SNIP Blog

Well we all watched it right? At least a lot of us did – the finale of Dr Who (The end of time) or the end of Tennant.

I’m certainly not an avid Dr Who fan, more a casual observer who has an interest in SciFi. Dr Who has always had that background appeal though, even if it to rekindle those childhood memories of hiding behind the coach when the Darleks come on. I think a lot of people would agree though, that David Tennant has certainly re-born the Dr Who franchise, and become probably the current generations favourite Dr Who.

Certainly for me, he re-captured my imagination for the long standing series with his enigmatic screen presence and dominating crazy/wacky Dr persona. He was almost perfect for the role. I think he brought more to it then just crazyness though, as there was/is something charming, sweet, even maybe innocent about Tennant as an inndividual that he seemed to bring to the final episode so honestly, it did make for a truly epic episode.

The second part of The End of Time was infact one hour twenty minutes, rather than a straight hour. I think the show was really split into two parts: 1st hour was the show conclusion and the last 20 mins was really Tennant saying goodbye to the universe (Universe being the Dr Who universe, not literally).

For me, what made the episode WAS that last 20 minutes. I think it demonstrated just what an impact Tennant has had on the show that they felt enough to give him a dedicated 20 minute farewell. Sure, the main story was classic Dr Who layered in cheese, but this finale felt like a Hollywood movie, it was visually deep and covered with gloss. Almost like, hey it’s Tennant’s last show – screw the budget.

The way Tennant portrayed the end of his character made him look vulnerable, scared and genuinely distressed about his imminent departure. The sweet spot you could argue, was his final line of “I don’t want to go!”. That one simple line, of just 5 small words for me, was the bomb, the money shot, the “I don’t want you to go” moment – honestly, that line was magical. Props to you sir, who ever scripted that.

As with all Dr Who regens, the season ends with the new kid on the block left with about 5 minutes to affirm their place on the Dr Who block. Let’s face it though, it wouldn’t matter who it was doing what ever they wanted, it would be a miracle if they could turn you around in that short time, following Tennant’s departure. Did he do it for you? Is it too soon to say? Don’t worry, the grief process works in 5 stages, one of them being acceptance – you will be ok – you will be fine.

So we will have to wait now, to see where the Dr Who franchise goes next, will it ever be the same though?

Hey Not blogged on here for ages, and as 2009 was about to come to an end I thought I should put one last blog form this decade.

I’m sure this entry will be more of a diary come journal come memory for me rather than an interesting Diggable post for anyone else, but hey – you don’t have to keep reading.

I can honestly say, that I think the last ten years of my life have been the most significant of all my 38 years alive on this planet. A lot has happened, good and bad I guess. Some major events and some minor ones too.

I completed my nurse training, got my first proper job and earned over £10,000 per year for the first time in my life. Nursed dying people. Changed jobs. Got jaded in my work. Got inspired in my work. Still do my work.

I got married and had a child. Had holidays abroad. Bought lots of useless soul sucking gadgets. Got debt. Made friends. Lost friends. Bought a house and got a mortgage. Bought more needless items of consumerism.

Went to the pictures by myself. Downloaded many gigs of torrents (and uploaded only a fraction – sorry Demonoid). Got an iPhone. Started various blogs and bought some domain names. Come up 1st when you google my name. Found a hobby in photography. Watched loads of TV shows.Subscribed to loads of Podcasts.

So busy and so many things that I’ve done. I remember feeling really weird when it was 2001 as it finally became the year of the masterful Sci Fi 2001 A Space Odyssey. Now it’s almost 2010, which is the year of the sequel, will I feel weird again? Who know. Who knows what even the next decade will bring. More tech, more gadgets, more explosions and acts that make it to Sky News? I guess so.

I’m rambling now and on the verge of getting pompous and pretentious so I’ll stop. If you are reading, then I hope you too had a significant last decade and like me, realise how fast life whizzes past. See you in 10

Have to say, the teaser for the upcoming remake of V on ABC lodoes look very good. A nice shiny layer of gloss was painted all over it, but does it give us some spoilers for another TV show?

One of the characters in the teaser is Elizabeth Mitchell, aka Juliet from Lost fame. If you a Lost fan, then you will remember that part of the Seasonn 5 finale ended with the potential of Juliet’s character being killed. As it is Lost, anything is possible but seeing her pop up in a new role could suggest that her character may have actually died in  the finalle.

Who knows. But back to the point in hand, the first 9 minutes of V looks very promising. Starts November 7

Yeah, we’ve all been there. Crap day at work with a major DOH! ending, and it looks like Foreman may have had his first wee stop at 1900 hrs after the day he had.

You got it – it’s another House punch in the face moment, and I truly never saw this one coming. In fact, I’m sat here still trying to process what happened and piece it together.

Hard to discuss in a no spoiler way, but I think it could be the end for one of the characters, not Foreman, that would be too obvious.

The House universe has usually been scripted with the rules of cause and effect. One of the characters does something bad, and they face consequences. If this plays true in this episode, then BOOM!! HEADSHOT!! has to be called.

The episode as a whole was quite good. For me, an annoying start. Annoying being I actually found House’s character a little annoying, almost too child like and a tad over the top. That seemed to fade quite quickly though as the plot moved along, ending with the Tyson type face SMACK – OUCH!! It still hurts.

In hind sight, it does make sense. With the coming together of the old team, it was almost like said character got one last chance to work with House, before departing the show. Obviously, I have NO idea if this character is leaving at all, and if so when. I’m just applying the House rules, and concluding that something MUST happen to them, otherwise the foundation to the House universe may start to crack.

Did I tell you I’ve just been punched right in the face by House!?!

Hmm funny. Of all the sub genres of porn that I’ve seen, breastfeeding has never been one of them. Yet here is the genre defining Dollhouse laying that seed. I know my mind is a little off kilter, but did this opening seen really have to present Ms Echo is such a raunchy way whist having her breast sucked by young child? Erm sorry – time to move on ….

.. YAY Episode two of the Dolls is here and after what I thought was a slightly dull start, I actually think this episode had some good moments.

But where they the right moments? Well kind of. I never aim to be a spoiler poster so I’ll tread carefully, but the Echo/Tofu “Did I fall asleep?” seen, “Er, yeah” BOOM!!! Was actually kinda sweet I actually found myself lifting up off my coach. Errr, y’ellow!! You know how you feel when your team is losing big time, and you suddenly find yourself thinking “Hey – I think we really may have a chance to win! We could do this!” type moments, that is how I felt after that scene. GREAT

Thing is, right after that moment, the other side scored another goal and I sank back into my seat. That is not say the game was over. The episode muddled on with the climax that actually left me feeling quite, well emotional. I think I just might be starting to care for Echo’s character. That is good, right?

I hope so – Dollhouse is beginning to be a show that displays Bi Polar tendencies. One minute it’s Pink TV with hot chicks showing their underwear (see last episode) the next it’s thoughtful, deep(ish) and intriguing. The problem is, this has now thrown open a whole new dilemma. I actually feel slightly worried about Summer Glau coming into the show. Why? Because I just can’t help think that if Summer joined the show, the direction would become full on “tits out for the lads” type SciFi, and I think, after investing in one season at least, that we deserve more than that.

Well, that’s me. Overall, a good episode

eBay used to be great. A truly awesome auction experience back in the day. Now it’s just a sellers playground cluttered with “Buy It Now’s” and shops rather than individual users dooking it out to get a bargain.

I’ve sold many an item on there and raised cash out of junk, but have always moaned and groaned at the fees you end up paying to eBay/Paypal. One of the ways to balance the load has always been to apply a decent postage charge to help cover costs.

I mean let’s face it, you may have to buy a box, some bubble wrap, drive and park to for the post office. Surely all though items should be recoverable?

Well not according to eBay it seems, they just want your cash. I’ve just tried to sell an XBOX 360 game aka a DVD. For some reason I could not apply a postage charge for this item. After some clicks I found out why. eBay have started apply postage limits to certain items and for DVD’s it seems postage should be Free:

Why are you requiring free P&P in certain categories?

Categories which require Free P&P are extremely competitive category in the UK with online retailers increasingly offering free delivery. Our analysis concludes that this is the market price for P&P for such items.

Reading around on they eBay site it appears that, after all these years, eBay have twigged that by charging a slightly higher postage cost, bidders will not bid as high for an item. This means that for the buyer/seller the exchange of money is the same amount, but for eBay (who make commission based on the amount of the winning bid) make less money.

Lets say eBay charge 10% on the winning bid for there cut. I list something to Buy Now for £1 but with £9 postage. The buyer/seller exchange £10 in total but eBay get 10% of £1 or 10p.

Reverse that and sell an item for £9 with £1 postage, £10 still exchanged but eBay get 90p.

I’ve done it myself – built in the cost of fees and commission into the price of the postage for an item. The bidder bids less but ultimately the loss is made up in the postage.

To me it shows that eBay is a failing company who have to offset its losses by applying ways to recoup from the sellers. Although I understand the rationale for curbing excess postage chargers being prosumer, to enforce a “Free Postage” rule for certain items, just because some online retailers do is pretty shitty.

I’M NOT PLAY.COM OR AMAZON you jerks – I don’t buy my envelopes and wrapping in bulk – IT COSTS ME MONEY!! So why should I have to offset my losses in the proce of the item I’m selling and not recover it in a postage charge?!?!?!

Honestly, I’ve been off eBay for some time but this for me, finally turns the milk sour. Maybe you could use some of your hard earn profits from selling Skpye and invest in some kind of website redesign at least – it’s so 90’s web 1.0.

and there concludes my rant!!

It’s seemed like a long wait before we get to hear the almost geek iconic line “Did I fall asleep?” drift from our TV speakers but it has, once again. The Dolls are back

Dollhouse, the TV show, suffered a heavy load on its shoulders during the rocky 1st season. Pressure from fans of Whedon, a battle for ratings and an almost cancelled season.

Yet hear it is for a second outing – how was it?

Well for me, it was kinda weird. In fact there were lots of odd moments littered across the 40 minute viewing. Let’s get some funny ones out of the way.

Guest star this week was Jamie Bamber, aka Lee Adama from BSG fame. Some of you may not know that he is actually a British born actor from London. By not knowing this some may find his English accent kinda cute against the American backdrop. In BSG he sounded American, so I don’t know which is his more “common” accent British or American.

Why do I even care? Don’t know really, apart from the Echo vs Martin Klar scene in his office (no spoiers). When Martin (Jamie) is kicking off at Echo, all I could hear was …. Dr. Gaius Baltar from BSG!! WTF!!

Trust me, play that scene back and close your eyes. He sounds just like Dr Baltars Obviously it’s not really him, just sounds like him. Now, with Lee Adama, Gaius Baltar and of course Karl “Helo” Agathon (aka Tahmoh Penikett) this episode stinks of Battlestar and you know what, I miss Battlestar. REALLY miss Battlestar. Thanks a lot Dollhouse for reminded me of that – GGRRRRR!!!!!

Right, stupid stuff aside, what about the episode? As I said at the start, it was a strange first episode. I would really recommend watching the season finale again before watching S02E01 as a lot of reference in this episode is linked to that story line. The episode seemed to be closing some loose ends from the finale episode, which was a shade annoying in part. I want it to move forward not slide sideways and we are still left unsure what direction the main story line will take. Very much teetering between scifi classic and sunday afternoon Murder She Wrote.

There were a few sweet moments to be fair. Whisky’s turmoil, Topher’s mental collapse and Echo’s/Paul’s new bond (at the end). However, as a first episode of an “at risk show”, for me the hype fell flat on it’s face and I was left thinking …. oh! As I said almost every episode last season, we will have to wait and see. I just want Summer Glau to hurry up and become part of the Dollhouse universe

Wen’t into town this morning and picked up a copy of Snow Leopard – £25 in the UK.

Got a slim line DVD case with a nice photo of a leopard on the front, then rushed home to install it.

On my Mac Mini it took about an hour (just over) to run the upgrade. I read somewhere that you’re advised to upgrade rather than clean install, so I did.

I also heard that you reclaim some hard disk space as the upgrade removes all PPC content in Intel based Macs.

I got a whopping 10 gigs back (sweet) and the upgrade installed. My Mac Mini is only a Core Duo so no 64 bit for me. On first looks, and I’m talking about 10 minutes, there is no real difference. It seems snappier but that could be my imagination. It definitely boots quicker which is no deal as my Mac Mini runs 24/7.

Will have to keep playing to see whether worth the £25 for the service patch that Microsoft drop for free.

If I can get my self into gear (excuse the pun) I should be picking up my new push bike tomorrow.

A nice Giant Escape M1 hybrid mountain bike.

It seems a nice bike and fits my mind image exactly. Ally frame, rigid with dual disk and a-head steering.

Urban man – hear I come :S

.. I am the first to stand up and say I am not that good at gaming. Neither do I have the time these days to commit but I’m pretty poor too.

PC Gaming has some advantages in that, if you want, you can enable GOD Mode. Now for those of you still reading, I have my reasons.

I like to play games and experience all the glitz and glamour of games like Crysis. But to be fair, it flippin hard – even on easy. Now if I play as normal with death mode on – I would only ever get so far then loose interest. My alloted time would expire and the game would goto SNIP Heaven. However, with GOD mode on – I can progress through and complete.

There are obviously dis-advantages. The main being no sense of achievement – lack of set piece enjoyment and each games end up playing like a game of Serious Sam – but for me, it suits just fine. I’m not saying every game or all the way though, but for me GOD mode is one + of PC gaming :-/

This video shows just was a Mac Book is so sweet – Love it

I finished Red Faction: Guirilla today, and you know what? I really enjoyed it.

The game, if you don’t know, is a kind of GTA on Mars. This means you have a free roam world to explore with a line up of key story missions to follow as well as numerous side non-story missions.

Part of the appeal of the game, is the feature that lets you blow stuff up – and this means almost EVERYTHING. There are some lovely demonstrations of physics in action with some large structures and buildings that come toppling down.

There were some impressive set pieces with a shit ton of stuff going on on the screen, and the trusty old 360 does a good job with the frame rate. Sure, there are a few scenes where it does drop to a noticeable rate, but when you consider what action is taking place – it is excusable.

I found the game to be a total time sink, continuously getting distracted by exploring new places and buildings. The Mars environment is very believeable and well populated although the AI is a little retarded at times.

Don’t get me wrong – I am by no means a conisuer of games review and I don’t pretend to write a 1up competing review here – I just know that I really had fun playing this game. In fact – it has pulled me back into gaming after a long long abscene.

I had a quick look at Multuplayer – it seems sturdy and all of the destruction appears to be there on Live which is nice. But for me, the fun is in the single player.

Thanks Red Faction

I’d heard how insecure and pointless the WiFi security protocol WEP was, but didn’t realise just how bad it was until the other day.

By using the security scanner Aircrack-ng, a laptop/PC and some lessons of YouTube, one really can crack a WEP encrypted WiFi network in less than 5 minutes.

Pretty scary really as there are still a chunk of people out there still using WEP as a means of safeguarding their Wireless Network.

If you have an iPhone for example, load one of the many WiFi scanner Apps, then go for a wonder around your city center. I was in Exeter the other day, in the main high street, and there were at least 29+ wireless networks detectable.

Sure, a large percentage of these were WPA/2, but there was still 3 or 4 that were WEP encrypted and maybe about 1-2 that had no encryption what so ever.

It should be noted though also, that WPA is still not bullet proof. Using the same software and a dictionary file, a WPA network and suffer from a Brute Force attack.

The main things to remember to help maximise your WiFi network then is:

• Turn OFF SSID Broadcast
• DO NOT use WEP but WPA2
• Use a really obscure non English uppercase/lowercase messed up password
• Use MAC filtering if you can

By combing these methods, you should decrease the chance of your network being hacked.

Oh and the obvious thing, is to not even use WiFi unless you really need to. Ethernet cables are more more secure

Heard of Virtualisation, and VM Ware? There are two flavours, the free one and the paid for one. But there is a way to get the best of both.

The VM Player, is a free app that lets you run virtual machines on your desktop. You could run Windows 2000, virtually, on a Windows Vista PC for example. In order to do this, you need a Virtual Appliance for that OS you want to load.

There are loads of free ones, and they’re often Linux based systems that you can download, but things always get tricky when you delve into the Windows world. Also, the free VM Player does NOT let you create your own Virtiual Appliances.

This is where VM Ware comes in, as it lets you create your own Virtual Appliances and costs about 60 quid.

The cool think about the trial version, is that it is fully featured for 30 days, meaning you can now create your own Virtual Appliances for what ever OS you have access too. I have an Appliance created for an old version of Windows 2000. I could make one for Windows 98 too, and even make some appliances for some Linux distros, all using the free demo.

Once the demo runs out though, I can still run the appliances using the free VM Player

Cool, huh?

So grab yourself a trial version of VM Ware, then make as many virtual appliances as you can, before the demo ends, then switch to the free player to keep going.

It even seems to work cross OS, as I made a Windows 2000 appliance on my Mac then swapped it over to my PC, and it still works

I have to admit, I have been trying to get Backtrack 3 to run on my Aspire One for the last few days with no success. I have been using the USB Boot distro but to no joy.

It has driven me mad, even to the point where I almost bought a new laptop to get what I wanted.

So what was the problem? Well, when booting Backtrack 3 USB boot edition, it runs but always goes tits up when trying to get StartX to work. The AAO has only 8Megs of memory, so the Linux desktop is limited to what StartX can run in. At best, the desktop will boot into an 800×600 display, and not the native 1024×600.

However, I have finally fixed this issue so I thought I would share, to save anyone else similar grief and heart ache.

The solution is taken from the AspireOneUser.com forums. First of all, you need to download the correct video driver module and then follow these instructions ….

First, dowload the correct video driver module (see link above)

Put it into the following folder (on the USB thumb drive):

/BT3/Optional

Now you need to edit the following file:

/boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg

Add in the following text AFTER the first three lines:

LABEL aa1
MENU LABEL BT3 Acer Aspire One Mode
KERNEL /boot/vmlinuz
APPEND vga=785 initrd=/boot/initrd.gz ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw changes=/changes/slaxsave.dat load=901_net_gfx  autoexec=kdm

Save the file, then use the USB Drive to boot. When the boot selection menu appears, there will be an option to load

BT3 Acer Aspire One Mode

Choosing this will let Backtrack 3 USB to boot and use the native screen resolution.

It has been a monster end to the TV show season that I watch so far and to be honest, there is only one left to conclude. The Mentalist is to come to the end of it’s first season next week.

In some ways, I am more interested in how The Mentalist finales, compared to the big hitters such as Lost, Grey’s and House etc etc.

I mean come on … it’s a no brainer that Lost would climax with a peak so high, you could see above the clouds. It was no surprise that Grey’s Anatomy would end with a tear jerker so intense that an admission to ER would be needed for acute dehydration. And with House!! Well I still have the black eye following that smack in the face.

But The Mentalist is different. Through out the season, it has been happily plodding along like a modern day Murder She Wrote. Imagine for a second, Paul Nicholas (from Bread days) along side Jessica Fletcher busting it up! Mega

However according to TV.com, the plot line goes:

As the CBI investigates the murder of a young girl and the abduction of her twin sister, Lisbon suspects that Red John is trying to draw Jane into a trap.

ooohhhh – nasty old Red John is back and trying to draw Jane into a trap. Now,  Red John with his small percentile appearance in the show, is almost a distant memory for me. Who is he again? What did he do? Oh yeah – slaughtered Jane’s family, remember? Waaaay back at the start of the show.

It seems then, that Red John’s sole purpose is to purely give backfill and motivation to Jane’s character, and to act as a season finale plot line! He’s done nothing else in between.

Check out Dexter. The Ice Truck Killer themed through out the WHOLE show, and acted nicely as the season finale villain. The same goes for all the other mainstream TV shows don’t they? A seed from the start slowly grows into a monster ready for the end of the season.

This must mean then that The Mentalist will literally have a 40 minute season finale of what should really be called, an episode finale, right? Red John will be referenced after about 15 mins to set the rest of the 30 minute show down. Ahh man, it’s gonna rock!! :S

Now in my opinion, the only way that this could work with an appropriate punch in the gob and subsequent “WHOA!!!!” factor, is if Red John was really one of the main characters that features in the show, like a fellow CBI agent. Hmmm, this is very unlikely, BUT it would make for a nice finale that was topped with a healthy amount of twist.

If this doesn’t happen, and the Red John thing blows over just like any other Mentalist episode, I think it will feel kinda lame, a bit faked even. Maybe even Jane will wake up in the shower, and hear his wife talking to his daughter, who knows.

Funny how a colour boost and a cheeky crop and transform an image. Flickr success seems to be hitting that style that is in at the moment.First there was HDR then Bokeh and now it seems to be minimalism with lots of colour (my observation at least).

Less is more?

Been quite a year so far for my TV Shows.

First Sarah Connor comes to a mostly likely end, with rating not supporting a third season. Then Dollhouse seems to stumble after only 12 episodes and concludes with no second series on the horizon.

To make things worse, it is the time of year when shows are coming to their finale as well. Lost Season 5 ends this Wednesday, Greys is also soon to conclude and this morning aired the end of season 5 for House.

Every so often, I hook right into a TV Show. I buy into the universe, the characters and the plot line. I make excuses for poor episodes and give flexibility to story lines that sometimes stretch things too far.

One show that has me mainlined into their world is House, and this morning I watched the season finale. I have written before how this show can punch you in the face with a good old slap of twist and fantastic scripting, and this episode finale was one of those.

Without realising it, the season finale was really the last two episode. I wonder whether they should have been shown back to back, as last weeks episode seemed a little unbelievable, only to be balanced by this weeks episode.

The writers, directors and actors did an amazing  job of playing with House and his issues in a way that truly left me feeling sad and hurting for both him and all of his friends. I felt myself leaning towards the television wanting to give Wilson a hug (I love his enduring character) whilst sincerely wishing House all the best.

I know – It’s not real, it’s a TV Show!!!

But it’s House! And as I’ve said before if you DO buy into his universe and care for his surrounding world, then I bet you would be doing the same.

My only concern, as has been for most of my Shows this year, is where can they go from here? I haven’t read anywhere that this is the end of the series for House, and with how the show ends it can’t carry on as it did before. Down to the writers once again

Due to the recent start of Fit4fun at my place of work – I joined a gym yo both get fit and loose a few pounds (or 10).

The first few sessions were both horrid and embarrasing, but after todays session I actually quite enjoyed it.

After the initial warm up (when I feel like quiting) I start to get into the stride of it. Today I was able to do all of my tasks, which is nice and it felt like progress.

I never thought I would be able to jog for 10 minutes on a treadmill – w00t!!!

The only downside seems to be, that when I hopped on the scales for a cheeky look, I don’t seem to have lost any weight.

I know I have only been to 4 gym sessions and losing some weight in that time (a week) may be over ambiscious, but I was hoping for at least a few pounds ……

Had a quick trip out to a new(ish) garden center in Exeter yesterday … Plants Galore.

There literally were … plants galore …. and I muscled up enough courage to take my camera with macro lens along. I think if I had been by myself and a little more confidence at public photography, there would have been a ton of potential.

Anyway – I took a few decent snaps, one of which (the above) I liked just for the colour and background DoF.

Looks like pea green soup to me