On Gaming

If you know even a little about me, or have read 0ddness for any length of time, you will know that I am a bit of a Gamer. For the most part, I play online games, and if you fall into the afore-mentioned "Know Me A Little" category, you will know that I am an avid World of Warcraft (WoW) player.

Now, WoW is almost ten years old, and for the most part, I have been playing WoW the entire, time. I've had several months off here and there, mainly from suffering burnout or boredom, only to miss playing and to carry on going again.

I am currently going through one of those phases, and have been trying to find something else to play. Thankfully, I have a Steam account, and have started poking around on Twitch.tv to see what's what in the world of gaming.

Usually, I only have two or three games installed on my laptop - usually that's all that can hold my attention, or I stick with one (usually WoW) and play that constantly. Including WoW, I currently have NINE games installed, plus another four on my Steam account I own but haven't installed. Then there is Origin, which has another three games on it. I've not even looked at the free games available on there!

For me, that's unheard of.

The biggest problem is that I know what I like. So often, I will start an online game, and my first thought is "It's not WoW..." which I know is stupid, because if I am playing something else, it usually means I'm bored of WoW, which means I want something different...

I know, I never said I was normal.

So, I've been keeping an open mind, and trying other games, just to see what's what. Oh yes, and the other issue - I'm not wanting to part with cash for something that I will probably not like - so I've been going through Steam looking for the different Free-to-Play (F2P) games.

I know, I never said I was normal.

So, I decided that, for a change, I'd blog it, and review a few of the games I've been bashing around on. These are NOT exhaustive, I do NOT cover all aspects of the games, and as usual, these are my own opinions, and I'm not getting anything out of them. I know a few of you (assuming I still have readers) are gamers and looking for something different every now and then, so figured you might be interested.

I am also fully aware that none of these are "new" games, and that they have probably been reviewed to death elsewhere. But they are new to me. If that makes sense.

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Rift

Rift is one of the F2P games I've started with, and despite having several people tell me "Oh, I played that, it was awful" I've stuck with it. Especially as most people that have told me it was awful gave it about three nano-seconds of play time. I can't take peoples personal reviews seriously if they play one character/class, and only play for the first few levels.

So, I downloaded it (it's huuuuge by the way, you might be better off setting off the download/install/patch at bedtime) and gave it a whirl...

First off, it's quite similar to WoW - but then, I think a lot of MMORPG-type games are similar to one another, because A) The formula for WoW obviously works, and B) There are so many ways you can reinvent the wheel. The graphics are quite pretty - more realistic than WoW, but not up there with games like Guild Wars.

The game itself is very good - I've been playing on and off pretty much when I've had free time (aside from the fortnight I was sick as a dog) and am loving it. I've levelled one character up to 30-something, and another to the mid-teens. According to Steam, I've logged 60 hours of play time.

Because I enjoyed it, I threw a few quid at it too. It IS a free game, but you can buy credits to buy different things in the in-game store, but it isn't a Pay-to-Win game - they maintain that you don't need to pay ANYTHING and can still be as effective as someone that has thrown a metric shit-ton of money at the game. Credits can buy outfits, mounts, additional space, extra character slots - various things that don't really affect gameplay. I bought some credits to acknowledge that it's a good game, that I appreciate it's free, and because I "needed" a mount and more storage space.

Like most MMOs, it plays in the same sort of way... Go here, kill X of these, collect Y of that, talk to this fellow... Like I said, they aren't reinventing the wheel here.

My final point - and this is something that WoW seems to lack on occasion - is that the community is friendly, helpful and generally approachable. If you ask a question in WoW, for the most part you will get a hammering from the trolls that play. In Rift if you ask a question - and because I'm a newbie, it's likely a silly question - you actually get help and guidance. It's quite refreshing if I am honest.

The developers, Trion, keep the game updated, appear to be adding new content quite regularly, have a decent customer service presence, and regularly release patches, hotfixes and minor repairs if something goes pearshaped. They also release expansions every now and then.

And remember, this is a F2P game.. WoW is £8.99 a month, plus you have to buy the expansions when they are released - usually for something like £30.

All in all, if you are looking for an MMO but aren't sure what you want to play, I really do recommend trying Rift. But try it properly - don't give it an hour and then delete it. Play through, read the quests, explore, chat to people. It is well worth it I think.

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Neverwinter

I DO love me some Dungeons & Dragons. My real passion before Bethy died was playing D&D, but after losing her, I don't know, something inside me broke, and I found it hard to play and run games. Every now and then, I have a burst of creativity and think of scenarios and situations for games, or I think of an entire plot line or even a story of some kind which I start to write.

But then I lose interest for some reason and struggle to keep going on and on. I hate it with a burning hate, because I LOVE D&D, but don't think you can force something, because it then becomes a chore.

D&D computer games are quite good, but never quite manage it. I loved the Baulders Gate & Neverwinter Nights series of games, but Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO) was a pretty naff game. So imagine my surprise when browsing Steam, I came across a game called Neverwinter - the name of a city in the Forgotten Realms setting of D&D with lots of history and back story.

I was very much "Ooooooh" when I saw it, even more so when I realised I was in the F2P section! A free D&D game. I had a check, made sure it was NOT a rebranded, renamed, rechurned-out version of DDO, and gave it a whirl.

Again, if you're going to install it, do it at bedtime - it takes a while.

Now, in as much as WoW and Rift are true MMOs where you run around a world and run into other players, Neverwinter seems slightly different in that a lot of areas you go to do quests seem to be just for you (and, I assume, your group if you have one).

It's also different in that the combat system is more hands-on. In WoW & Rift, you push buttons and hotkeys to do a multitude of different things. With Neverwinter, you have fewer abilities, but can move around, dodge, counter-attack and everything else. It makes quite a difference.

While the questing system is very similar - go here, kill this, collect that - it is a LOT more linear than "traditional" MMOs. Don't get me wrong, that's not always a bad thing, but with the previously mentioned games, you can go and wander off elsewhere, have an explore, see what's what, find a different quest hub or whatever. Neverwinter is more a case of going from A to B to C.

However, that said, it IS very D&D. While I was never that sort of Dungeon Master (my players always had free reign to get their heads splattered where-ever they wanted) a lot of D&D scenarios are very much A-to-B-to-C-to-win style.

I confess I've not played Neverwinter for a huge amount of time. Twelve hours racked up so far. And I've only played one character. I've not spent any money on it as yet, but like Rift, you can buy credits and buy other stuff - but I've not looked at any of that yet, so don't know if it's Pay-to-Win.

It is a very pretty game, and the different areas are excellently laid out. The combat system makes a nice change to the multitude of buttons you get in other games, and having to be more alert than you would in others is nice.

But. For me, that is an issue. There are days when I can't even do up my own shoe laces because I'm not sure what I'm doing.

Possibly one of the most interesting aspects of Neverwinter is the fact players can create their own adventures with a tool called The Foundry. Now, I've neither played nor created anything Foundry-based as yet, but talking to other players, it makes a huge difference to the game. If you're bored of A-to-B-to-C, you can enter a Foundry adventure. Effectively, it's a single-stand-alone adventure, sometimes with various parts to it, but it's a break from the norm that sounds very interesting.

Again, if you're looking for an MMO or similar game, it's worth a go. I intend to play more, but if you have concentration issues, then you DO need to be in the right frame of mind.

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Hearthstone

I confess I've been playing this one for a while, as I've been in the Closed Beta for it, but seeing as my blogging has been, shall we say, a little sporadic, I never really mentioned it.

Hearthstone IS a Warcraft related game, but is a complete break from the above games. Hearthstone is a card game in the WoW setting, but you do NOT need to be a WoW player to enjoy it.

If you've ever seen ANY form of Collectible Card Game (CCG), it's most likely going to have been Magic: The Gathering, Vampire:The Eternal Struggle/Jyhad, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh or similar... I used to play Magic a LOT, I spent a f$ck-ton of money on it when I left college, and even now I have a few boxes of cards. Vampire wasn't bad, but Pokemon and Yu Gi Oh never interested me at all.

So Hearthstone is much like these games. You have a deck of cards, gain power, summon creatures, destroy your enemy... It's brilliant, really really fun. If you have a Battle.net account, I believe it's currently in Open Beta, which means anyone can sign up and play. I think.

Again, it's currently free (I don't know if it will remain free once released) but you can spent money on it by buying Booster Packs of cards, adding them to your starting collection, with a chance of getting rarer, more powerful cards. BUT you don't need to buy the cards.

You can play practise games to get used to it, against different difficulty levels of AI enemies, and you can play one-off games against other human players. Then there are the league/tournament games which is against players that have rebuilt their decks and optimised how they play.

Yes, I lost a lot.

If you like these sort of games, if you enjoy CCGs, it is a good laugh. Obviously, being that it's still in beta, there may be bugs and issues in it, and the final product may be slightly different - plus when the game is released, you will probably have your account reset. I don't know for sure, but you may well end up starting over on release day.

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I think for the time being, that will do. I'm also playing other games, but haven't played them enough to form any real opinion on them. Sims3 seems interesting but more like hard work - I played it before and it just seemed like work as opposed to a game. Path of Exile is fun, and very much like a Diablo3 type of game, but I've only sodded around on it for a while. Electronic Super Joy is an 8bit style platform game that is HUGELY frustrating, but has a brilliant techno-style soundtrack. Dragon Age Origins I got for Xmas, and have seen Kellie play it through a few times, so thought I would give it a whirl. Enjoying it quite a bit, but again, needs concentration.

Yesterday, I heard about one game from two different sources that kind of piqued my interest. One was the 0dd Sister. We were talking about Live Roleplaying, her memory recalled things about it because the 0dd Brother In Law had was playing League of Legends (LoL). An hour before that, I was on Twitch, and clicked a video in one category that was actually something different - a League of Legends game.

So, I took the hint, took the plunge, and dived in. I started the download (Huge, Bedtime, etc etc) and eventually got in. I've read several reviews, watched some videos, and have played through some of the tutorials...

It's classed as a "Multiplayer Online Battle Arena" or MOBA game (as opposed to "Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game" or MMORPG) and is apparently based off a Warcraft 3 mod called Defence of the Ancients (DOTA) from a few years ago, that appears to have spawned the whole genre of MOBA.

The reviews are all positive, and the game itself does seem very good from what I've played so far - but like I say, it's only the tutorials as yet. It does seem to have quite a steep learning curve, with a massive choice of things to do and to play, but I'm running through the tutorials more than once which helps. No doubt I will slap up another post about it at some point!

If you managed to read through this entire post - which has taken me ages to do thanks to a headache, feeling sick, and finding links for you to click - then well done. Clearly you're as much a nerd as I am!

Until next time.

I Don't Get It?

Over the last couple of years, people seem to be going on about a game called Minecraft. And every time people have gone on about it, I've had a nosey at the website, had a quick scroll around, seen some of the screenshots and ended up thinking "nah" and diverting my attention elsewhere.

Today or yesterday in the news, I noticed it has now won some award or accolade or another, so again I decided to have a look... And again, it's the same look as before, and while apparently it's been updated, it doesn't look that different to me.

However, I decided to run with the consideration that "eight million people couldn't be wrong*" I thought I'd sign up for an account and have a bash at a demo version.

I've never watched any videos, read anything aside news stories about it, or even watched friends play, so I was going in without any ideas of what to expect.

And go!

Within two minutes, I had grown tired of punching the crap out of things to see what would happen. I expected trees to fall down (they don't) when you removed a section of trunk. I expected... Well, actually, I didn't know what I expected.

So I carried on punching some more. "ANY minute now -" I thought to myself "- the tutorial will give me more info.

Thus far, the tutorial consisted of "These buttons to move" and "This button to jump" and nothing else. Considering this is the demo which, I assumed, was to convince those unsure whether or not to buy it, it was pretty lacking. I punched stuff, it popped, my bar across the bottom became filled with things...

I punched different coloured ground for sand, dirt, gravel... I punched sheep and pigs for wool and meat... I punched trees for different wood and bits of tree.
It got dark, I carried on punching. I saw a man, I carried on punching. The man grew, I carried on - oh... He blew up and took me with him. I scored 9 points.

There are points now?!

So I respawned, punched stuff, including a fella - I'm assuming a skeleton - until it died and dropped a bone. Another explody man came at me, but I got stuck against some leaves.

BLAMMO! Dead.

I was certain this was a build it type game, but couldn't find any way to build stuff. I had plenty of shit in my inventory, but couldn't do anything with it. All I could apparently do was punch stuff, harass sheep and pigs, and get blown up by some angry thingies. If anything, I was achieving LESS because I was digging the place apart, and Mr Blowy-Up took out the scenery with him.

I kept trying and trying, learned how to sink, drown and swim. Learned that falling from great heights is painful. Learned that once night fell, I was likely to get eaten by zombies and spiders, shot by skeletons, or blown up by Mr Blowy-Up.

Now I'm bored, fed up, and don't see the appeal. I have a quick look online, and it starts with "important stuff you need to know" like building beds, houses, pick axes... All information that might have been useful at the START of the demo.. So I start trying to work out a bed, but in the process of this, an explosive visitor pays me a visit.

What the actual f$ck?!

Now, I just don't care. I've had a shitty couple of days, I'm tired, in pain, and trying to take in this new "game" with a tutorial that might as well explain car driving as "get in car, forward is that way, back the other" and leave it at that. Yes, I'm fully aware it's a "sandbox" game, that there are no real goals, it's all user generated and so on.. But really?

Really??

Please, feel free to regale me with tales of why it's so great, show me videos of people that have spent their every waking hour making pretty castles or dungeons... People that just need some Lego, it would seem. I just cannot see the appeal.

So, in relation to the *... YES. Yes they can. Out of interest, I click the buy now button.
Eight million people have paid close to TWENTY QUID for this game. It's no wonder then, that in the interview I watched, one if the creators looked so smug...

So on your marks, get set, go! Explain what I'm missing, why it's so fun, and why should I spend twenty quid on online Lego with free explodey-men...

Because it's beyond me, it really is. I actually clicked the Buy Now button expecting a fiver. Maybe seven quid.

Bzzz! Wrong!

Excuse any typos or strange grammar - I'm writing this at 2am. On the phone, no less.

Diablo III - A Review

After waiting for several years for this moment, I clicked the Big Fat Play button on the game loader. First off, despite this being a Single Player game first, you NEED a constant online connection for it, and a Blizzard/Battle.net account.

Their reasoning is simple. For one, Diablo and Diablo II were heavily pirated, even with CD Keys being used, if you were a Diablo player, chances were that you ran off a copy of your own game so others could play with you on a LAN connection. For two, they have implemented an Auction House system per region (Europe, US, Asia etc) which they will be branching into a Real-Money Auction House, so need to use their Warden security system (as used in WoW) to monitor you to make sure you're not cheating and/or hacking.

Personally, I don't mind the always-online connection... I can chat to my other Blizzard-Game-Playing-Friends while playing D3, even if they are in WoW or StarCraft. Nifty. Secondly, being that I am neither cheating nor hacking, they can monitor my system till their heart is content - I know if I join a public game, I won't be playing with someone that has cheated their character to have the biggest and best suit of armour on - on their body, their head, their hands, as a weapon - yep, that was a very prevalent cheat back in D1 and D2!

So anyway, you're always online. Don't like it, don't play.

First off, cinematics. As is usual with Blizzard, they go all out, and their art/animation department is populated with very talented people...



The game has several cinematics, and all are just as pretty. If you can click full screen and view that video in HD, then do so - the little box does not do it justice.

Barbarian, Demon Hunter, Monk, Witch Doctor, Wizard

Onto character creation... Like the previous Diablo games, you get a choice of classes, but can't tweak their appearance - so those of you that spend an hour making your character pretty, you're out of luck. The options you get are "Male" or "Female"

Of course, you get a choice of classes to play; Barbarian, Demon Hunter, Monk, Witch Doctor and Wizard. A better way to look at it would be "Big Weapon Stabby", "Crossbow Shooty", "Fast Hand Slappy", "Spells and Weapon Mixture" and "Magic Blammy Blammy"

Now, I've only played the Monk and Demon Hunter in any real depth - I've played through Normal mode with both and am halfway into Nightmare... I've poked around with the other three a bit, but not enough to justify writing about how they play.

Once you select your character, you get another brief cinematic from the characters point of view, and you're dropped into the game, just outside the town of New Tristram.

Starting Point

First off, from this point, the game looks very pretty. Given that it's a set viewpoint and you can't rotate the screen or anything, it's gorgeous to look at. I have it on my laptop, and for the most part, have all the graphics cranked up and it runs like a dream.

The next thing you notice is the sound. The Ambient sounds - that is, the sounds of the area you are in - are all crisp and clear. When you walk through a puddle, it splashes. You hear the wind blow. You hear creepy sounds - voices, cries in the distance - the whole lot. I tend to play with earphones on, and it's a little disconcerting hearing a sudden slobbering critter somewhere off behind you when you're playing at one in the morning.

Off you trot with your character, and being that it's all new, the help system points everything out to you. Do this to move, do this to attack, click this to open or break - and so on. The number of pop-ups with instructions slow down after a few minutes, but you will encounter one every time you open a something new in the game - Stash, Inventory, Quests, Crafting - but it's not obtrusive; if you're mid-battle, it's not going to open a window across your fight and cause you to get your face chewed off by the forces of hell.

From the outset, you're on a quest line, and you pretty much stay on it all the way through the game. Yes, it's linear, but then, if you've played D1 and D2, it's the same sort of thing. Talk to this person, go here and kill this. Go back, talk to this person, go and find this item...

Once you're out of the town and in the world, you experience one of my favourite parts of the Diablo games - the randomly generated areas. You head out, and even though an area might conform to the same size/shape each time, it is different every time you load the game. The map is covered with a fog of war which you only reveal by exploring. Now, technically you don't have to explore the map. If you need to run from Point A to Point B, you can do just that. However, if you want XP, Gold and Loot, you explore every nook and cranny. Chests, rotten logs, hidden stashes - not to mention beasties, gribblies and nasties aplenty... All ready for you to find and smash open.

And yes, smashing open applies to the monsters too.

So my previous point - the areas. Let's say I clear through the first area, explore every nook and cranny and see what is where. I might have found a small side-dungeon like a Hidden Lair or something and cleared that out too. I then quit, have dinner, and come back later. The area I previously cleared is now re-cloaked with a fog of war. Upon exploring, you will find it is all different. You might encounter different monsters, you will find different treasure, there might be an "Event" in there somewhere too - a mini quest where you invariably have to fight off a shit-ton of monsters... There might even be a different mini-dungeon for you to clear. Last time, it was a Hidden Lair, this time, it might be a Subterranean Cave System. It might be a Hidden Lair again, but if you go in there, it will be different too.

The control system is easy to get to grips with, and to be honest, you can easily play one-handed if you want to, using just your mouse. To start out, you have your Primary Attack Skill (Mouse Button 1) and your Secondary Attack Skill (Mouse Button 2), and as you progress through the levels, you unlock different hot-bar buttons across the bottom. You can click these, or hit the assigned number button. There are four in total, and depending on your class, determines what the buttons do. You also unlock Passive Abilities, and can select which ones you have active, from a list of several.

Skill Menu

As you level up, you unlock different skills for each button, but also, different runes for each skill. If my primary attack is a fast-attack, the first rune might make my attack flaming, the next one might add three hits, the fourth might add a knock-back effect - and so on... So you can customise each skill as you level up and make your character your own. Don't think, however, that choosing Skill X and Rune Y means you're stuck with them. No no, you can change them as often as you wish, testing out combinations of skill and rune until your heart is content.

Or until you run out of things to pulverise.

If you get bored of trashing through the critters on your own, you can invite other D3 playing friends to join you in your quest, and play together. This increases the toughness of the creatures, but not stupidly so, and playing together is a good laugh. There's also no loot stealing - whatever I see a creature drop on my screen is MINE, and my friend sees loot on their screen which is theirs. You can, however, drop stuff from your inventory to the ground for your friend to pick up, which means if I am playing a Wizard, and get a crossbow that is good for my Demon Hunter friend, I just drop it out, and she can pick it up.

Simples.

If you are Billy No Mates, do not despair. Thanks to the wonders that is Battle.net, you can join any open game whenever you want. You can jump in when you like with people you don't know and have a good laugh. If you don't like them, you can leave. Easy as that. Bear in mind though, if you drop anything from your Inventory to the ground, they can pick it up - it's one thing accidentally dropping something with a friend, but with people you don't know...

Another handy feature - let's say you live in the UK, have a few friends here that play D3, but also have LOTS of friends in the USA that also play. You are allowed to switch your regions in order to play with your friends elsewhere. Just keep in mind, the US have their scheduled maintenance on a Tuesday, and the EU has theirs on a Wednesday - both during their early hours, which means due to time differences, you might find your character unplayable during your own prime time.

Auction House

Aside from game play, there is also the Auction House part of Diablo 3. Here, you can buy and sell all the various items found adventuring through the lands. You can sell the rare bow you found, and buy a new piece of headgear. You can sell stuff directly from your Stash - a chest that all your characters in the same region can access - and even directly from your inventory.

In the coming weeks, they are also implementing the Real Money Auction House, where by you "Load" your Battle.net account with money via Paypal or whatever, and use that money to buy items for your characters. You can also sell the items you find for real money too, the funds of which get transferred into your Battle.net wallet. There are "Transaction Charges" and similar, but to be honest, I've not paid much attention to this side of the game, as I probably won't use it... I enjoy playing, but don't see me parting with actual CASH just to give Billybob a new sword.

There are, of course, downsides to D3. Yes, this might be a glowing review, but it does have its problems that... niggle.

First and foremost, it can honestly be said that this has not been a smooth game launch for Blizzard. From day one, they have had server instability, emergency server shutdowns, patches and updates, errors preventing players logging in... And all this is still ongoing. Tomorrow, in fact, they have another round of server shutdowns, which means the game will be unplayable.

Now, for WoW, this is sort of expected. It's a Massive Multiplayer Online game, and the servers need work, the servers get shut down, job done. Diablo, first and foremost, is a single-player game. While I understand the need for security and suchlike, it would be nice if it did a check to a safe, always-online server when you log on, and then you could play single player. No chatting to friends, no Auction House...

On the other side of the coin, WoW has a monthly subscription, so they have a steady stream of income to pay for server work, techs and stuff to do this - D3 does not have a subscription, yet we get all the online stuff for free...

I'm on the fence still. I would like to be able to play my game when I choose, not have my playing time dictated by a computer being offline elsewhere on the continent. But then, there's the social side and security...

Another niggle of mine is the graphics. Yes, it is graphically very pretty... But it's not amazingly so. The scenery is gorgeous, but then it's mostly two dimensional pictures, as you can't move the camera around. When you zoom in to your character and the NPCs around them, they look... Old Fashioned? I wonder if, where the game has been in development for so long, that the graphics are a little dated due to that?

One of the selling points of the game was the fact that it contains several difficulty levels... Normal, Nightmare, Hell and Inferno. Before you can do Nightmare, you have to play through Normal. Before Hell, you have to play Nightmare - and so on. Inferno Mode has been billed as stupidly tough, like, People Are Screaming On The Forums tough. However, people fail to realise that from the outset, Blizzard said it was REALLY hard. I watched an interview with a developer who said something along the lines of, "we kept increasing the difficulty for the play testers, making it harder and harder, and when they finally said "This is REALLY hard" we just ramped it up even more".

My niggle? You play the game storyline from start to finish on Normal mode. You level your character from 1 to around 30 by the time you kill the final boss. Then you get to do it again from the start on Nightmare mode. Storyline from start to finish, kill the boss... And start again on Hell mode... Blah blah blah...

Now, granted, the areas are different each time you play them, the layout is roughly the same, but the content is different. Yes, that does help somewhat, but I can't help but think the game is a little small, and they've extended it's life simply by making the monsters badder and meaner, and dangling the carrot of more levels, more skills ahead of you... Yet all you are doing is playing the same thing over and over.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind replaying through it - I am around the same point of Nightmare mode on both my Monk and Demon Hunter... But... I don't know, I can't quite put my finger on it...

Achievements

Yes, there are achievements you can aim for - and some of them you can't get until you reply through the game... But I think a lot of people that aren't used to D1 or D2 will find it over and done with very quickly and think "Is that it?" and get the hump.

Lastly, there have been calls and cries on the forum, claiming that Blizzard have been hacked, because "I joined a public game, had someone on my friend list I didn't know, then was suddenly logged out, and when I managed to log back in, all my gear and money was gone!"

Blizzard were quiet for a few days - I suspect investigating - but the forums were a storm of protest and shouting, screaming and whining... Theories were given, people with precisely zero computer savvy were claiming this hack or that exploit was used. Blizzard then took to the forums and stated that the people claiming to have been hacked simply had their accounts compromised - probably by a keylogger or similar on their computer - and that everyone was safe, as long as they practised safe computing.

People cried out, disagreed and everything else, but to date, Blizzard are standing by this statement. No one with an Authenticator has been compromised, and their servers are safe and secure.

Personally, I am with Blizzard. I suspect had they been hacked, they would come clean - I think legally they have to - and as with WoW, getting your account stolen without an authenticator is quite easy. I know several people that believed they were careful, but ended up getting hacked. Blizzard have also offered people with hijacked accounts roll backs - so they reset their character to an earlier time.

Authenticators - Added Security

For those crying they can't afford an authenticator - seriously, after buying an expensive computer game - they are like £9 from the Blizzard store. Failing that, you can get them on the various brand of smartphone for free. And if you DO use one, and are still worried, set your account to ask for the Authenticator number every time you log in.

If you own an Android and want the free Authenticator, you can get it from the Android App Store here. If you own an iPhone (or similar I suppose!) you can get it from the Apple Store here!

To sum up...

I love Diablo III. Properly, full-on adore it. I can play a bit, feel like I've achieved something, log off, and log back when I like, maybe re-run an area, maybe push through the quest a little more... It's a very pretty game, but not as pretty as it could be. Atmospherically, it is stunning - the sounds and music and locations are all gorgeous to look at. When you're in the desert, you can hear the desert wind. When you're running through the sewers, you can hear the splashing and see drips falling from above into the water. When you're on snowy ramparts, you can hear the snow crunch under-foot and almost feel the cold wind...

While it's a shame you can't customise how your character looks, you can customise every skill and ability you use to suit your own playing style, and I like that a lot. I'm still 20 or so levels from maximum, so obviously there are things I have yet to play with, but what I have seen so far I like.

Story-wise, it's a little short, and I suspect if you were to rush it, maybe with a friend or two, you could finish it in a very short space of time. The story is linear, and while it has some twists and turns, it is a little predictable. I do like the fact you meet familiar faces from previous games.

If you've never played D1 or D2, don't fret, you don't need to know anything.

A brilliant game, atmospheric and great fun to play, albeit a little dated in places, with a few minor issues and teething problems on Blizzards side... Once they have their act together, I suspect it will be even more enjoyable.

Lastly: If you're a Dragon Age type player, do not expect Downloadable Content. If you're a WoW type player, do not expect Content Patches. Blizzard have already ruled out both. A shame, yes, but then, I am not sure what DLC they could add really. And as for content patches - you get them with WoW because you pay a monthly subscription...

They WILL, however, "monitor the game and make any necessary adjustments" which means if a class/skill combo is too powerful or "not working as intended" then they will fix it.

Currently, there is no demo/trial version of Diablo III. Blizzard, however, are normally good at attracting more players through these avenues, so keep your eyes peeled - I am sure one will surface.

Diablo III Homepage

Books & Reading

My very nature, is that of someone that loves books. I've always been a big reader, and my biggest, nerdy claim to fame, is that I read The Hobbit aged nine, followed by The Lord of the Rings.

Even at a young age, I was a geek. I still have that copy of the Lord of the Rings too - even if it IS falling to bits.

I have always loved books. I spent a lot of my childhood in libraries, I usually had my nose in a book, or, a book was always close to hand.

Once I started using computers, I would read things on the screen, using PgUp/PgDwn buttons instead of turning a page.

It's not the same, reading books digitally on a computer. When I got my first laptop I thought "This will be more like it" but even then, it still wasn't the same. I still had a bloody great bit of tech right in front of me.

When the various e-readers came out, like the Kindle and the Nook, I was intrigued, but none the less, didn't get one. For one, they were a lot of money, and two, I LOVE books. I am sure that at least one of you will understand when I stay, how good it feels to open a brand new book, how the pages feel... And I know at least one of you will also appreciate the smell of a new book.

So I didn't investigate the various readers much further.

Last Xmas, Kellie wanted to get me one. I told her no. I like proper books, it's a lot of money, yada yada yada. I didn't want her spending a big fat lump of money on that when we could have gotten her something pretty.

For Mollys birthday, she mentioned wanting an e-reader, and a few days later, we found one - just a basic one that reads text documents - for £25. With the assistance of a tool that converts the different book formats, we got her a load of books and put them on there for her birthday.

While setting it up, installing it and what-have-you, I was taken by the fact that it was, in fact, pretty clever. The "e-ink" stuff was clever, the battery life on these things is incredible, they're light and aside from a few buttons, it was quite like an actual book.

Minus, you know, the feeling, the texture and the smell.

I gave it to Kellie to fiddle with, and she too was impressed.

That was the beginning of the end, really. We had a think about it, and knew we couldn't afford one, let alone two.

Then it hit us. We had all our Christmas vouchers sitting in the cupboard.

Now, the thing with us is, we don't tend to buy ourselves "stuff" very often. Kellies shoes and bags notwithstanding. We had already decided to use the vouchers on some new saucepans and stuff for the kitchen.

We're like that. We will spend our money and stuff on bills, or things needed in the house. Not that we "need" pans and crockery - there's nothing wrong with what we have, but we thought we'd get new ones.

Until we realised we had enough for a Kindle each.

That was that.  We trundled into town and grabbed two Kindles from Argos, did some shopping, came home and started to play.

I love playing with new tech almost as much as I love a new book ;)

The first thing that struck me was the lightness of it, even compared to Mollys e-reader. The screen is the same size as a normal page, and it's thin too - but thick enough that it's easy to hold. You don't get an aching hand from holding it for long periods - it is just the right shape, size and weight.

Setting it up was pretty easy, linking it to our Amazon accounts and everything, simple. Connecting it to the WiFi wasn't difficult, but it was a bit infuriating. I use MAC Address filtering on our router - that is, only devices I've said can connect, are allowed to connect. You do this by putting the items MAC Address into the router configuration screen so it knows to allow it to pass. However, the Kindle doesn't tell you it's MAC Address during setup. So I had to log into the router, disable the filtering, go through the Kindle setup, go into the router, see which devices were connected, work out which was the Kindle, copy it'd MAC Address, go into the filtering system, add the address to the filter, turn it back on again.

Ideally, the Kindle should show you it's address during setup. Would make life a few minutes easier.

So, once set up and configured, it was time for books, so we went through getting a load. Some we got directly from Amazon, and literally, once you confirm the purchase, it arrived on the Kindle. Simple as that. Others, we had to download to the computer, and put on there ourselves. It's literally as difficult as plugging in a USB cable, and moving files from your computer, to the Kindle itself - which opens up on your screen like any other drive folder.

Simples.

With a program called Calibre, you can convert any books you get that are in the wrong format too. The Kindle only reads a few of the different Ebook formats, but with Calibre (which is a free program, by the way!) you can convert them from whatever format you have, into the correct one for the reader. Again, it's literally as simple as clicking a few buttons and away you go.

You can arrange the books on your Kindle quite easily too. You can bundle them into collections, you can sort them by Author, or by Title, or by Date.

Once you're reading, it is honestly so close to being a page of a book. I was sat in the lounge, sunlight streaming in, and it was crystal clear. It works perfectly well in bright light, or low light. It DOESN'T have a light up screen mind you, so you need a light on to read - you can get cases with built in lights, but they seem stupidly priced. I'll stick a lamp on, thanks. If you think this is a hardship, think again - if you were reading, you would have that lamp on ANYWAY. Yes, it's the 21st Century, and everything has backlit/floodlit screens... But I am sure staring at one for long periods is going to screw your eyes up.

The buttons for turning the page are on the side, and the "Next Page" button is placed pretty much exactly where your thumb would sit when holding it normally. Right handed, or for the freaky of you, Left handed too. There are Next/Previous buttons on both sides of it.

The buttons across the bottom are simple too. Back - which works as a back page button, or mainly, back through menus, Keyboard, which opens the keyboard for typing in titles, searching documents or whatever, Menu, which opens the menu, and Home, which takes you to the first screen of your home page.

With the WiFi on, you can buy books from Amazon directly through your Kindle. You can also access the web. Granted, it's in Grey Scale, but you can do it. You can read blogs on it too via Google Reader.

The other rather nifty function, is sending books to it. You can buy online and have them delivered directly to you. You can plug in the USB and slap them on there. Or, with your Kindle Address - which is just an email address specifically for your Kindle - you can email books to it.

Case in point. I had a book on my computer that I KNEW Kellie would want. However, she was in bed upstairs (reading!). Instead of waiting till morning, I attached the book to an email and sent it to her kindle address. Two minutes later, it was delivered directly to her Kindle.

Doing this also backs it up on the Amazon servers, just in case you lose it somehow.

Once reading, you can fiddle with view settings too, change the font size to quite small, to massive - even those of you with eye problems should be able to see that! You can change the font from serif, to sans serif or condensed. You can alter the line spacing to closer or even closer together (if you want, not sure why you would - it looks weird!) and you can change the rotation of the device if you REALLY want to, and read it portrait or, strangely, upside down.

My only "gripe" if you will, is the position of the power button. It's virtually centred on the base. Exactly where my little finger sits. Many times while reading, I've accidentally caught that button and shut it down. I've password-protected it to prevent the kids sodding around with it, so every time I turn it off, I have to fiddle around with the keyboard and four-way button to type it in.

Only a little niggle I know, but still.

Actually, hold that thought... I wonder if that's why you can rotate the orientation of the page to "Upside Down"

Bear with me...

HA! OK, so that niggle... It is easily overcome by changing the screen rotation to the "Upside Down" position. And strangely, due to the size of the Next/Previous buttons, my thumb is STILL in the right place for the "Next Page" button.

Hopefully, once my case arrives for it, the position of the button won't be such an issue, but we will see...

As for cases, they too seem silly prices. If you want one - and you will, just for peace of mind - look on Ebay. We saw cases in the shop - leather, padded cases - for about £20. On Ebay, they are £7 each.

So, in short, I love my Kindle. It's reignited my love for reading, and it makes me love words all over again. It's not a replacement for books, mind you. I don't see books disappearing any time soon because there is too much to love about them... But I can see they now have some serious competition.

It's a brilliant bit of tech geekery, it's easy to use, the things you want it to do, it does, the menu system is intuitive, and looking at the words on the pages, it really is like looking at text on a page. And because it's not a lit screen, there is no glare to give you a headache.

Cataclysmic

My name's Dan, and I'm a Wowholic. 

Not that I need to admit that - if you've been reading 0ddness for any length of time, or even KNOW me, then you will know that if I am playing computer games, then invariably, I am playing World of Warcraft.

In early December, Blizzard released the newest expansion, Cataclysm.  Short version for those that don't play - a big nasty dragon locked underground has popped out and pretty much thrashed the entire world.

Messy.

With several new zones, most "original world" zones changed or revamped, and a heap load of new quests, I was really looking forward to playing.  However, with real life being what it is, I never got a chance to buy it on release day, and Kellie - who probably saw me fawning over it and talking about it - got it for me for Christmas.

Even though she knew it risked her becoming a WoW Widow.

I eventually managed to install it... Mid February.  THAT was when things were settled enough and in enough of a routine to actually sit and play.

And ohmygosh, I love it.  Not being one to generally go with the flow, I decided to finish off my quests in Icecrown (from the previous expansion) so by the time I was ready to start the new zones, I was already level 82.

The new zones are brilliant, and the looks of them are really really pretty.  Not being sure where I wanted to go first, I kinda let conversation with NPCs lead me, and ended up in Hyjal first (from the original Warcraft games), then onto Deepholm, Vashj'ir, Uldum and the Twillight Highlands.  NO idea if that was the "correct" order, but meh.  Of the lot, I would say Uldum and Twilight Highlands are probably my least favourite, but I still enjoyed them.  Uldum seemed to have waaay too many cut scenes for my liking, and Twilight Highlands (where I am about halfway through the quest line) is quite... Bland?

Hyjal is the land of the world tree, Deepholm is miles underground, Vashj'ir is underwater, Uldum is basically mythical Egypt, while the Highlands are.. Hills.  Grass.  Nothing to write home about, if that makes sense.

As for all the other new content - revamped zones, new races and suchlike - I've not really see much.  I've not started either of the new races, so haven't seen their new areas.  I've not really spent much time checking out all the revamped old stuff, save what I have seen flying through them, with the exception of the new-look Orgrimmar... Wow, very pretty, even if I cannot STAND the new warchief!  I might start a new character of some sorts, but I'm not sure.  I had a character cull a few weeks back and have gone from eight to four.

If you've not played WoW for a while (and are up to date on the previous expansions) then I really suggest you get Cataclysm and have a play through...

Rhod Gilbert, Cliffs Pavillion

Last night, as my Facebook status may have hinted, I was an excited little bunny rather keen to see one of our favorite comedians, Rhod Gilbert, play live at the Cliffs Pavillion.  Now, usually, Kellie has to work on a Wednesday, so would have been a case of her getting in at 5pm, rushing around, getting sorted, then flying back out the door to get to Westcliff in time.

However, in a stroke of genius, she managed to wrangle the day off.  Result.  So, once the kids were shipped off to school, Kellie spent an hour doing her hair, makeup, debating on what top to wear and so on, and we shifted off not long after 9am.

First stop, Basildon Town Centre, where she had to collect her umbrella (It's England, it's September - you work it out!) then we had breakfast at McDonalds, popped into a couple of shops, then headed to my mum to see her, have lunch, and look at her new car.

Home made soup, french stick and coffee is ideal for British Septembers don't ya know.

The new car is excellent and very sporty, a Chevrolet Spark which is very flash.

By mid afternoon, we decided to make tracks towards Southend, hopped on a train and went and played in the seaside arcades for an hour or two.  Penny Machines, House of the Dead, and the highlight, Dan on a Dance Mat.  You may laugh, but I am quite good thank you very much ;)

Plus, the arcade was empty, so you know, no one to stare...

With my tummy muttering about lack of food for a few hours, we headed on over to the theatre where Kellie had booked us a table in the resturant, and we proceeded to have some drinks, and sat eating a very nice curry followed by some very very nice Lemon Meringue Pie.  A few more drinks, and it was time to take our seats...

Now, as my previous post pointed out, the tickets we got were flagged as "Restricted View" but were the last Kellies mum could get for my birthday.  Her and Kellie were quite worried about them to be honest, but I was quite happy to be there regardless.  The lady in the box office said that the sound crew are set up in front of the seats, which meant equipment stacks and staff moving around...

So, we entered, we sat and... No Sound Crew.  In fact, we were sitting at the front of a walk way so legroom aplenty for your very tall author!  And, as we were slightly elevated, we could see over the head of every Thomas, Richard and Harriett there, straight to the stage!

After a bit, a different comedian came onto the stage, Lloyd Langford - another Welshman, but not as angry ;)  He was out for about half an hour, and seemed very funny - he had the audience laughing, and had clearly looked into the area he was performing which had everyone in stitches...  Especially when he made mention to Canvey Island being like the Wild West and covered in gun smoke!

Interval (and more drinks) came and went, and we sat down and waited...  Lights down, and out he came.

Oh my goodness, I have not laughed so hard in a long time.  If you've never seen him do his stand up thing, then you are really missing out, and I suggest you look for the Award Winning Mince Pie DVD first.  Last nights show - The Cat That Looked Like Nicholas Lyndhurst - was absolutely hilarious.  He's a very funny man, and the situations he finds himself in, and how he deals with them...

He's very very quick too, and with people shouting things out, some comedians either A) ignore it, B) struggle to answer back, or C) snap back right away and keep going with it.  He was very much in C.  Halfway through, some guy started giving him loads of shit...  Called out something like "You were shit when I last saw you, and you're still shit"

"Well f$ck off then!" came the reply from the stage...  The guy carried on trying to hurl stuff at him, but Rhod would not let him get a word in edge ways.  The audience were cracking up at the responses and at this bloke he thought he knew what was going on.  As was pointed out, if I was so shit the first time, why the hell did you come back?

Mr Angry Pants stormed out, only to come back in and try again, got another mocking from Rhod, and promptly left for good.  At the end of the show, he even apologised to the audience for the outburst from the bloke.

For however long we were in there laughing, it was excellent from start to finish.  When he started to say "Goodnight, thanks for coming" people started calling out to him to do his duvet sketch or his luggage routine... He refused at first - he was sweating buckets and knackered, but didn't leave the stage.  He was heckling back at the audience, and eventually caved in, but ad-libbed a mixture of the two - which sounds odd, but bloody hell it was funny.

We were really surprised when he said he'd be outside for a while saying Hi, signing autographs and stuff and somehow, we got out quick enough to be right near the front of the line.  Half the audience were in the queue behind us, so YAY for timing!

The outcome of a bloody good day out? Both our tickets signed, and a picture of my favorite girlie with one very very funny man!

Firefox Beta

As mentioned a while back (possibly via my Twitter or Facebook), I've been playing around with the Firefox 4 Beta for the last few weeks.  It is very pretty, and I can say definitely faster than the current Firefox 3.6.

I can see that it HAS taken certain aspects of Google Chrome, notably in how it looks... Previously, you had your navigation buttons (Back, Forward, Reload etc) and your Address Bar across the top, then your tabs, then the content.  Now, like with Chrome, you have the tabs, then each tab has it's own navigation buttons and address bar.  Quite handy and prettier to look at.  There is also a button to put it back, if you don't like it.

My biggest issue - and it's nothing to do with the software, but yours truly - has been the incompatible addons issue.  I love my Adblocker, Mouse Gestures, Greasemonkey, UnF*ck Facebook - and so on and so on.  However, Beta4 is just that - a Beta (for those that don't know, a Beta is essentially a test version, that will likely have problems and issues - and by using it, you're helping test everything before it's released to the great unwashed) and being a Beta, most addons are incompatible.  The people that write them don't have the time to support both a release version AND a Beta version.

Which means most of my addons don't work.  Which I don't like.  I don't like not having mouse gestures to move around, I don't like having ads smeared over my world, and don't like Facebook.  Which is why I hardly go on there any more.

The final straw, however, came yesterday.  In a true "Oh Bollocks" moment, I was removing the Beta2 files to put on the Beta3 version, clicked "remove old data" and reinstalled the new version...

And lost all my bookmarks, passwords, live bookmarks...  Now it is totally my own fault.  Back up things, save things, note things down - it's part of using a computer, especially when fiddling with new things that can go wrong.  This wasn't a software problem, this is what used to be referred to as either an "I.D. TEN. T" error*, or flagged as a "PEBKAC" error**

So, after everything had vanished, I decided to see what I could do with all my addons and stuff, and after a lot of poking around, I found that some addons do actually still work in Beta, you just need to know how to get it to make the buggers work.

First up, go to this article on My Digital Life to see how to "Force Addons To Work"  I did this, and straight off three of my addons came back on.  Bonus.  And one of them - Adblock - even updated to a newer version for the beta.

Next, Greasemonkey.  It's all well and good having addons, but a script tool is always handy.  If you're not sure what a script is, think of it as a new set of instructions for a webpage.  You all use Facebook, three columns, loads of shit?  Mine looks like the OLD, two-column Facebook before they overhauled it.  And thanks to Adblock, I don't see all the Advertising Shit on there (or any site!).

I digress.  Greasemonkey is the basis of these sort of tools, but it's current version doesn't work with the Enforce Addons thing mentioned above.  So, I went to the Mozilla Addon page, and saw in the Greasemonkey comments, a user by the name of "apostnikov" found a fix for it at Bugzilla.  That link will take you directly to the post in question, by a user named Anthony Lieuallen, timestamped "2010-08-12 05:53:53 PDT"  In his post, he links to an .xpi file.  Click his link (or click here if you trust me!) and select "Open With Firefox" if prompted.  That will install the beta version of Greasemonkey.  Once that's on, you can put on all your different scripts to mess with Facebook, Google, Gmail, YouTube... Go have a poke around on UserScripts.org and see what I mean!

Now, my MouseGesture addon - FireGestures - as it turned out, also has it's own Beta section. Scroll down through the addon info, and at the bottom (before the Reviews section) you'll see a Beta Channel, and a link to install the beta version.  Which, I should add, also works like a charm.

The biggest flaw with the new version - and I know I'm not the only one that thinks it's icky - is The Big Orange Button.  Not sure what I mean?  Have a look at this:

Yikes...

The worst thing about it, is while it DOES have some handy functionality, it's just... so... Ugly!  However, once again, with a bit of poking around, I found this article over at Download Squad to get rid of, alter, change, recolour and mess with it.  All is good in the world once again.  I've not done it yet mind you, knowing my luck, it'll probably implode my screen or something!

What I WOULD like - and I think I actually broke something to get it like this - would be to no have the Minimise/Resize/Close buttons top right.  See, the version I uninstalled didn't have those buttons, and I had lost the Orange button too, so my tabs - like with Chrome - were at the top of the screen, no Title Bar.  I shall keep looking and breaking no doubt.

Hopefully, if you are still reading, you're also enjoying using the Firefox 4 Beta, and I've given you a hand into getting yourself back into Addon Heaven.  I can't take any credit for any of the fixes here - so kudos to those smart people that have done it all - I'm just pointing you in the direction of useful help :)

Good news everyone!  (I bet you read that in his voice too!)

While writing this post, I opened Chrome to check some of my facts just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating or anything, and found all my bookmarks!  OK, some of my newer ones were missing, but otherwise, everything I needed and had lost were safe and sound!

Granted, I'm not sure that one of the worlds better browsers is designed for an idiots backup device, but none the less, it solved my brain ache trying to think what I had bookmarked, why I had bookmarked it, and all the rest of it.

See, brainfarts.  They happen to the best of us!


*I.D TEN. T = ID10T
**PEBKAC = Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair

Say Cheese!

Simple things make me chuckle, and even simpler things entertain me.  When I acquired my laptop, I was very impressed with the fingerprint reader.  See, simple things.  None of this old-fashioned password milarky, no sir.

However, when I upgraded to Windows7, the scanner became reeeeally sensitive, and it took me a dozen or more swipes of the finger to get to my desktop.  Come back password, all is forgiven.  So I uninstalled the software and disabled the scanner.  Job done.

However, I found some even MORE amusing software today, and once again, I can say goodbye to the old-fashioned password milarky once more.

However, THIS jobbie isn't a fingerprint reader, it's a face-recognition log-on.  Windows starts, the camera fires up, sees who's in front of the laptop... If it's me, Windows starts.  If it's NOT me, no joy.  You have to know my password to get in.

If you have a webcam, and want to fiddle with this to test it or to use it as your login software, head on over to Luxand Blink's webpage  and download it.  Did I mention it's free as well?!  Just remember you have to download the appropriate version for 32-bit or 64-bit windows.

Having a fiddle around with it, I see that it logs every log-in attempt, successful or otherwise.  Which means you can see if someone else is trying to log on to your computer.... Cunning!

Google Chrome: Is It Just Me?

Being that I am a techy-geeky-sort, I often play with new technology, either to see what it can do, because I'm interested, because it's hyped or because something about it caught my eye.

I am a devout user of Mozilla Firefox.  Have been for several years, and usually when I install a new system, the first thing I do is download and install it so I don't have to use Internet Explorer.  However, being that I use several Google products (Earth, Reader, Gmail, Blogger) I often see these sites or programs suggesting I try Chrome.

Now, when it first came out, I downloaded it and had a play.  Being that it was new software, it didn't really do all the things I wanted it to do.  No, correction.  It wasn't Firefox with all it's fancy extensions/add-ons, and I didn't like it.  Mainly, I didn't like having to see Ads, and I didn't like not having Mouse Gestures.

Never mind, I thought, they'll come with time.

A while later, I heard there was an adblocker for Chrome, downloaded, installed and hunted down the adblocker.  Turns out it was a third party program, and being that I hate clutter and like things neat and tidy, it annoyed me too much.  And the Mouse Gesture addon wasn't customisable, and used different gestures.  So I again removed it.

A couple of weeks ago, I read that Adblock - the extension I use on Firefox - was now on Chrome.  Excellent stuff.  And, even better, there was a customisable mouse gesture addon.  So, I downloaded, installed the browser and the addons, and off I went.

I spend a LOT of time on the internet.  If I am on my laptop, invariably, I am on the net.  Even if I am watching a movie or something, I've got my email open.  Even if I am playing a game, I am flicking to my mail or whatever.  I switched my default browser to Chrome so I didn't cheat while playing around online.

It IS quite good.  I don't believe it's faster - or, at least, noticeably faster - than Firefox, regardless of bench tests done by proper tech people.  A few microseconds here, or half a second there is just not noticeable to normal people.  The options windows are limited, and while I often like to go into Option Menus and fiddle till I break something, there just isn't that much to fiddle with.  OK, so minimal is good for some, but I like to customise as much as I can.  I hate the download bar across the entire width of the window, and hate even more that it sits there until you shoot it in the face.

The Adblock extension is quite handy, but for some reason, I find myself seeing ads that I just don't see on Firefox.  I don't know if Chrome processes them differently, or if it's just not exactly the same as the Firefox version, but it's irritating.

Those of you on Blogger, I don't know if you've seen these, but when you publish a post, on the right of the screen you'll get some reference to Chrome... Blog Faster, Blog Side by Side, do this, do that.  Well, I've tried these, and honestly, I can't tell a difference.

I can't tell you exactly what it is that is annoying me so much with Chrome, only that it IS annoying me.  For some reason, I also couldn't copy & paste from one tab to another. NO idea if that was a bug, or something I had somehow triggered with changing options, but I don't get it.  And the spell checker also seemed very hit-and-miss for me.  I'd see a word underlined in red, right click it, select the word I wanted and... The whole word vanished.  Very strange.

It got to the point where I had to open Firefox in order to do what I wanted to do.  When I went from Opera to Firefox, I switched and never went back.  When I went from Internet Explorer to Opera, again, I switched and never went back.  This is my third attempt at using Chrome, and it just seems like we're destined to not get on.  Even when I got Chrome to pretty much how I wanted it, I still had to resort to opening Firefox...

Who knows, in the coming days/weeks/months/years, it might get to a point where it IS better than Firefox, works better and does more things, but until then, Firefox is my favourite , and will remain installed and used and a regular basis.

iPhone Confusion

In an attempt to focus on things that aren't house or electrician related - more on that later - I've been burying my head in my laptop reading.

m4tt on Twitter posted an article yesterday about "If you didn't want the iPhone4, you will after reading this" So, being that I've only got a year left on my contract with my W995 (That, I should point out, I still love every moment I am using it!) I wandered over to have a read.  Scroll down to the iPhone4 section and go through it...

Thinner: Big whoop, the thinner it is the easier it is to snap when my Fat Arse plonks down with it in my back pocket.
Two Mics: Erm.. OK, never had a "noise" issue on my phone thanks!
Improved DPI: Jolly good.. Mine is pretty and doesn't have jagged edges.
Resolution: Fair enough, it's got a bigger screen - that I WOULD like.
Battery Life: I use my phone a LOT... Still outlasts the "bigger better" apple one.
Storage: I have 8Gb, it has 32Gb.  Very nice - I don't use all my 8 yet though.
Bands: Pass, not even too sure, but mine has enhanced 3G or something.
Motion Detection: Check, got that ta.
Camera: I've got 8.1megapixel Cybershot.  iPhone has 5megapixels. The new iPhone features - zoom, focus etc - got.  Flash, got too.
Movies: HD movies on the iPhone, nice.  Edit them on the phone is handy - if you buy the app.
Books: Not sure I'd actually use this even if it was on my phone.
Front Camera: Hmmm, old on most Sony Ericssons now - two models ago I had one, three, four years back?
Colour: Black or White?  W995 - Black, Silver, Red ;)
Video Calling: Mine works on any phone to any phone, thank you very much, and I can use my front or rear camera already, portrait or landscape..
Apps: OK granted, I don't have "Apps" as they are known in the world, but I DO have applications and games.  And I can run a few at a time, flicking between them as need be.  Multitasking already exists.  I often have my email, Internet, a game or two, sat-nav - all running at once.

As samclarke said when I asked what all the hype was about, his answer?  Because Apple told us to...

Bless.

However, as a Post-Script to this post, I will add...  The iPhone does have a lot of nice knobs and whistles about it.  I am due a new phone in a year (a whole YEAR!) and know that I will end up with a Smart Phone of some description.  However, whether or not that will be an iPhone remains to be seen.  The Sony Ericsson X10 seems very nice, and I am sure there will be newer, better phones in the next 12 months.  I'm not entirely sure I WANT a touchscreen phone as I don't have fingers, I have sausages...

Still, plenty of time to make a decision ;)  And plenty of time for the Apple Fanboy Club to run over and tell me the error of my ways ;)

Being Positive

"You -" said someone in an email a while back "-never seem to post negative reviews of your stuff on your blog.  Suppose that's what happens when you get paid to review stuff"

I was a little surprised to read it.  Someone I didn't know, making an accusation AND an assumption - both of which were wrong - and emailing it to me.  Not that I'm surprised.  When you put stuff on the web, it's free for anyone to read, and to respond to.  I get negative feedback fairly often, but ignore it.  After all, it's not like I am making money, getting paid or anything like that...

I state, categorically right now, that this blog is done off my own back, on my own time, and I receive nothing from it.  Well, aside from the occasional poke, prod, punch or smack for making sarky-arse comments about people.

I've never had a company send me a product for review, I've never received an item for free to review, I've never been paid to write anything - let alone a review of something.  The things I get are more often than not, something I've bought, and I don't go out, see something and just buy it.  Take my mobile phone.  For MONTHS before my contract ended, I was looking at what was available, making decision and checking out other reviews.

My point, is that there are things that I don't like.  If you want a bad review, Simplaris Blogcast on Facebook.  For those of you that see my posts on my wall - that's Blogcast posting them.

When it bloody works, that is.

If I click the Manual Publish button on there, you Facebook users get a message saying "Dan has written some shit" and you can click that to read the whole post.  Cool beans.  It has an Automatic Feature too.  Sometimes - like this post - I write a day or three in advance, time it to post at Xam on the Yth of Month, and it appears.  Currently, it's 8pm on Wednesday, but you won't see this till Friday or so.

I digress.

The automatic feature does NOTHING.  Yes, it "blogcasts" my post, but it doesn't publish it to my wall.  I've fiddled with settings and buttons and knobs, but no dice.  I've written on the wall of the Application, and a few others have said "Same here" but nothing from the developer.  I've messaged the developer directly several times, but I've never even had so much as a fart of a reply.

Don't get me wrong, I couldn't write software to do ANYTHING, let alone something useful.  But surely if you have a problem with software, you'd expect the person in charge would try helping fix it.  But no.

And the most annoying thing, is I can't find anything similar on Facebook to do the same sort of thing.  So it's a sort of use it as is, or use nothing at all.

Thumbs down for that one.

More? Well, aside from Movies, TV Shows, Music, People.... What else is there?

At the end of the day, if I WERE receiving items to review, if I WERE being paid to write reviews, and if I WERE being read by tens of thousands of people... I would STILL state if something were good or crap.  If someone handed me, say, a Nokia N900 to review, I would ignore all the bad press, and the fact that even a friend of mine has one that is always breaking down (which, I should add, is a great source of comedy for me!), I would use it and review it from MY point of view.  If it did to me what it does to him, then it'd get a shit review.  If it worked better than my phone, it'd get a great review.

I'm not a journalist, I'm not a reviewer.  I'm just a normal blog with a little blog, posting whatever passes over my grey matter.  If you think I'm biased or not following some journalistic moral code, feel free to press that little [X] top right of your browser window.  I don't make anyone read, I don't make anyone come here, I don't make anyone stay.


Sidenote:  If through some miracle the creator of Simplaris Blogcast finds his or her way here, feel free to mail me, but I stand by my "review" until then.

"Clash" of the "Titans"

Fore-warned is Fore-armed, apparently... Which might be another way of saying "I might get a bit shitty in this post" so you've been warned...

On Kellies birthday, she decided that seeing a movie and going out for dinner together was what she wanted to do, just the two of us, no kids, no time limits on babysitters or anything else...

Having seen the trailers, she was quite taken by Clash of the Titans, and, seeing as I wanted to see it too, that's what we headed for.  Granted, had she chosen a chick-flick, I'd have taken her to see that and not complained.  But, CotT was the plan of action.

To be fair, I went in with an open mind, knowing it was a "new take" on the original and not an outright remake. I wasn't expecting stop-motion, Ray Harryhausen special effects, but I was expecting something different.

I'm not even sure where to begin to be honest.  Had the film been called "Random Generic Greek Myth Movie" we'd be having a different blogpost.  But it wasn't.  So I am bitching.

OK, I've deleted about four or five paragraphs now, as I'm just ranting and raving.  The special effects are very good - Medusa was icky, from a snake-o-phobe point of view.  The giant scorpions were, er, giant.  The Gods were... shiny.

As "Clash of the Titans" it was shit.  As "Random Generic Greek Myth Movie" it was quite good.  But it'd be like putting a Whopper in a Big Mac box.  They're kind of the same thing, but completely different at the same time.

Biggest irks of the entire movie...  Holy Shit, Hades...  If you're an actor that can do an "evil voice" at least don't use the EXACT SAME "evil voice" as you do in previous movies.  Honestly, was that Hades, or was it Voldemort?!  And poor old Persius...  He saved the day, saved the princess (who he told to piss off), and as a reward, poor Persius gets.... no, not his dead family back that he's been whining about through the WHOLE movie, but some bint that knocked him over while they were having a merry old jaunt on the River Styx.

*snort growl*

I think I need my medicine...

Windows 7 - First Impressions

First off, apologies for the image here - for some reason, Blogger is telling me the images I am trying to use are being rejected by the server, so screw them ;)

Anyways - after managing to get Windows 7 for my Acer Aspire 8930G, I spent a couple of days backing up my files, downloading drivers and what-not...  Taking a deep breath - and making sure I had my Vista recovery discs to hand - I put the disc in, rebooted and selected Boot From Disc...

Now, the last install I did of any kind was Windows XP, and those installs often seemed quite hit and miss.  I DO have Vista on my actual computer, but in the three years I've owned it, its never needed a reinstall.  However, last week, I DID reinstall Kellies old laptop with Vista, and it took several hours, but being that it's just a bog-standard laptop, it didn't have any problems or anything.

So, with XP and Vista installs under my belt, part of me was dreading a completely New-To-Me system install.

After 15 minutes of it doing it's thing, it rebooted and - lo and behold - gave me the "Starting Windows for the first time" message...

Now, I should interject at this point, this is actually the second time I saw this message while doing this install.  However, the first time, I got an error saying "Unable to complete install" and it froze up.  So I called a mulligan on that one, and am ignoring it as teething problems.

So, Windows did a few more whirs and clicks, "Creating Desktop" and voila!  It loaded.  So, being the smart person I am, I open my drive of pre-downloaded driver files and... er... blonde.  For some reason, I had downloaded all the Windows7 Professional files, not Ultimate.  And, not wanting to tempt fate, I decided to bin them, and fired up the wireless.

It connected pretty much instantly - no hassles with drivers there then.  Loaded Internet Explorer - for the sole purpose of downloading Firefox - and installed my new browser.  Straight on, loaded up and online without any hassles, and set to downloading all the updated drivers from the Acer site, and the graphics drivers from nVidia.

While waiting half an hour or so for that little lot to download, I set to fiddling with settings and buttons and everything else.  Mainly, you can tell that it's very very similar to Vista, but with enough differences to make you hunt around and figure out various things here and there.  As usual, I stripped the Start Menu down, taking most of the crap off of there I never use, then set to fiddling with themes and background images.  Then, I just sorted of wandered around the Control Panel, playing with various things.

I DID notice that - as I had been told by James in the first place - Win7 has a LOT of drivers with it, and will know what most things are.  And, to give it it's dues, it recognised a lot of the things that are already on here.  The Webcam, Bluetooth, Wireless, Graphics... All on, albeit with propriety drivers.  Things like the Touchpad, Fingerprint Reader and Media Controls - they needed to be downloaded.  But, just to make sure I had everything up to date, I got the lot.

All the drivers installed, and a couple of reboots later, my computer was fresh as a daisy, running like a dream, full 1920x1080 resolution, 5.1 sound... All very nice.

So, next up came software.  Avast, MalwareBytes Anti Malware, CCleaner, MSN Messenger, Adobe Reader, WinAmp, WinZip...  All the while making sure I am downloading the 64bit versions where applicable.  Everything installed without any problems.  Here and there, Windows DID ask if that program installed correctly, and as far as I could tell, it was more like Vista having a panic attack asking if you're really really sure you want to do something.

Quite by accident, I clicked on a video file in one of my folders, and, expecting to get an error message to pop up, I was more surprised that it actually played.  I checked my download list, and hadn't installed any of the codecs needed - usually I have to install two codecs for video, one or two for sounds... But surprisingly, this worked without hassle.

So, being a glutton for punishment, I tried another one, which worked.  And the next, and the next too.  So, as it stands, I haven't installed any of my codecs for anything.  Which is a bonus.

After all my software was on and running, I pressed the "Update Windows" button.  When I did this on Kellies Vista laptop last week, I had to chuckle at the 108 Important Updates, and further 60 or so Recommended Updates, so thinking it'd be similar I stood back... In total, there were 51 Important, and 3 Recommended.  And it turned out Windows had already downloaded them for me.  So after ten minutes of installing, and a reboot...  Job Done.

In total, I think I went from a freshly formatted hard drive, to a fully installed and updated machine in less than three hours.  Most of which was the computer whirring, or downloading, or installing, or updating.

It has to be said, I love Windows7.  I runs well, it's fast, it's very pretty, and while I like the feature of the random wallpaper, being so anally retentive, I don't like them all, so will have to get a load I DO like!  I like how you can pin things to the taskbar, and how the jumplists work.  I like the system tray customisation tool, the new device manager, and I love the fact you can actually remove Internet Explorer...

I'm sure over the coming days and weeks I will start fiddling deeper and deeper into the system... But Windows7 gets a big fat thumbs up from me :)