Mirrors Edge Gameplay

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQNfjJApR1E

Well here it is, as promised. In HD for you big screen nerds too B-)

Some more Vids

It's been a while, but i'm glad to say this blog is back in business.
Theres a few more videos on our youtube account, here : http://www.youtube.com/user/7448Productions?feature=mhum

And a few more reviews to come.

Nokia 5230 Review

Hello all,
This is the first of a new Genre of review, and i'd thought i'd start off with the review of my new phone

The basics
This is the nokia 5230, priced at 80 pounds, or like me, free on a 10 pound per month virgin contract (100min 500mes). Came in black with the chrome bezzle edition. Feature a full 3.2 inch 16M touchscreen. Its very responsive and I actually found it easier then your standard key board.

The camera is..Okay. Its 2MP's but suffers badly in night mode and has no flash feature, other than that, i've had no problems. Like its more upmarket friends, the 5230 features the accelerometre, which enhances gameplay and landscape views. This enables the typing mode to be enabled just by tilting it on its side. The QWERTY keyboards buttons were fairly small but that didnt seem to affect it even with big thumbs.
Dialling is also made easy, featuring an on screen numeric pad, which is comfortable and responsive.
The phone also comes with built in Sat Nav, I didn't seem to bothered about this as its quite, if not very, slow at loading, and the view can be confusing sometimes.

The 5230 uses Symbian S60 V5 OS, and its fantastic, its extremely fast and responsive.

The Specs.
2MP Camera
Bluetooth
3G/HSPDA (3.5G)
Accelerometre
3.2 Inch touchscreen
Free Sat Navs for life with Ovi.
Symbian S60 V5

Overall
I think its a great phone, and I use it a lot for gaming and texting, I'll soon try and upload some videos to see the quality, and will edit then. Some great games are: ALL OF POLAR BIT GAMES, Guitar Hero, Loco Roco, Doodle Jump.

Change Of blog

It's been a while, mainly due to Hardware issues (!!)
Don't worry, i'm still a through and through Ubuntu user, but upon recieving some new gadgets, i've decided to widen my spectrum a bit.

Thanks,
            Harry

Left 4 Dead

Hello,

Just to say I have created a video showing L4D gameplay on Wine.

Will be editing, rendering and uploading it later.

Thanks,
            /harry

Motherboard Review : ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO

Hello all, back again with another post.  

Today i'm reviewing the  ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO motherboard. I'm using it in combination with the AMD Phenom Quad Core 945 3.0 Ghz CPU.

I bought this combo for 45 quid with 2 gigs of RAM , a bargain I think.
Upon fist glance, the motherboard has presence. The chocolate brown board with the anodized blue components look really nice and compliments well for those of you who have windowed cases and some nice neons (blue and green look very nice).

This is an AMD 785G platform, with a purpose for media and gaming. Before my graphics card was plugged in, I used the on-board ATI HD4200 Graphics. This is a fantastic integrated chip and takes onboard gaming to an entirely new level. I could play Fallout 3 medium settings happily and source games maxed out at 1280x1024. Its compatible with Direct X 10 and pixel shader version 3.0

The BIOS is rather good, giving you adequate overclocking properties for your RAM,CPU and GPU. and is simple and clear to use. Graphics connections include VGA,DVI-D, and HDMI. I highly recommend using the HDMI cable, or at least HDMI to DVI-D, because the difference in picture is simply outstanding.

It has 6 USB ports and onboard HD Audio and Gfx, and gives a clear and crisp sound through my 12 inch speaker. The EVO also supports ATI crossfire, so you can have dual Gfx cards, and a Ram compatibility of up to 16 gigs.

I highly recommend this with the CPU mentioned above, they work brilliantly together.

Its extremely fast with Ubuntu and allows me to play games on Wine/Linux ported, without a noticeable frame rate drop compared to Windows, and can Run overclocked very stable.

Overall, this is a fantastic Mobo at around 60 pounds and if you're in the market for a new one, buy it.

Thanks,
              Harry

Office 2003 Under Wine

Hello all, back with another post today, this time about Microsoft Office! 
Hey, first off, I know a lot of you will be saying what's wrong with Open office and all that. For starters, i'd like to say I have Openoffice and Microsoft Office. Don't get me wrong, Openoffice is good, but just lacks that certain feel and user friendliness that Microsoft has, not to mention the distinct lack of features. And anyway, if you've got Wine, might as well put it to good use.

The install was painless, just doing the usual things, starting off at Wines config: emulate desktop off and direct X mouse off! Then its just a matter of right clicking the executable (.exe) from my extracted ISO and making it an executable. Also don't forget too make sure all the access is set to read and write. I entered Full install, all others not tested, and after the second attempt, it installed perfectly.

Usability wise its a near match to Windows, besides a mere flickering of the screen every 20-30 minutes, and maybe a slight colour change. Every feature works on Powerpoint, Excel and Word. All the others load, but that's just about to what I got to as I didn't go in-depth, (mainly because I didn't need to). The only slight problem is that it will crash if you're loading 6 variations all at once, but this doesn't affect me as I don't see the need to have 6 up, but oh well.

So in conclusion, Microsoft Office 2003 works perfectly! (And a little birdy told me Office 2007 works great too!)

Thanks,
             Harry

Open Arena Gameplay

Just thought I'd dazzle you with some games, wine and non-wine, well anyway, here goes my first.
Its Open Arena, a rip off of Quake 3 Arena, yes still fun.

Its running in windowed mode as I didn't know what it'd be like in Fullscreen...

Anyway, Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuIEJ6OYxW4

Thanks,
             Harry

How to install spotify in Ubuntu (WINE)

This is actually very simple, but for some reason, this was requested, so here goes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qHH59rA1zo

Thanks,
            HaRry

Virtual Box demo video finally here....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCop_k7kHYc

There it is, only took forever to get it working!
Anyway, as you know, this is one of my favourite bits of kit in the repositories, and it can run any OS, not just Windows 2000. (downloaded it because it was the smallest)
The only problems are if you dont have a USB or CD drive!

Comment and Enjoy!

Thanks,
             Harry

Halo on Wine: Not very good.

Just finally managed to install Halo on Wine, not very good.
Firstly, I'd like to say on Windows I can run it maxed out with a brilliant Frame Rate.
On minimum settings, im getting 5-10 fps. Installed on wine with the correct DLL's and also on PlayOnLinux, I wasn't experiencing anything different. So, again, VirtualBox has proved its usefulness, unless you want to dual boot. The DInput bug again made a grand comeback, seems to be the unfixable bug in Wine.

Over the coming weeks i'm going to properly test some games on Wine, and give an accurate detail if whether they work, and 'just playable', in my eyes, doesn't come under the category working.

Thanks,
             Harry

Vid coming soon, VirtualBox.

Quick update, within the next couple of hours I will be uploading a vid demonstrating Virtual Box.


Thanks,
             Harry

Shotwell,Cheese and Emerald.

Upon recommendation on my last post, I'll go in-depth a bit more.

Cheese is a free downloadable app from Software centre that allows you to take pictures or record videos on your web-cam. Its fast and very compatible, and you have access to several effects and settings for a better visual experience.

Shotwell is a photo manager that will come pre-installed on Ubuntu 10.10 Desktop. Its good for viewing and managing your photos without you doing a thing. This is a good bit of kit.

Emerald is a themes manager and editor that allows you to go more in-depth with Ubuntu customization, and expands on the stock downloadable themes. Be advised, you need to have desktop effects enabled to fully enjoy the experience ! ;)

Thanks,
             Harry

My top 5 software/apps

There are undobuteldy hundreds of free software and apps, some good, some bad. These are my top 5 that deserve Recognition.





1. The 'Graphics' Pack.
GIMP, Blender,Inkscape. Combined, I think this deserves a rightful place in my top 5. As an alternative to PS, I had already expressed my love for GIMP, and being a Blender user from Windows, I was thrilled to discover its Ubuntu compatibilities. Look here, here, and here for more info and downloads.



2. Compiz Advanced Settings
This is really recommended if you have a decent enough PC and want some more eye-candy for your Desktop Environment. Providing such features as the 3D cube and reflections, not to mention the paint screen on fire, this is definately one of my favourites.
Can be found in Synaptic.




3. Urban Terror
A game needs to be in my top 5 of course. This game is a mere stab at Counterstrike using the Quake 3 Arena engine. Its a lot of fun and only 700mb in size. If you're not looking for a hardcore gaming storyline and just no spills thrills fun on-line game-play: look no further. You can download it here







4. Wine.
If the open source free software isn't quite good enough for you whimsy windows users, then look no further. Capable of running fully blown windows software is the best for any post-windows user that wants the best he can get on Ubuntu, several games and apps are compatible, from Microsoft word to Unreal Tournament to Spotify. Download it from Synaptic.






5. Virtualbox.
This is possibly my most favourite piece of software available on Ubuntu. Capable of running any OS from any OS, it provides an error free way of trialing OS's without dual booting or trialing on Live CD's. If your PC is powerful it can be a more...permanent option too. Can be found in Software Centre,



Other things I liked that could've made my top 5:
Docky
Gmail Checker
Emerald
ATI Cataylst
QCAD
Shotwell
Chrome
Ubuntu One
Cheese
RecordMyDesktop
Furius ISO
Skype
SUPERTUXKART!!!!!




Thanks,
             Harry


UPDATE:
Some of my own screenshots :)

The big 3, Chrome,Opera,Firefox.

Just a short video I uploaded upon recommendation, did not realise my mic had packed up, so sorry for that, although where my mouse is pointing gives you indication to what I am talking about.

1. Opera loaded Google homepage over twice as fast as its rivals, and in search.
2. Chrome managed to load a fully packed website quicker than any other.
3. Whilst opening new tabs, Firefox doesn't give you a display of what you have been on, unlike chrome and opera.
4. Firefox felt too much like it was trying to be Internet explorer, and is very slow on some pages.
5. Saying that, Firefox has all the plug-ins, but is very hard to navigate through the menus.

OVERALL.

Last: Firefox. It simply doesn't feel right and seems to be over clustered. Themes aren't very nice and it seems to be the slowest of them all.
Second: Opera. No doubt its fast loading the easy things, but take into account its not as fast as chrome when loading big pages or once your internet files have built up. No doubt its good, but not quite Chrome good.

THE WINNER!

I have to admit, I love Chrome. It's the effortlessness and simplicity of it that makes it brilliant. The themes are nice and it appears to have the fastest speeds on the bigger pages, and the bookmarks appearing upon start-up and opening new tabs is a very nice feature. I know what I'm using.

LINK SOON! WORKING ON GETTINTG THE SOUND SORTED OUT NOW!

Gimp, the best Ubuntu software.

I'll be honest. There's not much you can't do in Photoshop that GIMP can't do, if not better.
I always saw GIMP as a means to use just because its free. But when I actually started using this.. I realised GIMP is actually better than Photoshop itself. I don't know if its the layout or in general just very helpful for novice users, but it gives off a good vibe and using it is easy. To put it this way, if I were running Xp, and if I had a licensed copy of Adobe PS, I would still download GIMP.

I just wish they'd do the same with AutoCAD.

Thanks,
             Harry

SuperTuxKart needs revamping!

SuperTuxKart... stupid,pointless, basic.

The best game in the world

In this blatant Mario Kart rip off, you take the role of certain Linux mascots and race around some 'interesting' tracks, if your bored, its extremely fun, I recommend you get this game from Ubuntu Software Centre, its completely free and a heck of a lot of fun.

What I would like to see in Ubuntu 11.04, is maybe an update for STK, too. Maybe on-line play, improved graphics, and Wii controller compatibility. That'd be fantastic. I'm off to ask the developers now ;)

Thanks,
             Harry

A Great Place to get themes for Ubuntu.

I know the stock Ubuntu themes look dull, but I found some real nice ones that you might enjoy

There's 61 varied themes, just don't make it look like Windows!!!

http://www.technama.com/2009/ubuntu-themes-61-awesome-themes-for-linux/

Thanks,
             Harry

Unity: Confusing and a unpleasant experience.

Unity is the new desktop environment that was released in 10.10 Netbook edition. The Ubuntu developers annouced that they would be shipping this is out across all versions.
Personally, I think this is a big mistake. Unity should be for a touchscreen PC, as it would give it a good feel, not on Desktop let alone Netbook.

For starters, I found it to be very buggy (for example, the me menu and all other non unity menu's completely warped themselves, a major bug and very hard to work around). I also noticed there was no 'drag and drop' option for the menus, and there were no preferences to configure this. Only the default apps were appearing under the correct sub section, I had to keep clicking on search, then 'others' to find what I was looking for. This is time consuming and not necessary. However, as i stated above, it would be nice on a touchscreen/tablet PC.

The Verdict? 

I'll stick with Gnome thanks, especially with the 3.0 release on its way.

Thanks,
             Harry

Resize Ubuntu Virtual HDD Using LVPM Virtual Partition Manager.

Using LVPM, EASY!

You can download LVPM here.

double click (once downloaded) on the .deb file, and it should open up in Ubuntu Software Centre. Click Install.

Once done navigate to Applications>System Tools>LVPM.


You will see a Window like this --->

Clearly click resize. Once down it will ask you to enter your desired amount, remember that this is in MB and 1000 MB doesn't exactly equal 1 GB.
Once you have pressed enter, it will finish by itself, and could take up to hours depending on your specified resize. Once completed it will ask you to boot into windows and rename new.disk to root.disk and renaming the old one as backup.disk. You don't need to do this, just go to Computer/File System/host/Ubuntu/disks and do it from there, then reboot.


Thanks,
             Harry

HOWTO: Belkin wireless USB F6D4050 in Ubuntu 10.10

This applies to the N150 band, model F6D4050

I know a lot of people are having trouble with getting this working, and its actually quite simple. This works from 9.04 onwards too.

Copying the codes is advisable. However, typing will help you LEARN!

1. Open Applications/Accessories/Terminal.

2. Type in the code lsusb.


3. Your code will be 050d:935a

4. Enter this: sudo gedit /etc/udev/rules.d/network_drivers.rules


5. When the file opens, add this then save it: ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="050d", ATTR{idProduct}=="935a", RUN+="/sbin/modprobe -qba rt2870sta"


6. Now enter this in the terminal: sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/network_drivers.conf


7. When the file opens, put this in and save: install rt2870sta /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install rt2870sta $CMDLINE_OPTS; /bin/echo "050d 935a" > /sys/bus/usb/drivers/rt2870/new_id


8. That should be it, i'm 100% certain this will work.

Thanks, Harry

Need help and I cant help you?

LOOK NO FURTHER

www.ubuntuforums.org is a fanstastic forum dedicated to helping the community. You can find me under the user name 'harrylucas1'. I'll help here or there. The people are friendly and extremely helpful, and I don't think i'd love ubuntu as much as I did without them, I really would encourage you to join it and not be put off it!

Made The Switch.

The best OS in the world is finally here.

Yes, I am referring to Ubuntu 10.10. The first time I ever tried Ubuntu was 2 years ago upon the release of 8.10. To be honest, I hated it. I don't know if it was the fact that it looked ugly, ran slow (on my slow) PC, or nothing was compatible and I had to enter 'commands' in the 'terminal.

But, my understanding has evolved, and so has Ubuntu, and its fantastic.

This blog is a project of mine I hope you'll enjoy, and I'll be posting a blog at least once a day, maybe with the exception of the weekends, If you need help, just drop a comment.
Thanks,
             Harry