Tweet Map

Posted by Anthony on Sunday April 4th 2010 at 15:33.

No, we haven't been sleeping all this time, we've just been busy with other things. But now foryour entertainment (if I can remember how to even post a blog on here) we bring you Tweet Map. You simply enter a word or phrase and you can sit and watch as tweets from around the world pop up on a map showing you where people are saying those words right now in the world.

Wow A Video Wall, Just What I Always Wanted

Posted by Anthony on Sunday August 23rd 2009 at 15:33.

This started off with me looking for another monitor the same as the one in the studio so I could have a sweet dual monitor setup. I was looking on ebay and came across someone selling 4 15" LCD monitors for £70! I couldn't resist the bargain so I had to buy them. My plan was to mount them on the wall and have an awesome huge screen to watch videos / play Xbox on.

Read on for photos and videos.

amirite? post stories, get told

Posted by Anthony on Friday August 14th 2009 at 15:33.

New from The Media Dudes - amirite? We created a website similar to FML where you can go to post your stories, puns, thoughts or any other interpretation of the word "amirite" that you like. People then vote if they agree or not.

How To Remove URLs In PHP

Posted by Anthony on Friday August 14th 2009 at 15:33.

I spent a while looking for something that would remove URLs from some text. The only thing I managed to find was one that would remove only complete URLs e.g. http://www.themediadudes.com. As nobody writes like that when spamming and this was going to be used on something that anyone can write in, I needed something better.

I made my own thing and I'm sharing it with you so you dont have to search, find nothing, then make your own like I did.

$text = preg_replace("/(^|\s)(http:\/\/)?(www\.)?[0-9a-zA-Z\-_~]+\.(com|net|org|info|name|biz|.+\.\w\w)((\/)?[0-9a-zA-Z\.\-_~#]+)?\b/ie","",$text);

My regular expression skills are teh sux, so you can probably tweak that a lot.

Florida Vacation Diary June 09

Posted by Anthony on Monday July 20th 2009 at 15:33.

This is a bit late - it was exactly a month ago tomorrow that I set off for Florida, but better late than never huh. On June 22nd I went for a week long trip to Florida with my friends Hannah and James, this is what we got up to and some tips on how to get the most of your trip if you go there.

Monday

Headed to Heathrow to catch our flight with Northwest Airlines to Minneapolis/St. Paul. Found there was no free wifi at Heathrow or Minneapolis :( Then from Minneapolis got another flight to Orlando. By the time we arrived we'd been awake for almost 24 hours so were crazy tired, but still had to get our luggage, get the car, find the hotel and check in. On top of that it was my first time driving in America, sitting on the left to drive, and driving an automatic.

The car we rented was from American Car Rental. I'd like to mention here that our experience with them was great! I was a bit worried about choosing them because I couldn't find any reviews of them online and no-one seemed to mention them. I had to go with them because I'm only 19 and this is the only place that would let me rent a car. We got picked up from the airport by the free shuttle from ACR. The signs outside ACR actually said 'Advantage Rent-A-Car', adding to my nervousness having chosen this company. The lady at reception was very nice and friendly although the service was a bit slow. The car we got was a 2009 Honda Civic and was a lovely car, a huge step up from my 1997 Rover 214 I drive at home. So if you're under 21, or even under 25 and looking to rent a car in Orlando then I recommend American Car Rental. They're not the cheapest, but if you have no other option like me then they do the job well.

After getting in the car, figuring out how to start it and remembering to turn the lights on halfway down the road... (<_<) we headed for the hotel. We were staying in the Baymont Inn and Suites on Canada Avenue. The directions from Google Maps and the woman at the car rental place were very simple - straight down Sand Lake Road and Canada Avenue is on the right. But we managed to miss it anyway. After doing a couple of laps round international drive and universal boulevard we whipped out the sat nav and got there. The hotel was very nice considering the price - £25 a night. The guy at the check in desk wasn't the friendliest (granted it was 1AM) but we got our cards and headed up. After a little rest (it was now 2AM) we headed out again looking for a Walgreens. Got totally lost even with Sat Nav and ended up on the Turnpike somehow... but we eventually found one and stocked up on some American goodies (mmm... mint Oreos and Mountain Dew).

Tuesday

Even though we were very very tired none of us slept well on the first night, so getting up wasn't the greatest even though we were in one of the greatest places on earth. We got a really nice breakfast buffet at Sizzler then hit the Florida Mall. Even by this point we had fallen in love with the place. Everyone is so much nicer than in England, everything's cheaper and not to mention the amazing weather. After some browsing we went to Wal-Mart to see what all the hype is about and went to Best Buy as well. I'm a fan of Guitar Hero and was amazed to se the entire wall full of Guitar Hero stuff in Best Buy, they must have had every piece of kit you can get! Shame the games wouldn't work in my Xbox 360 back home.

With a bit of shipping done we went to Downtown Disney which is quite a nice place. If you can't afford to go to the parks like us then you can still get a taste of Disney for free by going here for free. It's a lot bigger than I was expecting, we got a free boat ride from one end to the other. If you can't stand that much of Disney like James then downtown disney is about enough for one holiday.

The day was finished off with a game on Mini Golf at one of the Congo River courses on International Drive, which included some mysterious ball vanishing.. twice.

Wednesday

We set off for a relatively long drive to the west coast. First stop: Anna-Maria Island. It took about 2 hours of driving, we broke it up halfway with a stop at Westfield Shopping Center in Brandon. After finally getting to Anna-Maria Island we sat down on a thin strip of beach on the north of the island and enjoyed the lovely hot weather our pale English bodies have never seen the likes of. After chillaxing here for a while we got back on the road and headed north across the Sunshine Skyway bridge across the Tampa Bay (enjoying some great views on the way). Our next stop was Sand Key County Park in Clearwater. There's some changing rooms here so we got changed and had a good swim in the sea. Of course we had to brag to our friends back home using Facebook about how good it was there. Protip: setup Facebook Mobile and you can update your status by just texting it to 32665.

See the route we took by downloading the Goo gle Earth file. This was plotted during the day by my Windows Mobile phone running the program Noni GPS Plot. It's a good little gadget to play with if you're into that sort of thing.

By the time we were ready to leave Clearwater it was around 7pm so the roads around Tampa were quite busy, on top of that there was some construction work. But it didn't take too long and we were back in Orlando in 90 minutes. We went to TGI Fridays for dinner which is only about 250 meters down the road... so of course we drove (it is America after all).

Thursday

Today we went to Universal Studios for the 1st day of our 2 day, 2 park ticket we got for $84.99 each + tax at UniversalOrlando.com. The website says bring the credit card used to book and ID. We had both but weren't asked for either. The first ride was Shrek 4D because it was the closest. After this we decided to fork out for the Universal Express Plus passes which was an excellent decision. For only $27 (price varies per day) you get to skip the line once on each ride. We only had to wait 5 to 10 minutes maximum on each ride, no more waiting outside in the heat. Our favourite rides were The Simpsons ride and The Mummy. The Beetlejuice Rock & Roll show was also pretty good as well with some songs to suit everyone's taste.

During they day they were doing some test runs on the new 'Rip Ride Rockit' roller coaster due to open soon, it was strange to see it going round with no screams from anyone. There was a helicopter hovering overhead during the day and some footage of the roller coaster was shown on the local news later that night.

After we'd done all the rides we went to the Hard Rock Café and had some more great food (I'm seeing a pattern here) and splashed out for the photo they take of your group when you go in.

Again we got lost on the way out of Universal even though it's very very close to the hotel.

Friday

On Friday we went over to the east coast. Only an hour or so and we were at Cocoa Beach. It was a lot better than I remember it when I was 7. After a bit more relaxing on the beach it started to rain so we kept going to our next stop - Kennedy Space Center. My dad didn't recommend going there because they've gotten rid of the free section outside so you have to pay the admission to see anything now. But we went in anyway seeing at it was only $20ish. There aren't that many attractions there so young kids probably wouldn't like it. However the shuttle launch experience is very good, and the tour of the complex is also good if you're interested in it. From the observation deck we could see the Endeavour space shuttle on the launch pad which was due to launch before our trip but was delayed. (It eventually launched on July 15th) we also caught a glimpse of the Delta IV rocket which was supposed to be launching the day we were there. The launch was cancelled due to bad weather.

At Kennedy Space Center I got given a $1 bill that had written on it "Track this bill at WheresGeorge.com". So I went on the site and found out about it. I thought this was a great idea - it's a website where you put in the serial number of the bill and you can say where you picked it up and the condition of the bill etc. Then you can see where the bill has traveled all over the country. Because of this I'm now actually making a similar page myself. I'll put my link on a £5 and people can come to this site to track where it goes in the UK. Keep checking the blog if you're interested.

Back on topic, here's Friday's Google Earth route.

Saturday

We went back over to the east coast today. First up to Daytona beach. You can park on the actual beach for a cost of only $3 for the whole day. Not only is it the best place to park (it's hard to find a space anywhere else) but it's also good for the fun of driving in the beach. Watch out though, certain sections are restricted to 4 wheel drive vehicles only because of the soft sand. Most of it is open for any car though.

The rocket that was supposed to launch yesterday had been rescheduled for today between 6:15 and 7:15. We went down the I-95 to a place just outside of Titusville to watch the launch...

An hours drive to see the rocket for about 20 seconds before it disappeared behind a cloud. Was it worth it?... totally!

Back up to Daytona for the evening. They have a fireworks display from the end of the pier every Saturday at 9:45. There's a shopping/restaurant complex called Ocean Walk Village that has some nice restaurants and overlooks the Daytona Bandshell which has free concerts most weekends. There's a big parking garage at Ocean Walk Village, I can't remember how much it costs but we learnt, after about 10 minutes of searching for a machine to pay, that you pay as you drive out. The firework display is a great way to end a great day.

Google Earth route.

Sunday

On Sunday we went back to Universal Studio for our second day. Again we got the Universal Express Plus pass which costs another $27, but as I said it's definitely worth it. Protip: You can use the express pass twice on the dueling dragons because it's two separate rides. So you can skip the line for fire, then skip the line for ice. It's a great ride, even though having never been on a roller coaster where your legs dangle below you it felt like they were going to hit everything as you go past...

If you're looking for a snack in the park. The shop in Seuss Landings does some amazing cookies that you should try!

After another long day at the park, we went back to the hotel for a dip in the pool to relax on our last full day there :(. The pool actually closes at 11pm, but the same person on reception who was quite grumpy when we first arrived had cheered up and said we could go in the pool anyway as long as we weren't too loud :)

Monday

Our flight back to Minneapolis didn't leave until 18:30 so we still hade quite a bit of time to do some more exploring. Checkout time at the hotel was 11am so once we'd packed up we went to Wal-Mart to stock up on some American drinks and food to take home. 6 bottles of Mountain Dew and Sierra Mist for $2! It breaks my heart to think that I was paying £17 for 12 cans of Mountain Dew from AmericanSoda.co.uk :( and it tastes better from a bottle. (Although American Soda is still the cheapest way to get it in the UK).

Once we'd got as much as we could into our suitcases we went to the Mall at Millenia. A very nice upmarket mall, but a bit out of our price range. There was an Apple store though so we could get a bit more Facebook time. Once we were done there we had some more time to spare so we went down International Drive and stopped off at another of the Congo River golf locations to see the alligators.

Then the time came to reluctantly return the car that had served us well and been so comfy and easy to drive all week. I was worried that they might complain about the amount of sand that we'd managed to drag into the car, I'd wiped off the sand that was splashed down the side from driving on the beach. The American Car Rental lady looked it over and everything was fine. I'll say again, if you're under 21 and looking to rent a car in Orlando then they're the place to go. Without a car our trip would have been nowhere near as amazing as it was. (I actually only considered Florida after I found out we could get a car). Orlando is great. but the beaches and coasts are even better.

We got the free shuttle from the car rental people back to the airport. Orlando Airport has free wifi, so I ended up playing a game on MSN where Alex would tell me where to go in the airport and I'd take photos. A pretty fun way to wait for the plane if you're nerdy.

We flew to Minneapolis/St. Paul airport with no problems. I spent the $1 that had the tracking website written on it at a shop in the airport so I can help it on it's way, I added 1,500 miles to it's journey. When we got back to London we landed in the middle of an English 'heatwave' which at any other time would have made us happy. But having just got back from the 35 degree temperatures in Florida it felt like nothing.

Overall it was probably the best holiday of my life. The others really enjoyed their first trip to America as well. Now we can't wait to go back, hopefully next year :D

More photos on Facebook here and here.

Florida Countdown

Posted by Anthony on Monday May 4th 2009 at 15:33.

I was experimenting with action script for the first time and I whipped up a flash countdown, counting down until I go to Florida

Update: Yeah, apparantly it breaks once it gets past the date it's counting down to.

"Hello Youtubes!" - Ronald Jenkees

Posted by Alex on Saturday May 2nd 2009 at 15:33.

As listeners to past shows have heard, every now and then we talk about some sort of musical talent found on the internet. Some of those may be accidental and not talented, such as the Beefy craze, or the rap of the Kersal Massive; but we've included such things as song covers on the Ant and Lex show which have been found on Youtube.

Well just looking at random videos on Youtube yesterday evening I came across this guy: Ronald Jenkees. From the first video I saw I got a good idea of what hes about, and basically he makes music using his Music Keyboard, backed up with beats created himself using FL Studio (Used by famous electronic music artists such as Benga and Skream).

He seems to have a good ear for musical composition which can be noted when he starts playing his songs on his Youtube videos, and the way he puts his music together is something I can relate to after dabbling in music production and definately makes his videos for an interesting watch. Now if im honest, the music he makes is not what I normally listen to, but his skills cannot be put down when talking about him. He claims to have not stuck with lessons, and has played by ear since a young child. This just shows how skills can be picked up and mastered without the need for expensive lessons and education.

His debut album is out and available in a hard copy from his web store, or alternatively if you just want the songs digitally you can buy them from the iTunes store, using the link on his website.

Anyway, check out his videos!

Thanks Force FM

Posted by Anthony on Tuesday April 28th 2009 at 15:33.

TGI Friday's Style Jack Daniel's Sauce: Attempt One

Posted by Anthony on Thursday March 12th 2009 at 15:33.

We fell in love with the Jack Daniel's sauce that you can get at TGI Friday's so we've been trying to get a hold of some to have at home. The bottles of it you can buy in supermarkets just don't taste the same so we tried making our own using this recipie.

VW Players and Prept - Brands Hatch

Posted by Alex on Thursday August 7th 2008 at 15:33.

Went to Brands Hatch last night to take a look at the hottest German cars this country has to offer, and tried my hand at snapping up photos while on the move... This was also my first time taking photos in overcast weather. Should have bought a tripod!

Was an amazing night; many, many cars turned up, and was great to see the cars I had only seen in pixels before.

Here is a selection of requested higher res pictures, and some lightened versions from my flickr.

See the rest of the pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/3media-lex/sets/72157606592310023/

If you would like to have a high res picture from my flickr, leave a comment on the blog and I will sort it out for you.

Thanks to 'Sum1s Dad' from E38 / Kent-VW.tk for giving me a lift up to the show.

Click read more to see the photos.

Gmail's Really Buggy Today...

Posted by Anthony on Wednesday August 6th 2008 at 15:33.

Wii Fit + Guitar Hero = Extreme Embarrassment!

Posted by Alex on Wednesday July 2nd 2008 at 15:33.

I really need the exercise, and Wii Fit really isn't enough for my extreme fitness regime; so we decided I should add a little rocking out exercise into the work out...

Mic Spin Video

Posted by Anthony on Wednesday July 2nd 2008 at 15:33.

If you were listening to the show from June 7th you'd have heard Ant's impression of the "Leek Spin" internet meme.
Here it is in video form

Ant's Sweet Vacation Photos

Posted by Anthony on Wednesday July 2nd 2008 at 15:33.

Check out some of the photo's from Ant's visit to California and Las Vegas over at Flickr. All nicely arranged onto a map for your viewing pleasure. Use the scrollbar across the page to view more.

Mmmm... Mountain Dew

Posted by Anthony on Tuesday January 22nd 2008 at 15:33.

You can buy some here.

2008 - What's next?

Posted by Sam on Monday January 21st 2008 at 15:33.

So we've almost finished our first month here in 2008. So what does 3Media have in store for all you lucky, lucky people out there?

Well to be honest it's been neither a good month or a bad month. Not much has happened in this world, but hey it's the January blues and things will pick up. So what's actually gone on so far? The price of oil has risen to over $100 a barrel for the first time in history, the 2008 Paris-Dakar Rally was cancelled, the Tata Nano was released becoming the cheapest production car of current times, a spacecraft flew past Mercury for the second time in 33 years and a plane crashed at Heathrow.

Not looking good so far, so my advice? Keep on 3Media!! As you may or may not be aware this is the 10th year since we've been around. From the good old days of Ant TV, to the almost thriving 3Media empire - there's sure to be some specials happening very soon. February in particular could hold something special, as well as a big summer extravaganza, so stay tuned folks.

Happy New Year!

Posted by Alex on Tuesday January 1st 2008 at 15:33.

Happy new year to all of the browsers and listeners from all of us here at 3Media! We hope 2008 will be a million times better than 2007!
We are now into our 10th year, so be sure to look out for many new videos, radio shows and other things!!

Cat Mario

Posted by Anthony on Friday December 28th 2007 at 15:33.

Possibly the best knock off of Super Mario Bros. ever. It's funny and annoying at the same time. Hit the link to download the game (it's a tiny file), or watch these youtube videos first:

Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Level 4

August 4th 2008: Download link fixed

Download Cat Mario

Owned by Youtube

Posted by Anthony on Saturday December 22nd 2007 at 15:33.

If you're trying to watch the video "We didn't start the fire by Billy Joel" you'll notice its pretty silent.
I just found out that youtube have silenced the video because of copyright infringement. But the video's still there so you'll have to sing along.

French People Love 3Media

Posted by Anthony on Friday April 13th 2007 at 15:33.

This photo was taken by me at the Eiffel Tower. Can you tell what it is yet?
(No Photosop trickery here)

Vista speech recognition in action

Posted by Anthony on Thursday April 5th 2007 at 15:33.

So we've all seen the video of the vista speech recognition demo, but to be fair that was in a big auditorium with lots of echo (and the full version of the video does show it working afterwards).
So what happens when it's put to the test in a real life situation.

Are Creme Eggs getting smaller?

Posted by Paul on Wednesday March 28th 2007 at 15:33.

Despite Cadburys maintaining the fact that "It hasn't - you've just got bigger", there seems to be a common belief among a lot of people, including myself, that Cadbury's Creme Eggs have gotten increasingly smaller.
Hit read more for a video...

When you start to investigate bygoing to the Cadbury website, they maintain that Creme Eggs have not decreased in size but instead the buyer has gotten bigger (in fact if you write to them they often imply that they seem smaller because you have gotten bigger due to eating too many!)

There it is in black and white -- the eggs haven't changed, they just look smaller compared to your ever-expanding ass.

Seemingly residents of the U.S.A come out worse than the rest of the world on this issue. Their Creme Eggs (the same as Cadbury's but branded under Hershey) have decreased in size recently from the standard 1.4 oz to 1.2. In light of this, what does that mean for the rest of us? Is there some large conspiracy where Creme Eggs are being reduced in size ever so slowly in the hope that no one will notice? Whatever the truth, many people still feel robbed of their old Creme Eggs. Perhaps it is one of those things... you know you are old when Creme Eggs seem smaller.

Actor B.J. Novak from The Office seen here on Late Night With Conan O' Brian has proof...
(Not sure how long this will last on Youtube as it wasn't NBC that uploaded it)

I'll leave it to you to decide who to believe on this one. I myself am adamant that they are smaller...

Advertising 3Media Goes To New Lengths

Posted by Alex on Thursday February 15th 2007 at 15:33.

On the same theme of Counter Strike, only this time for the PC, we decided to take advantage of the sprays on there to advertise 3media on the online multiplayer servers.

Seemsing we have been lacking on site hits, we thought we should try advertising on Counter Strike: Source, using our sprays while playing online against the public. We know the site wasn't on the advert, but if they were interested, they could always search for us. (Actually, Anthony forgot to put on the site address, this is just our cover-up story)

Here are the pictures I took, both were taken on fy_iceworld