Cross Platform Backup Program in a Snap

Like many users out there, I don’t just roll with one Operating System. I own a Macbook, I use a Linux box, and I also have my Vista machine. What I wanted was some programs that I could run across all three platforms for some form of continuity. The first of these programs I got was of course Open Office, which I must say I actually prefer to Office 2007, but iWork 08 is a dream in my books
My next program I wanted to find was a backup utility that was simple, effective, and that would work on all platforms. That’s when I stumbled across an open source program called Snap Backup
This program is so simple to use, even your grandmother could do it with her eyes closed. Basically you choose which folders you want to be backed up, then give it a file name (in my case I have Vista Backup, Mac Backup and Linux Backup) and choose a destination for the backup file to be placed. Ontop of that you can choose a secondary file location so it will duplicate the file on create it at the second location (So I create a copy to my Linux server and then another copy to an external Hard Drive)
Then go grab a drink and chill out while this neat little program compresses the files into Zip files and places them in your desired location, date included so you won’t get confused when you have more than one backup file.
All in all, Snap Backup is the most simple, most effective, and cheapest solution that I have found to work on basically any operating system out there You can download a copy from www.snapbackup.com

New Items on the Testing Block

Well ladies and gentlemen, after a few weeks of relative inactivity on this blog, I’ve got some new toys to test over the weekend and write full reports on. One will be useful to many, the other will be useful to some. The first item on my testing block this week is a Nintendo DS Lite. Yes I know they have been around for quite sometime, but it wasn’t until Phantom Hourglass was announced that I had any interest what-so-ever to pick one up and play it, so I’ve jumped out and bought a new DS Lite with a few games. I must say I was quite surprised at the performance of the little machine, and unlike my PSP I actually am still playing it after day one! I certainly prefer it over my PSP. So for those who haven’t jumped on the bandwagon yet, I will be providing an in-depth review on the machine and it’s good and bad points, which hopefully will make the decision a lot easier for youSecond item is something Mac users would have been excited about for a long time, and that is Leopard. After seeing the test at the WWDC last month, I’m sure many of you have gotten your hands on a leaked copy from some kind of source on the interweb. I have used a copy myself on a friends laptop and I will be providing a look at what is good and what needs work with the latest beta release. I’m not too keen to install it myself as I would rather wait until the final version is released so I can buy it (Yes that’s right, I do buy my software, especially from Apple as I love to support such a great OS, and at least it’s affordable) So hopefully you are as excited to read about these two toys as I am to be examining them over the upcoming weekend. Got a nightmare day at work tomorrow, have a bunch of people moving from one site to my current site, and guess who has to plug in all their pc’s, setup all the VoIP phones and patch all the data points….. going to be a long day indeed. I’ve noticed a growing number of readers in my blog stats and I would like to thank you for your support. I will be spending some time in the next month sprucing up this site, but you input would be greatly appreciated. Why not comment or email me and tell me what you want to read about? Until the weekend, enjoy!Hellerphant 

Games to come?

Well as most of you know E3 has come and gone, and while it didn’t hold the same spectacle as previous years, it didn’t fall short in the “Look what’s coming out” factor that it’s well known for.

Many of you may have seen the Press Conferences from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo and have a fair idea about what each had to say. I myself caught the whole Nintendo conference, which while didn’t actually reveal anything I wasn’t really expecting, still did a great job in showing how the Industry is changing, and that Nintendo have some great ideas hidden up their sleeves.

It was after this conference I got into a chat with my friend, another gaming enthusiast about the current gen console war and what’s going to be around the corner when we look towards another generation of gaming consoles.

Let’s look at what we have before us now, with the Nintendo Wii, the Sony Playstation 3 and the Microsoft Xbox 360. Before you continue reading this, I want to state that I am not a “Fanboy” of any of these consoles, in fact I own all three! What I am stating here is my opinion of each console, at this point of time, and will not necessarily stay the same opinion in the future.

I remember on 360 launch night I was standing in line at EB games, counting down the seconds till Midnight struck and I could rush in, get my awesome new console, and go home and play till I couldn’t stay awake any longer. I had followed the 360′s progress for quite some time, and I was extremely excited at it’s potential. When I popped Ghost Recon into the machine I was blown away by what I was seeing! Then I thought, surely all the games can’t be this good, so I put on Condemmned and once again I was amazed at how great the games looked and played. Condemmned is my favourite Xbox 360 game to date, such a great story.

Then a few months later I found myself in a slum with no good games, and I was starting to lose faith in my Xbox. That was until Gears of War came out and showed me the real power of the 360. Gears of War is a fantastic game, but seeing visuals of that quality from a console was totally phenommenal.

Then I got my hands on a shiny new Playstation 3. I parted with $1110 for my new console along with a copy of Resistance Fall of Man and hurried home and plugged it in. First off, I was like….what the hell is this? The menu was very ugly to say the least, and the functionality wasn’t on par with the blade system of the 360′s interface. I just put it down to me not being used to it, and I quickly chucked in Resistance and loaded into a new game.

Within 15 minutes I found myself turning off the console, and almost crying at the fact I had just paid over $1000 for a peice of crap. The visuals of Resistance were horrible, and it felt to me like a PS2 game.

I decided to give it another go, and while not at all impressed with the game I did get through a fair portion of it, and the story was compelling. I downloaded some demos and hired some games, but time and time again I just put down the PS3 controller and picked up my Xbox…. or a book!

And don’t even start me on the PS3 controller! Basically I had bought myself a Blu Ray player. And I can hear the PS3 fans saying “it’s only the first gen of games, wait for some good games to come out”. The PS3 had a whole extra year in development than the 360 and the games are NOWHERE near the visual quality of the 360 launch titles. Even ports of 360 games such as Fight Night 3 come nowhere close!

Lack of games, lack of interest and lack of sales, Sony really need some consecutive wins if they want their console to survive much longer in this new generation of gaming consoles

But all in all what do these consoles really achieve? They are basically the same as their previous models, just better graphics, better games, and some nice features. Just beefed up, better versions of the last gen consoles.

What Nintendo have done is create something new. In a field where technology is always changing and evolving, we as consumers should expect these companies to push to new limits with a new console. The PS3 and Xbox 360 have done this in a degree, their visuals are fantastic, frame rates good and games are enjoyable, but it’s just the same old stuff, nothing revolutionary.

What the Wii does is create a new experience. To me it makes gaming exciting, and a new adventure, instead of me thinking wow another FPS let’s see what features it’s stolen from other games and check out the latest graphics engine. Wii has made gaming accessible for pretty much everyone, and the real minimalist approach to their controls really does pay off.

What doesn’t though is the lack of serious titles at the moment for the Wii. I love what Nintendo are trying to achieve, make everyone a gamer with fun, accessible games like Wii Sports, Cooking Mama and all these party games we are seeing as of late. I love all of these games, they are fun, but I’m a hardcore gamer. I want some great, serious, adult games to play also. Manhunt 2 was the first game I was seriously psyched about, and by the looks of it I won’t get to experience it on the Wii.

Thankfully games such as Resident Evil, Scarface and the Godfather are out, but I really do think Nintendo need to release some more of these style games to keep their hardcore fan basis there. Wii is great, but I am glad I do have the 360 as back up, and hopefully I will make use of my PS3 when some good games come out.

And the implementation of Wii Fit (a move I saw coming from the day I bought my Wii) is genious. Nintendo will expand their current audience, but will also create a lot of popularity while effectively trying to help fight the growing Childhood Obesity Epedemic

So basically I have no idea what to expect from the consoles that will come out in the future, but let’s hope Microsoft and Playstation take a note of Nintendo’s achievements, and take a step towards the future, in more than just Graphics

Welcome to the Darkroom

As of late I have been testing quite a number of free programs that are floating around on the internet. One the caught my eye was JDarkroom. I’m sure many of you are familliar with these type of programs, but for those of you who have never heard of it, you are about to learn a bunch about it!

JDarkroom is a very simple, no frills, text editing program that is meant to provide an environment free of distractions and enabling you to write until your hearts content. It totally blacks out your desktop and just provides you with a black screen and console looking green writing which is reminicent of old school green screens.

While it doesn’t offer the functionality of Office like products, it does provide what it’s set out to provide very well, distraction free writing environment. With it’s old school feel, while some may consider it gimmicky, I think it’s a fantastic touch. I’ve got no icons around my screen at all, no buttons, no margins no tables nothing, and to tell you the truth it’s FANTASTIC!

For those who just want to write, check it out, I doubt you will be dissapointed. Well worth a look! It is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X

Next software I will be looking at is a handy, free backup utility called Snap Backup. Stay tuned

I Made The Switch!

Yesterday was a fantastic day on all accounts, but mainly for one very important reason. It was the day I made the switch to Apple with a shiny new Macbook arriving at 8am in the morning. Unfortunately I had to work yesterday so it sat on my desk, staring me in the face as I had it sitting charging up, eagerly counting down the seconds till it was home time and I could finally get a chance to play.
When I got home I quickly turned it on and ran through the simple, and well guided setup process before launching into the beautiful OS X desktop. Right away I was given an awesome suite of programs for pretty much EVERYTHING I could need. All I’ve installed are my basic chat apps (Skype and MSN), Microsoft Office for Mac and Adobe CS2 (basically just for Photoshop)

My first project was to test my digital camera on this beast, and to my total amazement it worked straight away! No drivers, perfect quality, and a pretty decent editing tool that will definately be used until I can afford a copy of Final Cut Studio 2 (I make short films so it will be viable for me to buy a copy).

But what truly amazes me is the integration each program has in the iLife suite. To make this blog was 1000 times easier than any blog site I’ve ever used, and if I want to add a picture I’ve been editing in Photoshop or Photo Booth or whatever, I can just drag it from that program onto this page right now and it inserts it straight away. Press the publish button, and BOOM it’s on the web

My next big project next month is to record an EP with my band and Garage Band on this new machine. But all I am going to say for now is I am glad I made the switch

The Forbidden Fruit Has Been Tasted

Let’s face it, Apple have been around a long time, and in the last 30 years have created some truly amazing products. I suppose most of you are reading this using a mouse, well Apple was the creator of the mouse Oh and let’s not forget the mammoth popularity of the i-Pod.

When I was attending primary school, all we ever used were Macs. They were good at what they did, but being only 8 years old, I was totally unaware of the real features Mac has to offer.

Growing up and continuing my interest in computers, I had forgotten totally about Macs for years. Then a few weeks ago I got my hands on a 4 year old i-Book and I was totally amazed at how good tmy new Laptop was! And this laptop was 4 years old!

So I eagerly await my brand new Macbook that will be arriving tomorrow, in which I will give a detailed report and some photos. But after some serious research, I can see Apple making a damn good run at becoming a main player in PC’s here in Australia.

Friends Causing Issues!

Over the last few weeks I have been slowly warming up to the PS3 and getting to grips with what exactly I have sitting next to my powerhouse 360 and my sexy and fun Wii, yet the one thing that is really giving me issues is the whole online experience, in perticular the friends system

Yes the Playstation Network (PSN) is available for Free, and yes it offers similar features to the Xbox Live system, yet you would think after a whole year of seeing how the Xbox Live system works, Sony would have got something right.

Unlike the Xbox where you can chat to your mates and read your messages without leaving your game, the PS3 does not offer this solution. I recieved a message while playing Resistance: Fall of Man (review coming soon ) and found out that I couldn’t read said message in game. I then quit the game, to only find out it was a message from a friend telling me he was about to join my created game.

This my friends, really grinds my gears. I really expected Sony to at least offer this simple feature, hopefully with a firmware upgrade we won’t need to quit our games to read our messages

Two weeks now and the PS3 still is dissapointing, yet I don’t totally hate it like I did when I first unpacked it. A good console, but not worth the $1000. Still, I do love the fact I can finally start my Blu-Ray collection, bought a copy of Hostel yesterday and DAMN did it look and sound FANTASTIC!

Don’t forget ladies and gentlemen, I am starting the Request A Rant section. Email me topics or PM or comment, whatever and I’ll do an article on what the public wants to hear

Cheers
Agitated Hellerphant

PS3- Un-Inspired and Dissapointed

Researching which Next-Gen console is the best is quite a daunting task. I discovered this when trying to decided whether or not to purchase a Nintendo Wii and a Playstation 3, and basically all I found was people raving about their console, and bagging out the others for stupid, meaningless reasons. But now that I own all three Next-Gen consoles, I fell I can make an informed opinion that will help people looking for a new console head in the right directionNow I’ve been a Sony man since day one, spent many great years playing my original grey box, followed by the even better PS2. Then along came the Xbox, and I tell you what I absolutely loved it! It had great visuals, awesome games, yet more often then not I found myself back on the PS2 with the amount of exclusive titles being releasedI found myself standing in line for about 2 hours launch night for the Xbox 360, but when I got home it was worth every single minute for the wait, and every single dollar I paid for the premium console. I sat there and marvelled at the graphics on Fight Night 3, that game was absoloutely stunning, especially for a launch title. A few weeks later I found myself just playing GRAW and Rockstar Table Tennis until Gears of War came out towards the end of the year. GoW was easily the best game of 2006 in my opinion, and the visuals were totally gorgeous!A few weeks ago I found myself purchasing a Nintendo Wii. I tried to do some research, but once again all I found were people bagging it out because of it’s low specs, or users praising it to just piss off the Xbox and Playstation communities. I dived head first and I have never looked back. The Nintendo Wii brings something totally new, and unique to console gaming. It’s fun, and even people who don’t normally play games (aka my mother, girlfriend, her mates) all jump on and have an aweosme time. Of the 12 games I have, the only one that I didn’t like was Medal of Honor. Yes the Wii doesn’t have the graphics or processing power of the Xbox, but what it does do is create something different, something FUN, and that, in it’s own right, is a good enough reason to buy oneThen yesterday I decided to buy a PS3. $1110 later I was sitting in my lounge room with a shiny new black console and a copy of Resistance Fall of Man. I’m not going to lie, I was damn excited. I’ve been waiting for the PS3 for a while now, and from what I’ve heard it’s graphics are awesome, better than the 360 in every aspectSo I plugged her in, turned her on, and instantly I was heartbroken. The menu system is black, white and that’s it. It’s lacking any real functionality, and after using an Xbox 360 for so long I was just like, What the hell is this? It’s a little confusing to navigate, which makes me wonder how a 6 year old kid, who hasn’t played a console before is going to handle it. But that aside, I put in my copy of resistance, and paitently awaited for my game to load upWell my heart was broken before, now I just felt like I had been hit by a truck. The game looks like a PS2 game! Textures are horrible, the HUD looks pixelised as all hell, and the game is boring as hell. Blood looks totally fake, textures on the wall are horrible, and well pretty much, I hated it.So after just paying $1110 I played my console for a total of 25 minutes and didn’t touch it for the rest of the night….Woke up this  morning and downloaded a copy of Gran Turismo HD Concept, a demo for the new game coming out for the PS3. Once again, visually bland, and totally dissapointing. I then borrowed a friends copy of Fight Night 3, and once again totally and utterly dissapointedNow all the PS3 fanboys, stop claiming “oh but Launch Titles are going to look crap, the next round of games will be great. It took xbox months before they tapped into the Gears of War graphics”. Dudes, wake the hell up! Fight Night 3 was released a year ago on the Xbox 360, and now ONE WHOLE YEAR LATER, the PS3 version looks a hell of a lot worse. Sure the fighters have a few better features like veins in their arms and sweat looks better, but all the dynamic lighting is GONE! Seriously I am so dissapointed in my new purchase. The only good game I’ve played thus far is Formula 1, and how in depth can that game be for a gamer like myself who is only a casual racerAt this stage, this could be the downfall for Sony. They are selling a much inferior product to Xbox, and charging $300 more for it. While I think it will be possible for the PS3 to outdo the Xbox in a year or so, I doubt they will hook in enough users when they can get an Xbox much cheaper that has a lot better gamesSo you want my advice? If you are looking for a solid, good fun time, get a Wii. Games are already great, and there are some really cool titles planned over the next year or so. Great price, and will fit in with the whole familyIf you are looking for a visually stunning console, that also doubles as a media center, get the Xbox 360. The games are really starting to look amazing, and the console is just full of potential. Microsoft finally did something right for onceBut at this stage, with lack of GOOD games, let alone ones that compare to some of the lesser Xbox titles, and the increased price, steer clear of the Playstation 3

You, Me and the Wii

Well I finally got my hands on Nintendo’s latest offering, the Wii. I hadn’t played one before, and I was very skeptical after the Gamecube, but me being a Nintendo fan since I was born, I was intrigued by the concept of motion sensitive technology.

What Nintendo have done is genius! I’m going to come out and say it, I’m a hardcore gamer and I play a lot of games, and I own a lot of consoles, and I also play PC releases. But what Nintendo have done is create a FUN experience for everyone.

When I play a game, I usually get in the mindset that I’m here to finish the game, enjoy the story, and in the case of Xbox 360, earn ALL the achievement points. I’m usually too busy concentrating on completing my goals rather than having fun, yet with the Wii, it’s totally impossible not to have a good time!

The console may not have the grunt of the PS3 or Xbox 360, but it offers something totally new and unique, and it truly brings a new sense of competitiveness to multiplayer gaming. Wii Sports that ships with the console is great fun, and not only shows off some capabilities of the Wiimote, but also acts as a learning tool to using the new controller

The one thing I thought would take time getting used to would be the Wiimote, but I tell you what within 15 minutes I was feeling safer holding that in my hands instead of a bulky Xbox Controller. The nunchuck attachment is great and easy to use, and basically I just love the controls of this console

My favourite part of the machine is the Virtual Console! You can download all your favourite Nintendo and Sega classics by using Wii points, much like the Xbox Points system on Xbox Live. NES Games cost 500 points, SNES and Sega Megadrive cost 800 and N64 games cost 1000. Points start at $15 for 1000

Another cool feature is the built in WiFi for the internet connection, which eliminates the need for me to have a long LAN cable running across my lounge room floor into my Lanning Room.

All in all, I think the Nintendo Wii may be the underdog out of the next gen console battle. Don’t get me wrong I LOVE my Xbox 360 (even though it did blow up!) but the Wii just brings something totally new to the table. It’s easy, it’s accessible, and more importantly it’s fun!

So keep posted as I do reviews on games soon! I’m also thinking of writing a movie series based around the Wii, but once again it depends on what I think of