Tis the night of ghosts & goblins but thanks to Jack (and his little brother…erm….Dave) we should be safe tonight. Just in case, will be sleeping with one eye open…..mwah ha ha haaaaaaa
Happy Halloween!
Monthly Archives: October 2009
I’m still here!
Oops, another week gone and still not many posts. It’s been a little busy here these past few weeks spending most of the weekends shopping for a new car for Curstie. On one such trip we had drove nearly 80 odd miles to visit a car dealership which, according to the website, appeared like any other car forecourt. However, on arrival it was someones house! Not amused, especially as our Sat Nav directed us through a city centre on a busy afternoon with plenty of roadworks, diversions, wind, heavy rain and steamed up windows to content with. Accelerate, clutch, change gear, clutch, break, clutch, gear, hand break, etc etc. Do this about 10 times every 100 meters for about 5 hours and you get the picture..ouch!
Any-ho, we picked up her car on Wens and dispite leaving my house keys at the showroom by mistake and having to drive another 70 odd miles to pick them up the next day (another Frank Spencer moment there) all is good again.
The garden is in need of a tidy up after the Autumn fall so it’s out with the leaf blower tomorrow and a clean up of the last crops in the greenhouse & veggie beds. I wonder, is it best for beds that aren’t in use for winter crops to cover them with a weed-proof membrane or leave as they, performing a little light weeding where appropriate?
I’m also still in the middle of migrating media files from our old HTPC to the new one now running Windows 7 and of course, with Halloween only a day away i’ve got my Pumpkin to carve!
Lastly, a new present on the way (dependant on Royal Mail’s stike action) in the form of a homebrew Vectrex cartridge containing the entire game catalogue, homebrew games and scene demos all on one handy cartridge. I’ve seen these fetch up to £100 on eBay but got mine for £19.99. It’s a ‘nude’ PCB therefore will have to find suitable housing case for it but as it is, will work without.
Windows 7 installed and running.
I’ve had Microsoft’s Windows 7 running on my PC for a few days now since picking up a copy of Home Premium during last weeks worldwide release.
I won’t write out a huge in-depth review here as there’s probably hundreds of similar reviews all over the internet toting on about MS’s new OS. What i will say is how happy i am with it, the fact that it works with all my hardware and how I’m loving all the little things that make using my PC a pleasure.
I’m currently in the process of installing it on our Media PC and look forward to using the new slicker MCE frontend. Just a shame I’ve got to copy over 1tb worth of data off the old HTPC IDE HDD to my new 2tb SATA drive.
I’ll always be a tux fan, but not since Win XP, I can proudly announce again…i’m pc 
For further information, I’d highly recommend popping over to Paul Thurrotts Supersite for Windows.
My Vectrex – Retro gaming chic
Many of the older gaming consoles from the early seventies through to the mid eighties have always appeal to me and one that I’ve always wanted to own is a Vectrex. Unlike other consoles requiring connection to a TV, the Vectrex unique design incorporates its own black and white CRT designed to display vector based graphics.
First released in 1982 it didn’t do to well and was discontinued after a relatively short period in 1984. Only a limited number of software titles were ever released but thanks to cult following of retro gamers, many more homebrew titles and demos have since been released.
After a sweat inducing countdown of one i spotted on eBay, the was the winner bidder and collected it from the seller last weekend. Not only is the Vectrex is a very good condition, it came with multiple controllers (which i hear are becoming quite rare), several boxed games, instruction booklets and the transparent screen overlays used to pseudo color to black and white game titles.
Here’s the basic unit, with one of the control panels tucked away in the bottom slot making for a nice compact machine.
Each controller incorporates a very responsive analogue joystick and four fire buttons
Here’s some of the game cartridges, game boxes and instruction manuals
Right, a quick read of the instructions, not that there’s much to it and off we go!
Actually, i didn’t insert a game cartridge as the Vectrex comes with a build in Asteroids clone – Mine Sweeper, which is rapidly becoming a very addictive game!
These still shots don’t do the silky smooth movement of the vector graphics any justice!
Tine to add some ‘colour’ using one of the transparent overlays.
…and off we go again in stunning neon blue!
A rather crude looking vector pinball game but actually plays quite well!
Many after market and homebrew cartridges have been released on one i’ll be getting soon contains the entire Vectrex game catalogue was well as many modern homebrew games and demos all stored on one cartridge.
Windows 7 released tommorow.
October 22nd marks the worldwide release of Microsoft’s O/S and one that I’ve been eagerly awaiting since test driving the beta releases many months ago.
It appears that many folk in the UK have already received their pre-order copies ahead of the official release date and is understood that Microsoft agreed to allow certain UK retailers to dispatch copies early to avoid any delays caused by the looming threat of industrial action at Royal Mail.
I should have my copy of Window 7 Ultimate edition after work tomorrow therefore am currently prepping a spare machine this evening in anticipation.
I’m particularly interested in any late changes to Windows Media Centre although looking on the web it doesn’t appear to have changed much since the RC/RTM versions. I’m still currently using MCE2005 on my HTPC although I’ve combined a few uXthemes (based on Apples Front Row) to get rid of the garish MCE default skin.
Hello!
Haven’t posted for a while due to being too busy with one thing and another. Will be back to the usual posting over the next few days.
Thanks for visiting.
StiGGY
