Wednesday February 1st, 2012

Pound-a-Mile Update – 200 Miles!

When I started this, I really didn’t think I’d manage 200 miles in a year. Not without a struggle, anyway. Yet somehow, I’ve hit 200 miles in just my first month. 207.87 miles, to be more precise.

Not only that, but I’ve also forced myself to cycle every day so far this year. OK, so one of those days was on an exercise bike due to my inner tube literally EXPLODING and I didn’t have a spare, but still. And I didn’t even count those exercise bike miles in my total. I am, frankly, utterly amazed with myself.

In addition, my best time for 10 miles has dropped from a 52m16 to 44m02, I’ve increased my average ride in the week from 4 miles to almost 7 a day, and have managed my first 15 mile ride (on the 21st of January). I’m feeling much fitter for it as well, and my recovery time after most rides is now virtually nil. I’m even managing hills much more easily than previously, to the point where the gentler of inclines may as well be flat now.

I’m also signing up for a couple of organised rides later in the year – certainly something I never imagined myself doing! And last week, I bought wet lube. Really. For my chain, if you’re wondering.

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Wednesday January 25th, 2012

Managed network install of Google Chrome Frame

If you’re locked into using Internet Explorer on your network, for whatever reason, you’ll probably find that there are some websites that simply don’t work properly, and ask you to install a “modern browser” like Firefox or Chrome.

Thing is, allowing other browsers on your network is fraught with technical support issues, especially if you use other systems that insist on only working properly in IE (like some Sharepoint stuff). You can’t rely on users to always use the right browser for the right task.

We had this problem recently, as we wanted to start using the excellent Codecademy but it blows raspberries at IE users and tells them to go away. My first thought was to install Chrome, but for the reasons already given (and the fact the more-easily-locked-down Portable Apps version doesn’t work from a network share) I didn’t really want to do that.

My next suggestion was Chrome Frame. It’s an extension for Internet Explorer which you can configure to replace the IE HTML renderer with, so although the web pages open in IE, they’re actually rendered by Chrome. This means that, to the user, there’s only one browser. Of course, it needs to be configured to only trigger Chrome’s renderer for those sites you need it for, rather than all sites, otherwise you may as well just replace IE with Chrome completely.

There are two issues here then – how to deploy Chrome Frame on a network, and how to configure it centrally to only trigger when needed.

Deploying Chrome Frame

Luckily, Google provide a useful MSI package of Chrome Frame here. You can roll this out in a group policy like other MSIs, or run it on each machine either manually or with a script. Unfortunately, it tries to update itself when you do so and invariably (if you’re in an internet-restricted environment like a school) will hang for ages then probably crash. You can stop this, however.

To do this, you’ll need an MSI property editor such as the free Orca (which you can find here) and open the Chrome Frame MSI in it. In the Tables column, choose Property, and then the right-hand pane right click and choose Add Row. Enter the Property field as NOGOOGLEUPDATEPING and the value as 1. Click OK and save the MSI. Now you can deploy it!

Configuring Chrome Frame

The best way of doing this is with a new group policy. Firstly, download the Google Chrome ADM/ADMX files from here (you want the Zip file, not the Mac stuff, obviously). If you’re using the ADMX files, you’ll need to copy them to %systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions before the group policy editor will see them. ADM files can just be opened as normal with “Add/Remove templates”.

These group policy files will actually let you configure all sorts of things for Chrome as well, but some of the settings are specific to Chrome Frame. In particular, you want to look at:

User > Configuration > Policies > Admin Templates > Google > Google Chrome > Default HTML renderer for Google Chrome Frame

The first setting, Default HTML renderer, determines whether web pages are rendered by the host browser (i.e. IE) or Chrome by default. For my purposes, I wanted IE to render except on certain pages, so chose Host.

The other settings are the exception sites to the above. Since I have Host as the default, I only need to configure the Always render in Chrome Frame options. You do this by providing URL patterns to match.

For example, I want all of Codecademy to render in Chrome Frame, so chose *.codecademy.com* as my pattern. See here for more pattern examples.

Remember to assign this new group policy to your users, and once Chrome Frame has rolled out, you should find your chosen sites now render in Chrome!

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Thursday January 19th, 2012

How to upgrade your Nintendo 3DS SD card

With demos now available on the 3DS eShop, it’s likely your original 2GB SD card will become a bit full, if it hasn’t done already. I found myself in this position today. Thankfully, I had a spare 4GB to “upgrade” to.

You can, of course, just swap your old card for your new one, but then any pictures you’ve taken and games you’ve downloaded and “extra data” and stuff won’t be on there unless you swap cards again. And we all know that swapping SD cards is the worst of all First World Problems.

Using this method, you can transfer everything from your old card onto your new card:

  1. Mount your old card on your computer.
  2. Create a folder on your computer and copy EVERYTHING from the card to it.
  3. While it’s doing that, put your new card in your 3DS and turn the 3DS on. It’ll initialise the card for you.
  4. When both these have finished, mount the new card in your computer.
  5. Open the folder you made on your computer, and copy everything to the root of the new card. If you’re asked to overwrite folders, or merge folders, say “yes”.
  6. When the copying has finished, you’re almost there. Next, on the new card, open the folder called “Nintendo 3DS”. Inside there will be folder with a huge string of letters and numbers for the name – open that.
  7. Inside that folder will be two folders with long random names. One of these is the folder tied to your old card, the other is the one tied to your new card. Simply copy the contents (not the folder itself) of the old one (it’ll be the one with the larger filesize) into the other one – merging and overwriting again if necessary.
  8. Put the new card back in your 3DS, reboot it if necessary, and you’re away!

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Wednesday January 18th, 2012

Pound-a-Mile Update – 100 Miles!

Last night was cold and dark and cold. And dark. But mainly cold. So cold that the roads had started to freeze over while I was out on the bike, making junctions and corners much slower than normal and I generally just had to be more careful.

However, despite all this, I took my “miles cycled to date this year” figure to just over 100 miles. That’s 103 miles in 17 days – and yes, I’ve managed a bike ride every day so far. I’m also way ahead of the target 17.5 miles a week, coming up to around 45 instead, which is way better than I could have imagined.

Of course, I’ve been pretty lucky with the weather up to now. Very little rain, and certainly no snow as yet. When that happens, I’m not going to be out on the bike for obvious reasons. At least I’m building up a decent bank of miles now, anyway.

There has been a physical effect on me for all this cycling. I expected it, but not so soon. My legs have… changed. My calves, and to a lesser extent my thighs, have become rock solid. There are muscles where muscles didn’t used to be. My recovery time (in terms of breath, rather than leg-ache) after a ride has now dropped to virtually nothing – even after cycling in the cold. And, of course, I’m finding it easier: I’m able to ride a bit faster, and am able to cover longer distances more frequently.

As an example, there’s a regular 4.7 mile route I take. Last year, it was taking me about 26 minutes to cover, and that was in the light and nice weather. I can now do that route and an extension to it (taking me up to about 6.3 miles) in the same time – in the dark, cold, and wind. If that’s not an improvement, I don’t know what is.

Yes, I’m only just over a couple of weeks in, there’s plenty of time for things to all go wrong, and I’m still a long way off “properly fast” and such, but I’m astounded on a daily basis of how much I’ve improved so quickly.

Oh yeah, and Super Mario 3DS Land was well worth 22 Miles :)

 

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Tuesday January 10th, 2012

Mario Kart for the iPhone

Look! Mario Kart is out for the iPhone!

Sorry, not Mario Kart. Some other game that’s nothing like it.

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Monday January 9th, 2012

Pound-a-Mile First Week

So, I’ve had 8 days of the Pound-a-Mile challenge. My legs hurt. In a good way, though. I think.

In those 8 days, I have already blown my required 17.5 miles-a-week average out of the water, cycling over 50 miles. OK, that’s 8 days not 7, but still. It was 40 on the 7th day anyway. And you know what? I’ve enjoyed it. Sure, I’ve not enjoyed the oh-god-its-2-degrees-outside, 25-mph-winds-WHATness of last week, but after a couple of miles on each trip I was into it and enjoying it. Which is good, right?

I decided to treat myself by spending 22 miles on a copy of Super Mario 3D Land for the 3DS. Hurrah!

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Tuesday January 3rd, 2012

The Pound A Mile Challenge

In previous years, I’ve attempted to curb my game spending and encourage myself to actually complete games I have by gradually reducing the amount of money I’m allowed to spend on them. These were known as the £25, £20 and £18 Rules. Last year, I kept to the £18 Rule – meaning I’ve currently missed out on Mario 3D Land, Skyrim and Batman Arkham City, as they’re not cheap enough (yet) for me to buy.

That isn’t a problem though, as I’ve plenty of other things to play, and they’ll drop in price eventually. Except Mario, of course, which won’t. Ever. Hmm.

There is also an issue with the £18 Rule, in that I can still buy as many games that are less than £18 as I like. Mainly, this was downloadable titles for XBLA, the 3DS and the Wii last year. And they all add up. In terms of value for money, a £40 Skyrim purchase would do me better than the 7 or 8 downloaded titles I probably bought instead. Which means I buy more games, although generally still do spend less. Perhaps.

This year, I’ve decided on something different. Why not apply a physical limit on game purchases, instead of a monetary one? And so it has come to pass that I am announcing…

The Pound A Mile Challenge

The basic rule is this: for every mile I cycle, I’m allowed to spend one pound.

That’s it. Simple, right? There are a few additional rules, however:

1) Miles must be earned before being spent.
2) Game prices do not include postal charges.
3) Store credit, vouchers, etc. can be used instead of (or in addition to) miles.

With this rule, I hope to rethink how much I really want a game. Is it worth me going out cycling for 30 miles in order to buy Mario 3D Land? I also hope to get fitter simply through desire for a game.

One challenge this year will be the Wii U. I’m expecting the price to be around £200. Which means, I’ll need to cycle 200 miles to get it. Not all in one go, of course. I’m not Jochta. I’ll really need to work for it!

Last year, I spent just shy of £900 on games and game “stuff”. If the same is true this year, I’ll need to cycle 900 miles in 12 months. On average, I’ll need to be doing about 17.5 miles a week to spend that much. To some, like HarpingOn and Jochta and people who are not me in general, that’s not a lot, but it’s above my current average so I’m going to have to train harder and for longer. That’s not such a problem in the nice weather, as I can easily manage 8-10 miles in a day (in my current fitness state – hopefully this will improve!), but at the moment 4 to 5 miles is the norm. I may have to “stock up” the miles over the summer in order to see me through the winter!

Ultimately then, I’ll end up doing one or the other of these:

1) Being unable to keep up the mileage, so spend less on games, or
2) Being able to buy whatever games I want, so end up fitter.

Either outcome is a win, although 2) is clearly the target :)

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Sunday January 1st, 2012

The 2011 Gaming Expenditure Horror

At the start of 2010, I began recording the price of everything I bought that was gaming related. At the end of the year, I put together the stats. That was all well and good at the time, but without anything to compare it to, it meant nothing. Until now!

I’ve not bothered with a dull list of each and every game I’ve bought in this post (they’re pretty much all on my Gaming Diary anyway), but I do have the cold hard numbers to excite you with. And pie charts!

In all, I spent £888.22 this year. Last year, that figure was just £590.32, almost £300 less. However, there are two things to bear in mind: 1) Last year I didn’t buy any consoles, whereas this year I got both a 3DS and a PS3, and 2) Last year I broke the £20 Rule by buying Fallout New Vegas for almost £70, and this year I haven’t broken the £18 Rule at all.

Here’s how the hardware/software split works out:

 

And 65.2% of £888? £579 – just under last year’s software spend. I expect a similar situation this year when the Wii U comes out, as I’ll need one of them. Yes, need.

How did the spending break down by platform?

Last year, it was 45% Wii, 34.5% 360 and not much else. This year, it’s a whopping 32.6% 3DS, and the 360 and Wii taking 2nd and 3rd places. This chart does take hardware into account, however, so most of that 12% PS3 slice is actually the console – I haven’t bought many PS3 games.

Finally, the spend by medium:

This shows a surprising increase from 25% to almost 35% for downloaded software (the chart doesn’t include hardware). Much of this is due to the huge number of 3DS Virtual Console and eShop games I’ve bought, but also a general increase in the number of 360 and Wii digital store purchases. There are a few PSN titles in that blue wedge too.

So what have I learned from this little exercise? Very little. My expenditure on software is virtually the same (although the actual number of games bought has increased from about 90 to over 130 – clearly I’ve been buying cheaper!), and things are progressing in the world of digital distribution as I expected it to, although perhaps not as quickly. Things will be more interesting come next year!

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Friday December 16th, 2011

Mario Kart 7

Hey, did you know that the free GBA games for 3DS Ambassadors were up today? Well, they are. And Mario Kart: Super Circuit (wot is ACE) is one of them.

Of course, the 3DS Mario Kart, Mario Kart 7 is out too. And probably better. But you could have both! Hurrah!

Skidding on to the Nintendo 3DS comes Mario Kart 7.

Pick your favourite Mushroom Kingdom character and aim for the chequered flag in the latest addition to the popular Mario Kart family. With new tricks under the hood Mario Kart 7, for the first time, gives you the opportunity to customise your karts to give you the edge in a race and gliding karts!

Note: This is a sponsored post.

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Thursday December 8th, 2011

The new Xbox 360 Dashboard

Rant moan rant rant moan.

That’s all I’ve seen written about the new 360 GUI. It’s rubbish. Everything is hidden. There’s too many adverts. Games aren’t the focus any more. It’s too confusing. Everything is seventeen menus deep and behind carousel images. Rant bloody rant moan moan.

With good reason:

Everything is hidden. There’s too many adverts. Games aren’t the focus any more. It’s too confusing. Everything is seventeen menus deep and behind carousel images.

Of course, it looks nice. It really does – clean and swish, and everything moves around seemingly much faster than before. With my useless Sky “Broadband” connection, the images on everything take a while to load, but at least I can chuck the screens around without having to wait, so that’s not the end of the world. I also like how playing my most recently played games is now a bit easier too, with the disc in the tray a single stab (been playing Assassin’s Creed, sorry) of A away and the ten most recent installed games and demos just down-and-A. Nice.

Unfortunately, it’s finding everything else that’s a problem. Getting to installed content is akin to one of those steady-hand testers, where accidentally veering into the wrong menu or tab or button or whatever the hell else you end up in means you get lost, electrocuted, and essentially have to start again. Finding new content, be it Arcade games, demos, or (worst of all) Indie Games is now five hundred and forty six button presses or more, is displayed in a jumble of nonsense, and even lumps stuff that isn’t new games (like game trailers and videos) in the list of new games. I spent ages last night excitedly trying to download Sonic CD from the New Games bit on the Games Marketplace only to realise it isn’t out – there’s just a video to look at.

Most worst (and most worser than my grammar) is the special offer section. Take the current Ubisoft offers, for instance. There’s an offers section, and within that an Ubisoft section. Fine. Except the Ubisoft section is three screens wide, with only 5 “tiles” on each. And then, on two of these screens, the middle (larger) tile is actually a carousel of several offers which cycle through, meaning you have to watch and wait to find out all the offers. Then move to the other screen and watch and wait there. I was later told (it doesn’t say this on the GUI anywhere) that you could select the carousel and use the right-stick to flick through manually, but even so – why can’t all the offers just be in one big list on one screen, which scrolls if necessary? Or at the very least, provide a “show all” button? They’re going to lose sales because people can’t browse – they essentially have to sit and watch adverts instead.

The browsing thing applies to pretty much everywhere as well. Unless you know what it is you want, finding stuff to buy is a chore. Impulse purchases are going to drop as a result, so it’s not only a bad design issue, it’s a bad business move – especially for the smaller companies who thrive (or throve) on XBLA sales. You can’t stumble upon their games any more, you have to seek it out. Often, when I had five spare minutes having finished a game or something, I’d have a quick nose through the marketplace at new stuff and offers. That’s not going to happen any more.

With the shift in focus from games to “home entertainment”, the menus on the dashboard now have lots of video, music and social “features”, almost exactly none of which I will, or even can, use. As I’ve mentioned, my internet connection is akin in speed to a telegraph machine, so any streaming media from the internet is out. So no Youtube, iPlayer, 4oD, Lovefilm or Zune for me. I have a phone for Twitter, don’t use Facebook, and since they crippled Last.fm I don’t use that any more either. In fact, the only non-gaming thing I use my 360 for is streaming video from my network. As an aside, there is a positive thing I can say here – the new dashboard finally fixed it so I can stream m4v and mp4 files from my NAS, making my PS3 completely obsolete now.

And the adverts. Oh the adverts. Yes, they’re fairly unobtrusive, but I pay for my Xbox Live Gold service. I don’t need it to be subsidised with adverts thanks – and neither do Microsoft. I don’t even mean the usual adverts for games coming soon or available on the XBL marketplace either – actual proper adverts for Sky TV and Virgin Money. If you must have adverts, leave them for the non-paying members, please.

Somehow, in one fell swoop, Microsoft have gone from having the best console-based “store”, light years ahead of PSN, the Wii Shop and the 3DS eShop, to having this crippled form-over-function one. Consider the old store as a sort of virtual Argos catalogue, where everything is pretty easy to find and well presented, and the new store as an online TK Maxx, where nothing is in any particular place, the things they show on the TV ads are in there somewhere (but where?), and half the stuff is strewn on the floor like a WI jumble sale. Nasty.

tl; dr version: New dash looks nice, fixes playing media files, fails spectacularly at usability, screws over users and providers of XBLA and Indie Games, annoys the hell out of everyone, makes deKay cry.

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