So I moved my desktop running Windows 7 to a part of the house where running cables would be just plain old ugly. To fix the situation I went out and bought a Wireless USB from Linksys. This was not an easy decision, I’m not exactly the biggest fan of Linksys, but there was an open box item for $60 a Wireless N USB adapter (WUSB600N ver 2.0). I figured the worst was I would return it as well.

Well, as it turned out I think I might have a couple ideas why someone returned it in the first place.

First, Windows 7: The drivers that ship with the adapter are for Vista and do not work with Windows 7. I tried everything from manually opening the device manager and trying to manually install the drivers, no dice. I tried using generic USB adapters, no luck. A pretty frustrating experience, especially when Cisco/Linksys haven’t posted any Windows 7 drivers as of this past weekend. Poor showing on their part I thought. Finally, exasperated and near to returning it I read somewhere to check Windows Update.

Now this is an interesting problem, it’s a chicken and egg situation. For Windows Update, you need a net connection, but the thing I’m trying to install is what gives me the net connection. Sigh. Luckily for me I can stretch a cord out to the computer and get the net, I wonder about those that can’t. Could this be the reason someone returned this? Regardless, if you are in this predicament, yes Windows Update has the latest drivers and the entire thing was up and running in seconds.

As for the device itself, I can only guess that another reason someone might have returned it is the poor reception quality if you use the included USB extender cable. I can’t quite understand this, but the extender cable actually drops the reception quite dramatically even though I can then take the USB adapter closer to the wireless router. Very odd. Connecting it directly to the computer was fine (and I tried multiple USB slots).

So moral of the story (1) Windows 7, trust Windows Update first especially in these early days as manufacturers are probably releasing to Microsoft before the consumer on their websites and (2) I’m still not convinced on the quality of Linksys products and reviewers around the web seem to agree…

Do I dare reveal my geekdom? Yesterday I was in the mood to play one of my old PC games: Might and Magic: The World of Xeen to be exact. Naturally this game which came out in the early-mid nineties no longer runs on our superior hardware.

For those not in the know there is a fantastic piece of emulation software available for all platforms (well, at least Mac, Windows and Linux) called DosBox. It’s free and works remarkably well in emulating the old DOS 5 days when you had to mess with EMM386 and memory managers to get the most out of your 640k system.

On my Macbook I also loaded another freeware utility called Dapplegrey which makes even all that messing around that much easier. Customizing the environment for just Might and Magic I loaded the game. But as I was messing with all the different customizations I noticed the option to emulate the Gravis Ultrasound. I took a double take and immediately ran to my cupboard to look for the old bright-red Gravis Ultrasound PnP board that I had skulking somewhere. I even remember the day I bought it at a computer store in the Avalon Mall in St. John’s…

Yes, now I am truly aging myself and proving to the world how much of a geek I actually am. The Gravis Ultrasound. In the days of the 386 and 486, when Windows had yet to supplant the game world as the operating system of choice, there was only one sound card choice if you were a gamer, music-lover and a rebel: The Canadian-produced Gravis Ultrasound.

The card was amazing. It was the first sound card to use real instruments as samples. When it came to Midi, it was as good as or better than my Yamaha keyboard at the time. When it came to games, it was a pain to get going, but when you did it, not only did you have the satisfaction of having beaten more of arcane DOS but you had superior sound.

To walk the dungeons of Ultima Underworld with real flutes and strings, now these were all things to behold. It was a simpler time. No XBOX Live here folks!

I didn’t find it last night, but somewhere my card still exists along with the incredibly expensive 1MB of ram I installed onto it at the time. It’s too bad Gravis could never beat Creative at the sound card game, the card truly was amazing for its time.

“S.B.O.S. Installed.”

Today marks a day almost 5 years in the making. Today, BioWare’s Mass Effect hits the stores. I rarely talk about work on this blog, let alone my former employers, but I have to say, I haven’t been this excited about a game launch since Baldur’s Gate. True, this is the first BioWare game launch since Baldur’s Gate that I have not been within the hallowed walls of BioWare Corp. and I think that has something to do with it.

Mass Effect is also the first game from BioWare that I managed to not completely ruin all the parts of the story. Believe me that’s not an easy task when your friends are all working on it and the documentation is available to you! By all indications the game will take the world by storm which is good as being on the inside can sometimes colour your judgement of what is good and what is not. Sadly I probably won’t get a chance to fully enjoy the game till the new year after I complete some travelling.

Congratulations to all my friends at BioWare and hope that you all get a well-deserved rest. Everyone else, go buy the game (and a XBOX 360)

Commence with the beating. Commence with the laughter. Commence with your “I told you so’s” and your “what the hell is wrong with you’s”. I have officially sold out.

Just before I drove across Canada, I decided that my sanity would only be kept in one piece if and only if I had enough music to listen to. I took out my trusty SanDisk MP3 player which had served me during my two-month long trip on the Trans-Siberian. While the MP3 player had worked as advertised, with only 2 GB of memory, I had listened to every song too many times. On top of that, early into my trip I had discovered that the randomize function was based on so much non-randomness and could never remember where it had left off. No, I said to myself, I needed to get a bigger MP3 player.

I once complained that the iPod was a fad. Something akin to the cabbage patch kids of my childhood, now completely forgotten. Well, that fad hasn’t quite died. If anything it’s grown. Standing in the Best Buy aisles looking down at the myriad of MP3 players, I swallowed my pride and gingerly held a new black iPod. I twirled the dial, listened in and then examined the competition. Well, okay, so not much of a competition really, more like peasant usurpers to a throne.

Yes folks, I am now a proud owner of an iPod.

But wait, it doesn’t stop there.

Having sold my soul to Steve Jobs (well, the remainder of my soul, I think I gave most of it away to Chris Myrick as a birthday gift once), I decided that my path to hell had been paved with silver white apple trees. Yes folks, I am typing this blog entry on a MacBook Pro courtesy of my new work place.

The worst part about it all? I like it. I like the operating system. I even like how fast it was for me to set up. I like the fact that there is a certain “linux-ness” to the operating system. I like how I was able to have my first video chat within minutes of turning the damn thing on.

Am I suddenly going to be converting to all Mac-ness? Probably not. I like Windows XP as an interface as well, heck I’ve been weaned on it! I like Gnome on my Ubuntu system as well. However for ease of use and setup, the Mac OSX beats them all hands down. If I were asked to design an interface I would have given Apple a bunch of “wants”. I think such a list of “wants” probably created the interface that is prevalent in Windows, both XP and Vista, today. Instead, what Apple has done with both the iPod and OSX is to create an operating system that I “need”. While the difference in the use of the words “want” and “need” may appear slight, the result at the end of the day is huge.

Regardless, I finally have some “i” in my life!

iDups