Tech Olive

I’m pleased to present a 24 minute video to help beginners start out in programming in C# and XNA game studio. If you’ve never written a line of code, hopefully this will inspire you to start. If you’re programming, but never used XNA, let this be your push. If you produced the next Halo and are currently working on Crysis 3, well this might not be for you, unless you have 20 minutes to do nothing but listen to my sweet sweet voice over the world’s worst microphone. Enjoy the video after the break.

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For our (less than) regularly scheduled podcast, we all piled onto Skype and awaited Craig to begin the conference call. A few minutes later, I get word from Craig notifying me that he could not record that night and the the OliveCast would need to be rescheduled. Andrew decided that the OliveCast waits for no man and because Craig is always laying down the “lol,” we recorded without him. Welcome to the OliveCast #4.5.

In this podcast, we rant about L4D2 details, MW2‘s lack of dedicated servers, Starcraft 2‘s lack of LAN and just about everything else that we plain don’t like. We also ramble on about many things that you probably don’t care about. Those who do not wish to hear biased opinions should look away now.

Hosts: Tim Hage, Andrew Kershaw
Intro Music: Cool Cavemen – Fusion
Outro Music: Weebl – Amazing Horse (Get On My Horse)

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05:56 – Spam emails
07:11 – Left 4 Dead 2 rant
20:24 – Modern Warfare 2 rant
40:53 – Starcraft 2 rant
44:25 – Xbox 360 gaming
45:30 – Random crap
54:08 – We boycott Craig
55:03 – The horse song

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There had been some rumors flying around regarding this detail, but only recently have they been officially confirmed. “It’s not something you can toggle on and off in ANY game,” according to Robert Bowling.  “This is just another cool way to play the game, you obviously will still have the option to play gametypes normal as well.” If you enable the 3rd-person view, then the change is made mandatory for everyone in the match.

via [IncGamers]

A rumor has surfaced that Intel may be postponing implementation of USB 3.0 in its chipsets until early 2011. This would pretty much mean a delay for everyone since without Intel’s support, manufacturers would be required to use expensive third party controllers in order for its devices to function. Originally slated to be released early next year, this news could be quite a let down if found to be true. Stay tuned for updates.

via [ Tech Report ]

After the first run of the FreeAgent Theater, Seagate decided to step it up a bit and release a 2nd generation media player known as the FreeAgent Theater+. A lot of noticeable differences from the 1st gen, but they are all definitely for the better. It now has HDMI and support for a ton of video extensions. Watch the unboxing of this device that Segate sent us after the break.

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Here’s a short and sweet piece of news right here. The Xbox 360 won’t be able to brag anymore about its Netflix exclusivity. “Next month” the movie streaming service will be available for PS3 users.

UPDATE: It now seems that you’ll need a disc every time you want to stream Netflix to your PS3 until an update comes out next year.

via [Playstation Blog]

Recently announced on the official Paradox Interactive Twitter feed is the long-anticipated release date of Fort Zombie. “Fort Zombie confirmed for Halloween 2009, Oct 30″ They also released a new gameplay trailer to tide us over for the next few days until the game’s release that you can see after the break.

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Robert Bowling recently Tweeted a less-than-encouraging message to all the MW2 fans of the world. It reads as follows:

Just an FYI, if you’re wanting a spoiler free and pure Modern Warfare 2 experience, now would be a good time for a media blackout. #MW2

Thanks a lot, Robert. We at the Olive now get to ruin the game for ourselves so that we can bring our readers the news.

Nope, I didn’t forget “something important,” unlike Tim himself did a couple months ago.  We at the Olive wish Tim a Merry Birthday and may his dreams fly as high as Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo.

And yes, according to the Olive Garden restaurant, the cake was a lie.

The Weekly Olive is a new feature published every Sunday night that recaps the weeks important news and reviews.

OliveCast #4 – Wingin’ It
- If you didn’t notice, we completely rebranded our podcast and officially named it the OliveCast for now on. We think it’s quite fitting. Join us for this 4th installment of banter about the tech and gaming world’s most recent happenings. We talk about Modern Warfare 2 (again), Chrome 4.0 beta, Verizon’s ad campaign and lots more.

Refreshed Mac Lineup and New Magic Mouse Out Today
- Apple released their newly refreshed Macs and mouse with many small and not so small tweaks.

Review: Logitech Anywhere Mouse MX
- Logitech’s newest line of wireless mice confused us a bit. As they stand, their older Revolution line is fantastic. Sure, this new generation would feature Logitech’s new Dark Field and Unifying technology, but was that enough to garner a small redesign, re-release and more importantly, a new price tag? It’s time to find out.

Barnes & Noble Officially Announces eBook Reader
- On top of all the eBook reader crazes going on recently, Barnes and Noble decided to jump in on the fun by announcing the Nook.

Review: Seagate 1TB FreeAgent Go
- It’s now getting to that point where higher capacity bus-powered hard drives are becoming more mainstream. Storage companies slowly started creeping up to 500GB and until just recently, it was stuck there. Now they’ve discovered how to fit more layers into the portable 2.5-inch platform, meaning twice the storage space. Seagate’s 1TB portable FreeAgent Go drive is a great example and they gave us the opportunity to check it out for ourselves.

Windows 7 Officially Released
- With the removal of the Release Candidate download on Microsoft’s website a few weeks ago, people have been eager to get their hands on Windows 7 and now, the operating system we have all been waiting for is finally here and it looks like Microsoft has finally got it right with this one. Amazon has claimed it’s one of the most pre-ordered products of all time, proceeding even the Harry Potter books.

Hands On: Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm on Xbox Live
- Recently there has been much hype in the gaming world over the integration of social networking giants Facebook and Twitter, as well as the popular music site Last.fm, into Microsoft’s Xbox Live. I took the opportunity to sign up for the beta when I first saw it was available and sure enough,  last night I received an update which included Facebook, Twitter, and Last.fm functionality, as well as a few minor changes.