Nicholas Pike

So Apple had their iPod conference yesterday 1PM EDT. (Why is it labeled EDT now instead of EST?) And they announced changes to the whole iPod lineup.

• New colors for the shuffles
• New “fatty” nano with video support
• iPod “Classic” 160gb
• iPod Touch

Obviously the only one I really care about is the iPod Touch (pictured on the side). When the iPhone was announced, I said I would but it if it didn’t have the phone crap. Well now its here, well almost - won’t be available until the 24 of September 2007.

They also announced that the 4gb iPhone would be discontinued, and that the 8gb iPhone would drop $200 in price to a much more palatable $399 sticker.

I spent the rest of the afternoon feeding Jenn the right words to increase her interest in buying one. Which she did. And its awesome.

Pictures below, until she kills me and has them removed.

Jenn moving contacts from her old phone onto the iPhone while I rustle up some burgers on the BBQ.

Activation of the new iPhone

Jenn playing with the display iPhone at the AT&T store in market view.

Microsoft is desperately trying to market the upcoming Halo 3 for the Xbox 360 to Korea:

The Battle of Feed Readers

So back when Google Reader originaly came out (October 2005) I gave it a whirl. In general its like everything else google: feature packed, web 2.0, and ugly. Of course its still in Google Labs, which means its public beta.

Back then Google Reader had a few problems for me:

• The interface is overly clunky. I just want to read my RSS feeds from various sites in a simple and organized manner.
• Google Reader doesn’t always pick up updates on feeds until several hours after the site has made updates.
• You have to leave Firefox open if you want constant notification of your news.

The later problem really isn’t that huge of a problem for me, considering I mostly leave Firefox open anyway just for my Google Calendar Notifier.

So I switched to using a standalone windows client, on my home machine and my work machine.

FeedReader3

FeedReader is actually a really cool piece of windows software, with a very minimalistic and quick responding interface.

I do desire to continue using it, but my mobility is now an issue. I read RSS news at work , at home, and on my laptop (which is at my girlfriends house). With the amount of feeds that I now subscribe to, manageability and synchronization of my well desired news is becoming a difficult dilemma.

Naturally, this is where Google comes in - “Searching your life.”

Since that October, Google Reader has been updated a few times — lets hope they have resolved my key issues with it. I will give it a try for the weekend

Below is a screenshot of my Google Reader account.

So yesterday helped Jenn clean out her apartment into a 17′ U-Haul. I have never SEEN so much stuff in my life.

Lets list it.

• 2 Couches
• 1 Recliner
• 2 end tables
• 1 coffee table
• 1 folding table (computer sized)
• 1 large folding table
• 1 bed frame
• 2 matresses
• two mirrors
• 4 wooden chairs
• a computer desk
• a mini fridge
• several bags of clothing
• several bags and boxes of random stuff

This is all for one person! Holly smokes!

Thanks to Billy for helping me move her stuff.

A[another] little side project

So OS X has the cool ability to rotate your desktop background at set intervals, from a folder that you point it at containing a bunch of images. Windows has never had this, and still doesn’t have it in Vista.

I through together a quick little application yesterday that does just that… its a little rough around the edges right now obviously, so I wont post it for download yet.

But I will post some code snippets for anyone interested in doing some File I/O or background changing using the Win32API .

Pick a random file from a directory

[code]

Random rnd = new Random();
string[] dirs = Directory.GetFiles(”npike/wallpapers” , “*.jpg”);
string tmpFilename = fileName;
if (dirs.Length > 1) {
while (tmpFilename == fileName) {
// make sure we dont pick the same wallpaper in a row
picIndex = (rnd.Next(dirs.Length)) % dirs.Length;
tmpFilename = dirs[picIndex];
}
} else {

tmpFilename = dirs[0];

}
[/code]

Changing the wallpaper with the Win32 API

[code]

// for simplicity and conveniences, create an internal class

public class WinAPI
{
[DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet=CharSet.Auto)]
public static extern int SystemParametersInfo (int uAction , int uParam , string lpvParam , int fuWinIni) ;
public const int SPI_SETDESKWALLPAPER = 20;
public const int SPIF_SENDCHANGE = 0×2;

}

[/code]

[code]

// Win32 API seems to like only bitmaps

// so if your image isnt a bitmap, youll have to convert it first!

if (Path.GetExtension(fileName).ToLower() != “.bmp”)
{
Bitmap theImage = new Bitmap(dirs[picIndex]);
fileName = Path.Combine(mySetting.m_settingsPath ,  “new.bmp”);
theImage.Save (fileName, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Bmp);
theImage .Dispose();
}

int nResult =  WinAPI.SystemParametersInfo(SPI_SETDESKWALLPAPER,1,fileName,SPIF_SENDCHANGE);
[/code]

That’s it for now folks, when I get some time (rather, IF I get some time) I will refactor and purdy up my code and post that along with the application.

In the mean time, I have a busy weekend of helping folks move, sleeping, and playing Bioshock.

First Summer/Fall blockbuster game for the Xbox 360 wishlist has been purchased!

Well, not really for fun! Sarah is getting married Saturday at 7PM in Dover - and my present to her is a 7 hour drive from NY, and then driving back to NY (again, another 7 hours) after its over to start work.

The AC in my Jeep is busted again, so for the duration of the trip I had to keep my left arm out the window to keep cool (it was 88+ degrees today, and the sun shining through the jeep winshield only multiplied that) - so now that arm is a completely different color from the rest of my body. Awesome.

Not only was it incredibly hot, but with the arm out the window I would get smacked with random bugs every 5 minutes or so, how awesomely painful! :D

Oh How I Miss NH..

So outside my window there appears to be a pack of Coty Dogs. Some weird combo of Coyote and stray dog I guess… but their howl sounds like a hyena. Very very weird, and very annoying.

Hey, can you turn that down a little?

So I finally fixed the problem plaguing my brand new receiver that my parents gave me for my last birthday… It would aways hum, even at low volumes, and the louder you turned it up it seemed the hum would grow exponentially.

Well the other night I was trying to watch Shrek 2 on DVD on my Xbox 360, and it was just unbearable. So I pulled the whole thing out of my entertainment center, and disconnected all cables except for the Xbox audio cables. Viola, no humming! Perfect, clear audio!

So its time for some classic troubleshooting.. plug in one item at a time until the humming comes back to identify the culprit.

Funnily enough, it was the optical audio connection coming from my PC. Funny because it was the only signal that never suffered from the humming when used!

So I enjoyed the movie it surround sound goodness and then went to bed.. the following evening after doing some packing I fired up my trusty Playstation 2 and popped in Guitar Hero 2. I cranked the sound to 11, and went at it. The walls were literally shaking with awesomeness.

Halfway through the song I was jamming on I hear the door downstairs open and close, then footsteps on the stairs leading to my apartment.

*oh crap*

“Hello, could you please turn it down? I am studying for finals…”

Haha sure, sorry! Was just celebrating, sorry!

Oh well, when I return in a few days the girl is likely to have moved out, and I can continue my jamming at max volume + 1.

What time is it anyway?

So the first step on my way to C# and Microsoft Technology enlightenment, is a quick project in C# to get my bearings with the language.

Its so darn impossible to find a good simple screensaver for Windows, its even harder to find a reputable website to get said screen saver. All I desire is a simple screensaver with a digital clock. Thats it.

So I am going to make one in C#/.NET and see where that takes me.

Since im in NH and 500 miles away from my development box, I am installing the neccessary SDK’s and what not on my Mac with Parallels… its taking a very very long time.

• Pay for 3 months rent at RIT :( $2000
• Samsung 226BW $318
• XBox 360 Premium $399.99
  • Gears of War $60
  • Second Controller $39.99
  • Guitar Hero 2 $60
• Trade Macbook in for a Macbook Pro?  (waiting for a new one to be released)
• New iPod (waiting for a new one to be released)
• Logitech G15 Keyboard   $71.99

XBox Games to buy

• GRAW2
• Marvel Ultimate Universe (Rented it, kinda sucked)
  
• Half-life Episode 2 Orange Edition
  • Comes with Windows versions
  • TF2!
• Black Site Area 51 (September)
• Mass Effect (Q3 2007)
• TimeShift (Fall 2007)
• The Simpsons (Dont know when)
• Fracture (Q2 2008 :( )

Things to Do

• Tear apart my entertainment center and computer arrangement. Theres some real funky feedback being caused back there, and I need to get to the bottom of it!
• Hack the Linksys WRT thats gathering dust in the bedroom so that it may actually be useful..
• Mount surround sound speakers for my receiver