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Corrections, omissions, new phase

26-Jul-10

“Corrections”

#1 To be fair to Apple, the mail app lets you delete without opening the email. I accidentally found that if swipe across an email subject line, it gives you an option to delete. That is a great feature! Oddly, it doesn’t always work. Sometimes it just marks it as read or does nothing with it at all. If I open it and then delete, it always deletes. I’m not sure why that is.

#2 I was using Copytrans manager (an iTunes alternative) and it was reporting the free disk space on the touch was more than what the touch recognized. It also occurred to me that there might not have been enough space to download the package and install. So it could be that CopyTrans was wrong. Note: I deleted past 650MB before deleting that one video that didn’t properly delete. So who knows.

“Omissions”

That secret I mentioned from last week was that we’re getting a fence and a new kitchen floor. Family from VA came up for the weekend and put the project on hold indefinitely. We already have ALL the material – the fencing and lumber is in the yard; the thinset, backer and tile is in the garage.

Also, silly me: I forgot to update the projects blog. The pool occupied all of last week’s mental capacity; now that it’s filled, filtered and chlorinated I can move onto other projects.

“New Phase”

#1 I tend to listen to music in phases. For a while it was French hip-hop, and then somewhere in there it was rock/metal. I grabbed Ke$ha, and it’s now technopop. If anyone knows of any good techno/electropop, please pass it along.

Techno/electropop is one of those weird genres that never really wore off but it has an incredibly short shelf life. Whenever we go to NYC, I try to make it a point to go into some hole in the wall shop in the old neighborhood and grab something (anything) that looks good.

#2 Here goes with Google Apps Standard for the office. Let’s see what happens, I guess.

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OpenSSH and the iTouch

20-Jul-10

I’m one of those in the minority of ‘unlocking but staying legal’ category. I can certainly download every app ever made for the itouch illegally, but I’m not going to do that.

I don’t say this to toot my horn but to note an interesting problem I ran into this morning. Dungeon Hunter went from from $4.99 to $.99 today, and having had some extra coin from doing surveys, I decided that today was a good day to spend a dollar.

Except, the app store repeatedly informed me I had no space. The app is 266MB, and I had 350 free (76 apps, can you believe it?). After I began deleting apps and videos, the increased space didn’t make a believer out of the app store. Hard rebooting didn’t help.

So what was a user to do? Most sites (including apple.com) suggested doing a full restore. Given that I’d lose my jailbreak, my save games, my saved calendars, plus would have to reload every app, that didn’t seem like a particularly good idea. Instead I used Cydia, installed openssh, used winscp and poked around.

The file layout isn’t all that different from linux; however, Apple in their infinite wisdom decided to scramble the names of every file (why? this makes no sense. If I have gotten this far, what difference does it make?) so after some careful poking and prodding, I found a video file that never properly deleted. It didn’t really make much of a difference in space (100MB), but it gave it enough of a kick in the rear that I could install the app.

Jesusphone’s little brother, the itouch, isn’t as bulletproof as Apple aficionados would have everyone believe. That’s not to say it’s not a great device – it is – but Apple could simplify matters by making the device slightly more open. Downloading each file and running it was a waste of time… but definitely not as much of a waste as trying to use iTunes for Windows to backup and restore (a process that would easily take 2+ hours).

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Killed it

19-Jul-10

That’s what we did this weekend. Totally and utterly trashed the daylights out of this weekend.

I finally relented and called in the cavalry. While Michael and I have a pleasantness about the tasks laid before us, we don’t work nearly as quickly as my dad and uncles. All of them were brought up as farmers, and still work with a farmer’s mentality. I’m half their age, and I could barely keep up with them. In five grueling hours on Saturday and two on Sunday, we were done.

We trimmed ALL the trees, removed all the branches, completely weeded the back and front yards, removed seven stumps, mulched, planted flowers, and put down a rock bed by the driveway where there was dirt (and weeds). This morning it rained, so I took great pleasure in walking over the rocks. The driveway is now expanded – we needed the space. In bad weather, someone always ended up with muddy shoes. No more!

After all that, we put up the pool.

The downside of the pool is that we practically lose all of the lawn and there’s no space for badminton or soccer. On the other hand, it’s a freaking pool.

I’ll update the project blog with pictures over the next few days. I meant to do it last night, but Isaac woke up; right after I finished the kids’ blog entry, I was summoned to rock him, and then I went straight to bed. This week, I promise.

- – -

Remaining work involves cleaning out the basement and the garage. I’ve organized all the computer parts, and now I just need to give them away. The garage is just full of stuff, not trash; I need to get in there, pull everything out, and reorganize stuff. There are corners of the garage that haven’t been cleaned since it flooded, so once that space is made, it’ll be smoother sailing (I hope).

And lastly… well, I’ll keep that one a secret. :-D Hopefully by next weekend, I’ll have pictures, if we can manage to get it done.

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Reviews 2x

12-Jul-10

It’s all about the iTouch these days. The thing that makes it so easy to finish games on this is the power button. Emulators have save states, but I can simply hit power and the game pauses right where I left it. Once I realized that, I stopped dumping money into consoles and started putting money into this. Games are awfully cheap on the iTouch.

Also: Isaac is a poor sleeper. Sometimes I find it works better if I rock him in the rocking chair for a few minutes and wait until he stops twitching before I put him in the crib. Sometimes that takes up to 20 minutes. I usually take the iTouch to read or to game. Otherwise I’d be bored out of my skull.

Space Miner: Space or Bust is by the same developers who made Ninjatown: Trees of Doom for the DS (the only game that I liked on the DS, by the way). SM:SoB is asteroids meets resource management meets RPG meets witty dialog. Your uncle owns a ore mining company on the ropes, and you are a freshly minted cadet right out of ore mining academy. Mine ore, make as much money as possible, build up your ship, run missions – the whole nine. All told it took me 10 hours to finish. There are several more levels of difficulty and tons of alien technology to collect. Above all, it’s just flat out fun. Unlike GTA:CW, I looked forward to playing this every night after work.

Blades of Fury is a gameloft knock off of Soul Calibur, and a surprisingly competent one at that. Usually priced at $7, I grabbed it at 99c. Arguably, it’s worth the $7 as I was sucked into the story lines. On top of that, it’s simply a *great* fighting game. The controls are responsive, the combos aren’t hard to perform, and graphics are silky smooth. I’ve read that people playing on the iPad and new iPhone4 have complaints about the graphics, but on a lower end device this game just shines.

On a final note, I’ve been worn down by several diamonds in the rough. Dare I say it – I really like the iTouch now. It took a few months, but with apps like Stanza, Fliq Tasks, Note to Self, RiotFX (I’ll save that for another post), Pandora, NPR Music and games like Highborn, Blades of Fury, Tilt to Live, Wesnoth, Angry Birds, Plants vs. Zombies, and Space Miner I’m actually quite glad that I purchased it. If I had a little patience I could’ve saved a few dollars by buying online (or purchased a 3rd Generation 32GB if I waited a month) but overall, I’m happy with the device.

Note that none of the apps I mentioned are first party. I still maintain that the Apple made apps are steaming piles of crap and absolutely do not fill the purpose for which I bought the device (email and internet surfing). These third party apps and games simply shine and gave me a different reason to enjoy the device.

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What do you read?

08-Jul-10

I have no idea what compels you to visit, but I’m glad you came. Now I’m morbidly curious: what else do you read? What other sites do you visit? Share and share alike. Here are the blogs I regularly check; list your favorites in the comments so we can all goof off at work!

Scouting NY: Written by a film location scout. Some of the locations are simply amazing and the photography is awesome.

Hooniverse: The penultimate car site. No, seriously. Better than Top Gear. Why? They have a german station wagon fetish (among other things). I simply love this site; it’s the first site I visit in the morning (and the only site I visit on the weekends).

Krisatomic: quoting from the site – “…this blog is a medley of drawings, photos and anything else I find pleasing to the eye.”

Geekologie: the Perez Hilton of technology and random crap found on the internet. It’s hysterical, even if you’re a technophobe.

Uhuru Furniture: It’s a furniture shop in Philly. From the site: “…a non-profit furniture store and an economic development project of the African People’s Education & Defense Fund.” It’s not run of the mill Ikea stuff – some of the featured items are antiques or simply absolutely gorgeous pieces of furniture for a fraction of the cost.

The Immoral Minority: An Alaskan blogger who took heat from the Sarah Palin camp for reporting the truth. I’ve kept following since the take on politics is excellent.

And other stuff I follow: Sixers (obviously), Salon.com, Slate.com, Toucharcade.com, Touchmyapps.com, and your blog if you’re updating it with any (ir)regularity.

So, those are mine. What are yours?

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GTA: CW review

05-Jul-10

GTA: Chinatown Wars first found life on the Nintendo DS. GTA:CW is largely considered one of the first (only?) ‘adult’ games on the DS. Titles such as these find themselves by and large on the PSP, Sony’s DS rival. GTA: CW harkens back to its 2D roots; instead of a full 3D game, it opts for a 2.5/isometric perspective which works very well.

Unfortunately, GTA:CW was a lowpoint as it demonstrated the rampant piracy on the DS. Piracy on the DS is fairly simple: buy a flast cart. So, two years of dismal sales later GTA:CW found itself on the PSP and the iP/T. The PSP and iP/T versions are basically the same both in graphics and music stations.

The game moves a constant clip with little to no slowdown even when there is a lot of action on screen. The touch controls work well for the most part, with a few exceptions. Sniper missions can be a bit dodgy and unresponsive. Trying to do burn outs are hit and miss, and because the iP/T has issues with more than two fingers on the screen, you have to let off of the accelerator or steering when trying to use a weapon for a drive-by.

Other than those nits, the game works very well. The presentation of the game, I think, is significantly better than the DS counterpart and is probably the best iteration of this title.

As for gameplay, it’s a mixed bag. The storyline is pretty weak and side missions are limited to standard GTA fare of taxi/police/ambulance/fire fighter, with some odd icon collecting and races. Side story missions are limited to goofy “Crazy Taxi” esque drive this person to x location in y time, or do x thing for y person. These missions exist purely for comedic value. I was hoping for more missions similar to GTA:San Andreas just to stretch out the length of the game (I clocked fifteen hours). All the missions are straightforward and easy – the game is incredibly forgiving.

Overall, the game is slightly underwhelming but not terribly so. $10 is a good price point for this game, especially given that on the DS it was offered for $30+. I compare all GTA games to the standard of GTA: Vice City; this would be tied for second with GTA:LCS, but would be a distant second. Still, great fun at a low cost.

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Two miles and running

02-Jul-10

These are the summers of my childhood. The weather is ridiculously nice. It was ‘open the window’ type of weather. It was run outside weather. And I did. In fairness, Lisa had to put a foot in my backside because up until last night I’ve been extremely lax about training.

I hit the two mile mark, which is to say I did that I did two loops. I was curious to see if I could do the run up Lawrence after one lap, and I can happily say yes I can.

If I can tack on another 1.1 miles to this, I’ll have done a 5k. I was half tempted to do this but I didn’t tell Lisa I was going to be out that long and halfway through the second lap my neck chain fell off. Stopping and starting was killer and I felt like lead by the end of the second.

Maybe tonight, if the weather holds, I’ll give it another go and aim for 2.5 to 3 miles. If I can get up that hill three times, I consider that a huge success. It’s a quarter mile incline that goes up 85 feet. If we assume that one story is 10 feet, that’s an 8 and a half story climb.

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Review: Bushido Blade (PSOne)

01-Jul-10

Bushido Blade is a weird game. Made by Squaresoft (of the final fantasy fame), Bushido Blade is a fighting game with a catch: there’s no power bar. One hit can kill.

The story isn’t important (oddly, given Square’s usual strengths). You can select from a number of samurai, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, and then you choose a weapon. Each weapon has a weight and a length which affects your strike speed and power. A rapier won’t necessarily one hit kill, but you can certainly gouge your opponent into submission.

One hit kills are isolated to the head or the heart. You can strike your opponent in the arm, for instance, and their arm will go limp. Strike them in the leg and they’ll drop to one knee, effectively changing their power and ability. Strike both legs and they’ll fall to the ground, fighting and defending from the prone position.

Bushido Blade has a code of honor. You can’t strike an opponent while they are talking. You most definitely cannot strike a player when they are laying on the ground face down. You can’t strike an opponent while they are facing away from you. Even if you win the match, by doing any of these things will end your game (and you’ll be called a coward in the process).

It’s easily the most stressful fighting game I’ve ever played. It’s like Samurai Shodown on steroids, but at least there you have a power bar. Miss blocking a strike and you’re dead. Or worse, crippled (though I did win a match on one knee). Don’t anticipate the opponent’s defense and you’re setting yourself up for an easy death.

I had this game for a long, long time, but I didn’t have the patience to play it until tonight. I certainly missed out. It was only because I was frustrated with Syphon Filter’s controls did I play this.

– –

Syphon Filter may have been amazing when it released ten years ago, but the controls do not withstand the test of time. I’m comparing it to MGS, whose control scheme was perfect.

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Mostly basketball, but some other stuff

28-Jun-10

Other stuff first: Michael Vick. The dude said all the right stuff, kept his life on the straight and narrow, then decided to have an open invite 30th birthday party in the same neighborhood as all his old partners in crime. Someone got shot. Vick wasn’t involved in the shooting, but what the hell? Why was he having a party like that in the first place?

If the Eagles have any sense, they’ll cut him. Who cares about talent. This guy has not and will not learn from his previous mistakes. This was a colossal failure in judgment.

- – -

I’m excited for the Sixers this season because Samuel Dalembert isn’t on the team anymore. It’s funny – he is a defensive stopper and the team is worse for not having him, BUT! he is a headcase. I’m glad he’s gone. I’d rather see the Sixers give up 100 points in the paint every night than to watch him collect a paycheck after every game. So long and good riddance.

- –

You know what team is hard to root for? The New York Knicks. Unlike their neighbors in the Bronx, the Knicks don’t have a storied history similar to the Lakers or Celtics. They were good in the sixties, and led by Patrick Ewing had some very good seasons but never managed to win a championship.

Worse still, Knicks fans have expectations like Lakers or Celtics fans (completely unwarranted, might I add). So after years of futility, they managed to purge their roster of terrible contracts. However, who wants to play for them? The remaining pieces that the Knicks have left are either castoffs from other teams or aren’t very good players.

The Knicks are one the founding members of the NBA and only one of two teams to be located where they were founded (the other being the Celtics). They have an interesting history, but the reality is that even my lowly Sixers have had a more successful franchise than the Knicks. So that leaves New York: 1587, Philly: 1.

-

I’m going to argue the 1983 76ers team was the single greatest lineup of all time. Doctor J, Cheeks, Toney, Malone, Bobby Jones.

- –

The Sixers now have their man in Evan Turner. They had no second round pick because they traded it for Jodie Meeks. The jury is still out on the guy. He had one monster college season and nothing else.

The Sixers have a mid level exception (MLE) that they can use for a solid role player. My hope is that the losers of the 2010 FA Derby get desperate and try to work some three/four/five way deals to dump some of our other useless players. Willie Green will be an expiring contract so he has some value (as opposed to last season, where he had none). Jason Kapono has his stats and there must be a team out there looking for a shooter. I wouldn’t be sad if Lou Williams went elsewhere. Jason Smith is NBDL level talent.

Much to Lisa’s joy, Kyle Korver is a UFA. He’s not as strong a shooter as Kapono, but could be had for the MLE and could play behind Turner in the SG position.

Here’s a full list of free agents.

- -

Finally I’d like to clearly state why I dislike Willie Green and Lou Williams. LW first.

LW is a decent basketball player. He can score in chunks. He can be a major catalyst off the bench. I dislike him purely because he has no desire for the game other than a paycheck. That’s it in a nutshell. He doesn’t work out (we know this from his twitter). He doesn’t practice hard, and he doesn’t really do anything other than shoot the ball. It’s not like he’s Kyle Korver where he tries but simply isn’t a good defender; he just doesn’t try.

Willie Green is an interesting and sad case. You see, he used to be exactly what the Sixers needed in a shooting guard. He cut to the rim, got to the line, set up other players, and looked like he had a bright future. They he tore his knee up playing street ball (idiot!) in a contract year (IDIOT!) and after rehabbing, got a long contract from Billy King (he was fired, of course). Now he shoots the ball and doesn’t defend. He’s soft. Given how long ago the injury occurred and how few games he’s missed due to injury since, I’m going to assume (rightly, I think) that it’s a personality thing and not an ability thing. Nuts to him. He got his contract on the premise of how he played before his idiot injury, and he hasn’t played that way since.

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Exercising and other stuff

25-Jun-10

In an attempt to shake myself from the doldrums that was my routine, we started using Wii Fit. I forgot that it was 1) fun and 2) had actual workout routines. Nothing major or strenuous (or maybe I have to unlock that) but there are several strength exercises and yoga positions. I’m actually looking forward to doing it again tonight.

Also, I read an article about Africian running style, where they have purposeful modes of running. Obviously, I’m not planning to run 1,000 miles but what struck me was the notion of starting slow and ending strong. It seems like such a basic concept, but the article did note that there’s a cultural aspect to running, where Americans tend to set the pace of their run early and attempt to keep that pace the whole way. That struck a chord so I did a run last night, and the difference was incredible. I started with a very slow trot, kept that pace up to the top of the hill and then brought myself up to my normal speed. After one lap, I felt fresh enough to do a couple more. I was nowhere close to winded. That being said, I struggled mightily to not pick up the pace. I would say that this style demands a lot more discipline than running at the usual speed and powering through it.

–

WiiFit wasn’t really planned; the balance board was already out because I finally picked up a game that uses it: Shaun White Snowboarding Road Trip. The game is absolutely brilliant with the board and for the first time I felt like the balance board was a worthwhile purchase. The first person to try the game was Nora. She struggled mightily going down the mountain the first time, but after she crossed the finish line, something clicked (literally, her eyes lit up with understanding) and her second time down, she carved down the mountain. I wasn’t able to replicate her run until my fifth or sixth try, but when I did – wow! what a game. I’m looking forward to racing through this title.

- – -

I’m using Jaya’s old cell phone, a samsung u740, and I’m liking it very much. Problem: she had all her contacts on it (a LOT of contacts) and I’d be damned if I handwrote every single one. Solution: use bitpim and back them up. I bought a usb cable and figured I was good to go.

Windows: downloaded the driver. Went through that rigmarole of constantly finding new things to install and assigning com ports. Naturally, windows decided to use that port for internet access instead of broadband. Why? I don’t know. Downloaded and installed bitpim. Started, booted out with an error. Found the MSDN topic that indicated the developer was at fault. Read some ranting, downloaded the missing dll. Started up fine. Read the phone fine. Logs say it could access everything EXCEPT the contacts. Why? I don’t know. Rebooted in Ubuntu.

Ubuntu: plugged in the phone. Went to ubuntu software manager, typed in ‘bitpim’. Hit install. Went to desktop 2 and surfed the web. Went back to desktop 1. Ran bitpim. It loaded everything, backed everything up, and started editing my contacts.

I’m not trying to dump on Windows though it does have that appearance; I’m just amazed at the user experience that Ubuntu is currently offering. It boots in 20 seconds (not including the time that it takes to type in your password). Everything is fast and well laid out. The innards doesn’t get in the way of work. Of course, a verizon phone and bitpim are one off sorts of programs, but the experience was as if it were completely naturally to want to back up your phone to your desktop. Absolutely brilliant.

- – -

Angels and Demons: finished it last night. The second half whipped by in a hurry and was enjoyable except for more obvious product placements. The last fifty or so pages were a major letdown. The ending was interesting but much too contrived. It was just too, too much. That being said, it did manage to entertain, so mission accomplished.

- – -

Finally: the NBA draft was boring. Players went where they were slotted on mock boards. That usually doesn’t happen, except it’s 2010. This is the Free Agent Derby to rival the 1996 FA derby. Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, Amar’e Stoudamire, Chris Bosh, Yao Ming (just to name a few) are free agents. The Nets, the Bulls, the Knicks and other teams have cleared cap space in attempts to lure some of these guys.

The draft was a ho hum affair. The Sixers grabbed who they were supposed to grab (Evan Turner) and made no trades. I’m genuinely excited for Turner and Holiday in the back court with Iguodala at his natural small forward position. Brand wasn’t traded, so he’ll go to center with Hawes, with Thaddeus Young, Maresse Speights and Andreas Nocioni at PF. One of those guys will get traded after the derby, I believe.

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