iGame Radio

The theme music for iGame Radio was originally composed by our dear friend Digital Droo, who has written many pieces for games across the years (such as Active Lancer, Neon Tango, and Warpgate, to name a few). But we’ve recently wondered whether it’s time to wave goodbye to that song and find a new one.

Corey Tamas, our regular co-host for the show, is also a musician, and he has offered to compose something new for us. We’re wondering what you think about it. Keep our beloved theme song? Should we take Corey up on his offer? Or should we ask Digital Droo to create something new? Maybe ask someone else that you recommend?

You can weigh in on this with an email or by clicking on the poll on the right sidebar of the website. Let us know what you think!

The announcement has been made, and the rumors became true. Not that I had any doubts that Apple would be releasing a tablet Mac. The real rumor would be what it was called.

It’s the iPad (cue Maxipad jokes in 3, 2, 1…).

What is the iPad? It might best be described as a cross between a netbook and an iPhone. A tablet sporting the iPhone OS, using a custom Apple chip running at 1GHz. The screen is 9.7 inches long (basically, 10 inches), 1/2 inch thick, and is an LED touchscreen. The sucker weighs in at about 1.5 lbs, and uses the same mechanisms that an iPhone uses for the home and sleep/awake switches. A battery that Apple claims will hold for 10 hours of normal use is inside. No word yet on whether it can be replaced, but I’m betting not unless you’re an “Apple Certified Technician”.

No USB…connecting via a dock mechanism. I’m not too impressed with that. However, there is a dock mechanism for holding up the thing and connecting a keyboard to type with. Wifi includes 802.11n, also 3G if you’re willing to pay extra. Still AT&T, but big bonus, NO CONTRACT REQUIRED. Bluetooth and GSM also included. Lastly, 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB drives available.

For the software side, includes Safari, Mail, iPhoto, YouTube access, iTunes, an iPod app, a new iBook app, and instant access to all of the App Store apps currently available. The iBook app is Apple’s new ebook reader. Yeah, they’ve gone so green that they’ve decided to recycle names now.

When the iPad is available, you can buy it for $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB, or $699 for 64GB. This is for the Wifi only version. Want 3G? Add $130 on top of that.

So, what about games? Well, Steve Jobs said that a couple of weeks ago, they invited a few developers to take a look at the iPad and see what they could produce. Gameloft came on stage first to show off what they had done. Nova is a shooter wherein they took advantage of the entire screen real estate to best effect. EA also came on stage to show off Need for Speed, which apparently ran quite smoothly. They were able to add additional features to the game because they had so much more space on the screen, such as the ability to look inside the car.

So, what is the future of this device? What has been the response from people? How will it do with gaming?

First, I’ll start with the response. I noticed that from those who are intimately tied to the programming world…i.e. those that are programmers, and especially those that would have the skill to tweak their own devices for doing what they want…the response has been mostly negative. They are not interested in something that they don’t see will improve performance for them. Basically, they have everything set up the way they want it right now, and the iPad won’t fill a niche for them because, quite frankly, there isn’t a niche to fill.

And I hate to let them in on a big secret that they apparently haven’t figure out, but THEY AREN’T THE TARGET MARKET. The majority of the people who will be buying this device are the folks who overwhelmingly bought the iPod. And they are much more positive towards the iPad. This is a device for the consumer to consume media content. Not for the producer to produce more.

Will it revolutionize the ebook world with the iBook app? No, I don’t really think so. And I don’t think that’s it’s intent. But I have to tell you, when I wake up in the mornings, and when I am finished for the day and spend my evenings in the living room, much of the time I’m sitting on a couch or comfie chair with my laptop open, surfing the web, checking email, and doing work that doesn’t require GHz in speed. Or just playing games that don’t require Teh Pro System to play. This would be the perfect fit for me, because lugging the Macbook Pro around the house is a pain in the butt. And I’m quite certain a significant portion of the population of the US, Canada, Europe, and even Asia will probably agree.

As far as gaming is concerned, obviously you’re not going to be playing Dragon Age: Origins on this thing. And why would you want to? This is the perfect device for the online gaming scene. I hesitate to use the word “casual” at this point, because that word tends to conjure up images of hidden object and puzzle games, when that industry has grown far past that point. The increased real estate allows for a large number of choices that the iPhone did not provide before in gaming.

So, will this actually go anywhere? That’s super hard to say. Frankly, at this point, I’m on the fence about it. I’m excited by the gaming potentials regarding it. If I were a consumer and I was looking for a new electronic device for media consumption, I’d be interested in this device. But I think that I’ll have to really play with it a bit to decide just how useful it is in the everyday world. I think I’ll take the wait and see attitude at this point.

Oh, and for the record? If there were more women in the tech industry, tragedies like calling an electronic device an “iPad” wouldn’t happen. Just sayin’.

So, despite the fact that I am taking a week off, that doesn’t mean that I’m not working. It just means that I’m not getting a podcast out the door this week. As such, I did get something done today already that I hope everyone will be happy about. I finally figured out why it was that I couldn’t seem to locate the comments RSS feed URL.

I hath found it!

So, for your viewing pleasure, you may now subscribe to the comments posted and know instantly when someone has replied to a comment of yours, or a post on the site. Just click here to subscribe, or look over at the sidebar where the RSS feeds are located to do the same.

Next version of the iGame Radio redesign preview is up to look at. Just click on the Theme Switcher widget on the right hand column and choose bookpro_steel.

Changes this time around:

1. Added icons for social networking sites, such as twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn. More will be added (like, for the Facebook site).
2. Rearranged where stuff was in the right-hand column. When widgets are removed, things will be compressed.
3. Added ability to see links without having to mouse over them.

As always, I’m looking for feedback, so don’t hesitate to click and type. I’m especially interested if the placement of the social networking icons works for folks.

Next version of the iGame Radio redesign preview is up to look at. Just click on the Theme Switcher widget on the right hand column and choose bookpro_steel. We’ve made some changes that fix the titles to blog posts and smooth out the positioning of the column to the right. Still some more changes to make before we’re done. And, as always, I’m looking for feedback, so don’t hesitate to click and type.

If you want to see the design preview for iGame Radio, you can now take a look by clicking on “bookpro_steel” in the Theme Switcher widget located in the right-hand column. We still have work to do, but this gives you an idea of where we are headed. I’m looking for feedback, so please let me know what you think, and what you’d like to see more of.

So, it started last night. I was busy playing the new Runic game that Pangea has published, and suddenly started smelling this…burning…from somewhere in the room. It’s gotten pretty warm around here, so at first I thought it was coming from outside, someone grilling or burning a fire. Then I could tell it was most definitely not that. Oh yeah, and my screen had started to display strange artifacts.

I shut the G5 down right quick.

I have spent the rest of yesterday evening and most of today (when I wasn’t hauling my kid’s butt to a birthday party) trying to figure out what the problem was. At first, I thought it might be my harddrive. That was due to my turning the machine on again last night after I opened up the side to see what I could see, and hearing the harddrive go, “whirr, whirr, whirr.” I shut it back down very quickly and decided that my next step would be a trip to Fry’s the next day to get a new harddrive.

Yippee! Fry’s had 300 GB SATA harddrives on sale for, like, $70. So I bought two, just in case (can never have enough storage). Brought em home and installed one, then attempted to install OS X on it. And got an error. Then I remembered that these suckers come as secondary drives, and you have to physically reconfigure them for primary. Only, I didn’t have any manual or info to remind me, because they were cheapo because they were OEM drives being sold. And I didn’t have the necessary components to adjust them. Great.

Meanwhile, hubby says he wants to hear this harddrive whirring. So I put the original one in, turn the machine on…and it boots up fine. Yeah, you knew that was going to happen. Only, now I hear the fans churning like a Boeing 747, and my graphics card, an ATI X800, whirring weird.

So, then I got to spend the rest of today doing huge amounts of research to try and find out why this is happening. And I find I get to join the throngs of *other* G5 users who *also* have problems with fans running out of control on their machines. And no one really knows why. Lovely.

What I’ve been able to narrow down, at least for my problem, is this. I think my problem has to do with the FCU (fan control unit). I think that whatever caused the smell may have shorted out the FCU in the drive bay fan (which is the fan it turns out is running out of control at 1000 rpm), or shorted out how the fan is controlled by the FCU.

I may decide to take the whole rig in tomorrow to the nearest Apple Repair center in the U District (if it’s open) and have them look it over.

I don’t feel like having my system take off for Maui (at least, not without me).

Unfortunately, it also means that the Game Review Edition that I was planning for Monday I won’t be able to get done. Ah well. This is a holiday, after all.

I’ve been using Audio Hijack Pro for many months now, with some success. Or at least, I thought so. Yet still, I was having technical difficulties to the extent that I felt I should go ahead and file a trademark for the term. Up until recently, I was pretty convinced that the technical difficulties were due to my laziness at not doing consistent broadcast tests before shows and writing up consistent broadcast policies for myself. But I’ve changed my mind now.

About three weeks ago, I had to bag my July 24th broadcast. For some reason, I just couldn’t broadcast my voice out to the world. I was able to get music out through iTunes, but not my voice. My normal set up is that I have Audio Hijack Pro hijack my voice and any voices coming through Skype (i.e. interviews) and then transfer that audio through the use of Soundflower to Quicktime Broadcaster, then out to the world through my server in Texas. Music is the same way…AHP hijacks the audio from iTunes, out to Quicktime Broadcaster via Soundflower and out to your ears.

July 24th frustrated me because I had just several days ago made sure that everything was updated, and AHP and Skype were the only ones that needed updating. And after all that updating, I got nothing for audio.

A few days later, Rogue Amoeba, which develops AHP, released another update, and suddenly my audio worked again. Which certainly meant that some kind of interaction between AHP and Skype was the problem, and Rogue Amoeba had released a solution.

Yesterday, I did an interview with the guys who won the most recent iDevGames 21-Days contest (Carlosvision). Everything seemed to go well…I performed an audio test before hand to make sure that everything sounded fine. The one thing I didn’t do was actually listen to the recorded audio that I tested after I tested it…after all, I figured that since I had asked AHP to let me monitor the audio I was going to hear what was being recorded. Big mistake.

I just listened to it today, and my voice (and just my voice) has this dumb echo effect. And I can’t remove it. I’ve got a solution…since the interview is so short (about 8 minutes or less) I can just listen to the original interview and record my voice asking the questions again in the manner I asked them, then replace my echoey voice with the new recording.

But I shouldn’t have to do that. For some reason, the way I have had AHP set up in the past no longer works, and I’m not sure how to change things so that they will again. I’m not sure that I want to try. I’m thinking I want to try out GarageBand instead and see how that goes. Anyone have opinions about how GarageBand works for them for recording podcasts? Will it work for live broadcasts?

About a month ago my podcast production client wanted me to move forward with converting his podcasts into enhanced podcasts with chapters. I figured that I’d split the cost since learning how to do so would also teach me for the iGame Radio show as well. I downloaded Chapter Tool and did a little review of it, but today I put my head down and actually worked on it. Ouch.

First off, Chapter Tool is in beta. Secondly, it’s a command line tool…no spiffy “click from the dock and you’re a go” app. Not that I’m a newcomer to using Terminal, but still. Third, though the instructions are fairly good, they are scattered over several documents and websites, and assumed in at least one case the lack of mention of something meant a negative about it. Uh, right.

So, I’ve spent about 12 hours or so trying to get this thing right and finally, after some time of trial and error, succeeded. I now have a fully enhanced podcast, complete with pretty pictures, links, and chaptering. It even works on my iPod mini…well, without the pretty pictures and links, but with the chaptering.

I’m going to write up a step-by-step process for writing an enhanced podcast and post it here, probably tomorrow. But right now I’m busy watching Luke Skywalker get his butt kicked. Is there something wrong with me that my favorite of the first three is The Empire Strikes back?

Welcome to the iGame Word, the blog for my radio show iGame Radio. Where I talk about the Mac game industry. Where I talk about the computer game industry in general. Where I talk about running a live Internet radio show. Where I talk about how much I *hate* being cutting edge because of “technical difficulties”.

Case in point. For the past few broadcasts I’ve been using the VoIP program Skype as my main software tool for interviewing live guests on the show. I keep having problems. I keep thinking it’s me. I keep changing the way things are connected and configured from my mic to my mixer to the iMic to my desktop.I finally get things configured and connected absolutely correctly, the sound is crystal clear, I do sound tests to prove it, and I’m all prepared to do a nice show on Monday, 11/21.

And it’s an utter flop. Because I started with my new guest co-host (Kevin Murphy of Macologist), *and* had two guests on at one point (Dan Labriet and F. C. Covett from DanLabGames), the sound was horrific (even with just Kevin on)…very spotty, listeners were catching only every third word or so.

Worse, my guests were getting echos of their voices, which was manageable to some, but very unmanageable to others (especially for Dan, who’s not a native English speaker). I was sure that it was something else to do with my setup that hadn’t popped up before.

So I did research. And found IT’S ALL SKYPE’S FAULT!!! Boy, am I pissed. This seems to be an issue with Skype, and with Skype for Mac of all things. Read the forums, and you will see a lot of people complaining about the echoing issues, and the distortions as well. Skype states that the echo seems to be a problem with Mac laptops…the internal mic and the built-in speakers being so close to each other result in a lag echo effect whereby person #1 speaks to person #2 (with the laptop) and said laptop’s mic picks up person #1’s voice from said laptop’s speakers, thus sending person #1’s voice back to them shortly after they spoke.

That might make sense, if everyone I’d been speaking to were using laptops, or the people who were using laptops weren’t using headphones. Gah!

So now I have to look into another solution. I’m going to use iChat AV in the meantime, but it unfortunately won’t be a long-term solution, at least not for all situations, because not everyone I interview will have a Mac (I try to have guests who have something meaningful to say that impacts the Mac industry, and outside impacts can and do happen).

Worse, now I have a show that can’t be posted because it doesn’t have an interview. Should I post what I have of the 11/21 show, or should I wait until I have finally finished recording the interview with the folks at DanLabGames? Said interview, btw, had to be rescheduled from Wednesday to Monday…so no, the archive won’t be posted Thursday. If I wait until Monday, then all of the news items will be a bit old. Or do I just do a whole new show on Monday, and play the recorded interview at the right time, hoping that the recording doesn’t get rescheduled after I PR’d the show? Sigh. Decisions, decisions.

Why yes, I do eat Brie with my Whine.

Happy Thanksgiving, folks.