Xbox Live's Major Nelson : Random

A quick trip to Akihabara

Major Nelson — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:07:31 GMT

I had a little spare time today, so I went with Albert from the LIVE team (who has been on my show in the past) over to Akihabara, also known as ‘Electric Town.’ While Albert was looking for vintage Japanese action figures, I was taking photos of the amusing gadgets I came across. I have uploaded some to my Flickr if you want a small taste of what you may find in the tiny shops around this section of Tokyo.

e is a PC

Major Nelson — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:01:41 GMT

If you listened to my show last week, you know that e is working on building a PC. (Yes, e is a PC.) While LIVE is still being worked on, I thought I’d post his list for you to take a look at and give him your opinion.

A few explanatory notes:

This will be primarily a gaming PC but will also be used for other tasks as well. It doesn't need to be the fastest possible as I like the bang-for-the-buck available if you're not quite bleeding-edge.
It'll be hooked up to the big TV in my living room. It doesn't need to be silent since the room also contains a DVR, dogs, cats, etc. - but it can't be unusually loud.
I don't want or need RAID - everything will get backed up to my WHS.

Motherboard: Asus P5E3 Deluxe/WiFi AP

CPU: Intel Core2 Quad Q9400

RAM: 4GB DDR3-1333

Video: Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 512MB

HD: WD Caviar Black 1TB

Case: Antec Fusion Remote Max

PS: Enermax Pro82+

Your thoughts? Post here or drop a mail to e@xbox.com

I am playing the Fable II Pub Games...but I have a little problem

Major Nelson — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 04:38:42 GMT

Out of the three pub games, which is your favorite? I’ve run into a very unique situation. I left the game on in my office at home, and I came back in an hour later to find my wife playing the games. Now, she’s not a gamer unless I put the controller in her hand, so this was a bit surprising. What happened next was even more surprising.

Here is how the conversation went:

Me: Hi..what are you doing?
Her (staring at the screen playing Keystone): (no answer)

Me: Hello? What are you doing?
Her: Playing

Me: Why?
Her: I saw these games, and they looked interesting. I’m not very good at them though.

At this point, I am a bit panicked, since the gold you win (or lose) will transfer to Fable II

Me (getting nervous): Umm…are you winning?
Her: No. I think I’ve lost about 3000. 3000 things.

Me (getting more nervous): What do you mean things?

Her: I don’t know…is this Dollars? Cents? Euros?
Me: It’s Gold.
Her: Ok. Gold. (Switches to Fortune’s Tower)

At this point I am trying to get the controller away from her.

Me: Why don’t you let me play?
Her: I like these games. I’m not very good….but they’re fun.

Me: Well, we have a little problem.
Her: What?

Me: Well, you know that game you liked on the original Xbox? Fable?
Her: The one where you could kick chickens? This music reminds me of that one.

Me: Well this game should remind you of that one since these games are from the sequel coming out this fall called Fable II.
Her (now 3400 in debt): Are you going to play it?

Me : Well. That’s where we have a problem.
Her: What’s the problem?

Me: Well, any gold you win in the game you can transfer to the game when it comes out.
Her: Cool. (pause)

Her: Wait. (now playing Spinnerbox) What about the gold you lose?
Me: You mean the gold YOU lost?

Her: Yea. the gold we lost?
Me: No…you lost.

Her: Yea, the gold we lost.
Me (sigh): Yes, the gold you lost. That’s where we have the problem. I’ll now start Fable II in debt. As in poor. As in owing money.

Her (turning to look at me for the first time since I walked in): Wow. That sucks. (she put the controller down and walks out of the room)
Her: I hope you can pay off that debt before the game comes out. I am going out, see you later.

All totaled, as I post this, I am about 3650 in debt. I have some work to before the game releases in October. So if you have any Pub Game tips feel free to post them in the comments.

Oh, and don’t leave your Gamertag signed in to Xbox LIVE playing the Fable Pub Games, as you may suffer the same fate I have.

Flying the UltraCam (or how Virtual Earth gets those images)

Major Nelson — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:52:36 GMT

Behind The Maps - Flying the UltraCam

Mark Brown on the Virtual Earth team has an interesting post and video (above) that give you a behind the scenes look at the UltraCam and the process involved in getting those high resolution images (Bird’s Eye View) that are used in Virtual Earth. If you are a geek who likes maps (like me) you may enjoy this.

Update: If you don’t want to install Silverlight to see the video, here are versions in other flavors:

iPod (MP4)
Zune
PSP
WMV

Must have mobile ring tones

Major Nelson — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 03:09:22 GMT

If you listed to my show yesterday, you heard me play the ring tones and alerts I use on my Treo 800w and Motrola Q 9. I am always looking for good ring / text alert tones, so I was interested when Maximum PC posted their 20 Must-Have Geek Ringtones and Text Message Alerts (And 10 to Avoid!) article...complete with links to media files for download.
My personal criteria for a mobile phone tone is that it must be quick, clean audio that contains no voice or music. Generally, a nice sound effect or what we used to call in radio an audio stab. Got any good ones I may have missed (yes, I already have the ones I have posted on my site.)

Head over to Maximum PC and give their suggestions a listen...and tell me what you're using for ring tones (with links if you have them.)

Holiday Weekend update

Major Nelson — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 05:56:00 GMT

With the E3 Media and Business Summit just around the corner, and the long holiday weekend here in the US I thought I’d take a moment to let you know that there will not be a show this Sunday. Instead (and depending on the weather here in the Northwest) I’ll be enjoying the local fireworks displays, and taking a day trip up to the San Juan Islands, just north of Seattle. If the weather decides to not support my outdoor plans, you’ll find me working on my Gamerscore (most likely behind the controls of a tank in Battlefield: Bad Company, or brushing up my Halo 3 skills to prepare for the arrival of Cold Storage on Monday.)

Since E3 is a little more than a week away we’ve all been hard at work preparing for the event and the Xbox press briefing, which is Monday July 14th. Keep an eye on Xbox.com and Inside Xbox for behind the scenes coverage of the briefing and all the weeks activity. As usual, I’ll have the audio of the briefing posted shortly after the show.

What about you? What are you doing this weekend?

P.S. So long Sonics, it’s been nice knowing you. Come to think of it, the same thing happened to The Whalers when I lived in Connecticut. Sad to see it happen.

Flickr Interestingness feed

Major Nelson — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:06:51 GMT

I have been going through my email, and a lot of you have been asking for the Flickr Interestingness feed that I was talking about on my previous podcasts. Using this RSS feed, I add it to the RSS screensaver on the Mac in my office. Here are the instructions on how to set an RSS feed up as a screensaver on your Mac. If you don’t have a Mac, and want to try your hand at some coding, you can build a similar screen saver for Windows. Let me know if you build it, because I looked at those instructions and my eyes glazed over half way down the page.

Warning: Once you get the feed set up to start displaying pictures it is seriously distracting watching all the nice random pictures float on by.

Edit: Thanks to reader ‘Tyl0n’ who posted these much more concise directions in the comments:

For (Leopard) Mac users [not sure if this is the same for Tiger or other]:

-Go to System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver > Screen Saver

-From the screen saver menu, pick the 'Pictures' drop down menu (expand if necessary)

-Select the '.Mac and RSS' choice, then click on the options button

-Click the '+' sign to add a new RSS (or .Mac) feed

-Once the site has been validated, click 'OK' and you should be good to go.

If you choose the 'RSS' option under the 'Apple' drop menu, you will JUST get headlines, for pictures, you need to select the pictures option.

Preparing for 2008

Major Nelson — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 19:53:19 GMT

Typically, this is a slow week around the office as many folks are off for the Holidays and spending time with the Family. After a few days off from work, I have returned to the office to kick off my annual post-Christmas, pre-New Years ritual. It consists of a few things which revolve, for the most part, around tidying up and preparing for the new calendar year:

Backing up my office computers (both my Dell and Mac) and preparing them for a reformat and reinstall of their OS’s to start the year off fresh
This year I am installing Leopard on my office Mac, so let’s see how that goes. (I think I need more memory for it though.)
My Windows machine will see Vista Enterprise and Office 2007 (no surprise there huh?)
Burning all the 2007 shows onto DVD for back up
Cleaning my office (mental note: way to many boxes and cables)
A random trip to Fry’s with e to take advantage of any post Holiday bargains
Organizing my games library which became slightly disorganized over the year
Taking all of the holiday cards I got this year and copying names and addresses to my contacts file
Preparing for CES as best I can, as there is no good way I have found to prepare for it…it just happens
This year, I think I am going to build a WHS so I can start backing up my home media collection

Do you have any yearly customs that you perform between the Holidays to prepare yourself for the New Year?