I Want To Know What (Windows) Live Is

My latest column for SD Times discusses Windows Live.

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33 Ad Impressions == $1 in revenue?

According to Russ Beattie, an average of 3,700 "ad unit impressions" per day results in around \$111.79 in revenue. I recently added Google AdSense text ads on my Web pages, and will be interested in seeing the results, since I know that most people read this site in …

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PGR3 Undocumented Splitscreen Mode

Project Gotham Racing 3 has an undocumented (as in, not in the documentation, not as in "unknown") split screen mode that allows head-to-head racing on a single XBox360 with multiple controllers. At the opening screen select "More" and then "Change Profile" and, start hitting "A" on the other controllers to …

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What's wrong with being a hairdresser?

OptionsScalper's kid got a 3.93GPA on her report card and he feels relieved she won't be a hairdresser. I once heard a computer programmer testifying in his bankruptcy hearing that his ex-as-of-last-month-wife was a hairdresser in Palo Alto and made \$160,000 per year. (I was there under the …

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XBox360 as a media extender: Failed to stream DivX

Tina's been a little, errr ... skeptical ... about how enjoyable it is that our living room now reverberates to the sound of up to 8 Ferraris simultaneously trying to negotiate a corner in downtown New York City (in surround sound!). So I thought I'd investigate XBox360 as a media extender.

First …

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Stream Music via FM

A few weeks ago I bought a Griffin RocketFM Transmitter, a super-clever USB gadget that allows me to stream music from my desktop machine (in my office) to my living room stereo system. It works perfectly -- I can listen to KEXP, podcasts, what-have-you. The fidelity, I'm sure, isn't what you'd …

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XBox 360 Experiences

So my determination "not to open the XBox 360 until I finished my month's work" lasted about 24 hours. Yesterday was Thanksgiving, for heaven's sake! A holiday! Heck, I wrote 700 words in the morning. Only 3,500 to go before next Wednesday. I'm cruising, for heaven's sake.

The first …

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Hardcore throwaway line of the day

::: {.Section1} [“]{style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:Arial"}[so I had to author my own handwriting recognition engine to distinguish between "X" and "O"...  ” ]{style="font-family:Arial"}

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[Shawn van Ness discussing his WinFX Ink-enabled Tic Tac Toe game. ]{style="font-family:Arial"}[ ]{style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial"} :::

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Scored an Xbox360

Much to my surprise, my local Costco had 23 units. When I arrived an hour before opening, I was 9th in line and, when I left the store they still had at least 4 units sitting in the cage. (Ah, the joys of living in a small town!)

Now, in …

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I bricked my SMT5600 Smartphone

I decided to switch to an official Cingular calling plan now that it's been a year since AT&T Wireless went away. I took in my year-and-change-old \$300 SMT5600 Smartphone and was told I'd have to get it unlocked before it would work with Cingular. (But it already works with …

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