Neat video showing off characters from the 8-bit era. C64 and Nintendo fans will recognise some favourites!
1500 hours of moving legobricks and take photos of them.
(via Justin and Retro Thing)
Monthly Archives: August 2009
Batman: Arkham Asylum reviews roll in
Oh yes, I remember well the original Batman The Movie game. Bloody good it was, even if I didn’t get that far in it. Amazing music to top it all off. I can still hear the first level beat in my head all these years later.
I only played it on the C64 but the Zzap 64! screenshots of the Amiga version had me wishing I owned the more powerful 16 bit machine.
Batman The Movie, C64
Batman The Movie, Amiga
Actually, I remember seeing the flip screen Batman The Caped Crusader on someone’s Amstrad CPC 464 too but I never got into that sort of thing myself.
This year’s “Batman: Arkham Asylum” is another story altogether. I played the demo on Xbox Live last weekend and was blown away first by the amazing intro and the visuals, but then by how easy it was to swing from Gargoyle to Gargoyle, doing the Batman thing! The demo itself isn’t that long but it’s a great taster for what’s to come!
The guys at Joystiq loved the game too, giving the game a very favourable review, even going so far as to say,
Easily the best video game 2009 has had to offer thus far.
The game’s Metacritic score has hit a very impressive 91 putting it in the 20 of Xbox 360 games.
Yes, of course the game is on my wishlist. Now if only there were 26 hours in a day…
PS. Just in case you’re not convinced, check out this metareview of lots of other glowing reviews. I want!
Jelly pirates walk the plank
I can’t remember how I found this twitter account but Jelly SMS runs a jellysmspirates account listing people who are using a hacked copy of their software.
A real time feed of people who are using a hacked copy of Jelly SMS for iPhone or iPod Touch
If you use a hacked copy of their software you better watch out. Your info might be listed on that Twitter account!
The important question for developers is, “Does it work?” Apparently it does. The developer has even seen increased sales and says, “For me, piracy seems to be a good thing!”
I wonder if any other online services do the same?
`
Upgraded my Dell D630 to 4GB RAM
That was quick:
- Order placed with Crucial yesterday afternoon around 1.30pm for 2 sticks of 2GB RAM.
- UPS guy called this morning at 11.30am with RAM.
- Dell D630 laptop upgraded to 4GB RAM with the help of this tutorial. Only took about 20 minutes, although unscrewing and removing the keyboard was a bit nerve wrecking.
- Rebooted and found that Linux only found 3.5GB of the RAM but fixing that is simple:
# apt-get install linux-headers-server linux-image-server linux-server
- Reboot and I see 4GB RAM. Should make running Firefox and Bibble Pro 5 a lot less painful. Both memory hogs.
4GB of DDR2 RAM only cost me about 50 Euro. I’m sure I have a receipt for 8MB of SDRAM I bought years ago. Cost me 100 quid then. So, 4GB of RAM back then would have cost a small fortune.
Edit: the server kernel has terrible video performance (unsurprisingly), I’ve gone back to the desktop kernel and will recompile it when that 500MB of RAM becomes a real necessity (or I move to a 64 bit version of Ubuntu).
How to avoid Amazon Wishlist headaches
If, like me you have an Amazon wishlist you may be missing out on wishes if you’re not careful selecting them.
The wishlist is a great idea. Browse around Amazon picking items you like and add them to a public list that your friends and family can use to buy you gifts. The only problem is that Amazon won’t always deliver the goods, but you won’t know until someone tries to buy something for you.
The first I knew about this problem was when someone sent me a tweet saying they got an error buying a game on my wishlist. Alarmed, I tried to purchase the same item.
The first time I saw the message “We’re sorry. This item can’t be delivered to a Wish List or gift registry address” I hadn’t noticed the previous “Marketplace items cannot be sent to Gift Registry addresses”. At the time I was a newbie to all this and didn’t realise the difference between the Marketplace and Amazon itself. Searching for the error message took me to blog and forum posts discussing the problem. None were on the Amazon website. Surely it wouldn’t take that much effort to hide the “Add to wishlist” button on Marketplace product pages?
I eventually found time to correct things, and replaced as many items as I could with those available from Amazon itself, and not a 3rd part reseller.
Does this apply only to Irish addresses on the UK Amazon website or is it a general problem?
Oh, and here’s another quick Amazon tip. Buy gift cards on the Amazon site local to the receiver. My wife bought a voucher for her sister in New Zealand, but we used the UK Amazon website. When the voucher was delivered and used, it didn’t work. That’s a waste of money and embarrassing too. I should have cancelled the payment through my credit card but never thought to do so at the time.
Important Message
There’s something wrong with the gift certificate claim code you entered. Please check for transposed digits, omitted digits, and similar errors.
You’d think they’d have these basic problems sorted out wouldn’t you?
Trials HD is Kickstart for the next generation
Fans of gaming in the 80’s will surely recognise the name Kickstart 2. It was a motorbike racing game, running over all sorts of obstacles. It was fiendishly difficult to control but very enjoyable. The tiny graphics animated well and even supported two players racing split screen. If you enjoyed that game you’ll love Trials HD.
I played the demo of Trials HD on the Xbox 360 last night and couldn’t leave it alone until I finished the (unfortunately) short demo. Playing it involved plenty of crashes though, and it can be frustrating, but it’s fun, it’s pretty and it’s well worth trying out!
WordPress MU 2.8.4
WordPress MU is a multi user or multi blog version of WordPress that is used to run sites like WordPress.com.
Today’s WordPress MU release is 2.8.4, a security release that fixes an annoying bug that allowed any user to reset the admin password. Your password was never at risk however so it’s more an annoyance than anything else.
Oh, thanks to everyone who tested the exploit on my blog. See? You didn’t get my password! 😛
Upgrade automatically from within your dashboard (first fix the upgrader if you haven’t updated to 2.8.3 yet), or download the new release from the download page and upgrade manually, overwriting your current install with the new files.
Edit: James Collins noticed that line 164 of wp-login.php wasn’t merged properly. If you downloaded 2.8.4, please grab 2.8.4a. Thanks James for the prompt feedback!
WordPress MU 2.8.3
WordPress MU is a multi user or multi blog version of WordPress that is used to run sites like WordPress.com.
WordPress MU 2.8.3 is a security and bugfix release based on the fixes in WordPress 2.8.3 but also contains many other changes.
It’s a required upgrade for security reasons but also fixes a number of annoying bugs, especially #1067 and #1076.
Unfortunately the automatic upgrader in MU 2.8.2 is broken but it’s simple to fix:
- Before upgrading, edit wp-admin/includes/class-wp-upgrader.php and look for line 697.
if ( !$wp_filesystem->copy($working_dir . ‘/wordpress/wp-admin/includes/update-core.php’, $wp_dir . ‘wp-admin/includes/update-core.php’, true) ) {
- See the “/wordpress/wp-admin/includes” bit? Change that to “/wordpress-mu/wp-admin/includes”:
if ( !$wp_filesystem->copy($working_dir . ‘/wordpress-mu/wp-admin/includes/update-core.php’, $wp_dir . ‘wp-admin/includes/update-core.php’, true) ) {
- Save the file and auto upgrade. I upgraded this afternoon without a hitch after making that change. It’s fixed in 2.8.3 so it’s the last time you’ll have to do it.
Do not copy and paste the line above as WordPress will have changed the quotes to “smart quotes”. Actually go in and type “-mu” after “wordpress”. No copy and pasting please!
If auto upgrading still doesn’t work, don’t sweat it. Download the new release from the download page and upgrade manually, overwriting your current install with the new files.
Last Friday we stayed in a West Cork B&B
This weekend we stayed in “Aisling Heights”, a B&B in Clonakilty, County Cork while attending my cousins wedding in the area.
It was my first time in a long time staying in a B&B but I think I may be back because it was a great place to stay. After ringing them, we were met in the town and guided back and helped with our bags.
All the rooms in the house were immaculate and exquisitely decorated. As (bad) luck would have it I didn’t photograph the rooms themselves but check out the photos of the hallway and living room below! If you’re tired of staying in yet another shabby, run down hotel, give this B&B a go. Beds are fairly comfortable, rooms are nice and large and light pours in as there is plenty of space around the building. Breakfast is fine, lovely fry up, toast, tea and cereal and it was very competitive at 35 Euro each for the night.
Our 2yro Adam stayed for free although they didn’t have a travel cot so we brought our own.
Anyway, many hotels in this price range (and more expensive!) are in a shabby state of repair and understaffed, so you owe it to yourself to spoil yourself with the picturesque surroundings of this delightful B&B. Call them at +353-23-8833491. (More photos and details are available on this page.)
