DeGrimmy

Beautifully sunny but cold here. I don't think it's likely I'll see any snow in my area this weekend, on DaveP's picture there, my area is under the yellow warning for "Wind". Meanwhile in Texas: Source:

My 128GB/8GB 5T arrived yesterday, and my first impressions are great. It's solidly built, but in my opinion, definitely requires a case or back cover. As I've upgraded from the OP1, I opted for the Sandstone back cover, which is much more grippy than even my OP1 is now. The display is great, and the colours compared to the OP1 are eye-poppingly good. I've decided against using the fingerprint scanner on the back or the face unlock, so I couldn't tell you about the unlock speed and such. PIN unlock is just fine for me. The OS is very fast, as you'd expect, and this version of OxygenOS feels really nice. The home screen is, by default, 5 icons wide. You can change that in the settings, which was very welcome, as I'm used to 4 and having 5 was throwing me off. The lack of bloatware and pre-installed software is a big positive, in my opinion. Just like always with OxygenOS, you can tweak your Quick Settings panel to your liking. The addition of an NFC toggle button, along with Night Mode, is great. I never liked having to go into the settings proper to turn on/off NFC. There's an option to change the system font from Roboto (the Android default) to OnePlus Slate, which is well designed and normal looking, unlike the alternate font(s?) I've seen on Samsung phones. I've done some switching back and forth between them and I struggle to stick to Roboto, even though I like it as a font. I'm not much of a photographer, so the camera is more than adequate for me. I tried taking a couple of photos last night, and it seems good. The lighting in our living room is very dim, photography wise, so I don't think I've tested it to its full potential just yet. Battery life has, so far, been very good, but then I tend to turn off things when I'm not using them, i.e. NFC, Bluetooth, location, mobile data etc. The Dash Charge feature is great, as it charged from 65% out of the box to 95% in the 15-20 minutes or so I was setting it up. However, I'm a habitual overnight charger, so I don't know if it will have a negative effect on the longevity of the battery further down the line. One bugbear is that I'm used to having an app called AutomateIt muting and unmuting ringtones and sound effects throughout the day, i.e. Silent during work hours, loud at home in the afternoon/evening and at weekends, and then quiet again at night time. Because the hardware "alert slider" is there, it overrules what the software does, meaning I can't automate it. Another small thing (and I think this is an Android thing in general) is that turning on/off mobile data and wi-fi is a two tap action now, rather than just the one tap it was on the Lollipop version of OxygenOS I had on my OP1. After all of this, I've yet to use the phone as a phone! My friend I was trying to call last night wasn't picking up, but the dial tone I heard seemed good and loud! So all in all, I'm happy with my 5T. I'll obviously continue to play with it and see what it can do. If anyone is considering the 5T and have questions, I'll be happy to answer them!

For those interested, the 5T goes on sale from 2pm UK time today. Those who order today also get 50% off an "early bird bundle" - A back cover and screen protector. https://oneplus.net/uk/oneplus-5t?from=ribbon

I'll also be ordering one on Tuesday. And I'll get a sandstone back cover with it, so it's as similar to my OnePlus One as possible...

This thread is very interesting. I had this very problem on a freshly imaged Windows 7 x64 PC. I normally install Sophos first out of principle, but I never made the connection between SIMS failing and Intercept X. The way I got around it was by running the component installers individually, skipping the prerequisite install step as we already have those installed anyway. I had assumed it was down to something odd with the PC, as I'd installed Sophos & SIMS on other freshly imaged PCs on the same day with no issues. I don't have any solutions to add but I'll definitely keep tabs on the thread. Thanks all!

It was actually quite fun! Reminded me of my time with the shotguns in Black Ops 2, where you could charge and hop around the map and had to tap ADS for half a second to tighten the shotgun blast. I think the incendiary shells are a little cheap, but a lot of the time, it doesn't kill them outright. I need to find out how to get an unscoped bolt action rifle, since I found one lying around in a game last night... I loved those in World at War back in the day!

I still follow quite a few of the internet personalities that used to be Call of Duty pros in the good old days (if there's such a thing), and on their recommendation and with some considerable peer pressure from my mate, I bought CoD: WW2 for the PC. And everyone who I'm playing against online seem to be professionals. It's so tough to get kills! The best fun I had (and surprisingly, the games I got the best kill to death ratio in) was when I was running around with a shotgun... And it seems hackers are already a thing, not a week after launch. I'll give it another go tonight but I'm not sure it's going to hold my attention for long. Oh well, sometimes you have to put your hands up and admit to burning money...

I'm biding my time until Destiny 2 for PC releases (next week woooo!), but I've recently been playing a lot more Elite: Dangerous than I expected. Last night, a couple of random players were bounty hunting in my home system and invited me to their wing. Earned about 3.6 million credits, which is a welcome addition!

Hi all, Posting here just in case anyone else has experienced something similar... Our Sharp MFDs have been gradually slowing down to the point where it takes minutes between releasing the print job and the printer printing it. It seems like a manual reboot fixes the problem temporarily, and then they start slowing again. I'm having to do this in the morning to make them operational. We have 3 exhibiting the same problems, in completely different areas of the school. We use PaperCut for printing. We've only been experiencing issues since last week (as far as we know) and we've had the system set up for quite a while now. Has anyone had any problems similar to this? Any general advice anyone can give? Thanks in advance!

I also went to see Blade Runner 2049 last night. I really liked it, and personally, I think it's better than the first. The action was fleeting, but that gave it all the more impact. I wasn't quite prepared for the length of the film, but with ticket prices now, I'm glad it was on the longer side.

I went for a short while on Saturday but left before the big announcements were made (The seating for the main stage was full anyway), but just to recap the Elite: Dangerous specific announcements: The roadmap for the next few updates is called Beyond, and they're promising a couple of big updates next year in addition to the continuing story developments in 2.4. In Q1 2018, a couple of new (and old) ships - The Chieftain and the Krait - will be added to the game. The Chieftain is a Lakon ship designed for the Alliance (finally, some Alliance ships!) and is a bit reminiscent of the Pelicans from Halo, if you're familiar. The Krait (naturally) has an identical shape to the Krait in the earlier games, but looks much bigger. It reminds me of a much larger Condor ship-launched fighter. The Krait appears to have a fighter bay, so I'm thinking it's probably going to be about the same size as a Fer-de-Lance. These were the two ships directly announced, although there may be more as the developer said "other Alliance ships". These are in addition to the Type 10 Defender, which should be arriving very soon. They also announced that they're going to revamp mining and exploration in various ways, i.e. Being able to tell what minerals an asteroid contains, more things to discover and find out in the unknown, as well as adding much more detail and variety in colour for landable planets. The biggest update will be in Q4 2018, which will include Squadrons, a guild-like system with bigger groups, Fleet carriers (think along the lines of the mega-ships we've been seeing recently) with docking bays for re-arming, repairing and outfitting, and better communications within the group. Just to keep everyone interested abreast of the announcements!

Very true! I'm not keen on this particular trend, either. It seems like every AAA game these days has something like this. It's part of the reason I wish I could get rid of my Shadow of War pre-order... Or maybe I should learn not to pre-order games anymore.

I expected some issues, since I had problems with FH3 too. FM7 seems much better, performance wise. They just need to work on the stability... As for the VIP thing, I think I read something that they're going to reverse that decision. I didn't really give FM5 or 6 much of a go, since FH3 had already released by the time I got an Xbox One, so I'm not 100% sure on what VIP was like before, although I had VIP status for FM3. FM7 has those loot boxes and cards that *every* game seems to have these days, but I've not yet been asked to pay real money for anything, and I haven't even noticed an option to. You just buy the boxes out of your in-game credits that you earn from racing, and they seem to be relatively reasonably priced. I haven't played enough to understand all of the systems yet, in all fairness. I do agree with Garacesh that driver skins are completely pointless, though... I think I'm just going to avoid the loot boxes and mods and just buy the cars I want.

Oooooooh, I'd almost forgotten about that! I'll have to check it out later, as long as my friend is open to trying that rather than playing Divinity 2...

Forza Motorsport 7 released on Tuesday, and I've been playing it on my PC thanks to this Xbox Play Anywhere thing. I haven't played much, but it looks and feels really good on the PC! Had the game freeze and/or crash a couple of times, though.

I bought an Xbox One earlier this year, with RDR2 being one of the reasons... Then it got postponed. And I imagine RDR2 will be designed with the Xbox One X in mind, rather than the older models.

My best mate convinced me to try the Call of Duty: WW2 open PC beta that started yesterday. 2 games in, and he ALT-F4'd! He said it reminded him of every bad experience that he's had in previous CoDs. Even though I was having a rough time playing too, I was ready to give it more of a shot than that! Back to Divinity: OS2 tonight, then...

I had a play about with Quantum on my old Macbook Pro, and it's noticeably faster than the latest Firefox version I was using before. Plus, the default design looks really nice! I'll definitely stick with the beta for now.

The Engineers update definitely took the wind out of my sails a little. I played the game a lot, but was never willing to put that much time into collecting materials and data for engineer upgrades. I've done a few basic tweaks on my FAS, but, being more of a combat oriented pilot, I know that if I find myself being attacked by someone focused on PvP, I'm likely going to be disadvantaged. I'd love to go back to the old days, where I could win battles in my Viper Mk III... But small ships get nowhere these days.

I've been waiting for this for quite a while now! Unfortunately it releases right when my gaming schedule is a little cluttered (AKA Divinity: Original Sin 2 taking up all of my play time!)... But I'll most definitely return to Elite, probably right when the War kicks off...

Divinity: Original Sin 2 released yesterday after being in early access for a while. My mate and I adore the first one and it was one of the best co-operative experiences of our gaming lives... And the new one has got us hooked again! We only managed 3 hours of playing yesterday, but I can't wait to get home tonight...

I have an Xbox One, but I'm waiting for Destiny 2 on PC. It's been tough not to cave in!

It's definitely tempting to get Destiny 2 on my Xbox, but I want to play it on PC, which releases in October sometime... Oh well, Divinity: Original Sin 2 is out soon, so that'll have to tide me over!

Played the Destiny 2 PC beta last night. Hoo boy, it looks and feels incredible! It switches to open beta at 6pm UK time tonight, I'd recommend it if it's your sort of thing!

I'm still mostly playing Destiny. I reached level 40 over the weekend, so more things have opened up to me. I gave strikes another go, and for the most part, they've been enjoyable! It's just I've suddenly realised how rubbish all my gear is... I've now got to work out how to earn some Legendary Marks.