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Windows 8 is OVER!!

There are quite a few things about Windows 8 that really bug me. While the context switching of Desktop vs. Metro apps is certainly annoying, I can deal with it. I can even handle that I must look in three different places to get all my windows updates (Windows Update from desktop control panel, Windows Update from Start Screen settings panel, and the Windows app store). Then there’s my Bluetooth never staying on. Ugh. But really, it comes down to two things that have pretty much been deal breakers for me when it comes to Windows 8.

Power Options are Underpowered

When I tell my laptop that I don’t ever want it shutting down when it’s plugged in and I’m away, I actually mean it. I’m the kind of person that likes to have multiple machines at my finger tips at any given time. That usually means remote desktopping (via Windows Remote Desktop or the super handy Chrome Remote Desktop). It’s hard to Remote Desktop into my laptop when it’s shutdown because Windows 8 went ahead and decided that it needs to sleep even though I have explicitly set the sleep timer to “never” when plugged in.

It’s possible this is a bug. It’s also possible that I could dig through the “Advanced” power settings to find some poorly named setting that will tell Windows 8 to actually not sleep. I don’t know. I thought “Put the computer to sleep: Never” would have covered that. Silly me.

It’s My Computer, I’LL DO WHAT I WANT

No, actually I won’t. Like most tech-savvy power users, the first thing I do on a new system is disable User Account Control. It’s annoying, it hampers functionality, and I hate it. However, I noticed something interesting on my Windows 8 install. And by interesting, I mean infuriating.

When you disable User Account Control under previous versions of Windows, there’s an automatic elevation process that happens behind the scenes, so that when you do something that requires you to be the literal Administrator of the machine (and not just a member of the Administrators group). So, most of your programs will automatically run in the context of “Administrator”.

Well, that doesn’t happen on Windows 8, anymore. At least by default. There is a group policy that allows this automatic elevation to take place. Well, I didn’t think that would be a big deal. That is, until I lost all permissions to one of my extra hard drives. For any file operations performed in Windows Explorer, I would get a pop-up saying I don’t have permissions to do that (remove a file or folder) but I can click “Continue” to be given those permissions. What. So, the annoyance that was User Account Control has returned, but this time with a vengeance. Since desktop programs you start don’t automatically elevate, when they try to write to my extra hard drive, they are flat out denied. No message. No prompt. Just denied. Took me forever to figure that out.

So, I went in and decided to flip the group policy to allow the elevation. By the way, if you’re editing group policies to restore basic, core functionality, that’s probably not a good sign.

Everything was hunky dory until I decided I wanted to try out the cool new Xbox SmartGlass app from the Windows Marketplace app store. I clicked “Store” and was met with a terse, “you can’t open Store unless you enable User Account Control. Click here to turn it on, you filthy plebian.” Wow. Okay. I guess I can kind of see why that would be an issue. Well, I’ll open up the Metro Chrome app. Same Message. Huh?

Yeah. You can’t open ANY modern-style Windows 8 apps if you disable UAC and turn on the elevation. I turned off the elevation setting in group policy and my access was restored, however then I had the issue with my extra hard drive. What is one to do? I decided I would take a page out of my old Windows 2000 playbook. Let’s log in as ADMINISTRATOR!

By default, the Administrator account is disabled in Windows 8. Of course, I enabled it, and then logged out of my normal user account and logged back in as Administrator. Odd, it didn’t ask for a password or anything, but I figured I would worry about that later. I tried using some Metro apps, and was told I can’t because those apps are not allowed to be opened using the Administrator account.

This means I cannot use my computer the way I want to, until Microsoft figures out this fustercluck of a permissions model.

Windows 8 Post-Mortem

Like a zombie breakout, there’s just too much garbage in my way to actually accomplish the things I want in Windows 8. I can understand that Microsoft has seen the light of Apple’s closed system gospel, but if they’re going to hogtie me on my own computer unless I do something akin to jailbreaking my Windows 8 install, I’ll stick with Windows 7 for the foreseeable future. And if Windows 8 is wildly successful and this is the new Windows truth, then I’ll probably have to do something distasteful like use Linux as my default OS. Yuck.

So, at least for now, I’ll probably wash my hands of Windows 8. At least until the inevitable Service Pack 1.

Guild Wars 2: The Good Stuff

I’ve played a lot of MMO’s. One of the only mainstream MMO’s I missed out on was the Grand-daddy of MMORPG’s, Ultima Online. I was too busy still playing MUD’s to worry about Ultima Online. As someone who’s played them a lot, there are many things that become old hat for the grizzled MMO veteran.

Competition for resources, long travel times, crafting progress bars, difficult-to-use auction houses, login queues. Then there’s the gameplay that, since WoW came on the scene, ends up being very same-y. Copious action bars filled with loads of skills and abilities. Which of your 24-30 attack abilities should you use? Good question, but be assured that someone has already done all the math for you.

The problem is MMO’s are, fundamentally, designed to waste time. You pay a monthly fee, so the longer they can keep you around, the better off they will be. The Free2Play models don’t help this, unfortunately. They are designed to waste time, as well, but you can buy in to get some shortcuts around some (but never all) of the time wasters.

So, what if there was an MMO that eschewed monthly fees or the Free2Play models, and instead charged you a premium up-front? Those familiar with Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 already know where this is going.

I stayed away from Guild Wars, but the buzz surrounding Guild Wars 2 was too much for me. You see, I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with MMORPG’s. On the one hand, the possibilities of running around a persistent, virtual environment have fascinated me since those first times I read Neuromancer and Snow Crash. On the other hand, modern MMO’s (with a few exceptions) are so fundamentally flawed that playing them is like beating my head against a frozen cow hoping a scoop of ice cream will pop out.

Almost every single MMO puts so many barriers between me and “fun” that it eventually becomes too laborious to even bother anymore. For some people, long sessions of grinding out XP or minerals is fun. I am not one of those people. I might as well just spin up Diablo and get my action there… if it weren’t for the lack of persistence.

Playing Guild Wars 2 has been ridiculously refreshing. It’s like Arenanet took an MMO and then removed all the stuff that is just there to waste time. Long travel times? Nope, you can instantly fast travel to any warp point you’ve previously visited, a la Elder Scrolls games. Competing for the same mineral nodes? No way, resource nodes are “instanced” for each individual. If you see a resource node, then it’s yours and no one else can swoop in and jack it while you helplessly bash your head against your desk. Need to get to level 55 but you already did all the quests? Not in Guild Wars 2. There is SO MUCH CONTENT!

I’ve been enjoying it immensely, and I feel like it’s because they’ve taken literally everything I hate about MMO’s and tossed it right into the drink. That isn’t to say that everything about Guild Wars 2 is perfect, because it certainly isn’t. Stability and security issues have been somewhat prevalent. Then, there were the permanent bans for doing seemingly innocuous things like buying something in-game with once currency (karma) and selling those things for another (gold).

Arenanet certainly falls on its face from time to time, but I think it’s fair to say this is one of the most bug-free MMO’s that’s ever been released. Now, whether you think it’s fun, that is another question. If you enjoy killing the same creature or boss over and over again, then this may not be the game for you. If you aren’t really interested in well-implemented WvWvW (World vs. World vs. World, which I will probably get to in another post), then this may not be the game for you.

Random WoW chats I get

[B?zzard] Dear players,your account is complaints by other players,please visit account information site validate your information,or else will stop using your account’s rights in one hour. warcraft validate site: {hilarious engrish url redacted}

[Malo...] are you collecting the Gahz’ridian ornaments?

[B?zzo疵rd]: Hello,you are drawn in the system to receive your gift.Pleast visit: www.Pet-prize.com.Celestial Steed will be yours.

Who buys this crap?

A few months ago, I got a press release about some new Playstation Home “outfits” available from SEGA. Apparently, for €3 you can get one of these costumes and prance around Playstation Home dressed up as a colonial marine or a predator.

I want to know who buys this crap. Seriously. Who is it? Obviously, they are the same people who are buying Winnie the Pooh t-shirts for their Xbox Live Avatars.

The whole concept of Xbox Live Avatars isn’t completely terrible, I guess, but the fact that they are charging real money so I can put some kind of stupid shirt on my avatar… is just bizarre. It almost proves the insane ideal that anything will be bought by someone at some point in time just because there is a price attached.

If this crap were free would anyone download it? Aye, there’s the rub. This is something I like to think of as “the pet rock phenomenon”. Take something that is pretty much worthless, attach an arbitrarily low price to it, and suddenly it has worth. I guess that sums up this whole Playstation Home business model. It isn’t pure evil (don’t touch it!) or anything, but what happens when the PS3 and Xbox 360 go away? Never gonna happen, you say? Au contraire, mon frere.

The part of all this that is the most infuriating to me, is that Sony and Microsoft wouldn’t be selling this garbage unless there were enough people buying it to make it profitable. That’s the worst part of this whole thing. This whole stupid, inane, pointless endeavor is actually working. I’ll admit, though, the face that Xbox Live is full of people who buy this crap makes me reconsider even subscribing to the service. Auto-renew: off!

Maybe that’s me being elitist, but here I am… still subscribed to Xbox Live. So, who buys this crap? Apparently… I do.

U2 in Houston!

Just recently got back from seeing U2 in Houston. It was an amazing show, that’s for sure. Right before the show, we went to the Space Center in Houston and looked at the artifact gallery there. It was very humbling to be able to see the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo capsules.

And then, to go to U2′s show, with their “UFO has landed” stage was the perfect capstone to an amazing day.

What an amazing show. The extra shoutouts to NASA were great, and it also seemed like the baby animation was redone as well, as it showed the baby in a space suit floating around. I wish I could better understand what the baby actually said. All I got was “Spacejacket” at the beginning. But the video and lights during “Your Blue Room” were truly amazing… and with a special coda from one of the ISS astronauts! It’s giving me chills right now, just thinking about it again! It’s great to be able to have a reminder of how great our space program once was.

Everything about this show was brilliant, though. I think this is probably the best stadium tour U2 has ever done. I didn’t think they could pull it off, but the they really did make it feel like the entire stadium was part of the show. The Claw is brilliant! Magnificent stage design as well as how they used the video wall and light show. Really felt like we got our money’s worth, that’s for sure.

Hearing Ultraviolet was a treat as well, as I’ve always wanted to hear this song live, but never got the chance. It’s like a dream come true!

Play the Eclipse Phase RPG

Why should you play the Eclipse Phase RPG? A number of reasons.

Firstly, the setting is cool. It’s like Cowboy Bebop meets Mass Effect meets Neuromancer. It also (on purpose, I’m sure) channels the old Paranoia RPG. Like… a lot. The overall tone, however, is decidedly less humorous than Paranoia, but certainly no less dark.

That being said, the core Eclipse Phase rulebook and all future supplements are being released under the Creative Commons license. Specifically, the CC BY-NC-SA license. That is, you are free to share or remix Eclipse Phase as long as you do so non-commericially, attribute the original licensor (in this case, Catalyst Game Labs), and only share your remixed work under the same license.

Unlike Wizards of the Coast and their “Open Gaming License” which wasn’t all THAT open, this truly is Open Source Gaming. Which is another reason you need to play this game. The potential within Eclipse Phase for the community to be able to develop and re-use the material is like few RPG’s before it.

So, here is the torrent to download Eclipse Phase. Yes, it’s legal and cheap as free.

Oh, just checked the Eclipse Phase blog, and apparently, Eclipse Phase is the number one seller on DriveThruRPG.com. Not bad for a free, open source product.

The Frost Lotus Ultimatum

I generally enjoy playing WoW.

That being said, there are a few… issues I’ve been having lately. Yes, it is sometimes annoying to get the “No more instances can be created message” but that doesn’t cause seething hatred in the cockles of my heart. Nor does ganking, nor Death Knights constantly being nerfed, nor even the guy in Vent that turns his speakers up really loud so that whenever anyone else talks you get this annoying echo effect.

What fills me with rage is drama.

First, to give you a little background, I’ve recently joined a new raiding guild. The guild I had been in which was pretty much just a group of friends, while fun, was not very diligent as far as keeping to ANY kind of raiding schedule. When Ulduar came out and I was still kicking around in Heroic 5-man purples, I decided to strike out for greener pastures (and better raid schedules.)

I found the current guild through the WoW forums (I know, I know… but with horrible gear, and very little actual raid experience, I can’t be too choosy, here.) They seemed pretty laid back when I browsed around their forums, and it looked like the kind of place I could join up and not get in too much trouble if I couldn’t make a raid night every once in a while. (Family first, ya know!)

Well, we’re running our mid-week Ulduar 10-man and we’re clearing out Freya. I vaguely remember there being some in-game chatter about who has herbalism blah blah blah okay let’s go kill stuff. Well, we clear the whole area (because we don’t want to do hard mode, mmkay) and right before we’re getting ready to pull Freya, the Shaman/healer/Guild Master leaves the raid group, immediately disconnects from Vent, and goes offline. Everyone is shocked for a few seconds as we wonder if his connection blew up, or maybe evil Nazi super-scientists teleported him to the black sun dimension, or what. Then, someone in vent says, “If he wants the 3 Frost Lotus, I’ll give it to him. It’s really not that big of a deal.” Wait, what?

Yeah, so our shaman ragequit over some stupid herbs. Granted, they are somewhat valuable, but enough to actually ragequit over it? Seems a little dramatic to me. At this point, I’m thinking to myself, “No biggie. We’ll just pug another healer and keep going.” Well, that’s when our Resto Druid and a rogue both /gquit. “Wha??”

They inform us in vent: “Yeah, <GuildMaster> just threatened to /gkick us over this Frost Lotus thing because he says he’s the guild master and doesn’t have to be treated like this. We don’t really want to stick around for this. Bye.”

At this point I should explain that the core of this guild is a group of IRL friends. The GuildMaster is actually more of an officer, and the real guild master, the guy that organizes raids, determines who can join the guild, grants forum access, is really a great guy, fun to play WoW with and in all respects is pretty cool. If the GuildMaster were actually the guild master, I suspect a large amount of the guild population would’ve been looking for new guilds at this point.

In the meantime, the raid has ground to a halt, and I’m suddenly NOT getting any closer to getting my Tier 8 gloves. And this is what bugs me. It’s one thing to be pissed about something, and it’s another thing to be pissed about something so inconsequential. It’s entirely another thing to leave people hanging because you want to go have a cry-fest over some stupid herbs. This is playground-level of getting pissed. Buck up, little camper! If losing 3 Frost Lotus is enough to send you into a fit of rage, just wait until your mom kicks you out of the basement.

Ugh.

Defeating the DiggBar…

I ran into this little snippet at Daring Fireball:

Last week Digg released something they call the DiggBar, which serves as both a new interface for Digg and doubles as a URL shortening service. The way it works is that you just add “digg.com/” at the beginning of any URL, and Digg creates a short URL in the form of digg.com/1234. Here’s an example DiggBar URL that points to google.com: http://digg.com/d1nYVs. Further, the Digg homepage now links to these DiggBar URLs rather than linking directly to other web sites.

But unlike normal URL shortening services, when you load these Digg URLs, rather than redirect you to the original URL, Digg loads a page which frames the content of the original site. As a user, what you see is that the URL in your browser’s location field remains digg.com/1234, and the content of the destination site loads underneath a Digg-branded toolbar.

Obviously, this is a problem.

I’ve gone ahead and implemented Daring Fireball’s 3 lines of PHP code on my site here. You can see my results: http://digg.com/u1j0Z

Begone, DiggNation.

UPDATE: Apparently, Digg has not set up the diggBar so that Digg doesn’t show up as the HTTP_REFERER. Therefore, I’ve had to unleash the nuclear option and added some javascript to block all framing whatsoever. Not really what I wanted to do, but until I come up with another solution, it will have to do.

Personal Achievement Unlocked: 20k Gamerscore

At the end of March I broke the 20k barrier for gamerscore. I know that’s not an impressive feat these days, but personally, I feel like it’s kind of an accomplishment. I’ve had my 360 for about 3 years now!

Woot!

AP: Youtube Knowledge Fail

In response to this, I am posting the following:

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