Raptr

As you can see I've added this badge to the sidebar on the right. I've recently discovered Raptr from a blog post on Webware on cnet.com.

Raptr is a really cool Social Network type Web App for Gamers. So this is basically the sort of thing that sucks me into it. The cool thing about this is that you download the desktop app and it will find all the games on your computer, index them, and search for updates and patches to them. It can also integrate into your Xbox Live account so that it knows when you log on to your Xbox and can show your friends what your playing. You can also have it update your Twitter, Facebook Status, etc when you play games or when you unlock achievements. It will even report games and achievements from Steam, WOW and other games/services.

When you sign up and link your Xbox Live account and download the client. It will go ahead and find the games you've played on Xbox and your computer and add them to "My Games" on your profile. From here it will tell you other people that are playing the games you're playing and will also help you find other games that you might like.

Raptr is still in beta, but it is definitely worth checking out. Sign up for an account, associate all your other accounts and download the desktop client. It will seriously only take 10-15 min and is well worth it. As usual let me know what you think in the comments section.

King's Bounty: The Legend

This game is one of the most fun games I've played in a while. I really don't play that many PC games, but I just can't put this game down. I especially like the real time Adventure mode and the turn based Combat. The tutorial for the game is adequate but lacking. For instance, you can right click on enemies and it will tell you how much chance you have of winning (Slightly Weaker, Match, Slightly Stronger, Impossible). There are a few other things that could be explained in the tutorial that you are left to figure out. However, this is also an aspect of the game I love. It doesn't hold your hand at all.

From the very beginning there are enemies around you that you will have no problem defeating and there will be enemies that you will have to face much later in the game. Also as you level up, the enemies stay at the same level of difficulty as they were before so you can come back later and have no problem with them. Another great thing is that if you fight an enemy and lose you can come back to that enemy and any troops that you defeat will not respawn in their army.

This game really has a lot of depth and is very fun to play. I definitely think that everyone should at least check out the demo and $29.99 isn't really that bad for a game even if you aren't crazy about it.

Arduino Oscilloscope

If you are interested in electronics and haven't heard about Arduino yet then you should definitely check it out. I got a Duemilanove for Christmas and it's been great fun so far. Before I bought the Harmony 880 the wheels in my head started spinning, I was thinking about how I could use Arduino to make a Universal Remote. I found an article that discussed how to start making one and what the code would look like. Sadly I don't have an oscilloscope and don't plan on spending the money for one anytime soon either. With more wheels turning I researched making an oscilloscope with the Arduino and found another article on how to do this. So now I'll show you what I've done so far to create an Arduino Oscilloscope.

First you do need to have the Arduino IDE and Processing installed on your machine (both pieces of software will run on PC, Mac and Linux). Then go to the Poor Man's Oscilloscope post and download the .PDE file that holds the processing and Arduino code. Open that file with a text editor and copy the bottom section that starts after the line
          '// The Arduino code.'
and paste that into the Arduino IDE. Now you need to hook the Arduino up to the computer and upload the sketch to the board. If this is the first sketch you are uploading I would suggest buying 'Getting Started with Arduino' by Massimo Banzi (one of the creators of the Arduino Board). There is also a getting started guide on the Arduino website. Select your operating system on the left side and that will get you up and running.

Now you need to add your sensor to Analog Pin 0 and the Vin pin. If you are trying to make an IR Decoder for the Universal Remote project you will you the IR Phototransistor into the board.

Now close the Arduino IDE and open Processing. Start a new sketch and paste in the top portion of the code from the .PDE file you downloaded (This will be all but the part we used before). You may have to change the serial port number depending on what port your Arduino is plugged into on your computer. Count the number of ports above the one you are using to connect your Arduino (not including the Arduino port) and change the line that reads:
          'port = new Serial(this, Serial.list()[0], 9600);'
change [0] to however many ports are above the one you used in the Arduino IDE to connect to the board. Run the Processing sketch and it should show you a real time graph of the input. It would probably be a good idea to test the program by doing something similar to the video above. Insert an LED and turn the lights on and off to see if you get any movement in the graph.

That should be about all you need to know. Use the comment section to discuss how you modified this project or any other Arduino projects that you've been working on.

Logitech Harmony 880

If you don't know the Harmony is Logitech's line of Universal Remotes. I found a Harmony 880 refurbished on Amazon.com for a decent price. The 880 features an LCD screen 4 soft buttons and plenty of hard buttons to control all of your normal remote features (numbers, play, rewind, fast forward, pause, etc). The remote can control up to 15 devices and can be programmed to perform up to 255 activities.
Activities are basically anything you want the remote to do. Examples could be to watch TV, watch a movie, listen to CD, play game, or pretty much anything you can think of. When you first open the Harmony remote you have to let it charge for a while until the battery is full. The remote does come with a charging cradle that you sit the remote in while it's not in use. Then connect the remote to your computer with the provided cable and launch the Harmony software. You do need to be connected to the internet for the software to launch because it needs to get the remote codes from an on-line database. After you enter your devices the wizard will help you set up the activities that you might do with the components you've entered. If you need to add any more the wizard can help you with that too. Also, if the software can't find remote codes for one of your devices or is missing a feature from the remote it can learn from your old remote by holding it up to the Harmony and pressing the button.
Once you get the remote set up like you want you just point it at your entertainment system and press an activity button. It will turn on all the right components and turn them to the right inputs for the specified activity, with just one press of a button. If something doesn't work correctly you can hit the help button and it will ask you questions and send out remote functions to try and correct the problem. You might have to do this the first time you use a function because the remote won't know which input a specified component is on, but it will remember from then on. This remote works really well and I've had no problems whatsoever out of it. I love it and it really does replace all four of the remote that I previously had to deal with. I would highly recommend this remote to anyone who has to use multiple remotes on a daily basis and especially anyone that has trouble remembering how to turn on all the components in your living room.

Light Speed Panel

If you have been reading this blog for any amount of time now you should know that I really like free stuff. Who doesn't, right? Well, I've found a new way to get free stuff, Light Speed Panel. With LSP you can take consumer surveys and earn free stuff. Most of the surveys only require 15-25 minutes of your time and you can ear from 75-150 points per survey, some surveys that are longer could even earn you up to 500 points for only 30 minutes of your time.
You may be wondering how much these points are worth, right? Well, 550 points will get you a $5 Amazon.com giftcard and 575 points will get you $5 straight into your Paypal account. There are some other really great offers for participating in surveys. Also for every survey you take you are entered into a monthly drawing for $5,000.
I even took a survey the other day that offered $50 if I was willing to participate even further. They are going to send me a special palm pilot to keep track of all tv snacks I eat for 2 weeks. To me that is definitely worth $50. I really like this site and think you should definitely check it out.

Amazon Video on Demand

I've recently fell in love with The Office, not the one I work at, but the one on NBC every Thursday night at 9:00 PM E. Since I'm just now tuning in I wanted to catch up with some previous episodes. Buying the DVDs is costly, Season 1 costs $22.99 on Amazon.com, and only six episodes aired that season. I found a way around this, however.

Pepsi Points was my answer. I've never been a big Pepsi fan, I would choose Coke if given the option, but I never really cared which carbonated beverage was washing down my lunch. That was not until I saw the Amazon.com logo plastered on the Pepsi bottle (The amazon logo has since been removed) which piqued my interested. I decided to start buying Pepsi products from the vending machine at work and see what I could actually get with Pepsi Points (I had been collecting Coke caps, but the promotions were either a) lame, b) too expensive (read: I couldn't drink that much coke in my life) or c) drawings which I knew I could never win). I soon discovered that with 5 Pepsi Points (1 point per cap) I could download most any MP3 on the Amazon.com MP3 store (totally DRM Free by the way), or with 12 points I could download an episode of a TV show. Since then I have been continuously collecting Pepsi Caps (even to the extent of picking them up when in public) so that I could earn more music and TV shows.

The experience of the Amazon Video on Demand store (previously the Amazon Unbox store) is pretty seamless. It's not the best ever but it is better than most for what it does. First you have to download the software from Amazon.com. Then you go to Amazon's Video on Demand store and select the video(s) you want to download, choose your method of payment and to which PC you want to download them to. You can also choose to watch the videos online without downloading the software if you wish. Once the videos download to your computer you can watch them whenever you want on your computer or use a Windows Media Extender like the Xbox360 to view the videos. The videos do carry a heavy DRM lock unlike the Amazon MP3 experience. Some of the frustrating things for me about the expirience is that you can't just transfer the videos to another computer; you have to download them again (there is an option to import videos into your library, but you have to be connected to the internet because of the DRM restrictions). Another problem is that I can't watch the videos on my iPod Touch. There is a mobile transfer option and I thought that I could watch them on my Samsung a727 phone which wouldn't be optimal, but it would be an alternative. However, the videos wouldn't play on my phone for some unknown reason. Amazon does offer help on the mobile option and provides a list of Microsoft certified Play for Sure devices if you happen to have one of those.

All in all this service is great as I can watch my videos in a good resolution on my TV through the Xbox360 media extender, but I would like to be able to watch these on my iPod. I don't see that happening in the near future, though, because I can see how that would be a conflicting interest for Apple as they already offer these videos in their store.

iPod Touch/iPhone Apps

Well, I got my iPod Touch Wednesday as an early Christmas present and after extensively playing with it I would like to give you my top 5 Free Applications (Hey, i'm cheap okay).

1) Mighty Docs - With Mighty Docs you can view your documents and spreadsheets from Google Docs. The great feature about Mighty Docs is that it caches the documents and spreadsheets when you open then. That way when you don't have an internet connection you can still view your documents. I love this application, it works great and is pretty fast too. Some updates I'd like to see in the future would be ability to edit documents and spreadsheets (create them also) and save changes to server when you are connected. I'd also like to see presentation functionality which I believe is being developed now. You definitely need this app if you use Google Docs.

2) Remote - I believe this application was developed my Apple. The application is simple, connect your iPod Touch/iPhone and computer to a local network and turn on iTunes on the computer. The first time that you use the app for your library it will give you a four number passcode to enter on the computer to verify the connection. From then on it remembers the library and works like a charm. All of your playlists are shown in the application or you can browse your media by artist, album, etc. This app works great if you use a media server or a home theater PC. I really like this application.

3) Facebook - This application is nice and polished. Basically, if you like using Facebook then this app will be natural for you. If you use Facebook then there is no reason for you not to get this app.

4) Movies - Movies is a great application. The front screen brings up movies that are released that week, and then other movies still hot in the box office and then lesser known movies still playing in theaters. You can search for theaters near your location and select your favorites. Movie times are also listed for all available theaters. When you select a movie more information is given about it and some movies have the ability to play the trailer for you. This is a nice clean app that easily lets you select your entertainment choices for the night.

5) Twitterific - This is a really good Twitter app. You can view your friends' tweets and post your own. You can also view all tweets if you choose. There's nothing spectacular about this app, but it is pretty good.

Bonus: I also liked the game Fuzzle. It's a really neat free game that will take up lots of your time. The Labyrinth lite edition is pretty good also, I'll probably wind up buying the full version of that.

Post in the comments and let me know what your favorite apps are.