Hitting the slopes from the comfort of your couch

AMPED FREESTYLE SNOWBOARDING, for Xbox, RRP $64.95:

Ampped for XboxIt may be the middle of summer here in New Zealand but anyone who would rather be a snow bunny than a sun worshipper can relive winter with Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding.

Playing as a novice snowboarder out to learn the slopes, Amped lets you takes a few runs to get familiar with the controls and moves.

Focusing more on technique than speed, the game gives points based on tricks and where you execute them.

There doesn’t seem to be a correct route to take in any of the runs, just find the one that suits you best and try to get as many tricks in as you can to boost your points tally.

In career mode there are chances to unlock new sections by scoring more points than the run’s champion. Bonus points are awarded for performing tricks near the media.

You’ll see a media sign letting you know it’s time to crank up your ski slope creativity and if you realise you can’t get enough air to pull off that zippy little move you had planned you can always run over a photographer.

Not great for the points total but still somewhat satisfying.

Tricks play an even greater role here than in most snowboarding games but these tricks are more realistic.

Some runs have goals like performing a trick to impress a sponsor or following a champion and mirroring the tricks performed.

At the start of the game the options are four mountains with four runs _ the rest of the game is unlocked as you conquer the existing runs. Replays will help until you get the hang of things.

The controls are a little hard to master, particularly in the landings, but that’s all part of the fun.

The audio in the game lets you know how well you are doing without having to check your points, and taunts and compliments from rival boarders and the cameramen are included.

Amped’s soundtrack can be a bit annoying at times but there are also some good tracks included and you have the option of ripping music from your own CDs.

The web’s weirdest links

As 2002 draws to a close now seems as good a time as any to announce my choices for the best of the net’s weird links.

During the past 12 months I’ve scoured the net looking for interesting sites with my trusty sidekick Seymour the cat. It’s at his insistence that the first award is made.

The Kitty Litter award for gratuitous use of cutesy kittens to sell a site: there was tough competition in this category, with Bonsai Kitten and its range of techniques for this ancient art and Rate My Kitten’s endless photos of cute and not-so-cute kittens. However, in the end it came down to two offerings from one site. Rather Good’s While Punk Kittens, the combination of Led Zeppelin and kittens proved too good to beat –so the award goes to Viking Kittens.

The interweb thingy award for computer torture: Stupid Computer Tricks features a series of photos showing what NOT to do to your computer that will have IT-types around the world clutching their pocket protectors in fear. Check it out soon, the webmaster plans to remove the gallery possibly within the next week.

The sad but true award: I’m not sure what I find more disturbing, that Talking Presidents is the first and only creator of United States presidential action figures or that the company’s first release – the George W Bush doll featuring 17 different phrases in his own voice – is currently sold out.

The Take This Job and Shove It award: Tired of the daily grind? Ready for a career change? Become a minister with the Universal Life Church – it’s free and, according to the site, 100 percent legal. You can become an ordained minister and start your own ministry or church of any faith or religion with this very inclusive organisation (yes, they even accept cats, Seymour is now taking bookings for weddings). The site says “Yes, YOU can be a legally ordained minister just five minutes from now. Yes, we offer free online ordination and it takes only three minutes … Now where did those extra two minutes come from?

The Tiny Tim small but interesting award: Point your browser Guimp to take a look at the world’s smallest site.Yes, it’s small but perfectly formed.

The Paul Holmes small but annoying award: the infamous hampster dance site is still bouncing around. Will those hamsters ever quit?

The word-a-day toilet paper award: the Dialectizer takes text or other web pages and instantly creates parodies of them using different dialects. You can choose from redneck, jive, cockney, Elmer Fudd, Swedish chef, moron, pig Latin or hacker.

The Mr Ed award for just plain weird use of horses: This little flash movie of four singing horses kept Seymour entertained for a good 10 minutes.

Public service award: Courtesy Flush, where you’ll find the answers to life’s real etiquette questions, including what level of conversation is acceptable when using a urinal.

The Helen Clark artistic merit award: This prestigious award just had to go to Stick Death Theatre for the quality drama on offer. Here you’ll find it all – sex, intrigue, death and more. Shakespeare, eat your heart out.

The I should be a government consultant money for nothing award: We had a tie in this category. First up is the Amazing send me a dollar website, where the webmaster simply asks that you send him a dollar to post on his message board and help him get his 15 minutes of fame. So far the tally stands at $4934.28. There’s also Save Karyn, where Karyn is asking the world to help her pay off her debts. Her surprisingly successful venture has netted $13,323.08 to date.

And a drumroll please … The saving the best for last award: an interview with God will provide a few chuckles while still delivering a timeless message and some sensible lessons, such as do no harm and don’t pierce your nipples.

What’s in a name?

(This is the Online column, written for The Southland Times)

If you’ve ever wondered what your name means, wonder no more.

Behind the Name covers the etymology and history of first names.

Interestingly, our very own editor Fred Tulett’s name means peaceful ruler.

Anyway, I decided to find out what my name means and discovered the net can be a depressing place.

I looked up Jillian and it said it was a variant of Gillian.

So I looked up Gillian, it said it was the feminine version of Julian.

Next stop, Julian – from the Roman name Julianus, which was derived from Julius.

After finally getting to Julius in the list I read that it was possibly derived from Greek – downy-bearded – all that clicking just to be told I need a shave.

The Hobbit name generator, which takes your real name and gives you the Hobbit equivalent, was only slightly kinder, christening me Myrtle Knotwise of Michel Delving.

If you’ve ever wondered what your Jedi name might be, and haven’t we all, then wonder no more. It’s comforting to know that if I ever felt the urge to take up the light sabre I’d know what to write on the tags sewn into the back of my Jedi robes: Allji Mainv of the planet Augmentin.

Speaking of names, Who Named It details those fortunate enough to have had a disease or disorder named after them, including English surgeon Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie who gave his name to a specific type of haemorrhoid.

I wonder if he put it on his business card?

Finding a voice via blah.net

While some might say computers are antisocial, there are many thriving communities on the internet.

The New Zealand-based Blah.net online community site was launched only a few months ago and already is a busy little place with forums covering every topic imaginable.

Blah is, according to site administrator/owner Scott, the place to voice yourself – nicely.

People from all throughout New Zealand, along with a sprinkling of Aussies and Americans, populate the forums and I’ve also spotted a Canadian.

Apart from posting in the various forums, which cover everything from pets to bad jokes, users can also take part in live chat.

The message board on the Trade Me auction site  has become a little heated lately with flame wars and Trade Me users expressing their annoyance at what they believe to be a distinct lack of customer service on the part of the site’s management.

As a result of this, many of the people who were once regular posters on the message board at Trade Me have migrated to Blah.

 

Audiogalaxy sunk

Following quietly in the footsteps of Napster, peer-to-peer file-sharing network Audiogalaxy has been sunk.

The popular Napster clone has agreed to filter songs that are the subject of copyright and pay an undisclosed sum of money after a court battle with the Recording Industry Association of America. 

While last week’s gagging of Audiogalaxy wasn’t as widely reported as Napster’s closing, the Texas-based site is undoubtedly among the most popular music download spots on the net. It’s user-friendly interface, high number of members and simplicity made it hard to beat.

With CD burners becoming more and more affordable and a proliferation of sites offering music downloads, particularly peer-to-peer networks, there are fears in the music industry that music fans will stop buying CDs and, in turn, profits will drop. However, those who support these sites say file-swappers often end up spending more on music than they did before the started downloading files because they can try before they buy.

Interestingly, and confusingly, there are strong cases being presented to support both sides of the argument.

A study released last month about 34 percent of those swapping files are spending more, while 14 percent say they spend less. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry says worldwide music sales dropped for the second consecutive year last year and puts the blame squarely free music swapping on the internet.

Of course, there are still sites out there where you can download music.

A popular choice seems to be WinMx (www.winmx.com), although it looks pretty clunky, and of course there’s iMesh, Filetopia, KaZaA and many more.

A quick search on your favourite search engine for music file sharing or peer-to-peer will give you plenty to choose from so it looks like the music industry has a long battle ahead.

The downside to KaZaA is its notorious spyware, internet jargon for tracking software on your system that uses your net connection to report to advertising companies about your surfing habits.

A hacked version of KaZaA, minus the spyware and called Kazaalite is now available but the site is frequently down.

Gibson Research Corporation has some interesting and detailed information on spyware in the OptOut section of its website.

Freeware programs are readily available

There are thousands of useful programs readily available for download over the internet and often the person who wrote the software is more than happy to make it available free of charge.
There are several sites that specialise in bringing together collections of these programs, known as freeware.

Good starting points are No Nags, Freeware Home, Jans Freeware Collection  and Jumbo.

CFI Software offers a great little program called ShellToys, which is actually a collection of 19 tools and utilities that add handy new features to Windows. You can use it to add new items to the send-to menu, flip through image thumbnails, change file extensions, view folder contents without opening them first, mask lists by file type, print folder contents, set file attributes and permanently delete files.

Yes, all the tasks can be done in other ways but with this program all you need to do is right click.

And the best part is, it’s free.

Another useful program is Clonespy. This little beast will save hard drive space by detecting and removing duplicate files.

There are plenty of other sites offering software as well but it’s worth noting that not all software available on the net is meant to be freely available.

With all the publicity about software piracy and of course the worries about computer virii and worms it pays to be reasonably cautious and to only download software from reputable sites.

While on the topic of software piracy, probably the most interesting and under-reported piece of news relating to the geek world I’ve found lately is that the company that coined the term software piracy has been convicted of just that.

Yes, last year a French court found Microsoft guilty of illegally including another company’s proprietary source code in SoftImage 3D.

Little nasties not so cute

There are still lots of nasty surprises awaiting the unsuspecting surfer so take care when opening e-mails and surfing the net.

computer securityBoth McAfee and Symantec are warning users to watch out for an e-mail with a subject line: “Thoughts…” Apart from a short note reading: “I just found this program, and, I don’t know why…but it reminded me of you. Check it out.” The message carries an attachment called Cute.exe.

However, it’s anything but cute so don’t open it or you’ll unleash a Trojan horse worm that will look for security programs inside your machine and attack them.

It’s labelled a low risk by both companies but if you are unfortunate enough to get hit there are instructions on how to remove it at both sites.

If you use Microsofts MSN Chat or Messenger you might want to make sure you have the latest version because a security hole has been found in the chat tool.

Normally, Messenger automatically tries to update whenever a new version is available.

DOMAIN NAME SCAM

Since raising the issue of the infamous Aussie scamsters Internet Name Protection Ltd in my last column, the Commerce Commission has put out a press release advising against dealing with this company.

The commission received 35 complaints about the Melbourne-based firm in a fortnight and has already investigated Internet Name Protection and issued a warning to the company’s director.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is also on the case.

WHEELY NASTY

Speaking of nasties, if you want to express your feelings on the shameful team orders issued by the Ferrari team at the Austrian grand prix this week, head on over to Petition Online and sign the petition.

Interestingly, Michael Schumacher is only fifth on the Formula One Rogues championship list. This site celebrates drivers and teams for crashing, showing ruthless driving tactics, manipulating the press and other racing delights.

Juan Pablo Montoya is leading the onsite championship with an impressive 50 points, mainly because of his tendency to turn formula one racing into a contact sport every time he gets within striking distance of Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari.

He has also scored a few bonus points for premature champagne spraying on the podium and making gestures at Schumacher.

 

 

Another worm doing rounds

Has your computer had a visit from Klez yet? If you’ve managed to avoid it, then well done.

Klez is the latest mass-mailing worm doing the rounds.

It uses random subject lines, message bodies, and attachment file names and exploits yet another a vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express in an attempt to execute itself when you open or even preview an e-mail.

So don’t forget to turn off that preview panel in Outlook Express, keep up-to-date with Microsoft at https://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/default.htm and if you have been unlucky enough to have this nasty little critter arrive in your inbox, pay a visit to www.symantec.com/techsupp/vURL.cgi/nav117 If you have a domain name, be on the lookout for a new scam.

Notorious Aussie domain name scammer Internet Name Group is back in business under the name of Internet Name Protection Pty Ltd with an old scam targeting a new audience, this time existing .nz customers.

Details of existing .nz names are harvested and the name-holders are sent a letter saying an equivalent name with another extension is available.

The wording is confusing and can lead customers to think this is a renewal demand for their existing domain name.

To find out more, visit New Zealand domain name registration company FreeParking.

CREDIT CARD CHANGES

Stack of credit cards, low angle view, (digital) Original Filename: credit cards.jpg

MasterCard is planning to discontinue using third-party credit card payment systems like PayPal.

PayPal offers the ability to process credit card transactions online without having to work through a financial institution and have a merchant account. Credit card fees and monthly minimums can quickly eat into profits for small businesses and individual users who may only process small numbers of credit card payments, so PayPal has become a popular option.

MasterCard has said its main reason for opting out of third-party services is a lack of information on credit cards processed, which in turn brings higher default and fraud rates.

PayPal is trying to get an exemption from MasterCard’s new rule and its affiliations with large companies like eBay should help.

ELVIS FREEBIE

In keeping with my tradition of writing a column that doesn’t follow any discernable path, here’s something for all the Elvis fans out there, how about a free Elvis screensaver. If you’re not a fan of the late Mr Presley, then take a look at the screensavers on offer at Drawing Hand Creations (www.drawinghand.com), where you will get to see a moving hand creating works of art right before your eyes.

 

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