New ISP

I’ve just connected with a new ISP, the main reason, I wasn’t happy with the performance available on my current one. They could only provide ADSL1 (up to 8Mbps) whereas the new provider could give me ADSL2 (up to 22Mbps).

Connections have gone through and it seems to have improved. Speedtest sites report about 16kbps (so about double). More importantly I was able to Skype my wife (who’s currently overseas) while the kids watched some YouTube. Without problems on either computer. Normally we’d have to turn off one or the other.

So pretty happy with that. And 50GB more download for the same price.

Walking with the Dead

Steam Sales, aren’t they almost the most evil thing on the planet???

I recently read a few reviews of The Walking Dead game.. I had looked into it before, but was mostly turn off by needing to wait for the other episodes. They’re all out now and the game was on sale in Steam. The final draw card, it’s Mac compatible. Here take my money

I’m not usually a fan of RPGs on the computer, I either find myself lost in the open world wondering what I should be doing or frustrated at the restrictions the game has placed on me. TWD isn’t exactly an RPG though more of a storybook with options (like the old Chose Your Own Adventure or Final Fantasy books), and sells itself partly on the premise that your decisions affect the game.

Let’s look at that for a moment, I can’t think of a single game where that isn’t the case, seriously, even Pong has consequences to your decisions. They might be simple cut and dried obvious ones, but they are there. Is the difference that these consequences might not be obvious and may not come into play until a while later…. Well no, plenty of games are like that, think of Starcraft, your decision not to pursue a tech tree might make it difficult to fight off your opponents later. So I’m putting it down as sales hype.

So skipping the sales talk, I’m enjoying the game. It’s not rivetting, but is an interesting distraction. I do find the controls a little a hard, not because there are a lot, but because it sometimes hard to figure which is going to used in the next bit of the game – and when those zombies grab you or some guy is punching your face, you need to quickly click the right part of the screen. It would be fine if the scroll wheel on my Naga was accepted, but it’s not so I have to use the touch mouse for that, but then it’s slow across the screen making it hard for the time critical clicks so I find myself having to switch mice all the time…. ok maybe this is a problem of my own making!

The game does have some twists and turns and there are definite points where you basically have to choose between two people – one will live, one won’t. Saves only occur at the end of each chapter (There are several in each of the 5 episodes) so be mindful if you have to quit suddenly.

You do bump into people that are in the series as well. I’ve met the asian guy and the old man vet as well so far, but you aren’t playing in that story. You exist in the same world, as one of the other groups of survivors.

I’ve completed the first 2 episodes so far. Interestingly, at the end of each chapter they show the percentages of what choices people have made on some of the big decisions that occurred in that episode. So you can see that 54% of people chose X, which may or may not be the same as you etc.

Like I said, an interesting diversion, a good game to have played through.

Another Distraction

I haven’t played for a week, which isn’t totally unknown (during the week it can be difficult to get a chance to play) but I have to admit I have another distraction.

The other week I had to get a Blu-Ray in order for my wife to watch some videos she’d borrowed from a friend. After looking at all the options, I bought a PlayStation 3. I think I it was 1999 when I bought the PlayStation (1) that is sitting in the cupboard. The PS3 is about 6 or so years old now and I’ve only just upgraded.

I got a bundle with a second controller, a couple of old games and the new Spiderman movie. Not fussed about the other stuff, but the second controller made it worthwhile.

Initially I was pretty non-plussed as it seemed like every time I wanted to do something I had to download yet another patch/app from the internet. However about a week later that seems to have stopped.

I’m enjoying the new XCom at the moment, and loving that it can play my old PS1 games. I am considering something like Hitman or Far Cry to get my fix of sneaky Tenchu like games. And I will have to look for a Rally game as well, as that’s an old favourite. And there’s a new Tomb Raider next year.

And probably a new PlayStation… oops.

I will also have a pick through a couple of shops second hand bins and see if there is anything for Miss 3 and 5 to play. (and me!)

I don’t like the disc loading method, seems a step back from the older slot load one (I have the new super slim PS3) and I did think I could play more from the HDD.

Oh, it played the Blu-Ray fine, so Mrs was happy (ish).

Smoke Powered!

You know that all electronics are smoke powered don’t you.

You see they all stop working whenever the smoke gets let out, hence they run on stored smoke.

I let the smoke of the old PSU last night as I was swapping the kit between cases. I think I managed to apply power somewhere I shouldn’t have.

I picked up a new PSU this afternoon and have installed it. With much trepidation I started it up, to silence and blackness.

Except for a little blue LED. No giant flash and smelly smoke coming out, so I was somewhat encouraged.

Then facepalm, as I hadn’t connected the display, hence the blackness. I switched it off and plugged it all back in to see the boot sequence starting up. Nothing booted as I have a blank SSD installed and so no OS, that’s being installed as I type.

Whew, dodged a bullet there, but I will have to keep an eye on the system in case there’s other damage.

Update…

I haven’t had much chance to play in the last week. I’ve managed to squeeze in about two matches of MWO and that’s about it. The kids have been messing up their bedtimes and then Mrs and I have been watching random movies from iTunes.

I’ve been shopping and have picked up a couple of items, a new router to give me 802.11n, dual band and gigabit ethernet. This is to help support the 2 Apple TVs in the house.

I also spent a little bit on my PC. I’ve picked up a new case, it’s fairly plain but a step up in size from my old one (it’s had about 3 full new computers inside it), an SSD for the system drive and a couple of 2TB disks for storage. I plan to move all of my movies onto it so I can reboot into Windows on the iMac (to play MWO) whenever I like without disturbing the kids watching the Apple TV.

Now I just need a chance to swap the guts over.

Coolermaster 690 II Advanced USB3

In the future I’ll upgrade the graphics card as well, it’s only an old 9500GT, but as the PC spends it’s time playing ABC iView and looking up Scrabble words it works fine. The 9500 actually runs MWO alright as well.

UPDATE Well I had a chance to start moving the guts over… got to the point ready for the first power on, but bright flash, yucky smell… ah crap, I’ve fried something (PSU dead I expect, but what else), not auspicious beginning!

Random Review – Nike+ SportwatchGPS

The Nike+ SportwatchGPS in Blue (this is the one I have)

The last of these running related reviews is the Nike+ Sportwatch GPS. I mentioned at the end of the last review that I had purchased the watch and I’ve been running with it for about 3 or 4 weeks now.

It fits nicely on my wrist, but I recommend anyone with thick wrists try it on first as I am almost on the last hole, and I think my wrists are about average. Its light and comfortable, and not overly bulky. The face is easy to read, even in sunlight or when running.

Functionally as a watch its very basic. It has a clock and an alarm. Enough to use day to day, but if you plan on travelling or you expect multiple alarms you should look elsewhere. However as a running tracker I’ve found it performs great. The GPS reception is as competent as the iPhone that I was using, and because of that, the run tracking is very accurate.  As a fallback, the watch can also link to the Nike Shoe Sensor. It will also link to some heartrate monitors if you have one.

The display cycles through a list of useful stats, distance, time, clock, pace throughout the run. It can do intervals and laps either automatically or by slapping the screen. This slap needs to be quite firm, a simple press like a touch screen phone will not register. The slap is also used in the stopwatch mode to view lap times.

The USB connection at the end of the watchband (and the colour Jolt)

It connects via USB to your PC/Mac and special Nike+ software. The software pushes the workouts to the Nike+ website, charges the watch and also updates the GPS satellite data (the more recent this data, the faster the GPS lock). The software also lets you adjust settings on the watch (interval times, data display cycle). The USB plug is actually at the end of watch band under a little cover. A great idea that does mean that the strap can’t be replaced as you’ll sever the USB cable.

And this is currently my biggest concern for the longevity of the watch. The watch has a plasticy rubber strap, and in my experience as you take the watch on and off these kinds of bands eventually snap. Does this mean I’ll need a new watch in six months or a year? In its defence, its been many, many years since I owned a watch with such a band, perhaps they have improved.

The battery life isn’t anything like a normal watch (they can last years), I seem to get about a week out of it. I’m not sure how much of an effect going on an actual run affects this duration as GPS functionality is passive. So a week with three runs of about an hour each.

Overall I’m happy. I can ditch the iPhone again and run with my watch and the little Nano again. And its not bulky and odd looking for use in between runs. I recommend considering it, especially if you use the Nike+ website already.

(oh and it has a run reminder function, but I haven’t used it)

Android on Touchpad

HP Touchpad

Last year I picked up an HP Touchpad as HP washed its hands of the whole line. Until my move to the iPad a few years back I had been a PalmOS user since about 2000. So I was interested to see the newer descendant of that OS, WebOS. But after some early experimenting, for the past few months the Touchpad has been little more than a clock/digital picture frame on my desk beside me.

In a few months we are travelling overseas for a while and I am foreseeing many arguments between Miss5 and Miss2 over the iPad. I have been considering getting a second one, which I admit, would give me a chance to check out the new iPad as well.

Suddenly the other night I realised that if I could get any Android functionality on the Touchpad (something that was being investigated from almost the day it was released) then I could load it up with movies etc and save myself a lot of money. I know I could do this on the Touchpad now, but there is little support and few games etc.

In the 10 months since I last checked in on progress some amazing work had been done. No longer struggling with a half working 2.3 they had a near complete 4.0 running. It was also dual boot and simple to install! Much respect to the guys at CyanogenMod for their efforts.

So this evening I set out to give it a go. I followed this excellent video on YouTube (this one is designed for OSX users), as well as this link at WebOS Nation.

My first attempts didn’t go well, though the boot loader (that lets you select which OS to boot) installed, nothing else did. I realised that the Touchpad was almost full of pictures and movies, so I did a full wipe of the device and started again.

This worked a little better and I got the Cyangenmod recovery application installed as a boot option. A couple more attempts didn’t have any better success at getting the actual OS onto the device. I was starting to get a little sad at this point.

However I as I stuffed about in the Recovery app I realised that the OS install file was just another .zip file which the recovery app can load. Perhaps…..

Success. I booted the Touchpad into Android OS 4.0 and logged in with my Google account.

Now I am really struggling to figure Android out, as I am so used to the iOS way of doing things and I even keep trying to do it the WebOS way which doesn’t help either. This is my first Android device and after the twenty minutes or so I’ve had it up an running I am pretty happy, though still somewhat confused. I do like the ability to choose apps on the desktop (though Google Play website) and install it onto the Touchpad directly.

Android on Touchpad

The guys have saved me hundreds of dollars and should keep the two little misses satisfied for some of the 20 something hour transit! As soon as I find a place I will certainly donate something to the cause.

Gimme my DVD back!

Well after a bit of a heart attack everything seems fine again. I have been slowly importing my DVDs so that I can have them in iTunes and subsequently can watch them on my iPad or (more importantly) have them available to the Apple TV in the lounge. Just minutes ago I threw a DVD in and started a Handbrake encode.

Nothing happened and the DVD wasn’t showing in Finder.

Eject didn’t work and neither did the Terminal command (drutil eject)

Now most of the Apple family use slot loading DVDs. This means that the handy little pinhole that you can insert an paperclip to physically eject the media just isn’t around, so unless you open up the thing and physically get in there, a command is the only way to do eject the dvd.

So I can’t do it that way, and I’ve tried the only commands that I’ve found.

With my heart racing its back to the internet.

I tried a method suggested using CMD OPTION O F at boot. I think that’s an old firmware code (the article was about 2005). Eventually I have one last try with a method, hold the mouse button down whilst booting.

Simple? Well, no, I have two mouse connected to my Mac. Mouse one is the Bluetooth Apple Magic Mouse. Is BT going to be up and running that early in the boot process (I’m assuming this trick is very early in the boot, likely before many of the services are up and running). The other is a Razer Naga (awesome mouse btw). Its USB, so the connection is physical. But its not Apple, will there be some mysterious Apple ID problem. I didn’t even think about if they conflict during boot until now… there’s another risk.

I decided to go with the Razer and eventually the DVD does pop out the side. My heart rate slows to normal and as I’ve been typing this I’ve tested a different one with complete success. I guess the Apple mouse may have worked.

Remember, Apples, like any technology, aren’t infallible. But you guys probably knew that already.

Old posts are ….

I have started to add the old posts back into the site. Found that I could use the publishing date to have them appear in the correct order. I had emailed support but after 5 days I still haven’t had a reply. So it’s a case of copy/paste and then reinsert the pictures. Painful but there are only about 20 to do.
This is also a chance to try the iPhone app version, which seems ok do far for basic posting.

Update – Completed catching up with the old posts. All looks pretty good.

Fun With Apples

Ok, its nearly a year since my return to Apple Macs. I’ve had iPods for several years, and an iPad1 since their Australian release. Then in Jan last year I picked up this 27” iMac. I’ve recently got an iPhone and just the other day an Apple TV. It’s almost exponential in taking over my IT world! Hmm maybe something to worry about there.

I’m really enjoying the Apple TV. We don’t have a PS3 or xbox, internet TV or anything of the sort, so it’s given us that media hub connection into the iTunes store and my own iTunes library. I’ve even been able to watch videos from my iPad on our TV. Subsequently I’ve sped up my slow copying of all of our library of DVDs (about 400 discs) into my iTunes library. Not only will this let us stream our collection to the Apple TV, but will mean I can sync a selection onto the iPad whenever I travel. All good.

However I have a fair amount of Region 1 anime (AUS is Region 4) that I’ve got to figure out how to burn, as last time I tried the iMac spat the disc back at me, the inbuilt DVD Player software is region coded. So an alternative is required.

By way of experiment, I shared the Region 1 DVD drive in the Win7 box (I have two DVD drives in my PC, one for R1, one for R4, it was simpler than stuffing about with region free hacks and I had the drive sitting around not being used anyway) and am able to watch DVDs from the Windows PC, over the network, on my iMac without any region problems…. very cool.

And as a final success, now that the DVD on the iMac is empty for a moment, its worked fine with VLC & Handbrake on the iMac. Awesome, that mean’s I can get the whole lot into iTunes (and my iPad and Apple TV)

Got some ripping to do now!