Entertainment Center
I’m finally almost done building the entertainment center I started about 2 months ago. Well, it’s more of a table/hutch than a real entertainment center, but it should be tons better for our living room. I built it entirely out of red oak, except for the plywood, which is 3/4″ red oak veneer. I think I’m going to get it stained tonight, and maybe take some pictures of it to put up here. It’ll be a welcome replacement for the coffee table we’re currently using as a TV stand.
Prince of Persia: Rival Swords Video
So Ubisoft’s next installment in the Prince of Persia series (which has been in decline since PoP: The Sands of Time), called Prince of Persia: Rival Swords, will be out on the Wii. And according to Ubisoft, it’ll have full motion-control features to control player movement and fighting. This game seems like a perfect candidate for the motion-sensing Wii-mote/Nunchuk combo and I can’t wait to try it out. Ubisoft rarely disappoints when it comes to innovation.
via 1PStart
My New Wii
I finally got a Nintendo Wii yesterday, and let me tell ya, it’s easily the best video game system ever. Also picked up WarioWare: Smooth Moves and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Haven’t had a chance to play Zelda yet, but we spent hours last night playing WarioWare. The whole idea behind WarioWare is that it bombards you with little short minigames that you have 4 or 5 seconds to complete each. And the biggest challenge is trying to guess what it’s going to throw next. One game will be making a weightlifter do a couple of squats, the next could be shredding some paper in a handle-powered shredder, then you might be trying to shove a finger in a nose. Basically anything goes in this game. This iteration of WarioWare is somehow more incoherent and insane than the previous Gamecube and DS versions, if you can believe that. Each of the minigames uses a given control scheme, such as:
The Mortar and Pestle, the Remote Control, the Umbrella, the Handlebar, the Sketch Artist, the Chauffeur, the Waiter, and so on.
So all that you’re given at the start of each minigame is what control scheme you’re supposed to use, but that doesn’t necessarily help you very much. For instance, you could have one game using the “Remote Control” where you have to move a spaceship around and abduct a person, and the next could be another “Remote Control” game where there’s a girl falling from a building and you have to reach your hand out to save her. We all were laughing our asses off all night long.
Wii Sports is also a gem. AND it’s bundled with the console, which is about the best option for a system launch bundle that you can get. It includes Tennis, Boxing, Golf, Baseball, and Bowling. My personal favorite is probably multiplayer bowling and tennis. I actually found myself sweating running around the room playing tennis. Also, simply watching other people play Wii Sports is pretty exciting. Stand back to the side of the TV and just watch your friends flail around like idiots.
ArcGIS Migration Almost Done
We’ve nearly completed our migration from using Business Analyst 3.3 to Business Analyst 9.1 for ESRI ArcGIS Desktop. The newer version has much more freedom when it comes to creating the shapefiles we use in our maps. I’m eager to see how much time we actually save on each batch of maps we create for this client. I’m going to estimate at least half a day on each set of reports. We’ll see…
Time for some Oblivion!
I need to get crackin’ on some Oblivion. Crackdown comes out soon, then Assassin’s Creed, Bioshock, and Mass Effect! What am I gonna do?!
Setting Up a Jabber Server
At our office we’re in the process of a migration to Exchange Server, which meant the decommissioning of our old mail server running MDaemon. Unfortunately, this meat that I had to come up with a new method for instant messaging, because Exchange no longer provides a way to set up an IM server short of their full Live Communications Server product. As I started searching for alternatives, both proprietary and open-source, I realized my main feature concerns for a new product were low cost, manageability, and server-side controls over the whole system. With Jabber open format, I found exactly what I was looking for.
iPhone, iPhone, iPhone!
The iPhone is a reality! And apparently, somehow they’re calling it the iPhone, even though it’s been all over the net lately that iPhone is a registered trademark of Linksys/Cisco. Oh well.
The phone looks NICE. Heres a glimpse:
The interface is completely touchscreen-based. It serves as an 8GB widescreen iPod, 2-megapixel camera, and fully functional phone. The phone is quad-band GSM + EDGE with WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0. Pretty crazy having all that hardware packed into a device thinner than both the Moto Q and the Blackjack. It’ll also run FULL OS X, Safari, Google Maps, AND support a new IMAP push email service from Yahoo!. It’s scheduled to ship in June and be sold through the Apple and Cingular stores (Cingular has excusivity on the device in the US). I don’t even think the most hardcore Apple fanboys saw this many features coming.
MacWorld
Engadget has their usual liveblogging coverage from MacWorld going on right now. Can’t wait to see how many rumors get stomped at this event…
New Theme
I just installed a new theme for my blog called “unsleepable”. Pretty neat theme… now it just needs some customization.