Blog Entries for Ebrahim Sadien

Back and Gone

ebrahim — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0100

No sooner had I announced my return, than I disapeared again. It's all a bit of a haze, but all I remember is long days and late nights and not much else.

Part of it was some much needed rest and relaxation but for the rest I was still working behind the scenes to get the new site up and running.

I did manage to sneak in two movies, the much hyped Avatar . It was the first 3D movie that I watched and it was phenomenal. Try not to buy into the hype or other people's [...]

I am back

ebrahim — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. My other life has taken over for a bit but I have managed to wrestle my way back.

As a special treat, have a look at the Iron Man 2 trailer . Iron Man was not one of my favourite comic book series but the movie is definitely my favourite adaptation.

Scarlett Johansson + sexy robotic exo-skeleton. I think that I need to change my pants now ...

The Grail

ebrahim — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0100

I have been looking for a complete solution for my multi-media centre requirements for quite some time. The original problem was in finding a device that could accomodate the plethora of media types that exist in the wild. With the mainstreaming of HD television's , HD media has become far more prevalent and with it the MKV container.

The other problem was in connecting the device to my Home Theatre system without too many wires snaking across the floor. I received a Eureka medi [...]

The LL

ebrahim — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100

When it came to choosing between a Sony PSP or Nintendo DS, I decided on the PSP because of its bigger screen. The DS is great, especially because of the touch screen but the screen size itself was a deal breaker.

With the new DSi LL, things have become alot more interesting. PSP GO's smaller and the DSi goes LL , the bigger screens makes the DSi far more enticing. Although I really can't justify the purchase seeing as my Xbox gets all the attention and my PSP is gathering [...]

It is a toy

ebrahim — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100

But as it turns out, a really cool toy . Not worth the price that they charge for it, so if you are keen on the Modern Warfare 2 Night Vision Edition, you should wait until it gets a nice fat discount - which I think will happen soon.

The only limited edition accessories that I am interested in are figurines or something practical , like a steel lunchbox .

New friends

ebrahim — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100

As it turns out, the majority of my friends list are in hiding from the Live Ban-Police . If you play on Live occasionally, have a preference for first person shooters and like killing zombies then look me up. My Live tag is Hotshot es

Loving it hating it

ebrahim — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100

I did not plan on upgrading to Ubuntu 9.10 but when my network manager crashed and took 9.04 with it, I had no choice. I figured that upgrading to 9.10 would be as much work as re-installing/repairing 9.04

As it turns out, my 9.10 upgrade did not go very smoothly and that may or may not have been related to the power failure that dropped my box shortly before completion. I resumed the upgrade, manually installed the Microsoft TTF fonts and all was well.

I have not had much [...]

Hammer of Doom

ebrahim — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Microsoft has started a wave of bannings on Xbox Live. The only reason given is for a violation of their Terms of Use .

There is alot of speculation about the timing and reasoning behind the bans, but from what I can tell if you have done a firmware mod to your Xbox, then you are a likely candidate. So far I know of 2 locals who have been banned, both have firmware modded Xbox's.

Looking for Live

ebrahim — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100

I had some free time this weekend and wanted kill some Zombies but no one in my friends list was online. I tried to join a random game in Call of Duty and Gears 2 but I could not find a single gane.

In my desperation I fired up the demo of Battlefield 1943 and ran around aimlessly with eight other deperate souls for a few mintes before I threw in the towel. All in all a very sad night on Live. My goal now is to expand my friend list quite dramatically beyond 'real' friends an [...]

Less than optimal

ebrahim — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100

It looks like Tycho from Penny Arcade was right when he said that the PC-gamer demographic is not the core segment of the video game market. The latest news from Infinity Ward is that the PC multi-player mode has been reduced to 18 players from 32 in the original game.

Added to the fact that there will be no dedicated game servers, it really looks like the twilight of PC gaming as a platform distinct from console gaming. Is this a good thing? I have long since stopped using my PC a [...]

Into AWN

ebrahim — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Now that my graphics card driver is working as it should, I have returned to the loving arms of AWN . I still have to do a bit of tweaking and add a few launchers but aside from a tiny bit of lag, I am all set.

I am considering testing Gnome-Do again because it is far easier on the resources but AWN is so pretty, I might just live with the lag.

Server down

ebrahim — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100

The recent announcement by Infinity Ward to replace dedicated game servers with a console-style match making service has been universally panned by the PC gaming demographic.

I have spent more time on Live than I have on PC game servers. And my time on Live has also been spent on private parties rather than trawling the net for a random game. I have spoken to friends who have spent alot of time on game servers especially playing Counter Strike and Call of Duty. The idea of eliminating [...]

Linux love

ebrahim — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100

After much installation and re-installation, I finally managed to get my ancient Ati Radeon 7000 working with AWN .

Initially I thought that the problem was the low spec of my graphics card. But after breaking my graphics card driver a few times, I finally purged my Xorg.conf file and this fixed everything. It only took two hours. I have not had a chance to play with AWN because to my great shame I created an XP/Ubuntu dual boot and have been spending alot of my time in XP.

Too much bandwidth

ebrahim — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100

I checked the usage of my free 10GB trial account from WebAfrica recently and realised that I had only used 300MB. Because the trial was scheduled to end at the end of October, I decided to go on a weekend downloading spree.

I logged into Live and downloaded as many Arcade games as I could. I was even tempted to download themes and anything else that I could get my hands on. Even the Call of Duty map packs were starting to look attractive but the fact that I had to buy points and t [...]

Back to the future

ebrahim — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100

The Nintendo DS is going large while the PlayStation Portable is going Slim. I have always preferred the PSP over the DS because of its bigger screen. The DS has great functionality especially the touch screen but the screen size has been a deal breaker for me. Now there is a larger screen version coming to a store near you.

Need more info on Bioshock 2 ? We can help you out.

I have not had much interest in DJ Hero because of it's initial lack lustre track list. With J [...]

Xbox Live coming to SA

ebrahim — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Well it depends on who you believe really. A source from BT Games mentioned that we would have Live 'sometime next year'. But he did not have any firm date or other proof to back up his claim.

Microsoft did respond to complaints about the lack of Live in SA. You can read the full interview here. It may have been a PR exercise on their part to reduce the number and volume of complaints. The one useful thing to come out of the interview is that bandwidth is not the obstacle keepi [...]

Zombie Gold

ebrahim — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100

I saw a YouTube video which showed how you can obtain more powerful weapons from the mystery box in the first Zombie level.

Apparently the key is to wait until the question marks turn a bright shade of gold and this will ensure that you get the Ray gun or Browning machine gun. I tried this a few times but have so far not gotten it right. I am not sure if it's my timing or the lag which caused the problem.

If you have had success timing the magic box, drop me a line [...]

Making friends

ebrahim — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100

This guide will make it easier to decide whether to add someone to your friends list or not. As I mentioned before, the mute button is your friend.

Lancoza is recruiting

ebrahim — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100

We are looking for writers who can submit news or reviews articles on a regular basis. If you are interested, send a 500 word review or news article to ebrahim@lancoza.net

In exchange for your contribution we will give you a 15% discount on any item that you purchase from Lancoza.

The due date for submissions is Friday, 23 October. Once I have made the selection, I will contact all the applicants.

The voices in my head

ebrahim — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100

I finally got my Gold Live Subscription which means that I no longer have to create serial online personalities. The plan on Saturday was to kill zombies in Call of Duty but by the time I was online everyone else was headed to bed.

I decided to dive into the great unknown and join a random game. It seems no matter how random the selection, I always end up playing with 12 year olds from the UK or US, the mute button served me well.

I normally play online with maximum swear [...]