Entries for NuTcAsE

CSS and JavaScript books [CSS and JavaScript books]

NuTcAsE — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:28:12 GMT

I have recently been assigned to quite a big ASP.Net web project at work and we are in the design and spec phase of the project.

Since I'm more of a widnows client dev my knowledge of both CSS and JavaScript have been to a certain level, enough to be able to create basic css style sheets and very basic javascript.

I was hoping you guys could help suggest some good books on CSS and javascript... so far i found these two on amazon:

JavaScript: The definitive guide (http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Definitive-Guide-David-Flanagan/dp/0596101996/ref=rsl_mainw_dpl?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER)

CSS: The definitive guide (http://www.amazon.com/CSS-Definitive-Guide-Eric-Meyer/dp/0596527330/ref=rsl_mainw_dpl?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER)

Any other books you guys would recommend? Mainly looking for Intermediate to Advanced level books...

TIA

in reply to CSS and JavaScript books

MSDN Server too busy [MSDN Server too busy]

NuTcAsE — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 19:31:26 GMT

I'm trying to access MSDN and keep getting the Server Too Busy message. Can anybody else confirm if MSDN is down?

BTW: Using firefox... dunno if that makes a difference.

Thanks.

in reply to MSDN Server too busy

My iPhone review (Long Post) [My iPhone review (Long Post)]

NuTcAsE — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 22:12:50 GMT

I bought an iPhone last Saturday and thought I’d write a review about it here. I previously owned a Cingular 8525 (HTC Hermes) which although I liked, I never loved. The 8525 did do what I wanted it to do, although it had a bad habit of hanging and crashing quite often at random. I just want to get it out on the clear that I have never owned any Apple products until now and am defiantly not an Apple fanboy. I don’t intend to go into a detailed review of the phone but instead wanted to post my experience with it and maybe compare it with other phones I’ve owned. This is going to be a very long post so grab a cup of coffee and write off a good amount of your time when reading this post.

Hardware

I remember reading in some blog that the iPhone must have been made by angels. I can’t agree more. The industrial design on this thing is amazing. The device in itself is pure simplicity, what else can you expect from Apple. No other phone by far in the market matches the look and feel of this phone. The phone feels very natural when holding it, very light weight and the screen is absolutely gorgeous. That’s one thing that I definitely didn’t like about the 8525 and is also a major issue with other PDA or smart phones. Most phones come with such small screens and small fonts that the text on screen is hardly readable.

The phone definitely has an attraction factor. I’ve whipped it out a couple of times when I was out in best buy and a lot of people immediately started staring at it and has the tendency to start conversations about it. It’s also one of the most easily identifiable phones out there and is definitely become a status symbol. Just like the iPod initially iPhone is probably THE gadget to get in the eyes of the mass consumer.

I must say even though it has a glassy surface it’s pretty resistant to fingerprint smudges. Don’t get me wrong, with extended use you are bound to see finger prints and smudges on the screen but it’s doesn’t get bad as the 8528. It’s pretty darn easy to clean too.

Software

Okay here is where I might end up writing a long review. We all knew the device would be good looking and be different from anything out there but with all the hype on it the obvious question is does the software provide a good experience?

My first impression of the phone was OMFG!! This thing rocks! Well after spending a couple of days with it and after the initial euphoria of getting the phone had passed I still feel very good about this device. Now that being said, it’s fairly limited too. The calendar app and the web browser are simply the best out there. Having to be able to read full versions of the web page without having its layout mangled by the browser and still being able to render smooth readable fonts is just simply an amazing experience. I always wanted to internet device that I could carry around and be able to read blogs and visit forums, especially when I’m in front of the TV and just wanted to quickly check the web without having to go to my PC or start my laptop. The iPhone does this amazingly well. When connected to wifi the browsing experience is simply the best.

Before any one mentions DeepFish or Opera Mini… I’ve tried both of them on the 8525 and they don’t even compare. The smoothness of how the Safari browser on the iPhone integrates simply amazing.

The email application definitely could have been better. There’s no simple way to delete multiple email messages from your inbox, or mark emails as being read without opening them (c’mon every other PDA and Smartphone has this capability). The SMS app is fairly decent, but since I don’t do a lot of SMS I haven’t played around with it much. Then there’s the weather and stocks widget that I get the impression were put on there just for the sake of it. They are the same as their desktop widget counterparts but customized to handle gestures. The photo viewer is also standard but it does have nice slideshow functionality. The contacts application is decent but if you have a large list of contacts, you cannot find a contact by simply type a few letters of the contact. You have to scroll through the list which becomes tiring after a little while. Since I don’t have a lot of contacts this doesn’t bother me, but for any serious corporate user this is definitely going to be an issue.

The Google maps app is pretty decent and works very well, but I still like the Live Search application for Windows Mobile phones. Although both of them have a lot of similarities the Live Search seems a lot more complete. Google maps on the iPhone definitely have the nice flashy animations but I found doing a local search for Chinese restaurants around my home was a bit cumbersome. I had to type in "Chinese takeout Macungie PA" to actually list the restaurants. Where as in Live Search you select your home location from you bookmarks (or enter a new one) and then enter what you are searching for in another box.

There is very limited customization allowed on the phone. You can only choose ringtones from a pre-defined list and can’t set your own, which actually doesn’t bother me because I’m not much of a ringtone fanatic and the ring tones included are pretty good. You can select any picture as your wallpaper, but the wallpaper only shows when you wake the phone from sleep state. Other than that you can only configure basic settings of the device and that’s it.

Everyone knows that it’s a closed device and you can’t install any third party application on it. And Mr. Jobs announcement that their SDK for third party apps is HTTP and JavaScript is pure crap. Viewing sites with pure AJAX is a hit and miss thing. Sites may or may not work and the non availability of a flash plugin is a major downside. A lot of sites use Flash for their navigation and without a puglin to render flash it leaves those sites as practically un-usable when viewing it on the iPhone. Viewing WAP formatted pages are well and good but the browser was touted as a fully fledged browser capable of rendering pages in its true form so I shouldn’t have to view a WAP or mobile version of a web page. I just hope they come out with at least a flash plugin (silverlight will never happen in my opionion) soon.

An application like Windows Live Writer on the iPhone would be just a killer app. But since we don’t have the ability to write native applications for it the only thing to do is wait around and hope to god Apple comes out with an application like that. Or build an AJAX web site… honestly which doesn’t even come close to providing the same experience as a native app on the phone.

The visual voice mail thingy is cool and the ability to listen to voice mails in any order and being able to rewind a message to any particular point is also amazing. But it’s not much use to me as I don’t get a lot of voice mails.

The best is the camera app. It’s like somehow the developers of the application went back in time to the 19^{th century and developed the application. There is not even one configuration option, nothing, nada, zilch. Can’t zoom, can’t change resolutions can’t even freaking select what format the photo is taken in. Just one button to take the picture and that’s it. If they had just spent some more time on adding some functionality to the app rather than the pretty effects it might be usable.}

There’s nothing much to be said about the iPod functionality other than its better than a standalone iPod. The regular iPod interface is crap compared to the zune’s interface but the coverflow functionality in iPhone is where it completely trumps the zune. Navigating albums using coverflow is awesome and a much better experience than any mp3 player out there.

In all the software is done well and have good effects and oozes of simplicity. But after using the device for 3 days one gets the feeling that it’s a bit limited. I hope Apple fixes some of the bugs with the browser and at least get the email app at par with others. Time will tell how well they can keep the device updated and come out with new software for it though…

Multi-Touch and the on screen keyboard

Let me begin by saying that I absolutely hated using the stylus on my 8525 and mostly used the hardware keyboard. There’s something seriously wrong with pulling out the tiny stylus and trying to use the phone. The multi touch gestures in the iPhone work almost flawlessly. I was up to speed in 5 minutes and using just your thumb and fingers to use the phone actually works and is quite pleasurable. That being said the gestures are a bit inconsistent in the various applications. Some allow double tapping to zoom some don’t, and Google maps is the only one that allows two finger one click (putting two fingers at the same time on the screen to represent a single click) for zooming out. I’m pretty happy with the gesture driven functionality of the device and it works a lot better than using a stylus.

As I mentioned before I hate using a stylus and the reason I bought an 8525 was because of its hardware keyboard. A lot of devices come with a hardware keyboard and they do a good job of it, but most of them like the Treo and BlackBerry sacrifice the screen size for the keyboard. 8525 did well by using a sliding keyboard and still maintain at least a decent screen size.

Now after using the iPhone for 3 days, I find myself typing a lot better using its software keyboard than on the 8525. It works very very well if you just type and not worry about the typos. The auto correction is done very well and its predictive functionality is 95% dead on accurate. I miss the tactile keyboard and probably will never be able to type without looking at the keyboard, which was possible on the 8525, but for what it’s worth the keyboard works. That being said it’s definitely not for everyone. Some people may find it counter intuitive and find the auto correction and predictive typing feature gets in their way. For me though I was able to type in a fairly long email to my dad under 1 minute where it would have taken me at least 2 minutes to type in the same email in the 8525. It works if you give it some time and follow the tips from Apple and it works very well.

AT&T, Experience and Cost

I went into the AT&T store on Saturday, didn’t have to stand in a line or anything. Tried the demo phone for 5 minutes, transferred my account over to the new phone and walked out the store in under 25 minutes. Went home, downloaded iTunes (YUCK), hooked the phone up and activated it in under 5 minutes. I don’t think it can get any seamless than that. I got the 4GB one since they were out of the 8GB one and I couldn’t honestly validate a $600 device. I would never have bought it if my bro didn’t offer to put in some money in the phone as a gift for helping him move (imaging 3 days of lifting heavy furniture and boxes from 9:00 to 9:00…). When I bought my 8525 I paid in total $540 for the device and a carrying case, although I did get a $50 rebate on it bringing the total cost down to $490. I paid in total $530 for the iPhone and a carrying case for it. The final tipping point in the decision to buy the phone was the plan being offered with iPhone. With my 8525 with a 450 minutes monthly plan and unlimited data I used to pay around $95 per month. Same plan with the iPhone comes to $75. That made my decision. Although the lower cost can be attributed to the iPhone using the EDGE network rather than 3G, paying $20 less was way too attractive.

That’s when the good experience stops. Going for EDGE was probably the worst decision by Apple. It’s slow and I mean caveman slow when compared to HSDPA. When connected to a UMTS connection on my 8525 the speed was blazing fast and I could load heavy web pages (although the pages were mangled by IE mobile) in under 1 sec. iPhone normally takes 3 – 5 seconds to load the same page. But what pisses me off is the fact that if I’m downloading any data, any incoming call will be directed to voicemail directly. Are we in the 19th century again????? I mean even other phones on EDGE drop the data connection allow you to answer the call and after the call finishes resumes or restarts the data download. Is it so hard to do this Apple??? That one negative point is enough to list remove the "Revolutionary" statement from the phone. Having calls directed to voicemail is NOT revolutionary in this day and age. EDGE is a big mistake. If this phone was released on 3G the only prohibiting factor would be its cost, and even with that it would have decimated the competition.

Final thoughts

Even with all its flaws, this is probably the first phone where I can say that I love it rather than like it. Software is limited but done well. It’s very simplistic in its design and that works for me. I wanted an internet enabled device that was light weight and had a good screen size for reading and the iPhone does that exceptionally well, when connected to a wifi connection. When on EDGE some features are still usable… Google Maps works decently and using the Google Reader to view and read feeds works well. Beyond that the limitation of the EDGE network comes in play. The iPod functionality of the device is very well done, and if they ever were able to cram a higher capacity hard disk in there without raising costs the iPhone would be the best convergence device out there.

Third party applications are a limiting factor but the out of box software covers at least 80% of smart phone requirements very well. I’m not a big fan of editing documents or spreadsheets on phones so not having Word Mobile or Excel Mobile is fine with me, but for people who are used to that will definitely not want to get the iPhone. I like the design of the phone so I don’t feel the need to customize it, but for users to love to customize the crap out of their devices, like Jamie, would find this phone very frustrating.

The phone due to its connection limitations isn’t revolutionary but it’s one heck of an evolution. I hope other phone manufacturers take a very long and hard look at the UI design of this phone and take some tips. This is how a convergence device should feel and function. I just hope this spurs the competition to do more innovating stuff than just regurgitate the same software again and again with a just a new look (I’m looking at you WM6).

in reply to My iPhone review (Long Post)

Beta Feedback [Beta Feedback]

NuTcAsE — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 20:13:31 GMT

Here are a couple of points on the c9v4 beta:

1. When entering a non aplha-numeric character in the password boxes, while registering a new account, the auto validators show an error saying "Password must be between 6 and 15 characters". Kinda misleeding as the password is between 6 and 15 characters, only contains non alpha numeric characters such as @ or ! (which are valid password characters btw)

2. Can't create an account, can't even sign in. (Im sure this has been reported more than once)

3. In the media page, the page navigation controls overlap the horizontal line.

4. In the media page click on any archive link and it will show up a message saying "An error occured while trying to load this list"

Couple of suggestions;

First of, the AJAX page navigation on the pages aren't very good as a design choice. First of all when clicking on the next page the page doest scroll back up. Then there is the fact that in the media page the links get refreshed but the images remain the same while the background thread replaces the images one by one. Its not very apparent that the navigation to the next page occured.

I really like the avatar popup that shows up when hovering over a user's link and that would be awesome for the forums I think. If we could get a popup that would just display the first post when hovering over a post's link that would help deciding if it's worth even visting the post.

I'd also suggest having the video player as a floating element and being able to scroll through comments on a video while not loosing sight of the player while playing would be awesome. And then another thing I would add is either an auto comments refresh or a button to refresh the comments. The auto refresh of comments / posts (in case of forums) would really be usefull as my F5 button is kinda getting worn out. The refresh coupled with the floating video player would allow a much better community interaction as while wathing the video we can see comments being added by other users and interact with each other much more seamlessly.

Just thought id give my 2c.

P.S I agree with littleguru and jamie, the site's design is a bit on the not so pleasant side. The browns, though being a very easy on the eyes, isn't something I would choose for a community site. Current C9's design is definately a lot better than the beta.

In anycase thanks for the hard work...

in reply to Beta Feedback

BUG: Home link not working in the oops page [BUG: Home link not working in the oops page]

NuTcAsE — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 19:58:35 GMT

Heres what I did, from the Home Page tried clicking on Forums... got the Opps error and then tried to go to home by clicking on the Home link... no clicky :(

Edit: Actually the home link doesnt work period, even from the home page.

in reply to BUG: Home link not working in the oops page

Microsoft Reveals Zune (Via Engadget) [Microsoft Reveals Zune (Via Engadget)]

NuTcAsE — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 16:54:49 GMT

http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/microsoft-launches-the-zune/

I'm on the fence until they release pricing and availability. Btw... BROWN!!! SERIOUSLY!?!?!?!... The black one looks prety decent, but no where near an iPod. Love the screen size and the wifi capabilities.

As per engadet Zune has its own app for competing with iTunes... Zune Marketplace. Link: http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/zune-marketplace-to-keep-your-zune-player-happy/

Ok, why is this not integrated with WMP 11? WMP11 rocks in terms of music library presentation and searching. I don't get the reason to launch another app for zune! Why can't microsoft's left hand talk with its right??

in reply to Microsoft Reveals Zune (Via Engadget)

New Vista Basic Theme [New Vista Basic Theme]

NuTcAsE — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 20:08:13 GMT

Looks like vista's basic theme has been modified to this ...

Can't say it its better or worse... Read more here: http://blogs.technet.com/windowsvista/archive/2006/07/06/440510.aspx

in reply to New Vista Basic Theme

VS 2005 HELL!!! [VS 2005 HELL!!!]

NuTcAsE — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 15:56:39 GMT

DISCLAIMER: Rant on Visual Studio 2005 (especially VB.Net)

I have to say I am really REALLY disappointed by Visual Studio 2005, especially the VB.Net side of things.

After a long struggle with management to move towards 2.0 and VS 2005, and citing 2005's new and improved features I finally managed to get our dev team on 2005.

Now, things run smoothly with our C# projects, but VB.Net is another issue. The IDE shuts down at least 5 - 10 times in a day and this is not just for one person but the entire dev team. I even had most of our machines upgraded thinking it might be a memory issue but that didn’t help either. The IDE just stops with that stupid Error Reporting dialog for no particular reason. Sometimes it’s while popping intelisense, opening up xml files (not large files at all), and sometimes even while building.

After almost 6 months of delay from the Microsoft one would expect that this version would at least be at par with 2003 and bugs would be kept at a minimum. While working on our C# projects we don’t see the same behavior but when working with VB.Net its worse than Eclipse!! (and i think Eclipse is one of the worse IDE's I’ve ever had the displeasure of working with).

Please VB.Net IDE team if you read this post, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE fix these bugs. Not only are they annoying but its things like these that make us regret the decision of migrating to VS 2005. (God knows how I'm going to explain these issues to management...)

Has anyone else experienced these issues??

- Ritesh

in reply to VS 2005 HELL!!!

Microsoft Max Updated [Microsoft Max Updated]

NuTcAsE — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 15:57:25 GMT

Just wanted to let everyone know that Max was updated yesterday to work with the WinFX Dec CTP. I remember one of Jamie's post about not hearing any updates on Max a while back, so I thought this might be of some interest to some...

Download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=d77d6d7b-d034-44bc-a44a-9e2fceddd906&displaylang=en

PS: For those wondering why Max is not using the Jan / Feb CTP versions of WinFX here is why: http://forums.microsoft.com/Max/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=212978&SiteID=4)

Cheers.

NuTcAsE

in reply to Microsoft Max Updated

Re: Probably for the best [Probably for the best]

NuTcAsE — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 06:14:04 GMT

Please dont quote instances from the Ramayana if you have no idea what that particular shlok says or in what context that was written down. Plus, if you are comparing Beer28 to Ram then all due respect, please get some help.

- Ritesh

shooby wrote:

Hey Beer.

Advice from the ramayana.

"Who really is that person in this present world, who is principled and also a potential one, a conscientious one, a redeemer, and also a truth-teller and self-determined in his deed. Who is he conduct-wise blent with good-conduct... who in respect of all beings is benign... who is adept and also the ablest one... also uniquely good to look to..Who is that courageous one, who controlled his ire, who is brilliant, non-jealous and even whom do the gods fear, when provoked to war..."

Create Beer29 and start again.

I love you too!

xx00

shooby

in reply to Probably for the best

Re: Probably for the best [Probably for the best]

NuTcAsE — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 06:14:04 GMT

For you information I am an Hindu. And to be precise the Ramayana was written in short poetic verses in sanskrit which are commonly known as shloks which are also prayers. The only excption to Hindu mythology is the Mahabharat which is not in shlok form.

The verse that you mentioned in your posts is a prayer to Ram and that is why I said please dont include posts from the Ramayana if you have no idea in which context it has been written in.

And just so that I know... what the heck do you mean "It is insulting to call it shlok"????

- Ritesh

shooby wrote:

NuTcAsE wrote:
Please dont quote instances from the Ramayana if you have no idea what that particular shlok says or in what context that was written down. Plus, if you are comparing Beer28 to Ram then all due respect, please get some help.

- Ritesh

shooby wrote:

Hey Beer.

Advice from the ramayana.

"Who really is that person in this present world, who is principled and also a potential one, a conscientious one, a redeemer, and also a truth-teller and self-determined in his deed. Who is he conduct-wise blent with good-conduct... who in respect of all beings is benign... who is adept and also the ablest one... also uniquely good to look to..Who is that courageous one, who controlled his ire, who is brilliant, non-jealous and even whom do the gods fear, when provoked to war..."

Create Beer29 and start again.

I love you too!

xx00

shooby

I do know that particular shlok and though I'm not Hindu I respect many of the texts, in particular the Ramayana and the Bhagavad Gita -- and its insulting to call it shlok -- there's wisdom there, for those willing to consider it -- perhaps you and many others here also should consider emulating that description.

I love you too!

xx00

shooby

p.s. I dont like this particular translation, but it was the only one I could find on the internet in a pinch.

in reply to Probably for the best

Xbox Live Customer Support Horror Story [Xbox Live Customer Support Horror Story]

NuTcAsE — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 23:03:05 GMT

My bro recently bought an Xbox Live 360 12 month gold membership card for his 360, since his free 1 month Gold membership was about to end, and hoping that he could get some serious online play time during the holidays. But after scratching off the silver part on the backside of the card (which contains the activation code) he found out that there was nothing there… So he called Xbox Live 360 customer support…

He called yesterday and spoke to a customer rep (after holding for 30 minutes) trying to explain to him that we had already talked with the store manager who told us that since the card comes in boxed packaging and they are not responsible for the faulty printing on the card, he suggested we should call Xbox live customer support for help. So we did… After trying to explain the situation to him for another 30 mins, my brother asked to speak to the supervisor.

After another 15 mins of waiting we got hold of a supervisor and after hearing the mess he asked my bro to send in a fax containing a copy of the card (both front and back) and his information. So, today we went to Staples to fax the stuff, and lo and behold the fax no that was given to him was out of service!!! So there we were standing in Staples giving a call to Xbox live customer support again! When we finally got a customer rep, he just wouldn’t give the fax no we should send the details to. He kept us on hold for 25 mins, took all the details again (even after we had a service request no. already in the system), he finally told my brother… “Please try after the holidays as the fax machines are turned off”!!!!! Since when did fax machines go on holiday???!!! And then to add more insult to injury, my brother tries to reason out with him, the rep hangs up on him!!!

We got back home and ended up calling customer support AGAIN and were FINALLY given another fax no to fax the details to.... Lets hope this one works… will find out tomorrow I guess

This has got to be the worst customer support incident we have ever had to deal with… I just wish we get either a replacement card or our money back, cause we’ve easily spent more than that just trying to deal with the customer support people.

in reply to Xbox Live Customer Support Horror Story

Longhorn Server CTP for PDC? [Longhorn Server CTP for PDC?]

NuTcAsE — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 19:53:17 GMT

Mary Jo Foley of Microsoft-Watch reports that Microsoft released First CTP build of Longhorn Server at PDC.... Can any one confirm this?

TIA

Link: http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,2180,1859509,00.asp

in reply to Longhorn Server CTP for PDC?

An interview with Linus Trovalds... [An interview with Linus Trovalds...]

NuTcAsE — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 15:25:37 GMT

http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/2005/06/an_interview_wi.html#more

An interesting read on how open source views Microsoft.

in reply to An interview with Linus Trovalds...

SQL Server 2005 June CTP [SQL Server 2005 June CTP]

NuTcAsE — Thu, 09 Jun 2005 14:43:02 GMT

Does any one know if the June CTP version of SQL Server 2005 is compatible with Visual Studio Team System Beta 2???

You can download the various versions at http://www.microsoft.com/sql/2005/productinfo/ctp.mspx .

BTW... MS is doing a good job making this release public. First time I've seen a public beta version Enterprise and Developer SQL Server editions for download by the public. Before it was only those with MSDN subscriptions or Beta testers who get to test out these editions. +1 points to MS in my books :)

in reply to SQL Server 2005 June CTP

Hotmail Fighting Junk Mail : Hello MSN Postmaster [Hotmail Fighting Junk Mail : Hello MSN Postmaster]

NuTcAsE — Thu, 26 May 2005 16:37:18 GMT

http://postmaster.msn.com/cgi-bin/dasp/postmaster.asp

<quote>This site has been developed to give bulk e-mailers/senders, ISPs, e-mail service providers (ESPs), postmasters, and domain administrators a location to learn more about issues and solutions related to sending communications to MSN Hotmail consumers.</quote>

Nice!

[Edit]
Via Neowin.net

in reply to Hotmail Fighting Junk Mail : Hello MSN Postmaster

Xbox is for suckers [Xbox is for suckers]

NuTcAsE — Thu, 26 May 2005 14:37:50 GMT

http://poptech.blogspot.com/2005/05/...

Who allows people like this guy to post blogs??? Reading his post clearly labels him as a Sony fanboy. I am a serious gamer too, have been since I was 8, had all the old Sega and Nintendo consoles, PS1, PS2 and also an XBox.

All systems have their advantage. But to go as far as saying the PS3 controller as sleek... this guy must be seriously smoking something. The controller is so wrong in so many ways... First it looks like something out a Startrek movie, second the Shoulder buttons are way up the top making it hard for your index fingers to reach. The Analog sticks are also place in awkward positions. I'm not saying that Xbox360 has the best controller around, but it sure heck is better than this sci-fi crap PS3 has got.

The worst part in this guy's post comes when he takes a shot at Xbox Live. Man, has he even used Live??? I love my PS2, no doubt its an awesome machine, but the only reason I bought an XBox is cause of Live. And making a statement that Xbox Live should be free is even more idiotic. What does this guy expect free services? Yeah your already paying for the console and the games, but a unified live service is not something that exists even for PC games. I mean you have live services for PC games (Everquest, World of Warcraft, etc…) but they are not unified in anyway. Xbox live is revolutionary in so many ways, tell me one live service that allows gamers to play all their PC games on. And from what was said at E3 and so many articles, it was hinted that Xbox live would be coming to PC games too, so that you can play an PC title on your gaming PC and connect to another through Live to a guy playing on the Xbox. Now that is what I call a step forward! I’d be happy to pay a monthly service to be able to do that.

Sony’s live was a joke, and I don’t have enough information on PS3’s Live to make a statement about it. And what he forgets is, that the Pay model for updates and games is not MS’s or Xbox’s decision, it’s the game publisher’s decision. Some will ask for money for updates and demos, and some won’t. If you have a gripe with that take it up with the game publishers

Id leave a comment on his blog, but blogger forces me to register with them to leave a comment, which I don’t want to. (Whats up with that anyway, why do I have to create a blog on blogger to leave comments

in reply to Xbox is for suckers

C# is not needed anymore.... [C# is not needed anymore....]

NuTcAsE — Wed, 25 May 2005 19:48:59 GMT

http://grumpyoldprogrammer.myblogsite.com...

Interesting viewpoint. Me, id happily jump off a cliff before I go back to C++... just my $.02

in reply to C# is not needed anymore....

Avalon and Indigo SDK [Avalon and Indigo SDK]

NuTcAsE — Mon, 23 May 2005 15:50:26 GMT

Dunno if any one else posted this or not... but heres the ISO images to Avalon and Indigo Beta 1 RC1 SDK.

SDK & Redist.

EDIT:
Links fixed. Any one try these out yet?

in reply to Avalon and Indigo SDK

Movie Trailer... or something else??? [Movie Trailer... or something else???]

NuTcAsE — Mon, 23 May 2005 02:09:46 GMT

I saw an ad of this on TV and went to thier site...

http://www.theringingmovie.com/movie.shtml

Until the end I thought I was watching a movie trailer!! Anyways, good marketing though...

in reply to Movie Trailer... or something else???

Good article on SOA [Good article on SOA]

NuTcAsE — Tue, 10 May 2005 18:14:42 GMT

http://www.from9till2.com/PermaLink.aspx?guid=2354684e-5c70-4e69-b711-5097be3b57af.

It would really help if the relationship between Indigo and SOA was better cleared up. I keep hearing from colleagues Indigo is SOA and SOA is indigo, and its getting harder to explain that SOA is just a concept not a technology...

Anywho, good article though.

in reply to Good article on SOA

Xbox360 Final Design [Xbox360 Final Design]

NuTcAsE — Sat, 07 May 2005 23:25:33 GMT

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000490042605/

Can any one confirm whether this is the real deal?? I certainly hope this isnt the final color of the console if it is

in reply to Xbox360 Final Design