Meh

Well, I'm quite chuffed. Looks like I was right about Vista. Look. Seems no one else wants it yet either. What I am thinking about getting tho, is an external hard disk, I need one for backup. I'm just trying to decide weather to build my own or buy one pre-built. I'm doing Dandy one soon, so Ill see how that goes. I haven't done a lot recently, just been playing the new Guitar Hero Jam got on Friday. Its super cool, has a wireless controller, and he already had the controller from the last one, so now we have 2 player. It has a much better selection of songs on as well, seems they've got more record industry backing this time. I'm now downloading all the songs from it, cos some of them are very catchy.

I also saw the Hitman film last night, that was pretty odd. For those who don't game, Hitman is a series of computer games about a genetically engineer super assassin called 47, who you play, and you have a series of missions to kill various people in various exotic locations. You can do so employing stealth or violence, or an mixture of the two. You get rated on how successfully you complete the mission and given appropriate amounts of cash to buy new tools for the next level. Its one of my favourite games. I was worried the translation into film would ruin it, and admittedly, it wasn't great, but it wasn't awful. The script was corny and barely had any dialogue at all, the characters were completely flat, and the plot very simple. But the cast was good, and there was a lot of stylish action. But It did leave me disappointed, it felt more like a trailer for a film then a actual film, since barely any plot or characters were exposed. Never the less, I don't regret watching it and recommend it to fans of action and the games.

I doubt I'm going to write much on here for the next week, cos Ive got a lot of work due in at the end of the week and next week, since its near end of term.

New year, new OS?

For:

• It looks pretty
• The Beta version I had before XP ran ok, and its improved since then.
  
• I can have more then 3.5GBs of RAM
• and DirectX 10 graphics.
  
• I'm going to have to get used to it's new layout and style because: its the future.
• I know my hardware will work with it, because Ive used it before (apart from my wireless dongle which I don't think will work with it, but their cheap)
  
• SP1 is nearly here
• It actually works, Ive used it on Jam's PC, hes had for about 2 months now, and it hasn't gone horribly wrong.
• I don't have to buy it, cos the university gave it too me for free and legal!
• I can show off.
• It has Mahjong, which makes me feel warm inside.
  

Against:

• It asks for admin privileges every time you change any settings or install anything
• It makes annoying sounds.
  
• XP runs fine with 2GB of RAM, so do I really need 4GB if I'm not going to run Vista anyway?
• Vista might work with 2GB RAM, but I'm not sure, so Id probably have to buy more RAM which is an extra expense. But I get a free copy of Vista, so that's the only cost.
• I will probably have to wipe my PC and reinstall everything.
• Something might not work with it.
• It uses up a lot of RAM, so some games may go slower.
• Do I really need DirectX 10? I find it very hard to see any actual difference, except smoke and water look a bit better. And although I wouldn't be using the DX10, a new graphics card on XP would still give a massive performance boost, which is what I need.
  
• It takes up more room on my hard disk then XP does.
• Its still not as tried and tested as XP, so I may still find software I need doesn't work.
• My wireless dongle won't work with it (but their cheap and I got Jam one that does support Vista so I know where I can get one).
• No IE6 or Media Player 9, I would be forced into having IE7 and MP11, which are both total wank! (but not a big problem, since I use Firefox and VLC now anyway)
• I'm not nearly as familiar with it as XP, so if something goes wrong, will I be able to fix it as easily? (Although, this could be seen as a plus because it means I get to learn to fix Vista)

Conclusion:
At the moment, I think I'm going to keep my university copy of Vista Business, but not install it, and wait, until I'm sure. Because at the moment, I think Vista is mostly vanity, there is no real underlying need for it, and its new demands on my system and my brain don't sound appealing at the moment. But I'm pretty sure some day Ill have to use it, probably on my next PC.

Fun Blog

Ok, hopefully this blog should be a bit more jolly then most, since Ive found some amusing websites:

Face transformer - Lets you upload a picture and muck about with it, quite amusing too see what you look like as an ape man.

Portal Cat ^_^

Aberystwyth man crushed under house full of rubbish - Ok, so some people might not find this funny, but I just found it a bit odd, and wondered if that might happen when someone next stays in the spare bedroom...

Jellyfish launch assault on Salmon fortress - Lol, I just thought it was funny, that even the fish in Northern Ireland are at war with each other.... I think their just in a power struggle now Ming, the Mighty 400 year old clam Warlord, is dead.

The ultimate children's character, made by Zippy...

MOO - A very trippy animation about cows, with some quite cool music. It gets better near the end so I recommend watching it through if your interested. Quite gorey as well, I wonder if the maker eats meat?

My poor computer

Me and my computer have separated after a few days of spending too long together, and I'm now having an affair with this university workstation. It is a cruel mistress, which I had to "manually power cycle" after it wouldn't recognise my portable HD. Oh well, its being compliant now. And too add to my computers woes, I'm downloading two things that will punish it for failing me graphically in Crysis: Vista and Unreal Tournament 3 Beta. I'm downloading Vista, because as regular readers will know, I plan to upgrade once I get my mitts on a better graphics card, and I get a free copy of Vista Business edition off the university, so I might as well take it. Unreal Tournament 3, I'm just downloading just because I really want to prove to myself that my graphics card is rubbish and I have to buy a new one soon. I would use my home PC to download these, but I fear my housemates might batter me to death if I try to download 3GBs of stuff in the middle of the evening, so I thought Id rinse the University's net connection instead.

Crysis was good. I recommend it to anyone whose into pretty shooting things games. I finished it yesterday after 48 hours of hiding away with it. I managed to get quite a lot of work done as well. I'm feeling quite chuffed in a way. I haven't finished a computer game Ive bought in years, but then this seemed very short. But I think the fun of Crysis is that you can replay it a million times, because its levels are so large, there are so many different ways of doing things. Its very open ended, unlike most the console games Ive seen Jam play recently (CoD 4 and Halo 3), so its definitely getting replayed in DX10.

I'm starting to wonder if maybe overclocking my current graphics card might make things a bit better for now. I read an article about it, it doesn't sound that hard, although there is a risk of system instability and heat damaging the thing. Also, I'm not sure if I should add more RAM when I upgrade to Vista, because I read a lot of conflicting things about how much RAM it really needs. I had a Beta (RC2) Vista on my box before I put XP on it, and that ran ok with my 2GB of RAM. But some say you need 4GB, Jams has 4GBs, and that runs well. I should just try it with 2GB, see if its stable and responsive, and if not, RAM prices will have fallen and Il get some more RAM. Yeah, Ill probably do that. I need an external HD, a bigger one, before I upgrade to Vista as well, so I can backup everything. Ive currently got about 350GBs of crap on my box, so it will need to be bigger then my current one.

News:

1. Apparently some hacker has broken the new encryption on BluRay discs. Although, it should be noted that this wasn't the original BluRay encryption, but another stronger layer (called BD+) they added on a few DVDs after the last lot of BluRay encryption, used on most discs, was broken ages ago. Makes me wonder why they bother. LINK


2. More HD news: The BBC finally catches up with the rest of the universe and starts talking about HDTV. Pity they screwed up Freeview. I say this, because, from what Ive heard, apparently Freeview can't do HD, because they didn't allow enough space for the signals on the digital Freeview spectrum, so their going to have to re-shuffle all the signals to get it to work, which means we all need new Freeview boxes. Clever. LINK


3. Leave Heather Mills alone, that poor women, their now claiming she drinks rats milk! Come on people, get over it, shes not Satan, shes just rinsing some silly old sod stupid enough to marry her for all hes worth. He'll still have a couple of hundred million quid left, I'm sure we won't see him busking anytime soon. LINK


4. This ones just stupid: Christians are trying to sue someone over the Jerry Springer musical. Why do we still have a blasphemy law? In this day and age, of a multi-cultural, multi-faith England, do we still have laws that stop us saying whatever we like about a bunch of one faith's fictional characters? Am I now going to be burnt at the stake for riding in a horseless carriage or something? Apparently it won't get by the judges, and contravenes EU human rights laws. Thank fuck, at least the EU has done something useful for once. LINK


5. Hmm... more bollocks about Dianne.. Oh look, UT3 Beta has finished downloading ^_^
   
6. umm... probably more bollocks about Madeline...
   


7. oh, Firefox 3 is out soon! That will be good, to watch it put the final nails in IE's coffin.
   


8. Sony have released software update for the PS3, no surprises there....
   


9. The internet needs more bandwidth, because we're watching too much streamed video, apparently.


10. The Germans are kicking off about the iPhone because you have to sign up for a 24 month T-mobile contract to get one there apparently.
    


11. And then there is all this stuff about this stupid Custom's and Revenue department losing a load of data. What a bunch of newbs. They just stuck it in the post, not registered or special delivery, just normal post, and now its gone missing. Twice. Oh well, at least they managed to at least to remember to back it up and not send the originals. Twits.

Sorry this has been so long... downloading Vista is on 38% =( what am I going to do now? Oh well, I'm sure Ill think of something else... bye for now.

Hiding

Urgh: people.

Despite everything that's happened, I didn't lock myself away in my room. I tried going out and being sociable, I make a lot of effort to be nice to them and make them laugh. I spend hours talking to them on MSN, and try to help them with their stupid problems: their broken relationships and computers. I listen to them moan about their stupid boring crap for hours on end. And what do I get back? I get ignored, or told I'm useless, and treated like I'm some horrible disease that won't go away. Like I'm so demanding, like I ask for so much, just for one person to ask me how I am and actually care, and give me a hug and make me not feel so useless, not like I'm just in their way.

So that's it, I've given up on all that useless caring-sharing crap, I'm going back to hiding in my room, playing computer games (Crysis is the bomb BTW) and listening to my metal. Makes me wish I had my job back, at least there I was doing something everyday, I had responsibility, people needed me, every now and then praised me. Or fuck them, if they didn't praise me, at least I was being paid, I knew I was getting somewhere and being rewarded. And the walk home from work... listening to my music so loud my ears would bleed, knowing I could just eat and go to bed, was the best thing ever. I didn't have a care in the world. Now I've got nagging lecturers and deadlines, no responsibility or praise, just a constant feeling that everything I do isn't good enough.

So sod it, I've got a lot of work to do, a lot of good computer games and music, and the internet has been alright for the last 2 days (touch wood), I need not waste my time on ungrateful people any more. I would stop blogging as well, but I enjoy it even if no one read it, so I won't let them stop me. Curse you all, men.

Anyway, news. Crysis is amazing, but I really need my new graphics card to get it to run as well as it should. I really can't wait till I get to play it on a good PC with DirectX 10. I'm still not sure weather to go the whole hog at Christmas and upgrade my RAM and go to Vista. Apparently Vista SP1 will be out soon, RC1 is out now, so maybe I should wait for that. I should really read more computer news, but generally the news just bores me, seems to be repeats of the same stories about the Wii and PS3. And non-techy news is just too depressing, so I won't talk about any of that.

So its just a useal monday really: regretting ever getting out of bed. 10th blog, woot!

Missing Information Gutter

It would seem I left out quite a few things I was meaning to share with you in my last blog, due to having so much to say. Firstly, here are some more pictures of Jac from yesterday, to backup my case for him being the cutest entity in the known universe. Their on facebook, but Ive gone to great lengths to try and make sure it doesn't make you login to look at them. Just click on the link, then the picture of him, and it should bring up the whole album's collection.

Secondly, I remembered something which was one of the main reasons for my displeasure yesterday. Just after I got back from my wasted trip up the hill for a cancelled lecture, Jenny phoned me and told me my estranged pet rabbit Trotsky had died. He was probably about three years old, and had to be put down cos he had myxomatosis. Not a huge personal loss, in perspective, because of me not having seen him for about two years. It just brought back a lot of memories of Jenny and all the time we used to spend together playing with him, before she moved to Rosser and I went on my industrial year. She told me shes currently living in a YMCA. I don't really know why, I can't keep track of everyone's lives at the moment.

RIP Trotsky Marklew Gray

Today so far has been pretty rubbish, I woke up with a headache and my housemates moaning the internet wasn't working. I fixed it and then went back to bed. I then go up for a drink, spoke to Dandy, and remembered my DVD I ordered should have arrived. I ran downstairs, found it and a large pile of Time magazines for Hazel (why she needs 4 the same I will never know). I opened the box only to discover, instead of the original Matrix on DVD, I had been sent a second hand computer game called Myst IV Revelations. To be fair, Ive ordered off PlayTrade about 5 times now, and normally its pretty much the same as normal Play.com service, just a bit cheaper, some more rare stuff, and it normally takes longer to come. This is the first real problem Ive ever had with anything Ive ordered online. I hope its the last.

After marching around the house verbally expressing my displeasure, I emailed the seller asking what I had to do to get rid of it and get my DVD. They replied asking for an order code, because apparently the 3 Play.com order codes I provided weren't enough. I find this all highly annoying, as Ive had to wait a week for this DVD already, and now I have to pay out my own money to send this stupid computer game back and then wait another week for my DVD. I'm not impressed. I'm beginning to feel like Victor Meldrew mixed with Ozzy Osbourne more then ever right now. Apart from when I had broken ribs, when I actually looked, walked and mumbled like Ozzy and was probably equally dosed up.

This may interest people who are from Aberystwyth: NO MORE 24/7 DRINKING AT INN ON THE PIER

Current Technologies

I'm quiet excited, I've been trying to choose what graphics card I'm going to get for Christmas. I really need a new one, all the latest games run quite badly on my setup, but that is considering the stupidly high resolutions (1680 x 1050) I need for them to look good on my screen. I might also get some more RAM, maybe move up to Vista. Been quite impressed with Jam's PC I built a month or two ago which Vista on, it seems very stable and funky. It annoys me how I can't find anything though. Must be like someone else's kitchen or something, you know everything you need is there, but you just don't know the right place to get at it quickly. Still, its not as baffling as Linux or Mac OS, so Microsoft is still the way forward for me. I've ordered Crysis, the latest in graphics, physics and shooting stuff, should be here soon, I hope my hardware doesn't ruin my enjoyment of it. Reviews say its very fun. Jam's excited about the new Mario game, I'm sure that will be fun too, if a bit childish and irritating like most Nintendo games.

Crysis almost looks a bit too real

Can't believe how cheap all the computer stuff is now. 500GB hard disks for 50 quid, 75 quid for an external one and 48 quid for 2 sticks of 2GB ram (4GB in total). Its making upgrading quite an attractive prospect. Except graphics cards, which because of new APIs and chips for Vista (DX10 and HDCP) are stupidly expensive. I was hoping this would have sorted out by Christmas, but appears Nvidia and ATI have only just started pushing out mid range cards. When I built my PC, you either spent 100 quid or less and got a DX9 which wouldn't last, or spend 300 quid and get a future proof beast. Now, you can get some pretty good 200 – 250 priced ones. I don't know, but I really need something better then what I've got. Something better then what Jams got.

I read an interesting thing the other day. Microsoft are currently claiming victory over everyone because of the Halo 3 launch, and are touting the fact that it was the highest grossing “media launch” ever, beating Spiderman 3 and Harry Potter. What they fail to mention: tickets for Spiderman 3 and Harry Potter books don't cost 40 quid each. Apparently, if Harry Potter books did, they would have made twice what Halo 3 did. Mind you, that's a very simple way of looking at it. Maybe Harry Potter sold so well because it was cheaper? But still, Microsoft's PR machine is definitely behind these figures being slightly warped. I still think their doing better then Sony are though. If they keep cutting features off the PS3, there isn't going to be much left. And BluRay sounds like a load of wank. I mean, I saw it once in Oxford street, did look kind of pretty, but I bet the highly compressed discs scratch better then ever before. I haven't tested it, but it makes sense.

I'm loosing faith in optical media on the whole, they seem to break far to easily. I'm now considering getting an external HD just for backup because DVD-R are useless for it. It makes my piracy hard as well, I keep copying movies for people and then finding out their DVD players lasers are too weak to read them. I mean, we did have this problem with CDs for a while, but not this bad, and the technology has been around long enough now for them to sort it out. But, I bet their keeping the lasers weak, to stop pirates probably, same as the region encoding, we see that the distributors are willing to cripple a format just for a few sales. Which might be fine for them, but what about me trying to do my perfectly legal backup?

Sony just seem like a bunch of idiots right now. How did they manage to get so rich? Right now, seems like their always doing everything wrong. I mean, the PSP seemed shit to me, with its crappy movie format called UMD, which meant re-buying all you films, on little discs, so you could watch them on a crappy small screen? For 20 quid? PSP got totally kicked by the DS, so what do they do? Make a new slim version. And BluRay is like 25 quid per disc as well. Its apparently quite expensive for studios to make as well, limiting its appeal further. I keep predicting the demise of Sony recently, but I have to remember, the PS2 is still the most popular console, and most stuff from that works on the PS3, so maybe in a few years once its price comes down, everyone will switch and Ill be proved wrong. I just hope Sony can last that long.

I guess we'll see whose right: Nintendo, who say people want innovative games, not graphics and HD or a media centre, or Sony, who say the reverse. And Microsoft who are just playing the middle ground, Microsoft's online service is meant to be the best though, and the games line up is looking good so far. And most of the games for the Xbox end up on the PC as well, since they both use DirectX, so porting is easier. Which is good enough for me: Gears of War, here I come.