Battlefield Bad Company 2

Rocks! (XBOX 360)

This "newer" game from DICE / EA is about the coolest FPS I've seen. The maps are incredible, and much larger than COD MW2. Don't get me wrong, I'm a MW2 junkie... but BC2 is getting my vote right now for top dog. You MUST cooperate with your squad to sucessfully "win" the on-line match-ups. And that's good!

I'm NOT a hard-core gamer and don't get excited often over a game. I'm highly excited over this title. RobCo approved!

Drive-Through Rules, Revisited

1.  When I'm paying for food at your drive-through, you will thank me for my business.

 

2.  When you hand me my food at your drive-though, you will thank me for my business.

 

Failure to do either one of these will immediately result in my asking for a refund on my purchase.  If you "don't get it" when I tell you the reason I want a refund and immediately adjust your attitude by thanking me, I will successively run up the management chain of your establishment until I find someone who DOES get it.

 

In addition, I'm not moving my vehicle whilst I complain.   I'm clogging up your drive-though lane until you get some courtesy skills.  How's that for some courtesy right back at ya?

A Week With The Samsung Trill

One of the neighborhood thuggees relieved me of my cell phone, an LG Banter.  Funny, isn't it, how that $39 contract-subsidized phone becomes $249 when you go to replace it...  I needed a replacement chop-chop because my wife insists that I carry a cell phone.  This is one concession I have had to make in my marriage because I absolutely detest cell phones and believe they are the bane of modern society.  But that's a story for another day.

 

After examining my options, I chose a Samsung Trill.  Essentially a mp3 player that doubles as a phone, the local US Cellular dealer had a used one and "cut me a deal" even though I am still awaiting that kiss. 

 

Straight up: If you are a text messaging junkie, avoid this phone.  It has no keyboard.  That's OK by me because, again:  I hate cell phones.  If I want to converse with you I will "pick up the phone and call you".  Simple as that.  The text messaging interface is very good, however, given the limitations of no keyboard.  I got used to the conventions easily.

 

Two other "multimedia" features of this phone are the camera and video.  Yes, it "shoots" video! -- The Banter did NOT do that.  Pictures are typical cell-phone 1.3 megapixel crap with maximum resolution of 1280 x 960.  Not terribly bad, and the night mode helps greatly in low-light situations.  I must state that I have a bias against cell phone photos because I am blessed to own a Nikon Digital SLR.  ALL cell phone pictures therefore are crap in my mind.  And they are.  I have not thoroughly tested the "camcorder"...  It seems to be adequate for a quickie video of whatever has your interest.  It offers "superfine", "fine", and "normal" video... however, I have no idea of FPS or frame size for these modes.  Short review:  The video function works.

 

The phone functions perform as advertised:  The phone "dials" and receives as it should, and the controls for the contact list are intuitive.  Voice quality is clear, but "you can still tell it's a cell phone!"  No kidding.  There are no surprises here.  Load up your favorite ringtone and have at it.

 

Where this phone shines is in its music-reproduction capabilities.  While hardly audiophile quality (how can it be?  the files are compressed!  and lossy compression at that!), the sound reproduction is on or above par with any phone --or-- mp3 player to which I have listened.  And this is with the stock $2 earbuds that came from the factory with this phone in a little plastic baggie marked "Made In China".    The great sound is, I'm sure, made possible in no small part by the "ICEpower Audio" by Bang & Olufsen.  The music formats accepted are WMA, MP3, AAC, AAC+ and EAAC.  This must means you can play the following audio formats:  Windows Media, MP3, (Sony) AAC, and Apple Audio files that do not have DRM. ("M4A's")  I was also pleased to note that the headphone jack was the standard audio 3.5mm size and not the tiny 2.5mm break-o-matic provided with almost ALL cell phones.  This means that I am free to purchase a decent set of headphones and plug them directly into this unit.  Lord, let the Holy Ghost come on down!

 

Battery performance has been exceptional.  I charged the phone up to capacity yesterday morning, made 2 short calls during the day and then listened to 2 hours of classic Van Halen at reasonable volumes last night during my son's baseball practice.  This morning, the battery meter still indicated a full charge.  Your mileage may vary, of course.  If you're looking for a great mp3 player that doubles as a basic features only cellphone, then you may have found your answer in the Samsung Trill.

 

Top Jimmy: He's the King!

PowerBASIC Console Compiler and PowerBASIC For Windows

If you support or program in BASIC, these guys have a product worth your time.  PowerBASIC has multiple versions that are as simple or powerful as your programming needs require.  And all are VERY competitively priced.  Visit them here .

PC Magazine's TREEPRINT utility "broken" under Windows 7

One of my favorite utilities, TreePrint from PC Magazine, failed to behave correctly under Windows 7. TreePrint is a handy utility that attaches itself to Windows Explorer, and allows you to print or list a directory's contents, or allows you to save your results to a plain text file. I believe it was released way back in 1995. I use the utility as a tool to make lists of my mp3 files. PC Magazine / ZD wants $7.95 now for the file which used to be free.

Search Google for treeprt.zip.

Win 7 (and most probably Vista Business / Enterprise / Ultimate) killed some functionality of treeprint by not allowing the program permission to change / set the .ini file. This rendered the program useless unless you used the default settings. Unlikely.

To fix this:
Change the permissions to "everyone", "full control" of the following file after installing TreePrint:

c:\windows\treeprint.ini

Bazinga!

RDP Connection Limit Drives Me Nutz!

The simplest things drive me crazy. Why would anyone marketing a supposedly multi-tasking, multi-user operating system charge you to use the (concurrent) multi-user part? I know the answer to that one? Buy their "server" operating systems and some nice Terminal Server Licenses. $$$!

Fix it!, would you?

Windows XP Fix
Windows 7 Fix

You're Welcome.