For me this was quite a big news item, I got into the DreamStation.cc Video Game Show podcast earlier in the year and have been an avid listener since. The podcast basically covers news, opinion and humour from the world of videogaming and was very well produced/edited compared to many other podcasts – basically think TWiT for gamers.
Well, now the host of the show Chris Paladino has secured a job working for Microsoft’s gaming community site Gamerscore Blog working in the community – a dream come true more-or-less. The rest of the crew have created a new podcasting network Gamercast Network to bring together a range of independent gaming podcasts, this could be good for gamers in general so watch this space.
As for DreamStation.cc, they’re continuing to podcast and will grow into their own style once more, I will definitely keep on listening and using the forums, if you’ve never tried I reccommend you have a look.
written by thirtyfootscrew
\\ tags: cpaladino, dreamstation, gamerscore blog, gaming, twit, Video Games, xbox, xbox 360
Until the other day, the last time I used a Mac was circa-1994 when I got my hands on a Macintosh IIsi and some variant of the Macintosh Classic. They belonged to my parent’s employer who needed a bit of help with printing and other IT tasks and I was pretty good at figuring these things out. I enjoyed using the GUI, at the time my only PC was either an IBM XT or AT running DOS and a mouse was an object of desire way beyond the budget my pocket-money would stretch to.
I’m giving you this backgroun because the other day I had the chance to get a much more modern Power Mac G4 that was being thrown out of some offices near where I live. Obviously I jumped at the chance as it had been well over 10 years since I last used one and getting Mac skills back on my CV can only be a good thing. First impressions – I was underwhelmed. I must point out that this thing is running OS9 and not everybody’s darling OSX, this makes it very hard to get software that will run on it – Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, none of them have released browsers compatible with OS9 for quite a while. The main source of my disappointment is that it basically looks the same as it did back in the day, nothing really new or innovative seems to be there and I’m finding it pretty tricky to navigate. As a born-again noob I realise that things aren’t going to be plain sailing and I do need to invest some time to read tutorials and familiarise myself with the OS, what I don’t want to have to do though is go out an buy OSX to get some decent use out of it – from what I’ve seen though, there may be little option.
I also bought a copy of Mac Format magazine and one thing that shines out of it’s pages is the adoration Mac users pour on their systems, something that seems a little odd for a platform whose most recent innovation is that it can run Windows. I’m far from a Windows fanboy (why do you think I want to switch), it’s just that the realities of working in a commercial environment mean it’s the OS I am most familiar with – Mac users seem to be so absurdly protective of their environment that approaching it from an outsiders perspective seems quite tough. My next course of action is to go to the community and see if they can help, I mean websites, user groups, etc. I’ll post back if and when I get any further in my quest, stay tuned…
written by thirtyfootscrew
\\ tags: Apple, g4, mac, macintosh, noob, os9, osx, power mac, switch
So, after months of deliberating I’ve finally started a blog and welcome to it! I’m still not 100% sure what content I’m going to put out, it may be focused on IT, technology and gaming (as these are my specialist subjects), but may expand to include my other interests (music, movies, life in general).
Either way, I hope that if you read my blog that you take away something interesting – if not, feel free to get in touch and suggest how I could do better!
I heard about Vox from one of the fantastic TWiT podcasts hosted by Leo Laporte, and was kindly invited to join this service by JonHirt, a fellow member of the forums at DreamStation.cc. I look forward to exploring what is a relatively new facet of the Internet for me. I’m not a proper ‘old-school’ web user but I’ve been on for roughly a decade and the changes I’ve seen in such a short space of time have been staggering – I definitely buy-into the whole user-created-content idea and shall try to put something interesting back out there.
Cheers, thirtyfootscrew.
P.S. My name on Vox is also my Xbox Live gamertag so feel free to add me to your friends list.
written by admin
\\ tags: dreamstation, intro, twit, welcome