Replacement Shells - I have been using AstonShell for awhile (30 days) and now it asks me to register it, luckily just recently I have come accross another Replacement Shell called "LiteStep" which you can get at http://www.litestep.net/ I have installed it on Nicole's computer and am currently rebooting it. From the screenshots it reminds me of XFCE, the Window Manager I use for Linux, nice and lite-on just like the name suggets for this Replacement Shell. Explorer is so bloated, slow and is quick to crash so I don't really see the need for it, which is what causes me to branch out and find replacement shells. Not only can a replacement shell speed up your desktop but they usually allow a lot more theming and customizality than the standard explorer.exe shell while still remaining faster. I guess its beacuse of all the DLLs that explorer uses that its slow, it probarbly comes down to that and just plain poor programming. Replacement Shells are just that, something you'd feel happy to replace your explorer.exe with. Holy shit the shell just loaded on Nicoles desktop, it displayed the Desktop folder which has silently been filling with icons while AstonShell was on there, the desktop has about 100 icons and still displayed very quickly. The "Start Bar" looks very Linux-Like and I would even go as far as to call it a docking bar. Which is what I will call it. The programs menu in the start menu loads very quickly, which is great, the programs menu usually takes a long time to open, sadly since its all in a vertical strip it with no scrolling options you cannot see all your programs (provided your list takes up the whole vertical axis of the screen, or more) but you can free float the programs menu so that you dont even need to click "Start" to see your programs, they are just there on your desktop. Very cool. This default theme is supposed to be very "Lite" and is one that your not really supposed to like. Hell, like, I love it! LiteStep is a very professional replacement shell and is also very quick and good at what it does. I recommoned this to everyone. Its also free so no annoying "Register Now" screens like AstonShell :) Yes you can change back to the normal explorer with a shell changer app, but why the hell would you? LiteStep rocks!
Guild Wars - Looked at the screenshots for Guild Wars (all of them this time, not just the one with the chick :P), the combat looks really cool, there is a screenshot of a guy fighting some warewolves and also a screenshot of a team of two people fighting what appears to be some kind of beast with a guy on top of it, the game is looking great and I can't wait til the E3 for everyone to test it out!
Andromeda and Mutant X have been cancelled as Fireworks Entertainment, is shutting its doors for good and owner CanWest Global Communications (which also owns canada.com, the National Post, Global Television, and a bunch of other media assets) announced it will take a $159 million writedown on Fireworks. Sad really, Andromeda was a great show. Mutant X was pretty lame though, I was wondering when they were gonig to cancel it as the special effects were really lacking in realism.
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Monday, April 26, 2004
Games I look Forward to
Here are the games I am looking forward to in the near (hopefully) future: Fable [XBOX], Sudeki [XBOX] (Said in a stupid voice by Cameron), Half-Life 2 [PC/XBOX], Doom III [PC/XBOX], Starcraft 2 [PC], Guild Wars [PC]
When is E3 ever going to get here, hang on i'll check the date now....
Hopefully E3 will answer a lot of my questions as to the fate of the games I want, Guild Wars is doing a program that is unheard of until now, called "E3 is for everyone" in which you can download and play Guild Wars with the people who are at E3 from your house, the downloaded game will stop working after E3 however but it should give us a good idea of what the game is like! Read more here
At the moment I am downloading the Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow Multiplayer Demo for PC, you can get it for yourself by clicking here the .se stands for Special Entertaining FTP Server (NOT! its slow....whatever the hell SE actually stands for, its strange and I get a very bad ping)
Earlier today I was playing Counter-Strike with Brad, Simo and Bucci. As usual me and Bucci were kicking ass, we played de_aztec, de_dust2, as_oilrig, cs_747 and then de_dust2, a good time was had by all as only one loser joined our game and we managed to vote kick him off (Yay Brad worked out how to do it now!) Bucci had some problems with his CD Key half-way through and he was out of action for awhile while he got that sorted out. This Sunday Shannon and Simo are going to come to my house to play Counter-Strike, I hope that they weren't screwing around beacuse I want to kick their asses, can't complain about lag on a LAN >=)
I have discovered that Serious Sam does not run on a Celeron 533 + TNT2 combo and complains about no video mode found. Quake 3 runs nice and smooth though :) Counter-Strike can be played in Software mode in 800x600 resoltuion with "minimum render lag", I suggest lowering it a bit though. The monitor is screwed so your going to have set the brightness above the normal one to see in the dark areas, either that or use your flashlight. When you up the game brightness the colors ("What the fuck is wrong with the colours?" -Justin) are a little strange though.
Today I got a program for MSN which lets you use any size display picture you want, its pretty cool but I don't look at my own display picture that often so it doesn't really do much for me :P
I also met some chick who lives in the "Dominican Republic" wherever that is i'm not sure, but she spoke both Spanish and English and had a really long name. I met her on Overnet while attempting to download some Rurouni Kenshin OVA episodes, I helped her setup an FTP Server but she doesn't know her router password so she can't do the port redirection herself. I found out it was 2am for her when it was 5pm for me so I worked out I need to get online in the morning to talk to her at a reasonable time for her, I want to get this FTP up and running so I can get the Rurouni Kenshin OVA episode's though. If anyone else has them, please contact me.
I got a "hack" for Blogger which lets you post comments so now you strange people who view my blog can post strange comments (Yay!)
End Transmission.
When is E3 ever going to get here, hang on i'll check the date now....
Hopefully E3 will answer a lot of my questions as to the fate of the games I want, Guild Wars is doing a program that is unheard of until now, called "E3 is for everyone" in which you can download and play Guild Wars with the people who are at E3 from your house, the downloaded game will stop working after E3 however but it should give us a good idea of what the game is like! Read more here
At the moment I am downloading the Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow Multiplayer Demo for PC, you can get it for yourself by clicking here the .se stands for Special Entertaining FTP Server (NOT! its slow....whatever the hell SE actually stands for, its strange and I get a very bad ping)
Earlier today I was playing Counter-Strike with Brad, Simo and Bucci. As usual me and Bucci were kicking ass, we played de_aztec, de_dust2, as_oilrig, cs_747 and then de_dust2, a good time was had by all as only one loser joined our game and we managed to vote kick him off (Yay Brad worked out how to do it now!) Bucci had some problems with his CD Key half-way through and he was out of action for awhile while he got that sorted out. This Sunday Shannon and Simo are going to come to my house to play Counter-Strike, I hope that they weren't screwing around beacuse I want to kick their asses, can't complain about lag on a LAN >=)
I have discovered that Serious Sam does not run on a Celeron 533 + TNT2 combo and complains about no video mode found. Quake 3 runs nice and smooth though :) Counter-Strike can be played in Software mode in 800x600 resoltuion with "minimum render lag", I suggest lowering it a bit though. The monitor is screwed so your going to have set the brightness above the normal one to see in the dark areas, either that or use your flashlight. When you up the game brightness the colors ("What the fuck is wrong with the colours?" -Justin) are a little strange though.
Today I got a program for MSN which lets you use any size display picture you want, its pretty cool but I don't look at my own display picture that often so it doesn't really do much for me :P
I also met some chick who lives in the "Dominican Republic" wherever that is i'm not sure, but she spoke both Spanish and English and had a really long name. I met her on Overnet while attempting to download some Rurouni Kenshin OVA episodes, I helped her setup an FTP Server but she doesn't know her router password so she can't do the port redirection herself. I found out it was 2am for her when it was 5pm for me so I worked out I need to get online in the morning to talk to her at a reasonable time for her, I want to get this FTP up and running so I can get the Rurouni Kenshin OVA episode's though. If anyone else has them, please contact me.
I got a "hack" for Blogger which lets you post comments so now you strange people who view my blog can post strange comments (Yay!)
End Transmission.
Sunday, April 25, 2004
My Collection & Advent Children
At the moment I am adding the games I own to "My Collection" on IGN, this will keep me busy for a few days. You can see the collection here. I just set the region to PAL on all of them as I cbf checking if they are NTSC or not. Not all of them will be rated, I'm wondering when E3 is going to be, its in May, I'll have to see what the exact date is, apparently more Final Fantasy Advent Children news will be released (Hopefully a new clip to go with it!)
I am waiting for Advent Children to come out in Japan, then I'll try and get myself a copy of it with English subtitles, of course I'll buy it when it comes out here so I get my DVD Quality :) :)
Also at E3, more Sony Pocket Station news should be released, dammit I can't wait for this Advent Children and Pocket Station crap, I hope there'll be some other cool games on show there too (Fable? Doom III? Half-Life 2?), we need Half-Life 2 to be released before it becomes outdated, Far Cry is the best FPS on the market (Coming after Halo, which is coming after Doom II)
Been playing more Counter-Strike, I want to be able to own those level 4 bots, they think they are so good with their headshots and instant turning, well I'll show them! *turns knife only mode on* >=) KNIFE WARS!!!
Graal Online forums got hacked by Luke, thats pretty cool, I don't know why he hasn't banned the guy insulting him. Trust Angel to have corridor as her password roflmao. I find it pretty stupid beacuse unixmad was on the forums at the time of the defacement and he didn't do anything, then he went away for very important buisiness I presume, whatever their company does thats important i'll never know since the site hasn't been updated since SCARS was released on the N64, sad really.....
Head on over to http://www.flyordie.com/ to checkout a really cool Tank Wars game made in Java, also the Runescape address is http://www.runescape.com/ in case you were wondering. The graphics in it are nice now but it still lags like a bitch which renders it nearly unplayable.
On Slashdot today they posted about Credit Cards with Voice Authentication in them, sounds cool to me, they should develop software that uses a facial map (via webcam) and voice authentication (via microphone) for desktop computers, that way no unauthorized access on my computer and I won't have to remember my password (oh yea mines set to auto-login with a blank password to an Administrator account, nice and secure, just the way Windows is supposed to be!)
I am waiting for Advent Children to come out in Japan, then I'll try and get myself a copy of it with English subtitles, of course I'll buy it when it comes out here so I get my DVD Quality :) :)
Also at E3, more Sony Pocket Station news should be released, dammit I can't wait for this Advent Children and Pocket Station crap, I hope there'll be some other cool games on show there too (Fable? Doom III? Half-Life 2?), we need Half-Life 2 to be released before it becomes outdated, Far Cry is the best FPS on the market (Coming after Halo, which is coming after Doom II)
Been playing more Counter-Strike, I want to be able to own those level 4 bots, they think they are so good with their headshots and instant turning, well I'll show them! *turns knife only mode on* >=) KNIFE WARS!!!
Graal Online forums got hacked by Luke, thats pretty cool, I don't know why he hasn't banned the guy insulting him. Trust Angel to have corridor as her password roflmao. I find it pretty stupid beacuse unixmad was on the forums at the time of the defacement and he didn't do anything, then he went away for very important buisiness I presume, whatever their company does thats important i'll never know since the site hasn't been updated since SCARS was released on the N64, sad really.....
Head on over to http://www.flyordie.com/ to checkout a really cool Tank Wars game made in Java, also the Runescape address is http://www.runescape.com/ in case you were wondering. The graphics in it are nice now but it still lags like a bitch which renders it nearly unplayable.
On Slashdot today they posted about Credit Cards with Voice Authentication in them, sounds cool to me, they should develop software that uses a facial map (via webcam) and voice authentication (via microphone) for desktop computers, that way no unauthorized access on my computer and I won't have to remember my password (oh yea mines set to auto-login with a blank password to an Administrator account, nice and secure, just the way Windows is supposed to be!)
ZBot Leak, Americas Army
The hacked offical bots for Counter-Strike 1.6 (zbot) are very good. When playing on Level 4 they are very hard to kill, they keep in contact with you over the radio and give you status reports ("3 guys left", "Only 2 to go", "One guy left") which does get annoying when you are trying to listen for footsteps and you hear them instead. The voices are just the same sound files with masks applied to them so they sound odd, I wonder what they'd sound like if I recorded my voice into those files lol i'll have to find out sometime.
As for 1.5 you can use ivpbot which is Improved Version Podbot I believe, its like the PodBot except it is updated more, they are smarter and they have personalities and stuff such as Agressive personality :)
I finished the America's Army training missions last night so now I can actually play the game! I find it very stupid that the missions you can play are calculated from your training scores, but hey I suppose it makes it more realistic, but maybe I don't want it that realistic? Maybe I just want to get straight into the action? They don't account for that ovbiously, but I shouldn't complain, its a free game, but I still like complaining, got nothing else to do.
As for 1.5 you can use ivpbot which is Improved Version Podbot I believe, its like the PodBot except it is updated more, they are smarter and they have personalities and stuff such as Agressive personality :)
I finished the America's Army training missions last night so now I can actually play the game! I find it very stupid that the missions you can play are calculated from your training scores, but hey I suppose it makes it more realistic, but maybe I don't want it that realistic? Maybe I just want to get straight into the action? They don't account for that ovbiously, but I shouldn't complain, its a free game, but I still like complaining, got nothing else to do.
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