A update finally

Been a pretty nice month all round.

Albeit losing to Chelsea in the FA Cup final put a downer on the title celebrations for all United fans.

Smallville has finished for Season 6, I will get an review ready in the upcoming week.

I finished Final Fantasy XII so expect shots/videos and a good in depth review.

Going to have some retro reviews looking at some of the games available on the Virtual Console on the Nintendo Wii.

I got my England v Brazil ticket in the post today, damn shame I couldn't get 2 tickets together.

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Championes Championes, Ole Ole Ole!

 Continuing on the celebrations from yesterday I have some links to post:

Sky's coverage after the Arsenal draw (including Morinho, Sir Alex and co reaction as well as a video): 

Asnl v chel (1)
Uploaded by jay2567

BBC's report on where and how United won the title:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/6610085.stm

On a side note, tomorrow sometime I will be posting a review for Smallville Episode 20, Bleach catch up review and also news about the new 6 aside competition we have entered.

 

Technorati tags: manchester, united, champions, chelsea, arsenal, premiership, league, bbc, alex, ferguson, morinho, sky

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Manchester United - Champions!

Manchester Utd completed a monumentus comeback to reclaim the Premiership title for a record 9th time this afternoon after Chelsea failed to beat Arsenal (1-1 at the Emirates Stadium).

At the start of the campaign people didn't rate United as title contenders because their failure to bring in a replacement for Ruud van Nistelrooy (who was sold to Real Madrid in the summer) and Roy Keane (who left United midway through the last season). Their only outfield signing was debatable Michael Carrick, who now is a regular first team player and a perfect partner for Scholes, and the emergence of Ronaldo and the late show from Rooney and the return to form of Giggs and Scholes!

More coverage and views over the week as United visit Chelsea this Wednesday and West Ham over the weekend.

 

Technorati tags: manchester, united, mufc, man united, premiership, champions, chelsea, arsenal

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Digg attacked by the people!

In a bizarre incident at Digg.com took place yesterday.

Seems the HD DVD DRM/encryption has been cracked due to a key which was leaked from the film industry. Following this a story appeared on Digg yesterday which included the code included in the key (something of a hexadecimal number). Fearing the wrath of the MPAA (Group that safe guards the interests of the Movie industry - much like the guys who come after you if you download MP3s - RIAA) Digg removed the story which became the catalyst to a community backlash:

Hundreds of post appeared from users all including the cracked HD DVD key in them. At first I thought Digg had been hacked, but it looks like people retaliated making sure this DVD Key stayed in the public domain.

Seems Digg has bowed to the pressure and claims people would "rather see us go down fighting" than bow to the pressure of the big movie makers.

Interesting that "people power" has kept Digg.com free from influence of American conglomerates.

Read more here at GigaOM:

http://gigaom.com/2007/05/01/a-very-angry-digg-nation

Tags: digg hd-dvd drm key hacked gigaom mpaa riaa

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Mega UPDATE!

I have updated my Youtube videos and Flickr Galleries!

As in my earlier post I have uploaded Photos from the new Wembley stadium, but there are complimenting videos in my youtube account:

http://www.youtube.com/theskillster

I have uploaded videos from Manchester United vs Lille from in the crowd, as well as Manchester United vs Roma in the Crowd, the Manchester United Tour.

There are more pictures in the Wii unboxing showing the UI, the Internet Shop and the Opera Browser at work.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/theskillster/sets/72157600128237110/

Also photos from the Manchester United vs AS Roma game!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/theskillster/sets/72157600128231527/

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Smallville summary

Episodes 18 & 19 + recap!

Episode 17 and recap:

Clark is distraught by the marriage between Lana and Lex Luthor and starts rounding up criminals in a rather violent way, in this episode he gets into a fight club in order to track down and kill and escapee from the Phantom zone, featuring 2 WWE wrestlers.

Episode 18:

Smallville is back after its 3 week (damn straight, that is a long time!) break the series is back on track with a nice episode.

This episode is all about Chloe's past, and her mother(who was in a mental hospital) seems to have powers to control Chloe. Lex jumps on the chance to transfer her to a LuthorCorp facility to see if she can control other "Meteor Freaks", while in captivity she controls Chloe and makes her do various errands like try and break her out or run Lex off the road etc.

Lana gets caught in some cross fire and ends up in the Smallville hospital (probably the most known landmark in Smallville) and the doctor carries out tests on her and to our astonishment (not mines as I had already sussed this out) that Lana was not pregnant but she was unknowingly slipped hormones which simulated pregnancy!

In the meantime Clark busts out Chloe and her mum, but Chloe's mum can't stay sane for long and eventually goes back to her "catatonic" state but is put into safe care via Queen industries.

In retaliation to Lex's experiments on Chloe and her mum she threatens to expose Lex's 33.1 practices on Meteor Freaks and Lex warns her to drop the story or face aggravated assault charges (for ramming Lex off the road and knock him out in his car), but Chloe remains resolute and hits back claiming some "Quality time behind bars" is worth it if she can take down Lex. Lex has the ace up his sleeve when he reveals that he will put Chloe in a place that "makes prison look like a picnic"! We can all guess he means 33.1 and Chloe warns Clark and he feels that the "war has just began" between them and Lex.

Episode 19:

We start with Lex and Lionel in some underground tunnel network, Lionel gets hurt as some women kidnaps Lex.

Seems she is a ex soldier and her husband was supposedly KIA but was infact taken in by LuthorCorp. Lex claims he is dead but the women has already set explosives to go off in 20 minutes and sets off one in the same room after Lex wrestles her gun away and shoots her.

Clark has already made his way into the tunnels after Lionel managed to warn him about something big that Lex was doing there, but he is hit by the explosion and the walls in the tunnels contain meteor rocks and Clark is out cold for 5 minutes. He finally awakes and gets to Lex who managed to find cover, but Clark is hurt bad and has been weakened by the rocks. Lex claims he knew that he must have been invincible after he stabbed him with the chisel back in the valentines day special in Feb.

After Clark reveals that Lex forced Lana to marry him and she wanted to leave him on the day of the wedding, Lex still helps Clark who gets caught in even more rubble.

Meanwhile it seems Lana is forcing the issue after confronting Lionel in hospital about her fake pregnancy and then busting into Lex briefcase from his car to find a CD about this "ARES" project which has something to do with a Zoner. She has full access to Lex's documents on his laptop and Chloe learns that Lana knows about Clark's secret when she goes to her for help in finding Clark.

Lex and Clark get out but Lana is totally all over Clark till she spots Lex and then goes over to him to carry on her charade as Mrs Luthor.

Lana learns from Lionel that he is protecting Clark by keeping Lana close to Lex because Lex could kill Clark (?). Lex asks Lana if she did see Clark the day of the wedding and Lana does a superb act of bending the truth and indicating that she would lose her love for someone who did not love her (ie Lex was only interested in the marriage etc) but she doesn't drop the fake pregnancy discovery on him yet.

In the meantime Clark studies the maps and documents to see what Lex was really up to in the tunnels but fails to find the real deal - Lex has that ex army dude in some labs down there and seems like he might be the one who has been taken over by the Zoner in the video Lana saw...

Will Clark mend his relationship with Lex after this escape? Will Lana leech Lex for all the info she can? What is Lionel doing - whose side is he on? Where is Oliver Queen - we want more of him! Next episode 20 of 22 is out next Saturday.

Sarg

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Wolf's Tale

He may have forgotten to plug my blog, but at least I can plug his!

Parv finaly solved his seemingly never ending struggle to stick to one location for his blog(wordpress, blogger, yes he has tried them all). After his latest move I suggested I should sign him up with a domain name (URL) so he can move around but still be found under the one universal name. So he took the bait and all worked out in the end(although I am sure he still has to pay me 30 odd quid).

He is now (and hopefully forever) location at www.wolfstales.com

Also thanks to www.freeparking.co.uk who make it so easy to buy and manage domain names.

 

Technorati tags: url, domain name, wolfstale.com, theskillster.com, freeparking.co.uk

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Day Trip to see the New Wembley Stadium

£10 well spent! This Saturday I went to watch the England Under 16 team vs the Spanish U16 at the new Wembley Stadium. The admission of £10 was worth it to get to grace this fine new national arena.

The game wasn't have bad either - fine English pedigree on show - winning convincingly 1-0. I have uploaded photos to my gallery here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/theskillster/sets/72157600149415419/

I will add descriptions and comments later when I also upload my videos (including the only goal of the game!) later in the week.

Technorati tags: fa, new wembley, wembley stadium, england, spain, international, freindly, under 16, 90000, cup, final, photos, gallery

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Nintendo Wii - Unboxing!

Yes! I got a Wii two weeks ago and have finally posted the photos of the Unboxing - a video of the setup will follow shortly.

Click on the image to access the gallery of photos:

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Prison Break - The End?

Season Finale!

Well I thought this would be the end of the line for Prison Break but it seems those executive producers at FOX have decided that they want to make a 3rd series (WHAT??) and somehow the writers have shoe horned in everything into the last episode!

I was left gasping for air when I realised what had actually happened in the final episode - not because it was so good, but because it was totally unbelievable. Schofield goes head first (no thinking involved) to try and save Sarah. Instead they lose the money, the boat and their freedom.

The only winner is Lincoln who was cleared of killing the ex president's brother and Kellermen looks like he has been killed off by the company.

Somehow we are lead to believe that Schofield has been experimented on and that now he has been thrown into jail he will attempt to escape simply because "its in his blood".

Schofield is thrown into "Sona" a prison that is so lawless that even the police do not dare enter. We see Mahone and Schofield enter and we see Bellick on the floor with barely any clothes on completely disfigured by the animals (or criminals) in the jail.

Who know what is in store for series 3 but I am not that interested for the time being.

Tags: Prison Break tv review

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Manchester United - Old Trafford Tour

Yes I did go to the tour and the Museum.

I didn't think there would be much to see, but I was wrong.
The Museum is packed to the rafters with Shirts, Medals, Trophies, Videos, Memorabilia and loads more. We got pressed for time and we didn't get to see everything in the museum (about 3 floors - albeit not big floors - of info and stuff on display) but the tour guide certainly made up for it - he has been a tour guide for the past 10 or so years so he knows players habits like the back of his hand.

I have uploaded the photos and shifted through them to keep the best ones and spent all of this morning labeling and adding comments to them. The are in a set in Flickr at this URL:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/theskillster/sets/72157600070304119

Something we didn't get to snap was the Player's Lounge where players chill before and after a game. After the game there is a bar inside the lounge which is also open. There is a plaque on the wall there commemorating all the players who have played for United and represented their country, so players like George Best, Beckham, Giggs etc are on there.

Player's Family and Guests are also invited into the room and get to mingle with the players (but come on it is the size of my living room how do you fit 15/16 players and friends+family??) and notably there is a Creche facility for those parents who play at United which is manned by dedicated match day Nannies.

The Player's Guests and Family get to sit just by the tunnel when watching the game (Which on TV Screens is the bottom left part of the pitch), so you will notice alot of the times players will go to that corner and point at someone (C Ronaldo's 2nd Goal vs Roma for instance) and that is usually someone in the Guest area.

There is a mini tunnel leading from the VIP Lounge down past the Director's boxes and onto pitchside where the Manager's sit - this used to be the original tunnel and has not been changed since early 20th Centaury.

The Stadium holds 3 Police cells for any trouble makers within the ground who do anything that cannot be solved by simply throwing them out of the stadium. The local Police take over the CCTV Security center during match days to keep an eye on things.

Before we went on the Tour me and Zam checked out the developing Salford Docks (in Salford Quays, around the corner from Old Trafford).
There is the Lowery Center which houses discount outlets like Nike Warehouse and Cadburys Warehouse. The riverside view was really nice and the bridge you can see in the photo actually rises to let ships through.

Normally on Match days the road leading to Old Trafford (Sir Matt Busby Way) is jammed like a cattle market and there is no traffic allowed through and what is normally a 10 minute walk takes up to 30 minutes to navigate. But you can see the stadium as you near it, you pass the Lancashire County Cricket Club on your way (Old Trafford Cricket Ground) in case you wanted to know where that is.

 

Tags: Manchester United Old Trafford Tour Museum Salford Quays

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Very Belated Update

Trip to Manchester, Old Trafford Tour, The End of Prison Break and more

Well I have been lazy this last 30 days - why? I don't know.

But lets get back on track and I am going to make some detailed posts about my visit to Old Trafford for Manchester United vs Roma (Yes that was a special night!), my return to OT for the OT tour (very interesting!) and the end of Hana Yori Dango and Prison Break (!) and also why I am pi**ed off with Bleach and Smallville.

Stay tuned for posts on these topics throughout today since I am at work with very little to do at the moment.

Sarg signing out!

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Weekly update - March week 3

Prison Break, Smallville, FF12, HYD, Bleach and more!

Well PS3 fever is upon us, I really don't look after my money that well but parting with £450 (potentially £550 if you include a 2nd controller, a game and a HDMI cable) is still difficult. But with all the hoo haa I feel I might grab a Wii to help me stay off the PS2 and FF12 - but there is no stock to be found in any online retail store - Here is a website that searches for stock daily http://www.wii-consoles.co.uk.

Prison Break last week was a massive step towards the end of the series - Scofield and Burrows are in Panama! Sarah sacrifices her freedom to make sure Michael and Lincoln get away safely! T-Bag gets caught in Mexico and is being used as bait to lure out Scofield, and he has taken the bait. In a mysterious turn of fate C-Note gets released from prison and is given a new identity in order to secure his testimony against Agent Mahone. In this week's preview Agent Kellermen is involved and Scofield and Mahone team up against T-bag - and there is only 2 episodes to go!!!

Smallville was interesting, featuring -from my guess- some WWE wrestlers. Clark is unable to control his emotions after seeing Lana finally marry Lex Luthor, and goes around physically apprehending hoards of criminals in Metropolis and leaving them unconscious outside police stations. Oliver Queen tips Clark on a online brawl where people pay top dollar to watch people fight it out and die in the ring. What gets Clark involved is that the recent undefeated Champion is Kyrptonian and is from the Phantom Zone! Well of course Lois gets involved and shows off her fighting abilities and Clark has a pretty bloody fight with the Kyrptonian - I am surprised as this is the first time he has bled without the aid of Krypton or being stripped of his power, can he actually bleed if he gets hit hard enough? Lana looses her baby - conveniently it times well with the fact Lana uses the baby as an excuse not to be all lovey with Lex and avoid the honeymoon. Although there are doubts now as to wether there was a baby in the first place as Lex burns all her files from the Smallville hospital. Lana is left in a mentally broken state by the end of the show and is now right in Lex's ever controlling hands.

Hana yori Dango's finale was aired a few weeks ago, it has just been translated by Sars Fansubs and I will watch it on my break later this week - same goes for Prison Break this week.

Bleach was back with a part filler explaining how Ikkaku (if that's how you say it) managed to have a Bankai (as shown in the last episode). I assume he is hiding it because his squad captain (Kenpachi) doesn't have a Bankai (Second Release) let alone a Shikai (First Release), but you learn about his past and the fact Renji looks up to him ever since he moved to his vice captain position due to his obsession to overtake Captain Byakyua. At the end of the episode you see that his fully charged Bankai was enough to take down his enemy.

Final Fantasy 12 is getting pretty exciting. It is easy to go around fighting for fun and leveling up but the side quests are fun too.
Currently I have spent 40 hours, seems chasing "Marks" is quite time consuming. People who have problems getting rid of a certain monsters often offer a reward for its death and they advertise them as "marks" to be hunted down. Often it is good experience and you can get good items.

The licensing board is pretty good too, meaning that certain characters will become specialized in one or many areas - totally your choosing.
Currently Ashe is like a Paladin - very good with Swords but has the best Healing power and has pretty healthy MP and a Summon to boot.

Technorati tags: bleach, j-drama, preview, prison break, smallville, ps3, wii, review

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J-Dorama Alert: Spring 2007

Upcoming Drama series:

Jodan Janai - which simply means Don't Joke or Not Joking stars Oda Yuji, who is back in J-Dorama for the first time since Last Christmas 3 years ago. This series starts airing on the 15th of April so still awhile to go. One thing to point out is the theme song will be sung by Oda himself(again??), he usually records some tracks for his shows (Last Christmas, Odoru Daisousasen, etc). Hopefully the show - which is a comedy of course - is as good as his previous outings, fingers crossed.

Hotelier is a show starring Ueto Aya (Ace wo narae, Attack No 1, Shimokita Sundays) has a Manager at a Hotel that is being taken over by a rival businessman. Plot details are sparse but Ueto usually lights up her shows so this is worth a watch - at least for episode 1.

Jikou Keisatsu is back for a second season! Starring Odajiri Joe who is a Civil worker at a Police station who has a hobby of solving crimes that have passed their legal time frame (statute of limitations - strangely enough in the USA their is no time limit on murder cases...) and his assistant Asou Kumiko. What excuse will Kumiko have for sticking with Odajiri this time? There is no wedding certificate now, surely.
First series was an interesting if not slow watch - but 2nd series should be improved, I hope.

Proposal Daisukusen (Proposal Strategy) stars Yamashita Tomohisa (Dragon Zakura, Kurosagi, IGWP, Lunch no Joou etc) alongside Nagasawa Masami (Dragon Zakura) and this seems to be a bizarre go back in time and make the right decision type of story but if its got Yamashita in it then its gotta be worth watching!

Ichi Rittoru no Namida - 1 Litre of Tears: seems Sawaijiri Erika is going to be back in a one of special for this series (not confirmed yet), but the series was a classic (according to about 99% of viewers) so this is a must.

I have missed out much of the Winter schedule but I will start catching up as the hard subs start to emerge.

Technorati tags: j-drama, preview

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OCZ 2GB PC2-6400 Platinum Preview

I took the plunge and put hard earned money down for the OCZ 2GB Kit (1GBx2) PC2-6400 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (model OCZ2P800R22GK) over at Overclockers UK who have it at a special price of £117.49 (inc VAT).

I also plumped for Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular PSU priced at £70.49 at Overclockers UK as well.

I did fit the memory and not the PSU (will wait to get a new motherboard before I gut my system again) and all worked OK out the box. I noticed on their support site that the specified timings of 4-4-4-15 at 800MHz are not in the memory's SPD timing table and need to be entered manually into the BIOS (so much for not going Corsair).

I have been running them for 3 days and have stress tested them and they see OK, not really a speed boost I had hoped for with 2GB but suppose I wont know till they are really running at 800MHz (currently at 677MHz due to motherboard limitations).

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Hana Yori Dango Season 2

Just watched episodes 9 and 10 and episode 10 was a really interesting one. Domyoji goes to find Tsukushi at the fishing docks where her family is staying at, but during a moment of chaos Domyoji falls off the edge of a pier and hits his head on a rock on the beach below.

All seems well when he regains his consciousness in hospital but in a bizarre twist of screen writer's horror he forgets who Tsukushi is!

During the episode they all rally to try and get him to remember, but another patient befriends him and seems to be stealing Tsukushi's place when he finally remembers who is missing from his memories but thinks it's this other girl! This sets the scene for our hour long final episode where it's likely Tsukushi and Umi-Chan will fight it out for Domyoji. Bring it on!

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Weekly/Monthly Reviews

Gears of War, FF 12, Prison Break and more!

I know I have been behind on the reviews, but I am back!

I played all of Gears of War on the Xbox 360, and in co-op mode that game rocks! I played FPS on the PC all my life and games like Halo on the game pad don't cut it for me. But this GOW (Gears of War) really is easy to pick up and play and is a challenge to master.

It is real fun to be covering your team mates back (AI or otherwise) and the graphics feature high resolution textures and HDR otherwise known as High Dynamic Range which is a colour/lighting programmable effect which drastically changes the playing environment and makes games feel like movies (HDR is used in SFX for films) and even more life like. But it takes a hit on the CPU (well it does on mine when I play CS:Source with HDR on) but you would barely notice on the Xbox 360. Sometimes when you enter a new map it takes 3-4 seconds to buffer the high quality textures so you can spot a crappy texture here and there until the action begins.

This game is worth buying an Xbox 360 - I can't wait for the next installment!

 

Meanwhile I bought FF12, Yes I BOUGHT Final Fantasy 12 PAL not NTSC not downloaded, I paid £30 from www.play.com.

I got the game yesterday and since I have experience with FF11 (the online only game) I quickly noticed how the battle system is upgraded from FF11.

I mean the party leader automatically attacks after an attack is initiated (so he will go on attacking till you tell him otherwise) and other party members fight on their own.

What I do like is you can set "macros" or Gambits to help automate your team members more efficiently.

This all equates to fast quick paced battles while you are on the map (so now warping to a new screen to fight). This removes random battles but allows you to stay clear of enemies or allows them to come after you.

The voices are quite good and there are some stupid cockney accents in there, but the lip syncing is horrible and doesn't even come close to FF10's quality. Animation and level design is allot better, but the level graphics in towns is hampered by the low quality of the textures which are then heavily filtered. It is hard to tell unless you play the game on a LCD, trust me.

Prison Break was on last week, the game is up for Sucre but how did C-Note survive? Looks like he might stitch up Mahone to the FBI snitch in his team! The President lets Schofield get away but caves into pressure from The Company and doesn't grant pardon to the brothers and instead steps down from her position as President! Michael and Lincoln have no choice but to make a run for it - but what's that! Sarah is being tailed by the FBI Women - she will lead them straight to the brothers! What do you know it isn't on this week! Boo!

Smallville was back on yesterday! Yeah!
Lana finally finds out Clark's secret, but can she get out of the Luthor's grip to finally be with CK? Allot of surprises but in the end the inevitable happens, and you are left to wonder - just what is growing inside Lana's womb?

Hana Yori Dango Season 2 is into the last few episodes (finishes episode 11), I am going to watch 9 and 10 tonight and 11 is out Saturday(wont be subbed till next week).

 

Technorati tags: xbox, playstation, final fantasy, gears of war, review, prison break, smallville, j-tv

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Manchester Utd vs Lille

We got seats in the new North Eastern Quadrants that were completed over the summer - £50 a pop they were (I know expensive), but with the leather upholstery on the seats and the increased leg room it looked worth it.
There was a great view and a good atmosphere - the Lille players were getting some real stick from the fans! But there were no hostilities so all is good. Actual play on the pitch was poor and rates at about 5 out of 10 but the stadium was alive and good to see the crowd are getting allot more vocal then last season. Hit the picture to go to my gallery of photos from the night (new photos were taken with my new Samsung NV10 camera).

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Samsung NV10

Wow, been a while since I last posted, allot to talk about but lets start from the day before I went to Manchester.

I got the Samsung NV10 camera and went to unbox the thing, here are some shots of the packaging:

And the cables etc inside:

Notice the charger seems to be just a plug, more on that later. Now the camera itself:

It has a light metallic body and fits naturally into your grip. The rear of the camera has a large LCD and touch sensitive buttons along the sides of the screen, these also act like scroll bars meaning you can move you thumb along the buttons to scroll through pictures/options etc:

Notice the Dial to select the shooting mode, the silver button is the shutter and the smaller button is the power. The flash pops up from to top too:

Note here is the interface socket on the left and on the right is the Battery and SD card slots:

Here is the charger which connects to the USB cable supplied with the camera! So basically this camera will charge from any USB socket:

First impressions:

It takes a while to get around the menus (getting used to the touch buttons is tricky), but there are allot of options to explore here for the pro-sumer. The camera is small and light and is easy to take with you to a football match(!). Expect future pictures to be taken from the NV10.

 

Technorati tags: unboxing, samsung, nv10, camera, review

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New month - new expectations

The month of March is upon us - that means two things: I just got paid and secondly the weather is improving!

I ordered Smallville Series 4 & 5 (same prices as season 3 £25 ish) since I finished series 3 (there were so many episodes I have missed on TV!).

I am getting a new camera, I hopefully will be getting a Samsung NV10. a 10 Megapixel camera. It has a thin body and has great picture quality at long distance. I will include a review and unpacking pictures on arrival - hopefully I can get it before I leave to go to Old Trafford in Manchester!

I am downloading the rest of Season 2 of Tsubasa Chronicle so expect a final review of the series when I watch the rest of it.

Another J-Dorama I might start watching soon is Wonderful life starring the famous Sorimachi Takashi, this series is currently being subbed by Sars Fansubs and they are up to episode 5.

I use Microsoft's Live Writer for writing these posts, it's currently in beta but I find it has a nice feel and can easily be customized with plugins etc.

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