Technophiles Anonymous

A little while ago I posted a little snippet about a web show called popSiren from Revision3.com.  While popSiren quenched my thirst for both DIY projects that I never actually do and Sarah Lane (Alexis says she'll be Sarah in 5 years), the real magic of the show is that it opened my eyes to all of the other great stuff from Revision3.

Being a tech geek today is great.  There are a bunch of awesome websites out there, but television programing leaves something to be desired.  Sure, G4 is ok if you're looking for some video game coverage, but their programing has slipped into lowest common denominator as of the last few years.  Plus they run Cheaters and Cops all the time for some reason.  Weird.  Mythbusters provides some cool science-y stuff, but it's not exactly cutting edge.  And you can only watch Planet Earth and The Universe so much until you've watched them all.

Revision3 has programming that is the perfect match for anyone looking for some bleeding-edge tech talk.  Diggnation, The Totally Rad Show, and Social Brew deal with current events, video games, and social networking, respectively.  There are many other programs dealing with other tech topics, as well, and all oth their programming is available as a live broadcast on revision3.com and as an iTunes video podcast.  Both options are free and the iTunes route (haven't tried streaming yet) offers many differnet bandwidth flavors, including high def. 

Alexis and I sat down last night and watched Diggnation and Social Brew and we both had a few laughs, but these shows offered more to me than some passive entertainment.  Alexis isn't as geeky as I am so we don't have many painfully in-depth conversations about ISPs, Telcos, OS's, physics engines, Twitter, etc.  Talks like that are reserved for a night at the bar with a specific friend of mine and they don't happen nearly as often as I'd like.  Revison3 helps me bridge the gap between geek-nights while providing quality entertainment.  I'll be delving deeper into their offerings in the next few weeks so look out for more info on other gems.

Also of note:

• The iPhone 2.0 firmware is everything I was hoping it to be.  Got some great apps already and I'm still having fun looking for more.  I'm already starting to see the software's influence on on-again/off-again Twitterers.
• Now, I'm all for a little game sequel variety as far as source material goes, but Command and Conquer 3 is pushing it.  Aliens?  Are we that out of ideas, guys?

Yes, yes, go read some real blogs with real journalists who own real iPhone 3Gs.  I only got to hold one, as they were sold out (15 phones, 16th in line).  I can say, though, that the damn thing feels comfy as hell in your hand.  That was a big complaint I had with the original, which is staring up at me with puppy-dog eyes whispering, "Don't give me away.  Please, please, don't give me away,"

We're 13th in line at 6am.

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There is a new iPhone coming out tomorrow.  Have you heard?  Oh.  You did.  Well, I'm skipping work to get one.  Maybe I'll let you touch it, smarty-pants.

iTunes 7.7, the AppStore, iPhone 3G's and firmware 2.0 updates are all in the wild.  The anticipation is over, people.  Now the real fun begins. 

Check Digg, BoingBoing, Gizmodo, Wired or any other tech source and they'll all be running stories on all the cool new applications I wrote so excitedly about yesterday.  And the big thing the 3G is bringing to the party is GPS.  GPS leads to geotagging and geotagging leads to social networking.  There are already geotagging features in several social networking sites and applications, but the new iPhone makes it easy and accessible for the drooling masses. 

And that's a good thing.  I can't get a single one of my friends to join Twitter nixed my Myspace page years ago and I've all but forgot the login credentials of my Facebook account.  I was let in on a beta version of BrightKite, but never had any real reason to keep that up.  But, with the AppStore already sporting  Facebook and Twitter apps, are social networks ready to come back to the forefront of that whole Web 2.0 thing?

I was recently at an Obama rally in downtown Detroit.  I had my iPhone and I pulled up Twitter trying to find some crowdsourced info about how long of a line I was standing in.  I read about all the fantastic, up-to-the-minute live-blogging and crowdsourcing going on at geek-mecca events like SXSW and WWDC and I wanted in on a small piece of that action in Detroit.  Nothing.  Tweet-free silence.

And that's just the thing: social networks only work with people in them.  The iPhone 3G can reignite the interest in existing networks with solid user-bases.  It doesn't need to create new networks because it can just give people new ways to access all the things they're already using.  Or, in the case of everyone I know, it can give them incentive to dive back into them.  Having a dedicated Facebook app on your shiny new phone will probably get you to use Facebook a little more often.  Have a Flickr account?  The 3G's camera will ask you if you want to geotag that photo you just snapped.  Location based software is going to user in some big changes in the way we use what we're already accustomed to using.  We'll just have to see if it lasts.

Lots of stuff to talk about today, not the least of which is our new cat Jetson.  A friend of one of Lexi's co-workers is moving back to England and can't take him for some reason, so we offered to give him a home.  With a name like Jetson, it's only natural that I call him Space Cat.  He's huge.  Pictures on Flickr soon.  Huge pictures.

As far as more techie stuff is concerned, I've been messing around with Vista lately and I have to say, I'm not disappointed.  Vista looks very, very nice.  I run OSX on the ol' MacBook and Vista still looks nice.  I've had a few minor problems, but I didn't exactly spring for the most top-of-the-line PC out there, so the problem likely lies there.  I've read about Vista's network connection problems at different places and I have nothing bad to say.  Maybe these problems creep in later.  I dunno.  As for now, I'm happy.

On the Mac side, or more appropriately the iPhone side, I'm resisting the urge to upgrade.  It's just not enough of an improvement over the original to justify paying the money.  Now, I'll happily jump all over the next version, mind you, and I am quite excited over the 2.0 firmware due out on Friday.  With the new firmware comes access to the App Store that will be made available in iTunes 7.7, also due to hit the tubes on Friday.  I've seen some third party applications in action and I've been using the Safari based apps for the past year.  The iPhone, be it 1st or 2nd gen, will be completely changed on Friday.  I'm almost scared to predict anything else about it.  A lot of the flaws could very well be fixed by third party developers, for free.  Video.  Cut and paste (still?!).  VOIP.  I really think this new firmware is going to change everything, and that goes for all smartphones.  Research in Motion (Blackberries) and Palm (...Palms) are going to have to seriously up their game.  And Microsoft is going to need to get Windows Moble a better public image.  And lets not forget Google's Android.  Brave new world, indeed.

One of the first games I picked up shortly after my PC was out of the box was Command & Conquer 3.  I've been a rabid fan of the C&C series from the begining.  Real time strategy games, when done right, are bliss for me.  A lot of people see the RTS genre as an excercize in micro-management, and they may have a point.  But there is just something about them that I love.  C&C3 is the first game since Red Alert that was worth calling a sequel.  It does everything they way the first C&C meant it to, namely cool/cheesey live-action cutscenes.  I've been working my way through the campaigns, so I haven't tried the online yet, but I'm really impressed with it.

Also of note:

• There are some kick-ass downloadable songs for Rock Band right now.  Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Muse, and Pixies just to name a few.  Hell, I got the whole Doolittle album.  Rock!
• I picked up a Wii Fit.  I'm sure they'll be a substantial paragraph about that at some point.
• My PS3 continues to gather dust, even with the 2.41 update.  In-game XMB is only cool if there is a game I care enough to play.
• I am so going to buy prints of Penny Arcade's Paint the Line 80's ping pong movie parody strips.  Yes, you heard correctly.

As you may well know, I own a MacBook and an iPhone.  What you may not know is that I just bought a deaktop PC that runs Windows *gasp!* Vista *double gasp!*.  I mentioned last time that I'll be studying to be a Network Admin.  Like it or not, I'll most likely be working on a Windows box, not to mention the fact that the school had a disclaimer stating that all of the classes in my degree feild will be using Vista.  So, I swallowed up my pride, closed the blinds and ordered an average system.  Then I bought an after-market graphics card.  Yippee!  I forgot you could do that!  I now have a system that I can upgrade.  There's something I haven't been able to do in about 7 years, thank-you-very-much, Steve Jobs.  I starting thinking about all the benefits (yes, benefits) of owning a PC.  I'm actually pretty excited.

The reason I needed a graphics card was this little thing called Spore by this little company called Maxis owned by this huge corporate powerhouse called Electronic Arts.  Spore is huge, of course.  I know precious little about it other than my Mac couldn't run the Creature Creator and I wanted to make damn sure my PC could.  You might remember the SimCity games.  Ring a bell?  Well, Maxis made those games, and they were fan-fucking-tastic.  Spore is going to bring that learning/playing/playing-God experience back.  I almost forgot how fun PC games can be when they're done right.

You know what else I own that is made by Microsoft?  An Xbox 360.  Why am I bringing that fact up?  Because with Vista, I can turn my 360 into a media streamer.  I was this close to buying an AppleTV so I could watch stuff from iTunes on my TV instead of straining my eyes and burning my lap with my MacBook.  Thankfully, I held off.  What I can now do is so much better.  I can stream music and movies and whatever from my PC, yes, but what really has me excited is this little program I found that can turn Netflix's Watch Now feature (which doesn't work on Mac for some damn reason) into a video-on-demand on my TV feature.  Fuck yeah!  I'm going to use the hell out of this once I get it set up.  No hardware to buy.  No extra wires to run.  Just quality stuff for free (with my regular Netflix subscription) on my TV.  I'm really excited.

And speaking of TV, let me end this little post by giving you a grim view of the future.  You've heard of the Bravo TV channel, right?  I've discovered something very disturbing going on over at Bravo.  Top Chef.  Shear Genious.  Project Runway.  This can only mean one thing: Bravo is secretly recruiting candidates to use in order to breed a genetically superior race of super-hot chefs who can make their own clothes and cut each others' hair, thus making them completely self-sufficient.  And that's only the beginning.  They'll also be able to flip houses and take over the world.  You know who else tried to breed a genetically superior race and take over the world?  Hitler.

Not so much a tech update as a life update.  Yes, I'm going to slip into that old blogging cliche' and give all of you nonexistent readers a glimpse into my life.

I guess the biggest news is that I'm going to quit my job with the government and go back to school full time.  I'm taking classes at a community college right now and I really need to get my degree.  Speaking of degrees, I'm no longer going to be a business major, opting instead to head into (what I can only assume to be frustrating) field of Computer Networking.  I consider myself a pretty tech savvy guy, but networking has always been the bane of my digital existence.  I figure, why not just tackle the problem head on?  I would find it personally rewarding, and hilarious, to accomplish this degree.  And at least I won't know much going into it.  I like challenges.  Seriously, though, I think I'll enjoy it.

So, it looks like I'll be trying to find a part time job sometime after August 1st.  I'll have about a month to get all of my ducks in a proverbial row before switching into hyper-school mode.  I've always loved working in coffee shops, so I'll probably try to make that happen again.  Then again, a new store-formerly-known-as-Kinkos is opening right down the street from my apartment, so that might be an option as well.  I could run that place in my sleep.

On to more interesting matters...

The Orange Box continues to deliver on almost every level.  I stand by the belief that it is the single best value for the 360 or PS3.  I stopped playing Half Life 2 awhile ago and just recently picked it back up again.  Apparently I was like 30 minutes from beating the game, which I have now done.  One down, two to go!  So, HL2: Episode 1 is what I'm currently playing.  After being glued to GTA IV for a dozen hours, I was really longing for a game with good controls again.  Sorry, GTA, you're just not my thing.  I'll probably be selling that game in the near future.  Episode 1 starts off solid enough.  It seems to be quite a bit more difficult than HL2, with a lack of ammo at the beginning.  Hell, you only have the grav-gun when you start, and it's not the easiest thing to kill people with.  All in all, I'm really looking forward to slogging through it and Episode 2 after that.  That is what August is for, I guess.

Ahh, Apple.  I love you so much, even when you string me along just to break my heart (kinda).  The iPhone 3G was announced this past Monday.  You may have head of it.  I, for one, am pretty excited to get my hands on one when they hit the street July 11th, but there are quite a lot of people that were disappointed with the specs on the second-coming of the JesusPhone.  First of all, people are pissed because it is a lot more difficult to jailbreak.  People want a hand-held Mac and their dreams were put on hold when it was announced that iPhone 3G's will brick themselves if they aren't activated through AT&T within something like 30 days.  Waah.  They're only charging $199 for the damn thing!  If you don't want to play by the rules, go buy a Treo or something.  You can't really blame them for wanting to keep the phone locked down when they're subsidizing the fuck out of it.  Still, people think that they should be able to do whatever they want with anything they buy.  Nobody complains that they can't play Wii games on their 360.  It amounts to the same thing in my book.  I dunno.  I'm going to buy one and I'm going to activate it through AT&T and I'm going to enjoy it.  I guess the whiners can whine all they want.  They'll really be pissed when the GooglePhone is the same way...

As you may have heard, at every minute of every day, in every available media outlet, repeatedly, Grand Theft Auto IV is on store shelves and in the Xboxes and Playstations of this fine, fear-mongering country.  If you're looking for some sensatioinalized "report" about how this franchise is ruining the youth of America, you're in the wrong place.  If you want to know why I haven't picked up GTA IV yet, but probably will, read on, comrade.

I've played the Grand Theft Auto games.  I've played a vast majority of the pervious iterations, but never to completion.  I guess I never cared for any of them.  But my dislike doesn't stem from the storyline of hyper-violence like most peoples'.  No, my dislike is in the execution of the game.  The gameplay in previous GTA games was mind-numbingly awful.  There was, in my opinion, no fun to be had other than watching the cinematics and listening to the voice acting.  The story was good (not great, but good) and that's where GTA stopped for me.

And before you ask, no, I'm not a purely first-person-shooter player.  Crackdown was a solid GTA-ish sandbox game.  It had decent controls.  The shooting still sucked and the driving was broken and the story was a joke, but I played through that game.  So what has kept me from playing through a Grand Theft game and what about GTA IV makes me want to try again?

Combat: This was my primary complaint with Grand Theft Auto.  The combat was terrible.  If you were using a melee attack, you would miss.  If you were using a gun, you would either miss or be uber-accurate.  But the worst part was that the combat just wasn't fun.  I found it more of a chore than anything else.  Fail.

Graphics: I'm definitely not one of those graphics people, so this point may seem contradictory.  The graphics in the previous games just wasn't there.  They had fantastic voice acting but the lack of decent graphics really soured the deal for me. 

Characters: Stereotypes suck, especially when you take them right from movies.  I was never compelled to play as any of the characters in previous GTAs.  And when the game is asking you to play as someone you don't want to, and play for 50 hours, that's where I draw the line.

Setting: What made the GTA games so likeable to so many people was Rockstar's attention to detail on the settings.  In general, I think they have always done a great job.  The problem I have is that I was never into any of the settings they wanted to replicate.

These are most certainly nitpicky gripes, I know.  I'm in no way saying that the Grand Theft Auto games are bad.  All I'm saying is that as of the writing of this article, they've never been my cup of tea.  But, like many of you, I've been inundated with GTA IV without having ever played it or even seen it played.  And from what I can tell, most of the complaints I've had with it's ancestors are fixed.  So, I'll once again be traveling down the road of Grand Theft Auto, trying to like it and see what everybody is always yammering about.  I'll let you know how that turns out.

Brightkite is a location-based micro-blogging tool.  It seems to be made for Twitterers by Twitterers, which I can definitely support.  I started using Brightkite last night when I got a beta invite to join the service.  This is my first private beta and I'm extremely excited.  So lets see how this bad boy works out.

First, setting up an account is easy.  Brightkite REALLY wants you to add your mobile phone info, which makes sense given the nature of the service,  but they do not currently support all wireless services.  They do, of course, support AT&T (iPhone, naturally).  I'm sure this will all change, along with the release of the iPhone app, when the service comes out of beta.  After you enter your mobile data, you set up the rest of your profile and enter your location.  Brightkite asks you to be as specific as you want, but the more specific the better. 

**NOTE:  If you're someone who is paranoid about stalkers or identity thieves or any other Internet weirdos, you should probably avoid this service.  Not because the service itself is dangerous or anything, but because for you to get the most out of Brightkite, you really do need to submit your actual location.  If you don't feel comfortable doing that, just stick to Twitter. 

Once all of your profile is set up, you'll be dropped into the Brightkite UI, which, as my girlfriend pointed out, is pretty.  The site is designed really well and it's, obviously, a little more robust than it's Twitter comrade.  There are several links to view the places you've been (on a Google map, of course), add new places, add past places to your favorites, and a spot to update your status with either a note or a picture.  It's all nicely done and logically laid out.

When the time comes to actually type out a note (I haven't tried a photo yet), Brightkite shows just how much it looks up to Twitter by keeping the 140 character limit.  A nice touch, in my opinion.  Their 'feed' is what you'd expect.

"I'm eating dinner with _______ and trying out Brightkite."

"At home watching tv."

"Miguel is a douche."

Nothing special there, but you're not going to be looking at that too much.  Unless you're living in the sticks, like me, and nobody shows up on the People Near Me page.

Which brings me to my next point: Real world applications.  Brightkite is a great idea.  I think people have made apps for jailbroken iPhones that do the same thing with Twitter.  But, at least while it's in beta, unless you're living in a city, you'll proabably be flying solo.  I can see Brightkite being awesome for meeting up with people or meeting new people when you're out of town or whatever.  I think the service is going to be great.  But, until they move out of beta and get some more people to join, Brightkite won't reach it's full potential.  But, look at Twitter.  Twitter only blew up when it was shown at SXSW and reported on by Wired.com (which is where I found Brightkite, too).  Look for Brightkite to explode onto the hip tech scene in the next few months.  But, if you can't wait until then, send me an email and I'll send you the only invite I have to give.