December 2005 - Posts - Into the mind of Gerlach

Into the mind of Gerlach

An Xbox MVP

December 2005 - Posts

Just because it is funny.

I saw this as someone's signiture in the forums.

"-CAN VEGITARIANS EAT ANIMAL CRACKERS?"

 

I jsut thought that was funny.

 

Credit: bakgunner 911

Live.com Feed Subscriber
Heh, I was checking my post, and it seems that I have a Live.com RSS subscriber.

Sweetness!

Blog Piracy Running Rampant.
I have been reading some feeds (Om Malik, Jeff Jarvis, and Steve Rubel), and it seems that blog piracy is running rampant.

Teachers preach to you that piracy is illegal, and if found, you would fail.  Yet, there are many websites that are ripping their content, IN FULL.  Not only are they doing that, but, they then put ads like Google Adsense (and such) there and MAKE MONEY off OTHERS contents.

Steve's response was to restrict his RSS to little captions (or that is what he thinks he will do.).  That will work, by making it harder.  That is a good step in the right direction.  Steve, I hope it gets solved soon.

Om's response was that Google needs to get involved.  If they are using Google's Adsense technology, Google knows who the money is going to.  Know who the money going to, and then you can trace it to the individual.  I am with Om, that Google needs to get involved.  Oh, and Jeff Feels the same.

Makes me wonder...is anyone stealing the small amount of content from me?
I love Jarvis's view.
Perfect, simply perfect.

The so-called and self-appointed American Family Association, Donald Wildmon’s religious freak show, is trying to kill NBC’s Book of Daniel because they think it might offend them. Well, I don’t give a damn if it offends them. Change the channel. Go watch the 700 Club, which offends me, though I’m not trying to keep you from watching it.

I just wrote a paper, that (very basic) encorporates the same view.  I talked about cencorship, and encorporated how people look to censor things because it might "offend them".  I wish this post happened earlier, as I would probably have used it. 

Great Job Jeff!

Via Jeff Jarvis - Buzzmachine.com
Tried to set some people straight, but cant.
I am sitting right now, in JFK in the Jet Blue Terminal (currently, if looking at Gate 6) to its right.  I am on their free wifi.  Now while this is cool, for killing the 90 minutes I have to sit here (another story), I can not connect to 1 portion of .Net. will connect.

I tried signing into Live Messenger (Beta), and it didnt go.  So, I thought...eh, its a beta ok.  Tried to go to http://messenger.msn.com , nothing again.  It loads the page where I sign in, and I press signin, and INSTANTLY tells me it cant work.

So, my "tried to set people straight", regards the Xbox.com forums.  As anyone can tell when you go to the forums, you signin with a .Net passport.  Well...I cant connect.  It could have been a good use of time, cleaning out those forums.

More later.

Sorry
Sorry for the lack of the posts lately.  The 360 news is slow.  The news should pick up soon,as we reach the launch of some amazing games like MotoGP URT2006, Gears of War, and Ghost Recon: Advanced War Fighter.

That, and I am home for a week (finally), so I had to spend time with family and friends.  I will be back in full swing around January 26th.

Xbox360s available at Bestbuys!
Reports around the forums are confirming the "rumor" that Bestbuy had 360s yesterday.  Many people are reporting that they are EXTREMELY happy that they went to their Bestbuy's (BB) and picked one up.

Shortage?  No.

Motogp.com, doing it the right way.
Motogp.com is doing an amazing job, keeping people coming back to their site.  They are constantly updating the site with season and reace recaps, personal bio's and other MotoGP news.  Personally, I LOVE this idea.  Not only do I need my fixing, but they are constantly updating, so people will return and check often.

Now....for an RSS feed.

THQ, you are SO good.
MotoGP 2006, is stunning.  Hopefully they capture the great camera angles of the 1st/2nd games (Hated the 3rds view...was different), and the gameplay of the first 2 as well.

But graphically, it is STUNNING.



What annoys me about being an Xbox.com MVP
It isnt the fact that I am an Xbox MVP, that I hate.  NOOOOO Way.  The product is so cool, the team that I moderator with (most are also MVPs) are amazing, my MVP lead is the freakin BEST YOU CAN GET, and the Xbox Product team is probably the best team you can work with at Microsoft.  Down to earth people, who are funny, but when the time comes, they are helpful and do their job (provide us with info :))

What I hate, is the LACK of respect the the Xbox MVPs get.  I am part of the beta for a program (Great job team!, but, I am not sure I can say just yet...I think I can, but wont take a chance), and I am in the beta newsgroup.  The discussion game up for Xbox360 gamercard support in the program.  Seeing that, I was all for it.  I posted saying it would be a great feature (especially to add on top of the contact card).  I stated "Some of the other Xbox MVPs, and myself....".  So, someone replies with "You are an Xbox MVP, must have been hard to get :P)  Yea, it was.  The amount of knowledge and time I put in helping the community, got me the recognition.  I didnt do it for the award, the award was just the bonus.

I dont even know if this dude is an MVP.  He is testing some software, but doesnt mention he is an MVP.

Oh and also forgot, when the MVP summit rolled around, the BIG thing was the Xbox360, and many many many MVPs (not with the division) wanted to get in.  They want all the benefits, but some just think it is a JOKE to be an XBox MVP.  ugh

Want Xbox360 Press Releases or Media Alerts?
John Porcaro has set up a couple of feeds for Press Releases and Media Alerts.

Take a gander at his post to see if ya want the feeds.  Trust me, subscribe.  They wil be good feeds to check.

Yes, we and Xbox do listen to our customers!
So, Microsoft rolled out an update to Backwards Compatibility last week.  Some people experienced some trouble, and the update was pulled down.  Then it went back out, and some people (my guess is they had both the new update and the old version 2), had problems where they could play NO BC games.

Well, the comunity (in one of the best ways) brought it to our attention at the forums.  The Xbox Team, that DOES read the forums took note of it, and have put out the updater again (to the download form, where you can burn it to a CD/DVD).

With this even newer update, all it does is fix the problem.  No games were added.

If you had any problems like this, please read this post at the Xbox.com forums.

Click to Read

Google updates Gmail with 3 new features!
I must say, I really am a fan of the Gmail email service provided by Google.  You have alot of space, and the BEST part is that it collects similar emails from a sender (or list serve), and makes them into 1 window/conversation.  It is the best feature I think I have seen.

So, they have now added "Vacation Messaging", mobile email and Group emailing (a little late, but good none the less).

You can read more at Google

Tim Montgomery retires. Good.
Ok, this whole "I didnt know it was steroids thing" really annoys me.  You took it, shut up and accept the consequences.

Now Tim is retiring because he doesnt want to come back after his 2 year ban (which also made him lose his "world record") under a cloud of suspicion.  First, Time...it isnt suspicion.  It is embarassment.  You tried to cheat the system, and you were found out.

Back to this "I didnt know..." shananigans.  What if you said:

1) I didnt know I was too drunk to drive.
2) I didnt know the gun was loaded when I pointed it at him, and shot.

ALthough those 2 are of higher...calibur (lack of a better word), you still wont get away with it.  This takes a shot at you, Barry Bonds, as well!

Yahoo Has More

Tim Montgomery suspended 2 years, and stripped of World Record.
It has been finalized.  Tim Montgomery (United States, was 100M World Record Holder), was suspended 2 years for testing positive for steroids.  As an added bonus to the suspension, Montgomery had his "World Record" revoked.

Yahoo has more

Edit:  To correct myself, he didnt test positive.  They just had enough substantial element to believe he did.  Either way, its for the better.
Sorry about the delay
We moved to a different IP, or something, and we were waiting for all of the ISPs (or most of them to catch up to us).

It seems who ever assigns my IP, and whos DNS cache I access took a little longer than expect.

But I am Back!

The New Blog Has Launched!
Well...the old blog, on a new system.

We are now running Community Server 1.1.  I will be fooling with the theme for a little to get it the way I want it to look (cant figure out how to change header color..hmph).

This post is also a test for my MSN Alerts Feed.

I would like to give a big thanks to Susan, and everyone else that made this blog, and the move possible.  Thanks again everyone!

Test Post for CS
Text Post for CS.
Who's 95th in the NCAA top 100 Ranking in the 1650?
Me.

My time was a little off, but it was good (especially since I took off 3 months June-Aug).

Hopefully at the Big East Championships (at my home pool, Long Island New York!!!!!), I go a little faster. Goal is around 1545.

Complete top 100 Rankings

Oh yea, I am 8th in the mile in big east.

Big East Top Times

Blog will be down tomorrow
We are migrating over to CS 1.1 starting tomorrow. So the blog will be down for some time. Not sure when it will be back up, but I'll post when it is.
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