The race against time....

2 hours until Demo deadline, Laptop rebuilt, Demo system halfway up...
it's going to be a close call...

Just what I felt like doing tonight!

Today was just a nasty day! After working on some development to replicate functionality (that works perfectly well now) that has been seriously underscoped and completely undocumented, I went to do a very significant demo today only to have my laptop die!

There is really nothing like "Windows could not start" message to really brighten up your day. After spending about 20mins on the customers site trying to fix it we decided that it just wasn't going to work. The customer kindly gave us until 12pm to do the demo which means rebuilding my laptop tonight. (personally this close to Christmas I doubt seeing the product for the 5th time was really going to make that much difference, but apparenlty it is)

With most of the windows system32 directory corrupt and the harddrive running slower than any 3 1/4 I remember, I'm putting my money on it being the HDD. I've currently reinstalled windows onto a spare HDD and got the system up and running. Now it's the joy of trying to get the data back off my old drive.

So far I'm about 5 hours into the reinstall - restore process with no clear light at the end of the tunnel... I just hope I can stay awake for the demo!

It's almost christmas

It's a little hard to believe that go a few days it will be christmas already! It has really snuck up on me this year. I've hardly got any of the presents that i need! Fortunately the shops are open until 9pm for the next three nights. One of the reasons I haven't got around to the shopping is the huge amount of work that is on at the moment! Normally i'd be expecting everything to be easing off, but there is just as much work on now (if not more) than every other month of the year! However once friday rolls around i'll be go cruise mode! It y'll be nice to get some quality time with the consoles. On a less festive note i tried to remove the little toe of my left foot last night. Ended up only taking the toe-nail off on the vacuum. Still, it will make the trip to the coast next week interesting

Feeling just a little silly

After being frustrated by the Blue light on the new Toshiba SD-350E, I ended up posting on the aus.audio-visual.home-cinema forums. After a few options on electrical tape and colouring in the light, someone finally pointed out that it's in the manual :)

In my defense it's in a really stupid spot, both in the manual and the menu system. So to save other people the confusion here is How to dim the blue light on a Toshiba SD-350E.

1. Turn on the player with no Disc
2. Press the Setup button on the remote
3. Press the > button until you have selected the Rating option
4. Press the Enter button
5. In the Rating Menu select FL. Dimmer and press Enter
6. Select either Dim or Off

This will switch off the light on the front panel.

The only downside is that it doesn't seem to remember the setting once you turn the player off. Oh well back to the drawing board (and feeling silly)

Yay!!!! More Early Christmas Presents

I got a wonderful little package on my desk this morning from Lik Sang! I'd ordered a couple of copies of Puzzle Bobble for the DS back at the start of November with a few other bits and bobs. But as the game has now been delayed until March (at least at Lik Sang) I pulled the game out of the order so everything else would ship. I got the notification yesterday that the items had shipped, but considering it's christmas I hardly expected to get the package today! The best bit is it included a couple of PowerStick Arcade controllers for the GameCube also with a few other free trinkets that they threw in for Christmas! (aw, ain't that nice)

Now I'm set for arcade games on both my Xbox and GameCube! Bring on the Christmas holiday arcade action I say! (Unfortunately I have about a weeks worth of work to finish by the end of the weekend so I don't think I'll be getting much gaming action in then)

Think sharks are cool?

Well they get owned by octipi! The things you find while waiting for an ITSM change to commit. This is a video of a Shark being taken by an octopus! Looks like fins are the only thing to get worried about in the surf!

Upgrade Two for the week - Toshiba SD-350E

Last night the lack of a DVD player was rectified at one of the big pre-Christmas sales. The decision basically came down to where I wanted Picture quality or Sound Quality in Multichannel audio. As I don't listen to any Multichannel music the clear choice was the Toshiba. With the minimal amount of bargaining I secured a unit for $235.

This is a run down of the player:-
The setup when I got home was fairly easy, I simply removed all the cables from the Onkyo and plugged in the Toshiba, the first thing I noticed was the lack of an S-Video socket on the back of the unit. I guess with the inclusion of the HDMI it's assumed that no one will be using this player less than Component Quality.

The other connector that is missing is an optical audio connector, not too much of an issue for me as I already had IXOS XHD-608-100 co-axial interconnect carrying the audio for the Onkyo, bit of a pain if your amp only had a few (or no) co-axial inputs.

This brings me to the second point, included as an addendum to the manual is a sheet of paper indicating that the system is configured for composite video only and will need to be setup in the menu to accept Component video. A strange point considering the lack of connectors. The setup process for that was also straight forward.

After the configuration for the video output there were some extra steps which basically setup the player for region free. The box is clearly mark "This Player is Region 4 only" yet the manual states (and is correct) that this player is setup for Region 2. The instructions included on the sheet however do make it region free. Again a bit of an annoyance as this could have been easily changed at the factory before they shipped.

Once the player was setup though the images were just gorgeous, I spun up The Incredibles and the images were just crystal clear with vibrant colours. Every scene just jumped off the screen with a realism that I hadn't previously seen with this movie. The level of detail of the chase through the island was just astonoshing.

We also had a run of an old favourite Sleepy Hollow which showed exactly how much detail this player could produce even from an old disc. Some of the close up shots on Christina Ricci showed just how much white makeup had been plastered on.

The sound was also surprisingly good with a noticeable amount of bass weight that I hadn't heard from the discs before. There wasn't too much judging to be done on the surround steering as I still don't have a full surround setup mounted.

My only real gripe with the player is the blue light that illuminates the drive slot when the disk is inserted. There is no way I can find (as yet) to turn it off which makes it a bit annoying in the front of my cabinet.

I couldn't be happier with the picture, it is definitely a step above the Onkyo and that's before using the HDMI or upscaling. If you're looking for a DVD player upgrade and you have a display with HDMI it's definitely worth looking into.

Post worthy...

After a long absence Tom has made a triumphant return with two posts on the one day! Nice to have you back!

DVD Player Shootout

It's coming to the end of the DVD title fight for the replacement of my Onkyo DV555s. The current contenders are :-

Yamaha DVD-S657B
Toshiba SD-350E

The main differences are the Yamaha does SACD and DVD-A where the Toshiba has HDMI output.

The review of the Toshiba on HomeCinemaChoice.com has this to say :-

The 350E’s pictures both dazzle and disappoint,depending on what you’re expecting..... The picture is impressively detailed,even without upscaling help,achieved without the forced look and noise seen on most budget decks...... Moving to digital HDMI feeds, a simple 576p signal benefits from extra clarity,precision and colour lustre.However, stepping up to 720p and 1080i is not quite the success we’d hoped for.......It seems the 350E’s scaling processor just isn’t up to the mark – the artefacts it generates during its scaling actually counteract some of the benefits it’s striving to achieve.

So it would seem the addition of HDMI is not all it's cracked up to be. Where as the review of the Yamaha :-

The DVD-S657’s picture quality is, not surprisingly, just as good as the DVD-557 – which is to say excellent...... the deck resolves oodles of fine detail from the DVD and presents a sharp, stable and realistic image.

The obvious advantage of the Yamaha is the High resolution Audio, but it does have a 108MHz/12-Bit video DAC which removes some of problems of not having an HDMI connection. With them both being the same price and getting 5 star ratings it's a tough call. I think it's going to be a matter of test and see.

And begin excitement...... now

So I'm starting to get just a little bit excited about the fact I'm going to have new speakers in the house! Especially after reading some of the reviews that are around.

These are all reviews taken from the Jamo website for the D6 PTX THX Ultra Speaker System

	D 6PTX Home Cinema Ultimate Guides, UK Nov 2004 “The basic package comprises three identical D 6LCR (left, centre, right) speakers for front effects, two D 6SUR dipole rears and one monster of a sub, the D6 SUB. Toting a 38cm driver and providing 400W of output, it’s not exactly shy: the sheer force it imparts is jaw-dropping. Dial up a potent action movie and you’ll be thrilled by the sheer weight of the biggest explosions. The balance across the front is blisteringly powerful, too, when required, but the sound doesn’t harden up with volume or dynamics – the Jamo retains the richness of tone and fullness of balance that commonly characterizes the very best THX kit, while dialogue is both wonderfully clear and tonally `full´.” Verdict: “If you want a system to deliver fabulous movie sound for a sensible price, this is a must-hear”. 5 of 5 star rating.
	D 6PTX Home Cinema, UK Jun 2004 ”... – it just sounds great, whatever the movie, and more importantly, whatever your particular sonic preferences. Naturally, the bottom end is fabulous: if you like your movies served up deep and scary, the D 6SUB will readily oblige, muscling its way through the fullest low frequencies in big-bass movies such as Pearl Harbor and Apollo 13.” “The balance is terrifically weighty and engaging, yet marries that power and scale to refinement and composure, even under severe sonic duress. Just when smaller speaker systems sound as if they’re about to give away under the strain of the moment, the Jamo drops a gear and kicks on to new dynamic heights. Small details are precisely highlighted, yet the presentation never lapses into brittle, hard excess. Equally, voices have excellent character and realism, even when playing at a level that most of us would consider decidedly `neighbour-unfriendly´.” “As I hope I make clear already, I like this package a lot. Combine it with a decent receiver (no matter whether it’s THX Select, THX Ultra, THX Ultra 2 or just plain old `ordinary´) and you’ll have a fine-founding, cinematic set-up for what is, in context, a very affordable sum.” Verdict: 91%
	D 6PEX Essential Hi-Fi & Home Cinema, UK Jun 2004 ”There is a consistency across the whole soundstage that only a decent THX system can generate, with no appreciable tonal shifts as Tom Cruise’s motorbike whirrs around the channels in Mission Impossible 2, while detail and precision of the centre makes sense of even the most garbled speech. The sound is big and bold and goes extremely deep with impressive results.” Verdict: 5 of 5 star rating and Best Buy.
	D 6 PEX Essential Home Cinema, UK Oct 2002 ”The front soundstage is superb. Perfectly balanced, it’s impossible on sweeping cinematics to identify the point at which the sound moves from one speaker to the next. Impressive stuff, and once you’ve heard this you’ll immediately begin to spot flaws in you existing, until-now-adequate system. The dialogue speaker leaves little to the imagination; listening to it you’d almost expect to find a pair of lips under the cover mouthing each word.” “The sub is big for a reason: It houses a 15” woofer come that emits a deep, rich bass. It’s not just about delivering the impacts, though, as it also adds a subtle texture to the atmosphere created by those bipolar rears. Watch a movie with a dark, brooding soundtrack and you’ll find yourself worried like never before by the portentous, creeping rumbles coming from... where exactly? We felt like opening the case up just to make sure Jamo isn’t just selling a portal directly to the bowels of hell. Everything comes together beautifully, creating a truly convincing cinema effect.” Verdict: Best for sound

As my current Yamaha supports 6.1 I was looking into getting another D6 LCR as a centre rear... the only problem is they are $1500 each (which is the price I paid for the whole system!)

DVD Blow out.

With all the Christmas sales on DVDs at the moment we had a bit of a DVD blowout yesterday. We haven't bought any DVDs in ages so it wasn't too much of a surprise to get so many in one go.

Ness picked up the John Hughes 80's Collection. I'd never seen the Breakfast club (one of her favourite movies), I just couldn't get into it. Maybe not seeing as a kid in the 80's makes it harder to relate to now? Who knows, it was a good movie I just couldn't get into the same way.

With the DVD Player still out of action it was up to the iMac to fill in the DVD duties for the night. It was at this point I discovered on of the problems with LCDs as a display. The backlighting has all sorts of Light leaks if you watch it in complete darkness. With a bit of ambient lighting you don't notice the backlight but if the only the panel is on you start seeing the backlight pattern in the display...

First Sun Burn of Summer.

Saturday we decided to do some more car shopping. We've made the decision that we're going to get a convertible, but it not only has to be convertible but it has to be a fun car to drive. With this in mind we set out to do some test driving. First off the rank for a test was the Smart Roadster, which I have to say is LOADS of fun to drive. It's not the fastest off the line, which is a mainly due to a combination of the electronically controlled gearbox, the braking assistance and the turbo lag, but once it's rolling and you need to pull away from something it definitely has the legs. The best part about it is taking it around corners. The thing just doesn't seem to step off the line no matter how hard you try and push it through a corner. I tried my hardest to get the tail to let go, dropping some serious right foot in the middle of a corner but the moment it looked like stepping out the traction control grabs you and off you go. So in the fun stakes it's well and truly up there. On the downside though it's not a lot of car for the money and the interior reminds me of the finish that you'd expect from a Ford Fiesta rather than a $40k+ convertible.

Next of the test drive list was an Astra Convertible, (the silver with red leather was a nice touch). We hired one of these when we drove the Great Ocean Road earlier in the year, which was a lot of fun, but driving one now is a little on the boring side. It's just not an exciting car, very safe, very stable on the road. It's like driving a Statesman with the top down, so we quickly scratched it off the list.

The other's we went to look at (but didn't test drive because we were burn from wandering all the yards) were the Mini Cabrio and the New MX-5. The Mini was off the radar until the weekend when ness saw the interior. They have a very fun/funky interior that really appeals (my favourite bit is the centrally mounted tacho!).
The New MX-5 however is just generally gorgeous. We haven't been for a drive yet but it just looks stunning. We saw a red on the weekend and I was hooked.

The current running list is :-

1. New MX-5
2. Mini Cabrio
3. Smart Roadster

I think it will be decision time after a test drive on the weekend!

It's my birthday (xmas) present to me... I'm so happy!

I bit the bullet on the weekend and ordered the Jamo THX speaker pack. I just intended do a bit of looking into how much they were willing to deal on the speakers. The trouble was they have such a ridiculas discount it was hard to pass them up. I even tried to get out of it by putting them on layby, thinking they'd decline laybying the last pair, but that only resulted in an invoice being drawn up. So I now have a new speaker package just waiting to be picked up. I'm keeping the Wharfedales for music and just use the new ones for movies. Anyone looking for some cheap rear speakers?

Microsoft Dupe us... Again.

Gizmodo have published this article on the brilliant design of the Xbox 360. I does explain a little as to why so many original xbox games won't play on the new 360... brilliant design work guys.

Nancy Drew and the Case of the Missing Xbox 360 Hard Drive Space: "Actually we don't even need Nancy Drew, she is a floozy anyway. This case is solved. Microsoft's cheapness is being dumped on the consumer. The 20GB hard drive that comes with the premium edition Xbox 360s is only showing up 13GB of available space. Those missing 7GB are being used for the backwards compatibility of the 360. This is because Microsoft used the Nvidia GPU for the original Xbox, and now that they have switched over to ATI for the 360, that Nvidia GPU has to be software simulated to properly play original Xbox games. Nice one Microsoft, real classy.

Xbox 360, only 13GB Available Diskspace [Datafuse]
"

Win Gaming Stuff

Palgn run a competion every year for christmas, they basically give away games that they've reviewed over the year. All you need to do is drop them your email address and details. Sounds like a good deal for very little effort. You can enter here

Does your AV system need some harmony?

After watching my dad struggle with his AV system one too many times I convinced him that he needed to get a Harmony remote. By 'convinced' I mean I went out and bought it for him. My dad has a pretty nice home AV setup, this comes about through all the hand me downs and casts off from my old equipment. As a result he has about 6 different components and the same number of remotes. His amp has a universal remote built in but it's just too confusing for him to use, I'm hoping the Harmony will change all that.
I setup the system this morning in about 10 mins. It was simply a matter of putting in the CD, selecting the makes of the equipment he has and typing in the model numbers (It even suggests model numbers for things like his Foxtel box which I didn't know and it was spot on). Once you've added all your devices it asks what activities you want to have (things like Watch a DVD, Watch TV etc.) From there you just select what devices you want on etc and it downloads the file to your remote and your done. They even publish a test drive so you can check out the setup process before you have one!

From the front screen now Dad can click a button for "Watch a DVD" and the remote will switch on the Amp, Tv and DVD player, Switch off everything else change all the things to the right inputs and play the DVD that's in the player... pretty cool. (I just wish I had one) Hopefully it will even get my mum in a position where she can turn the TV on :)

New MKDS mission

I was playing Mario Kart DS online the other day and got beaten buy this guy with 2 gold Stars next to his name. I was obviously cusious how he had managed to get this added to his online name. After a little bit of research I discovered that your ability in the single player game can be reflected in your online naming.

Basically it works like this :- Each time you finish a cup (ie 4 races) you are given a trophy based on where you finish (obviously gold for first etc etc) and also a rating. The rating system goes from E (being the slowest) to A and then to 1,2 or 3 stars. If you can finish all the cups at all the speeds with at least a 1 star rating you get 1 star next to your name when you play online.

So my mission is to get at least one star on my online name... I'm well on my way to the one star... only the mirror cup to go!

DS + Red Wine = Wifi Loss

In an experiment (to which I probably already knew the result) as to the effects of red wine on my driving skills in Mario Kart DS last night, I discovered that a few glasses of red result in you powersliding into walls more often than not and as a result loose ever race of the match. I managed to redeem my online stats this morning though with a solid 4 race match win so I'm not 9 Wins to 7 Losses. (I haven't really worked out how it calculates this but it doesn't seem to count any matches where you don't race the full 4) In true gadget geek style Ness and I managed to fit in about 8 races this morning waiting at the bus stop and came to the conclusion that she probably needs her own copy.

I also managed to slot in a few rounds of Burnout Revenge last night (before the red) the game is just as much fun as the last version of the series, and probably a little bit more... Traffic attack is just awesome! On that note though my alliance in the online DS racing game genre has been questioned... Today EA released Burnout Legends DS with Wifi capability (ok Ben if you ever needed a reason to get a DS this is it).

Electronic Arts announced today that Burnout Legends for the Nintendo DS is now shipping in North America, giving players yet another way to race with their dual-screened portable.

Built from the ground-up for the Nintendo DS, Burnout Legends offers highlights from the first three Burnout games, as well as "new cars and new surprises." The game uses the touch screen for "aftertouch" control during crashes. Legends also features nine gameplay modes, including crash, road rage, pursuit and multiplayer via the DS wireless connection.

It does seem a little rash of EA to try and release a racer to compete with Mario Kart DS when the title is so strong. Also everyone reading this needs to go out and buy a DS and Mario Kart DS get on Nintendo's Wifi Connection and tell me their friend code. Do it NOW! It's heaps of fun racing people online (I've actually played more races online than I have of the single player mode) but I'd like to race some people I know. So why are you still here reading???

Touch(ing) is not so good!

We lost our second game of Touch football last night! :( We didn't have any subs and the other team appeared to have 6, which didn't help our chances. I was already pretty tired because I'd come straight from indoor cricket. I actually had to leave about halfway through the match to make touch in time so it was fortunate that we bowled first and I batted in the first pair. In all fairness we only lost by 1 try (5 to 4) so it was a pretty good match, apart from the fact that I took a patch of skin about the size of my hand off my back... not the most pleasant experience... I did stop the try so it wasn't a complete loss...

I managed a few rounds of Mario Kart DS online again (I'm settling into the addiction nicely I think). I haven't unlocked much of the stuff in the game because I'm having so much fun playing online. I played a couple of matches (4 tracks) with another person who was pretty evenly matched last night (Nicknamed: Mr. Zingy). The first match ended in a tie, but I managed to sneak 4 victories in the second one (although I won all 4 races it was pretty much neck and neck on the line every race). Opening the ports seems to have done the trick on the stability issues I had with the WiFi connections, I'm still to attempt another friend match so time will tell.

In other news.... we considering getting a new car (in the near future) the current front runner is a smart roadster. We haven't driven one yet so it may be pushed to the bottom very quickly but it is at least on the top of the list to test drive. There aren't many of them around so their uniqueness has a certain appeal. I would like a yellow one (pictured) but I think we'll end up going for something a little more understated like black or champagne.

Weekend Update! (So much walking!)

Looking back at the weekend it was pretty huge!

The weekend pretty much started Thursday night, went out to dinner at the Punjabi Palace in West end with some of Ness's Soccer team, don't think it was as good as our favourite Indian place Grand Taj, but thecompany was great.

Friday night was pretty quiet, I had the first rehearsal back with my old choir and Ness had 5 a side.

Saturday morning we went to Salon (downstairs at our new place) for breakfast, which I've discovered makes THE best milkshakes! Ness was pretty happy because she got to have Green (see also pesto) Eggs and Ham. Spent the rest of the day shopping for stuff for Mandy's Wedding. It was a pretty exhausting day having to keep Ness focused on theshopping we NEEDED to do so we came home and crashed at about 4.

I tried, unsuccessfully, to have a few online friend's challenges with Amelia and Andrew. I've since discovered that there are a series of ports I needed to open on the firewall to make Nintendo Wificompletely happy.

We headed back to Salon for an afternoon hot chocolate, mainly because they make lindt hot chocolates, which then turned into dinner and a few glasses of wine, before we headed to Craig's Christmas party. The party was out at Kangaroo point so we thought we'd take the ferry, which despite the drunken bucks night cheering us on as we ran to the ferry stop, was a pretty nice way to travel. I have to admit Craig's party is the first I've been to where people ab sailed off the top ofthe building... but then again, Craig's parties are always exciting!

Continuing with the walking trend of the week, I walked just about everywhere on the weekend. I went to and from rehearsals on Friday night and the performance on Sunday by foot. The biggest walk of the weekend has to go to the trip home from Craig's. In a poorly made assumption, we thought that the ferry's would run until 12 or 1... unfortunately they only run until 11... So we tried for a cab... (2nd bad decision) and ended up walking home. Which took only about an hour, including a pit stop at the Story Bridge hotel. I'd never been across the Story Bridge before so that was exciting (until I actually did it). I'm starting to feel like I could be getting fit with all this walking!

Ben brought back the Xbox yesterday and as a house warming present got me Burnout Revenge!! the game is awesome... Especially traffic attack... well actually I only know the game looks awesome because Ben played it for about 3 hours! (which wasok because I was playing MarioKart Online)

I've managed to run quite a few online races (now I have my router correctly setup) and it's been heaps of fun. I've had a few people drop off but I assume they are just quitting because it was usually the person who came in 4th for the last 2 races. I've only got 2 friends in my roster at the moment, because I only know 2 other people with DS consoles and MarioKart. I was thought my online Icon was pretty weak (just being a green smiley face with a black eye) but it
seems that most people haven't put much effort into it. I've only been playing Worldwide races so I've changed my online tag to 'CamDS AUS' I've seen a few other people with UK but though it's nice to know where the people you're racing are from. I've got about a 60% win-loss ratio at the moment which I pretty happy with...

Had my first 2 performances with the choir yesterday, which was a little stressful. We only rehearse once a week for 2 hours and do completely different music every week. It's giving my sight reading skills a real workout but it's a little stressful in the process. I'mhoping I'll slot in a little more in the next couple of weeks.

Lastly I also found an awesome bargin on a set of THX Ultra certified speakers from Jamo (yes Tom Jamo!). The most enticing fact is the 15" sub included in the set... all the speakers are wall mountable so that would fit with our new place very well, all I have to do now is findsome magical mystery money to pay for them!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

The internet gods hate me

So I finally get the ADSL service running at my new place and my laptop decides it doesn't want to work any more. It seemed to be fine last night but this morning it is happy to go through a continuous cycle of boot, blue screen, reboot. Looks like I can't put that rebuild off any longer. I did however get some MarioKart action online, all be it only 2 races. I had a couple troubles getting the DS to connect to the Linksys (as my router isn't supported i'll post vs the solution when i'm not blogging no my phone) once that posted bondathom is a breeze! My only complaint was i had trouble finding 4 players to race against, might have had something to do with the fact that it was 11pm.

OMG! I have INTERNET

No time to chat though, I'm off to play Mario Kart DS online!

Thursday-itis?

Well I'm not sure there is such a thing but I definitely have Monday-itis today! After two days of nothing but Alt-Tab, Ctrl-C, Alt-Tab, (random series of) Tabs, Arrow-Keys, Ctrl-V... Repeat, my brain has gone on strike! The current customer I'm working for needs some data migrated for a new system, unfortunately their current system consists of 100s of Excel spreadsheets (basically one Excel file for each record!) in varying formats. The formats are so varied that it was completely impractical to write any sort of script/macro to get the data in a suitable format. So as a result there is a lot of manual intervention. This morning, however, my brain has had enough "GIVE ME SOMETHING TO DO!!!!!"

Had another good singing lesson last night... which resulted in getting a new song, getting praised for singing of new song :), finding out about a concert in less than 2 weeks and putting some polish on the piece for Mandy's Wedding (despite having really bad stomach cramps which made it rather difficult to do anything with my diaphragm).

Went for a bit of a walk last night and ended up browsing the windows of a few of the furniture stores that are ridiculously close to our new house. In doing so I discovered the Strata from King Furniture. It's just about the funkiest couch I've ever seen, of course it's only about $8000 for the two pieces in the photo, but that doesn't make me want it any less. I think any spare time on the weekend is going to be spent furniture shopping!

There is lots of news around about the release of the Xbox 360, the most disturbing (although not surprising) is all the press about the errors and failures that new owners are experiencing. 1up has a report on some of the crashes that are out there at the moment... seems like there are a few black (blue was so last season!) screens of death out there for the 360. Hopefully the 360 didn't go through the same QA team as Microsoft CRM!

Good news on the DS front with some big sales figures in the US on Mario Kart DS and people getting online! Apparently almost half of those with Mario Kart have logged on to the Nintendo wireless newtork. Now if I only had internet.... stupid Ozemail grumble grumble

That's about it for this week so far, I've got a pretty big weekend planned... with the first (of probably many) Christmas parties to attend! Bring on the Silly Season!

Stupid Rain!

Ok, so I went and blogged about how nice it was walking to work and
what happens.. it rains! Don't get me wrong. I love the rain but I
just didn't plan on it when I left this morning, oh well... wet
Cameron it is then...

Boots are made for walking

Having move much closer to the city I've found myself not only using
the car less (because lets face it Ness uses it most of the work week)
but also using any form of motorised transport less.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've walked to my office in the city
and for all of this week (and some of last week) I've hoofed it to and
from my customer's site in Bowen Hills. It has to be the most relaxing
way to get to work by a long way (except when you're running late, but
hey everything is stressful then). My only complaint (not much I can
do about it though) is that it's starting to get pretty hot, even at 8
in the morning you still feel a little on the warm side by the time
you've made it to work.

Almost Moved (and a bit of an update)

Well we got just about everything done over weekend on getting the house together. About 80% of the boxes are unpacked it's really only Ness's craft gear and the DVD's that are left to unpack. We had a few casualties from the move but overall it was pretty smooth process. We lost one picture (which was my fault, I didn't catch the door before it closed on picture frame), a couple of bowls (well actually only one, but they were a pair so it wasn't much use having one without the other), a crisper tray from the fridge (no great loss, we didn't use it), but the biggest (and most surprising loss) was the Onkyo DVD player. It was the most surprising because we moved it ourselves. It was unplugged, carried to the car, driven to the new place, carried up stair, plugged in and that was it! Now it is no longer with us, it just refuses to turn on.

I've started looking for a replacement, the current winner is a Toshiba SD-350E. The thing that turned it to me straight away was it's built in upscaling (to 1080i) and HDMI output.
It has a fairly impressive list of features including playing DivX Compatible discs. I hadn't done a lot of research as upgrading the DVD player wasn't exactly on our list of things to do but having the HDMI will make it much easier to upgrade my display later on without having to worry about connection options. The latest (October 2005) What Hifi has a review of the player which gave it 5 stars with impressive reviews about it's picture reproduction. As the Onkyo was a very impressive DVD player for it's time I'm keen not to take a step backwards but this player seems to be a step in the right direction.

This week also brought about a triumph return to sport. I started playing indoor cricket and touch football (yes both on the same night) again. Cricket was a pretty good match, I was happy with my return to bowling with a couple of stumpings and a few caughts also got a run out and a catch (without dropping any) out of my normal position. Batting was no where near as exciting with a few mix ups in the running between wickets and some stupid shots on my side. All in all though it was a pretty good match and we won... which helps. We lost touch, but that wasn't unexpected. We were playing the top team and we really didn't want to win being our first season we'd like a bit easier run in the bottom group rather than having to tough it out every week with the top teams. We put in a pretty good show, only going down 4-2. I am amazed at Ben's ability to change direction at speed. He has this unnatural ability to dodge every touch that seems to come near him. Anyway, I'm glad he's on my team and not someone I have to run down every week! (Which was my highlight of the match, running down a guy who'd made a break and was headed for the line! I don't ever remember to step when I'm in attack so my only hope is to shine in defense)

On the internet/phone front I'm still battling. I've got a pretty busy week at work so I haven't had much of a chance to chase any other ISPs or to put the boot into Ozemail. Complaining to iiNet got me a quick response and a connected phone line but no calls to mobiles. I still can't transfer my ADSL ozemail informed me that I need to inform my phone carrier to move my phone service and then contact them once this has been completed..... and so the saga continues.

I'm quite addicted to Mario Kart DS at the moment. I would like to play a bit more of Kirby Canvas Curse but Ness has well and truly monopolized that! I've unlocked all the courses on 50cc so far and have got Star ratings for all but 3 of the courses. I've gone away from my traditional favourites of Mario or Toad and am use Dry Bones at the moment. Obviously with my internet drama's I haven't played online yet. I've had a few challenges with Ness and the multiplayer aspect of the game is a joy...

That's about it for the moment...

Going completely spare!

After more dramas with Ozemail yesterday I finally sent them this email... I'm
yet to get a response

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To whom it may concern,

I have been extremely disappointed with the level of service that has been displayed in the transfer of my phone services. I have been a customer of Ozemail for a long time and have been amazed at the difficulty at getting my phone (and internet) service moved to my new house. I called the support line to have my phone service moved 2 weeks prior to the date I required the move.
As of Wednesday (3 days after I had requested the service) I had heard nothing and was without a phone service, after calling to find out the progress of my call REF ***** I was told that it was mis-allocated and would be given the highest priority. Today I am still without phone service and called again to be given a similar story about the moving of the service. To date there has been no feedback or update from ozemail on this call either by phone (to my mobile or work numbers) or via email.
Being involved in developing service management systems for IT organisations I find it amazing that an ISP of this size would have such poorly managed and monitored service management processes.
I regret to say that if I do not have a phone service by the end of the week I will be terminating my service with ozemail and looking elsewhere for an ISP.

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As of this morning I called again to be told it was now a telstra problem, I'd need to speak to telstra if I wanted an ETA, and then was given a NEW Reference number... I've since forwarded my complains and concerns to iiNet (who recently purchased Ozemail and is trying to transfer the customer base) but I've now started research into my new ISP.

Useless Internet Service Providers!

So I moved in 4 days ago (of course I'm using 'moved in' in a very loose sense) and I'm still in a communication black hole. I've been with Ozemail for a long time (at least 10 years) so I would have expected some level of service for my loyalty... Apparently I was very much mistaken. When they were taken over by iiNet I opted to get my phone hooked up with them as part of a deal for faster internet, this (of course) has been my downfall. I can't have my ADSL (or just about any other service on the planet) connected until I have my phone connected (despite being with the same company) and having my phone moved from my old place seems to be a mammoth task. I called to organise to have the service moved the day that I discovered I was moving, which turned out to be just shy of two weeks notice. Still without connection yesterday, I call Ozemail back (obviously there is no web interface for hooking up or monitoring your new phone service, where only an ISP) sat on hold for an hour to be told that they 'missed' hooking up my service and it would be done as the highest priority. So this morning (about 22 hours later) still no phone, on the phone to Ozemail again to discover that it hasn't been done because of an assigning fault, it was assigned to the 'provisioning team' instead of the 'phone' team. The inspiring words I was given about the chance of having a phone today were 'It's been given the highest priority and they're working as fast as they can, but we can't guarantee it will be done before the end of the week'. So tomorrow is D-Day, no phone, no more Ozemail. My favourite part of the conversation was the sign-off from the person helping me with my issue... "Well goodluck with that" Grrrrr!!!

.......End 'no internet/phone' Rant

Here we go!

I just picked up my copy of MarioKart DS! After a small but not surprising battle with EB on price matching I went to Mr Toys Game's Centre on the 2nd Floor of the Myer Centre in Brisbane and got it for the price I was after! I might have looked like a bit of a plug putting in the address of the place I got it from but while I was there I discovered that they will be getting one of the Nintendo Wifi Hotspots installed in the coming weeks! Woohoo we'll have a Brisbane DS hotspot!! The best part of that is there is a group of couches right outside the store and a coffee shop directly underneath! Bring on the Wifi Racing!

We've moved to Studio 54 (well kinda)

So we're kind of moved into our new place. Ness has already named our new appartment Studio 54. Monday night (our move in) was just about the biggest day I've had in a long time. The moving guys turned up pretty much on time and packed everything in a flash. It was a bit of a help that we'd moved just about everything into the garage already so they just basically passed it into the truck. It all looked to be going so well. Getting everything to our new place sounded simple enough, there was a lift, fitted with padding and ready to go for us, how hard could it be? Turns out pretty hard. Our place is not a long way from the lift but once you've walked it about 30 times, carrying as much as you can, it starts to seem like a marathon. We had one of the moving guys unloading the truck at the bottom, the other one was packing the lift and bringing it to the top, it was then our job to get to our place. This (apart from being a long process) was about the fastest way we could get everything up and out.
We did managed to overload the lift with our tall boy at one point. Apparently our tall boy weighs over 900kg. So neither the guy helping me move nor I weighed more than 100kg lift was rated to 1100kg, and as evidenced by the fact that we were stuck in the lift for 30 mins while the lift tried to get to the next floor, it must weigh at least 900kg... which means I should try out for the weight lifting at the commonweath games next year.
Last night turned into a bit of an unpacking night. The intention was for us just to get home and collapse because we were completely exhausted from Monday night. We made the call though to put the bed frame together before we called it a night (two nights in a row sleeping on the floor wasn't on). We made a quick trip to bunnings for some stuff to stop the furniture from scratching the floor. Then to assembly!
Completing the bed spured us on to finish more, so we moved all the boxes to the right rooms, setup the table, all the bedroom furniture, the couches, the stereo cabinet and put felt things on the bottom of anything that wasn't nailed down. It's by no means closed to finished but it's starting to feel like a house rather than a storage cage.

Work stress + moving stress + ITSM stress

It's a very deadly equation. Today has been a bit of a nightmare in the stress department. First of all we're moving today, I was planning on having the day off but because of a huge demo that is on tomorrow I had to come in (and at 7am). I'm now flying home so I can get there before the removalists. However, there is some emergency in the Myer Centre and as a result no buses are leaving the Brisbane busyby station! On the work front a potential customer's asked for a big demo to decide a tender and has put forward a scenario that would normally be completed with about 3 months worth of development. To top it off it spans all modules of the system including 2 new modules that haven't previously been implemented in Australia so the amount of documentation and support has been huge. Obviously the customer have up plenty of notice (thursday!) to present the demo on Tuesday. So along with packing the whole house on the weekend i've also been building this system. I broke something with it this morning which resulted in about 2hrs worth of fixes. One of the new modules still isn't working and with nothing to tell me how it works it's slow going! So the only option at this point was chocolate.

So Much Packing!

After a pretty solid day of packing yesterday we've done just about all the packing for the move. We just have about 1/10 of the bedroom left to pack and then it's just tidy up the odds and ends here and there. Today, however, is Key Day! I'm pretty excited about getting the keys to our new place, mainly because I've forgotten what it looks like inside!

Sell out!

I finally did it, I finally sold out on my website and added some adverstising. I become an affiliate with LikSang. Not sure if it will work out getting me anything but a bit of store credit would never go astray!

Wharfedale Evolution in the office

We got some new speakers in at work today to replace the old Tannoy's that we had in the soundlounge in the office. Just looking at the new Evo speakers you can see that they some quality pieces of kit. They are covered in a very sexy Bird's Eye Maple piano finish and are beautifully built curved cabinets. The main speakers that we had running in the sound lounge were the Pacific Evo-30, these units use the same drivers as my Diamond 8.4 speakers, the difference in sound is quite noticable even from the very quick listen I managed on my way out today. They have a much more open sound stage with a slightly crisper and cleaner sound when compared with the Diamond Series. Their rated to produce from 35Hz all the way through to 20kHz but the bottom end seemed every bit as meaty as the previous diamond series.

Australian DS Wifi hotspots announced

It's been revealed that as of November 17th Nintendo Australia will be rolling out Wifi Hotspots for the Nintendo DS. The Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection hotspots will initially be available across 26 Australian retail locations, including selected EB Games, Myer and Dick Smith stores. The 26 hotspots will be rolled out from the 17th of November, and conclude by November 30th. A full list of participating stores will be available soon on http://nintendowifi.com/.

--- edit:CamDS However if you talk to anyone from EB (for example) they will have no idea what you're talking about, apparently this information is yet to get from Nintendo Australia to the store managers.

The plan is to include free Nintendo Wifi Access, playable downloads available from Download Play and a special version of Bark Mode for those with Nintendogs allowing interaction without another DS console around.
Access to the Nintendo Wifi network will also be available from your home wifi network, but if you're not lucky enough to have wifi kicking around your house but still have broadband internet access you can get the Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector. This little device acts as a bridge between your broadband connection and the DS. It will only be available through Nintendo Australia, for just $AU49.95. You can order one by calling Nintendo Australia on 03 9730 9822. (if you haven't already pre-ordered yours!)

The ultimate Mario Gaming addition

So you've just got your you new Famicom Style Gameboy micro and you've picked up the NES classic Mario Brothers, how do you complete this gaming trip down memory lane you ask? Easy with some Mario Themed Speakers, obviously. These are cool speakers designed on the Question Mark and POW boxes from the old school Mario games. All you need to do is hook them up to a headphone socket and you're away. I think a pair would be great for my DS... but there doens't seem to be anywhere you can buy them at the moment.

The Move.... Stage 1

So we've well and truly started the moving process last night. We managed to pack one whole room in about 2 and a half hours. It is probably one of the worst ones to pack because it has all the computer and craft gear in it! Now it's done it's all down hill from here. Tonight we're going to move onto the dining room and kitchen, they will probably take us a bit longer because we'll have to wrap everything up before we pack it so it arrives in the same state. We even manage to get rid of a fair bit of stuff (I even through out 3 PC carcasses) All the gaming gear was packed up yesterday morning so I wasn't left with any distractions, apart from the DS obviously... packing that would have just been cruel! Valavien dropped in for a while to keep us amused while we were packing... and even managed to score some gear! Tom and Suse kindly offered us a hand tonight as well so it's going to be a team effort... Thanks Guys!

Wi-Fi Gaming for the masses is only days away

In only a few days the Nintendo's Free online gaming service will be up and running with the release of MarioKart DS. The service will allow anyone with a DS and any (WEP Encrypted, it doesn't currently support WPA) wifi network to connect to other gamers around the world at no cost. Nintendo America has also released a TV comercial for the service (which IGN have been kind enough to capture for the rest of us).

OMG We're moving on MONDAY!

So it's just dawned on my that I'm actually changing the place that I live on Monday! It's just a bit too scary now it's only 5 days away! Where are the moving fairies! I guess I know what I'll be doing for the next few days, I doubt there will be any time for anything except packing, packing and morepacking. Unfortunately I'm still working for the rest of the week!

Ouendan!

This is one of the strangest yet coolest games i've seen for the DS. It's like a version of Donkey Konga for the DS except your drumming determines if your cheersquad of three do gooders succeed in cheering any poor soul who is in need. The music is very catchy in a J-Pop post of way (in fact i've had one of the songs in my head all morning) and despite being completely in japanese the story unfolds in the form of a comic strip which allows you to follow with relative ease. It's strictly an import title as there is no release outside of Japan. Definately worth checking out though, and don't forget if you're in trouble just well Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!

So much DS time

While I've been up in Toowoomba I've got more tine go on the DS than I have go the last few weeks. Nothing like having friends who are just as addicted to the console as you are. There have been a few new DS games that I've had the chance to audition while i've been here as well. The Kirby game is by far my favourite. It combines everything i love about Yoshi: Touch and Go! With the classic 2d platforming genius of the Mario series. The Retro: Atari Classics is a complete disappointment. Most of the games are hard to control or counter-intuitive and the'Remix' versions are just terrible. The only half decent game is Asteroids but it's hardly the most exciting version, I've got an OS-X widget that's much more enjoyable to play! The ZooKeepers battles have been continuing but at least I've been able to who a few more or at least present some competition. It will be a shame to leave all the DS wireless action behind when I head back to Brisbane tomorrow, but it's not long until MarioKart DS hits our shores and then it will be online gaming a plenty!

Never cut out to be a ZooKeeper!

It's not often that I fine hand that I really struggle with but it turns out that a fairly unsuspecting game on the Nintendo DS has been my down fall. Last night say a lot of DS challenges of ZooKeeper, probably about 3 hours worth in all, and of the 1000s of matches that we played I only managed to who about 3! Maybe it was due to the amount of practise my rivals had prior to the challenges, but simply I was no match for them! They blew me away round after round, it was still great fun and I kept going back for more but I just don't have the stylus skill of these seasoned ZooKeepers!

Delay - Day 3 - Bad light stops play

And they call for the light... Unfortunate but it was a great day at the cricket. 4 Wickets in a session followed by the Aussies putting on 283 for the day. To top it off, Matty Haydn and Ricky Ponting both got tons! I'll post up a couple of photos when I get my phone home... I've also discovered you shouldn't try and take shots of yourself at the cricket after you've had a few drinks... the result's not exactly the desired one.

Lunch - day 3

And so ends the first innings me the first test between the W'Indies and th Aussies. With just a shade over an hour of play this morning Warne has demolished the tail end getting all 4 wickets and finishing with 5 for 48. A pretty exciting passage of play considering the state of the weather. Trying to avoid hitting the beers before 12, I was pretty surprised to see a coffee stand with not only real coffee but flourless chocolate cup cakes! One thing that did come to mind this morning was I no longer have a portiale radio to listen to the ABC broadcast during the day. I have enough gear to stream it off the web here but no radio! I hope the weather holds out but it looks pretty dark out to the west. Wellit's 12 time for some beers!

A day at the cricket!

After waking up to what looked like very set in rain, I've made it to the cricket and through the first over only about 15 minutes late. We've got some great seats high up behind the bowlers arm, in the new southern stand. The bad thing about the rain this morning is that the humidity pretty high. It doesn't look like we'll make it though to much more before we get some more rain, I'm pretty sure there is the sound me thunder behind us. But that's just been drowned not by the crowd as Warney has claimed the first scalp me the day. Looks like an exciting day is on the cards!

Where's the love!?

No, in case you were worried, I'm not going to burst into some rendition of the Black Eyed Peas song.

Today the Nintendo DS had it's first taste of tiles. When I picked up my laptop bag on the way to work the DS decided that it enjoyed being home too much yesterday and tried to jump out of my bag. The end result... Nintendo ate tiles. Fortunately in true Nintendo style there was no permanent damage and with the aid of the protector case it didn't even sustain a scratch.

Airtunes.... without the air?

So you don't have a Mac or a Wireless network, but you've got your PC at the other end of the house to your stereo and you want to get your tunes pumping in the lounge room. Well you already have your entire house cabled up with the wiring for the power sockets, why not use that? At least that's the idea that MicroLink have come up with in their dLAN Audio. The system has an adapter that plugs into a standard power outlet with RCA connections for your stereo. Pretty cool really... At the PC end there is an ethernet adapter to connect to your wall power socket. The system can stream up to 192kbps with both digital and analogue audio out. At present there is only a UK plug version (shown in the photo) which is fairly good news for us in Australia as I imagine it would work with just a socket adapater (as just about everything else from the UK) not sure if that translates so well for any market with 110V system...

Waha!

On a day where I was silly enough to leave my own DS at home! In the rush to get out this morning to get to work early (7:15 to be exact, which included walking across from Southbank!) I left the DS behind, mainly because Nessa's DS was flat from playing too much ZooKeeper and she had to swap to mine! Now I'm at work, with no DS for the bus trip home (or to play at lunch!) maybe I'll just have to buy a Micro to get by! They do come out today ;)
DSlessness asside, there has been an announcement on Joystiq about some New Mario DS details, screens.

Jeux France has picked up some new Famitsu scans of the upcoming Mario platformer for the Nintendo DS, and the details are tantalizing and exciting. The scans show Mario in a typical side scrolling adventure, albeit with a few quirky additions. First off is the size issue: some images show Mario the size of the entire screen, while others show a tiny Mario facing off against the likes of giant lava worms and colossal goombas. The other tidbit to pick up from the scans is a new power up - in some pictures you can see Mario wearing a blue turtle shell on his back, with each color giving Mario a different power (sounds reminiscent of Super Mario World and the shells Yoshi could swallow).

It's awesome news with so far very little being previously known about the new Mario title. The Mario titles have to be my favourite of all the console games. I'm a sucker for platformers and have become quite attached to the old Super Mario World (which any one could plainly tell if they ever heard my phone ring. There hasn't been a new 2D Mario title for some time and for me the 3D incarnations of Mario don't hold the same appeal as the 2D side scrollers. If Mario Kart wasn't coming out in a couple of weeks I think I'd have to go searching for one of the GBA titles just to tie me over!

Top 100 Games of All Times (well up to now anyway)

PalGN are running an article about The Greatest 100 Games which got me thinking about how many of them I've actually played. At the moment they've only done 100-60 but of that list so far these are all the ones I've played.

099...Soul Calibur 2
093...Quake II
092...F-Zero GX [106]
=89...Super Smash Bros. [108]
086...Age of Empires 2 [111]
085...Warcraft III [112]
084...Super Mario Sunshine [114]
080...Counter Strike [119]
078...Golden Sun [121]
076...Diablo II [123]
074...Advance Wars [125]
072...Lemmings [128]
065...Doom [137]

I'll post up the rest when they finish the count down but I'd be interested to see what everyone else has played from the whole list.

Back to Gaming....

And just for something different I thought I'd have another post about gaming. I haven't been playing much on the full consoles at the moment. I've been playing a bit of X-Men Legends II that I picked up really cheaply for the Cube. On a side note, I've discovered that owning a Gamecube is quite handy at the moment. Most of the games that are coming out cross plaform are quite a bit cheaper on the gamecube than they are on other systems. Although often the porting process leads to some minor performance issues on the cube over all the game is the same and the slight change in performance is nothing compared to the price difference. I've also been a bit taken with Advance Wars 2 for the Gameboy. I've found it's been one of the best games so far to play on the bus. Because of the turnbased nature of the game I'm not too concerned I'm going to get stuck into the game and miss my bus stop Meteos style. I've been playing a few campaign missions on the way in this morning and I see just how well it would translate to the DS platform. I'm holding out on Dual Strike until I can finish the campaign of the gameboy series.

We're Moving!

I found our today that the tenants in our new apartment are moving our early, which means it will be ready for us to move in less than 2 weeks! A slightly more compressed time frame that we were expecting but I'm really excited about moving. One reason could be I've been wanting to move in since we got the new place! Only 12 days and counting! Hmm... maybe I should start packing some stuff, 12 days isn't very long

Win on the Cup!

I had a win on the cup today! I only ever bet on the Melbourne cup, I'm not into horse racing, but the Cup is something that you have to be part of! Normally I use the birthday, colour or another arbitary system to pick the horse that I would bet on but today I just picked Makaybe Diva. I had a feeling that she would make it 3 in a row. As I was home sick again today there wasn't a cup party for me today but I thought I should make the effort and get to the TAB (which is about 50m from my house as it turns out) and put on a bet in the race that stops the nation.

You know your friends are gamers when....

So you've seen the PSP advertisement (not that I'm trying to push the PSP campaign, but stay with me!) where the 4 people are at the beach and they all pull out there PSPs lean up against the car and playing wireless games... I remember seeing the ad and thinking, that sort of thing doesn't happen... well as I've discovered, when you have a DS and Ness has a DS AND you're friends have a DS it does happen...
The only thing wrong with this picture is I'm not playing a DS!!!
Currently everyone is getting stuck into Meteos, Yoshi Touch and Go! and Zoo Keeper. There was a bit of a Meteos challange just make sure that everyone's wifi was working. As a result of spending an hour and a half playing the DSes in the Indroopilly shopping centre car park, Ness wants her own copy of Zoo Keeper and Amelia wants her own DS!

Another Roar Match

We went to another Roar match on Saturday night... It was great we had front row seats just near the half way line, it was awesome being so close to the action. We've got tickets for the rest of the season and all of them are really close, in the front two rows. The game was a little frustrating, The Roar squandered a lot of their shots on goal but the flow of the game was great to watch. They played a much more attacking style of play, just would have been nice if they could have slotted a goal. I'm really looking forward to seeing the rest of the games for the season.

Stuck outside!

As Ness was heading out to boot camp again today I had planned to ride out to new farm, as I did last week, and meet her when she finished. Today, however, it was just not meant to be. The thing that started this predicament was leaving my keys at work before I headed out to a customer. It didn't seem to much of an issue as Ness was picking of up yesterday and we were planning on heading into the city today anyway. However things didn't turn out quite as planned. Not long after I'd left home I had a blowout on my rear tyre, and from here it was all down hill. I walked my bike back home only with the problem of being locked out of the house AND in my riding gear. Not even the clothes no the line are any use to me. So I'm now just chilling on the front balcony until Ness gets back. The worst part is I can see the DS from here but the only thing I can access are the uni books we keep in the garage! (lucky my phone has internet)

Addicted to Meteos

At first when Ness forgot to pick me up one night because she was playing Meteos and didn't remember any of our phone conversation I was a bit scathing of her addiction. Now, however I can completely understand! I have taken her copy of Meteos hostage over the last couple of days and I'm completely addicted. So much so that I've missed my bus stop on 3 separate occasions while playing 'just one more level'

The game is so involving that you loose all touch with the outside world while your trying to save all the planets from the evil planet Meteo! I think I've come to the point where I really need to get my own copy, simply so that challenges between Ness actually count to my stats! I need to unlock more planets!

Mario Kart DS!!!!

I got my to play a demo of Mario Kart DS and all I can say is bring on the 14th of November! It is very much a throw back to the Mario Kart 64 days, except I'm sure the graphics are better than they were on the 64. Although Double Dash was a good game in it's own right it didn't have the addictive nature and playability of the 64 version. They have captured the simple gaming elements that made this game a classic and it plays very well on the console.

I admit I was hooked.. I played it in the store for about 30mins and didn't want to put it down. Combine that with the fact that the game will online enabled makes it one of the most exciting titles to hit the console!

iTunes has landed

After struggling through trying to by music from HMV.com.au, iTunes has landed and come to the rescue. Although Sony/BMG has not jumped on the band wagon yet it will only be a matter of time. They are slightly more expensive than the HMV, which is surprising if you'd ever bought a CD from there, but they have a much better release range. Also the direct integration into iTunes on my iMac is great... the only problem is that it's not the easiest integration (if you could call it that) with my sony MD player. Looks like I'll just have to get myself an iPod.

Storm Season

I love the storm season, ever since I was a kid I would always love watching the
storm fronts form, move in across the sky and be captivated by the lightning
dancing through the sky. Even now the feeling in the air that a storm is on the
way is enough to make me feel that little bit excited. Last night as the storm
got into full swing we sat back in a darkened room and watched the flashes as
they lit up the night. Of course that alone didn't last long so it was
accompanied with a few hours on the DS. I've taken Ness's copy of Meteos
hostage, and have begun to discover why she is so addicted to it. I fear I will
be getting my own copy in the not to distant future.

In the end it was a great night; Hamburgers, Storm, Lightning and DS Challenges!
Honestly could you ask for anything else!

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Time for some new singles.

I've been going in and out of CD stores for the last few weeks trying to justify some new music but could never get around to chosing just one. Today I finally bit the bullet and downloaded a few of the new tracks that I'd been keen to listen to from HMV. After a few failed attempts to add credit to my account I finally got around to downloading a few tracks (most of which turned out to be dance tracks... looks like I'm going through a bit of a electronic phase again)

Goldfrapp - Ooh La La
Mint Royale - Singing in the Rain
Ladytron - Destroy Everything You Touch
Timo Mass - First Day

I also downloaded some older tracks which I never got around to getting a copy of like Weapon of Choice from Fatboy Slim and my favourite dance track ever (well so far anyway) Clubbed to Death by Rob Dougan. Ness also got a track which is really out of her normal punk genre, Gold Digger - Kanye West.

All in all it was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon, sitting with the sun streaming in and listening some new tunes.

What's with Firefly?

Before people start barrating me for not being a fan of the Firefly series, I'm really enjoying watching it!
As a series I think it's really well written, pleantly of action balanced with the right amount of humour and drama. The thing I don't get is the combination of half western, half space sci-fi mix. The part that sets off the continuity bells is the lact of flow on technology, it's like a series of the Magnificent Seven with the occasion spaceship throw in?? Did Joss Wheldon just want to make a western series but couldn't get the funding and to get around it made a 'sci-fi' series? Don't get me wrong I really like it... I just am a little confused about the justification...

Sunny Lismore

Made it to Lismore, there is a huge thunder storm here though. The worst bit is there is a risk that i'll get flooded in.

Next stop Lismore!

After getting back from Sydney at about 10pm I'm off to Lismore, this morning. I'm sitting in the back of a hire car with two sales guys arguing about the way to get there and how long it will take. Apparently Lismore is less than 2 hours from Brisbane. Time will tell just how long it will take. Lucky I bought my DS. But it's a pity i can't read in the car otherwise i'd finish the first book of the Belgariad.

Someone pinch me, I think I'm having a nightmare!

The day started out innocently enough, It was the last day in a small development project to implement some changes to a long standing system. The changes were fairly well documented by the client so it was simply a matter of implementing them. Yesterday we'd rolled all the changes from Development to Testing without and error, which was a little surprising as it involved implementing 9000 lines of SQL script. Testing went off fairly well everything functioned as it was intended and we were given the green light to roll into Production.

The downtime for the server was scheduled and we went about upgrading the Production environment. It was after this it all went pear-shaped, and none of it was to do with system. I was first approached about one of the changes the had been made. It functioned just as intended, but it turns out that no one asked the person using that aspect of the system if was what they wanted. They actually required completely different functionality. (The conversation is paraphrased as it really needs context in word for word form)
Client: "I've spoken to User A, they can't really use the system now. Is it possible for you to change that part of the system so it now triggers of several other aspects of the system?"
Me: "But I just changed that aspect of the system from being triggered off something else to not being triggered at all. Changing it again would impact all the aspects you want to trigger off, it would take some time to make all these new changes."
Client: "Oh, so you could have that in before you go?"
Me: "I'm sorry but no, it took a day to design, build and test the last change, it would take a similar amount of time"
Client: "Really, oh well how complex would it be just to put that change back to the way it was and leave the rest of them?"
Me: "Well only a couple of hours, but..."
Client: "Ok so can you change it then, let me know when you're done"

So I went on my merry way taking out the some of the code that I'd just put it back the way it was. Really this should have warned for what was to come.

The rest of the afternoon was confirming the design with the Head of the Department, and inspecting the other enhancements that have been included as part of the update. Once this was done the application was republished back to the organisation. It came to 4:45 and I started to pack up and head home. Just as I was about to put my laptop in my bag when I had another visit from the client.

Client: "So how much work is it to roll back the system to what it was before started?"
Me: Chuckle (Honestly I thought they were joking at this point it was quarter to 5!)
Client: "No, Seriously how much work is it to roll back the system to what it was before started?"
Me: "Why? What's wrong with the changes?"
Client: "Nothing, the changes are just what we wanted."
Me: "So why do we need to roll back?"
Client: "Well, we haven't discussed the changes with all of the users of the system and one of the sections is worried how it will change the way they work. Also with changes to the screen design the Head of the department is worried that the users will get confused when they see it."
Me: "But I thought you needed the changes to the system because of they changes to the way your business works?"
Client: "Well most of the sections do but we didn't really look into how Section E was using the system. So how long will it take?"
Me: "Well it will take at least a few hours..."
Client: "And then we'll just be able to turn on the changes when we want them back?"
Me: "Well not exactly... When I restore the system all the changes will be lost. I can put them in your test system, but there will be time involved in migrating back to production..."
Client: "Ok can you start right away?"
Me: "I'll have to change my flight back and obviously there will be extra charges for the time involved, and I'll need on of the IT guys to stay back, because I can't access the systems on my own."

So I started on putting the system back to it's original form. Only to be interupted again about 20mins later, it's not 5:40pm.

Client: "Have you finished rolling back yet?"
Me: "No, I've only just started the backups, they take about 40mins..."
Client: "Great, can you just leave it the way it is?"
Me: "What?"
Client: "Well we don't have the budget approval for any IT staff to stay back, so can you just leave it the way it is and disable it so no one can access it?"
Me: "Well I can but that would me you'd be with out a system?"
Client: "That's fine, we'll just leave it offline until we've discussed it further."
Me: "How will you function without the system?"
Client: "Well, can you leave it open for the administrator and then who ever needs to use the system will just come and ask them."
Me: (at this point I'm over it) "Sure,...... done, no one but the admin can access it. I'm going to go. Let me know when need to make any more changes."
Client: "Thanks."

So after 4 days of development the Client went from a system that wasn't quite fitting their new processes, to a new system, back to the old system and now no system at all.

Did I just fall into a Dilbert comic?

Looking for something to read?

How about Google Reader? Google recently (actually I’m not sure how long it’s been out but I recently found it in the what’s new section) released an RSS feed reader. I’d never really got onto the RSS band wagon because I’d never really bothered downloading a Feed Reader. The best thing about the Google Reader is that it bundles up all your feeds into one page that you can check from anywhere, anytime. It’s linked to your Gmail account and basically means to end to forgetting to browse a particular site for news updates. Once you’ve added all your favourite site feeds, blogs etc. it becomes a constant steam of updates, the only problem is finding enough time to digest it all. It comes with all the things I’ve come to know and love about the Gmail interface, although it’s not quite as polished and some aspects are a little counter intuitive, but it is in beta. It does work much better in Firefox than it does in IE.