Skyrim Mods Issue 4 (last before CK)

Its almost the end of January and bethesda has confirmed that the Creation Kit along with the skyrim patch 1.4 will be out before the end of the month.  Meaning the Internet will explode with tonnes more skyrim mods and much more substantial game changing mods.  So this will be the last post before the CK comes out.  To be honest I have not played too much of skyrim,  I personally just did not enjoy it as much as I expected.  Its no ones fault but my own though.  I had very high and specific expectations that were not entirely fulfilled.  I'm not sure if I'm going to be modding skyrim as much as I first intended, but I will still be trying out lots of interesting mods and hopefully I find the ones that make the game just what I want it to be.

Mods I'm using:
For the most part this has not changed from the last Issue, simply updates.  See the previous Issue if you want to know more about the mods I'm using.

NEW:  Skyrim.ini settings:
Thanks to a fantastic article by Nvidia I tried messing around with skyrim's configuration or .INI files.
I changed a few graphics performance values.  the first one is for the number of cells shown in full detail.  I increased the default number 5 to 9.  This had significant performance impact of course but to be able to almost double the draw distance is fantastic.  I always found it kind of distracting to see the grass and rocks load in while I was walking.  having this setting to 9 really makes the games look much better.  The second thing I changed was the grass draw distance.  I changed the default 7000 max setting to 21000.  Tripling the maximum distance the game allows.  To my surprise this caused almost no impact on game performance, but the effect is quite nice.

5 Awsome Apps

Ive had my iPhone for a couple weeks now and I've found some awesome apps that I'm going to showcase here.  Some are really common (like camera+) so I will try and focus more on the less known apps.

5.  NHK World Live
I watch the NHK world stream all the time.  NHK is a television network in Japan very similar to CBC here in Canada.  NHK World has all its programs in English and they all focus on Japanese news, culture, and entertainment.  I specifically like the Tokyo Eye, and J-mello programs.  This app simply streams the TV Chanel to your phone.  Its great for wasting time in class, and its free.

4.  Instacast
A great app for listening to podcasts.  you can download or stream them on wi-fi or 3G, and you can change your settings if you don't want the app using your 3G data.  I listen to a lot of podcasts so this app was well worth the .99$

3.  RemoteMouse
This is a pretty fun app.  Its probably most using for people doing presentations and want to use their phone to move to the next slide but its perfectly using just on the desktop.  This app lets you use the phone as a mouse and keyboard for your computer.  You download the app on the phone and computer then connect through wi-fi.  Works pretty well but the 2 finger scrolling doesn't move the page down much on the desktop.  This app has a free and paid version.  The free version works fine, the only thing the paid version adds is the ability to have a full screen touchpad or keyboard.

2.  Tunein Radio
This is a pretty popular app and for good reason.  This app lets you stream radio over the Internet to your phone.  They have a lot of different radio stations, from your basic CBC radio to a bunch of Japanese radio stations that can be fun to listen to.  Works best on a stable wi-fi connection but can be done over 3G too if you have the data for it.

1.  Kotoba
A Japanese dictionary.  It might not be using for everyone but for someone who is studying, or reads a lot of Japanese this is a excellent app.  It works in a lot of ways.  You can type English and get a translation, or just search for words in either language.  But what makes this app really great is the kanji dictionary.  You can search for radicals individually and get a list of which characters contain those radicals.  You can search by JLPT levels, the SKIP pattern, and just by looking up either reading.  This is a really using app for me, and its free.  Its a large app though at about 500MB buts I would rather have all that info there instead of transmitting over data or wi-fi.

My Minecraft City

This is a minecraft project ive been working on for awhile.  I built some of it a long time ago (like beta 1.4) in survival mode and imported it to the new location.  But a lot of the taller buildings were made in creative mode from version 1.0.  I used a map editor to lower the entire map by about 40-50 blocks allowing me to build that many higher, I also used the editor to expand the city to hide all that annoying nature.  The only building that goes to max hight right now is the redish 2 circular tower building.

The first few images will be older ones from an online server I played on for awhile.  A lot of what I built there is not shocased here because it was lost :(
I built the volcano block by block without any plan.  I think it turned out pretty good.  The mansion looked great inside but I dont have any pictures.

And now the Main Project.
Also as a quick note the small white towers on the tops of the buildings are supposed to be antennas, because I built a lot of those before fences could be stacked.

New Tech: Logitech wireless keyboard K250

OK well its not exactly as exciting as an iPhone 4s, but new tech is still fun.  But why would I need a new wireless keyboard when I already have a perfectly good one?  Simple, this one has a num-pad, and function keys.  Also it was only 15$ at walmart (30$ on their website though) and I had to spend my gift card on something.

Its a nice change to go back to larger keys from the "Chiclet" style I had on my old one.  Ive been thinking about getting a mechanical keyboard, maybe Razor's, so this logitech one is a good way to get a feel for larger keys again.

The Keyboard itself is pretty basic.  I have extra function keys on the F1-F12 keys for things like music playback, and browser shortcuts.  Another reason to get this larger keyboard is because while playing starcraft I like to look around the map with the arrow keys, and the tiny uncomfortable position of those keys on the last keyboard was annoying. 

New Tech: iPhone 4s 16GB Black

I got a iPhone 4s for Christmas.  Unlocked, off contract, directly from the apple website.  I'm going to write this post mostly as a "first impression" because I don't think I have experienced everything that the iPhone or iOS 5 can do.  This is the first time Ive used an iOS device for an extended period of time.  I use iTunes with an older 4th Generation Ipod Nano, but overall I don't have a lot of experience with any of apple's operating systems.

So, first impressions:
Ive always thought that the 3.5" screen would be too small for my smartphone needs, and that the size of the phone overall was too narrow.  But after using it for only a short time I found I was mistaken.  The screen size is fine for basic browsing, and the ability to easily zoom into text makes it easy to read.  The feel of the device is just amazing.  The metal feel of the external antenna really makes the phone feel solid, heavy (which is a good thing), and expensive.  The glass back gives basically the same feeling and I love that feeling so much that Ive decided, at least for now, to not use a case.  I am using a screen protector though.  It gives the front of the device a matte finish, and feel.  Which I'm ok with because I hate seeing fingerprints on glossy surfaces.  Another thing I like about the 3.5" screen is that my thumb is able to reach anywhere on the screen, so I can use the device comfortably with one hand.

I won't spend too much time on the basic UI because I think most people know how it works, so I will just say that its good.  There are a few things on my old blackberry that I definitely miss while using the iPhone.  Blackberry is know for its excellent E-mail client, and now I know what they mean.  I definitely like how there was a separate "App" for each separate e-mail account on RIM's OS.  I could see right on the home screen without having to open anything which account I had mail from.  Another good thing RIM does with email is that there is a little indicator on the app icon that tells you when you have new e-mails, that indicator goes away as soon as you open the mail client, whether you read the e-mail or not.  So you can read who its from, and the subject, without opening the e-mail and the "new message" indicator still goes away.  On iOS you know when you get e-mails but if you don't open them they still show on the mail app Icon.  Its not a big difference but I still think its worth mentioning.  Another important difference from RIM's OS is that you can easily have different ring tones, or vibrations for different email accounts.  I have 2 main e-mail accounts one for newsletters, and fairly unimportant stuff, and a gmail account for important mail like travel information, or student loan messages.  On my blackberry my hotmail account did not notify me at all, but the gmail account acted like an SMS message, with 3 vibrations, and an LED indicator light.  That kind of high level customisation is something that apple overall seems to ignore, while RIM really lets you personalise how your device works.

A similar problem on iOS is that you can't "mark all as read" on the mail client.  On RIM's OS you could scroll to any point and mark all prior as read, or just scroll to the top to mark all as read.  This feature will definatly be missed.

One way the iPhone is well above the Blackberry is apps.  So far I don't use apps all too often, and I don't expect to do very much gaming on this device but there are a lot of useful apps that Ive already found that I would have loved to use on my old phone.  I will go into more detail of apps in a later post.

There are a lot of things on the iPhone that are much better simply because its a newer phone.  The blackberry is almost 3 years old at this point and is not nearly as powerful as the dual-core A5.  So things like the browser, games, UI, and apps all work much faster and with less problems than the old phone.

Siri:
Siri is alright.  I played around for a little while asking it the meaning of life and whatnot.  But this is not a feature I will use very often.  Its even less useful in Canada because Siri cannot find locations outside the US.  That may change in the future but for now its not too useful to me.

I had a pretty good experience switching phones mid contract.  I did try the whole "Cutting a SIM card to fit a Micro-SIM slot" and It did not seem to work.  I didn't destroy the SIM card, I was still able to use it in the blackberry after cutting it but the iPhone did not recognise it for whatever reason.  One slight annoyance is that I had to wait until I travelled back home to get my phone activated.  There were no Rogers' stores anywhere withing a 5 hour drive of where I was staying.  Once I got back home it was not a problem.  I had to change my plan because my old plan was specifically for blackberry but that turned out really good.  The bill is a little more expensive now, but I get 10x more data (from .5GB to 5GB) and "My10" which allows me to call home over long distance for free.  I opted out of the 12$/month for call display, and forwarding because it would not be useful for me.  One major annoyance of this experience, while not iPhone related, was that I'm not able to use my old phone.  I was planning on giving the old blackberry to my mom so she could use it.  I thought that she would still be able to use the device over Wi-fi for e-mails and browsing.  But that is not the case.  Without a valid SIM card the device was basically useless.  No e-mail, browsing, or apps at all.  The only thing that seemed to still work was the music, and video apps.

In conclusion I love this new phone, and can't wait to see what I can do with it.

Upcoming Posts

I have not posted anything new lately because of the holiday break. There are a few things I will write more full stories on when I have the time, such as:

• The iPhone 4s first impressions and Review. As well as some features of the Blackberry OS.
• Nigaki Risa's (morning Musume) Graduation and the future of Morning Musume
• My experiences switching phones while on contract, with an unlocked phone (iPhone 4s)
• More Skyrim Mods posts (The creation Kit should be released soon too)

Also I would like to do an "Apps I'm Using" segment describing the IOS apps that I'm using. I will make something like this if I end up using a lot of apps.