I am just posting a little fix to a problem I had with the XBOX, my wireless network and windows home server. I install a large number of computers through re-builds, tests , multiple OS’s , virtual machines and other things. these are mainly windows boxes and are prone to being removed, re-instated, tested , broken etc. All of them get added to windows home server at some point for file access, backup, and so I can administer them from the internet.

Recently I bought a new XBOX and when I went to stream media to it, there was no sign of the Videos share. Anywhere. At all.

Generally I normally re-boot the router, renew IP addresses, etc. No Joy.

I had forgotten. Windows Home Server has a 10 user limit. I had reached this. Even though the machines no longer exist it remembered. Oddly enough it does not tell you this.

So if you have this problem , please consult this knowledgebase article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/939217

Extract from the KB

“This issue occurs if more than 10 devices try to access the shared media folder through Media Library Sharing.
Media Library Sharing in Windows Home Server has a 10-device limit. You may experience a situation in which this limit is exceeded. For example, another user may connect to the network by using a computer that is running Windows Media Player 11. If Windows Media Player has media discovery enabled, this computer may be counted as a device in Windows Home Server.”

Generally you need to un share and re-share the media. Then re-boot the receiving device. Personally I had to re-boot everything , including the NetGear router in the house as well.

Full review over at CVG. http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=251231

So I came back after a weekend away and set about heading to digital distribution services to pick up a cheap copy of the game, i.e. Steam.

So what I found shocked me. Games on Steam are more expensive than they are in the shops. example modern warfare 2. Attached result from the cheapest place I thought I can get it and the most expensive, Steam and Amazon in that order. Click to embiggen.

I also then checked the price of Crysis as well, specifically the pack with all the add-ons and new levels.  Also click to embiggen.

Now, even with the conversion to Euro and Shipment to Ireland, this works out cheaper. Now, listen carefully, if sit on my backside in front of the computer and buy the game, and don’t pirate , or don’t burn petrol, or in the case of some of the local game shops, patience, the game costs me more.

A good bit more.

Maybe I am late in on the game, but I was really sure that it was the other way around. Hell, Crysis is a tenner on the local game store. how stupid have we become that this is not stamped out immediately. After listening to all the piracy stuff and how digital is becoming the new way to get things I am confronted with this monumental travesty.

PC games are hard enough to configure, install , patch etc without being more expensive than console counterparts.

Industry, stop taking the f’ing piss.

Thoughts ?

I am so happy, first tree in our own place, and indeed in any place I have lived in, to the best of my recollection.

I also cleaned my Google analytics account up. One of the problems I never managed to fix on the previous versions of WordPress was the format of the URL to each post. Previously I only was able to set the post to something like www.y2kprawn.ie/postid=1234567 not www.y2kprawn.ie/datetime/postname Now I am able to use proper URL’s so I let a new Analytics account re-look at the pages and take the counts afresh.

One odd thing about the new template though is the Windows live writer treatment of the theme download. The preview looks nothing like the post and now it looks pretty sickly and hard to use when I am posting, so thoughts from the crew or the internet peeps would be most welcome.

Close up here

I changed the windows regional setting’s to better show this.

Thanks to @komplett.ie for pointing this out.

First, the place, I paid 20 Euro for the VIP section of Dundrum Cinema. For the extra money I got a bigger chair miles away from the screen, but high enough that no ones head got in my way. I don’t thing the overall experience was that good. I found the staff at the “bar” a bit unpleasant, and the section itself was nothing special, just a bit of spare space they could not figure out what to do with. I had a glass of wine.

Halfway through the film I was wishing for the whole bottle. This is an awful film. it could not be any worse. It was directed by someone who cant even be bothered get a full name. At the intro credits, or whatever you call them they had to show the name of the film twice, just in case I had paid for the wrong ticket. The cyborg dude was the only good actor, barely. Every one in the film delivered the cornball dialogue as if they were reading from a teleprompter and could not wait to get to the bar, or their bed, or back to the batcave. If they cant be bothered act then you cannot be bothered watch. The terminators were the same recycled unconvincing models from the other films. No new additions apart from the ones you see in the trailer. If you have seen the trailer you have seen the whole film really. I personally could not have given 2 shites about the ending, boring , predictable. There is no emotional development of the characters, even in a usual cornball American movie sacrifice scene there was a sense of “whatever, die already so I can continue delivering bad dialogue”.

Robots are cool,but the only cool thing about this film was the trailer I saw for Transformers before it.

SkyNet is nothing more than a stupid advanced toaster and the humans are a whiny bunch of generic angst ridden stereotype 101’s. If the machine was so smart then it would have just nuked the whole planet totally. And then done it again every so often. Not this elaborate crap of fate and cyborgs and things. There is more radiation in this film than you could shake a uranium stick at and it seem radiation poisoning is a thing of the past. Sure, all this would never have made a good film but then again taking that attitude with story would have prevented this piece of shit from ever being made.

By the way, cinemas, I do not like sitting through 20 mins of ads that are on TV. I don’t watch much TV for the same reason. I paid for my ticket. Show me film trailers , entertainment, I paid already to get in the last time I checked , so you can shove your ad’s. I think people should start to go looking for a manager when crap like this happens. I did before a few years back in Galway and got a really snotty retort from some little jacked up shit. I think we should do it en masse.

Please , giant robots smashing stuff, that all I want from Transformers. Roll on release.