I don't think Sony gets it yet
So I got my first PS3 "trophy" this morning in Pixeljunk Eden and I've played a bit with the Playstation network id. It's still not a good equivalent to Xbox Live and Gamerscore. First off you apparently can't see trophies from the web or anywhere but the PS3 itself. Second off, this silly PSN network ID badge I added to my site doesn't display anything other than an avatar icon and a phrase I set on the PS3. Worse, it doesn't even update when those change unless I got to a web page and click an "update" button. Lastly, trophies without Home is just a text string. Whoopee! No graphic, no score, just a little picture of a bronze trophy and the trophy description.
It's hard to imagine this catching on. Seems like if they were going to rip off Xbox (while Xbox was busy ripping off Nintendo), they should have been at least able to rip off the cool bits ....
So I got my first PS3 "trophy" this morning in Pixeljunk Eden and I've played a bit with the Playstation network id. It's still not a good equivalent to Xbox Live and Gamerscore. First off you apparently can't see trophies from the web or anywhere but the PS3 itself. Second off, this silly PSN network ID badge I added to my site doesn't display anything other than an avatar icon and a phrase I set on the PS3. Worse, it doesn't even update when those change unless I got to a web page and click an "update" button. Lastly, trophies without Home is just a text string. Whoopee! No graphic, no score, just a little picture of a bronze trophy and the trophy description.
It's hard to imagine this catching on. Seems like if they were going to rip off Xbox (while Xbox was busy ripping off Nintendo), they should have been at least able to rip off the cool bits ....
It's hard to imagine this catching on. Seems like if they were going to rip off Xbox (while Xbox was busy ripping off Nintendo), they should have been at least able to rip off the cool bits ....
Mama Bear, Pappa Bear, and Baby Bear
I'm off on vacation, but I took a moment to grab a picture of Kool-Aid (my old 17" Powerbook on the left), Lorax (my new 15" MacBook Pro in the middle), and Karin's uninterestingly-named laptop (the 12" Powerbook on the right). I need to get a wallpaper on Lorax before I head out, but I thought the size comparison was amusing.I'm off on vacation, but I took a moment to grab a picture of Kool-Aid (my old 17" Powerbook on the left), Lorax (my new 15" MacBook Pro in the middle), and Karin's uninterestingly-named laptop (the 12" Powerbook on the right). I need to get a wallpaper on Lorax before I head out, but I thought the size comparison was amusing.
iPhone Apps
Yesterday in the comments JP asked about iPhone applications that I recommend. It's still early days for iPhone 3rd party apps, but a few stand out so far.
My two most favorite applications would certainly be NetNewsWire (RSS reader) and OmniFocus (productivity Getting Things Done application), but both of those are probably only interesting if you use the Mac desktop versions. They both sync so that you can move easily between the desktop and the phone and manipulate the data in either place.
After those my favorite is the Apple Remote. If you have iTunes, an Airport Express, or an Apple TV you can now use your iPhone to control that music source. You can browse music, set volume, and if you do have an Airport Express you can select which speakers are in use. I used this over the past weekend at Game Day to control the music playing in two different rooms and it worked great. Again, if you don't use iTunes in some flavor it won't do much for you, but if you do you should definitely check out Apple Remote.
Other freebie apps that I've been impressed with are Twitterific, Yelp and Shazam. Yelp is a front end for Yelp (big surprise), and Shazam records a snippet of a song, then sends it off to some internet server and about 80 - 90% of the time it comes back and tells you what song it is. That's really cool. Mocha VNC Lite seems to work as advertised (and it can control a Mac with "Back to My Mac" turned on if you open the firewall port for it). I've downloaded but not yet tried the Wordpress app. Tap Tap Revolution seems pretty fun, but the no-name music is a bit of a bummer. Obviously if it played from your music library it would be a good bit better.
I've used FileMagnet to put a couple of PDF files on the phone and that seems decent. It isn't free, but if you want to read PDF's on the phone it's worth $5.
The only app that I paid for so far that I find disappointing is Super Monkey Ball. The camera interacts poorly with the tilt controls and the game requires you to play something like 10 levels at go without saving - which is very un-iPhone-like. If you shut it off after only five levels when you come back you need to play those five levels over again.
I just bought Cocktails today and I like it for what it does, but it seems really short on tiki recipes (it doesn't know a Shark's Tooth or a Blue Hawaiian for example). I haven't really used it enough yet to pass opinion on the database, but it looks like a nice enough application. Plus it will Twitter what drink you're making!
Yesterday in the comments JP asked about iPhone applications that I recommend. It's still early days for iPhone 3rd party apps, but a few stand out so far.
My two most favorite applications would certainly be NetNewsWire (RSS reader) and OmniFocus (productivity Getting Things Done application), but both of those are probably only interesting if you use the Mac desktop versions. They both sync so that you can move easily between the desktop and the phone and manipulate the data in either place.
After those my favorite is the Apple Remote. If you have iTunes, an Airport Express, or an Apple TV you can now use your iPhone to control that music source. You can browse music, set volume, and if you do have an Airport Express you can select which speakers are in use. I used this over the past weekend at Game Day to control the music playing in two different rooms and it worked great. Again, if you don't use iTunes in some flavor it won't do much for you, but if you do you should definitely check out Apple Remote.
Other freebie apps that I've been impressed with are Twitterific, Yelp and Shazam. Yelp is a front end for Yelp (big surprise), and Shazam records a snippet of a song, then sends it off to some internet server and about 80 - 90% of the time it comes back and tells you what song it is. That's really cool. Mocha VNC Lite seems to work as advertised (and it can control a Mac with "Back to My Mac" turned on if you open the firewall port for it). I've downloaded but not yet tried the Wordpress app. Tap Tap Revolution seems pretty fun, but the no-name music is a bit of a bummer. Obviously if it played from your music library it would be a good bit better.
I've used FileMagnet to put a couple of PDF files on the phone and that seems decent. It isn't free, but if you want to read PDF's on the phone it's worth $5.
The only app that I paid for so far that I find disappointing is Super Monkey Ball. The camera interacts poorly with the tilt controls and the game requires you to play something like 10 levels at go without saving - which is very un-iPhone-like. If you shut it off after only five levels when you come back you need to play those five levels over again.
I just bought Cocktails today and I like it for what it does, but it seems really short on tiki recipes (it doesn't know a Shark's Tooth or a Blue Hawaiian for example). I haven't really used it enough yet to pass opinion on the database, but it looks like a nice enough application. Plus it will Twitter what drink you're making!
My two most favorite applications would certainly be NetNewsWire (RSS reader) and OmniFocus (productivity Getting Things Done application), but both of those are probably only interesting if you use the Mac desktop versions. They both sync so that you can move easily between the desktop and the phone and manipulate the data in either place.
After those my favorite is the Apple Remote. If you have iTunes, an Airport Express, or an Apple TV you can now use your iPhone to control that music source. You can browse music, set volume, and if you do have an Airport Express you can select which speakers are in use. I used this over the past weekend at Game Day to control the music playing in two different rooms and it worked great. Again, if you don't use iTunes in some flavor it won't do much for you, but if you do you should definitely check out Apple Remote.
Other freebie apps that I've been impressed with are Twitterific, Yelp and Shazam. Yelp is a front end for Yelp (big surprise), and Shazam records a snippet of a song, then sends it off to some internet server and about 80 - 90% of the time it comes back and tells you what song it is. That's really cool. Mocha VNC Lite seems to work as advertised (and it can control a Mac with "Back to My Mac" turned on if you open the firewall port for it). I've downloaded but not yet tried the Wordpress app. Tap Tap Revolution seems pretty fun, but the no-name music is a bit of a bummer. Obviously if it played from your music library it would be a good bit better.
I've used FileMagnet to put a couple of PDF files on the phone and that seems decent. It isn't free, but if you want to read PDF's on the phone it's worth $5.
The only app that I paid for so far that I find disappointing is Super Monkey Ball. The camera interacts poorly with the tilt controls and the game requires you to play something like 10 levels at go without saving - which is very un-iPhone-like. If you shut it off after only five levels when you come back you need to play those five levels over again.
I just bought Cocktails today and I like it for what it does, but it seems really short on tiki recipes (it doesn't know a Shark's Tooth or a Blue Hawaiian for example). I haven't really used it enough yet to pass opinion on the database, but it looks like a nice enough application. Plus it will Twitter what drink you're making!
With Technology Figit
Good Lord, I've been as criminally negligent of this blog as it's possible to be criminally negligent of a personal blog.
It's time for Technology Catch-Up(tm). Part the first: I bought Wii - I've had it about a month now. One part the Penny Arcade guys gushing over Boom Blox, one part some other technology fooling about making me realize that if I reconfigured the home theater just *SO* I could squeeze a Wii to the existing input and cables, and one part it finally being in a local store when I called and asked them.
Verdict? Well, it turns out I can improve the sloppy control I complained so much about - set the sensitivity to "5" (the max) and it helps a lot. I still feel very strongly that you don't feel like you're pointing at the screen due to the ergonomics of the remote and you're driving a pointer around. The visceral "I'm pointing at the screen" doesn't work right, and whenever you need to do that it seems like there's a fair amount of "Just wave the remote until you get a cursor and then adjust from there." Boom Blox is a lot of fun despite that, and I've played an awful lot of Super Mario Galaxy in the last month. I still think it's a gimmick overall and I can't see it ever dethroning my 360 as my main console. But as I said in the comments here I don't think they are even competing really. I don't regret buying one, but I don't regret not having one for the last 1.5 years either. I haven't bought Zelda yet, but by the end of the summer I'll have blown through the back catalog and then the Wii will be like the Gamecube - hardly ever used except when Nintendo released a game every six months or so.
That's not all on the technology parade. I'm going on vacation next week and I decided I wanted a new laptop before I went, so I got a 15" Macbook Pro. It's smaller and lighter than Kool-Aid, both of which will make it more airplane friendly. Kool-Aid needed at least a new battery, and it couldn't run the iPhone development software (needs an Intel Mac), and it was just getting a bit old for what I wanted to do. I'm still installing and configuring software but I like it a lot. As an odd aside Karin bought it with her educator discount and we got a free iPod touch in the bargain.
Which brings us to the iPhone 2.0 software. I don't have any real desire to upgrade to the iPhone 3G as I already own a GPS and most of my iPhone network usage is via WiFi anyway. But the new software is full of awesome. The App Store is great and a lot of new applications are fantastic. I should post more about this. My biggest surprise so far is to realize I actively prefer reading RSS feeds on my phone and I opt for it even when I'm at home and could use Tiny God and the twin 24" screens. The phone forces me to triage more from article title and so far I'm not missing anything but getting through more items in less time. There's a lot of good stuff in the App Store. A metric shit-ton of crap as well, but there it is. The phone seems much less stable as well. I crash it several times a day now, as opposed to less than once a month. Most crashes seem to be right around app launch and it recovers gracefully but it's still a sour note.
Good Lord, I've been as criminally negligent of this blog as it's possible to be criminally negligent of a personal blog.
It's time for Technology Catch-Up(tm). Part the first: I bought Wii - I've had it about a month now. One part the Penny Arcade guys gushing over Boom Blox, one part some other technology fooling about making me realize that if I reconfigured the home theater just *SO* I could squeeze a Wii to the existing input and cables, and one part it finally being in a local store when I called and asked them.
Verdict? Well, it turns out I can improve the sloppy control I complained so much about - set the sensitivity to "5" (the max) and it helps a lot. I still feel very strongly that you don't feel like you're pointing at the screen due to the ergonomics of the remote and you're driving a pointer around. The visceral "I'm pointing at the screen" doesn't work right, and whenever you need to do that it seems like there's a fair amount of "Just wave the remote until you get a cursor and then adjust from there." Boom Blox is a lot of fun despite that, and I've played an awful lot of Super Mario Galaxy in the last month. I still think it's a gimmick overall and I can't see it ever dethroning my 360 as my main console. But as I said in the comments here I don't think they are even competing really. I don't regret buying one, but I don't regret not having one for the last 1.5 years either. I haven't bought Zelda yet, but by the end of the summer I'll have blown through the back catalog and then the Wii will be like the Gamecube - hardly ever used except when Nintendo released a game every six months or so.
That's not all on the technology parade. I'm going on vacation next week and I decided I wanted a new laptop before I went, so I got a 15" Macbook Pro. It's smaller and lighter than Kool-Aid, both of which will make it more airplane friendly. Kool-Aid needed at least a new battery, and it couldn't run the iPhone development software (needs an Intel Mac), and it was just getting a bit old for what I wanted to do. I'm still installing and configuring software but I like it a lot. As an odd aside Karin bought it with her educator discount and we got a free iPod touch in the bargain.
Which brings us to the iPhone 2.0 software. I don't have any real desire to upgrade to the iPhone 3G as I already own a GPS and most of my iPhone network usage is via WiFi anyway. But the new software is full of awesome. The App Store is great and a lot of new applications are fantastic. I should post more about this. My biggest surprise so far is to realize I actively prefer reading RSS feeds on my phone and I opt for it even when I'm at home and could use Tiny God and the twin 24" screens. The phone forces me to triage more from article title and so far I'm not missing anything but getting through more items in less time. There's a lot of good stuff in the App Store. A metric shit-ton of crap as well, but there it is. The phone seems much less stable as well. I crash it several times a day now, as opposed to less than once a month. Most crashes seem to be right around app launch and it recovers gracefully but it's still a sour note.
It's time for Technology Catch-Up(tm). Part the first: I bought Wii - I've had it about a month now. One part the Penny Arcade guys gushing over Boom Blox, one part some other technology fooling about making me realize that if I reconfigured the home theater just *SO* I could squeeze a Wii to the existing input and cables, and one part it finally being in a local store when I called and asked them.
Verdict? Well, it turns out I can improve the sloppy control I complained so much about - set the sensitivity to "5" (the max) and it helps a lot. I still feel very strongly that you don't feel like you're pointing at the screen due to the ergonomics of the remote and you're driving a pointer around. The visceral "I'm pointing at the screen" doesn't work right, and whenever you need to do that it seems like there's a fair amount of "Just wave the remote until you get a cursor and then adjust from there." Boom Blox is a lot of fun despite that, and I've played an awful lot of Super Mario Galaxy in the last month. I still think it's a gimmick overall and I can't see it ever dethroning my 360 as my main console. But as I said in the comments here I don't think they are even competing really. I don't regret buying one, but I don't regret not having one for the last 1.5 years either. I haven't bought Zelda yet, but by the end of the summer I'll have blown through the back catalog and then the Wii will be like the Gamecube - hardly ever used except when Nintendo released a game every six months or so.
That's not all on the technology parade. I'm going on vacation next week and I decided I wanted a new laptop before I went, so I got a 15" Macbook Pro. It's smaller and lighter than Kool-Aid, both of which will make it more airplane friendly. Kool-Aid needed at least a new battery, and it couldn't run the iPhone development software (needs an Intel Mac), and it was just getting a bit old for what I wanted to do. I'm still installing and configuring software but I like it a lot. As an odd aside Karin bought it with her educator discount and we got a free iPod touch in the bargain.
Which brings us to the iPhone 2.0 software. I don't have any real desire to upgrade to the iPhone 3G as I already own a GPS and most of my iPhone network usage is via WiFi anyway. But the new software is full of awesome. The App Store is great and a lot of new applications are fantastic. I should post more about this. My biggest surprise so far is to realize I actively prefer reading RSS feeds on my phone and I opt for it even when I'm at home and could use Tiny God and the twin 24" screens. The phone forces me to triage more from article title and so far I'm not missing anything but getting through more items in less time. There's a lot of good stuff in the App Store. A metric shit-ton of crap as well, but there it is. The phone seems much less stable as well. I crash it several times a day now, as opposed to less than once a month. Most crashes seem to be right around app launch and it recovers gracefully but it's still a sour note.
Fair Time for PSN
Sony added the ability to badge your PSN (Playstation Network) account on a web site, just like 360 and I added mine to the sidebar. The badge doesn't seem very useful, since all it displays is the account picture and apparently some sort of message that I have to use the PS3 to set, but whatever. I'll put it next to the 360 badge and if Sony makes it look stupid that's Sony's problem not mine.
Anyway, if anybody has a Playstation, go ahead and send me a friend request or whatever they call it in Sony-land.
Some day I really have to change the theme on this blog to get a second sidebar ....
Sony added the ability to badge your PSN (Playstation Network) account on a web site, just like 360 and I added mine to the sidebar. The badge doesn't seem very useful, since all it displays is the account picture and apparently some sort of message that I have to use the PS3 to set, but whatever. I'll put it next to the 360 badge and if Sony makes it look stupid that's Sony's problem not mine.
Anyway, if anybody has a Playstation, go ahead and send me a friend request or whatever they call it in Sony-land.
Some day I really have to change the theme on this blog to get a second sidebar ....
Anyway, if anybody has a Playstation, go ahead and send me a friend request or whatever they call it in Sony-land.
Some day I really have to change the theme on this blog to get a second sidebar ....