I was reading Mac.sis recently, and they had a promo running. They had obtained a few free licenses for FoneLink, and they were giving them away (provided of courses that you do a review of the product, which I will do at some point next week once I’ve sufficiently tested the product). I played around a little bit with it yesterday, but not enough to have a complete view of the program.

FoneLink is a piece of software that allows you to synchronize your contacts, calendar, to-do and SMS messages between your phone and your Mac. It also allows you to browse your phone for video, photos, music and ringtones and to transfer data to and from the phone. It also has a nifty feature (which I have not tried yet) that backs up the contents of your phone on your Mac (looks similar to Time Machine, or at least the name does).

I look forward to giving this a try at home.

Tags: software, macintosh, Nokia, s60, sync, isync, multimedia

Not much to say today. Its just an all around great spy game.

I started playing it on my Mac (back before the malfunction), and managed to finish the game.

It really did bother me that they never ported Splinter Cell 2 and Splinter Cell 3 to the Mac.

Tags: splinter, cell, macintosh, video, games, video games

So my classes started this week, both online and face to face.
The face to face class should offer no surprises (given that I know how face to face classes work).
I am particularly interested in seeing how the online classes will work ou,

Tags: instructionalDesign, summer, online, classes

Just for kicks I was looking at the Sony Mylo 2 the other day.

Don't ask me why, I don't know why. I was just looking.

Anyway, I was looking at the specs, and at the video demonstration bellow, and the device did impress me, even though it still lacks a lot of features.

I started thinking that this device might make a great SonyEricsson Phone. The OS seems to be refined at every iteration, it had widgets, it has an RSS reader and podcatcher (which need improvement), and it has skype (therefore it has a microphone and a speaker). This device would make a great phone, and a good competitor to the Danger Sidekick, the Helio Ocean and possibly to the Nokia N8xx and iPhone devices.

If you added Quadband HSPA, Quadband EDGE, opened up development so that people could write apps (such as games) for the device, included a good PIm suite, and tidied up the existing collection of apps that the device comes with. It could make SonyEricsson money.

Tags: mylo, sony, Phones, MID, internet, tablet, N800, Nokia, iPhone, competition

This past week I discovered a show on Hulu called John Doe.

It revolves around John Doe, a person who does not remember his past, but has some amazing, rain-man-like, abilities. He knows everything about everything. The show originally aired on the FOX network. I vaguely remember ads for the show, but I do not remember the reason I elected not to watch.

The show did last one season, and most of it is available on Hulu. The annoying thing is that Hulu does not have four or five episodes (including the Series Premier and Series Finale!) which are the binding elements of the show and which make the show great! I had to go to a korean site and stream the episodes from there.

I really enjoyed the series, and in the end there was quite a twist! (I am not telling though). I really would have liked for the show to have a second season given the ton of questions that still remain (it would be like watching a season of Lost, and calling it a wrap).

I highly recommend this series. Check it out on Hulu and pandora.tv

Tags: television, entertainment, FOX, cancellation, show

Classes start tonight, but convocation is tonight as well!

I have decided to skip class (shock!) to go to convocation.

Normally I would not care (I skipped last year's convocation and graduation), but this time I am getting an award.

Tags: convocation, award, school, classes

Painting is still a no go.

I had underestimated how long it would take to actually strip the paint off to a point where the surface is paintable.

I would say that I am 75% done, but I think I am done for the day. Resuming the project next weekend.

Tags: painting, pain, home improvement

This past weekend, in between sanding and scraping, I managed to get some time to play a video game or two.

This ritual usually starts with picking a game, playing for 10 minutes, and if it sticks, it sticks, otherwise pick another.

Since I am a bit stuck (and frustrated) with not being able to off NULL in Metal Gear Portable Ops, I decided to go back to a game that I have not played in ages (since February 2007 if I am not mistaken) - Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories.

I had stopped playing the game because I was not making any progress. I was about 5% done with the game when I had to go rescue some thugs from the police. Of course the police won't just let you go in and pick them up, they'll follow you, chase you, ram you if you are in the car, and get in a fire fight if you are out of it. After numerous trashed cars, and many times either getting busted or wasted I gave up.

Recently I discovered some cheats which have made the game worth while again. I gave myself some weapons, enabled the health and armor cheats, and made myself never wanted by the police. This had made the game much more enjoyable and I can now focus on the story of the game, rather than getting killed over and over and over again.

The game is still quit time consuming. I spent a greater part of Sunday playing the game and I am still only about 12% done. I guess this game will take a while to finish, but now that it was made a bit easier, I guess I will be finishing it.

The weird thing is that the main character (the one you play) in the game reminds me a lot of one of my former classmates. The digital Tony Cypriani is almost the spitting image of this former classmate.

Tags: video, games, video games, GTA, cheats

Windows Status report... The thing decided that I am a valid, non-pirated-version, user.

Thank you Microsoft!

Tags: windows, vista, weird, microsoft

So this is a spoiler type of post, if you haven't seen the movie, don't read this post. OK now that you've been warned, I can go on.

I went to see the movie yesterday. The movie was quite entertaining, it had that popcorn factor. Beyond that, I really needed to suspend my disbelief and try to ignore the bad integration of CG. I was listening to this Friday's 1UP Yours podcast before seeing the movie, where they had a 30 minute segment on the movie, where they spoke about Indiana's death defying stunts, impossible escapes, and bad CG. Incidentally, the theme of Retronauts this week was also Indiana jones, and they did mention some of these things as well.

I don't know if I was influenced by the podcasts, or if they just made some of the absurdities obvious. The film was enjoyable, as I have already mentioned, but the crystal skull was that of an interdimentional alien being. Seriously? An interdimentional alien being? How does this fit in with the pre-existing Indiana Jones mythology? I suppose it's no more absurd than being vaporized by the arc of the covenant, but still! It just does not fit in. The other thing about this movie is that it is a bit derivative. If you've watched Stargate SG-1, you probably know that the team found a crystal skull, in south america, that summoned interdimentional beings.

Oh well. In the end it was a good movie, even though it did not live up to my expectations.

Tags: entertainment, movies, jones, weird

A few days back I was at an event where it was appropriate to give out a business card - it was a quick way to exchange information.

This however was my first time handing out my business card and it felt a bit weird, well...maybe not weird, but unnatural, or not second nature.

At moments I felt it may have been a bit forced, at other moments I felt a bit 'stop-and-go', trying to find the appropriate timing to exchange business cards.

So what was the lesson learned? The exchanging of a business card is an art that I have not mastered - time to practice!

On the upside, people seemed to like my moocards

Tags: personal, work, school, GIDA

One of my first PC games was Prince of Persia, on my godmother’s 286 running Windows 3.1 and DOS. The controls were a bit clunky, the sword fights not that good, and I kept falling to my death in those endless pits. I don’t know what was worse for the prince, falling and dying from the impact, or falling and dying from the impact and being sliced by stakes on the ground. I never finished the game, but it was quite entertaining.

Tags: entertainment, video, games, video games, price of persia, DOS, 286

Well, I overestimated how long things would take.

Not done, not by a long shot - taking a break now...

Tags: painting, tired, overestimate

OK, after years of saying “we’ll do this”, we’re finally painting the back porch.

I wonder how tired I will be after the scraping, sanding, priming and painting…

Tags: home improvement, painting

Just came back from a GIDA (graduate instructional design association) event.
It was pretty interesting, most of the people there were students just about to graduate.
It never ceases to amaze me the variety of students that the ID program attracts. Pretty cool if you ask me.

Tags: school, events, meetings, GIDA

Last weekend was dedicated mostly to Metal Gear (at least in terms of games played). I ended up going back to previous stages where new weapons, medicines, and technologies were discovered, and picking them up for use in my little resurrection army. After I finished all of those missions I continued on the main ‘quest’ and I finally encountered Null again.

After getting my rear end handed to me time, and time, and time again, I turned off my PSP in frustration. Last time I faced Null I needed a week or two of ‘cool off time’, to think, relax and strategize. Let’s see how long it takes me to beat him this time.

On thing I was wondering is this: where the heck do I get more people with medical and technical expertise? My technical unit is only at level 27, and medical team around level 20. I really would like to get more qualified people on these teams to get some more development going…

Tags: metal gear, PSP, entertainment, frustration

Since the semester is over, and the customer traffic has died down for this week, I decided to do some spring cleaning on my Vista machine. Over the semester I had installed many applications that were one-use apps, or used them a few times when the same patron came back multiple times. Since the summer usually has different students coming in, and there is no guarantee that the Fall will bring the same students back, it’s time to speed up this old windows PC.

One of the applications that I uninstalled was Netscape Navigator. I used to use this browser since version 2.0 on my 68k Mac (and 96k modem!). Since Netscape killed it off last February, there was really no point to leaving it on my hard drive. If a patron calls and has a problem with the browser, the answer is simple: Upgrade.

Tags: technology, netscape, navigator, uninstall, vista, windows

In the past, my gripe about US cellular technologies has been that there is no standardization, so I can’t just buy a phone and go to any carrier (like I can in the rest of the world). The US used GSM, iDEN, CDMA, TDMA and AMPS. Luckily in recent years it’s really just come down to GSM and CDMA since the rest of the technologies are already laid to rest (AMPS and TDMA) or have one foot in the grace (iDEN). Most phones are Quadband GSM, so I can use my Phone with AT&T, T-Mobile, or any of the MVNOs that are on GSM.

3G is a bit of a quagmire. Most of the word uses the 1900/2100Mhz frequency pair for UMTS (3G GSM). The US on the other hand uses the 850Mhz, 1900Mhz and 1700/2100 pair for 3G. There are no Quadband 3G phones (yet). This is somewhat problematic for a ‘one phone for any carrier’ type of person…and CDMA is still holding in there, which means that I can’t just take my AT&T phone to Verizon, Sprint or AllTel (or Bell and Telus in Canada).

Here comes 4G. Of course 4G is 3 years (or so) into the future. All existing GSM/UMTS carriers around the world have decided that they are going with LTE for the 4G technology. Verizon announced that they are going to LTE, recently so did AllTel. Cool! This means, that when the time comes, I can have one phone that will work around the world, with any carrier! Just swap out the SIM! If I get sick of AT&T, I can go to Verizon, or T-Mobile, or AllTel. Sprint on the other hand…who knows! They might be bought by Deutche Telekom in the next few years, so they may be part of T-Mobile

Tags: GSM, CDMA, LTE, UMTS, telephony

OK it doesn’t exist yet, but that would be a cool app for phones and the Nokia Internet Tablet to have. Hellotxt is a web interface that allows you to log into your favorite microblogging services (if you have more than one), such as twitter, jaiku, pownce, facebook and so on, and it allows you to send the same status update to all of them.

The next level to this is the app. It’s local to your machine, you can log into all these services (just like a multiclient IM program), and you can not only send status updates to all your services, you can also receive status updates on your network from this client.

I wonder if they will ever make this app

Tags: twitter, technology, suggestions, hellotxt, pownce, jaiku

Back in the day, my grandfather had gotten me an NES clone with a cartridge that supposedly had 100 games on it, it did not. The thing looked like the picture to the left, minus the Zapper clone. In any case, I spent a lot of time playing Contra on this clone system. The controllers on the clone were a bit stiff, but that did not impede my enjoying the game. I don’t think I ever finished the game because I ended up breaking both controllers – both of which were hardwired into the console. If you have an opportunity to play it, give it a shot. It is quite an entertaining game – especially when you get the power-ups.

Tags: NES, video, video games, entertainment, shooter

That’s an interesting question posed in this article (CLICK HERE). Personally I do not know if the BA/BS is dead, but it certainly costs a lot of money, so graduates with a Bachelor’s degree usually leave school with a lot of debt. I have also noticed that many of my peers, or even people older than I, are back in school for a Master’s because it appears that you need a Master’s degree for anything other than entry level jobs…and of course the Master’s costs a pretty penny too.

Perhaps the Bachelor’s isn’t dead, but it would be an interesting experiment to have Bachelor’s be considered required post-high school education that is provided free by the state, or to have the schooling and associated degree highly encouraged by the state, but make sure that those accepted into BA/BS programs only pay a nominal fee for their education (I would say no more than $400-$500 per course).

Just my 2 cents.

Tags: education, bachelors, degree, obsolete, commentary

My twitter feed are protected (a friends and family sort of deal, or people I follow). As such when people want to follow me I need to authorize them. Recently I had a couple of people make a request for authorization but for the life of me I could not recognize them! I did the obligatory Google search, but the results were not enlightening.

So here is a suggestions for the guys at twitter (not that they are listening), add a little box for people to write a small tweet in identifying themselves, because their profile might not tell people enough.

Tags: twitter, suggestions, ideas

I handed in all of my papers! Some I handed in yesterday evening, and some today.
I am officially done with the semester! Now I can rest…I guess

Tags: homework, exams, done

Well, today was sticker shock day! I knew it cost me a pretty penny just to show up to work, but the costs are going up! In 2007 it costs me under $50 per week to drive into work. Today I went to get gasoline ($3.70/gallon), it cost me $47 to fill up my Beetle.

So I started pondering the updated costs.

$18.00 in tolls per week
$47.00 in gasoline per week
$35.00 in Parking costs per week

Grand total: $99

Now… rumors are that parking will go up to $12/day, and gas is slated to go into the $4/gallon range.

Update costs:
$51 Gasoline
$18 Tolls
$60 Parking

Total: $129/week

Jeez!


I think that over the summer I will trial taking public transportation ($163/month).
It adds 2 hours to my commute per day (4 hours of commute total), but the costs are insane!

Tags: money, costs, driving, work

I just got my May statement for my Lufthansa Miles & More account. I signed up with them because they were my preferred airline when traveling abroad. I also got a credit card (with an annual fee!!! – who still does that?!) to earn more miles.

I checked my account on Miles and More and I see that my miles expire! Yes indeedy, they do expire! KLM-AirFrance’s miles don’t expire! Why do my Lufthansa Miles Expire? What a flawed business model! I think from now on KLM-AirFrance-Northwest will be my airlines of choice!

Tags: lufthansa, skymiles, expiring, absurd

For the last year or so I’ve been keeping a personal blog, things that happen in everyday life. The range of topics is quite large, from the cure puppy I may have seen on my way to the library, to the more serious type like cursing that the idiot that cut me off this morning.

On Blogger, your blog can be public, which means anyone can view it - obviously I don’t want that, I just want close friends and family to read it so they know what it going on in my behind the scenes world. The next level is “only blog authors”, again I don’t want this because only I want to be writing on my blog. The final option is “only invited guests”, whereby I can invite (and authorize) people to view and comment on my blog posts.

This is a nice stop gap measure for the people whose emails I’ve got. The truth is that I do not have all of my family’s email addresses and some don’t even use email due to generational or technological issues. The killer feature here would be something like twitter’s “request to follow”. My twitter feed is also protected, and if anyone wants to follow me they can make a request and I can approve or deny. I would like this functionality in Blogger – it would make life so much easier!

Tags: personal, blogger, google, features, thoughts

I am done with my final! Hooray!!!
Well, done with a rough draft of it anyway.
If I can proof and improve it by Monday I can hand it in after our last class and be done for the semester!

Life is good

Tags: homework, exams, linguistics

Back in the good ol’ days of the Amiga…well I didn’t own one! One of my good buddies though did and he had a ton of games! One of those games was the Chaos Engine. I really enjoyed this game.

The game play was great. I really enjoyed the top-down shooter, it reminded (and still does remind) me of the days that I spent in arcades playing such games. I never really played the game through to the end. The following YouTube video, even though long, should give you a good idea of what the game was about.

I had purchased Amiga Classix 1, 2 and 3 a while back. I think it’s included in it. Maybe I should fire up an emulator!

Tags: video, games, video games, amiga, chaos, engine, shooter

The best of the Sidekick, iPhone, Sony Cybershot, and PSP, all rolled into one!

I don’t quite know how I would call someone with this big boy – maybe a hand’s free device like those old Tungsten W’s from Palm, but I think it is a pretty cool concept. It doesn’t really fit the pocketability test though…

Now if they could run OpenEinstein on that puppy…

Tags: iwish, sidekick, hiptop, PSP, iPhone, camera, spoof, mockup, Phones

For the past few days I’ve been looking on YouTube to find a commercial for the Royal Bank of Scotland that’s been playing on BBC America whenever I watch the morning news.

The scene is a scene of graduation (probably middle school), and an alumnus of the school (looks like a private school) is speaking to the kids about what he took away from school, “the gift of language.” This guy was a boring as can be, and quite long winded.

Finally he says “Words are the means with which to achieve…” and a kid cuts in, yells “THE END” and everyone claps.

It’s a great commercial; it’s also a good example of why I dislike graduation ceremonies

I wish YouTube had a video of it, alas no such luck!

Update: OK, I found it on the RBS media centre site.
Here’s a link to it: CLICK

Tags: television, commercial, RBS, gasbag

…and its got a hood!
Last year when I got my MBA I missed out on getting my cap and gown. I did not intend to go to the graduation, but I wanted it nonetheless since I paid for it. This year I do not intend to go to graduation either because I have to take a personal day from work in order to come to the place I work to walk in graduation – it’s a waste of a personal day! The good news though is that the ceremony for the college of management is at 1pm, and it lasts an hour! This means I can take my lunch hour and go celebrate a bit with my classmates.

Tags: Graduation, cap, gown

How’s this for a lovely Monday Morning Surprise?
I come into work, boot up my Vista machine, go get some water, and when I come back I get a little notice on the bottom right of my screen that says “This copy of Windows is not genuine.”

Microsoft is really screwed up! (not that you did not know that). Our campus has a Microsoft site license that covers Windows. I got the install CD and code from our IT department. For 10 months no problems, now I am no longer genuine? WTF? Microsoft, get your act together!

Tags: microsoft, technology, annoying

OK people! All men to stations! Finals are upon us!
Having already put the finishing touches on the projects for my two Instructional Design classes, I am now working on my Applied Linguistics final. Three essay questions, each a minimum of four pages in length (or is that max? hmmm), with references and citations, proper grammar, and spelling and of course logic! It will take me the whole weekend, and then some, to finish this monster!

Tags: homework, school, hardwork, projects, research

Back in the day I owned an Atari 2600, but it was VERY difficult to get cartridges for it. My grandfather did not know, and I was too young to know. So in typical grandfather fashion, my grandpa got me a cheapie clone of an Atari 2600 clone with a number of games burned into the ROM. I remember the joysticks were pretty bad – they kept breaking! (maybe I was too rough with them).

In any case, I started playing this game which I later found out was called Pitfall. I enjoyed it, but I kept dying next to a scorpion. Maybe it’s time to revisit this game


Here is a review of the game (nice video of the game):



… and here is the original television commercial (yeah the video is pretty crappy, must be an old VHS dupe):

Tags: video, video games, atari, 2600, PItfall, joystick

Earlier this week I witnessed a library customer “loudly” (for old school library standards) complaining that there was inadequate “quiet space” on the floor he was on and that it was inappropriate for people to be so audible in a library (the floor he was on had a lot of people on computers, and working jointly in groups). The reference staff kindly told him that there was part of one floor (not the floor he was on) that was designated as quiet space and attempted to help him. That’s all I heard.

The gentleman who was complaining was older, maybe a couple of generations removed from me. I think that this just goes to show the changing face of the library. Libraries are no longer places filled with books and periodicals that you get and quietly read to yourself. They are (like my college library) places of community, interaction, and multimedia (i.e. not just printer materials).

Sure there is place for quiet study, and I don’t think that will go away, but more and more libraries (especially college libraries) appear to be evolving into places of congregation and knowledge sharing. The pursuit of knowledge is no longer thought of as a solitary activity. Some people might prefer it, but I don’t think that they should enforce their views on all, just like people who prefer to congregate in a “communal library” should not force their views on the people who want to engage in knowledge acquisition in a solitary manner.

So…in this transition period, existing meets emerging

Tags: libraries, Silent, generation, difference

I was reading an article about Steve Ballmer the other day and I got the “developers” tune stuck in a loop in my head…

Here’s a blast from the past for you .

The original:



And the song version:

Tags: steve, ballmer, humor, video, youtube, developers, psych

Just wishing a happy May Day to all!

Tags: general