Anyway, here are some quick first thoughts/ramblings:

I’ve just played through the tutorial, prologue and chapter 1. If the length of chapter 1 is anything to go by, it does seem like it’ll be a short game!

Having said that, I like what I’ve seen so far. Sometimes I feel like stopping and looking around, but of course you never get the opportunity to do that given there are ‘blues’ on your tail all the time! I really, really like the art direction, and the game really looks great! So yeah, I just hope the game keeps going for long enough…

The time trial modes are great though! They’re very in depth and give you precise breakdowns of how you performed in each section of the course. You can always compare this against your best run, your friends’ best run or the world’s best. Not to mention ghosts you can follow and specific ratings based on skill as well as time. I can see the time trial modes adding a lot of replayability… at least, for people like me who are obsessed with beating high scores, times, getting achievements, etc.

The achievements seem pretty easy to get… I’ve got 100 GS so far and I’ve only played it for a tiny bit! Also, keep in mind there’s a “Test of Faith” achievement which is “Complete the game without shooting an enemy”. So decide whether you want to try and get it before you pick up a gun.

A final heads-up… don’t be tempted to open a blade and check on your achievements when you acquire them. The game does not pause during cut scenes between missions and you’ll miss them if you have the Xbox interface open. As far as I can tell, you can also not watch them again without restarting the whole game because when you load into a chapter, you start immediately after that cut scene.

Alright, back to it… another report later.

BillMonk’s Facebook application hasn’t worked for months now (check out the complaints!) and adding things to your Library by searching Amazon now never returns any results. The developers are nowhere to be seen.

BillMonk is full-featured, yet simple to use and was (as far as I know) the original ’social money’ application. Back then the developers were great, responding to feedback and fixing bugs. What a shame it all seems to have downhill since they were bought out by Obopay!

So what’s plan B?

Can’t We Just Keep Using It?

I’ll try and continue to use BillMonk, but this is problematic because I really need both the Facebook and standalone website interfaces, as more friends communicate via Facebook only and not email.

Moreover, who knows how long it will be until one day we wake up to find BillMonk has just stopped working or disappeared? Luckily, you can export all your BillMonk data, so you won’t lose previous transactions even if BillMonk ceases to exist one day. (I suggest all users of BillMonk start doing this. Seriously, who knows if its days really are numbered?)

How About the Alternatives?

A lot of people seem to recommend two alternatives: the flawed Buxfer and the simple Scred. Unfortunately, neither are good enough. For a start, neither of them allow you to track things you lend/borrow from friends, as oppose to money.

I evaluated Buxfer a long time ago and dismissed it. Today, I looked at it again and came to the same conclusion. It is slow and very much focused on tracking your entire financial life (e.g. expenses, bank accounts, etc) — something I have no need or desire for. It is also very US-centric and you can’t export data out of it unless you pay for their premium service.

Scred appears to be nice and free from bloat, but it is too simple. Its sparse look and feel also doesn’t really appeal to me. (The fact that it has a multi-platform mobile application that even works offline sounds great though!)

So What Do We Need?

To be honest, what we really need is just a clone of BillMonk that works. Its ability to track non-money transactions and itemised bills is what nobody else offers.

The one thing I don’t like about BillMonk is its Debt Shuffling feature. Its mechanism is not naturally intuitive and some of my friends hate it. I’d prefer a pool system, which is basically like a simple central pot of money between a group of friends and each person owes money to or takes money from the pot. (Incidentally, Buxfer and Scred offer this.)

I’m desperate enough to seriously consider writing a simple replacement myself… and I’d have a lot to learn since I’m not an application developer! Are there really no alternatives?

HALP!

Watch the Zune animations at the Nervo.tv site (seriously, have a look!)
View the full Zune Package photo set on Flickr

How amazingly cool are they?! Now where are Microsoft actually going to use them?

And what about this one by the Wexley School for Girls agency to promote the web slices feature of Internet Explorer 8? (I’m not sure about web slices, but you have to admit, it’s a brilliant viral piece to send around!)

Precautionary End-User Irresponsible Internet Slicing Emergency Accident Kit

So why is it so hard for Microsoft to get some decent ads made about Windows Vista?!

What?! But I only know of the English A-Z alphabet… how am I supposed to include multiple alphabets in my password?

Oh wait… did you mean letters of the alphabet?

Hilarity: 1
Thoughtful Design: 0

The observant among you will also note that the explanatory text originally on the form informs you that passwords must contain at least one digit, but makes no reference to any requirement for letters — poorly thought out indeed. Not to mention, since the password can only be 6-8 characters long, I don’t know how I’d fit 26+ characters even if I wanted to!

(Besides, all this thing protects is the ability to check how many fuel discount vouchers I have… why the need for such a strong password anyway?)

So I’m sitting in the Maccas next door on Goerge St to the new Apple Store here in Sydney that’s just opened… isn’t it ironic? I’ve been here way before the likes of Adam, Johnny and Houmer… and I’m the one missing the Maclot gene.

Anyway, the line when I last saw it started around the block, halfway down Clarence St (the street behind Georget St). But at least Apple umbrellas were being given out to the faithful waiting in the rain!

And I think those white rectangular boxes they’re giving out contain a T-shirt and some propaganda… now I just have to wait till the others get here to head over and see if there are any left!

My Beloved Xbox 360
Launch Day to 20 Dec 2007
Rest in Peace

What a terrible time to have an Xbox to develop the Red Ring of Death. Not only is it Christmas and holidays (who knows how long it’ll take to repair), but it happened on the day I came home with Orange Box, Tomb Raider Anniversary and a new HD DVD drive too!

Yeah, pity me.

Well Steve Olsen has kindly put together collected evidence on why it’s meant to be pronounced “jif”. Thanks Steve, for the great service to humanity you’ve done!

It’s pronounced like “jif”. Period. The end. That’s final. End of story.

See The GIF Pronunciation Page.

Gamerscore Blog is reporting that Xbox.com has posted an open letter from Peter Moore announcing that effective immediately, all Xbox 360s worldwide are covered by a warranty extension to three years for any red ring of death issue. They are also going to do the right thing by existing console owners who have already paid for out-of-warranty repairs by offering them a refund.

You’ve spoken, and we’ve heard you. Good service and a good customer experience are areas of the business that we care deeply about. And frankly, we’ve not been doing a good enough job.

If we have let any of you down in the experience you have had with your Xbox 360, we sincerely apologize. We are taking responsibility and are making these changes to ensure that every Xbox 360 owner continues to have a great experience.

It’s important to note that warranty extension only applies to red ring of death failures and that all other issues are still only covered by the original one-year warranty.

My Xbox 360 luckily hasn’t had any major dramas to date and I already paid EB Games $85 for an extended warranty, but I’m still glad Microsoft has taken this really important step. While they should have acted sooner instead of until now denying that this problem exists, it is nonetheless commendable that Microsoft has publicly acknowledged the Xbox 360’s reliability problems and shown a commitment to fix them.

The one other really important thing that Microsoft needs to do is fix the current situation with Xbox Live Marketplace DRM lockout on replacement consoles. When you have a console replaced, you are locked out of the XBLM content that you have downloaded (and paid for) unless you are signed in to Xbox Live while you use it.

Microsoft are on their way to making all Xbox 360 owners feel a little more comfortable about owning a console with potential design flaws leading to early failures. Let’s hope they are prepared to go all the way.

Note the new sponsored creep enemies in the new version (enlarge)

There’s a new Ink Tower that you can build and a new form of enemy: the dark creep. Since DTD is a game where good players have well-tested, carefully-planned strategies and every second counts, players will have to learn to play to game all over again. This isn’t necessarily a problem, except that the new changes to the game seem rather superficial and not a great deal of fun, so it doesn’t seem worthwhile to relearn it again.

Oh and guess what? There’s a lot more in-game advertising. A lot more. In fact, some of the creep bear the sponsor’s letter ‘K’ logo, which is really annoying and I think just goes too far. The slightly improved graphics certainly don’t make up for it, and the new sounds seem rather too cheesy.

I’m worried Desktop Tower Defense may have just jumped the shark.

Listen, I understand that this is great news for FeedBurner and congratulations to them. But as a FeedBurner user, I’m somewhat worried. (The main blog and comments feeds here at Digital Kaleidoscope are run through FeedBurner.)

Will unwanted Google AdSense start appearing in feeds? What will change in the FeedBurner service as it gets Google-fied? What will happen to FeedBurner’s sense of humour? My feed is currently imported into my Facebook notes. Will that have to change depending on the situation with ads?

Speaking of Facebook, there’s always speculation about whether they will be acquired. Again, that’s another one I worry about. I currently trust a good amount of private information to Facebook and I’d hate to see them bought out by Google — I just don’t trust them with any of my data. Even Microsoft would be a better buyer, if Facebook was to sell at all. (Either way, I’d still worry about losing the crisp, clean interface that Facebook currently sports.)

Oh the things that keep me up at night… everything being swallowed up by Google. What has the world come to?