Virtually Infamous Network

I Hate the Internet (still)

Allen M — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:41:00 +0000

Apparently the top searched term that links to my site is "I hate the internet", which links to this article about me hating the internet that I wrote a year and a half ago. I still hate the internet, for various reasons. And since I'd love to become the number one search result of people who seek others who hate the internet, here are the reasons.

Can we all stop being lemmings on YouTube? Ok, I get it, chocolate rain is kind of funny, but I don't need to watch your own personal rendition of it. Sure, digital cameras are cheap now, in fact, they're practically handing them out to you whenever you walk into Circuit City, but still, must you?

Here's a better idea. Now that you bought a camera in order to join this wonderful 2.0 craze of self produced content, do something to become the next internet sensation instead of riding on the coat-tail of someone else's brilliancy. Film yourself for 20 minutes and when you watch the replay, you'll realized you truly are uninteresting. Because if you were, you wouldn't be surfing for videos on YouTube and trying to create a Response Video.

I don't participate in this random adding of friends on MySpace and Facebook. I really do like the concept: keep in touch with old friends, be in the loop with what their doing, and never really have to talk to them. I don't see the point in doing that with people I met once. Stop adding me as your friend. I can't validate your existence for you, guy I met once at a college meet-and-greet.

No, i don't want a free i-pod, a free X-Box, free ringtones, wallpapers or knick-knacks. I don't want a magazine subscription or to find friendly singles like me. No, you didn't just stumble across my profile and want to chat with me. I don't want to see your pictures that got banned by going to your other social network site at genericcamwhores2.com/loosepanties23.

Yes, we get it, anyone who can kill your ranked 50 ass is hacking. What we don't understand is why you're twelve-years old and your mother hasn't beaten you for still being on Halo at 2 in the morning. I also don't understand why people twice your age are actually entertaining your existence by arguing with you. And fix your mic, you sound like a chipmunk using a blender in a wind tunnel.

Also, your passwords are terrible, change them. You're going to get hacked. See previous post for more info.

Let's talk passwords

Allen M — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 04:40:00 +0000

As the internet becomes more applicable to storing everything you need in your entire life, it also creates larger risk if someone were to find a way to break in.

How many applications of yours use the same password? There's a good chance that if I know you're email address and password, I have access to everything you belong to. How many of these could someone break into at once for you? Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, AIM, Y!IM, MSN, Ebay, Amazon, YouTube, Myspace, Facebook, iTunes, Citibank, Washington Mutual, E-trade, TradeKing, ING, and of course, Girls Gone Wild Online.

If you're using the same password for more than any two of those sites listed above, there's a good chance a hacker will try out the same email/password combination for those sites.

Okay, so nobody is insane enough to have a different password for each site and I understand that. It doesn't mean though, that we can't work on trying to create a password that will not be easy to steal. You already know passwords should have both letters and numbers, at the very least, so I won't baby you. But you probably only have numbers at the end of your password, right?

Remember, a hacker isn't targeting a person specifically, they're just trying to find the weakest link in order to break in somewhere. They don't really care who you are, only that they can get to your stuff. A hacker may only try combinations of passwords that begin with lowercase letters and end with numbers, knowing that's what most users do and hoping you're one of them (remember, in the computer world, lowercase letters are different than uppercase letters).

So what's a good password that I can remember?

I always tell people to create sentences, because even a single number thrown into the middle of a password will decrease the chances of being hacked significantly.

Here's some examples:

il0veCats - the 'O' is a zero. It's short, easy to remember, and the number and capital letter gets you out of basic hacking range.
gr8shesL8 - Great, shes late. A simple sentence, but uses 8's to form words.

If you're really serious about a good password, throwing in a symbol increases your safety even more. Think about sentences like this:

hey!Thatsm1ne = Hey! That's mine. The exclaimation mark is easy to use in a sentence, which most people automatically want to use a capital letter afterward. The 1 in the word 'mine' creates added safety as well.

Some of your passwords are too long, dude

You're right. Unfortunately some sites still only allow passwords that should be eight letters. These sites probably aren't very secure.

My next recommendation is always to have three different passwords memorized.

1) A trivial eight character length password for basic things.

2) A very secure eight character length password for sites you think should be secure

3) A longer length password, remember, the longer it is, the safer it is. But it should only be as long as you are comfortable in typing it over and over daily.

Having three passwords at least ensures that a hacker won't be able to break in to everything. And who says the passwords can't all be the same?

lovecats, l0veCats, and omg!il0veCats are completely different passwords in the computer world.

And lastly, pin codes

Nowadays, banks have evolved to beyond just having 4 number pins for your ATM card. The scary part is that some banks use your pin as the password to your online banking login. Keep in mind that the rules still apply. Longer is better. And with pins, since you can't use letters and symbols for security, length is your only safety.

So how to form words with just numbers? Just try to think of some numbers as letters.

811194732 - BILLGATES. Ok, not really easy to grasp, but think of the 8 as a 'B', the 1 as both an 'I' and 'L', the 9 as a lowercase 'G' and so on. It's only your pin, so it really only has to make sense for you.

You won't be able to form every word you want, but it works.

Go change your passwords

Now spend some time and go change your passwords. You'll find that if you come up with a good one, you won't even have to write it down (which is also very bad).

Congrats, your secret internet life is now a little more safe and secure.

The Future of Mobile

Allen M — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 06:53:00 +0000

There are some big players banking that mobile is the next big thing. Google has android, Dell is thinking about making a handset, Apple is killing with the iPhone, and various services are experimenting with GPS (friend finding, directions).

Let's try to picture the future for a moment. Let's imagine a post 3G world where mobile bandwidth is as good as or better than wi-fi hotspots. You're handset is anonymously tracked and the bottom inch of your 4-inch touch screen randomly shuffles through ads based on where you are.

An Exxon is coming up, perhaps you should stop for gas.

There's a Best Buy at the next exit, and oh, Blu-Ray box sets are 20% off.

Macy's is two blocks up, and they're having a sale (today only!).

And those are just the involuntary suggestions.

You hit a button, select restaurants, and suddenly, you're zoomed in on a map that shows the 10 closest eateries within 4 blocks.

You pick the nearest restaurant and you bump into some girl you met the other night at a party. She says hi to you, but you don't remember who she is. After making some small chit-chat with her you pull out your cellphone and beam a blue tooth request to her. She acknowledges your request and beams back her info.

That's right, you totally remember her now that you have her cell number, email, and links to Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn.

Your friend walks in right as the girl leaves and says hi to you. He saw that your GPS Twitter auto-update had you pegged at this location.

--------------------------------------------------

Mind you, in my future, I assume that people are all voluntarily enabling this sort of tracking and open access to information about one's self. I'm not really here to discuss the social or ethical implications of the scenarios provided above, I just think it's kind of interesting.

There's a great deal of opportunity for advertisers, startups, and tech-savvy users who want to be THAT connected to the internet.

Nvidia fans get icing on the Cake

Allen M — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 06:42:00 +0000

It's not a lie.

Valve has entered an agreement with Nvidia to screw ATI over. All owners with Nvidia cards can now download an exclusive extended version of the Portal Demo, plus the full version of Peggle Extreme.

For those of you who didn't buy The Orange Box because you already owned half the games included in it, but wanted to get your hands on Peggle Extreme (which is only available if you buy The Orange Box), now is a great chance to pick it up.

Take the system test by following this link. Don't worry if you don't have Steam installed already, you'll be asked to download it. (if i'm wrong, just head directly to http://www.steampowered.com to install Steam. I highly recommend it anyway.)

List of games:

Portal: First Slice (extended demo)
Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
Peggle Extreme

Does your computer suck for gaming?

Allen M — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 22:06:00 +0000

Some people don't believe the box when they buy a game. Minimum requirements don't necessarily mean you'll have an enjoyable gaming experience, yet people still buy the game. Then they complain that the game is unplayable.

Now if you, for some reason, don't know your computers specs or can't make the connection between what you have and what's written on the box, why don't you check your system requirements against every game?

A word to the macheads out there, don't bother with the site, you'll amusingly get "unknown" for every test.

Blu-ray to win format wars?

Allen M — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 05:06:00 +0000

Yea, I'm a little late. Anyone who has been following the news knows that Warner Bros. Entertainment has decided to side with Blu-ray.

The impasse was broken Friday by Warner Bros. Entertainment, the last major studio to put out movies in both formats. It announced it was ditching HD DVD, and from May on, would only publish on Blu-ray and traditional DVD.
The decision puts a strong majority of the major studios, five versus two, in the Blu-ray camp.

That will probably boost PS3 sales, as the prices for PS3's are becoming reasonable. As much Sony bashing as I've done recently, even I'm starting to consider a PS3. I think the combination of Blu-ray and Sony's hardware specs could see itself out-pacing the Xbox 360's graphics in a couple years. It's going to be a tough fight though, because graphics itself won't be able to take down the Halo and Xbox Live community in general.

There's still one more deciding factor in the format wars and that's the Adult Film Industry. It's been said that porn helped decide VHS has the winning format. So far, the adult film industry has chosen HD-DVD, but that's really not saying much since we're talking about a handful of films. Things might change though, since PS3 owners are apparently all porn addicts and Digital Playground has released their most popular title Pirates out on Blu-ray.

However, Joone now tells CePro that PlayStation 3 owners have been demanding that the studio release movies in the Blu-ray format. (PlayStation 3, owned by more than two million people in North America, has a Blu-ray player inside.)

I still don't like Sony's attempt after attempt to dominate formats, but I guess if you keep trying, eventually you'll win one.

Your old TV is lame

Allen M — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 15:54:00 +0000

TV broadcasters are about to stop using analog signals in favor of digital ones. For those of you who still have analog televisions, you can pick up coupons for digital converters here. They are going to cost about 60 bucks and the coupons are for 40.

Even if you have a digital TV, it might be work signing up for the coupons. I'm thinking that your analog TV tuner card for your computer might benefit from it. A bonus is that those TV tuner cards will probably be extremely cheap after the switch is made.

My TV wishes coming true.

Allen M — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 01:42:00 +0000

Last year I wrote a blog about how I don't think advertising on television works. I wrote about how I want to watch a show when I want, where I want. I wrote about how commercial time should be lessened and that I wouldn't mind downloading a TV show with commercials in it.

Though Hulu's rendition of streaming TV episodes isn't a new idea, it's definately the best I've seen so far. Sure, NBC has webisodes of all their shows in the same format, with a sprinkle of a commercial here or there, Hulu is actually giving me one site to log into that has it all.

On top of that, the quality of the episodes are great. The site begins a stream only a few seconds after it's clicked. The commercial breaks are only 30 seconds long, and only happen twice per thirty minute episode. I can deal.

So if you haven't heard of Hulu, sign up for the beta list and pray you get one soon. Check out the HD section when you get in. From what I've heard--although it requires being a little tech savvy--connecting your computer to a TV to watch streams off Hulu is an amazing experience.

Goodbye expensive cable bill. Goodbye pirated divx shows. Goodbye DVD collection.

Hello Hulu.

Prosper Portfolios

Allen M — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 08:57:00 +0000

If you haven't been to prosper.com lately, you should check it out. The interface has been improved with some on-the-fly rate of return calculations. With that functionality, Prosper has added "portfolios".

Basically, for those familiar with prosper, it's a bunch of preset standing orders that will perform at a certain rate of return (i guess based on historic performance of similar credit histories). This really cuts down on the weekly maintenance.

Personally, I still like to pick my own loans. If you remember my last post on prosper, it's really rewarding to know you're helping to make a difference in someone's life.

Reading Re-Kindled

Allen M — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 06:48:00 +0000

I'm not going to pretend like I discovered this, though I will point out that Amazon's Kindle does meet all the requirements of my last blog on e-readers.

If for some reason you haven't stumbled across Amazon's full front page spread of the Kindle, here's a link.

What's not to like about it? It's got free wireless (EVDO network called Whispernet), it uses Amazon's e-book service, you can subscribe to newspapers and also magazines. It's a wonderful thing.

My only complaint is that it's ugly. It's thin, it's light, but it looks like the first palm pilot ever created. The keypad looks weird. The page flipper switch on the side is fun.

The last thing that irks me is that supposedly you can subscribe to blogs, but they will have a monthly fee of a dollar or two dollars attached to it, which I don't really blog Amazon for. It makes sense that since Whispernet isn't really a web browsing service, that some kind of "maintenance fee" will be needed to convert the blogs into a Kindle friendly format. Basically what it means is keep your i-Phone or blackberry close for when you get the urge to read your favorite blog on the run.

Any Amazon reps, please feel free to contact me about converting my blog to a Kindle feed.

Veoh: A stream of streams.

Allen M — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 04:39:00 +0000

I've never been a big fan of streaming video. I hardly ever go on YouTube. I think streaming video suffers from what TV suffers from--the ability to instantaneous find what you're looking for. With web pages, you have tools to search for exactly what you're looking for. Google or Wikipedia the general idea, then search the text for the exact phrase. Instant gratification. Sure, sites like YouTube allow you to find exactly what you want to watch, but you still have to watch it. Ever watch a video from someone with no description, but it took seven minutes to get to an unrewarding punchline?

If I had to choose streaming videos, I like the direction where Veoh is going. Veoh most recently was featured in Wired Magazine for their new product VeohTV. It basically aggregates all the streaming video sites and plays them all. I like that. It's basically the internet version of TV. You just turn it on and let it go.

The article addresses products like Joost, so I won't go into it. I'm sure it's pretty self explanatory.

I'd like to state that I'm pretty biased though. My friend works for Veoh, so I wish only good things for her and her company.

Al Gore Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Allen M — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 09:28:00 +0000

Republicans everywhere are cringing as they find out Al Gore now has a Nobel Peace Prize. That's pretty much the ultimate "I told you so". It's pretty hard to continue saying that Global Warming isn't real when Gore slaps you in the face with a Nobel Peace Prize.

How's that for an inconvenient truth?

What? Too easy of a pun? I just wanted to say it before everyone else.

Being green and environmentally friendly has already been a big trend in industry this year. You can bet that it will only get bigger from here. Those who have already started are way in the lead, those who aren't or don't choose to be will probably start seeing a good deal of legislation being passed to make them do it.

Invest in green companies, especially those that make green products for other companies, it's time for them to cash in.

Let's take a look at airports again.

Allen M — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 08:47:00 +0000

I sat in a JetBlue airplane for 5 hours. We were in line for take off, but the pilot didn't know it what position and when we would go. After 3 hours of that, he got it confirmed that he should head back to the terminal. The taxi people didn't get to our plane for another hour, and for some reason, we couldn't connect back to the terminal we came from, so they had to send buses to drive us back. The buses apparently couldn't get to us.

And all this was nobody's fault because it was thunderstorming outside. Five hours of my life wasted because somebody somewhere decided that if people are on the plane, at least at some point they'll be able to take off. I guess that's how you make money in the rain. Shove and pray.

I had this conversation recently with someone about how airlines are privately owned but the airport itself is controlled by the government. It seems hard to be competitive when you can only do so much before some regulation prevents you from going further. Add on the fact that airlines are just price cutting each other until they all operate with no profit, and what do you get? Today's airlines.

JetBlue does a fantastic job of being competitive in this world anyway. No first class, because everyone is made to feel like they are first class. Why not? JetBlue's airfare is about twice as much as their competitors. Sure, they seat a few less people because they actually want their passengers to be comfortable, and sure, they can't gouge money from first class and business class travelers, but when every ticket costs the price of business class, you're bound to make out pretty decently.

Now if only we could get JetBlue a private airport. How many people would pay some JetBlue membership fee if they could skip security checks and waiting on the runway for 5 hours? I would.

Kiva: Prosper for people who want to go to Heaven.

Allen M — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 20:27:00 +0000

When I posted my entry on Prosper and wrote that I felt like I was helping others get their lives back on track because I was willing to loan money to people with poor credit, my friends called me a gouger. I didn't think that loaning money to people at 25% interest was a malicious act. I mean, these people were consolidating their 7 credit payments that were at 35%-200% interest into a more stable payment plan.
I dismissed my friends accusations because I felt like I was helping others and helping myself at the same time.

Well, I don't feel that way anymore. Along comes Kiva.org, which has the same set up as Prosper, except they loan money to entrepreneurs in developing worlds at 0% interest. You don't make any money, but you don't lose it either. And you help people in a worse position than you make their lives better.

Maybe I'll lend out all the interest I make on Prosper on Kiva to make myself feel less guilty.

Value package: Broken 360 now with matching Halo 3 disk

Allen M — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 18:37:00 +0000

A coworker of mine bought Halo 3 collectors edition and ran into a little problem. He opened the box to find out that the disk had fallen off it's clip and basically scratched itself to death. So he went back to the store to return it:

Anyways to make a long story short I walked back to GameStop, and talked to the manager. He was really cool about it, and proceeded to replace the game for me. But here is where it gets crazy. He insisted that I open my copy to make sure it wasn’t torched like the last one. We went through 5 more copies before we found one that wasn’t. Do the math 6 of 7 of Microsoft’s babies were defective.

I guess it only makes sense to destroy as many copies as Halo 3 as there are red lighted Xbox360's.

In summary, if you're going to order Halo 3 online, don't get the collector's edition.

Stupid iPhone buyers cry, Apple gives them 100 dollar tissue.

Allen M — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 16:10:00 +0000

Looks like in life, if you do moan and cry enough, you'll get what you want. Apple has announced that it will be giving 100 dollars of store credit to iPhone purchasers who happily threw 600 dollars at new technology two months ago.

But it seems like some people don't understand what it means to be an "early adopter". You obviously were willing to pay the 600 bucks to be one of the cool, hip, trend setters with a new unique product. That's the price you pay to be on top.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, you as an early adopter, understood the risks of being first. You knew that a price drop would happen around Christmas, but you hoped the drop would be small enough to not make you look stupid. Were you surprised the price dropped? No, but 200 dollars?

Come on now, 200 dollars is the price you pay for new technology. We're talking completely new, never been done before technology. We're not talking about a newer model cellphone or an iPod with a bigger hard drive and a color screen. We're talking about a true all in one device.

So to conclude, if you're one of the people who whined, you should consider moving down the diffusion chain. One of those other groups definitely encompasses cheap whiners who want to have it their way (See late majority).

And trust me, I know what it's like to be on the wrong side of a price cut. Intel cut prices on all their popular processors back in march. And they'll probably be cutting them again soon. I could have waited, but I wanted it in March, not next year.

Personally, I'm probably in that late majority category. I definitely didn't want to pay 600 dollars. I definitely knew a price drop would happen. And now that it has, I'm still not getting it. Because 400 dollars is a lot of money, and I'm not going to be one of the whiners when the iPhone drops to 250 bucks.

It's something I can wait for, because I don't need it. When you paid 600 dollars, you made a decision. Don't blame Apple for your mistakes.

Ad supported AAA games for free!

Allen M — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 06:43:00 +0000

Fileplanet has Farcry, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, and Rayman Raving Rabbits for free. These Ubisoft games are all ad supported (I could not find a perma-link on fileplanet, so thanks Kotoku). The ads appear on the title screen, loading screen and death screens for ten seconds each (at least for Farcry). Not too bad considering they're free. Farcry still retails for 20 bucks.

I've been a long time supporter of ads in video games. I've always considered it an interesting alternative to pricing games high. The same way broadcast TV can give you excellent tv programming (for the most part) for free.

Alternatively, more advertising support in newly developed games gives developers more funding. This allows the developers to concentrate on producing quality games instead of buckling in to publisher time line demands.

Please support Ubisoft's decision to release games for free with Advertising support. A positive reaction to this in the gaming community will only bring about more free games as other publishers experiment with the same format.

Digitally Download your games.

Allen M — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 17:30:00 +0000

Gamespy has recently blogged about why digitally downloading games are the next big thing. One of the problem stated is that retailers just don't give shelf space to PC games anymore. So forget them.

Mentioned in the article is a link to Game Informer, interviewing Gabe Newell and why Steam is great.

I've gotten some feedback on the state of digital games and read some forum posts. There's one issue that I would like to address. Many have complained that digital versions of games should be cheaper than the retail version. This is an argument that I have used myself, but I now know how wrong I was to say that.

The problem is that retailers are putting pressure on Steam and other direct downloading systems by threatening to not stock their games if their prices are lower. So don't blame Steam for keeping your game prices high. To add insult to injury, Circuit City released Bioshock at 39.99, ten dollars lower than Steam's price. Stop letting retail stores strong arm other sales mediums. Support Steam, support Direct2Drive, hell, even support EALink.

It kind of defeats the purpose

Allen M — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 20:21:00 +0000

Did you get a chance to watch the 300 page iPhone bill video yet? I'm not going to link it because I don't think it's relevant. But I will link to an article that talks about those fancy 300 page iPhone bill summaries.
It's kind of funny that a device which is suppose to combine all the gadgets you own, simplifying your life would do the exact opposite when it comes to handling the billing details.

In a brilliant move, AT&T has decided to shorten the summary after this hype went out. Still like to kill trees? You can pay 2 bucks to keep the details.

Valve's Steam to rule world, first THQ, now id Software

Allen M — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 07:17:00 +0000

id Software has join the Steam Nation. This follows closely at the heels of THQ joining Steam mid July. We can only assume that there are more shops in the works. Hopefully these events will encourage other companies to join in and perhaps some of the current companies (like Activision) will release more current games into the mix.

As I download every id Software game on Steam, I'd like to reiterate my previous posts on why Steam is great.

1) No CDs ever again -- Switching CDs every time you want to play a different game is unnecessary. Newer games like Relic's Company of Heroes doesn't check CD's. This makes going back to older games that do annoying. From a company's perspective, copyright protection is not an issue on Steam. Since all CD-keys are tied to your account, you can only play the games you own.

2) Add friends, instantly join their games -- Remember trying to join the same multiplayer game as your friend? In pre-Source Counter-Strike, you had to read off IP numbers. Even in games like BattleField2, it's a hassle to join in a game. Source's friends list allows you to see who's online, what they're playing and join their games in just a few clicks.

3) No more stores -- Video game retailers focus on console gaming. This has always been true and probably always will be true. When is the last time you went to a specialty shop where the PC games were not tucked away into some back corner, behind the Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast section? When is the last time your niche PC game was actually at the store? Steam let's you never wait in line again. You can buy a game at 3 am and play it within the hour. Impulse buy to your heart's content.

4) Everything in one location -- Open Steam, all your games are there, listed alphabetically. All your trailers and extra content, developer tools and server packages are all there. No more having to organize your games by hand. Sorry Vista, your games tab doesn't cut it. It doesn't even recognize older games. Yet Hexen is organized fine on Steam.

5) It comes in nice packages -- Steam throws nice package deals together, like the entire id Software collection, so that you can get the most for your money. On top of that, there are discounts and sales all the time. The packaging and sales of a bulk amount of games would never happen in a retail store.

I'm sure there's more, but those are my top 5. As more and more companies sign up with Steam, those reasons just become better and better. If you would like to add more reasons, please leave a comment.

Hey Facebook Friends, Read this!

Allen M — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 05:04:00 +0000

The title is a little gratuitous, but I just added a Facebook application (my RSS) that publishes this blog's RSS feed to my Facebook profile.

The ability to create applications is both amazing and scary at the same time. It's amazing because at it's finest, it allows this expandable usability. Applications like birthday reminders, graffiti walls, and my RSS really let Facebook shine as a website that must be used daily. This coupled with Facebook's built in functionality like stories and poking, make it a clear MySpace wrecking creation.

The scary bits are the applications that are nothing more then attempts to emulate the failed charm that MySpace has. There's about fifty different ways to play "tag" with someone, everything from zombies to food fights. These applications are nothing more then cheap attempts by the authors to create an application that generates the most users. This isn't to say that the users are just as bad. How many methods are needed to assure your internet popularity?

The icing on the cake is the "Top Friends" application, which emulates MySpace's top friends. The catch? Users won't show on your top friends unless they also install the app and confirm your top friend invite.

Hopefully once the shiny new user application function loses it's hot new fad status and users start removing the nonsense, we'll see authors actually trying to create new, creative, and useful items for Facebook users to incorporate into their profiles.

But for now, tag, you're in my zombie vampire foodfight. At me as a top friend, spread the social virus, and keep reading this blog through Facebook.

Steam update and new publisher signs up

Allen M — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 05:16:00 +0000

If you like Company of Heroes, Dawn of War, Titan Quest or Supreme Commander you should be as ecstatic as I am that THQ has signed up to be a part of Steam. Developer Relic Entertainment has already done a fine job redefining the RTS genre and also doing away with one of the most annoying aspects of PC gaming: having to put the game's disk in your computer in order to play.

It seems only natural then to go on Steam, where all the games do not require a CD to play, since they are registered to a Steam account which downloads your games straight onto your computer. On top of that, those games can be installed quickly onto any computer with steam as long as you log in.

In other older news, Steam is getting ready to compete against Microsoft Live Arcade by releasing an update that features community functionality which will allow user accounts to create profiles, join groups, and review other gamers that they've played with. This builds out the existing features of being able to add friends and messaging them while in a game.

With 13 million registered users already on Steam, I can only hope that this will encourage even more big name publishers to sign up. The idea of a unified central location for gaming and connecting to users on a multitude of games is exciting.

Now to convince EA to drop EA Link, which supports a surprising unimpressive amount of titles, and join the Steam nation.

What's going on PlayStation 3?

Allen M — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 17:56:00 +0000

I've been following the PlayStation 3 for some time. If you've read my previous blogs, I've already chastised Sony for trying to monopolize on formats with Blu-Ray, and really, the success of Blu-Ray goes hand and hand with the success of the PlayStation 3.

Sony has recently lowered the price of the PS3 by one hundred dollars, I'm assuming to rekindle some interest. I believe this YouTube video summarizes how a majority of the people feel about Sony at this point:

And plus, game makers are still not reluctant to give up on the dominant PlayStation 2. There are new games coming out, plus it's been stated that game developers feel like the PS2 is still viable for another year or two.

What are you going to do, Sony?

Drobo, Intelligent data storage.

Allen M — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 04:08:00 +0000

Looking for a fancy way to store and backup data at the same time? My friend BT (master of all things good on the internet), linked this to me. It's called Drobo, and it's the world's first storage robot.

At first glance, it looks like a fancy USB drive that holds four hard drives. That's only the beginning. Drobo actually configures the data in real time. If you watch the video, you can remove a hard drive and it'll actually retain all the files on the system.

What does this mean? If a hard drive in the four disk array fails, your data is not lost. Just replace the disk and all your information will still be there. Ran out of disk space? Replace the smallest disk with a larger one, retain data, keep loading crap onto Drobo.

I personally have a computer with a terabyte of disk space. It's literally just a computer holding my hard drives so that I can have storage. I just spent the weekend moving data to bigger drives (accomplished by using external USB drives), and then opening up the computer to move those bigger drives into the computer.

If I had a Drobo, that whole process would have taken me three minutes instead of three days.

Internet 3.0?

Allen M — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 02:48:00 +0000

Photosynth, a prototype that Microsoft has, is the next big thing. Check out the video in the link. The software, like Seadragon, will allow users to browse for images, magazines and even textbook data in a completely different way. This is the newest clip about this technology, but I've heard about it for about a year now. It seems that they've done bigger and better things in this last year.

In the video, there's a section where the presenter mentions that a magazine article had a fake ad embedded into it. This is great, that means that not only will people be able to scan through this archive system of images, but when they come across something interesting, there's a chance of targeting an ad to that user. Another annoying ad, you say. Well, given the scope, it could be done very elegantly and be a reason for companies to actually adopt this technology.

The spatial and panoramic presentation is also fantastic. The users clap when this stuff is presented and it is justified. With simple data from Flickr, they can create a 3D image from all the images. I feel like I'm repeating what the speaker says, but this really allows you to take a tour of a place you've never been to. It's amazing.

The internet is going to be amazing. Very very soon.