weblog June 29th, 2009
A month of xbox live for a dollar. That’s value I can’t refuse. You, however, may decide to refuse it when you find out that buying it gives MS the right to charge you for a year’s membership when the month ends unless you make a nice long call to a guy in India who can’t understand why on earth you’d want to cancel something so wonderful as an xbox live gold membership.
I also couldn’t refuse Guitar Hero 3 with a wireless guitar for $74. Possibly not the best course of action for someone trying to pay off a credit card, but I felt like the gods of Buying Day were smiling on me when I got home and found the Halo 3 theme free to download for GH3.
Posted by Andy Cocker to games, guitar hero, xbox live | No Comments »
weblog June 23rd, 2009
I’ve said before that I’m not sold on buying TV from Apple. Mostly because the DRM sucks, partly because of inconsistently offered season packs and generally being rather pricey.
But there’s two bright sparks on that not terribly enticing horizon now, and that’s The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, both now available in Australia for the first time digitally. I’ve been addicted to them ever since discovering them on free-to-air Canadian television, but suddenly I can actually get them legally without subscribing to Foxtel.
And the deal isn’t too shabby. $9.99 for 16 episodes (four weeks’ worth), which you pay up front and have downloaded for you automatically as they arrive. The DRM of course is still about and annoying (I mean, you can’t even burn them for god’s sake), but for more disposable shows like these, that’s not nearly as irritating to me.
And, I can watch them on my TV, because while I don’t have an Apple TV, I do have a MacBook Pro. Ahem.
Posted by Tom Charman to apple, itunes, jon stewart, macbook pro, stephen colbert, tv | 3 Comments »
weblog June 22nd, 2009
Wayne Swan, according to Mr. Turnbull has betrayed all Australians. Or something.
Listen to me Malcolm, none of us give a shit. Really. I cannot believe they suspended parliament for a whole day for this.
Ahem. Carbon Emissions Trading Scheme? Anyone?
iPhone 3G S upgrade details?
Posted by Jackson Kearney to politics | 2 Comments »
weblog June 21st, 2009
I’ve played two minutes of Red Faction: Guerrilla and I think I’m in love. Ever since playing UFO: Enemy Unknown I’ve longed for a physics-based fully destructible world to smash up. Buildings in UFO could be destroyed but parts of the building would be left hanging unsupported in mid-air. It tended to break the immersion.
But not this game. My first action in game was to walk up to a concrete wall and smash a hole in it with my hammer. Sweet, I think as the wall leans and falls on top of me, pinning me to the ground. This is going to be excellent.
Posted by Andy Cocker to games, Red Faction: Guerrilla, Xbox 360 | 5 Comments »
weblog June 9th, 2009
6:00 So, welcome to this live blog of another live blog of WWDC 2009! I’ve slept in a bit but that’s okay!
6:01 So wait a second – it’s over. This is bullshit. I calculated I had to wake up at five o’clock. Apple sucks. If they had announced their keynote time in GMT and not PDT then I would have had a chance.
6:02 Apple sucks more! Their server is too busy and I can’t get the iPhone 3.0 Gold Master seed before I get to work. On to the keynote I guess…
6:03 Firewire returns! That is definitely the reason I need to throw out my 10 month old unibody macbook and upgrade! I was one of those people that cracked the shits when I learned I could no longer use target disk mode.
I’ve given my credit cards to Marissa but I think she’ll understand when I explain to her it will be easier to troubleshoot my laptop in the event something goes wrong and I need to recover my data.
Easiest. Sell. To. Girlfriend. Ever.
What else — new battery, more RAM and… wait… what’s this? No express card slot?? WTF???!? OH MY GOD APPLE YOU HAVE DROPPED THE BALL! I WILL NEVER BUY AN APPLE PRODUCT AGAIN!!
6:04 For the record — I know I am not actually live blogging. It’s because it makes nasty markup. Actually it’s because I don’t know how to do it. Yes, I am a n00B.
6:56 I had breakfast and a shower. None of you really needed to know that, or even care. Tom is here trying to figure out what is in the new iPhone 3GS that he won’t get in his 3.0 update. He says — not much. I say — sexiness and new speed! Seriously — I love this free update for the iPhone thing. Best thing about owning one. Bring on Tethering!
What is it with apple launching stuff right between my upgrade cycle?
7:03 $14.95 upgrade for Leopard is sweet! So cheap it isn’t worth stealing.
7:05 Now I can remotely erase my iPhone in case it is stolen! Yeah! Total justification for MobileMe. What a glorious day. I feel vindicated. In your face Tom. And you said MobileMe was a waste of money.
7:10 So that is a wrap. I had more to say but I have to go to work, and this is long anyway. I thought of a killer joke in the shower but I’ve forgotten it now. I am shattered.
In summary — Apple sucks. How dare they update their macbook line after almost a year. You might think that is a good run for me to have a top end laptop, but not when you consider Tom has an iMac which has not had significant updates for years. I like the new iPhone but am pleased since I am not off contract for another 15 months we get most of the functionality anyway. Snow Leopard to not be $160 is awesome and looks really nice. I like any OS that makes my machine run faster. MobileMe still sucks at it’s price point.
7:24 What else? Oh, the iPhone 3.0 seed is downloading now. But I don’t think I’ll get it installed before I have to leave for work (in approximately 5 minutes). I should put on some clothes.
UPDATE I have noticed at one point I imply that Tom is in the same room as me and at the end I imply I have been naked since my shower. Neither of these inferences are true.
Posted by Jackson Kearney to apple, iphone, liveblog, macbooks | 2 Comments »
weblog June 7th, 2009
10:43:55 AM: One hour late. Good start. I wants me some food. And wine.
11:13:14 AM: I’m live blogging the good food and wine show by the way. If I ever get in. The queue is long.
11:26:44 AM: Tasty pies! Get out of my way fat people!
11:37:23 AM: This yellow pancake is a bit stringy. Ew! It’s a shammy! Uck.
11:48:07 AM: There’s a big penis on the wine show screen! This is filth!
12:26:50 PM: What evil genius invented Ginger wine?
12:35:40 PM: 2007 Woodhenge is yummy. Mmmmm.
1:25:14 PM: Roast potatoes in chip form: Thomas Chipman rosemary and thyme.
2:12:27 PM: Honey doughnuts > non-honey doughnuts.
2:54:01 PM: My feet hurt and I’m a little tipsy. Time to leave.
Posted by Tom Charman to food, liveblog, melbourne, wine | 1 Comment »
weblog June 1st, 2009
Here at atypicalreview, we’re putting ourselves on the line every weekend to find out which cafes in Melbourne you should be getting your breakfasts at. We’re just selfless and wonderful that way. We were going to review them but we were too busy being selfless and wonderful, so instead we’re making a map.
View Melbourne Breakfasts in a larger map
Much easier. If you’ve got a google account, you should be able to keep that in “My Maps” section, and refer to it next time you want to eat somewhere. If you want to add content yourself, just let me know.
Posted by Tom Charman to breakfast, food | 1 Comment »
weblog April 29th, 2009
When the dog bites, when the bee stings, I simply remember my favourite things. And recently, many of them have been joining together, presumably for extra “not feeling so bad” goodness. BioWare are making an iPhone Mass Effect game. Gillian Anderson might be appearing in Doctor Who. There’s a Tom Baker style costume available in Rock Band. The Cosmic Machine have made EventBox, which combines Twitter, Facebook, Google Reader and a few other things.
Also, the combination of me and a lack of swine flu is particularly gratifying.
Posted by Tom Charman to bioware, Doctor Who, games, iphone, rock band, software, tv | 2 Comments »
weblog April 26th, 2009
Coming from ‘band mode’ in Guitar Hero World Tour to Rock Band is like trading your ASUS Eee PC for a MacBook Air. Let me count the ways. Spoiler alert: there are five.
The band you are in does not change depending on the band leader. You have a specific band which you choose from a list.
Being in a band is more meaningful than some different words on banners in the animated backdrops. You have fans, you have vehicles, you earn your money together, you unlock things specific to your band.
Downloaded songs turn up while you’re playing sets in band mode (and probably, solo mode, I just can’t verify that yet). Compare and contrast to the Guitar Hero World Tour method, where they languish in the background, only available in custom sets.
The interface: it’s prettier, which is subjective, and faster, which is not. Much quicker load times and such.
The songs. This is key really. There’s a far better selection of music. I guess this is subjective too, but let’s put it simply: Rock Band has Radiohead and GHWT does not. Or, if we compare band-specific releases, Rock Band has the fricking Beatles and Guitar Hero has Aerosmith.
And now, one way in which Guitar Hero World Tour kicks Rock Band’s arse:
- Hitting the hi-hat and cymbal at the same time is a more satisfying way to activate star-energy-power-thing than waiting for specific phrases to turn up.
Posted by Tom Charman to five things, games, guitar hero, rock band | No Comments »
weblog April 6th, 2009
I don’t normally post about things like this, but as it’s swallowed an hour of my night, I thought I may as well share it with the world. This post is only interesting if you:
Alright, so now that I’ve narrowed my audience to something near zero…
One of the cleverest things about Arronax’s themes is the way they grab ugly extension toolbar icons and wrap them in a nice button. For example, the big ugly delicious.com tag gets put in a square icon like so:
But that wasn’t enough for me. I’ve seen much nicer tags elsewhere. So took a picture of one and made the toolbar look like this instead:
You like? Here’s how you do it. First, grab this image and put into your Firefox profile’s chrome folder. That’s something like this:
~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/[SOME RANDOM GUFF]/chrome
Then, edit a file called userChrome.css in that folder in whatever text editor you have to hand (there may only be a file called userChrome-example.css there — if so, rename it, then edit it). Put in the following CSS:
toolbar[iconsize="small"] #del-button-tagPage {
list-style-image: url(delicious-icon.png) !important;
}
Then, quit Firefox, relaunch it, and make sure you customise the toolbar and select the “Use small icons” checkbox. Ta da! It’s not at all perfect but I’m no expert at this. I’d like it to be slightly bigger, but as it stands I can’t be bothered. We now return you to your irregularly scheduled reviews.
Posted by Tom Charman to browsers, firefox | No Comments »
