I was, one pleasant afternoon, taking a walk through internet-land and I happened per-chance to be reading the comments left on Duncans post about Halo 3. My eyes flitted across to the gamercards of us three and lo ‘n behold what staggering sight do I see before me???

PAUL’S BEEN PLAYING HALO 3!!!!

Well, sacreblur (or something like that)! Will he finish the fight or will the fight finish him! (And he’s supposed to be moving house today)

I fancied using this blog as an opportunity to get a few things off my chest. Let me know if you think I’m being to harsh.

First up is Bloatware
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term bloatware, I’ll allow wikipedia to explain:

Software bloat, or bloatware, is a term used in both a neutral and disparaging sense, to describe the tendency of newer computer programs to be larger, or to use larger amounts of system resources (mass storage space, processing power or memory) than older versions of the same programs, without concomitant benefits being provided to end users.

Excellent. Moving on. I recently had the task of setting up a couple of PCs with a webcam for a video chat with some friends who have gone away for a week. First off was my very own Vista laptop. Using a fairly recent Logitech webcam I simply plugged the USB lead in, the laptop said “Oh, I don’t have that driver. Let me download it for you automatically off the ‘net as you are connected”. Lo and behold a few minutes later with absolutely no interaction from me, other than plugging the camera in and accepting the little dialog box “something wants to do something on your laptop”, it’s all working and the video chat begins. Everyone’s happy. I suspect the download got hold of standard drivers as their were no frilly bits of eye candy or complicated bits of software. (Why does everyone dislike Vista - see an upcoming rant!) So, one down, one to go.

The second PC was a Windows 2000 PC - slightly old in this day and age but up until now it has served the users well. This time the PC couldn’t download the drivers automatically so I had to download them myself from the Logitech website. Then I saw the size of the download - 90mb - for a webcam!! This has got to be taking the preverbial. Anyhow, ten minutes later all is downloaded and installation begins… and runs… and runs… and runs… seriously I must have been sat there for about fifteen minutes watching this small progress bar move along. Then right before the end an error pops up telling me I need to install DirectX 10 for the installation to complete and it promptly goes and quits!

So a download and relatively quick and painless install of DirectX 10 later and I have to start the Logitech installer again, and no, it doesn’t get quicker seeing as it’s already done most of it - it still took another 15 minutes to run. I could’ve formatted the HDD and reinstalled Vista in that time. (Not sure Vista would have run on the PC but it’s a useful analogy all the same)I remember the days when a driver came on a 1.44mb floppy. Maybe it’s the whole broadband age and increased storage that has made the developers lazy in their efforts to keep size down. Why does a driver need to be 90mb? How does someone on a dial-up connection handle it?

The launch of Micro$ofts biggest gaming franchise sequel is almost upon us, but I can’t help feeling completely disinterested in it.

Granted, many 360 owners will pick up a copy and enjoy it.  The online side will no doubt be hammered to death for months, if not years to come (if Halo 2 is anything to go by).  I’ll probably end up twiddling my thumbs on Live with the other four people who didn’t buy it, but I really couldn’t care.

Let me draw a comparison for you.

My guess is that mot of you reading this are old enough to remember when the original Jurassic Park hit the cinema.  Great film, one that I really enjoyed when I saw it a few years later.  Trouble was, at the time, the hype machine surrounding the film completely killed any enthusiasm I had to go pay to see it at the flicks.

The same has happened this time with Halo 3.  For a game to be treated like the next messiah, it’s either got too many fanboys (and/or fangirls, let’s not be sexist in this PC era) extoling it’s virtues across the internet, or the publisher is paying millions in PR.  Or both.

To repeat myself fo rthose of you at the back who haven’t paid attention before, Halo is a great game.  When I got my Xbox 1, it kept me enthralled from start to finish.  Halo 2 is also good, although the single player lost my interest about 3/4 thorugh, and online became a behemoth of n00b shouting, moronic egos.  Subsequently Halo 2 online has been killed for me by experience.

Hence I find myself again questioning the point of Halo 3 in my collection.  No answer so far has given me need to spend £40 on it.  If I do end up buying it, well I don’t actually know what would convince me right now.  I get paid to speak to morons at work, so why would I pay to play online with morons at home in my leisure time?

Oh, and if someone uses the story in Halo 3 as a reason to buy it, one of three things is going to happen at the end:

1. Chief dies, world is saved…..for now
2. Chief lives, world is saved…..for now
3. All main characters live, world is saved…..for now

Everything else is just mere detail to get to the climax, and I doubt it will be a sexual experience.

So, anyhow, phones… Firstly the initial setup. Following on from the instructions from BlackBerry (which were brilliant - video guides are excellent stuff) there was just the small step of activating the phones and linking them to the server. From what I could see the server was talking to the BlackBerry server somewhere in InternetLand and the phones knew of the BlackBerry server. Simple… nope.

Firstly the phones were asking for an activation server. A quick call to the mobile provider and this is apparently my BlackBerry server. Right. How do the phones know where my server is? How does it access it? I put my faith in their answers and went for it. Strange, it didn’t work.

A quick call again, this time at about 6.30pm and it seems that the phones are actually missing a key group of settings. Darn it - fast forward 13 hours later.

8am this morning and the text messages are in - excellent. But here is still a problem. There’s a link missing - how does the device identify itself to the server and how does the server know which phone is which. Plus, there’s still a problem with the phones being activated. Another quick call to the “supplier technical dept” and it seems I have to assign the phones to their users. This wasn’t mentioned in the setup. Okay, so let’s assign the devices. But the server doesn’t know about the devices yet, so we have to tell the server about the devices - how? By plugging them into the server via USB. Nice. But there’s a problem. Here’s a little transcript of the conversation..

Support: You need to plug the devices into the server.
Me: Okay, yep. Can do.
Support: Are you using RDC into the server? (Remote desktop connection)
Me: Yes. Just logging into the exchange server now.
Support: You’re running the Blackberry server software on an Exchange server?
Me: Errr, yes.
Support: But that’s not a supported setup. Have you not got another server you can put it on?
Me: Not really. The only servers I’ve got are a PDC, an EMS, a DMS and a BDC running Antivirus and GFI. I could put it on the DMS but I’d have to uninstall it from the Exchange server. The installer pointed out that installing it onto the PDC was not recommended but didn’t say anything about not putting it on the Exchange server. In fact, hang on, I had to put it on the Exchange server and had to setup a secondary user with local rights on the Exchange server.
Support: So it’s not on the Primary Domain Controller then?
Me: No, it’s on the Exchange server.
Support: Oh okay, well that’s alright then. And you’re logged in as the second user then?

Hmmmm. I’m sort of glad I know what I’m doing. Hence why I don’t sort of agree with technical support all the time.

So now the server knows about the devices, and I can assign the devices to their users. Voila. For the first phone. The second phone still has a problem and isn’t activating correctly. I battle on for a little while until I have to give up and phone up support again. Unfortunately it seems this one still isn’t right and although we’ve had the extra data sent the phone still thinks its running off an internet server rather than our own enterprise server (internet email like yahoo versus company email server). This had to be changed and was done so relatively quickly, after which I could then activate… nope.

It seems there was still a problem - inidicated only by the text “An error has occured. Please consult your server administrator.” Which is great, except I’m the server administrator and I have no idea where to start here. Another call to “the supplier” - where do I find out what this error is. A little tricky I’m told. There are no logs at this level. The only remedy here is to remove the user from the server and reset the phone to factory settings. Okay I thought, as a last resort maybe.

So I do what all good IT departments do - I fiddled - and lo and behold - suddenly the phone is activating properly and my emails are coming through thick and fast. Excellent. Just needed a correct prod in the right direction. All sorted then… well sort of. Back to the original phone that was running really quickly? It seems that this one can’t reply to emails. Strange one really. A quick check of the IT policy running on the server and there aren’t really options to disallow replies. Another call to “technical support” and their recommendation is to.. remove the user from the server and reset the phone to factory settings. Not really a good idea as the user (Kirstin) has now setup the phone to her liking and resetting it would not be a good choice.

What do I do, well I remove her from the server, reset the password and re-add her to the server. I don’t reset the phone back. Did it work…. what do you think?

PS: Thanks to those that did stick with it - on other topics tech support has been great, really helpful and the above is only a small percentage of the communications back and forth. Plus, our account manager was a great laugh and kept me calm whilst we waiting. If you’re thinking of going for Blackberries then I would suggest the 8820 and I would recommend the supplier we have - they have a completely dedicated Blackberry team, as well as a dedicated Blackberry server team. They’ll be very, very useful.

I’ve spent the past two days trying to set up two BlackBerry 8820 devices. We’ve (as in work) have previously used the “Push” method of Exchange and Activesync running on WM5 devices. However, this is unreliable, slightly unconfigurable, requires a hole in the firewall and costs money on data transfer. That, and the WM5 OS does suffer from frequent glitches, crashes - my Exec doesn’t like answering or making calls for example - so we decided it was time to look around.

Hence the blackberries. Anyhow, back to the main thrust of this story, spending two days getting them set up. First off the boxes and associated docs had no mention of software to install for an enterprise solution!!! The BB ethos is surely via Exchange or other EMS and onto the users BB seamlessly - you want me to connect it via desktop cable?

Thankfully I like to think that I know what I’m doing so a bit of reading and research later I found my answers and had a fresh copy of Blackberry Enterprise Server Express Edition installed and set up (Easy install when you know what you’re doing.) Next up was the phones…. and a certain mobile provider.

But first, a bit of back-story. (names changes to protect the hard working) We’d sourced the phones we wanted, found the provider and placed the order. Now the phones we wanted were still being tested (fairly new kit and we’re first adopters - Xbox 360 anyone?) so we had to wait a while. When they were released we waited for next day delivery…. it didn’t come. A quick phone call and an apology. Next day… they didn’t come. Four days later we get to the bottom of it - apparently 72 other clients are also waiting for their phones, something to do with the supplier not being ready to ship something they don’t have listed as a product. Next day… they arrived! Yippee. End of back story.

So, the server install - very simple really. Within no time the Blackberry server software was talking to the Exchange server without problems. The phones were a different story… and I’ll explain those in part two!

Just going through the setup now and I do really like the phone - the polished metal sides is a very nice touch. The centre trackball is going to take some getting used to though.

After nearly a week of waiting, phoning, chasing, hoping and above all - shouting - it seems as though my new phone is on its way… and yes, it’s function over factor.

The new Blackberry 8820 is designed and destined to replace my XDA Exec. Using the blackberry software it will sync straight my with Exchange server. Hopefully the phone will be a little more reliable than the Exec which seems to have problems taking and making calls. (Strange with it being a phone!)

One of the beautiful things about this phone is that it comes with a fully functional GPS built in. This means I can go GeoCaching with just the phone. No need for printouts and locations, Garmin GPS and batteries. I just go with one device.

On another completely seperate topic I note that things over here on GBS have been a little slow recently. Well the summer is coming to an end and there is so much to catch up on. I’ve done quite a lot over the summer and I need to update you all on what’s going on!

Tech-wise I’m still using Vista - haven’t come across all the problems people say it has. I haven’t for one second considered loading XP back on the laptop. On the 360 I’m still playing GoW a lot, but I’m also on GH2 as well. Bioshock is a game I keep playing, and that’s just the demo. Thankfully it’s my 31st birthday tomorrow so I’m hoping for a small DVD sized case!

There is so much to say, but for now this is it. When I get a chance to post more I will.