Posted November 25th, 2008 by Chris Clarke
Filled under: Anime, Life, University, Video Games
On Monday, I received my Study materials for Religions of the Ancient World, and Globalisation: Australia and the Asia Pacific. The readings for Globalisation are like twice the size of those for Religions of the Anceint World, which alone was about a few centremetres thick. So from December on-ward I have a lot of reading to do. It’s probably not any less then usual, but this is the first set of subjects that I’ve had which gave me print readings. That should be an improvement though, my eyes will be thanking me as paper is a lot easier to read then an old bright CRT screen. I’m hoping to avoid reading onset blurriness.
I have two assignments due Monday, such an annoyance but Monday also marks the day I can say goodbye to these two subjects as well, assuming I get the assignments done in time anyway. They are 2000 words and 3500 words respectively. Ouch. 
I began watching Lucky Star, but I’ve ran out of dub episodes as they are not all released yet. I would continue with the subtitles, but once you’ve watched a series with one-set of voices, and then watch it with another set of voices, the voices seem not to fit the characters as you grow accustomed to the first set of voices. I was particularly surprised that they still used the honorifics in the English version. They also kept in such things as thank you for the food when the characters began eating. I’m loving the references to other series as well.
In a few days time, I’ll also be changing my Internet plan to a Bigpond Liberty 25GB 1.5mbit/256kbit connection. It’s expensive but I could do with the extra speed and data. As it stands, I only have 30megabytes left this month and I have three days to go. Other months have been worse.
SPOILERS FOR TALES OF THE ABYSS AHEAD
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Posted November 15th, 2008 by Chris Clarke
Filled under: Video Games
So yesterday, my flip-top case and swap magic finally arrived in the mail. I purchased the memory card locally on Wednesday. I immediately went and installed the flip-top case. The case fits but barely, and the first time I put it together, the tray refused to reject and I was getting disk read errors. I put the old case back on and it began working again, so I tried again and I was met with success.
The flip-top is extremely noisy unless something is put on top of it, I don’t think the spinddle thing is tight enough or close enough to the disk. So for most of the night I settled with placing my game cases on top of it.
Later on, I decided to attempt an install of ESR and FreeMCBoot, and I was successful. The ESR + FreeMCBoot combination allows me to boot games without having to use the flip-top or the swapmagic. The only inconveniene is that I have to rip and patch the games first, but its much easier and convenient after that then swapping discs. So as I was met with success with that, I put the old case back on for now. It solves the noise problem at least. ESR seems pretty compatible but I can always replace the case and use the swap magic in the event that it doesn’t work.
I spent last night playing through Tales of the Abyss. I made it to Choral castle and I’m about to face Arietta the Wild. The game is pretty good, and it seems the anime follows it really well. I’m happy with Luke and Guy’s dub voices. I’m not a fan of Jades, preferring his japanese seiy?. Tear is okay, and like his seiy?, Ion’s voice actor makes him sound like a girl. As for Anise, prefer her seiyu but the dub voice actor does an alright job.
The loading times were getting on my nerves, but I found that although they are long in comparison to Tales of Symphonia, they were being made much worse since I was using Swapmagic’s colour fix and I had already patched my game with a patch that also fixes the colours. Seems that the Swapmagic colour fix causes slowdown either way though but stacking them makes it worse. Once I booted normally and used the games patch only, the load times were reduced dramatically.
At the moment, I want to go kill Arietta the Wild, but assignment Monday and I really shouldn’t.
I have a few observations for those that want to install a fliptop on an Australia V9 50002 Silver/Platinum PS2.
- The thing on top of the tray that we have to remove only has 2 screws. The other side is clipped on. Don’t be afraid to apply some force in its removal, otherwise you’ll never remove it.
- The eject / reset switch does not slide out like it does in the older versions or other revisions nor do you have to be careful with the ribbon. You should still follow the advice on the method to take it apart though.
- The case may not fit as snugly as the original. Don’t force it either, otherwise you won’t be able to eject a game using the tray and you may run into read errors.
- Make sure to seat the game on the tray properly when swapping. It’s all to easy not to.
Yesterday, I also received my login details for Griffth University and my Religion of the Anceint World subject. Haven’t received anything from Uni of South Australia yet.
Posted October 24th, 2008 by Chris Clarke
Filled under: Video Games
I brought a Sony PlayStation 2 from EB Games this morning. I bring it home and to my surprise it has a mod-chip which would allow me to play imported games, and back-ups. I found this out by placing my copy of Tales of the Abyss in the drive and well, it actually played.
So I was playing Tales of the Abyss for over an hour, but I eventually died while fighting the Liger Queen. Since I don’t yet have a memory card or a AU PAL PS2 game and there is no possible way I could finish Tales of the Abyss in one sitting without saving, I went to place one of my older Sony PS1 games in the drive. To my dismay, it wouldn’t start or even get recognized by the PS2. I went on to try another PS1 game, and then 3 DVDs. None of them would play. Despite my initial success with Tales of the Abyss, it was now apparent that the laser in the Sony PlayStation 2’s DVD ROM drive was on its last legs.
Luckily, the PlayStation 2, despite being pre-owned, came with a 12 month warranty. So I went back and exchanged it for a silver PlayStation 2. I have got this one home and my PS1 games, and DVDs work. Unfortunately, unlike the other one it does not come pre-modded.
Now, I’m not great with a soldering iron and nor do I trust myself to open it up while it has a warranty, but next payday, I’m going to order a Swap Magic as was my original plan which should allow me to play imports like Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES and Tales of the Abyss among others. Its the role-playing games that have driven me to purchase a PS2 and unfortunately not many of them tend to get released down under.
~ Chris
Update: I’m going to be getting the flip-top lid case replacement instead of using the slide-tool which sounds more risky then actually replacing the case but not as risky as soldering a mod-chip. Unfortunately, this means it will be at least 4 weeks till I can play it. I’m tempted to go grab a game in the meantime while I’m saving although this would push back the acquirement of the requirements by another two weeks. So I’ll probably just wait. It’s Persona 3 FES and Tales of the Abyss, they’re worth it from what I’ve seen.
Tags: ebgames, playstation, ps2, shopping, sony, Video Games
Posted October 21st, 2008 by Chris Clarke
Filled under: Site
So, I finally created a new design for this blog.
The characters in the header banner are from the Tales games - Symphonia, and the Abyss.
I’ve tried to go for a more professional design while still showing me in it. I think the resulting design is perfect for this because I can change the header banner at will and also change the colours.
Muse’s Success’ new code base was rolled out the other day. It seems to be working fine, although a few bugs have been discovered.
I’m thinking about adding some serious content to this blog and as such, note the new links at the top of the page. They’ll work eventually.
I might be getting a PS2 on Friday. I’m excited. Unfortunately, I can’t afford games or a memory card just yet. So it might be another 4 weeks before I get to play games that are not for the PS1.
I think this is all.
Oh, I also moved the blog again back to the top-level domain. I was never happy with the sub-directory.
~ Chris
Tags: abyss, blog, design, ps2, Site, symphonia
Posted October 1st, 2008 by Chris Clarke
Filled under: Anime
Since this week is the end of many of several series that have aired during the Autumn and Winter, now Spring has commenced, and soon to be followed by Summer, we are able to experience the introduction of several new series.
I’ve decided to pick up two new series to replace the awesome Code Geass R2 and Special A which have sadly come to an end. Speaking of which, I have a half-written review of Special A that I should get around to finishing.
These series are:
- Vampire Knight Guilty from Studio DEEN
The synopsis for this show has caught my eye. I’m not sure what to expect, but it seemed to be one of the better anime scheduled to premier.
- Tales of the Abyss from Sunrise, Bandai Visual and Namco
This anime is being produced by Sunrise which as you know did Code Geass. It is also based on the game of the same name which is from Namco Bandai whom also were responsible for my beloved Tales of Symphonia. I’m expecting great things from this anime.
These two series join Bleach and Shugo Chara! in my anime watching schedule. The former of which is being harder to find, and the second I’m not even half way through the first series yet, so I can’t start on the new season just now.
I’m also still not sure what I want to use this blog for, the only thing that is certain is that its Anime related. It seems to be somewhat of an opinion blog.
My request for people to join the staff a few posts back still stands. So if your interested, please feel free to contact me.
Posted September 12th, 2008 by Chris Clarke
Filled under: Life, Site
Well, on Sunday (7th September) I had some of my family and darkthorn over for my birthday. That went alright, there was cake. Cake was yum. Felt kind of sick during and after party but that finally disappeared as it approached bed time. For presents, money was what I received and that totalled about $100 to which I’ve put to good use. 
So on Tueday, I went to the computer shop and purchased a graphics card with virtually no direction other then that I wanted composite out and it had to be under $85. The first place I went to, the shop keeper had no idea what I was talking about and then went on to tell me that I’ve got an S-Video port on my VCR which I know for a fact that I don’t and then tried selling me a card for $120 when it met neither of the parameters I set. I headed over to the other shop and came with home with a NVIDIA GeForce 7300GS 256MB which met the composite out and the price requirements. I’m fairly certain I could’ve done a lot better online, but it does what I want, and I’m not really a gamer at all, so aslong as it run’s Aero and Compiz-fusion I’m happy. I’ll take the price premium for the convenience off not having to wait, deal with money transfers, and wait.
Today, I went and purchased The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion for $35 at Dick Smith Electronics. It runs pretty well, more then playable, even more so once you consider that the card I’m running it on is ultra budget and not even this card iterations budget offering. I haven’t played much of it yet. My monitor is pretty dark even when maxed out and Vista doesn’t play nicely with the NVIDIA brightness adjustments when it comes to gaming, so even though the desktop could be as bright as a flash light, in-game still is dark as hell. No-one seems to have a fix, thus I went and tried installing Windows XP but my CD for that is borked again. So, I’m fixing that.
Today, I also went about attempting to install Mac OS X. It was a failure, even though people have claimed on the OS X 86 project’s wiki that my hardware should be compatible. I’m stuck behind the dreaded Still waiting for root device error message, the suggested fixes of using an IDE hard disk didn’t work. I tried two of them. Trying inside VirtualBox didn’t do much better, thus I’ve now got another coaster. Can we ever have enough? I mean I didn’t expect it to work, but it’s disappointing all the same.
Earlier in the week I created and uploaded a better browse and submission page to Muse’s Success. I’ll be so glad once I get rid of WordPress.
For the moment, I’m tired. Bed!
Posted September 6th, 2008 by Chris Clarke
Filled under: Web
I’ve been using Google Chrome since Wednesday, and it’s been a pretty good experience.
The User Interface is aesthetically pleasing, I was unsure how I would adapt to the tabs being in place of the title bar but the change has been surprisingly seamless. I can see this browser being my default browser, but for the moment it’s missing a few key features that I liked within Firefox, Features which I didn’t realise I relied on so much.
- View Selection Source
- Fullscreen Browser Mode
- Speed Dial - yes, Chrome has a speed dial but I liked being able to choose whats on it like I can in Mozilla Firefox and Opera.
These are not deal breakers, I can certainly live without them and until recently actually did. Google’s Chrome is most undoubtedly better then even the latest beta of the Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, and generally on par with the others. It would be nice to be able to extend the browser but that’s not something which I require. It does fall short in a few areas, but makes up for them in others. So yeah, it works and it works well.
If your still using Internet Explorer upgrade, if not you won’t have much reason to upgrade or switch rather but it’s still worth a look. It’s great to have more competition within the browser market.
Posted September 6th, 2008 by Chris Clarke
Filled under: Japanese
I haven’t touched my Japanese lessons for the last three weeks. Two of those were spent on assignments (or avoiding those assignments) and the last recovering from those assignments and setting up Muse’s Success. Beginning Monday, I’m going to resume the lessons from JapanesePod101, retest myself on the 20 something Hiragana I had memorised when I had to leave it, begin on the remaining Hiragana and hopefully begin getting somewhere again. It’s a long road, but it will be worth it.
Posted September 4th, 2008 by Chris Clarke
Filled under: Web
Muse’s Success is joint project between myself and darkthorn to create a searchable database of fiction that has been published online as it’s primary medium. The site has been launched in an alpha-state, but its generally usable and thus we have proceeded with an unofficial launch.
I’d encourage you to take a look if original web fiction is your cup-of-tea or even if its not, you might just find something that you like. The address http://muses-success.sorrowfulunfounded.com. We’ll probably get a proper domain eventually.
Posted September 3rd, 2008 by Chris Clarke
Filled under: Web
Google announced Monday that it was going to release a beta of it’s Web Browser yesterday, or today once we account for the time zones. It’s not out yet, but do expect a quick review once it is. Perhaps one of the interesting things is that they actually used a comic book to introduce it which can be found here - Google Chrome Comic.
The web browser entitled Google Chrome will be open source and will take elements from Mozilla’s Gecko / Firefox, Apples Safari / Web Kit and even Internet Explorer. It will have the usual features such as tabs, and I think we can assume it will have the Google-powered phishing filter and such that come built into Mozilla Firefox, and I also expect a Google Search box. The browser is also promising faster speed, better stability and more powerful JavaScript. It will have Gears built in. It will also take a feature from Internet Explorer by utilising sandboxing for each tab which should help in the fight against malware by limiting its access to the Operating System. (although I think Internet Explorer just sandboxes the entire process, and not the individual tabs)
Now, I’m happy to see Google enter the browser space. Diversity and choice can only help the web and if done right, it won’t affect coding process for the web designers / developers with bug after bug (like IE, grr). I do however have a few concerns / comments / questions.
- Will Google’s AdSense ads target based on browsing history now? Since its open-source, I guess if this happens, someone can just strip it out and release it fairly easily. It would be a privacy policy nightmare I’m sure.
- What does this mean with the inclusion of WebKit / KHTML in Android? Will the Google Browser replace this?
- Why now? It has been rumored and denied for years now that this was / wasn’t coming. Why now suddenly? What has changed?
- Will I have the option of mapping functions to non-Google services? Since Google has products and services in several common spaces, its possible that things like the Mail button will be tied to Gmail, the search engine tied to Google, the bookmarks tied to Google notebook?, the RSS functions tied to Google Reader and so on. Can I change these? (lets disregard that I use Google for all that besides the bookmarks which I don’t use anyway, except to manage the link page in this blog where I use Delicious)
- The browser promises better memory management but is 31 processes for 30 tabs really that much better? Or, am I more likely to run out of memory? I mean a process - doesn’t that load into memory more then just the page data? I guess I don’t know what I’m talking about here - I code in PHP afterall - I don’t have to worry about this.
- Google’s pages are not exactly known for their conformance to standards, I hope the browser does a better job. Considering they are apparently using WebKit, we are probably safe there.
- Will this work under Linux? What about Mac OS X? — seems its going to be available on both platforms eventually.
I think Google is in a good position to make a dent in Internet Explorer’s market share (and any browser is a good alternative - well the main ones), due to a combination of brand recognition, that almost everyone uses Google Search at least, and resources. I’m also hoping that this doesn’t hurt Mozilla Firefox, Safari and Opera but I guess it’s inevitable that some users will switch.
Giood luck, Google! I think we’ll be holding you to the “Don’t be evil!” policy though.
Yeah, I guess that’s all I had to say. Good night!