My (early) thoughts on Windows 7

Posted on November 2, 2008 by Josh Anderson

I’ve been trying out Windows 7 (build 6801) for a little while now, and I figured I would share some thoughts I’ve had:

  • Holy shit! I could possibly live with UAC in Windows 7! [*see rant on UAC at the end]
  • Most of the applications I’ve tried so far work okay. iTunes for instance, works fine for playing music and the bonjour service works as well. If I plug my iPhone in though, I’m asked to reinstall iTunes. Still; it’s very early for Windows 7 and I believe this is more than early Vista testers could have said with iTunes.
  • Under 7, plugging in my printer is easy! It automatically downloads and installs the driver (and quickly, too). In Vista I have to go to the HP website and install it myself.
  • The Windows Experience Index has been uncapped from 5.9 (see picture below).

As I spend more time with it, I’m sure I’ll think of more things to write about. But, as some will know, this early build doesn’t even have the features that Microsoft showed off last week (like the new taskbar). That’ll probably come along with Beta 1. EDIT: If you follow the instructions on this page, you can enable the new taskbar in build 6801.

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My rant at UAC: Pretty much the first thing I do in Vista is disable UAC; (don’t tell me that this is a bad idea; I haven’t gotton any viruses or other shiz because of my decision.) Frankly, I don’t see the point in UAC as it is in Vista – who is it for? people like myself are annoyed by it and many others just click yes because they don’t understand what it’s asking!

At least Microsoft understood that UAC is too annoying in Vista and they’ve toned it down in 7. Finally I can have UAC enabled and see all user’s processes in task manager without being prompted by UAC!

The only times that I’ve seen UAC in Windows 7 is when I’ve tried to install an application. Synergy, something which I use often, has to be run as Administrator and still, two years after Vista, there is no way to stop the prompt from appearing each and every time I run it.

So, even though UAC is better in Windows 7, if I were to be using it as a primary machine, I think I’d eventually turn UAC off.

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LOST SEASON 5 TRAILER!!!!

Posted on October 23, 2008 by Josh Anderson

Looks like they find another hatch….. and that there’s someone in it

😀

Only 104 days. Only 😦

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I’ve had to change the video two times already because it’s been removed from YouTube. So… If this one get’s removed, there’s always copies of it on there. Just search Lost season 5 trailer.

There’s a newer one here.

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Halo 3: Recon – A Prologue to Halo 3 revealed – from an ODST perspective – Prepare to Drop Fall 2009

Posted on October 9, 2008 by Josh Anderson

During the Tokyo Games show, Microsoft showed an ‘extension’ to the Prepare to Drop trailer which showed an ODST Marine leaving the drop pod that crashed. It was also stated that this will ship in Fall 2009.

The trailer has just been uploaded to Bungie.net & presumably the marketplace too: look here.
Xbox.com gives us a few more details: Campaign will be a side story that takes place during the events leading up to Chief’s return to New Mombasa in Halo 3, Multiplayer will provide “groundbreaking multiplayer content” With Exclusive new maps & Forge options as well as Saved films, Screenshots…. Oh and 4 player co-op 🙂
EDIT: It’s now called Halo 3: ODST which makes more sense, but I’m not sure I prefer it.Halo 3 ReconHalo 3 ReconHalo 3 Recon - New HeroHalo 3 Recon - New CampaignHalo 3 Recon - Prepare to Drop. Fall 2009Halo 3 Recon - Our New Hero - ODSTKeep RightProceed with Caution

LOL - The Super Intendant Labels the crashed ODST pod with "POSS. PARKING VIOLATION"

LOL - The Super Intendant Labels the crashed ODST pod with "POSS. PARKING VIOLATION"

Halo 3 Recon - Covenant

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Microsoft / Xbox Keynote at Tokyo Games show tomorrow – Something Halo this way comes?

Posted on October 8, 2008 by Josh Anderson

Microsoft for the first time is keynoting at the Tokyo Games show which kicks off this Thursday and finishes on Sunday….

Will we be graced by the reveal of what ‘Halo 3 Prepare To Drop’ is? Click here to see what we know so far (it’s just a trailer, an awesome trailer.)

Well, there have been a couple hints that we might do:

  • “Tokyo Rules” mentioned in one of the Super Intendant’s news posts on Bungie.net
  • “Prepare to J-Pop” Sound familiar? No? Could be a reference to Prepare to Drop from the trailer. And, from the same source: “Brian and Luke are, as you read this, witnessing the marvel that is the beautiful city of Tokyo.” From last week’s Bungie update.

Also, generally speaking, a keynote at a gaming show implies that there is stuff to show off; hopefully this ‘new Halo 3 campaign experience’ is one of those things.

The keynote starts at 12:00PM Tokyo time. If you want to find out when that is in your time zone, click here.

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Edit: I was right; Look here

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Will Xbox Live fail this ‘Holiday Season’?

Posted on September 30, 2008 by Josh Anderson

During the time up and around Christmas last year, Xbox Live had some serious issues.

Sometimes the service was completely down, and sometimes it was just very flakey meaning that you couldn’t play any matchmaking games due to some sort of issue with the service.

For anyone trying to play during these times, Xbox Live is excruciatingly annoying! It is also known to get a bit flakey during popular periods e.g. Saturday evenings. Fantastic for a service that we’re paying for, eh?

Hopefully, having had a year and at least two scheduled maintanence periods since then (one of which was yesterday), the service will cope with the influx of users over Christmas.

Did we recieve any compensation for these problems last time? Yeah, we got a free arcade game (Undertow).

Frankly though, I’d rather have a stable service that works when I want to use it.

So, place your bets: will Xbox Live have problems this year? I’m gonna go with yes, especially with things like Gears 2…

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Bungie Countdown finishes – reveals trailer – “Halo 3 Prepare to drop”

Posted on September 25, 2008 by Josh Anderson

EDIT: For a longer version of this trailer which was shown at the Tokyo Games Show, look here

After the countdown finished at 07:07AM PDT, Bungie.net revealed a teaser trailer for the next game they’re bringing out. OK no-one knows what the trailer was for, just go and watch it!!!

The description for the video from the marketplace: “High action and deep mystery await players in this new Halo 3 campaign experience. Prepare to drop!”
We can haz new campaign levels???

You can see it here GOGOGOGOGO

Click on any of the pictures below for bigger versions.

 

WTF?

WTF?

Don't think water...

 


Yes, it's upside down, that's how it was in the video!

Yes, it's upside down, that's how it was in the video!


Possible release date? It's Possible. Not confirmed though.

Possible release date? It

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Posted in Microsoft, Video Games | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

BUNGIE.NET INVADED BY SUPERINTENDANT – AGAIN – COUNTDOWN TO 7:07AM (PDT)/ 03:07PM(UK) September 25th.

Posted on September 25, 2008 by Josh Anderson

This time it seems they’re sure that it won’t be cancelled though; if you look carefully at the messages on the current bungie.net homepage they now include:

“THERE WILL BE A PAYOFF”

“IT WON’T BE A LETTER”

Expect something big. It’s what we deserve after last time!

 

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LOOK HERE FOR WHAT HAPPENED

BTW, sorry if this post doesn’t mean a lot to some people; if you want to read about this and when it’s happened before, look here
Posted in Video Games | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Happy Birthday, Halo 3!

Posted on September 25, 2008 by Josh Anderson

Today, September 26th 2008 marks Halo 3’s 1 year anniversary.

There really isn’t a great deal to say, anyone who is a true fan of Halo 3 would have gotten it on its release day one year ago (the 27th for Europe 😦 ) and is still playing it to this day. 

I’m certainly one of those dedicated fans; over the last year I’ve played Halo 3 multiplayer for a rather scary 265 hours! (that’s 11 days straight!!!!). (If you want to see how many hours you have spent in Halo 3, click on the picture below or the Spartan over on the right and create an account.)

Supposedly we’ll get a new episode of the Bungie podcast today and hopefully(!) an announcement or at least something more from the Superintendant.

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Halo 3 Auto / Title Update 2 to be released on the 23rd

Posted on September 18, 2008 by Josh Anderson

Bungie confirmed today that Title Update 2 for Halo 3 will go out on Tuesday the 23rd;

This’ll introduce individual ranks for each playlist, the new achievements and the playlist changes and, as I’ve written about these before; if you want to know about them, click here..

The new achievements can be seen on Bungie.net now; but one won’t appear work until Halo 3’s one year anniversary on the 25th – is it one we haven’t seen / been told about? It’s the one where you have to finish the last level with the Iron scull on, in 4 player co-op with all of you in Ghosts.

There’s 10 new spoken-about achievements which you can get now and 20 which haven’t been mentioned (because you need to have the Mythic map-pack which hasn’t been announced yet.) You can see what the others are here.

Bungie.net has had a few upgrades as of today. For instance, now both ranked and social kills by weapon etc. are shown on one screen and you are able to compare your career stats with someone else’s. (as shown in the picture)

The weekly update which was a day early ended with this:

“Outtro in Go Minor

Earlier this summer, my bipolar, crazy landlord told me, “The night is darkest just before the dawn.”
Dawn is about to break.”

Does this suggest something is very close? I think so. EDIT: look here

Could we see something on the 25th? It’s a definate possiblity. The announcement of the next Bungie game!?!? By this time next week we may already know………

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Don’t get your hopes up though, you never know when Microsoft will spoil the fun 😉

Posted in Video Games | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment