tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31375700653852583822024-10-25T00:58:44.890+01:00MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-46639722373591013332016-08-06T21:06:00.001+01:002016-08-06T21:06:52.194+01:00

I've just applied the Windows 10 anniversary update and found my XBox One controller no longer worked. The controller appeared to switch on, but would then almost immediately switch itself off. To solve this: Remove the batteries from the controller. Connect the controller to your PC via a USB cable. Windows will install some device drivers. My PC required a reboot to finish installation.

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-28199773224005745702016-05-24T18:56:00.003+01:002016-05-24T19:54:27.056+01:00

Here I present 10 Top Tips for leaving comments on the Internet! Start by calling the content creator an idiot. Announce that you couldn't make it to the end of the article, video, podcast, whatever due to a pedantic reason, such as a misspelling or mispronunciation. Question the political motivations behind the content and call the creator a Commie, Nazi, or traitor. Find one minor fact

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-46259594612931218752013-07-23T15:18:00.000+01:002013-07-23T15:18:36.936+01:00

In 1987 Japanese arcade game manufacturer Taito released a racing game called Continental Circus. Internet legend states that this was a mistranslation and that the game should have been called Continental Circuits, and indeed for its US release the cabinet artwork was changed to use this name. Was this really a mistranslation, or could it perhaps just have been a misunderstanding or a marketing

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-79018751176267605612013-05-29T20:10:00.001+01:002013-05-29T20:10:23.016+01:00

The latest pay-what-you want, charity supporting Humble Indie Bundle has been released and will be available for the next fortnight or so. Is it any good? Well here's my round-up of the games included... Awesomenauts For some reason I had it in mind that this was going to be like Scribblenauts. It isn't. It's a 2D-platformer version of Team Fortress. I've played it for a couple of hours

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-8995435060226317692013-05-21T20:20:00.001+01:002016-05-24T19:13:54.591+01:00

Today marked two things: 1) The reveal of Microsoft's forthcoming system, the XBox One. 2) Something I've long suspected coming true: my relationship with console gaming is at an end. Given Sony's lackluster introduction of the PS4, concentrating as it did on 8GB of RAM!, I had hoped Microsoft's reveal of the next XBox would do something to rekindle my interest in console

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-41356188302598800122013-05-14T21:30:00.001+01:002013-05-27T16:57:41.263+01:00

Recently I decided to pull my trusty old PlayStation 2 out of the cupboard to re-play some of my favourite games from the early-to-mid 2000's. Whilst I was initially very pleased that the machine still worked after 6-7 years of inactivity, I was surprised how poor the picture quality was on-screen and started wondering whether or not all these years of HD gaming on the PC and 360 had altered my

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-16461474289504205292013-05-05T21:49:00.003+01:002013-05-05T23:07:11.200+01:00

Welcome to the first in a new series of posts, Why Britain Sucks... And What We Can Do To Fix It. In this post I'm going to tackle the question of why fuel in Britain is so expensive.  Fuel in Britain is expensive. Very expensive. A 2012 article by This is Money placed Britain as the 7th most expensive place in the entire world to buy fuel, calculating that more than 10% of

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-74107475287126219752013-04-23T19:42:00.000+01:002013-04-23T19:45:07.164+01:00

I encountered a bit of a weird one today, which took some creative thinking to sort out, involving restoring a database into a SQL Server 2012 LocalDB. I am still not entirely sure what the root cause of the problem really is, but I'm sharing my solution just in case it proves useful to anybody else. Background My company produces a solution based on SQL Server 2008 Express R2 which is used by

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-71108810473840683422013-04-22T12:29:00.000+01:002013-04-22T12:29:40.851+01:00

If you've ever poked around in the Windows Registry on a multi-user machine you may have noticed that user settings are stored against an SID such as  S-1-5-21-2827067247-3228746870-1612205067-500. Often it's useful to be able to match an SID up to a user name and here's how: 1) Open a command prompt. 2) Type: wmic useraccount get name,sid 3) Press enter You'll then see a list

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-19928071879988207922013-04-21T15:45:00.002+01:002013-04-21T15:45:41.483+01:00

Here's a fun pulp magazine cover image creator - the Pulp-o-Mizer! http://thrilling-tales.webomator.com/derange-o-lab/pulp-o-mizer/pulp-o-mizer.html And here's something I knocked up...

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-52038086737942581622013-04-08T17:37:00.002+01:002013-04-08T17:41:15.334+01:00

Regular readers of Pieces o' Eight may remember my critique of Windows 8 as a desktop operating system last year. I still stand by those criticisms, however even at the time I had thought that the OS might fare better in a tablet environment. It turns out I was utterly, staggeringly, badly wrong. I've been waiting to try out an x86 Windows 8 tablet, since I considered the ARM

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-55586120052227597912013-03-09T17:02:00.000+00:002013-03-09T17:02:07.596+00:00

I'm a big fan of Logitech's Unifying Receiver technology - I have the Performance MX mouse and the K800 Illuminated keyboard, both of which are excellent. One problem, however, seemed to affect the mouse particularly: Intermittent lag. Every so often the mouse would stop responding, do something weird or behave in a temperamental and highly frustrating manner. Happily I have managed to

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-27766497916573173882012-11-19T13:37:00.000+00:002012-11-19T13:37:42.767+00:00

If you bought an upgrade edition of Windows 8 Pro you might, like most sensible people, prefer to do a clean install rather than doing the upgrade. Sounds straight forwards, right? Wrong! Although the installation appears to work ok, when you try to activate your copy of Windows 8 it will flat-out refuse to acknowledge your legitimate Windows product key. I have no idea why Microsoft have put

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-90134588575977232392012-06-08T21:21:00.000+01:002012-06-08T21:25:15.869+01:00

Introducing an exciting new range of action figures! Click to embiggen

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-24082141481695609852012-06-06T19:45:00.000+01:002012-06-06T19:45:25.178+01:00

I've decided to create a new range of free products that will, without fail, improve your life and the lives of those around you. No. 1 in this fabulous new range: The Doorhanger of Excellence! Behold! Click to embiggen All that's left to do is print, cut out, use and enjoy!

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-90754412865138643862012-06-04T16:53:00.000+01:002012-06-04T16:53:14.467+01:00

Microsoft recently released a Preview (or beta) version of its upcoming operating system, Windows 8. I don't normally bother with beta versions of code, but I was intrigued enough by all the talk of the new Metro interface to download the preview and give it a test run. What follows is my experience of the OS in its beta form and why I believe Windows 8 is the enemy of creativity. Metro

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-13403220823244808132012-05-13T21:47:00.002+01:002012-05-13T22:36:37.284+01:00

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-61694282987792482762012-04-22T17:48:00.001+01:002012-04-22T18:11:25.328+01:00

Introduction I'm a big fan of point-and-click adventures and have been ever since I first played the original Monkey Island some 20+ years ago. Sadly the genre is no longer a mainstay of video gaming, with new releases few and far between, so when I heard about Captain Morgane and the Golden Turtle - a new piratically themed point-and-click adventure - I immediately rushed out to buy

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-82660713890575400042012-04-18T15:02:00.000+01:002012-04-18T15:13:25.959+01:00

In a previous post I covered how to use Python to connect to a SQL Server 2012 LocalDB instance. In this post I'll show you how to connect via VB6/VBScript. As per the Python post, you'll need to download and install the SQL Server 2012 LocalDb software, along with the SQL Server Native Client 11 database driver.  One of the key differences - and one that took me some time to figure out -

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-62179755931770254242012-03-26T20:10:00.000+01:002012-03-27T17:48:40.170+01:00

One of the new features of SQL Server 2012 Express is the LocalDB installation. This is a standalone install of SQL Server Express designed to support local databases which, importantly, requires practically no configuration . Although the documentation hints that developers were Microsoft's primary consideration behind LocalDB, there are many scenarios where having a zero configuration install

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-63084657721925682522012-01-01T15:44:00.000+00:002012-01-02T14:23:38.992+00:00

Mobile gaming is taking off in a big way but not, as many might have supposed, thanks to the efforts of Microsoft, Nintendo or Sony. No, instead the biggest player in the mobile gaming is scene is the humble mobile phone. To describe a modern smart-phone as humble is, of course, entirely misleading. The latest models from the likes of Apple, HTC, Samsung et al are all fully-fledged handheld

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-78485868633907413152011-12-31T18:27:00.001+00:002012-01-02T13:19:08.009+00:00

Selling things on eBay used to be a pretty simple and straightforward affair. The costs were fairly easy to understand and people, generally speaking, were happy. Then eBay bought PayPal which should have made things even easier for all concerned, but strangely (or not so strangely) has resulted in a multitude of costs, fees and other considerations that directly impact your bottom line. I

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-40409684495997950682011-12-11T15:39:00.001+00:002011-12-19T16:22:22.654+00:00

I've been doing some research on data compression and differencing recently and came across an excellent article by Mark Nelson on the LZW compression algorithm: http://marknelson.us/2011/11/08/lzw-revisited/ It's well worth a read, however all the code examples are in C++ so I decided to implement LZW in Python to enhance my understanding of the algorithm. To start with we need something

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-15373529800061604762011-10-07T17:23:00.000+01:002011-10-07T19:32:17.870+01:00

Here's how to setup Virtual Box shared folders with a Windows 7 host and a Linux Mint 11 guest and have it automatically mount in Linux Mint on boot. Software used: Windows 7 (host OS) Linux Mint 11 (guest OS) VirtualBox v4.1.4 Instructions 1) Create a folder on your host machine - I created mine in the root of C: and called it Shared. 2) Start your Linux Mint virtual machine. 3)

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3137570065385258382.post-27102193337598632162011-10-07T01:53:00.000+01:002011-10-07T01:53:08.119+01:00

DON'T BOTHER! YOU'LL ONLY WASTE YOUR TIME! It took me about four hours to realise this, but Microsoft really don't want you hosting non-Microsoft operating systems in Windows Virtual PC. 95, 98, XP, Vista and hell even 7 hosting 7 works fine. Try a *nix O/S though and you're out of luck. By the time I'd finally got FreeBSD installed - after much piss-balling about with vhd's - I thought I was

MartinHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09083556605312370166noreply@blogger.com0