Raph mentioned a game called Dofus in one of his posts. I’d never heard of it, so I checked it out. The artwork is great and the client is in Flash, which is a great concept. I haven’t played, but I might check out the free account if I get really bored.
Speaking of jumping on the bandwagon, I thought I’d comment on the rumored Apple iPhone. This concept of an iPhone looks very nice. Unfortunately, it’s not very practical. Everybody thinks it’ll be just like the current iPod with a few extra phone features and, perhaps, a few new media features (landscape orientation, etc). While that’s all good, I sure hope that Apple doesn’t do that.
Why? Well, I have a TMobile SDA. It’s a decent phone. I got it for practically nothing after rebates. It’s fairly sturdy, has Bluetooth, and synchronizes with Outlook. That fulfills my needs in a phone. What’s more, it has WiFi, AIM, a web browser, and a camera. I use those very rarely. It can also play music and videos. I have only tried that once when trying to stream via Orb. It just doesn’t make sense as a media device, though. As a phone, it’s just fine. One complaint I have is that when I hold it to my head, the screen gets dirty. I haven’t had a phone that fixes that yet, though…and I don’t think Apple will solve that problem. So, what if you held your media player up to your head? That’s right, it would get the screen dirty. On a phone, it’s not too big of a problem. You only use it once in a while when dialing or checking who’s calling. On a media player, though, the screen is the lifeblood. You can’t get it dirty. You can’t clean it for fear of scratching it. That’s why the design above wouldn’t work. It looks pretty and clean, but it’s not practical.
What is practical for such a device? Well, an indestructible screen, for one. A locking mechanism for the controls (like the Hold switch). A large capacity drive.
So, what will the iPhone be like? It will be a music-only device because the screen won’t be viable for video. It will be a flash-based device because hard drives will be too large and bulky. It will, basically, be a Nano with phone capabilities and perhaps even some phone keys (unless they have a good scheme for numeric/text input with the scroll wheel). Pretty? Sure. Replace my 60GB iPod and my phone? Nope.
- SnapStream is releasing a new version of their BeyondTV PVR application tomorrow. Bug fixes and “one significant new feature” are to be included. The new feature might be the Columbus community project thing that they’ve been working on. I’m not so excited. After the headaches I had trying to get it working the first time, updating is the last thing I really want to do now that it actually IS working.
- TiVo has a new deal: 80-hour box for free w/ subscription. I’m very tempted to get one (or two), especially now. They also announced TiVo-to-TiVo sharing (one of the best features from ReplayTV) and PC-to-TiVo streaming. Both are features I need. You can also (for a small fee) upload your videos to a website and other TiVo users can subscribe to it like a channel. This is perfect for sharing those home videos of your newborn baby. Plus, there’s the whole TiVo-to-go thing where you can put your videos on an iPod. This deal looks sweeter and sweeter each day.
- Google Reader has become my official news reader. Being online, I don’t have to worry about installing any application. Plus, the format is very clean, especially with the Google Reader Optimizer script for Greasemonkey. If you aren’t using Firefox, you are missing out on a completely different web-browsing experience. The AdBlock extension keeps banner ads, Flash ads, and Google ads out of your face. The BugMeNot extension gets you around pesky required usernames (such as WSJ and Dallas Morning News articles). The Google Browser Sync extension allows you to synchronize your bookmarks, cookies, and passwords across multiple browsers. IETab allows you to render the web page in IE if you need to (i.e. <1% of the time). Greasemonkey lets you install JavaScript that can rearrange a web page, stripping more ads, unnecessary menus, other JavaScript, etc. Plus, spyware and viruses are much more difficult to get in Firefox. For a (nearly) risk-free trial of Firefox, I suggest you get the Zip file for Firefox from PortableApps. You simply unzip the files into a folder and run the Exe. No install, plus all of your settings are stored within the folder, which makes it perfect for placing on a USB key. Enough gushing.
- Poor Star Wars Galaxies is releasing a new version, “The Complete Experience”. It includes all expansion packs to-date and a horde of “making of”-type content. That game was so ambitious. I enjoyed the original implementation, just wish there was more content. After I left (just before the dreaded Combat Update), things really went downhill. The continuity was mangled by adding content from the prequels, and the game system was eventually completely reworked to compete with WoW. It would be nice to see them release a new version that reverts to the original system and include the expansions. I’d probably play again if it were that way. More content, same skill system. Sometimes jumping on the bandwagon is just a bad move.
- I still want an XBox 360 (for Oblivion, Arcade Contra, and now Gears of War), but I also want a Wii. I have faith that Nintendo will start releasing more classic 3rd-party titles, eventually offering their entire library of classic games. Contra, Commando, Bionic Commando, Metroid (NES & SNES), Star Fox (SNES & 64), Mortal Kombat (SNES), Mario Kart (SNES & 64), etc. were all great games that I want to play. I need to run more CAT-5 to the living room and get a larger router 
