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"From out of the dark"

From Out Of The Dark

From out of the dark is a collection of 6 songs finished during the infamous Covid lockdown of 2020, drawing musical influences from many different genres and based on different themes close to my heart.

Some with a narrative, others about how I felt a particular junction in life, playing music, writing and recording songs has been a great outlet for me and helped me deal with and express myself in a productive fashion.

With no single genre over the six songs I decided to put them out as From out of the dark, to show how something good can come from the darkness. I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed making them.

I appreciate so much all the friends and family who have helped critique these tracks ready for public consumption. Thanks also to my younger sister, Hannah, for providing her vocal talents and lyric writing on two of the songs.

Please listen below and follow me on all of my social networks using the links above.

Matt x

#Mac disaster!

So, two days ago I happened to open Disc Utility on my mac to see that the SMART status of my internal hard drive was failing. After a quick google I discovered this was pretty much game over for HD, and rather quickly emptied an external hard drive to run time machine and make a complete backup of my mac.

This took overnight and luckily the HD saw it through. I tried to run it again just to be sure, but by that point the HD had died. I tried to restart the machine but to no avail... 

I've been doing a lot of work on my Mac recently, and it also houses a lot of the video and audio work I did at university, so I very quickly jumped onto Amazon to order myself a new HD to try and rectify the problem to get back on with things. 

When browsing for HDs though, I found the SATA disc drives to be much cheaper than I thought. I decided to go the whole hog and bought 2 1TB drives and a disc drive mounting bay (the DVD drive on my mac has been shoddy for years). It would've been nice to go the SSD route but I have gone for capacity over speed.  

I do quite a lot of fixing computers in my day job, but had heard Macs were much more difficult to upgrade than a Windows laptop. This, and the fact it was my own machine which I'd bought with my own money made me ever so slightly paranoid. Still, I gave it a shot and now have a functioning 2TB MacBook Pro. 

I used a couple of videos online to help, but couldn't find a specific one for my model. I also dislike YouTube videos for this and would much prefer a written step by step guide. Unfortunately, I can't create this as due to my paranoia I quickly forgot about wanting to take pictures of the process. I will offer a couple of hints and tips though!
  • You should have a T6 screwdriver and some precision small philips screwdrivers. Some magnetic ones make this much easier to put back together.
  • I couldn't disconnect the battery like so many guides had suggested, as in the mid 2009 model the battery needs to come out before you can disconnect the cable from the logic board. The T set of screwdrivers I had didn't seem to have the 1.5 size I apparently would've needed to remove the battery. As such, I prized the connector away from the board as much as I could using a plastic tool, and left it at that. It all worked fine.                              
  • When removing the original hard drive, there are four screws holding it in place. A little plastic retainer to the top side of the drive comes out allowing the HD to slide out safely.
  • When the old drive is out, you need to remove the four screws in it, and then put them in your new drive. This allows the new drive to be securely fastened by the plastic retainer. 
  • For the second drive in the caddy, there were four screws ready to hold the drive in place. These simply needed loosening, the drive inserting, and then tightened again. 
  • When removing the DVD drive, there was some cabling glued to the drive itself. Carefully peel this off. When the caddy is in place simply stick it back down using the residual adhesive. 
  • I was unsure which cable to remove from the logic board when removing the DVD drive. So, I undid the screws and removed the drive gently, until some resistance was felt by the cable. I then used a plastic tool to remove the cable from the board. This then comes off the DVD drive and onto your HD caddy. 
  • Make sure to take off the metal screw hole attached to the DVD drive when you've removed it, and put it onto your HD caddy so you can secure it in place. When you put in the caddy holding your 2nd drive, it should slot back in quite easily, and the screw on the right will screw in easily. The 2 on the left are in an extremely tight gab however, and I suggest starting them off using a magnetic phillips screwdriver. 
  • When your drives are in and you boot your mac, if you cloned your hard drive it'll just boot as normal. You will need to go to disc utility to format your new drive (I used Mac OS Extended Journaled for the new internal drive).
  • If you plan to restore from a Time Machine backup and are using Lion or later, firstly boot up your mac holding CMD-R to bring up the recovery menu. Before selecting restore from Time Machine backup, select Disc Utility and format the drive (Mac OS Extended Journaled). When you go back and select Time Machine, it'll now pick up the drive and allow you to restore. 

And that's it! My useful hints and tips about upgrading the HD, and adding a second internal HD to a mid 2009 Macbook Pro. It wasn't as difficult as I thought - just a bit nerve wracking. And it helped to have a second person on hand to hold things steady. I hope at least one person maybe is helped by this. I was shocked at just how much this boosted performance of my mac. For a machine which is 5 years old, it's now extremely nippy once again. If you decide to do the same with SSDs, no doubt you'll notice an even more dramatic increase in performance. 



The HD caddy I bought:

External USB HD enclosure I have used lots of times before, should you need one:

#PS3isPast

Despite games still coming out cross platform across the newest generation and last generation of consoles, the focus is inevitable going to be on the mighty PS4 over the 3 from here on in. It's been a good run though right? A quick nose at the reliable source that is Wikipedia, tells me it's been 8 short years since release. And we've had some absolute gems released during that time, with developers constantly striving for the utmost immersive experience, the most realistic or detailed graphics, and ultimately, the most fun overall package.

It must have been nice to be a game reviewer over that time. Free copies of games landing on the office mat, or download codes in their inbox, ready for them to blast through them in a matter of days (sometimes less) in order to tell us, the ordinary folk whether the experience will be worth our hard earned cash. And yes, I've often used a review to help influence my decision as to whether to invest in a new game or not.

But as ordinary folk, the way we receive games is much different. It is our hard earned cash after all, and we're not always able to buy all the AAA releases we desire. So we make a reasonably informed decision. And we live with it. We don't blast through a title in a couple of days (unless it's the most recent generic fps with a story span of 1 and a half hours). We get to savour the experience, coming back to it time and time again, sometimes with massive intervals between gaming sessions. Longevity then is important in our decision, maybe wanting the most for our money in a game that spans months on end; or maybe craving something shorter so that we may finally be able to see a game's epic conclusion before someone inevitably spoils it for us.

So for me, as an ordinary Joe (well, ish), I want different things to more or less everyone else in my games, so that they meet my specific needs, just as the rest of you will want something different to me. And whilst it's ace reading an informed all encompassing review of a title, a game may be technically bad but still immensely enjoyable for me, whilst a game that ticks all the technical boxes may be downright dull.

For me then, these are the games that have ticked my boxes; they've been enjoyable for me for different reasons, and I've stuck with them and drained every last tax deductible penny that went into buying them from them. For me, they have had the most value.

Far Cry 3 

...is my preferred approach to an FPS. The main focus is on the campaign as apposed to creating an online shooter with a 90 minute campaign added on for good measure. Far Cry 3 comes with a story that would be excellent value for money at a quarter of it's actual length. It's shocking, brutal, well written and moves at a good pace throughout. It has surprisingly deep RPG elements including crafting and upgrading weapons and consumables, skill trees and miles of tropical island to explore, collectibles to uncover and side quests to complete. And just when you think you're getting to the end of the story... it almost begins anew and gives you a whole new island to explore! It has a co-operative campaign which can be played online and is just as satisfying as the main game. It has interesting online elements should you be that way inclined. You can easily sink a hundred hours into this game and if you buy it new today it will set you back about £7. That's 7p per hour of gameplay, which is insanely brilliant value. And if you're willing to invest a little more cash (£6.49 currently on PSN) you can download Blood Dragon DLC. 80's themed sci-fi shooter, complete with dinosaurs that shoot lasers from their eyes! For value for money and sheer entertainment value, Far Cry 3 is definitely up there. 



Skyrim

I received Skyim for Christmas 2011. It's a true testament to a games value for money and longevity when you consider that I'm still playing it almost 3 years later. And I've still got shit loads to do. Skyrim's lands are massive - full of sweeping hills, expansive forests, snowy mountains and functioning towns with a multitude of creatures, demi-gods, enemies and NPCs for you to interact with however you choose. It looks beautiful, the troubled lands represented well with a dark pallet and realistic textures. There are thousands of options, loads of skills to master, items to buy, steal, find or craft. There is the main underlying quest staring your meticulously designed character as the Dragonborn - someone capable of using defeated dragon's souls to unlock powers which are mastered by learning new words from the dragon language. But it's not just one story and then a shed load of fetch quests. The side quests often feel as important as the main story and are just as detailed and well written. The quest at the Mage college of Winterhold springs to mind. 

Again, there's excellent (and well priced) DLC to extend your experience further, including an encounter with a previous Dragonborn, vampire hunting AND a pack to create your own houses. There are other RPGs of a similar vein that I have played, but Skyim has by far been the most satisfying. It's not without flaws - console versions in particular were plagued with bugs and a less than smooth frame rate. For a game as ambitious and large in scope as Skyrim though, these are forgivable and slight annoyances in an otherwise perfect fantasy RPG experience. 



Skate 3

Skate 3 was great fun, and the best Skateboarding game I've played since the original Tony Hawk. The controls are great, using the left stick to control movement, and the right stick to jump, changing the direction to perform different tricks. Innovative but extremely intuitive. The city in Skate is big, with enough varied locations and challenges to keep single player entertaining for a long time. It's online where I really got my money's worth out of this game, hosting private gaming sessions with my friends - skating aimlessly around different locations and chatting, or playing off against each other in lots of fun challenges.

It also has a Skate Park editor/creator which can then be shared and played online, and some other nifty online features, such as adding a picture to the Skate 3 website to use as your in game logo. Clever! It also stars the bloke from My Name Is Earl. Nice touch! 


So far, I can think of the 3 games above that have given me the most value for my money. If I think of some more, I'll slowly update this. In the meantime, if you don't have any of these 3, go and buy them now! And if you have some games that you've played and milked dry, I'd love to hear about them. 

O Captain! My Captain!

I will miss Robin Williams. Not just as a talented actor, comedian, writer, producer and, arguably most importantly, a massive Legend Of Zelda fan. But as a constant. A deserved celebrity who was just a part of popular culture and who always would be. Unfortunately, celebrities somehow become viewed as invincible. Famous actors of this caliber will hopefully always be immortalised from the work they contributed to whilst alive. But a hole is still felt when they leave this Earth, because we never expect it. 

@BobJWilliams posted this Charles Bukowaki quote on twitter, which summarises what I felt when I first heard the news from someone's Facebook status. 

I of course had to watch Dead Poets Society yesterday, and I'm sure many people around the globe felt the sudden need to put on Aladdin, Hook, Good Will Hunting, Flubber, Mrs Doubtfire, Patch Adams and the countless other films that Williams starred in. 

I didn't want to rant about the cause of Williams death. Most people understand, or at least appreciate depression as the disorder that it is, and how suicide is not some selfish act against the world, but a chemical imbalance that causes an individual to feel there is no alternative. Russell Brand quite eloquently talks about the state of a world that a person such as Williams feels they can't exist in it here

I suppose the positive to come out of this is the education of all people to understand that despite the outwardly displayed mask, a person could be, and probably is struggling beneath it. And human behaviour needs to improve because of this. It takes so much more effort to be a negative human being. Why bother? It's nice to be nice, folks.