Archive for November, 2007
High-quality Vivid Wallpaper
Nov 26th
As a graphic-pre-designer, I’ve always been interested in computer graphics and how they work. While I enjoy professionally made wallpapers from InterfaceLIFT, sometimes I figure I just need some of my home-made wallpapers – but those usually didn’t turn out too well. But finally, I’ve discovered something that blends the best of both worlds – fantastic, possibly vector images (quite literally) that can be fitted with a selectable background to make your own wallpaper.
Enter Vivid Wallpapers, a site which allows you to create wallpaper with premade backgrounds and high-resolution fantastic characters, like Wario or Bowser, or more realistic people. The only con I saw to this was the prefabricated backgrounds were a bit too girly for my taste, and the characters weren’t very wide in variety. But, asides from that, I was fairly impressed.
Alright, so it’s not the greatest thing in the world, but it’s a nice start. I guess I’ll work my way up from there! If you’re looking for a change, why not give Vivid Wallpapers a try? You’ve got nothing to lose, and everything vivid to gain. Have fun!
The Social Flock
Nov 25th
Addicted to Facebook? Tubed on Youtube? There are some of us that just can’t get enough of social networking websites – so many in fact, that the more tech-friendly ones created Flock, dubbed The Social Web Browser. Flock has a Firefox engine (can’t improve on perfection, right?), but the main feature would be the built-in integration with Facebook, Flickr, and Youtube being the most significant names.
Of course, I myself find such integration very distracting, so I didn’t download it myself.
However, if you are one of those social animals, why not give Flock a shot? With a Firefox engine and social networked implementation, it couldn’t get any better (for you). That is, until Firefox 3.0 gets released. Yay!
Link: http://www.flock.com
Playstation Portable, meet the Personal Computer
Nov 21st
I’m going to be frank – I’ve wanted one of those Playstation Portables since they were released a couple of years ago. Even though they didn’t have the touch capabilities of the DS, they had a huge advantage over the DS in the graphics and computing capabilities department. Heck, it could play music on its native firmware (with the DS, you’ll need an R4 chip). Not to mention it’s “wow” factor compared to the DS, which seems more “juvenile” in contrast. The only thing holding me back was that I didn’t have a PS3, but a Wii. Looks like that won’t matter anymore (officially, but if you downgraded your firmware, then you always had this option).
The Playstation Network has officially expanded to the PC, making full versions of PSP games and some PSOne games downloadable. Yep, this means you can have one game in the UMD drive, and several others stored in the flash drive (great for trips). However, only two games are available in their full versions at the launch of the Playstation Network on the PC – Siphon Filter: Contract Ops and Wipeout Pure, 67.5mb and 156mb respectively. It’s $10.99 for Siphon Filter and $15.99 for Wipeout Pure, which seems pretty cheap compared to the UMD games available for the PSP (of which I saw ranged from $24.99 to a heftier $39.99).
Didn’t I mention something about PSOne games? I certainly did, dear reader. No worries, if you run out of PSP games to download, there are still a dozen PSOne games available for you – for a price of a measly $6.99, you can configure them to run both on your PS3 or your PSP. Sounds like Microsoft and Sony are bringing the older generation back, just like Nintendo (sorry, had to rub it in).
This does raise a few issues though – will the quality of the games be deplorable, or will they possess the same quality as the UMD disks? Also, as they are stored on the flash memory stick, will there be differences in speeds, or will the PSP be able to compensate? Lastly, will the trend of downloadable games catch on, or will the whole expansion of the Playstation Network be in vain?
All we can do is wait and see. I can see the promises of such technology, although illegally speaking, it was available a lot earlier than it was officially. I must add, however, that it’s great to see Sony embracing such technology as I think it’s a unique way to do things. And with that said, I take my leave, and bid you adieu.
Data Anywhere with ADrive
Nov 19th
So, you lost that USB thumb drive, eh? Or maybe you just never got around to getting one of those hefty devices – or you always forget to bring that stuff! It’s alright – Web 2.0 brings ADrive to you, with – dig this – 50 GIGABYTES of storage for free. This presents a few concerns – sure they’ve got enough storage, but will the speed be able to match those of USB thumb drives? And will it be consistently available, or will their servers not be reliable enough for all that traffic? Lastly, will someone be able to access your account and steal everything?
First, addressing the speed, I got about 179kb/s in the second it took to upload my file up to ADrive. However, while uploading a larger file, I saw a significant decrease in speed as time progressed, till around a constant rate of 60kb/s. A reasonable speed, especially for a free service – although it might take a while when it comes to file sizes with gigabytes. As for downloading – I found rate to be twice the upload, so around 100kb/s – a bit on the slow side, but it’s still in it’s beta stages.
For the couple of days I’ve been using ADrive, I’ve been able to access it 24/7, both at school when I need data and at home when I do the homework.
Lastly, ADrive forces you to create a password with a few complicated measures – which I was glad to see, as this information could be confidential (not mine, unless you’re planning to steal homework – oh no!). However, I’d like to have seen a few more security measures, but maybe I’m just being plain ol’ paranoid. The lack of is understandable, as it would be pretty inconvenient for its users, on second thought.
The mentality I had towards this relatively new service was the same I had towards GMail a couple of years ago – this sounds too good to be true, but I’m going to give it a shot anyway. Hopefully you’re not too skeptical of this service, and you grow to enjoy such a convenience as I did.
Visit: http://www.adrive.com/
Maximize Music with MediaMaster
Nov 17th
MediaMaster’s motto is “Your music. Anywhere.” This effectively explains what kind of service it provides; for all of you that just didn’t get it, MediaMaster allows you to stream music you uploaded from a computer to any other device that can access the internet. The term device is used because the music can be streamed to a variety of mediums – from your Facebook profile or blog to your Smart Phone or PDA. Convenient? You betcha.
The site is run with HTML and some touches of Flash, but the uploader uses Java. Also, for some reason, it took away the Aero from my Vista interface, leaving a very bland Basic theme. The uploader is pretty straightforward and easy to use, which is great because it’s essential to the whole process. I especially found the drag and drop functionality extremely useful – saved a bunch of time when compared to that boring ol’ “Browse button” method.
It took a while to upload those files as I had selected 15 songs for upload (hey, that’s just a fraction of a fraction of my music collection). I can’t say I expected differently, because I didn’t – even though we’re entering Web 2.0, there are still physical hardware limits to how fast the upload goes – which I would like to see improved (not significantly, but even a slight change would mean a lot per song).
Playing music couldn’t be easier, and is quite an interesting (to say the least) experience. I’d like to mention that Aero was still available when I was accessing this page, so I’ll blame it completely on the uploader. Music is encoded at a maximum 128-kbps when uploaded, which is great quality when compared to the rest of the competition. You can choose what rate music you’d like to stream, as your internet speed might vary from place to place (understandable). Also, there are album covers! 14/15 were matched correctly, and the one that wasn’t was probably due to the fact it was not released yet. Not bad.
MediaMaster is definitely an underhyped addition to the internet, so I hope this breaks its empty streak. I’ll try to upload some screenshots later. In the meantime, sign up for MediaMaster – it’s free!
Link: http://mediamaster.com
Microsoft Takes Revised Chapter from Nintendo’s Book
Nov 13th
Hey, Herbert, have you heard about the new Xbox 360 announcement? I sure have, dear reader. In case you haven’t, Microsoft is enhancing Xbox 360 Live with original Xbox games made available for download. For 1200 “Microsoft Points” (sound familiar), according to Dailytech, which will retail for $15 USD – these games are dirt cheap. There are just a few things I would like to bring up.
Firstly, I don’t think the Xbox 360 Arcade will be able to play such games as storage will be an issue (I will be guessing the games are at least several gigabytes) – in fact, the 20gb variant of the xbox 360 will probably only be able to hold a couple of games until its storage maxes out. But hey, at least there’s still the option for it, right? I also thought of what I would consider a feasible solution – if Microsoft had USB support, couldn’t they simply plug in an iPod and use it as an external hard drive and store the image there? It might not load as quickly, but it’s the only thing I can think of so far.
Secondly, can Xbox Live really handle such a huge amount of traffic? We’re talking about transferring thousands of gigabytes of data at a reasonable rate all over the world (mainly North America), which is no easy task. Perhaps using Xbox 360′s like a P2P network uses computers might be a good idea here.
Last, and possibly the least of the worries, is the Nintendo fanboys jumping on this opportunity to ridicule Microsoft. Think fanboys like me, except on a much larger scale – Microsoft’s practically taking this entire chapter out of Nintendo’s book! Microsoft Points? Downloading old games – which is actually a great idea, if they had it first?
Anyhow, it seems like Microsoft and Sony are taking everything from Nintendo’s book – first lowering their respective prices and now this. Not that I have a problem with it – frankly, I love competition – because the consumers always win. In fact, I might be able to afford a Wii AND a PS3, a feat that I would never have dreamed of had the original PS3 price still been so high.
Live Anything!
Nov 10th
A couple of minutes ago, I was trying out Microsoft’s Skydrive Beta with my @live.ca account. To my dismay, the service wasn’t available in my region – Canada – a message that really pops up much too often. Quickly adapting to the situation, I tried using my other @live.com account, and surprisingly, I was allowed in.
So, to even things out a bit, here’s a link that user my friend Jaydster posted.
http://blog.hznet.nl/index.php/2007/11/06/update-livecom-registration-is-opened-other-live-too
Those links allow you to get @live.whatever e-mail addresses worldwide! Grab ‘em now, hot off the press.
The Legend Lives
Nov 7th
The Playstation 2 isn’t dead, just because the Playstation 3 is out. It’s still the console with the most users, although it’s sales figures might have been dropping a bit as of late. As a proud owner of a PS2 (got it in third grade), I’m always gloating about it – and Sony’s just given me another reason to.
Just looks like a regular Slimline though, doesn’t it? It does, actually – but the Power Supply Unit’s finally been built into the PS2 itself. This does make it weigh a bit more than the older Slimline, but it’s still very light! Not to mention the new stand takes up a lot less room than it did before (great touch, Sony).
Rumour has it that the new PS2 might be at the new magical pricepoint of $99. Of course, this might just be speculation, but it’s very possible, seeing as how poorly the PS3 was doing in sales (they’re on the rise though). Sony has to make money somewhere!
Funky E-mail Addresses are Finally Available
Nov 6th
I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time – precisely probably around a year or so. But then again, haven’t we all? You might’ve seen people using this hardly found e-mail address, but you have never found out how to sign up for an account! What the heck is Live.com, you are wondering. And why can’t you get an e-mail address there, whereas other people can?
Correction – now you can. Simply visit http://get.live.com, and sign up for a hotmail account. You will be able to select @live.com from the dropdown menu if it’s available in your region – and if not? Tough luck. For all you Canadian readers out there, you will be getting an @live.ca e-mail address, which I appreciate as I find unique.
But why do people already have an @live.com e-mail address? I, being one of them, got mine from a Javascript “workaround” (for a lack of better term, and “hack” is such an ugly word) that was available for a few days till Microsoft closed it up. Thank Goodness that Microsoft was kind enough to let all of us “workarounders” keep our @live.com e-mails around though, much respect in that sense.
As for the actual e-mail service – does it offer anything different from GMail? Well, basically, it’s Windows Live Hotmail, which is a lot flashier but also a lot slower than GMail (speaking from firsthand experience). So unless you want to reserve an @live.com or @live.ca e-mail address, I don’t see much of a rush so far. GMail’s just pushed the envelope too much.
Final verdict? Get it – there’s no harm reserving your name. Who knows – perhaps in the future, Windows Live Hotmail might surpass GMail in user satisfaction and speed! And besides, @live.com is just such a cool ending.
Cairo Harnesses the Revolution
Nov 5th
Aren’t you sick of the default Windows GUI? No, I’m not talking about just the Aero or Luna skins, I’m talking about that whole navigation system – complete with lack of coverflow. Lucky for us, looks like Cairo will be bringing that – along with a whole series of new concepts to us. Cairo’s a shell alternative for Windows being developed on C#, and it will be distributed for free. Sounds too good to be true? It isn’t – although you might need to wait a while for it.
Cairo – isn’t that a city in Egypt? You’re right, and might I also complement your geography. It’s also the name of the project that claims to bring the revolution, and has me as a pretty hypnotized follower (although I’m still new to this whole thing).
All I can say is, if their actual shell alternative looks as cool as their website does, I’m definitely switching to Cairo! It’s not that Windows hasn’t served it’s purpose, but I definitely need a change, and I don’t seem to be able to afford a Mac yet. For more information, why not check their website or join their community? Alas, some features might not be up on the website yet as they are still being developed, so please be patient and don’t ruffle any feathers.
Clicky: http://www.cairoshell.com/