June 2008 Archives

The Geek Care & Feeding Guide very firmly has it's tongue planted well into it's cheek.

Best Photoshop Tutorials and Tips Sites is a rather cool collection of links to some Photoshop tips and tricks.

Spain have won their first major football title for 44 years by beating Germany 1-0 in the final of Euro 2008. The winning goal was scored after 33 minutes by Liverpool's Fernando Torres and 1-0 doesn't really reflect the dominance that Spain had throughout the game. Germany were very lacklustre and they really cannot complain about the result. In fact, truth be told, it could easily have been 3-0 or more. Early on in the tournament the Netherlands were really the grabbing all the headlines but Spain have also played really well throughout the tournament and more than deserve the title.

Marc and Angel Hack Life is a site on which the authors share their views and thoughts on a broad range of topics pertaining to life, hacks, productivity, aspirations, health, work, tech and general self improvement.

Not everybody will agree with what they write but they do have some useful insights. 50 Things Everyone Should Know How To Do is one of the posts that make useful reading.

I'm off roleplaying so click here for 25 top high-tech pranks to pull on your buddies.

I discovered a puncture in the off-side (driver-side) front tyre of the car yesterday evening. I had been thinking on popping into Kwik-Fit to get the tyres checked anyway so took the trip into Whitehaven this morning. meant I could also take my sister shopping at the same time and not have to make two trips. I had thought that the tread was probably getting down on the tyres a bit; they've been on for almost 15 months, and I would probably have to get all 4 tyres replaced. Apparently not; the three un-punctured tyres have tread depths of between 4mm and 5mm. Unfortunately, the tyre with the puncture apparently had some problems with the interior wall and they couldn't just plug it and send me on my way. So, they've only ended up replacing one tyre.

Last night's first semi-final saw Germany beat Turkey 3-2 in a game that Turkey twice pulled back to level pegging. Truth be told, Turkey were much the better side for periods of the game and Germany could have had no complaints if they had lost.

Tonight's second semi-final saw Spain beat Russia 3-0 in what was a free-flowing, attractive game. All 3 goals were scored in the second half and the Russians can really have no complaints about the result.

Sunday night's final between Germany and Spain should be a pretty good game and I'm going to predict that Spain will win a very tight game. It could possibly go to extra time or perhaps even the dreaded penalties.

How many do you reckon you could find in 5 minutes?

Check here.

I found 50 of them.

Every year about a million children in Africa die as a result of Malaria and this campaign aims to significantly reduce this number. You can donate by American Express, Visa or Mastercard and 100% of your donation goes to purchasing anti-malaria nets.

Visit the website.

This is the second version of this entry. The first was a rather cool Star Wars type scroller. However, Lucas has requested that it be taken down due to infringing on their properties.

Anyway, after just over 5 years this is the 500th entry and there have been over 350 comments in total. If the current posting cycle is maintained then entry 1000 will appear sometime in mid-late 2009.

The second semi-final will be between Russia and Spain.

Russia beat Netherlands 3-1 after extra time on Saturday night, in a game that I didn't see. However, Russia apparently were very impressive.

Spain overcame Italy on penalties after a 0-0 draw. I had said that this would either be a very good game or that the Italians would defend and invite the Spanish to try and break them down. It transpired that the Italians played a very defensive game and although both teams had opportunities, 2 hours later and the game went to penalties.

Of the 4 teams I had picked to make the semi-finals only Spain have and on that basis I will pick them to win the second semi-final. I think Germany will probably win the other game, but you just can't write off the Turks.

Well, we watched a total of 8 films yesterday including Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs, DOA, The Sasquatch Gang, Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer, In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, Run Fatboy Run, The Incredible Hulk and Superhero Movie.

The unexpected highlight was The Sasquatch Gang, which started out and appeared as if it was going to be a Coming of Age movie in a similar vein to Stand By Me, but turned out to be a really good comedy. Check it out if you can find it.

On the way home I popped into a local shop and managed to pick up True Romance and Mars Attacks for a combined total of £5.

Speaking to Colin last night he doesn't feel up to running his game this weekend and neither do I. So, we've decided not to have a roleplaying session today but rather have one of our infrequent DVD sessions. We'll get together at Colin's around 2pm and will take turns in selecting DVDs to watch until the wee small hours of the morning. A lot of what we watch is cheese but that's half the fun. It's a chance to sit down and have a natter whilst watching a few films. It's a nice change of pace from roleplaying.

The first semi-final of Euro 2008 will pit Germany against Turkey. The game will be played next Wednesday; 25th June 2008.

Germany beat Portugal 3.-2 last night and Turkey beat Croatia on penalties following a 1-1 draw after extra time. I had picked Portugal to win the whole tournament and had picked Croatia to get past Turkey.

Following my lack of success in the first two quarter-finals don't be surprised if Russia beat Netherlands and Italy beat Spain to give me an 0-4 record.

A Canadian court has lifted a 12-year-old girl's grounding, overturning her father's punishment for disobeying his orders to stay off the internet, his lawyer said.

Full story here.

I'm not a parent but I think from reading the article that the father had made reasonable attempts to control the behaviour of an unruly child. It boggles the mind that a court would feel inclined to intervene in such a situation.

The quarter finals of Euro 2008 will feature the following four matches:

Portugal vs Germany
Expect to see a different Portugal side from the one that lost their final group game when the core of the team was rested. Germany didn't have such a luxury after losing to Croatia and had to field a full strength side in their last group game. As long as the Portuguese players don't get dragged into a physical battle with the much bigger German side I can still see Portugal progressing.

Croatia vs Turkey
Croatia surprised a lot of people by beating Germany in their group and are rewarded with a game against Turkey. I haven't been all that impressed with Turkey and I think Croatia will edge a scrappy game.

Netherlands vs Russia
I, like everybody else, have been blown away by the Dutch performances so far. Masterful victories over France and Italy were followed by a relaxed, but still victorious, outing against Romania. I'm not convinced Russia were a better side than Sweden but they managed to get out of the group anyway. I honestly can't see the Russians winning this game and I'm backing the Dutch.

Spain vs Italy
A potential mouth-watering prospect for Sunday night. It really depends if the Italians turn up and play or just sit back defensively and try to snatch a winner, has been their modus operandi in the past. If they sit back I envisage a dour game with the Spanish valiantly trying to break them down. However, if the Italians come out and play a nice, attacking game then I can see this being a very good game. This game could go either way but I think the Spanish will prevail.

Evil Mozza mentioned a couple of weeks ago that he has a load of VHS video tapes that he wanted transferred over onto DVD. Now, there is quite a few DVD/VHS combination units on the market but most don't allow dubbing from one format to another. However, further research would no doubt point out that some of them may offer that ability. This would involve buying another rather clunky unit that would take up valuable space and probably be used sparingly. On top of which a decent quality one could run well over £100.

Anyway, I've found a slightly more elegant solution; totally by accident as it happens. As I was stumbling through the web I came across Blackmagic Design and their USB Video Recorder dongle. A nice, elegant usb solution that uses existing video hardware and records onto PC or Macintosh ready for later storage on CD, DVD or even BluRay with the right burner. The dongle does the encoding legwork so it doesn't take masses of time.

Further delving and I've found a couple of UK resellers that will start selling the product for £59+VAT.when it launches in September. The companies are OneVideo and Holdan Limited. There may well be other USB solutions in a similar vein but I haven't really delved too much further. In fact Camera4Sports carry a similar dongle but I think the encoding is done by the PC rather than the dongle.

A final option which is probably not going to incur much extra cost beyond purchasing some decent length cables is that a fair number of the more recent ATI and nVidia cards have either AVIVO or PureVideo included. A suitably equipped card with video in abilities would make transcoding from VHS a breeze.

For the first time in 22 years the Boston Celtics are the NBA Champions. They beat the Los Angeles Lakers 131-92 to clinch the series by 4 games to 2 and lift the Larry O'Brien Trophy. This marks their 17th championship and marks the ninth time in eleven meetings that they have beaten the Lakers in the NBA Finals. This was the 62nd finals series and Boston and LA between them have won 31 of them.

Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett all clicked at the right time and Rajon Rondo had the kind of game he probably couldn't even have dreamt of. He ended the night with 8 assists, 7 rebounds, 6 steals and 21 points. Allen and Garnett both had 26 points each and Pierce had 17 points. Kendrick Perkins had a rather quiet night; possibly nursing his shoulder injury, but players like Leon Powe, Eddie House, P.J. Brown and James Posey all contributed off the bench.

Firefox 3.0 has been officially launched today. Some of the old add-ons from Firefox 2.0 still don't work with 3.0 so I would recommend that if you have an add-on that you desperately need then check and make sure that it's compatible with 3.0 first.

European users can download Firefox 3.0 from here. The US site still lists 2.0.0.14 as the latest version.

You can check add-ons here.

It's definitely more stable and less of a memory hog than previous versions and I would recommend upgrading to 3.0 to everybody and I would also recommend Firefox over Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera.

Frets on Fire is a freebie PC game very much in the same vein as the Guitar Hero series. The game comes with 3 or 4 songs included and there is a vibrant community out there. It even has a converter with it to allow you to convert Guitar Hero songs to work with it. It's extremely easy to find other songs from a variety of places on the net. Frets on Fire works on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

Tonight has been a night of shocks in football.

First, Switzerland, already eliminated from Euro 2008, salvaged some pride by beating a below strength Portugal 2-0. In an amazing finish to this evening's other Euro 2008 game Turkey came back from a 2-1 deficit with ten minutes left to shockingly beat Czech Republic 3-2 and progress. An uncharacteristic blunder by Petr Cech in the Czech goal gifted Turkey the equaliser before they got the winner with less than five minutes to play.

In the South American 2010 World Cup Qualifiers Paraguay maintained their spot at the top of the table by beating Brazil 2-0, even after having had a player sent off. In the other qualifier broadcast by Sky this evening Argentina struggled and had to rely on a last gasp equaliser to draw 1-1 at home with Ecuador. Ecuador, who had lost their previous 2 games by a combined ten goals, had taken the lead with just over twenty minutes left and it appeared that they had weathered the storm to end Argentina's 28 game unbeaten home streak in World Cup Qualifiers. However, Argentina equalised with the very last kick of the game.

All the teams at Euro 2008 have now played twice and there have been 1 or 2 shocks so far.

Group A:
Portugal, my original pick, continue to look good, and have already qualified from their group as winners. They play Switzerland tonight with nothing to play for. The other 2 teams in the group; Czech Republic and Turkey also play tonight; at the same time. The winner of that game will go through as runners-up of the group. If they draw, the game will go to penalties to decide who goes through.

Group B:
After drawing their first game against Austria, Croatia went and surprised everybody by beating Germany. They now sit atop this group and if they manage to avoid defeat against Poland tomorrow then they will qualify. If they beat Poland they will qualify as group winners. If Germany beat Austria or even just draw then they will qualify. If Austria win then they will qualify.

Group C;
The Netherlands look unstoppable in what was dubbed 'The Group Of Death'. They followed up their sensational demolition of Italy with an even better thumping of France. They have qualified for the next stage as the winners of their group. France and Italy meet later this week and the loser will definitely be going home. The winner will be hoping that the Netherlands continue in the same form and beat Romania. If Romania win that game then they will go through and both Italy and France will be going home.

Group D:
Spain followed up their emphatic defeat of Russia with a scraped win against Sweden yesterday and have qualified from this group. Russia and Sweden will play each other on Wednesday with the winner advancing to the next stage. A draw favours Sweden. Greece, the defending champions, are rooted to the bottom of this table and have already been eliminated.

I'm sticking with my original pick of Portugal but you cannot discount either the Netherlands or Spain.

This weekend is the sixth annual Download Festival. After much deliberation I finally decided that I really couldn't afford to go; and to be brutally honest, there wasn't really a lot to attract me to it anyway.

Of the bands that had interested me, I've already seen Children Of Bodom, Within Temptation, Apocalyptica, Motörhead, In Flames and Alter Bridge. The only band that I was really desperate to see that I hadn't already seen was Disturbed; and I wasn't forking out close to £200 that I couldn't afford to go and see them. In fact with fuel and spending money it would've been closer to £350.

It's likely Disturbed will tour the UK sometime in the next year or so anyway and I will instead look to pay £20-£30 to go and see them then instead. Hopefully, by that time, I'll be back in full-time employment.

I've found a rather cool piece of freebie software: SUMo.

From the website:

SUMo, which stands for Software Update Monitor. Thanks to SUMo you'll be able to keep your PC up-to-date by using the most recent version of your favorite software! Unlike built-in auto update features, SUMo tells you if updates are available before you need to use your software.

I have recently gotten to the stage where I am subscribed to almost 50 podcasts and I have been skipping episodes just to keep up.

Well, today I have, figuratively, taken a big cleaver to iTunes and trimmed back on the number of podcasts I am subscribed to. I've cut back to a core of 20 tech, gaming and sports related podcasts. I know the Friday Night Comedy podcast and the prattle are none of those genres but I'm maintaining my subscription to them.

Lego Indy is now out for PC, XBox 360, PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii & DS.

I've installed the game just this morning and have played the first level. It's as good as expected.

The first round of matches at Euro 2008 concluded today with Sweden beating Greece 2-0. Before the tournament began I had been saying that I was backing Portugal and was pleased with their first game victory. They play the Czech Republic tomorrow and victory would all but guarantee a second round berth.

Other countries that have impressed during the first round of matches are the Netherlands; 3-0 winners over Italy, and Spain, 4-1 winners over Russia. Germany didn't impress in beating Poland 2-0 and Sweden seemed to struggle first half before finally beating defending champions Greece 2-0 this evening. France and Romania failed to impress in their 0-0 draw and Italy were outclassed by the Dutch.

All 16 teams still have 2 games to play in the first round of group games, but, my money would still be on Portugal. However, I think Netherlands and Spain will also be thereabouts; and you really cannot discount Germany and whichever team between Italy and France manage to make it out of their group.

Do you remember The Naked Gun trilogy?

I have experienced something of a strange phenomenom this past couple of days. I seem to have lost most of Saturday evening, pretty much all of yesterday and most of today. But, I think I know the culprit.

GTA IV.

I've gotten very little done as a result of playing GTA IV for most of the weekend. And, the excessive playing wasn't intentional. I was giving myself a couple of hours here and there to get a feel for the game; but, it didn't work. The storyline has dragged me in and I just keep going back to it.

I was looking forward to Euro 2008 this month but I've only watched 1 of the first 6 matches so far.

Project Rockstar is an online music management game that I originally played a number of years ago. It was great fun and I only stopped playing when the game was reset and was offline while some upgrades were implemented. I soon moved onto other things and forgot the game. But I was downstairs on Dad's PC on Friday and noticed it in amongst all my old bookmarks that I had installed on his sytem for him. And hence, the renewal of an old friendship was instigated. Go and check it out.

Airbag goes off while guy is headbanging away to Bohemian Rhapsody.

As I have previously mentioned; on 15th May, I ordered GTA IV for the XBox 360 off eBay after getting some cash refunded by KJC Games. Unfortunately, the game never turned up and I couldn't contact the seller. I raised a non-delivery dispute with eBay which was passed to Paypal. When they couldn't get in touch with the seller they escalated it up to a claim and said that if they didn't receive an answer by 5th June they would find in my favour.

It's now 6th June and I've just received an email from Paypal saying that they had found in my favour, managed to recover the full amount from the seller's account and would credit it to me. I should wait between 2 to 5 days for it to credit. I checked my Paypal account and it had already credited. I've just now ordered another copy of GTA IV from a shop on eBay rather than an individual and it's cost me a total of 51p more than I had previously paid. I've taken out the recorded delivery option this time; although it wasn't offered by the previous seller.

Tonight is the first game of the NBA Finals. The best of seven series will be contested between two of the most successful, and fiercest rivals, in the NBA; the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers. I will be rooting for the Celtics. Unfortunately, coverage doesn't start until 1:50am and I have an appointment at 11:20am in the morning so am unlikely to be able to watch the whole game. However, I will be recording it and can watch the rest sometime tomorrow.

It's been another rather close day here and I decided that after the amount of running around, seemingly chasing after nothing, that I have been doing lately I was going to take the opportunity and have a chill out. I've gotten myself eight bottles of Grolsch and will be taking things easy for the rest of the evening and enjoying most of them. I may even watch a movie or perhaps just sit in the fading light and enjoy some loud heavy metal music.

I received a phone call from Colin last night to say that his newly upgraded PC wasn't displaying a picture on his monitor when he took it back upstairs. I talked him through a couple of checks before agreeing to pop in and have a look.

It turns out that once connected to the monitor upstairs it wasn't posting. It wasn't a problem with the monitor because his other PC was working fine on it. After opening it up and noticing that everything seemed to be running okay he mentioned the fact that his mousepad was lit up without the PC switched on. I incorrectly suggested that shouldn't happen and unplugged his mouse and keyboard. The PC then proceeded to boot fine. It transpires that the little green adapter he was using to convert his usb mouse into a ps2 mouse was preventing the system from booting. I plugged the mouse into a normal usb port and the PC is working fine.

It's another little thing I can suggest when people say their PC won't boot.

Oh, and I took the opportunity this morning to open up my PC and turn the hdd led connector the right way round so I have led indication of hdd activity. Unfortunately, the power led connector on my case is 3 pin and is only 2 pin on the motherboard so I still have no visible led indication that the PC is switched on.

Shirley Manson, lead singer of Scottish rockers Garbage is joining the cast of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles for season 2. She will play Catherine Weaver, the CEO of a cutting-edge high-tech precursor to SkyNet.

Evil Mozza (Colin to some) recently decided to upgrade his 2nd PC. It was an old Athlon 1400 or thereabouts and he decided to ask me to point him in the right direction. Getting an idea of what he wanted to use it for I decided rather than looking around everywhere I'd just go to one of, in my opinion, the most reliable PC suppliers in the UK; CCL Computers.

He just wants the PC for surfing the internet and transcoding AVIs. He didn't need any top-notch graphics ability and was happy just to use his existing optical drive and hard drives. Rather than faffing around selecting different motherboard, processor and ram I decided to recommend their motherboard bundles. So, not needing a top notch system I pointed him in the direction of their mid-range Intel and AMD bundles, along with a suitable case and system cooling. The AMD bundle came in at just under £190 with the Intel bundle just under £200 He's a bit of an AMD fan and opted for the AMD bundle. He got a WinFast motherboard, an AMD Athlon X2 5200+, 2gb of 667mhz DDR2 memory, a decent tower case with a 500 watt power supply and 3 case fans to go in the case; although he ended up only needing 2 since it came with one pre-installed. The motherboard has fairly standard on-board sound and a GeForce 6150 on-board.

It took less than an hour to put the system together and transfer the drives out of the old case into the new one. Unfortunately, XP kept on blue screening when we tried to boot it. This was probably due to the upgraded hardware. Unfortunately a repair install over the top of the old OS kept on hanging in the middle of installing devices so we ended up wiping the C: partition and doing a fresh install of XP. I also set SP3 off installing before I left. All he has to do now is reinstall the software he wants on it. All his old data is safely included on the 2nd hard drive we installed. He can even put a few of his slightly older games on it if he wants.

I've had Overlord for quite a while for my PC and finally got around to installing and playing it this morning. Suddenly, without realising it, 4 hours had passed. The premise of the game is simple. You are a new evil Overlord and must reclaim the lands and peoples around you. As you progress, you gain minions that do your bidding and your tower gradually gets rebuilt. It's a fun, evil game which has the same sort of feel as the Dungeon Keeper series.

Lots of fun.