First, my thanks to my buddy BC for letting my post my ramblings. Since I’ve been too lazy to update my webpage, he’s letting me get my writing Jones out here. Thanks mate!

While I didn’t have the energy or patience to attend the midnight GTA IV release, I did run out during my lunch hour on the 29^th to grab my copy. Being hesitant to spend $60 on any game any more, I had paid for it in advance by turning in our Xbox and related accessories in lieu of ponying up the cash. After having played the latest in the GTA saga for a few hours, I can say I came waaaaaay ahead on that trade. Take that GameStop!

Now, I am one of those gamers who was around when Pong made its debut, and I’ve seen a lot of things come and go. Gaming of all sorts has been a passion for me, as my good friend BC can testify too after a few years of obsessing over WoW together. Recently, though, I’ve found myself more interested in non-video gaming pursuits, and have not spent much time near a console or PC (outside of work anyway).

But dang it all if GTA ain’t suckin’ me back in.

I’ve always been a fan of the GTA series. They have improved a great formula by leaps and bounds starting with GTA III. Vice City and San Andreas both provided geometrical improvements in enjoyment. GTA IV continues that trend, only more so, no doubt because it utilizes newer console technology.

I had an inordinate amount of free time last night, which is good because I would have ignored any responsibilities to sit down and play the new game anyway. So I grabbed a drink, fired up the 360, sat down in my gaming chair and prepared for whatever may come my way.

Rockstar didn’t waste any time getting you right into the story. There is no “Press here to play” nonsense; it autostarted a new game for me as soon as I booted up and went right into a sequence that introduced the main character, Niko, as the merchant ship he is on prepares to dock in Liberty City. There is some good humor even here, and a bit of kink too. Credits are cleverly laid over the scenes as they play out, at angles that compliment the action. You have to see it to appreciate it.

After a couple of minutes of this “Here you are and this is why you are coming to America” explanation/credits, the ship docks and you get out. Your cousin pulls up in his “cab” (a black sedan), drunker than a skunk. He brags about being with two women the night before and how he’s still probably drunk (no doubt about that!). You decide to drive him home to his “mansion”, and the game begins.

At this point, I’m not going to give you a blow-by-blow account of how I went through the first few hours of the game. It would take too long and my boss will probably walk in as I’m describing the hookers. Instead, here’s a quick summary of all the fun I got to have:

• I got my first safe house – cousin Roman’s “mansion”, which turns out to be a dumpy flat in a bad part of town.
• I beat up the first rich looking guy I saw, assuming he would spawn some cash. Doh! Bad move on my part. The cops were on my hide in nothing flat. My advice to you is do NOT commit crimes where there are any witnesses. The AI will get you every time.
• I got introduced to Roman’s cab business, and his nemesis, Vlad, to whom Roman apparently owes money. Enough that Vlad/Vlad’s employers send thugs to rough him up at times.
• I got a cell phone. It is basically the mission hub. It’s intuitive and well done.
• The music is generally awesome. And lots more variety than in the previous games, which is really saying something. There’s even a jazz channel, which is right up my street. The talk station(s) are full of the typically funny GTA banter.
• I went on a date. Her name is Michelle and we went bowling. She won. The bowling mini-game is pretty entertaining. I can hardly wait to try darts and pool.
• After a couple of missions I went on a second date. We went bowling again, mostly because I didn’t know about the other options yet. At the end, I got some. As with San Andreas, you don’t see anything actually happen, you just hear it. I lol’d when the words “Warm Coffee” scrolled across the screen as the sounds of love making played out. You gotta love Rockstar for being able to make fun of itself!
• I saved Roman from a beating in a basketball court. Those Russian thugs need to hit up a Taibo class or something, because they suck some serious rope at fighting.
• A crack head gave me $100 as an insult. Whatevah!
• Another mission involving running a Jamaican drug dealer around. I say he’s Jamaican, but I’m not sure because I can hardly understand a thing he’s saying (it’s all voice acting in GTA these days). I should probably check to see if there’s a “subtitles” option for when he’s around… Anyway, we had to shoot up some guys when a deal went wrong. He let me keep the gun, which is good because they are not as easy to come by as in previous games.
• I decided to eat dinner in RL, so I went back to the safe house to log out. But then I noticed that there was a “watch TV” option. So I turned on the set and watch one channel (there are several). I watched for at least 20 minutes during which no material was repeated. They had a spoof on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and I think professional card playing, with plenty of funny commercials between. On another channel I watched a home shopping show where they sold knives. All of it was pretty darn funny… Don’t make Estelle angry! Oh, I also caught a comedian doing a stand-up act. He sucked. This makes sense since it appears they were parodying SNL… Oh yeah, I went there!
• I finished another mission or two before hitting the sack for the night, including some for bad guy Vlad, who wants me to help work off Roman’s debt. I am now officially a thug.

So far, the experience has been incredible. It was only what little good sense I have left that kept me from playing non-stop all night.

I can’t imagine anyone being on the fence about playing this game. The story is intriguing, the characters are interesting, the world is amazing. The controls are good (not great, but better than they have been for previous GTA games), the sound track has so much variety that there is something for everyone, and the humor is abundant and generally worth a laugh.

And you get to make the sign of the two-humped sperm whale with teh hawt chikz. Joe Bob says check it out.

Next Installment: How to make money and influence people, GTA style!?!?

Posted in Gaming No Comments »

In my article reviewing the Google Maps API Premier online seminar, I described the features of the Google Maps API and the differences between the standard and premier versions. I submitted several questions to Google regarding licensing and pricing for the Premier product and recently received a response.

• Just to clarify, if you are using the Google Maps API behind a firewall for an internal-only application, you must use the Premier version?

To be able to use Google Maps for FREE you must agree to the Google Maps Terms of Use and the Google Maps API terms of Use which can be found here at:- http://www.google.com/apis/maps/terms.html

These basically state that the map section on your website must be free to the public to use, that you are not using the maps internally within your organization, that you are not charging the customer for this service ( i.e. no subscription models).

• What is the difference between the Maps API Premier and Enterprise license?

There are two types of Enterprise Maps licenses, depending on how you are using the maps: Maps API Premier for public facing websites Maps API Enterprise for deployments inside the firewall.

Maps API Premier (page view model)

The Google Maps API Premier License is designed for external website implementations. The Maps API Premier license is based on the number of page views that you will generate using Google Maps in a contractual year.

Maps API Enterprise (user and/or asset model)

The Google Maps API Enterprise License is deigned for certain “core” implementations of maps that are behind the firewall. The Maps API Enterprise License is based on the number of users that you will have accessing the map, and/or the number of assets that you have under management.

• What is the cost for the Maps API Premier and Enterprise licenses?

Maps API Premier (page view model)

Here is the cost structure:

- $10,000 for 2 million page views
- $40,000 for 10 million page views
- $100,000 for 30 million page views
- $250,000 for unlimited page views

These licenses are annual, and can be upgraded should you exceed the limit

Maps API Enterprise (user and/or asset model)

We are still finalising our market pricing, but here are some indicative costs:

- USD $24 per user/per year
- USD $24 per asset/per year

Note: There is a minimum charge of $10,000 which entitles you to your first 100 users or assets These licenses are annual, and can be upgraded should you exceed the limit

Posted in Web 12 Comments »

Recently, I came across a problem with the CascadingDropDown control within the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit. The question I had was simply this: How do I set the selected value of child DropDownList control?

The quick answer from Microsoft and others is to set the SelectedValue property of the CascadingDropDown control to the value you want selected. This works for the top-level parent DropDownList control, but since the child controls rely on the selected value of the parent on the client side, your server-side setting will be overwritten.

Several solutions have been posted over the last couple of years, most of which instruct you to use the CascadingDropDownProperties control to set the selected value of the target control. However, these properties were removed when Microsoft’s “Atlas” was converted to “ASP.NET AJAX.”

The solution I created used a combination of the List collection’s isDefaultValue and the ContextKey property of the child CascadingDropDown control. As the child menu’s list items are being gathered, I compare the current DataRow value with the ContextKey value. If they match, then I set isDefaultValue to true (otherwise false).

foreach (DataRow dr in dsPackagingValues.Tables[0].Rows)
{
values.Add(new CascadingDropDownNameValue((string)dr["AttributeDefaultValueName"], dr["AttributeID"].ToString()));

if ((string)dr["AttributeDefaultValueName"] == contextKey)
{
values[valueCount].isDefaultValue = true;
}
else
{
values[valueCount].isDefaultValue = false;
}

valueCount++;
}

Programmatically, I set the selected values of the parent and child list by using the SelectedValue property of the parent and the ContextKey property of the child.

cascadingDropDownPackagingTypes.SelectedValue = parentSelectedValue;
cascadingDropDownPackagingValues.ContextKey = childSelectedValue;

The other trick I needed to implement was clearing these controls on page load. I cleared both the parent and child DropDownLists, their selected values, and the child’s ContextKey:

ddlParent.Items.Clear();
ddlChild.Items.Clear();
cascadingDropDownParent.SelectedValue = “”;
cascadingDropDownChild.SelectedValue = “”;
cascadingDropDownParent.ContextKey = “”;
cascadingDropDownChild.ContextKey = “”;

I needed to do this because the previous values were being retained if I altered the selection and performed a post back (for example, if I changed the selection and fired the save event).

Feel free to leave a comment here if you are interested in sample of the entire solution (which includes the service’s Web methods, and the interactive Web form).

Posted in Web 13 Comments »

Another great way to help increase the visibility of your site’s content with leading search engines is by creating and submitting a sitemap. Google recommends that you have a sitemap for your domain so that the Google crawler can better understand the hierarchy and structure of your site, and discover other content on your site that their crawler may not be able to access.

What is a Sitemap?

A sitemap is defined simply as

“an XML file that lists URLs for a site along with additional metadata about each URL.”

Here are two examples of how having a sitemap can benefit your site:

“When users cannot access all areas of a website through a browse able interface. In these cases, a search engine can’t find these pages. For example, a site with a large “archive” or “database” of resources that aren’t well linked to each other (if at all), only accessible via a search form.”

“Where webmasters use rich Ajax or Flash, and search engines can’t navigate through to get to the content.”

A sitemap will not improve the ranking of your site’s pages, but it will help prioritize pages within your site so that a search engine’s crawler can place your pages more appropriately within their index.

Install the Google (XML) Sitemaps Plugin

The Google (XML) Sitemaps plugin creates a sitemap for your domain under Wordpress. The sitemap generated from this plugin creates an XML file compliant for not only Google, but Yahoo!, MSN Search, and Ask.com. Setup for Yahoo! requires that you register you domain with the Yahoo! developer network. You can then enter your Yahoo! application ID in the “Update notification” section of the plugin’s options.

After you’ve installed the plugin, you will need to build your sitemap. Click on the “Click here” link to build your sitemap.

If you receive an error alerting you to the existence of the file, or the file’s ability to be written, you’ll need to either change the permissions of your Wordpress root directory to 770, or create the files “sitemap.xml” and “sitemap.zip” manually and change the permissions on those files.

Click on the “rebuild” link after you have modified your permissions to generate your sitemap.

Add Sitemap to Google

Now that your sitemap has been generated, you can add it to Google through the Google Webmaster Tools.

1. Click on the “Add” link under the Sitemap column on your domain on the Google Webmaster Tools page.
2. Choose “Add General Web Sitemap” from the dropdown menu.
3. Type “sitemap.xml” in the textbox in step #3. Add any additional directories that are appropriate for your site if the sitemap.xml is not in your site root.
4. Click on the “Add General Web Sitemap” button to submit your sitemap to Google.

Congratulations, your domain’s sitemap is now available to Google.

The processing of your sitemap will take the search engines some time to fetch. For more information regarding sitemamps, check out the following resources:

• Sitemaps FAQs – Google Webmaster Central Blog
• sitemaps.org
• Sitemaps – Wikipedia

Posted in Web 1 Comment »

The Google Maps API allows you to render your geographic data on a map and embed it into your Web site. It is the #1 mapping API in the world.

This morning, I attended an online seminar about the Premier version of their API. About 275 people attended this online seminar. The event was thirty minutes long, and covered the basics about the Premier version of the Google Maps API.

Google Maps API Features

• Proprietary markers with a unique look and feel
• Worldwide scalability
• Sub-second response time
• StreetView available within the API
• Cross-browser support

Why Google?

• Users are familiar with Google Maps
• Latest features readily available
• Performance is unrivaled
• Scalability and reliability is trusted

Differences between Google Maps API and Google Maps API Premier:

• Service level agreement with guaranteed uptime
• Enterprise quality customer support
• Pager support for critical issues
• Customer control over ads
• Unlimited geocode requests
• Guaranteed term

Pricing

• Google Maps API Premier starts at $10,000; This is the lowest price point available at this time
• Public: Based on the number of maps page views
• Internal: number of assets being tracked, or number employees using the maps
• If you are using the Google Maps API inside a firewall, you must upgrade to the Premier version (see licensing agreement)

My Q&A

1. What is the number of records you can Geocode without upgrading to the Premier version of the API?
2. Is address standardization available when Geocoding with Google Maps?
3. Just to clarify, if you are using the Google Maps API behind a firewall for an internal-only application, you must use the Premier version?
4. Do you have to upgrade to Premier if you have a public-facing Web site, but it is password-protected?

I will post a follow-up after my questions have been answered. The email address they gave out was incorrect, so I had to submit my questions through their Google Maps Enterprise contact page.

Posted in Web 3 Comments »

Is there a difference between people who are interesting in expanding their social network through the Web, versus those that are looking for a financial gain? Or, are the two naturally linked?

So often, I run into someone who is well-known in the social media space, but they are often using their popularity to push products, sites, themselves, etc. The collaboration of these creative and intelligent minds would seem to benefit the technical society as a whole, yet there are plenty out there that are using this movement of sorts as a means for a quick buck or three.

I’ve also noticed the reverse in which unknowns reference a social media star, knowing full well that said star will mention them and post links to their content. Their hope is to produce some kind of free viral marketing campaign. This is annoyingly obvious to me, but does it bother anyone else? Is it just another example of what social media and Internet networking is all about?

Will this new wave of social media sites be short-lived as the larger, established corporate giants seek to gobble up that latest craze in order to add to their over-sized umbrella? Do the innovators that launch the latest microblogging or video sharing Web applications have a responsibility to their users? Corporate giants have the likely potential to ruin an online social experience after the Web app authors and creators are long gone and consumed with comparing the size of their bank accounts instead of the number of followers.

Posted in Social Media No Comments »

The Google Webmaster Tools is a great resource for viewing your site’s search engine statistics and gathering tips to help improve your site’s placement.

In order to help optimize your Web site for the Google search engine, the first things you need to do is verify your site with Google.

Verify Your Site

Before you can begin using the Google Webmaster Tools, you’ll first need to verify your site.

I prefer to add a meta tag to the header of my page(s) that allows it to communicate back with Google. For applications like Wordpress that have a header template file, this is easy since every page on the site uses the same header. Follow these easy steps to immediately verify your site:

1. Enter the domain for your site and click “Add Site.”
2. Click the “Verify” link next to your domain.
3. Choose “Add a meta tag” from the dropdown menu.
4. Copy the meta tag that appears in bold for your domain and paste it in your site’s home page in the first <head> section of the page, before the first <body> section.
5. After updating your site, click on the “Verify” button.

You should see the successful verification message. This will now open up the Google Webmaster Tools for your verified domain.

Google Webmaster Tools

You can now run diagnostics on your domain to check for bad links or even run a content analysis scan.

Statistical reports for seeing what Google’s crawler sees on your site are available, along with top search queries that people use to arrive at your site.

You can view other sites that link to yours by checking out the Links section and specify a Sitemap for your site so that the Google bot can better understand the hierarchy of your domain.

There are other handy tools available such as setting a geographic target and managing URLs that you want to exclude from the Google index.

Posted in Web 2 Comments »

I could really use something like this. I have 3 mini screwdrivers but they are small and very difficult to hold. This was mentioned on Revision3’s Tekzilla #28.

Here are the product details from Home Depot:

Multi bit precision screwdriver. Item includes driver with spinning removable cap and 4 double sided bits. Torx® sizes: T4, T5, T6, T7, T8, T9, T10, T15. For precision engineering, electronics, and other applications. Non magnetic. Husky screwdrivers are guaranteed forever.

• Guaranteed Forever
• Bits Store Inside Handle
• Bits Made From S2 Steel are Precision Formed to Ensure Positive Engagement with Fasteners
• For Use in Work on Electronics and Other Tasks Involving Small Parts
• MFG Brand Name : Husky
• MFG Model # : 74502
• MFG Part # : 74502

Posted in Stuff I Want No Comments »

I came across an issue with SQL Database Mail in SQL Server 2005 today where an existing mail profile was not delivering messages. The error message returned was “profile name is not valid.”

If you have a Database Mail profile setup, and you execute a successful test using the “Send Test Email” function within SQL Server Management Studio, you will need to check for the relationship between the profile and the msdb database principal(s).

To check for the relationship, you’ll need to run the sysmail_help_principalprofile_sp stored procedure:

EXECUTE msdb.dbo.sysmail_help_principalprofile_sp
@principal_name = 'danw',
@profile_name = 'AdventureWorks Administrator' ;

If the results are empty, then the principal-to-profile default relationship does not exist. In order to correct this, execute the sysmail_add_principalprofile_sp stored procedure:

EXECUTE msdb.dbo.sysmail_add_principalprofile_sp
@principal_name = 'ApplicationUser',
@profile_name = 'AdventureWorks Administrator Profile',
@is_default = 1 ;

This will add an entry for your database principal, and create a default SQL Database Mail profile on its behalf.

Posted in SQL Server 2005 2 Comments »

I’m now able to use Twitter with my cell phone. I have a BlackBerry 7100t with a data account from T-Mobile. I successfully installed Twitterberry on this phone yesterday after upgrading the operating system to 4.1. I’ve had this phone for over four years now and it’s been great. The coverage from T-Mobile has been more than adequate, and the phone itself has been extremely reliable.

Before installing Twitterberry, I needed to upgrade my outdated OS to 4.1.0.377. I grabbed the latest version from T-Mobile’s software upgrade page. This was pretty painless as the installer did most of the work for me. I will be looking at upgrading it once T-Mobile finally launches its much anticipated 3G network, hopefully this spring.

Posted in Tech No Comments »