Personal Internets

New Kicks

2009-02-24T22:26:00.000-08:00

Got my new running shoes today and I'm happy. They're the Nike Air Max Dream+.

Oregon Ducks Sing Fight Song

2008-12-04T23:08:00.001-08:00

2008 Civil War Highlights

2008-12-02T15:27:00.000-08:00

2008 Civil War from jack bauer on Vimeo.

BURGER OPTIONS We Can Believe In [PIC]

2008-11-07T08:49:00.001-08:00

Bacon vs. Fries

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Xbox 360 Troubles Part II

2008-09-03T08:39:00.000-07:00

So, I tried all of their suggestions and I still saw Oblivion freeze on me. It took it a while but after not responding to anything for a couple of minutes, it came up with a dirty disc error. Now, I've seen this error before and with brand new games so I highly doubt its the disc that's bad. I replied to XBox support again with the latest details and I got the following back.

First, this issue occurs because the Xbox console cannot read the disc correctly. This issue may occur if any one of the following conditions is true:
. The disc is dirty or damaged
. The disc is from a different country or region than the console
. Non-disc issues
Here are some things that you can do to try to fix your concern or to determine what caused it. If you cannot fix the issue yourself, please contact Xbox Customer Support. To do this, please visit the following Microsoft Web site: http://www.xbox.com/support/contact
Determine whether the disc is dirty or damaged
Discs that are smudged, scratched or otherwise damaged cannot be read by the Xbox 360 console. You will want to examine the disc to see whether it has smudges, scratches, or other damage. To do this, follow these steps:
1. Examine the disc for dirt or damage:
a. Pick up the disc by its edges. Do not touch the top or the bottom surface.
b. Examine the shiny side of the disc to make sure that the disc is clean and has no damage.
Note: Scratches that follow the curve of the disc are very damaging and prevent a disc from being read. If you see that your disc has even one of these types of scratches, the disc is damaged, and you will no longer be able to play it. If this is the case, see step 4.
2. If the disc is dirty, clean the disc by hand:
a. Use a soft, clean, dry, chemical-free cloth to clean the disc.
b. Lightly wipe from the center of the disc outward.
3. After cleaning the disc, try to load it in the Xbox 360 console. If the disc still won't load or you receive the same error message, the disc is damaged, and you will no longer be able to play it. If this is the case, see step 4.
4. If the disc is damaged, do one of the following:
. If you think that the disc was already damaged when you bought it, try to exchange it.
. If you have a damaged Microsoft Xbox 360 game disc and would like to order a new one, please visit the following Web site:
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/systemuse/xbox360/gameplay/discreplacement-program.htm
. If the game is a non-Microsoft Xbox 360 game disc and was damaged because of misuse of some type, such as not storing the disc properly in its case, the only thing you can do is buy a new one.
. If you feel that the disc was damaged by the Xbox 360 console in some way, please contact Xbox Customer Support. To do this, please visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://www.xbox.com/support/contact
Determine whether the game disc and the console are from the same country or region
Game discs and consoles are made for specific countries and regions. If you try to play a game disc that is made for a specific country or region on a console that is made for another country or region, the game disc will not play.
For example, if you purchase an Xbox 360 console in North America, your region is North America. Therefore, you cannot play game discs that are sold in Europe or in Asia on this console. Similarly, an Xbox 360 console that is sold in Europe can only play game discs that are sold in Europe, and an Xbox 360 console that is sold in Asia can only play game discs that are sold in Asia.
To see whether this issue occurs because the country or the region of the game disc and the console do not match, look on the back of the game package. Look for one of the following codes:
. NTSC: North America and South America (United States, Canada, Mexico, Chile, and Brazil)
. NTSC-J: Asia (Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan)
. PAL: Europe, South Africa, India, Australia, and New Zealand
If your game disc code does not match the region where you bought the console, you will not be able to play the game disc.
Non-disc issues
There is a chance that the issue is not with the disc but with the Xbox 360 console. To check this, try the following steps:
1. Turn the console off, and then turn the console on again. Then, try to load the disc again.
2. Try playing the disc on another console if you have access to one. Or if the disc is a CD or a DVD, try the disc on another device, such as a CD player, DVD player, or a computer equipped to play CDs or DVDs, to see if that other device can read the disc.
3. If the disc is a recordable CD (CD-R), try a different CD-R disc from that set. Or try a CD-R disc from a different manufacturer.
4. Try playing other games to determine whether the problem occurs with all the games that you have or only with this one.
5. If you have a Hard Disk Drive (HDD) unit or Memory unit (MU) attached to the console, turn the console off and remove the HDD unit and any attached MU, then switch on your console and try the disc again. If this seems to resolve the issue, turn off your console, attach the HDD and MU again, and then delete any saved games for the game that is causing problems.

I'll go through their steps again but I think I'll end up calling them so I can stop getting these canned responses whenever they key on a particular issue I'm having and not seeing the other surrounding issues.

Vista Media Center & Hauppauge HVR-1250

2008-09-02T21:52:00.000-07:00

It took me a couple of days but I finally figured out the key to getting my Hauppauge HVR-1250 TV tuner to work properly with Windows Media Center.

First off, I'm running Vista Ultimate x64. I am also using the beta drivers for the card. I knew that the card worked since I could get video in the horrible WinTV application. Media Center was almost working since I could get the audio but no video. I tried some other applications (SageTV, BeyondTV) and they could not pull in video as well. After a couple days of trying different combinations of things, I looked in the Media Center event log and found this:

Media Center is unable to communicate with the TV tuner Hauppauge WinTV 885 BDA Tuner/Demod. See ErrorCode 0x80004005 for more information.

I tried searching Google for some results on this and it eventually lead me to a post that said you need to have the SoftPVR software installed as well (along with the SoftMCE software) to trick Media Center in to playing video.

So, in order to get my tuner working with Media Center I had to additionally install:
- SoftPVR
- SoftMCE

Both of these will be in the driver package you download from Hauppauge.

Now, I'm off to reinstall Vista x32 since ClearQAM does not work with Vista x64 and Media Center. After all, this is the primary reason why I bought the damn thing.

Xbox 360 Troubles Return

2008-08-28T09:47:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year I got the dreaded Red Ring of Death (RRoD) on my Xbox 360. I sent it in for repairs and I was pleased with the service and got my Xbox back and it has happy...for a while. Since I got it back, it's been problematic.

Now, the system is prone to random freezing and not booting up properly. It's usually the first time I turn on the Xbox for the day that it will not boot up. The power light comes on but none of the quadrants light up and I do not get the Xbox POST screen. I turn it off and back on and it's good to go, unless I start to play something for a while. Bioshock, Oblivion, MLB 2K8 and NCAA Football 09 have all frozen in the middle of the game numerous times. Sometimes, it'll be a dirty disc error, other times it'll just completely freeze up. The CD drive spins down and then I just know that the game is going to freeze. The frustrating part of all this is that I've only got an explicit error message once (E74).

The other day I finally decided to e-mail Xbox support regarding this since it gotten to the point where it's happening more often. I gave them the same story as above and they replied with the following:

I understand that you see one quadrant of the Ring of Light flashes red and you receive the following error message: E74. System Error. Contact Xbox Customer Support on your 360. I apologize for any inconvenience.
This behavior occurs when the Xbox 360 console experiences a hardware failure.
Here are some steps that you can use to try to resolve the issue.
1. Turn off the console, disconnect all the cables, and then reconnect all the cables. Turn the console back on.
2. Turn off the console, and then disconnect any accessories that are connected. For example, disconnect any Xbox 360 controllers, Xbox 360 Memory Units, and the Xbox 360 Hard Drive. With the accessories disconnected, restart the console to see whether the problem still occurs. This can help you determine whether the console or an accessory is experiencing the problem.
3. If you continue to experience this problem, contact Xbox Customer Service.

It's like they didn't read all the details I sent to them. I'll jump through their hoops but I don't think there's any problems with any of the accessories or cables. I'm thinking this is a problem with "ANA"/"HANA" chip. We'll see what happens but I really hope that they'll cover this under the RRoD warranty since the repairs they did earlier in the year only seemed to fix part of the problem. Oh yeah, of course my console is out of warranty so if I don't get it repaired at no cost then it'll be $100 to get it repaired or I'll just live with the annoyance of the system freezing on me.

Anyone else got any similar stories or experiences with their Xbox?

NCAA Football 09 Impressions

2008-07-15T20:52:00.000-07:00

NCAA Football 09 came out today for all 700 platforms. I picked up my copy for the XBOX 360 shortly after I got off of work. I rarely buy games without hearing some sort of feedback on it but NCAA Football is one of those series that gets a free pass from me.

My first impression of the game is that this is NCAA Football 08 with some tweaks. The game feels and plays pretty much like the previous version which is good. EA Sports did right by not messing with the game mechanics too much since the game plays pretty well. I cannot comment too much on the graphics but they appear to be smoother on my standard definition TV. One thing that has stood out to me is the responsiveness of the menus and actions outside of the actual game. Some of the things that annoyed me before have been resolved. In 08, I would dread trying to find the best camera angle for my replays since you could not stop them in mid stream. In 09, you can cancel out of the replay at any point and choose another angle. EA also ironed out the bugs on their EA Sports World website so that it doesn't crash your browser.

One of them newest additions to the franchise is the online dynasty mode which I'm all sorts of giddy about. I started up a league and hopefully the interaction will be strong enough to keep it going for at least a couple of seasons.

Based upon my first impression, NCAA Football 09 gets a B+ from me since it feels like last years game with subtle improvements. I'd give it a high score if it was a little more innovative but I haven't fully explored the game yet.

Exclusive E3 Coverage

2008-06-27T13:40:00.000-07:00

Gamertag Radio will be providing exclusive coverage of the E3 Expo this year (July 14-17). Check out their coverage in the video window above and visit Gamertag Radio for up to date news and announcements.

Dell Inspiron 8600 & Vertical Lines: Update 2

2008-06-03T10:20:00.000-07:00

It's a good thing I e-mailed Dell about the laptop. I heard back from them last Wednesday and they said they would make an exception for me and replace my screen. The next day a coffin arrived and I shipped it back to Dell for repairs. And today, the laptop should be back at my place. Talk about service! From my professional experience, I've always been impressed with Dell's support and their turnaround times on replacing parts. I was pleasantly surprised to see them use upgraded shipping when they could've easily gotten away with shipping via carrier pigeon.

So, I should have a brand new screen today and laptop that doesn't have a foot in the grave. Sorry, XPS m1330, you'll have to wait a little longer.

XBOX 360 Media Sharing

2008-06-03T10:13:00.000-07:00

I had media sharing between my Vista PC and my 360 working at one point but now the two have fallen in to a blood feud. Vista seems to want to forgive and forget since I can see my 360 showing up in the Windows Media Player sharing setup but the 360 is stubborn and will not find Vista.

I'm not seeing any errors being logged on Vista and I've disabled the firewall and McAfee without any change in results. I'm leaning towards there being something configured incorrectly in my Linksys WRT54G router (running the Tomato firmware). The closest I get to any clues is the cryptic set of error codes from the 360 when I try testing the connection.

W: 0000-000B
X: 0000-000D
Y: 0000-0000
Z: 8000-4005

Anyone got any ideas what these codes mean or other things to try in Vista? I'm tempted to try a different router firmware but I like all the features of Tomato.

Dell Inspiron 8600 & Vertical Lines: Update

2008-05-14T11:47:00.000-07:00

Got a third line today!

I called Dell Support and they can't replace the screen for free since it's outside of the 3 year window. I was transferred to their out of warranty parts department and was quoted a price of $498 to get the screen replaced. I guess I'll be purchasing that Dell XPS m1530 after all.

Dell Inspiron 8600 & Vertical Lines

2008-05-13T14:59:00.000-07:00

Last week my beloved Dell Inspiron 8600 displayed this lovely magenta vertical line down the side of the screen. I just chalked this up to the LCD failing and started thinking about getting a new laptop since I bought this back in December 2004. I lived with the line for a week until last night a yellow line showed up and as a bonus it comes and goes...it's like its at rave.

Two busted lines caused me to start looking hard at a new laptop and actually researching the cause of this problem. Apparently, Dell had issues with a handful of laptop LCD screens doing this and they're offering to repair the LCDs at not cost, even to laptops with expired warranties. My only issue is that Dell states it'll replace screens for free for systems purchased within the last three years...guess what? I've had mine for 3.5 years. I'll still try to get it replaced for free.

5-6-2008: RIP xbox360

2008-05-06T20:47:00.000-07:00

The Cake Is NOT A Lie

2008-04-25T22:15:00.001-07:00

Turn an old laptop into a media center for Xbox 360 (Win2K Edition)

2008-02-28T20:41:00.001-08:00

The other day my wife asked me to sell her old Pentium III laptop and then I saw an article on Lifehacker about turning old PCs into something useful and media centers was an idea. Then it all clicked that I could turn this old laptop in to a torrent grabbing, media streaming beast. I found it easiest to implement this with Windows and uTorrent since I'm already comfortable with these. I'll later throw my hat in to the ring with a Linux-based solution.

Goal:
To create a media PC that automatically downloads media and makes it accessible via an Xbox 360.

Laptop Specs:
NEC Versa SXi
Pentium III 750 MHz
384 MB RAM
3Com 10/100 PC card
20 GB Harddrive

Being that this laptop is a Pentium III, it doesn't really have the horsepower to run Windows XP. Windows 2000 is pretty light and it's a lot better than running Win9x.

Installation (Base):
The installation of Windows 2000 was pretty straight forward. I thinned out the install so stuff like extra sound schemes were not installed. Space is valuable so no need to load up the drive with extraneous items. Once Windows was installed I did was any good IT person would do, visit Windows Update. After several cycles, the OS was patched and up to date.

Since I'll be using torrents to get my video files, I'll need some sort of antivirus software. My personal favorite is Avast since it is pretty small and doesn't take up a lot of resources.

The last part of the base install to add RealVNC to allow for remote administration. I'm going to be leaving the laptop closed and under the TV. RealVNC will let me get to the desktop of the laptop over my home network and manage it. When you install RealVNC, you should accept all the defaults during the install. When the install is complete, you can get a password to use to login to your PC via RealVNC. On your other home computers, you should uncheck the option to install the Server portion of RealVNC since you'll only need the viewer software to connect to the laptop.

Installation (Additional Software):
With the base OS in place it's now time to move on setting up the components to get our media and stream it to the Xbox 360.

My goal is to be able to download TV shows via BitTorrent and my favorite BitTorrent application is uTorrent, since it has the ability to monitor RSS feeds. For information on using uTorrent to download via RSS feeds, check out this tutorial. This part is optional, but it does make it nice to see what you're downloading without having to get on to the laptop...I downloaded the WebUI for uTorrent [guide] so that I could see what was downloading via a web browser on another PC. It doesn't have quite all the options enabled that you'll need, like RSS, but it is nice piece that makes the laptop just that more transparent. Another option for RSS and torrents is to install Ted. I've yet to try it but Lifehacker seems to like it.

With uTorrent installed, I configured it to download all files to a directory just off the C:\ drive called Media so everything will be easy to find and manage. I also configured my RSS feeds and monitored what shows I wanted to download.

My next step was to install some Xvid and DivX codecs so I can play these tv shows on the laptop. Get the latest codecs here: K-Lite Codec Pack Basic.

The next step is to find some software to stream these videos to the Xbox 360. Windows Media Player 11 does this easily with Media Sharing but WMP 11 does not exist for Windows 2000 so I had to use something else: TVersity. TVersity will allow me to stream video and music to the Xbox 360 and since Divx support is now native on the Xbox 360, there's no need to transcode it. I configured TVersity to monitor my Media folder on the C:\ drive.

Wrapping it up:
The laptop is now all set to download media and TVersity is now sharing it over the network. The next thing to do is to play it on the XBox 360. You'll find the Media that TVersity is sharing by going to the Media blade and going in to the Video section. You should see your TVersity show up as a media source. You'll need to dig around bit after selecting the TVersity media source but you should be able to find your shared media folder and the files in it. Once you find the media files, you should be able to play them without a problem. Check out the screenshots at TVersity for some help on this if you get confused.

And that is it! It took me a couple of nights after work to get this all working but I took a couple of wrong turns along the way. I had tried WinAMP to steam the media but their software wouldn't stream the files on the Xbox and I didn't feel like waiting for them to fix this.

Please comment on this article. I'd like to make this as clear as possible for everyone out there.

Links:
Avast
RealVNC
uTorrent
K-Lite Codec Pack Basic
TVersity

XBox 360 and Linksys WRT54G connection problems

2008-02-28T18:25:00.000-08:00

About a month ago I upgraded the firmware on my Linksys WRT54G router to run the Tomato firmware. I've really enjoyed the upgrade since it allows me to enable features like QoS and bandwidth monitoring. Since the upgrade, I've really only had one problem: I couldn't automatically connect to XBox Live. I would have to try to connect, wait for it to error out and then test the connection. After I tested the connection I could then sign in to XBox Live. It was annoying to say the least.

I tried searching the Tomato firmware forums for an answer and never found a good answer. Finally, I did a search the other night and found that someone got rid of this issue by manually entering in the DNS server IP addresses from their ISP. So, I figured I'd give this a shot. I gathered the DNS server IP addresses via my router and manually entered them in to the XBox 360 network configuration. I rebooted the 360 and I got the familiar *boop* saying I signed in to Live.

So, if you're having problems with XBox Live not automatically connecting, try manually entering in the DNS server IP addresses from your ISP.

Free Month of Gamefly

2008-02-28T12:29:00.000-08:00

I checked my e-mail today and I got a nice little notice from Gamefly that'll let me invite friends to Gamefly for a free month of service. Judging by the savings they're saying, it looks like it's two games out at a time. Give it a whirl if you're interested.

Fine print:
Free trial valid in the 50 United States only. This limited free trial offer expires 3/10/08 and cannot be combined with any other offer. Limit one per household. First-time customers only. Internet access and valid payment method required to redeem offer. Referrals made through the Friends and Family Program are not affiliated with GameFly's Refer A Friend program and do not count toward your Referral Rewards. GameFly will begin to bill your payment method for the plan selected at sign-up at the completion of the free trial unless you cancel prior to the end of the free trial. Your friends' e-mail addresses are safe with us. We won't give, sell, rent, or loan your friends' personal information to others, and we won't send them spam. For more details, see our complete Privacy Policy at http://www.gamefly.com/help/privacypolicy.asp. Please visit www.gamefly.com/help/termsofuse.asp for complete Terms of Use.

Xbox Live Gold for $38.75 plus 1 Bonus Month. FREE Shipping

2008-02-26T12:29:00.001-08:00

And if use Google Checkout, you'll get $10 off (if you're a first time buyer)...*hint* create yourself a new gmail account.

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Portal Turret Papercraft

2008-02-25T14:15:00.001-08:00

I think I got my homework for the night. I'll need some of these at work to protect my cube...and I'm not talking about a companion cube. :(

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xkcd: Fuck Grapefruit

2008-02-25T09:58:00.001-08:00

Gotta agree with most of this. I happen to love bananas and I would move them way up to the right.

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A Look Back at HD DVD and Its Eventual Demise

2008-02-22T16:29:00.001-08:00

HD DVD is dead. Let's have a look at how it got there and what contributed to Blu-ray's success. Where does Toshiba go from here?And this is why I don't bet on horses. I was pulling for HD DVD to win based upon the premise that BluRay is just a stupid name. At least there's now a single HD movie format so we can move forward.

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Obama Gets His Desmond Howard On (Pic)

2008-02-22T16:21:00.001-08:00

As some of you surely saw yesterday, presidential candidate Barack Obama visited Mack Brown and the Texas Longhorns yesterday. We think this picture is pretty awesome. We hope that this inevitably leads to Mitt Romney, when he runs again in four years, hanging out with Keith Van Horn.

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The Best Owl Picture That You've Seen This Year!

2008-02-22T14:57:00.001-08:00

O RLY?

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Ninja Gaiden 2 'demo' hits Xbox Live, just a video

2008-02-22T13:28:00.001-08:00

Just a bit misleading. Someone on the XBL team should rename the link.

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