PS3 pre-renderedness
Looking at some old ps3 e3 footage shows some obvious pre-rendered trailers. I wonder what really happened to that game. "Eight Days" looked very promising. I guess it was just to hype up the power of the PS3.
Windows Annoyance #2: “Do you want to replace folder X?”
The scenario: I have a folder named "Downloads" on my internal drive, and I want to merge it with the "Downloads" folder on the external drive. Since it's a lot of data to move over, I decided to let it move over night. So I cut and pasted the Downloads folder into the external, saw that it was transferring, and then shut off the monitor before heading to sleep. When I woke up, I saw a message asking about do you want to replace folder "mp3"? I clicked yes, then I realized, it only transferred about 100mb of data out of the 250gb I wanted to move over.This also applies to system files such as "desktop.ini" where Windows will ask about are you sure you want to move this system file.
The solution: Have a checkbox in the transfer box saying you want to replace all files/folders. Optionally, you can have "only when file is newer/older/bigger/or smaller" so that you can tell Windows that you want to replace it automatically before-hand.
Current workaround: Move the folder to a blank folder first, then merge the folders. Though no work around for the system files, just delete them before hand if possible.
Windows Annoyance #1:
Hypthetical Scenario: You accidentally clicked "uninstall.exe" for one of your games. While you wait for the uninstall to pop up, you go back to chatting on AIM or mIRC. While typing your message, the uninstaller pops up with a question "Do you want to uninstall (game)". Since you were still typing your message, you accidentally hit spacebar. Since the default selection highlighted was "Ok", the uninstaller continues with the uninstallation. You now feel extremely frustrated.
The solution: First, upon initializing an uninstaller, the uninstaller should ask the question "Do you wish to uninstall..." before loading anything at all. Why should an uninstaller take 5 minutes to load up the program just for the user to cancel the uninstallation? Second area: default highlighted option. The default highlighted option should be set at "Cancel" rather than "Ok" or "Continue". Third, dialog box pop-up should not interrupt the user, especially when the user is typing. Either have a waiting period (similar to Firefox's installation of an add-on), or simply do not pop a dialog box on top of whatever the user is doing.
App Store hits 500 million downloads. Oh the lies!
Well it's not entirely true. The App store DID get pass the 500 million download mark, but that's because Apple did cheat slightly. If you have an iPhone/iPod Touch, you'll notice that when you update your applications that you've downloaded long ago, you'll still get a receipt for the updates even though the updates are free. Therefore the updates that you grab count as an actual download. On average, I've noticed that I've been updating applications on my iPod Touch nearly 6 times a day. Looking at the statistics, there's about 13.5 million iPhones sold and about 3.5 million iPod touches sold (both were reported in October, probably higher now). On average there's about 80 applications loaded on each iPod/iPhone. It's been about 190 days since the App store launched. If you think about it, I'm a bit surprised that they have yet to reach a 1billion mark yet.
Mirror’s Edge PC cheats
In DefaultGame.ini in the game install folder you see:
[TdGame.TdDebugMenu]
Caption = "- -- ----==[[ TAKEDOWN DEBUG MENU ]]==---- -- -"
PauseCmd = "pause"
.Entries = (Text = "Set god mode", Cmd = "god"
.Entries = (Text = "Set jesus mode", Cmd = "jesus"
.Entries = (Text = "Free cam (requires god mode)", Cmd = "dropme"
.Entries = (Text = "Change 1p/3p camera", Cmd = "FreeFlightCamera"
.Entries = (Text = "Get infinite ammo", Cmd = "ammo"
.Entries = (Text = "Get all weapons", Cmd = "loadfullinventory"
.Entries = (Text = "Show fps counter", Cmd = "stat xunit", IsToggle = true)
.Entries = (Text = "Show player position", Cmd = "whereami", IsToggle = true)
.Entries = (Text = "Show memory budget", Cmd = "showmemorybudget", IsToggle = true)
.Entries = (Text = "Show streamed levels", Cmd = "stat levels"
.Entries = (Text = "View lit", Cmd = "viewmode lit"
.Entries = (Text = "View unlit", Cmd = "viewmode unlit"
.Entries = (Text = "Slow-motion on", Cmd = "slomo 0.4"
.Entries = (Text = "Slow-motion off", Cmd = "slomo 1.0"
.Entries = (Text = "Toggle cross-hair", Cmd = "ToggleCrossHair"
.Entries = (Text = "Take screenshot", Cmd = "screenshot"
.Entries = (Text = "Juice screenshot", Cmd = "juicescreenshot"
.Entries = (Text = "Lock All levels", Cmd = "LockAllLevels"
.Entries = (Text = "UnLock All levels", Cmd = "UnLockAllLevels"
.Entries = (Text = "Lock All TimeTrial", Cmd = "LockAllTT"
.Entries = (Text = "UnLock All TimeTrial", Cmd = "UnLockAllTT"
.Entries = (Text = "Use streaming volumes", Cmd = "ToggleUseStreamingVolumes", IsToggle = true)
.Entries = (Text = "Leipzig", Cmd = "Leipzig"
There's a TdInput.ini and a TdEngine.ini in the Documents and Settings folder or User folder (XP or Vista OS)
So Open TdInput.ini and change the key bindings a bit, once again it's in the "C:\Users\UserName\Documents\EA Games\Mirror's Edge\TdGame\Config" for Vista computers. (XP is something similar, probably Documents and Settings/MyUserName/My Documents/EA Games/Mirrors Edge)
Take a key binding like " Bindings=(Name="F10",Command="dumpdynamicshadowstats",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False) "
Copy it to the top of the file and change it to a unused key and one of those debug commands.
Example from my own file.
Bindings=(Name="F1",Command="dropme",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False)
Bindings=(Name="F2",Command="god",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False)
Bindings=(Name="F3",Command="jesus",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False)
Bindings=(Name="F4",Command="FreeFlightCamera",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False)
Can’t Download Windows 7 Beta
Using IE7, I went to the Windows 7 Beta site. I clicked Download the Windows 7 Beta. Logged in with my hotmail account. Clicked Download Now, went to another screen saying to install activeX control, then it goes back to the previous screen without downloading.
The solution: When you see that activeX screen, copy and paste the link and paste it into Firefox browser. Works!
Starbuck’s Banana Chocolate Vivanno gone / removed?
So I went to Starbuck's on campus the other day to grab my tri-daily Banana Chocolate Vivanno but noticed that it's gone from the menu! I asked the barista and she said it's gone for the season! I'm not sure if it only affects this Starbuck's or is it gone nation wide. I'm going to check the other stores...