tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66428892011-08-30T21:39:25.843-07:00A public blog maintained by Jaquard on a (near) weekly basis. Any interesting thoughts, stories, web sites will be featured here.Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.comBlogger431100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1113650224307752412005-04-16T04:13:00.000-07:002005-04-16T04:22:26.550-07:00

Good grief! Its been a month since my last blog. I really am bad at this, eh? Anyway, one of the reasons I'm not blogging religiously is that I'm a lazy SOB (this has already been stated in previous blogs). But work has been crazy the last couple of weeks and DarkThrone keeps me really busy and happy. So, without further ado, let the avalanche of links commence! GS Resident Cynic

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1110149621245356412005-03-06T14:53:00.000-08:002005-03-06T14:53:41.246-08:00

Yep, the last three weeks couldn't have ended on a stranger note.  The "King of Software" (TM pending) Bill Gates received an honorary knighthood from the Queen of England, Queen Elizabeth II.  This was presented to him on Thursday.  Buckingham Palace claims the reasons for bestowing such a title on our favourite we-love-to-hate guy is because of his business success and the multi-million

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1108225402870513862005-02-12T07:33:00.000-08:002005-02-12T08:23:22.876-08:00

In all departments our national (and only!) telecoms company, Telkom, sucks majorly. Without question. And more and more people are coming round to that fact. There is already a steady decline in the amount of fixed-line users for the last 3 years now but Telkom still managed to make a profit of R4,5 billion ($750 million) for the 2004 financial year. But in an interview with a local TV

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1106052906667748062005-01-18T04:29:00.000-08:002005-01-18T04:55:06.666-08:00

Man, have I got links up the gazoo! Two months' worth, so without further ado: Valve closes 20 000 HL2 accounts. Seems there are a lot of bad boys/girls out there. Don't get caught, people! Buy the game! It's that damn good! PlanetFargo HL2 Sign Carnage GirlSpy on HL2 addiction - Love this woman! Budget card shoot-out! 6600GT vs X700XT Just make sure you get the 256 MB versions.

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1106028074087226912005-01-17T22:01:00.000-08:002005-01-17T22:01:14.086-08:00

Well, we've finished Half Life 2 (at last!).  Now we can be counted amongst the millions and millions of the Freeman's fans who've trekked through a second journey in his not-his-own-anymore life.  Buya!   But spare a thought for our beloved Gordon.  Being at the beck and call of the mysterious G-Man and his even more mysterious government (who says he works for an Earthly organization?)

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1102536776240601532004-12-08T13:07:00.000-08:002004-12-08T12:12:56.240-08:00

"Don't judge lest ye be judged." That's a well-know proverb either man-made or from the Bible somewhere... and then morphed the last two millenia. So what has that got to do with today's blog? The reviewing/comparing of objects is my beef today. This blog's seed was planted a long time ago. As always it started with a 3D card review. The review was about the nVidia TNT2, the newest and

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1100847536658313032004-11-18T22:58:00.000-08:002004-11-19T01:01:37.250-08:00

That's my description for Half-Life 2. "Life changing" is a bit strong but this game is The One. I feel very sorry for all developers that are not Valve-related. Everyone who is developing an FPS in the vein of Half-Life needs to go back to the drawingboard. The bar just got raised... exceedingling high. I guess this means that Duke Nukem Forever will be delayed for another 7 years! The

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1098376167007236302004-10-21T09:29:00.000-07:002004-10-21T23:40:22.526-07:00

Well, I'm a bit late with this week's weird and wonderful links. Sorry 'bout that. Maybe the idea of giving myself a week to write up a blog has only culminated in my tardiness. Might be that my mind is under the impressions that I have sooooo much time for stuff like this. Its been an intereting week and a half. The game pirates sailed into harbour, ravaged and raped the industry by leaking

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1097669077595800422004-10-13T04:52:00.000-07:002004-10-13T05:04:37.596-07:00

From time to time I do a spot of writing (I'm long overdue on a certain project) and checked out a few publishing sites. Did you know it costs about $2300 USD to have a 100 000 word manuscript just proofread? To have "insiteful comments and suggestions" added the price goes up to about $3000 - $4000 USD. Shocking to my South African pocket! Then again, this service is the bread and butter of

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1097477457872659522004-10-10T23:50:00.000-07:002004-10-11T05:16:45.723-07:00

... couldn't have predicted that Bush would fare so badly against Kerry. Or stop this parody by Fargo. Read it! Also of note is the review of the new LSL (or Leisure Suite Larry for the uninitiated). Seems the game is a bit down on the fun factor though. Too few mini-games used too much. I've only played Larry 6 (about half-way through) and it was hilarious as well as a bit of a

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1096646677618882002004-10-01T09:04:00.000-07:002004-10-01T09:04:37.616-07:00

I'm not pimping pharmaceauticals here!    Interesting reads of the Week (IRotW) Phantom Business Plan - for those who don't know, the Phantom is intended as a gaming console like the XBox, PS2 and GameCube.  However, they (the founders) want to use components that are cheap to keep assembly costs down.  From this article it looks like these components are your average PC components.

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1096645223253025242004-10-01T08:40:00.000-07:002004-10-01T08:40:23.253-07:00

Its been a while since Doom 3's appearance in the shops and Web.  However, I'd still like to lavish some attention on it.   [H]ardOCP did a great article, with the help of id, about Doom3 and its ability to run on different hardware.  They went from a piddling (compared to the recommended specs) P4 1.5 Ghz machine with a normal 64MB nVidia GeForce 4 MX440 card all the way up to a

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1095769653241219702004-09-21T05:27:00.000-07:002004-09-21T05:27:33.240-07:00

Other interesting news the past week: - Half Life 2's Release candidate (a pre-sign off build that gets tested by the publisher before the CDs are pressed) has been sent to Vivendi.  That October release date looks to be good, after all.  Now some unknown hacker just have to rip this build off too....   - Bioware has signed a contract for the use of the Unreal 3 engine.  This, in it

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1095769137979576082004-09-21T05:18:00.000-07:002004-09-21T05:18:57.980-07:00

Last week was a big week for Star Trek afficionados.  The announcement of an MMO (Massive Multiplayer On-line) for the franchise sparked a lot of interest and views about the television show, the movies and the games.  You can read the forum threads here and here.  One of those threads started out of the GameSpy Spy vs Counter-Spy argument:  Should the Star Trek franchise be retired

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1095692396781742692004-09-20T07:59:00.000-07:002004-09-20T07:59:56.783-07:00

I'm trying out the new email-to-blog service of Blogspot.  If you have comments about the service, don't hesitate to drop me line or two...     ______________ Absolut vodka corrupts absolutely

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1094650329267919772004-09-08T06:15:00.000-07:002004-09-08T06:32:09.266-07:00

I'm referring to Demon Stone, the D&D action RPG from Snowblind Studios. This game shapes up to be a corker. Also, there will be a PC version, so I'm totally stoked about this as well. This game marries the engine used in The Two Towers PS2/PC game to the D&D world of Faerun. Faerun has already been explored extensively in Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate2, BG2 Throne of Baal and Neverwinter

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1092917340027586222004-08-19T04:50:00.000-07:002004-08-19T05:09:00.026-07:00

A few months back I signed up into the beta program of Google's new e-mailing system, GMail. (Its a great service by the way.) A few minutes ago I tried to sign in to check my mail. Unfortunately for me, this was all that was returned to me: Gmail is temporarily unavailable. Cross your fingers and try again in a few minutes. We're sorry for the inconvenience. The irony of the second sentence

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1092672896507809932004-08-16T08:57:00.000-07:002004-08-16T09:19:26.506-07:00

Apologies (to any regular readers) for the intermittend blogging. Doom 3 is out and it is looking very sweet. This is a game that needs to be seen in movement to be fully appreciated. Looking at the screenshots may only cloud one's judgement about the visuals (Far Cry, STALKER and HL2 looks on par and even better). Another aspect to be joyful about is that you can run this game on a middle-aged

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1091723311200013062004-08-05T08:59:00.000-07:002004-08-05T09:28:31.200-07:00

Wondering where today's title come from? Its actually a simple concept that's abhored by accountants and programmers and promoted by medical aids. Trust medical aids to ruin everything. Heck, trust the medical aid industry to defile just about every good idea out there. In the normal accounting world you have debits and credits. You subtract one from the other. Your point of view determines

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1089959655931728162004-07-15T23:26:00.000-07:002004-07-15T23:34:15.933-07:00

Everything conspires against me to keep me from blogging. But I will prevail! Huge news from E3 this year was that a sequel to the GS Game of the Year for 2003 (Knights of the Old Republic, for the uninformed) is in development. However, it would not be by the same creators. Much anguish and fallout over this point. Bioware is the premier RPG creator (if not the only one next to Bethesda).

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1089216479943932912004-07-07T09:03:00.000-07:002004-07-07T09:07:59.943-07:00

Well, due to our extremely poor bandwith in good ol' SA, this is not the post I wanted to do. Hell, even this one might not make it to the US of A. In the coming posts I'll be reviewing E3 articles from GameSpy (you might call it pimping). Work's been a biatch, so 'nuff said. --------------------------------------------------- "Trusting people is a good way to get foreign objects lodged in

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1089216071424517742004-07-07T08:55:00.000-07:002004-07-07T09:01:11.423-07:00

Damn! I've been away a long time, haven't I? To the regulars (unbeknowst to me, I can tell you): sorry about that. But I've recently finished my outstanding (both meanings meant) reading of GameSpy emails and am ready to return to the blogging fold. Also, work's been a biatch and I'm not a very happy camper. But, still, its work. In the coming posts I'll be high-lighting several E3 articles

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1084344061920290792004-05-11T23:28:00.000-07:002004-05-12T00:10:35.553-07:00

E3 is in full swing again. Its been going on since the beginning of this week. Already there are some great games being showcase. Go here for full coverage. Only thing with this is I'm now going to get two weeks behind on all my regular reading. Small price.... The highlight is, of course, the booth-babes. Hopefully they'll be as promissing as the previous years. --------------------------

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1083944421634879272004-05-07T08:27:00.000-07:002004-05-07T08:46:04.560-07:00

No, I don't mean Kane. ATI released their newest card range, the X800 (code-named R420). Again, it blasts the socks off the nVidia where it counts - in the games. You can read the GameSpy hardware review here. Its almost 20% faster in UT2K4 at 16x12 4xAA/8xAF. But will one notice this at nearly 120 FPS? What is most telling (and ultimately might decide where I buy next next) is found on the

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1083759162411951582004-05-05T04:50:00.000-07:002004-05-05T05:17:07.670-07:00

Last weekend SABC3 aired the Bollywood movie Baghban (pronounced bug-baan). The movie was about a couple in their golden years that somehow decide to split up after 40 years of marriage. I was late in watching the movie, ok! So, their children don't object to this terrible course of action by their parents and tells them that they will house them separately for six months at a time at each child

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1083326475058063692004-04-30T04:40:00.000-07:002004-04-30T05:08:41.780-07:00

Just an update on the a few games I've come across the last week or two (and played in one case). Guild Wars - an MMO where you don't pay monthly fees; it uses the Unreal-engine technology; looks marvellous; and you don't pay monthly fees!!! Colin McCrae Rally '04 - a gorgeous rally game. Difficult to master at first (if you're used to circuit racing, TOCA style) but sooooo satisfying once you

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1083324910262212852004-04-30T04:18:00.000-07:002004-04-30T04:44:07.233-07:00

Blogger had the Google GMail ad on the right when I signed in. Its been there for a few weeks now, so I've decided to go with the flow and sign up. It seems the claim of 1 000 MB of storage per user may not be as exaggerated as it would have seemed when news started to float around the 1st of April. Opening up my new account, there it was: You are currently using 0 MB (0%) of 1000 MB. Hot

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1082637455424865842004-04-22T05:21:00.000-07:002004-04-22T05:42:54.623-07:00

Well, nVidia has brought out their shiny new GF6. And can it run! Nearly twice the speed of the ATI 9800 XT. But ATI should release their card soon (in the next month or three). So, on GameSpy the grude match for this week: ATI vs. nVidia. Just go to the main GameSpy page, scroll down and look for it in the bottom left of your screen. Can't miss it. If you don't care to vote, go here and

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1082376791203760802004-04-19T05:07:00.000-07:002004-04-19T05:31:00.420-07:00

Yep, the true King of the Hill has arrived. Bow down to its collective might, you mere peons!!! Muhahahahahaaaaaa..... Check out the final results here. Its good to know that justice still prevails in the universe. If SMB3 had won, it would have been a sad day indeed. Don't forget to read the commentaries! More GameSpy Goodness STALKER interview - ok, not exactly in the GampSpy fold, but

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1082376349202966512004-04-19T04:56:00.000-07:002004-04-19T05:10:43.326-07:00

I can't state my feelings any more concisely than the title of today's post. The loathing I feel for those versions of Windows is beyond words. Not only are they unstable, terrible at low-level memory management and an aversion to the eye, its stupid to boot. "But it was created in the dark ages of computing!" you plead the case to me. Yes, but so what? Most of the options, properties and

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1081872728500927432004-04-13T08:48:00.000-07:002004-04-13T09:17:57.046-07:00

Another time, another place Another country here, Another state of grace You walk beside me I'll tell you no lies And then you'll see: another country here in my eye The above is the chorus for the song "Another Country" by Mango Groove. An exceptional song that was created for the 1994 or 1999 election. Their view on the change of power. This week is also our nation's third democratic

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1080908104778113032004-04-02T04:01:00.000-08:002004-04-02T04:18:44.640-08:00

Right now you can't see me, but inwardly I'm slowly shaking my head in utter disappointment. I had high hopes that the GameSpy Title Fight would not be compromised by cheaters of the lowest order. But it seems that exactly this has happened and now only GameSpy users with valid login IDs can vote. This is a sad, sad day. Because of an imbecile(s) who created a method of fooling the voting

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1080748270063570552004-03-31T07:31:00.000-08:002004-03-31T07:54:46.826-08:00

Ah, what can I say. I just loooooooove good ol' GameSpy. World of WarCraft Beta Preview - a preview by one journalist. Its great to read how good and far this MMO is coming. WoW Pile-On - the whole office (it seems) gets to play in the WoW Beta. Their feedback. The Resident Cynic - I love this guy. His opinions are well thought out and he presents it in a well-phrased fashion as well. It

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1080713648467716342004-03-30T22:12:00.000-08:002004-03-30T22:17:45.200-08:00

Just a small update. GameSpy seemed to have fixed their roll-out engine and the Lineage 2 pics are available. Go there!!! --------------------------------------------------- "Wow, how'd you get it to work?" "I ran a Physical Impulse Mechanical Stress Routine" "Huh?" "I kicked it." "Ahh."

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1080559394576896932004-03-29T02:58:00.000-08:002004-03-29T03:31:43.060-08:00

Yes, we are now entering the final stages of the Gamespy TitleFight Tournament. The contenders are lined up and it all comes down to who has the most voting fans out there. The impact of the last line cannot be stressed enough. Case in point is the Counter-Strike fraternity. They totally dropped the ball here. One would expect that all those fans of the game would vote in their masses to show

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1080301971342906632004-03-26T03:37:00.000-08:002004-03-26T04:13:46.076-08:00

Yep, the Laffster is back! Erm, well, his nephew has taken up the torch. This game looks set to emulate (and extend) the previous games in the series. Now, if only they would do the same for QFG... I remember LSL1, 3 and 6. I also remember that I didn't do very well in them. Some of the puzzles were fiendish. Definitely get a walkthrough is you get stuck on a puzzle. It'll save you days

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1080281824668935252004-03-25T22:06:00.000-08:002004-03-25T22:20:34.496-08:00

No, its not an acronym for eXtended DNA. Rather its Microsoft's attempt to unify game developing across multiple platforms. XNA is to game developing as Java was to cross-platform application developing. This is rather exciting. Having all the building blocks and tech ready really speeds up development time. I don't want to bore you with stories of hunting down a property or feature in code

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1080196212506571512004-03-24T22:28:00.000-08:002004-03-24T22:33:40.810-08:00

Knights of the Old Republic is getting badly beaten by Zelda in the GameSpy TitleFight. Please vote for KOTOR! --------------------------------------------------- 'Meatbags!'

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1080195974383221422004-03-24T22:01:00.000-08:002004-03-24T22:29:42.733-08:00

Recently the TV-series "The Court" aired on our local broadcast station. A nice enough series, but the woman that most definately caught my attention was Christina Hendricks. Man, is this lady a fox or what! The above link comes from the cancelled sci-fi show FireFly (a show that was brilliant, except for the ratings). I, for one, wishes that this show comes back on air, but at least they're

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1080046940687294342004-03-23T04:25:00.000-08:002004-03-23T05:13:33.890-08:00

The Matrix Online is a cool extention of the Matrix world. I would love to play this down here in sunny South Africa, but the chance of that happening seems as remote as Telkom making local telephone calls free. However, I have some reservasions about this MMO. In previous interviews and previews it was firmly stated that no-one will attain Neo-like status. Ie. no one will be able to fly or

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1079711848930332542004-03-19T07:55:00.000-08:002004-03-19T08:00:49.153-08:00

"ROMANIAN SOFTWARE WRITER is claiming that he wrote the file-sharing software Kazaa, and is suing the program's distributor for more than $25million. Fabian Toader, who now in the US says he wrote the Kazaa program in 2000 while working in Romania on a freelance basis for Kazaa BV" The kick of it is this: this guy is a Microsoft programmer!!! The irony of it is too much! --------- Give a man

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1079696475854989022004-03-19T03:10:00.000-08:002004-03-19T03:48:12.013-08:00

Yep, that's me. I love GameSpy. Gabe on Penny Arcade said that Tron(tm) 2.0 defined him as a person. For me, GameSpy defines part of me. If you want to see what makes me tick, this is a good place to start. GameSpy is my homepage of choice. All the news, reviews, previews, articles and more fun she-nanigans than you can shake a stick at. So why the 'whore' in title? Well, GameSpy fills my

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642889.post-1079686085559850452004-03-19T00:40:00.000-08:002004-03-19T00:55:58.623-08:00

So, this is the very first post of this blog. I've previously heard about blogs (and read only 1 or 2) and the idea is cool. Unfortunately I don't expect to gain notoriety over-night nor have masses of people starting to read this. No, this will be but a simple canvas for my thoughts and interests. I've read an article where a prof. journalist slams the idea of normal people having

Jaquardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16113015016959959589noreply@blogger.com2