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 from NewEgg, 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.

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

Having sold my PowerBook for a little less than I was hoping for, presumably due to the wear on the palm rest, I decided to take some precautions with my new Mac. Shortly after ordering the machine, I also purchased the Marware Protection Pack for the MacBook Pro. The one piece of the kit I was most interested in was the palm rest cover, made of a gray, rubbery-leathery material with just the right texture.

Applying the palm rest cover wasn’t too hard, but took some nudging to work out a few small air pockets that developed. Overall, I’m quite pleased with the feel of my new palm rest, and can work without worry that every minute the metal finish may be degrading under my wrists. Small bubbles aside, the only real drawback was that the display no longer closed easily, despite the advertisement that the cover didn’t interfere with the latch mechanism. I debated removing the palm rest cover altogether, but instead I looked more closely and saw that the small rubber nubs on the lid of the display were keeping the latch at too great a distance from the hook in the base. After peeling up the corner of the cover, I cut off two iny triangles, as seen at right. The display now closes as easily as before the cover was applied.

Overall, the kit is a nice improvement with a few little hangups, but it should really pay off in about three or four years when my palm rest is still in great condition! For all the photos, check out the ones I’ve tagged with ‘macbookpro’ on Flickr.