If you just read my first California Post (California Dreamin’), then you might have noticed the formatting was different.The reason? I decided I would see how Google Chrome would work with Wordpress. The verdict? It hates my spacing using Enter. Oh well. I’ll give a review of the different browsers by the end of September, so check back for that post.
As some of you know, today was the big annual Xbox event in Toronto and as always, I was one of the lucky few to get invited to.
A few of us got the chance to get a preview before the rest of the community and we got some hands on time with a few games that became impossible to get near: Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, Fable 2, Scene It! 2, Viva Pinata 2, Guitar Hero World Tour, and Rock Band 2 among others.
Since I don’t have all the time in the world, all I can says is that this Holiday Season is going to have an awesome lineup.
I got a chance to Kick CliffyB’s Ass at his own game, as he mocked me, by the way. We played a 10 Player match of Wingman and CliffyB and I were side by side, but NOT each others wingman.
Needless to say, as I was getting my groove back, he slung insults my way. In the final match, I kicked his wingmans ass and took him as a meatshield. He came at me and ended up dying a tad. As he tried to escape, I snapped his wingmans neck and then curbstomped him. What a way to end the game.
Other mentions are a preview of the New Xbox Experience and some cool Disney Interactive games that are coming soon.
The only game I was excited about was Shawn White’s Snowboarding by Ubisoft. When I walked over I was rambling on about all I knew about the game and was shown a decent preview. I got a fair amount of hands on time and right now I think its a little oversimplified that they complicated the play mechanics. Its a good first attempt but its not Amped 2 which still lives on in my memory as the best Snowboarding game when XSN was alive and well. I hope they’ve learned from that and don’t further hurt the sport in videogame form. Snowboarding is not just about the boards and clothes!!!!
Anyways, it was great seeing everyone again and I hope I get to see more of all these people again this year. The community is truly what makes the Xbox 360 far better than its competitors.
I swear, if I had to trade Wii friend codes at these events I’d die. Thank goodness for the Xbox friendslists!
I decided that I would see how posts would turn out if I just sent them via Opera Mini. If this turns out alright, I may just use this to make posts more often.
Unfortunately it is no match to Windows Live Writer though and I’ll probably make most posts from there.
Ok, so as many of you know, I was one of the first people to purchase my Zune on June 13th from a Canadian Retailer. I have most of the accessories (I’m missing the leather case), and I love them all.
Of the things I really love about the Zune, is that I can now stay up to date on all things going on around me just by letting it wirelessly sync every night in its dock. I’m hoping the new stereo I bought also allows it to sync, but this is only my first night so we’ll see if it goes as planned.
When I wake up in the morning, I have fresh content fed to it in the form of podcasts and the odd CD-Rip (CD’s I own, not borrowed). Since I have the 80GB Zune, I don’t seem to have any problem with running out of space; also, most of the podcasts are set to be removed after I’ve listened to them, just to clear up some space.
First thing in the morning, I head to the gym, where I can luckily plug in the TV-Out cable and watch a short vidcast such as Diggreel, Command-N, etc. After I’m done at the gym, it’s time for work. Luckily, that trip is covered and I can listen to an audiocast or some music via the car tuner (which is nicely magnetized to keep the wires out of my way).
At work, I often just stick in my headphones and listen to a few songs if I have the chance. At lunch, I try and sneak in another podcast of some sort. After work is done, I head back home and go chill with friends. While I’m waiting, I boot up some Marblets or any other game and just play that, which is a nice time-killer.
Then at night, I plug the Zune into my Xbox 360 to watch a couple more videos or just for a change in soundtrack to whatever game I’m playing. After that’s over, it gets put back into its dock and gets more content pushed to it for another long day.
Seriously, I’ve had a couple of MP3 players before, but none that have received this much abuse. Poor thing never gets to discharge its battery though, since it goes from being on its dock, to being charged by the car kit, to being charged by the 360, to being back on its dock again.
Now, to just break down and buy a second Zune to do some multiplayer XNA programming…
So, recently I decided to go on a huge “Social Media” and Web 2.0 kick and joined a whole bunch of services, and gathered a small army of stalkers followers.
I joined services that published my ‘status’, connected me with my ‘friends’, tracked what “I’m listening to’”, or provide information about “where I am”, and also brought my pictures online and put them into my ‘”mesh”.
I’ve Dugg things, Pownced files, Flickr’d my images, Tweeted my status, prepared for Upcoming events, and found my old friends in a FaceBook.
Needless to say, I’ve done alot on the Social. But the real question is, how do I keep up with it all? Sure, things like FriendFeed and Plaxo help others get all the information they want about me, but how do I get their responses back?
Luckily, many of these services provide mobile updates to my cell phone, but what about the ones that won’t? Is there a use for a service that can’t provide mobile updates?
Comment here so I can find it.
[Originally posted at http://blog.just2bdifferent.com]
Last night was the Toronto ComingZune Party being hosted by Vice Magazine, Dice.ca, Red Stripe Beer, and of course, the Zune team.
My friends and I arrived in Toronto a little early so that we could all meet up before hand and have a nice dinner and chat with each other, since we knew we would probably all break up once we got to the event.
We arrived at the Gallery a little early and had to wait in line until they were ready for us to go in. Once in, we camped out a little corner where one of the Zune Girls was hiding. She seemed really nice and she was really into the Zune. Since a few of us have a bit more Zune knowledge, we demo’d to her some of the features that she hadn’t really had a chance to play with. She learned quickly and when a group of people came over, she was so excited to show off what she had just learned.
Like any event, I have taken a bunch of photos and placed them on Flickr. One thing you will probably notice in the photos, is that the crowd was an extremely mixed group of people, who you would normally expect to not get along. But this wasn’t the case. People from all walks of life were all socializing and having a great time.
At 11PM the band Quest For Fire took the stage and the party really started to move. Unfortunately, I had to take off around 11:30 PM to get back to the train station so I could get back home, but I had an awesome time and met a whole bunch of cool people.
So now it’s the big 2-week wait for the launch and I have to say, I’m really excited for the next social. I hope more of you are able to make it out, so we can get the party really going!
Hey guys,
The Zune team finally posted the dates and times for the ComingZune parties in celebration of the Canadian Launch of the Zune Player.
I will be heading to the Toronto event, along with some other members of the Xbox community.
If you want to meet us there, make sure you RSVP for the event. Unfortunately, because of the location, the event is only open to those that are 19+.
Hope to see you all there!
Ok, so the Zune hasn’t yet been officially released in Canada, but with today’s update, we can tell its getting nearer.
If you don’t know, a new update went out today adding many wanted features to the Zune. Also, the Zune Social site went into Open Beta and is now available for Canada.
Already have a Zune? Go sign up for your Zune Card and join the social.
Don’t have a Zune? Why wait, you too can sign up for a Zune Card and join the social as well!
Right now, I’m just working on my demo for our new Sharepoint site that is going live, and I was playing around with Windows Media Player when I remembered how good my old music player used to be.
That’s when I decided to look it up, and see what ever happened to the program that was always overshadowed by the monstrosity that was WinAmp and Windows Media Player.
It appears that a couple of years ago, Lycos (yes, they do still exist) ended production of the cool little player and relinked the Sonique site to their attempt at a music site.
Some of the things that made Sonique so nice were the Freeform skins and its support for a vast amount of file types, including the Open Source OGG Vorbis. Back then, there were fears about the intentions of the owner of the MP3 patents, so most of my music was transcoded to Vorbis. Unfortunately, not many commercial players support Vorbis tracks, so I was stuck going back to MP3.
Another cool feature was the ability to play around with the pitch and timing of a song. Nothing beats making Britney Spears into a chipmunk.
If you want to play around with this neat little player, you can find some of the old versions at The Museum of Sonique
This week has been a pretty big geekfest since I am trying to save money, I have been spending more time playing with some web services.
Unfortunately, some need to wait until my camera has a new battery before I can really go all out. (Specifically Flickr, Blurb, and Moo)
This week I also started using Twitter and Last.FM to add to my list of geeky things I do.
Beyond that, Facebook now imports my blog as Notes, adds my Diggs to my news feed, grabs my pictures from Flickr, posts my shows from Joost, uses my Twitter status in place of its own, and much more. In all reality, if someone were to want to stalk me… I guess they’d really only have to go to Facebook.
Oh well.
If you are stalking me, and you feel like you want to buy me something, head over to Zappos and buy me a pair of the shoes below… the import fee is a little too high for my liking.
Btw, that screen capture was taken by the Jing Project created by Tech Smith. It’s an awesome little tool, to say the least!
I will write a little review of everything I mentioned here when I get a bit more time to play with everything, but right now, everything seems pretty cool.
Recent Comments