Saturday, December 25, 2010
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Weekly auto blog post (weekly)
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Weekly auto blog post (weekly)
-
Twitter joke trial: Paul Chambers loses appeal against conviction | UK news | The Guardian - Annotated
- Any ordinary person reading this would see it in that way and be alarmed
- Err, no, any normal person would see it as a joke, this judge is disconnected from reality in my opinion and I'm not alone.
- Any ordinary person reading this would see it in that way and be alarmed
- Any ordinary person reading this would see it in that way and be alarmed
- Any ordinary person reading this would see it in that way and be alarmed
-
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Weekly auto blog post (weekly)
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Saturday, October 09, 2010
Weekly auto blog post (weekly)
Saturday, October 02, 2010
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Weekly auto blog post (weekly)
-
Forget Red Dead Redemption, here's a much more realistic Wild West shooter
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Saturday, September 04, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Saturday, August 07, 2010
Weekly auto blog post (weekly)
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Weekly auto blog post (weekly)
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Saturday, July 03, 2010
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Weekly auto blog post (weekly)
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Weekly auto blog post (weekly)
Rating System - Customer Ratings and Reviews Solution and Q&A software
How I Met Your Motherboard: Tales of Early Computing » Ellie, 1984
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Saturday, May 08, 2010
Weekly auto blog post (weekly)
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
360 vs PS3 - My take
Hardware:-
Much has been said and argued about which console has the most raw processing power, so I won't dwell on that. What I'll concentrate on are the hardware features that made a difference to me. The PS3 is a lot quieter in operation, especially when accessing a disc. This is most noticeable when watching films (yes I watch films on the 360, fire-sale HD-DVD's were too tempting to turn up). Newer model 360's are quieter, but still not as quiet as the PS3.
The PS3 has Wi-Fi and wired networking built in and includes a Gigabit network adaptor rather than the standard 100mbit one in the 360. While this won't make any difference to gaming it may make a difference on your home network. I think most people would prefer a wired connection for lag free gaming but I guess the Wi-Fi is nice for people who can't get an Ethernet cable down to their TV.
Display wise both consoles support up to 1080p potentially (though most games fall back to the less demanding 720p or lower) The 360's scaling chip is regarded as being better though being limited to a 720p screen I can't really comment. For me the big plus is that the 360 supports VGA, which means I can get 720p on my old Hitachi TV. To get VGA fully working on the PS3 requires a very expensive (£100 or more!) HD Fury adaptor, so a definite win for the 360 on this category.
Storage wise the PS3 wins for value, using a standard hard drive which can be upgraded using any compatible off the shelf drive. Microsoft on the other hand, force you to buy hard drives from them else risk getting banned from Xbox live. Expect to pay extortionate amounts for 360 hard drives (and most Xbox peripherals). One advantage of the 360's hard drive design is portability. You can unclip the 360 hard drive and take it with you easily, not so the PS3's drive. Both consoles let you use USB to store save games and data, though the 360 imposes a 16gb storage cap, presumably to protect the sales of those ultra-expensive hard drives.
Of course, the PS3 has Blu-ray, This allows it to play lovely Blu-ray movies and gives games a lot of storage space. It also keeps the cost of the console high, the PS3 is still around £100 more expensive than the 360.
As for other hardware, the 360 wins for me, though your mileage may vary. I like that the 360 has a built in infra-red receiver, meaning I can add it to my universal remote control. Trying to control the Blu-ray playback with the PS3 pad is frustrating. Sure you can buy a remote, but if it's Bluetooth, forget using it with your universal remote.
The 360 also has a very handy rear USB port, meaning you can attach something like the live vision camera or attach a USB hub without clutter at the front of the console. The PS3 does have Bluetooth, which it uses for its wireless controllers. This means you can use a Bluetooth headset just like you can on a mobile phone. I find my Plantronics Bluetooth headset very comfortable to wear for extended durations, more so than my big old Motorola 360 headset. The 360 uses a proprietary standard that makes it hard for third parties to manufacture controllers/headsets without a special licence, though you do get a headset included with the console when you buy a 360.
Regarding controllers, I really don't prefer the layout of one over the other. I find the 360's D-Pad slips into diagonals too easily, whereas the PS3's is a little too fiddly on diagonals. The PS3's controllers have rechargeable battery packs built in and will charge from any USB port, you'll need to shell out for the same thing on the 360, so that is a win for the PS3.
There's the thorny issue of reliability, PS3's are perhaps a little unreliable, but the 360 is a disaster. The failure rate for launch consoles must be close to 100% now, I do not know of anyone who bought their 360 at or around launch time that is still using the same machine. The 360 does have a 3 year warranty now, but after 3 years if and when your console breaks down, expect to pay a hefty price for a repair that will in all likelihood only be temporary anyway.
Software:-
The 360 has proven to be the console that is easiest to develop for and tends to have the best versions of most of the multi-platform games. The PS3 does have some attractive exclusives such as Little Big Planet, God of War, Heavy Rain and Uncharted 1 and 2. Of course the 360 isn't short of blockbuster titles either, with Halo, Gears of War, Forza and Fable springing to mind. The wonderful Bayonetta might as well be a 360 exclusive too, considering how poor the PS3 version is.
As for the overall experience, the 360 wins hands down. The PS3's interface might be easier to navigate and it does include a web browser, but the whole front end feels a lot less polished than on the 360. Being able to quickly access your friends lists, message box and achievements at any time is a huge plus for the Microsoft console. Go into the PS store on the PS3, for example, and you're completely locked out of your friends list. The only time this really happens on the 360 is when you have to apply a system update, which are far smaller and less frequent than they are on the PS3. It's also bizarre how content has to download, then install on the PS3, again locking you out of the rest of the dashboard/console while it installs. I've also had several failed downloads from the PS store. The files downloaded but would not install, leaving "corrupted data" on the system. Downloading them without doing background download did eventually solve the problem.
Of course, you already know there's no party play, cross game voice chat or Windows Live Messenger support on the PS3. I also found that sometimes the console failed to tell me what game/activity my friends were doing, presumably this happens when an older game is being played. Voice quality could be better on both consoles really, but considering Live is a paid service it really should be better. I've used voice on Skype, Yahoo and Second Life and all three provide vastly better quality than Xbox live does. Almost forgot to mention, the 360 has custom soundtrack support for all games and can even use MP3's and play-lists you have stored on your network in any game. Creating play-lists for your games on your PC then using them instantly is a really neat feature.
I also vastly prefer the 360's marketplace. Every game has a demo version, unlike on the PS3 where scant few seem to offer this option. After a rocky start, the 360 Indy channel is really coming along too, offering the kind of unique niche gaming that traditionally was only on the PC.
I don't use my consoles as media centres because they are not flexible or powerful enough for my needs. A PC running Boxee will always be better for this purpose but of course not everyone has the time, money or patience to build and troubleshoot one. The PS3 is supposedly the better media centre (again lack of infra red rears its head in this equation). I pointed both consoles at a media directory on my network storage box and they both came back with a big list and were only able to play a fraction of the files. If you do want a cheap media centre/extender, it's worth remembering that the PS3 has both iPlayer and Bluray playback of course.
So there you have it, if you want the best gaming experience the 360 is still the console to get in my opinion. Yes you have to pay for Xbox live and yes the reliability of the console is still questionable, but using the two machines it's clear the PS3 is still playing catch up to a console that was designed around social multi-player gaming from the start.
Xbox RROD number 3 and console reliability in general
Needless to say I didn't exactly jump at this less than stellar offer and now I have a new Xbox 360 arcade, complete with HDMI socket. The new console is quieter, time will tell if it is more reliable.
In other news, I also modded my original Xbox with a bigger hard drive now that Xbox Live for the original Xbox has been turned off. It's very handy having access to all the best Xbox games just from the hard drive.
It's interesting how consoles have become less and less reliable. I always considered the PS2 to be poorly made. I've been using my PS2 a lot recently for playing Final Fantasy 12. FF13 doesn't sound worth the effort from the reviews, but 12 is really superb. I'm around 80 hours in and there's still lots left to do. I noticed that my PS2's controller input seems to be wearing out however. Sometimes the console fails to recognise the pad first time and a restart is necessary. I do take the controllers in and out rather a lot because I also use them on my PC with an adaptor. Weird thing is that they don't always work well connected to the PC now either. Wonder if there's some sort of design fault on the connectors?
I'm on my 2nd PS2, the first one died and stopped reading disks altogether, this one struggles to read disks but most of my games I run from the hard drive. Moving parts are always likely to wear out, I noticed my Saturn isn't as good at reading disks as it once was and amusingly my Super CD-ROM2 (PC Engine) only reads some games when it is upside down. On the bright side my Mega CD seems to be fine.
Out of the really old consoles, the most notoriously unreliable was the NES, with its design fault on the cartridge slot that resulted in the red blinking LED problem. I'm on my 2nd NES and I only bought my first around mid 2005.
Nothing lasts forever I suppose. DVD players seem particularly prone to failure, the cheaper ones only lasting a couple of years. Strangely, I remember most VHS recorders lasting much longer than this. Anyway, this post has turned into a bit of a ramble so I'll wrap it up for now, may your games consoles forever stay functional!
Saturday, May 01, 2010
Weekly auto blog post (weekly)
AmigaSYS official page - Amiga Computers, WinUAE, E-UAE, Amithlon, PocketPC, XBOX.
"A White Russian drink is a very popular cocktail. It has become even more popular after it was featured in the cult classic movie, "The Big Lebowski"."
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Underexposed shooters - Episode 1 - Apidya
Now, I've played a lot of games in my life and there's one or two shooters that never seem to get the credit they deserve. These types of game have always been more popular in Japan, which is perhaps why the pseudo Japanese yet German developed Apidya, released on the Amiga, never seems to get the respect or attention it deserves. It's not like there aren't lots of good shooters on the Amiga, but people tend to think of games like Blood Money, Agony or Project X when they think of classic Amiga shooters. Weirdly, Apidya seems to be often forgotten, even amongst people who were hardcore Amiga players back in the day.
Well, I am here today to tell you that if you love shooters, particularly horizontally scrolling shooters in the vein of Gradius, then you really must not miss Apidya. The games lead character is turned into a Bee (though the sprite always looked more like a wasp to me) in order to obtain an antidote for his girlfriend who's been attacked by the evil Hexaae's poisonous insects. Starting off in meadows edge, you'll be fighting your way past hordes of all kinds of creepy crawlies, as well as angry moles, a praying mantis, a huge screen filling fish (who's insides you can explore after killing him) as well as the more gruesome maggots who spring from the corpse of a dead rat.
The game is not only imaginative, it's also beautifully drawn and presented. Like most 2D shooters, visually it hasn't aged as badly as many of the early 3D shooters. Game-play wise there's little to fault, the theme of Bee vs other insect and animal life keeps the game feeling fresh, though only the most skilled players will make it past level 4 and through the boss-rush that follows. There's also some neat bonus levels to find too.
What most players remember from this game however is the soundtrack. Playing Apidya will certainly remind you just how completely ear shatteringly awesome the Amiga's sound chip was, especially compared to most other systems (Sega Megadrive, Atari ST) from around that era. Chris Hülsbeck's music is beautiful and lively throughout and fits in perfectly to the game.
This is one shooter you really must track down, it works just fine on UAE. Use your scaler of choice and set Cycle Exact mode to ON and sound emulated 100% accurate for best results. Set NTSC mode too for slightly faster game-play. Easily one of the best shooters on the Amiga, if you've not played it, buzz off and find a copy pronto.
The good - Presentation is fantastic, graphics are great, game-play is challenging and exciting, soundtrack is phenomenal
The bad - Death steals lots your weapons, if you're not some sort of shoot-em-up genius then on later levels you might find that dying once makes the odds of getting past the level just too high.
Check out this Apidya fan site if you want to find out more about the game - http://www.avians.net/~hawthorn/apidya/
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Videogame related birthday cakes
Once a geek always a geek. Sadly, last year my Godmother passed away. She was a fantastic lady who always had a story to tell and was always happy no matter what she was going through. One of her amazing talents was sculpting in the medium of icing, marzipan and fruit cake. As such, every year on my birthday as a child, she'd ask me what I wanted on my birthday cake. Me being me, you can probably figure out it wasn't Action Man or Manchester United....
Of all the cakes I had made, I love this one the best. Dizzy is made out of an actual Easter Egg, really awesome work, here's another picture:-
Who would have thought an egg would make for such a well loved videogame hero? The C64 love doesn't stop there of course:-
Creatures was one of the all time great C64 games, Apex really knew how to push the little machine. The fuzzies on the cake look more like the ones in the actual game than those on the box, pictured next to the cake.
Another picture of the Creatures cake, yes I believe those ARE flying saucers, yummy...
While usually my keyboard gets chocolate on it from my fingers, this time my fingers got chocolate on them from the keyboard. Perhaps the sweetest querty keyboard ever on this awesome Pac-Man cake!
A Pac-Man birthday cake is sweet in many, many ways. Moving on, next we have....
Lemmings must have been somewhat more difficult to render in icing and food colouring, nevertheless it's still a lovely job and instantly recognisable. Lemmings was a C64 game too, you know.
Another shot of the Lemmings cake. And finally...
Even though I am sure I had an Amiga at this point, I still chose the C64 game Mayhem in Monsterland to feature on my 15th birthday cake. This shows my impeccable gaming taste for choosing game-play over graphics once again. At 15, wasn't I getting a bit old for this kind of thing? Hell no of course not! Heck if someone offered to make me a Bayonetta Birthday cake I'd jump at the chance, so if you want to make me one just leave a comment and contact details and I'll get right back to you.
For those of you blown away by my amazing birthday cakes, you can get higher resolution versions from my flickr stream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/32165624@N04/
Who would have thought an egg would make for such a well loved videogame hero? The C64 love doesn't stop there of course:-
Creatures was one of the all time great C64 games, Apex really knew how to push the little machine. The fuzzies on the cake look more like the ones in the actual game than those on the box, pictured next to the cake.
Another picture of the Creatures cake, yes I believe those ARE flying saucers, yummy...
While usually my keyboard gets chocolate on it from my fingers, this time my fingers got chocolate on them from the keyboard. Perhaps the sweetest querty keyboard ever on this awesome Pac-Man cake!
A Pac-Man birthday cake is sweet in many, many ways. Moving on, next we have....
Lemmings must have been somewhat more difficult to render in icing and food colouring, nevertheless it's still a lovely job and instantly recognisable. Lemmings was a C64 game too, you know.
Another shot of the Lemmings cake. And finally...
Even though I am sure I had an Amiga at this point, I still chose the C64 game Mayhem in Monsterland to feature on my 15th birthday cake. This shows my impeccable gaming taste for choosing game-play over graphics once again. At 15, wasn't I getting a bit old for this kind of thing? Hell no of course not! Heck if someone offered to make me a Bayonetta Birthday cake I'd jump at the chance, so if you want to make me one just leave a comment and contact details and I'll get right back to you.
For those of you blown away by my amazing birthday cakes, you can get higher resolution versions from my flickr stream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/32165624@N04/
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Weekly auto blog post (weekly)
http://project64.c64.org/hw/1084s%20Monitor.txt
"X X "
Vesalia Online - The Amiga & Retro Computing Store (Est. 1987)
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Saturday, April 03, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Weekly auto blog post (weekly)
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Saturday, March 06, 2010
Weekly auto blog post (weekly)
WSUS Offline Update - Update Microsoft Windows and Office without an Internet connection
BBC News - Lords force rethink of government's online piracy plans - Annotated
- I believe this is going to send a powerful message... that we do not believe in censoring the internet
- - post by buckoa51
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl Game Guide - Game Guides at GameSpot
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl Game Guide
Chromium Browser VM project - The worlds most secure web browser.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Weekly auto blog post (weekly)
The Windows Club's Best Windows Website Contest 2009 Announced. | The Windows Club
Ever want to use your Sixaxis on your PC? - PlayStation®3 General - PlayStation.com Forums
NeoStore.com - Distributor of Mtron Solid State Disks, MemoRight SSDs, & SNK Neo-Geo video games.
GameEx - Game Front End and HTPC Software > About > About GameEx
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Weekly auto blog post (weekly)
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
A tale of three SATA caddies
- They can use inexpensive 3.5 inch SATA hard drives without needing an external power supply, since the caddy tray provides power from the computers power supply.
- They fit inside the computer, therefore they do not clutter up your desk or position themselves somewhere where they can easily be knocked or accidentally disconnected during a backup.
- Because they are SATA, data transfer rates are higher, this is a major plus for bigger backups.
Unfortunately however, E-Buyer suddenly stopped supplying the Plexus caddies altogether. This left me in something of a dilemma, at least USB and ESATA are standard parts, a Plexus SATA tray caddy is not. I'd invested in several of these drives for backup and data storage, so I set out looking for a compatible alternative.
Comparing pictures available on the internet yielded some interesting results. Caddies supplied by Lindy Electronics and by Pluscom looked strangely familiar, even down to the zig zag pattern on the side of the tray. I decided this warranted further investigation so I ordered a caddy from Lindy and a friend who had also adopted the caddy system ordered one of the Pluscom models.
Comparing the three, they do look very similar. There are some notable differences however:-
The (apparently discontinued) Plexus caddies have a ribbon cable to connect the SATA and power cables to the drive, whereas the other caddies simply have a connector that the drive must slide onto. This means that the Plexus caddies can accommodate non standard SATA drives including 2.5 inch drives. This is very convenient if you ever repair computers and need to inspect hard drives in another machine. However, since the physical dimensions of the caddy are designed for 3.5inch drives, a 2.5inch drive cannot be screwed in place so you probably wouldn't want to do this as a permanent solution.
The Lindy caddy has a different style of handle, but is otherwise identical, apart from the price which is as much as 4 times higher.
The Pluscom caddies are the most different. There's an extra plastic guide rail on the side of the caddy. The Pluscom tray has been redesigned slightly to use this. What this means is that the Pluscom trays are unable to accept the Lindy or Plexus caddies, but the Pluscom caddies fit just fine in the Lindy or Plexus trays.
From my observations, it seems like the caddies are all manufactured at the same factory, with minor modifications according to each resellers spec. Funnily enough, the best caddies (the Plexus ones) also proved to be the cheapest.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Trials HD - Its lack of multi player is perplexing
I finally got around to buying the excellent Xbox Live Arcade game, Trials HD. For those of you who have not played it, the game involves trying to ride a motorcycle across insanely deadly ramps and obstacles without falling to a grizzly death. Although the visuals are 3D, the gameplay is strictly 2D, so all you have to worry about is accelerate, brake and leaning backwards and forwards, making this one game that's completely trivial to play but challenging to master. The game is a riot especially with friends (and a few beers on hand). All the more reason why I don't understand why there was no multi player mode of any kind put into the game. Even if full on split screen or XBL multi player was outside of the budget of the game, it would have been trivial to implement a "hotseat" (take it in turns to beat your friends time) type of mode. Anyone who has played the excellent Trackmania hotseat mode will know what I mean. In spite of this oversight, I'd still highly recommend the game to anyone.Trials HD is (to my mind anyway) a remake/re-imagining of the old 8 bit classics, Kickstart and Kickstart 2. It's great to see an old game concept bought back to life with new console technology, but with the core gameplay mechanics left in tact. I don't think Kickstart/Trials would have worked in full on 3D, lining up the jumps and ramps would just have been too frustrating.
I can think of a few other 8/16bit classics that should be given a fantastic new remake, but I'll save that for another blog post.
Weekly auto blog post (weekly)
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Monday, January 18, 2010
New look for 2010
So I've given the old blog a bit of a facelift for 2010, so my loyal readers (all two of them lol) hope you like the new look better.
You may have noticed I closed one of my websites, lets-play-ds.com is no more. I felt that trying to cover the entire world of Nintendo DS was simply too much for one person. I am considering another videogame related website but it will be on a more narrow focus. I did enjoy reviewing games for the site but I guess my standards are too high, I like to spend at least a day playing them :)
I kept a copy of the site and I'm considering doing more reviews on here, just because I like writing reviews, but of course it is all time permitting. Top-Windows-Tutorials.com is still taking big chunks of my time but it's really starting to roll now, soon I will be on minimum wage!
You may have noticed I closed one of my websites, lets-play-ds.com is no more. I felt that trying to cover the entire world of Nintendo DS was simply too much for one person. I am considering another videogame related website but it will be on a more narrow focus. I did enjoy reviewing games for the site but I guess my standards are too high, I like to spend at least a day playing them :)
I kept a copy of the site and I'm considering doing more reviews on here, just because I like writing reviews, but of course it is all time permitting. Top-Windows-Tutorials.com is still taking big chunks of my time but it's really starting to roll now, soon I will be on minimum wage!
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Weekly auto blog post (weekly)
Nice little point and click adventure - Get it on Impulse :)
RKO: The Def Guide to C64 MP3 remakes. I bet you can't do this on a SID.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Saturday, January 09, 2010
Weekly auto blog post (weekly)
GDC: Why OnLive Can't Possibly Work Article - Page 2 | PC | Eurogamer
- Latency. I can only see one way to make this work and guarantee the necessary quality of service, and that's to adopt an IPTV-style model
- ut even in this scenario, practically, I still can't see it happening
Amazing console collection (thanks @corrosive6809)
GAF's Wii Homebrew Tutorial: Welcome to GAF's Wii Homebrew Tutorial
Edge Magazine - Video Games, Game News, and Gaming Jobs | Edge Online
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
