www.TheJoe.com

First off, I just want to thank Leo Laporte for adding our camera feed of us waiting in line at the AT&T store for our iPhone 3G.   Our internet connection dropped minutes before the door opened and we were unable to broadcast our purchase.  Angel hung in there with me and we got our phones very quickly.

Apparently, there was an issue with activation and we were told they would do the sale of the phone to us and we would have to activate it through iTunes when we got home.

So, I put together a quick and dirty video of what happened when I plugged my iPhone 3G in the second time.   Bear with me, I was tired and punchy

I will try to do a better video later. I am gonna go relax now.

Thanks again LEO!

So, Angel and I decided to wait out the iPhone.  We drove around to the Apple Store at Town Square and it was dead around midnight.  We found out that they are not allowing people to wait and will be allowing people to get there at 5AM.

We drove by the AT&T store just east of Paradise on Flamingo, and there was nobody there.  The AT&T store at Pecos and Flamingo had people waiting.  One guy had been there since 6:30PM.

We then went to our neighborhood AT&T store, it’s at Eastern & Serene in Henderson NV.  There were about 15 people in line, so we rushed home, grabbed the laptop. Went back to wait in line,  we’re about 20 people back.

It’s 2 AM now, and we have one more person that is behind us.  Vibe is good.

We’re watching Leo Laporte’s live feed at http://www.stickam.com/leolaporte we sent him an email to see if he wants to pull a feed from us to broadcast.

Should be good if he does.  I got some pictures, I’ll get some posted soon.

Happy 4th of July everyone!   Today also marks my 10 year anniversary with Angel.  We got married on July 4th, 1998.  Wow, 10 YEARS.

So for our 10 year, I decided to do something a little different.  I had stars named for Angel and I.  We got a dual star grouping one for her and one for me.  The cluster is named “TheJoe and AngelGirl 10 Years Together”.

We got these really cool Certificates and a star map etc etc.  I will add the pictures of them when we can get a large format scanner.  They are like 11×17.  So, I’ll get them scanned in and posted soon.

Happy 4th Everyone!

Well, the end of this week will mark my second month in World of Warcraft.  It’s been an interesting experience.   I can definitely say that it wasn’t what I expected.   I have many years of experience in online gaming.  I have played since the early days of Ultima Online and since the original Everquest launched.  I even played the very early massive online game of Meridian 59.  Before that there were Doom, Quake, Quake II and others.

Well, World of Warcraft (WoW) has surprised me.  I was expecting your average run of the mill linear leveling MMO.  (And NO Diablo II is not a Massively Multiplayer Online game - MMO - Someone said today that it was)  For all intents and purposes, on the surface, WoW is like any other leveling MMO out there.  You go from level 1 to X and work your way and work on gear along the way.  The “End-Game” is comprised of raiding etc.  However, an aspect that I have not seen other games get close to right. Is the Player vs Player aspect.  This is very integrated in to the WoW gaming experience.  I am not normally a PvP type of player, but I like how it’s implemented in WoW and have surprised myself on how much I am enjoying it.

Now, with that said, PvP generally brings out the kiddies and the immaturities.  This is also true of WoW.  Originally, a group of my friends and I started on a regular PvP realm (server) and were just wore down by the level of immaturity on the server that we were going to give up and go to a regular non-pvp server.  Deciding to give it another go, we checked out a Role Playing PvP realm (RP-PVP).  Generally, Role Playing servers have a more mature level of players on it.  So, we wanted to see if this was true with WoW.  So far it is.

We found the Emerald Dream server and joined up with a fledgling guild that has great people (so far) :).  We joined up with Endless Rain ( http://endless.wowstead.com/ ).  We’ve met some great and not so great people and overall the experience has been MUCH better. If you’re looking for a good start in WoW or a change, check us out.

- Zenshinzo, Level 60 Night Elf Druid - Emerald Dream server

As far as life goes.  Well, we have to upgrade the server software again.   The never ending updating continues.  CentOS is now 5.2 and I have been testing the stability on a couple of our boxes.  So far so good.

We’re still working on migrating all of our machines to the Mac platform.  We’re gonna go with a 15″ MacBook Pro for Angel and a 17″ for Andrew.  Draylan’s probably going to get a 13.3″ one when we are able.  I was originally going to get stand alone Mac Pro for our “server” box, but these new Intel Extreme iMac’s are looking promising.

We’re working on moving to Los Angeles here in the next couple of months.

AND  TechnoChubby.com is still coming soon :)  Getting closer, I have fleshed out the categories and have a test site running.

That’s about it.  Tune in next time….

I really need to get crackin on regular updates.

Anyways, It’s June and it’s been a hell of a year.  We’re still working on getting TechnoChubby.com up and running.   vBulletin finally released the 3.7 version of their software and we’ve installed it and now need to flesh it out before going live. (Kumeelyun [Zelig] has been waiting ever so patiently for me to get the back end done.)

On a personal note, Dana and I have split up after 7 years.  I have been dealing with this emotionally for the past couple of weeks.  The only depth I will go into is “It is what it is”

Back on a tech note, I have decided to try to twitter more often.  I have been regularly listening to MacBreak Weekly ( http://twit.tv/mbw )  The dialog from the show has me wanting to twitter more.

We’re moving forward with life in our household.  I am re-organizing yet again, seems like it never ends.

As Catherwood used to say: “Onwards and Upwards”

PS I love my Mac

You know for years, I had been on the PC platform.  I was originally a Mac user, but in 1989 I made the general switch to the PC world.  Now, I am back on the mac platform and I am loving it.

One of the other points I would like to make, is that I have always been OS independent.  I believe that you use what OS that you need to get the job done properly and efficiently. I have always had an issue with those “evangelistic” types that were so pro mac or pro windows.

So, here I am on a plane and watching people bring out their laptops and see a lot of PC laptops.  I sat here watching someone’s windows based machine begin to resume and hang.  Yet another PC start up and take a considerable amount of time to load and get to where they want to be on their computer.

Witnessing these events, I pull out my Macbook Pro.  Turn it on and am able to write these ideas down within seconds of pushing the power button.

I now see why mac users have been so gung-ho.  It just works.

So, it’s now my second week in World of Warcraft. I have to say, and maybe out of desperation, that it’s not as bad as I expected it to be.

I played the game heavily during beta. I was not impressed with it then. I believe that was about 3 years ago. Since then, I think it has improved dramatically.

It’s definitely a social game, it’s not as fun playing solo than it is when grouped. Another major change for me is that we’re on a PvP server and that goes a lot better when you are running around with a group of friends.

The major thing I like about it is the ability to tweak the UI and add various helper mods that make the game play much easier than it already is. My list of MUST add World of Warcraft mods:

First off, I use WoWMatrix to install and manage my mods. ( www.wowmatrix.com )

Then install the following MUSTS:

1) QuestHelper - this shows you where your quest objectives are located.  Also, if you are in a group, and your fellow group members have it installed, it will show you their quests.

2) BeQL - An enhanced quest log.  This adds all kinds of things to your quest log that gives you info.  The main reason why it’s on my list, is that if you enable “Quest progression to party chat” it informs your party when you get quest items so your not always asking “How many more do you need?”

3) Cartographer - General map addon.  Adds some features to the map and keeps it from taking over your entire screen.

4)  Titan Panel - Adds an information bar on the top and bottom of your screen that gives you all sorts of useful info. Bag space, gold, XP, etc etc.

Those would be my key recommendations for starter add ons.

I am enjoying WoW so far and will report more as I go along.

- Zenshinzo, level 36 Night Elf Druid

I found out that VMWare is doing a contest to win a Macbook Air. You need to post a video to YouTube with the tag ‘switchtofusion‘. I decided to do an entry a while ago. However, I have been busy with a lot of different things and was unable to do the wonderful video ’showing off’ what VMWare can do. I am a VMWare NUT, and I LOVE Fusion even more. (It was one of the deciding factors in my going Mac)

In it’s stead, I decided to throw together a quick video of why I switched from World of Warcraft to VMWare Fusion. (I know, I know.. it’s not the same type of app. I just thought it would be fun) Enjoy:

Anyways, I do want to say that I have been a virtualization user for quite some time. From the very early days of VMWare (geez, what years ago). I have tried Parallels, Virtual PC, and a host of others. I have not found anything to work quite as well as VMWare does. I use all of their products, Fusion, GSX/ESX, Server, and Workstation.

I was really happy when they came out with a Mac version, VMWare Fusion. It was very instrumental in my switching over to the Mac platform. I have to say, that I am quite pleased with how it runs. I really like the Unity interface. (See my MacVista post in this blog) I love the seamless integration. It just plain ROCKS!

OK OK, I’ll stop raving about it, I just wanted to share all of this with you.

GO BUY VMWare Fusion! If you don’t have a Mac, GO BUY A MAC, THEN BUY VMWare Fusion!

See more about switching to fusion: http://www.vmware.com/switchtofusion/

Recently, we have been making the switch to the Mac platform here.  Angel and Andrew have switched almost entirely.  Dana’s kind of stuck in a windows world (shame).  Well, let me say this.  The only drawback from being on the mac platform is the lack of good games for the mac.   If you are purely or 95% a gamer, then the mac platform is not for you.  This is odd to me, since the mac platform bodes well for graphics, multi-tasking etc.

With all that said,  I have need to have some sort of game to play.  So, we decided to try World of Warcraft.  Some of you know, I have been an avid MMO player for over 10 years.  I have played the gamut of them.  From Meridian 59, EverQuest, Earth and Beyond, EVE, Entropia Universe, EverQuest II, Shadowbane, Star Wars Galaxies, and a host of others.

We pushed back on World of Warcraft because it seemed very easy to play. Almost TOO easy.  Well, I must say, almost a week playing and it IS easy.  However, it’s not so easy that it takes the fun out of the game play.  It’s actually a good balance between ease of play and fun. (get back to me in a couple weeks and I’ll let you know more as well)

We also decided to join a good friend of ours on a PvP server.  I am surprised I went this route, since I am not big into PvP, but the way I look at it, if the PvE play style gets boring to me, I can always PvP.

So, if you are interested in joining us in World of Warcraft or WoW as some call it.  We’re on the Gorgonnash (US) servers and we’re Alliance based.  My in game main character is Zenshinzo.  Send me a tell if you pop in. We’re currently in my friend’s guild. However, as things progress this may change.

Hope to see you!

Went to go see Ironman today.  I have always had an affinity towards Ironman.  He has always been the epitome of how a normal guy could become a super hero.  Plus his behavior  has always been akin to how I am.  Kinda wild, loves the girls, and a drinker. (well, I am not a drinker anymore but I still love to have fun)

It was a good movie.  One of the better comic-turned-movie realization so far.   Favreau did a great job directing and being the bodyguard.  The ending was classic. (not tellin, go see it!) Anyways, I recommend this flick to any and all.  Had great pacing, no real slow moments.  Good Stuff!

Also, lately I have been playing with the Camfrog software.  This is a video chat room software.  Thanks to my buddy Nightline for turning me on to this.  I have been hanging out in the _FaLleN_AnGeLs_ room.  Interesting stuff.  You’ll have to go check it out for yourself.

This video chat stuff has given me ideas on what to do with the HappyFornicator.com domain.  Looks like I’ll be setting up another social/video site soon.

Technochubby is coming along.  I am working on the servers and will get the site up in the next week or two at the latest.  Good Stuff!