FORT90

- Last night I re-installed Tiger using the archive & install method. I was hoping for some dramatic improvements, and that perhaps all my problems would be fixed. Didn’t happen. Aside from TextEdit’s save function being as fast as it should be, there were no real improvements; the text wrapping problem remained, and Automator is still fucked. I didn’t detect some of the other problems I listed last time, but time would bring those out.

So I decided to follow some advice that was suggested on YayHooray and re-reinstalled Tiger, with the archive & install method yet again. But this time, I also backed up my preference folder; after the restart, I trashed the active copy along with the previous system folder, then immediately did a restart for an extra fresh copy of the OS. It had been suggested back when troubles first came up, but was hesitant since I was still thinking in OS 9 terms; in Classic, preference files often contained such essential info like serial numbers and the such, so I didn’t want to risk loosing them and end with a locked app. Once I finally got the picture that preferences files don’t work that way in OS X, I got rid of them all for a fresh folder in return, then simply picked and chose and dragged back older ones when they were needed (which in my cases was only two Apple apps, Mail and iChat, and a few other random others, mostly emulators).

By the time I was finished, it was time for work, so I didn’t have time to go through another battery of tests. Guess I’ll find out tonight…
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- One reason why I was up till 4 in the morning was all my Tiger diagnosing. But the other was my allergies, which has stuffed up my nose so bad that I can’t even sleep. I must say, I can’t recall any other time where I’ve had so many friends all messed up due to allergies, and all at the same time. Anyway, to help pass the very late nights, I’ve been trying to catch up on some games, but the thing is I really need a new tv bad since the one I have is going bad; the image is ever so slightly blurry, which makes playing hi-res games, or ones that have dark and detailed graphics, and especially anything with text, a real headache to play.

So I’ve been playing Starfox Assault for the past few nights. Even though the game has gotten a ton of hate, I rather enjoyed my experience with it at a Nintendo press and picked it up anyway. Well, everyone else was correct afterall, cuz the game does indeed flat-out suck.

The first level is awesome because it plays just like the Starfox of old (which is why I liked my brief first encouter with the game). I’m a diehard fan of the original, but have not enjoyed any of the sequels, even Starfox 64. Call me boring, but I’m not a big fan of “variety” in certain games, and the subsequent Starfox titles are a prime example of this; just like in Sonic Adventure where I could give a rat’s ass about some stupid cat that could fish, I just want to fly and shoot in a Starfox game, and that’s it (just as how with Sonic Adventure, I just want to run and jump and enemies, period). Don’t give me any of this tank driving bullshit, and certainly any out of the vehicle, on-foot action. Its all an attempt at adding different gameplay modes, but I’d much rather have one very strong one instead of a bunch of others that are less refined all slapped together.

Also, it doesn’t help that the controls are broken. The original Starfox on the SNES controlled perfectly, so why the need to mess it up? And I can’t stand all the hate for on-rails shooting, since I find the free roaming flying and shooting levels just as tedious here as it was on the N64 version. But on the plus side, some of the graphics is certainly nice (though I’m assuming it would be much better on a decent display) and the music is pretty hot. Hell, I even like its rendition of Starfox theme, though I still fail to see why Nintendo has always chosen to ignore the brilliant music in the SNES version.

- As for today, its been revealed that someone has created a Game Boy emulator for the PSP, marking yet another massive step forward for the homebrew/emu scene. Unfortunately, much like the thing I passed along before, you’ll need a Japanese PSP, and one that still has firmware version 1.0 (all US PSPs came shipped with v1.5). But hey, its still a start.

- I also forgot to mentioned yesterday that 1UP just posted a really good look at Gunstar Super Heroes, which includes an ultra hot video of the game in action. Plus I also forgot to pass along the link to Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s English blog, which is also on 1UP. Man, what a coup for ZiffDavis; seems as if 1UP finally has some good stuff going on (hey I kid, there’s tons of awesome stuff, its just that’s fucking impossible to sort through due to the site’s ultra shitty coding).

- Back to Apple real quick, you can now buy music from Final Fantasy via the iTunes store (click this link to access it). Awesome! And for so many reasons: to the best of my knowledge, this might be the biggest initiative to sell game music (including chiptunes) on such a massive scale. Hopefully this will be successful enough to see similar releases; at the very least, I’d like to see some of the arranged Final Fantasy soundtracks available, like Dear Friends.

- Even more Xbox 360 info was leaked today, and still no word on backwards compatibility. I think its safe to assume that it ain’t gonna happen, which totally blows. I know there has been no real details from Microsoft thus far, but still, its such a major feature that if it was happening, something more official should have at least hinted towards it by now. I’ve heard from more than one source that “they’re working on it” but that’s not much conciliation.

One has to wonder then the exact reason why. Most state its because of the difference in technology, but so there was one between the PSone and PS2, so that doesn’t mean anything (and this is Microsoft we’re talking about… if anyone would have the means to figuring out how to run software, they should be it. But then again, we’re talking about MS). Maybe MS just doesn’t care? Perhaps.

Folks have been accusing of MS acting arrogant, stemming back to their GDC presentation, and all the way to their recent decision to unveil their new system on Xbox with a bunch of celebrities instead of E3, and I have to say that I’m starting to agree. As much as I’ve always despised MS, I’ve been quite happy with the success that Xbox has had, since it proves that a dark horse can come in and make a huge impact, but nothing worse than letting success making you blind and greedy. Guess they didn’t notice that backwards compatibility was a major reason why the PS2 was so enticing right out of the gate, despite a rather lackluster selection of software. And in this day and age where there’s so many systems floating about, its all the more important. I only have so many inputs on my TV.
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- Anyway, I’m trying to maximize the extra time I have since I know its not going to last for much longer. In addition to reading the copious amount of comics courtesy of MK, I have to see Oldboy (which I first saw way back when) on the big screen while its still in town. If it happens to be playing near you, or will so soon, you seriously need to see this movie. Here’s the trailer btw. And yeah, its another lame-ass American produced trailer that doesn’t do the original any service, but its better than nothing I guess.

- And sticking with movie trailers, here’s one for Mindgames, which combines anime and live actors. Feels like a mix of FLCL and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

- And here’s the intro to some Japanese show that I know absolutely nothing about, but it’s my mission to get at least ten seasons of it. Its also further proof of how lame American television is these days. Want proof?

- Back to movies, I guess I should comment on the new Harry Potter trailer. Obviously there’s not too much to comment on since its only a teaser, but thus far it looks as if there’s potential (though diehard Potter fans everywhere seem to vehemently hate it with a passion… I’ll get back to that in a second). Initially I was a bit worried since Alfonso Cuaron wasn’t on board since he made Prisoner of Azkaban so fucking fantastic (to the point that its even made the first two films almost boring in comparison) but now I’m hopefully curious.

But back to Harry Potter fans, I’m one of them, but I have to admit, I’m generally low-key about it due to the fact that diehard Potter seem to be getting progressively more and more annoying. Its one of things where the fans have managed to damper my enthusiasm over something; most Potter fans I’m sorry to say that many of them are sorta sad and creepy (though this doesn’t apply to any of my friends if anyone is thinking that way). Granted, fandom can ruin almost anything, but I can almost always respect, or even understand , the behavior to some degree. Hey, its a pretty goofy for a grown man to dress like an elf or a storm trooper, that’s at least a tiny bit more dignified that dressing up as some 13 year old boy, if you catch my drift.

I didn’t always feel this way, but I guess its all due to the fact that I cannot allow myself to duped into thinking the fifth book was anything besides crap. Okay, maybe that’s a bit harsh, and perhaps I should give the book one more shot, but all I can say is that I’ve read the prior four books maybe five or six times, each, and I’ve only managed to trudge my way through the fifth one book just once, and recalling being mostly bored to tears 90% And that much talked about death scene at the end. Extremely anticlimactic (and dare I say, very gay). Most folks seem to have issue with Harry’s characterization as an annoying, bratty teen, and I didn’t have a problem with that. I just found the book really boring as hell.

- And back to geeks dressing up, I’m having a hard time figuring out if this is for real or not.

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So Thursday’s night portfolio show at SVA went off without a hitch and was a success. The place was packed with seniors showing off their year’s worth of work to parents and industry type folks. The highlight for me had to be the strong showing from the interactive students, and I’m not just saying that because I’m friends and collaborators with a few of them.

And the only real personal highlight was John Mac’s opening speech: as he told everyone of the after-party at Revival, John made sure to let the whole audience know that I would be there, since my booze-induced antics was such a hit at last year’s affair, which have since been described by more than a few coworkers as “legendary”. Which I’m not necessarily proud of, but then again, I didn’t get in any fights, trip & break any bones, take all my clothes off, or get sick all over myself, so I don’t have too much to be embarrassed about, though John did mentioned to the listening audience of how afterwards I “slept things off” at Penn Station till 5 in the morning. Thank goodness he didn’t mention how I managed to get trapped in a bathroom for 15 minutes cuz the handle fell off.

As for the party itself, I didn’t stick around too long actually. But while I was there, MK managed to stop by, and it nice to finally introduce her to my coworkers (some of whom didn’t believe I even had a girlfriend… either because I’m so full of tall tales that they don’t know me well enough to know the truth, or they think I’m just some hideous freak incapable of attracting a member of the fairer sex). Though being there for just over an hour didn’t stop me from getting tipsy anyway. Hey, I’m part Korean, and us Asian have super low tolerance.

While I was getting up the leave, I recall the horrified look on John’s face, asking where I was going. When I told him that I was heading out, he simply exclaimed “The legend is dead!”

So why did I head out so early? Well, aside from being on medication (to treat my new case of UTI) and the potential danger of mixing too much booze and medicine, and how the music there was really getting on my nerves (every Thursday is iPod night, which only goes to illustrate that most people listen to shit these days), I had a chiptune show to check out, the aforementioned last minute show at the Tank.

Got there about 50 minutes late, but that was okay cuz the show started 45 minutes late, and arrived right in the middle of Bit Shifter’s set, followed by a nice long set with nullsleep, which included some new material. In-between, I manage to chat a bit with Jeremiah, mostly about the last crazy show, and how the look on the cop’s face when he realized that all the loud music was coming from a bunch of Game Boys. I also met and spoke with Brian, the person behind Click-Stick. Definitely a super cool guy.

Also on the bill was Glomag, and it was nice to finally hear his music live with decent speakers (the Vertex’s sound system, as you might recall, did no one any favors). But before him was Bubblyfish, whom I had never heard of before. Call me ignorant, but this was my first encounter with chiptunes produced by a woman. Well she was fantastic, with songs that are more long-form and experimental pieces than most of her contemporaries. She uses a combination of a stock Brick Boy and a Mac, and she unfortunately, forgot here power supply, so she had to keep her set short. She still managed to make a new fan that evening.

As for the next day, things were dead at work, as they will be for the rest of the year; all classes are over with and the seniors are finally finished with their thesis projects, meaning plenty of downtime. About the only excitement was everyone telling me how they spotted my name-tag that I wore the evening before stuck to the sidewalk on the way to work. How it got there, I have no idea, but it’s still there.

I had a few things lined up for the weekend, but I felt as if I needed some serious downtime, so I opted to just stay home all weekend. The original plan was to catch up on some movies (I’ve got 50 hours of Asian cinema on my hard drive thanks to my buddy John K) and catch up on some games (I just got Resident Evil 4, Zelda: the Minish Cap, and a few others), but instead, I decided to install Tiger onto my eMac, which more or less took up my entire weekend. So with that in mind, and due to request…
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OS X TIGER: MY HANDS ON REPORT

First off, here’s the lowdown on my system: I have an eMac with a 1 GHz G4, with 1 gig of ram. The thing came with 10.3.0, Panther, pre-installed, and has more or less been working perfect for me.

As you might recall, I wasn’t going to install 10.4 until the first update was around to patch up the first wave of bugs, but I had read enough reports to feel confident that my machine wasn’t going to blow up. Plus, the 10.3.9 update had caused some problems that I wanted to be rid off, and of course, I just wanted to play with Tiger, now.

When it came to the actual installation process, I opted for the easy upgrade. As a rule, one should always go for a clean install, since it wipes out your entire hard drive before installing a fresh OS. But since I don’t have access to the installers to all the programs I use, plus its a bit daunting to back up 250+ gigs of stuff, I just saved the essentials and hoped for the best.

Once that was done with, I went right to work to see what was new and improved (or made worse)…

+ One of the biggest new feature is Tiger’s search engine, Spotlight. And I have to say, Apple finally got it right; I was able to find a variety of files in zero seconds that would have normally taken a long time. But the biggest benefit is finding info contained in emails. Speaking off…

+ I LOVE the new Apple Mail. Yes, the new interface is a total eye sore, but otherwise it feels just perfect. Now I can search multiple mailboxes simultaneously thanks to Spotlight, whereas before I had to go through each one separately. This is going to save me a ton of time.

+/- Another big feature is Dashboard, which I’ve also been dying to get my hands on. If you’re a frequent reader of this site, you’ll know that sometimes I can’t spell worth a shit. So I’m constantly on dictionary.com to check my spelling, and having a handy widget for just that has been super enticing since day one. Plus I’m always checking weather.com for the forecast, and since my zip code never seems to be retained (at least in Safari), I was also looking forward to yet another handy tool to save just a few seconds, that would eventually add up to a substantial amount of time.

Well most of them are super neat and all, but some have issues. First off, the most important one, the dictionary widget, doesn’t work that hot; whereas dictionary.com can make a pretty good approximate guess, the widget doesn’t even bother.

The stickies widget looks nice and all, but I don’t like how you can’t change the size. And the iTunes widget is more or less, completely useless; there’s serious lag between it and the application. This is something that has been reported by everyone.

Also, I’m missing the ripple effect that one gets when dropping new widgets onto the desktop; seems as my video card is not up to snuff, 32 megs and all. Guess I need one of the 64 megs ones on the G5 or high-end PowerBook G4. I’m sure PC users are laughing right now since they all have at least a 128 megs on their middle of the road systems.

But on the upside, the weather widget is super handy, and the calculator one saves the overly drawn-out process (as well as messy looking, dock-wise) of launching the calculator app. I’ve even already had the need to try out the translating widget as well.

+ The new Safari is even faster than before, if that can be believed. Plus it seems to even more compatible and error free than the previous build. Plus now with the built in RSS functionality, I really can’t see why anyone would still go for Firefox over Safair (unless you deal with those Safari plug-ins).

+ And the new RSS screensaver is the like the greatest thing ever. Seriously.

- The spacing, or “buffer zone”, around icons has been decreased, which off the bat seemed pretty awesome; when you arrange icons, you can fit a few more on your desktop for example. But on certain icon resolutions, such as 64 x 64, once icons hit the bottom of the screen, they fail to wrap, meaning the next one doesn’t automatically appear at the top of the screen next to the column to start a new one, and instead just pile on-top of each other.

I’ve tried everything to fix this problem, including deleting desktop and finder preference files. The only solution was to find an icon resolution where this doesn’t happen. Right now I’m at 72 x 72.

- I’ve noticed certain windows when you try to move them, will lag or freeze.

- Quicktime 7 also has a tendency to choke on certain files, even ones that that gave 6 no problem at all. I even have to initiate a force quit.

- Sometimes when switching between users, external discs or media won’t appear, necessitating the need to log off and re-logging in.

- I keep all my custom desktop backgrounds in a folder which system preference refers to, and once already that path has been lost or forgotten.

- In TextEdit, instead of it taking 0.5 seconds to save a file, it now takes about 3-4 seconds, plus I get the spinning wheel. That’s simply ridiculous.

- Then there’s the biggest problem: Automator is a handy program that helps to speed up and automate repetitive tasks. The one example that Apple keeps using is renaming a huge batch of digital pictures, since they almost always end up with highly arcane file names. So I decided to use it on a batch of pics from my birthday.

First off, the interface is confusing as fuck, so I had to go to demo on the Apple site to figure out what to do. So once I understood how, I hit the appropriate buttons and… my picture completely vanished off the face of my Mac. Seriously. My first reaction? WTF of course.

Thankfully, I had those pic backed up, but still. So I did the same exact action on the same pics and each time there was a different result. Sometimes the files are renamed, but in the wrong order, sometimes the renaming is totally messed up (if the file is called “H9RU75T5″ and is supposed to be “birthday2k5-01″, it ends up being “H9RUbirthday2k5-0175T5″), sometimes a few files go missing or as mentioned earlier, every item completely vanishes. So basically, my Automator is totally fucked.

… I knew going in that there are going to be bugs (I’ve heard of quite a few others that I don’t have, mostly related to fonts), but instead of waiting for the update, I think I’m going to reinstall Tiger, this time with the install & archive method. Hopefully, most of the problems with disappear…
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Anyway, as for the world gaming…

- The big news at the moment is the leaked Xbox pic from the launch part that’s part of some MTV special that’s airing later this week or something. Plus there’s plenty of supposed hardware specs regarding the system floating about, but there’s been too much to sift through, so I’ll just comment on the aesthetics for the time being.

So it seems that pic that I posted recently was the real deal. Plus IGN has posted a rather nifty size comparison of the old and the new. Personally, I sorta like it. It’s certainly an improvement over the first system and I like the fact that its not freakishly huge. Still not thrilled about the name which still makes no sense, but whateva.

Other than some public war of words from the prez of Sony (who recently called Xbox 360 Xbox 1.5… ouch) and some bablefished info from Nintendo’s Japanese site regarding the DS online plans, there’s not too much to report. But there is news that Chaos Field is coming to America which I’m happy about, since it means that I won’t need to import it (which I was actually planning to do later this week). I hear its not the most spectacular shooter in the world, but hey, its a shooter being released in the States. No complaints here. Now, if only Border Down might make it here somehow…

- Also, there’s been rumors that a sequel to the not that fun to play, but its worth doing so if only for the phenomenal soundtrack, Sonic R, might be getting a sequel. Wow, a sequel to a failed attempt at a mascot racing game, well after the fad is over. You gotta love Sega sometimes…

But here’s one for a white PSP, which is what everyone wants, including me, for $94,749,999.99, or at least according to the currency exchange widget in Tiger. So it is stolen from a Tokyo showroom or what? Well apparently, its for information on the system. I would have to guess its like those people who sold PS2 boxes, not the system, and yet made a mint of people who rushed for the Buy It Now button.

And here’s one for a regular ol’ Gamecube with some controllers and games, with a little bit of sex to help get some bids.

- Plus, I just found out that the long gone, but certainly not forgotten, Next Generation is making a comeback of sorts. Next Gen was a real favorite of mine, since it was the very first publication that took video games seriously, with detailed and well-researched news stories and special features, and interviews that are still infamous. Basically, it was the first real magazine, and there hasn’t been on since (which I guess only goes to illustrate the market today, and hence why it didn’t last). Too bad its only in form, at least for now.

- Hey, remember me showing that pic from Tattoo Assassins a while back? Well, here’s another site with even more stills from that awesome, awesome game. Holy shit, a fatality where you get hit by a Delorean? Or one where you get crushed by a giant burger?! GENIUS!!!

- On a semi-related note, check out my new favorite thing in the whole world (for some reason, it doesn’t work in Safari or Firefox, so you’ll have to use Internet Explorer… I know). It actually beats out this, which I though was so funny, I started laughing out loud just thinking about, and showed it to MK cuz she was wanted to know what the big deal was. She didn’t find it as funny unfortunately.

- Finally, if you’re as big a fan of the game Rez as I am, then might I suggest you check out this interview that I conducted with Jake Kazdal, who was the only western to work directly on the game. I’m super proud to be able to reveal so much behind the scene info, almost all of which has never been made public, on such a well loved and respect game that’s still a mystery, even to its diehard devotees.
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Last thing: I tried all day to email myself a pic of that name-tag of mine in the middle of the street that I took with my camera phone (I don’t know why its such a hassle… its my only real complaint about Cingular thus far), but then I just realized that it would be boring anyway, so instead, here’s a pic of sign that MK drew for my door when I had my birthday part at my new place. It’s uber cute! And uber true…

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