Anyone with an XBox 360 or PS3 not played this yet? If not why not? OK, so maybe I’m being a little pushy in pushing my opinions on people, but I’ve loved the GTA games ever since playing the original ones on an old mac running Virtual PC (Yes, I’m a mac head).
But what is it about these games that keeps me coming back? I’ll be honest with you here. GTA 3, in my opinion, was the best of the GTA 3 series. There was something about it that was so good, and something that Vice City and San Andreas never managed to capture. There was something about this living, breathing city that is Liberty City. You could drive any car, do pretty much anything and the city was laid out in a fun way. The ones since have been bigger, with more to do, but somehow, they never captured that magazine.
And with GTA IV, I think Rockstar Games may have re-captured that original magic! Why? Liberty City is once again resurrected, but this time it’s got a lot more depth, a life of it own and feels like it might actually be based on something real! Cruising the streets, there’s people wandering the streets, and cars driving by, But now the people mingle and react to one another and you. Car drivers go about their business and crash into each other occasionally and apologise. There’s a real feeling of purpose and history to this place!
Liberty City feels like it’s been around for a long time and grown to what it is now. Some neighbourhoods are run down with graffiti and burnt out cars, with only a few cops to guard the streets. Other areas are very affluent, with nice modern cars, cobbled streets and lots of protection. There’s industry that might actually support the residents of the city. And the story covers a range of topics, letting you into bits of the city, and give you a hint at what’s happened to them over the years.
Weather is prominent too. On a sunny day, the streets are dry and cars handle well. Then the heavens open and cars start slipping and sliding, and - this is a simple but impressive touch - the people get their umbrellas out and put raincoats on. It’s such a little touch, but it really makes a difference. And one thing that impressed me no more was a thunderstorm! A thunderstorm that feels real! A crack of lighting illuminates the screen casting some amazing shadows, then the thunder comes making the controller rattle as if you were in the game with the character. I’m struggling to do how impressive this looks and feels but trust me, you’ll know it when you see it!
Then you move onto the vehicles. Lots of vehicles! And every one of them feels unique! That’s no mean feat. Jump in an American Hot Rod and your good for high speed in a straight line, but try to corner and you’ll struggle as the suspension wallows. Drive a big 4 x 4 and nothing gets in your way, but it’s a little slow but you can real feel the power. Jump in a sports car and it’ll weave through traffic. Fancy driving a lorry? Their slow, but somehow so much fun! And bikes… Well, they’re a struggle I find, but I’m sure some people love them.
Performing on foot has been improved immensely! I used to struggle with the old controls, but now it feels almost as good as Halo (nothing’s beaten that yet though). And the targeting system is improved through the simple act of letting you lock on fully (trigger depressed fully) or part-depress it, and you get free aim. It’s a simple thing but works so well! And combine that with the new duck and cover button, and you can’t go wrong.
What else can they do to improve the experience? Well… There’s the new physics engine that brings everything to life - knock the garbage bins over and they roll along and down hills. The graphics are a lot more comic book like - gone are the old simple textures of the old one. And the character animation is amazing! Some of the details you almost don’t notice, but crash your car and anyone in the car lurches. Corner too fast and their head rolls to the side. Jump out of a moving vehicle and your character - Nico - rolls along the street just like the movies.
Any faults? Well, sadly yes. Cover gets a little confused at times, but that I think is something very hard to get right. Even Gears of War got it wrong occasionally, and that’s an amazing game for the duck and cover idea! And being in Australia - and this is really upsetting - the game is censored. Come on Australia, WAKE UP!!! There’s no rating above 15 here, so the language has to be toned down. One example being how Nico thinks that Michelle is a “really good listener”, after he’s “Talk to me! Talk to me” in a rather enthusiastic way. It’s a little sad really.
But, that’s it. That game is simply amazing and damn near perfect in my eyes! The one thing that I’m concerned about is what happens when I’ve completed it… Just have to try and complete the myriad of micro-tasks within the game.
If you don’t have it, get it now!!! Why are you still reading… Get down the shops and buy it now!
So, this is the 2nd year I’ve been in Australia for Anzac day, and this year, I decided to do it properly. For those that don’t know about ANZAC day, I suggest you read the article on Wikipedia. In summary, it was the first major military action in the first world war by the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps, and this day celebrates the pride of these countries in this corp. It’s celebrated all over the country, and the services start as early as 4am.
One of the games that was invented by them was 2-up and the only day you can legally play it in Australia is on Anzac day. The principal behind it is to flip 3 coins off a wooden paddle, and whichever 2 sides match is the winner, hence “two-up“. There are some rules though: You have to get a good flip on the coins - if they don’t spin enough when you through them up, it’s a no-throw. Likewise, they have to get a good height - but not too high or hit the ceiling. And on hitting the ground, they have to all stay with the defined boundaries.
Now that sounds pretty dull in essence, but it’s a actually a blast! The reason being that you bet other people in the audience, and everyone - I mean everyone - gets involved. You can shout out a bet of say $10 on heads, and someone will say I’ll call you tails. The person who calls heads looks after the bet until the result is known. Then if they win, they keep it, and if they lose - tails - they give the money to the other person. You’d think people would try to cheat the system, but they don’t. The spirit is absolutely amazing! Everybody has great fun and chats and laughs and you just can’t imagine how much fun it is. It’s just a shame that it only happens once a year.
We spent an impressive 5 hours in the Woolloomooloo Bay Hotel that afternoon, but not playing that all day. All in all it was a great day, and next year I’ll make sure I’m up for the dawn service.
So I now live in Sydney. I’m originally from Essex in England, so I’m used to fairly cold weather. Went winter rolled in, the jumpers and jackets would roll out. After all, the great North-South divide declares us as Southern Softies.
But, “Up North” - you have to say that with your best Geordie accent - it’s a different story. My friend is from Newcastle and we have the running joke’s about the differences between the North and South of England. And today, as the temperature drops to the point where I’m considering wearing a jumper - yes, it does get cold in Sydney despite the myths - I was reminded of a classic joke… The Geordie Thermometer.
It’s so true. I’ve never been up there, but I have friends from there, and they just don’t seem to feel the chill. It’s a strange thing. And that joke cracks me up every time!
One thing it has made me realise is that I really want to go there! I can’t believe I’ve never been. I went to Uni in the Midlands, and Newcastle’s not that far from it.
And yes, I just mentioned it. I actually have a selection of Winter clothes here in preparation for the Sydney Winter. It last for around 2 months, but thankfully doesn’t get as cold as home - gloves are not needed. But one thing I do wish is that they didn’t make manhole covers out of the slipperiest material known to man! I’m serious. The other day, it rained, and you can see all of Sydney’s working population carefully avoiding them like some kind of hop-scotch game. Those fool hardy enough to venture onto them, usually ended up doing some kind of impromptu dance routine with all the coordination of burning confetti in a tornado!
But, I do kind of like the rain. Reminds me a little of home. It’s rarely the same kind of drizzle you get in London - which is a good thing - but it is kind of comforting to know there are similarities with Sydney. Roll on deepest Winter… I’ve got my jacket ready.
I love reading about what’s happening and as a result, have subscribed to a lot of RSS Feeds. Be it about Web Development, or around the World News. Some are focused on SEO, some on marketing. There’s ones that are fun such as Dilbert. Several about one of my passions, cars and photography.
But, I have far too many. I’ve recently swapped over to NewsGator’s tools for both mac and PC, and one of them has a curious feature, and one I’ve found myself using far too much. A “Panic Button“. What does it do? Well, when you have too many unread articles, it offers to go through and mark anything that is more than 48hrs old, and unread as read.
It sounds like a trivial thing, but it made me realise that I’d accumulated so many feeds over the years that I rally needed to do some house cleaning. I think in doing that, I’ve probably removed about half the sites I was subscribed to.
Am I sad about doing that? Not really. I think in the long run, the feeds I have left are much more focused, and given time, I’ll probably thin them out a little more.
If, like me, you find you have too many to read, do this little exercise and I think you’ll feel much better about yourself - and be able to find much more time to read them.
In a future blog I’ll be outlining some of my 10 favourite RSS Feeds and why I think they are som
I’m relatively new to using Wordpress to completely manage my site, but I have found a few plugins of particular use in getting my site to a point where I feel it is really usable and enjoyable for everyone that visits. In this blog, you’ll find the 5 I’ve found most useful to help me do that. I have more but they’re for a different purpose and a different blog.
Flexi Pages Widget
If like me you’re using Wordpress as a CMS (Content Management System) to manage other pages about you, then you’ll quickly come to realise the standard side menu doesn’t work so well because it shows everything all the time. The plug in gives you a large degree of customisation, allowing you to make your menu behave like the one on my site, with everything collapsed until you go into that section.
NextGEN Gallery
I love taking photos, and have explored a few options in this area. There’s several that integrate with services such as flickr, and one that works off you Facebook account. But none of them were quite what I was after. The NextGEN gallery allows you to manage galleries within your site’s folders rather than using a 3rd party. I find this approach more appealing as it means my site is almost completely self contained.
Redirection
The site you’re looking at used to be www.gregorybrine.com. That had a lot of links, and folders within it, each with a pagerank and some valuable traffic. You can do a simple URL re-pointing, but you risk loosing this traffic. Instead, you should do a 301 redirect for all key URLs on your site. This plugin has allowed me to control all traffic to the new www.gregory-brine.com URL, as well as some some of my original URLs that were valuable but of no use in the current site such as my old Personal Blog and Travel Around the World URL - thanks to Cheb for pointing me to this one.
WordPress.com Stats
It’s always good to know how much traffic your blog is getting, and this tool allows you to get some basic information back about who’s reading what on your site, and where they are coming from.
Google XML Sitemaps
You’ve gone to all the effort of writing fresh content for your site, and the pinging service within Wordpress goes a long way to spreading the word, but a Google sitemap takes it one step further, which is especially useful for those using the CMS features of Wordpress.
I’ve been a bit late on watching this. I read the summaries, but didn’t watch the presentation. So, what was I missing?
It turns out a great deal! Now I know the iPhone can do a lot already thanks to Apple’s work and 3rd party developers, but what they showed off in that presentation makes you realise how much it’s capable of!
First off, the new business features are kick-ass and will really make it a phone for business users. The new Cisco VPN is something I’m very keen on as most of our clients use Cisco equipement. But the Exchange server stuff was really something else, especially given as it’s new software from Microsoft. It looks like Apple’s gone and integrated the Exchange software better than anyone else has been able to.
But then when Scott Forstall came on and started talking about the APIs built into the iPhone, you suddenly realise that Apple’s been holding back! It’s got full 3D technology built in yet nothing uses it yet. The accelerometer is 3 dimensional - and incredibly sensitive, install Labyrinth and you’ll see how sensitive!
Demonstrations by EA Games and Sega showed game controlled by tilting the iPhone, and the control and graphics were so clear and so precise. And with major game developers like these developing for the phone, things can only get better.
The business applications will also turn the iPhone into more than just a toy. It will become a tool for businesses. The CRM software shown by salesforce.com opens up a host of opportunities. Imagine the possibilities… That piece of software worked so seamlessly, and was so easy to make, how long will it be until we see other main stream tools coming to the platform?
I think it’s an exciting time to own an iPhone, and it’s only going to get better!
I had to write this. I’ve been working in Melbourne today, and so got a late flight back. This in itself is nothing special, but at that time of day, the planes head to the North of Sydney, and then fly back West of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. What this means is that you get a simple amazing view of Sydney, made even more impressive by the building and bridge lights.
It started flying over Epping - yes, there’s a suburb of Sydney called Epping, but it’s not quite the same as Epping in Essex, although that is the origin of the name - past St Leonards, and North Sydney. Then you see the bridge and the harbour open up, before seeing the towers of the city, all lit brightly against the dark night. The Sky Tower a pin-prick of building surround by these great monoliths of steel, concrete and light. The only thing I couldn’t see was the Opera House - although that may have been caused by the distraction of everything else.
The only thing I can compare it to was flying down the River Thames late at night passing over the whole of London. Going to have to book more late flights - but perhaps not on a Friday night as it wreaks havoc on your social life!
I’ve been thinking about it for a while. It’s been weighing heavily on me. I was one of those people lucky enough to have been at the original Macworld show in London when Apple unveiled the original 5gb iPod, and I was instantly hooked. There was something about the way it looked, the way it sounded, and how easy it was to use. I just couldn’t resist buying an iPhone. I’m just surprised it was so low-ley event.
But anyway, the iPhone. What can I say that hasn’t already been said? Nothing really. Everyone’s talked about how easy to use they are. How intuitive the interface is. What a joy it is to use, and it’s problems. Well, I hate to sound boring, but I’ve come to the same conclusion.
It does have some problems. Like I can no longer type a text message while I walk - nothing major, just takes me 30 seconds of standing still. There’s the fact that the headphone socket is recessed so you can only use Apple headphones - got an adaptor for that. The polished good looks that you’re worried will get scratched - got a case. The GPRS was slow, did a bit of reading and found that Vodafone have 2 networks - one’s fast! And I did manage to get it to crash once - hold down 2 buttons and it restarts just fine. But that’s it really. Nothing else really lets it down.
So, the good stuff… Well, the most obvious thing is the interface. There’s just not enough you can say about it. Everything just flows. The way if you flick your finger list keep going, but if you slide it, the list stays with your finger. Each touch somehow does what you expect. A flick side-to-side takes you through the applications. Browse a web page, use two fingers, spread them and the page zooms in. Feels like that seen in Minority Report.
Then you start using the applications - all through touch. They all have that brilliant Apple simplicity. Your SMS’ keep track of each other - well near enough - like a conversation in iChat. The keyboard is very good, and even with my fat fingers, it manages to correct most mistyped words, but does miss some. Just slide your finger back over the text and a magnifying glass appears showing you which point in the text you’re over. Easy.
Emails, calls, you name it, all easy. OK, so I did like the feature on my Nokia where I could start typing a name and it would move to that point in the list, but I’m getting better at the flick and the jump to feature. Call reception is excellent, and I can now make calls anywhere in the flat now.
Wifi works well - although I did have to reconfigure my Wireless network to get it to work at home. Now it’s setup, it works perfectly at home. And now I have a network sniffer on it, I can pretty much get fast access anywhere. But now, after a little reading, I now have faster GPRS too - fast enough for Google maps. On that note, it shouldn’t but does work most of the time, and can tell you where you are - although sometimes only to within 100m, but better than nothing!
Oh, and it has the iPod functionality. That works as well as iPods always have. Only this time I get full screen video. Videos off the web play perfectly - not looked into playing other formats yet. And as everyone knows, when you turn the iPhone on it’s side, you get the video full screen - same with the web browser.
iTunes integration is as ever seamless, and my contacts are now much better organised through the use of Apple’s Contact application groups - not tried Exchange synchronisation. My calender is back on there courtesy of iCal - something that didn’t worked so well with my Nokia 6500 Classic. Podcasts, music, et al go on very easily.
With the iPhone Apple’s not really made anything new, all they’ve done is take some good things and made them great! And I love it! I just wish I’d got one sooner - and no, I’m not bothered by the 3G iPhone rumours as my Tariff won’t expire for a while yet, and I still think it’ll be 6 months till the new ones are out.
What I am really looking forward to is the iPhone version 2 software that makes your phone into a bit more of a mobile office through support for Cisco VPN and Microsoft Exchange. Having those on your iPhone will be interesting. Lets see what happens. I think Apple’s only just begun waking up the mobile industry from it’s sleep!
Ok, so I made the switch to having my site running completely on Wordpress. Originally it ran just my blogs, and I ran a custom front-end to pull that information out. But, since that site was built, Wordpress has matured a lot, and it’s now able to do a lot of what I wanted my site to do. There’s still a few bits missing, but that can be ironed out.
I’m going to write more on this, but it’s late, and this way I have more to write tomorrow. But so far, I’ve installed several plugins ranging from SEO to a gallery - only pain is having to bring all my images back into the new site.
Blogs were easy as they were already in Wordpress. But it amazes me how easy it was to set-up and install extras. The plugin framework is phenomenally flexible and really impressed me. It is more like a CMS now, managing pages in the same way it manages blogs - a sensible move and one I really wanted to incorporate into my new site.
Then there was the upgrade process. I had version 2.3 installed, and running happily, but then wordpress released version 2.5. Usually I will let a piece of software settle down before taking the plunge, but everything I’d read about this new version made me keen to dive in and try it. It was as easy as dragging files into your site. The next time you go to the admin section, it asks to run the upgrade script - makes some small changes to the database indexes - and that’s it. You’re up and running!
I looked around at several themes, but the Cutline 3-Column Split 1.1 theme from Chris Pearson over at personified.com was exactly what I was after. It’s a nice, clean, 3-column layout that only required a few small tweaks. The header images have been changed with some of my own, and the top navigation was amended.
I will be building my own theme over the coming weeks, but for now, I think you’ll agree, it looks pretty good.
I’ve been a big fan of feedreader on Windows, but I’ve yet to find something comparable on the mac. Obviously there’s the on-line tools, and there’s been a few shareware ones around which were OK.
But, feedreader has a beautiful simplicity. It’s on of those programs that does exactly what you need, and could want and doesn’t try to do anything else. The mac ones I’ve seen either did too little, or fell into that trap of trying to be everything. The elegance and simplicity that using Mac OS X is known for just wasn’t there.
Thankfully, whilst hunting around, I came first across Vienna. A project on Sourceforge that does almost exactly the same thing as feedreader with it’s simple 3 pane layout. You can create groups of feeds, when you click on a feed or group, you get a list of all the blogs in that group in the top right pane. Click on a blog, and you get the summary of that blog in the pane below. Double click on the blog’s title and it opens the full URL in you browser. Everything’s nice a quick, and always accessible. You can change the layout to be horizontal if you prefer. Whenever feeds update, you get a message on your desktop - which you can turn off if you like (amazing how many programs forget to give you that option!).
Then, as if a blessing, along comes another program. Newsgator has just released their NetNewsWire program for free. Working much the same way as Vienna, it has 2 other tricks up it’s sleeve. First off, when you double click the feed, it open a new ‘tab’ in the application showing the full page - you’d be amazed how much difference this little trick makes. And, and this is the kicker, you can connect it to your Newsgator account, synchronising the feeds you add here with those on line, and vice versa. This means all your feeds are available anywhere, any time.
Vienna, great, but NetNewsWire is one step better… Give them a try, you won’t regret it!
