Down So Long
Apologies to everyone who cared that this site was down for a week. I host it out of my house and my IP switched.
Free Software I Love
Posted by jdodson in free software, tech on February 2nd, 2010
Google Chrome
I have been using Google Chrome as my primary browser for a few months. Its a low footprint UI and its blazingly fast. I won’t primarily use a non free software browser so Google Chrome fits my needs in that capacity as well. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you need to. Compared to IE or Firefox 3.0, Chrome is a rocket. Add flashblock to the mix and it crashes less than any browser ive ever used. This runs on Windows, Mac and Linux.
Rhythmbox
Rhythmbox is a music player ive used for years. It just keeps getting better and better. It can awesomely manage my 24 days and 12 hours of music. I use iTunes on my Mac and Rhythmbox on Linux. iTunes is a extremely bloated player and I have less music on my mac. I have a few gripes with it but largely it works really well. Ive tried Songbird but it just isn’t as good as Rhythmbox and I am still on the version that shipped with Hardy. To my knowledge this only runs on Linux.
PiTiVi
This project I have been avidly watching and hoping could release something awesome in a stable Linux distro I use for quite sometime. It looks like the next Ubuntu stable will see something great I can use and I excited. I don’t make as many movies as I could because the only tool I have for that is on a Mac in my living room. When I sit down in the living room I want to watch a video or play a game not edit video. The above demo video shows that its come quite a long way and I hope by next Ubuntu stable release it has titles and some transitions. Thats pretty much all I need for the basics and my videos dont do more than that.
Handbrake
I buy movies. I buy movies because I love watching movies. I rip my movies into a variety of formats at times to watch them on a mobile device or laptop. Think of it like ripping a CD. I rip the music I own as well. DVD’s come with copy protection to limit your legitimate use of them in this way but it doesn’t stop enterprising people from figuring out how to get around that. Handbrake is one such program. I mostly use it to rip movies to watch on my iPhone. It runs on Windows, Mac and Linux.
LAME
I rip my MP3’s using LAME. It creates the best quality 320k MP3’s ive heard. I use grip to ensure I don’t have to write a script to rip a CD. grip is old school but the MP3 files it creates sound great and are tagged properly. Runs on practically everything.
VirtualBox
If you want a completely free replacement for VirtualPC or VMWare I recommend VirtualBox. Its come quite a long way in the past year and it works perfectly on my Mac and Ubuntu for virtualizing Windows or any other OS id care to. Did I mention its free? Runs on Windows, Mac and Linux and more.
The Phantom Menace 70 Minute Review
Watch this review.
“Chances are you probably didn’t like Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace. You might be a Star Wars fan, or at least a fan of the original trilogy. After waiting in line for hours, days, weeks, you may have even written a mini 200-400 word review on an internet message board somewhere. If you were a working movie critic, you might have even written a 1,000-2,000 word review of the film for some newspaper or magazine. All of this exists in the realm of possibility…but what about a 70-minute video review?
Some guy named Mike from Milwaukee, WI put together a 70-minute video review discussing the many reasons why the movie was horrible. And this isn’t your usual fanboy rant, this is an epic, well-edited well-constructed piece of geek film criticism. In fact, the way I learned about the video was from Lost co-creator and Star Trek producer Damon Lindelof, who said “Your life is about to change. This is astounding film making. Watch ALL of it.”
This review is incredible. He pretty much nails why The Phantom Menace is not a good movie. Compared to the other prequels, its the best of the bunch in my view. I don’t find it a particularly good movie though. I wished for more, but the rage it caused the geek community is fun to experience at times and this 70 minute video review is one such example.
The iPad: Opinion Overload
iPad
Apple’s iPad was released yesterday to mixed reviews. A few quotables from the iPad site.
“Our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price.”
“The best way to experience the web, email, photos, videos and video. Hands down.”
If I had to rewrite the first Apple quote it would go like this:
“Our most advanced technology in a hot and evolutionary device at a lowish price for Apple products.”
Is the price unbelievable? Not really. Then again, I haven’t used it yet. Put another way, im not running out in 60 days to buy one because I think its ultra cheap not having played with it. The price point doesn’t seem to far off though. If it were $200 I buy one on release day.
iPad is essentially a bigger iPhone. This is actually a big deal because the iPhone was revolutionary but it was too small for certain tasks. Like typing up emails. I don’t really use it for longer emails than “OK” or “LOLZ.” I can tweet from it, but it thinks certain words I mispell on purpose are other words and its not fun changing them 3 times to the right word. Beyond that, its a fine device. The iPad has more screen and because of that I expect it will be easier to type on it.
I received a first generation iPhone from a friend for free. It works fine in every way save it doesn’t turn on or off as the power button is broken. It just goes in and out of standby. Works fine beyond that. I use it as a web/email/twitter/facebook/music/video podcast device. I have a few games on it but i rarely play them. Games on the iPhone are not that much fun. Then again, it might just be me. I LOVE the iPhone so much when I am home I just use that for surfing, twitter and facebook at home. If I want to type up a blog post I turn on a desktop/laptop but for mostly everything else its the iPhone all the way. Though its important to note that its great for consuming, not creating stuff. The iPad might be better for creating as it has a larger screen and can come with iWork. We will see.
When I first read the stream from Engadget on release day I was EXTREMELY underwhelmed. After all the hype and buzz about iTablet/iSlate this device couldn’t have lived up to the hype. And it seems with many people it really didn’t. But the trick is we haven’t used it yet. After the day was over, I woke up and relooked at the pictures I changed my tune a bit. It looks like a really cool device. I still have reservations about it though.
No multitasking. No console. Locked down. No native SD slot. These are pretty much my major complaints about iPhone. I can understand from a UI/UX perspective why you wouldn’t enable multitasking. Having 90% of the CPU for the current application is a very nice thing. The iPhone isn’t a speed demon. Howevever when only one thing is happening what performance you do get you get consistently. So if an app pushes the limits of 3D, RAM and CPU it will consistently work accross thousands of iPad 1.0 devices. If you enable multitasking this goes down. Stuff gets slower. Stuff may crash. The UI/UX suffers. On a such a little device this is a bigger problem than a beefy desktop computer. Plus, enabling a multitask switcher on a device with one button would suck. So I get why they may want to only enable one app at a time. I also understand why they want to lock it down. Similarish reasons, but you do get to make more on an app store with no other competitive channels to install software.
So the problems I have with iPad I have with iPhone yet I love my iPhone. So much so if it broke id get a new iPod touch. Its that cool. Will the iPad be something I get because I love my iPhone? I am not sure but I imagine not the 1.0 version. I like that the iPhone is so small I can put it in my pocket and put it on a window ledge next to the bed. Can’t do that with the iPad. Then again, its not meant to do that.
People thought the iPod and iPhone were a joke but they turned out well for Apple in the end. I believe the iPad is such a device but the market will tell. Not our opinions.
The Disconnect of Digital Pricing
When I was in middle school CDs were a new thing. I remember talking in school about CDs and how they cost about a penny to press and because of this insanely low printing cost, CDs would be ultra cheap compared to tapes or records. Imagine a world where the printing cost led to ultra low prices! Imagine that world. I can, its great. It would be awesome to pop over to Best Buy and get the latest album for $1. Or $3. At that price I wouldn’t really think about it, id just buy it.
And that is the topic of this blog post. The disconnect of digital pricing.
I buy games, music and software in a box from the store. I know this makes me a dinosaur but I am actually getting a better value and in most cases its cheaper. I want to live in a world where I download everything for a lesser fee, but I don’t. The idea WAS that when we went to the point where we download all our games or software online the price dropped because the cost of producing a physical product was circumvented. Ill give an example.
Modern Warfare 2 on PC costs $51.48 on Amazon. Now, since thats a physical box and manual product the digital copy should be cheaper right? Well on Steam its $59.99. Why the hell is it more expensive to download on Steam? Why does it cost me MORE TO DOWNLOAD IT? I have no idea but the disconnect between the download/physical product is absolutely nuts.
Same with music. The Book of Eli download on Amazon/iTunes is $11.99. The physical CD costs $11.99 as well.
Simply stated, I believe digital goods should cost a significant share LESS than their physical counterparts. However it seems the physical product actually costs less. OR in the case of music, you can get a better value if you buy a album for the same price because you can rip it long after MP3 is dethroned. Adopting a pricing model like the iPhone where apps are mostly $0.99-$5 means people dont think about buying stuff. They just buy it. I am not saying AAA game titles should be $5 but how bout $25. How bout $30? $60 for a digital download? No thanks.
I always I buy the physical copy these days unless the digital price is so low it doesn’t matter. Digital pricing needs to improve or I will always buy the physical product, because most of the time its a way better deal.
Alien: The New Meme
Posted by jdodson in life, offhandstrangity on January 25th, 2010
It was my friend Jeremy’s 30th birthday this last weekend. His sister had a alien themed birthday party for him. She handed out miniature aliens to all the party guests. I took a picture of the alien and my celling and that started a few texts back and forth between myself and Jeremy. The following pictures and gallery were the fallout of that exchange from my camera. There is a partner tagline with each picture.
I dubb this gallery “Alien: The New Meme“. I will only feature a few of the pictures here, check the entire gallery for the full set.
Your addiction is known to me.
Standing amongst greatness.
Jesus doesn't want me for birdseed.
The limitless potential.
Making a Few Dollars Online
I blog. I Tweet. I put ads on my site to see if I could make any money blogging. Thus far I am not sure its worth having them up. I don’t make much money on click throughs. Recently ive been experimenting with having an Amazon referral account. Basically if I talk about a product and someone buys it I get a 4% cut. Leaps and bounds its a better system than click through ads. My first day with Amazon referrals I made a reasonable amount of money. Its strange that just talking about something can lead someone to buy it, but it is cool.
I can’t tell who bought what, its pretty secure in that regard, but its nice to know people do actually buy things based off what I say. Its as if I have some influence on people in some capacity that I didn’t realize I had before. Its a cool feeling.
Thanks for reading.
.Beat Super Mario 2
Posted by jdodson in life, video games on January 24th, 2010
Beat it. I just beat it.
Today I beat Super Mario 2 with no warps all the way through. Overall this game is much harder than I remember it being but quite a bit of fun.
I recently made my way through Legend of Zelda Links Awakening and I just pieced together that those games both are dreams. Mario 2 being a dream in Mario’s head and Links Awakening world being a dream of the wind fish.
Sleep well.
These are not screenshots from my game. However, my line up was princes like 22 times, Toad and Mario once. I believe the Princess is the best because she can float. Its a nice thing because platforming games like this see you fall into pits often and you can just float over them most of the time.
I had quite a problem beating the crab boss of world 6.3 but I watched someone do it with Mario in a YouTube video and that seemed to help.
Whats next on my video game plate? I am going to nickel and dime the remaining Fallout 3 quests and expansions as I have time. However the next big thing will see me moving on to Super Mario Brother 3.
The biggest most exciting mario yet!
One thing down on my things to accomplish it 2010.
Will Play Is The Best Selling Game of the Decade
Posted by jdodson in video games on January 20th, 2010
Wii Play Wii Play.
“If there’s a statistic measuring how well a game sold, you’re likely to find Wii Play lingering in it somewhere. It’s not only been the best-selling game of 2009, but also just recently made itself known as the top seller for the last decade. Now, according to NPD data (via GameSpot), the software-hardware hybrid has claimed another throne: top-selling non-PC US game ever. ”
Wii Play is fun. The wife and I had quite a bit of fun playing it back when the Wii was minty fresh in our hearts. I don’t play the Wii too often these days. Then again, I haven’t really played games that much over the last few weeks. I beat Fallout 3 and started Mario 2 but I haven’t played much recently.
Ill break out Wii Play tonight as its a fun game if only keeping my interest for only 30 minutes at a time. However it does do one thing that few games fail to do. Interest my wife in playing video games with me. Fallout 3 could never pull that off. Perhaps thats why Wii Play is the best selling game of the last decade. Well that and its a no brainer as it comes with a Wii Controller for the same price as a controller itself.
The Book of Eli (Movie Review)
Yes Mel, I am coming to take your post apocalyptic prize!
I am going to keep this review spoiler free. The above image is linked the Wikipedia page for the movie. Wikipedia ALWAYS spoils movies as they detail the plot in the article. You have been warned.
I think its important to note my expectations of The Book of Eli. First off I expected it to be Mad Max with Denzel Washington. I also expected it to be so so. I love post apocalyptic movies so this was a no brainer for me. I love this genre. However this movie exceeded my expectations so much so that I don’t think I can rate this movie high enough. This movie isn’t good because it beat my expectations, its a great movie because it blew my mind.
But what about this movie blew my mind? Good question.
Almost not worth noting that Denzel Washington is a extremely well seasoned actor with amazing chops. Ive seen him in movies I didn’t love but he always pulled off his roles with style. His character is not really like other characters I have seen him play. Eli is actually a pretty reserved character. Well save that he can open a can of whoop ass unlike many ive seen on screen. In these kind of post apocalyptic movies the main character is flamboyant, thrill seeking and cocky. Eli is none of those things. He is on a mission and doesn’t want to deviate from it. He has to and thats where things get interesting but he tries to avoid it as much as he can. I guess to sum it up, Denzel Washington adds to the post apocalyptic good guy character in ways I haven’t seen in this kind of move.
The cinematography in this film is very good. One action scene in the beginning of the movie is done entirely in silloutte. This is something I haven’t quite seen before because you only can see the outlines of the action, blood and all. Its gruesome for sure but it leaves much up to the imagination in a way I thought was unique. The camera paints a world that YOU DO NOT want to live in. Much in the same way as District 9 except that this post apocalyptic US is 100 times worse than that. I gave District 9 cred for developing a future world I never want to live in. I give The Book of Eli a gold medal for showing a post apocalyptic future we as humans never want to create. I imagine its spot on but the ways they showed it I was shocked to realize were dead on accurate.
The story is pretty much what I love most about this movie. Now I am not going to ruin the movie when I saw I don’t see faith portrayed this well in a film. If you know nothing about the movie that statement might surprise you but then again this movie is not simply Denzel Washington as Mad Max. I mean it is, but at its root its really not. In fact the friend that went to see it with me and myself spend an hour and half talking about what this movie is trying to say. There are some really impossible aspects to this movie but then again I found it easy to suspend my disbelief for the entire thing. It was a joy to watch the surprises unfold.
The soundtrack for this movie was something I didn’t think too much about when I watched the movie save I liked it. I listened to a few of the songs afterward and realized I really really liked the score. The score was written by Atticus Ross a composer and part collaborator on all Nine Inch Nails releases since With Teeth. The influence shows and I love the score. Its very ambient but the songs do have themes and tones. Its quite like the Nine Inch Nails album Ghosts but a bit more even and songs often contain Orchestral parts. The lead track Panoramic is beautiful and its all over the movie. In fact, I loved the soundtrack so much I bought it. Its pretty rare I snack up a soundtrack but few are this good. Few movies are this good actually.
Book of Eli Soundrack(CD)
The Book Of Eli Original Motion Picture Soundtrack [+digital booklet]
I can’t recommend you see this movie enough. Then again, if you go out and read other reviewers reviews of this movie you might not get such a raving review. A few people laughed at the movie in parts that were not funny. Some people might not have bought some of what the movie was selling but I ate it up entirely. Then again some people laughed at District 9 when the main character was forced to shoot a prawn(when I can’t understand that scene was horrific).
I rate this movie 10 out of 10 with a bullet. “Beyond phenomenal” are words that came to my mind. I will purchase this movie the second it is released and will see it again in the theaters. Yeah, I liked it that much. Does it show?
BONUS FEATURES:
* I noticed this movie has 3 of the actors from the “Harry Potter verse.” Dumbledore & Madame Maxime are married and Sirus Black is the bad guy. Of course I mean Gary Oldman, Michael Gambon & Frances de la Tour. When Frances de la Tour and Michael Gambon were on screen I was like “Dumbledore marries Madam Maxime in the future? Huh… strange.” It didn’t take me out of the movie, the characters act NOTHING like their Hogwarts counterparts but its fun to notice.