• 15Aug 07

  Sloppy forum posters

  Ok here's a brief comment about something that really irritates me. It's when you browse through forums and you see a thread title that goes something like this... "Question plz someone help." I REALLY hate this kind of forum title. These kind of people are making NO effort whatsoever to tell you what the subject matter is on any level whatsoever. If there is anything that will make me not give a damn about someone wanting help, this is it. It's a lazy and very sloppy way of trying to get help. If you really wanted help, you would at least put SOMETHING in the title to at least give people a vague idea of what the hell you are talking about, otherwise just don't bother. Am I right people? Give the post a proper title for christ's sake. If everyone did the same thing, you would have thousands (if not millions) of posts ALL with the same title "Question plz someone help."It would be a VERY tedious task to wade through this crap. SO DON'T DO IT ALREADY!. It annoys the f#ck outta me.

  Phew....deep breaths....count to ten...calm...blue....f#cking....ocean.

  • Posted Aug 15, 2007 1:56 pm PT
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• 7Aug 07

  BBC iPlayer Rant

  Hello folks, it's rant time again!

  The BBC iPlayer has great potential, but it has a looong way to go before it can be considered a reasonable service. Ok, first the good (or not so bad) points.

  You can choose to download and watch programmes from the last seven days and then have up to 30 days to watch them.

  It's free.

  It uses a peer-to-peer service to help with the downloading of files. (Although some may debate that this is not entirely a good thing.)

  Hmmm, that's all I can think of. Doesn't seem like much, but here's the bad stuff.

  It is painfully slow and tedious trawling through the selection of programmes on the website. I find this part particularly irritating. So much so in fact, that it puts me off even using the service. The way programmes are listed is all "arty-farty" instead of quick and accessible. A case of form over function.

  At the moment you can only use the service through Windows XP and Internet Explorer. This obviously limits who can use it, especially if you have just bought a shiny new Vista PC.

  I found the set-up process fiddly and annoying. You have to use TWO sets of user-names and passwords. One set is given to you via email to input into the software and the other set is registration of the BBC website overall. This is overkill. If you want to put people off from using this service BBC, then you're doing a great job.

  You can only download homegrown BBC content. So its great for fans of "Holby-Enders". but no use whatsoever if you wanna catch the latest episode of Heroes on BBC2 or any films at all for that matter. This makes it an incomplete service. It should be all content or nothing, none of this "Half-way House" nonesense.

  I'm sorry BBC, but you really are slow on the up-take here. There are far too many barriers in the way of this being a good service. Go here to see info about it.

  • Posted Aug 7, 2007 1:39 pm PT
  • Category: TV
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• 15Jun 06

  Playing something different.

  I've been kinda bored of playing new 3D PC games lately.  ("Half-life 2: Episode One" being the exception to this).  I came across something a bit different a couple of days ago.  To call it a game might be an exaggeration, but I'm finding it's enough of a distraction to entertain me for half an hour each night.  It's an online thing called "Jamie Kane". Its hosted by the BBC. 

  The plot revolves around the announcement of the death of a fictional pop star (a typical boy band moron, which I tend to hate) and how everything is not what it seems i.e. is he really dead etc.  Anyway the content is aimed squarely at teenagers.  I'm 33, but I was in the mood for a total change of pace gaming-wise so I decided to give it a go for the sheer hell of it.

  First of all, you have to register with bbc.co.uk before you can play.  I've only played 2 days (out of about 14) so far.  Each day starts with you recieving an email from a character that tends to have a link to a forum.  This can lead you to further web-pages, the occasional video stream, a simulation of an online chat and some sort of puzzle/challenge to try. The first one you come across involves "enhancing" a photo to gain evidence of something.  This is then rounded off by a "closure" email for that particular day. You then have to wait 24 hours for the next email to start you off again.

  You're basically supposed to be a fan of this pop-star and get involved in solving the mystery surronding his death.

  One thing that's bugging me and I hope someone out there might be able to shed some light on this.   Wasn't there some games company who devised something along the same lines as above only it was more sophisticated and could involve phone calls as well as emails, texts and stuff.   I can't remember what it was called...

  • Posted Jun 15, 2006 12:27 pm PT
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