Blog

The thoughts, opinions, happenings, and just plain ramblings of a seemingly boring person.

Rants

MusicBee: Finally Opting Out of iTunes

Categories Geekery, Rants, Technology

MusicBee LogoIt feels like I've been complaining for almost a decade about the bloated mess that is iTunes. Despite all those complaints, I've never really been bothered to move on to anything else.

About 5 years ago, I had a brief flirt with other stuff like DoubleTwist, but wasn't that impressed and quickly ended up back on iTunes. This wasn't really because of iTunes being any superior itself, but more-so the ubiquity of support from third-party devices and services in interfacing with an iTunes library.

I hear you ask: "Wait a minute, you still own and manage your own music … Read more →

The Best and Worst of 2016

Categories Gaming, Movies, Rants

Geez, it's already that time of year again! My personal review of 2016's media that I was exposed to, and the ones that I liked the most, and the ones that I liked the least. As a result of having a small child, and also being unwell for a lot of this year, I haven't really seen/played as much as I would have liked. There are still a lot of movies that I want to see (including most of the December releases), so take this list with a grain of salt.

Movies

This year I saw a lot of very … Read more →

Monitor Colour Problems Over HDMI

Categories Rants, Technology

colortestAlthough I've studied and worked in technology for over 15 years, every now and then an issue comes up which totally baffles me. Yesterday was one of those times.

The new monitor that I bought back in January started stuffing up a few weeks ago (weird lines, tint shifts), and I took it in for repair. Since then I've been using a borrowed monitor from work, and yesterday I got the repaired monitor back up and running again.

Ever since I got the new monitor back in January, the colours weren't quite right. They were generally dull, and I had … Read more →

Vale NoSquint

Categories Internet, Rants

I wrote about four years ago that one of the main reasons I still use Firefox as my default browser is because of the fantastic NoSquint extension, which allowed me to persistently set a larger text size for readability.

It was with great sadness (and distress!) that I discovered today that NoSquint is no longer being maintained, and that it has stopped working as of Firefox v47.

Before I go on to alternatives, I have to publicly thank Jason Tackaberry for 10 years of fantastic support for this extension. That NoSquint has worked flawlessly over 10 years of browser … Read more →

PS4s and Malfunctioning PS3s

Categories Gaming, Rants

PS4This post has been a bit delayed, but here it is anyway.

Before Christmas I got a PS4. Prices for Sony's latest console have gotten ridiculously cheap as they aim to cement their dominance over the XBox  camp in this console generation.

So I bought a PS4 bundle with the Uncharted Collection. It was good playing through those games, although I still horrendously suck at using a console stick to aim. I'm now firmly planted in this current console generation. The biggest improvement is the PS4 controller; it just feels a whole lot more natural to use, especially the … Read more →

The Best and Worst of 2015

Categories Gaming, Movies, Rants

That time of year again! My personal review of 2015's media that I was exposed to, and the ones that I liked the most, and the ones that I liked the least. (Note that other than Star Wars, I haven't seen many of the other December movies).

Movies

The Force Awakens

Best Movie: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Easy choice. After so much hype and expectation, this movie was under a lot of pressure to deliver, and I thought they did a remarkably stellar job. Not perfect, but I really couldn't have asked for much more from this new era of … Read more →

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (spoilers!)

Categories Geekery, Movies, Rants

Star Wars: The Force AwakensOk, to get the warnings out of the way, I considered writing this post as a spoiler-free one, but with the amount of crucial plot points that I want to write about, I don't think that is possible.

So, do yourself a favour, and see this movie as soon as you can, because if you are at all connected to the internet, there is not much chance that you will be able to go very long before you are spoiled for at least one major plot point in The Force Awakens. That said, you have been warned: SPOILERS AHEAD!… Read more →

Keyboard Hit and Misses: Read My Tale of Woe

Categories Rants, Technology

Corsair Strafe RGBMy trusty almost-7-year-old keyboard, the Logitech Illuminated Keyboard, unfortunately has started to go on its way out over the past 6 months or so. I have really loved this keyboard, it's easily the best keyboard I have ever used. But, a few sticking and failing keys meant that I  begrudgingly started to look for a replacement.

Long post ahead! The TL;DR version is that I got a new keyboard, the Corsair Strafe RGB with Cherry MX Silent key switches.

Now onto the tale:

I started looking at mechanical keyboards, as they seem to be all the rage at the … Read more →

Living with Liver Disease: My Continuing Journey With PSC & Anxiety

Categories Life, Rants

I've previously debated within myself whether I should write this entry over the past few years, as I've recently hesitated at exposing these deeply personal issues to the wider world. But after delivering a presentation at work on Friday for DonateLife Week 2015, I've taken great comfort in sharing my health journey with other people.

Since my diagnosis in 2010 (most recent blog post on that initial period here), I started to shy away from posting about my personal life, and especially my health.

It's now been just over five years since I was diagnosed with primary … Read more →

The Horrific Reality Behind Yoshi’s Woolly World

Categories Gaming, Rants

Yoshi carnageIt's no secret that I am a fan of Yoshi, but it is only recently that I truly considered how absolutely horrifying the concept of the Yoshi games are.

Yoshi enters a world with the main aim of getting to the end. Along the way he encounters primarily 'Shy Guys', who as their name implies, often aren't even doing anything other than walking around minding their own business, and sometimes even just sitting down doing nothing.

Angry YoshiDespite these innocuous creatures posing an almost completely negligible threat to the dinosaur/dragon that is Yoshi, he proceeds to tear through the … Read more →