Posted 07/15/2009 at 10:36:30am

I can't wait for this. I hope to be picking one up soon after launch.

Posted 07/15/2009 at 10:35:20am

Looks like a major fingerprint magnet. Nice to see laptop manufacturers moving forward though.

Posted 07/15/2009 at 10:33:02am

I'm pretty sure that they were refering to Sacha Baron Cohen and not to gay people in general. I happen to agree. He has some funny moments, but most of the humor is lost on me. I just don't enjoy that kind of humor at all. 

 Also, on another note, I have seen it estimated that roughly 10% (I think thats a generous estimate) of internet users actually use twitter. Though I would venture to guess that a large percentage of that 10% are people in the primary target audience for this film. Twitter is highly glamorized in the media, but in actuality there aren't that many people actually using it. It's impact is probably minimal at best.

Posted 06/16/2009 at 07:30:17am

The description about different fashion choices reminds me of the Project Natal movie where the two girls are talking with each other using project Natal. The one girl is looking for a dress for a party and the other one has one picked out. The girl looking for the dress can then preview the dress on her avatar that looks kinda like her.  I think the reason that MS can go for this patent is the preview of different fashions, its not just a rating system like hotornot. Its a way to make decisions on fashion/looks through the use of some sort of preview. There certainly is a fine line that this could be stepping over, but I can't think of a service that does specifically this type of comparison. 

Posted 05/13/2009 at 03:25:42pm

First off, let me say that you live up to your name Unixfool.

 Secondly, there is no way anyone can know what will come in the future. MS has been working very hard to harden Windows to the threat of malware and viruses. Certainly, they still have lots of holes to plug, but its getting much harder to crack Windows than it was in the days of XP.

 Third, we are starting to see viruses be developed for Macs (presumably because they are increasing in market share). At this point, they are spreading through what seems more like Social Engineering, but we will see more of this as we move forward. There are hackers that say OSX is the easiest to pop because they haven't focused on security and the users think that they are immune which makes Social engineering work even easier. Bottom line, it doesn't matter how said virus infects the machine, once infected... you are no longer secure.

 In the end, there is almost always a tradeoff between ease of use and security. The easier to use a software product is, generally the less secure it is. Hopefully people pull their heads out of their butts and realize that any system can be insecure, particularly if the user of said machine doesn't practice safe computing techniques. Ideally, any system should use a virus scanner to detect/avoid the a user installing a virus unknowingly (or knowingly). We are in a new day and age of computing, the attacks on our systems are growing ever more complex and more people are falling victim to them than ever before. The OS doesn't matter nearly as much as the person sitting at the machine.

Posted 10/20/2008 at 08:37:40am

I agree 100%, MODs are much more fun than user created content. The only problem... you and I are in the minority. There is alot of money in the mass market for these companies and if that means screwing over the modding community then so be it.

Personally, I think user generated content can be really cool, but it isn't going to have me playing a game for long periods of time... it gets old very quickly because even in a game like Spore, you are doing the same thing over and over again. Mods on the other hand increase the playability of a game for longer periods of time... do devs care about this? I don't really know. Me playing the game for 200 hours vs me playing for 10 probably doesn't phase them much... they got their $$$ when I bought it. I still play BF1942 with some mods and new maps... yet I have dropped games like Spore because I just don't have much interest in it anymore.

Overall, Mods > User created content. But I don't know if the masses feel the same way. 

Posted 10/17/2008 at 03:19:50pm

Part of a game is an escape from the things you get day in and day out in real life. When I want politics, I will turn on the TV, please leave political, religious, and other adds that invoke lots of polarity out of games. They are supossed to be fun.

I don't mind product placement, such as a coke/doritos add or something along those lines. Keep it limited and I am all for it. Make me walk through "Coke World" to get to the next level or something along those lines and I am throwing the game away.

Posted 10/01/2008 at 12:01:20pm

Just because the economy doesn't smell like roses doesn't mean that every business is going to experience massive troubles or that they can't expand if things look bright for them. It just isn't going to be the trend... even more importantly, as the economy gets worse they can acquire solid businesses for less money. Thereby strengthening their product lines and portfolios in a cost effective way. Assuming that because things aren't looking great right now means businesses should hang back on expansion is idiotic.

 Economic downturns are great times to make money if you know what you are doing and have the cash to make it happen.  

Posted 09/23/2008 at 07:40:08am

I am sorry, I have had vista from its release and it was problematic at first, but even before SP1 it was really starting to pan out as a very usable OS. It still had some issues, but for me there weren't many deal breakers.

For some reason the media has really grabbed onto this Anti-Vista idea and is perpetuating the negative feelings for people who haven't even looked at the OS. I think that there is alot of FUD surrounding Vista and about 95% of that FUD is unjustified. Personally, I love the OS and I just wish people would give it a chance. Every person who has talked to me about not wanting/liking Vista hasn't actually used it.

 In the end, users just want something that works and that does everything they want it to. I have worked in Linux quite a bit recently and I also liked that, but its just not ready for the average end user. I was using Ubuntu and it was easy to install, but getting things setup the way I wanted them took me hours of work. Linux still has a bit of work to go before it is ready for end users IMHO.

Posted 01/25/2008 at 08:06:14am

GfWL is obviously a long way off of what steam offers. I didn't get to use steam until I purchased the Orange Box. About 1.5 months after my purchase there was a steam update and guess what. The update would progress to 80% and throw an error. I uninstalled and re-installed from the web to find I was getting the same error. BTW, if you can't connect to steam, you can't play the games! It took me about 4 days to track down the fix to this particular issue. But from what I read about steam, it frequently goes down causes problems for it's users. When it works, its a great experience. Also, lets not forget that this is Microsofts way of developing things, they release a kinda working product that really leaves alot to be desired. The competition isn't threatened at all, MS's next rollout is on par with the competition and then the next rollout tends to be great, not perfect but great. Sure it has it's problems, so does steam. I am a big fan of Steam, I like the interface and features. Right now, I wouldn't use GfWL, but 2-3 years down the road, it will most likely be a viable competitor to Steam.