i did run into one little problem though. After a couple of times of use, one of the keys fell of. I was able to snap it back into place temporarily, but it continued to fall off. It was very annoying, this needed to be fixed, but I didn't want to have to send the notebook in for something that looks to be a simple thing to fix. So, I had to look it up. Found a good site that explains how you, if you're gutsy enough, can fix that pesky key problem for yourself.

I'm really exited about Rock Band 2. While there hasn't been much Rock Band playing at our place of late (due to my stupidity in breaking the drum pedal), Kate and I jump at every chance we get to play. We recently helped out some bands out at Chris and Fla's house and at Nakfoor's place as well. It's really such a great Party Game, or make you feel good game, that almost a year after release, we're still playing. It's no surpirse that we're both looking forward to Rock Band 2 coming out in a couple of weeks.

While looks to be the Rock Band 1 that should have been:

• No weird leader for bands
• World Tour playable by offline and online players
• No vestigial "Guitar Hero" solo tour
• Solid instruments.

We're not going to pick up the special edition this time. Sure our pedal is broken, and it would be nice to have wireless drums and guitars, instead we'll be enhancing our experience with the Omega Pedal. While it's been extremely unfortunate we'll be getting our new pedal a solid two months after we ordered it, I still can't wait to get it and play some drums. Sure, Rock Band 2's drum pedals will have a supporting metal plate, but even they won't compare to the difference of the pull springs in real drum pedals as opposed to the push spring of the game instruments.

If you're looking to enhance your drumming in Rock Band, there are several other modded pedals you can find online (there's the Destroyer Pedal or the Rock Pedal). I decided to go with the Omega Pedal mostly because I couldn't find a matrix with the difference of all three pedals, and because of the good review from Ars Technica.

It's really great that Harmonix and MTV could get most of Rock Band 1's songs transferable to the sequel, as well as all of the DLC. I'm sure Kate won't be missing the three songs that won't be transferable, I am a little sad that "Paranoid" was in that short list. It's no matter, I don't mind losing those songs in comparison to the total list of Rock Band 2's songs. I'm in particularly looking forward to enjoy:

• "Feel The Pain"
• "Everlong"
• "My Own Worst Enemy"
• "Come Out and Play"
• Spoonman"

And if they release The Colour and the Shape like rumoured I'll be in Rock Band Heaven. Just take a look at the gameplay trailer that features "Everlong". That single clip made me wish September was actually much earlier.

But there are some things that are really distracting me when I’m playing the game, and I’m sad to say that It’s the UI. Sure it nice and polished, but there’s just too much of it sometimes, and sometimes there’s not enough.

Story mode is nothing more than a series of predetermined fights sandwiched by flat loading screens with random text and icons. I was really disappointed by the execution of this mode. It definitely seemed like one of those ideas that was never going to have enough time to execute properly, so it gets added with minimum fuss with the use of UI. For example, the beginning story on most of the characters could have been cut in half with the other half done as in-game cut scenes. The character showdown/loading screens could have been as nicely polished as the Arcade version, but instead is left as a dull screen with icons and skill points. And the chapter screens: do they really have a point? There isn’t a lot of extra plot dialog before and after the fights for them to make any sense! Like I said, this mode was really disappointing.

Story Mode loading screen with character info. Very Flat compared to the Arcade loading vs Character shots. Image source: Kotaku.

On the other hand, the Character Creation mode could have done with a little more options and information to keep it from being overwhelming. Starting off, you’re taken to the same Character Selection Screen as any other mode, but if you’re new and you’re not reading the manual, how do you know that selecting a regular character just creates a new wardrobe for that character but to create your own character you need to select the button with the male and female portraits in the middle?

If you do end up selecting an existing character, it might then be a surprise to see that the several options in the Model Information page are disabled and unchangeable. This makes sense in context since you aren’t creating your own fighter but adding a wardrobe to a current one, but how are you supposed to know that? This is a usability problem that I’ve yet to see a good solution for. Should you just not show all the options if they are unavailable? Show them but leave them to be selectable or unchangeable? Show a hint somewhere as to how to enable them? Are they unlockables? I think on this case, it would have been better to only show the options that can be changed for the current fighter. I know a couple of people who were puzzled by their inability to change these options their first time creating a character.

Custom Characters have all options available

Notice the black options on the left side

Also, you have to be careful when creating a brand new character. Depending on the decisions you make for your fighters basic traits, changing one piece of clothing could leave you without enough skill points for a skill that was added depending on your traits. I’m not sure what the idea behind this was, but I was surprised that the mode wouldn’t let me save and exit after creating my first character because I didn’t have enough skill points to fill a skill! It was odd, because I had yet to assign any skills to this character, yet I was already over loaded on them!

These are really just minor points. The character creator is rather well done over all, allowing you to change most of the major colors in just about anything, selecting from a variety of equipment, and allowing you to pick different skills for each character you create. But there were definitely some minor areas where they could have polished the experience a little more to alleviate some possible areas where users could have become confused and frustrated.

Is this really necessary? Can you tell what it's for? Image source: Kotaku.

Very excited at what the public is going to think of our features this year. Take a look at what we've got prepared in 09:

While this years release of Tiger Woods isn't on my birthday, like it was last year, it's still coming out around that time. You can expect to see it on store shelves August 26.

One of the nice things about the Windows Mobile platform, is that if you're capable, it's somewhat simple to create your own custom home screens. There aren't too many resources available, or plugins for that matter, but it is a possibility. The home screens are simple xml files that contain information on which plugins to use as well as simple layout information. All the home screen files are kept in \Application Data\Home folder of your phone. You can just place a new file there, and the display settings will read it up. I just used the ones that came with my phone as reference, and moved some stuff around to create something that I found useful.

Decent software has been a little bit harder to get a hold of then I originally thought. While there seems to be a renewed interest in creating good applications for the windows mobile platform, it seems to all be directed purely at copying the success of the iPhone. This means that all the really nice applications are touch only. I tried downloading some of the applications at I (Heart) Windows Mobile.com but couldn't use any of them because they are touch only. I actually encountered that with several applications I installed. Thankfully, the creators of iContact added regular input to it so that I can still use this application without the touch feature.

Even iContact makes me feel like a secondary citizen. Without touch input, I can access some of the buttons on the screen! Use of the soft buttons, as well as the back button in windows mobile devices is not consistent at all. ExtremeText, the application I'm using for threaded messaging, doesn't do anything when I press the back button, same thing with the IM app my phone came with. One would hope that pressing back would take you to the previous screen, but this apparently needs to be done in the app level.

Setting up ActiveSync in vista has been really simple though. So, at least that's a nice break. It's really nice to be able to sync your pictures and music from phone to your computer. Syncing is so painless, I've been thinking about trying to get podcasts to load onto my phone. I did have one snafu though trying to connect sync through bluetooth. After syncing with the computer through a USB cable, and setting up the bluetooth connection, you still have to run the ActiveSync app on you cellphone to connect. Still simple, but an extra step I hadn't though of until I googled it.

So why is it that more then 10 years since it's original inception, we still see things like this:

That's Winamp's update alert visible under my top oriented task bar. Tsk. The Winamp developers are apparently unaware to the fact that this is a very probably place for the task bar to be, but they care not. Winamp will incessantly keep placing that damn alert window at the very top of the screen whenever the program is opened, even if i bother the move the window down before closing the program.

The worst part is not that the window appears when Winamp starts, but rather that under Windows Vista, it can't be closed to easily. The task bar in Vista, unlike that of previous Windows versions, can't be shrunk manually. To close this errant window, I have to make the task bar auto-hide, be careful not to get too close to the edge for the task bar to show it self again, while I try to press the (x) to close the window. I can't even right click on Winamp and un-select the alert window, like I could un-select the Playlist window to hide it.

I seriously doubt the Winamp developers really wanted to make closing that popup such a pain, but due to their lack of forethought about different monitor and task bar configurations, they have made what should be simple, rather complex. And that's a problem for me, because as Jeff Atwood stated, we [...] tend to radically underestimate the impact of the dozens of small events in our lives throughout the day. Every user interface for your application should always be simple and straight forward to use. As tools, applications have to be as out of the way as possible to let the user do what they want with the application. When an application adds just a little bit of annoyance, or a little bit of uneeded complexity, it's UI is failing you.

However, this is when the entire thing became hugely satisfying for my problem solving abilities. Without thinking about it much, my first instinct was to see if DAEMON Tools could read the .img file extension of the Vista SP1 DVD image. And while the extension wasn’t in the list of valid file extensions, it was able to read it just fine, thereby creating a somewhat roundabout way of burning a simple disc image file. So in essence, one program was emulating a DVD Drive from an image file, while a second program was reading that emulation to create yet another image file so that it could burn that to an actual disc.

To my surprise, it all worked pretty well, especially since my dying computer didn’t even crash at the thought of doing all that work. The reason this entire little problem was so wholly satisfying to me was two-fold. First, it sometimes still amazes me how when things just work, it makes people happier. This experience was just reinforcing some of the concepts Joel Spolsky talked about in the first chapter of his “User Interface Design for Programmers.” Secondly, it also made me feel pretty good that I didn’t have to resort to big software to get stuff done; two small, free and very specialized applications gave me the results I needed.

As a side note, over the holiday break I had bought some of the Christopher Bean's and left it at my parents house, when they got back and found it they were pleasantly surprised.

So, as you can see, even though I think I have a pretty good taste for coffee, I know it's very limited. This is best exemplified with my love for Tim Horton's Coffee. For some mixed reason of nostalgia for Canada and dislike for most restaurant's coffee I just love Tim Horton's Coffee. Although, in it's defense, the blend of coffee Tim Horton's sells really is particularly very good, especially considering that this is the equivalent of Dunkin Donuts in Canada and their coffee is terrible - I was really surprised to learn that they were going to start selling it in grocery stores, people actually want it?

However, living in Florida makes it very hard to get a can or so to keep for a while. I usually only have any in supply whenever anyone in my family goes to Canada - it's customary to return with at least two big cans of it, on for yourself, and another one for anyone else. We really love the stuff.

So, it was somewhat surprising that his past Christmas I got two cans! It was quite awesome really. Kate was able to get a large 34oz can on eBay while my Mom was able to find me a 12oz can from the Canadian Store in London England (Tim Horton's if your reading this, you should sell your coffee worldwide through your website). No had to travel to Canada to get any this time around!

Currently, I'm slowly making some every morning from the 36oz can with my 4 cup drip coffee maker. Which is fine, since Tim Horton's coffee was made to be made in drip machines and still taste good. At work though, I have the smaller can which is course ground so it makes it perfect for the French Press John and I use to make coffee at work. This is by far the best way to have coffee at work since it's fresh and doesn't accrue bitter burnt coffee flavors while it stews in the gigantor coffee thermos.

It's actually been two months since my birthday, but I finally got around to posting this picture of the Birthday Cake Kate made for me. I was very surprised since I was not expecting a cake. We had two slices so I had to take the rest to work with me the next day. Everyone that saw it noted how awesome it was as they all ate around the mushroom middle.

me:

btw... i gave in joined a social networking site

mh:

haha what'd you join?

me:

facebook

mh:

what prompted it?

me:

well... i was thinking if was going to join one, it would probably be that one, just because it's so web two-oh and that's totally the cool thing to do these days...

mh:

haha you sucker :P

me:

and they flaunt that around so much, because i got two independent IM's from facebook, on behalf of two users that wanted me to join

me:

so, apperantly, my peer pressure for web two-oh fads is 2 people pressuring me

mh:

haha

Technically, however, this isn't the first social networking site I have joined. I already joined LinkedIn.

CSS frameworks aim to do the same thing to our styling. But the main thing I have against the Idea, which I also feel about resets, is that perhaps they add too much that isn't needed.

I think most people won't argue that the visual design of a website is very unique. I think most people also won't argue against reusing CSS selectors for tabs any time tabs are needed. But if your website doesn't make use of tabs, what is the use to have that in a CSS file that gets downloaded every page? This is exactly the same problem Javascript frameworks have - and though good front-end frameworks will be modularized to prevent against this, there may still be unused code or selectors in the modules that you end up including.

When I think of CSS I think of styling for a specific type of semantics that make sense only in the context of the information they will be styling. So for example, perhaps all tabs used in a website will be either secondary navigation, or navigation for a tabbed widget. Sure, they can use some of the same selectors, but while a framework may use a more generic name for the selector than what the tabs themselves are trying to emphasize. For example, you might want to name your selector .horizontal-nav as opposed to .tabs. Which makes more semantic sense in the example illustrated above?

Sure, you could always change the selector's names in the framework, but then you aren't getting the benefit of using a framework! The semantics and language of your site's information will always be different then another's site. Unless you are always building the same site template over and over again - lets say blogs that use the same semantics, then having a general framework probably won't help much.

That's not to say the idea is completely bad. While working at Alienware I had set up the site's personal css styling framework. This included the proper naming convention for all the style sheets, each different area had it's unique style sheet that covered only the semantics and language of that area, as well as the contents of the universal style sheet - that contained styles that were used by a majority of the pages in the site, including the font family and font sizes for certain type of tiles and the body text. This made it very easy to add different pages with a diverse multitude of supported semantics.

However, I wouldn't want to use any of that CSS in my website. What would a selector called .pressreleaseheader mean or do in my own website? I don't have or do press releases. And yes while Alienware does have many tabs, and my sites navigation could be considered tabs, not only is the styling different, but so is the semantics.

So, what I want to finish with is this:

• Frameworks can be good - they give me WAFFy's
• General CSS Frameworks are probably too general to add semantic meaning unless you work with sites that have similar languages
• Site Specific conventions and frameworks can help out in large enough sites
• Like javascript frameworks, can be somewhat inefficient in the use of bandwidth - Including more then is needed.

These are just my opinions though. I am not trying to tell anyone General frameworks are bad, I am just exploring my feelings of unease about using them in my future projects.

Actually, the Orlando Sentinel did a piece on the pranks that happen around here and it got pick up by Kotaku! I'm pretty used to the company I work for being in the news a lot - Alienware always makes some kind of racket, be it positive or negative, whenever they release something - but never as an inside look at what happens inside the office.

Yes, the ball pit rocks. Being able to take a couple of minutes out of work and relax in the ball pit s definitely a job perk. And yes, when it was constructed you couldn't find plastic balls in the Orange and Seminole county area as they had all been bought to make the Ball pit.

One of the reasons I enjoy working at Tiburon so much is because of this laid back environment, it really fosters creativity in the employees.

As for the actual game itself, this year the 360 and PS3 versions have a really awesome feature that I've had some fun with and thats Gamernet. The commercials for it are pretty good too. I actually only saw them until today looking up for some reviews:

The Game right now has an 85 Metacritic score. Makes me feel a little good about myself, having been a part of the team.

I picked up Mario Strikers Charged, the sequel to the very good Mario Strikers on the Gamecube. Charged on the Wii adds much to the gameplay of the original to the point that it actually seems like the game that should have come out originally. And most of the reviews I've read on Charged have said the same thing. One thing reviewers have seemed to knock the game for is it's lack of use for the Wii's motion control.

I personally don't think the lack of motion control as a bad thing on the game. Some people can't make up their mind when it comes to games for the Wii. While the motion control has been very badly implemented in some games - for example our experience with Marvel Alliance - forgoing bad motion controls for more conservative ones can also be a taboo with Wii games. The few motion controls in the games are few and simple, in Striker there are motion controls for hitting, and for changing the powerup in queue, they are both simple waggles of the remote and nunchuk.

The motion controls in charged are simplistic and don't detract to the action. The action is fast and there really isn't much use for motion in the controls. Forcing people to use motion for charging strikes or kicking the ball would really change the pace of the game, slowing it down and possibly make it unplayable. Besides, I find myself very comfortable with using the remote-nunchuck combo as a regular controller. It is the most ergonomic way to play - no longer do you have to sit in comfortable ways to have your hands close together to hold a controller. With the remote-nunchuck, you can sit how you want, put your hands where they are the most comfortable, and still be able to play. Taking it in this context, wagging the remote to hit someone really makes sense, it's as if your actually hitting someone next to you, which is really not nice to do - specially when the person next to you happens to be your wife.