Jonathan Davies

I love playing games, but not all of them, in fact I’m very picky about the games that I will play for more than a couple of hours. In all truth, I get very board, very fast. So the games that I play have to have a very fast pace and bring something new to the game each time I sit down.

BioShock fills all these needs.

The Story is one to rival Half-Life. You are plunged (literally) into the underwater city of Rapture, built by Andrew Ryan, who’s goal was to build a society in which what you earn you keep.

There are no cut scenes in the game, instead it is up to you to discover what has torn Rapture apart and how the inhabitants have changed themselves into horrible creatures. You do this by picking up audio diaries along the way.

The graphics are frankly amazing, and the guys who created BioShock new that it would have to be after setting the whole story under water. Just the subtleties of when you fire a hot weapon the distortion in the air and the crack as you smash the frozen body of your enemies with a wrench.

Morality has a very big part to play in BioShock. Every so often you see what are called “Little Sisters” (believe me you wouldn’t want one of these as your sister) walking around, being guarded by massive “Big Daddies”. And if you manage to destroy one of these Big Daddies you are given the option to do one of two things with the Little Sister. Either harvest the EVE, that makes you stronger, from her body killing her. Or you can have the Little Sister turn back into a little  girl, but you don’t get as much EVE.

I will write some more thoughts on the game as I progress, but so far I have found it very enjoyable. And if you are thinking of purchasing it at least download the Demo from Xbox Live (for the Xbox) or Steam (for the PC).

Have you played BioShock? What did you think? Tell us, by leaving a comment or using the contact form.

Yesterday Apple finally added TV Shows to the UK iTunes Store, but unfortunately no Movies which I was hoping for more than TV shows. I was personally surprised with how long it took for them to come to the UK and even more surprised that i was just the UK who were given the shows and no other countries were included.

The TV Shows are priced at a hefty £1.89 which is pretty expensive when you compare it to the fact that the US only have to pay about £1. But, it still isn’t that bad. As there was when the US Store was launched there are a limited amount of content, and when they start to show some of the real British hits such as Doctor Who they’ll be on to the winner in the UK.

But how does the video look? Obviously I can’t say how it looks on a TV at the moment, but I did download an episode of LOST, and played it at full screen on my 15” MacBook Pro and I have been very impressed. As Steve Jobs mentioned when they increased the resolution of the TV Shows in the US, they are near DVD quality. And I believe that they are encoded in H.264.

The LOST episode was forty minutes long and amounted to about 400MB. Some might say that it’s a pain waiting for it to download, but in actual fact, after about two minuted you can start watching it while to continues to download - pretty cool.

Will I be buying some more TV shows? I could definitely see myself doing that more often. However I really think I’ll start downloading more video from the iTunes Store when they release Movies.

Are you excited about TV Shows being brought to the UK? Have you downloaded some already? Tell us what you think by leaving a comment or using the contact form!

Name: Cyberduck
Price: FREE   
Website: http://cyberduck.ch/
Platform: Mac

When I first got my Mac is was looking for a free (As you might have guessed after buying a mac you don’t tend to have much cash around) FTP application so I could upload some stuff to my website. So as you do, I typed in “free FTP client mac: and Cyberduck popped up as the first result. So I downloaded it and loved it.

 
It is a very simple and easy to use design. The main part of the window is dedicated to what you can see on your web server for instance. And then to add files to the website you just drag and drop them to where you want them and they upload. When they are uploading there is a window which shows you their progress and a list of things that you have previously uploaded. It is a lot like the Download pane for Safari and Firefox

There are many other features that I simply don’t use or haven't got around to using them, I sugest you go have a look at the website where they have a great feature guide and explain all of the server mumbo jumbo, as I like to call it.

One of the feature that I like the most is the ability to preset a server that you want t upload to so say you have two web servers, the first time you connect you can click the plus button and then from then on you can click on the left and it will connect without having to enter a password or username. The design is simple and elegant, and therefor easy to understand. I got my head around it in no time. Cyberduck follows the same basic design that a lot of mac apps follow so it is very easy to navigate and you sort of feel that you already know where everything is.

All in all Cyberduck is a great Application especially if you don’t have a budget, go check it out!

What FTP Client do you use? Is there one that you pay for, if so what feature does it have that makes you willing to pay for it? Leave a comment or email me at techgeeklife@gmail.com

Taking a Screenshot

I find taking a screenshot a very useful way o putting forward a point and helping someone understand  what the hell you are talking about, as you can see I use them a lot on this blog. And there are a couple (and by a couple I mean 3) of ways of doing this:

1: To take a screenshot of the whole screen they key combo is: command-shift-3

2: To take a grab of somewhere on you screen the combo is: command-shift 4

3:To take a picture of an apps window you press: command-shift-4-spacebar

Do you have an Apple quick tip that you want to submit? If so use the contact form (the link is at the top of the page). If you submit one and I use it You’ll get credit (a link to your website - of course it doesn’t matter if you don’t have one) and the jealously of all your friend for been featured!

Please Note: I can not guarantee that jealousy of your friends

Thoughts on Safari

Lets face it, we all spend a lot of our time browsing the internet. And for a lot off us it is very important that we get a good experience.

When I was using Windows I was Firefox all the way, I mean what else is there to use on the windows side (something tells me I’m going to regret saying that)? But until Firefox 2.0 I found the browser to be fast and reliable. Now I find Firefox to be a lot o things but I’ll tell you now, it is not reliable.

So now I have started to use Safari, but I’m not using the regular version of Safari I’m using the beta for 3. So far it has been very good. Pages load very quickly and it has some very good features.

So here are three reasons why I’m liking the new safari:

Snapback:

Whenever I go to Wikipedia looking for something, I don’t tend to come out. I go looking for a movie then see who starred in it and go on wondering what other movies he has been in.
So to get you back on track every time you use the search box, lets say you want mints. So you go into Google and search for them and you find a really cool website which you have a good poke around on. But then yo get bored, and instead of clicking bak several tme you click the snapback button in Safari and you go straight back to the search, this also works with the address box as well.

Forms AutoFill:

I think Firefox had this feature but not to the same extent. Now whenever you want have to fill in a form,Safari looks through your address book and fills out all your information, granted that you have it filled in.

Bookmarks:

Granted all browsers have bookmarks, but non of them have work in the same way as Safari’s. They are basically are arranged like your iTunes library. There are a load of preset folders and bookmarks that Apple think may help you. For instance there is a Travel folder, which includes Expedia, New York Times Travel etc… And of course a Mac section which includes MacWorld Reviews and the Wired Cult of Mac section. Now some people may say, but I’ve got del.icio.us as I have a few computers around the house, well Safari has built in Bonjour support for Bookmarks.

Pop-Up Blocker:

Here we go again, I can get that in Firefox or as an extension! But frankly I have found the Firefox pop-up blocker absolutely useless. And the Firefox extension that I used to block all ads stopped me from viewing YouTube Videos. There is not much else to it but that, but at least it works.

Do you use Firefox, Camino or any other Mac browser instead of Firefox? And what features of the new Safari are making you excited? Leave a comment or use the contact form!

Name: Quicksilver
Price: FREE
Website: http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/
Platform: Mac

 
When I first heard about Quicksilver I wasn’t quite sure what it was exactly. I had heard it mentioned several times on MacBreak Weekly, and all I seemed t be able to gleam from it that it was an app launcher - which it is but it does so much more than that.

I first downloaded it o see what it was all about, and at first found it quite hard to use and kept forgetting about it. So after a few days I decided to more or less completely get rid of my dock and use Quicksilver to launch my applications.

Quicksilver’s window is not like any normally app, it runs in the background and you only see it when you need it. To get it to appear you have to set a command for me I do ctrl-
Q. Which brings up the window, I then start to type what I’m looking for. Lets say Firefox -so I type FIRE and and then when it hits upon Firefox I press enter which launches it.

But you can also hit tab which brings up more commands that you can do with the application. Such as Quit, relaunch, move to etc…  You can also download plugin for Quicksilver, the two that I use the most is the iTunes and the Mail plugins. With the iTunes one I can search through artists, albums etc and play and pause music without having to stop what I am currently doing.

Quicksilver has decreed the mount of time it takes me to do more or less everything on my mac. I highly recommend it!
 
Did I explain everything Okay? Is there anything that I could have gone in to more depth. Do you use Quicksilver? If so tell us your experiecnes. either leave a comment or contaxt me using the contact form - Thanks

I saw this done on another blog and thought I'd give it a go. So if you read this blog, but have never commented before, here's the place you can comment, put your name, your website (if you have one) and introduce yourselves!

The reason I am doing this is because there are a lot of readers who don't take part in discussion - and for me thats what this website all about. So go on leave a comment, you might like it! 

In this episode we cover:

How a teen unlocked the iPhone - 

How Monster.com was hacked -

The next generation of Digital Pens -

Microsoft recalling the Xbox 360 stering wheels -

AT&T giving up on 300 page bills -

And the software to unlock your iPhone -

Running Time: 32.45

DOWNLOAD (right click and save)

LINK TO iTUNES

This is the third and final part to my series on the blogging platform Vox. If you haven’t read the first two parts of the series, I suggest that you read them, here and here. In this section I will be discussing community and how Vox allows you to communicate with your friends and also make new ones.

Home-page:

I touched on this last time, that the home-page was split into different sections. At the top is an area which shows recent comments by your neighbors and what updates they have made to their blog, a change of theme for instance. Having it at the top is very helpful as it allows you to see instantly what you friends have been up to. Further down you can see posts that your neighbors have made.

[THIS IS GOOD]:

When you make a comment on something on Vox you are able to add the [this is good] tag just to say if you enjoyed it, but you can also add more to the comment, if you want to.

Another part of [this is good] is that you can suggest something to be it. And it can be put up on the home-page for others who might not normally see those sort of things such as pictures.

Recently Added:

This is one of my favorite features of Vox. When you write a new blog post and publish it, you go to a web-page that shows you a few of the other posts that have been published at the same time, I have found several neighbors through this.

Getting you Blogging:

Vox really want you to blog. And quite often I am stuck for an idea and have no idea about what to write, so to help you at least write something Vox has “Question of the Day” (this is where I got my QOTD from) Where you can either submit one or sometimes the guys and gals at Vox do one. For instance at the time of writing, the latest it: What Decision changed the course of your life? Pretty cool eh?

Conclusions:

When I compare the community aspects of Vox to something like, Wordpress.com. I don’t really see anything that wordpress.com has. I would consider it a mash-up of Facebook (for the community aspects) and wordpress.com for the blogging aspect. But Vox does it in it’s own style. Once again I highly recommend Vox to someone who wants to start out Blogging in a community that will welcome you with open arms. I have certainly enjoyed my experiences with it, and I hope that you at least give it a try.

What did you think of this three part series? Has it inspired you to try out Vox? and if so was it successful? Leave a comment or send me an email vis the new contact form. Thanks for reading!

This is a shout-out to everyone who reads the blog. What to you expect from this blog and what would like to see more of. All my posts have been about my own opinion on software, Apple etc.. but would you like to see me branch out slightly more and diversify?

You can now here me every week when I do my podcast as I talk about tech news, but do you want me to post rebuttals to tech new stories in the week? Or do you like it how it is. I won’t lie, It takes up a lot of my time and I’m worried that when I get back to school, posts will become less and less and then stop.

So once again - what do you want from this blog?

Thanks and keep reading and commenting ( I know I have a lot of readers who don't comment , give it a go - you might like it