Luckily, this work came to and end recently, and we’ve been working on Smashed again. An iPad version of Smashed is currently in review, and we also put out another small update to the iPhone version last week.

The new levels are another matter. Level design for Smashed is incredibly time consuming. It can take us up to a week to design just ONE good level, assuming no serious gameplay flaws are found during testing. There are 20-30 levels that have been in development for a while, but it’s taken until now to get them to a quality we are happy with. We totally did not expect these delays when we announced our dates for expected updates, believe me! (See Valve Time).

We’ll update the hackdirt site about this next week.

I’ll certainly check out Aubrey de Grey.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcMIf70fAHU)

Enjoy

I use both signons at multiple locations so that is why I like Woosh. It would be no use to me to be tied to one location as with Xtra ADSL etc.

Sure there are times when I have been frustrated with the Woosh helpdesk, but as others have said, you get variable service everywhere. You also get different signal quality in different areas, but there don’t seem to be too many places where I can’t get it to work.

Initially I had lots of problems with my Woosh connection but eventually realised that Windows 2000 has massive faults with some USB chipsets and the USB protocol in general, and that is what was causing most of my problems with the modem disconnecting.

Once I got that sorted (by adding a different USB pci card) I got much better reliability.

There is also no doubt that there is much greater reliability using the “network cable” interface to connect to the Woosh modem. The USB cable connection can be much less reliable, especially if you have a marginal chipset or usb protocol issue as many PCs do.

Dollar for dollar I think Woosh is a really sweet product, but I think it is very important to note that any wireless connection is unsuitable for gaming because data packets arrive at variable times.

This is also the same reason that faxes won’t run properly over an IP line. You have to choose the right type of connection for your purposes.

I trialled the Woosh phone, but it didn’t work properly for me because I am theoretically outside the Woosh coverage area and the signal strength was inadequate. I am just happy to settle for the data connection. Speed-wise it is not as fast as Xtra (but costs me only half the price) but way faster than dialup was.

Some of the problems others are getting could possibly be caused by being too CLOSE to transmission sites, not always too far away. I found my connection really troublesome when I parked less than about 300 metres from the transmitter. Too many signals swamping the modem I reckon.

Wireless connectivity seems to be as much of an art as a science. “Suck it and see” is the attitude to have. What works beautifully in one street may be hopeless a few hundred metres away.

I say you should be able to get a stable Woosh setup running within two weeks, and if it isn’t happening for you in that time send the gear back. I think they give a 30 day grace period.

If you haven’t got it sorted in that two weeks you should either assume it’s not going to be sorted, or else do what I did and battle on through the problems till you iron them out.
I should really try and get a job with the Woosh helpdesk, I learnt so much that they didn’t already know. (or if they did know they didn’t tell me)

Don’t get me started on Vodaphone…Those guys should be in a criminal court for what they did to me.