Happy New Year

A happy new year to everyone...

And look at the post time... right at the end of 2006!

Anyway...

"Manga Force" The Ultimate Collection

After seeing the advert for the Manga Force Ultimate Collection, I decided to go out any buy the first copy - for only £2.99 - with a Ghost In The Shell DVD for free! How could I resist?

Anyway... after spending as much time as I could last night about Manga Force, I came up with a few important things to mention about the collection.

For one thing, they keep referring to Anime (Japanese Animated Movies) as Manga. This is not true. Manga are Japanese comics. The comics always inspire the anime film. Neither are they cartoons.

I have collected a list of as many of the films that will be in the series as possible. The HP website says there will be 50 in the series for £8.99 each. I think it's a bit much for the each DVD, but let's see what's on offer.

Each pack comes with a DVD and a booklet with a synopsis of the film, the director, producer, and has several images from the film/episodes. As far as I can tell this is probably not the right way to go if you are discovering Japanese Anime and how cool it is. I would start with Studio Ghibli films - the best of which is Spirited Away (its on today from 5.15pm to 7.15pm on BBC2 remember!). If that doesn't "spirit you away" then I don't know what will!

The website for the series is here, but there isn't a lot on there.

• 1. Ghost In The Shell [IMDb] [Wiki] (series)
• Blood: The Last Vampire [IMDb] [Wiki]
• Akira [IMDb] [Wiki]
• Appleseed [IMDb] [Wiki] (2 movies)
• Neon Genesis Evangelion - The End of Evangelion [IMDb] [Wiki] (anime series and films)
• Macross Plus [IMDb] [Wiki]
• Ninja Scroll [IMDb] [Wiki]
• Street Fighter Alpha [IMDb] [Wiki] (film and VG series)
• Heat Guy J [IMDb] [Wiki] (anime series)
• Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex [IMDb] [Wiki] (subscription only) (anime series)
• Akira - The Making Of (subscription only)

From only a short list there, I could say that the genre for this series seems to be cyberpunk - or at least traditional Japanese action, fighting and robots! Other non-anime films like this are Blade Runner, The Matrix Trilogy, The Animatrix (Second Renaissance), and I Robot (maybe even Sin City as well).

Windows Live OneCare

It's finally here for UK users and other countries except the US only!

Check out the Blog here: OneCare team blog or visit the homepage here: http://onecare.live.com/

I have now installed Windows OneCare Live on both my Dell and laptop. Why? I'll tell you:

OneCare makes things much easier to manage. It really makes everything simple to use. Other Internet security programs like Norton and ZoneAlarm have loads of advanced features. One of the current problems with ZA is that it won't let display pictures, emotions or games be displayed in Windows Live Messenger. This problem has been running for some time since the release of ZA ISS 6.5. So I've changed to OneCare.

Like I said, OneCare does all the security for you. Antivirus, Antispyware, on-access (real time scanning), a Firewall (inbound and outbound) and a new Backup wizard. If you have Windows Defender installed then you don't need it anymore because OneCare manages all the security automatically. The only thing OC doesn't have is a startup program manager :( Although there are a lot of advanced features missing, it ensures all the security that is needed is there.

OneCare v1.5 (see http://ideas.live.com) is easy to setup - there is no need for Windows Genuine Advantage, either for the download or installation, or Validation either. OneCare also updates its definitions and program version automatically (some restarts are needed occasionally) and it also does all the Windows Updates for you too. By default it also has scheduled scans for scanning and tune-up. Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) is also much easier to manage as well.

When you've downloaded OneCare and installed it for the first time, you have a 180 day (it was only 60 days on my laptop for some reason) trial in which to activate the product. Simply request an email be sent to you with a free licence key and as soon as you activate it, you get 1 free year of the whole program!

If you want to make sure your computer is fully protected from hackers, visit this online Security Checker on Symantec and run the Security scan.