Plants vs. Zombies Composer Posted YouTube Videos of Various Arrangements
There are two games on the iPad that I'm addicted to. One is the free "We Rule" from ngmoco. The other is the $9.99 Plants vs. Zombies HD (PvZ). I rarely listen to or even notice game background music. But, the music for PvZ is a lot of fun to listen to. I especially like the end-game song "There's a Zombie on Your Lawn". So, I went to YouTube to find a video of it to watch on demand. I learned there that the PvZ composer's website (Laura Shigihara) is found here:
If you scroll down a bit you'll find interesting arrangements of some of the PvZ music (YouTube videos) including a piano solo version of "Braniac Maniac" (Zomboss' theme) and a classical guitar version of of the game's main theme. As you go back through the blog's archive, you'll find piano solo's of "Moongrains", "Choose Your Seeds", Watery Graves", "Mini Games theme", and "Graze The Roof".
Time Warner Cable Data Metering: Tax for iTunes, Hulu, Netflix, Video Podcast Users
DSLReports.com digs into Time Warner COO Landel Hobbs comments on the coming 100GB cable data cap for Time Warner customers...
Time Warner COO: Metered Billing Is What Consumers Want
I agree with the article's author (Karl Bode) about the purpose of this data cap plan. IMHO it is just a tax on people who use and who will use high bandwidth services such as iTunes (buying or renting HD TV shows and movies), Hulu, Netflix and even casual video podcast fans who may not notice how many gigabytes they download per month viewing the favorite (and free) video podcasts.
And, if you, like me, are an MSDN subscriber who chose the download route, this may be an incentive for us to switch back to having DVDs of software releases shipped to us instead of downloading them. This may even kill the software downloading business altogether.
Unfortunately, wireless broadband doesn't provide any threat or incentive since they have 5GB caps on their services.
CNet’s Unrealistic Parallels/VMware Fusion Benchmarks
I was very interested to find CNet's comparison of Parallels Desktop for Mac and VMware Fusion...
Inside CNET Labs: Windows virtual machine performance on the Mac
Then, I read what they used for testing: An 8-core MacPro. Ok, everyone out there using an 8-core MacPro, raise your hand. Ok, now everyone else raise your hand. I'm guessing the "everyone else" outnumbered the 8-core users by about 10-to-1 (if not much much more). It would be more interesting and much more useful if CNet had used a more typical user setup like an iMac or MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo with 2GB RAM.
The results are interesting if unsurprising. VMware's ability to use multiple processors should outperform Parallels by what we see in CNet's tests. It was interesting to read that CNet could not run the Quake 4 test using Fusion while it did run under Parallels.
I'll try to provide a more realistic test scenario when I am able to unbury myself from writing projects (due at the end of August). I also have VMware Workstation 6 with ACE 2 for Windows. So, I may be able to test that and provide some comments (although not direct performance comparions) there too.
Parallels Desktop for Mac 3.0 Didn’t Like Vista’s ISO Files
I installed a beta release of Windows Vista using Parallels Desktop for Mac 1.0 last year using a Microsoft provided DVD ISO file. So, I thought that installing the production version of Windows Vista using 5 CD ISO files would be a more-or-less similar experience. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Vista's installer apparently got lost in trying to work with the WIM (Windows Image) file format (introduced along with Vista) when used from inside an ISO file (just a guess, btw). So, next up... Installing from real physical CD discs.
Windows Vista for Intel Macs
I wrote a little PDF book for O'Reilly Media last summer (2006) titled Windows for Intel Macs. This Short Cuts series book was written with a focus on Mac users who also need to or want to run Microsoft Windows on an Intel based Mac running either Apple Boot Camp (dual boot) or Parallels Desktop for Mac (virtualization).
It is amazing how much has changed since the book was released last August. Microsoft released Windows Vista to replace XP. Parallels went from version 1 to version 3 (which was released just this week). Apple released a couple of minor point releases of Boot Camp (1.3 is the current release). But, I'm not going to talk much about that since I prefer virtualized platforms vs. dual-boot.
The old book (10 months is apparently forever in computer time) is still in the Short Cuts Best Selling list. But, with all the changes in both Parallels Desktop for Mac and Windows Vista, I thought I'd provide some updates to the book's topic area in this blog. I don't know how regularly I'll post Parallels/Vista information here. But, I'll try to post at least a couple of items per week for the next month or two.
Color-Blind? This Software Might Help You Out
I'm not color-blind, but I know people who are and was interested to read this interview on CNET.
Bringing color to the color-blind
The long (but very interesting interview) eventually leads you to a URL for eyePilot (something you might not guess):
The $35 software runs on Mac OS X or Windows XP (they are apparently still working on a Vista version) and has a 30-day free trial available.
eyePilot is apparently also working on a PDA version that helps a color-blind person decode, say, a color coded train map. The article mentions Palm Pilot. So, I don't know if the person meant a Palm OS based PDA or a Windows Mobile based one.
Apple iTunes Repair Tool for Vista 1.0
I pair my iPod with a Mac. So, I'm not affected by the Vista vs. iTunes problem. But, if you use iTunes, you might want to visit this Apple page...
iTunes Repair Tool for Vista 1.0
...read the support doc linked there, and consider downloading the Apple provided permissions repair tool.