Moving On Up!

Well, over the years my blog provider has provided my blog (surprise surprise) and now that I am moved up in the world (I.e. better hosting) it is about time to give the ol’ girl her last hurrah. Well, Hurrah!

My new blog address is http://blog.andrewdor.com and is an exact copy of this blog (down to the last hair! Get it? Computers don’t have hair!) and because the MySQL databases have been updated to refer to this new URL, everyone should end up there sooner or later.

As for me, watch out. I will hopefully be reviewing some games I have been playing (I say that a lot, but I mean it this time)

Andrew

p.s. I will be cross-posting this, to the new website’s RSS feed as well! Which by the way, can be found here!

Fan-Dangle-d Tech-Knowl-Igy?

Just a quick one today, I feel like I want to share some information I have become privy to in the recent minutes. After deciding that I want to format Patrice’s Asus eeepc 900 and install Windows 7 Ultimate, I read a cool guide to do so here, which also points at a very nice Microsoft tutorial on Installing Windows 7 from a USB Drive. The only issue I have with this, is that I don’t want to use a USB key (I have an 80gb Portable 2.5″ HDD.)

This brings me to the issue of how do you format a hard drive to FAT32 (required to be able to boot from the disk). I had done this once before on my Vista setup, which took quite a long time and involved using a 3rd party app to format. Of course somewhere along the line I lost the application. After a quick Google I found The Answer very quickly.

Download the archive file from Here and extract it to an easy place to find (I recommend C:\) then follow these steps:

  1. Make sure your disk is connected
  2. hit Start / Run
  3. type “cmd”
  4. be very, VERY careful you know what disk you want to format
  5. type “c:\fat32format x:” (Where x: is your drive)
  6. once again, triple-check you have the right drive
  7. type “y” and press enter
  8. Don’t go have a cup of coffee. I dislike it when people that make lists and include those stupid items which are meant to be smart.
  9. That’s it. You now have a FAT32 formatted drive of any size!

Now there are a few things to remember, Due to the way FAT works, I would not suggest using it for a primary hard drive, or anything like that. It can get awfully clogged and tiresome to defragment. Also, people might laugh at you if they ever found out.

This trick is especially useful when running a large drive to play DivX or Xvid movies on your PS3 or USB-DVD player (completely legally, of course) as those devices only use FAT32 disks and USB drives. Also, when building USB Boot-drives for a netbook.

Other than that, I am considering getting one of These Puppies for myself, as I do not have a small laptop, my current one is large and cumbersome.

Keep “with it”,
Andrew

The Next Step

Well, here I am again, posting another blog, this time however I am at a net cafe’ style setup at a shopping centre due to the installation of my old stereo head unit into my new car! I don’t know if I had regaled you with the tale of the vehicles, but just quickly, I have a new one cause the old one was run into.

To the business end of this discussion, I have been applying for jobs around Brisbane in Game Dev positions, but it appears that the market is not what it used to be. I have sent off approximately 7 resumes and have heard back twice, with negative replies. This is understandable considering that Krome Stuidos have just fired about 30 of their staff. Don’t ask me why. I have however found a position in a different line of work. Interactive Design for E-Learning systems! The job which I am looking at would be excellent, fits all the criteria and is almost twice as much money as I was looking at getting in the first place. Fingers crossed!

Die Hard weapon magazines
Die Hard weapon magazines

As for entertainment, I have played through and finished then entirety of Borderlands in about 3 days (Which was a very, very fun game, taking me back to the times of Diablo, Quake, and various other FPS/RPG’s. I have also been watching a fair few movies (such as the Die Hard series) which I have been enjoying the nostalgia of. (See image!)

I am also in the process of playing Star Wars: The Force Unleased and am thinking about getting Modern Warefare 2 and Dragon Age: Origins. Does DA:O have a prequel? I should find that out. Most stuff with subtitles does.

As for anything else happening, I have put down for more hours at Big W where I have been working for the last 5 years! (I KNOW!) and they have started giving me exactly what I wanted. Surprising, right? The reason I need to work more unfortunately is that I have to stop mooching off the government. But hopefully I will get that job I was talking about beforehand.
In hardware news, the new Radeon 5970 is out, and looks amazing. It is only a little more expensive than the 5870 but is using the uber-cool single-card-crossfire bizniz which graphics cards love to use these days. Hit up Anandtechif you want some reviews. I certainly did. I am also waiting with bated breath for the release of Intel Core i9’s which will be Hexacore processors with hypterthreading, meaning that i will finally be able to have >10 threads! And yes, I do need it!
Well, That’s about it from me, and since that I have to head off in a few minutes to pick up my car, I bid you farewell! I will keep you updated on the situation of myself. Which is what blogs are about. Oh, and follow me on Twitter! *shakes fist*
Andrew

Looking to the Future!

Last night was an auspicious evening of canapé’s, white wine and people sitting down and playing Cyber Granny. It was, of course, the Bachelor of Games and Interactive Entertainment Industry Exhibition. This was great cause for celebration as my beautiful fiancé had baked cookies, provided a pretty pink “table cloth” and booth-babe’d for us! Stephen created for the group a large number of specialised teabags with Cyber Granny on the label of each individual bag, brought a tea pot and a walking stick, and was the voice of our group. I myself printed the DVD case inserts and the poster, burned 10 DVDs, set up the electronics and generally looked awesome.

The day itself went really well, with some very positive responses from the industry representatives and other students who took the time to sit down and play the game. My father came in the evening for the food and drinks, and to see how it all turned out. This was especially interesting because he could not stop himself playing the game while no one else was.

As for what I am going to do now that I have done my last presentation of my education life, I intend to get a job (as I have said) and would love it to be at THQ. They currently have a Level Design position going of which I fit the criteria to a tee. The only problem is that every Tom, Dick and Gabe Newel will most likely be applying for the position, making it well hard for a undergrad like myself to even get an interview, let alone secure the position.

The other option is to get a job doing something else in the industry (Such as Quality Assurance or making coffee) and then work my way up from there. Unfortunately that renders my university degree pointless, and I do not appreciate pointless expenditures of gratuitous amounts of money.

On a lighter side, I feel I am finally become fed up with FarmVille on facebook, as it is just getting tedious now, and I believe I will start spending more of my time watching movies which I have not seen yet. Movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Ghost in the Shell – Both of which I intend to watch within the next day or two. There are a large number of films which I have not seen and would really like to, but as I have been more focused on playing games than other forms of storytelling, haven’t had the chance.

In the world of games, I have spent some time playing Need for Speed: Shift which has taken a couple hours, and is actually pretty decent. I would give it 7 out of 10. Much better than the previous few instalments of the same game, but could be better.

Anyway, I’m going to meet up with Stuart my friend from uni who I haven’t seen in quite some time, so for now, I bid you Farewell!

Andrew

The End, Again

So it’s been another month or two since my last post. Sorry about the delay again, uni has been getting super-nuts. And rightly so, I only have three weeks left. In total. Three weeks. That’s less time than it takes to properly smoke red meat?

Our game is finished to the standard which we could have hoped for having only three group members, one of which has communication and cooperation issues. You can check out the trailer and download the whole thing Here on my site. There is also a feedback form, but that’s getting on now.

As for my new site (with the domain andrewdor.com free) i have found Arvixe who offer an amazing hosting package, and am using it to it’s full advantage. I pay a lot more for it than NFS, but it is so much better.

On the employment front, I have submitted my resume to a couple of places, namely THQ Australia who are based in Fortitude Valley in brisbane which is a nice train ride away from my home town. I really need to get a serious position so I can make the money to get married. I cannot wait till then. But until then I believe I will have to put in some hard hours at my current workplace, Big W. Oh joy.

As for gaming, I have been “researching” some of the most popular facebook games, as there is such a large player base. I have found that Farmville by Zynga is an interesting concept, allowing players to plant crops and harvest them after a certain amount of time. Resturaunt City by Playfish is another example of this, allowing people to set up and manage their own resturaunt. These two games generate income by selling in-game currency. That model is a good idea, although your income needs to be ballanced just like the game. The last game I have indulged in is Bejeweled Blitz. It is a 1 minute limited version of a PopCap pc game. These are ridiculously addictive and good to compete against your contacts with.

As I am finishing uni shortly, i hope to do all I can with this blog and my portfolio. You never know who could be looking. I’ll keep you updated.

Andrew

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