Boxee for Windows

I had been involved in the private alpha of the windows distribution of Boxee for several months, and was so happy using it that I didn’t realize that a new version had been released (weeks ago), and it is now available for anyone.

If you don’t know what Boxee is, be sure to check out their site right away.  In a nutshell, it is internet media on your computer, consolidated in one neat place, and ready for use with remotes, televisions, and various other instruments of couch potatory.

NEVER FEAR!  Boxee is Open Source, and as could be expected it is cross-platform (Linux, MAC, and Windows), and costs nothing.  The folks that are developing this project are amazing, and I’m pleased to see all the improvements in the newest release.

If you think the world of internet media comes only in the flavors of Hulu and YouTube, then I suggest you prepare yourself to an entirely new universe of streaming content.  Sure, you don’t need Boxee to see it all, but its a hell of alot easier.

Why I don’t care about Google Chrome

For quite some time, I’ve been a Google fan. Years ago I tossed aside other search engines in favor of Google for it’s clean look and respectable competence for web searches. I was not disappointed. It wasn’t long before I, like many others, began to favor Gmail over the popular email providers of the time. Again, great product, and no disappointments. Even more recently, I find that Google Docs and Google Earth are also great products from what I would generally consider a fine company. Let’s face it, Google has made serious efforts to offer services that people want, and to present them in a way that is fresh in new.

But here is Chrome, Google’s newest product, a shiny new browser. With their previous offerings, Google has always been the Knight in shining armor, saving the general public from the hells we were normally forced into accepting. Google.com made web browsing efficient and gave it a clean face by way of superior search algorithms and refusal to use banner ads on result pages. Gmail smashed Yahoo mail and Hotmail with it’s usability, clean look, and immense storage space. Google Docs has even made a positive mark, and giving hope to calloborators across the web. In each of these cases, Google took an old idea and innovated. They made something that, once used, we could look at and forget how we ever managed to get by without it. But where is the innovation here? A web browser?

Well, quite obviously, this is a ground-breaking mother-fucker. Google made it. Naturally, I grunted with excitment the moment I heard about it. There was no fucking way I was going to let the greatest browser ever pass me by. No fucking way.

But then it hit me. I already have the greatest browser ever. I absolutely had to see the features. Chrome was going to be so fly.

I have to admit, there are some sweet features. Incognito mode, dragging tabs to a new window, the new tab page. All nice stuff. But then there are the filler features which are already available to Firefox, or as addons, such as Simpler downloads, Imported settings, and Safe browsing. But where is the real innovation? Where is this freshness that I have come to expect from Google? It simply wasn’t there.

I had to ask myself why I thought Firefox was so good. And really, why do I like it so much? Well, that was easy. It isn’t that Firefox itself is so revolutionary, because it isn’t. Sure, they popularized tabbed browsing, and Firefox 3 has added many new features that I consider must-haves, but the real beauty of the program are the addons. Even now, i’m using ScribFire to write to my blog. Slowly, I realized that the little things that made Chrome “neat” were easily extended into Firefox as addons, and I’m certain we’ll be seing those new addons within days.

So, I closed the Chrome browser, and uninstalled it. It was going to take more than a few well-thought gimmicks to make me piss on the people that saved me from IE. Where was Chrome then? I’ll stick to Old Faithful for now. Besides, Chrome doesn’t have Adblock Plus.

Mac OS X 10.4.8 – WTF Mouse problems

My room mate has recently lost his mind, and decided he’d like to try out Mac OS X. Since the newer Mac installations work on x86 based systems, the idea is that it shouldn’t be hard to get a few things running just to check it out. Who wants to actually pay for a Mac anyhow?

There have been hits and misses, but it has successfully installed on a system. That is to say, it has installed, but is not functioning properly.

For some strange, Mac-reason, the mouse remains stuck in the upper left hand corner. You can move it away, but after a moment, it will snap right back into its original position. The mouse is known to work properly on multiple other systems, and is supported by Mac OS X 10.4.8. It even worked properly. Once.

We are terribly confused. We’ve tried connecting the mouse via PS2 ports, alternate USB ports. No good. We have removed all non-essential peripherals from the machine. No good. 3 other mice exhibit the same problem, but only when booting to OS X.

On the one hand, it serves us right. I mean, we aren’t really supposed to get this to work on non-Mac hardware. But, I can’t help but wonder why this, such a simple and fundamental aspect of computing is failing while other more complicated functions are working fine.

Please, feel free to give some input, anyone.

Halo 2 : Endightment of Religion?

I should start by saying that I’m no fan of FPS games on consoles. It just seems awkward. A mouse and keyboard seem so much more inviting than a controller for all of that twitch-response head-shotting and grenade tossing. This fact has kept me from playing some (and only a few) of the best FPS games when they were originally released.

I didn’t play the original Halo until it was released for PC, and the same for it’s sequel, Halo 2. As a matter of fact, I just finished Halo 2 yesterday. I really wanted to play them sooner, but could not stand the thought of oafishly trying to turn and aim with buttons. Oh well, that isn’t what this is about.

Halo 2 was an interesting game in the sense that we were able to see the Covenant culture, both political and religious. We saw an alien race whose way of life revolved around a very sincere belief system. Everything about the Covenant was about devotion, obedience, and purpose to their faith. Alternatively, the humans were generally portrayed as eager and zealous distributors of ass-kicking and justice… but without any mention of religious faith at all.

Now, I’m not saying that I would have wanted it to be a game about “This Faith” vs. “That Religion”. That would have been ultimately displeasing. I do find it interesting that, with all of the emphasis placed on Covenant religion, no emphasis was placed on the humans having any religion at all.

As it turns out, the enemy of the game (the Covenant) were misguided and lied to by their prophets, and were unknowingly seeking to destroy all life in the universe. The rational race (the humans) succeed in thwarting these plans, and make some of the Covenant understand they were lied to. A portion of the covenant refused to believe the truth, and still intend to carry out their plans (or so I assume, I know nothing of what happens in Halo 3).

I’m reminded of Final Fantasy Tactics for the PSX. Now THAT was a game that criticized religion.

I don’t know. Perhaps I’m just getting a little too serious about a video game. Still, it was a great game with a thoughtful story. I can’t wait for Halo 3 to, sometime in the next 5 years, release for PC. Or, maybe I pony up 80 bucks for that converter that allows mouse and keyboard on the Xbox 360.

The IM world with Pidgin

Wow. Pidgin is great. An IM program that handles MSN, AIM, ICQ, MySpaceIM, GoogleTalk and more! It even manages multiple accounts at once. What? Its free too? Not just free, but the “Open Source” kind of free that doesn’t involve me handing out my email address? Unbelievable. Perfect for all my friends that insist on using different IM programs.

Grab it here.