In case you haven't heard, some time back, our Congress passed a bill making Daylight Savings Time a few weeks earlier. Of course, in the tech world, everybody LOSES THEIR MIND because everything seems to automatically update for DST. There is a patch for Windows XP, which, isn't a big deal, it only fixes the clock. I could do that myself.
However, the reason I needed to go to Microsoft for their patch is my copy of Office 2007. I used Office 2007 religiously. I use Outlook, not for the shotty e-mail app, but instead, the calender. (I use Mozilla Thunderbird for e-mail, if Outlook's calender saved all appointments in a single format, it would be possible to import them to a open-source application, but there isn't, so I'm stuck).
Outlook supposedly will be DEVASTATED when this new DST hits. Apparently, it is so screwy, that it will shift all appointments in some kind of odd fashion.
So, I go to Microsoft.com. Click the link about daylight savings day. Pick my OS. It tells me to download an installer, then continue. (Even though I patch my Service Pack 2 machine every patch tuesday, its got an installer for me).
I start the installer. The Firefox Download Manager says it'll take 10 minutes (I have a 1.5 Mb/s connection). I assume its a big file. I do other "important" stuff, and come back, still only at 6%. I look at the file size, its ONLY 500 KILOBITES!
So, I suppose, that every single other Windows XP Home SP2 user is also updating their machine for DST right now, so I'll have to wait for this tiny 500kb file. Hmmm, stupid DST.
Once again, I changed the name of my blog. The San Francisco reference always made me uneasy, espcially after seeing my blog linked to from the QT3 forums, and the website voice360, which I mentioned a few posts ago.
I changed it to Tech Enough, which makes no sense, but has sort of a "unsaid cool" thing going for it, and doesn't sound messed up like my San Francisco reference.
This entry will be very, very meta.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog entry discussing a forum where (and I said) "a majority of developers, publishers, and journalists go to discuss the latest in video games."
I wrote the entry, simply because I had nothing to blog about recently, and I thought my friends would be impressed with my "l33t" skills in finding this "secret" message board. However, the LAST thing I ever expected happened. The people on these forums, found my message board.
Gary Whitta, the columnist who led me to the forums, was the one who posted my blog entry to the thread. It expanded to a five-page thread, where they made fun of me (I'm not offended, some of it was pretty funny), and ripped apart my impressions of the board.
After talking with one of my friends, I decided, that I needed to get on my board and reply to their comments and reveal myself to them. The message board has a system where you have to e-mail the admin and he has to approve your membership in order to post. I registered, and I'm currently waiting (However, I don't think he has plans to approve me).
Oh, the humanity.
A funny little website. Xbox Live, the online service that allows you to game online with your Xbox 360, keeps and displays a pretty wide arrange of information about the player and their gaming habits.
A website, 360voice.com, has taken all that info, and done something pretty funny. It puts out a "blog" for your Xbox 360. The 360 updates its blog every day, and keeps the readers informed about the games your playing, and your gamer points.
For example, one day when I didn't log on, my Xbox 360 posted to its blog, "I was a sad Xbox 360 yesterday... UberKevin never showed up to game. That makes 6 days!"
Its a pretty funny site. Points for originality. Here is mine if you want to check it out. UberKevin's Xbox 360 can blog
PC Magazine has been a solid source of information since 1985, a good four years before I was even born. I've been a subscription holder for PC "Mag" for about 4 months, and a casual newsstand buyer for about a year before that. I'm noticing a startling trend.
In the February 13th issue, columnist Michael Miller announced that that issue's column would be his last, but he would still hold a 'columnist's blog' on the PC Mag site? The issue I got today, PC Mag's former editor-in-chief, Bill Machrone announced in his column that he also, was stepping now. However, he wasn't going to be given a blog and a link to it from the PC Mag columnist page, instead, all we know is that all his back-columns are going to be archived on PC Mag.com.
In Machrone's final column, he mentions the growing upset between internet tech media and print media. He's not alone. Ziff Davis, PC Mag's parent company, is attempting to sell the Game Group, which consists of two gaming magazines (Electronic Gaming Monthy and Games for Windows) and a "mega" website 1UP.com.
According to another blogger, 1UP.com is the crown jewel of the game group, with several hundred game-junkie teenagers who go there every day, and worship their editors with an almost cult-like following (which is only helped by 1UP's collection of weekly podcast and video podcasts, which, if intentional or not, promote the game journalists has hip, trendy, superstars).
However, the two print magazines, according to the blogger, are what is holding up MTV or a TelCo from grabbing up this lucrative "MySpace-meets-Gamespot" website. With PC Mag cutting down on its time-honored columnists, and ZD's game group being held down by two print magazines, is print media dead?
Don't forget, a few months ago I got all hot and bothered over 1UP's sale of the Official Playstation Magazine. It now appears, that ZD may have canceled that magazine to make the sale more lucrative to a potential buyer.
Is print media dead? Well, I don't think so. I enjoy reading magazines, and I currently get Ziff-Davis' Electronic Gaming Monthy and Future Publishing's PC Gamer, in addition to ZD's PC Mag. However, I appear to be in a majority.
Technology and gaming magazines are in a hard spot, because their target audience, is, quiet frankly, almost all high-end technology power users who spend most of their time on the internet. Why wait a month for a magazine to have old news when blogs, podcasts, and AJAX-powered headline RSS feeds can give you up to the minute information?
A few months back on an "EGM Live" podcast (on the 1UP Radio Network, a lovely name), Electronic Gaming Month's Dan "Shoe" Hsu said that he wanted to make his magazine's content more high-end. Maybe they'll have an exclusive interview with a rare Japanese video game developer, or have a special early review that even beats the internet.
However, Hsu was very honest, and admitted that the general stuff, like gaming news and most reviews, will be beat to consumers by the internet.
Hsu's not the only one that recognizes the advent of the internet age. PC Mag has almost ALL of its material that is in the magazine on its website, PCMag.com, even the highly-ancipated John C. Dvorak columns. And unlike the New York Times, the articles are printed in the whole, without the need to enter a subscription number, or register for their online service.
The only problem with PC Mag's strategy, is that, the information doesn't come up until the issue is published. So, its still a month-hold. The only thing worse than a magazine with old info, is a website with old info. Compared to CNET.com, PCMag.com might has well be from the stone ages.
I, personally, hope, this isn't the end of print media. No 24" LCD monitor or tablet PC can replicate the feel of that paper in your fingers. However, I think the battle is over. I am the only one of my gamer/tech junkie friends who pays for a tech or gaming magazine. The others wait for the info to hit the net.
In the case of exclusive interviews, my friends replied, "I'll just get the .pdf through BitTorrent."
