Virtual Awkward Silence

The next time someone sends you an email, expecting a response, and it contains something you wholeheartedly disagree with or possibly just don’t have a direct answer to, respond to it with a blank email.  It will create a Virtual Awkward Silence (VAS). 

A VAS is a very effective way to point out to someone that the opinionated drivel in their email left you unable to speak for fear of saying something worse or offensive.  It says to them, “I want my email client to send a message across the Internet through some servers and eventually to your email client… but I don’t want that message to be verbalized.” 

A permanent record of the ensuing awkwardness will sit in the recipient’s Inbox until he/she deems it time to delete the VAS email.  Thus, it will potentially last even longer than a true Awkward Silence!  Use this power carefully.

Grand Theft Auto IV

The game was released at midnight last night.  Why are you reading this and not playing it?  Why am I writing this and not playing it???

MS Expression Blend 2 beta is out!

Anyone interested in the new version of Microsoft Silverlight, the new-on-the-streets competitor to Adobe/Macromedia Flash, should check out the Expression Blend 2 beta!  Silverlight is slowly starting to catch on and has been able to accomplish at least one majorly awesome thing:  it runs .Net code (C# or VB.Net) in the browser on operating systems other than just Windows.  The Mac OS and multiple flavors of Linux are now running .Net code through the silverlight browser plugin!  Take that, ActionScript!

My Personal Mania for Trackmania

Over the weekend I was feeling the need for a new video game, specifically for the PC.  It was that persistent, nagging feeling of a chasm opening deep inside my soul whose void could only be filled with interactive entertainment via a keyboard.

After having recently read about Trackmania on one of my favorite gaming sites, Shacknews, I decided to give it a shot.  Its a series of racing games that center around online competition and track design.  This reminded me of the old Stunts game by Broderbund that I used to play in DOS back in the early-to-mid ’90’s. 

Two titles in the series, Trackmania Nations and Trackmania Nations Forever, are completely free to download and play by anyone anywhere any time.  The system requirements are minimal and the game runs beautifully on my 1.5 year old PC at home. 

Download this game and give a spin if you have the time.  It is truly enjoyable and addicting.  I find myself replaying levels I’ve already completed 4 or 5 more times before moving on to the next, simply because it is that much fun.  This is something I haven’t be able to say about a game since possibly Super Mario Bros. 3, and I can’t think of many greater compliments than that.

Optimize your Windows XP boot process with Bootvis

Over the weekend I came across this handy program called Bootvis.  It analyzes your system’s boot process showing you all kinds of cool stuff about CPU and hdd performance, then lets you optimize the boot process.  It automatically makes some registry edits and fine tunes boot file locations on your primary active partition, then reboots for you and and lets you watch your new and improved Windows XP boot up.

Not sure if this works on Vista, or if there is an equivalent.  Yet.

Enjoy!

LG Has One of the Best Warranties Ever

Just over 3 weeks ago, a day before I was leaving town for the weekend, my 19″ widescreen LCD monitor made by LG suddently decided that all of its pixels should be white.  Pure, bright white.  Switching to analog cable versus DVI didn’t help.  Switching power cables and even the computer it was connected to didn’t change anything.  I was stuck with extreme whiteness no matter what I did.

The monitor was a birthday gift from my parents over 15 months ago.  They didn’t have the receipt any longer and I don’t blame them one bit for chucking it out.  Returning it to Best Buy was out of the question.

A coworker suggested that I look around on LG’s website for any warranty information.  I was sure this was not going to pan out, but lo and behold, LG backs all of their LCD monitors with a 3 year parts and labor warranty.  Holy Crap.

It took about 5 minutes on the phone with one of their service reps for him to set up the process to swap out my monitor.  I was supposed to have included proof of purchase with the defunct monitor, but since I didn’t have it, I just shipped it without mentioning anything to LG about it.  Two weeks later, my new monitor was being delivered by DHL. 

So it may be a point of contention that LG’s monitor died after only 15 months of use, but then again I have a newer model 19″ LCD on my desk now and I didn’t have to pay for it (or its shipping) and I didn’t even have to dig up an old wrinkled receipt.

 

Online Color Wheel

As a developer of the World Wide Web, its handy for us non-artist types to have access to a color wheel when designing a new page, layout, site, cubicle, guinea-pig cage, etc. 

Colors On The Web is a wonderful such tool that I have been using on a site I’m working on and I wanted to bookmark it here for myself and others to enjoy.

Free browser-based games that blow my mind.

In the past year, there have been an increasing number of efforts to either bring hardcore (non-casual) gamers to the web browser, or to bring casual gamers closer to the hardcore.  The effect is the same regardless of the approach:  cool games that can be played for little to nothing in short bursts of time.

The first of these that I’ve played has blown my mind and I’m addicted.  It is called Off Road Velociraptor Safari, developed by the guys at FlashBang Studios and it is absolutely wonderful.  You play the role of a crazed, homocidal velociraptor in a jeep that runs down other velociraptors, then using a giant chain with a spiked ball on the end you drag their carcasses into a teleporter beam to “export” them for points.  You can also do many different stunts and collect shiny orbs for points.  This is gaming at its pinnacle.

Another site, InstantAction, created by the inventors of the original Starseige: Tribes games, is releasing many online multiplayer games, one of which is titled Fallen Empires: Legion and is the spiritual Tribes 4.  Can’t wait.

Lastly, QuakeLive is an effort to release Quake 3 as a free browser-based game.  I can’t wait.  Can’t freakin’ wait.

PowerGUI Rocks

For any IT people interested in scripting administrative tasks with something more robust than the old Windows Script Host (WSH) and Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) technologies (which are still cool btw), Microsoft has unveiled PowerShell.  Its quickly ramping up from a status of “trendy new cool technology” to a status of “we can’t hire you unless you know this.” 

As an example, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 requires that you perform certain tasks through PowerShell scripting rather than using some Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in.  This is fine for advanced admins who don’t mind the occasional VBScript or for developers who find themselves in the role of administrator periodically, but for the average system admin, or possibly the above-average system admin who just doesn’t have time, Quest has released some coolness.

Said coolness comes in the form of the free-to-use software PowerGUI .  Its a wonderful little app that first presents itself as a browser for PowerShell functionality, and after a good perusing shows itself as a fleshed out IDE (Integrated Development Environment) complete with Intellisense. 

Download and enjoy!  Write scripts to annoy your coworkers!  Find ways to automate your system to simulate your presence at work while you play Wii at home!

The liberation has begun.

This is the first of what could possibly be a series of tech, gaming, and other news of such coolness.  This post’s purpose is more for testing and expirimentation than actual conveying of information, so please disregard it.  Thanks!