My ISP (Sky) are changing from using Google Email to Yahoo Email. As such I have set up a new GMAIL email address. The plus side to this is that everything will continue to sync seamlessly.
My new email address; MGAdams1970@gmail.com
Please add it to your contact lists and delete my previous scooby1970@sky.com.
Thank you,
Mark.
Monday, 24 December 2012
Wednesday, 18 July 2012
Playstation Access TV - Review
Access TV is a little gem hidden in the download sections of
the Playstation Network. For those who don’t know, every week Sony release a
ten-minute TV program called Access TV. Hosted by comedian Lucy Porter, Access
TV takes a look at the latest and greatest news from the world of Playstation.
Access TV is free and it’s contents usually include new
releases, games available on the store and special features. What really makes
the special show is the commentary and the slick presentation. Lucy Porter does
a fine job of making you laugh at even the most serious of subjects, always
finding innuendos to make you chuckle at.
The show is now past forty episodes, and each show is usually
around 500mb in total to download. If you’re a fan of gaming, and great commentaries,
then Access TV is the show for you. Why any self respecting Playstation owner who
is hooked up to the internet misses out on this fantastic program is beyond
me... Or maybe they just don’t know that it is out there.
Visit the Playstation Store now, search for Access TV in the
search bar or visit the New Releases section.
Tuesday, 3 July 2012
Top 10 Surf And Hot Rod Vocal Songs
To celebrate over 50,000 views of my top ten surf and hot
rod vocals compilation, I have added this blog to let you know why I chose
these songs and what makes them so great.
There have been many comments on these songs, and to date
46 likes and 6 dislikes. The one reason for dislikes seems to be because there
is no Dick Dale, or to put it more specifically, no Miserlou. That’s because it’s
a vocal collection and not an instrumental collection. Also, people mention
that there is no Jan & Dean or Beach Boys, yes, that is correct, and that
is because I wanted to show something different… If Jan & Dean and The
Beach Boys were included, you’d miss out on half of these great songs in this
top 10!
So, this is the top ten, and this is why I like them…
10: Bruce &
Terry – Custom Machine
Bruce Johnston of The Beach Boys and Terry Melcher cover
this Beach Boys song and make it something very special, that muggy sound of
Bruce & Terry really is haunting and gives the song a really unique feel.
09: Ronny &
The Daytona’s – Beach Boy
These guys were landlocked surfers and a lot of their music
was drenched in a Country & Western vibe, but Beach Boy is a stunning song with a catchy melody that has summer
written all over it.
08: The Rip Chords
– Hot Rod USA
Featuring our favourite Bruce Johnston again, and written
by none other than Bobby Darin, Hot Rod
USA is to cars, what Surfin’ USA
was to the Surf. Amazing!
07: The Astronauts
– My Little Beach Bunny
Another landlocked American band, The Astronauts recorded
some truly inspiring instrumentals. Although Baja was probably their strongest recording, and one of the greatest
instrumentals ever, My Little Beach Bunny
is fun and far superior to the Gary Usher recording of the same name.
06: The Surfaris –
Boss Barracuda
Boss Barracuda
by The Surfaris is simply awesome. No other word can describe this song, and
Ron Wilson’s vocal along with Gary Ushers production make this song candidate for
one of the best car songs ever.
05: The Fantastic
Baggys – Surfer’s Rule
Jan & Dean’s one-time backing duo are none other than
Phil Sloan and Steve Barri. Surfer’s Rule
shows you what a powerful team these two young lads were, and the song belts
along at a fantastic pace telling the story of every young American during that
era. I wish Surfer’s still ruled.
04: The Super
Stocks – Hot Rod High
Gary Ushers gang of deviants take up the next four
positions, and for good reason. These records could have been The Beach Boys,
or Jan & Dean. These records were raw, full of fun and passion, and Hot Rod High by The Super Stocks rocks!
03: The Devons – Honda Bike
Honda Bike has one of the best melodies ever put to
record. The Devons were basically The Super Stocks/The Hondells, but we don’t
care, this record is as good as Little
Honda, and as much fun.
02: The Hondells –
My Buddy Seat
Next to The Beach Boys and Jan & Dean, The Hondells
were popular at a certain time and place. They had a US chart hit with a cover
of Little Honda, but it is My Buddy Seat
that really shines through as one of the greatest hot rod recordings of all
time.
01: The Wheel Men –
School Is A Gas
We all agree, and I think you’ll see that… school is
A/Gas. Gary Usher and gangs finest piece of work is this fantastic short song.
It can be found by other artists as School Is A Drag, but this recording has
all the right pieces in all the right places. “A/Gas” refers to the type of
fuel that hot rod racers preferred, and the “A” to me represents the pinnacle
of surf and hot rod music. This song is a sonic journey like you’ve never heard
before, it’s mono, it’s raw, it’s rough and its damn right mind-blowing.
There we have it. A review of the top ten surf and hot
rod songs of the 1960’s. Once this video reaches 75,000 I will add a top 10
Surf/Hot Rod instrumentals, and once it gets to 100,000 views I will add videos
11-20 for both vocal and instrumental. Until then, keep surfin’.
Gaming Illustrated Reviews 2012
As many of you know, I have started doing freelance work for
Gaming Illustrated, a website dedicated to all things gaming on the PC, Console
and various tablets. This of course has meant that I have not had chance to
update my own blog, so I thought I would bring together a list of all the links
to my articles.
In addition to these, there are three more articles pending
and ready to go live to the millions of visitors of this exciting new website.
Babel Rising Review (PS3/PSN Move)
A nice little God game you can play with the PS Move from the PSN.
An RTS game that in this edition is quite a joy to play.
One of the best games for the iPad, and a real winner. Awesomeness galore.
Another RTS and another interesting game.
These game really should be on your iPad!
So, please take a look at the reviews and comment on them of you could. If you are an owner of a website who needs a freelance writer, then please do not hesitate to contact me.
Enjoy the many thousands of words included in those reviews and call back soon for an update to this blog.
:) Mark
Thursday, 24 May 2012
5 Best iPad News Apps
News. For some it brings up the fear of death and
destruction in the World, for other it’s a catalogue of World information that
they just can’t get enough of. If like
me you just can’t get enough of the news, then there are quite a few brilliant
apps on the iPad Store that you can download and always be in touch with what’s
going on in the World.
What makes a good news application? Firstly, and most
importantly it has to be the content. A news app would be no good without the
latest news, and the news that you actually want. It is in this respect that
these five top news applications differ, as some have more specific areas of
news than others. In that respect they all offer something different to the end
user.
Secondly, they have to be easy to use. It should be
second-nature for you to pick up your iPad, click on the chosen app and just
read the news you want. Surprisingly,
some apps fail on this simple step, however these chosen should be quick and
intuitive to use.
So, without further ado, and in no particular order, here
are the top five News Applications that you should download onto your iPad. And
they are all free!
News Republic
The News Republic Application is what all apps should be
like on the iPad store. It looks smart, is quick and intuitive and is
customisable so that you can get the news you want, when you want it. News
Republic can be read both landscape and portrait, but landscape mode is by far
the easiest and cleanest way of reading it. To the left of the screen is a list
of all the top stories, and taking up most of the screen that’s left is the
article.
News Republic gathers news from around the world from
numerous sources, probably too many sources to mention. You can customise it by
selecting such news groups as Technology, iPad, Movies, Internet, Sport,
Business, Videos and so much more, plus of course there’s access to the main
news headlines.
News Republic really is the most capable application for
your news and views of the World. It’s got a fantastic interface and everything
is one place. The one thing it is lacking at the moment is regional news, so as
I am in Wales for example, it cannot show a specific section for my region. It’s
not only a problem with News Republic though and affects other programs.
Overall, News Republic is a first-class application which
is worthy of download.
Google Currents
Google Currents is a clever little program. Technically
it takes feeds from various websites and displays them in a format similar to a
newspaper. Set-up is fairly straight forward, you choose which feeds you want
to add to the program, and then just let it do its thing. Feeds include The
Guardian, The Independent, The Metro, 500x, Motley Fool, Games Radar and around
50 other titles from around the World. As you can see from the list, these
include newspapers, gaming magazines, photography sites and a whole host of
other content.
Google Currents starts on a home-screen where you choose
which of your feeds you want to read. It then takes you to a newspaper-type
contents page, displaying headlines with photos of leading articles plus a
whole lot more. It sounds brilliant, and in practise it is pretty special.
Overall the whole presentation and content is acceptable and will give more
than enough news for a quick read on the go. Google Currents is very useful,
and very informative, and you can view it in both landscape and portrait mode.
This time however, portrait mode works best, as it takes the look and feel of a
newspaper.
Sky News
The Sky News App is a flashy affair. It can only be used
in landscape mode, but that means Sky can concentrate on bringing you an app
that looks fantastic, is smooth and fast and brings you a great selection of
news straight from Sky News.
Sky News content is taken directly from the news channel
itself, and the focus is on streaming content. You can click on a news story,
and it opens a new page with streaming video of the particular news article,
plus support content such as a written article with more in-depth views, and
sometimes Twitter feeds or extra photographs.
The Sky News application is your window to the World, and
has the usual UK news, World news, sport and business, plus any special
features that may be running at the time. It’s a lot more in-depth than most of
the other news apps and you can spend some serious time watching the videos and
reading each article.
Sky News brings all the content on this application, so
you know the standard is going to be high, but you also know that it’s a lot
more general in certain areas than more dedicated apps.
BBC News
Just like the Sky News App, the BBC News app is a great
looking program. It feels more like the News Republic app to use, but is all
very simple and user-friendly. The BBC has its vast resources to call upon to
make the BBC News App another must-have application for your iPad.
You can choose your region in the BBC News app, so areas
such as Wales, Scotland and Ireland are covered in a lot more detail than other
news apps. Usually though, these are nothing more than brief summaries, but at
least you get the option of having this local news.
Both text and video are used to great effect, and the BBC
News app feels just like something from the BBC should feel. Well built,
informative, easy to use an good on the eyes.
Guardian
Eyewitness
Guardian Eyewitness is a little different. Each day it
shares a picture or two from around the World of a specific event. These events
can vary, and range from famous sporting events, to major catastrophes.
The aim of the Guardian Eyewitness application is to
present you with an image which you can view for more than just a couple of
seconds and study in great detail, provoking your mind to experience something
new and different.
For the most part this app just works. It’s simple and
really does get you viewing the photos in a way that you never thought you
would view a photo. What’s more, each photo comes with a brief description, and
also information on how to take a photo just like the one on show. It’ll give
photographers tips on ISO levels, shutter speeds and a lot more. Guardian
Eyewitness can be described as simply awesome.
Monday, 21 May 2012
Getting Your Downloaded Films Onto An iPad
Putting your Movies on your iPad
Many people believe that the Apple iPad can only play video
formats that are associated with Apple. That means downloading Divx (.avi)
files and other such similar formats will not play on your Apple iPad. However,
with this brief article I will show you how simple it is to add your film
download collection, regardless of format to your iPad. Within a few minutes
you will be watching your latest film that you downloaded via a torrent client.
The first thing you need to do is download the film of
course, and have a PC that has iTunes installed onto it so that you can easily
transfer files from the PC across to your iPad. The second thing you need is a
program on your iPad that will play .avi files. The program I recommend is “Flex
Player” which is a free app available from the App store.
“Flex Player”
Flex Player is a great free piece of software that allows
you to play .avi, DivX, Xvid, VOB, MP4, MOV and many more formats. It has a
simple to use interface which shows a list of all the videos you have installed
onto your iPad and you simply click on the video to watch the film.
In-Movie controls are pretty straight forward, with
Play/Pause, Forward and Reverse. You can also drag the title marker to any
specific point of time in the film. The whole package is only just over 8MB in
size and from quite a lot of use it seems to be pretty stable.
Installing a film on your pad – The steps to follow
- First of all, make sure you have iTunes installed on your PC and that your iPad is tied to that PC.
- Connect your iPad to iTunes.
- Click on the “Applications” section and scroll down to the bottom of the screen.
- Find “FlexPlayer” and click the “Add” button.
- Browse your PC Folders to where your movies are stored and simply add them.
- Sync your iTunes with your iPad, unplug and click on the “FlexPlayer” application.
Enjoy the film
That’s all there is to it, it’s quick and simple and does
not require you to try and convert your collection into an iPad specific
format. To delete the movies simply load up Flex Player and click on edit, and
then just click the little cross on the side of the films avatar to delete.
Load up your iPad and start enjoying movies!
Monday, 30 April 2012
Avengers Assemble Review
Marvel have tried many times to make great films, and for the most part they succeed. However, is Avengers Assemble the best Marvel film yet? Is it better than the two enjoyable Hulk films? Is it more action packed than the Thor film? Is it filled with more gadgets than both Iron Man 1 and 2? If it slicker than Spiderman? Is it dark like the worlds of Daredevil and Elektra? Is it as much fun as an X-Men movie? Well, to sum it up, it's all of the above and a hell of a lot more. Marvels The Avengers is a blockbuster of the finest quality in all departments, right from the off it's filled with funny one-liners, great action sequences and special effects that make your eyes pop-out in awe!
For comic fans myself it was a joy to watch the inter-play between characters such as Banner and Stark. These two characters in particular were fun to watch on-screen. Tony Stark is played by Robert Downey Jr who brings the comic book character of Iron Man to life on a par with how Hugh Jackman plays Wolverine (probably the greatest interpretation of a Marvel Character). Meanwhile, Mark Raffalo plays Dr David Banner in a way not seen since the TV series. For fans of the original TV show, its good to know that The Hulk in this film is voiced by none-other than Lou Ferrigno... The original Hulk!
Thor and Captain America carry on from the recent films, and both add a lot to the film. Again, it's nice to see these comic book characters brought to life with such great acting from Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans. Personally I believe that Captain America didn't have as much as a role as he could have had in the film, and this was a little bit of a wasted opportunity. However, Iron Man and The Hulk are such strong characters that they stole most of the scenes that they were in.
The rest of the cast were pretty much done correctly too. Scarlett Johansson reprised her role as Black Widow, however this time they beefed up the characters role and made her much more enjoyable to watch. Hawkeye was played by Jeremy Renner, and again this was close to the comic book character in almost every way.
The bad guy this time was Loki, Thor's brother. Once again played by Tom Hiddleston, and once again a joy to watch. For a bad guy, Loki was fun to watch and had some great one-liners.There's one particular scene which is played to great comedy effect when Loki has a fight with The Hulk. Let's just say the audience in the cinema erupted with laughter.
Avengers Assemble's plot is usual action-movie fare. The bad guys have stolen an energy force that opens a gate-way to another world so the bad-guys can invade in numbers. The invasion is particularly impressive, with some of the best CGI I have ever seen. Fight scenes are fun and full of action, and the movie is generally just one huge action-fest that has you glued from start to finish.
Now to the bad point of the film. As a fan of graphic novels (the new and grown-up word for comics), The Avengers also contain Spiderman!!! Why oh why was he missing from this film? Another Avenger who was missing was Wolverine, again he would have been awesome in this film. What people don't realise is that The Avengers have had hundreds of members over the years coming in and out of the storyline, but Spiderman has almost always been an Avenger! And Wolverine is in the latest stories. Apart from that, and the thought of how much better it would have been to have these characters, I will award The Avengers Assemble a glowing BLOCKBUSTER rating. It's a must own on blu-ray when it gets released, and if the end credits are anything to go by, the follow-up to it should be just as exciting.
Stop reading this now and go watch it!!!
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