Well... what have I been up to since I last posted? Well, I went to AutoAssembly 2008 and had an... 'interesting' time. I'll post more about it later but let's just say that Google Maps and the dodgy signs in Birmingham are a pretty fatal combination (question to Google: have you ever actually tried following the directions your map system generates - outside of the US, I mean?). So anyway, I'll tell you the whole bitter story later.
Been playing Mass Effect on the XBox 360 - brilliant game and well worth checking out! Also had a bash at GTA IV and must admit I found the experience a little bit underwhelming... perhaps there was just too much hype and I was expecting something more? It's not bad, of course but I dunno... I just expected to be as excited to play it the first time as I was when I first played San Andreas and it didn't feel like that to me. I enjoyed playing Mass Effect a lot more...
Unfortunately I can't say too much about some things I've been involved with for various reasons. I'll be able to tell you about one or two things at a later date but right now I shall have to keep them a secret.
Anyway, I'll post some more later...
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( 3.2 / 23 )Well, after having a nutter trying to attack me at the railway station I'm now back on track - so what could be better than looking at a program designed to eradicate pests from your computer (note to self: must invent equivalent for real life).
I've used AVG for the last 3 or 4 years and have found it be a pretty decent (and free AV). Before that I used Norton AV - yeah, I know! However Norton AV (way back in 2000) was actually pretty good to start with. Then the bloat and useless crap krept in - adding pointless features and seeming determination to arrest control of the PC away from me.
If you're like me, you like to maintain control of your PC. You want to make decisions on what is running and what isn't, how it behaves, etc. I hate software that makes decisions for me!
After the disaster that was Norton Internet Security 2003 (*shivers*) I decided to try some alternative software. I decided to try AVG as it was free and had some pretty good reviews (I'll talk about firewalls, etc. another day). Sure enough it was great - no slow down, no pointless crap built in, no attempt to take control of things away from me - and this has been the case with all subsequent versions. Until version 8.
I want to like version 8 of AVG - I've liked all the others but I have to say that I've been running this for a few weeks now and it's really starting to annoy.
Firstly, was the problem with speed. AVG flew on my system but version 8 has introduced a definite lag, presumably because of the interesting but slightly daft 'link scanning' (more about that in a mo) cra...er.. feature and I suspect it's pre-emptively scanning files too (nice but why the slow down?).
AVG recently released some fixes that have improved the situation somewhat but I'm getting stupid errors when updating. It'll happily download one of two updates and then bitch that it can't download the other as the server is unavailable (yeah, right!). Then I got the legendary 'out of memory' error when trying to update. So 1.5 GB of RAM is insufficient for this update? There was me thinking it couldn't get any more bloated! Of course, this is nonsense. I'll let you know a fix for this when I find it - but it could be a case of removing the junk and trying something else; just like I did with Norton all those years ago.
Now, back to the link scanner: I hate this feature - it's obviously designed for those people who either surf for dodgy stuff (not guilty m'lord!) or those who erm.. like to click links without thinking...? Anyway, the idea is it scans the links on a webpage and reports whether they are safe. It's one of those ideas that sounds great in theory but is a complete bat's arse of an idea in reality.
So... I turn off link scanner. Now I have a nice big exclamation mark in the task tray and an 'alert' in AVG itself whining that there's a problem and my system could be at risk. Fortunately, there's a simple way around this.
AVG 8, being the cheeky little beggar it is, installs a toolbar into the browser(s) you use. Go into the options in your browser and disable the crappy add-ons and you can enable it in AVG and no more whinging from the app!
In Internet Explorer:
Go to 'Tools' then 'Manage Add-Ons', 'Enable and Disable Add-ons' and disable 'AVG Safe Search'.
In Firefox:
Go to 'Tools', 'Add-ons' and disable 'AVG Safe Search'.
You may want to disbale the toolbar as well, if you find it as annoying as I do.
Anyway, I'm still using AVG 8 for the moment but must admit I'm a lot more open to finding a good, light alternative not bogged down by crappy bloat. Oh - the update just installed successfully... better late than never, I guess!
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( 2.8 / 13 )Considering the announcement a few months back that HD DVD was a dead format - it doesn't seem to be doing too bad right now! I saw a poster just the other day at the railway station declaring the release of a major movie on HD DVD the following week, there's still plenty of HD DVDs going at full price (though admittedly there are loads at a bargain prices too).
The hardware's much cheaper (I picked up an HD DVD player for just 50 notes a couple of months back)...
True; support for the format is no longer there but the format doesn't seem so much dead but more of a zombie format - it's dead but it just won't lay down! It'll be interesting to see how long this lasts and it does make you wonder whether it would have been such a knackered cause if they'd managed to pull off these kind of prices sooner... Maybe then it would have been Blu-Ray that would now be shuffling around demanding fresh juicy brains!
For the record: Blu-Ray was always my format of choice - I don't have the hardware (yet) but that extra capacity is sorely needed. Just wish they'd hurry up and get the prices of recordable Blu-Ray media down!
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( 2.7 / 6 )I've just been watching the Mars Phoenix Lander touchdown live on NasaTV (http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/live_tv.html) and also on MarsLive (http://www.ustream.tv/channel/mars-live).
One of the advantages of having dual monitors is being able to watch both streams in fullscreen at the same time! :-)
It was confirmed as having touched down fine just a few minutes ago. The first pics should be coming in about an hour and a half at the time of writing. I'd love to sit up until then but I'd better not! I'll check out all the news, pics and clips tomorrow morning when I get up!
Looking forward to all the interesting stuff this mission will turn up - but for now: bed!!
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( 3 / 5 )I've had an enjoyable week off but, as always, it just went too damn fast! It did give me the chance to catch up on some of my unwatched DVDs though. 'Millennium Actress' was excellent by the way - well worth watching, even if you don't usually watch Anime.
I've had a bit of an anime fest this week - what with the large anime dvd order I made last weekend. I've been watching the 'Tenchi Muyo' movies - I haven't watched Tenchi for a while and now that I've seen the first two movies (I've got another one to watch yet) I've remembered why I like it so much! It's completely mad of course and you can forget about expecting to learn anything from the science fiction aspect of it (if you could even call it Sci-Fi!). If you haven't seen it, I couldn't even begin to explain it except that it's bizarre (but in a mostly pleasant way) and very funny. :-)
I've also been watching 'Dai Guard' - it's entertaining enough and I like it but there's not enough of the giant robot dammit!
'Gunsmith Cats' - enjoyed this a lot! Going to have to look and see if there's more of this. Good story, good animation and it was made in the 90s so has that 90s anime 'old school' feel to it. Can't explain that but I like it!
It's a good job I don't have access to a 24 hour anime channel as I'd probably never go to work ever again (or sleep for that matter)!
In other news: I've heard a rumour that there's a 1TB hard drive bargain due to appear in the not too distant future. This is good news for me as I really need more drive space and 1TB would hit the spot nicely (and probably last me a couple of months - damn you Internet!!).
I didn't buy an XBox 360 in the end but I'm sure it will happen sooner rather than later. I think I'll hang on for some better bundles. What's out there right now is interesting but doesn't get me particularly excited (unlike the Woolworths GTAIV bundle which did but I missed it! D'oh!).
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