Bungie and Microsoft released three new maps for Halo 3 today, including “Standoff,” a scenic outdoor battle environment, and “Foundry,” a map designed with the built-in Forge level editor in mind. Bungie stated that they would have a completely empty version of the map available soon, but I went ahead and deleted all the objects in the map and published it so others could start quickly creating custom map variants, perhaps to bring back old favorites (Hang ‘Em High, anyone?) or create something completely new and different.

You can download the empty map file from my Bungie.net File Share (note the seamless “Download to Halo 3″ link), or by browsing my File Share under the Gamertag “Mac Minded”. Now go create and have fun!

For your coding enjoyment — just double-click to open and use with TextMate. Shown using anti-aliased Bitstream Vera Sans Mono at 12pt.

Download the Theme

After getting back to Boot Camp from a dual-boot Mac OS X system, I remembered how disappointing it was that I couldn’t rename the Windows NTFS volume from “Untitled” to something more appropriate. The Garbage In Garbage Out blog has a tip that will accomplish the next best thing: Hide the Boot Camp volume from your Desktop.

Using the SetFile utility from the Developer Tools package that came with your Mac (on the second disc), you can effectively remove the volume from view in the Finder, while not affecting its normal operation or visibility anywhere else in the system. Great tip!

In the past, I’ve had the best luck with Seagate brand hard drives — avoiding Maxtor like the plague — but just recently I had a 320 GB Seagate SATA drive start failing on me. It started with what sounded like a few small read/write head hiccups, and turned into widespread sector failure, causing several diagnostic utilities to red flag the drive.

I bought the drive new NewEgg (where I get almost all my hardware), but they referred me to Seagate for support and returns. With no other alternatives available and a failing drive on my hands, I got in touch with Seagate and filled out their online return merchandise form. Just a few days after shipping off the dying drive, I received an email letting me know that a brand new drive was on its way to me. I’m happy to be kept in the loop while the return is in progress, and I’ll update this post when I get the new drive!

While I had to cover the nominal shipping costs myself, I feel compelled to note how easy and fast their service is. I’m attempting to make a habit of documenting good customer service as well as the bad. After having dealt with some online returns that are a real hassle, Seagate is a refreshing change from some of the other rather lame options out there.

8/15/07 Update
Received an entirely different “Certified Repaired” hard drive in a very well packed box! It works great and passes all my tests!