Stay tuned!

I recently picked up a Dell E228WFP widescreen monitor to replace my 3 year old Xerox display. Going from a tiny 17″ display to a 22″ widescreen was an amazing improvement in desktop screen estate. It has greatly improved my productivity and now a lot of tasks are a snap instead of a chore. However, one of the must have tools for widescreen use is Winsplit Revolution. It effortlessly divides and arranges your windows and programs with quick hotkey shortcuts and customizable commands.

What is WinSplit Revolution?

What is it for? WinSplit Revolution is a small utility which allows you to easily organize your open windows by tiling, resizing and positioning them to make the best use of your desktop real estate.

What can it do? WinSplit is especially useful for high-end LCD screens with high resolutions because it helps you to efficiently manage many active windows. For example WinSplit is useful for owners of the Dell 2407FPW monitor. As you can see in the screenshots below, the advantages of using WinSplit is that it saves you from having to drag and drop windows by allowing you to snap windows into specific tiled configurations using simple keyboard hotkeys.

Winsplit Revolution

Bronze

• First Treasure - Find 1 treasure
• Beginner Fortune Hunter - Find 5 treasures
• Novice Fortune Hunter - Find 10 treasures
• Enthusiast Fortune Hunter - Find 15 treasures
• Intermediate Fortune Hunter - Find 20 treasures
• Skilled Fortune Hunter - Find 25 treasures
• Proficient Fortune Hunter - Find 30 treasures
• Advanced Fortune Hunter - Find 35 treasures
• Professional Fortune Hunter - Find 40 treasures
• Senior Fortune Hunter - Find 45 treasures
• Expert Fortune Hunter - Find 50 treasures
• Crack Fortune Hunter - Find 55 treasures
• Relic Finder - Find the Strange Relic
• Brutal Brawler - Kill 5 enemies with a brutal combo
• Steel Fist - Kill five enemies with a single punch, after softening them up with gunfire
• Headshot Expert - Kill 5 enemies in a row with headshots
• 10 Headshots - Kill 10 enemies with headshots
• 30 Headshots - Kill 30 enemies with headshots
• Dyno-Might! - Kill 3 enemies with one explosion
• Expert Dyno-Might - Kill 3 enemies with one explosion five times
• Run-and-Gunner - Kill 20 enemies while shooting from the hip
• Hangman - Kill 10 enemies by aiming while hanging
• Grenade Hangman - Kill 10 enemies with a grenade while hanging
• 50 Kills- PM-9mm - Kill 50 enemies with the PM-9mm
• 50 Kills- 92FS-9mm - Kill 50 enemies with the 92FS-9mm
• 50 Kills- Micro-9mm - Kill 50 enemies with the Micro-9mm
• 20 Kills- Wes-44 - Kill 20 enemies with the Wes-44
• 20 Kills- Desert-5 - Kill 20 enemies with the Desert-5
• 30 Kills- MP40 - Kill 30 enemies with the MP40
• 50 Kills- AK-47 - Kill 50 enemies with the AK-47
• 50 Kills- M4 - Kill 50 enemies with the M4
• 30 Kills- Dragon Sniper - Kill 30 enemies with the Dragon Sniper
• 50 Kills- Moss-12 - Kill 50 enemies with the Moss-12
• 50 Kills- SAS-12 - Kill 50 enemies with the SAS-12
• 30 Kills- M79 - Kill 30 enemies with the M79
• 20 Kills- Mk-NDI - Kill 20 enemies with the Mk-NDI

Silver

• Master Fortune Hunter - Find All treasures
• Brutal Slugger - Kill 20 enemies with a brutal combo
• Brutal Expert - Kill 5 enemies in a row with a brutal combo
• Stealth Attacker - Kill 20 enemies melee-attacking from behind
• Steel Fist Expert - Kill five enemies in a row with a single punch, after softening them up with gunfire
• 100 Headshots - Kill 100 enemies with headshots
• Survivor - Kill 50 enemies in a row without dying
• Charted! Easy - Finish the game in Easy Mode

Gold

• Charted! Normal - Finish the game in Normal Mode
• Charted! Hard - Finish the game in Hard Mode
• Charted! Crushing - Finish the game in Crushing Mode

Platinum

• Platinum - Obtain all the trophies

(Last updated Friday 19 December @ 13:48)

Obtain all the trophies!

Unfortunately a gamer your main focus is running a typically single-threaded or sometimes weakly multi-threaded application as fast as possible. To stretch your budget out as much as possible I can happily point you in the direction of the Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 and E8600 processors. I suggest buying “older” Core 2 Duo processors for a few reasons. First, the processors themselves are cheaper. Second, the motherboards cost half as much, $300 versus $150. Third, DDR2 is much cheaper than DDR3, further saving you money. Getting 90% of the performance for half of the cost is hard to argue with.

Christmas Buying Guide for Gamers

He also addresses GPU choices for further savings and future proofing. However I would go one further and advise anybody deciding on upgrading their system to simply wait it out. If you are going to spend some hard earned cash this Christmas GPU and HDD are where I’d spend my money. I don’t see a point in upgrading the core (CPU, motherboard and RAM) of your system if you intend to make the eventual switch to Core i7 in the future when the price/performance gap decreases.

• Hero of Lave - Complete Planet Lave - Arcade mode
• Hero of Coventina - Complete Planet Coventina - Arcade mode
• Hero of Nemain - Complete Planet Nemain - Arcade mode
• Hero of Taranis - Complete Planet Taranis - Arcade mode
• Hero of Segomo - Complete Planet Segomo - Arcade mode
• The Tokenizer - Collect 5 Tokens in a Single Boost - Arcade mode
• Scrooge MacBoom - Get 10 Bombs - Arcade mode
• Extra Ships Optional - Survive 7 Minutes Without Dying - Endless mode
• Close Encounters - Description -Survive 45 Seconds Without Shooting or Using Bombs - Survival mode

Silver

• Token Hoarder - Collect 15 Tokens with a Single Boost - Arcade mode
• Well Prepared - Get 20 bombs - Arcade mode
• Shield Blaster - Collect 5 Shield Tokens While Already Having a Shield - Arcade mode
• Scenic Route - Complete a Planet Without Using Boost - Arcade mode
• Late Boomer - Get 15 Bombs - Bomber mode
• Shock and Awe - Destroy 10 Nukes - Endless mode

Gold

• Multiplier Hero - Get 10x Multiplier - Arcade mode
• Brothers in Arms - Get 3 Minutes of Continuous Co-Op Weapon Boost on Segomo

Suburban Blitzkrieg

Reinvigorate Snoop

Fuji Track 2009

JR @ The Lazarides Gallery

The Sony Ericsson X1 phone launched in the Vodafone shop today. I’ll be getting my hands on one tomorrow, but I’ll see what O2 have to offer before I take the plunge.

Sony Ericsson X1 at Vodafone online

PS3 - £350

WipEout HD - £11.99

Working on completing this list when I should be studying - priceless worthless

Bronze Trophies

• Uplift - Obtain a medal for every cell in Uplift
  
• Warped - Obtain a medal for every cell in Warped
• Frenzy - Obtain a medal for every cell in Frenzy
• Vertigo - Obtain a medal for every cell in Vertigo
• Head Rush - Obtain a medal for every cell in Head Rush
  
• Speed Freak - Obtain a medal for every cell in Speed Freak
• Dropzone - Obtain a medal for every cell in Dropzone
• Meltdown - Obtain a medal for every cell in Meltdown
• Flatland Flyer - Execute and land a successful barrel roll on Moa Therma
  
• Own The Zone - Get 20 consecutive perfect zones in a single Zone Mode event
• Double Kill - Eliminate at least two opponents in any race
• Endurance - Finish an online 12 race tournament
• Connected 1 - Finish 10 online races

Silver Trophies

• Campaign Legend - Obtain a gold medal for every cell in Race Campaign
• Airbraker - Reach Zone 50 (Subsonic) in Zone Mode on any track using only airbrakes and sideshift. Motion sensor controls must be turned off.
• Tournament Ace - Win every race of an 8 stage Racebox tournament on Skilled or Elite difficulty.
• Connected 2 - Win 10 online races.
• Lapped Out - Complete 99 laps in a single Racebox, Speed Lap session.
• AG Assassin - Eliminate 50 online opponents
• WipEout Disciple - Obtain 100,000 loyalty points for any team.

Gold Trophies

• Elite Campaign Legend - Obtain a gold medal for every cell in Race Campaign on Elite difficulty.
• Zone Zeus - In Zone Mode, reach Zone 75 on any track
• Arcade Perfect - Finish 1st on all 16 tracks in Phantom class Racebox races on Elite difficulty.
• Beat Zico - Equal or beat the lap time of 30.82 seconds on Anulpha Pass (Forward), Speed Lap, Venom using the Piranha.
• Livery Liberation - Unlock every ship skin in the game.

Hidden Trophies

• Smile Please - Use Photo Mode to take a photo (Bronze)
  
• Rookie Reward - Win any race with Pilot Assist on. (Bronze)
• 1 Gold Medal won, 86 to go… - Obtain your first gold medal (Bronze)
• Happy Accident? - Execute your first successful barrel roll (Bronze)
• Keep Rollin’ - Execute 100 successful barrel rolls (Bronze)
• Gemini - Complete 20 two-player, split-screen races. (Bronze)
• Sponge - Absorb 500 items. (Bronze)
• Bling Brigade - Finish an eight player online race with all players using ships that are displaying Campaign Skins. (Bronze)
• Mercenary - Get at least 500 loyalty points for each team. (Bronze)
• Motion Master - Win a Campaign or Racebox race with the motion sensor option set to ‘pitch and steering’. Directional buttons, Left Stick & Pilot Assist cannot be used to obtain this trophy. (Bronze)
• Thanks for the Memory - Win a Campaign, Racebox or Online race using each HUD style variation. (Bronze)
• Deadly Momentum - Get eliminated in a race on Novice difficulty (Bronze)

Platinum Trophies

• Transcendence - Earn all the trophies in the game

(Last updated Friday 19 December @ 13:48)

To refresh your memory, Gravatars are little user images from Gravatar.com that are displayed against your comments in the theme (if the theme is built to support Gravatars). A lot of WordPress themes are built without the support of Gravatars. So, here is some help for you to add Gravatars in your theme. Open up your comments.php file from the theme folder. Find this piece of code :-

<?php comment_text() ?>

Replace the above code with the following code :-

<div class="gravs">
<?php if (get_bloginfo('version')>=2.5)
echo get_avatar( $comment->comment_author_email, $size = '50', $comment->comment_author_link);?>
<?php comment_text() ?>
</div>
<br clear="all" />

The above code will display the Gravatars. Now let us add some CSS to the style.css file for your theme.

.gravs {margin-top:20px;}
.avatar {float:left; margin-right:5px; margin-bottom:5px; padding:3px; border:1px solid #999999;}

When you check your theme again, you will see the Gravatar images against your comments.

http://www.blogohblog.com/10-wordpress-hacks-to-make-your-life-easy/

I made a slight change to the CSS code to improve formatting.

.gravs {margin-top:20px;}
.avatar {float:left; margin-right:8px; margin-bottom:8px; padding:3px; border:1px solid #999999;}

Changing the margins from 5 pixels to 8 makes a huge difference. Please note I use DnD version 0.75 comment styling, but it’s a very easy tweak to transfer the necessary lines from the CSS stylesheet into the old 0.50 version. A very nice and simple tutorial from BlogOhBlog.com.

It’s not every day you get to see one of these chipsets. Annoyingly one of the metal clips that the chipset heatsink is held on by came detached from my motherboard. A bit of superglue and a lot of swearing later and I managed to get the heatsink back on without resorting to thermal glue. The markings on the chipset read:

QG5000p
SL972
L607A642
Intel (m) (c) ‘05 (e1)

You can see where the metal clip came off in the upper right of the picture, it’s the two tiny holes labelled ‘HS10′. When are manufacturers going to improve mounting methods of heatsinks? Never, they’d rather deal with RMAs than spend a few minutes and a couple of extra pennies doing it the right way.