You know your a geek when your Xbox 360 controller looks like this.....

Ok so I've been playing FPS’s (for you non-gamers that means First Person Shooters like Call of Duty (COD), Halo, Doom, etc.) since Castle Wolfenstein 3D, and yes I'm dating myself on that one, but I’m finding my skills have declined in the past few years.

It could be that my reflexes have slowed over the years, or that I have an actual job and life such that I cannot play the required/desired 12 hours a day. Regardless I pretty much get my ass handed to me by 12 years on a regular bases. They refer to me as an "old" guy online and make geriatric jokes about me, repeatedly telling me how bad I suck. Mind you I can always drop the at least I've had sex or should you not be in bed by now, or is that your mommy calling in the background telling you that you have had enough screen time today retorts on them....I give as good as I get in the verbal abuse arena, but getting constantly spanked by them is a piss off.

There is one thing that I have that the 12 year olds and unemployed video game masses don’t have… a small amount of disposable income, note the keyword small but at least I have some and do not have to ask for my Mom's permission to spend it.

I'm constantly on the lookout on the Interwebs looking for anything that might give me a leg up on my neglected latch-key opponents. In my travels I discovered a truly evil site, in more ways than one, http://www.evilcontrollers.com/.

Evil Controllers allows you to order a custom controller with all sorts of goodies in it. Like auto-cheat triggers that take advantage of bugs in the games to turn semi-auto guns into fully auto guns, and decreasing the reload times of certain weapons. I feel that these kind of "cheats" are just that, cheats, and really should not be used for online play because you are basically having a computer play the game on your behalf (the controllers use microprocessors to run these cheats).I think that these “mods” defeat the purpose of playing the game in the first place (mind you I did use a bot program for playing Mafia Wars....dam you Facebook and your addicting "FREE" games....don't do it....if you’re thinking about it DON'T!)

Anyhow back to my "Evil Controller", besides the "cheats" that you can buy from them they also will provide you with better sticks and button remapping. So as I'm old and my thumb always starts to go numb after an hour of holding down the left-stick to run in COD, I had them remap the left-thumb click to the back-left side of the controller. In addition I had them remap the "A" button, or as we COD players call it the jump button, to the back-right side of the controller.

Now I do not have to constantly hold that left-stick down. I'm mean really, its war out there and who is going to walk through the middle of a battlefield while being shot at...in the words of Forest Gump, "I am running".

If I want to do the Halo jumpy/shooty thing I can simply push the button on the right underside of my controller to jump and change direction at the same time as my right thumb does not have to leave the right stick. Thing of beauty right! It had better be for the price. If you’re not careful you can spend more on an Evil controller than you did on your 360 with Kinect included...no I'm not kidding check out the "MASTER MOD" or Viking Controllers.

Also it should be noted that they also sell a controller called the "Nomad" which allows you to remap any of the 11 buttons to the underside of the controller, like your melee attack or reload or whatever your heart desires...mmmm perfection....OK fine so I bought that one too...Dam online shopping and PayPal, why do they make it so easy.

 A few months after playing with my Evil Controllers, a friend emails me a link to the "Avenger Controller site" http://www.avengercontroller.com/. This thing looks crazy, kind of like a spider or bug attached to your controller. But if what it promises is real it would complete my controller master piece, hopefully giving me that faction of a second advantage over my prepubescent opponents that I need to have a positive KD (again for you non-gamers thats Kill-Death ratio). So I slap down my $60, and 4 months later (yes it took 4 months because apparently their shipment was "stuck in customs") a box containing my Avenger shows up.

After dropping my Evil Controller in the spider cage and a little tweaking I hit Black Ops for a little online gun play. I won't lie and say that I took to it immediately but after a few hours I was in love...

Your thumbs never and I mean never has to leave the thumb sticks. With a flick of your index finger you can duck, reload, or change out your weapon. What a dream. It is a great idea, simple, inexpensive, and really effective. I no longer have to constantly move my thumb between stick and buttons, and the triggers are elongated and quicker to respond to my instructions. My KD is up and I'm trash talking the tweens on a regular basis…”Wow I’m older than your Dad and still schooling you!”

I’m not sure if the Avenger would be as effective without the Evil controllers’ remapped “A” button, because the cage that fits around the controller makes hitting the actual “A” button very difficult in my opinion.

If your old and a FPS fan I would highly recommend picking these bad boys up. If for not for the fact that it will make your old hands happy, then for that fact that all your friends that see it will say “What the F#@k is that!”

 Yes I know…I'm a geek...but a old geek with a kick ass controller and a positive KD.



Engadet review of the Avenger http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/14/n-control-avenger-xbox-360-attachment-makes-it-look-complicated/

Nomad Review http://thecoolxbox360.com/rapid-fire-isnt-the-only-mod.php

Viking controllers (similar to Evil Controllers but even more expensive) http://viking360.com/modded-xbox-360-controllers

The Next 48hrs: Moving from the IPhone to the Samsung Focus

Now that I’ve given my iPhone to my wife, put hers up for sale on eBay (I can’t believe that someone is willing to pay $200USD for a 3G), and I’ve committed to the Samsung Focus phone that I’ve been complaining about for the last four days, I thought I should explain why I decided to take these actions.

And no, it’s not because I’m a card carrying Apple hater.  It’s because I see a lot of potential in the hardware and software, and I really like a lot of the features of Windows Phone 7 (WP7) platform.

WP7 has taken advantage of being 2nd…err…3rd out of the gate, although not completely (i.e. missing copy/paste).  Microsoft and Samsung have “borrowed” from Apple and made some improvements.  Here is a list of the features on the Samsung Focus that I really took a shine to:

The Hardware

The Screen – At 4in (bigger than the iPhone) the AMOLED screen is absolutely glorious, yes GLORIOUS. Its colours are vibrant and crisp and it completely shatters any other phone I have seen in the market.  I do not have to strain to see anything on the screen and viewing documents is enjoyable and easy on the eye. Who needs a Kindle…Oh and the games..wow…

The Camera – Coming from a 3GS this camera is an actual camera. With a LED flash, 5Mp, and autofocus, it takes much clearer photos that the stinking iPhone…Sorry about that I’m supposed to be impartial but I have to let MS Fanboy come out sometimes. The video looks great, and the image stabilization allows for much better videos than the 3GS.

The Search button – With the simple push of a button, you can be searching the web using Bing, which I’m starting to like after getting past the fancy daily image, but I’m not changing my laptop search default just yet. This search button also has application context, meaning if you are in your contacts and you tap the Search button, you search your contacts.  I much prefer it over the Apple “oh-yah-you-will-want-to-search” OS add-on. You can also simply hold the windows button and say the term you are searching for. The voice recognition performs very well, even for addresses.  In a real world example of this, I was on my way to a lunch meeting and I held the Windows button and said “Las Margaritas” and WHAMMO it came up with the restaurant and its location. Two more taps and I was getting directions from my current location. Take that Steve Jobs…

The Speaker – If you ever tried to use the iPhone’s speaker to make a phone call, you will understand this next statement…When using a speaker phone you should not have to hold it to your ear. This kind of defeats the purpose of the “SPEAKER” phone.  The speaker on the Samsung is loud, almost too loud, I found out when I was on a plane and I fired up a game...Sorry about that everyone, my bad.  I can easily hear what others are saying on speaker phone while using it hands-free in my truck. Which is a very important feature if you’re a truck driving redneck...

The Screen – Yes I know if mentioned it first but seriously it is that good, from any angle, in direct sunlight…not that we get that in winter in Vancouver too often.

The Software

The interface – Is very intuitive and “snappy”, as there is almost no hesitation when navigating about that phone.  I love the Hub style of the menu system, in which you can “pin” your most used application to the main Hub and scroll down to access them. A quick swipe to the side gives you a long list of all your applications, which is a much better interface than trying to remember which screen each application is located on and side scrolling to find it on the iPhone.  Now where did I put Angry Birds again?  But I find myself using the voice commands more and more.  All I have to do is hold the windows key down and say “Start Gmail”, and Gmail opens.  I’ve tried it with just about every application and it works extremely well. Usin’ it, lovin’ it.

Email and Calendar – I always felt that the iPhone target market was the casual user who sends some emails but uses SMS more.  For me in WP7, email is the “killer app”. Finally I can use my mobile device as a business device.  I get anywhere from 40-80 emails a day and managing that on the iPhone was very difficult.  The WP7 email interface is awesome, viewing flagged emails, unread only, moving more than one email at a time, quick launch for folders other than your inbox. Simply put, an email client that you can actually use.  If you use email a lot on your mobile device, WP7 is the one for you. Mind you, I’ve never owned a Crackberry.  The calendar has a great agenda view and is completely integrated into Exchange (but you still have to cancel the notification on your laptop in addition to the phone). You can create recurring appointments and meetings, mark them as private, add attendees from your address book, easily pick which calendar to add the meeting to, if you are like me and have multiple calendars).  I had hoped that Microsoft was going to get this right, and they did.

Contacts – As with the iPhone, multiple address books are allowed, but unlike the iPhone, you can associate contacts across address books with each other.  For example, WP7 is also integrated with Windows Live accounts and since lots of people use an alternate email address as their MSN Messenger Account, they will pop up more than once in your address book. But now you can associate their MSN account to their actual email address.  I’ve found this greatly reduces the search result when trying to find a user on your phone. The interface for this is very easy to use, and I’ve been associating contacts organically over time.  Very cool stuff.  Browsing for a contact is also easier with WP7.  Under the people hub, tap a coloured square with a letter on it and you get an alphabet map to jump around your contacts with. Much better than the side bar on the iPhone that jumps to the wrong letter and you end up scrolling anyway.  Maybe it’s my fat fingers.

Xbox Live – It you’re a gaming geek like me you will appreciate the Xbox live integration of the games on the iPhone.  Mobile achievements will be associated to your account and you can play mobile games with your other Xbox friends.  It is a little limited right now but I can see Microsoft ramping up the functionality very soon to further enhance the mobile gaming experience. Now how do I plug my Kinect into this thing?

Wireless Sync – The only way to put music on an iPhone is to open iTunes, add the music to your iTunes Library and then plug your iPhone into the computer and perform a sync. The same can be said for getting photos off your iPhone…iTunes and a cable.  To move content on or off my WP7 takes no action, cable, or brain power.  If I download music and drop it in a predetermined folder or add to a predetermined playlist, the next time I plug my phone into its charging station (not connected to the computer) it will wirelessly sync the music to the phone.  The same applies if I buy an app in the Zune interface or for photos and videos that I’ve taken on the Samsung Focus, the next time I plug it into the wall (again not the computer) it will sync.  I did not think much of this feature until I started using the phone. I do not have to remember to put my new music on the phone. I do not have to remember to “download” my photos and video. The phone does it all for me, it’s so simple and convenient; The sync process happens when the phone is charging. iTunes sucks harder than Randy from Trailer Park boys…..and I will never have to use it again.

Steve Jobs Does Not Walk On Water

There are a lot more features but I only wanted to highlight the ones that I’ve personally used so far. With Samsung Focus running WP7 you also locate your phone and make it ring remotely (I’m sure once I misplace...err... my kids steal it to play bubble wrap, I will use this feature), post images to your Microsoft SkyDrive automatically for sharing, create and edit Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents, access a SharePoint library, listen to radio, etc.,...

So maybe Microsoft did not exactly hit a home run for me with the 1st release of WP7 but neither did Apple. When the 3G was released it was slow, it crashed a ton, it was buggy, had no copy/paste, no support for multiple email accounts, and it was missing lots of the same features that are now missing in Windows Phone 7. In fact both of my iPhones have died and been replaced, costing me $250.

So is WP7 an iPhone killer? Would I recommend it to others? The only answer I can give is…time will tell. 

What I can tell you is that I like the phone, and that Microsoft is committed to the platform.  I believe that Microsoft will listen to the complaints and make the necessary changes to become a leader in this space. So in my redneck, Microsoft Fanboy opinion, the Samsung Focus is a great hardware platform and come January 2011, Microsoft will plug most of the holes in Window Phone 7 …

Oh…Did I mention the screen?

The Second 48hrs: Moving from the IPhone to the Samsung Focus

We last left off with my new Samsung Focus up and running with only 8G and my MicroSD card bricked, but basically I have an operational Windows 7 Phone. Time to start putting it through its paces....

It's an upgrade right?

So after using the Samsung Focus for the almost 2 days there are some things that I took for granted on the iPhone that are glaringly missing in Windows 7 Phone. I'm not suggesting that there are not some great features on the Windows 7 Phone platform (Which I will talk about in my next posting) but coming from an iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.2 I'm having troubles not focusing on what I lost.

MIA

• Copy-Cut-Paste - OK this is silly, how hard would it have been for Microsoft to include this. With a super-small keyboard this feature is mandatory. Saying that I really do not miss it, I may be used this feature once a week on my iPhone.
• Visual Voice Mail - For those of you who do not know what this is, basically your voicemails are downloaded to your phone as audio files and you are not required to dial a voicemail number and enter a password.  You really do not know how much you use something until it’s gone.  It is really inconvenient to have to dial a number and enter your password every time someone leaves you a voicemail.  Not a deal breaker but man I really hope they add this feature.
• Multi-Tasking - This feature is not totally missing, you can multi-task using the built-in features of the phone like listening to music and typing an email.  But all downloaded applications do not get the same treatment...hmmm.  For example if you are running the Google Search app (yah for being there, but boo for not including Google Maps) and go back to the main phone Hub and then run the Facebook app and then switch back to the Google app it can take anywhere were from 10-15 seconds and it does not remember where you were in the previous application.  Really it is like going back to the iPhone 3G...WTF...really Microsoft you want to win over the iPhone users in the world....Huge fail...
• Ring Tones - You cannot add your own custom ring tones....really...you can't....WTF! What is this the 1990's? How was this overlooked? Has anyone on the Windows 7 Phone team ever used a phone from this decade? Again this is not a show stopper but take something very simple and something that users look to do and remove it. Yah that will convince them to buy a Windows 7 Phone.
• Screenshots - For those of you with an iPhone you might not know that you can press you the Home and Power button at the same the phone will take a picture of the active screen.  OK so this is a feature that not too many of us will use but it makes creating and sharing information about the iPhone product much easier.  For example showing users how to do screen captures or how to setup Gmail on your iPhone. Smart, very smart Apple. On the Windows 7 Phone your screwed...I wanted to put some screen shots in my blog but that only way that is going to happen is if I fire up my old iPhone and take a picture of the Samsung Focus. Again, way to impress the user base Microsoft.
• Connect to hidden wireless networks - Part of the reason I wanted to move to a Windows phone is that Microsoft is "usually" friendlier to us techno geeks of the world.  They "usually" do not hide everything from the user if the user digs into the OS. As an extra measure of security some of us geeks (and companies for that matter) like to hide the SSID used to connect to wireless network from the man, but now that I have a Windows Phone I'm forced to broadcast my SSID. Fail.
• No Access to the File System - Ok fine this feature is not on the iPhone either but this is part of the reason that I switched to the Windows Phone platform in the first place.  Where is "My Documents" folder? This is missing feature is the reason that you cannot simply insert an MicroSD card and view the contents or side load MP3's and documents.  Way to piss off your existing Mobile 6.5 users Microsoft.
• ITunes - You do not need iTunes anymore.....Not wait this is a good thing!

Microsoft is scheduled to release an "update" to Windows 7 Phone in Q1 of 2011. The jury is still out on what will be in that release and what won't.  I really hope some if not all of these features will be address in some fashion.

Ebay Anyone?

Regardless I've decided to commit to this phone as there are some features I do really like (See next posting). So after 4 days I've handed over my iPhone 3GS to my wife and put her 3G up on eBay and someone has already put a $100 bid on it...Maybe he read this blog.

To Be Continued........

The First 48hrs: Moving from the IPhone to the Samsung Focus

Normally I would not post this kind of thing but I’ve gotten so many questions regarding my recent jump to the windows 7 phone I thought I would share my experience of making the jump to a Windows 7 Phone.  So I finally decided to join the ranks of the masses and start a blog. So here we go.....

OK let’s start off with a few background points;

1) I'm a windows fan boy. I’ve worked with Microsoft Software and have made my career on the MS platform for the last 18 years.  That being said I've been using an iPhone for the last 2 years because it was the best thing on the market at the time. But nothing pained me more than carrying around a closed off Apple product and installing the dreaded ITunes.

2) I mainly use my phone as a "phone" (novel as that may seem) and for email.  Though I could not live without the mapping and internet searching on the phone now that I've been using it for 2 years.

3) I was considering upgrading to an iPhone 4 but as I'm only 18 months into a 3 year term with Rogers, and they have "limited" stock on the iPhone 4's I decided to take the hardware "upgrade" and jump into the Windows 7 Phone market.

So I jumped to the Samsung Focus as soon as I could....Well as soon as Rogers would sell me the "available" Focus...

It's Available To Purchase:

After surfing the web and reviewing the phones, 5 phone calls to Rogers customer service, 3 visits to Rogers location, numerous failed attempts to order the phone on the Rogers site, and angry emails to Rogers Customer service I finally received a Samsung Focus running the hot off the presses Windows 7 Phone OS one month after its release.

More Memory Please:

To start with I decided to upgrade the phone by inserting a 16G SanDisk micro SD. While stepping though process of doing this I began to worry...Are the masses going to be able to perform these steps, should I not be able to simply insert a micro SD card and be off to the races...My heart sinks a little as I start to wonder if I'm going to regret this move.

After a few attempts my phone finally recognized the additional 16G of Ram (24G in total) running under Windows Phone 7. All is good right? I’ll take the wait and see approach and start using the phone.

I played with the OS bringing up the web browser, application store, etc. and I'm immediately impressed by the Samsung Focus screen, the colors are bright and screens crisp.  So far so good

I proceed to setup my email, both personal (Gmail connecting using ActiveSync) and my company Exchange server. Wow the email client is awesome, way better than the iPhone email client, filtering by tags and unread, much more businesslike and very responsive.  Now I'm getting excited again about the phone.

I install the Zune software on my Fujitsu E780 Lifebook, and grab 10G of music and 2G's of photos then begin the synchronization to the phone.  After a few minutes I'm listening to some 80's hair band on my phone and life is good. Or is it?

I decide to set my wallpaper to a great photo of my kids and BOOM!  The phone crashes and reboots itself.  After the reboot my all my settings, music and photos are gone and the OS is only reporting 14.5G of memory....WTF.....

I hit the laptop and do some googling, and low and behold what do I find...My memory is not the "right kind". For details on upgrading your Focus check out the gory detail on the Samsung site, if you’re interested. The long and the short of it is that not only did the memory not work because the memory I selected was not fast enough but it bricked the memory card.  Yes the 16G card that I paid $40 for is now useless.  Apparently I missed the fine print on the Samsung website, and I quote

"Once a micro SD card has been integrated into a Windows Phone 7 device's file system, it will no longer be readable or writable on any other devices such as computers, cameras, printers, and so on. This includes an inability to format the micro SD card for use in these devices."

WTF....Not a good start, how is Microsoft going to gain market share in the phone world if something that was supported on Windows Mobile 6.5 does not work in Windows 7 Phone and it can possibly destroy your memory card.  My excitement quickly faded…

Where Can I Find A Good Cup Of Coffee:

But being the good Microsoft Fanboy I am I soldier on and try to embrace my new phone. After removing the dead SD card, rebuilding my phone, and setting up the emails again I start using the phone again. 

Even though I'm a MS Fanboy I typically use Google for searching and maps. Let's face it Google Search and Maps are more mature products.  So I start playing with Microsoft’s Bing Search and Maps.  I type "coffee" into Bing Maps and what comes back from the search..."Nothing found"....WTF....

In Google Maps if you do this search a bunch of coffee shops would come up on the map with information about them, a very useful feature that I use all the time on the iPhone....Again WTF...

So I hit the laptop again and Google around for the issue...Nothing...but I do find screenshots of the Focus with the exact same search with the expected results. Is my phone broken? So I spend the next couple of hours playing with the settings and finally I figure it out.

On the phone, under "Setting/Region and Languages" is a setting for the "Browser and Search Languages". My phone is set to "English (Canada)" which makes sense right, I'm in Canada after all....Wrong...Once I change it to "English (United States) both Bing Search and Maps add an additional new results tab called "Local" and it has the expected results of coffee shops in my area.  So I guess I need to be in the US to be local in Vancouver...WTF....

....To be continued.