A Wii for Christmas

We got a Wii for Christmas before they started being available on Amazon for the original prices than what’s available on eBay. Oh well, all that matters is that we have one!

Besides being fun, we wanted one so we could get our almost four-year-old off the Xbox 360. He just likes moving things around on the screen and playing like we do, but there really aren’t many kid friendly games for the Xbox. But, if he’s going to play any games, it’s going to be ones that keep him active, such as the Sports on the Wii. He’s very good at the boxing!  Instead of learning what buttons to push, he only needs to move the controllers.

I’m still getting used to not using many buttons to play, but it’s fun. I can’t wait to get the old Mario games and the classic controller so I can play my favorite games again.

I like that you can set a PIN for some things on the Wii, but what about for just about everything? That’s another reason we wanted him to stop messing with the Xbox, because he’d go in and change all the settings. Unfortunately he can easily delete the Miis on the Wii if he wants to.

I love the Wii because it has Wifi built-in. Since I have the Wifi Max Dongle hooked up to my computer for my Nintendo DS, it also works with anything else that needs a wireless Internet connection, such as the Wii. We did run into a problem when downloading the updates though. Changing the Dongle’s settings to channel 11 sped up the downloading.  I think channel 1 is also recommended.

For anyone wondering about the graphics on the Wii: it is not noticeable. You have too much fun playing to notice anything. I also don’t really care about graphics when playing games though. Having fun is what matters.

Things I like:

• Small (Can be stored anywhere.)
• Easy to use (Doesn’t have a lot of features like the Xbox 360 to get lost in.)
• Better parental control than Xbox 360 (Four-year-old is smart enough to go into someone else’s profile to get out of the parental control restrictions.)

Things I don’t like:

• Sensor bar (Four-year-old likes to move it.)
• Long download wait time (For updates, news, shop, etc.)
• Nunchuk (I just don’t like it.)
• Exiting the game before ejecting the disc. (Other systems do not require this. The Wii asks you to insert the disc.)
• No profiles (I like having profiles so I know what saved games are mine and no one else can delete them.)

If you have a family with kids, the Wii really is the best video game system to have.

Windows Vista SP1, Nintendo Wii and FeedDemon

Work has been keeping me so busy, I’m having a hard time reading feeds in Google Reader and keeping up with them. Anyone have any good tips with remembering to open Google Reader? I just have a habit of forgetting.

Here are a few stories that I managed to read in Google Reader this week:

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Release Candidate

I read on Lifehacker that Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Release Candidate is now available for those of you who are brave. If it wasn’t for all of the troubles I had on my last computer and how much time I had spent on it to find out it wasn’t going to work right, I would install SP1 RC on my new computer. But, until the final release is out, I’m waiting. I don’t want to risk finding out something doesn’t work right and have to spend even more time trying to fix another computer.

I did hear that SP1 is supposed to speed up Vista a little. But, for someone with a lot of RAM, is it going to be noticeable at all?  Vista is already fast for me, so I wonder if I will notice an increase in speed.

Keep in mind, if installing the RC, you will have to uninstall it before installing the final release. So, it might be best to wait.

Nintendo Launches Raincheck Program for the Wii

Because of the Wii shortage, Nintendo is teaming up with GameStop to allow people to pay $249 up front for a Wii. You won’t leave with a Wii, but you can go back to the store and pick it up in January. Might be a tease walking out with a receipt that says you just bought a Wii, but you’ll know that you’ll be back in January to grab your own Wii.

For more about the program and updates, read about it over at Engadget.

Most Popular Windows RSS Reader

This is a perfect topic since I have such a hard time keeping up with Google Reader. Part of that is Google Reader isn’t local. I know Google Reader has an offline feature, but you need to be online to turn it on. Why not just automatically sync with an application every so often?  Gmail has IMAP, now Google Reader needs the ability to sync with a feed reader.

I read over at Jeffro2pt0 about FeedDemon which you can sync with NewsGator. I have always been a fan of NewsGator, but this year I became hooked to how easy it is to read feeds in Google Reader and access ’starred’ items. It would be great to access these in a feed reader as well.

FeedDemon seems to have a lot of features. I’m not sure that I want a whole lot of features, which is why I had liked the NewsGator plugin for Outlook.  I do like the News Bins feature, which is kind of like starring feed items in Google Reader, but in a different way.

To find out what other features FeedDemon has, read the post on Jeffro2pt0.

Anyone else have a favorite feed reader?  Share in the comments.

Judge a Post By the Images

I may be the only one who is guilty of this, but I thought I would write about it anyway and hopefully get feedback from others who are guilty as well.

I use Google Reader for reading feeds, so I’m able to quickly scan each post as they go by. I actually don’t read post titles first. I look at the image to see what the post is about. If the image doesn’t interest me, I move on to the next post. If there aren’t any images or they are too far down, I am forced to scan the title. Images are like a second title for your post, but usually without words.

So, having images in posts can actually be very important, especially if you want me to read them. I do subscribe to a couple blogs that don’t usually use images, but that’s okay if I remember that while reading them.

Posts about products are probably easier to find images for. Screenshots of software and other things are easy, too. But, how do you find an image for something like a thought?

Do you judge a post by the images or lack of?

My New Computer

I know I’ve been slacking with new posts, but I’ve been getting used to my new computer and setting it up how I like. I’ve also had more work to keep me busy.

My new computer has an AMD Athlon 64 x2 2.6GHz Dual-Core Processor with 2GB of RAM. It is also running Windows Vista Home Premium. Please do not leave comments about how bad Vista is, because I’m actually having a wonderful experience unlike some. I also didn’t have a choice of Vista or XP. I probably would have chosen XP, but am glad that I didn’t have a choice now that I’ve given Vista a chance.

There were a couple annoyances and they were easily disabled. One was the Welcome Center. Who really needs that to start every time Windows loads? The other was the User Account Control asking permission for every little thing.

The only thing Vista is missing for me is VPN access. I know the feature is there, but I can’t use it because my work’s VPN requires MS-CHAPv1, which Microsoft decided to remove that, without giving you an option. This means you need to spend money to upgrade the VPN server.

You might be wondering how I connect to work’s VPN if I’m using Vista. I am running VMWare with XP installed in it. I only need to use my work’s application with the VPN. Sure, it’s an extra step to connect and do work, but I’m used to it now.

Please do not comment about how I could just run XP on the computer instead. I like some of the features in Vista that XP is just missing, but also, that would mean I’d have to go and actually search for all the drivers. I do not have separate discs for any of the hardware, just one Gateway Windows Vista disc with everything in it.

There is only one thing I had to search for drivers for that a simple Google search found right away. That was the ZDWLan for my WIFIMax dongle because it needed drivers to work correctly on Vista. Unfortunately, I can’t find the link again to put it up for anyone who might need it.

Mitch over at Mitchelaneous has written about things he likes and doesn’t like about Vista.  I’m glad to see someone not just pointing out the bad things and then going back to XP just because of a few bad things. If I had done that with Linux, I would have never figured problems out. In fact, if most people did that, Linux probably wouldn’t be what it is today.

If you like Vista, please feel free to leave a comment about what you like.

Personalized USB Thumb Drives

With Christmas just around the corner, it might be hard to think of what to give. If anyone reading this knows me, I would love a new thumb drive. I had one that a co-worker had broke on accident. It would work every so often, but just this year, it finally quit working.

Personalized Flash Drives are durable, Hi-Speed USB drives. You can choose from 14 colors and even add free custom laser engraving, along with security software. That sounds like a great deal! And, these little drives are affordable as well.

The free personalization lets you choose from 32 themes to have engraved on the front and add your own text on the back.

I think I might order a few and throw some pictures of my two sons on them and send them to family members. Then they could throw any other pictures that I send of them on it.

Sponsored by Pexagon Tech