Chaosology Net

Is this still here?

2010-05-01T00:22:00.005+01:00

Has it really been 3 years since I last posted here?

Yes.

That's not good. What happened to my plan to record my thoughts and to keep updating my site?
That's the problem with being lazy, it just keeps getting worse and worse with no end in sight until you just have to say enough is enough and pull your finger out.
Will I finally keep this site up to date? I don't know. I hope I do.

I'll finish for now with a picture of my cat Athena. It seems fitting to put a picture of a cat on the internet, though this one is fairly unique as she's not trying to get a cheeseburger.

Happiness is a...

2007-08-27T10:59:00.000+01:00

Xbox 360 Elite :)

I finally jumped onto Microsoft's next gen offering. I'd been waiting for Halo 3 to be released and seeing as the price cuts have happened and I don't reckon there be another one in a months time, I've gone and got myself the Elite along with Gears of War and Bioshock.

I can finally play past the first level of Gears - I've done it at least 3 times now on my various friends consoles :P

To help with the 360 experience I went and brought myself a 32inch HDTV for a quite respectable price of £499 - though I went though a small dose of hell attaching it to the wall. The wall mount kit I brought was Vesa certified but the TV used larger bolt holes then Vesa standard. Seeing as the next model stand was double the price (£140) I decided to go and buy larger bolts. I managed to find some that fit, but then discovered they wouldn't go though the holes on the mounting plate (insert frustrated grunt here). Thankfully I have a good metal drill bit set that enlarged the holes quite easily. So I finally (seem to be using that word a lot this post) got the mounting plate on the back of the TV - I then turned my attention to getting the backing plate onto the wall.

This went well enough at first. The drill powered though the wall to the correct depth, the wall plugs slid in snugly. The plate went up, the screws went in - halfway. Try as I might I couldn't get the damn things to turn any more. I had to result to my claw hammer to pound the things in - that was a satisfying moment.

I made sure all the cables where connected and secured to the back of the TV and hooked it to the wall - and it was good - it didn't come crashing down :D

I then finally (last time I swear) allowed myself to connect the Elite and try it out.

I even logged on to Xbox live and got my gamer tag - amazingly I managed to get my online name - Chaos Net. I thought that would of been taken ages ago :)

Right enough chatter, I've got to finish sorting out this place (it's a junk heap at the moment this room) and then I can play some Bioshock.

To Rapture!

Working Working Working

2007-08-06T21:08:00.000+01:00

Man doesn't time fly?

Three months have passed since I started working at Google, I still can't believe it. Work has settled into a nice routine and I feel more confident in what I'm doing. Some may say that getting a routine so soon is an indication that I'll soon be getting bored with the job, but this is Google for crying out loud! I think I'm onto a good thing :P

So what else has been going on since I last posted? Well I've seen the Transformers movie - awesome, though more time should of been spent on the robots and not the humans in my view. I've also seen the latest Harry Potter movie - twice. I love that series, I'm looking forward to see how they are going to fit all that's happened in the last 2 books into the last 2 movies. And yes I have of course read and finished the last book. I am in fact reading it again :D

Chaosology.Net

2007-07-09T11:43:00.000+01:00

Well, there have been a few changes of late haven't there.

The biggest one is that I know have my own domain and web space. It's PHP enabled, so like I said I would, I'm going to redesign the whole site.

What you see at the moment is just the bare bones, background, title bar, blog - that's it.

For now...

I'm Back

2007-07-04T10:56:00.000+01:00

I think the title says it all - after canceling my subscription to Virgin and signing up for Sky, I'm finally online again - it's been an age.

There are a few changes to get used to though. The biggest one is the fact that I don't have any webspace at the moment - Sky don't seem to offer any. so that means until such a time that I decide to buy some, this site will be a blog only. I think the template I've chosen is a good enough placeholder for now, but I do miss my old background.

The thing is though - as much as I miss the old background, if I where to buy webspace I would want to redo the entire site - a complete graphical and style overhaul, and - after a bit or relearning - php as well.

Depending on how much space I buy I may also expand the site too. Currently it is/was primarily a site dedicated to Final Fantasy VII - one of my top rated games of all time. I do feel however that I could do a lot for the Legend of Zelda series too - I would have to make a choice about which one to do though - maybe I should do a selection of them.

Decisions decisions...

Still Working

2007-05-21T15:00:00.000+01:00

Okay, once again I've left my blog alone for nearly a month, but I've actually made a few changes for this update.

The first thing I've done is uploaded all my previous blog entries into Blogger, you can now read my thoughts dating back to April of 2005 - it does show though how bad I am at posting stuff. This will be my 40th post in 2 years.

Ouch.

I had a read myself and had in fact forgotten about some of the stuff I'd written about, it felt neat catching up with myself :)

The other thing I have done this update is update my CSS so my blog container can auto adjust itself to the size of the browser it's in (Firefox for preference - IE7 sucks). It's pretty neat, it even resizes the blog box on the fly in real time:)

Right, I think it's time to get back to work, though I've still yet to be issued with my login details after 3 weeks - oh well - it's going to have to be another day of surfing the neat and being paid for it :P

Work and Play

2007-04-30T14:19:00.000+01:00

So... It's been a while...

What could of it been to keep me from posting (apart from my general laziness). Well there have been a few things keeping me busy these past few weeks. The biggest news is that tomorrow I'm starting a new job, a permanent role at that, none of this contract rubbish I've been forced to endure these past few months. I'll be working for a company called STS International Inc.
There I'll be working on an IT helpdesk and making reports to them about what goes on each week - oh as for why they need reports about something that is in house - well they don't , but I won't be working in house - I'll be working at Googles house. That's right, STS want me to work as their eyes and ears at Google. I think I didn't stop grinning for 4 hours after I got the news I was hired :)

So on to other matters. I've been spending a bit of money lately, a fair bit of it on Nintendo. I have now added The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past and Lylat Wars (Starfox 64 to the Americans) to my Wii VC collection. I also have brought the Classic Controller and the Godfather: Blackhand Edition.

First off I'm going to talk about the Classic Controller.
Overall I'm happy with my purchase. The controller has a nice firm feel to it, the buttons are responsive and the size of it fits neatly in my hands. That's not to say this thing is perfect though, there are a couple of minor gripes - and I do mean minor.

As you can see in the picture to the side it has a wire coming out of it - this hooks up to the Wiimote, now this is only a minor gripe seeing as how you aren't teethed to the console but rather the Wiimote, but still - come on Nintendo, this is the 21st century, ditch the wires. Also for some reason the shoulder buttons are analogues.

These I just don't get - this controller is meant for use primarily with the Wii VC, Nes Snes and the like i.e before analogue buttons - so why put them on here - it messes up twitch response in the older games relying on the shoulder buttons - Do you have any idea how hard it is to do a barrel role with this thing? Very Hard is the answer. Oh yes - not really a controller issue per say but it would be nice if we could re-assign the buttons in the Wii VC. Lylat wars is tough to play using this controller as the blaster is assigned to A and boost is assigned to Y, meaning that you can't boost forward and keep blasting at the same time - using the Gamecube pad for Lylat Wars works very well in this manner.

There are 2 odd things to note about the Classic Controller though. The Z trigger on the N64 pad has been split in 2 - 'ZL' and 'ZR' for this controller - a bit odd as I can't think what games ever needed four shoulder buttons pre-playstation. Still they are good normal buttons - what L and R needed to be. The 2nd odd thing is on the back of the pad. You might of noticed the 5th button along the top at the centre of the pad, well that is a release button for a couple of catches on the back of the pad - catches for what? Who can say?

As I mentioned a moment ago I've also brought the Wii version of the Godfather. I have to say I am really enjoying this game on the Wii - despite it being another port. The big fear for the Wii is that lot of game developers are simply going to start porting PS2 games onto the Wii having just tweaked the controls to take advantage of the Wiimote - and to be fair that's just what happened here. The graphics are the same as the last gen versions (though the explosions have been enhanced) but the addition of the Wii controls really make a big difference to this game - there is no feeling in the world that can describe how good it is to extort a business by mimicking the actual motion of slamming a guys head into the cash register and having it happen on screen. I haven't had much chance to play this game a lot yet - I've only just become an enforcer for the family, but I can see this eating away my free time for some time to come.

At least after I've finished Final Fantasy XII that is - I'm almost done, another good day at it should see my though :)

2007-02-25T15:24:00.000Z

I had to move stuff around again.

Well, my room is almost done (again). I got my sisters old sofa in here to chill out on only to find it puts me too close to the TV - about 2 feet away. Not really a problem for my older consoles, but a problem fro the Wii. It was just to close and the pointer function just kept losing itself. So I swapped the TV and PC around and I now have a 4 foot gap between the sofa and TV, the Wii pointer function is once again working fine :)

I've now also had a chance to start playing the Ocarina of Time again via the VC on Wii. It's amazing, it seems so much more vibrant then the original N64 version. That's not to say there isn't a couple of things wrong. First, and I'm not to sure about this one, the frame rate seems a bit off. It may be nothing. It could just be a case of having got used to the emulated NSTC version I have compared to the PAL original. After playing though to the 2nd dungeon it seems fine though.

The 2nd thing you can't get away from though is that there is no rumble support. Yep that's right, the Stone Of Agony will no longer work. Now there aren't many N64 games on the VC yet - there are 3 of them. Mario 64 which had no rumble, Mario Kart 64 which I never owned and have only heard so far about how it can't save the ghost data (come on Nintendo, if Sony can use virtual memory cards for PS1 games on the PS3 you can make virtual memory packs for N64 games on VC), and OoT, so it's hard to say how well the N64 is supported. I just want to know what the hell Nintendo think they are playing at! No rumble support!

How could they not manage to get this one right. There are a half dozen N64 emulators out on the web and all of them have pluggins that allow the rumble to be used, I know that the Classic controller doesn't have rumble ability but the Gamecube pad does, how could Nintendo not put in a feature that a bunch of people coding at their homes have managed to replicate for use on any rumble enabled control pad?

Overall I'm happy with my first VC purchase, but it is a bit dishearting that the official Nintendo version can't in fact match up to the versions you can find on the web for nothing. Yes the VC looks and sounds great, but it just feels a little incomplete.

On to other matters. for all those out there who'd love to have there Mii on their PC there are only 3 ways to really go about it. Photograph you TV (very tricky), transfer you Mii via bluetooth (very tricky) or use this website www.miieditor.com (very easy).
I've seen flash Mii editors before but quite frankly they have been awful. This one however faithfully recreates the Mii interface on the Mii with all the same options. It can even save the binary file that the Wii uses to store Miis so you transfer you creations to you Wii if your wanted too :D

Right, time to get back to gaming - I have a couple of hard choices to make though. I've been wanting to play OoT again for a while now and I'm happy that it finally came out on VC, it's just a bit unfortunate that Final Fantasy XII got posted though my door on Friday as well. Not to mention the fact that I've also got back into playing the Silent Hill and Resident Evil series too.

I need more time in the day.

ZELDA!

2007-02-23T12:54:00.000Z

For once there are a few things I'd like to talk about, but they'll have to wait as I've just found out that Zelda: Ocarina of Time has just come out on the Wii Virtual Console. I've downloaded it but I've made myself sware that I won't play it until my room is fit for habitation (I'm currently moving furniture about).

The room is almost ready but there is a lot of little stuff to pick up and put aware - that bit always takes the longest. I'm going to talk more when I'm done.

eep!

2007-02-12T15:37:00.000Z

I sware I don't do it on purpose, I do mean to keep this blog up to date, but it's hard to write about stuff when nothing is really going on in your life.

I've been looking for a new job for a few months now and I'm finally getting some responses. All in all though it puts a rather bland face on my blog. How much could you write about getting up, searching the job websites, applying for a few jobs and then spending the rest of the day doing nothing much at all.

I'll admit that sitting around at home and doing nothing drives me crazy, but after a while it's hard to see what you can do about it. I know many people would just say "You've got tons of free time on your hands. You could be doing lots of things". This is true, but some some weird paradox I only seem to get things done when I have other things to do. For example I've been meaning to get back into drawing, during the time I was working I produced quite a few pieces I was happy with. Now that I'm not working I haven't picked up a pencil in what feels like an age. The same is true about other projects I try to do. If I'm working I'm somehow able to fit them in my schedule, but if I'm not the projects don't even get looked out - messed up huh?

This is not to say that I spend the whole day doing nothing at all though. My computer's files have never been so organised and my bedroom has never been so uncluttered before. I just wish I could tap into the creative energies I feel when I'm working when I'm not working - I'd be able to get so much more done.

That's all I can really think about for this update. I have to do better then this...

Happy New Year

2007-01-02T12:32:00.000Z

Happy New Year.

Well, 2006 is over and 2007 is upon us - I was going to say some deep stuff about the passage of time and its influences on the human condition, but I'm not that deep.

What I will say is that I have beaten Twilight Princess for the Wii and I'm finding it very hard not to start playing it again from scratch :P

I even went though all 50 floors of the Cave of Ordeals - I don't know why so many people where adamant that you needed all heart containers, the giant wallet and the magic armour though (I had them - didn't need them). I only needed to use 1 blue potion near the end just before fighting 3 Darknuts (now there was a fun battle). I might replay Ocarina of Time again but I'm slightly torn about that - I don't have the N64 anymore so that's out the window. I can play it on my PC emulated, and that works pretty well - the only blip really there is using the Lens of Truth which obscures things like enemies when I use it :S

Then there is the special collectors edition that plays on the Gamecube, but I always found saving on that to be a hassle compared to the N64 version - it's stupid I know but I always found the pause as it saved a bit jarring.

Then there is the option to wait for it to be released on the Wii Virtual Console. I'm defiantly going to get it when it does come out (Along with all the other Zelda games) - but should I wait to play it until it does? Barring in mind we have no idea when it's likely to be released :(

Of course I could just play some other games...

Twilight Princess

2006-12-16T09:50:00.000Z

I tried - I really did try.

I promised myself that I would play the other games I got for my Wii and not just play Zelda all the time.

I really was fooling myself with that promise.

It isn't that the other games aren't good - they are. It's just that after waiting for 3 years for Twilight Princess (TP) to come out it kinda drew all my attention to itself - for good reason.

I'm not going to go into too much detail, others have already done that, besides I haven't finished the game yet (though I have played for over 24 hours now). I can quite honestly say that this latest Zelda is an Ocarina of Time (OoT) beater. It's no one thing that makes it better, just lots of small things which where done in OoT but are just done better in TP - Like horse riding, which I am going to be talking about.

When I first rode Epona in OoT it was a wonderful feeling. I spent hours just riding around shooting down Poes - but that did soon fade, there was nothing else to do in OoT's Hyrule field. As Adult Link the field was empty. The only things to do was to catch the 10 Poe ghosts and a couple of quick dashes across the field in a couple of timed events. Epona herself could only be used in the Field and the small areas in Lon Lon Ranch, Lake Hylia and the Gerudo's Fortress. In TP it is a different story. Hyrule field is teeming with life (most of which you can kill), the land is more varied, you can ride Epona into the villages, you can use many of your items while riding Epona (originally a glitch in OoT - now brought back as a feature).

What gets me though is that some people are complaining that about the fact Hyrule field is broken up and that the screen fades away when crossing the borders. To those people I say - Grow up. If you take a moment to actually play without looking for things to moan about you'll see that the whole of Hyrule Field is several times larger then that of OoT. In fact one of the sections of field is as large as the original field in OoT. There is more to do thanks to the fact the field is actually populated and it has better weather as well. The other argument I hear is how it's a badly designed field as it's no longer a central hub.

This point may almost have been valid - almost - if not for the fact that you start off with Epona (yes I know you lose her for a bit - I'm getting to that). In OoT Hyrule field was important as a hub - during the time you was playing as Child Link - it was the only way for you to get around. As you progressed though the game it's importance lessened as you learnt the Ocarina songs that acted as Warp points. With those songs you didn't need to run or ride though the field at all - apart from a few specific insistences.

With TP Nintendo must of realised this, so they made the field bigger and more varied to keep players in it for longer, and just like early OoT segments there are times when you don't have Epona and have to go though the field on foot - or should that be paw. You lose Epona for a bit early on but that's okay as at that stage you are playing the wolf and while you are not as fast as Epona you are much faster then when Link is on 2 Feet, and as the segments when you are a wolf are about having you travel specifically from one place to another to restore the light the whole The-field-should-be-a-hub-to-get-to-places issue fades away into the either.

So there you have it - my take on Horse riding around the fields in Twilight princess. I could of gone into detail about the controls or the graphics, but as I said earlier, those aspects of the game have been gone over to the death (My quick review - awesome graphics and the controls for the Wii version are fine - I've not had one single problem aiming my bow and arrow with the Wii-mote). Overall my Final verdict would be - Buy It!

Wii

2006-12-09T01:54:00.000Z

I have a Wii

I have been playing it for most of the day. I am tired. I am still playing Wii.

Twilight Princess is brilliant, and I'm just only making my way though the first dungeon.
Rayman is a fun title which killed my arms on the first mini game.
Wii Sports is a lot of fun, though I think the computer plays way too good during baseball.
Red Steel I think will take a bit of getting used to, it reminds me of how hard it was to play fps with analogue sticks when they where first introduced. But we learned how to use those so I have no doubt in my mind that I will get the hang of Red Steel.

I'm not going to buy any virtual console games for a while - I'm broke, plus I'm probably going to wait till they have the Snes/N64 Zeldas on there and I have a classic controller as well.

It's now 2am, I need some sleep as I have an early start tomorrow (playing Zelda).

Blogger

2006-11-21T17:24:00.000Z

Time for some change. Spurred on by my mate Tiger, I've made an account with blogger and I'm in the process of customising it for my site. Expect some disruption as I tweak this thing.

ARGH! x 2

2006-11-03T20:00:00.000Z

The last few weeks have not been kind.

A while back I brought a Nvidia 6600GT AGP card for my system. My old card - a G-Force 5600 - was starting to show its age while playing the newer games. So I did some research and the 6600GT seemed to be the right card for me.

I now know better

I brought alongside it a new power supply unit (PSU) to power it as the AGP version of the 6600GT requires a lot of power. I fitted the PSU first and made sure everything was working ok. I then took out the old GPU and put in my new 6600GT. It didn't work. It was completely dead. The system didn't even POST to the BIOS (for those of you who don't know what all these acronyms mean - tough - that's what Google is for). So I send it back and decide to hold off on getting a new card for a bit. I keep the PSU.

Fast forward 2 months later and thoughts of upgrading are again in my mind. I once again do some research and the 6600GT is still the best card in my price range. So I once again take a gamble and order the card. I get it, install it, and lo, it works.

Kind of.

There is an interesting anomaly while the card is handling 2D displays. Every so often what appears to be a single pixel high line of static will flash on the screen. 'Ok' I thought 'Let's check all the usual channels and see what's wrong' So after many tests I find out that the card is ever so slightly incompatible with my mother board. 3D worked fine, only 2D messed about. It also seemed video caused my system a bit of a headache as well, sometimes freezing the system and causing a BSOD.

So it was crunch time. I can't afford a different card and the 3D is running perfect - BF2 never looked so good on my system. Do I return the 6600GT and put back the old 5600, or do I put up with the static flashing lines and system instability until I can afford to build a whole new system. I decide to put up with it.

Man that was a mistake.

After a few months with the 6600GT I'm starting to be able to ignore the static line flash, but there was something I couldn't ignore. I had started to get a message saying the graphics card wasn't getting enough power and was therefore being throttled back to prevent it from damaging itself. Now this would be fine if it actually did it. It didn't. If a game I was playing pulled just the wrong amount of power it would throw up 30+ of these messages. It got to the point where it would put up the message just after I turned the system on.

Now there is a know issue with this on certain Nvidia drivers so I try reinstalling them again hoping it'll sort itself out. It doesn't. So I borrow an electrical multimeter and test the PSU. It turns out it's not putting out enough amperage to cope with the 6600GT. So it's down to PC world to buy a new PSU. I decide to go with a Jeantech 700W beast of a PSU figuring I might as well make sure I'll be able to run everything and not have to worry. I put it in and the warning messages disappear. 'Finally' I think to myself 'my system is stable again'.

Three guesses what happened next.

To all those that said the PSU started to act up give your self's a pat on the back. Though it didn't seem to be the PSU at first.

While the system was up and running the Jeantech performed perfectly, not a single problem.

While it was running...

About a week after getting the new PSU I had turned off the system for an hour as I wasn't using it - I had no downloads active and I wasn't listening to music. Might as well give the old girl a bit of rest. I come back and turn her on - the system POSTs, but then instead of loading Windows the screen just stays lit. The only indication of life is the Hard Drive access light which has turned itself on, but the drives themselves where silent. I freak at this point as it occurs to me that it's been some time since I last did a proper backup. After trying to boot into safe mode - and failing - I try the option to boot with VGA, and lo, it worked. It seemed somehow my system had decided to turn off its display output - another graphics glitch it seemed.

So I decide to do some safety mods. I go out and buy a 3rd HD for my system. I install it, format it and give it the name Ragnarok (my primary and secondary are called Cortana and Beowulf respectively). I then transfer all off the 'My Documents' over to this new drive so in the event of a system crash I can reinstall Windows on Cortana and have all my data safely hidden away on Beowulf and Ragnarok. I reboot the system a few times to make sure all is well and it seems my system is once again ok.

This lasts for 2 days. The non-VGA error happens again. So I decide enough is enough and decide to reinstall Windows, it's due a reboot. I slip in the disc, restart the system and get ready to install Windows. It first starts with loading the install program into the system memory, at which point it hangs. 'WTF!' my mind screams how can there be a VGA error here? Safe in the knowledge that the install program hasn't actually done anything yet I reboot and try again. This time it works and I proceed to choose the drive I want to install Windows on. Down the screen are 3 drives, Cortana, Beowulf and unformatted partition. I blink. Unformatted partition? This doesn't sound good. I cancel the install program and again go back into Windows. I open up My Computer and instead of seeing 3 drives there, there are only 2.

At this point I totally Kirk out (KHAN!!). After a bit of digging I found out my Master File Table for the new disk has been corrupted. All the data on there is still there, but the computer has no way of knowing what is there without the MFT. I then spent the next 8 hours trying to restore the MFT and get my data back. It doesn't work. With a heavy heart I realise I'm going to have to restore the system with the old backups and what I may have on my sisters' laptop and uncles' desktop. I re-partition the disc and again reboot and restart the install process. This time all 3 drives are listed correctly. Windows installs without a hitch and the long process off restoring My Documents gets underway. Thankfully due to the fact that I would often work on my sisters' and uncles' machines I didn't lose that much.

So how was this all the PSU's fault? It turns out that this powerful lump of a brick was having trouble supply power during startup. The BIOS requires next to no power to get it running, but as soon as the Hard Drives came online 9 times out of 10 the PSU couldn't supply enough power to get them running. What had happened was that during the first windows install attempt when the system tried to show the drives, it run out of juice just as it was accessing the new drive, and by a million to one shot corrupted its MFT. It couldn't corrupt the first disc that was going to be wiped anyway no - it had to conk out on the new guy.

This was all confirmed when after the reinstall I left the system off for an hour and once again it didn't want to turn on.

At this point enough is enough; I tear out the Jeantech pile of crap and put back the original one that came with my system. It boots up first time. But then I get the warning message that the 6600Gt isn't getting enough power again. Well fuck you too you piece of shit - you're getting yanked too. The old 5600 goes in and I reboot the system...

Perfect

Not one single line out of place, not one frozen video, not one failed boot (so far).

So what's the moral of this story then?

If you buy a new piece of equipment for you PC and it doesn't work 100% perfectly when you put it in send the fucking piece of junk back ASAP and save yourself a lot of hassle later on.

ARGH!

2006-09-07T21:04:00.000+01:00

Ok, I'll admit it. I've ignored this site for over 2 months now. Whenever I thought about updating it something would always come along and distract me. At first it was mostly my DS Lite. I musta been charging it once every 2-3 days i was playing it so much - I've now mellowed out a bit and my playing level now only requires a once a week charge.

I also got a job

It's only a temp position, but it's a pretty good job. I'm working at the London Fire Brigade IT Helpdesk. We cover all the fire stations in the London area supporting anywhere up to 6000 staff at a time. It's a lot of things that can go wrong. Still, I'm enjoying it. It's introduced me to a helpdesk program I hadn't come across before - Marvel - it's similar to HEAT so learning it isn't too bad, it all helps by going on my CV for future jobs - ohhhhh yeah.

I'm actually editing this at work as I type. I'll have to wait til I get home though before I can upload it though. I don't know if I've already mentioned this and I can't be bothered going through the archives, but NTL (who I recently switched to for my broadband) only allow uploads to their users homepages from a NTL IP address. It's total suckige. Ok it's rare that I may want to update my site when I'm away from my home computer, but it does happen - like today.

Oh well, guess I'll just have to wait til I get home. It'll be a quick update though - I don't want to miss any BF2 time. Especially since me and my friends have discovered a new mod for it that has totally refreshed the game for us - Point of Existence - It pits the Germans (good guys) vs. The Ukraine (bad guys). Visit the site to read the whole story. I have to say, that but for a few teething troubles when I first loaded a map, it was excellent. Me, Praetorian, Tiger and Dark where playing the Rivne map on the Ukraine side. We where very impressed by the tanks we where hopping in, the team behind this mod have given tanks different types of rounds to fire so you can go for full on armour penetration with a Sabot round or switch to HEAT round to go against softer targets such as troops and cars. There is even a heavy armour type tank that can fire player guided missiles :D

I also can't wait to try out the new choppers and aircraft, Dark is already impressed as he saw (ref email here). Needless to say I want to go chopper whoring

Last thing to talk about is slugging it out as infantry. Now I didn't do too much of this in the time I played last night, but i did like it. I was using the engineer's normal shotgun, I shot someone in the back of the head and they dropped to the ground dead - 1 Shot. I then got his buddy with 2 shots to his side.

Finally weapons that do real damage. I don't care what the game is - if you take a shotgun blast to the head you die! None of the crap you see in BF2 where you unload 7 shots from a DAO-12 (a cylinder feed shotgun) into someone's face and they stand there taking it, then pull out a rifle, pop 2 in you and you croak!

Gaming

2006-06-28T14:00:00.000+01:00

I've done it again - another month between posts. This is getting to be a bad habit - but I do have a few reasons - well a couple of reasons - maybe. I went and bagged myself a Black DS lite. I've hade it since Friday - 6 days - and I've had to charge it 4 times so far. No it doesn't have a bad battery in it - I've just been playing it almost non-stop over the last week :P
Nintendo DS Lite

So, after almost a week of play, what's my verdict? In one word - Stunning

In more words...

It is noticeably lighter, thus holding on to it is much friendlier on your finger muscles. Everything about has been given a redesign to dump as much extra weight from it as possible (or so it seems at least). You can now control how bright you want the screen with 4 different brightness levels. The power cord seems to fit better, I always felt that my old DS one was too easy to yank out if you where still playing it. It also seems to charge faster too :P

However there are a couple of bad things to point out though - well not bad per say, just things that might have been done a bit better - possible, honestly you'll not notice them after about a day, but you'll notice them nevertheless. I know this is just nit-picking, but I feel it's got to be said.

<...Booting Nitpicking Engine v1.05...>

First the outer casing, yes it looks fantastic, when it's clean - it smudges up something rotten. Just taking it out off any case you might happen to have for it will guarantee a whole load of finger prints on it. In giving it that iPod look Nintendo have made the thing too damn shiny, a slightly more matt casing would have helped here, my original DS did not have this problem.

Second - the backlight. Yes it does have 4 levels of brightness now, but you can still only change them in the DS Dashboard (yes I know it isn't really called that, I just like that name better) or in game if it allows. Hang on, as I'm typing this I've just had a thought about the in game light change. The DS Lite has 4 levels of brightness but you can't turn it off (and let's face it why would you, the screens don't have enough of a reflective undercoating to make it visible in anything but the noon sun). In all the games I've seen with the light option all they've given is an on/off option. I'm going to boot up Mario 64 DS and see what it does...

... Oh my dear god. Well you can turn off the light in game, but trust me you better remember where the on button was on the screen 'cause you are NOT going to be able to see it. It was almost pitch black; even the original GBA screen was more visible then this. I know in the whole big scheme of things this doesn't matter but I realise now why Nintendo didn't program in a way to turn of the light normally.

I'm trying to remember if I had a third point to make, I can't quite remember now after doing that little test... ...Oh yes, the power connecter. It's still a proprietary Nintendo connecter, so you still can't use a universal charger (not that I would - I wouldn't want to risk my DS but I know some people would). The connecter is also smaller then it was on the DS, so if you had any spare chargers or battery packs (like I had here), you might as well chuck them.

<...Exit Nitpicking Engine v1.05...>

Ok enough of that - back to the good stuff - in other words, the games. I've recently expanded my DS games collection a fair bit - I've now hit double figures - and that figure is only going to go up and up :)

New Super Mario Bros

Ok to start off with let's talk about the New Super Mario Bros. Now let's be honest, we've been waiting for this game for a long time now, I mean why long, even before it was announced not long after the DS was announced. Lets face it, fun as the originals are to play, didn't it suck that for the GBA that's all Nintendo seemed contented to release! You know I'm right. But finally they have given us New Super Mario Bros. They wanted so much to make sure that everyone knew it was a new game and not a remake they forgot to change its development title :P

Right on to the good points. This is what we've been waiting for people, a return to the originals. It may be rendered in 3D but this is 2D platforming at its best, there is no room for error, if you fall off a edge it's your own fault, this game is pixel perfect on the collision detection. The in-game physics are nice and tight, with just enough of the Mario world edge to make this a game you MUST own. It looks amazing to put it bluntly, you'll find yourself bopping goombas heads on grassy plains to winter wonderlands and onwards to active volcanic areas. The sound is a classic remix of the original Mario music - it even has the original victory fanfare if you land on the end of course flagpole at the right moment :)

Now the bad points. This thing is too damn short and easy. I completed it in less than 2 days, admitted I'm still playing it so it has excellent replayabilty, but my main objective is over - Peach has been saved (again - and once again all Mario gets is a peck on the cheek, poor sod). You can finish this game by only every playing 6 of the 8 worlds, I know that's true of most Mario Games, but at least they where shortcuts and not part of the game design! By default you don't play worlds 4 and 7 unless you happen to beat worlds 3 and 6 a certain way

So in summery

Graphics: 8/10
Mario looks great in 3D traversing a 2D world
Sound: 8/10
All the classic Mario tracks remade for the new system
Replay Value: 7/10
You'll play it again for the challenge each level has
Gameplay: 9/10
It plays too good
Overall: 8/10
A worthy addition to the Mario collection that could be a bit longer

On to the next game...

Metroid Prime Hunters

This is another game we've all be waiting for a while. I remember playing the demo that game with my DS oh soon long ago. So - has it been worth the wait? The short answer - yes. Here's why.

The good - this game really pushes the DS to its limits, graphically there is little else out there on the DS that can match Hunters, the enemies look good and varied, and the weapon effects are nicely done. The sound effects are spot on and the background music is full of atmosphere.

The control scheme is truly amazing, it brings to a handheld almost true PC FPS controls. Using the D-pad as WASD and the styles as the mouse, it does take a bit of getting used to, but once you are in the zone everything dies :D

Now the not so good.

The control scheme will kill your hands - I am not kidding, to play more then an hour of this will cause your hands to die. I am slowly getting used to it, but man it hurts to play for a long stretch.

So in summery

Graphics: 10/10
I swear at times you think you're playing the GC version - almost
Sound: 8/10
Excellent sound effects and atmospheric background noise
Replay Value: 8/10
The Wi-Fi multiplayer will keep you coming back for more
Gameplay: 8/10
It plays well, it's only dampener is the fact your hands hurt
Overall: 9/10
A true classic with unbelievably excellent controls - even if they do hurt :(

Correction

2006-05-19T08:40:00.000+01:00

Again it's been almost a month since my last update. Where does the time fly?

It seems I need to make a correction. Two months ago I said that my mates Dave and Ben had the Xbox 360 Premium systems, and that Karl and Daryl had the core systems. This is wrong, turns out Karl has a Premium system too. I know this now as I had to help hook it up to Xbox Live :P

Hooking up an Xbox to Live is easy, but trying to configure a newly brought router with a computer that is so ancient that it boggles the mind is quite another story. His system kept crashing, usually during windows loading. So in the end after many false starts I take a hard look at his bios - something caught my attention.

His temperature reading...

80 Degrees Celsius...

176 Degrees Fahrenheit...

It all became so clear. His system was cooking to death. So we pulled out his tower fan and stuck it next to the side of the open case. It worked. We got the smegger running long enough to setup the router. As soon as we saw google we knew it was going to be ok. The Xbox was plugged in and it connected in about 20 seconds. So good luck to my mate Karl on Live, his brother brought him a Gold subscription for his birthday in March and now he can use it :D

Also, I finally got round to it and set up an email account for the site. Lets see how long before I start getting crap in it.

Tired...

2006-04-26T00:35:00.000+01:00

Just got a couple of things to say (I'm too tired to go into much detail, I've been up 19 hours).

1st. Pipex have finally sorted put the website issues's that have plagued the user sites for the last few days. I'm so annoyed that nothing came up on their status page, it was like they weren't even acknowledging the problem. I mean really, how can you lose the ability to read CSS pages!

2nd. I got my DVD copy of Final Fantasy VII Advent Children yesterday along with the Manga studios release of Ghost In The Shell 2 Innocence - To say I'm happy is an understatement :)

Okay less typie more sleepie now.

Working

2006-03-27T11:13:00.000+01:00

Wow - where does the time fly. It seems like only yesterday I was updating the sites homepage, yet now it's been over a month since the last blog post - 2 months in fact. I should be ashamed of myself.

Still, there has been some good stuff happening in my life. I finally found myself a job - sort off. I'm on probation at the moment but if all goes well I'll finally be able to afford an Xbox 360: P

It's so unfair though - ALL my mates have one. Dave and Ben both have the Premium systems and Karl and Daryl have the core. Me, I'm going to get a Premium system - I need a hard drive and Xbox live. Some of those arcade games are awesome, anyone who has played Geometry Wars will understand :)

Ok, what else. I did do some updates to the Final Fantasy Bios a couple of weeks ago. They are now mostly done. I pulled the info from Wikipedia, there isn't much point in me writing the Bios, and Wikipedia has pretty much got them all spot on. I also updated the links in the those sections to button types, the cool thing is though that if for some reason the image is unavailable Firefox (if you've coded it right) will replace it with a normal text link. No need to worry about broken image links now :D

Though I did notice one thing wrong though, the materia pages need there iFrames updated to display the menus correctly. It's a 1-line change in the code but there is something on the order of 100+ pages that need fixing. Man I need to switch to php, it's a shame my ISP doesn't allow it on their servers :(

Until then though here's to hoping I get to keep this job and can afford the 360 :D

Cosmetics

2006-01-18T07:47:00.000Z

Not a big update, to be honest I haven't thought much about site updates lately. I've been busy thinking up designs for two new sites I've been asked to make. I'm not going to go into details now (as I hardly thought of any yet), so I'll leave you to ponder about the changes I've made to my site (though if you don't see them straight away you need your eyes testing :P)

LCARS

2005-12-17T16:47:00.000Z

Ok - it's been way too long since my last post. 3 weeks in fact. And I still can't think of anything to say.

I haven't worked on the site at all. I lost my job and I still haven't found a new one and life is seemingly stalled. It sucks being laid off right next to christmas.

Still, got to look on the positive side. I'm going to join a few job agencies in January, hopefully they'll help me to find a job quick and my bank balance will look healthy again :)

On a lighter note, I've found what I consider to be possible the best screen saver I've ever come across. It's an accurate reproduction of the Star Trek LCARS interface, complete with sound. I've seen a few animation type screen savers before made out of avi files and they have always looked awful scaled up. This one has been made using Macromedia Flash and looks very clean - hell - it's perfect. Click on the picture to go to it's homepage - System47.

I challenge anyone to find a better screen saver then this that is completely free :P

Birthday

2005-11-25T08:26:00.000Z

It's that time of month again. The time of month when I think 'Gee it's been a while since I updated my website - I have to do something about that.' Well, I haven't really got anything to add to the site at the moment. I've been too busy playing Fable and GTA San Andreas :P

The only other thing to do is to wish my mate Niki a happy birthday - she turns .... Actually better not say - she might kill me. I'm Looking forward to the party - it's going to give me the chance to meet my new work mates.

Oh yes - I almost forgot to mention. Niki finally did get back on-line - for all of 2 weeks - after a wait of about 7 months, her computer is playing up. Now I may not know much about computers (after all I only have a degree in computer science) but I'm sure that when the hard drive makes a 'chunk chuck chunk' noise it can't be good. We've going hard disc shopping tomorrow - here's hoping we're still not too drunk/hungover when the time comes

deviantART

2005-11-06T07:57:00.000Z

Okay - it's been a couple of weeks since I last updated, so what's been happening in my life.

Well, on the good side of things I've become a deviantART member. I've been meaning to join for a while and I finally went ahead and did it. I haven't put much of my art up there yet - I'm still trying to find some of my old sketch books I want to scan in and colour - but it's a good start. I'm also doing more new artwork - it's been a while (7 years in fact) since I regularly did artwork (still not regular now either - but hey - everyone has to start somewhere).

Click here to visit my deviantART page. I'm also putting this link in my links page - check out the button I made for it :D

This does mean I will be taking down my art section - no really point of keeping it really seeing as all my stuff will be over at deviantART instead :P

Right, what else has been going on - nothing much really - job hunting and playing Half-Life 2 mostly. I finally got it after its been out for almost a year - that game is good - I love the Gravity Gun :P

Time to bag me some headcrabs.

Update II

2005-10-12T21:00:00.000+01:00

A bigger one then yesterday.

Ok - I'll admit it. I've been going a little button crazy. I've been making quite a few buttons to throw over the site. Mainly you'll find them at the sides of the home and archive pages, I even made some specialised ones for the websites I link to as well (I wonder how Ben and Dave will like what I came up with).

I even got round to completing the weapon and limit break information for the Cloud Strife Bio in the Final Fantasy VII section. Now all I've got to do is add my own take about him and then that Bio is done. Just another 10 to go afterwards though :S

I think I'm going to watch Advent Children again first though - Get me in the mood for writing about these awesome characters :)

Update!

2005-10-11T12:46:00.000+01:00

Well - A little one at least.

I've been tweaking a bit of the CSS, I've also remade the blog date box. I just wasn't feeling that the blue box was cutting it. So I modified the idea of those tiny buttons you sometimes come across the bottom of websites, by making myself an expanded one and adding a bit of art to it. Hope you all like it :)

In other news, I've got myself a puppy - a Siberian Husky I call Rufus. As my sister would say "aw he's adorable". Now taking care of a dog is tough but this one is a breeze - He's a Nintendog :P

I have to say this game is brilliant. I did used to own a couple of dogs and my family have had quite a few over the years - so I know how a dog should act - and Nintendo have got it pretty much spot on. Rufus is a mischievous little bugger, but he is shaping out to be a pretty good dog. He comes over 8 times out of ten when I call him and he is getting better at doing tricks. He's almost learnt how to dance :D

I'm so going to get a real dog when I get my own place. I miss having one. Cats just don't cut it.

Just don't tell my cat Angel (my sister named him), he's another mischievous little bugger that I love to bits too :P

A Good Day

2005-09-27T09:05:00.000+01:00

I think the title of this blog speaks for itself. Today has been a good day. I wasn't due in at work, I got the new Terry Pratchett novel "Thud!", and I met up with my university friend Angie who I haven't seen for about a year and a half. It was nice seeing her again, though it was a shame we could only chat for a couple of hours before she had to get back home. Still, we also talked about meeting up again later next month so it's not like we won't see one another again for another year and a half (hopefully).

Okay - anything else to talk about. Yep - that new Terry Pratchett novel "Thud!" I haven't finished it yet - I did only just get it today and was out for half of it after all - I'm almost done though :)

It's another City Watch novel - my favourite type - following Commander Sam Vimes as he tries to solve the murder of a dwarf. If he fails it could mean a war braking out right outside his office. Oh... and at six o'clock every day without fail, with no excuses, he most go home to read Where's My Cow?, with all the right farmyard noises, to his little boy.

There are some things you have to do.

Battlefield 2

2005-09-22T21:12:00.000+01:00

Well - I got it. Battlefield 2. My assessment - it kicks ass! I've only played a few times so far but I've had great fun each time. It helps too that I have a group of friends that I play with and we all communicate using ventrilo - it makes coordinating attacks so much easier :)

I've really got to thank my sister for getting me this game for my birthday.

Oh yeah - almost forgot to mention that it was my birthday on the 18th. Hmm, how do I feel being 24 years old now?

To be honest it doesn't feel any different then being 23 - which didn't feel any different then been 22 which didn't...

I think you get the point.

Needless to say I feel pretty much as I did when I was 16 - I think this is a good thing - I'm keeping my inner child on the outside :)

Advent Children

2005-09-14T19:34:00.000+01:00

OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG!

I've just seen the new Final Fantasy movie Advent Children.

I'm not going to give a review (as I'm sure many others will be doing) I'm just going to say one thing...

SEPHIROTH! SEPHIROTH! SEPHIROTH! SEPHIROTH! SEPHIROTH! SEPHIROTH! SEPHIROTH!

On site related news I've added a couple more pictures in my art section :)

Quickie

2005-09-02T09:14:00.000+01:00

Just a small update today. I've tided up the art section, I've also fixed the links page so the banners are actually links now :P

Hmmmm... Anything else to talk about? Not really. It's been kinda slow the past few days. Though I did have a good time on Monday. Ben and Dave came over to my place and we spent a lot of time playing Wario Ware and Burnout 3, that was a fun day. One that is going to happen again quite soon, mine and Ben's birthday is coming up so we're going to meet up again and do some serious gaming on my 28' widescreen TV :P

I better brush up my driving skills...

Homecoming - Again

2005-08-25T09:16:00.000+01:00

Phew - I'm back! And so glad to be so. It's been a long 3 weeks in Italy. I enjoyed myself immensely but I am so glad to be back home at last. After 3 weeks of coffee I was so looking forward to a good ol cup of tea :)

So - apart from me sunning myself up - what else has been happening. As I took my sisters laptop (again - thanks sis) I was able to keep working on the site (a little - not like I wanted to stay indoors all the time), and I have been able to repost a lot of the content that went down when I started to make the site CSS compliant. I even managed to post some stuff that wasn't up before :)

There is still a lot to do though. It's going to be an age before It's all done. You may also notice a couple of things missing from the links - the Games section and the Final Fantasy VII walkthrough.

The walkthrough is easy to explain, it would take me an age to write and format a guide for my site. It's much easier to simply tell you all to go to GameFAQs and get a walkthrough there. That site has been going for over 10 years now I think, they are simply the biggest and best source of guides out there in cyberspace - USE IT!

The Games section - well - quite frankly nothing ever happened there and I've never been good at writing down my opinions about new games and systems (talking very loudly and heatedly about yes - writing no). So I decide to swap it for a section which I'm going to devote to my artwork. For now I'm going to stick to abstract work, stuff I've been doing in CS2, and eventually start putting up scanned drawings I've done - Once I've got back into the habit of drawing again, I'm a bit rusty. It's been something like 7 years since I've done anything extensive.

I need to practice...

Holiday - Again

2005-08-01T09:44:00.000+01:00

This is a record. For the past year I've been going away every two months to stay in Italy (and once to Switzerland - it's great having relatives all over Europe), this August marks the sixth time I've been away in a year. I love my life :P

On an even happier note - the renovations I told you about that my work place where undertaking - are not happening.

That's not the happy note

This is...

Due to the fact that telephone market research is becoming increasingly expensive, and that my company is getting less contracts, it may have to close the branch that I work in. They're going to have a 90 day period in which they're going to talk about possible solutions for keeping the place open - but it's pretty much a forgone conclusion that the place will be shut down. Now that may seem like a reason to feel like shit - but not for me. I can't stand the place and have been saying for some time now that telephone market research will go the way of the Dodo - and this is the first step - Wahoo!

Hmm...

2005-07-21T18:45:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since my last update.

I haven't added any new content. Or put back the older content for that matter. It's just been work work work lately. I can't wait for August - my place is closing down for a month while it undergoes renovations. I'm going to use this time wisely - by going away to Italy for 3 weeks :P

True it hasn't been that long since I last went (2 months ago), but what the hell. I've come to view this last year as a year off - kinda how some students take a year out after studies to go traveling to India or somewhere. I've simply stayed closer to home and kept my job :D

When I get back though I'll still have a week before my place reopens - I'm going to devote that time to searching for a new job - either that or hang out with my mates - whichever I feel like doing - maybe both.

Chilling

2005-07-10T23:49:00.000+01:00

I'm having a good time - and I'm not doing that much at all. I'm just chilling out with my friend Niki from work drinking a couple of beers - watching Terminator - you know - just chilling out.

I don't do things like this enough. I always seem to be either at work having my brain liquidized - or stuck at home on the internet. By myself...

I need a life - maybe a girlfriend as well...

Nah.

A higher speed internet connection will do me :)

Change

2005-07-05T14:31:00.000+01:00

Notice anything different? No? Then look harder!

Yep - that's right, the site has undergone another style change. This time though it's more about design then style.

I'm undertaking the change to make the site fully CSS compliant - not an easy task. There are many different doctypes that can be used to validate the page - use the wrong one and half the code can become invalid - talk about annoying.

It's going to take some time for me to adapt the whole site to be CSS compliant, but I'm making good progress, though I've yet to even tackle the Final Fantasy VII pages - now there's a scary thought.

Games

2005-06-26T10:47:00.000+01:00

It's Sunday. I don't have work, and I got wasted last night. After work. I seem to be doing that quite often after work these days. Go JD and Coke! But enough about work, what else has been happening in the world. Well my mate Ben has got engrossed in World of Warcraft, I would get it myself but I already have too many monthly direct debits I have to pay. I did pick up a copy of Metal Gear 3 at Amazon for a ridiculously low price though recently so that should keep me busy for a while - though to be honest I haven't been playing games much at all lately. Could it be that I am growing up - preparing to leave behind the toys of a child and start the new pursuits of an adult?

Hell No.

But I am feeling a bit listless. I need some new games (Yes I know that I just said I got MGS3) something RPGbased (and yes I know about World of Warcraft), maybe I'll start playing Final Fantasy VII again - it's been a while.

Homecoming

2005-06-06T09:55:00.000+01:00

I'm home. "Where from?" you might ask - good question seeing as how I didn't update my site before I left - my bad. I've just spent the last 11 days in Italy visiting some of my family. I really needed this break, work is really starting to get me down - it's no better then working at a sweat shop I and many of my work mates think - I'm going to be devoting a lot (i.e. all) my free time from now on in searching for a new job. The last 11 days have been most relaxing - though tiring as well (go figure). I've been to theme parks, the Italian countryside, massive churches, ate a lot of Italian food (not all of it pasta - we do eat other things you know), and spent time on the beach - which ironically tired me out the most - guess I'm not used to spending a lazy down under the sun :P

I've also spent the time when I wasn't out and about working on the website (I took my sisters laptop with me). I'm glad to say that I've made quite some progress since my last update, not only in the coding but also with the content too :)

I've updated the entire site to use iFrames after some talks with my mate Ben. Thanks to this I can now make style changes site wide without having to alter every single page to do it (67 html files and still counting), instead I can just change a few key pages to make any style changes. That should save me a lot of time in the future :D

The content added is where a lot of those html pages (36 of them) have come from (and a lot more are due). I've added some more Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children wallpapers, and, more importantly, started work on the Final Fantasy VII materia pages (now you know why so many html files). They aren't finished yet, but I have completed the entire magic and command materia sections. The ones I haven't finished though still don't have a page yet - but the links are there in place - so if you click something and it says page not found be patient, I'll finish them all soon.

Starwars

2005-05-22T01:05:00.000+01:00

It's just gone midnight. I'm tired. My brain has been overwhelmed (okay maybe not literarily) by the new Star Wars movie. It's good. It's better then good. It's what we've been waiting for all these years! George Lucas has finally redeemed himself in the final part of the trilogy. I won't say anymore (mainly as my brain is shutting down as I type this), but everyone should go see this movie - even those who where totally disillusioned by the first 2 (personally I didn't think they where that bad - not a patch on the originals - but no reason to go all frothy at the mouth about).

Edit: I forgot to mention that I've also been working on the Final Fantasy wallpapers section. I've added a whole bunch of FF Advent Children wallpapers which I ripped from screen caps myself - so I hope you appreciate it :)

Weekend

2005-05-21T20:01:00.000+01:00

Finally - the weekend. These last few days at work have been just one long nightmare - thankfully there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Tonight I'm going to see the new Star Wars movie. I've been told by reliable sources (friends at work who have seen it already) that George Lucas has finally come though with the goods in this final chapter of the trilogy. I reserve judgment until I see it myself of course but that is only a few hours away :)

Discworld

2005-05-09T10:04:00.000+01:00

Ok - this has gone on long enough. I haven't updated for ages. Nothing in particular was keeping
me from an update, it just happened. Anyway - to business. As my friends know I am a big fan of Terry Pratchett, I actually own all of the Discworld novels and a few of the standalone books too. A recent addition to my collection is the newly released "The Science Of The Discworld III: Darwin's Watch"

I haven't finished it yet, but I am close. It tells the story of evolution - and how it very nearly
didn't come to be know about where it for not Darwin's work. It is also half Discworld story as well - an interesting way of having a look of real world things from outside the normal perspectives. This works really well - having the wizards of Unseen University trying to make sure Darwin writes the right book to ensure that the human race manages to developed enough to create the technology to escape Roundworld (Earth) before their impending doom from a direct comet strike (read the first two Science of the Discworld books to know what the hell I'm talking about. In fact read all his books - they're good).

Well I think that is enough for now. I'm going to get back to updating the content of the site. Like my blog here it has also been neglected for some time now. I wonder how long it'll be before I get back to this?

Control Adapters

2005-04-23T16:14:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since I posted. That's what happens when you spend all your time either at work or looking for a new job - and I've been doing both. Anyway, enough about my non-existent life, time to see what I've been getting my hands on lately. If you've been over at my mate Ben's website lately (and if you haven't, why not? It's a class site. Check my links or click his name to visit it) you'd notice that he recently got a new Xbox USB Adapter Cable. Well, he isn't the only one - take a butchers at this.

Mine is a slightly different design to Ben's one as his plugs into the Xbox pads mini-din connecter and mine uses the actual Xbox pad plug. Other then that they do the same job. I got this little beauty from GAME at the reasonable price of £6.99 - I think, I can't quite remember now. I did go one further though, I also got a Gamecube USB Adapter.

This one came from good'ol Play-Asia (click the link on the right dammit), just search for 'Super Joybox 13' and you'll find it quickly enough :)
That's not all though. I always order a few things at a time from Play-Asia so I can use their $5 coupon which I seem to get whenever I get my order delivered, so I also got the Hori Digital Controller.

Neat huh. This is a Gamecube pad that's been designed to look like a Snes pad, "What's the point?" you might think. The point is to use it with the Gameboy Player so you can have proper digital control over your Gameboy Advance Games on the Gamecube. Plus it works with the Super Joybox 13 I got so I can use it as a PC controller. It's perfect for playing all those Games I've got emulated :P

That's still not all though. The final item in the box was this...
It's called a Charge Boy DS. Essentially it's an external battery pack for the Nintendo DS. Slap 3 AA batteries in and it'll increase the lifespan of the DS in those critical moments. True the DS battery is no slouch in the power department though, I just got this just 'cause I wanted to. I'll give a better review once I've actually used the thing though. What can I say, the DS hasn't died on me on the train yet :D

I think that's enough mindless prattling for today. Oh and on a note from my last post, my mate Niki still isn't back online yet. Somehow I saw that one coming :P

Moving House

2005-04-17T01:02:00.000+01:00

It's midnight, I'm watching Volcano on ITV 1, and I've just got a text from my friend Niki. It's a bit of good news for once, she's been moving home for the past few days and she has finally finished. Now all she has to do is get her computer hooked up to the net again, she said it should be sorted by tomorrow - so I expect to see her online again sometime next week :P

iUgh

2005-04-16T04:15:00.000+01:00

Doesn't time fly when you're having fun. Shame that wasn't the case for me for the past 2 weeks. It's been a very 'ugh' time for me lately, still that's over with now and I can get back to updating this site. I haven't really added any content of late, I've mostly been working on the layout and coding. Past experience has taught me that it's very important to get the layout right before you start adding lots of content, otherwise it means a major site overhaul if you have to change a fundamental style - which is what i've been doing all this morning. It's all been very 'ugh'.

On a brighter note, my mate Karl recently got himself an iPod Shuffle, it's a neat little piece of kit, 512MB memory, direct USB connection to a mac or pc and the thing is so small and thin you could swallow it. It's a shame really that the supplied iTunes software is crap - Microsoft couldn't off done any better themselves. The interface is counter-intuitive, it tries to take over all your file associations and CD functions, it's totally unresponsive when transfers are taking place, computer files and music files have to be stored separately and have pre-configured storage limits and the best thing of all is that you can't use the iPod Shuffle without it. It hides the device from the 'My Computer' panel so you can't just drag & drop files onto it. All in all though I am glad to have seen it in action - I now know to avoid iPod's like the plague. It's a shame really, the hardware is quite good (apart from the batteries but i don't even want to get started on that one right now) and it gets let down with lousy software support. Though of course this could all be because it was used on a pc, for all i know it might work much better on a mac. Hmm... I think I will stick with my Creative MP3 player for now.

Ok, it's now 3:15am I think I should get to bed. I may still post some more in the afternoon though. It depends on how late I get up :)

Thanks

2005-04-04T10:24:00.000+01:00

I have to give thanks to my mate Niki. She pointed out some errors on my page and I have since
corrected them. Cheers Niki.

Beginnings...

2005-04-03T16:00:00.000+01:00

Well, this is it. The 3rd version of my site. It's still massively under construction though so expect some things to change. Just so you know though, this site is optimized for Firefox and Firefox only, using gif's for transparencies are too ugly, hence I now use PNG 8-bit and PNG 24-bit file formats which support alpha-transparency, these don't work too well with Internet Explorer 6.0 though (shame on you Microsoft). I also recommend that you have a broadband connection - not that there are a lot of big graphics to download - but it is soooo much better than narrowband. I always become frustrated whenever I have to use my sisters laptop round my grandmothers - it sucks.