Archive for May, 2008

Being a antisocial whore?

Everyday, i have my headphones in my ears to block outside noise and general stuff i don’t want to hear. I have two styles of headphones – i have headphones and earphones.

If you have headphones in while walking its ok – but what if you have headphones in while walking with friends? Is that what you would call “antisocial”?

Most people would, but I wouldn’t. I love walking to music, it allows to walk faster and in a better mood. There is times where i literally put them in to stop people talking to me and to allow me to work faster like in college.

Would you call someone antisocial if they had headphones in and you wanted their attention?

What about if you were with someone and they weren’t involving themselves in conversation because they were listening to music?

I’d like to hear your thoughts!

The Official DSA Theory Test, for PC.

I recently purchased the DSA (official) Theory test from Amazon to only find out that it is Windows only. I’m not the only one who is having this issue. For us who have – macs this is an issue, there are work arounds but thats not the point. There is a large share of Mac based users and there a thousands of students like me probably in the same position. I personally sent an email to the DSA (obviously – they didn’t make it, a side company did) and i haven’t recieved a reply as yet, although if i do – i will update back. Yes - I’m upset that a government based company has not realised that Vista is not the only operating system that they should be working towards and that OSX has a good old’ place in the world now.

The only possible way for me to do this is either using a Virtual Machine or Bootcamp – Now, unless you have a copy (yes, a real legal, legit copy) you are kinda stumped. Luckily i have a copy of Vista lying around which i won in a competition. I personally went for the Bootcamp approach – its the simply the most organised. VMWare’s Fusion can boot the Bootcamp partition which is ace to an extent but then your system does slow down. It maybe the fact that i don’t have enough RAM (2GB Standard).

Are you having the same issue? Large companies that are not providing software for your operating system that is getting bigger everyday?

Review: Asus Striker Extreme

This is a short one, very short.

I had this Motherboard one day – and one day only. I never even got to use it, i opened the box and installed it. I was excited to use really use the power and features. I never got to use those features.

The board was faulty. Shame, look at the reviews on any site and you’ll see “Excellent, and great value!”. I never found a bad one so thats why i purchased it. I later found out to my mistake that it was a bad purchase. Seems like everyone that is purchasing it is having the same issue or at least a similar one. Its known as “CPU INIT” and all you need to do is a quick google to find hundreds of results leading to sites and forums all trying to work out a fix for it. It seems to me to be the ram, but its standard Corsair (2×2GB, 800MHz, 6400) RAM. But you can’t even attempt to get into the bios because it won’t boot and i haven’t got any other ram. For that reason alone i returned it – thanks eBuyer! – When i speaking to ebuyer on the phone, and the great chap on the phone told me that they have lots of problems with this board and if you get one that doesn’t do this, then you’ve got a good one.

I’ve now gone for Intel’s new X48 board, The Gigabyte GA-X48-DQ6. I’ve been seeing some great reviews coming from sites and the X38 was very successful so I’m hoping its going to be a great experience.

First Thoughts – GTA IV.

I’ve owned it for a couple of weeks now (I bought it the day after it was released) and i’ve decided to give a couple of thoughts on the game.

Gameplay

When you first start the game, it has a great cut scene but it was confusing until i twigged what was going on. You are a russian bloke called Niko Bellic and you and your brother have moved here, leaving Mother behind. First you do a couple of missions for Roman (your brother) and get a cash flow on the move. You then work for different boss’s (i would call them) and do some other missions. Yes, these all include violence.

Graphics

I’m not the only one saying this, there a bit off to be honest. There really not what they say they are. And comparing them to the graphics on the advert – great false advertising from Rockstar there, thats all i can say. The graphics can be really stuttery at times apart from when your driving fast at the whole set starts to blur and seems realistic.

Online Gameplay

It really needs some going over to be honest. When you enter a “room” i would say, you select what game your playing before hand in single player mode and you wait….. and wait…. and wait….
Once your into a game room you stupidly have to get ever player to press ready. The single most annoying thing in the world. You’ll get people pressing it on and off to simply annoy you oh and the lag, i won’t go there.

Overall

Its a good game, with a good plot and story. But its really not what its cracked up to be. At the end of the day – I’m a first person shooter kinda man.

iPhone Predictions

Seems like every Apple and Technology blog is talking about it. So i’ve decided to talk about it.

I’m personally not overly fused with getting a new iPhone. I’m quite happy with my current one and the only time I use Safari is when I’m in town and i get free Wi-Fi then? Object defeated really? Yes. The fact is, i still have an iPhone – as soon as that word is mentioned someone is interested and wants to play your magical phone.

Hardware: One thing I would like to see from the new iPhone is a decent camera with an autofocus lens and a better sensor. The current generation iPhone’s camera is OK, but can be acceptable to blurriness in most situations. Better battery life – oh yes please. My phone last’s a day normally, thats with calls, texts and browsing its rather pathetic. My Samsung i600 lasted a good couple of days. Interaction with Applications Better user interface and interaction with Application. The iPhone is not particularly flexible and does limit you in certain applications. I believe this is because Apple doesn’t want you to have options to fiddle and play with.

Apple likes simplicity and thats the way that it should be. But if your like me and like fiddle (and normally brake stuff) you would really appreciate some advanced features. There is no doubting that there is a 3G iPhone and it could be even HSDPA.

I don’t know if my next phone will be an iPhone as i like a generic keyboard. Yes, i’m basically saying that i want a proper phone when it comes around.

I’m like look the look of the Blackberry Bold – but this then poses the question of what happens when your iPhone’s contracts runs out? Does it go to pay as your go (prepaid)? Do you sell it on? What happens when you want to de-activate it? I’d like to hear your thoughts on this topic.

Picturesque – Gorgeous Post Images

Writing a blog post and have post images? Trying to make those images interesting can be a though job, but not with Picturesque from Acqualia. It has recently updated and has improved features with version 2.0! Making your images look gorgeous and shown off with style.

User Interface

When you first open Picturesque you are presented with a clean and presentable UI, and it simply says “Drop your images here”. There is an option of using the apple media browser which contains your iPhoto & Aperture library and has the same drag and drop concept.

Once you have your image inside of the application, you have lots of choices and options that you can apply to your images.

Effects

Perspective – for angles. Reflections – for a mirror image underneath. Shadow – for a glowing effect. Curve – It removes standard corner, giving it a cool, curvey corner. Stroke – which allows you to simply add a border.

Picturesque has a preset button so you can easily apply the effects that you have used, the next time that you open Picturesque. It really does save me time allowing me to process a batch of images and apply the same effect. It also has compatibility with Applescript allowing you to run a workflow. This application was obviously thought up with bloggers in mind who need a quick and easy alternative to photoshop! Picturesque can be purchased directly from Acqualia software for $34.99

Thanks to Zac Cohan from Acqualia who kindly allowed me to review Picturesque.

UPDATE – I have posted a quick demo on YouTube.

RSS Weapons

With every website today you will find an RSS or a way to keep up to date on the site’s newest content – you then easily subscribe and every time the site updates you’ll get a little notification alerting you that there is a new article for grabs. Subscribe to mine and see how it works!

There are lots of dedicated Applications on the marketplace that can do this, both being free and paid alternatives.

NewsNetWire – Free.

I found this Application when RSS was coming around. It was starting to become evermore popular. NNW syncs with an online server allowing you to visit your RSS on your iPhone and iPod Touch, how cool is that? It even allows you to add bookmarks to delicious. I don’t personally use this reader, but i recommend it anyday. The interface is clean, easy and good looking which lots organsation and customisation.

NewsFire – Free.

NewsFire has been a fairly big player in the RSS World, with people such as Kevin Rose using it. I love News Fire’s User Interface. Easy to use and works with Podcast RSS feeds and allows you to play them inside the application. The organisation of feeds is unfualtalbe and is customisable to your delight. There isn’t any support for the iPhone or iPod touch but i’m not to fussed. I personally use this app and i love it!

Times – $30

The most newest player on the market. The developer Dustin MacDonald is most famous for his app – Wallet, which I will review at a later date. When I first heard the title I thought it was from the News paper we have over here in the UK “The Times” – but I was incorrect. It has the layout of the Times newspaper with articles and tabs allowing you to select which category you want to read. It is fully customisable allowing you to change what news you read and from what site. Times comes with preset sites such a cnet, engadget and gizmodo. An extra cheeky feature that Times has is to remove ads, thats right – ads. Many sites have the “Full Content with ads”, times uses witchcraft and removes these pesky ads making me a happy bunny. One thing, this app is not iPod and iPhone happy.

Overall

Out features, price and quality. There will be no other application experience like Times, i do feel that $30 is a little over priced, but may justify over-time. NewsFire is still the RSS Reader for me I’m afraid. I like how it organises, displays feeds and how its simple and easy to use.

Sharing internet to your Xbox 360, (For Mac’s!)

If your like me and to cheap to fork out for the price-tag-hefty wireless adapter for the xbox 360. Sharing your internet through your mac via the ethernet port is the easiest and cheapest way to go.

Overview

1)Start Internet Sharing

2)In Terminal, type cp /etc/bootpd.plist /tmp/bootpd.plist

3)Stop Internet Sharing.

4)Open /tmp/bootpd.plist for editing using TextEdit or whatever.

5)Locate this section of the file, near the end:

<key>reply_threshold_seconds</key>
<integer>4</integer>

6)Change the value 4 to 0.

7)In Terminal, type sudo cp /tmp/bootpd.plist /etc

8)Start Internet Sharing.

9)Check that your change to /etc/bootpd.plist hasn’t been reverted.

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I hope this guide has helped you. I just want to say that i did this guide on a macbook pro, but I know that it works on a macbook to. I don’t know about iMac’s and Mac Pro’s. I’m not liable to any damage that you may cause in doing this (which should be none).

Glossy Vs. Matte? Tough Decision.

After my little incident that i encountered as many of you know, Apple kindly offered a replacement machine. (I guess its something to make you feel better after you laptop goes on fire or something). When i was on the phone to lovely technical supervisor ordering my new machine i got the choice of having a matte or glossy macbook pro. My MacBook Pro had a glossy screen – it was nice, i liked. The colours on it were great and really come out nice especially when viewing photo’s

I decided to go nuts and order a matte instead so i can compare the two machines. I’ve had this machine for over a month now and i can definitely say that its better for me and maybe also other people. Yeah, so in my opinion if your going to order a macbook pro is to grab a matte machine. The difference is quite comparable. The dust and fingerprint show through on the glossy like a rabbit has come and done its business on it or something similar. For matte this is not an issue – at the moment on mine there are loads as my father was insistent on putting his fingers on my screen when overlooking some photo’s i was editing.

Overall.

Matte ftw.

My D80

My Nikon D80 is quite simply amazing. I’ve had it for nearly a month now (i think). I’m enjoying it immensely. Bracketing has to be my most favourite feature. Its not just an upgrade from the D40 it feels completely different. The display on the top is extremely handy for when you need to check a setting and is better than looking at the display which can i add is awesome on the D80.

The Sigma 10-20 f/4-5.6 is equally just as fantastic. I like how it can see more than you can see. This lens + my D80 makes an awesome combination.

I’m not making this a long post, just a quick summary on what i think about my new camera and lens.

To see some sample shots either to go my Flickr or my Gallery.