iLeW

Apple iSlate Rumour Roundup & Predictions

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 23:51:00 +0000

Plantronics Audio 655 Headset Review

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 23:50:00 +0000

MobileMe Review

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:48:00 +0000

Macbook Pro Review (13 inch)

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 05:08:00 +0000

Stunning Hackintosh/Xbox Case Mod

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:38:00 +0000

Now I've watched plenty of these types of PC case mod videos, but few manage to generate the level of geeky salivation that this video does. It's demonstrates some seriously sick engineering and design skills (which I can't help but envy). But this video also stands out for the level of expertise and polish that has gone into the editing of the clip (he is a professional video editor after all) But I have to give credit where it's due, this is the first case mod video where I didn't simply skip to the end to see the finished product. The entire video is fascinating and the soundtrack is pretty badass too. So go forth and indulge your inner geek. Just make sure to wipe up the drool afterwards.

iPod Shuffle 3rd Generation Review

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:50:00 +0000

Google ranks Steve only second to Christ

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:06:00 +0000

Wow, after randomly deciding I wanted the Steve Jobs autobiography, I did what most people do when they want something and asked google. Anyway after typing "the second coming of" I expected that the most popular searches would be all biblical references, but to my amazement, Steve Jobs showed up as the 2nd most popular result, only surpassed by Christ himself and beating out Joan of Arc. Anyway, just thought it was pretty crazy.

Master ChaVs - The Manic Mooch

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:00:00 +0000

I finally finished this episode after 3 months of working on it (not a solid 3 months)
Some people have asked why it takes so long, and what my process is, so I thought I'd do a quick list of the steps I go through for each video. If I had a proper high definition capture card and other high end gear it would take a lot less time and effort, but unfortunately I don't. So here goes;

- First I need to think of an actual idea. These ideas seem to come pretty randomly, usually whilst driving.
- Decide on the number of characters
- Write out a script
- Create characters on Halo 3
- Use the characters to act out the story in the game, which for this episode took around 15 hours (this can be incredibly tedious when your repeating the same car chase the 14th time in a row, to get the timing just right)
- Then on the TV, playback the action I just made the characters do, using various camera angles and panning techniques
- Use my camera to film the TV, capturing the action
- Then transfer the video to the PC
- Then chop down the 10's of Gigabytes of data into more useable chunks, using a video editing program (8 hours at least)
- Then begin to record the voices (I did all the voices in this episode apart from the purple alien and brown sniper guy)
- Recording these voices is surprisingly difficult and time consuming! (8 hours)
- Now comes the task of matching up the video with the audio
- Then comes one the more enjoyable tasks of adding various video effects/filters to change the feel of a piece of video
- Then I add the sound effects (because I don't have a capture card I have to manually add all of these, even every foot step!)
- Then I add the background music, clipping out the relevant parts of a piece of music and fading it in and out
- I then adjust all the volumes of the various parts of the episode, making sure for example the background music doesn't distort one of the characters voices as a result of been too loud
- I then add the titles and credits and do final little tweaks and polish to the video
- Finally I render the video with the relevant codec (MP4) and the relevant resolution and data rate

Now that was still only scratching the surface of the process of making one of these videos and it also fails to acknowledge all the mistakes you will make along the way (deleting footage, corrupting files, loosing synchronisation etc). So when you combine this with the fact that I'm in full time medical education, I hope it's a little clearer why there is such big gaps between each episode! Hopefully that was of some use to those who wanted to know a little more behind the scenes kind of stuff, and also to those who want to make their own videos of this type. Thanks.

Jesus forgives you of your sins......then adds you on Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 05:02:00 +0000

Whilst browsing today I came across this little nugget. I mean, I knew Jesus was everywhere and yet it still caught me off guard to see he's on Facebook.
I then got to thinking, what would it be like to have Jesus as a friend on Facebook?
Would I feel awkward if Jesus poked me? Would I be happy with tagged photos of Jesus’s crucifixion & resurrection in my Facebook Highlights? Would I receive friend suggestions for the 12 disciples? Would Jesus’s friend request somehow "accidentally" not get sent to anyone other than heterosexual white people?

I then thought about what Jesus's profile might look like. I'm guessing his relationship status would state complicated and that he would be looking for - believers (preferably unquestioning ones). I'm sure I'd enjoy his status updates gracing my Facebook wall, with things such as "just cured a blind man lol asif" and “been nailed to crucifix...proper knacks" with God commenting "Good lad".

But anyway after a long, hard and totally unnecessary contemplation, I decided that much to the Holy Ones dismay, I'd be clicking ignore........... and no Jesus I won't follow you on twitter either, so don't try it.

Super Mario Vintage Commercial

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:44:00 +0000

Today I came across this old super mario commercial and thought it was pretty funny. The advert claims Mario is bigger and badder than ever before and I suppose nothing says bigger and badder better than throwing turnips at a mouse with gender issues. Anyway take a look for yourself.

Turtle Beach Earforce X1 Review

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:16:00 +0000

Bruno Interview

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 14:02:00 +0000

In anticipation of seeing the film Bruno, I came across this interview. It's from the awsome site digg.com. All the questions in the interview were created by the sites users, which makes for an interesting video. Great stuff.

Update

Saw the movie and it didn't dissapoint, cocks swinging and all. And on another note, apparently I have a resemblence of Bruno, not too sure how to take that. As a result I've decided to become Bruno for my holiday in Greece, embarrising, cringy pictures sure to follow.

Metal Gear Solid Dance......the game that never was :(

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 01:48:00 +0000

Years ago, whilst at secondary school with far too much free time on my hands, I got my first printer. The printer was a huge clunky white piece of junk, which actually quite nicely complemented my big bulky cream, windows 95 PC. This monstrosity of a printer was bought by my parents with the idea that it would assist in my education. Of course this didn't end up been the case, unless my education into the art of using microsoft paint counts.
I would waste ridiculous amounts of time and ink creating posters which incoperated solid black backgrounds with "LeW's RooM" scralled across the page in red. Anyway, many months and ink cartridges later, I got a scanner! I was amazed by this crazy device that could magically teleport a real life image into the cybersphere. I started screwing about scanning allsorts in, magazines, limbs, pets.......the list continues. This is when I had the idea to scan in a game cover, edit it and create my own. In retrospect I realise this wasn't all that creative, but at the time it felt as though I was the first person to even concieve the idea. I grabbed my new copy of Metal Gear Solid 2 for the Playstation 2 and into the scanner it went. I then used my refined microsoft paint skills I had gathered over the year, to edit away the content of the cover and create my own.
"Metal Gear Solid Dance" a revolutionary spin-off in which Solid Snake shimmies away the possibility of nuclear holocaust. I spent days screwing with the cover art, trying to find the perfect snippets to use on the front cover. Anyway after many hours of wasted time I finished the covers and finally printed them out. I have to admit I was quite proud of myself when I put the covers into the case. This seems pretty run of the mill, easy peasy, boring now, but at the time I'd never seen or heard of anyone my age been able to do something like this, so I thought it was fairly revolutionary.

I'd actually totally forgotten about all of this until a few weeks back when I cleared out my room and found MGS dance under my bed, buried beneath a load of old pc games, covered in dust. So I thought I'd clean it off and put some pics up as digital proof of one of my very first geeky achievements!
More Pics on my [Flickr]

The cutest robot ever, used to test the good willingness of society

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 23:45:00 +0000

A group of NYU students decided to build some robots, which they called "Tweenbots" in an effort to assess societies values when it comes to helping others, even if that "other" is a cute 10 inch cardboard coated robot. The Tweenbots are human dependent robots whos aim is to navigate from one point to another with the help of pedistrians they encounter. The robot has a flag stating its desired destination and can only travel in a straight line, therefore requiring the good will of passers by to unlodge it from obstacles it encounters. The group of students built the robots cheaply because they expected them to perish along the journey, however this turned out to be far from the truth. The students were suprised to see that all the robots made their way from start to finish without obtaining even minor damage, all thanks to the pedestrians the Tweenbots came into contact with. People actually went out of their way to help the robots; dislodging them from park benches, helping them up kirbs and on one occasion altering a tweenbots path whilst informing the Tweenbot "You can’t go that way, it’s toward the road.”

I found it fascinating that the tweenbots vunerability and minor human characterisics were able to trigger peoples inbuilt instinct to help another being, purely out of good will. The video below shows highlights of the experiments and is both entertaining as well as a little heart warming. P.S. This is so going to be my next pet, Tweenbot FTW! [Source]

Microsoft bashes Apple in the second installment of its ad campaign

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 23:52:00 +0000

Microsoft has just released the second installment of its ad campaign in which "normal people" have a set budget to get a new PC. The ad bashes Apple for been overpriced and underpowered, with Giampaulo heading into an electronics store and stating

"Macs to me are more about aesthetics than computing power. I don't wanna pay for the brand"

Giampaulo ends up choosing a HP - HDX16 for $1,099 and walks out a happy man.
I think Microsoft has created some very affective ad's, highlighting the premium price Apple is charging and presenting the question "Is it really worth spending more purely for the aesthetics and the cool factor?" In the current economic climate I'm sure many consumers will answer "no" to this question, and this is exactly what Microsoft is hoping to capitalise on.
I can admit that Apples products are priced at a premium, and you are paying extra for the fit and finish, but I'm happy to do that, as are many others. This is no different to people choosing a pair of Nike trainers over a pair of lesser brand trainers for a tenth of the price, even though they both do essentially the same thing.
I think that if these ads continue they will almost certainly begin to embed the idea that Macs are unnecessarily more expensive than their PC counterparts into the collective conscience of consumers, something which could really hurt Apples growth. It should be interesting to see the ad campaigns impact over the next few months and the big question is, how will apple respond?

Master Chavs- ♫ We're all going on a...Skunner Holiday ♫

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Sat, 10 May 2008 13:11:00 +0000

This was the next addition to the Master Chavs series. I put this one together over the summer break last year and took the lessons I had learnt from the first episode to make this one better. Most of this episode is inspired from real life experiences with chavs, for example the scene where the guy asks for money used to happen to me almost every morning at the bus station on the way to university. I'm doing the next installment this summer, because at the moment I'm neck deep in medical revision.

Master Chavs - Why Pay When You Can Steal?

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:35:00 +0000

I randomly decided to make this video whilst bored in the easter holidays last year. It's pretty stupid really, but I had lots of fun making it

The Red Ring Of Death Evolves Into The More Dramatic Red Screen of Death!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 22:44:00 +0000

This is my third 360, and it's just died. This is getting really annoying. Was shocked when it crashed whilst I was playing worms and this screen came up, it was as if the graphics processor suffered a sudden brutal death, and it's blood splattered across the screen. Oh well off to microsoft it goes.

Halo 3 Forge Demonstration :)

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 23:13:00 +0000

Halo 3 is set to arrive here in the UK on September 26th, and this new feature looks to add to the amazing game Halo already is. Forge allows editing of levels on multiplayer, changing spawn points, weapon locations, adding ridiculous numbers of exploding barrels, but the best thing is that you can do it in real time while up to 8 other people are playing in the game. The possibilites are endless, dropping barrels on enemies heads, and as demonstrated on the video, the flying carpet, where your teammate gets on top of a box and you fly the box through the air, in essence giving him wings. Wow, I can't wait.

A Real Tesla Coil!

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 13:28:00 +0000

This is pretty cool, I used to use them all the time in Command & Conquer, Red Alert, never thought they were actually real, that man has some balls.

Crazy Qwerty Keyboard Snap-on

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 21:14:00 +0000

This crazy little add-on for the 360 controller is coming soon, to make use of the windows live messenger intergration coming in the next dash update. Im not too sure whether I like it or not, I mean surely you cant play games whilst that things attached. I'm not too much of an instant messaging fan anyway. Also you can gurantee that just as your about to make the final critical kill in a game of gears a chat box full of LoLz would just happen too appear.

Spring Update Vid Leaked!!!

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 00:26:00 +0000

I'm glad to finally see the integration with msn, i mean it was available with the original xbox so i cant understand why it's taken so long to come out, i also like the feature that auto turns off after your downloads are finished. Good to see they're still improving the dashboard, but what i'd really like to see is conference chat's built into the xbox dash, instead of only in games, it's really annoying having to talk to one friend threw private chat and the other on a mobile just to set a game of GOW up.

What did you spot in the GTA IV trailer?

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 10:04:00 +0000

I've had a good look at the video, pausing it plenty, and noticed a sign saying "VISIT VICE CITY TODAY $300" i'm hoping this means that the 3 original islands are all gunna be in this game and you can travel between them. The videos set in Liberty city, i'm assuming this from sites such as statue of liberty and signs advertising liberty times newpaper etc. I really cant wait, only problem is i'll be expecting orbs, and without them I dont think i'll cope.

Havent seen it yet? Check it out here http://www.rockstargames.com/IV/index2.html

Who's upgrading to an elite?

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 00:57:00 +0000

Big news this week with microsoft announcing the xbox 360 elite, with 120gb hdd, hdmi, black exterior. Im not too into the black myself, my 360 atm matches my room so I think i'll be keeping it, not sure whether i'll be going out to buy a 120gb hdd, maybe once the video marketplace properly launches in the UK.

Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (LeW) — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 00:51:00 +0000

Everyone should sign up to this, it's so simple n stupid, but incredibly addictive, it's at www.twitter.com , and have a look at www.twittervision.com its cool.