Guest blogged by Tim Garcia
WOW! I saw this movie on the weekend. I am not a real big Batman fan but this is a great movie and probably the best of the series. Heath Ledger made an excellent Joker with his funny jokes, insanity and just the darkness of his character that wasn’t shown in Jack Nicholson’s version of the Joker. Everyone knew that Ledger was behind the makeup but he did such a good job of acting as the Joker, you really thought it was someone completely different then Ledger. IMO it is Ledgers best work and unfortunately its was his last. One of my favorite parts of the movie was towards the beginning and it shows how dark this Joker is, he went into a room that was filled with mobsters, drug lords and other hooligans who were having a meeting. He was playing with a pen on the table and said “How about a magic trick? I’m going to make this pen disappear.” He grabbed one of the hooligans and slammed his head right onto the pen, therefore it disappeared and yes it was magic. lol It was evil yet funny at the same time. All I wanted to do was watch the Joker and forget about what Batman was doing cause the Joker was that much more interesting. Christian Bale did a good job as being Batman but the only thing that kind of bothered me was his voice when he was Batman, it was a little too raspy like he was forcing it. Overall it is a fun movie to watch and even Batman was a little darker then the rest of the movies in the series. If you haven’t seen it yet and like Batman or action flicks then go and see it, you won‘t be disappointed.

This post was guestblogged by JoeDirt aka Mihaita.

Ever since i was a little boy i liked Max Payne. My favorite game was Max Payne, my idol was Max Payne. I wanted to be this Video Game person. A few year later, when i heard that Take two announced Max Payne 2, i was shocked, but happy in the same time. My favorite game had now a continue! I got Max Payne 2 for a friend who had internet. In those days i only had dial-up, and it was pretty hard hard and expensive to download a full game. Anyway… i loved Max Payne 2. It was awesome! It had everything you’ll ever want from a video game.

A few month ago i read in a IT magazine a article: “Take two announced Max Payne 3″.  I shouted out loud: “YES! Max Payne 3 is coming!”, My brother looked at me saying “WTF?!” lol. Unfortunately, Max Payne 3 will appear in 2009 :(. But, until then, Max Payne the movie will be in cinemas from 17 October 2008 (USA). Oh, i can’t wait! here’s the movie trailer: http://youtube.com/watch?v=JboQmDIdKWs (from the trailer, the movie looks exactly like the game , you can see the same dark and cold alleys, the same winter nights, the same action and adrenaline)

This entry was guestblogged by lorz.

Yesterday I had the occasion to play GTA 4 on a brand new PlayStation 3 console. And I was stunned by the quality of the game, no PC game can be compared to a console one, especially GTA 4. Graphics are brilliant, I haven’t noticed any bugs in about 3-4 hours of playing, the sound has an exceptional quality, especially when you play the game on a 5.1 surround system.

From the start of the game, I noticed that Niko Bellic (the main character) doesn’t have the same Superman abilites like Carl Johnson from GTASA. This guy can’t turn around in a fraction of a second and can’t switch his guns instantly, by spawning them in his hand. Also, at a noticeable speed, if you hit a pole or wall or something, you are thrown through the windscreen. Also, the police heat-system has changed, you get rid of the cops if you run away from the heat zone. The bigger the killings, the bigger the heat zone.

I found the game a little bit difficult, compared to GTASA. I had a mission to rescue Niko’s cousin from a warehouse, I almost did it after the third attempt but at the end I stepped with the car onto a sort of mine.

What is also missing from the game: the countryside. GTA 4, like GTA 3, doesn’t have any countryside, only a big city. (But GTA 4 has a very very big one, compared to GTA 3).

I couldn’t play in multiplayer, ’cause my friend didn’t had a internet connection plugged to his PS3. However, I’m now thinking how can I get some $$$ fast so I can buy a console too, because, even though the game is released on PC, it will always have performance issues.

To sum up, I personally think that GTA 4 is the best videogame, and will continue to remain on top until another GTA will be released.

Guest Blogged by Tim Garcia

Well Slayer mentioned that I like to upgrade my PC every three weeks but I wish I only could do that. lol Pretty much as soon as you get a new upgrade it is out of date within a few weeks but luckily most products are not able to use the newest technologies that are out there so that gives current products a fairly long shelf life. I am always looking to see what upgrades are out there and I mostly look at Tiger Direct and Newegg to see what is new and check out the prices.

Here is my current configurations of my PC’s and wanted upgrades.

Current System: Main PC (Built system December 2007)

• OS: XP Pro 64bit

• CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X@ Dual Core Processor 6400+ Black Edition

• RAM: 3 Gigs OCZ Reaper Dual Channel 2048MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz

• Video Card: 2 SLI XFX GeForce 8800GT XXX 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 Alpha Dog Edition

• Motherboard: MSI K9N SLI Platinum AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard

• Hard Drive: 2 Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB Hard Drive - 7200, 16MB, SATA-300

• Power Supply: OCZ/GameXStream /700-Watt/ATX/120mm Fan

Wanted Upgrades:

• CPU: AMD Phenom X4 9850 Quad Core Processor

• HD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 750GB Hard Drive - 7200RPM, 32MB, SATA-300

Current System: Secondary PC (Built Approximately 2003-04)

• OS: XP Pro

• CPU: AMD Athlon 1050.0 MHz

• RAM: 1.25 Gigs

• Video Card: ATI Radeon 9500 128MB

• Motherboard: MSI (not sure which model, too lazy to find out).

• Hard Drive: Multiple Maxtor hd’s. Max size of largest hd is 40GB

Wanted Upgrades:

• CPU: Replace with Main PC CPU

• RAM: I have 1 gig of OCZ Reaper available

• Video Card: XFX GeForce 8600 GT XXX Video Card - 256MB DDR3 (maybe)

• Motherboard: MSI K9N SLI-F Motherboard

• Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB Hard Drive - 7200, 16MB, Serial ATA-300

• DVD Drive: Lite-On 20x LH-20A1L DVD±R with 12x DVD-RAM with Lightscribe

• Power Supply: ThermalTake/PurePower/600-Watt/ATX 2.2/120mm Fan

I am a big believer in AMD, MSI, XFX and Seagate products. CPU wise, Intel makes some good CPU’s but they are overpriced IMO. I think gamer’s prefer AMD over Intel and that is because the frame rates are usually higher then Intel CPU’s and that is what matters when you are playing a game. If you want to overclock your CPU then AMD is the way to go, depending if you have a good cooling system, motherboard and power supply. I haven’t overclocked my system much because I really don’t need to; there really is no game out there that my system can’t handle. I know that these upgrades that I chose are not all top of the line but like I said before, products have a good shelf life and I am getting quality and value at the same time. It will be awhile before I could actually get all the upgrades but the longer I wait the more prices will go down.

If you have any suggestions or anything else then please leave a comment, I would appreciate any feedback.

This entry was guestblogged by lorz.

Some of you may have already found out, but for those who didn’t, deviantART has reached version 6.

Their layout is improved: a new front page design with quick-loading thumbnails and an effective search, the new footer with polls and news, a new site navigation (in my opinion this is their big improvement) and a new message center (but some of you may notice a delay in appearance).

Something that I don’t like: their banner rotating system! Even if you don’t browse the website, it keeps loading on the same page different ads. I find it really unnecesarry. And also, I don’t like the ads that appear while surfing their website.

Although they have a great community there, the administrators are a little bit greedy by placing full page ads while browsing the website. But all in all, they made an improvement to the website and they won’t stop here.

Read more here.

This post was guestblogged by Mihaita aka JoeDirt.

Hello, i’m Mihaita aka JoeDirt and, like Slayer said, i’m a very big fan of gadgets and mobile phones, but what he didn’t know is that i really like sports. I like to watch sports on TV and i like to play sports in real life, especially soccer, and, sometimes, basketball. I also like to jog, swim and to do physical exercise. But that’s not the point. You’ll see where i’m getting. In my city (and maybe in the hole country, who knows?) people only like to play soccer and basketball. And that’s it! Their is only a small percent who likes to jog, and to swim. I don’t get it? People here play soccer because it’s the no 1 sport, but let’s be honest, we suck at this game. You saw what Romania did at the Euro 2008… When it comes to women handball we are in top 5 world wide, still why don’t we play handball?

When i go jog i ask my friends if they would like to come with me. 99% of them will say: “Dude are you crazy? You want me to wake up at 8 in the morning to go and sweat for noting”. Ever since i was a little boy i liked sports. I don’t know why other people like to sit in a chair, drink beer and eat all day long.

PS: The Romanian Victor Hanescu won the Gstaad tennis tournament after beating the russian Igor Andreev 6-3 6-4 :).

It’s a game called “Company of Heroes“. It is a RTS game taking place during WW 2 and is based on using resources and capturing strategic points. It has 3 different game modes in which you can play in and they are: Single player campaign, skirmish and multiplayer. Campaign mode is fun and it basically gets you used to all the abilities, units and buildings that the American army has while going against the German army. While you can only play as the Americans in the campaign mode, there is a Company of Heroes expansion pack called “Opposing Fronts“. OF adds 2 more campaign modes where you can play as the British 2nd Army or the German Panzer Elite. Although the campaign mode is fun, it limits the use of certain units, abilities, etc. You have to use whatever the campaign is set for, For example there is a campaign in which you are the American’s Airborne squad. You are basically just using the infantry squad and you are not able to build a tank depot in that certain campaign because the only way to get to the location is through the Airborne. So that is the limit in campaign mode but the real fun begins in the other 2 modes.

Skirmish and multiplayer are basically the same thing in which you can pick the Allies(American/British*) or Axis(German Army/Panzer Elite*) and either annihilate the enemy or capture and hold strategic points. In skirmish mode, you go against the computer and you can team up with a total of 3 computer allies against a total of 4 enemy squads. In order to really get to know each army and their special abilities, it is best to play in skirmish mode because it allows you to use what you want in the doctrine that you pick. Each army has 3 different doctrines that you can choose from. The American army you can pick Infantry, Airborne(My favorite Allie doctrine) or Armor doctrine. Infantry is more based on the front lines with artillery support, Airborne is recon with air support that includes recon, fast reinforcement, strafing and bombing runs, Armor is more defensive units that include heavy tanks. The British 2nd Army* you can choose from Royal Artillery, Royal Commandos or Royal Engineers. Royal Artillery includes infantry, standard artillery and mobile artillery in which the Americans do not have. Royal Commandos is kind is similar to Airborne squad except you can drop off small tanks. Royal Engineers is defensive and builds better defensive structures and heavy tanks. The German army you can pick Defense, Blitzkrieg or Terror. Defense doctrine helps fortify own turn and with artillery support. Blitzkrieg is the opposite of Defense, you have a special infantry unit called the Stormtoopers and this doctrine also relies heavily on armored assault vehicles. Terror (my favorite axis doctrine) is a little bit of both but it includes the heavy tank Panther and the fearsome King Tiger tank. The Panzer Elite* has Scorched Earth, Luftwaffe and Tank Hunters. Scorched Earth is filled with bombs, traps and the deadly Hummel 150mm howitzer. Luftwaffe is the anti-tank air support with more defensive options. Tank Hunters is basically that, the best anti tank units. With so many options to choose from in Company of Heroes, each army and doctrine has its own unique units and special abilities.

Add Multiplayer to the mix and you can have an all out war 4 on 4 against either human or computer opponents and can be the most difficult mode of them all.

On a final note, this is the best RTS game i have ever played. It is very realistic, fun, addicting and really requires you to think strategically other then just go out and kill cause that doesn’t work in this game. I really recommend you buy this game if you are into RTS games.

Also if you do not own the original version of it, you can just buy the “Opposing Fronts version“ because it includes the original version as well.

*Requires Opposing Fronts expansion.

Entry guestblogged by lorz.

This model is equipped (or rather I should say just IS) with a 8.1 MegaPixels camera, a Xenon flash, auto focus, image stabiliser and the whole range of new technologies available now.

This phone is also capable of recording videos at a VGA resolution of 640×480 with video stabilizer.

Also, in advantage comes the GPS receiver and the anti-stratch screen at a size of 2.4 inches.

The phone also includes technologies like 3G, video streaming and stereo Bluetooth, so you can listed to your favourite music without any wires.

It also comes with a 2GB memory stick, that can store about 650 pictures taken at the highest resolution.

Now the bad parts come: This camera/phone doesn’t have optic zoom… only digital. So if you want to zoom… think again! You will lose the quality of the image. And also, pictures are not so coloured, is like a TV which colour setting is almost turned off. I’ve seen the same issue on Sony Ericsson K850i.

My advice: If you have some money, don’t invest them in this mobile phone. You will rather be dissapointed of the quality of the images, and that’s because the technology is not so evolved at the moment. And I personally think that a mobile phone will never be compared to a digital camera. And that’s because they don’t want to.

This entry was guestblogged by lorz.

Have you ever wanted to snatch the source code of a webpage in order to get some information like the title, meta-tags or even some parts of the body? For example, suppose you know a website with weather forecast. Now you would like to have some weather forecast on your website too, but you do not want to update it manually.

In this post, we are going to build a simple function to get the source code of a specific url.

We start by defining our function with a single argument: $url;

function source_code ($url) {

Now we check to see if the function named curl_init exists.

if (function_exists (’curl_init’)) {

If the condition returns true, we grab the source code with the help of curl. First we have to initiate in a variable called $curl. Simple!

$curl = @curl_init ($url);

Now we define some options for $curl. CURLOPT_HEADER is used for including the header of the page. We do not need it. So we are going to set it to FALSE.

After this, we have CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER which we will set to TRUE because we want our source code returned as a simple string.

After this, we have CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, and we will set it to TRUE so that the script will follow any header(”Location:”) redirects.

And the last option is CURLOPT_USERAGENT, and this will be our $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']), the User’s browser actually.

@curl_setopt ($curl, CURLOPT_HEADER, FALSE);
@curl_setopt ($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
@curl_setopt ($curl, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, TRUE);
@curl_setopt ($curl, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']);

We finally get the source in $source, close curl, and return the results.

$source = @curl_exec ($curl);
@curl_close ($curl);
return $source;

Now we define our else condition, which will be used if curl_init does not exist. We simply use file_get_contents() to get the source code.

} else {
return @file_get_contents ($url);

To finish, we close both braces.

}
}

And that’s it! Now you have a fully working source code grabber script!

When? Where?

I’ve been planning this vacation for more than 6 months, now that the finals are over it’s time for some chillout time. Starting from the point when i set Greece as a destination i never wanted to change it, Greece is just too cool.

The thing is that in about 4 hours i will be on my way there. We are going w/ the bus this means 19 hours of traveling…awww…we would have taken the plane but it costs way more and we would have had to go  down to a bigger bigger city -> extra $ for transport, so we decided to stick with the bus, if the other 48 people can handle the ride so can we.

The bus is a great quality 3 star bus, so its pretty comfortable and hopefully i’ll get my chance to sleep.

No, i’m not leaving alone. I’m going with my girlfriend, and already the idea of going to greece caused her to be very excited about it.

I won’t be taking my laptop with me, because if i do i will most probably start desgning something, so access to the internet will be pretty limited.

What about the blog?

Don’t worry i taught this out also!

While i’m gone 4 guys will be taking care of my blog, just to keep you guys on track and not give you the idea that my blog got deserted or something.

Lorz

I know lorz for about 2 years, mt him first on a romanian webmaster community, added him to my messenger list and helped him out with ideas and suggestions for his projects.

He’s an outstanding programmer, he made a custom script for his lecture website www.ciorna.com and is currently building a custom web directory www.iwebdir.net with some very cool features(suggested some myself, along w/ the domain).

Tim Garcia

Timmeeeeh! I met him on an online game called outwar , we made a crew together, and worked together to manage it(literarely we were addicts,lol). This was 4 years ago. Now we mostly chat about random stuff and tech related stuff.

He likes gaming and likes to keep his PC as upgraded as possible, he’s checkin’ for new components almost every 3 weeks.

TIm is just a cool and fun guy, i’m sure you’ll like his posts.

Joedirt

I’ve also met him on a romanian webmaster community a while bac, he really loves gadgets and phones. He’s pretty skilled in writing(saw posts on his blog) and he likes to include his feelings  about a specific item/situation in the posts.

BETng4U

I don’t think there’s anyone among my readers who hasn’t heard his name. BETng4U is one of my best friends and a pwnage coder. All the big coding jobs are handled by him, i don’t give big jobs to freelancers. BETng4U will work his ass off to get the websites up and running and debug it in the fastest manner.

Although he won’t post on my blog(his english isn’t very good) he will be managing it from the shadows , he will moderate comments and ban spammers at his expense. Just usual blog management stuff .

I really want to thank the guys above for helping me out: Cheers guys!

Also i wish everyone a great summer, and remember to keep yourself cool