NFS Carbon

I have been spending the last few weeks playing NFS carbon on the PS3. I am finally attempting the final boss race against Darius in the canyon. It is a real bitch, it is so hard, I gets lots of points then on the next lap I crash. It makes the blood run warm. Hopefully, I shall complete this game in the next day or so. I have seen on some sites that there is only 7 hours of gameplay in this, well this aint true if you suck at it as much as me.

It is a bit disappointing to see that there is not much downloadable content for it on the PS3. I have tried to play this game online, but that was terrible, the other cars jumped around, it was awful. Also, I have not worked out how to take in game photos with the playstation yet either, shame.

MSO2007: Word GUI Corruption

Product: Microsoft Office Word 2007 RTM (Current April 2007)
Bug: Multiple Word windows Equation GUI corruption
First Discovered: January 2007
Discovered by: Michael Kennedy

The new version on Microsoft Office 2007 RTM has lots of nice new features which are not included in much of the hype. However it also has a few bugs left in there for curious users to find. This discusses some drawing issues with the GUI when multiple Word windows are opened.


This picture shows the equation editor inserting a new equation in the first windows in a new document. I really like this equation editor, it was so nice to use and the results look great in PDF. This saved me from using LATEX.


However when you open a second window and try and insert an equation, under some circumstances the GUI will not be drawn correctly in the second window. While this at first may appear insignificant, the new black bits to the right and bottom of each of the equation tiles covers up part of the respective tile, and makes it hard to distinguish between tiles by their respective images. Which makes it quite annoying, and in my opinion is clearly a bug. Probably not an easy one to find because the corruption does not occur on all equation tiles.

In terms of duplication, I have been able to generate the same error on multiple machines quite easily. The first was a high spec workstation and the other was Dell Inspiron 500M with 1GB RAM. The systems both had all drivers and windows software up to date, and shared very little in common in terms of system hardware.

Duplication steps:

1. Open Microsoft Office Word 2007 RTM twice, so you have two new windows each with their own new document.
2. In the first, insert a new equation.
3. In the second, insert a new equation.
4. In the first, move the mouse over the equation ribbon and click each tile's down arrow to reveal all the optional example tiles.
5. In the second, move the mouse over the equation ribbon and click each tile's down arrow to reveal all the optional example tiles.
6. Notice the new blacks bits that appear in one of the windows.
   

I do not believe this error is confined to this element only, but with no money from Microsoft and little interest in the user forums I have given up on testing. Clearly since I have finished my thesis, and my copy of 2007 was legal and free, I have no need or right to complain much.

PS3 - Much Better then a Sega Master System II

Recently the Sony Playstation 3 was released in Australia. I had been looking forward to this for months. Being a total nut job for advanced computer hardware, this is right up my alley. Not discouraged by the large cost, $999 AUD for the console, plus $140 extended warranty, $30 HD component cable, and $320 for three games. Lets also not forget the great DELL 24" widescreen at $1000 (I bought this a while back), which sadly lacks HDMI. For the last few months prior I was occupied by my studies and saving money was much easier then normal, however the initial costs are not to be laughed at.

With the large costs in mind, and the over-hyped lunch, I wanted to make sure I got my PS3 as quickly as possible and pre-ordered it. Which meant I did not have to act like a loser and queue at midnight to purchase a console that I probably wouldn't play tell the next day.

Since my experience with the XBOX360 left my slightly pessimistic, due to continual over heating and the games weren't what I would have liked, I was not sure what to expect. The games I played on the XBOX360 included NFS Carbon, NFS High Speed Persuit (I think that's what it is called), Halo 2, Call of Duty, and a few others. Mostly I found them boring, except NFS. Surprisingly, the newer version, carbon, was less interesting, as the scenery in the older version was much more impressive.







This inspired me to purchase the only PS3 NFS game, Carbon, and I also bought MotorStorm Madness, and Genji. MotorStorm was only selected cause the kewl looking dragon game Lair wasn't available. I must say my first experiences with the PS3 have been pretty good. NFS and MotorStorm Rock!!! While Genji blows chunks and I find it dull and boring. That being said I haven't spent much time playing it, but the dubbed Japanese voices piss me off. Also I don't like the game play much.

The one problem I have had so far has been setting up the network for the PS3. While I was able to browse the internet with some trivial settings (automatic DHCP), I could not log into the PS3 Network. This was fixed by setting an external DNS servers, e.g. not the router. I am also slight annoyed that I had to purchase a component cable...

Images in this blog are probably the property of Sony or at least licensed to them. Since this page is pretty nice about the PS3 I am sure they won't mind. Images taken from www.playstation.com.au.