Posts by Alex Connor

BSkyB-owned BE slams into traffic pile-up over 'unlimited' broadband lie

Re: Good company though

I've used sky broadband for about 3 years now, they said i'd get about 8 mbit/sec speed, i actually get 12mbit/sec, so that's good. I've used anywhere between 30gb to 500gb a month, depending on the situation (curse you steam summer sales!) never had any issues with them, never had anything saying i'm using too much, never throttled me for using torrents or streaming etc. I think within that 3 years i've had less than 24 hours of downtime caused by their connection, too. The router they provided is a bit poo, granted, but then it was free and you can use another router instead and just use the one they sent as a modem. So, fast enough broadband which is totally unlimited and costs me something bonkers like a tenner a month, since i have TV with them.

Much better than any other ISP i've used, inlcuding BT whom i had numerous issues with. Guess like most things it's one thing for one person and another for another though, I know people whom have had loads of issues with BT and with Sky and with BE etc.

Raspberry Pi SoC drivers now fully open source

Re: Where to buy a Pi

Yep, just checked and they have them in stock, a little under £30 inc VAT, plus another £7 or so for next day delivery if you wanna pay for it. So not too difficult to get your hands on one if you want.

Re: Where to buy a Pi

I ordered one from new it on friday at 1:30pm, i had it in my hands on saturday before 11am, so less than 24 hours. AFAIK they're still in stock, but if not they do seem to get them in fairly regular. It is one of the model b's with 512mb RAM made in the UK too, so yeah, not too shabby at all.

Microsoft whips Apple with global Xbox TV deals

My glossy xbox360 slim doesn't look like a fisher price toy, it doesn't look out of place at all next to my sky HD box and dvd/surround sound box.

Also, it's quiet as hell when not using the dvd drive, and as i only use the dvd drive to install games to it's hard drive, then it's pretty quiet all the time. Sucks if you have the old style, which i used to have, but upgrading was totally worth it.

I heard that 4OD is also coming to the xbox, so if they both stream HD then total win win for me, huzzah!

Fallout: New Vegas

new vegas rocks!

i got this on the 360, finished it with about 35 hours played and i barely touched on the content this game has to offer.

Yeah, it's graphically the same as fallout 3, just with much better writing and a coherent plot. Oh, and a new massive wasteland to go exploring in. Everything i was expecting from the game.

Most people (including reviewers) don't mention that it's not like fallout 3 where enemies scale when you level, they don't appear to do that in new vegas, seems like they have set levels, so there are definate places you don't want to go (unless you're a psychopath, like my character!)

I suffered 2 crashes in 35 hours, one was after playing for 13 hours straight, so probably was more the xbox complaining than the game, the other just happened, but luckliy i had saved a couple of minutes before, so no biggie. Definately impressed to say Obsidian was at the helm!

So, what did i do when i finished the game?? watched the credits and immediately started a new game. This time i'll be taking it a lot slower, so i can explore the entire Mojave wasteland. I can see me having another 150+ hour save like i did in fallout 3. Guessing my GF is gonna be pretty annoyed at me again, huzzah!

Microsoft Xbox 360 250GB

pfft

Xbox's rock, they play some great games. Live is really good, sure you have to pay for it, but it's definately worth it if you play a lot of multiplayer. I usually go with silver, unless a game i really want to play online is out and i'll get a month or 3 for £5 or £12 or so.

ps3's also rock, i don't own one, but playing on friends they also have some good games, blu-ray is an added bonus. Not really used PSN so can't comment on that, but since they're doing a pay version also, i can see that it'll end up being like Live in the future.

if i had to choose, i'd go xbox again, mainly due to the fact i prefer the controller.

If either one was really bad, then it'd not keep selling or have people developing games for it (i'm looking at you, atari jaguar, sega cd et al) So, pointless 'bashing' of either console is pointless, it really doesn't matter!

Oh, and you can have TOSlink on any xbox, there is a port for it on the component cable, so if you're running a HDMI cable for the picture, take off the side of the plastic casing on the component cable (which blocks the HDMI port) and plug in your HDMI cable and component cable with TOSlink cable.

The xbox defaults to using the HDMI cable for the picture and puts out the sound via the component, so you can still have surround sound etc. works a charm!

Apple strips top shelf, leaves corporate smut in place

Shut it!

Man, all this apple bashing is pointless.

If you really want to get your rocks off to some tart pretending to wash your iPhone's screen, or non-nude pictures of playmates you have more issues than banging on about apple not allowing this anymore.

Personally, i don't give a crap if it's on the app store or not, to me, iPhones/iPod touches are all about games, there are some quality games out there, for cheap, which is win win for me. Anything else is just a bonus. Basing your entire business model about peddling titilation is just stupid though, if these devs don't have anything else to fall back on, well, that's their own lack of foresight. (although, with the popularity of smut these days, i'm sure they'll find some other way to get money out of it)

Windows 'openness' hailed in Nintendo game defeat

Paying for Playing on Xbox360

Nope, you only need to pay to release your games to other people.

You can write and test your games totally free, as in, doesn't cost you a bean to test the game you've written in XNA on a Xbox hooked up to your own network.

Which is nice :)

CCTV website recruits video vigilantes

legal??

Surely this can't be legal?? you know it's the office busy-bodies that will be signing up for this, as all they ever do is watch soaps and then talk incessently about them all day, every day. What would be better for them that a real life soap opera??

This country keeps slipping further and further downhill, once i've thought we've gone as low as possible for a 1st world country, the ground collapses and we go further down towards hell*. yay!!

*metophorically speaking, of course, what with hell not actually existing.

Microsoft talks turkey in Brussels

@lukewarmdog

not the lukewarmdog from BMMB fame, huh??

if so, bloody hell! bet you can't guess who i used to be, heh.

If not, ignore the above bit.

on topic, this is rubbish. People do have a choice, of course, MS is the main choice cos they have a business model and make money so therefore can spend it on advertising. Same could be done for *nix, but then they'd lose the thing that people use them for

Punters 'confuse' netbooks with notebooks

Wierdo's??

How can anybody be confused?? before buying any electronical equipment you need to do some research about it, computer equipment included.

I own an ASUS 901, currently running eeebuntu 3.0 which is swish. Previous to that i had windows 7 and had both Everquest and Eve-Online running on it, they struggled to get more than 7-8fps but i was still mildly suprised they ran at all.

But i've been impressed with how versatile and useful my netbook has been. Am currently able to write python scripts with my netbook when out and about, which is handy, and it's easy to sync all my files on the netbook to my desktop.

So for me, i'm impressed, it does more than i thought it could. Most people i've spoken to whom have one think the same.

Maybe i should do my own poll about it.

Microsoft to bomb Europe with IE-free Windows 7

hahahaha!

I'm not one for loving microsoft, but this is a damn fine move on their part! I'm looking forward to seeing what the EU will say about this, hopefully they will come to their senses and realise that they're being idiots about the IE thing.

Isn't mozilla not-for-profit anyways?? so does it matter about market share or whatever?? i don't think so.

Conservative US shock-jock to sue Wacky Jacqui

pfft, get it right

5) Busty St. Claire (and the aliases, Busty Larue & Hooty McBoob).

it's chesty la rue.

BT reprograms biz customers as hotspots

No Suprise

Seems to be the way things are done these days, opting people into things without sufficient info on why are doing it, or even if the customer needs it.

I'd like the legallity of doing things like this assessed and make it so you can't be 'opted in' to things you don't want or need, but i doubt that's gonna happen.

Just another way this country is going to the wall. Just wish i could move somewhere else. Would be easier to put up with this shite if the weather was pleasant all year round!

2008's top three netbooks

It's about how you use it

I've got an Asus 901 and i do a lot on it, from simple browsing the internet to writing c++ code on it when slouched in front of the TV and a myriad of things in between. It's certainly capable enough to do all these things, although i'm running netbeans and bloodshed c++ rather than visual studio

However, the first thing i did when i got my 901 was to n-lite the version of windows XP on it to trim down the bloat which helps out a lot, from cold boot to been able to use it fully takes about 15 seconds, plus it's a lot smaller (think it's about 450-500mb) so get more space on the faster SSD to put other stuff on.

When i can afford it i'll upgrade the RAM to 2gb and when they become cheap enough replace the 8gb SSD with a 32 or 64gb model and it'll be even better than it is now. It's been getting a lot more use than my amazingly fast and expensive desktop atm!

If you use a little bit of nounce then these things are capable of a lot more than people give them credit for.

'Faith-based' investment firm fingers holiday's most sinful games

@Paul Smith

Point is that the games ARE NOT designed for kids, hence why they get 18 ratings.

So, i enjoy games that are, ahem, more 'mature' and get ratings of 15+ I also enjoy games that are rated below that, since i am a gamer. Why the fuck should some little peabody decide if i should be able to play something that isn't suitable for kids. I'm 30 years old, i can make my own descisions.

It's clearly the parents fault though, I was talking to a mother who let her 13 year old son play GTA4 but then wouldn't let him watch a film rated 15. When i tried to explain to her the hypocrisy of this situation she just shrugged and said 'games aren't as bad as films' when clearly they are. Parents need more educating on the whole subject. Hopefully then people will shut the hell up about it and let us gamers enjoy a myriad of games in peace.