Results tagged “Internet” from ScottandMargo.net

I just got around to watching the World of Warcraft South Park episode (Make Love not Warcraft).

Machinima.

Machinima is another one of those things that probably wouldn't have happened without the internet. Wikipedia's entry on Machinima suggests that machinima got its start in the demoscene of the 80's and early 90's. I disagree, as the the intent of the demoscene was more focused on integrating music and visuals with clever programming. Machinima is about filming and editing inside a real-time 3D environment.

Regardless, my involvement with machinima didn't start til Quake.

In the original Quake, you could record “demos” of your gameplay. Someone somewhere figured out that you could edit these files to change camera angles, add music, and stuff like that and make something more interesting than an players-eye-view of a match. Eventually, that evolved into people making movies, complete with sets and dialog inside the game engine. Tools like Keygrip made it easier to make movies by making the editing process more like working in a tratidional non-linear video editing program.

Two early big hits were Apartment Huntin in Quake and Father Frags Best in Quake 2. I was fortunate enough to have a (very) small part in Father Frags Best, so I got to see part of the hard work that is needed to put something together...and the really hard work that Overman of Zarathustra Studios put in to make it work out.

Overman's back! Actually he's been back, having put out a couple things this year. In September, a new short film was released called Male Restroom Etiquette. As expected, the quality and writing are top notch. I thought it was laugh-out-loud funny, but I appreciate bathroom humor. The release link has links to different size/quality versions. I'm embedding the YouTube version below.

Stuff like this is why I love the internet.

Technorati Tags: Music, Technology

Jon at Administer IT makes a a point that I've been meaning to make about .Mac mail for quite a while now. The .Mac webmail interface is very old school, clunky and pretty slow. For a while, I tried avoiding the issue by forwarding all of my mail to a GMail account, but that just made mail management more difficult. So when I'm away from my laptop, I suffer through it, wondering why I'm paying $99 a year for the service.

To be fair, I use iDisk quite a bit. I also like the flexibility of having web and POP3 access to my email (which is something that most free web mail providers don't give). Having my email address independent of my ISP made my move from Cox to Verizon almost seamless.

I do get a lot of value from having my .Mac account. I just get the impression that Apple is neglecting the applications that make .Mac worth it. Maybe they'll get around to it after Leopard is done. Or maybe they'll improve it after they make it free like the rumors are saying.

Via Digg

Dear Steve Jobs: .Mac Mail is Getting Old

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, Technology

Why is it that the big ISPs seem to think that people want some kind of content from them? I'm going to pick pn Verizon for a bit only because this is my most recent experience. I've had similar experience in the past with Cox and Earthlink in the past.

When you go to the Verizon FiOS Online Services page, it tells you that you can "Kick start your FiOS experience". FiOS experience? I thought it was a fiber-based DSL service.

The rest of the page goes into how they're offering "Verizon Yahoo! for FiOS" or "Verizon FiOS Internet wirh MSN Premium." Both are basically Verizon FiOS branded Yahoo and MSN Premium offerings. When I had my FiOS install done actually, I had to insist a couple times that a) I don't want MSN Premium or Yahoo whether it's free or not and b) I don't want them to install any other software on my computer.

I have something to share with internet providers out there....

All I want from my internet service provider is a pipe. I want them to get bits from my house to the internet and back. That's it. There's enough "content" out there on the internet that I don't need my ISP's marketing team trying to make it into a "Verizon FiOS" experience. It's like picking up the phone and chatting with the Verizon 411 operator because you want to talk to someone. Why would I do that?

Please, just give me what I'm paying for and get out of my way.

I do have to say that once you get past the marketing push, Verizon hasn't stepped in on my "experience" so far. On the install and the pre-install marketing they make it look like you need all of this extra crap, but you don't need any of it. That includes the setup/config software and their router. I just wish I didn't have to go through the marketing obstacle course to get there.

Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Technology, Marketing

This is also a follow-up to my FiOS install from a couple months ago.

One of the unexpected consequences of the FiOS install was that it cut the Tivo off my network. When I had Cox cable internet, I put a splitter on the cable that went to the TV in the living room. One end went to the cable box, the other went to the cable modem. The Linksys WRT54G router connected to the cable modem, and since everything was right near the TV, I did CAT5 from the Tivo to the router. No fuss no muss.

With the FiOS install, the internet connection comes from a CAT5 drop that's downstairs in a corner of the basment. I'm not pulling cable all the way across the house, so the wireless router is in the basement now.

So I bought a Netgear WRT111 USB wireless NIC, and figured I was good to go. Oops.

I tried joining the network right after adding the new NIC. It couldn't join the network. So I did some Googling and found out that Series 2 Tivos don't do WPA or WPA2...they only do WEP. That's not good. I'm supposed to drop my WLAN down to WEP? I don't think so.

Fortunately, I still have the DLink DI-624 that Verizon provides on the FiOS installs. I decided to run two wireless networks...my main one, and then one running WEP that the Tivo runs through. It's simple enough. I made sure that the Dlink router's LAN IP address is set to a different subnet than the LAN IP address of the Linksys (the defaults already are), then plugged the WAN port on the DLink to one of the LAN switch ports on the Linksys. The Linksys gives the DLink an IP address in its subnet, then the DLink gives an IP on a different subnet to its clients, and routes through to the Linksys.

I did have some connectivity trouble for a couple days. The signal strength on the DLink was almost unusable....KisMac showed 35 when I was standing right next to it, and down to 15 when I went 10 feet away. The Tivo couldn't connect to it at all. I called Verizon and got a replacement and the new one works fine.

This configuration has been set and stable over the last couple months without any trouble. The TiVo is getting its updates as needed, and I didn't have to change anything on my main WLAN.

I'm slowly but steadily junking up the basement corner with computer-related gear, but it's always been an ugly corner so I don't mind.

Technorati Tags: FiOS, Technology, WLAN, TiVo

Inspired by Duffbert most recently, here's a list of search phrases that some folks used to get here in March.

marilyn manson wedding pictures (with several variations) - This link shows up if you use GIS...I happened to post some of my wedding pictures and something about Marilyn Manson in the same month. Google remembers parts of the blog that MovableType forgot. One of these days I'm going to reimport all that stuff.

luau - I like them, I've blogged a few photos of them, mostly related to the wedding. I think I might have to do a post on the history of this blog some day.

ipod video leak - Here I was hoping that we'd get that new iPod video. Oh well.

orient bay - Beautiful beach in St Martin. I have a few pictures on the site somewhere. Not of the nude resort part.

cremation furnace - Here is that picture. I did some photography around my office when I first started working there.

ipod nano autofill - I'm glad I'm not the only one

lollapalooza festival - I think there's a scan of a ticket on the site somewhere.

gartner detroit nokia 9300 - I have no idea. I didn't think that I even posted anything about my playing with a 9300 on the blog.

favorite podcasts - I've posted mine, what are yours?

mages of sunset over the ocean - mmmmm...making me itch for summertime

That's all for now. Have a good night all...

Technorati Tags: Blogging