If you hadn’t noticed from my many previous posts, the category even, I’m a huge Xbox fan. And what Xbox fan doesn’t appreciate a battle-filled round of Halo, the title that literally made the Xbox what it is today? While I’m still ever-so-slightly bitter about losing the original Halo to Microsoft Game Studios after the crowd-pleasing MacWorld 1999 demo, I’m quite glad it turned out as successful as it has. What was primed to be a noteworthy Mac game got transformed into an enormous console blockbuster, a milestone in gameplay and attention to detail demonstrating that Bungie simply “gets it” when it comes to games. It was, and still is, one of the top selling Xbox games, and Halo 2 is continually rising back up to top of Xbox Live charts.

I’m certainly excited over the upcoming release of Halo 3 for the Xbox 360, but I recently learned of a new spin on the Halo saga. Halo Wars aims to deliver a real time strategy version of Halo, allowing you to command massive armies of Spartan soldiers and vehicles, defending against Covenant invaders on a global scale — a “bigger picture” interpretation of the first-person action that fills Halo 1 through 3. Normally, I don’t get excited about anything other than first-person shooters; I like having a weapon displayed in the lower third of my TV screen and a straight-ahead view of the oncoming foes. Over the last few weeks, though, I’ve really started enjoying Company of Heroes on the PC, which is a World War II real-time strategy game. It got me thinking: If this game is fun, playing it in the Halo environment must really be impressive. Calling in Banshee air strikes while maneuvering squads of soldiers around in Warthogs makes Company of Heroes seem boring by comparison.

Over at the Halo Wars site, they provide a trailer of what’s in store. Although it doesn’t detail any of the gameplay, it is a great teaser, displaying dozens of UNSC allies and enemies, all with their signature vehicles and weapons ready and poised for battle. Sadly, the trailers are only available in Windows Media format (the obvious choice for a Microsoft affiliated game). I’ve taken the liberty of converting it to a more Mac- and iPod-friendly format, which you can download now →

Apple’s new second generation iPod Shuffle is undoubtedly cool, but being required to carry around a small plastic Dock to attach it is hardly a feature. The headphone jack doubles as a USB port, as the hardware is smart enough to know when headphones are plugged in and when it’s connected to a computer. With that in mind, Incipio designed a $6 ShuffleBud accessory which simply adapts the Shuffle’s audio/data jack to a standard rectangular USB plug, readying it for use with nearly any computer. The adapter is small enough to fit on a keychain for quick plug-and-play and still has all the features of the full size Dock. The price and size will surely make it a great stocking stuffer this holiday season.

iPodDisk is a clever and more intuitive take on the “get music off your iPod” application, which works by creating a virtual disk “containing” your iPod’s music. While the music is already fairly accessible by browsing through hidden folders, iPodDisk attaches a new volume filled with folders arranged like those of the iPod’s own nested menus:
iPodDisk → Artist → Album → Songs.

Copying a song or album off your iPod is as easy as opening the folders in the Finder (or Terminal), locating what you want, and dragging it to your Desktop. iPodDisk invisibly retrieves the file from it’s hidden location on the iPod, and hands it over as if nothing out of the ordinary is going on.

Best of all, there’s no search function when using iPodDisk. How is this beneficial? When the virtual disk is mounted, Spotlight indexes the volume and readies it for live searching, making finding your desired music effortless.

I’ve written about applications like this before (such as PodWorks), but this solution seems just a tad easier, and it’s free (donationware).

While working on Mac meet Xbox part 3, I kept referring to the Transmit and Xbox duo, so I decided to combine the two into a stylish Xbox Edition icon replacement, which includes a paste-able icon, .png image, a replacement .icns file, and the source .psd. Download the set.

To replace Transmit’s yellow-and-purple truck icon with the “new and improved” one, locate it in your Applications folder (or wherever you may have it stored), Control-click it, and choose Show Package Contents. Browse to the Contents/Resources folder, and find Transmit.icns. This is the icon file for the application, so rename it to Transmit.bak for safe keeping in the event you would like to return to the default icon. Drop in the replacement icns file provided in the pack, and name it Transmit.icns. You may need to relaunch the Finder or log out/in to get the full effect, after which Transmit will sport the new Xbox delivery truck icon!