| Sunday, November 28, 2004 |
  Lotsa things | 
Posted - 11/28/2004 8:27:27 AM | Congrats to "Christmas with the Kranks". They apparently got another positive review on Rotten Tomatoes, vaulting their score to 5% and propelling them ahead of "Battlefield Earth", but still behind "Gigli" and "Catwoman".
Interestingly, I saw a commercial for the film yesterday, and the reviews there proclaimed it "A Laugh Riot", "The Best Christmas Movie In Years" and other glowing kudos. I wonder if the folks writing the commercials ever giggle to themselves as they comb through piles of horrible reviews to find a single sentence that makes the film sound like non-crap.
Although I did notice that most of those reviews came from radio stations that'll basically give anything a positive review just so they can get their call-letters plugged in a commercial.
Hint: Whenever you see review quotes in a movie commercial, read the byline. If any are from a radio station, avoid the movie.
Okay, I'll stop. I'm obsessing.
Friday was my birthday. I'm 38 now. I've got the wisdom of the ages and much longevity in this business, having written games non-professionally since 1984 and professionally since 1991. Hence, if you don't listen to me then it's to your own detriment. You think you know more than I do, but you don't. You may know more than I do when you're 38, but that's still some time from now, so quit pretending that you can ignore my advice with impunity.
The only person who can ignore my advice is Maumau (read if you want to learn about someone who's apparently dedicating his life to Half Life 2), because he's a year older than I am. That's not to say that he knows more than I do and doesn't have to listen to me. Actually, I know quite a bit more than he does. He's a bit fragile, though, so he gets a pass.
Since I'm old and I'm cynical, I'll leave you with a conversation I had at my previous "job". Among other people in the company, I worked with two people that fit every nerd-stereotype you can find (and if anyone from that company's reading this and you can't figure out who those two nerds are, that's because you're one of 'em). Being stereotypical nerds, they one day started to make jokes about the number 42.
Now then, having the aforementioned Wisdom of the Ages, I learned long ago that there's exactly ONE joke that can be made about the number 42. And it goes like this.
Grocery store checker: . . .and the total for your groceries comes to forty two dollars.
Stereotypical Nerd: Heh heh. Forty two. The answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything. Heh heh.
Not a very funny joke, and a joke I stopped making a very long long time ago. Anyway, the Stereotypical Nerds(tm) stumbled across a 42 somewhere in a piece of code. Apparently not seeing me as a kindred Stereotypical Nerd(tm), the conversation went like this:
Stereotypical Nerd One: . . .and multiplied, that moves the object 42 pixels.
Stereotypical Nerd Two: Forty two. Heh heh.
Stereotypical Nerd One: The Answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything.
Stereotypical Nerd Two: Heh heh.
Stereotypical Nerd One: (turning to me) Heh heh. You don't even know what we're talking about, do you?
Me: (mustering up my biggest "you indominable dumbass" facial expression) I read that book before you were born, fetus.
Yes I am a cynical old cuss, and nothing bugs me more than a young programmer fetus (this one in his early 20's) who wants to think he knows more than I do about ANYTHING.
Trust me, you don't. When you meet me in person at the GDC or elsewhere I might not strike you as a person knowledgeable in Great Things as I don't pepper my conversation with the button-pushes required to make a cool Final Kill in Soul Calibur II or Doom III or whatever 3D game you consider to be the dividing line between the L33t and the non-L33t. That does not, stout yeoman, mean that I have little knowledge of what it takes to write a game with almost embarrassing longevity and to get a box on the shelf.
Just be awed by me and know that there is much below the surface, and we'll get along fine.
| |
| Thursday, November 25, 2004 |
| Wednesday, November 24, 2004 |
| Licenses | |
Posted - 11/24/2004 7:13:51 PM | All this talk about Steam and Half Life 2 and ownership reminds me of an amusing conversation my wife had just yesterday.
When working on land development projects, you work with lots of different pieces of software. The primary one is Autodesk Land Development Desktop (i.e. AutoCAD with a buncha land development extensions), but we use several others. The big one is SiteModel 3D, which is a $9,000 3D modeling package that builds 3D models of proposed vs. existing land grades and calculates your grading for you.
We also use several packages from Haestad Methods, namely CulvertMaster (drainage-ditch size calculation), FlowMaster (water-flow calculation), StormCAD (storm-sewer calculation), and PondPack (detention pond calculation). Haestad's a bit of an interesting company, and when I say "interesting", it's a euphamism for "annoying". Their software is a confusing tangle of licenses and floppy keydisks and unlock codes for "how much" of each particular package you'd like to use. They're also without-a-doubt the most prolific spammers in the engineering industry, being more than happy to keep your email and physical mailbox packed with ads begging you to upgrade your package or buy another package or renew your "bronze level client care" subscription.
Anyway, they are capable products and they do prevent us from having to do the pile of differential equations required to calculate any of the aforementioned items that are required for land development. Shelly even attended a recent Haestad conference in Austin where she had a good laugh with the instructors on how they've got a good product but a more-than-mildly-annoying way of selling it. The instructors told her that yeah, it's a bit annoying, but it's just part of the owner's quirky "vision" for the company.
Well, things got a bit more than "mildly annoying" yesterday. Shelly got a call from a Haestad rep stating that the company had just merged with Bentley Systems (makers of AutoCAD competitor, MicroStation). Because of this new business arrangement, it would be required that Shelly upgrade her support subscription immediately and for a higher price. If she didn't do so, she would have to "surrender the licenses for all of your Haestad Methods products".
No, really. They wanted her to buy a few grand worth of support contracts immediately or else surrender her licenses to the products and uninstall them immediately.
Shelly, in a move that made me immensely proud, suddenly became amused at Haestad's newfound hubris. She made it clear to the salesman that she would not be uninstalling anything and she would certainly not be sending another penny to a company with support policies that more resemble extortion than technical help.
I actually recall her saying something akin to "if you guys think I'm going to buy support from a threat, then you can pound sand". That's my girl. She told the support-guy that their new policy will undoubtedly cause every small business (which am us) to abandon them. She then advised him to depart from her forever and be sure to go to his little weekly support meeting and try to impress upon his supervisors that their new policy is gonna make 'em even more poorly thought of than they already are.
Anyway, they lost us as a customer. If we ever need another one of their products or it's time to upgrade, you can bet we'll be moving to one of their competitors. And when you're talking about multi-thousand-dollar products like they sell, it doesn't take many annoyed customers to have a visible effect on the bottom line.
| |
| Tuesday, November 23, 2004 |
| Level editor goodness | |
Posted - 11/23/2004 10:48:40 PM | I just put the updated "almost ready for prime time" Bulldozer editor up here. This one allows you to design a level and record a solution once you've designed a level.
To-do list consists of finishing the leveltotext() and texttolevel() functions so that it can actually read and write levels, both to the clipboard and to the server.
And, of course, the ability to actually submit a level to the server.
Only bug I know of right now is that the shift-n-rotate buttons don't clear the solution as they should. And the shift left-right buttons don't seem to be working.
Give it a try and lemme know what you think. Since it's a Flash app, I intend to just put instructions under the applet in HTML. If there's anything confusing at first, lemme know.
| |
| Monday, November 22, 2004 |
| Back now | |
Posted - 11/22/2004 7:55:21 AM | Did a weekend trip from D/FW to Nashville this weekend (11.5 hours of driving each way) to participate in my parents' 40th anniversary party. I had a good time, and Maggie absolutely adored seeing her cousins.
Thankfully she's a good traveller. She spent most of the trip watching videos or singing to herself. She's a pretty contented kid.
Only downside was a stress-related muscular backache which progressed from sporadic twinges on Thursday to full-fledged "I can't move my head" glory by the time we got home Sunday night. I had some ice packs, and Shelly had some leftover hydrocodone cough-syrup (which we affectionately call "Limbaugh Liquid"), so I was finally able to do something about the pain. I'm feeling much better now thankyew.
Hopefully I'm back on Bulldozer today. The level editor's almost done.
| |
| Wednesday, November 17, 2004 |
| More codes | |
Posted - 11/17/2004 7:54:15 AM | More McDonald's Codes. If you use one, please comment with the one you used so people don't waste time entering dead codes.
Oh, and a couple of folks entered new codes in the comments of the original code-frenzy diary entry (scroll down about five entries).
GameSpot 1-month subscription. http://www.gamespot.com/complete/
Your Gamespot prize code is: RM0YBAVTPJBQZOUPQ1VV
Club Pogo(tm) 30-day free guest pass. http://www.clubpogo.com/mcdonalds/
Your Club PogoTM prize code is: 58U4-7PQ5-9RT9-UKGJ-6PUR
Your Club PogoTM prize code is: 2Y33-75JW-A6L5-2F28-E3GV
Your Club PogoTM prize code is: FLUC-RQ9S-BUHB-LHGM-AMH6
1-Month Subscription to GameBlast. http://www.gameblast.com/playatmcd
Your GameBlast prize code is: POAHHLCYGY
Your GameBlast prize code is: POAWPZOINA
Your GameBlast prize code is: POAWQIRMAK
Free Blasterball 2: Remix(tm) by WildTangent(r). http://www.wildgames.com/ECS/htdocs/mcd/mdxbb2r2004.html
Your Blasterball 2: Remix prize code is: MGWA-AECX-WPFR
Your Blasterball 2: Remix prize code is: 73PR-MNYR-GGD6
| |
| Monday, November 15, 2004 |
| Speakin' of movies that suck | |
Posted - 11/15/2004 6:25:56 PM | "Christmas with the Kranks" is going to suck. It's based on John Grisham's badly-implemented novelette "Skipping Christmas", and it's got far too many flaws to make a worthwhile movie.
- The main characters are thoroughly unlikeable. Much like how the entire cast of "Jurassic Park III" was so annoying that you were begging the dinosaurs to eat 'em, you'll be secretly praying that the Kranks fail in their sudden need to re-celebrate Christmas at the last minute.
- It lives in the alternate universe where not celebrating Christmas and decorating your house is some kind of malady. Dunno about you, but on my block around half of the houses will have no decorations at all. But the book takes place in a universe where there are no Muslims, Jews, atheists, or even Christians who aren't interested in the whole Christmas shtick.
- It's horribly shallow. Much of the end is concerned with getting a present for the kid's boyfriend so he won't feel left out. As a one-time-boyfriend who visited potential inlaws just to see them scramble to wrap up something for me that was laying around the house, it's better to just let it slide. Opening that Swiss Coloney Miniature Cheese Assortment was an uncomfortable moment, as it was so obvious that no thought was put into it. Would've been much better just to go without.
- It takes place in a universe where going on a cruise for Christmas will cause an entire town to hate you.
- The book, even at 100 pages, was padded with done-to-death slapstick crap. Let's be honest. Has the joke about falling off a roof while putting up a plastic Santa/Snowman/Reindeer/etc not BEEN DONE TO FREAKIN' DEATH YET?!
- Jokes about botox shots are the 2000's equivalent of jokes about Viagra. Not funny anymore.
Trust me. The book was fatally flawed and was a really transparent attempt to create a "new Christmas classic" like "A Christmas Story". The characters are unlikeable, and you'll beg for 'em to fail. It's just ill-conceived.
Trust me, it'll suck.
| |
| Who besides me is NOT a flatulating dunderhead? | |
Posted - 11/15/2004 4:02:44 PM | Yes I know my IM handles are available on my profile page.
If you're incapable of writing a coherent sentence, however, please don't IM me.
. . .also if you need help with bittorrent, don't IM me. I never gave any indication that I know how to use bittorrent.
. . .also if you've seen one of my book reviews, don't IM me to ask "hey is dat book any good?" I made it quite clear in the review if the book is any good. If you can't be bothered to read three paragraphs of review, then you don't have the faculties to read an entire book. You should instead spend the money on a ticket to "Seed of Chucky".
. . .also, don't IM me to ask if directX is superior to openGL or vice-versa. I'll likely just send you down the wrong track with a dishonest answer.
. . .also, don't ask me to join your development team. I'm the wrong guy for the job. I'm not a team player. I'll just end up destroying your project for the sheer glee of doing so.
If you can follow these rules, feel free to message me.
| |
| Movies movies | |
Posted - 11/15/2004 10:19:39 AM | Figuring it might be worth watching since it was remade, I taped and finally got a chance to watch the original 1966 Alfie.
And boy what a dated rambling artifact of dead times it is.
And ramble it does. I'm not much for movies that don't have a coherent story in favor of simply ping-ponging from situation to situation (see my earlier entry on Blake Edwards for examples) and letting the strength of the characters mask the fact that there's no point. And Alfie's no exception. There are a couple of interesting (and even disturbing) scenes, but they're hidden under a pile of uninteresting and interchangable scenes of Alfie mistreating women.
Which brings me to my next point. Despite the moviemakers' apparent want to make Alfie's character charming in a "not my fault" way, he's the most one-dimensional character ever penned. His single-minded pursuit of sleeping with married women can't carry a movie. Heck, even the guys who did the Beavis-and-Butthead movie realized that characters bantering about getting laid gets tiresome after ten minutes, so they gave the movie an actual plot. Something that "Alfie" neglects.
Finally, the movie's badly dated. I mean, it's a movie about the swinging lifestyle (coupled with the lack of effective birth-control) and back-alley abortions. It's as ripe for a remake as Easy Rider.
And that ain't so ripe.
If you're interested in a more watchable exploration of morals displayed in 60's films, get the 1963 version of Tom Jones with Albert Finney. The main character's a "randy rogue" like Michael Caine's character, but his character is actually likeable. The scene where adopted-illegitimate son Jones is elated to hear that his adoptive father will recover from near-fatal illness while the rest of the (much-better-bred) loved ones secretly pout because they won't get to split up the estate is priceless.
On another note, we also rented Shaolin Soccer, and it's an absolute hoot. Best way to describe it is Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon meets Rocky IV meets Ernest Goes To Camp. It's also the best lampooning of Matrix-style special effects and wire-fu I've seen so far. Shelly and I giggled at it all the way through. It's a ton of fun.
Also, it's fairly suitable for kids. I don't recall any sex or foul language to speak of, and the fighting is so cartoonish that it shouldn't bother anyone. The DVD has English dialogue available, so you can watch it with kids.
See it. You'll enjoy it.
| |
| Sunday, November 14, 2004 |
| Dozer builder | |
Posted - 11/14/2004 7:54:12 AM | The new-n-improved Bulldozer level builder is about 2/3 complete. The only major parts to add now are the solution-recording and server-communication. Server communication is gonna require a server, so I'm eventually gonna have to teach myself PHP to write the back-end. Probably happen this week.
If anyone wants to check it out, I put the work in progress here. You can place stuff on the board, shift the board around, and play your level using the "record solution" button.
You'll notice that if you've got more than one dozer on the screen that all but one will be dimmed. To activate a dozer, click on it. This is the biggest change from the old bulldozers that only allowed one dozer on the screen at a time.
It also needs some logic to determine if you're trying to record a solution to a bogus level. If you just put a bulldozer on the screen and click "record solution", it'll just repeatedly tell you that it recorded your solution, because it determines that a level with no uncovered targets is a proper solution. There'll eventually need to be an error if:
- number of rocks != number of targets
- number of dozers == 0
- number of initially uncovered targets == 0 (level already solved)
I'll also need some way to display the level in text format in an edit field, so you can copy your level to the clipboard. It'd be a bummer to design a level just to see that your firewall prevents submitting it or the server is down, so I'll want a way to cut-n-paste the level into an email and send it to me.
And, of course, it'll need to revert to its "unsolved" state when you're done recording the solution.
Anyway, it's mostly there. Lemme know what you think it needs.
| |
| Thursday, November 11, 2004 |
| Bulldozer Deluxe | |
Posted - 11/11/2004 8:39:55 AM | Did more work on Bulldozer Deluxe. I stole much of the look & feel (and code) from my completed Duck Tiles, as I think it's reasonably well organized. There's less code, because the move logic of Bulldozer's a bit simpler than Duck Tiles (which isn't all that complex). Since Bulldozer's more of a diamond than Duck Tiles, it's pretty-much a given that the logic's simpler.
There'll be more animation, though. I want rolling rocks and moving dozer-treads.
Been thinking of rebuilding my level-builder. I've had a standalone level editor for Bulldozer for years, and it'd be a simple matter of polishing it up a bit for further level editing. I was thinking, though, of making a level editor in Flash so people could make levels online and submit 'em to a back-end database on thecodezone.com.
One thing I'm definitely gonna do is add the ability to record a solution to your puzzle. One of the problems with my Duck Tiles contest was that people had to describe their puzzle's solution as a comment attached to the level. Problem was that the comments section was limited and sometimes people typed up solutions that didn't work. If you have to record your own puzzle solution and submit it along with the puzzle, that'd eliminate the problem of bad solutions.
Yeah I'm gonna have another contest. I'm gearing up for it.
| |
| McDonald's Postmortem | |
Posted - 11/8/2004 7:52:35 AM | Well I'm down to my last six bucks of BB credit, so it's officially the end of an era. Here's the final tally. . .
Debits:
500 #10 envelopes = ($7)
500 #8 envelopes = ($7)
1000 first-class stamps = ($370)
eBay fees = ($15)
Total = ($399)
Credits:
eBay winnings = $542.89
17" LCD monitor = $299.99
rebate on monitor = $70
public domain horror movie = $0.85
DVD-ROM drive = $59.99
DVD+-RW DVD burner = $99.95
Linksys 802.11g card = $59.95
rebate on card = $20
remaining BB credit = $6
Total = $1,159.62
Net Profit/Loss = $760.62
Well that's not bad. It did take some discipline, though. Lots of envelope sealing and shelling. Lots of peeling and sticking BB tickets to strips of paper so that you're not dropping giant piles of tickets on the counter at BB. And plenty of counting and stacking, ebay-ing, and paypal-ing to make sure that the 20+ auctions all got paid and shipped immediately.
Still, it was fun.
Things I learned:
- Do everything early. McDonald's tickets are still selling on ebay, but they're not going for anywhere close to the $27-per-hundred average I was making.
- Print out the rules. The local Best Buy was convinced that you could only spend $5 worth of BB credit at a time, although the rules state that you can spend up to $300.
- Don't peel 'em. The odds of you getting a ticket to win *anything* is about 320,000-1. To quote "Wargames", the only way to win is not to play :)
| |
| Tuesday, November 2, 2004 |
| The Code Zone FreebieFest 2004 has begun! | |
Posted - 11/2/2004 7:41:41 AM | First, lemme explain. If you play the little online game at McDonald's, you can win valuable prizes. And when I say "valuable", I'm referring to free ringtones, game downloads, that kind of thing. I ended up with a lot more codes than I'll ever use, so I'm giving 'em away!
It'll go like this. Before each code is a number in parenthesis. This is not part of the code, but is the CODE ZONE TRACKING NUMBER. If you use one of the codes below, post a reply to this message stating what number you used. That way, people won't be entering codes that are already dead.
Also, if you enter a code and it doesn't work, that means that somebody used the code but didn't post a reply. Please be kind and post that number too, thanks.
Don't be a hog. If you see something you really want, take it, but don't grab a bunch just because you can.
Let the freebies begin!
Free ModTones licensed downloadable ringtones for your mobile phone. This is only for T-Mobile, Cingular, and AT&T Wireless, so if you don't have that, don't get one. To get your modtone, go to http://playatmcd.modtones.com and use one of the codes below.
(01) 0VK1PVBT3
(02) 0VKNB4KQ7
(03) 0VMTXYDL2
(04) 1MGYFX9W4
(05) 1MVR2H9M3
(06) 1MYT62N49
(07) 1N67YVV72
(08) 1NLXT8WM4
(09) 388N0TLX2
(10) 388XDRGX9
(11) 38988MZP6
(12) 69D9PZ967
(13) 69RHGFBD8
Free Polar Bowler(tm) game by WildTangent(r). Go to http://www.wildgames.com/ECS/htdocs/apps/RequestRouter.aspx?dp=mcdonalds&bw=low&mc=mdxdpb2004 and enter one of the codes below.
(14) LKKP-7KKA-XTFM
(15) XGFP-LAHX-4YG3
(16) LBGA-C9WW-4HNN
(17) ERKR-TF6G-WRHN
Free CBS SportsLine.com Fantasy Basketball Team. To play, click on http://basketball.sportsline.com/splash/basketball/spln/single/mcdonalds and enter one of the codes below.
(18) R45NUVJY
(19) J2I57NTK
Free CBS SportsLine.com 2-month VIP Subscription. To use, click on http://www.sportsline.com/vip/splash/mcdonalds and enter one of the codes below.
(20) PFVK4JBU
Free JAMDAT Sports 2004 Cell Phone Game. To download, click on http://games.jamdat.com/monopoly/index.php and enter one of the codes below.
(21) 327V1EM5X0
(22) 32AUVNJ8LQ
(23) 3B3K59HD02
Free CBS SportsLine.com 2-month VIP Subscription. Click on http://www.sportsline.com/vip/splash/mcdonalds and enter one of the codes below.
(24) WJQN3XBA
Free 1-Month Subscription to GameBlast. Click on http://www.gameblast.com/playatmcd and enter one of the codes below.
(25) POAAHLGGMF
(26) POAAHNYVNF
Free Gamespot 1-Month Subscription. Click on http://www.gamespot.com/complete/ and enter one of the codes below.
(27) RM03AAYTKJP8SJCJLQWD
Free Disney's Blast 1 Month Subscription. Click on http://register.go.com/blast/thirdPartyReg/mcdonalds?regcode=MC01MZFMEONGXF and enter one of the codes below.
(28) MC01MZFMEONGXF
Free Club Pogo(tm) 30-day free guest pass. Click on http://www.clubpogo.com/mcdonalds/?valcode=7A8G-T7KU-WNAQ-EMGB-8TW5 and enter one of the codes below.
(29) 7A8G-T7KU-WNAQ-EMGB-8TW5
Free Sony Connect Music Download. Click on http://www.connect.com/playatmcd and enter one of the codes below.
(30) DM1WCR8LK9Y8
(31) DM1VQ974BV8P
(32) DM1D6WZBF4LF
(33) DM1YVTHWHLX6
(34) DM13KDRXTQPZ
(35) DM1J4PXR98QV
(36) DM16J6BHVGGT
(37) DM1KFNMZN34T
(38) DM14JTC2P4DG
(39) DM1X8VKQB9RW
(40) DM1JT3PX4QZH
(41) DM14RTMF7QKM
(42) DM1WC28N872L
(43) DM1LXK28NJF2
(44) DM133WXZH8GV
(45) DM172YNK8DTV
(46) DM1V8D8Q932W
(47) DM1HRP84CMWD
(48) DM17XJ473VCT
(49) DM1WCR8LK9Y8
Have fun!
| |
| Mmmmstuff | |
Posted - 11/1/2004 8:01:06 AM | Remember, it's All Saints Day today, which is a Holy Day of Obligation and is the holiest day of the year, so it's a mortal sin if you don't get to church today, and if you die with unconfessed mortal sin, you'll go to hell.
The preceeding announcement was brought to you by my strict Roman Catholic upbringing. We now return you to your regular journal.
Halloween was a big hit. Maggie was a bit intimidated about visiting houses, but she'd ring the doorbell as long as we stayed about six feet behind her. We couldn't wait at the curb because that was too far away. We did our trick-or-treating over at the sister-in-law's house, because our neighborhood is a hodgepodge of long gravel driveways pretty far apart, and you could spend a half-hour just hitting up six houses. Those densely packed subdivisions that my wife designs were just MADE for trick-or-treating.
Anyway, we eventually fell in with a group of about twelve other kids. Maggie preferred trick-or-treating with a group because it eases the intimidation. She ended up with a bigass bowl of candy that she'll undoubtedly be snacking on until early next year.
She dressed as Minnie Mouse, which was almost a problem in itself. We bought the costume last year during the financial double-whammy of the post-Halloween costume discounts AND Disney closing up most of those "Disney Store" mall outlets. Suffice it to say, we got an adorable red polka dot Minnie dress for about $3. Shelly and I thought we were the smartest folks around until mid-October when all the kiddos at Kinder-Care started announcing what they'd be for Halloween. And, of course, for girls it's all about PRINCESSES! Every girl at Kinder-Care stated that she was gonna be Cinderella or Jasmine or somesuch other princess from a Disney movie. Suddenly Minnie Mouse wasn't such a good thing to be, and Maggie announced that Minnie was out and she wanted to be a PRINCESS TOO!
We did eventually defuse the situation. She was in love with the Minnie dress, and we told her that she could wear a tiara with it if she wanted to be "Princess Minnie". By the 31st, though, she was once again cool with Minnie Mouse.
Such is the Wonderful World of girl ownership.
I found a really comprehensive review of the Windows Media Center 2005 that I was considering installing on the slack PC. Reading the review, it sounds like a terrific product with lots of great features. Also reading the review, I decided just to stick with XP on the machine. While it does look like a very nice piece of software, it looks like at least half of the features center around it being used as a set-top box with a remote and a TV tuner. Since I didn't plan for either, I'm left with DVD playback (with third-party codec), downloadable movies/music, and onscreen slide-shows. All of which I've already got.
Since I've already got a DISH PVR to do recording and TIVO-like functionality, having a second one in the pipeline would only serve to make things less convenient. I could, however, certainly see a media-center PC taking over its job someday if the DISH folks could come up with something like a PCI card or a "baby receiver" that's designed to be controlled and streamed through a media-center PC.
Unfortunately, apparently the DISH folks are now making PVR-rentals into a handy profit-center. If you buy one of their new second-generation PVR-units, they're tacking on a surcharge on the bill for its use. So they probably won't be in a hurry to pal up with anyone who's willing to eliminate the PVR duties (and surcharge) for 'em.
Other features, though, like the "buy movies and play 'em off the hard drive" feature, look very cool.
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