Saturday, March 18, 2006

Chimpware has moved

Chimpware has now officially moved to Wordpress, which you can find @ cware.wordpress.com or www.chimpware.org. Please move your bookmark over there!

Ta,

Sideath

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Chimpware Userbars

I just made these rather fetching userbars for use on websites and forums:




HTML: Forum Code:




HTML: Forum code:



Feel free to use them :)

Saturday, March 11, 2006

LAND OCTOPUS UNITE!

What is LOU? Land Octopus Unite is a way of life. A religion. A small sea based creature, lost in the torrents of life. Truth be told, LOU is whatever you want it to be - a husband, a dog, a money box, or just a frivalous product of Nocashvalue's warped mind. Go now, and be forever enlightened in the way of the octopus of land.

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Original Concept- Progressive Art

-Original Concept is my new Column showcasing some of my most inspired ideas-

If there's one thing i would like to be known as when i grow up its an Artist, But I have one problem.
Im not amazing good at anyone thing, I mean im a more than capable Photographer but im screwed if i know the difference between ISO and EV. Im a dab hand at Watercolours but i wouldn't know where to start if i had to cover a 4ft Canvas. And the same goes for Music, Books & Films. But what if i could harness all my slightly unimpressive talents to create a piece of Art that's not only interesting but also fresh and unique.

Well that's where Progrssive Art (Or Prog Art, For all you middle aged 70's rock fans.) Comes in.

The basic idea is to have a Live Studio of sorts set up in an Art Gallery, The public would be able to walk in and interact with the Artistic process. Giving the Artist there opinions on his work so far and maybe digging in to lend the Artist a hand maybe painting abit or playing an instrument they really could do anything,

As you can probably guess the things that could be achieved though this are limitless. No more Artistic block, When the Artist is running low on ideas he could simply ask someone nearby what they would do. And there would certainly be no more limits on how big the piece of Art could be, And also of cause how varied it could be.

Well that's Progress Art, I hope you feel inspired by my idea. Please leave any suggestions on what Prog Art you would make, And you never know if i get enough good suggestions i may just make a competition out of it.

Flickr Exposure .1

-Flickr Exposure is the new series showcasing my favorite Photos from the Social Networking site Flickr.com-

Today's Photos all come from the same Photographer and his name is.. YACHT.

Enjoy.



Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Podcast Alley 'blacklisted' by Microsoft, and Adam Curry's response

Those of you who have emailed me regarding your vote for Chimpware on Podcast Alley, and the fact that you haven't recieved the verification email. My guess here is that Microsoft has blacklisted Podcast Alley, therefore if you have a .hotmail or a .msn account, it's likely that your vote hasn't been counted. This is due to the huge number of emails that Podcast Alley send off to Hotmail accounts.

This obviously destroyes the democracy of Podcast Alley. After all, Hotmail is still probably the biggest email provider out there, especially for the youth of today with thier MSN Messanger and VoIP. This is a large problem. If this demograph cannot vote on Podcast Alley, there will be a bias against them.

I then contacted the co-inventor of Podcasts, and guy-in-charge of Podcast Alley and the Podsafe Network, PodFather Adam Curry. My MP3 comment was played on his daily Show, the Daily Source Code #348, and in the Sirius Satellite Radio window, too! Here's my question and his response:

'The main reason why I'm calling is because there's problems with Podcast alley, the Podcast voting system. It seems that some of my friends, who have Hotmail accounts (which is the worst account ever), can't vote for it as I think Podcast Alley has been blacklisted. I just thought that you wanted to know because aren't being counted... So my podcast has only two votes! Good luck, love the Charlie, Tata.'

Here's Adam Curry's Response:

'It's kind of fortuitous that this has all come together where we're learning about this 'white list' 'blacklist' stuff and this incredibly unfriendly email tax that I believe AOL says they're going to start next month to put on email, which is not spam protection for you, it's just guaranteeing the spammers that the spam will get through! And when I say spammers, I of course mean marketers who call you from somewhere and send it on through. We found this out quite by accident, although I have a feeling that I do recall Chris Macentire mentioning this to me months and months ago, and yes, it is indeed a problem.

Hotmail is the biggest offender, again Hotmail and MSN both blacklist all kinds of email, and they will send you to a different company, a third party, which they use exclusively to have this stuff solved. Which costs money! If anyone knows if that company is partially owned by Microsoft, please let me know!

This is really the multi-tiered internet.'

So looks like we're stuck. I guess Adam Curry is looking into this problem, and well, it's a problem that Microsoft is doing this. There's one easy solution, though. Switch to Gmail! Or your own domain! Anyone who has a Hotmail account can easily switch via www.gmail.com/accounts.
If not, email me at chimpware@gmail.com And I'll be glad to send you an invite!

Chimpware is currently ranked 737th out of 15875 Podcasts on Podcast Alley. It is also ranked 100th out of 2097 Technology podcasts (9th March).

Podcast Alley
Adam Curry's Daily Source Code
Adam Curry's Daily Source Code #348
Chimpware Podcast Archive
Vote for Chimpware!
Digg this Story - This Story on Newsvine - del.icio.us

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Original Concept Archive

Original Concept is rEVO's new Column showcasing some of his most inspired ideas...

[Archive]


Original Concept: Progressive Art

Flickr Exposure Archive

Social networking? Who needs friends?

[Flickr Exposure archive]

Flickr Exposure .1

Brits play the New IBF scoring system

Last saturday (4th March) England's badminton squad played Denmark in the Carlton Guidhall cup in Preston hall. Only a minor tournament i know, the results were good for the Brits, seeing Gail Emms and Donna Kellogg win the women's doubles, Tracy Hallam in the women's singles, and Nathan Robertson and Gail Emms win the mixed doubles, the English squad lost out in the men's singles and the men's doubles; bad luck Aamir Ghaffar, Anthony Clark and Robert Blair.
This was the first competitive win over the Danes since 1986 and was also the Brit's first competetive games under the new IBF scoring system. The new system has caused some conscern among badminton players (myself and Simon) as it radically alters the way the game is played. As oppossed to the traditional 15 point, point-on-serve system, players now must play 21 point games and get a point every rally. In doubles games, each side now only gets one serve per service. The fact that each side now gets a point on winning a rally regardless of who delivered the service means that it is near impossible to recover if you are say 6-0 down. The IBF stated that the new system will stop sides tiring their opponents out and will mean that badminton games can be more easily telivised as it shortens the game length. However, I personally can't see the logic there as the longest game on record was 2 hours, the average tennis games is 2 and a half hours and they are still very popular to this day.
Either way, what are our reader's views? If you happen to be interested, post your thoughts at chimpware@gmail.com

Saturday, March 04, 2006

Pope Gets an iPod




All Apple who art in heaven
iMac be thy name
Thy iTunes comes
Sells a billion songs
and iPod gets given to the pope... sorry that was crap.

Yes, the Pope has been given an iPod...

The playlist? Besides the Vatican Radio podcast, they've got Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky. Puhleese.

'Pope Benedict XVI got an iPod on Friday, thanks to a group of workers at Vatican Radio.

According to a Catholic News Service story, the pontiff got a 2GB white Nano, loaded with, among other things, the radio station's programming in English, Italian and German, as well as classical tunes from Mozart, Chopin and Stravinsky.

The Nano was given to the Pope following a visit to Vatican Radio, CNS reported.' - Cnet

Full Cnet Story

Friday, March 03, 2006

Nintendo DS Lite Launch

The Nintendo DS Lite launched yesterday. I was really, really tempted to pre order via Lik-sang, however, I decided to wait. This seemed like the right decision. Apparently, due to the huge rush of people going off and buying the Lite, there were huge shortages and Lik-sang had to raise its prices, not to mention the pull-back of the release date of non-white DSLs.

Nintendo DS Lite Launch in detail
Problems with Lik-sang

Links of Interest 1

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Mod Roundup: Half life 2 singleplayer mods

In this roundup I will be looking at two mods which alter the original half life 2 singleplayer, both leave the story mostly intact, but add loads of cool goodies.

SMOD simply adds bullet time and loads of new weapons. The bullet time works very well, much better then the standalone bullet time mod, bullet trails are fun and it's not too slow. The weapons are the real attraction to SMOD though, it adds some weapons from other valve games, the ak47 from csSs and the kar 98k from Dod:s for example. But above all SMOD is about the comedy, Gordon's magical wand looks like something from "Hello Kitty" but shoots magical bolts of electro death. The psp is another fun weapon, firing explosive umd's at hordes of combine doesn't get old. In a tribute to worms the banana bomb makes an appearance, but it's not as cool as throwing a pair of scissors which instantly destroy anything in their path. The list of weapons is too huge to go into now, mainly because I'm lazy, but it really does add another layer to hl2, a comedy layer admitedly, but it does make replaying half life 2 that bit more enjoyable.

First the worst second the best. I've been playing all the incarnations of Half Life 2: substance for a while now and their latest version hl2: substance GOLD is one of the best mods for hl2 out at the moment. It's basically a cross breed of the Metal Gear Solid series and Hl2, and it works surprisingly well. You get different suit modes; Gordon, Solid Snake, Liquid Snake, Big Boss and (as an extra when you complete the game) Gray Fox. Each form has different weapons and abilities, the only common ground being the gravity gun and bullet time (it's not a mod if it doesn't have bullet time these days kids!). Solid's stealth works quite well, essentially a modification of the aux power system used in Hl2, it allows for some very satisfying knife kills. Liquid is brilliant in combat and his dual Magnum's are brutally fun, easily gibbing any enemies in the way. There are also numerous game modes, the "European" mode being the usual romp through City 17 and Gordon Tales being the mod teams take on the 7 hours war of Half Life lore (rhyme intentional). Making the mode you're playing "survivor" gives a halo sytle recharging health system and more enemies. The health distribution system introduced into the main game is pretty good too, you get health by headshotting enemies, meaning any situtation can be resqued by some bullet time and dual Magnums. Ace.

Wanna know where to get these rather nice games? Try Google, it's your freind.