Wii Grand Slam Tennis

Image Source: http://www.wiids.co.uk

At one of the recent post Christmas sales, we picked up a heavily discounted copy of Wii Tennis. This game has been out for a while, and friends of ours had said it was good. They were not wrong! This is a great game and is so realistic and addictive, it even surprised us here at Passy World.

We highly recommend getting it if you have a Nintendo Wii. If you don't already have a Wii, then get one, because they are great fun, especially when friends come over to visit, or if you want to play against all sorts of random people online.

Here is Grand Slam Tennis Intro video by EA Sports.



The game has lots of famous players and tennis courts from all around the world. There is even the Austalian Open with the real commentators such as John Newcombe and Pat Cash. In addition, there is a pro shop where you can pimp up your players.

This next video is a Grand Slam tennis in depth tutorial by EA who are the makers of the game.



Serving is tricky for beginners. You need to use the Wii controller to toss up, and then just swing down and flick your wrist at the end to get a powerful serve. So basically you toss up, and serve all with the one hand. This is the only part of the game that is different to real tennis. Everything else in playing the game is just like the real thing. It is indeed an awesomely realistic game.

Here is a video that gives some useful advice about Serving, and moving in to the net, to play serve/volley style games.



One thing not mentioned clearly in any of the tutorials we have seen thus far, is using the A and B buttons. Eg. With our controller we found we were able to press the A button to do a high Lob, and use the bottom of controller back button to make shots land in short close to the net. This is very useful to know, and definitely helps win points.

With the Australian Open Tennis coming up this month here in Melbourne, it is the perfect time to be playing this game here at Passy World.

So let's swing those controllers and serve up some aces!

Enjoy,
Big Passy Wasabi

CS3 Flash Modern Slideshow

This post is all about making your own basic Photo Slideshow using Adobe Flash CS3. Below is a Photo Slideshow we made here at Passy World.

(It is 1 MB is size and may take a little while to load in).

Click the controller in the top right hand corner to progress through the photos. (Right hand double arrow = Autoplay continuously).



Making the above slideshow involved using an existing template that comes with Flash Cs3. When it runs full size it is 640x480 pixels in size, and the caption text at the bottom of each photo is a little larger and easier to read.

In CS3 Flash, to access the free template and get started we simply do:

File > New > Templates tab > then More.. > 'Photo Slideshows' > 'Modern Photo Slideshow' .

We can then do Control > Test Movie, (or Ctrl-key + Enter), to run the sample slideshow and try it out.

The default Flash project had a big ugly controller, and so we did some editing** to remove most of it, and end up with a small streamlined controller in the top right hand corner of screen.

** This editing involved a lot of picking and clicking to find each of the items that we wanted to delete or modify.

If you would like a ZIP file containing our modified Template .FLA file, then click the link below and save the zip file to your own hard drive.

Winrar is a free download that can then be used to extract the .FLA flash project file. Get "Winrar" for free at http://www.cnet.com/topic-software/winrar.html

Download our Passy World Slideshow Template by clicking the link below, and then saving the file to your hard drive using your web browser.

http://www.passyworld.com/passyMisc/PassySlideshowTemplate.rar


Resizing our Photos to 640x480 Pixels for Flash

The one drawback for this slideshow is that we have to have all the pictures we are going to use saved as JPG's and all sized at 640x480 pixels.

However, if we have Adobe CS3 Photoshop, resizing is very quick and easy. The Crop tool can be set to 640px x 480px maximum size, and provided our photos are bigger than this required 640x480 size, we can crop a section of photo, save it as .JPG, and it will be the exact correct size for our Flash project.



Note that we saved each of our 640x480 photos in Photoshop using "Save for Web and Devices" as JPG type, with quality set to "High".


Replacing the Default Flash Project Photos

To replace the default photos with our own photos, we have to go to the Library in Flash, (Window > Library), and then click on the "photos" folder.

Next double click on the tree icon next to the first photo, which should bring up the following panel:



Now click the Import button, and on this panel, navigate to our own photo, and click "open" to have it replace the default photo. We also have to manually rename the photo to change its name in the Library.

Next we need to change the caption at the bottom of the photo. First we need to click the correct black dot keyframe on the "pictures" layer to get our desired photo is displayed.

We then click on the same position black dot in the "Captions" layer, and this should take us into edit the caption. We then need to click on the "T" text tool, then click our mouse into the caption and edit it:



After the caption is edited, simply change off the "T" tool and onto the black pointer arrow tool, and then click off the caption area, and we are done.

We can repeat this process for the next three photos we have, since the default project comes with a total of four photos.


Adding Extra Photos to the Slideshow Project

Firstly we need to add each of our 640x480 photos into the Flash Library. Do
File > Import > Import to Library > then navigate to the photo we want, and click open.

(It sometimes takes a couple of seconds for the photo to be imported). We then need to drag the photo from its place in the Library into the "Photos" folder.

Next we have to click at the top of the Flash Timeline and highlight in red all of the last frames like this:



We then do Insert > Timeline > Frame, (or Press F5), which will produce a set of blank frames at the next position at the end of the current timeline.

We now click onto the "Picture" Layer, where the new empty rectangle shaped frame is, and do Insert > Timeline > Keyframe, (or press F6). This will make a duplicate copy of the last photo in the animation. We now click on this photo on the Stage, and in the properties panel we click the "Swap" option.



On the resulting panel we can click the new photo we just imported, and it will be swapped in onto the stage. All we have to do now is the Caption.

Click onto the Caption at the last current frame, and do Insert > Timeline > Keyframe, (or press F6). This will make a duplicate copy of the latest caption.
We then click onto the "T" text tool in Flash, and we can then edit in a caption for the new photo we have just added.

We now repeat the following process for all of the photos we need to add:

• Import our next photo to the Library, and move it to the Photos folder.

• With all of the last frames highlighted in red, Press F5, (or do Insert > Timeline > Frame).

• Click on the Pictures Layer and Press F6, (or do Insert>Timeline>Keyframe).

• Click the picture on the stage, and in the properties panel do the Swap to bring in our new picture.

• Click on the Captions Layer and Press F6, (or do Insert>Timeline>Keyframe).

• Use the "T" tool to edit the caption for our new photo.

Deleting Photos

Click on the top of the timeline of the frames you want to remove, and do
Edit > Timeline > Remove Frames.


Making the Slideshow Start Automatically

If we want to have the slideshow start by itself as soon as the page loads, then we need to change some of the Actionscript Code. This is detailed in the following PDF. Click the link below to access the PDF instructions document.

http://www.passyworld.com/passyPDFs/SlideshowAutoStart.pdf

If you would like to download our Passy World Auto Slideshow Template, then click the link below, and then save the file to your hard drive using your web browser. (Use Winrar to expand the .RAR file out to the .FLA file).

http://www.passyworld.com/passyMisc/SlideshowTPauto.rar


Putting the Slideshow onto a Web Page

Our Slideshow with 12 photos ended up just under 1 meg in size, and so it takes a few seconds of load time on the web page or blog.

We could use Dreamweaver to make a new HTML page, and then use Insert function to put our Flash onto the DW page. However for our Blog post here we have uploaded the .SWF file to our live "Passy World" website and then used the following blog post insert code:

(Note that the actual code needs to go continuously across the page and must not have the large spaces between items shown here. It also must not have any line returns, and needs to run continuously as one big long line of text.).



So that's it for making a Photo Slideshow using Flash CS3.

If you would like a much more sophisticated and easy to use Flash Slideshow maker, then we suggest you use Wondershare's "Flash Gallery Factory Deluxe".

Click the link below for details on how to buy this great software that we use right here at Passy World on a regular basis:

http://www.wondershare.com/pro/flash-gallery-factory-deluxe.html

Enjoy,
Big Passy Wasabi

Making Drop Down Menus

Shown above is a new drop down menu we have added to our "Passy World" website. We created these menus using Dreamweaver's Spry functionality.

Making a Spry Drop Down Menu Using Dreamweaver

Dreamweaver has very useful "Spry" functionality, which allows a quick way of building a set of drop down menus. We have used Dreamweaver DW CS3 to create our menus shown in the image above, but this can probably be done in newer versions of DW as well.

This first video shows the basics of how to make a Spry drop down menu.



Here is a more detailed Video on Horizontal Spry Menus.
(Don't worry laddies and lasses, you will get used to this guy's accent quickly).

After pressing Play, make sure you increase the resolution from 360p to 720p and go full screen to get a very clear high definition video.



Here is a follow-on video about how to customise the Spry Menu.

After pressing Play, make sure you increase the resolution from 360p to 720p and go full screen to get high definition imagery that shows the CSS code clearly.

Watch this video very carefully, and do exactly what the guy says, especially when putting in your own repeating gradient backgrounds.



On our Passy World site, we decided we would make an APDiv to put the menu inside, so that we can easily mouse drag and reposition it on our page using Dreamweaver.

We then inserted a Spry Menu Bar into the APDiv, and adjusted it (as per the YouTube videos we had watched), to have all the headings we wanted across the top of our page.

This process automatically created a new "Spry Assets" folder in our site definition, that we then needed to upload to our live website, along with our new copy of the Index Page.

The CSS modifications were a bit tricky, and for some of the links we had to go into code view and manually add target="_blank" to make each listed link open as a new page.

We created a gradient see-through background "blueGrad130x40.PNG" using Fireworks, as per the Scottish guy's video, and used this as our background for the menu bar. It is very important to set this background to "Repeat" or we end up with white bits on our longer submenu names.

We also had to make all background colors transparent, and replace all the "SpryMenuBarDown.gif" and "SpryMenuBarDown.gif" images for backgrounds, with our own "blueGrad130x40.PNG" image.

Also on each new link we make for a menu item, we need to click on the text for the menu item, paste in the link, and then underneath this box in proerties, set target to "blank" so that is opens in a new page.

With the CSS it is a matter of trial and error, try changing things to bright red and preview in a browser, to work out what part of the bar they effect. Eventually we got something we liked, but it took about 2 hours to figure it all out.

The CSS changes all get written automatically to a file called: "SpryMenuBarHorizontal.css" in the "SpryAssets" folder, and this whole folder needs to be migrated along with Index.html, and the menu image "blueGrad130x40.PNG", to our live website in the USA.

Here is the final CSS that we ended up with for the Passy World Spry Menu:

If you would like to have your own full size copy of this PDF, then simply click the save disk icon button on the PDF viewer, and you should be able to save it to your own hard disk.

Alternatively, you can view or save the full size PDF by clicking the link below:

Click here to open or save the “Spry Menu CSS Code” PDF

There was only one minor problem with the upload to our live site. Eg. Because the "PWorldImages" folder does not live under a "PworldHome" folder on the real site, and so we had to go and edit all the paths in the CSS code and remigrate it.

We also found out how to remove the annoying white border around our website by setting up this code in the Index page HTML:



Testing of the new Homepage with Spry menu was done in Firefox, IE, and also Safari on the iPad, and they all came up okay.

Click the following link to check out our new Spry Menu on the Passy World homepage for yourself:

http://www.passyworld.com/

This "Passy World" website is one that we are slowly developing so show how Dreamweaver and Fireworks can be used for website building.
It also supplies some quick and easy links to some of our Facebook photos.

Here are some links to some other blog posts related to the building of our Passy World site:

Design-homepage-in-fireworks.html

Make-homepage-in-dreamweaver.html

Make-contact-us-webpage.html

Making-an-iframe-web-page.html


Finally, here are some additional videos we found for making Tabs and Menus in Dreamweaver by coding your own HTML and CSS, rather than using the built in Dreamweaver Spry functionality.

They claim that these type of menus are faster than the DW Spry ones. The videos certainly offer a good insight into how the CSS works to style up lists into nice menus, and are definitely worth watching for learning value.


Making Tabs in Dreamweaver using CSS

This video shows how to make a set of horizontal tabs that can link to other pages.
It uses raw HTML code and CSS code, and is very clearly explained step by step.

Not sure if this is exactly what we could use on our Passy World page, but it is interesting. Here is the Part 1 of 2.



And here is the second part of this video.




Making a Menu with Drop Down Links using CSS

This video shows really well how to use raw HTML and CSS, (instead of inserting a Spry), to create a Horizontal roll over drop down list menu.
The tutorial is in two parts. Here is Part 1.



And here is the second part of this video.




So that's it, now we can easily update our Menus with new drop down items and links as we need them. Very Nice.

Enjoy,
Big Passy Wasabi

Senam otak

Banyak cara dilakukan untuk dapat membuat awal hari menjadi bersemangat, salah satunya dengan latihan otak sederhana di pagi hari. Berolahraga otak di pagi hari dapat membantu Anda merasa lebih siap menghadapi hari dan juga meningkatkan energi dan kegembiraan.
Latihan otak beberapa menit sebelum keluar kamar tidur untuk mandi atau saat berdandan dapat membangun pikiran dan indera Anda untuk siap menjalani aktivitas dan rutinitas sepanjang hari. Latihan tersebut bisa berupa latihan fisik, mental atau kombinasi keduanya.

Dilansir Livestrong, Selasa (21/12/2010), berikut beberapa latihan otak sederhana yang dapat dilakukan di pagi hari:

1. Bernyanyi sambil melakukan aktivitas lain
Bernyanyi atau bersenandung saat Anda sedang berpakaian atau menyiapkan sarapan dapat menjadi latihan yang merangsang otak 'bangun' di pagi hari.

Latihan ini dapat meningkatkan jumlah dendrit atau garis sel saraf di otak yang memungkinkan otak untuk berfungsi, sehingga mengaktifkan lebih dari satu fungsi sensor yang dapat merangsang aktivitas otak.

2. Ubah rutinitas
Menurut Lawrence Katz, profesor Neurobiologi di Duke University Medical Center, mengubah rutinitas dan cara-cara hidup baru dapat mengaktifkan koneksi otak yang sebelumnya tidak aktif.

Latihan yang bisa dilakukan misalnya, bila Anda selalu menuju kamar mandi saat bangun tidur ubah menjadi minum kopi dulu, sikat gigi sebelum berpakaian atau mencoba menu sarapan baru yang belum pernah sebelumnya.

3. Olahraga Sederahana
Latihan fisik dapat meningkatkan kesehatan otak, karena dapat meningkatkan aliran darah ke otak. Lakukan olahraga sederhana, misalnya peregangan, yoga, bersepeda, jogging atau jalan santai.

Menurut Stanford Center on Longevity and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, latihan fisik dapat meningkatkan perhatian, penalaran dan memori.

4. Latihan sensasi
Libatkan otak dengan gerakan setelah bangun dan sebelum Anda keluar dari tempat tidur. Mulai dari kaki, gerakkan jari, kontraksi otot betis dan kemudian kencangkan lutut.

Fokus pada bagaimana otot-otot merasa saat Anda bergerak. Gerakan tubuh akan menginstruksikan otak untuk fokus pada berbagai bagian tubuh sampai mencapai wajah. Mengencangkan bibir, mengerutkan hidung dan kemudian mengangkat alis dapat merangsang otak dan organ internal.

Scratch Programming 3

Make sure you have sound turned on for this one.

Click the top right hand corner Green Flag to start the animation, and click the round stop sign to finish it.

This post is all about using Scratch to animate your Name in interesting ways.

We built this first project: "Animate Your Name: Passy Rocks" as follows.

First we obtained some raw images of letters off the Internet. For each letter we obtained two images: the normal letter, and then another “old style” version of the letter. We then used Photoshop to reduce their size to 50x50 and saved them to our PC as .GIF files.

We then set up our first sprite for the letter P, and imported two costumes for it, containing the normal letter, and the surprise “old style” version.



We then set up the following Script on the letter P, to make it rock forward and back, and then pause on the surprise letter, and keep repeating forever. Later on we fine tuned the numerical values, but the script structure was kept the same.



To create the remaining letters, it was just a matter of right clicking this Sprite in the Scratch work environment and selecting “Duplicate” and then modifying it to be a different letter in the costume, and dragging it to its position on the stage.

We then created an additional Sprite containing a picture of a Guitarist, and made him appear only when the second set of letters appear by setting up his scripting as follows:



This worked fine in the Scratch Environment, but the timing was out when it was played online on the web page here. We managed to fix this by creating a Broadcast message to the Guitar Sprite to appear when the letters change costume.

To fix this we do NOT need to create a new variable called "LettersChanged". Instead we simply bring out a "Broadcast" control block, and we can define the message name of "LettersChanged" right there, via "new" on the control block.

We set up the letter P to broadcast "LettersChanged", and the guitar sprite to receive this and act upon it by appearing on the stage. (Show/Hide commands).

We also needed a restarting message, so that the guitarist could hide afterwards. We set this up in the letter P script as well.

On the Guitarist Sprite, we then imported a Scratch "cymbal crash" sound into the project, and set up for it to play whenever the guitarist appears.

For the Letter P sprite we introduced Drums, but had a problem with the Guitar Sprite turning them off, and so we had to add a receiving broadcast message statement to reactivate the drums.

We then played around with some timings, and were done. Note that adding sounds took our project from 287K up to 432K in size.

For the Stage background, we just used one of the “Indoors” backgrounds that comes with Scratch.

However, when we put it on our website and played it online, the sounds did not quite sync up, and so we had to adjust the timings loop numbers etc again.
Eventually we got it all working in time.

Here is the final Letter P script:



And here is the finished script for the Guitarist Sprite:



The other letters of our name each have the following script on them:





Making a Musical Name - Version 1

This project was adapted from a Project made by "atyo-dickerson" that we found at the MIT site at: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/atyo-dickerson/514178

It uses X and Y coordinate positions of the mouse to create different pitched notes, when the mouse is moved across the background.

Click the top right hand corner Green Flag to start the animation, and click the round stop sign to finish it. Now Drag the mouse all over the screen to paint the name and hear some wonderful music. Press the Space Bar to clear the screen at any time.

To build this animation, four copies of the original name text were created as separate costumes.



The following code was then used to alternate through the costumes while repeatedly cloning them with the "Stamp" command. The number 16 "Dulcimer" sound was used, as per the original MIT project.





Making a Musical Name - Version 2

Make sure you have sound turned on, then click the top right hand corner Green Flag to start the animation. Then move the mouse across the letters to play the piano note for each letter.

Changing the bottom right hand corner speed will vary the sustain of the notes. (Space Bar Clears all line drawings).

The main parts of this project were taken from a similar project by “Duckey355” from the MIT site at: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/Duckey355/57592

First of all the animation has some introductory instructions text contained in the costume for "Sprite1". The script for Sprite1 contains the "ghost" effect which immediately fades the text away as soon as the green Start flag is clicked.



The letters for our name were all obtained by Photoshopping an Alphabet we got from Google Images, and saving each cropped letter as a transparent .PNG file.

The Background has Scripting to set the "Speed" variable to an initial value of 0.2. There is also coding for space bar to clear the pen drawings at any time.



The Speed variable icon was then right clicked on the Stage and set to "Slider" so that a range of values could be chosen between 0 and 1. Large values make long music notes, and short values make short stacatto type notes.

The Letters are each set up the same. The coordinates of their start position in the script are obtained by reading off the values of where they are on the screen when moved to their stage positions during the build.

When we click on the "Play Note" values it gives us a Piano keyboard to pick the note number. We used the notes for our letters as Middle-C=60, D=62, E=64, G=67, High-C=72. So by pressing the letters P, A, and S, on our name in the right order, we can actually play "Mary Had a Little Lamb".

There is also code to make the Pen drawn lines and the letters return to their original start positions each time.





Getting R2D2 to Say Our Name

Make sure you have sound turned on, then click the top right hand corner Green Flag to start the animation. Type your text into the bottom of screen input box, and then click the tick mark to hear R2D2 say your message.

We got this project by "Leylosh" from the MIT site at http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/complex/924468

This project came with the alphabet of R2D2 sounds already imported, (one sound for each letter of the alphabet). When we type our name in the Input Box, the Script goes through each letter from left to right, making the appropriate R2D2 noise each time.

All we did at Passy World was create a new red R2D2, to match a Background we saved from Google Images and Photoshopped to the standard Scratch background size of 480x360.

Here is the Script that runs for the whole R2D2 translator.



So that's our name done to the max in Scratch.

Enjoy,
Big Passy Wasabi

NYE 2010 Friday Funny

Image Source: http://blogs.reuters.com

It's New Year's Eve and we know a few people are going to be letting their hair down. So this Friday we are looking at all the funny things that happen when people get drunk.

Let's start off responsibly with some suggestions for warning labels that should be placed on bottles of alcohol, and definitely needed on NYE.

CONSUMPTION OF ALCOHOL WARNINGS

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may make you think you are whispering when you are not.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol is a major factor in dancing like a w@nker.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may cause you to tell the same boring story over and over again until your friends want to smash your face in.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may lead you to believe that ex-lovers are really dying for you to telephone them at 4 in the morning.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may leave you wondering what the hell happened to your clothes.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may make you think you can logically converse with other members of the opposite sex without spitting.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may cause you to roll over in the morning and see something really scary (whose name, and/or species you can't remember).

Warning: Consumption of alcohol is the leading cause of inexplicable rug burns on the forehead.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may lead to traffic signs and cones appearing in your home.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may lead you to believe you are invisible.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may make you think you possess mystical Kung-Fu powers.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may lead you to believe that people are laughing with you.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may cause an influx in the time-space continuum, whereby small (and sometimes large) gaps of time may seem to literally disappear.

Warning: Consumption of alcohol may actually cause pregnancy.

Jokes Source: http://www.lifeisajoke.com

The important thing to keep in mind when consuming alcohol is Moderation:


Image Source: http://cdn.faniq.com

The next important factor to realise is that with alcohol impaired senses, accidents can easily happen:


Image Source: http://www.funpub.net

Here is a very educational YouTube video all about things that happen when our senses are severely impaired.



Drunk Test Fail

A police officer pulls over this guy who's been weaving in and out of the lanes. He goes up to the guy's window and says, "Sir, I need you to blow into this breathalyzer tube.

"The man says, "Sorry, officer, I can't do that. I am an asthmatic. If I do that, I'll have a really bad asthma attack."

"Okay, fine. I need you to come down to the station to give a blood sample."
"I can't do that either. I am a hemophiliac. If I do that, I'll bleed to death."

"Well, then, we need a urine sample."
"I'm sorry, officer, I can't do that either. I am also a diabetic. If I do that, I'll get really low blood sugar."

"All right, then I need you to come out here and walk this white line."
"I can't do that, officer."

"Why not?"
"Because I'm too drunk."

Jokes Source: http://www.lifeisajoke.com

There is an old wives tale that a cold bath or shower is the best way to sober up. This picture totally disproves that theory once and for all!


Image Source: http://1.bp.blogspot.com

Here is a nice little YouTube song all about drinking beer



Here are some graphic images all about some certain signs that you might be drinking too much.


Image Source: http://1.bp.blogspot.com

And proof that whatever boys can do, girls can do better!


Image Source: http://www.mydrunkbuddy.com

TOP 10 SIGNS YOU MAY BE DRINKING TOO MUCH

1. You lose arguments with inanimate objects.

2. You have to hold onto the lawn to keep from falling off the earth.

3. The back of your head keeps getting hit by the toilet seat.

4. You sincerely believe alcohol to be the elusive 5th food group.

5. 24 hours in a day. 24 beers in a pack - coincidence?

6. You can focus better with one eye closed.

7. The parking lot seems to have moved while you were in the bar.

8. Hey, 5 beers has just as many calories as a burger, forget dinner!

9. You are beginning to find cricket to be exciting.

10. That stupid pink elephant followed me home again.

Jokes Source: http://www.lifeisajoke.com

Here is a charming little country hillbilly tune as the last of this week's videos.



As we tick down to the New year, we want to wish all of our readers a safe and happy NYE. We look forward to a great year in ICT heaven in 2011.


Image Source: http://photos1.meetupstatic.com

So Cheers Big Ears and Happy New Years Eve!


Image Source: http://images.clubzone.com

Enjoy,
Big Passy Wasabi

Ultimate Gaming Computer

Perhaps this is not the "ultimate" gaming computer, but it's as close as we could get on our limited budget here at Passy World. We are extremely happy with the performance and we are certain it will provide many hours of enjoyment in the years to come.

Our goal was to build a high performance Gaming PC that would last at least 2 or 3 years, with "Santa" supplying the parts. Here are the specs of the PC we have built.

Passy World Gaming PC Specifications:

• Motherboard – Asus Sabertooth X58 LGA1366
• CPU - Intel Core i7 950
• CPU Cooler – Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus
• RAM - Kingston HyperX 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 1600
• PSU - Antec Earth Watts 750W
• Storage - Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black 7200RPM
• Optical Drives – 2X Asus Lite Scribe
• Graphics Card – Gigabyte Radeon HD5870
• Case – Antec 902
• Monitor - Asus VH242H 24”
• Keyboard - Alienware TactX Keyboard
• Mouse - Razer Deathadder
• Speakers - Creative Inspire T6160
• O/S - Windows 7 64bit Home

My son actually did all the research and pricing for the PC, and I am very impressed with what he came up with as the final solution.

We purchased nearly all of our components from Computer Parts Land "CPL" here in Melbourne Australia, and their service, advice, and component availability is absolutely awesome. Check out their website at:
http://www.cpl.net.au/

The Creative speakers were obtained from MSY Computers, http://www.msy.com.au/ who are also a great supplier of PC components, and located not far from CPL in suburban Melbourne.

We are particularly delighted with the Antec 902 Case which was great value at around $100. We had wanted to use a Coolermaster HAFX but it was twice the price, and we could not stretch the budget that far.

Even though the Antec 902 is only a mid tower case, it has plenty of room, (including room for big GPU's like the 5870). It is also very well constructed, with high quality parts, fans, and drive bays.

In particular, the 902 has this massive big fan on top of the case for awesomely powerful cooling.



For Memory we were going to use "G Skill Ripjaws 8GB (4x2GB) DDR3 1600" but since it was not available we switched to Kingston, which has worked out fine.



The CPU Cooler was the trickiest part of the build, as we had not done one of these before, and the fold out printed instructions were not any good for complete beginners.

However, You Tube to the rescue, and we found this perfect video about how to install this awesome after market cooler.



Another great set of videos we watched before building our PC was this great set by "PCWizKid". These videos are excellent, and show most of the main steps needed to build your own PC.



There are three parts in the series, and this is Part Two.



Here is the third and final part of the series. We highly recommend you watch these if you are ever thinking about building your own PC.



And one additional video, all about "Cable Management" inside your PC case.




One small problem we had during the build was getting Windows 7 to recognise that we had 6 Gig of memory, and not 4 Gig. However, this was easily solved by switching off the PC, swapping the RAM sticks around with each other "musical chairs" style, and then rebooting the machine.

A fantastic thing we must mention about ASUS Motherboards is their use of a tiny PINs circuit board to make front-of-case to motherboard connection a breeze. It was hard to get a good photo of this, but here is our best attempt.



Basically, we just plug the case leads (which Antec had labelled brilliantly), into the appropriate miniboard plug, and then plug the minboard, into the Motherboard pin set... too easy!!

The Driver Discs that came with our Hardware were all very simple to use. They worked a treat, making the installation final steps very quick and easy.

For connecting to Wireless Internet we used a Netgear WG111V2 USB wireless adapter. We downloaded the Windows 7 drivers using our laptop, and saved them onto a USB stick. They installed okay, but as per Internet forums it is important not to install the Netgear management system, and to instead select the option to use Windows for handling the wireless network connection.

We lashed out spending a few dollars on a Razer Gaming Mouse, and we are very happy with this unit, especially its glow in the dark illumination.



The Alienware Keyboard was worth every cent of the $130 we spent ordering it online from Malaysia. It also came with only four days remaining until Christmas, which we thought was totally awesome service by Dell.

The glow in the dark fully lit Alienware keyboard is absolutely awesome.



A full set of different color combinations available for the keyboard is shown as part of the following Wondershare Slideshow.

This slideshow has photos from the build of our Ultimate Gaming PC which was done right here at Passy World.

(Note that it is quite a big slideshow and may take a while to load in).

Press the play button to start the Slideshow.



(If you are interested in buying Wondershare for making your own slideshows, then then click this link: http://www.wondershare.com/ and then under Products and Digital Photo Tools locate "Flash Gallery Factory Deluxe". (We have been using this particular product for quite a while here at Passy World and highly recommend it).

Finally we need to thank our good friend Laurie C, who helped us out with the final setting up and performance testing of our new PC.

Performance testing shows that our PC has nearly perfect scores in all areas except for drive access speed, (simply because we are not using a Solid State Drive.)



Some of the best gaming fun the boys have had so far, is playing with the foam packaging that came with the Antec Case.... In fact it appears they've just invented the world's first human dual core processor..lol...



Anyway, we're off to get into some serious COD action on the new PC.

Enjoy,
Big Passy Wasabi