JamLegend - Rock Band Online…and Social
September 25, 2008 | 3 Comments
Wow. Its all I could say when Adam sent me an invite to JamLegend - a Guitar Hero-esque game that is a pleasant mix of playability, art, and social interaction. I wasn’t expecting much when I got the invite, but as soon as I played through my first song, I was blown away.
The site isn’t allowing open registration at the moment, but you can get on a waiting list…but you can get around some aspects of the waiting list as stated by the JamLegend FAQs:
If you really want to get an invite, twitter “@JamLegend I want http://www.JamLegend.com” or become a fan on Facebook. We will randomly send out invites to users who twitter or are fans.
You could also ask your friends to see if they have any invite codes.
The beta will end once we work out some kinks.
How It Works
JamLegend is a Flash game with the number keys 1-5 (and function keys F1-F5) bound to their corresponding positions on the fret board. Like Guitar Hero, dots approach the bottom in time with the music and you must hold the appropriate number(s) in and strum. How? With the Enter key, of course!
You have two primary modes of play: Jam Style and Chill Style…shown here:
Playing the game can be odd depending on your keyboard. If you have a beefy enough keyboard where the function keys are evenly spaced (unlike one of my keyboards) you shouldn’t have much trouble with Jam Style.
My favorite method for play, however, has been using my Wii Guitar on my Mac thanks to DarwiinRemote. :D
The Music
The site’s slogan is “The free way to play the songs you love” is a little misleading. JamLegend is a new site with a small user base at the moment and little buy-in from big name stars. So…the appropriate slogan for now is “The free way to play the songs you will soon love because this site is freaking awesome”.
Are the songs bad? Definitely no. I hadn’t heard of any of the bands prior to playing around with JamLegend. Am I bummed that the songs aren’t from my favorite bands? No…I actually like a number of the artists. Blue Judy being one of my favorites - an Indie Rock Band from LA - and Double Stamp - another Indie Rock Band from Claremont, CA.
JamLegend does a nifty job displaying the songs that are currently popular (although this feature will become better as the user base grows), as well as bubbling new songs in front of your face. In addition to listing top songs, you can search and browse the site for specific genres, artists, and songs. Good times!
The Social Side
Similar to the Guitar Hero stat site that came with Guitar Hero III, JamLegend lists your bests, averages, global rankings, etc. You can add friends, challenge them to duels, or have massive guitar showdowns with large numbers of players. As an additional cool thing, you can earn groupies by completing Achievements. Groupies serve no real purpose at this time save for bragging rights but in the future that may change!
Where Its Heading
In its current state, JamLegend is a pretty ballsy free web application. There are some things coming down the pipe, however, that will make it that much cooler.
Music: If adoption of this game picks up, we could very easily see some larger named bands put their music out for play. Heck, the All American Rejects song Gives You Hell is pending track creation. Awesome.
More Instruments: JamLegend claims they are working on additional playable instruments! They are planning on adding keyboard, drums, bass, and (due to popular request)… cowbell.
Thoughts
This game will very easily become my mobile Guitar Hero fix (and soon to be Rock Band fix once the new instruments are implemented). The JamLegend site is gorgeous. The game is very well implemented. The music is good. I <3 it.
Delete/Backspace Stops Working in Oracle SQLDeveloper
September 18, 2008 | 4 Comments
I a huge fan of Oracle SQL Developer but I ran into an issue a while back that left me scratching my head and re-installing. The issue? Most key strokes other than letters and numbers failed to function. Yeah…no delete or backspace.
When this issue happened a second time I did a little playing with the app and figured out what to do. If you find yourself in a similar predicament simply do this:
- Open SQL Developer
- Click on the Tools > Preferences menu
- Click on Accelerators on the left
- Click the Load Preset… button
Yup. That’s it. The only lame part about that is all your custom key bindings go away and must be re-done. But that is much nicer than re-installing!
Chickipedia: Babe Encyclopedia
September 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Chickipedia. A wiki of attractive women. Awesome? I think so…my wife doesn’t.
Yeah, yeah. So it feels a bit weird posting something like this on BorkWeb, but its one of those sites that you wish you had thought about it first. The site is a good idea. A lot of people would happily waste their time perusing Chickipedia. The layout is very well done, there are all kinds of blocks of content making women very findable, and…lets face it…the content itself is quality.
Chickipedia is not a porn site. Instead, the site is your one-stop-shop to see <insert-name-here>’s birthdate, nicknames, height, hobbies, measurements, ethnicity, appearances, photos, videos, etc. Much of the data - including the measurements (see below) - can be clicked on to find women who match that specific attribute.
As an additional cool factor, you can embed women in your own content as I have done with Elisha Cuthbert (below). Pretty nifty. Heck, the whole site is. Thank you Chickipedia. My wife may think you are stupid, but on behalf of males everywhere…we salute you.
Google Chrome on the Mac - a la CodeWeavers
September 15, 2008 | 1 Comment
Google launched its new browser Chrome on September 2nd and the web was abuzz with talk of a new contender in the browser space. My choice to pepper my house and cube at work with Macs rather than Windows boxes left me complaining about the lack of a native Mac version of Chrome…which Google assures us is coming.
Code Weavers, however, has just released Crossover Chromium built from build 21 of the Chromium Open Source browser.
The initialization of Chromium the first time I opened it took a while but once it was up and running, things were pretty solid. The browser has all the JavaScript and DOM debugging tools but it seems the process manager tool isn’t fully functional..which is really my draw to the browser (when I get dead set on playing with the Process Manager tool, I’ll break down and install Chrome with Parallels). I suppose I’ll be following CodeWeaver’s suggestion:
A. Absolutely not! This is just a proof of concept, for fun, and to showcase what Wine can do. Chromium itself is just beginning. As the Chromium project progresses, they will be providing more compelling support for Mac OS and Linux, particularly with process security and memory management. Those future versions from Chromium will be better suited for daily use than this version.
Until Google launches its official Mac native Chrome, Chromium will satisfy me for now.
Gov. Palin and Senator Clinton Address the Nation
September 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment
This was hilarious. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler did a bang up job of portraying Palin and Clinton. Although this is satire, this video exemplifies everything that is horrid about John McCain’s “pick” for his Vice Presidential candidate.
