Acid for Blood

TypePad Connect

For the past few weeks, I had been looking into a new commenting system for my blog because it was difficult to track lengthy conversations.

I'd had good experiences with Disqus as a commenter on a few blogs. Although Disqus advertises that bloggers can use it on TypePad, what they didn't reveal -- until I tried to install it -- is that it only works with the TypePad Pro pricing plan and higher.

Next, I tried IntenseDebate. Whilst not as popular as Disqus, IntenseDebate has many of the same features. I got as far as installing it onto my TypePad blog, but ran into a problem. I was supposed to be able to have all my old comments appear natively in TypePad, and entries posted after I installed IntenseDebate would feature the new commenting system. I wanted to keep my old comments. Unfortunately this didn't work. What happened is that IntenseDebate just appeared over all comments, making it appear as if no one had replied to my old posts. I asked for help at their GetSatisfaction customer support page, however no assistance came. I decided to uninstall it because it wasn't working as advertised. After reading around, I discovered that getting IntenseDebate to install on a TypePad Plus blog was an imperfect hack rather than true integration.

By good fortune, SixApart released TypePad Connect BETA several days ago. TypePad Connect has some of the same features that Disqus and IntenseDebate have, like comment threading, user pictures, and user profiles. SixApart integrated TypeKey profiles into TypePad connect, so if you already have a TypeKey profile, it has evolved into a TypePad profile. Everyone can sign up for a free TypePad profile (here's mine), regardless of your blogging platform and whether you blog or not. This is exactly like IntenseDebate and Disqus, where you can create a commenter profile. Like Disqus and IntenseDebate, bloggers can use TypePad Connect on their blogs to help manage their comments, regardless of whether you have a Movable Type or TypePad blog.

Disqus and IntenseDebate are the more established commenting systems, so they do have more robust basic moderation features as well as flashier bells and whistles that TypePad Connect lacks -- such as comment statistics, reputation systems, comment voting/rating, comment flagging (for appropriateness), video comments (Disqus), widgets that display information about a blog's commenters, and better integration with other social networking platforms. IntenseDebate, in particular, has a ton of moderation features that I would find very useful if TypePad Connect had them. I think that the TypePad profiles could be more aesthetically pleasing. The profiles on Disqus and IntenseDebate just feel more Web 2.0.

I installed TypePad Connect on my blog, and I'm very pleased with it so far. I'm just as pleased that I have a native commenting system that allows me to keep all my old comments and makes conversations easier to follow. TypePad Connect is still in beta, so there are probably a few minor issues, but I've had few problems with it, and the initial problems I did have were quickly solved by the SixApart team.

I hope SixApart takes some cues from Disqus and IntenseDebate and decides to integrate many more features that are essential to commenting systems (IP blacklisting, email blacklisting, word filters), as well as of the more social network-y features.

EDIT - 24 November 2008: So apparently I can ban IP addresses and words in TypePad Connect. However, it doesn't let you ban email addresses. It would also be nice, for those blogs that publish comments without moderation, for there to be an option to hold comments in moderation depending on IP address, number of links, email address, and key words.

Comcast Cares About Twitterers

Something odd happened to me this week. Early one morning, my internet went down for a couple of hours. I tried resetting my modem to no avail. I was irritated because I'd have to take time out of my day to call Comcast and tell them to fix my internet. I posted a tweet on Twitter to vent my frustration:

brinstar: OMG. I have no internets at home. Comcast, you suck! I never had these problems with Verizon or AT&T DSL.

Later on, my internet access returned. However, I'd received an @reply to my tweet:

ComcastBill: @brinstar send me your account info i can help?

Holy crap! Comcast tweeted at me! I replied that I had my internet back, so there was no longer a problem:

brinstar: Internet started back up inexplicably. ~2 hrs of downtime. Inconvenient.

@ComcastBill insisted:

ComcastBill: @brinstar send me the account info.

Well, okay, since he insisted:

brinstar: Acct# is xxxxx. I am at work, so I cannot troubleshoot modem/connection.

He proceeded to conduct customer support with me via Twitter. I communicated with him through direct messages:

ComcastBill: @brinstar this is a splitter or modem issue which both require a tech. What's your availability?
brinstar: Whoa. That's some service! Oct 25-26 or Nov 1-2. Sat is ideal.
ComcastBill: @brinstar Saturday moring 8-12?
brinstar: Yup, that works. Sat Oct 25? Or Nov 1?
ComcastBill: @brinstar the 25th
brinstar: Will I get an email confirmation?
ComcastBill: @brinstar I already sent it to the market and they confirmed

And later, after it was all arranged, I tweeted:

brinstar: Mind has officially been blown. Tweeted abt internet probs this AM. Comcast did customer support w/ me thru TWITTER. Have tech appt Sat.

In an article I'd read just the day before this happened, on either Mashable or TechCrunch, Comcast had been mentioned amongst other companies who connect with their customers through Twitter and other social networks.

I did some research, and found a couple of articles about this Comcast Cares initiative. They have several accounts on Twitter through which they provide personalised customer service, including the main one, @comcastcares. Apparently, TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington also received customer service with Comcast through Twitter. It is to Comcast's advantage to do this sort of thing. Techdirt writes:

But we should all keep in mind that the sort of concierge-style customer support offered by @comcastcares is unlikely to ever scale beyond the size of a PR exercise.

In this case Twitter's chief virtue is its userbase: a collection of highly-wired early adopters whose online complaints about cable provider malfeasance frequently find their way into press accounts and Google results associated with the company.

The Comcast technician just stopped by and he looked at my internet connection. Apparently I was keeping my wireless router too close to the modem and this could interfere with the connection, so I should keep them farther apart. He told me that the other diagnostic tests revealed no problems. Very cool.

This experience with Comcast through Twitter was great, and I think it's an awesome thing for a company to do, but honestly I do find Comcast's internet service far less reliable than Verizon FiOS/Verizon DSL, which I had when I lived in Virginia and AT&T DSL, which I had when I lived in California. With Comcast, I regularly have to reset my router because the internet drops off, and three times (including this one) in the past six months, Comcast customer service has had to help me troubleshoot connectivity problems. It's ridiculous. Comcast cares about their image, and that's why they're scanning Twitter and the blogosphere for disgruntled customers, but they should put some heavy investment into their infrastructure.

I didn't even want to get cable internet in the first place. I don't subcscribe to cable television, which is why I prefer DSL for my internet needs. I was unable to find a DSL provider relatively quickly when I moved to this area, so I settled for Comcast. I'm paying more for my internet through Comcast than I was paying through either Verizon or AT&T, and Comcast's service is worse. With Verizon and AT&T, I was paying a little over $50 a month, and with Comcast, I'm paying nearly $60. When my contract is due to end, I may look for another ISP.

Greenish Gaming

As gamers, we do not have the most environmentally-friendly of hobbies. Playing games on your console or PC uses electricty, and there's no getting around that. HCW compared the energy usage of the three major current-generation consoles as well as a mid-range PC:

• In video games, both the PS3 and XBOX 360 were relatively low compared to a mid-to-high range PC.

 

• The Wii is amazingly efficient, using no more than 18 Watts in any of our tests (although it really shows in visual quality in games)

 

• Both consoles are power hogs when it comes to playing movies.



• XBOX 360's Dashboard console is power-hungry (and slow). PS3's is slick and uses a lot of power, but no more than playing a DVD.

A PC's energy consumption is comparable to the PS3 and the Xbox 360, though the results varied depending on the task at hand.

The most radical solution to save energy and money is not to play electronic games at all. I am not suggesting that we all stop playing games, but there are some steps we can take to reduce energy consumption and lower our bills. Modern consoles do not completely shut off -- they're left in standby mode, which of course requires electricity. Any appliance that has any sort of LED indicator continues to draw power even when you have turned it "off". This is called electricty leakage or phantom load. Energy leaks in the house here and there don't use much energy or cost you much money, but in aggregate (TV, consoles, toaster oven, etc.) they can impact your pocketbook -- from 8% of your annual electricity bill or more. The best way to reduce power leakage throughout the house is to cut the power to the devices after each use.

Many of us use power strips which provide additional outlets and surge protection for our electronic devices. To save money and electricty, plug all of your electronics into a power strip, and when you're finished, switch the power strip off. Some people may not have a set-up that allows them easy access to the power strip. For instance, your power strip may be located behind your entertainment unit or behind your computer desk. The Smart Strip power strip (via TreeHugger) senses whether a device is using "idle" (standby) current or whether it is active. If the control or master device is idle, the Smart Strip will cut the power to all of the other devices that are plugged into the power strip, saving you the hassle of reaching behind your furniture, or if you're like me, remembering to switch it off for the night. The Smart Strip is available to people in the US, but there may be similar gadgets for other countries, too.

This post is part of Blog Action Day 2007 - The Environment. Over 15 000 blogs are participating.

Web 2.0 Overdose

A real post to come later tonight after work, honest.

For now, I have several oh-so cutting-edge Web 2.0 things to share.

1) I am on Twitter. Updated with the minutiae of my life, when I remember. Not that anyone cares, but in case you're bored.

2) I have a tumblelog on Tumblr. There isn't anything there yet. Whatever random stuff I find, which doesn't go on my del.icio.us links, may find its way to Tumblr.

3) Yes, I am on MySpace. There is nothing on my page except me voicing distaste for MySpace. There are also links to my blogs and profiles on Last.fm, Twitter, and Xfire. Two guesses as to what the URL is.

4) I have been avoiding Facebook for two years. I'm hoping to continue that for now. So far, I've only received three friend requests in that time, so I think I'm doing pretty well.

5) I also have a Vox blog. I don't know what to use it for, apart from checking out the themes that might be available for LiveJournal Paid Users in the future, and flashing my Vox beta tester Web 2.0 street cred.

EDIT -- 6th April 2007: Um... So I couldn't hold out any longer. I'm on Facebook. A former flatmate of mine attempted to add me to her friends list. I haven't heard from her in four or five years. I thought, "No harm in that". Right? And so it begins. :?

“Dual Shake” Not as Good at Motion Sensing as Wii-mote

Apparently, the ill-informed gamers on the interweb have united to declare that the PS3 controller can do everything that the Wii controller can do. Xantar over at The Gaming Hobo sets the record straight on the difference between the Wii controller and the PS3 controller:

So to recap, the PS3 controller can't simulate a knife cut in a kitchen. It can't even do something as simple as picking up an object and then dropping it somewhere else. You might be able to do a punch with it, but the controller can't tell precisely where you've punched. The Wii controller can basically simulate anything you are able to do with one hand including wielding weapons, grabbing and twisting doorknobs, picking up objects, pushing buttons, pulling a level, petting a dog and probably even writing on a chalkboard. The PS3 controller can do none of these things. The functionality of the two is barely even worth comparing.
...
The fact that the gaming media has utterly failed to explain this difference to the videogame audience is unsurprising but shameful.

[Read]

Wii Hardware Shots

Nintendo isn't abandoning the traditional control pad. Here is a picture of the "Classic Pad" controller for the Wii:

It has dual analogue sticks and what appear to be four shoulder buttons. It's a wired controller, though I can't tell whether the wire comes out of the top and they've pictured it trailing behind the pad and hanging down, or whether the wire comes out of the bottom. If the wire comes out of the bottom, then what is that little protrusion at the top?

EDIT: Apparently the Wii-mote connects to the Classic Pad via that cord sticking out of the bottom. So the Classic Pad is wireless, sort of. It seems cumbersome. Are we expected to have the Wii-mote portion held between our knees and pointed at the console, or perhaps sitting next to us, when we use the Classic Pad?

Why have they abandoned the pseudo handlebar style design of the GameCube controller? The GameCube controller is very comfortable to hold. I didn't like the placement of the analogue sticks in the GameCube controller, nor did I like the fact that the sticks were not uniform in design. The Wii Classic Pad places the analogue sticks in the centre, like the PlayStation controller, and I think this is better.

Here's a shot of the Wii console with a Wii disc alongside a GameCube disc:

This is the new prototype Wii-mote controller with the attachment, as revealed at the Nintendo press conference yesterday:

They're actually calling it the "nunchuck" in the Nintendo data sheets. The Wii-mote is a little bit longer than the original prototype, to incorporate the speaker in the centre of the unit. Also, I think the button labels are different from the Wii-mote we saw some months ago.

Oh, Snap!

When I had a working 35mm camera, I used to take a lot of pictures of random things I saw throughout the day. I'd often take my camera along with me, and snap photos when I saw something interesting. I have no photography training or anything, but it was fun to have an image of what I came across. After my camera broke a few years ago (I accidentally dropped it at a scenic overlook on Tantalus), I decided not to replace it. Since then, I have been using 35mm single-use cameras. Kodak has phased out film camera production and now Nikon is slowly going all-digital. This may be the year that I get my own digital camera.

Everyone else in my immediate family has already got one. My father gave my mother a Sony CyberShot digital camera a few years ago, and he recently bought his own CyberShot (my father is a Sony fanboy). My brother was out of the country for a month, including Christmas, so we all decided to do the holiday thing upon his return. I gave my mother a 1 GB Sony MemoryStick Pro for her camera. Last night I bought my father a 2 GB Sony MemoryStick Pro Duo for his CyberShot. In what seems to be a continuing fit of generosity, I agreed to buy my brother a digital camera. He's still doing research on which one he wants. He has a Canon SLR 35mm film camera, so he is familiar with the brand. We spoke to a helpful person at Best Buy the other day, and my brother seems likely to go with a Canon, though he isn't sure which model to go for yet.

I'm partial to a tiny, slim camera, because you can stick it in your pocketses, however they don't seem to have as many features as the slightly larger models. If I go digital this year, I could start back up with the random picture-taking. Then I could be even more 1337 and post them to Flickr.

Does anyone have any digital camera suggestions?

Glowing Keys Are Cool

OHMYGOSH. The Optimus Keyboard, with an OLED display under each key, has a launch date. Supposedly 1st February. The price? Only your first-born child.

You can customise the keyboard so that each key displays exactly what it does. So if you play games, you can make the keyboard display game functions, for example, they have mapped the Quake controls to the keyboard. And it looks really cool. They are vague about it, saying that it would cost about the same as a "good mobile phone" which, I would guess is over $200, at least.

I have to settle for my Saitek Eclipse keyboard, which is very nice, but not nearly as cool as the Optimus. Priced quite a bit less.

[Via Gizmodo]

Voice Chat

When I started playing Guild Wars, it was hard to juggle the need to communicate via the chat window with the requirement to stay alive and kill things. One of my guildies and I thought that we should look into some sort of voice communication system. A lot of online gamers use voice chat programs, and successful teams/guilds/squads require them. TeamSpeak and Ventrilo seemed a little too complex and paying for a server didn't seem to be worth the effort. Eventually we got used to the chat system, so the voice idea stagnated.

We didn't find the lack of voice chat as much of a hindrance as before. However, even if people how to use the in-game commumications tools, it does not put a stop to n00b-ish behaviour! I discovered this other night whilst questing with a guildie and a friend (both of whom I know IRL). With all the action happening on-screen, sometimes one can miss directions from one's party members. Maybe other factors were to blame for the regression to n00b-ness. All I know is that my frequent directions (e.g. "Wait! Stop running ahead! Check the map! Stop aggro-ing mobs! Wait, the (NPC) Healer's dead again; Rez her! I think this is the wrong way!") via chat either went ignored or there was a delay in action, to the detriment of the team.

In general though, the in-game chat function, combined with use of the Left CTRL key and using the Compass Mini-Map to draw routes has worked pretty well. Using the Left CTRL key is possibly one of the more important combat techniques to learn in Guild Wars. Holding down Left CTRL and using it with other key commands can make party-wide announcements such as:

• How much Health you have -- Left CTRL + Click Health Bar


• How much Energy you have -- Left CTRL + Click Energy Bar


• What enemy you are attacking (Called Target) -- Left CTRL + Space Bar -- Usually you will have the Target already selected at this point. Space Bar is used for Default action, in this case, Attack. Called Target will automatically flash that enemy's location on the Compass Mini-Map so the party knows which one you are attacking.


• The fact that you are using a Skill on an enemy or party member -- Left CTRL + Click Skill -- Again, the Target would already be selected at this point.


• What Conditions you have on you -- Left CTRL + Click Icon -- The Conditions you have on you are displayed at the top-left of the screen.


• The fact that you are talking to an NPC -- Left CTRL + Click NPC


• How close you are to leveling -- Left CTRL + Click XP Bar


• The fact that you are following a specific party member -- Left CTRL + Double Click Party Member's Name in Party List

These announcements will be displayed in the Chat Window (or Chat Bar if you have the window minimised).

Pick-up groups will not have voice chat. All (or at least most) party members of successful PUGs that I have grouped with were able to use the given tools properly to communicate. In these cases, game play went very smoothly, in fact. For PvE, the lack of voice chat does not make game play impossible if you know how to use all the communication tools.

A friend of mine recently got Guild Wars. For months, I'd been interrupting a lot of our MSN conversations with "I'm going to go play GW now. I'll talk to you later". And then I wouldn't actually talk to him later, because I'd be playing so long that he'd go AFK to do other things. And later on, I'd talk about Guild Wars to him. This made him curious, so he started playing. He now "sees what all the fuss was about" and he is enjoying the game, but he is also experiencing the learning curve that comes with using the in-game communications tools. He asked me about voice chat programs, and I thought, "Why? In-game chat works well". But I'm used to the user interface now, and I forgot that he isn't yet.

I was reminded of Xfire when I saw Joystiq's entry on PC and Mac applications every gamer should have. This further reminded me that the Store Manager at the GameStop I worked at last year also mentioned that he uses it to communicate whilst playing online games. Since Xfire appeared to be easy to grasp, and my friend is not as computer-inclined as I am (not that I am some super computer person to start with), I decided to download the app and let him know about it.

I've used it a couple of times this week, and in short, voice chat makes questing in PvE much easier. In reference to the anecdote above, had everyone in the party been on voice chat, rather than just two of us (out of three), perhaps the minor fiascos that occurred the other night might not have happened. It would certainly be harder to ignore vocal commands than on-screen commands. One would hope. Anyway, I think we'll try to use Xfire if we can, but I wouldn't be upset if people continued without it.

Mobile Ringtones of the Video Game Variety

I have finally replaced my lost mobile, after about a month of being without one. In the end, I didn't get the Nokia 6230i or the 6230. I decided that it would be more prudent to simply replace my Nokia 3120 instead of spending $100+ more on a phone with a camera and MP3 player. I got quite a good deal for a new, unlocked phone on eBay and it included accessories (such as a PC link cable!), so I'm satisfied.

Yesterday's project was to replace my SIM card. The Cingular customer care folk on the service hotline had said that they would charge me some fees to replace the SIM card. The manager at the Cingular store was nice and he simply gave me a new SIM without charging a replacement or installation fee. One of his co-workers asked him about it initially, and he looked at me and said, "No, she's cool, she's been here before. I remember her". Amazing! I can't believe that he remembered me from when I made the change from T-Mobile to Cingular all those months ago.

Prior to my hellish, suburban mall adventure, I spent some time looking for (free) video game music ringtones, and it's harder than one would think. I finally found this site. Most of the songs are from old Nintendo games, though there are one or two themes from more recent games. Irritatingly, I found that my mobile could not play certain ringtones, and the only thing that they have in common (that I can tell) is that the file size is significantly larger than the ringtones my phone could play.

Right now, I have themes from Ninja Gaiden, Contra, the Metroid series (durh!), Zelda: OOT, Double Dragon, Castlevania loaded on my phone. Damn, I'm a nerd. I'll be putting ringtones from Mega Man 2 into the mobile as well.

Does anyone know any other sites where one could acquire video game music ringtones for free? I know that there are loads of video game MIDI sites, but the lengths of the songs are generally too long to use as ringtones. Even the site I linked to above has quite a few ringtones that have not optimised for use on mobiles.