Halo 3

I managed to snag a copy of Halo 3 a short while ago during a vacation. It seems the reviewers are right for the most part (at least the ones I've read anyway) that the game is ok, but nothing significant over the others. The graphics look great on the Xbox360 but it's just not as involving as Half Life 2 for instance. Gears of War, and Half Life 2, both had easy get-in-able plots, which for the most part let you get on with enjoying the action.

Halo 3 on the other hand had a lot of chatter between levels, but were they talking about a name of a star ship, a place, a race, or a process, and were they talking about the bad guys or the good guys? It didn't detract from the action but you sometimes found yourself wondering why you were storming a tower, or shooting something.

I haven't done much multi-player up to now but with the new weapons it should be fun. As long as I can keep it together during the ritual burning of my useless carcass by hordes of unsupervised kids online, with nothing in their lives but to roast anything that moves on Xbox Live. I was given quite a show by someone who had obviously mastered multi player, and how to show past battles by replaying them. You don't see a recording of the match, but a replay of the data. This means you can see it from any angle, or player viewpoint. All this lays to rest any outrageous claims of manliness by anyone, as you can now ask them to prove it instantly.

All in all, its a nice game, not enough WOW moments, and certainly not something that should have taken this long to get out. Plenty of value in the multi player though, now if I can only find someone who is worse than me? If you either are not that bothered by these types of games, or are a little strapped for cash right now, I have the feeling that there will be a few more traded in Halo 3's laying in game stores than you might imagine, soon enough.

Grand Central personal phone service

Just trying Grand Central out. Apparently its a way of consolidating your phone numbers. I am not a big phone user, but since using voice in Second Life, it's become more of a temptation to up my wireless service levels. So click the CALL ME button over on the right, and you will be prompted for your phone number, then automatically connected to me. Neither of us will know the real phone number if you remember to keep the little PRIVATE box checked when you fill it in.

USB Headset

I recently picked up a Logitech USB 350 headset to enjoy the voice filled beta of Second Life. I had a couple of ordinary headsets, with the microphone and speaker connectors, and they had always worked well. However on one machine they were simply not loud enough. Other programs such as Skype and Yahoo messenger seemed to work well, but for Second Life, people told me I was way too low.

Apparently (so I am informed) some sound connectors are just not so hot at actually connecting, hence the lower sound volume. If anyone knows different please let me know.

The headset was the first thing in a long time which didn't have an installation CD in the box. Just plug and play. It's nice to have a fairly decent set of headphones too, to listen to music, without having to switch. I suppose it is helping pick out different voices in a crowd within the Second Life voice beta, which incidentally is extremely addictive. Voices get louder as they approach, as well as tracking to the left or right depending on where that other speaker is. So far so very groovy indeed.

Accepting the inevitable

I usually have access to so much hardware, I never THOUGHT I could get too attached to any particular piece. But recently, a fairly rock solid PC was giving me serious issues. Unexpected rebooting, failing to detect the graphics card, BIOS beeping giving different messages, unexplained blank screens. By now I would be trying to get someone to get a new PC, but I installed a new power supply, different hard drives, and just kept limping along. Removed most of the components, and STILL had issues, where it was unusable and unstable at best.

While working on it, I was finding out what the different BIOS beep codes (the mysterious morse code like beeps a computer makes if it cannot display anything or start booting up) were telling me.

I came across this post at Via Arena, which told me that at the moment, my computer was convinced there was no graphics card installed. It also mentioned further down to check for leaking capacitors. It wasn't until a little while ago, I was delving in yet again, to remove even more, and tried to brush away what I mistakenly took for dust. It was hard, and looked just like an old battery which has split and is leaking its innards.

I had to sit myself down, and break the news to myself, that it was indeed time to let it go and pass on quietly.

**UPDATE** From Draele in the comments, a perfect ending.



You can see examples of normal, and leaking, capacitors here.

I got all Vista'd up

I went ahead and plunged into Windows Vista. A lot of people are saying, 'Well, I'll wait, blah di blah..."

It's going to happen eventually, so why not now.

More soon.

Gears of War down for now

Seems that the Xbox Live servers are offline for a while. I was wondering why I couldn't get into Gears of War, unless I was signed out. I mistakenly deleted my save game data as I thought it may have become corrupted. I will have to play all over again. Is that a pain or a blessing, as the game is just so good?

Happy Not-supposed-to-say-it-mas

It appears that Text America are going pay, as of the end of this month. So I will no longer be using their service to host my images, as $99 is a little steep when Flickr does it oh so much better.


I can see you laughing

My Christmas Present

Ok get me one of these please, thankyou.




Me after I have read the instruction booklet

Xbox Live Vision Camera

I got me an Xbox Live vision camera, to go with the Xbox 360, but more interestingly to use it as a PC web cam. So far it's been great, apart from one big issue.

Initially I plugged it into the PC, and tried it with Skype, and MSN Messenger. Worked perfectly, no troubles at all. Then I tried it in the Xbox360, where it also worked flawlessly.

However, upon returning it to the PC, it decided not to work. Plug in, hear the 'something has just been inserted into the USB port' noise, but nothing more than that. When trying to use the camera for other programs, it now doesn't report as installed at all. The only place I can find any mention of it, is in the Device Manager, under USB Device Controllers, as "Microsoft Xbox 360 Live Vision Camera".

Yes, I have tried rebooting.
Yes, I have tried plugging it into the same USB port as before, and then other ones.
Yes, I have uninstalled the device from the Device Manager.
Yes, I have uninstalled the camera from the Device Manager, and rebooted, and tried again.

The only sign of life is after an uninstall from the Device Manager, and plugging it back in, the little balloon pops up and tells me it has detected the correct camera.

The very first time I installed it, it did not call it a camera, it called it something with the word SECURITY in it. But it DID work. I don't know if that is an issue or not, as I assumed it was because as soon as you do plug it into the computer you need an update from Microsoft.

I am open to suggestion at this time, and anyone that gets it right, wins a total and utter crushing victory on Uno against yours truly. Not saying that



Right click MY COMPUTER
Select the HARDWARE tab
click DEVICE MANAGER
and look under USB Controllers

James Kim found deceased

Sadly, James Kim was found deceased.

Such a sad loss.

James Kim

And if you don't know who he was, this was his last video appearance.