Burnout Paradise

A buddy of mine at work was generous enough to loan me a bunch of PS3 games.  He is knee deep into the Wrath expansion for WoW, and so he said he wouldn't miss them for a while.  Initially I set them aside as I really wanted to get to 100% treasure collection on LittleBigPlanet, but now that I have achieved that goal, I was ready for something new.  

The first game we pulled out of the stack was Sonic the Hedgehog.  Now, I loved Sonic on my old Genesis, so I had some expectations going in.  Ooooh, was I disappointed.  Gone are the 2D platforming levels with insane speed (thank you blast processor!).  Today's game is filled with 3D platforming at it's worst.  Every conceivable issue that could afflict a 3D platformer is here: unclear objectives, horrible character control, uncooperative camera system, and outright bugginess.  If you get this game in your stocking this holiday season, don't even bother to unwrap it.  Just take it to your nearest games dealer and hope they give you $5 on trade-in for it.

So I set that one aside and picked up the next on on the stack: Burnout Paradise.  If you've played any of the Burnout series of driving games, you know that the series is far from a pure racing sim.  In Burnout, crashing your car in the most spectacular way possible is part of the fun.  First, let me say that this game is gorgeous!  The vehicles, the environments, and the wrecks are just amazing.  This is what next gen console play is all about (sorry Wii, I love you man, but this is not your forte).  The gameplay itself is a lot of fun too.  The game is set in an open environment that is Paradise City (cue G'n'R).  You can simply cruise around in your vehicle enjoying the environment at your leisure, or you can pull up to any stop light and hit the gas and brake to start an event.  The events are one-on-one race, group race, stunt run, marked man, road rage, and burning route.  The first two are typical racing fare.  Marked man and road rage are variations on a smash up derby.  In marked man you are the target, and your goal is to get to your destination in one piece while your opponents attempt to destroy your vehicle.  In road rage, it's a roadway free for all with the objective to destroy a target number of opponents.  The burning route is a special timed race that, if you win, you get a new version of your vehicle.

This game is a lot of fun, but it can be a little daunting to first jump in.  With so much city to explore it is easy to get lost during a race.  There are lots of times that I'll manage to get the lead only to see the pack peel off to a side street while I barrel down the road heading the wrong direction.  

Burnout Paradise supports Trophies, so if you are a trophy hound this is another opportunity to get your fix.  The PS3 is my first experience with a trophy system and I'm finding that I really enjoy it.  It's giving the games a lot of replay value as I try to attain the more difficult goals.  It's also fun to compare my trophy collection with other folks on PSN just to see how I rank against other folks.

I noticed that Burnout Paradise is now available as a download on the PSN Store for $30.  If you own a PS3 and enjoy driving games, $30 is an easy investment for this kind of fun.

BeginRead Weirdness

I've run into a bit of an interesting problem with some code I'm working on.  It deals with asynchronous reads on a stream.  Here is a simplified version of the problem:

I have a network device that communicates by a TCP socket.  The client software connects to that TCP socket and issues commands.  Every command should receive a response from the device.  A new command must not be sent until the response to the last command was received.

So initially I wrote some code that looked like this:

public class Reader

{

private readonly Stream inStream;

public Reader( Stream in )

{

inStream = in;

}

public byte[] ReadResponse()

{

byte[] buffer = new byte[256]; 

inStream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);

return buffer;

}

}

This code worked just fine...as long as the device responded to my command.  Sometimes, the device wouldn't respond.  This might be because the device was unplugged before the response was sent (in which case my Read attempt would eventually return indicating the end of the stream was reached) or the device simply failed to respond to the command.

So now what I wanted was a way to deal with the device simply not responding to a command.  I needed some mechanism that would allow me to block on the read for only a little while.  A perfect place to use the asynchronous read!  So I modified my code to this:

public byte[] ReadResponse()

{

byte[] buffer = new byte[256]; 

IAsyncResult waitHandle 

= inStream.BeginRead(

buffer, 

0, 

buffer.Length, 

null, 

null);

bool waitResult 

= waitHandle.AsyncWaitHandle.WaitOne(

5000, 

true);

return buffer;

}

This change will read back the response if one is returned, or stop blocking after 5 seconds elapses without a response.  This works as I expected - the WaitOne returns as soon as data is available, or after the timeout period.  If the waitResult indicates that the timeout occurred, I can send my next command.  Here is where the weirdness is: the BeginRead attempting to read the response to the first command now reads the response to the second command!  This results in my latest command never receiving a response. 

So my question is, how can I block on a read for a specified period of time and avoid consuming the next byte arriving on the stream if the timeout occurs?  

I've tried a couple of things, and I have a working solution, but I'm not satisfied with it.  My current solution is to use a NetworkStream rather than a base Stream.  I would prefer to use the basic Stream type as it allows me to apply this reader to any Stream source and not just NetworkStream sources.  The NetworkStream has a DataAvailable property that returns true when data is available to be read on the stream.  I poll the DataAvailable property until data arrives or my 5 second timeout occurs.  This avoids the erroneously consumed byte.  However, in addition to the reliance on a NetworkStream source, it also introduces inefficiency as I poll the DataAvailable property.  I can either cause the CPU to spike by continuously polling the property, or I can introduce a Sleep.  The Sleep will allow the CPU usage to remain low, but also means that if the data becomes available while the thread is sleeping, I'm wasting time that could be spent processing the data.

What I really need is a way to cancel the thread that is waiting for the response asynchronously.  Unfortunately, the .NET framework doesn't support this concept.  So my only option to get this working the way I really want is to craft up my own Asynchronous read method.  Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to do this that avoids the polling scenario I have already implemented.

Long Flights

The delay since my last post is due to a business trip I had to take.  It involved a couple of really long flights on really large planes.  It left me with a couple of thoughts.  So this post is in the outstandingly unlikely hope that some influential person in the airline industry is reading and acts on these comments.

First, airline food has improved quite a bit from what I remember.  Domestic flights rarely offer you more than salted pretzels, but this 12 hour between Detroit and Nagoya, Japan, had two full meals and a large snack.  Each dinner meal offered a choice of chicken or beef (sounds like a wedding reception) and each breakfast meal offered a choice between chicken and eggs.  I went with chicken for dinner and eggs for breakfast.  It was surprisingly edible...not something you would seek out of course, but definitely better than, say, elementary school cafeteria fare.  My only recommendation here would be to include more non-soda options for drinks, chocolate milk being at the top of my list.

Seating was a bit improved from my previous trans-atlantic flight.  Flying economy from Detroit to Amsterdam ten years ago, my knees were solidly wedged into the reclining metal hinge of the seat in front of me.  Whenever the passenger in front wanted to recline it resulted in spasms of pain and shuffling around on my part.  This flight gave me a good two inches between my knee and the next seat, which was greatly appreciated.  There is still a long way to go before this can be called comfortable though.  I opted for a window seat on all occassions because I like the view and I feel I'm bothered less in that spot.  Still, a cold war sprang up between me and the passenger next to me for ownership of the arm rest.  The "reclined" position of the seat is about a two degree difference from the upright position.  The worst part for me was that I could not get my head or my legs into a comfortable position.  The headrest of the seat seems to be sloped to intentionally cause the drowsy travellers head to crash into either the wall or the passenger next to you, leaving your neck sore.  I had a travel pillow, which was good for keeping my head in place but offered just enough padding that my head was always pitched forward.  There was nothing to be done about my legs.  I found the best I could manage was to put my duffle bag under my feet to elevate my legs a bit.  Getting up to take a stroll isn't really possible in the economy section.  Fortunately I'm not afflicted with claustrophobia, but after 12 hours of being held captive in tight quarters I was feeling a little delirious.

A couple of movies were shown during the flight as entertainment.  Honestly I would have preferred that they just leave the telematics data on display, as I found it more entertaining (we cruised at close to 600mph with an outside temperature hovering around -100 degrees btw).  The movies played were Baby Mama, Bonneville, and Swing Vote.  I'm sure some committee got together to determine which modestly recent films would be the most inoffensive to the widest possible audience.  Seriously, if those are your criteria, just shut the thing off.  IMDB has these films rated in the solid 6 out of 10, and barely making that 6.  Very few passengers were paying any attention at all to the screen.  Most were either a) trying in futility to sleep, or b) engrossed in some personal entertainment gadget or book.  

Storage was actually surprisingly good, although I wasn't carrying much onboard.  I had my laptop briefcase that I didn't want to leave my site, and a small messenger bag with books and gadgets in it to keep me entertained.  The overhead bins had plenty of room, and my bag fit comfortably under the seat in front of me.

The cabin temperature was nice and cool for the trip, possibly a little too cool.  It didn't bother me while I was reading, but when I tried to fall asleep I felt a distinct chill.  The provided blanket is some relief.

So here is the short form of the tips for the airline:

• Wider arm rests
• Chocolate milk
• Better in-flight entertainment
• Power outlet at the seat (even a powered USB port would be good)
• Foot rests

Here is a crazy idea: how about bungee cord stirrups under each seat.  This would allow some resistance to stretching your legs without requiring that I disturb the other passengers to get up and walk.

Also, for any passengers out there readying for a long flight, here are some tips to help you survive:

• Get a (thin) U-shaped travel pillow
• bring a small bag with entertainment to stow under the seat
• Use the airline blanket like a shawl, not like a blanket. Your legs will be warm because you are wearing pants like a sane person.  Your arms will be cold, so wrap the blanket around your back and neck and drape it across your arms
• Use the airline pillow for lumbar support
• Books can be read at anytime, unlike electronics that must be switched off
• An iPod can be enjoyed with your head leaning back unlike a book where your head is pitched forward.
• Bring a snack.  You may not like some of the food, or you may just get hungry.  Cookies keep well and are easy to stow in the seatback.

Blu-Ray Movie

Last night I got my first chance to watch a Blu-Ray movie on the PS3, and to be honest, I think I was hoping for a little bit more. Maybe the difference is more stark on a 1080p television, but on my 1080i set not so much. The biggest difference was in sound quality. I couldn't support the best audio option out of the PS3, but the bitstream option sounded better than our current DVD player does. The picture quality, while better, wasn't amazingly better. We have a progressive scan (480p) DVD player now, which looks great on our set. Our television is rear project 55" set that is about 5 years old. It uses the tradition 3-tube setup (3 monitors at the bottom, one red, blue, and green, converged by a mirror onto a screen), not the newer DLP, LCD, or plasma that are common in larger sets. Maybe with one of those newer technologies at the higher 1080p resolution it would really shine, but as it stands I'm less than blown away. The price premium for a Blu-Ray film vs. a DVD is anywhere from 50-100% depending on where you buy. So is it worth buying the movie twice to see this upgrade? For me, I'm not there yet. Hopefully the price of Blu-Ray movies come down over the next year as the price of players also fall and become more common place. Another hope of mine is to get a new big screen 1080p set so I can test my theory of the better picture on the newer set. Unfortunately, I don't see that one happening anytime soon :-P

I Voted!

Have you? Today is the big day! If you are registered to vote, haven't voted yet, and are able to get to the polls.... GET GOING!

PS3 and LittleBigPlanet

So after my rant about the lack of good games on the market, I lucked out and received a PlayStation 3 and LittleBigPlanet as gifts. After spending a day playing around with the system and game, I have some initial reactions. First, what a beautiful machine! The PS3 certainly has a professional look to it. It looks right at home among the other A/V equipment on the shelf. The main system interface is a little polluted, but not difficult to learn and navigate. The controller is going to look immediately familiar to anyone who has play a PlayStation 2, as the buttons and layout are identical. The only difference is the cord - a detachable USB cable. The controller that came with my unit is the new DualShock 3 controller, which has both rumble and the six-axis waggle.

After updating to the latest firmware and signing up for a PSN account, I scheduled a bunch of game demos and movie trailers to download. Here is where I think the PlayStation 3 has a real leg up on the Wii. The Wii Channel is meant to give you a way to view trailers and download demos of some DS games. The PlayStation Network (PSN) is so much better. Not only can you get demos for the PSP and PS3, but you can also get trailers for movies and a slew of great content. Downloads can be performed in the background, unlike the Wii where you must complete the download before doing anything else. I got a couple of trailers for Wall-E (I love that movie) as well as the demos for Mirror's Edge, LEGO Batman, and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. The downloads were huge (over 1GB in the case of Star Wars), but it was nice to be able to do other things while they downloaded. I let the controller charge and went outside with the family while it finished the download.

The first demo I played was for Mirror's Edge. This is a FPS game that has you running and jumping much like a free-runner from rooftop to rooftop. This was also must first taste of the six-axis control, which I found to be grossly inferior to the Wii controllers. Really, if this is the best it can be used for, Sony should just save the cost of the parts and remove it from the controller. The biggest problem is that while holding the controller your hands simply can't move in a natural way to "waggle". Tipping forward and back is about the best you can manage. I was glad to see that none of the games I tried depended on this feature.

Graphically, the PS3 is night and day better than the Wii. This wasn't really a surprise, as the Wii has been described as two GameCubes duct taped together. Still, the system really brought out the best in our HD set. The HD trailers I downloaded looked phenomenal, as did the games. We haven't watched a movie on it yet to see how well it upconverts. I suppose the only drawback is that the crispness and brightness of the picture has me thinking about getting a 1080p set for the basement so I can see the machine perform at the highest resolution (our current set is 1080i).

This brings me to LittleBigPlanet. LittleBigPlanet has gotten a ton of media hype over the last few months. It's a simple platformer with gorgeous graphics. So what makes LBP so special? The interactivity and customizability. From the get-go, LBP is giving you the tools and showing you tricks on how to construct a fun level for a platform jumping game. You can either play the levels created by the game designers - there are 50 of them and the few I've seen are a lot of fun, or you can create your own levels. In addition, you can sign on to your PSN account and play levels that others have created, and other players can join you. It opens the door for some fantastic user-created content, and Sony is really pushing folks to come up with interesting levels. I think this will do wonders for the replayability of this game. The family has given it a try, and everyone is enjoying it so far.

If you have a PS3 and a sense of humor and fun, I can definitely recommend picking up LBP. If you are in the market for a Blu-Ray player and also enjoy games, the PlayStation 3 is a solid appliance. If you are in the market for a gaming system....I haven't seen enough to give a firm recommendation there. Between the Wii, the XBox 360, and the PlayStation 3 (not to mention the DS and PSP), you have a lot of choices to make about your personal preferences and style.

Exer-Gaming

People who enjoy video games have a certain stereo-type:

• Pale and Pasty
  
• Overweight
  
• Weak
  
• Socially backward
  

It's not a pretty picture. Fortunately, that image is going through something of a change, thanks in part to the growing popularity of "exer-gaming" titles. Exer-gaming titles are games that require you to move around to play. These games fall into a variety of categories and styles.

Dance Games

There are a variety of dance games out there, but the most popular are the Bemani games published by Konami under the nam

e Dance Dance Revolution (DDR). In these games you must follow a pattern of footsteps displayed on the screen in synchronization to the beat of the music. You can start out light with just a few steps and a slow song, but you can really work up a sweat if you turn up the beat. Many iterations of the game include a workout mode that will count your steps and give you an estimated number of calories burned.

Drumming Games

The Donkey Konga series of games and Taiko Drum Master games utilize a drum / bongos and this can be a nice workout for your arms. The frantic drumming in Donkey Konga makes a heck of a racket, but it is a lot of fun. My son and I will play this together and it doesn't take long before we are both grinning ear to ear and wearing out our arms.

Full Body Workouts

The Wii Fit and the PlayStation Eye Toy both are used in games that encourage a full body workout. In the case of the Wii Fit, the accessory is intended fitness directly. The game that comes with it steps you through a variety of simple exercises and tracks your progress. The eye toy has a variety of uses, but in DDR games it can be used to also track arm movements. In this way you get a full body workout rather than just your legs.

There are a lot of options out there now for folks to change the stereo-type of the gamer.  And guys, if you need a little more encouragement to jump into this, here you go.

The Lorax

Each night I read books to the kids before they go to sleep. The Dr. Seuss books are my favorites to read. If you haven't read any Seuss in a while, you might enjoy heading to the library or bookstore and leafing through a copy of the Lorax. This tale of industry vs. the environment has a lesson for everyone, and it is one of my favorite Dr. Seuss stories.

Humor from the Presidential Candidates

These two clips are some nice comedy relief from our two presidential candidates.

Where have all the good games gone?

I'm a gamer.  I love to play video games.  For as long as I remember I've looked forward to browsing through the latest game offerings and wishing I could play everything.  Lately, though, I feel like I've been in a slump.  Where are all the great games?  Store shelves are stocked with variations on a theme:  Generic First-Person-Shooter 7, Generic 3D Platformer 9, Nostalgia Retro Mashup 4, SPORT!  I take a look through the list of games coming soon and I don't get the least bit excited.  I was considering a PS3, but after looking through the paltry list of titles worth playing, that's out.  An Xbox 360 has a better selection, but nothing incredibly interesting.  We have a Wii in the house, but the most excitement we've gotten out of that lately are LEGO games.  I'm not looking for a ultra-violent blood soaked adventure.  I'm not looking for an exercise / brain training game.  I'm looking for something fun and innovative.  Something that makes you smile when you play it.  Something that doesn't require an immense investment.  Where are you fun games?

The best game I've played recently is BioShock.  That was a very interesting variation on the FPS theme, but at its core was still just a FPS.  Games that fall into the category that I'm looking for are games like Katamari Damacy and Elite Beat Agents.  There are a couple of games like that out now (Loco Roco, Patapon) but two interesting games is not worth the price of admission ($200 for a PSP plus the cost of the game).  A quick look at upcoming games with a lot of hype doesn't really offer me anything.  Gears of War 2 is a console based FPS.  Strike one - I can't stand console based FPS games.  The control is vastly inferior to what you get on a PC.  Strike 2 - Nothing interesting in this game to make it stand out from, well, Doom really.  And that game is how old now?  15 years old!  Call of Duty : World at War.  Again, another FPS, and this the fourth in the COD series.  Even the developers are getting tired of this and have said this will be their last WWII based FPS.  How about the Wrath of the Lich King expansion to World of Warcraft?  As tempting as that sounds, I've been off the WarCrack for some time and don't really want to relapse.  Fall0ut 3 and Resident-Evil 5 are coming up.  Both are third person shooter adventures.  I know, third person, what a revolutionary take on the first person genre right?

So what games are coming out that don't involve first or third person shooting?  LittleBigPlanet is one.  I'll admit, this one is an interesting variation on the 3D platformer theme.  Unfortunately this media darling title is only available on the PS3, and is about the only really interesting title for the system.  With a PS3 system running around $400 and the game another $60 or so on top of that, it better be one helluva game.  Fable 2 is out for the Xbox 360.  I really enjoyed the first one, but again is it worth purchasing a whole new system to play one game?  Admittedly, the 360 has a pretty rich library of games, so it wouldn't be an entirely bad move.  However, $250 for a new system plus the cost of the game is pretty steep.  Guitar Hero might be fun, and I do like rhythm based games.  Unfortunately most of the content for Guitar Hero is 80's and 90's pop rock, which I was never a big fan of.  

The one ray of hope for interesting new games are the downloadable content on each system.  The WiiWare titles on the Wii have been unique games, like World of Goo, that don't conform to the typical releases from major vendors.  The Wii Virtual Console doesn't get me all that excited because the nostalgia of the old games wears off too fast.  The WiiWare titles, on the other hand, are new content.  The DS also seems to have the occassional divergent game, but these have so far been few and far between.  The Wii has been a lot of fun so far, but lately Nintendo has seemed to avoid releasing true games.  Between the Wii Fit, Wii Sports, and the myriad of franchise rehashes, there hasn't been much of interest to a jaded gamer looking for something new to play.  Exer-gaming is fun, and I'm glad that Nintendo is getting non-traditional gamers into the mix, but I want to play a fun video game.

Have I missed something?  Is there something out there right now that is new, different, and fun that I've just overlooked?  I'm looking for suggestions here, so if there is something you've discovered and enjoyed, drop me a line in the comments.

Drive Space Recovery

If you are like me, when you bought your computer it had an enormous amount of hard drive space that you thought you would never fill.  As time passed and you continued to use the machine, you saw that seemingly impossibly large drive accumulate more and more cruft until one day you get the dreaded "Insufficient Disk Space" message.  Then you make a mad scramble to see just what you can delete safely and not regret later.

The article at 

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/GuideToFreeingUpDiskSpaceUnderWindowsVista.aspx

is a really useful guide for folks using the Vista operating system on how to get some of that missing drive space back.  This works for Windows XP users too, although to a somewhat lesser degree.  Right click on the drive you want to cleanup, then choose properties.  The General Tab will have a button for Disk Cleanup right next to the pie showing you how little space you have left.  If you make use of all of the options in this tool, you can get a suprising amount of drive space back.  Even better, check-out the advanced cleaning options and eliminate all but your last restore point.  Restore points consume a ridiculous amount of space on your drive.

After taking advantage of the advice from that article, I managed to recover 22.3GB of hard drive space.  That's a little more than 10% of the drive!  Even better, I didn't have to make any difficult decisions about backing up or deleting music, pictures, videos, documents, or projects that I had worked on over time.

Pidgin

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was getting irritated with GoogleTalk.  I decided to go back to my old friend GAIM to give it another try.  GAIM was the name of an open source instant messaging application that allowed you to communicate on a variety of messaging networks at once.  GAIM has since changed it's name to Pidgin.  The concept is still the same though.  If you find yourself running multiple instant messaging clients (such as GoogleTalk, AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ, etc.) this single client can eliminate a lot of clutter for you.  

Pidgin doesn't expose the full feature set of all of the IM clients.  Instead, it focuses on the messaging portion.  So while you can't play games, share a white board, voice chat, or use any of the other sophisticated features that each individual client might supply, you can write text back and forth.  And really, this is 99% of what I'm looking for out of an instant messenger.

Pidgin is not the easiest software to use.  It does attempt to simplify the process of setting up accounts and getting connected, but if you are behind a firewall you'll need to do some experimenting to get each client setup.  If this doesn't frighten you, Pidgin is a pretty useful app for condensing all of those IM clients into a single interface.  Pidgin isn't the only player in this space.  Another popular app is Trillian is also quite popular.  Just like Pidgin, it permits you to communicate to folks on your buddy list from a variety of IM networks.  Trillian has a free client, and pay-for Pro client as well.  I used Trillian a few years back, and it was a good tool.  I may give it another try to see how it compares with Pidgin.

For you typing social butterflies, Pidgin can be a pretty useful tool.

GENi

My Aunt referenced me to the site GENi.  GENi is a free genealogy website where you can create your family tree and invite your family to continue to fill in the details.  The interface is very easy to use, which is good for when the family historean and the family computer wiz are not the same person.  You can enter dates for any special events for your family, including births, deaths, weddings, and any other occassion.  You can upload photos and videos and tag them to members of your family.  

As far as privacy goes, GENi describes who can see your profile based on degrees of seperation.  Anyone who is fifth cousin or closer is one security level.  Beyond that is a second security level.  People you mark as friends are in a third security level, and then there is a fourth, final security level that applies to everyone.  In this way, you can keep your family tree private from the entire web world, and expose different levels of information based on how closely you are related.

GENi is particpatory, so the results of your family tree are going to vary based on how much of your family history you know, and how willing your other family members are to enter additional details.  GENi does not perform any research for you.  Our tree is pretty interesting because my grandmother, aunts, and uncles have already posted a number of photos and entered details for my ancestors that I never knew.  I've augmented the tree with additional people not already listed.  In doing so, whenever I attach an e-mail address to a new family member on the tree, that person is invited to add new details.

I spent entirely too many hours the first night browsing the tree and expanding on family members.  If you enjoy genealogy you will probably like this site. (http://www.geni.com/)

Discovering Fishers

One of my co-workers is finishing up his graduate project, and the results are looking good.  He has created a mapping plug-in for WordPress that allows you to associate a location on a Google Map with the blog post.  You can check it out here: Discovering Fishers.  The site is just a reference implementation for the mapping plug-in, but it is pretty interesting to see all of the green resources that are available in our area.

Donor Point

If you are a current blood donor or have considered donating blood, now there is an extra incentive.  The Indiana Blood Center is offering rewards for donations through the Donor Point program.  Each time you donate, you get 100 points, and you can use those points towards rewards on the Donor Point site.  If you set your appointment through the Donor Point site and keep it, you get an additional 100 points.  If you make a habit of donating every two months, those points can add up fast.

Another benefit is that the site will keep track of your cholesterol level from each donation.  The result is a nice graph of your cholesterol level over time.  It is cheaper than a trip to the doctor, and it gives me the feedback I need to know if my diet and exercise are having the positive effect that I was hoping for.

Even if the rewards and cholesterol information don't appeal to you, please consider donating blood.  If a blood mobile is at your work or in your neighborhood, it only takes 15 minutes to donate.  The Indiana Blood Center supplies over 550 units of blood every day to 60 hospitals throughout the state, and equivalent blood centers throughout the rest of the country are under similar demands.

The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide

Being a geek, there is a certain canon of literature you are expected to have read. Hitchhiker's Guide is one of the books on that shelf. I saw the movie some time ago and really enjoyed it. It was wacky and fun, and didn't take itself seriously. I bought the collected works of the series so I could fully immerse myself, not just dabble. After finishing the collection reading straight through, I think this was a mistake.

It's not that the books aren't enjoyable, because they are. It's that the style is sledgehammering consistent throughout. The wackiness of the storyline just starts to wear. I think I would have enjoyed the collection much more if I had simply read one book, then carried on about my life for some time before trying the next. As it stands, I don't think I fully appreciated each component of the collection. The first book "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe" I enjoyed very much. Life, the Universe, and Everything kept me turning pages as well.

I think part of the problem is that there is simply no plot. The stories follow the life of one Arther Dent. A wholly unremarkable fellow who is forced through an incredibly remarkable life. Reading over 800 pages in succession without any form of plot to pull you along can get a bit tedious. Which is why I heartily recommend that if you want to truly enjoy this series, read one book, then go away and do something else for a while. Do read it, though, as Douglas Adams use of the English language and storytelling are very enjoyable. As to this edition of the book (The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide - Deluxe Edition), I can only recommend it in so much as it will be mistaken for a Bible when you are reading it on a plane, and people will treat you nicely for it.

Total Home Digital Video Recorder from AT&T U-Verse

The Total Home Digital Video Recorder (THDVR) is here! When we first signed-up for AT&T U-Verse service, the tech mentioned that two big features were scheduled to arrive this year. As I reported back in March, one of the few things we didn't care for about U-Verse service was the limitation of a single High Definition stream. We could watch or record one channel in HD, but the rest had to be standard definition (SD). The second issue was that each home was limited to a single DVR. With Comcast we had two DVRs. The tech said that both of our irritations would be addressed with future software rollouts planned for this year. Two months ago we noticed that AT&T had switched on the 2HD/2SD service, which allows us to watch two high definition streams and two standard definition streams simultaneously in the house. Last week I noticed that the non-DVR equipped sets had the option to view recorded programs. Yeah, the THDVR has arrived!

For folks who use DirectTV, this is nothing new, but I'll explain for those who don't quite know what I mean. In our house, we have one TV that is connected to a DVR, and three TVs that are connected to standard set top boxes (STB). The TV with the DVR can schedule recordings and play them back. The other TVs cannot. Now that the DVR and STBs have been upgraded we can schedule a recording from any TV in the house, and watch it from any TV in the house. So if I'm sitting in the living room and I see that Battlestar Galactica is going to be on later, I can schedule it to record. The next day, when I'm on the treadmill in the basement, I can watch that recording. Not only that, the kids could be in the family room watching a recorded episode of Dora, while my wife is in the living room watching the latest episode of Pushing Daisies in HD.

It's nice to see our service provider keeping a promise and rolling out new features without increasing our costs. This just affirms for us that switching from Comcast was the right decision.

Good Reads

Earlier this year when I was on a business trip, one of my colleagues and I got to talking about the books we read. Turns out, we have a lot of common interests. I have a wide range of interests, but the majority of what I read for fun are science fiction books. He also enjoyed science fiction books, and had recommendations on authors I might be interested in. Before I left, he referenced me to his Good Reads account, which lists all of the books he has read, as well as any thoughts he might have on them.

I played with the site (http://www.goodreads.com/) for a bit and signed up for an account. It's a neat service. You can list all of the books you have read, are currently reading, or plan to read in the future. You can view what other people are reading, and their opinion on books they have read in the past. You can setup a friends list, which acts as a sort of MySpace style linking between accounts. It's a nice way to share your book reading interests and to get tips from friends.

I do have a couple of beefs with the site though. First, the friend invite feature is a bit confusing. I intended to send an invite to a handful of folks that the site found were already in my yahoo address book and were also on the site. One click too many led to me inviting everyone on my yahoo address book (182 addresses!) to the site. Not what I intended to do, and I apologize for the spam if you got one of those invites. In addition, getting general recommendations based on what you've read in the past is not very intuitive. I can view one of the books I've read and see a list of comments from other readers. I can then see what those other readers have read, but there is no aggregation to say something like "80% of people who rated this book the way you did also rated another book highly". So you either have to find someone else with very similar interests, or do a lot of digging on your own.

Overall, I do like the site, and from time to time as I remember I keep my account up to date. I've added a link to my link-roll on the right so you can get to it easily and see what I'm reading. I also like that I can make notes on books I would like to read in the future, as I often hear of a good recommendation, and then forget about it later. If you are a book reader, you might find this site useful.

Monitoring

I work for a company that makes security equipment: video surveillance cameras, video recording equipment, access control equipment, etc. Our business is to protect life and property for the folks that purchase our equipment. I am also a part owner in a business that offers global asset tracking. Both are successful businesses, especially during this era of fear and uncertainty in the world.

Over the summer I had a college intern working for me, and we had several good discussions on the issues surrounding surveillance and monitoring. My intern was of the opinion that businesses and property owners must have restrictions on how much monitoring they can do. My opinion is that if you own the property, you can do with it what you want. I hold this opinion because I believe in the free market system's ability to correct for bad behavior. As a homeowner, I believe I should have full authority to plant as many cameras, microphones, RFID tags, or anything else on my property that I want, and without asking permission from anyone else. I extend this same mentality to private businesses, who should have authority to install cameras, microphones, and track their assets however they like. If the business does this in a way that customers or employees don't like, they are free to go buy / work somewhere else. My intern was worried that really big companies or really wealthy people might be able to do really bad things, and while I agree that in the short term a corrupt, powerful business could do harmful things, in the long run the market will win out.

I think I really threw my intern for a loop when I said the same rules should not apply to our government. We afford our government special privileges which mean that our free market doesn't really have any influence on the government. Although we do vote for our representatives, we do not get to "buy" a new government when our existing government no longer suits us (I hear some snickering...cynics :-p ). Since we afford our government special privileges, we also need to have oversight. One specific example is in the case of wire taps. Before we allow our government to "install a microphone" aka wiretap a phone line, we require that the government submit a very good reason to a judge so that a warrant can be issued for the wiretap. This is a check and balance to prevent our government from wiretapping at will, which could be utilized as a mechanism to wrest control of the government away from the people of the country and to put that control in the hands of the few already in power.

Are these contradictory positions? I don't think so. As I said, we afford the government special privileges that are not afforded to private businesses and individuals. For that reason, the rules that apply to an individual or private business are not the same rules that apply to our government.

Super Chicken

I was talking to someone at work about cartoons we watched growing up. I brought up Super Chicken and he had never heard of it! Is this the first time you've heard this theme song?

Plucky Duck - Potty Years

Tiny Toons was one of my favorite cartoons growing up. I found this clip on YouTube and showed it to our kids, and now they are hooked on it too!

Del.icio.us

Some time ago I started hearing chatter about a service called Del.icio.us. I wasn't really clear on what it was...something to do with bookmarks. I've never really been in the habit of using bookmarks. Most of the sites I visit I just type the address in for, and everything else I Google. On a lark I visited the site and signed up for an account, and now I get it.

There are two things that make Delicious really useful. First, if you store your bookmarks on Delicious you can get to them from anywhere that has access to the Delicious website. This is a pretty nice feature when you move from PC to PC each day, or if you have ever upgraded PC's and lost your bookmarks. The second great feature is that you can choose to share your bookmarks. Now that may not sound all that fantastic at first, but here's the benefit. Let's say that you bookmarked something you are interested in, like this video of a Tonkinese cat playing fetch. When you visit your bookmarks on Delicious you see your bookmark to the video, as well as the count of the other folks who bookmarked the same link. You can then click on that number and get a list of the people with that link, and then click their account to see what other bookmarks they are sharing. In addition, you can supply tags for your links. So you might tag that bookmark with cats or tonkinese. You could then click on those tags to see what other bookmarks have been tagged with the same label. Of course, if there are any links you would prefer to keep private (such as to your bank or something else sensitive) you can mark those bookmarks as private. The bookmarks will show up for you when you are logged in, but will not appear in your shared list of bookmarks.

This makes bookmarking a lot more appealing for me. There are a lot of times at work that I'll be in the middle of a particularly gnarly problem, and I'll go googling around and finally find some obscure article on the web with a nicely written solution. In the past, I would use the page to solve my problem, then promptly forget it. Now I'm tempted to add it to my Delicious bookmarks and see who else bookmarked the page. If someone else bookmarked the page, they probably have the same interests as I do, so they may have some interesting links I would like to read. In addition, if I'm doing research on a particular subject, it makes sense to search the Delicious database of bookmarks to see what the most popular bookmarks are on my particular subject.

I've included a link to my Delicious bookmarks on the side bar. If you've got a Delicious account and don't mind sharing, post it in the comments.

The Nations of the World, by Yakko Warner

I used to have this completely memorized...and not afraid to admit that I still know most of it.

Google Talk

I'm a big fan of most of the apps that Google has put forth. When Google Talk was first introduced, I immediately tried to get as many people as I could to switch over. It was such an improvement over my existing IM tools (Yahoo and MSN). The biggest thing for me was that it didn't pollute the interface with ads, gadgets, tools, and other crap. It let you instant message, and that was it. There were no ads. The built-in voice chat was actually easy to use out of the box. It was great!

But that was almost four years ago. Google has since released three additional versions of the chat client, while not making any significant improvements to the original Google Talk desktop app. Your choices now are:

The Google Talk Desktop App
The Google Talk Desktop App, Labs Edition
The Google Talk Gadget (Web Version)
Google Talk in GMail

As well as customized versions for the iPhone and BlackBerry. To further confuse the issue, the various versions to do not have complementary features. The original desktop version does not have group chat, but does have voice chat. The new Labs version has group chat, but no voice chat. The GMail version permits communicating with your AOL IM contacts, but not in the original desktop App. The web gadget and the Labs addition appear identical to me so far, but I haven't dug that deeply. And they are all labeled "beta". So which am I supposed to use?

For a while I used Pidgin, which allowed me to run one application and connect to all of my instant messaging services. I stopped because it was not very reliable at staying connected. I haven't used it for over a year now, and several new releases have been issued. If you use a lot of different clients, I highly recommend it.

Getting back to my point, the Google Talk situation is a mess. Google really needs to have a sit down with the product manager for Google Talk and get his mind right. There are too many versions with too many variations of features.

LEGO Movie Video Games

Everyone in our family is a big fan of the LEGO series of games from Traveler's Tales. This series of games takes favorite films, such as the Star Wars series, the Indiana Jones series, and coming soon the Batman series, and puts them in the world of LEGO. All of the action takes place in a world of LEGO bricks, and you play as a LEGO interpretation of the characters from those movies.



The gameplay is your typical 3D platformer fare. Each level represents a portion of the movie content, and the levels are broken into scenes. In the scene you must take on baddies, solve simple puzzles, and navigate your way to the end of the level. Along the way you can find hidden treasure and collect "studs", the small, round, flat, one peg LEGO piece which acts as currency in the game. At the end of each level you are returned to a staging are where you can select another level to play, or use your studs to purchase upgrades. Upgrades include additional characters to play as, additional abilities, videos, or other doodads.

There are a couple of things that really draw us to this series of games. First, there is basicly no penalty for death. Each time your character is killed, falls off a cliff, or otherwise perishes you get recreated a short distance from where you died. You get infinite lives, so completing a level is more about finding your way through rather than mastering the combat system. This makes it very approachable for our kids. You do lose some studs for each death, but even if you have no studs you will get reincarnated.

The second thing we really like are the destructable environments. Nearly everything in these games can be destroyed, and it is really cathartic to rampage through a level, breaking everything in site.

Our son really likes being able to buy things in game. He can earn studs and use those studs to purchase new characters. This has been a great learning tool and we've found that it translates into real life as well. We give good behavior points, and he can use those good behavior points to get special treats, whether it is a cookie after dinner, or chocolate milk before bed.

Of the games we have (LEGO Star Wars 1, LEGO Star Wars 2, LEGO Star Wars The Complete Saga, LEGO Indiana Jones) LEGO Indiana Jones is probably the weakest. This isn't really any fault of the game, it is just that the Star Wars games have such a rich culture surrounding them that you can have lots and lots of characters and have them all be recognizable. Indiana Jones just doesn't have that same richness, and so you end up with 20 or so variations on the "Enemy Gunman". We'll probably grab the LEGO Batman game as a Christmas gift for our son, and we have hopes that the very full world of Batman will lead to a more enjoyable game.

So if you haven't tried any of the LEGO games yet, go pick one up. My recommendation would be to grab the Star Wars : The Complete Saga game, as this will give you the most bang for the buck, and probably be the most enjoyable.

Zero Punctuation

One of my favorite bits of web content are the regular video game reviews from Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw over at The Escapist. Titled Zero Punctuation, these rapid fire reviews are cynical, snarky, irreverent, and generally negative on each target. Croshaw obviously has an obsession with games and knows the industry inside and out. Each review is delivered at a breathless pace, which leads to viewing them over and over again to pick up on the dry wit and humor throughout. If you like games, and you don't mind some colorful language, I highly recommend it.

Telecommuting

There was an article in this month's issue of Wired magazine touting the advantages of telecommuting and openly wondering why working from home isn't wholly embraced by more businesses. It got me to thinking about the reality of working from home. The other posits that businesses are averse to telecommuting for fear of losing control of their staff. I think this is probably the least of most managers' worries when considering whether to let their staff work from the home office.

Firstly, there is a whole industry of folks that simply don't have the option to work at home. If you are paid an hourly wage, chances are you can't take your work home with you. Next, consider experts and professionals such as lawyers and doctors. Running the business from the home is certainly an option, but having a separate office gives a much greater impression of professionalism to the clients.

So who does that leave? What niche of people could realistically work from home? People in my profession (programmers) certainly qualify. Authors, artists, accountants...anyone who only needs simple materials (including a PC) to complete their daily work could probably do their job from home. Video conferencing and the internet permit easy communication with colleagues regardless of location.

So could I work from home? Sometimes, and I have enjoyed that opportunity on a few occassions in the past. But in most cases, it wouldn't be the best solution for me. For one, there are three kids in the house, and explaining to a two year old, a four year old, and a baby that daddy needs to be undisturbed for 8 to 10 hours even though he is in the basement just doesn't work. Second, there are some pieces of equipment that I need to complete my job from time to time, and having those on hand at home isn't always possible. It is much more cost effective for my employer to purchase common resources that we can all utilize while at the office (such as test benches, faxes, printers, etc.) rather than for each employee to require them in their home.

In my opinion, the sluggish adoption of telecommuting is less about control issues, and much more about the realities of who can work at home, and in what capacity.

Clean and Sober

I'm proud to report that I have been clean and sober for going on 4 months now. Of what you ask? World of Warcraft. That game got it's hooks deep into me. Prior to our trip to Gulf Shores I was spending sometimes 6 hours a night raiding, prepping for raiding, and grinding out gold. It was too much, and I was letting other things (including my health) slide. After a week of vacation with no chance for WoW, I decided it was best to just quit. There wasn't a whole lot left in the game for me to see, and it certainly wasn't worth the price of admission.

So what have I been doing with all of this new-found free time? Well, I've been hitting the treadmill for one. One of the worst aspects of WoW is that you are totally sedentary while playing. We got a treadmill about a month before our trip, and I had tried setting up WoW while on the treadmill. I could do a couple of things, but it was very difficult to type, and even more difficult to keep track of the tiny text on the screen. Now that WoW is completely shutoff, I've been much better about getting in my exercise. I try to get a minimum of three 30 minute work-outs in each week, with my goal to get in five good runs. My breathing is much better, and I've dropped 10 pounds.

Another bad habit I've dropped is drinking. It was my standard routine to mix up a scotch, vodka tonic, or gin as I sat down to play. If it was a long session I would sometimes have a second. Believe it or not, this was social drinking, as when you play WoW you are typically on a headset chatting with the other folks you are playing with. I never drank alone. Still, sedentary butt in chair plus alcohol is not a healthy combination. I still enjoy a beverage from time to time, but certainly not on the schedule I was before.

So running and not drinking account for about an hour of my night. What about the other five hours? My sleep schedule has improved a bit, though not much. I'm now getting into bed between 1am and 2am, which is a spot better than my 3am ritual before. Getting to bed at a decent time has always been a problem for me, so this isn't something I expected a huge change in. I have been able to see new and interesting games! I played through BioShock, which is outstanding. If you have a decent PC, definitely give this one a try. I also started enjoying our Wii more. The current household favorite is LEGO Indiana Jones. I spent the last couple of weeks getting pretty much every collectible in that game. There is a whole library of games that I have that I either never completed or lost interest in due to my WoW addiction.

Finally, I've gotten back into reading. I've read a number of great books throughout this year, including Spook and Agile and Iterative Development : A Manager's Guide. I'm currently reading The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I don't think I qualify as a true geek until I have read through this sci-fi favorite. I'm about half-way through the five novels, and so far it is great fun.

There is one possibility of relapse in the future. Blizzard is planning to release another expansion to Warcraft around my birthday. If the baby is up late at night and I'm doing the feeding, it will be really tempting to get back into my old habit. Maybe I need a sponsor :-p

Chevy Volt

The Chevy Volt has piqued my interest. If you haven't heard of it, the Volt is the one-time prototype electric vehicle that GM has given the green light to convert into a production vehicle. The transition from prototype to production has sanded down some of the edginess in the original, but the most important features are still there. This is a 100% electric driven vehicle. It is loaded with a bank of Lithium-ion batteries to store charge, and has a range of about 40 miles on a charge. In addition, the vehicle has a flex-fuel motor that will charge the batteries and drive the electric motor once the initial charge is depleted. GM is saying this gives the vehicle hundreds of additional miles of range.

The Volt has me interested for a couple of reasons. I don't like that money paid for gas mostly gets sent overseas. I don't like being a contributor to the pollution problem. I'm a geek, and the Volt is a fantastic new gadget!

I'd love to have a fuel efficient car that is still a nice vehicle. I've been begging my wife to let me put the $100 deposit down on a Smart, but she isn't budging on that issue since it won't allow me to transport one or more of our kids. The Volt is a 4-seater, so that would be one hurdle out of the way. My drive to work is less than 10 miles. Even with my current 4-cylinder Toyota I'm barely getting better than 20mpg. According to information available on the web, the Volt will fully charge from a standard wall outlet in 8 hours, or from a 220V (dryer) outlet in 3 hours.

That got me to thinking though. What happens if I never run on fuel? If I use the vehicle only for my daily commute, and never exceed the range of the batteries, what happens to the emergency reservoir of petrol in the tank? Will the vehicle eventually recommend that I let it burn off? Is that even a problem?

The Volt will arrive sometime in 2010, and it could be a real shot in the arm for GM. I probably won't be an early adopter on this one, as I'm sure it will take a model year or so to work out the kinks. I am pretty excited for an everyman's electric vehicle though, and I could definitely see buying into one should it prove itself in production.

A Bit of Philosophy

I read the book Spook recently (which is great, go read it!) and it got me to thinking about some philosophical questions of identity, self, stream-of-conciousness, and survival. I did a bit of googling and found this great article on wikipedia concerning Philosophy of Mind. Interesting stuff. Also, this blog entry gives some interesting discussion on Parfit's divided person.

Comcast vs. AT&T U-Verse

Competition is a good thing. Over the past couple months I've seen AT&T trucks rolling all over town, setting up little tents and doing lots of infrastructure work. Turns out they were installing fiber so they could offer U-Verse service in our area. U-Verse is AT&T's multi-service answer to your cable companies combined internet, television, and phone service.

The Frustration

I'm currently a Comcast customer (formerly Insight, rolled into Comcast for reasons unknown). I'm paying entirely too much for the service we receive. In our home we have:

• Widescreen HDTV in the living room
  
  • Surround Sound Receiver and Speakers
    
  • DVD / VCR Combo player
    
  • Nintendo Wii
    
  • Gamecube
    
  • Comcast Dual-Tuner DVR
    
  
  
• Studio Monitor in family room
  
  • DVD player
    
  
  
• Standard TV in Basement
  
  • Comcast Dual-Tuner DVR
    
  • Countless video game systems
    
  
  
• Standard TV in bedroom
  
  • hooked directly to coax
    

As far as services, we get:

• Basic Cable (about 30 analog stations)
  
• Extended Cable (another 30 analog and 30 digital stations)
  
• HBO
  
• Starz
  
• Internet Service
  

Our local stations come in HD for free. So for those services and two tuners we were paying a total of $143.09 a month. Good grief! I don't have the bill in front of me, but I think it broke down like this:

Dual Tuner #1	$10
Dual Tuner #2	$13
Basic Cable	$30
Extended Cable	$30
HBO	$15
Starz	$10
Internet Service	$35 ($45 with $10 discount for having television service)
Unexplained taxes and fees	$10
Sub-Total	$143

Needless to say I've felt like Comcast has been bending us over for quite some time. I've also had a persistent gripe about the quality of their Video On Deman (VoD) service. The image is so compressed that during action sequences you can't really tell what is going on. I will say, however, that the quality of live television, especially in HD, is exceptional.

The Pitch

Now U-Verse sends us a pamphlet to let us know that their service is available, along with pricing and service comparisons.

U-Verse U400+Internet Express package includes:

• Nearly all available channels (over 400 digital stations plus local and music channels)
  
• HBO
  
• Starz
  
• Cinemax
  
• Showtime
  
• 1.5Mbps internet service
  
• 1 DVR capable of recording 4 programs included
  
• 3 non-DVR Set top boxes included

Total price - $124.99 / month. I assumed there would again be the usual $10 in unexplainable fees and taxes, but even given that it would be $10 less than Comcast for a whole lot more service. The other thing that really caught my attention was that the U-Verse service runs on CAT-5 cable (the same stuff that runs internet service to your PC). Our house is wired for coax cable (the traditional tv cable), but not for CAT-5. Some modern homes are wired for CAT-5, and I would love for our home to have it so I could get computing devices plugged in anywhere. Turns out, AT&T will wire your home for CAT-5 as part of installation, and the installation fee is waived! Awesome!

The Plan

So here was my plan - play the two competitors against each other. First, I called AT&T to get pricing on U-Verse. I wanted the U400+Internet service ($125) with improved internet service to 3.0Mbps (+$5) and HDTV service (+$10). Total - $140 which is what I'm paying to Comcast but with a lot more service features. I went ahead and placed the order for service and the installer was scheduled to come out in two days.

Next, I called Comcast to let them know about the AT&T service I just ordered, and that I wanted either more services or a discount. The operator stonewalled for a bit, but when she realized I was serious about cancelling that fat $150 / month check, she put me on hold to talk with her manager. Now here is gripe #1 with Comcast...it took 15 minutes on hold before an operator even picked up. Then I spent another 10 minutes on hold while she conferred with her manager. She came back to let me know that there was a package they could put me on that could offer more services than I have now at a lower rate. Turns out they had a HBO+Starz Digital Plus pack that included all of what I was getting plus over 100 digital channels and an extra set top box for $90 / month. Add the internet service and it came to a nice $125 / month. Great, I got what I wanted from Comcast - more services and a lowered bill!

Round 2 - I called AT&T to cancel the install. I had what I wanted from Comcast and there was no sense in installing the AT&T service if it was going to be ten bucks more, even if it did have more channels. After all, I hardly watch television. However, the AT&T operator quickly responded by offering $20 off for the first six months and reminding me that I'd be getting my house wired for CAT-5 for free. In addition, the first month of service would be free, and if I kept the service for 30 days I could get a $100 cash rebate check. So really, it would cost me nothing to try the service for a month to compare AT&T to Comcast. Given this scenario, I kept the appointment for AT&T to install on Friday, which just happened to coincide with when the Comcast installer would be in to install the new set top box in the upstairs bedroom. Oh what fun! Two competing installers at the house at the same time!

Oh, and before I forget, there was no long-term contract required for either of these services, so there was no penalty involved to cancel either way.

The install

On that 8am-noon arrival time, the AT&T installer arrived a little after 9am. Not bad, it gave me time to clear the cobwebs and have a cup of coffee. He walked me through the equipment that would be installed and we surveyed the house for the best way to run cable. We talked about the studio monitor in the family room that currently didn't have cable service and how it would be nice to have there. He took a look and said it would be no problem and no cost to run the extra cable, just $5 / month more on the bill for the extra set top box. So we gave him the go ahead on that extra set. He first had to run out to the D-SLAM (more on what this is later) to get service running to the house.

A little after 10am the Comcast installer arrived. He was in and out in under 30 minutes as he only had to hook up a box. I told him that I hadn't seen the new statiosn activated yet. He tried to call his dispatch to check on it, but ended up on hold for 10 minutes. He indicated that phone times had really degraded since the switch to Comcast, which I thought was a really weird thing for a Comcast installer to admit. Anyway, turns out the local office had a power outage, and the services were switched on by the afternoon.

The AT&T installer was at the house for over 8 hours! He got everything wired, fishing CAT-5 through walls, basement, crawlspace, and the garage attic. He left an extra 8-port gigabit switch to hookup all the PC's in the house and programmed all of the remotes for the TVs. I was really impressed with this guy!

The Comparison

Comcast

Pros:

• High Definition stations look much better
  
• All televisions in the house can view any channel at any time
  
• Two DVRs in the house, each with a dual tuner capable of recording two high definition channels at the same time, or viewing one channel while recording another.

Cons:

• Fewer HD stations available
  
• Fewer total stations available
  
• Video on Demand picture quality is terrible
  
• Only three sets hooked up in the house
  
• No choice on internet speed / price
  

AT&T U-Verse

Pros:

• Standard Definition televisions have a noticeably better picture quality on live television
  
• House is wired for CAT-5, yeah!
  
• Double the number of HD stations available
  
• Double the number of Digital stations available
  
• DVR can record 4 digital stations simultaneously
  
• Video on Demand picture quality is awesome
  
• Can host non-business related services on the internet connection
  

Cons:

• High Definition picture quality is good, but not quite as good as Comcast
  
  • I can definitely see compression artifacts and aliasing in the picture
  
  
• Only one high definition station can be viewed at a time anywhere in the house
  
• Only one DVR on one TV for the house
  
• Overall picture quality on the High Definition Television for any station is not quite as good as Comcast.
  

Result

I'm torn. The HD picture quality on Comcast is noticeably better, and the dual tuner DVRs are a huge plus for my wife who is a voracious TV consumer. She definitely takes advantage of the ability to record one high-def station while viewing another. I don't watch much TV, but the TV I do watch tends to be the niche channels and Video on Demand stuff. So for me, the better picture quality of VoD and the abundance of niche market channels has real appeal. Add to that the inclusion of Cinemax and Showtime in U-Verse which Comcast asks additional payments for. We've only had the service for one weekend, so we'll give it a couple of weeks to see if we lean one way or the other.

The Technology

The U-Verse technology is really interesting. It is like no other television service. With your cable or even satellite television service, the cable company is constantly broadcasting all channels to your house simultaneously. So if you want to switch stations your Set Top Box (STB) just switches the frequency that it is tuned to. With U-Verse, only the channel you request is sent to your house by AT&T. So if none of the STBs in your house are on, nothing is being broadcast to your house. The way it works is a hybrid solution. AT&T runs a fiber optic cable to a residential box called a D-SLAM. The D-SLAM converts the signal on the fiber optic signal to a signal on your copper telephone line that runs the rest of the way to your house. You have to live within 3,000 feet of the D-SLAM for the service to work. This is much cheaper than the route that Verizon is taking with their Fiber to the Premises (FTTP) service where they install new fiber optic wire all the way to your home for every home in the neighborhood. The AT&T solutions uses your existing cable for that "last mile" connection.

So what does all that mean? It means that with U-Verse, you aren't watching traditional cable. Instead, you really have a very high speed internet connection that your television program is sent over. A residential gateway (RG) is installed in your house. This is like a giant cable modem with a 26Mbps connection. That's right, 26Mbps. Why such a big pipe? Not only does your internet service (1.5Mbps with the base offer) travel through this pipe, so does your television data. With current AT&T U-Verse service, one Standard Definition (SD) station uses about 6Mbps. One High Definition (HD) station uses around 19Mbps. This is where the single HD station limit is encountered. You just can't fit 2*19 into 26. If you have two HD sets in the house, only one can watch or record at a time. However, you can get 4 SD channels going at once (4 * 6 < 26). This also leaves room for your internet service (they currently offer up to 6Mbps service) as well as the future addition of VoIP telephone service.

So is that the end of the tech story? Not really. AT&T realizes that this limitation is going to kill them so they are working on improvement. One improvement is called the "bonded pair". You RG only really needs to use two of the wires coming into your house, but the installer is going to hook up another pair. Why? Later this year AT&T is going to enable "bonded pair" technology which effectively gives you two U-Verse hookups on one box, upping the total bandwidth to your RG to around 40Mbps. That alone would allow you to view two HD stations at once, but AT&T isn't going to stop there. They also plan to roll-out improved compression codecs. The U-Verse STB is currently decoding a MPEG-2 stream, which is a fairly old codec. In the coming months the service will be converted to use H.264 streams, which are a much higher compression while also a providing better video quality. The new codec will shrink your SD stream down under 3Mbps and your HD stream to 6.5Mbps. With the increased bandwidth and diminished stream size, AT&T plans to allow you to view 2HD and 2SD streams simultaneously. Let's see, with our new values that's 2*6.5 + 2*3 = 25Mbps. What about that other 15Mbps left over? Expect it to go to VoIP service and faster internet connections, or possibly some as yet unannounced service.

One last thing - the single DVR limit. Yeah, that's going away too. In the second half of this year AT&T is expected to release the Whole House Digital Video Record (or WHDVR for short) firmware that will allow you to stream recorded programs on your one DVR to any other set top box in your house. So now you can treat all of those STB's just like a DVR, and ignore the fact that the recording is being stored on another box. Neat!

Final Thoughts

Like I said, I'm torn on what to do about our service. But what would I recommend? If you do not have HDTV, it would be a no brainer to sign-up for U-Verse service over standard cable. The quality and selection are just so much better. If you have just one HDTV...it is going to depend on your taste. If you are HD snob, you'll be disappointed with the current service over what cable and satellite provide. On the other hand, if you have a smaller HD set, or just don't care about the quality, I would still recommend signing up. If you have more than one HD set that you use, the U-Verse product just won't work for you, so stay with what you have.

Television consumers are going to see great benefits of AT&T, Comcast, DirecTV, Dish, and all the other players going head to head for your entertainment dollar. Expect prices to come down and services to go up. Competition is a good thing!

Yes We Can

Travel In Comfort

With the Tiddy Bear!

Glass Booth

Someone at work turned me on to an interesting site - Glass Booth. On the site you first put points against the issues that are most important to you, and then you take a quiz to gauge your stance on those points. Following the quiz, you are shown which candidates for the 2008 election best fit your beliefs. If you find that you don't know who to vote for, this might be just the thing to point you in the right direction. I am a solid supporter of Barack Obama in the 2008 election, but I was surprised to see that there were other candidates that match my interests even more closely. According to the results, Mike Gravel was my top match, with Dennis Kucinich second and Barack Obama third. I went through the list of issues as compared on the site to see where I best fit and conflicted with each candidate. It was very interesting reading. I don't have much faith that either Gravel or Kucinich are going to win the primary, so I'm still going with Obama in 2008. It was nice to see that what I had read and learned of the candidates matched up quite well with this blind test.

Common Name

I have a very common name. One of those last names that has full chapters reserved in the phone book. This is usually a good thing. I rarely have to tell people how to spell my name when putting in a reservation (and if I do, it's a good sign that I should reconsider my reservation). In fact, I could never say that having a common name has ever been a problem really.

Until the internet. You see, I made a huge mistake. When I signed up for an e-mail address, I actually used my real name for the address. Now if you have a unique name, this isn't such a problem. But with a very common name, everyone with your same name has the same brilliant idea as you. So they try to sign up for the e-mail address you have. Since they can't get it, they use something close, but quickly forget and start giving out my e-mail address, thinking it is their own. This results in my receiving some very interesting e-mails. Some of these e-mails have some very, very personal information in them.

To add to the confusion here, I signed up with an e-mail service that ignores dots (.) in the e-mail address. Just takes them out and uses whats left. So if my e-mail address were Jane.Doe@generic.com, I would also receive e-mail for JaneDoe@generic.com, J.Anedoe@generic.com, and Jan.E.Doe@generic.com. That's a pretty big fish net for a spammer to aim for.

In most cases, the spam filter catches the spammers, which just leaves me with the folks suffering from a case of mistaken web identity. So just to be clear:

• I have never applied to be in the Australian version of the FBI. So don't send me the full application form with my filled in results as well as the responses of my closest friends and relatives you interviewed.


• I am not a college student at LSU who enjoys deer hunting.



• I am not a car customizer in California, and I don't need for his accountant to send me a copy of his tax filings.



• I am not attempting to purchase property in Georgia, and I don't need that gentleman's mortgage application.



• I have never shopped at Blockbuster in the United Kingdom. I am not interested in the UK version of XBox titles, nor the XBox Live service in that territory. Please stop sending me the subscriber notices that he signed up for.



• I did not graduate from a Missouri arts college, and I am not interested in organizing or attending their reunion. How much weight Suzanne gained since graduation is none of my concern.

Typically I just chuckle at these e-mails intended for my dopplegangers. In cases where I have received sensitive information, I try to let the sender know so they can correct their records (and to be sure someone is not attempting to steal my identity). Now I think I will just use the form response below to see if I can get any more interesting response.

This is my e-mail address. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My e-mail address is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my e-mail address is useless. Without my e-mail address I am useless. I must address my e-mail true. I must filter my e-mail from my enemy, who is trying to spam me.

This is not the jedi you are looking for.....

Ffwhooo

Wow, this blog is dusty and disused. Perhaps I should post something.

My Alter Ego

Corbindallas