Archive for May, 2008

So has anyone tried Wii Ware yet?

Wii Ware launched in Australia & Europe the other day, so I thought I’d give it a go. There weren’t many games, so I got the cheapest one, “Star Soldier R” which is a vertical scrolling shooter. The visuals are awesome. The music is awesome. The controls are OK but not great. I’d like to be able to move the ship with the nunchuck joystick while holding A on the Wiimote for shoot. But instead you have to use the Z button and my hand gets sore. But the game seems pretty short and I was expecting something more for my 12 bucks, like some levels and ship customisation etc. When are they releasing Tyrian on the virtual console dammit!?

TeamViewer: Instant Remote Support

I recently found out about an awesome program that does for remote desktop what Hamachi does for VPN. It’s called TeamViewer and it lets you control someone else’s PC, and it JustWorks(tm). You (as the one providing support) download the “full version” while the client downloads the small, single .exe “customer version”. Both programs generate a unique session id and password. The customer reads theirs out to you over the phone, you type it into your TeamViewer and voila! Instant remote desktop. But it gets better, with the ability to tunnel over port 80 (by default) it gets around most firewalls easily. All traffic is encrypted and the whole package is free for non-commercial use.

As for performance, well I’ve only had a chance to try it out between my Mac and PC in the same house, and it seriously outperforms what I was previously using for “I’m-too-lazy-to-get-up-and-walk-6-metres-to-do-something-on-my-Mac” which was TightVNC connecting to Apple Remote Desktop. On a good day this would use 80% of my Mac’s CPU. PC-to-Mac TeamViewer uses a tiny amount of CPU (around 15% IIRC) so it makes me curious as to what it’s actually using for the remote desktop part. It “feels” like VNC in that the screen is divided into blocks and the cursor lags in the same way, but just performs way better.

There is the slight downside of needing someone at the other end to actually read out the session id and password, so it isn’t a completely unattended solution. But as someone who uses this type of remote support constantly at work, I find myself limited when trying to support non-work computers, such as those owned by relatives or friends. TeamViewer brings professional grade remote support to everyone, and it’s so simple to set up, it’s probably “Nanna Proof”.

There are some acid tests I’d like to perform but haven’t yet had a chance to:

  • What’s the performance like over dial-up (at one end)?
  • Can it make it past the BFP (Big Friendly Flaky Proxy) at work?
  • Is it really Nanna Proof? Test out on real-life Nanna.

Will update this post as I do each test. If you want to be a test-subject, email me.

The real reason I love Top Gear

I’ve recently been watching “Vintage Top Gear” as SBS are calling it in an attempt to dull the pain of not showing the bloody new episodes. In the earlier episodes, the music was pretty crap. They used the same pieces over and over again and it didn’t really suit any of the scenes particularly well. But today as I plonked on the couch to enjoy more Top Gear repeats, I was thrust forward into Series 8, Episode 4 and served a nice reminder of why I keep coming back for more.

The newer episodes have simply blown me away with their perfect choices in music. The song you can hear at the start of the video is Hybrid’s “Just for Today” which I’ve previously blogged about. I always get a bit emotional whenever a Hybrid song is played on Top Gear. Another Hybrid song “Blackout” was played later in that episode. But it’s not just Hybrid. They have used heaps of other artists I like, such as Leftfield, Amon Tobin, Massive Attack, Harry Gregson-Williams, Underworld and The Chemical Brothers to name a few. For the epic scenes, the Pirates of the Caribbean and Lord of the Rings soundtracks get a workout. What I find most impressive, though is the huge variety of music and the way different tracks are seamlessly cut together and timed perfectly with the action. Combined with the stunning top-notch visuals, Top Gear’s music helps to create a show verging on being a truly cinematic experience.

I’m stating the obvious here but if Top Gear Australia expects to see any kind of success, they’ll need to realise that the original has set the bar pretty high. Not only in terms of host dynamics and humour, but also in production values.

Related Links:
List of music in Top Gear episodes
Top Gear Oresund Bridge video

Maybe I should have waited

If I am to believe the rumours, the 3G iPhone is due out in Australia this year. I would really want a 3G iPhone. Faster mobile internet, proper headphone jack, fixed GPS. How could I not want one? It’s rumoured they will be sold UNLOCKED! It’s also rumoured that it will be significantly cheaper, possibly around the US$200 mark. I’m worried that if this turns out to be true my 2G iPhone will devalue significantly (eep!). This makes me want to sell it now, before the rest of Australia realises about the new iPhone. I could live without it for a few months, but don’t want to ditch it just on a couple of rumours. Should I have faith in the tendency of Apple products to retain their value, or should I accept the loss as an inevitable consequence of buying the latest gadgets that I don’t really need?

The Curse of Dominic Minghella

Dominic Minghella is the creator of two excellent British TV series, “Robin Hood” and “Doc Martin” which have both finished their current season’s airing on ABC. Great shows, really. But there’s one problem viewers would be wise to familiarise themselves with. He’s cursed.

I’ve been an avid Robin Hood fan since the first series. It’s easily in my top five. One of those shows you look forward to every week, you know? You just fall in love with all of the characters, and the witty writing keeps you coming back for more each and every week. You just can’t get enough. Everything is going along beautifully until one day, The Curse rears its ugly head, and as if a cornered viper, strikes mercilessly, like a dagger shoved straight through the viewer’s heart.

At first, you are overwhelmed by pure shock and disbelief. This persists for a brief moment, but inevitably the toxic construction starts flooding your mind with its evil and the pain begins to set in. You experience a confounding inability to mourn due to the shear weight of what you’ve just witnessed. This leads immediately to anger. Undiluted frustrated rage in its purest form. Despite and loathing targets the writer, a malefactor of the worst order, his decisions defying all possible reason and explanation. You start to feel uneasy as the wound manifests itself in physical form, welling up in your stomach. When this becomes too much to bear, your only refuge is denial, which facilitates a few faint glimmers of hope. For a while you grasp desperately at fanciful conspiracy theories that would restore the world to equilibrium. There is only one miracle that can attempt to undo the damage that was done. But even then, if such a miracle were to occur, it could not return to you the days spent mourning listlessly in the aftermath of an event of unfathomable horror.

There. That has begun to scratch the surface of how I felt last Sunday night after watching the Robin Hood final. It has been too traumatic to write about up until this point. Hopefully now you have some idea of the nature of The Curse and it’s devastating consequences. Potential viewers of Minghella’s series beware! The Curse will seduce you into a sweet, sweet world of wonder and narcotic escapism. But at the precise moment when your memories of life before such bliss begin to fade, you will be thrust furiously into the darkness.

Until tonight, I held the optimistic belief that the Robin Hood finale was a simple miscalculation. But additional evidence has surfaced, helping to substantiate my theory of The Curse. I just watched the series three final of Doc Martin. Unlike the Robin Hood final, this episode wasn’t written by Minghella himself. This fact may have helped to dilute the full impact of The Curse. However, I’ve only seen about five episodes so there is also the possibility that a reduced exposure to Doc Martin has limited The Curse’s opportunity to gain a foothold. Whatever the reason, the episode was not as maddening as the Robin Hood final. But it still conformed to the unmistakably Curse-like formula of dangling the Happy Ending Carrot before the viewer, only to have The Carrot spontaneously burst into flames seconds before a savage gust of wind blows the ashes directly into his wide eyes, blinding him forever.

Schmapp

So yeah, that Creative Commons thing. Very soon after Josh posted this, I changed all my Flickr photos to the CC-Attribution licence, from the CC-NonCommercial licence and now Schmapp have used one of my Tassie photos on their website. It’s some travel guide thingy.

Right, now back to playing Mario Kart.