The Pidgeon Post

The Pidgeon Post moves on

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 13:27:00 +0000

As of May 1st, FTP support on blogger will end. This means no more hosted Pidegon Post.
As sad as it may be, I've discovered a wonderful little thing called tumblr, and have decided to continue the blog there. the addresss is: http://nuclearpidgeon.tumblr.com/. hopefully with this new re-birth, more content will appear on the blog. hopefully

until next post,
nuclearpidgeon

XFX 5770 Unboxing

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 02:02:00 +0000

So I finally got my new video-card. FINALLY. And the packaging was awesome enough to warrant an unboxing blog post. enjoy.

And finally, an arty colour removal shot

merry new year and whatnot

Is Online Distribution killing the Collectors Edition?

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:06:00 +0000

I don't know about you, but I seriously love collectors editions (heck, I like just having a physical box to prove the fact that I have the game without having to start it up). There's just... that warm fuzzy feeling you get opening up a fancy, decorated box that has all these awesome physical extras in it. From the SPORE Galactic Edition, which features one of the most awesome-looking boxes, and contains a making-of DVD and art booklet, to the UT3 collectors edition, which comes in a simple metal box, with a little art booklet, and a making-of DVD and tutorial videos for the game editor, I think that Collectors/Special Editions are something really awesome. Take, for example, the collector's edition of the upcoming Dragon Age: Origins. Whilst I am currently sick of this game, after having it shoved down my throat by 2 friends of mine, it is not possible to ignore the special edition, which comes with a cloth map of the game.

Yet the thing that worries me is Digital Distribution. Services like Steam and Direct2Drive offer games at really good prices, but force you to download the game off the internet. This has started to bug me as of late: call me stupid if you want, but I get annoyed by the fact that I bought The Orange Box, and DON'T HAVE THE BOX TO PROVE IT! Maybe it's just a social thing - being able to 'show off' you impressive collection of games to others. Maybe it's just a sign of OCD, and that I'm going mad. But the fact is, boxed games are becoming either rarer, or at least less essential to the gaming experience. Take Left 4 Dead for example. I actually got a cousin from England to bring it over to Australia when he visited last year. However, the box provides very little of an 'user experience'. You put in the disc, it copies the files, activates it on steam, and then that's it. You may as well put that disc away, you're never gonna need it again. There's not even a proper manual! (at least, not on the disc). All you get is a 'quick-start' card, which just has basic install instructions, and a key command reference. Even the installation itself is a dull experience, with little game art/media and a simple copying bar.

I haven't been playing games for that long, but another of my cousins has been in the PC games market since the days of Diablo, Warcraft II (yes, 2) and Half-Life. He still has some of the box stuff/manuals. The first thing that strikes you is how much bigger the boxes were back then. They were at least twice the size of today's standard DVD cases. And they came with a proper manual: the type that gives you not only troubleshooting and game instructions, but also backstory stuff. The Diablo 2 manuals are a classic example - they come with all this extra text explaining stuff that happens between Diablo I and II. So does the original StarCraft: that has complete history profiles on each of the 3 races, and detailed unit info.

The 'smaller box and manual' principle is not limited to just games as well. A more recent example is the iPod Touch. The first generation came in this nice black box, that was a a fair bit bigger than the actual ipod. But I have a 2nd gen, and the case for that is simply the ipod, with the headphones, USB cable and 'quick-start guide' sandwiched in the back. Maybe this is because of shipping and printing costs in this day and age, with corporations wanting to spend less to make more, by cutting down on 'unnecessary extras'. I think it's a shame, but I think I know why they do this. It's pretty simple – back in the days of HL and Diablo, the Internet was a lot less mainstream, and therefore, patches for games were seen less. This meant that the troubleshooting, system specs and feature sets in the manuals would always be relevant and up-to-date. However, in this day and age, patches are release regularly, and they can sometimes change the feature of a game and/or its system specs. Case in point: the UT3 2.0 Titan patch was released recently, adding 3 new gameplay modes to the game, simplifying the interface, and adding a lot more control over the graphic effects, which may or may not have affected the base system requirements. In Left 4 Dead, survival mode was released, and more recently, the crash course campaign, which would make any printed manual significantly out-of-date.

But back to my main point. Are services like steam killing the collector's edition? I'm pretty confident we'll be seeing Collector's Editions long into the future, especially for single-player games. But some companies seem to have already decided to abandon the boxed experience of getting a Video Game, which is a shame. Valve is the main focus here: it may be that in the future, one of their games will be released as a steam purchase exclusive. But I hope that they will keep releasing boxed copies, and that they realise that the box experience is something that many gamers hold dear.

Oh yeah, and when StarCraft II comes out, there better be a special edition that costs at least twice the retail price.

Unreal Tournament 3 2.1 update announced, another free weekend

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Thu, 28 May 2009 00:29:00 +0000

Epic Games have annoucned another free weekend for Unreal Tournament 3 for the PC. This comes with the release of the 2.1 patch, which adds bug fixes and minor improvements to the new UI that was released with the version 2 patch. It is also to celebrate the start of the third phase of the 'Make something Unreal' mod contest.

To pre-load Unreal Tournament 3 Black for free, visit http://store.steampowered.com/app/13210.

Original Link

April Fool's Day

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:56:00 +0000

The internet has been going nuts for April fools day - here are a few funny pranks I came across.

From Slashdot - practically EVERY item posted on the 1st of April :

Blizzard Shows Off Diablo III Archivist Class, WoW Dance-Off

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/01/2215205

It's been a busy day for the folks at Blizzard, who have released major announcements for several different games. The next Diablo III class has arrived: the Archivist. Despite their frail appearance and hunched, labored movement, they are quite deft at launching Quest Bolts at nearby foes, or conjuring a whirling Lore-nado of spinning books. Loud monsters can be silenced with a devastating Shush attack. Blizzard also put Starcraft II'slatest unit on display, the Terra-Tron, which is a giant, robot uber-weapon assembled from the buildings in your base. Finally, for World of Warcraft they announced two features that have been requested by players for years: a battle of dances, where you can show off your avatar's hippest moves, and the ability to 'p1mp' your mounts. (Not sure exactly what that means, since I don't speak elvish, but there's a Nightsaber with a cannon — holy crap!)

Warner Bros. Acquires The Pirate Bay

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/01/173236

mlingojones writes"TorrentFreak breaks the news of The Pirate Bay's acquisition by Warner Bros: 'After years of hostility, lawsuits, police raids and heated invective between the two groups, the Pirate Bay has today announced they have settled their differences with US media conglomerate Warner Bros. The largest BitTorrent tracker has sold out to Hollywood and the two have agreed a deal.'"

TiVo Announces DVR-SuperAdvance

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/01/2131236

mark0 writes"TiVo has announced the TiVo DVR-SuperAdvance. The PC World review says, 'Familiar TiVo interface; DVR can record not-yet-broadcast programming; potentially useful as a wagering aid,' though, '[it is] expensive; access to programming is limited; footage is displayed in standard definition only.'"Hopefully, TiVo will supply a review unit

Alpine Legend Revolutionizes Music Game Genre

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/01/1612209

Microsoft has announced the upcoming release of Alpine Legend for the Xbox 360. Building upon the established titles of the music game genre, Alpine Legend takes you to the Swiss mountaintops, where you and your friends play up to three Alpenhorns at a time while a fourth yodels along. When you're done playing, you can disassemble the 8-foot horns for easy storage. "Jam with alpine legends like Franz 'The Manz' Lang and Johann Hornbostel. Shake the mountain tops with 100 classic Alphorn tracks including, 'Whose spit is in my horn?' and 'More goat bell (It needs).'"

Interview With the Author of "Mastering Cat"

http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/01/1211240

Shlomi Fish writes"O'Reilly is publishing a new book titled 'Mastering cat,' about the UNIX 'cat' command. Here is an interview O'Reilly-Net conducted with the author about it. Read it to see if this book should be part of your bookshelf of technical books."

Yeast-Powered Fuel Cell Feeds On Human Blood

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/01/1710253

holy_calamity writes"Canadian researchers have taken a sensible, if slightly creepy, step towards solving the problem of medical implant batteries running down. They've built a fuel cell powered by yeast that feed on the glucose in human blood. If this makes it into people, keeping your implants going will be as simple as eating a donut."

Microsoft Asks Fed For Bailout

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/01/2222227

snydeq writes"Microsoft requested on Tuesday some $20 billion in bailout funds from the federal government, claiming that as the company controls an overwhelming share of the OS market, it is too big to fail. Low adoption rates for Vista, the ensuing ad campaign trying to convince people that they really do like Vista, and the increased need for development resources to rush Windows 7 to market to make people forget about Vista have necessitated the bailout, the company said. "We want to make it absolutely clear that this is not a crisis of mismanagement," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in a prepared statement. "This is simply a crisis of dollars — a crisis of not having enough dollars coming our way.""

Instant Messaging Vulnerable To New Smiley Attacks

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/01/1935214

titus writes"Security researchers Yoann Guillot and Julien Tinnes have found a way to encode malicious code into smileysand provided a proof of concept encoder to automate the process. The researchers said their discovery paves the way for IM malware that would be impossible to detect since the malicious code would be 'indistinguishable from genuine chat messages.' I've tested the proof of concept code which works very well. Time to panic?"

Google Launches CADIE, the First True AI

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/01/1518211

eldavojohn writes"Google has announced CADIE, the world's first Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity. 'We based our work on three core principles. First we designed the entity ... as a collection of interconnected evolving agents. Second — and this really cost us an arm and leg in hardware and core time — we let the system build its own heuristics, deploy them as agents and evolve them by running a set of evolutionary cascades within probabilistic Bayesian domains. The third — a piece missing in most AI reasoning work thus far — was to give the entity access to a rich, realistic world from which to learn and upon which it could act directly.' It quickly started its own blog andYouTube video. Two hours after midnight, CADIE announced independence on its blog and decided to leave Google to venture out into the world. "

And finally, My personal favourite:
CloudLeft Public License Closes User Data Loophole

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/01/180209

FreedomFighter writes"In a Cloud Standards breakthrough, the FSF is teaming up with major cloud computing vendors to form the Free and Open Cloud Alliance (FOCA), a trade marketing association supporting Free(TM) and Open Cloud Computing (FOCC). The new CloudLeft Public License (CPL) is based on the ideas that data wants to be Free(TM) and all your Cloud(TM) are belong to us. It closes the 'user data loophole' by requiring the release of not only the source code for a CloudLeft platform but also the data passing through it. This renders most security issues void while appropriately setting the users' expectation of privacy. 'In the past, I've said that "cloud" is complete gibberish, but while discussing fashion during my weekly squash game with Stallman he convinced me that this was a great opportunity.' said Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle. RMS, who previously said that 'cloud' is worse than stupidity was also pleased about the return of the advertising clause, requiring the use of the 'GNU/Cloud' name, as he is 'tired of haranguing the GNU/Linux community about this.' Full details will be available next Monday, including the first marketing and outreach program — 'FOCC: IT in 2009.'"

EDIT: Here are some more details about what Google did - don't forget to check the comments

http://www.businessinsider.com/recession-be-damned-google-does-april-fools-twice-2009-4

Also, here's an April fools joke from Phoronix:

The WALLBUNTU Linux distribution

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzE4MQ

Ubuntu 9.04 Beta released, final release in 24 days

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 23:43:00 +0000

The newest release of Ubuntu 9.04, Jaunty Jackalope, has been released in Beta. The main focus of thie release is speed, and there is no denying that it boots very fast. I've installed it on my Laptop to replace 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) and noticed a significant speed boost. To test the speed of it out, I ran a boot test, to see how long it took for each OS on my laptop to boot from the bootloader to the desktop, once the HD indicator light had stopped flickering. Here are the results:

Ubuntu : 45 seconds

Windows 7: 1 minute, 45 seconds

Windows XP: 2 minutes and counting...

While there may be a slight bias towards Ubuntu as it is a fresh install, there is still a massive gap between it and Windows 7. As for Windows XP...

The beta also comes with some other improvements - there's a new verion of GNOME, the desktop interface/controls/application set. The display managment GUI has been tweaked again to work better, but is still sketchy at best. Also included is X.Org 1.6, which adds support for even more videocards. One of the more noticable features is the new notification system - rather than have annoying little popups, messages are displayed top-right of the screen as semi-transparent notifiers which fade out as you mouse-over them. To see what they look like, there is a flash demo here (http://www.markshuttleworth.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/jaunty904_notifications_example1_web_092.swf)

Other than that, there's not much new - just a lot of bug fixes. One other thing I should add is cloud computing support for Ubuntu Server - I still don't entirely understand the definition of 'cloud computing', but if you have a look at the link below, you'll find more details.

Link: http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/jaunty/beta

Unreal Tournament 3 2.0 is here (Also, Titan Pack)

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:14:00 +0000

The Unreal Tournament 2.0 update has finally arrived, after having been announced on Steam over a month ago. The update comes with the most amount of fixes/new features I have ever seen in one single patch. Even entire games have had less bug-fixes than this one patch - it's crazy. I'm not going to post all the new features, but you can read about them here (3fl.net) and here (shacknews.com).

Here are some of the features that I thought were the most significant:

Titan Pack

Two new game types: Greed, a "tug of war" skull-toting team points battle, and Betrayal, a cutthroat style of play where alliances and teams can shift fluidly through a match.
The Titan Mutator, where you can become a 30 foot tall behemoth in any game mode.
Nineteen maps for Deathmatch, CTF, Vehicle CTF and Warfare modes, including 11 new maps plus eight popular maps from the first UT3 bonus pack and Xbox 360 version.
New vehicles and pickups, including the X-Ray field deployable, the link station deployable for vehicle repair, the slow field powerup, the Stealthbender vehicle, the Eradicator artillery piece, and the Stinger rail turret.
Client-side demo recording.
Revamped User Interface, including an improved server browser, improved server filtering options, all new advanced options menu, streamlined and polished the whole system.
Awards: Fifty-seven different awards mark your progress and mastery of UT3. Progress screen in the UI shows which awards you have earned, and your current progress on awards not yet completed.
Maplists and voting: New maplist system and mid-game voting support for gametypes and mutators as well as maps.

2.0 Patch

Major visual and menu flow overhaul for improved usability.
Enabled gamepad stick sensitivity setting in UI.
Improved gamepad support on PC.
Added support for a whole mess of options on Advanced video settings page.

Vehicles

Increased radius/volume of Manta, Raptor, and Viper engines.
Added sound effect and recharge bar to SPMA to indicate when the weapon is ready to fire
Increased water damage taken by vehicles.
Increased Goliath health.

Weapons

Added burn trail for link gun beam.
Weapon pickups now disappear for the player who picked it up, until it can be picked up again (now works like weapon lockers).

Miscellaneous

You can activate a non-Steam purchased version with Steam (making it a full Steam version)

This looks set to make UT3 an even better game than what it is at the moment. To make things even sweeter, the games is !!!free!!! for this weekend on Steam. If you want to keep playing, you can purchase the game for $US12. Unfortunately the installation is 8GB, and with the patch on top is more likely to be closer to 10... unless you have a very fast Internet connection and craploads of quota, I suggest you be careful trying to download it. You might be better off buying it - it's at a very good price right now.

Tabula Rasa shuts down

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 05:13:00 +0000

The online Sci-Fi MMORPG Tabula Rasa, developed by NG-Soft, is about to close down. I dowloaded it when it became free back in January and gave it a whirl - I found it to be a pretty darn good game, even though I'm not that much of an MMO person, the Sci-fi elements appealed to me. Interestingly enough though, Apparently at 8:00PM (us time) last night, the Bane (the main enemy force in the game) launched an all out offensive on all the Allied forces, setting up for an epic battle that would presumably climax with some kind of apocalyptic 'splosion (see the source below). All game members were invited to join in the epic battle, but unfortunately, and perhps ironically, I un-installed the client a few days ago, and even if I were to install it again, I'd have to patch it again - and thanks to the wonderful magic of 256k, that wouldn't finish before the game ends...

Source: http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/28/0246233

Safari 4 Public Beta

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 06:27:00 +0000

Yesterday Apple released the public beta for Safari 4 (Mac + PC). There come some interesting new features which should draw a new crowd users to the popular web browser.

Tabs on top:

Taking a seriously large leaf out of Google Chrome's book, the tabs in Safari now appear in the titlebar of the window(s). I personally quite like this interface - the tabs are out of the way, using up unnecessary space. They also slide nice and smooth and can be broken off to form new windows, or added to other ones.

As you can see, now Safari on windows runs with the natural windows borders, making it feel more like an individual program, not just a port from Mac OSX.

Cover flow:

Now you can browse your history/bookmarks in the iTunes/Mac Cover Flow style, as is saves snapshots of all recent windows.

Top Sites:

In another nod to Google Chrome, and also IE7/8, now when you open a new tab you get a fancy 'Top Sites' display.

Speed:

Apple tells us that Safari 4 is up to 30x faster than IE7. That's pretty darn fast.

Safari is now my browser of choice. In the past I used Mozilla Firefox, but then ditched it for Chrome in favor of the whole tab interface and general smoothness (tab sliding and the loading indicators). Also, it started up DAMN fast. Safari has yet to live up to my speed needs from Chrome, but hopefully this will improve, as this is only a beta.

Team Fortress 2 - The Scout Update

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 07:12:00 +0000

The Scout update for the popular online FPS Team Fortress 2 has been released. As per the previous packs, the update adds 3 new weapons for the scout:

The Sandman, a heavier baseball bat that can hit baseballs to stun enemies, while disabling double-jump when equipped. Not just when it's out.
Bonk! Energy Drink, a power up which makes you much more likely to be missed by bullets and makes you runs crazy-fast, but with a slowed speed cooldown effect
The Force-A-Nature, a double barreled shotgun which adds a knockback effect to both the player and the target(s!) while reducing the reload time and ammo capacity.

There are also some new community maps: cp_egypt, arena_watchtower, and cp_junction as well as the new Scout Achievment pack, of which those achievments are required to have been completed to obtain the new items.

Also, to celebrate the release, TF2 is now half-price till Friday. Thats 10 fracking US Dollars!!!

The update also introduces some very interesting changes, some of which people may have missed:

From http://store.steampowered.com/news/2288/

Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

New features

Added The Force-A-Nature, The Sandman, and Bonk!

Added 35 new Scout achievements

Added crit boosted on/off sound effects

Added new sounds for upgraded teleporters

Added new sound for a fully charged medic dying

Add bonus points section to scores

Scouts earn a bonus point for killing Medics who are actively healing a target

Added several new speech concepts, mostly hooked up to new Scout lines

Added new "Remember last weapon between lives" option to the Multiplayer Advanced dialog

Spies can now control which weapon the enemy team sees them holding. Hitting the "last disguise" key while disguised updates the disguise to show the Spy's currently held weapon

Added several new Arena mode announcer speech events.

Added "First Blood" to Arena mode

Removed 2x item respawn times in arena

Changed backstab handling to fix facestabs

Spies disguised as enemy team can now see player IDs for enemies

New maps

Added community maps: cp_egypt, arena_watchtower, and cp_junction

Updated cp_fastlane with Arttu's new version

Mapmaker requests

Added new input for forward speed modifier to FuncTrainTrain

Added TeleportToPathTrack input to func_tracktrain

Bugfixes

Fixed a bug where players would sometimes gib from non-gib damage kills

Fixed stat screen showing an entry for a class called "map."

Fixed item model panels not using team skins

Fixed obscure bug where spectators were able to carry the flag

The Bold items caught my attention, but the one outlined in red is the best one, I think.

Spies can now change the weapon that they are displaying to the enemy while disguised. This makes it easier to blend in with the enemy activity and should make the Spy even more fun to play.

More info can be found at http://www.teamfortress.com/scoutupdate/

Unreal Tournament 3 Retail on Steam

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:25:00 +0000

Retail copies of Unreal Tournament III can now be activated on Steam, a popular online content-delivery service by Half-Life makers Valve, that now houses an impressive range of games (Fallout 3, Bioshock, The Orange Box to give a few).

This attracted my attention, as I have a copy of UT3 Special Edition (that I got from England about $80 less than retail in Australia). Why am I interested in this, you ask? Well, it means that one more game I own is integrated into the steam service (i.e. all my games are in the one place) and also, if my game discs are damaged and/or my PC screws up, I can just download the entire game through Steam again - the ultimate backup strategy. Also, this is apparently in preparation for a new update that will incorporate Steamworks, the framework that Left4Dead and TF2 use for achievements and integration into the Steam Community.

I pulled up Steam and entered my CD Key. I activated fine, but I was concerned that I would have to download the entire game again, and also possibly lose my settings/saves. It turns out you can't install UT3 into Steam from the CD, at least not directly. Not contempt with waiting 3-4 days to download 8GB, I decided to try to copy my UT3 Installation into Steam.

Steam stores all 3rd party games (i.e. not source/GoldSrc) in the Steam\SteamApps\common folder (for some reason Left4Dead was also installed this way). First I started to download UT3 from Steam. I stopped the download as soon as it started: I just needed the folder hierachy to be set up. Once that was done, I copied all 8GB of data from my retail copy. This took about 5 minutes, and when done I resumed the steam installation. The download percentage immediately started to skip ahead, perhaps downloading little bits here and there, and finally slowed down about 80%. I checked the steam UT3 folder to see that it was downloading the Visual C++ and DirectX 9 redistributables. I left it overnight to finish.

The next day I came to see UT3 sitting at '100% - Ready'. I fired it up, but it said that 'This game is currently unavailable.' A quick Google search revealed that I needed to remove Read-Only rights from the UT3 folder. Once done, I launched again, then hit an update, which for some reason would only go while I was waiting to launch the game. Nonetheless, I patiently waited. Once done, I had to install AGEIA PhysX, DirectX, Visual C++ Redistributable, and OpenAl sound system. UT3 Started up, and thankfully all my settings and saves transferred through. Looking forward too that update, Epic!

Windows 7 - First Impressions

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:33:00 +0000

Well, shit - This is atually pretty good.

This phrase sums up my first impressions of Windows 7, the next edition of windows after the crap-tacular Vista.

The UI was a bit clunky at first and I had some issues with transpareny, but it was due to the fact that the NVIDIA Drivers weren't installed. Speaking of Drivers, I was really impressed when I opened up Windows Update to see that it had already downloaded the driver for my printer. After changing the 'Automatially download all updates and install them' to 'let me choose when to download and install', I was shocked to see that there, in the update list waiting for me was:

My Graphics driver
My LAN driver (both of them, I have 2 LAN ports)
My Screen Diver (Viewsonic VX922)

This is a really nice touch - along the lines of Mac OSX Leopard which will automatically search for printer drivers on the DVD or online when you plug it in.

The new taskbar is the most notable feature since vista - it works quite well, but it's trick to see if a window is open - I suppose it just needs getting used to.

Windows Media Center is a Tv remote-based interface to your media Library - it looks nice, but it doesn't work with my 3 stereo jack 5.1 surround sound - hopefully I can resolve this. I'm also yet to import my Movies/Music from XP so I'll report on that when I've done that.

I can't seem to access my old XP hard-drive from inside 7 - I'm not sure whether this is a security feature or whether my XP Partition has been... damaged. I am yet to test XP again - I'm still drawn to 7.

I tried hard to like Internet Explorer 8 - the web accelerators are a nice touch and it integrates well to the operating system, but it's still not a very good browser. Gmail completely screwed itself, and only worked on compatibility mode - and even then there were some UI issues. I've installed Google Chrome, which is pretty good and looks better with the Aero interface compared to XP.

I'm yet to test out the media functions of Windows 7 - this is something that looks really promising, but I just need to get all my music across to the windows 7 partition and hope that WMP will let me play mp4s. But as for now, I'd recommend giving the beta a whirl, as long as you know what you're doing. If you are unsure about anyhing, make sure you've backed up!

More Soon!

Windows 7 Beta

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 20:22:00 +0000

For those of you unaware, Windows 7, the next version of windows after the catastrophe that was Vista, is now in a public beta. You can find it here, but it is in limited supply, so grab one fast. Also, it didn't work in Firefox for me because it uses a 3rd party Download Manager, powered by ActiveX - an Internet Explorer exclusive security hole. The DLM is actually quite handy and seems to work well - I find it particularly useful seeing as my Internet speed is yet to be upgraded from 256k. I'll post about my Windows 7 experience when its finished and installed.

UPDATE: 13/01/09 9:21 AM

Download has finished, burning to disc now. Unsure as how I am going to manage partitioning - especially seeing as the Default Windows bootloader is not installed because of Ubuntu

UPDATE: 10:35 AM

Partitioning done - 35GB free for 7 to occupy. Very nice animated boot screen for the installer, which runs in a mini-windows environment, much like the Ubuntu live installer. Installer seemed to hang for a bit, but it's going now. I think it might have been my floppy drive - the activity light was steady with no disk in it. Menus are a bit laggy. Have been given no installation options - I hope it doesn't overwrite anything... which reminds me: I haven't backed up. Shit.

UPDATE 10:41 AM

Floppy drive seems to have hung the installer again. Oh wait, its going. Hooray - Custom install lets me choose where to put the installation.

UPDATE: 10:53 AM

Computer has rebooted - the new boot loader gave me an option to boot an earlier version of windows - perhaps that will re-direct to GRUB...

Same sexy boot screen with shiny lights - it is now back at the installer 'Completing installation'

UPDATE: 10:56 AM

Screen has defaulted to native resolution of 1280x1024 - and I just heard my sound system kick in.

'Setup will continue after rebooting your computer'

Here we go...

UPDATE: 10:59 AM

Setup is checking video performance...

BAM - desktop.

Setting up user accounts...

Entering CD-Key - nice checkbox here - Automatically ativate windows when I'm online

Wrong key - oops.

UPDATE: 11:04 AM

New windows updates/seurity center options - don't know if this is from Vista as I havent used it...:

Use recommended settings - install all updates, send usage data, make browsing safer, check online for problems
Install updates only - same as XP full auto updates
Ask me later - nada.

I'm going with reommended

UPDATE: 11:07 AM

Setting time/date

New network settings - Public, for wifi hunting, Work, for domains I presume, and Home, for Easy Sharing.

Applying network settings...

New network sharing thing - homegroups. Allows sharing of Music, Printers, Videos, Douments... seems kinda neat - all the sharing stuff I use simplified and automatic...

UPDATE: 11:12 AM

Welcome... I presume this is the logon screen...

Preparing your desktop...

And here we are. Windows 7 installed.

I will post soon about my impressions...

Name that blog

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:01:00 +0000

One thing you may have noticed is that my website is called 'the roost' and my blog is also called 'the roost'. I'm thinking up of a new name for it - any ideas? Something 'nuclearpidgeon'-related is what I'm looking for. I'm also planning to change the layout - it doesn't fit with the rest of my web-page. Unfortunately, the template is coded in XML and it may be quite difficult to change, but should be fun nonetheless.

The Blog Starts

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 11:46:00 +0000

Welcome! This is the first real post for 'the roost' - all previous posts were from my holiday in England. My plan is to use this as more of a traditional 'blog' - a place where I can share news that interests me with others (you) and provide my view on the topic, as well as stuff that happens in my life that you might be interested in and perhaps even reviews of games/movies. This is all part of my plan to use my free webspace more and also to help develop my web-skills and ultimately get myself more involved in creativity.

So, watch this space! Tell your friends! (and family, if you want). Stay Tuned for more, and please comment - it helps me to get a good understanding of what you think of my blog.

Home

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 06:46:00 +0000

We are back and I am now 3 days into school. There have been many changes to the area around where I live and at school. For example, there's a new shopping center called 'the well' just up the road. Also, the old buildings at school have re-opened after finishing being re-furbished. I like it when this happens, because you get a strong dose of new things, rather than a scattered one so you can go and look at all the new things straight away. JB Hi-Fi have moved to 'The Well' and have a great new area - much neater and more open.
Jetlag hasn't been that much of an issue, although I went to bed at 4:30 when we got home and woke up 13 hours later! After that I had 8 slices of toast because I had missed dinner! The plane flights back were also fairly good. The first flight (12.5 hour) went fairly well thanks to movies which kept me from being bored, but the second 7.5 hour flight seemed longer because I did'nt have any more movies to watch. luckily I managed to get a bit of sleep. The english sleep pattern is still holding although - I still wake up at 4 but go back to sleep.
The trip to england has been a good experience. I have learnt quite a lot and have been left with a few more good memories.

Last days in London and coming home

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 21:36:00 +0000

I have been really slack on blog posts so I'm going to catch up again now. I am currently in Kuala Lumpur Airport awaiting the flight home to Londo- I mean Melbourne.
The day after Westminster Abbey, we went to Lord's Cricket Ground. The ground is actually not used very often - only a few times a year for the ashes tour and a few other events. The pavillion is used more often, hosting business conferences and various events. The pitch is not actually flat - it has a 2.5m difference on both sides! But the British believe that, having ther been many games played on this pitch, that there's no real need to change it.
The next day we went to the Science Museum. It was amazing - I could have spent over a week there. There were 5 floors with exhibits ranging from a history of mathematics, to plastics to energy to materials... the list just goes on and on and on... There was a damascus steel blade, which was pretty cool. It has amazing properties - it is incredibly strong, yet flexible as well and really sharp. Dr Karl Kruszelnicki had a chapter on it in one of his books.
On our final day in London, Dad met up with us from France - he caught the TVG train from Paris straight to London. It was good too see him again before we went home - he is working at a vineyard in France and will be spending a further month travelling through France, Europe and America. We hired a car for the day and went down to Brighton, where British people spend their summers. Brighton has a pebble beach, which is really good for skipping stones. (un)fortunately, there is no sand, which is a plus for me because you don''t get is stuck in your shoes...

I have had a great time over in sunny England, but it is time to return home. See you all soon!

British Museum, Thames Cruise, Greenwich and the London Eye. Oh and Westminster Abbey too.

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 22:36:00 +0000

I have been a bit slack on Blog posts so I'll try to keep up. On Friday we went to the British Museum and saw an exhibit on Hadrian, one of the emperors of Rome. It was a very big and grand museum, and the exhibit on Hadrian was long and full of information. There were lots of artifacts - Statues, Busts, Pillar tops... the list goes on. There were also free displays which made up the rest of the building. we saw the original Rosetta Stone, which had a decree written in Greek, Egyptian script and Hieroglyphs . It was the first piece of evidence discovered that had Hieroglyphs written alongside another language already known, and as such lead to the cracking of Hieroglyph code. There was also an Easter Island statue which funnily enough was from Easter Island, where these statues were carved and erected thousands of years ago by natives to 'watch over' the island. The statue was about 2 meters tall. Also next to it was a face... a synthetic face with nothing inside as if it were a mask, but it was very big. Weird.

The next day we went on a river cruise down the Thames river to Greenwich. On the way we passed The Globe Theatre (well, a recreation of it - the original was destroyed), where Shakespeare primarily performed his plays. Greenwich was fascinating. For those who don't know, it is pronounced 'Grenich' (like spinach) and is where zero degrees longitude is located. Unlike latitude, which has a position set by the earth's equator, longitude has no real 'origin', so they decided to place it at Greenwich, where a lot of work on time and clocks was done. There was a fascinating exhibition there, showing various developments in keeping time, from pendulum clocks up to GPS systems in the 21s century. There were some amazing clocks on display, but unfortunately we could not take photos.

After the tour we caught 'the tube' (london underground) back to the London Eye, and hitched a ride.

The view was very good. We timed our flight perfectly, getting sunlight when we took off and landing at night time, giving us the best of both worlds.

Finally, today we went to Westminster Abbey for evensong. The choir and organ sounded absolutely spectacular, with an 8 second or so echo. Later that evening we found the TARDIS - see the web album.

London

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 07:21:00 +0000

We are now in London. First impressions - think Melbourne, minus tall buildings, and with almost all shops in old concrete buildings with fancy artwork - for example, the apple retail store has a mosaic above it's entrance. Yesterday we went out and looked around, catching the tube into the city center. Our first stop was the Apple retail store, which was very impressive. There were lots of macs, and many people were in there checking e-mails or reading the news, thanks to the free internet. There's also free wi-fi, and there are seminars every 20 minutes or so explaining a certain feature on a mac, or something like that - I didn't see one. The store also features the worlds biggest iPhone out the front of the shop - it's about a meter high with a TV in it. There was also a meter-high iPod nano. After this, we walked down Oxford street, then round back up Regent street, and then down Oxford street the other way. We then went to Hyde park, and saw people lying out on deck chairs. In a park. Finally, we went home. Today we are going to the Brtish Museum, Kings Cross station and perhaps Charing Cross road where there are lots of second-hand book stores!

Cambridge and Oxford, again

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 08:08:00 +0000

Over the past 2 days we have gone to Cambridge and Oxford, staying with more family inbetween. At Cambridge we saw, among other things, an incredibly strange clock. It had something to do with Stephen Hawking (I can't remember, but it was on BBC News). The clock was a round wheel, with teeth around the edge. A pendulum swung which moved the teeth around. At the top was some kind of mechanical locust, which crawled along the rotating teeth as they moved. Check out the picture on Picasa Web Albums.

We also went to King's College Cambridge, but that was mostly ABC.
We stayed just out of Cambridge with more family. They had a cat called Bubbles who was very cute and cuddly, but she dribbled!
The next day we headed back into Oxford via a park-and-ride. I'm not sure whether this service is available in Australia, but the idea is that you drive there, park for free, and then catch into the town, easing road congestion due to bus lanes. At Oxford we went to go and see the Christ Church where the harry potter dining hall scenes were filmed. Also there was the main staircase leading to the hall, which appeared for the same purpose at the start of the first film.
Today we leave for London, which will be our last destination on our 'journey'. Not to say that it will be minor - we have lots of things to go and see.

Back in Henley

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 21:06:00 +0000

We have arrived back in Henley, 1500 miles after we last left. Since my last post, we have been to Winchester, Salisbury, Dorchester and Stonehenge. We stayed at a B+B at Winchester for two nights. They had a pool which was heated, but not enough for my taste (too cold). It was on a farm so I got a few photos of the animals. There were three dogs, lots of sheep and 2 geese. We found the geese loitering in the carpark late at night. They were hilarious. They were just standing there, right in the middle of this carpark - necks extended upwards and alert. When I went into the field the next morning to get a photo, one of them kept half-charging me. The sheep are quite different - If you have a look over at my Picasa Web Album (http://picasaweb.google.com/stewart.james.webb/) you can see that they have brown/black faces. I have grown very fond of the sheep, and I now want one for next christmas (We can sell the Lawnmower to get the money - genius!)
We went to Dorchester to go Zorbing (correction, for me to go Zorbing). Zorbing is an activity where one is harnessed into or put in with water into a ball 1 meter in diameter which is encased by another, 2.5m ball which is inflated. One is then rolled down a hill for 20 seconds or so. It was great fun - I had to go with water because you needed 2 people to go harnessed. The experience was amazing - Imagine a waterslide where you slide forward and back as well, but you can't see the bends so you don't know when you are going to be upended. It was cold when I got out though, in fact it was very cold, yet very warm also today. We seem to have had the best luck in the world with the weather here - when we were in Ireland, it did not rain once! Rather, it was sunshine all the way. It has also only rained briefly once or twice over here in England. We have been incredibly lucky.
I think I'm beginning to suffer from ABC syndrome (no not Australian-Born-Chinese). It's Another Bloody Church. We have seen about 5 or 6 so far and each one has a special reason for going to. We went to Winchester Cathedral, where they filmed the blood on the wall scene in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. We also went to Salisbury Cathedral, although thankfully it was at night and it was closed (phew!). It was very big though. It astonishes me about how grand these old churches are, and yet modern buildings are nowhere near as epic as these churches even with advances in technology.
When we were heading back to Henley we stopped off at the one and only Stonehenge. It was good, but there were WAAAAY to many people. Fortunately there were a few good photo spots and I ended up with a few really good pictures.
Tomorrow we will be going to lunch with relatives, then off to London later in the week.

On the Move again

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 11:42:00 +0000

We have arrived in Winchester after having travelled all the way from Ireland. We have crossed 3 countries in 1 day! - North Ireland, South ireland and Wales. We are staying here for a night before returning to Henley. I can promise a big post then with photos and details on what has happened - for now, I have to go. We are going to see windchester Cathedral then meeting up with someone.
P.S. - Hopefully I will be going zorbing tomorrow!

Update from Ireland

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:07:00 +0000

Tonight is our last night in Ireland - we are going back to Wales. It has been a pretty good time. I preferred Belfast to Dublin, but this is a personal opinion. The people we have been staying with are wonderful - they have been so generous and hospitable! I have gifts coming out my ears and they are still flowing in by the truckload...

I am in the process of compiling a Ireland album on Picasa Web Albums - for those who missed it before my gallery is available at http://picasaweb.google.com/stewart.james.webb

I have been sick over the past few days - the night we had at the hotel was awful. I was up almost all night with a fever and sore throat. The throat has persisted over the past few days but is fading slowly. I'm pretty sure that the fever has gone as well. Nonetheless, I still went out to go sightseeing.

On Sunday we went to Carrick Fergus Castle (I can't remember exactly what it was called). It is the most intact Norman castle in the world. It was cool - there was archery! The next day we went to the Giant's Causeway and a local Waterfall. The waterfall was picture perfect and the causeway was amazing. Almost all the stones there were hexagonal. When I get home I'll put together a photo stitch I made. See the photos at my gallery. ^^^

Ireland

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 20:35:00 +0000

We have arrived in Ireland, and are currently in a rather posh hotel in Belfast. We spent yesterday in Dublin. I wasn't overly impressed but it was okay. We went to the Guinness Storehouse today and shopped like mad (To all visiting readers, I have a cat called guinness because he is black all over except for a few white hairs in his chest). Best purchase - metal plaque of a Toucan riding a dart while balancing two glasses of guinness on it's beak - Aim for a Guinness!
I tried some guinness - it tasted mostly like other beers except slightly different. The white foam on the top makes a glass harder to spill which is a plus. The exhibition was very good - it gave a detailed look at how guinness was made, exported and, most importantly some would say, enjoyed. There was a great exhibit on the cartoon advertising that was used in earlier years (see what toucan do! - My Goodness, My Guinness!) Look these up as they are great ads (I still have the 'Guinness is good fooor you' tune running laps around my head)
I think I may have had a bit too much guinness as I have a guinness-flavoured sore throat, if that makes any sense.

We are staying at a great hotel that may look average from outside but is verry nice inside. You can even use the internet on the TV (why you would want to I have no idea, but you can).
There is a wedding reception running here at the moment and the music is driving me mad. I'm going to go now, but I will try and post photos soon (this is a crappy internet terminal with no camera support)

On the Move

noreply@blogger.com (nuclearpidgeon) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 11:12:00 +0000

We have left our little cottage (see it here) and are now in Stratford-upon-Avon. This is where the famous Shakespeare buildings are. We went to see Anne Hathaway's cottage, and were reminded of Jeremy from Top Gear's car deco built around the cottage (If you haven't seen this I highly suggest you look it up, it should be on youtube)
On the way here we saw some weird things on the motorway. First off was a tank. Yes, an army tank. It was on a trailer (thankfully?) and being towed to a military depot that we saw further on. There was also a gigantic green machine that seemed to have it's own cockpit. It trundled along behind a tractor. There was also a pedestrian crossing. ACROSS A MOTORWAY. Pretty crazy.

edit: I forgot to mention there was also a steam engine train being trucked.

We are catching the ferry to Ireland tomorrow, so I'll probably post again there.