Breaking Windows

NEW YORK (AP) -- Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie are stuck together for another season of "The Simple Life" -- even if they're not speaking to each other.

Oh thank heaven! I mean, I was losing sleep over this one.

BOWLING GREEN, Virginia (AP) -- Succeeding on his third try to visit them, President Bush comforted thousands of Boy Scouts on Sunday at a national jamboree marred by the electrocutions of four leaders and stifling heat that sickened 300.

The Boy Scouts have had some freak accidents lately. Not only did these Scouts get electrocuted at this year's National Jamboree, but some Scouts were killed by lightning in California this weekend as well.

My heart goes out to their families. I never had anything like that happen at a Jamboree or a camping trip.

HP will stop selling its branded Apple iPods in September. HP will continue to install iTunes on its PCs and laptops, however.

This union between Apple and HP never did make sense to me. It all begins with HP's Invent slogan. Ironic, really.

It is H O T hot hot hot. It was like this last week too. I cannot express, without swearing, how hot it is. But this is a family friendly site (ha!) so I will curb my vulgarities. Lets just say I had to take a shower after I got done with my errands today. This has got to be one of the warmest summers on record.

As I hear "What's global warming?" from the cheap seats.

"You know you subscribe to way too many mailing lists when 99% of your email on the 1st of every month is from mailman-owner@domain.com."

Or, for the uninitiated:

"You know you subscribe to way too many mailing lists when 99% of your email on the 1st of every month reads "mailing list memberships reminder."

I am really getting tired of seeing "the rising cost of health care" in a letter from Anthem, my health care provider. This time it is rising from $158 to $185. This has got to be the 4th rise in my premium since I started using Anthem in Sept. 2002.

I really need to get a full time job. Health care is killing me, figuratively of course. If I change my deductible from $500 to $1,000, I can bring my premium down to $152. This is not the best, but I have no choice because I cannot afford an extra $30 every month.

Now for the good news. Good news at the cost of a higher deductible of course. I got my first bill at the new rate, and it is only $133. That took an extra glance. I called just to make sure! The rep. I talked to quoted me too high. In 3 years I have never had to use Anthem for more then an office visit, so right now that $1,000 deductible doesn't look too bad.

We will see.

*crosses fingers*

Got this today from DP member Dji:

Hello Mr. Paprocki,

Just wanted to say thanks for the many reviews you have here. I've found many of them quite informative and/or funny. I've nodded in agreement at most of your assessments. Of course I haven't read them all, but one thing's for sure: I'll be reading any review I encounter with your name on it. And that's saying something, since I can't stand reviews 95% of the time, especially mainstream ones. In fact I don't even read them anymore. Especially those by Matt Casamassina, of IGN fame. 9 out of 10 for Donkey Kong 64? ("Buy it.") What about Ivan Sulic's review of Jak 3 ("If you like games, you'll buy this immediately or we'll come to your house and beat you to death."). Bleh Damn I can't stand being told "you're not a true gamer if you don't buy this" or other such nonsense (I hate the phrase "must-have" with a passion), which most reviewers are extremely fond of... as well as calling every other game the best ever and giving 9's all over the place.

And what about Hilary Goldstein's review of Metal Slug 3 for Xbox, in which he (yes, he) actually recommended that the reader download a rom instead of paying the "ridiculous amount of money SNK was asking" (not actual quote). This was taken down shortly thereafter. Damn IGN sucks. And it's not like GamePro, EGM or especially the official mags are better. I'd be willing to bet that most of these guys have never seen a Neo Geo (whether AES or MVS) in their lives, yet alone played one. GameSpot seems a little better, yet it's skewered towards PC gaming too much for my tastes.

Anyway... I can see you're a huge fan of beat 'em ups, run and gun, fighters, etc. and so am I, so that's nice. I'm eager to read your reviews for genres I'm less familiar with/interested in, too. You are obviously knowledgeable and you have strong opinions. Nothing worse than a wishy-washy review, except maybe a fanboy's review. Thankfully, you've found a nice balance as a reviewer. Keep it up. However, I've noticed a few typos here and there, and that always bugs me. Otherwise I couldn't ask for more. Thanks again.

Dji

Hootie makes sure they end up in Toledo every time they tour the country, and always at the Toledo Zoo Amphitheater. It's a great outdoor venue as far as audio is concerned, even for an older structure. Barring the heat (in the 90s, and staying there for most of the show), everything went smoothly as the band mixed both old and new flawlessly.

Thanks to its elegantly designed text controls, Adobe InDesign (CS and CS2) offers endless possibilities for perfecting your type. But not all of its features are obvious.

Macworld posted an excerpt from Adobe InDesign CS/CS2 Breakthroughs. It's a good read, I might actually buy the book.

Apple Computer on Tuesday introduced Mighty Mouse, the company’s next generation USB 1.1 and 2.0 mouse. Mighty Mouse offers users up to four independently programmable buttons and a Scroll Ball that lets users scroll in any direction — vertically, horizontally and even diagonally, according to Apple.

Hell hath frozen over. I never thought I would see the day when Apple saw the light, and released a multi-button mouse. I just hope this mouse is included when you buy a new Mac now. I am also not sold on the name. I almost expected it to be named something like "iMouse." But aparently Apple liked the name Mighty Mouse so much that they licensed the name from Viacom, who own the property now.

As you would expect, it is designed very well. I do like the ability to scroll sideways (something the Microsoft IntelliMouse has). I am a little surprised at the price too, $49 is cheaper then Apple has previously sold its corded single button mouse for ($69). It still costs more then an IntelliMouse though.

My only questions is this: Where is the Bluetooth? Since Apple has a BT single-button mouse, why not have a BT multi-button mouse too?

I have a Logitech MX 700, and I do not think I could go back to a corded mouse.

Fraudsters have exploited a flaw in the eBay web site that allows them to orchestrate phishing attacks using eBay's own Sign In page.

Registered users of eBay's popular online auction web site must sign in using a username and password in order to participate in bidding and listing of items. A new style of phishing attack reported through the Netcraft Toolbar [which does not work on the Mac] community shows fraudsters exploiting flaws on the Sign In page and on another ancilliary page which results in victims being redirected to the fraudster's phishing site after they have logged in.

Using URL parameters is not new. Using the official page is. Spammers just found out how to use the redirect parameter in the URL. These login pages redirect to pages on that site usually, to your My eBay page for example. So it is not odd to have parameters in the URL. This is amazing, I did not think phishing could get any worse. It just got a lot worse.

It is hard enough to get non-techies to notice that the URL is not the official site, think how hard it is to explain URL parameters to them.

Incidentally, if you get phishing emails from eBay or PayPal, which are the most prevalent, you should send them to spoofs@ebay.com.

SYDNEY, Australia -- Banned down under. That's the fate of the video game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas."

Officials for the Australian agency that rates software and game titles says the game has been banned from sale.

That means the game can no longer be legally sold, rented, advertised or exhibited in Australia.

If you want to talk about a raiting system that needs an overhaul, take a look at Australia. Their highest raiting is 15! This would be like at T rating here in the US. I can't believe San Andreas had a 15 rating in Australia in the first place.

I am going to have to call him on this one, (sorry) Paprocki asked me today if Jimmy Buffet was dead. He's not. But I found this Dead or Alive Info site in the processes of proving a point. As one quote on the site says, it's very useful in a very limited, specific sort of way.

After you found out that someone is dead, you should head on over, as Matt was quick to point out, to Find A Grave. And yes, you too can add to the Find A Grave site.

Now that I think about it, I have gone to The Blog of Death before, but have never heard of the above two links.

It's not for GTA either (though sort of in a way). It's for Bully, their latest attempt at ticking someone off, and well, they have. Apparently, some group called "Peaceaholics" doesn't want the game released, and Rockstar is comprised of felons. Yawn. $100 says they've never played it.*

Not content to just destroy King Kong in 1976, a year later Dino De Laurentiis decided the success of Jaws was enough to warrant Orca. This "killer whale gone mad" flick might have had some merit if it's obvious the release wasn't so obviously a cash-in. There's a fantastic performance by Richard Harris, and Bo Derek takes her first role in a movie that's just not worth watching.

Mark Bryan is the lead guitarist for Hootie and Blowfish. He has released his own solo album (30 on the Rail) and composed a short downloadable album titled State Your Peace available on their website. The band is currently touring in promotion of their latest album, which comes out August 8th, Looking for Lucky. I had the opportunity to interview him over the phone before a Tennessee show on August 4th about the band, his solo career, and the new album.

Sony has already released a 2.0 firmware upgrade to its PlayStation Portable (PSP) in Japan. Sony has announced plans to release that software in North America on August 12. the update adds a Web browser, photo sharing options and more to the handheld gaming console and media player.

This we know (or should). This article focuses on the Mac side of things.

The VistA Software Alliance and WorldVista, two nonprofit groups that assist American veterans hospitals, nursing homes and clinics with the VA’s VistA software, have denounced Microsoft’s name choice, citing possible confusion between the operating system and the software used to store and manage veterans’ patient information.

Do you ever just think that they wanted to get their name in the news thanks to good old Microsoft?

At Duke University, administrators are reassessing how best to use the devices as educational tools. After an experiment last year that involved giving all 1,650 incoming freshmen iPods, Duke has decided to distribute the devices more selectively.

Ha, this is funny. Now the student has to be enrolled in a class that requests an iPod. Great idea. Maybe the freshman were using the iPods for a little too much music and not enough lecture recordings?

There have been a recent rash of double dips in the DVD market, some of which add the most minor of content just to reap the profits from die-hard fans. Jaws, The Jerk, and Underworld come to mind. Now Ghostbusters, in all of its brilliance, is sadly stuck on that list.

The second and final assignment for this summer class is to put together an advertising portfolio. It has to contain ads, in any 10 of 12 categories, that objectify women. Not that hard to find in even the tamest of magazines these days.

I did some extra work and got a 103% on the project. Yawn.

I am really glag I payed $1000+ to cut up magazines. [/sarcasm]

Did you know about this? My friend Eric mentioned this to me the other day. I had no idea. You could even be evil about it and set up a script to search the site, but I wouldn't do that. No, never.

Well, this will certainly add some fuel to the fire on those video iPod rumours — Apple has updated its trademark for the iPod from “portable and handheld digital electronic devices for recording, organizing, transmitting, manipulating, and reviewing text, data, and audio files” to read “portable and handheld digital electronic devices for recording, organizing, transmitting, manipulating, and reviewing text, data, audio, image, and video files.”

I was just thinking to myself, it has been a while since I bought a new iPod (joke). After seeing how video can look on my PSP, I do not think the 2" screen of the iPod will be very inticing. What will be great is the ease of use via iTunes, of course.

Sony really needs a good interface for getting video onto the PSP (they also need a Mac compatible version; the current 1st party software is Windows only). There are good 3rd party Mac apps out for the PSP, but with the 2.0 firmware coming, they all have to update for a quasi AVC/h.264 format. If it was true h.264 video we could all use QuickTime 7 Pro, but that would be too easy, wouldn't it.

I wonder how much that video iPod will cost? The 60 GB iPod photo is $399. Will they charge $499 or more for a video iPod?

An Austrian hacker earned the dubious distinction of writing what are thought to be the first known viruses for Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Vista operating system. Written in July, the viruses take advantage of a new command shell, code-named Monad, that is included in the Windows Vista beta code.

Microsoft is its own worst marketing nightmare. Getting people to adapt to XP was tough. I imagine it will be even harder to convince people to adapt to Vista. I really didn't think we would see any Vista exploits this soon in the game.

Oh well, you have to make your name some how.

Here is a radical idea. Buy a Mac.

It's unclear at the moment exactly what this will mean for Mac or PlayStation 3 users. Sony's Cell processor is a derivative of IBM's PowerPC chip used by Apple in its personal computers.

I love rumor mills. Especially the far out bizarre claims. I would think that Sony would put a Linux distro on the PS3, since it already has one for the PS2. But thats just me. But whatever. Anything could happen. I mean Apple switched to Intel chips and finally after 21 years released a multi-button mouse.

There was potential for Jaws 3. The original title, Jaws 3, People 0, would have made it the greatest film ever just based on the title. Anyone involved knew there was nowhere left for the series to go. Let's all take a moment to thank Universal for shooting that idea down and leaving us scarred for life with this disaster.

If you're a member of any video game message board, you've certainly seen your fair share of gamers complaining about the lack of originality in today's games. There's a reason for it. Here's a stat from the latest Electronic Gaming Monthly:

After royally busting his ass, Ken managed to pass his sociology class with a score of 93%. He was probably going to post something on it, but this will save him the time. This is all after he claimed he had a "project" to look through magazines for ads that "exploited women." How convienient.

Congrats!

I am really behind the curve on MT plugins. MT RebuildBlogs is really worth installing.

I thought I posted this a long time ago. I can't find it. This is an indispensable tool for finding Movable Type tags fast. MT Tabs adds a sidebar in Firefox and Internet Explorer.

As if a weak DVD double-dip wasn't enough, American classic Ghostbusters is now on UMD. The film will always be the same regardless of the format, a laugh out loud comedy (one of Ivan Reitman's best certainly) that has stood against time. Besides a few special effect shots, it remains as close to flawless as possible. (**** out of *****)

Tidal Wave is one of those movies that might have worked as a single episode of an hour-long TV show. Drug out into feature length, this 1997 direct-to-cable flick becomes a dull, uninspired mess. It's predictable, the characters are uninteresting, central logic is lost, and even the few destruction sequences don't provide much in the way of entertainment.

One of the major networks should start a new reality show on video games. They only need to look at one small portion of the industry, which would make the budget small, because that's the only one most of the nation knows about. So, in the past few weeks, Bully, Sims 2, and Killer 7 along with a few flash games have made the news.

I know it is almost time for a new school year when we have our annual training session. It is time to train all the new people on how to use InDesign and our work flow to put The BG News together every day.

This time went better then others. In the past year I have been doing a lot to make the News' staff job a lot easier. Last year I overhauled out style guide, as well as supplement the InDesign library with even more drag-and-drop parts.

I still have a list of things to edit before we start classes in three weeks.

Just broke in with a special report on ABC News, complete with video montage. Lung Cancer was the cause.

While nothing will ever replace them, classic sci-fi schlock like Plan 9 from Outer Space has probably inspired more modern cinema and video games than true classics like Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. The parodies are constant, and Destroy All Humans runs with just that. It's been regarded as Grand Theft Auto with an alien, and it's hard to find a better description.

It just should not be possible for a game to do this much wrong. First person shooters have officially been sent backwards five years by Goldeneye: Rogue Agent. This abysmal title barely even covers first-person shooter basics, while adding the most aggravating, annoying, and repetitive soundtracks in recent memory.

If Hootie and the Blowfish have any chance to be back in the position they were in 12 years ago, Looking for Lucky is it. This is their most enjoyable, addictive, and easy to listen to album since the criminally under appreciated Musical Chairs. It's not going to create a new audience, but for those who have stuck with them and those who may have forgotten, this is the album the band needed.

Although Matt already let the cat out of the bag early, I still wanted to comment on this grade.

First of all, it was so nice to not have to wake up for a 9:30 AM class today! It is so nice to have it done and over with.

I got a 95% on the last test. And to be honest I only studied for half an hour before the test. If I can get a 95% by doing that, I don't see the point in burring my nose in the books for longer. That and taking classes while working two jobs is a not-so-fun juggling act. It does not leave a lot of time to study.

San Francisco-based Macromedia Inc. on Monday will announce Studio 8, the newest version of the company’s suite of applications for content authoring. Studio 8 sheds FreeHand, but adds two other applications giving the suite a better mix for its target customer, according to the company. Studio 8 now includes Dreamweaver 8; Flash Professional 8 (including a new Flash 8 Video Encoder); Fireworks 8; Contribute 3; and FlashPaper 2.

There is only one application I get excited about more then Photoshop, and that is Dreamweaver.

MacCentral has a preview of the new Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks. Dreamweaver just looks amazing.

After looking at the new features of the entire suite, I will be plunking down the $399 for the upgrade to Studio 8.

I am very interested to see the new text rendering engine in Flash 8 Professional. I am glad they "unsplit" Flash, last release had a Pro and non pro version, which I thought was pretty dumb.

As for the new Dreamweaver, the new background FTP is about time. The redesigned CSS panel looks great as well. The visual tools for CSS development look outstanding. The Mac version now finally has a tabbed interface for open documents too. Thats another "its about time" feature, as the Windows version of Dreamweaver has had this feature for some time now. New coding tools look great. This looks like a really solid upgrade for Dreamweaver, and may be some foreshadowing in regards to GoLive.

This is my first web site using Movable Type as a back end. MT is great to work with, as it is much more then a blogging tool. The BG News Alumni Society was recently formed, and now they have a site. It has been up in some form or another for a couple months now, but it is now mostly complete. The last thing I need to do is make the MailMan templates look nice. Plus some other small tweaks.

It took the most work to take the SMARTY templates of The BG News site and convert them to MT templates.

The BG News is having its 85th anniversary this year. I put together my first PayPal shopping cart for this site. PayPal is really great to use for Point Of Sale (POS) work.

Finally, my two loves together: The Los Angeles Philharmonic is doing some video game music. And it looks like they'll be the first of many classical orchestras doing this sort of thing.

Sample playlist:
"Some of the greatest game franchises and music ever created are being showcased including Mario, Zelda, Halo, Metal Gear Solid, Warcraft, Myst, Final Fantasy, Castlevania, Medal of Honor, Sonic, Tron, Tomb Raider, Advent Rising, Headhunter, Beyond Good & Evil, Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, EverQuest II and even a classic arcade game medley featuring games from Pong to Donkey Kong."

Ha ha, friggin' sweet.

Microsoft Corp. has settled a lawsuit that it filed two years ago against the self-proclaimed "King of Spam," Scott Richter, who at one time helped distribute more than 38 billion unsolicited e-mails per year, Microsoft said Tuesday.

Poor guy, he had to pay MS $7M. I hate spam. I don't feel bad for him.

Redmond-based Microsoft just announced two products that will compete with offerings from Adobe, and Adobe is about to buy a company with products that challenge Microsoft's.

Microsoft does have a competitor to PDF. I just don't think it will topple Adobe. But then Microsoft only had 4% of the browser market at the beginning of the browser wars.

The NCAA announced today that mascots making Native American or Indian references will not be tolerated in postseason play. Schools will be asked to cover up any logo on uniforms or clothing that suggests such references.

One one level I agree with this. But as far as I know, the FSU Seminoles have the permissions from the Seminole Nation to use their name and the Indian mascot. So I do not think this sanctions by the NCAA should affect FSU.

People wanting to upgrade to Windows Vista are likely to need not only a new computer with more robust hardware, but a new monitor as well.

A US tech consultant says technology in the new version will fuzz protected digital content unless it is viewed on a monitor which has High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP).

Subscription Required. My only question is: What does Windows need copy protection of this magnitude for? There are plenty of other ways on a computer to secure content compared to a TV (where this technology came from).

Unlike a lot of recent set of game design books, Start Your Engines has a focus, and it's a good one on top of that. A dominant genre, racing titles take up a large market share, and this is a book that will get you moving on designing one. That's assuming of course you know what you're doing.

Well lookie here, just what the industry needs! These Korean people are crazy about their online games. This is the third or fourth story I've heard about serious addiction over there (Lineage in particular). I've pulled a few all nighters in my day, but 50 hours? That's too much even for me.

Fantastic read, and the first major media source I've ever read that says it's the generational gap causing all these problems. Well that and Jack Thompson. It also cites studies that show there isn't aggression coming from players. Kudos to the author (who is sadly uncredited) for understanding, and writing something other than "Games kill people!"

Sports games do one thing in the current video game market: Clog it... fast. Each year we are bombarded by countless iterations of NFL games. Someway, somehow, these things sell millions upon millions of copies leaving collectors diving into $.25 bins two years later trying to complete collections. It wouldn't be so bad if they all played like Backyard Football though.

Silpheed is probably familiar to most gamers on the Sega CD. The intense faux polygon backdrops, simply shocking at the time, covered up some rather generic gameplay. While still a nice shooter, it hardly did anything to change or move the genre ahead. This latest edition on the PS2 does pretty much the same thing, this time with impressive results.

Edge magazine had a snippet showing this. All the gameplay elements are clay animated, from the ships to the explosions. Could use some more variety and it's a basic (although fun) shooter, but it looks great.

Finally, someone is speaking out against insane anti-game crusader Jack Thompson. Mr. "I'm better than all gamers and I know more than you's" website is www.stopkill.com. This is a great way to post actual truths, and rib on his website. Kudos guys for doing something anyone who plays games wanted to do.

There's a small but dedicated fan base for bad movies. These are not the type of movies that are actually terrible, just so incompetent, they become an absolute joy to watch for their sheer stupidity. That's King Kong Lives in a single sentence. This is a miserable film, and no honest critic is going to praise it. However, you know if you fall in this category, and if so, King Kong Lives is a necessity.

This one is hard to watch. Link to the video is on the right side.

Car Battler Joe is definitely one of those games. A strange hybrid of Pokemon, Twisted Metal, a dash of Final Fantasy like RPG elements, and open ended gameplay much like the Grand Theft Auto series, Joe won't appeal to anyone who refuses to give it some time, but these people are missing out on one of the best portable RPG's in a long time.

The Verizon VZMinutes widget shows off the best reason for using the Dashboard. Its just a shame that widgets in general take up between five to 10 MB of RAM each. Some people are spoiled with RAM though.

In short, Widgets are Sherlock without all the overhead. Search engine widgets are great, RSS widgets are nice, comic widgets are fun, but these web services widgets like the VZMinutes widget are the reason Dashboard really shines.

They work mainly because, in this case, I hate going to the Verizon Wireless web site and login every time I want to check my minutes.

Of course I would not store my PIN on any computer other then my own, for obvious security reasons.

I should note that this is in beta, and it very much acts like it. It does work though, just not all the time.

Even after countless awful (and at times unplayable) sequels, Double Dragon is one of those games that has refused to die. This 1987 arcade classic has reasons to stick around too. As the innovator of the beat-em-up, it's still a great time killer, and that's just what you're looking for on a cell phone.

To say that my GPA is in the crapper is an understatement. It was at an all time low of 1.61 before the summer. As you can see, this is why I got kicked out a couple years ago. But I got an 'A' in Sociology 101 this summer - a huge help.

My GPA is now a 1.67. Since I have a sub 2.0 GPA I am still dismissed but can continue (because BGSU wants my money) because I have kept at least a 2.0 GPA this summer session. I now have 85 credits to my name. Yay.

D is for diploma, right? I need a 2.0 GPA to graduate (OK so that is a C) and a total of 122 credits. At least I am more then half way there. And I am getting close to that 2.0 too.