June Wrap-Up

June has officially ended, and here are the stats for this month. This is the first month-stat-post I’m doing, because I never really explored how good WordPress’s stat system was.

Total views this June: 9,920 (Nine thousand, nine hundred and twenty, which is eighty short of ten thousand)

Top posts/pages:

List Of Games That Work With 3D Analyze	3,967 views
3D Analyze: Virtual Graphics Emulator	2,695 views
Review: Nokia N96	836 views
Install Windows Media Player 11 In A Non	503 views
Review: Need For Speed Undercover (PlayS	166 views
Fix Your Hung iPod	152 views

How To Set Up Your Printer In Ubuntu

Or, how to print effectively without any hassles in Ubuntu.

Step 1] Boot Ubuntu

Step 2] Make sure your printer is connected (via USB) and switched on

Step 3] Have two glasses of water

Step 4] Watch TV for five minutes

Step 5] Return to your terminal and start printing.

That’s it. No spoolsv problems, nothing. Ubuntu will notify about low-ink and out of paper problems. It also reads .pdfs and .docs, so there is no question of incompatibility anyway.

Review: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (PlayStation 2)

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Developers: Konami Computer Entertainment Japan

Kojima Productions

Publisher: Konami

Designer: Hideo Kojima

Hideo Kojima is back with his lovely Metal Gear series. This time, it is Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater which I will review right now. Since I haven’t player other Metal Gear games, I certainly will not compare it to other games in the series.

When the Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater DVD is in your hands, you begin to tremble. The box art and the description behind will make you hungry. And you can be sure – Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater will not disappoint you.

Unlike other games in the series, MGS3 is set in the past – in the 1960s. The game kick-starts with a thirty-five minute long cutscene, when you crash land in a forest in Russia. The gameplay is very little in the beginning. There’s hardly any shooting and grappling. Just moving around, trying to search for your lost bag hanging on a tree. Since controls are not specified to you, it’ll take time to figure ‘em out even in the beginning of the game.

The game as an innovative feature to converse with your seniors and advisors who are known only by their codenames – Major Zero, Para-medic, The Boss and Signit to name a few. The radio. You need to press the Select button and access the radio. You can dial various frequencies and make contact with them. Take tips from them, ask how to go about the current mission objective, what food you can eat, how good the weapon you’re using is, etc. You can even dial a frequency to save the game record mission details. Funnily enough, the game saves only in the Japanese PS2 Memory Card (the one with a silver sticker behind it), and not in the Chinese one (the one with a blue sticker behind it.)

What impresses you about the game is the sheer detailing. The sound you make while rustling grass, the recoil of weapons, your character’s flying hair, all catch your fancy immediately.

To the story now: it really can get confusing. It looks more like an army movie from Hollywood, cashing in on the evergreen concept of America-Russia battles. Its all about a scientist kidnapped by the Russians to create a mobile nuclear device to launch nuclear weapons. Based on post-World War II scenario, the story kinda takes time to unfold, but a superb script with some amazing gameplay and characters keep you on the edge of the seat. Oops. I meant controller. I really don’t want to reveal the plot now – it’ll spoil all the fun.

The graphics in the game are outstanding. Its probably because the game was due for realease for the PlayStation 3, but released for it predecessor, as the former ran into launch delays. Shadows, reflections and textures are all brilliantly done. Especially in the cinematic cutscenes, which may run upto nearly twenty-five minutes in time, the graphics and camerawork are beyond explaination. You just have to see for yourself and admire the technical prowess of the designers. A splendid experience indeed. You’d be watching cutscenes from time to time, but never get bored of them, if you follow the story.

Music it superb. Especially in the title track. You’ll always feel like a part of the game, when a suspenseful music runs in the background.

Naked Snake: "Don't look now. I'm naked. Or I'll shoot you."

Your character is Naked Snake. That doesn’t mean he’s naked in any way. Its just his codename.  There are other characters too: EVA, The Boss, Major Zero, Volgin, Ocelot and Sokolov, just to name a few. You’ll have a lot of fun playing around with the nice environment set in the 1960s in the forests of Russia. There’s hiding behind trees, glancing, grappling enemies, killing them with no sound, etc. The coolest part, however, is the camouflage. Snake can camouflage with the environment by wearing different clothes. Different outfits are effective for different environments, such as against a tree bark, in the night, crawling on the grass and hidden in a building. There’s face paint as well. To top it all, there’s an awesome cure feature to treat your wounds surgically. Like removing a bullet with a knife, and treating it with a disinfectant, and wrapping it up with a bandage.

The weapons are plenty, and pretty cool. They offer just the right kind of recoil, and have a perfect sense of controller vibration. Firing a tranquilizer gun hardly vibrates the controller, while firing the M63 for a long time increases the intensity of vibration. Excellent.

Now thats the end of all good stuff. Starts the negative. First up, controls. X and O are reversed, so now X is cancel and O is accept. This irritates. The controls are extremely cumbersome. You’ll almost always be fumbling for buttons to press. Travelling on while crouching or laying flat on the ground is extremely difficult when you wish to turn around. The camera angle is a peculiar one; you can move the right analogue stick to pan the camera here and therem but thats all. The lack of 3D camera was sorely missed. You cannot move the camera in a full circle to know whats going on behind you. Even turning around yourself doesn’t help. Often, you end up getting stuck beside a crate or a log. Then you have to get up, and your enemy sees you, and you engage in a battle..

The cure feature mentioned above is good, but what is hard to swallow is the you can cure yourself within a battle! Imagine tackling four soldiers and getting hit by a bullet. And saying, “Stop. I gotta remove that bullet and bandage that sharpenel wound and mend that bone I broke.”

The aforementioned radio conversations are extremely boring in the beginning, leaving little for you but to see what is being said. Of course, you can skip these conversations.

Bottom Line: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is not a game. It is a movie, where you’re the lead role. The story and detail are exceptional, but small flaws spoil the fun. Although it isn’t the best out there, it does prove to be a memorable game, nevertheless.

Detailed Ratings [Out of 10]

Gameplay: 9

Graphics: 10

Controls: 7 [Scrapped Difficulty bowing to popular demand]

Music: 10

Realism: 9

Rating: 9/10 [Brilliant]

Switching From Gmail to Yahoo! Mail

Yes. That’s true. From Gmail to Yahoo! Mail. NOT the other way round. Many (including me) love Google and its relatively new mail client. But the truth is, Yahoo! is the better one. It has some really nice features, which many Yahoo! skeptics would have ignored. People switched to Gmail as it was new and funky. But all of us know about that (un)popular Gmail server crash. Gmal lost its credibility as a good e-mail client back then. Yahoo! is still better. It has filters, drag-and-drop features, and also loads much faster than Gmail. Even faster, when cached.

I did a test to prove it

1] Google Mail

Typed mail.google.com in the address bar of Firefox, made sure that no bandwidth-consuming processes were running, and hit enter.

Enabled: Chat, Calendar

Disabled: Labs, Themes

Time taken to load: 8.99 seconds

2] Yahoo! Mail

Typed mail.yahoo.com in the address bar of Firefox, made sure no bandwidth-consuming process was running, and hit enter.

Enabled: Every friggin’ thing available by default: news, temperature, chat and calendar.

Disabled: Nothing

Time taken to load: 7.56 seconds

Which proves it that Yahoo! Mail loads faster than Gmail by 1.43 seconds. That’s a large number, considering Gmail had no labs enabled.

So if I have convinced you to move to Yahoo! Mail from Gmail, here’s how to do it:

TrueSwitch

Step 1: We’ll be using this service called TrueSwitch. It does cost $19.95, but free to do, when you switch to Yahoo! (Wow. I was a poet and I didn’t even know it!). Click here to begin switching.

"Copy, Notify, Forward, Cancel" seems to be the motto of TrueSwitch, and it lives up to it.

Step 2: After you’ve done that, you’ll need to sign in to Yahoo! Type your password, and click Sign-in.

Sign-in to your Yahoo! Account

Step 3: After you’ve signed in, you need to grant TrueSwitch permission to access your account. Click I Agree.

Confirmation

Step 4: Enter your old e-mail address (Gmail in this case). Enter your username, and select gmail.com in the first drop-down box. For example, if your e-mail ID is shadowline@gmail.com, you type in only shadowline and select gmail.com in the drop-down box.

Type your old e-mail address password, select all data to be transferred (I recommend you check both Email and Address Book.)

You can also send a notification to all contacts in your old Gmail account informing about the change in your e-mail ID. Clicking on Personalize this notification will help you draft a custom message manually, which will be sent to your contacts.

You will need to give TrueSwitch all details to switch to your Yahoo! account

An example of the notification the recipient receives when your notification reaches him/her.

Step 5: When you’re sure you’ve done everything, including agreeing to the Terms of Service, click Start Transfer. You should see this dialog box.

Although it claims to take a few seconds, it takes suprisingly longer than the expected time to process the data, depending on your current Gmail account.

Step 6: After a really long and agonizing wait, TrueSwitch completes “confirming your account info”. Open your Yahoo! Mail account. If all the mails aren’t there, don’t worry. Wait for about sixteen hours. You’ll see all mails with each sorted out into folders available to you. Nothing changes in the first twelve hours. The final result comes only after sixteen hours, when all your folders and current mails have been transferred.

Step 7: Now that the transfer is complete, you need to direct all your mails to your Yahoo! account. Open Gmail. Click Settings. Click Forwarding and POP/IMAP. Enable forwarding by clicking on the Forward incoming mail to radio button. Type in your complete new email ID. Select archive Gmail’s copy in the drop-down box, so that all mail remains in the Gmail inbox as well.

Forwarding all incoming mail

Step 8: Click Save Changes and open your Yahoo! Mail account. You must have received a mail from accounts-noreply@google.com. Click on the confirmation link, and you’re through.

Congratulations! You have successfully travelled from Gee Mail to Yahoo! Mail. Lemme reassure you. Its a move you’ll never regret.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 India License

Charismatic Conversations #6

{Chat between Me and Arjun Attam on Friday, June 12th 2009}

“Comedy of Errors”

me: hi

Arjun: hello

me: so hows the college admissions goin on?

4:02 PM Arjun: havent started

me: really?

Arjun: iit counselling tomorrow

me: :O

u alredy got into iit rite?

4:03 PM Arjun: i have the rank

need to choose my course and city tomorrow

me: which eye-eye-tee do u probably think you’re in?

Arjun: delhi

me: whoa

iit delhi–heard its the besht

did u update your facebook status abt the iPhone 3G S launch?

4:07 PM Arjun: no, i didn

why? :S

me: i thought mridul did

when i asked him, i got a negative

so i thot i saw u do it

but its not u as well

4:08 PM it was abt sum keynote launch

started driving?

4:09 PM hello?

Arjun: yes

4:10 PM what

me: started drifting?

Arjun: started driving?

no, i didn’t

i was probably rowing a boat in nainital at that time

me: what time?

4:11 PM Arjun: arey yaar

4:12 PM me: hm?

Arjun: hmm what

i dont know the time

and i didn’t post any status update about the iphone 3gs

4:13 PM me: thats okay

Arjun:

4:14 PM this has been a strange convo, is this a joke?

me: u got a 4 state rank in drawing?!?

nah

its probably a comedy of errors

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 India License

Transcode Video Files To DVD Using Nero

My first video tutorial!

Step 1: Install the entire Nero suite

Step 2: Download and install this plugin.

Step 3: Watch this video

Step 4: Comment for God’s sake!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 India License

Stuff You MUST Try Out

There are a lot of movies/games/software out there, which may be unknown to a majority of people. People are hardly interested in this kind of stuff, and ignore it purely based on public reactions. I don’t think they’re bad at all.

PS: I’ve included a Criticism characterisitc with each topic to explain why it is criticised by people, and my counter-point as well.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

The Metal Gear Solid [MGS] series by Hideo Kojima of Konami Computer Entertainment Japan is quite famous. But this is one of the games on the series you just have to try out. It was initially planned for the PlayStation 3, but released for its predecessor due to launch delay. So you can imagine how great the graphics will be. Cinematic cutscenes with a movable-and-zoom camera option, superb music, brilliant physics and an amazing storyline make Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater one of the coolest, if not best, PlayStation 2 game ever made. The game does have it flaws though. The O button is the X button and vice-verca, so you have to press O to accept and X to cancel. Camera controls are cumbersome too. However, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater makes you realise that the PlayStation 2 has pressure-sensitive controls! Pressing O lightly will suffocate an enemy, while hammering it will sever his throat with your knife.
Criticism: Metal Gear Solid games are no different than movies.
True. Quite true. And this is often a line used by MGS haters. But play the game and you realise “Hey… This is like a movie, but I can haz like to be a hero in the movie!!11111111!!!” Who wouldn’t want to play a lead role in films? Metal Gear Solid 3 allows you to do just that.

Burnout Dominator

Burnout Dominator

I reviewed Burnout Dominator in the past, and gave it about 8/10. Burnout Dominator isn’t a bad game at all. Its absolutely amazing. However, it leaves you disappointed only because you’d have expected more from the successor of such an awesome game like Burnout Revenge.

Criticism:Burnout Dominator is extremely difficult, and hence, is a pain to play.
It may be tougher than its predecessors, but difficulty is the major criteria for playing! Anybody with amateurish driving skills can rule Burnout Revenge overnight, but it requires gaming expertise and concentration and determination to achieve the same for Burnout Dominator. Only a hardcore gamer can do this.

Phineas and Ferb

Phineas and Ferb

Phineas and Ferb aired on Disney Channel a couple of months ago, and is probably the best cartoon I have seen in a long time. The lead characters Phineas and Ferb are extremely cute and always have some of the naugtiest inventions up their sleeves. In fact, their title track says it all:

Building a rocket or fighting a mummy

Or climbing up the Eiffel tower

Discovering something that doesn’t exist

Or giving a monkey a shower

Yes. They really do all that. Without their parents getting to know. But their nosey sister tries to bust them, but always fails. Also, there’s a song in every episode, which is not at all childish. In fact, all of them are catchy, especially the title track. It also involves a side plot, where Phineas and Ferb’s pet platypus doubles up as a secret agent to foil the evil scientist Heinz Doofenshmirtz’s plans.

Criticism: Phineas and Ferb is a cartoon for kids. You’re a baby if you watch that crap!
Wrong. Completely. Wrong. Its like you’re saying South Park is for kids. Phineas and Ferb may not be that vulgar, but is certainly witty. Kids can watch it as well, but people of all ages must give it a shot. In fact, its got all those witty takes on many fields, such as fashion, reality shows (such as one named as “America’s Next Teen Pop Star Idol!” taking a dig at ridiculously named reality shows. The winner even performs a one-hit wonder. Phenomenons only adults or teenagers can understand), evil scientists, and even mammals. You must see the season opener episode “Rollercoaster” which I’ll put up here.

Rebecca

Rebecca

Rebecca is an Alfred Hitchcock film made entirely in black and white. Its that old. Many enthusiasts may already know about this one, but many don’t. Rebecca won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1940, but chances are it’ll win any year. The actors deliver spectacular performances, and the horror will really freak you out. It may not be as gory or deadly as your Grudges or Hannibals, but it is Hitchcock’s superior directorial skills which will keep you glued to the edge of your seats.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 India License

Charismatic Conversations #5

Another chain mail this time, but pictures. Shikhar sent me this awesome e-mail. Its about women.

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Charismatic Conversations #4

I know how much we all hate chain mails (and there are some who still don’t), but this I simply had to post here. Its just too good.

Q: What do you get from a silkworm?

A: Silk. Correct.

Now spell it five times

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Q: What do cows drink?

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A: Water. If you said milk, you’re brain is overheating. You better dip your head in a bowl of ice cool water, of or something, or go lie on the bed and sleep for a decade or so.

Delhi Dareport

I was travelling to Bengaluru from Delhi on the 16th of May (you all following @crytalunicorn on Twitter would know), and here is an honest review about the entire trip.

My flight was a Jet Airways DEL-BLR at six-thirty in the morning. I know. “Tasty food” bubbles pop up in my mind too, whenver I think about Jet Airways. Naturally, I left home by four and reached by five. This song was playing on my Xplod in the morning:

Alvida… Alvida…

Teri Yaadein Alvida

Ab Tune Keh Diya Toh

Alvida…

As if bidding goodbye to me. Sob. Sob. I’ll miss you Delhi!

Now,  Dad dropped me and mom off at departures. The airport was different than last year. Jet and many other flights are in Terminal 1D. Also, when you enter the airport, the check-in-cum-baggage-drop-off counter is just at your right, not inside another complex. Thats plus points, as it is easier to access than before. God knows about the commotion there during peak hours. I had a friggin’ morning flight!

I had three suitcases to drop-off, and I looked expectantly at the workers to lift them and put them on the conveyor belt. No luck. I did it myself, and cut my middle finger, which healed in twenty-five seconds. I tried to be extra-careful with the bag housing my PlayStation.

Now, to security check. When I was getting checked, one two three people were standing a millimetre behind me, which is wrong, as you should stand behind the yellow line. Naturally, the security guard ushered them away.

I put my wallet and phone in that tray and pushed it through. On the other side, I found it missing. It was not at its usual place, but with a police officer, who was examining the wallet carefully. There was nothing about the phone, which he could examine. After the tragic demise of my 7610 Supernova which suffered from a bad case of pneumonia, I am using a 3315. Back to the basics, I must say.

I went to that guy.

Me-”Ahem!”

He-”Kya hai?”

Me-”Woh wallet mera hai.”

He-”Le le.”

Me-”Aur phone bhi.”

He-”Toh main kaunsa apne paas rakh ke puja kar raha hoon?”

After grumpy looks were exchanged between both of us, I finally got it back.

Next up, waiting time. Bad time. There are so many things to buy around you, and all at double the rates. Wow. There were about twenty-five minutes remaining for the departure of my flight, and my stomach was grumbling. My eyes fell on (Mmm!) 21 Baker Street. Not exactly Sherlock Holmes, but a sweet smelling bakery. Me and mom gobbled up a (very heavy) fruit cake and choco-fantasy each, when we realised that only fifteen minutes were left for the flight to take off, and we still had not received the boarding call. I rushed to the monitor up ahead and it said “Now Boarding”.

Damn.

We ran out and found no boarding gates. I asked the Jet Airways Customer Desk and she told me to go down. Another change. The boarding gates are now on the floor below, and not on the same floor as the waiting room. We got down, went into the bus (a rather small one) and travelled nearly seventeen minutes on the runway to reach the plane.

Finally, we’re in (Economy Class) and there’s a JetScreen in front of me. JetScreen is Jet Airways’s in-flight entertainment touch-screen console. Movies, music, documentaries and flight information on demand. Obvoiulsy, it wasn’t working as the plane hadn’t taken off as yet. I read the in-flight entertainment guide, and was surprised to see a large number of movies on board! Slumdog Millionaire, Ghajini, Valkyrie, Dostana, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, etc. But, sadly, none of these were available in reality. On a second look at the guide, I found out that these were only on international routes. Only Billu, Fashion, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and a few others were there. Seen all. Now what? I settled with an episode each from Sarabhai vs Sarabhi and The Simpsons. Then I played some bowling and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. The latter was amazing! It had all three lifelines! A virtual friend to whom you can talk to, was also there. It was great. Unfortunately, the headphones I was provided were faulty. Thankfully, I exchanged them for new ones. They definitely aren’t comfortable, but I had no alternative, as my headphone along with my iPod had been packed rather foolishly in some suitcase.

The food was good, but I was full to eat anything. Overall, the flight was comfortable, but the entire experience itself was not.

Landed at Bengaluru airport about a minute late. Thats okay. Got off from the aerobridge, and landed at a beautiful-looking arrival area. Baggage claim was a breeze, and I had all three suitcases in five minutes flat. Its good.

My rating of this plane experience: 3.3/5

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