Hintswen.com

So, now I find out that Spore comes with DRM which I can’t find any information or even a refrence to on the game’s case or in the manual. It turns out I may only be able to activate it over the web 3 times (i’ve used 1 already, will need to use the 2nd if I install it again because I formatted) then I have 1 shot left… after that I’ll have to do it by phone and get charged some premium fee (probably $2.50/min) to be on the phone with them.

When I buy a game I expect a game I can install every day if I want to and not have to pay extra to do so. I also expect to know about all these “extras” BEFORE I buy the game. What’s the point of finding out after, when I can’t get a refund.

-Hintswen

Taken from http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/technology/ipod-invented-by-furniture-salesman/2008/09/10/1220857628946.html

Apple has admitted it did not invent the iPod, which was in fact the brainchild of a British man who patented his prototype 30 years ago.

Kane Kramer, now 52, took out a worldwide patent in 1979 for a media player that looked similar to the iPod but could store only 3.5 minutes of music. He dubbed it the IXI and planned to expand its capacity as technology advanced.

However, after running out of funds in 1988 Kramer was unable to put forward the £60,000 needed to renew the patent so his idea fell into the public domain.

Kramer, now a struggling furniture salesman, was therefore not entitled to receive any money or recognition from those who used his design.

The revelations came to light after patent holding company Burst sued Apple, claiming the iPod infringed on its patents.

Apple flew Kramer to the US to give evidence in its defence and used his original 1979 drawings of the IXI as evidence that Kramer, in fact, was the iPod’s inventor.

The original iPod was unveiled in October 2001 and, since then, 163 million have been sold, filling Apple’s coffers with billions of dollars in revenue.

“I was up a ladder painting when I got the call from a lady with an American accent from Apple saying she was the head of legal affairs and that they wanted to acknowledge the work that I had done,” Kramer told the Daily Mail.

“I must admit that at first I thought it was a wind-up by friends. But we spoke for some time, with me still up this ladder slightly bewildered by it all, and she said Apple would like me to come to California to talk to them.”

Kramer was questioned by Burst’s lawyers for 10 hours. The dispute was eventually settled out of court.

Kramer, who recently closed down his struggling furniture design business, is now negotiating with Apple to receive compensation for the company’s use of his drawings.

So far he has only been paid a fee by Apple for consultancy work related to the legal case.

“I can’t even bring myself to buy an iPod for myself,” he told the newspaper.

“Apple did give me one but it broke down after eight months.”

I went down to EB Games the other day and they had a whole stand for spore, all the empty cases so I went to buy 1, and they are sold out… I hate it when they do this, there must have been about 50 cases out and yet they are “sold out” and another EBGames store was doing the same thing. I guess it was a good thing though, EBGames was charging roughly $100 but Big W was only charging $74 and it was in stock! (yeah, everyone in Australia get it from Big W not EBGames).

I’ve got to say, I was a little disappointed with Spore. I always thought that the game included over 1,000 creatures on the disk so that you wouldn’t need an internet connection to play but after I launched the game I was told I would need to have a EA account. I wanted to just play with the creatures on the disk, and yet I need to have an internet connection so it can login to my EA account.

After watching all those funny videos of Spore and Robin Williams playing Spore the game just seemed so great. It was easy, funny, and seems so fun but when I started playing it didn’t think it was as good as I thought it would be. After it was delayed multiple times you’d think it would turn out better than your expectations but it wasn’t. The same starts out so slow in the tide pool where you have to swim around eating stuff to grow bigger and eventually get out of the water.

Only once you’re out of the water do you get to start making anything outrageous or funny, although you need to earn the parts you use to make up your creatures by attacking, or befriending the other creatures or finding them in bones. This is not challenging at all, it’s just a matter of either walking around until you see bones, copying what another creature does to befriend it, or repeatedly pressing/clicking a button to attack.

There seems to be no skill needed (although I must admit I haven’t reached the tribe stage yet as I’ve decided I’ll write this first. I’m nearly there though).

The sound in the game was… well almost non-existent but I guess I should expect that. I was hoping it would at least have some cool background music though, but there was nothing good. Don’t get me wrong, there is background sound… just no good background music.

I find it a little strange that you don’t need the DVD in your DVD drive to play but this is a good thing not a bad thing. Another thing I found strange (and this really has nothing to do with the game but I thought I’d mention it anyway) is what came in the case. I know they always give you something showing you other games in the series or a game that’s coming out, and in mine I had something for “The Sims 3″ and thank you EA for delaying something I have been waiting a long time for… AGAIN.

-Hintswen

This is the second time in about a month that I have bought something from borders only to find a mistake in it, what ever happened to editors? In both cases it was simply some text that got cut off. Simple mistake but oh so annoying. On the front page of Atomic (A PC magazine in Australia) I saw in big writing “Fallout 3 The game the government doesn’t want you to play!” so I open it up, find the page and start reading… At the end of the article on Fallout 3 is a box explaining why the government doesn’t want you to play Fallout 3 along with a link for more information… and that link is “www.” that’s all, nothing else there… nothing on the next page either.

Atomic, what s the rest of the link! =[

PS. The error is in Issue 92 on page 73

Aprox 2.5 years after Google claims they have no plans to release a web browser, they release Google Chrome, so it is good or bad?

Sure Google Chrome is made by Google (All hail O mighty Google!) but does that make it a good web browser? I Don’t think so. Google Chrome seems to be a very simple web browser, and I personally don’t like all these new applications and their lack of the typical menu bar containing the “File” menu and such.

When you open a new tab you are presented with a neat page that displays your”Bookmarks toolbar, Most visited websites (along with a image preview of the page) for quick and easy access, and a search bar.

The bookmarks bar is similar to that of Mozilla FireFox although it is only accessible from new tabs and disappears once you navigate away from that page. This is both good and bad as you save some extra screen space ad don’t accidentally click a bookmark when you go to enter a URL but do you really want to open a new tab every time you want to use your bookmarks toolbar?

You are also able to quickly and easily move tabs around or move a tab to a new (or existing) browser window simply by clicking and dragging it.

When you are typing in a URL the web browser uses Google’s database to predict what website you are trying to access. (Security risk? As it is sending your typed URL’s to them I don’t see why it’s not)

There is an “incognito” mode which allows you to surf the web without leaving traces on your computer, nothing in the history. It seems like this mode doesn’t try and predict the URL’s you are typing either. When in incognito mode it opens a new window with a slightly different theme, it is a darker colour with a picture of a spy in the top left corner of the window. It also deletes the cookies after you have closed that window although bookmarks you create and files you download remain on your computer.

When downloading a file a neat little download box appears at the bottom of the browser window to show the information regarding the download, it saves you from opening a separates download manager.

Google Chrome has (just like Mozilla FireFox) warnings about suspected phishing, malware or otherwise unsafe websites. It is just like what FireFox does so nothing new here.

One of my favourite features is one of the things the average user might not even realise untill something goes wrong! Every tab is run as a separate process, so if one tab crashes then the rest of your tabs can stay open and be saved. (although if you’re like me and usually have 50 tabs open, your process list will be full of chrome.exe’s)

Oh and just a little side note… Does anyone else find it a little funny that all the videos that are on the official Google Chrome website are “no longer available”… I thought that if they are on YouTube (which they own) they would remain available, but maybe that’s just me.

My final verdict: Google Chrome is Stylish but has no plugin support and alot of the features can be replicated on firefox with existing plugins.

-Hintswen

Google’s brand new browser, Google Chrome, went live yesterday with a beta version which can be found on Google’s website, which is located here.  So get off your backsides and download this sleek looking new browser, which has great looking GUI, a simple interface, and tons of options and features, including the ability to import bookmarks and other things from your other browser, and a quick and easy web search tool. I advise you to visit Google’s youtube video about Chrome at this link.

- Angus

Hey everyone, I’m Angus. I’ll be posting some things occasionally, so I’d like to say hello. =P

*Short post*

- Angus

I pluged an old phone into my computer and was surprised to see the emssage “Your hardware is installed and ready to use”, At first I thought that it worked because I had the nokia software to communicate to my other, newer phone… But windows also told me the devide is “unknown”. So tell me Microsoft, how do I use my “unknown” device?

I knew the PlayStation 3 has limited backwards compatibility but after seeing this I’m starting to wonder why it has to be so confusing! 5 different models and they all seem to have different compatibility. Couldn’t they just make it all the same!

Here are the answers to the Spiderwick Chronicles Quest for Habbo Australia:

Level 1:
Question: “all can be known with a lens of *”
Answer: Stone

Level 2:
Question: “In the movie The Spiderwick Chronicles, what is the name of jared’s twin brother?”
Answer: simon

Level 3:
Question: “Who plays the evil ogre Mulgarth?
Nick _ _ _ _ _”
Answer: nolte

Level 4:
Question: “What is the Director of the film’s last name?
Answer: waters

Level 5:
Question: “What is the name of the item both sides of the unseen world want to possess?”
Answer: fieldguide

level 6:
Question: “In what does jarred originally find The Field Guide?”
Clue: c _ _ s t
Answer: chest

Level 7:
Question: “Timbletack is the house what?”
Answer: brownie

Level 8:
Question: “What does thimbletack turn into when he’s angry?”
Answer: boggart

Level 9:
Question: “What is Hogsqueal distracted by?”
Answer: birds

Level 10 (final level):
Question: “What city did the Spiderwick family live in before they moved to Spiderwick Estate?”
Answer: New York City

They are posted in the following format:

Level
Question in that room
Answer to that question

So if you want to get into Level 5, the answer under level 4 is the answer.

Comments would be nice =]