Today im feeling quite happy with myself. I purchased Prince Of Persia for the PS3. Now i know this game is ages old but it’s still not a bad game at all and not only that but i got myself the special edition of the game, with bonus disc, nice cardboard folding box, the works all for just £10. I said a big thanks to the man upstairs, you can be rest assured of that At the time of writing im only about 30 mins into the game but it’s already turning out to be a rather awesome £10 purchase, i have to say im quite sold of art design alone. But the other thing that sparked my interest for the title was the DLC (DownLoadable Content) , since it’ s a nice cheap way of extending a games longevity and since i got the game so cheap in the first place i was fully prepared to look into any add ons and extras for the title.

But when i got to the PSN store I can’t front i was a bit surprised. The DLC for prince of Persia is currently 8 british Pounds. £8?! Thats bananas. The full game only cost a fraction more that was a special edition for crying out loud. Well this has got me thinking. You see games depreciate in value over time, newer, better more impressive titles are always in the pipeline and gamers always want what is new an d fresh. However DLC it seems isn’t proportionally priced to age of the title and so we have bizarre scenarios like mine today where the DLC is stupidly over priced and has little to no chance of selling any units. At least if your from school of thought anyway.

I’m sure there are some lovely, weird and wonderful quirks in the terms and conditions for developers that mean re pricing DLC is abit of a pain, but i think it’s something that should be seriously re-evaluated. Year old DLC for a year old game is a long time in gamedom and stands next to no chance of selling, so much so that i think its worth at the very least some sales from time to time.

Anyway i have the rest of the regular game to content myself with but i see myself purchasing the DLC any time soon.

-The Geek

 

One of the great things about modern gadgets and modern applications is that you can modify and tweak its settings to your hearts desire. The theme, the GUI layout , the feature order, custom installations the list is endless. It’s exciting too, that once you know your system well you can tailor it to your exact needs and specification and have a whale of a time. The iPhone is no exception, curtsey of cydia and jailbreaking my iPhone i think has spent less time in it’s shipped GUI theme than i spent in the “ladies shop” that i mentioned in my earlier post.

I love customisation, i love having something that i can leave my mark on and know that when i come back to it it will still be the way i left it. The iPhone has been great in that front albeit through some less than legal wrangles. But today i decided to upgrade my iPhone firmware and to cut a long story short, the result is that a lot of your customisation made to the layout of your apps, the amount of apps on each row, the icons used for each app etc is all changed back to their vanilla state. One of the reasons i have held off for so long on going beyond iPhone OS 3.0 was because id didnt want to lose all my lovely customisations.

But in the end , this morning my curiosity got the better of me and i decided to go for it. And i made a starling discovery, i really like the vanilla look of the iPhone! This may seem a rather odd thing to say, but i havent seen a vanilla looking iPhone in months and months and i had quite literally forgot how well designed he look of it all actually is. It is a testament to apples designers that with all the tweaks and mods available to me i still have come to love the iPhone vanilla look more than any other. It’s been quite a pleasing experience (not quite in the realm of one’s first kiss or a first car but you get the gist)

Now all i have to do is wait for my iPhone to restore all my apps and away i go again.

-Plesenty surprised. the Geek

Growing up i was one of those children one might call adventurous. Others would term it in a less charming light but be that as it may, when my ickle head way back when worked out how to effectively put one foot in front of another i was exciting and was anxious to explore the world around me. I was one of those children that would get lost in Tesco’s and you would hear over the tanoy “would the mother of -The Geek- ” come and collect their child from the help desk. And lo and behold a few minutes later a deeply concerned Mummy Geek would come running up to find her son with a big grin on his face (i had found the French bread) and crumbs everywhere. This ability to get lost has followed me into adulthood, however where was once i was a smiling child with bread crumbs all over my face I have replaced it with a vaguely confused expression and wondering where on earth I am. (Thankfully I have an iPhone to direct me, but that is another post)

Earlier this week i made the executive decision to foray into the deep dark world of central London and the shopping streets within it. See, true to my geeky self and I might add distinctly male attitude, I don’t much enjoy shopping. It’s busy, people bumping into you, long queues and a distinct requirement on my part to really want to shop to get everything done and not to hop straight back on the train the second I get bored/frustrated/facepalming at how hard work it all is. But in case you crazy kidz haven’t noticed we are inching ever closed to C day. The day that stockings are made of and children and adults for that matter the world over get super excited for we remember when the Christ was born.

 

This particular Christmas is the first I’m going to be in a serious relationship for a long long time. cough*over 5 years* cough. So I’ve got in my mind that i have to nail this first Christmas. 1st impressions and all that. So there i was earlier this week hunting for gifts for my other (she would say better) half. Now i have to say i did reasonably well, but that that all came to a halt when i got to a perfume/lady shop. By lady shop I mean body and hair products that i dont have a clue what I’m looking at shop. I’m proud when i remember to USE moisturiser let alone buy it.

This bewilderment must have been obvious though. I can’t have been in the shop for more than 3 minutes ,after nodding knowingly to the security guard – the only other male in the place – in a flash I had a chirpy girl asking if she could help. Help me? Woman damn skippy i need help. What’s body butter, why is this face scrub going to change my life, why does everything colour co-ordinate and on why on earth are there more smells in here than i’ve ever smelt in my collective life prior to entering this shop!! I didn’t ask any of these questions of course, the man thing in me kicked in once again and instead I asked a few questions that i hoped wouldn’t expose me completely for the foolish n00b i actually am in this area. I probably failed epically but cest la vie I guess. Clutching the gifts i queued up, the sales lady walking past me eyeing with abnormal amount of interest what i actually bought and after paying i was finally free. FREE! But not before the checkout lady spent time going through every product i purchased asking if the item i picked was indeed the one i wanted and not in a smell i didn’t actually want. Now im hoping this is a new customer service thing, but i couldn’t help shake the feeling that she was doing it more for my benefit, less because it was in her job description. The check out lady rounded up by telling me that I could return anything that i wasn’t happy with within 30 days. The funny bit of this was that she was genuinely of the opinion I would never have known this. She was wrong! But actually it’s probably more a fluke than on anything based on my part.

The thing is with the Christmas shopping lark I like the internet, i buy more and more now from Amazon, Play.com, HMV etc. I don’t have the energy or the time to be bothering with shops and as i get older i care less and less about shopping. I do have to say that im slightly grateful if a little uncomfortable by how obvious my bewilderment was in this ladies shop. But im sure there are many of us such blokes who have trouble with the art of shopping.

Oddly enough i love clothes, but i still hate shopping. It’s just the sheer level of commitment needed to find what you want and even as i type i feel the urge ebbing away from me. The (sad) truth is that i need to go out again before Christmas. Other family members need to got gifts for, i may need to make some of those returns which the charming lady was so kind to explain to me. Ah bless. Wait , no! Bah….. I cant get sentimental about this hopping thing, what’s wrong with me!

Slightly Miffed at his sentimentality – The Geek

With regards to the Question time programme which aired last week which included the BNP party and representatives of Labour, Conservative and Liberal. I am quite frankly outraged because such extremist views are allowed to air on our nation television. I acknowledge that there is a right of free speech, but I don’t imagine that the BBC are ever likely to allow an Guerrilla or a Terrorist sit on a panel and preach their viewpoints.  I feel that the BNP are using PR well to sugar coat their real views in order to win voters, clearly I didn’t feel Nick was putting forward clear enough arguments and steered clear of obvious traps by saying ‘race and colour is irrelevant’. I thought that Bonnie Greer was for me the best speaker there as she wasn’t taking sides politically and spoke in a manner that was respectful and put forward some great arguments and point of views.

 I know and can see that many people are worried and anxious about immigration which is seen as a ‘problem’ but I feel that the world shouldn’t have barriers but that’s just my utopia. I come from a family which emigrated from another troubled country in order to have a more prosperous life. I can say that the benefits to me and my quality of life in comparison to what it would have been are staggering, and I appreciate the hardships my grandmother went through to get me here to live the life that I do. I understand that many people see that it is easy to get into this country when in fact it isn’t. People simply want the best life possible for themselves and family, and if it means going to another country and struggling, they do that. I have met in my working life, doctors, solicitors, nurses which have qualifications and worked in their professions in their home countries and have come to Britain to find a better quality of life only to start from scratch, earning a living by cleaning and bar work. Now I know not everyone is like this either and some people do take clear advantage of our system and take it for all it gives.

There are so many sides to this argument, but clearly humans will always migrate to various parts of the world if it means their survival and it’s shown throughout human history. Britain simply isn’t the only country that has a lot of problems with immigration and there isn’t a simple solution either.

Creative*

The BNP appearing on yesterday edition of the BBC’s question time has sparked a mega tonne of debate across all section of society. The BNP are quite obviously a group of people with morals that dubious at best and out right evil at their worst.

The thing is, on paper some of the BNP stuff sounds attractive to your average voter although i wager strongly that the reality is out and out no good. But run with me on this, personally i don’t mind immigration, i don’t mind living in a mixed society in terms of race and skin colour. None of that bothers me. Personally i like variety and i think there is much to learn from different sections of the human race as a whole.

But in England’s case we have a problem, we live in a country that has caused so much pain and caused so many problems in the past that we now live in a country that is constantly on the back foot always trying to make amends for what a bunch of people did in the past. Our lax immigration laws are testament to this and while on some levels it is good, it is a generous system that is largely taken advantage of. If people come here to work fine, let it be so but it shouldn’t come at the cost of people who were born here. Regardless of skin tone. End of the day the government owe first to OUR citizens and i don’t think that is a bad thing.

My other gripe are families and individuals who come over here and take advantage of our system, our health care, schools and so forth and never pay taxes to keep it going. It’s not good enough and if i have to pay so should they and that’s the bottom line.

My next gripe is the pure lack of integration, I get annoyed when people come here don’t make a real effort to get to know their neighbours and be a part of this society as a cohesive whole. For example some will come to the uk and setup their own society just like how it was back in their home country, except it’s just here. Never really making much of an effort with the English language and never making any friends beyond their own ethnic group. For me i feel that if you move to another country you make a serious commitment to getting to know everyone in your area and seek to integration INTO the country not dictate to the existing inhabitants how to live or not making effort to make friends with them. Just isn’t good enough. When English people go to France and speak English to them, it’s a take. The same applies here.

Finally i think immigrants have to earn their keep here and get a job to contribute taxes or go and second that they should be offered jobs second to uk citizens who already live here. If they can’t get a job and their country isn’t at war, then tough, see you later. It’s not perfect and ideally if everyone could live and work here that be great but they can’t . To me it comes across that the UK is over stretching what it does have and not giving good services as a result.

And it is at this point that groups like the BNP step in, offering a extreme view to a complicated problem. I feel the BNP are able to leverage support in this area with some quarters of society because they Offer a voice to disenfranchised voters and frustrated members of British society. These people want change and are willing to look at all kinds of solutions to see something happen. I think alot of them are frustrated at britans attempts to a country to everyone rather than being a country that will stick to its guns on pointed subjects whether people like it or not. In short Britain has lost its backbone and whilst i don’t agree with the BNP i can understand people’s frustration with our countries leaders inability to be real men and woman and be willing to take a stand for what they believe in. Regardless of what other may think in the difficult times.

Prob ruffled some feathers…… The Geek for MP ! – Messing

I was very excited when I was given a home exercise ball, in light of my changing exercise habits now that I’ve canceled my gym membership. The ball itself was packed in a box and looked exactly liked the ones I had used at the gym.

I had a friend over for dinner, and I wanted to show her my new toy. As I unpacked it I was dismayed to find it had come with a manual foot pump. This was simply going to take a lot of effort to pump up, so I instantly thought back to a electric pump that I had in the cupboard which I had used on many an occasion for an airbed. I excitedly got it ready and began by finding the smallest fitting for the air hole, plugged the pump into a socket and flicked the switch on. The pump made a shrieking noise, and there was an instant smell of burnt rubber.

The pump didn’t stop working, however kept mechanically coughing every so often, so my friend encouraged me to persevere, unless I wanted to spent hours with the manual foot pump enclosed. After a few minutes it dawned on us both that nothing was happening, we both checked several times that air felt like it was rushing and trying to fill in the gym ball.  Nothing, not a small pocket of air, absolutely nothing. We both checked the dying air pump and found that it was still able to pump air well enough.

My friend looked at the picture on box, and then I asked how would I plug the hole once there was air inside of it………at once she looked at the hole which I was trying to get air into, then she just extracted it out. There it was, the plug that was stopping my dream of inflating my new gym ball staring smugly back at me. I was trying to inflate the cap- a dead end. Just how much blondeness did we have between us? not one ounce. I don’t think its even possible for either of us to produce offspring with blond hair. She turned on the air pump and it instantly spluttered it’s last. I got out the manual foot pump and set to work.

You’ve heard of blonde moments, but this just takes the biscuit. It all started this morning when stupidity struck and I was unable to make toast resembling anything other than charcoal.

Creative*

To all those who read this dear blog today is a momentous and sad day. It will be remembered in years to come as the event that caused pivotal change that spurred a distinct difference for times to come after. People will remember where they were the day they heard and children for generations to come will learn about it for GCSE English. What monumental event am i talking about?

It is of course the Great Sock Culling of 2009!! or GSC as its more affectionately known.

Sock Culling? What the heck is that? Well you see being the geek that I am I’m abit of a strange one. I don’t have mountains of clothes, but I do have an inhuman amount of socks in my sock draw. I have white socks, half socks, black socks, brown socks, sports socks, navy socks , socks with pictures of socks on them. Okay I lied about the last one. The thing is I come from a family where unless you have a great need to, you don’t throw stuff out. You just keep it until you either forget about its existence or you break/ruin it beyond use and the bin is the only real place for it. Saying that there was an amazing moment not so long back where my father in his colour blind moment of madness polished his brown shoes with red shoe polish! Months later you can STILL see the red, but since Dad is colour blind he really doesn’t mind and wears them same way. Mum weeps slightly every time he wears these out in public with her….. There there mum, there there.

Anyway, back to socks and my huge collection of them. I think they are silly inventions, I’m forever putting holes in them! Still enough was enough the socks needed to be culled I needed to bring back sanity to my sock draw, the boxers and my sleep wear were complaining for the lack of space. So with a determined look on my face I got stuck in. How it’s here I should let one and all know that even I was surprised by how many socks I actually had, not to mention the amount of pairs of underwear that belong to my brother. There were odd socks, socks with holes in them, socks paired with similar but not quite matching socks, socks with huge holes in them, brand new socks never worn before, socks belonging to other members of the family, socks so old I’m sure they predate me and socks that quite frankly need to be put to rest for the good of mankind and also to stop social services coming over to enquire about what humanitarian disasters have been allowed to go on for far too long.

In the aftermath I threw about 20 pairs of socks. Which doesn’t sound much except I kept at least another 30 odd pairs in my sock draw. 5 of each kind I said to myself thinking that was being good, somehow deep down I know I wasn’t strict enough. Perhaps deep down, in some dark place I actually love socks. who knows?! Anyway the draw is looking fresh, it opens and closes smoothly now without a number of men a la Japanese passenger pushers for the bullet train being present to complete the task. So all in all I’m quite pleased with myself. w00t! or FTW! if you will in internet speak.

Reduced on the Sock Front – The Geek

2009 has seen a distinct move in the portable computer world. The Netbook has grown from strength to strength and shows no signs of abating. But I can’t help but wonder if they are being used in all the wrong contexts for all the wrong reasons. Let me explain.

Netbooks are stripped down notebooks. To this end they have small 10 appx screens and thus a sff, no disc drives, slow processors, small ram amounts and an arguably limited OS selection. Not everyone wants to battle with Linux and windows xp is well on the way to be a decade old. On the plus side they are cheap, make useful backup machines, light and small for those on the move alot, and is able to run said windows XP more or less flawlessly given the fact that it IS almost a decade old.

So like any product the Netbook is targeting a specific market, it has specific strengths and weaknesses. In fact i even go as far to say that the Netbooks is symptomatic of the current trend in technology to stop always pushing forward at blistering speeds and take stock of what we do have and refine and extrapolate upon it. See Snow Leopard and the Nintendo Wii. Something I will talk about another time in more detail. However it seems the current spate of Netbooks are stepping out of their regular usage area and as a result I believe that some users , specifically business users are confusing Netbooks for notebooks.

The thing is, I have before me a netbook the Samsung N510 to be exact. Now don’t misunderstand it’s a lovely little Netbook if that’s your bag but it has some curious additions. First off it has a HDMI slot on the side, additionally it has a webcam , an NVidia Ion Graphics and an interesting Intel Atom Processor. However all this costs around £400. It appears that in trying to push the envelope of what a Netbook can do, manufactures are creating Netbooks that are inching ever closer to full notebook territory , both in spec list and price but yet I don’t understand why. Literally both the SFF notebook market and the regular fully featured notebook (13” and up )market are both already catered for in numerous guises, so why would manufactures’ wish to confuse said market? It’s most certainly confusing business users in my honest opinion.

Business computers and their uses do not fall nicely into the net book’s remit of “web browsing light office application use and streaming media content.” You argue the details but basically that’s what a Netbooks is all about. Business computers on the other hand use bespoke applications, have encrypted hard drives, need to be patched to high heaven, AV software with proper(see regular and thorough) system scans , VoIP software and heavy office application requirements, SQL et all. Not to mention the fact that Netbooks will often be accompanied by their best buddy the mobile broadband USB dongle. Which installs yet more software. In short the average business computer is lucky if it doesn’t have less than 10-15 applications that are mandatory for mobile computing use. With all this software the memory footprint isn’t small.

Now in the past that wasn’t an issue, notebooks were distinctively different to a netbook. if nothing else it has a screen big enough to not ruin your eyes while you are on the move. But by manufacturers including more features in their Netbooks to try and outdo one another in what is to be fair a very competitive market they are blurring the lines of what makes a Netbook worth the time in the first place. Business users, especially upper management see the extra features and assume that there is very little to tell apart Netbooks from their existing laptops and so wanting to take advantage of Netbooks cheaper pricing when looking to upgrade. I think it’s a disaster waiting to happen, Netbooks are just not equipped processor wise to cope with business level requirements for a mobile computing machine and I think alot of users are going to be disappointed with the results. Of course some of you will say, well don’t let them have their way. Force them to spend the extra money but it isn’t always that easy. office politics and all. it will be the IT staff that have to service and administer the machines who will get it in the neck but oh well…. i guess it isn’t the first time. Roll on virtualised apps that’s all i can say. They might just save this silly situation.

-The Geek

I met up with some female friends the other night where the issue of bags, or more importantly what women carry within them arose. The whole thing started when I was asked to pass a bag over, but I was having difficulties trying to pick it up! Now I’m not in the least bit feeble, but I had to ask her what on earth was in her huge bag that weighed it down like a potato sack?! A handbag, as most recent fashion dictates must be about the size holdall, originally more of a weekend bag and is more of a labyrinth as once something goes it, it may never be seen again.

So what was in her bag…? An emergency can of soup, not one with an easy open lifting lid, but one that required a tin opener. I asked her, how in the case of an emergency would you open it, unless you turned into Popeye? The answer was simple, as she also carried a tin opener! My mind began racing, my bag has nothing for emergencies in it, was this something that was taught to all girls in school but I was ill that day and therefore missed this important bag lesson??

I started asking my friends what they knew or though women carried in their bags.

Tin of emergency soup and tin opener for starters from my experience, balls of string and tissues was another suggestion. Bricks was a common response, alan keys and lipstick were found in one female’s bag- practical and glamour stuffed in one. Spare bags, I can verify my grandmother has these. Extra shoes have been squeezed in for nights out, when stiletto’s get too much at the end of a night. One man’s bag had a spoon for emergency yogurt craving…

 ‘I might need this in case syndrome’ is my final conclusion on the reason as to why some strange items are to be found in a woman’s bag near you.  Some women are just more prepared for any eventuality or have a strange compulsion to carry everything, for me however a notebook and pen, a reading book, IPod, purse, diary, travel card and house keys are more than enough to give me back ache! I will simply ask to borrow that emergency nail file I don’t happen to carry with me…

 Should it really matter that I don’t have that Swiss army bag?

 Creative*

I thought it would be fun to start a series of blog posts about girls and computers. The thought was sparked by a recent experience yesterday , but I will get to that shortly. Now you see i love computers and i also love girls. But it seems that computers don’t love girls and neither sadly do girls love the computers back. I’m quite sure the mantra “shut down and restart the computer, that should fix your problem” was popularised and promptly chastised by frustrated and irritated woman in offices the world over. Although sadly I must admit their really is a kernel of truth in the fact.

However for all the complicated nature of computers and their strange idiosyncrasies (i think girls just dislike computers because they are even more complicated than they are) sometimes the downfall truly is down to the user themselves. So there I was yesterday in the office and a girl, (well actually she taller than me with heels on, so really she was a woman) was letting out a number of choices words in frustration that she wasn’t able to e-mail across a video to her work colleague in another office.

Over hearing her annoyance i wondered over and asked what the issue was. It turned out she had copied a DVD to her hard drive previously and wanted to send across the DVD files. She had emailed over what she thought were the video files but were in fact were index files for the video, which i pointed out to her. But what came next was the best bit, after realising she wasn’t actually sending the real video files across she was all ready to try again. Good attitude really, except the video in question was 382MB in size!!! But did this perturb her? Of course not! So she tried again….

At this point of course I interjected and explain that it was nigh on impossible to send an email with a 382mb attachment. She grumbled but begrudgingly accepted that it wasn’t to be. Now I’m sure in her mind that was one less lesson to like her work station, of course everyone else knows it’s not quite that simple. Oh well, once again computer-girl relations suffers a awkward blow.