Category: Blog
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard
When choosing a data recovery program, the most important thing is whether it will actually recover your data or not. In my job I’m often asked to restore files that have been deleted or “lost”, and if there’s no backup (which, invariably on a removable disk, there isn’t), data recovery is the only way to go. I’ve been testing EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard 7.0, to see how well it performs. EaseUS’ product does two things I’ve not seen in other …
Making MacPorts work again after upgrading to Mavericks
Although pretty much everything “just works” after upgrading from Lion/Mountain Lion to Mavericks, one thing that doesn’t is MacPorts. Well, it still works, or at least it did for me, but you’re unable to upgrade it or install more ports, as they all fail with various error messages (including “Error: org.macports.extract for port gperf returned: command execution failed”), and the usual sudo port selfupdate just gives the message MacPorts base version 2.2.1 downloaded. —> Updating the ports tree —> MacPorts base …
How Movie Maker projects work – with Lego analogy
Struggle to explain to students (or staff!) why their Movie Maker project doesn’t work when they move to another computer without taking the video elements with them? Resolve this with a Lego analogy! I created this for work, but thought it may be of use to others. Maybe. Download file.
Updated: How to upgrade your 3DS SD card, to 64GB and beyond
UPDATE 15th January 2015: I’ve updated this guide again to cover transferring data to a New 3DS here. Please use this link here from now on: Upgrading your 3DS SD card, your 3DS, or both. A while back I put together this guide for migrating all your 3DS games and files from one SD card to another. It’s one of my most popular articles, and somehow (thanks to you lot for recommending it) it has become the de-facto way of doing …
How I’d design the next Zelda game
An open letter to Nintendo: Much has been speculated about the upcoming Wii U Zelda game. No, not The Wind Waker HD – the new one, currently due to be revealed at E3 next year. Current word is that Nintendo would like to make it more open world. Possibly multiplayer. They want to move away from traditional Zelda games and move the series on. Rubbish. What makes Zelda is being Zelda. With the overworld and the dungeons. The “gimmick” changes …
The Xbox Update; Or Why I Learned to Hate Security
You know there was an update for the Xbox 360 recently? I’ve never enjoyed these updates. They take forever, usually make the console worse and less responsive, and – on one occasion – broke my Xbox. This new one appears to do two things: Replace Microsoft Points with actual pound values, and Make me want to stab people at Microsoft in the face. You see, there’s now a forced “two factor” logon. Which is good, for security. But the way …
Autorip – “free” music from Amazon
Recently, Amazon launched Autorip. It’s a service that automatically gives you Amazon Cloud based MP3s of any supported album you buy on CD. This is great, in theory, but even better is that they’ve applied the system retrospectively. That means that any CD you have previously bought from them, ever, which is supported by Autorip, will automatically appear in MP3 form in your Amazon Cloud player. Which is fantastic, yes? Yes! Even more so when you realise something else… I …
Who’s looking at my SQL server?
Putting this here mainly for my own benefit, but it may help others. If you want to find out which NT users are connected to your MS SQL (2005 or 2008) server, and which computer they’re using – simply use this query (which you could run in SQL Server Management Studio): select hostname,nt_username from sys.sysprocesses For added excitement, if you do use Management Studio, you can display the result as text or a grid to take into Excel and filter …
Sonic 3 & Knuckles speed run
I found this video recently, which I watched in disbelief. The number of times I’ve played this game. The hours put in. And yet, I never stumbled across any of the massive game breaking bugs exploited here to get such an incredibly quick completion time. I think I’d struggle to do just Sonic 3 in 45 minutes, let alone Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Mind you, I’d struggle to contain my lunch if I was forced to play as Tails…
Link to the Past 2
OK, it’s not officially called that (yet, at least), but this is the most exciting Zelda related thing since Minish Cap. And that was TEN YEARS AGO. Finally, a proper 2D Zelda game, ironically, in 3D. NEED.
Hethersett 30/60
Time for an update on my Adventures in Cycling, I think. Mainly because I completed the Hethersett 30/60 (er, the 30 rather than the 60) at the weekend. Firstly, my stats. I’m not doing as well as last year. My Enormous Geek Cycling Spreadsheet of Awesome Numbers tracks my miles and cross-checks it against how I was doing at this time last year, and the sums say that at the moment, I’m 51 miles down. Thankfully, that’s redeemable and with …