The words, “no shit Sherlock” have come to mind so very often since this past Wednesday. So much so, I would like to publicly berate all of these so called “tech bloggers” and “reporters” who have been filling the air blue with their smoke about just how awful the new Blackberry is.

Guess what, it’s not an iPhone, it’s not an Android Phone. Nope, it’s a Blackberry – exactly what Research in Motion wants it to be.

Sorry burst your great bubble of “sky is falling” negativity, but RIM is not trying to impress a bunch of bloggers who think they are something special. Rather, RIM is providing AT&T with exactly what AT&T determined a significant amount of their customers are looking for. So rather than trying to lambast a company for not making products the way you think they should be making them, perhaps you should spend some time researching why these products are actually being produced.

Here, enjoy this quote from your hero Steve Jobs,

“A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.”

And now read this recent one from RIM's chief technology officer, David Yach, (speaking www.guardian.co.uk),

"People want great communication devices and I see our phones as more about 'us' – they're for communicating with others – while other phones are more about 'me'… We've always viewed ourselves as going our own way. It seems like every device is viewed as an 'iPhone killer'."

So, when Steve Jobs says that Apple does what Apple thinks is best for its customers, the blogosphere swoons, but when RIM says the same thing, they are trashed everywhere, including in the “mainstream media” of their home country (with my tax dollars no less)?! I’m sorry, but that sort of foolishness is just plain wrong. Research In Motion is doing its best to deliver quality products that are relevant to their customers and with the Blackberry Torch 9800 they are doing exactly that: Giving AT&T what they determined their customer’s want. To bemoan the processor speed without taking into account that the device runs on a unique, proprietary platform (as I saw one blogger do this week) is simply slanderous, irrelevant drivel. To compare the screen resolution to an entertainment device, such as the iPhone 4, is silly, because the two devices are designed for different primary functions. Imagine that, two different companies making two different products honestly have no intentions of “killing” each other’s products.

Nope, they’re “doing their own thing”, just like Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and so many other successful companies that have at one time publicly expressed the same sentiment.

Perhaps all of those bloggers and reporters out there (who obviously aren’t the folks on this planet who are taking risks and trying to exceed their customer’s expectations in high technology industries) should go complain about something else. Or better yet, perhaps you loud mouths should shut the hell up if you have nothing intelligent to say; your nonsense is nothing more than propaganda that unfairly effects the market and in many ways also unfairly conditions consumers who may miss out on enjoying a product, simply because “the media” said it was bad.

Stupidity makes me angry, especially when it needlessly effects the innocent, and I am not ashamed to say so. I am, however, ashamed of the many folks out there who call them selves reporters, but who spend their time spreading opinions rather than conveying facts.

Over the years I have evolved from a person who thought cell phones were something that only tied people to the annoyances of the rest of the world into a person who clearly understands their merits. Granted, a lot has changed in the cell phone industry over the last ten years, which helped me along a little.

One of the things I have sought after for several years is the ability to write, keep in touch, and be entertained while on the go – anywhere. To that end, I have purchased things like a laptop, a Nintendo DS Lite, a Netbook, a PSP, and various adapters and phones to cobble together a fulfilling mobile life, all with varying degrees of success. Each device had its downsides and at the end of the day, to make a long story short, nothing I had really worked for me when it came to meeting the following needs,

• Video/Music playback.
• Note taking (text).
• Communications (phone or email)
• Internet access.

I had a phone. I had a gaming device for video playback and the occasional game. And I had a laptop for internet access and doing things like writing and what not. But, none of this was really as mobile as I had hoped it would be. The laptop (and even the netbook) was too clunky to take on a walk. The phone was, well, just a phone. And, the gaming devices just weren’t designed to be media play back devices, as both had keys that would skip ahead or backward through the video or song at the slightest touch – truly annoying! I wasn’t able to really go out and be creative, like I used to when I was kid with my note books and pen. Neither was I able to amuse myself in those idle moments while out and about. Truly, it was a sad state of affairs for a poor techie like myself and I wasn’t sure what to do about it.

Prior to 2009, I didn’t really have any experience with text messaging on a phone. I had sent a few back in 2002 on an old Nokia black and white phone, but it was such a pain in the ass to type on it, I couldn’t imagine why a person would want to use text messaging. Then, in 2008 Virgin Mobile was nice enough to send my wife a free upgrade to her recalled Samsung phone, so she gave me her LG Rumor that she didn’t like, but she had upgraded to. It was purdy blue… Anyhow, I quickly found that text messaging on a full qwerty phone was awesome! My wife and I could communicate quickly, effectively, and without a lot of gibber jabber that would previously eat away at those precious day time minutes; if we needed milk, “hey. we need milk. love you” was only seconds away and didn’t require ten minutes of frustration to type! Yup, it was the beginning of a whole new world for me. That is, until I sat on the Rumor and broke the screen (I left it on the bed and it got under the blankets, so when I went to get something on the other side of the bed, wouldn’t you know, right where I put my knee was where the phone was).

Now, the LG Rumor couldn’t play movies or make decent sized text files, but it was capable of playing music and it truly was a “quick messaging phone”. However, after accidently breaking it and being at a point in time when I really needed to have a phone, I hastily replaced it with what seemed like a good idea at the time, a free Motorola KRZR K1 on a one year contract from Virgin. I could have just purchased another Rumor for $89.99 and stayed on my pay as ye go plan, but I was feeling particularly cheep that day and they only had ugly green Rumors in stock (hmm… I wonder why). Well, suffice to say that as nice looking, sturdy, and useful as the KRZR K1 is, it is not a quick messaging phone. Not at all. So, here I was again in 2010 with a pocket full of devices that just were not meeting my “needs”.

And along comes a spider: I changed contracts at work, giving me a discount for that other network provider in Canada, Rogers.

So, there I was with a one year contract with Virgin Mobile, yet a discount for Rogers and a phone I did not enjoy using. What to do… what to do… Everyone and their brother seemed to love their iphones, with their apps and games and video playback, but I just didn’t dig the whole touch screen thing. When I tried it out on a co-worker’s ipod touch, I firmly decided it was not for me. Then, a friend of mine showed me his Blackberry 8520 that he had through Rogers. It seemed like a neat little device, it could play videos, make text files, stream hockey games, make phone calls, and it had a qwerty keyboard. I spent a couple months pondering my choices, from Android, Apple, Windows Mobile, and Palm phones to the Blackberry and then one day I saw that Rogers was offering the soon to be discontinued Sony Xperia X1 for only $9.99 on a three year contract.

By the time that I had found the Xperia X1, I had decided that the Blackberry 8520 had the best features (initial cost being one of those features) and layout of any of the phones that I looked, but I wasn’t keen on its tiny keyboard and wasn’t sure that I would like it. Also, I wasn’t aware that the Blackberry had so many apps as well as a development kit for making one’s own apps. So, I went to the mall and I tried out the X1. It felt a bit heavy, but like many of the reviews I read about it, it also felt sturdy and was a breeze to type on. I went home and thought about it for a few more days and then decided to get the Sony Xperia X1.

After defending Windows Mobile 6.5 to various folks who likely knew better than me at the time, it took me all of three, maybe four hours of using Xperia X1 to realize that indeed, Windows Mobile 6.5 sucks on a phone sized device. I am sure it would work well on a tablet the size of the ipad, but on the X1 I found it difficult to use with my fingers, even having to go so far as to use the stylus just to hit the X to close a program, as the screen was recessed into the chassis just enough to make using it less than desirable.  Overall, I found the experience clunky, slow, and frustrating, especially when trying use phone features like dialing the phone and sending text messages. Heck, when I slid the LG Rumor open it knew that I wanted to send a text message, but no such luck with the Xperia X1. Fortunately, I could return it and the next day that is exactly what I did do. I exchanged it for the Blackberry Curve 8520 and I have not been disappointed since!

The Curve can do so very many things and it is amazingly easy to use. Consequently, I figured that I should share my experiences with it. Here are some of the things I have thus far determined the 8520 can do,

• Desktop software that converts Xvid movies to be played on the device.
• Can hold up to a 16GB micro SD card. I have an 8GB card that was only $21.99 on www.tigerdirect.ca plus shipping.
• Play music, video, pictures, and record video, pictures, and voice notes.
• Browse the web effectively.
• Write MS Office compatible notes.
• Write small notes.
• Be used as a flashlight while on a blank notes screen.
• Text message quickly.
• Handle phone calls.
• Take up very little pocket space and feel comfortable in the hand.

To be quite honest, the Blackberry Curve 8520 is exactly the mobile “computer” that I have always wanted. I can only hope that RIM doesn’t make too many changes to their already awesome OS and hardware designs in order to compete in the “touch screen world” – a world of which I do not understand; call me old fashioned, but I quite like using a real keyboard! Flat surface typing, finger prints on the screen, and screen real-estate taken up by a keyboard… yeah, they ain’t for everyone ya know!

Note: This comment is in reply to the blog post by law professor Michael Geist regarding “Support for C-32 Digital Lock Changes Mounts”. The issue at hand is how circumventing a “technological measure” will be illegal and therefore trumps all other “rights” bestowed to Canadians within the bill. My comment was too long to put into his comment field.

Trust me, please, when I say that any media that is sold today that does not have a "technical measure" protecting it will tomorrow have a "technical measure", effectively voiding all rights given to the consumer, if this bill is passed in its current form. Of course industry is happy with the bill - if it is passed, the industry will control everything from distribution to device compatibility.

I don't know what else to say any more, because it is obvious that those in government who need to understand why this is so important just "don't get it". My MP still has not replied to two letters I wrote about the issue in 2008. I did my best to put the issue into real life terms and explain where both business and consumers will be hurt by the "technical measure" issue.

I also put forward that millions of Canadians simply will not know how to nor have the resources to defend themselves from legal action taken by corporations who are accusing them of copyright infringement; The corporations don't even need to have a valid case to effectively scare thousands of dollars of settlement money out of folks who really should be innocent until proven guilty! Most people have downloaded something in the past, making most of us "guilty" under the new legislation. Sadly, most people don't realize that if they broke a law before there was a law to break, the new law is not actionable retroactively. So, in 2005 you downloaded a movie and in 2012 you get a letter suing you for that download. Sadly, most people won't know they are innocent and will settle out of court, because they don't know how or simply can't afford to defend themselves. The industry will take these sorts of sleazy actions and you're naive if you think otherwise.

The media industry will do a lot of things if we let them.

Consider this for a moment: Apart from iTunes there really isn't a comprehensive digital content distribution system that does not involve the archaic rotational media, be it BlueRay, CD or DVD, despite the fact that solid state storage and Internet bandwidth is what consumers want their media on and how they want it delivered to them. It would stand to reason that companies like Wal-Mart would like to have their floor space back, by replacing rows upon rows DVD/CD/BlueRay media with a secure wireless kiosk that would allow consumers to purchase media in digital format as they browse the other items available for sale in the store. Wal-Mart could then stock more items that are going generate more revenue per square foot than the out dated rotational media.

That's just one instance where the media industry is hurting both the consumers as well as businesses. If the media industry actually cared and if they were an entity capable of innovation, they would have changed by now. However, they don't care and this legislation does nothing but grind to a halt the gears of progress and competition, especially in the mobile devices market where functionality and entertainment are quickly merging (Research in Motion, I am looking at you and my Blackberry! Andriod and iPhone though as well, of course). If we allow “digital locks” to become unbreakable, so many devices will simply have their media access removed over night and that does not make any sense at all, now does it?

We need a content delivery system that is able to cater to the device and quality that the consumer demands, because that is the heterogeneous reality that we are living in. However, this legislation delivers the exact opposite, resulting in the stifling of innovation to maintain the monopoly of a handful of content delivering corporations (collectively referred to as the media industry), due entirely to how circumventing a “technological measure” will be illegal and therefore trumps all other “rights” bestowed to Canadians within the bill. There are two ways to rectify the issue,

1. Remove the clause regarding circumventing "technical measures", so that consumers can continue to shift their store purchased media into formats that function on the devices they would like to use the media upon. Keep in mind that this requires the consumer’s time, hardware, know-how, and electricity to achieve.

or

2. Force the industry to actually deliver content to 100% of all devices in the quality that the consumer would like, at a price that is fair to the consumer. This system would be designed, built, and maintained by the industry with non-taxpayers money I might add. 

Not doing one of those two things will simply leave consumers as well as device manufacturers at the mercy media industry, who neither innovates nor follows consumer and technological trends.

As for the issue of illegal file sharing, again doing one of the above suggestions will help to cure that problem. On the whole, people are willing to pay a far price for media, but they also want to obtain that media following the path of least resistance. Currently, it is a fairly sizable pain in the ass to convert a DVD to a format that is playable on an iPod, for instance. Consequently, most lay folk would simply rather download that content illegally, because it’s already ready to be played on their device. That’s not a failing of human morals, it’s a failing of the media industry to meet the needs of their customers. Period.

Of the many things that I have used both Windows and Linux for over the years, I have to say that most surprisingly interesting project has been the network file server. It seems like a simple enough concept, having one computer on the network or at least in the home that has all of your personal crap, such as pictures, documents, and videos, but when you get down to considering what factors are important to you and then actually putting it together, building a “media server” (as they are called these days) can be pretty complicated.

What is a file server and why do I care?

Well, think of it this way: It’s a hell of a lot easier to eat a bag of potato chips from the bag than it is to put ten bowls of chips around your house and try to enjoy them while watching the hockey game, without bringing the bowls to the couch. Having a file server, especially one that is connected to a wireless network, is handy because it allows you to store a copy of all of your information in a single spot, so that no matter what device you’re using you’ll be able to access the information, without having to copy all that data on to every device you own.

What kind of file servers are there?

Technically, a floppy disk can be considered a file server if you leave it in a convenient place. However, traditionally a server is a device that is “on” and able to accessed by other devices by using some medium of communication, like a cable or a radio signal, at all times throughout the day. External hard drives and USB sticks, much like the old floppy disks and other “storage media”, are a great way to share files with many different computers, especially from the perspective that they don’t use any power when they are not actively in use, but they have a few draw backs that justify the “always on” definition of a file server. With storage media, only one device can access the data at a time, a significant draw back for a family who owns a digital camera and has a large archive of pictures for instance. Also, almost all storage media requires a person to physically handle or plug in the media, which apart from being a bit of a pain in the ass, can also lead to wear and tear and accidental damage. And this is where the “always on” file server stands out as the superior way to share your data: once you set it up, you never need to touch the hardware again.

The best example of what a typical file server consists of is the follow: a computer with a large amount of hard drive space that has a directory (folder) that you can remotely access to add or delete files. That’s it. It’s that simple. Once configured, this computer doesn’t even need a screen, mouse, or keyboard, because you’ll never actually need to touch it – kind of like how the whole Internet exists on computers that you never touch (actually, it’s exactly like that). Depending on how you’d like to use the file server you can connect to it and use your files by wifi, Bluetooth, usb, Ethernet, the Internet, or even HAM radio if you had a lot of time on your hands. It all just depends on what your life is like, where you’ll be, and what you’ll be doing.

As far as actual types of hardware go, I’ll list a few different file server designs:

• “Cloud Computing”, which is Internet hosted storage, such as your Windows Live Skydrive. This lets you put your files in some magical location on the Internet, so you can download them from any where in the world. In reality, your files are stored on a redundant array of hard drives in a large data center somewhere.
• Network Attached Storage (NAS) Appliance. These are often low power ARM processor based systems (which can’t run Windows, like Intel/AMD/Via processors) that aren’t much more than a hard drive or two attached to the least expensive data handling computer as possible. Most of these devices are only accessible once they are attached to your home network and you’re able to use you computer’s web browser to connect to the NAS. It’s a neat idea that seems to work quite well and there certainly a lot of them available on the market these days. The Asus EEE-NAS for instance even has a full x86 Intel Atom processor and acts as a 4 port wireless router, making it an exceptionally powerful file server.
• Dedicated File Server. Well, way back when in the 1990s we had computers that did very little other than sit under a desk collecting dust, while everyone in the office accessed and stored their files on it over the network. Regardless of the complexity or cost of the machine, every other file server that isn’t what I described above is just another computer sitting somewhere doing nothing but waiting for people to use its hard drives over the network. In my attic I have a Dell Poweredge dual Pentium II 400MHz cpu server that is (despite being made with hot swappable SCSI drives and redundant power supplies) simply a well put together computer like any other computer one could buy. The difference between the Poweredge and, let’s say, an E-Machine desktop is that that Poweredge is designed to run 24/7/365 without failing where as the E-Machine is not (and I’ll leave it at that). Other than that, there’s no difference at all between a file server and a home computer, as they both store and access data in essentially the same way, from a practical perspective. Even an Android Smart Phone set up on a wifi network to share the files stored on it qualifies as “just another computer”, despite its high level of awesome!

So what about this Netbook thing?

It occurred to me that one of the crummy parts of trying to organize and share our pictures, videos and misc files in our home is that some times we aren’t home and usually when that is the case, we’re not able to access the Internet either. In those cases, even if we have my wife’s MSI Wind netbook with us or one of my Dell Inspiron 1501 notebooks, we’re invariably going to be missing something that is back home on my main desktop computer, (as that’s what we use as our main storage device or “file server”) which does us very little good when we’d like to share some cute pictures of the kids with the in laws. To solve this issue, I considered several things, such as

1. Using a portable hard drive to make a redundant copy of everything from the desktop and taking it with me.
2. Making redundant copies of at least all the pictures and home video on each computer (which is what I did).
3. Spending 20 years uploading all of our personal stuff to my Windows Live Skydrive over my terrible internet service. 

And then, all of a sudden the other day the obvious solution smacked me in the face from no where while I was window shopping at www.tigerdirect.ca – all I need to do is get myself a netbook and a 500GB Hitachi 2.5” SATA drive to put into it! Such a bloody simple concept, but as you will see it’s also exceptionally versatile.

Now that I’ve gone through what a file server is, why it is handy, and what some of the limitations are, I think I’ll just finish up the article with a pros and cons list for using a netbook as a file server as well as some words on operating systems.

Pros:

• The #1 best thing about using a netbook as a personal file server: Where you go, it goes!
• Low power, especially when idle.
• Built in LCD, keyboard, and mouse so you can take it with you and just use it without having to plug it into another device. It’s simply… a computer!
• Gigabit Ethernet connection + 1.6GHz Intel x86 CPU = stupid over powered for streaming even HD content (my Dell PowerEdge server has less processing power, but was designed to host entire web domains).
• Even under load, netbooks are pretty quiet. My PowerEdge on the other hand can be heard from the attic all the way out side (which is why I don’t use it).
• Built in uninterruptable power supply (for as much as five or six hours no less!).
• Only around $90 to buy a 500GB 7200 RPM Hitachi internal SATA drive with a 16MB cache, which is much more than enough for my family’s archives. Most often, upgrading a netbook hard drive is as simple as removing a couple screws, sliding out the old one and inserting the new one.
• A refurbished Intel Atom 270 based netbook can be had for around $250 dollars.
• Exceptional portability and usability – it’s a netbook!
• USB connections for a video capture card and external hard drive to use as a simple network TV show recorder (perhaps only standard definition).
• Easy enough to set up the power management features (including making the unit stay awake when the lid is closed) in Windows XP Home.
• VNC Server and VNC Client are both free, easy to set up, and allows the netbook to be managed from another computer on the network, not in some fancy new web interface, but by actually using the the netbook’s desktop remotely. This means that organizing files is as simple as using Windows file sharing.

Cons:

• Can an Atom based netbook stay on and remain reliable for years on end? Though they aren’t really designed to do so, this isn’t the 1980s and computer hardware is much more reliable now than it ever has been, because the manufacturing techniques are far more refined.
• Storage capacity is limited to the 2.5” hard drive design, which currently maxes out at 750GB.
• Installing the OS on a replacement hard drive can be a pain for a novice, but there are lots of guides out there on how to make and use bootable usb sticks. A usb connected DVD drive is also a simple solution.
• The battery may have a reduced life span if the AC power is plugged in all the time.
• Heat may be an issue with the lid closed, but leaving the netbook on its side or upside down may well resolve that.
• You could take it somewhere and lose it.
• Your netbook could come with Windows 7 Starter Edition.

I like Windows 7, a lot, but the Starter Edition is pure, unadulterated uselessness. To see how it would go, I put my Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade 64bit DVD onto a USB flash drive and tried it out on my wife’s MSI Wind 1.66GHz Intel Atom netbook and I was pleasantly surprised that it worked great even with Windows Aero on (which was on by default upon the first boot). I used it for an hour or two with Open Office, 700MB Xvid DVD back up movies (my kids eat DVDs!), Internet Explorer 8, Opera 9, and Purbole Place and other than lagging a little bit in Purbole Place and the really annoyingly short shift key on the right side of the keyboard, I had a great experience with the computer. That was until my wife kindly told me to give her her 30GB of hard drive space and her netbook back – I guess some people are happy with Windows XP still! Ah well, saved me having to buy an OEM copy of Windows 7 so I can’t complain I suppose. In any event, given the massive amount of limitation in Windows 7 Starter Edition and the shear lack of need for using such a crippled OS on a netbook, I can’t recommend using it as home server (in fact, you simply cannot use it as a network print server for instance). Look for a netbook that comes with XP or Windows 7 Home Premium. Failing that, buy an OEM copy of Windows 7 Home Premium 32Bit as it is well worth the $109 ish dollars.

As far as file server operating systems go, I have used various Linux distributions, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Home and Pro, and Window 7 Home Premium and my final take on what one is best for the job is Windows XP Home, followed closely by Windows 2000 Professional. Various aspects of the Group Policy system that is implemented in a standard installation of Windows XP Professional have quite simply made it a pain my ass to use in a home network environment, such that the ease and openness of Windows XP Home file and printer sharing are preferred. Windows 2000 Professional is pretty simple too, with the only complicated part being that users have to provide a username and passwords the first time they access the shared files. Of course, Windows 2000 Professional is no longer a supported product and therefore more likely to be a security risk if connected to the internet, but I have to say that it has been one of the easiest operating systems to make a file server with, ever. Windows 7 Home Premium is quite literally idiot proof to use as a file server, whether you choose to use the new Home Group feature or the standard Windows File and Print Sharing shared folders method.

Linux… Linux… Linux… 10 years ago I would have told you something different, but today I’ll just put it this way: Windows “just works” and any distribution of Linux out there “can work, but not quite as well in some cases, and only if you know what you’re doing”. Sure, Ubuntu Netbook Remix is a solid operating system and it is more than capable of being a stable file server OS, but the heart of the matter of what makes Windows superior to Linux (sadly, still…) is power management. It’s so easy to set up hard drive and other hardware rules in Windows 2000/XP/7 and for the absolute vast majority of hardware out there, the drivers respond exactly as one would expect. Sadly, the reason is that the hardware is designed with the Windows driver API in mind and a lot of smart people are employed around the world to ensure that the hardware works properly in Windows. I very much appreciate the Open Source community and all they have (indirectly) done for me over the years. I admire projects like Slackware, KDE, Open Office, and FreeBSD, which have obviously influenced the design of both Windows 7 and Apples’ OSX. However, at the end of the day using any version of Windows from 98 on (yes, even ME and Vista) is much less a pain in my ass that I can’t honestly suggest to someone that they should use Linux or FreeBSD instead. Sure, I could slap together a Slackware file server in no time flat, but most people on Earth couldn’t do it and heaven help them if something went wrong. Sure, using SMB sharing in Ubtunu is idiot proof, but when happens when you take the netbook to the trailer and realize that you’re missing a codec to play your home movies or a program to edit them in the quiet of the night or it pisses you off that there still isn’t a solid photo slide show application for Linux or that you neglected to install and activate the drivers for the wireless card and so on? Yup, the sad truth is that as awesome as Linux is, Windows is still better. It’s not fair, it sucks, but it is the truth.

So there you go, a person on the internet said it was a good idea to buy a netbook and a as large of an internal 2.5” hard drive as you can upgrade to and use it as portable personal file server, otherwise known as  Network Attached Storage or “NAS”. If Asus thinks using the Intel Atom in their EEE-NAS / wifi router media server is a good idea, I don’t see why using an Atom netbook with a big hard drive would be any less of a good idea. When I can afford to, this is what I will be doing!

Note: Regardless of what you happen to use as a file server, it’s always an exceptionally brilliant and wonderful idea to keep a redundant copy of your data on some kind of stand alone storage media, be they blue ray disks, DVDs, CDs, usb drives, zip disks, or external hard drives. That said, if your back up is sitting right beside your server and your house happens to burn down, fat lot of good that redundancy would do you – keep a back up of, at the very least, your family photos either online or on a usb stick in your purse, car, safety deposit box, etc. because those memories are irreplaceable.

The first “massively multiplayer online game” that I played was an all text browser based called Utopia, way back in 1999. It’s still around today, operated by Swirve Games, in pretty much the same shape that it was when it launched – a testiment to how fun it can be to create a kingdom of twenty five provinces with their own forum and conspire to beat the tar out of other unsuspecting kingdoms! A friend of mine was heavily into an MMO called Underlight, which I did try for a short time before firing up what I once thought was a stupid waste of time, Everquest. Shortly after EQ, I went to Star Wars: Galaxies, which was exactly the game I always wanted to play and I played it for many years. In fact, I liked SWG so much that I poo-pooed the concept of playing World of Warcraft when it was released! However, a lot changed in SWG by the time Blizzard released their Burning Crusade expansion for WoW and I had had my fill of bugs and sweeping game changes, so I decided to give WoW a try. Yup, World of Warcraft was blissful bug free experience for me that was both new and entertaining. Since that time, I have played both SWG and WoW on and off, as life permits, as they offer such drastically different game play options.

At one time I was a member and a leader of one of the first SWG guilds on the Intrepid server. Consequently, I have hosted forums and created web sites in the past related to our ever evolving guild over the years. However, as of September 1999 I stopped playing SWG, not because it was a bad game, but because my heart just wasn’t into it any more. Raph Koster and the whole Sony Online Entertainment team that designed SWG really did an amazing job creating a game that has so many different systems to muck about with that to really do the game justice, a person must put forth a considerable effort and a perhaps unhealthy amount of time to play the game. By no means did I “beat the game”, but I had accomplished so many goals and helped to make a thriving top 10 guild on our new server, Starsider, that it felt like a good time to say good bye. So many hours I spent posting in the SOE forums and so many conversations with others in the community… If ever you play the game, type /note filename.txt and make your own note pads with a feature that I request and that was subsequently acknowledged and added to the game!

Anyhow, I’ve been quietly enjoying World of Warcraft for a number of years, taking screenshot after screenshot, and never really sharing my experiences with others beyond the moments in which they happen.  As such, I thought I’d make a section in my Windows Live Space to post some thoughts and screenshots.

 Tatwi on Tatooine, Star Wars: Galaxies. Lucas Arts, Sony Online Entertainment 2003-2009.