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 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.
August 20th 2006
Blogging, Life, Misc., News
It’s only 3 days until the day that probably won’t change a lot in most people’s lives. This Thursday, the 24th August, is GCSE results day and I’m sure everyone is looking forward to it. Last Thursday, A-Level students received their results and I wished the ones I knew good luck. I know most people recieved what they were hoping for.
What does this Thursday mean for me? Well, it means I can decide whether or not certain revision techniques worked and also, what I need to do for my A-Level exams. After this Thursday, it’s less than a week until we go back to school as 6th formers. Personally, I can’t wait to start the new courses - although, as most people, I wish the holiday would last just that little bit longer.
On a side note, I’ve noticed that most of the blogs I read don’t really contain posts about their authors. This is especially true for my blog. I don’t really talk about myself, and anything pertaining to my life is usually in rant form, or quite vague. I’m not a confident person and I don’t go out of my way to be in the spotlight, in fact I usually take steps to stay out of the spotlight. I think there was only one time where I was confident and in the spotlight. This was when I gave and co-hosted a talk about time travel for an English presentation with a friend. Whether this was because it’s a subject I enjoy, I don’t know, but that’s the only time I can remember. I don’t talk much about myself because I consider this a professional blog - although the archives from Blogspot may contradict this statement :P.
Oh, and I’ve finished a Wordpress theme for my good friends, and Aaron, at Soberdrunk. Check out their re-designed site and the music area - there’s more to come in the approaching months.
August 14th 2006
Life, Misc., News
Today, NASA have announced that they’re going to announce the first detection of dark matter. If this is true, and they’ve separated and detected dark matter from normal matter, it has huge implications on current theories - if this is the case. I really do hope they’ve actually detected it directly and not indirectly.
Because the announcement is to be made by astronomers who used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, it probably means dark matter hasn’t been detected on Earth in a collider or some sort of facility, but in space.
The press release can be found here on NASA’s site. They’re holding a press conference at 1pm EDT (6pm BST) on Monday 21st August.
I’m not sure whether this has any implications for string theory or not.
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