Computing at it’s best

Today couldn’t have gone better, really got the hang of creating forms in Microsoft office. Have always wondered how you create a form with a drop down menu, even a tick box. Created the form with ease, was a boost. Software development is getting more interesting by the day, did a little more work with Delphi Pascal. Although I only created a couple of sentences in each task, total of 4 tasks. It has given me a better understanding of how you get problems and how you go about solving and troubleshooting them.
Making progress on databases, becoming more familiar with queries, reports and was introduced to database relationships today.

Tigers of the World

Have always been fascinated by the tiger, the way a tiger lives is completely amazing. The way they hunt, what they hunt, size and the temperatures they live in. Remembering tiger’s known as Panthera Tigris in latin are mainly found in Asia.

Picture courtesy of (Lesley Boast and Naturetrek)

Powerful and hungry looking tiger and cub.

Picture courtesy of (Lynn Stewart and Naturetrek)

How many Sunday roasts does this tiger eat?

First day back after college holidays

First day back at college has been going fine so far, shock to the system after a week off. Had a mock assessment on spreadsheets this morning, was easy enough, means I should pass the assessment next week. Last class today is communications then away home to work on my webpage's for Thursday, feel the need to add another photo and have a play about to make them look better.

Wind Turbines

Was out and about with the digital camera and came across the opportunity to take some photos of the wind turbines. Looking at the height and size of them, you aren’t going to be getting one of these in your back garden.

Huge, Enormous, Gigantic!!

So how much power does one of these generate.

How many homes do they supply electricity too.

Need more Pictures

I’m just running through my blog, thinking of how much better it is looking with pictures. Still needing to find appropriate pictures to accompany the Tomb Raider Legend, Oasis, and Bob Marley entries. Have seen some pictures good pictures, still not sure on the ones I want though.

Well it’s the start of the college holidays, so I was having a look through the photos and came across these taken in Canada last October. Never realized how big brown bears are until you see the picture below, slightly big isn’t it? Not something you would want to run into on the way home from work.

From the brown bear to Lake Louise.

How ace would it be to open the curtains in the morning and have a view like Lake Louise?

How does this look?

Imagine being wrapped up warm with a woollen hat taking a small rowing boat to the end of the lake.

Have to say Canada is a fantastic place to go.

Learning new things

Here at college writing to my blog, web design is going fine and my web page is looking better every week. The tables are completed with more life and colour to them, my pictures and video have been placed where I want them. We have just set up Google Analytics, nearly the time to bear the cold weather and go home.

Braemar Witch project

Well I don't really want to be here, I feel that somebody is around me. Keep hearing funny sounds. seems to be heaps of light in the distance.

"next"

Using Delphi and Refresher of Systems Element

Got the chance to use Delphi in software development today, created a small program with a few commands. Has started to give me a small feel of what software development is and how you can make a small program so easily. Also had the systems element of the course, it refreshed my knowledge of computer memory and buses.

Found my Digital Camera

Finally found my digital camera last night, means I can take some pictures and edit them in Photoshop, put Photoshop to good use. Having a play around with my web page, seeing how I can make it look better and more appealing.
Had a brief look at what the HNC classes have been doing, some fantastic work. Can’t wait to be doing the course they are doing. Sounds very interesting.

End of Level Battles

Tomb Raider Legend

Ran Into trouble

The first encounter of trouble comes at the end of Bolivia,
It all breaks loose at the end of the level cutscene. You will find yourself in a very difficult situation. As soon as you regain control of Lara after the cutscene, run over the walkway Jumping the gaps as they appear, trying to avoid being killed by the helicopter. Jump over the final gap and pull yourself up onto the platform, you then have to defeat the mercenaries, It’s simple to do this. Move and dodge their attacks while moving, use cover when needed, I found rolls and summersaults and bursts of bullets to be useful.

Tokyo

Defeating Takamoto

For this one make sure you have plenty of ammunition, best weapon for this is the shotgun and assault rifle. When you have entered the lift and reached the top there will be a cutscene, this is where Lara will battle with Takamoto.
You will find yourself on the bottom floor and Takamoto on the upper walkway at the start, for a better fight you need to be on the same level as him. To get onto the upper walkway, use ladders on the vertical poles, these are behind the statues, when doing all this you need to avoid turret guns. At the top right hand side of the screen is a orange bar, this represents Takamotos health.

Takamoto uses a weapon that sends out low and high level shockwaves; dodge the shockwaves by rolling or jumping. To stay alive you have to dodge the shockwaves while shouting at Takamoto. I found It easier to take cover and shout Takamoto with the shotgun first, when he moves from pillar to pillar I used the assault rifle, keep at It till his orange bar is gone, once this has occurred you will get another cutscreen.

Ghana

Defeating Rutland

You are better starting off with the pistols, Rutland has two kinds of attacks, he throws grenades, and he slashes Lara with a fragment you need. You can dodge the grenades because they have a timer on them, he is better defeated using the combat lock. The problem is when you have shoot Rutland enough, he uses the pillars to heal, simple solution, shoot Rutland enough keeping you distance, wait till Rutland jumps onto the pillar, use the yellow cancel button on your control to reveal the grapple points and shoot them. Next time he goes up onto the pillars to refresh his health, connect the magnetic grapple to the pillar and pull It down. Repeat this for all the remaining pillars. Then finish Rutland off with the assault rifle.

Kazakhstan

The Unknown Entity

The unknown Entity can Inflict large amounts of damage, so watch out. Soon as the cutscene ends run to and enter the magnetic gun in the centre of the room. Locate the creature and press L1 to get hold of it, now aim at one of the bursts of energy cracklings between two small lobes and fire, If you got It right the creature will disappear for a short time. Then you have to jump out and pull one of four levers, situated on the walls, you have to repeat the grab, fire and pull lever process for all four levers.

I found It much quicker and easier to use a method of rolling and somersaulting to pull the levers.

During the cutscene, the fragment was revealed (It’s protected by a energy shield, plus four larger orbs that are lowered from the ceiling)
Remount the magnetic gun and shoot each of the large orbs with R1, the idea is to get them to swing and discharge crackling between the smaller orbs, you need to move all four large orbs into position quickly as they will soon swing back to where they started.

Once you have them in place, the electrical discharge get stronger and the shield to the fragment disappears. This is when you get off the magnetic gun, and use the grapple to retrieve the fragment. You will get a cutscene.


England

Beating the Ugly Snake

Firstly you have to get the creature under one of the metal cages, to do this you simply fire at the tower to sound a bell, the creature will then temporally pay attention to the bell and investigate. When this happens use Lara’s grapple on the lever at the bottom of the tower, you must repeat this on all four towers to defeat this monster.



Bolivia

The Looking Glass

This is the most toughest part of the game, mercenaries appears from all directions, man two turrets, while mercenaries walk around attacking Lara with grenade launchers, pleasant?

Excalibur is the most powerful weapon Lara has, so the first task is to take out the two soldiers manning the turrets, while finding them eliminate other mercenaries, then find and eliminate the mercenaries using the grenade launchers. Remember to be on the guard, as the attacks don’t stop till you get a cutscene, this will take place when you have killed the last mercenary.
Now Lara is faced with another challenge, The Unknown Entity Part two.
This creature will circle the platform and launch projectiles at Lara, these will detonate when they hit the ground, get caught and you will suffer. Always hold L1 thoughtout the battle, this maintains the lock-on for better targeting, attack it with Excalibur. This creature has the capabilities to dodge a lot of Excalibur’s shockwaves, so try to be accurate as well as wary of the creature’s attacks.

When the creature falls to the ground, make a attack using the yellow cancel key on your controller, make it fast and quick attack as It’s not down for long, If you managed to attack the creature the health bar won’t charge fully, move to a safe distance and carry on with you assault, but if you missed, the creature will have full health. You will have to carry out this process of attacking with Excalibur and attacking when it is down until its health gauge is virtually empty, then you can give the killer blow and win the battle.

Reached the weekend already

Here making this page look professional, must say it’s starting to look a whole lot better than the start of college 6 weeks ago, when it was a dark blue background with white writing, managed to get the labels for all my entries. Just need to add all the contacts and some pictures, and then the blog should look ace.

Skilled Chef

Introduction to my skill

Firstly I would like to explain how I trained as a chef, worked at two 4 star hotels, the Hilton Treetops and Thainstone House Hotel. Until I decided to come back to college and study computing, cooking is the one skill most people need in life.

So I decided to share this easy recipe of Cullen Skink, Cullen Skink is a rich, tasty soup from Cullen in Morayshire.

The recipe below for Cullen Skink serves six people;

You will need;

1kg (2lb) Finnan Haddock
60g (2oz) Butter
2 Onions (sliced)
20 fl oz (2 ½ cups each of milk and water)
600g (1lb) potatoes, peeled and cut up
A good pinch of nutmeg
2 tbsp chopped parsley
Salt and pepper

Put smoked fish in a suitable pan with milk and water, bring slowly to the boil and simmer covered for about 4 minutes, until fish is cooked. Transfer fish to a plate, strain the cooking liquid into a large Jug, melt butter in the pan, add sliced onion, potato and cook, until onion is soft.
Then add the reserved stock, bring to the boil and simmer covered until the potato is cooked. Meanwhile flake the haddock, discarding any bones and skin, with the fish to one side, liquidise the potato mixture and return it to a clean pan. Add fish and parsley, reheat, season to taste with salt and pepper and add the nutmeg.

(Picture courtesy of foodiesite.com)

Return of Monday Morning

The college week has been superb, Monday with the hardware lesson with Susan Can’t wait till I start building a computer. Building the computers has to be one of the easiest and most fun units of the course. When will the ringing go, caused by the Dot Matrix Printer. Today we did a little bit of table work in Web Design, good to see my web page is looking a little more like a web page every week.

Software Development and Pascal

It’s Wednesday and I’m on my lunch break, last lesson was Office and Personal Productivity Applications, we created a programme using Microsoft word. Next we have Software Development, getting a better understanding of Macro, started creating a program using Pascal. Interesting when the computer runs the program and I see the end results, can’t wait till I have created some more of the program. Then I will see how programs are really made.

Return of the Dot Matrix Printer

It’s Monday night and I’m sat here reflecting on how the day has been, was it the Assessment or the Dot Matrix Printer we used this morning? You don’t think how technology has moved on till you have used one of these printers again. Believe me, having ten of them going at the same time wasn’t healthy for my ears, the noise was that bad you could here it halfway down the corridor from the computer room. Made you want to go home like a school kid with earache.

It’ s Wonderful Friday

Day off college, so I’m sat at home doing the homework I have been asked to do for next week, that includes another lot of revision and a couple of questions on the Software Development side of things. Also sat here thinking about how my blog is progressing each time I write a new entry, changed the background as I felt It was a little to dark.

Classic Thursdays

Thursdays are always the best, Web development is really fun. Seem to be picking up the basics up now, has to be a plus, learning something about Web development every second. Have a better understanding of what I want to achieve from the course, drives me further to my ambitions.

Were any Laws Broken?

This is a difficult call as you have three powerful figures here, Alisher Usmanov who is billionaire wanting to buy Arsenal FC, not at all happy with comments made, Craig Murray and Tim Ireland. All I can see is Craig Murray and Tim Ireland were expressing a freedom of speech.

This case relates to a case back in 1999 Involving Godfrey v Demon Internet Service. This meant website host companies are regarded as the publisher of such statements and comments. This means they are vulnerable for the bloggers actions, unfortunately this leaves the Internet Service Provider in a position of being sued accordingly. So this explains why Mr Usmanov had the upper hand.

What did Alisher Usmanov do about It?

In seeing the comments made about himself and his affair of wanting to buy Arsenal football club, he contacted Schillings lawyers. Schillings sent legal threats to Fasthosts Internet Ltd, the Internet service provider, who provided the server for Tim Irelands Bloggerhead website, this had a major role in the shut down of websites http://www.bloggerhead.com/ and http://www.craigmurrays.co.uk/

This generated the shut down of MP Boris Johnson’s, Bob Pipers and Clive Summerfield’s blogs. Bearing in mind, Pipers, Johnson and Summerfield’s hadn’t offended Alisher Usmanov they just used Bloggerhead.

So what is the situation here?

Looking into the situation here it has come very clear to me, Mr Alisher Usmanov was less than happy with comments made by Craig Murray, Former British Ambassador of Uzbekistan and Tim Ireland who is an online Marketing Consultant and operator of the once Bloggerhead. Comments had been made about his Interest in Arsenal FC and his past in various blogs.