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Today I managed to stumble upon a game that I wanted to get for ages. I was wondering around Wimbledon (looking for clothes) when I managed to stumble upon Animal Crossing: Wild World, on the Nintendo DS for only £24.95 at Hmv. Usually they’d be charging £30 or more for games like these but strangely the games were now £25 each. I previously had this sort of deal before… and to be fair, I’ve had it twice, well three times haha.
First time was during the crazy Game.co.uk promotion who were doing Nintendo deals at ridiculously low prices. DS Lites were on sale for £50 that time, however due to the fact that I already have a yummy white DS Lite, i wasnt too keen on buying it then (was trying to get one for B but failed to anyway due to IBM’s lack of superfast internal internet speed). Anyway, that was where Animal Crossing was on sale for £20. I tried so hard to buy it but the others simply beat me to it. If i had took a day off work, I would have came victorious with 3 or 4 DS Lites as well as Animal Crossing haha.
So anyway, that was the first time I managed to let Animal Crossing slip, the second time involved me receiving a £5 play.com voucher, this was from a Daily Star promotion but was limited to the first 5000, the rest will be issued with £1 discounts (not even worth using haha). So yeah, entered…bam, too late haha. So there goes another £20 Animal Crossing deal I couldnt get, this time I blame on the fact that I didnt check “MoneySavingExperts” as often as I should. They usually do some awesome deals and all there.
Anyway, the THIRD encounter involved me walking into a Game store and finding out that Animal Crossing was only £25, however this was only on some boxes, I thought if I used my 10% student discount I would get the game to only £22.50 which was more or less the kind of price I would buy the game for (yes, its £2.50 less, but it makes me feel better that I saved £2.50 by waiting long enough haha). So anyway, I went up to the manager guy and asked if he accepts student discounts, was quite shocked to hear that he was totally fine with it (most people are unaware that you can use student discounts at game, so long you have your game card with you). So anyway, he scanned the game in and BAM… I’m sure most of you know what happens now (no he doesnt get hit by a truck, we’re in a Game store right now haha). Turns out the prices were put back up again! Which meant that for some random period they WERE £25 but later on they were risen back up. Which means I could only get it for £27 (and its only £25 online). So yet again another unsuccessful purchase.
This time I came out victorious though mwahaha, here is a lovely photo of the game, behind some of my Studio Ghibli DVDs ehehe. I’m already addicted to the game haha.
Will write a nice and long review after having a nice and long play with it for a few days
Hello
We hope that you are enjoying being back at University.We are writing to keep you updated of the current situation at IBM. We are still awaiting confirmation of some of the graduate roles that will be available for 2007. We anticipate that we will have some more news for you in the next few weeks.
Once we have confirmed the roles for 2007, we will write to you with full details and ask you to choose a vacancy that you would like to apply to. We will then transfer your application to that vacancy (so you will not need to make a new application). You will not be required to retake your IPATO test. You will then be invited to attend a first round selection day in the New Year.
In the meantime, if your situation personal details change, please email [email protected] and we will update our system. If you no longer wish to apply for a graduate role within IBM, please e-mail [email protected] and we will withdraw your application.
We look forward to bringing you some news of the opportunities in IBM and thank you for your continued interest and patience.
Kind regards,
IBM Graduate Selection Team
I think I’ll goto the interview, might even consider moving out if I get a job outside London. Perhaps start a new life or something I guess.
Think my motherboard and cpu has reached a new low in terms of temperature. This time I cannot blame it on my superior cooling techniques but simply due to the fact that it’s FREEZING cold (3 degrees C (and it’s still shown as “Sunny”)) . Temperatures are as low as 12 degrees on the motherboard and 22 degrees on the CPU.
This can easily be warmed up with a bit of counter strike source hehe, but hopefully I wont be doing much of this. Got to finish my project prototype.
Damn boiler people still havent come round to sort us out a new boiler, no hot water and heating for 4-5 weeks haha.
MacOS X Leopard - The main reason why you shouldnt buy a Mac (yet)
29 Oct
I’ve seen a huge rise in the demand of buying macs, but when the next OSX is coming out in 2007 Spring, why are people still buying them? For instance, the new Mac Book Pro Intel Duo 2 was released and all I keep hearing is people wanting to buy it, though people aren’t really seeing the full picture when they’re handing over £1000+ worth of their money for a laptop that won’t use the next version OS to the max.
It’s just like the time when I opted to buy a PC motherboard with an AGP slot knowing FULL well, that PCI Express was going to be the next thing that hits us. Oh how I still regret the day when I thought “sod it, might save me a few pounds”. The point is simply “why wait when an upgrade is heading our way anyway?”. I know this statement can be said for anything, Apple Macs WILL be improving most of the time but such things are made with a cost for the consumers, and as we are aware that one will be planned soon, its definitely best to wait. Its like “Thank you for spending £1000, our next Operating system is out in a few months so be prepared to spend £100 more”. Not that you “HAVE” to buy it though.
Another reason to wait for Leopard is simply based on the fact that Apple will most likely upgrade all their Macs so that they can truly appreciate MacOS X Leopard. Perhaps the Mac Minis and MacBooks will eventually get their Duo Core 2 boosts, perhaps they’ll up the graphics card all round to make sure they’re fully capable of running all the new effects Leopard might have. I would predict that the WHOLE product line will definitely undergo at least on further update in order to make sure they run on Leopard smoothly.
It is always a wise thing to wait when it comes to purchasing products, only buying it when its truely needed (or when its dirt cheap haha). We are aware that you can get a computer with twice the specs in 18 months time which is why its vital to always pick the right moment to purchase your hardware, and one a time like it this, when a new operating system is coming into play, it is wise for us to simply hold our horses and wait for the new software to come out before we spend our hard earned cash on something that will prove limiting in the future (i.e “Oh your operating system is old, please purchase a new one”).
So to conclude, save up your money, and wait like a Ninja, the time will come when you’ll come out victorious (until another new technology comes out)
Ok, hopefully the LAST blog pimping up session for a long time. It’s definitely distracting me from doing other stuff haha. Anyway, I managed to update the theme a little bit more, features now include:
- New subtitle bit at the top, had to shave the header padding a bit more to compensate the subtitle.
- Dates are now shown on the right of each post via the calender type thing. This makes more room for category and meta bits under the header
- Changed the header a bit, didnt like the rounded edge thing so I changed it to a normal heading, juiced up the size a bit too
- Used a bit more of the random text plugin, some very subtle ones though, I’m sure you can find them quite easily.
Woohoo! Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft is finally released and ready for downloading!
For those who aren’t aware of what Ubuntu is, it’s a Open Source Linux Distribution. To further break that down into something more understandable, it is a free open source operating system like Windows XP or Mac OSX. Ubuntu is one of the most popular linux distributions out of the lot and pose to become more popular then Max OSx and Windows (check this out).
One of the things I was most looking forward in getting was Beryl and Aiglx. These are eye candy apps which make the desktop system much more pretty and fun to work with haha. Previously, there was something known as XGL which replaced the current Desktop system, this proved to be slightly dangerous due to the fact that things can ever so easily screw up. Aiglx provides a more safer alternative as it’s simply an extension to the desktop system. You can easily fallback to the original system if Aiglx fails. Beryl is simply the thing that controls Aiglx. Or something, read it up ahaha.
So yeah, managed to get Ubuntu installed as well as Beryl and Aiglx so immediately I went straight at customising the desktop so it looks like Mac OSX (since I want to get one haha). The results are amazing
Thats me running a few apps including Open Office: Writer, Gaim (messaging client), and some other odd stuff.
The eyecandy stuff run very smoothly on my shabby laptop (thought the graphics card would crap out). Which means I can easily use all of this when doing my regular things. Though if i didnt want to have all the eyecandy installed I can simply not run them.
Of course, the above just details the flashier side of Ubuntu’s latest release, there are many other features that have been improved, including:
- Tomboy, an easy-to-use and efficient note-taking tool
- F-Spot, a photo management tool that enables tagging, photo editing and automatic uploading to on-line web management sites such as Flickr
- GNOME 2.16, which in addition to new features such as enhanced power management, makes the GNOME desktop more secure, faster and more stable
- Upstart, a replacement start-up manager offering a cleaner design, eye-catching effects and a substantially faster boot time
- The latest Firefox web browser, which offers inline spell check support in web forms, easy recovery of crashed sessions, built-in phishing detectors, enhanced search engine management with built in OpenSearch support, and better support for previewing and subscribing to web feeds
- Proactive security features, preventing many common security vulnerabilities even before they are discovered
- Evolution 2.8.0, which brings new features such as vertical message panes
Here’s a video of it all in action after installing Beryl
So yeah, if you’re into the whole open source scene, Ubuntu is definitely worth getting and all.
Made quite alot of updates to the blog. Some of them include:
- Managed to add some hatching effect on the top menu, slightly more web2.0 haha (i feel like i’m abusing the visual styles used in web2.0 quite alot these days)
- I really like the styles used for typo (a ruby on rails blogging software). Simple stuff like softer body text (using #666 instead of the obvious #000 or even #333) and the font being verdana helps quite alot in making the site more easier to read. I’m considering making my own skin in wordpress, it looks fun.
- I’ve applied a random text plugin which allows me to shove in the occasional random bit of text for fun, one I’m using atm is the list of words you say when you reply, it can vary from x wrote this to x said that.
- I’ve provided more contact methods to be used for contacting me, the email address will be forward to me instead of using my actual one just to make changing emails alot easier (spam and all)
- I’ve pimped up my about page , it includes a photo of me, as well as some more stuff about me
- Very subtle thing, but I’ve increased the font size of the headings on the sidebar
- Adding a bit of padding to the header thing
- Now I have a left and right class on my css, this means I can use it to float images to the left or right. Pretty useful.
- Added some extra images to jazz the site up a bit, you can see them below
You can find the above on the to do list page and the contact page 
For my next blog update, I think I’ll be redesigning the theme myself, might publish it and all too!
Tonight I managed to do some power coding for Musecast, was hoping to get it ready to show Jonathan Briggs after his ecommerce lecture.
The following changes included:
Improved the tags section
The tag section now includes a view tag page where you can view the tag and see where it’s been used. This tagging system is used alot in many web2.0 applications (including this blog) and provides users with a unique way of finding articles by tags rather then by a search engine, it’s almost like GIVING you the search terms rather then making you search it yourself
As well as a view tags php, I also managed to implement a quick tag cloud kind of style for the tags page, all that’s been done is that the query used to draw the tags include the number of times they’ve been used (via the tag links table) which means you can use that as a variable for deciding the size of the font. For now, the algorithm used is number of times used x 10 and the font size will be that (in pt units). I’ll definitely need to calculate a mean average for the tags and use that to generate a few steps of sizes (rather then a big bunch of steps). This shouldn’t be hard at all but I felt like doing other stuff before I got to keying in the algorithms, as well as that I might also include the font colour as another tag cloud factor (like my blog) This one is slightly tedious but still doable
Created the song section
Amazingly enough this was probably the easiest task I did. The songs section was used to tag songs into podcasts, this is so users can find out songs used for it and perhaps make it so each page includes a bit more detail about the song (havent looked into that one yet). The good thing about the songs section was the fact that it was almost identical to the tagging system, it was simply a tag, but with song titles. Though I did consider merging them together. It’s probably better to keep them separate in case I want to add additional fields for the songs section.
Implemented a “Feeds” section
This is where I really get into the xml/rss stuff. This section involved configuring the site to include feeds from other site, all you had to do was enter a url and it will instantly generate a page that includes the items inside the feed. I used a little small app called lastRss.php which allowed me to save time in coding the rss parsing, the api system was pretty neat so it was easy to implement what I needed, though I need to look into a bit more so I can see how I can further use it.
The limit field is probably the bit where I would actually need to look into the lastrss php a bit more, I would like to make it possible for the user to simply limit the feed to a certain amount of items, hopefully that can be done quite easily (should be done via the number of tags.
Quick podcast RSS feed
Managed to quickly knock off an RSS feed for the podcast, this used the fields on the podcast to generate most of the information, I’ve already done stuff like this before so now it’s definitely come in handly, will be using the w3c rss validator to ensure that i’ve got everything I need, not only that, I will probably need to use the podcasting standard too to ensure that it’s a valid podcast feed.
Another thing I will look into is getting feedburner to parse the feed, this tool will prove very useful for my client as he will be able to view all the subscribers to the feed. This tool has been used on most of the big sites such as Neowin which was where I initially found it
