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Astro Boy for the GBA and my Gamer Roots

Let me start by saying that I have always liked videogames. Ever since I had my first console, an Atari 2600 (really dated myself there), and going through the NES, SNES, Gameboy, Gameboy Advanced, Gamecube and DS, I’ve always played videogames. Lately, however, because of work and the university, I don’t really have time to sit down and spend the amount of time required to play and finish a game. This past week, however, an “old-school” game got me hooked again. Since this game is now a bit old now and not that well-known, I decided to write a mini-review.

Since I am currently on the road for a month or so, I started looking for a game for the Nintendo DS with which to kill some time. I didn’t really want an RPG, since I still don’t have time to invest(waste?) in a long game, so I would probably never finish it. Some time ago I played New Super Mario Bros., so I started looking for a platformer or something along that vein. Given its good ratings and who developed it, I ended up picking up Astroboy: The Omega Factor for the GBA from a bargain bin, thinking that even if I didn’t like it, ~$10 for a couple of hours of entertainment wasn’t that bad. Was it any good? Let’s just say I just started playing the game a third time, now on hard difficulty:

This has to be one of the most addictive games games I’ve played in a long time. I love a good shoot’em up (the Gradius/R-Type-kind, not First Person Shooters), and this game combines shooter mechanics with beat’em up gameplay, plus a little bit of strategy (figuring out the best order for leveling up Astroboy’s different skills) and adventure (backtracking to get clues and talking to characters to open new stages and advance the plot). It is also I think the first game that makes you go through the game again in order to win it, AND you do so happily because of the story and how the game changes to take into account the reasons why you’re going through it again (unlike The Legend of Zelda’s Second Quest or Ghouls’n Ghosts, to cite two well-known examples). And, for us completionists, there’s a bunch of hidden characters you need to find to get all possible upgrades (great for my OCD). And the game is fairly short – takes just a few hours to beat it.

Now, on this third run (or fifth, depending if how you count :D), I have to admit that on hard difficulty, this game really is frackin’ hard. Still, I think I’ll probably end up beating it, even if it takes me a couple of weeks of playing the same level over and over. After all, this comes from someone stubborn enough to beat Ikaruga (on normal difficulty, though) without throwing the Gamecube controller at the TV. Yes, I guess I’m a masochist at times.

Next up I’ll probably pick up another Treasure GBA Game, Gunstar Super Heroes.

Essential Windows Utilities

I wanted to share with you a list of some Windows utilities I install as soon as I finish installing Windows.

• Unlocker: Windows has an annoying tendency to block file handles, which lead to situations like not being able to delete a file or remove a USB drive because “It is in use by another person or program.” The most annoying part of it is that it doesn’t tell what file is in use, and worst of all WHO is still using it. Well, Unlocker can help you in those situations, by allowing you to either release the handle or kill the process that is stopping you.
• Cygwin: For all us UNIX types, Cygwin is a MUST. it gives you a full UNIX environment for you to write and run your scripts, complete with a bash shell and all the utilities you expect in UNIX (yes, even vi).
• Windows Powertoys: These small Windows apps allow you bypass common Windows annoyances. The two I always install are “Open Command Window Here” and “Tweak UI”.
• Robocopy: Well, actually you need to install the full Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools to get this gem. If you copy large files across a network, Robocopy is a must. It can resume a copy after brief network outages, retries a copy indefinitely every 30 seconds, and, at least in my experience, is faster than copying using Windows Explorer (and doesn’t hang your computer if the network goes down). Robocopy is now a standard feature of both Vista and Windows Server 2008, BTW, so you don’t need to do an additional installation if you are using those systems (hey, they had to get SOMETHING right with Vista ;))
• Paint.NET: A very powerful image editing tool. Free, open source, and developed entirely in .NET. Cualifies as an entry-level Photoshop replacement, with many advanced functions. And very lightweight as well.
• MWSnap: Freeware utility to do screen captures. There are more sophisticated tools out there, but none of them are free. There is a limitation on this tool that annoys me every once in a while, which is that it only captures images on the first monitor if you have a multi-monitor setup. Other than that, it works as expected.
• Foxit Reader and CutePDF Writer: these two utilities work as a replacement to Adobe Acrobat. Foxit is a lightning-fast PDF reader, that opens instantly on your PC. CutePDF Writer allows you to generate PDF files, and presents itself another printer. These two utilities are very lightweight, do what they are supposed to do, and don’t annoy you with constant update notices.

Amazon does it again: "Frustration-Free Packaging"

Every once in a while when you load Amazon’s front page, you find a letter from Jeff Bezos. Most of the time they deal with marketing deals from Amazon, so you pretty much skip them quickly. Today, however, when I loaded the page, I found this gem:

Hooray Amazon! It was about time somebody stood up for us, the consumers.

Here’s why I take this personal: When I travel to the US I normally do my shopping online, mostly at Amazon, and have them deliver the goods to the hotel (I’m not really a mall person). Opening them is incredibly frustrating, as shown on the videos at Amazon’s The Gallery of Wrap Rage page. It usually involves going down to the front desk, borrowing scissors, then remembering to bring them back after the fact. And, as I normally don’t start opening stuff until late, there’s a preliminary step that involves putting something presentable on, since I am already in my “sleeping gear”. Once I tried to get creative and open it by using the iron to melt the plastic - let’s say that I’ve had very few worse ideas in my life.

So, let’s support Amazon in this pro-consumer initiative and buy products from the companies involved!

Dropbox

From this thread over at Macrumors I found out about this new file synchronization service called Dropbox. They give you 2GB of space for you to store files, and whatever you upload is replicated automagically to all the computers associated with your account that have the client installed. And, the most important thing, it works!!

Check out the video at their site. I’m already using to backup some files from my Mac at home, to sync the university assignments between my work laptop and the Mac when I am on the road, and to share files with a couple of friends (the shared folders feature is a killer). And so far, so good. Let me know if you need an invite for the Beta program, I still have a couple left.

Third Time’s a Charm

Today I ran into this article named Mac OS X 10.5.3 about to hit. It listed all the bug fixes that are going to be included in the soon-to-be released OSX 10.5.3 update. I can tell you that I’ve never been so anxious about an OSX update as this one. The gods at cupertino, however, seem to have heard our pleas, and are fixing a couple of @#$@# annoying bugs that have my user experience with Apple products very frustrating (to put it mildy) ever since I upgraded to a MacBook last January.

The first issue that seems to be resolved is listed as “Joining AirPort network after wake issue resolved”. This is an issue that has been known for months, is incredibly frustrating, and the workaround takes a long time to perform. It turns out that on Santa Rosa based Macs, sometimes when you wake your computer from sleep (or reboot it), it will simply NOT be able to connect to your selected Airport network. You’ll only get a Connection Timeout error message. You cannot even begin to imagine how infuriating this is, specially if you are in a hurry or are expecting an important email. It turns out that the culprit is actually the OSX Keychain (I know… :S), and the workaround involves several steps:

• Turn Airport Off
• Go to the Network Preferences Panel, and DELETE the network you were trying to connect to
• Go to the folder Library:Preferences:System Configuration and DELETE the file com.apple.airport.preferences.plist (enter your password if prompted)
• Open Keychain Access and DELETE the entries for the networks you were trying to connect to. Make sure you delete them in both the login and system keychains.
• Restart your computer
• Try to connect. At this point, it may still fail. If it does, open Safari and try to access any webpage. You’ll get a page with a button to access the Network Diagnostics utility. Use it, and connect to the network from there

So, you can see it takes close to forever to restore your network connectivity. And sometimes you need to do it twice, as you may have missed a step. Hopefully this will be gone after the update. This bug is well documented here and here and here.

The other issue, hopefully, will be solved by the fix “Fix to CoreGraphics and DVD Player” has to do with DVD playback. This is actually worse, and it basically consists in the MacBook CRASHING when you try to play a DVD. This only seems to happen on Santa Rosa-based MacBooks with 4GB of RAM. This one isn’t as frustrating, as you only need to NOT use your MacBook to watch DVDs. Still, it should have been fixed a while back. This is documented in this thread at MacRumors.

Sci-fi Books

After leaving this blog collecting cobwebs for over a year, I decided to start writing again. I am an avid Sci-fi reader, so I decided to "restart" posting by writing about some of the books I’ve read in the past couple of years. I will only mention those books that I consider to be above-average. My intention is to periodically post about new books I’ve read and enjoyed.

So, here it is, the very first Jose Aguilar recommended Sci-fi book list:

• Hyperion by Dan Simmons: One of my new favorites. It tells the tale of several "pilgrims" that go to planet Hyperion, and each one tells the story on how they ended up on that pilgrimage. All against the backdrop of a blooming intergalactic war. Impressive book.
• A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller: Another great book. It tells the story of the order of Saint Leibowitz, an engineer that sacrificed himself to preserve humankind’s knowledge after a nuclear war. The most interesting thing is that it actually tells three stories - 600, 1200, and 1800 years after the nuclear holocaust.
• The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Leguin: What would happen if humans would alternate between male and female periodically? This is what happens in Winter, the world where this excellent book takes place. The story unfolds as an emissary of the Ekumen Empire tries to establish relations with the planet. Incredibly interesting story.
• The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle: Amazing history of human’s first contact with another civilization, completely different from our own. The description of the "moties", and how their environment has influenced their physical appearance and how they think, is something not seen very often.

I also ran into this list the other day while browsing this Slashdot post… I will definitely start checking them out as soon as I read the books I have in queue.

Whale watching

A few weeks ago I had the chance to go whale watching on Drake Bay, here in Costa Rica.

All I can say is wow… it was an amazing trip. We had perfect weather, and were lucky enough to see several whales. On Saturday we saw a male whale for the longest time, and eventually heard him sing as well - it was amazing, we could hear the songs without any aid out side the water!!

On Sunday we had even more luck. We followed around 4-5 males and one female for about 2 hours. It was impressive to see those multi-ton animals ram and hit each other for the love of the girl…

Overall, it was a great trip, and I definitely recommend it. You can book similar tours through the OTS, a non-profit academic organization that has a Biocursos program to raise awareness about the environment.

Here are some pictures that I took:

Finally, TV shows manage to get the web part right

Ever since the web became available, TV execs have been struggling to integrate both mediums. Well, in my opinion, Heroes is the first show that gets the show/web integration right. How? The comics. After airing each show, NBC posts to the oficial Heroes website a comic that expands on the characters on the show. It is an amazing idea, it gives additional background to the series, additional plot developments, and more details on the characters in the show.

Of course, the TV/web integration doesn’t stop there… for the time being, you can watch all episodes of Heroes online for free!! You should definitely check them out, it is one of the best shows currently on TV - and the second half of the season starts this coming monday, so you have time to catch up during the weekend.

The funniest video I’ve seen in a while

This video is from a group of comedians from Costa Rica, called La Media Docena. It mocks the awful VJs we have here in CR, and also makes fun of metalheads, latin music, etc. It is very well done, and the irony is that the cumbia video actually looks better than most of the music videos from Costa Rican bands you normally see on TV.

Enjoy!

Youtube link

Palmares 2007

This past weekend was the beginning of Palmares 2007, and anual fair that takes place in Palmares, Alajuela, every January. This fair is very organized, and is by far the most popular festival in Costa Rica. Annual attendance reaches up to 1 million visitors (take into account that the population of Costa Rica is around 4 millon – I think only the annual pilgrimage to Cartago beats it in attendance), and you normally run into all your acquantaces.

Palmares is around 1 hour north of San Jose – but it takes you up to 3hrs to get there this time of the year. It is an urban legend that Palmares has the highest or second-highest rate of per-capita beer consumption of any festival in the world - but I’ve seen places that make me doubt that statement. There are strong controls for drunk drivers, so what most people do (myself included) is to rent a bus to take you to/from Palmares. That way you can drink ’til you drop, and don’t worry about being busted on the way home.

This past Saturday Moenia played in one of the big bar-tents (holds around 5,000 people) on the fairground. It was an amazing concert - I love their electronic sound, and they do know how to setup a show. They also handed out “flourescent cords” and dimmed the lights, which gave the whole concert a great atmosphere. Click on any of the thumbnails in this post to see some pictures of the concert.

So, if you are ever in Costa Rica in the middle of January, don’t forget to check out Palmares. There’s still one weekend left (it closes next weekend with a concert by Hombres G, a spanish rock band that has been playing for over 20 years).