Apologies for the lack of updates. I’ve been working on in-depth reviews on the two cell phones that I use daily — the iPhone 3G and the HTC Dream (commonly known as the T-Mobile G1) — and wound up getting a little carried away. I’m going to work on getting the reviews separated into somewhat more manageable chunks so that I don’t wind up with a 20,000 word spiel that nobody will have the patience to read.
So, no, I didn’t forget about this little space. I’ll get more fun and fancy articles up here soon, I promise. 
Anyone who knows me would quickly say that I’m not the type of person that they would picture using an iPhone. I hated the thought of it when it first came out (mostly because my silly little Nokia 3595 was more extensible than Apple’s so-called smartphone, even supporting MMS despite not having a camera), only really starting to care when the App Store was finally unveiled. My interest piqued when I was given an iPhone 3G by my company and left me wondering what Apple was thinking when they initially released it with no application support. But, as always, I digress.
When it comes to apps and general phone usage my workplace is pretty laid back. When I’m out of the office my iPhone serves as a portable gaming device, an iPod, and an Internet radio solution for my car. While I’m not completely app-obsessed, I’ve tried a good number of them and have done quite a bit of browsing through the fabled App Store.
Continue reading ‘iDisappointment’
I would like to take this time to wish all of you a Merry Christmas, a Happy Belated Hanukkah, a Happy Kwanzaa, a festive Winter Veil, or whatever you are celebrating this season!
“What is the first game that you think of when you think of the first-person shooter genre?” I suppose the answer that one will give when asked this question depends on their age, when they actually started gaming, or which game left the most impact on them. For me, the answer to that question is a no-brainer: Doom.
What is it about Doom that made it such a smash hit? Even if you ignore mods and multiplayer — arguably the two things that are keeping Doom alive even today — there is one major reason why I find myself still sitting down and playing classic, unmodded Doom, Doom II, and even Quake: the design of the games.
Continue reading ‘The Continuing Success of the Retro FPS’
I was a little horrified when I logged in and noticed that WordPress 2.9 was literally released the day after I installed it this time around. Last time I used WordPress the automatic update feature was brand new and barely worked, forcing me to do manual updates as I did prior to the fancy new dashboard.
Thankfully, a lot has changed between then and now. I clicked the “upgrade now” button on the dashboard and WordPress went ahead and did all of the work for me, no strings attached. I always compared WordPress unfavorably to my forum software of choice — SMF. SMF’s updates were always quick and easy to apply, requiring only a few steps.
I really have to hand it to the WordPress team. Not only did they make automatic upgrades easy, they actually made it require less work than SMF (measured in sheer click count, of course). Thank goodness.
After a long period of downtime (almost a year…meep) the spectere.net blog is now back online.
The next step, of course, is actually adding some real content. I’ll take care of that in due time…hopefully.