I have moved!

Not house, but away from Blogger. You can now find this blog at Tumblr.

Same blog, different look and feel. And more videos.

See you on Tumblr!

RSS and Visual Styles

Hi again!
Well, this is a first, I'm writing a blog post for the second time in as many days.

Had a nice day today, it wasn't too long or boring, so that was good.

Today I'm going to tell you about two things-- RSS and Visual Styles.

Really Simple Syndication (or RSS for short) is like a news feed for websites. If there's a website that posts frequent updates (like a webcomic, a news site or a blog) you can subscribe to the RSS "feed" for the page.

"But Andrew, what does it do?"
Okay. Say you subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog. You'll see a little link to each blog entry. You can mark items as "read" so you'll only get notifications for ones that are new.

"Okay, but how do I recieve a RSS feed?"
In so many ways.
First, and easiest, is to create a "Live Bookmark" in Firefox. If you're using Firefox (and you should be) it is frighteningly easy. Let's take a look at my blog for an example. Screenshot tour!

Once you've clicked that icon, you should see a drop-down menu saying
Subscribe to Blogular Blog - Atom
Subscribe to Blogular Blog - RSS
They both do the same thing, but pick Atom. It has a few advantages.
Next, you'll see a page that looks a little weird. You'll see all the blog posts, and then at the top, a few options. Leave them, and click "Subscribe now"

Done.

Now, apparently Internet Explorer does this too. But...it's Internet Explorer, and that's reason enough to switch to Firefox.

Now, if you don't want to use a Live Bookmark, you can use Google Reader (or any other web service) Google reader is easy, too!
Go to the homepage and create a free Google Account (useful it works on Blogger, Youtube, Gmail and every other Google service) Then log in and start adding feeds. Just click "add a subscription" It's really easy, just enter what you think the feed might be called, eg. "digg" Select the correct feed and you're done! Because it's a website, you can access your feeds from ANYWHERE with an internet browser.

There's also desktop RSS readers. They work the same way, but they're actually a program that runs on your computer. I use ReadAIR Follow the instructions on the site and you're in business.


That's it for RSS, onto Visual Styles.

In (literally) all of my screenshots, I've had a custom theme running, instead of the default "Luna" XP theme. How? With the magic of Visual Styles.

Microsoft, during the development of XP, had the idea of letting people choose between different styles for the window-frame and taksbar etc. Then they dropped this idea at the last minute lost forever.

Not.
Step 1:
Patch your uxtheme.dll file. This is the file that manages what theme is running. By default, it is set to only allow themes Microsoft made. Let's change that. Follow all instructions exactly, I won't be held responsible if you accidently stuff something up.

Okay, that's the hard part out of the way. Now you need to find a Visual Style. The best and safest place you can find them is DeviantART. Here's a link to the Visual Styles section. Find one you like and download it.

Then, open up the folder (or unzip the contents of the archive to somewhere you will remember)

Find a file that looks like this. Double click it, and hit "OK" in the next window. Done. Dusted. Change your style as much or as little as you please. Have fun.

DISCLAIMER:
The instructions I have provided are for Windows XP. Because I use XP, I don't know if these work with Vista/7.
I have patched my uxtheme.dll file twice. Nothing bad has happened. Still, you should take any instructions you read in the installation of the uxtheme multi-patcher seriously. Nothing terrible will happen, but just remember that you are replacing a system file.

That was a long one, eh? I hope you've found the guides today helpful, and I hope you have a good weekend.
Song of the Post is "Together in Electric Dreams" by Phil Oakley.

Bye!

Hello again!

Hi there!

Back to school this week, that sucks. On the plus though, it's been a decent week and it's gone pretty quick.

Hey guess what?
11 weeks in this term. 7 days a week times 11 weeks is 77 days. Subtract weekends and you have 55 days in total. Take off the last 5 days (it'll be a bludge) and you've got 50 days. Only one day left in this week, 46!
Only 46 days of school left! Yippee kai-yay!

What else?
I wanna go see Up. It looks sweet and funny, and from what I've heard it's sad too. So, that's like excellent, right? Might go see it with some friends next weekend.

Hey, you know what sucks? The English Basics textbook. I find it insulting to my intelligence. I mean, these are questions we were doing in grade 5, and the teachers this year are all like "Oh my god guys, this is srs business."
Aurgh.

Aahhahah, meanwhile, I've changed my desktop layout again. Bwahahaa!
Here's the screnshot...

What do you think? Nice? Rainmeter provides the clock in the corner, that's rocketdock with some text icons at the bottom and the regular takbar at the top. But what's different? Well..
The CD Album Art is from a gorgeous program called CD Art Display. It grabs the song info and cover art from iTunes (or Winamp) and displays them on your desktop. You can even pause/play, and go to the next and previous songs from CD Art Display.

Notice how the icons on my taskbar are all teeny, just the icons? That's the work of a nifty little program you can find here.

If you want the wallpaper, icons or visual style, send me an email and I'll get to you.

Oh, and just so you know. DeviantART is where I get ALL of my nifty wallpapers, Visual Styles, RocketDock skins and a metric crapload of other stuff too. Link!

Fairly short entry today, but less is more!

Tata!

Hey-o!

I apologise for not posting a new entry in a while, procrastination, homework and Dexter have been filling my time.

So what's new?
Well, my laptop's undergone yet another makeover.
Let's take a look at my desktop...

As you can see, it's pretty light. Taskbar hidden, desktop icons hidden with Fences. But what's the rest of that stuff? WELL.
You guys know Launchy, I introduced you a few weeks ago. I'm using a custom skin, which you can find here.
Then, below, Rocket Dock. I don't know if I've talked about it before. In fact, no, I don't think I have. Link! Don't need the taskbar because windows minimize to the dock!

"Uhm, hey Andrew? What's that huge sidebar and bottom thingy?"

Oh, I thought you'd never ask.
Meet rainmeter.
Rainmeter can display pretty much any information on your desktop. I've got system stats, a calendar, a to do list, the time, how long my laptop has been on for, and a little application launcher for my top 5.

Nifty eh?

Oh, and Picasa. Picasa is a photo managing program from google. It's good, just lets you organise your photos and touch them up. Free, good software. How delicious.

What else?
Well, it's all good and fair to have fun with your computer. But you've got to tidy up as well. Here are two programs I use to keep my laptop clean as a whistle.

CCleaner.
Every time you install or uninstall a program, every time you visit a website, everytime you download something, everytime you open a document, your computer creates little temporary files that serve no other purpose. Now, this wouldn't be an issue, but these files don't go anywhere. They stay there, take up space and slow down your computer.
Enter CCleaner. CCleaner will clean up all of those temporary files, and get your computer "going gooder"!

Defraggler.
This one is made by the same company as CCleaner, a company called Piriform. We'd like to imagine that our computers store files in neat little rows, with no gaps in between. And that's how it starts out. But inevitably, you're going to delete some files here and there, uninstall some programs etc, etc. Unfortunately, this just leaves empty spaces between data. This means that when your computer needs to access a file, it takes longer to get through all the gaps as well. Defraggler, enter stage left! Defraggler gets rid of those gaps and makes your computer faster! Defragmenting takes a while, but you'll notice the results immediately.

I apologise if this post was a bit nerdy, but I think it's important people know how they can optimise their computers.

Link of the day is Lifehacker.
Lifehacker descibes itself as "tips and downloads for getting things done"
That's exactly what it is. It's a light website that helps you improve productivity, avoid little annoyances, beautify your digital world and stay up to date with the latest in cutting edge software. I just sounded like an ad for a second there, sorry. Anyway, it's a really good site. Have a look around, I guarantee you'll enjoy it.

I'm not listening to any music right now, but I'm watching George and Martha with my brother. George and Martha is a really funny show about two hippos who are "just friends" and their neighbours, including the two crocodiles Oscar and Wilde (just two male friends [pfahahahaa!]) and Penny, the snoopy Flamingo.

Alright, bye for now! There might be a while before my next post, I'm going to be in Queensland on holiday.

Bye!

Aww.

Hey, you know what? I was about to write a really angry post, something along the lines of "Argh, Microsoft can burn in hell!"

But I really can't be bothered. I mean...meh.

It takes a lot of energy to be angry.

Here's what I've been up to lately:

-I've switched from Windows Live Messenger to Trillian. It's a much nicer IM program, and it has tabbed conversations! What this means is that all of your conversations are in one window, but in separate tabs. Isn't that nifty? It also lets me chat on IRC, so thats a plus. Here's what it looks like:

-I went up about 4 Nerd levels--I've started programming. Like, not crazy intensive "Oh my god, technology!" stuff, but just tinkering around. My language of choice is Ruby. It's a fairly new language, but it's fairly easy to learn.

-I installed Yahoo! Widgets. Yeah, it's a bit of a memory hog, but it's super useful. Have a look at my current desktop setup..

Wow, that picture is like...10x bigger than I was expecting. Anyway..

Oh, you guys are probably wondering what those little window thumbnails are.

It's a nifty little program called miniMize. It grabs every program you minimise and turns it into a little thumbnail on your desktop. You can double click that thumbnail to bring it back up. It's very useful, especially if you're like me and you have many of the same program open at once.

Aside from that, it's pretty much same-old around here. My brother's 21st is tonight, so we've been running around like headless chooks getting everything ready. I love organised chaos. Hah!

Oh, I got an expansion pack for the Sims 2. It's great that they're so cheap now because of the release of the Sims 3. If you ask me, the Sims 3 doesn't look that good. I mean, wooh, no loading screens, but the sims look really ugly now. The more realistic you make things, the uglier they get. How depressing.

Anyway, thats about it for today. Leaving you with the link of the week and song of the day...

Link of the week is wordle

Wordle lets you make tag clouds for anything. It's sort of funny to see the most common words in something. Let me jus say that the tag cloud for this blog is quite amusing (most common word? "really")

Song of the post is "Drop Dead Gorgeous" by Republica. Great song, makes you want to get up and dance. You're lucky you couldn't see me just then, I was typing and bopping my head in time to the song. Not a pretty site.

Alright, bye! I've got a party to get ready for.

Weekend (yeeha!)

So we've come to the weekend again. Everyone have a good week? Have fun?
Haha, me neither. But really, isn't Friday great?It's like you're on roller skates all day, gliding through time.

Hmm, getting a bit sappy there, let's get down to business!

In tech news, there's some interesting stuff going on.I've heard some rumours that Microsoft might go into producing computers, as opposed to just the OS. If they can pull it off, I reckon they could get a similar stranglehold like Apple does.

Speaking of Apple, apparently a MacBook touch is in the works. If you're a bit confused, don't worry, I was too when I heard it. Okay, imagine the iPhone. Make that the size of a computer screen, drop the phone and install Mac OS X Leopard on it. Eeek. I think this is one of those products that could either go really well or really poorly. On one hand, people might go nuts and spend, spend, spend, but on the other hand, people might just not feel the need.

Taking a break from computers...Did anyone see that clip of the American finance reporter calling Kevin Rudd a serial killer? Here's the link in case you haven't heard about it yet.I dunno. Aren't finance people supposed to be smart? Meh. The camels are feral, and unless America wants to swoop in and "save" them in a giant act of show-boatery, I don't see any other option.

Or maybe I'm just heartless. Either way~

You know what I'm sick of? This weather. I mean, bloody hell, were you out today? It was really damn cold. And hail too! What the hell, mother nature? I understand it's winter, but was all that necessary?I'm longing for summer. I want to make myself some iced tea, sit around watching Mean Girls with friends and having a great time. Instead, I'm stuck inside listening to the SBS news and watching people sign in and out of MSN.

Hey, John Hughes died. You know who he is? You probably won't. He was a movie director. He did some great movies, I've seen a few of them.The Breakfast Club? Ferris Bueller's Day Off? Home Alone? Maybe you've seen them, maybe not. But he was a great director, and I think it's a shame he's dead.

Ah well. Que sera, sera.

I dunno. You see people weeping in the street when a celebrity dies. Why?

I mean, okay. Maybe you met the celebrity and really connected with them. Or maybe they inspired you. But unless it's one of those two, I don't really get it.

Again, maybe I'm just heartless, but whatever!

I'd like to catch up with some firends this weekend, but homework is such a bother. Ah well. We'll have to organise that Ghostbusters shebang soon...

Link of the day is a two-part package.

The first is a video courtesy of Pierce. Throughout history, mankind has enjoyed the finer things in life. Fine art, good food, entertaining tales and, of course, old ladies booting children into the distance.

Second is also a video, but a bit different. How hard is it to interpret body language? This hilarious video makes it easy!

Also introducing a new feature today: Song of the post.This is the song I was listening to when I finished the post. Here we go...Ooh La La by Goldfrapp.Youtube link.

Alrighty then, bye for now! Many thanks to Pierce for some great ideas in writing this post!
Adios!

Sunday Thoughts and Drifting

Hi,

in a really mellow mood today, isn't that funny? I don't have anything to bitch about, so today's entry is just going to be sort of a stream of thought style.

I got iTunes working on my laptop, so I'm now able to actually listen to music! Yeeha!

Wanna know why it wouldn't work before? Okay!

This used to be my brother's laptop. He installed a program called QuickTime alternative. I don't know why (pfft!) You know how iTunes needs QuickTime to run? Well, when I got to installing iTunes, it stopped working right where it was meant to install QuckTime. Why? Because the creators of QuickTime alternative chose to have their programs use the same registry files as apple QuickTime, causing an error when installing.

I got rid of QuickTime Alternative and now everything works! I'm so glad, I've been listening to music non-stop since I installed it.

In slightly less interesting news, I've plugged an external monitor into the back of my laptop. It's a considerably better screen, so the colours are brighter and everything is more crisp. Right now, my little computer set-up looks like this...

This means that my laptop is always at about 45 degrees open. I'm looking into an external keyboard + mouse, but this is fine for now.

You know what's great about no homework? The absolute laziness that it brings with it. I mean, of course I haven't turned into some desk-potato (I don't even have a desk) but it's nice to be able to relax and kick back.

Does anyone else feel that the whole Mac community is a bit creepy? That whole "I'm a Mac" thing seems a bit like the mantra of some cult...

Or I'm just paranoid.

I think a little bit of paranoia is healthy, don't you? You've always got to be a little suspicious of your surroundings. Be aware!

Catching up with friends means new things in today's world. It could be meeting up for a movie or it could be finding each other on Facebook. With technology, socialising looks very different from the outside.

"Hey Andrew," you ask "What music are you listening to right now?"

Well, I'm listening to a little playlist I've made up on iTunes. It's a mix of my favourite songs, just ones that put me in a pretty good mood. Here are the first 10 songs:

1|Take a Chance on Me-ABBA

2|Dos Gardenias-Buena Vista Social Club

3|You're So Vain-Carly Simons

4|1,2,3,4-Feist

5|Paper Planes-M.I.A

6|My Rollercoaster-Kimya Dawson

7|Broken Dreams-Basement Jaxx

8|Ma Baker-Boney M

9|Suddenly I See- KT Tunstall

10|Ring of Fire-Johnny Cash.

So there's a little peek into my musical taste for those of you who were interested :D

It's bye for now!

Here's the Link of the Week:

(I should probably re-name Link of the Week, seeing as I post more than once a week. Hmm..)

Fine then, here's the

Link of the Day!

This is a Japanese kid's show called Jagainu Kun. When you translate it, it's pretty much "Dogtato" It's a show about a dog-potato called Jagainu, and his girlfriend Haripotato (a hedge-hog potato" They live in Veggietown, and they have many firends, like Croconion, Strawbatty and Cucumbird. It's a really random show. Like, so random, that at one point, there's a character called Cox (a corn-dog) who yells out "COOOORN!" everytime he jumps in the air. Yes, this is a kids show. And yes, it is really random.

Bye for now! See you next time!

EDIT: 4th of August:

Thankyou to Pierce who pointed out my atrocious spelling and grammar in this blog post. It's all gone now! (I think!)

A Mixed Bag

Hey all, sorry it took me so long to write another post, homework has sort of thrown me off.

I've decided I'm going to talk about programs today, from essentials to little things that make the desktop look nicer.

First is Launchy. Launchy is this little program (it's tiny!) that runs in the background, waiting for you to call it up. You just hit Alt-Space, and a window pops up. You start typing the name of the program, Launchy finds it, you hit enter, and bam! It's quick as, so you're really saving time. Launchy also comes with a bunch of cool plug-ins, like Calcy, which can do calculations, and one that lets you do google and youtube searches.

It's a really simple and efficient program, and I'm lost without it.

What next...?

Fences!

Fences lets you make little containers for your desktop icons. It's just a little shaded area with a title, and you can drag and drop icons in and out of them. You can then move a fence, taking the icons within along with it. I haven't even gotten to the best part yet! Whenever you double click on a blank part of your dektop, all of your fences and icons just fade away, leaving you with a nice clean desktop to look at. Double click again and they're back!

I'm going to stop talking about programs, because I can imagine it getting quite boring.

I was talking yesterday on MSN with my friend (who also helped me brainstorm for this post) and we got onto the topic of operating systems.

We discussed the eternal Mac vs. Windows debate.

We both had fairly similar opinions, and it started to get me thinking.

Does anyone really HATE an OS that much?

I mean, sure, Windows is sort of the designated punching bag for trendy people to make fun of, but when it comes down to it, it's still a good OS. It's stable and it's great for power users. You can customise it like nobodies business, and it's powerful. So why all the hate?

Of course, that's not to say Windows is the only good OS. Mac is still the second most popular, after all. I've always appreciated the way Apple has made an OS that looks nice and clean even on the first run. It's easy to use, and I think the Mighty Mouse is a force to be reckoned with.

So really, it boils down to personal preference. Some people like Mac, some like Windows, and some like both (me!) The truth is, they can both do just as much as each other.

I'm going to jump right into the other extreme. Instead of being lovey-dovey-lets-hold-hands, I'm going to go into bitching mode. Ready?

I'm trying to install iTunes. Becasue frankly, it's one of the few decent music players.

But guess what?

Quicktime is allergic to my computer. It just wont install. Full stop. At all.

So what do I try to do? I go to the apple website and try to install Quicktime on its own.

Now things get interesting.

That wont install either. I get a really ambiguous error message, and then it just leaves Quicktime half-installed.

I go to the control panel, so I can uninstall the half-installed program.

But guuuueeeessss what?

Apparently I have SOME trace of Quicktime Pro on my computer.

For those who dont know, Quicktime Pro is Quicktime with some more features, and it costs money.

This doesn't make sense because:

-I do not have quicktime pro,

-I never have had quicktime pro,

-this laptop has NEVER had quicktime pro installed on it

So that's where we are!

It tells me that if I uninstall, then the Quicktime Pro registration code goes with it.

I'm just not sure what to do.

I want iTunes. So much. So VERY much. But it really gets quite annoying when installing becomes like trying to wrestle a bear covered in oil.

You know what would be more helpful than "The installer encountered an error while..etc."?

this sort of error message:

"(insert error) went wrong, sorry.

You can either try again, or try these things:

(insert list of troubleshooting options RELEVANT to the issue at hand)"

Why can't even simple things be simple?

Link of the week this post is a bumper edition!

First of all, Launchy.

Then, Fences.

And a video, too! You know that band, 3OH!3? Well, their song Dont Trust Me is really catchy, dontcha reckon? Shame about the video clip. I dunno about you but I wasn't expecting two guys jumping around in stupid outfits. So lets just forget that one ever happened, and treat this one as the real one, okay?

I'm really spoiling you this week, I have another link for you. Everyone loves hangout websites, rrrrright? Gaia Online is a free to join hangout site. You sign up (it's quick) and create your avatar, a little person that you can change and dress up to look either like you or completely crazy. It's a really fun website, it's addictive (I've been there since 2004 [nnnneeeerd!]) and there are heaps of free games. There are forums as well, for just about every interest. I promise you'll like it. If you sign up and want to find me, I'm at 586638.

Wow, that was a long post, I hope you read the whole thing (haha, 'sif!)

Bye for now!

Thursday!

It's almost Friday, that's nice.

I want to see the new Harry Potter movie, don't you?

I've heard it's long and boring, but you know what? If we never saw movies we heard bad reviews about, we'd probably only see about 10 movies a year. You've got to go on your gut instinct.

And anyway, it's Harry Potter. I sort of HAVE to see it.

Has anyone seen Blade Runner? Beautiful movie, great story, and yeah, it's a bit long. It's still a damn fine movie, though. I think films should be as long as they need to be. If you discrdit a movie because it's longer than 2 hours, you're a sook. Get over it.

Hum..what else? Well, I'm signing into MSN more and more often, gee, I'm such a socialite!

It's getting really damn cold. I want the weather to heat up so I can make iced tea with lemon. Yum.

Also, I'm a bit confused. What is Web 2.0, exactly? It seems to be a bit of a buzz word nowadays. Are we actually there yet? Or is it like some perpetually un-attained state?

Are you watching MasterChef Australia?

It's great! I just love the food they cook, and the drama of it all.

To top it all off, there's Matt Preston. Isn't he just...spectacular?

I wonder who will win? We're down to Poh, Julie and Chris. It's a shame Justine got eliminated, but at least she got a job with Matt Moran. I'd like Julie to win, but I just don't think she will. My prediction is that it comes down to Poh and Chris. As to who wins out of them...I have no idea! Chris is good, real good, but I find him a bit arrogant. And that damn hat is frustrating.

Poh is good too, but when she stuffs up it's usually pretty apocalyptic. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

I think that's enough for today. You should be glad you got this much, this is the first time I've blogged twice in one week.

Video of the week is Paparazzi by Lady Gaga. You probably know the song, but it has an extra depth once you see the clip. Tell me what you think, okay?

Bye!

Ramblings.

So, school just started again, how depressing.

Oh sure, I had two weeks of holidays, but in the end, you still have to wake up early the next morning. There's just no way around it. Holidays, my sleep schedule was like...1 o'clock in the morning and then waking up about 10:30-11. Now? 10 o'clock, and then waking up at 6:20.

On the subject of my 6:20 wakeup time, my alarm no-longer wakes me up. Maybe it's the volume, but you know what? I check the volume every night. Maybe it's the radio station. I recently changed from the fox to PBS. PBS is okay, they play a good mix of retro stuff and some modern jazz and stuff. But the announcers voices are just too mellow for me. It's what I call a "hessian pants voice" It's just like...imagine you go into a cafe, there's a chilled out guy sitting in the back, reading a German newspaper and sipping his soy-mocha-chai-latte. That man would have a hessian pants voice.

Of course, not that Matt and Jo are much better. They're just so casually racist, it makes me sick.

At least their shrill voices wake me up.

Oh my gosh, on the subject of music? One of my earphones died. I don't know why! Sound only comes out of one of them now. I looked it up, apparently, one of the wires inside the cable has broken, which is why both phones sometimes work when the cable is bent or something. Either way, I'm upset. These were damn good headphones. Regular headphones don't fit in my ears, and these were in-ear ones. So snug, like having a slug in your ear. Without it being a slug though, y'know?

I'm in a bit of a rut when it comes to video games lately. I mean, I've got Pokemon Ranger, but I'm stuck on this one part, and I just can't pass it. I really should try it again, you know? Not to mention Twilight Princess. It's such a good game, but as usual, I'm stuck at one difficult part. I'm ashamed of myself, I give up so quickly in video games.

Humm...what else?

Oh, I installed Chrome. It's a nice browser, clean, really quick and clever, too. Not to say I've abandoned Firefox, though. I still need StumbleUpon. I wonder if Chrome will ever get official themes and add-ons? Hmm..

I went a bit customisation crazy this week, I've completely transformed my desktop layout. I wanted to go for a Mac theme, specifically Leopard. It looks really nice now, I'm downloaded a few programs for some nice effects. Wanna see?

If you want to know what programs, themes and customisations I've used, just ask me on MSN. They're all (fairly) simple to use and install.

Also, I'm on Twitter! You can follow me at @586638.

Facebook, too, but apparently Facebook is "uncool" Hmm. I'll be here when you're ready.

I don't do MySpace, don't ask.

Well, I'd say that's about all for now.

I leave you with one of the best video clips I have ever seen. Janelle Monae-Many Moons.

Because Blogger won't let me embed a YouTube video, just click this link to go to the video. Make sure you turn the sound up, and click the high quality button.

Bye!

Get it AWAY.

Hi guys.
Today I rant about the wonderful world of adver-games.
EVERY time I go to a game store, I see that same thing.
"Bratz: Become-A-Pedophiles-Dream Puzzle Adventure!"
"Sally And the Impressionables--Movie tie-in"
What the hell guys. Where did good games go? 7/8 of the shelf space is devoted to STUPID LITTLE CHILDREN AND THEIR SPINELESS PARENTS. Then, at the bottom, one copy of Apollo Justice, eight copies of Mario Kart, and some creepy Japanese almost-porn game.
Why don't we leave the making of games to people who want to make games?
Less "If you only liked the movie out of peer pressure, you're going to looove the game!"
Half of these are just clones of some ancient puzzle/platformer that faded into obscurity.
It's like when you're playing a game with your friends, having a nice time seeing who can beat so-and-so's high score.
Suddenly, your parents pop in.
"O HAI GUISE, OTHER CHILD SALLY CAN PLAYS TWOO?"
Then they plop a little child next to you.
Of course, you're playing a real game, aren't you, maybe it has violence or a bit of swearing.
Good god, not any more you aren't!
Why, there's a child in there! Quick, get me another game!
Phew! That's better!
I mean, safer that your child play a game about sexually promiscuous teens than anything with violence in it, right?

I send this message to you Nintendo (the main culprit, sadly)
Screw concerned parents.
To hell with tiny little Sally-grubby-fingers who wants to play a game.
They want to play a game? Well okay.
But don't forget us, the ones who like GOOD GAMES WITH SUBSTANCE.
No more movie tie-ins.
No more of this "Imagine Vet/Fashion Designer/Teacher/Nanny" shit.
Casual gaming is fine.
Shelves clogged with adver-games are not.
The purpose of adver-games is not to entertain.
The purpose of adver-games is to...you guessed it, advertise.
Stop it.
It's not cute anymore.



Also, link of the week is to Zero Punctuation, a spectacular Australian video-game reviewer. He has a sharp with, talks fast and is right about just about everything.
Zero Punctuation.

This!

Is what pisses me off!

Part one.

God-damn internet explorer.
Argh!
Andrew hits stop.
Internet explorer responds by freezing.
24 seconds later, a screen:
"Loading of the page was cancelled.
-What you can do:
-refresh the page."
NO SHIT, SHERLOCK, REALLY?
I think I would remember pressing stop.
So why present to me a 'remedy' for my own action?
"Oh but Andrew, you big baby, that's for when the connection drops out! Don't be such a fool!"
Shutup.
IF it is also for when the internet connection goes ass-plooey, then okay,yeah,sure,fine-BY-ME!
BUT!
Leave it as ONLY for when the connection drops out.
Otherwise, you have every Cheryl and Sharon going
"Huh? Daryll? Come in here! The internet's telling me to do something! Do we have a virus? Y'know, I got this forward from Sharon the other day about..."
NOW, Firefox, on the other hand, is perfect in EVERY WAY.
You hit stop, and firefox knows the score. It stops. It doesn't freeze or crash your other microsoft programs.
It is elegant, graceful, and most of all, smart.
Whereas internet explorer still thinks typing "www." and ".com" is still pretty neat.
Just...
please. If you still use IE, you can do one of--
actually, hold on. Let me explain it to you in terms you will no doubt understand.

"Internet Explorer is a problem and has crashed.
Please tell Mozilla about this problem.
Click the link below to download the latest version of Firefox.
Microsoft thanks you for your unexplainable loyalty, and kindly asks you to move on to a browser which will make you look smarter than a puddle of highlighter ink.
Link to download Firefox. "
So there.
Do it now, unless you already have.

That's it for today, but get ready for tomorrows "Get that out of my game store"