demod.org blog

My Master's Thesis

demod — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 20:36:33 +0100

On friday I finally handed in my master's thesis and am now just a colloquium away from gaining my MSc This hopefully should give me some much needed down time and the motivation to blog again at least occasionally.

Should you be interested in attending my (german) colloquium you are welcome. It will be held on the 27th April at 10:15 at the department of computer science of the university of applied sciences of Darmstadt. I will update this posting once I know in which room it will take place.

EDIT: It will be taking place in room 310.

master, thesis, h da

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Task Management

demod — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:44:27 +0100

A while ago I switched from my only semi-functional pin board and cellphone¹⁾ based task management system to using a pocketbook. Because of this I also started talking with others about how they are managing their tasks as well as looking around the net and was surprised how many people I know used pocketbooks (Moleskines in particular) or had no real system at all.

The moleskine I use with the prototype of a pen-holder attached to it. The finished version might turn out remotely similar to this.

Due to this I figured it might be interesting to extend this discussion about task management to the few readers of this blog and therefore I have described the current iteration of my system below. Please feel free to describe your own system in the comments or better a linkback so we can learn from each other.

FYI My system has developed iteratively and is probably rather specific to my needs and therefore quite simplistic when compared to other systems (GTD, PigPogPDA, …). Should my system turn out to be too simple for your needs or should you just need some input have a look at the following links

the planner
I'm not sure anymore how long ago I found this and how much I copied from it but it sure got some similarities ,)
Getting Sh-t Done (sample)
PigPogPDA - A Moleskine Hacked into a Complete System
Hacking a GTD Moleskine
Getting (Some) Things Done

My System

This is how it works. I use only one double page of my pocketbook at a time. Should it run full I transfer all unfinished tasks to the next double page – this also adds a little incentive to get some tasks done before you've got to write them down all over again. Transfered tasks are placed in the very top (or bottom) and get a roman numeral counting how often they have been transfered to remind me for how long I've been deferring them which adds another incentive to get them done eventually. To remind me of their special status these tasks also are separated by one free line from new tasks.

Also I don't try to simply finish random tasks but to pick a few for the day and then stick with them. This proved to be a motivational help with my last system because my goal was not to finish all items but just a small set I could actually finish on that day and then feel done with it. Since I'm a student and therefore don't have anything like a fixed amount of working hours each day this was rather helpful with maintaining something like a minimal work-life balance. In my previous system I used an extra slip of paper for this which worked nicely. Currently I'm trying to just mark these tasks with an X or a circle around the numeral but have yet to decide if that works good enough.

Once I've finished a task I just strike it out which can get a little messy once the page fills up but so far works best for me.

To give the whole list a little structure I've segmented the double page into 4 parts.

On the top of the right page I put atomic job/university related tasks. Grows down.
On the bottom of the right page I put all other atomic tasks. Grows up.
On the top (and most) of the left page I put big non-atomic tasks that might get new sub-tasks over time (e.g. anything relating to my MSc thesis or some university project). Because of this I also leave some space between each of these tasks. Grows down.
And the bottom of the left page I use as a mini shopping list. Grows up.

An example double page. Note: the “X” is not a roman numeral but marks tasks I will try to finish today just like the circle around the numerals does for transfered tasks. I guess this is a feature and not a bug because should I ever defer a task 10 times (10 = X = “do it today”) it might actually be a good idea to finally get done with it.

Usually a double page lasts for more than a week; however, to avoid things getting too cramped I transfer everything over to the next double page once a week. For this I designate one day a week (helps with actually doing it) on which I try to do the absolute minimum of university/job related work and to get a few things off that list (as well as getting outside *gasp*). Once I'm done I transfer the tasks left over to the next page and the whole thing starts over.

This is my system and so far it works surprisingly well. Now tell me how you are managing your tasks ,)

EDIT: What I forgot to mention: I also use a pin board that I transfer tasks to that are not time critical and that I won't be able to process any time soon anyway.

UPDATE: A while ago I decided to give RememberTheMilk a chance which syncs nicely with my new android phone thanks to Astrid. While this solution lacks the built-in incentives of the moleskine approach it is (at least for me) superior in most other aspects and I will keep using RTM+Astrid over the moleskine.

Task Management, Moleskine

¹⁾ S60 can't even organize itself…

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Tools: unpaper

demod — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:42:18 +0100

Recently I wanted to print a few scanned pages. However, due to the low quality of the source material (see below) reducing the pages to black&white didn't exactly improve them.

Enter unpaper. While unpaper is a rather unknown tool it's also extremely useful because it allows diverse image modifications to improve scanned pages, e.g.:

black-/gray-/noise-/blurfiltering
deskewing
border-aligning
mask-centering
etc.

If you aren't sold yet the documentation offers other great examples of applied image processing techniques.

Below I've included the minimal¹⁾ script I used to process the scanned pages. While the settings produced sufficient results for my needs they are probably still far from perfect – so don't forget to toy with your settings to get optimal results ,)

autounpaper

#!/bin/bash
# Usage: autounpaper *.jpg
 
inputfiles=$*
tmpin=`mktemp -t autounpaper-in-XXXXXXXXXX`.pgm
tmpout=`mktemp -t autounpaper-out-XXXXXXXXXX`.pgm
 
opts="-q --overwrite"
opts+=" --no-deskew --no-mask-scan"
opts+=" --grayfilter-size 1,1 --grayfilter-step 1,1 --grayfilter-threshold 0.4"
 
echo -n "Processing:"
 
for input in $inputfiles; do
	echo -n " $input"
	ending=${input#*.}
	output=${input%.*}-unpaper.$ending
 
	convert $input $tmpin && echo -n . && \
	unpaper $opts $tmpin $tmpout && echo -n . && \
	convert $tmpout $output
done
 
rm $tmpin $tmpout
 
echo

sh, quick and dirty, tools

¹⁾ meaning: quick&dirty

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Spot what's wrong

demod — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:46:18 +0100

Bad News

The cpu cooler retention module of my workstation (aka straylight) broke yesterday without warning but made a loud CLANG in compensation when hitting my graphic card
The board with which the retention module came was an abit KN9 Ultra which means that I can't even threaten to never buy abit again since they don't even really exist any more (btw. the cooler's weight was well within the spec iirc)

Good News

The BIOS reacted to the suddenly rather hot cpu and caused the system to shut down orderly (which I kinda sped up once I grasped what just must've happend…). Good to know that things just work in an emergency
A replacement retention module should arrive tomorrow
The graphic card appears to be undamaged
I've got a laptop which I'm using right now
⇒ never rely on any single piece of hardware not to break
I've got backups
⇒ If you don't have fully automated daily backups of your important data fix that now (see rsnapshot and sbackup)

UPDATE: got the new retention module and everything works again

fail, abit, hardware, arctic

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Scratching an itch with groovy

demod — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:18:24 +0100

As I've been working a lot with Java over the past few semesters and will most likely end up developing Java apps once I've got my MSc I've started looking at other, more dynamic languages available for the JVM. To make a long story short: I picked groovy and to learn groovy I need to write code in it. This led me to write deRSS over the last couple of days which scratches an itch of mine just right and therefore might be useful to others as well.

So, what is deRSS?

deRSS parses RSS 2.0 feeds and downloads files referenced in <enclosure url=””/> or (if not present) <link> elements. To avoid downloading files twice deRSS stores the publication date of the newest downloaded file.

It's simple, fits nicely into my crontab and so far works pretty well. Click here to learn more.

groovy, tools, itch

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xubuntu

demod — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:05:11 +0100

After neglecting this blog for so long I figured that I should at least announce that after 10 years of almost exclusively using debian I switched to xubuntu and kinda like it so far ,)

linux, ubuntu, debian, xfce

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Mini-Review: Nokia E71

demod — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 11:36:14 +0100

A while ago I finally got tired of my old cellphone and bought a proper one, a Nokia E71. This is a short mini review of it.

Hardware

The phone itself measures at just 114x57x10mm, weights 127g and is enclosed in a very, very solid feeling steel casing. Besides its keyboard, a 2.4” 320×240 screen and a 1,500 mAh battery it also got a fast 369 MHz ARM11 CPU, includes a GPS receiver, a 3.2MP camera, a micro USB port, a micro SD slot and other gizmos. Additionally it supports UMTS, HSPA, EDGE, WiFi, Bluetooth, Infrared etc.

The only real complaint I got about the hardware so far is that the screen's resolution is just too small to comfortably read PDFs or browse the web (soup.io just isn't fun on it) but I guess I can live with that . Apart from that the keys are a tad small but I got used to it after a short time – also while I originally would have preferred a slide-out keyboard it's actually quite nice to have all keys available at all times. Last but not least the d-pad is a huge improvement over the usual nokia joysticks.

Reading slashdot with Opera Mini

Software

The phone comes with SymbianOS 9.2 / S60 3.1 and TBH I am not that impressed by it. Due to not having used any other smartphone OS for any extended period of time I might not be the right person to judge this, however, there are quite a few rough edges and usability issues which is just sad for an OS that has been around that long.

Besides the OS related issues I~~'ve yet to find a single good theme for the phone~~¹⁾ and the included ones all are more or less plain fugly. The software download tool (“Laden!” for us germans) provides a rather laughable small collection of semi-useless software, there are no commercial games available for the E71²⁾ and it just takes too much time to fix annoying default behaviors (like preinstalled programs using GPRS&co per default without even asking if you maybe would like to use WiFi instead).

On the upside Symbian is by far the most common smartphone OS which guarantees having most software available for it. Also, despite its small flaws its just fine for day-to-day tasks.

Calendar

The E71's homescreen and default calendar application

Having a synchronize-able, electronic calendar to manage all my appointments (and lectures!) with was one of the many reasons I wanted to get a smartphone – sadly its never just that easy.

The preinstalled standard calendar is sufficient for basic usage but isn't exactly great on speed, configurability or providing an overview of anything. Luckily there are (commercial) alternatives: SBSH's Papyrus (aka Calendar) and Epocware's Handy Calendar which both use the built-in calendar to store their data. On the upside this allows you to use the built-in calendar synchronization tool and the appointment-widget on the phone's homescreen. On the downside the built-in calendar can't handle categories or multiple calendars which isn't exactly great for appointment management or getting an overview.

Additionally there is no easy choice between the two calendars. On one hand Papyrus got categories (which are not saved in the default calendar and therefore not synced) and numerous configuration options but on the other hand it lacks a widescreen suitable monthly overview (which Handy Calendar got), is rather ugly (if that matters to you) and often just can't keep up with the clean interface of its competitor.

Handy Calendar and Papyrus

Synchronization

Synchronizing the calendar is sadly not as easy as it should be – while the E71 supports SyncML the tools available for Linux (which are mostly based on OpenSync) sadly are unable to sync the E71 over bluetooth or HTTP³⁾ ATM, however, USB synchronization is supposed to work. See the OpenSync Device Compatibility Listing for more up to date information.

To sync my E71 with Sunbird I therefore had to build this chain:
E71 ↔ GooSync ↔ Google Calendar ↔ Provider for Google Calendar⁴⁾ ↔ Sunbird.

If you just want to backup your calendar, don't need to access it from a normal calendar program and can do without a good webcalendar you might be satisfied with Ovi or MyFunambol. Both don't exactly excel at being webcalendars but are very easy to setup.

Conclusion

~~Despite its small flaws I'm quite happy with my E71. For a price of approximately 360€ it delivers a very solid package that doesn't have to hide itself from any over-hyped touchscreen smartphone.~~

After using the phone a few months more I must confess that all the issues and inabilities of S60 are adding up. While the hardware is still great I just can't recommend it anymore till nokia manages to get S60 right.

Miscellaneous

Other Software I installed

Other Reviews

I’ve been using it for a month now, and I’m completely sold. This is the best phone I’ve ever had. I love it.
Joel Spolsky

Since I focused on the functionalities that are the most important to me in this review and completely ignored other features (e.g. mail client, exchange integration, VPN client, camera, media player, …) maybe reading other reviews might be a good idea before buying your own E71

Joel on Software
Engadget Mobile
All About Symbian.com
Symbian in motion (offers some valid negative points)

Amendments

The phone (and symbian in general) can multitask which is kinda cool
The phones key lock tends to unlock occasionally by itself when I put it in its standard sleeve and in my pocket

Hardware, Nokia, E71, Review, Cellphone, Symbian, Calendar

¹⁾ The e71blog hosts some good looking themes

²⁾ Not that I'm that much of a cellphone gamer but being able to play Puzzle Quest would have been great

³⁾ I had bi-directional synchronization over HTTP working for a while (although the program exited with an error message despite synchronizing successfully), however, after changing something I wasn't able to make it work again.

⁴⁾ a Sunbird plugin

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Bunny

demod — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 16:44:37 +0100

As you might have noticed quite a few people are currently drawing pictures of bunny as a part of the Draw a Bunny Campaign which I was invited to by chimeric. This campaign has the following simple rules and is open to everyone:

Draw a Bunny (or more)
Post it to your blog with the rules
Name three other bloggers that should draw a bunny

Sadly, after all the sudden fame bunny has become alienated from his natural habitat. Not knowing how to handle all the sudden attention and stress he chose the only way he saw to escape it all…

Bunny will be missed. If you want to see him again in his brightest moments don't forget about the greatest works of his short but brilliant acting career.

Rest In Peace.

EDIT: Tagged rebugger

tag, bunny, meme

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I've got mail

demod — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:10:13 +0100

The yes men got a nice way of saying thanks for donations – especially regarding the $3.75 postage from NY to germany

yes men, donation

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Google's Testing Blog

demod — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:09:49 +0100

I just finished reading through the 20ish posts of Google's Testing Blog that accumulated in my RSS reader during the end of the last semester and just wanted to say that that blog is actually pretty awesome (assuming you care for software engineering ).

Now go read it.

software engineering, google, blog

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demod's guide to gaming consoles (part 2 of 2)

demod — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:51:50 +0100

In this part I will take a look at the games available for each system – lets start with some statistics.

Statistics

The following statistics are based upon data I extracted from metacritic.com using Python and Beautiful Soup – to be more specific from the “All Games by Score”-Pages of each console: Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii and PC. However, due to the overwhelming amount of low quality games I decided to only list games with an average score of 80% or higher.

Games per console

Lets take a look at the games available for each console and how many of these games are available for other consoles.

The Xbox 360 got by far the most exclusives and most games overall. However, it shares most of its titles either with the PC¹⁾, PS3 or both. The PS3 also shares a lot of its games with the 360 but got a lot less overlap with the PC. Last and least the Wii – having about as many exclusives as the PS3 but little else.

For a more numerical representation of the data see the table below or the appendix.

360	PS3	Wii	PC	#Games
				52
				29
				27
				147
				37
				1
				18
				1
				4
				14
				6
				1

Games by year

Lets have a look at the games being released for the different systems each year. Cross-platform releases are listed for each platform.

As you can see on the chart the 360 hugely benefited from being the first 7th gen console on the market; however, the release rates of the PS3 are catching up rather quickly, suggesting that in the long run the systems probably will more or less have the same amount of games available.

The Wii improved a lot compared to last year; however, it still got only a little more than half the releases of the 360.

Conclusion

If you are still unsure which console to buy try to answer the following questions.

Are there any games you really want?

Like…

Gears of War 2 and Fable II for the Xbox 360
LittleBigPlanet and Metal Gear Solid 4 for the Playstation 3
Grand Theft Auto IV for Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC
Mass Effect for Xbox 360 and PC
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii

Have a look at metacritic (Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii and PC) or the appendix for a more complete listing of available games.

Are you a Wii person?

Do you like the Wiimote and using it all the time?
Do you like casual and party games or are children friendly games of concern?
The Wii got plenty
Do you like Nintendo games?
Because there isn't that much else available
- Can you stand the particularities of Nintendo games?
  “It's me Mario!!”
- Do you like the games Nintendo already has made?
  Because they are remaking each one of them over and over again

Xbox 360 or Playstation 3?

In my opinion there are two factors in this decision: price and games (assuming that the 360 got a jasper mainboard).

Price

The Xbox is cheaper²⁾, right? Well, this is only true if you don't plan to do the following things.

Will you connect your console to the net using WiFi³⁾?
Buying a WiFi adapter pretty much closes the price gap between the 60GB Xbox bundels and the 80GB PS3 bundle
Do you want to play games online?
The 3 month Xbox Live gold membership closes the price gap between the 60GB Xbox bundle and the 80GB PS3 bundle within 15 months using US and within two years using german prices.
If you are interested in the Xbox 360 Arcade this will of course take longer (unless you upgrade your HDD).
Would you like to download demos, videos or buy games online?⁴⁾
In this case the Xbox 360 Arcade is not for you⁵⁾.
Would you like to have a bluray player?
The PS3 is supposed to be quite a good one and while the use of bluray increases average game prices a bit it should also increase game quality in the future.

Therefore, please take into consideration that depending on what you are going to do with your console the Xbox 360 might actually be the more expensive choice in the long run.

Games

Do you own a PC?
If it is not too old it might just lack a 100–150 USD/€ graphic card to be able to play current games. This would give you access to the titles available only for PC and 360.
How much do you care about the games available already for 360 and PS3?
If there are no exclusive titles at the moment (or announced for the future) you just must have you might as well assume that both consoles will be evenly matched in the future.

Closing

Should you draw different conclusions from the data or just disagree with something please comment below.

Also, as mentioned in the last article we decided on the PS3 and yet have to regret it – especially thanks to great cooperative games like LittleBigPlanet (PS3) and Bionic Commando: Rearmed (360, PS3, PC) or my all-time favorite Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PS1, 360, PS3/PSP⁶⁾).

Appendix

What follows is the detailed availability of titles for the different consoles.

360 + PC (18)

F.E.A.R. (85%)
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (82%)
Left 4 Dead (89%)
Call of Duty 2 (89%)
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (87%)
Mass Effect (91%)
Elder Scrolls IV: Knights of the Nine, The (86%)
Hitman: Blood Money (82%)
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (90%)
Gears of War (94%)
Need for Speed Most Wanted (83%)
Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars (82%)
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent (85%)
Football Manager 2007 (82%)
Football Manager 2006 (81%)
Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles, The (86%)
Tomb Raider: Legend (80%)
LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (81%)

360 + PC + PS3 + Wii (1)

Call of Duty: World at War (85%)

PC + Wii (4)

Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 4: Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective (81%)
Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (80%)
World of Goo (90%)
Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 2: Strong Badia the Free (81%)

360 + PS3 (37)

skate (86%)
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 (86%)
FIFA Soccer 09 (87%)
FIFA Soccer 08 (82%)
Call of Duty 3 (82%)
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (82%)
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (90%)
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (83%)
Condemned 2: Bloodshot (81%)
College Hoops 2K8 (81%)
Devil May Cry 4 (84%)
NBA Street Homecourt (80%)
Burnout Paradise (88%)
Saints Row 2 (81%)
NBA 2K7 (84%)
NBA 2K9 (84%)
NBA 2K8 (81%)
College Hoops 2K7 (82%)
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (89%)
Fight Night Round 3 (86%)
Midnight Club: Los Angeles (81%)
Soulcalibur IV (85%)
Rock Band 2 (92%)
Virtua Fighter 5 (89%)
Assassin's Creed (81%)
NHL 08 (85%)
NHL 09 (89%)
Battlefield: Bad Company (83%)
Darkness, The (82%)
Civilization Revolution (84%)
NCAA Football 09 (83%)
Prince of Persia (85%)
Madden NFL 08 (85%)
Madden NFL 09 (84%)
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 (84%)
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 (80%)
Virtua Tennis 3 (80%)

360 + PC + PS3 (14)

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, The (94%)
Grand Theft Auto IV (98%)
Dead Space (89%)
DiRT: Colin McRae Off-Road (83%)
Unreal Tournament 3 (82%)
Bionic Commando Rearmed (85%)
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas (89%)
Far Cry 2 (85%)
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (94%)
Pure (85%)
BioShock (96%)
Orange Box, The (96%)
Fallout 3 (93%)
GRID (87%)

Wii (27)

Tetris Party (87%)
MLB Power Pros (83%)
Super Paper Mario (85%)
Boom Blox (85%)
Super Smash Bros. Brawl (93%)
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (90%)
MaBoShi: The Three Shape Arcade (90%)
Super Mario Galaxy (97%)
Mario Kart Wii (82%)
Madden NFL 09 All-Play (82%)
Geometry Wars: Galaxies (80%)
Art Style: ORBIENT (85%)
Trauma Center: Second Opinion (80%)
Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition (91%)
Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure (87%)
Okami (90%)
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 All-Play (80%)
Wii Fit (80%)
de Blob (81%)
WarioWare: Smooth Moves (83%)
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, The (95%)
BlastWorks: Build, Trade, Destroy (80%)
No More Heroes (83%)
LostWinds (80%)
Bomberman Blast (86%)
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King (80%)
Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection (82%)

PC (147)

Sins of a Solar Empire (88%)
Space Rangers 2: Dominators (84%)
Silent Hunter III (90%)
TrackMania United Forever (84%)
Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance (81%)
Guild Wars (89%)
Medieval II: Total War (88%)
Spore (84%)
Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 (87%)
City of Villains (82%)
Quake 4 (81%)
X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse (80%)
Guild Wars Factions (84%)
RACE: The WTCC Game (81%)
NASCAR SimRacing (85%)
King's Bounty: The Legend (82%)
Act of War: Direct Action (82%)
Sam & Max Episode 205: What's New, Beelzebub? (85%)
Sam & Max Episode 5: Reality 2.0 (82%)
Company of Heroes (93%)
AudioSurf (85%)
Race 07: The Official WTCC Game (83%)
Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties (81%)
Trials 2: Second Edition (83%)
Football Manager 2009 (83%)
Dangerous Waters (82%)
Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones (85%)
Sam & Max Episode 202: Moai Better Blues (80%)
MVP Baseball 2005 (85%)
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway (81%)
Crysis Warhead (84%)
Poxnora (86%)
Overlord (81%)
Crysis (91%)
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (92%)
Darwinia (84%)
RoboBlitz (80%)
Bejeweled Twist (80%)
Jade Empire: Special Edition (81%)
Team Fortress 2 (92%)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl (82%)
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (85%)
Dungeon Siege II (80%)
Eets (81%)
Peggle Nights (81%)
Neverwinter Nights 2 (82%)
Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer (82%)
Sims 2 University, The (81%)
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (93%)
Rome: Total War - Barbarian Invasion (82%)
Peggle (85%)
Witcher: Enhanced Edition, The (86%)
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Dark Crusade (87%)
Falcon 4.0: Allied Force (90%)
Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization (83%)
Dominions 3: The Awakening (82%)
Medieval II: Total War Kingdoms (85%)
Movies, The (84%)
Civilization IV (94%)
Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 3: Baddest of the Bands (80%)
Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (81%)
SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars (80%)
Indigo Prophecy (85%)
World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (91%)
Concorde Professional (85%)
Sam & Max Episode 201: Ice Station Santa (82%)
EverQuest II: Echoes of Faydwer (83%)
TrackMania Sunrise (82%)
Hearts of Iron II: Doomsday (80%)
Out of the Park Baseball 9 (82%)
IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946 (86%)
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Winter Assault (85%)
Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords (86%)
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (86%)
Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood (84%)
Battlefield 2142 (80%)
EverQuest II: Rise of Kunark (83%)
GT Legends (84%)
Blackwell Legacy, The (80%)
Naked War (84%)
Half-Life 2: Episode Two (90%)
Microsoft Flight Simulator X (80%)
Sam & Max Episode 4: Abe Lincoln Must Die! (80%)
Armadillo Run (88%)
Portal (90%)
Fable: The Lost Chapters (83%)
GTR 2 (90%)
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 (81%)
Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich (86%)
TrackMania United (80%)
Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor (92%)
Supreme Commander (86%)
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 (81%)
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (91%)
Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 (81%)
Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, The (86%)
Aquaria (84%)
Battlefield 2 (91%)
World in Conflict (89%)
Football Manager 2008 (86%)
Day of Defeat: Source (80%)
Psychonauts (87%)
Final Fantasy XI: Treasures of Aht Urhgan (83%)
NHL Eastside Hockey Manager 2005 (82%)
Witcher, The (81%)
Sam & Max Episode 1: Culture Shock (81%)
Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Acceleration (82%)
Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II, The (84%)
LEGO Batman (80%)
Civilization IV: Warlords (84%)
SWAT 4 (85%)
GTR: FIA GT Racing Game (85%)
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary (83%)
Prey (83%)
Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs (80%)
Nancy Drew: Secret of the Old Clock (80%)
Bookworm Adventures (82%)
GTR Evolution (82%)
Fate (84%)
Pro Evolution Soccer 5 (89%)
Pro Evolution Soccer 6 (88%)
Dragonshard (80%)
Nancy Drew: Legend of the Crystal Skull (80%)
Hearts of Iron II (83%)
Sam & Max Episode 204: Chariots of the Dogs (85%)
Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends (84%)
Spore Creature Creator (83%)
SWAT 4: The Stetchkov Syndicate (80%)
TOCA Race Driver 3 (84%)
Bowl Bound College Football (80%)
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (84%)
World Soccer Winning Eleven 8 International (88%)
Guild Wars Nightfall (84%)
Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts (87%)
Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar (91%)
Europa Universalis III (83%)
Half-Life 2: Episode One (87%)
Codename: Panzers - Phase Two (80%)
DEFCON: Everybody Dies (84%)
OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast (81%)
Age of Empires III (81%)
Out of the Park Baseball 2007 (96%)
Titan Quest: Immortal Throne (80%)
Myst V: End of Ages (80%)
Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness - Episode 2 (80%)
Mr. Robot (83%)
Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword (86%)

360 + Wii (1)

Bully: Scholarship Edition (80%)

360 + PS3 + Wii (6)

Rock Band (92%)
Mega Man 9 (82%)
Guitar Hero World Tour (85%)
WWE SmackDown vs. RAW 2009 (81%)
LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga (80%)
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (85%)

PS3 (29)

MotorStorm: Pacific Rift (81%)
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (94%)
SingStar (82%)
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (80%)
Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection Online (81%)
Super Stardust HD (85%)
Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection (82%)
Everyday Shooter (83%)
MLB 08: The Show (85%)
Warhawk (84%)
PixelJunk Monsters (83%)
Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds (81%)
Ninja Gaiden Sigma (88%)
Echochrome (81%)
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (89%)
Resistance 2 (87%)
Metal Gear Online (82%)
LittleBigPlanet (95%)
Eternal Sonata (80%)
Buzz! Quiz TV (80%)
WipEout HD (87%)
Valkyria Chronicles (86%)
Resistance: Fall of Man (86%)
MotorStorm (82%)
PixelJunk Eden (80%)
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (88%)
Gran Turismo HD Concept (82%)
PixelJunk Monsters Encore (82%)
MotorStorm (JPN Import Version) (84%)

360 + PC + Wii (1)

Madden NFL 07 (80%)

360 (52)

Pac-Man Championship Edition (83%)
Poker Smash (81%)
Rez HD (89%)
Halo 3 (94%)
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved (86%)
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 (90%)
Bomberman Live (84%)
Kingdom for Keflings, A (81%)
Condemned: Criminal Origins (81%)
Moto GP 06 (80%)
Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise (82%)
Project Gotham Racing 4 (85%)
Project Gotham Racing 3 (88%)
Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation (80%)
Tales of Vesperia (81%)
Prince of Persia Classic (82%)
Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis (81%)
Cloning Clyde (80%)
NBA 2K6 (81%)
Doom (80%)
Peter Jackson's King Kong (80%)
UEFA Euro 2008 (80%)
Uno (81%)
Gears of War 2 (93%)
WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2007 (81%)
Viva Pinata (84%)
Dead Rising (85%)
FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage (80%)
Guitar Hero II (92%)
Ikaruga (88%)
Portal: Still Alive (89%)
Crackdown (83%)
Sensible World of Soccer (81%)
N+ (83%)
Test Drive Unlimited (82%)
Burnout Revenge (89%)
Tony Hawk's Project 8 (81%)
Duke Nukem 3D (80%)
Castle Crashers (82%)
Fable II (89%)
Perfect Dark Zero (81%)
Ninja Gaiden II (81%)
Forza Motorsport 2 (90%)
Catan (81%)
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (82%)
Saints Row (81%)
NCAA Football 08 (81%)
Naruto: The Broken Bond (81%)
Winning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer 2007 (80%)
Dead or Alive 4 (85%)
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 (80%)
Braid (93%)

review, hardware, gaming

¹⁾ Meaning Windows

²⁾ Not counting the elite version of the 360

³⁾ and yes you really want to connect your console to the net

⁴⁾ You do. Both consoles have a few great games available in their online stores.

⁵⁾ Unless you buy a harddrive for it which kinda defeats the purpose of buying the 360 Arcade.

⁶⁾ US only atm

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Simple Improvements for Simple Scripts

demod — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:40:57 +0100

Did you ever suddenly notice that something simple you've been doing for years could be vastly improved with just a little bit of tweaking? I did yesterday concerning the transfer of files with netcat (e.g. when nobody got sendfile installed and standard paranoia forbids simply using scp instead) and figured I should share my sudden “enlightenment”

ncsend

#!/bin/sh
 
host=$1
shift
 
tar cv "$@" | pv -brt | nc -q0 $host 23000

ncrecv

#!/bin/sh
 
netcat -l -p 23000 | pv -brt | tar xv

Note: piping to pv is optional

Edit: fixed a word splitting bug and specified a default port

sh, quick and dirty, tools

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I got tagged

demod — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:40:37 +0100

Splitbrain just tagged me and so I guess I've got to list my “favorite desktop Linux software”. Here are the rules:

blog a list with your favorite destktop Linux software (as many or few you want)

add links to the software project's websites

post these rules

tag three other Linux using bloggers

however, I will just ignore the “desktop” part because the list would be short and boring otherwise.

"favorite" as in "they suck less than everything else"

"favorite" as in "OK"

"favorite" as in "I really like them"

audacious
A simple musicplayer that can trace back its ancestry to x11amp
unison
Synchronizes filesystems over ssh
gVim
Great editor once you've spend a few years rewiring your brain to it
SMPlayer
Great mplayer frontend
Meld
Gets stuff merged without wasting your time
bzr (aka Bazaar aka Bazaar-NG)
Gets stuff versioned without wasting your time. Especially nice when combined with meld (via the extmerge plugin)
ZSH
A powerful and customizable shell; once you get used to scp-remote-host-path-completion you won't be able to do without
Xfce
A fast yet sufficiently customizable windowmanager
KPDF
Well thought-out PDF-reader
VirtualBox
Free and fast virtualisation
JabRef
BibTex bibliography manager with docbook export and other nice features
The Gimp
Great pixel-based Image Manipulation Program
Inkscape
Like gimp just without those pixelthingies
Python
Gets things done fast yet beautiful; can pose as a desktop app with the right input

So now that this is settled I tag:

UPDATE:
s/KPDF/Okular/

chain letters, linux, tools

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Staying Sane with RSI

demod — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:40:10 +0100

I am not a doctor. Anything I post here is just based on my experiences and may help as well as harm you. Consult a doctor before following any of my advice.

Some time ago I suffered from a bad case of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) which german doctors usually diagnose as Sehnenscheidenentzündung or Tendovaginitis/Tenosynovitis. Not being able to normally use a computer or my hands for a prolonged period of time gave me plenty of opportunity to think about how to improve my situation (and how to stay sane). After going through this I figured I might as well share which tools I bought as a result of that thought process.

Staying Productive

Staying productive was very important to me because I still had (unrealistic) hopes of finishing my CS BSc within the standard period of time – which included “writing” my bachelor thesis…

A Trackball for your Feet

While the idea surely sounds wrong using a trackball with your feet is probably one of the best options you've got with RSI. I used a X-Arcade™ Trackball which, being a humongous arcade style trackball, had just the right size and button positioning to be used somewhat comfortably with my feet. It's also nice to have when reading your RSS feeds while eating…

Just remember: your wrists are not the only joints that are endangered by RSI so use your trackball in moderation.

The X-Arcade™ Trackball

Speech Recognition

Vista's Speech Recognition

The speech recognition worked surprisingly well for web browsing and most applications in general, however, it still had some pretty rough edges (semi-frequent crashing, not really learning how you speak words, etc.) and became tedious to use rather fast. Also, dictating longer texts didn't work that well either.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking

For the dictation of parts of my bachelor thesis I used Dragon NaturallySpeaking Standard 9. Thanks to VirtualBox I was able to use DNS9 and MS Word¹⁾ without any major issues on my linux workstation. While still somewhat tedious, annoying and nowhere near the speed of touch-typing DNS9 is IMHO more or less as good as speech recognition gets (at least for dictating).

Staying Sane

A Joystick for your Feet

Ever tried playing a game with your feet? No? It's just a matter of desperation and boredom, trust me. After trying out some cheap no-name arcade stick I got myself a X-Arcade™ Solo which was sufficiently large and robust enough to be used this way. Thanks to the large selection of adapters you can use the Solo with your PC (USB or PS2) and most game consoles (Playstation 1/2²⁾/3, Xbox 1, Gamecube (⇒Wii), Dreamcast).

While it takes some time getting used to it is sure better than no gaming at all. Personally I'd recommend turn-based strategy and role-playing games, like Fire Emblem, Disgaea, Chrono Trigger, etc. However, as with the trackball you've got to remember not to overstrain your ankles.

The X-Arcade™ Solo

A Bookholder

Easy Read is a simple yet flexible bookholder that makes (mostly) hands free reading quiet feasible. It is pretty nice to have in general even without RSI.

The Easy Read

Other Advise

Three out of four doctors were sure that I had Tendovaginitis, the fourth at least admitted that it was just his best shot. However, when I started seeing a physiotherapist to learn some exercises he dismissed the doctors theory within minutes and after some testing got a pretty good idea of the true cause. Therefore, if you can get some physiotherapy, give it a shot. Also, should you happen to be from around Darmstadt (Germany) I can only recommend ProPhysio.

Health, RSI

¹⁾ DNS9 directly supports MS Word and therefore it is a lot more productive with it than with OpenOffice.org.

²⁾ while the Playstation 1/2 adapter is supposed to emulate PS1&2 pads it's actually just emulating a PS1 pad and therefore might not work with all PS2 games

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Ever wanted to shutdown your workstation and...

demod — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:39:59 +0100

Ever wanted to shutdown your workstation and confused some random $xterm with an ssh-session and one with a local shell? Still want to use your pretty shell color scheme on all your accounts anyway? Look no further. After managing to shutdown the wrong machine once or twice a year I finally took the time to build some visual safeguards into my ZSH.

However, since both ssh sessions and X terminal emulators allocate the same kind of pseudo terminal the best thing I came up with so far was iterating over the chain of parent processes until finding init or sshd. If anyone got a cleaner solution for this problem please tell me

.zshrc

function ppid_of() {
	grep ^PPid /proc/$1/status | awk '{print $2}'
}
 
function is_ssh_login() {
	pid=$$
 
	while [ $pid != 1 ]; do
		if `grep -q sshd /proc/$pid/cmdline` ; then
			return 0
		fi
		pid=`ppid_of $pid`
	done
 
	return -1
}

.zshrc

## see console_codes(4) for number<->color relations
# red foreground
root_color=31
# green foreground
user_color=32
# blue foreground
cwd_color=34
 
 
if [ `id -u` == 0 ]; then
	hostname_color=$root_color
else
	hostname_color=$user_color
fi
 
if is_ssh_login ; then
	# background color = foreground color
	hostname_color=`expr $hostname_color + 10`
fi
 
PROMPT=`echo "%{\033[01;${hostname_color}m%}%n@%m%{\033[00m%}:%b%{\033[01;${cwd_color}m%}%~%{\033[00m%} %# "`

sh, zsh, quick and dirty

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Heap smashing thesis-code

demod — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:39:22 +0100

Today I stumbled across a piece of C code I wrote to illustrate some properties of the glibc's dynamic memory allocator¹⁾ in my (german) bachelor thesis and figured that the code might actually turn out to be interesting for people seeking to understand or to toy with their heap. If you've never tried to understand your dynamic memory manager this code alone probably won't explain much; however, toying with something you don't understand might not be the worst starting point to change that ,)

The code was written to run on both x86 and x86-64 and to work with glibc versions between 2.3.3 and 2.7; however, other versions might work as well. To the C-coders reading this: sorry for the camelCase and the use of vowels in my identifiers, just couldn't help it after years of python&co ,)

heap_fastbin.c

#include <string.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
 
#define CHUNK_OFFSET  (2 * sizeof(size_t))
#define printFastbinList(addr)  printBinList(addr, NULL)
 
void* chunk2mem(void* ptr) {
	return ptr + CHUNK_OFFSET;
}
 
void* mem2chunk(void* ptr) {
	return ptr - CHUNK_OFFSET;
}
 
void printChunkAddress(void* ptr, char* name) {
	printf("%s:\tchunk 0x%08lx\n", name, mem2chunk(ptr));
}
 
void printBinList(long* ptr, long* abort) {
	int i = 10;
 
	ptr = mem2chunk(ptr);
 
	if(abort)
		abort = mem2chunk(abort);
 
	printf("bin list: ");
	printf("0x%08lx -> ", ptr);
 
	while(1) {
		if(i-- <= 0) {
			printf("...");
			break;
		}
		// get the address of the next chunk
		ptr = chunk2mem(ptr);
		ptr = (long*) *ptr;
 
		if(ptr == abort) {
			printf("0x%08lx", ptr);
			break;
		}
 
		printf("0x%08lx -> ", ptr);
		fflush(stdout);
	}
	puts("");
}
 
int main(void) {
	size_t size = 0xf;
 
	long* ptr;
	long* tmp;
	int i;
 
	// #1: allocating chunks
	long* x = malloc(size);
	printChunkAddress(x, "x");
 
	long* a = malloc(size);
	long* b = malloc(size);
	long* c = malloc(size);
	printChunkAddress(a, "a");
	printChunkAddress(b, "b");
	printChunkAddress(c, "c");
 
	// #2: freeing a, b, c
	free(a);
	free(b);
	free(c);
 
	puts("\n--8<-- the fastbin before the double-free");
	printFastbinList(c);
 
	// #3: freeing b again
	free(b);
 
	puts("\n--8<-- the fastbin after the double-free");
	printFastbinList(c);
 
	// #4: reallocating b
	b = malloc(size);
 
	// #5: inserting x into the list
	*b = (long) mem2chunk(x);
	*x = (long) mem2chunk(a);
 
	puts("\n--8<-- the manipulated fastbin");
	printFastbinList(c);
 
	// #6: allocating chunks from the manipulated fastbin
	puts("\n--8<-- chunks returned by malloc");
 
	for(i=0; i < 5; i++) {
		ptr = malloc(size);
		printChunkAddress(ptr, "ptr");
	}
 
	exit(0);
}

demod's guide to gaming consoles (part 1 of 2)

demod — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:38:54 +0100

My GF and I recently bought a Playstation 3 and this was supposed to become a small review of it; however, a review by itself is often pretty useless if its subject is not directly compared to its competitors. Therefore I've added information about the other consoles on the market which is more or less the same set of knowledge that we used to base our decision on.

I hope that I've managed to keep the comparison fair and balanced; however, I can't guarantee it since we only own a Wii and a PS3. Therefore I had to rely on a friend and the net for information about the Xbox 360 – should I've missed something essential or got something wrong → please write a comment.

The Details

Because of the size of the topic I decided to split the article into two parts. In this part I will discuss all (IMHO) notable attributes of the different consoles and in the next part I will take a look at the games available for each of them and maybe do some pseudo statistics.

Note: Listed prices are not the cheapest available but were taken from amazon.com and amazon.de – therefore you might be able to get much better deals elsewhere¹⁾.

Wii

The Wii was first released in the end of 2006 and its unique selling point is its motion based controller. Its other particularities are its focus on casual games and its low-end hardware²⁾.

The Userinterface

Nintendo got this pretty much right. Its all simple and clear; however, it lacks real profiles and forces you to use the Wiimote to point at things whenever possible.

The Controller

The Wiimote was a very cool idea; however, at least for me it got old quickly. While there are plenty of people who really like their motion controls there are also those who are just plain annoyed by them – therefore, make sure to test the Wiimote in a few different games before buying a Wii. Apart from that the Wiimote is a cool controller and also can be used with PCs thanks to it using standard bluetooth.

As for the Wii's classic controller imho nintendo just really failed at cloning a Playstation DualShock controller with it. Luckily you can use gamecube controllers³⁾ in its place in many (all?) games.

The Hardware

Well, it got the power of 2 gamecubes duct-taped together and costs more than some Xbox 360 models, doesn't even have an optical audio out and produces graphics that are much closer to the Playstation 2 than to real 7th-gen-consoles. To make matters worse it also only supports 480p⁴⁾.

On the upside the Wii got built-in WiFi and its gamecube hardware allows it to run gamecube games without any emulation; however, the gamecube wasn't exactly the winning console of its generation which shows in the games available for it compared to the Playstation 2.

The Online Store

The Wii got the worst online store ever. Its slow, offers little (no screenshots large enough to actually allow you to recognize the game, no videos, no downloadable demos, …) and is rather expansive (5-12€ is an ridiculous amount of money to download tiny ROM-images of old and often mediocre games). Apart from the store the other channels you can download are also rather useless, WiiWare got a few semi-interesting titles but if I think about it I'm not really sure if it is possible to botch your online store any worse than nintendo did.

Online Multiplayer Support

To my knowledge there is only a handful of titles available that support online multiplayer gaming. However, I have yet to find a complete list therefore I might be wrong on this.

Nintendo

While getting a lot of the core-concepts right (gameplay instead of graphics, casual and non-gamers as target audience) nintendo IMHO failed badly at the execution. Even with its weak hardware the Wii is full of possibilities; however, nintendo only focuses on its motion sensing abilities and other silly addons instead of trying to make it into something that doesn't depend on silly gimmicks to succeed.

Luckily their marketing department managed to make the Wii as hip as an average Apple product which proves again that you don't need to be competent in your field of work if you've got good marketing.

Price

Average game prices appear to be lower than on any of the (other) 7th-generation consoles.

Item	DE Price	US Price
Wii	248.95€	$350⁵⁾
Wiimote⁶⁾	39.95€	$35.96
Nunchuk⁷⁾	18.95€	$17.96
Gamecube Controller	26€⁸⁾	$24.79

Xbox 360

The Xbox 360 was released in the end of 2005 which made it the first 7th gen console on the market. Its focus is affordable high-end gaming.

As mentioned before: We don't own one, should I've overlooked something please comment below.

The User Interface

For 3 years the Xbox 360 had the worst interface by far. Luckily, with the release of the “New Xbox Experience” (NXE) just a few days ago this finally appears to have changed. NXE offers a nice looking, functional interface as well as new features like the ability to install games on the consoles HDD – or at least so I've been told. Since I yet have to get a chance to try it myself I will just leave it at that for now.

Also, the 360 supports profiles that are linked to your savegames in case you are sharing your console with others. Sadly I never had the chance to play with these but I will just assume that they are as nicely done as the Playstation 3's.

The Hardware

The Xbox 360 has a long history of technical defects. From harmless problems like being rather loud, over scratching discs, to overheating and dying for no special reason – actually it had so many problems over the years that there is a wikipedia article just about the topic. Some sources even claim error rates above 30% for the early iterations of the hardware. Sadly Microsoft never openly addressed any of its problems and always claimed that “that the Xbox 360's failure rate was within the consumer electronics industry's typical 3% to 5%”. This behavior also makes it rather hard to determine if the known problems have been fixed in newer versions of the Xbox 360; however, I believe it is safe to assume that the most grave have been fixed in the current iteration, for the most part. Also apparently the first few 360s with the new Jasper mainboard are now being sold in the US⁹⁾. Considering that this is the 5th iteration¹⁰⁾ of the hardware I wonder what the chances are that they actually got it right this time. Personally I would wait a few weeks or months till the Jasper boards have proved themselves before I'll believe that they actually work as good as they are supposed to.

Additionally there is no built-in WiFi and it only can read DVDs instead of HD DVDs or Bluray discs which might be quiet a hindrance for future games; however, considering the age of the console this is at least understandable.

On the upside the 360 can run a few titles of the original Xbox, giving you access to some great games.

The Controller

Most people appear to like the controller – while some dislike the d-pad the only real issue I found is that it is not using standard bluetooth and therefore forcing you to buy a “Xbox 360 Wireless Controller for Windows” for 40€ if you ever want to use one for anything else than your Xbox.

Additionally, while the 360 in theory supports USB keyboards and mice games don't (can't?) use them.

Online Store

From all I've heard the store does its job well, providing demos, videos and reasonable prices games. Just like the store on the Playstation.

Online Multiplayer Support

You need a Xbox Live Gold account to play most games online. Yes you need to pay for something as basic as online gaming and it costs you US$49.99 or €59.99 annually and yes it is really that much cheaper in the US.

Miscellaneous Features

The 360 also got the capability to replay media files from USB storage devices or the network. For network playback you are supposed to use a windows pc; however, apparently you also can use other operating systems as long as your UPNP server supports microsofts variation of the protocol¹¹⁾.

Price

Average game prices appear to be a good bit above Wii games but still a bit below Playstation 3 games.

Console	DE Price	US Price
Xbox 360 Arcade (256MB)	176.95€	$199.99
Xbox 360 bundle (60GB)¹²⁾	239.00€	$299.99
Xbox 360 Elite bundle (120GB)¹³⁾	298.95€	$399.99

Xbox Live Gold Membership¹⁴⁾	DE Price	US Price
One month	6.99€	$7.99
Three months	19.99€	$19.99
One year	59.99€	$49.99

Misc	DE Price	US Price
Wireless Controller¹⁵⁾	39.95€	$36.96
WiFi Adapter	66.99€	$82.96

Playstation 3

The Playstation 3 was released in the end of 2006. It has the best hardware of this generation, with the most processing power, a Bluray drive and no major hardware faults. It also got the highest price-tag.

The User Interface

The Interface is very aesthetic, clean and overall nice looking. While it displays media and games as a list by default (which doesn't exactly scale well) other views (that scale a lot better) can be activated using the square-button.

Another nice feature is how they integrated profiles. Every users profile is associated with his favored theme-/color-settings, savegames and PSN account making sharing your console with others quite comfortable. Even nicer is that every user can use the media and games other users bought on the PSN – which was quite a surprise for me given that the PS3 is a Sony product.

The Controller

The PS3's standard controller is the DualShock 3 (however, there are still a few rumble-feature lacking SIXAXIS controllers in circulation). Compared to its Playstation 2 predecessor (the DualShock 2) it gained the following features:

Bluetooth for wireless gaming
A micro-USB-port for cable-bound gaming and recharging (both works fine with PCs)
Analog R2/L2 trigger buttons which are great especially in racing games (the 360's controller got something similar); however, some people appear to have issues with the buttons getting slippery after prolonged periods of gaming. Should this turn out to be a problem for you you might want to consider these.
Some motion sensing capabilities that are comparable to the Wiis nunchuk

The only thing I dislike about the DualShock 3 is that you can't change its battery by yourself (well, and its price). Apart from that if you liked the DualShock 2 you will most likely love its successor (and should buying more DualShock 3's get too expensive you can use DualShock 2 controllers thanks to cheap adapters¹⁶⁾).

Another nice detail is that you can use any standard USB keyboard or mouse and also some bluetooth devices¹⁷⁾ with it. These make text entry while gaming or using the web-browser much more fun. Sadly, the only game using this to allow PC-style controls appears to be Unreal Tournament 3 – which is kinda sad but at least the possibility is there for future games to use.

The Hardware

The PS3 is quiet big and heavy and imho looks more like a grill than a console. Luckily apart from the design they got everything else more or less right: its not too noisy, got no built-in defects I know of and its Bluray drive may more than pay off in the long run (DVDs are growing too small for games and my PS2 has after all been my primary dvd player till now). Also to my knowledge the PS3 got a good bit more processing power than the Xbox 360 which sadly matters rather little because most games are cross-platform anyway.

As for the different iterations of the PS3s hardware, in the beginning some models had hardware PS2 emulation, a flash card-reader, 4 USB-ports and/or WiFi. The PS3s built nowadays all got 2 USB ports and WiFi but lack the card reader and any kind of PS2 emulation.

Additionally its also possible to upgrade the HDD yourself using cheap standard 2.5” SATA drives.

Online Store

The PlayStation Network (PSN) allows you to download demos, videos or reasonably priced games – pretty much like the Xbox's online store. As usual the stores content differs per continent; however, Sony apparently realized that this is annoying and is currently streamlining the approval process to allow games to be released everywhere at once¹⁸⁾.

Online Multiplayer Support

Its free, works fine and plenty of games use it, 'nuff said.

Miscellaneous Features

A quite novel feature of the PS3 is that you are actually allowed to install another OS on it. While you can't do any real homebrew inside the Playstations OS anymore installing Ubuntu or another Linux distribution might replace the need for a HTPC for a lot of people. Also, if you don't feel like installing another OS the PS3 already can play mediafiles from any UPNP capable NAS or PC.

Price

Average game prices are the highest overall and a bit higher than Xbox prices – probably due to the use of bluray discs. Also you might have noticed that I found very little wrong with the PS3 until now; however, reliable, high quality hardware doesn't come cheap.

Item	DE Price	US Price
Playstation 3 bundle (40GB)¹⁹⁾		$399.96
Playstation 3 bundle (160GB)²⁰⁾		$499.99
Playstation 3 (80GB)		$399.99
Playstation 3 bundle (80GB)²¹⁾	397.95€
Wireless Controller²²⁾	59.95€	$54.96

Preview

In the next part I will take a look at what actually matters: the games available for each console.

review, hardware, gaming

¹⁾ If you are german I recommend the heise preisvergleich

²⁾ usually referred to as 2 gamecubes duct-taped together

³⁾ which are a bit weird but are quiet good otherwise

⁴⁾ considering this it is OK that it also lacks an HDMI port I guess

⁵⁾ Only available from the amazon.com marketplace ATM because nintendo is not able to keep up with the production – as always. Price includes shipping.

⁶⁾ , ⁷⁾ , ¹⁵⁾ , ²²⁾ One included with every console

⁸⁾ Amazon.de marketplace

⁹⁾ source: http://kotaku.com/5099691/jasper-360-consoles-hit-the-market

¹⁰⁾ source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_hardware

¹¹⁾ source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360#Multimedia

¹²⁾ , ¹³⁾ Includes LEGO Indiana Jones and Kung Fu Panda

¹⁴⁾ Required for online gaming

¹⁶⁾ the one made by Logic3 works fine and costs ~15€ at amazon.de

¹⁷⁾ Logitech diNovo Mini works fine

¹⁸⁾ source: http://kotaku.com/5069037/no-more-european-psn-delays

¹⁹⁾ Includes Metal Gear Solid 4

²⁰⁾ Includes Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

²¹⁾ Includes Motorstorm Pacific Rift, Resistance 2, SingStar ABBA or LittleBigPlanet.

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