Blog

Hard Sell

UK Online have now installed their LLU gear in my exchange. I know because in the last 4 days I’ve had two letters and two phone calls telling me all about it. That means I could have 8Meg downloads with 400k uploads for a mere £39.99 a month. That speed comes with a 500Gb monthly cap and a free wireless router – not too shabby a deal especially compared with NTL/Telewest who’s 3 & 4Meg deals seem dear in comparison, especially with the new caps introduced by NTL although it will be interesting to see how they implement them – kick people off who regularly abuse? (The cable company’s really should be offering far more to hammer home their fibre network advantage. Shame.)

Despite the temptation I will be sticking it out with PlusNet. From next month I will hopefully be on 2Meg for £21.99 a month. If the BT trials are successful I should then have the opportunity to move to up to 8Meg download and 1/2Meg upload later in the year again for £21.99. Bargain. Even if that falls through the UK Online deal will still be there – they just need to improve their performance if Adslguide forums are anything to go by. More speed – can’t wait.

Tweaking

Added a fair bit of ‘stuff’ to the website this weekend but all behind the scenes. The Archives are now a bit more funky and you should now see some Gravatar links if you post a comment. I’ve also been tweaking quite a bit of the php that drives the site – there should be context sensitive sidebars and also the times are a bit more friendly although I keep on missing dates as they are peppered throughout the code. I’ve also added in a Plugins page so you can see what’s been added to the default WordPress engine. Most importantly I’ve added in lots of interesting content. Ok – I’ve added a couple of drab posts but what do you expect?

Joking aside – I tidied up some old posts with images that weren’t displaying properly. I also removed some work posts that while I thought they were innocent enough with hindsight they were better off deleted – you never know who might read it.

So that’s it – I’m ready to add more dreary posts about the films I’ve been to see and games that I’ve played. Which makes you wonder why I and others blog…this quote summed it up for me.

“Blogging in itself is stupid, really, and self indulgent (or perhaps that’s just my approach to it). But it’s a hobby, and we are a nation who love our pointless little hobbies. It’s no more corrosive than other hobbies. Or rather, it shouldn’t be.�

Thanks for the quote Gordon – shame about the snide piece in The Sunday Times.

GT4

gt4
The much delayed GT4 was launched in the UK last week. I had no intention of picking this up – GT3 was a stale game that offered little over the previous titles that appeared on the PS1. The online section of the game had also been dropped – it is alleged that this will come out at some point but I doubt it.

However after playing Graham’s copy on Wednesday night I made my purchase…for the princely sum of 99p. Game are doing a bit of a bargain – trade in any 4 games (except for football and wrestling games) and you can pick up GT4 for 99p.

Onto the game – graphics are very impressive for a PS2 although the ‘edgy’ look is due to the lack of anti-aliasing. It’s down to preferences but I prefer the look of the Xbox racers. The options within the game are vast. You can get straight into some action via the arcade options but it’s the license tests and tune ups that most people will want to play. Here the game is massive with lots of car choices and potential upgrading. For me however this is the most flawed part of the game. It’s too easy to tune up your car and win races simply because your car out performs your rivals. To encourage the tuning aspect the handling and performance of the cars seem to be reduced so that you *have* to tune up whether you like it or not. The license tests can also get a bit dry. Handling is also more difficult with the PS2 pad – the lack of triggers forces you to use the right thumb stick for acceleration and braking – not the best. I’ve played GT4:Prologue with a steering wheel and if you have the room and the ability to set it up there really is no rival on any console.

Track selection is much improved over the previous games in the series. Highlight for me has been the inclusion of the Nurburgring (all 20.8km). This looks stunning – much narrower and twisty than the PGR2 version and with better textures than the Xbox game. Overall a worthwhile purchase for 99p – not convinced I would pay full price for it though.

 

Comic Relief

Pretty much same old same old but I guess that’s to be expected when appealing to everyone. Ab Fab girls – please stop. Davina wasn’t too hot either. Peter Kay was comedy genius though – grab it here if you missed it. Comedy comes second though after watching some of the serious clips…and just how drunk were the Fame Academy students?

Royal Mail

In the last few years I’ve never really had a problem with the Royal Mail. Sure some things took a while to deliver and it was a pain having to pick up parcels from the depot (the joys of Amazon) but I can live with that. Even one delivery a day didn’t bother me – leaving at 7AM for work meant I never get morning mail – it was always a 5PM event for me.

However the last few days have been….frustrating.

Continue reading “Royal Mail”

Upgrades

Finally got WordPress 1.5 installed. Nice. Freshened up the template as well which is the default with a different logo but it keeps things simple. Now got to go through the plug-ins I had installed to see what does and more importantly doesn’t work with 1.5 – the joys of early adopters! Did manage to hack through some Mysql to get the activity plug-in working – joy.

Manasarovar

I’ve been contacted by Anup Kurian who is the writer director of Manasarovar asking for a plug…so here goes:

Manasarovar was made for about 30000 pounds on a 16MM camera bought from EBAY and has won many awards and participated/selected in prestigious festivals.

– Aravindan Puraskaram for Best Debut Director in India
– Gollapudi Srinivas National Award for Best Debut Director in India
– Official Selection – London Film Festival 2004
– Opening Film, Indian Panorama, International Film Festival of India, Goa, 2004
– Best Film and Special Jury Prize, International Film Festival of Mumbai, 2005
– Fukuoka International Film Festival, Fukuoka, Japan, 2005

If our film attracts a good crowd in Glasgow we can get more theatre bookings in UK. It would be great if you can mention the film and the screenings in Glasgow in your blog.

– Sunday February 27, 2PM and Monday February 28, 8.45PM at Glasgow
Film Theatre.

Needless to say we do not have a marketing budget and the only marketing is contacting bloggers like yourself and requesting reviewers from main stream media to watch the film. Later the film continues at Dundee, Brentford, Kilburn etc. In April Manasarovar will release in India and later this year hopefully in USA.

WoW

I vowed never to buy an online game that a) charged per month, b) involved Orcs and Elves, c) made me worry about levelling up and the skills that I learn and d) consumed more of my time than is already spent on Xbox Live

But I gave in and bought World of Warcraft. Quite simply the most enjoyable online game, if not most enjoyable game I have ever played. Graphics and sound are good if not ground breaking. Half Life 2 put paid to that. What’s astounds is the sheer scale of the gaming world that is available to you and it’s non-linearity. The community aspect is second to none. Although the game doesn’t come with voice support Yahoo messenger with a headset soon gives you the ability to talk with your fellow players. There’s just so much to this game – different races and classes, so many occupations and skills available, an in game e-mail system as well as auction houses and some astounding set piece moments and this is a game I’ve only scratched the surface with. Recommended although only if you’ve got the time to spend on it. The WordPress upgrade will have to wait.

PlusNet Upgrades

PlusNet have announced changes to their broadband packages. As expected they’ve moved to charging on a download capacity basis rather than speed. April will see all their customers moving to the fastest line possible from their exchange and later in the year onto 4 & 8Meg connections if the exchange supports it. Class. Details of the fair usage policy can be found here – £21.99 per month for 2Meg speed and potentially 230Gig download a month sounds an absolute bargain 🙂