What Does The Hard Drive Do

Hard drives are at the center of computers and countless other products. Nowadays, camcorders, music players, camcorders and many other types of personal electronic devices store information on hard drives too. Although manufacturing hard drives is a precise and exacting process, the basic principles of hard drive function are surprisingly simple.

Function

-A hard drive is a device used to store data in a semipermanent state on your computer. Computer memory is a series of small packets of data called bits. Each bit is a 1 or a 0, and each bit is stored as a small magnetic charge on the hard drive. A read/write head moves over the hard drive to retrieve or rewrite the bits as needed.

Hard Drive Structure

-The hard drive contains several smooth, metal-coated disks called platters. Each platter is divided into a number of narrow, concentric circles called tracks, which run from the the inside of the platter all the way to the outer edge. Each track is further subdivided into small sections called blocks. To retrieve a piece of information, the head moves to the exact track and sector on the correct platter.

Hard Drive Mechanics

-Hard disk platters spin at a constant speed of several thousand revolutions per minute (the exact speed depends on the drive). The read/write head is also very quick, and some can move from the outer to the inner edge of the disk 50 times per second. The head is located on an arm that is actuated by a device called a voice coil. The voice coil has both an electromagnet and a permanent magnet. When the electromagnet turns on, it pushes against the permanent magnet, moving the head arm across the disk. The more power, the farther the head moves. When the electromagnet is turned off, a spring pulls it back across the drive.

Reading and Writing

-The read/write head is actually two devices in one--a read head and a write head. The read head contains a small coil or some other device that is sensitive to magnetic flux. When the head moves past a charged part of the hard drive, the magnetic field creates a small charge in the read head, which the head registers as a bit. The write head has a small electromagnet in it. As it moves past a part of the platter where it wants to write data, it produces a small magnetic field. The sensitive platter picks up and stores this magnetic field as a bit.


Considerations

-Many people assume that a hard drive will last forever, but actually hard disks are extremely fragile pieces of hardware prone to sudden failure. The head sits very close to the high-speed platter. A sharp jolt can make it bump into the platter, scratching and ruining the hard drive. Any dust or debris leaking into the hard drive can also damage the platter. The data on the drive can also be ruined by a magnetic field, which will overwrite the store bits.

What does RAM do?

RAM - Random Access Memory, or volatile memory, is used by the system to store data for processing by a computer's central processing unit (CPU), also known as the processor. RAM stores the data in memory cells that are arranged in grids much like the cells are arranged in a spreadsheet, from which data, in the binary form of 1's and 0's, can be accessed and transferred at random to the processor for processing by the system's software.

The data stored in a hard disk drive (HDD) cannot be accessed at random. Whole sectors, containing blocks of data, are transferred from a hard disk drive, placed in a large swap file on the same drive, and only then are selected files transferred to RAM for random access by the processor, which is itself only performing the instructions of the system's operating system (usually Windows), and its application software.

When the computer is turned off, all of the data in the RAM memory is lost, hence its alternative name of volatile memory, whereas all of the data on a hard disk drive is retained permanently until it is intentionally erased. The motherboard (or mainboard) manual (that should be provided with a new or a second-hand PC) will provide all of the details about the different types of supported RAM, and the various combinations of modules per bank for each type that can be successfully installed.

What do processors do?

In this first of many i am going to try and show how different parts of the computer works. I hope that this will help some of you to understand whats happening under your desktop or laptop.

First of all is the processor:

http://homepage.cs.uri.edu/faculty/wolfe/book/Readings/Reading04.htm

Look out for the next installment coming soon.
Laters people.

Combat Arms, a free FPS????

In the video game industry today, we look for a game with the best graphics and the best gameplay. There are some major contenders who bring home the bacon with a combination of both but there are many companies who are lacking it all. Nexon America, a sister company to Nexon Korea, has released their latest game called Combat Arms. With many free games on their list, how can a small company who makes their money with item shops possibly make a game where it combines depth, action, and sheer fluidity to a game and still be free? No one knows the answer, nor is it ever asked and it shouldn't. Combat Arms definitely does deliver what all FPS gamers need and shows potential with where it can go.

You start the game with a basic setup. You choose how your soldier looks and then name him. Where it gets tricky is the weapons you start with. They consider the M16A1 Automatic rifle to be the weakest by today's standards and therefore offer it as its "free" weapon. You also start with standard military issue camo and a combat knife as well as some basic frag grenades. As for now, customization is very limited but the developers have stated that you will be able to "purchase" looks in the future, which leads me to the best part. EVERY gun, grenade, armor vest, helmet, uniform, or anything else that can be used to punish your enemies will never EVER cost you any real life money. Thats right. You can be just as powerful as the highest killer on the servers and never have spent a penny. The ingame money, known as GP, is what you use to buy your gear with and is only earned by winning matches. Depending on how many kills you get determines what place you come in on the leaderboards for that match and thus, determines how much experience and GP you earn.

Experience? Why is there experience points in an FPS? Actually, this is nothing new. In the Battlefield games, your soldier earned experience to unlock weapons and to earn rank. The same is true in Combat Arms. You earn rank to unlock certain weapons and gear. You also have to be a certain rank to join a clan and start one. This leaves an incentive to playing the game and really pushes the player to rank up instead of creating multiple accounts. There is also a KDR (Kill/Death Ratio) which is available for all players to see. Naturally, the higher your KDR is, the better you look to other players, and believe it or not, determines whether opposing clans will fight you in clan matches or even play in the same match with you in normal matches. Rank does not determine how good a player is however. Rank is merely an indication on how much that player has played and there are definitely some people on there with a rank so high that it looks as if they have no life. Which is probably true.

So how is the gameplay? The gameplay is the next best thing about Combat Arms. The gameplay feels a lot like Counterstrike meets Unreal Tournament. There is blood and lots of it as well as tactical espionage action. There is four gameplay modes and each are unique in their own way.

Elimination: Players are put on two teams: Alpha and Bravo and are pitted against each other in a deathmatch. The team with the most kills wins.

One Man Army: Exactly as it sounds. You are your own team in the ultimate of deathmatches.

Search and Destroy: Players are again placed into two teams: Alpha and Bravo. Each member of Alpha has control of a bomb and must reach locations A or B (Marked by Chevron's on the HUD) and must plant the bomb. Bravo team must either destroy all of Alpha teams members or disarm the planted bomb. Players have one minute from the time the bomb is planted to disarm it.

Capture the Flag: Ah, ye olde Capture the Flag. Probably the most common of game modes for any FPS on the market. Capture the Flag consists of yet again, two teams. Alpha and Bravo. The rest is pretty self explanatory, each team must try to capture the opposing teams' flag.

One of the major concepts about Combat Arms that makes its gameplay unique, is the sense of "reward" you get from killing your enemies. For every kill you get, it flashes how many kills you have in front of your face. And it is even more rewarding if you can kill two to three players in less than five seconds. It boldy states "Double Kill!" or "Multi Kill!". And it is also seen by other players. Very rewarding indeed.

There are some flaws to this game however. (Which games doesn't have flaws?) The game is really laggy during peak times, no matter which server you choose. There is also an ever increasing amount of hackers, and the game has several glitches. Like falling into the world and and knifing everyone. But all in all, it is a very good game with montly updates/fixes that will be sure to have you playing more and more as time goes by. For more detailed information on Combat Arms you can visit their site directly at combatarms.nexon.net. If you can read Korean or are Korean, combatarms.nexon.com.

Get in there and blow your enemies away...FOR FREE!

Acer Aspire One Review

Build and Design

When you first get the Acer Aspire One out of the box you really appreciate the quality of the product you have just bought. The netbook feels solid and well built, and the glossy white looks very sleek with the rounded corners on the unit. The white itself is more of a pearl white, which seems to look really very good with the more traditional white keyboard. The screen is surrounded by a black bezel, and I would say that it looks good, but think it may have looked better white as well.

The size of the netbook is very satisfying, seeming to be larger than the Asus eee pc making it very much usable, yet small enough to make it still very much portable.
When closed it is very rigid and seems to have enough strength to avoid resist flex and compression.

The Acer Aspire One is a relatively hard netbook to make any adjustments to. Rather than having a panel to which you can unscrew and add extra RAM, you have to practically take apart the entire bottom plate of the netbook, so not too great for people who may want to run vista with some added RAM that it needs.

Keyboard and Touchpad


The keyboard is very spacious for a netbook, since the Acer Aspire One is a 9" screen PC in a 10" body. The keyboard is a little cramped compared to a full size notebook keyboard but is nothing that you can't get used to. The keyboard seems quite strong and seem to be very reactive.

The touchpad's design is slightly different to other netbooks on the market as it has the left and right mouse clicks on either side of the touchpad, rather than at the bottom. This is to save space but you do find yourself moving the mouse when you're trying to reach for the left click that isn't there. The sensitivity of the touchpad s great, and this can be adjusted easily.

Display


The screen is very clear and vibrant, making any text on the LED backlit screen very easy to read. Any colours look very nice on the glossy screen but this does mean that the screen reflects far to well, making it almost useless outside when it is sunny. Viewing angles however are very good especially the horizontal ones.

Performance

Like all netbooks the Acer Aspire One contains the Intel Atom processor, and although this would be a problem should you try to run any major games on it (plus the fact there is no dedicated graphics card in it) for practically everything else it runs fast and smoothly. Even photo editing tasks were handled with ease and the hard drive that is on my model is more than enough space.

Operating System


I bought my netbook with Linpus Linux Lite installed on it, mainly for the reason that I knew that it would run faster than Windows XP would and also because it was cheaper. With Linpus installed the netbook fired up very fast, around 20 seconds. However that is mainly where the good things about Linpus end. The basic applications installed are OK, but for anyone who wants to add more of their own choice of applications, audacity for example, it seemed nigh on impossible. So I decided to go and download the Ubuntu Netbook Remix, and try that out, and its great. It has all the good things about Linpus, the easy to use layout, the fast boot up time, and yet also is really easy to add your own applications and software, simply through the add and remove application. I'll be talking more about the advantages of UNR (Ubuntu Netbook Remix) in my review of the operating system in the future.


For those of you who want Windows XP, then I warn you that many people have said it does just what I can do on my normal computer, just slower. Now this may be a good thing because there are lots more things you can install on XP, but if all you want your netbook for is to do simple things and leave anything major to your desktop, then i recommend buying the Linpus version, because it is cheaper, and then downloading UNR, which is free, and following my guide to install that as t really is very good.


Hope you have enjoyed my review and can decided whether to buy one or not.
Thats all for now
Laters People

How to install Ubuntu onto your Netbook

What you'll need

Right, let's get started. Here's what you'll need to hand before you start, both software and hardware:

• An Acer Aspire One, or another compatible netbook

• An empty USBstick with a 1GB or greater capacity. I used a 2GB.

• The Ubuntu 9.04 netbook remix .IMG file (970MB)

• A disk imager tool, I recommend used Win32 Image Writer.

• Once you've got all that together, you’ll need about 45 minutes to an hour of your time

Preparing the USB disk

First of all, plug your USB drive into whatever computer you're going to use to copy the install files across with. Probably the one that you're reading these instructions on. Go into 'My Computer' and note what drive letter has been allocated to the USB disk.

Then start up Win32 Disk Imager, and click the "..." button, and navigate to wherever you saved the Ubuntu .IMG file. When you find it, select it and hit okay. Then, under 'device', select the drive letter for the USB, and hit 'write'. Let it do its thing, it should take less than 5 minutes.

Preparing your Aspire One
On your Aspire One, make sure everything that you want to keep is backed up, because part of the process below involves wiping the drive of your netbook. Take off any data you want to keep and store it safely elsewhere.

Then power down the Aspire One and remove anything that's plugged into it, like SD cards or USB peripherals. Keep the power cable in, though. Plug in the USB drive you're using for the install, and power on.

Almost immediately, hit F12 when it prompts you to "Select boot order". From the menu that appears, select the USB drive. It'll prompt you to pick a language. Then the USB drive will give you the option to try out Ubuntu without installing. Do that if you like, then reboot and get back to this menu when you’ve tested it out.

The installation process
When you're ready to take the plunge, hit "Install Ubuntu" on this menu. Give it a minute to load everything into the device's memory. To start with, the progress bar will move between the left and right sides, but shortly after it'll start filling up.

Pick a language again, then hit 'forward' and select a time zone and city. Hit 'forward' again.

Pick the right keyboard layout for your machine. Test using the little box at the bottom, and check the " and @ keys, which are swapped around on American keyboards. If all seems in order, then hit 'forward' again.

Disks and file systems
This is where things get a little tricky. If you finish and it won't boot, then go back and double-check this section carefully. Now - you have options that depend on what kind of disk you've got.

If you have a traditional mechanical hard drive then you can pick between installing Ubuntu alongside your existing operating system or replacing it. If you'd like to do the former, then pick the first option in the list - install alongside an existing operating system, then click forward and skip straight to the Progress Bars section of this guide, ignoring all the stuff about filesystems below.

If you're using a mechanical drive and you'd like to replace your existing OS entirely, then click the second option - "Use the entire disk". Make sure that the right disk is selected - not a USB drive or an SD card or anything. Be aware that this option will delete all data on that disk, then hit 'forward' and skip straight to the Progress Bars section of this guide.

Lastly, if you have an SSD then you get an even more complex choice. You won't have room to do anything except installing over the current operating system, so option one is out. However, you have a choice between installing the ext4, ext3 and ext2 file systems.

Ext4 is known as a 'journaling' file system. It writes into a 'journal' whenever it modifies anything, so it's much safer if you lose power suddenly and you want your files to be okay. Ext3 is also a 'journaling' file system but it's older, so I don't recommend its use over Ext4.

Ext2 doesn't do any 'journaling' - so it uses far fewer read/writes. As an SSD wears out quicker than a regular hard drive, selecting Ext2 will make things run a smidge faster and increase your drive's lifetime. As a result, though, files can corrupt if you suddenly lose power on your machine. Even if nothing corrupts, you'll have to sit through an irritating file check every time you startup if you don't power down properly.

It's up to you - select Ext4 for a safer drive that wears out quicker, or Ext2 for a slightly faster drive that'll last longer, but is more prone to errors if you lose power.

Once you've decided, click option three - "specify partitions manually". Don't be scared by the word 'advanced', if you understood what I just said, then you'll be fine. You should have two drives in front of you, one big one marked "ext2", and one smaller one marked "swap".

Double-click the big "ext2" drive, and an 'edit partition' box should pop up. Select from the "Use as:" drop-down either "Ext2 file system" or "Ext4 file system", depending on which you want (see above). Then tick the box marked 'Format the partition' and then select "/" as the mount point. Hit okay, then forward. That wasn't too bad now, was it?

If you've got no idea what drive you've got, then just click the middle option - "Use the entire disk".

Progress bars
Tough bit over. Type in your name, a username (all lowercase, please), a password and name of the computer. Choose whether you want it to prompt you for your password every time you start up or not. Then hit 'forward'.

It'll show you a summary screen for what it's about to do. Scan it quickly and make sure it's about to do what you're expecting it to, then take a deep breath and hit 'forward'.

Progress bars should appear. Go make a cup of tea. It took me about 20 minutes to install to an Hard Drive, or it'll be slightly shorter for a SSD. When it's complete, choose the restart option, and remove the USB disk when it tells you to. The system will then reset.

Complete!

Voila! Your installation is complete. You'll find that Ubuntu boots a tiny bit slower than the default Linux OS, but it'll be a bit faster than Windows. It's slower than the default OS because it's so full of good stuff.

Click around a bit - the left column shows categories of programs. The middle pane shows the programs that are in each category - click one to start it. Lastly, the right-hand pane will show you storage locations. Click one to load it.

Have a little fiddle around in the settings, too. There's plenty of customizable stuff. Change the color scheme away from the brown if you like, or turn off 'tap-to-click' on the track pad. If you'd like to edit the menus, you can do that by clicking "Main Menu" in "Preferences".

Look out for my review of the Acer Aspire One coming soon..

Thats all for now

Laters people

Acer Aspire One Unboxing Video

So as promised I have made an unboxing video for the netbook.
I Hope to bring you the review soon and more content after that.
The specs of the netbook is in the description on the video and I'll also list them when I do my review. Enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WafCfsVNrqM

That's all for now
Laters people.

Acer Aspire One and Linux

Hey guys,
Sorry for being inactive for a while, I've been rather tied up in school work and the such and so haven't been able to release any new content for a while.
However that is soon to change.
As some of you may know, I have been trying to raise enough money for a netbook, the Acer Aspire One to be precise. Now amazingly I did eventually reach my target, and proceeded to buy the netbook off someone on eBay, brand new, sealed in box(white).(excellent seller by the way)


Basically, this netbook has stole my heart, as it were, and I'm really happy with my purchase.

Now more to the point, I have become so attached to it at the moment that I am going to start posting some Acer Aspire One netbook and Linux posts for you. Some ideas/plans I have at the moment are:

• Unboxing Video
• Review
• How to install Ubuntu Netbook Remix
• How to install games on UNR.

If you guys have anything else you want to suggest that i do, please feel free to leave a comment or send me a message.

So until I make an unboxing video
Thats all for now,
Laters people.

How to put your DVD's onto your iPod

One of the great things about the iPod, and especially the iPod Touch/iPhone, is that the screen is such good quality. Videos and pictures look really nice on the high resolution screen and this made me want to be able to put more videos and films onto it.

But there is a major problem. The main way to get these videos is to buy them off iTunes, and therefore they are straight away compatible with your iPod. However, I personally have a few DVDs that I would like to put on my iPod, but I don't want to have to buy the same film off iTunes again when I already have it. That would just be silly surely.

So I looked around and finally found an excellent guide on how to do just this, using only free software. If you are interested please have a look at the guide as it is very intuitive and easy to follow.

DVDs to iPod Guide

Thats all for now,

Laters people.

CycloDS Evolution Video Review

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh1C4rxRwR0

I've made another video review for your enjoyment, but this time, rather than focus on a game I decided to review the CycloDS Evolution that I bought. Now what this piece of kit allows you to do is to store lots of games onto one cart, so you are never lugging around a big case of games.
For more info you can go to their official website here
Also for your ROM's I would suggest here, my favourite of them all.

So basically I hope that the video explains what it is the thing does, and helps you to decide whether to buy or not.

Thats all for now

Laters people.

WoW patch 3.1.0

It's finally here, WOOOOOOO!

Hang on a second, why am I cheering? Sure its good that some of the bugs have been fixed and my hunter now won't run out of ammo anyway near as much, but really, has it made a lot of difference. Yet again these patches and/or expansions only seem to apply to the players with high level characters (e.g. level 70-80 island in WoTLK) as in this patch we see the introduction of Ulduar, another raid for, correct me if I'm wrong, level 80's. But the thing is that that is all i want to know about Ulduar. It makes no difference to me as a level 57 Hunter, so why would I. Sure, I'll probably be glad for it if i ever reach 80, but apart from some class changes there is nothing here that would make the game any better for under 60's definitely, and maybe even under 70's.

An yep, a ton of people are sure to argue with me. For example many people have said that there is already a ton of content for 1-60 that was there when everyone first started. And yes, that's true, but i think Blizzard has learned a lot since 4 years ago when the game was first released, and many a people have said that Northrend, and even Outland, have some really nice content. Now the fact that they probably have never touched those areas since Burning Crusade means that they seem to just be worried about making sure those people who have reached 70/80 amused so that they continue their subscription, rather than look after some of the newer people to WoW.

Now Blizzard may say that the original content is still enough to continue attracting people to game, as it definitely did 4 years ago. However i think if they made some changes to this original content then they would keep attracting new people. But also, they would attract more experienced people to start an/some Alternate Character/s. This would not only mean they would be continuing their subscription, but would also mean they would see the game in a new light and feel it has been refreshed.

Now i may just be having a nag for no reason, but to top it all, the Patch is around 900MB, which unsurprisingly is rather big, especially when one doesn't live in the cities and has an Internet connection that downloads at about 60KB/s. Plus the fact you can't play whilst it's downloading (yes i know that is justified) means if you didn't know it was coming you have to wait ages before you can actually play.

I'm perfectly happy for people to disagree with what i've said here, and would be perfectly happy for some of you to challenge some of the things i have said. In fact i invite it. If you agree or disagree with what i have said please feel free to discuss this more. I would like to know what other people think about this.

That's all for now,

Laters People. . .

Me and Call of Duty

All I really wanted to say here is to try and explain my position with Call of Duty (PS3 for me), as I am sure that I will mention it a lot in some of my other articles.

Putting it basically,Call of Duty 4, I love it. Ever since I got the game with my PS3 in its bundle, I've hardly not gone a week without playing it at least once. I would go as far as saying that it is one of, if not the best, First Person Shooters I've played, and maybe even one of the best/the best games I've EVER played.

Now I really liked COD4, and a great deal is down to the fact that it is set in the present day(ish) and so therefore seems a great deal more fun. Despite this, when Treyarch made Call of Duty: World at War (Infinity Ward are the ones who made COD4) they decided to go back to WW2, even though it seems that that genre has been overdone quite a bit.

This seems to make the game not as good, and i think there is something about the graphics that makes it seem less appealing than COD4, for me. The gamplay seems a little slower, the multiplayer seems like it is just wrong ( Sorry I cant explain it :D) makes it far less popular than the first. However it does have one redeemable point that works really well. Nazi Zombies.


Now for those of you who don't know, Nazi Zombies pits you and up to 3 allies in a cornered off building (by invisible walls anyway) which Zombies (of the Nazi variety) are trying to get in and kill you. Now you have to stop this by boarding up the windows and walls, and killing the zombies with all the guns that you find in the building. The zombies also come at you in waves, with a little break between each wave. You also get points for killing the zombies and repairing the blockades, which you use to buy guns and access other parts of the building.

Now what i really like about this, is that simply, it works so well. It is almost like a complicated tower defense except it is a lot more involving. If you have never had a go at Nazi Zombies then i urge to do so and soon as possible.

Also! Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (a.k.a COD6) is coming out in the winter and as long as it is fairly similar to the original, there will be very little complaints, as the first game worked so well. If they keep their great Internet they should have no problems.

That's about it for now people, you probably hear me talk more about COD4, 5 and even 6 in the future,

Laters people.

Netbook Funds Update and Amazon Rant

Some of you may have noticed that I talked about the fact that I have been trying to raise enough money for me to buy an Acer Aspire One notebook (here), as a Laptop is a much greater price budget, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be allowed one . Anyway, I have now finally hit my total budget, of £170, and one of the major ways I achieved this was selling some of my games on Amazon. (By the way, if you live in the UK I would seriously recommend going to www.comet.co.uk, as they are offering the 1GB RAM, 120GB hard drive, Linux version for £170, which is ridiculously cheaper than any competitors, although it is very much subject to availability.

Now one of the things I now want to point out, and something that annoys me to no end, is that when you first create an Amazon selling account, you have to wait 14 days before you can receive your money, which is not too bad. But it gets worse. Because Amazon uses your bank account to do the transactions, it takes 6 to 10 working days for the money to be transferred into your account.
This can mean that it could take up to 2 weeks for the money to be deposited into your account. Now for me this was a major problem, because as i mentioned earlier, my Netbook was subject to availability, and now, only a day after I asked for my money to be dispursed, has become out of stock. I therefore have no idea if Comet will get more in stock (I pray that they do) and if Amazon could have speeded up the transaction, I could have bought the Netbook already.


One of the things that really baffles me is why Amazon haven't gone along the road that eBay took, and use PayPal. Not only is this a really fast method of transferring money, but it is also very safe and reliable. It makes no sense that Amazon shouldn't use PayPal, especially if people really do need their money fast (e.g. to pay the rent).
The money is actually ours, and so i believe Amazon shouldn't dilly dally around, delaying the payments being transferred. Also a lot of transactions can now be done through online banking and there should be no reason why Amazon couldn't use this to speed things up.

And so I conclude, that until Amazon starts to incorporate PayPal into their payments' scheme, eBay will have the upper hand when it comes to receiving YOUR money.

That's all for now,
Laters people.

iPod's and iTunes Quick Start Guide

I've seen many people have some trouble with iTunes and setting up their iPod so they can achieve maximum efficiency with their iPod, most notably my family :D. Therefore i have decided to put together a Quick Start Guide for iPods and iTunes, so that people can work out the basics very quickly and easily.

You can download the .doc here:

http://rapidshare.com/files/219723263/Ipod_and_itunes.doc

Hope this helps some people out.

Thats all for now,
Laters

Selling: Amazon vs eBay

I have recently started using Amazon, not for the common reason that most people have to buy, but to sell. I'm sure like many of you do, I myself have a lot of games lying around that were good in their time, but no longer serve me any purpose and I don't think I will ever play again, and I wanted to sell!

Therefore I am going to explain the differences between Amazon, what I am using, and eBay, which I have used in the past, and will be best for you.

Now a lot of people see eBay as the best place to go to sell your unwanted things, including Video Games, and it can be good, but I believe that with my experiences with Amazon I have found that Amazon itself is better for this specific job. The list below details all the things that I think go better on Amazon and all the things that should really be on eBay:

Amazon

• Video Games
• Consoles
• Electricals (Mainly entertainment)
• Books (including eBooks)

eBay

• Clothes
• Fan based items (e.g. signed photo/signed shirt)
• Modeling/Art (e.g. Warhammer)
• Tools (e.g. Power tools)
• Cars (not too confident about eBay motors but since Amazon doesn't sell cars at all this is the best of the two

Now what practically everyone who is selling items via the internet wants to do, is maximize their profits. I have based the above lists partially on this, so selling books on Amazon for example, will generally reap more cash than if you sold the same book on eBay (obviously there will be exceptions but its a basic guideline)


What do they both charge when selling?


Now both companies are out to make money, and will charge you on different things when selling your item. I'm going to compare the two and what they involve:



Amazon fees

Listing: A massive advantage of Amazon is that there is no listing fee
Percentage of Price if Sold: 17.25% of the sales price (11.5% for Electronics & Photo items)
Other: Individuals selling at Marketplace pay a GBP 0.86 per item completion fee (which is $0.99)

eBay fees

Listing: What eBay do is they have a listing fee that is based on your initial Starting price of the auction. If you start it high you are charged more than if you start it lower. This fee is paid even if your item is never sold.
Percentage of Price if Sold: It is around 10% but it is quite complicated so you can go here to see all the different charges for listing and final value fees for eBay
Other:They also charge you more if you include a Reserve Price, Buy It Now, Scheduled Listings and/or Format Enhancements.

From this we can see that Amazon collects all your fees at the end of selling, meaning if you never sell it, you don't have to pay anything. However the final percentage is quite a bit bigger than that of eBay


Ease of Use


So now we have gotten the fees out of the way, i'm going to discuss how easy the two are to use:

Amazon

Amazon's website is incredibly easy to use. All you need to do is select a category, search for whatever you want to sell and then select it. You then simply need to put in its condition if its Used, what price your putting it as( it shows the lowest price that there is making it easy for you to assess the market) and how many you are selling. And that's it. If the item you are selling is already in the enormous database of products that Amazon has, then all the technical specifications and details are already there and you don't need to write anything about it. (If something you want to sell is not in their database then you can create a new one I believe although I haven't had to do this at all). This makes listing things on Amazon very fast and very easy.

eBay

I find eBay's website a bit harder to use than Amazon's. Actually listing your product is easy as you can put in anything you want which is an advantage of eBay, but once you've chosen the category and name of the item you are selling you then have to write in a description of the product you are selling. This often needs to be quite long for people to be convinced enough to bid on your item although you can easily copy the product information from another website, this adds more time onto the process.

Postage and Packaging


Both Amazon and eBay have P&P programs in action.

With eBay, it is the seller who determines the P&P, and he can put this at any price he sees the item will take to send.

With Amazon however there is set fees for P&P, and so when you list your item this is autmatically added.




Traffic

In terms of how many potential customers there are for each then I do believe they are quite similar, but it is the way the searches work in Amazon that puts it ahead of eBay.

When you search in eBay for a product as a seller, you get all the different products there in front of you as a list. This means that the amount of people that could potentially buy your product is split between a lot of competition.

There is not this problem in Amazon however. If a buyer come along and searches for your product, there will be probably only one product that matches exactly what he wants. He will then proceed to click on this and all the Used and New prices will be displayed nearby. Also if your item is the cheapest of all the items with the same condition then people will almost always go for your product.

I would also like to make a point here that I personally would view Amazon as a more trustworthy place to go, and I'm sure many people do the same but just don't realise it. I therefore think that people will be more inclined to come to Amazon than eBay especially if they are planning on spending a lot of money.


Conclusion

So I'm going to try and make a conclusion to this and try and answer the original question: Which is Better?

I think that both Amazon and eBay have both their own pros and cons to them. For example Amazon may not charge you for listing your product in the first place but they charge you more when you do sell your item. Also eBay is very popular meaning alot of people will look at it, but also this means there are alot of items similar to yours being sold so the traffic is split dramatically.

And so i would like to originate back to my original list of what each website is best for, as I think that seems to sum up what i have said. I would say however that I do prefer Amazon to eBay and find it a very good method for selling my games.

Thats all for now,
Laters

Skate 2 Review (PS3 and XBOX360)

Hey guys we are going to review Skate 2. Both me and Dunders own the game and have put our heads together to write the review.

We would say Skate 2 is very similar to the original Skate game. Many people would say that’s obvious but some games do change as they progress.

The story line isn’t great to be honest; you start as a skater that has just come out of jail after 10 years. A new company has come and taken over the city, and have clamped down on skating. They have placed metal caps on rails, walls, everywhere that would be good for skating. This means you can only grind certain stuff.


As you get further into the game, you unlock services, like Big Black who is a bodyguard, protecting you from the pesky security guards that there are in the more indoor areas. You also have Mike who uncaps those places that have been capped by the company for you. Also you have Sammy who drain pools for you so you can skate in them. These factors make the game a little more exciting and a little more fun. You do have to pay for the services but they don’t cost much, since you get money for every challenge you complete. This means you have plenty of money to pay for these services and for any new gear that you want to customize your skater.


The challenges themselves are fairly easy but some of them do really test your analogue skills. We've found that loads of people get stuck on different challenges. Also some of the challenges are written to trick you, where you think you have to do one thing and something all in one, but you can do them separately. The map is big and very detailed, which makes it a good place to skate around in.


The public and other skaters are very annoying though, they seem to walk/skate in front of you when you’re doing something really important. This is one the most annoying things in the world, because you gain a lot of speed, and then some complete idiot walks in front of you. A lot people were very excited about the fact you can get off your board, but its not very good to be honest. It’s the same movement controls as when you’re on your board, which means turning is still hard.



There is a lot of objects that can be used for tricks, like grinds, and tail slides, meaning finding those new spots on the map is very rewarding. The hall of meat has changed since the last game. It now does not show you the bones you have broken unless you have set a new personal record. This can be a little frustrating as it was fun in the last game to look at all the bones you have broken each time you fell. The amazing thing about the new hall of meat is the challenges. You have to certain things to get awards and this is also an extra source of money for your little piggy bank. Also the final challenges are repeatable which makes it another way to get money.


The way you do tricks is the same as the original skate, and people either love it or hate it. You use the right analogue stick to control the board, and the left analogue stick for spinning. And that’s about it. Apart from the shoulder buttons for grabs there is very little use of any of the other buttons. We do think this way of performing tricks is very effective, but sometimes it is not so great. For example doing a kick flip 360, has to be perfectly accurate and if you do it slightly wrong it does not perform the correct trick, which can get really annoying. Once you have mastered the tricks, you can have a great deal of fun.


A new thing to skate 2 is you can move ramps, benches, and a lot more objects to help you in your mission to own the city with your skating skills. This means you can move these things to change the way you play the game.

Overall we give this game...



8/10



It is a lot better than the original Skate and is a must have for skating fans. The controls can get rather annoying and frustrating though and the AI is not very well done.



If you wish to pick up this Skating classic:

Skate 2 (PS3)
Skate 2 (Xbox 360)

Skate 2 Video Tutorial: 900 degree trick (#3 of 3)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbPEEX23sVU

In the final of Dunders' video tutorials he explains how to achieve a 900 degree trick (e.g pop shuvit, ollie, e.t.c). The video explains the best place to go to do it, the tips to do the actual trick and Dunders' usual cool voice :D. You can also use the same place to achieve a 1020 degree turn although I assure you this is a lot harder.

Look out for our Skate 2 review coming soon.

Thats all for now,

Laters.

Skate 2 Video Tutorial: 20,000 Body Points (#2 of 3)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SziTA1GA_NM

Number 2 of the video tutorials on Skate 2 by Dunders is how to achieve the Hall of Meat challenge: Getting 20,000 body points. A quick and easy tutorial on how to achieve the challenge, detailing where the best place to do this is, what you need to do and where to jump off.
Also please note that body points are different to the points you see when you bail. You will only see how many body points you have just earned when you complete a hall of meat challenge.

Stay tuned for the 3rd and final video tutorial coming soon.

Thats all for now,

Laters.

Skate 2 Video Tutorial: Alien Manual Shop challenge (#1 of 3)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v11o8r41HuM

In the first of 3 video tutorials for Skate 2, the newest Skating game released on both the PS3 and XBOX360, my friend Dunders has put together a guide on how to complete the "Alien Manual Shop" challenge very easily. This proved to be a great deal of help to me as well, as I had a hard time trying to do that challenge, so I hope it is just as useful for you guys.

This is basically a little bit of a glitch so if you want to complete the challenge properly (the traditional method) then this may not be for you. But if you've had it with this challenge and its starting to get on your nerves, this is perfect.

Along with the other 2 video tutorials I will also be posting a Skate 2 review put together by me and Dunders who both have the game.

Thats all for now.
Laters.

iPod Touch Video Review

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH2dJF3F29M (Part 1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvFV3CRi_A4 (Part 2)

Yet another video review, as I did them all at once in one enourmous reviewing mood (that doesn't really make sense :S)

This time of the iPod Touch which is probably the most well known mp3 player at the moment along with the iPhone (which is very similar apart from the fact it is a phone)

I can tell you one thing. Its not famous for no reason. It really is the best player on the market although obviously quite a bit more expensive than the 'budget' mp3 players that there are.

The official JonoEvo Review for the iPod Touch was:

10/10

You can buy the iPod Touch in 3 different memories:

8GB
16GB
32GB

Enjoy

Oblivion Video Review

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c64y_4jE0f0

Another video review here of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblvion (available on thePS3, XBOX360 and PC)

I've tried to detail all of the good and bad points in the game and try to show you what the game really is like therefore explaining whether you are going to like it if you buy it.

At the end I tried to give it a score but i think I forgot so afterwards I gave it an official JonoEvo rating of . . . .

8/10

You can buy Oblivion on the PS3 here:
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

XBOX360 here:
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

and on the PC here:
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Enjoy!

Creative Zen Video Review

I've finally got down to doing this review (and a few others as well all at once which i'll be posting soon, i promise :D) of the Creative Zen Mp3/Mp4 Player.


I think this is a great little player and it offers an excellent alternative to the vastly known iPod Touch and is VASTLy cheaper.
The addition of the fact you can press the buttons blindly (in your pocket) and its expandable memory makes it a really interesting prospect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYo0YI_PjCM

I gave the Creative Zen . . .

9/10

Creative have also followed by releasing a Creative Zen X-Fi, which appears to be just as reasonably priced.

You can check both out here:

Creative ZEN

Creative ZEN X-Fi

Mario Kart DS Review

Mario Kart DS is often one of the most talked about games on the DS, but why is this. I’m going to try and explain why a lot of people rate it so highly, and some points that should also be noted

As the title suggests this is a racing game at heart. The first time you play you are faced with a lot of different modes to choose from, Grand Prix, Versus, Missions and Time Trial to name some. Most new players should start of with Grand Prix, as it gets you into the game straight away and has a learning curve to improve your skills.

You now have the option of choosing 50cc, 100cc and 150cc. This is the games difficulty setting, with 150cc making the CPU Karts better and 50cc making the CPU Karts, to put it straight, quite bad. But these don’t just change the difficulty. The also change how fast all the Karts travel, with 150cc mode being when you travel quite fast, and 50cc quite slow.

You can now move onto a fun part of the game, choosing your character and Kart. There are 9 Characters to choose from at the beginning, but as you progress in the Grand Prix mode more characters are unlocked. At this stage in the game the character you choose also affects the Karts you can choose. Once a character is picked you can choose your Kart, each one having its individual attributes. Again more Karts can be unlocked as you progress through the Grand Prix Mode.

So once you have chosen all these, you can select a cup, which determines the 4 tracks you will play on.
The different options and selections you can make mean the customisation of the game is very accessible and impressive.

But what’s the game play actually like.
Very good I have to say. The game is smooth and slick, with the cornering and handling aspects of the game spot on. The array of different weapons that you can use to gain an upper hand on the opposition is great, and it hasn’t lagged all the time I have played on it.
The tracks that you can play on are varied and exciting, especially the ones new to this game.
One thing to note is that as with many other DS games, the graphics aren’t terrific. If you’re new to the DS you may find them quite blocky but if you are familiar with the DS, then compared to other DS games, it has quite good graphics really.

One of the best things of Mario Kart is the multiplayer features. You can not only play against your friends but also against people all over the world via Wi-Fi. I myself and 4-6 other people often play Mario Kart on the bus, and a great amount of fun is to be had playing against your friends to be the best player.
Wi-Fi is also great, with an easy to use system to find other people to play. This creates endlees fun for this game, making it a great value for money.

Verdict

If you are a DS owner, buy it! A must have game for all people passionate about Nintendo and the DS.
If you are looking for a realistic driving game then Mario Kart may not be your answer, but if you’re looking to have fun, then it sure is.

I'd Give This

9 / 10

Classic Game and a must have.

You can pick up Mario Kart here:

Mario Kart DS