Fuxoft's Blog

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

And Now For Some Exciting Stock Market News!

This is from Sunday:

http://view.break.com/438322 - Watch more free videos

And this is the same guy on Monday. His blog is over here.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

I Want Peace And Love For All The World

Except for these Hungarian "rappers"...

And their three friends:

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

And Now... A Dog Inside A Cat!!!

(Sold at Ikea)

Monday, January 14, 2008

HDMI Player for Non-HDMI DVDs

I bought dirt cheap Ferguson D780 HX DVD player which has HDMI output. The quality improvement on my new TV over the standard Scart connection is notable. My previous DVD player was 5 times bigger, not to mention 10 times more expensive...

However, I was appaled that some of my DVDs exhibited god-awful interlacing which made the movies unwatchable. After some digging, I discovered that the latest official firmware is "B7_1.1" but there is also the newer "B8_1.1" version which is "unofficial and may have problems with HDMI". Guess what? My player had "B8_1.1" installed. I think it's not very wise to factory-install firmware which "may have problems with HDMI" into player whose much-touted feature is HDMI output.

Anyway, after I downgraded to the older firmware, the picture is great. Note: When updating firmware, you don't have to burn it to CD, you can also upgrade from USB Flash disk, as long as the volume is named "FERGUSON".

Other than that, this player is excellent value for money, offering region-free playback and ability to skip those awful DVD warnings and intros. It can also play DivX movies from USB-connected devices (and correctly display Czech subtitles in separate file) but I couldn't persuade it to recognize my external USB harddisk. USB Flash disk worked but there was some unfortunate stuttering with higher bitrates - the USB is probably quite slow because the playback was OK when I burned the same AVI file on DVD disk. Also be warned that you cannot play high-definition AVI files, it just says "invalid resolution"...

For now, I am perfectly happy with my ability to watch standard DVDs. Althought the High-Def war might now be over (I guess I'm happy Sony has won because I hate Microsoft even more than Sony), I am in no rush to buy any high-def player. There are still many movies which I loved in my youth and which I can now rediscover. Watching Who Framed Rogger Rabbit or Excalibur is quite a different experience today than it was 20 years ago.

Friday, January 04, 2008

Ten Little Cursors

A long time has passed since I played really original videogame. Now, here is "Cursor 10". From Japan. In black & white. Featuring single-player cooperative mode.

At first, you may be dumbfounded what the hell is that graphics supposed to mean but believe me, it's no joke, it's a real game with great premise that becomes apparent after minute or so of playing.

UPDATE: Also, check out the best freeware games of 2007.

Friday, December 28, 2007

TV for Next-Gen Multimedia Entertainment

Today's powerhouse interactive videogame consoles are capable of producing unparalelled visuals. That's why I invested into (reduced price) giant plasma TV screen. Now I can practically immerse myself in all those virtual worlds!

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Very Good at manual Labor

At the end of elementary school, each of us got a "recommendation for future career". Mine mentioned - among other things - that I am "not very good at manual labor", probably because I got a nasty scar on my forehead when creating wooden art item using the soldering iron, among other things.

Now, quarter a century later, I proved my teachers wrong. I bought a large pile of wood and screws and assembled my furniture. Ikea furniture. Yes, all that was inside of those boxes. I have blisters but I feel proud of myself. I am Jack's content heart.