I only wish this was a joke, but its not, now available overseas and in my personal opinion, hopefully never in SA. The NES Belt Buckle is a 8bit console that attaches to your belt, it is extremely large and cumbersome. Comes with a  power adapter, connector cables and 2 controllers all for $300(USD).

Author: Reme Le Hane - Cyburbia Computers

Popularity: 4%

Another hilarious applications by the Japanese, now available for the iPhone is a game called Mosquito, and quite literally you have to swat the mosquito.

Unfortunately its not that simple, the game requires you to put on your headphones and listen for the mosquitos buzzing and try and figure out were it is in the vicinity of your head and just like in everyone’s favourite movie. Karate Kid, and not too unlike the chopstick fly catching you have to attempt to swat this non existent with your actual iPhone.

Not likely a game to take the world by storm but will definitely be worth a  few laughs when you let your friends try it out.

Author: Reme Le Hane - Cyburbia Computers

Popularity: 4%

A recent video clip show the British Army using the Xbox 360 controller to control their Robot Assassin Plane.

To read more and view this interesting Video Clip CLICK HERE

Author: Reme Le Hane - Cyburbia Computers

Popularity: 9%

1.Go green with their keyboard, or well use a reasonable copy, take a good measure and grow some grass inside what looks to be the users keyboard.

2.False Crash, MS has a lovely self mockery screen saver just perfect for this. It literally is a screen saver of the infamous BSOD (Blue Screen of Death).

3.Change the language setting, pick your medium, you have so many, too choose form, starting with windows itself or even just the Office application among many others, be creative pick a  language that will make this an extreme confusion, Chinese, Russian, take your pick.

4.Make the Optical or Laser mouse go ape, simply stick some clear tape over the sensor and colour the 1 side with a marker pen and presto.

5.Default MS words settings to something more creative, like making all the text shimmer, or adjust the   auto correct settings to make it auto-incorrect. LOL

Now be nice, remember to undo your joke before the person goes into shock.

Author: Reme Le Hane - Cyburbia Computers

Popularity: 10%

StokedGamer.com has learnt that the new 55nm, the successor to the currently new GTX280, will be launched at the year’s (2008) NVISION. In the past Nvidia always released their new GOU’s at the Geforce LAN, which is although still part of NVISION, the current scope makes it far larger than a big LAN Party.

The 2008 NVISION will be held in San Jose, California from the 25th to 27th of August.

Author: Reme Le Hane - Cyburbia Computers

Popularity: 9%

The main enhancements of the Cinematic mod are the sound and graphics details. Version 8 however also offers new character models, high- resolution textures and physical gimmicks such as hair movement. There are also dynamic shadows, HDR rendering and motion blur. CM* uses the latest version of Source’s Engine, the Orange Box Engine, and does not only limit the improvements to Episode 2, but also to Episode 1 and Half Life 2.

If you have all 3 of the Half Life games then you can download the 6.4GB package at the Half Life Portal. Recommendations for you system, because of the large textures, are above 2GB of RAM and a 64 Bit OS. Your graphics card also needs to support Shader model 3 and have more than 256MB video memory.

Bellow a few screen shots courtesy of PCGH, visit the site to view the video clip.

Author: Reme Le Hane - Cyburbia Computers

Popularity: 22%

The battle rages on with the new 4850 just hitting our shores and all information indicates that the 4850 is going to have a good run. As usual the ATI Range is far cheaper than nVidia’s especially when you compare the top end cards.

Currently that makes it the 4850 vs the GX-280.
With way more bang in the nVidia line for those of you willing to drop the salary paycheck or 2 on the 280 then by all means, even though performance wise these 2 cards match up fairly equally depending on the scenario, after having read a review on Tom’s Hardware (Links to 4870 vs 260, scores listed for the 4850 and 280 as well) bellow i included the score charts borrowed from Tom just to give you an idea of what is going on.

As you can see the new cards are not really even that much better than the older ones, price vs performance the 8800GT 512MB is still probably the best card you ca get. Personally I shall be waiting for the next BIG thing before spending my hard earned cash on the latest Phase, I will start to worry when i can no longer go into the games options and set everything on max.

As for prices you are looking at around R7000 for the 280 and around R4000 for the 4850, its up to you to then decide, is the R3000 difference really worth the performance, is it really that much better than you 8800 or 3850 (X2).

Author: Reme Le Hane - Cyburbia Computers

Popularity: 2%

Well after hearing about the new 3G iPhone on Vodacm’s Website and having not much liked the old one i thought i would do some readon up and give you the lowdown, and personally i feel it still requires a few tweaks before it becomes worth my usage.

MMS
Something standard and quite useful/entertaining for most of us would be the MMS feature and with all the great tech put into the iPhone they somehow managed to neglect the MMS feature which in my opinion would work wonderfully with it’s 2 MP camera and it’s 3G capabilities. The even bothered to include the ability to directly upload your photos/videos to youtube but apparently sending it to the world is more important than people you actually know.

Copy/Paste
Something extremely useful on the computers and becoming and included on many symbian and windows mobile phones especially and of all the advanced features they also forgot this very useful standard feature. I first noticed that feature purely by accident when i got my Nokia 6680 about 3 years ago and since then i can’t say i found it invaluable but it had its advantages @ times. So possibly not a "required" feature by all but for me it would be something i would really of liked to see in such an advanced phone although that on it’s own would not stop my from buying it.

Keyboard
Something that is standardised on most of the pricier business classed windows phones is that lovely sliding keyboard now the touch screen is good and all but for those of you who have used the touch screen mobile phones you will probably agree that typing messages can be a bit more time consuming than would be desired. As for those who upgraded to something with a sliding out keyboard or even just the full QUERTY keyboard on the phone like the Samsung i600 for example, it was definitely a time saving feature and probably a lot more comfortable that the stylus, at least it was for me.

Predictive Test Disabling
Something not all of you are comfortable with is predictive text, the phone guessing what your about to type next. Unfortunately the software controlling that on the iPhone is still inadequate with its small X on the top of its drop down list to close it choice options would be greatly enhanced with eh ability to turn it off, for a phone with a  full QUERTY keyboard i would think a spell checker would serve a better purpose so that we can correct errors as apposed to the phone incorrectly trying to prevent them.

Voice Dialling
This feature has come a long way since it was first included in phones and has even gotten tot he point were it can actually work quite well under most circumstances, it is also a convenient way to make calls especially when in a car using a headset, far safer than having to look for the phone number in your phone book. But yet it is something they felt worthy of leaving out.

All round a very nice device if you believe what the rest of the world says, but the above snippets were complied through a majority of feature complaints across the net. I suppose Apple’s path into the Mobile Phone market made them feel the need to be different and original but in my opinion things that work should be included especially when it something that improves the day to day use of the device. Hopefully if enough people gripe about these major problems that a possible fix or update will be released by apple.

Author: Reme Le Hane - Cyburbia Computers

Popularity: 2%

News from Scots Valley California, Seagate has managed to reclaim its place as the leader in storage capacity on the hard drive market with its latest 1.5TB (Terabyte) hard disk drive, an amazing 50% larger that current market leader.

Question is what will the selling price be, with current terabyte drives pricing around R2500.00. It may still be quite a while before your average home user goes out to blow the months salary on some extra space.

Author: Reme Le Hane - Cyburbia Computers

Popularity: 2%

Not just that i cant find the ” button.

Recently I got a new Packard Bell laptop and really like it so far. Just now and then i run into a massive lack of design creativity. I dont know what else to call it.

The problem is that keyboards and mousepads have been made for ages the same way. That is because people are used to something and they want what they are used to. They also want things that work. And something that has proven to work should be used if you want to have satisfied people with your product.

Now on my new laptop keyboard i can see the end button which is also a button i used to use a lot without even noticing it. Before i can use the end button i have to almost dislocate my fingers to somehow push the fn and then the end button.

Now being a fast typer i find that really annoying because it stops me thinking about the subject i am blogging about and puts all my focus on trying to push the end button.

As they say. If it works dont fix it.

Popularity: 2%

So i got a Packard Bell laptop. When I was looking at it in the shop i did not think much of the round circle keyboard with the one button that you can click left and right. But working with it seems near impossible. The scrolling sucks so bad you have to plug in a usb mouse.

Quickly browsing sites becomes more of a chore and if you have to scroll down you bet your attention wont be on the site. It will be on the mousepad or touchpad trying to figure out where the heck to scroll with the thing.

So dear Packard Bell if you want to make your laptops look like Apple at least make sure the stuff works before you actually sell it.

To the buyer: if you see a laptop with a round touchpad. DONT BUY IT.

Popularity: 2%

I have just uploaded a image with Windows Live writer and it was way quicker than the normal method. I am really starting to like Windows Live writer. Just a pity one cant use it on Ubuntu. But since I now have a laptop with Windows Vista i might as well take advantage of the features and available programs.

Uploading a image with windows Live Writer is fairly easy. Just click on add picture and upload. Very simple.

Popularity: 2%

This is a part of a series i started on Laptopblog.co.za

One of the most important thing for a blogger to find a great Laptop is the keyboard. Sure you find the best laptop with the greatest functions. It’s got everything you need and even more. The price is great and everything seems fine. Until you take it home.

The problem starts when the touchpad is to close to the keyboard. In a certain packard bell laptop I have whenever you push to hard on the keyboard or the area infront of the keyboard the mouse goes crazy and starts clicking.

Now that’s not good if you are writing a blog post or article.

Another thing you have to look at when searching for a great laptop, netbook or notebook is that the buttons rise out far enough to type fast. That is off course if you can type. I find it really annoying and before I look at any functions on a laptop the keyboard has to be working like I want it. The touchpad should not do anything if you press hard around the sides of the touchpad and the mouse should also not move when typing or touching the area around the touch pad.

So this is one thing you really should look at before buying a laptop. The keyboard and the touchpad.

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