I've discovered something very interesting about Windows Live passwords. They get truncated after 16 characters. Don't believe me? Go to hotmail.com and start inputting characters into the password box. It should stop accepting characters after 16.

I found this out while creating a new Live ID and transferring my XBox Live gamertag over to the new email address. While inputting trying to authenticate, I kept getting errors. Eventually I went back the browser and discovered the character limitation. Sure enough, when I put in the first 16 characters on my XBox, it accepted it happily.

This isn't a scary issue by any means, but it is a weird limitation to put in place. I tend to prefer longer passwords for anything that could hold sensitive information, like an email address (even though I'm only using this account for XBox Live). If anything, I was mostly frustrated that I was never told it would be truncated, hence the failed authentication attempts on the XBox.

Sometime soon, hopefully tonight, I will be closing off my hosting services with MediaTemple. Not because they're a bad host, but because I don't really want to spend $20 to host a link blog (which I've now replaced with Google Readers shared feed) and a simple GeoIP service to show dots on a map.

I haven't decided what to do with the content of my former link blog. There's options ranging from importing it to this blog, to nuking it, to selectively sharing some links on Google Reader. I'm not sure yet, but a MySQL dump will preserve it at least temporarily.

The map on the other hand was a fun project in college that just doesn't make sense to show publicly. I get a nice map from Google Analytics to show me locations of my visitors. That said... I think I may, at some point, simplify the codebase into a AS3 component and throw it onto Github.

The beauty of this is that I'll be saving $20/mo and still produce the same amount of content (maybe even more if I open source the map). The only downside to this is that I'll lose a production place to launch projects. However, I don't have any on the go that couldn't be placed on Viviti, and when I do, it's easy to re-open an account.

I picked up a Logitech Performance Mouse MX at Best Buy thanks to a generous Boxing Week Sale. It'll be an upgrade for my MX Revolution, which I'll take to work. And I gotta say, though it's a nice upgrade, the new stuff definitely won't overwhelm a user of the old MX generation.

As you can see in the image, it's mostly looking the same, though a bit more stylish. I think the side button layout is a bit improved, though I'm not sure switching the side scroller for a zoom button was a good idea. The USB plug is also tiny... really, really tiny. When it's plugged into my keyboard, I can't even see it sticking out. As an added plus, if I buy another wireless device from Logitech, it'll work with the USB plug I'm already using.

Charging is also very different with this mouse, in a very good way. The MX Revolution used a cradle charging system, which meant you couldn't use the mouse while it charged. This time around, it's charged via a USB cable so you can continue using your mouse while it charges. It's a huge plus, but there's two weaknesses. You either need to use a second USB port, switch the plug with the cable, or use a USB AC adapter. And secondly, when the cable is plugged in, it adds a lot more drag and resistance than a typical wired mouse.

Finally... does Dark Field, the special laser that lets it work on glass, actually work? Yes! I tried the mouse on damn near anything I could find and it worked. I'm sure it doesn't work on some things, but it worked on everything I'd ever think or want to use it on. And for those people that love to use their laptops in bed, it works great on blankets or sheets.

That said. It's not a huge improvement over the MX Revolution. It's better, but it's not the leap forward that the MX was over previous mice. I look forward to killing dragons in Dragon Age with it while playing on glass, or something... 

Icons are aften very beautiful, in both terms of appearance and what they represent. They're allowing you to see what an application or file is just by glancing at it. The iPhone does a great job of showcasing icons in a neatly aligned grid.

Sales are awesome. You save money on something you generally want (unless you're compulsive about buying stuff on sale). That's awesome. What's interesting is when developers learned they could get an extra ounce of marketing by advertising their sale in their applications icon.

I'll admit, it's clever marketing. It probably does help generate additional sales, which is hopefully increasing their revenue.

I'll also admit, it's really annoying seeing that sale badge when the application is on my phone. That icon will continue to display the badge until the next update (or perhaps until you force a new download, which I'm sure most people are too lazy to do). Maybe I'm the only one that finds these icons irritating, but I'll usually remove an application that has a badge.

I'm sure there's ways around this... like an officially supported sale section of the app store? Rejecting applications using the badges would be my preferred deterrent, but I could live with a sale section. And if a developer that likes to use these sale badges reads this, please stop making my homescreen less pretty.

Just a few links I've found in a past couple days.

• Flex Image Cropping Component - A slick component for cropping images.
• Beginner’s Guide to Skinning your Flex 4 Application or AIR Application - Guide for skinning a Flex 4 based application.
• Image Manipulation in Flex - In depth article on image manipulation in AS3
• as3cannonball - Project page for as3cannonball, a library for DOM, HTML and CSS.

I'll probably post these weekly or monthly depending on how much time I get with Flash and Flex.

At work, Jerrett asked how you can switch between buttons in a dialog using the keyboard. We were all a little stumped and couldn't figure it out. It's not a solution of using certain keys or modifiers, you have to change a system setting. Just open up the Keyboard panel of System Preferences, click on the Keyboard Shortcuts tab and change the Full Keyboard Access option to All Controls (see below).

With that option changed, you can tab between the various options in a prompt dialog, like so:

It should probably be the default setting, but it's not. At least now you can stick to using the keyboard more often... having to use the mouse when one of those pop-up can really kill your flow.

Well, it's another season of hockey and the first weekend was broadcast online, for free on NHL Gamecenter. It was a great test to see what they've done in the past year to make things better. And, well, the interface is definitely nice. There's a lot more focus on the game video and it looks great.

The streams are smooth at 1600 kbps and look better than standard TV broadcasts. It's really quite impressive. If you want to watch a team you probably don't care about. Yep, blackout policy is exactly the same. It's still impossible for me to watch a Vancouver Canucks game as it's more than likely being broadcast in my area. So once again NHL GameCenter is an amazing product, but failing due to restrictions that just don't make sense.

Yes, NHL, I would be willing to pay you $200 to watch all 82 games of the Canucks live (plus the other benefits you offer). And now I know I'm not the only person who feels this way. The most popular page on my blog since the start of the season is: Epic Fail: NHL GameCenter.