Published on Friday, July 9 2010
Sometimes I don’t notice how much I enjoy configuring, fixing, and generally working with technology and gadgets until I find myself spending my free time buried in settings menus and help forums.This past evening, I worked on setting up my brand spanking new Logitech Harmony One remote. This thing is a beast, by far the best remote I’ve ever used. It’s definitely a luxury item, don’t get me wrong, but I consider it a pre-birthday present for myself (with my PS3 Harmony adapter coming for the actual birthday).
The biggest problem during setup came when configuring my TV settings, so here’s a note to anyone that cares: If your TV doesn’t have separate source buttons, be sure to change the TV device settings in your Harmony Remote software to have the correct set of source inputs by going to Devices -> Settings (under your TV) -> Adjust Inputs, then clicking Next. Here you can customize the remote based on how your TV handles video sources, which will be essential to getting the most of your Harmony activities.
If they’re setup correctly and in order, the Harmony One will remember where it last left you, and should change appropriately when a new activity is selected. Lastly, you might need to raise the Input Delay (also in the TV settings menu), since the signals to change video sources are sent one after another when switching activities, and if the delay isn’t great enough, it could miss a few while still changing sources.
My night of troubleshooting continued with some Time Machine backup issues that I can’t seem to get resolved — It keeps reporting that there is no space, but refuses to delete old backups, which I did manually, though it doesn’t seem to like that. I may have to reformat and start a new backup, which isn’t the end of the world. I’m thinking that it could have to do with the connection being wireless (WD hard drive plugged into an Airport Extreme), while my old Time Machine backup was over USB. To be continued on that battle.
Published on Sunday, January 24 2010
First I want a band, now I just want to make video games? It’s true, I’m needy. And I like a lot of projects.
Playing Cave Story today (I’m on the final boss[es]! Just… can’t… beat them) inspired me to work on my Untitled XNA Platformer Adventure game. I had been confused on how to draw a transition “wall” between levels or areas since all the drawing happened within the level itself… But that’s all boring so I’ll hold off details. The good thing is I figured it out! The transitional image that flies across looks shoddy, but it works. Knock it off the to-do list!
This beast is shaping up to resemble a real game. Just need the graphics, some real levels and a lot of refinement. Oh and a lot more time.
Published on Saturday, January 16 2010
I’ve been working on music for years now, and I’ve only just begun to like what I’m creating. That’s not true at all, I’ve always thought my tunes were ok, just not… good enough to reveal to anybody. And maybe they still aren’t, but I’m doing it anyway! I’ve got an album’s worth of songs that I’m happy enough with to release, I just need to get some proper lyrics recorded. Well, they need to be written before they’re recorded, but man is that tough. Why can’t people just not listen to what I’m saying.
Published on Saturday, January 16 2010
Why, hello there! This is the personal blog of Luke Parrott, aspiring programmer, game designer and musician. I’ll keep my introduction short by simply stating the intended purpose of this blog: to express my opinions, share my thoughts, and unveil my creations. These will mostly all have to do with music, video games and technology, but no promises.
I tend to take a very low level approach to the analysis of both games and music, but I also make sure to truly enjoy them for what they are: entertainment. My views on songs are much more geared towards the musical side as opposed to the lyrical, and with video games I could really care less about fancy graphics and effects. I yearn and search for innovation at the core of both of these art forms.
Lastly, I don’t plan on adhering to a posting schedule, so new entries are bound to be very sporadic. I’m also not much of a writer, so links to other articles will probably be a common occurrence. Until next time…
