Holiday Review: Bratz, Call of Duty 2 and Harry Potter
It is the time of year that I try to take a look at some of the new releases out there to give you my 2 cents about holiday gift-giving. This time there are some winners, some no-so, but all in all it should be a nice tech-Christmas.
First up is “Call of Duty 2”, the sequel to the phenomenally successful World War II drama that was named “Game of the Year” by more than one magazine two years ago. Before you even consider this game make sure your PC is up to it. You need a honking video card here, the more memory on board the card the better (minimum 64 MB but 128 is better). Even so, check the box to make sure your card is supported.
You must have Windows XP or 2000 and 512 MB of RAM and 5 gigs of free disk space.
Assuming you gather all of the above you are in for an amazing first-person entrée into WWII. This time you can follow the Americans to Normandy, the British thru North Africa or even the Russians thru Germany.
It is a first-rate, realistic thriller for teens and up. Cost is $45. Details at www.callofduty.com
---Second on my list is “Bratz: Rock Angelz”, which appeals to me far less than the above. But I need to confess my bias up front; I probably am not the target demographic for this game. (And I don’t allow Bratz dolls in my house)
That said, this game will appeal to girls who follow the Bratz, who tend to dress on the trampy side, on their mission to take over a fashion magazine. You get to run various errants, try on some clothes, form a rock band and basically collect things. (I am told this PC version (rated E for Everyone) has toned down the clothing when compared to the gaming console versions (Playstation, etc.) but even so these teens would be tossed out of any school I know.)
Anyway as far as game play goes the game is good, probably pretty fun for the right audience. The best part is the price… I’ve seen it for less than $17. You can decide for yourself with the screenshots at www.bratzvideogame.com or www.thq.com
---Last but not least is “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” another reasonably-priced video title out to help promote the movie. For less than 25 bucks you’re in the movie, taking the characters on various adventures. Though the movie is too dark for many kids, this game is nicely rated “E” and has lots of role-playing that will engage kids of all ages. That’s a noticeable change from the previous titles…this game is clearly light on difficulty.
Players pick their character (Harry, Hermoine or Ron) and head off into adventureland. The other two will hang around whether you like it or not. You can hack your way through, use spells and various other tools from the movie to survive each level. Unlike previous versions, the spells will “autoselect” the best spell for the right circumstances, which will be great for younger players.
The game looks great and most kids will find it entertaining, even if they can’t see the movie. See the details at www.masterthemagic.com
WEEKLY WEB WONDER: Got Silly Putty? Why not? The toy of my youth is now online at www.sillyputty.com. Smoosh it against the Sunday comics like the days of old.
James Derk is owner of CyberDads, a computer repair firm, and computer columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. His email address is jim@cyberdads.com
Epson RX700 is a great printer, scanner
With the incredible transformation in printers these days it often is hard to find everything you want in one unit.
On my desk until a month ago was a black and white laser printer, a flatbed scanner, a 4x6 photo printer and a color deskjet printer.
That’s before I got a chance to use the amazing Epson Stylus Photo RX700, which takes the place of all of those and adds copying and photo editing to boot. It is not often that one all-in-one printer works well on all cylinders (often one that is good at photos is rotten on text, or bad at scanning.)
Not this one. I have run this one through its paces and found it can do it all. It even can print on the surface of printable DVDs and CDs, so you can design your own discs without those stupid labels. (More than once I have had the labels ruin a player or toss a disc out of a balance.)
Anyway, installation of the Epson was straightforward. The printer, believe it or not, actually comes with a USB cable (are you listening HP and Dell?). It takes six slim ink cartridges, which conveniently plug in the front and are simple to change. Once you install the software suite you can fire up the printer and you’ll see real-time status of the ink capacity. (Best of all the replacement cartridges are $12 to $17, a modest price in comparison to others.)
The black and white prints on normal paper were fine; that technology has been around a while and there’s no surprise there. Color prints on normal paper were also good, with sharp color and instant drying. (It is important with printers like these to select the properties when you print and select the exact paper you’re using and the type of printing (image, text or both).
Where this thing excels is as a home color photo printing lab. I honestly never thought that I’d need or use one, considering there’s a one-hour photo at every corner. However, I found that impression dead wrong.
The very week I installed the beast two of my kids had school projects that required photos (that we found out about at about 8 PM the night before.) A couple more of my kids needed copies made (who has a copier in their home? Turns out we do when we added this little guy.
Printing photos was a snap; open a slot in the back, load the right paper and away you go. Printing an 8x10 in the highest mode took less than a minute and the image looked equal to most photo labs. Printing a 4x6 was just as easy.
Printing onto a CD or DVD involves using a provided sleeve.
A major plus of this printer is the 2.5 inch color display on the front. Because it also has built-in slots for photo cards, you can simply eject your card from your camera, insert in the printer and scan through your photos... no PC is needed. You even can crop or make modest adjustments to the images prior to printing.
Other features include direct printing from color slides or negatives, a feature usually reserved for much more expensive units. (My first negative scanner was $1,200.)
As for traditional scanning, it performed well. Its 3200 dpi resolution will handle consumer tasks easily.
At $399 the unit is not the cheapest in the market but probably is when you consider all of the features it includes and that is performs well on all of them. The only con I see is lack of a fax capacity (not something I would use but some all-in-ones have this.)
You can see photos of the unit and all of the specifications at www.epson.com. Street price is $365 to $390.
WEEKLY WEB WONDER: Google Base, the application everyone claims will kill Ebay and newspaper classifieds all at ones, is now live in Beta. See it at http://base.google.com
James Derk is owner of CyberDads, a computer repair firm, and computer columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. His email address is jim@cyberdads.com
DiskWarrior will save your Apple someday
Regular readers of this space will know I am a relatively new user of Apple hardware on a personal basis. I love my Ibook and find the Apple OS X operating system to be very easy to use.
That’s not to say that Apples are trouble-free. They are just more elegant.
So when asked around about the best utilities for the Apple, I kept hearing about DiskWarriior from Alsoft (www.alsoft.com), which everyone kept telling me was the best disk repair utility out there for the Mac. Alsoft, as early Mac users will remember, is the creator of DiskExpress, the first disk optimizer for the Mac.
There are other disk utilities out there but I decided to take a close look at DiskWarrior. Its approach is radical and ideal: DiskWarrior uses a great idea to recover missing or damaged data. What it does is build a replacement directory to hold and use data found in the damaged one. While it is at it, it automatically optimizes the directory to speed up performance.
Once you insert the disc, the program builds the replacement directory then painstakingly compares that to the original and delivers a report. Then you are given a chance to preview the changes and given a chance to examine the damaged folders to be sure of what you may lose.
For a relative novice, the I did appreciate the interface too. All I had to do was select the disk and click a button...a small menu told me all I needed to know, including level of disk fragmentation.
So what if you don’t have a problem? What value is this product? Among its cool features is access to a technology built in to hard drives called SMART. Each hard drive is “phoning home” with its operating tolerances and how it is performing. However if you have no software installed to receive those signals, it doesn’t do much good.
With DiskWarrior installed, the disks are monitored and if a failure is imminent a warning is issued to the user so they can back up their data.
Also the utility can be run routinely on machines that are working fine as preventative maintenance. DiskWarrior will rebuild the directories (leaving the data intact) and speed up how the disks operate.
The utility runs on an Mac with a G3 processor or better with 128 megs of RAM or more.
The downsides? Price is one...the utility costs $75, which is a lot of money if one is coming from the Windows world. However if your disk is hosed, it’s a small sum to get back in business and save your data. The other is the PDF manual... I long for the old days when actual books came with products. (Then again, this product is so easy to use you probably don’t need one.)
The company’s Web site needs a little work (the most recent posted and answered question is from 2001) but overall I am impressed with the product.
As new versions of the Apple OS are released, you need to get a new version of the CD as well; upgrades are $13.
You can get all the info you need at www.alsoft.com, where you also will see info on the other products from the company. It’s also available at many Mac specialty stores and at J&R Music World.
WEEKLY WEB WONDER: It had to happen...with all of the dating services out there one had to be created for farmers and farm girls. Those with a hankering for the rural life can sign up at www.farmersonly.com
James Derk is co-owner of CyberDads, a computer repair firm, and computer columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. His email address is jim@cyberdads.com
