Hi there, welcome to the dungeon. A small collection of old posts, written before the current incarnation of this blog. Take a quick look. You might find something interesting. Most likely not though.

Wow. It’s been a long time. I’ve been meaning to update this site for a while now. I’ve even redesigned it, but have been to lazy to install the new theme.

Any how, Just want to tell you about my Good shelf plugin. It display any selected Goodreads.com shelf. Take a look in my sidebar. Looks good right? Head over to my development site for a download

It’s been a long time since I last looked at Thingamablog, the blogging system that creates HTML files and FTPs them to your server, which, basically saves time editing pure HTML files and manually having to upload them.

It seems that something is changing over on the development front, which is a good thing since it has been a very long time since the last update. Though I’m a wordpress user now, I still hold an interest in the project because it gives hope to those (very few) that don’t have PHP installed on there server. I once ported themes to the blogging system, but unfortunately mediafire delete all my files and the originals are long gone.

I just thought the software was worth mentioning.

On a more personal note

I have finally finished the development of my first ‘built from scratch’ web application; though I’m lazy and haven’t gotten around to setting it up on the server yet.

OPEN SEASON

Autumn is fast approaching which, of course means that gaming season will be upon us. The following is a list of video games that I’m looking forward too and – if my financial status improves – will be getting my grubby hands on. I only have an Xbox 360 (and a pc of course) and so that is the platform I will mainly be listing.

THE LIST

Halo 3: ODST – I’m a huge fan of the halo franchise, and therefore am looking forward to this expansion. Set for release on 22 September 09
Assassin’s Creed II – The original Assain’s Creed suffered from the video game version of RSI, this one looks set to improve on the game play and the story. Or it could turn out to be exactly the same game as the original but with a new setting. None the less, i’ll be getting this game. Set for release on November 20 09
Bioshock 2 – OK, so this isn’t technically coming up in the Autumn – winter period but I think it’s well worth a mention since the original was such a great game with it’s brilliant story and it’s great combat system and physical environments. The sequel is sure to be a hit. set for release on March 26 2010
Scribblenauts – Though I don’t own a DS (my siblings do ), I am very much looking forward to this game. According to they hype from E3, this game is a very pleasant and unexpected surprise and has already had a warm reception from those that have played the demo. Set for release on September 25 09.
COD: Modern Warfare 2 – Call of Duty is another one of my favourite franchises. Modern Warfare is considered one of the best FPSs of all time and it’s easy to see why. The sequel is set to be much bigger and better with the promise of bigger maps, more locales and of course, improved multiplayer. Set for release on November 10 09
WHAT ABOUT YOU?

It seems that this year is the year of sequels. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing but would be nice to see more original content. So What games you looking forward to this year?

Sky Drive Logo

SkyDrive?

SkyDrive is an online storage solution developed by Microsoft. I t allows users to store documents, music, videos, photos etc..

What’s this about an Update!

Recently Microsoft updated ‘SkyDrive’, there file hosting solution. The update consisted of a few small upgrades such as giving the user the ability to download entire folders as Zip files, adding a slide show capability for users photos and making the service available in more countries, in more languages. The biggest upgrade to the service is that the storage capacity jumped from an average 5GB to a huge 25GB storage capacity. 25GB may not be enough to store all files from your hard drive but you have to admit, it a lot of storage for a free service.

What’s the catch?

Yes, as always there is a catch. Though the service is free and has a storage capacity of 25GB; the maximum size of a file or folder can only 50MB. This seems a bit odd doesn’t it? 25GB of storage but users can only upload a 50MB folder. I no next to nothing about business but I have a theory. I think this is where Microsoft is going to make their money from this service. Give a huge amount of capacity space away for free but only allow the user to upload a 50MB file and if they want to upload bigger file sizes then charge them extra.

Any Good?

Though I just started using SkyDrive, I can say that it has a better user interface than say, media fire (another online storage solution). It’s not plastered in ads like media fire and because it’s Microsoft I know that they won’t loose my files (like media Fire did). I wouldn’t use SkyDrive to distribute software or media files but as a personal storage solution I think it’s a great service from Microsoft. Now that’s a rare thing.

Burn Out Paradise Art

Recently I picked up the 360 controller and started to give Burnout Paradise another go.

The story of Burnout out paradise follows the traditional Burnout model, meaning it is completely non existent; this doesn’t detract from the game whatsoever. It would have to be a really stupid story line to explain why some many cars are racing around, destroying the terrain and making a genuine nuisance of themselves without any cops trying to put an end to it.

The game play is very easy to get to grips with; basically drive as fast as you can without trying to crash. The vehicles are very responsive to your commands though depending on the vehicle it can get better or worse. The AI works very well up to a point; there are times when I have taken out another vehicle, as always a short scene of the crash is shown and when the player gets control of the vehicle back from the AI, it crashes into a wall. This made me want to throw my control at the television a few times; but it only happens once in a while so I suppose it’s not as bad as it could be.

There are several game types; these include the traditional race event and road rage. In addition to these are new events such as stunt run, burning ride and midnight ride. As well as event types there are car types; each type as different attributes to it making it better for certain types of events e.g. the stunt car is lighter than other types of cars, this allows it to get more air, the aggression type of car has better strength and is heavier; this makes it easier to run vehicles of the road therefore making it best for the road rage event.

The graphics great though most of the time you’ll be travelling five hundred miles an hour whilst, giving you less of a chance to take in the scenery
One of the first things I noticed after the update (apart from motorbikes) was that now after a set amount of time; day changes to night and vice versa; this adds new depth to the game because it provides you with extra events and things to do plus, the driving at night can get tricky because of how far you can see ahead of you. A slight annoyance of the update that I noticed is that now it tries to bring the latest news from the server when the game starts, which can get annoying when you just want to jump into the game and get driving.

This is one of those games that can be picked up and played for an hour or two if you don’t have time to get stuck into a full story intensive game.

I don’t find racing games very appealing but the Burnout series has always exceeded my expectations and has given me great enjoyment; in fact it’s the only racing game I enjoy. Paradise continues to give the same enjoyment as the previous games in the series. I would recommend it, without hesitation to anyone.

Rating:

Lately, I have been having trouble with earphones; more specifically iPod earphones. My first set lasted about three months then the sound in the left ear decided to go mute, so I bought a second pair which cost £20. They have now gone muffled in the right ear, meaning I have to by another pair. This time there not going to be made by apple.

What I’m complaining about isn’t the crappy life of the supposed “quality” product that apple claims the earphones are but about the fact that shops decide to put there audio accessories next to the same place were people are lining up. This of course makes it almost impossible to get to them. And with Christmas a few weeks away the high street is more packed than a tin of sardines.

Also, whilst walking around the newly developed city centre; I noticed that it is more safe to walk on the same road as the huge vehicles they call buses because there’s more grip there than on the paths your supposed to walk on. The path slabs are so smooth that it would be more safe if the council installed ice for the public to walk on. It’s fine when it’s dry, but when it’s been raining; it’s a death trap. Seriously, it’s good that your close to shops so you can buy a broom; this means you can sweep the path in front of you and slide yourself to where you want to go, making you a human curling stone; at least then your get home quicker than you would safely walking home.

Sometimes, I see the real advantages of shopping online; your not going to get wet and you sure as hell aren’t gonna get hit by a bus.

With services like twitter, freindfeed and facebook being so huge, URL shorteners are all the rage these days. But could something so simple, be so dangerous? In my opinion the answer to this question is…yes, without a doubt. Let me explain why.

If one day a URL shortening service such as Tinyurl or bit.ly were to sell their services, the buyer could have malicious intent. This meaning that when a user clicks a shortend URL he/she could be taken to a malware, spam or even porn site.