Happy New Year to all! Welcome to the first Wrath of El Pato for 2009. I hope everyone had a good Christmas and had Santa show up at their door loaded with presents. I got a pink slip! It was so nice of him, let the job hunt begin! It’s been so long since I’ve [...]
Post Tagged with: "Microsoft"
A Guide to Xbox 360 Overheating and Repair
The Xbox 360 is one of the most popular gaming consoles on the market. It is capable of rendering incredible graphics, providing online group game play, head-to-head game play and wonderfully immersive environments. However, the console is also prone to numerous issues. Owning an Xbox 360 console can be enjoyable, but it can also be [...]
Nyko Xbox 360 Charge Base Review
Any self-respecting Boy Scout knows that one should “Always Be Prepared”, and this holds true when playing video games. It has happened to me on more than one occasion that my controllers run out of battery life way before I am ready to put it down. There are several Xbox 360 battery chargers on the [...]
Black Friday relapse, Spike TV Awards
Welcome to the Wrath of El Pato. The column that somehow can be…weekly? So the Xbox 360 kicked ass during Black Friday. That’s surprising. A few months ago I said that the reason Sony was selling better than Microsoft simply was because everyone already had an Xbox. No one had a PS3, and if you [...]
Understanding the Red Ring of Death (Xbox 360)
The Xbox 360 has been plagued with problems, seemingly from the first day after its release. While the console undoubtedly has numerous high-tech components hidden within its confines, it also houses the potential for devastating problems. The 3 red light error, affectionately termed the Red Ring of Death, or simply RROD, by gamers, has been [...]
2008 Holiday ANTI-Shopping Guide: 15 Products to AVOID!
Every winter we have to think about what to get our loved (and not-so-loved) ones. There are tons of vendors that try to cash in on our buying frenzy by offering a bunch of stuff that we simply don’t want or need. Since we don’t need it, I guess we assume that other people do. Most [...]
Gears of War 2 Review
Gears of War was a smash hit when it debuted on the Xbox 360 a few years ago. Because Gears is an Xbox 360 exclusive, the game helped sell thousands of Microsoft’s newest console during a critical time for industry dominance. The original Gears of War introduced a new style of shooter gameplay that hasn’t [...]
TV Viewing Without the TV Set
Our son has it tougher than we did growing up. Oh sure he’s got his content wherever, whenever he wants. But we had power. We had juice! We had the first color TV in the neighborhood. The best looking gals wanted to be seen with us. The meanest dudes on campus protected us. Our son? All [...]
Microsoft’s Gears of War 2 Release Party
Seattle is known for two things: Rain, Coffee, and Microsoft. Well, that’s three things, but two of Seattle’s icons were out for the Gears of War 2 Release party in Bellevue, Washington. The Best Buy in Bellevue is just a stone’s throw from Microsoft’s Redmond campus, and was host to their previous Halo 3 launch [...]
What is svchost.exe and how do I kill it?
Multitasking operating systems run a bunch of stuff all the time… so much so that it may be difficult to know which processes you actually want running. The obfuscation of all this stuff benefits virus and spyware authors, as they can run their dirty little programs mostly unnoticed. Because spyware is so prevalant today, people are starting to look [...]
PowerColor X1600 Pro Video Card Review
Okay, time for another round of in-your-face video card action. There are several video cards on the market right now that will show you a good time. Some do it for a little more, some do it for a little less. But just like a trip to Vegas, what really matters is the quality of [...]
Nova Master 8000dpi Mousepad Review
If you attend a lot of LAN parties, then you no doubt have seen all of the “professional-grade” mousepads. Products from Razer and SteelSeries are common at these gatherings, where bragging rights are only as good as your equipment. More companies are getting in on this action, offering new products to keep the gamer in your [...]
My Take on Microsoft’s I’m a PC Commercials
Nearly everyone is familiar with the barrage of Apple ads. They mainly feature two characters that are meant to iconify a typical Apple and PC user. Of course, the Apple character is a cool twenty-something dude and the PC (played by humorist John Hodgman) is an outdated business-person who just can’t be as cool. These [...]
Xbox 360 Controller for Windows
I’ve been looking for the perfect gamepad ever since I had a PC, which was way before the original Doom debuted. Back then, the Super Nintendo presented its revolutionary controller, and many companies like Gravis tried to create knock-off solutions for the PC gamer. They were quite innovative at the time and had several improvements [...]
Gears of War 2 Hands-On
If for no other reason, you should have been at PAX this year simply to play the game that is sure to be a monster success. Gears of War 2 was unleashed on us as a fully playable demo on the show floor. After a long, long wait I finally got my turn at the [...]
Madden NFL 09 Strategy Guide
The following is a note I would write to EA if any of the following were applicable: A) if EA listened, B) if anyone else cared, or C) if there were somewhere to send it – don’t worry, I haven’t and don’t plan to look.** Dear EA, I appreciate the effort of this year’s [...]
Building the Perfect Keyboard
There have been lots and lots of keyboards over the years, and most of the fancier ones try to enhance usability or implement some new feature that we can’t live without. Most of the time designers guess wrong, and implement a useless set of features, or take away things we have finally become used to. As [...]
Firefox 3 Review
It has finally arrived. A little belated but the third release of Mozilla’s much-acclaimed Firefox 3 has finally been released. Those who fell in love with how fast a browser could be were deeply disappointed when Firefox 2, with its memory hogging bare bones interface, became available to the world. It seemed a step backward [...]
Get Flash Working on 64-bit browsers
UPDATE: The below information was once thought to enable Flash in 64-bit browsers, but after further analysis it appears that there is currently no method to get Flash working in a 64-bit browser. Below is the original article, but we will update it once we find a fix that works 100 percent. Your only options [...]
Logitech Wave Keyboard
There have been many, many, many different keyboards for personal computers over the years. Ergonomic boards, tough boards, media boards, gaming boards: boards that climb on rocks… and there have been a few that many people like, but they become discontinued and obsoleted in favor of the company’s next generation products. One of my favorite [...]
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