Yes, really. Activision just released this little widget that lets you embed Guitar Hero on any web page. There are only three songs (I will let you discover them) and each one is pre-set at a difficulty level (one is easy, one is medium, and one is … surprise … hard). Yes, it is a cheap marketing trick and shows that Activision is just a teeny bit desperate in the face of the Rock Band juggernaut. But that doesn’t mean you cant have fun with it. Rock on!
Note: Instead of picking through the source of this page, you can get your mitts on the embed/object code from the widget itself … just click on “Grab Code” instead of “Start Rocking” when you click on the widget. Then paste it in whatever web page you happen to have at hand. Viral marketing gone mad!
You may have noticed that the site is up and running again. What you may not have noticed is that the time down means my comment control scripts got way out of sync and because of the timestamp mismatches a lot of legitimate comments got flushed, and are probably gone forever. If you took the time to post a note here and your deathless prose is now gone, um, sorry.
In the meantime, unless you are a complete moron and actually using Internet Explorer as your web browser, you have nothing to worry about – the exploit injects code from one useless and unsecure Microsoft product (IIS) into another useless and unsecure Microsoft product (Explorer). As long as you are smart enough to use a proper web browser, you are free and clear.
If you are a complete moron, however, then you deserve whatever happens to you.
Jonesing for a Friday morning time-waster that might actually have a redeeming value or two? Why not give TypeRacer a shot? It is a twist on the old “water race” games you see at the carnival … instead of shooting a stream of water into a clown’s mouth to propel your little car/horse/snail/Spongebob/whatever, you type. The faster and the more accurately you, the faster your car goes. Just the thing for all you blogger types who now have mad keyboard skillz after years of bashing out your deathless prose.
Hot tip: You have to go back and fix a typo immediately – the instructions aren’t overly clear on it, but if the typing box turns red you must go back and the misspelled word now, you cant let even the smallest typo slip. Any typing you do while the box is red is just a waste of finger energy.
And no, for you smartasses, the game would not be better called TypoRacer when I am playing. Hmph.
Okay, yeah, so I sucked large in the first round – went 4 and 4. Blah. As previously noted, however, the name of the game should be “goalie” in the playoffs, and two of the teams that went through (Colorado and Philadelphia) won on the back of crazy hot goalies. And, since I am a huge fan of both Messers Theodore and Biron, I don’t mind so much.
That said, I do not want either of them stealing the next round – M. Theodore faces off against the Greatest Team In The History Of The Sport, and M. Biron is up against the Other Team That I Want To See In The Finals. So sorry about your luck, boys … maybe next year. And with that said, on with the show:
Montreal / Philadelphia: Philly still has no real scoring, and no real defense, and now they are up against a goalie as hot as their own. I want to see a Montreal-Detroit final, so I have to take the Habs here. Probably a long series, though – this wont be easy. Winner: Montreal.
Pittsburgh / New York: Fucking Rangers, I want them gone so I dont have to look at that Avery asshole any more. Please let this series be short and very painful for the blueshirts. Winner: Pittsburgh.
Detroit / Colorado: Wow – it’s like old home week here. Again, it’s not worth explaining why I am picking the Red Wings, maybe the colours of this web page that you are currently staring at might have given you a clue here. Another long series, probably seven games. Winner: Detroit.
San Jose / Dallas: Okay, so Marty Turco changed my mind. He is a playoff guy. But I am still picking the Sharks here. Winner: San Jose.
There you go. Next round starts tonight, and hopefully this time around I don’t get my ass whipped by the monkey.
If you have ever moved, purchased new furniture, or just found yourself tired of the way things are arranged in your home you know the whole “standing around with your hands on your hips staring at the space and trying to visualize how it would look if the couch was over here” routine. Sometimes you get industrious and haul out the graph paper and cardboard, or if you are more of geek you bust out InDesign or Illustrator and draw some boxes, but it never really gives you the visual feedback you need.
If this is you, and you have been wanting to find a better way, then take a peek at Sweet Home 3D. It’s a platform independent java-driven application that lets you sketch out the walls and shit in your room, and then drop in chunks of furniture and the like so you can see the resulting space in a 3D rendering. This, quite frankly, is the bomb. Big ups to Ginger Snaps for unearthing this one and sending it along.
I hate to admit it, but a filter for this sort of thing on TwittEarth (TwittEvacuatEarth?) might have some serious potential in the Web 2.0 world. Just imagine – every time someone dumps, the globe spins into a new orientation and reveals the details of the latest voiding. Spin, dump. Spin, dump. Spin, push push grunt push, dump.
On a more serious note, the tableau of the cartoon reveals a potentially more interesting issue – namely, that Twitter is far more useless in Canada than it is in the U.S. of A. Twitter only really makes sense if you can update on the fly (or in this case, on the can) so people can interact and follow you when you are out actually doing things. The ruinous rates for both text messaging and wireless data in Canada – as set by the predatory mandarins who run our quasi-monopolistic cell networks – make updating Twitter from remote devices an exercise that many prudent people in the Great White North may simply wish to avoid, preferring to sink that money into things like food, mortgages, or possibly a Mercedes or two.
Here’s the deal: I have been playing with Twitter on and off for the past couple of months, and have been generally less-than-overwhelmed by it. I can see the appeal for some people – hell, for a lot of people – but I just didn’t get into it. The basic problem here is that you need to be social to get any value out of it, and if there is one thing that I am not, it’s “social”.
To be blunt: Twitter doesn’t do much if you are the kind of person who doesn’t really care about other people knowing what you are up to, and is doubly useless if you also don’t particularly care about what anyone else is doing.
For me, Twitter is doubly useless.
However, the technology is interesting and fun on an academic level, and like all (excuse me while I gag) Web 2.0 dealies it is also extendable, which is a multi-syllabic way of saying that the Twitter engine can be made to do other (and potentially more interesting) things. Which brings us to TwittEarth, an oddly-engaging little Flash presentation that takes tweets, geolocates them and then pops them up on a 3D rendering of a globe. The globe rotates into position to display each item, each one tagged with a little 3D avatar that is an absolute hoot. The whole effect and presentation is captivating … if Batman used Twitter, this is how he would do it.
I just wasted 90 minutes staring at the damn thing, despite the fact that a lot of the tweets are in devil languages that I do not pretend to be able to understand. If anything counts as both “other” and “interesting”, this would be it … just don’t plan to get too much done today.
There is a quick update to the unlocking page to provide version 3.0 of ZiPhone … and to finally stave off the incessant complaining, you can now get both the OSX and Windoze versions there. Enjoy.
It turns out the screenshot function that is an official part of version 2.0 has been around since version 1.1.3 … or at least the ability to use that function, in a possibly naughty and totally unsupported manner.
Browse down into your phone and look for:
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.springboard.plist
if you open that file up, you will find that as of version 1.1.3 there is a key labelled:
SBMobileScreenshotr
Set this to TRUE and the same screenshot function that is in version 2.0 will be live and running on your phone. Simply hold down the home button while toggling the silent switch on and off. The screen will flash white to show you the image has been captured, and the screenshot will be in your Photos module as the newest item in the “Camera Roll” album. After that, you can do whatever the hell you want with it … even plaster it here:
NOTE: Depending on how you unlocked your phone, the plist file may or may not be encrypted. If it is, you can use your credentials as root to unscramble it. Have fun.
I am quite sure that a grillion or so people will be linking to this today, but on the off chance that this is the only web page you ever hit then I’ll add my HREF to the pile. It purports to be an internal Microsoft rah-rah video for the Glory That Is Vista. It’s so bad that it is almost embarassing to watch, and part of me – despite all of the less-than-wonderful things I have said about Microsoft in the past – wants it to be fake. I mean, really. It’s that bad.
If it is a real deal, then I really want to know if the people that made this or the people that it is targeted at have any idea that other divisions of Microsoft are busy making deals with PC makers to allow them to use XP, 2000, anything but Vista because even Microsoft seems to understand just how badly the product actually sucks.
Who knows, maybe there is strength in ignorance. Or something.
I had the chance to use the 2.0 OS/firmware for the iPhone for the past few days, and here are some quick and off-the-cuff thoughts and notes:
You can break out the “Contacts” application to the main screen. A lot of people have wondered why the only way you can get to your address book (which is in fact a stand-alone application) is through the phone module. The easy answer was that the original SpringBoard only had one screen available for displaying and launching applications. That limitation has been officially gone since version 1.1.3, and it looks like Apple is finally taking full advantage of that fact. There is a bit of kludge work involved in getting the application broken out, so I am not real sure if this is going to be an under-the-table type of thing or an actually supported function, so stay tuned. However, given the joyous functionality added by the next item, I am betting that it is a go.
There is a search function in “Contacts”. Hallelujah, praise jeebus. and spank me grampa. In other words, about fucking time. A lot of people have a lot of contact info in their iPhone, and as good as the alpha-navigator is, it just isn’t enough. Whew.
Lovely, lovely VPN: Combined with a VNC client (right now a rather unofficial Chicken of the VNC port, but you take what you can get until the iPhone Apps Store opens) this is a dream come true. Of course, if you don’t have a clue as to what those acronyms mean, then you don’t care about this at all, so move along.
2.0 is just as easy to unlock as version 1.1.x. This is mostly due to the fact that the modem firmware in the 2.0 beta is version 4.05.01_G, which is an extremely close variant of the already-unlocked 4.04.05_G. If this stays as is, unlocking will be trivial. Hooray.
There is a built-in screenshot function. This is sweet. Apple has always had far and away the best screenshot functions in their OS, dating all the way back to System 6.0.8. And while it amazes me that after all this time the mopes at Microsoft still can’t get this one right, it amazes me even more that Apple didn’t get this onto the iPhone from the word go. Clearing up this oversight is a nice touch.
Exchange email works as advertised. Enough said.
Truly, this all shapes up as wildly awesome. June can’t get here fast enough.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, I still have my original System 6 install floppies.
The King Of Guys left me a note to wonder why I hadn’t gone to my traditional set of “Red Wings” CSS definitions to celebrate the start of the playoffs and to cheer the Wings on as far as they will go.
Good question. Consider the matter addressed as of right now.
It is, as they say, the most wonderful time of the year. Again. Spring has sprung, and the real hockey season is here to bless us with much joy. And that means that it is time for the usual round of playoff predictions. As has become the norm (ever since some wet blanket decided to get all pissy about it) I will pick winners only, with no mention of the expected length of the series. Some people always ruin it for everyone.
So, without further ado:
Montreal / Boston: The Habs are flying right now. Carey Price is the man, and Tim Thomas is not the man. Winner: Montreal.
Pittsburgh / Ottawa: As much as I want them to win – just because it pisses off Leafs fans who resent the Senators for not sucking – Ottawa hasn’t got a chance. Penguins are too good, too deep, too young. Winner: Pittsburgh
Washington / Philadelphia: Some people think that the Caps will go deep into the playoffs, but they aren’t ready for that yet. What they are ready for is beating the Flyers, who have no defense and not much scoring. Bad combination, that. Winner: Washington.
New Jersey / New York: In the playoffs, the name of the game should be changed from “hockey” to “goalie”. And only one of these teams has a goalie named Brodeur. Winner: New Jersey.
Detroit / Nashville: Do I even have to explain this? Winner: Detroit.
San Jose / Calgary: Calgary will try real hard, and be real tough, and come real close. But close doesn’t get you to the next round. Winner: San Jose.
Minnesota / Colorado: If I was smart I would pick Colorado for the upset here, but I am not very smart. Plus, I love the Minnesota fans – they deserve this one. Winner: Minnesota.
Anaheim / Dallas: A war, for the most part, but Marty Turco is just not a playoff guy. Dunno why, that’s just the way it is. Winner: Anaheim.
There you go … quick and to the point. Everybody ready for eight glorious weeks of shinny goodness? Grab a beer and settle in … the fun starts tonight!
Quick tip: You can remove any of the “status” icons from the right side of the OS X menu bar simply by command-dragging them off. OS X has a vast array of status icons – most of them are useful, some not so much. If you don’t use .Mac and you want the sync icon removed, or you have switched away from a PPPOE connection and want that icon removed, this is the way you do it. Works for fax status, bluetooth, whatever. Command-drag and it’s gone.
I knew this a long time ago, but had totally forgotten it until my mom asked about it. It isn’t exactly common knowledge, so I thought it might be worth repeating.
It is worth pointing out that the new coinage to be minted in the United Kingdom is absolutely stunning. Designing for something with such restrictive limitation in size and shape is a bitch, and one of the reason that most coins are just, well, coins. There is only so much you can do … usually.
This new guy breaks all the molds, though, and the end product is – as they say in the pubs down in Kensignton – fucking brilliant. Wow.
