WinningStyle

Your all probably all aware but thought I would post this,  an amazing marketing ploy by sony 250k for an immense amount of column inches and also I imagine TV coverage.

I want a PS3 and free HDTV

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgW7or1TuFk

I’m still a bit dubious about this news, I think "Puh, no need",  but, looking at this video, You can’t deny, it’s Proper fucking slick!

Well guys, hope everyone is enjoying their xmas holiday.. Ive been getting my ass kicked by thirteen year olds on Xbox Live on my brand new xbox360!!! - I had to do a double take when I unwrapped the bad boy as it was a complete suprise! – Debb says that im spoilt but I don’t know where she’s getting that from!

Anyway, ive got three games with it: Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter; Call of Duty 3 and Gears of War.. Ive tested and watched the intros of Ghost Recon and call of duty but I have been exclusivly playing gears since its been unwrapped and boy am I hooked. The graphics and scenery in the game are the bomb, and the game play is as smooth as silk. I starting off playing a single campaign but the other night I thought id dip my toe into the live experience to see what’s what! – Its been fun being a newbie and these kids are shit hot but ive got a lot of practice ahead of me before I move up the ranks.  

Anyway check out my new rig:

Oh, I also got some socks for xmas too, but I haven’t got around to trying those on yet!

http://www.winningstyle.co.uk/FlippyTemp/DSTipage010061213.pdf

I was checking out the Daily Star today, and it looks like the Nintendo Wii, of all consoles, is the cause of a number of violent incidents in the household.

It appears that people dancing round the living room waving their controllers around are so engrosed, they’re injuring themselves and their spouses! 

Injuries have occured from the obvious waving around of the controller, but avid sweaty handed gamers are suffering when the controllers slide from their soggy paws, and have been known to smash windows and TV’s, as well as teeth.

Check out the article here

I’ve ordered my GP2X from Play-asia.com thismorning!   >.<

Kingmax Secure Digital Card 2GB		1	US$ 49.90 (~25.58 GBP)	US$ 49.90 (~25.58 GBP)
GP2X Joystick Cap		2	US$ 0.99 (~0.51 GBP)	US$ 1.98 (~1.02 GBP)
GP2X Power Adaptor		1	US$ 17.90 (~9.18 GBP)	US$ 17.90 (~9.18 GBP)
GP2X Screen Protector		2	US$ 4.99 (~2.56 GBP)	US$ 9.98 (~5.12 GBP)
GP2X Wrist String		1	US$ 7.90 (~4.05 GBP)	US$ 7.90 (~4.05 GBP)
GP2X Carrying Case		1	US$ 12.90 (~6.61 GBP)	US$ 12.90 (~6.61 GBP)
GP2X Game System (MK2)		1	US$ 169.90 (~87.10 GBP)	US$ 169.90 (~87.10 GBP)
Coupon: YK-FUP-QPC				US$ -10.00 (~-5.13 GBP)
Sum				US$ 260.46 (~133.53 GBP)
Shipping				US$ 40.20 (~20.61 GBP)
Total				US$ 300.66 (~154.14 GBP)

As you see, it came to £155 all in,  that includes a few unnecessary extras, such as 2x screen protectors and a couple of thumb sticks, a carry case and a wrist string.

I’ve opted for a 2gb card for now, that should keep me going, I never realised they were so cheap-  If I use it a lot I’ll buy another.  I still need to order a card reader for my PC and some good quality rechargable batteries.

I feel I got a real bargain here.  £50 off the retail price of the unit, and all those extras thrown in.  If I’d have bought it direct from GP2X.co.uk I’d have paid a lot more, and not been able to get a number of accessories, such as the power adapter, screen protectors and thumb stick.

I also found a discount coupon code on rgw GP2X forums to give me an extra $10 off.

Delivery is by courier and takes up to 4 working days.  Oooh, I’m excited!  I’ll keep you posted!

With baited breath I wait for Santa

 ME ME ME

I chucked a post together on the old winningstyle forums about the coolest linux 3D’esque desktop being developed by Novell. - If your not up to speed on AIGL/Xgl then you need to go and check these vids out:

watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lawkc3jH3ws
and this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OigsuzpoVs

Its very slick boys. Anyway you can now check it out for yourself without actually installing linux on your system. There is a linux distribution named Kororaa that have got a Live CD available to download complete with XGL pre-installed.  You all need to get your asses a copy from here:

http://kororaa.org/static.php?page=livecd

Its a live CD so it will boot into the linux os without messing with your hard disk. Obviously its little slower than if you actually install the OS to disk but you get to check out this cool desktop.

I was mesmerized (okay, maybe not mesmerized) just dragging a window around the desktops. When you drag your mouse over the menus, they kinda just pop out at you.. Try maximising the window and watch the corners of the window pin themselves to the corners of the desktop..

What is awesome is spinning the cube to get to another desktop.. The key combo for that is CTRL + ALT plus the right or left arrow key. (Also you can drag a window around the corner of the screen just by dragging it off screeen). When you log into the desktop there is a text file which documents all the key presses for the different features.  XGL is still in beta so this is not the final version but its a good way to dip your toe in.

Its all eye-candy, but its schweeet..

As a side note you can also download a live cd version of Ubuntu to play with and test drive. Ubuntu is the linux os of choice at the moment so its worth a download. Again the Ubuntu live cd is only a CD image and you can grab it from here: http://www.ubuntu.com/

As much as i think this 3d desktop is the bees-knees i am totally lost in the linux universe.. I remember using unix and linux at University but i find myself at a loss whilst trying to navigate my way around linux. Is this enough for me to swap from the Microsoft camp? hmm, i dont think so, but what i am doing is setting up my second pc to run Ubuntu and see how i fair. I’ll report back after a month or so with how i get on.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6151118.stm

This article estiamtes that 70% of ALL internet traffic is through Peer2Peer sites

70%, I was shocked! then saying that 85% of my internet traffic is through peer2peer sites… Its illegal because "Someone has paid for the itellectual rights", I dont understand why the industry is so concerned, I doubt very much their viewing figures are being affected, the fact of the matter is, as with everything, they cant respond to customer demand(or won’t) so someone else will, if there is a gap in the market to give people what they want, someone will always fill it.

also without the likes if P2P networks the technology for file sharing would be years behing because the corporate scum are not developing this technology, they will just buy up someone else’s already running systems, point in case the Google aquisition of YouTube…

In other news…

I think I have reached new levels of Geekyness- I got invited to a LAN party last night on teamspeak…

 And, Check out this site :  http://www.geeklabel.com/index.php

BBC News are running a small photo series on people living in "alternative" housing.

this includes an Anarchist living in a squat, and an eco-warrior living in an "eco-roundhouse".

It makes for fascinating reading.  go check it out…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/06/in_pictures_life_in_a_squat/html/1.stm

Has anyone heard anything about these new hybrid hard disks.. Apparently they are normal hard disks which also have like 2gig of flash memory held on them which they use as a super-quick, fast-as-lightning cache.  Apparently it keeps all of your most popular hard disk sectors and files on it for quick access.  Its different than normal caches in that its a permenant cache.

With these new drives:

Loading the operating system becomes: instantanious
Loading most recently used games becomes: instantanious

and more importantly loading your porn collection becomes…… instantanious!!

Apparently the new Vista OS has also been developed to take full advantage of these drives. Oh, also whats very cool about this is that if you have got one of the newer USB drives you can also get these hard disks to recognise it and also use that as a perment cache too!!!!!!!