Oh please! Just Start!

This is a post by a friend of mine that goes by Frydlichen. I’m sorry I ca’t give out an blogs, because he doesn’t have any. Comment if you like it and I’ll see if he can do more. 

I recently purchased Mirror’s Edge off of Steam, having been interested in playing it for a while now. Just a few weeks before I had (and I’m sorry to say this) tried to pirate the game so I could see whether or not it was going to be worth buying or even playing for that matter. Everything went smoothly throughout the installation and patching and I thought I was in the clear with getting the game to work. I was wrong. In the most vital phase of playing a video game (getting it to start), failed; miserably. I searched everywhere for solutions and even found a few others who had the same problem as I, which somewhat consoled me. I tried everything: running the game in almost every compatability mode I knew of, changing .ini files, etc. Yet nothing seemed to work and I was forced to let the incident slip from my memory. Yet a few weeks later, on this very day on which I am posting this, I ran across a few gameplay videos. I couldn’t resist anymore, and I bought it. I had, in my naviety, presumed that all non-pirated games were bound to work better than pirated ones and I thought for sure I would be able to play after the downlaod was complete. I was wrong… again.  God forbid, I experienced THE SAME EXACT problem as I had with the illegal version. I was fuming, not only because it didn’t work, but because I knew that there was no way I could ever solve this problem until a patch came out.

App Store as a Software kit?

 

Althought most of Apple’s products are very well thought of, sometimes we find that parts of it are too simple to actually add functionality. One person saw this in the way the icons on your iPhone are arrranged. Currently, the only way to get an App onto your phone is to sync it to the device. Not very handy, and doesn’t really encourage you to be using applications. What one person envisions is a way to edit your home screens directly through iTunes. This includes the ability to sort applications by name, use, etc. It also allows for you to reorder home screens and the icons on them. Here is the YouTube video.

Issuu – Glorify Your Documents

There are a few services that allow you to upload your documents and distribute them through a flash document viewer. None of them though do it quite as beautifully and creatively as Issuu does.

Think of of Docstoc and Scribd the Wal-Mart of documents and Issuu the IKEA of documents. They both have products that are useful, but IKEA has the higher quality.

Issuu supports three major file formats, Word, PDF and Powerpoint. For my review I will be using a powerpoint document.

Free doesn’t work anymore

One of the topics going around the web is this idea of Micropayments. The idea that you could have easy ways for people to transfer small bits of money over the internet. Would you be willing to pay 1 cent to read this blog post? Would you be willing to pay 3 cents every day that you use certain web applications? Even after a month, you wouldn’t even have  paid a buck. Over a year? $11 for this one simple web application that you use alot. Plus, it is beneficial because if you don’t use an app a certain day, your cost goes down. 

5 Ways to Push your media.

One question I stumbled onto this week, is where am I sending my content to? I know I’m sending it to Friendfeed, Twitter, SocialMedian, but where should I be sending it to? And how should I be sending it? What are the best practices to make sure that my content is know, without being labeled a spammer?

Here comes list time!

Gmail Updated .. Again!

Google is constantly adding new features to their Google Mail through the labs project they implemented a while back. The latest edition is labs. A little while back they created task , and everyone said ‘Hip Hip Hooray!’. I really didn’t find it completely useful, because I get Gmail through my iPod Touch via the built in app, and hardly ever look directly in Gmail unless I am replying to something. Now Tasks is Mobile. And now instead of linking emails to tasks that you have to do while your sitting at your computer, you can also link them to things you want to be reminded about in the real world, when you check your iPhone. I like it

And incase you weren’t on your toes, they did it again! Yes, Google Updated it, again!

Google Chrome, 2.0′d

A lot of people I know use Google Chrome. Whether it is becasue they want to use the latest stuff, they like the UI, or they are Google Fanboys, a good chunk of them rely on the new browser. Well, not to be outdone by not-so-tech-savy-people, I’ve decided that I am going to be MORE bleeding edge, and brag to them about features that they don’t have. I know, I’m mean. So, in order to do this, I decided to try the… wait for it:

Google Chrome Alpha Release Channel

I know, its a really long name. Oh wells.

Google Releases updates through channels. Everyone is subscribed to a channel, and Google Update listens to that channel to see if there is an update that needs to be applied. You can change your Google Chrome channel by reading this. You can choose either, Alpha, Beta, or Stable, Stable being the public release version. Each one gives you different, more advanced, more buggy features. (I.E: Alpha is buggier than Beta, which is buggier than Stable.)

So what is new in Google Chrome 2.0?

Less Apps, More Focus

So, in reformatting my new computer, I have decided to not use as many applications. One thing I found is that my computer built up a lot of junk over time. That made is very annoying to use, because I had so many applications. Well, this time I am going to install very few applications. I am going to see if I can go ALL Feburary with the same applications that I started with. Here are my guidelines:

Shareable Desktop

Wouldn’t it be cool if whatever one of your computers you worked at you had the same files, all ready for you to use on any of your computers? Well, I have found a way to make Dropbox be my Desktop, so anything I put on it is synced with the web, along with my other computers. The best part about this is that it isn’t cloud computing alone. You always have a copy of the files on your hard drive, so if Dropbox goes down, you don’t. Here’s how we do it.

What would you start with?

Going with my theme of new computer posts. I asked myself what are the first things that I am going to put on my computer. The 5 key applications that I could not survive without.

Firefox

The jack of all trade applications. It has plugins, is very reliable, and can get the job done. Although Google Chrome is very nice, and I’d pick it as my primary browser, Firefox can do it all. Its like my IE. When I need something to work, it just works. And yes, that is the slogan for Duracell…. or was it “Trusted Everywhere”.

Pidign

While many people don’t use all the different IM network, I need an application that can handle whatever I want to do with it. I need an app that can connect me to whatever network, and work. Well, Pidign connects to all 4 major networks, and many other smaller ones. That, and being an IRC client, it basically gives me all the chat things I need. It even has a plugin for Skype.