I outfitted the Macbook Pro with a copy of WIndows Vista in order to run Steam to satisfy my gaming needs during the times of no PC. This worked out great until Blizzard unleashed StarCraft 2 upon the world. I, like any good fanboy, went down and bought the game on release day and went home to install it. The only problem was that my Macbook Pro had passed its prime and was no longer able to keep up with the curve… to Newegg!

Later that week a whole box of goodies came in – a Lian Li case and an array of components, a monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse. I snapped some pictures when I was putting it together, but out of excitement was frantically putting the machine together instead of taking pictures of every little step.

The outcome? Let’s just say I’ve finished StarCraft 2′s single-player campaign and I’m on Steam a lot more often than never. It’s good to have a PC up and running again and Windows 7 isn’t half bad either.

The purpose of the interactive kiosk for the booth at E3 was to offer additional information on the games being demonstrated in the booth and to give information on titles that weren’t available to play in the booth. Information for each of the eight games on the kiosk included an overview, feature list, trailer, and screenshots. More detailed information on these aspects below.

Main Menu
The kiosk’s main menu has the eight titles contained within touch-clickable buttons that take you to the game’s overview page. The main menu items alternate between a short, stylized video clip and the game’s logo. The kiosk returns to the main menu after three minutes of no user interaction.

Game Overview
Once a game is selected from the main menu, you are taken to each game’s overview page. The overview page is a textual overview of the game and also contains three additional options on the right side of the kiosk as well as a back button which returns you to the main menu. The featured page, which isn’t demonstrated here, is textual information laid out similarly to the game overview page.

Screenshots
The screenshots page follows the overall format of the overview page, but the focus of this page is media. A large central window displays the current screenshot. Controls on the left allow you to select a screenshot to enlarge and scroll up or down to view additional screenshots. Again we have the three information options on the right side as well as the back button which takes you back to the main menu.

Game Trailer
The game trailer page shifts focus to the game’s official trailer. Game trailer’s begin playback automatically and can be muted, paused, or scrubbed through using the semi-transparent controls at the bottom of the video. During video playback the timeout function which resets the kiosk is disabled and is re-enabled when the video is paused, stopped, or completed.

Kiosk Installations at E3 2010
Kiosk preparation during E3 setup:

Kiosks installed and in place:

Watching a trailer on the kiosk:

Kiosk active during the show:

Not only does this completely kick ass, but one of the shoes is based off of Chun-Li, one of my regular characters. Even though I don’t pick up Ryu very often I’ve got to get a pair of the Ryu-inspired SB mids as well. I’ve never been this excited for winter to come. I’ll deal with 5 feet of now if that means I can have these shoes without having to wait! Direct your eyes below for the photographic evidence.

I’m not one to keep an extra pair of shoes on ice, but I’m very tempted to double up on each of these. Being as excited as I am right now, does this solidify my shoe fetish, my street fighter fetish, or both?

Saturday July 3rd. 11 PM. It’s on.

Sorry for the lack of a mix this week, it’s planned and aiming to have it out on Monday. Cases for my gear won’t be in tomorrow so I’m hauling everything while it isn’t raining.

Step 1: Pick up a new 1/2 AA battery. Radioshack carries them, even though the employees at the store weren’t aware of their existence.

Step 2: Power on the machine and allow it to finish booting up.

Step 3: Locate old backup battery on the CPS-III game cartridge.

Step 4: Remove the old backup battery with a small flathead screwdriver.

Step 5: Pop new battery into place, making sure you use the same +/- orientation as the last backup battery.

There you go, I’m good for another three years. Speaking of three years, I can’t believe it’s been three years since I picked this machine up and brought it back into working order. You can check all that action out from early 2007 right here. Thanks to the dedicated mod and arcade cab community. The original battery swap involved the same battery, but you had to solder positive and negative leads into place on the cartridge. I have no idea how common this snap-on battery modification is, but it squashes a lot of headaches for sure.

Last weekend a friend donated time to solder the new potentiometers to the monitor control board and with the new potentiometers in place I was ready to go home, unlock the machine, replace the board, and see if that had fixed the monitor issues. I wake up on Saturday to give the board a test, but can’t find the keys to the cabinet. I searched for hours everywhere in my apartment for the keys, but could not turn them up. The keys to the cabinet are always on my key ring in my pocket and I assume that the keys were dropped when either giving my car key to the dealer (back when my car broke down and was broken in to last month) or when putting the car key back on the ring after picking the car up from the dealer.

The locks on the Megalo 410 are simple cam-style locks so I picked up a couple of replacements at home depot and set to removing the old locks. I drilled out the bottom left lock since I can reach the other two locks on the cabinet from that central location and wouldn’t have to spend triple the time drilling through the locks one by one.

Old Sega lock for game panel	New latch lock installed

Fast forward from Saturday to Monday night. I picked up two white Hugo stools from Ikea for people to sit at while playing on the arcade machine. With the two stools at home to accompany the cab it was time to get rounds of Street Fighter III 3rd Strike in on it for the first time in three months.

The Megalo 410 complete with stools

Last Sunday I went down to GameStop and took advantage of their DSi trade-up offer. What they’re doing is allowing you to trade in your DS Lite for a DSi and knocking $70 off the price tag. That discount brings the cost of trading from a DS Lite to a DSi only $100. Before making the trade I did a little bit of research and found that the biggest concern was the lost of the GBA slot. While the GBA slot is gone, I don’t regret trading and feel like the benefits of the DSi outweigh the loss of a GBA slot (especially when GameBoy Advance SPs can be had for under $35 these days).

Let’s start with some hard facts and then I’ll move onto my own opinions about the two.

The DSi comes equipped with:

• Matte outer finish
• 3.25″ Screens
• A size of 137mm x 74.9mm x 18.9mm
• A weight of 214g
• A battery life of 9-14 hours
• DS cart slot
• SDHC card slot

On the other hand, the DS Lite comes equipped with:

• Glossy outer finish
• 3.00″ Screens
• A size of 133mm x 73.9mm x 21.5mm
• A weight of 218g
• A battery life of 15-19 hours
• DS cart slot
• GBA cart slot

For quick reference here are some comparison shots:

Along with the above specs the DSi adds a music player (capable of playing AAC audio files) with some bad ass nintendo-inspired visualizers, two cameras (front camera: 3MP, inside camera: .3MP), the Opera browser, a beefed up internal memory capacity, and access to WPA secured networks.

The DSi doesn’t have a GBA slot:
I know, I was initially upset about this too! When I really, really thought about it I came to a conclusion. The only GBA games I play are import games from Japan. I have to play those games at home anyway since I need guides and translation help during gameplay. Remembering that I had the GBA add-on for my GameCube, I was no longer bummed about giving up my beloved GBA slot. Sorry Mother 3!

The DSi has a shorter battery life than the DS Lite:
Okay, so the DSi gets 9-14 hours of play on the lowest brightness setting as opposed to the DS Lite’s 15-19. I’ve had my DSi almost a week and played it every day. Thursday it finally died and I had to charge it which means I got 5 days of gaming in before I had to stop to recharge the battery. If you play your DS a ridiculous amount then it’s no more of a hassle than it is to charge your cell phone every night. Hell, my DSi gets better battery life than my Blackberry Pearl! One plus to the lower capacity battery is that it takes less time to charge so you’re back to gaming quicker. On a side note, both the DS Lite and DSi have a better play time than the PSPgo, 3 to 6 hours of gameplay are you kidding me?

Aside from the two points hit above I think the DSi beats the DS Lite hands down. The larger, brighter screen is immediately noticeable and the camera is actually fun to use whether you’re playing the WarioWare game that uses the DSi’s camera (available in the DSiWare Store) or simply using the camera itself. The PSP previously had the DS beat in online capabilities and general usefulness, but Nintendo has more than answered that with the DSi. The DSi provides an interface and capabilities that transform it into a living, breathing, online-enabled device and there is a lot of new hope for the DS’s online community. The DSiWare store, while sparse at the moment, actually houses worthwhile games (and some apps, most of the apps are sad excuses for apps. Why do I want a simple calculator or a skinned clock anyway?). The XBOX 360 Marketplace has tons of products and very few I actually want. Opposed to that, the DSiWare store has a small catalog for the time being, but I want like half of the products in the store.

I seriously hope Nintendo takes the right steps with the DSi and transforms it into the fully online-enabled gaming experience that it has the potential to be. With my DS Lite I think I used the wifi capability once or twice, but with the DSi I am constantly connected to wifi networks while browsing the net or checking out the store. The functionalities have made me more aware of when my DSi is on or off line and has left me with no possible reason as to why all future multiplayer games will not be wifi compatible.

The basis of Candy Cabinet City is to sell arcade machines, arcade games, arcade machine accessories, and custom built arcade machines. At an E-Commerce angle, the site offers a fair range of products and options (which can easily be expanded via the database), a user login and shopping cart system, and some basic security measures to protect the business and its users.

Security measures include a hash system for password storage and protection against unsanitized user input via both GET and POST methods. Why is sanitizing input important? With unsanitized input passed to an SQL argument, a malicious user can access tables and information from the database. Input sanitation helps combat such data compromise techniques. The login system uses a simple cookie to store a user’s login name and does not have an associated session ID. Plans were originally laid out to include a session ID cookie for added security, but due to time constraints sessions could not be implemented.

Home Page

The home page for CCC includes a banner ad at the top followed by top sellers and a super deal item. The top banner serves as the biggest ad space on the site for pushing a certain category of products or a single product itself. The “top sellers” is not the actual system’s top selling items, but instead an admin-controlled set of products to display on the front page. The best use of this space is to point the site user to items which are bought or viewed by visitors on a regular basis. Not only does that help users get to useful products quicker, but it also may remind a user “Oh, that’s right! We need more switches for some of our machines.” The super deal section functions as perfect up-front real estate to make users aware of any sales going on at the moment.

Category Pages

Each category page has an identical layout which includes small thumbnails of products in the center (including price as well) and a featured product displayed in the right hand column. This featured product is given not only a larger associated image, but also a small snippet of information related to the product. In simplest terms, it is a category-specific version of the super deal type product.

Product Pages

Each product page follows the same layout and includes a large image of the product being viewed, some quick product technical stats to the right of the product image, stock status, an in-depth description, price, and an add to cart button. Multiple product views were a consideration in the early stages of development, but once again time constraints kept multiple product views from being implemented in the version that was submitted.

Custom Cabinet System

The custom cabinet system is the service that, if this store were to exist, sets CCC apart from other online retailers. The idea behind the custom cabinet system is to let the user choose a cabinet, game, and associated hardware that they want to use to build a system and then assemble it at the warehouse before shipping it out to the customer. Not only does the customer get full control of the cabinet, but they also receive a 10% overall discount as opposed to the full price that would be paid for ordering each item separately.

When a custom cabinet is ordered it is assigned a custom cab # and added to the user’s cart. Upon placing their order, both the customer and the shipping department receive order receipts which include the number of the custom cab ordered. The shipping department can take the custom cab # and look up the customer-selected components for assembly and shipment.

Login and Registration Form

CCC login is fairly straightforward. The user logs into their account using their username and password and a cookie is stored on the user’s computer that keeps them logged in for two hours before logging them out. Registration asks for a username, email, and password and checks both entered email addresses and passwords to ensure that they match. If the passwords and emails match and the username and email address have not been registered then the user’s account is created. On account creation an email is dispatched to the user that welcomes them to CCC as well as includes their username and password. In the database, the user’s username, email, and password are stored and a table is created for the user to function as their shopping cart.

Shopping Cart

The shopping cart page displays the items in the users cart in a clear and easy-to-follow way. The user can see how many of each item they have in their cart and can also delete items from their cart as needed. Once an item is in the cart, a form appears beneath the cart that starts the checkout procedure. In the CCC implementation as it stands, the user hits “Submit Order” and emails are generated and sent to the user and the shipping warehouse. Due to the fragile nature of credit information, we decided not to attempt to handle or store that type of data, especially since the test version of CCC was being linked around to people who believed it was a real store. As for implementing a payment system, PayPal can easily be implemented into this system by forwarding the cart items and total to PayPal where the user can pay for their goods.

Administration Panel

Another victim of time constraints, the administration panel is a lot of what was originally planned with advanced features left out for the final turn-in. As it stands, the administration panel allows admins to add or subtract stock from a product (each product being listed under its associated category). Admins are also given the power to grant admin to other users of the site and view the contents of registered user’s carts. The features that did not make it into the administration panel were the abilities to add products and categories to the store, the ability to edit existing products in the store, and the ability to change the top sellers, super deal, and featured category items. The implementation of the features that did not make it into the administration system are not that hard to implement and, if implemented, would make the entire system accessible from the web-interface and would erase the need to login to the MySQL database to add products and make some other changes manually.

Overall Impressions
Overall I’m proud of the finished product and developed myself along the way. E-Commerce and Security are intertwined at every level and strong, secure commerce is nothing to scoff at. As pointed out above, not even all of CCC’s issues were resolved or addressed in a semester’s time. Expand our site’s simple concepts to the shopping giant Amazon or the bidding behemoth Ebay and you can see how much work is put strictly into site security to protect their users’ data. Security is a full time job and then some.

Electric Pegasus Broadcast Schedule:
Monday nights from 8PM – 10PM CST (aka 9-11 EST and 6-8 PST)

Welcome to the Show:
The thread is here for you to converse with us pre and post broadcasts. Are you wanting to see a game we haven’t been giving time or though to? Do you want more in-depth information about a certain franchise, game, or character. Are we going over your head with what we’re talking about and you don’t quite understand what a quarter-circle back half-circle forward + short is or what the hell it does? Basically if it has to do with anything we said or did on the show or if it has to do with fighting games, you have come to the right place.

Electric Pegasus Rushdown:
Starting Monday the 19th, yes this coming Monday, Electric Pegasus will be teaming up with Flamegoat and Dead Pirate Studios to put together two hours of intense 2D and 3D fighting game action for your entertainment and for your mind. I’ve recruited two good and well-rounded (familiar with everything, we’re not tournament quality material in any specific game) fighting-game-enthusiast friends to give you a glimpse into a world that has all but become extinct here in the West. In the East, arcades continue to thrive. Arcades throughout Asia enjoy a much older clientele than the child-catered arcades that litter the West. What exactly does this mean? In Asia many arcades are adult driven places, low key. Many even serve alcohol and allow smoking inside. In this environment mature players gather to square off against each other in games of almost any arcade genre. Sadly, in our part of the world, this has all but died.

We’re going to re-educate you about the fighting game genre from the ground up. Get ready to throw out your latest installment of Mortal Kombat and your D.O.A. and get into some real man’s fighting with Street Fighter, King of Fighters, Samurai Showdown, and much more. We’ll debate the pros and cons of 2D vs 3D driven fighting game engines and the continued evolution of the fighting game genre as a whole away from its original sprite-based combat into its now full HD counterparts.

We will also be working within our network of enthusiasts to bring in other fighting game enthusiasts and competitors to join us from the studio as well as unparalleled fighting game geniuses that will join us via phone and skype. Get ready to get informed, stay informed, and find out why fighting games have been, and always will be, the most skill driven one-on-one games created. World of Warcraft PvP? Give us a break. Grab your fighting pads and your arcade sticks and meet us at the character select screen.

Games featured on our show:
Arcana Heart
Art of Fighting
Fatal Fury
Samurai Showdown
Rival Schools
Neogeo Battle Coliseum
Street Fighter 2
Street Fighter 3
Street Fighter Alpha
Real Bout
The King of Fighters
Guilty Gear
Marvel vs. Capcom 2
Capcom vs. SNK 2
Tekken
(and many more)