Author: iandick

Widgets

avedeskI’ve always been a sucker for desktop applications – one’s that tell you free disk space, weather updates etc. Well, they seem to be commonly called Widgets now and there’s a growing market in supplying them. Reading an article on the Widget applications available I trialled a few over the past month and selected a firm favourite – Avedesk. With this utility you are able to configure a number of desktop applications to display disk stats, network info, weather stats – really anything you like. At the same time it is resource friendly and easy on the eye. The piccie shows a weather app running on my desktop – how depressingly wet (and yes…all I need to do is look out the window to see that but there is a nice 6 day forecast :-)) Avedesk also allows you to run Objectdock Docklets which means there’s thousands of icons and apps that you can use. I’ll be spending some time later in the week configuring the desktop. Eye candy here we come.

 

Let Me Finish

The first election debate in the USA has generated a fair bit of debate. Not on policies. More one how the two candidates looked and acted on TV. First was the analysis of the podium heights. All well and good, but the height of a guy surely doesn’t translate into votes? Course it does, which makes the podium mistake all the more amusing.

Second is the ‘earpiece’ question – Bush was seemingly wearing an earpiece during the debate. Listen to this mp3 and you’ll hear him asking to ‘Let me finish’ when nobody in the debate was interrupting him. The smart money is that he was asking the guy speaking in his ear to let him finish – another article here points to the change in his speeches over the last year and how the technique is similar to those in the film industry that wear an earpiece. If true, its sad that the most powerful president in the world can’t string a sentence together but that’s nothing we didn’t know – the fools in the US will probably still vote him in. Or forget how to count.

X-Men

At last after 8 years the Ansari X Prize has been won by SpaceShipOne. The second flight took place today and was successful in meeting the criteria to claim the prize. For a time I thought that the British entry, Starchaser, was ahead of the pack but early last year it was clear to see that the American teams had a lead in the race to win the prize. The final flight looked superb and a lot more stable than the first one….just need to start saving for the trip on Virgin Galactic.

Pro Evo 4

I have it. It plays wonderfully. And yes – that’s far too gushing for what is a mere game, but there you have it. Oh…and I have it for the ps2 even though I swore I would wait for the Xbox version.

What did it for me was a visit to Graham’s. He had picked up a Slide Tool and was playing Winning Eleven Soccer 8. It was superb. Graphically a step up from Pro Evo 3 and with much better gameplay. To top it all it had been patched with English menu’s and custom music and graphics – absolute class (and if anyone is interested it was the Ole mix of Winning Eleven 8 – check out Evoweb for more info.) So I ordered a slide tool, got the Ole mix and waited patiently for Mr Postman to deliver. Then I saw a Pro Evo 4 torrent.

2 days later (1 seed for the torrent and 2000 people downloading) and I’ve been playing pro evo for the last couple of hours. Some notable improvements:

  • Player animations are increased and more life like. Players themselves look a lot more realistic
  • Improved AI – the off the ball movement of other players opens up the game. Console games are also a lot tougher than previous versions. If you are winning you can see a noticeable step up by the opposition – they really hustle you for the ball.
  • Free kicks harder (maybe just different rather than harder)
  • Speed – its fast. Really fast.
  • Referee giving you a warning and not a booking 🙂
  • Referee is now visible during play
  • Proper use of the advantage rule. If you don’t gain an advantage from it the whistle is blown and you get a free kick.
  • No slowdown at corner kicks (unlike Winning Eleven)
  • A better attempt at real player names. Team names still mince though – Old Firm Blue vs Old Firm Green? Still, there will be an option file soon enough to sort that, or you could import a PES 3 one while you wait.

There’s probably more to add to this, but you get the drift. All it needs is online support (Xbox this November) and a wide-screen option (hopefully Xbox this November…but I have my doubts).

*Update* – there is some slowdown with certain stadiums. The old ps2 just isn’t up to it. Select 50Hz at the start of the game and you should have no problems at all.

Irony

It’s a big news day for the Virgin group. Branson has announced that they intend to run a space flight service and he’s bought 5 spaceships (stuffily called spaceliners on the BBC). You too could go into space…for £100,000 or maybe less. Nice.

Today’s also the first full day for the Pendolino (tilting) service the Virgin train group are introducing. Pity the first one was cancelled. One from Glasgow has also crawled into Carlisle at 50 Mph due to technical difficulties. Still fancy that space trip?

GT4 Offline

Bit of a shock – GT4 has been an online game for PS2 since it was first announced. Now comes the news that to meet a release of this Christmas the online component has been dropped with an online GT released next year…some time. This is a good move – online gaming on the PS2 is pretty lame compared to the Xbox and PC. The GT4 prologue I played at Graham’s earlier this year promised lots – I just hope there’s a bit less emphasise on improving and tuning your car. For me this makes the game unrealistic and ultimately dull.

Europe Win the Ryder Cup

Colin Montgomerie has just holed the putt thats clinched the Ryder Cup for Europe. For the first time I’ve listened to golf on the radio (5 Live) and it’s…..difficult. It’s time’s like this that Sky is tempting. £99 for Sky+ and a monthly subscription to Sky Sports for £33 is making my mouth water but I hope the feeling will pass over the next few days.

Back to the golf – a fantastic win for Europe although the Americans looked out of sorts not helped by some odd pairings on Friday. It looks like a late night for me as I catch the highlights on BBC2.