...to win prizes.

I won a PSP Value Pack and a copy of Norton 360 (with a total retail value of $480 approx) last Tuesday, with the package arriving last Thursday - how's that for a quick response time. Of course I wasted no time in opening the package:

There was nothing spectacular about the PSP or Norton 360 packaging (certainly no where near Apple-like - for example, in the PSP box, the actual PSP was buried under a heap of cardboard, unlike your typical Apple package where the device has pride of place when you first open it) and I'm sure it's all been done before so I didn't bother with any unwrapping photos.

First impressions on the PSP - very slick device, and quite easy to use, except for the web browser which I still don't know how to scroll down pages and select links. For some silly reason, you can do nearly everything the device can do out of the box, including watching demo videos of games and trailers and listening to demo songs, but play games because none are included, not even a playable demo. The bundled memory card is only 32MB so a reasonable movie or more than a few songs is out of the question - so I basically have a paperweight at the moment, albeit a very nice-looking one.

Maybe I shouldn't be complaining because it was free, but for those who actually splashed out for it, it seems quite disappointing.

As for Norton 360 - I haven't installed it on any computer yet as I'm waiting for my current subscriptions to run out. I'm not that hot on using it, because a) Norton products are typically bloated, though I'm told this new 360 version is a complete revamp, b) security issues aren't a problem for me - I haven't had a proper virus infection or spyware infection in the last few years. But I got it for free, so there's no harm trying it out I guess - worse comes worse, I'll install it on my rello's computers so hopefully they don't keep screwing their computers up.

So how is this related to this blog? Well a while back I wrote a blog entry about Norton 360's 'Should we tell him?' advertising campaign - http://driveactivated.com/blog/archive/2007/04/10/norton-360-s-metaphorical-viral-ad.aspx. But before you go off raving about cash-for-comments which seems to be so popular these days, if you actually read the post you'll see that my original post wasn't actually a valid entry - to enter, you needed to identify the two images I added later after a tip off in the comments. So there - I didn't write the post to enter the competition, I wrote it before I liked the ad. In fact the post doesn't say much about Norton 360 at all.

Anyway, so with my new PSP, any suggestions on what games I should get? I'm not much of a hardcore gamer, in fact I haven't turned on my Xbox 360 for months, not sure if it's still there anymore , so something easy to get into would be good. I'm also more of a puzzle and strategy person, rather than a FPS person, though racing games are good.

And is PSP homebrew worth it? Being able to play N64 and PSX games songs pretty cool, but I'm not sure of the implications on the device - can Sony detect it and then block my PSP from network play, like Microsoft does with hacked 360s?

P.S. How's this for a job! You can now apply to be an 'official condom tester' at Durex. No financial benefits unless you win the bonus, but you do get a free supply of condoms, and a great title to put on your business cards and CVs .

UPDATE (23/07/2007): PC Authority gave Norton 360 a pretty good review. Still haven't installed it yet...