Samuel's Blog

gdgt gadget list widget

2009-07-21T13:00:00.001+02:00

iTunes Store in South Africa!

2008-07-11T13:09:00.001+02:00

Well, sort of...

I downloaded the new version of iTunes today (7.7), and was looking around in it as to what's new, plus lauding the fact that we don't have a iTunes music store over here, when just for interest sake I clicked on the entry with which to choose your iTunes store. And lo and behold, there was an entry for South Africa!

Anxiously I clicked on it, thinking: Are we getting a music store finally? No more skullduggery in getting legal music from the iTunes store?

Alas, it was not to be. The iTunes store we have is just the new App store, for iPhone and iPod Touch Apps. No music, no video, not even podcasts, nothing...

I am guessing they are reading it for the launch of the iPhone 3G in South Africa later this year (when, Vodacom, when?), so at least when we do get the iPhone 3G we will be able to download and/or buy some apps for our new toy. One quirky thing though, all the prices for iPhone apps are in US $, what, too lazy to convert it to Rands, Apple? Or a way to dupe is into spending more money? If the South African Playstation store can have its content in Rands surely Apple can too?

All I say is watch this space, there are things afoot...

Long time no post....

2008-01-23T12:52:00.001+02:00

Yes, I know it has been a while, but I've gotten some fervour of late, so things might be looking up...

I have also started a new blog, called Gaming in the Dark, which I hope will offer a unique perspective on the current load shedding situation in the country and how it pertains to gaming, general and specific. So, check it out!

DSC00036.JPG

2007-07-06T16:08:00.001+02:00

Feedback

2006-10-10T03:07:00.000+02:00

It has been a while since I posted anything, so there is quite a bit to go through, so lets get to it!

rAge
Well, the rAge Expo was a lot of fun, I quite liked it, since it was the first time I was there. What amazed me was the length of the queue when we got there, and it was only 10:30 am!

When we finally got in, we got our goodie bag and first headed for the Food Court, because we organized an informal PSP/DS LAN there. And there actually was people! There was people from Rebound out of Pietermaritzburg, El33tOnline from Durban, and a little later guys from Bloemfontein joined us. All in all we had a blast, we played WipeOut: Pure and Fired up on the PSP, andI even played some Mario Cart on the DS, which was also a whole lot of fun. I wish I had more money to be able to afford both a DS and PSP :(.

The rest of the show was quite interesting too. Of course it was mainly focused on the XBox 360, since it was the official launch event of the console in South Africa, but there was a little bit of DS, PSP and PS2 around, mostly at vendor stands though, Ster_Kinekor wasn't even at the show! We know that the PS2 is not that good in comparison with the Xbox 360, but still, people have short memories, so if the PS2 is not there, people will forget about it, especially with 360 being at their throats all the time.

We stayed at the expo until it closed at 18:00, by that time we were quite tired, but I went to Flint's place so he could show off his 360 a bit. Played a bit of Oblivion and one or two of the Xbox Live Arcade games, which is also fun if you are gaming on the run! And now with Microsoft releasing their XNA gaming development kit for the 360 and PC, things look quite good.

Oh, here is a bit of an scoop for everyone: Whilst at the EA stand at the Expo, we heard someone whisper that there was an exclusive demo of the creature editor of Spore upstairs. So upstairs we went and after a bit of begging, one of the girls at EA gave us a short demo of the creature Editor. Very impressive to say the least! They allowed us to take some cellphone picures, so here they are for everyone to enjoy!

Having a ball
Now woth my dancing show over, I had to find something else to occupy my time, and to get a bit of exercise.

So, when a friend of mine asked me to go and play action netball with him, I said why not? We have practised a bit already, and it is quite a fast game, played in exactly the same court as action cricket. I am in a mixed team, which means there are 3 men and 4 ladies, and we will be starting on one of the bottom leagues, but that doesn't matter, just to play the game will be fun.
Our first league game is tomorrow, so here's hoping we are not that terrible!

Bits
Other than that nothing else is new, just playing SSX on tour on the PSP, and waiting for Tekken: Dark Ressurrection to come out in this country so I can go and buy it, and waiting for my ship to come in so I can buy myself an XBox 360, so cheers vireers from me!

Recovery 101

2006-09-29T00:47:00.000+02:00

Well, the show is finished and I think it was a major success! We had a nearly full house for our last performace, which is good to know! Now I can concentrate on my life again, since I have it back now. I wonder what I am going to do with all the time I have now?

In other news, the rAge expo is tomorrow, and me and my friend Matt "Flint" Benic is going there to see what is cooking, and hopefully kick some butt in the unofficial PSP / Nintendo DS LAN we organized. So if you read this and are there, come and say hi. I will be the tall old guy with the thinning hair amongst all the kids :). It will also be fun meeting all the people from the forums (which I read occasionally, but not really post to). Just remember kids, the idea is to have fun, don't go serious on me!

Matt is also getting his Xbox 360 tomorrow (jealous!), so we will probably set that up too sometime over the weekend. Otherwise I think it will just be a chilling weekend just to get my breath back...

Backstage photos

2006-09-22T18:27:00.007+02:00

Backstage photos
Originally uploaded by skock_2000.

Here are some backstage photos from my show. Were going on stage in an hour,so here goes...

Backstage photos

2006-09-22T18:27:00.005+02:00

Backstage photos
Originally uploaded by skock_2000.

Here are some backstage photos from my show. Were going on stage in an hour,so here goes...

Backstage photos

2006-09-22T18:27:00.003+02:00

Backstage photos
Originally uploaded by skock_2000.

Here are some backstage photos from my show. Were going on stage in an hour,so here goes...

Backstage photos

2006-09-22T18:27:00.001+02:00

Backstage photos
Originally uploaded by skock_2000.

Here are some backstage photos from my show. Were going on stage in an hour,so here goes...

The show must go on

2006-09-22T02:11:00.000+02:00

Well, last night was the first performance of my dance show, A step too far, and I must say it went well. There were not any serious bugger ups, and the audience enjoyed it tremendously.

The only bad thing that has happened is that one of our lead roles popped her kneecap in our final dress rehearsal on Wednesday, so she cannot dance unfortunately. Big disappointment to everyone of course!

But a little positive after that negative is that because of that and a few other circumstances, our director/choreographer is going to be dancing on Saturday night! That will be a treat for everyone who is going to come and watch! As far as I know the Saturday night is basicly a sell out, which is very good news indeed!

Other news
Well, Rage is only a week away, with lots of LAN gaming (even PSP/DS), the launch of the Xbox 360 in South Africa and lots of nice stuff! Can't wait...

Well, I'm nearly off to the theatre and then after the show I'm in Bronkhorstspruit for the (long) weekend, so take care everyone!

First photoblog!

2006-09-22T00:52:00.000+02:00

This is just a test of my photoblogging setup between Blogger (beta) and Flickr. Now I can send emails to my blog from my phone together with pictures! Whoo-hoo!

Later

Test
Originally uploaded by skock_2000.

2006-09-12T00:37:00.000+02:00

Overdue Update

Yes, I know, I have not updated this blog in a while! But you can blame the usual suspects, being busy, being too lazy, and all that jazz So, here is a bit of stuff that is going on:

Show
We are in the home stretch as far as the show is concerned, our performances are next week, so this week it is the final dress rehearsal, which basicly means we get screamed at a lot . The show also has got a name now, it is called "A step too far", and it is your basic love pentagon. If anyone wants to come and have a look, they can contact The Beat dance studio for tickets. It will be on the 21-23 September in the UNISA little theatre in Skinner street, Pretoria.

Rage
On the weekend of the 29th of September it is South Africa's premier computer entertainment (i.e. games) show, Rage. As it will be the first time I will be attending, I am quite looking forward to it. A friend of mine, Matthew "Flint" Benic has organized a very informal PSP/ Nintendo DS LAN at the event, which I think will be a lot of fun. Check his blog for details if you are interested. Can't wait to kick people's asses at Wipeout: Pure and Burnout: Legends!

It will also be thwe official launch of the Xbox 360 in South Africa, so one can assume that Microsoft will be there in full force... So, exciting times!

Other news
And in other news....

There is no other news . I'll try and post back on how our final rehearsals are going if I find time and energy...

All for now...

2006-05-18T12:47:00.000+02:00

Update

I have not updated this blog in a while, mainly due to a lack of anything to say and a lot of laziness. But I decided to make an entry today.

So what is new? Well, we have started rehearsing for my dance studio's big annual show, called Expressions 2006. I'm not sure what it is exactlky about, but I suppose I will find out in due course :).

My first rehearsal was on Tuesday night, where I found out I was not as fit as I used to be! Also, in this show there is a lot of sword work (we have a seperate trainer for that), which means that my right hand and arm is quite stiff today! I am a leftie by nature, you see :)...

My next rehearsal is this afternoon, so we will see how it goes. I will also try and keep this blog updated with progress on the show. Performance details and so on I will give closer to the actual date, which is in September.

O, and just to let you see what it is all about, here is a few pics of last year's show, Expressions 2005; Hell's Redemption:

Big and expensive digital cameras

2006-02-17T11:46:00.000+02:00

Much is being said about digital cameras these days, and even though some purists still think film is the only way to go, I think digital cameras will take over eventually. Camera equipment manufacturer Nikon has already said it will cease making most of its film cameras, just leaving the F6, its top of the line model, and the FM10, their basic manual everything model.

One area in which digital has not really made big inroads is the medium format market, being ruled by Hasselblad, Mamiya and others. Maybe it is because of the very expensive equipment one starts talking baout when you enter this arena, I don't know... There has been digital backs for a number of years (these are basicly just the film part of a normal medium format camera which has been replaced by a digital counterpart), but these are big and cumbersome and are not really suited for field work, more for studio photography. Mkae no mistake, the results are awesome, but these things were big! Hasselblad also released a digital camera about 18 months ago, although I am not sure how it fared.

But now, Hasselblad has released the next incarnation of its top of the line digital medium format camera, the H2D39. Well this whopper has a digital censor that is 39 Megapixels in size! To put it in perspective, the Canon 350D, one of the most popular consumer digital SLR cameras, only has 8 Megapixels.

There are only two problems when it comes to digital cameras that has censors that size: price and storage space. From what I've read one Hasselblad H2D39 will set you back in the order of about R250 000, and that is the price converted from dollars. Heaven knows what it will cost once the importers and everybody put on their profits here... The other is storgae space. I calculated that one RAW picture from that censor, at 24 bit colour, uncompressed will take up round about 100MB of storage space. So, on a 4GB Compact Flash card - the biggest available at this point - you would only get 40 or so pictures. Undoubtedly there ill be some compression applied that will raise that number to 50 or 60 images per card, but still, in digital terms it is not that much. I read that you can buy an external hard drive for the camera, but how big is that going to be? And with what will you power it? And all these things will have to be carried around, too...

So I think something must be done with regards to removeable storage to get the capacities bigger. And cameras like the Hasselblad one will probably provide the impetus for the removeable storage manufacturers to get on with it. I will not be surprised if we see compactflash cards with capacities the size of computer hard discs (80GB+) in the near future. The only thing that can be said is that there are exciting times ahead...

PSP Part 2

2006-02-07T16:48:00.000+02:00

You'll remember in my previous post I said I will tell you how I got on with my new PSP and cellphone. Well, the PSP was fine, until I found out (quite by accident), that they gave me the wrong one! The movies of PSP's are also divided into zones (a lot like DVDá are), and the Vodacom shop gave me a zone 3 PSP (which is for Asia), instead of a Zone 2 one (which is for Africa and Europe). If it was not for one of my PSP owning friends (Thanks, Flint!), I would have not been any wiser! Until I tried to watch a movie, that is...

So, back to the store it was (again!). Luckily they did not have any problems with exchanging it with a zone 2 unit. The Zone 2 unit also comes with a few extra bits, like the UMD Demo disc (Just a bunch of game videos), and (hopefully) a Spider Man 2 UMD when I register (which I have done, so here is hoping!).

So finally having the correct PSP, I have bought for myself Wipeout Pure as well (on Sale for R249, instead of R399), so I am now playing that. I just see I will need to get a bigger memory stick for all the downloads that are on Wipeout's Website... Time to do some saving up I suppose...

My next mission is getting my new Phone (Ericsson Z520i) to connect with my Pc via an IR link. Here's holding thumbs!

Cellphone and PSP woes

2006-02-02T16:45:00.000+02:00

So, after finally cutting through all the crap that is Vodashop Menlyn, I decided to do my cellphone upgrade at the Vodashop in Brooklyn Mall :). I must give them credit, their customer service is much better than the one at Menlyn Park!

So, I got there at Brooklyn, and they say upgrade is no problem, I gave them everything they needed, and they said, here is a voucher for coffee at Mugg and Bean, go and enjoy yourself there, when you get back everything will be ready and you can get your phone and your brand new PSP.

As they say in Afrikaans, "So gesê, so gedaan." Had my coffee and a bit of cake. Went back to the Vodashop where some bad news awaited me. Unfortuantely some Vodacom network is down, so they could not process my upgrade request then and there. So now I have to go back later this afternoon, and hopefully (fingers crossed) everything will be ready then. Here is hoping!

First real Entry!

2006-01-31T13:57:00.000+02:00

This is my first real entry in ot my blog, just to see if it works. Hopefully there will be a lot more now that I finally mustered up the energy to actually write something!