Castlevania was one of those games that I really did not until I played Symphony of the Night on the Playstation. None the less I had a go at it when it was available on the gameboy.

I had borrowed the game from one of my friends, and I must say that I wasn't pretty impressed with it as a kid. I found the belmont sprite pretty stiff and difficult to control. I also did not like the whip as the main method of attack because it was slow to respond, so you had to time your attacks pretty well to make things work.

I had the game for a summer, but I never really managed to get into it.

Tags: entertainment, video, games, video games, gameboy, castlevania

Interesting question!

I've been reading recently of all the apps that are getting the axe from apple, and I've been reading all the commentaries on sites like Engadget and I can say with certainty that this is yet one more reason why I stay away from the iPhone.

Many defenders of Apple's actions either use incorrect logic or write off apple's action as something normal for a phone. People who use incorrect facts claim that it's apple's prerogative to protect their source of revenue because they created xyz - in the case of the podcaster application it was that Apple created and hosts all podcasts. What? really? Is this what you believe? Apple neither created podcasts, nor hosts them!

In the case of 'the iPhone is just a phone and you can't run whatever you like on your Moto RAZR"...well, no. Apple is positing the iPhone as a smartphone for the rest of us. Smartphones, no matter what brand - symbian, palm, windows, blackberry, have a wealth of apps and their distribution is not controlled by the maker of the device.

I can get a lot of apps for my Nokia N80, just as I could for my HTC Blue Angel. Neither Nokia nor Microsoft could tell me what to run on my device, and they could not tell their devs what not to make for those phones.

Now what IF apple took the same stance with the MacOS as they do with the iPhone? Well - quite simple, we would all pretty much give Apple the finger and tell them off. Application of value would be few and far between.

We would not have great applications like Rapidweaver because those would "replicate" the features of iWeb.

We would not have MailPlane because those features "replicate" the features of Mail.

We would not have Textmate because textmate "replicates" the features of SimpleText.

We would not have Transmission because that would be a bandwidth hog.

We wouldn't have open source apps, or apps ported over from Linux because those would violate the NDA agreements.

In other words, what we love about the Mac would cease to exist.

It's time for Apple to stop stifling the iPhone and the iPod Touch and it's time to let the Mac community do what they do best - support the platform!

Tags: WTF, apple, iPhone, applications, technology, critique, unforseen

A while back I got a free license for Nova Media's FoneLink. This software allows you to connect your phone to your Mac running MacOS X and it allows you to transfer files, perform backups of your phone, and synchronize PIM and SMS data.

The software is quite admirable in terms of its compatibility list. The phones include phones running Symbian S60, UIQ, Nokia S40 and whatever OS regular samsung and SonyEricsson phones run. Click here to see for yourself!

My phone, with which I have been testing this software, is a Nokia N80 purchased two years ago, with firmware version 4.0623.0.42. In general I like the software, however it does have some features missing which I would love to see in a future version.

I was planning on doing a looooonger review - but I decided to keep it short and sweet. Essentially the application does what it advertises which is pretty cool!

One of the features of FoneLink is Mobile Finder. This feature does what you think it does. It provides a finder interface to your phone's memory and to the attached SD card (if your phone supports removable memory). The mobile finder allows you to look at your music, photos, video and other multimedia, and transfer files between your computer and the phone.

One of the features that I really liked was the ringtone creator that is part of this media center interface. You can drag and drop any MP3 file, and cut it down to create a ringtone for your phone. I should mention that the MP3 file you are trying to cut down should be of reasonable size. I tried cutting a 64MB podcast down to get a small clip as a ringtone and the program crashed.

Another feature is called the Organizer and it allows you to view the notes, calendar events, tasks, the contacts and the SMS on your phone. It also allows you to send SMS messages and add notes in your phone's notes app right from the desktop - pretty convenient if you ask me. The application supports Growl (awesome, awesome app!), so when new SMS messages come in, you get to see them on your desktop.

Contacts and calendar events can't be changed from the app, but you can sync to make changes between your addressbook/ical and your phone - which brings me to the next feature - synchronization. The application is a replacement for iSync and it allows you to sync your phone's PIM data with your computer's. Personally I did not use the sync functionality because quite honestly iSync works perfectly fine for me.

Finally, there is a feature called Time Tunnel and obviously it is a play on Apple's Time machine. It allows you to go back to a previous backed up version of the phone's software to collect data. I used this a few times. As a matter of fact the default behavior of the app was to try to create a backup as soon as you connect your phone to it. I didn't use this feature a lot.

The backup seemed to take quite some time (although I think it's a differential backup so it should get shorter as you use it more), and it made my phone reboot. The backups seemed to be there when I checked them out, but I did not like having my phone reboot and the app being unresponsive - maybe it had crashed.

The one last thing about this app is that updates to the app seem to be fairly regular, so if you do end up buying it, you will probably get good support!


Now, here are some things I would like to have in future version of this app:

MMS import - Just like there is an SMS app, I would like to be able to see my MMS messages on the desktop, and I would like to send MMS messages right from the desktop.


Phone log - I would love to be able to see my phone log on the desktop, like I see who's SMSd me, who I SMSd and when.

Called ID flash on screen when someone calls - This is a feature of BluePhoneElite and I think that FoneLink would really benefit from the implementation. When someone calls, their name and number show on my desktop. Often at the office (and at home) my phone is on silent - I just don't like to have the ringer on - it annoys me - but I would like to know if someone is calling. Implementing this functionality would be great. It can be a growl message for all I care.


Growl for voicemails - A growl notification when you have a new voicemail would be nice.




All things considered, this isn't a bad app!

Tags: review, technology, macintosh, macos, Nokia, N80, fonelink, software

The Knights of Prosperity is a series that was cancelled, I think it only had one season on ABC. The show is still available, as of this writing, to view online for free, on ABC's streaming site.

This sitcom's main idea was that there was a group of unrelated people who had one thing in common: they had financial troubles. What are they to do? Well, they decided that it would be a good idea to try and steal Mick Jagger's money... The story goes on from there, taking very comical twists and turns while the team tries to infiltrate Mick's home and steal his riches.

I think that this show is worth a look, before it bites the digital dust

Tags: ABC, humor, television, entertainment

I've been thinking about certification lately. You know, the kind of certification bestowed upon you by a professional organization like ICIA, ASTD or the PMI to name a few.

Many of my classmates have been certified, or are in the process of getting their certification, and they all swear by it. Having been certified by ICIA, I kind of wonder the relative value of certification. Now in order to get certified I needed to know a body of knowledge, I took a test, and I passed. I also had to abide by a professional code of ethics.

That's all good because I knew my stuff and I agreed with the code of ethics. The problem was that I really didn't see any monetary benefit from being certified, and I needed to keep renewing my certification by taking continuing education classes and filling out the paperwork, and paying a fee for renewal of my certification. This is the case with most certifications out there.

Looking at the job market, even for the coveted PMP and Six Sigma (after all my background is in management), I still don't see that many jobs that require these certifications. A recent statistic I saw quoted something like 6.5% of project manager job opening requiring PMP certification.

If experience is what matters in a job, and you need experience to get these certifications, why would one spend the time and money to get and keep renewing a certification if there isn't a monetary benefit?

Now I know that there are two benefits: you are part of an association, and that has its perks such as job boards, and continuing education to keep your skills current. The second benefit is that when someone sees that PMP, CTS, CISA (or whatever acronym) after your name, it's like an unspoken bond, that you've both gone through boot camp together, survived it and now you're brothers. OK, that's good I suppose, but as Cuba Gooding said in Jerry Mcguire "show me the money"

Do others have views on certification? I'm interested in hearing them

Tags: certification, pondering, economics, PMI, ASTD, CTS

OK I was thinking about this the other day.

Nokia bought all of the shares of Symbian, and turned it to the Symbian foundation, with a roadmap to open source the OS. The features of MOAP and of UIQ will make their way to S60, essentially creating one platform. We've already seen Nokia experiment with touch screen S60 (the so called Nokia Tube) so we're partly there.

There was also scuttlebutt (although disputed) of Nokia and Google cooperating. Hmmm...

For those that don't remember, Nokia owns the maemo linux platform that runs on the Nxxx series internet tablets, and acquired trolltech earlier this year, which may mean a lot of the maemo platform.

Now with all this consolidation, cooperation, and merging, are we seeing an "all roads lead to symbian" situation?



for full size graphic see here.



Just a thought...

Tags: symbian, android, Nokia, prediction, linux

Ahhh! Tetris for the gameboy!

When I bought my original gameboy (saved money for a while year to accumulate the 33,000 drachmas it cost) it came with a copy of Tetris. Tetris was quite mesmerizing, especially when you played the game with the background tune that is now recognized as the tetris tune.

As much as I loved tetris, I was never able to beat my best bud at it. I managed to get enough of a high score to make the rocket launch sequence happen, but I could never beat him (waves fist in air).

Tags: tetris, gameboy, video, video games, games, entertainment

I remember a while back listening to the Digital Campus podcast and there was a mention of how Wikipedia moderators have been cracking down on uncited articles.

While searching for my name on cuil.com, I found a few copies on the MacAst article that I had contributed to.


**flashback**
Before MP3 playing software was given away with the Operating System (or as Freeware on the internet), you actually had to buy the software (circa 1998). I had purchased a program called MacAmp which was later renamed MacAst.

The program was nice, working under MacOS 9, it had a small footprint and the nice thing about it was that it had an extensible architecture which allowed people to create localization files called Phrasebooks. I had created and submitted those phrasebooks to the MacAst people for Greek, Italian and French (available in the download section and through archive.org).

Years later, when I stumbled upon the wikipedia entry for MacAst, I added some information about it, namely about it's extensible Phrasebook architecture, I mentioned the localizations that were available, and gave myself credit for the three that I had done.


**flash forward**

I clicked on the wikipedia link to go to the main article for MacAst and the article was not there!!! What had happened?

Well, There were two articles, one on MacAst (which seemed to me pretty balanced, despite the lack of references), and one for MacAmp (which the wiki people thought was one sided).

The wikipedia people merged the two articles and kept the one sided one, and edited the heck out of it. Now, I can go ahead, and cite archive.org and a few news released from various mac websites of the time to give the article a bit more meat on its bones, but this lead me down a thinking path: What happens when you don't have citations? How do you cite that?

There is another wikipedia entry that I contribute to, the entry for the village I grew up in Greece. Most of the knowledge I have of that place is either first hand - I grew up there, I roamed about, I know of the places, or second or third hand - my grandmother, or neighbor told me a history of the village, or told me of a story that has been passed down in the oral tradition from one generation to the other.

In these instances what do you do? Do you record these things on your blog or website before you contribute to the wiki entry or what? It dawned on me that what wikipedia is trying to leverage is the knowledge that is within all of us, and some of that knowledge is tacit. You know it's true, you just don't remember what the source was, or there is no written record, or you can't admit to knowing about it because you got just happened to find a 'beta' of an unreleased piece of software that never made it to market that you weren't supposed to have anyway...

Going heavy handed with the editing seems to be a detracting feature of current day wikipedia...

Just my two cents...

Tags: wikipedia, technology, citations, oddity

One of my problems with the iPhone is that it lacks an MMS client. Now I don't send MMS messages often, and I don't receive them often. Having unlimited data on the iPhone would encourage me to send out more MMS messages. Sadly, the iPhone does not support this feature.


Many fanboys will says that MMS is antiquated, we not have email so we can send photos over email - hooray for email! What these fanboys are failing to see if that MMS is so much more than just a simple photo sending application. The applications of email and MMS are different and are aimed at a different demographic.


To claim that you can do with email what you do with MMS, and you can do it better is to claim that can do with a mallet what you can do with a jewel's hammer. I suppose you can, but the end result is not the same.


An email is built for text, and attachments come second. There is no presentation layer with email, and there is no streamlining of the data for mobile phones. If you send a 5MP photo over email, it's going to be 5MP - overkill. In addition, there is no notification of whether you have email unless you constantly poll your email server, and even today not all phones come with email clients.


MMS on the other hand is available on all handsets, from the cheap handset you get for free when you sign a contract, to the most advanced smartphones (with the exception of the iPhone of course), so there is a layer of compatibility there.


MMS messages allow you to create slides with content, almost like powerpoint, but as a message platform. The MMS application takes that huge picture you took and scales it down for you to make sending and receiving faster and easier. When you send a picture message (MMS) to someone, the point is not that you want them to have the photo, you just want to show them something.


Finally, with MMS messages you get a notification that you have a new MMS, over the network. You don't have to poll a server to do this - it's just pushed to you.


I wish the fanboys would quiet down already about the superiority of email because they obviously don't get the difference.

Tags: technology, iPhone, apple, MMS, telephony, annoying, settingTheRecordStraight, rant

The line is an original webisode series on Hulu that is seven episodes long. It chronicles what happens in the week before the final episode of FutureSpace (a movie that resembles Star Wars).

Two friends start a line one week before the premier of the movie...and comedy ensues! All I have to say is that it's funny and different. Each webisode is about 4 minutes long, so the whole thing should not take a long time to view.

Tags: hulu, webisode, humor, geeky

We were discussing Second Life in class the other day, or rather the like or dislike that some people have for Second Life and that whole virtual 3D internet double life that some people lead.

I came across this excerpt from the office on Hulu about Second Life - pretty funny

Tags: humor, hulu, office, secondLife