Lee's Spot

Next Gen Gaming. My story so far....

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:00:46 GMT

First there was the Xbox 360. Bought at launch. So desperate was I to get one that I order two to cover my bases. My brother thanked me for that one.

Next came the Wii. Also bought at launch. Hours of fun with Wii sports, and..erm..and..

The PS3 so tempting, that big black sexy thing... I had to have one, but the wife needed to be appeased.

Bye-bye to the Wii, off to Ebay you go, caught the Xmas rush though, got my money back.

Helloooooo Ps3, all £400 of you. Show me what you can do!!!

But wait, all these killer titles on the 360, the time of my life...Halo 3, Bioshock, COD4... they just kept coming.

What was the point of the PS3, it was just sitting there, gathering dust (very well I might add).

Oh dear, I’m not the only one, the market for these seems to have dropped. Here comes another price cut from Sony. I don’t want to lose money on this. Why was I seduced so easily?

Look at the Wii, those owners are having so much fun, and wow, that 360 Elite looks mighty fine. Surely it will be nice and quiet, unlike this current monster.

Hang on, Sony have discontinued the 60gb model, wayhey, watch those prices shoot up on ebay!

Bye Bye Ps3...

Oh no, what have I done, the games, they are starting to come.

All I have is this big, loud, ugly monster (Number 3 I might add – forgot to mention the two returns to tower Microsoft for RROD!)

Hang on, my spider sense is tingling – cheap deal at an online retailer – a misprice on a PS3 40gb, bing, in the basket and bought.

Welcome back PS3 I missed you and your many tricks.

All was well for a while, but I kept feeling something was wrong...

Maybe it was the onset of tinnitus, maybe the house shaking when I went for a quick blast of COD4 online, maybe the perpetual fear of the next RROD.

It has to go, I can’t deal with you anymore. You are just so... ...well American – big, loud and no longer welcome (it’s a stereotype joke – don’t flame me)

Ah look, on a forum I frequent, someone want to trade his Wii for a 360, now’s my chance....

And here we are, present day.

A nice PS3 for gaming and media and blue-ray and whatever...

A little ickle Wii for a quick bit of mindless fun – and hopefully introduce the kids to this wonderful world of gaming.

And the ringing in the ears... you know what, I can hear myself think again.

2 Weeks in

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 22:03:09 GMT

Week two with my MacBook.

It just gets better and better. I have found this great blog:

http://www.davidalison.com/

Worth a read, it pretty much sums up my experience so far.

Why do I like the Mac so much...just because. It is hard to explain. It just works, and it is so much fun.

So far I have added Fusion to my list of apps and installed XP and Vista as VMs. However, apart from just playing with VMs and learning how to expand primary boot drives I have not really used them.

Trying Office 2008 for Mac, but honestly it is not as good as Office 07 on Windows, but do I really need it? The investigation continues.

The forbidden fruit

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 11:12:49 GMT

Well, despite Tom’s best effort convincing to me to the contrary, a bargain appeared on the Apple refurbishment store and I just had to have it.

Fast forward one day and I am the proud owner of a sexy little white macbook.

But, alas, there is a saga (stop sniggering at the back!)

Every time the little fella tries to make a noise i get this ghastly ‘white’ noise emanating from the rear right speaker.

Have I upset the Gods at Bill tower?

One call to technical support where I try an explain the problem to some Greek chap. I am given the number of some local service centre to phone. They, I am assured will sort it all out.

But no, said service centre appeared to be an apple reseller who cannot help, although were very friendly and helpful.

This can’t be right I think, this is the other team, they look after you, surely?

Back to customer support. Ah, an English guy. Very sorry to hear of my problem, must be very upsetting. Puts me through to after sales.

I very nice lady took all my detail, again apologised. Started talking about arranging for the courier to come a collect my damaged machine, they will be in contact within 48 hours to arrange a pick up. Oh, rather deflated I said, bit upset about not being able to play with my new toy (Tom – that one’s for you )

Oh no, she said, we shall get a new replacement out to you priority, you will probably get that before the courier arranges to pick up the old one.

So far very happy with Apple, but let us see how this develops.....

Flickr

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:53:39 GMT

Finally got around to setting up a Flickr account.

The view from my window at work is so impressive; it just has to be shared.

It is just a shame about the long journey to and from work.

Anyway, I'll keep this updated every time nature decides to impress me.

www.flickr.com/photos/lbphillips

COD4 single player game of the year!

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 10:20:34 GMT

Finished COD4 single player last night, well 1:30am this morning!

Even though it only took me 3 sittings over two days, it has got to be the best single player experience I have had this year on 360.

Yes, better than single player Halo 3 and better than Bioshock.

Can't wait to get into multiplayer and the Arcade mode

flameproof suit at the ready....

New Headphone Heaven

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 22:55:58 GMT

So, I have been gradually upgrading headphones, hoepfully improving my music aural delight.

For travel I am very happy with my PX200s

Sennheiser PX200

although I have now managed to break the plug on them so they will need replacing.

At work I am currently using a pair of HTX7E-A

Panasonic HTX7E-A Monitor Headphones

These are very nice. A lovely tight sound I am very happy with. They manage to block out surrounding distractions nicely.

But, I have just upgraded my home cans to these HD585s. Every other set of phones I have has just become also rans.

Sennheiser HD485 Open Headphone

Now this is the first set of 'open' backed headphones I have used. I was always worried about sound seepage before. The sound on these though is absoultely amazing.

I am sitting here plugged into my PC jumping around tracks on itunes like a kid given free reign in a candy store. Everything sounds amazing and yet again, I am rediscovering sounds on tracks I have never heard before.

oh what fun, really...FUN

Now, how silly would I look if i used these with my mp3 player on the train, and should I care...hmmmm

Card Fraud...I'm another statistic.

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 05:53:03 GMT

So, got a call from Barclays fraud Department as I walked in the front door last night.

As I had been sitting comfortably (right!) on the great British underground system journeying home, some little bastard had been spending thousands of pound on my debit card. The one safely in my pocket!!

They Got £2k, but the bank stopped the request for the next £2k - oh how nice of them.

Now I have to wait until the transactions appear on my statement before I can claim back against them - my cards have been stopped and my account is empty. I have no cash in my pocket and am extremely pissed off!!!

Why can't the fraud department talk to the Service department and sort all this out for me??? Now I have to phone services on Monday get them to sort it out and send forms out to me that I have to sign and return. Then they have to go to the company where my money was spent and demand it back. All this taking a minimum of 10 days. 10 days with no cash. I have to try and organise a temporary overdraught to cover bills and stuff.

Oh what fun.

Launchy 1.0 is out

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 15:56:49 GMT

http://launchy.net/

Great little tool for quick application launching.

Use it and speed up your life :D

Get rid of the bloat

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 21:35:16 GMT

So, we all know there are a few applications that we need to use, but they are just, how do we say....bloated.

Well, there are some great replacements.

Anti-Virus:

Norton AV is known to be a big resource drain, how about one of these

AVG Free - http://free.grisoft.com/doc/28415/lng/us/tpl/v5

NOD32 - http://www.eset.com

Avast! Antivirus - http://www.avast.com/

AntiVir - http://www.free-av.com

PDF Reader:

Hands up if you hate adobe and its megs of install just to read a pdf

Foxit Reader - http://www.foxitsoftware.com/

Media Players:

Some you may know but others are a life saver

VLC - http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Media Player Classic - http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/

ffdshow - http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/codecs_and_filters/ffdshow.cfm

Real Alternative - http://www.free-codecs.com/download_soft.php?d=2541&s=65

Quicktime Alternative - http://www.free-codecs.com/download_soft.php?d=2829&s=66

Web Browsers:

Who needs IE?

Firefox- http://www.getfirefox.com

Opera - http://www.opera.com

Wii Code: 4037 3033 9671 6102

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 23:57:23 GMT

Rocky! Rocky! Rocky!

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 23:52:51 GMT

Saw Rockey Balboa tonight. I was not expecting much, but I really enjoyed it. Infact, from the moment the Rocky Theme started up I was hooked.

Lets face it Rocky V was complete pants.

They needed to make this. A great finish to the story. Please leave it here Sly.

logmein....gush

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:38:05 GMT

https://www.logmein.com/

This is probably one of the most useful web services ever.

Do you need to remote desktop yet the network you are on blocks connections?

Do you need a web based easy to use Free service?

Do you need to constantly connect to other peoples machines remotly to fix issues?

logmein is just one of the best remote access solutions I have ever used.

I have been using it for ages and it just works (including on vista and firefox)

Joost?

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 23:22:15 GMT

Looks interesting:

https://www.joost.com/

anyone a beta tester? is this the future?

The web is the delivery medium of choice...millions of torrent users can't be wrong.

IPTV is the future they say, not so sure, not untill we get some huge broadband speed increases. Everyone talks of HDTV but IPTV just can't get near that quality at present.

Great tool for anyone who buys Dell

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 09:21:48 GMT

Fed up with all the crap that Dell (or other OEMs) install on your new machine.

This could be the answer to your prayers:

http://www.yorkspace.com/pc-de-crapifier/

Cool 3d maps

Tue, 09 Jan 2007 22:01:05 GMT

No sniggering from Mr. TKG, but I am really impressed with MS Live Local.

Check out these great 3D images on the house. This is really cool.

no updates for a while

Thu, 25 May 2006 08:13:37 GMT

been busy. but here is a brief update:

BT finally got it together and refunded my money and gave me extra for my trouble. Not much, don't get excited. they owed me £70 and rounded it up to£100.

The extension is finally finished - just have to get it certified by the building inspector. Will post some images later.

Now need to sort out the garden, which needs a fence (the builders removed the old one), and de-junglefying.

Oh, and the outside of the house need to be painted. The dodgy two-tone affair is just not right.

Avoid BT (a short rant)

Thu, 27 Apr 2006 09:53:59 GMT

Just a quick note (and warning to you all) about British Telecom and the fun I have been having.

So in January this year I left BT mobile and ported my number back to Orange.

Everything seemed to go fiine and I was happy to be back with Orange as my provider.

Then in February a bill arrived from BT for another months line rental. I phoned them and they said it was thier fault don't worry it would be settled.

March came and so did another bill from BT. I also checked the bacnk and saw that they had actually taken the money from my account!

I rang my bank and stopped the DD to BT mobile, then I called BT again and told them that they owed me two months money. NO problem they said. They had made a mistake it would all be sorted.

Begining on April, I get a text message from BT - my payment for this month has been rejected by the bank please sort it out. Then two days later a letter arrives in the post telling me that if I did not pay my bill they would close my account and pass my details onto a debt collection agency. Oh, and my credit rating would be damaged.

Again I phone BT. and lose it.

They owe me money and yet threaten to take me to the cleaners? AND MY ACOUNT WAS CLOSED IN JANUARY. Again they appologise, and tell me it will all be sorted.

Guess what...I am still waiting. I have phoned them again today and am waiting another call back.

At least they now tell me that my closed acount is one month in credit . hey, its an improvment. shame they have forgot the other month and to actually return the money to me....

go slow

Thu, 27 Apr 2006 09:24:26 GMT

So the builders seemed to work very hard when we were away, and now, as soon as we return, have slowed right own again.

Anyway, some new pics of the upstairs bedroom and bathroom - hopefully better lit so you can see.

Also the old downstairs bathroom has been stripped, and you can see how the new room downstairs is coming along.

Back from holiday

Mon, 24 Apr 2006 10:53:55 GMT

Back from holiday and the builders have been busy.

The moved windows in the spare room is now made good.

The new room in the upsatirs part of the extansion looks incredible.

And the tiling has been completed in the new upstairs bathroom.

Busy busy...

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 18:33:59 GMT

The builders have been busy this last week.

My office is now starting to take shape as a bathroom.

The scafolding is down and all the windows are in, including the new on for the bathroom. the outside of the house has been rendered.

The gas meter has been moved to its new home on the outside wall.

The new rooms are plastered.

Finally the upstairs toilet has been removed and the wall knocked through to make the new walkway into the upstairs extension.

Photo Album: Edan :-)

Thu, 21 Jul 2005 09:59:19 GMT

Edan :-)

Untitled Photo

Copy of IMG_1778

Untitled Photo

edan bday