Mad about technology
It was announced at Microsoft’s CES 09 keynote, two days ago, that the official Windows 7 beta will available on Friday the 9th of January. 2.5 million keys are supposed to be up for grabs but demand has hit Microsoft’s systems responsible for handling the distribution.
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My Nforce 3 based Shuttle has a problem with overheating, which causes the network adapter to stop working until the temperature drops. This can be achieved by removing the case and using an external fan on the system.
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The New Xbox Experience is live and has been on general release since 10am GMT yesterday when it began to roll out to Xbox 360 consoles worldwide.
Using the interface for the first time can be a bit overwhelming. The added 3rd dimension to the layout means the plain evenness, that the original dashboard had, is broken up.
After the update is installed you can customise your avatar. Whilst doing this, you can control the expression on the avatar’s face as well as being able to make him/her spin and get dizzy (try this one to extreme for an even funnier outcome!). After customising your avatar
At the Tokyo Game Show, it was announced by John Shappert that the Dashboard update for the Xbox 360 will be released on November 19, 2008. I look forward to this update primarily due to the party feature announced at E3 earlier in the year.
NXE Dashboard - courtesy of Majornelson.com
Gaming on the Xbox with a few friends and family sometimes requires co-ordination skills, especially when connecting to games throws up problems you might expect on the PC. At present, users can only chat from the dashboard with one person and to speak to others they must initiate a chat session and switch to the next person whilst the former sits twiddling their thumbs. Imagine this scenario if one or more of your group cannot get into a game and are all sending chat invites for your attention. You might as well keep your phone nearby or sign-in to a messenger app. Now a number of people can form a party from the dashboard to view photos and chat together. The party can also go into a game from the dashboard as a group, providing all members have the game. This leads to a more connected and seamless experience, which should have been a feature from the start. Once released we just have to see how seamless it is, if NAT problems will cause party connection problems as in multiplayer lobbies where some users cannot connect to others.
I was listening to Major Nelson’s most recent show and partway through he mentions that he may be demonstrating the new Xbox 360 dashboard, due in the autumn update, at the Penny Arcade Expo. As Major Nelson (Larry Hyrb) goes on to say, it’s probably the first public demonstration of the new dashboard layout. Hopefully there will be a video on Xbox.com or on Inside Xbox (available through the Xbox 360 dashboard) for those who can’t attend.
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Eurogamer, who spotted/were told of an Xbox 360 controller with a new d-pad have managed to gather pictures and get a confirmation from Microsoft about it.
The existing d-pad is well regarded as providing the controllability experienced when trying to use a mobile phone in sub-zero temperatures whilst wearing gloves that haven’t protected you from frostbite. Ok, it isn’t that bad but the way the d-pad design on the Xbox 360 pad works is the same as a traditional d-pad below on the circuit board but above that it’s a little different.
Let’s kick off the fresh start to this stale blog with the news from across the Internet that some people who used to work for the search and advertising giant Google, have gone on to start up their own search engine.
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I’ve been using this for a while now but someone on one of the mobile forums asked about it so I thought more people might find this useful:
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A nice person over at the All About Symbian Forums named Tom has posted a change log for the v20.0.15 firmware from v12.0.13, enjoy:
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[UPDATE] As I was going through the phone’s settings one by one restoring my tones and programs, scrolling through the list of files to select my ringtone I noticed that one of the video clips appeared! The preview of the video clip worked so I set it as the ringtone. YES! N95s on v20.0.15 can now use video ringtones without having to rely on third-party software! Also, there is a new visualisation available called Circles in Music Player.
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