Category: Blog

Autumn Clearing

With Autumn now officially here and a break in the wet weather we’ve been having it was time for the final grass cut of the year. This then turned into a garden clearance (never did I thought so many plants would last for such a small time). Cue 10 bags filled and a trip to the dump. To round it off, a trip to Dobbies to restock the barren wasteland that was the garden. One point…since when did garden centres clear out half there shop to stock MASSIVE amounts of crimbo decorations. Blimey. I guess it is only 10 weeks on Saturday till Christmas.

The second clearout was the pc. Only 3 months old and running out of room (it only has 160Gb)? A swift clearout later and I’d freed 60Gb. Shocking the amount of guff you accumulate with broadband. Having the 1 Meg connection doesn’t help. Time to get the old pc set-up as a server and put all the movies and music on it instead.

Pro-Evo on the Xbox

More pro-evo news. I’ve got a ‘beta’ Pro-Evo for the Xbox and its mostly all good news. Graphically its good with all glitches and slowdown that was evident on the ps2 now removed. However on ‘Wide’ mode the graphics don’t look as sharp as the ps2 although when watching replays or a closer in view the graphics are sharper. The grass texture also looks more grainy. All the same options that are in the ps2 version are in the Xbox version with the addition of online support although it would look like this is 1 vs 1 only. The major dissapointment is with the controller. The ps2 has four shoulder buttons where as the Xbox pad has two and they are full size triggers at that. The only option has been to put L2 & R2 on the white and black buttons. Nooooooooo. I use R2 all the time and it is impossible to play (ok – not impossible but damned uncomfortable) with the Xbox pad. Also the longer throw of the trigger didn’t suit the game. A solution had to be found. Cue visit to Lik-Sang.

I ordered a convertor called the Dreambox. This allows you to use the PS2 pad on the Xbox and also plug in a headset so you can still talk online. Tested it tonight and it works a dream – just had to swap L1/L2 with R1/R2 to get the controls exactly the same as Pro Evo on the PS2. Also had to buy a cable extender as the Xbox is a fair distance from where I sit. Just need to wait till mid November now for the game to come out. Oh…and resist buying Fifa tomorrow.

Traitor?

Its Scotland vs Norway on Saturday and I really am confused as to the result I want. 40% of me wants to see Scotland do well. The other 60% wants them to get cuffed and hopefully move a step closer to getting rid of Berti Vogts. His comments this week on how this game is not win or bust (a draw will do) were disappointing and made only to try and protect his job. His press conference at the start of the week when announcing the team was also very unprofessional and it’s now time for the Scotland manager to move on. I don’t believe a new manager would make a dramatic difference but do believe a Scottish manager would install more passion and pride in the players.

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?