To celebrate 10 years, EA are offering free play time on Ultima Online.

Pop over to here to pick up the client, and have a ball.

I was informed that Proporta have got a 40% discount on all of the ‘old’ iPod stuff they do.

Pop along to the Proporta site for the skinny on the deal. Also if you have picked up one of the new iPod’s, then pop and have a look at the 3G nano Classic Case and the 3G nano Silicone Case, both look quite good.

I can vouch for Proporta stuff, It’s always good, and always looks after the item it’s holding.

Righty Oh, I’ve moved onto the latest and greatest version of WordPress (2.3).

All seems ok to me, however if you notice any oddities, then please let me know.

Cheers, oh download the 2.3 package from here

News breaking is that Colin McRae may have crashed in his Squirrel helicopter with possibly three other passengers on board the helicopter.

Strathclyde Police have said that no-one on board the helicopter have survived, and it seems the hospital service believe there where four people on board. Rumors are that one of the passengers may have been his 5 year old son.

It will be a tragic day for motorsport as a whole if this is confirmed, and McRae has died.

McRae is one of the most naturally talented drivers, with an ability for car control that is far and above most drivers.

McRae’s manager has told The Sunday Telegraph that he had spoken to Colin’s brother Alister, who had confirmed that he was piloting the helicopter.

I whole heartedly hope that the whole McRae family are ok. But if this a tragic day for motorsport, My heart goes out to the whole McRae family.

UPDATE: It has now been confirmed that McRae has died in the accident, along with his son. A bad day for motorsport, we all morn his families loss, he will be deeply missed.

Pop over the the Official site, as well as the Telegraphs site.

To Command and Conquer!

To celebrate the birthday, EA are giving away the original title for free. Yup EA giving it away free….. amazing….

Anyhow here’s the Link to the download. Go get it, it’s still a great game to play

This photo was snapped whilst on the back of a loader, near Nagoya (Toyota’s R&D location).

If this is the future of the MR2 then I for one am happy. Those that know me will know why that’s the case……. Well I own enough of the AW11’s (MK1 MR2).

As the Frankfurt show is on, here are a couple of the eye catchers………

First up, the 1Million pound Lambo, the Lamborghini Reventón is based on the LP640, it has a 6.5Ltr V12, pushing out 650Bhp. So with only 10Bhp more than the LP640, why the price difference?

Well it’s the technology involved, the car has everything that is available from the racetrack that is possibly road ready. It also weighs nearly nothing. With 20 of them going to be made, they are true Lamborghini fanboy cars, and look amazing.

VW Group (the owners of Lamborghini) now have two million pound ‘production’ cars on their books, I would still have the Veyron myself, but hey, that has a massive (by comparison) 300+ cars being made.

Next on the list is another of the VW group brands. This time it’s the Audi badge on show (Audi are the part of the company that look after Lamborghini incidentally).

The Audi RS6 Avant is the fastest estate on the market. The car packs a very pretty 580Bhp (although apparently it’s closer to 600Bhp) V10 Twin Turbo under the bonnet, so it goes like stink (4.6 to 62 and 120mph in 14.9), and you can still get the kids and dogs in the back (and have fun making them sick, as leather is wipe clean after all), and will corner like it’s on rails thanks to the 4WD Quattro system with a 40 front 60 rear split.

Next comes Honda. The S2000 is an aging car now, aging well, yes, but aging. So Honda are coming out with a nutter edition. The S2000 Type-S hit’s Japan next month at the Japanese Motor Show.

It’s got all the wheels and fairing’s of the S2000 Cup Racer that has been shown off before, but manages to keep the folding roof. No details on engine mods etc, but I would imagine that the power has been hiked a bit, and with some luck, we will see the engine back running again at above 9000RPM, for all that in your face screaming that we love with the S2000.

Subaru have shown off the WRC ‘concept’ for there new Impreza. The strange thing is that it’s not Fugly? What have Subaru been up to? a decent looking Impreza? no way! It just cannot happen…. Next thing we will hear is that they have re-hired Colin McRae for a race drive….

Other news (car related) is that Nissan have decided the engine for the GT-R (Replacement for the Skyline GT-R).

The VR38VETT will be a 3.8Ltr 6 cylinder Twin Turbo lump, figures are said to be 480Bhp (or there about’s) with 62 in sub 4 seconds.

The engine is basically a sister to the Cosworth Engineered 3.5Ltr V8 VRH35L that is found in the R390 LeMans car. So some trick components are going to be used, stuff like the turbo impellers being integrated into the exhaust chambers (might be hated by tuners, but keeps weight down), as well as extremely light internals for things like the crank shaft, Piston’s and con rods. Should be a right screamer when it’s released, so the Porsche 911 Turbo will certainly have to watch it’s back.

Ferrari showed of it’s ‘Stradale’ version of the F430, the cunningly named F430 Scuderia (so that’s an F430 Team, who’s bright idea was that? anyhow….). As with most modern Ferrari’s it looks the part, and will undoubtedly be very quick around the track, but Ferrari are so passe……

So there is a lot of pretty hardware coming our way soon. Still nothing here want’s me to change my mind, I would still take the Audi R8……. Well, perhaps the Lambo would be nice…..

On my travels around the web I bumped into this useful little tool.

It’s from a couple of guys at Microsoft Research, and is designed to help with development and debugging of applications that use AJAX.

It’s quite nice to use for security testing as well (the reason I found it after all).

So if you have any ‘Web 2.0′ applications that need checking or debugging then pop and grab a copy.

I still don’t understand why we all get so excited over Steve Jobs’ press announcements.

For the last few it’s been a build up to nothing…. and this one is no different.

Good things

• 160Gb iPod ‘Classic’ – Has the cover flow UI.
• Smaller, useful Nano – Again has the cover flow UI, but from people seeing it they say it’s clunky as the Nano has not got the horsepower to do it.
• iPhone gets reduced in price.
• iPod Touch announced – Basically iPhone without the phone.

The Bad

• iPod ‘Classic’ – Still not got the nice screen….. now has the storage to do video, but not the screen
• Nano – Looks fuggly
• iPhone – hey who really cares? at the end of the day WM6 is still a better phone platform for the power user, and it’s still only got 8Gb of storage
• iPod Touch – Come on, it’s a Nano with the nice screen (in essence), give us a device with some capacity! I don’t mind if it’s thicker, if it has the storage capacity to actually use as a video playback device. Also the interface has not been overhauled to be used as a none phone device, and looks odd because it’s clearly missing buttons (icons). Yes it has WiFi and yes Starbucks will let me connect to iTunes, but hey that’s nothing new, and even if I don’t have to pay Starbucks for the WiFi access, I still have to pay for the iTunes downloads. Also with HTC already having a device out called the Touch, it might get a little confusing for buyers.

Surprises

• The iPhone Europe announcement everyone thought was coming, with the 3G additions, nope, certainly steering clear of the G1 iPhone that’s for sure, bring on the HTC Kaiser
• iPod Touch without storage, what are Apple thinking? it would be the perfect video iPod if it just had more space!
• Wireless sync, not mentioned anywhere, so no syncing with friends, or even your PC over WiFi
• Starbucks location awareness, come on, Starbucks may be a big thing for Steve, but in Europe it’s not used, partner with a real WiFi supplier!

Oh well, I know I’m not towing the Apple line in being disappointed, but hey, I need a new iPod, and wanted the mix of the 160Gb and the Touch…. Looks like I will have to wait and see what Microsoft announce on the Zune front……