Bought Black Widow Hardbound Graphic Novel

I just bought my first hardbound graphic novel for about $7. I saw Black Widow: Web of Intrigue at Book Sale for a good price so I bought it without hesitation. Black Widow is my favorite comic character. I think I saw this last year at Fully Booked for double the price. At Amazon, the lowest price is currently going for about what I paid for.

Proteus Not Worth It For Me

I was thinking of buying Proteus from IndieGameStand for $1 but when I saw its system requirements, I decided it wasn't for me. For a game that looks like Minecraft and lacks actual gameplay, it shouldn't need 3 GB system memory and 512 MB graphics card memory. It's essentially a low-res tech demo that won't run on most of my family's PCs which are old and low-end. The X-Isle tech demo for the first Cryengine which powers the Far Cry and Crysis series, offered nice looking visuals of natural scenery over a decade ago on hardware we now consider low-end. So it shouldn't have been hard for the developers of Proteus to do the same thing in this current generation.

Science Fiction Starships Scale Comparison Chart

This one isn't new but it's been updated with even more ships. A scale comparison chart of starships from popular science fiction series. Most people should find this interesting since they should be a fan of at least one of these series. Awesome. Just awesome. I have to make a poster of this.

http://kotaku.com/every-sci-fi-starship-ever-in-one-mindblowing-comparis-1391608737

Our iPhone 3G is No Longer Junk

Until recently, taking away the ability of old iOS devices to update to a newer iOS version practically rendered them obsolete and useless after a year or two. By then, most apps have required a higher iOS version than what the device still has, so that the old devices will be limited to downloading a minimal and dwindling number of apps.

Timed with the release of iOS 7, Apple now makes it possible for old iOS devices to download apps even if they require a higher iOS revision. If old devices don't meet the iOS version requirements of an app, the option is shown to download earlier versions of apps that still support the version of iOS installed on the old device.

Because of Apple's move, iOS devices can remain in service longer, squeezing out more value, and retaining a higher selling price than before. This means we can still use our old hand-me-down iPhone 3G for a while longer. Apple just gave us more for our money.

http://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/972880

Family Sharing Marks Steam's 10th Year

The past week marked the 10th year of existence of Valve's Steam service. The past week also saw Valve announce a Family Sharing scheme for users to share their Steam game library with family and friends. This is a good way to maximize the huge collection of games that many users have built up as a result of Steam's outrageous sales. It's through these sales that Steam has become a force after 10 years of operation. It has helped revive PC gaming and helped reduce software piracy 

http://savedcontent.blogspot.com/2013/09/steam-10th-year-family-sharing.html

My Hall of Fame Tribute to Oscar Schmidt

I pay tribute to my idol, the great Brazilian basketball player, Oscar Schmidt, on his induction this past week into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. I wanted to shoot like him more so than any other player I idolized, including Larry Bird, Andrew Toney, Pistol Pete Maravich, Chris Mullin, and even Michael Jordan. He was just so beautiful to watch and he deserves his place in the Hall of Fame.

http://savedcontent.blogspot.com/2013/09/oscar-schmidt-enters-naismith.html

Humble Bundle 9 with FTL and Fez

Humble Bundle 9 is now live. BTA games are FTL and Fez. I'm glad I didn't get FTL yet even during its sale. I bought this HB as soon as I saw it, just 6 hours after it went live so I think I got it for a low price. It's worth it for FTL and Fez. I don't remember if I already have Brutal Legend.

It looks like I'm buying most of my games now off of game bundle sites instead of directly through online game stores and because they're so cheap and there's so many of them, I don't spend time any more to double check if I already bought a game or not.

Atheros Bluetooth Incompatible with Nokia Suite

I finally tried to use the Nokia Suite on my Gateway netbook running XP, to sync my old Nokia phones via Bluetooth so I can start disposing of the phones. The Nokia Suite didn't recognize my embedded bluetooth adapter, an Atheros AR3011. I tried reinstalling three different versions of the Nokia Suite and three different brands of Bluetooth stacks but nothing worked. I couldn't find any solution on the web.

Using the freeware Bluetooth Stack Switcher to troubleshoot, I realized that only four major bluetooth stacks are commonly recognized by most software, namely, Microsoft, Widcomm, BlueSoleil, and Toshiba. The Atheros Bluetooth stack of my netbook couldn't be detected. I concluded that the Atheros Bluetooth stack wasn't compatible with the Nokia Suite.

I had to find a way to get one of the major Bluetooth stacks working and detected by other software. I accomplished this with the freeware Bluetooth Driver Installer which installs the Microsoft Bluetooth stack by editing an inf file and inserting the hardware ID of your Bluetooth adapter. I'll try to do this with other Bluetooth stacks but at least for now I can sync my Nokia phone with the Nokia Suite.