We’re so very clever (Who do you think you’re fooling - Paul) that we now have our own widget for the Mac OSX dashboard under development! It’s still very much in a beta version and isn’t finished so there are a few bugs in it, but as we’re jolly eager to let you lot play with new toys we thought we’d give you all a go of the beta version.

You may ask what it does to enhance your GBS experience, well, to put it simply, it shows you the most recent post on the blog. It also shows you our three Xbox Live Gamercards in all their glory, so you can see when we’re online and what we’re playing.

To download the widget you must use a Mac and run OSX 10.4 or above! To look at the reported bugs use the menu option above. Also as new options are made available we’ll update the page.

Anyhow, download it, put it on your dashboard and marvel in its GBS magic!

Good, Bald, Stupid Widget
Latest version : 0.01
Release date: 6th December, 2007
Download our fantastic widget

’tis the season to be jolly and all that jazz and in line with the festive spirit I’ve got two little pressies for the blog. The first is in progress already with small changes to the look and feel of the blog happening both at the front and the back, though I will probably leave it until after christmas to do the upgrades to the Wordpress software.

The second pressie is a secret and one that I’m rather excited to be doing. I haven’t done one before and if it works okay I may even do one for the “other” operating system too now they’ve caught up.

On a sad note you may notice we have done away with the forum. It was a worthwhile experiment but after six months and not a lot of use we’ve decided to drop it and concentrate a bit more on what we do best.

And before I go, a bit of cheer for Paul. He has now got two DS’s. Now if anyone knows the location of some Nintendo Wii’s I’d be glad to receive such information!

Yes, us incredibly busy people completely forgot it was just over one year ago we started this blog. November 27th, 2006 a certain Mr Duncan Simpson (who was soon to become a father-to-be) made the first post. A momentus occasion that had changes in store for us all. Well it meant we had to post something meaningful now and again!

So there we are. We are one year old. Beers can be posted to us. We would prefer birthday money to be sent via Paypal pls. Or even pop a few games in the post. Address by request.

We’re having some work done on the web server over the next day or so and this may mean a temporary loss of GBS.

Hopefully we won’t be down for too long if at all.

We’ve all heard the phrase “Backwards Compatibility”. It’s usually used to refer to hardware or software that will support hardware or software from versions before the latest set.

For example, the 360 is backwards compatible on most original Xbox games. Get the idea? Excellent - well I’m going to blow it out of the water now. (And there is no hope of this actually happening but hell, it’s an idea!)

We all know that major software houses such as EA like to have a franchise they can run and run with. Tiger Woods Golf, FIFA, NBA, the hockey one, the american football one, etc. Well imagine that each year a new FIFA came out you could play games on Xbox Live against those who still had last years version.

Think about it for a second. What changes year on year in FIFA or football as a whole?

• Players move
• Teams get relegated / promoted
• Managers move around the managerial merry-go-round
• Ummm…

Nothing else changes. The pitch doesn’t change. The rules don’t change (that often!). The general game stays the same. Graphics get a little better and the sounds gets better (arguable!) but the basic elements such as player position, ball position, score etc aren’t ever affected. So how difficult could it be to allow a new version to still interact on Xbox Live with correctly received and sent packets of data from maybe just one earlier version of the software?

Take Tiger Woods golf, I agree that bunker positions may change so maybe not so on that one but that hockey one, how does a hockey pitch change? Does the ice get warmer?

Whilst this concept won’t work for nearly 95% of the games out there - Halo 3 and Halo 2 wouldn’t work at all - different maps and such like - but most of the sports games would. So why hasn’t anyone thought of it? I’d think it would be a huge selling point.

Discuss in the comments bit . If you want to.

Due to a technical hitch (read as numpty-me forgetting my password to log in to the admin panel!) I’ve been quiet on here lately.

Oh yes, I’m back! Thank you Phil!

First, big thanks to Paul and Phil for their SMS support, and messages on here.  It is really appreciated guys!

Yes as you read I am now a Dad for the first time.  I’ll be putting up a post on my personal blog in a couple of days (link to which is on the right) to give you guys all the details.  Well this is a tech/gadget/gaming based blog after all!

So just a short one from me at the moment, mainly as I’m so tired, the keys on my keyboard are beginning to melt into each other in front of my eyes.  However, you can expect more posts from me now on everything from The Orange Box, to the value of Tens machines, and my new found lack of gadget money.

TTFN

… that our close friend Duncan “Boidster” Simpson and his good lady wife are just moments away from becoming proud parents!

I would toast the occasion with a spirit or two but it’s a little early!

Please join me in congratulating the proud new parents!