I still hate looking for cars

I may have mentioned this before:

http://andrewdrisc.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/i-dislike-looking-for-cars.html

But the job of looking for a car has re-reared it's annoying head, the Fiesta I bought, hopelessly broken and returned to the garage a few weeks ago. Nothing against Jackson's in Caerphilly really, after the first annoying bloke they were nice to deal with and gave a refund with no quibbles when it became apparent the car was a prize box of bombs.

The weirdest part, they've clearly passed/sold the car on and as if by magic:

http://www.wbrees.co.uk/used-cars/ford-fiesta-1-4-tdci-zetec-5dr-bridgend-201213460430908

Here it is back for sale in Bridgend, be warned anyone wanting to buy YR03 WWZ... Don't! It'll fall apart in seconds!

Anyway, the search is back on, I'm off Fiestas after that little debacle and so am really down to 2 types of car I like.

The peugeot 307:

Nice car, looks nice the 1.4 diesel is cheap to tax, same as the fiesta was, but that model is next to impossible to find, especially on my kind of budget. The one above is a 2003 model, which is about the age I'd be looking at.

The rival is the Audi A3:

I saw one of these, a little over budget and with a chav'd out exhaust yesterday. Loved the red colour, the inside space and the layout. Downside was higher tax, the aforementioned chav'd up exhaust and they're generally originally company cars to the mileage is through the roof, but Audi engines were built to last so that's not bothering me.

I did see it in Trade Centre Wales, so chances are it was overpriced, but if I can find one... and it was a straight choice, I'd go for the audi in a heartbeat, such a nice car, and let's face it, the only time I'll ever own an Audi.

But now I can visits to forecourts and pushy salesmen ahead again. Can't wait.

RIP iPhone

After between 22 and 23 months by my side with almost unfailingly decent levels of service, my iPhone will die today. It no longer wishes to charge itself, and being an iPhone, this gives it a very short life expectancy.

Sadly this also leaves my mobile phone-less until I'm due an upgrade, which thankfully isn't too long, so if you need to get hold of me... tough.

The phone went through some tough times, it lost it's volume buttons, but it carried on. It took a tumble through a massive hole in my pocket onto a harsh Tenerife street (you know the typical Spanish kind with the little squares) and cracked its screen, but it carried on going. But like so many older devices, it started to get confused, telling me the accessory wasn't optimised for iPhone, when I hadn't actually got anything plugged into it... freezing up during calls, and sometimes not even wanting to receive them at all.

Now it looks like the little weekend away in Burnham on sea was it's last action as a useful device (thanks Gracie), it's farewell tour if you will. Now it's refusing to be fed, there's just 24% of the battery left of its life, so about an hour and a half then!

Not wishing to sound heartless, throwing away my long time companion and replacing it with a newer shiner model without a second thought, but it's only a phone! This does open the door to be acquiring an iPhone4! Yes, of course I know the iPhone5 isn't all that far behind, I am a fully paid up member of geek you don't have to tell me, but circumstances have forced my hand. Plus the 4 will be more than adequate for my needs.

I've already started having a look around, and I've already assumed o2 are not going to offer me a decent deal and will frown at my data usage and the early leader is three. For the same as I'm paying now, they'll give me ludicrous amounts of texts and calls and most vitally, 'unlimited' data (I haven't checked the old t&c's yet and am fully aware there is probably some kind of cap or fair use policy, but it's still better than 500mb) all with an iPhone4 (either colour... woo-hoo...) for exactly the same as I paid for my 3GS all those many many months ago.

I will ring up o2 and give them a chance to explain their early upgrade procedures before I laugh in their general direction when the price is mentioned. Or I could wait a month 'til they'll upgrade me anyway. Not sure when I'll ring, or indeed on what, but I'll ring! Have to asses my options from that point.

Last night I frantically backed up music, photos, but not contacts... hmm oversight there and it's only just occurred to me, oh well...

It's all about standards!

Whatever happened to taking pride in your work. Feeling happy with your end product and knowing when you show the world you'll have something to be proud of? Some places still have it, however, in the world of games development, not a sign of it.

Ever since patching PC games was a possibility, people have become more and more reliant on it. The situation worsened when the same became possible for console games, now iPhone games can be 'updated' the can be the worst.

For years it's been quite common place to avoid Football Manager games for the first few months as they are always broken on release. Usually they are simple obvious things 1000s of players find within hours of playing, so I ask myself, how did the teams of playtesters who test the game miss it? Or did they think, "Umm deadlines coming, bang it out and we'll fix it later. We'll have to do database updates anyway, so 2 for 1!" Probably the latter of the two.

It spread to consoles, the biggest example of it being Fallout: New Vegas, with it's literally dozens of graphic glitches, quest problems. Yes it's a big game so catching everything would be hard, but some bugs are so obvious and almost unavoidable. Don't get me started on the lip-sync on the intro, the compulsory can't skip me plot laying out intro, to Fable 3.

But there is a further type of breed, the "Ooooh let's add more stuff to our existing and slightly surprisingly popular stuff to push it to new people, quick" people. Step forward Stick sports and their iPhone app Stick Cricket.

Stick Cricket is a addictive excellent, slightly frustrating, game, the full upgrade is a snip at £1.79. I bought it and enjoyed it. Then stick sports decided to update it with a new game mode to make it more attractive by adding a quick easy graphics heavy as broken as the rest of it World Cup tie in game, so more people would upgrade. They screwed up royally.

The game became buggy and broken, it would crash to the home screen randomly, if you won a game it wouldn't recognise this and leave you hanging where the only way out is to forfeit the game. Generally, due to what can only be an absolute zero of testing, they destroyed it and essentially wasted my £1.79. The company don't respond to tweets, comments through iTunes but only put a note on saying for people not to update it. No good if you already have. No sign of a further update, don't even know if they're trying, iTunes doesn't do refunds, so I can't see anything would rush them as clearly high standards and good service are way down low on their agenda.

What this has done for me is destroy that company's reputation. Stick Sports have spent years online with reasonable browser games, and I respected that, hence buying the app, but now to me I think of them as shoddy chancers, who are unwilling/unable to fix their errors. They don't test their product and just bang it out unusable.

The app is still available for download (can't say I'm recommending it) and as far as I know every new download is as broken as mine. Oh and they also use the worst mechanic in the world, the 'please rate me message after EVERY game, that's the gaming equivalent of a spoilt child begging for praise every time they so much as fart.

If you own the app, contact iTunes, say fix it or refund us! Maybe if they're hurt financially they may just do something about it.