DavidBreyer.Com

I think Derek and I are in competition on our August spending spree. I have been wanting to buy an SLR camera for quite sometime. So I was pleased when Dell had a sale on the Canon Rebel XT 350D for just $739.

I snapped a few photos (view the original size to get the full effect), which are an amazing 3456 x 2304 resolution. Of course this comes with a price, each photo is 4MB. I think this will do nicely for our trip to CES this year.

Features:

* Fast start-up time–.2 seconds
* Powered by rechargeable Lithium-ion battery (included, with charger)
* 8.0-megapixel CMOS sensor captures enough detail for photo-quality 16 x 22-inch prints
* Includes Canon’s EF-S 18-55mm, f3.5-5.6 zoom lens
* DIGIC II Image Processor provides fast, accurate image processing; captures images at a rate of up to 3 frames per second

Today Google released Google Talk or GTalk for short. On the surface it would appear the it is another “me too” IM service without any significant features. In fact there are no interesting features to speak of, every one of it’s functions is already emulated better in another application. And a instant messenger client is only as good as the number of people using it. Yahoo! Messenger and MSN Messenger beat Google Talk hands down on that.

What really is new about Google Talk is the fact that system is built on non-proprietary technology. While MSN, Yahoo, and AIM have been promising interoperability for years, they have been fighting to keep others off their network. And while the other messengers are clogged with ads and bloatware of features, GTalk is very simple and ad free. Also Google is inviting people to create clients for their Google Talk network. At the heart Google is running Jabber, an open source messaging server. And a number of IM clients already work with Jabber (and thus Google Talk). The Voice feature only works with the Google Talk client however.

This is seen as a way for Google to eventually move into full Voice over IP. Perhaps eventually even rivaling Skype.

Another good reason to welcome Google Talk is because when Google released GMail just over a year ago, it caused competitors to scramble to offer new features and services. Gone are the days of 10MB or 25MB of storage space for your email. You can thank Google for that. I can’t wait to see what Yahoo, MSN, and AIM will do to try to keep their users from fleeing to Google Talk. Perhaps they will take Google up on their offer and design their clients to work directly with Google Talk. Then we will finally have the interoperability among networks they have been promising for years.

EBGames is taking preorders for the Xbox360, in stores only. They have confirmed an November 14th arrival date for the first batch. My local EB had only 7 left for preorder, and it was 5 by the time I left the store. I stopped in to pick up Dungeon Siege 2 and decided to put $50 down on an Xbox360. Which is required for preorder.

You can preorder only the $399 Xbox360, the core system is not available yet. Actually EB now lets you pre-order the core system and the premium system as part of a bundle.

After working with Microsoft .NET technologies for the past 4+ years I finally decided to get certified. I passed my first exam, of many, for my MCSD. I plan on getting both my MCSD and my MCDBA by early next year.

I passed the 70-305 - Developing and Implementing Web Applications with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET. Along with working with the technology everyday I also used Self Test Software as a study aid. I like this company since you don’t have to install software, it’s all web-based, so you can use it at home and work. It also helped me pass the exam with a 943 out of 1000.

My next exam, 70-320 - Developing XML Web Services and Server Components with Microsoft Visual C# and the Microsoft .NET Framework, is scheduled for early next month.

Rise of Kobol is in the earliest stages of development. I will be excited to see if this mod actually gets made. I know with the delay of the BF2 Editor, mod makers are having a tough time getting anything out.

Based on the Battlestar Galactica Universe this mod takes you back in time 45 years to the first Cylon war. Get ready to battle for your life on the twelve colonies of Kobol and their solar system!

So far I am skeptical. I have yet to see any promised mods be released for HL2 or Far Cry. And those games have been out for a year. So I won’t be holding my breath on the release of BF2 mods anytime soon.

I had a previous posting on downloading your Battlefield 2 stats. Due to what EA calls “overly large and continuous queries” the stats interface has been shutdown.

A lot of people have been making mods to read the stats (which comes in as flat text) and convert it to readable pages. Hopefully EA will open this back up, perhaps with a web service.