Major Mini attack

In this week's column, read about two of the leading contenders for the iPod Mini's mantle of king of the tiny MP3 players.

Creative's Zen Micro and Rio's Carbon both outdo the Mini in terms of raw specs (more capacity, longer battery life, etc) and also manage to be quite good-looking - all for more or less the same price. Get the paper for the final verdict.

In games, Ratchet and Clank III is the best of a stunning trilogy, Sly 2: Band of Thieves is another outstanding platformer, while Viewtiful Joe has more original ideas than half of the top ten titles in any week.

Bzzzt, shutting down for hols...

Don't expect much for the next week while Log On flounces around Lanzarote...

Hands on with the Nintendo DS

Though it's still months away from a European launch, Nintendo rolled out the red carpet in London last night for its Game Boy Advance successor, the snappily titled DS. We weren't invited but plenty of UK hacks were. You can read their first impressions of the new handheld here, here and here.

Common theme: it's big, bigger than you'd expect. But not as big as the photos make out.

Cunning stunt

By now you'll have read all the papers slavishly reproducing the tacky PR for JFK Reloaded, a so-called "docu-game" purporting to be a reconstruction of Lee Harvey Oswald's famous shots that rang out around the world.

Except it's not even worthy of the description "game", it's like something someone knocked up in about 20 minutes using what looks the Quake graphics engine. But put out a release saying you're offering £100,000 to anyone who can match the best theory about how JFK was killed and suddenly the tut-tutting tabloids are all over it like a rash.

Now if you want real controversy, try Live Shot, a website where you can control a rifle aimed at wildlife on a Texas (where else) ranch and try to bag yourself a sheep, antelope or wild hog. Classy, huh? But it'll cost ya - six bucks for 10 shots. You can even order a DVD of your wild misses for $10.

One last word on the subject of violent entertainment: read Thursday's Herald for a rundown of the games parents should not allow their children to play. So many mums and dads plead ignorance about what little Johnny is playing behind bedroom doors. But it's not right for 10-year-olds to be plugging away at GTA: San Andreas.

As some wag in the office said, though, this could just be considered the wishlist for crafty teens wanting maximum carnage in their Christmas stocking.

You can never have too many pixels

In this week's column, we look at two new megapixel camera phones: Nokia's unorthodox 7610 and Sony Ericsson's chunky throwback S700i (whoa! It's 2001 again!).

Yes, the megapixel picture quality is a marked improvement on the trash you've come to expect from camera phones but don't throw away your regular camera just yet.

In games this week, the insanely difficult WRC4 rally sim is well worth persevering with, especially if you're one of probably eight people in Ireland who can get their PS2 online. Also reviewed: Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2 (great fun for the nippers), Total Club Manager 2005 (flashy but flawed footy management sim) and NBA Live 2005 (EA's annual basketball update fails to ignite).

Prepare to be flabbergasted

When we speculated, in the absence of any hard information, two weeks ago that the possible pricing for Vodafone's 3G service would be in the order of €50 to €60 a month, we thought we were being over-cautious, hoping against hope that it would be cheaper.

Now we realise why Voda was so keen to divorce the launch of the product from the revelation of the actual pricing: it's going to be astoundingly expensive. The base product starts at €70 with a higher tier at €100. Are these guys for real?

For €70 a month, for instance, you could get Sky Digital's top package - movies, sport, etc - and still have money left over for a couple of pints.

Vodafone tries to compensate by bundling 300 minutes of anytime, any network calls plus makes many of its signature services such as Premiership goals and movie trailers free until early 2005. Then it reverts to €10 and €5 a month respectively - a fair price.

Vodafone Ireland has been the first to admit that it will be late 2005 before 3G becomes a mass-market phenomenon and at these prices there's no trouble understanding why.

No filter, just the first-hand account of Iraq mosque killing

Kevin Sites was the TV reporter/cameraman who shot the grim footage of a US Marine killing an injured Iraqi insurgent in a Fallujah mosque last week.

His blog recounts the first-hand story of what went on, in context, unfiltered, unedited and stark.

Here's an excerpt - but read the full version.

"No one, especially someone like me who has lived in a war zone with you, would deny that a solider or Marine could legitimately err on the side of caution under those circumstances. War is about killing your enemy before he kills you.

In the particular circumstance I was reporting, it bothered me that the Marine didn't seem to consider the other insurgents a threat -- the one very obviously moving under the blanket, or even the two next to me that were still breathing."

The end of john189002@hotmail

If you nip in quick, there's a good chance you'll be able to snag a nice, short handle now that hotmail.co.uk has opened its doors for new e-mail addresses.

Click the New Account Sign Up button at the top of the Hotmail page to get started.

One Google to rule the world...

Google keeps spinning out search ideas like there's no tomorrow ... catalogues, news, newgroups, e-mail, the list lengthens daily.

Today, add scholarly papers - specialist journals, university publications, etc. We don't know what Google has indexed so far - it's bound to be Amero-centric - but this could in time be an invaluable resource for researchers, students and academics.

And another step to world domination, with Google holding the keys to the planet's biggest library.

Bill's spam army

Think your inbox is plagued with spam? Does every day bring dozens more shysters to your door? You ain't got nothing to worry about compared with Bill Gates, who gets four million spams a day, according to MS CEO Steve Ballmer.

Ballmer himself reckons he's not far behind but before you begin feeling sorry for them buried under a hail of marketing shills, get this: Ballmer reveals they have a whole department devoted to filtering Bill and his e-mails.

The result: only a handful of mortgage offers, Viagra discounts and free porn make it through to the great men's inbox. No wonder my suggestions to billg@microsoft.com and steveb@microsoft.com have been ignored.

Security begins at home

Yesterday was Make IT Secure Day (you mean you didn't know?) which has the laudable aim of educating Irish PC users about how to protect their computers from virus, hackers and spyware.

How could you be against the campaign (unless you're a hacker)? Of course you couldn't when the Government-sponsored message has been sensibly boiled down to three key measures:

1) Use up-to-date antivirus software

2) Install a firewall

3) Update your operating system

To which you could quite easily add:

4) Don't use Internet Explorer, a buggy magnet for spyware and hackers

5) Consider changing to alternative, less targeted operating systems such as Linux or Mac

But the Make It Secure campaign could hardly do that when one of the heavyweights on board is Microsoft, which wouldn't take kindly to the trashing of its already risible record on security.

Actually, this has all the hallmarks of a Microsoft PR exercise, discreetly pushing its message that it's lazy Windows users who are the problem, not the people who created the flawed software in the first place.

(It's not exactly a smoking gun but a downloadable PDF version of the advice is called "Microsoft Security Booklet".)

Thus, all the papers this morning ignored that angle and faithfully reported instead that workers were putting their company computers at risk because of their ignorance of the dangers of the big bad internet.

Nice going.

Talkin' 'bout third generation

This week's column assesses Vodafone's consumer 3G launch (see earlier post) and runs the ruler over Virtual PC 7 for Mac, which enables you to run a full Windows machine in emulation on your OSX computer.

While it works brilliantly, it can be dog-slow unless you're blessed with a boatload of RAM (like 1GB). Because you can run any flavour of Windows, the pricing varies according to your requirements:

Virtual PC for Mac 7 Full Version: €194

Virtual PC for Mac 7 Version Upgrade: €139

Virtual PC for Mac 7 with Win XP Pro: €319

Virtual PC for Mac 7 with Win XP Home: €279

Virtual PC for Mac 7 with Win 2000: €319

Of course, if you already own a legitimate copy of anything from Windows 98 up, all you need is the first version. You can even run several different flavours at once.

Microsoft even sells Virtual PC for PC, wherein you can run different versions of Windows on top of Windows. Try to get your head around that one.

Reviewed in games this week: Psi-Ops (hugely enjoyable), Shark Tale (a bit too kiddy-ish), The Getaway 2 (beset with problems) and OutRun 2 (a pixel-perfect recreation of the coin-op).

iPod downsized

Having previously dismissed low-capacity flash-memory-based MP3 players as a waste of time, Apple looks to have done a screeching U-turn with plans for the iPod Flash.

The iPod has cornered 92% of the hard-drive based market but Apple obviously figures there's no harm in dominating the flash segment either. So the word is from rumour site AppleInsider that a tiny new iPod will be born in the new year.

Given Apple boss Steve Job's previous antipathy for the uselessness of flash players, the smart money says that the iPod Flash will have at least 512MB, enough space for a worthwhile 10 albums or so. Sticking my neck out, it's hardly likely to cost more than €200 but won't come in under €150 either.

Ah, so that's how they make their billions

Working for Electronic Arts, the world's largest and richest games company (home to the likes of Tiger Woods PGA Tour and Burnout 3, etc, etc, etc; annual revenue $2.5bn) should be a blast and well rewarded, yes? Not if you believe the blog of the wife of one of its workers.

According to the anonymous missus, her husband is forced to work 11 hours a day, seven days a week. And for no overtime. This has obviously touched a nerve in the game community because her blog post attracted a gobsmacking 1,000-plus comments.

Now it emerges EA is facing a class-action suit from disgruntled employees over excessive hours at the coalface. Could turn out to be a PR disaster for EA.

And if you haven't had your fill of evil corporations, read the story of how AOL bought over and crushed the life out of the creators of WinAmp, one of the first and greatest MP3-playing programs.

America says sorry. No, really

Clearly the election of Dubya rankles with plenty of Americans. SorryEverybody carries pictorial evidence of just how contrite half of America is that the other half voted the way they did.

Naturally, the Bushies have replied in their own illiterate way.

Hoo-da thunk it? Can you imagine us apologising for Bertie Ahern? Oh, the apathy.

So your PC's acting weird...

If your Windows machine is crashing a lot or doing strange things, you could be infected with a virus or spyware. Here's a useful primer for routing the intruder.

Microsoft still hasn't found what it's looking for

Does anyone with a half a brain use anything but Google these days? It can't be healthy to depend on one supplier (see Windows, etc) so even if Microsoft's attempts to storm Google's castle serve only to keep the G-men on their toes, then that's something.

MS took the wraps off the latest version of its search technology this week and its USP has to be its highly customisable search options.

The USP certainly won't be MSN Search's idiosyncratic search results but, hey, this is Microsoft after all, they rarely get anything right first time. Or second.

3G or not 3G?

Vodafone Ireland pulled the wraps off its consumer 3G extravanganza today but, despite being only two weeks from official launch, kept completely schtum about pricing.

Though Voda CEO Paul Donovan told the assembled hacks that the handset pricing would start at €170 (probably for the Motorola V980, the other two launch phones are the Nokia 6630 and Sony Ericsson V800), he wouldn't be drawn on tariffs.

But Vodafone UK, which goes live at the same time, had no such qualms and based on British prices starting at £40, we can expect to pay rental of anywhere between €50 and €60 a month for the privilege of making video calls, receiving clips of Premiership goals and watching news bulletins).

And that's before you pay for the calls, clips and bulletins, etc.

Donovan did hint that, as we saw with Three in the Britain, Vodafone's large bundles of free voice calls might be the carrot to sign up for the 3G services.

Browse happier, safer, faster

Internet Explorer is not just a dog, it's a dog with fleas. And now that its rival Firefox has hit its milestone 1.0 release (having been in beta for aeons), there's no excuse for not using a browser that's faster, safer and actually pleasurable to use.

Millions of Internet users (Mac, PC and Linux) have already downloaded it, so you'll be in good company. Get Firefox now.

Oh, Sony, when will you learn?

It gives me no great pleasure to keep harping on about this but as long as Sony persists exclusively with its fatuous ATRAC format - a proprietary rival to MP3 - then its digital music strategy is damned.

Take Sony's NW-HD1, its belated rival to the iPod. It's a beautifully made 20GB music player, sleek and tiny. But it plays only ATRAC, which means all your gigabytes of MP3s must be converted (and thereby degraded) into ATRAC. It's a slow process and doubles the disk space required to hold your music collection (unless you throw away your original MP3s, not something I'd recommend).

Read more in this week's column about the NW-HD1, the oh-so-nearly iPod slayer.

Also, if you've scoped yesterday's post (do try to keep up), you'll know Halo 2, out Thursday, is a cracker. Also reviewed is the seminal Grand Theft Auto's latest and greatest episode: San Andreas - months of entertainment beckon.

George Lucas, you tease

Only 192 sleeps to go until the release of the denouement of the second (or is it first?) Star Wars trilogy. Scratch your curiosity itch with the teaser trailer for Revenge of the Sith which went online today.

Can't make head nor tail of it but Vader's career path seems to be the spine of the story.

Oh, and if you're wondering how I calculated the countdown exactly, I cheated.

Can't talk now, must finish Halo 2

Sometimes the little things make this job worthwhile. On Friday, the postie delivered a review copy of Halo 2, a full week before the great unwashed, er, you lot get your hands on possibly the most eagerly awaited Xbox title since, ooh, the first one.

Bang goes weekend, says the wife. She was right. All thoughts of GTA: San Andreas or anything else went out the window once the disc booted into that soaring operatic intro. Two days passed in a blur of visceral, frantic alien slaying.

If you haven't guessed by now, Halo 2 is the dog's, the mutt's nuts. Combat is more intense, the story more involving and repetitive sections are much scarcer. Multiplayer on Xbox Live is astoundingly varied, frentic and lag-free.

Halo 2 is out on Thursday. Get in line now.

Panther tickled

A minor upgrade to Mac OS X has been released into the wild. Read all about it.

eDirectory's cupboards look bare

Irish shopping portals aren't exactly a booming market so eDirectory has a chance to make a name for itself in the absence of many rivals. Off the top of my head, Buy4Now is the only one still standing of any note, having seen off the likes of Prize Buy and, er, all those other ones that sprung up in a fit of dot-com optimism.

But if eDirectory is to become a serious destination, it had better stock up (oh, and hire a proofreader - computer "hardwear" indeed!). A check in the MP3 category showed not a single music player, for instance.

It seems eDirectory is literally just a shopfront portal for online merchants - selling nothing to consumers itself - but not many have signed up yet.

So keep an eye on it but don't get your hopes up high for your first visit.

Jaws, seriously abridged. By bunnies.

Angry Alien specialises in condensing famous movies into 30-second bites but enacted by rabbits.

Jaws is my favourite but Titanic, The Exorcist and Alien get the same treatment. Inspired, warped stuff. But don't watch if you've never seen the flicks - the mini-epics give away the ending (and the beginning and the middle). Er, obviously.

Fable ambition falls flat

In this week's column, the "ground-breaking" Xbox RPG Fable gets the once-over. It promised an open-ended world of almost infinite every-action-has-a-consquence type of thing.

Conclusion: Don't believe the hype. The foundations are there but the "morality" structure of the game fails to hold up under scrutiny. Nonetheless, with so much to do inside Fable's world, it would be a shame to overlook it.

Also reviewed: This is Football 2005 (it's not FIFA or PES), Star Ocean (interminable Final Fantasy impostor or rollicking epic, I can't decide) and Rocky Legends (dumb but fun boxing).

There's also a look at Fuji's F440 four-megapixel camera. Lovely shape, shame about the quality of its indoor pictures.

Short-lived PlayStation Portable

Sony has been mostly keeping schtum about the battery life of the PSP, refusing at first to confirm that it could be as short as two hours - a disastrous figure for a games device.

Now Sony Computer Entertainment boss Ken Kutaragi has admitted you'll be lucky to get six hours out of the new handheld - but it could be much lower.

Switch on wireless, turn up the brightness and plug in a demanding game and you could be looking at much less.

Like maybe the two hours Sony worked really hard to avoid admitting in the first place?

The PSP is due for release in Europe early next year and is expected to cost in the ballpark of €150.

Google extends search tentacles

Log On has been enjoying the delights of Google's Desktop Search (GDS) for several weeks and can happily report it improves immensely on the dog-slow piss-poor effort built into Windows.

Though it can take hours to build its database initially, once up to date, GDS can find files not only by name but also by peeking into their contents (or least that of Word documents, web pages and e-mails anyway). You'll never lose a file again. Probably.

The slight (make that big) flaw is that it can't do partial file name searches. So if you can't remember the exact name of a document, you're screwed. Nor for some reason will it find folders. How odd.

Now GDS is coming to the Mac in the near future and though the Mac's search tool already does a much better job than the dopey bloodhound in Windows, Google's algorithms will probably be smarter in the long run.

The upcoming version of the Mac OS - due for release early next year - is slated to build in a super-duper turbo-charged search function while Windows' long-overdue overhaul of its search technology still seems at least two years down the line.