2014 - Page 4 of 5 - TBNI.Blog - The Official TBNI.Blog

Turtle Beach Ear Force Shadow UnBoxing

February 11, 2014 by TomBoyNI

I have never been one for earphones whilst gaming, however the guys that are say that there is simply no comparison to gaming with a decent set of ‘cans’ as opposed to a television speaker set up or a basic 2.1 system. Then when you start to move into good 5.1 systems you may be unfortunate enough then that your house, or worse your neighbours’ house starts to shake when stuff starts exploding on screen. It is this point that a good gaming head set starts to come into its own.

For me I have taken the plunge with a mid range set of headphones, namely ‘Turtle Beach Ear Force Shawdow.’ I have been on the lookout for such a set of headphones for a while but was always put off by the price tag. When these came up in a recent flash sale that was effectively saying, ‘Here you go chum, take these and male a small donation to our store,’ it was simply impossible to say no! (Oh and they are PS4 compatible!)

Here is what Turtle Beach have to say about this set. At the time of writing the price is £79.99 GBP.

LED Lenser P7 UnBoxing :

February 11, 2014 by TomBoyNI

Torches have become so much more than a means to shine light on something, they are now a totally essential gadget and one that no house let alone car or motorbike user should ever be without!

I however am relatively new to the torch game, so I am not going to get to deep into the benefits, throw, spot, lumens and all that techy stuff! Give me a Mac or an iPhone and I will be able to tech the life out of you, a torch, nope. Check out the forums such as http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?19-Flashlight-Reviews and you will see that the Torch guys make the Android v iOS arguments tame in comparison!

I have three torches, one I use for working, a 3 D Cell maglite with an LED Conversion, it is bright and illuminates further than I have ever needed to see in the dark, it is also a tank, and for that reason it works well for me.

I also have a mini LED Lenser A5 that I keep in my backpack as a backup. Tiny, light, strong, and a 75m beam should keep me right.

For the car I bought one of these LED Lenser P7s. In real terms it is bright, more than bright enough than I reasonably believe anyone would need for working at their car in an emergency or illuminating a pathway to get you from A to B. It has other benefits too, the battery can last for up to 120 hours, if you are still working at your car after 120 hours, your car is broken. If you are still walking after 120 hours you are lost. It also feels incredible sturdy, sturdy enough to give you complete faith in its build quality.

The official Stats of the P7 are :

Casio G-Shock GA1009AER UnBoxing

February 11, 2014 by TomBoyNI

G-Shocks are without doubt one of the hardest, toughest and in my opinion coolest watches in the world. Couple this with the oversized G-Shock range and the GA-100 series, in my book you are onto a winner every time!

This Christmas I was lucky enough to get another GA-100, bringing my total to 3 (Black, White and now Yellow!). This time I opened the box to see the bright, and oh so shiny GA-100-9AER staring at me, that product code referring to the yellow model.

This watch is big, vivid and in your face! If you can’t handle that then this is not the watch nor the range for you. However for me the fact that this watch is big, vivid and in your face is all part of what makes it so very very cool!

Here is my unboxing gallery :

10 Second Game Review : Infamous 2

February 11, 2014 by TomBoyNI

What the hell you may be asking! And rightly so Infamous 2 was released in 2011 after all!

However I purchased it on release and it sat in its cellophane wrapper until a couple of days ago. I thought with the now imminent release of Infamous : Second Son I needed to catch up before I dove into the newest Next Gen instalment of this huge City Platformer / Action / Shooter / RP (I think it is officially classed as a Third Person Action Game.

The basic plot is WITHOUT SPOILERS is that you take on the role of Cole McGrath, Empire City has been destroyed in a huge blast, you and Zeke have moved to New Marais, however the Beast is coming and he is ripping up the entire Eastern Seaboard. You must stop him!

This game is huge, there is a good 12 hours in playing through the story and much much more in playing the side missions. You make decisions whether Cole becomes a hero to humanity or a Villian to rival the worst of them is entirely in your hands. People will worship or fear you, and it is your actions or even lack of actions that will determine which way the crowd sways.

Visually New Marais is stunning, all the visuals are, the textures in the electricity and buildings will leave you wondering what we are going to get in the PS4 game. The story is compelling and interesting, made even more so as it is you who is steering the action in a particular direction.

The only question that now remains is are you good or evil?

Play it, enjoy it and salivate at the thought of the impending Infamous : Second Son!

Preparing MicroSD Card for Use in Garmin Dakota 20 (& Other GPS Systems)

January 18, 2014 by TomBoyNI

Last year I purchased a Garmin Dakota 20 GPS System to use on my Motorcycle and also for GeoCaching. I never really used it. However I have now set up setting it up properly and getting it ready for use this year.

One good point about the Dakota 20 is the fact that it has a expandable memory by the addition of a MicroSD card, which sits neatly behind the batteries. This is a bit of a no brainer really as SD Cards are so affordable now. You don’t even have to go that big as the Custom maps from Garmin are a maximum size of 4GB, an 8GB should easily do most users. One other option is that if you have a lot of custom maps you could buy bigger, store all your maps on the device then move them around into the proper directories as required as your journey progresses. (Pretty much the whole of Western Europe on a Custom Map is squeezed into 4GB).

To utilise this all you have to do is prepare the card.

(One quick tip for when you get set up, make sure you leave the WW BaseMaps Enabled, this will give you at the very least a base map whilst your detailed maps load, removing any white screens that you get as loading occurs, it is purely cosmetic, just nicer to work with!).

To do this follow these simple steps.

1. Format your MicroSD card as FAT32 (FAT MS-DOS on a Mac)
2. Rename the Card – ‘GARMIN.’
3. Create a folder named ‘Garmin’ in the root directory.
4. Any Map files with the extension ‘.img’ are placed in this directory.
5. Copy the File Structure from your Actual Garmin GPS to that of your Freshly Formatted SD Card. The folders named below are all within the ‘Garmin’ Root directory.
6. The ‘CustomMaps’ folder will contain any ‘.kmz’ files.
7. The ‘BirdsEye’ folder will house any ‘.jnx’ files.
8. The ‘GPX’ folder will be the home of waypoints and so on just as the Garmin was itself.

iPhone 5 / 5s Bear Grylls Action Case UnBoxing

January 12, 2014 by TomBoyNI

I have always been a fan of the rugged style cases for my phone. The offer great drop protection and keep the phones in immaculate condition when being used in everyday life.

Whilst out shopping I noticed a ‘Bear Grylls Action Case’ with a nice yellow reduced sticker in a local supermarket. Reduced is always good and also it was bright orange. Thats a good way to sell me something – make it available in funky colours. The case was also available in a range of Camouflage colour options (wood land, DPM, and urban – there may be even more, as well as grey and plain black).

The cases are identified by a large BG logo on the bottom third which to be fair I am not convinced on. The rest of the case definitely gets my vote on aesthetics, however the big logo is just a little too garish for me. (Even though it bright orange.) I mean c’mon does anyone actually want to walk about advertising Bear Grylls?

xBox One UnBoxing

January 12, 2014 by TomBoyNI

A bit late I know, but I picked up my xBox One Day One, on Day One, I was an exceptionally well behaved boy this year so I decided it would make a nice ‘me to me’ Christmas present, which to be fair it did.

Doing any sort of review at this stage is rather pointless, there are many many reviews online already, so I see no point in doing another.

One question I do see still being asked quite a lot is, ‘which console is better?’ I think this is a question that will never have a definitive answer. There will be fanboys for MS and also those for Sony. As such views will be skewed, and opinions biased, however as gamer of well over 20 years now and the owner of both, for this generation of consoles at this stage of their life cycle, the best console is…BOTH!

Ha, I know that seems a bit of a cop out however here is my reasoning. Remember that these comments are relevant now, the very early stages of the consoles’ lives.

Seagate Expansion HDD 3TB UnBoxing & Time Machine.

January 12, 2014 by TomBoyNI

A quick unboxing gallery of a Seagate 3TB Expansion Desktop Drive (USB 3.0).

For reference the drive is a mere 36.0mm thick and cost only £80.

As you can see from the last images I use this drive as a Time Machine. At this price it is a very affordable back up (Time Machine) solution. The speeds are good, and by that I mean I don’t notice them being slow. I can’t comment on how it operates as a daily drive however as a TM it has given me no problems, I haven’t even noticed it was there. Which makes it pretty much ideal!

iTunes Updating Apps – Auto Update of Multiple Apps

January 12, 2014 by TomBoyNI

iTunes (at the time of writing this is iTunes 11) has changed the way you update your Apps.

Previously you clicked on the Apps Tab in the left hand column then towards the bottom right of the screen the was an ‘Update All’ Button that has now gone.

You will now notice that in your apps listing the icons of apps that have an available update have a nice wee tag in their upper left corner.

So to update all of your apps in one go here’s what you do, don’t fret it is easy!

1. Below you will see the new look ‘Update’ Flag on the relevant icons.

2. You will see the new ‘Updates’ Tab at the top. Click it!

All Apps that have an available update will now be shown…

3. Click ‘Update All Apps.’

That’s it your done and on the way to be fully updated again!

Important Safety Message – Belt Up!

January 12, 2014 by TomBoyNI

With the colder weather now well upon us, and also the fact that it is January, and in January everyone needs a little pick me up I would just like to pass on this important safety message…

Belt Up!

Disclosure :