Govvy.co.uk

The style in which Google publicized their new browser seemed to be quite clever as they had all the major news networks talking about it. So a beta release is upon us and the new internet browser is called Chrome.

There are very few details that are different between Chrome and the major contenders of Internet Explorer and Firefox. But of what little there is, there are certainly some adaptations which are rather nice.

After all it is only a browser window, but I do rather like the thumbnail websites you see on load-up. That is a nice way to select the websites you use most as it will order by how much you use that website. Setting up desktop items which load what pages you like… well that just clutter in the end.

Search strings in the url bar was always a feature in a way, it would just use different search engines per browser.

But the best feature and one which beats IE and Firefox has to when the browsers crash. The tabs and all browser windows will be closed from a crash with IE and Firefox. (Firefox will at least remember where you have been visiting.) A new feature devolved into Chrome has this problem fixed. Because of the architecture created, Chrome runs each tab and each window like its own program and there-for avoids having to restart the whole lot. The added feature of the task manager gives you that extra power to deal with the crashes and fix problems.

Another feature which I can only assume is for people that look up porn and other dodgy stuff is the Incognito mode. That is where the window will not log the pages you view into the history, download cookies or do other bad stuff.

I still think Firefox runs better and feels less than a resource hog. But Chrome is in the early stages and may certainly take a while to get in gear with the internet crowd. For others this is just a wag of the tail. To me it is a long way off from being a contender and I will stick with the trusty Fox.

I read some websites that say braviax is just malware that installs itself on a PC with the red (X) in the system tray and popping up a message to say. Your PC is infected.

Well it was infected with braviax and not only that when following the removal instructions. Removing braviax.exe by shift deletion, then removing a friend of it in a file simply named as BRAVIAX.EXE-0B81BFC9.pf Well, the shit hit the fan. According to the virus scan, running AVG at the time along with Windows Defender and an out of date firewall called Sygate. There were a number of intrusions. 5 one scan, 2 another scan.

I started trying to remove the other stuff, but in two days what ever was left on the PC, a variation of braviax maybe. What it seemed to be doing was first to remove the start menu bar, then all the icons effectively taking away your desktop. The next thing the virus did was erase half the windows registry.

So all I could do and end up with was the task manager program which I could access with ctrl-alt-del string. I could see the processes which all looked innocent but could of possibly been taken over by fakes. I was pretty sure wuauclt.exe was copied over by that virus which does that. Because it was functioning in the processes without asking to update Windows. There was SHeur.cdsc which I don’t know what that did.

So instead of trying to remove any more malware, viruses it’s down to the good old format and start again. How inconvinient for one little braviax.exe and it’s friends.

There seemed to be a lot of praise going towards this film and a posthumous award for Heath Ledger. I can understand honouring the guy because he accidentally killed himself. But for the film itself I found rather long and if not dull. Although all the action was sound, the script was well played and cast. But the jokes that popped up when Jack Nicholson was playing the role of Joker. Well he was so much more fun. Ledger’s joker was so much more messed up. For one moment he is telling one story then another moment he is saying something completely different.

Maggie Gyllenhaal who plays Rachel Dawes taking over from Katie Holmes who played the character in the first film looked terrible. I am not sure if it was to look that way, but her face kept looking more and more skeletal as the film went on. There was certainly some glamour in the film, but that was shrinking into the blackness of the set.

You do see some daylight, but most of the film is all night scenes with bad guys left right and center. There was a fair bit of mental gore if not more makeup gore. There are more elements consistent with a horror movie than an action flick. Seeing Two-face is rather disturbing and waiting for the film to end seemed to be my only hope.

In fact my hope was too see a slightly shorter movie with a few more jokes and a storyline which wouldn’t be so depressing. At least because the aircon broke down in the cinema I got a free ticket to see a different movie next time I go.

3 out of 5.

I have no idea why this Russian website continues to register user accounts on my site. But very ofter maybe once or twice a month a username will register it’self on my site with an email of address ending in @komatoz.net

Now I am assuming is all to do with spam, trying to get it’s name across the internet to get it’s numbers up. So I believe they must be running a bot. Or someone is running a bot for them. I don’t know if it is just targetting me or is infact targetting others. But what I do know it is targetting wordpress which is what I am running.

So beware people, the komatoz.net is spamming.

You are brought into Deadly Alliance with a rather well made cinematic and then I was disappointed to find out that my favourite character was killed off so I could no longer play with Liu Kang. However there was a host of other characters to play with.

I don’t know where Midway wanted to go with the game in terms of depth and dimension because Konquest was not conquest. It was just game training and rather irritating and boring at best. I for one can only take small quantities of this at a time and that really drags the game out.

I am not saying that Deadly Alliance is a bad game. The Arcade mode is good with strong stand out graphics and arenas. The gameplay works very well, and if you have done the Konquest you can learn the moves which kick ass and easily get through to watch the ending sequences which are rather dull if not interesting. In fact Midway hadn’t put the same effort into the endings as they had done with the beginning intro. Still comic shots with a voice over are rather boring.

I do however love the way you can switch between different martial arts and weapons. This certainly adds to the characters and makes for a rather fun battle. It has a tiny bit of educational value here to show you all the different types of arts. But after all it is a game of violence with a monster load of blood.

The other extras like the makings of, music video, buying new characters and Kontent all help. But “The Krypt” is vast and annoying! There is far too much content to buy and working to get that much can be rather tedious. There is a massive lack of depth and with Liu Kang missing this only gets 6.9 out of 10.

The first thing I noticed with Fifa 2006 is that the graphics are much improved than its predecessor. Although I believe the game is using the exact same engine as in the 2005 edition, noticing replays being exactly the same in some areas as the 2005 version. There are many more additions and extras which count towards last ability. Game goal highlights have been enhanced, the commentary seems much better and seeing players going on and off during substitutes all look excellent. I do like watching all the little added quirks from red or yellow cards to the little stat boxes popping up. Graphically this game is very pleasing to the eye and has that quality only EA can give you. There is still a slight graphical bug with players who have short or no hair where parts of their head will flicker. I guess EA couldn’t fix that bug because it was also in the evident in Fifa 2005.

So how does Fifa play? Well gameplay is much improved, the passing, off the ball movement when you’re on the ball going forward all play really well. On the harder difficulty levels the game engine becomes very realistic. However off the ball the game engine seems to fail to perform such functions as man marking, filling those spaces, closing down players and most often not holding to the formation shape to which you ask. When off the ball the wings are very much neglected and the game A.I. will exploit its own exploit of its own creation!

One niggle I would have to have with the game is the lack of different types of referee’s. There should be more contrast to the referee’s of today’s game. Black, White, Asian, European refs. The annoying thing with the referee’s is the lack of invention on names for them. They could have generated some decent names to go with the refs. But alas, the selection of ref names is pitiful.

The main game function is of course season mode and this time they have my favourite low level team of Barnet. So I chose them to take them all the way to the Premiership and into Europe. I like the new feature of stadium upgrades and the other upgrades all seem very expensive. Seeing my new stadiums as I guide Barnet all the way too the top all look great. The sound and atmosphere all seem very realistic. I do feel the commentary at times let’s the season mode down a bit by failing to tell the difference between results of home and away. There should be some kind of code to tell the commentators the correct statistics of games played against who and where over the career lifespan. That would make for a much improved analyst from the commentators and would make the game feel that more real.

This time I sort of get to see my team winning the trophy, but it’s still not quite what I want to see. What I would like to see is them picking up the trophy and parading it around the ground and then have my players have a picture for the paper segment with the players and trophy in the same picture! A club history would have been nice to see also. Sort of a walk in room to browse what has been won at that club and what you have won to add to that club.

I am not sure how the math works with the currency in Fifa but it should work better than what it is currently. There should be British Pounds (£) for England, Scotland, Euro’s (€) for the countries in Europe and American Dollars ($) for the rest of the world. Along with realistic prices for player trading and staff upgrades. Another problem with this version compared to the last version is the youth system. In the 2005 edition of the game you would get new youth players added to your squad at the start of every season. They failed to implement that in this version and that is a slight let down because that helps to create a loan system for your club along with the ability to sell your youth players for the extra profit which is a big factor in modern football. Going back to the loan system, I don’t know why only clubs in your own division can buy or loan players from you, but that should have been widened. This would help the players join clubs equal to the player’s stats level.

Speaking of stats, I noticed the morale of players doesn’t work very well in season mode. For some reason the fringe players, the ones that don’t get to play much should have some morale, but the game doesn’t give them any what so ever. And one player I signed to my squad who plays regularly doesn’t have any morale statistic at all. He will always be zero unless he scores then he his stat goes up by 1.

On the international scene Holland is still missing. I am not sure of the mystery behind this but Holland wasn’t in the 2005 edition either. I wanted to create the Euro 2008 tournament but I had to replace Holland with England! I guess I will be playing with England. The problem I found with setting up the group stages was a simple fact. It wasn’t easy putting in the teams that are suppose to be in same group together. It could have been made easier on a new screen right after you had selected the teams you wanted. But I was unable to do this.

There was another irritation I had with player creation. The problem that annoyed me was the limited character length when creating a new player name. For instanced I wanted to add Tom Huddlestone to the Tottenham squad, well I did that but he is just called “Tom Huddlesto” because the surname field only has a length of 9 characters. Then I created John O’Hara but again the character missing is the upper-comma. So that didn’t quite work out the way I intended it too. There are a fair number of spaces to add new players. But for the extreme game player is it enough?

Another touch I like is the addition of the 1996 version of Fifa Soccer. It really does should you the difference in gaming over the past 10 years and how much graphics, gameplay and everything else has improved. For the younger generation they might not care so much. But I am amazed that just within ten years how much the industry has improved.

There are also scenarios that can be played and extras to buy along with a fair collection of songs to listen too. There have been so many improvements in the space of a year but a few minor set-backs at the same time. But overall I have been very impressed with the game and enjoy it a hell of a lot. I will certainly play Fifa 2006 for a long time, right up to the time I get an updated version that is!

8.5 out of 10

Back in 1996 Walkers Crisps released a set of 50 Star Wars Tazos to go with the re-released digitally mastered films. I have collected quite a few but I never actually finished off my collection. So for those out there that reads this and are interested in making a little profit and actually have these tazos: 6, 9, 25, 36, 46 and 47.

Make me happy and make yourself some money.

If I like the look of a trailer it will normally help me decide to go see and film and this time I wasn’t disappointed by a Marvel film. The Incredible Hulk had it all from action to acting. I thought Edward Norton was an excellent choice and he played it well. The rest of the cast were also good. I do love the little quirks with Stan Lee and seeing the original Hulk all appear in this feature.

I did however feel the film was a little bit long in places, although the story was told exceptionally well this time. This beats the last one hands down which has probably been burned by Marvel, but this is an excellent replacement. And with a guest appearance from Stark (Iron Man) at the end that surly only mean one thing. That there is more to come…

4.5 out of 5.

I didn’t know what to expect when I went to see the film, for I loved the last three and was hoping for more of the same. The action was good, the script seemed okay and there were some good gags here and there. But I found the ending disappointing and was left with wonderment on, how on earth did it get worse?

The film started off well enough, or did it? For some reason parts at the beginning didn’t seem to fit, a few little jokes with the Ark of the Covenant in one frame and the statue of his friend being desecrated seemed funny. But on the whole I enjoyed the film and then was mythed at how it can go from one extreme to another.

3 out of 5.