by Eddie King

Birdwatching: Fus Ro Damn I’m bored

Birdwatching is a column by Eddie King. Views expressed are not necessarily those of Digixav.

I didn’t manage to impale a sharp projectile into my patella but regardless I have managed to lose my sense of humour over Digixav’s favourite game of 2011, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Yes, the small red flying feathered ball in the sky is going to be taking the big, scaly, fire breathing monster that is Skyrim. It was one of the most highly anticipated games since the release of Oblivion back in 2005 and when it arrived at school on a November morning even the quietest and most reasonable students became national standard rugby players and managed to barge past most of the school to play it. I did observe and despair, and this is why.

A game should stimulate you mentally. It should make you think and feel and it should be an experience. Skyrim is just a way to waste time. The mechanics of the game are repetitive and there are enough side missions to get lost in. Replay value? I think not because the chances are you will never finish the entire game before your mind is reduced to a whimpering mass at the back of your cranium. You play as a violent oaf who can somehow swing some stupidly large piece of some unknown element at some impossibly alive bag of walking bones which can absorb more damage than a Nokia. I guess what I am so angry about is that it claimed to be so good; it claimed to be a vast, open world to lose yourself in. Well yes, I certainly did lose myself in it, the problem being that I didn’t manage to find a way out. The story is just too big and there needs to be an end. An infinite story should not be allowed. I want to be able to enjoy understanding the various intricacies and twists instead of having huge amounts of nonsensical myths and obscure cults that everybody I meet seems to want me to join dropped into my lap and let me wonder what the hell I am supposed to do with it all. This is prominent when you get into the game and you check your mission catalogue, only to find about three pages worth of objectives that you have no intention of completing. Then when finally you do get round to starting AND finishing a quest the formula is the same every single time. Namely go here and talk to this person, pick up another two quests, go there and enter a mildly scary looking cave, wait at loading screen for too long, go inside and navigate a complex array of tunnels, encounter a few enemies which you can get rid of by button bashing which results in the same three moves until they die and finally collect your reward which is the ability to talk to some stars which help you in some practical way. Because stars now control how good we are at stuff, don’t you know.

The game lies to you, and after a few hours you have seen everything you are ever going to see. The combat systems are overly simplistic and movements are very slow. Now at this point those of you who are still reading and haven’t taken offence will note that I admit that Skyrim isn’t all bad as the graphics are insane and certain parts of the story are pretty epic. It is also a very good addition to the Elder Scrolls series and the people who have grown used to this style of game will have no qualms where I was tearing my hair out. Also, despite me claiming that it is a mindless game, some of the puzzles are quite challenging but the end is always inevitable. The slow and unrealistic fighting and repetitiveness of the gameplay unfortunately mean that this game becomes boring by the time you are in desperate need of a pee in front of laptop. Skyrim is a good game but is let down by being hyped up far too much and it isn’t the completely free universe it claims to be.

by Henry Hunt

Windows Phone App of the Week: Fhotoroom

This week’s app of the week is Fhotoroom. To put it bluntly, it’s Instagram for Windows Phone. With this app, you can take and edit photos and then ruin enhance them with effects, writing and frames. You then can proceed to upload these either directly to Fhotoroom or to a number of places such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Tumblr.

Upon entering the app, you are prompted to create an account and upload your first picture, which will be used as your profile picture. You are then able to proceed to edit and upload as many photos as you wish. Some of my personal masterpieces include a picture of bacon and multiple pictures of coffee.

But in all honesty, I recommend this app for the sole fact that the pictures that appear on the title screen are either really cool or contain boobs just hilarious.

Fhotoroom, Windows Phone, Free
Download from the Marketplace or visit the website

by Henry Hunt

Minecraft mod of the month: Mo’ Creatures

Recently I have been playing a fair amount of Minecraft as it is a great game (and unfortunately extremely addictive), so I have decided to take a break from building my castle and write about some of the many thousands of mods that are out there to improve this already superb game.

The first Minecraft mod of the month is Mo’ Creatures. This is by far the best mod that I have personally installed. This mod introduces a vast number of new mobs, including creatures such as snakes, birds, bears and even dolphins, but my personal favourite thing about this mod is the addition of werewolves. These mobs are incredibly hard to kill and thus simultaneously the best and the worst part of the Mo’ Creatures experience. The fact that they are almost impossible to kill with anything other than a golden sword is incredibly aggravating, meaning that they are the one thing that you do not want to meet on a dark night away from your castle/tower/hole in the side of a mountain. But, no matter how annoying they can get, killing you the second you go outside, it is impossible to hate them, due to the fact that during the daytime they turn into normal humans, screaming ‘OUCH YOUR HURTING ME!!!!!’ when you hit them. This makes up for the fact that the second the moon comes out they are out to kill you.

If you play Minecraft, I highly recommend that you download this fantastic mod, created by DrZhark. If you don’t play Minecraft, go and buy it as it is scientifically proven to be awesome.

by James Trickey

Things That Should Exist: The Instant Rap Battle Machine

Things That Should Exist is a column by James Trickey. Things suggested are not always good ideas.

I know it sounds incredibly similar to the Instant Insult Machine and I can tell you now that it is indeed. I have my reasons for this, the first being that I have been running low on ideas lately, but to be honest I’ve been struggling for ideas since day one. The second being that it is another thing that should exist and so ended up here on Digixav.

I want to explain to you lot that it is an “upgrade” of the previous machine that looked like some odd tortoise thing and will look exactly the same but with a few different features. If you really want, I can throw in some accessories for it like sunglasses and a pimp hat (or anything else from that Build-A-Bear place). This means you could have a pimp beatboxer! Here is an example that I made on Paint yet again and, if you didn’t know, the purple thing sticking out of his hat is a feather, like pimps have. If you don’t get it, nevermind. We really need to get Photoshop.

The Instant Rap Battle Machine will come with a preset beat that you and your challenger or challenged can rap along to. You could enter your rap names into the machine (mine’s MC Jtrick) and as the beat drops the robot shouts “Get ready (I can’t think of a good rap name so I’ll) Eminem! Lets hear you rap in 3..2…1!” and then everyone listens to the intense rap that has been spat. This will be repeated for the other guy (someone crap so we’ll go for) “Justin Bieber!” and he will sing some song which technically won’t be allowed because it’s not a rap but we won;t go into details. And just so you know, Eminem won that one.

It will also feature a sound detector thing so if there is an enormous crowd present (which there will be) it will take the volume of the “OOOooooo….R U GONNA TAKE THAT FAM?!?!”s (as in the plural, you understand, no?) and the rap with the loudest  “OOOooooo….R U GONNA TAKE THAT FAM?!?!”s wins.

This new version won’t do the insulting for you but rather enhance your insulting enjoyment, because I know that I could do with something that makes hurting people’s feelings more fun since it’s just a bit plain at the moment.

As with the previous model, you could download different voices for the machine and different beats off iTunes or whatever. I’m sorry for having no imagination with the photos but meh.

And so with another week gone I say goodbye, but I’ve run out of stereotypical comic book noises.

POW.

Header image from spinningpixels

by Eddie King

Birdwatching: Porn, privacy and problems with hackers

Birdwatching is a column by Eddie King. Views expressed are not necessarily those of Digixav.

Yet again those suits in London who get paid to write stuff and put it on some of the biggest, most influential and most widely read websites on the internet have decided to take a sledgehammer to our subconscious, dulling it to the point where we will be soon living in a nanny state wrapped in bubble paper and drooling over the sacred book of political correctness. The bird has yet again been consumed with anger and will be doing his best to knock ten bells out of the foundations of stupidity. Luckily this time around I have, like Eminem, the ‘antidote‘ i.e. porn.

Yes, I mentioned the P word, but we must understand that we are one of the only species that actually has sex merely for fun and it shows intelligence. Unfortunately most people won’t admit this because it is a touchy subject, and there is nothing wrong with this, but subsequently as a youngster you will start discovering the world of puberty through some of the shadier corners of the internet. Why? Because it isn’t embarrassing, other people have said it is good and it is free and easily accessible. Why then has our illustrious Prime Minister deemed it necessary to call together a meeting with the biggest ISPs to block porn in all services unless you ask for it in the first place? Three massive problems with this:

  • Firstly, if you are in any form of relationship at all and your partner found out that you specifically requested porn to be allowed on your media it will be a basis for accusations of cheating, as for some reason girls don’t seem to understand that even if you were going out with a gorgeous specimen and love them very much, it doesn’t stop you being curious about what Tulisa looks like naked and at the height of pleasure. (No link there, but if you want to find out, Google’s a thing.)
  • Secondly, it will prevent young boys from truly entering teenagehood, as at the end of the day before you turn 13 you are not in the least bit interested in girls so you won’t go looking for videos of them with no cloths on and after that you don’t mind finding them so at what point are you protecting anybody?  Yes, there are some very dark corners of the internet where the adult industry takes advantage of people in ways which are truly sick and twisted, but the thing is not only is this a niche market but these bastards generally want money for their hard work and so that is a natural buffer against us ‘stumbling’ over it.
  • Lastly, you are starting to make choices for people based on the fact you have more power than them. You are now swimming in very dangerous waters as in places where the internet is available it prides itself on being the model of freedom. And after centuries of perfecting various ways of taking lives that don’t belong to them, humans are kind of protective of freedom because it works rather well.

They say that they want to limit this to protect children, but who asked them to protect them? Was it some cow in a horrible pink frock at a garden party in the Cotswolds? Do you really think this will help society in any way? If you channelled that same time and effort into making the darker streets of London not quite so dark, then children and their guardians might feel a little more protected. Parents have more software options than hair follicles to save their children from the sight of someone getting banged, but they don’t have the same options in the real world as muggings, murder and rape are just a few of the things that you can’t download safeguards for but Mr Cameron can help with.

This brings me onto the subject of that brilliant yet totally arsehole-ish crowd who call themselves ‘hackers‘. These are the true lords of the internet who do not steal your money by building up databases on you and slowly taking over your life (like Google) but simply roll in and strip your card of all its value and then forget to tell you about it until they buy a car in Mexico. To be honest it is a far more comfortable way to get mugged and frankly shows how soft the 21st century really is. But the rascals have been rumoured to have designs on the Olympic opening ceremony. The question is where to draw the line. Generally I will say that people should be show how to not care about things that don’t really matter and to stick it to the man, but at this level I am talking about the same man every time – a man that I am proud to stick it to in the first place and one that I want no help in sticking it to. Turning the lights off at the opening ceremony in London and pasting a massive picture of someone’s breasts on the board may be a good laugh and it certainly would both stick it to the man and show just how free the little people can get, but then other people will no longer respect the man I stick it to. I think that hackers should continue with their 21st century muggings and displays of the innermost workings of top secret organisations, but the people who keep your Alienware desktops running are the same ones you will be attacking on this occasion so please reconsider and piss someone else off.

by Ali Wilson

Techslice: The new iPhone rumour mill

Techslice is a column by Ali Wilson. Views expressed are not necessarily those of Digixav.

In October 2011, Apple released their latest iPhone: the iPhone 4S. A lot of people were disappointed with the result that came 18 months after the 4 and were expecting something a bit more, well, new. By sight, the iPhone 4S is the same as its predecessor, the iPhone 4. The only major differences for a year of development were a dual-core A5 processor from the iPad 2, Siri and 3 additional megapixels in the camera.

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So with so few differences in the last upgrade, we are expecting great things from the iPhone 5/iPhone 4G/iPhone 6/new iPhone. There has been a concept design released and, as you can see, it does look very different to the previous model.

iPhone 5

Straight away, the first thing we notice is potential design overhaul of the new iPhone. Apple may reverted towards their old curved design from the original models. The shape is a lot less square and is much more rounded, a lot like the new Samsung Galaxy S III. The screen size may increase from the current 3.5″, with rumours circling that Apple may enlarge it to a whopping 4.8″, although Steve Jobs would turn in his grave. He was in staunch opposition to larger screens as he (rightly) thought that they made the iPhone resemble an Android phone.

The sixth installment to the iPhone series is said to be being released just over a year after its older brother. It was thought that if it was released earlier, then the new iPad’s sales would not be as high. Apple have therefore left a six-month gap between the iPad and the iPhone’s release. It is rumoured for early October 2012.

So, if you’re thinking of investing in an iPhone 4S, think again. It should be worth the wait of (potentially) just six months, because Apple could change everything. Again.

by Ali Wilson

Techslice: Why Prezi is the new PowerPoint

Techslice is a column by Ali Wilson. Views expressed are not necessarily those of Digixav.

Two weeks ago, I came across some new web-based presentation software. Prezi uses one simple factor that makes it simply fantastic – it uses 100% zoom transition. No flicking between multiple slides with petty little animations. No, as Prezi uses only one slide that you can fit just about anything on. It then zooms in and out of your different pieces of information to give you the ultimate presentation.

It is also completely free if you have an educational e-mail address to sign up with. This is normally your school e-mail address. So, instead of paying over £100 for Microsoft PowerPoint, you can use something better for free. And it has an iPad app. It really doesn’t take much time to learn to use either, as it is really very easy and is explained in simple detail on the websites excellent tutorials.

If you want to see an example of Prezi in action then visit this Prezi I threw together in about 2 minutes. If the link comes up with “No search results for…” then simply press the search button again.

All in all, I think that Prezi is a much better resource than PowerPoint, being generally better in any thinkable way, and it is therefore going to the top of the Techslice Top 10 of Internet Things – of one thing.

Techslice Top 10 of Internet Things

  1. Prezi
  2. Coming soon
  3. Coming soon
  4. Coming soon
  5. Coming soon
  6. Coming soon
  7. Coming soon
  8. Coming soon
  9. Coming soon
  10. Coming soon
by Henry Hunt

App of the week: Dungeon Hunter 3

Well I never saw this coming – I have chosen an Android app of the week. If you have read some of my earlier articles, you will be as surprised as I am. The reason for this is that my mum got an award-winning Android tablet and, me being me, I had to play with it the second I came home from school and, having been using it for the last few hours I was inspired to do an Android AOTW. So here it is: This weeks Android AOTW it Dungeon Hunter 3.

This is the best android game I have played so far, but admittedly I haven’t played a lot, and I wish that it were available on more platforms. When you start playing the game, you have to chose between four different classes, each one with different strengths and weaknesses. I personally chose the warlord as I always chose the tank class, but you can also chose from the astromancer, trickster and the shaman. Once you choose your class you are then given a quick tutorial, showing you how to both play and upgrade you character. Once completed, you are then free to kill and maim to your hearts contempt.

The gameplay is very detailed, with each kill giving you both money and experience, slowly helping you to buy countless upgrades and items to help your character on their way to becoming invincible, but, for those more inpatient people out there, each level and mission comes with three additional goals that, when completed, give you a large boost to both gold and XP.  The game is easy to get the hang of, with the tutorial teaching you know all you need to know, but having played it for about two hours I can tell that completing it and fully upgrading your character is no mean feat. It will take countless hours of gameplay.

Dungeon Hunter 3, iOS and Android, Free
Download from Google Play or the App Store

by Henry Hunt

No matter how hard I try, I can’t stop hating Microsoft

The title of this article is a little misleading, as those of you who read my posts, follow me on Twitter or know me in person will know that I love Microsoft. Windows Phone is my phone platform of choice, I would never consider using anything but a Windows computer, and the thing that I want most in the world right now is a 15.6″ one of these. But even with all the love I bear for the love-child of Ballmer and Gates, there are a large number of things about them which annoy me.

The first and foremost of these annoyances is with Zune. As a Windows Phone user, I am forced to use Zune in order to update, add music and video to and do a large number of other things to, my phone. This is fine, I can add and take away music to and from my phone quickly and easily, and updates will automatically commence if they are available. But when I got my HP Pavilion dv7 with Beats Audio, I began to play music through my laptop, whereas previously I had been using speakers connected to my phone. It soon dawned upon me that Zune, a beautiful piece of software, is one of the buggiest pieces of crap since Windows Media Player. Quite often while playing music, the song will randomly pause, move to a different point or just skip altogether, and on occasion I have closed Zune to find that the song that was playing doesn’t stop playing, much to my teacher’s dismay. When this is Skrillex, chemistry lessons can be quite awkward. What the hell is up with that? A company whom incorporated software into its very name can’t be bothered or is unable to iron out the bugs in their music software. Even iTunes, something which is essentially designed to work on a different operating system and much maligned on Windows, is nowhere near as buggy. This being said, with the Zune name being dumped, and the software being incorporated into the OS, I surely hope that for Windows 8’s sake that at least some of the bigger glitches will be ironed out.

And secondly, what is the point in Windows Media Player any more? The whole thing is utter crap and nobody in their right mind would ever use it. I mean seriously, software that causes computers to blue-screen (I speak through personal experience) through use is not right in any way. And if any person out there does use this utter piece of crap, please explain to me in the comments below why you would put yourself through it. Please.

My final point is the most obvious one. Internet Explorer. This is in every way the single most hated piece of software out there. It is crap, it crashes, freezes and is only there for sane people to download either Firefox or Chrome. And, to make matters worse, you have to have specific permission from Microsoft to be able to uninstall the software. Of course, you can do what both I and Xavier (our EIC) have done and bury it deep within our program files, but it will always be there, taunting you with the possibility that you may one day, have to use it.

So those are the main reasons that Microsoft pisses off even myself, a true Microsoft fanboy. Despite the wonders of things like the Arc Touch Mouse, SkyDrive and Windows Phone, Microsoft isn’t perfect, but by ironing out the bugs and listening to consumers, they could get pretty close.

by James Trickey

Things That Should Exist: Propeller Shoes

Things That Should Exist is a column by James Trickey. Things suggested are not always good ideas.

This week we move onto a completely different genre of object, that is if objects have genres, and by genre I mean type of object. You know, like on iTunes for example, clothing, toys and equipment can then be subdivided into sub-genres such as shoes, stationary and underwater equipment, providing a neat segue to the world of propeller shoes.

Let me make something clear. These are designed for underwater use only, which is why the underwater equipment brought me nicely to the topic, in case you hadn’t realised. I am not suggesting that there should be shoes that can allow you to fly because that would be preposterous (unlike all my other suggestions). These are for people who need to get places quick and have to travel via a large body of water.

This includes people who are trying to illegally trying to swim from some obscure Asian country over to England as they weren’t allowed to go by plane, and to be honest it would’ve made my job a whole lot easier because, in case you didn’t know, I am not supposed to be in this country right now.

You see, I was very tired after my long journey but this has would have made it a walk in the park as opposed to a swim across the ocean.

These shoes would of course be waterproof and, don’t ask me how, but they would be powered by some form of electricity. The shoes would have little propellers on the soles which, after being turned on, would propel you along the water at high speeds. It also means that, as human beings, we would be able to be even more lazy than we are now by removing another aspect of exercise and replacing it with technology.

To give you an idea of what these shoes would look like I have produced a picture in Paint for your benefit. Digixav can’t afford Photoshop.

And I know it’s crap but I just hope you can all appreciate that the white parts on the shoe are the propellers and they are helping him/her to swim along. If not then you can go and stand in a bin long enough that your legs get smelly and tired.

So that’s about it once again, and I hope that you can enjoy your lives every bit as much if not more after reading this than you did before.

HADOUKEN!!