In the past year though, the development of QuickSilver came to a grinding halt. It was put into the open source community but received very little attention since. The original developer of QuickSilver now works for Google’s Mac division, and has been focused on other projects. So imagine my excitement when I came across the article on Smoking Apples Blog that the same developer has unveiled his latest project, Google Quick Search for the Mac.

I immediately switched over and messed with Google Quick Search for about two days. For a very early beta, Google Quicks Search shows some promise, but I still prefer QuickSilver by a fair margin.

The Good:

• Google Quick Search is easier to use for the first time user. The straight forward presentation of search results are easy to understand.
• For the advanced user who wants to perform specific action on search results, QuickSilver does this with two-to-three panels, where the first panel is the search result, second panel performs action with third panel for any additional action. By default, the second panel action is “open”, which works well for the application launching aspect of QuickSilver. However, to learn how to perform additional actions and drill deeper into menus becomes a convoluted key combination of arrows and tabs. GQS does better in this regard, because all the items are organized in a single view. You can drill down into deeper action menus in very consistent manner, and the presentation isn’t necessarily limited to only three panels.
• GQS also allows performing web searches more straight forward. In QuickSilver, you have to first install the web search plugin. Type in the name of the appropriate search engine, then tab over to the text field (third panel) to type in the search text. In GQS, performing web searches with your default browser is just a key press away.

The Bad:

• QuickSilver is a desktop search tool first,  with some web featured attached via plugin. So by default it does what I want it to do, which is search for documents and applications on my local folder. GQS has a mixed approach to presenting some applications/folders/documents, with some links to search for text on Google. Sometimes, even searching for applications that’s simply in the default application folder, will end up with web searches as the first result. For example, I typed in “adium” when I first installed GQS, and my default option was “search for ‘adium’ on google”. Of course, these results do improve overtime as GQS learns which result you care about more; but the default for a desktop searching app should be what’s on my desktop, not the web.
• Related problem to issue #1, is that to some extent, you can never really get what you want in the results because of the way web search options are mixed in with local options. I typed in “log” and came up with three folders named “log” in my results, but none of the three is the log folder I was looking for. Drilling down deeper into local results, I finally found the correct log folder as the #6 choice. The problem is, I look for the other log folder quite often as well, so as long as GQS insists on displaying the top 3 local search results mixed in with their own web search options, I’ll probably be looking for the wrong log folder half of the time.
• QuickSilver also maintains its own index, as opposed to relying on hooking to Spotlight for its searches. The downside is that QuickSilver only index folders you tell it to look into (by default it looks for Application & Documents, for the most part, all you need), while you can still use it to manually navigate into folders that you don’t index. GQS’s hook into Spotlight allows it to look for everything and anything on your hard drive, but that means the performance suffers. Just about every search result I attempted with GQS resulted in a few seconds of lag while it processed Spotlight results. It’s really not a huge amount of time, except I’m completely spoiled by QuickSilver’s instantaneous response. You don’t have an option to turn Spotlight off, because there are no way to index individual folders within its preferences right now, and if you turn Spotlight searches off, GQS will only display web search options.

Google Quick Search also suffers from a lot of instability issues currently. At one point it was hanging while consuming an increasing amount of memory, by the time I noticed it and force the application to shut down from Activity Monitor, it was using up 360MB of RAM, while consuming 99% of all the processing cycles on one of my cores. Keep in mind that this is a really, really early beta, so I assume that the performance issue will be fixed over time. Given the popularity of this download already, I hope it’s relatively quick.

However, whether or not they will change some interface behavior issues (for example, making web search results a secondary option on a different keypress, ability to monitor folders instead of relying on Spotlight) remains to be seen.

For now, I’m sticking with QuickSilver, it is still more robust & flexible, and I’ve already endured the learning curve.

Although I understand that the CoD series has always been about scripted battles, being a “shooter-on-rails”. The end result is that I am pointlessly bored as our team moves from point A to B, with AI constantly yelling at me, “Soap! Where are you?!” Let’s not go into how any respectable mercenary/militia man would allow himself to have a call sign that reminds one of a bad shower experience in prison. Give me Halo 3 anytime, even with Master Chief’s strangely erotic relationship with a piece of software (granted, a piece of translucent, glowing, and oddly sexy one at that).

So why did I even get CoD4? Part of it is peer pressure, all my friends were doing it. Part of it is that mixture of RPG and various online multiplayer modes are supposed to be fun. After several grueling hours of “grinding” myself to higher levels, which made me wish that I was still playing WoW, here’s what I’ve realized:

Call of Duty 4 is like having really bad sex.

• You spend a lot of time looking around in attempt to figure out where you are.
• You keep yours eyes peeled for any subtle, sudden, or strange movements that may or may not mean it’s okay to proceed.
• You spend hours, or what might have felt like hours in your space/time continuum, in various amount of coaxing and foreplay, just so you can get a shot at actual sex.
• Once in a blue moon, you might actually “engage” in the act of sex, if you’re really lucky or good depending on your degree of self-loathing or ignorance in regards to your insignificance in the universe.
• With all the odds of the world against you, you finally do engage in the act, only to have it end about 5 seconds later. Leaving you with a deep sense of dissatisfaction and regret.

Oh yeah, let’s not forget all the meanwhile, there’s some 12 year old kid yelling at you through the headset, “Do you like nipples?!! I like nipples!!!”

BTW, if you really want to know the secret to getting really, really good at CoD4, consult my dear friend Nano:

(10:02:32 AM) nano: maybe you should dress up like a clown
(10:02:37 AM) nano: noone looks for clowns during warfare
(10:02:46 AM) Steve: indeed O.o
(10:02:55 AM) nano: like that family guy
(10:03:01 AM) nano: when peter is dressed up like one in nam
(10:03:03 AM) nano: and hes like
(10:03:10 AM) nano: ‘see, you guys are stupid. theyre going to be looking for soldiers’

Now, go get 25 headshots already.

I was a happy XBox owner, happy enough at the time that I sold my PS2 for a very cheap price including a bundle of games to a friend. That turned out to be one of the worst decisions I had ever made, because PS2 continued pumping out quality games for another two years, while XBox failed to pick up much more momentum and lacked quality title until the introduction of the XBox 360.

With that aside, Halo was the reason why anyone bought the XBox at all, even though it was not a particularly innovative game at the time. First-person shooter was already a very well developed genre, although it never fared quite as well on outside of its computer-platform origin. Halo marked the first time, that anyone was able to prove the FPS games can be done just as well on console as they have been on PC.

That brings us to the point, that Halo wasn’t a genre-redefining game of any sort; it is however, very much a genre-refining game.  Very much like Blizzard software, another company that’s been known for their refinement of existing genre, Bungie Software’s accomplishment with Halo is not to revolutionize, but refine and balance everything until it is near perfect.

Small and subtle game mechanics goes a long way towards changing the overall experience of the game. At a time when most FPS was about hoarding the biggest gun and the highest amount possible (in all descendants of Doom-like games, you carried as many weapons as there are in the game at all times, and you only used weakers weapons when the best weapon ran out of ammo), Halo limited the player to carry only two weapons of their choice, with limited ammunition. You had to constantly juggle the best situation to use a certain type of weapon versus another, and that results in drastically different approaches to encounters depending on what weapons you were carrying at the time. One little change to the traditional game mechanic at the time, yielded a completely refreshing and different game experience.

Somewhere along the line, Halo 2 lost of that magic. The developers in various interview admitted that Halo 2 wasn’t quite as balanced and polished as they liked it to be. I felt some of that too, since I could never bring myself to play more than half-way through Halo 2 in numerous opportunities. There was something intangible that bugged me about Halo 2, something that made it stale & boring. A weird balance that I never quite pinned down, but can only react by quitting the campaign.

I was not exactly excited when Halo 3 came out, due to my experience with Halo 2. However, since I got my own XBox 360, there’s no reason to not own the most renowned franchise on the platform. I could’ve picked up a number of other games on the aisle, but most of which I would just rent from Gamefly and then dump once I’m done with them. Halo 3, for whatever its historical value is, should be owned regardless.

The logic behind buying Halo 3 had really little to do with the game’s playability, but in retrospect, after finishing the single player campaign entirely by my lonesome (I didn’t even do that with the original Halo, a friend and I co-oped through the entire game), this was one of the best gaming experience that I’ve had in a long time.

At no point in the game, did I feel that I wasn’t challenged enough, and I was never so frustrated by the difficulty to just “give up” either. Most importantly, is that every battle encounter had a multitude of solutions, the encounters never play out exactly the same way, you are never pigeonholed into doing anything just one way. This is where the subtlety behind the game shines. The balancing of AI, the clear mission objectives & direction, and still having the flexibility to deal with every single battle in a multitude of ways dictated by you, not the game.

By comparison, I’ve also been playing CoD4 through the single player campaign. It is the most mundane & boring single player experience I’ve had in a long time. The feel of the battles might be authentic, but at no point did I ever have the flexibility to play the game the way I want to, versus just following directions that’s being constantly hollered at me. Of course, that is the trademark of the CoD series, it’s a “shooter on rails”. You follow directions, you camp spots, you fire away at enemy from cover for 5 minutes, you move to the next spot. Plant a beacon, pull a switch, more 5-minute cover fights. There are people who appreciate that type of focused, linear gameplay.

However, it is much harder to program a game where the AI reacts to what you do, and you’re given freedom to roam and reach resolution by your own devise rather than scripted events. On that alone, Halo 3 is a much more well made game than CoD4. Toss in the balancing of all the weapons, abilities, even sub-weapons and equipments newly introduced to the game, it is really the best FPS that I’ve ever played.

Of course, this brings up the question if it’s better for a game developer to rehash old gameplay and just refine and polish it, rather than innovating and revolutionizing the industry (and possibly, most likely, falling flat on their face for doing so). That’s an entirely different topic for another day.

As a bit of background, Purple Violets gained a bit of attention as the first movie directly released to iTunes as an exclusive before it is available either as a direct-to-video release via DVD/VHS/rental or in the theaters. This move generated a bit of media coverage which probably would’ve never occured via any other channels, and the film would likely have died an obscure death, or relegated to the bargin bin in Best Buy.

However, Purple Violets’ release is not just a play on generating media hype. The nature of the film itself is almost exactly the opposite of that. I am reminded of a few years ago, when horror movie genre was gathering steam yet again, and there were a lot of hype generated around some horror film fest (something akin to the 4 horror films you’ll never see, major studio will never release, or one of those all-weekend horror film b-flick marathons… or something); and the films all turned out to be forgettable, mediocre waste-of-my-time-and-intellect (what little is left of that last part).

Purple Violet is *not* one of those films that would’ve been dependent on media hype to just be seen. It is a very frank, straight forward and non-assuming film about relationships and human interaction. It doesn’t provoke any new revelations or truth about human nature, it doesn’t have any real controversies to induce emotional conflicts from its audience. Most of all, it does not attempt to make you cry and weep to prove that it is in fact, a very romantic & emotionally engaging film.

To put it blandly, this film is simply about people who had made mistakes in their lives, especially in regards to their choice in relationships; and how they were given another chance to rediscover what they might have been, and what they have lost. The dialogs aren’t dressed up with unnecessary complexity, they’re delivered naturally without pretense. Part of that I attribute to the script (written by Edward Burns, who is also the director), and a part of which I attribute to the wonderful casting (Selma Blair’s best work). The story itself is refreshingly linear, you always know where the movie is going, and it never once pretends that it’s going to veer away from that path.

This movie reminds me of Next Stop, Wonderland, which is another romantic film that delivers its content without dressing. Due to the likable characters and the tenderness of its plot, you can’t help but fall in love with the characters in the film. Purple Violets reminds me of how good a film can be, without trying to be anything that it’s not.

With Tabula Rasa, I had the same problem getting into the game as I did with all other sci-fi-oriented or alternative MMORPG’s that tries to defy the traditional fantasy convention. There are a lot of game-related knowledge that doesn’t have to be explained in fantasy-based RPG’s. A lot of conventions are inherited, preached, rehearsed from years and years of fantasy literary work. Even those who aren’t into the whole RPG scene, understand the basic nature of the medieval-derived culture.

Here’s a pack of hungry wolves, they’ll probably bite me. Here’s a dragon, that’s really bad. I have just acquired a new plate mail armor, which is definitely stronger and sturdier than my previous chain mail armor. Picking up a bigger, two-hand sword probably means I do more damage than a one-hand sword, but swings much slower. Learning a new fire spell that shoots out a bigger fireball, is probably better than the one that shoots out a smaller one (unless, the smaller one is a completely different spell with a bigger concentration of heat in a small package!). Lastly, a blacksmith does exactly what a blacksmith does, and a leatherworker or an alchemist is unlikely to be taking care of farm lands anytime soon.

These are all conventions that one can easily assume when stepping into a fantasy world, and fantasy based MMO’s doesn’t have to explain those items & mechanic in as rich or deep of detail for the gamers to just step into the game to understand. One of the elements that made World of Warcraft so immensely successful, is the speed you can get into the game without having to read or think much about it. Hey, pick up a quest here, it’ll teach you what you need to know. Go find this trainer here, and they’ll teach you what you need to know. Combine that with the normal conventions that you’re used to, it makes for a game that works without having to pick up an instruction manual and dig through forums of information before you even start playing.

With a game like Tabula Rasa, I get the exact opposite feeling. Sci-fi thrives on inventing new terminology and technology. While this works extremely well in other entertainment mediums where the explanation of the technology is a part of the story, it really suffers in games, especially a MMO where there are massive amount of knowledge that has to be acquired already. The preference is that these knowledge will be slowly acquired over time, as in: What does 1 point of strength do for my character development? Exactly how much +hit% do I need? Those are the detailed, geeky math that you get into once you’re really deeply involved with the game. On the outset, you want the basic information to be taught to the gamers as soon and as easily as possible.

Without prior knowledge and conventions, a sci-fi MMO has a much larger task ahead of itself when it comes to the education of its populace. It has to teach you that one type of armor is better than another, what this weapon does versus another. Is a plasma rifle really as useful as a shotgun given your training & talent point allocations? Even the very basic neccessities of the game has to be “taught” somehow transparently to the gamers. If you had to force the community to reach to an outside source to understand what’s going on inside the game, even at the very beginning, then you would’ve created a huge barrier of entry and preventing you from ever building a large & successful community.

I’ve only played Tabula Rasa for a total of 2 hours on my character. This is exactly how I feel.

I don’t understand what’s going on, I don’t understand all the conventions & technology. I can’t even figure out how to equip spells that I supposedly had already trained, then had to take my web browser to a wiki site to figure out how to activate my abilities. Even after learning what I have to do, I failed to do so because by that point, I’m too annoyed by the game to want to play it. Lastly, of course without understanding the conventions and technologies, it makes crafting an impossible variety of jargons that I can’t even start to think about.

The combat system lacks a certain amount of involvement that’s required to keep me interested. What WoW did very well, even with its bloated number of spells & ability in the game now, is making sure that each spell & abilities you used had a purpose of some sort, and you had to use a combination & variety of them to be successful. This was evident very early in the game. This is not quite so evident in Tabula Rasa, where I am not sure why I would use spells versus armed weapon in different situations, or whether there would be any value to ever use one or the other. What I choose to do, seems completely random and have very little effect on the outcome unless I’m specifically told to “use lightning spell on this boss.”

That is not to say that these spells & combat system will become more purposeful as you get to higher level, but if I don’t sense that amount of clarity now, there’s no reason for me to progress beyond the current tedium. It’s more likely for me to think, “OMG, there are how many more of this pointlessly-firing-at-whatever I have to do? For how many levels?” than to consider the fact that the game will expand into some richer & more satisfying.

So, I guess I won’t be playing Tabula Rasa when it reaches final release. Here’s hoping Hellgate: London turns out much better.

First we have to talk about the control of the game. Even though it is indeed the most fluid and well-calibrated use of the Wiimote so far, it still isn’t quite accurate enough to really get it right. There are basically two options to how you control the game, you can opt for the traditional, complete lock-on as offered on Gamecube before; or you can opt for the semi-lock-on, which allows you to lock onto the enemy and strafe around, but still aim your gun manually. The full lock-on makes encounters against non-boss enemies a joke, just lock on, move around and fire away blindly until the enemy dies, and find another enemy to lock onto. In contrast, the “advanced” mode controls is accurate most of the time, but it does lose tracking once in a while, and it’s easy to lose your cursor when tracking starts to get erratic. Before you know it, you’re staring at your feet trying to get the sensor to pick up the Wiimote properly.

An interesting side-effect of the contrasting control schemes, with one being overtly easy and the other being “moody”, is that the game pushes you towards the easier control; but the boss fights would be way too easy with it. So on many boss fights, your control scheme automatically returns back to the advanced mode, with manual aiming being mandatory on many fights. This caused some early confusion as I was playing through the game, as there’s a big red cursor for the boss that I’ve locked onto, but just a tiny little red cursor for where I’m actually firing.

Another sign that the control scheme is still buggy at times, is when you have to interact with switches in the game. I admit that the level of interactivity with the switch, many of which employs a variety of pull/twist/push mechanisms adds a whole level of immersion into the environment. At the same time, I’ve yet to come across a single switch in the game that just worked the way it was supposed to. Most of the time it fails to detect some of the motion I performed, and requires repeated push/pull action for the control to pick up at least some of the movements Similarly, the morph ball “jump” is controlled by a swing of the Wiimote, which often has problem recognizing multiple jumps performed in succession, causing some unnecessary grief in complex manuever situations (such as a bomb double jump with the morph ball).

Even with these flaws, the control scheme still offered a level of immersion that’s hugely appreciable. Except for those long boss fights where you can feel your shoulders getting sore, and at some point you just want the boss encounter to be over with. If minor control problems were Metroid Prime’s only detraction, I would’ve still loved this game. Of course the flaws doesn’t end there.

For Metroid veterans, you guys know what this game is all about. A mixture of some action elements, a lot of puzzle solving, and backtracking through previous levels to uncover new areas that you couldn’t reach until you’ve upgraded your abilities. Metroid Prime 3 still follows this tried and true formula, but I was really hoping that the series would progress and take that concept to a new level.

Puzzles are fun when they can be resolved quickly as to not disrupt the pace of the game. What worked well in Metroid’s 2d incarnations has never worked all that great in 3d. Finding a hairline crack to bomb on a 2d map was relatively obvious & easy. Finding the same hairline crack to bomb open, so you can use your morph ball and solve the puzzle in a fully realized 3d world is much harder. There are plenty of times when I got stuck running around the same area over and over again in attempt to solve a puzzle, only to find that I missed a little crack there, or I missed a double jump into a dark & vacant space that’s practically unidentifiable. That’s *not* good game design, when there are potentially too many points where you can get stuck trying to just get through a room to your next objective. At some point you would think that game testing would’ve caught these mistakes. Looking into every dark crack of every corner of every room, is not my idea of a good time.

The amount of backtracking, although a stable in Metroid’s gameplay, is also an outdated gaming element that should’ve evolved or just scrapped altogether. Visiting the same level that I’ve beaten 3 times before just to open up one more door, and get through 3 more rooms, is again, *NOT* my idea of a good time.

Overall, I think Metroid Prime 3 is a swell game, by far one of the best game on Wii. Does it qualify as a great game in comparison to Gears of War, or BioShock? Probably not, but Wii fans will have at least something to play that isn’t just another cutesy, casual title.

I’ve ran into a few annoyances so far with the iPhone:

• I missed being able to manually manage music. Even though creating a playlist for the iPhone is still pretty much the same thing, it just creates one extra step that I didn’t have to deal with before.
• I’m guessing the above change was made due to the “always disconnected except for sync” nature of the iPhone. I think Apple realized people will need to answer their iPhone at any given time, they can’t wait for the “disconnect first” method of previous iPod and all USB mass storage devices. So unless you are syncing, the iPhone is always disconnected. I think they could’ve created some sort of logic to handle manual management as well… but they just didn’t have the time to do that, so manual management is out.
• As a result of the above change, USB storage mode is turned off, so you can’t use the iPhone as a hard drive. Well, not unless you have other apps to hack it, I suppose.
• For whatever reason, iPhone also do not charge from USB when the computer is turned off. My previous iPods can charge from powered USB hubs even when the computer is turned off. The iPhone cannot. Hence you will probably be wise to grab another dock cable and have that with your AC adaptor ready at all times.
• I really hate the recessed headphone port.

Those are the only gripes I have with iPhone. There are other shortcomings for more advanced users, such as not being able to install native iPhone apps without hacking it (and having to reinstall them again probably after every Apple firmware update to the iPhone). I do wish there is a robust eBook application of some sort, but for the most part I’m happy using the various web-based apps for things that iPhone can’t do with antive apps. For example, Meebo on iPhone works extremely well.

With the new, larger screen, watching movies and tv shows on iPhone is also much more pleasurable than before. Also the playtime is much longer than iPod Video due to the lack of hard drive access. I’ve purchased an entire TV series from iTMS for the first time, and actually enjoyed the private watching experience almost as much as I would have on my HDTV setup. I can watch the shows before going to sleep (instead of hanging around the living room and falling asleep on the couch), I can watch them during lunch breaks at work… etc.

I also ripped some of my DVD’s using Handbrake into iPhone compatible format. I never thought I would enjoy watching video on such a small screen, but there’s something about the private, personal experience I can have now with my movies, just as with my music, that is very satisfying. I don’t think I’ve been this happy with any consumer electronic device in a very, very long while (since my first Tivo?).

1. You’re only being compared to the same product of last generation.
This type of comparative review where you’re evaluated mostly against the last generation, perhaps even last generation of your own product, can only happen under two situations. One, if you’re the market leader and there are nothing else to compare to. Or two, you are only impressive when compared against last generation or your previous self. If you’re not in situation one, you’re in trouble.

2. Even major publications that are generally very mutual and stays away from making strong statements and opinions are not giving you a positive, perhaps even just mutual review.
This would be CNET…

It’s very clear in CNET’s review of Windows Vista Ultimate, they are not impressed by how much Windows Vista had to offer after years of development, and the only comparison that would shine light on Vista’s major facelift, would be against its former brethen.

Snippets like this cannot be what Microsoft has planned for five+ years:

Windows Vista is not the Apple Mac OS X 10.4 killer one hoped for (or feared).

Perhaps we’re spoiled, but after more than five years of development, there’s a definite “Is that all?” feeling about Windows Vista. Like cramming an info-dump into a book report the night before it’s due, there certainly are a lot of individual features within the operating system, but the real value lies in their execution–how the user experiences (or doesn’t experience) these–and like the info-dump, we came away shaking our heads, disappointed. Compared with Mac OS X 10.4, Windows Vista feels clunky and not very intuitive, almost as though it’s still based on DOS (or at least the internal logic that made up DOS).

But is Windows Vista a bad operating system? No. It’s just a disappointment for PC users who hoped that Microsoft would deliver something truly exciting to finally leapfrog ahead of Apple. They failed.

Of course, CNET is still putting a positive spin on this being just Vista 1.0, and Microsoft will publish service packs in the future to improve the user experience. Although there are absolutely no historical example of that Microsoft, who up until this point used Service Packs primarily to fix bugs and address security issues.

Even then, they did not recommend current XP users to jump on the Vista bandwagon.

Windows Vista is essentially warmed-over Windows XP. If you’re currently happy with Windows XP SP2, we see no compelling reason to upgrade. On the other hand, if you need a new computer right now, Windows Vista is stable enough for everyday use.

The saddest truth about all this though, is that eventually all users will be running Vista, because it’ll be on their computer when they buy it. Chances are it’ll be the cheap crappy version of Vista anyway, but it’ll be Vista nevertheless. Microsoft will still make plenty of money just by the inertia of the computing masses, with a mediocre OS that did nothing to take us forward. At least Windows users can finally say they have a 3D accelerated UI as well, albeit an ugly looking one (insert your “PC case with plexi window + neon light” versus Mac Pro design analogy here).

From The Unofficial Apple Weblog:
MIT writer says Vista drove her to Mac

And the original article here:
Uninspiring Vista

Yay! I’m not alone! We should start a whole new subculture of “users driven to Mac by Vista” under the broader big-brother branch of the Mac culture.

Worth a read:
The Presto Service and HP Printing Mailbox Review – Part Two

Walt Mossberg’s review on Wall Street Journal
(sorry, subscription required for this one)

Presto on CBS’s Early Show

Presto on CBS’s local San Diego station

San Jose Mercury News

A very detailed out of the box experience via Gear Diary