Where is Waldo

The New Xbox Live

Nov 19, 2008 Geek, Reviews, Software, Xbox 360 Leave a comment

Intro:

Lo and behold it’s finally happened. Today Microsoft released their Xbox console update. Many changes have occurred, including a complete redesign of the dashboard, new features and integrations, pretty new colors and animations, and even Sims-like avatars.   It has me very excited as I’ve only had a handful of time to play around with it, but I’ve also photographically documented the setup process as well as some of the new features which I’d like to share.

The setup:

The setup was quite simple with easy instructions that one wouldn’t find out of the ordinary.  After starting my Xbox console and connecting to Xbox Live, I was prompted to download a “New console update” This took maybe a minute or two and then my console restarted. After powering back up, I was greeted with a screen informing me that the update was being applied and that it may take approximately 7 minutes to complete.  After waiting the 7 minutes, maybe 8 or 9, I was then prompted with a screen welcoming me to my “new Xbox experience” and for me to Press A to continue.

After pressing A to continue, the console restarted once again.  This time when it started I was visually stimulated with bright new colors and sounds… Animations of cars and buildings that looked as if they were sprouting some kind of greenery. After all the excitement stopped it was down to business. Now it was time to sign into my profile and to read through the massive TOS and to, if i so desired, accept. Yeah right!  *presses A.*

Avatar Creation:

I’m always one to never expect things, and this is exactly why. Following the TOS i was greeted with many animate Sims-like cartoon people.  I was wondering why this was happening. I had the halo 3 game in, and I’m being confronted by this - wait… what?  I’m sure it was at this point my head was a slight tilt and  I was displaying the ’stupid dog’ look.

Diversity is always good, as they included several different male and female characters varying different skin tones and styles. There was some particular funny one to me… including 3 of my personal default favorites... Keanu Reeves wearing a monkey shirt. Some kind of ‘Afro-dome Asian’ wearing a monkey shirt, and let’s not forget everyone’s favorite - - - The expected Emo style….wearing a monkey shirt.

I’ve never been one to be too particular in such things… But I did find it to be a relief as Microsoft has gracefully allowed you the ability to customize and change almost every aspect of your avatar. They include all the anatomic face stylings, hair, clothes, shoes, hats, glasses, tops, bottoms. After fumbling through all the different options I finally chose which design best suited me. I also saw an option to ‘upload gamer picture.’ But I’m not really apt to that. But I suspect you could upload something other than your true photo.

The Dashboard:

The Dashboard has had a complete design overhaul and has integrated several new features.  And I’m sure everyone heard speculations of Netflix being integrated into Xbox… Well Tada!! It’s very true.  There’s a big NetFlix picture, and by clicking on that you’re then prompted to download a free ‘file’ which allows you to then purchase standard definition - 420p, or high definition.  As a test it allowed me to preview Iron Man and it appeared to be of good quality. I unfortunately don’t have a High Definition television, so I can’t really elaborate too much about quality.

Conclusion:

All in all I’m still taking everything in. As you can see Microsoft has made very drastic changes to every aspect of Xbox live.  I at this point am not really sure what I like and dislike and I’m sure it’ll take quite some time to get used to all these changes.  I do, however, look forward to experimenting and experiencing these changes. So, Xbox gamers - Game on… Game on…

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Cell Phone text messaging is such a rip off

Sep 19, 2008 Geek, Information, New Experiences, Personal, Rants 1 Comment

People have always had a keen interest on deals and not so great deals.  You used to see the popular news skit “Fleecing of America” on the nightly news. Now sadly you don’t really see that skit anymore, as pretty much everyone is being fleeced.

Today I got my cellphone bill expecting just cut them another a check and be done with it. Bills are never really a pleasurable thing for me, it’s just something you have to do. But when I sat down to make out the check I then realized the bill was just under $40 higher than it is usually.  This freaks me out as as my entire bill is right around the $40 mark.

I started to look through it and  and it wasn’t inflation… It was due to excessive text messaging.  How can simple SMS messages rack up $40 in extra charges?  My carrier, U.S Cellular which is a less known carrier, deems it acceptable to charge $.20 per text message after you exceed your ‘plan limit.’  I already pay  an extra $10 a month to have 750 text messages so this is just absurd.

Now what the cellphone companies don’t tell you is, this is the least stressful activity that can happen on their network.  Think of it as sending an email from your computer. If you write a simple “hello” message when you press send the message is successfully sent very fast.  But if you now attach, for example, a home movie and email it, then the transfer will take a lot longer to send.   Same applies with cellphone SMS.  SMS is intended for a quick way to say hi or whatnot.  My carrier/phone even caps the message length to 160 characters.  A 160 character sentence  would look like this:

This is what a one hundred and sixty long character sentence looks like. As you can see it’s not very much text at all. Do you think this is worth twenty cents?

To go even further in depth, one character = about 1byte of data. So the max I can send per text message is a 160 byte text message.  To put that into perspective, the scaled picture displayed in this post is 25884 bytes.  That equates to 161.775  SMS text messages.  Which is worth $32.36 shall you exceed your plan limit.

So why are they allowed to fleece us like this? It’s a continous trend in America to see how much money you can obtain with out putting forth so many resources.  I know that pretty much defines efficiency, but there has to get a line between being efficient and cheating.

Popularity: 24% [?]

Wordpress 2.6.2

Sep 8, 2008 Site News, Software, WordPress Leave a comment

Just a friendly reminder that Wordpress 2.6.2 has just been released. You can read the official announcement here.  If anyone hasn’t had a chance to check out the Wordpress Automatic Upgrade plugin, I highly suggest you have a look. Makes upgrading a no brainer.

Popularity: 24% [?]

Why Mens Lingerie should not exist.

Sep 2, 2008 Information, New Experiences, Rants, Uncategorized Leave a comment

Honestly I’ve often contemplated what I would look like stuffed into a tiny male thong… Always represented by a muscular hunk of burning love on all those adorable chick flicks, it would be  kind of amusing to see what the exact opposite would look like and to see how my better half would react. But sadly, I’m the exact opposite of this so called burning hunk of love.  So after having such an odd thought, I set off on the courageous voyage of researching Mens Lingerie. Holy crap, What have I done to myself.

Unfortunately  my eyes were not deceiving me.  I saw horrific items daintily  titled as “pouches” and “easy access” to even fishnets that were displayed  in a rainbow of colors.  The arranged garments varied from unique leaf coverings and straps, to nothing but a mere  thread. The men were smiling at me, but if you looked into their eyes you could easily see cries of agony as these demonic fabric castration devices from hell were bunched in places where nothing should ever be bunched.

So now I’m left with the thought of “What the hell man….” I haven’t been this repulsed in a very long time, and I know for a fact that if I could ever endure such torture and model something of this caliber, that I’m sure the poor recipient of my display would surely spork out their own eyes and beg for their life to be ended.

So wanting to play a little “haw haw” on my girlfriend, I’ve graciously thought against this idea of mine. Not only for her welfare but for my own. For some unknown reason she actually has some physical attraction to me, and I’d hate to scar her into remission.  So let me finalize by saying this:

Men:

Those of you who think you need one of these or actually think you look attractive.. You’re probably as wrong than as you ever will be in life.  You will NOT look appealing to anyone and you’ll torture your manhood in its entirety, and probably tarnish any relationship you had.

Ladies:

I know you just find this crap funny… but really it’s not. I’m left in the dark trying to figure out how you can encourage any man to flaunt around in one of these.  A lot would default to the rationality of “trying to spice things up.”  But I’m saying it’s your evil estrogenical witchcraft.  So stop it!

Popularity: 24% [?]

Comcast is going to step in it… Again.

Aug 28, 2008 Comcast, Computers, Geek, Information, Rants Leave a comment

It’s been brought to my attention that everyone’s favorite ISP, Comcast, has decided that being waist deep isn’t quite meeting their expectations.  They’ve some how seen fit to go ahead and submerse themselves even more by attempting to be even more controlling of their customers than previously thought.  Per Comcast announcement which you can visit here, Come October 1, 2008 they will implement a 250gb monthly transfer cap on all the residential customers.

So what does this mean for you, me, and the rest of the Comcast subscribers? Hard telling..  But I have a sneaking suspicion that there’s been a lot of pressure on the Comcast execs to help curb the ‘piracy epidemic’ that all the media goons keep flaunting.  First the traffic throttling, and now the transfer limit.  Seeing as Comcast is the Nations largest ISP, my suspicion  seems logical.

Also considering I’m on a Comcast rant… I feel the need to point out a few things many people don’t know or realize about Comcast.  First of all their “PowerBoost” function is about as misleading as it gets.  The PowerBoost only works on the first few megs of a transfer then after that you’ll resume ‘normal speeds.’ And most of the time it rarely qualifies, as it only works on selected service ports like FTP and HTTP.  That’s why when you do an internet speed test it shows that it’s incredibly fast but in reality it’s not what you think it is.

Here’s a test I just completed. You’ll see my download and upload speeds are faster than ‘advertised’ as it was tested using HTTP.  Sending photographs using mIRC DCC, as an example, I’ve yet to ever achieve such speeds.

I also want to reiterate on the Comcast torrent throttling.. They’d throttle all torrent connections when you were seeding, thus making those nice linux distributions you downloaded via torrent impossible seed(or help redistribute.) They did this all without the users knowledge nor consent which has conveniently put them in the hot seat with the FCC.

So seeing that last time I posted a blog entry criticizing Comcast, that an actual Comcast employee registered on the blog and offered their ’support.’  So as a Comcast customer this is what I’ve always expected, and will continue to expect from you.

• Stop being so controlling. You’re charging a very premium price for a service that’s lacking any premium features. Adding a transfer cap as well as throttling our traffic is absurd and not what I would refer to as “premium.”  As long as you get your monthly bill then what we do, and how much we do of it is none of your business. It’s unfair to condemn half of the internet population over what some Jackass billionaire media goon thinks.

• You need to progress.. not regress.  Instead of implementing such features as the transfer cap and throttling torrent connections, why not be a leader… Increase the speed cap, make it available in more rural areas and lower prices.

Popularity: 33% [?]