Geek Swagger.
PC
Making the switch?
Apr 7th
I've been talking about how badly I've needed a new desktop machine pretty much since I started this blog. I still need a new desktop. The problem is that I'm having a really hard time deciding what to get...and, well, without teasing too much I'm beginning to think that an might be the way to go. Last week's PC gaming post might be sort of an indication that this switch has been on my mind quite a bit since in the past I would never get a Mac desktop just because the lack of OS X games. Now though? PC gaming isn't as big a deal to me as it was.
Not only that, but the particular iMac I've been looking at has plenty of testimonials of being able to play , the most demanding PC-exclusive game, quite well. You know what? Forget it. For my convenience more than anyone else's I'm going to create a list of reasons why I'm considering a Mac against those that suggest I should stick with a PC. We'll start with the Mac side of things.
- I can still , which includes games.
- I won't have to muck about building the machine. I've always built my desktop computers in the past, but I've been sort of dreading the process for the new computer.
- OS X is fresh. Now I love Windows, it's where I'm most comfortable, but it seems like all of the applications I use on my Macbook under OSX 10.4 (this is Tiger I'm talking about, not even the latest version Leopard) are more fun to use not to mention prettier.
- The hardware is pretty and simple. One cord for an iMac. That alone makes me so excited...I hate all of the cables I have coming off of my current desktop, it seems like every little thing has its own power cable, not to mention the myriad of cables for my I/O devices.
- All this for ~$2,300.00 US. Not bad considering the convenience factor.
Alright now I'm going to do the same thing for the PC side of things. Here's that particular list.
- I'm 100% comfortable with Windows, including Vista. I actually like Vista and, if I had a machine that was beefier I would have no problems running it.
- DX10 support for gaming - Vista has it.
- I will have to muck around with building machine. I say that as a positive here for a couple reasons. First of all, to buy a pre-built gaming rig such as an HP Blackbird or a Falcon Northwest I'd end up spending ~$4,000.00 US. Trust me on that, I've already spec'd out the machine I would want. Not only that, but as I said above I always have built my own machines and to not do so now is almost to admit that I don't "have it" anymore. That sounds weird, no? It sounds weird to me and I'm the one typing it. Basically, I want to prove to myself that I can still build a machine even with a quad-core processor and all of the new hardware required. There's a great sense of accomplishment associated with building your own computer and I might just miss that a bit.
- Technically, I could spend as little as to build a new computer. Now, that doesn't mean it would be a Crysis-killer of a machine but it would be way better than what I have now. Much like this machine that I'm writing this post on it would probably need upgraded in another 2 years but that's been the general pattern of all of my computers.
- I have a lot of accessories now that I could use with a new computer. I'm referring to my two LCD screens that I have right now, plus my newly acquired keyboard and mouse, some external media, my headset and so on. Of course I could always keep those attached to my current machine and use it as a media center or something. Not only that but pretty much everything I have right now is compatible with a Mac so...
That's it. I'm still not positive but I have to be honest, I'm leaning toward getting an iMac sometime this summer. I say sometime because I really want to wait until new iMacs come out (at least with a performance boost over the current iMacs which should be getting Peryn chips - in turn that might make the iMac smaller, plus Blu-Ray maybe?). When I bought my Macbook, a few weeks later Apple introduced new versions of them that had Core 2 Duo processors instead of my lowly Core Duo. I was a little peeved about that, not bad enough to return the Macbook of course, but still no one likes to get bitten.
So how do I know that the iMac is due for a refresher? Well has a handy guide called the "Mac Buyer's Guide" which, based on previous releases of hardware, can tell you if a product is due for an upgrade anytime soon or not. Based on that they rate a product as "Buy Only If You Need It - Approaching end of a cycle," "Buy, product recently updated," or "Don't Buy - Updates Soon." The iMac is listed as Updates Soon because it has been 244 days since its last update and the average amount of time it goes before being updated is 205 days. if you'd like to see for yourself.
Anyways, I'd really appreciate some input or thoughts. I'm still not 100% sure one way or the other, but this is a pretty big deal for a (primarily) PC user since birth. We'll see you on Thursday.
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What’s next for the PC gaming industry
Apr 3rd
It's no secret that PC gaming has been hurting lately. There are less PC-specific titles anymore, and franchises that were built for PC exclusivity ( for example) are going platform independent and are being released for consoles as well. Why? Because there aren't as many PC gamers as there used to be and the cost of game development keeps going up. Therefore to recoup the money spent on development publishers are forced to make console versions. It's sad actually...I've been a PC-gaming stalwart since middle school. I still believe today that, in general, I have way better gaming experiences behind a PC than I do across the room from a TV. Take for example - F.E.A.R. on the PC? Engrossing and scary. F.E.A.R. on my 360? Cheesy and overdone. There's just something about being a few inches from your monitor with a keyboard, mouse and headphones playing a game that is unlike any console gaming experience.
So then, PC gaming is dead. Right? No. At least I don't think so. PC gaming will never die in my opinion, instead it will just have to evolve. The #1 reason why people abandon their PC as a gaming machine and instead turn to consoles is the cost. Now I'm not trying to incite an argument here but it's true - you can spend $400 on an Xbox 360 or you can spent $1500 on a gaming PC. Of course there are caveats, for instance if you take the cost of the high definition TV you'll need to get the most out of your console the overall cost is much higher. Still, at the most basic level, console gaming is viewed as being a cheaper alternative to receive basically the same content. What that means is that for PC gaming to become relevant again the entrance cost has to be significantly lower. I'm happy to say that this change is already being made.
DICE is one of my favorite developers of great PC games, particularly the Battlefield franchise (, , , ). For their next game though, they're making a light-weight game that will be completely free and it will run inside of a web browser. That means that if you have a computer that is even remotely modern you'll be able to play what they're calling . Sure the graphics aren't at , but if they successfully migrate the gameplay elements that have made the Battlefield series so great over the years into this game then it'll definitely be a hit. Of course DICE isn't the only developer making this move.
Ever heard of Doom? Yeah, . The mother of all first person shooters. Well , the development firm behind Doom as well as many other classic franchises (, ) have decided to re-release one of their most successful games ever for browsers: . Quake 3, in case you never played it, is a multiplayer FPS that used to be the standard when it came to PC shooters. Now you'll be able to play it in your browser for free. Even id Software, one of the most traditional PC developers, has realized that it's time for a change and this proves it. Besides, show me a computer built in the last 5 years that can't run Quake 3! You can't. So what that means is that basically anyone can play it, and they'll want to of course because it's a great game and it's free. How do they make money then? Well if there's one thing Google has taught us it's that the way to make money on the internet these days is through advertising. Both Battlefield Heroes and Quake Live (the tentative name for the re-release of Quake 3) will be ad supported. I just wanted to make a quick post about this because I've been thinking about it a lot lately. I'd hate to live in a day where I can't sit down behind a computer and play a game. After all, that's what really got me into gaming in the first place. I'm very excited to see what happens in the PC gaming industry over the next 5 years...it's a fun time to be a gamer!
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Vista SP 1
Apr 1st
Alright so this past weekend I was working on my Vista laptop, trying to get some homework done as a college student is ought to do on a Sunday afternoon, and I noticed that I had a new available. It just so happened that this update in particular was the much-anticipated Service Pack 1 for Vista, so I promptly installed it and I have to say if you were waiting for SP1 to get Vista I don't really know why. That's not to say that SP1 isn't a great addition to Vista, but there are no groundbreaking features or anything for people to get excited about. What there is, however, are some under-the-hood performance boosts as well as a lot of fixes.
So if you're familiar with Windows service packs at all, you know that the reason they're so important is mostly that they offer a roll-up of all of the fixes that have occurred since the last service pack (or the launch of the operating system in Vista's case). What this means is that you can slipstream in all of the updates from the past year or 2 so that when you install Vista on your computer you have the bulk of the updates from the get-go. This is great for easing bandwidth use so that you don't have to download 5 gigabytes worth of updates when you first install. Also back in the day when Internet speeds weren't what they are today (the dial-up era I'm talking about) it could take hours if not days to download the mass of updates you would need for a fresh install of Windows. The service pack side-steps the process of downloading all of those updates so that you only have to get maybe a few of the newest updates instead of every update ever released for the OS since its launch.
Now I started out by saying that there are no flashy additions to Vista found in the service pack but that's okay. The real reason most people like to wait until SP1 to jump into an operating system is the bug fixes. Sure, any early adopter of Vista (myself?) has been getting these fixes in small increments over the past year and a half or so, but now a lot of the initial complaints about Vista have been fixed via patches and they're all available in SP1. Whether you were worried about driver support (that issue is still there by the way, just not nearly as big of a problem as when Vista launched) or buggy software you don't have a whole lot to worry about anymore.
"But I haven't gotten SP1 yet! What's the deal?" Well trust me I feel your pain. I have 2 Vista boxes, one desktop and one laptop, and I still have only received SP1 via automatic update on my laptop. The reason for this is that SP1 has been a slow rollout, not just a "flip switch" update. What I mean by that is that Microsoft is slowly releasing it out to Vista users instead of just making it available to everyone who uses Vista right off the bat. There's a few reasons for this, the most important of which is that there are still a handful of incompatibility problems with Vista software that need to be patched before SP1 can be installed. If you're running Vista on a new machine that you purchased with Vista installed on it and it's Vista certified, chances are if you launch Windows Update you'll be able to download and install SP1. If you upgraded from a pre-existing machine, for example your old Windows XP machine, you might have to wait a bit longer. Either way make sure you have all previous updates installed, including updates that are marked 'Recommended' in Windows Update, because SP1 is only available once you have installed all of the updates that led up to it. It's important to install updates as soon as they come out either way because it secures your system. Make sure you have automatic updates on, that Vista will automatically install 'Recommended' updates along with 'Critical' ones, and install all available updates.
For example on my laptop which has SP1 I had to install an Office 2007 service pack before I could install SP1. On my desktop however, which is a computer I upgraded to Vista from XP (my laptop was purchased recently, is Vista certified, and came with Vista installed when I bought it), I still have not been able to download and install SP1 through Windows Update. I think the main problem is that I might have failed to install some of the previous updates and so I obviously can't get SP1 yet. If you don't want to use Windows Update by the way, you can always download Vista Service Pack 1 from Microsoft's website.
So that's my Vista SP1 post. I'm going to include a list below from Paul Thurrott's website where he gives a great rundown of everything that you get in service pack 1. Go ahead and check out his (as well as his website in general, it's great stuff) for more information.
Q: What features are included in Vista SP1?
A: The following end-user features are included in Windows Vista Service Pack 1:
1. A collection of previously-released and new security fixes, bug fixes, and other minor updates.
2. An update to the Windows kernel to bring the Vista kernel (version 6.0) up to date with the version in Windows Server 2008 (version 6.1).
3. A change to the Kernel Patch Protection ("PatchGuard") feature in the Vista kernel that prevents security companies like McAfee and Symantec from integrating as tightly with the OS as they could in previous Windows versions. This will include a set of APIs aimed at helping developers write code that interacts with this security feature.
4. A change to Vista's Instant Search feature that will allow third party desktop search product makers to more closely integrate their products with Windows Vista. In the initial shipping version of Vista, the Instant Search indexer still runs at full speed even if a third party product is installed, reducing overall system performance.
5. A change to Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) that will remove the Reduced Functionality Mode (RFM) and Non-Genuine State (NGS) mode for Vista installs in expired non-activated and non-genuine states. See for more information about this change.
Again, you can read the rest of Paul's Vista Service Pack 1 rundown
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My new mouse and keyboard
Mar 6th
So a couple weeks ago my desktop mouse at the time, a , decided it wanted to break on me. Specifically, the left mouse button decided it wanted to break. This is the second Microsoft mouse (both were wireless) whose left mouse buttons broke, and it's probably just from overuse but I decided I was going to give Logitech a shot this time around. I also had a wireless Microsoft keyboard that was a layover from a set I had gotten a long time ago (the set that included the first mouse whose left click broke) and so I figured it was time for a new keyboard as well.
I originally looked at mouse and keyboard combos for convenience's sake, but I found that generally either the mouse in the set was really nice and the keyboard was kind of a throwaway or the keyboard in the set was really nice and the mouse was a throwaway. As a result I decided to get a separate keyboard and mouse. My desktop machine is also my PC gaming rig so I needed a precise wireless mouse, and I was looking for a comfortable keyboard. Now I have both of these needs met.
For the mouse portion of my combo I went ahead and purchased a . The mouse looks kind of janky (and without anything in the picture for a size comparison it can also come off as huge) but now that I have it I have to say it's probably the most comfortable mouse I've ever used. It's also the first laser mouse I've used, up to this point I've been using optical, and so I'm pleased with the precision. It also has a charger so I don't have to worry about swapping out batteries, plus it has a nice free-spin scroll wheel that lets me scroll through documents and pages in Firefox really fast. It also includes a button that does instant search, so for example I can highlight some text in a document or on a website and press the button and I immediately get Google results for whatever the text might be. It has a second scroll wheel on the left hand side where my thumb rests that is really more of a rocker that can be used to quickly switch between applications in Windows (alt+tab or Vista's application scroll view). Aside from that there's the relatively standard forward and back buttons. All of the buttons on the mouse can be configured though to do different tasks if you'd like, but I have kept mine all as default so far.
The keyboard I chose was the , which promised to enhance typing as a result of the wave design which is apparently more comfortable. I don't know about all that jazz, it's definitely comfortable but to be honest I can use pretty much any keyboard and feel comfortable typing. It does have a ton of programmable function keys though, as well as keys to control your music player of choice (for me, on my desktop machine anyways, that would be ). Another nice thing about the Wave is the feeling of the keys when you press them. It almost feels like you're using one of those old-school , it just has the same sort of tactile response when you're typing. The bad thing about those older IBM keyboards though was that they were pretty loud, but thankfully the Wave is fairly silent. It's at least quieter than my old keyboard.
Overall I'm pleased with both purchases. I really needed an input-device overhaul and when I received both the keyboard and the mouse I was excited to unhook the temporary corded combo I was using in the meantime. I bought the MX Revolution and Wave from Tiger Direct because they had a special where I could get $20 off plus another $30 in mail-in rebates, so I ended up getting both the keyboard and mouse for about the same price as the mouse costs alone. The worst part about the MX Revolution is that it's expensive, you can usually find it for around $65.00. After rebates and everything my MX Revolution with the Wave keyboard only ended up costing me $69.99 which is a pretty good deal I think.
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Get Vent!
Feb 19th
I was severely disappointed when, a couple weeks ago, developer released a patch that broke the support for me. Other than that the patch was great, but one of my favorite parts of the game was that Xfire was integrated allowing for in-game parties to quickly and easily move to voice communication rather than text via the chat. Voice is vastly superior because it's easier and faster, so this feature alone really made the game for me.
For some reason (and this problem still isn't fixed for me as of February 17th, 2008) I can get into an in-game party and use voice chat but as soon as I leave the area I'm in I get logged off of Xfire and booted out of the voice chat. This also seems to happen for the other party members. Pretty lame, particularly for a game that touts its integration with Xfire. The solution? Well, after asking around in the in-game chat to see if anyone else was experiencing the same thing everyone was oblivious. They did have some advice though -
At the time this sort of infuriated me. Nothing like asking how to fix something that's broken and being told to get an entirely different app for the same purpose when the first one should work properly. Still, after waiting all this time about a month later I said I'm sick of this and decided to set up Vent. Vent, in case you don't know, is online "shortification" of the word which is a voice communication application for PC and Linux. It's really common but it's mostly used for larger groups of gamers, for instance guilds in or clans in tend to use Ventrilo. It's referred to as a voice server, and as such it's really appropriate for 10 or more users at a time. Therefore for my small groups of players (sometimes as few as 2) it seemed like it wasn't really worth the trouble. Still, like I said, I really wanted to have something to enable voice.
So I went about setting it up. It was actually pretty easy, and once it's installed it's kind of slick. My main concern with installing Ventrilo (particularly the server) was that it would be a resource hog and use up a lot of RAM but it doesn't. I think Ventrilo Server took about 900k? I'm rocking 3 gigabytes so that's not very substantial. Anyways, the installation! All you really have to do is download and install the server, edit the .ini file that is included to add the name of the server, default channel, passwords for users and the admin, and so on and then tell the other users to point their Ventrilo client applications towards the server's address and input the name/password and you're good to go. When it worked after only a few minutes of I was shocked. I started out by testing the connection from client to server on my own computer by running the server and client application at the same time then connecting to the server via the client, and when that worked, I tested it out with a friend. That worked first try and it's been gravy ever since.
Despite my initial misconceptions (I had used Ventrilo in the past, by the way) Ventrilo has some neat features. First off, you can have multiple channels which you can think of as different chatrooms. For instance if you had a large group of users playing different games you could set up a different channel for each game so that all of the users can be connected to the same server why also having discussions in different games without any confusion. There is also commonly an AFK channel so people can show when they're away from their keyboard. Another cool thing is that you can show your current iTunes, Winamp, or Windows Media Player song next to your name in the voice chat room. I kind of discovered this out of the blue, it wasn't really a feature I had known about previously, but I thought it was neat. If you've used with its iTunes away message which shows what's currently playing you'll know what I'm talking about. Why you would want to listen to tunes while trying to voicechat is beyond me but it's there if you need it.
So that's it, I "GOT VENT!" Now I just have to build a larger community or something so I can really put it to the test. Until next time...
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(Blue Dragon OST)
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Gaming rigs
Jan 22nd
It's getting to be about that time in my current desktop computer's lifecycle where I can start to tell that I need to upgrade. I've had the machine for 2 years, I built it back then and so far it's been a pretty well-behaved box. No real problems besides one dead stick of RAM, which compared to problems I've had in the past is quite manageable. Still, newer games are becoming more sluggish and there are some that I don't dare to run at all (, ) so I find my browser wandering towards and more frequently, building the machine in my head as I go. The only problem is that it's kind of difficult to tell how much power I need without going overkill and spending 3 or 4 thousand dollars.
Now I love building computers more than your average Joe, of that there can be no doubt, but still I sort of dread the process. You spend all this money and then the process of making it all work is dropped in your lap. You hope there's no problems, and generally there are none, but it's the prospect of something going wrong and the hassle involved with troubleshooting, returning incompatible hardware, ordering new hardware and so on that kind of wears on my mind. Up until recently my argument was "Well I can spend a bunch of time and money building a new gaming PC or I can just get a PS3 with no worries involved." Now that I have the PS3 there'll be no more of that!
Because I wasn't too interested in messing around with building it myself I started pricing retail gaming machines - particularly HP's and rigs. After configuring a model comparable to what I would be happy with it's hard to imagine getting away with a new rig for less than $3,000. Still, there's the added bonus of just getting the new machine and being done with it...no hassle involved. I was set on purchasing one of these boxes (leaning more towards the Blackbird) but then I heard about .
In it, the developers of Crysis () show that it's 100% possible to build a machine that will run Crysis, the most demanding game out right now, on high settings for only $900. I'm sure they posted this to show that it was in fact possible to play Crysis without spending thousands of thousands of dollars, and it sort of convinced me. Although building a machine can sometimes be a hassle, I'd rather put $900 into one and deal with building it myself then spend over $3,000 just for convenience. So that's the plan. I'm glad to see that Crytek had the guts to stand up and show everyone that you CAN play their product without taking out a loan. Hit the video to catch an example.
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Corsair Pulls Through
Oct 16th
A few weeks ago my main box started to act up. I would get frequent and had to reboot way too often. So the lovely job of troubleshooting the problem began. I researched it a bit, and what I read plus some previous knowledge having to do with such matters led me to believe that it was probably a memory issue. I use ram and they usually make pretty high-quality stuff, but I ran MemTest86 and one of my sticks of ram showed up with around 100,000 errors after one pass.
If you don't know what is (shame on you! =P) it's a program which runs on boot that scans your ram one module at a time. Basically it writes to the ram, then checks the ram for what it wrote, and if what was written to the ram isn't the same as what Memtest wrote then it knows there's an error. It does this over and over with various different tests and one entire battery of tests is known as a "pass." You can do tons and tons of passes if you want and, if you let it, Memtest can run for 24 hours without fully completing the scan. Usually though, if there's something really wrong with a stick of ram it'll only take 1 or 2 passes for it to find errors, if that.
Anyways, I ran Memtest, saw the errors, and knew that I had to replace one of my sticks of ram. My first impulse was to go to and buy a replacement, but then I remembered that Corsair provides a on its memory. I went ahead and submitted a case to them and they issued a return to me. All I had to do was ship it in to them (which took only a few days - I sent it in on September 28th and they had it by October 1st) and then wait for them to send me my replacement. That's where things got a little...slow. Without turning this into a gaming post, a game I've been anticipating greatly - Valve's - just came out on October 10th. Without that stick of ram though I was pretty sure my machine wouldn't be able to run it, so by the 5th when I hadn't heard back from Corsair with an update about the return I started to get nervous.
I went ahead and shot them an email just asking for a status update and to see if anything was wrong. A couple days later I heard back and was assured that they had packed my return up and were getting ready to ship it. That night I received the shipping confirmation, and 3 days later (on the 12th) I received my ram replacement. Overall I'm pretty happy with my experience and if nothing else it saved me a hundred bucks so I really can't complain. So to anyone out there with hardware troubles this is just a suggestion - check with the manufacturer to see if they offer warranties before you buy a replacement! It seems like a simple enough thing but it totally slipped my mind at the time. The Orange Box is great by the way.
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Microsoft, the PS3, and Crysis…where could I possibly be going with this?
Jul 6th
This is going to be a gaming geekery post extraordinaire. Let's get started.
I have to start by both thanking and giving props to Microsoft. A day or so ago Peter Moore letting all of us Xbox 360 gamers know that from now on, if your 360 fails as a result of the you're covered. Microsoft will foot the bill to have the 360 replaced. Not only that, but anyone who has had to have their 360 fixed in the past because of the RROD will be reimbursed! It's nice to see some positive news about MS. I've been one of the lucky people who bought a launch 360 and hasn't had any problems with it (so far). The reason I'm thanking Microsoft is that now I know I'm covered in case something goes wrong...as long as that something is caused by the RROD.
Almost everyone I know who has a 360 has had problems with it of some sort, and a recent report said that the failure rate was (don't quote me there, I know that's not exact). As a result, I was pretty much planning for having to have mine fixed eventually...it moved from a matter of "if" it happens to "when" it happens, and I toyed with the idea of putting aside some money so I'd be ready when it did. This announcement has made the urgency of creating said "Xbox 360 Repair Fund" much less imposing. Thank you Microsoft for having the guts to admit you screwed up and to do something about it.
So...I recently read that this year at we might be hearing about a . That would drop the price for the 60 gig standard model from $599 to $499. 
Not bad...it actually made me consider getting one. I've been but I have to be honest, my interest has waned as of late. Nintendo is the Apple of gaming consoles, I know that if I finally found one and dropped the $250 to pick it up I'd see an announcement the next week about a new . So basically I said forget it, the Wii still doesn't have a whole lot of games out there made specifically for the remote/nunchuck combo and by the time they've built up that library the thing will probably cost $150 so maybe I'll pick it up then. For now I'm going to think long and hard about the PS3...having a player would be nice! Though the as far as I know.
. What can I say about Crysis ? It's probably my right now...even ahead of your 's and 's. The only problem is that my current gaming rig would wither up and cry in the fetal position if I even inserted a Crysis DVD-ROM...this game takes a to run. With that in mind I think I'm going to upgrade my gaming rig. I've been spec'ing it out and I think for another $300 I could have a machine that would destroy any games I'm playing now as well as run Crysis quite handily. The only components I'd really need to upgrade would be my processor (and therefore, my motherboard) and my graphics card. Here are a few links to what I'm thinking about using right now: , , and last but not least the .
Crysis requires a dual core CPU to run even with its minimum requirements if I remember correctly, and I'm still running on a single core so it really is time to upgrade either way. The mobo is just to house the CPU really, my current mobo is fine...but the GeForce 8600GT is a big leap up from my (mine was an XFX, the link points to a Biostar). Hopefully by the time Crysis drops (September, as of now) the hardware will have dropped in price or maybe better hardware will have dropped into the price range of what I'm looking at now. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.
That's pretty much it, a long rambling post of what's happening in gaming right now for me. Just one quick note before I end this puppy, I ordered a couple upgrades for my Macbook earlier this week and they should be here sometime this weekend...if so I'll throw up another post about how the upgrade goes. From what I've read it's supposed to be pretty easy.
Until next time...
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S.T.A.L.K.E.R., WordPress, and maybe my new phone.
May 25th
This is going to be a pretty jumbled post containing a few different topics that I was originally going to make separate posts out of.
Just so you know.
I finished up within the last week (finally) and I have to say it's really awesome. If you've played Oblivion or any of the other games then all I can say is think of it as an FPS version of those games. I don't really have enough time to go into much detail other than that except to say that I totally recommend it to anyone who has a gaming rig that's up to snuff. It was original, had a great story, beautiful graphics...let's just say I can't find very many bad things to say about it. Just make sure you patch it before you play since it launched with some brutal bugs.
Onto topic #2! Why the F does WordPress only let me left align images? It's annoying the hell out of me. I've checked their site and can't find anyone else who has the problem, but when I installed it on the server there were no errors or anything...I'll have to check if there's an update or something. Could just be the theme I'm using too.
Finally, I got a a month or so ago and I really like it. I almost bought a instead but I didn't really feel like paying $70 a month for a data plan. The phone's almost as slim as a Razr but also has a full QWERTY keyboard. It's nice for texting, IM'ing and especially Twitter.
That's all for now, I might go into more detail later...but probably not.
P.S. - I was just finding images to insert into this post when the thought occured to me...one of these days I'm going to get burned for hotlinking! So if for some reason you come here in the future and there's some weird or gross image just know it wasn't my intention to post it. :-\
