Fixing the XBox 360

Posted on 2010/02/09 by Patrick

I thought I was in the clear as far as the 3 red lights goes for the XBox 360… it happened, I was under warranty, Microsoft send a cardboard coffin, and I sent it back.  End of story.

Oops, it happened again.  There’s no free lunch this time.  Even if I paid the $100 to MS to repair it, they would only give a 90 day warranty on their work.  So, either buy a new one (with a massive extended warranty, of course) or try to fix it myself.  After attempting to buy a new Arcade unit for $200 at K-Mart twice, but failing both times because they were out of stock, I went the fix route.

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Podcast Rotation

Posted on 2010/01/26 by Patrick

I just wanted to capture the current set of podcasts I listen to. I commute two hours a day, and this set keeps me lightly stocked — Sometimes I run out for a day or two, and I rarely fall behind.

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Coolish: Mozilla Bespin

Posted on 2010/01/19 by Patrick

I know I’m late to the game, but I was looking over Mozilla Bespin — a web-based IDE with a surprising amount of features, including source control and syntax highlighting.  Right now, it’s all about web techs, with a strong focus on HTML, Javascript, and CSS, but it is extensible and seems like it is headed in the right direction.

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You're just fooling yourself…

Posted on 2010/01/18 by Patrick

… that you’re cool if you find yourself ever saying any of the following:

  • buff
  • debuff
  • tank
  • aggro
  • DPS
  • AoE
  • Bonus:
    • Tapping
    • Untap

In some cases, you may even be fooling yourself that you’re playing a game.  Seriously, though, I’m a nerd, and listening to people talk like the above makes me want to take their lunch money.

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Game Review: Crackdown

Posted on 2010/01/10 by Patrick

Buy.com recently had a great deal on some games and battery packs.  One of the games included was Crackdown.  Here’s a quick review, after playing about half the game.  I get the feeling that Crackdown is one of those games everyone’s heard of, but few have played.  It’s never had a mega promotional campaign, but it’s a solid, well put-together title.  To sum up my feelings about the game: it’s a blast.  And it gets blastier the farther along you get.

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Googly Nexus One — Pricing and Plan breakdown

Posted on 2010/01/07 by Patrick

While looking around for an online loan amortization creator (nice one here), I came across a Google ad for the Nexus One, the “Google phone” that there’s been much buzz about.  Apparently, it just came out today, while the great Snomaggeddon blankets the world (or at least Missouri) and I’ve been oblivious.

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Getting all of Ubuntu to talk through a NTLM proxy

Posted on 2009/11/10 by Patrick

NTLM proxies are relatively common corporate web proxy. It takes special software to pass through it, unfortunately. One must essentially log into an NT domain to get to the web past the proxy. By default, web browsers are the only software on Ubuntu Linux that know how to perform the complex handshake. Many core tools (like apt, etc) cannot do what they need — and your system can’t download software updates.

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Biting the bullet

Posted on 2009/06/11 by Patrick

Well, we’re going to try out the WildBlue through Dish Network for internet.  *Sigh*.  It feels like a defeat.  I have only heard good things about Satellite internet from one person, and all the anecdotes online are negative.  But at least it is something.

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Critter chasing…

Posted on 2009/06/03 by Patrick

Chickens are delicate creatures, sometimes dying for no good reason.  Unfortunately, they are also delectable creatures, and find themselves in harm’s way.

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Right up my alley…

Posted on 2009/06/02 by Patrick

Play Achievement Unlocked

This game makes me so happy.  Did I mention that I got all 1250 achievement points in Mass Effect?

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Return to the Land of Unhappy Zombies

Posted on 2009/06/01 by Patrick

Memorial day weekend, we broke the ban on Wal-mart.  Why, you might ask?  Because of Nibbler.

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Java Build Systems, Part 2: Maven

Posted on 2009/02/23 by Patrick

Continuing the Java build systems discussion, today I want to focus on Maven, what it does well and what it does that frustrates.  We’ll get a little taste of the minimum expectations for a new build system as well.  Note:  this page may be subject to edits, as I come across more pros & cons of Maven.

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Maven + OSGi + Spring + JavaFX (+Ant)

Posted on 2009/02/13 by Patrick

We had to go through a number of steps to support the combination of Maven + OSGi + Spring + JavaFX-1.1 in our Swing-based application. This document describes all the steps and technology we’ve gone through to get it working.

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Java Build Systems, Part 1: What they do

Posted on 2009/02/06 by Patrick

Two recent posts on the java-weblog circuit spurred me to motion:

Maven Adoption Curve (Alex Miller, coworker at MetaMatrix)
Maven and Ivy (Ryan Senior, coworker at BJC)

I was trying to think of the ideal build system.  I won’t pretend that I’m going to get there in this post.  Instead, I’ll enumerate what we do every day and what we need from a build system so as to start thinking about the ideal system.

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What's new is old again…

Posted on 2009/01/30 by Patrick

Note: This post is probably wildly uninformed. Welcome to weblogs, everybody!

Then: Bush was reviled and derided for telling people to “Go shopping” after 9/11/2001.
Now: Americans are ruining the economy by saving their money!

Then: Americans don’t save enough.
Now: Americans are ruining the economy by saving their money! (OK, that was mostly a dupe, but still…)

Then: John McCain called for the TARP money to be used to buy up the bad mortgages. He was called an idiot, that was a stupid thing to do.
Now: Let’s make a Bad Bank to buy up all the bad assets!

Anyone? I’m not saying that the “thens” or the people who said them were right, I’m just saying that there’s a bunch of idiots running the country.

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Good Luck, Mr. President

Posted on 2009/01/20 by Patrick

I just want to wish incoming President Obama all the best. He has made a lot of noise about changing the way things are done, and I hope he can stick to that.

Along those lines, he has made a lot of announcements that, frankly, haven stolen the thunder of my 2012 campaign, like a bipartisan cabinet and lobbyist restrictions. And I will be truly grateful when he brings me my internet.

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Last minute…

Posted on 2008/12/31 by Patrick

Just to get a post in Dec 2008, I’ll drop a quick post here. That means I’m doing regular updates, right? 😉

I have some draft game reviews sitting around, I’ll get to them soon.

Have a good 2009!

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Game Review: Portal / Orange Box

Posted on 2008/11/21 by Patrick

My wife found a cheap copy of the Orange Box, from Valve.  It actually contains 3 full games (Half-life 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal) and two large expansions for HL2 (ep. 1 & 2) — a lot of content.

There was only one reason I wanted the game:  Portal.  I heard from friends and reviews about the thing, so I had a feeling I’d like it.  I did.  Great writing and mind-bending (but not too mind-bending) make for a fun game.

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Game Review: Mass Effect

Posted on 2008/11/21 by Patrick

It was brought to my attention that I forgot a game review of Portal, so I thought I’d lump several games in today that I’ve been meaning to review but haven’t yet.  This is in order of me getting each game, starting with last Christmas.

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Linked to LinkedIn

Posted on 2008/10/29 by Patrick

This is a silly, pointless blog post to see how LinkedIn deals with blog posts.

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