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Churnalism #1: Say it with words, not pictures

In what may turn out to be a recurring topic, I rant a little about what I regard as questionable behaviour in the often free-from-criticism world of mainstream media writing. These are a reflection of my views and my standards, yours may differ.

Are you a regular visitor to a frequently updated web site that publishes every single one of its articles with a clever or ironic header image?

You know the sort of thing I mean. The type of site that tries to sell its story content (or, more frequently, the opinion of  the author) via a witty image that suggests that as much, if not more, time was spent on Google image search looking for the right semi-related image than there was spent on writing the original article in the first place.

What does it say about the belief in the quality of writing on the site or the treatment of its readership when such a site invests that sort of energy into leading the audience to form an opinion on something before they’ve even been informed of what that something is?

The double-whammy of an undoubtedly eye-catching headline (oh, I’ll cover that in another Churnalism rant, have no fear) and a sarcasticly presented image tend to lead easily impressionable readers to a certain view before they’re even aware what it is that they should be having a view on!

Are your words alone not sufficient to inform and captivate? If you cater and, more importantly, target the lowest common denominator of your readership then are you really doing yourselves or your audience a proper service?

Of course not. You’re there to churn out articles and to provoke a response in any way you can.

The litmus test: Is your article as readable and compelling without your clever/sarcastic/ironic imagery above it? If not then there’s a lot of scope for improvement in how your articles are written – and you’re not going to find the answers in Photoshop.

Post it

It’s great to see someone come up with a post-its-as-pixels novelty that dares to be more original than doing the same old schtick of recreating a sodding NES Mario sprite!

Anti Natal

As someone with the crazy idea that good gameplay design makes a game worth playing over something like a gimmicky way of controlling it I’ve never been convinced by the Wii (and it’s shockingly low average scores for its software aren’t really doing much to support the “gimmicky controller is a silver-bullet solution to F U N” either) and so it was with disdain that I saw both Microsoft and Sony wasting huge amounts of time and money in producing gimmicky controllers of their own.

Whilst Sony admit the effort they presented at E3 is a work-in-progress, Microsoft’s work-in-progress effort is already being pimped as the Second Coming of a revolution that hasn’t proved to be all that revolutionary in the first place. Within days of its announcement various high-profile shows in the US have all shown us how much fun it is to pay $400 (TV not included) to kick a virtual ball around in a virtually unsatisfying way. The notion that spending less than a tenth of the money for an infinitely more satisfying genuine experience seems to have eluded most people. Heck, you don’t even have to limit your movements to standing in a small square on the floor with a real soccer-ball either.

So, it’s with great satisfaction and not a small amount of relief that at least one USA show, The Colbert Report, can tell it like it really is:

The merriment starts at about 1:40 and I defy anyone not to laugh out loud when he pushes that red button when asking if the time is right to invest in Microsoft.

Enjoy!

Wallpapering

Over a year ago, the always-excellent Lifehacker.com had a brief article on how using a dark and low-contrast Windows theme may help reduce eye strain from prolonged computer use.

Since then, I’ve become a fan of dark Windows themes and wallpapers. My current XP install sports a desktop theme called Razor2 Final and is accompanied by a suitably subdued wallpaper of wood panelling courtesy of the Dark Wood Wallpaper Pack. It works better than it sounds:

The laptop computer in the other room, which is used far less frequently than my desktop, sports an altogether more vibrant and feline wallpaper called Kyoko:

Classy!

It’s all about image

Backing up your data is mundane and unexciting but it’s better than the worst-case scenario of losing things like your contacts, emails, personal documents and so on. I speak from personal experience and assure you, it’s not a lesson you want to learn the hard way.

I like to have my PC environment set up in a certain way with certain settings and preferred applications. Doing a full system restore and manually reconfiguring and installing everything would take a day or more.

Imaging saves me a huge amount of hassle.

What is imaging? Well it’s rather like taking a snapshot of your data or system. The main difference comes not in how the data is backed up but how it is restored.

Imagine your system and data is a sheet of paper filled with words. You can write each word individually, one after the other. Maybe correcting a mistake here, crossing out a word there. Eventually your page has all the words on it that you intended. Re-writing the page if it were blanked would take much the same time as you’d have to repeat the entire process again.

Now, imagine that you’ve a page-sized rubber stamp. All the words have been set on the rubber stamp. You’ve been careful to set the stamp up just how you want it and not have any errors in the words or layout. It’s probably taken a little longer to prepare the rubber stamp than it would have done to write all the words on the page individually as described in the paragraph above.

However, when it comes to actually putting those words onto the page, you just push the rubber stamp onto the page and in one brief operation all your words and layout are printed back onto the page. If the page was blanked then putting all those words back onto it would be a simple task of using that carefully prepared rubber stamp again.

And that’s how I’d describe the difference between restoring data / reinstalling a system one part at a time or recovering an entire system from an image backup.

There are a few different types of software that’ll manage this process for you but I think Acronis True Image is the one to go for. I happen to think it’s very user-friendly and feature-rich. If anything, it has more features than I’d want to use in a domestic environment.

As much as I love the software, it’s the principle of imaging that’s the real beauty. If you’re prepared to spend a bit of time setting up your system well, removing junk you don’t need and getting everything fully featured but not bloated and then make your perfect image then your computer is almost bullet proof!

Why spend thirty minutes doing a virus scan that may or may not solve the odd issue that recently appeared on your system when you can do a complete clean-and-restore in under five minutes and eliminate the problem for good? Why let your PC get more and more bogged down as you use it with all the temporary data and indexes that build up when you can flush all the rubbish out and restore to a lean but fully featured system that runs nice and quickly in the same time as it would take you to make and drink a cup of coffee?

Imaging isn’t a total solution for backups. You still want to back up current data like your emails and documents in a state where restoring them won’t send you back in time. But if you’re willing to invest time in preparing a good backup image then you can feel confident knowing that, whatever happens, you can get your system, complete with all your settings, back in a flash.

The 360 round trip

The 360 is back and, after an initial scare, it seems to be ok. The initial scare took the form of an immediate system crash when I first booted with all things plugged in. I unplugged my HDD booted and all was fine – re-did the system setup, re-attached the HDD and tried again. Seems ok!

I know, I know – you’ve all been wondering how it was going. I’m such a tease!

Late to the RROD party

Well, I can finally consider myself a true Xbox 360 owner as I’ve been blessed with my very own Red Ring of Death.

In some ways I’m relieved. Having owned a unit for a couple of years I’ve often felt the sword of Damocles hover over me whenever I’ve powered the unit up. And, to be fair, I play consoles far less than I used to and most of my machines are inactive for weeks at a time.

Curiously, the unit booted fine yesterday and invited me to perform a system update which I dutifully did. Instability followed immediately with the start-up animation freezing or playing but then refusing to go into the 360 dashboard. Sometimes the dashboard would crash. Other times the startup animation would freeze with graphical corruption on it. Needless to say, I’ve reset the unit a number of times and have finally been shown the red card.

Even more curiously, five minutes after seeing The Ring I powered the unit up again and it worked fine. I spent a couple of hours last night wandering around Dead Space and being really impressed. This morning saw dodgy boot sequences and a more permanent Red Ring.

Quite some time back I registered my Xbox and Xbox 360 on the Xbox Service site so initiating a repair has been a very simple process. We’ll see how the rest of it goes. My expectations are that things should run very smoothly – based on the assumption that this is a process Microsoft has had ample opportunity to perfect through repeated executions.

At launch-time I was really impressed with the 360 and with Microsoft’s endeavours around it. As the failure rate issue became increasingly difficult for everyone (even Microsoft) to gloss over I’ve learned much that has made me pretty disgusted with the way the product was launched and the gamble Microsoft knowingly made to get their product out the door first at the expense of the consumer. I’m not one of those guys who picks a fight with large corporations or feels the need to spell “Microsoft” with a “$” in the middle. I use Office, I use Windows. The products work when I need them to and they meet my requirements. I’m content. My experience of the product that is the 360 has changed how I feel about Microsoft and their efforts in the console industry.

With that said, now that the worst has happened, I believe the most can be made of the experience.

A long time back I found transactions being used against my credit card. I’m a cash or debit-card person myself so my trend for spending on credit card is pretty consistent. Big, assorted retail purchases all in one location stick out like a sore thumb. When I spotted these transactions I informed my bank and they handled the situation brilliantly. My card was stopped, a new one issued, the fraudulent charges on the balance were removed. The service to the customer was outstanding. As a result my confidence in credit card use and in how issues are handled is very high – far higher than it was when nothing had ever gone wrong.

So, now my 360 has gone wrong I’m hoping to have my confidence in the product and in those responsible for it to be boosted. I would welcome the opportunity to truly enjoy the gaming it offers without worrying about my warranty. I look forward to making the most of this!

Irony watch!

Hmm.

Don’t confuse hard work with good game making. Everyone works hard. That’s what it means to be a professional.

This comes from a site that confuses quantity of output with quality. My refusal to link to them should tell you who they are. Failing that, just Google the phrase.

I don’t entirely agree with the sentiment that working hard equates to being professional – irrespective of who makes that claim.

And whilst not ironic, this post seems like a great moment to put a big question mark over the prospect of Jade Goody: The Musical.

I want one of these

Where’s the cassette deck?

Source and pictures

This post is in 3D!

The last time I wore any sort of viewing aid it was in London’s Trocadero Sega World arcade to try out the new and exciting VR Headsets. The results were disappointing, even for a skeptic. So it was with low expectations and reserved excitement that I headed off to see Monsters vs Aliens in 3D at the cinema in town.

I wasn’t too sure what to expect to be honest. Initially I was underwhelmed and questioned whether the RealD glasses I was given were arguing with my regular glasses and dampening the 3D effect as I found myself straining to spot differences between what I was seeing and what a regular viewing might be. For the most part the benefit of the 3D presentation seemed to be that foreground and background in scenes were that much more boldly defined. Whilst pleasing this was hardly a stunning or memorable enhancement.

So I was delighted when, barely five seconds into the movie, I found myself instinctively flinching to avoid a seemingly massive object hurtling out of the screen towards me! Clearly the technology works and it is up to the film-makers to exploit it by creating scenes that can accomodate events that lend themselves to making the most of it. Some of these are gloriously contrived but still great fun whilst others seemed to be a great marriage of enjoyable exposition enhanced by this special effect.

One such scene depicts the giant Susan being shown around a secret miliatary complex by a jetpack-endowed General. He seemingly flits about in to and out of the screen to great and enjoyable effect.

All in all, I really ended up enjoying the experience. It certainly helped that the movie it was attached to was entertaining and funny. I would definitely favour seeing a movie in a 3D presentation over a traditional 2D one when the option is available.