Ben Boyle lives here!

Our consoles days are numbered

2008-08-10T13:10:00.004+10:00

Big fans of gaming that we are in this house, we have 2 PCs for gaming, a Wii, PS3 and gamecube. There are more: N64, SNES and even an Atari, but they’re all packed away. Oh, and a handful of DS Lites and Gameboys are floating about. But I wonder about the consoles …

The PS3 exists here for one purpose only: GTA IV. With the announcement that GTA IV will be available for PC in November, will there be any reason to hang on to it? Sure it’s a blueray player, and a fine one at that, but DVD beats it hands down for price and availability and I’m not convinced the quality difference is noticeable (although I did enjoy Die Hard 4.0 — excellent quality. I’ll need to watch the DVD to compare). The games? Nothing has really struck me as “must have” yet. Other than GTA of course. The dualshock 3 controllers are great, and the USB charging is a great idea (that the Wii should borrow asap). They work great on the PC too, and xpadder is awesome at mapping the buttons. It’s a shame their isn’t better native driver support, or they’d be one of the best gamepads available for PC! So I might hang onto my dualshock, but I think the PS3 will be for sale soon. Just as soon as I complete GTA. Have I mentioned how awesome this game is?

What’s wrong with the Wii? Gotta admit I haven’t been playing it much, enjoying BHD on the PC more. But we love our Wii and it will stay. Very irritated at the long delay and inflated price of Super Smash Brothers Brawl here in Australia (and all PAL regions) and that Nintendo have used the Wii system update to block the freeloader that allows NTSC games to be played. Forcing consumers towards the slow and expensive local market for games is very, very disappointing. Of course, faster releases of games at better (internationally comparable) pricing is the real solution to this! For now, we're faced with buying another (local) copy of Brawl, or never updating the Wii system again … Please note I’m talking about purchased games, from overseas stores yes, not pirated copies.

Now when GTA IV is released for PC, in the USA first (followed by Europe), nothing will stop me buying the US version cheap from playasia the day it becomes available. And it will install and run on my PC without an issue. That’s how gaming should be. Go the mighty PC!

Props to Sony for keeping the PS3 game releases region free though. Learn this lesson Nintendo, and learn it fast. Your future revenue (from this household) depends on it.

Despite all this, I still love my games :)

Never a better time for gaming …

2008-04-30T21:45:00.004+10:00

… and never a worse time to watch TV! Big Brother is back. Not only that, but the finale of Biggest Loser has kicked Smallville from TEN HD for the week and the Logies means waiting an extra week for part 2 of the CSI episode shown last Sunday. TV has never been such a bore!

The gaming scene is alive! Brawl is out (well, we have to import NTSC versions, but it is out), Mario Kart Wii is out, GTA IV is out — I’ll need to buy a playstation 3 for that — and Wii Fit is out next week. Holy how sweet!

If you’re not gaming — what are you waiting for? Get into it!

Job security as long as there's stupid design

2008-04-21T21:07:00.000+10:00

Hallelujah! See 25 Years in Usability.

Pee in store for details

2008-04-20T22:16:00.002+10:00

The best typo I have encountered to date was in the Sunday Mail TV Guide today, in the small print of a full page advertisement for Barry's — “Pee in store for details”.

Now you know what to do — hop to it!

Public transport dystopia

2008-03-02T20:25:00.009+10:00

Welcome to 2008. For public transport in southeast Queensland, it is the dawn of the go card. Note that it is virtually impossible to mention “go card” to people without them hearing “go kart” instead. A go card is apparently a smart card, but you know what they say: Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain.

There is a lot of propaganda around the go card. Here’s my experience:

You can order online with the Safari web browser (despite claims you cannot), just type junk into the username/password box when ordering.
If you try to get off a bus and the card reader isn’t working, all kinds of exciting lights and alarms will go off—it is very bracing!
Forgetting to “touch off” will cost you $5 ($10 from July).
It is hard to remember to touch off, especially since hardly anyone else has to.
When more people are using go cards, they’ll touch off and this will help you remember, but there will be more queueing to leave the bus/train station.
The card readers on buses rely on GPS — no bribing the driver to let you off at your house or flagging them down if you’re not quite at the stop, you cannot touch on/off.
It costs the same for Monday–Friday commuting — 10 journeys, to and from work per day — as a weekly ticket costs.
You won’t pay for trips you don’t make — due to illness, public holidays or flex time.
Travelling 4 days (8 journeys) in a week is cheaper with go card than any alternative because the last 2 journeys will be half price.
Extra journeys throughout the week (more than the typical 10) — which would be covered by a weekly ticket — will cost you extra.
… unless you can squeeze these trips into a 3 hour window of opportunity, but this requires math to work out the most cost-effective way to travel, and math is tiring.
If/when you own a go card, you can still buy other tickets if/when you like — no-one will know or care.
The fare machines at train stations are atrocious! You can only pay cash for large amounts (over $100 in my experience), EFTPOS for smaller amounts using a pokey pin pad. Terrible machines.

The dystopia, however, stems from a different source. Once upon a time, ticket conductors on Queensland Rail services — we used to call ’em “trains” like in Thomas the Tank Engine, now they’re “services” — would check for your ticket and sell you one if needed. This was a convenient, customer-friendly service. One was especially appreciative if one had arrived late and had to jump on the train without time to buy a ticket. Perhaps if services were more frequent this would be less of a concern.

In recent years, the revenue protection unit has taken over. They now check your ticket and fine you if you don’t have one. This is not a convenient, customer-friendly service! ;) As it turns out, they’ve mostly been issuing warnings. This year they have new warnings, spoken over the public address system in Central Station in a lifeless female monotone… the gist is customers are now advised that travelling without a valid ticket, or valid reason for not having a ticket, will now be fined. Fines will be enforced. Hearing that message really did drive home that the dystopia of cyberpunk imaginings is now my reality. It is exactly like living in Romdo (if you don’t understand this reference, go watch Ergo Proxy).

And what is a “valid reason” anyway? It sounds like stock options. I’d like to purchase a valid reason for not having a ticket today, please.

I’m green, if I were blue I would die

2008-03-02T12:44:00.006+10:00

Oh no, have I mixed up the misheard lyrics to Blue (Da Ba Dee)? According to a true colours exercise I undertook at work, I am “green”. According to facebook, I am a mix of Bigbird and Elmo. Who to believe?

There is a lot of talk about being green, or eco friendly, on the ’net these days. I spend a lot of time online and it's heartening to hear—from the awesome ecogeek blog—that online activity saves energy! We’ve noticed a significant saving by turning PCs off at night, at the back of the box (the IO button) if not at the wall. Only the HTPC is left on, to autoboot at 5 am and start recording. Still better than leaving a VCR on all night I think.

But that’s not what being “green” is all about. It’s about being a scientist. A thinker. Cool. I hope they play The Scientist (by Coldplay) at my funeral. Nothing morbid about it, going to happen one day and should be at least 70 years as I plan to reach 100! Sadly a colleague of mine passed away last week … rest in peace B2.

Leaving home, life was never good to me

2008-03-02T12:11:00.003+10:00

It’s nice to see Daniel (5) and Emma (2) playing nicely together. Yes, there are a few tears but on the whole they have worked through them together and I’ve never seen them playing as brother and sister so well. You’d think that would make for a nice weekend—and it is a highlight—but it feels more like one of those grit your teeth and get through it things.

There’s a bit of a cold around the house and Caitlin (4 months) isn’t sleeping so well. She’ll sleep just fine when held—I sat for an impromptu screening of Wings of Honneamise and she slept until 2 am while I did so. Pop her in bed and she wakes to cry in an instant. Yes, there is a bit of a cold and a whole lot of tiredness. Perhaps this is why my wife told me she is waiting for me to “leave”. ’Coz why would anyone put up with this? Her thinking, not mine. I know who, where and why I am.

The whole week has been a bit like that. I did a lot of ironing today.

n.b. the title of this post is from a Jebediah song, not an indication of intent!

Friday night bowling

2008-02-02T20:52:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I went bowling, ten pin bowling with real — heavy — balls, rather than a Wiimote. First attempt: gutterball. Second attempt: 1 pin. So overall, I’m happy with a final score of 84!

Hadn’t been bowling in years. Quite fun. It’s much funkier than I remember, what with music videos and UV lighting. Although I feel inclined to mention, if your name is three letters long — like Ben — you’ll get your name up in lights instead of just an initial. Whether that’s cool, or an invasion of privacy, I just don’t know. Like I don’t know if bowling a strike is a bonus, or a cleverly devised way of giving customers one fewer bowls for their money …

Twin Caitlins

2007-11-30T23:35:00.000+10:00

It seems I am very slow in blogging this important news — we have Caitlins!

Specifically, our second daughter, born 25 October 2007, and our first niece, born 16 November 2007. Both doing marvellously well, and balancing out the genders in our families. Look out boys! (Oh wait… that's me!)

Sonic, Brawl and Jackets

2007-10-10T23:27:00.000+10:00

Nintendo have been busy of late! First, an announcement of free wii remote jackets to improve grip and safety. Today, an update for the Wii that allows a USB keyboard to be used with it (why, I don't know!)—but the news, the BIG news, is (on every blog I am sure) …

Sonic is joining Smash Bros!

broadbandy news

2007-08-29T21:22:00.000+10:00

This has nothing to do with federal government broadband plans (which I am ignoring for the time being) but my own broadband connection(s) here at home.

I quite like the sound of Virgin Broadband — you get your home phone and Internet bundled for $60/month. Internet runs off the mobile network: 3.5G (HSDPA), 3G (UMTS) or 2.5G (GPRS). We are apparently in the 3G coverage zone so I decided to take advantage of the 30 day trial.

That was Monday. Apparently my existing net connection got wind of this because it up and died that afternoon (it is still down). With anticipation I plugged in my new Virgin modem and got … GPRS. That's the one they say is “slow” like a modem. They aren’t kidding.

Tonight I was in contact with Unisky, my wireless broadband provider. They suspect my radio (modem) is dead and will need replacing as they can’t get a ping from it. However, it’s $110 to have a tech guy come out to confirm this and $550 to replace the equipment — $660. Yikes. I have asked them to outline my options including other technicians, buying my own equipment and/or cancelling the contract.

I like to be eccentric. So I decided to see if we could get a better signal putting the Virgin modem outside. It’s currently sitting outside on the air conditioner fan housing and we’ve had a solid 3–3.5G connection for about an hour. It’s great. And fast!! Now if only we can work out a way to do this and keep the modem inside the house where it belongs … wish me luck, I hope there’s light at the end of this tunnel!

Ben the BAT

2007-08-08T18:49:00.000+10:00

I’ve been in my new job a month now — a BAT (Business Analyst — Technical). Smart Service Queensland is a fun place to work (very busy, but very friendly) and they sure do pile on the training. I’ve been thoroughly inducted and grounded in project management methodologies (PRINCE2) so I now know a whole lot of new jargon like configuration management and product-based planning. What will I do with this knowledge? According to facebook I will gather friends for my army of darkness …

Actually that has nothing to do with work. I will be helping analyse and define technical requirements for services (from agencies) that are integrated into the whole of government approach to customer service through phone, counter and web. The web seems to be a quiet player in this field, it underpins the other channels but people seem to trust that it will “just work” hehe. I’ve worked in web — I wouldn’t be so trusting!

It’s good to be broadening my horizons :)

Ultimate late night shopping

2007-07-05T22:28:00.000+10:00

Me and my stack of transformers — it's taller than I am!

Tonight we went ultimate late night shopping. There are many toy sales on and transformers are everywhere due to the new movie (very cool, go see it!) The sales are great. I caved and bought the Wii game. And the Harry Potter game. And Bonecrusher. Then we went to another store and I got Megatron, Optimus, Starscream, Blackout, Ironhide and Ratchet. I showed restraint and did not buy Brawl or Jazz. Well, they weren't on special! Maybe tomorrow! ;)

Speaking of tomorrow, and of shopping, I got some Robot Heroes for my work buddies, as tomorrow is my last day. They'll miss me, but this well help remind them there are more important things out there in the world, namely the Autobot–Decepticon war!

We also had Subway (yum) and ultimate shakes from Wendy's

What else is ultimate? Smash Attacks!!

Hooray I got a job!

2007-06-18T20:00:00.000+10:00

I did it, I won a new job. More money, new challenges (hmm do I need challenges with a baby on the way?) All happening soon - gonna be a busy year!

We also got a tank.

Winter Wonderland

2007-06-01T00:17:00.000+10:00

Hooray it's Winter! I don't really like the cold (not that it is cold) but Winter means birthdays for boys in our house. Hooray! Happy 1 June, watch out for those sly pincher-punchers today!

ps: I'll have a shiny new domain soon... for various reasons I can't use "www." as the hostname though. Any suggestions?

HTML 5

2007-05-19T23:26:00.000+10:00

Yes, there is work being done to bring about a recommendation for HTML 5. We already have HTML 4.01 (the most current version of HTML) and XHTML 1.0 and 1.1 (2.0 is still a draft). What will all this mean for web developers? Some of the key aspects of HTML 5 as I understand it are improving HTML forms (it's not XForms, but any progress would be most welcome!) and looking at some of the other limitations of HTML. I believe the browser vendors are also moving to standardise on some of the browser functionality that has become common: WYSIWYG components, and some APIs around ajax and similar (though some of this may be taken up by the Web APIs group). Perhaps it is better if you read the architectural vision for HTML.

Yes that sounds a bit of a muddle. It's not really. If you work in the web industry it should be making sense (go read up if not, your professional development requires it today!). In any case, HTML 4.01 dates back to Christmas 1999. That's 7½ years. Don't you think web development has changed a bit since then? All of this relevant because tonight I "successfully joined the HTML Working Group". Now isn't that reassuring? :)

Job interview #3

2007-05-16T21:52:00.000+10:00

This afternoon I found out I will be attending job interview #3 for the year. That's a lot of interviews really. I've been offered a (3 month temporary) job but was unable to take it, I missed the local job (but the conditions made that a favourable outcome), will it be third time lucky? I'll know in a few weeks!

64 bit architecture too good fer ya!

2007-05-04T20:11:00.000+10:00

Oh c'mon people! You don't expect me to stay with 32 bit architecture forever!?

ERROR: Your architecture, \'x86_64\', is not supported by the Adobe Flash Player installer.

Got problems with Opera too. All is not rosy with the feisty fawn on AMD64. Not the fawn's fault, the fawn rocks. Maybe it's a free as in freedom thing. Catch up people, 32 bit is sooo, like, last millenium!

Accessibility, libraries and macbooks

2007-05-01T23:25:00.000+10:00

Today is apparently Blogging Against Disablism Day.

So designing web sites that work for all people is important right? Sure is. Universal design embraces all people, with all their personal preferences, and tries to provide them with a decent experience. It is about enabling people. You provide your content, or service, or products, in a format which can be adapted to suit different needs. And this isn't limited to web design, it should be fundamental in all forms of design.

Including, if you are say the library attached to the local council and providing electronic books, audio books etc. as a new form of lending; including ensuring your new service is accessible to ratepayers with macbooks. In fact, it's not about making it accessible. It should be accessible in the first place. It's about not introducing barriers. It's about not making it inaccessible.

How do you do this incredibly difficult thing? If you are a professional, you will learn.

The Web Design Survey, 2007

2007-04-26T12:34:00.001+10:00

I took the Web Design Survey, and I didn't get the job with the council, but that's ok as I just found out I would have forfeited my long service (two more years and I'll be able to access that!), not had access to any parental leave come October (the job is only temporary) and not got my salary packaging payments for my macbook. Bit expensive when you add it up!

However, I did see that CSC looks to be a pretty nice place to work. Maybe in another couple of years, I'll apply again :)

Impending interview: analyst programmer

2007-04-23T23:21:00.000+10:00

Hooray, I scored an interview for a job tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Double hooray! It's my first post from my new macbook. I guess it's not that new now but it's still pretty shiny :)

How white and nerdy are you?

2007-04-22T13:45:00.000+10:00

They see me mowin’ my front lawn
My rims never spin, to the contrary you’ll find that they’re quite stationary
All of my action figures are cherry (does "cherry" mean "cool"?)
I’m fluent in JavaScript (not Klingon)
X-Men comics, you know I collect ‘em
I edit Wikipedia
I got a business doing websites
When my friends need some code, who do they call? I do HTML for ‘em all
I was in the Chess Team

Courtesy of Weird Al's White & Nerdy. Ok, I'm a nerd. But you already knew that :)

Five day weekend

2007-04-09T00:05:00.000+10:00

Well firefox crashed on me and I lost three paragraphs! Retyping is not much fun so here is the succinct version.

Happy Easter! Traditionally a four day weekend, I scored an extra day Thursday to catch an ultrasound of our new little one. I can happily report they are alive and kicking and due on 17 October. We finally know a date. It was very quick, but in the middle of the day and I didn't fancy travelling back and forth (4 hours travel all told, for about the same amount of time at work).

Enjoying the long weekend. Finally found a little time to learn a bit about my new macbook (a salary packaged benefit of working in Queensland Government. Gotta get what benefits I can while I can!) Still job hunting. Been building lots of Lego Star Wars models mostly, Daniel wants this one and that one and that one! It's funny how many innocuous yet essential pieces have been misplaced...

What's THAT?! A puzzle planet!

2007-04-04T20:27:00.000+10:00

Daniel on Wikipedia—“I do like puzzle planets. They are tricky.”

I like Wikipedia too.

Unleash the power of the primal baseballer!

2007-03-29T19:19:00.000+10:00

Baseball pro status reached in Wii Sports—huzzah!