DMB + WMA = BS

Im suprised that it took so long for this to catch some national attention, especially since Stand Up came out earlier in the spring, however, the fact that the official Stand Up website instructs those who want to put the album on an ipod must rip the songs, burn a CD, then re-rip it, essentially stripping the tracks of all DRM. This has been a big loophole for Apple's DRM since the music store launched, and while i know DMB will catch some flak for being the one to vocally support it, i think it is a fair request to have iTunes "support" WMA format. I think they should still sell songs and use the AAC format as their standard, since to me it sounds better, has more options for information(album art, chapter tracks, etc).

Who knows, read the article below for more information.


Dave Matthews Band Offers Copy Protection Circumvention; Asks Apple to Support WMA || iPodObserver

The Flasbacks Are Too Hard To Handle...

I knew it must be too good to be true, having a fully healthy bears 1st team for the first time since last september....and now Rex Grossman is out for another year. They say 3-4 months, but thats essentially the season.

I dont even know what to say now....on monday, i heard that he wasnt even touched by the defense, and then on a hit like this...pop goes the ankle. I feel bad for Rex, but now coaches have to wonder...is Rex too weak to handle the NFL? He was a great QB in college, but the NFL is a different bird. Hits are harder, guys are bigger, etc...

Chad Hutchinson didnt blow me or opponents away last year....who knows what will happen. My opinion? Time for mgmt to get ready to fork over some big bucks for a known veteran QB who still has years in him, not like Chandler, Kordell Stewart, etc...but someone with some gusto. This is just really dissapointing, especially seeing as how this is the first time in over 6 years where i can see every game of the season, since im back in chicago. I just wanted to hide on friday night. Now, we bring in Jeff Blake....i dont even know what to say about that....its another older unproven QB, who doesnt bring much to the team. In addidion to his questionable athleticism, hes also got a huge attitude problem. This is not looking good....

In other news, i must have had sympathy pains for Rex, because the foot where i tore a tendon in my ankle in the spring has been re-aggrivated again. I have a lovely limp, and look like a complete idiot. Hopefully it heals up soon....not 3-4 months....

Look for nerd room updates this week. I'm thinking of making a full page dedicated to it, since there have been some MAJOR updates to it since moving here to chicago. 5 systems, new networking hardware, new flat panel for my gaming machine...itll be interesting. You cant forget the new cat bed for lil' callie...thats her new pride and joy.

Other than that, not alot of excitement. News that a friend of mine from Crowe is coming to my current employer is exciting, Mike Ricci...he and i get along great, and i like hanging out with him, hes a good kid. Ive been using a new program(to me at least) called Skype to talk to JMan and some other people alot lately. Its an IP Telephony program that is honestly clearer than my cell phone or vonage system. The only downside is that if you have a slow machine or limited bandwidth, you can run into some problems(like we had last night) in sound artifacts and the like. However, on a decent machine with decent bandwidth, it sounds great. Alot better than teamspeak, very little delay and easy to use.

JMan and i hope to get our first podcast recorded and up this week, weve run into some time snags and still are trying to get our recording options straightened out. It hopefully should be interesting once its done.

Hope you all are doing well!

*shrieks like a girl*

So, my new boss was having a rough time with some work the past few weeks, so in jest, i offered here the services of a squishy school bus i had that you squeeze to reduce stress.


I guess she got so stressed out...she broke the bus. BROKE. THE. BUS.


Should i be worried? Am I next? Poor squishy bus....we barely knew ye....

Gamecast Online

Well, lately, I've fallen in love with podcasts. They are a real source of news, ideas, etc...but mostly entertainment. I got JMan hooked on them too, so he and i are going to start doing a podcast about Gaming, Technology, Nerdy stuff, etc...should be fun.

The website is up, www.gamecastonline.com and soon we will have our first episode up. Keep an eye on here and on the gamecast site for news on the episode releases! If you dont know what podcasting is, check out the following link Podcasting


Welcome to Gamecast Online!

Welcome Home

Space Shuttle Discovery Lands Safely

TGIF

And with a whimper...this week comes to a close. Have a good weekend blog readers!

Its About Time

Welcome to the military, Raptors. The F/A-22 are now officially in active service.

Anyone up for a trip to langley AFB? /me Wants to see them...

Langley offers mix of new, old aircraft

ITS BEEN FOUND

THE BEST SITE ON THE INTERWEBTERNET

Creative Is First?

Creative has actually come out with a pretty cool product. Their new Zen Vision product is a "Portable Media Player", which is an mp3 player, photo viewer, and also plays video in different formats, divx and xvid being 2 popular codecs, plus wmv. I have to say, this looks really attractive, and i hope apple, who is rumored to be working on a video ipod will learn from this device. Apple, who has a history of being proprietary at times could forseeably only support quicktime with a version of their media player, and that for me would be a deal breaker, since ive been encoding alot of TV episodes to divx because of its quality and compression.

Id love to be able to watch episodes of TV i recorded on my elgato EyeTV and exported to divx while riding the train in the morning, and if apple doesnt support a variety of codecs and formats with theirs, im afraid it will be doomed to failure. ( i know, people said that when this version ipod wouldnt support WMA)

While listening to MacCast (a podcast) today, i heard the video ipod being compared to the Sony Watchman, and i dont think thats the case. The difference now is that there is a HUGE reliance on computers for music, movies and pictures. People would love to take that on the road, and they will be cheaper than a dvd player or a laptop. Also, with the PSP movie format, it proves to show that there is a market for portable movies. I cant wait to see what happens with this...but if there is no alternative from apple soon, i might nab this thing up in a few months.

Zen Vision

Here I Come To Save The Daaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy!

First the switch to Intel Processors, now a 2 button mouse. Or is it?

Apple released their new mouse today, and while it will be called a 2 button mouse, the truth is quite different. Its a 1 button mouse, with sensors on both sides, acting like a 2 button mouse. It also has a 360 degree scroll ball, touch sensitive buttons, and works with both mac and PC. I gotta say, while i never liked apple mice before, i think i need to get one of these. maybe 2...one for my G5, one for my Gaming machine....

Check it out on the link below....


Apple - Mighty Mouse

First Impressions - Part 2

So - i need to add to the post regarding windows vista.

Thanks to the folks over on a great site, www.pronetworks.org, i was able to get Vista up and running. Ends up, there is a common installation bug with Vista Beta 1 that will have this sort of thing happen for some video cards. Started up in safe mode, installed the latest detonators from Nvidia, and she was good to go.

All in all, i guess im not that impressed with what ive seen. Im not saying its bad, but its not the "Next generation OS" that people had been promised from MS. I know that they keep paring off features so that is can come out in a timely manner, but it ends up that this is a prettier XP, with some new features. Not a total rebuild of the OS. Granted, this is still just Beta 1, but after messing with it for about an hour, I dont see anything that makes me go "wow" like ive done with each Mac OS release since 10.2.

The new interface is pretty, its alot more like OS X, the Aero glass theme is nice, and the window transparency is as well. The new backup program looks to be a nice feature, but as of right now, it doesnt let you do anything else besides backup to CD or DVD. Im a huge believer in network backups, and until it has a feature to backup to a share, i wont use it.

IE 7 = Firefox 1.0 Whoopidee doo. It has a search bar for MSN search, tabbed browsing, and some added security features. Ill keep using Safari and Firefox. Firefox was actually the first application i installed.

Unlike most people, i like the subtraction of the "my" prefix from everything. I think it gives it a more professional look. I also like the redefined explorer windows with the dropdown bars that let you instantly navigate to any folder on the machine. I think that navigation feature is a great addition, even if OS X has had it since panther.

The search technology isnt as inclusive as Spotlight is on Tiger, I dont think, and its somewhat archaeic right now. The options arent very user friendly, from my perspective. Dollars for Doughnuts, ill stick with google desktop search until this gets a little easier to configure.

While MS is still touting that Vista will have features that will require you to restart/shutdown your computer less, i dont see that. The times ive tried using the hibernate/sleep functions have crashed the machine. Beta, I know, I know, but ive never gotten sleep to work right on PC's, im hoping it gets it right with this iteration.

Networking wise, im finding that my 2 shared drives mounted on other machines will randomly unmount. Thats especially bad when im trying to watch divx rips of old seaQuest episodes on my mac. Not good at all. Ill have to figure out what that issue is.


Ill post some screens soon, but as of right now, its a prettier XP. Maybe with more testing, well see. Leave some Vista feedback in the comment section.

Success of MMORPGS?

Ive read some interesting things lately. Most interesting is that while World of Warcraft, the self proclaimed #1 online roleplaying game in the world continues to add new servers/realms to play on to keep up with load issues and customer demand.....the Matrix Online is consolidating theirs. MxO will now only have 3 servers, while WoW will have close to 30.


What causes things like this? Why are there no average games? Why is Blizzard so successful?

3 things.
1. Content.
2. Stability.
3. Quality.


Bugs, lag, broken professions....nothing like that is in World of Warcraft. The grind can burn you out from time to time, and the game can be EXTREMELY solo based, but all in all, its fun, a quality product and keeps people entertained.

MxO was plagued from the beginning. A non-intuitive UI, lag, bug problems, professions that noone understood...it wasnt planned well from the beginning.

I also play Star Wars Galaxies, and while it is the MMO i play the most, it is the one that frustrates me the most. It is also plagued by bugs, lag, broken professions, bad content, etc. However, the it is still fun(most of the time) and the star wars universe is very inviting, rich and fun to play in.

I do know one thing...game designers better learn from blizzard, who hasnt put out a bad game...ever. They take their time, have EXCELLENT Quality Control, and have great game design from the beginning. SOE and the MxO devs have a few things to learn from them.

Great news

Bears seem happy and healthy.

Key word is...HEALTHY. Then again, it isnt even preseason yet.

NFL.com

First Impression Is The Most Important

Ok, disclaimer first. Yes, I know its a beta.

Thanks to an MSDN/Technet friend of mine, Ive been lucky enough to beta test the new version of Windows, Vista.


Wait, thats getting WAY ahead of myself.


To beta test something, id have to be able to successfully install it. Which i have no t done yet. As of right now, im on my 2nd try, and 5th hour of installation.

I think im going to bail and go to bed. Maybe when i wake up at the asscrack of dawn, ill have a pretty Black Glass interface waiting for me.

Then again, ill probably just have another annoying alarm clock and a hungry cat.


Night all.

Welcome To The new Blog!

In honor of moving back to chicago, I have instituted the first major blog redesign in over 2 years. I hope you enjoy.

Leave me some suggestions for what works, what doesnt, and what youd like to see!

Long Awaited Post

So, ive been promising this for a while now, and I now am getting to it. It has been a crazy few weeks, but in the end, it has been totally worth everything. Here is a bit of a recap since the last post about what I've been up to.

After leaving Crowe, I took a week off to pack and get ready to move back to Chicago. I flew home and stayed with my parents for a week since my apartment wasnt ready to move into. It was nice to be home for a while and spend some time with my parents. I took that friday off to fly back to columbus and get ready to move on saturday. The move went as easy as possible, although 6 hours in a car with Callie can be kinda rough. If anyone ever needs to move, I suggest using Two Men And A Truck, those guys are incredible. Ive used them twice now, and they are always professional, careful and hard workers. Its great.

Since then, I worked a few days again, then took a few days off to go on a preplanned trip to florida with my mom, dad, jman and his little kid, emma. We had some fun down there, and here are some pictures of the trip.

The first day down there, my parents and I went to Kennedy Space Center to take a look at what they have and to see the shuttle Discovery on the launch pad. None of my pictures of discovery could come close to any of the ones out there of the launch that have been plastered all over the internet, but here are some images from KSC.



Thats the Vehicle Assembly Building, where the shuttle is mated with the external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters. It is the largest one story building in the world.



That is the tail end of a mock up shuttle that you can go inside on the KSC grounds. It was pretty spectacular to see how small it actually is. I imagined it to be much larger.



Ahh...something is just SOOTHING about that....



But this...this is WAY more soothing....



This is part of the resort we stayed at this time, which is the same as the one we stayed at in march, so i dont have many more pictures...since it looks the same.



Here is a picture of the resort that my parents have taken some stake in with the Marriot Vacation Club. It looks alot nicer than the one we stayed at, and I cant wait to stay there and check it out!



Wags, Jman, and Little T.



I may have some more pictures to put up later, but that pretty much sums it up. We did go to Epcot for an afternoon/evening, but I didnt take my camera, and we also spent some time at Typhoon Lagoon, one of Disney's waterparks, and I DEFINATELY didnt take my camera there. Its been a LONG time since I've been to a waterpark, and it was a great time. Aside from the rain/heat/humidity, it was a great time in Florida. I cant wait to go back.


As for my apartment, things are slowly getting unpacked, im pretty close except for some things here in the office, and my bedroom is still a nightmare. Since i havent been here for a full weekend, let alone a full week uninterrupted, this week/weekend will be unpacking/organization time. Nonetheless, here are some pictures of the new place.



This isnt going to make it onto the actual nerd room page yet since it is no where close to finished set up. Youll notice a new flat panel monitor from dell that was a STEAL thanks to a yahoo deal that was going on.



Just looking at this picture makes me want to keep unpacking...alas...im blogging instead.



Looking at this, youd think it was a real apartment! Yes...thats a wood fireplace....*puts barry white album on*



Looks somewhat put together, however, the fridge and cupboards are pretty much empty. I need to go grocery shopping something fierce. Callie has more food here than I do.



Speaking of callie, she got a new bed, which she cant get enough of. The first night I put it out, she slept the whole night in it. Shes come back to sleeping next to me now, but whenever im in my computer room, shes in that bed. She loves it to death. Anyone who is a pet owner knows that buying those things are a gamble, since I spent 30$ on a cat tent i thought she would use to hide when scared...and she never used it. I'm glad she likes this.

Well, this is about it for me as of now. Unpacking/organizing/getting set up. Pretty soon ill have a new home number and other stuff. Im working on redoing the blog...so bear with me if some changes occur with it. Im also toying with the idea of playing around with podcasting, since iTunes 4.9 came out, im hooked on them. Not sure anyone would really listen to me.

In addition to my bjwaggoner@mac.com address, feel free to email me at brian@brianwaggoner.com. I have switched my blackberry to check that email now, so im accessable anytime, anywhere.

Leave some comments! I love hearing from all of you!

I apologize in advance...

So, lately, I know all I have been doing is linking to other sites, and soon ill have a real post soon...but this one is too good to pass up. It pits your AIM account against someone else's for points based on how many people have you on their list.

My score is 16342....can anyone beat me?

I know...its stupid. But who has time to write this crap?






Someone with a bit more time than an idiot blogging about it.


AIM Fight

Vista?

So, finally, the codename for the next generation version of Windows has changed from the extremely laughable "Longhorn" to the now production name, "Windows Vista". Im somewhat intrigued to see what Microsoft does with this version of Windows. So far, all ive been seeing and hearing are major interface adjustments, new file system, etc. Id like to see a full featured list of what is going to be included. Im sure information will start leaking out starting next week when the developer/IT Professional beta begins on August 3rd.

Here is the actual Windows link for anyone who is interested...I guess well have to wait and see....


Microsoft Windows Vista

Chicago FTW!

I love this city.


Top U.S. Skyscraper Proposed in Chicago

Good News For The Space Program

Great news for NASA. Im glad we got them back off the ground.

Shuttle Discovery Blasts Into Orbit - Yahoo! News


Sorry there hasnt been a true update lately, ive been in florida for the past few days on vacation. Look for an update tonite with pictures of the new apartment, florida trip and other news!