Thursday, 4 August 2011
WHS 2011: So How Did It Go?
Wednesday, 27 July 2011
Windows Home Server 2011
Thursday, 7 April 2011
Has the 3DS changed my behaviour?
I picked up, purely as an impulse buy, a Nintendo 3DS on launch day (Friday 25th March 2011 in the UK). Since then I've been acting a little differently, for 2 reasons.
1. I've been keeping the 3DS with me in my trouser pocket much of the time, and possibly walking a little more.
Why?
The 3DS has tilt switches and so, in addition to other uses, acts as a pedometer. Now I can compare how much walking I've done each day.
In addition to this, walking will also earn you "coins" which can be used in some games, up to a maximum of 10 coins per day. (Un)fortunately I can walk far enough to earn all my daily coins just by walking to the station first thing in the morning on the way to work. I can't help thinking it's a little too easy to get that booty.
2. I'm walking via different routes.
This is not only to rack up a few more steps, but also to pass as many people as possible. The 3DS has a feature called "Street Pass" which, if the console is sleeping rather than powered off, will exchange data with other 3DS users as you get near them. This data includes game functionality for supported games (for example Lap Times for Ridge Racer, Characters for Street Fighter) and adds their Mii to the Plaza on your console. This Mii can then be used to, for example, help you complete a 3D image, or help rescue your own Mii (which has been captured in one of the games).
All in all, providing these two motivations for keeping the 3DS with me at all times is clever marketing by Nintendo; it keeps the console at hand and makes it more likely to be used, and therefore more likely that I'll buy more games for it.
Until the novelty passes anyway...
Oh, and by the way, the 3D is yet to make me feel dizzy, which is a surprise since I can't play first person shooters without getting motion sickness.
Tuesday, 4 January 2011
Google quite possibly now owns my soul... [Part 2]
- I've started making more use of my GMail account. This is actually coming in more useful for talking to job agencies as it's easier to specify the Gmail email address than having to explain constantly that imorital actually doesn't mean anything of significance.
- I'm making use of the Google calendar, especially getting this to sync with my various instances of Outlook. The calendar then automatically syncs to the phone without having to perform this step by plugging it into the PCs in question. Essentially a (more or less) up to date copy of my calendar is always accesible on the web and from their to my various devices with no manual intervention.
- Likewise The tasks. This synchronisation isn't as slick unfortunately, especially with regards to Outlook tasks. I live in hope this will improve over time (hey Google, I'll come and work for you to write the code if you want).
- I'm making use of Google reader to keep track of my RSS subscriptions. Again this is all kept in sync so I see what is unread between devices.
- My homepage of choice has been iGoogle for a while, it offers a decent "at a glance" view of what I want to see on the web, including the aforementioned Calendar, tasks and reader (probably email too if I could be bothered setting it up), along with stock prices, weather, train times, etc.
- I've even used the free Google navigation to guide us to/from our recent holiday.
- I'm currently playing with Latitude, although since (like most of the sane population of the world) I don't always want people knowing where I am, this will likely be a phase.
- I've started using Google Talk for chatting to a couple of friends from both the Google web pages and my phone.
- I'll probably start using Google Voice when it arrives properly in the UK.... assuming it offers similar features to the US version (i.e. free calls to landlines)
- Paper Toss by Backflip Solutions inc.
- Word Up! by Anthrological
- Jewels by MHGames
- Talking Santa Free by Outfit 7 Ltd.
- Talking Roby The Robot Free by Outfit 7 Ltd.
- Talking Tom Free by Outfit 7 Ltd.
- Finger Dance Lite by Blink Droid
- PAC-MAN Championship Edition (Demo) by Namco Networks
- Raging Thunder 2 Lite by polarbit
- Bubble Burst Free by Androgames
- WordSearch Unlimited Free by JiuzhangTech Ltd
- Star Wars light Saber by Eder Rueda Fernandes
- Andoku Sudoku by Markus Wiederkehr
- AppBrain App Market by Swiss Codemonkeys
- Quick Settings by Sergej Shafarenka
- Bluetooth File Transfer by Medieval Software*
- ASTRO File Manager by Metago
- ASTRO SMB Module by Metago
- ASTRO Bluetooth Module by Metago
- Yell.com by Yell.com Mobile
- Google Search by Google Inc.*
- WikiMobile by Bonfire Media Inc.
- Google Goggles by Google Inc.
- London Tube Status by Pete C
- RAC Traffic by Oakley integrated Business Solutions Ltd
- Barcode Scanner by ZXing Team
- GTasks by Dato
- Google Maps by Google Inc*
- Evernote by Evernote Corp.
- Gmail by Google inc*
- Audible for Android by Audible
- Just Pictures by Kounch
- Camera 360 by mAPPn, Inc
- SoundHorn by SoundHorn Inc.*
- Flash Player 10.1 by Adobe Systems*
- Endomondo Sports Tracker by Endomondo
- Waitrose Christmas by Waitrose Ltd.
- YouTube by Google Inc.*
- Adobe Reader by Adobe Systems*
- Epicurious Recipe App by Conde Nast Digital
- Simple Last.fm Scrobbler by Adam Renberg
- Sykpe by Skype
- Facebook for Android by Facebook*
- Kindle for Android by Amazon Mobile
- Twitter by Twitter Inc*
- Google Shopper by Google Inc.
- Official eBay Android by eBay Mobile
- EZ Tip Calculator by Daniel Hong
- Amazon MP3 by Amazon.com*
- Droid Forums by DroidNetwork.net
- XDA-Developers by XDA-Developers