ermmm...I just try' ! take care
alalalala....boring !!
This game kicks ass.,
I haven't even started multiplayer yet (looks like Live! might have been a bit busy today). After 2.5 hours of playing, I'm having a blast. Tomorrow I've got around 8 people coming over to the house for a little multiplayer bash... should be awesome!
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
0
PSP first impressions
I tried to resist, I really did.
So I'm at Kendari Digital on Saturday buying supplies for a BBQ/Baby Shower (emphasis on the BBQ!) that my family and a friend's are throwing for a mutual friend. Right there in the store was a deal - PSP, 2 games, and starter accessories for Rp1.200.000. Not a spectacular deal, but enough to get me to plop it into the cart.
Sitting on the tailgate of the pickup Rudi and I busted into the impervious packaging to take a look at the beast. The battery reporting 15% full, with 0:38 remaining. We put in Twisted Metal Head-On and gave it a whirl. Wow.
Net result, I now have Lumines, Wipeout Pure, and Twisted Metal. Wipeout and Twisted Metal were included in the package, and Lumines got really good reviews for a puzzle game (which seems like a good use of the device).
Hardware
The screen is bright, but the surface is too shiney so you get lots of glare. I'll have to try a anti-glare screen for it and see if that helps. However even in bright daylight it is still readable. There are buttons everwhere, and the small analog stick on the front is easily missed by first time users (they think it is a speaker or mic).
Some of the switches aren't very intuitive. The WLan on/off switch looks like it toggles between WLan and Memorystick. There is a button with a rectangle on it, that actually toggles the brightness of the screen. The power button is a flick on, flick off, lock down for "hold". I think I would have prefered a three state switch.
The headphones that came with are OK, although everything about the device is black - except the headphones. They are trying a little too hard at the iPod wanna-be if you ask me. The headphone remote is a nice touch, but the part feels really cheap and light. We'll see how long it lasts.
Overall reasonable ergonomics.
The built in WLan is pretty cool, can't wait to find someone else with one to try it out with!
Sony f#@!king media
I get it, Sony is so cool they can't use any other standard media. Not only can they not use other people's media, they won't even use their own. The memory is MemoryStick Duo, which seems next to impossible to find in 1GB sticks. The media for the games is "UMD" (The hubris to call it a "universal" media disk is just amazing). The UMB is almost as nice as Sony's proprietary Mini-Disk, except that they left a part of the optical media unprotected in the sleeve. ugh.
The size of the UMD is nice, however because of the open hole in the case, you have to keep them in the largish box, or I'll have to investigate a new storage mechanism.
Games
So far the games are pretty cool. The controls take some getting used to, but they play really well. The small screen makes twitch games like Twisted Metal tough, but Wipeout has no problem on the device, and Lumines is very cool. Probably the coolest thing, when you turn the power off it *suspends* instead of shutting down. You can flick the power off in the middle of combat, go back to real life, flick it back on and continue. I wish any other system (any!) did something that nice.
The selection of games right now isn't great. Gamespot's PSP section is anemic, and many of the games are getting pretty low numbers. Final Fantasy looks like it will be super promising. Combining suspend with an RPG that I can carry anywhere sounds amazing. I'm thinking that Tony Hawk might be the next game to acquire, but I'm going to play with these three for a while.
Movies, Music, and Pictures
I didn't buy movies on UMD, but I watched the trailers on the sample disk that came with. The screen looks great for them. Once I get my 1GB MS I'll probably get a ripper and try putting some movies on. My gut says that this will rock as an MP3 player, i'm hoping that i'll end up with the 40GB iPod for "serious" music, but that I can live with 1GB of lower quality music for extremely portable scenarios (airplane?). Not sure if pictures are going to be that interesting of an application.
This device definetly is competitive with many of the consoles on the market today, and from a portable it is by far the nicest one I've ever seen. It's amazing to me that it just blows away the quality of experience that I've seen on Windows CE machines. Animation, movies, music, it all flows seamlessly. I haven't played with a portable MCE device yet, so maybe that will make me feel better.
I think this is just a great product, and a killer entry for Sony into the portable space.
So I'm at Kendari Digital on Saturday buying supplies for a BBQ/Baby Shower (emphasis on the BBQ!) that my family and a friend's are throwing for a mutual friend. Right there in the store was a deal - PSP, 2 games, and starter accessories for Rp1.200.000. Not a spectacular deal, but enough to get me to plop it into the cart.
Sitting on the tailgate of the pickup Rudi and I busted into the impervious packaging to take a look at the beast. The battery reporting 15% full, with 0:38 remaining. We put in Twisted Metal Head-On and gave it a whirl. Wow.
Net result, I now have Lumines, Wipeout Pure, and Twisted Metal. Wipeout and Twisted Metal were included in the package, and Lumines got really good reviews for a puzzle game (which seems like a good use of the device).
Hardware
The screen is bright, but the surface is too shiney so you get lots of glare. I'll have to try a anti-glare screen for it and see if that helps. However even in bright daylight it is still readable. There are buttons everwhere, and the small analog stick on the front is easily missed by first time users (they think it is a speaker or mic).
Some of the switches aren't very intuitive. The WLan on/off switch looks like it toggles between WLan and Memorystick. There is a button with a rectangle on it, that actually toggles the brightness of the screen. The power button is a flick on, flick off, lock down for "hold". I think I would have prefered a three state switch.
The headphones that came with are OK, although everything about the device is black - except the headphones. They are trying a little too hard at the iPod wanna-be if you ask me. The headphone remote is a nice touch, but the part feels really cheap and light. We'll see how long it lasts.
Overall reasonable ergonomics.
The built in WLan is pretty cool, can't wait to find someone else with one to try it out with!
Sony f#@!king media
I get it, Sony is so cool they can't use any other standard media. Not only can they not use other people's media, they won't even use their own. The memory is MemoryStick Duo, which seems next to impossible to find in 1GB sticks. The media for the games is "UMD" (The hubris to call it a "universal" media disk is just amazing). The UMB is almost as nice as Sony's proprietary Mini-Disk, except that they left a part of the optical media unprotected in the sleeve. ugh.
The size of the UMD is nice, however because of the open hole in the case, you have to keep them in the largish box, or I'll have to investigate a new storage mechanism.
Games
So far the games are pretty cool. The controls take some getting used to, but they play really well. The small screen makes twitch games like Twisted Metal tough, but Wipeout has no problem on the device, and Lumines is very cool. Probably the coolest thing, when you turn the power off it *suspends* instead of shutting down. You can flick the power off in the middle of combat, go back to real life, flick it back on and continue. I wish any other system (any!) did something that nice.
The selection of games right now isn't great. Gamespot's PSP section is anemic, and many of the games are getting pretty low numbers. Final Fantasy looks like it will be super promising. Combining suspend with an RPG that I can carry anywhere sounds amazing. I'm thinking that Tony Hawk might be the next game to acquire, but I'm going to play with these three for a while.
Movies, Music, and Pictures
I didn't buy movies on UMD, but I watched the trailers on the sample disk that came with. The screen looks great for them. Once I get my 1GB MS I'll probably get a ripper and try putting some movies on. My gut says that this will rock as an MP3 player, i'm hoping that i'll end up with the 40GB iPod for "serious" music, but that I can live with 1GB of lower quality music for extremely portable scenarios (airplane?). Not sure if pictures are going to be that interesting of an application.
This device definetly is competitive with many of the consoles on the market today, and from a portable it is by far the nicest one I've ever seen. It's amazing to me that it just blows away the quality of experience that I've seen on Windows CE machines. Animation, movies, music, it all flows seamlessly. I haven't played with a portable MCE device yet, so maybe that will make me feel better.
I think this is just a great product, and a killer entry for Sony into the portable space.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
0
Photography
Reading through Brian's writeup on his new camera makes me want to get better with mine. When I first got my D30 I worked a bunch on learning to use it, but then fell in the trap of just playing around. While on vacation I had to relearn to do things like exposure compensation, manual focus point control, and AEB (exposure bracketing)... of course if I actually learned how to do manual focusing and light metering I could do a lot better. I think I need to spend some quality time getting back into photography. In the mean time, here are two images from my trip:
First, a simple picture of a church in Rome (I believe):
2304x3456, 24mm, F/8, ISO-100. full resolution (6MB)
Second, a composite picture that I took. Stitched using Canon's PhotoStitch software. I need to do some color correction, but this is the raw image:
First, a simple picture of a church in Rome (I believe):
2304x3456, 24mm, F/8, ISO-100. full resolution (6MB)
Second, a composite picture that I took. Stitched using Canon's PhotoStitch software. I need to do some color correction, but this is the raw image:
Thursday, April 2, 2009
0
My hobi? Listen the music and trafel.. it's so exited
well..uhm..my hobbies are listening my favorite songs while playing any games (i.e. msheart, solitaire, etc) , i like playing guitar, despite repeating the same song (i'm not a master in guitar playing, just making a good time). sometimes, i like reading as well.
So this below list my song...read bellow listing comence
Sorna by The Smashing Pumpkins
Anemia by Tool
Tip-Toe Through The Tulips by Tiny Tim
Lucky Number 9 by The Moldey Peaches
Money Money Money by Abba
Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen
Hyperballad by Bjork
Lemon by Katy Rose
Nessicary Evil by The Dresden Dolls
Cherub Rock by The Smashing Pumpkins
Star Fish by Bikini Kill
Well Respected Man by The Kinks
Head Over Heels by Tears For Fears
Death Before The Mast by Alestorm
Dancing In The Street by David Bowie&Mick Jagger
You Know Your Right by Nirvana
Spice Up Your Life by The Spice Girls
Porcelan by The Red Hot Chili Peppers
Suck My Kiss by The Red Hot Chili Peppers
Hero by The Asteroids Galaxy Tour
Halo by Beyoncé
Give It Away by The Red Hot Chili Peppers
Smokers Song by Imelda May
Rocket by The Smashing Pumpkins
Lust For Life by Iggy Pop
Bad Fever by The Asteroids Galaxy Tour
Gravity by The Dresden Dolls
Army Of Me by Bjork
Anyone Else But You by The Moldey Peaches
All The Young Dudes by Matt The Hoople
Half Jack by The Dresden Dolls
Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana
Buddy Holly by Weezer
Grace by Jeff Buckley
Expectations by Belle&Sebastian
Lilac Wine by Jeff Buckley
Flightless Bird American Mouth by Iron&Wine
Mad World the Micheal Andrews&Gary Jules Version
Possibly Maybe by Bjork
Around The Bend by The Asteroids Galaxy Tour
Listen the music and ...
My hobi? Listen the music and trafel.. it's so exitedwell..uhm..my hobbies are listening my favorite songs while playing any games (i.e. msheart, solitaire, etc) , i like playing guitar, despite repeating the same song (i'm not a master in guitar playing, just making a good time). sometimes, i like reading as well.
So this below list my song...read bellow listing comence
Sorna by The Smashing Pumpkins
Anemia by Tool
Tip-Toe Through The Tulips by Tiny Tim
Lucky Number 9 by The Moldey Peaches
Money Money Money by Abba
Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen
Hyperballad by Bjork
Lemon by Katy Rose
Nessicary Evil by The Dresden Dolls
Cherub Rock by The Smashing Pumpkins
Star Fish by Bikini Kill
Well Respected Man by The Kinks
Head Over Heels by Tears For Fears
Death Before The Mast by Alestorm
Dancing In The Street by David Bowie&Mick Jagger
You Know Your Right by Nirvana
Spice Up Your Life by The Spice Girls
Porcelan by The Red Hot Chili Peppers
Suck My Kiss by The Red Hot Chili Peppers
Hero by The Asteroids Galaxy Tour
Halo by Beyoncé
Give It Away by The Red Hot Chili Peppers
Smokers Song by Imelda May
Rocket by The Smashing Pumpkins
Lust For Life by Iggy Pop
Bad Fever by The Asteroids Galaxy Tour
Gravity by The Dresden Dolls
Army Of Me by Bjork
Anyone Else But You by The Moldey Peaches
All The Young Dudes by Matt The Hoople
Half Jack by The Dresden Dolls
Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana
Buddy Holly by Weezer
Grace by Jeff Buckley
Expectations by Belle&Sebastian
Lilac Wine by Jeff Buckley
Flightless Bird American Mouth by Iron&Wine
Mad World the Micheal Andrews&Gary Jules Version
Possibly Maybe by Bjork
Around The Bend by The Asteroids Galaxy Tour
Saturday, March 28, 2009
0
Scuba
Hobby Alert : Scuba
I started a new hobby the other day - scuba. I've always kinda wanted to try it, and so I signed up for lessons. It turned out that we were also heading to Indonesia in February 09, so I figured it was a great time to learn. Of course, I really had no idea how "equipment intensive" (aka expensive) this sport was. I still haven't made it into the open water, but I decided (somewhat stupidly) to start buying gear. So far I've picked up:
* Shorty wet suit
* Fins (ScubaPro Twinjet)
* Mask (I forget the brand, unwilling to go dig it up right now)
* Snorkle (I forget the brand, but a dry snokle)
* Regulator (ScubaPro MK25/S600)
* BC (ScubaPro Knighthawk w/ Air2)
* Dive computer (UWatec Aladin Console)
* Light (UC C8)
* Knife
I also spent a good part of Sunday building a rack system for all the gear to dry in the garage above a bucket to catch the water. The bucket will also double as the soaking/cleaning station.
Merlin thinks I've gone a little nuts on buying all this equipment before I've even gotten into the ocean. I agree... however, I think I'm going to do quite a few dives - my goal is to do 100 lifetime dives and then I'll feel "justified" in getting into the sport. 50 dives and I'll be OK with the purchases, 25 and I wasted my money.
Wednesday night I have my final class for certification, Thursday is my dry suit specialty class, Saturday & Sunday are my open water certification dives. I already have a dive lined up for Thanksgiving weekend!
I ended up getting almost a month off in February, I'm going to try and get in 25 dives before the new year (5 for my certification, 5 in Indonesia, 10 before Indonesia, 5 more somewhere?)... it's a bit agressive, so I'll probably only get 15 or so... the key for me is to get out of the "totally new" space before going down to Indonesia. I'm a little nervous about diving with a bunch of random tourists in a resort, where your life may depend on the guy or gal swimming next to you. If I get a couple cold water dives under my belt, I'll feel a lot more confident. Also, I won't look like a total newbie with gear that has never touched the water before ;-)
I started a new hobby the other day - scuba. I've always kinda wanted to try it, and so I signed up for lessons. It turned out that we were also heading to Indonesia in February 09, so I figured it was a great time to learn. Of course, I really had no idea how "equipment intensive" (aka expensive) this sport was. I still haven't made it into the open water, but I decided (somewhat stupidly) to start buying gear. So far I've picked up:
* Shorty wet suit
* Fins (ScubaPro Twinjet)
* Mask (I forget the brand, unwilling to go dig it up right now
* Snorkle (I forget the brand, but a dry snokle)
* Regulator (ScubaPro MK25/S600)
* BC (ScubaPro Knighthawk w/ Air2)
* Dive computer (UWatec Aladin Console)
* Light (UC C8)
* Knife
I also spent a good part of Sunday building a rack system for all the gear to dry in the garage above a bucket to catch the water. The bucket will also double as the soaking/cleaning station.
Merlin thinks I've gone a little nuts on buying all this equipment before I've even gotten into the ocean. I agree... however, I think I'm going to do quite a few dives - my goal is to do 100 lifetime dives and then I'll feel "justified" in getting into the sport. 50 dives and I'll be OK with the purchases, 25 and I wasted my money.
Wednesday night I have my final class for certification, Thursday is my dry suit specialty class, Saturday & Sunday are my open water certification dives. I already have a dive lined up for Thanksgiving weekend!
I ended up getting almost a month off in February, I'm going to try and get in 25 dives before the new year (5 for my certification, 5 in Indonesia, 10 before Indonesia, 5 more somewhere?)... it's a bit agressive, so I'll probably only get 15 or so... the key for me is to get out of the "totally new" space before going down to Indonesia. I'm a little nervous about diving with a bunch of random tourists in a resort, where your life may depend on the guy or gal swimming next to you. If I get a couple cold water dives under my belt, I'll feel a lot more confident. Also, I won't look like a total newbie with gear that has never touched the water before ;-)
Thursday, March 26, 2009
0
New hobby - digital video
As part of the preparation for our upcoming adoption (no news, still in a holding pattern) I want to get setup for boring people with both still *and* video images. I saw the Sony HDR-SR1 which met my initial bar for video capture equipment - no tapes and HD quality.
I just about bought it, then started doing research. Of course, the HDR-SR1 records in AVCHD format on the hard disk, which very few editing suites support. It seems that this month is the when most of the vendors are supposed to be starting support for AVCHD, however I'm skeptical.
I started pricing out editing systems also. Final Cut Pro is the big standard, however it requires a Mac. I'm actually not against buying a Mac at all, I've been looking for a good excuse. However I then priced out the "dream machine" for editing.
* 2x Intel Core 2 Duo (total of 4 cores!)
* 4GB RAM
* 2TB HDD (4x 500GB 7200rpm)
* 512MB dual head video
* 2x 24" Widescreen LCD panels
The Apple weighed in at $7500, while a homebrew from NewEgg was in the ballpark of $4000. Of course, Apple has fabulous industrial design... however given that the CPU, RAM, Hard Disk, and Video card are effectively identical, I can't quite figure out where the $3500 is going. With that said, I need good HD video editing, so I may end up still getting a Mac, just lowering some specs to get it affordable.
My assumption with all this is that the longest I'll ever want to torture someone with video will be ~22min, which is the length of a normal 30 minute TV show (minus commercials). My assumption is the 10:1 ratio that I use for good pictures to bad on still will work for video - so I need the ability to record at least 242 minutes of video without a reload. This means a minimum of 30GB in my hand held.
Once back at the station I expect that I'll need to edit all that content and boil it down to the core 22 minutes, and being the AR person that I am, I'll want to keep both the raw footage and the finished product - so per video I'll need roughly 35GB of storage.
I figure I have 3 - 6 months to purchase the equipment, so that I can learn to operate it before the big trip. I think we'll get our referal before the end of the calendar year, Megan thinks it will be sometime next summer. Either way, apparently I need a new toy.
Any suggestions on equipment, sites to visit, people to chat with, are welcome. Since I can't stop the comment spam, i'd love to just get emails to my work account: CHRISAN, at, of course, microsoft.com.
Digital Video
New hobby - digital video
As part of the preparation for our upcoming adoption (no news, still in a holding pattern) I want to get setup for boring people with both still *and* video images. I saw the Sony HDR-SR1 which met my initial bar for video capture equipment - no tapes and HD quality.
I just about bought it, then started doing research. Of course, the HDR-SR1 records in AVCHD format on the hard disk, which very few editing suites support. It seems that this month is the when most of the vendors are supposed to be starting support for AVCHD, however I'm skeptical.
I started pricing out editing systems also. Final Cut Pro is the big standard, however it requires a Mac. I'm actually not against buying a Mac at all, I've been looking for a good excuse. However I then priced out the "dream machine" for editing.
* 2x Intel Core 2 Duo (total of 4 cores!)
* 4GB RAM
* 2TB HDD (4x 500GB 7200rpm)
* 512MB dual head video
* 2x 24" Widescreen LCD panels
The Apple weighed in at $7500, while a homebrew from NewEgg was in the ballpark of $4000. Of course, Apple has fabulous industrial design... however given that the CPU, RAM, Hard Disk, and Video card are effectively identical, I can't quite figure out where the $3500 is going. With that said, I need good HD video editing, so I may end up still getting a Mac, just lowering some specs to get it affordable.
My assumption with all this is that the longest I'll ever want to torture someone with video will be ~22min, which is the length of a normal 30 minute TV show (minus commercials). My assumption is the 10:1 ratio that I use for good pictures to bad on still will work for video - so I need the ability to record at least 242 minutes of video without a reload. This means a minimum of 30GB in my hand held.
Once back at the station I expect that I'll need to edit all that content and boil it down to the core 22 minutes, and being the AR person that I am, I'll want to keep both the raw footage and the finished product - so per video I'll need roughly 35GB of storage.
I figure I have 3 - 6 months to purchase the equipment, so that I can learn to operate it before the big trip. I think we'll get our referal before the end of the calendar year, Megan thinks it will be sometime next summer. Either way, apparently I need a new toy.
Any suggestions on equipment, sites to visit, people to chat with, are welcome. Since I can't stop the comment spam, i'd love to just get emails to my work account: CHRISAN, at, of course, microsoft.com.
