Josh's Blog

Ireland, Airport Security & A Very British Welcome Home

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Bishop) — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 13:37:00 +0000

I spent the majority of half term at the Popcap Games office in Dublin where my Dad works. This means I was in Ireland. I travelled there on a plane.

A Ryanair plane.

Those of you who are of the European persuasion will currently be groaning. To those of you who aren't... let's just say that Ryanair are the scum of all airlines, but are dirt cheap.

So let's wind back a bit to the security checkpoints at Gatwick. I had to go through the terrorist-detecting machine 3 times after removing various items of clothing before they finally gave up on it and issued a pat down search instead. I felt somewhat violated.

My bag experienced similar treatment. For some reason I had a large knife and a can of deodorant in it. I honestly can't remember why; perhaps I subconsciously wanted to hijack the plane because of all those violent videogames I've been playing? Yeah, that's probably it. Damn those videogames. Damn them to hell.

Anyway, I then had to empty the entire contents of my bag and have it swiped for explosives whilst they 'disposed of' my supposedly dangerous items. My bag probably felt more violated then I.

Why am I telling you this? Well, you'll find out momentarily when I land.

We're now back to the wonderful Ryanair plane, 60 seconds before takeoff.

"Please turn off all electronic devices."

I seriously hate it when they ask you to do this. Electronics won't crash your plane, Mr Ryanair. Please leave me alone and let me stalk people on Twitter in peace.

Vrooooom. The engines activate we begin speeding along the runway, ready for takeoff.

Or not.

The warning light on the wing started flashing.

The plane stopped.

"We appear to be having some technical issues."

No shit.

I won't go on about what happened next, but we then spent two hours sitting on the plane until they finally decided they had lost enough money leaving the plane on the ground and it was time to take off regardless of the consequences.

The flight lasted just under an hour. Less than half the time we spent on the tarmac at Gatwick.

So we were now in Ireland. Woo! Etc. I stood up, reached into my pocket, and realised something: I had a knife on me the entire time. The knife attached to my wallet (which actually went through the x-ray machine - this was different from the one taken from my bag) had somehow gotten through the overly useless security at Gatwick.

I'm not really going to go into too much depth about my time in Ireland as many of the things I did at Popcap are covered by the NDA that I wasn't actually asked to sign. Oh right, I didn't sign actually sign anything.

Ok.

I played this really awesome game and got a score of 740,000.

I'm so mean.

Let's skip to Friday and my journey back before anyone gets sued.

Dublin airport was less invasive than Gatwick. I only had to remove my belt and shoes this time and my bag went through mostly unscathed. I thought I'd try getting the knife through again for a laugh, and it worked. I'm not sure how that made me feel - If it's that easy to get a knife onto a plane, why the hell do most of these checks exist?

Anyway. We took off. Had advertising thrown at us for an hour - Ryanair magazine! Ryanair scratch cards! Ryanair perfume! Ryanair smokeless cigarettes! Ryanair duty-free cocaine! - and then we landed. It felt incredibly short compared to the fiasco of Monday.

We headed straight to the train station once we got through the excitement of several hundred meters of sponsored corridor. When we got there, I realised just where exactly I was. England.

"I am sorry to announce that the 22:34 service to Brighton has been delayed by 15 minutes due to the train having to wait for a member of the crew."

Oh, Southern. I missed you.

So we waited and got on the train. Half way through the journey we had another announcement.

"Due to delays, this train will no longer be stopping at Burgess Hill, Hassocks, or Preston Park."

For those of you who don't know me, I live in Hassocks. Several people looked around the train slightly confused for a few seconds before standing up and leaving. We followed. It's sad how little fuss people made over this. I guess we are just used to it now.

We waited another 15 minutes and got on the next train. This one had no spare seats and smelled of old people, but at least it had the courtesy to stop at the stations it told us it would stop at.

When we finally got to Hassocks it was pouring with rain. Rain we would've avoided if the earlier train had stopped here.

Yep. I was home.

'What Apps Do I Download?' #1

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Bishop) — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 14:18:00 +0000

All too often when people I know get iPods or iPhones, they ask 'What apps do I download?' and I usually show them everything I use - most of which gets lost as I quite often list several dozen. So I'm going to write a blog post every now and then with my recommendations.

I originally intended this to be one post, but the list got far too long, so I'll be doing a few at a time on a semi-regular basis. No commitments as to how often. I suck at that ;)

Anywho, let's get started.

Meebo - Free
The king of all IM apps. It supports every protocol you can think of. All your account data is stored in the cloud. It has push, image support, a ridiculously well thought out interface, and best of all: It's free.

You may have heard of Meebo before, they are the same people who created the extremely handy Meebo webapp (which, by the way, shares the same login with the iPhone app for easy IM access wherever you are (unless it's blocked wherever you are (Fuck you, Varndean College))).

There isn't really much else to say. The only downsides are the unobtrusive banner ads (but it's free) and lack of an iPad app (although the iPhone version works pretty well with Full Force, so that's something at least).

Handoff - £1.19/$1.99
I only got this yesterday after Apple's new App Store account tweeted about it. There have been a few apps that have tried this in the past, but nothing has come close to how well Handoff has solved the problem.

It basically gives you a button in your browser toolbar that sends anything you want to your iPhone. Be it just a page, or any amount of text that you highlight on a page (like a phone number!). On the iPhone end, it's also smart - It intelligently interprets Google Maps links and phone numbers. The app is also universal, with the iPad interface being one of the best I've seen in a long time.

To top it all off? The developer is also extremely communicative. Shortly after downloading the app, I emailed the him with some small feature requests (an easy way to add the bookmarklets to Mobile Safari to make sending content between devices easier, and the ability to send links from an iOS device to my desktop browser). He responded within a few hours in an extremely positive and - best of all - human way. I half expected a robotic 'Thanks for the suggestion, please follow us on Twitter.' response but I got quite the opposite (by the way, you totally should follow them on Twitter).

Sleep Cycle - £0.59/$0.99
I have trouble getting up in the morning. This app is probably the best alarm clock ever.

I'll explain it in simple terms: This app reads your mind (or if you want to get scientific, it measures the slightest movements on your bed using the accelerometer) and knows when you are sleeping lightly and by extension, when you aren't. You tell it when you want to be woken up (say, between 7:15 and 7:45), and it will play an alarm the first time it detects you are in light sleep during that window.

Now, why is this good? Waking from light sleep is infinitely easier than waking from heavy sleep. It turns those horrible 'Oh god, please kill me.' mornings into 'Yeah, I love getting up at 7am to catch the train because Southern Rail changed their timetable! I can't wait to get to college and get on with some monotonous tasks!' mornings (Ok, perhaps it's not quite that good, but you get the idea).

Reeder - £1.79/$2.99 (iPhone) / £2.99/$4.99 (iPad)
I'm addicted to Google Reader, and this little app makes accessing my feeds on the go so, so easy. I would probably go as far as saying that this is the most used app on my phone. Everything about it just feels right.

It's really quite hard to explain how well the interface works, so I'm just going to embed a video instead:

Eurogamer Expo 2010: Gears 3, Bulletstorm, and Shogun 2: Total War

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Bishop) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 23:44:00 +0000

I went to Eurogamer on Sunday and met up with two people I'd never seen in real life before. My mother thought I was going to be abducted by paedophiles. I convinced her that I'm too good a judge of character for that to happen. Unfortunately, I overestimated my character-judging skills and I am now writing to you from a locked room in a basement somewhere in north London.

Anyway, let's get on to the games.

First up, Gears 3. This is the entire reason I bought tickets, got a fake ID (I'm not 18 until Monday!) and took the time to go. I was not disappointed. For my thoughts on Gears 3, head over to this post on the official Gears forums. There's also this short video that one of the paedophiles forced me to shoot:

Next up, Bulletstorm. I only played through the demo of this once. I had my expectations set high as it's being developed by People Can Fly & Epic. Once again, I was not disappointed. There were 2 guns in the demo - An assault rifle and a gun that shot two sticky remotely-detonated balls attached together by a chain (I'm sure it has a proper name, but this just sounds better).

The assault rifle behaved like an assault rifle should behave, and that was good. That formula shouldn't be messed with. The second gun behaves nothing like you've ever played with before. It was a joy to use once you got the hang of it - sticking it to the ground and laying traps, sticking it to people and detonating them near their friends - and it just plain rocked. This is the kind of weapon you would expect in a Ratchet & Clank game, yet it somehow works in a gritty shooter.

But this game goes way beyond guns. I has a laser whip and a giant boot. I could leash enemies towards me, watch them float around in low gravity for a split second, then kick them into the nearest giant cactus. This is the kind of hook that chainsawing was in the original Gears - but it was only the beginning. I could kick people into man-eating plants, kick people into explosive objects, kick people and then shoot them, kick people off cliffs, kick people into other people, or just kick people, leash them, then kick them again. They should've called this game Bootystorm.

Last up is Shogun 2: Total War. I didn't actually play this, but I attended a panel where Mike Simpson (creative director on the game) gave a talk about and a demo of the game. Before he got on stage though, we were forced to watch some crappy Nvidia 3D advert. It didn't make me want to give Nvidia my money.

Anyway. As a huge strategy fan, I am stoked for this game. I've played every Total War to date, but this one looks like it will trump them all. Not too much to report here, but the game looks absolutely gorgeous so far. Everything from the campaign map to the water to the individual units slaughtering each other under a cherry blossom tree that actually sheds petals is intricately and beautifully detailed.

So, yeah, it was a fun day out. I'll be going next year (if I am released by then) for sure, especially as Gears 3 has been delayed and most likely won't be out until after it.

France, Monday Night Combat, and Apple Products

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Bishop) — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 10:30:00 +0000

I haven't posted in a while, so here's a short update. I am currently on holiday in France with most of my immediate family. The weather has been nice, unlike England, which is great, and hilarious when people are complaining about it on Facebook.

Social Networking at its finest

Not much else to say, apart from a photo from our trip to a supermarket:

Also, my Xbox is not on holiday, it is at home. I don't get back until the 28th of August. Monday Night Combat was released on the 11th of August. I have been wanting to play it forever. This is why:

Isn't that just awesome? It sure is, especially if you currently have an Xbox. At least I have Starcraft 2 with me. But I can't play that online because the entirety of France disconnects from the internet every 8 minutes.

And an update on the whole iPhone saga: The current one is holding up fine, I had to get my iPad replaced again (that's 4 now), and I also got a Macbook Pro. it only had to be replaced once.

And why did it need to be replaced?

Well, the wireless stopped working, so I phoned up technical support, who told me to run this utility, which then caused it to not boot at all. Yay for technical support. At least I got a new one the next day, before even having to send the dud one off. And I have two power adapters now, so it's all good I guess.

Oh and here's a video I made of my Granddads 80th birthday before I left for France:

He made that pop up TV himself. He also made his own lift. You could call him a mad scientist of sorts.

Visual Basic until 5am

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Bishop) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 04:04:00 +0000

UPDATE: New links.

So I decided to play around with Visual Basic today. Well, yesterday. It's now 5am the following morning. Time went fast.

Anyway, I can't be bothered to write that much, but here's what I came up with...

Tilly, Ben, Bazil

This was actually started in a lesson at college. We had to create a simple Rock, Paper, Scissors game. I opted to use 3 people from the class instead of inanimate objects. It should be pretty self explanatory.

Download link (v1.1, 774kb, zip)

Behead-A-Bazil

This is something I started today (yesterday), and is still very much a work in progress. It's a Whack-A-Mole clone, but instead of a Mole I used someone from my class, and instead of whacking, you are decapitating. Art was done frame by frame in Photoshop.

It has a rare crash that I'm still trying to get rid of, and isn't polished at all, but it still works.

Download link (v0.2, 341kb, zip)

If, for whatever reason, I have moved these files in the future, they should be available somewhere in this directory. Source, previous versions, and unzipped versions are also in that directory.

Pretend It's Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Bishop) — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 21:40:00 +0000

Had some technical issues yesterday which meant I couldn't access Blogger, so let's all just pretend it's Wednesday.
Anyway.

I went to the Apple store yesterday, with the same friend that I went to the launch with. The Genius we spoke to wasn't very helpful. He exclaimed that we should be happy that we have working phones. He said the phone had no issues whatsoever. He told us it was perfect. He had an iPhone 2G.

Perhaps the iPhone 2G has the phone feature built in.

We asked for free Bumpers. He said no. We asked again, explaining our problem (again). He said there was no problem (again). He told us that, perhaps, if we had come in all angry and shouted at him, he would've given us free bumpers. Basically what he was saying is they give free stuff to abusive people, while the polite people get nothing.

The Genius told us that he could replace our phones a hundred times and it would still have this problem. He then told us he would not replace our phones because there was no problem. I then complained that the home button on my phone was loose (it was), and demanded a replacement - I had already backed it up, wiped it, boxed it all up, and travelled to the Apple store - So I wanted something for all this effort. He told me that if I did this, I would be unable to return my phone to the Apple store for a refund, I acknowledged that, even though I had actually purchased mine from Vodafone.

So he bought out the new phone, it came in a cellophane-wrapped black plastic coffin, It looked so sad. I got a screen protector out my bag, ready to apply to the new phone, and the Genius seemed horrified by this. He proclaimed that the screen does not get scratched (Just like how Macs don't get viruses!), and proceeded to show us his iPhone 2G screen. It was cracked. He covered that bit up with his thumb. He told me that covering up the screen (he referred to it as art) was a crime (he was joking, but he meant it).

I left an Apple store with the new phone, got some more cookies, and went home.

So, as the Apple customer support people told me to, I called them back when I got my new phone. I told them how this had affected my signal issue (it hadn't), and demanded that they send me a free bumper, as they said they would the last time I called if a replacement phone didn't fix the issue. I was transferred to a senior adviser (yay). It turned out to be another queue (boo).

I listened to some trashy music on speakerphone for about 10 minutes before the first helpful Apple employee I have spoken to in this whole saga picked up. His name was Ethan. Ethan was in the American call centre, and was the first American I had spoken to, so I'm guessing they hire competent people over there.

He basically told me that there was an issue, and that they are aware of it, and they are working on fixing it and finding a solution for customers.

What's that, Genuis? There's no problem? Oh, ok. Why don't you come back when you have Senior in your title.

I asked Ethan about a Bumper, and basically told me that they aren't even allowed to give them out anymore. And you know what? I believe him. He'd been honest so far. I then asked him a question about possible compensation in the future, and if buying a Bumper would exclude me from that. He emailed me all his contact details, and told me that if any compensation of any form was announced, or if I had any other problems, I could contact him and he would help me and get me anything I needed.

I was actually satisfied with this outcome. I had finally spoken to someone who had admitted there was an issue, given me a direct way to contact him, and was polite about the whole thing.

But I would be contacting Ethan again sooner than both of us thought.

I activated the new phone, restored it, I hate iTunes, etc etc. When it was all up and running, I noticed two things:

The home button was even looser
There was a dead pixel in the corner of the screen

Damn.

I emailed my new buddy Ethan. Ethan told me that there would be no problem getting a replacement. Now I have to go and see my arch nemesis at the Genius bar again. Perhaps I'll bring him some cookies.

All this drama for a problem that doesn't exist.

Or does it?!

We'll have to wait until the next episode to find out!

I'll post again when something mildly interesting happens.

i4, Only £499, Phone Is £25 Extra

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Bishop) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 21:59:00 +0000

So, I got an iPhone 4 last week. Got up at 4:30 in the morning to go to a Vodafone store for a friend.

We queued up for a few hours, met a few nice people (more on one of them later), and got excited every time a van drove past, hoping it was the iPhones. But they were already inside. One guy actually ran down the Phones4U branch and snagged the last phone there, and left his place in the queue, despite the fact he had been there since 3.

When the store opened, the first four people in the queue started to buy their phones within seconds. It took what seemed like at least half an hour for the first one to finish. I was 6th in the queue, my friend was 7th, so it was our turn quite quickly.

But there was a problem. We were both 17. Neither of us could sign the contract, and they couldn't reserve a phone for either of us (Apple's policy, apparently). We were pissed, as was another customer - I let him take my place while me and my friend discussed what to do. We decided to call in the cavalry. The cavalry, in this case, being some conveniently nearby parents.

I called my mum, thankfully she wasn't busy, so she said she'd stop by as soon as she could. However, there was still the issue of them not being able to save a phone for me - even for half an hour - and there being very little stock left. The guy I gave my place tried to reason with the manager - he even offered to pay for our phones until our parents could get there - but the manager didn't budge. He then sat there talking to a member of staff for at least half an hour, purposefully wasting time to slow down the queue so there was a higher chance of us getting our phones. It was actually quite funny to watch. The manager then came forward and announced that they were out of stock.... of the 32GB model.

Anyway, some time passed, the guy (whose name I never got, regretfully), eventually had to leave, and the queue continued to move forward. I spied on one of the screens that they only had a single phone left. The waiting at this point was intense. Someone was just about to get up and leave, allowing the queue to move forward and the last phone to be sold, when my mum appeared at the door to save the day. We quickly sat down, much to the dismay of the next person in the queue. The manager stepped forward to announce they had no phones left at all, but they could order one for next week.

About a minute later, my friend's dad arrived, but it was too late. However they phoned up Vodafone and complained, and managed to get two phones dispatched for delivery the next morning. Not too bad.

At this point, I was an hour late for college, but I didn't really care. I had my phone, thanks to my mum and the nameless man from the queue.

"Wait 20 minutes for it to activate" said the guy at the Vodafone store. My day at college finished two hours later. No activation. I was saddened by this.

By the time I got home it still hadn't activated. I tried rebooting it and that somehow worked, so that was problem #1 gone. Now I was activated, I decided to sync with iTunes. I hate iTunes. I needed to update to 9.2. Ok, I thought, this should be easy.

I was wrong. Apple Software Update decided it only wanted to install half of iTunes before failing, leaving me with a non working iTunes install, that also refused to uninstall itself. I hate iTunes.

So I tried a bunch of things, read a bunch of articles, and got it working an hour later, and finally was able to sync my phone. It took a while. I then started to organize my large collection of apps into folders within iTunes. I'm obsessive about things like this so I spent about half an hour organizing and reorganizing everything, then I was happy with the result, and I clicked Sync.

Crash.

It was all gone. All my obsessive organization and neatly organized and appropriately named folders, gone. Did I mention that I hate iTunes?

So I did it all again, syncing every 60 seconds or so in case of another catastrophic failure on iTunes' part. Thankfully there was none, and I managed to get it all done in about 15 minutes.

Now it was time for me to use my phone. All that time, money, effort and frustration was about to pay off.

The Retina display is just incredible, literally like nothing I've ever seen. You just cannot see the pixels. I kept moving it closer and closer to my eye, and couldn't still couldn't see any, I then got to the point that it was so close that it just defocused. You can't beat it, no matter how hard you try. Everything else pales in comparison. This is the future of display technology, you really do have to see it to believe it. I can't wait for this technology to make its way to bigger screens.

The time spent putting my apps into folders was worth it; I could see each of their tiny little icons in perfect detail. I played around with a few. Those updated for the Retina Display, such as Flight Control and Twitter, just look incredible.

Those that haven't been updated for the Retina Display have ugly looking pixelated app icons and the apps themselves look marginal at best, depending on how much they rely on Apple's baked in stuff, which, as expected, has all been updated for the display. The apps I use regularly are all slowly being updated though, so this should be a non-issue soon enough.

The A4 chip makes everything noticeably faster, and the doubled RAM makes multitasking a joy to use. The battery also seems to last a noticeably longer amount of time.

Facetime, which I tried the next day when my friend had gotten his phone, works a treat. It does everything it is advertised to do, the camera flipping is especially fun, but it just seems a bit situational, and extremely awkward when it's time to hang up. But at least it uses Wifi, so the call won't drop. Perhaps when more devices use it I'll get some more use out of it.

Now, back to the first day I had it, I thought I'd make a call to my dad, who currently carries a 3G and a 3GS (work and home, one Irish one English), and gloat. But there was a problem.

I was holding it wrong.

I had no signal. I put it down on my desk and suddenly had signal. I had read about this, but I didn't think it was this bad. I held it in some awkward position that felt like I was going to drop it, managed to get signal, and phoned my dad. We spoke for a few minutes, and the call actually didn't drop. So obviously this was a problem. It was also being reported all over the place, I just didn't know it was this bad until I experienced it.

---

A few days passed, I tried to adjust my holding position for a few days but by Monday I just got sick of it. I had read in various places that not only does the Bumper case that Apple sells solve the signal problem, but if you called them up and complained you could get one sent to you for free. I tried, twice, and didn't get anything. I went back and read some of these posts again, but they were all from people in the US, which kinda sucks for me.

The worst part was that when I explained the issue, I was actually told I needed to buy the case in order to fix the problem. So I called again, and this time the guy on the other end suggested that I get a replacement iPhone, so I thought why not, it may work. I have a Genius Bar appointment booked for Wednesday for that.

Oh and, even better, the same friend also tried calling Apple today. He was laughed at and told to use another phone. Great. Nice one, Apple.

Anyway, this afternoon I relented and went out to buy a Bumper case, simply because I needed to actually use my phone, and it has remedied the signal problem, but has brought with it another issue all of its own. The headphone socket no longer accepts the audio jack from my Astro A30 headphones. Boo. Not sure what to do about this. I've considered making the hole in the case bigger, but that means I can't take it back for a refund when Otterbox get around to releasing their case.

But hey, at least I can make calls. It only cost £25 extra for that privilege. And I got some cookies on the way back from the Apple store, so it's all cool.

Follow up on Wednesday.

MMO Gamers! My Brother needs YOU to help him with his Dissertation!

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Bishop) — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 22:41:00 +0000

If you play an MMO - Any MMO - Please read this and fill out his short survey:

Hello, my name is Dan Bishop.

I am currently writing my dissertation on the effects that Real Money Trading has on MMO games.

To carry out my primary research I have chosen to create a survey. I would greatly appreciate it if you could complete it, it's 12 questions long and shouldn't take more than 5 minutes of your time.

You can find it here: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22AF84L4BCY

Thanks,

Dan Bishop

Thanks!

My Cat and Hackers

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Bishop) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 10:06:00 +0000

This morning, I woke up to find two things:

My inactive World of Warcraft account had been hacked. Again.
My cat had left dismembered parts of a bird all over my bedroom floor.

Coincidence?

I think not.

Astro A40s ♥

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Bishop) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 14:21:00 +0000

So I got a pair of these on Thursday, after getting a Sharkoon X-Tatic headset for Christmas and having it break a week later (I got a full refund though, and now I have Astros, so it's all good).

Firstly I just want to say, they are awesome, if you are in the market for a decent headset, get these, you will not be disappointed. They do cost quite a bit - £199 in the UK and $249 in the US - but they are worth every penny. I'm not even going to complain about the US/UK price difference, they're too good.

But why are they so good? Well, perhaps my view of them is skewed after how bad the Sharkoon kit was, but everything about this headset just screams "I'm an awesome headset" to you.

Firstly, they just look fantastic (the white pair does anyway - the black one, not so much), far better than the competition. The build quality is great - metal body and a thick, sturdy plastic shell. Even the way the headset extends for large-headed people is better than any other headset I've seen - the top band is suspended on two rods extending from each earphone (after reading that, I have decided that it's an incredibly poor explanation of how it works, but it's the best I can do! :p ).

But of course, the whole reason for getting these isn't how it looks or how it feels; it's because of how it sounds, because of how it actually works.

The best way I can describe how it sounds is to basically say it sounds just like my 7.1 speaker system (probably better actually), but I can use it without disturbing nearby relatives or neighbours. I've been playing with Dolby Digital turned on, and I can hear (in-game) people all around me fine, but some people say it's easier to hear around you with DD turned off, but the audio quality just isn't as awesome like that in my opinion.

At the moment, I have Toslink (optical) cables coming my 360, my PC, and my Sky box into a switchbox, and then a 25ft Toslink cable (This is the one I got from Astro with my headset - this, like the headset, is extremely over-engineered and awesome) from that plugged into the Mixamp that came with the headset. Also plugged into this is the charge cable (it charges via USB, so it's 'region free', and the headset itself does not need external power) and a standard analogue audio lead, both of which lead to my laptop, and another standard analogue audio lead going into my 360 controller, and then one last wire going to the actual headset.

Yeah, that is a lot of wires. One thing I will say is they do all get tangled quite often, but that is unavoidable really. You can opt to just use batteries so you don't need a charge cable, and the extra audio cable plugged into my laptop is also not needed (I only have it there because otherwise I can't hear my laptop with these on, unless the volume is turned to max, and then we hit the whole problem of nearby relatives again), so that cuts two out straight away.

One last thing I will mention is that I purchased some Toslink splitter from Amazon to allow me to plug everything into my headset and my speaker system - they didn't work at all, though. Nothing to do the Astros - none of my leads, or output or input devices worked with them. But to be honest I'm not that bothered, my Astros are better than my speakers anyway ;)

Anyway, I think I've said enough. Get some if you can, because they are awesome. Now I must go play Gears 2 and use my red button.

UK Astro website

US Astro website

Lol Simon Cowell

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Bishop) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 19:37:00 +0000

Rock band Rage Against The Machine has won the most competitive battle in years for the Christmas number one.
The band's single, Killing In The Name, sold 500,000 downloads beating X Factor winner Joe McElderry's The Climb by 50,000 copies to clinch the top spot.

- BBC News

Also, fans of the campaign have already raised over £60,000 for Shelter! (And that number is rising fast)

Woot

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Bishop) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:17:00 +0000

I got a nice email from Google:

This atrocity must be stopped

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Bishop) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 17:03:00 +0000

As seen on Facebook:

LOOK AT ALL OF THE CAPITAL LETTERS?! AHRRGGRHGR!?

Rage Factor

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Bishop) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:01:00 +0000

Do you hate the X Factor as much as I do? If so; see this.

G'Brown

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Bishop) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:52:00 +0000

FTW

Google Public DNS

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Bishop) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:55:00 +0000

I just started using Google Public DNS, and it works a treat - The DNS Tiscali runs is far too slow for my liking.

It's extremely easy to set up as well, check out this page for a guide.

Lamp Fever

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Bishop) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:47:00 +0000

It appears Facebook was taken over by a sudden lust for lamps:

(Click for a larger version)

Don't you just love the internet?

City of Heroes: Going Rogue in Photosynth

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Bishop) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 17:12:00 +0000

It's half done, and this is what I have so far:

Source images from this video.

I will be posting a tutorial up on how I did this when I'm done.

I now own...

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Bishop) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 20:54:00 +0000

"You now own STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, Full Spectrum Warrior, Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers, Titan Quest, Titan Quest: Immortal Throne, Company of Heroes, Dawn of War Gold, Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, Dawn of War Gold: Winter Assault, Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights, Dawn of War: Soulstorm, Frontlines: Fuel of War, Saint's Row 2, Warhammer® 40,000™: Dawn of War® II, Red Faction: Guerrilla , Red Faction, Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor, Red Faction II."

All for £26.49 thanks to Steam's rather epic sale.

Truth be told, all I wanted was Red Faction: Guerilla, but that alone sells for more than this pack at the moment.

I have some more Google Wave invites

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Bishop) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:53:00 +0000

Google keeps handing people extra invites, and I have a ton, so if you want one just leave a comment with your email address and I'll be sure to send one to you.

Assassin's Creed 2 (is awesome)

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Bishop) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 22:18:00 +0000

(Minor sidequest spoilers inside)

I got this midday on Saturday (Play.com are far too slow for my liking, but alas, the Black Edition was too awesome to refuse), and played it for about 20 hours over the weekend and enjoyed every second of it. I still haven't finished the main story yet though - Too busy with side quests & MW2 :p

Here's what the Black Edition contained:

(I need a new camera)

A few notes about the Black Edition:

The box itself is really nicely made, however it took me about 10 minutes to figure out why there was artwork on the inside of the box: The front flips open to create a nice display case for Ezio.
The additional content is laughable compared to the rest of the game; if you got the normal edition then you aren't missing out on much. Honestly.
The art book is gorgeous. It even feels gorgeous just holding it.
The model is nice, but the lack of movement is a little disappointing.
The MW2 Hardened edition is a complete ripoff compared to this.

And my thoughts on the actual game so far (I have just finished segment 10):

It's fucking awesome.
The sheer amount of things to do is simply astounding; I spent a good 6-7 hours on Sunday playing the game without doing any of the main quest line.
I'm really digging Ubisoft's new Uplay platform: Free goodies FTW. Only negative so far is that the theme wasn't a Premium theme.
The fact I never finished Assassin's Creed 1* has not impacted negatively on my experience one bit.
It's nowhere near as monotonous as the first one.
I'm not sure what else to say without spoiling anything; but it's just such a fun, varied, and satisfying experience.

Overall: Buy it. Or ask for it for Christmas. Or, in true Assassin's Creed style; assassinate someone who owns it, and steal it from them. Preferably not me, though.

*Long story involving a RROD or two followed by some awesome releases.

My first post

noreply@blogger.com (Josh Bishop) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:42:00 +0000

Testing...