Activating Browser Modes with Doctype

If you consider yourself a Web developer, that you know HTML and Web browsers, but you don't understand how DOCTYPE affects what users see, then you don't know HTML and Web browsers. Anyone that considers themselves a Web developer should understand this stuff, and Henri Sivonen, who I previously hadn't heard of, has written a great and comprehensive article about Activating Browser Modes with Doctype.

R.I.P. Xbox 360 - I got the Red Ring of Death

It took longer than I expected, but last night my Xbox 360 died in spectacular fashion. That brings the failure rate to 100% in my circle of friends. Last night, I played the Burnout Paradise demo for about an hour before I decided to switch to The Orange Box and take Team Fortress 2 for a spin. I got as far as the loading screen and then it happened. A loud screech came out of my TV and the onscreen image changed from the Team Fortress loading screen to a green and white checkerboard, and the Xbox was hung. I immediately felt this was the end, stick a fork in it, it's done. But I was still in denial. Reboot, Red Ring of Death. Immediately went to Xbox Support and was instructed to call customer service. I even followed all the automated prompts to pull the hard drive and unplug and plugin the cables, holding out hope it would just "reset", but of course nothing worked. I ordered my coffin, and I was told the whole process would take around a month. A month! This is when I reach anger. I skipped bargaining, there is nothing the call center rep is going to be able to do for me. The Xbox is my DVD player, so I immediately start ripping some DVDs we had got for my son, on two different Macs using Handbrake. I go to bed depressed, this whole episode ruins my nights sleep. I have I think 5 uncompleted games for the 360 I got for Christmas. Thinking over the good to great games I have completed, BioShock and Halo 3, and some in just the last 3 days, Portal and Mass Effect, helps me, along with finishing this post, reach acceptance. Time to go back to Metroid for the Wii.

Update
One of my friends informed me that I am wrong, his Xbox 360 has not died yet. I thought he had told me his had died months ago, but I was wrong. So among my circle of friends, the failure rate is not 100%, but its pretty damn close.

Update x2
I got the coffin yesterday, exactly 5 business days after I called Microsoft for it, as promised.

Review: Portal, part of The Orange Box, on Xbox 360

Sublime. If you don't have The Orange Box, you really need to pick this up. Mind you I haven't played Half-Life 2, any of its' expansion episodes, or Team Fortress 2. I could easily make this recommendation based just on Portal, the excellent and completely unexpected little game included in The Orange Box. Why is it so good? Read on...

Spoilers Ahoy!
Portal is a shooter, and yet you don't really shoot anything. You open holes in the world, aka Portals, as part of a maniacal lab experiment by an all seeing artificial intelligence, which is quite amusing. It's really a puzzle game, and at least during the first play through not very hard, I think I completed it in about 3 hours of play time, but you haven't ever played a puzzle/shooter like this. I could be wrong, but I can't remember one. The basic premise is that you solve tests by opening 2 portals at any time and making stuff in the environment change so you can reach the end of the test. I won't spoil the rest, part of the fun is discovering the game on your own. Once you have finished it, and your not sure if it over, the game ends and the song starts. This is what pushes it past merely excellent into one of those games you just have to play, the song is absolutely hysterical.

Why Microsoft Points Are NOT Like Poker Chips

Robert McLaws recently posted that Microsoft Points Are Like Poker Chips, and how he loves MS Points, wants to see them everywhere.

I have been pretty vocal and consistent that MS Points suck because they are completely anti-consumer, they only benefit Microsoft. If anyone, like Robert McLaws, say they like them, well then they are a tool. And MS Points are only on the surface like poker chips because poker chips at any casino have two huge feature that MS Points don't:

1. You can always convert poker chips to cash, not true for MS Points
2. Poker chips are worth the same thing as dollars, MS Points are fractional to confuse consumers

Finally, until I see a legitimate independent study done comparing purchasing content using MS Points vs. dollars ala Apple and iTunes, I don't believe as McLaws asserts that people buy more content on Xbox Live Marketplace because of MS Points. I would argue that purchases on Xbox Live Marketplace are in spite of MS Points. There is a no way an additional layer of indirection, having to add a block of points before making a purchase and having to convert to dollars, is easier, more convenient, or results in more sales than simply pressing buy in iTunes using dollars and being done with it.

The Unrealized Potential of Apple’s Hybrid Platform: Mac, iPod, iPhone, and TV

It is amazing to me how hard it is for some people to figure out Apple's strategy. RoughlyDrafted Magazine has a good article called The Unrealized Potential of Apple’s Hybrid Platform: Mac, iPod, iPhone, and TV. The short version: Apple is building an entire ecosystem of devices all running OS X. All these devices will be targets for applications, leveraging Cocoa development skills.

A great write-up of GameSpot's Gerstmanngate

Sam Kennedy's 1UP Blog: GameSpot's Sad State of Affairs has a great summary of Gerstmanngate with some new information about what Jeff and some of the other GameSpot editor's that have left the site are going to be doing. Also, there is more on a lot of other changes that happened at GameSpot that should have made it obvious Jeff's firing was coming.

How long are studios going to offer a rent only option on iTunes?

I was looking around at the various movies that have been added to iTunes for rental, and the thing I see over and over again in customer reviews is enthusiasm for seeing a movie people have wanted in iTunes, but only with a rental option, not a buy. For example, look at Transformers (opens in iTunes). I have taken a screenshot for posterity:


How long until studios realize they are missing out on a revenue opportunity? How quickly until Apple users a fleet of comments from all the new movies that are rent only to go back to the studios and negotiate for a purchase option too? For a lot of iTunes customers, going to a store and buying a DVD, even if it includes an iTunes copy with the movie, is just not going to be good enough. They don't want the disc, they just want the digital copy.


For the movies that are rent and buy, when is there going to be an option to upgrade for a rental to a buy? In the old world, this was always possible at some place like Blockbuster, and when I went to mom and pop video rental, they would offer that kind of option, but now with iTunes its a no-brainer. I am not saying necessary a straight rental price deduction from the buy price, but some discount means more revenue for studios. Are they ever going to get it?

Testing

Blogging from the iPhone

NetNewsWire 3.1 Released as Freeware

One of my favorite applications, NetNewsWire, has just been upgraded to 3.1 and is now free, as in beer. Daring Fireball broke the story for me. One of the first badges I ever put on the blog was the NetNewsWire button because I loved the application so much.

Interview with Tim Burton

I have always been a big fan of Tim Burton, director of Batman (1989) and Beetle Juice among a long list of directing projects. David Poland at The Hot Blog did an interview with Burton about Sweeney Todd, Burton's latest directing project, and I found it pretty interesting, mostly because Burton rarely interviews, so I thought I would pass it along: