Morgan Delagrange: Fun

Belkin Voice Recorder for iPod

Tue, 25 Nov 2003 19:08:30 GMT

Yep, it's a voice recorder. It's an elegant design, and the integration with the iPod OS is seamless. However it's a pretty mediocre device otherwise. The speaker is not very loud, nor is the microphone effective beyond a couple feet. If you're looking for a way to record your voice, it's just fine. If you want to record meetings (or anything other than yourself), look elsewhere. One minor gripe: after you sync with your desktop, the voice recordings are added in with your other "songs". If you put your iPod on shuffle, don't be surprised if you inadvertantly end up a featured artist. Disconcerting...

naviPod'n it

Mon, 03 Nov 2003 18:03:42 GMT

I finally took the plunge and picked up an IPod. Very nice. I also picked up the naviPod, which adds an extremely simple IR remote to the IPod.

The naviPod's IR sensor is much more sensitive than I was expecting. I have no trouble controlling the IPod from 35+ feet away with my universal remote control (but slightly more trouble with the included remote). However the integrated line out, which is probably just a pass-through to the headphone jack, is noticeably lower quality than the line out on a standard IPod dock. I highly recommend using a standard IPod dock with your stereo hookup.

The naviPod's remote control has pretty good range but requires a completely unobstructed line-of-sight to work reliably. Also, the volume control will only operate the integrated line-out, not the line-out of my IPod dock. I trained my universal remote from the naviPod remote so that I could control track navigation and volume from the same device. However, the naviPod remote is one of the tiniest I've ever seen, so it's still convenient to use in addition to a universal remote.

It's a little pricey, but I plan on trying the Belkin voice recorder when it's available. I'll post some info on it later on.

Gamefly

Wed, 22 Oct 2003 18:07:55 GMT

I got an offer to try Gamefly free for 21 days, so I've been giving it a look. I must say, it's pretty convenient and economical. The cost is $21.95 per month, which is pretty low considering that most games retail for $40-$50. The only two drawback are a) there is no manual (only controller instructions), and b) they don't carry PC games. Surprisingly, they DO carry GBA games.

So far I've rented four games, and I'm still working on two of them. Here are my capsule reviews. BloodRayne (XBox version): bad. Otogi: Myth of Demons (XBox version): OK. Freedom Fighters (XBox version): great. Viewtiful Joe: great.

I'm also playing Battlefield: 1942, which is still a blast a year later. If you like multiplayer PC games, I wholeheartedly recommend buying it and the latest expansion. Good fun.

Seeking the grail

Tue, 01 Apr 2003 17:02:29 GMT

Well, I'm about 26% of the way through a promising Eclipse 2.1 download. I grabbed FreshDownload, TuCows' top-rated freeware download manager. I experimented with HTTP and FTP downloads, and even though it takes a little longer with the default FreshDownload settings, the FTP download appears to be MUCH more stable. I don't have the bandwidth on my blog to mirror the file, so if you've been trying to download this guy, you might want to try FTP with a download manager.

Don't stare at the Eclipse

Mon, 31 Mar 2003 19:33:54 GMT

Does anyone have a copy of Eclipse 2.1 final on their site? Like Andy, I tried to download both Friday and today to no avail.

Rod on the web

Mon, 31 Mar 2003 16:31:43 GMT

Rod has a weblog now. He claims it was my fault, but I think deep down he wanted to do one anyway. Check out his post on the Axion milestone release. IMO Axion already surpasses the other alternatives for in-process Java database engines, but I'm biased because I did help out a little with its development. Compared to Rod's, though, my contributions were paltry.

Confessions of a video game junkie

Fri, 28 Mar 2003 22:56:11 GMT

OK, it's time to come clean. I love video games. I keep my PC up-to-date so I can play the latest and the greatest. I also have a Playstaton 2. And a GameCube. And an XBox. I don't have a GBA, but I have to say that the new SP model is pretty tempting.

I'm not sure what the source of my game addiction is. My family didn't have a video game console when I was growing up, nor did we have many games for our succession of Apple computers. I didn't really play games with my friends either, although we did like to go to the arcades every week or two. I guess I really started playing games as a second-year in college, when I got my very own PC. I remember many late nights, skipping the lower priority "social" occassions and also, from time to time, "schoolwork". I have no idea how I managed to maintain a high GPA; I think it was mostly by fostering my ongoing addiction to Coca Cola.

I'm always playing some game or another, but I go through occassional binge phases where I play a lot more than usual. Now is such a phase. I'm just finishing up Pikmin (excellent game), and I have Rayman 3 and Galactic Civilizations (very psyched about this one) on the back burner. There are usually more games to play than I have time for, since I'm also inclined to hang onto my job and girlfriend. :)

I have to admit that I have always felt guilty spending time on games, but I think that guilty pleasure keeps me hooked too. :) I should throw out the occassional blog entry about what games I'm playing. After all, it's what I do.

Make me less lazy

Thu, 27 Mar 2003 22:38:58 GMT

I've been good about putting all my posts into the "All", "Fun" and "Java" categories, but I haven't bothered to figure out how to represent categories through the Radio templates. If you want to be able to read or subscribe to a particular feed, let me know via the comments and I'll set it up; otherwise I'll just keep on keeping on.

The economy sucks

Wed, 12 Mar 2003 16:23:28 GMT

Andy Oliver: Is the economy picking up or is my situation unique? I'd like to know.

I think it's just you. Japanese and European stock markets are tanking, which will more than likely drag down the US market even further. Wartime economies are overrated. The unemployment rate is at an alarming level, and that doesn't even take into account that an unusually large number of people are simply dropping out of the workforce entirely, which means they don't get counted in the official unemployment statistics (or so NPR tells me :)

And on a personal note, I haven't had a raise in several years. Sometimes that makes it hard to maintain enthusiasm for the job and the OS efforts. But at least I'm working!

Welcome back, Weblog

Thu, 06 Mar 2003 21:11:55 GMT

About mid-January, the hard drive on my Thinkpad died tragically and suddenly. (No flowers, please.) Since Radio is client-based and I had no backups, I basically lost everything, so I had to reinstall from scratch on a new drive. Fortunately, I only had to use a temporary computer for a couple of weeks whilst our operations staff ordered and installed a new drive for my laptop. Or at least, that's what they told me; obviously it took a little longer than that. :)

Radio doesn't have any obvious ability to restore the client configuration. So, rather than reload from an old RSS feed and create a flood of false updates, let's just start over. Weblog, take two.

I'm going to take a stab at categories this time around. For now, Java/Apache stuff goes in Java, everything else goes in fun (even if it's not). And everything goes on the homepage, of course. Whew, it's great to be back online!