The Death of the News Channel, Bro

So as of yesterday, WiiConnect24 on the Wii is done.

Now, while I may describe in a future post why that may actually be a good thing (tip in the meantime: don’t use your white official Nintendo memory cards in the Wii. They tend to corrupt them with WiiConnect24 on), I’ll talk about what this means to all Wii users in general.

Many of you Wii owners out there may not even have complete knowledge of what WiiConnect24 actually is, even though it may have been on ever since you got your system!

WiiConnect24 is why the Wii’s disc drive sometimes lights up with a blue trim while it’s “off” – with WiiConnect24 on, the Wii stays in a lower-power state when turned off, and the console can receive messages (or some kinds of data, I think) in this state. When this happens, the blue light surrounding the Wii begins to pulse.

So many of you may not miss this (I really don’t!), but there’s something else that you may in fact miss – a bunch of channels that could only be accessed with WiiConnect24 enabled.

This includes at least the following channels:
- Forecast Channel
- News Channel
- Check Mii Out Channel
- Everybody Votes Channel
- Nintendo Channel

And in the case that you may have noticed – yes, those first two channels came with the Wii pre-installed!

So I went on to some of these channels (I actually got through them all but the Nintendo Channel, which I ended up caring less about) and took some screenshots. Because I like preserving things that I know are going away in the near future.

I got to the News Channel, and did some experimenting.
One of the interesting things with the News Channel is that you can increase or decrease the font size at any time, and the text will be reorganized (in an animated fashion, too!) into a format that works best with that size of font. It can be done in the channel's slide show mode, as well, which basically zooms across a globe, pointing out the location of news events and giving a quick one-line statement about the story (i.e. the title).

Here’s an example of this in action:



*looks up thoughtfully to his side*
"Like, what if… we all, like, came together, and made history? You gettin’ where I’m goin’ man?”

And it’s at this moment when I realize, “Crud dang it – I’m just sitting here staring at my Wii taking screenshots of channels soon to die when there are people out there doing inspiring things like this! I need to get OUT THERE!”

Then I grew up and became the Prime Minister of Jamaica.
The end.

Just a quick appreciation

Oh the wonders of technology! I’m currently typing this sitting in a recliner, with my laptop about 10 feet away from me, on my tv. I have my laptop hooked to my tv with an HDMI cord, a wireless keyboard to type with and my iPod acting as my mouse. I just want to say, technology is awesome! =D

The Case of the Lazy Antivirus

Then get up off your lazy butt and go get it, Avast.






Castle room picture credit: 
http://medievalcastles.stormthecastle.com/images/trim-castle/the-disarming-room.jpg

Show Your Approval

The evolution of creatures over time can be quite a drastic, grand thing.

Take a fish somehow evolving into a creature with land-capabilities, from originally merely being able to at best flop around on shore to later being capable of traveling across wide expanses of land, where there might not be water for miles.

Take the animals who gain camouflage to survive better in their environment, like a chameleon. Or the animals who gain incredible speed, like a cheetah, or a falcon. Or animals who stay small, and are able to hide away in places that many predators can’t quite reach, like say a good ‘ol bunny.

The evolution of spell check is not one of those stories.
In fact, at times it makes one wonder whether there’s been any evolution at all in recent years…

Hence, we get to the reason this post exists.
This is what happens when you attempt to type “pre-approved” in Firefox:


That third one sounds like a very interesting, and simultaneously very scary concept.

Overly Attached Skype.

Skype. We need to talk. This isn’t about me, (and this isn’t easy for me to say) but this is about you. You see, we’ve known each other for a long time. I know I haven’t been spending as much time with you as I used to. But, that doesn’t mean you have to go and get upset.

You were… a bit clingy since we first met. Always starting up and getting in my face every time I got on the computer. Sometimes, I just need to be left alone. We got that fixed though, and everything was good for a while.

 

You always greet me with a highly (annoying) optimistic noise! And my, the sorrow I sense in you when I have to leave you.

But that’s the thing, I can never leave you. Not because I love you (I know this is harsh), but because YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND THAT A LITTLE WHITE ‘X’ IN A RED BOX IN THE RIGHT HAND CORNER IS SUPPOSED TO MEAN CLOSE. Like as if you died. Or something like that.

Any other program: Firefox, Chrome, Minecraft, Minesweeper, Paint, they all know an ‘x’ means ‘close’. But you? Nope. You just hide in your corner, all minimized so the world won’t see you. But we can, Skype, we can. We know you are there. If I had wanted to minimize you, I would have clicked the small ‘dash’ box.

Then I have to go and drag you out of the task bar (or right click you) and choose quit Skype. And so that is why, I must quit you. We can’t go on together. Not until you change.

TLDR: Skype! Y U No Quit!?

The Other Web Browser

This is a screen that comes up if you have Firefox open while installing Google Chrome:


This, being a Firefox junkie, and knowing how heated browser debates can get with the right people (or a certain other blogger on this site), is how I read it:


Some flame wars die hard.

The Quiz That Could Not Lie

Every day in my Business Law class, we have a take-home quiz – in other words, our homework assignments for the class.

Using those old Scantron forms, we… well, yeah, it’s not very unique. It’s a section of true-or-false questions, ordered from the beginning of the chapter to the end, and a section of multiple choice questions, ordered from the beginning of the chapter to the end.

I, like what some others might do in the same scenario, tend to answer the first set as I read through the chapter, with the multiple choice section largely serving as review. Sometimes I read the chapter through first, and then answer everything, and that actually works fairly well for me sometimes. But this was not one of those cases.

I start answering the first set of questions as I read the chapter:


Okay, first question true. Nothing abnormal.


Two in a row – not too uncommon.

Three? That’s a bit unusual. But it happens…

Uhhhhhhhh…

…Yes, every single answer in the first section of the quiz was true. All 21 questions.


I did have my doubts about number 12, but in the end, I decided it was true as well. That, and, well… EVERY SINGLE OTHER QUESTION WAS TRUE. It’s *possible* that just one could be false… but yeah. 
…And that’d be lame, too!

Thankfully (or maybe not?), they started to change up a bit after the first section:


…but it still doesn’t really allow the quiz to shake the appearance that it decided all of a sudden to feel bad about all the false statements it was making on a daily basis, and made the decision to change its ways.

Or something like that.