bluHatter

Sprint. The new Sony.

Sony hates you

PSP Blue Screen of Death Sony hates you. I know. Big surprise… considering that every single thing they’ve done lately has pointed this out with resounding clarity. But why bring it up now? Must we remember over and over just how much we - the hapless consumers - are despised? Yes, we must. Because people need to know who they’re dealing with.Like when a more creative or inquisitive mind decides to purchase a PSP. It looks like fun. The hardware is really quite powerful for such a small device… But what can I do with it besides play Sony games and watch Sony movies? If Sony gets its way, absolutely nothing.

Here’s a quick and dirty history of the PSP…

1. PSP Launched. Yay! Homebrew software beginning development at the word “go”.

2. Sony decides that they should have the exclusive say in what its customers decide to do with the hardware that THEY purchased with their OWN money. Firmware updates cascade down to countless unfortunate PSP users. The “upgrades” contain no new features, but only contain “security fixes” which simply limit what people can do with their own hardware.

3. Noobz figure out how to downgrade to earlier firmware versions in order to use their own applications and games. The capabilities and potential for the PSP hardware seems limitless. People use it to boot Windows 98, Linux, and even run console emulators (imagine Ocarina of Time on PSP!)

4. Sony releases FW 1.51 to curtail these efforts. NO means NO!

5. Crackers get past

6. Sony releases a new FW version to stop these efforts. NO! We will tell you what you want to play!

7. This back and forth continues all the way up to 3.5.

8. I buy a PSP. It is firmware 3.52. No current downgraders available. Sony wins.

“The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.” - Leia

Yes, I had to quote Star Wars… because Sony is like a giant Death Star hovering above what it deems to be an entire planet at its mercy. Countless times now, this has been Sony’s unfortunate attitude towards its customers. They hate creative consumers. They hate it when people use Sony hardware for anything that doesn’t include buying more Sony products… And it’s really shooting themselves in the foot.

Can you imagine a world where Sony PSPs were homebrew compatible right out of the box? Can you imagine if everyone knew that buying a PSP would be like getting a mini every-console-in-one device small enough to fit in your pocket? Every gamer in the UNIVERSE would NEED one! The demand would be higher than that of the Wii! So this begs the question…

Why, Sony? Why do you hate us so much?

Oh and by the way… PSP games and movies come in little UMD cartridges. UMD stands for “Universal Media Disc”. UMDs are proprietary and only work in the Sony PSP. Apparently “Universal” to Sony means it works in Sony. And Sony is the Universe. Sony > World.

Why (almost) all HOWTO guides suck

duh I love how 99% of all HOWTO guide authors all neglect the reason they are writing a HOWTO guide in the first place. I have been trying to get my wireless network working correctly in Ubuntu’s new distro Feisty all day today (even though everybody else I’ve talked to seems to get it working “out of the box”). This means that I’ve been making about 15-30 google queries per minute (gqpm?) trying to find out if anybody else has been having similar problems and whether or not they’ve solved it. Turns out a few have. And they’ve written HOWTO guides to help.

However, in every one of them so far, step 1 is something like, “apt-get ndiswrapper-utils” … or “download the win98 drivers for the F5D7000 and extract to…” etc. I would love to know why the hell they think this kind of crap is helpful? How to get on the Internet… Step 1… download x package. Then get on the Internet. Simple!

Let me help enlighten a few people… apt-get requires the Internet. Downloading drivers requires the Internet. So if you’re writing a HOWTO guide about how to get on the Internet, DON’T ASSUME PEOPLE HAVE ACCESS TO THE INTERNET!!

StarTech.com Video Game Jockey Review

Ever wish you could play Playstation 2 (and Gamecube, or whatever) games on your computer monitor? Well I did. I wished so hard that I actually searched long enough to find this little gadget from Startech.com … Priced at $105.99 ($50 something if you buy through a vendor and not direct), I figured it couldn’t be too bad a device. And all the reviews I read were positive.

The idea is simple. Plug your gaming console and monitor into the Video Game Jockey, run an (included) monitor cable from the jockey to your computer (for a video pass through) and you can switch easily between your computer input and your console input.

Simple! Right? Well… As has been my unfortunate experience with all VGA splitting technology, the quality and signal protection pretty much sucks. In PC input mode, for example, there is a huge shadow on all images (looks like the demo monitors they show off in Best Buy). I half suspect the shadow effect to be a result of simply a low quality video cable that came packaged with the product. I have yet to test this theory, but the fact that there are no signal shields on either end of the wire kind of put me off. Even if the cable is only two feet long, it should have good signal protection.

In game mode, the performance is not much better. Though my monitor attempts to auto calibrate to compensate, the picture still floats way off to the right side of the screen, cutting off a good 2 inches from the game’s display even after I’ve manually moved the picture as far to the left as it will go. There’s even an option on the Jockey to float the image one way or another but changing that value doesn’t seem to make any difference whatsoever. It’s not a functional feature apparently. I’ll note here that I’m using this on a 19″ widescreen Samsung LCD SyncMaster 906bw. Your results may vary.

Picture quality of the game looked pretty much like a crappy tube TV, even though a monitor should be able to handle a much clearer picture. No effort was made by the jockey to output a descent quality picture. And no options are available for improving the picture (besides a device driven “brightness” mode).

Sound output, unfortunately, has no volume control whatsoever. They state in the manual that you’re supposed to connect the output to your PC’s sound card (even though the device is only supposed to interact with your monitor directly and nothing else), but doing so does not serve any foreseeable purpose as you still cannot hear the sound. Plugging the sound directly into headphones will produce a high pitched buzzing which will almost certainly melt your brain on most headphones. Even $300 Bose headphones have a hard time outputting anything worthwhile. The sound quality is so horrible (and loud) that it’s unbearable. Plan on using PC speakers with built in volume control and a headphone jack with this device.

Overall, I still think this is a cool idea, and will probably manage to cook up a home brewed solution to make this a workable solution to playing console games in my room, but out of the box, this is not a very well executed device. I just wish that - for once - a video splitting “box” type device would use proper shielding!!

University of Michigan Spying on its Own Students

This shouldn’t be very notable news to those of us who’ve been watching the Bush Effect sweep the nation ever since news of his domestic spying program broke. The latest trend is to spy first, ask questions later. No wait, no questions… just throw you in jail. Do not pass go, do not collect, etc etc.

Not notable news, but highly upsetting. I won’t reveal my sources, but it’s an inside source. It’s about time the students have some sort of warning about what’s going on, before they fall into the same traps that some already have.

The Ann Arbor campus (possibly others) has been tracking torrent downloads by IP on campus. When they obtain the IP address, ITS can track this to the MAC address of the individual laptop used on campus networks. All MAC addresses are pre-entered into the network’s database, associated with a student’s unique name (personal identifier). This information gets sent directly to authorities and people get busted.

As of now I only know of one person (for sure) who was arrested for downloading allegedly “illegal” software via torrent files on the University of Michigan network.

This is not only a warning for those of you who happen to be downloading software, but also those of you who have been accessing ANYTHING on the University’s network. Just be aware that they DO keep logs and they ARE in bed with the authorities and have no qualms about sending the cops after its own students.

My argument is NOT for or against the downloading of illegal software. My concern is simply that this “domestic spying” is taking place at all. Students are now being spied on by their own University. What the hell’s going on here? Have we forgotten EVERYTHING about freedom?

Hey U of M - STOP SPYING ON YOUR OWN STUDENTS!

Sony Out of Touch with Gamers?

Wow, what a surprise! You mean gamers would rather have good (read: affordable) gameplay than to have a mainframe beast of a system (bigger than 360) that no current code can even take advantage of yet? Oh, but that’s not even what I’m talking about…

I am, of course, speaking of this THIS disgusting insult Sony has unleashed on the Internet. In an attempt to fake excitement about its PSP, rather than let the games do the talking, Sony created a fake blog - run by Sony - wherein two fake gamers decided to talk about nothing but trying to get a PSP for Christmas.

So what does Sony think of its player base? Not much. They apparently don’t think that the bright ones among us will figure their ploy out. On top of that, their portrayal of their customers was about as realistic as … well… watching a commercial.

Good day, Sony. You’ve really #$@ed up this time.

48 Gamers

I recently had the enjoyment of watching the UK-based 48 Gamers do a live broadcast for 48 hours straight. No, I didn’t sit through all of it… I actually went to sleep twice and they were STILL playing. The game? Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

In said time, Craig Towle (owner of WiFi Buddies) competed against Brett Seeney for the first place prize. Craig won when Brett threw in the towel prior to the 48 hours… Craig even went on to finish the entire game, unlocking everything (wow!).

Of course this directed hundreds of hits to their now-populated website, and quite a few people registered and are looking forward to the next event.

Anybody think igogg might be interested in doing something similar? Or are we so lame that we go to sleep now after 5 hours of gaming? (snoooze)… I remember when we’d stay up all night and into the morning at LAN parties. Only the weak among us would be dreaming by sunrise.

Now we don’t even get together for LAN parties… Come on gamers… stop being lame!

Wii or PS3?

It’s difficult to ignore the release of the latest two consoles, whether or not you’re a console gamer. It’s been all over the news.

So with all the competition between these two latest entries in the console market, which one takes the cake? ~ or in this case, our money ~

Let’s go with our first instinct as informal geeks (yes, it’s still in the title) and look at specs… To spare you the gory details, I’ll suggest simply googling the exact specs. They’re out there in extreme detail. In fact, some devoted fans have even taken them apart (click here too). The notable differences between the two systems are the obvious differences in processing power (PS3 is a monster), and PS3’s blu-ray support as opposed to Nintendo’s slot-loading generic (proprietary) drive. Not to mention that they’re about as different as a big shiny behemoth and a tiny little brick can be.

Wii, as is usually the case with Nintendo, has the advantage of having much better Launch Titles. PS3 put out a shovel full of crap with maybe one or two worthwhile titles (at best).

In fact, if you’re a gamer, you may not want to buy either system right now… because guess which system just came into its prime? Playstation 2! After a long dry spell, PS2 fans are finally being treated to some of the best games on the market. Remember, it takes programmers a long time to get used to new technology. If you want gameplay, stick with the PS2 or Wii (with Twilight Princess, which promises to be one of the greats). I know that’s what I plan to do.

Oh, and if you expected me to mention x-box…….. no.

bluHatter

Sprint. The new Sony.

Sony hates you

Why (almost) all HOWTO guides suck

StarTech.com Video Game Jockey Review

University of Michigan Spying on its Own Students

Sony Out of Touch with Gamers?

48 Gamers

Wii or PS3?

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