September 15th 2006
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Gaming, Life, Misc., News, Technology
Update #5: GAME are now accepting pre-orders, but only if you want to shed £220 and upwards on a bundle.
Update #4: PC World is now accepting pre-orders for the Wii!
Update #3: The Wii is not going to be region-free. Damnit Nintendo, you’re making it hard for me to defend you!
Update #2: Gamestation are accepting pre-orders for the Wii via their highstreet stores!
Update #1: Play.com is now accepting pre-orders for the Wii!
Nintendo Wii
Earlier today, Nintendo announced the price and date that we can get our mittens on the Wii, and it’s not a pleasant deal. If what happened with the Xbox 360 here in the UK is anything to go by, I do hope Nintendo have thought this through - I only got my Xbox 360 in January after phoning round all the GAME, Gamestation, Argos and Tesco stores in my county!
The price will be £179.99 (€249.99). This annoys me. If we convert this to dollars, it comes out as about $337 dollars - $80 more than their paying. We’re paying an extra £43 and we’re getting it as close to Christmas as they could get it. We’re also paying about £5 more for games than the Americans are. Damn economies.
The date will be 8th December in Europe - after Australia get it. I’ve commented on some of the Engadget posts that a company needs to do a worldwide simultaneous launch, just for once. Even if people have to wait, the response would be amazing and they wouldn’t have people like me whining like I am right now. So, mark it in your diaries and start looking for pre-order links. I’m signed up to recieve updates from most major retailers and PC World is going to annouce their pre-order date soon (although I’d trust Argos because they have a very good reputation during the Xbox 360 fiasco in December/January last year).
The European console bundle will include a white Wii console, one Wii remote, one Nunchuck and Wii Sports. The browser will be at extra cost, hopefully at around £5.
Other Wii News
The other day it was announced that the Wii has lost its support for DVD playback. To be honest, I’m pleased. In my bedroom I have 5 DVD players and feel that the drop in price that has occured due to this loss is worth it. I mean, if you haven’t got a DVD player, go down to your local Argos and pick up one for less than £30! Also, it seems that the Wii will accept USB sticks as a storage media which looks good. This as well as SD cards.
Also, news that Wii games are region-free is joyus news. Personally, I’d rather import some games from America and get them cheaper. This is one of the only good things Nintendo have told us this week.
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September 13th 2006
Blogging, Life, Misc.
So, we’ve now explored the New World and mined all the resources it has to offer. If you didn’t get that, it means we’ve been experiencing 6th Form for a week now and experienced all the classes and met all the teachers. I’m liking it and, although the Applied ICT course isn’t really what I wanted to explore, I think the rest of the subjects look very interesting and I think I’ll enjoy them for the next two years.
I’ve been watching a lot of Family Guy and American Dad lately and I have to say that they’re the funniest shows on television. Family Guy especially has had me in tears a number of times and I suggest you go around YouTube and MetaCafe looking for clips - it’s well worth it.
So, I’ve now applied to Tesco, BP, Robert Dyas, Woolworths, Argos and the local corner shop - but all to no avail. I’ve been told whether I’ve actually got a job by just 3 or the six places, which I feel is just slightly rude. But there you go. I also got confirmation today of my speculative application to RM. I phoned a person in charge after they sent me an e-mail and they took my current details and confirmed they’ll keep me on record until after I finish 6th Form. So, my future is starting to maybe take shape.
There, that’s your update.
September 5th 2006
Blogging, Misc.
Sixth form has started, we’ve been both officially and unoficially inducted and we got our timetables and met out tutors. As other people have been doing it, I’ll post my timetable in a more readable format that the one we recieved. My thanks to James Baker for his timetable generation code - although, I chose Google in the end!
September 1st 2006
Blogging, Misc., News, Programming, Technology
With the news that the Windows Vista RC1 build has been released to select testers I thought it time to update my blog and provide you with my Windows Vista pre-RC1 build thoughts.
Because a friend had my Beta 2 install disk, I decided to go ahead and download and burn the pre-RC1 build. After a few attempts to download the .iso, and even after resorting to Opera, I burned the disk and started the install into the partition I had made a week earlier for Vista. The install was far better both graphically and time wise because it installed in less than an hour and seemed a generally better experience. Once installed the first thing I made myself do was sort out the boot manager and change the default boot to my Windows XP partition. This was done by booting with the pre-RC1 install disk and opening up a command console and using the bcdedit.exe and /default {ntldr} arguments after it - simple, and saves a lot of hassle in the long run. Reboot into Vista.
As usual, I went to the nvidia website where I downloaded my display drivers for Vista. Although the drivers were built for use with the Beta 2 build, I decided to try anyway. While the drivers were downloading, I set a restore point - this came in very handy. I installed the drivers and rebooted. Vista hung after boot on a blank screen. Using the pre-RC1 install disk again, I restored Vista to the restore point before the drivers were installed and went searching for answers. My search yielded the news that nvidia hadn’t updated their drivers for use with any other build except Beta 2 - ATI is starting to look appealing as their drivers work with the pre-RC1 build. So, I’m stuck with no OpenGL support and limited graphics capability.
I noted several changes to the user interface of Vista pre-RC1, like with Windows Update and Welcome Center, and also noted that the window switcher thing (where you can scroll through open applications in a sort of 3D environment) has also changed - can anyone verify this? The Vista experience is very nice and although it’s just able to run with my limited amount of RAM (3/4 of a GB), non-overclockable Pentium 4 3.06GHz processor and dusty GeForce FX 5200, it’s fun to use and as I’ve said before, the native applications such as Windows Media Player 11 (oh, Beta 2 of this has also been released) and Internet Explorer (blimey, RC1 has been released!) are very nice, although Internet Explorer seems slightly laggy on things such as hover effects and scrolling - though this may just be my hardware.
So, with people like me able to get their hands on a copy of RC1 in a few weeks, there will be loads more reviews about it. You’ll most likely get sick to death reading about it, but with the Beta 2 and pre-RC1 builds expiring in June 2007, you’ve got a free operating system (and 6 months for someone to find a hack other than changing your clock back a few years to keep it).
Update: nvidia have updated their Windows Vista drivers to work with RC1 and they work better on the pre-RC1 build. Although, I’ve tried playing Flight Simulator X and it just gave me a blank screen.
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