A shoutout to the fearless readers there in blogger-land! I don't have scads to talk about, but a melange of little items to clear off the the decks.
Editors - I think TextMate is the winner. Truthfully I haven't looked at SubEthaEdit yet as suggested by Brian - but I still think it's key point is Rendezvous collaborative editing. Which is super-cool, don't get me wrong - but it's not an item I'm looking for right now.
iPodder - iPodder is definitely a very cool bit of tech, but it's still an infant. It seems like if you listen to an hour of podcasts you're likely to get 30 minutes+ of discussion about how cool iPodder and podcasting are. What I need to find is some feeds that are less talky, and more background music that I can listen to while writing or coding. But I'd recommend checking it out for two reasons. First is that even though it's early there's still a lot of interesting stuff to be found - it's a problem of sorting through the stuff, not of there not being enough stuff. Second is that if you have some sort of portable audio solution (not just an iPod) then you will almost immediately see the potential of this. Radio is in trouble (that's not new), but this is moving the broadcasting model for audio to something new. If you're all interested in media and broadcasting (hi there RIAA!) this is totally worth checking out. If you do - start with The Daily Source Code. I tagged it thinking it was some coder thing, but it's not. It's kind of the central clearinghouse to hear about new feeds.
Star Wars DVD's - PVP says it better than I will but these DVD's rock the house. Yes, it's the special edition, and yes Lucas is exploiting your childhood, yes, yes, yes. But if you read this blog, the odds are still good that your inner child will giggle as soon as that camera pans down and the Star Destroyer comes onscreen. They are beautiful to watch and I know Han shot first - I can let that one moment slide in favor of yummy, yummy Star Wars in digital clarity.
Games - I picked up Leisure Suit Larry for PC - I was in Fry's and they had it for $20. Well . . . it's OK. There aren't any puzzles per se, I guess there is a little bit exploration to find item X before you can talk to girl Y. It has moments of brilliant comedy. (personal favorites - the Ron Jeremy "porn fairy" signing "For I am the Porn Fairy" to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan's "I am a Pirate King" and the Grease cover bit for "Lesbian Nights".) But the mini-games definitely get repetitive and that's a bad scene when your game interferes with your story or humor. But the most damning thing in my mind is that there is a razor line between mocking what I'll call titty movies and being one. I don't think they walked it successfully - there's too much "Hey look at this hottie model we got for a loading screen". (Which is another point - the mini-games would play better on a console, but the loading screens are numerous. Stick with the PC - it will be a fast load then.) Anyway, maybe worth $20 just to see the humor parts but I certainly wouldn't pay any more.
Games II - Star Wars Galaxies sucked me back in, we'll see how long that lasts. There was a confluence of factors. Certainly the DVD's got me back into fanboy mode and then I ran into the remaster of The Empire Strikes Back soundtrack on CD, and then Sony sent me the "come back" email. Now here's the real hook in my lip - the end of the month is when Jump To Lightspeed comes out. This is the first expansion and it's the one where they add spaceflight and space combat. And it's not standard MMORPG fare - it's twitch-based. So it's supposedly massively multiplayer X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter (ooooh!). So I'm revamping my tailor to get smuggler skills and be ready to jump in an X-Wing in a few weeks. :-)
So there's your update. Read 'em and weep. Or at least comment.
Editors - I think TextMate is the winner. Truthfully I haven't looked at SubEthaEdit yet as suggested by Brian - but I still think it's key point is Rendezvous collaborative editing. Which is super-cool, don't get me wrong - but it's not an item I'm looking for right now.
iPodder - iPodder is definitely a very cool bit of tech, but it's still an infant. It seems like if you listen to an hour of podcasts you're likely to get 30 minutes+ of discussion about how cool iPodder and podcasting are. What I need to find is some feeds that are less talky, and more background music that I can listen to while writing or coding. But I'd recommend checking it out for two reasons. First is that even though it's early there's still a lot of interesting stuff to be found - it's a problem of sorting through the stuff, not of there not being enough stuff. Second is that if you have some sort of portable audio solution (not just an iPod) then you will almost immediately see the potential of this. Radio is in trouble (that's not new), but this is moving the broadcasting model for audio to something new. If you're all interested in media and broadcasting (hi there RIAA!) this is totally worth checking out. If you do - start with The Daily Source Code. I tagged it thinking it was some coder thing, but it's not. It's kind of the central clearinghouse to hear about new feeds.
Star Wars DVD's - PVP says it better than I will but these DVD's rock the house. Yes, it's the special edition, and yes Lucas is exploiting your childhood, yes, yes, yes. But if you read this blog, the odds are still good that your inner child will giggle as soon as that camera pans down and the Star Destroyer comes onscreen. They are beautiful to watch and I know Han shot first - I can let that one moment slide in favor of yummy, yummy Star Wars in digital clarity.
Games - I picked up Leisure Suit Larry for PC - I was in Fry's and they had it for $20. Well . . . it's OK. There aren't any puzzles per se, I guess there is a little bit exploration to find item X before you can talk to girl Y. It has moments of brilliant comedy. (personal favorites - the Ron Jeremy "porn fairy" signing "For I am the Porn Fairy" to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan's "I am a Pirate King" and the Grease cover bit for "Lesbian Nights".) But the mini-games definitely get repetitive and that's a bad scene when your game interferes with your story or humor. But the most damning thing in my mind is that there is a razor line between mocking what I'll call titty movies and being one. I don't think they walked it successfully - there's too much "Hey look at this hottie model we got for a loading screen". (Which is another point - the mini-games would play better on a console, but the loading screens are numerous. Stick with the PC - it will be a fast load then.) Anyway, maybe worth $20 just to see the humor parts but I certainly wouldn't pay any more.
Games II - Star Wars Galaxies sucked me back in, we'll see how long that lasts. There was a confluence of factors. Certainly the DVD's got me back into fanboy mode and then I ran into the remaster of The Empire Strikes Back soundtrack on CD, and then Sony sent me the "come back" email. Now here's the real hook in my lip - the end of the month is when Jump To Lightspeed comes out. This is the first expansion and it's the one where they add spaceflight and space combat. And it's not standard MMORPG fare - it's twitch-based. So it's supposedly massively multiplayer X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter (ooooh!). So I'm revamping my tailor to get smuggler skills and be ready to jump in an X-Wing in a few weeks. :-)
So there's your update. Read 'em and weep. Or at least comment.