R-type was one of those games that came bundled with game boys one christmas in Greece (along with Gargoyle's Quest and Dr. Mario if I remember correctly). This was the point where many of my friends jumped into the whole game boy thing, and I could borrow this game from many friends.


In truth, I only got through the first two stages of the game, but the replayability factor of this game is sky high! Even today, I feel like buying the PSP version and playing R-Type, even though I've probably played through that first stage many, many times.


The two most memorable things about the game were the music and the power ups. The music was simply great. It had this techno beat to it and even to this day when I hear 8-bit music I am reminded of R-Type.


The power-ups were also great. Some games have the same dull weapon throughout the game. This game gave you not only new weapons for you main ship, but you could also get shields,a front or back cannon, and power ups for those too!


R-type was such a good game - no wonder the R-type name continues to this day!

Tags: video, video games, games, entertainment, nintendo, gameboy, awesome, great

Every now and then I take the Myers Briggs type indicator test. I tend to fluctuate between an INTJ and an ISTJ. Typealzyser analyses your blog for it's own Myers Briggs type. According to typealyzer this blog is an ESTP.

Who would'a thunk it?

ESTP - The Doers
The active and playful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.

The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.

Analysis
This show what parts of the brain that were dominant during writing.

Tags: blog, MBTI

I had this realization the other day: Nokia is missing out on using Ovi on its lineup of internet tablets.

I've written in the past that I really don't like the fact that the internet tablets don't have any PIM functionality out of the box. Well, OK, you've got your GoogleIM contacts, but if you don't use Google as your contact manager you're out of luck (well the contact management on the device needs improvement too).

Of course the lack of a notebook, todo, and calendar apps just adds to the lack of PIM goodness on a device that could really use it. After all, you get emails with invites, why not be able to schedule them on your internet tablet and have it sync to the could?

Ovi has been available for a while now with S60 clients and S40 coming out now (if I am not mistaken). It would make absolute sense to have robust calendar, todo, and contact management apps on the Internet Tablet that allow you to sync up to the Ovi cloud!

As an added bonus, the Comes With Music should be extended to the NIT. It's got the storage, it's got the media playback capability, and it's becoming mobile with GSM/UMTS being added to it for the future iterations.

Tags: technology, Nokia, PIM, cloud, ovi

Having written about Jekyll on BBC, I thought it only fitting to write about another series, similar to Jekyll, that is interesting. This season NBC brought us a new series called My own worst enemy.

Like Jackman in Jekyll, the main character in my own worst enemy has a split personality. A day time personality of a typical office worker who is married and has the 2.5 kid + large house american dream going for him, and an evening life of someone who is an international spy. The difference is that in this series there is a brain implant that created that split personality instead of it being genetic as in Jekyll.

I've been taking my time and watching the episodes on Hulu (I rarely watch things when they are broadcast now) and I am impressed. Sadly it seems that the series is cancelled, so I am hoping for a good closing to the story...or if we are lucky the sci-fi channel or some other cable channel will pick it up and continue the plot.

IMDB info

Tags: entertainment, telephony, action, NBC, hulu

There are many services out there that offer you cloud based PIM+ (plus email, photos, storage, etc.) Some are free, some are for pay. I think that 2009 will be the year that we see more competition for consumer mindshare.

Yahoo has been in the game for quite some time. They've got Yahoo Mail, which has free 'push' to Apple's iPhone/iPod touch platform (last I checked anyway). They've got an OK addressbook, calendar, notebook, and photo management through Flickr. The problem is that they haven't put it all together. They do have Yahoo! Go but results do vary from smartphone to smartphone and it's not available for all platforms.

Google provides superior email service (in my experience) and their calendar is pretty useful - although lack of iCal sync (for free) makes it less useful for me. Their addressbook stinks - big time! I really wish they would fix it. They too have photo management through picassa. The one problem with the google verse is that is only available on Android devices -although I guess separate apps could be available on other platforms.

MobileMe is Apple's paid service (and sometimes I feel like a sucker for using it, but I can use my nokia phone and my ipod, and my mac to use it, so I guess it's valuable).

Ovi is Nokia's platform for all things PIM+ - haven't used it much, and the sync times out on my Nokia N80, so I guess I won't be fully using it until I get a new S60 phone.

Finally Microsoft has announced SkyBox, it's own version of PIM+ that is set to be unveiled sometime this month.

There is of course the Danger sidekick PIM+, but I am not sure if this is sticking around for very long (I think it would be better to integrate it with SkyBox...but what do I know?)

The one problem I've got with all of these services is that they don't play nice with one another. On my Mac I can sync my contact data with Google and Yahoo. Awesome! What about my ToDo and Calendar? What about an Ovi plug in? I don't mind having a different cloud provider for my PIM data, however it's imperative for this data to be interoperable with each other.

So what will happen in 2009? I think we will probably see an improvement of services in order to gain mindshare. I don't think we will see much cross-sync compatibility - as much as I would love to see this happen.

Tags: technology, PIM, Nokia, windows, apple, cloud

This game I borrowed from the same friend I borrowed Metroid and Castlevania from. This may be the reason I did not enjoy the game as much No offense buddy!


You play as Firebrand, a gargoyle who is predestined to be the Red Blaze who saves the Ghoul Realm from the evil wrath of King Breager and brings peace to the land once again. I really don't know what this means, and I was completely puzzled when I was a kid and my english was not as good.


The intro to the game says:

A long time ago, the Ghoul Realm barely escaped great peril. A large army of Destroyers came from a neighboring universe. The creatures of the Ghoul Realm were no match for the powerful Destroyers. Just when everyone had given up hope, a great fire swept over the Realm, wiping out the Destroyers' army.
Several hundred years have passed and the Realm is threatened once again...


This game is a combination of RPG and platformer. You play the RPG elements (top down) to move from place to place, and you are in platforming mode when you enter individual stages and when you battle enemies.


I really loved the game when I was in platform mode, but when I was in the top down RPG mode, moving through the world - Boring!


I have mixed reactions to this game, but that was before I was immersed in the world of RPG games. Maybe I should try it again sometime soon!

Tags: entertainment, video, video games, games, gameboy, nintendo, RPG, gargoyle, aaargh

MFP, for the uninitiated, stands for Multifunction printer. It's one of those thingymabobs that is a printer, a scanner, a copier and sometimes a FAX machine. I have one at home, a USB more, and it's pretty convenient.

I've seen WiFi enabled ones on the market now. The marketing pitch: no cables! We are all laptop people these days, so you can send your print jobs to the next room wirelessly, and you can scan wirelessly as well (wow!)

Well OK, no cables is all good and nice (after all I do have a wireless mouse and keyboard), but how convenient is it? If you never (or almost never) scan, then it's somewhat convenient, especially if you've got lots of users in the house.

If you have to scan a lot on the other hand, it's not convenient at all! You have to get up each time you want to change the image. If you are scanning a magazine or book page you need to be next to the unit anyway to hold the lid down. On top of that WiFi speeds for scanning aren't comparable to USB 2 or firewire (from what I hear).

So why have an MFP that's wireless? Why not just have a wireless printer?

Tags: technology, printers, wireless

We've got a tech-gram from 1981.

I was simply amazed! It took about 20 years to make the internet newspaper more of a mainstream thing, but they got there. Now we just have to struggle with the stupid ads

Tags: technology, future, futurology, newspapers

One of my favorite new BBC comedies this past year was Lab Rats. The show reminds me of the sitcoms that I used to watch in Greece when I was growing up. The series follows this really wacky crew of post-docs (or grad students) in a university setting.

Among the motley crew there is a professor (maybe a faculty advisor), and three of his supervisees that are conducting various scientific experiments, that in the end go horribly horribly wrong and make us laugh (or some of us anyway). The professor is always preoccupied with a noble prize, Alex is looking to make a name for himself, and Cara and Brian just mess things up, one way or another.

As a subplot to the story, Brian (one of the lab rats) has a crush on the Dean of the college that they are in.

There were only six episodes in the first season during the summer of 2008. Hopefully the series will be back next summer.

If you live in the UK, check out the BBC for online episodes.



Wikipedia info
BBC Homepage
IMDB Info

Tags: television, entertainment, comedy, BBC

I saw this a while back.

I could not resist - I created a FAIL photo of it

I submitted it to the FAILblog, I don't know if it made it

Tags: humor, FAIL

OK...this thing has been going on for a month now and it's quite bizarre.

Initially I could not start my car up. I let it be, came back to it and it started without a problem.
The check engine light came on, but it turned off after driving a little while
I thought it may have been the cold weather and so I didn't think twice about it.

I drove the car from the sheltered garage (avoid the snow), parked it at home.
30 minutes later I get back into the car to go somewhere. I get out of the car for a couple of minutes.
I get back in and go somewhere else. 45 minutes later I get back into the car, it doesn't start!

OK, I leave there over night (AAA was going to take up to 60 minutes to get to me and I was 10 minutes from home walking)
Next morning I start it up without any problems! I take it to my local mechanic.

Round 1 repairs: He checks the battery. It is weak.
OK, it's been 5 years since I changed batteries so I guess that was the problem because the starter
didn't have any problems and the electrical system checked out fine.

I get the car and a week later (I don't drive often), same problem!
I go to pick up some stuff, run into a store, five minutes later I come out, no problems.
I stop by an art opening, stay 30 minutes, car won't start!
I walk home (15 minute walk), I come back an hour later - it starts without problems! WTF?
Oh yes, the check ending light comes on and stays on.

Round 2: I take it back to the mechanic, they put the car through its paces (they took longer to call me back).
They said the battery was a bit weak, they replaced it (under warranty).
They checked the spark plugs, they were clean, the started still seemed fine.
Weird!!! They didn't charge me a thing for this lookup/repair.

So today (a week later), I head to the gas station. shut down the engine. fill up car. start it up again without problems
I go to the mini-market, go in get some groceries (less than 5 minutes), come out, car starts without problems
I had a craving for a donut (no joke!), I go to my local donut business, get my donuts, stay less than 5 minutes, car refuses to start (argh!!!)
Same thing - the engine cranks, it just does not start up!!!
I leave it there for an hour while I walk home (15 minutes away), and come back an hour and 15 minutes later.
It starts up without a problem, and the check engine light is on.

Seriously, WTF???

Tags: personal, car, volkswagen, beetle

This was the question posed in PHONE magazine earlier this month with the announcement of Samsung's 12MP phone.

My answer: Yes, we do need a 12MP phone, provided that its got appropriate optics and optical zoom. I do own a digital camera (although it's 3 years old and it's only 5MP), but I still use my 3.2MP Nokia N80 to take most of my photos.

Why?

Simple, the phone is always with me. The camera I only take with me when I consciously remember to do so. After all, does one expect to snap something awesome when doing something as mundane as waiting for the bus?

By having a good (enough) quality camera in your phone you are almost guaranteed to not miss out on any of those great moments that pass you by, and it ensures that those great moments can be printed, unpixelated, on a respectable sized photo.

Tags: technology, Phones, camera

Kirby's dream land was a great game. A great game along the same lines at Super Mario Land 2. In this game you play this cure like pink blob named kirby who's trying to take back the food that Kind Dedede has stolen from the people of the kingdom. In other words, Kirby is a regular robin hood.


The game play is quite good. It is a platform game where the main character can suck his enemies into his mouth and either eat them, or steal their powers. These power-ups range from wielding a sword, to spitting fire. In addition to the power-ups, Kirby can inhale air and float his was through stages - pretty convenient if you are looking to avoid enemies.


Kirby's graphics and music were great. I would play more Kirby games if they came along

Tags: video, video games, games, gameboy, nintendo, entertainment, kirby, awesome, great

So... I had a crisp $100 bill the other day that I found in an unopened Christmas card.

Yes I do occasionally get money for they holidays and I like to deposit it as soon as possible so I can pay the bills.

Anyway, I went to my school's ATM machine and I was looking for an envelope. - no envelopes to be found.

It turns out that the brains of the ATM division of Bank of America decided to create new ATMs that count the money for you, scan it to prevent fraud and do all the magical work for you. In theory this is is great! No miscounting of cash, no operator errors, just efficient banking.

In practice, this concept is an epic fail.

I put my $100 bill in and the machine did not recognize it.

I tried again, still didn't recognize it

I tried a third time (third time's the charm, right?) and this time the machine almost mangled my money!

Sorry bank of america, your ATM is an epic FAIL.


More on the ATM here

Tags: ATM, banking, FAIL

It seems like Apple is going down the non-removable battery route.

Their iPods, iPhones and now the new MacBook Pro do not have removable batteries.

This is illegal in some countries that require it to be easy to recycle old batteries, but beyond that, does the non-removable battery really matter?


I've had a PowerBook for five years. Never bought second battery.

I had an iPod (original click wheel) for five years. Never replaced the battery.

I've had many cellphones. I never had backup batteries.


While I have a problem with non-removable batteries in theory, in practice in the last 10 years I've never had a need for another battery.

Tags: technology, apple, battery

Jekyll is a BBC mini-series just four episodes long staring James Nesbitt.

It follows a man called Dr. Jackman who has two personalities. Dr. Jackman, the day personality, and what we assume to be Mr. Hyde. Neither personality can control the other, things just happen.

Once they discover each other they communicate with various tape recorded messages that they leave each other before they go to sleep.

The show was pretty nice, and I think that we get to see an evolution of Mr. Hyde from someone who cares just about himself to someone who cares for Jackman's family.

The overarching storyline here is that Jackman/Hyde is being chased by some corporation looking to use him because of his unique gift of having two personalities, and one of them being quite violent like Mr. Hyde.

I really hope that the BBC brings this one back for a full season, or gives it a second mini season. This series does show promise.

Tags: television, entertainment, scifi, BBC

OK, this is not new, but I thought it interesting enough to repost.

I guess this was a Brazilian who liked Patapon so much that he got a patapon tattoo for 1000 brazilian real

Pretty cool, I don't know if I would spend tat much money though...

Tags: entertainment, PSP, video, video games, games

Stupid questions, stupid answers on Yahoo! Questions.
What becomes of them? If you are lucky enough someone makes a flash animation of them and many people laugh.

How is babby formed?

Tags: humor, yahoo, answers

I had borrowed Metroid 2 from one of my good friends, and I *never* got to the end by myself. Sure I destroyed the ending metroid at the end of the game and saw the ending, but that was only by using the save files that my fiend had provided on the cartridge that the game was on.


Metroid 2 takes over from Metroid (on the NES). You crash land, your metroid escapes, and you need to recapture it (as far as I remember anyway). Along the way you need to pick up power-ups and kill enemies so that new areas are open to you. having come form a platform background, Metroid was quite a different game for me.


I liked the game mechanics, but when I was told that I had to go back to areas I had been before so I can blast a wall (with a weapon I just acquired) in order to move forward in the game my reaction was: whaaaat? but I just came from there! I have to go back? WTF?!?!


I've gotten used to this now, but back then this game seemed like such a hassle! I remember metroid fondly, but when I try to play any metroid now, I find that I don't have the patience. Maybe I need to find some save files

Tags: entertainment, video, video games, games, gameboy, nintendo, metroid, aaargh

I should submit this to the blog of unnecessary quotation marks.

I took this at an ocean state job lot (a store) in November. I wonder what they mean by "original" lol

Tags: humor, quotes, blog

Recently I came across and article called the right to read

It's not long, and it's a short sci-fi story.

With all the talk about ebooks this year being the in thing for 2009, and my own experiences with ebooks, I think that it's worth while to read.

Now while this story is rather bleak and it points to a possibility, an unintended consequence of DRM on our media and its effects on education.


Excerpt:

For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college—when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.

This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her—but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong—something that only pirates would do.

And there wasn't much chance that the SPA—the Software Protection Authority—would fail to catch him. In his software class, Dan had learned that each book had a copyright monitor that reported when and where it was read, and by whom, to Central Licensing. (They used this information to catch reading pirates, but also to sell personal interest profiles to retailers.) The next time his computer was networked, Central Licensing would find out. He, as computer owner, would receive the harshest punishment—for not taking pains to prevent the crime.


To continue reading click here

Tags: technology, ebooks, DRM, education

Well, after Babylon 5 was over, there was a new spin off series created called Babylon 5: Crusade
. I was recently able to see all of the 13 episodes of the series. The series did have a rough beginning, but the series did get progressively better up until the time it was canned.

The series follows a prototype ship of human-vorlon-mimbari engineering that treks through the galaxy to find a cure for earth's plague unleashed by the Drakh at the end of the Babylon 5 series. It does have some good casting, and the story line isn't bad if you like the star trek type of story line. I liked the character of Captain Gideon, and the character of his first officer, a telepath, played by Daniel Dae Kim.

So what killed the show?

Well that's simple.
1. This show, just like Babylon 5, had some pretty bad writing. When I say bad, I mean really bad. JMS (the writer) needed to have someone proofread and edit his work because it was cheezy, corny, and highly unlikely.
2. It aired on TNT. This type of show should have been on the SciFi channel.

If you happen to see if in your local library, or on netflix, give it a go. Be forewarned of the bad dialogue!

Wikipedia entry
IMDB entry

Tags: television, entertainment, scifi

Here's a third post in a series of reposts of interests from the NewtonTalk list. My commends are in Code format

Joe Riley Wrote:
This is a continuation of the iPod touch talk from the "[NTLK] [ADMIN] This is only a test" thread.

I just got a 1st Gen refurb iPod Touch from apple (looked brand new!) and I've been very amazed with it. I'm not a newton power user in terms of the calendar/contacts and the info linking the newt can do so I could see me using the touch as its replacement for those functions. I also can do without the HWR since I usually end up using the onscreen keyboard on my newt because most of my data to enter doesn't like the HWR (gear charts for race cars, web addresses, etc.). If you use blackberry, treo, winmo, etc, getting the hang of the touch's keyboard shouldn't be too hard. The first data entry might be a pain if you do it manually but the touch can sync with address book and ical.

I synced everything with my MobileMe account and al info was there. I found the only problem to be the iPod's auto-correct. I write in Greeklish (Greek in latin characters) on twitter and it keeps wanting to correct everything. English typing was no problem, even from the get-go.

Someone also mentioned the small screen, which I do agree is a little annoying but scrolling is easy with the touch screen and it keeps the device small. The multimedia and web on the touch is awesome compared to the newt. Some of the interface touches even remind me of the newt, like how the keyboard and some other boxes glide on/off the display and the clicky sounds it makes when you type (although it doesn't have the overall interface sounds the newt has).

It does have some serious flaws though. First and most important to me is the lack of a good notes app. The built-in notes app looks similar to the newts but lacks folders. I'm going to try some 3rd party apps but reviews I've read so far don't give me hope.

This is a serious problem (as is note sync). I've written about this in a previous post.
Second is battery life. The battery life of the touch really sucks if your punishing it with lots of web surfing, app downloading, or worse online gaming. It seems to do ok if you've got the wifi off but its still no where near the newt, you need to charge it atleast every night if not sooner. Maybe if they made it as thick as the iphone 3g we'd be set.

You know, I don't think that battery life is a problem. Yes if you keep using the web and playing games it's going to drain your battery fast. It's a cost balancing situation. I use my iPod mostly for media playback, and I keep it charged while at work. I never run out of battery. I also don't hop on the net with all the time. I check my email, check my twitter and facebook, and turn the WiFi off. You can't compare the newton battery life-span to that of the iPod. The Newton does not go online, and it doesn't do media playback. I know people have created apps to let you do just that, but if you do this, your battery will drain equally fast as the iPod Touch.


Third is the lack of copy and paste. This one really bugs me because I use C&P on my blackberry and newt all the time. And last it lacks the Agent and overall search funtions of the newt although it does have in-app searches for some apps. Lack of HWR may be a deal breaker depending on if you are really fond of it.


If the notes and copy & paste problems are solved this may be a decent 'new newt' for some. It does the web, multimedia, mail, contacts and calendar, its not a brick, it syncs easily with modern apps and its easy to use IMHO. I do wish it had a green backlight and could be put into greyscale mode, maybe an app could be made to give all the white on screen a green tint and switch the rest of the colors to greyscale? I guess I'm saying it needs theme support too

LOL, a green backlight and a Newton theme would be awesome (maybe the jailbreak community can help out). The fact that the iPod is not a brick and can accomplish so much (despite its limitations) is why I choose it over the newton for my needs. Lets not forget that the newton is 14 years old and it's been more than 10 years without official support!

Do you have an IPod Touch/iPhone? What do you think?

Tags: technology, Newton, NewtonOS, Nokia, N800, ipod, touch