Sorcinelli.net

Those who know me well enough know that my sons and I are huge fans of EA and Criterion Game's Burnout Paradise for the XBox 360. As a matter of fact, the addiction level of this game for my 4 year-old son Drew can be quite frightening. 


Drew at play with Burnout Paradise, using the XBox Steering Wheel

Criterion Games is taking a great approach to keeping this game fresh and exciting and in doing so is making the Xbox Live platform live up to one my earliest expectations of the platform.

In addition of all of the great content that the XBox Live platform delivers (movies, TV shows, downloadable games), I always envisioned the platform as a means of delivering all levels of purchased game content on demand. While Xbox Live is regularly used for minor patches to games and some add-ons, I always have waited for a game creator to provide a significant content download that fundamentally creates something of a "new version" of the game without the need to purchase a new DVD. While there are always challenges for both the game creator and the consumer here (bandwidth and disk space come to mind), I still believed the value-add for both Microsoft and the game creator would be huge. All of this brings me back to Burnout Paradise.

I have been watching for months with anticipation in a planned release of Burnout Paradise that fundamentally takes the game to a whole new level. Rather than explain it all (which would require covering a full background of the game itself), I will instead point you to the Criterion Games web site for all the details. Once you look at this, I think you will agree that the scope of this update is huge. I could conceivably see many vendors considering this level of enhancement as an entirely new version of the game and requiring the re-purchase of the product. Criterion Games, however, has chosen not to go this route and I applaud it.

In an age where software updates are often readily available for download, the computer gaming industry is at times a little archaic in their thinking and business models. With gaming platforms now having access to the Internet and delivery mechanisms like XBox Live, my hope of breathing life into existing games beyond the simple add-on seems to be coming true. I hope more game software designers and publishers follow this model. For me, Criterion Games has an even greater loyalty from myself and my boys for what they are doing, and I assure you that future Burnout franchise titles will become members of our Xbox 360 library.

I was sitting on my JetBlue flight at the gate this past Thursday awaiting pushback and taxi. I look out to my left at the next gate over and what you I see? -

Yep - US Airways is painting some of their jets with NFL logos. My guess is that it is tied in to their hub airport cities. While taxiing, I spotted an Arizona Cardinals-themed jet. I could snap a picture of that one for you Cards fans, though - I was taxiing, and "portable electronic devices are not approved at this time" ;-)

Of course, this suddenly reminded that the coming weekend included the NFL Hall of Fame inductions and... THE FIRST PRESEASON GAME! Ah - life is good again. While I am a sorts addict in general, football has been and always will be my #1 sports passion. From mid-June until mid-July, the presence of only one major sport (baseball) makes me feel as though I am stuck in the middle of desert desperately searching for an oasis. NFL training camps and the preseason remind me that pro and college football are only a few weeks away. Time to fire up the ol' Replay TV recorders and schedule NFL Network recordings. I need my scouting information :-D

For all of the accolades you can bestow on YouTube, the greatest value for me happens to be those classic videos that can manage to make me laugh whenever I watch them. A classic example... The other night, my brain was drained from a long day. I really needed a good laugh to energize me. For whatever the reason, Triumph the Comic Insult Dog came to mind. Sadly, I think this says way too much about me :-) Enter YouTube. I searched for the classic Conan O'Brien Late Night bit with Triumph attending a Star Wars premiere. Sure enough - there it was. If you haven't watch this 10-minute video, you're missing out.

10 minutes later, I was wiping the tears of laughter from my eyes and ready to move on. No matter how many times I watch that video, I react the same way. Thanks, YouTube. You managed to make my evening.

If you look at the very bottom of this page, you will see that this site is powered by BlogEngine.net. I have to admit that this is a really solid and very lightweight blogging engine (built on ASP.NET 2.0). Of course, when you control your own web site and choose your own technologies, you often face the potential trauma that is the software upgrade.

I finally got around today to upgrading to the latest version of BlogEngine.net. I took the amazing step of reading the Upgrade Guide twice for fear of making a foolish mistake. Now, even though this is just my little personal blog, my years in building and managing web sites still forces me to treat unnecessary downtime as evil. That being said, I began the FTP push of t he upgrade to the web site when... my network connection suddenly chose to take a coffee break. I never realized the Internet was a "union shop" until then ;-) Fortunately, the connection drop was brief, but it forced me to start the upload all over again and swear out loud (the wife and kids aren't around, so I can get away with it).

As you can see, all is well now. I've got and upgraded web site and am none the worse for it. I am, however, dreading the looming monster upgrade I will be making soon for my son's school PTA web site in the next few weeks. It's a cool project, but I guarantee I'll be treating it as if I was upgrading Google if anything goes wrong :-)

When I am not traveling on business around the country, I am usually traveling to and from my office and wishing I were only having to travel around the country. You see, I have the distinct honor of living in the Greater Boston area, which proudly boasts some of the worst commuter traffic in the nation. To understand the true nature of my daily journey, I provide to you the following information...

To start, I actually commute into the Greater Boston area (Watertown, MA, to be more precise) from lovely and scenic Salem, NH (no - not the "witch town"; the other Salem in the area).


Map courtesy Live Search Maps

35 miles total. 35 freakin' scenic miles. I use the word "scenic" because you can often take in every detail of a given location when you are sitting in the exact same place for an extended period of time. Now, regular traffic congestion is an unfortunate nuisance during rush hour in any large metropolitan area, but my route takes me through several areas where we see "Boston Traffic Control" at its finest -

• Mistimed stoplights. Apparently someone many years ago decided that the best way to control traffic is by sequencing stop lights in such a way as to prevent you from ever making it through more than two consecutive intersections in a row. This does a wonderful job of reducing the risk of high-speed accidents. Of course, building a brick wall across the road would have about the same effect.
  
  Fortunately, all of this gridlock does afford me some wonderful views, like...
  
  
  
  ...the backs of other vehicles. While this may not seem so hot, it at least blocks the view of the rest of the half-mile backup, which is usually too depressing to face. Ironically, when I snapped the picture above, I realized that a quick glance to the right provided me with a great photo opportunity that summed up my feelings at the moment...
  
   
  
  
• Traffic Circles/Rotaries. Anyone who has driven in Boston probably has a great story about traversing one of our traffic circles (also referred to as "rotaries"). You see, someone decided that, in an attempt to counteract the gridlock caused by poorly sequenced lights, they would have intersections with no lights at all. Instead, people would use their better judgement and driver courtesy to enter the rotary at the appropriate time and yield when necessary. Of course, this utopian vision of commuting only exists in science fiction and is replaced with anarchy and chaos, resulting in... more traffic.
  
  Witness as I approach one of the four rotaries I endure on my morning commute....
  
  
  
  Still a good half mile away. I am shielded from the oncoming terror by a wall of traffic;
  
  
  
  I am now less than a quarter mile away and can see the evil rotary off in the distance. My heart begins to race;
  
  
  
  I am upon the cursed rotary. What you do not see in this picture is the car to my left that, like every day, blocks my view of oncoming traffic, bolts into the traffic circle at the last second and cuts into my lane. Oops - forgot to mentioning the subsequent locking up of the brakes.

All in all, my 35 mile commute lately averages 90 minutes to complete. If not for my XM radio and the comedy channels to try to break the tension, I likely would have snapped a while back.

By the way - did I mention that I reverse this process each evening?

I keep saying to myself that I want to use this blog as a way of passing along photos that I tend to snap using my phone's camera when I'm on the road. I do snap the photos; I just never remember to get them on the web site. A few examples -


While in St. Louis, a client I was working with wanted to do interviews with workers a facility that would normally be a 2 hour plus drive. Instead, they decided that we should use their corporate jet (a 20 minute flight). This was a unique experience, considering that the weather was... well, "iffy".


I was in midtown Manhattan in early June with a customer. The hotel I was staying at was about a 15-block walk (mostly down 3rd Avenue). I snapped this photo of the Chrysler Building along the way to send back via e-mail to Nicolas. The building had no relevance to him until I explained that this was the building that got the top blown off of it by the jets in the 2000 Godzilla (you know, the Matthew Broderick Godzilla).


Also last month, I took the family down to NYC for a long weekend. We actually stayed across the Hudson in Jersey City. BTW - this was a phenomenal alternative to staying in Manhattan. I snapped a photo from the Newport Marina across to lower Manhattan.
 

Here's a picture of Drew on the carousel at Central Park. It's so hard to believe that he's now 4.

Nicolas is now 8. This is even harder to believe.

I really have to work harder at getting my photos posted. A picture is really worth a thousand words sometimes.

OK - here I go again. Life got me so caught up that I ended up leaving the web site for a while. It's not like I completely forgot about things here. I often said to myself "What is it that I'm forgetting to catch up on?"

Between business trips, family trips (a long weekend in NYC), loads of work and lots of additional stuff, it's been a busy last couple of months. I have recently been playing with "The Grand Social Networking Experiment" as a way to do the quick highlights of things. I am available via Twitter and Facebook (look me up at Facebook if you'd like; I'm not hard to find with a last name like "Sorcinelli"). I actually never thought I would find this type of "in the moment" interaction enjoyable, but it nice to be able to type in a few words in a few seconds and be done with it.

I'll get back to the posting real soon. I promise. Really. I'll... what's that, Drew? You need me to help you? OK. Now, what was I wanting to catch up on?

When you have collected and still use a lot of different Windows Mobile phones, you often get asked about which ones you use when, and why. I recently had a "water cooler" discussion about this (mainly spurred on by female co-workers finding great amusement in a man taking about a "weekend phone"). This got me to thinking - I should put together my personal awards for different devices, documenting once and for all (or at least until another device is added to the mix) some of my favorite devices for certain situations. So, here goes -

• Best Overall Device.
  WINNER: I have to give this award to the AT&T Tilt (HTC Kaiser) I use. When factoring in size, performance, reliability and usability, the Tilt ends up on top. In almost all of these categories there is another device in my arsenal that surpasses the Tilt, but none outperforms at all levels.
  HONORABLE MENTION: My i-mate K-JAM (HTC Wizard) has definitely been the most trusted and reliable device I have used over the years. Whether it is for day-to-day use or application/OS testing, the K-JAM has always been there, ready to perform.
• Best Pure Business Communicator.
  WINNER: The Palm Treo 750 has been one of the best overall devices from a business communications perspective. While not the smallest, fastest or "sexiest" device, the Treo 750 does what is is supposed to do very well; provide effective and reliable business communication. The radio may be the most reliable of all of my devices, getting a signal in areas where all my other devices fall short. The UI and usability enhancements with hardware buttons can screen displays make the device highly usable for voice and e-mail. No other device has ever been more reliable for me with regards to Microsoft Voice Command, and trust me when I say I have used the product on just about every device I've owned. I have come to realize that the Palm Treo 750 doesn't get nearly as much love as it deserves, and I was partly at fault for this.
  HONORABLE MENTION: While this may spur some controversy, my T-Mobile Dash (HTC Excalibur) has always been a great lightweight device that performs the business functions I rely on in proper fashion. I still find myself most productive on the Dash's keyboard when typing e-mail or chatting via IM. If not for the constraints on memory and processor power, the Dash might have been able to pull off the upset here.
• Best Weekend Device With The Family.
  WINNER: This may come as a shocker, but I have to give this award to my QTek 8500 (HTC StarTrek) gets the nod here. Clamshell form factor and very durable. I feel comfortable carrying this device when "out and about" with the kids, confident in knowing that a sudden kick, punch or flying object hitting the device in my pocket won't spell the end of my phone.
  HONORABLE MENTION: If not for the lack of Bluetooth, this award would have gone to - my Motorola MPx200. Yes, my MPx200. OK - stop laughing ;-) If I created an award for "Most Indestructible Device", the MPx200 would win hands down. A bulky clamshell design by toady's standards, you could beat up on this device all day without worry. True story...
  I didn't even use one of my MPx200's (I have more than one lying around) for almost 2 years. In that time, my two sons used it as a "play toy" (read - no SIM). They played with it indoors and outside. They carried it around and treated it like one of those Dollar Store play phones. Guess what - I am looking at that phone right now and (after cleaning it up) it looks great (no scratches) and runs fine.
• Best Weekend Device (Still Keeping Functional).
  WINNER: The Samsung Blackjack II (i617) definitely excels here. Looks like a stylish casual smartphone (I have the maroon model, BTW) but still packs the processing power, memory and keyboard for those moments when I need to get things done (IM, e-mail, etc).  This phone allows me to still "travel light" without worrying about performance.
  HONORABLE MENTION: The T-Mobile Dash. If not for the previously-mentioned processor and memory constraints, this device likely would have beaten out the Blackjack II. It's even smaller than the Blackjack II, but simply not as fashionable.
• Lifetime Achievement Awards
• My i-mate JASJAR (HTC Universal) is affectionately referred to as "The Tank". This bad boy is only slightly smaller than the HTC Advantage, but still packs a great processor and large VGA screen, making it an awesome multimedia device. If not for the lack of EDGE (only GPRS and European UMTS), I might still be lugging this device around as part of my "daily package".
• My i-mate SP5m (HTC Tornado) has to get credit for simply surviving its most brutal product tester - my wife. She can destroy anything technology-related in days (and in any number of colorful ways). She has proven this most frequently with Bluetooth headsets, but phones run a close second. The SP5m is still in tact and running, with only a touch of Super Glue on the trim to show for the months of brutality it as endured.

Please note that the the devices listed here are by no means the total list of Windows Mobile phones I have owned. Maybe I should add an "In Memoriam" list... :-)

Well, the countdown is on. One day left until we at BostonPocketPC.com start our week in the 31 Days of the Dragon contest. We will be posting our set of rules (remember - each participating site gets to set the rules for their version of the contest) tomorrow. Two things to note -

1. The team at BostonPocketPC.com will be very busy over the course of this coming week thanks to our rules;
2. The fun is not only limited to the HP Dragon notebook, so be sure to read all the contest rules when they are posted.

Here's to all the fun!

I was amazed yesterday to see so much time devoted on the Internet to Microsoft walking away from the Yahoo deal. Considering the amount of analysis given to the whole thing over the last few weeks, you would have thought that people would have been out of words. Guess not ;-)

My take - it happens. How many times have you offered someone some amount for something, the other party wanted more and you said "no way"? Whether it be trading cards in the schoolyard, a car or business buyouts, it happens - every day. Personally, I questioned the value of the deal for Microsoft other than to acquire a competitor in the search and e-mail markets in an attempt to increase market share. Would it be worth it? I am not sure, but I am not immersed in the deal so I won't play "armchair acquisitions analyst" (at least not today). In the end, Microsoft decided it simply was not worth the extra effort to go the hostile takeover route.

So now that it's all over (except for the over-analysis), what next? I think it's safe to say that life goes on at Microsoft. As for Yahoo - life does go on there as well. Now there is a bit of work to be done (obviously), but Yahoo does appear to have several "Plan B" options already lined up.

With all this said, can we now go back to a daily life that does not include hundreds of Microsoft/Yahoo posts? My RSS aggregator would thank you if it could :-)