I’ve been doing 30 day challenges for eons now. It all started with a little plan I devised called “The okTober Project”, which is just a fancy name for a 30 day challenge that took place in October –I was pretty dramatic back then. I can’t remember all the specifics, but the list of items I had to accomplish in 30 days was mind-numbing. Over the years, the oKtober Project spread into other months. I also stopped overloading myself with an obscene amount of objectives and settled on just a few, well thought out goals per challenge. I’ve taken it one step further recently, limiting myself to one goal per 30 day challenge. This way I can focus and not get too overwhelmed.

The first challenge making its debut in my shiny new 30 Day category, will be to write 750 words per day, everyday, for 30 days. I won’t lie to you, I’m slightly terrified. I got the idea from a great website called, believe it or not, 750words.com. Here’s what the creator of that site has to say:

I’ve long been inspired by an idea I first learned about in The Artist’s Way called morning pages. Morning pages are three pages of writing done every day, typically encouraged to be in “long hand”, typically done in the morning, that can be about anything and everything that comes into your head. It’s about getting it all out of your head, and is not supposed to be edited or censored in any way. The idea is that if you can get in the habit of writing three pages a day, that it will help clear your mind and get the ideas flowing for the rest of the day.

So it begins. From September 1st, which happens to be today, to September 30th, I shall write –and I shall write hard! It won’t be pretty, I won’t win any awards, I might even cry a little, but I shall prevail. There’s little to no chance that anyone will see what I write, so don’t ask (how Salinger of me). I’ll post progress updates to my twitter account from time to time. When the challenge is over, I will post a full recount of my 30 days and hopefully I will be 22,500 words the richer, but until that day….I write!

“Call me Ishmael” –wait, has that been used already?

Nevertheless, I lost my account once and I could lose it again. This time, however, I will be ready. You see, I’m that guy who always preaches backup, backup, backup, and never actually backs anything up. But that was the old me. The ignorant me. The hypocritical me!

Let me show you how I’ve changed and maybe, just maybe, I can inspire you to follow in my footsteps and become, as I have, a born again backuper.

The first thing I did was choose a backup location on my home computer (I split my time pretty evenly between my home PC, work PC, and laptop). I made a folder on my F drive called My Files. I recommend not using the same physical hard drive as your operating system, if possible. If you don’t have multiple hard drives, then C:\My Files will do just fine. Everything I want to backup will live in this folder and its subfolders.

Before I get into the intricacies of my ultimate data loss prevention plan, allow me to divulge to you my backup tool of choice. It’s called Carbonite and it’s $54.95 per year. I know, I know, it’s not free, but it’s good –and when it comes to my data, I want good. I don’t want to turn this post into a Carbonite commercial, but I will tell you that Carbonite offers unlimited backup space (I’m pushing 90 gigabytes already), runs in the background so you never know it’s there, and has all the security bells and whistles you could want, including good encryption to and from their servers. The backup / restore options are very user friendly too.

Still here? Good. Let’s get back to business. Inside the My Files folder are the subfolders My Audio, My Backup, My Documents, My Dropbox, My eBooks, My Music, My Photos, My Stuff, and My Videos. Your folders can be completely different, depending on what you want to backup. I will go over some of these folders in a little more detail, but first, look at the picture to the right. You will see either a red or green circle on each folder. The circles tell you that those particular folders have been chosen for backup by Carbonite. The colors tell you whether or not they’ve actually been backed up yet; green means yes and red means no. Carbonite constantly monitors these folders for changes and when it sees that a file has been added or modified, it flags it for backup. This is key because, as you will see, these folders are in a constant state of flux.

Most of the subfolders in My Files are just the standard My Documents folders in Windows. I simply moved their default location to My Files. You can learn how to do that here.

Most of the Folders are self-explanatory. My Documents contain my documents, My Videos contain my videos, etc… My iTunes library is in My Music folder, so anything I add to iTunes will be placed there. Like I said, most of these are pretty obvious, but there are a couple of folders that I would like to go over in a little more detail.

You may notice that My Dropbox resides in the My Files folder. Again, I just moved its default location, which can easily be done from the Dropbox preferences menu. I’ve talked about Dropbox before, here and here. It’s a special folder that syncs its contents to all of your other computers that have Dropbox installed on them. Now, here’s the beautiful part; let’s say that I’m on vacation with my laptop when inspiration strikes. Perhaps I write a 5000 word short story or maybe I took some fantastic photos of a once in a lifetime event. Whatever it may be, I may not feel safe with the file(s) sitting on my laptop, so I simply drop them into My Dropbox folder and off they go to all my computers. That is a decent backup in and of itself, but now it goes a step further because, once those files reach my home PC, Carbonite grabs them and backs them up to their servers. Redundancy is the name of the game in the realm of backups.

The My Backup folder is probably the most important folder in My Files. This folder consists of Cameron, Contacts, Documents, Email, Evernote, Lightroom, and WordPress. Let me go through them one by one.

• The first folder, Cameron, is a folder containing little things that my daughter has done over the years (videos, drawings, poems, etc…).
• The next folder is Contacts, where I backup all of my contacts from my Gmail account. (Tip: My Gmail contacts are also synced with my Blackberry and imported into Thunderbird for redundancy.)
• The next folder is Documents where I store mostly old documents that I can’t bring myself to delete and that I would never need quick access to.
• Then comes Email. Here’s how this works, I made sure IMAP was enabled for my Gmail account (Settings >> Forwarding and POP/IMAP). I then configured Thunderbird, which is Mozilla’s email client, to download all email from my Gmail account. The next step is important; I changed the default location of my email profile in Thunderbird to the F:\My Files\My Backups\Email folder. You can learn how to do this here. The email profile contains all of the downloaded email, as well as all future email. All I do now is leave Thunderbird running in the background to retrieve all of my email; Carbonite does the rest.
• The Evernote folder contains the database for all of my Evernote entries (mentioned here). Evernote, like Dropbox, syncs to all of my computers and to Evernote’s own servers. Moving the database to My Files and having Carbonite back them up just adds one more layer of protection.
• My Lightroom folder contains the database to all the changes made to my Photographs (which reside in F:\My Files\My Photos). I lost this file once and I never want to lose it again. You can tell Adobe Lightroom to backup to any directory that you would like.
• And lastly, there is the WordPress folder which houses the database and other files for this little blog. The latest version of Worpress, however, allows me schedule an automated backup which then emails me a copy, which then gets retrieved by Thunderbird and backed up by Carbonite. Isn’t this fun? So in all reality, I don’t really need this folder. But if I haven’t mentioned it before, I like redundancy.

That pretty much wraps it up, …so far. This is sort of a work in progress. Two things I didn’t mention were my Google Calendar and my Google Docs. I haven’t found a good, automated way to back either of these up yet, so I do it manually from work every so often. You can learn how to do this here. I then take the files and plop them into my Dropbox folder at work. From there, they are whisked away to my home PC and then, …well, you know the rest of the story.

“Backup, backup, backup,” I say.

Check out all his videos here – http://www.youtube.com/user/JonahRocksOfficial
Check out his website here – http://jonahrocks.com/

This is exactly what I am dealing with right now. On July 6, 2010, I attempted to log into my Gmail account and received the following error message:

The username or password you entered is incorrect

I tried a few more times. Then a few more times. Nothing. Hmm. I tried logging into some of my other Google services,… Calender, Reader, Docs, etc…, and got the same error message. After a few more unsuccessful attempts, I gave up and decided to initiate a password recovery, only to receive the following message:

There are no Google Accounts currently registered to the username skyecade@gmail.com.

Panic ensued. I spent the morning trying to figure out what went wrong, but to no avail. My Google Account was gone, and with it, my Gmail, Gtalk, Docs, Reader, Calendars, Buzz, Profile, Youtube, Wave, Voice, Analytics, and Feedburner account. Half a decades worth of content and several gigabytes of emails, feeds, documents, appointments, contacts, voicemails, and videos, all vanished without a trace. Incidentally, I can’t access my Blogger, Picassa, Orkut, or Jaiku accounts either, but since I rarely use them, I didn’t mention them in the list above. (Scratch that, I do have access my Jaiku account.)

At this point, I’m going to assume that my account still exists on some server out there in Google land. That may be wishful thinking though. For all I know, my account may have been hacked, molested, and then deleted. The worst part is — I can’t get a hold of Google to find out. Their support is nonexistent. They have an account recovery form that you can fill out (assuming I still have an account to recover), but it seems to be completely automated. I get this response within minutes of submitting the form:

Thank you for your report. We’ve completed our investigation and cannot
return your account at this time. We were unable to verify that you own
this account based on the information you provided.

And then after a few more submissions:

Thank you for your report. For account security, we limit the number of
requests that can be processed about the same account. Please wait a few
days and try filling out the form again.

The account recovery form consists of questions regarding Gmail, Blogger, and Orkut. Two of these services I don’t even use. The third, Gmail, I created 5 or 6 years ago and can’t remember a lot of the specifics, such as the exact date I opened the account or the recovery email address I used when I signed up. But I did the best I could and submitted the form over and over again hoping to get a different response. Perhaps even a human response.

The part that kills me is that it would be so easy to verify my account. Google has my cell phone number. They could just call me. Or text me. I also have a verified name on my Google Profile that can only be obtained via credit card or social security number. How much more verification do you need than that? Or perhaps they could verify my account through my Google Analytics or Voice or Docs. Anything is better than having to answer questions about Orkut. The process seemed a bit antiquated for a company that all but dominates the Internet.

So yes, I’m frustrated with this whole ordeal. It’s been two weeks and I haven’t come any closer to finding out what happened to my account and I can’t find anyway to contact Google. This has, however, made me seriously rethink my stance on cloud computing. For one thing, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Having all Google services tied together under one account probably isn’t the best idea. Two, sync (formerly known as backup). Once upon a time I used to tell people that the harddrive would become obsolete. I hope I’m wrong. Being able to access your data on the cloud is a huge advantage, but as I’ve learned, there is nothing like a good old fashioned local copy. Developer’s of applications such as Dropbox, Evernote, FeedDemon, and even Google, to an extent, see the benefits of syncing across multiple computers, while still utilizing the cloud for convenience. I really hope this trend continues.

So that’s my sad story. Google, if you’re out there, give me a call. You have my number. In fact, you gave it to me. If my account is gone, so be it. Life goes on. I should have been more proactive in safeguarding my data and a lot less reliant on the cloud. I take full responsibility for that. But it would still be nice to know what exactly happened and whether or not I can ever expect to get my account back. For now, I guess, all I can do is sit back and wait…

I mostly run on the street and the Vibrams afford me a little more protection than running barefoot, while still maintaining the mechanics of barefoot running. By that I mean landing on your mid or forefoot rather than a heel strike. When you land on your heel, it sends a shock up your shins, through your knees and hamstring, all the way up to your back. That’s why running shoes are highly cushioned, to help absorb that initial shock. Landing on you mid/forefoot, however, takes advantage of the body’s natural shock absorbing system. You see, humans are born to run. We don’t need high tech gear to do so. Next time you are barefoot, try running around your yard or house a bit. Take particular notice of how you naturally run. Do you land on your heel or the ball of your foot?

So how was my first run? It was very good, considering it was 94 degrees out. Here are the particulars: I ran 2 miles on some quiet back roads, consciously trying to break the habit of the heel strike. That’s not so hard to do when there’s zero padding for your heel and it hurts like hell to land on it. The balls of my feet started heating up pretty good about three quarters of the way through the run, possibly due to the obscenely hot weather, but more likely because they’re relatively tender compared to my battle hardened heels. I assume they’ll toughen up over time. By the way, these shoes are a bitch to put on at first. It took me five minutes to get just one foot situated the day I bought them. I’m at about thirty seconds per foot now. One thing that I noticed during (and felt after) the run is that I used an entirely different set of muscles. My calves, and believe it or not, my abs were very sore, but that good kind of sore. I felt nothing in my knees or my hamstrings. The other thing I noticed is how light I felt. More agile even. My stride was a bit shorter, but not as much as I thought it would be.

All in all, I was extremely happy with my first run. It’s still too soon for me seriously recommend these to anybody (although I really want to). I’ll need a good month to a year of running before I can put my official seal of approval on them, but they’re definitely off in the right direction.

Antivir – My personal favorite Antivirus program. I’ve had a lot more luck with Antivir than I have with AVG or Avast .

Dropbox – 2 gigs of free cloud-based storage that automatically sync my folders and files between computers. I don’t know how I survived the days of Dropboxlessness.

Evernote – The only note taking, scrap collecting, journal writing, website clipping software suite I will ever need. Evernote also takes full advantage of the cloud while also syncing locally to all my computers.

Filezilla – My favorite FTP program by far. Simple and does what it’s suppose to do.

Firefox – Still the best browser out there. I switched to Chrome for a while and although faster in a lot of situations, it tended to be a little too buggy for me to use on a daily basis. Not to mention its lack of Mozilla’s impressive collection of add-ons.

While we’re on the subject of Firefox add-ons, here’s a mini-must-have bonus list.

Google Gears – Lets you to store data from websites locally allowing you to access it while offline. Very useful at times.
Xmarks – Syncs my bookmarks between all my computers. So nice.
Nice Translator – An extension to a great website of the same name which enables me to translate words and sentences on the fly in a plethora of different languages.
Web Developer – A must have for any web developer or tinkerer.
No Script – Blocks all flash and javascript from running without my express permission. I highly recommend this one.
Dictionary Tooltip – Does just what you think it would. Highlight a word and it gives you its definition.
LogMeIn – This is an add-on which enables me to log into my home or work PC from anywhere. You need to install a small app onto the target PC, but it’s well worth it.

Audacity – A cross-platform, open source sound editor.

iTunes – I know there are a lot of alternatives out there, but honestly, I haven’t found a reason to switch yet. (It’s funny that I feel like I have to justify the use of such a mainstream program)

Launchy – An open source keystroke launcher. Enables me to launch anything in a split second. I would be lost without it. I use Quicksilver for the Mac.

Notepad++ – This is a fantastic, open source text editor with syntax highlighting. I absolutely love it.

Open Office – The open source alternative to M$ Office. Much better too, in my opinion.

Python – An open source, general purpose programming language which allows me to do…, well, anything I want.

Sandboxie – This cool little app can isolate programs from the rest of your computer, essentially rendering them harmless to your system. Great for testing software or surfing the web, i.e., Firefox in sandboxie mode. (Sadly, not for Mac).

Skype – Instant message and VoiP. The best of the best of the best…sir.

Steam – Because we all need to unwind. Steam is by far the easiest way to game.

Truecrypt – Create an encrypted container of any size to securely store content or use it to encrypt your entire hard drive. Either way, your data is safe from prying eyes. I keep a 100 megabyte encrypted container in my Dropbox folder so I can access it from anywhere.

uTorrent – My favorite bit torrent app. And now available on Mac, yay!

VLC – A cross-platform video player that just works — all the time.

7-Zip – A good compression utility. There’s nothing more exciting than a good compression utility, am I right?

Tweetdeck – A power user’s window into the world of Twitter. I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t understand the hype surrounding Twitter until I started using Tweetdeck. With this program, I can get real-time information from anywhere around the world, from real people, anytime of day or night. Did I mention real it’s real time? Literally, Twitter is the chat room of the world and Tweetdeck is the interface.

Cygwin – A Unix emulator for Windows for us command-line warriors. (No need for Mac / linux)

Virtualbox – Very handy, open source virtualization software, ideal for running operating systems within operating systems.

And there you have it.

I adored my Macbook, but at the same time I wanted something a little beefier on the CPU / GPU front than what the current line Macbooks had to offer. The Macbook Pros looked delicious, but the price points made my head hurt. So began the search…

I’ll skip past all the gritty details and laptop comparisons and hours spent reading reviews and articles and becoming familiar (again) with Nvidia’s / ATI’s mobile graphics cards and Intel’s Core i3, 5, and 7 chipsets and the pros and cons of this and that and on, and on, and on.

Instead, I’ll jump right to the end. I bought an Asus U30JC-A1 from XoticPC.com. Regarding hardware specs, this puppy falls somewhere between the 13″ and 15″ Macbook Pros, and it’s half the price.

Some quick highlights: Intel® Core™ i3 Processor 350M/330M : 2.26 GHz – 2.13 GHz, 4GB SDRAM DDR3 1066 MHz SDRAM, 13.3″ HD (1366×768) Color-Shine (Glare-type), NVIDIA® GeForce® G 310M, with 512MB & Intel GMA HD (Support NVIDIA Optimus Technology) VRAM, 320 Gb Hard Drive @ 5400 rpm.

No Bluetooth, but Asus claims up to 9 hours of battery life while using the integrated Intel graphics card (I’ve read reports of 8+ hours from actual users). It’s 4.7 pounds, exactly what my Macbook was. Most ultraportables are around 3 to 4 pounds. I’m 6′ 2″ and 185 pounds — an extra pound is not going to break my back.

Nvidia’s Optimus technology looks really nice. Depending on your point of view, I’m happy / sad to say that I’ve been upgraded / downgraded from a hardcore gamer to a casual gamer over the last half decade, so gaming wasn’t my main concern when looking for a new notebook. With that said, I do like to fire up a little Team Fortress 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Battlefield Bad Company 2, yada yada yada, from time to time. I’m also a frequent Adobe Lightroom user and have been known to do some video editing here and there, both of which will get a nice boost with the addition of a discrete graphics card.

With decent graphics capabilities, outstanding battery life, acceptable portability, a powerful, yet energy efficient processor, an elegant and very solid design (brushed aluminum), and half the price of a Macbook Pro, I simply couldn’t resist this laptop. I’ve been purchasing Asus products for years, mainly motherboards (or mostly mainboards, ha!), and I’ve always been very pleased. This will be my first laptop experience with them. It should be delivered on Wednesday, so cross your fingers. Hopefully all my expectations and presumptions will hold true. If not, back to Mac I go?

Dear Robert S.,

The Lala service will be shut down on May 31st.

In appreciation of your support over the last five years, you will receive a credit in the amount of your Lala web song purchases for use on Apple’s iTunes Store. If you purchased and downloaded mp3 songs from Lala, those songs will continue to play as part of your local music library.

Remaining wallet balances and unredeemed gift cards will be converted to iTunes Store credit (or can be refunded upon request). Gift cards can be redeemed on Lala until May 31st.

Click here or visit Lala.com/support for more information, or to view Lala’s Terms of Service.

Thank you.

Lala

Lala was / is such a fantastic website too. This is a shame. I really hope Applesoft does something outstanding with its technology.

I think the term “every cliché in the book” has become a bit of a cliché in and of itself, but if there were such a book, these guys found it, read it, reread it, and then plagiarized it. All of it. Every cliché in the book, as it were.

Just one more thing and then I’ll shut up. I’ve noticed that every natural disaster movie that’s released tries to out do its predecessor in terms of death toll. Twister (96) and Dante’s Peak (97) both wipe out various sized towns. Volcano (97) wipes out a major city. Deep Impact (98) and Armageddon (98) wipe out half the planet. The Day After Tomorrow (04) wipes out most of the planet. 2012 (09) …… I can’t say what happens, it would spoil the movie. Let’s just say, to beat it, the next natural disaster movie is going to have to wipe out the entire planet, repopulate it, then wipe it out again. I can’t wait.

I recently read somewhere that, for this next generation, the Internet is the new television. What?!? That made me slightly depressed, considering the Web has the potential to change humanity in ways we can’t yet imagine — and can do an infinite amount more than just aggregate gossip and entertain the masses. Luckily for me, there are people in high places that share my convictions. Luckily for you, they’re a lot smarter than I am.

Enjoy!

TIME TO START TAKING THE INTERNET SERIOUSLY By David Gelernter

“Why is it so weird?”, you may ask. This holiday special from hell has managed to embed itself in some sinister recurring dream I’ve had to endure over the course of my entire life. And honestly, seeing it again kind of freaks me out.

Enjoy!

Read the full story here.

Google is the undisputed king of the cloud. If you spend any considerable amount of time on the Internet, you probably have made a Google account at some time or another. And if you’re like me, you use your Google account on a daily, scratch that, hourly basis. Whether I’m at home or at work, on my Mac or on my Blackberry, as long as I am connected to the Internet I can access Google search, Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Maps (Latitude), Reader, Alerts, Analytics, and much, much more. That’s a boat load of cloud computing.

I can’t begin to tell you how much joy Dropbox brings to my life. So much so that Dropbox is now officially one of the first programs I install on any new computer I use. Here’s how it works — first you download and install Dropbox on all of your computers. This will create a folder on each computer called “My Dropbox”. Now, anything you put into your “My Dropbox” folder gets uploaded to your Dropbox web account and subsequently synced with all of your computers that are linked to that account. For me, this is a dream come true. I’m constantly bouncing back and forth between computers and operating systems. It’s cross platform, so it works with Windows, Linux, and OS X. No more emailing myself files or constantly pulling out my thumbdrive every time I need to move my data around. You can also access all of your files via a web browser, which can be super convenient when you’re on the go and don’t have access to your personal computers.

Lala does music, and they do it well. It’s especially nice if you spend a good chunk of your life in front of a computer. Here’s the scoop; after joining Lala, they will scan your entire computer(s) and upload (or match) all of your songs in your library to your Lala account. From that point on, you have access to all of your music anytime you want, as long as you’re on the cloud. But it gets even better. You can play any song that’s not in your library, once, for free. You can even put entire albums in your queue and listen to them in their entirety before you decide if you want to buy them or not. And here’s the beauty, if you like the song and want to purchase it (or them), you have two choices. You can buy the streaming version for only 10 cents per song, or a DRM free MP3 for 99 cents per song (89 cents if you previously bought the streaming version). This is great on so many levels. For one, 10 cents is cheap, and once you buy a streaming song you can listen to it as many times and as often as you’d like as long as your connected to the internet. You also get 50 free streaming songs just for joining Lala. Secondly, you may not need or want to download an entire album. You could buy an entire streaming album for $1.00, then hand pick the songs you want to download (DRM free) to put on your iPod, or your Zune, or your iPod. Lala has a nice wallet feature too that allows you to store a set amount of money for quick purchases. When your wallet runs dry, just add some more cash. $5.00 = 50 streaming songs. Not bad. If I could improve one feature of Lala, it would be their music discovery. Though it’s not all that bad, it’s still not on par with the likes of Pandora. Oh yes, and a Blackberry app — that would be fantastic.

Xmarks, formerly known as Foxmarks, is a browser plug-in for Firefox, IE, and Safari (hopefully soon for Chrome) that stores all of your bookmarks remotely and then syncs them to all of your browsers. Again, this is only handy if you spend a lot of time in multiple environments — but that’s sort of the whole point of cloud computing, not having to be locked down to one computer, one processor, one hard drive… Once installed, Xmarks does everything in the background — set it and forget it. Xmarks is also taking a stab at social bookmarking, similar to sites like Delicious, Stumble Upon, and Digg. Good luck with that one guys — the social bookmarking scene is getting a bit crowded. Personally, I would just stick with bookmark syncing. This is definitely one area where they know their stuff

Reqall is a virtual extension of my memory. The whole reason I started using Reqall was so that I could get thoughts out of my head quickly (GTD-like) and revisit them at a later time. For example, I always remember things while I’m driving. With Reqall, I can call and leave a message on my account. Reqall then transcribes the message and emails it back to me. Now my idea / thought / task / appointment is nice and safe in my email inbox for review at a more appropriate time. Reqall is also linked to my Google Calendar, so if I were to call and say “Dinner with Meg’s parents Sunday at 5 O’Clock”, Reqall would put that entry right on my calendar on the specified day and time. It can be a life saver. Their website is well designed and offers a variety of ways to organize your To-Dos and notes. However, they could work a bit on improving their lists management system which, according to them, is on their list of things to do — no comment. Voice isn’t the only way to add items to reqall. You can use instant messaging, a Firefox extension, email, text messages, or my personal favorite, their mobile app. I can’t speak for the iPhone app, but Reqall’s Blackberry app is probably the best, most well designed app on my phone. Reqall also offers a pro account for $20.00 a year which unlocks a few neat features. I think the free version is sufficient for most people though. At least until they fix some of the minor quirks and add a few more niceties.

The band eventually scheduled a farewell concert to their fans, in order to get closure on the Dispatch portion of their lives. The free show was performed at the Hatch Shell in Boston on July 31, 2004. “The Last Dispatch,” as it was called, is said to be the largest concert in independent music history. The original prediction of the turnout was between 10,000 and 30,000. Fans flocked from Italy, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Mexico, New Zealand and Australia among others, making up an estimated total audience of 110,000.

I wish I was there.

What’s even more interesting than their bio, is their music. It’s in a genre of its very own. Now go grab a cocktail and have a listen.

Please proceed.

Sorry….. Anyways, Cam, Meg, and I spent the day at Plimoth Plantation last weekend and I wanted to give them a much deserved plug. For those of you who don’t know, Plimoth Plantation is sort of a living museum attempting to replicate the day to day life of the original Plymouth colony, circa 1627. It’s a semi-working plantation inhabited by actors and actresses role playing as pilgrims, who, I must say, they do a fantastic job. It’s not a guided tour, but a literal stroll down history lane where you are encouraged to explore the plantation, popping in and out of various houses and talking to the townsfolk. Every history buff at some time in their life has wished they could experience various eras in history for themselves. Well this may be as close as one might get to making that wish come true — short of a building time machine of course — which I’m working on.

My personal favorite part of the day was spent in a very authentic looking reproduction of a Wampanoag home site, just a quick walk from the village. The Wampanoags here are not role playing, but are actual descendants of Native People dressed in traditional clothing and showing off various crafts and skills. You can sit and chat with them as much as you like, and ask them all sorts of questions regarding their lineage and traditions. Fascinating is a word that comes to mind. If I were alone, I probably would have spent all day there, just listening to other people’s questions and soaking up the rich heritage of these people. Again, another “must visit” place for anyone who has a passion for history.

The ideas that Eagleman puts forth in each of his forty essays are not to be taken too seriously, but are indeed, meant to stimulate a more pliable way of pondering the mysteries of life after death. It’s an approach that, for some, offers a bit more intellectual freedom than that of atheism (no God, no afterlife) and theism (one God, one afterlife). But don’t get too caught up with the topic of the hereafter. The vignettes presented in this little thought experiment are really more of a study of life than of death, albeit, cleverly disguised in varying incarnations of the great beyond.

One of the things that drew me to this book was Eagleman’s use of a term he invented called Possibilianism.

According to his definition, possibilianism rejects both the idiosyncratic claims of traditional theism and the certainty of atheism in favor of a middle, exploratory ground.

He pretty much summed up my own personal philosophies on the subject of death and spirituality. And, although I don’t plan on running out and joining the church of possibilianism anytime soon, it is a refreshing alternative to the awkward and uncomfortable term of agnostic that people like me are so often labeled.

The possibilian perspective is distinguished from agnosticism in that it consists of an active exploration of novel possibilities and an emphasis on holding multiple hypotheses at once when no data is available to privilege one position over the others.

If you’re like me and love reading interesting perspectives on all kinds of interesting topics, I would put this little book on your reading list. It’s a short read and can be easily finished in one sitting. You’ll most likely enjoy it, but even if you don’t, just throw it on your coffee table — it’ll be sure to spark some interesting conversations.

Before I get into why I think the PC is the obvious winner in this arena, let me make a few things clear. When I talk about First Person Shooters, I’m not talking about the singleplayer experience. This isn’t my forte; I’ll leave that debate to someone else. What I’m talking about is competitive, multiplayer gaming on a high-end gaming PC, that is, not your Grandmother’s old Gateway or that bargain eMachine you picked up for $299. I’d also like to state that I think for the casual gamer (or casual just in this genre), a console system would be fine, if not preferable. Consoles, such as the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, have a ton of pros and very few cons. That being said, I think one of the limitations of the console is its inability to reach that next level of intensity and precision that one is so familiar with while playing this specific class of game on a PC. In other words, to experience the full potential of this competitive genre, one needs to play First Person Shooters as they were originally intended, on a PC.

From time to time, however, I will encounter that one rebellious console gamer that disagrees with this sentiment and defends the console’s supremacy over the feeble PC in every genre, including the aforementioned First Person Shooter. Though there are some compelling arguments which can be made for this stance, the one I hear most often goes something like this:

Have you ever played Halo? Or GoldenEye? or Halo 2? or Halo 3? Or Halo? Wait, did I say Halo already? Did you know that Halo is the number #1 selling game in the multiverse? And also halo…Halo…..HALO!

I’m not paraphrasing, I’m pretty sure that’s an actual quote. Here’s the thing, I’m not disputing the fact that Halo is a great game, and God knows I’ve logged an obscene amount of hours into GoldenEye back in the day, but these are just two games — now compare that with the hundreds of award winning PC shooters that exist on the market today.

Let’s look at the “Halo 3 is the #1 selling game ever” defense. That statement alone is debatable, but for the sake of argument, let’s assume that it’s true. Since when does the #1 selling anything translate into quality of experience? Does that mean that a Corolla offers a better driving experience than a Ferrari? Or that the Big Mac is the greatest cheeseburger of all time just because it outsells all of the others? What people tend to forget is that in the gaming industry, PC games consist of just a very tiny slice of the whole gaming pie. There is no arguing that console systems have a much higher saturation level in homes than high-end [gaming] PCs. That fact alone means that video game sales for consoles should be much greater than that of the PC, which they are. Now throw in a title like Halo which, realistically, has no other competition on its platform, and you have a recipe for success. Halo on the PC, however, fades into mediocrity when thrown into the mix with mammoth franchises such as Half-Life, Battlefield, Unreal Tournament, Quake, Crysis, Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, etc… And let’s not forget the modding community’s ground breaking contributions to competitive gaming with creations like Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, Day of Defeat, Red Orchestra, etc… I could go on and on forever. The point I’m trying to make is this; competition for First Person Shooter dominance on the PC is fierce. A mediocre game just wouldn’t cut it on this platform. Calling Halo a mediocre game may be a bit harsh, but ask yourself this; what does Halo have to offer that the above mentioned PC franchises do not have to offer? Saturation and virtual exclusivity. That’s really it.

Visual Appeal
As it is now, consoles can never look as good [graphically speaking] as a high-end gaming PC. It’s just not possible. A console’s hardware, for all intents and purposes, is static. You buy the console system, it goes through its 3 to 5 year cycle, and then you replace it. Unfortunately, for the console, technology evolves at a blistering rate. There can be, and usually are, significant advancements in technology in a 3 to 5 year span. A PC’s hardware, on the other hand, is dynamic; always taking full advantage of these technological breakthroughs. PCs are constantly being replaced, upgraded, tweaked, modded, optimized, overclocked, water-cooled, etc… Just one of my graphics cards alone cost more than an entire XBox 360.

Let’s talk resolution. Even the best hi-def T.V.s get outperformed by today’s modern LCD monitors with resolutions reaching 2560 x 1600. “What about size,” they ask. “My 52″ TV is better than your 24″ monitor,” they say. In this case, size doesn’t really matter — because it’s all relative to the location of the observer. When gaming on a PC, your face is about 2 feet away from the monitor. Try putting your face 2 feet away from a 52″ television; it’s not that fun. Now move to the couch 10 feet away and you’ve just narrowed your viewing angle to match that of a PC gamer. It’s the same concept as to why people are able to watch movies on their iPods without being bothered by the small size of the screen.

Pricey vs Practical
Price and practicality are two major advantages that consoles have in the gaming market, hence their greater saturation level. It’s very appealing to be able to buy something which is relatively inexpensive, works right out of the box, and requires almost no maintenance or technological know-how. Now try to convince that same person to buy something that is well over 10 times more expensive, needs constant monitoring and maintenance, and requires a black belt in Geek Fu just to get it to work. So why, then, do people still dish out thousands of dollars for Alienware machines, or Falcon Northwest machines, or Dell’s XPS line of gaming machines? It’s the same reason why there are people out there that still buy Ferraris: They thrive on speed, control, and precision… They’re longing for the ultimate experience.

Mouse & Keyboard vs the Analog Controller
And now we reach the crux of the argument. This, my friends, is really the heart of the the debate. The PC’s mouse & keyboard vs the console’s analog controller. The console camp’s argument goes something like this: “Anyone can point and click” or “it takes more skill to use a controller than it does a mouse“. Anything that is unintuitive or uncomfortable is going to require some extra skill to compensate, but it’s the wrong kind of skill. Like when trying to button your shirt while wearing socks on your hands. Simply put, a mouse is faster and far more precise than an analog thumbstick, which in turn makes the gaming experience faster, more intense, and far more challenging. I recently had someone tell me that using a mouse & keyboard was akin to cheating, claiming that it’s too easy to put your cursor (crosshair) onto another player. What this person fails to realize is that it’s just as easy for your opponents to do the same to you. You’ve just added a whole new level of intensity, urgency, and anxiety to the game. You better not miss your target because you can be damn sure they will not miss you. This is where the phrase twitch gaming comes from. It’s all about reaction time.

Now let’s talk precision. The movement of the mouse correlates precisely with the movement of the cursor on the screen. For example, if you move the mouse to the left, the cursor moves to the left. When you stop moving the mouse, the cursor stops. An analog controller, however, always has to return to center to stop (or switch directions). If you press the analog thumbstick to the left, the cursor goes left, but in order to stop the cursor from moving left, or to move it in another direction, you must bring the thumbstick back to center. It’s not much, but these are the subtle differences that make playing a First Person Shooter on a PC a more exhilarating experience than on a console.

Let’s not forget one of the most important facts, First Person Shooters were designed around the keyboard & the mouse and had to be modified to work with an analog controller. When things are modified to work with something they weren’t designed for, problems tend to arise. Take button placement for example. Most console gamers use the right analog thumbstick to control the movement of the cursor. This is fine until they have to take their thumb off that stick to press one of the four buttons on right side of the controller. This means there is a split second when they have to relinquish control over their movement. A competitive PC gamer wouldn’t dream of taking their hand off the mouse. That split second could mean the difference between victory and defeat. But again, as mentioned above, speed, precision, and reaction time are the name of the game while playing on a PC. In language, sometimes things can get lost in translation. In technology, they can get lost in conversion.

John Carmack of id Software is the creator of some of the most critically acclaimed games ever created. He is considered in most circles to be the father of the First Person Shooter. His games have been developed for the PC as well as all the major console systems. Back in November of 2008, Carmack was interviewed by PC Gamer and this is what he had to say:

“The keyboard/mouse interface is definitely still the superior interface for a competitive first-person shooter experience, much better than an analog joypad,”

Old School vs New Kids on the Block
When you think about it, this isn’t just a question of console vs PC, but a full blown discussion of the state of gaming and gaming culture in general. It’s old school vs new kids on the block. First Person Shooters are relatively new to console gamers, whereas most hardcore fans of the genre have been playing on their PCs for years, decades even. In fact, First Person Shooters were considered more of a niche than a mainstream attraction, reserved solely for the geekiest of geeks. But what typically happens when something unknown to the masses suddenly bursts onto the scene head first into popularity (not unlike the geek culture itself)? Its reality gets twisted to conform to the will of the public. All of a sudden, everyone and their mothers are experts. This is especially prevalent in technology. I used to have this exact same argument regarding web design eons ago, except back then it was Frontpage vs Dreamweaver. Now Frontpage is gone, because it sucked, and all those people moved over to Dreamweaver — and us Dreamweaver users have moved on to other things. Try this, ask any computer programmer what the term “hacker” means and they’ll surely give you a more positive definition than that of the mainstream media. And yet every script kiddie with a computer and malicious intent declares themselves a hacker. Meanwhile, the real experts, the veterans, all of whom know the actual truth, are sitting back silently grinning to themselves. When it comes to First Person Shooters, the console vs PC argument is another such example.

I know this is going to make a lot of console gamers upset, but I assure you that this is not my intent. Competitive as it may be, fun is still the overall goal of gaming. All that really matters is the amount of enjoyment you get from playing. If you get the most enjoyment while playing on a console, then by all means, play on a console. But don’t let emotions and preference blur reality.

The last thing I’ll say is this. The purpose of my writing this little exposition is not to disparage console systems, on the contrary, I thoroughly enjoy them. It’s not even to persuade you to go out and drop $3500 on a new gaming rig. In fact, the difference of experience between the two platforms being argued here are so subtle that most people won’t even notice — very similar to how most people wouldn’t notice the tiny nuances that distinguish the Canon XSi from the Canon 50D. The layperson may even prefer the XSi over its superior counterpart, and that’s fine. My point in writing this piece is simply to squash the console elitists false assumptions that consoles, like the XBox 360 and the PlayStation 3, offer a more challenging, engaging, or overall superior gaming experience than that of a gaming PC in this particular genre. That’s just not the case. So I’ll say it agin, — and read this carefully — to experience the full potential of this competitive genre, one needs to play First Person Shooters as they were originally intended, on a PC.