Shutter Island and Inception are simply the two best films released this year. Both are brilliantly written, masterfully directed (do you expect anything less from Nolan and Scorsese?) and wonderfully acted.

Both films are examples of the very best of Hollywood.

For all its gimmicks (*cough* 3D *cough*) and its continued complaints about piracy, these films show that, despite a recession, with decent actors and decent directors films can still keep you on the edge of the seat and leaving you wanting more.

They show that films don’t have to resort to tacking on an extra dimension (rather an extra layer to 2D) to draw in the crowds.

People returning again and again to see inception reinforce this.

Both these films must also reinforce Leo as one of the best leading actors in Hollywood. (Anyone who isn’t gutted at the end of Shutter Island has a heart of steel!)

His performances elevate two great scripts into two of the greatest films of a generation.

Leo’s stellar acting also means that the directors don’t have to resort to massively expensive special effects (I’m looking at you Avatar) to wow audiences.

Not bad for a guy who’s middle name is Wilhelm eh Leo? ;P

Hopefully Hollywood will realise that it doesn’t need 3D, if it continues to push films like this then audiences will surely be willing to pay.

And if you haven’t seen them yet. Shame on you. Order Shutter Island now!

the better twin

Heres a little sneak peak:

Drawing inspiration from Microsofts fantastic Metro UI (featured in their Zune HD and soon to be released WP7) hopefully this site will be more pleasing to the eye as well as easier to use.

There is no eta for this redesign because of the lack of internet at my current accomodation (which also makes it very difficult for me to post on here too) but hopefully i will be able to roll it out in the near future.

thanks for reading

thebettertwin

Harsh words? Perhaps? Yet most people who have witnessed the way through which the Digital Economy Bill was rushed through parliament without proper scrutiny and debate will probably agree.

An unelected peer (Peter Mandelson) was the one who introduced the Bill (to claims that it was written by the big media corporations), over 20,000 people emailed their MP’s to demand a debate reflective of the size and scope of the bill and only 40 MP’s turned up to discuss it at its second reading.

Hardly due democratic process, I’m sure even the staunchest proponents of the Bill would agree.Rushing the Bill though Parliament is not even the most damning condiment of British democracy compared with the actual contents of this draconian law (for thats what it is now; it is too late to stop it, the Queen will sign it in as she has no power to actually refuse).

The Bill goes against the rights of UK citizens in that there is no due process and there is an assumption of guilt. A copyright holder, let’s say the unscrupulous BPI, may merely make accusations on a whim to which the ISP (Internet Service Provider) has to take action against.

Anyone accused may have their connection terminated and the only way to prove innocence is to pay out of your own pocket at an independent tribunal.The account owner is the person liable under this new law, this will effectively mean an end to free wifi as companies (like McDonalds, Starbucks, etc), libraries and Universities will stand accused if someone has breached copyright. Furthermore, if anyone is in a shared house they may face disconnection if a flatmate has downloaded something.

Another aspect of the Bill gives the secretary of state the power to block any website which is suspected of aiding copyright infringement.This blanket clause has so much scope to be abused it is ridiculous. Websites such as Wiki leaks could be shut down for hosting infringing material, say, for example, a whistleblowers report on the incompetence of the government.

This Bill brings Britain’s digital future more in line to that of China than that of a free information democratic society.

Clearly, this Bill will have a great effect upon the UK and more likely than not it will be severely damaging.

The Music and Film Industries, who have been brandishing ridiculous figures of the “cost” of piracy, which change with every sound bite, may even feel the ill effects of this Bill themselves. Recent reports have suggested that illegal downloads make up the majority of legal purchases. Its common sense to realise that by sharing music people are helping to promote the bands they like. 

Some artists even support sharing as the music labels swallow the majority of the profits from legal purchases anyway and free file sharing allows them to gain support that they would not otherwise see. Summing up, this Bill highlights how out of touch MP’s are with the electorate.

Rather than listening to the concerns of many, (and these aren’t just the deluded ramblings of “internet nerds”) the politicians pandered to their financial backers and voted without even the slightest bit of insight to the components of the Bill. That is if they turned up at all.

Ignoring the obvious fact that real pirates will never be caught, this Bill is a gross breach of Human Rights and will make the UK fall further behind other countries when it comes to the internet.

Ill leave you with one final thought,which will also help you if you want to find out more and to help oppose the Bill.

And you thought you lived in a democracy?

A quarter of the way through 2010 and MS is still being totally silent on whether international fans will ever be able to fully enjoy the zune service, rather than just a gimped video service on their xboxes.

Windows 7 Phone may bring the marketplace but there are many still waiting for the players which MS has been sketchy about since 2006!

Those of us who cant stand using the monstrocity that is iTunes have been using Zune music player and enjoying its simplicity, features and style. That was until update 4.2 came out and effectively crippled it removing half the features. A good job then that international users arent stupid and discovered registry hacks that bring back these features.

Hopefully MS will see sense in that there is still a market for those who want a DEDICATED music player, especially outside of the US!

To me this can only really mean one thing, a launch of the software and hardware for europe.
lets hope that at the World Mobile Congress (WMC) next month MS doesnt dissapoint us.

the better twin

After several months of using Spotify I cant help but wonder whether it signals the future for music listeners.

For those unfamiliar with Spotify it is a music streaming service which allows users to listen to millions of tracks for free.

The interface is similar to what you would see in iTunes allowing you to search for artists or tracks and allowing you to create playlists of your favorite tracks.

Users can opt for either the free version or a subscription based premium model (£9.99/month).

The free version is supported though ad-based services, similar to having advertisements on a commercial radio station.

However, these adverts are not as frequent as listening to the radio and the greatest advantage of Spotify over any other service is that it lets you listen to the tracks you actually want to listen to with barely any interruptions.

Spotify’s rival Last.fm also allows for users to listen to free music, however, users only get to listen to selections called radios which build a  playlist of similar bands. Hence, you may never hear the track you were intent on listening to, unlike with Spotify.

Spotify also allows for similar services as Last.fm giving artist radios, genre specific radios, and suggestions of artists you may like, which ensures you always have something to listen to.

Spotify isn’t without its faults, however. Some adverts can repeat endlessly, some new albums are held back for premium subscribers and if your internet connection goes down then say goodbye to your music.

However, Premium does allow (for those willing to stump up the cash) for ad free music and  Spotify have just added a listen offline feature (allowing the caching of 3,333 tracks).

Premium subscribers can now also take their music on the go with them, providing they have an iPhone, iPod touch, or android phone.

Spotify playlists can easily be shared from user to user so Spotify can become a social listening experience.

Sites such as http://spotifyplaylists.co.uk/ have already sprung up allowing users to give ratings to the best playlists.

Users never actually own any of the tracks they listen to, however, providing artists gain a fair wage for their work through the ad-based model, Spotify might possibly tackle piracy in a greater way than any legislation ever could.

It encourages users to listen to new music and bands and it does so in a legal method that most users would be happy with. Combined with purchases Spotify is a great way of listening to music and if you discover a track that you want to keep, Spotify also has a instant buy track button that lets you snap up your favorite songs.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to consumer choice and Spotify may just become the best choice for consumers and artists alike since the dawn of the internet age.

To find out more and to download Spotify visit: http://www.spotify.com/en/

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I am Proud to present Version 2 of my Xbox 360 Vista Theme. It is subtitled Elite edition because I chose to use darker colours and it has a few elite pictures thrown in for good measure. It also goes a lot nicer with darker backgrounds and, I feel, is more practical for everyday use.

Ok that’s out the way how about some pictures.

Desktop with new darker taskbar and new orb.

The wallpaper is a creation by Barry aka GT: Apollo T4L. It may look like cgi but is in fact a fantastic photo made by use of Halo 3 figurines. His flickr account with many more wonderful photos can be found here.

Start Orb
Since the last theme I re-did all the buttons and the orb to make the edges smoother and less jaggy.

The redesigned orb, shown below, keeps the same concept but is neater and more realistic.

Normal, Hover and Pressed

Start Menu

I have completely redone the start menu, I listened to the biggest gripes and changed the text colours and glows as well as all the panels. It also includes an Xbox Elite behind the programs list.

You may also notice a familiar face in the start menu but we will get onto that in a minute .

Frames, Panels and Scrollbars

I have done some work on the windows panels, and preview pane to give them a darker but still practical look and I have also edited windows frames slightly, they have a gradient going down the side, this was chosen to give a darker look but not to interfere with other applications like media player.

Additionally, the close, minimize and maximise buttons have all been redone to make them smoother and less jaggy as well.

DWM aero background

The reflections background,(what you see in the aero parts of vista) has also been redone to include some favourite Xbox 360 characters, including Banjo, Joanna Dark, the Chief, and others.

Taskbar buttons

Finally, for aero at least, I have changed the buttons and the text glow of the taskbar so it is nicer to look at and easier to use.

Normal Button

Hover Button

Pressed button

Active window

Hopefully, you’ll agree that these changes add up to a huge improvement and the theme is now a lot nicer but thats not all, I have also been working on, after many complaints, a basic version of the theme.

Xbox 360 v2 for Vista Basic users

The options for basic are pretty, well….basic given the lack of shadows, aero effect and text glow but I have done my best to make most of it look as close to the original aero theme as possible.

That’s it folks hope you like it.

For skinning beginners I suggest you check here for information on how to set a theme for vista.

Should be said again this is for vista OS and is a tribute to Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console so all images used belong to them.

Let me know what you people think.

The better twin.

Before you do anything you must first create a system restore point to ensure that if anything does go wrong it can be fixed by just rolling back your system.

To start you need to first install Vista Glazz which patches your theme files and allows you to have custom themes.

It can be found here

After installation close the installer and find it in your start menu and run it. It will pop up with a security warning but allow it because this will run it as administrator.

When running the program click the computer icon and choose patch files you will need to restart your computer after doing this.

After the restart open Vista Glazz once again and click the colour icon next to the computer and patch them too. You will not need to restart after patching these.

Now you can download and use any custom theme.

To use a custom theme, go to your system drive (usually c drive) and go to the windows folder, find resources, themes.

Now copy the files of the downloaded theme into the theme folder like so.

Copy the content of the downloaded theme, the theme folder and the theme file into C:\windows\resources\themes

Now you can double click the theme file (the file with the coloured icon) and in the pop up box select the theme that you want and click to apply.

the better twin

Worse than the big bad wolf

Barely one month after Mexico reported its first death from a suspected swine flu outbreak the topic is already falling off the media agenda. In that time we have seen global media organisations  calling the outbreak a “global crisis” and a “real threat to humanity.” However, there has only been one death outside Mexico (a Mexican infant visiting America) and now those same organisations are backpeddling stating that it is not as bad as first feared and the flu is only a mild form of the much feared H1N1 strain.

Did the global media over react to the so called “crisis”? Well the media certainly loves a good horror story and nothing is greater it seems than the end of existence. It seems that everyday humanity takes one step closer to its inevitable doom and these companies seem to be competing to have the biggest and best coverage. The accute irony, that if it was actually the end no one would be around to read this fantastic coverage, seems somewhat lost.

Sombreros mandatory

What the media should state in cases where a global pandemic seems possible is that western countries are most likely going to be least affected. The vast wealth of these countries, experienced medical organisations and the effective hygine controls mean that they are very well equiped to combat viruses speading. The actual places that we have to fear for are the countries like Mexico, Africa, China and many more where standards of living, medical care, and health are so low the virus is far more likely to rack up a horrific death toll.

Of course the media werent the only ones proclaiming that swine flu could be tragic. The World Health Organistation were also stating that it was a real threat, however, they did not have much in the way of reliable information from Mexico and most Western scientists still do not know much about the virus. Therefore, a lot of advice was based on guesswork and what could have been the worst possible outcome.

It now appears that swine flu will not be the end of human existance, with scientists even suggesting we should contract it so as to build up natural immunity. Clearly, the human race will have a little longer on this earth, at least until global warming kills us all off…….

the better twin

I have changed a few things around, added some cool effects and some other things.

Anyway enough yapping onto the pictures

Xbox 360 desktop with custom start orb and big taskbar

Custom start button when inactive, when hovered over and when pressed

New start menu with text glow

Green shadow colour and xbox themed close/maximise/minimise buttons

New aero background transparency

It must be said that obviously its only for vista users who have aero enabled.

Additionally i have only tested it on 32-bit systems so i dont know how it would look on 64-bit.

Finally, this is in no way endorsed by Microsoft and it is only a fan made theme.

Thats out the way.

Do you like?

Download here

Install instructions

To install a new theme if you have never used a custom one before follow these instructions.

You need to first install Vista Glazz which patches your theme files and allows you to have custom themes.

It can be found here
http://vista-glazz.uptodown.com/en/
After installation close the installer and find it in your start menu and run it. it will pop up but allow it because thiss will run it as administrator.

When running the program click the computer icon and choose patch files you will need to restart your computer.

After the restart open Vista Glazz once again and click the colour icon next to the computer and patch them too. you will not need to restart after patching these.

Now you download and use any theme.

To use a custom theme, go to your c drive and go to the windows folder, find resources, themes.

now copy the files of the downloaded theme into the theme folder like so.

Copy the content of the downloaded theme, the theme folder and the theme file into C:\windows\resources\themes

Now you can double click the theme file and in the pop up box select the theme that you want and click apply.

Double click the theme file and choose your desired theme

Thats all folks. I hope you like it.

Any comments, feedback, gripes? Let me know.
Be nice lol its my first ever go at making a theme and im not an expert.

the better twin