I’ve been out of commission for some time now, because not only have I not had internet access but now my laptop has had to go and get repaired.

Around last week or so my laptop decided to freeze whilst playing Titan Quest: Immortal Throne and when I rebooted it, it wouldn’t stop doing the Startup Repair. So, somewhat regretfully, I reformatted my laptop to no avail and have had to send it off to HP to get an HDD replacement.

I’m expecting it back sometime tomorrow, which would just plain own. Unfortunately, because I lost everything on the hard-drive I have lost certain things I can’t replace, due to having no backup (I backup at the end of each month but this happened nowhere near my backup schedule).

So, I’ve ended up losing a few new designs I was working on (most noticeably, the Battlefield 1942-themed one I was working on, and I won’t be restarting it) as well as a few other designs I was working on in Photoshop. Most of the work I’m doing now is unrelated to web design because, when I get my laptop back, I wish to venture into other aspects of digital design to make a portfolio for a design course next year.

The worst things I lost was my website backups, game saves and World of Warcraft patches (for 3.0.2, which is ~1gb, not big but still annoying to download again). On another note…

Creative Suite 4. Yes, I am now changing the subject from my computer problems to Adobe’s CS4 set. I really only have a few words for Adobe on the matter: It all sounds bloody awesome, and I am rather surprised it does since CS4 was released so quickly.

Now all I need is $1,799 USD for the Design Premium set… hah! What I am interested in is the latest Photoshop and Dreamweaver updates (because any old features for InDesign and Illustrator are totally new to me as well because I have yet to try out those two products, which I will be). Dreamweaver CS4’s Ajax and Javascripting code-hinting is just goddamn tasty (since I like trial and error learning, afterall). And I rather like how Photoshop is heading into 3D Design.

I took a quick glance over some other Adobe products. Such as Adobe Contribute and Fireworks (because I had no friggin’ idea what Contribute was, now I know). Contributes ability to edit sites in-browser sounds good and Fireworks function to convert whole websites to PDF is just bloody insane.

It all sounds good in theory, but I plan to see how it sums up in practice.

And here’s a little preview of my latest work, and no it isn’t a layout of the future. As of current I have officially run dry of ideas for new layouts, so I’ve started making layouts based off of the user interfaces for video games. This one is based off Battlefield 1942 but is nowhere near it’s completion yet (quite a few tweaks yet).

When it shall be done, I have no idea. But I’ll post more as it comes! Here’s the preview.

I’m a huge fan of Deus Ex, it’s my favourite game, in fact (even though my fave genre is RPG). I loved the first game (and it’s bible made shortly afterwards) and I didn’t find the second that bad, just screwed up in regards to the storyline, and shared ammunition really does suck.

Now, Deus Ex 3 has been confirmed and announced since December last year, but no recent news. has been posted about it… until now. Yes, that’s right, more news has been released on Deus Ex 3. It seems the PC Gamer Magazine got the full scoop and, as fate would have it, the pages were scanned and uploaded online (though not the text, just the concept art, which is rather annoying).

I won’t post the images directly, just the links to them, because there is a large number of them. And here’s an article from PCZone to go with the following images. Read it, and either weep or shout with joy (I’m weeping). I weep, because certain things, which I’ll explain after these images…

Deus Ex 3 Concept Art #1: A normal Police Officer (normal my ass!)

Deus Ex 3 Concept Art #2: Yeah… too hard to explain this one. 2027 clothing?

Deus Ex 3 Concept Art #3: A lovely, lovely morgue. We all like morgues here right? Right?!

Deus Ex 3 Concept Art #4: I can’t quite tell what this one is either, to me it looks like an eating area somewhere.

Deus Ex 3 Concept Art #5: Hand/arm augmentations? Let us hope so! These look nifty, and painful!

Deus Ex 3 Concept Art #6: Possibly the man we’ll be playing, unconfirmed though. If so: FUCK YES. I wanna look badass, JC did. DO IT AGAIN.

Deus Ex Concept Art #7: I’m still not quite sure what this is, even in the analysis I watched (more on that in a bit)…

Deus Ex Concept Art #8: Yeah, let’s not screw with the guy who, by the looks of it, has explosives all over him and don’t forget the bull belt buckle!

Deus Ex Concept Art #9: Oh look, a simple guard. Can we kill it?

Deus Ex Concept Art #10: How many bosses do you know that keeps arms on their desk like it’s nothing? This guy has BALLS to do such a thing.

Deus Ex Concept Art #11: Like the image says, the Underground of the FUTURE!

Deus Ex Concept Art #12: It’s a LIMB clinic, probably where they make limbs and other crap. Chances are, just like in Deus Ex 1 and VersaLife, we’ll be blowing shit up in it.

Deus Ex Concept Art #13: Hey look, it’s the guy with the explosives again. Side-on view this time.

Deus Ex Concept Art #14: The rich live above, the poor below — lovely thought isn’t it?

That’s a lot of images, wouldn’t you agree? All look rather marvelous in my opinion, but do read that article as some points in it suck, again, in my opinion. Like auto-healing (aka health-regen)? We don’t need health-regen, how many games have it? Beside Call of Duty 4?!

And playing an “average joe” security officer who gets taken by “black ops commandos” (which could really be anyone, but it stills sounds pretty random)? How many average joes are private security officers for a technology lab, get their own security plan stolen and then used against them? Not many, if you ask me. Though if the 6th picture IS the protagonist then I shall no longer complain.

Also watch this video of an analysis of Deus Ex 3’s concept art. Made by none other then GlobalNode. Watch it, it’s pretty good and I’ve always liked his analysis’ personally. And that’s it from me for this time.

The Daily Mail reported today that a 13-year-old boy French boy was under arrest in Lyon. Apparently this kid torched several cars and then told the police that he played Grand Theft Auto IV for a few hours and then wanted to go outside and commit some arson. The quote from a Lyon police spokesperson being:

“He said he played the game for a few hours, then wanted to go out and what it felt like to burn out some cars. This kind of entertainment is clearly having a negative effect on some young people.”

There is only one problem with this, Daily Mail. And it’s this quote by them:

The 13-year-old schoolboy used petrol to set light to three vehicles after playing on the violent GTA 4: Liberty City game on his home PC.

I have a question. How did the kid manage to get the PC version of GTA4 before anyone else? Every good gamer knows the game doesn’t even release in Europe until the 21st of November. Ah, once again Daily Mail try to discredit violent video games and the players of such games. And fail, miserably.

Source: French Lad Torches Cars, GTA IV Blamed But… [GamePolitics]

Quote of the Day

Here’s my latest website layout. Boxed In, it has no images whatsoever and is being used for the fourth installment of Glitches Exposed. Whether you love or it you hate it, please tell me! In other news, I’m also still working on some of those guides I said I’d be writing, but if you’d like to help please tell me!

Here’s a new layout I’ve been working on over the course of the day. It is, of course, not finished as of yet (still needs a navigation bar for one!). Here’s a picture.

In my last post, I said it would be more rounded. I didn’t lie, I was going to make a more rounded template. But to be honest, I changed my mind and also didn’t want to go through the trouble of making rounded corners so that it would look good in IE and it’s just too much trouble (this template’s only “big” image will most likely be just it’s header, that’s all I see it being at the moment).

And yes, Boxed In is the name of the layout (I suck at template names, from hereon you now know, :P).

I’m sure the game’s fairly old now, and I have heard/seen some videos of it lying around about a year ago but never tried it myself.

For those unaware, Frets on Fire is a PC ripoff of the massively popular game; Guitar Hero. If you’re a gamer and have never heard, let alone played Guitar Hero, then GTFO NOW! I kid, but honestly, if you haven’t, then get out from under that bloody rock!

As I was saying, Frets on Fire is a PC version of the game. You’re apparently supposed to play it by holding your keyboard like a guitar and use the F1-F5 buttons as the fret buttons and the Enter key for the pick (the controls are fully customizable though).

I however, own a laptop, so I’ve got the trouble of not being about to hold my keyboard in that position as that would be bloody awkward. Nevertheless, it’s a very fun yet very addictive game. The game is completely open source and it comes with only two songs. More songs, can be downloaded on the forum at FretsonFire.net and there are a TON of songs from a ton of bands.

Of course, most of the ones I’ve downloaded (so far, Metallica, Rage Against the Machine, Avenged Sevenfold and Marilyn Manson, heh) are bloody hard. Honestly, it wouldn’t be too bad if I could just get my bloody finger onto the 5th fret (which I can but my pinky finger is EXTREMELY iffy to use :P).

You guys take a look and see what you guys can do. Tell me of your exploits!

Edit: I posted the wrong link to the Frets on Fire website it’s .net, not .com. Sorry about that!

Not much to mention here. Just forgot to mention, a “live preview” of the Age of Conan (slightly edited) can be seen at www.theownerz.com (the website for my World of Warcraft guild; The Death Reapers).

In other news… not much has happened. I shall be working on a new website template later, when shall be more… how can I put this, rounded? Curvy? Meh, whatever. A new more generic template is in the works (oh how I love generic layouts that can fit almost all sites).

Look out for more soon!

Can someone please tell me what morons were smoking dope when they thought up this shit. A Hello Kitty MMOG?! Who in their right mind would make such crap.

Well, here there you have it folks! The new pedo-playground, yippy! Here’s the bloody weird video for you. Honestly, these thing weirds me out…

It happened with Grand Theft Auto IV, and now it’s happened with Metallica’s “Death Magnetic”. Yes, it has been leaked. I’m not that surprised, to be honest, it was going to be online at one point or another. Whether before, or after it’s release, was just another story.

Personally, I’m not going to be downloading it. I want to buy it, if I don’t like it, I’ll probably just resell it.

I ain’t giving any links, go to any warez site or torrent site and you’re bound to find it. Kind of annoying, to be honest. People pay more for convenience (and when I mean “pay more” I don’t mean in money).