Author Archives: Peter

Games appear overly bright, washed out on Dell Studio notebook computer

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If you recently purchased a Dell Studio notebook, you may have noticed that games like Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead, Unreal Tournament 3, and other graphics-intensive games appear overly bright, faded, and washed out on default brightness settings.

DON’T PANIC!

There are steps you can take to alleviate, if not entirely eliminate, poor in-game image quality issues produced by the Studio’s default settings:

  1. Turn down in-game brightness settings. Brightness controls differ for each game, but are usually located under an Options or Settings menu.
  2. Set your monitor’s brightness to two-thirds power (10 steps up from the lowest brightness settings). Use the Fn+Up and Fn+Down key combinations to adjust your brightness.
  3. If your computer features an ATI video card:
  • Download the latest drivers for the desktop equivalent of your card directly from the ATI web site. For example, if your notebook features an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650, download the drivers for the ATI Radeon HD 3650.
  • Download and run the Mobility Modder tool from DriverHeaven on the downloaded drivers.
  • Install the modified drivers.

I hope these steps help alleviate confusion for new Dell Studio owners. Dell provides no documentation on image quality issues, ships Studio notebooks with screens set to full brightness, and hosts outdated drivers for video cards on their support web site.

Thanks to my friends who recommended Mobility Modder.

No thanks to Dell, who last updated their drivers for the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650 on Jan. 14, 2009. ATI released version 9.3 of their Catalyst Suite, which includes drivers for many ATI video cards, on March 18, 2009. Upgrading from stock drivers provided by Dell to drivers modified using Mobility Modder made a visibly significant difference in game image quality.

House of the Dead Overkill and Madworld developers miss the point

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When Wii owners 17 and over say they want “mature” titles for the Wii, our request has less to do with the blood, gore, and profanity that earns an M rating and more to do with the depth and complexity of titles.

Headstrong Games (developer of House of the Dead Overkill), Platinum Games (developer of Madworld), and Sega (publisher of both games) gave Wii owners 17 and over games packed to the brim with violence, profanity, and the sensibility of a 13-year old boy mimicking an Andrew Dice Clay (whose Wikipedia included such course language that I decided not to link it) stand-up routine. In the process of packing as many f-bombs as possible into their games, they completely missed the point–and alienated many potential customers.

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April Fool’s Day 2009 round-up

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April Fool’s Day always promises at least a few online chuckles. Here are this year’s best jokes:

Blizzard:

Google:

ThinkGeek:

Other:

UPDATE: Find links to more April Fool’s Day articles on the following sites:

UPDATE: Check out ThinkGeek’s past April Fool’s Day jokes here.

Setbacks

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Fear not! I still have great plans for Brainstorm Warning, but have recently suffered a few setbacks that have slowed those plans.

The most severe setback was the sudden death of my notebook’s display. I’m now using an old desktop computer with only 256MB RAM, which means it takes at least twice as long to do everything I did on my notebook computer. I hope to have a replacement notebook by mid-March.

I have a list of topics for articles written out, so stay tuned to Brainstorm Warning. Topics for articles in the queue include web content filtering, the role-playing genre of video games, and favorite anime. It should make for an interesting mix.

The next stage of Brainstorm Warning

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When I first set up Brainstorm Warning, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do with it. The site was a blank canvas; I had only a vague plan for sharing personal news with family and friends. Nearly all of my early posts were visible only to users who registered an account. The bulk of posts are still private, though the frequency of public posts has increased.

The first two images I uploaded to the gallery, aside from test images, were icons marked with the text Private and Public, respectively. Included in the logos were the kanji for honne and tatemae. Wikipedia explains honne and tatemae as follows:

Honne (本音) refers to a person’s true feelings and desires. These may be contrary to what is expected by society or what is required according to one’s position and circumstances, and they are often kept hidden, except with one’s closest friends.

Tatemae (建前), literally “façade,” is the behaviour and opinions one displays in public. Tatemae is what is expected by society and required according to one’s position and circumstances, and these may or may not match one’s honne.

As I begin the next stage of Brainstorm Warning, I plan to invest more time in the public face (tatemae) of the site while continuing to make private (honne) posts viewable only by friends and family with registered accounts.

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Recommended viewing: Ani*Kuri 15

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I’m fascinated by animation. Ever since I saw Fantasia as a child, I understood that talented animators could create a new and fantastic world using their art. I developed a love for animated shorts when I watched The Animatrix, a collection of amazing animated short films based in the Matrix universe.

So when I heard that 15 of Japan’s top animators created 1-minute shorts for NHK, I had to see what they came up with.

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House of the Dead Overkill goes overkill with profanity and crude humor

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I understand that House of the Dead Overkill developers Headstrong Games were going for that “grindhouse” feel when creating their new on-rails zombie shooter.

I understand the exploitation films that served as reference materials for the developers often, if not always, contained copious amounts of gratuitous profanity and adult themes.

I can appreciate a development team choosing a theme and using that theme to tie the game together. (Valve did the same with excellent results in Team Fortress 2.) The adult themes are part of the game; I get that.

But knowing all that, I still can’t stand House of the Dead Overkill. I stopped playing the game after the first level and won’t pick it back up. I can not, in good conscience, recommend this game to anyone.

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How to recognize job listing scams on craigslist

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As unemployment rates steadily climb, more job seekers are turning to online job postings to find their next paycheck. The problem is that many job posting sites allow scam postings. One of the worst offenders is craigslist, which features a higher percentage of scams than almost any other job listing site.

So before you send your resume and personal information to a supposed potential employer, protect yourself from identity theft with a few simple tips.

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This site is like an iceberg

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Just as 7/8 of an iceberg’s mass is underwater, so is most of this site’s content marked “private” and only available to approved users.

I don’t mind sharing my thoughts on import anime pricing, tips on popular video games, or random factoids with total strangers, but I’m not going to share drafts of my short stories, personal news, or pictures of geese with just anyone.

If you know me, whether in the real world or the virtual, then send me an e-mail (if you know me, you know at least one of my e-mail addresses or my cell phone number) with the username and password you’d like to use for the site and I’ll set up the account.

On a related note, I’m hoping to start writing technical “how-to” guides, opinions on technology and entertainment, and other content fit for public consumption soon. At the same time, I plan to dip my toe into the ocean of web site monetization and see if I can make a few bucks with this site. My search for a job in the traditional job market has not fared well, so I thought I might give a more non-conventional approach a whirl.