Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Unless you’ve been living under a rock or hibernating for the past year you probably already know about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. This is one of the most anticipated games of the year. I myself have been eagerly waiting for it and will immediately leg it out of my house to purchase a copy on its release day. It’s only another eleven days away now!

Modern Warfare 2

Whilst the game was being developed it was referred to as Call of Duty 6 but on December the third 2008 it was officially announced under the title of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Activision later retracted this statement, stating that any information about the game was speculative. It was finally announced on February the eleventh that the game was being released during the Holiday season of 2009(Christmas season to most).

Modern Warfare 2 is set several years after the conclusion of Call of Duty 4. The radical Russian Ultranationalist organization has returned under the leadership of Vladimir Makarov, a former comrade of Imran Zakhaev. Makarov has publicized Zakhaev’s death as an act of martyrdom to gain support for his cause, enabling him to build a strong power base in Russia over the years. Fearful of Makarov’s growing influence, the global community established Task Force 141 to counter the threat posed by the  Ultranationalists.

Modern Warfare 2 - Could It Be A BestSeller?

Infinity Ward CCO Jason West has stated that the single player campaign in Modern Warfare 2 would not be longer than the 6-10 hour campaign in Call of Duty 4. A trailer that was released on the Infinity ward youtube page hinted at a scene of fighting at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. This seriously excites me!

Special Ops mode now provides a third option for players to select at the main start screen that accompanies the traditional single-player campaign and competitive multiplayer featured in Call of Duty 4. In a way it connects the other two modes by allowing you to play on your own, with a mate via split screen or online for the full two-player co-op experience. It’s worth noting that Special Ops won’t support perks or customized loadouts, which are the hallmark of Modern Warfare’s competitive multiplayer. There was no customization screen prior to the game and no XP totals appearing above the heads of enemies as you shot them. It was a lot like the action you would expect in the single player campaign.

On October 29th 2009 G4TV stopped by the offices of Infinity Ward for a sneak preview of Special-Ops the new Co-Op mode for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. View the video at the link below for some exclusive footage of what’s to come in Modern Warfare 2.

Exclusive Modern Warfare 2 Spec-Ops AC-130 Mission Gameplay

The Old FaceBook V The New FaceBook

So do you remember the old facebook ? You know the one that you posted Status Updates on what you were doing at the time. That was a pretty awesome Facebook, It was like a more enjoyable Twitter. But now FaceBook are on the War Path and are adding new features almost everyday. We all dread waking up everyday and logging on to FaceBook to find ourseleves lost in the new features.

FaceBook, for those who don’t know, is basically a mix of MySpace and Twitter. First FaceBook came from the MySpace side and then added all these  Twitter Features. Here are jus a couple to name :

• Tagging (Twitter @ replying)
• Status Updates (Basically Tweeting)

So whats going on. Next FaceBook will be a Video Sharing Site. The newest feature on MyTwaceBook. Is the Live Feed. What is this ? I logged on and I went … “What …. how …. is …. huh ?”  Even though FaceBook is basically copying everybody else, to me FaceBook is the Status Update Site that it was a few weeks ago.

There is actually a way to get this back :

Apologies for the Poor Quality.

The method described in this quote which i Found on MyTwaceBook is foolproof. Give it a try. It works.

Will Zam You Later,

Jack

Safer Browsing On The Go

As with any internet device there are security risks whether it be a Netbook,Laptop,Phone or Ipod from the second you connect to the internet to the second you disconnect you are at risk. This evening i was watching the latest installment of watchdog, for people who do not watch the BBC. Watchdog is basically a program that investigates social and private issues. So anyway they were on the topic of identity theft and hacking well then they started talking about public WiFi networks you know,,,, the ones you get in Starbuck’s,Cafe’s and on the Train.

Then they warned us about the safety of these networks and demonstrated how easy it would be for a hacker to gain access to your email account whilst you were connected to the free network. This got me thinking how could i prevent this and how many times have i used a network like this. I can tell you were i live there is a free wireless connection called “Street Net” i have used this a lot and got very worried, fortunately i was safe as i used a anti hacking tool.

Read the watchdog report for some more tips on preventing this type of identity theft.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2009/10/wifi_hot_spots_not_secure.html

Oh and comment below how many times have you used a free network?

“Will Zam Ya Later”

Marlon Buckley

Check Out My YouTube Channel

 

New partner

Hey there world, I am Matt Barker the Founder of Des-X Studios UK and from now on I will be blogging for my site and Weezam.
For those of you who dont know, Des-X Studios creates websites for small and starting-up businesses completely free of charge with no add-ons, not even ads.
Des-X Studios only chooses people to make sites for so people apply for a site and they are either given a site or told to try again next week
We also offer free tutorials and guidance about topics such as getting started with HTML, CSS, XHTML and other languages currently known by members of Des-X Studios.

–Matt Barker
Des-X Studios UK

Update or Clean Install of any New OS. What about my Files, Applications and Drivers ??

This post is for Single OS users, not for dual OS users. Feel free to read though.

When switching from Operating Systems one question that is always asked is : ” What about my files and applications, will they still be there ?” Well in theory when switching keep this in mind; you can switch from “X” OS to “X” OS if you want to definately keep your files but to switch from “X” OS to “Y” OS you can’t always be to careful, e.g, X = Windows, Y = Linux.

Lets just say you were switching from Windows to Linux and you wanted all your applications from Windows to be on your new Linux OS. That can’t happen by default. You first have to install Wine onto your Linux distro by going to the Add/Remove Programs option. It is impossible, to my knowledge to use Linux applications on Windows, this is mainly because Linux installers are .tar.bz files. Whilst Windows installers are .exe files.

Now that you understand more slightly about the installation files for Windows etc. I can go on.

If you were moving from Windows to Windows its very easy. For example, in the Windows Seven installation you can choose to just update and this will keep all your files and drivers.

Thats All Well and Good.

BUT. If you wanted to install cleanly (If you are like me and have two OS’ on your PC and just want one) then this will get rid of everything …. EVERYTHING … on your PC except from your new OS. You will then really miss your old files and cool apps you have downloaded. Well your answer is you have to Backup your files, before you off to your start menu and copy the Program files onto a disc …. STOP !!! It doesn’t work and probably never will. What you need to do, to save downloading more installers, is from now on keep all your installation files, if you haven’t, check your recycling bin, you probably haven’t emptied it in ages. Just restore the Installation files and put them onto a disc. As well as this put your valuable photos and other text documents onto the disc. Then when you are finished with all the Installation of your New OS you have these installation files ready. Easy Peasy.

Now for Drivers,

CLEAN INSTALL : You should know that Windows should automatically detect your devices etc and install the required drivers. IF however you have installed your drivers with a disc, for example your Network Connection could be one.  You may need to salvage your discs which contain these drivers. Otherwise if you have some trouble with installing your drivers you can search for them on the Internet.  You may be able to copy the .dll file of the drivers onto a CD but this is not a garauntee. I have heard online of software that can do all this for you and put your Drivers on a Disc. I haven’t seen proof though.

UPDATE : Windows should obviously keep your files.

When it comes to Linux and Drivers,  From my experience Linux can’t so easily pick up Drivers as easily as Windows. This is the only problem I have had with Linux. The Only Driver that has failed me is the Microphone Driver.

Hope this helped slightly,

Will Zam You Later,

Jack

Written iPhone OS 3.1.2 Jailbreak Guide

What is jail-breaking I hear you ask! When you jailbreak an iPhone or iPod Touch you allow yourself to install third party applications on your iDevice. I think that the process of jail-breaking has become so simple now that it won’t take that long for you guys to get through this post.

To begin with you will have to update your iPod Touch or iPhone (Depends on which you have) to OS 3.1.2. If you don’t already have 3.0 you will have to pay for this update. If you’re like me and you don’t have the money you can head to this site (http://www.felixbruns.de/iPod/firmware/) and download 3.1.2 for free. Once you have downloaded the firmware to go with your iDevice you will be presented with a .ipsw file. To install the firmware on your device you will have to put your iDevice into DFU mode. This is a simple process and just involves clicking a few buttons!

How To Put an iPhone/iPod Touch into DFU Mode:

1. Locate the Home and Power buttons on your iDevice. The Home button is the round button below the screen; the Power button is the rectangular button located on top of your iDevice.

2. Plug your iDevice into your computer.

3. If you can’t count well in your head, look at a clock that displays the seconds because the timing of these steps is very important!

4. Make sure your iDevice is turned off

5. Press and hold the Home and Power buttons for 10 seconds. The screen should cut off at around 8 seconds.

6. While still holding the Home button, release the Power button.

7. Continue holding the Home button for about 15 seconds.

8. The screen will remain off and the iDevice will look unchanged, but, if you’re on Windows, you will hear the connected hardware sound; if your on a Mac, iTunes will automatically open and tell you that your iDevice is connected in recovery mode.

How To Install the Firmware:

1. Select your iDevice from the sidebar in iTunes (Make sure you are using iTunes 9).

2. Option (alt key) click on the Restore button and a drop down window will appear. To do this on windows I believe you have to Ctrl click on Restore.

3. In the window that appeared you will have to find the file which you downloaded earlier.

4. Once selected iTunes will verify the firmware and should restore your iDevice with it.

*Make sure you backed up all your files first!

How to Jailbreak your iDevice:

Finally after that long guide on updating your iPod Touch/iPhone to OS 3.1.2 I can finally get into showing you how to jailbreak the Device. First of all you will have to download Blackra1n. To download it head to Blackra1n.com and select your operating system. For me I selected the Apple because of course I’m on a Mac. If you’re on a PC though just select the Windows icon.

This should download a .zip file on the Mac which should automatically be unzipped. On windows it will download a .exe file. The application contained in the .zip file is so simple to use. Once you have the application double click on it to open it. In the BlackRa1n window you will be presented with one button. Simple!

BlackRa1n Window!

Click on the button which reads “Make it Ra1n”and your iDevice should be jailbroken within 30 seconds. It’s a quick process but we aren’t finished yet!

Once your device has rebooted you will spot a BlackRa1n icon on your springboard. You tap this icon and it should open an application. It’s in here that you select wether you want to install Cydia, Rock or Icy. You can even install them all if you really want to. I recommend that you only install Cydia though because it’s the most stable application of them all. It should download within a minute depending on your internet connection and Voila! You have now jailbroken your iDevice on firmware 3.1.2

I would now recommend that you open Cydia. You will probably have to update Cydia. Make sure you do a complete upgrade. You can now do whatever you want with your iPod Touch or iPhone! I usually get winterboard first of all and then get myself a nice enough theme!

We’ll Zam Yah Later!

Ultan

1.Locate the Home and Power buttons on your iDevice. The Home button is the round button below the screen; the Power button is the rectangular button located on top of your iDevice.

2.Plug your iDevice into your computer.

3.If you can’t count well in you head, look at a clock that displays the seconds because the timing of these steps is very important.

4.Press and hold the Home and Power buttons for 10 seconds. The screen should cut off at around 8 seconds

5.While still holding the Home button, release the Power button.

6.Continue holding the home button for about 15 seconds.

7.The screen will remain off and the iDevice will look unchanged, but, if you’re on Windows, you will hear the connected hardware sound; if your on a Mac, iTunes will open and tell you that your iDevice is connected in “Recovery” modeK

The Motorola Droid Has Been Leaked!

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Only a few days ago Motorola published the Motorola Droids website a little early. Before they had a chance to remove the site I managed to take down these specs from the site:

• 5 Megapixel Camera with 4x Zoom, Auto Focus & LED Flash
• Li-ion Battery with up to 5 1/2 hours of talk time & 270 hours standby
• Hi Resolution Touch Screen – 480×854 Resolution
• 550Mhz Processor
• Pre-installed 16GB MicroSD Card
• Stereo Bluetooth
• Wi-Fi
• Micro USB Port
• Weight: 6 Ounces

It looks like a sexy slide up phone and I’d love if I could own one! It’s been advertised as the iPhone Killer (iDon’t ad). I don’t believe this could be true. Many phones have already stated that they are better than the iPhone such as the Palm Pre, Samsung Instinct, Google’s own G1, and the Blackberry Storm. Could this really be the real deal?

View the iDon’t ad:

I think this ad is just attempting to mock the iPhone by telling us all what the iPhone doesn’t have, yet the Motorola Droid will have. I really don’t give a crap about a lot of those features because if you think about it. You get all those features with a jailbroken iPhone. Why would you need anything else? The iPhone is just one amazing phone! The Motorola Droid won’t be able to compete with Apples beauty of  a phone.

The Droid definitely seems to be the best Android phone to date. This new Android device most certainly sets the bar for future Android headsets.

To view more images and Tech specs for the Motorola Droid check out this gallery on Engadget.com: http://www.engadget.com/photos/motorola-droids-website-published-a-bit-early-with-specs-galore/

We’ll Zam Yah Later!

Ultan

Wii Motion Plus Review

Wii Motion Plus is one of the newest features released by Nintendo. It is quite old but not everybody has it.

Wii Motion Plus only comes with a few games at this time. A Majority of them being sports games.  Here is a list of the games available on the Wii Motion Plus :

• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 – Best Wii golf sport game now enables players to have more accurate swings and better realistic golf sport playing.
• Wii Sports Resort – New Wii Sports sequel brings sports that you have not been able to play before. Like disc dog, power cruising, sword play and much more which will take place on an tropical island.
• Red Steel 2 – Second version of famous Red Steel game brings action based sword fight also with gun shooting. The new accessory provides better game play and accuracy. One of the best action based games to come.
• Academy of Champions – One of the latest game brings football sport into Nintendo. Pele been your coach you and your team of skilled players ready to win the Champions Cup.
• EA Sports Grand Slam Tennis – Experience more accurate racket swings, much better game play and more tennis stars ready to play with. Become top tennis player in this currently one of the best tennis Wii games on the market!
• Virtual Tennis 2009 – Another amazing tennis game currently being on top selling games. More tennis game play with your new accessory.
• Span Smasher – An arcade based game which uses your new accessory for accuracy.
• Gladiator A.D. – Experience this amazing action killing game. The producers promises us an massacre game play in this game!

I only have Wii Sports Resort to review Wii Motion Plus with. When you start of with Resort, you are skydiving off a plane onto the Island. You then experience the feel of the Wii Motion Plus. You hold the Wiimote horizontally and your Mii is laying on his/her stomach. Tilt the Wiimote to the side slightly and you will find your Mii going to the side. The same to the other side and if you point your Wiimote down wards or upwards your Mii then dose a nosedive or Stands vertically as he/she falls. Your object in the skydiving is to link up with as many people as possible. Your picture is then taken on regular intervals as you link up. When you get closer to the ground you must form up and link all together.

One of my favorite sports on Wii Sports Resort is Fencing. Thanksto Wii Motion Plus you are able to swing your Wiimote to the left and your Mii on the screen does the same to his opponent. As well as this there is a Speed Slicing Game. This is my most favourite games. You are paired with a random person, or with a friend in the MultiPlayer Mode. Your are then giving Objects to slice through. The Wii Motion Plus allows incredible accuracy and is perfect for this game.

Here is a few screenshots of Fencing and Speed Slicing :

Speed Slicing

Fencing

Will Zam Ya Later,

Jack

The New iMac and Magic Mouse Ad


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Apple has just recently released five new updates to their Macintosh computer and accessory line.

The new iMacs come in two amazingly large sizes. The iMac comes as a 21.5 inch or 27 inch machine. It’s a beautifully sleek machine that also includes Intel Core i5 and i7 quad-core processors. It’s got an awesome LED backlit screen, which really is amazing for viewing full HD, content.

With the bottom end iMac 21.5 inch you will be set for most games that demand a good Graphics card. The 21.5 inch model comes by default with an Integrated NVIDIA GeForce9400M graphics card which is probably perfect for most but if you really want you can update the machines Graphics card and get the ATI Radeon HD 4670 which is as Apple states on their website is better for gaming and gives you a better response when editing videos or photos. The 27 inch model of this beast comes by default with the ATI Radeon HD 4670 but that can be completely done away with and you can get the ATI Radeon HD 4850 with 512MB of GDDR3 memory which is up to 1.8x faster than the ATI Radeon 4760 which definitely the best for more graphics-intensive 3D games like Call of Duty.

At the WWDC event during June of this year Apple added an SD card slot to the Macbook Pros which was perfect for photographers who enjoy using Aperture (Apple Pro Software). I was pretty annoyed to find out that the iMac was being left without one for the moment. I do find that I enjoy taking photographs and editing them on my Macbook but of course I’m updating to an iMac sometime later this year and I really wanted to be able to just slide in my SD card to remove the photos. Apple added this feature to the iMac during the last update which really got me excited. I know it isn’t the biggest feature on the machine but it satisfies me!

The new iMac 21.5 inch offers a lot more pixel real estate. The new iMac has a 1920-by-1080 display. On Apple.com it says that you gain 17 percent more pixels than on the previous 20 inch iMac. Both of the new iMac screen sizes are completely widescreen and are both HD. These screens have a 16:9 aspect ratio which is the same as an HD Tv!

Accompanying the iMac overhaul is the new mouse. Dubbed the “Magic Mouse,” the multi-touch device will be the first to support multi-touch finger gestures rather than clicking on buttons or scroll wheels.

This amazing new addition to the Macintosh line really does have Apple set for Christmas. A Good year for Apple, a bad year for Windows? More and more people are making the switch everyday. Could this be Apple’s year? Post your thoughts below in the comments!

We’ll Zam Yah Later!

Ultan

Coda – Simply The Best HTML Editor

If you’re like me and you enjoy editing HTML you will love Coda. Coda may not be a free application but it’s definitely worth checking out. If you head to the developers site right now you can get your self a free trial.

The Interface:

Coda

Coda has an amazingly simple to use interface. If you’re like me and you’ve used Dreamweaver before you’ll know why I prefer this app to Dreamweaver. I feel that Dreamweaver has a cluttered interface that’s hard to navigate. With coda you can easily switch between tabs. You can edit your site, Preview your site or even add new CSS properties. In the sidebar of Coda you can view all files that are located in your sites folder. If you have to many files and just couldn’t be bothered scrolling all the way down to look for an image/document you can just head up to the right hand corner of this application and search for it! I just find that Coda is really laid out well. It’s just so simple to navigate through all the features of this application.

The Features:

Coda comes with many amazing features such as the ability to read Ebooks on how to edit HTML, PHP and much more. When you purchase this app and you select the Books tab you will be presented with four excellent books on how to edit the four main languages of the web (PHP, CSS, Javascript and HTML). If you want you can also add your own books that are hosted online. You can add covers, an author, a description etc.

If you head over to the CSS tab you can add new CSS properties by just clicking the add button and editing the info under the drop-downs/Text boxes to the right. You can easily style your text add backgrounds to your site or just fiddle around with your DIV tags with the settings to your right.

Under the Preview tab you can view what your site will look like in Safari without having to open up any separate applications. I find this very useful when I want to see whether my HTML tags are correct or not. It’s definitely way better than what I had to do before when I was just using Text Edit to create HTML files. I always needed my internet browser open to Preview any changes and it didn’t automatically update the page for me. I had to reload the page in the browser.

Under the sites tab you can view all the websites you are currently editing. Coda creates some wonderful looking previews for you that can be resized using the slider at the bottom of the window. If you connect your site to a domain name in Coda you will actually see a preview of the site from online rather than from a Local directory.

Plug Ins:

If you navigate through the developers site you will come across a page devoted to third party plugins. You can add many more brilliant features to Coda using these plugins.

Coda Third Party Plugins Site: http://www.panic.com/coda/developer/community/plugins.php

I love spending my days looking through these Plug ins to see if I can find any cool ones. One of my favorite Coda Plug Ins available is definitely the AuotHyperlinks third party plug in. What that add on does is it automatically converts raw URLs and Email Addresses to links instead of me having to write the HTML tag for links.

The Icon:

Coda Icon

Before I finish off this post I must express my love for the Coda icon. It’s such a High Quality icon. It seems to me that all Mac icons look amazing. I find that Windows icons can really look crappy a lot of the time. Mac users and Developers really do spend their time making their icons.

If you want to find out more about HTML I definitely recommend you check out my joint youtube channel that I own with Jack (Weezam Manager). I will be creating a tutorial on HTML sometime in the near future. It might even turn into a series about HTML and how to write it. I’ll be covering the basics and I might even go into CSS a bit!

Will Zam Yah Later!

Ultan