Interrupt19 » Games and Entertainment

Ski Challenge 2010 – Does In-Game Advertising Work?

David Balogh — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:00:45 +0000

Photo courtesy of Ski Challenge 2010

Gaming is expensive. New console games for Playstation 3, Wii and Xbox 360 are usually priced over $50 each. Online multiplayer service costs can also add up to hundreds yearly. On the Mac / PC side, its not much cheaper. Game costs, hardware costs and online service costs are similar. Piracy is rampant, ever invasive protection schemes are defeated within weeks, stopping only the paying customers.

An interesting way to take some of the cost away from gaming, and the piracy element without ruining the developer’s bottom line is to use an ad-supported model, like radio and television. But does it work?

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Connect your Mac to an HDMI or DVI HDTV

David Balogh — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:00:56 +0000

Photo courtesy of DeclanTM

So much of our media is related to the computer. Between iTunes downloads, Hulu, YouTube, DVR recordings, and Netflix Streaming, the days of the disc are ending. Sure, Blu-ray will keep them alive for a little while longer but I wouldn’t call them mainstream yet and HD Movies are available digitally through iTunes.

The Home Theatre PC is all about containing this entertainment / media in one place, digitally and on-demand; storing videos, pictures, music, playing DVDs, games and streaming content. Now that large flat-screen TVs are becoming reasonably priced, what’s better than having a gigantic 1080p LCD TV? Getting your Mac to display video on it!

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Trick out your Gaming Mouse with USB Overdrive

David Balogh — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:00:36 +0000

Photo courtesy of USB Overdrive

Gaming and gamers bring the average (and professional) user all sorts of innovations. A serious gamer is like a hot-rod racer when it comes to tweaking a computer for performance. Even a regular mouse won’t do, gamers use special gaming mice.

There’s a little secret about gaming mice – they don’t have to be used for just gaming…

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A Surprisingly Simple Way to Download Online Video

David Balogh — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:00:43 +0000

Photo courtesy of Re-ality

Ever watch a video on YouTube and want to keep it, for whatever reason? Ever wonder how to do this?

There are applications you can download and websites you can visit that will download online videos from YouTube, Google Video, and other places, but I find the websites are slow and the applications don’t always work.

I’ve stumbled across a way to do this and it’s so simple its surprising. Here’s what you do:

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Ditch your Cable and Fill The Void with The Internet

David Balogh — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:00:25 +0000

Photo courtesy of Aaron Escobar

Whether it’s personal politics about Comcast, Time Warner and the rest of them, the economy and saving money, no time to spare, or you just can’t stand commercials, Ditching your cable TV subscription is a great way to save, sleep easier at night and can be done easily using the Internet with OS X.

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Create your own Apple TV with any Mac

David Balogh — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:00:06 +0000

Photo courtesy of The Artifex

While AppleTV is nice, out of personal preference, I’m not a big fan of iTunes, iPhoto and other Apple media solutions. Let’s look at how you can take any old Mac and turn it into something better than the AppleTV can even think of becoming.

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How to Get 5.1 DTS Surround Sound Out of OS X

David Balogh — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 12:00:05 +0000

Photo courtesy of Milesdeelite

OS X is capable of outputting 5.1 sound to your home theatre system. Depending on which model Mac you have, you may not need any outboard hardware except for a special cable. You will need a 5.1 capable system. Here’s what you need to do to get the surround sound in OS X working.

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Use Boxee to turn your Mac into a Media Center

David Balogh — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:00:15 +0000

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia
Imagine one device controlling your TV, music, movies, online video and more. No more needing separate DVRs, DVD players, and in some cases, cable boxes. Whether you have an older Mac sitting around or plan to buy one just for this purpose, make your Mac into your own media center for free with Boxee.

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Watching Hulu and Netflix streams within Front Row with Understudy

David Balogh — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 13:00:18 +0000

Photo courtesy of OS X

Understudy is a plugin, created by Google, for Front Row. Simple yet powerful, if you are looking for a seriously easy way to watch streaming media like Hulu or Netflix, you’ve got to take a look at Understudy. Here’s a quick tutorial on how to get Understudy up and running.

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Seven Sites For OS X Friendly Online Flash/Java Casual Gaming

David Balogh — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 13:00:52 +0000

Photo courtesy of Frenkieb

Gaming is challenging for busy people. Sometimes you don’t have hours, days and weeks to pour into installing a game, playing it and getting good at it. You just want to play quickly, casually and then get back to your life. In this case, online Flash and Java based games are perfect for a quick gaming fix.

Here are ten online Flash / Java based gaming sites you can casually game to your hearts content in an OS X friendly environment.

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How to use an Xbox 360 Controller in OS X

David Balogh — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 13:00:44 +0000

Photo courtesy of kss_cville

One of the advantages of the gaming experience on consoles (XBox, Playstation, etc) is the special controller. Ever wish you could use a real controller when gaming on your Mac? As long as the game supports joysticks, its possible to use Microsoft’s XBox 360 USB controllers with OS X.

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Get Around That Pesky DVD Region Code Nonsense

David Balogh — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:00:46 +0000

Photo courtesy of OS X

If you’ve ever bought a DVD in another country or brought your laptop overseas and tried to watch a movie, you know the pain of the DVD Region Code. Sure you can change your player’s code to that country, but after five changes it becomes permanent. So, how do you get around this to watch your legally purchased DVD? Let’s explore the ways:

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How to Read E-Books in OS X. (.CHM, .PDF, .DJVU, .LIT, .PDB and .MOBI files)

David Balogh — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:00:03 +0000

Photo courtesy of DaigoOliva

Imagine carrying around a gigantic library on your hard drive. In this library, no paper was wasted on the production and distribution of any books. Sound like something magical and imaginary? It’s not. It’s the future of books – the E-Book.

While reading one on a monitor can be awkward, E-Books on a MacBook or iPhone/iPod Touch are gaining in popularity. Let’s look at the common E-Book formats you will come across and how to use them in OS X.

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Just How Good are the Legal TV Sites Compared to BitTorrent?

David Balogh — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:00:40 +0000

Photo courtesy of Aaron Escobar

Now that the fall TV season is upon us with new shows and fresh episodes, the networks are pushing their own legal alternatives to torrent sites. I’ll be honest, I tried the ABC.com viewer two years ago and it sucked. Big time. Let’s see if the networks got their act together since then…

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Turn your Macintosh into a TiVo-Style Digital Video Recorder

David Balogh — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:00:19 +0000

Photo courtesy of Amazon

Fall is the time of colorful foliage, going back to school, cooler weather and best of all, the return of your favorite TV shows. Personally, I don’t like to a locked into the network’s broadcast schedule. Nor do I care for inane commercials. Sure, you could buy a DVR or TiVo.. Or I can show you how to turn your iMac, MacBook or even older Macintosh desktop into a decent DVR solution.

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