Posted by Ryan Cullen | Posted in Mobiles, Reviews | Posted on 27th August 2010
I’ve not reviewed either my Nexus or any apps for it, but I’ve found Wordfeud to be an exception.
It’s a Scrabble clone for Android phones and it’s really good.
It allows you to play at your leisure against one opponent per board, with 20 boards at any one time.
The GUI is nice and clean and I don’t have a problem with the adverts.
It’s still an early version so there are some issues, the biggest one being that it needs to run the game via a server, and as popularity grows the server crashes. It’s similar to what happened early on with Wordscrapper on Facebook.
What I hope to see in future versions:
- Play against 2, 3 or 4 opponents
- Add a TWL dictionary for the Americans who keep complaining about it having illegal words which are fine in SOWPODS
- Allow users to shuffle their tiles whilst waiting for their turn
- Customer alert sounds and trackball colour
- Custom friends list
There are people who are complaining about the adverts, these appear straight after you make a move. I’m more than happy with this as it keeps the game free and means I don’t have adverts on the screen whilst looking at the board. People asking for a “Pro” version need to make sure that they will be fine if the backend servers go down after they have handed over money. Whilst it is still having outages I would suggest holding off releasing an ad-free version.
A quick tip is to go into Settings (click the menu button from the main screen) and activate background notifications. This way you’ll be notified whenever it’s your turn to make a move.
If you’ve got an Android phone, download it today
Reading this on your mobile download it in the Market now.
If you fancy a game I’m artesea
Posted by Ryan Cullen | Posted in Tech | Posted on 4th July 2010
Looks like Itezy have changed their name / using another one, however the scam is still the same as I exposed a couple of months ago.
They call saying they are offering free support. Take control of your computer, then state it is infected and charge you through the nose to get the “viruses” removed.
Keep well clear of them.
Thanks to John Ingle in the last post for the tip-off.
ps, looks like they are comment spamming over the internet trying to boost up their page rankings / dropping the negative articles. If you run a website where they have left their crap I suggest either a) deleting it, or b) let your reader know what a bunch of scum bags these people are.
Posted by Ryan Cullen | Posted in Other | Posted on 3rd June 2010
Today the weather is great, it’s half term and the playing fields are…
…empty?
Posted by Ryan Cullen | Posted in Featured, Tech | Posted on 20th May 2010
I’ve just had a phone call from Mike Cooper at “Microsoft” claiming that they will provide me with free IT support.
He advised me that I was being called because when Internet Explorer crashed and I pressed Report this to Microsoft the problem was so important they phoned me and that the problem on my computer had actually infected Microsoft’s own servers!
Not only would he help fix my computer but he would provide free software to keep it protected in the future as no one anti virus software would protect me “100 person”.
All I had to do was visit itezy.net and download “System Protector”, “Email and Data Backup” and “Anti-mallware Protection” and if I had any future problems to call them back on 0800 0988470.
As soon as the call started I knew it was a scam, for starters Mike didn’t sound very English, he was badly reading from a script, he wanted me to visit Microsoft’s website at a URL which wasn’t microsoft.com, and he thought I was still using IE!
I ended the call at the stage where he wanted me to enter their website, this allowed me to get most of the information they were providing to write this blog post without infecting my machine. I was then phoned back twice, however I just ignored the calls.
Microsoft will never call you, if you have visited this website uninstall anything you have downloaded. If you have handed over cash ask for your money back and contact your credit card company.
Get a real anti virus software and check to see if anything has been left on your machine, and if you are still worried take it to a local expect.
Microsoft Australia have a blog post about this scam, looks like it’s just started to come over here.
8th June 2010 edit: for a laugh I went to their website on a sandboxed device. They list their “UK address” as Marble Arch Tower, 55 Bryanston Street, London, W1H 7AA which when googled comes back with a variety of iffy companies and this one for a Virtual Office where you can have your mail redirected.
And looking further the same goes for their New Zealand, US and Australian offices.
Posted by Ryan Cullen | Posted in Lincoln, Politics | Posted on 9th May 2010
On May 6th the voters on Lincolnshire cast their votes. Here is the combined results for the seven constituencies.
| Con |
174,729 |
49.77% |
| LD |
70,827 |
20.17% |
| Lab |
68,043 |
19.38% |
| UKIP |
16,346 |
4.66% |
| BNP |
13,614 |
3.88% |
| Linc Ind |
5,311 |
1.51% |
| Eng Dem |
1,121 |
0.32% |
| Green |
724 |
0.21% |
| Ind |
393 |
0.11% |
Yet under FPTP the Conservatives managed to obtain all seven seats.
One of the possible options for an STV election would be to have a Lincolnshire constituency with 6 MPs. Based on the numbers above both Labour and Liberal Democrats should have at least 1 MP each and the Tories 3, the final seat either LibDem or Tory.
There are some problems however converting FTPT directly to STV. To start with the tactical voters in Lincoln who voted for Labour and in Gainsborough who voted LibDem to stop the Tories probably would have voted for the party they actually wanted. As these people were never asked if they were voting tactical we have no idea how many would have changed.
The smaller parties like the Greens only fielded on candidate in South Holland and the Deepings. This one candidate if standing for Lincolnshire could have received more votes across the county, removing them from Labour/LibDems.
Also if it was true STV with you voting in preference to your preferred candidate (not party) those who voted for the UKIP, BNP, English Democrats and Lincolnshire Independents would have their 2nd/3rd/4th choices counted as their first choices were eliminated possibly giving the Tories more votes. But I’ve seen enough council ballot papers where people get 3 votes where they have voted BNP, LibDem, Green that these votes could go anywhere.
Only one thing I do know, it is deeply unfair that one party receiving less that 50% of the votes gets every single seat.
Posted by Ryan Cullen | Posted in CNPS | Posted on 6th May 2010
On the 15th August 2004 I started looking out for number plates. Consecutively spotting the digits in the middle. 2090 days later I have finally reach the end point which is 999.
The last hundred have been hard, and I’m blaming the Labour government for their scrappage scheme in which pretty much any car with the old style plates could be converted into cash towards a new and totally pointless plated one.
I’m sure I could pour through the stats finding the days I found the most, the longest period between finding plates, the fastest 100, but instead I’m just going to stop and never look at a plate closely again.
