As a Telstra CDMA Pre-paid customer, I am quite interested in what Telstra is going to offer in the Next G pre-paid service.

Unfortunately though, Telstra has been quite secretive to the public until recently about when the first instalment of phones will be released. Dealers on the other hand haven’t, and some have posted on Whirlpool about the impending launch (original the 14/5/07 but is now pushed back (and confirmed by Telstra via email) to the 24/5/07) and also the phones that will be at launch (ZTE 256 and the LG TU500).

Telstra though is not letting any of the information appear on their website yet though of the handsets. The ZTE 256 details are quite secretive (and even dealers on Whirlpool haven’t figured it out, let alone where I work only has details on the LG TU500 on pre-paid).

Telstra’s secretiveness has failed though for this as well, as I have stumbled onto the information at Dick Smith’s Website (silver - black - links may not work depending on the DSE site). Full details from both phone colours for the ZTE 256 is after the break (as well as two pictures from the DSE site).

UPDATE: The demo unit does do various HD resolutions, unlike what I previously posted.

At work, we have received our display unit to show off the Playstation 3. In this post, I will talk about the issues that we have and some general gameplay comments.

We have it plugged into the Sony Bravia X series (40″) via a $60 or so HDMI cable (the expensive Belkin PureAV cable that we had received with the unit broke due to the cabinet being moved around and bending the plug).

Note though that the unit supplied is actually a special version of the PS3 that is modified to only (unless there is a way around) act as a demo unit with none of the options modifible. The issue with this is that the PS3 is only running into the LCD at 576p compared to the 1080i/p capability that retail units and the display supports. Hopefully though, we will be able to run Blu-Ray discs (movies and games) on the unit, but we don’t have any yet.GameplayThe demo unit comes with two games on the 60GB Hard Drive. One is Formula One Championship Edition and the other is Motorstorm.

Motorstorm

Motorstorm involves you to drive around a dirt track in the demo in either a truck or a motorbike. Gameplay is pretty intense but does have the issue of the SIXAXIS controller being quite sensitive if you are in the motorbike and have the motion sensor on.

F1

F1 Champonship Edition is one of the best F1 games that I have played. The graphics are based on the 2006 series TV graphics and looks quite nice on the widescreen display.Gameplay is also a bit easier but I did find using both thumbsticks to drive (left one is for steering while the right is for acceleration and braking) was a bit odd compared to using the buttons. Also, the default buttons for acceleration and braking is via the X and Square buttons (from memory) and not the shoulder buttons unlike Motorstorm.

Overall rating

Of course, these are first-release games and are also cut-down done demos. I rate it 8/10.

Would I buy one, yes if I had the money.

I am not sure if Word 2003 (or even 2007) for Windows will do this, but Word:Mac 2004 suggested the following for a section of a sentence.

Apple as a computer advertises the Mac mini 

The WordPress team has released the first public release of their next version, 2.1.

See the WordPress development blog for the information and head to http://wordpress.org/download/ to download.

This blog will be updated once the new skin has had all the bugs fixed and is tested with 2.1.

UPDATE: The blog has already been updated to 2.1. The new skin still needs bugs fixed.

The iMac 20″ and Final Cut Express came on the 16th.

All I can say is that it is such a nice machine. Shame my PC decided to have a hard drive nearly die.

Final Cut Express has such a nice layout on a widescreen display. Hopefully CIT gets better setups as well, but at least I have a beast of a video editor.