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August 28 The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (nibble-size review - doesn't deserve a full bite)What can I say about the third Mummy film? It's terrible, in almost every way. It doesn't even feel like its part of the same series as the previous 2 films. It's boring, the dialogue is terrible, the characters are dull and irritating, and the film just doesn't flow well. The special effects were pretty good though. Avoid it, unless you are really, really, bored. It's a shame. I really liked The Mummy franchise and was looking forward to the third part. Oh well... lets see what Tropic Thunder brings. August 23 ClarkConnect versus pfSenseI've long been a fan of ClarkConnect, it's very easy to use and has all the features most home users would want in a home gateway/server machine, such as:
However, the one thing that is missing from the free version, though it is available in the commercial version, is load balancing multiple Internet connections. Now for the majority of people this is not an issue as they only have 1 Internet connection. I was the same until only recently. Seeing as I am not willing to pay for the commercial version, I need to look elsewhere for a solution, and I have settled upon pfSense. pfSense is not as complete a solution home server solution like ClarkConnect. It is specifically a firewall/proxy that does support load balancing multiple Internet connections. I haven't played with it much, and actually have a problem likely due to unsupported hardware in the machine - which I'm hoping the newer BETA 1.2.1 will support. I plan to have another look at it over the next day or two. Both are great products, and I'm hoping I will be equally pleased with pfSense as I am with ClarkConnect. August 19 Best video game intro's of yesteryearWe all have fond memories of video game introductory movies and sequences. In fact, I can remember buying a game primarily from seeing the introduction movie. I've only chosen pre year 2000 games as modern games generally have very high quality pre-rendered or in-game introductions. I'm only interested in those uncommonly great introductions. Here are a couple that spring to mind: 1. Mechwarrior 2 This has to be my all time favourite intro. Damn near perfect for it's time, from the skull being crushed by the Mech's foot, to the fireball engulfing the screen - brilliant. All the Mechwarrior games had good intro's. 2. Syndicate Wars This hasn't aged well, and is in fact quite poor, but at the time I thought it was cool. 3. Command & Conquer Whilst the intro movie itself isn't spectacular, the entire experience was. Everyone should remember the very fancy installer and the movies throughout. All the Command & Conquer games had good movie sequences - except for Generals. Any others that you can think of? August 09 Beijing Olympic's opening ceremonyWell, I finally got home from watching the opening ceremony at a friends' house. I have to say, there was some pretty spectacular stuff. Apparently much of the drumming was reciprocated by the baby in the womb - similar types of noises, such as the fireworks, seem to effect the little fella. As far as the idea of the 4 major Chinese inventions, I wonder what the Korean's think about the movable type claim? I believe China considered Korea to be part of China at the time, perhaps they still do... Maybe you could argue Tibet invented movable type? My only complaint, and it's a sizeable one, is waiting, for what seemed like 4 hours, for the athletes parade... I think most of us would've gone home earlier if we weren't waiting for Australia, which as luck would have it, was third last. Here's a final thing for you: How the Beijing Olympics got its logo July 19 Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (bite size review)I just finished watching Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (yes, there was a Starship Troopers 2) and quite enjoyed it. It returns to the style of the original movie, rather than the darker atmosphere present in the second film. The good: New bugs, new ships and new breasts to look at. The bad: The special effects really could've done with a few more $$. July 10 Firefox extensionsIt's been a while since I've posted my favourite Firefox extensions, so here is my current crop, and yes, they all work with Firefox 3.
Are there any others that you use? July 08 Glasser - Add Vista glass to FirefoxI love Firefox 3, but I did wish that it had the nice glass effects from say Internet Explorer 7. Fortunately with Glasser, currently at 1.0.16 BETA, you can. It's still being developed and as such there are some things requiring further polishing, but for the most part it does the trick. Don't forget to read the post for further information on getting Glasser to work as you want. June 30 Windows Live Messenger: Where's the glass?I'm intrigued with the lack of support for Windows Vista's Aero effects within Windows Live Messenger 8.5. It was released almost a year after Windows Vista and there was certainly time before that to play with pre-release builds of Vista. Version 9 of "messenger" is being prepared for release, but there doesn't seem like any sign of Aero support at this stage. I'm hoping there is a good reason why it wasn't included, but the more I read about the development of messenger, the more I feel the development team just isn't pulling their weight enough. When I read that 2 of the 5 currently known new features of messenger are being able to use animated gif's for your display picture and being able to click links in personal personal messages, I can't help wonder why it will take almost a year to implement those "features". It hurts even more when we have to put up with things like white boxes appearing on conversation windows and youtube links being blocked. I like messenger and I use it a lot, however there doesn't seem to be much advancement going on at the moment. 8.5 is pretty much the same as 7, just with a new skin. Why is it that Yahoo's new messenger looks so much cooler on Vista than Microsoft's own product? My rant is over for now. Bed time. June 27 Get SmartJust watched it this evening, and whilst I was a little drunk, I enjoyed it. Silly, but fun. June 26 A growing boyJune 24 Windows VistaWell I finally got around to installing Windows Vista (64bit Home Premium). I'm still pretty much of the same mind, I don't hate it, but I don't particularly love it either. The new interface is inconsistent and somewhat confusing, and whilst I like the new effects Aero provides that alone doesn't overcome the overall amateurish feel of the whole system. However, the thing that has caught my eye is Vista Media Center. The programs interface, from my limited use so far, is very slick. I'll have a play with it a bit more but if I can get it to do what I want, I may use it instead of Media Portal. May 28 Google Maps - Oh Yeah!Noticed that Google Maps now has a more button that places images and wikipedia information on the map. Very nice, I like. May 12 Why am I still watching Battlestar Galactica?Is Battlestar Galactica created by the Wachowski brothers? It's certainly appearing so. How does a series that started so well, seasons 1 and 2, end up as the mess that is season 4? It's been going downhill since season 3 and this weeks episode of season 4 has just killed it for me. I found myself skipping through parts of the episode, just to try and reduce the boredom of watching it. Not good. May 05 The squircle of lifeApril 30 HouseI've started watching the TV show "House", and I don't mind it, but I've already noticed something after just a couple of episodes, that will likely stop me watching it.
A comment on slashdot today sums the show up nicely:
April 11 YaoCoo generic Media Center remoteI purchased a YaoCoo MCE remote from Ebay, as it was cheaper than a real one, however, getting it to work with MediaPortal was a bit of a hassle. Fortunately the internet came to the rescue and I have a fully functioning, customisable remote now. You need:
Installation:
The remote should work now. You can change the button assignments if you want by using the KeyboardInputPlugin configuration in the MediaPortal configuration. This information was taken from: April 01 Upgrading Windows XPAfter going back to Windows XP, in preparation for playing C&C3:Kane's Wraith, I do miss the graphical bells-and-whistles other OS's provide. I'm looking at alternatives. The major ones being: Gnome 2.20 / Ubuntu 8.04, KDE 4 / Kunbuntu 8.04, Windows Vista or stick with Windows XP and add SP3.
Gnome 2.20 on Ubuntu 8.04
I don't mind Gnome, but have a few issues with it - such as file dialogs and icons. I think I'd be happy with it.
KDE 4.0 on Kubuntu 8.04
In general, I like the style of KDE better than Gnome, however, I'm not ready to use it in it's current state. I'll look again when 4.1 gets released.
Windows Vista
Whilst it's a simple option to move up to Vista, knowing all the programs and being able to play games, I don't like the Aero look. The $139 price tag for Home Premium is much better than before. Still, it's $139 more than the other options here.
Windows XP and install SP3
The other option is to stick with Windows XP and obviously update to SP3 when it's released. No significant changes with SP3 and the same old graphic options.
Decisions, decisions... |
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