Rooster212's Blog

Customising Visual Studio 2010

2012-01-19T16:44:00.001Z

There is no denying - Visual Studio 2010 is a world class development environment. However, everyone has the little things they like, keyboard shortcuts and the like. Changing keyboard shortcuts is easy enough (Tools
> Options > General > Keyboard) but I've recently looked into extensions. Some of them are great - here is a showcase of the ones I've just installed.

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Productivity Power Kit - Published by Microsoft
This kit has lots of useful parts to it - what I mainly wanted it for was the auto close bracket functionality, but it has other useful parts to it that I think I will make use of - custom scrollbars, middle click scrolling, Solution Navigator, Tab Well UI and lots of little options and tools that make Visual Studio nicer to use! Recommend this for any user of Visual Studio.

Color Printing - Published by Microsoft
Kind of self explanatory, allows you to print code out in syntax highlighted colours. Great little tweak that should probably be a tickbox for default printing.

Spell Checker - Published by Noah Richards
Checks the spelling in comments, strings in source code and HTML. Makes the little squiggly line similar to Word. Again, should be a default setting really but glad someone has fixed it! Noah Richards also makes some other nice little tweak like extensions which could be useful!

Indent Guides - Published by Zooba (Steve Dower)
This was one of the little gripes I had with Visual Studio when I started using it - I was used to Notepad++ where the indent lines were used by default when I used to do Python - I find them incredibly useful and makes the code, for me, far easier to read! If you don't get what I mean, here is a screenshot of it in action.

Hide Main Menu - Published by Matthew Johnson [MSFT]
A nice little tweak - simply hides the main menu from view when you don't need it. You can access it by simply pressing the Alt key, or by using other shortcuts to access the menus (such as Alt + F to bring up the File menu). Just personally, I like this very much - I like all the screen estate I can get!

Visual Studio Achievements - Published by Microsoft/Channel 9
As it says on the tin again - Microsoft in all its wisdom have decided to add achievements to programming. I think this is a great idea to get new programmers more into it, and exploring more complex aspects of coding. However, I do think that getting current or veteran programmers into it will be more difficult. I installed it for fun, and maybe I'll publish that i've done a hard one from time to time!

So that's my rundown for now. If you have any you like using, comment away!

Computer Build: Part 2 - Recieving The Parts and Building

2012-01-19T16:14:00.001Z

This post is massively behind and I do realise that... haven't had time to update the blog! So the parts arrived after a driving lesson and sat in the huge box they came in. I put them on the bed and laid them out - here they are.

I couldn't build it until the 27th of June - I had exams to concentrate on and I knew that once I had finished exams I would have plenty of time to spend as much time as i wanted building and tweaking it!

So I had the exam (a 2 and a half hour computing exam if i remember correctly) and then proceeded to build it when i got back - with the help of a friend, we had it built within 2 hours, installed Windows 7 within 10 mins (SSD installs are fast!) and like that, it was working perfectly! Have to say, it was quite surreal seeing it up and running and realising that it all worked and that it was done!

Since I have built it, I have made a few modifications

I tweak the Matrix Orbital GX Typhoon display often, my main display looks like this most of the time, but I also have iTunes data on there from time to time too.
I now make use of the internal USB 3.0 headers instead of having the cables going out of the back and plugging into the back - looks less neat but it frees up 2 USB ports on the back.
I also have a wireless card installed in the PCIe 4x port
I have a top 200mm fan which moves a lot more air than the original fan and has blue LED's in it to match the rest of the lighting.
The SSD is kinda faulty, needs RMA'ing.

I will upload some more pictures of it soon, it is under my desk at uni with me and is running great! With the water cooler I get temps as low as 25 degrees idle and 36 degrees under load!

Computer Build: Part 1 - Working Out and Ordering

2011-06-21T16:42:00.000+01:00

For my birthday on the 16th of June, I asked family members for money towards a new project i wished to undertake: a kick ass computer with which to play games, do programming projects and photo editing (which I do from time to time). So I set about researching it, giving myself a budget of £900 as this is what I thought my family would give me (at an estimate, as they are a generous bunch).

So i set about on my favorite website overclockers.co.uk looking for parts that would fit in my price range. Needless to say, it got me a decent PC spec up and running. Needless to say, my birthday came around and my family were even more generous than I had predicted and I had around £1500 on which to spend on a computer! So I upped the spec a little, and this is what i ended up with (ordered this morning):

It has a top of the range unlocked (heavily overclockable) Core i5 2500K processor and an SSD, which should help bring boot times of Windows down, as I think i will only really keep Windows 7 on it, as it is only 60GB (SSD's are expensive!). Also I got a bundle with Windows for one hard drive, which I am going to use as my games HDD, and I have another 500GB at home which i will most likely use for media storage (i have a large music library). The 2TB is for backup purposes.

So that should be with me tomorrow (yay!!) and will be building it on Thursday after my last exam finishes at around 11:30!

I also have a Matrix Orbital display coming with it from another website (wasn't cheap...) which should look great. I'm going for a blue light colour scheme so it should fit right in.

Pictures when the parts are delivered (hopefully) tomorrow!

Hello World

2011-06-02T19:56:00.000+01:00

Hello everybody, its been a while since i posted anything on here or anywhere to be honest!

Exams are upon me, life is sprawled out in front of me, everything is clicking into place...

So yeah, mostly the standard revision time stuff is going on at the moment. But, there is always something in my life worth talking about!!!

Building a Computer

For my birthday i've been asking for money from family and friends as I have been wanting to undertake a computer build for a very, very long time!! So i've been planning over the last couple of months, mostly in the price range of £600-£800 however some parts take it over the £1k mark! If you want to take a look at my computer parts list, it's all in a Google Doc here.

Uni + Exams

Planning on building it myself for Uni, where I have confirmed Hull university to do Computer Science w/ Games Design, which i am really looking forward to!!

Exams start in 1 week as of yesterday, and my 18th birthday is in 2 weeks from today. Going to be a good month!!

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T00:00:00.002Z

Just wishing you a happy new year, and best of luck with everything that might be coming your way in 2011.

Have a good night, don't get too drunk and enjoy the year ahead!

If anyone actually wants me to post anything on my blog, PLEASE email me or leave a comment! Otherwise I might just give up on my blog completely, seeing as I haven't got much of an audience...

HAPPY MMXI.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-25T00:00:00.008Z

Just wishing everybody a great Christmas, and a happy New Year.

I hope 2011 is a prosperous and fantastic year for you all!

Now go and eat chocolate and turkey (or whatever you eat at your Christmas meal!) until you can't walk.

Merry Christmas!

[Picture is one I took last year]

University and A-Levels

2010-10-27T16:15:00.000+01:00

So recently i've been to 3 open days at various universities around the country. Hull, Brighton and Liverpool John Moores Unis. All were very good and i will probably be applying to them all. I have a few other uni's in mind, and i will have to make my mind up about which ones to put on my UCAS form. I am pretty sure that the 3 above will be on that form.

Apart from that, I am still working behind the bar at the Vaults and continuing with my 3 A-Levels, Computing, Maths and Electronics. All are going very well, and I am doing a computing project over the next few months which comprises of a stock management system for the Vaults. Hopefully that will be good, I am using Python 3.1.2, PyQt4 and SQLite 3 for my system.

Exam Results

2010-08-20T17:27:00.001+01:00

Got ABCD in my AS level exam results.

A - Electronics (got full marks in the harder paper too :D )
B - Computing (Kind of hoped I would get an A for that but not the end of the world)
C - Maths w/ Mechanics (Happy with that)
D - Physics (which I am not continuing next year)

Overall I think I did pretty well. Went to a party last night to celebrate and that was good fun! Going camping tomorrow with my sister and mum, and her boyfriend and his 3 kids, so should be nice and fun as long as I don't have to babysit too often.

Well done everyone else who got results - hope that was what you wanted!

New Blog Look and Other Stuff

2010-08-14T18:11:00.000+01:00

So i decided to update the look of my blog. Hey, I think it looks pretty good!

Anyway, I am doing ok, just got back from holiday in Portugal. Spent most of it by the beach at the bar or by the pool playing solitaire or by the beach reading Lord of The Rings. Anyway, was a good holiday. Just ordered a new shiny Dell 24" Monitor, which should arrive today or Monday. I've cleaned up my desk and ordered a Mini-Display Port to DVI Adaptor, which arrived today, and a DVI-D Cable, which fits into the adaptor (i was worried it wasn't going to :P ) and an HDMI cable to connect my Xbox 360 to it. Should be a nice addition to my workspace and for those times I don't feel like working.

Working at the bar at The Vaults now, working from 9.30pm tonight.
Goodbye till next time! Feel free to email me for jailbreaking tips or whatever, I'm always up for a chat!

Love

2010-07-29T23:59:00.004+01:00

I have a love of so many things, yet i love none of them as much as i love the thought that I will one day feel the real emotion of love. If I have, I would like to feel the emotion in a mutual relationship. I feel I have missed so many chances to have someone close to me and to keep them close to me in a relationship which goes beyond friendship. Even a simple hug means so much to me as a person! Its just something which shows a real bond between two people, maybe not as much as a kiss but showing a kind of love.

As I said at the start of the post, I have a love for many things. Love for things is different to the emotion of 'love'. For example, I love my technology, but it doesn't mean that i expect affection in return for that love so does that make the emotion silly? No. Love in this sense is different to the love between two people. I fear that real love has eluded me and will continue to for a long time. The one thing that makes me happy is affection - and having someone there to give affection to and to receive from is all that would make me a happy man.

There is always someone around the corner - I hope that person is here for me now. If not, I hope it appears soon. Cause I feel that is all that could ever make me properly happy :)

One more thing - I should have been a fucking poet.

[Image Courtesy of http://miyako-l0st1nl0ve.blogspot.com/2008_11_01_archive.html]

More Exams, Apple, and an Election.

2010-05-07T18:52:00.003+01:00

Wow, its been so long since i've done a blog post. So many things have happened!

Well, if I do them in order of time, they sort of go like this.

Apple OS 4 - well, doesn't this look shiny! Folders, multitasking (take that Windows Phone 7), Game Center, thousands of new API's! Looks awesome. Makes me want to develop for the iPhone platform even more. In similar news, the iPad prices were announced today for the UK/Europe. Shame about the Apple tax. The prices are nearly 150% more than in America, which is a bit of a rip. WiFi Models: 16GB / 32GB / 64GB - £429 / £499 / £599. 3G versions: 16GB / 32GB / 64GB — £529 / £599 / £699. Crazy money! Although somehow the 3G models seem cheaper to me.
Last but not least, WWDC this year is June 7th. Hopefully Apple will announce their new, not so secret anymore iPhone. Can't wait! I won't be getting this one but hopefully i can upgrade to the one after this one, as my contract runs out in June/July 2011 next. I don't think i will be too disappointed with my iPhone 3GS 32GB compared to the new one.

Exams - I have exams coming up, as most people my age do. AS levels. Got 7 exams in total. First is Electronics, on the 20th May. Only 13 days from this writing. Last is Mechanics for Maths, on the 15th June. Unfortunately, study leave also finishes the day after, which means I have to be in college on the 16th. Which also happens to be my birthday. All i know is it will be a great weekend after.

Election - well what can I say. At this point it looks like the Tories and the Lib-Dems are going to form a coalition government, as no party had enough of a majority to rule outright. Pretty exciting stuff.

Life Update, some ideas please!

2010-04-08T15:26:00.006+01:00

Again, i have failed to post in a while. Been quite busy with studying for my immenent exams, with the first on the 20th May and the last on the 15th June (the day before my 17th Birthday!). They are so important so studying is my top priority. Will be good to get them over and done with though.

Got a new keyboard. Microsoft one. Very nice. Also a Blue-Track mouse which is very nice i must say.

I got my old desktop fixed. However it is now without a case and is on a rickety document filer, which is it's temporary home until i make or find a cheap case that I like the look of.

I think i'll write a blog post on the iPhone 4.0 keynote tonight. The usual people are going (i.e. Gizmodo, Engadget, Macrumors etc) so check out their sites for liveblogs. Come back here for my opinion on the keynote after it has finished.

Also I would like some ideas on what to post on my tutorials blog, i can do photoshop, Microsoft Office, Operating System installation, system maintenence, anything like that. Please feedback in the comments!

Exam Results....

2010-03-11T18:11:00.012Z

Well today, i got some major exam results. Lets just say, they weren't great.

I got an E in Maths. This, considering the fact i got predicted B/A, makes me extremely disappointed. Of course, it's not just me, but my parents too. They are not happy at all. They expected me to get A's in all my subjects, and then I told them that is extremely hard at A level, they still expected me to get B's or C's. I've got to say I was shocked at getting an E, which is the lowest grade possible other than a U (unmarked). I literally just passed too. Which means I am going to have to retake. What does that mean? It means knuckling down to revision when the time comes, going to workshops, and just paying more attention in general at college. I imagine my maths teacher, who is fantastic at her job, is going to be extremely surprised. I've got some major work to do.

My main stress I feel is actually going to be my parents, because they will just stress me all the time, which I don't want. Making me work 24/7, which i fear they might, just doesn't work for me, as most people who are competent at revising will tell you. I think i took the more relaxed approach to the January exams, which has failed me, which means more time devoted to organising notes and generally studying. I feel I can do well if i really want to, it's just setting out everything right.

There's another thing, when I'm at my dads, I get no work done. Now, this isn't meant in any offence, but I think it is my stepbrother. He has little to no work ethic. He is retaking his GCSE's,but I've never seen him do any work. Just how he does it I guess. I think he will realise afterwards that he should have spent more time working. I feel I might have to stay at my mums more, even though i get less work done and i feel more laid back there, its not as good for my life long term.

My other results were a B in Computing and a C in Physics. The computing grade i expected to be sub-A grade, as it was the theory section, which I am not so great at. The programming exam, which is worth 60%, I will hopefully get a better mark on. This doesn't mean no preparation at all of course, just that I am expecting to get an A after I have done all the work that is expected.

I've also got major responsibility at college now as a Student Governor. I have to attend a meeting a term, and in the meetings we are treated as equal, with the same right to speak and a vote each towards any decisions. It doesn't take up much time, but my other role as Entertainments Rep squeezes my time slightly more. I've got a karaoke event organised next week, with proceeds going to Sport Relief.

Any advice would be appreciated, such as good alternative exam techniques if you want to drop a line on the comments below.

Ranting on and on...

2010-03-07T16:46:00.004Z

I haven't posted anything in a while, so here's an update on everything that is up in the life of me, Jamie.

I'm now one of two student governors at Long Road Sixth Form College in Cambridge. Basically, that means I go the governor meetings and put over the student's point's of view to the adults. I also get a vote in certain things in the governor meetings. This is alongside my role as Entertainments representative in the student committee thing.

I did exams in January, as quite a few people did. These were actually very important, and account for varying degrees of my A-levels in Computing, Maths and Physics. I didn't have an electronics exam because I do coursework for it instead. Speaking of that, I accidentally just deleted some pictures I needed for it from my iPhone. Epic fail. Anyway, I get the exam results on Thursday this week. if i decide to retake any of them, I have a 6 day window to do so in.

I have next Tuesday (16th March) off of college. Ha.

OMG Halo Reach multi player trailer!

I got a ping.fm account, which updates my twitter and facebook at the same time which is quite useful.

Oh and something which has really pissed me off.

i bought a pack of stuff earlier from game that had a 3 month card for live, a 1 month sky player thing and a universal media remote for the same price as a 3 month card, so i bought that instead. The 3 month live subscription card was missing from the pack so i tried to return it. They said i had to call Microsoft to get the code. I called them up, first time i got cut off with a bloody phone survey when i was giving the woman my gamertag details to put the 3 months on. Second time i got some mouthy bitch who compared it to buying a packet of potatoes from a grocery shop and basically told me to fuck off. So i hung up. It really annoys me that Microsoft don't have any way of telling what codes go where. For a company with billions of profit each year, they don't do the basics. Maybe they should also allow me to use my Maestro on Xbox Live.

Rant over.

iPad - it has finally arrived.

2010-01-27T22:04:00.001Z

Well, here it is. The iPad. I must say it is exactly like rumored and
expected. A large iPhone, that has a capacive touchscreen and does 3G
and has similar capacitys to the iPod touch. Cause that's the thing,
people say it's an iPhone made big, but to be honest I think it's more
like a iPod touch with 3G. It is essentially a more powerful, more
expensive iPod touch.

Ok, I liked the look of the iPad and the iWork and iBooks apps look
good. Very cool, I like the menus in the iWork app, the details of the
iBooks app and the iBook store (is it a new store or just a part of
the iTunes store though?) and generally I think it will be a cool
thing to have. However, as an owner of a perfectly working laptop and
a 32GB iPhone 3GS, I feel this device fills a gap that doesn't really
need filling, and would be good for someone who doesn't want to do
anything complex except browse websites, do some basic document
editing, some music and film watching and maybe some other things.
However, most people I know would be moving stuff around using USB
sticks and external hard drives, using keyboards for keyboard
shortcuts, maybe using DVDs and CDs occasionally and so on. So
basically, I won't be buying one unless I get a desktop with some
serious syncing capabilities and possibly some kind of programming app
and a few other things such as media streaming that integrates with
some server (a la LaLa, which Apple bought).

So that is my take. Oh yeah and here are the details (in USD because
they haven't released details for the UK yet).

• prices start at $499 for the 16GB, $599 for the 32GB and $699 for
the 64GB.
• add 3G for $120 (i think, don't quote me on that)
• available in 60 days, 90 for the 3G versions.
• 3G is on AT&T, without a contract.
• $15 for 250MB a month, $30 for unlimited.

Hardware:
• 1Ghz custom Apple processor ("A4")
• in sizes from 16GB to 64GB.
• dock connector, microphone, speaker. Not sure about 3.5mm headphone
slot. I haven't heard about it.

When people buy them I want your opinions!

Parties and Friendship

2010-01-22T20:55:00.004Z

Parties are always good. I've been to a couple since I last posted, and I loved them. I enjoy the drinking, the drunken dancing and the late night sobering walks. But most of all, I love them because i get to spend some quality time with my friends, most of who I don't get to see enough off any more. Its kind of depressing when you hear that some of your friends who you have known for years are purposely not inviting you to their party for some reason or another. Know what I mean?

Anyway, I feel that if they don't want to be friends with me that they should tell it to my face and not make me and other people who aren't invited feel shit because of the fact that they won't invite us. That is all I have to say on that.

News:

http://www.formspring.me/Rooster212 This is me. Ask me anything you like and I will (probs) answer it.

APPLE TABLET. Wednesday, 6pm GMT. I imagine there will be a stream to watch somewhere. I wants me one of those.

I am level 31, 2nd Prestige on COD: MW2 on Xbox 360. I am a PS3 hater, just so you know.

Bye everybody. Have a good weekend!

After Christmas

2010-01-11T20:08:00.003Z

So, christmas has been and gone and so has a week of college for me too.

For Christmas, i got everything i wanted which i am very happy about and eternally grateful to everyone who got me presents. I feel i never thank people enough, and i really should more.

Anyway, since christmas not much has happened. Been revising for exams this week mostly. Well, i say mostly, probably a bit. Enough, i feel. I don't want to pressure myself too much. I completed assassins creed and also am nearly halfway through forza 3, which i got for christmas. I also got my Earforce x31 gaming headset, which is also great for music. I got a 360 Elite, which is great because now i have room for all the things i need to store, like my copy of GTA: San Andreas i downloaded from the xbox live marketplace but didn't have enough room to store. I also like having Modern Warfare 2 installed to the hard drive because it is nice and quiet and also cuts load time. I'm level 53 on First Prestige, and I haven't been able to improve on that for the past 3 days because my internet at my mums isn't working well. Download speeds have plummeted on all the PC's in the house to below 1mb/s but the BT Home Hub says it's download speed is still 5 to 6 mb/s. Its strange.

Anyway, I have assassins creed 2 to complete 100% and also Forza Motorsport 3 to play so i'm not bored too much, while mixing playing with revision.

I did the maths exam today for Core 1, the first basic unit I am doing. It was quite difficult and I feel i probably could have done better, however it was mostly bad wording of the questions that made it difficult. A lot of others found the parts I found difficult the same, so I am still hopeful for a good grade.

Arrivedeci everybody. Wish you all well. I have 2 exams to go, Physics and Computing. After that, life returns to normal and hopefully better... more next post hey :P

Nearly Christmas

2009-12-14T18:55:00.002Z

Well it is nearly Christmas time. This year I have been very unexcited for some reason. I normally feel happy and jolly and Christmassy. However i just seem to be getting on with everything, as usual, apart from the odd Christmas song in some playlists and getting presents for other people.

This year I will be going to my uncle's. I wrote this in a previous post, but now I realise it will be just me, my mum, my sister, my uncle and his girlfriend. My mum's parents are going on a train journey to Germany, which is nice. We normally spend Christmas with them so it will be kinda strange not having that.

I am extremely bored without my xbox. However I think i am getting an elite from my Dad for Christmas which is awesome. My 20gb hard drive is running low, and with assassins creed 2 DLC looking to come in at a gig each, a 120gb hard drive is kinda required. Anyway, with any spare space I can install the Halo Reach Multiplayer Beta and my other games from disc on the hard drive. I just wish you didn't have to put the disc in to play installed games. Kinda ruins the point.

Merry Christmas to everyone if I don't post in the next 11 days!

How Things Are

2009-12-03T20:05:00.003Z

So, I haven't posted much on here lately. My fault, too obsessed with my darn Xbox 360, which broke today. 3rd one. 3RD!!! Oh well, i got to level 70 on Modern Warfare 2 and got most of Assassins Creed 2 completed. Now I can focus on something like revision... maybe.

If you want to purchase it here it is. Low starting price after all the hard work and money I spent on it. Please bid :)

Anyway, not much else is going on. Got some sexy new speakers for my desk, which are soon going to be sexy speakers on the wall. £30 and they are LOUD AS HELL. Got a party this weekend. Hmm, can't think of much else.

OH maybe Christmas. Christmas I am heading down to my Uncles house on the 23rd of December to spend a few days there with my mums side of the family. Then on Christmas Day, my dad will pick me and my sister up on the way back from Wales where they are seeing my dads girlfriends family. They are kind of like my extended family. It should be good. Hopefully I will get an Xbox 360 Elite. I need the hard drive space if i'm honest. And I would kind of like new Xbox now mine is broken :P

On my Christmas list is:

Earforce X31 Gaming Headset

Forza Motorsport 3

Left 4 Dead 2

Wireless 'N' Adaptor

Its funny how the WHOLE THING is related to Xbox 360. Anyway I am selling my old Xbox so if that gets enough money I will buy a new one after Christmas if I don't get one for Christmas. Seems to have taken over my life... oh well. Better that than smoking or weed or something ghastly.

Now I shall do some electronics coursework, which I probably never would have got round to if my Xbox wasn't broken.

To Uncle Bert

2009-12-01T00:01:00.000Z

To David Roos/Uncle Bert, who died 1st December 2008. We remember him today. He is missed sorely by all that knew him.

Half Term

2009-11-02T19:43:00.003Z

Well as half term's go, the one just gone was pretty damn good.

First weekend I went paintballing with 15 of my mates. Now it was amazing. I was expecting to find a little place with a few maps and no-body else there. But it was more like an army training ground. There were about 150 people there I would say. Lots of good gametypes and even grenades which were pretty awesome. Absolutely knakered after that though.

Most of the rest of the half term was spent playing on the xbox and preparing the house for what was the best party I have ever been to (nothing to do with the fact it was my own party i swear...)

The party itself was great. I drank way too much, kissed a girl for the first time (w00t) and generally had a fantastic time. Hope there will be other times for certain activities just like at this one :P

Back to college, and today was alight I guess. Just had physics and maths, which are the least favourite of my 4 subjects but they went by pretty fast and then i went and saw my dad in town, which was nice. Next holiday is Christmas, so hopefully there will be lots of partying then, but for now its back to work for a few weeks.

Till next time.

Open Sorcery...

2009-10-23T18:26:00.003+01:00

(forgive the horrible pun in the title :D)

The magic of open source programs has hit home today. I tried to find my old Photoshop CS3 and Office 2007 discs today... to no avail. So i decided to try what I thought before were inferior programs, such as OpenOffice and The GIMP.

Well to be honest I always knew that Open Office was superior because of it's compatibility with every known file format and (decent) plugins. But GIMP took me by surprise when I used it for a bit earlier. It has full Photoshop .psd and Paint Shop Pro compatibility, which was extremely surprising, down to every last layer the compatibility was perfect with everything I had used.

I have alse been using 7-Zip and VLC for years, but no-one in their right minds would use any other program with such functions as these two. Truly superior in nearly every way. The only downfall of these open source programs that I can see is the lack of support, by phone and email. I think that this is the only thing holding back these fantastic programs from the big time that Microsoft has achieved with its OS and Office programs and Adobe in the PDF, Photoshop and Video Editing departments.

Actually I don't know of a good decent open source video editor. If anyone can point me to one, it would be much appreciated.

Donate to these lovely programs, cause I have. They all deserve it for the hard work that goes into them and it would be a shame to see any of them go under or stop being developed.

Weekend!

2009-10-17T16:46:00.004+01:00

Hey, its the weekend. So I went to work on a Saturday as usual. Then I met with friends, and went home. I also am meeting my friends today at Lamas land, a park in Cambridge where I live. I look forward to it every week, cause they nearly all go to a different college. Should be good.

Now I am watching Star Trek. Next Generation, for anyone who knows the different names. Series 5, ep 21. Its good.

Now my friend is tagging loads of pictures on Facebook, which is kind of annoying. 151 emails so far -_-

Next week should be the same as last week, doing lessons. Actually, on Wednesday I had Sound Technology for an enrichment thingy, which was really awesome actually. I said a sentence, "The quick fox jumps over the lazy dog" and then made other words out of it such as "Docks" and the like. That was quite fun. Next week we will be manipulating animal sounds to sound like other animals. Which will be very interesting.

Have a good Saturday and Sunday and week ahead everybody.

P.S I have a few Google Wave invites left. Email me: jamieroos1@googlemail.com and I'll see whether I can get one to you :)

Cool Sites I Just Found

2009-10-12T15:30:00.000+01:00

http://www.dspoke.com/projects/flash/orbit1.php

http://www.dspoke.com/projects/flash/orbit2.php

http://www.dspoke.com/projects/flash/drawdots.php

http://www.dspoke.com/projects/flash/line.php

http://www.dspoke.com/projects/flash/3lines.php

Made by my Mums website guy.

Guiltless plug: www.casatuscany.com is my mums site that sells houses in Italy, mainly Tuscany.

Winter, Mates and College

2009-10-04T19:34:00.002+01:00

Well as the year gets old, it gets cold. (That kinda rhymes which is pretty cool :D)

Yesterday was one of the best Saturdays i've had in a while. I spent the morning and the beginning of the afternoon doing some work for my Dad, which was good fun and it got me some money.

After that, I stayed at the Vaults as some friends were around and so we socialised for a bit and stuff. Then I got the bus home and I had a wash and a shave, then got a lift back.

Now that happens just about every Saturday which I really enjoy cause I like seeing everybody there :)

When I got back into town I walked up to Lamas land to meet with mates... again. Its sort of turned into something that happens every Saturday night, which is great. However this week it was extra great, it really seriously was. Its kinda hard to explain but it was just the group of people and the stuff we do together (nothing dodgy intended :P)

Anyway, after that I walked back to the Vaults and had a couple of pints of Magners and then, my sister wanted to go home so I joined her back to the house. Then a little something to eat then bed. Overall a fantastic evening :D

So that was yesterday. How interesting.

College is fine at the moment, I think I have decided to drop Physics next year. It is so fast paced, so difficult compared to the other subjects I do. Computing, Maths and Electonics I am really enjoying overall. Much finer than secondary school :D.

Peace out till next time.

College and Muse

2009-09-16T14:44:00.004+01:00

Well I am at College. I have a fantastic school and a great timetable with the subjects i actually want to do, unlike secondary where you have to do stuff like French and English. Now I am doing Maths, Physics, Electronics and Computing. Computing and Electronics are the most interesting to me but Maths and Physics are useful for the future and are quite interesting. Altogether I feel I have picked fantastic subjects. Timetable here.

Away from subjects, the school itself. Its strange calling the teachers by their first names but I am getting used to it. Having a lot more freedom is nice too, like being able to go off site anytime as long as we don't have lessons and being able to use our phones (but not in lessons, of course).

The people, well, what can I say. Most of the girls are extremely beautiful... but I won't go into that. I have met some nice people and everybody seems to get along nicely compared to secondary school. For example for the first few lessons the teachers would try and mix us up with games and little activities, which were quite helpful. There are some really nice people, which I am really happy about.

The workload is, well, not bad. I think it is a lot more than secondary school but then again we have a lot more free time, so it evens out.

Overall I am really enjoying college.

Now also, in the title, why would I mention Muse? This is because their new album, The Resistance, is possibly one of the finest works of art the world has seen. It is awe inspiring.

Its on Spotify I believe and is free to listen to on there as long as you have an account on it of course. I bought the iTunes LP the day it came out cause I was listening to the previews and couldn't resist. I also thought it would be nice to have at least one iTunes LP. They are quite interesting.

Post GCSE Results

2009-08-28T17:00:00.005+01:00

Well, I just cleared up the house after a great party last night to celebrate the GCSE Results! Anyway, that was hard work and I wish some people had stayed behind and helped. But no matter.

I am quite happy with my results, cause it is plenty to get me into Long Road. Which is great! Enrolment day on the 2nd of September, which should be fun. Think I start on the 11th of September.

Peace out. Starting to get a headache... think the party is catching up on me and my 2 hours of sleep ;-)

GCSE Results

2009-08-27T11:46:00.001+01:00

GCSE Results

English B
English Lit B
French C
Italian C
Photography C
Classical Civilisation C
Science B
Additional Science B
Maths A
Additional Maths A
Media A

For those who care. Now party tonight :)

------

Twitter: http://twitter.com/Rooster212 | Skype: jamieroos1 | Blog: rooster212.blogspot.com

Making a Hackint0sh - PLEASE FEEDBACK!!!

2009-08-17T14:40:00.005+01:00

Recently I have decided that I am going to build a computer. First it was going to be a killer gaming rig that could run Crysis on full settings while rendering the apocalypse in a virtual machine but I realised that it would be far too expensive as I am currently not in a high pay job. So I decided, why not do what you have always wanted and make a hackint0sh from the ground up with all compatible parts?

So, I set out (on Google) and searched through literally hundreds of pages until I found a couple of good ones:

Firstly, this one outlines 4 basic to workstation builds that can run OS X as well as any quad core Mac Pro.

Secondly, this one outlines compatible netbooks. (which would be AWESOME).

Thirdly, the OSx86 team wiki outlines compatible parts and laptops etc.

What I can't decide is whether to go for a:

a) Custom desktop

b) Netbook

c) Laptop

As I already have a laptop, I would be unlikely to want that. But I want a netbook anyway and a decent desktop would be nice anyway, as the one I have at the moment is falling to bits and doesn't meet the minimum specs for Windows 7, which I would like to dual boot also.

Some thoughts please below - if anyone reads this.

Xbox Mod Part 1: Complete

2009-08-13T01:33:00.003+01:00

Well, the case is on the Xbox and the DVD drive cover is off so you can see the disc. Unfortunately the fan didn't work properly and kept overheating so I had to unplug the lights to make it work properly. When the Whisper fans come it should work.

Full flickr album of shots here

Xbox Mod: In Detail

2009-08-10T22:17:00.006+01:00

I have taken that step that I have always wanted to with my xbox and... prepared to modify it in awesome and unforseen ways.

Firstly, the most readily available parts available:

The Blue Ghost Case v2 (Purchased from EBay here) £28.99 + £8.99 P&P

Next up: Talismoon Whisper Fans (With Blue LED's) (purchased from EBay here) £10.69 (FREE P&P)

Of the last (sort of) readily available parts: A Custom Blue RoL (ring of light) to replace the standard green lights on the front of the 360 for... blue ones.

Then... I had my own idea. I wanted a temperature sensor too, but the only place I had seen one for an xbox was in a custom case that was already built in. So... I ordered a PC one and the right cable to ensure its connectivity.

(Picture here of LED Display)

Basically, it will be blue and flashy and awesome. Final writeup will start tomorrow when the case (should) arrive! The rest of the parts are still payment pending or backordered or from USA :(

EDIT: Only the case has arrived. And I haven't picked it up yet. So I will probably start later today if i can be bothered to go and get it from my dads or tomorrow when he can drop it off.

Xbox Modding

2009-08-09T20:10:00.002+01:00

Well I recently sorted my paypal/ebay relationship and so have had a way to buy things. Firstly, I thought I would mod my boring plain old xbox. So I purchased -

A blue case (With light kit)

A Blue RoL board (for the front)

A Temperature Display

Some whisper fans with Blue LED's (58% more air movement, 7% quieter)

A Energyzer Xbox 260 Y cable (to draw 5V power off the xbox to power the temperature)

The case, Blue RoL and Whisper fans were courtesy of EBay at the grand total price of £51.

The other 2 parts were brought off Watercooling UK (Display) for £4.40 + P&P and TheGameTrain.com (Energyzer cable)

Anyway, looking forward for those parts to arrive to have an awesome looking xbox!

In other news, I haven't really been up to much. Last night I went to a posh dinner to celebrate my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. Was lovely (and expensive).

Now playing Forza Motorsport 2. Have fun everybody.

Croatia and More Holiday

2009-08-07T10:06:00.010+01:00

I don't blog very often, I know it. But thats because not much happens.

Anyway, its been a few weeks. The main thing that has happened: I have been to Croatia. It was a lovely country, very hot, nice women, nice food, lovely beaches. That basically sums it up. As I knew I wouldn't remember everything that went on, I kept a journal from leaving the airport on the first day until the plane flight back. Here they are.

Journal 1:

Got on plane around 3.30 UK time. Had a bit of a boring flight, listened to music and watched a tv program (mock the week :P )

Got to Dubrovnik airport around 8pm Dubrovnik time (time is 1 hour ahead here). Got met by the woman who owned the flat we are swapping with her for our house in Italy. Really interesting woman. Anyway, took around 30 mins to drive to the apartment. On the way she showed us the shop and old town from the top of the mountain which we drove on. Amazing sunset over the bay.

Got to the flat, unpacked a bit and got changed. Then we hunted down a restaurant cause we were all starving. About 9pm we left the flat and made our way around the marina. Found a touristy pizza place and had margherita and a beer. Lovely.

Stumbled back to the flat cause we were all tired and went straight to bed.

Journal 2:

Just woke up, about 12 noon. Lovely sleep. Next objective is to get up and go get some breakfast/lunch. We are probably going to go into the old town of Dubrovnik today. I'll try and get some sunglasses and maybe a watch if I can find one. Currency they use here is Kuna, which is weird. It's 8.2 Kuna to the pound, so my pizza last night (20 kuna) cost less than 2.50.

Anyway, after we left the flat, we went to the shop for basics like bread, milk, cereal, etc. Then we came back and pigged out on the food for about half an hour. Hung around for a bit then got a bus into the old town about 3. Loads of tourists, lovely town. Lots of pictures. Literally hundreds of stray cats around the place. Anyway, had a drink in the harbour and organised a boat trip for tomorrow.

After we had a drink we went around the old town to hunt for some sunglasses. Found a shop that sold a few pairs and eventually settled on a pair for 70 Kuna. Not bad, about £9.

After that we looked for a restaurant. Found a couple of expensive places that we didn't like. Eventually we found a nice little place down one of the side streets in the old town. Had spaghetti. Mmm.

Nice stroll back to the bus station. Got ice cream on the way. got bus back, walked to flat, changed into swimming shorts.

We left the flat and tried to find the beach. Instead we found another huge cluster of restaraunts, bars, and even an Internet Park. Loads of computers in a park. The only one in the world apparantly! Eventually we found the sad excuse for a beach, a 500 meter stretch of pebbles next to the sea. Anyway, we skimmed some stones and walked in the sea for a bit. Then we came back to flat and hung out for a bit. I read a magazine while they played cards.

In bed now. Got a boat trip early tomorrow so want to be nice and fresh for that. I won't even bother taking my phone with me tomorrow because:

A: I have decided there is no free wifi ANYWHERE in this town
B: I might drop it in the sea tomorrow on our boat trip.
C: Nobody has called me anyway :(

Journal 3:
Got up far too early today (about 8.30) so that we could catch a boat we had booked. It was a very nice boat trip, well worth getting up for. We were taken to an island off Croatia for an hour then we left. When we got to the next island half of us stayed on the boat while the other half went and had time on the island. Very nice lunch of freshly caught fish, free range chicken and local wine. After we had eaten and been on the island, we got back on the boat and went to the final island on the itinerary which was lovely. Rocky beaches, sandy beaches, loads of bars. We went to the rocky beach first cause the water was much clearer. Unfortunately I got a lot of sand in my eyes from under the water and we had to leave the beach and hunt down a bar for a bit of self imposed first aid and a bit of cold drink. Eventually I sorted my eye and then we strolled around a bit more until we had to return to the boat for the return journey back to Dubrovnik's old town where we had set off that morning. It was a great boat trip overall lasting 8 hours! Very good price too, €63/500 Kuna for all 3 of us, a boat trip with lunch and wine all included.

After we arrived back in town we went to a awesome looking place with really cool chairs (my sister is 12, ok?). I managed to find wifi there and had a quick check for emails etc. Only 4 emails, 3 mentions on twitter and a facebook message about James' party on the 7th August. Haven't recieved a single text or phone call while here but it is actually quite nice to be away from everything. Just relaxing in the sun and enjoying magazines and books and music and drinking.

Tomorrow is a lazy day. Nothing planned. Off to bed now.

Journal 4:
A late rise this morning, for we had nothing interesting to do. I got up about 11.45 then had a shower. After that, we had a bit of a brunch. Of course we couldn't spend the whole day doing that so we decided to go down to the beach.

I was ready within 10 minutes of course, but mum and Gaby being young women both had to "get ready". This required a shower, makeup, fresh towels, hair doing etc. So about 1.30 we finally left, half an hour after I was ready. Oh well.

Got down the beach about 2. We managed to get a spot right next to the sea which was nice. I took up a spot in the shade of our umbrella while the girls took up the two sub loungers to do what women do on sunny holidays, which is frazzle themselves in the sun. I sat there reading a book while they did the same except I didn't want to burn to a crisp (damn my ultra fair skin).

Most of the day I spent there sitting reading my book and listening to music and generally chilling. We somehow managed to stay there till 6.30, so then we left to get changed fo the evenings trip out. Got back to flat about 7, I got ready within about 15 mins while the girls showered (again), make up'ed and whatever else girls do inbetween showering and getting ready to leave the house. Eventually, after 2 hours at 9pm, we left and walked back to the seaside to find a restaurant. We settled on a beachside restaurant in front of a hotel in which there was a band that sang old classics and had the accent of typical Croatians. It added a nice twist to the singing of 'Ring of Fire', 'Viva Las Vegas' and even 'Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone'. Anyway, I had pizza, mum had pizza and Gaby had a disgusting carbonara. She had quite a bit with some bread to help with the taste. We then played some more cards after the meal was done and listen to the band sing some song originally sung by Eric Clapton that my mum loved. Apparently it was about his 2 year old daughter who fell out of a 5th storey window. Nice.

After the restaraunt, we went to a nice bar with swingy chairs that the other 2 just HAD to sit in. So I sat in the other boring chair and played Bejeweled on my phone while they played rummy cause I was bored of cards. Cause that is all we do every time we sit down, I get poked and a wide eyed sister of mine will say, "Got the cards?", and of course I oblige and give her the cards. But somehow I always got dragged into the same game.

After the place with swingy chairs came and gave us the bill cause they seemed to shut at midnight everywhere (why?) we went home and managed to finally find BBC world on the tv. Something about a huge oil price fall and how a bomb had gone off in Majorca. Not much happening then.

Now in bed doing this and listening to a bit of music before another random day tomorrow. Might head to another bit of the area that we haven't been to yet. Apparently it was the capital before some people left and started another one, incedentally called Dubrovnik. Now it is not the capital anyway. But it was.

Anyway really going to sleep now.

Journal 5:
Woke up late again today as usual. Had a shower, had a bit of brunch then we set off for Dubrovnik Old Town, from which we got the boat to Cavtat, the ex-captal of Croatia. It was very similar to the rest of Croatia I have been to. Anyway, we went off to a bar and had a drink. Then the girls wanted to go shopping, so I was dragged along into shops on the way to the beaches. My sister started being annoying and decided she wanted to sit right next to the water on the one beach that was unsuitable - one without shade. Cause me and my mum both burn really easily. So she sulked on the beach for half an hour while me and my mum took some shade higher up the hill. Eventually she came up and we found a better beach where we could relax.

After that beach about 5.30, we went bak to another bar for a drink and then caught the boat back to Dubrovnik old town. We found a little cheap restaurant, I had a lovely burger which made a nice change from pizza and pasta. Gaby had a burger too and my mum had.. a salad.

After that we started to slowly walk back to the bus station. On the way we stopped in a few shops, bought presents, I got an ice cream and we watched a little band for 15 mins. After that we got the bus back to the apartment and enjoyed some chill time watching tv, reading and talking.

Now in bed. Really really hot! Can't get to sleep! Anyway, I'll just play games for a bit till I feel tired. Late start again tomorrow so no rush to get to sleep!

Journal 6:
Today was a pretty average day. Got up about 12, just as the girls were leaving for the shop cause we were about to run out of various things. I got ready to go out while they went and then we had lunch when they got back.

After lunch and getting ready, at about 2.30, we left for the beach. Today was also by far the hottest day. Anyway, we dragged our feet down to the beach and found a nice place in the shade. My mum and sister also bought 2 pairs of goggles and a snorkel, so mr and my sister went snorkelling for a couple of hours. Lots of tropical fish under the water. Lovely experience. Then we got out of the water and chilled on the beach for another couple of hours, then about 6.30 we got home.

We got ready to go out then caught a bus to the city center. The buses were absolutely packed! We missed the first one cause it didn't bother to stop and the second one was quite a squeeze. We got into town, where we headed to a restaurant down by the harbour that we wanted to go to. We asked for a table and he lead us inside and we nearly stopped him until we realised there was a little terrace right next to the sea with only a few tables. Lively peaceful meal, then we left to have a look at the sea at night from a little lookout point just around the corner. We then headed back towards the only gate in the city, getting ice cream on the way. Unfortunately I got a bit stressy cause a few things were bugging me and all they wanted to do was go and have another drink while all I wanted to do was go home.

Eventually after waiting for the bus for 20 mins we managed to get on one and got back to the flat around 11.30pm.

Just went straight to my room, I had a few things to think about and stuff. Watched mock the week and Dragons Den in the past couple of hours while I have not bothered trying to sleep cause it is so hot. I think it is about 25°C. Now listening to sone chille music and will go to sleep after I have finished this journal.

Tomorrow - to the beach! Our last full day in Croatia, we will be going to the airport at 6pm local time on Monday, with our flight at 8.30pm, arriving in England at around 10.30pm English time. Won't be home till around 1am. Long day on Monday.

Anyway sleep time.

Journal 7:
We went to the beach today. Not much else. Got up late, got ready, then went out. Had another snorkel in the sea which was fun. We also had a very nice set of seats right next to the bar with some stairs down to the water.

After we had a few hours at the beach, at around 7pm, we left the beach and headed home. We got dressed etc and then headed out again for dinner. We walked down to the beach again and found a nice little restaurant that had pasta and pizza. Kept us happy. Then we went to some shops and I bought a wallet, my mum bought a necklace and my sister... didn't buy anything. We then got ice cream and walked home. Chilled in bed for a bit with a bit of TV (Mock The Week and Dragons Den :P )

Then now going to sleep. Night.

Journal 8:
Final day today. Got up about 10.30, had breakfast and packed a bit of stuff. Then we headed into town for a bit to enjoy some of the old buildings (yawn). Looked around a bit, saw a temperature display that said 38°C, sat at a bar and had a drink and some chips about 3.30, then headed back. Got our final ice cream on the way back. Then got the extremely hot bus and left the city.

Now just finished packing. Leaving in 10 mins. Next stop: Airport.

~~~~~

On airplane now. Got to airport, on the way talked to Asra (who's boyfriend owned the flat) who experienced the war in Ugoslavia a few years ago. Interesting story about how she left the country with an English family and didn't have contact with her family for years. Very interesting.

Anyway, got to airport, checked in, had sandwhich, went through security, spent every single Kuna we had (Croatian currency) then we spent some Euros on the Tax-Free Shop. I bought chocolate, my mum bought alcohol. Surprise surprise.

Then got on airplane. Got the last 3 seats together, which was good. Now listening to music and enjoying chocolate. Next stop - England then home.

Overall, I have really enjoyed this holiday. Really hot, really nice sea, nice food. Although the people could have been nicer, most were lovely. Enjoyed 2 boat trips and walking a lot. Lots of women in bikinis and nice makeup in the evenings was nice to look at but a bit depressing :P

There it is. Not incredibly interesting. But I also got some nice pics:

Set on Flickr

Some of my favourites:

Considering these were taken with my iPhone, I think they are alright :P

Anyway, nothing much else has happened apart from Croatia. Had to cancel my trip to the Tomorrow's web conference on Saturday ;-( because of a meal in the evening with my grandparents. It is their 50th wedding anniversary, so a really posh meal at a really posh place in really smart clothing. Should be fun. Get to see my uncle and his girlfriend as well, who we haven't seen in ages. Also going to a party later on today. Musn't drink too much otherwise my grandparents will suspect something (like i drink :P )

Holidays Continue

2009-07-17T22:42:00.003+01:00

The holidays have been continuing, and I haven't really done much. I was stuck inside for 7 days last week because I contracted swine flu, which wasn't the best of experiences, but now I am all better. Been meeting up with friends and stuff mostly. Today however I stayed inside and did nothing, because it rained a lot. I mean, a LOT. Must have been in the inches per minute scale of things. So I stayed in, did some washing up and generally did nothing. Now I am bored and lonely.

Just installed Office 2010 Technical Preview, which I must say looks a lot nicer but apart from that, runs like a bitch. Keeps crashing, which I know is expected but it also erased 2007, which means if i want to run a stable email program... I should either reinstall Thunderbird or point my Firefox to mail.google.com. Which is fine by me. Outlook 2010 is running ok for now but if it starts crashing every 2 mins, I will have to use the internet (gasp).

Deciding what to do now. Work in the morning, going to Wales tomorrow afternoon for a party (w00t drunk time) and will be pretty wasted for Sunday/Monday. Not coming back till Monday I think, so should be fun. Going to Croatia in a week and a halves time (about) (i think). Might just go to bed now after checking my news feeds and using all my energy in Spymaster on Twitter and Mafia Wars in Facebook. How sad my life is.

Boredom

2009-07-11T14:07:00.003+01:00

So i have had a pretty boring holiday so far. I have also had to cancel a trip to Newquay because of this bloody swine flu. Can it get any better? Well i hope it does. Most of my friends have gone abroad so I can't be with them. I had a bit of a tiff with one of my other best friends this morning, so i probably won't see her again for a long time, cause I think she is going on holiday on the 15th. Damn. It was only a misunderstanding i hope anyway. Anyway that's done now and she doesn't read my blog anyway. I'm starting to wonder if anyone apart from my good friend Jamie Rumbelow does.

I am bored out of my brain at the moment. I am sitting on my bed on a Saturday when i should have been working this morning and I also wanted to get out of the bloody house. I feel fine now but I have to stay inside because 5 days is recommended for swine flu. Just playing on the xbox. At the moment I am having a bit of chill time, by myself, disconnected from the world, listening to Moby. Skype, MSN, all that turned off on my computer. Phones always on but i never get anything through that unless someone wants something anyway.

Might write something for my tutorial blog later. Although I don't think anybody has actually read it anyway.

Holidays: Part 1

2009-07-09T20:18:00.002+01:00

Really what a holiday is all about is hanging about doing what you want. So, that is what I have been doing. Mainly playing xbox, saw a couple of films, meeting with friends.

However at the moment I seem to be in a little bit of a pickle. Something to do with the fact I have a little illness... called Swine Flu. Damn. Can't go out, massive headache, on drugs. Fun stuff.

Anyway, tv watching online and on the tv (duh) ensues at the moment. Torchwood is good :P

Everything After Exams

2009-07-01T17:42:00.000+01:00

So, my exams are over. What a time I have had since.

Thursday - my last blog post covered it, but I saw the legend that is
BB King at the NIA in Birmingham. I was shocked to find out when I
came out that Michael Jackson had died of a cardiac arrest.

Friday - incredible night. Had the Parkside Prom at my school to
celebrate the end of exams. Was fantastic. The prom was great, and the
afterparty was better. Got drunk (a first for me) and really enjoyed
myself.

Saturday - well the party continued late into the night/morning. 4am,
I was walking a friend home. 4.30 we got to their house. 6am I
stumbled into my house, and fell asleep on the sofa. 12.30pm, and I
was awoken by my stepbrother, and ferried into town for a bit. Still
fucked from the night before though :P

Sunday - got up, about 1pm, went with my dad to set up a barbecue for
his staff, cause one of the managers had been sacked and it was
supposed to be the announcement. But it got leaked the night before
and all the staff were fucked. Anyway, we had a very fun day, played
football, drank more, ate. Went home about 6, played xbox.

Rest of time - Been organising a trip to Newquay with my stepbrother,
Josh. We did this because the whole family didn't have money to go :(

Will be off on that trip 12th of July until 16th July. Should be
awesome!

Right now, I am sitting in a building site. Why? Cause I am earning
money for this trip. This will pay for my flights. Accommadation will
be sorted by money from working this weekend, and money I have lying
around. Will also be working at the Vaults a lot more, got glass
collecting on Saturday nights and couple of day shifts being manger
(well, close to. Paying bills, sorting backups, cleaning a bit).

Basically action packed holiday for next few weeks. After Newquay, I
should be back in Cambridge. Off to Dbrovnik in Croatia end of July
with my mum and sister. That's all my plans so far for this summer,
I'm sure that will change soon enough.

It's Over!

2009-06-25T14:45:00.000+01:00

I might have already written about this, but I don't remember. But
exams, and secondary school, are finally over.

Yesterday, which was the day I finished, was brilliant after the exam.
We had a barbecue on Midsummer Common in Cambridge, which was great
fun. Did some cooking and eating, some swam in the river, some even
swam naked (which was funny). Anyway, it was an extremely tiring day.
After that I went home and played xbox solidly for 6 hours, Farcry 2
and COD, WaW. Well deserved if you ask me.

Anyway, got up this morning about 10am, had some stuff to do. Went to
pay for some schoolbooks which needed to be paid for (that came out
badly) and got a late birthday present for my mum. I am bad at getting
presents for people. After that, went home, watched some Wimbledon and
then my dad picked me up.

He picked me up cause we are going to see BB King tonight live at the
NIA in Birmingham. Going to be amazing. We stopped off at the suit
shop and my grandads pub to pick up, well, my suit for my prom
tomorrow, and my grandad, cause he is coming to the concert too.

Going to be immense. Hopefully this sends, cause I am sending this via
email from my iPhone while going at 90mph on the A14 just outside
Huntington. Peace out guys.

P.S if you are going to BB King tonight, I am in Block A, Row C. 3
rows from the front :P I will twitpic some later.

The Post-School Life and Early Holiday

2009-06-22T17:06:00.004+01:00

Well, exams are nearly over (1 left!) and I haven't had much to do. At all. So I have been catching up with some xbox 360 gametime after my exams mostly. However I have also had a 16th Birthday which was ok considering it was in the middle of exams, and have had a few good trips out.

Saturday the 20th of June was a fun day, I went out with my mums parents to a very posh restaurant (which was interesting). The food was awesome(ly overpriced) and the service was incredible. After that, I was dropped off at the Vaults for a drink. Well this turned into eventual chatting up the barmaid drinking before a tasty dinner (mmm ostrich burger).

Sunday 21st - Fathers day and my mums birthday. Went out for a walk with my mum for an hour or so before heading home for a lazy day at home. Didn't get her a present but I don't think she really wanted anything anyway. I would have got her something if I knew what to get her. But alas, she is a woman, so it is difficult for a 16 year old boy (w00t) to find clothes for a 40-something woman.

Monday - Had to go early into school to mount some photography stuff for an art show. Took about an hour and a half, then went home and played farcry 2 on the 360 for about 5 hours (sad I know. Thats why I need a girlfriend :P). Then wrote a bit more of the iPhone 3.0 jailbreak tutorial that everybody has been eagerly awaiting (i hope).

I was thinking about new stuff to write tutorials for so I wrote a list of them for everybody to see here. I am looking for more suggestions so email me at jamieroos1@googlemail.com or sound off in the comments below. Will finish screenshots and upload the 3.0 jailbreak shortly.

Happy Birthday.

2009-06-16T16:48:00.003+01:00

Today, the 16th of June 2009, is my 16th birthday. Not a great day so far, I must say. Although it has been nice to have so many birthday wishes. (i should have joined facebook years ago :P)

Had a 2 1/2 hour media exam, so I had to go to that instead of doing something i wanted to do. Spent the morning before generally chilling, eating some breakfast and doing nothing apart from half an hour of Media revision and a bit of present opening.

Presents: Got a USB fan and a USB flash drive and a Clarkson book from my sister, which are great.
I got a nice shirt, £40 and a couple of DVDs from my mum.
Haven't seen anyone else or got any presents from anyone else yet, so I imagine my dad will have gotten me and external hard drive and Red Faction: Guerilla for XBox 360.

Oh wait, i got a £50 gift card from my grandad and step grandma for GAP. I need to get some English summer clothing (e.g some shorts and a waterproof coat :P)

Happy birthday to me :P

Schools Out

2009-06-12T18:13:00.004+01:00

So, school is over. For real this time. From now on, I never have to go to secondary school again, its a huge step in life. Sixth form is where all the real action happens.

I will really miss Parkside. Last day was full of shirt signings and hugs all around. Unfortunately for me and about 20 other people, we had to spend the afternoon everybody else had off in the exam hall doing a classics exam. However it didn't matter because the feeling afterwards was amazing. I really felt truly happy for the first time in ages, because I rarely do. Of course there is sadness too, with the possibility of not seeing some people for a long time.

I walked home with a smile and looked at the t-shirt that loads of people had signed. Dirty stuff from Digi, a penis drawing from Catherine (sand phallus :P) and of course loads of Rooster written everywhere. A nice drawing from Will of a rooster also looked awesome :P

Looking ahead to the summer, I see I will be bored. Swimming, gaming, drinking, concerts, coding, friends and work are all on the list for summer. But that can only go on for so long, cause 12 weeks is a long time with no school or learning to do whatsoever.

After that is the big time, sixth form. I really am looking forward to going to a new school. I will really miss the friends that are going to other places like Hills Road and CRC, but i will see them around all the time. I can't wait to do subjects I really want to do (Maths, Physics, Computing and Electronics) and some other things too... but thats for later :P

WWDC, 3.0 and My Week So Far

2009-06-10T20:32:00.007+01:00

So, WWDC was a fail. Well, for me anyway. The MacBook rebranding to MacBook Pro didn't impress me, and Steve Jobs didn't appear. The only thing I wanted was 3.0, and Apple dude (forgotten his name) said 17th. 17th! I cannot wait that long for some software i was hoping would be released that day. So, I took action. I downloaded a torrent of the GM/Golden Master, which is the development seed that is supossed to be the exact same as the proper one.

I took the risk of restoring my phone, as before, if you tried the beta it wouldn't work unless your IMEI was on a developer account. Which didn't happen this time. Oh yes.

I restored it, synced it, backed it up and restarted. It works fantastically.

Cut, Copy and Paste are fantastic, Voice Memos are no use to me whatsoever and landscape keyboard and MMS are two features that should have been there in the first place. Awesome. Plus the new note syncing is awesome and works well (with Outlook) and i have noticed less crashes in Safari and backups are faster. All in all, a well needed update.

Anyone who is thinking about getting it but is unsure, search by the bay for "iPhone 3G 3.0 7A341" without the speech marks. The file you are looking for is called "iPhone1,2_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw". I am not going to place a direct link just in case. This filename is ONLY for the iPhone 3G (you will seriously mess up the other devices if you restore this firmware on it), but there are others for iPod Touch and original iPhone floating around the torrent network. They will all have 7A341 in the name i believe.

Away from iPhone 3.0 news, i have switched to Windows XP from Windows 7. Long story, but basically i enjoy the speed of XP compared to the memory guzzling Windows Vista and 7 in comparison to the 128mb of ram that XP is running at most of the time for me. Also, i switched to Outlook and Firefox 3.5b99 is out, which means it is nearing final release, which is awesome.

Also been having mixed feelings about leaving secondary school. Will be fantastic at Long Road (my sixth form) but I will miss the small things like my friends and hanging out on parkers piece at lunch playing football. It is the end of what I feel has been the best 2 years of my life (Year 10 and 11). I have had the best group of friends and will really really miss them. They probably won't even see this but they know that anyway i hope :P

Also, next Friday is my prom. Got a dinner jacket and trousers and will look fantastic. Hopefully will be turning up in a limo that some of us must organize ASAP. At least i have a blog to remind me of this stuff :P

Goodbye everyone for now.

A Chilled Weekend

2009-06-07T00:21:00.004+01:00

I've had a quite chilled weekend after a hard week of exams and have been staying at my friend's, Jamie Rumbelow, house, for most of it. When I returned home I was shoved straight out again by my mum, who wanted to go out for dinner. I also met her new boyfriend, who is very nice. He is the cousin of my mums best mate.

When I returned home, I decided to finish my transition from Windows 7 to Windows XP. Now some may say this is a downgrade, but i have my reasons. Firstly, Windows 7 is a Release Candidate and still has a few errors with compatibility, and is generally slow. Secondly, I might have to erase it anyway cause the chances of me having the money to upgrade to the full thing is unlikely at best.

I just finished erasing my Windows 7 partition, and now am creating a Media partition to hold all the stuff I want to keep as I mess around with various Linux distros I want to try out. Although I will probably just use VirtualBox.

I am also going to do add a tutorial on using VirtualBox and testing out stuff with it to my list of stuff to do over the summer.

3 Weeks To Go...

2009-06-02T19:31:00.004+01:00

With 3 weeks to go until I finish secondary school for good, there isn't much going on apart from revision and exams. But there is a few things going on such as E3. E3 is going quite well, especially for the xbox side of things. Facebook and Twitter integration! w00t. And PSP Go! just announced.

Next, there is my blog. I haven't been blogging much recently as I have quite a lot of stuff to do like revision. My blog, after my exams are done, will be much more in depth and more tutorials will be added. With iPhone 3.0 coming out soon, I will do a jailbreak tutorial for ~~noobs~~ newbies to the jailbreak procedure. I will also do some OS installation and Computer building tips, as I will be embarking on a couple of projects (providing I can get the money). I also added a counter to my blog at the bottom, to keep track of reads. So far, it is all me looking, so not looking great for my blog...

11 exams completed, 9 to go. French tomorrow. Tomorrow, Thursday and Saturday, then next week. That is 6 exams in that time. Then, my Birthday on the 16th of June, then some big stuff party wise to celebrate.

Peace out.

Half Term Over and Last Stretch of School

2009-05-31T16:57:00.004+01:00

Wowzers, half term went quickly. Some was spent well revising, some was a complete waste of time playing xbox. However i felt it was fun anyway.

Highlights:

Hectors House
Some fun times with Jamie Rumbelow on Xbox Live
Barbecue

Hectors House - For revision's sake. Not much got done but it was fun anyway.
Xbox Live - Call Of Duty: WaW was fun with Jamie Rumbelow. Also the double EXP weekend on Halo 3 was fun.
Barbecue - A nice chilled out few hours, Saturday Evening. So chilled i even had a beer, even though i don't like it. Remind me never to have one again cause its not that great.

So that is basically my week of chill over. Now, I have 4 weeks of exams ahead of me (public timetable here) although only 2 are bad. Then on the 16th of June it is my birthday! w00t! and i'm 16, which means a few things, like being legal to engage in ~~hardcore~~ sexual activity (not that i will for a while) and maybe getting a moped (which would make my life so much easier).

Then a 12 week holiday. It's all to look forward to! Wish me luck...

My Thoughts: WWDC 2009

2009-05-26T19:55:00.005+01:00

I was looking through Gizmodo (as you do) when i came across this article by Gizmodo's very own Jesus Diaz and so i thought i would also give my thoughts on Apple's WWDC 2009. (WWDC = World Wide Developers Conference)

For those not "in the know", there have been rumors around for ages about these things.

Firstly, there is a new iPhone coming out. Well, we don't know that. Well, we sort of do. Because everything points at it. From the first rumor of a new matte plastic back to the latest addition to the iPhone SDK of a iPhone 2,1 picture, the internet has worked out that there will be a new iPhone. I believe it will be unvieiled at WWDC and released to the public in late July, similar to the iPhone 3G last year.

(I'm also very excited about this one, cause I should get upgrades on 02 in the UK as they did from the first iPhone to the iPhone 3G. I really hope anyway.)

Secondly, Snow Leopard. The next OS in the Mac OSX line, 10.6 promises performance enhancements and new GUI's for applications, as has been found in recent developer betas around the internet. I think it will be shown off a little at WWDC as the main showcase item, with a new developer beta no doubt available just after. I think this will be great as it has already confirmed

Third, A Mac Tablet. Many rumors have been about for this one and i really hope it becomes a reality, as a mac netbook or tablet would be great, as in my opinion OSX is by far the cleanest and best OS out there (but i am stuck on windows cause i can't hackint0sh my laptop cause of the graphics :( ). However, a netbook is likely in the current climate and i think Apple would be silly not to release one. But whether it will take a tablet form or a netbook form is unknown. There have been rumors of screen orders that are 9.7 or 10 inches and i think this is the perfect size for a tablet. Whether this would come with a keyboard or not is a good question. Drawing new netbook users in would require a hardware-keyboard but most people would still go for a virtual, on screen keyboard. But snow-leopard, as a slimmed down OS could be installed on a 8GB chip similar to the iPhone's and, with multi-touch capability confirmed in the OS and rumors coming out all the time, it looks more and more likely.

Lastly, other product refreshes. iPhone is the big one, as detailed above. iPod Touch refreshes i think shall also happen soon, with a similar time frame to the iPhone. There have also been rumors of MacBook Pro rebrandings, but I don't think this will happen anytime soon, and definetely not at the WWDC 2009 conference.

The Beginnings of Half Term

2009-05-26T16:40:00.005+01:00

So, it's half term. Any other half term that isn't in the middle of GCSE's or exams would encompass major xbox playing and staying up into the early hours. However, this half term has been a major exception, with many hours of revision. However, there has also been some xbox playing, as there has to be a good balance between work and play, otherwise stress sets in. If i'm honest, i am still feeling pretty stressed, even if I am not the huge panicer. I don't show it while i'm around the house, but i am constantly worried about not doing well. But i'm sure it will be all for nothing, then i will open that envelope mid-august and see nice high grades and say "i am so happy i spent that time revising instead of messing around" cause its not like a few weeks lost to hard work cannot be got back in the 12 or 13 week holiday afterwards.

Anyway, I am writing this in my break so i should probably get back to revision. Thinking of a tutorial on making the perfect firefox browser later, so i think i will do that after dinner.

Link of the day: One awesome tweak for firefox! Check it out on mine (its the transparent effect if you are slow or can't be bothered to click the link) (i got this from Lifehacker)

(edit: i just did a blog post on making the ultimate browsing experience: check it out)

A Normal Saturday

2009-05-23T21:01:00.004+01:00

So, my normal Saturday began normally, just as it usually would. I went to work and did the jobs i should do and had a very interesting conversation about the night before (for him, anyway) and how he had a mate... and they both went round this girls house... and there were 2 girls... and... need i say more?

Anyway, after work, i met up with Henry, my friend. I also walked past someone else i know, who is pretty awesome but i didn't get a chance to stop him, he looked in a rush and so was I. anyway, then me and henry went back to my house and we played a bit of Half Life 2 and a bit of Halo 3, which was fun. He left about half 4ish, i revised from then till 6, then had a nice chat on Omegle (see below) then had dinner. After that, watched a great film (in French) called Jean de Florrette. Brilliant film. Anyway, then i came and wrote this.

Now i am going to play Halo/COD5/Half Life/something on the xbox.

Anyway, Omegle is a great website that lets you talk randomly to people. Now, some might say this is dangerous, but I say f*** off. As long as you're not stupid and give away your postcode or something, i don't see why it would be dangerous. Anyway, i had a nice chat with an Indonesian guy about music and trains (because he wanted to go to England and were talking about journeys).

Nite everybody.

A Friday

2009-05-22T17:07:00.002+01:00

Friday with no school before exams = revision. Most of the day was composed of revision. However, while i did revision i was installing XP on my sisters Aspire One, as she HATEs linux with a passion. However, i also didn't like it as it was very locked down and difficult to get to the settings of the system. Anyway, this went on until around now, where i will be having a well deserved break while i finish this installation and play a bit of Half Life 2.

Check this out too (Mac users) courtesy of Lifehacker. Very cool, and wish i could have. If only i had OS X (the finest operating system around).

Battle of the Browsers

2009-05-21T21:03:00.010+01:00

OK, well one of the biggest argued points on the huge network called the Internet is the one over which is the best browser.

Main contenders: IE8, (IE stands for Internet Explorer for non internet speak people), Firefox, Safari 3.2.3 and the newest addition to the group, Google Chrome/Chromium.

Now for the sake of this article, i am going to talk current versions of the browsers. For IE, this is self explanatory but for Firefox, i am talking 3.0.10 and for Google Chrome, version 1.0.x.

So, without further addoo, here is the order that (i think) the browsers are in order (best first)

1: Firefox 3.0.10

The king of all browsers: Firefox. With its huge development team for extensions (everyone and anyone) and its open source base, it is a perfect browser, being updated all the time with speed boosts and new features. The next full version, 3.5, is currently in beta promising huge speed boosts, a new private browsing mode (similar to Chromes Incognito Mode and IE8's InPrivate mode and a faster start up time.

Bad points: Sucks away your RAM and is bad for SSD's, cause it is constant read-write to the drive as opposed to other browsers which run mostly in RAM.

You can get the latest version of Firefox here.

2: Google Chrome/Chromium

Google Chrome entered the market of browsers not so long ago, but it is already one of the best browsers around. It also has a very promising future, bringing extensions. Because it is new and based on Webkit, it is a very fast loader of pages full of interactive content. The clean interface also allows even internet newbies to make bookmarks and use tabs instead of windows. The single process for a tab system, which i believe is being picked up by Firefox soon too, is a very robust system too and allows for use of the browser even if one of your internet pages manages to crash, you can continue use in another tab.

Bad points: It's lack of extensions puts it right down the list for me, but the clean user interface and fast loading times bring it further up the list than Safari and IE8.

You can get the latest stable version of Chrome here, and you can follow Chromium (the open source version) here.

Edit: Google Chrome has been upgraded to 2.0. Links above.

3: Internet Explorer 8

Internet Explorer controls most of the internet share. This is only because of the standard built in nature of it in all windows systems. However, it is still a good browser, not to be forgotten about at the moment.

Internet Explorer is now famous in the web industry for being annoying. This, however is not because of IE8. Standards that web designers must comply to include being compatible with IE6. This is annoying as it takes extra time and effort to make an IE6 compatible version of the site. But, the latest reincarnation is a wonder for internet browsing. It is based on WebKit, so it is fast. It is also built to be fast. However, it is closed source and so takes a lot longer to produce extensions that cannot be fully integrated into the browser unlike Firefox. It also takes quite a while to load up.

Main page here, downloads available here.

4: Safari 2.3.2

Safari was the first browser to be based on WebKit, as it was built by Apple. It has also been the most innovative, using tabs and the like first in a mainstream browser. However, it lacks any sort of extensions and has quite a dull interface that could be difficult for first time users to get used to. However, Safari 4 is promising with lots of visual features. However, this order is based on current browsers.

Windows version available here, Leopard available here and Tiger available here.

This is my roundup of all the mainstream browsers at the moment. However, there are plenty of betas out too.

Chromium
Safari 4
Firefox 3.5

These are all massive improvements over their predecessors, however should be used with care. While i believe that Firefox and Safari 4 betas are fine for everyday use at the moment, Chromium development is still in early days and so maybe shouldn't, as it is unstable and could have multiple security problems.

There is that space on the far left of my Windows 7 Taskbar reserved for my browser. While at the moment it is Firefox 3.0.10, it could easily be replaced with Safri 4 Beta or Chrome, as they both fantastic browsers. Chromium is also very promising in the future. Leave thoughts below :)

An exam filled Wednesday

2009-05-20T15:33:00.006+01:00

The most ~~interesting~~ important part of the day today was the 40 minute science exam i had this afternoon. It was incredibly easy, as i find most science papers (and Reading papers in languages).

Chatting at lunch about having a party after my school prom on the 26th of June, cause y'no, the party at school isn't great because of the lack of alcohol and the fact that we don't want to make fools of ourselves in front of the teachers. Anyway, you can fall asleep at parties at other peoples houses anyway. Asked my dad if we could have it at the Vaults (his place btw) but he said no because of the fact that we are all underage and its open to the public and is a licenced premises where kids are not allowed after 10.30 anyway. Sad face. Looks like it will be at my house anyway, if my dad lets me have one. I will be talking to him about it tomorrow after my Italian exam in the afternoon. But no school! lie in. yay.

Other stuff: I was thinking of stuff to write about on my Tutorial blog and came up with a short list.

Customising your Windows Desktop
Doing a Jailbreak on the iPhone/iPod Touch
Upgrading to Windows 7 RC/Build 7100
Installing and Running Ubuntu (cause i need to do this to my other computer anyway)

Some thoughts on this would be great. sound off in the comments below.

Anyway, i will shortly be participating in some major Xbox playing, as i am basically now in half term because of the fact we have "study leave" tomorrow and the day after.

Tuesday the 19th... Great

2009-05-19T20:14:00.002+01:00

Second day of proper exams started with a English Literature exam. I thought it was ok, considering i had done one of the poetry questions before as a practice paper. Also, the Lord of the Flies question was quite good. But enough of boring exam speak, after that i went to the Apple Store and contemplated buying an Apple Keyboard. I thought, i have better things to spend that money on. Besides, there are better keyboards.

After that, moved onto the Vaults. Had a nice chat with Rob, Stu and DJ, who i haven't seen for over a year. Turned out he has sort of been in blackout back and forth from America every other month to see his family who have illnesses at the moment. Turned out, he didn't even hear about my uncles death in December, who all of the staff who have worked at the Vaults in the past 10 years would know him cause he was a regular customer. Anyway, we chatted for about 2 hours while Henry was being bored playing Bloons on my iPhone while we waited for lunch.

Anyway, i went home afterwards. Did some revision for the science exam tomorrow, redesigned my desktop (which is looking mighty fine now) using Enigma and some random picture i found while searching. Looks great and matches my black/seethrough theme i like. Anyway, having a break from revision now and having a bit of Xbox play. Hoping Jamie Rumbelow will join me momentarily, cause playing xbox live without friends is like having a burger without a bun (nothing dirty intended). Then will be off to bed nice and early no doubt, as i have to be at school usual time for revision lessons before the ~~great~~ boring Science exam tomorrow, featuring B4, C4 and P4. Happy days!

Peace out.

Monday so Far

2009-05-18T18:49:00.002+01:00

so, here i am, after finishing what i think is the easiest GCSE paper i have ever done. (Maths, compared to the other past ones i have done). Just been chilling out since i got back, bit of xbox, bit of music, bit of chatting etc. Haven't got much to do really, the xbox is gradually seeping out of my life (probably for the best really :D) and my mind is elseware, especially Long Road and what is to come in the future, including money making schemes and girls (mmm...).

Just been helping Jamie Rumbelow with some audio direct thingy (on his shiny new macbook of course), which makes me sound like a complete technophobe. which i am definetly not, i just didn't know the name of the program. Anyway, i need to do some facebooking then go to dinner. I'm sure i'll end up blogging again later about life, but for now, au revoir.

Sunday night

2009-05-17T21:26:00.003+01:00

G'day people who read my blog. Hello to any newcomers. Today is a Sunday, which has been alright today.

Firstly, i got up. (otherwise everything else would be quite difficult?) then i showered and shaved etc. Nothing that great. Had some breakfast, checked my feeds. I also switched to Google Reader today. Highly recommended. Then watched England thrash the West Indies in the cricket, before going down to the pub for a quick coke while meeting up with my dads mate, Chris. (i don't like alcohol, before i get loads of complaints)

went home, played a bit of halo 3 and packed my stuff for my mums house, went to my mums after a lovely roast dinner at my dads. Did the Liquid Metal Background tutorial on my Tutorial blog, then i typed this out while talking to my friend Henry in binary. I leave you with this:

01101000 01110100 01110100 01110000 00111010 00101111 00101111 01110111 01110111 01110111 00101110 01101100 01101101 01100111 01110100 01100110 01111001 00101110 01100011 01101111 01101101 00101111 00111111 01110001 00111101 01010010 01101111 01101111 01110011 01110100 01100101 01110010 00110010 00110001 00110010

Goodnight. Tomorrow, i have school and a Maths exam in the afternoon. Fun stuff!

Its a Saturday

2009-05-16T21:50:00.003+01:00

Today was busy and tiring but pretty good.

Number 1: get up for work and go to work
Number 2: Meet with Jamie Rumbelow and get a MacBook
Number 3: Grab a Starbucks
Number 4: Go back to the Vaults and unpack the MacBook.
Number 5: Go collect some ice for the Vaults.
Number 6: Go to Sainsburys and grab some challots (random i know)
Number 7: Meet with my dad and see Star Trek. Great movie btw, highly recommended.
Number 8: Go to the Vaults. ate some swordfish, pidgeon, and some crispy duck + some cheesy potato dish i can't spell. Also opened a £150 bottle of port and filtered it and had a sneaky try. Bloody tasty stuff.
Number 9: Go home, write blog and then play some Xbox and send some pics to Jamie Rumbelow.

Anyway, this was my day. This blog is turning more into a sort of diary for me, and thats fine by me. I will start on my tutorials blog soon, maybe tomorrow afternoon. Peace out for now guys.

Friday and Mac talk.

2009-05-15T16:37:00.005+01:00

well its a Friday. not that bad for school, and its the last working day of the week. well, last full day of work, i do have to work on Saturday mornings, but that's not really much of a problem. Anyway, today was pretty bad. normal Friday, science lesson, then nearly froze to death on Parkers Piece. I felt quite sad today, cause of various things that have been bugging me recently. Anyway, i got home about 3.30 after pretty average Maths and French lesson. Just got home, looked at Gizmodo and Lifehacker and Engadget etc. and then started to play Forza on the xbox. Got bored quite quickly.

Talked to Jamie Rumbelow (what a legend) about his immenent purchase of either a MacBook Pro or a Macbook. In the end, he decided on a plain MacBook, as the only difference between a fully speced MacBook and a low end Pro is the graphics and the extra screen space, for £350 that is not worth it. Anyway, he is going to get a macbook with 4gb of ram and extra Apple Care plan, which you sort of need with that kind of hardware. Anyway, off to play the xbox with Jamie and another mate of mine and Jamie.

will blog some more and do my first tutorial on the tutorial blog later. wow what a boring day i have had.

Tutorials blog is up!

2009-05-14T17:49:00.003+01:00

visit roostertutorials.blogspot.com

Basically, anything i can do that is tech related will somehow end up here, and you can learn how to do it. first post will be up soon.

Revision and divorced parents.

2009-05-14T17:20:00.003+01:00

Well, everything at the moment seems to be centralized around exams and/or revision. For a good reason, i need to do well. Fair enough, but my parents both have different ways of dealing with it.

For example, lets say that this Sunday, i was looking forward to going to see my local team at Wembley Stadium, as they have got to the top of the conference premier and they will be promoted if i win. Very rarely will i get the chance to see my local team there. I already have tickets off a mate. I ask my dad, he says fine. But i ask my mum (as i am supposed to be with her that evening anyway) and she says no, cause i have an exam the next day. Fair enough, you might say, but it would be nice for once not to have to work my ass off to the last hour on a sunday night. A break would be nice.

Anyway, this then erupts into a huge flame war between my parents. i swear, this happens everytime. Its as if my mum doesn't understand i am old enough to make my own decision and she cannot accept that. Just because she was brought up near exams being under house arrest and not having any sort of communication apart from at school doesn't mean that she can treat me in the same way. Its just unfair. off to revise now... chow chow.

Random Rant

2009-05-13T23:07:00.003+01:00

hmm, well i feel like having a rant so here goes.

today was a pretty average day. got up early, went to school to do some revision. School is so empty an hour before everyone else is supposed to be there? you would expect there to be at least a couple of people who wanted to revise apart from me, but no, just me.

next: boring science lesson. just basically talked to the girl sitting next to me and to the teacher about randomness such as exams, life and general naughtyness. Felt quite bad about a friend of mine though, last week we were sending loads of email just talking, which was nice. But for some reason, on sunday, she sort of just, stopped. I also feel like she is ignoring me at school, but then again i might have just got a cold shoulder. just my $0.02.

had an italian exam in the afternoon. pretty boring really, but incredibly easy. A listening test, not a single written question in the Italian section. all just "write the correct letter in the box" shit. pretty simple :D

after that, signed out of school (free periods for the win!) and went to the Vaults for a snack and a chat with my dad. then, my dad took me to my mums to pick up some stuff, then went home. on the way back tells me, oh well, you are supposed to be going to the theatre. Now you tell me! was good though, got back about an hour before this post. An Inspector Calls was it's name, was pretty good. Also, feeling pretty strange. feeling really chatty, hence the random rant. although i don't have anyone else to chat to so i just blog to the masses. or my 14 followers on twitter anyway, cause i don't think anyone else reads my (newly redesigned) blog.

nite all. signing off.

Exams and Long Road Sixth Form College

2009-05-12T16:06:00.002+01:00

Well, a few days ago i received my rejection from Hills Road sixth form college in Cambridge. Very disappointed at the time, as all my friends are going there, as would be expected. However, i was accepted into Long Road, which is not bad at all. I have applied for Electronics, Maths, Computing and Physics. Geeky stuff :D

Exams. ergh. Just today i had a photography exam, all day in a dark room with just red light to see by and a lot of toxic chemicals. Great. Looking forward to the Italian exam tomorrow. Also, i will see my dad aswell.

Last thing, going to wembely to see Cambridge United v Torquay in the Blue Square Premier Conference Play Off Final. wow that took ages to type correctly!

also, am looking for a better logo for my blog. the standard one is boring, will fire up photoshop and have a go later. If anyone reads this and has any ideas, drop us an email at jamieroos1@googlemail.com

Gaming

2009-04-18T17:00:00.002+01:00

With my GCSEs coming up soon, i shouldn't be particularly endorsing myself with the mind rot that is video gaming. And so, today, i completed resident evil 5. Great game, one of the unlocks for completing it is infinite ammo on whichever guns you have fully upgraded (for a price, of course.)

While this is all fine and dandy, I tend to find computer games quite boring now (shock horror!). I thought to myself today, what shall i do after GCSEs and all that?

Well i thought of a few things;

Learn the Piano (always wanted to do that)
Mod computers/x boxes/make own awesome computer for something or to sell
some coding

While these are all great ideas that i will probably take on, I think it would be a fantastic combination to do all of these.

Peace out. Going into town, not playing games (as i should be!)

iPhone 3.0

2009-04-17T18:22:00.003+01:00

There has recently been a lot of hype surrounding the 3.0 software for iPhone/iPod Touch. While some people did the silly thing and download it of a torrent (just to find their iPhones bricked from the lack of developer account), some have decided to wait. It is likely to be released near the WWDC Conference date, possibly on the day.

The iPhone Dev Team have already jailbroken it and will probably be working on an unlock in the near future.

I will be posting a very simple jailbreak tutorial on this blog once it is out and I have worked out the jailbreak procedure. However, I may be able to get free upgrades to the next iPhone (if there is a release of one in the near future), so it may be a while until i write it as new hardware means a new jailbreak has to be found and packaged from the Dev Team.

Music

2009-04-17T18:04:00.002+01:00

Music is a huge part of my life. Whenever you see me, it will probably be with a headphone in my ear unless it is where i can't listen to it, like at school or at dinner. It takes up about 10GB of space on my hard drive on my computer now, which is quite a lot. But i guess some people store all their music in FLAC or Apple Lossless, which takes up a lot more space.

How big is your music library?

Dual Booting Mac OSX and Vista

2009-03-01T17:26:00.002Z

I have recently had the experience of dual booting Mac OSX With Vista (Vista installed first)

I found that it is quite easy, but unfortunately my hardware isn't great for it. However, i set up a dual boot and it did work while in safe mode.

Thanks to all at hackint0sh.org for their help.

If anyone else requires help, I am happy to. Just email me at jamieroos1@googlemail.com

Get Free Stuff

2009-02-10T19:13:00.003Z

I have a great website that allows you to get loads of free stuff, pick whatever you want and then do an offer (some of which cost nothing) then get friends to join up too.... Its basically paying very little and being bothered to ask your friends to do this stuff, then you recieve the stuff you want!

Click here for Free Stuff!

I recommend the LoveFilm offer.

About Me

2009-01-27T20:28:00.000Z

Well, if you've found me on this little page in the huge expanse of the Internet, you are probably interested in something I have blogged, so here goes my little intro.

My names Jamie Roos, live in Cambridge in England and I'm doing GCSEs this year.

Love my music, my gaming and my computing, and 1 of these 3 reasons is probably why you came to this blog.

Contact: jamieroos1@googlemail.com