Acer Aspire One died! Found a solution :( BIOS corrupted

My Acer Aspire One died this afternoon and refused to startup, it didn't even get to the bios loading screen.

A quick google produced a solution at the link here. Thanks to the original author.

Basically, the BIOS had corrupted and it needed reseting.

Phew!

Mp3 BPM calculation and iTunes

I recently bought an iPod touch and started running for fitness. I have a large collection of MP3s and I wanted to get the BPM field completed for all of my MP3s so that I can choose audio based on it's tempo.


After a *lot* of googling I ended up with the following working solution:
a) use the freeware Mixmeister BPM calculator to batch analyse all of the files. This took hours to do but it's the core of it all. Note that this tool outputs accurate bpms to 2 decimal places, which need fixing with the following step.
b) round all of the BPMs up/down to the nearest integer. This is a more recent requirement as apparently iTunes 8.1 and above ignore decimal points for BPM so you *have* to get them all to integers. e.g., 123.4 won't work, 123 will work.
I do this by running scripts through Mp3tag as written here: http://forums.mp3tag.de/lofiversion/index.php/t8295.html
c) I use ITLU (iTunes Library Updater) to tell iTunes the new BPM files have changed and it needs to refresh. If you don't do this, iTunes won't update it's understanding of the BPM.

PlayStation 3 PS3 - what you get for the money

As always, comments are welcome.

Now, I'm fortunate enough to work for Sony but regardless of that I really like my PlayStation 3. What follows is my personal view and does not represent that of my employer or any other person.

Here's what I can do by itself at no extra cost:
* Play PS3 games obviously
* Watch Blu-Rays & DVDs in high-def. The DVD upscaling is the best I've seen
* Listen to music with a great visual display to match of planet earth in glorious HD
* Look at photos with a great looking slideshow that looks like someone throwing photos onto a table
* Wirelessly connect to the internet for browsing
* Download & play brilliant games from the PlayStation Store
* play online with other players at no extra cost

If you compare that to what you get out of the box from an Xbox 360 then you can see that it represents much better value. Especially if you tried to replicate everything it does with supporting hardware.

Here's what supporting hardware I've got, none of which is essential but it adds to the experience:
* Play TV
* PlayStation Portable
* BluRay remote
* Buffalo Terastation Duo - 1TB (Media Server)
* Full HD tv

Add in the PlayTV and you've got yourself a Freeview+ box (terrestrial freeview and a digital recorder) to watch and record digital TV

Now, layer onto this a PSP to connect to your PS3 via Remote Play and you can remotely connect to your PS3 from anywhere in the world and view photos, listen to music, watch videos and watch live tv and your recorded programmes!

Now, throw in a media server that your PS3 magically connects to and you can safely store all of your photos, music and video and access them either on your PS3 *or* on your PSP anywhere in the world!!

This only really scratches the surface of the capabilities of the PS3 but in the space of 3 months it's become the central entertainment hub in our house through which most of our onscreen entertainment flows.

I'm objectively happy that I chose a PS3 as the base on which to build everything. I'm very happy.

Extending a wifi network - BT HomeHub & D-Link 2100AP

Firstly, my motivation for doing this was to improve the quality of my wireless network around the house as I now have loads of devices wanting to connect throughout the house - desktops, PS3, laptop, PSP, phones, iTouch, media server, the list goes on.


I've spent quite a few hours on this now and I've done a lot of investigation coupled with trial and error to get this working and I wished someone had shared their experiences.


I hope this helps someone, please post comments if you had feedback.




I started out with a BT HomeHub v1.0 and as you probably know, you can't replace the aerial and it's not very powerful so it needs help. I had an opportunity to try the HomeHub v2.0 and it doesn't work as it has some criticial software elements missing for some reason.

Despite a lot of messing around, the best signal I could get in my front room was 50% and the connection was spoaradic at best. Laptops were dropping connections and my PS3 kept getting dumped from PSN during downloads, while watching SingStar videos, listening to music from my remote media server.

After much digging, here's the setup I have.
* BT HomeHub v1.0 in my upstairs home office (this DOES NOT work with a HH v2.0 as they removed the critical bit)
* Dlink 2100AP hidden downstairs close to the front room

During my trials I had problems with WPA security and reverted the whole network down to WEP, I'll do some tests to see if I can restore the security but it's always worth going back to basics when you're trying to get something to work.

Once your 2100AP is turned on and theoretically working, go back to the HomeHub and navigate into the Advanced->Wireless->Repeater and scan to find your 2100ap, which is cunningly called 'default' by default. Select the checkbox and Apply to tell your HomeHub that it should send the wifi signal through this device.

On the 2100AP, you need to make a few changes:
* the device IP needs moving from 192.168.0.50 to 192.168.1.50 so it's on the same subnet as the HH. If you don't do this then you may as well have 2 seperate networks.
* you need to enable the DHCP server on the 2100ap, I set mine to go from 192.168.1.20 upwards but you must ensure that this DHCP range doesn't cross-over the HH DHCP range that usually starts at .64 and goes upwards. If you don't do this then your devices won't get a network address from the HH DHCP and it won't work. Again, I'll investigate this and see if I can remove the DHCP from the 2100AP and get this working just through the HH..
* Set the wireless mode to 'AP Repeater' and scan to find your home network MAC address, which will enable the 2100AP to talk to the HH - this closes the loop and bi-drectional communication and everything should now work!

I now have everything working just as I want it bar a few tweaks to simplify the setup.

I'll update this post with any fixes I make but please post comments with feedback.

Independant game development - 20yrs on

Below is a list of games I was involved with during my time in independent game development - 1988 - 2008. I've now moved over to the publishing side to experience how the other half live.



More details here on MobyGames but it's partially wrong as it's based on game credits, which were occasionally wrong and frequently never acknowledged -  http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,133861/

Title	Target	Role
To End All Wars	PS3 & X360	Project Manager
SWOS	XBLA	Project Manager
Sensible Soccer	PS2 & XBox	Project Manager
Buzz! The Sports Quiz	PS2	Project Manager
LMA Manager Pro	PC	Project Manager
Club Football 2005	PC	Project Manager
England International Football	PS2 & XBox	Project Manager
Lotus Challenge	PC	Lead Programming, Project Manager
Barbie – Treasures In Time	PS2	Programming
Black & White	PlayStation	Programming, Project Manager, Design
Rugby 2000	PlayStation	Project Manager
LEGO Project	PC	Project Manager, Programming
AFL98	PlayStation	Project Manager, Programming
Z	PlayStation, Saturn	Programming, Project Manager
StarFighter 3000	Saturn	Assistant Programmer
XCOM - Terror From The Deep	PlayStation	Programming
Magic Carpet	Saturn	Programming
Theme Park	Saturn	Programming
Arabian Nights	Amiga, Amiga CD32	Design, Programming
Lothar Matthaus Super Star Soccer	Amiga, PC	Programming, Design
Manchester United - The Double	PC, Amiga	Programming, Design
John Barnes European Football	Amiga	Assistant Programmer
Hill Street Blues	Amiga	Assistant Programmer
James Pond II – RoboCod	MegaDrive	Programming, Design
Manchester United - Premier League Champions	Atari ST	Programming, Design
Graham Taylor's Soccer Challenge	Atari ST	Programming
Shadow Warriors	Atari ST, Amiga	Programming
Mantis	Amiga	Programming
Pears	Atari ST	Programming
OOPS	Atari 2600	Programming
T.R.A.P.	Atari ST, Amiga	Programming

[Non-Kiting] An Interview I did some time ago.

Taken from : http://www.playstationmuseum.com/Features/Interviews/INT001.htm


Simeon Pashley The statements and expressions in this interview are the opinion of Simeon Pashley and do not represent those of any other company or individual.

When you think of the PlayStation's elitists, some names that might come to your mind are Jason Rubin (Crash Bandicoot), Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid) or David Jaffe (Warhawk). For me, one name that comes to mind is Simeon Pashley. Simeon is one of the most talented and most humble programmers that I had the pleasure to talk with. I have the utmost respect for this man because he was the lead programmer for two of my favorite PAL PlayStation games: X-Com Terror From the Deep and Z. Both of these games are still popular sellers on eBay to this day. Although he undoubtedly did a great job on X-Com and Z, he will be the first to tell you that he merely converted the game data to PlayStation and credit should go to the original designers of the game.

Simeon is currently a technical director at Kuju (www.kuju.com), developers of some of the hottest PS2 games. Prior to this he had worked at Runecraft Ltd and Krisalis Software Ltd. Although his stint at Runecraft was brief, it was his many years and contributions at Krisalis that made him a PlayStation elitist.

I hope you enjoy the Museum's first full-fledged interview.
PSM: At what age did you start programming?
Pashley: Programming at home. 1st 5-line piece of code on ZX81 around 81-82, a simple 'avoid the monster' game written in basic. You stepped X+1 from the left, monster went X-1 from the right. You pressed up/down to choose your path at each turn, and it just moved towards you.
PSM: What computer did you learn how to program on?
Pashley: Dabbled around with 'demo' coding on BBC Micro but it just wasn't up to it. I did do quite a lot of 6502 on it though. I'd put down Atari ST was where I really started games programming when I was part of the 'scene'.
PSM: You developed for both Saturn and PlayStation. Which platform was easier to program?
Pashley: Initially Saturn was my weapon of choice and expertise having come from Megadrive/Genesis. But it's achilles heel of not being able to render triangles (only quads) was where it got really messy.
PSM: If a novice programmer wanted to start programming on the PlayStation, would you recommend purchasing a Net Yaroze or an official Sony development kit (assuming proper software and libraries were included)?
Pashley: Net Yaroze is the only real option. PS1 had a steep learning curve and Yaroze hid all that away plus it left the real programming to the paid developers. Hard-core programmers threw away more and more of the standard libraries as the ps1 experience expanded late in it's life. Yaroze never even offered GTE/assembler/macro programming as an option.
PSM: What Sony development setup did you use or prefer to use?
Pashley: PC+Sn Systems (later called ProDG). 'Brief' was the programmers editor and a real 'mans' tool all of which was in DOS. No multi-tasking windows operating system for us. A network was a luxury in the early days.
PSM: Your resume lists Black & White, Driving Game #1 and #2, and a Shoot’em Up. Why was Black & White never released? Was Black & White near completion? Were either of the other 3 games mentioned above ever released or why not?
Pashley: Sorry, I can't comment on any of the above.
PSM: On eBay, Z and X-Com Terror of the Deep are still hot sellers. How does it feel to work on such hit games?
Pashley: TBH, I'm proud of what I've done and I've got framed copies of all my games on my home office wall but it's quite normal really as I work with people in the games industry who mostly have a similar colourful past and/or even more impressive.

Being in the games industry there's so much focus on what's coming next and what's on the horizon there's little time to reflect. Also, the time between us finishing the game and it appearing on the shelves is quite large so we're usually well into the next game and don't get time to rest.
PSM: How does it feel to work on a much anticipated game such as Black & White and then never have it released?
Pashley: Again, it's pretty normal really within the games industry. These decisions are often made by marketing people and it simply comes down to money. I.e., will I get more money for the game than I'm going to spend to produce it? If that's a 'No' then that's it. Maybe sales forecasts drop? Maybe a competing product comes out? Maybe an opportunity is missed?

For me it was always about programming and it didn't really matter what I was working on as long as someone paid me to do what I really liked doing. I loved hacking about, trying new things, trying to prove to someone it was possible to get that extra 10% of performance, or emulate the latest feature from PC graphics cards on the lowly PS1. TBH, I'd have done it for free. I always left the design and art to others who were (and still are) much better at it than me although I still get involved with it to this day.
PSM: I appreciate you taking your time to respond and supporting the PlayStation Museum.
Pashley: In short, ps1 offered some exciting opportunities, kept me employed and companies I worked for generated quite a bit of cash. I can probably attribute a large part of the house I'm sitting in right now to the success of PS1 though so I owe them some allegiance.

If only someone would pay me to do just what I wanted but the games industry has changed so much these days into a process of making money. Sadly, I spend most of my days now looking at spreadsheets and the odd VB script is about the extent of my programming experience.

Be sure to visit the Black & White prototype page to read an article about Simeon and Black & White.

Console Games Resume: PlayStation Games: Role: AFL 98 Project Manager, Programming Black & White Program, Project Manager, Design Driving Game #1 (undisclosed) Project Manager Driving Game #2 (undisclosed) Project Manager Rugby 2000 Project Manager Shoot'Em Up (undisclosed) Project Manager X-Com Terror From The Deep Programming Z Program, Project Manager Saturn Games: Magic Carpet Programming Starfighter 3000 Assistant Programmer Theme Park Programming Z Program, Project Manager

Industry quote: Why has multiformat games development become so problematic?

Industry quote: http://www.developmag.com/interviews/115/Multitalented

Kuju Sheffield rebranded itself as Chemistry earlier this year, and with it decided on Unreal Engine 3 exclusivity. And while that’s certainly insulated the team from some of the pain of multiplatform development – “We’ve got Epic worrying about the technology, so we can be worrying about other things,” says managing director Mike Cook – as studio manager Simeon Pashley explains, there are still significant issues to be worked around.

“The very big issue, we feel, is networking. There’s no commonality on any of the platforms, even to the end-user, on what the experience is like,” he says. “There are very obvious differences between Xbox Live, PlayStation Network and GameSpy or whatever other PC service you use.”

Another industry quote: http://www.developmag.com/interviews/58/Epic-Diaries


KUJU HAS THE CHEMISTRY FOR UE3

Chemistry is one of five specialist studios formed by Kuju Entertainment. Formerly known as Kuju Sheffield (founded in 2002), Chemistry recently announced that it is going to use Unreal Engine 3 exclusively for this console generation.

Specialising in UE3 allows the studio to get continuously more proficient at using it and develop increasingly polished games over time.

We know this strategy very well because it is exactly what we’re doing here at Epic. Like Epic, Chemistry can take advantage of having UE3 as their common technology base with multiple teams sharing resources and expertise to built world-class games in the most efficient fashion. UE3’s mature toolset, and cross-platform capabilities should help ensure their success

Simeon Pashley, head of the studio explained: “We’ve decided to specialise in Unreal Engine as it’s clearly an awesome next-gen toolset that frees our staff to focus on bringing their creative talents to bear without worrying about the low-level nuts and bolts. It’s also perfect for our future plans as it allows us to look forward without worrying about technology stability.”

Chemistry has two Unreal Engine 3-based games currently in development.

Industry Quote: Exclusive access to Pilot Academy

http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/PSP/Pilot+Academy/feature.asp?c=1007

Exclusive access to Pilot Academy

Come fly with us as we talk to Kuju about its intriguing PSP flight sim

Product:	Pilot Academy
Developer:	Kuju
Publisher:	Rising Star
Genre:	Simulation
by João Diniz Sanches

Loop back to last September and you may remember reading our Pilot Academy preview. Still a unique proposition on PSP, this is a title we've been keeping in our sights.

So when news about it missing its originally intended March landing (it's now expected in September) glided into Pocket Gamer HQ, we took off like an F-15 from an aircraft carrier in search of a development team member hoping to get a more in-depth look at the title's blueprints.

We soon locked onto producer Simeon Pashley, whose answers you'll find below.

Pocket Gamer: At first glance, a flight simulation isn't an obvious choice when you think of PSP games. What led you to develop Pilot Academy?

Simeon Pashley: The term 'flight simulation' is a little misleading as it conjures up images of PCs with lots of key presses, quirky controls and real-time flights between London and LAX. Pilot Academy is more 'flight action' in that the planes can be easily controlled with a single analogue stick and a couple of buttons, and the scenarios are much more fun.

Pilot Academy is an extension of the hugely-successful Japanese flight sim series Pilot Ni Narou! – directly translated as "Let's Become A Pilot!" – which first appeared in 1998, and has since been released on both PlayStation and PlayStation 2. The game offers civilian and military flight simulation, with both single-player missions and challenges, and multiplayer aerial combat.

Pilot Academy is being developed by Kuju – we have a history of flight games running back many years – with design duties handled by Pilot Ni Narou! series producer Junichi Kutsuzawa.

This fusion of east and west development talent will ensure the game retains the spirit of the original titles whilst making the most of the PSP's formidable hardware. Ace Combat has already proved this is a popular genre and the market isn't too crowded, so it is an ideal opportunity.

Technically, how well does the PSP handle this type of simulation?

The game itself has a realistic physics system at its heart, emulating the flight of an aircraft, on which we've built an easy-to-use interface for the players. The PSP has handled the whole ordeal pretty well but it's certainly been a challenge to fit in the large 64Km2 maps, create great visuals and entertaining gameplay – but then again we are experts!

How have you managed to get around the button limitation of a console and how comprehensive can we expect the controls to be?

The controls have been tuned to give a realistic feeling of flying an aircraft without over-complicating things. Most of the complexity comes from minor adjustments to control surfaces, trimming, throttle and other items – none of which are important when you want to barnstorm or are in the heat of battle shooting down some bad guys.

Most of your flight is simply controlled by the analogue stick, along with a couple of buttons for throttle up/down. Indeed, it's possible to complete your early lessons with nothing more than the analogue stick. Layers of complexity are introduced as you move up in grade to include things like weapon select and camera controls but nothing overly complicated. It just feels 'right', regardless of whether you're piloting – a small Cessna, a large 747 or a modern fighter jet.

What kind of audience are you aiming Pilot Academy at then? Sim veterans or a more mainstream group?

The game has always been designed to be accessible to all and we feel we've achieved that aim. It's certainly a world away from the complex simulations of old, offering a more contemporary streamlined approach.

There seems to be a healthy variety of missions. Do these fit together as part of the main game or does each plane carry a number of sub-missions?

The basic premise builds upon the notion of learning to fly, so when you first start you have access to a civilian and military lesson track. Completing the lessons unlocks missions, challenges and aircraft in turn so you've always got something new to try.

Each level opens up something new along the way – there's a challenge right up until the end. There's the enjoyment of simply passing a level to unlock new items, but there are also awards for how well you complete each of the levels.

Have you finalised the number of planes, yet? We know there's a 747, a WWI bi-plane, a stealth fighter, and a Spitfire – are you able to disclose any other models?

There are 22 aircraft in the final game. The specific list is still under wraps! But it includes a broad variety of civilian, commercial and military aircraft, from old to new.

And what locations can players expect to see scrolling below?

There are three worlds to play in: Pacific – a collection of islands, cities and natural features; Europe – includes a mountain range, forests, castles, open fields; and Desert – includes canyons, military emplacements and oil fields.

What's been the most rewarding aspect of development to date?

One of the most enjoyable things is seeing the smile on people's faces when they play the game. There's something odd that happens when you buzz the floor in a 747, or fly through your first barn. Most people come to it as a 'flight sim' but it's not a sim; it's accessible, fun and engaging and definitely worth picking up.

Lastly, what do you expect players to enjoy the most when they get their hands on the Pilot Academy UMD?

Flying, plain and simple. It's a weird free feeling to just fly around in an aircraft – almost serene. We added a 'free flight' mode to accommodate this as we found it entertaining to fly without worrying about being shot down, running out of fuel or time!