ComicLife 1.4 released
ComicLife 1.4, featuring a number of updates, has been released by plasq. Also, don’t miss our interview with plasq’s CEO Cris Pearson about ComicLife.
Naruto - Another DBZ or something more?
So I’ve been watching Naruto 
patiently anxiously waited for each new episode.
Unfortunately, the pacing wasn’t fast enough, so I got a hold of the Naruto manga
There were very few filler episodes at first. Almost every episode advanced the original story and kept it interesting. But the fillers that were there, were awful. Animation was shoddy, characters uninteresting, and exemplified all the worst aspects of the series. The fights between ninjas were epic at first. Employing clever tactics and abilities that were genuinely smart, well choreographed and thought out. The filler episodes, and ultimately all the later episodes of the series, became boring slugfests where the most powerful won, or the overly cocky lost. This is where the DBZ (Dragonball Z) comparisons come in. Standoffs where ninjas talked about who was more powerful became the norm. Characters would battle through injuries that in past episodes would’ve ended their lives. Because of all this, the big ending to the series between the two main characters felt weak and less impressive than the battles in the beginning.
So while I loved the series at first, it started to trail off. The worst part of the whole series, is even after the end of the manga story arc is reached, the anime continues on. Pure filler for over a year. I tried watching a few of the episodes but I just couldn’t get myself to do it.
There is a shining light at the end of this tunnel though. Naruto Shippūden (essentially the same thing as Dragonball being followed up with Dragonball Z), starts three years from where the first left off and has been filler free so far. It’s more mature and serious than the original was for the most part. So far it’s been following the manga, albeit at a very slow rate. I’m hoping they keep it at this pace though, even if it slows the series down, they won’t have to revert back to all the filler episodes that hurt the first series so much.
How much space does Time Machine use?
I have a 500GB USB 2.0 drive that, for the time being, is dedicated to backing up my laptop using Apple’s new Time Machine feature in Mac OS X Leopard. Since my Macbook’s hard drive is only 80GB, and most of the time I don’t even use 3/4 of that space, I always thought that I’d have more than enough from on my external drive for Time Machine to do its thing.
I’m happy to report that after a few months of letting Time Machine run its hourly back ups, it has only eaten up a little less than 100GB to keep a versioned backup of my entire system.
However I wasn’t alone in wondering how much space Time Machine takes up, and some people are having different experiences with Time Machine than I have. So far I’ve found Time Machine to be very valuable - even with the limited number of times I’ve had to use it.
I can think of two very important times I’ve used Time Machine so far. The most notable would be when I used Time Machine to restore some databases I had lost when upgrading MAMP on my Macbook. Which is what spurred my tips for upgrading MAMP post. In this particular case, I do not know what I would have done without Time Machine.
The other notable time was when I accidentally deleted a site folder I was working on a project in. It wasn’t a lot of code (maybe a few days worth) and everything was stored on a remote server too - so I could have downloaded it again - but it saved me the headache of having to do so.
So far, for me, Time Machine has saved me time and the experience of losing data I could never get back again. I think it made the upgrade price of $129.00 to Leopard well worth it.
Update: As mentioned in the comments it turns out Time Machine will, ultimately, take up as much space as you give it. Time Machine will back up as much as it can until the entire disk is full. I have not seen this reported as actually happening yet, but it makes sense to me.
I do not think this is a bad thing, but if true I wouldn’t mind seeing a preference available within the preference pane that allows you to constrain Time Machine to a maximum amount of space on the disk rather than just sucking up the entire partition by default.
The Dear Hunter - The Lake and the River
Song Name: The Lake and the River
Artist: The Dear Hunter
Album: Act II - The Meaning of, and All Things Regarding Ms. Leading
Why This Song?:
I first was introduced to The Dear Hunter when I saw their live show when opening for the Format in Hackensack, New Jersey. Instantly I was struck by their At The Drive In style eccentric antics. Vocally, Casey Crescenzo, belted out the songs as the rest of the group manically played their respective parts.
I instantly thought that this wasn’t going to be a band for everyone, especially for the crowd filled with teenage girls expecting the pop-goodness of the Format. Clearly, this is a band that will be devisive for many. Some will hate it, while others think it’s genius. Some call their albums masterpieces, while others consider it utter garbage. It’s just the nature of the experimentation beast.
After watching their set I was informed that this was the same guy that was in The Receiving End of Sirens. Not surprisingly they sound very similar. However, The Dear Hunter is a touch more experimental, original, and prog-rock / indie.
Listening to their first album was a very interesting experience. It is definitely an album that takes time to let grow on you. Most concept albums / bands - in this case, a band telling the story of the Dear Hunter’s birth, life, and death over the course of a number of albums - usually don’t have the most instantly catchy brand of tunes.
However, after a few listens I was intrigued to see what this obviously talented guy would come up with next. He basically constructed the first album by himself, with some help from his brother and his mother of all things.
With the release of Act II, I feel they have maintained a nice mixture of experimentation, originality, and interesting storytelling that made them an unique and engaging band to begin with.
This song to me is really what this band is all about. Nice changes of pace, a variety of instruments and styles, and an almost chain-gang / western vibe. Oh yeah, and a whopping 9 and a half minute run time. However, with so much going on it hardly seems nearly that long.
The album, like this song, is chock full of material. Reportedly originally recorded was over 2 hours of music that got trimmed down to a measly 70 minute plus album run time.
Forget that their name is sorta cheesy. Take your time. Let it sink in. It might not be your thing, but then again, it just might.
New SpreadFirefox Web site launched
SpreadFirefox, the community marketing campaign for the Firefox browser, has a new Web site. Now if they could only get Firefox to run well on the Macintosh. [via Chris Messina]
Call of Duty 4 for Xbox 360 falling behind PC version?
Over the last few weeks I’ve been playing a fair amount of Call of Duty, both over Xbox Live multiplayer and the single-player modes, and I’ve been finding a few bugs that seem to have been fixed on the PC versions of the game that haven’t been addressed for the Xbox 360.
I’m going to save my review until I am finished playing the single player mode, which I plan on doing since it has been truly a joy to play thus far, but I did want to mention that I think Call of Duty 4 is the best first-person shooter I’ve ever played.
One December 19th, the Official Call of Duty Web site reported that they updated the PC version of the game with a few new features as well as a fairly large amount of bug fixes. Version 1.4, as it is called, included a “winter version” of the map Crash (one of my favorite maps) that included Christmas lights, claymores, candy canes, and presumably snow - which would be really neat to have available through the Xbox 360 - but it isn’t.
Some of the bugs fixed had to do with server issues (which, incidentally is where the majority of the small problems I’ve had with the game really show their head). There is also a fix for bullet accuracy. I was wondering why Chris was able to shoot me so easily, now I know. 
The only reason I can see, at this point, as to why the Xbox 360 version of the game will get updates slower than the PC version is because the Call of Duty developers will have to deal with Microsoft’s Xbox Live service when they want to update the “server” portion of the game. Since all communications between players happens over Microsoft’s network I’m guessing that is harder, or more complicated, to update than it is to release a patch for PC users to download to their local computers.
I’m looking forward to the next update - but even more looking forward to finishing the single player mode so that I can start over at a harder difficulty.
Related sites
Recent features
The Format - Give It Up
Leah Andreone - Break Your Fall
Coheed and Cambria - The Velorium Camper II: Backend Of Forever
Song of the week
Sara Bareilles - Between the Lines
Sara Bareilles' "Between the Lines" is the Song of the Week for April 20 to 26.
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