If you were unaware, I am posting weekly over on MMODesigner.com, it’s a more focused blog talking about what I know best, designing MMO’s.

I’ll keep this blog around for non-MMO related blog posts.

Recently the “never stops shutting down” problem came BACK to my tablet whenever I ran iTunes, a problem I never had until I upgraded to Windows 7.

I did some research on the net and ONE thing caught my attention. A user suggested plugging the USB cable into a USB port directly on the motherboard. I was plugging mine into the side port on my Tx2z, so I decided to see if plugging it into the back would fix the problem.

It looks like it did. I was able to sync my iPhone to iTunes with no problem, shut down iTunes and successfully shut down the tablet! So if you are having the same problem I am, try plugging your iPod or iPhone into a USB jack that is directly tied to the motherboard. It worked for me! Good luck.

I am a sucker for new OSes. I bought ME, XP, Vista and now Windows 7 on they day they released. I have -always- done an “upgrade” install, keeping my data and installed programs. I know a lot of people have said you should just do a fresh install, but, seriously, I have never had a problem.

I got Windows 7 for both my home PC and my tablet PC. My home PC is running Vista Ultimate 32 bit and the tablet had Vista Home Premium 64 bit. I installed to my tablet first and had some issues right off the bat of programs running that were causing the install to fail (remember, I am doing an upgrade, not a wipe), eventually I get that remedied and the install to the tablet completes.

I install to my home PC, and I want to upgrade to Ultimate 64 bit at this point, as I want to put more memory in it eventually (have 4GB now). Problem. You can’t use an “upgrade” from Vista Ultimate 32 to Windows 7 Ultimate 64. Grumble. I consign myself to simply sticking to a 32 bit OS for the time being. The first install with that failed at the infamous “62%”, which I read needed a registry edit to get past, but a second try got it installed without crashing, no editing.

Back to the tablet, I immediately have problems with itunes. It just doesn’t seem to want to run, and since this is where I sync my phone to, this is a problem. I can get iTunes to run about 20% of the time. The other 80% it simply refuses to launch, but in the Task Manager you can clearly see it running… and when you “End Task” in the TM, it does nothing. I have never seen a program REFUSE to be forcibly shut down by task manager before. If I go to reboot at this point the tablet will hang on “Shutting down” and never actually shut off.

I did a lot of research on the subject and even asked the twitterverse for advice (advantage to having over 1000 followers!) I tried everything suggested EXCEPT “do a full wipe install”. I simply didn’t want to admit defeat. Finally after a day of trying to get iTunes started so I could sync, I decided that the full install was the last resort. I backed up my data, deauthorized iTunes (once I finally got it running) and did the full install. Everything went smoothly and a reinstall of iTunes messed up some of my settings, but at this point I have not had the problem I did previously. It’s been two days and all signs look good.

On my home PC I have a different problem. Media Player refuses to play MPEG files. It will lock up and sit in Task Manager eating an entire core of my quad-core until I forcibly shut it down (which, thankfully it does). Had this problem for a while now but its pretty minor so it wasn’t until this week I went on the crusade to fix it. In the end there was a corrupted MPEG codec left around from some program that was the issue. Once I deleted the value for it in the registry, Media Player worked fine.

This brings me to my biggest issue I am having with Windows 7. When something doesn’t work, it just doesn’t WORK. It doesn’t error out, it doesn’t crash, it doesn’t hang, it just doesn’t give any feedback at all. On the Media Player problem, if I didn’t know how to end a process in the Task Manager, I’d have no idea how to free up the processing power it was eating up. The iTunes problem was worse as there was NO solution that I could find that fixed the problem without a HD wipe.

For functionality, I must say Windows 7 has some neat bells and whistles, and it definitely feels faster than Vista did on my home PC. For the tablet, I find it hits the HD a LOT and that slows programs load times down to a point that I am looking at a Solid State Drive to improve performance.

Here is what my life currently consists of:

• Work, including commutes: 630a – 6p Mon-Fri
• Television: (When Andre isn’t playing on the big TV) Monday is the worst at 5.5 hours if nothing I watch is in repeats. Friday and Saturday are empty, which is good because:
• RPGs: DM’ing a 4e D&D game (almost) every Sunday. Playing in four 4e D&D games (John’s, Mark’s, Kyle’s, Bruce’s). John’s almost doesn’t count because certain players don’t want to play anymore, and we ended the last session in mid-combat (and, FWIW, mid-September I think).
• CoH: When I can find a spare hour or so.
• Other computer games: When I can find a spare under-an-hour or so.

Things I should be doing

• Spending time with Andre and Diane: I need to do this more.
• Painting: I have about 60 space marines that need to be painted, but the weather hasn’t been cooperating to prime them. (I primed minis once in cold weather, never again). I have found time to paint some of my PC’s for my various D&D games though.
• Cleaning out the garage: The opener broke, so the door is sealed shut. There is a ton of stuff in there, I don’t know how we are going to get to it to fix it, so I am procrastinating.
• Taxes: Of course, we owe again this year, so I don’t want to deal with this until April 14th.
• Cleaning out the computer room: Too many big boxes from “new stuff” clogging up the room.
• Sleeping: I sometimes wake up too early and can’t fall back asleep. Like today.

Ms. Marvel Sketch Cover by =david-nakayama on deviantART

David Nakayama, a concept artist we have working for us at NCNorCal, was kind enough to do my “sketch cover” of Dark Avengers #1. David’s done a ton of comics and covers, including the City of Heroes comics. I can’t get over how awesome this is, or the fact that he did it in just one evening.

My Twitter Account

I need to update this site more often.

Someone asked me what shows I watch, and since my Tivo is going full bore lately, I figured I could entertain you all with my television habits. I may even write reviews for some of these shows at some point.

SUNDAY

The Unit (CBS)

MONDAY

How I Met Your Mother (CBS)
Prison Break (FOX)
Chuck (NBC)
Heroes (NBC)

TUESDAY

House (FOX)
Fringe (FOX)

WEDNESDAY

Pushing Daisys (ABC)
Private Practice (ABC)

THURSDAY

The Office (NBC)
Grey’s Anatomy (ABC)

FRIDAY

The Soup (E!)

WHEN TIVO GRABS IT

Mythbusters (DSC)