Hung Truong: The Blog!

Giant Steps Reunion! Ska Lives! Maybe…

So last month, this band called Giant Steps had some kind of reunion going on. I was a dummy and didn't go. But The band played on anyway and Tom Siegel, trumpet player, sent me a link to some videos of the event. I didn't wanna kill their bandwidth, so I'm putting up the clips on my own site.

Giant Steps was a local (Albuquerque) ska band that was pretty popular during the “third wave” of ska. I'd pin that era somewhere around 1996 to uh, 2000 or so. At least, that's when the third wave was most popular. As far as I know, Reel Big Fish is still doing their thing.

Anyway, Giant Steps was fairly well known to me, because two of my high school teachers were in it! My high school band teacher, Paul Blakey, played baritone sax, and Mr. Siegel, I mean… Tom played trumpet. How cool is that? I actually didn't end up going to many of their gigs, but I did hear them live a few times.

One thing that Tom told me is that you can now buy Giant Step's CDs on iTunes! How cool is that? I'd still rather have the hard copy though, for nostalgia purposes and whatnot.

Ooh. Also, I remember hearing that “Feel the Thunder” was written about Paul Blakey's snoring. I'm not if this is true, but why would anyone lie about that?

On to the videos:

Boom Ska:

4 Reasons Why The Apple iPhone Will Fail

The focus of today's Macworld 2007 was definitely the iPhone. While general consensus is that the iPhone is the next killer app, I still have my doubts. Here are 4 reasons why the Apple iPhone will fail:

1. Public Acceptance:

The average person doesn't even use the WAP browser on their phone, let alone any full blown OSX apps! What people want in a mobile phone is a phone; they don't need all of these extras. Extra software just makes it more difficult to perform the main function of the phone: to make phone calls.

2. Price:

The price of the iPhone was announced at $499 for the 4GB model and $599 for the 8GB with a 2 year contract. Right now, you can get a T-Mobile MDA smartphone for $0 after rebate. The mass market is not willing to pay this much for a phone.

3. Copyright and Regulations:

There already is an iPhone out. It's the Linksys Wireless-G Skype iPhone. I hope Apple has a lot of money or lawyers to acquire the rights to the name.

Pair this with the fact that the iPhone doesn't have FCC approval and we might never see the iPhone get to market. How did Steve make all of those phone calls anyway?

4. Battery Life:

The iPhone runs OSX! This is great for a laptop or a desktop computer, but does a phone really need OSX? The battery life was announced as 5 hours of talk time, browsing, or video. Basically, 5 hours of active use. What happens after that? Your phone is dead and no one can call you.

People are not going to use the iPhone's features for fear of losing their connectivity when the battery runs out.

Presenting UNM Tactics: The Video Game!

Back in the Spring of 2005, I took an intro to video game design and programming class. While I had a pretty good background in programming, I hadn't done the kind of stuff for video games before. The first assignment in the class was to come up with some kind of game concept that would end up being a project for the class.

I really love RPGs, and the more offbeat they are, the better. One of my favorites is Earthbound for the SNES. I also dig the SRPGs from Nippon Ichi like Disgaea. Originally I wanted to do a Strategy RPG in the setting of campus life. It was called “UNM Tactics!” The whole SRPG thing didn't turn out so well, and in the end, we made a generic style university RPG instead.

We kept the name as UNM Tactics, even though it wasn't really a tactics type game. We used RPG Maker XP, which is a really easy to use frontend system for, well, making RPGs. After pulling a few all nighters, we finished the final presentation, and as a pleasant surprise, I got an A+! After the class, I sorta forgot about the game, but I was reminded of it after watching that movie, College Saga.

From the readme:

UNM Tactics is an RPG set at the University of New Mexico. It was created by a team of programmers and artists for CS 491: Intro to Video Game Development. While a working demo was created, the game was never fully completed. This game is the demo that was used for the final class presentation.

You can [download the game here](http://www.hung-truong.com/blog/games/UNM Tactics.exe) if you don't want the story to be spoiled. The game comes in a self extracting executable. You just need to run it and point it to an output directory. Then run the “Game.exe” file and you're good to go! The game should run on any Windows system, though I've only tested it on Windows XP. Use the contact form if you need some support.

Now it's time for screencaps and commentary!

College Saga – If College Were Like An RPG

I stumbled upon this movie called College Saga while reading Kotaku. It's a parody of RPGs in a college setting. The thing is split up into four parts that are about 10 minutes each, so it ends up being a 40 minute movie.

The great part about this movie is that it gets pretty much every gag right. Like the random NPCs just wandering back and forth, and the girl who says the same thing when you talk to her twice. Or the ludicrousness of some small object blocking your path, or how it seems normal to go into someone's house (dorm room) and steal all of their stuff…

The movie makes heavy use of video game music and sound effects. It's really sad because I could recognize where almost all of the music came from. You can watch College Saga in 10 minute bite size chunks, or just watch the whole thing right here:

This totally reminds me of my UNM RPG that I made for that video game class I took. I gotta post that online someday…

Wirefly Mobile Store Review

First off, I should note that this is a payed review via reviewme.com.

Wirefly is an online store that sells cell phones and service. I think they sell service for just about every carrier, including T-Mobile, Sprint, and Alltel. Taking a quick look at Amazon.com's mobile phone store, it looks like Alltel is not included. So I guess in that respect, Wirefly wins.

I'm actually thinking about getting a new phone, so I just “pretended” to buy a new phone at both stores. The Motorola Razr V3t immediately comes to mind as something I'd like to buy. At Wirefly, the phone is $49.99 with a $50 rebate. At Amazon.com, the phone is $24.99 with a $50 rebate and a $25 rebate. The prices after rebate are $.01 and -$50.01 for Wirefly and Amazon.com, respectively. These are both the price paid when bought with a plan.

I think Amazon.com is pretty much the standard when it comes to buying phone service online. They have a pretty good reputation and very good prices. I can't say anything about Wirefly's service, but it seems okay from the website. I guess the only thing I could say is that if you're looking for Alltel service, you won't find it at Amazon.com. Wirefly looks like a decent retailer; it just isn't as good as Amazon.

I'd still go with Amazon in the end due to the prices and trust I have in that online retailer.