Back in the day, the first Starcraft was my favorite PC game, and it also was my introduction to the world of multiplayer online gaming. I still remember those great nights of hydra spamming with Zerg and dt dropping with the Protoss. Good times!

And now those days are returning! Gamestop and Amazon.com have concocted a plan to get as many people to pre-order the game now, even though Blizzard hasn’t stated an official release date yet. They guarantee a way into the coveted Starcraft 2 beta by giving you a key.

I have to say, the plan certainly worked!

Part 2: Getting Your Key

The process is simple:

Method 1:

1. Go to either Gamestop.com or Amazon.com and place an order for the regular or collector’s edition.
2. Get key in an email. [est. 2 days to arrival for Gamestop/5 for Amazon]

Method 2:

1. Go to a Gamestop and place the pre-order.
2. Get key instantly on your receipt.

The catch is that you cannot cancel the pre-order once you get the key. Seems pretty obvious.

Word to the wise:
I had issues with placing the order online at Gamestop’s site. I didn’t receive my key after over 48 hours, watching my friends kicking ass and getting their asses kicked. Being sidelined sucks, so… I sent emails to Gamestop’s support addresses and received responses after about 24 hours. Most people received faster responses.

I wanted a key before this weekend, so I canceled my online order by emailing help@gamestop.com before they responded. Then I went into a store and put down $10 for the Collector’s Edition. (Gamestop employees mentioned a free mouse pad as part of the added goodies. This wasn’t a part of any description I’d seen elsewhere… I’m not sure if it’s unique to Gamestop or if the dudes were mistaken.)

Part 3: Installing

So after 3 days of waiting, I finally had a beta key in my possession (FYI: 26 digits on the receipt). However, this is where the plot thickens. Dun dun DUNN…

Another warning:

Do NOT try to acquire the Blizzard Downloader from 3rd parties. I did it, thinking it would shave off an hour from the installation process, but in the end it was a waste of time. After the patches installed, running the game client resulted in endless crashes 30 to 60 seconds later. I had to uninstall, download the real stuff, and patch all over again. So, just don’t do it.

Starcraft 2 beta install guide:

1. Go to Blizzard’s website, get their Blizzard Downloader and run it. It will grab about 1.6 gigabytes of files (for me, a 30 to 45-minute wait). The download was fast initially at 2 MB/s, but it dropped off towards the end.
2. Run the installer. It took less than 5 minutes to copy the game files on both my Intel Core i7 machines. Your mileage may vary, especially with slower magnetic hard drives.
3. Now, you wait. The installer iterates through 12 patch cycles, since that’s where we are in the beta. [Patch 10 is a real ^&*%@. It requires around 30-45 minutes JUST for this patch. The rest are a few minutes each.]
4. After patching completes, you may now log into your Battle.net account. You will be asked to create a handle in the format of username1.username2. The username2 part is only used to differentiate yourself from someone else with your same username1.

Make sure you save the installer files somewhere… if your computer explodes, you will be out of commission for at least 3 hours just for the Starcraft 2 installation. Even Windows 7/Vista will take you less time to install than that… (BTW, you have backed up your important data, right? Consider yourselves warned!)

At this point, the only thing left to do is adjust your video settings, turn off the stupid swear filter (Options menu or F10), and then play the game.

I shall leave you with this familiar line:
Awaken my child, and embrace the glory that is your birthright…

gl hf

First, there was Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2010.

While I haven’t seriously worked on my programming in quite some time, I’m happy to see that MS added significant improvements (and a new logo!). As a web designer, I hope this brings ASP.NET even closer in line with web standards and assists engineers in creating sites that produce clean, valid code.

However, Adobe Creative Suite 5 is what I’m more excited about.

The events surrounding CS5’s launch seemed rather subdued compared to what I remember from the past. Tons of info seemed to circle the web prior to CS4’s arrival, but this time Adobe mostly stayed silent. Sure, I saw some videos about the Puppet Warp and paint mixing functions a while back, but maybe they didn’t want to build up too much expectation like MS did with Vista.

As of this article’s posting, here’s the largest “what’s new” list that I’ve found.

Things I’m excited about:

1. Flash can output animations to Canvas elements.

   In other words, you don’t need to have the Flash plugin anymore to view animations. Oshi-

2. CS Live’s BrowserLab and NetAverages

   More accurate usage data!

3. Complex selections made easier in Photoshop

   Can’t wait to try this out.

4. Content-Aware Fill

   The video of this feature is too small to really inspect the results, but based on what I’ve seen so far… Holy. Crap.

   Content-Aware Fill is waaay too subdued of a name. If it were me, I’d call it the “REALITY GENERATOR” or something at least as awesome as that. Looking forward to it, Adobe!

   On the other hand, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s job of “enhancing” their missile armaments just got a whole lot easier…

5. Rule of Thirds Overlay

   This is a nice little addition since it applies to web design too, not just photographers.

6. Dreamweaver

   Looks like Adobe’s trying to simplify my workflow. The code hinting and support for popular third party frameworks is neat and much appreciated.

   I really like some of the functions that Microsoft’s Expression Suite 3 has, like SuperPreview. It’s a shame that Adobe followed suit only to make their version an online service instead of integrating it completely. I’d like to keep the ability to test browsers offline.

My Dreamweaver-specific wish list:

1. Fix the stupid bug where you create a new Managed Site and then assign a site root. Most of the time, the site root gets shifted up by one folder level, just above where you wanted it to go. Seriously, it needs to disappear already…
2. Better default CSS font stacks! Typography on the web has been rather poor, and as a community, we should do what we can to make it better. I’d love the ability to define custom font stacks and have typographical profiles. I’d also like to have a viewer that previews the font stacks in a similar fashion to MyFonts.com, displaying the font size, weight, and variant (bold, oblique, italic…) at once.

Adobe gets bonus points if they implemented this already in CS5.

Anyway, I look forward to putting CS5 through its paces soon.

I hope it’s awesome, because even in the darkest of hours… deadlines must be met!

CNN has recently decided to bring a new program into its ranks. A certain John King, master of the “magic wall,” makes his appearance as the host of John King, USA, a segment dedicated to being “your daily destination for political news.” The only issue, as it happens to be, is that John King sucks at hosting. No, I’m serious. He’s not terrible, he’s not bad. He just sucks complete ass—now let me explain why.

Have you ever seen someone say something that only they thought was profound? So profound that they smile to themselves after saying it? John King seems to be a regular practitioner. Take a look at this dialogue.

The Qatari embassy says it was a routine visit to check in on one of his citizens, and embassies all around the world do that. So fair enough. But one would think that an Arab diplomat and one on his way to visit an convicted terrorist would know better than to illegally smoke on a plane and then in post-9/11 America make a joke about a shoe bomb. One would think. There is, though, a happy ending. With a nudge from the State Department, the Qatari embassy has decided it is best to send Al Madadi home. Not soon enough. (Source)

“Not soon enough?! ” Are you kidding me? One would think that CNN, a global news agency with its parent corporation taking in over $25.7 billion in revenue last year, would have a level of sophistication to actually report on the news and make valid commentary instead of snide remarks after every single sentence. One would think.

Now this wouldn’t really be a problem if John King, USA delivered on its promise to be my daily destination for political news. It doesn’t. Ignoring the fact that a) any commentary in the show is dry and juvenile and b) most—if not all—of the show’s content is a rehash of Wolf Blitzer’s The Situation Room (which occupies the slot prior to our friend John King), the show lacks any real format.

John King divides his program into shorter segments, along with specific times that each section will air—I guess so you can systematically determine which topics sound the shittiest so you can avoid them (protip: avoid all of them). Not to mention each section has it own theme, making it extremely difficult for me to tell that I’m even watching John King, USA if it wasn’t for the help of their retarded postmark graphic in the corner of every screen.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

And if it wasn’t bad enough already, Campbell Brown comes up next.

Sigh… Really, CNN? …Really? At least Lou Dobbs was entertaining and had a real show. I’ll take news, debate and opinion any day!

And so, all, I leave you with: this.

Because even in the darkest of hours, CNN couldn’t possibly get any worse.

(Please don’t get rid of Wolf Blitzer)