Xbox 360 Round Up

So, its only 2 more days until us chaps in "little ol' england" get the XBOX360. Well, we would if we had pre-ordered. It appears that Europe as a whole will only get a total of around 300,000 units for sale on launch day this friday. Pants! In preparation for the event, I am summarising the stories since the US launch a few weeks ago so you can all be "well informed" and "make the right choice" before buying. Fact#1: There have been issues with the 360 crashing which appear to be maily due to the external AC power adapter overheating. The fix for this is to put it on top of a cardboard box! "No recalls!" shouted Micro$oft, "Par for the course!" said a M$ support person, "Pants!" we say! Fact#2: You can install the Windows Media Connect application from Micro$oft to stream "multimedia" from your XP machine to the 360. However, this only covers Music and Photos. If you have Windows XP Media Centre Edition installed, you will be able to use the video and PVR functions from the 360 - but at the moment there is (absolutely) no way to stream or play Divx/Xvid files on the 360. This looks interesting though - a little hacking to run XP MCE apps via the 360. Or maybe using VLC to stream any content through a web interface is the way forward. Fact#3: The Free60 project is already up and running to attempt to get Linux running on the Xbox360. They have found out lots of information about the internal hardware and its hacking restrictions that have been imposed. A clever chap called "The Hypervisor" is guarding the (bill) gates and seems to have butt-fucked any chance of a modded 360 (so far). So don't wait for a modded version people! See this article at Engadget for a run down on the internal structure of the 360. Still, nothing is impossible - but I have yet to see a 360 ISO file turn up on "the torrents". Fact#4: The DVD player functionality has already been panned. It plays "backup DVDs" ok but also has quite bad "artifacts" and "smearing" on screen, even from retail DVDs. Stick with the £40 "Happy Shopper Matsui DVD Player" from Tesco methinks. Fact#5: Xbox 360 does allow you to plug in USB devices to access files such as music and photos. It will not allow you to play videos from that device though. You can connect your iPod and play music from it whilst playing a game, but you cannot rip music from the iPod (or any other USB device) to the 360's hard disk. This still has to be done by putting in your CD and ripping the tracks to the XBox hard disk in WMA format. Also, some MP3 devices are having issues being recognised by the 360, but this is mainly due to the fact that they are not *proper* USB Mass Storage Devices and may use their own internal disk format. Taoski's Parting Comment: "Whilst the 360 may appear to be the best thing since sliced bread, for me, the fact that there are *issues* connecting it to a PC to stream movies to it is a big no-no. I currently use my (modded) Xbox primarily as a media player using the excellent XBox Media Center application. Without that functionality in the new device - I will be scuppered." "It does appear that it will be a long time before a modded version of the console comes out but I have been away from online gaming for many years and feel the need to get a *real console* that plays *real games* so I can play against *real people*. Plus I should be teaching my kids the real value of things now they are getting older. Nothing comes for free - and if its worth having, then its worth working for." "I have yet to see a 360 in action pre-release day despite a trawl of my local gaming stores at the weekend. No doubt I will see Project Gotham playing and then obsess about getting one like I do with most other things. But for now I will stick with my current Xbox which does all I want it to and whilst the graphics on games like Burnout Revenge still amaze me - thats enough for me." Taoski says "RELAX" (and wait until next year to get a cheaper bundle). Technorati Tags: xbox, xbox360, microsoft, uk

Read and Destroy

When I was little, I can remember my parents reading me this book, "The Elephant and the Bad Baby" written by Elfrida Vipont and illustrated by the excellent Raymond Briggs. I bought this book for my kids a few years ago and when I read it to them, certain of the pictures give me a real feeling of euphoria from when I was young. There is one part where the elephant takes a bun from the bakers shop and the image of his trunk reaching through the door is very emotive for me. It's not the story, just the pictures. I have recently obtained a copy of a DVD called "Rollin Through The Decades" which charts the history of skateboarding in the UK. The added bonus is that it is edited by my friend Ben, who I have talked about in the Music Club Blog several times. The main focus of the documentary is around the South Bank in London where skateboarding has been welcomed, revilled, accepted and then outlawed many times over the years. Around the time I used to skate (circa 1987-1993), there was a skateboarding magazine called R.A.D. (Read And Destroy) which I used to buy every month. On Rollin Through The Decades, the magazine's creator, Tim Leighton Boyce talked about the creation of the mag and quite a few skaters pontificated over the content and style. Just seeing the covers of the magazine brought back similar feelings to those I described earlier. I can still remember the pictures and articles too, each one as emotive as the last. Then, over at the Too Old To Skate blog, I found a link to a new online archive of the R.A.D. magazine, setup by none other than the creator himself! I hope he features the issue where they came to Milton Keynes. I was there when the photographer was taking shots - but i never got into any of them (as I was too crap probably) but there were lots of my friends in them. Oh happy days!

iPod Volume Hack

Someone asked my where to get the ipod with full volume hack. So I thought I would find it and give it a go myself too. Not expecting too much, I installed the app - and it makes a hell of a difference! Not only does it increase the volume, it also expands the aural fidelity audio frequency curve graphology rating too! Ouch, ears... bleeding! Well worth an install! Technorati Tags: ipod, volume hack, apple, ears, bleeding

Retraction

I would like to retract my earlier statement regarding the casting and special effects used to make Mad Eye Moody in the new Harry Potter and the Goblet Of Fire film. I watched most of it last night in the Taoski's Torrent Sofa Cinema and I was impressed! It certainly is the best HP film to date - and I have'nt even got to the good bit yet at the end of "The Maze"... Mad Eye is done very well actually and does the character justice. So... sorry... I appologise. Technorati Tags: harry potter, goblet of fire, mad eye moody, HP

Hum Drum

There must be an official industry term for this: Trapped in a high salary, crap boring job that is the same every hour, day, week, year. Too scared to leave, too frightened to speak up in case of the dreaded "sideways career move" to another part of the company. At one point we, "the team", were the best of the best. We were looked upon in great esteem and revered in the highest eschelons of the corporate infrastructure. We were like gods, paving the golden road ahead in the world of remote PC fixes, "the best of the best". Our names were engraved upon the wooden toilet seats of our directors and fanfares were sounded when our names were spoken in meetings. I was their DemiGod. The bringer of light, chief fighter against evil and the writer of the holy and sacred batchfiles. Life was good. Work was a laugh, EVERY DAY! and it was real good fun. "The light at the end of the tunnel just turned out to be the screen of another broken PC......." How did it all turn into this rat-shit?

That's some damn tasty burger!

If you want some new XP Eye Candy whilst you are waiting to migrate to an iMac, download the Microsoft Royale Theme which has recently been released. It's nice n yummy. Technorati Tags: xp, theme, royale. eye candy

Man Flu

My body lay wet, cold and broken on the bed. Each twitching movement sending another prickly wave of pain from my back over my shoulders to my kneck. A bright ring of light was held tight around my skull, slowly twisting tighter as my brain inside throbbed harder and harder to escape from any orrifice it could find safe exit. And then I swallowed. Yep. I got the Man Flu again - but this time I also get to have 100% extra free Throat Infection too! Yipee!.. ow! I started to feel all tingly and achy on Friday last week and went downhill fast. Slept for 21 hours on Saturday and then had to endure the dreamlike comical toytown nightmare reality that was taking my wife to work on Sunday and then looking after the kids for six hours. Its amazing how much notice kids take of you when you are shouting soundlessly at them from the dizzy void of another dimension. The highlight of Sunday was taking my kids for a spin on the merry-go-round at the new Christmas display at my local shopping centre. It was just like the ending of 2001 - but with more hurting. It might have all been a dream... I'm just not sure! I got prescribed Penicillin (Phenoxymeythylpenicillin potassium) by my local surgery on Monday and have been on a steady dose since. Much crashing on the sofa was also prescribed and some DVDs had to be watched. I braved a return to work yesterday, against others wishes and better sound judgement, thinking I would be able to function but just found that my computer screen had turned into a milky puddle of rippling colour and that my hands kept on disappearing. When I was trying to talk to Mr Noxious about a remote install of Access 2000 he was attempting to an NT4 workstation with a .147 IP address I had to struggle to keep my sanity as he veered off the subject at random to talk about "tubes" and "hair folicles". Not what I needed at all. Again today I feel like my head is being squashed into the corner of the sofa by a big bean bag full of tiny ringing alarm clocks. My spacial awareness has gone completely off the radar and things look and feel a lot smaller or larger than they could be. Even as I sit and type this on my spongy keyboard, I feel the room spinning around me under my chair (which thankfully is on wheels) and my feet feel like the floor is pitching up and down under them, like they are on the pedal of an old sewing machine. Must be time for some food I think. Nothing too crunchy though. Technorati Tags: cold, flu, infection, penicillin, dream, void, headache

iPoddy

Here's my iTunes Playlist in dedication to all those disgruntled iPod Nano users who have troubles with their screen! Bring on the multi million dollar lawsuit! Tsk... twats! On a similar and related theme, heres some links for an iTunes hack to Download music videos from the iTunes. This has recently been blocked by Apple (after the announcement of the iPod that does video) so check the links on the Latest URLs page. Right click the link on the Latest URLs page and paste it into the box on the front page. This will give you a .MOV URL which you can copy out to do with, what you desire. Also keep an eye on the UNEASYSilence version (which is currently offline) as it worked better Also from the UNEASYSilence site are the instructions for How to download high res album art from iTunes and How to download movie trailers from iTunes. Technorati Tags: iPod, iPod Nano, Nano, iTunes, Apple, Hack, video, album art, ITMS

Mad eye

No, no, no, no... NO! This is not what I expected Mad Eye Moody to look like! In my minds eye he was a lot more "grotesque" than this. He was more kind of like Robert Deniro's version of Frankenstein's monster. And what the hell is that? A strap on eye? Get a grip! I might have to go back and check The Goblet Of Fire for the first description of Moody - but this just destroys him for me. Nearly as bad as casting Keanu Reeves as John Constantine for the poor film version of the Hellblazer comics.... Casting directors..... "Stupefy!" Technorati Tags: harry potter, the goblet of fire, mad eye moody, tgof, constantine, keanu reeves, Brendan Gleeson

Holy cow!

Just stumbled upon an ZDnet blog page detailling the new Swedish train which runs on fuel made up of organic waste from cows.

Not just being environmentally friendly and quiet, the train also runs at a respectable 130kph and according to travellers on the maiden voyage, ran on time.

I'm not sure what Rev Awdry would have to say about this - but i don't expect a DVD version of "Thomas and the shitty smelling train" will be landing on my sons lap at christmas time.

Technorati Tags: thomas the tank engine, biogas, train, cow, environment

Ho Ho Ho, says Bill

In a shock "billionaire tries to make more money" scandal, it appears that the US launch day stock of the XBOX360 will be limited to meagre amounts per store. As detailled over at the XBOX Forums already, stock for some major retail stores in the US like WalMart will only be able to sell between 10-50 units on a first come first serve basis with only one purchase per person. The dedicated gamer outlets like Electonics Boutique may only receive 16 units per store which will piss off the 60 odd people who have already pre-ordered - over 30 of which were promised a console. Some other stores worldwide have also been told that they must sell out on the launch date and that they must sell at least two games per console. The spin on this is possibly two fold.

• Has Microsoft had issues making the consoles in time for the launch date? If so then the low stock estimates could be valid.
• However, predicting a sell out on launch date, creating a high demand for the "must have" next gen console could also work in their favour, creating a shopping frenzy. Hell, they are already on eBay for over £300!

What ever the reason, if I don't get one on December the 25th... i will stamp my feet and cry. Technorati Tags: xbox, xbox 360, microsoft, walmart, electronics boutique, christmas, presents

Pretend Poo

Cripes! Mr Postman delivered my GBA Flash Cart this morning before 9am! Hows that for eBay service! Ordered yesterday afternoon - delivered today! I unboxed my new toy and slapped it into the USB port on my XP box and installed the drivers, briefly read the instructions (ignored most of it) and launched the program from the included CD to upload some **ahem** backups of my games I already own. ERROR: NOT ENOUGH ROOM The Cart stated that it had 256mb free... but only 256MB RAM - not ROM.... Hmm... I tried to format the card using the same program - but it just crashed every time. Thoughts of negative eBay feedback entered my mind as I re-read the instructions. I went off to the manufacturers website and began to download the latest version of the upload client and was a small part way through downloading it over my 2Meg ADSL line at 3.2kb a second when I found a slightly older version on another site. Downloaded that - unRARed it and tested... it worked!!! I was able to pick my ROM images and load them into the application ready for uploading. So why did'nt Mr eBay supply the latest version of the client too? He did supply his own CD with the drivers on, but they were obviously the old version! So I now have ...er... some ROMs on the cart. And for the record.. it works - perfectly! It boots to a loader screen (with wallpaper you can change) and you arrow up and down the list of games and press the A Button to load them. I don't know why I did'nt get one years ago! Now, i'm off for another "pretend poo" to play. And tonight, I will be mostly searching the internet for ROMs and Emulators. Technorati Tags: nintendo, gameboy advance, gameboy, gba, flash, EFA, emulator, ROM, eBay, USB

Spam

I just logged onto the webmail portion of my "other" main email account with BTInternet that I have had for over 8 years to check the latest on my eBay/PayPal purchase. Only to remember that I had changed the email addresses ages ago. They have an automatic spam killing feature on there that moves the offending messages direct to the Trash folder and then deletes them after a month on a rolling process. At the moment, the count of the last 31 days worth of spam is 1373 emails! Not to mention the ones that slip past the filters to be captured by my Thunderbird spam filters. That's about 44 pieces of crap per day! Or 16,500 per year! Then again, the email address has been used on newsgroups and a various array of other "dodgy" sites over the years - so 44 per day is probably not that bad! The actual amount of proper emails I get to that address is minimal - i might as well delete it really. On a side note... here is my first ever newsgroup posting from over 10 years ago. Thanks Google! Oh - and sorry Terry. I know your boss wasn't pleased... Technorati Tags: spam, email, bt, btinternet, trash, ebay, paypal, newsgroups, usenet, google

Advice taken

I have taken the advice from the comments on my previous posting and have purchased a 256MB flash ROM cart for my Gameboy Advance SP from eBay. Review coming up soon! Technorati Tags: GBA, nintendo, flash, emulators, roms, ebay

You're Tekken the piss

A little help please... Years after finding an original Gameboy Advance on the train a few days after they have been released in the shops, my love affair with portable gaming has not ceased. I upgraded the old unit for a nice new spanky Gameboy Advance SP when that came out and we have spent many a happy hour together. The problem is, I only have 3 games!

• Tekken Advance
• Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2
• Advance Wars

I have recently won 29 fights on "Survival Mode" on the "Hard" setting of Tekken Advance, so I think I might have done it to death. I have also completed Tony Hawk with nearly all the characters (much to the delight of my fellow train commuters). Advance Wars is a different matter. I have not even completed the basic training games! Why? Because it takes too long! I only like to play games that are not too deep and do not take too long. Ones that I can pick up and play for 5 mins at a time. Something I can play whilst on the toilet without running the risk of getting arse-sores. Has anyone got a suggestion for a new Gameboy Advance game that fits this criteria? Or has anyone got any good experiences to share regarding the GBA Flash Memory Carts? Or does anyone want to do swapsies with my copy of Advance Wars? Technorati Tags: gba, gameboy, gameboy advance, nintendo, tekken, advance wars, tony hawk, console, xbox