Just had to put this out as a word of warning to look at things like this and do a little math, I know it was probably a mistake but not a lot of people look at the costs of things or just think they are getting a good deal because it is on sale, keep this in mind when you go to a store and look at things you get there they are even worse than little things like this.

1. In steam open your Library of games, select the game you want and right click it to open the menu and select Properties.
2. Click on Set Launch Options
3. Add the “-window -noborder -novid” to the box and select OK
4. Start the game like you normally would

This should work on any game any game with the Valve Source Engine based on Half-Life 2 such as Half-Life 2 and its episodes, Team-Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead 1 and 2, Day of Defeat : Source, Counter-Strike : Source and Half-Life 2 Death Match. Now I need to see if World of Warcraft has some of the same options.

The -novid option makes it so that the Valve video and the game intro video don’t play every time you load the game.

Steve Ballmer with Ryan Seacrest

After hearing the last keynote from Microsoft as CES 2012 I was kind of disappointed by it, they has Ryan Seacrest and he sounded like he was just reading lines and didn’t care about anything the they had to show. And Steve Ballmer was his same yelling self the only thing new that they showed was relay the Kinect for windows and it wasn’t even much more than a video of it. They mostly recapped things about products that were out or things that were known about new products such as Windows 8.

As for the Kinect for Windows it looks like it will let you do motion controls for your PC along with know where the user is. But I think this is just a gimmick like voice controls are right now, they are built in to Windows 7 and work well it is just so easy to just mouse to something and click it. Also when you want to change your thoughts to text a keyboard is so easy to use and is faster. I’m sure they will market this as a use for all kinds of things but it won’t go anywhere. Most laptops have cameras built into them and how much do they get used and if they wanted to they could see if you are waving a motion using those cameras.

Another bad thing is the price, who will pay $249 to wave at their computer, and have no real use for it. They say it will be used in medical fields and education, ya sure if they had their way, but education is having a hard enough time getting teachers to use projectors and PowerPoint let alone money to get these in schools. And how will a doctor use the system, O he doesn’t have to touch a screen that would have a image of something, most of their time would be looking at what they are working on.

It is available on Amazon.com for $249.99 and will ship February 1st 2012. And MS Press site didn’t think it was even that important to have an image of the Kinect just ol Steve and Ryan.
Amazon.com : Kinect Sensor for Windows

You can get these now in different sizes starting at around $500.
Amazon.com: ThinkPad Tablet 1838 Android 3.1 32GB 10.1″

It’s already available online list $199.99 but Amazon.com had it already for 189.38.
Amazon.com: Thinkvision LT1421 Wide 1452DS6

Android Tablets were big last year but the ones that did come out in 2011 were flops and the main reason was that they were trying to do the old computer trick of having spec wars and charging too much. The iPad dose so good because it is not that expensive and is somewhat of a good device that has a sexy or prestige factor that the Android tablets lack because of marketing by Apple.

If they can make new tablets with Android 4.0 that are good specs and don’t cost over $500-600 then they may work out but if they want to sell lots they need to have it be good spec, Android 4.0 and cost less than $350.

As for the TVs with apps, it looks like they will be running Google TV aka Android TV, but the mistake that the companies are going to make is putting skins on them, they need to look and feel the same. Also Google and the TV companies will need to make deals to get the content producers to make apps to put their content on the system.

With Microsoft also pulling out I don’t see much coming from them, probably some new looks at Windows 8 and a recap of the new video options on Xbox 360. And I’m sure Sony and Nintendo will save most of their big things for games for E3 were I’m sure Microsoft will still have a big setup to pimp there Xbox stuff.

This year I will probably keep looking over some of the blog sites, and check out Twit.tv they have the most raw unorganized look from the floor as if you were there. CNet has some good stuff but it is more organized and almost too setup only with big names.

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.