XBox.com gamertags
Mine:
jtokash’s Gamer card
Major Nelson’s:
Major Nelson’s Gamer card
Update: It seems to work fine in Firefox 1.07, Flock 0.4.8 Beta and IE 7. I had a little hiccup this morning where I thought it was broken, but Firefox was just in a wierd state.
fontblog
YES! The typography team at Microsoft has a blog!!!!! (via Robert)
The XBox 360 Homebrew factor
Microsoft goes on and on about the security measures they are taking with the XBox 360 to prevent me from running code written by unlicensed developers. It drives me crazy! I’m paying $400 on 11/22/05 for a COMPUTER that I can’t run my own code on. I can’t stand it.
My original XBox streams video from my PC, plays really old games that I’m fond of, runs Linux, etc. After I retire this thing for game playing, it will still be useful in many ways. If Microsoft had it’s way, though, I would not be able to do these things with my XBox.
I know I should vote with my wallet and not buy console game systems because they all try to lock out homebrew, but I’m just not that strong-willed.
EDIT: Regarding the Media additions to the 360: Yes, it’s great that Microsoft added these features, but you can’t say that there is no longer a legitimate reason to run un-licensed code on the box. Microsoft has not predicted all useful ways to use the XBox360 and baked them in.
XBox Live Feature Request
I’m looking forward to 11/22/05. The XBox 360 looks great. The new XBox Live will have a lot of integration with the website. I’d like to see a photo sharing section where you can post in-game screenshots. Of course, this would require that most 360 games support screen capture and upload, but that sort of thing is no doubt all ready built in for debugging purposes.
Bill Hill on Channel9
Watch this Channel9 video right away. Bill Hill is a personality at Microsoft that knows his stuff and is really good at talking about it. In this video, he talks about animal tracking and how it relates to typography. Homo Sapiens 1.0!
After a 45 minute hike, the video includes a quick chat with the Microsoft Typography team, which is also a treat. One member of the team says it best – if they do their job REALLY well, noone will notice. Very true, very true. But when I’m as comfortable reading on screen as I am reading a magazine or a book, I’ll know they had a lot to do with it.
Tips for better screen viewing(for Windows XP users):
- Use cleartype tuner if you have an LCD screen. It can do wonders.
- Make sure you are using the native resolution of the screen.
- If running at the native resolution makes print too small, change the DPI setting in your display settings.
- If a white background color hurts your eyes, adjust the brightness of your screen or change the background color to off-white for your favorite apps.
John Tokash 