Esquire magazine has been doing a wonderful job over the past number of years in providing interesting, engaging and informative journalism aimed at the male populace. In the past few months they have received particular praise from me for their distribution of HD quality videos to showcase photo shoots that appear in the magazine, see my previous post on their recent Kate Beckinsale promo video. As the Summer kicks in a new issue has hit shelves featuring among other things an interview and photo shoot with the absolutely gorgeous Daisy Lowe. Check out the preview video below! Esquire I love you guys : )

Image and video are property of Esquire magazine and are used only in a promotional context.

While still very much in it’s infancy the application is already reliable and fairly robust. To date I have experience one or two crashes but that was on launch day and the application has updated since release. The games currently available for the Mac platform are very small in number when compared to the PC platform but more have been promised for release on Wednesday of each week over the next couple of months. Furthermore Valve have confirmed that the Mac is now a tier one platform, along with the PC & Xbox360, which means that new Valve developed games will be released simultaneously on each. Multi-award winning titles like Half Life 2 and Team Fortress have been promised and Portal is already available for free up until the 24th May.

The interface is clean and well presented consisting of four main sections, the store, games, news & community. The store is the main hub for purchasing new releases and reflects the contents found on the Steam website. One of the best launch titles to pick up has to be Torchlight – a fantastic action RPG from former Blizzard employees. It oozes quality and is just great fun, certainly the best dungeon crawler this side of Diablo III. The games section is where all the titles you have purchased can be found, details about achievements obtained, friends progress and details about the game itself can all be found here. The news tab, as the name suggests, provides an insight into updates, upcoming releases, promotions and events. Finally the community tab is the social side of Steam where you can manage friends, develop your profile and find out what others are doing over chat.

Steam is a fantastic application and one that is very much welcomed on the Mac platform. While it will never rival the PC as a gaming device and I don’t consider that a bad thing, this is definitely a step in raising awareness of the Mac as a viable gaming outlet and one which Mac owners will surely welcome.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Splinter Cell Conviction is the latest release in the Splinter Cell series and is available on Xbox360. You play the role of Sam Fisher a spy and weapons & special tactics master out for revenge for those that may have been involved in the death of his daughter. The game mechanics rely heavily on the stealth approach of the series but some nice new additions have been added such as new take down moves, execution mode and a tracer to show Sam’s last known position if he gets spotted. In addition to the single player campaign the game also features fantastic co-op play and multiplayer modes. The game has been getting very good reviews in the gaming press and now you have a chance to win a copy for yourself.

All you have to do is follow me on Twitter, retweet the competition info found here and answer the following simple question as a reply post on the blog.

What is the name of Sam’s daughter?

Competition Rules

• Entrants must be 15 or over to enter and have their parents or guardian’s permission to take part if under the age of 18.
• The competition will run for three weeks with all entries received before 11.00pm Sunday 23rd May UK time valid.
• The competition is only available to UK blog readers or those with a UK address.
• Only one entry per person based on a per email basis – please make sure to provide a valid email address as this will be used to contact you should you be the winner.
• The winner will be announced on Monday 24th May with the winner chosen at random by myself.
• The winner must have fulfilled all of the competition requirements, follow me on Twitter, retweeted the competition link, answered the question correctly, and meet entry legal requirements.
• My decision is final & I take no responsibility for loss of packages during postage – I will use Royal Mail recorded delivery.
• This competition holds no association with Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction the video game and I except no responsibility for the quality of the product
• Rules are subject to change

Competition closed – winner will be contacted directly. Thanks to all for taking part.

The next step was to run Time Machine, Apples Leopard and above integrated backup application. I love the Time Machine interface and the whole concept of time travel coinciding with the process of backing up is sheer geekgasm. Time Machine works by essentially taking snap shots of the system as it stands, files folders etc as the exist at present are recorded and indexed by date. A wonderful Apple interface allows you to “go back and forward in time” to retrieve and restore files as needed. It all works wonderfully well and as I write this the process is running on my system : ) Time Machine required an external hard drive formatted as HFS+ Journal and I suggest getting a drive with as much space as possible. Once full Time Machine will start replacing older backups with newer ones informing you of such before it happens. It is an extremely useful way of maintaining a record of your files as they are at present.

In addition to having an incremental system snapshot facility with Time Machine it is also highly advised to have a complete clone of a given hard drive. A clone of a system drive not only means that you have a working copy of all your data files but that all of the applications and system settings will be maintained. To implement my drive clones I use Carbon Copy Cloner which is available for free for personal & educational use. CCC offers many advanced and useful features but the basic premise of offering a bootable clone of your main system drive is the key feature available. CCC provides functionality for block level copying of data which means that not all of a given file need be backed up once changed, only the blocks effected. This has greater significance with larger files but makes the whole backup process quicker. The initial backup or cloning of a drive can take some time but incremental changes thereafter are relatively quick. Carbon Copy Cloner is fantastic application offering an intuitive and clean user interface, it provides backup functionality for just about every need and is free for personal use. Customer testimonials suggest that it is very reliable and a provides for hassle free backups and indeed restores when the need arises.

The final component of my backup strategy is Mozy. Any competent backup process will involve the backing up of data to off site locations – I had already signed up with Mozy and their US backup facilities but recently Mozy offered backup for UK and Ireland residents to local European servers. The main reason for this was to comply with European backup law but it also means that people based in the UK like myself have a faster backup procedure available to them. Mozy is widely considered one of the best backup solutions on the Mac platform, a recent study by MacFormat magazine identified Mozy as the most Mac like backup application and I have to agree. Mozy offers 2GB of backup storage for free, you simply need to sign up for an account and paid solutions start at £4.99 a month for unlimited backup of one computer. All user data is encrypted locally with military-grade encryption prior to transfer via 128-bit SSL connection. Users can choose a managed encryption key or choose a personal key for added security. Data is stored in state-of-the-art data centers that employ the highest security standards and are SAS70 or ISO certified. MozyHome the version for personal use and the one which I am using installs as an application and provides access to backup configuration through a menu bar item. All that is required is to select what is to be backed up, when, using how much bandwidth and you are good to go. Backups can be scheduled to take place during the night for example, with initial backups taking days or weeks depending on how much data needs to be seeded.

The development of a more robust backup plan has left me feeling a lot less worried about my critical data, I strongly urge everyone to explore the options available for themselves and take the necessary steps to implement a plan that suits you. Whatever you go with I guarantee you will feel better about it.

Having established the mass collaboration and sharing of information is inevitable and to be encouraged the next step is to facilitate in the process in a safe and reliable way. My experience with torrents has been something of a mixed bag, certainly back when I was using the PC platform it was a painful concept. Files failed to download, speeds were terrible, files I did get turned out to be something completely different than I desired and more often than not it involved security issues such as malware and viruses. Thankfully the downloading and distribution on the Mac platform, like most things I might add, has been painless and enjoyable. My BitTorrent client of choice is the freely available Transmission which provides a secure, easy to use and feature rich torrent management experience. Some BitTorrent clients provide the user with a dazzling amount of configuration options, form past experience tweaking these settings can reduce performance and lead to an application that almost doesn’t work. Even if you know what you are doing playing with the settings is not advised. Transmission provides a very much “works out of the box” scenario, after installation it’s simply good to go in terms of usage.

Another important function of BitTorrent clients are their memory footprint. Torrents whether it be uploading or downloading do take time – consequently it is desirable if that while they are running other system resources are free to allow other applications to function and perform well. Written in Objective C on the Mac Transmission provides Growl notification and dock badge notification identifying upload and download speeds. Moreover I have downloaded and seeded torrents while working away on lots of other things. Transmission has the features you want from a BitTorrent client: encryption, a web interface, peer exchange, magnet links, DHT, UPnP and NAT-PMP port forwarding, webseed support, watch directories, tracker editing, global and per-torrent speed limits, and more. I fully appreciate that the concept can and is abused on a daily basis but when used correctly torrents have a role to play in our digital society. They are a viable option for the sharing and distribution of data and Transmission provides a great client to support torrent management.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

This drive has caused something of a controversy among those that have purchased it – some stating it to be a great drive when configured while others, perhaps those a little less technologically aware, struggling to get it to work. The center of this issue lies with the installed software which is now standard across much of the Western Digital range, the rather inappropriately named SmartWare…

The software is mounted as a virtual drive on the drives as standard and provide backup functionality should a user wish to use it, unfortunately due to the way in which it has been installed it is very difficult to remove and can cause conflict errors with various systems. You might think that a format of the drive would resolve the issue but unfortunately that isn’t the case. I cannot understand why Western Digital would force it’s users down this path, a better option would surely have been to have left the installers for the software on the drive for users to install should they wish, not forcing them to know their way around their platform of choice in order to remove it.

The good news is that the software can be removed and the drive used for whatever purpose you wish (in my case as a clone destination for my main HDD) but it’s a little tricky to do. First if you are working on a Mac you will need access to both a Windows machine and your chosen platform. At present there are issues with one of the tools provided by Western Digital to resolve this matter on the Mac platform, if you are solely a Windows user you are good to go with just your PC.

The first step in the process is to update the drive firmware, Windows & Mac users should do this on the Windows platform using the utilities provided here and following the instructions on the same page. Once you have completed this step you then need to use the VCD Manager utility, again Mac users should do this on a Windows machine. This utility will disable the VCD Manager driver that attempts to install the software on drive connection. When this stage is complete Windows users should format the drive as they would normally – NTFS – this should provide you with a fully working, bloat free drive to use as you wish. Mac users have a little more work to do.

Using Disk Utility Mac users should partition the drive to The GUID schema and using as many partitions as they wish. One will give you the entire drive as usable space. Once this is done format the drive to HFSJ. This should now leave you with a drive that you can connect to your Mac as you would any other external drive and prevent any interference from the pre-installed bloatware.

I really cannot understand Western Digital’s thinking behind this move, nobody wants hard to remove software on their external drives, particularly software that causes compatibility issues and crashes. Thankfully following the steps above you can reclaim the drive to use as you wish but it does require working knowledge of disk utility to do so. The next step for me is the cloning process which should take place in the next couple of days.

It all seems a little to idyllic and I can’t help but feel it’s the calm before the storm, I’m sure some of you will know what I mean. I’m not kidding myself, the next few weeks are going to be tough but I have to keep some perspective in order to maintain my sanity. For now I have to content myself in the moment. Much of what is ahead will be about Getting Things Done™ How may times have each of us said something along those lines? Personally speaking it must tens of thousands if not millions. Time management and productivity have become more and more important in my life and indeed inherently important of anyone that works in the age of digital media. Life demands a lot from us and work pressures are becoming more demanding, many of us will have external projects and interests that are every bit as important to us and our careers. Finding time to fit all of this in can be a nightmare and speaking from experience it can lead to all sorts of issues and problems.

I have read various books on the subject, listened to audiobooks and researched concepts on the Internet, yet I still struggle with those three words; getting things done. Recently a number of new media gurus from various podcasts I listen to have mentioned the book Getting Things Done by David Allen and have sung it’s praises from the rafters. Merlin Mann, Katie Floyd, David Sparks and many others are advocates of the approach. I thought it was about time that I invested in the concept. There is a complete system built around David Allens techniques with DVD’s, posters, seminars, podcasts and many other forms of information available. They all stem from the core principles contained in the book, which I have just ordered from Amazon.

I have already listened to some of the podcasts relating to book content and I believe Things from Cultured Code will provide me with the software needed to support the process. The Amazon order should arrive mid-week giving me time to put an initial phase of the process to the test before returning to work, expect a blog update in relation to that in the near future.

Along with Getting Things Done I also ordered a few other bits and pieces from Amazon including the latest edition of the wonderful Teaching Today A Practical Guide by Geoff Petty. It’s pretty much considered the standard text for an academic & already owning an earlier edition I know I am in for a great read. The new release contain many additional chapters & content not in the edition I own. Finally to aid in the work process in the weeks ahead I got myself a Moleskine 18 month academic weekly notebook. If you haven’t heard of the Moleskine franchise, I really can’t imagine where you have been living: ) – Moleskine® notebook is the heir and successor to the legendary notebook used by artists and thinkers over the past two centuries: among them Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and Bruce Chatwin. A simple black rectangle with rounded corners, an elastic page-holder, and an internal expandable pocket: a nameless object with a spare perfection all its own, produced for over a century by a small French bookbinder that supplied the stationery shops of Paris, where the artistic and literary avant-gardes of the world browsed and bought them. A trusted and handy travel companion, the notebook held invaluable sketches, notes, stories, and ideas that would one day become famous paintings or the pages of beloved books.

Today, Moleskine brand is synonymous with culture, travel, memory, imagination, and personal identity–in both the real world and the virtual world. It is a brand that identifies a family of notebooks, journals, diaries and innovative city guides, adapted to various functions. With the diverse array of page formats, Moleskine notebooks are partners for the creative and imaginative professions of our time. They represent, around the world, a symbol of contemporary nomadism, in close connection with the digital world, through a network of websites, blogs, online groups, and virtual archives. With Moleskine, the age-old gesture of taking notes and doing sketches –typically analogue activities– have found an unexpected forum on the web and in its communities.

This post, being written in a stop-start format, has taken me up to mid-afternoon. My plans for the rest of today amount to some general sorting, a little cleaning, some WoW, resting & rounding things up with Pacific which premieres tonight on Sky Movies. The Pacific is a ten part mini series co-produced by Tom Hanks and Stephen Spielberg which tracks the intertwined stories of three US marines across the Pacific during World War II. Several key engagements will features across the episodes include Cape Gloucester, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. In many ways a spiritual successor to one of my favourite TV events of all time, Band of Brothers – the show has been very well received in the states and the showing in the UK high anticipated. I’m really looking forward to tonight’s double bill.

To wind up my musings for today let me revisit something I have discussed before on the blog. Anyone that knows me will know my absolute infatuation with Kate Beckinsale, she was recently deemed Esquire magazines sexiest woman alive and I for one agree. Esquire released a HD promo video for the shoot around about the time of the magazines launch in 720p, well now to further prove there is a God a 1080p version has materialised. Stunning in whatever format, check out Kate Beckinsale’s recent Esquire photo shoot promo. Enjoy the rest of your Easter whatever you are doing.

Video copyright Esquire 2010

I have always believed I was born a scientist! As far as I can remember I always had my nose in a  book and was collecting insects and things I could find in my garden to look at on my microscope. I was also fascinated by the sea I used to learn off by heart all the latin names for shells! (As an aside, the first thing I ever wanted to be when I grew up was a “mer-ma-laid” and when that proved impossible I set my sights on being a marine biologist. I quickly realised we don’t live in the tropics and scrapped that idea!) My parents bought me the childcraft encyclopedias when I started school and I was forever reading and re-reading them – especially the ones on science & weather, maths and the human body.

You are involved in a lot of activities modeling, acting and the very worthwhile cause of promoting awareness in relation to breast cancer – where do you find the time to fit it all in?

The acting is by far the most demanding and when you are in rehearsals and on tour there is very little else you can do! It’s all about planning really. I did a lot of shoots before I went on tour and now while I have a break I will plan some more shoots. I suppose it’s the same for anyone who is self employed, you end up working 24-7 because even when you are not on a job you are planning where your next loaf of bread is going to come from. The charity work is very rewarding but probably the most difficult to organise on account of people making a world of promises and never following through!

How did you find your recent venture into the world of acting, do you have any plans to do more acting in the future?

I absolutely loved every moment of being on stage.  Previous to this I had no acting experience so to get up on stage with people who have ten years and more experience over you was a huge personal challenge for me. My fellow cast were amazingly supportive and I feel extremely lucky to have met them and had the opportunity to work with them. Hopefully in the future I will be able to do some more work in that area though I do have my sights set on getting into sports journalism and presenting because I am a huge football fan.

I’m a big fan of your modeling work (blushes) do you think attitudes towards glamour modeling have changed in recent years?

There are very different attitudes to glamour modelling here in the Republic compared to the UK. In the UK glamour models are ten-a-penny and the idea of being a glamour model to bag yourself a footballer is somewhat of a career move over there. Believe me, I’ve seen it plenty. Ireland is a much more judgemental place and for all I have achieved, I am very much still an anomaly here. I don’t believe that as long as I am the “Page 3 girl” that will ever change, and it’s not personal. Of course, when I do other things such as acting and writing, I am respected for my work in those fields, but I have only ever made it as far as I have because I have achieved so much academically and that is the one point girls who aspire to be like me miss entirely. There are no ‘easy paths’ in life.

I know, like me, you use Twitter quite a lot and you have your own blog – has social networking changed the way you interact with your mates, colleagues etc?

My friends who I have known a long time do not get in touch with me on the internet. They just pick up the phone! And I am the same, I tend to ring them. I think social networking, for all the many ways in which it has aided my career, can be bad for people’s personal lives and for that reason there is actually only one or two of my actual friends on my sites and none of my family. My career is heavily reliant on the internet but I think it’s important to separate the two.

What does Claire Tully do to unwind, quite night in or night on the town?

I spend a lot of time relaxing watching football games. Concentrating on a game helps me tune out any worries I have and of course it’s a conversation starter then with anyone. I also like to spend time near the sea or go for a facial and a massage (if I’ve the money!). Aside from when I am actually doing shoots or on stage, my job can actually be very lonely. Travelling around the world is not so much fun when you are waiting 6 hours in an airport on your own and sitting in a room on your own online can also be a killer! I am a sociable little thing and I like to be around people in my free time.

Could you talk a little about your favorite book, film, music at the moment.

My favourite book at the moment is “Angels in my Hair”. I actually reviewed this book over Christmas and only picked it because it had been really hyped. Of course, as a complete sceptic, I wanted to see what the fuss was about. I don’t think my preconceptions could have been further off the mark – it really is an exceptional story. In terms of writers and genres, my favourite writer at the moment is Lisa Gardner. I have always been a fan of crime fiction. This author is taking over from Patricia Cornwell in my life! In terms of films, I think one of my favourite films of all time has to be The Green Mile. I think it is an incredibly powerful and moving film and it never fails to impress me time and time again. I’m not usually into very serious films, I like a lot of films such as “Old School”, ” l Love You Man” and one of my all time favourites is “Meet the Parents”. I’m a closet dance fan, from my earlier years, though as I grown out of my teens I can listen to pretty much anything. I dislike when certain songs are overplayed. I don’t like Lady GaGa at all, though I can appreciate how extraordinarily gifted as an artist she is. It really annoys me when people say I look like her just because we have blonde hair! I look nothing like her!

You are leaving the house and can only bring three things with you – what would they be?

Phone, Laptop, face moisturiser.

What can we expect from Claire Tully in the year ahead?

More opinions, more acting and maybe even a new look

I would like to thank Claire for taking time out of her hectic schedule to answer the questions for the blog,

Image & Video copyright GMTV 2010

One of my favourite geeks is the absolutely gorgeous and incredibly funny Carol Zara. Carol comes from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and currently resides in Canada. Carol was recently declared one of G4 TV’s hottest women of geek culture and I for one fully agree : ) Her blog DigitallyBlonde is a great resource where Carol comments on video games, movies, toys, conventions and other geek related goodness. There are also plenty of images of Carol (should anyone want to explore those for academic purposes).

Carol has very kindly agreed to answer some questions for my blog and I would like to thank her for giving me the time out of her busy schedule, it’s incredibly awesome to have someone of her stature as my first geek interview.

So Carol can you let us know a little bit about yourself?
I like to eat cheeseburgers and play video games in my PS3. All in thigh high socks.

What video games, TV shows, books, movies are you currently playing / enjoying?
Game: God of War 3; TV show: La-La-Land on HBO; comic book: Siege Embedded; movie: latest one I saw was Alice in Wonderland 3D, which I hated. Thought the 3D was horrible and the movie had no magic. I used to like Tim Burton before this epic disaster and I freaking love Johnny Depp.

You state pole dancing as one of your interests and I know you have a love of dancing – what started your interest in these activities.
I was a member at an all-girls-gym called Flirty Girl Fitness and some of the classes they have are things i think every woman should learn: pole dancing, chair striptease, coyote ugly dance, lap dance… Feminity and sexappeal will bring peace to the world. And more sexy catfights.

Your blog is great I love the content on there, how to you personally perceive your geek status?
I never thought of myself as a geek. I just do things I enjoy, then people started calling me the nerd princess, the queen of the geeks… I was like “alright if you say so, I’ll accept it”. Actually I’ve just recently found out that things I’ve been doing my entire life are labelled nerdy. I had no idea Buffy and Veronica Mars were nerd series. Grew up watching Dungeons and Dragons cartoon and playing Super Mario. My brother was addicted to RuneScape and Pokemon. By the way, I can sing the Pokemon song in Portuguese but I have no clue what it’s like in English.

Do you think attitudes to geeks has changed in recent years?
Not really. Like, I wonder why most geeks don’t dress up cooler? Geek T-shirts can be fun, but the rest is just so stereotypical… I respect people’s choices, but that doesn’t mean I like it.

What are your favourite tech gadgets at the moment – are there certain things you have with you all the time?
Oh definitely! My iPhone and Macbook are my babies. I treat them with love and feed them with battery juice.

You have inspired some very cool graphic design and have a section on your blog called zart – I especially love the Maxim inspired graphic. Do you draw? How do you feel about having images / logos etc of you drawn?
I’m really good at drawing stick figures. Mad skills! Let’s just say if people started a competition I’d win gold medal!

Are there any projects or activities you are currently working on that you can let us in on?
The only one I can talk about right now is the MTV one. I’ll be blogging for MTV’s new online magazine called FORA. They launch it in April. Super excited for it!!

Finally describe yourself in three words
Horny blonde girl. Thanks, Google AdWords!

I would like to thank Carol once again for giving her time.

Ok I think I have made it clear that I enjoy and appreciate software updates, did I mention that the software in question being one of my favourite applications magnifies my excitement even more! It’s probably fair to say that my love and admiration for ScreenFlow is fairly evident at this point – I consider it the best screencasting application on the Mac platform and a pivotal tool in supporting the developing of e-learning materials. Search the blog for feature posts & reviews on Telestream’s screencast production application, if you would like a further insight.

ScreenFlow 2.1 has just been released bringing enhanced functionality to an already robust and comprehensive software application. A number of bug fixes have been implemented including:

• Improved performance of moving clips around the timeline
• Fixed YouTube publishing failures when using a Google account (rather than a YouTube one)
• Fixed certain audio playback problems that could occur on 44.1khz devices
• Fixed lockup that could occur when exporting a selected range with a multi-pass encoder preset
• Fixed potential hang-up when the monitor being captured from is disconnected
• Fixed problem opening Automator actions under Snow Leopard
• Modified the aspect ratio of YouTube HD upload
• Fixed problem using CamTwist as source for video capture
• Fixed an issue where ripple deleting could cause the video to go blank
• Present the delete & backspace keys correctly when visualizing the key strokes
• ScreenFlow now preserves the selection of top-most layers when moving objects
• Fixed an issue that could cause files to keep increasing in size while the recording was paused
• Corrected a problem that could stop temporary recording files from being deleted

All of these improvements will improve use experience significantly but the modification of aspect ratio for YouTube HD uploads in particular is something that greatly appeals to me. To date my HD screencasts have had borders added at certain resolutions which I hope this fix will address.

In addition to these many refinements the talented and committed guys at Telestream have introduced some neat and useful new features.

• ScreenFlow can now create an all-in-one Flash video presentation, ready for easy upload straight to your website. The HTML, video and Flash player component are automatically created by ScreenFlow in a single step.
• The audio driver used by ScreenFlow to capture system audio will now run on 64-bit Snow Leopard kernels.
• ScreenFlow will continuously save changes to your documents in the background, ready to recover any unsaved edits in the unlikely event a fatal error occurs.

The flash video presentation packages are a particularly welcome addition providing some great new functionality for e-learning development scenarios. It is of course also great to know that ScreenFlow is saving all the hard work invested in the background!

In conclusion this is another fantastic set of improvements to an already stellar package. The update is free for current 2.x users and 1.x users can upgrade for $29. For more details check out Telestream’s website here.

Lots of very late nights, long days and working weekends are ahead of me so I need all the assistance I can get. This is my first year going through this process on the Mac platform and it will be interesting to see how it compares, I suspect that I will find dramatic improvements in the work flow but we shall see. One of the things that greatly assists at this time is having good software applications to make the processing of work that little bit easier or at least software that can make the process less laborious. There are quite a few applications already in my repertoire that I hope will be of great help, the latest of these additions is Rucksack from CreativeBe software.

Rucksack is a great archive processing utility, providing functionality to compress files into a variety of archive formats and to decompress already archived files into their source format. The interface is clean and stylish with a drag and drop approach utilised to create and unarchive files, the application icon is always worthy of note on the Mac and here it doesn’t disappoint, a cute and cool backpack graphic doing the honors. Rucksack provides some neat options to enhance the processing of files outlined in the diagram below:

A range of file formats are supported, once again these are outlined in the diagram below.

I’ve been using the application for only a few hours and already it has been extremely useful, easy to use and works a treat. The application is currently available for free through a MacBuzzer promotion – see here for more details. Be quick though the offer is only available for another eight days…

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Technical Specification:

• External Dimensions: 48 x 16.5 x 40.5cm
• Internal Volume: 24 Litres
• Fits notebooks up to 17″
• COCOON™ SYSTEM – unique notebook protection
• Cocoon™ Dimensions: 40.21 x 5.08 x 26.67cm
• YKK™ Zips and pullers
• Duraflex™ buckles
• Large heavy duty adjustable buckle
• Heavy duty webbed shoulder strap
• Cycle strap/Stabiliser
• Light grey lining (good visibility)
• Organiser section
• Extra room for documents
• Cable storage pouches
• Disc storage
• MP3 pouch & headphone out port
• Large internal area for camera/accessories
• External pockets for bottle/coins/keys

I have been a player and admirer of the Final Fantasy franchise for well over a decade now – I have played most of the releases across a number of platforms and they have provided me with some of the stand out gaming experiences of my existence. Perhaps the pinnacle of this experience to date has been the ground breaking, still referenced for greatness, epic masterpiece that was Final Fantasy VII. For those that get it, the Final Fantasy games have provided an almost more than a game experience, the surrounding lore, epic craftsmanship of the story telling and for their time the exquisite use of technology all manifest themselves into a collective whole that transcends the limitation of a one dimensional interactive experience. I have spent many hours in pubs, cafes, bedrooms, sitting rooms and park benches talking with friends about series – for the most part it constitutes discussion of some very fond memories.

This all leads me back to Pete’s point, as I like to term it, Final Fantasy XIII has been in development for a number of years, it has been teased and titillated in front of fans for what seems like forever and it’s release in Japan last year only left the European fans wanting it more. To say it had a degree of expectation around it’s neck would be putting it mildly, on top of that the dual release of the title on both PS3, the original target platform and Xbox 360, for which a port was developed, only fueled more on the fire of what will it be like? All this expectation could only mean one thing right? Pete would once again be right and a game that I had been looking forward to for such a long time would materialise to be nothing but an underwhelming experience. Well actually no, in some cases expectations can be fulfilled, surpassed even and great hopes can indeed become reality. Pete this time you’re wrong – Final Fantasy XIII is bloody awesome.

Final Fantasy is what fans of the genre will expect on just about every level, JRPG fundamentals hold true through. You begin with a group of individuals trying to save the world from certain doom, the game provides an engaging story which interlinks each of these characters and allows the player to have complete control of how they develop throughout the some 50+ hour experience. Characters can take on different roles, acting as healers, tanks or damage dealers to name but a few while a paradigm system allows for builds to be swapped on the fly at any moment thus making the combat system intricate, complex and rewarding. To describe Final Fantasy XIII as ordinary or conventional however would be a complete injustice and nothing short of a lie. This is without doubt the most polished JRPG I have played, one of the best looking games on any platform and quite possibly the best of the series to date!

To begin with the graphics are what will draw the player to begin with, everything looks lush in a beautiful and lush colour palette that makes many games seems almost washed out in their execution. The lighting his honed to perfection and the combat effects and spell abilities light up the screen in spectacular fashion. True gamers will have no doubt stopped and just moved the camera around the environment in which they are playing on certain occasions before, impressed by what they saw, rolling landscapes, epic viewpoints, interesting areas of visual narrative – I don’t think I have ever been as impressed with the visual style of a game while doing this in Final Fantasy XIII – it’s simply breath taking. The cut scene elements raise the bar to a whole new level, my first point of comparison would be Halo Wars which I thought was fantastic in it’s cut scene content and execution, here however even it is put into second place, the cut scene sections of Final Fantasy XIII are mesmerising, beautiful and technically stunning.

The game is not just a pretty face however, the voice work and audio development is spot on although many will find the Japanese cheese factor annoying at times. Some of the one liners could have been better translated but I have actually come to expect and enjoy such niche nuances of the genre. Leona Lewis lends herself to the OST and the tracks are majestically and perfectly suited to the game. The core game battle mechanic, mentioned earlier, is fantastically designed, presenting what at first seems like a somewhat limited and restrictive queuing of actions and growing into a intricate and perfectly crafted method of battle engagement. You will need to manage your party, assign battle roles, switch paradigms, focus on chaining attacks, make use of battle techniques and much more to succeed. The delivery of this system across the opening 10 hours of the game is perfectly paced and there comes a point where you actually feel better as a player when the elements start to connect.

The game is pretty mammoth in size and you don’t really start to get full control over many of the games mechanics until 20+ hours into the experience. This may be one of the limitations of the game, if you don’t have the time and patience to spend with Final Fantasy XIII it could perhaps become a little frustrating. Thankfully this factor doesn’t apply to me. I’m about 25 hours in now and thus far it has been nothing short of excellent, I’ve grown to admire cultural differences in thinking, laughed out loud at some of the little quirks, been completely shell shocked by the games narrative twists and completely compelled by the leveling and powering up of the characters. While the experience doesn’t provide character development or engagement on par with say the likes of Heavy Rain, it still does a pretty damn good job. A final point which I think is worthy of mentioning is that there is a significant difference in quality between the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, for once the PS3 version materialises as superior, I will not begin to describe the technicalities here, much better to leave that to the experts, check out the Digital Foundry article on the matter here. I subsequently went for the PS3 version of the game and I am glad I done so.

So sometimes then, expectation can be a good thing and on rare perhaps a couple of times in a lifetime expectations can be exceeded and surpassed. Playing Final Fantasy XIII is certainly one of those times.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

DBN is perhaps a more sinister affair than what they have released in the past, in feels grittier and heavier from the outset and doesn’t let up until the very end. Opening with the title track it’s classic Crystal Method with a somewhat darker edge. Thirty seconds in and already my neck was in full tilt, I love music that just takes me over like that. Typing this review while smiling at how the music has completely changed my mood and thought process. Dirty Thirty is the first really beat driven track on the album, it pulsates with scratches, funky drum loops and a bounce mechanic to make the most rigid body bop. Drown in Now introduced the first real lyrical content of the release and perhaps is my least favourite of the tracks on offer here. It seems a little under developed which is strange considering it’s placement.

The Crystal Method have always been prepared to mix and match styles – Sine Language is a combination of rap, rock, electronica, jazz, pop, and blues. A little dumb in it’s lyrical content but still a fun track nonetheless. Double Down Under & Blunts & Robots provide mid album highlights – positively bouncy tracks perfect for working to and great if you need a mood lift. The best is saved for last however, both Falling Hard and Play for Real represent album highlights – broody, dark, atmospheric and highly polished. I invested in the special edition so which provides some additional mixes, some are interesting but if I’m honest they for the most part filler.

So all in all another great Crystal Method release, the album will probably fail to produce any real chart success but I doubt it is expected. The Crystal Method have a loyal fan base and have established themselves as electronic masters of their craft. I think many of their fans will be delighted with this release and I feel perhaps it may warrant a few new sonic explorers to investigate their sound.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Apple provides an entire range of pro training guides for all of their professional applications – while I ideally would like to expand my knowledge of the range on offer, iWork 09 & Final Cut Express 4 were forefront on my agenda as I use them extensively, have them on my MacBook Pro and want to further my knowledge of both. I ordered the corresponding training manuals from Amazon, iWork 09 Keynote, Pages, and Numbers retails for £19 while Final Cut Express 4 Movie Making For Everyone costs £18. Each of the manuals provides a wealth of information examing the concepts and processes relevant to each of the software applications. Instructions are clear and well supported with well produced diagrams, with even processes I thought I understood explained with insight and detail that enhanced my understanding and capability.

The iWork 09 manual is divided into three sections, each dealing with one of the applications that comprises the iWork suite. I make extensive use of two of these applications, Keynote & Pages. Keynote is the industry standard software tool for developing professional presentations. It has completely replaced PowerPoint in my development of educational content. Book chapters provide information relating to: creating a presentation; adding photos, charts and sounds; adding video and animation; customising a theme; rehearsing and delivering a presentation and exporting a presentation. While the chapter titles may seem somewhat rudimentary they are fantastically well crafted and full of little snippets of information that you simply would not pickup through general usage.

Pages, as the name suggests, provides word processing functionality, offering a robust and comprehensive range of capabilities for just about any document that you may have to create. What I particularly like about the application is the fantastic templates it provides, there are many targeted specifically at education and I have begun to use these extensively in my daily work flow. The guide to writing reports and enhancing documents was particularly insightful reading providing me with many new tips and tricks that I can implement in all my future documents. Moreover there are chapters that deal with specific documents like complex reports and newsletters which I am sure will come in useful.

I do not make use of Numbers in any real sense, more to do with my own work flow than the application so I cannot comment on the instructional content provided to any real degree.

Final Cut Express Movie Making For Everyone is a  great way to learn techniques and processes for anyone interested in becoming more competent in the editing process. Even having spent many years working with digital video editing applications I am still learning techniques regularly. The book is wonderfully structure flowing from the basics, through capture and editing to the final stages of exporting and polish. Just about every aspect of the application is covered here including the completely separate LiveText application for text effects.

Both books are a great way of self learning two of Apple’s main software applications. Both are also support fully with lesson files and examples provided on DVD’s which accompany the publications. I have been reading instructional books for years and work in the process of instruction in teaching. The Apple Pro Training series represent what I consider to be the pinnacle of educational writing, they are well paced, clear, concise and thoroughly detailed in their description of process. Jargon and technical terms are used only to give the reader a deeper understanding of the concept with each of the lessons structured towards providing knowledge of a task you are likely to want to perform on a regular basis. Each lesson is reinforced with examples and work through scenarios. If you want to learn more about Apple software look no further.

iWork 09 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Final Cut Express Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Now some two years later comes Eye of Judgment Legends for the PSP, a game that holds true to all the clever concepts of the original and maintains the charm that drew me into the first release hook, line and sinker. Perhaps the only real difference with the PSP version is that no camera is needed to read cards as these are self contained within the game itself. Each game begins with you & the computer drawing five random cards from your deck. The game takes place across a 3×3 grid with cards used to summon creatures to battle or cast spells. Underlying this concept are the card types and grid placements which correspond to one of the five elements. Bonuses are awarded for placing creatures on grid places which correspond to their card type.

Creatures summoned have HP which decreases as offensive spells and creature abilities are used. Once depleted the creature is destroyed and the grid space made available. The core objective of the game is to have five of the grid spaces occupied at the same time. While this may sound rather simple and straight forward on the surface it is actually quite complex. Cards cannot be simply used as desired. governing the summoning of creatures and spells is your mana pool. This is incremented by two MP each round. Each creature type and spell will have varying degrees of mana required before it can be used.

Eye of Judgment Legends offers a decent single player campaign where you get the chance to become familiar with game tactics and take on foes with ever increasing complexity and guile. The real strength of the game however, as with the initial release, is with the multiplayer element. Multiplayer matches with friends are entirely possible via ad-hoc or a ranked encounter over an Internet connection. The ad-hoc mode provides the additional feature of allowing cards to be swapped between players.  Speaking of cards the game comes with a pretty decent offering, 300 cards are included beginning with a basic pack for each player which can be added to with purchases as battles are won in the single player campaign. Deck customisation is a significant part of the experience and allows each player to develop their own style of play.

It is a comprehensive package with enough play modes, variation and card types to keep even the most eager enthusiast playing for many hours. The platform limitations mean that the technical wizardry of the initial release is missing here but that’s no bad thing, the developers have instead focused on the key game play mechanics and refined what was an already enjoyable experience to almost perfection. The game offers significant challenge and takes dedicated time and effort to truly master, yet it rewards dedication and practice. Eye of Judgment is a unique experience, unlike just about any other game on the PSP. I find it engaging, entertaining and rewarding on just about every level. Highly recommended for geeks and non-geeks alike.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Image & Video copyright GQ 2010.

The Gorillapod is a small flexible tripod system which can be used in conjunction with any device with a standard tripod mount connection, digital cameras, camcorders etc. It supports devices up to 325g and stands 15 × 3 × 3cm making it very portable. The build quality is fantastic the unique tripod legs configurable into just about any setup configuration while providing a sturdy frame for video shooting. The diagram below outlines some of the key features:

The Gorillapod provides a unique locking system to make sure that whatever device is attached to the tripod it is secure while shooting. This makes attachment of devices quick and easy while at the same time providing a degree of security.

All in all I find the device invaluable for quick desk based videos and I’m sure I will be able to find other uses such as a quick method of steady image capture also using the Zi8. At just under £20 it is very affordable and highly recommended.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

The book has just recently been published and is available in both print and e-book format, a characteristic of the Packt Publishing service. Needless to say my love of the electronic format and fascination with the Mahara software resulted in a day one purchase, something which I can recommend to anyone wishing to learn more about the open source e-portfolio solution. Mahara 1.2 E-Portfolio Beginners Guide is written by Richard William Hand, Derrin Michael Kent, Glenys Gillian Bradbury and Margaret Anne Kent – educational developers, Mahara learning designers and geeks one and all, which is evident as you read it’s pages. The book provides a step-by-step guide to building an impressive professional e-portfolio using Mahara. It covers the key features of Mahara that will help you set up your customised digital portfolio and display artifacts in your preferred way allowing contribution from selected users only.

It introduces the reader to the exciting features of Mahara framework and helps the reader develop a feature-rich e-portfolio. Sections deal with features such as how to create folders, upload multiple files like journals, project documents, pictures, and videos and share them with your friends. You will learn to set up views of these files,  choosing to make them visible to your chosen friends only or be shared with whatever people you desire. You will learn to create blogs and forums and get connected to the rest of the world. Customisation and administration of your Mahara site will become easy after you have gone through this book. Imagine how good you will feel when you will see your knowledge, success, and ideas going live and available to your chosen audiences for their inputs.

The pacing is just right with a logical progression followed from the opening chapter through the various aspects of Mahara configuration and usage. I have always found the Packt Publishing books to be informative and educational but I believe this titles along with some of their Moodle books raises the bar in terms of instructional content. Each page provides valuable knowledge and insight into the use of an application which fascinates me and furthermore provides an invaluable service to my students at absolutely no cost. Packt Publishing’s targeting of open source software provides a unique resource for those embracing the new media culture and indeed the emerging culture of e-learning. The provides knowledge for just about every aspect of Mahara installation and use, some of the key concepts learnt include:

•    Create folders in Mahara
•    Upload multiple files – journals, reports, presentations, videos, and sound clips – easily and set permissions for your group to view, edit, and delete them
•    Create a blog in Mahara
•    Make an impressive profile using Mahara profile fields and tailor your own profile view
•    Create a new web page entirely from scratch and customize it to allow much more flexibility and control over who sees what and when
•    Set an environment to receive public or private feedback on your pictures, videos, and articles
•    Connect with other Mahara users and get social: discuss topics of common interest in forums and share views with each other
•    Customize and administer your Mahara site to our own preferences using a number of configuration settings for easy administration

I believe this book to be an incredible resource for anyone working in education or developing learning solutions, particularly those interested or working in the field of e-learning. It assumes no prior knowledge and covers in clear and concise detail everything that an academic, student or developer needs to know about the Mahara platform. It has provided me with hours of informative and engaging reading and resulted in the implementation of my own Mahara resource.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Competition

The lovely people at Packt Publishing have kindly offered to provide blog readers with the opportunity to win a copy of of one of their e-publications. The competition offers the winners to select any title from the Packt range more than three months old. The competition is open from now until the 12th March with one winner selected on Friday 5th March and another on the 12th. Entrants need to leave a reply to this post stating how they would use Mahara in their work flow to  support and enhance the learning process. Packt Publishing offer a great range of titles so I’m sure that everyone will find something of interest. Good luck.

This week’s show contains information about a competition, the full details for which will appear on the blog later tonight.

As always please feel free to leave a comment : )

To say that I am excited would be something of an understatement, I honestly consider Heavy Rain to be the most significant game released in my life time. I’m not alone in my assertions, many journalists, academics and indeed gamers share my enthusiasm and admiration. I hope to have a full review up on the blog on Friday along with podcast content relating to the game. I am even considering a short video discussion relating to the matter. My classes for the day finish in just over an hour, but I intend to work late in an attempt to completely free up my Friday evening. I really want to be able to sit back and enjoy every single glorious minute.

So between now and then it’s a case of head down and getting stuff done.  I know it will be worth it, this weekend, all being well, will be one I remember for years to come.