Squaresphere

From Gundam

Very very nearly there now, just a few more weapons to do, some tidying bits, then it’s onto transfers and decals. Can’t say it will be as good as this one mind, but I like to think it’ll be close. http://fichtenfoo.com/gallery/FF-StrikeNoir, check out the review, http://www.dalong.net/review/mg/m100/m100_i.htm

The next project is a Hi-Nu MG kit which I managed to snag from HobbyLink Japan, for a decent price. Considering how hard it was to get hold of the kit, I’m pretty pleased.
Hi-Nu Gundam review, http://www.dalong.net/review/mg/m99/m99_i.htm

Found a link to The Dugout on there, from Zebra Traffic records website. It’s a 2 hour radio show fully on the web for free! Genius! There are all sorts of things on there, but The Dugout and also the Solid Steel are well worth checking out. Which reminded me to update my Solid Steel podcast, I had missed 3! 70,71 and 72 are now out.

http://www.totallyradio.com/

Well I finally managed to complete the build on my Strike Freedom Full Burst and there are pics in the Gundam gallery on Picasa. I also succumbed to weakness and ordered a Strike Noir MG kit to work on next!

I am hopefully going to get a few extra bits to make building this kit a little easier. I have to admit that the snips I got from Maplins were totally awesome. Now to refine my sanding technique and perhaps buy a proper set of Gundam markers for touch ups.

Also started playing Final Fantasy Crisis Core on my PSP and it’s totally amazing! Graphically and in playability it’s easily one of the best games out for the system to date.

A weeks holiday in Cornwall beckons at the end of a nightmare week!

The thought of buying an Xbox 360 creeps back into the light from the elusive shadows, especially now that there is talk of a new 360 with a Blu-Ray drive.

You may recall that in this post I mentioned I had one on order, well it’s finally arrived and it’s a huge box with a nest of runners and bits and bobs! All looks very exciting, but I’m resisting the temptation to try and quickly build it all without taking as much time over it as I can.

I have put a few pictures into an album on picasa, as you can see quite a bit of kit! Now to get to the local hobby store and get some snips, sandpaper, files and the like

This thing is amazing, let’s face it they have mapped most of the world using their api now, granted with other peoples data but it’s still an interface which is pretty familiar to most people. With the advent of the updated Google Earth to include the sky and space on it’s display there is now the same data (I assume) but mapped with the maps api! It’s pretty amazing that you can now not only explore your own planet but the space around it and also the other planets. I wonder how long it will be before we can take virtual space tours via Google web delivered software.

There really must be something in their offices. Check it out, BBC News.

• www.google.com/sky/
• Explore the Moon
• Explore Mars
• Explore Earth
• Downloadable Earth!
• Don’t forget that you can download interesting places for Google Earth from various sources.
• ..like Naked People
• Check the Community for more places and things to see

For more interesting stuff pop into the lab. labs.google.com/

Nor did mine when I rebuilt my main rig on Sunday! I had been getting a few BSOD’s recently with my Netgear WG311T wifi card, saying that IRQ_NOT_LESS_EQUAL which is a little annoying as it seemed to be totally random. Well, at least since I moved to using a SpeedTouch modem/router on my new ISP rather than my old Netgear WGT624, which I left at home.

It got me thinking that having worked with the WG311T under Linux that the chipset is actually made by Atheros and they do in fact distribute their own Wifi drivers! Hazaa.. so after the fiasco with Netgears terrible drivers and the fact that during the age of WinXP64 they flatly denied that they would ever make 64 bit drivers they now are.

Just to put this into perspective of just how lame Netgear are at software, don’t get me wrong the hardware is pretty good. Just have a look at these examples.

WG311T Version 5.0
Fixes and New Features

* Added support for Windows Vista.

Known Issues

* 108 Mbps is not supported in Vista

..and as if that’s not bad enough..

WG311T Version 4.4
Fixes and New Features

* Fixed Blue Screen issues
* WHQL Certified version

..and then the crowning glory of the whole thing, (caution incoming geek joke) the driver installation instructions. http://kbserver.netgear.com/release_notes/D103110.asp. Yes really. They actually expect you to physically remove the card every single time you want to install or update the drivers, honestly some people. Anyway I digest.

My hunt for a working set of Atheros 64bit drivers sent me here after a quick google. http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14833 , as you can see the WG311T is listed as one of the support chipsets, so yey! The strange thing happened when I right clicked on my computer and clicked Manage, to get into the Device Manager. When I tried updating the card’s drivers and pointed the new driver wizard at the folder into which I had extracted the shiny new Atheros drivers, nada, nothing zilch! Oh t3h no3s.. no drivers found.

Well that’s odd as it’s totally the right driver. Next thing, uninstall that sucker! So right clicked the network card and uninstalled it from the system. Next thing is to now manually add a device. So jump into the Add Hardware wizard and pick a Network Adapter. Then when you get to device selection, simply select “Have Disk” and point at the folder where you extracted the new Atheros drivers.

Now for some reason there is an athr.inf and an athrx.inf, now I have no idea what the difference is, but I used the one with an x in because it’s clearly EXTREME and so much cooler Then lo! Vista stops with a giant red warning that these might not be the correct drivers! Well.. Man 1:0 Vista tbqfh. So say okay and the device will install and you’ll then be able to connect to your preferred wifi network!

I have not had one single crash so far on these drivers, and that’s having left Steam running all day. Although as you might notice from my previous post it probably didn’t tax the network as much as it should have done

I’ve been suffering with a Steam related problem for what seems like forever! The client starts up but will only download from the content servers in little bursts. It will download for about 5 minutes or so and then disconnect, to the point where on an 8mb adsl line it would download all of about 10% of a game over the course of a day!

Finally got around to looking into this this morning before work and found this cunning article tucked away in the Steam Support site. http://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=6966-IADH-1503

Turns out that for me at least, deleting my ClientRegistry.blob file and rebooting Steam worked fine! I was getting over 1mb/s download when I left for work. So with any luck this will help out other people who are struggling to get Steam to download their games or updates.

No internet! Boo..

Still it should be active sometime early next week which is nice. My Gundam is still on order which is mighty suck, let’s hope it ships soon.

I caved into temptation yesterday and bought myself a Master Grade Gundam model. I plumped for the Strike Freedom Gundam Full Burst Mode model at 1/100 scale, so it stands about 59cm tall!

It’s on backorder at the supplier so might take a few weeks to arrive, but it’s something to look forward to. Makes me think of all my time spent with lego as a kid. Although I did kind of underestimate the complexity of the build, there are literally thousand of parts involved. Sure does look interesting though. I found a review with a whole bunch of pictures of all the parts, check it out.

I recently subscribed to Last.fm as a paid user and now have my own personal radio station! You can either check the music page or tune in directly below.