Cheskitech

Map of the Dead

2012-05-14T20:04:00.002-07:00

Need to know where to get supplies, where to avoid, or just get a lay of the land?

Map of the Dead will do all of this and more! Type in the address of interest and bask in the awesomeness. I suggest doing this before the actual zombie apocalypse. Well, you know... because the internet will be down.

FitBit

2012-05-10T18:34:00.000-07:00

Product Review: FitBit Ultra

As I mentioned earlier, getting shape has really become important to me. FitBit is helping me do this. The product itself keeps track of how many steps I take during the day as well as how many flights of stairs I've climbed, making it easy to see how active I have been. It also shows me how inactive I have been. Seeing lows numbers can really motivate you.

The FitBit Ultra is more than just a little device that clips on my waist band and tags along all day... it is a suite of tools. The FitBit website ties into the MyFitness Pal database and helps keep caloric intake and expenditure as accurate as possible. You can also tie it to Endomondo, which is great for tracking data on hikes, runs, or any other movement based workout.

I am a bit of a data whore. I love seeing graphs and charts showing my progress. My FitBit dashboard give me this. I can see how many steps I've takem, like I previously mentioned, but I can also see how well I am sleeping. You can put it in sleep tracking mode by holding the button down until the stop watch starts. The wrist band it comes with is a bit of a joke to be blunt. I ended up changing the settings to "sensitive", in regards to movement while in sleep tracking mode and I just clip it to my boxer's waistband. As you can see on April 25th, I slept VERY poorly. This is accurate.

Sad news is, that the FitBit Ultra is not water proof, nor can it talk to my Smartphone.

Good news is, I am willing to look past both of these decisions due to very good battery life and ease of use.

I am hoping FitBit and SlimKicker integrate. They are ripe for pairing. They both have achievements and could feed off of each other well.

Wishes for the device/system would be...

Allow more than one base station or sync to my phone
Waterproof
Lower price point
Rubberized inside surface(for better gripping)

Don't let my wish list fool you, I am enjoying the FitBit Ultra a good deal. I give it a healthy Cheskitech approval.

SlimKicker - Level Up Your Body

2012-05-08T20:14:00.000-07:00

Being healthy and staying in shape has become very important to me.Watching what I put into my body and how well I keep my body tuned is also important, but it is also very boring. This is where SlimKicker comes in.

SlimKicker taps into our drive to achieve and to be rewarded. The last word is the most important. Reward yourself for being healthy and for completing challenges, which in turn "levels up your body". Losing weight is great and is the most common reason people start "getting in shape". It is also hard. Giving up your favorite foods... getting your butt off of the couch... gets harder and harder if you don't see results right away. Rewarding yourself for doing well on challenges, e.g. Giving up Soda for 7 days, and getting to see your progress as you go, makes it easy. Those bite size chunks of achievement make this work.

I have rewarded myself with a wireless set of gaming headphones. I have put money towards tinting the windows in my Scion tC. Now that I have gotten to Level 6, I feel great. I have't had soda in 60+ days. I feel great. I repeat that because I do. I am past the hump at which so many fail.

Thanks SlimKicker for taking something I love, gaming and achievements, and coupling it to what I need to do.

You can find the iPhone app in the AppStore, but not an Android app just yet in GooglePlay. I hear they are working on it. The website is always getting updated. While being a relatively new site, they are making progress quickly. You can see my Dashboard view to the left. It is your one stop shop to Level Up Your Body. The community is growing rapidly as well.

I hope to see integration with my FitBit someday, but I'll understand if that takes a little more time. Try it out. It works.

Diablo III - Beta

2012-04-22T12:18:00.003-07:00

Where to begin... Diablo III has been a much anticipated release for years. Blizzard has taken their time to make it true to the previous titles. The polish level is high, as we have come to expect.

I started my Beta experience as a Demon Hunter and as you can see, I am Forever Alone. No friends. This I hope, changes and lends to the hours of fun I can foresee running Co-Op through the multitude of dungeon levels that is Diablo III.

You will find familiar music, voices, characters, as well as lore from Diablo 1 and Diablo 2. This makes it easy to fall right back in. You can tell that Diablo III builds on lessons learned from World of Warcraft. Even the login screen is very similar. This trend continues throughout your experience. Art style is the most obvious similarity. At times I felt as though I was playing a modernized and gloom filled WoW dungeon in isometric viewing. This is not a bad thing. I am quite enjoying myself.

You will notice in the screenshot that you have a quest... Kill X number of Y and report back. Yet another similarity to WoW. See the chat menu in the bottom left? Diablo III is, to be blunt, Diablo lore fused with WoW and placed on a modern engine. Once again... this is NOT a bad thing. The time that I was playing zipped by quickly. I was having fun. I look forward to playing this with friends.

I will be playing until the Beta closes its doors. I will continue to toss screenshots into the slideshow below.

All in all, I am excited to play and I am happy that this game is finally being released.

Pandorum

2012-04-17T04:30:00.000-07:00

Pandorum

I haven't enjoyed a space horror in a good long while. The last ones that comes to mind is Event Horizon and Sunshine.

The movie is full of twists and turns. There are a few OMGWTF moments as well.

Atmosphere is established through well done sound and lighting. The imagery is exciting and adrenaline inducing.

What the crew finds waiting for them is horrifying to say the least. I won't give anything away, but... nothing is as it seems.

MorpHex Robot is AMAZING

2012-04-14T04:00:00.000-07:00

You have probably already seen this...but if not... This thing is amazing. I hope that in 5 years or so it can do my laundry.

SPAZ - Space Pirates and Zombies

2012-04-11T17:27:00.001-07:00

I finally started playing Space Pirates and Zombies, SPAZ.

I had meant to get around to it earlier, but you know how it is... backlog and all.

The game has some scale too it and will suck hours of your life. At least you'll have fun doing it. The $10 price tag more than fair. I would be happy with $15(or more)

Before the main menu, you are greeted with a message from MinMax games, which is a 2 person shop. Thanking you for buying. After 6 hours in, I agree that you should buy this game.

The audio in this game is cracking me up.The background chatter is filled with humor. A nice change of pace to encounter a game that is both fun, pretty, and doesn't take itself too seriously(don't let that put you off)

I mentioned scale a bit ago, this image will say it all. Each numbered dot, is a whole system.

Ship customization is fun and you look forward to building your ships to your liking. Even down to orientation of armor and weapons. The there is more going on with the game environment than the top down view will lead you to believe. If you are beating down on a no good bounty hunter and you get too close when their ships reactor core goes critical, you will take damage. I learned this when I was being... no good and took on a civilian star base. BOOM! I cheered... then BOOM! I cried.

Here is a screenshot slideshow. I will continue to update it as I play. You can also head over to the picture section using the navigation bar at the top of the page to see this and other galleries.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

2012-03-26T20:13:00.001-07:00

After giving up on Hard Reset, I was still craving the futuristic cyberpunk type genre. Having been a fan of the acclaimed Deus Ex and even the often frowned upon Deus Ex: Invisible War, I start into Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Let me begin by saying the DE: HR is everything that Hard Reset isn't. I will stop with the comparison there.

I was pleased with the immersion factor of the world created by Square Enix. They nailed it. The very public struggle of those that want to augment their bodies with upgraded parts and those that fight to keep humanity pure. Human versus Human+. I, being one who already day dreams of augmentations, found taking the side of Human+ very easy. This ease slowly faded throughout the game as more story elements presented themselves.

I have finished my play through(15 hours played) and I am very happy with the game. I think it is deserving of the $30 price point.

The visuals are good and the overall thought behind the atmosphere is well done. DE: HR has the finished feel, but once is a blue moon I would catch something that escaped final polish. These moments did not detract from the experience,however. The higher end augmentations have cool animations.

Audio is well done also. Voice acting, which is an easy place to go wrong, is sound(pun intended). Music was reminiscent of Mass Effect, but not in a bad way. Sound effects helped to flesh out the world

Game play is challenging with a nice return to the occasional boss fight and puzzle to solve. I do wish that the map system worked a little better. I occasionally found myself wandering around trying to find a way into an apartment building(more than I should have needed to).

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is worth the buy and worth the experience. While by the end I did have a few new thoughts to consider about augmentations, I would, in the end, still upgrade a few parts if given the chance(I'm looking at you heart... single point of failure bastard you).

Fan Film: Portal: No Escape

2012-03-24T11:52:00.001-07:00

Looks like I need to finally start playing Portal 2... and working out, because this girls muscles are bigger than mine.

RUIN

2012-03-18T07:57:00.002-07:00

If CG like this is possible on the independent level... I am excited to see what will be coming out in the next few years on the big budget level.

RUIN from OddBall Animation on Vimeo.

Hard Reset - Updated!

2012-03-12T23:40:00.000-07:00

Craving a FPS and having a decent backlog... I installed Hard Reset. I had heard quite a few good things from the PC Gamer staff since the release.

An hour in, roughly 15% of the way through according to Howlongtobeat.com, and I am already starting to feel the repetition. So far that is my only complaint though and it mainly relates to the enemies.

The visuals and ambience is very much that of Bladerunner, which I am enjoying. Your interaction with terminals is immersing. The voice acting is marginal at best.

I'll update on what price point I can recommend for the game after I get more of it under my belt. Steam's page currently has it for $19.99.

UPDATE: I can sum this game up in one sentence. "Wave after wave of repetitive bad guys in awesome looking environments."

You can safely ignore this game. I feel the the design staff responsible for the story, really let the engineers who built the world down big time. Hard Reset... More like Easy Ignore.

Spill Proof Beer

2012-03-12T20:33:00.000-07:00

Watch this all the way through. We've all been there. I couldn't resist posting this.

Bastion

2012-03-05T16:43:00.000-08:00

I am 3 hours into Bastion, which according to HowLongToBeat.com, is roughly 33% complete. My experience in a word, awesome.

I am find myself constantly taking screen shots of this game. The visuals are awesome. The style is somewhat anime based, which isn't usually my cup of tea, but this art direction is really cool. I will be adding more screen shots as I continue to play.

The audio is just as unique as the visuals. The music is immersing and good enough that the soundtrack is for sale on Steam. The audio that steals the show, however, is the dynamic narration. The story is told by a gruff sounding elder(slightly akin to Sam Elliot). The dynamic narration comes into full swing, with humor at times, when you walk off of the edge of a platform or spend time goofing off.

Weapons, combat, and upgrades are varied and will fit multiple play styles. There is even a way to adjust the difficulty while playing through picking favor with in game gods. Some locations in the game are tougher than others. Some require some thought, while others ask for you to charge in weapons blazing.

Long and short of it... I am thoroughly enjoying this game. I got is as a gift, but would not have been disappointed spending the asking price of $14.99. This game is a steal at that price. Definitely a buy. If it goes on sale through Steam... grab it. Even if you have to add it to your game queue... you will not be disappointed.

Below is an up-to-date slideshow of my adventure thus far. You can see other screen shots from other games on my Pictures page(each picture is a link)

Chrome for Android

2012-02-24T10:48:00.000-08:00

I have been using the Chrome for Android Beta release for a week or two. I am pleasantly surprised! The syncing between my desktop and laptop browser was cool... and now that my Galaxy Nexus is joining the sync party, I am even more excited. Bookmarks and searches all sync across platforms.

The multi-tab browsing is well executed and the the overall speed of is good too.

The stock Android browser on Ice Cream Sandwich was already superior to the Gingerbread browser. While neither one support flash any longer, I am not finding myself missing it.

Keep it up Google!

Lines Blur

2012-02-22T09:37:00.000-08:00

The lines between the what is on your smartphone and what is on your PC have begun to blur. I have been talking about this, especially the ability to run apps on either device, for about 3 years now.

Rosepoint

2012-02-21T10:41:00.003-08:00

In an article over at Wired, there is news of Intel adding WiFi a CPU...

Researchers at Intel have come up with a way to make WiFi faster and more energy efficient.

It’s a chip called Rosepoint, and although it’s just a research project today, it could show up in mobile phones and laptop computers by the middle of the decade.
Rosepoint represents a breakthrough that Intel engineers have been hammering away at for years.They’ve been able to digitize little blocks of radio components in the past — things like amplifiers and synthesizers — but now they’ve managed to put a digital 2.4 GHz WiFi radio on a chip, right next to one of their low-power Atom central processing units (CPUs).
Building analog WiFi chips is a bit of an art. Radio Frequency (RF) chip designers build complex, customized circuits that operate on a continuum of voltages. The problem is that it’s often tough to shrink these analog designs down to the tiny scale that’s possible with today’s cutting-edge chipmaking processes.
Not so with digital RF chips, such as the one Intel’s just built. Digital RF chips are simpler. They have just two voltage levels and can be shrunk down much more easily whenever Intel’s researchers come up with a way to make chip parts smaller.
That’s good news for WiFi users. When Intel’s chips start to hit the market they will have “state of the art power efficiency” and superior signal quality, says Intel Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner. And things will only get better as Intel shrinks things down. “With a digital approach to radio, you can bring the benefits of Moore’s law to RF and radio circuits,” he says.
Intel wants to build a digital cellular radio chip too, in the “not too distant future,” Rattner says.
That’s going to move Intel into closer competition with RF chip companies such as Texas Instruments and Broadcom, says Kevin Krewell an analyst with semiconductor consulting firm The Linley Group.
In the long run, that could also mean better phones for everyone. “Ultimately it would reduce the chip count on the cell phone, which would reduce the cost and the complexity of manufacturing of the phone and improve battery life,” Krewell says.
But it’s not easy to do one of these wireless system-on-a-chip designs. Wireless radios and CPUs aren’t exactly ideal roommates. Both parties emit radiation that can mess with the other, in the same way that a calculator near an AM radio can distort sound. “This radiation seeps into the RF module and corrupts the data,” says Hossein Alavi, director of Intel’s Radio Integration Lab. “The closer they are, the more interference is going to go to them.”
Radio wave emissions can also mess with the microprocessor, Alavi adds.
To fix this, Intel has had to come up with noise canceling and radiation-shielding techniques for the chips.
Intel has even worked out techniques for putting radio antennas on-chip, but it isn’t talking about them for another year or two.

100% off of GoDaddy - Finally

2012-02-07T12:05:00.000-08:00

Following the SOPA shenanigans I quickly moved all of the domains that I could away from GoDaddy. I had to wait 60 days from the registration of the final domain before it could move .

At last, I have moved them all, only to find out that I can't actually close my GoDaddy account! They cite "legal reasons", I can however remove all of my payment and contact information from their system.

GiveGoodWeb has a good overview of what to do.

I have moved all of my domains to DreamHost as they do not support legislation that would censor the internet.

An Amazing View into the Future

2012-01-27T19:37:00.000-08:00

Holding my Ice Cream Sandwich Android in my hand... I can see that the possibilities of this are getting very close.

Mount and Blade: Warband

2012-01-25T06:47:00.000-08:00

At first glance there isn’t too much to this game. If you think that you are SOOO wrong. I am astounded by how deep this rabbit hole goes. Like so many reviews out there, I have countless screenshots and videos of me playing in order to review it. I don’t know where to start or what to write down.

Having the political dealings including wooing Noble Ladies, gaining the approval of your King, moving up in the nobility ladder, warring factions with independent standings with each Count and Lord. You can take and hold castles, plunder and raze villages…

Then you get to the combat which is shown in the screenshots on Steam. Awesome medieval weapons and physics based damage. A horse at full charge and you swinging a sword or mace is devastating. If has the feel of Total War battles except you control one guy and issue commands to your troops. Stabbing your way to victory.

And oh my the modding community is thriving. Including Star Wars mods…

Tools that I use: TightVNC

2012-01-22T21:00:00.000-08:00

This week: TightVNC

If you're anything like me, you have multiple computers doing various tasks for your household. A few run headless(without a monitor) or even without a keyboard or mouse hooked up.

I have found that Windows RDP isn't the answer for me as the OS variation is too great. FreeBSD, Mac OSX, Windows, and Linux are all running on my network. An easy way to get to these systems is to use TightVNC. I use this exclusively for LAN access. You can set up port forwarding as well as SSH tunneling to access devices via the internet, but I have found LogMeIn solutions work great for that.

Setting it up is easy and it is free! There are a many variations of VNC technology, but I have found TightVNC to be the most trouble-free for me thus far.

Windows 7 Volume issue or Teamspeak issue

2012-01-19T19:50:00.000-08:00

I was fighting an issue where, when using TeamSpeak and playing a game, when someone spoke, the game volume would plummet and stay low.

What the Fix was NOT: Right Click on Speaker in Task Bar, Choose Playback settings, then Choose the Communications Tab.. then picking the "Do Nothing" radial button.

What the Fix WAS: In TeamSpeak - go to the settings drop down, then plugins uncheck "Volume Control" plugin.

The plugin does this: "Reduce volume of other applications when someone is speaking in your channel. On systems other than Windows 7 or newer only Winamp's volume is affected."

I hope this helps you!

Tools that I use: Spanning Backup

2012-01-16T08:32:00.000-08:00

This week: Spanning Backup

Just in time for the unveiling on 3.0. Spanning Backup is an awesome company to work with and their product is damn cool. Recovering GApps data is amazingly easy. I couldn't recommend these guys more. A+ all the way.

From their most recent blog post:

After months of development, we’re proud to announce the launch of Spanning Backup for Google Apps v3.0.

The most readily apparent change is a revamped user interface. We’ve studied users’ interactions with Spanning Backup and used our findings to create a simplified, streamlined experience that effectively reduces the distance between you and your data.

We’ve also listened carefully to feedback from Google Apps admin power users, many of whom told us they need to be able to restore data on behalf of their users within seconds. So we’ve revamped the user impersonation function, making it more intelligent, easier to use, and even faster than it was before.

We’ve also integrated our Admin Dashboard into the application itself. Admins now have a single, consolidated view into their backup coverage, 30 days of Google Apps service health history, and their storage usage.

Finally, we’ve done a lot of work below the waterline. We back up terabytes of data for thousands of businesses, and are constantly improving our backend services to maintain our position as the highest-rated backup app on the Google Apps Marketplace.

We’ll be describing the new functionality in Spanning Backup v3.0 in a series of posts over the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned. 2012 is off to a beautiful start!

Tools that I use: ifttt

2012-01-12T07:39:00.000-08:00

This week: ifttt (If This Then That)

Ever wish that you could automate some of the actions that you find yourself doing from one web service to another over and over? You can! ifttt provides a large list of tasks that it can automate. They are called recipes.

A few examples that I use:

Post to Google+ and have it post to Twitter
Post to Google+ and have it post to Facebook
Star an article in GoogleReader and have it auto scrape and create a note in Evernote
Email if snow is in the forecast for tomorrow

The formula works as such:

IF Google+ pages has new update(THIS) THEN post update to Twitter(THAT) - Their how to page has a unique URL but will explain it quite well ifttt.com/wtf

There are so many possibilities with this I am excited to see where it goes!

Tools that I use: WinDirStat

2012-01-08T14:22:00.000-08:00

Example findings

This Week: WinDirStat
For Mac - Disk Inventory X

Finding hard drive hogging files isn't always easy once you've checked off the common offenders. While you might argue that with hard drive capacities being what they are today(friggin huge), why care if your 3TB hard drive has 1Tb of crap on it. Well the argument is this. Moving to a Solid State Drive, you will not be as spoiled as you once were. WinDirStat was awesome was mechanical drives were smaller and it still awesome with smaller SSDs.

Super simple to use. Tell it to scan the drive and it will give you a file tree as well as a visual representation of the files on the drive. You can even right click and go to the file, or delete the file from within WinDirStat!

It is opensource, but if you find it useful or have used it for any years, I urge you to donate to their work!

Scientists take step toward cyborgs

2012-01-06T14:37:00.001-08:00

In an article from PhysOrg. I find this exciting to see where this tech could be used. Think further down the line... Insects that don't need oxygen and that can stand environmental extremes. Imagine dumping million of cybernetic enhanced insects on Mars to scour and learn what the rovers cannot!

An insect's internal chemicals can be converted to electricity, potentially providing power for sensors, recording devices or to control the bug, a group of researchers at Case Western Reserve University report.The finding is yet another in a growing list from universities across the country that could bring the creation of insect cyborgs – touted as possible first responders to super spies – out of science fiction and into reality. In this case, the power supply, while small, doesn't rely on movement, light or batteries, just normal feeding.

The work is published in the online Journal of the American Chemical Society.

"It is virtually impossible to start from scratch and make something that works like an insect," said Daniel Scherson, chemistry professor at Case Western Reserve and senior author of the paper.

"Using an insect is likely to prove far easier," Scherson said. "For that, you need electrical energy to power sensors or to excite the neurons to make the insect do as you want, by generating enough power out of the insect itself."

Scherson teamed with graduate student Michelle Rasmussen, Biology Professor Roy E. Ritzmann, Chemistry Professor Irene Lee and Biology Research Assistant Alan J. Pollack to develop an implantable biofuel cell to provide usable power.

The key to converting the chemical energy is using enzymes in series at the anode.

The first enzyme breaks the sugar, trehalose, which a cockroach constantly produces from its food, into two simpler sugars, called monosaccharides. The second enzyme oxidizes the monosaccharides, releasing electrons.

The current flows as electrons are drawn to the cathode, where oxygen from air takes up the electrons and is reduced to water.

After testing the system using trehalose solutions, prototype electrodes were inserted in a blood sinus in the abdomen of a female cockroach, away from critical internal organs.

"Insects have an open circulatory system so the blood is not under much pressure," Ritzmann explained. "So, unlike say a vertebrate, where if you pushed a probe into a vein or worse an artery (which is very high pressure) blood does not come out at any pressure. So, basically, this is really pretty benign. In fact, it is not unusual for the insect to right itself and walk or run away afterward."

The researchers found the cockroaches suffered no long-term damage, which bodes well for long-term use.

To determine the output of the fuel cell, the group used an instrument called a potentiostat. Maximum power density reached nearly 100 microwatts per square centimeter at 0.2 volts. Maximum current density was about 450 microamps per square centimeter.

The study was five years in the making. Progress stalled for nearly a year due to difficulties with trehalase – the first enzyme used in the series.

Lee suggested they have the trehalase gene chemically synthesized to generate an expression plasmid, which is a DNA molecule separate from chromosomal DNA, to allow the production of large quantities of purified enzyme from Escherichia coli. "Michelle then began collecting enzyme that proved to have much higher specific activities than those obtained from commercial sources," Lee said. "The new enzyme led to success."

The researchers are now taking several steps to move the technology forward: miniaturizing the fuel cell so that it can be fully implanted and allow an insect to run or fly normally; investigating materials that may last long inside of an insect, working with other researchers to build a signal transmitter that can run on little energy; adding a lightweight rechargeable battery.

"It's possible the system could be used intermittently," Scherson said. "An insect equipped with a sensor could measure the amount of noxious gas in a room, broadcast the finding, shut down and recharge for an hour, then take a new measurement and broadcast again."