Before the PS3, I gamed on my Mac, so I’m no stranger to game dry spells. Typically, when I found a game I really liked on the Mac, I’d play it to death, mainly because there wasn’t much else to grab my attention. This was the case for games like F/A-18 Hornet, Quake III, Unreal Tournament, Ghost Recon and the Rainbow Six series. So it didn’t bother me that much, and there were already far more titles I wanted to play on the PS3 in it’s first year than I was used to on the Mac platform.

It’s somewhat ironic that having played games on the Mac for 16 years, it’s only after I finally make the switch to a console that Mac gaming starts to make a strong comeback thanks to strong Mac sales and the switch to Intel processors, which have made technology like Cider possible. But even though the Mac games industry is making a strong comeback, I don’t see myself leaving my PS3 to switch back…ever. Mainly because I don’t miss the time, hassle and expense of trying to keep my gaming rig current enough to maintain decent frame-rates. Not to mention having to hunt down and install the latest patches manually. I can play games just as graphically rich and complex as what I’m used to on a computer with next to zero hassle. I spend much more time just playing the games I like rather than messing around just to get the game to work well (or at all).

I remember complaining last October about how hard the 2007 holiday season was going to be on my wallet. The PS3’s third year started off with a bang and continued with a steady flow of blockbuster titles. With Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, The Orange Box, GTA IV and Metal Gear Solid 4, among a slew of other titles, the PS3 was finally coming into it’s own. Those four games alone were practically enough to sustain me through most of 2007. So much so that I found myself passing on plenty of games that I probably would have picked up had I had the time to play them.

This holiday season is making last year seem practically bare in comparison however. The list of new games I want to play is becoming overwhelming. Not just for the time I would need to devote to playing them, but cost as well. I can probably only justify picking up about 4-5 games this holiday season, and I’ve already hit that limit. To give you an idea of how discouraging that is, take a look at my holiday 2008 short list, of which I’ve already bought the first five:

SOCOM: Confrontation
Dead Space
BioShock
Fallout 3
LittleBigPlanet
Far Cry 2
Resistance 2
Mirror’s Edge
Call of Duty 5: World At War
Need For Speed: Undercover

All of those games were either just released in the last three weeks, or are being released within the next three weeks. On top of that, there are 5 or so other promising games being released within the same six week window that I’d also be considering if there weren’t so many competing for my time and money. I gotta draw the line somewhere, after all.

While most games take nearly the same toll on my wallet ($60 plus tax), not all games are created equal with respect to the amount of time they will demand. Now don’t get me wrong, the longer a game captures my attention and interest the better. But the downside of long games, or games with a high replay value is they hold you up from being able to try other games, much to the satisfaction of my budget.

Thankfully, three of the five games I’ve already purchased will likely be an excellent value in respect to keeping me occupied for a lengthy amount of time, each for slightly different reasons. SOCOM: Confrontation is an online tactical squad-based shooter, so while it doesn’t have a lot of depth and variety, the nature of this type of game is that the variety and challenge comes from the online experience of playing against other human beings. There’s no end to this type of game, it’s really just a question of if you want to play it enough to make time for it.

Fallout 3 is just an enormous game with so much to explore and so many quests to do. If it’s anything like Oblivion, the previous game released by Bethesda, I can probably expect anywhere from 75 to 125 hours of game time. This is the type of game that I can get lost in and lose hours at a time exploring the rich world that has been created for me, and that I won’t want to put down until I’ve completed it, or at least the main quest, since you could play through a game like this 3 times and never experience everything the game has to offer.

LittleBigPlanet, with it’s user-generated levels and built-in level creator has the potential to keep me occupied forever. By the time I’ve completed the single-player story levels, I’m sure there will be an already enormous amount of user-generated levels to try out. So many that it will be pretty much impossible to play them all because new levels will be added faster than I could play them. On top of that, I can play with up to three friends (or strangers) in a sort of coopetitive manner that will provide no end of fun. The fact that it’s a game my wife actually wants to play means we’ll likely have to cut back on our TV time, which isn’t a bad thing at all in my books.

So somewhere in between those three games, I’ll be finishing Dead Space, a very good sci-fi thriller/horror and BioShock, one of the most highly acclaimed games of 2007 for XBox 360 and PC. Both of which offer a solid amount of game time for single-player story games. My plan is to try and get through both of them before all my time gets sucked up by the other three. Then I can trade them both in to help finance the acquisition of one more game on my list this holiday season. Deciding on which one is going to be tough though. Which one would you pick?

One of these days, the reason this site goes down might actually be the old Mac server I’m running it on, but darn if that thing just doesn’t keep on running like the energizer bunny. For those who are curious, this entire site (blog and forums) are hosted on a circa. 2000 PowerMac G4. Originally a 400MHz G4 processor, I’ve upgraded the cpu to a 1.4GHz G4 and have 1GB of RAM installed. It’s running the latest version of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Server quite nicely. But I’m afraid that’s the last major OS X release this hardware is going to see since Apple has already announced that Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is going to run on Intel Macs only. Fortunately, we probably won’t see Snow Leopard until late next year at the earliest. In the meantime, I’ve got my fingers crossed that this workhorse continues to serve up pages reliably for another couple of years at least.

While the app is very light on features, it has all the basic essentials for writing and submitting new posts, as well a editing existing ones. If your blog is hosted on wordpress.com, then you can even see a preview of your post in your site’s theme, however, those who host with an alternate hosting provider (or like me, on their own server) will see their post displayed with a generic theme. Hopefully a future version will offer the option to launch Safari to view a preview generated by your own server.

It even let’s you insert photos from the photo library or camera roll on your iDevice as well as taking photos with the built-in camera, right from within the app. Coupled with firmware 2.0’s ability to take screenshots, this could become an iPhone software reviewer’s dream come true.

So what are the limitations? The app only let’s you edit existing or write new posts. That’s it. There are no features for doing any other administration of your site for now, so we’ll still need to use mobile Safari for viewing/editing comments and performing other administrative tasks. Also, those of you who have become spoiled by the GUI editor or even the basic editing toolbar are going to have to brush up on your HTML and CSS, because all formatting has to be applied the old fashioned way.

Another shortfall, or what appears to be more of a bug, is that if your post includes a “more” tag to display only an excerpt on the main page, you won’t be able to edit any part of the post that comes after the more tag. It’s like the mobile WordPress app sees the more tag as the end of the article. There also doesn’t seem to be any support for optional excerpts. If like me, you like to only display an excerpt on your blog’s front page, this is going to be an issue. You can still use the app to write the post, but you’ll have to apply the excerpt manually via the web editing tools before you can publish your final post.

Probably the greatest limitation is one not in the app itself but in the iPhone OS: the lack of cut and paste. I’m not sure if my writing style is rare or not, but frequently when penning longer posts, I tend to move sentences and paragraphs around a lot during the editing process. There’s simply no way to do this short of deleting and re-typing… A LOT. Something I’m just not likely to do. I suspect this will make me a better writer, as I’ll be forced to think more carefully about what I want to write before I type it.

Where the lack of cut and paste really hurts though is with inserted photos. Since the app inserts photos at the end of your existing post text, you can’t move them around without writing down and retyping a lot of HTML code.

Again, you could get around this by planning your post ahead of time and inserting photos at the exact points in your post as you are typing it. If I decide I’d prefer to insert them earlier in the post, I’m SOL. Hopefully a future version of WordPress for iPhone/iPod touch will give you the option of inserting photos at any point in the post. But of course it would be better if Apple just got off their ass and gave us an elegant cut & paste solution already.

Limitations aside, I highly recommend WordPress for iPhone and iPod touch to anyone who has a blog powered by WordPress and would like the freedom of submitting or editing posts while on the go. Bloggers who use excerpts however may only find it useful for composing their post as they will still need to apply the finishing touches via the web interface.

I had staked out the establishment the evening before to confirm they had received their iPhone 3G shipment. My earlier recon mission was a success, arriving just in time to catch them moving several nondescript boxes from the trunk of a car into the store. Further interrogation revealed they had received 25-30 8GB units, and 5-10 16GB units. This was all I needed to know.

So I was fairly well prepared this morning. I had an umbrella, windbreaker and a little folding camping tri-pod seat (I don’t want to call it a stool, because of the obvious homonym which is just begging to have a joke made of it). There I waited patiently for the store’s 10am opening. In the pouring rain. After about 30 minutes of waiting, one other soul pulled up and got in line behind me, but then got discouraged after 20 minutes of soakage and left. At maybe 8:45am, another guy showed up, immediately followed by a third who had been waiting in his car for probably the last half-hour, but decided that being warm and dry was more important than being first or second. I guess he drew the line at being 3rd.

Luckily, we didn’t have to wait that much longer as three employees showed up at around 9:20am, and agreed to let us wait inside after I asked really nicely (desperately). Rather than keep us waiting until opening time (10am), they got started at 9:30, which was a smart move, considering that by this time there were now probably 8-10 people waiting behind me, and things were not going to go smoothly, as you’ll soon see…

So they brought out the two 16GB iPhones I asked for, got the account transfer completed for both mine and the missus’ mobile numbers while I carefully opened the boxes and inspected the iPhones for any obvious visual defects. While they were attempting to ‘unbrick’ the white iPhone by connecting it to their PC running iTunes, I was miffed to see that my black unit had a small hairline crack leading from the headphone connector on the top. Memories of my experience buying the first iPhone in Buffalo came back to haunt me as I asked them to go and grab a replacement unit for me before they allocate the last one to someone else. It turned out they only had around five 16GB units in total. Everyone in line behind me was waiting for the 16GB model. Some poor schmuck just lost his chance of walking out with what he was hoping for…

They were still having no luck unbricking using iTunes on either of the two PCs in the store. They told me they were pretty sure I could do it myself at home, so I packed up the wife’s iPhone and told them I’d do that. I just had to wait while they transferred the account activation over from the iPhone with the crack in it to the replacement. This is where my luck got worse. Rogers dealer activation website was now inaccessible under what surely was an insurmountable load of requests to activate new iPhones.

They retried several times, and then said, “no problem, we’ll just call it in.” BZZZZZZT, sorry, try again. Now, the Rogers dealer activation phone line, which they had no problems getting through to minutes earlier was returning a busy signal. But not just any busy signal, that fast busy signal that tells you that not only is the Rogers PBX system sitting in a corner in the fetal position sucking it’s thumb, but the Bell telephone circuit which feeds it is lying next to it unconcious and drooling. Sigh.

So the result was, I had to leave my iPhone in the store so they could try activating it again later. I took my wife’s with me so that I could attempt to unbrick it in iTunes myself at work. The whole process thus far took around an hour and twenty minutes. In that time, only one other person had walked out of the store with activated iPhones, the guy who was behind me in line. Had my first iPhone not had a crack, I would have been the first. I really felt for the 15-20 people who were now waiting in the store to get one, and getting impatient. The store had resorted to filling out manual activation forms and telling customers to come back to pick up their iPhones later.

To unbrick, or not to unbrick, that is the question

As soon as I was able to do so, I connected my wife’s white iPhone into my MacBook Pro and launched iTunes to see if I could ‘unbrick’ it. It showed it was trying to connect to the iTunes Store, but after a minute or two, failed with the following error:

“We could not complete your iTunes Store request. An unknown error occured (-4).”

I found reports of others having the same error, so figured I’d keep trying, as someone had reported success after about 15 attempts. After probably 10 attempts, it was partially successful, having unbricked the iPhone, but not completing the registration process in iTunes, so it wasn’t allowing me to sync the device with iTunes. I was OK with that, since I didn’t want to sync it with my Mac anyway. I just wanted to get the iPhone functioning.

I went back and picked up my black iPhone 3G from the store mid-afternoon, figuring that the store should have worked out it’s technical issues and/or the servers and customer service lines should be less stressed by then. When I got there, they had already taken care of activation with Rogers but explained that they still couldn’t unbrick via iTunes and that it was an issue with the iTunes Store being overloaded. Not a problem I told them, since I was successful in unbricking the first iPhone myself, I figured I’d get mine working with a bit of perseverance.

Coincidentally, as I was walking in the store, I ran into the guy who had been second in line this morning, who hadn’t been able to unbrick his two iPhone 3Gs. I recounted my experience and suggested he just keep trying and it should eventually work. He didn’t seem too happy, but at the same time was relieved and thankful for the information.

After getting back with my own iPhone, I had a bit more luck getting it unbricked than for my wife’s. It still took close to 10 attempts to finally get through (getting the same -4 error message as the first one got), but when it did eventually work, it let me get through the full activation/registration process. Once complete, I selected my syncing options, and was finally syncing all my contacts, calendars, mail accounts, music, photos, podcasts, videos and applications. It took a while, as expected (I sync’d about 8GB of content), but otherwise had no issues. Mission accomplished.

I couldn’t help but wonder to myself and out loud in the store, why on earth did the stores insist or bother trying to unbrick the iPhones in-store if customers could do it themselves at home? This would have reduced the wait times for customers waiting in line, and gotten customers home a lot quicker, even if they couldn’t use their iPhone right away. I guess if the process had worked as planned (and the iTunes Store hadn’t buckled under the load), it would have only been about a 2 minute process, and customers would be able to start using their iPhones immediately. I’m guessing this was one of the complaints that Apple had received from the previous iPhone launch, but it’s a good example of how the best intentioned procedure can end up backfiring if not implemented or planned properly.

The takeaway for Rogers and Apple

While we might cut Apple a bit of slack considering how large a product launch this was (it launched today in 21 countries) and even Rogers (they’ve probably never had to deal with a product that was in such high demand on day one), it’s a perfect example of why a lot of companies choose to do staggered product launches. Apple compounded the problem by not only releasing the iPhone and iPod touch firmware 2.0 the same day, but also launching the App Store the day before. So on top of the hundreds of thousands of new iPhones being sold and activated today, you had possibly millions of original iPhone and iPod touch owners hitting the iTunes Store’s servers as well to get the latest firmware and download the new mobile apps.

The official Canadian iPhone launch was a complete fiasco by any measure, and both Rogers and Apple have squandered a huge customer loyalty/satisfaction opportunity. Instead of blowing away customer’s expectations, they have pissed a lot of customers off. Most of those customers will most likely get over it, and once they have their iPhone in-hand will probably forget all about it or say it was all worth it because the iPhone itself will greatly exceed their expectations. The only thing that probably helped limit the amount of unhappy customers is the fact that the iPhone 3G was in relatively limited supply. I hope for both Rogers and Apple’s sake that these issues get ironed out tout de suite!

Effective July 11, and as a limited time promotional offer for customers
who activate by August 31 on a three year contract, a data-only offering of
6GB of data for $30 per month is being made available that can be added to any
in-market voice plan. For example, with 6GB of data, iPhone 3G users can visit
35,952 web pages, or send and receive 157,286 emails, or watch 6,292 minutes
of YouTube videos each and every month.(xx)

Fido has announced the same promotional offer. I’m sure some will complain that it’s still not unlimited, but I really defy anyone to realistically use more than 6GB of data on an iPhone in a month. This my friends is the plan that is going to move a LOT of iPhones. My only complaint is that it just got a lot harder to get your hands on an iPhone 3G this Friday.

Now the questions that’s nagging at the back of my mind is, is this an example of Rogers reacting to the will of the people and/or pressure from Apple Inc., or was this just the final step in a very well planned marketing/promotion plan? I mean, think about all the free publicity Rogers has gotten, and consider the fact that they have spent next to nothing to promote the release of this market-changing device. I’m beginning to think we’ve all fallen for a brilliant viral marketing campaign. If this is the case, hats off to Rogers, well played sir, very well played indeed! If not, then hats off anyway for showing that you do care what your customers think.

Rogers and Fido (owned by Rogers) essentially have identical service plans, which can be seen here and here respectively. While the lack of an unlimited data plan on the surface might seem like a major issue, it’s important to put things in perspective. Since no one can theoretically USE unlimited data in any given month, having an unlimited plan is really just a way to make people feel at ease that they will NEVER incur any data usage charges. One can argue that the same thing is accomplished by simply having a plan that has a high enough data cap that you’d never have to worry about hitting it.

Unfortunately, Rogers data plans don’t even come close to satisfying this, but not all is doom and gloom. With the entry-level data package’s 400MB per month of included data, you could check email, weather and stocks several times per day and do a bit of web surfing once a week or so and be fine. Just avoid using YouTube, the iTunes Store or AppStore until you have a WiFi connection. For those of you willing to dish out $115 to get the 2GB plan however, things don’t fare much better though. Sure, you can do the above activities 5x more than those on the $60/400MB plan, and even enjoy a bit of daily YouTube or iTunes downloads while on the go, don’t expect to be able to watch YouTube videos every day to pass your 30 minute train ride to and from work, because you’ll use up that 2GB of data real fast.

OK, so our data plans suck compared to the US, who get unlimited data for $30/month. So while we have a bit of breathing room to enjoy the features of the iPhone, we’re still stuck keeping an eye on our usage if we want to avoid expensive overage charges. If it were any other cell phone, we wouldn’t mind so much, but the iPhone is such an internet-rich device, and so fun and useful, that it really is a shame that we don’t have plans that let us truly use and enjoy the device.

So what else is there to complain about? Well, the lack of call display and a decent amount of included sent SMS text messages (only 75 on the $60 plan), which requires you to spend an extra $15 or more on an “iPhone value pack”. SMS texting is another one of the iPhone’s strengths, with it’s IM-like interface. Once again, Rogers iPhone plan stifles a great iPhone feature, rather than encouraging it’s use. The lack of call display is frankly a joke in this day and age. I’m surprised they aren’t charging us extra for “touch tone” service too.

Then there’s the matter of the unlimited evenings and weekends included with every plan. Rogers defines “evenings” as after 9pm. Me thinks they’re stretching the definition of evening pretty far. To have your evenings start at a more reasonable 6pm is going to cost you an extra $20/month for an iPhone Value Pack that includes call display and 10,000 sent text messages. Gee, thanks!

One positive to the Rogers and Fido plans is the inclusion of unlimited WiFi access at any Rogers or Fido WiFi hotspot. For those living in urban areas where these hotspots are readily available, this will be a major benefit, but will be hit and miss depending on the individual. Most people will likely not make any use of this feature whatsoever though, which means it adds very little value to the average user.

These plans frankly weren’t a big surprise to me. Rogers is in a very different market situation here in Canada than say AT&T south of the border. AT&T was in a floundering position and desperate to increase it’s market share, with other providers competing on the exact same GSM technology. Here in Canada, Rogers is the only GSM provider, and is already in a dominant position. They have zero competition for the iPhone, period. Bell and Telus’ networks are just not compatible with the iPhone’s GSM standard. The situation isn’t going to get any better until either Bell or Telus convert their network to GSM, or Apple releases a version of the iPhone that’s compatible with the CDMA/EVDO technology that Bell and Telus use.

If there’s any upside to Rogers iPhone data plans however, it has to be that they’re a major improvement over any previous data plans Rogers has offered before. When I first covered using an unlocked iPhone in Canada back in September of last year, we were paying $10 for 10MB per month, on top of your voice plan, and 3¢ per KB thereafter! To put that in perspective, it would have cost nearly $12,000 to use 400MB of data on that plan, which could lead to some nasty surprises for anyone not savvy enough to watch their usage.

Rogers overage charges are now a much more affordable 50¢ per MB for the first 60 MB, 3¢ per MB thereafter. Meaning that an overage of 100MB that used to cost $3072 would now only cost $31.20. It’s hard not to argue this isn’t a huge leap in the right direction. If there’s anything to be positive about with the introduction of the iPhone to Canada, this has got to be it.

Rogers, in what seems like a feeble attempt to instill suspense, is advertising that “Something really big is coming July 11th”, as though we’re all supposed to be in the dark about what that something is. Someone should ring up Ted Rogers and let him know that mystery teaser ads are much less effective if everyone already knows what it is. OK, ribbing aside, clicking “Learn more” brings you to the Rogers press release archive, and if you scroll down to June 9, you just might find this press release which confirms the mystery device is the iPhone 3G. Pricing is listed as $199 and $299 for the 8GB and 16GB models respectively, with a 3 year contract.

No plan pricing details are provided, so looks like we’ll have to wait a bit to find out how much they’re charging for data and if you have to sign a 3 year data contract in order to purchase the iPhone 3G at the discounted price.

Fido’s website on the other hand, is being ultra-original by announcing “Something really cool is coming July 11th”. See what they did there? They used the word “cool” in place of “big”, and suddenly they have a completely original advertising campaign. Somebody worked overtime to come up with that I’m sure. Clicking the ad on Fido’s website links to this press release which details the same handset prices as Rogers, but no additional details.

Now the question that I’m sure many of my readers really want to know: Once the iPhone officially comes to Canada, will owners of unlocked 1st gen iPhones be able to use their devices on Rogers or Fido without having to hack them anymore? In other words, will we be able to install the firmware 2.0 update, plug in our SIM card and activate our iPhones through iTunes or will we have to keep playing the firmware update hack game? I will be sure to update you all once I find out, but we probably won’t know for sure until shortly after July 11.

So, are you planning on buying the iPhone 3G once it comes out in Canada? If so, are you new to iPhone or will you be upgrading from a hacked iPhone? Let us know in the comments below.

I’ve wanted to change the header background for a while to make my website more ‘my own’. The previous gradient/pattern was based on the default image that came with the wordpress template I based my design on, called Blix by Sebastian Schmieg.

This new header background image is based on a great photograph I came across (shown above, click for the full size image), which was taken by Kevin Hiscott, who was kind enough to give me permission to use it for my website (thanks Kevin!). Check out his photo blog, Portway Ave : No Exit, if you want to see more of his work. He’s got a lot of great photos on there that showcase his talent. From the looks of some of the photos on his blog, he’s also a Mac fan, which means he’s got taste too.

Now as I mentioned, I also changed the Art Of Geek logo. Specifically, I’ve updated the gadget icons to be a bit more current. I’ve also made the entire logo a bit bigger, to fill the height of the header more. Can any of you identify the make and model of each of the gadgets featured in the new logo? Post your guesses in the comments. Bonus points to the first person who can correctly identify what gadgets have been added and removed from the previous logo!

Ted Rogers, President and Chief Executive Officer of Rogers Communications Inc. today issued the following statement:

“We’re thrilled to announce that we have a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Canada later this year. We can’t tell you any more about it right now, but stay tuned.”

No more details are provided, nor is a link to any press release or article to back it up. We’ll just have to take their word for it I guess…

This is great news! Hopefully it will be in time for the launch of the rumored 3G iPhone and Apple AppStore software download service slated for June.

So far this hasn’t really been worth it, because there hasn’t been a single game released that I wasn’t able to simply walk into a local store on launch day and pick up off the shelf. The PS3 just doesn’t have enough of an install base yet to make it an issue, I figured. But for must have games, I sitll pre-ordered them just in case.

Now me being the impatient impulse buyer I am, I usually don’t wait for my pre-order to arrive via Canada Post, since that would mean waiting an extra 2-3 days before getting it. What I do is go pick up the game on launch day and then cancel my order online or by calling Futureshop.ca’s top secret toll-free customer service phone number. If it’s already shipped, it only costs me $1.99 for the shipping since I just return the unopened package for a refund (they don’t refund shipping charges, obviously).

I figured if any game was going to deviate from the status quo, it would be Grand Theft Auto IV. Since it was supposed to come late last year, I had pre-ordered it back on August 19, 2007. Today is the official launch day, but many stores opened at midnight to accommodate the crowds of GTA fans that were anxious for their ‘fix’. So being the game junkie I am, I headed over to a local Future Shop at around 11pm to stand in line. When I got there, there must have been 50-60 people in line. By the time midnight rolled around, there may have been 200-300 or more people in line. It was chilly (and I didn’t listen to my wife and wear a warmer jacket), but I had no problems picking up a copy of GTA IV. I don’t think anyone had a problem, it looked like the store had plenty of copies of both the XBox 360 and PS3 version to go around. One fellow line-goer said that Best Buy across the street had received 1200 copies of the game. I suspect this Future Shop probably got a similarly crazy amount, given that Best Buy owns Future Shop.

So yes I played the game for about 3 hours before getting to bed, and yes it’s as amazing as everyone says it is. Since this isn’t a review of the game (there are plenty of those at that link I just posted 19 words ago), I won’t bother going into any more detail about the game. Just go out and buy it, it’s as near perfect a game as has ever been made, blah, blah, blah. Back to my story.

This morning I check my Futureshop.ca GTA IV order status and expect to see that my order has already shipped, since I had forgotten to call them last night to cancel. To my surprise, instead of it saying “shipped” or “in process”, it lists the status as “out of stock”. So I check the product page at the online store, as seen in the image to the right (click to enlarge), to see what the store stock status is like. The four stores closest to me are all showing the game in-stock, but the online store is again showing out of stock. Now it doesn’t really matter since I have the game already, but this really struck a chord with me.

So to cut a long story short (is that even possible at this point?, I’m not sure…) So, to sum up, I pre-ordered my copy of GTA IV from Futureshop.ca more than 8 months ago, and I’m still not guaranteed a copy of the game from the initial shipment of inventory gets at least ships on launch day, yet anyone can just stroll into any Future Shop retail store on today and pick a copy up off the shelf. I pose the question to you, my readers (and more importantly to Future Shop): What is the point of pre-ordering your game in advance? Don’t answer that, it rhetorical. There obviously is no point. Future Shop’s online video game pre-orders are a scam. Or in other words, total B.S.

I have since cancelled my Metal Gear Solid IV pre-order from Futureshop.ca, and won’t be pre-ordering any future games from them. Since Best Buy owns Future Shop, and their online stores are likely one and the same, I’m extending this boycott to bestbuy.ca as well. From now on, if I want to pre-order a game, I’ll stick with EBGames, since they seem to take pre-orders pretty seriously. But I’ll likely just take my chances on launch day going forward, since the video game software industry really does seem to have mastered the art of maximizing launch day sales by ensuring they stuff the channel with sufficient inventory. Now if only the game hardware companies could do the same, people wouldn’t still be having a hard time finding a Wii.

Absolutely shameful.

Unfortunately my PS3’s age falls on the wrong side of that expiry date. Unfortunate because last night, my PS3 died. I was sitting on my couch racing a virtual VW Golf GTI around a virtual track in Gran Tourismo 5: Prologue (a fantastic racing simulator, by the way) when suddenly my PS3 beeped 3 times, shut itself off and just sat there with a flashing red LED. My first thought was that the game had just crashed really bad, so I tried turning the unit back on using the DualShock 3 controller. Nothing. I then tried pressing the power button on the front of the unit, the red light turned solid indicating the system was in standby mode. Another press and the system turned on, beeped 3 times, flashed a single amber LED and promptly shut itself down again with the flashing red LED as before.

I tried everything I could think of, including letting it cool off for over a half-hour and trying again, turning off the physical power switch in the back of the unit and even resetting the unit by holding the front power button for 10 seconds while turning on the physical power in the back. I also tried swapping out my upgraded 120GB hard drive with the original 60GB hard drive that came with the unit and even tried powering it on with no hard drive installed. Same thing every time.

So I called Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), and they’ll be shipping me a pre-paid shipping casket box for me to pack my beloved console’s remains in and send it off to be replaced. Since it’s out of warranty, it’s going to cost me $160 CDN plus tax. Not too bad considering repairing any electronics these days usually costs an arm and a leg and a new PS3 would cost me $400-500. Still, it hurts. But what hurts more is knowing that I’ll likely be without it for 7-10 days, by the time I get the shipping box, send it back and receive the replacement.

The replacement will most likely be a factory re-certified unit, which basically means refurbished. Sony assured me that the replacement is shipped out 3-4 business days after receiving the defective unit. This is a relief as I expected it to be more like 1-2 weeks. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I get a working PS3 unit in time for Grand Theft Auto IV’s release on April 29. It’s already bad enough that I can’t play Gran Tourismo 5: Prologue, which I just got 2 days ago.

I hope Sony’s standards for cosmetic beauty are strict, I’d hate to get a replacement PS3 that was in worse physical condition than mine is. The customer service operator told me they would ship my GT5P game disc back with the replacement unit, since it’s stuck in the drive with no reasonable way for me to get it out myself.

So I’m trying to look on the bright side. I still have the hard drive with all my game saves on it, which should work fine once installed in the replacement PS3 I get back. This is a good thing since I haven’t backed up my data in months. Also, not having the PS3 at home to keep me occupied will mean I have some free time to do other things, like work on my website, get out and enjoy the fresh air, and spend more time with neglected loved ones. I’m just bummed I won’t be able to taunt XBox 360 fanboys about the RROD anymore. Ah, of course I can, my PS3 will have to die at least twice before I have to worry about losing that privilege.

My confidence level in the rep I was speaking too wasn’t the highest at this point, since she had to put me on hold for several minutes to research the answer to every single one of my questions, all of which were pretty straightforward, like “how do I pay for my repair”? I wasn’t impressed and even asked for a supervisor to whom I expressed my disappointment with the poorly documented process, and the lack of training provided to the call center staff. He did apologize and understood my frustration, but said I was the first to raise an issue about the process with him. He did say he would pass my feedback on to the appropriate channels, and provided me the phone number of the repair depot in Ontario where my PS3 was being shipped so I could provide them with the credit card info by phone.

I called the toll free number for the repair depot, and the phone was promptly answered by a guy who shall remain anonymous to protect his job. After bringing him up to speed with my situation, he told me that he couldn’t take my cc info until they had received my PS3. He did confirm that there was definitely two different sets of paperwork/instructions for in and out of warranty repairs, and agreed that I had been provided the wrong ones. He instructed me to simply attach a copy of my receipt to the form as it instructed. When they receive it, they assume the in-warranty status has already been confirmed by the call centre and don’t bother checking the purchase date, so my repair would be covered under warranty.

So I did as I was instructed and am keeping my fingers crossed. I’ll be sure to update this article with the outcome of this ordeal.

As an aside, the shipping and repairs are all handled through Purolator. Like many consumer electronics manufacturers these days, Sony has contracted out the shipping and repairs of their Playstation products, at least here in Canada. I don’t blame them, Purolator probably does it all cheaper and far more efficiently than Sony could do it themselves. This also explains why Sony’s support staff are somewhat clueless as to the actual behind the scenes process.

I dug out the old USB hard drive that I had last used to back up my PS3, and restored the last backup dated October 30, 2007. So I’ve lost about 5 months worth of game saves. Not the end of the world as I had finished a few games recently and already traded them in. The saves I will miss most are from Oblivion, which I had recently finished the main quest in, but still planned to go back and try to finish all the side missions. Probably about 10-20 hours of gameplay lost. The second worst loss is my progress in Assassin’s Creed, which I have been already been having a hard time motivating myself to play with all the other great games vying for my attention *cough* Call of Duty 4 *cough*. With the new COD4 maps coming out today and Grand Theft Auto IV hitting stores next week, I’m afraid my chances of picking up Assassin’s Creed again are getting pretty slim…

So a quick stop at home to collect my unused games and I was off to EBGames to pick up a couple of DualShock 3’s. After coming home from my little shopping excursion, and struggling with the hulk-proof plastic packaging, I was finally able to plug the two new controllers in to charge them. This is the bittersweet thing about most geek kit. The euphoria experienced by getting a new toy home and unboxed is invariably doused by the unfortunate necessity to charge it’s batteries for 8 hours. Not wanting to use the controller while it’s charging for fear of upsetting the battery Gods (hey, the first charge is the most important one in a young battery’s life!), at least I could hold and visually inspect it.

My first impressions:

• It’s a tad heavier, but not in a bad way, more in a good way.
• It feels much more solid. My old Sixaxis controllers seemed to creak and flex a bit if I applied twisting pressure with both my hands. When I do the same on the DualShock 3, it doesn’t budge. It’s solid as a rock.
• It’s plastic shell is completely opaque, unlike the Sixaxis which was slightly transluscent.
• Besides the above and the DualShock 3 badge on the front, it looks and feels identical to my old Sixaxis controller, which is good because the Sixaxis is the most comfortable controller I have ever used for long periods of time.

So overall, I’d say the DualShock 3 is a nice improvement over the Sixaxis, and there’s absolutely nothing to complain about as far as I’m concerned. Sure, it still doesn’t come with a USB cable, but I think in this day and age of conservation, we have to support such decisions, even if their reasons for doing so were purely economic. Given that the controller is essentially disposable, at least we won’t start building up a collection of redundant USB cables. It’s bad enough we’re throwing out the entire controller when the battery dies. OK, so maybe there’s one thing to complain about: a removable battery would have been nicer to the environment, although most likely at the cost of aesthetics and rigidity.

Before I got to bed, and after the dual DualShock 3’s had had a good 7-1/2 hours of charging, I decided I didn’t want to wait until the next day to feel the force feedback love. So I fired up Super Stardust HD for a quick asteroid smashing session and was pleasantly greeted by the soothing pulses of Immersion’s patented force feedback technology. While SSHD might not be the best game to showcase the new controller’s capabilities, it was enough just to get a feel for it and also to confirm that you can easily turn force feedback on/off via the menu that appears when the PS button is pushed. It felt good to have force feedback back, as though for a brief moment all was right with the world. Now if Infinity Ward just adds force feedback support to Call of Duty 4 for PS3, all would be right with the world.

Well, if Bell is allowed to get away with it, looks like the honeymoon may be over. News broke yesterday in major news outlets, technology blogs and internet forums that Bell Canada has been traffic shaping the wholesale internet connections they provide to competing DSL ISPs who rely on Bell’s infrastructure to provide their service. That’s right, Bell is dictating their competitor’s terms of service. The worst part about it is Bell failed to notify any of their wholesale ISP customers that they were going to do it.

While some will say Bell has a right to manage their network to ensure all their customers enjoy good performance, it’s hard to see how this doesn’t run afoul of anti-competition laws. Bell sells a lot more than just internet service after all. They’re probably best knows as a telephone service provider, but are also the major satellite TV provider in Canada. When Bell started throttling traffic for their own Sympatico customers, it was already crossing the line since the services that were getting throttled, VoIP and P2P file-sharing are both upcoming competitors to traditional telephone and cable/satellite TV service.

By applying their traffic shaping to competing DSL provider’s wholesale lines however, Bell has stepped so far over that anti-competitive line that it’s not even a line anymore, it’s a tiny spec way off on the horizon. A deregulated DSL marketplace is supposed to promote healthy competition. One of the ways companies compete is by offering better service. But rather than compete fair and square, Bell is abusing their monopoly on the DSL backbone to force their competitors to reduce their quality of service to the same low level as Bell’s. So consumers are left with no choices if they want to deal with an ISP that doesn’t utilize traffic shaping, since the only other alternatives for most are the local Cable monopoly providers, most of which also throttle their customer’s connections.

If this is allowed to continue unchecked, how long before we see YouTube or iTunes downloads get speed throttled? With more and more of the world’s communication and media traveling over the internet, the internet monopolists will have more and more power to dictate how we use our internet connections. As a telecommunications and media competitor, Bell cannot be trusted to be impartial in choosing what protocols and services to apply traffic shaping to.

So what can we do about this? Get the word out. Stop doing business with Bell and let them know why. Write a letter to your local MP, the CTRC and the Competition Bureau of Canada, and let them know you think what Bell is doing is unacceptible, and that network neutrality is not only very important to you, but that you consider it essential to promoting open competition, innovation and free speech on the internet as well as Canada’s competitiveness in the global information economy.

If you would like to support CAIP in their efforts please file submissions with the Commission over the next week to show your support for the request for interim relief. These submissions don’t have to be very complicated.
All that you need to do is:

1. Click on the following link:
   http://support.crtc.gc.ca/crtcsubmissionmu/forms/Telecom.aspx?lang=e
2. Select “Part VII / PN” from the list.
3. Insert the CRTC file number (# 8622-C51-200805153) into the “Subject” Line.
4. Insert the following suggested text into the “Description / Comments / Questions” box:
   “I am writing to express my support for the application that CAIP has filed with the CRTC regarding Bell Canada’s throttling practices. I believe that these practices contravene Bell Canada’s duties as a common carrier and that the Commission should direct Bell to immediately cease and desist from throttling the traffic of independent ISPs.”

As someone once said, if you don’t do your part to try and stop this, then you forfeit your right to complain about it, ever.

“You cannot install Mac OS X Update Combined on this volume. This volume does not meet the requirements for this update.”

At first I thought my OS installation was corrupted, but before I reached for my Leopard install DVD to do a clean install I decided to investigate whether one of the recent Apple software updates may have caused the problem. I hadn’t installed the recent Safari, Security and Time Machine & AirPort updates on my Mac mini, so I installed each, one at at time, and then attempted to install the 10.5.2 Combo update after each to see if at any point it would give me the same problem I’m having on my MacBook Pro. I installed the Safari update first, followed by the latest security update, after both, I had no problems selecting the boot volume for the 10.5.2 Combo Update, but after installing the Time Machine & AirPort Update, the Combo update now said my mini’s boot volume did not meet the requirements for the update, just like my MacBook Pro!

A quick search through Apple’s Support forums didn’t reveal any other reports about this issue, so I posted a topic there and it quickly got responses from others who have run into the same problem. One post lead us to the culprit, which was that the Time Machine & AirPort Update changed the build number of Mac OS X from 9C31 to 9C7010. Since the latest Combo Update available as of this writing is for build 9C31, it won’t let you install overtop of the newer build.

So great, we know what the cause is, but what’s the solution? Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until Apple either releases a new Combo updater for build 9C7010, or for Mac OS X 10.5.3 to be released, which will have a new Combo Updater. Otherwise, right now, the only workaround if you really need a reinstall to fix a problem would be an Archive and Install or Format and Install using your original Leopard install DVD–which isn’t a solution at all.

Thankfully my problem is minor enough that I can wait, but for those who are having bigger issues, and for my own peace of mind, I hope we don’t have to wait too long for a proper solution from Apple.

1. Enter the following command in Terminal:
   sudo defaults write /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion ProductBuildVersion 9C31
   This is all one command. Enter your admin password when prompted and hit return.
   If you’re typing manually, be 100% certain you type it correctly with all spaces and upper/lowercase letter exactly as shown. If you are going to totally screw up your system, this is the most likely point it will happen! This will change your OS X build number to the previous build so the Combo update will install.
2. Correct permissions on /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist using this command:
   sudo chmod 644 /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist
   This is so you don’t get a javascript error trying to run Installer. Again, this is all one command and be certain you type it exactly as shown, otherwise you could really screw something up.
3. Install the Mac OS X 10.5.2 Combo update and reboot.
4. Install the Time Machine & AirPort Update and reboot.
5. Install the Security Update 2008-002 v.1.1 (Leopard) and reboot.
6. Install the Safari 3.1.1 Update and reboot.
7. Repair disk permissions using Disk Utility.

Everything seems to be working right so far, and I’ve confirmed that the permissions on /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist are correct. You can check by entering the following command in Terminal:
ls -l /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist

The result should look exactly like this (although the date/time may be different):
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 479 Mar 13 14:03 /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist

Good luck and if you’re brave enough to try this, post your results in the comments.

Bell was scheduled to suspend my Sympatico DSL service at midnight, so I decided I’d stay up and wait for it to happen so I could connect my new Thomson SpeedTouch 516 DSL modem up in preparation for my TekSavvy DSL service to be activated in the morning. So I figured I’d get some last minute email and websurfing in and then settled into playing Call of Duty 4 online on my PS3. In other words, what I do almost every night. My plan was to play until I lost connection, then install the new DSL modem, then go to bed and reconfigure my router to connect to Teksavvy in the morning. Midnight rolled by and I was still taking out tangos. One o’clock AM came and went and I was still defending democracy from terrorists. By around 2:15 am, I decided that my tour of duty might never end, and called it quits for the night, Sympatico Internet connection still operational. In the back of my mind, I worried that Bell’s delay in disconnecting me was going to delay the activation of the new TekSavvy connection.

Looks like those worries were unfounded since when I got up this morning at 7:00 am, I found my AirPort Extreme router’s connection light flashing amber, indicating a connection problem. I connected the SpeedTouch modem to the phone line and was happy to see the DSL and Internet status lights turn solid green. A few minutes later, I had my AirPort Extreme reconfigured with the TekSavvy settings and was connected to the Internet with our new static IP. A quick trip to my domain registrar’s self-serve website to reconfigure the artofgeek.com domain to point to our new IP and disable dynamic DNS and I was done. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the change to propagate to Internet DNS servers around the world and we were back in business. Total downtime was under 6 hours.

First impressions? My web surfing seems a bit faster, and my wife said the same thing when I asked her if she noticed a difference, but the difference isn’t immense from the limited amount of time I had to test it. There’s not much else to say at this point. It’s an internet connection, and it’s working. If you have any questions about our transition or the service, post them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them.

As you can see, the download speeds seem pretty consistent around 4,270kbps. The upload speeds vary more, but solidly between 500-600kbps. I only wish I had done these same tests with my Sympatico connection while I still had a chance. Keep in mind these speeds may vary depending on the time of day. I’m fairly impressed since right now is near peak hours for internet usage (between 9-10pm). I’ll run the tests again at different times of day to see if it stays consistently fast or not.

See you all when we’re back up and with a static IP address. No more short bouts of downtime because I have to reset my router. Yippee!

The world of emulators on the Mac is very diverse. I had a lot of choices available to me of which version of Lode Runner I wanted to run, on which computing platform and using which emulator. I ended up choosing the original Lode Runner game running on the Apple II, and rather than using a traditional emulator, I decided to go with one that came packaged as a Dashboard widget, that way I could quickly jump into a game of Lode Runner no matter what I was in the middle of doing, and just as quickly put it away when I’ve had my fill. Following these step by step instructions, you’ll be able to get your Lode Runner on too.

1. Download the AppleIIGo Dashboard widget from the developer’s website and then click “Install” and “Keep” when Mac OS X prompts you asking if you want to download and install the widget.
2. Download the Apple IIe ROM image from here. Extract using Stuffit Expander.
3. Download Lode Runner for the Apple II from here and unzip it.
4. Call up Dashboard, and click the bottom right hand corner of the AppleIIGo widget where the little “i” is.
5. On the backside of the AppleIIGo widget, click the “Disks” button, followed by the “ROMs” button. Two Finder windows will open. Click the “Done” button to flip the widget over.
6. Drag the file APPLE2E.ROM file that you unstuffed in step 2 to the Finder window named “ROMs”.
7. Drag the file named loderunner.dsk that you downloaded and unzipped in step 3 to the Finder window named “Disks”.
8. Call up Dashboard again and click on the little “i” to bring up the AppleIIGo settings again.
9. Select “loderunner.dsk” from the “Disk Drive 1:” popup menu, and then click the “Restart” button.
10. Play Lode Runner.

Here are the controls:

A more complete list of controls and commands are available here, including editing commands for creating/modifying your own levels.

Hit any key to start a game. Collect all the barrels until the exit ladder appears, then climb up the ladder to move onto the next level, all while avoiding the bad guys chasing you. Remember that bad guys will pick up barrels they walk over, which they will drop sometimes on their own or when they fall into one of the holes you’ve dug.

The only two caveats with playing Lode Runner like this is that there is no sound (the AppleIIGo emulator doesn’t support sound), and the screen can be a bit small. Those shouldn’t really get in the way of some good old school fun though, since the sound isn’t important to gameplay, and the graphics are simple enough that you shouldn’t have a problem seeing all the detail you need. Of course, you can theoretically play any Apple II game using the AppleIIGo Dashboard widget. If you successfully get any other classics running, tell our readers about it in the comments!

Have fun, and let me know what level you manage to reach. So far, I’m up to level 5.

For the longest time I got around this by using an AppleScript, which I placed inside my ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Safari/ folder (where “~” represents my home folder). Then whenever I’d switch monitor setups, I’d simply run that script from within Safari via the AppleScript menu on the top right side of the menubar. The AppleScript menu can be enabled using AppleScript Utility located in the /Applications/AppleScript/ folder. For those interested, this is the script I used:

tell application "Safari"
set the properties of front window to {bounds:{1, 23, 1200, 1194}}
end tell

You can copy and past that code into Script Editor and save as a script with an appropriate name like “Set Window Size - External Display”. Just substitute your own values inside the curly brackets. The values correspond with x,y screen coordinates measured in pixels from the top-left edge of the screen, and indicate the location of the top left and bottom right corners of the window. In this case, my script told Safari to set the top left corner of the front window to 1 pixel from the left and 23 pixels down (to accomodate the menu bar), and the bottom right corner to 1200 pixels from the left and 1194 pixels down.

This script has worked well for me for several years, but it wasn’t quite as convenient as I would have liked since it required me to navigate and click on the Script menu, then click on the script I wanted to run. Being the lazy computer user I am, I’ve longed for a solution that would take one less click and would be even easier to activate. Then one day, I came across a useful hint in the ehmac.com forums about this simple javascript that you could save as a bookmark that would make Safari’s window full-screen:

javascript:self.moveTo(0,0);self.resizeTo(screen.availWidth,screen.availHeight);

This was in response to a Windows switcher who really missed a simple way to make his browser window go full screen like Windows does when you click the maximize window. Thought it was pretty handy, so I added it to my Safari Bookmarks bar and called it “Full Screen” and left it there untouched for several weeks. Turns out I never want my Safari window to fill my screen since my displays are all fairly large and wide.

I guess today I had an epiphany. Lightning had just struck my brain (that had to hurt)*. If a Javascript can set my window full-size, then it should be able to set the window to any arbitrary size. Looking at the full screen javascript, it was ridiculously obvious how to modify it to fit my needs. Simply substitute the desired width and height in the resizeTo section like so:

javascript:self.moveTo(0,0);self.resizeTo(1200,1170);

You could even specify a custom window position by changing the x,y coordinates in the moveTo section if you wish.

This in itself is quite brilliant, but still a bit inelegant having bookmarks named “Full Screen” and “Big Monitor” taking up all that space on your Bookmark bar. So I came up with some nice simple bookmark names that visually represented what I wanted to accomplish in a way that would look a bit like an icon, and take a minimal amount of space on my bookmark bar, as seen in the image to the right. So from left to right, I have |-| to resize the Safari window for my small display, |+| to resize the window for my large display and |‹ ›| to resize the window full screen.

This is how they appear in my Bookmarks window:

Just to clarify, the “|” character is achieved by pressing shift+\, and the ‹ › characters are created by pressing shift+option+3 and shift+option+4 separated by a space on a Mac. These symbols are smaller than the standard less than and greater than symbols “< >” and make for a nicer looking icon in my opinion. I was also trying to make all three “icons” appear as similar in size as possible for consistency sake and to strengthen the illusion that they are icons. What you name your bookmarks doesn’t make any difference to how they work, so be creative if my choices don’t fit your likes or needs. If you think you’ve improved on my names, let me know in the comments!

Having one-click access to these controls directly within the window is not only more convenient, but also more intuitive. It may not seem like a huge improvement over my previous AppleScript solution, but when you do the same operation multiple times a day, every day of your life, all those clicks really add up. Sometimes, it’s the little things that make all the difference.

It was really surreal, and took me back to a dark time in my life when I had to deal with those kinds of problems on a daily basis. A time I never want to have to revisit again. I feel so dirty. I’m going to have to spend an extra amount of time using my Mac to try and cleanse me of this disgusting feeling.

It amazes me that PCs still ship with floppy drives in them to this day. Apple’s first floppy drive-less computer, the original iMac will celebrate it’s 10 year anniversary this year. It’s been over 9 years since Apple dropped the 3.5″ floppy drive from all it’s products. Really punctuates the Windows PC industry’s bizarre obsession with outdated technologies, doesn’t it?

Our government, via the CRTC, have been trying their best to inject some competition into the Canadian telecom market for a few years now, but phone number portability and competition in the DSL and home phone markets will only make a difference if customers actually start switching. It’s understandable that the majority of Canadians are reluctant to switch from one of the major providers to a relative newcomer, but really, what have you got to lose besides maybe a little inconvenience?

Up till now I was content to pay a premium for my Sympatico high-speed DSL internet service from Bell for the peace of mind of knowing I was dealing with a large incumbent that had the resources and experience to give me a reliable connection. I switched to Bell from Rogers when Rogers threatened to cancel my service because I was exceeding their monthly data transfer allowance. Bell’s Sympatico service had no such limits.

But recently, Bell Sympatico implemented traffic shaping to limit the speeds of P2P filesharing transfers during peak hours to a maximum of 30KB/s. I was resigned to live with that, provided it didn’t get any worse.

As someone who hosts their own webserver, I’ve always wanted a static IP address, but because I only run it as a hobby, I couldn’t justify the $100/month it would cost me to get a business internet account, which is usually the only way to get a static IP from Bell or Rogers. To make matters worse, business accounts are usually even more limited on data transfers than consumer accounts. So I’ve been resigned to using dynamic DNS solutions to keep my artofgeek.com domain name properly pointed to my server at home.

Last weekend, I was seeking advice about email server configuration on the ehmac.ca forums and user John Clay was kind enough to respond recommending I switch ISPs to one that doesn’t block mail traffic and offers a static IP. He then mentioned that TekSavvy, a local Ontario DSL ISP offers static IPs for just $4 extra per month.

That sounded too good to be true, but I was definitely intrigued. A quick visit to the TekSavvy Solutions website later, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could get the same speed of DSL service with unlimited bandwidth AND a static IP address for $4 LESS per month than what I was paying Bell. The icing on the cake was that TekSavvy does not shape traffic or block any ports AND, you can use any standard DSL modem to get your connection.

So let me sum up:

• Same speed as my existing Sympatico service.
• Unlimited bandwidth usage.
• Static IP address for hosting my server.
• No port blocking of any kind.
• No traffic shaping or speed limiting (hurray for Bittorrent!).
• Can supply your own modem.
• $4 less per month than what Bell is charging me.

That’s $43.95/month. Wow. Game over. I’m sold. So I called Bell today to cancel my service, followed by a call to TekSavvy to subscribe to their DSL High Speed Internet Unlimited residential service.

Now to be fair, you still have to buy a DSL modem, which TekSavvy charges $100 for, plus $10 for shipping. But here’s where TekSavvy’s open modem policy comes in. A 5 minute Google search, and I found speedtouch.ca that sells the exact same modem TekSavvy was going to sell me (the Thomson SpeedTouch 516) for $50 + $12 for shipping. Bell was charging me a perpetual $2/month to lease my modem, and you have no choice but to buy or lease their modem. So as long as my new DSL modem lasts more than 2.5 years, it’ll pay for itself, and I’ll save an additional $2 per month after that.

So that’s it. With just a bit of hesitation, I took the plunge. My service is scheduled to switch over from Sympatico to TekSavvy on March 18, 2008. There will be a bit of downtime during the switch, but hopefully not more than 6-12 hours. Afterwhich the Art Of Geek website should be even more reliable than it’s ever been. The most common cause for the site being inaccessible has been the dynamic IP changing every time my modem or router had to be rebooted. This will no longer be an issue. To top it all off, I will be free to run my own email server if I want to, and I can look forward to getting my bittorrent files downloaded in record time again. Needless to say, I’m really stoked about the switch.

So if you’re curious about how the switch goes, check back here after March 18. I’ll be sure to update the Art Of Geek blog on how it goes.

That being said, they had a pretty decent hardware design concept, a very usable OS (although the interface was a tad childish for my taste) and a promising platform/application distribution strategy. But one thing they have never been is particularly successful in the overall handset market. So I’m a bit confused (and saddened) by this latest news that the Borg has gobbled up Danger, Inc.

“Sure, the folks in Redmond didn’t get their grubby mitts on Yahoo! (yet), but at least they picked up a little something for their mobile division, namely: Danger. According to news just crossing the wires, the monolithic company has picked up the Sidekick-creators for an undisclosed amount, and will subsequently fold the phone-maker into its mobile wing. Is there a Windows Mobile version of the Hiptop in our future? Survey says yes.”

There’s no doubt this has something to do with RIM and iPhone’s threat to Windows Mobile, as well as the impending Google Android threat, but at first glance, it’s difficult to understand what Danger might have to offer Microsoft.

Danger used to be a hardware designer, so Microsoft may be looking to enter the handset market with this purchase. But if they wanted a cool hardware design, they could have done better than Danger, who aren’t exactly selling HipTops by the truckload. Why not buy Motorola’s mobile business instead? Motorola is officially considering divesting itself of it’s mobile phone unit, after all. I don’t think this has to do with hardware though. For one, Danger has all but given up on the hardware, just one look at Danger’s website makes that imminently clear. Other than in a YouTube video, I can’t find pictures of their HipTop anywhere.

Microsoft also runs the risk of pissing off their existing Windows Mobile licens