Review: Company of Heroes

Well Relic have done it again!

Dawn of War was good, Oh Yes! - but Company of Heroes is better.

A game that I was a little apprehensive about, don't know why probably felt a little precious about DoW, but I shouldn't have been.

The graphic are nothing short of excellent. 9/10, definitely.

The Sound, again again excellent. 8/10

Immersiveness = wow! 8/10


I got this game December, 23rd and so far done about 7 or 8 missions, each one gets better and better. The game play is very addictive, requiring tactics and cunning on every map.

On a side note, something that did strike me was, once installed you don't need the dvd to play the game. Handy.

Highly recommend this as a purchase, Amazon clicky

Back to the game. Coming next a review of Star Wars: Empire at War.

Stay safe and game lots!

Moving Home

Hi all,

Wow what a few weeks.

I've moved home and now come the spending times! Damn it blows!

I know this is a completely silly idea and would never happen but wouldn't be nice if previous owners of houses were responsible for inbuilt facilities (plumbing, oven, hob, radiators, etc) for several months after a purchase. Let me tell you why, we move in and here's the list of stuff gone wrong or needed action:

• New locks, previous owner left us 1 key...(plus didn't want her coming back!)
• New Fridge
• New Washing machine
• New Oven
• Boiler system (probably pump) is screwed, radiators don't work
• Soon to be new windows, as no keys were left from them and most of them don't open properly or look rotten! :(
  

The new people get landed with huge costs in one month! especially painful because we're first time buyers. I can completely understand now why moving home is the most stressful time in a persons life.

Now I'm officially skint, it's Christmas! - talk about salt in the wounds.

That aside, my wife and I live close to what we consider to be our best friends and their wonderful family who have helped at the drop of a hat....thank you!, on top of that after all these new/services facilities we will be worry free and guarantee in hand for a few years.

Onward and, well one can go upward!

Stay safe

Dawn of War: Winter Assault...has been completed

Hi all,

WoW, what a game!

Dawn of War: Winter Assault

The Dawn of War series for me, is just fantastic!, the games are just amazing fun and Winter Assault didn't let me down at all.

Graphically the game is superior to most RTS games that I've played. The gameplay is just brilliant. The balance of units to vehicles can be a little annoying when you've got units guarding areas and you wan to raise a mighty force, as there's a cap but never the less, that just enforces strategy.

Graphics: 9/10
[Zooming is excellent, 3d rotation is excellent. Slightly higher textures when in close would just complete it]

Sound: 10/10
[Rousing speaches as with Dawn of War, brilliant vocals, excellent]

Immersiveness: 7/10
[You don't get so attached to General Stern, he's a textbook veteran leader.]

Gameplay: 10/10
[Brillant, Brilliant, Brilliant - I found myself thinking about it at work and thinking how I'd complete missions on the way home. With the bigger units and more gritty troops the game just got better and better as each mission passed]


The Amazon link, should you be interested in buying it: CLICKY

Enjoy,

C.

Remote Browsing.

Hi all,

How about remote browsing?

Perhaps not for the regular user but maybe for the business man, demoing a new website or service.

The spec and idea is here, comments welcome, please post them on this blog post.

Cheers

C.

It's over, 10k's in the bag! & £1000!

Here I am, back any my favourite keyboard, with slightly sore/aching knees and a blister that's so big it practically has it's own post code!

Today (October 29, 2006) was my big 10k Run for Cancer Research. I got there in plenty of time and finished the run in 1 hour, 22minutes - with a sprint finish I'd like to add!

Here's me (white t-shirt):

The team ran a superb race, without their support and cheering I'm not sure I'd have made it. So a huge thank you to Nat, Dan, Dan and Barry! - and a big Well Done to them also for completing the 10k!

As a team we've raised (so far) £893 and hoping to top the £1000 before sponsorship runs dry.

We each got a medal (Barry nearly didn't but that's for another post!) that's hanging in pride of place, off the right corner of my monitor.

What's next on the running agenda? Another 10k probably! although I'm hoping for something smaller as 10k is pretty tough!

Until the next time,

Stay safe

C.

Dawn of War: Winter Assault...has arrived

It's here! The (for me) long awaited expansion for Dawn of War!

Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War: Winter Assault!

The game is based around the mighty Imperial guard and their hero units.

The cool thing about Winter Assault is the size of the units. In Dawn of War the units are 6 strong in the early stages of the game, then they grow in size as you upgarde your HQ, however in Winter Assault they are 9 strong. Brilliant!

I just love the Dawn of War series and can't wait to finish Winter Assault and move onto Dark Crusade!

I'll provide a proper review of Winter Assault as and when I complete it, probably be a while knowing the speed that I get through games.

For now, wish me luck on the Orc killing spree that's coming!

Stay safe,

For the Imperium!

C.

Review: Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War

I've literally just finished playing Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. Excellent game. Loved every level!

The game play is very easy, graphics are excellent, sound is brilliant and overall winner.

Graphics: 8/10
[More zooming would be nice]

Sound: 9/10
[Love it, very rousing speeches and calls from the heroes]

Immersiveness: 8/10
[I found myself really feeling for the captain which makes it all the better in the last missions opening video]

Gameplay: 9/10
[What more can I say. Brilliant]



definitely recommend playing this.

Stay safe

C.

Wallets at the ready...

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Children of all ages!

Reach for your wallets, piggy banks, purses and areas of the body that stores money/credit cards....Visit this website: http://www.10ksponsorme.org/DanandChris and sponsor me please!

All in the name of Cancer Research.

I'm going to be attempting a 10k run and I need your help through sponsorship.
http://www.10ksponsorme.org/ <-- more info there.

Many many thanks to those that have sponsored me and to those that will sponsor me.

Stay safe

C.

Ok, ok, so I might have been a little harsh.....

Alright alright! I admit it....Microsoft's aren't THAT bad!

After a good 10 minutes on hold to the Microsoft Support Staff in India, I got welcomed by a, what seemed to be over excited, Customer Services Agent.

After reading out one of the worlds longest numbers, the kind lady told me to punch in another huge number and like magic, with the excitement of a small boy at Christmas, I clicked "Finish" and my copy of Windows XP Home was again - "Working as intended"

Furthermore...The rumor I heard about Windows Media slapping DRM restrictions on burnt CD's was utter rubbish!

It seems that I've been a victim of useless propaganda lol

I gracefully bow down and apologise to the Big M.

Nevermind, we live on...

Stay safe peeps

C

NO SIR!, your not allowed to install Microsoft Windows again

There I was, sunday night just formatted my spare machine, all's going well . The wife's just made an excellent meal and I'm sipping some new blend of coffee that's surprisingly pleasing.

I pop the windows cd into the drive and watch it kick off the installer, after a short wait we get past the setup to config with language, keyboard, network, etc...

We get to the serial key page, I type in my key and click yes to activate windows online, I can hardly choose anything else, if I say no it moans at me for 30 days until I do it!

After clicking activate online and a short pause I get presented with this screen:

As you can imagine I wasn't in the best of moods after reading this. So I think to myself, what can I do now? I've purchased windows xp and it's serial key, I don't remember reading or being made aware that I had a limited number of activations...

Having no other choice at this point I clicked Next and continued onto the rest of windows. After it booted for the first time I get presented with what is now a very familiar nag screen. You all know it. "You have 30 days left to activate windows", blah blah blah. I clicked that little annoying bubble and it took me to a website that outlined my options, which was nice of it.

1. Take your copy of Windows XP back to the vendor
2. Purchase a new serial number @ £61 online
3. Purchase a new copy of Windows XP

I know of a crevis on the human body where all three of those suggestions can be placed...I think you know where I mean.

What does all this mean?

in one word: Linux.

Is this a preview of the future...? Are microsoft looking for a license system with windows? they've already started something like this with their virus and anti-spyware package.

Who knows (if you do, post here!)

Stay Safe peeps

People, people ,people...

What happened to common courtesy?

Why is it when your traveling on the tube people feel the need to bash into you? and queing...

I was waiting at the bus stop yesterday, standing underneath the shelfter, as you do. About 3-4 minutes later some woman came wandering down the road and stood directly in front of me and proceeded to get onto the approaching bus before me? standing in shock I thought to myself, what has the world come to???

Down right ignorance!

A long time ago I used to dream of living in London...I've done that now...now I can't wait to get out!, back to a place where que's are orderly and people don't push.

Stay safe, and don't push in!

100 Words per minute!

A few days ago on digg I came across a "Test your typing speed" article, for a giggle I had a go, scored a respectable 72wpm I think it was. From that point forward it was a quest to score the big 100!

I got very close today, here's the proof:

For those that don't want to click that image, it says: 98.48wpm

Have a go, post your scores on the comment: http://labs.jphantom.com/wpm/

:0)

Not so much of the beautiful game...

Click on this image (right) and just examine and you'll see exactly what I mean by the title.

tonight's performance by Portugal and Holland was quite frankly disgusting! Pathetic show of control from both sides and put shame to both countries.

England however performed admirably and won their match 1-0 against Equador. Next up Portugal, thankfully Deco won't be playing. I honestly don't know how this guy manages to keep his place in the first team. He's absolutely useless and at EVERY opportunity dives for the free kick/penalty.

Either way

Man vs Machine, Round 3 - I WON!

Picture the scene, darkened room, gently glowing monitor in the far corner, a siloette of my body stretched across the floor from the piercing light behind me as I stand, staring at my arch enemy...

As I boldly step towards to the machine, adrenaline pumping, the "Eye of the tiger" theme song going round in my head...the pressure, oh the pressure!! - then, suddenly my phone rang...who could it be I said to myself. "Hello??", "Broski!" - ah yes, the only living sole on this rock we call home that calls me "Broski". After a good 10 minute chat with my brother I faced the machine once again, Cuppa in hand and the light on this time.

Wasn't really a battle at all, I threw the Windows Vista installer DVD into the machine's drive and let it do it's stuff. About an hour later it was finished, slight glitch with the graphics card drivers but once they were installed everything's running sweet!

Windows Vista (Ultimate Edition) is great, I love it. Looks like, the menu changes seem sensible and logical.

It seems I've won and Vista scored one back for the Big 'M'.

Microsoft 1 - 2 Ubuntu

Lets see what happens next time I want to install Vista (or some other OS!)

Stay safe peeps

Man vs Machine, Round 2

Round 2 started off well with the removal of all the data from the dead machines hard drive. We copied all the files into a shared area via Safe Mode, then rebooted with network support and copied them off onto a more stable machine.

The format was quick and painless...but then the problems started. Win XP Home went on without an issue, logically I clicked "Microsoft Update" on the start menu to bring the machine inline with the rest of the network (8mb dsl, not worried about downloading lots!).

The first update installed then I got some rubbish message that my legal copy of windows xp (right) was not legal???

I tried to convince the wife into trying Ubuntu but she wasn't having any of it. After having all these problems with Windows XP I thought sod this...I burnt the Windows Vista ISO I just happen to have lying around and started that installing - anything's got to be better than Windows XP at this point. Down side....it was now 23:30 and I had an early start today so I had to cancel the install!

Microsoft 0 - 2 Ubuntu

Lets see what Round 3 brings us tonight...

Stay safe

The big 'M' suck!

Just to clarify, the big 'M' is, Microsoft.

Last night the wife's PC broke, something on the mainboard or VGA card burnt out, a sad day to say the least, but it gradually got worse as the evening went on...

First we started with the typical, test each piece of hardware,

• Screen = ok
  
• Drives = ok
• Cables = ok
  
• VGA card = not ok
• Mainboard = not ok

After changing the VGA we still didn't get any picture on the monitor, so logically I swapped it for a new VGA card. Same problem, no Bios post screen :-(

As the evening went on, England drew with Sweden (2-2), it was unspeakably hot! and the wife was slowly looking more and more concerned about the possible loss of data on her hard drive.

At this point it seemed like a good idea to check the drive in one of my other machines. After successfully booting from the wife's hard disk we got to the windows login screen, you know the one I'm sure, where you choose the user from a vertical list slightly to the right of the center of the screen.

Immediately after clicking on the username we get a alert box saying that Windows cannot log you on because the product key is not registered to this machine...Initially I thoughts, "oh s***, here we go", however calmly I click "Remind me later" thinking as I'm not pirating Windows here, nor am I trying to do anything dodgy I'm just wanting to clarify the datas there and possibly get it off the drive so I can run a new install...I would have expected windows to at least allow me to get to the desktop for a limited time or something like that, all it does is log me straight back off again and put me back to the username list again.

I try again. Click the username and this time I enter the product key from the original machine...Surprise surprise I get an error message. Not to worry I thought to myself, grabbed my legal version of XP Home off the shelf and entered it's product key....Yes you guessed it, ERROR!

At this point I was starting to get more and more annoyed with the product key bull...However, after a damn fine cuppa from the wife I called the number on screen and spoke to "Fred" from Microsoft...Sounded like an Indian based help line, as you can imagine I wasn't overly happy about this. Never the less I continued - gave "Fred" all the details he asked for, after all this he said, "Can you enter your product key in again please Sir" - knowing it wouldn't work I did as requested and as expected, error again. My new found friend "Fred" now suggests I call a "Toll Free Number" (0870 is NOT toll free!!) to get a new product key. This tipped me over the edge, why he couldn't generate a new product key for me I'll never know but I promptly ended the conversation before I said something I would possibly regret.

*Brain wave!* - I rebooted the machine in Safe Mode, hey presto - there's the OS! and all data intact. All I have to do now is reboot in safe mode, move the files into the network share area and copy them off after a reboot. Then we can format this drive and get on with our lives!

Microsoft 0 - 1 Ubuntu

The saga continues this evening when I attempt "Round 2" and take on failing hardware and the big 'M' again!

Wish me luck!

Stay Safe.

New Digital Camera

A Couple of weeks ago the wife and I bought a new Digital Camera, since then it's hardly been more than 5 metres away from either of us. As a result, every now and then I'll stick a few piccies on here from our travels!


Hope you like em

1 more for this post

Web_censorship = "false"

Hi all,

After reading more and more about the desire from large corporation's to sensor or "channel" the internet it was a refreshing sight to see Amnesty International jump on the band wagon to fight against it.

At the time of writing this post, I believe that the threat is only real on American based website, but hey I visit a shed load of those!...and if that were to get passed it would undoubtedly make it way across the pond to jolly old England.

With all this in mind, anyone who's reading this, go to this website and sign the campaign.

http://irrepressible.info/pledge

KEEP THE INTERNET FREE!

Stay safe folks,

C

More lists!

450+ apps that will make your life a whole lot easier!

http://www.econsultant.com/..../index.html

Enjoy

C

(I've not tried any of these so I can't guarantee any of them work or are reliable)

Programming Books!

Evenin,

Whilst foraging through the magnificent interweb I came across this and thought I'd share it with my reader base :)

195 free programming books:
http://www.techtoolblog.com/.....programming-books

Stay Safe peeps,

Enjoy!

C.

aarrgghhh which is the best!

Evenin,

I'm having REAL difficulties at the moment choosing a programming language to specialize in. I can code in most web languages to a profession standard but time after time I find myself wondering which I should delve deeper into, which should I become an "expert" in?

Lets see what we're talking about here:

• Php
• Asp.NET (C#)
• Ruby on Rails
• Java Server Pages

Those are the four really. They can all do the same thing, some with several lines of code, some with no so many. They all can connect to databases, they are all made by different people with different views on where the web, or the "Web 2.0", is headed and they all boast features that are (to a programmer) awesome!

For those of you that end up reading this post any guidance as your a choice and indeed a reason for that choice would be most welcome!

I'm by far more experienced in Php than any of the above, Asp.NET would be next then JSP and Ruby. Saying this I'm entering the "I think I'll learn Rails this week" phase.

aarrgghhh It's so annoying! Not knowing!

Stay safe peeps,

C.

Broadband

Evenin Campers!

Picture this, there I was happily surfing the interweb and I saw one of those flashy adverts for "Dungeons and Dragons Online". Thinking to myself "oooh I like the sound of that" I click the banner, find the 7 day free trial (1.7gb) and click the download button. To my horror I see the line next to my download speed (56k) 65 hours!

Who honestly would wait 65 hours for a download? I appreciate that I'm being slight elitist with that statement but Force9 (my ISP) offer broadband for the same cost as other ISPs offer dial up!

Thank the all mighty I'm on 2mb lol I've got a more realistic 2hrs to wait...Thankfully my download window looks like this. For those that are interested, all 4 of you that read this blog, I'll report on my opinion of DDO after a brief (yet hopefully exciting) gaming experience.

Stay safe campers!

C.

Welcome to Ubuntu Linux

Installed this recently, for the third time over the last year but this time it's really taken it's hold of my machine. I'm lovin it. For those of you that don't know what Ubuntu is, take a look here: http://www.ubuntulinux.org

Ubuntu has everything that windows has and does things in such a logical way (in my opinion!)

Cool little things I've installed/setup on my Ubuntu OS:

• Weather for London on the toolbar at the top,
• Open Office (Comparable to MS Office, but free!)
• Evolution Mail (Comparable to MS Outlook, but free!)
• Transgaming, run windows games on Ubuntu Linux
  

I'm really pleased with Ubuntu, even considering swapping Windows from the 19" LCD and replacing with the Ubuntu Linux OS...We'll see.

Only problem is, I'm lovin it so much I'll want to seriously keep it - that poses 2 main problems

1. I've installed Ubuntu on the 1gig machine, the slower of the two that I use. To use Ubuntu as a main OS I'd want it on the main machine, format-reinstall time :(
2. Linux natively doesn't support Microsoft.NET, does this mean I have to swap to the dark side and use Java? I know one Web Developer that would be happy to talk about Java all day instead of .NET...hehe

Either way, Ubuntu Rocks. Download it, email me for a copy of the CD, just get it some way and try it out!

Enjoy.
C.

Evenin!

Been a while since I posted on here last, but hey can't matter that much no one's mailed me to let me know they're missing me! hehe

Lots of stuff's gone on recently, new ventures for me, old ventures ending, new learning and lots more. I'll summarize

New Ventures,
A friend has invited me to help on a project, I'm making some software (c# and asp.net) that will transfer files to the internet and allow the website to report on them, it's going well and looking good!

Old Ventures Ending,
I did some code for a website that helps up and coming music artists and entrepreneurs sell their products/content. Works died down for that so I've stopped coding on that. A shame, but hey people move on

New Learnings,
C# in a lot more detail, Php in a lot more detail, the English Language in a lot more detail (although that's probably not visit from this post!), Design Patterns, Ajax, Live.com Gadgets and finally Unit Testing and the importance of a properly scoped application design.

I'll try and post more,

c.