On the 360 tip!

Been a bit busy lately,

Had some pretty major client work going on, also working on a very cool AS 3 utility project I will talk more of in the future, but, the biggest consumer of my time since FITC has been the XBOX 360. Steve at our office convinced me to get one.

I have really been enjoying it, especially Oblivion! I have been a big RPG fan for a long time, and Oblivion is one of the best.

I added my gamer card to my blog, some of the Flashers out there that took part in many a Halo 2 session may remember me and my "Eagle Eye on Colossus" variant.

Anyways, anyone on the 360 that wants to add me as a friend, feel free.

In the meantime, I'll be chronicling the dark deeds of "Blaze" in Oblivion. Maybe I'll start a little podcast:

"Ask a Vampire Ninja/Summoner!"


Steve mentioned to me that the original Contra is going to come out at some point on the marketplace. I'm lovin it:



This is me playing it on Eric's laptop using MAIM at FITC! The old school games are the best!

E3TV - PermissionTV Channel

So I have been heads down a bit over the last week working on a few things, and one of them has been a new PermissionTV Channel deployment for E3:

http://www.e3insider.com/e3tv/

E3 features the new subscription system that automatically downloads videos that you are interested in, even when the application is not running.

This has been up since Monday and has been doing incredibly well. We have got some pretty good feedback from users. The video (especially the press conferences) are really high quality and look great even on a High-Def TV.

The previous channel we deployed is UpdateHollywood:

http://www.updatehollywood.com

SlingBoxes are Cool!

Last week I ordered a SlingBox



I got it today and so far I am really impressed with it! It is a device that connects to various devices in your home entertainment centre and allows you to stream video from the various devices to computers on the network, or even over the net. They even have a player for Pocket PCs now!

Anyways, I set it up and so far it is cool. I am writing this post right now, and my girlfriend Mel is watching the Apprentice. Every once and awhile, I remotely flip it over to the hockey game, and she yells up at me: "Tony, if you keep doing that I am going to smash that thing!" Haha, perfect.

Anyways, it has these cool IR widgets that attach to any set top box, cable box, DVD player etc, and let you control the device remotely. It is totally awesome!

The video quality is ok. I wouldn't say it is amazing, even over a LAN, but I don't find myself hard up for awesome quality, it is definitely watchable.

I still have to set up my router and try controlling this bad boy from across the net. Hopefully it will be decent.

So far though I highly recomend this little thing. It is definitely worth the money spent. I would actually go as far to say, that other than my Video Ipod, this is probably one of the most practical/useful pieces of hardware I have heard of in awhile.


!!!---Addition---!!!

Ah man, just realized I can utilize my Rogers Movies onDemand through this thing!! Wow, the possibilities keep presenting themselves.


!!!---Addition---!!!

This morning I set up the software at work, and accessed the Slingbox over the internet. Bling, Blang it is awesome! The stream quality is identical to the LAN stream. I'd say the quality overall is comparable to watching a Google video.

So in conclusion, I highly recommend this little machine. It is totally worth the money spent.


!!!---Addition---!!!

Set up the Pocket PC SlingPlayer on my IPAQ! Damn!!!!!! The stream is sweet, and it works beautifully. Wow, once again I highly recommend this device! 110%