Palm Infocenter - Snails review

I got my first ever review up online as a guest reviewer for PalmInfoCenter. The review concerns the classic PDAMill game - Snails. You can read the review here. Thanks to Ryan for letting me write the review.

Digital music player thoughts

I finally received my copy of this week's edition of Newsweek. In front was a picture of a smug looking Steve Jobs holding a so called 'gadget of the century' (by Gwyneth Paltrow). The so called gadget is actually an iPod - a digital music player - that is in material terms is actually made of plastic, cheap LCD, a hardrive, battery, touchpad and motherboard.

A number of errors occurred on the article. The writer seems to imply that people with 'white cords dangling from people's ears' are iPod users. He is wrong. There are earphones sold that are white in colour - one being the Sony Nude MDR-EX71S fontopia. I have one because it is a great noise canceling earphones that does not costs a bomb on the market. I also have a Shure but I don't use it often. It so happened that it is white. It should be noted that I use it not on an iPod but on my iPAQ or my T3 or my DAB player. And so do thousands of people who bought this and its other colour options (red, blue, white & black). So if you see someone using a while coloured fontopia - just don't assume its an iPod wannabee.

Second mistake was writing that Apple's competitors are imitators that could not duplicate the iPod's appeal. First 'appeal' is a subjective word and just because Apple managed to sell millions of iPod does not mean it has appeal. It could mean that people are following trends. There are 6 billion other human beings who do not own an iPod for various reasons including being too poor and disliking the look.


Diamond Rio - what a beauty

And dismissing Apple's competitors as imitators is downright childish for such a huge magazine. May I remind Newsweek that Rio created the first digital music portable player and Creative marketed the first ever hardrive based mp3 player. It is Apple who are imitators in the portable music player market. And it so happens that it is fashionable. But we know fashion can die.

I am not against Apple. I really like the design but price is a factor too. I would buy the player if it was priced 20% less but it isn't. Buying the iPod would mean buying the brand. But for the price I can get better value players with better battery life. And don't get me on the iPod mini. If you want a small hardrive based player - the Rio Nitrus is the only way to go.

Book Review: The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time

I bought the paperback of this book finally. I have read about it on The Independent and have seen the coverage on the BBC but it was marketed as a young adult's book.

But I wanted to get a proper book for my 11 year old sister. She can read big books. In fact she can finish the Harry Potter - Order of Phoenix in less than two days. This is a feat considering I know of some adults who can not even read it in a week.

Back to the story, she was eyeing up one of those 40 pages children's book which I think is quite pathetic for someone who has read Harry Potter. Reading those would essentially downgraded herself. I don't blame her for wanting to read it - but I am not going to pay two quid (RM14) for something you would only read once and nobody else in the family would touch!

I found the book in the young adult's section. It was the cover actually of an abstract drawing of a dog laying dead that caught my eye. A quick glance at the title and all the reviews that I read and heard came rushing back to my lazy brain. I bought it. And today after a three hour session I have to say that it is one of the best books I have read over the summer.

I would say that this is a crossover book which is targeted at both adults and young adults. There are some 'bad language' like fuck and shits like that but its alright. But the storyline isn't suitable for someone who is 11.

Here is an excerpt from the book:

I pulled the fork out of the dog and lifted him into my arms and hugged him. He was leaking blood from the fork holes.

I like dogs. You always know what a dog is thinking. It has four moods. Happy, sad, cross and concentrating. Also, dogs are faithful and they do not tell lies because they cannot talk.

I had been hugging the dog for 4 minutes when I heard screaming. I looked up and saw Mrs. Shears running toward me from the patio. She was wearing pajamas and a housecoat. Her toenails were painted bright pink and she had no shoes on.

She was shouting, "What in fuck's name have you done to my dog?"

Anyway, while I was in KL - did not manage to find any HP hx4700. Damn! But I did get to check out the GS XPlore G88 PalmOS smartphone. Damn its nice! The size is probably as small as my T630. But this is running PalmOS! Okay, its only PalmOS 4 but its better than the non touch screen Symbian Series 60 or Windows Mobile for Smartphone. If GS can fix OS5 in this with a 320x320 pixel LCD this would be my next phone.

Size reference with a Nokia 8210:

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne mini-review

I truly enjoyed the first Max Payne game. It wasn't long, but with its 'bullet-time' system, it does make for a more unique third person shooter experience. I installed it on the family's Dell and it runs as smooth as the first game did, which is a blessing as upgrading a computer just for one game is a hassle.

Like the original Max Payne game, Max Payne 2 is presented in a film noir style with stylistic cinematography reminiscent of The Matrix. Tying it up are novel style panels used to tell stories rather than FMV sequences. Unlike in the orginal bullet time can 'refill' by itself over time giving players more chance to use them sparingly.

In this game you play as Max Payne, now cleared and working with the NYPD as a homicide detective after he quit his job at the DEA. While on the job he finds out that a woman whom he thought was dead from the first game is in fact still very much alive. Such a meeting only provides as a catalyst to Max in reminding him of the events from the first game when his wife was butchered. The two team up to investigate the criminal underworld that runs New York's crimes as well as the death of Max's family.

Remedy Entertainment has provided some upgrades to the Max Payne engine with much improved physics interaction based on the 'Havoc' engine. Visuals are also improved with Max now sporting a very different but lifelike face. While the gameplay isn't as good as Half-Life, the storyline is pretty good and a fresh change from tough guy versus hundreds of aliens plot that plagues the computer games industry. I truly recommend playing Max Payne and Max Payne 2. While it isn't as ground breaking as the original game but you owe it to yourself to play it.

9/10

Beckham turns into Oriental mystic

I am no fan of David Beckham so it comes to no surprise I think his latest promotion in the Far East is rather pathetic.

adidas has just released a new limited edition Predator Pulse football boots. It would be limited to 723 pairs and costs a mind-boggling €723. It would only come in UK size 9 (his size).

I think this is just another attempt by the Beckham group to fleece more money out of his fan base for what I think is just a normal Predator boots. Maybe Beckham should practice his penalty kick more often rather than concentrate on his image and marketing ability. That way he will be remembered as a footballer rather than just a pretty face.

Source: Yahoo! UK

Is Real's 'hacking' of iPod legal?

According to a poll by legal experts done by CNet, RealNetworks might be able to win one over Apple in their recent iPod spat.

"What the DMCA was meant to protect wasn't this," said Ken Dort, an intellectual-property attorney with Gordon & Glickson in Chicago. "In fact what (RealNetworks) has done is what people do all the time. They buy the latest, greatest widget of a competitor and take it apart."

That is pretty much what I thought. Even if RealNetworks did reverse enginner Apple's product - that is perfectly normal in the technology industry with all big players attempting to reverse engineer competing products to save on R&D costs and time. This is normal so long as they do not use any copyrighted material. AMD does it all the time on their x86 processors. Even Intel is reverse engineering AMD's x86 64-bit processor.

Here is a post from Hydrogenaudio.org that sums up what Harmony from RealNetworks does when it transfers music to other portables:

"When transferring your purchased songs to the iPod, the AAC itself is not touched, but the Helix DRM is transmuxed to a DRM that is compatible with the iPod, i.e. fully protected and without trans-coding. If you then transfer the file back to your PC (for instance with Anapod), you get an M4P file, that is a protected MPEG-4 AAC file."

Source: CNet

Doom 3 leaked

The long awaited PC game Doom III has been leaked to the internet. This sucks as I am sure many of those who downloaded the game would never buy the original versions. That would translate to lost sales and would mean that it could put off developers in the future. I have already seen news of games that has been dumped down on PC when compared to the same release for PS2 or X-Box.

Publishers and retailers need to see sense before pricing games so damn high. It puts people off and they instead would seek a pirated copy or download it from the net. ID Software isn't my favourite games company - but they did invent the first person shooter as we know it. John Carmack and his fellow developers deserved to get paid. And HMV - reinstant your original return policy! That way I can purchase something without fearing that I would be wasting my money when a game does not work.



I believe that Doom III is worth the asking price since it is a milestone in PC gaming technology. Me? I just need to save money for the up and coming 512Mb version of the ATi X800 Super Duper Platinum XT Ultra PCI-Express card.

Source: BBC News

Sunday news

Some interesting news today. The Sunday Star and New Sunday Times are reporting that Kuala Lumpur's messed up public transport system is soon to be overhauled and placed under a single authority. This can be only good news to my ears as I have been used to public transport in Britain. Unlike in Kuala Lumpur, I can buy a ₤4.70 off-peak underground day pass and use it to travel through four zones on the Underground, buses, Tramlink as well as Docklands Light Railway (DLR). Doing so enables me to visit my favourite shopping districts - Tottenham Court Road and Old Bond Street twice a month without going through the famous London congestion.

In KL, I would need to get a car just to go out and take away or buy from groceries. The transport is a mess. I need to walk out from one station and get a connecting train on another line with a new ticket. Hopefully in a couple of years once the initiative is finally set out, we would have a World class public transportation system. We have the necessary infrastructure. Now we need to set the goal. Maybe a couple of newer tube lines with less chessy names would help. We could even start thinking about cleaning our river up and use that as a transportation hub like in London.