I love living in York.

On sunny days like this it makes me especially glad I live in York. It's such a great city for just spending a lazy day. Sure it's a tad crowded with tourists but you soon get to know the places where you can usually find a free table in the sun.

It's funny, I never really planned to live in York. I just ended up having to move here for a job straight after university. Now I can't imagine living anywhere else!

Garforth Tabletop Gamers

It's a glorious sunny day. Perfect weather for going for a hike, visiting gardens, or just chilling outside with a few beers.

So of course I spent all day inside playing boardgames. :)

Today was my first visit to Garforth Tabletop Gamers, having found out about it from the nice people at Beyond Monopoly in York. Had a fantastic time there, everyone was really welcoming and despite having a smaller collection than Beyond Monopoly I still got to play a great range of games:

• Hey! That's my Fish - quick and silly, but surprisingly devious. :)
  
• Smallworld - The hot game of the moment, but deservedly so!
  
• Pitchcar - A really fun action game to play whilst waiting for a another to start.
• Manhattan - Skyscraper building game that gets very evil with everyone jostling for space.
• Tsuro - A beautifully elegant game, so simple but fun to play. Quick too (~15mins).
• Mississippi Queen -Loved the mechanics in this one, having to juggle speed and maneuverability was really tricky but rewarding.
  

As an added bonus they were celebrating their first aniversary. It doesn't get much better than gaming AND cake! I'm definately looking forward to frequenting GTG in the future and for anyone with any interest in gaming at all I can't recommend these two clubs enough!

Feeds I subscribe to: mediaeater image blog

I have no idea how I came across the mediaeater blog but I'm glad I did. It's entries are always extremely sparse, only ever containing images and never having a title or explanation for the inclusion of the image.

But they're always really great images!

I recommend you start at the archive and have a browse, then subscribe to the RSS feed for a regular dose of interesting images.

Site: http://mediaeater.tumblr.com
RSS Feed: http://mediaeater.tumblr.com/rss

Spotify. Now this is the way digital music should be.

I've never really been into buying music digitally for the following reasons:

1. I prefer albums to singles. A lot of the greatest music requires context and doesn't work well shuffled into a bunch of singles. For example I can't imagine listening to a track off "Rossz Csillag Alatt Született" by Venetien snares straight after a track from "Dark side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd . It would just clash too much.

2. I prefer CD quality. I'm far from an audiophile and am extremely skeptical about the merits of high-end equipment, but even with my setup I can definitely appreciate the better quality sound I get from a CD compared to an Mp3.

3. I love CD collections. One of the first things I do when I visit people's homes is browse their CD collection. I love seeing what kind of music people are into, what classics they might own, what guilty pleasures they have. :) I like the physical presence of a CD collection. It feels like I'm buying something real, rather than investing in some bits I'm going to lose next time my PC blue-screens (yeah yeah, I know I should back everything up).

4. It's not usually cost effective. How the hell can it be cheaper for play to deliver me a physical album that contains higher quality audio for cheaper than iTunes can deliver me the same album as MP3s?

But now I've stopped collecting CDs. Viva la revolution! Viva Spotify!

The easiest way to describe Spotify is to think of it as iTunes, but with someone else's music collection on. And that someone else happens to be one of the biggest collectors of music ever.

Before I continue take a moment to go and register and install it. Doesn't take long, it's a very small application, it's 100% legal and it's totally FREE. You'll then be able to click on the links I include in the rest of this entry. Linux users, you're not exempt, it runs fine under Wine.

The range of music is incredible. Here's just a random collection of artists on Spotify: Snow Patrol, Ash, Elvis, Pizzicato Five, Ben Folds Five, Chas & Dave, Flobots

Plenty of brand new stuff too: Bat for Lashes, Lily Allen, Ting Tings, Kanye West

You'll find most things on there unless you get uber-obscure, or are unlucky enough to hit one of the artists that have short-sightedly opted-out of Spotify e.g. Oasis.

Another thing I love is the way it brings music sharing back. Since the big file-sharing clampdown, people haven't been able to legally share their music experiences with other people using the Internet. Now we have Spotify playlists we can bring the fun back into sharing.

• Here's a collection of some of the best and most unusual covers I could find
• Here's a collection of uber happy music
• Here's the music we listened to at a party a few months ago
• Here's the Flobots latest album which I love to bits and think you should all check out

And best of all:

• Here's the official Nick's blog collaborative playlist.

Spotify collaborative playlists are genius. They let you have a playlist within Spotify that anyone can listen to, & add songs to. It would be brilliant if everyone that reads this blog adds a song or two to that playlist (Feel free to also add a comment below about the song if you want!).

The sheer convenience and range of available music on Spotify far outweighs any of my grievances about digital music, I am a convert.

The Catch

There's always a catch, with Spotify it's that the money has to come from somewhere and unless you buy their premium subscription then it comes from adverts. But these adverts are so few and far between they really don't intefere too much. If you really want to get rid of them you can buy day or month passes. I've often spent a quid so I can use Spotify at a party without any interruptions.

Also the music isn't transferrable, so if you listen to music on the move using an iPod or mobile phone, Spotify isn't for you. Yet.

See also

If you're interested in listening to Spotify through your games console or media centre. See my article on streaming spotify to other devices.

Jaguar Skills - Gaming Special

The always crazy Jaguar Skills throws in plenty of gaming lyrics and samples into his usual manic style of hip-hop mixing as well as some crazy obscure 80s stuff for Radio 1s Gaming Weekend.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00kl1wk/Jaguar_Skills_25_05_2009/

Favourite moments:

• A foreign version of the Ulysses 31 theme tune (UlysseeeEEeeEEeeeEEees).
• A very strange but awesome Mario / Notorious B.I.G mix.
• Great chiptunes version of Golddigger.
• Parrapa the Rapper!
• Awesome Monkey Magic mix!
• Exploder Trailer - "I'll cry when I'm done killing!".
• retro Pac Man tutorial drum & bass mix.
• Sesame Street pinball tune.
• Cooking with Jaguar & Jamie Oliver.

VERY rough round the edges in places, but lots of fun. I have no idea how someone can manage to fit together enough stuff for a 2 hour show like this!

It's only going to be up until Tuesday 2nd June, so get it stream-ripped by then if you can. ;)

Often overlooked games : Eternal Darkness

Welcome to the first of my looks at games that you really should have played, but might not have even heard of. Now I know there's lists and lists of these kind of games on the Internet but I'm going to try and do it with the following rules

1. The game must be available and affordable to buy. No being pretentious and going on about obscure Japanese / US only limited releases that cost hundreds of pounds on eBay (e.g. Mother 2: Earthbound).
2. The game should be accessible. No really obscure punishing hardcore games (e.g. Godhand, Killer 7).
3. Don't repeat information available elsewhere. If anyone wants to know history of the game, developer information, sales figures, that's what Wikipedia is for!

So basically I'm going to dilute it into my personal experiences with the game, a quick guide of whether it'll be your sort of game or not, and some links to help you find it.

So here goes. My first "Often overlooked game": Eternal Darkness.

I had successfully ignored Eternal Darkness for several years, despite not having a great collection of Gamecube games. Ironically I was mainly put-off by it's crashing price. I believe it was down to £9.99 new within a week or two, and eventually ended up selling for £2.99 new by the time I actually played it! This combined with a complete lack of marketing led me to dismiss it as a inferior Resident Evil knock-off.

I was an idiot.

Eventually a good friend of mine insisted I borrowed his copy and give it a shot. After it had gathered about 2 weeks worth of dust on my shelf, I finally got round to putting it in the console. I then proceeded to play through the entire thing in about 2 long sittings over a weekend, I had been completely hooked from start to finish.

Admittedly it's a very strange game and I can see a lot of people will initially be put off: the control system is a bit finicky; not much gets explained, at least near the beginning; and the regular switching between characters may leave people feeling a little disconnected from the game, but it does all start to come together quite quickly.

There's plenty of combat which luckily is plenty of fun once you get the hang of the controls. The customisable magic system is an interesting idea and in the latter half of the game it gives you a lot of flexibility. The killer hook for me though is the innovative "insanity" system. As well has the traditional health & magic bars, you have a sanity meter. Without spoiling too much when this drops down stuff gets VERY weird. It's the only game that's ever had me sprint over towards the TV in panic. ;)

If any of this interests you I highly recommend not reading anything else about the game. Eternal Darkness' best qualities are it's story and it's surprises. Reading anything about either of them will diminish your experience.

So if this sounds good to you then drop a tenner, get the Wii out, and give it a shot!

Get it if you:

• have a Wii gathering dust, and want to try something new.
• like "Survival Horror" games.
• enjoy games with great sprawling plot lines.
  
• love Being surprised.
• want to see a game trying something new.
• like H.P. Lovecraft .

Avoid it if you:

• must have the latest generation graphics.
  
• are a complete beginner to games (It can be slightly punishing in places).
• scare easily.
• like to stick with one character throughout a game.
  

Where to get it from:

• Plenty of copies going for less than a tenner on eBay.
• Have a look around the 2nd hand section in retail shops like Game & Gamestation. You might find it for a bargain price.
  
• Lots of copies on Amazon Marketplaces, again for less than a tenner.

NOTE:- like any Gamecube game, if you're going to want to play it on the Wii you want to buy a Gamecube controller. Luckily these are dirt cheap on eBay. :)

Social networking syndication dilutes your messages!

Okay before I start ranting I'll admit it. I'm usually late to the party when it comes to "The next big thing". So some of the below rant could be blamed on me being "behind the times".

• It took me ages to be converted to Facebook.
• I completely missed MySpace.
• I have no idea what the cool kids are using instead now.

But I was there pretty early on for Twitter. I loved it then and I still love it today. Before Stephen Fry & Chris Moyles were getting it publicised in the mass-media me and a few friends were remarking on trivial junk like what we were doing, drinking, eating, and what we were listening to whilst we did it. It was fun to have a little app that let us frivolously comment like that.

But damn it Internet! You keep getting your Twitter in my everything else!

Since the Social networking explosion everyone has been signing up for the cool site of the moment, resulting in people having too many different sites to update. So along came the creation of social syndication sites like Ping.fm. These sites do a fantastic job of giving you the ability to write once and post to many. However in order for this to work all your entries have to work on every network, i.e. the simplest. So every network ends up full of frivolous twitter-style messages. As an added bonus I get to read the same damn message 4 or 5 times in different places.

Some networks have advantages over others and people syndicating their messages are missing out on this. Stop for a moment and think!

• Why do you need to get the exact same message to all these networks?
  
• Why do you even HAVE all these networks?

Look at the strengths of each network and use it appropriately! Bite the bullet and drop those that have no advantages over the others!

Facebook

Great for more intimate personal messages. Change your profile to private, drop all those "friends" you have no idea who they are or haven't seen in about 10 years, and now you can message about things a little more personal than: "Ate 6 slices of toast today LOL".

Twitter

Perfect if you have people interested in what you're doing but wouldn't want them turning up at your house. Link to your latest project your working on for people up to see, send a general query out to the Internet masses and see what answers you get back, or do just tell us what colour pants your wearing (a little of this is good). :)

Blog

Sometimes we do want to know a bit more about your opinions. Tell us your views in a bit more detail rather than just spewing out a convenient ambiguous one-liner.

In closing

Come on people! There is a place for Twitter but let's not let it dilute everything we do or say into a 140 character soundbite!

Incidently, follow me on twitter if you want to know things about me like what I ate for tea. ;)

I see faces everywhere :)

I love faces on things.

Faces end up on my plate after a tasty dessert at restaurants:

People know that buying me things with faces on is a sure win:


If something doesn't have a face on, it might end up with one after I'm finished:


What does this say about me? :|

Listening to Spotify through the Xbox 360 (or Wii, or PS3, or media centres)

I love Spotify, I love the Xbox 360. I love the way you can listen to your own music whilst playing games. I didn't like the way there was no way to listen to Spotify whilst playing games.

So with the digital equivalent of gaffer tape. I found a way. :)

I knew I needed to capture the output of Spotify, and convert it into a form that the Xbox 360 would be able to understand. I also wanted to be able to play the output live, so I could start listening immediately as opposed to recording an hour of Spotify output, then listening to that hour.

In the end my solution was as follows:

• Broadwave - captures audio from any recording device, and serves it up as an "Internet radio station".
• TVersity - reads the "Internet radio station", and acts as a UPnP media centre for the Xbox 360 to connect to.
  

Below are some tips for setting these things up. I've not included a full step-by-step install guide because to be frank this is not amateur stuff. If you need help installing an application you probably aren't going to get all this to work together!

Setting up Broadwave

During this process you may need to accept any firewall requests that come up, depending on your installed firewall software. Make sure to allow incoming and outgoing connections if given the option.

1. Download and install Broadwave.
   
2. Click streams.
3. Click live tab.
4. Click add stream.
5. Change "Sound in" device to the general sound output of your PC (will be something like "Rec. playback", or "Wave out", or "Direct Sound Out"). If you don't have a recording device like this, see "No direct sound recording device" section below.
6. Click OK.
7. Click General tab.
8. Change Minimum speed for broadband to 256kbps (This will keep the sound quality at a reasonable level).
9. Click OK.

WARNING:- At this point you've got your own "Internet radio station" running on your computer. I don't recommend testing it on the same computer, as this would create a feedback loop resulting in some very nasty sounds. ;)

Setting up TVersity

Again, during this process, you may need to accept any firewall requests that come up, depending on your installed firewall software. Make sure to allow incoming and outgoing connections if given the option.

1. Install TVersity as standard.
2. In the library, click "Internet Media", then "Internet Audio".
3. Click "Add Item".
4. Enter http://localhost:88/broadwave.asx?src=1&kbps=256 in Audio URL.
5. Enter a suitable title.
6. Click Submit.

If all goes well there should be no error messages, and you can now serve up the output from your PC to the Xbox 360.

Accessing from the Xbox

Simple go to "My music" and TVersity should show up as a music source. From there you should be able to select your stream within the "Songs" menu.

Connected, but no Sound?

1. Check you haven't muted the PC. The direct sound out recording devices literally record what gets output by the PC.
2. Check you chose a relevant recording device. Again if you haven't got an appropriate recording device, see below.

No direct sound recording device?

The first time I used this solution I didn't have a direct recording device built into the laptop, the only recording options were "line in" and "microphone". I got round this by using a USB sound card I had sitting around: http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=34128 (other USB sound cards are available but this one definitely works). Plugging this in added the required recording device to the options.

Now I have sound coming out of both my PC and my Xbox!?

If you're like me and don't have a physical volume control on your PC/laptop, just plug in headphones, or preferably any line in cable to the head phone socket. This should shut it up ;). Don't mute it in the volume control.

Finally

Hope this helps some people out there enjoy Spotify a little more! It should work with any device that supports UPnP (Wii, PS3, Media centres etc.). Usual disclaimers apply: the above may not work for you, don't hold me libel if your PC rises up against you and eats your pets or anything.

Comments welcome. Please let me know any improvements you come up with or if this helped you at all!

Credit to http://dempah.com/innehall/18-teknik/340-spotify-till-xbox-360.html for filling in the final blank in my solution. I found their overall solution a little too complex, but the TVersity part of it was what I was missing!

Self-indulgent or Public Information service?

So I was having a conversation with my good friend Bytey, who is currently trying an experiment in constant connectivity, (i.e. always being connected to the Internet, feeding back to the Internet with everything he does). He was stunned that despite being very tech-savvy I have never really blogged.

Now don't take offense at this if you're reading it Bytey, but I've never really thought that I have anything to say that anyone really needs to hear.

Taking a while to think on this, I realised that that's not really what it's about is it? Blogging doesn't need to be news reporting, it's just another way of us connecting to each other in this modern age. I don't have to produce a literary work of art each day, or provide links to obscure information squirreled away in the darkest parts of the Internets. I just have to put a little of myself up for people to see.

Currently being self-imposed unemployed (hey I needed a break), I've got plenty of time to play around with this kind of thing.

So here goes nothing. I'm going to try and post "something" on here every day. It might just be a photo and a random comment. Might be a techy how-to. Might just be my thoughts on a crappy film I happened to watch that day. But I'm going to get something on here EVERY day.

at least for today :)

- Nick