Consoles still suck

Consoles still suck
Originally uploaded by TomTheGeek.

I finally got my hands on an xbox 360 today and it was pretty cool but I still would never consider buying one. Not when I already have a copy of Call of Duty 2 and they are still waiting to release it for the xbox. Consoles are for people who are too dumb to deal with installing a game on a computer. I'm convinced that console games will never be as good as PC games. Maybe the PS3 will prove me wrong though, who knows?

JP1 - One remote to rule them all

Have you heard about JP1? It's a protocol that is used to program One for All and a few other universal remotes. I'm not talking about just setting them up to work with your DVD player, you can set them up to do macros like hiting one button and having your TV turn on, switching to the right input and the cable box turning on all in one step. It's a little complicated but it's also very powerful.

The best part though is that most remotes that use this are pretty cheap. I got mine from Wal-Mart for $20 and it can control up to 8 devices. I've seen a lot of programmable remotes go for over a hundred dollars and I can match almost all their functionality with mine. All the Pronto remotes use a touchscreen that you will have to look at in order to use, having actuall buttons makes using the remote a lot easier without looking.

JP1 isn't for everyone, there is a pretty steep learning curve but you can't beat it's value.

Visual Studio 2005, Not so Great ?

Seems like there are some big problems with Visual Studio 2005 that I got a copy of yesterday. I installed it on a VMware machine the other day but I haven't gotten a chance to use it much yet so I don't know how bad it is but at least I didn't install it on my machine directly.

MSSQL 2005 Launch, Jackpot!

MSSQL 2005 Launch, Jackpot!
Originally uploaded by TomTheGeek.

The security features were discussed next; it is now possible to do most everything as a low privilage user and get results from fuctions that are designated to run under a certain account making it a lot more secure. The rest of the event was spent discussing what the requirements were for upgrading, planning for an upgrade and going through an actual upgrade. At the end they had a raffle for a few prizes including a portable DVD player that of course I didn't win. As we left we were handed our very own copy of Visual Studio 2005 and a 1 client access licence version of MSSQL 2005. Very cool.

MSSQL 2005 Launch, continued

MSSQL 2005 Launch, continued
Originally uploaded by TomTheGeek.

It's intermission and all the doughnuts are gone but I scored a Microsoft pen. In the first half they went over the improved availability and mirroring features. I probably won't use many of the mirroring features but they're good to know about. We'll see what they have to say in the second half.

Live coverage of MSSQL 2005 launch event

Live coverage of MSSQL 2005 launch event
Originally uploaded by TomTheGeek.

I'm at the Alliant Energy Center this morning attending the MSSQL 2005 launch event. I'm here mostly to score some free swag ( I already got a cool notepad ) but it will be interesting to see what they have to say. It's been forever since they've had a new version of SQL server so there should be some big improvements.

HTC Wizard at Cingular

This is the Cingular version of the HTC Wizard that I will be purchasing as soon as it is available. They redesigned the looks for Cingular and I have to say I think I like this version better. Supposedly it is going to be available before the end of this month. It would be nice but I'm not getting my hopes up until I see it with my own eyes. They are going for around $450 without a contract but I bet I'll be able to find one for a lot cheaper on eBay.