The Blog for the Sports Gamer Three guys who love Sports Gaming rant and rave about various stuff.

Odds & Ends

Having been a while since my last post I've got a few topics to talk about

- Madden: Another new patch was installed on my 360 the other day.  I'm not sure exactly when it came out since I don't play it every day nor have I seen what the update does.  I'm sure Steve and the guys over at OS could tell me if I looked.  I'm still seeing kickoffs caught at about the 5 with 20 yard returns so teams are starting from around the 25.

So I'm playing a franchise game last night.  I'm up by 14-7 with 3 minutes to go against the Chargers.  They drive to score and tie it up.  I score in 3 or 4 plays to go up 21-7 with 1:30 or so left.  The Chargers score on 2 plays to tie it at 21 with 56 seconds left.  I moved the ball a little and line up for a 54 yard field goal with 2 seconds left.  I hit the buttons so that power is at 98% and 100% accurate.  The ball hits the cross bar and falls short.  Off to OT.  Collinsworth tells me the new OT rules as I win the coin toss and of course take the ball.  I picked GameFlow for the kickoff as always and it's kicked to my rookie returner.  I run up the left hash and see that I have 2 blockers left and the 2 end gunners there are starting to come in and should be blocked.  I cut left as my blockers engage and run right by them.  Nobody between me and the end zone.  And yes, I actually scored.  I returned a kick for a TD in Madden 11.  That's only my 2nd return past the 30 yard line!

- Tablets/Slates: I don't know about the rest of you, but the more I play with an iPad, the more I like it.  I don't like the fact that Apple can reject apps so you have to jailbreak it to get some apps Apple doesn't like, but I like the device itself.  It's the right size, the right weight and well as people always say with Apple products "it just works".  I purchased a true tablet (Asus T91MT) about 9 months ago.  It's a netbook where the screen can turn around and lay flat over the keyboard.  It's touch screen with onscreen keyboard when needed.  I like it too.  I like that it runs Windows 7 so I can install any apps I want.  I like that it has a real keyboard.  I just think I'd use an iPad more.  The weight on the Asus is a bit heavy to be ultra portable and since it's a 10" screen, the keyboard is a bit tight to do any real work on it.  So why haven't I bought an iPad?  I just can't justify the cost.  I guess I like the iPad, but just not at it's current price points.

I mention all this to ask a question:  Is anyone using an Android tablet?  I'm really thinking that might be the way to go.  There are tons of price points for them and a lot of them already have front facing cameras to use in Skype.  I do think I want a capacitive screen.  I'd love to hear feedback from anyone using one.

- Work: As you may remember I work in the IT field.  The past 3 years or so we've been in mostly a break / fix mode.  No big upgrades, no new projects, no network overhauls.  Well that changed about 2 months ago.  We are staring to spend money and do the projects that have been on the back burner.  We are looking at doing several upgrades and implementing several new technologies.

VMWare View is the first one.  For those unfamiliar with it; A high level overview is that users have a thin client that connects to a virtual desktop hosted in a data center.  There are some setup headaches with this and users have to get use to using it, but the benefits are fantastic.  No more updating a piece of software on 300 machines manually - you update your golden image and then all users are updated.  No more worries about users getting a laptop stolen with data on it.  All the data is still in the data center.  No need to upgrade users hardware every 3-4 years all they need is that same thin client (which could be a real PC or a true thin client).

We are in the early stages of rolling View out.  We have 10 users on it all day.  Users on the same LAN as the data center don't see a speed difference at all.  Users over a fast WAN connection (20MB) see a slight difference, a little faster for somethings and touch slower for others, but overall they say they like it and want to keep it.  Users over a slow WAN (2MB or even VPN over DSL) LOVE IT.  Those users would upload files from their laptops to the server which would take 5-10 minutes depending on the size of the file.  Now on their Virtual desktop that same upload takes under 10 seconds since the file is going from one server to another in the same data center.  I would be shot if I told them that we decided not to buy this technology and they had to go back to using their laptops.

-That's all for now.  Time to play some more Diablo 2 LOD.

Craig’s random bits

1. Madden
     A. When Madden 10 came out I played it every day.  I took my Patriots thru 16 years in my franchise.  I had several undefeated seasons and won many a Super Bowl.  Even though my team outmatched every team I faced, I still enjoyed playing the game.  When I picked up Madden 11, I started my franchise and played some games.  I'm 7-2 this season, which I can live with, but I'm just not excited to pickup the controller and play.  I guess what I'm trying to say is I enjoyed Madden 10 better.
     B. Playing against the Colts the other night I found another bug.  The Colts were in the Red Zone and ran a pass play on 3rd and long.  The WR ran a deep in but was running his "in" out of the back of the end zone.  Not just touching the white, both feet were in the white for several steps.  Manning threw him the ball and he came back into the endzone for the catch.  Yes he was in the endzone for the catch, but since he went OB he can't be the first player to touch the ball.  Results 7 points that should have given the Colts 4th and long and a FG try.

2. MLB2K10 - I still love this game.  I started a career as 3rd baseman in the Red Sox organization.  I played 1.5 seasons in AA, a few games in AAA and then made the move to Boston.  I'm now in my 5th year, we've won the World Series 3 of my 4 years and we have the best record in the Majors so far about 1/2 way into my 5th year.  All the stats I can control are maxed out at 99, but my clutch is at a 52 so my overall ranking is a 97 and I'm the #2 3rd baseman in baseball.  I can't get my clutch numbers up as I've only had 4 clutch moments in my career.  I've mentioned a few other minor complaints about MLB2k10 before so I will not rehash that again, but I do have a new one.  It seems that Red Sox management does not know how to sign players.  We have let our best players go and have not signed anyone to replace them.  The only players on the current team anyone would know are Becket, Pedroia and Victor Martinez.  Everyone else has less experience than I do and again I'm only in my 5th season.  How can they not resign Youkilis, Bard, Buchholz, Lackey, Lester, Papelbon, Matsuzaka, Okajima or Drew. I know they can't expect to keep everyone, but only 3 and Becket has aged poorly in the game.  I know as a team leader I can suggest the team go after certain players.  I have suggested a starting pitcher every year and not once have they brought that player in.  That being said, I still love this game and if you like baseball games you should be playing it.

3. It's been a busy couple weeks at work.  I work IT (Network and Systems Admin) for a small bank right outside of Atlanta.  We only have 7 branches and don't plan on growing that much as we want to keep that community bank feel.  The mortgage department however is growing like crazy.  That means new desktops, new laptops, new servers, new software, new networks and so forth.  On top of that, we are looking for ways to bring down costs and increase productivity.  Who's not, right?

4. One of the ways we are doing so is using VMware to deploy multiple virtual servers on fewer physical boxes.  We've been doing this for about a year now and it's working good.  The next step is a test I've been putting a lot of time into the past week. We are evaluating using VMware View to visualize users desktops.  In a nutshell users would sign onto a device which could be a PC or a thin client, then remote to a virtual desktop.  The idea is that no matter where the user is, as long as they have a corporate owned device with them, then can sign into their desktop.  Additionally since they are actually controlling a desktop that sits in our datacenter just about everything they do from Outlook to uploading documents is all happening in the same datacenter it runs across a gig network.  The speed of the users network only has to be fast enough to display the screen to them.  I'm very excited about this technology and can see it being a big benefit to us.

5. On that note, I have been having some issues trying to setup and work with the "composer" part of VMware View.  If anyone has used it before and would be willing to let me bounce some questions off them, please let me know.