I've just been test driving the new verisons of Mozilla and Firefox, (which I am using to post this!) and both have fixed a little glitch which broke up the background image of this website if you scrolled one of the scrollbars. So now the only inconsistancies I can find between IE, Mozilla, Firefox and Netscape is that the 'Text Area' in the email form on the left changes width slightly and Netscape renders the opacity of the backgrounds at incorrect levels. So overall, not bad! I've not ever used Opera, so I can't comment on that, or what it looks like on a Mac, (or Linux for that matter,) since I no longer have access to one. Feel free to send any comments on the way you view the site to the usual address!

So that's the end of England's EURO 2004 campaign. At least the French are out too, along with a lot of other big names. I thought Greece looked dangerous in the group stage and was glad England didn't face them. I think we really would have struggled. I still would have preferred Spain. Oh well. Now we can sing "40 years of hurt" in the World Cup - Germany 2006!
In game news I've just got Driv3r on the X-Box today. I was really disappointed. The production of the FMV is pretty high, but the in-game stuff is still quite basic. Character animation is somewhat laughable. Mouths still don't move during speech, (and they don't move much in the FMV either, which looks odd.) The car physics is still the main draw though, which makes the driving sections quite fun, but the appalling 3rd person camera control makes the on-foot shooting areas tedious. The maps seem fairly faithful to the real world. I managed to find a hotel I've stayed in on a trip to Miami, along with the shopping centre and Hard Rock Cafe nearby (labeled the Miami Stars Cafe in the game.) Despite my initial disappointment, I have still been playing for a few hours and progressed onto Nice which has a much tighter, complex road layout, which could be fun. So either this game is addictive fun despite it's flaws, or I'm just stubborn! I wouldn't have thought I will return to this title once I have finished it, but I have yet to make a stunt movie which could kill half an hour if I were bored.
Finally, in a website update, I have added the ability to choose the theme you are looking at on this site. In the top left of the page is a drop down box with a list of different themes. Pick one and all pages on this site will be set to that theme. You can change your mind at any time, or stick to Random to sample them all eventually. It also makes it easier for me to add new themes, so look out for new additions to the list very now and again. I have 5-10 more ideas in the works already.

Please England... PLEASE win tonight! And don't start a major bust up with Portuguese fans afterwards, whatever happens. If we do win, we should expect Holland in the Semi's and then France in the Final. Which really would rule.
(If you don't know, I'm talking about EURO 2004. Some Football (not Soccer!) tournament or other.)

I went to one of the Red Hot Chili Peppers gigs in Hyde Park, London this weekend and as expected, they did indeed rock. The support acts were Chicks on Speed, (who sucked so bad they were booed off stage mid session,) and James Brown, (who you were lucky to understand a word from, since it was mostly noises and mumbles more than lyrics. But hey, I've seen the "Godfather of Soul"!)
I got the tickets for my Brother's 18th birthday present, so thanks for thaking me with you Chris! ;o)
Wimbledon starts today, but looks like I'm not going now :o( Never mind.

Yesterday I entered the X-Box Media Centre Skinning Contest, with a beautiful piece.
I've also got my entry in for Submerge 2004. I just hope it gets there before the deadline of tomorrow!
Some people on the MediaLab Arts course have got themselves into the Computer Arts Graduate Showcase this year. My work wasn't chosen by the lecturer's to be submitted :o( but well done to the Bo-shing guys!

I've been finishing up HiAsh.com the past few days. I moved over the blog from CreateUK and today added in the latest entry on the HiAsh front page.
On the projects side of things I've added the e-Learning on the GameBoy Advance site into the new portfolio. The only things I can see that need doing now are having the media bar elements change, (especially on the portfolio page so that they are more relevant to what you are reading at the time,) add some work to the portfolio and then add more background styles for the site to randomise to. After that it would just be tinkering, (I might center the whole thing for example, or allow you to choose and fix to a style with a cookie.)

I'm hoping to do a few of the things you should 'do-at-least-once-in-your-life' before I jet off to Florida (moving date is now September 10th for that.) One of those is to go and watch the Tennis at Wimbledon and as luck might have it, my Dad got a hold of a pair of tickets in the ballot and can't use them. Sweet. I think I might be going to the British F1 Grand Prix this year too. So now its just a trip to Old Trafford that I really want to do!
Also managed to book another holiday, to Portugal. Unfortunately it is long after the football is over :o(
I'm still waiting for these MediaSmart people to talk to me. I'm going to get back to GMTV and offer my services to them again, since they seem ready for me.

I'm typing this in the Upper Class lounge that Virgin borrow from Delta, (pretty swish huh?)
In the past few days my Dad and I have managed to find out about buying a car, drivers licenses, insurance, where to get furniture, actually rented a flat and all sorts of other bits in preparation for my move in September to Full Sail. Got a nice flat in Whisper Lakes which is within walking distance of the Uni which is handy, and will probably get a Ford Focus as our car. Oh, and if you weren't jealous enough ;o) DAMN it was hot!

So thats it! My degree is over! All hail Ashley Bennett BSc (Hons) :o)
In other related news, I move out of Plymouth tomorrow, I'm off to Florida on Friday to find somewhere to live and I may be attending, (and indeed presenting at,) Submerge in Bristol this year (1st and 2nd July.) More on that as it comes.

My project presentation went pretty terribly. So, guess I can hope for a 2:1 then. ¦o(

Wow. 2 days in and HiAsh.com receives it's first spam email. Bastards.

This seems to be the first picture of the Nintendo DS. In the end, its not so different from my effort :o)

Bit the bullet today and bought myself a new host and a new URL. Say hello to HiAsh.com!
The question now is whether to keep this blog going, or write a new one without Blogger, which has just had a tasty redesign, (even if I think it has been made more difficult to update due to more clicks being involved.) We'll have to see as I've only just started making the design for the new site, but couldn't wait to reserve my domain name (and save myself wasting more time looking at hosting options!) So, changes are coming. Stay tuned good people!

I've been looking at sorting myself out with a new website. And I mean the whole shebang; URL, host, technology, design and content. I think I've found all of those, (obviously the content needs work) and hope to work on it after I get back from Florida at the end of the month. Its got a long way to go, but I'll post when I have something I want to show.
I handed in my final project on Friday. I think it turned out ok, so now its down to the presentation, which has been pushed back to Thursday. Hosting the project website on CreateUK has filled up my server space, so the other examples of my work have had to be removed temporarily, just one of the reasons prompting me to move on to a new server. My work is still being hosted on my Blueyonder mirror at http://www.ashleydb.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ but that will be going soon too, since I'll be disconnecting from Telewest when I move out of Plymouth.
Last night I went to Destiny nightclub for the first time. Not a bad place I have to say, but bloody hot! What was weird though was looking in a mirror and seeing no reflection of myself :o) We went to Heroes for a drink first and the toilet cubicles there have one way glass in the doors facing the wash basin mirror, so I couldn't see my own refection. A crappy story, but weird when you've been drinking since 12!

I just switched the news on and it was talking about the postal service and how its pretty crap. Right at the end it says its not all their fault when they get letters addressed to "House with 2 boys and lots of pets" or "House with the blue car" with maybe a few details like a street and a town on there too. The world is full of f'ing morons. *sigh* (goes back to typing project report.)

More ROMs and things on the GBA Project page, which has to be handed in this Friday. But in doing so, I've maxed out my webspace. Well, I was looking at remaking the site anyway (but I think that Radioactive style will just stay as a demo.) Things need a bit of trimming down and updating anyway, so a new style with an easier way of updating would be good. I've been inspired by Chris O'Shea's site which uses PHP, mySQL and a load of CSS. But if I were going to use that, I might have to *gasp/shock* PAY for a new webhost.

Looks like I'll be phasing out my Hotmail account. GMail seems to have some pretty cool features. 1GB of storage for a start! Then the way messages are stored and organised so that emails are more like an instant message conversation, backed up by Google's powerful search facilities. Shame I'm not getting any mail there yet, since I've scored myself a great address while its still so new, (I don't want to post it so that I can defend myself from Spam for at least a few weeks.)
I just remembered something that happened to me on the Tube while coming back to Plymouth. I was wearing a t-shirt from around the World Cup 2002 in Japan that had England written across the chest with some Japanese characters beneath it. I had no idea what they said, but I liked it anyway. So I'm standing on the platform and this stereotypical Japanese kid gets off, GBA in hand, stands right infront of me, stares at my shirt and starts saying "Ing... Eng... Enger..." before his mum carted him off. So, at least I know that I wasn't walking around with dickhead written across my shirt!

Just got back to Plymouth this evening. Had a good time in Nottingham belatedly celebrating Nick's 21st birthday with the boys, even if I only got 2 hours sleep, (but hey, the kebab and casino were worth it.)
I've got a lot to be getting on with now for my project, as well as sorting stuff out like how I'm gonna move out in 3 weeks and getting some food into the house in the meantime ;o)
Google are beta testing a new email service, called Gmail. I'm signing up and will let you know how it goes.

More demos, ROMs and screenshots are now up on my final project downloads page. Check it... (or rather, check dem.)

Got my C++ coding done before I went to Portugal for an Easter break. Had a good time in the sun. Got back and started to do the paper based work only to worry that I haven't done the coding the way they want it done, potentially wasting a week and a half. I've emailed the tutor to see if it is ok, but no responce as yet. In the meantime I've been getting on with my final project. Got a bit done. Tidied up some graphics, added a new paper, got a new ROM done (but not uploaded that yet.) Also looking for some more opinions, so posted this in a forum: Rllmuk Development Forum (the new and unofficial Edge magazine forum.)