at the hospital has been very educational. I have a good grasp on how MySQL works and how data flows through databases on it. I may not remember the queries by heart offhand, but working on this project definately gave me a good foothold on it. If it hadn’t been for me trying to relearn it at the hospital, I don’t think I would fully acknowledge it’s capabilities.

Here’s what I am trying to do…
I am trying to find the resources necessary to start a Wiki and do this through an MS Windows platform. the problem is, that information on setting up a Wiki through a Windows platform isn’t readily available, let alone helpful in any direction. The resources to start a Wiki appear to be diluted. There are many projects and different types of wiki software out there, but there really isn’t a guide to help you get started on a Wiki project. the information just isn’t available. Especially if you want to learn more about it at home.

I think the main difficulties are finding the resources to make it easy in a Windows platform to any end type user. I’ve learned of many websites that offer wiki hosting. Obviously they are paid services, however I don’t think this route is the most effective. Sure it can solve any situation given that you can throw money at it, however what if you want to try this at home? I, myself am a do-it-yourself type of guy and a guide really isn’t available. However the direction I am approaching this isn’t the standard norm, but very overlooked either way. Who wants to host a Wiki from Windows? Well, I do. The resources I have seen are very Linux based resources and quite frankly, I am not going to setup another Linux box just to test out a Wiki.

I have 2 computers that are readily used at home. My main computer has Windows Vista, and my laptop has Ubuntu Linux 6.10. On the Ubuntu, i’ve already dedicated the box to learning more about Linux and Ruby on Rails programming. I even installed MythTV on it (which I shouldn’t have). I want my Linux box to be a learning experience for programming and Linux. Not for Hosting Wikis. Hence, there is my Windows box which I do a blunt majority of the work needed for anything outside of playing. It hosted a BBS, it downloads all my big Linux distros, it’s a media center for recording TV shows, it’s a server for Music and Movies. It’s the everything box. I want to host a Wiki from it for testing since it has more firepower for this sort of job.

The more recent resources (and most promising lead so far) in starting a Wiki is at this site…
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wiki_Science:How_to_start_a_Wiki

I will have to research it further, but the first hours of searching on information have been crap so far. As soon as more information is readily availabe, I will post it and hopefully my stumbling blocks so far can be made into building blocks to help others along…

Trade your cable for Tunes & Netflix

I just recently read an article (link above) where a blogger traded his cable (being Comcast) in for iTunes and Netflix. The effect saving him $300 a year. The reason was, the shows he actually watches was on iTunes that being only a couple of shows – available for $2 each and whatever movies he wishes (Netflix subscription). I think this is a great idea for those who are really picky in what they watch and granted it’s on the iTunes store available for download. However, I think this only works for certain people, not everyone is apt to this general practice. One reason being is there are many shows that are NOT available on iTunes. Another reason is, that services (like Comcast) have on-demand capabilities that allow certain programming to become available.

Services like iTunes is great because they offer shows may have been the shows your missed the night before. There are even shows that have full downloads available free on their website, ie: ABC.com. There are many shows that are not available on iTunes (example, Mythbusters shown in Discovery) that you would have to download via bittorrent or any other illegal means. The legitamite reason for going to iTunes in the first place to to become legitimate, and second to have availability. However, if there are shows that are not available, you may be tempted to go the illegal route and find the bittorrents of the programming you missed and by-pass the buying all together. Esentially, you end up going free anyway, cancelling out the iTunes / purchasing all together. Bummer for the industry.

Secondly, you have services like Comcast that offer on-demand services. Programming that is free (including movies) that are avaialable. All you need is one of their digital boxes. Myself (for example), I have Comcast with basic cable. I also have their digital box (I believe it’s $5/month extra) with basic cable (that being $14 a month). If I am paying $20 a month (rounded up) x 12 = $240 a year. This also gives me the capability of using that for movies that I want to see and especially gives me the children’s programming that my 2 kids watch. They love the PBSKids stuff and anything else they can watch. The on-demand programming effectly gives me this type of programming available with their basic service. I also do not have a Netflix account either so I don’t even have that bill. I may not know what the Netflix monthly service usually costs, but I know it doesn’t match my $240 a year service.

All together, I think the model described in the link only applys to certain people. People with kids like myself don’t apply because they tune into different types of programming and in effect negates the need for movies and other downloadable iTunes programming.

My friend Ben and I got into this conversation. We were talking about the new Mac announcement set for Feb. 20th. I told him about the possible rumors set abound with Leopard, iLife ‘07, the 8-core Mac’s and such.

Then he mentioned the oddest thing which I dared not ask in detail because that would be a conversation and a half. He then told me that if I could piece together a laptop from scratch, then he would give Windows (Vista) a positive thought. It really baffled me as to why I would piece together a laptop from scratch. Even Mac computers aren’t pieced together from scratch. They’re all manufactured (OEM) from Apple, not companies like Dell, HP, etc. I will ask him about the details about it later. Either way, I told him that my next laptop would not be a PC but instead a Mac.

My reasoning behind it is because I can not only have the Mac OS on it, but I can load Linux and Windows (respectably). A little hard core to have 3 OS’ on a laptop, but it’s something i’m interested in doing. Having an 8-core Mac to play on.. is well.. like having an ant killed with a sledgehammer. Who wouldn’t want that sort of power available. It definately would not become obsolete in the new few years, but it seems that hardware is caught up to their software predicessors.

Ben may be an Apple buff, but Apple does know where to put their money where their mouth is. I don’t know, I guess I need to be diversed. I haven’t really played with a Mac, just Windows and Linux. Don’t get me wrong, I can get around in a Mac, but it’s something that I definately need to get my feet wet in.

Would I use Vista when it’s released. Well, you won’t catch me in the Vista line. I’m already using Vista Ultimate (RC2–maybe..) but i’m not eager to rush out to get an OS that is a few hundred bucks. Yes, you can get OEM version on ebay but i’m not too excited to get out there yet. I’ll wait, my Vista is just fine the way it is. Same goes with Linux on my laptop (although the flash doesn’t work too well on Linux, but that’s a known issue in the Linux community).