Reviews Written By: A2XIOXRRYX0KZYprovided by Amazon.com |
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 | Just a Mess (Golden Look-Look Book) | |
 | "Nephew Loves It" | 2009-09-18 |
| We got this for my nephew when he was about 4 and we've been reading it from time to time ever since (he's now 6). This is one of the books he's always happy to hear at bedtime.
It's very short (only about a sentence per 1-2 pages), so it works well on the nights when we're already running late for bedtime but we still want to sneak in a story. There's also no violence in Little Critter books and not a lot of exciting action, so they don't encourage kids to get wound up at bedtime either. If you get any Little Critter book, make sure you look around at the details of the illustrations. There are often cute little details slipped in like the antics of the two bugs in this story who are trying to play baseball with Little Critter and then help him clean his room. Little Critter doesn't do a very good job of the actual cleaning, but the difference between what he says he's doing and what the pictures show just gives you something to giggle at with a kid. It also gives you a chance to comment on what he's doing. When Little Critter shoves so much stuff under his bed that it's a lumpy mess, it gives you a chance to ask "Is he going to want to sleep in the bed when it's like that?" and draw attention to why his cleaning techniques aren't the best. That way the same message gets across with a cute and amusing book, rather than one that tries to hit you over the head with a moral to the story. | ||
 | Hattie Be Quiet, Hattie Be Good (Early I Can Read Book) | |
| "Sweet Stories" | 2009-08-29 |
| I occasionally read this book to my nephew, who's now six and have been since he was about four. He's the energetic type who's always running around and noise himself, so I've found that the story is something he could relate to.
There are two stories in the book. The first is about Hattie deciding to sit still and be quiet for an hour in order to do something nice for her mother. The second is about Hattie visiting her friend Shirley Rabbitfoot who isn't feeling very well. I found the stories very cute and they're fairly short, so this is one of the books I often pull out to read to him on days when we're cutting it close to bedtime and he can't have a longer story. He's also reached the point where he would be able to read it by himself, so if you're looking for a book for your child to read to you, it seems like they'd probably be able to get through it at about 6 or 7. | ||
 | Wii Play with Wii Remote | |
 | "Okay, not spectacular" | 2009-08-25 |
| This wouldn't be worth anything near the price that they're offering it at if there weren't a Wii-mote involved, but I'm sure they'd charge less too. However, take note that if you really need a 2nd nunchuk also, you're going to have to get that separately.
This game works out all right as a kind of 'learn to use the wii-mote' game, and also all right as a "hey, we have company, let's put that in because it's really easy to just pick up and start playing" kind of game. It's definitely fun to mess around with for a little while, and seeing the pictures of your Miis in the shooting game (where you're supposed to shoot the targets that don't have your portraits, and then rescue the Miis from alien kidnapping) is fairly amusing. It's definitely easy to understand and if you need a game that virtually anything can at least take a try at, so that you can play with friends and family who aren't awfully adept with video games, you'll get a worthwhile value out of this. As a game to just play by yourself in general, I think it doesn't have enough depth to hold the attention of most games for large amounts of gaming time. (Thankfully it doesn't take much gaming time to justify the price of this, relative to the price of a Wii-mote alone.) Have fun! | ||
 | Vicks 1.2-Gallon Cool Mist Humidifier | |
| "Good for its price range" | 2009-08-25 |
| It basically does what it says it will do.
I took off a star because it's a little on the noisy side and it also seemed at some point part of the filter got a hard water stain or something like that on it that was disrupting part of the filter's ability to wick water up it (which reduces its ability to function as a humidifier). I'm not exactly sure whether that was a fluke or perhaps a maintenance error on my part. Also, I would have liked a more middle ground medium speed, without the level of noise and humidity of high, but a little more effective than the low. There are humidifiers out there that run more quietly, or introduce humidity into the room faster by virtue of having more size to dish out the water with, but for the price point this is at it does what you need it to do very well. Particularly if you expect to only use it from time to time or on a temporary basis this is an excellent choice. If you were intending to be using it all the time every day for years to come, you can probably find something a little more suited to that goal. | ||
 | Official Nintendo Wii Wheel | |
| "Goofy But Fun" | 2009-08-21 |
| The important thing to know is that the wheel really doesn't allow you to do anything you can't do otherwise. You don't have to buy one to play the games. It's just a holder that sets the wiimote in a shape that makes it feel a little more like you're actually driving a car.
You can still hit the B-button through a button that's on the underside of the wheel. You can also still use the wiimote's pointer function as needed (there's a hole in the wheel at the appropriate place to let the signal through). It feels decently good in your hands. It's a little on the small side, but if they'd made it bigger it'd probably have been a little on the heavy side instead, so it's fine. If you don't like this kind of little prop, feel free to skip it. There won't be any harm done to your ability to play. If do, then enjoy. It does its job well. | ||
![Wario Land: Shake It! [Wii]](product_images/4952000/wario-land-shake-it-wii_t-4952714.jpg) | Wario Land: Shake It! [Wii] | |
| "Great for Kids" | 2009-08-18 |
| This game is in the style of a 2d platformer game, but updated with some new tricks to suit the Wii Console.
I was particularly impressed with the way they handled the tutorial level, where you proceed through the level in much the same way that the other levels in the game work. The great thing about it is that they have set up small obstacles for you to get past that require you to try out each of the main actions that you need to do to be able to succeed in the game. Instead of relying on looking at the book or written instructions on the screen however, they put pictures of the Wii-mote being moved as needed in the background of the scene. My nephew was just a couple months past his 5th birthday when we got a Wii and once he got the hang of it he went absolutely wild for this game. It was nice that they gave the instructions in such a way that he could understand what he was intended to do (though there were some cutscenes where all of the dialog was given in subtitles, and that I had to read to him). For the most part they also do an excellent job of gradually making the game more complex in what it's asking you to figure out or achieve to move forward while also mixing in challenging optional goals (such as beating an area within a timer, or beating an area without killing any enemies). The optional challenges also create some extra interest if you need to play the same area repeatedly to get more gold. My nephew did struggle at times to figure things out, so I think freshly turned 5 may have been just a bit on the young side for this game, but he also didn't have very much background experience in video games (beyond things like v-smile) at the time so he wasn't used to solving the kind of puzzles that come with a platformer game. I really think this game did very well for him in teaching him how to think his way through puzzles, become better at dealing with frustration when facing the harder parts, and generally understanding concepts like having to gather enough money within the game to acquire a needed item. I'm not trying to say that this game is really educational, but it did work well as a teaching tool in his case and might help build similar skills in other kids. For him, he was so enchanted by Wario Land that I think if he'd been the only one playing Wii we wouldn't have had to buy another game for 6 months and he'd have been perfectly happy. Even for people who are already adept with games, this one is still fun, but unless you're the type who really wants to chase after all of the optional challenges (some of which really can be tough) you're not likely to find the game especially challenging. Have fun! | ||
 | Yoga For Inflexible People | |
 | "Okay, but there are issues" | 2009-08-18 |
| The basic format of this DVD is that they separately recorded videos of a person performing the various poses that they wanted to use, and then you can select from a number of routines that combine those poses by jumping from one video to another. In any given pose, they do a version modified by props so that it doesn't demand as much flexibility as the poses do when done in the standard way.
The really nice thing about this arrangement is that they can offer a much greater variety of different routines than you'll see on a typical yoga DVD. There are routines meant to increase energy, routines meant to relax you, routines that are performed entirely while seated, and so on. It was actually the option of purely seated routines that first drew me to this DVD, as I took several yoga classes a while ago but had issues with knee pain from a previous injury that kept me from doing much of what my classes covered. For that purpose, I liked this DVD very much because it gave me options to try to pursue yoga without the annoyance of standing around waiting for a normal video or class to get past the parts that were unsafe for me to do. However, there are some ways in which it doesn't work out as well as a typical yoga DVD. Because it jumps among independently made videos of different poses, you don't get to see the instructor moving from one to the next, and it's much more difficult to get into the sense of relaxed flow that's one of the nice qualities of yoga. It can also sometimes jump between different needs regarding the props you're expected to have handy without giving a great deal of warning (though once you've done the same routine several times, this is likely to stop being an issue for you). For most poses the descriptions of what you should be doing are well done, but there are a couple where the action on the screen and the narration are out of sync, and it feels very awkward for them to be telling you to do something else while the demonstrator is still just holding the previous phase of the pose. I think that this can be a valuable DVD to have on hand for days when you have special needs, such as if you're not feeling very well and want the option of picking a very gentle routine to help you relax, or if you may have overworked yourself in another activity and need to pick something you can do sitting down. For people who are looking for the DVD they'll be using the majority of the time, though, I think most will enjoy it a lot more if they stick with finding a beginner's yoga DVD where an entire routine is filmed as a whole, so that you can get the experience of having the instructor move with you from one pose to the next and talking through the entire sequence as a whole. For most people I think that will really be more enjoyable. (That said, if you can manage to set up even a couple of lessons with a live instructor who can actually see you to correct your positions, that's always a good idea to minimize the chances that you might injure yourself. Regardless, be careful at first since your body isn't used to these kinds of positions, and if you try to force something you may regret it.) If you do decide to get this video, expect to need a chair (ideally the standard 4-legged type that stays in one place, rather than something on wheels), a yoga mat, a blanket or towel, a yoga belt (basically a long strap) and a couple of yoga blocks if you want to have all of the props on hand that they use to make the poses require less flexibility. | ||
 | Final Fantasy VIII - PlayStation (PS one) | |
| "Pretty good" | 2008-04-04 |
| In terms of the overall feel of the game, Final Fantasy VIII is about what fans of the series have come to expect. You walk around, randomly you're attacked, and you do a lot of battling to level up and become more powerful. Without wanting to ruin any details, much of the plot is great. Squall is a fun main character, mainly because he's so reluctant to be the hero and yet he does it so well. The big problem is that its special ability system tends to encourage an awful lot of grinding, so you have to brace yourself through occasionally having to drag yourself through lots of killing that isn't really furthering the plot. Still, on the whole I enjoyed it. | ||
 | Apple Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.6 | |
| "Great Software" | 2008-04-04 |
| 10.5 upgraded from 10.4 like a dream. No difficulties at all on a Powerbook G4. Time Machine has been a fantastic feature to have, painlessly backing up data for me in the background and saving me the trouble of doing so manually. Typically it does so with no additional drag on the responsiveness of the computer (which is several years old, and I tend to run a lot of programs at a time) though occasionally if I've left it unhooked from the external drive for an extended period and it has a lot to sort through the responsiveness will slow for a minute or two while it catches up. Spaces is a great feature as well, allowing you to divide your windows up among multiple 'virtual' desktops. On this particular computer I find that I don't use it a great deal, because I don't find that a laptop lends itself to this style of use for me. However, I've used similar features from Linux distributions on a desktop to know that in that situation it's a great help to keeping things organized and moving along. If you're happy with Tiger (10.4) and already have a solid backup arrangement I wouldn't necessarily say that you must rush to update as quickly as possible. Tiger was beautifully done and continues to stand well. For the average user, I expect that the improvements in Leopard more than justify its purchase. | ||
 | The Sims 2: Open for Business Expansion Pack | |
| "Great Fun" | 2007-05-04 |
| Open For Business adds a new dimension to the Sims 2 gameplay. While the general style of the game is an open-ended sandbox where you just do whatever you want, this expansion is more goal-oriented, by allowing you to build up a business empire for your sims. One thing that's worth noting as a downside is that if you want to run a business at an actual commercial lot, you'll have to travel to and from it on a regular basis. So, if loading screens bug you severely, keep in mind that the only way to avoid them would be to run nothing but home-based businesses. (Having the ability to own a car from the Nightlife expansion helps a bit, since it at least saves you the waiting-for-taxi time.) The new workstations where you create toys, flower arrangements, and robots are nice and produce some useful items. You could even scrape along funding a sims life by creating items with one of these and then immediately selling them (either from manipulating the station or just dropping the item in buy mode). The profits this way are much smaller than you're likely to get from customers interacting with a good salesman, but you can get by. But retail and service-based businesses are possible, and even possible on the same lot, which gives you a great deal of flexibility in creating the business you want to run. Nearly every object in the game is capable of being sold through stores, and if you want to build an entertainment facility where sims pay to hang out, anything that makes them feel like sticking around can be good for business. It's nice to feel like you can actually participate in the way your sim earns a living, rather than just watching him go off to work every day to do something mysterious. Remember to check the Sims 2 website for patches! | ||
 | Tripp lite 6FT DVI DUAL LINK TDMS ( P560-006 ) | |
| "Results depend on your equipment" | 2007-05-04 |
| ... and on what you're doing. Some monitors that support DVI and analog will only come with an analog cable. I was using an analog cable + a DVI adapter up until recently (even though my computer also supported DVI) due to another piece of hardware in the mix that required it. Switching to the DVI cable with no adapter ended in a very visible improvement in the display quality (partly because the native resolution of this monitor tended to flicker when I used the adapter, so I had to use less ideal settings). You may also find switching to DVI over analog worthwhile if you do a lot with high end graphics and gaming, where the movement displayed on screen is rapid enough to make data transfer and refresh rates more of a concern. When it comes to cables, keep in mind that they tend to be drastically more expensive at retailers than they can be found elsewhere. They're looked on by retailers as an easy place to make money, because you may go in and buy a TV or some other piece of equipment and they can say "Oh yeah, you'll need this cable..." and toss it on the pile of things to be rung up. Since most people want to go straight home and play with their new toy (rather than wait several days to be delivered), they'll often just let them go right ahead and throw in whatever's needed without doing too much shopping around for better prices. This particular DVI cable works just fine and is available at several places on the internet for quite reasonable prices. For the average person's purposes, there really isn't a whole lot of difference between a high end cable and a low end one, so if you don't know anything about cables the chances are that this (and similar ones) will be perfectly adequate for your needs. | ||
 | TLP1008TEL Protect IT 10 Outlet W/TEL 8FT Cord $150K Ins | |
| "Great Surge Protector" | 2007-05-04 |
| I'm very happy with this item's performance and design. The main reason that I chose this one is that it has ten outlets. Considering the number of peripherals that need to be separately plugged in for a computer system these days, plus a few extra items with chargers that I like to plug in while I'm at the computer, having that many available slots is wonderful. I also like that they arranged the outlets intelligently, with gaps to permit the insertion of the larger plugs that some electronic devices require. | ||
 | GE HO-97893 6' A to A USB Extension Cable (HO97893) | |
| "A good cable" | 2007-05-04 |
| This USB extension cord works great. I've had it for a couple of years now and it's never given me any problems at all. | ||
 | World of Warcraft Expansion: Burning Crusade | |
| "Lots of New Content" | 2007-01-19 |
| This expansion pack introduces the new continent of Outland. This continent can only be accessed with a character that is at least level 58. If you're either just starting to play World of Warcraft, or you have no characters even close to level 58, you may just want to wait to buy the expansion at a later time. However, the expansion also grants you access to two new races, the Draenei (Alliance) and the Blood Elves (Horde). You won't be able to create characters of either of these races if you don't have the expansion. So, if you want to play one of them you'll need to get it. If you're a new player who's just trying out the game, I'd suggest just getting the basic version and playing one of the original races, rather than spending the extra $40 before you even know whether you like the game. You should also be warned that if you're upgrading from the original version of the game, even if your copy is already fully patched, you'll have to install the patches again after installing Burning Crusade. This is because they printed the CDs with version 2.0 of the client you use to play the game, but they've issued patches after that which you need to log into the server (up to version 2.05 as of this writing). If you look in the Patches sub-folder of your World of Warcraft folder on your computer, you should already have some of the patches present and be able to simply double click them to install. If you were to try to log in before doing that, you'll have to redownload the patch before it installs instead, which will naturally take more time. Some people have complained about lag, crashes, and lines to log into the more popular servers. These are all short term problems. A lot of people are very excited about the expansion, and so there are far more players than usual logged in at once, which is straining the servers. Give it a week or two after release and it should begin to settle down. For the basic version of WoW, the level cap is 60. If you install the expansion, the cap is increased to 70. If you have a level 60 character and want to continue to advance, you MUST upgrade your account with the expansion pack. Additional level brackets for the Battlegrounds (Player vs Player areas) have been added to accomodate the new higher levels in the game. Also, a new battleground called Eye of the Storm has been made available for characters of level 61 and above. Additionally, around the zones of the new Outland continent, there are PvP tasks you can perform such as taking over control of towers, with the faction that controls all of the towers in a zone gaining a small bonus such as a 5% increase to damage anywhere in that zone. They've also added a number of new instances/dungeons. The new ones have two settings, allowing you to go through them at either 'normal' difficulty, or 'heroic' difficulty. The heroic setting makes the enemies tougher, and provides increased treasure rewards. This keeps the instances useful for advancement over a larger span of levels than would normally be the case. Most players will find that, as they do quests in Outland, they quickly begin to get armor that's superior to what they've previously been using. The monetary rewards in the new areas are also increased. Additionally, professions have been expanded to cover the additional levels in the game and tailoring has been expanded to include specialties similar to the way blacksmithing and leatherworking work. Flying mounts are available on the continent of Outland for those who purchase them. However, these are not available to be used in the two original continents. This is because those areas were designed with the intention that they would only be accessed from the ground and a lot of work would have been required to make all of the quests and visuals work as intended if characters were permitted to fly around freely. Be cautious about buying this item used. Each copy of the expansion includes a key code that is required to upgrade your account to allow access to the new content. If you buy a used copy of the software where the seller has already used that key to upgrade his account, you'll still be able to install the software upgrade, but the lack of an unused key will mean that you won't be able to apply the upgrade to your account that's required to actually access the new content. If you install the expansion on a computer where more than one account is used (for example, if you and your spouse each has your own account) then you can only use the key to upgrade one of those accounts. The other account will continue to work, but it will not be given access to the expansion pack content. Therefore, you need to obtain one expansion pack for each account you or your household has if you want to access the new content on all of them. Edit: As of January 22, 2007 Blizzard has announced on their forums that they're working on allowing players who already upgraded using the basic expansion to then also upgrade using the collector's edition in order to get the limited edition pet. You'll have to call Blizzard's billing service line with the unused collector's edition expansion key, so it's slightly more work than upgrading directly with the CE, but it can now be done. | ||
 | Sid Meier's Civilization IV | |
| "The Patches are Vital" | 2007-01-07 |
| Civilization is a great series of strategy games, and Civilization IV doesn't disappoint in that area. Players who are experienced with previous games in the series will probably find that the general play style feels very similar to those games. Casual gamers will be happy to hear that this similarity applies to their experience with Civilization as well. If you just want a few hours of doing something *just* difficult enough to keep your mind busy, but not have to expend a lot of mental energy, you'll do just fine with Civilization IV. While many games stick to easy, medium, and difficult modes (with some throwing in "god" modes), this one throws in a long list of difficulty levels that will allow you to fine tune the experience to be exactly right for you both in your first game, and as you naturally improve over time. It also retains the ability to select which paths to victory will be treated as valid (I don't know about anybody else, but for some reason I've always just found the space race victory to be obnoxious, so I keep it turned off). There are changes that have an impact on gameplay, naturally. The addition of religion is one of the bigger ones. In some ways you can largely ignore it, if you prefer (at least at the lower difficulty levels, naturally as you move up the ladder you have to start taking every possible advantage). One of the big places where it affects your play in a way that you can't ignore is that other nations will adjust their opinion of you based on whether you share their state religion (in the case that you have one, in the later eras of the game "free religion" becomes an available civic setting and selecting that eliminates state religion). The biggest change to the game in general is in the visuals. The user interface is much more visually appealing than prior games in the series. The main game screen works very well, though I sometimes find the interface to manipulate cities in detail somewhat awkward. Fortunately, unless you're playing on the higher levels where you'd have more need to micromanage, you don't have to enter the city screens very often. What you absolutely must do when you play this game, above all, is install the patches. The early releases appeared to have memory leaks (that means the game needs more and more RAM the longer you leave it running, because it isn't properly keeping track of what it's using). In bad cases, I would find that after a couple of hours the game would become progressively less responsive. The most obvious sign that this effect was happening was actually watching the water move up and down along the shores. After a while, instead of a smooth up and down motion it would start jumping from place to place. Installing the patches to update to the latest version fixed that, which was a big help because without them I found the need for periodic restarts to be extremely annoying. One small complaint about the way patches are handled: to install the patches from inside the game you have to go through the advanced menu from the main screen. Patches to a game, repairing bugs and fixing performance issues, can be so vital to having fun. Since "advanced" is usually a tag put on features that no one should touch unless they know EXACTLY what they're doing, because they could otherwise cause problems, it just doesn't seem like an appropriate place to put a function that ALL players (even the ones who aren't very confident with computers!) will be needing to use. | ||
 | Vampire Dice Set: The Requiem (Vampire the Requiem) | |
| "Very nice" | 2005-12-21 |
| I have this set of dice and I'm very pleased with them. The dice themselves feel good in your hand, with a pleasing weight and texture that I've noticed myself and also had friends I was gaming with who used them comment on. That said, the bag that comes with the dice is nice to have, but not of particularly impressive quality if you're a stickler for that kind of thing. Play with these dice in the New World of Darkness setting is very easy, as the numbers that ordinarily mean a success (8, 9, and 0) are highlighted to make it easy to see how you did at a glance. If you want to use them as regular d10s, or for the old World of Darkness, it IS slightly more difficult to read the numbers 1-7 because they're in black on black-and-red dice (8, 9, and 0 are in silver). It's really not difficult enough to matter, but worth mentioning. I doubt I'd have even thought of it as difficult, except for the contrast with the ease of reading the silver "success" numbers. | ||
 | Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Year 6 | |
 | "Dutifully Disappointing" | 2005-07-18 |
| I'll attempt to avoid spoilers, since we're still so close to the book's release... I'm willing to grant that the author may be setting up some brilliant scenarios and "ah ha!" moments for book 7, but as the series stands this particular volume didn't work very well. There was a lot of play with romantic material, but most of the time it just seemed to be pulling time away from the main flow of the plot without adding very much depth to the characters. Overall, the romantic plotlines were unpleasantly predictable. The Half Blood Prince line in the plot isn't actually sufficiently developed at this point that it makes a lot of sense as the title of the book (this is one of the things that I really hope will be fixed up in Book 7). It seems like the desire (as voiced by the characters) is to push a worldview of your desiny being a matter of the choices you make rather than something that's inflicted on you, but the actual events are treated by the book more as if they have a momentum that's out of Harry's hands. There's also one point where it almost sounds like they're saying there was a choice, but it was Voldemort's to make, and really there's no real way for Harry to escape what's already in motion. Similarly, there was some talk about the power of love, which could have had some interesting potential if it were tied back to all of the teenage growing up romantic material in the book, but so far nothing like that's really happened. Basically the book feels as if there was a list of the things that need to happen in order to set up the last book, and someone went down the list doing a sketch of a story that would meet the requirements, then added filler. It didn't have the lovely feel of the prior Harry Potter series books where you get more of a feeling that the story is moving at its own pace and the major points are woven smoothly into the narrative. In a sense it even seemed as if the story was trying to get more mature and the writing style wasn't keeping up and the friction between the two was calling attention to all the wrong places. As I said, though, maybe there'll be material in book 7 that causes all of this to look a lot different. I hope so. | ||
 | The Sims 2 University Expansion Pack | |
| "Lots of nice added features" | 2005-06-11 |
| The basic gameplay is, naturally, a lot like Sims2. So if you love or hate that game, you're likely to feel the same way about the expanasion pack. As for the things it does differently... This gives your teenager sims a chance to go off and spend 4 years away from their families as university students. Depending on how well they do at it, they may have advantages in the existing careers and access to several new careers. It can be tough if you try to play with a student who's just been generated at the college level. To gain good grades you have to do things like attend class or do assignments (or use influence to make another sim do assignments and write term papers for you), but there's a cap on how high your grades can go in a given semester depending on whether you've met particular skill requirements. A sim that you've raised from a very young age will probably have plenty of skill to meet most of these (depending, of course, on how well their major matches up with what you've had them practice), but someone with no skills to start with will have a much harder time. The most interesting new items available are the portable mp3 player, cell phone, and portable video game. The cell phone sometimes caused me some irritation by ringing and waking up a sim who was trying to take a nap during the day, but generally it's nice to not have to make them walk to a phone to make calls. The portable video game can be used to play vs other sims who also own it, which is a nice added feature. They've done an awful lot of nice things with community lots, such as make it possible for multiple sims to play music together, and to get tips for playing music. It also includes the option to hustle people at pool, make money for tutoring, and get money for being a personal trainer. All of these new very social options really add a lot of flexibility. The unfortunate thing is that the load times for going to a community load (first a load time for the map of the campus, and then a load time after you pick what lot you want to go to) tend to kill most of my interest in making that kind of trip. Since each semester is only 3 sim days long and time spent at community lots does move the semester countdown (understandably so, since it'd be way too easy to get a lot of extra time to do your work otherwise) it's difficult to spend long periods of time at a community lot without having to move to a different one or go back to the dorm to practice / do / learn something else. With the load times as long as they are, it's just an awful lot less irritating to stay in the dorm and buy everything you need. If your computer has a hard time dealing with all of the sims who show up at your parties already, you'll probably want to stick to a smaller dorm to reduce the number of sims being tracked by the system. They made a good effort to limit the strain on your computer by making the dorm rooms of the sims who aren't under your control look empty unless you actually enter them. Still, if you don't have a high end computer and you want to throw big parties, moving into the 12 person dorm probably isn't the best plan. Greek Houses are also a fun feature, particularly when you can convince someone to pledge and can order them around for a period of time before they become an official member. It's a little bizarre how often they just wander off to some mysterious place on campus and come back with pizza, but it's certainly convenient that there's rarely a need to cook. Also, even if you don't plan to play the university areas, you can still take advantage of the greatly expanded collection of items available, including both old items with new looks and entirely new things such as the pool table. It's also very nice that they have a built in option to move one family in with another from the neighborhood screen, rather than having to get them to be close friends and convince one to accept an invitation to move into the house. On the whole, if you didn't have fun playing with your copy of Sims 2, the University expansion probably won't make it much better for you. If you enjoyed the main game and would like to have some more variety of gameplay however, University is certainly worth buying. | ||
 | Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger | |
| "Beautiful Work" | 2005-06-11 |
| On the whole, OS X Tiger is a fantastic improvement on what was quite possibly already the most usable and elegant operating system on the market today. The Dashboard feature -- which allows you to run small applications in such a way that they're only visible when you tap the f12 key (making them very easy to get to when you want them and not at all a source of clutter when you don't) -- is rapidly gaining a library of extremely valuable options that can allow you to look up information on the internet quickly, track useful information (weather, flights, packages, tv schedules), and other small utility functions that might otherwise clutter your desktop. I truly hadn't thought that I would get much use out of this, but tapping f12 to check in on the weather report or look up the exact definition of a word has become something I do regularly. Spotlight works wonderfully to find practically any information that you could want on your computer, and it finds it amazingly fast. It brings back results that are both faster and more useful than any other hard drive searching method I've come across. Automator is something that mostly power users are going to love, but it's a relatively simple way to make a series of actions you might do frequently into a process that you initiate and the computer takes care of the rest. For those who like to develop applications or just try out writing a little bit of code, Tiger also includes a copy of the latest version of xCode, which is rapidly gaining popularity for developing OS X software (and it can easily be used to write and modify code in languages like Java that will run on other systems as well). There's a long list of other improvements, though many of them are deep enough in the system that a casual user won't immediately notice them. What you will notice is that the applications you use are running faster than ever, because while Apple has released CoreAudio and CoreVideo so that developers can make better use of your video and soundcards and get some of the audiovisual load off of your processor. OS X Tiger is now up to version 10.4.1, with 10.4.2 rumored to be in the pipeline on its way to release. So when you run Tiger, remember to click on the apple at the top left of your monitor and run System Update to be sure that you have all of the latest updates. I simply cannot say enough about how well the Mac OS X operating system works. If you're switching from something else the first few weeks of a new operating system are always a little awkward -- even if you're very comfortable with computers in general -- but that rapidly passes and you start to notice some of the little but incredibly helpful ways that this operating system does its best to make your life easy and let you devote your energy to getting your work done rather than forcing you to fight battles with uncooperative software. | ||
 | Linux Desktop Garage with CDROM | |
| "Good but not for serious techies (or those who'd like to be)" | 2005-06-11 |
| The major good point of this book is that it's organized in a way that's extremely logical for its purpose. Essentially each chapter focuses on a particular type of task you might want to do (play music, browse the internet, etc) and then goes over your options for that task. This makes it a simple matter to jump to the right section for the kind of software you need, and then read the information as help to figure out which specific program you want to try. Another good point is that the author makes an effort to cover good options for both KDE and Gnome (focusing on Mandrake and Fedora as her example distributions, though anything using these desktop managers should behave in a similar way). This means the book covers the software that's likely to be available to the majority of users who might decide to try Linux. An especially pleasing point is that she makes some effort to include information about what it'll be like to switch for former users of both Windows and Mac OS X. There's more information for Windows, but it's nice that she made the extra effort to be a little more complete. On the other hand, if you want to give this book a try I'd suggest getting it as soon as possible. The author does a poor job of making the version numbers clear when she discusses particular pieces of software. As time goes by and the software evolves, it'll get more and more difficult to figure out whether the information this book gives you on a given program is still valid. The software they chose to include is... odd. Though the book focuses on Fedora and Mandrake, the included CD houses a copy of Gnoppix. This is nice in the sense that Gnoppix is a type of Linux that you can put into your CD drive and run it on your computer without actually installing it. That's good for just trying it out without disturbing any of your existing software. However, there isn't much mention of Gnoppix in the book and Gnoppix is still a beta distribution (that means that its developers don't consider it to be ready for widespread use, and it's likely to still be buggy). Since this book targets inexperienced users, it's very odd that they'd include beta software when similar distributions that are considered to be ready for wide distribution are available. In addition, if you're looking to be a serious Linux user (or serious computer user in general really) this book is likely to leave you with some unfortunate ideas that will probably get you laughed at by technical types. The author makes it clear in the introduction, for example, that she feels that a command line interface is limiting. Really, a major problem of command line interfaces is that they're not as limiting as they probably ought to be. Some command line programs include so many features to make them more flexible and powerful that no one except maybe the developers themselves understand why they're all there. The idea that this type of interface would be considered too limited is likely to be interpreted as a joke (because it's utterly ridiculous) by anyone who's seriously used one. If you just want to run Linux at home and not get at all involved in the community, having a few confused notions like this in mind isn't likely to hurt you much. Just keep in mind that this book only works well as a guide to the available software for specific tasks, and you shouldn't take it too seriously on issues of philosophy, design, serious technical matters, or ideas being the open source community. Otherwise, you'll risk looking foolish if you ever do try to carry on an in-depth conversation with a serious user. In general, this is a book with a lot of potential to be useful to inexperienced computer users who'd like to try out Linux and want an easy and amusing guide to the kind of software that's available to do the things they want to do. It'll get less useful over time, due to the natural changes in software over time and the lack of version numbers in the text, so once it's been more than a year since this book was published you'll probably be wanting to buy something else (unless, of course, they release an updated version!). I gave it 3 stars because it mostly does well at the basic task it sets out to do, it just doesn't have any success at going beyond that bare minimum. | ||
 | Slander : Liberal Lies About the American Right | |
 | "Unfortunately a poor research effort" | 2004-09-04 |
| One thing that I should say immediately is that I tend to be more suspicious of texts that use endnotes. That's not to say that it's necessarily wrong, it's just that moving the references to a less visible location makes me wary of whether the author might have a specific reason. Often that reason is just that they don't want to clutter up the main text of the page. In this case, however, I suspect that Miss Coulter was seeking to discourage readers from becoming too curious about her sources. I have access to a number of online databases, including the Lexis-Nexis that the author periodically used in an effort to prove that certain stories had been ignored (as evidence of media bias). Using slightly different search terms than those the author cites, I was easily able to find articles from major newspapers referencing the events that she claimed went unreported. It's worth noting that I chose my keywords based on the author's own description of events, and so I clearly cannot have been making use of information that was unavailable to her. I admire the effort that's required to put together a book, but this particular work at least suffers from unfortunate carelessness and may very well be a display of malicious misrepresentation of the facts. At the least, if you choose to use this as a guide for any sort of research of your own, I would recommend rechecking the sources for yourself to ensure that you won't find yourself accused of poor or dishonest practices. | ||
 | Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban | |
| "An Excellent Story" | 2002-12-25 |
| The Harry Potter series has rapidly become famous for being fun, engrossing, and still fairly easy to read. Prisoner of Azkaban is no exception to that at all. While trying to avoid spoiling the story for anyone, there are a few things I'd like to mention. For one, I find this story a nice demonstration that Harry Potter is both starting to grow up and gain some independence (in this book he actively escapes his hated relatives, rather than being rescued by an outside force) and also still longing for a place in the world where he fits and is loved (this is especially played out in the links this story draws back to Harry's parents). Also, on the whole, the characters offered in this book are admirable examples. The new hero characters introduced turn out to be loving, loyal, and strong enough to survive even the worst circumstances. One of the messages in this particular volume that I found pleasing was that the easy way out isn't necessarily the way to go. That loyalty and love and a sense of what's right are what you should hold on to, even though that may not make it quite so easy to live comfortably (or even to survive). These books are truly gems for readers of any age. They shouldn't at all be dismissed by those at an adult reading level, as the stories are enchanting without being written at a level that will push your limits. Yes, that makes them a poor choice for exercising those mental reading muscles, but it also makes them a good choice for a relaxing and enjoyable read. | ||
 | Celtic Twilight, Vol. 3: Lullabies | |
| "Simply Lovely" | 1999-12-23 |
| Having just gone through the death of a close family member and the final exams for my first semester at college, it's unnecessary to say that I was stressed and worn out. When looking around for something soothing to listen to I came across this CD. It's done wonders for my mood and I've found that I particularly enjoy A Nightingale's Lullaby. | ||
 | Memnoch the Devil (Vampire Chronicles, No 5) | |
| "Interesting Philosophy" | 1999-12-22 |
| The thinking behind this book has some interesting points to make and really does a wonderful job of creating the story. It's unfortunate that this book was (so obviously) written very quickly. Had Miss Rice taken the time to go back and edit and pull it more solidly together she could have constructed a true classic. As it stands, anyone who can look past the surface flaws and work with the core ideas will find material of interest. It should be noted that this is less a story of Lestat than the earlier Chronicles. It has the feel of an idea she wanted to explore which she chose to do by throwing Lestat into it, it doesn't seem that the story was really constructed for him. | ||
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