Now that the power cut is officially over and out of the way (man it feels longer than 6 days!), I can start to talk about the Monkey Island remake, along with Steam and Battle.net. I decided to expand the post because Steam is the method I used to download the game and right now, I’m fully starting to appriciate Steam for what it is; a good way of getting games without the storage overhead! I mean, it’s nice having a CD, but when you’re on the move, it’s not practical to carry a game with you, is it? I applaud Valve for releasing Steam in the first place. Granted, it may have initially started off a bit rocky (most new things did), but it’s starting to really become a great way of getting games, or storing some of the games you already have! For instance, if you add your Half Life or Gunman Chronicles key to Steam, it gives you Half life and lots of goodies… this was a pleasant surprise for me, as I unfortunately lost access to my original Steam account, so it’s on their system, but I’ve no way of accessing it! Either way though, because of the advent of faster broadband, the retail landscape has been changed – you can now download a DVD worth of content in a matter of hours, rather than weeks! Additionally, digital downloads reduce the cost of a product, seeing as the distribution and manufacturing charges have been wiped off; those for the box, manuals, the game media itself and transport costs. Altogether, this does make for a cheaper game.

Another aspect to digital downloads is that the download is just data, meaning you can’t break it! I’ve lost one or two CDs and ended up just buying a replacement, as it seemed to be too much hassle to return it to the developer (the media cost almost as much as the game would have – plus I was in Ireland the devs pointed to the UK which wasn’t that cheap to post to!). At least with this method, people can keep their media safe and also carry it around with them – all that’s needed is internet access. That certainly means less baggage for me anyway, seeing as my laptop weighs a ton! There are a couple of downsides though, at least for me… firstly, although I may physically have a particular game that’s for sale on Steam, I may not necessarily be able to add it. This presents a problem as I have to purchase an entirely new copy of the game for it to be on Steam. For a game like the X-Com collection, this was less of an issue, as I could offset most of the cost by saying that I needed UFO to complete the collection. Granted, it’s just one game, but it does make the overall cost feel a bit less. I also have my eye on the id software collection too, as the value of the games I don’t have are nearly the value of the pack itself.

Decisions like that are a lot easier to make. Of course, one thing I do plan to do is compare the prices of games on Steam over what they are retail. If they’re cheaper or the same price on Steam, I’ll get it there instead. I can’t fully move away from non-digital downloads though as It’s not very practical for me. That said however, if devs like Blizzard are also hopping onto the DD bandwagon, I’ll be happy. The new Battle.net has impressed me so far, and I’ve only just signed up! They now offer the ability to download a digital copy of their games, which is cool. My copy of Diablo 2: LOD seems to be a bit screwy atm, so this is a welcome method of downloading a copy of the media that should work! I think my WarCraft III expansion suffered a similar fate as well. One thing I am concerned about though is the fact I selected US English for StarCraft by mistake. Now, don’t get me wrong, I can understand US English fine, but I’m concerned about the technical issues more to be honest. I guess this just means I have to download a different patch now. Either way, I do appriciate the facility to download my Blizzard games. I’ve also just downloaded a system checker for StarCraft II, so I can opt into the beta, or at least try anyway. Either way, after much grief (the checker told me it couldn’t upload my system info), it uploaded it anyway. Now I’m not sure if it’s because the app is screwy, but I figure it uploaded the data the first time, or perhaps it did it after I moved my PC into my router’s DMZ… either way I don’t think I’ll ever know. But it’s done now, so I can rest easy. That said though, while Googling some ports for the app, I saw someone mention that 400GB is needed to participate in the Beta testing program.

Read the rest of the entry »

I recieved a rather interesting request in my LiveJournal not too long ago:

Need to download XRumer 5.0 for free!
Huh… I want to get software pack XRumer 5.07 PALLADIUM for free. Have you any url?
I’m so need this magic program! It’s can break captchas automatically! Activate accounts via email automatically too! Absolutely great software! Help me!
And did you hear news – price for XRumer 5.0 Palladium will grow up to $540 after 15 may 2009… And XRumer 2.9 and 3.0 – too old versions, it’s cant break modern catpchas and cant break modern anti-bot protections. But XRumer 5.0 Palladium CAN!!!!
So help me for download this great soft for free! Thanks!

Whoever that person is must have assumed that I know my way around my computer, or rather more than that and to be honest, they got it right.  However, there’s no way in hell I’ll be accommodating such a request.  First of all, I don’t officially* condone not paying for software and secondly, why the hell would I accommodate someone wanting to break a captcha?  It’s bad enough that I have to use them so my sites get spammed, so why would I go and help someone break something I have to use?  For all I know, he could eventually use it on my website!  Anyway, the fact a piece of software can break captchas automatically concerns me.  Granted, not all of them are easily broken, but if this has been proven to break them, does this mean that the spammers are catching up?  It always seems to be a game of cat and mouse with spammers to be honest.

I’m very much anti-spam because it screws up things for me, and others.  My forums get spammed a lot, as do my blogs.  Either way, I won’t be responding to him, and if he sees this, my response is a big, fat NO.

*I accept the use of not paying for software for educational purposes, only if it’s hideously expensive.  If someone intends to make a profit using the software, then they should purchase it.

Warning, this post is huge! If you don’t like reading large blog posts, you’re advised to avoid this!

The past half hour or so, I’ve been looking at many things… things mostly to do with how the human mind works and percieves things. I have to say, there’s quite an interesting amount of stuff there, and I haven’t even scratched the surface. First of all, we come across this article, which talks about the fact that schitzophrenics are not fooled by the “hollow face illusion”, with an included video. Essentially, the “hollow face illusion” involves — as you may have guessed — a hollow face. The article describes it as:

In the hollow mask illusion, viewers perceive a concave face (like the back side of a hollow mask) as a normal convex face. The illusion exploits our brain’s strategy for making sense of the visual world: uniting what it actually sees — known as bottom-up processing — with what it expects to see based on prior experience — known as top-down processing.

Anyway, it has been shown that those with schitzophrenia are not fooled by this illusion and see the concave face as what it actually is. The rest of us (including myself, which is interesting) see the conclave as a convex face, to the extent the nose sticks out! And even if you know this already, it doesn’t matter; your brain will still percieve the back side as a normal face. I found it interesting that I saw it like most “normal” people do, because I have a type of Autism known as Asperger Syndrome (AS). Now granted, I have been taught to act somewhat normal, but I do wonder if anyone else on the Autistic Spectrum will see things like normal people, or schitzophrenics.

Why I say this is because AS was once considered to be a form of schitzophrenia… see where I’m going with this yet? Good.  Anyway, if those on the Autistic Spectrum see things like a normal person, it would mean that Autism Spectrum Disorders affect different parts of the brain to schitzophrenics. That said of course, those who are drunk and under the influence of drugs see through it too, which makes you wonder what parts of the brain intoxicating substances hit, doesn’t it?

Post continues after the break… get a cuppa, you’ll need it!

A friend of mine showed this request in an IRC channel I own: http://www.getacoder.com/projects/programming_c_87390.html

For those of you reading this request, and it’s no longer there, it says (emphasis his):

Description
I need someone to program me a new OS (Operasting System) that looks different than Ms Windows XP etc. but has the same style. It does not need to run on a mac but all the other PCs. It’s supposed to have a stylish look with clear edges etc. And ITS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE JUST A REDESIGNED WINDOWS as I’m going to sell that operating system later on.
These are some important points :

It should have ALL THE FEATURES that Windows Xp Professional has.
ALL the files that run on Windows XP ust also run on the BlueOrb OS.
It must have a very user-friendly interface (like MS WINDOWS XP)
When it gets Installed, the user needs to insert a serial number.
It HAS to be HACKER SAFE!
It must be quick and good looking.

So yeah, that’s what he’s asking for. Bad spelling aside (what’s an “Operasting System”?) $100 for developing an OS, which he plans to sell though? I could think of stronger words than “what the hell?” to describe his request. Frankly, if I could program in C++, I’d be asking for a hell of a lot more than the equivelent of £75 for a product someone is going to sell and make at least 10x the amount on (most likely more!). Additionally, what is this Blueorb OS he’s on about? Someone told me it could be the Mac OS, but isn’t that an apple? I really wonder about people sometimes… they truly worry me.

Recently, I was forced to upgrade my version of Skype to 4.0.x from 3.6.x. Part of this reason was to see if it would improve the voice quality, which it did and also to get more up to date. Granted, I am still exploring the new changes, but I don’t like the new interface, or how it does things with different contacts. It feels too weird, and I hardly recognise Skype now. Don’t get me wrong, there are some good improvements fot the technical aspects, but I can’t say I like the interface much, and from what I’ve read, a lot of people have said the same.