6 posts tagged “tech guys”

I'm glad I woke up for work today, I really, really am. After the news that Rez HD is coming to the Xbox 360, I had an inkling and checked out our PartnerNet. This is the closed Xbox Live Arcade network which is like peering into the future - game developers across the globe chuck stuff on there for other devs to download and play to death. It's quite, quite special to be able to do this. Lo and behold! Rez HD! To download! I'm the world's biggest Rez fan - I even have the Rez Trance Vibrator in my personal possession as well as the original Dreamcast version (a promo copy no less) and the PS2 version. This was quite a find for a slow Wednesday.

Like Rez. Except MORE.

As it says. Imagine Rez but in beautiful HD running at a silky smooth frame rate and you're halfway there. Add achievements, leaderboards and the like and it adds to an already brilliant experience. The download is pretty small (around 111Mb) for what you're getting - one of Sega's greatest moments in gaming where they were getting their very talented satellite studios like United Game Artists and Smilebit producing beautifully-crafted games like Jet Set Radio, Cosmic Smash, Seaman (hehe), Samba De Amigo and Rez. Inspired by the works of Kandinksy of all people, it's a game which is astounding to not only look at but also to hear. There's some wonderful meshing of visual and audio and without sounding too pretentious, it's as close to art in videogaming as you can get. Jeff Minter commented that Rez was "Space Harrier in techno trousers" which is pretty close to the mark. It's a shame that his recent Xbox Live Arcade release of Space Giraffe can't even hold a candle to something this expertly crafted. You do need to do the game justice though - get a surround sound system with a stonking huge television and turn out the lights.

"Memorieessss..."

When I was holed up in the flat in Mold, Rez helped coocon me from the drunken pissheadery and small town mentality and I look back on those days with joy. It was almost like a ritual getting myself ready for another trance-like assault on the senses. I also know of someone I used to work with who swore by Rez. He did smoke d'herb, mind you. The game is ideally suited for it. I'm just joyously happy that the game will soon be in the hands of the Xbox Live Arcade community and I predict it'll do incredibly well to the point that Rez 2 would be a certainty. The great thing about Rez is that even though it's a few years old, it still looks fresh and different - the art style is so radical that you accept it and enjoy it for what it is. It's like watching Tron - even though it's dated, the Syd Mead-inspired designs still hit a chord and look fresh and modern. Rez's achievements are spot on too! Here's a small taster...

Assassin's Creed - The Opinion So Far...

My favourite videogame reviewer Yahtzee has recently reviewed Assassin's Creed and once more he's spot on. There was a lot of mixed opinion online about the game, so I was keen to see what it was like. The first time I experienced the open world in the game was quite an incredible thing - you start off in the bowels of your main Assassin's Bureau. After some (many) tutorials, you get stuck into the town outside the Bureau and the game does a good job of getting you involved. Soon after you get on a horsey and end up in the huge main map - The Kingdom. It was quite mind-blowing - I have to say the graphics in the game are the most truly immersive I've seen yet. The shadows are so nicely produced that everything feels solid. It's very easy to believe you're there in the world and soon I was tasked with sneaking up viewpoints and launching myself off posts into haystacks. This is more fun than you just reading that. You then go to the city of Acre - and when I say city, I mean it - the place is vast. You then interrogate suspects, pickpocket, eavesdrop and help citizens as part of your campaign to find out more about the person you've been assigned to kill.

So Far So Good?

Well, yep. Except the review comments I've heard about repetition are true. Every job thereafter has been the same - travel to city by horse, investigate area and then assassinate. Yahtzee mentioned the horse thing where you have to slowly walk past guards on horseback so they don't suspect you. This got quite irritating quite quickly, and was more fun to leg it through areas with guards running behind you. The parkour stuff is nicely handled and your movements are startingly fluid and realistic - in fact, it's quite enjoyable running on rooftops collecting Crackdown-style hidden things (in this case, flags) while running up to a guard and assassinating him with your handy hidden blade in one fell swoop. There's also the sub-plot set in the future which Ubisoft spoiled themselves by leaving the futuristic HUD in their promotional materials. Ah, well. There's some horrificness in the game though. The combat system can be frustrating at times in that sometimes when you get knocked over, you lose the ability to lock onto stuff - although it's more a case of pressing the left trigger to lock on and then the right trigger to defend yourself - instinctively you press the right trigger straight away, which is where the problem lies.

More Problems!

Yep. Although countering to kill people is great fun, you sometimes glitch through buildings as you perform your moves. If you're backed up in a corner, the camera can suffer somewhat which makes anticipating counters difficult. The repeated soundbytes from passers-by get old way too quickly, especially when saving citizens - plus the camera will lock onto the citizen you've saved when all you want to do is get the hell out of there before another guard turns up... and yet the thrill of running away from many guards is an enjoyable one, as is setting stuff up before you assassinate a main target. Killing guards is good fun because - get this - they stay dead! No respawns here... so killing archers outside the area will make your life a lot more easier. Also nothing beats climbing a massive building and looking around you. In Acre, there's a humoungous cathedral which you get to access after your third kill - and climbing to the top of that was extrememly memorable. Launching off it into a haycart was even more memorable, although I was expecting an achievement like the one I got in Crackdown from getting to the top and jumping off the Agency tower. In short then - rent before you buy. It's good in short doses (say an assassination a day) and the sub-quests help increase the longevity of the thing.

Computer Update!

Here's me thinking I could only burn discs with Vista's gimped burning, but no! Clicking on the Help and Support bit of my PC, I discover I have Roxio Creator - meaning (hopefully) DVD burning won't be painful and I won't have to shell out £59 for Nero. It's curious I only found out about this via the Help and Support bit. Also I think I've found out why my keyboard and mouse are cack - a workmate of mine tells me it sounds like I need to update the BIOS. He also told me why this would be the case - and the link to a forum I posted yesterday had inklings of a BIOS update - although the process to go about it sounds ball-achey. I've contacted HP's After Care Shizzle via a contact form so I hope I'll get concrete help back from them. The frustrating thing is I shouldn't really have to go through all this shit. It's curious that The Tech Guys didn't mention that I had Roxio on this computer when I complained about the slow burning speeds - their "solutions" were either to buy Nero or to use msconfig to shutdown everything and see if that improved anything. Is it too much to ask that I can go into a shop, buy a branded PC-type product and have it do the job it's supposed to do? This BIOS stuff is good news though. I could still salvage this puppy. I can phone up The Tech Guys for shits and giggles and give them the exact reason why this PC is sick and they'll be dumbfounded as they try and use google for an alternative solution.

Book Update!

I recently got a test book through from blurb.com which also acts as a present for Mum - she's not seen any artwork of mine for some time, so it's the least I can do. Anyway, the quality of the book was great - there was a small rip on the bottom of the back of the dust cover, though that might have been my excitement getting it out. The book, I mean... tsk. Well, I was told by another workmate that there's a new way to produce books and it's Amazon-fuelled! CreateSpace is extremely exciting - basically it's the perfect way to get my 365 book out to the masses. I'll need to use InDesign to get the book together, but there's a lot more advantages to this than blurb - you get your own ISBN number, you have more control over content and layout and - get this - Amazon will actually sell the thing for you in their store!!! This is insanely good news. I was using the BookSmart software to layout 365, though now I will use these guys. I just need to start hunting down all the bits and pieces of artwork I have lying about.

YouTube Update!

If you've not yet seen Network, then I suggest you watch the below clip and realise just how relevant it all is to today...

Well, here's the results from my PC "overhaul"...

1. Checked my memory to see if there's any badness. None. All fine.

2. Keyboard and mouse are still being terrifyingly bad at their jobs. Interestingly this thread outlines my issues. Repeated keystrokes and "forgetting" keys.

3. Bluescreens - I always seem to get them when looking at YouTube. It may be a driver issue and I've found out there's a Driver Verifier though sounds like I need to be a tech head to try it.

4. Mouse - the pointer still jumps about, though it's sometimes in relation to the hard drive access. Not sure what the issue is there. I get the feeling HP don't make very good wireless and mouse peripherals.

5. Installed Firefox, Adblock, FireFTP - so some issues solved there with a different browser choice. Will use Explorer less and less and it'll be interesting to see if the issue I have with BSOD in YouTube will happen again. (MmmmmDRIVER_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL). A driver sounds like it's causing pain, though I haven't a clue which driver to sort out.

6. Checked graphics drivers - installed one hotfix and not much else. I have latest graphics drivers for this machine as I had a notion that maybe the graphics card was making the mouse pointer jump about.

7. Vista's slow DVD burning - solved by "purchasing Nero" as quoted by The Tech Guys. Why the fuck should I buy something for £59(!) when I already have bought an OS which should do this properly for me?

Well?

The jury is still out. It's frightening that this very computer is being advertised on bus stops for mugs like me to buy into. I get the feeling that there might be something I'm missing with this. There's so much stuff that if something goes wrong, then something else could go wrong and then a knock-on effect will happen. There's still more to do...

8. Chuck on a wired (non-HP!) keyboard and mouse and see if there's any difference. If so, I may have to purchase my own non-HP keyboard and mouse combo. Probably not wireless, as I consider it witchcraft.

9. Scandisk this bugger. Just in case, although scandisk won't do it's thing while the drive is in use. Hahaha!

10. Try and get the USB Camera fixed. It worked fine with Skype's preview, but now I get a frustrating pink screen. The microphones work though.

11. (Last resort) - Get The Tech Guys to send round - what else? - a Tech Guy! He can try and fix my machine while I slurp tea and silently curse myself for my ill-advised purchase.

12. (Last last resort) - Phone up The Tech Guys/PC World and get a refund for this atrocity.

13. Go into the woods to avoid technology altogether. Grow a huge beard. Get a shotgun. 

Tomorrow (er, today) is "Let's See How Many Things I Can Put Right With This New(ish) PC Day". I'm going to make a last-ditch effort to try and save my soul and my sanity by fixing all the things which are wrong with this PC. There's a bit of a list so I'll plough through it when I wake up tomorrow (well, when I had breakfast) before I make a very firm phone call to my friends - The Tech Guys! I'll tell them what an absolute disappointment this PC is, and would gladly trade it all in for a log cabin in the middle of nowhere and a big bushy beard.

Been playing Assassin's Creed for quite a while today too for the first time. Plus points - looks lovely, some satisfying combat, Crackdown-style "Hunt The Flags!" hidden stuff, jumping into hay. Minus points - glitchy (some gameplay bugs) and starting to get repetitive. Plus the stealth mechanic is essentially borked. I'll comment more when I play it some more,,,

Well, this is a first. I type this on a replacement keyboard with a replacement mouse from the guys at PC World. No ordinary guys though - The Tech Guys! They did what HP couldn't do, and I'm pretty impressed that this new keyboard apparently works better than the grouchy old one. So that's one more problem sorted. The next problem is the mouse is still sticking to various things on Internet Explorer - it jerks about at times and I'm not sure if it's due to the excessive hard drive access when Vista starts up (although I'm told this is all down to Vista making the hard drive more streamlined and sexy, which it does automatically) or it's the fact I need to grab the latest Nvidia hotfixes for this computer as well as the latest drivers - although trying to find the specific drivers for my graphics card is a bit of a giggle at the best of times. It feels like I'm slowly making progress with getting Vista doing the things I want it to do.

XP SP3?

Cryptic acronym? Well, not really. Windows XP will soon get it's next Service Pack - SP3. Insiders in Microsoft's HQ in Redmond have cited they've managed to get a speed boost for XP, whereas Vista's still as slow as molasses even with the forthcoming SP1 (currently in Beta). The article which I read this also mentioned that Vista's biggest rival is... XP. This is a surprise for me, as I couldn't find a copy of XP for love nor money anywhere once Vista was released. It'll be nice to get a shiny updated XP for my old computer, but I don't miss that horrible fan hiss one bit. Enough of the techyness...

365 Is Go!

I've bitten the bullet and started to design the actual 365 book - where I spent this year and a bit of last year creating a piece of artwork a day - and I'm using blurb's BookSmart software again though this time actually using it the way I should have used it for the trial book I produced for my Mum for Christmas. I'm changing individual page layouts, adding notation for reminders of artwork I still have to hunt down and generally feeling an awesome sense of accomplishment of actually getting off my arse and doing it. I think I can move onto other art projects once this book is finished as I haven't done any artwork in an age - either been busy with work-type stuff or playing videogames. I think I've silently promised myself that I won't play any more videogames until the first pass of 365's layout is finished. I was pretty dismissive of BookSmart to begin with, but it's great as long as you're careful and you know what to do beforehand. When the book is finished and I've ordered a copy for myself, I'll sling you the link to the book so you can perhaps check out my mad skillz.

Drink And Draw Christmas Bash!

I'm really looking forward to Saturday - it's the Drink and Draw Christmas Bash! It's taking place in a backroom at the rather masculine Sports Cafe in Newcastle and I'm excited because a lot of the Midway Newcastle Concept posse will be going including Mack Chater, Corlen Kruger, Peter Thompson and my good self. I think this time round I'll stick to shots... if you haven't heard of Drink and Draw, shame on you! It's basically where you go to a pub with a sketchbook and a drawing implement, and you get drunk as you draw stuff. Simple. The exciting stuff comes as you can vibe off each other with collaborative pieces. We'll be drinking and drawing along with the Miami Chapter of Drink and Draw when they start their session over in the States too. I still think that the Sports Cafe is a bit meathead-filled - Trillian's would be a better bet with its darkened corners and goth presence - but the actual room we draw is vast and has a huge projection screen playing geeky movies.

Cold!

I thought I shook my cold, but it's back. I was coughing via my chest today a bit too much, and I'm getting a blocked nose again. I always thought I was quite immune to the bugs which went round, but I don't think I'm that immune. I've got a holiday on Friday which I'm putting to good use - grabbing Christmas decorations and wrapping paper to make this bedsit a bit more festive as well as wrapping the presents I've already bought for just about everyone. It seems weird that I've already done my Christmas shopping, but I'll leave the wrapping of presents until December sometime. Work has generously given us two days of holiday for free - so I'll use those days to come home early for Christmas. My Mum doesn't know yet because I've not managed to get through on my phone. The Pick Household are rather averse to any outside contact even when I use my super-special secret ring.

Soup!

My local supermarket has started to stock my beloved Butternut Squash soup again! The Soup King will be pleased. Soup and crumpets is the perfect combination. Never will I go back to using mere bread for soup dipping. My older brother is a god when it comes to making soup and it's great we have veggies growing in our front garden. He also doesn't like presents, though sod it - I've got him one for Christmas. He'll be kind enough to provide us with a lovingly-cooked Christmas Dinner so it's the very least I can do. I look forward to coming home especially for Christmas - it'll be great to hug Mum again and see what antics she's been up to. 

For Old Time's Sake...

Something for Ronda, because I know she's a bit disillusioned with life at the moment and I think the world of her enough to show her beautifully-animated bunnies in a prison cell.

Last night was a good night out. I've not had a night out in Newcastle for some time and it was in the Union Rooms where drink was enjoyed to wish our good friend Piotr all the best for his journey to London after leaving Midway Studios - Newcastle. I thought Piotr was a hoot, so I'm sad to see him go. The reason why he's off to London is because his wife (he got married recently) has a job offer in London, though although he's not fond of leaving Midway, he has to support his missus. This is weird because I sometimes think what would happen if I ever got my act together and got myself hitched, only to have her alter my plans. Sometimes it's good to be single, except the periods of time when you're lying in bed staring at the ceiling and wondering if being single is part of some divine plan which you have no idea about.

Ben's iPhone

This is Ben Marsh. He works as a programmer at Midway Studios - Newcastle, and recently he found himself in possession of the super-sexy-but-sometimes-slightly-disappointing iPhone. When we were drinking lovely alcoholic liquids, he was showcasing the powers of the phone - the browsing mostly. You look at it and think how something so technologically amazing could exist ten years ago. There it is though. The future. Right there.

When You Leave Technology Behind...

After enjoying the company of many workmates and some new friends (including some Polish people who recommended we enjoy a meal at the Polish restaurant in town), we went our separate ways and ended up in a taxi. We nattered about stuff like the Christmas do and other bits and pieces. I tried to entice Ben to come with me and a few workmates tomorrow to a spooky castle, but he wanted to veg out. We got dropped off and there was no tip for the cheeky taxi driver who decided to add his own tip to the price it would normally cost to get back home. Thinking back, we did almost toy with the idea of walking back like the good old days - but it was freezing. Thinking about that though... *sigh*

A Cautionary Tale

To cut a long story short, Ben left his iPhone in the taxi. He only realised when he was home and the iPhone wasn't in his pocket. In his panic to remove himself from the O2 service, he realised he could have phoned his iPhone and hoped a kind soul would have picked it up and kept it safe for him. Sadly, no. The taxi company stated that this type of thing happens regularly, and he may as well treat the phone as "gone and forgotten". This came as quite a blow for Ben - evenmoreso that he didn't take any insurance cover out on it, so the phone couldn't be replaced. It's on a contract too, so I think he'll have to pay out the rest of the contract for - well - nothing. That can't be right, can it? I hope not. It must be quite a horrible thing to lose something that technologically amazing and personal. Then again, it's another reason why technology sucks.

"Get Off My Land!"

I sometimes yearn to be a Grizzly Adams-type of the woods. A huge white beard and an angry temperament in a log cabin deep in the woods of somewhere desolate. Any strangers come by and I would pop out with my shotgun, maybe fire off a warning and shout at them to get the heck away from my cabin. No technology. No mobile phone. No games console. No PC. We rely so much on technology, that it'll be interesting to see how we survive without it. Amazon recently announced they were releasing some stupid ebook-type device which has a battery life. A book with a battery life? That makes me giggle somewhat. What the fuck is wrong with a book? A normal book? No battery life to speak of there. Speaking of books, I ordered myself the 365Lite! book I produced on blurb. When I get it, I'll see how good the quality is, and I may start on the actual 365 book on their BookSmart software instead of InDesign. We'll see.

Technology Update!

I phoned up HP to enquire about my wireless keyboard woes. Sometimes it repeats letters. Sometimes the left shift key doesn't work. The first voice I heard when I phoned HP was a recording of an American woman. Not a good sign. Second voice was an Indian in a faraway call centre. Great. I'm not racist, but my heart sinks when I hear an Indian voice on a phone. It means they can't really understand me and HP are cheapskates. First Indian bloke passed me onto the desktop department and I got another Indian bloke who couldn't really hear me because the connection was dodgy. Well, sod this. I gave my favourite Tech Guys a call! The wonderful PC World "Technical Specialists" who are there to help out, though really all have access to google. The funny thing is that they actually did a very, very good job of satisfying me - they ordered me a replacement keyboard and mouse and I joked to the lovely lady on the other end about how terrible Vista is... and she agreed!

Oh, that reminds me. I need to order Nero. Grrr.

The Lovelyness Of Games

Lastly, I'm still enjoying Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii. It's seriously good fun. I need to order some of those free Wii Jackets for the Wii Remote though... you can order them here. All you need is your serial number and address details. Super Mario Galaxy is, well, fun. Some games these days play more like chores than actual exclamations of enjoyment, and Super Mario Galaxy has proven that Nintendo still have it. The game has become the fastest-selling Mario title ever. Half a million units sold in the US in the first week! It's amazing that I know people who still want a Wii, but can't get their hands on one because Nintendo can't make them fast enough. I love the analysts who harp on about the Wii being a flash-in-the-pan, but I don't think so. Not at all. I finished and adored Call of Duty 4 on the 360 (I need to get online with it though, although the thought of going on Xbox Live with randoms these days chills me to the bone) and I've started on the sublime Mass Effect - a game full of epic wonder and excitement.

I'm off to order me those jackets.  

Vista. Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day? Or more likely - an old tramp pissing down some corrugated iron?

When I first got Vista with this new PC, I admit I was pretty excited. It's always nice to have something super-new and super-recent. You feel special. You feel like part of the trendy hipsters who mock you with their... hipness. Vista enticed me with its beautiful presentation and frosted windows of sex. "I can see stuff going on in the background, but it's all blurry!" I exclaimed. The "Wow" factor continued with the funky alternative to Alt-Tab - all the Windows you have on your desktop turning on their sides in perspective 3D and you can zip through them as you see what's going on in them in realtimes! Oh joy! Well, here's what's happened a month on...

"Whiiirrrrrr...."

For a start Vista used to be as slow as heck. The hard drive was whirring and doing strange stuff, though this was down to Vista settling into its new environment like an old man getting into a comfy chair while lighting his pipe. I also laughably got some Blue Screens of Death for the first time in an age too. These were all generated from Windows Explorer 7 and I shook my head in disbelief at how a web browser can stop an entire OS dead in its tracks. Recently though (and with some updates), the BSODs have disappeared. Again, Vista's settling into its comfy chair. I still need to get used to the terrible permission pop-ups which keep appearing when you're doing stuff. Imagine clicking "Yes" on a pop-up which asks you "Are you sure?" and then the same pop-up appearing again with "Are you really sure?". Vista's like that.

Time Remaining - 7 Days 8 Hours

Yep, that old chestnut. You know, I wonder if they got the most terrible programmer around to calculate all the time it takes for stuff to be burnt onto DVD-Rs or CD-Rs. Now this is the funny thing. Vista, it seems, is absolutely terrible at burning DVDs. It sucks. I chucked a blank DVD-R into the drive and it warned me that "It may take some time to format this DVD-R". Right-oh. Popped in the disc and a cheery message telling me there was "60 seconds to go" appeared on my screen. 60 seconds? Surely such a reasonable time to format a DVD! Well, we know that the lousy time-ignorant programmer also worked on XP and I expected the worst. Sure enough, it was tellng me there was 60 seconds to go for quite some time. I twiddled my fingers. I had a bath. I returned to see there was "5 seconds to go", followed by the classic "0 seconds to go". When it eventually sorted itself out 25 minutes later, I could drop my files onto the DVD. Except it would take 7 Days and 8 Hours to do so. Eventually this turned into 4 Hours and 30 minutes, but still very unreasonable for a DVD-R.

"No Problem, Sir!"

So I rang the Tech Guys Customer Helpline which I was paying money for. It's 24 hours and a local number, but normally the guy on the other end of the line basically uses the internet to search for the problem and sure enough I had another random foreign-sounding gentleman doing exactly that. His advice? Get Nero. Of course! Get Nero! Why didn't I think of that? Why the hell do I have to pay more money for something I should get out of the box? I then thought around the problem and decided that maybe I can burn CD-Rs instead and beat Vista at its own game. No so. It turns out that it's just as bad at burning CDs as it is burning DVD-Rs. It started off well with single files, but I got cocky and tried a whole bunch of them. Even as I type, the CD-R process is "canceling..." and not really stopping like it should do. I will cancel my Tech Guys support very soon because it's quite, quite useless. The CD drive has stopped whirring, but Vista is still "canceling..." as I type. This OS is turning out to be quite something.

XP - How I Miss You.

If I had the chance to XP, I would have - but XP has become extinct. It's nowhere to be found on shop shelves, forcing people to grab Vista instead. It looks like I'm going to lug my external drive to work to grab those files I need... but I shouldn't have to. Surely I could just burn those files to CD? XP was a lot better at the disc burning than Vista. I thought a new OS meant a better OS. Maybe I should have got a Mac instead. All I know is that it feels like I've downgraded from XP to Vista and it's no fun.

The scary thing is eventually XP owners will have to get Vista by some devious Microsoft arseyness. Grrr. 

Update!

It's an XP classic - the "canceling..." box wasn't going away and when I went to Task Manager, I was greeted with a process which used "Windows Explorer". Cancel that process, and the entire taskbar at the bottom of the screen disappears and basically makes Vista unusable. I restart and am treated with the "Logging off..." screen for about 10 minutes. The hard drive now appears to be back to doing its usual stuff. Word to the wise - don't upgrade.