An eon in modern time ago (a year) I posted a small extrinsic blurb about the upcoming Microsoft technology dubbed Photosynth.  I thought the link explained and showed it better than I could, so no need for a further post.  But now it is released, and now it deserves the shoutout.

This is a simple “synth”. It was taken by some guy in Austin on his cameraphone. He took a few shots of the 360 bridge (a pretty noticeable landmark), just across the river from where I used to work at Origin. I think this shows the power of Photosynth. First of all, this was easy to find, I just did a Photosynth search for Austin, and it was the first choice. Second this was only a few short photos in a cameraphone. This isn’t the Taj Mahal demo with 400 shots with a $5000 DSLR camera. No, this is normal guy with possibly time on his break from work to snap a few shots through a window and upload them. You can still zoom in on them and skirt all around his view.. and it captures his view amazingly well.

That’s all I have to say, except one more thing, kudos to Microsoft to allowing embed code. Normally that wouldn’t get kudos, because every website on earth has some free embedable content on it nowadays, but kudos for finally coming around. (but an iframe? seriously?)

note: I started this review before the holidays, shortly after I bought these two mice. I put it on hold due to the sad fact that the Logitech G9 laser died on me. So, you lucky readers get a bonus anecdotal review of the Logitech support and RMA process near the end of the article.

I’ve been meaning to do formal reviews on drzy for awhile. But I get too lazybusy and usually just do a three-sentence blurb in a semi-related post. But after my Logitech G5’s middle button finally annoyed me enough to seek a replacement, I decided to upgrade. That, and the fact that there are some amazing deals on mice right now. Well, amazing deals compared to their suggested retail price, anyhow.

About 4 or so months ago, I started having problems with the middle mouse wheel/button on my Logitech G5. It became increasingly difficult to click the button without having the wheel register a move. This was compounded by the fact that the wheel also seemed to be “misaligned”. As in, the wheel doesn’t register a move just on the little wheel “clicks”, but also between them sometimes, which makes for a frustrating experience not just in gaming, but even in normal browsing. I put up with this for a few months, sometimes searching the web for quick fixes or at least people to commiserate with who have the same problems. I found the latter, but none of the former. I paid good money for this mouse when it came out, yet it was out of warranty, so I had no options to get the new “improved” G5 mouse except to buy it, again. I really hate buying the same thing twice. I am convinced the design problems with the G5’s mouse wheel have to do with over-engineering. They made it not just click down, but also click to either side as well. From the moment of buying one of these, you can feel the little wiggle in the wheel due to these “enhanced” buttons. As much as I tried to make them useful, these extra buttons are completely dead weight to me, as most games don’t even recognize them.

I won’t knock the performance of the mouse, although I wished they had made a better design than the old MX5xx series, the mouse was very accurate, and I had no laser-mouse-lag problems. (Keep in mind I game at low sensitivity normally, and am definitely in the “wrist-flicking” camp).

I heard about the Logitech G9 when they first announced it a year or so ago. It sounded boring, and the shape was… er, interesting. I had no intention of upgrading. I liked some of the other Logitech mice coming out, but I definitely didn’t want a cordless. I don’t care how many Mythbuster-esque tests people have run to refute it, I can definitely feel a response difference between wired and un-wired mice. Enough to make me uncomfortable with wireless mice, and therefore, never use them for gaming.

I had not heard of the new Microsoft Sidewinder or the new Razer line until I stumbled on both of them at an infrequent visit to Best Buy. I rarely retail shop nowadays for obvious price/availability reasons. But I will go if there’s a rare occurrence of a good sale, or if I’m buying something that never drops much in price, such as console-related merchandise. So, while I’m there I may as well browse. I went through the computer section and the first thing I saw was an endcap dedicated to Razer. They had three mice out on display: a Lachesis, a DeathAdder, (neither of which I had ever heard of) and a Copperhead. When the Copperhead came out was around the time I had bought the G5. I liked the Copperhead, but I didn’t like the gel feeling middle mouse and I had heard lots of bad things about Razer drivers (although Logitech has issues with theirs, as well). So I tried my hand on all of them, and while comfortable I wasn’t impressed. I have smallish hands and the Lachesis felt way too big. The other two were just too smooth. I like hard edges to hold on to. Still they were stylish and had impressive technical specs. Keep in mind, I wasn’t really looking to replace my G5 just yet.

So I wandered further and saw the Microsoft Sidewinder. People who have been computing awhile should recognize the Sidewinder name, as Microsoft used it for their high-end mice many years ago. I owned the first Sidewinder Optical. So, I guess they decided to relaunch the name with a high-end corded gaming mouse. The first thing that grabs you is the look of it. It has very unconventional shape and buttons. They didn’t have one out of the package, but you can reasonably see/grip the thing over the clear plastic container. I sat there pawing it a bit, and deciding if I liked it or not. The strange looks appealed to me as a sort of steampunk mouse. It had two round steel over-and-under thumb buttons, a sleek design broken up by sharp overhangs, and it looked like a mutated jellyfish.

continue reading "Logitech G9 vs. Microsoft Sidewinder (vs. the G5 a little) Mouse Review"

Looks like, as early as August, the XBOX 360 will drop $50 more to $350. As backed up by some leaked images:

In a move everyone could predict, Sony swallowed their pride and finally dropped the price of the PS3 to $500. Just a bit higher than the most expensive Xbox360 package. This move should increase their sales somewhat, but as usual, they are making broad, boastful claims about it:

“Our initial expectation is that sales should double at a minimum,” Jack Tretton, chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment America, said in an interview.

Well, whatever. But I guess they figured it was safe to lose some money per console, as Microsoft dropped the big bombshell of extending everyone’s warranty on the XBOX360, costing them over a billion dollars, last week. Plus, Sony doesn’t exactly like being ignored at E3, which starts in a few days.

And the Wii, well you still can’t even find it in stores. Keep on truckin’.

I am getting so sick of this thorn-in-the-side, supposed copy-protection program. I really really wish software producers would not be so lazy about copy protection and find a better way rather than schluffing it off to this inept third party program.

In the last few months I have had troubles with Command and Conquer 3 in that you can’t use a Microsoft application called Process Explorer at any time before running it. If you HAVE, it will give you an error when trying to start the game, until you reboot. There is no other way to clear the error except to reboot, and not run the legitimate Microsoft application again.

I would think Microsoft would be pissed off about this. I am pissed off enough for the both of us. I hate having to reboot, especially for this arbitrariness.

This isn’t the only error, I get random other ones from Securom all the time. Either balking at other system utilities I run, or about virtual drives, or network drives, or wearing yellow feathers in a purple cap while dancing a jig.

Now I try to play the demo of Overlord, and I get the same damn message.

Googling Securom and Process Explorer shows that they’ve pissed off thousands of other people.

Please, game producers, I hate to break it to ya, but your games and apps are being copied and played despite Securom. The only thing this program does is piss off people that actually legitimately pay for these games. Even before you release your precious software, the net floods with replacement executables which are stripped of any copy protection you so diligently paid for. Oh, how do I know, you say? Because I have to use these stripped executables TO BE ABLE TO PLAY THE DAMN GAME I PAID FOR WITHOUT JUMPING THROUGH FRICKIN HOOPS!

update: While searching a bit more, I found out that a dutiful member of the Sysinternals forum (the software group that originally made Process Explorer and were bought out by Microsoft) whipped a “hider” program for Process Explorer’s services. I’ll admit I was surprised Process Explorer left a residual driver after running, which is what is detected by Securom. This worked perfectly with the Overlord demo. Thanks, throx!

Bloomberg catches a blurb from a Microsoft executive.

“We are well aware that the sweet spot of the market is really 199 bucks,” said David Hufford, a director of Xbox product management.

This would definitely make me buy one. I want a Wii as well, but man, there are some very good games for the XBOX360 platform. Everyone knows that they make all of their money off of the game sales anyways. While a price drop would make it take longer to accomplish breaking even per user, it would make the overall users explode in number.

Unfortunately Sony will never learn this lesson. They are far too proud and pompous of their visionary PS3. It is time for Microsoft to be smart and take the hit for the future of their console, as the Wii is leaving everyone in the dust.

Fairly boring retailer promo for Windows 386… until the 7 minute mark when the crack gets smoked:

Microsoft unleashed a suite of critical patches today for Windows XP and Office. Four for the former and two for the latter. They fix some potentially nasty security vulnerabilities. Probably ones that weren’t widely known about, but that everyone knows about now. So patch up people, and keep your system from becoming a zombie box.

If you are a non-IE user (like me), a great way to patch is to use WindizUpdate. Yeah, it sounds kinda hokey and the site almost makes it look like a bait for virii, but I’ve heard enough about the site to feel reasonably safe about using it (although, I accept no responsibility for anyone that chooses to use it). They have a small plugin you download and then you can use their site to download all the windows updates and install them automagically. This also allows you to ignore Microsoft WGA stuffs that borders on spyware.

Bill Gates will be stepping down as Chief Software Architect at Microsoft in 2 years.

It’s hard being the richest man, he needs a vacation, people!

The Oscar-winning creative team behind the The Lord of the Rings films, including director Peter Jackson, has been named to run the production of the upcoming film based on Microsoft Corp.’s blockbuster Halo video game, the company said Tuesday.

USA Today article

Now he’s the 3rd biggest investor in Six Flags, the theme park which is prominent in Texas, where I live. Hell, we are even going there in the next couple weeks… I fully expect 2 of the 6 flags to be waving this: