well, now university is over til october, i find myself with little to do, asside from playing halo custom edition and crysis. I have, however, had time to digitise my "Cabooses guides" series!! All i need to do is convert them into pure ascii from .doc, and they will be up! Stay tuned!!
=G=Caboose
Friday, 16 May 2008
Sunday, 13 April 2008
Easter break
As most will know, the past 3 weeks have been filled with lots of work, as it is the Easter holidays for students @ UCLan. I myself have been doing the three following activities:
1. Work. We have all been given lots of project work to do over the break. There is Ak’s carpet shop command line c++ application, which currently stands at 1500 lines, but I feel it will get much bigger. There is John’s report on Asos.com, which I really don’t like; Shopping for clothes is bad, so shopping online for clothes is just a waste of time, and just ruins what could be an enjoyable experience. There is Gareth’s C++ game to make, where you are an ore miner on a planet, and you must avoid the turret and meteors. There is Niki’s blog, which you are reading now, a video on “a day in the life of…” which should be on youtube shortly, and a facebook application. Finally there is the group 7000 worder for Helen. Altogether, a lot of work.
2. Work. To stay alive, I must eat. To eat I must buy food. To buy food I need money. To get money I must have a job. This un-deniable logic leads you to a small rural pub called “the Wheatsheaf”, where I am a barman. It’s a good job, with mostly friendly locals, and it not requiring massive physical exertion. However, I have an appalling memory, so I sometimes forget long orders, which is made worse by everyone coming to the pub at around 11. After standing for 6 to 7 hours, I go home around 2am and get some sleep.
3. Work. Despite the above, my parents feel I have faaaaaar to much spare time, so set me a list of chores which included: Washing, dishwasher, washing clothes, ironing, cleaning my room (this is no easy task), cleaning the garage, and no internets.
It was my birthday during this break, it was realy hard to stay awake at work the following night.
So all in all, a busy break
Regards
=G= Caboose
1. Work. We have all been given lots of project work to do over the break. There is Ak’s carpet shop command line c++ application, which currently stands at 1500 lines, but I feel it will get much bigger. There is John’s report on Asos.com, which I really don’t like; Shopping for clothes is bad, so shopping online for clothes is just a waste of time, and just ruins what could be an enjoyable experience. There is Gareth’s C++ game to make, where you are an ore miner on a planet, and you must avoid the turret and meteors. There is Niki’s blog, which you are reading now, a video on “a day in the life of…” which should be on youtube shortly, and a facebook application. Finally there is the group 7000 worder for Helen. Altogether, a lot of work.
2. Work. To stay alive, I must eat. To eat I must buy food. To buy food I need money. To get money I must have a job. This un-deniable logic leads you to a small rural pub called “the Wheatsheaf”, where I am a barman. It’s a good job, with mostly friendly locals, and it not requiring massive physical exertion. However, I have an appalling memory, so I sometimes forget long orders, which is made worse by everyone coming to the pub at around 11. After standing for 6 to 7 hours, I go home around 2am and get some sleep.
3. Work. Despite the above, my parents feel I have faaaaaar to much spare time, so set me a list of chores which included: Washing, dishwasher, washing clothes, ironing, cleaning my room (this is no easy task), cleaning the garage, and no internets.
It was my birthday during this break, it was realy hard to stay awake at work the following night.
So all in all, a busy break
Regards
=G= Caboose
Saturday, 15 March 2008
10 reasons...
Blog entry: 10 reasons not to use your mobile in lecture.
1. Firstly because it makes the other students hate you. Even if you talk in your quietest voice (which the offender (who should be removed from lectures (and the university) in my opinion) doesn’t), and duck behind the desks (which, again, he doesn’t), will still distract others.
2. The student (although I doubt he does much studying) pays £3070 a year to come to university.
3. Other students pay £3070 a year to come to university. They don’t want to pay to not be able to hear the lecturer, but instead hear an intellectually challenged guy jabbering on, on his mobile.
4. In some lecture theatres it makes the monitor speakers buzz.
5. I doubt he cares about others, but the price of long calls might prompt him to be quieter.
6. Text messages are quicker, quieter, cheaper and more discreet. Surely a text conversation would suffice? Obviously not.
7. Unless someone is dieing, it can usually wait an hour until the lecture finishes.
8. Using phones too much cooks your brain. This is probably the only way to keep said student quiet
9. The lecturer. It’s their job to help others learn. Some thicko on a phone isn’t just distracting, it rude. Common decency and politeness were obviously exempt from this persons early life.
10. It causes other students to type a 200 word blog entry; however it is a good opportunity to have a good dig.
1. Firstly because it makes the other students hate you. Even if you talk in your quietest voice (which the offender (who should be removed from lectures (and the university) in my opinion) doesn’t), and duck behind the desks (which, again, he doesn’t), will still distract others.
2. The student (although I doubt he does much studying) pays £3070 a year to come to university.
3. Other students pay £3070 a year to come to university. They don’t want to pay to not be able to hear the lecturer, but instead hear an intellectually challenged guy jabbering on, on his mobile.
4. In some lecture theatres it makes the monitor speakers buzz.
5. I doubt he cares about others, but the price of long calls might prompt him to be quieter.
6. Text messages are quicker, quieter, cheaper and more discreet. Surely a text conversation would suffice? Obviously not.
7. Unless someone is dieing, it can usually wait an hour until the lecture finishes.
8. Using phones too much cooks your brain. This is probably the only way to keep said student quiet
9. The lecturer. It’s their job to help others learn. Some thicko on a phone isn’t just distracting, it rude. Common decency and politeness were obviously exempt from this persons early life.
10. It causes other students to type a 200 word blog entry; however it is a good opportunity to have a good dig.
Monday, 10 March 2008
Movie maker
Blog Entry : Windows Movie Maker
This simple tool, bundled with all new windows operating systems, does exactly what it says on the tin; Makes movies. What it doesn’t say is that it’s a pain to use, there are relatively few features, and only outputs to .wmv .
When I say it’s a pain to use, I mean it. One simple thing, which anyone with common sense would have added, is the soundtrack. There is no option to vary sound levels per clip; its either soundtrack or filmed sound. This means if you want one clip all music and one speech, you need to make multiple projects, and cut them together at the end. This still leaves the problem of synchronisation, as this method often makes the soundtrack jump to new points.
Another problem is that there is virtually no effects available. Even with the meagre selection of poor alterations, there are no options on how much an effect should be added. For example; the watercolour effect. You either don’t have it:
Or you have an indistinguishable bunch of blobs:
There are some upsides though.
The interface is so simple even an American idiot can use it. Also the ability to chop the film at the point you are currently at is, admittedly, very handy.
My overall feelings are that Windows Movie Maker is a great tool for those who can’t be arsed making a decent looking movie. With much better commercial and freeware alternatives, I would not advise it.
This simple tool, bundled with all new windows operating systems, does exactly what it says on the tin; Makes movies. What it doesn’t say is that it’s a pain to use, there are relatively few features, and only outputs to .wmv .
When I say it’s a pain to use, I mean it. One simple thing, which anyone with common sense would have added, is the soundtrack. There is no option to vary sound levels per clip; its either soundtrack or filmed sound. This means if you want one clip all music and one speech, you need to make multiple projects, and cut them together at the end. This still leaves the problem of synchronisation, as this method often makes the soundtrack jump to new points.
Another problem is that there is virtually no effects available. Even with the meagre selection of poor alterations, there are no options on how much an effect should be added. For example; the watercolour effect. You either don’t have it:
Or you have an indistinguishable bunch of blobs:
There are some upsides though.
The interface is so simple even an American idiot can use it. Also the ability to chop the film at the point you are currently at is, admittedly, very handy.
My overall feelings are that Windows Movie Maker is a great tool for those who can’t be arsed making a decent looking movie. With much better commercial and freeware alternatives, I would not advise it.
Friday, 22 February 2008
Facebook Apps
Facebook is a massive social networking site. However, unlike previous networks, where you are simply provided with a web page to edit, with some basic online apps for photos and friends, Facebook is more focused in communication. One big advantage of using Facebook is the thousands of small applications which can be installed into your profile. Despite only having been on Facebook for a month or two, I already have some favourites:
10: FlogBlog
This is a really small application, which only has one function: to display your online blog on your profile. This may sound really basic, but only having a hyperlink to your blog, or copying and pasting it into your profile is a real hassle. It’s not what I would call a “fun” application, but it’s very useful.
9: Wrestler
This app is much like many others: battle someone you know, using either chance or a rock-paper-scissors style decision maker, this using the latter. It’s not bad, but it is excessively slow if the opponent isn’t online.
8: HomeWorld
Similar to the RTS equivalent, its very similar to petrol heads, but you can battle anyone on facebook
7: TheWall
Included with every profile, the wall is a small area on your profile for friends to post small messages and images. It’s actually quite useful; whether it be that your friend isn’t signed into an instant messenger, you don’t have their address, or they could be in a different time zone. This small area to keep in contact is really nice, and a great way to communicate against E-mail.
6: Groups
Another in-built application, it does exactly what it says on the tin: it allows you to join online groups in Facebook. Currently I am a member of “Games concepts is clearly the best course at UCLan” , “I turn my pillow over to get to the cold side” and “drunk text appreciation society”.
5: Top Friends
Facebook’s built in friends app simply lets you add friends, to see your profile. The Top Friends allows you to send gifts and drinks, rate your friends, and organise them in order; from your best friends, to your close social circles, to people your friends brother’s mate knows, to the people who you dint want to add as friends, but kind of had to.
4: How british are you?
Annother “does exactly what it says on the tin” application, but now you can show off your britishness on you profile.
3: Texas Hold’em poker
This app does exactly what it says on the tin, but thankfully, no money is involed. Just for fun
2: Super Poke
Built into Facebook is an option to “poke” someone, but this gets very old, very fast. Super poke fills that void. Basically it allows you to perform pretend actions toward friends. Tazing, detaining at the airport, giving cookies, waving at among some of the hundreds of different pokes you can send to your friends. This app is just for laughs, with new options constantly becoming available by super poking x number of people. I would strongly recommend it.
1: PetrolHeads
This small but adictive game involves racing your friends, the better you get, the more cars you can chose, and the more probability you have of winning a race. It doesn’t sound like much but its one of the most satisfying feelings,beating a sports car with a cinclair C5.
10: FlogBlog
This is a really small application, which only has one function: to display your online blog on your profile. This may sound really basic, but only having a hyperlink to your blog, or copying and pasting it into your profile is a real hassle. It’s not what I would call a “fun” application, but it’s very useful.
9: Wrestler
This app is much like many others: battle someone you know, using either chance or a rock-paper-scissors style decision maker, this using the latter. It’s not bad, but it is excessively slow if the opponent isn’t online.
8: HomeWorld
Similar to the RTS equivalent, its very similar to petrol heads, but you can battle anyone on facebook
7: TheWall
Included with every profile, the wall is a small area on your profile for friends to post small messages and images. It’s actually quite useful; whether it be that your friend isn’t signed into an instant messenger, you don’t have their address, or they could be in a different time zone. This small area to keep in contact is really nice, and a great way to communicate against E-mail.
6: Groups
Another in-built application, it does exactly what it says on the tin: it allows you to join online groups in Facebook. Currently I am a member of “Games concepts is clearly the best course at UCLan” , “I turn my pillow over to get to the cold side” and “drunk text appreciation society”.
5: Top Friends
Facebook’s built in friends app simply lets you add friends, to see your profile. The Top Friends allows you to send gifts and drinks, rate your friends, and organise them in order; from your best friends, to your close social circles, to people your friends brother’s mate knows, to the people who you dint want to add as friends, but kind of had to.
4: How british are you?
Annother “does exactly what it says on the tin” application, but now you can show off your britishness on you profile.
3: Texas Hold’em poker
This app does exactly what it says on the tin, but thankfully, no money is involed. Just for fun
2: Super Poke
Built into Facebook is an option to “poke” someone, but this gets very old, very fast. Super poke fills that void. Basically it allows you to perform pretend actions toward friends. Tazing, detaining at the airport, giving cookies, waving at among some of the hundreds of different pokes you can send to your friends. This app is just for laughs, with new options constantly becoming available by super poking x number of people. I would strongly recommend it.
1: PetrolHeads
This small but adictive game involves racing your friends, the better you get, the more cars you can chose, and the more probability you have of winning a race. It doesn’t sound like much but its one of the most satisfying feelings,beating a sports car with a cinclair C5.
Friday, 15 February 2008
Ethics
Creating a digital log of your life, sharing it with others, and expressing your views is a great idea, however the whole ethics of exposing your life is questionable.
Firstly, as it’s open for anyone to see, this in itself is a risk. It could attract unwanted attention or abuse. Their have been several high profile cases of people having to close their blog and their online identity.
Another big problem with blogging is the repercussions of blogging about other people. Blogging about yourself is perfectly acceptable, but extreme care isn’t taken, a case of libel could be brought against you. Even joking about a person, group or subject may land you in seriously hot water.
Then their is the danger of your account being broken into, and some unknown party broadcasting, offending, inappropriate or phishing.
So my advice is thus: Never give out any personal details, regardless of how insignificant, keep your username and password safe, never ever express radical, degrading or insulting comments, and most of all, don’t get addicted. As nice as a virtual life can be, constantly blogging will leave you with little of real life to blog about.
Good luck, and safe blogging
=g= Caboose
Firstly, as it’s open for anyone to see, this in itself is a risk. It could attract unwanted attention or abuse. Their have been several high profile cases of people having to close their blog and their online identity.
Another big problem with blogging is the repercussions of blogging about other people. Blogging about yourself is perfectly acceptable, but extreme care isn’t taken, a case of libel could be brought against you. Even joking about a person, group or subject may land you in seriously hot water.
Then their is the danger of your account being broken into, and some unknown party broadcasting, offending, inappropriate or phishing.
So my advice is thus: Never give out any personal details, regardless of how insignificant, keep your username and password safe, never ever express radical, degrading or insulting comments, and most of all, don’t get addicted. As nice as a virtual life can be, constantly blogging will leave you with little of real life to blog about.
Good luck, and safe blogging
=g= Caboose
Tuesday, 5 February 2008
Papin
This week we were sent out of our comfort zone, with nothing more than a large camera and the idea “a day in the life of…”. My aspiring artistic group consisted of Wilson, DJ Searle, Lewis, Jamie, Mazz, Ryan and Phil. Initially we came up with the un-original idea “A day in the life of a student”, so we went to the pub, as to portray student life in the most accurate way. After a few pints and a couple of games of pool, during which Dan used a combination of magnets, well aimed draughts and slight of hand to cheat his way to victory over me, we decided that all students know how the life of a student works. So while the team were formulating a crack plan, me and Dan were “Paping” (Paparazzi) each other. This lead to the idea of following some random public member, taking pictures of them and not getting caught. This was deemed to be a little extreme, so we concocted the following plan:
1 Person #1 wakes up with person #2, and isn’t happy. This was shot outside CM033 on the seats, as we couldn’t find any nearby beds. It was at this point that person #1 should be Wilson, and person #2 should be Mazz (as he had already exposed himself earlier, so he fits the character profile)
2 person #1 identifies person #2 in a police line-up
3 Person #2 tracks down person #1 to the top of the Greenbank building for revenge
4 Elaborate fight scene, with a matrix-style thing (which didn’t look that good)
5 person #2 throws person #1 off balcony
6 Shots of #1 on floor below
With this super plan, we set out and caught it all on film, at various locations across the university campus. Despite the plot being as clear as a Stephan Segal movie, we had lots of fun, and gathered a lot of quality blackmail material, as shown below. Here’s looking at you Nikki!
1 Person #1 wakes up with person #2, and isn’t happy. This was shot outside CM033 on the seats, as we couldn’t find any nearby beds. It was at this point that person #1 should be Wilson, and person #2 should be Mazz (as he had already exposed himself earlier, so he fits the character profile)
2 person #1 identifies person #2 in a police line-up
3 Person #2 tracks down person #1 to the top of the Greenbank building for revenge
4 Elaborate fight scene, with a matrix-style thing (which didn’t look that good)
5 person #2 throws person #1 off balcony
6 Shots of #1 on floor below
With this super plan, we set out and caught it all on film, at various locations across the university campus. Despite the plot being as clear as a Stephan Segal movie, we had lots of fun, and gathered a lot of quality blackmail material, as shown below. Here’s looking at you Nikki!
Wednesday, 30 January 2008
Firewalls
aaargh. i have just bought a new pc and dont want to put it on the internet for obvious reasons. so i have decided to make a short tutorial about how to arm your system.
1) get some old pc, which isnt in use, and move all your files to cd or somthing similar, as the HDD will need to be formatted
2)download and burn the iso for smoothwall http://www.smoothwall.org/get/ and burn it to a cd
3) open the old pc and add a network card
4)start the old pc, after closing the case, and boot from cd.
5) install smoothwall with the RED seting
6)Install avast http://www.avast.com/ and zone alarm http://www.zonealarm.com/store/content/catalog/products/sku_list_za.jsp?dc=56pus&ctry=GB&lang=en
and install them on the other pcs
7)link them all up, while off, with a network cable, then boot up
8)install your asdl modem on the smoothwall machine and you'r off!
I recomend reading http://skullbox.net/smoothwall.php
I accept no responsibility for damage or corruption. Preform the above at your own risk, and only if you know how to use computers at an expert level!
1) get some old pc, which isnt in use, and move all your files to cd or somthing similar, as the HDD will need to be formatted
2)download and burn the iso for smoothwall http://www.smoothwall.org/get/ and burn it to a cd
3) open the old pc and add a network card
4)start the old pc, after closing the case, and boot from cd.
5) install smoothwall with the RED seting
6)Install avast http://www.avast.com/ and zone alarm http://www.zonealarm.com/store/content/catalog/products/sku_list_za.jsp?dc=56pus&ctry=GB&lang=en
and install them on the other pcs
7)link them all up, while off, with a network cable, then boot up
8)install your asdl modem on the smoothwall machine and you'r off!
I recomend reading http://skullbox.net/smoothwall.php
I accept no responsibility for damage or corruption. Preform the above at your own risk, and only if you know how to use computers at an expert level!
Friday, 25 January 2008
Hello
This is my first blog, so hi. Im a bit bored in labs, but its friday, so hey. I cant wait to get home to install smoothwall on the old pc, as i dont want the new pc on the internet directly. Got work later. bye!
Saturday, 19 January 2008
My fave game
The best game in the world ever is halo custom edition, followed closely by Crysis. Halo custom edition is the free addition to the halo series for pc. Aside from not having a single player, the game is exactly the same, but with thousands of maps available to download. The maps are created by members of the public using the WYSIWYG editor, sapien: This has lead to thousands of maps, vehicles, weapons, characters and other bizarre objects to be created. Even now, 5 years after its release, it’s still popular, and still is a lot of fun to play.
My next favourite game is a really new one: Crysis. I was blown away when I first played it, and i'm not the only one, here’s the first paragraph from a review from http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/action/crysis/review.html , where it scored a mega 9.5/10.
“It was hard not to be completely impressed when the first images and videos of Crysis appeared about 18 months ago. Scenes of lush jungles and towering alien war machines looked light-years beyond what seemed possible. Of course, the two questions that revolved around Crysis since its announcement were whether it would deliver on those visuals and whether it would deliver a game worthy of those fancy graphics. It turns out that the answer to both those questions is a resounding yes, as Germany's Crytek has proven that its 2004 hit Far Cry was no fluke. In fact, it was just the beginning from this studio. With its sophomore effort, Crytek has managed to deliver an incredibly advanced and exciting first-person shooter that practically rewrites the rules for the entire genre.”
It has been showered with complements from almost every gaming site, magazine, group and even industry bodies. There is one big disadvantage: It devours your system. When I ran it was taking up 990 Meg of RAM! What’s more is that it needs 12GB of hard drive space, 256 Meg of graphics memory, and a 2.8 GHz processor. Basically if your machine isn’t called Deep Thought, you don’t stand a chance of running it. But with an AMAZING sandbox editor, and a colossal 32 people per map online, this is well worth the buy.
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