.:: Games zONE ::.

A little while back on holiday at the Isle of Wight, my dad brought along his Pocket PC that he was given for receiving emails from work. And of course, being my dad, he went and explored some of the games on it and I happened to look over his should and notice he was playing a game called 'Jawbreaker'. So eventually, we all started playing it as we found it really cool and mind-challenging.

So when we got back, I went looking on the good old 'net for a Windows XP version - and I found one called 'Jannie Balls'. I know there are some other ones out there, but Jannie Balls seemed to be the only good one at the time, so we all stuck with it.

The Jannie Balls website is here, but you can do a Google Search for others here.

Also, on the Isle of Wight, we went to see the 'Waltzing Waters', one of the most spectular water shows in the world. You can visit the official homepage here for pictures, video clips and more info.

Charity Work @ Home

There is a program I found out about maybe a month ago called 'World Community Grid', which is a program created by IBM (the current creators of the world's faster computer Blue-Gene/L) to conduct research into human proteins and organic processes for scientfic needs and advantages. Visit the homepage here.

This is how it works: Once registered, your computer will connect to the World Community Grid server and download the first project, 'Human Proteome Folding'. All you then need to do is set your preferences (like how many GB you will allocate it), and then whenever you're not using your computer, like if a screensaver is running, the WCG Agent can be run to continue its research. And when you come back, the program will close and you won't even notice it was running. If you don't want it to run itself, you can load the program manually and it will sit in the System Tray if you need to open it.

So that means that its a very good global method of using the wasted energy for good instead of bad. And because there are so many contributors to this research, many projects are submitted and overall makes a whole load of processing energy! Accordingly, this project would have taken 12 years to do, but because so many people have taken part, it has been completed in 12 months! The next project is called 'Fight AIDS @ Home'. I leave it on most of the time, and although the process CPU usage says its taking 99% of my resources, I can still work perfectly fine with all my programs and without any interruptions - I just leave it on in the background to do its thing. I just think its a very good idea - to know that when your in the kitchen grabbing some food, some good is being done at minimum. Enjoy it!

Update 18/12 - Click Online has also suggested two websites you can visit that give free food and services to those who need it, just by visiting their pages. The first one is www.stopthehunger.com and a whole collection of them are on here: www.thehungersite.com

Read more: http://bphelmet.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!75FE152C300ACC6!844.entry

Cool HTML/CSS Effects

Try out this page. Seriously. This is a really wicked effects code genreator. There are so many more effects than I thought were possible! There are some really excellent filters and transitions for you to use on your webpages.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/samples/author/dhtml/DXTidemo/DXTidemo.htm

New Influence

A midday film was shown on C4 on Thursday (so I had to tape it) called 'Odd Girl Out', with Alexa Vega (from Spy Kids). It was quite a reasonable and touching insight into the world of the victims of bullying (fits in nicely with Anti-Bullying Week!), and it seems to have made some kind of influence in my work and trail of thought. Just to let you know, I thought it was quite good. You can check out the IMDb section here.

One thing I've learnt from it is that you shouldn't hide problems, but instead, talk about them to others - people who you can trust. Some of the things that Vanessa did to herself in the film; I just had to stop the tape and think.

Flash Cartoons

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, we were in Geography Pd 1, and we went to the LRC to do some research on out recent trip to Epping Forest. So you can probably guess what happened - not much work was done, idiots visiting websites, yadda yadda yadda. But then all of a sudden my friends and I heard a really weird tune. Anyway, we found the website it was coming from, and we couldn't stop laughing - we sang it all through the lesson (well not actually because we forgot how it went :( ). So here it is: Bananaphone. Sounds weird but it is funny.

So I decided to do some research into this instead of some old forest:

The badgers in the animation and their previous adaptations come from here (Wikipedia Definition).

The hype and reason for this version is explained here (also Wikipedia).

And another one was made - watch it here.

And there is another one which someone suggested to me: "She Frickin' Blocked Me", SWF file here.

A Personal Note

I would just like to say a great big thank you to all who have visited my MSN Space, my website, and most importantly to those who have posted comments on here, on my MailMe page and on my guestbook.

Thank You!

Luca wrote: Hey mate. I am constantly visiting your new 2 pages which are highlighted in red on your website. I cnt wait till you add some more stuff. Thanks for the wicked links for the power toys for XP. Nov. 26 | Delete

Download Music - A Common Question

This blog is for all those who have asked me what I use to download music, enjoy it. Thanks to one of best friends for suggesting this program to me!

LimeWire - download from limewire.com - you can download it directly here (or use the offline installer here).

The program, a peer to peer (P2P) network, is perfectly legal and safe - but downloading or sharing (technically "distributing") music or video is illegal.

There is no spyware and there are no viruses attached to the installer of this program as it can be purchsed for a price - so the company will not include threats within their software as they would lose customers.

eBay & PS1 Memory Cards... Now which one did I save my game on?

Finally! I won one of my favourite PlayStation games tonight - Spyro 2: Gateway To Glimmer. Won it @ £5.50 and postage at £1.50 so overall £7 out of paper round money!

Childish, I know, but the music on the level 'Fracture Hills' is just irrestable (I borrowed a friend's game before).

And it's a good game plot, graphics, levels and characters as well - a real good challenge.

Update 22/11: I installed the eBay toolbar to alert/notify me of when the bidding time runs out, and after a few minutes of installing it, Norton Internet Security brought up a message saying my computer was infected with a virus! It was called Trojan.Adclicker and the file was C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\autoupdatev2.exe

So... eBay users - be careful when using the toolbar!!!

	LucaMacis2 wrote: HAHA! Congrats Rob You've got the eBay bug now. You'll be constantly on it like me! lol Nov. 26 | Delete
	__________imi____ wrote: THAT IS THE BEST GAME IN THE WORLD- ive been lookin 4 it 4 ages - is fracture hils that scottish one where u jump on bouldered ppl? and free the scottish things? i rly want that again, i dropped it down a floorboard.... what a legendary game.. sorry for that outburst x Nov. 26 | Delete
	xxSunshineOnARainyDayxx wrote: thats cool, congrats! i would probably end up gettng scammed on ebay lol Nov. 24 | Delete

The Future Insight of Technology

Just a couple of links to some new software released (or soon to be) that really have some new intiatives.

Microsoft is working on a new Operating System: Windows Vista. This is the offcial homepage with a few details. The font you may have seen supporting this new OS is called Segoe UI.

Adobe Photoshop: The professional standard in desktop digital imaging. Just look at the features guide, amazing.

Adobe Illustrator: Vector graphics reinvented. This is another popular Adobe imaging software masterpiece.

And also, if you have a Genuine Windows, you can download extra FREE software from the Microsoft Website. Click here for the downloads homepage or click here for the Genuine Windows Offers.

Another good Microsoft Windows downloads resource website is WMPlugins.com, a website for Windows Media Player 9 and 10 plug-ins and enhancements. Quick links: Skins | Visualizations | Codecs

Update 17/11 - Newsround did a report today about a wind-up laptop called "the green machine" for children in developing countires. You use a handle to charge the laptop (1 minute of turns gives 40 mins of electric time) and it only costs £60 ($100)! It has a 500mhz processor and 1GB memory (eeek!) and Linux (because it's an open-source free Operating System) but even Google and AMD have put some money into it! View Report: New Scientist | BBC.

For those out there who want some pictures of new beta Microsoft products, see these links:

Windows XP with Long Horn Transformation Pacakge v10.5

Windows Live Messenger 8.0 Beta on Windows XP - and a description here

JaMm£R wrote: dude, you have loads of totally cool stuff on here! keep it up an i'll keep comin back! Nov. 17 | Delete

Define Me

Definition from the Collins Dictionary and Thesaurus:

geek (noun) (Slang)

1 a boring and unattractive social misfit

2 a degenerate

[C19: probably variant of Scottish geck fool, from Middle Low German geck.]

NOT a computer attachment or obsessionist. But I suppose you can call me a geek just because several wesbites happen to define a geek as being someone who does have a popular taste with computers, although not a fully correct definition. Although I am definetly 'unattractive' (and maybe boring), which would explain why I don't 'hang' or 'go out', I am not a social misfit. So please don't call me a geek, because I'm not.

Update 20/11 - This blog entry does not mean I am what I have defined, it is merely a correction when people use this statement. Plus, I am an individual (but what the hell has that got to with this?), and *if* you would happen to read my space, you will see that I wrote a blog called 'Quote', in which I have stated that being an individual is important anyway, qualified by the Active Listeners themselves. So ner!

Update 10/12 - It seems that many comments posted on my blogs state that I am a geek and should get some friends. I would like to say to those people that I have many good friends at school, some which mean a lot more to me than anything else.

Read an article from Yahoo here about nerds, geeks and dorks.

	xxSunshineOnARainyDayxx wrote: you spelt it wrong- and its hayley :P Nov. 24 | Delete
	Luca wrote: Totally agree with sunshineonaraindyday. whoever the hell she is. lol. Be yourself so that no one can judge u Nov. 20 | Delete
	xxSunshineOnARainyDayxx wrote: dont listen to people who say you're a geek, nobodys a geek- labels shouldn't exist! :) everybody is individual Nov. 18 | Delete

PlayStation.com Information

<< If you register your PlayStation 2, you get a free Starter Pack with a Demo CD, Network Access Disc, PlayStation ID card, and a free copy of the game 'Hardware: Online Arena'.
>> If you have a SLIMLINE PlayStation 2, you are required to order a new replacement AC Adaptor immediately (free of charge) as there is the possibility of a fault in the Adaptor, which could lead to overheating, and even melting. FAQ here.