I don’t intend to sell your email address [that's my privacy policy, quick short]. I don’t intend to spam you [that's my anti spam policy, quick short]. But there might be other software I distribute via this for beta [typically an iPhone game I am working on].

So, if you are in the mood for some needle poking, placebo testing, ECG monitoring, feel free to drop me a line on the email address mentioned above. If not, wait a bit longer and enjoy the fruits of a moderately bug free release :-).

PS: Hey PETA!, Hope I didn’t offend the guinea pigs too much

Killzone 2 - A much hyped first person shooter developed by Guerilla Games and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. Released on 26th February 2009

[I got my copy a day earlier because my local game store, where I had preordered decided to be nice]. This article/review is entirely based on my view of the gaming experience provided by the game.

I should start out by saying this, “I had been waiting for Killzone 2 for a long time”. I had read a lot of the hype, watched gameplay videos, trailers, tried to get into the beta [unsuccessfully] and waited. Finally Sony decided to release a demo on the PlayStation Network in early February [I think]. I played the demo atleast 50 times [it was short only 8-10 mins] and tweaked the controls to my liking [Alternate 2, Zoom Hold, Invert Y] and played it some more, I could not get enough, I could not wait for the game.

The most interesting part about the Demo was, even though it was VERY short, the Helghans reacted differently almost every time, I tried so many different things [Used the rocket launcher when the tanks rolled in, sat back and sniped each of the Helghans, tried to run through with just the pistol, tried to just use melee attacks]. The wait was unbearable, and when I got the copy 1 day earlier I was overjoyed. Enough with the demo.

I started up and watched the intro sequence and the one thing that nagged me immediately was the lip sync, it sort of puts you off. I chose to ignore that, and got into the campaign mode, and completed Corinth Crossing, I was now hooked. Not with the story [I really am not paying much attention] but to the gameplay. I then got online [prematurely] and there were only a few people online so some of the games were a bit boring [esp Phyrrus Rise where if you died you were respawned in one corner and had a lot of walking back to do]. I ignored this, because it was a preliminary look into Warzone mode.

Anyway, over the next few days, I grew more comfortable with the playing mode and slowly ranked up [now a Major], and been loving the online gameplay so much that I have really not bothered much with the campaign mode. There have been some server issues and updates, so during those offline moments I have managed to clear out Visari Square [it was quite rough]. BTW I am playing in Veteran difficulty, since I found the lower ones a bit too easy [Elite might be a bit too difficult for me right now].

In Warzone, I really love the squad based system [as long as the squad leader manages to stay alive long enough], and the ever changing modes which really adds to the dynamic a lot, though, the one thing I am not really very happy about is during “Search and Destroy” the time taken to trigger the bomb or defuse the bomb is a bit too much, which means a lot of the games where the teams are evenly balanced, don’t actually play out, and a lot of the games where the teams are not balanced, it just becomes too easy.

I also love the whole online game selection system, which is a lot like Warhawk [maybe slightly better] and allows you to easily choose a game you want to jump into and more importantly STAY in that game [along with map voting etc]. This is one thing I HATED about Resistance 2 [more about that game later].

Radec Academy - One of my favourites

In the Radec Academy Level, I JUST LOVE IT when you shoot the cement on the pillars, that is just so awesome. I also love the Phyrrus Rise Level, because of its open layout and the beautiful wind effects, the immersion is so believable. Except for when there is a sniper on one of the roof tops. Another feature I loved, the first time I saw it is the top-down replay on www.killzone.com, I only wish that in the future it can be a proper replay [maybe export to Youtube ?], that would be awesome.

Helghans in your face

In short, Killzone 2 is a very realistic shooter that gives you an in your face war scenario, the visuals are par excellence, the gameplay and pacing are the best in any first person shooter I have ever played. As a programmer, I tip my hat to the developers who have laboured on this title. I can see the amount of work that has gone on in pure code, art direction, testing and its mind boggling. The PS3 is a beast, architecturally, with 1+7 cores, but I think the titles are coming of age only recently, and I don’t believe any developer has even exploited more than 50% of the potential of the beast.

My recommendation: If there is one game you buy in 2009 its got to be Killzone 2, its a keeper.

Unfortunately its going to eat into the time I play Warhawk or Resistance 2 or LittleBigPlanet.

1. Recurring email [Ability to send later and resend every x hours].

2. Modified user interface.

If you have any requests please let me know in the comments and I will try my best to accomodate them.

Regards

Karthik

Just kidding. This is the promised update, [I know, I know, promised long ago... yada yada.. I am sorry].

Its labelled version 1.2.0.0 and includes MANY new features:

• Improved - Background polling now does not consume many resources since it only looks at headers
• Improved - Header search and replace is more consistent across platforms
• Fixed - Many minor crash issues and formatting issues [from beta]
• New - 3 configurable buttons with preset [configurable] time offsets
• New - Keyboard shortcuts to preset buttons [ALT + 1, ALT + 2, ALT + 3]
• New - Send Later Toolbar available
• New - Send Later header visible in drafts folder [configurable]
• New - Send Later column visible in drafts folder [configurable]
• New - Awesomeness

Send Later 1.2.0.0 Prompt Screenshot - 3 Quick access buttons that can be configured as you like, with shortcut keyboard access using ALT+1,ALT+2,ALT+3

Send Later 1.2.0.0 Preferences Window - More preferences for people who like to tweak things till they are perfect

Send Later 1.2.0.0 Configurable buttons- And the quick access buttons are configurable as well

So how do you get this awesomeness ? If you are already using a previous version, Thunderbird should prompt to update from this website, so you should be covered or you can try Tools -> Extensions / Addons [Right click and choose find update]. If you want to install it afresh then you can download it from here.

BTW, Send Later got featured in quite a few websites over the last couple of years and its time to thank them.

Send Later is download of the day on Lifehacker

Send Later is one of 10 must have extensions for Thunderbird

Watch out for more progress on this. If you have any troubles drop in a comment below and I will sort it out.

Regards

Karthik

Please bear with me, there will be news soon, I don’t plan on going AWOL!!!

Famous last words from nearly 2 years ago.

I started this blog a few years ago, making mundane observations, releasing some software, and generally helping people out. I had invested a lot of my time on this website, I had great plans and I had great ambitions.

Then the ’storm’ broke out.

I was getting comment SPAM by the thousands every day [apart from pingback SPAM and trackback SPAM]. I was getting email SPAM by the hundred every day. I tried to port the website across to Drupal [still available on beta.unsignedbyte.com]. The website got hacked into a few times [Thank you very much]. My hosting account got hacked into once [Thank you very much]. My hosting provider had no clue [Thank you very much]. I tried to port the site across to Joomla. My laptop harddisk went to heaven, it took a recovery service 1 week to give me a dump of raw text files. I was getting overloaded at work. A senior colleague quit and dropped a huge burden on my shoulders and I have been cleaning up his mess ever since.

Some enterprising souls tracked me down from other sites [very good forensic work, I must say], and sent me a few emails at a personal email address and I replied back to them. I shared with them the new beta release of the Send Later [SL8TR] extension [which I was about to finish up on long time ago]. They helped me with some debug logs and I have made some improvements since then.

Then I decided to get my act back together. I have much better control over my webserver now [I can do a 'sudo halt' :-)]. I have reinstalled Wordpress from scratch, enabled Akismet and reCaptcha [fingers crossed]. I have moved over all the data from the old site, kept the links as is. I like this. I have gone with a clean look adapted from the ‘librio’ theme [I added a category menu to it]. I like this much better.

Dare I say it ?

I am back !! I am back with a plan.

As of a few minutes ago, I have got my email working and I have got the downloads working.. I still have a few things to do before I release the new version of Send Later [SL8TR]. My checklist includes testing on Windows and repacking the RDF file for automatic update. But first some shut eye.

Regards

Karthik

PS1: I have left the comments locked up in previous posts, hope you don’t mind.

PS2: You can reach me on <myfirstname>@<thissitename> if you feel like emailing me.

PS3: My wife got me a PS3 [The only silver lining around the dark clouds of the past 2 years]. So I will be blogging a bit about my games soon.

As part of a planned update to this site, I have had to lock down comments for a day or two while I sort out the transfer of data from Wordpress to Drupal. Please bear with me, there will be news soon, I don’t plan on going AWOL!!!

Cheers

Anyway, I am back. Back in business. I just sent out a beta of the Send Later Extension to some of the beta testers. I have a few more blog posts planned for this week. I also plan to add a forum to this website for helping out people with some of my software releases. I am also working on a ‘new’ project which I will make public soon.

Hope everybody is keeping well.

Have a nice day y’all.

Read more here .

If you have any comments / problems, please discuss below.

Cheers, I am going to sleep now.