Xbox 360

I must start off by saying that I have been a huge fan of the playstation 2 from the beginning and really never considered a xbox, at all. I did purchase a xbox to use strictly as a media center to stream my video from my computer to the tv. I have never played a game on the xbox. With all the new console launches that just occured I really always thought that I would get a Playstation 3, then I saw Gears of War. With the lack of PS3 machines available I really was considering an xbox 360. The wonderful thing was that I ended up recieving an xbox 360 as an early Christmas present. Of course I went out and got Gears of War and I also bought Rainbow Six: Vegas and Tony Hawks Project 8.

I am so impressed with what Microsoft has done with the xbox 360, they have really done an incredible job with this console. Having been a PS2 fan and played some online (for free), I was a little weary of having to pay $50/year to just play online. Once it was broken down to only being $4 a month I really don't mind paying that for what you get. I love the ability to play demos before making a purchase and making a friends list that stays the same no matter what games you or they have. PS2 your friends are all based on the games. I really like the online acheivements that are made with xbox live it adds extra game play to all the games online and offline. Having an hd tv really allows me to take advantage of the beautiful graphics that the 360 has to offer. I can't get over the detail that can be seen in these games.

Obviously being a next gen console it blows the ps2 away, but the way that xbox live is integrated into the game play. It blows anything that I have seen from playstation away. I haven't gotten to see the way that the PS3 is going to handle online game play, but I think they have a lot to learn from the xbox live. I really can't remember the last time that I enjoyed gaming online soo much. I really am excited as to what the future holds for the xbox 360 and am an extremely proud owner. I will probably get a PS3 eventually, but I am having too much fun the the 360 to even care about owning a PS3. Anyone who is even considering a next gen console I can't recommend a 360 enough ecspecially when you can't even get your hands on a PS3, not to mention I have never been a big fan of buying a brand new product. I would much rather wait and buy in about a year once all of the kinks have been worked out. The xbox 360 has completely changed my opinion of the xbox and what microsoft is doing with the gaming market.

Tom Green is Back!!!

I just discovered that Tom Green is back with his own show that he tapes at his house. I loved watching Tom Green when he was on MTV and was sad to see his show go off the air. He is doing a live show on week nights that is only viewable via his website. You can also watch all the episodes in the the On Demand section of his site. Personally I am waiting for them to get their podcast feed working in iTunes. (It just isn't working at the moment) I would definite want to subscribe.

It is only about 15 shows old and they are still trying to get all the kinks worked out, but it is hilarious. He even is taking live calls which is pretty cool if you ask me. It has had some pretty cool guest on so far, Tony Hawk, Kevin Rose, and some more that I haven't gotten a chance to see yet. I plan on watching them all once I get a chance. They last about an hour except for the 4 hour venture with Steve-O from Jackass. I am excited about finding his show and look forward to watching many more episodes and hope that they can get the itunes feed working so I can watch it on my ipod.

For those who have never watched Tom Green and those that have and liked his previous shows it is definitely worth checking out. It is just too funny!!! Warning it can get pretty wild at times!!!

Geeky

I decided the other day to do something a little on the geeky side. I have a windows xp media center that in desperate need of being reinstalled, but I am too lazy to do it and have had thoughts of switching to Ubuntu linux. Without taking the full plunge I decided to partition the drive and have a dual boot system with xp and ubuntu.

I must say that is was a pretty fun thing to do and included a little be of learning curve for me. I am without a doubt a Mac user, but have only tapped into command line a little. I have learned that linux makes full use of terminal and it hasn't been bad to learn a few of the basic commands. I am very impressed a just how powerful command line is and all that it is capable of doing.

Onto the dual boot, I haven't even booted into xp, but just to test and make sure that it still is working. It was pretty easy with all of the instructions online. I am very impressed with ubuntu as an operating system and have really enjoyed messing around with it and customizing it. It is a lot faster than xp was running (xp could have been fixed with a fresh install and probably run like new again), but I actually enjoy using ubuntu on that computer. I will say that I have spent hours learning how to install applications on it, since it isn't as easy as a drag n drop system that apple is known for. I think I am getting the hang of it. I really have had fun playing around with it and using it as an operating system on that computer. I am not 100% ready to ditch xp on that computer, but like having the dual boot system and predominately using ubuntu. I will say that I can guarantee that it will never replace OS X as my favorite os.

Opera 9 Review

I am not going to go into great detail over every feature that Opera 9 offers, but some of the features that I have used and fallen in love with. First and foremost I have used Safari ever since I bought my first Mac in 2003, I have loved Safari and really liked it a lot once they added the rss reader feature. During this past week I closed Safari and have not used it for anything at all, I wanted to see what it would be like using Opera only.

I am extremely impressed and have decided to replace Safari with Opera 9, not only that but also replace my Mail app, with the mail feature that is built right into Opera 9. I love the way that they integrated the mail client right in with the browser. It has all the features that I could want in a mail client. You can use filters just has in Mail app and that is really the extent of my use with Apple's Mail. So, Opera is replacing 2 applications that I use regularly.

I love the way that the rss reader is built into the browser it is very clean and neat, I can see the updated feeds in the panel to the left or right, wherever you choose to place it. It allows me to scroll through the stories really fast when it is opened into a separate tab in the browser window. I really prefer they way that Opera shows the updated feeds compared to Safari, just because it opens in a separate tab and feeds with pictures don't take a while to load. I have really enjoyed the rss reader that is built into Opera and won't miss Safari for the rss support.

I don't use IRC all that much, but since it has it built in I could see myself using it more. It also has a widgets feature that they have added with this version that is pretty neat, but I really prefer dashboard to that my desktop isn't cluttered with all the widgets, they aren't hidden with Opera. I like having all my contacts right there in the panel with the mail, just handy.

They have also decided to build in bit torrent support with the browser which is pretty neat, but I did feel like I could see myself replacing Azureus with the built in bit torrent client. It is really simple and easy to use compared to Azureus, but I really like all the extra stuff that Azureus has to offer. But the main reason is that I felt like it was a lot slower getting a torrent started than it is with Azureus and some wouldn't start at all. (Or maybe I wasn't patient enough) I will probably use it for quick little downloads but nothing big. Also any direct downloads are placed in the same tab as the torrents called transfers and I really like the fact that it is in a tab rather than a separate smaller window that Safari uses. Like I said it is really simple and easy to use, but I can't see it replacing Azureus at this point in time, maybe it will get better with newer versions.

There is a Notes feature that is built right into the browser, again in the panel to the left there is a button that is called Notes. What I love about this is that right while I am looking at a webpage or and email I can copy and paste what I need to remember right into the notes and not have to keep bouncing back and forth between tabs or even applications. (I use Apple's Stickies) If I think of something that I want to look up I just type it in real quick to the notes section. I can also send that note to anyone as an email which is pretty cool. I just think it is neat to have a place where I can jot something down right within the browser and not some other application, it is just one of those handy features.

Another feature that I absolutely love is mouse gestures. If you don't know what this is, it is the ability to do simple functions such as scan back a page or scan forward, create a new tab, close a tab, etc... all with the movement of the mouse with the right click held down. I didn't know how much I would use this feature, but now can't see myself browsing without it, it just makes browsing that much quicker I think. Rather than having to find the button to do the action I just right click and move the mouse in the direction to create the needed action. Once you start using this feature is hard to not have it.

Something that I have always thought was missing from Safari was the ability to add your own skin. Something I love about Firefox, but with Opera I can know choose the way that I want my browser to appear. I feel like I can customize my Opera browser a lot more than I could ever customize Safari and I like that little bit of individuality.

One of the reasons that I set out and thought about changing browsers is that I use the Opera Mini 2.0 browser on my phone and really like it a lot. I also have a ds lite and cannot wait till they release the Opera browser for it in the US. Also with some of the new features that were release with verison 9, I thought I just had to give another browser a shot at taking over as my primary browser. Plus the nice thing is that anyone across any platform can use this browser and I would highly recommend you checking it out for yourself. I have to be honest it wasn't a tough decision to drop Safari with all the features that I see myself using in Opera. There are a lot more features built into Opera and I am sure that I have only scratched the surface of this powerful browser, I look forward to using it and learning more about all of it's capabilities. I am an official Opera user, or switcher as Apple would say.

Opera 9

I am a big time Mac user and love using Safari, but sometimes I want to venture out and use other browsers to see what they offer. In this case I decided to check out Opera 9 (latest release) with its bittorrent, rss, and mail support I thought it would be neat to see what it is like to use an application that had an all in one functionality. I am going to use it over the next few weeks to see whether or not it can find its way to replace Safari as my primary browser. So far I am extremely impressed with all of the different features that Safari doesn't have. I will be interested to see how well all of the different features work compared to my other apps that I use. I have only been using it for a day now, so I guess we will see in due time. I will give an update in a couple of weeks as to what my full opinion is on Opera 9.

Newsvine

My Brother turned me on to Newsvine about 4 months ago right when it was being released. I checked it out the first few weeks and looked at it occassionally for the news, but never really got into using it as my "newspaper". Over the past week I have really started going there for my news and opinions. It one of the only places online that I feel like you can really get all your news that interest you in one place. I very impressed with the layout and how it is presented to you to read. I am a big fan of digg and like the voting system that they have, newsvine has implemented it into their news site for all news stories. The content is posted by members of the newsvine site very much like what digg has done for the technology news. I don't think that it has really caught mainstream yet, but I think that it is well on its way to becoming the ultimate online news source available. Check it out and see for yourself!

Nintendo DS LIte

Well I went out and purchased the nintendo ds lite right when it was released a little less than 2 weeks ago. After having played with it for nearly 2 weeks I must say that I am really impressed with it. I didn't like the previous ds due to the looks. I will say that the lite is extremely nice to look at, looks like my ibook g4. I love the slimness of it and the ability to actually just put it in your pocket and go.

I can't get over the screen brightness it really makes the games look awesome. I am really excited about the possiblities with the opera browser coming this year and being about to watch tv on it eventually will be really neat. I just feel like the dual screens really add a lot of possibilities to make the ds the ultimate pocket gaming machine.

One other thing that I think is incredible is the online game play it is really amazing and fluid without any problems at all. It is really cool to think that you can play with anyone in the world as if they are right there in the same room.

The price is what really made me want one compared to the psp, plus the dual screens just add that extra element that makes the possiblities beat the psp. I don't need an mp3 or video player that is what my video ipod is for. The game selection is really good for the ds and you can beat playing some of the great titles made for Nintendo like the New Super Mario, Castlvania, Metroid Prime Hunters and the Brain games.

I would highly recommend anyone wanting a pocket gaming device to go out and buy a ds lite, it is gorgeous, awesome to play and a good price. With the future possiblities for this little device it will be something that will last the test of time.