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