It’s spring time and like many people I’m sucking down air conditioning, but I decided to take a look at how one of my PC’s is using electricity like it’s an all you can eat buffet.
Here’s some information about my current HTPC that is relevant:
Intel Pentium Dual Core
Gigabyte/Intel G31 motherboard
GeForce 8400GS PCI Express
WD Caviar GP 750GB (variable RPM)
Windows Vista Home Premium
Runs all day
Windows Vista has a lot of new power options that are available for tweaking; after all it’s very cool to be green these days. Whether you are running a datacenter or using a laptop on a battery these settings can be an important way to get a handle on your power usage. Vista and 2008 server are definitely the best Windows platform for power management so far. This blog is a best effort to provide meaningful information for a technical person to evaluate power options, it’s by no means a definitive guide – and I’d like feedback.
E3 apparently showcased some Megaman 9 for WiiWare, the most impressive thing I took away from this is how accurate they stayed to the capabilities of the NES hardware in terms of using original graphics and making music.
I was a little shocked to read that a version of Megaman is coming out on WiiWare. According to the designers they want it to look and sound like an NES game, whether the game is actually written to be compatible with the NES hardware is another story we'll have to keep our eyes on, but it would seem unlikely. The bosses in the are your classic Megaman collection of randomness:
Magma Man, Galaxy Man, Jewel Man, Concrete Man, Hornet Man, Plug Man, Tornado Man, and Splash Woman.
Other information I skimmed from the Nintendo Power article says the designers are aiming pretty high, aka at Megaman 2 widely regarded as the best of the series on the NES. I'd say let's start with some more screenshots before we get ahead our selves. All in all tho, it's really cool Capcom is doing this, it goes to show though how much of a retro crowd is around enough to market something relatively obscure like this to.
Let's face it, there's been quite a few versions of Tecmo Bowl over the years but the original, and arguably best is on the NES. Following in tradition of Capcom remaking some of it's classic games, Recently Tecmo announced that a new incarnation is due out on the Nintendo DS titled Kickoff. From what IGN reported it's similar to the NES version in terms of play and content, which is is a good thing.
The best part is that it will take advantage of the DS wifi connection, so you can spank you friends in football from your couch on a Saturday morning. Sadly, since EA owns the license for NFL teams this will not feature real team names which is a real let down, no more Bo Jackson unless you add him yourself. Check out the preview below.
I've been looking to get a portable computer for a while now, but I couldn't find any that I thought would be worth the investiment in time and money. As you can guess I've completely disregarded the entire PDA scene as a little too geeky for my taste.
My view is you shouldn't always need to be behind a keyboard locked to your desk. It would be nice to have as many of the conveniences from your computer as possible in a nice device that doesn't frustrate you but becomes part of your daily life and facilitates more communication with your friends.
I don't normally find hidden treasures on your typical game review website these days. It's a rare occasion when the content stands out above and beyond your typical screenshot description blurb about a game or series.
Like all good treasures, I stumbled across this first on YouTube when I was looking at Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess trailers. After watching a few Metroid episodes tho I knew this was too good to not share. Like most gamers, I have a deep appreciation for Metroid and Zelda series, even before watching these. These videos definitely helped fill in some blanks about timelines and stories, I think you'll enjoy it as well.
I set out to answer that mythical question about the best way to do that infamous "DVD Backup" due to my facination with compression and home theatres. I thought it would be interesting to post some of the results I had encoding things, as well as sharing what settings I use and a little explanation behind it.
This blog isn't going to necessarily provide scientific analysis, it's my personal experience using the tools I have had good success with, and the settings I have found are realistic. Your mileage may vary and I'd love to hear from other people.
I'm somewhat of a media center fan as well as video compression, if you couldn't tell. One of the great things about Quicktime is that they have a plethora of trailers in HD on Apple's website. mp4/h264 is the upcoming industry standard container/compression for content and from my experience really do a better job than Xvid/Avi.
My installation of Media Center 2005 couldn't view Quicktime .mov files or decode any mpeg4 content in the "My Videos" area. This creates an interesting problem -- how is one to view all these lovely trailers on their MCE boxes? These are the steps I had to take to get these problems solved, it's probably worth mentioning that this can vary based on what mpeg 2/4 decoder software you have installed (I use WinDVD), and you should probably have QuickTime installed as well if you intend on decoding that content.
It’s spring time and like many people I’m sucking down air conditioning, but I decided to take a look at how one of my PC’s is using electricity like it’s an all you can eat buffet. 
I've been looking to get a portable computer for a while now, but I couldn't find any that I thought would be worth the investiment in time and money. As you can guess I've completely disregarded the entire PDA scene as a little too geeky for my taste.
I don't normally find hidden treasures on your typical game review website these days. It's a rare occasion when the content stands out above and beyond your typical screenshot description blurb about a game or series.