I didn’t join the midnight madness, but I did pick up Halo 2 at the company store today. There was a line around the building before the store opened this morning, but by lunchtime it was down to a 15 minute wait. Like many others, I was on the multiplayer beta, but I’m guessing nothing compares to the real deal. I’m not going to get a chance to play until tonight 😦 but I sure am looking forward to it. Quick reminder – my gamertag is RayTracer, though I’ll probably start off w/ the single player campain.

I wonder how many Xbox owners called in sick today?

In trolling for HW suggestions, I forgot to mention what I’m planning on using the HW for. I’ve got a couple of things in mind:

• Public facing web/media server. Family members are constantly asking for updated pictures of Patrick. I’ve gotten tired of regularly uploading pictures to a public website for them to download. I’ve got them all on my personal machine, so it would be much easier just to expose them directly. Similarly, between our camcorder, the video functions of our digital cameras and PhotoStory, I also have quite a bit of video media to make available to the rest of my family.
• Experimental / development server. ASP.NET 2.0 is coming, so if I’m going to expose photos and/or video, I might as well take advantage of the new stuff to do it with. I’m also thinking about writing some apps for keeping track of my family tree along with my dad and cousin.
• Movie making / 3D Rendering. I was working on my garage over the weekend and I came across my old copy of 3D Studio Max. It’s up to version 7 now, so my copy of version 1.0 is way behind the times. I’ve been interested in movie making for a long time and if (when?) I get back into it I know I’ll want to do some effects work – stuff like Matrix XP. This is where the Intel P4 HT vs. AMD Athlon 64 question really comes into play. Dual core vs. 64 bits?

One thing that’s not on this list is Media Center. I’m interested in MCE05, but then yesterday MSFT and Comcast announce that they are rolling out Microsoft TV Foundation Edition in Washington state starting next week. I think, in the end, I’ll want MCE since I’d like the ability to hack my TV but for now I think I want to try out the MSTV stuff. Also, the HDTV story around MCE doesn’t look clear yet – it works with “over-the-air” HDTV, but makes no mention of cable delivered HDTV. I think the HW in this area is pretty new, but I would guess that would change in the next 6-12 months.

Update: I just spoke to Comcast regarding the MSTV functionallity. Their PVR functionallity supports both HD and non-HD programs so I’m definitely going to give that a try. Only downside – they can’t come install for a week and a half. 😦

So I’m thinking of getting some new hardware. My big question is Intel P4 w/ HT vs. AMD XP vs. AMD 64 (along with associated mobo & memory) Any suggestions?

Gareth Jones is another blogger from the VS modeling team. He’s got some great posts on using OneNote as a shared whiteboard and the use of color-coding in modeling. Given the fact that a popular use of modelling today is for sketching, it’s interesting to read about how the team is looking at bringing those idioms forward while also making the models precice enough to be used as development artifacts.

BTW, no problem on the image “borrowing” Gareth. 😄

Last week, Microsoft announced the new Movies channel for SPOT Watches. I blogged a while ago about wanting movie times on my SmartPhone. On my watch is nearly as good, except that I don’t have said watch. I’ve been thinking about getting a SPOT watch, but I’m curious – why can’t I get MSN Direct content delivered to my device of choice? I’d be happy to pay a service fee – I’ve just gotten used to not wearing a watch.