Categories
Hardware

Using a Gamepad with Prince Of Persia : Warrior Within

This game is quite good, but very hard to play with a keyboard and/or mouse. The developers recommend a dual action gamepad to play it. After being frustrated for the zillionth time in trying to do something simple like walking around a corner, I picked up a gamepad from Logitech – the Dual Action one, for 30 euros. It has an USB bus, is totally black, buttons are numbered from 1 to 12, and it was a doddle to install in Windows XP Home. All the other gamepads were either much more expensive or ridicilously cheap – to cheap to present any value. And since I already had a Logitech Wingcommander joystick, I chose the Logitech gamepad.

It is simply amazing what a difference it makes in playing this game !! All the commands become more or less second nature, there is no finger twisting to get to the right keyboad combination (and then pressing the wrong key), it simply works. Momving the camera about while running at the same time is soooooo easy

It’s like it becomes an extension of your mind,you need to think less about the key combinations (except for the combos). Now I only have the camera views that are sometimes not optimal to blame for my bad jumps..

Categories
Hardware

Akono HB-300 Bluetooth Headset

Akono BlueTooth headset

I recently bought an Akono Sony Ericsson bluetooth headset, the HBH-300, to go with my Sony Ericsson T630 phone. The headset is quite nice, stylish design, the only one left in the MultiMedia Market in Brussels.
Inside building it provides very good quality, with a claimed 10 hours talk time and 300 hours standby time.Since I don’t use it that much, it’s good to go for at least about 5 or 6 days, then I need to recharge it.

However, using it outside is a problem : anything more than a breeze is enough to kill my end of the conversation. The only thing the caller hears is the wind howling it’s melodious tune. Cupping my hand around the microphone and headset does not help : in extreme cases, it cuts the bluetooth connection between headset and phone !

I also find it an extreme hassle to fit the headset in my ear when the phone rings. You see, when the headset is in range, it automatically picks up on the headset. There is no option on the phone, as far as I can tell, that you do NOT want to accept the call on the headset, but want to take it on the phone itself. I am going to look in the manual, but so far haven’t found it yet.
So in the end I am a bit unhappy with it – it’ll only really be useful in the car or in buildings, not outdoors, which is why I wanted it in the first place.

Oh, and the incredibly useful WinSCP utility was updated to version 3.7.2 – check it out.