Dear Rockstar Games,
Thank you for offering a reach around when you try to rape my wallet. I may have missed the value had you not thrown in that freebie.

On a more serious note $30 on top of an all ready $60 game for the full experience is just insane. Especially in light of the same online pass being only $10 or $15 for their 2 previous games.

#bankrape #walletpayne #wtf

First the Metro UI. Does it look nice? Yes. Does it work nice? No. First, Microsoft, why the hell would you think you can pull off one UI for two types of input that couldn’t possibly be more different? Metro is designed for touch interfaces not keyboard and mouse. I could re-hash those issues but they are addressed else where on the Internet.

The second big thing is the backwards compatibility. WHY!? WHY Microsoft won’t you cut the GD cord!? Apple successfully wiped the slate with OS X and survived just fine. Asking your user base to get with the times isn’t a crime. In fact not doing it is holding things back. Now we have another slightly fatter OS and one that despite all it’s speed improvements is using a lot of code that frankly doesn’t need to be there. The result is that the only true pure version of Windows 8 will be the one’s based on ARM that have had all the backwards compatability cruft striped out of it. Turns out that’s the same version that will be able to run on phone and tablet hardware. Imagine an x86 version of Win8 that’s 1/4 the size on disk and even faster than it all ready is!

Finally Microsoft, at least in this preview, has given the massive middle finger to netbooks. One of the machines I tried it on is a netbook with the typical netbook resolution of 1024×600 and every native Windows 8 application threw the error that the screen resolution is not supported. This included of all crazy things Internet Explorer!? As it turns out this must be some thing controlled through the Metro UI because if I went to the Desktop and ran IE from there it worked fine. Even though companies are jumping off the netbook bandwagon like it’s on fire that doesn’t mean there isn’t a massive install base of netbooks so why put out such a large swatch of consumers?

Ultimately the uneven nature of the UI implementation, the cruft due to the insane need to be backwards compatible with 10+ year old software and the poor hardware support do not result in much enthusiasm from this geek. May be when the ARM based touch screen enabled ultrabooks come around Windows 8 might be seen as a winner.

Now I’ve been doing IT work for approx 14 years and never have I heard any one make the statement that it’s “ok” to take a network down during business hours or during peak times. NEVER. In this case I wager during the middle of the day probably isn’t peak but I’d guess 5pm-11pm when every one is off work and home from school is probably peak.  I guess I give them credit for doing it closer to the middle of the week but wouldn’t 3am-5pm have been a better time?

Yet lately both in this instance, and where I work, it seems to be increasingly more acceptable to take something down when ever you darn well feel like it. Did I miss something? Are we becoming so reliant on our network 24×7 that it no longer matters when it becomes unavailable because it has to happen some time eventually any way? Or is it that we’re increasingly bowing to what management wants? The symptom is obvious but what do you think the cause is?

1. Grab Chainfire3D https://market.android.com/details?id=eu.chainfire.cf3d  The free version should work just fine.
2. Grab the Chainfire plugins which include the tegra plugin. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4P9LEW7P
3. Finally grab the Shadowgun 1.0.2 APK file. I do not condone piracy. You do this at your own risk. Buy the game it’s that good! http://brockh.at/tiOUcP (google search)
4. Install chain fire.
5. Install Shadowgun.
6. Unrar the plugins(should have 3 zip files).
7. Copy the zip files to your SD card.
8. Open Chainfire install the chainfire driver(requires phone reboot).
9. Open Chainfire again. Choose Install plugins/shaders.
10. Install the Nvidia plugin.
11. Go to “Per-app OpenGL settings”
12. Tap Shadowgun
13. Uncheck “Use default settings”
14. Check “Reduce texture size” and “Disable MapBuffer emu”.

You can now run the game. If you want it even more buttery smooth and don’t mind giving up a little visual quality you can also check “reduce texture quality”. It’s also worth noting this little tweak could be applied to any tegra game you want to run and can also be used to increase performance for demanding non-tegra games especially if you are on an older device.

Happy hunting!

I work in a place where metrics are king. To the detriment of the common worker. I waste upwards of 50% of my time involved in activities designed to gather metrics(in a flawed manner) when my job is to keep the servers that make the business run up and running.

I fear that such preaching of metrics metrics metrics is really a bane in disguise. I understand we need to have a way to measure success, or failure, to have knowledge to change our processes and try to make them better but at the same time we’re all ready facing an over load of data and letting that interfere with getting actual work done is a very real thing. As I stated above it happens almost daily where I work. This is going to become a bigger and bigger problem as more and more devices and methods to gather metrics grows. Be cautious that you don’t hinder your businesses growth because your employees are spinning their wheels on metrics.

When there are to many numbers it makes it harder to chose which numbers are the important ones.

Update:

Thanks to my buddy Mike for catching this. This screen shot was taken from his Google Buzz feed. For those who may not be aware I work for the company of note.

It can’t be the hardware. The hardware is low to mid-range android fare. It’s certainly not the software. I mean it’s Android right. We all know what to expect there. So all that really leaves is the elimination of choice. The thing is the much anticipated Ipad competitor because Amazon has taken away any decision making requirements you might experience. You can watch Amazon streaming video, download apps from the Amazon app store get Kindle books and get your music from the iTunes…errr…Amazon music store.

It would be my hope that you as a human being can understand how having choice removed is a bad thing. You are no longer able or allowed to do what you want with what you paid for. People who are ok with this situation are often referred to as sheep, or lemmings. And the worst part is that the internet’s taste makers as they are called(IRL big media) are all lined up and on board for this.

As much as I enjoy Amazon and their services I have to urge you, dear reader, to go out, buy your self a Moto Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 or Acer Iconia and enjoy your(mostly) choice filled standard Android experience.