GPS

  I haven't mentioned till now the fact that my beloved Palm PDA (Tungsten E) has snuffed it. Well to the point of being unusuable. So I now had to look for a replacement PDA to help with the long dull shifts I sometimes get at work. After some difficult decisions and circumstances where I was offered a second Palm that was "much better than Tungsten E" but turned out to be a prehistoric brick some gay guy wanted to off load onto me as a way to meet me after work, I finally struck pay dirt with what I believe is the best option I could have hoped for. I was showing the smashed screen off to a work mate who suddenly got excited and exclaimed "you can buy mine!" Now after my ordeal with the gay guy the last thing I wanted was yet another old outdated peice of crap loosely dubbed a PDA. But he was adamant that it was not a crap one and that the only reason he wanted to sell it was to get money up to buy a new Walkman mobile phone. Then he said something which really grabbed my attention. "Oh... and it's got GPS too!" he claimed! Really I thought. "So what is wrong with it?" I snapped back. Then he went on to reassure me that he simply wanted to money. Also he told me that he has never even used the damn thing.

 

  Cut a long story short he was right! Daddy bought the iPaq for him to use GPS but he got overwhelmed with the amount of messing around you go through to set it up.

 

  It's an h3630 iPaq Compaq Pocket PC. It originally came with Pocket PC 2000 which sucked ass. Looking around on the internet was almost a waste of time till I hit www.ebay.com.au where I got lucky and found an "unlocker" seller who sells mostlly codes and passes to obtain hard to get software. So through him I was able to get the 40M download to install Pocket PC 2002. That's when new problems arose around the issue of memory. The PDA only has a measly 32M RAM. Hardly enough to go messing with GPS. But the GPS attachment has a  Compact Flash slot. So first day I grabbed a 256M card and whacked her in. But my main drama was in getting software to install onto the card and not the squeezy RAM of the ipaq.

 

  Well after learning more than I cared to learn about iPaq's and their set up I ended up solving my dramas.

 

GPS

 

  I've always known that GPS was a great way to get about as I hire them out as part of my job. What I didn't know before was the way it changed your driving patterns when you owned one. I'm seeing streets in Sydney I've never even seen before. You'll be coasting down the road along what you thought was the quickest way home when you'll get a surprising TURN LEFT announcement for 300M ahead. As you hold your breath you turn placing total faith in a emotionless persona in your PDA. Next thing you know you've just avoided 4 traffic lights and learnt a new short cut! Oh and did I mention how deadly accurate the pick up is of your current location? Scary to say the least. You get into your driveway and the dreary destination announcment rings out. I'm sure I'll be making more entries in relation to my new Navman GPS unit in the not too distant future!

Yet More Game & Watches

I'm beginning to love my letter box! Cos today I got another parcel and this time it's another G&W. This one's Turtle Bridge and for those not in the know I'll explain the game. On the left of the screen is a guy giving you a parcel. You must take it to the right of the screen across a bridge made up of turtles to a guy waiting on the right who randomly appears. The turtles are hunting for fish and submerge for food if they find it. If you happen to jump onto a turtle why it's diving then you go into the drink with it. You get some points for every parcel delivered and bonus points for making it back to pick up a new parcel.

 

Not the most exciting game in the range but still a bit of fun. Unfortunately it didn't come with a battery cover and the stand is a bit crooked but it's in good working order and just gets me one step closer to all 59 G&W's!

Another Day Another Game & Watch

Just got another Game & Watch in the mail today. Last of the first lot for now. It's Squish! A multi screen one that I never have seen before. Not too bad a game but no where near as addictive as the older titles. Battery cover is missing and the back is a little scratched up. But the inner game surface is clean and it works well. Now that's 9 titles and 45 to go...

More Game & Watch

Just got Mario Bros Game & Watch today in the mail. The box is a fair bit tattered but the unit itself is in quite good order except it's missing the serial number! Oh well I guess I should be happy it's got instructions and is playable. I found myself firing it up and playing it. Man for such a simple concept these things were addictive.

Game & Watch Action

Lately I've been bidding like a madman possessed on eBay for Game & Watches. You remember these things right? Kids use to swarm around them in school and if you had a multi-screen G&W you were in the COOL KID CLUB. Kids would offer their lunch money to you for a go! Well this is my collection so far:

 

Fire Attack.jpg Mickey Mouse.jpg Octopus.jpg Parachute.jpg Snoopy Tennis.jpg Super Mario Bros.jpg Boxing.jpg

And I have SQUISH and MARIO BROS on the way as well. With 59 of these suckers to collect I am only just beginning!

 

Halo Action X3

What's one way to make multi player Halo better? Add more players of course. But we've gone one better. Owie got his grubby hands on a Wireless Router. Now we're pretty stupid when it comes to IT. But we've got all this ethernet cable and a router, 3 Xbox's and a TV each. So how hard could it be? So rather than just sitting there thinking about the technical side of things I simply suggested "just plug it all in and see if the bitch fires up!". I may as well add that we've had troubles in the past as there are diffrent types of ethernet cable and not all of them work with Xbox. But on this occasion it worked a treat! So there we were, one Xbox in the loungeroom with the widescreen and 5.1 pissing the neighbours off and the other two in a seperate room. Carnage! Poor Yutang got home and didn't know what to make of it all.

 

But I got to say as fun as it all is (and it is the best game action you can get) my heart is set on getting Xbox Live once I get rid of the dodgy Optus connection I have at the moment. But I've got to convince the other guys to get it as well. Then there's the added complication of the up and coming Xbox 360. Will the guys go Xbox in the next gen console war or will Sony's marketing machine lure them into an over priced "entertainment" unit? Watch this space.

Sick Again...

Always seem to be run down with some kind of virus or bacteria. Not sure why but beginning of Spring is a bad time for me. I am always boud to get sick. But once the Laryngitis is gone and I can talk again I am looking forward to what should be the best summer of cricket in many years with many changes to the Australian line up expected.

 

One things for sure, Yutang is lapping up the temporary silence in the house while I am sick!