One thing I’ve noticed in the case of both setting up the Wii Homebrew channel and, now, DVD playback: Available instructions suck.

What I never found anywhere regarding the Homebrew Channel is that if the first Zelda save game freezes your console, reboot, launch the game, and try the second savegame.

Instructions for DVD playback are even more nebulous.  The MPlayer provided alongside the DVD playback installer is very similar but not identical to the MPlayer provided in the Wii Pack Generator.  I assume that the DVD playback installer works only in conjunction with this particular version of the MPlayer.  In any event, both versions of the MPlayer are installed in my Homebrew Channel.

For that matter, why did I have to download two files, then execute one before executing the other?  How about one file, one program?

The DVD player functionality, while certainly interesting, froze while I was watching Braveheart.  The amount of polish on some of the Wii Homebrew software tells me there’s enthusiasm here, and that leaves me optimistic that the DVD player will receive bugfixes over time.  Still, the Wii hardware is capable of only 480p output.  It won’t be taking over DVD duties from my 1080p-capable Xbox 360.  Ever.

Temporary Error (502)

We’re sorry, but your Gmail account is currently experiencing errors. You won’t be able to use your account while these errors last, but don’t worry, your account data and messages are safe. Our engineers are working to resolve this issue.

Please try accessing your account again in a few minutes.

I just got an email from them (sent to my Yahoo! account, as I specified in an error report/support request):

Hello,

Thank you for your report.

We are aware of this problem, and our engineers are working diligently to find a solution. We apologize for any inconvenience this issue may have caused.

Sincerely,

The Google Team

Anyone else having problems?

[Update 2008.08.07 11:16AM] When my alarm went off this morning I had access to my email.  I went to bed last night around 1AM and it was still unavailable.  So I was without Gmail for somewhere between 12 and 18.5 hours.

I didn’t sign up for Facebook until about a year ago. I had long since graduated from RIT. Facebook started out as a social network for Harvard students, then it expanded to other colleges. For a while registration required a .edu email address. Even now, in order to identify yourself to others as a student or former student of a particular educational institution, you need to verify ownership of an email address from that school’s domain.

I’m sure I’ve written posts in the past about my RIT email address. I couldn’t wait for it to be turned off. But now that I’m on Facebook, I want that address just so I can identify myself as an RIT alum. Enter: solution.

I think saw a link that pointed to this in Gmail, but I forget, and it’s unimportant. I feel like this is way under-advertised. If you go to https://www.alumniconnections.com/olc/pub/RIT/, you can get yourself an email address @alum.rit.edu. Get it hooked up, go into Facebook, identify yourself as an RIT student, bam.

I have a history dating back to Vista’s release of problems getting my Xbox 360 to play nice with my Dell, running Vista. However, when I installed Vista on my MacBook under Boot Camp, everything worked.

To my chagrin — but not my surprise — the Dell couldn’t even see the 360 on my network. Insistent on trying out the new features, I threw away 19 days of uptime and rebooted my MacBook into Windows.

After typing in my Windows password, I got my first surprise of the night — Windows telling me that my copy of Vista is not genuine. It offered to let me type in the product key. It didn’t work, so I even tried the product key for the Dell’s copy of Vista. No dice. Ever so kind in a black desktop, no taskbar, no Start Menu sort of way, Windows allowed me to search the Microsoft Knowledge Base for help. It turned up nothing in the 90 or so seconds I was willing to give it. I called the 1-800 number. Closed; outside normal business hours.

I decided to boot back into Mac OS X.

I opened up Firefox and jumped into Gmail, and the Web Clip at the top linked to an Engadget article about the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player’s new price drop. I clicked on it and saw a related headline: Vista SP1 kills the WGA kill switch. I even clicked on the link to press release — just to get the story directly from the horse’s mouth. Turns out, when Microsoft updates Vista to Service Pack 1, “Users whose systems are identified as counterfeit … won’t lose access to functionality or features.”

Too bad I just deleted my Windows partition.

Meanwhile, Bungie has produced a podcast almost weekly since July of 2007. I have followed Bungie.net pretty closely since before Halo 2 launched, mostly because of Halo 2’s integration with the Bungie website. I didn’t give the podcast a listen until shortly after I got my hands on Halo 3. I think I was working on my Halo 3 Emblem Chooser™ but didn’t want to stop soaking up Halo 3 goodness.

The podcast has three regular contributors: Frank O’Connor, Brian Jarrard, and Luke Smith. Luke is new to Bungie, having come over from 1UP.com only in April of 2007. In January 2007, Luke interviewed game developer/producer David Jaffe, who was still Creative Director of Sony Santa Monica at the time. This interview was recorded for the 1UP Show, and is still available on GameVideos.com at this link (embedding screwed up my css). I have graciously embedded the video after the break. Luke asked one question in particular caught my attention:

A lot of these guys — like look at the Bungie situation. They made Halo. Halo’s a hit. That’s all they make now. That’s all they’re making, and you have sort of — you’ve ducked out of that. Like God of War was a hit and well, you’re still — I mean — you’re still painting on top of it, but you’re not — it’s not your grind. It’s not the only thing that you get to work on, like some of those guys. How’d you swing that?

Luke starts his question at about 9:05 into the interview, if you care to skip ahead.

The design needs some work, but I’ve put together a fully functional Halo 3 Emblem Chooser.  Check it out.