Dude, this cool. Engadget is reporting that Sony has applied for a patent that, utilizing 3D TV technology and shutter glasses (a la those $100 3D glasses kids keep breaking at the Best Buy 3D TV display), will allow two people to play a video game, sharing the same screen, but both seeing different images.

I remember the days of playing GoldenEye for the Nintendo64 and trying to see what was going on in those tiny squares on our already tiny TV when I was a kid, and this is cool. Even now on my substantially larger TV, split-screen can be distracting when there's a lot of action going on, like in Left 4 Dead. This idea is awesome, and a little trippy.

Apparently Microsoft is doing the same type of thing, only sans the glasses.

Man I love living in the future.

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I tend to be an early adopter of new technology, particularly when it's free. But when Google's browser Chromium first appeared, I was hesitant. I am a big fan of Firefox. It was the first web browser I tried after years of using Internet Exploder and I did it with trepidation. After all, there was no way that a free piece of software could ever compare to what years of investment and development power that went into IE.

Of course I was dead wrong. Firefox quickly became my defacto browser, offering features and add-ons that IE would only begin to emulate years later. To this day I don't think that IE has gotten tabbed browsing or bookmarks right. It's only been recently as we were forced to use IE exclusively for a short period of time that I really came to appreciate just what Firefox has gotten right. You can't imagine the shock of going back to an internet unprotected by Adblock Plus and NoScript after years of using them.

So the idea of moving to Chromium, which is still in a technology preview stage on Linux, made me cringe a little. It doesn't have the add-on base that Firefox has, and it definitely hasn't been around the block like Firefox either. On the other hand, it is DAMN FAST. If there's one thing that Firefox has going against it, its memory management can be pretty awful. If you leave it running for a long period of time, it can end up eating all your processor resources. Chromium doesn't have this issue, and it loads up websites in no time at all. I downloaded Chromium the first day it came out on Windows, and while it was definitely immature, I couldn't believe the difference in speed.

Last night, I decided to give it a whirl and see how it looked in Ubuntu. I added the repositories to Synaptic, ran a quick update, and then ran the install command. As usual, it was a seamless process that required zero input from me (after the initial prep work; since this isn't an official release, it's not in the package manager yet). Of course my internet connection decided to be a pain in the butt and it took about five minutes to download 18MB.

Now, supposedly with some quick fixes this version of Chromium was supposed to support Flash on Linux. I made the changes outlined but it didn't work. I tried doing them again and still nothing. I don't know if anyone else had that issue, but I never was able to get Flash working.

Other than that, though, the browser worked flawlessly. I have to admit, the speed difference is less noticeable on my up-and-down connection, but I could still feel the difference. The other difference I noticed right off the bat were the incessant ads all over every webpage I browsed. Quickly the missing add-ons from Firefox outweighed any perceived speed improvements.

Chromium is a fast browser, no doubt about it. But right now, in my opinion, that's all it has going for it. As a user, I find it less intuitive than Firefox is just general use. I don't like how it immediately opens a bunch of tabs and I couldn't quickly find a way to change that function. There also didn't seem to be a lot of options in general. Now, this is a tech preview so it's not ready for primetime yet, and I understand that. These are just my initial impressions.

In any case, it looks like I'll be sticking to Firefox for now. What can I say, in the end, I'm sentimental.

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Well, after months of waiting for Orb to finally create a Linux version of their TV streaming application, I came to a decision this week that I was tired of being a prisoner to Windows because of one application. When you get right down to it, how important is it that I be able to get TV on my cell phone? I have said it before, and though sometimes it feels like a rationalization, in the end I really didn't use it that much. Mostly just to show people that I could, and no one really cared I don't think anyway.

When SteelToedKodiak brought me a copy of the Windows 7 beta on Wednesday, I decided that it was time to get back to the operating system that I really want and reload my PC with Ubuntu. It was probably partly because I had just loaded my new laptop with the Linux-based distro, but I was feeling the urge to wipe-and-reload (an urge only us computer guys get, I guess), and with the Windows disc in my hand, I now had a real reason to do so.

You see, I wasn't going to run the beta software as my main OS, so I wanted to load it into a VirtualBox machine. So I decided that I could reload my main machine with Ubuntu and load up Windows on a virtual machine, thus allowing me to continue to use the few Windows apps that I really care about (sans Orb, which I know from experience doesn't run well on a virtual PC). Like, for example, iTunes, which I use to keep my iPhone updated and full of right-wing propoganda podcasts.

So on Wednesday night I went for it. Backing up anything that was important to my external drives, I dropped the Ubuntu disc into the drive and went all-out, completely wiping my Windows partition and booting up the new OS image. It took about fifteen minutes, and then I was back where I belonged.

After updates and installing VirtualBox, I installed the Windows 7 beta into a 20GB partition on my hard drive. I recently upgraded my system to 3GB of RAM, so I dedicated 1GB to Windows to keep it running smoothly. The Windows 7 install took about twice the length of time as the Ubuntu install, and it reminded me a lot of Vista though with much less interaction. When it finally booted it came up very smoothly. The only thing that didn't work immediately was the sound, and it took me a couple days to figure out a solution for that (just downloading the RealTek AC'97 Vista drivers while using the PulseAudio virtual hardware in VirtualBox). Otherwise, it was relatively pretty easy to get into.

I find Windows 7 to be very similar to Vista. I don't like the file browsing; I find that it's not intuitive enough for me. Actually, I take that back; what I don't like is how disorganized it feels. Some people would probably call me crazy, but I like being able to control my file system, and Windows 7 feels like it takes that control away in favor of its own way of handling files and folders. It's hard to explain without sitting down and showing what I mean.

I also don't like the new menu bar. I liked the old quick launch in Windows XP and used it frequently. Now it has a much more limited quick launch-type menu that bunches application...squares, I guess, next to the circle start menu (like the one in Vista).The tray is less-useful too.

It feels like Microsoft is trying to "simplify" Windows and make everything feel less technical and more organic, which I guess they feel is more intuitive for the masses. And maybe it is, but not for me.

I don't know; maybe I'm being picky or not really giving it a chance. All I can say is that, after a few days of using it, I just don't care all that much for it.

I did get HandBrake and stuff working in Ubuntu, and I ripped my first DVD today: Disc 4 of 24 season one. It's nice being able to rip directly from the disc instead of having to rip the DVD into VOB files then converting them with HandBrake like I did in Windows. I also got uShare working again, which is what I use to stream my video collection to my Xbox 360. The weird thing is that the Xbox won't play mp4 files through uShare, but if I change the extension to .mov, then it plays the files perfectly. It has something to do with uShare, but I haven't figured it out yet. In the meantime, I have no problem changing the extensions so that I can continue to watch my movies and stuff on my Xbox, which I consider to be my 360's main function. I can't remember the last time I watched an actual DVD.

So that's that. I have my computer back now, and can run it how I want to without being held hostage by a small tray icon. Maybe Orb will come out with a Linux version yet, but in the meantime, I'm done with them. Besides, there's always Slingbox...

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So I bought a new laptop today.

It's an Acer, which kind of brings me full-circle in my computer life. The first computer I (I being me and my bio-dad) ever had was an Acer, purchased back in '94, I think it was. It was a good computer; lasted several years as I remember. Even after my dad took a hacksaw to it to carve out the space for a new CD-burner.

I remember that computer fondly. It was my very first gateway to the internet, which at the time was still relatively young and chock-full of possibilities. The modem noises made me jump the first time I heard them. It was AOL that we were using at the time, back when it was still charged by the minute if I remember correctly.

Anyway, back to the present. Hill and I went to dinner at Chili's today, and she immediately knew that I wanted to go browse Best Buy for a new laptop, since my last one has been dead for months now. I had to promise to be her slave (not the cool kind, either) and then she beat me for a few minutes (not the cool kind of beating, either) and then relented and accompanied me to the store that frequently taps our checking account.

The downturn in the economy has clearly affected the retailing giants; Circuit City is gone for good as of tomorrow, and the stuff at Best Buy is a lot cheaper than it was a year or two ago. The last laptop that I bought, an HP Pavilion, cost us around $900, and it was just an average system. Now the top-of-the-line computers are running at that price, and the average systems are hovering between $400-$500.

I was not looking for a cream of the crop system. Graphics used to be the first thing that I looked for in a laptop, which is silly because I don't play games on my laptop. I really don't play any PC games anymore since I got my XBOX 360 and finally got used to playing FPS's with a controller.

And when graphics aren't your primary concern, you can get some damn good systems for four hundred bucks. Hill found the Acer that I ended up buying (I'm so proud; she can read and understand the specs listed for the computers now), and it was perfect for me. In a lot of ways it's just like my HP; it has a nice clear and bright screen, a decent-sized keyboard, and it's relatively small and light for a cheaper laptop. On the other hand, the processor is almost twice as powerful, and it has more RAM and a slightly better integrated graphics chip, so I was pretty quickly sold on it. It feels a lot more solid than my old laptop, which is definitely a plus in my mind. I prefer a more utilitarian feel in my computers.

When I got it home I immediately planned to reload it with Linux, but first I decided to make a backup disc "just in case". Primarily I wanted to do this because of the problems I'd had with my old laptop, even though they weren't OS-related at all. So I booted up and began my twenty-minute adventure in turning my laptop on for the first time.

By the way, it is incredibly lame in my opinion that companies aren't including factory-restore discs with their systems anymore. You always have to make your own backup discs from the system itself. I mean, I bought my last spindle of DVDs for around $15. Is it really killing them to make one themselves?

So when I turned my laptop on, Windows Vista Home Premium Service Pack 1 (long, eh?) began booting up. I guess when it boots for the first time it goes through some kind of setup process, which took a long time. I ended up getting back into the book I'm reading right now while I waited for some type of interactive moment with my computer. After about five minutes, it popped up and was asking for my name and other basic info. I gave it the info it was requesting and clicked next.

Now the obligatory "agreements" window popped up. I am used to seeing this from Windows, which I had to agree to to "use Windows". But there was a second agreement I had to make, and this was with Acer. I had to do this to "use the computer". I got news for you, Acer, I don't have to agree to s#!+ to use my laptop. This isn't software; I actually bought this puppy, right down to the little circuits. The truth is, it was an agreement to use their stupid little built-in utilities and stuff. But that statement annoyed me anyway. Of course I agreed to both and continued, knowing that I would be unshackling myself from the evils of Microsoft and apparently Acer soon enough.

Or so I thought. After I had agreed to give these companies my first born, it took Windows another FIFTEEN minutes to finish configuring itself or whatever the hell it was doing and boot up into the desktop. I read more of my book (I'm re-reading The Stand, if you were wondering) until it finally got me to the actual desktop. Once there, I took a couple minutes to explore Vista. I hadn't seen it in a while, and was curious how it was doing with the service pack and everything. I am not surprised to report that it is still ass. It was slow and ugly and I wanted to get out of there fast. I quickly figured out how to start the process of creating my factory-default backup disc, and started the wizard (Windows loves wizards, which makes sense because the Bible says wizards are evil).

The wizard told me that it would take about thirty minutes to make this disc, and that it would take two DVDs. Two DVDs!? I guess that was for all the bloatware that was installed on this puppy, because judging by the fact that the desktop was covered in ugly shortcuts, there was a lot. I hated to do it, but I decided that I needed this disc and started her up. Much to my pleasure the timer kept dropping minutes off the clock as it continued, and in about ten minutes it was done. Then it took another ten minutes to "validate" the disc...and it failed the validation. It popped out my now-useless DVD, explaining that the burn process had failed and to insert another disc.

Was it hungry after being in that box all that time? I had no idea and didn't want to find out. Having had enough of my Vista experience, I immediately canceled the job and popped in my Ubuntu 8.10 disc and reloaded the system. Fifteen minutes later (yes, I've been rounding this whole time, hardly anything happens in perfect five-minute increments) I had a fully-operational Operating System running my cool little laptop. Now we were cooking!

So right now I am downloading all the various updates that I need to be the cool Linux-guy I pretend to be at work so I can seem better than everyone who uses Windows "still" (losers!). I already have my email and browser setup (if you don't have Foxmarks and have more than one PC, you're a sucker!), and I am a very happy camper again. I really like this laptop, Hill did a fantastically awesome job picking out the best laptop in the world (I have to say that as part of my slave duties...ouch! I mean, that's what I'm really thinking).

Alright, that's a lot of typing for what could have been a blurb that said "I got a laptop today and Windows sucks!". I like typing, and being sarcastic. Not necessarily in that order.

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So, some iPhone Orb customers started complaining that they were unable to connect to Orb via the OrbLive app on the AT&T network anymore a few days ago. At first I didn't pay much attention, and then the story made it to Digg so I was forced to investigate. I was finding that I was still able to connect, so I decided to utilize my incredible brain and troubleshooting skills to help figure out what was going on. Also, it was a great oppotunity to lord it over all the other Orb users that I could still connect and they couldn't.

Clearly, my phone and I were superior to them, and it since with great power comes great responsibility, it was my responsibility to remind them daily that I could watch TV while driving 70mph down the freeway and they were stuck connecting to the wifi network at Starbucks. Bwahahahaha! Suckers!

Of course, all this changed this evening when suddenly I lost my ability to connect too. All my posturing and claims of Orb omnipotence were dashed...and I was humiliated when I was forced to post on their support forums that I, too, was a mere iPhone mortal, chained to the technical incompetence of AT&T in the same way that they were.

Damn you all!

Anyway, I love Orb. As I've mentioned here before, Orb is the only reason I keep Windows loaded on my PC. So I'll be damned if AT&T thinks that they're going to stop me from overutilizing their network to the brink of collapse! I need instant-access to all of my satellite channels at a whim, regardless of whether or not it affects the ability of others to check the news and weather on their inferior phones. If I want to watch an episode of Saved by the Bell while driving to work, that's my business!

Give me back my Orb, AT&T! Or I will rain down upon you such a fury! Seriously, my phone call to tech support will so full of nerd rage, you'll quake in your headset!

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So the "grace period" on my latest load of Windows expired today. I've never had a copy of Windows that wasn't activated before; it's genuinely annoying. When the login screen pops up, it tells you that you have to activate the operating system to get into your computer. If you select 'No', it logs you out.

The absolutely only thing that I keep Windows around for is Orb, which is the software that I use to stream my TV and videos out to the internet. If I'm honest with myself, I barely use it. The point, though, is that I can. I want to be able to, on the off chance that I'll get myself into a situation where I just have to be able to watch TV. You know, if I'm ever being held hostage somewhere or something.

I can get a Windows key. That's not really the point. The outright truth is that I just don't like Windows anymore. It irritates me that I feel trapped by it sometimes, because software developers lean so heavily towards it. And why shouldn't they? Microsoft has a stranglehold on something like 80% of the personal computer market. Wouldn't you target the largest group of potential customers too? But dammit if I don't wish Orb would release a version for Linux. Then I would finally have a Windows-free home. No more "activating" my operating systems. No more stressing out every time I have to reload my computer.

C'mon Orb, hook me up already!

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So for the longest time I've been running Ubuntu 8.04 on my laptop and as a dual-booted partition on my desktop PC. Over time, though, I've slowly migrated back to Windows. I can come up with a lot of different excuses as to why, but the honest and truest answer is because it's easier to work with. I am pretty familiar with the Linux community, and while a good chunk of them aren't necessarily computer saavy, most of them have had the patience to take the time to familiarize themselves with Unix and gotten to know their operating system. They know all the hacks to get stuff working, and they enjoy messing with something to make it work right. I know this feeling, because I do it to.

But there are somethings that I want that just don't run correctly in Linux. Orb, for example, which sits on my PC at home and can stream my satellite signal over the internet to any PC with an internet connection. (Though in truth because my internet connection at home is fairly unreliable, I don't use it like I used to.) Any random game or piece of software that I want to download. The game here or there that I have to go through hell and high water to get running correctly in Linux that just installs and plays in Windows.

Well, so I thought.

Last weekend I reloaded my laptop with Vista Home Premium edition, the operating system that it had come with (my laptop is an HP Pavilion). I have played with Vista in the past, and frankly had always had mixed feelings about it. It was a huge departure from what I was used to, and there were certain things that had irritated me about it. But I had heard some positive comments about the latest service pack, and I thought "what the hell" and loaded it to give it a spin.

First of all, it is a dog-slow operating system. My laptop isn't exactly a gaming rig, but it gets the job done. Unless I'm running Vista. Before I got my video drivers loaded (that prior-to mentioned internet was down most of last weekend) I decided to kill some time one night and play some solitaire. Wouldn't you know it, without a competent graphics card giving the game an edge, it ran in some kind of "low performance" mode and was nearly unusable.

Solitaire. Needed a graphics card.

Deciding not to take a risk on getting rejected by a graphically-enhanced session of minesweeper, I put my laptop away until I could get a hold of those drivers. Sunday night our internet connectivity returned and I was able to download the needed files from the HP support page. After installation, I was finally able to run solitaire. The 2D graphics blew my mind in their sheer mediocrity.

Tired of a game that I could have played in real life with a deck of cards and a coffee table, I decided to really test my portable "GeForce Go" video card and installed Spore, which really is an awesome game. After the (twenty minute!) installation was complete, I went to Start > Programs and...nothing. The game had installed (apparently), but there were no game files.

Much to my chagrin, I uninstalled what was there and decided to try again. Same thing. So now that I had wasted about an hour of my life, I decided to research the problem. Turns out that in Vista you can't install the game directly from the disc. EA suggested copying the files from the disc to a folder on the desktop and installing it from there.

What!?

What kind of weird bug is this? Can't install software from a disc? Had anyone tested this out before shipping? I have a hard time blaming EA; this disc installs Spore in XP just fine (I had installed it on my desktop running XP just fine).

Tired of my Vista experiment, I got an old XP disc I have and reloaded my little machine again. Of course, thanks to Microsoft's stranglehold on the PC manufacturing community, HP no longer supports XP on this model laptop, so I had to go to great lengths to get the drivers I needed to run it in XP. But after about a day's worth of work, I am sitting here on my XP-loaded laptop. And Spore runs great.

I think that I'm skipping Vista at home. We've got another few months until the government adopts Vista at work, so I feel no real compunction to get it running. As for Ubuntu, I still have a partition loaded on my desktop running it. I don't think I've been in it in two weeks.

Windows may not be the best operating system around, but the support base for it can't be beat. Sorry, Linux; I'm just not ready to invest the time in you yet.

P.S.: I'd like to give a shout-out to JoDee and her family; she sent me a nice email telling me about how she reads the site and enjoys it. Hope you all have a great weekend!

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Dude, I love the iPhone.

I am on my bed right now, with my laptop wirelessly tethered to my phone, which is connected with one bar to the 3G network. Here are my results from Speedtest.net:



So sweet. I love the iPhone.

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Now this is just downright cool.

A robotics company in Utah has created a robotic exoskeleton that enhances a human's strength, multiplying their own by a factor of twenty. The suit responds to the wearer's own motions almost instantaneously thanks a complicated system of sensors built into the machine's joints.

The suit is being designed for the Army in an effort to create a 'super soldier'.

The biggest obstacle in deploying the unit are the power requirements. It currently drains it's battery in 30 minutes, which would suck for any soldier in the battlefield. If this were to become practical, though, the implications are almost hard to believe. Imagine an army of soldiers encased in combat armor, impenetrable to standard ammunition, tearing it up on the battlefield. It's the stuff of science fiction, and it may be just around the corner.

It's a strange world we're heading into. Let's just hope that it's not as bleak as some of those sci-fi movies predict.

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Here's an interesting story about the use of implantable Bluetooth sensors that would notify emergency services via a base-station if a chip-implanted victim were to have a heart-attack.

Other potential uses include alerts when patients don't take their medication, or when citizens begin to have anti-government thoughts.

Seriously, where do you draw the line between safety and privacy? It's a scary enough thought to me that so many in New York just willingly accepted the idea of random bag searches for subway commuters by police (in a call-in radio show here in San Antonio, I was one of the very few who called in who was against the idea here too). Now there are people out there considering putting computer chips into actual human beings that report on things like not taking medication at the prescribed times. There have to be others out there who are not necessarily conspiracy nuts who cringe at this idea too.

Unfortunately, these are never easy black-and-white questions. There are probably hundreds if not thousands of good potential uses for such a technology. The heart attack/stroke angle is just one of them. Wouldn't it be awesome if you could track any kids' location on a city-wide grid at any given time? Just dial-up their serial number and there they are. What's Johnny doing in that white panel van? But the potential mis-uses are a reality, and I am afraid that too many people will blind themselves to them until it's too late.

I think that Congresspeople should have to try out these technologies first. Make them all have these chips before they can be used by the general public. Then maybe we can find out what so many of our Senators are really doing when Senate is in session.

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