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Archive for July, 2009
Lego adventuring
This weekend was the first time in a long time that we put the PS3 to good use. Since we are Lego fans, we stocked up on all three Lego titles available for the console, namely Star Wars, Indiana Jones and the newer Batman.
The Star Wars game for the PS3 was particularly difficult to get hold of. When it was first released, I took the approach of not buying it and instead wait for when we were ready to play it. Little did I realize that the title was very popular and simply sold out. When I eventually got around to looking for it, there was no hope of finding a copy locally, not even pre-played. I had to resort to importing it from overseas. It seems that game titles rely on scarcity, too…
So far, Alexander has been car-crazy and has been playing The Cars game every now and then. That’s fine, but doesn’t do much for a youngster’s interpersonal skills. Whilst I initially balked at the ludicrous price tag of an additional PS3 controller, that’s been the single best addition to the console.
Two-player games are now a reality and open up a new dimension in gaming for someone who is used to grabbing the steering wheel all by himself and determining without intervention which way to go…
We started our adventure in the deep jungles looking for ancient artifacts in Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures.
Our progress was reasonably swift, though we needed to work on our teamwork to circumvent traps and to progress. It’s a fantastic game and is great fun. As with all games in the Lego series, different characters have different abilities. There’s no violence to speak of and no worrying about dying and having to restart a level: characters simply bust into their component parts and re-animate. That is useful in that kids (and adults alike) are not discouraged when an obstacle requires many attempts to pass. With Indiana Jones and Marion trapped on the mountaintops in the snow, we decided to venture into space and try out Star Wars: The Complete Saga.
Both games are similar in operation and gameplay. Once again, very enjoyable and a lot of fun. There are plenty of puzzles to solve, often by having characters build bridges and the like out of Lego bricks scattered around. In the palace section, we needed to co-ordinate the use of four characters.
I haven’t had the opportunity to play games on the PS3 like this in ages. Can’t wait to start on Batman some time soon! Highly recommended for young and old alike.
Let Leopard read from ext2 and ext3
Though it’s built using a variety of UNIX components based on BSD, there is no native support for everyday Linux file systems in Mac OS X. I found that out the hard way, having torn the 320GB boot drive and a 400GB data drive from katana. Those contained ext3 file systems which I assumed I could simply hook up to the iMac and transfer my data.
Of course, I made another backup to an NTFS volume, but there was some stuff I wanted to get hold of on the hard drives. With Windows 7 installed and katana up and running to service the IT requirements of my better half, I hooked up the two drives in an external enclosure to the MacBook…
It’s not the type of message one is intent on seeing. No longer having easy access to a Linux system, I was unsure what to do. Clicking Initialize… at this point would not be a good idea.
I’ve discussed MacFUSE before, particularly with regard to NTFS support in Leopard. That was my first port of call, being a standard component I install on a new Mac.
It didn’t take too long to find an extension for MacFUSE specifically written to support both ext2 and ext3 file systems. Aptly named fuse-ext2, the only requirement is that MacFUSE has already been installed. The plug-in is simply installed and after a recommended reboot the machine is quite capable of reading the attached ext3 hard disk.
I plugged in the hard drive and was rewarded almost immediately with a mounted file system. For my purpose, fuse-ext2 works perfectly. I have no need to write back to the drive, which is something the developer warns about: the drive is mounted by default in read-only mode.
Though it is possible to change this to be read and write, such an operation is not recommended.
Here’s my advice for any file system woes you may have with Leopard: check out MacFUSE and its associated plug-ins first.
Snow Leopard for USD 9.95
When I purchased my iMac I mentioned the fact that Apple had just launched a special upgrade programme for purchases made during June. That programme would entitle low-cost updates for Snow Leopard. Snow Leopard is already cheap at the proposed launch price of USD 29. A price of USD 9.95 would be even better. My request as to whether or not a similar programme would be offered to South African buyers of the Mac range after a certain date was met with a very blank stare…
I assumed I would receive some sort of communication at some point in time. Today, the email from Core arrived:
Any purchase of a Mac made after 8 June 2009 qualifies. The online order process is reasonably simple, requiring the USD 9.95 payment to be made for shipping and handling. Then, there’s a requirement for some very outdated snail mailing of the proof of payment printout and the invoice indicating the date of purchase. A tracking option is provided on the website to assist eager upgraders in determining where in the world their personal Snow Leopard is.
The Mac OS X up to date programme website can be found here. Nice to see that we haven’t been forgotten!
Change lenses on the iPhone camera
2 years ago
by manfred
in iPod/iPhone
Wouldn’t it be really nice to have set of lenses that could be attached to the existing iPhone‘s lens to provide a range of effects and increased photographic abilities? Maybe, such a set of lenses would look something like this:
Fish-eye, close-up, wide angle and all manner of others. Cool. To mount the set of lenses, a special case is required. The Japanese company Factron has made such a case. It is named Quattro. With an attached lens, it looks like something the Germans came up with in the early 1940′s. Maybe a sophisticated Voight-Kampff machine from Bladerunner.
It’s rather retro. I like it. Unfortunately, the back of the case is far more attractive that the front. If you can live with the eclectic styling of the Quattro, you may have a winner.
Personally, I’d wait for Griffin to come up with something a bit more rounded…
Logitech Harmony Remote Software now working on the Mac
Two nights ago I gave up on trying to get the Logitech Harmony Remote software to run on the iMac. I’m really annoyed having to deal with Java – it’s a major source of computing issues in my opinion and experience. If it’s not a Java problem causing hours of wasted time looking for its source in a SAP installation, it’s some nonsensical Java idiocy causing end-user frustration because the incorrect version of the virtual machine has been deployed. For a solution that is meant to be write-once, run anywhere the Java technology has missed the mark by a huge margin. But that’s a discussion for another day. Call me a traditionalist, but I like native applications. They tend to work more reliably, require fewer resources and make issue resolution so much easier.
Back to the 7.6.0.8 version of the Logitech Harmony Remote software that simply wouldn’t run properly on a brand new Leopard installation. Gerd provided some useful advice, though I had checked the precedence of Java VM‘s during my own investigation.
No matter: I downloaded AppZapper (one advantage of trying to figure out a solution is that one often runs into interesting and useful software suggested by others) and proceeded to get rid of the Harmony software. AppZapper wasn’t necessary. The only component to get rid of was the Harmony software item in the Applications folder itself. No associated files. In any case, I’ll probably purchase a copy of AppZapper for future use. With the Harmony software removed, I restarted the iMac and then checked the Java VM settings in Mac OS X.
Though the 32-bit version of J2SE 5.0 topped the list for both the Java Applet Plugin and Java Applications, I pulled the J2SE 5.0 64-bit component into second position instead of Java SE 6.
With that done, I reinstalled the Harmony software. Surprise, surprise. Without a hitch, it now runs from within the Applications folder as one would it expect to.
Fascinating. I haven’t changed anything really and can’t imagine that moving the 64-bit version of a JVM to second place in the preferences of a 32-bit OS would make the difference. The Application Support directory still contains no content, but at least the application is now functional.
No artificial colours
2 years ago
by manfred
in Moblogging
New Smarties packaging proudly proclaims “No artificial colours”.
Must be true: red, green, pink, yellow and purple Smarties inside. Oh, hang on. Is brown an artificial colour?
Posted via email from mhertenberger’s posterous
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