Drivereplacementoctomy

I have completed my very first Drivereplacementoctomy, that is, I replaced the DVD drive in an Xbox 360.

This doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but it is. For starters, the DVD drive has an encryption key that matches it to one particular Xbox 360. This means that if you buy the exact replacement unit needed by your machine, it will not work.

How to fix this?

The hard way: figure out a way of pulling out the key from the old drive, then upgrade the firmware of the new drive with the correct encryption key.

The easy way: remove the logic board from the old DVD drive and install it into the new drive. Since the units are identical, it will work.

Some enterprising individuals around here will charge you $50 plus materials to do it the hard way.

Why am I doing this?

Because PJ broke his DVD tray into two, and you can't order replacements (that I know). Ivette of course wanted to buy a new one, since we got wads of $400 lying around. I decided to take a shot at replacing the drive and doing the PCB swap myself. If I failed I could still order a second drive and pay somebody to do the job for less than the cost of a new Xbox 360.

Overall, the process is simple:

1. Tear down the Xbox 360.

2. Replace the PCB in the new drive with the old one.

3. Re-assemble the Xbox 360.

4. Try to play one DVD and one game disc. Pray that both work.

That is about it. The hairiest part? One of the data cables in the PCB are aligned by hand, then held into place with a very small plastic clip. The rest was more tedious than hard.

And what did PJ do when I showed him that he can now play again on his 360, after more than 2 weeks dead? He switched to his AppleTV and kicked me out of his room.

That's parenthood right there.

Gamers Like In-Game Ads, Claims Microsoft -- Video Games -- InformationWeek

Gamers enjoy in-game ads, according to Massive Inc., Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)’s in-game advertising subsidiary.

Massive commissioned media research firm Interpret to survey gamers and found that they will accept online ads, within limits. For Microsoft, not to mention Google, which bought an in-game ad company of its own last year, this is good news to have paid for, particularly given that social network ads have been something of a disappointment.

“Gamers are open to advertising if it’s done tastefully,” said Grant Johnson, chief client officer and founding partner of Interpret. He characterized gamers as similar to other online consumers in terms of their receptiveness to ads.

[From Gamers Like In-Game Ads, Claims Microsoft — Video Games — InformationWeek]

If the game is realistic, sure. as long as the ads are part of the game environment, not interruptions.

What I don't understand is why am I paying $60 for a game that has paid ads within. At the very least they should let us switch them off (replaced with fake/funny ads like Grand Theft Auto 4) or maybe give us Microsoft Points if we leave them turned on.

Of course, this is not going to happen.

Liberty City Police Face Allegations Of Incompetence, Brutality | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

LIBERTY CITY—With the city in the midst of a record crime wave, concerned citizens claim the Liberty City Police Department has done little to prevent the constant car chases, ongoing gun battles, and overall atmosphere of violence that pervade the area.

"I used to feel safe in Liberty City, but lately, it's been total mayhem," said night-shift worker Lola Del Rio, who spoke to reporters while sucking nervously on a red lollipop. "In the past week alone, I've been carjacked twice, run over 10 times, and witness to a half-dozen gunfights that ended with automobiles exploding. What are the police doing to stop all this?"

[From Liberty City Police Face Allegations Of Incompetence, Brutality | The Onion - America's Finest News Source]

Brilliant piece by the Onion. In one single article they managed to explain pretty much everything that happens in Grand Theft Auto 4. My favorite is the mention of Lola del Rio as a "night shift worker."

MADD v. Grand Theft Auto IV

GTA 4 barely launched and the politics have already started. The problem is when good intentions clash with misinformation. I support MADD 100%, they are one of those precious few special interest groups (yeah, MADD is an interest group) that are no brainers: drunk driving kills.

The problem this time? Somebody at MADD did not bother to play the game before they put out their official stand against the game. Had anyone bothered to play the game first, they would had noticed that "drunk" mode in GTA 4 is a complete pain in the ass. I tried it last night and for the first few minutes I could not even play, the screen shook so much that I was a hair away from motion sickness. And even after the character felt like he had sobered up, within seconds of getting into the car it was already surrounded by cops. I don't know how the hell one can hit drunk mode and actually drive more than a street or three.

Gamerscore Correction - Xbox Live's Major Nelson

The shit just hit the fan at XBL:

I wanted to follow up and let you know where we are on the post I made a few months ago on Gamesave Tampering. Today we took action on some of the accounts we have identified as the most serious offenders who have violated the Xbox LIVE Terms of Use by tampering with their Gamerscore and Achievements.

[From Gamerscore Correction - Xbox Live's Major Nelson]

About god damn time.

The Faraday Cage

A real Faraday Cage is an enclosure that blocks electromagnetic radiation. Over the past few years I have been struggling with my condo because sometimes it feels like I am living inside of a Faraday Cage: my cell reception always sucks and I never get enough signal strength from my wireless access point.

Once we got the two AppleTVs, it got worse. Two AppleTVs streaming off two separate Macs, both on 802.11g is too much of a pain in the ass, and this is assuming the network is running normally. Mine wasn't, so performance for PJs AppleTV was always subpar when used in streaming mode. Because of that, his is setup to pull the actual content instead of streaming it.

Here's more or less what the network was like:

Red: 100MB ethernet.

Blue: 54MB wireless.

Green: Mac / AppleTV pair

I decided to hell with it, why bother with wireless when the condo is just 1000 square feet? I asked my friends around, and they all recommended the same: wire it yourself.

One of my coworkers lent me his crimping tool and his line testing gizmo, plus a bag of RJ45 connectors. I spent about $40 in cable, plus some really neat cable staples and a $10 5-port 100MB ethernet switch.

Last night was patch cord training, since I had not put together an ethernet cord since sometime in 1998. After two hours I had three completed patch cords that could actually pass the gizmo tests.

Today I wired my office, ran a line to PJ's room and made more patch cords. This is what the network looks like right now:





Red: VoIP line (off the Comcast Arris MTA)

Green: 100MB ethernet in my office

Blue: 100MB line to PJs room

Orange: 100MB ethernet in PJs room

There was virtually no benefit to the Mac Book Pro (which was never more than 10 feet away from the wireless access point), but my AppleTV is a little bit more responsive. The real benefit is that now there are no more networking issues with the stuff in PJs bedroom.

Gamerscore Blog : HD-DVD Statement from Xbox

Today's chapter of the HD-DVD saga is brought to you by some Baltimore-style damage control from Microsoft's Xbox team:

HD-DVD Statement from Xbox
We do not believe the recent reports about HD DVD will have any material impact on the Xbox 360 platform or our position in the marketplace. As we’ve long stated, we believe it is games that sell consoles and Xbox 360 continues to have the largest next-gen games library with the most exclusives and best selling games in the industry. We will wait until we hear from Toshiba before announcing any specific plans around the Xbox 360 HD DVD player. HD DVD is one of the several ways we offer a high definition experience to consumers and we will continue to give consumers the choice to enjoy digital distribution of high definition movies and TV shows directly to their living room along with playback of the DVD movies they already own.

[From Gamerscore Blog : HD-DVD Statement from Xbox]

In other words: HD-DVD is dead, yo. Don't expect any games published in HD-DVD, don't expect any more free movies when purchasing the Microsoft HD-DVD drive for the Xbox 360, and sure as hell expect the Xbox 720 (if we ever see it) to ship with either a current generation Blu-ray, or simply move on to pure online distribution channels.

Command & Conquer 3

I have had an obsession with a very special genre of video games that I like to call the "blow shit up" sub-genre. These are games that involve a certain degree of, how can I put this? Yeah, blow shit up. While tank and jet simulators are awesome, you only get to control one unit at a time. Real Time Strategy games, on the other hand, give you a commander's view and allow you to control the whole battlefield.

The earliest I can remember was probably Harpoon, which is still to date one of the hardest games I have ever played and I am happy to learn that it is still being produced.

Another gem of the genre is a trilogy of called "V is for Victory", sadly their publishers went bankrupt over a decade ago. These games were simulations of the later allied campaigns during WWII in the European theater. They were rough in terms of graphics, but the game play was engrossing.

Except for these and Mech Assault for the original Xbox, all of my favorites are in the Command & Conquer / Red Alert series. By the way, the only real difference between these two series is that the Command & Conquer universe involves the Global Defense Initiative, called GDI, against a terrorist organization called the Brotherhood of NOD.

The Red Alert universe uses alternate history to visualize a world in which Albert Einstein travels back in time and murders Hitler while he was still young. The problem was that without Hitler, the Soviets were able to invade Europe in he 1950s.

There is a second difference between the series: in the Command & Conquer universe there is a mineral called Tiberium which more or less takes a center place in the plot. It is he main mineral that is mined for resources in the game.

Why do I like those games? Easy: because it is fun as hell. The game play has barely changed since these two series started. Every couple of years we get better graphics and crazier units, plus the weapons of mass destruction get even crazier.

Now, here's the big change: this is the first time I have played this kind of game in a console instead of a Windows or Mac PC. All this means is that the game is a little bit of a pain in the ass to get used to. Once you go over that learning curve issue, and the game is basically identical to previous editions, only prettier. They also tampered with the power balance, some of the small units are just too god damn powerful.

Overall it is a good game, but I am stuck in one of the single user campaign levels. It is not the end of the world, since I prefer to play skirmish mode.

If you like the genre, and you have the $40, then it is not a bad purchase. Otherwise you can keep playing Command & Conquer Generals, which is not that different (and you can build multiple ion cannons, instead of being limited to one).