Humble Weekly Sale is full of shooters

I have to admit, I remember Serious Sam being fun. But it's really not. However you definitely need to have Duke 3D in your collection if it isn't already, and finally completing System Shock 2 is high on my personal "achievement list". Worth 6 bucks of anyone's pocket money.

https://www.humblebundle.com/weekly

This ends on the 19th of September.

GTA V (GTA 5) best price in the UK

It's so nearly upon us. I'm surprised I've waited so long to pre-order, but I've placed mine today.

Surprisingly, the best price I managed to find was at Amazon - in the past it's often been Tesco or Sainsbury or some other supermarket. But no, this time GTA V appears to be cheapest from Amazon.

I'm pretty glad actually - I get to use the Prime membership I regret purchasing.

£34.99 on both Xbox 360 and PS3 (images below are direct links)

 

 I shouldn't need to say much about it. It's going to be amazing. This gameplay video has emerged, might be a bit of a spoiler so if you want to preserve all the story surprises (the first 7 minutes at least) look away!

 

I can't wait. I have to get all the jobs I need to sleep until it arrives so I can play non-stop. That's how sleep works, right?

Otherwise I'mma just be like this until Tuesday/Wednesday:

TTNET router settings

TTNET. Like the internet, but slower.

This might be an obscure one for many, but having spent untold time trying to find these settings I want to immortalise them here.
If you want to bring your own router to TTNET (their free ones are better than some I've been given in the past, but still pretty weak) you'll need these to fill in the connection details. Make sure you know your username and password as the accounts are not automatically tied to your phone number as they are with some ISPs / countries.

Username: ******@ttnet (don't leave out this @ttnet part)
Password: I can't help you here...
If you've forgotten it, and have internet access somehow, use this online form.
If you don't have internet access (makes sense..), you'll have to phone them.
Amusingly (for me at least) if you enter the wrong password your router will connect, and when you try to access a website you'll be pushed to the "wrong password" webpage where you can find the phone number and other help information.

Connection type:
PPPoE
LLC (not VCMUX)
ATM UBR (choose these if options exist)
MTU: 1454 (actually this was set to 1492 on my old router but 1454 seems stable and is more "default")
VPI: 8
VCI: 35

That's about all there is to it.

If you're having trouble getting into your router settings, a safe bet is "admin / [no password]" or "admin / admin". Otherwise you'll have to find the manual or google your router model. If it's second hand, try using the reset button (hold for 5-10 seconds until the lights flash) to reset to factory settings.

Duke Nukem 3D free on GOG.com

Free for 48 hours. Mac and PC. Hail to the king, baby.

This game might look a bit dated but it's a billion times better than Duke Nukem Forever.
i.e. it's playable, and a bit fun.

Download now @ gog.com

Played BLOPS 2 yet?

I've just had a read of this rather over the top excessively positive review @ ign:

THIS IS NOT THE SHOOTER YOU EXPECTED

Nice title. Except, to be honest, it really is the shooter you expected. Almost exactly...

The campaign narrative jumps between various characters’ perspectives and also in time
A bit like last time.

The story successfully casts Menendez in a light where I’m still not sure how I feel about him. At times I wanted him dead
A bit like last time (the protagonist is always a bit of a dick really. I liked the guy with the 'tache though)

Ok I'm being negative. Actually, BLOPS (or as I like to affectionately call it, PLOPS) 2 does bring some interesting new stuff to the table. It has pseudo choice making sections, where pressing A or B (so to speak, not literally) will affect your path through the game a bit. That might make it more fun to play through the single player campaign a few more times than you normally would (i.e. once).

Customising your loadout before a mission is nice too. Although actually I predict this will take away variety for many people as they'll simply use their favourite gun all the time (wasn't it annoying when you started one mission with a tricked out m4, and the next with a crappy mp5?)

Shooting is as fun and precise as ever, and alongside the abundance of gigantic explosions, vehicle missions and intense firefights, it feels like the closest thing most of us will ever get to starring in an action film. In that sense, Black Ops II is the classic Call of Duty formula at its best, with an important, defining difference: The emphasis on drone warfare, the exotic-but-grounded weaponry and the attention to detail in the believably high-tech signage and architecture makes Blacks Op II feel strikingly plausible even when it strays into non-historical settings.

The multiplayer is, as ever and of course, a blast. There's some new ideas there (Hardpoint) and some of the weird ones from MW3 (Kill Confirmed). The new "Nuketown 2025" mission has been hyped a lot. I started off hating Nuketown in BLOPS 1 but I grew to love it, and it seems to be the most famous map now. So a lot is expected of the future version and actually it seems to deliver.

The weirdest addition is screencasting - you can broadcast your game or save clips to youtube. I guess we can look forward to hundreds of thousands of new "OMGOMGOMG LOL GRENADE AT SPAWN" videos for the next few months. They call it "codcasting", by the way. You know, like "podcasting". Do you see? Ugh.

The "Zombies" mode has been talked about a lot. I really don't understand why zombies are such a big deal right now, some people actually seem to be preparing for some kind of real life zombie holocaust. If that's you, BLOPS 2 now provides you with some excellent training missions for that fateful day. Actually it's really fun, and quite a lot better than the (already quite fun) zombie missions in BLOPS 1.

All in all it's a great game. You didn't expect it to be a total dud, that was never going to happen. If you like Call of Duty you will like BLOPS 2, it's COD at its biggest brashest and, dare I say, at its best.

If you hate COD, you'll hate this too. But you're probably far too busy asking your facebook friends to be your neighbour in SimCity Social to even notice it's been released.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is available on Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii U (like anyone has one of those) and PC.
The best prices are, as always, at amazon:

People with more money than sense might want to check out the "hardened editions" on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

• Call of Duty: Black Ops II game
• Collectible steelbook
• Limited edition challenge coins
• Nuketown Zombies and Nuketown 2025 bonus in-game content
• Access to the Double XP Weekend, from November 16-18
• Exclusive PlayStation 3 system multiplayer theme and zombies theme
• Official soundtrack by Jack Wall with theme by Trent Reznor
• Exclusive weapon camo and player card backgrounds

MOCA is shit

What's MOCA? Other than a pile of useless overpriced bollocks? Nothing really.

Here is a video at the BBC's website. Unfortunately I can't embed it so you'll have to go and watch it then come back. Please, remember not to believe that you are looking at something in anyway clever or revolutionary or even good.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9765106.stm

MOCA requires your existing broadband connection, so you still need the box on the wall (or the phone socket) and probably a modem/router/switch box (cable modem, adsl modem, whatever). These things usually have built in WIFI, which means you can share your internet connection out to your laptops, computers, smartphones, internet enabled fridge, all that great stuff. Often they also have 1 or 4 ethernet ports. We'll get back to that later.

The trouble with WIFI, says MOCA, is that it's weak. Maybe if your router is in the concrete lead lined basement, you won't be able to get a full strength signal in your attic. This is a valid concern. So MOCA says you should buy their $200 boxes to stick into new holes in your beautifully plastered walls. Behind these holes you need to hook your MOCA devices into the COAX cables that weave their way through every room in the house. MOCA will then piggy back a network onto these cables. In every room you will then have an ethernet socket, so you can plug in your computer device.

The main problem here is this: what the hell home has a network of COAX running to a faceplate in every single room? And even then, once the MOCA is installed, it gives a WIRED connection to that room. There's no wireless built in. So you'd need another wireless router in every room if you really wanted to expand your wireless network. They say this is a feature they will add soon, I say their product might be a tiny bit useful if it already had it built in but without it it's absolutely useless. Last time I checked, iPhones and Galaxy Tabs didn't have an ethernet port.

You DO have a network of cables in your house. They bring electricity to your rooms and I'll take a safe bet that you have a power outlet/socket in every room (except perhaps the crapper). There are little boxes available in your favourite techy stores, at your favourite online retailers, that use your network of power cabling and piggy back network 'signals' onto those. Much better. Plus they cost about $30 instead.

If you want pure wireless, just buy wireless repeaters and extend the network from your main wireless router.

If you want a totally secure, robust, fast network, go out and buy a reel of CAT6 cable and a load of ethernet/RJ45 faceplates. Wire your house with proper network cable. It will be super cheap and super fast and will give you a potential Gigabit network speed (fast wireless is generally more like 100 Megabit, if you're very lucky).

Basically, MOCA is entirely pointless and useless. Please don't buy one by accident.


Here is a good product for ethernet-over-mains, to give you an instant wired network.

2 pack. £30. 500 Megabit. Not bad at all.
Add as many as you need (not limited to 2).

Here's a smart little compact wireless repeater. Plug it in at relevant locations to extend your wireless signal and boost the power in rooms where it might be a bit weak.

Single item. Very compact, straight into the wall. £36.
Again, add as many as you need. More powerful ones available.

Whatever you do, don't get a MOCA box.

Official MOCA website is here.

Adobe Illustrator, PDF, letters, thick or fat

One of many Illustrator related woes I have come across, but this one actually has a real solution.

Sometimes when you output to PDF, some letters seem to become hugely fatter than the rest.

The capital "I" (eye) and lower case "l" (el) are worst affected, as is the lower case "ı" from the Turkish alphabet. As far as I can work out, it's because Adobe Acrobat Reader (and even Acrobat Pro) thinks these characters are actually little borders. It (usually) only happens if you have converted these fonts to shapes (i.e. "create outlines" in Illustrator).

Crap solution:
In Acrobat there is a preference called "enhance thin lines". God knows why it exists. This little feature seems to be what adds weight to the characters in question. Now, you can go into preferences and turn this off, and it should alleviate the problem.
But if you send the PDF to someone else, more likely than not they will still have it turned on. When they see the crappy looking letters they will probably assume you are an incompetent typesetter / artist. Thanks, Adobe.

The first thing you could try is not "outlining" your text - leaving it rendered as a font, rather than shapes, means Adobe's stupid little preference shouldn't mess about with it. You will need to embed your font if you do this. Of course you might not want your text as text (to stop it being changed so easily perhaps), or you might need to edit the text (I recently had to delete a bunch of dots from "i" characters because the font didn't contain the "ı"). There is a way!

Excellent solution:

If you have Illustrator, the solution would be to add a point to the vertical strokes of all the lowercase "i" & "l". It's a pain & can be time consuming but it works.
Hope this helps.

It sure does! The genius who found this solution didn't leave a name, but we salute you!

In case you don't quite get it, here's a little visual guide:

I hope this helps anyone who has been tearing their hair out, as I was.

Not our usual type of reading material, but there we go...

PS conversely (and somewhat perversely?) if you are using CorelDRAW! rather than Illustrator, almost the exact opposite can occur. If you export to PDF with fonts intact, you may witness this issue. If however you "convert to curves" before exporting, all should be well. Odd, eh?

Clever person @ google groups

Windows 8 in "not horrible" shocker?

This article on switching to Windows 8, from the perspective of a non-touch user who loves to get around with the keyboard, is a really great little read. It's also chock full of useful tips (mainly handy keyboard shortcuts to help you get around). Well worth your time.

Maybe I'm too relaxed but after a few days and some hotkeys I've found Windows 8 to be Windows 7+1. Works fine, no crashes, lots of improvements. I spend most of my desktop time in Windows apps, all of which work. I keep News apps or Video apps in full screen on other monitors and I do move the Start Screen around but generally the whole thing has been a non-issue.

Who moved my cheese? @ hanselman.com

Humble Indie Bundle 5 is best ever

The Humble Indie Bundle "V" was already awesome, and now they've added even more games to it!

We've added three games to Humble Indie Bundle V! If you've already purchased the bundle, then Braid, Super Meat Boy, and Lone Survivor are already on your download page! If you haven't bought Humble Indie Bundle V yet, set your price higher than the average to get these excellent games in addition to Psychonauts, LIMBO, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, and Bastion!

This is a seriously great selection of games. And there is no price - you pay what you want for them. You can even pay $0.01 if you really want, but that's not really in the spirit of things.

Braid and LIMBO are worth over $10 each, and I mean WORTH that. Those are two seriously great games.

Oh PS when you buy the pack you get a code to add them all to Steam, which is how I operate with these packs. My Steam library is brimming with excellent Indie games :D

SEGA downsizing. NOOOOOOOOO.

Sega is expecting a loss of £54m (¥7.1bn) as it restructures its US and European operations.

Parent company Sega Sammy Holdings has today said it will carry out a ‘structural reform’ of Sega’s consumer business. It said it will ‘streamline’ its US and European video game operations and “create a smaller company positioned for sustained profitability”.

As part of the changes, Sega will reduce the number of games it produces and cut the development of several titles, while focusing more on digital content.

cvuk.com