Booktopia free shipping code
2 February, 2011 1 Comment
As before, I have another free shipping code:
CHOICE
It expires this Monday 7th Feb 2011.
With Aussie prices and the US dollar as they are, though, don’t forget to check prices on Booko too.
Dr Hardcore’s Advice for Nerds: Turning back time
28 January, 2011 1 Comment
To former teenage losers and foreverAlones that eventually became happy and successful adults: If you could go back in time and give yourself some advice, what would you say?
I posed this question to the Reddit community, including my own advice.
If you ever feel depressed because you’re unpopular, uncool, or socially awkward, go read it. If you used to, but came through it, go share you advice with the next generation of you. They need it.
Dr Hardcore is a kasetsu psychologist and geek-turned-stud who gives hope to hopeless nerds.
Xpadder
7 January, 2011 Leave a comment
I need to use a proper game controller for PC games, because I get RSI from using a mouse and keyboard.
Unfortunately, a lot of PC games don’t support controllers very well. Some have no support, others have very limited or broken support (for example, one of the analog sticks won’t be recognised). This happens even in games where controllers are a better choice (Beyond Good and Evil and Fahrenheit have broken support) and/or the game is a console port (or also available on consoles, e.g. Bioshock 2 has no controller support(!)).
For these games, I use special keyboard/mouse emulation software – programs that accept input from a controller and translate it into mouse movements and key presses.
I’ve used a free one called ControlMK for years, but it has it’s limits:
- It doesn’t work with every game (not sure why)
- It’s a bit tricky to configure – hard to figure out which button maps to which button number.
The end result is the eternal problem of PC gaming: the time wasted configuring the game before you can play it properly. Tweaking graphic card settings and fiddling with control mappings was actually somewhat fun when I was a kid (and beneficial; it taught me a lot about computers). Now I have very little time to game, and I’d really like to spend some of it actually gaming.
So, of course, I asked a question about it on the Gaming StackExchange.
As one answer recommended, I ended up buying one called Xpadder.
It’s interface allows you to use an image of the controller (make your own or use one of the many images on the Xpadder site), with each button in the correct place, which really saves a lot of time – like this. So far, it also works in games which only partially worked with ControlMK. It seems to have an active community and lots of extra features too.
There is a functional (but older) free version if you want to try it or can’t afford the $10 (or so, depends on country/currency, I think) to buy it.
Saved me a lot of time, I recommend it.
Booko
31 December, 2010 Leave a comment
Wow, this is pretty cool:
Booko is an Australian site that, for a given book title, lists the price (including postage to Oz) for all online stores that ship to Australia.
Fastest way to find the cheapest total price for a book you want – and the cheapest is often cheap:
Example: Elantris by Brandon Sanderson, a favourite of mine, which I bought for about $22 at Borders in Parramatta:
Booko found a copy going for AUD $8.07, including postage, from Book Depository (US):
Check it out: booko.com.au
Steam holiday sale has started
21 December, 2010 Leave a comment
As usual, some incredible deals, and check every day for new ones.
I’m off to buy every Prince of Persia game on steam – from Sands of Time to the deluxe edition of Forgotten Sands (even though I already have the older three on Gamecube) for less than $20 (total!)…
P.S. Sands of Time is easily one of the best games of all time. Excellent story and characters (not “excellent story and characters for a video game”) beautiful exotic environments, brilliant acrobatic/parkour/combat gameplay, all extremely polished at every level. Very highly recommended (content warning: rated M, some violence and a very mild “adult” romance scene – nothing actually shown).
M. G. Owen 