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Monthly Archives: January 2010

Writing’s On The Wall

I want to write this now, so that in the hour and a bit before the event happen I can either be proven wrong or laugh at everyone saying “I told you so!”.

People don’t seem to be looking at a lot of the inherent problems that existed with tablets before, and that the Apple tablet won’t (or won’t necessarily) fix with their attempt at the market.  in my mind, the whole concept of tablet computing is still fundamentally flawed, especially considering that both smartphones and laptops are so prevalent these days

  1. How are you going to carry this thing around?  It will essentially be the same size as a laptop, but with debatably less functionality.  Really, you’ll still most likely be transporting this thing around the same way as you would a regular laptop.
  2. Input on the device is awkward.  I can’t see Apple doing a stylus for text recognition after they essentially described the stylus as a failure.  That said, an on-screen keyboard would be awkward, as to type with any kind of speed you’ll need to be resting the device on a table or your lap.  If they want to succeed to iPhone-esque proportions, they’ll need to have an entirely innovative input method.
  3. As I see it, the tablet device doesn’t fit well in the ecosystem of computing.  It’s more than a smartphone, and less than a laptop.  I know I’ve seen a lot of articles saying that the device should compliment the smartphone/laptop to work,  but I honestly think that if they want to show this as the next generation of computing, they need to have the device do everything a laptop can and more and market it as a laptop replacement (Or at the very least a netbook replacement).
  4. Price needs to be comparable to whatever market they want to compete in.  If they want to market it as a laptop replacement, then around the $1000 mark.  For netbooks, I’d say around $600.  If not, it’ll simply become a luxury item.  It’ll be interesting to see if it’ll connect to phone networks, as then it’d be a contracted device and deals would happen if you lock in on a contract.
  5. Storage.  If they’re using flash, I can’t see it having more than 64GB in order to keep the price competitive.  If it’s a hard drive, the device will certainly be a lot larger and considerably less portable.

Regardless, I am interested to see what happens with this.  Despite my annoyance with the constant, unnecessary press of the item, they do have a chance to do something really well and push computing to a new level.  Time will tell, I suppose.

Just Zeroes and Ones

So, thanks to a fun little incident this week, I’ve  decided to attempt to learn how to do some basic coding.  Long story short, I was trying to edit some pre-existing code for a plugin on a game server I run, and after telling a few people I know I was doing that, I got a response from someone telling me “It’s a dead end.  You will fail!”.  That was then followed thirty seconds later by me succeeding and getting a good chuckle out of the matter.

I’m not going to lie, it didn’t take much skill to do it.  Yes, I probably didn’t do it in a way that was up to standards,  but I managed to cut/copy/delete/paste the right things and get it to work.  Point was, the thrill of being able to succeed in the face of adversity gave me a good feeling.  It did take a bit of time to get it to actually compile and load properly, but the second you load it on and you see it start to work, it was a great feeling.

But why actually take up and learn properly?  I’ve realized that I’m a fan of being the “jack-of-all-trades” kind of guy, not just for the personal versatility that I get from having knowledge in a lot of categories, but because I’m the kind of person who enjoys learning new things and taking on new challenges.  My previous job, while I was working in the same company for almost three years, I was constantly changing positions and even changing location once.  That was what had kept me enjoying the job.  With my new job, I have to worry about various different aspects, ranging from computer software to computer hardware, from electronics to regular handyman related things.  I think that’s what makes this job so great for me – I’m never doing the same thing and always learning something new.

That kind of philosophy is something I need to start putting into my hobbies.  I had been doing some basic image manipulation recently, and while I never learned anything major it was a nice change from writing.  And plus, since coding is essentially just a form of writing, I should enjoy it, right?

Buried Alive

I got a good laugh yesterday and today while listening to an episode of Windows Weekly.  Paul Thurott seemed to think that PC gaming is essentially dead, and has been spiraling downhill for years.  His biggest argument to support it?  The fact that Infinity Ward didn’t ship dedicated servers with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, as if the PC gamer population was big enough they would have changed their mind and 180-ed on it.

I guess this just proves that Mark was right – this guy is a total knob.

I’ve said this a couple of times before and will happily say it again, but PC gaming was dying…..until Steam came alone.  Steam took a relatively dying and dare I say underground market and took it mainstream – especially when it came to online gaming.  Before that, there were things like X-fire, but they really didn’t work that well.  Adding friends was relatively messy in the fact that you needed to know their IDs by contacting them in game, and the interface was ugly.  I’d also consider Steam to be one of the pioneers of cloud computing/digital distribution…at least to some degree.  Not having to keep track of discs to install is such an incredible godsend words cannot describe.  Hell, I wouldn’t have my hundred and some games on Steam is I had to keep track of my discs.

Still, the biggest thing that Steam has done is giving independent game developers a place to let their games shine.  Audiosurf seemed to start that trend – hell, a game that was made by an new developer that had no real hype or anything like that was the #1 selling game on Steam for a few weeks in a row, even beating out The Orange Box that had been released only a few months back.  Without a distribution channel like that, they would have never sold as much as they did.

Even taking Steam out of the equation, even Games for Windows Live has done good things – by giving PC gamers a chance to play console games on the computer.  Most of the time, they are direct ports and are played with a controller, but they’re usually great for playing.  I own an XBOX360 wireless controller for Windows, and it’s great for playing games like Grand Theft Auto IV, Street Fighter IV, and even Mirror’s Edge.

Plus, once you add casual games into the mix, it’s giving first time gamers a chance to experience the joys of “interactive entertainment”.  To quote on my my favourite game reviewers, Popcap Games is making “an embarassing amount of money” making simple, easy to understand yet highly addictive games.  One could even talk about Facebook games too – I however choose not too since those people are just kidding themselves.

To say that PC gaming is dying is just pure ignorance.  It’s easily the most versatile gaming platform out there, and it will continue to go on and, most likely, increase in numbers as time and opportunities arise for it.  Get your head out of you ass.