Davidology

I just bought a Wii. I haven't opened it yet, but the game selection looks *yawns* boring, but that's sight unseen, so I'm hoping I'm wrong. Although, I can't believe it's only 480p. How am I supposed to frag someone at 480p? WTF?!

Weak.

I think I got caught in the frenzy of limited supplies. My coworker and I ganked the last ones. I don't see it replacing the Sexbox anytime soon, but it might be fun to have when friends come over. ...or it may end up on ebay around the holidays.

I need to get a game or two for it. Maybe I'll try playing Leaning Side to Side.

 

SQUEEEEE! Helloooooo, Moto!

Motorola finally released the S9 headphones I've been dying to try out. Unfortunately, my last pair of BT headphones didn't quite live up to their usefulness. The fact is they were simply just too big. I felt like Princess Leah wearing the things. On top of that, they were a little on the heavy side and, well, the needless blinking blue lights on either side made me worry about jets trying to land on my head.

Enter the S9!

These things are, so far, the most practical I've seen. First of all, thery're earbuds, of which I'm a fan. My Sony FONtopias are by far my favorite headphones. They pretty much rawk anything inexpensive I've tried, and the bass is unparalleled in an earbud. Secondly, they're much more nondescript than the last ones. I'm pretty much of the belief that headphones should be heard and not seen.

My music player and earphones aren't fashion statments. I almost never wear white headphones that stand out (unless I'm wearing a white shirt). Otherwise, my little black wires run underneath my shirt and into the pocket where my music device is hidden. Considering there's a battery, charging port, and power switch, these aren't a bad compromise.

Sound Quality

I have to admit, when I first tried them, they sounded pretty bad. I remembered how my FONtopias are very sensitive to positioning, so when I noticed replacement earbuds, I popped off the directional ones and placed the straight ones on. The difference in bass was immediately noticeable, and the sound in general improved 100%. I guess it probably depends on your ears as to which will work best for you, but, although a little big for my ears, the replacement mushroom-looking buds sound much better in my ears. The difference was immediately noticeable and it wasn't subtle. I'm not sure why Motorola preinstalled the other buds, but perhaps my ears are different. I won't say the sound is as good as my FONtopias, but there are a lot of factors that can be influencing the quality. I'm going to try a different music player on my mobile that has an equalizer later.

The buttons to answer calls and pause/play are on either ear. The next track and volume buttons are touch sensitive, so you just have to press your finger against them (this will take a little getting used to as every time I grab them, I'm setting something off).

The mic is embedded somewhere in the right ear bud. [I'll try this out later and fill in how that works]. If it works anything like the HT820s, the mic won't be an issue. When a call comes in, the music of course pauses, and you can take the call right in the headphones. Once the call ends, the music automatically picks up from where it left off.

Another great feature of these, the device can pair with up to 8 different devices! So you can use them as headphones for your computer at work, your cell phones, your notebook at home, home stereo, mp3 player, etc.

Anyway, so far I'm a fan. I'm going to try these out at the gym tonight (if it isn't too cold). It'll be nice to finally put the music playing capabilities of my cell phone to good use.

Oh, yes, and there are no obnoxiously large blinking lights on this one—just a little unobtrusive one that is underneath the battery compartment in the back.

Also, major props to Motorola for carrying this feature over: standard mini-USB charging jack.

[Additional Info -- 2007-04-19 21:49]
I had noticed some clipping on higher frequencies that was disconcerting, however, this appears to be limited to the software on the mobile device. After pairing it to the Windows installation on my ThinkPad, I can say the sound is VERY good for wireless headphones, and I've noticed no clipping at either low or high frequencies. So far this is the only other device I've tried it with. Although I successfully paired it to my Macbook as a headset, Apple's Bluetooth implementation on the Mac is incomplete and does not support the A2DP profile (which is required for stereo over BT).


 

So, TiVo announced the Series 3 yesterday.

For just $800, you can have a TiVo and the privilege of paying $12.95 per month (minimum 1-year contract). Let's see, $3 a month to Adelphia Time Warner for an HD DVR box v. $800 + 12.95/mo. Gee, I wonder which one consumers will go for. </sarcasm>

I loves me some TiVo (3 in the apartment), but at $800, even I'm ready to jump ship. $800 x 3 TVs isn't exactly cheap. For $800 a box, I'll just wait for something else—like the Vista Media Center to (eventually) come out. Then I can save on one of the boxes because the SeXbox 360 can be used as a Media Sextender. On top of that, for probably the same price as the series 3, the Vista Media Centers are full blown (and rather powerful) computers.

I think TiVo was already in trouble, but after this brutal announcement I think the death knell is starting to sound.

Major sadness. My dreams of the world being ruled by a master race of hacked TiVo overlords are fading.

TiVo is was love.

*sigh*

 

Anyone using Vonage?

I'm tempted to switch our landline over after learning Vonage only eats up 96kbps of your upstream (we have 768k up, so plenty to go around).

I'm really concerned though by the apparent need to forward 10,000 UDP ports to the Vonage VoIP device. That seems a rather sloppy and cludgy way to implement it. We only have one public IP at this time, and I'd rather leave the Vonage device behind the firewall so that the web interface is accessible. I really don't understand why they couldn't reduce the number of ports and use UPnP to report to the router which ports it's using at any given time.

The other concern is faxes. We probably use that about once a year, but I'd rather not lose that ability.

Anyone have any opinions or experience with it?

[Edit: Also thinking about using the VTtech IP8100 with it.]

 

I reflashed the firmware in my cell with the latest version about a week ago. The new version supports A2DP Bluetooth profiles, which basically means, I can use Bluetooth stereo headphones with it now.

I've kind of been conflicted about the usefulness of these though. On the one hand, it's just cool. On the other, wireless headphones are much more obtrusive when compared to my earbuds. Sure, the earbuds are wired, but that wire is run down under my shirt and into my pocket. When I'm not using them, they just dangle at my collar. Perfect.

Back to the "pro" side, I would be able to use the media player on my phone and not carry around an mp3 player at the gym (the earbuds that came with my phone are horribly uncomfortable, and it's a proprietary plug to accommodate the mic).

Anyway, I grabbed a set of the Motorola HT820s from CompUSA and am taking advantage of the 21-days to try them out to see if I like them.

For the positives, I have to say, I do like being able to use my phone as my mp3 player. Since I carry my phone anyway, it's one less thing in my pocket. The other really wicked feature is for taking calls. If I forget to silence my ringer, I don't have to worry about the "I love Tito's Tacos" jingle blasting at full volume in my pocket annoying people, while I'm obliviously listening to my mp3 player. With the headphones, the music is paused, and the caller is announced in my ear so I can take the call. When the call is over, my tunes pick up where they left off.

Where the Moto shines above the others is in the mic. Instead of a boom that you have to lower on most of the BT headphones, the mic is located in/behind the USB/charger port (very nice use of space). USB, of course, is another bonus. I think from now that is going to be a requirement for all my cell products—makes traveling easier, and my roommate and I can leave chargers all over the house.

The negatives? Well, they're big. They're certainly not as nondescript as my earbuds, and I'm just not one of those guys who wears his mp3 player on his arm. I'm all about the technology being disguised. It's a little hard to do with these cups sitting off your ears. The little pulsating blue "M" on either ear doesn't help either. Fortunately, that can be turned off if you remember. Only problem is, it turns off all the indicator lights. Why Motorola can't just put a tiny little flashing status LED is beyond me, but they seem to prefer the "ZOMG LOOK AT THIS THING ON MY EAR" blinky light on most of their BT products.

Anyway, I'm still checking them out. The one thing I haven't tried yet is pairing it to my laptop. Supposedly, it can pair to two devices at once, which would be cool, but I'm concerned it will only use the handsfree profile with the phone once I do that. I'll play with that feature later. At this point, I'm leaning towards keeping them, but I wouldn't mind trying out some others (I'm so afraid of commitment).

So Microsoft released the beta of its new Windows Live Local (formerly VirtualEarth.com) that has low altitude, aerial, birdseye views of major cities to add to their normal satellite imagery. Here are the results of my playing around with Windows Live Local. I bookmarked a few places as I was effing around. Below is the Hollywood Bowl, where I saw Cher and other far less important stuff.

also cool

I've been listening to Pandora.com. It's sort of like Music Plasma where you enter a group, and it algorithmically find similar music to find what you like. Been listening to it for about a week now and liking it.

This weekend...

found me in Palm Springs for our company holiday party where we, teh internets group, won the coveted annual award for just kicking major ass this year. I guess there really is life east of the 5. I'd heard stories, but I'd mostly thought they were urban legends.

Anywho... I forget how many scary places there are as you leave the coast. We stopped at a McDonald's where a very nice, albeit toothless, lady took our order. We also passed a white pickup truck with a "Bush" sticker. You can't help but look to see who it is, as it really does take a special kind of person to still support him AND admit to it. Not to be disappointed, it was a pretty classic moment. Guy with a mullet, dirty t-shirt, and a mustache was behind the wheel. Intelligent design, my ass.

and... guess who's going to Hotlanta?

I think that'll be me. I've heard stories of kick ass clubs and if I get to go out and play, I have high expectations of so much hedonistic and outright debaucherous fun that after Pat Robertson calls for the city to feel the Baby Jesus' wrath.

Because bluetooth manufacturers for cars use a standard passcode, anyone can tap into the system. So if someone cuts in front of you without signaling, you can call him an asshole using the speakers in his own car! bwaahahaha (or just eavesdrop on his conversations).

This is much better than cell phones where I could just send stupid messages to random, unknown strangers at parties.

Link (found on boing boing or slashdot): Oh, the fun to be had with this.

I've been dying to post this for a couple months now, but because it exacerbated the CAPS bug in Firefox (and subsequently caused a lot of crashing and burning), I couldn't. I found this extension so awesomely cool and necessary that despite the frequent crashes, I ran it anyway.

But now it's totally ready for prime time.

You need this extension.

It will change your life.

It's like surfing the web with a condom on.

First, you need to upgrade to Firefox 1.0.5, which was just released. Any other version will still have the bug, and you will curse me in 5 languages. If you're not sure which version you have, go to Help > About Mozilla Firefox. Then get the NoScript extension.

Basically, a lot of malware, adware, popups, and generally bad–things–that–happen–to–your–computer get in through malicious websites using active content, mostly through javascript or active X. Active X is IE-specific, so Firefox covers you there. Now, you could just disable javascript, but you'd find most of your favorite websites would no longer work properly. You could use IE and put any ill-behaved sites in your "Restricted Zone," but that's a royal pain in the ass, and is reactive instead of proactive (so the damage might already be done).

I've been clamoring for a javascript button that would turn it on and off at will. But then someone wrote NoScript!

Here's what it does: it blocks javascript until you say a site is okay. So, you visit your favorite site. Noscript alerts you through the information bar that javascript is being blocked. You notice something on the site isn't working properly, and you trust the site, so you enable it.



In this example, if I found the site not behaving properly, I could enable javascript for Engadget, but I would not enable it for doubleclick. I know doubleclick is an ad server, so the javascript is likely used either for tracking, popups, or some sort of annoying active content I don't want to see.

The awesome thing is that everything is blocked until I say it's okay. No more popups that get around popup blockers. No more floating ads. You've totally taken control of your browsing experience back from the content providers who would violate your preferences. Most savvy sites will account for javascript being off and still function. Some will totally choke, in which case you allow javascript from them (but not from any third party servers).

Anyway, I've been pretty stoked about this plug in for sometime, especially since more and more publishers were finding ways around pop up blockers. At this time, it truly is the safest way to browse (short of going back to lynx).

Since I finished Halo 2 a couple months ago (could that game have been any shorter), I've been playing Splinter Cell. Beyond the fact that after playing Splinter Cell for a few weeks, I can't walk around the city without noticing every ladder and pipe and think, "I could climb over to the other side on that" or "I wonder where that vent leads to," I'm BORED.

One of the awesome things about Halo, Unreal, Doom, etc. is that you get to walk around and frag the shit out of people. I mean really kill the crap out of things. Yes, you have to watch your ammo, but you can get more by killing someone and stealing theirs off the dead carcass (if you left one).

In Splinter Cell, it's not like that. You have to tip toe around with your finger up your ass so no one can hear you. The secret is to get in and out undetected, and where the hell is the fun in that?!

I'm tired of waiting 5 minutes to just anticlimactically sneak up and jump someone from behind. It's... well... not as satisfying as taking a Plasma Sword and impaling the fuck out of some worthless mutant. That's all I'm saying. Well, after 8 or so missions, one can get—let's call it annoyed. And that's when it happened. On the Bathhouse mission, I just lost it. I wanted to shoot people. No, I needed to shoot someone. You can only tip toe through the tulips so long because you need to cut a bitch. And cut a bitch I did. I assumed I wouldn't get very far as shooting alerts guards and causes gameplay to become lame because you know you fucked up. I thought I'd just shoot a few people and start the mission over or turn off the sexbox.

It didn't turn out as badly as I thought thought. Still intoxicated by the feeling of blowing the smug smiles off some guardsmen, I pressed on, and I got far in the mission—near the end I believe. Unfortunately, now I'm nearly out of ammo and in a section of the bathhouse where I could really use that ammo. The right answer of course is to start the mission over, but I don't want to, because I sort of hate this game. Because I don't look forward to it, I only play it every now and then and get annoyed with it quickly. I long to feel the warm feel of a plasma sword, or rocket launcher in my hands! I need the sweet release that can only come from blinding hot carnage.

I think it's time to buy another game and just play splinter cell in my spare time when I feel the obligation to finish. I think it may be time for a little Unreal Tournament (The Liandri Conflict). I haven't played UT on xbox before, but since we got the 50-incher, I've just not felt like gaming on my PC anymore. Maybe Doom 3? Best Buy has 10% off online, and Doom 3 is on sale! Argh!

I dunno. All I do know is something is missing from my life, and it's a plasma cannon.