Monthly Archive for November, 2005

Xbox 360 shortage acknowledged for the UK

Published on Wednesday, November 30, 2005 in Gaming, Microsoft and Technology. 2 Comments

In a recent interview that OXM had with Peter Moore, the Xbox 360′s worldwide head of marketing, acknowledged the statement of the shortage of the 360 in the US, and went on to say that it will most likely be the same for the UK.

Certainly here in the US a lot of retailers have held inventory back to go on shelves, so that people can line up and have a chance of getting one. In Europe I believe it’s the same situation. Retailers want that buzz, they want people to line up and have the chance to get a console. But it’s hard. It’s good news/bad news. The good news is that Xbox 360 is a very desirable product, the bad news is that it’s not like baking bread. It has 1700 parts, we have to make them, pack them, and ship them. We’re trying to get everyone satisfied as quickly as we can but demand is huge.
I’m not sure I can guarantee that everyone will get one by Christmas. What we have done is encourage retail to keep a balance between pre-orders and first-come-first-served sales, both in North America and in Europe. On our part, our goal is to make as many as we can. We’ve got two factories working 24 hours a day.

So you can conclude that there will be shortages and that it will probably last a long while, just like the PSP shortage here in the UK (which has been going on for nearly 3 months).

read the interview

PS3 Controller Myth: Busted

Published on Wednesday, November 30, 2005 in Gaming and Technology. 7 Comments

It seems that someone was inspired to create a cool animated gif to show how a person would hold the PS3 controller. It clearly shows the way in which you’re supposed to hold it and the way that people have imagined to hold it. Whether it would really be like this in realy life or not, we’ll just have to wait.

image

Firefox 1.5 Released

Published on Wednesday, November 30, 2005 in Internet and Technology. Closed

After lots of testing the folk at Mozilla have released Firefox 1.5 officially. I can’t see any majoy changes between the final version and the Release Candidate 3 I had but there are most likely lots of bug fixes and other stuff. So if your still using that archaic Firefox 1.0.7 or below then upgrade today. I’m not going to list the updates, as there are so many just see for yourself. Mozilla also create another website at: http://www.mozilla.com/ (not .org they already have) which is dedicated to Thunderbird and Firefox. It has a new look and feel to it.
I did see a story on Digg which claimed that Mozilla released it early but never said anything, but it looks like it was a separate folder containing the release candidate 3 called “Firefox 1.5″. It was just some person who miss-interpreted the folder name. That’s all.

Firefox Website

Blog updated

Published on Wednesday, November 30, 2005 in General. Closed

Now that I have had some spare time I decided to redecorate the blog to suit Christmas which is drawing closer. I hope you like it and any feedback would be very helpful, just post a comment.

Mac Desktop: 29/11/05

Published on Tuesday, November 29, 2005 in General. Closed

Mac Desktop for Thuesday 29th November 2005. I decided to get into the holiday spirit so I now have flashing lights around my desktop and a Futurama background. The flashing lights is done by a program called MacLampsX, it’s free and you can change what lights / snow flakes / holly (isn’t that the same as mistletoe?).

10 things every new Mac owner should know…

Published on Tuesday, November 29, 2005 in Apple and Technology. Closed

I was actually surprised of how much detail Paul goes into, so this is truly a very interesting read. As well as giving helpfull information about System Profiler, Command-Option-Escape (the Ctr-Alt-Del for mac) and Software Updater it also has a list of simple shortcuts that you can use almost system wide to do things. There were a lot of shorcuts which I didn’t know about. So if you are a new or recent mac owner then check this out as it will be very helpfull.

Revolution to be unleashed on May 9, 2006

Published on Tuesday, November 29, 2005 in Gaming and Technology. Closed

Many people were quite dissapointed in May at Nintendo’s press cconference when everyone thought that they were going to be unveiling the Revolution. Which they didn’t but since have released information and images about the much rumored controller. Now it looks like it will be unleased in all its glory at next years E3 (Electronics Entertainment Expo) in May. To be more precise at the pre-E3 press event Nintendo will be holding. So where does this information come from?

Today, though, gamers got a definite date when Nintendo will absolutely, positively reveal the Revolution in all its glory. The Mario factory sent out a “save the date” e-mail this morning saying that in “a mere 165 days to go (give or take)” it will reveal “all the incredible details about Nintendo’s upcoming games and hardware, including our next home console, code-named Revolution.”

Only 300,000 360′s for Europe

Published on Monday, November 28, 2005 in Gaming, Microsoft and Technology. Closed

It looks like that the analysist’s report of Europe only getting around 300,000 Xbox 360′s was confirmed by Chris Lewis from Microsoft.

Xbox 360s sold out in many U.S. stores after the launch there on November 22 and are still in short supply, with the console selling at a premium to its $400 retail price on Internet auction sites. Lewis said it was possible the console would sell out at its European launch too. The console is the first new non-handheld machine in four years from a major manufacturer, and Microsoft aims to deliver up to 3 million units within three months of launch.

But when will the other million units arrive? Probably “sometime in December” or “after Christmas”. Nobody is sure of that. I don’t think this will go well, giving the fact that the PSP was launched on 1st September and it is still unavaible in most places! Xbox360Fanboy investgated the availability of the 360′s in the UK. The results, grim. If you haven’t pre-ordered your best bet is to camp outside of Tesco or ASDA as they will receive consoles, but aren’t offering pre-orders. They also have the most money to store no. ratio so they will probably have more consoles in stock than other major retailers like GAME, Gamestation, HMV, Dixons and PC World. If you do decide to wait, lets hope you don’t get mugged at gunpoint or the store robbed of like in the US.

Cleaners vacuum money from solt machines

Published on Monday, November 28, 2005 in Random Stuff. Closed

I saw this on Engadget and I just had to laugh. All the cleaners at a Slovenian casino were fired because two of them used vacuum cleaners to steal around $500,000 from the slot machines.

Apparently the two ladies used industrial vacuums to steal the loot at night over several months, although casino officials cannot actually prove any of this, which would seem to indicate a dire need for security upgrades.

That casino really does need some extra security, or it needs some more committed cleaners!

Top 10 hacks of all time

Published on Sunday, November 27, 2005 in Internet, Technology and Virus & Spyware. Closed

Even as the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) is collaborating with Mumbai Police to observe Cyber Safety Week, DNA takes a look at the top 10 hacking incidents of all time — instances where some of the most seemingly secure computer networks were compromised

Really not much to explain here. It is interesting to see these, I haven’t heard of most.