Dedicated to bringing you the latest and greatest technology, gaming and gadget news. Warning: This blog may contain frequent interruptions as other random topics are introduced.
a blog for tech junkies, gamer geeks & gadget freaks
Rock, Paper, Shotgun has an extensive list of games that SHOULD be out in 2012.
My list would be shorter and ordered differently but most gamers should find something of interest.
My top picks from their list:
Borderlands 2
Diablo III
Torchlight II
Darksiders 2
End Of Nations
Dead State
Looks like Amazon is entering a the tablet game at a very interesting price-point. $199 if the reports are true.
10 Days with an iPad 2: 28 Days Later
You didn’t really think you were going to get 10 consecutive days of iPad updates did you? Nor has it been 28 days since my last iPad 2 post but the title is cool if you like zombie flicks. After almost 3 months with my iPad 2 my opinion is very similar to the one I formed in the first few days.
The iPad 2 is not a standalone computing platform but what it does it does well.
Pros:
Cons:
Random Thoughts:
In its current form the iPad is regulated to the role of a companion device but this could be changing. Rumors of an over-the-air update option combined with Apples recent revelation of iOS5/iCloud features could be enough to push the iPad over the edge into the role of Personal (Primary?) Computing Device (PCD) for some users.
Are Tablets the wave of the future or a passing fad?
Baring a zombie apocalypse of some sort my vision for the future is thus:
For now it’s time to put the crystal tablet away and perhaps I’ll publish an update in another “28 days” when we know more about iOS5 and iCloud.
This time I will be reviewing an application I actually paid for. Although there is a free version, I feel that the added functionality of the paid app easily justifies it’s $1.99 price.
For those not familiar, Couch to 5K (C25K) is a running program that takes a person who doesn’t run at all to someone who can run 30 minutes straight for approximately 5K. I’ve been blogging about my experiences with the program itself on my blog, but I wanted to mention the application here.
At its heart, this application is a timer. But, it’s a very well done timer. This takes the running and walking intervals and gives an audible (or vibration) alert whenever it’s time to switch. It also includes a large clock and a description of the workout. To finish it all up, it offers to post to Facebook for you.
There are additional features as well. It can run the MP3’s for you, and it has a turnaround notification if you plan to run there and back again.
Setup is easy. You simply choose which day of the program you are on and press the start button. Given the various intervals used throughout the program, I’m not sure how I would track this properly without the application. In fact on at least two occasions, I was surprised that the tones went off at a different time than I had expected.
In order to allow you to listen to your music, the notification uses the ringer set of controls. That means if your ringer is muted, so is the notification. The pro version also allows the program to run in the background which is important if you want to use any other program to map your run or track calories and pace. It would be nice if this program offered those features as well, and indeed there are several free programs that do, but allowing it to work in conjunction is a good alternative.
When I started, I had a couple of glitches. The first was entirely my fault. I picked the wrong day and didn’t realize it until I was halfway through the warmup walk. There was no way to fast forward when I started over, but I’m not really sure there should be on something this simple. The second was that the notification tone stopped working. I was carrying my phone in my hand at the time and I’m sure I must have somehow caused it, but there was no way to get the tone back on without restarting the application. Instead, during one of the walking intervals, I found the setting that makes it vibrate as well and turned that on.
Even the free version doesn’t put ads on the screen, I’m fairly sure this is because they know we will buy the full version after messing with it. In fact, if you are looking into the Couch to 5K program, I would recommend just avoiding the free application and going straight to the full version.
If you’ve been a techie for a while, you have probably experimented with quicken. Many of us have abandoned it because of the annual cost associated. Mint.com is free service offered online that integrates with all manner of smart phones. It compares very favorably with Quicken when we look at its ability to reference your accounts.
I currently use it to keep track of a checking account, multiple savings accounts, my credit card, my mortgage, and an investment account. I also use it to track our spending by category and then set our monthly budget accordingly both in our old spreadsheet and with their built in budgeting tools. I use both budgeting methods because I want to limit the amount of budget information transmitted to my phone for easy reading.
It’s important to note that you cannot transfer money or write checks from mint.com the same way you could with Quicken. It is in fact one of the security features needed to make it work so well on the web. Although the passwords are used to establish a connection with the bank, they are not stored. Rather, a secure tunnel is created for Mint to use with only the ability to read the transactions.
My favorite single feature is the budget screen. By using our debit card to pay for Gas, Groceries, and eating out, I can see how we are faring compared to our budget. Each item is given its own bar with information about how much has been spent, and how much remains or is over budget. Using this when gas prices or grocery prices fluctuate allows us to properly prepare each month based on the last. My wife will look at it while in the grocery store to see if she can take advantage of unforeseen deals without putting us in the red. For this to work, the transactions have to be properly classified, but mint.com is very good at this.
Because I get paid on the last day of each month, the cash flow bar is basically worthless. It will be in the red even when we have a net surplus because it doesn’t roll information from the previous month. I’m not sure how I would recommend they fix it other than to make a switch available that ties a deposit to a given month. Quicken had a feature like this.
The only other complaint I have on the phone application is that it is difficult to show off to a friend without divulging my account balances because they are so prevalent on the opening screen.
Once I hit the website, the power of the application becomes very obvious. Reports, graphs, everything I could want to look at the way we spend money under a microscope. It takes some time to learn to navigate the site, but there are loads of faq’s to help out.
I recommend this program strongly for anyone. Not anyone who wants to do this or that, but literally everyone.
We use to play a lot of AoE back in the day and I for one have always hoped for an other addition to the series.... but I don't think this is what I was envisioning.
Then again maybe it should have been, for the cost of admission it'll be worth trying.
My wife and I try to be list makers, but we really aren’t that good at it. Consequently, we are likely to forget things especially when grocery shopping. A work compatriot recommended this application, and we’ve been using it for well over a year.
The basic premise is that we share a list that either of us can access from our phone. More specifically, we share a set of lists. We have a list of items from each of the two grocery stores we use, a list for the hardware store, and even a list of what to pack when we go to the lake.
If either one of us is out and about and thinks of something we need to add, we just do it. If one of us is shopping the other can still add to the list. We can also see as items are crossed off if for some reason we want to have a real time view. It’s even possible to add to the list from a computer by going to the website and signing in. That’s a key feature I’m noticing with a good phone application, an integrated website. This application can even be used to share lists between different types of phone, so those who have a house divided between Apple and Google can still communicate about the groceries.
The application remembers items you have entered an allows you to select from a list that shortens as you type. That way you don’t have to remember exactly how to spell zucchini.
What the list can’t do is force you to buy something that’s only on the list. My family is bad about checking it before going but still deciding against running across the store for that one item. It might be nice if we could customize the sorting to shop by aisle, but to be honest I don’t think we’d use the feature.
Ultimately, this application has helped stop some of those niggling little fights. If we didn’t come home with something we talked about for dinner, we should have put it on the list.
All images taken from the product website.
It’s spring, that means almost everyone is trying to shape up for the summer. There is no shortage of applications for the Android to help you with that. If your goal is weight loss, then I highly recommend calorie tracking. My experience has proven to me that if I don’t write down all the calories I eat in a day, I will cheat myself and not lose the weight. In the past I have used a computer program called Diet Power, but I ran into some limitations including a database that included goat meat, but not crab rangoons.
My Fitness Pal is a free application for the Android and the iPhone. It ties to a fantastic website that synchronizes the information with the phone giving me multiple access points. I can enter from my work computer, my home computer, or my phone. It’s possible to enter information from the restaurant, or while your building your plate at home. There is literally no excuse for not putting the food into the program. There is a good home screen with an uncluttered view of the important information for the day available any time I feel the need to check on my status.
Inputting the food is done with a standard search box. Or to make it even easier, if I have a barcode available, I can use the barcode scanning capability of my phone to do a direct search through the database without having to type. I have only found a few store specific brands that didn’t come up in the database, and I could choose to create them on the website to share with the user community. The food is grouped into meals so a calorie total for each meal can be easily seen.
The user community itself is one of the strengths of the website. It’s possible to kill hours on the forums seeing other peoples trials, tribulations, and victories. The feedback the users give to each other is overwhelmingly positive. It’s almost like going to a weight loss meeting on your own schedule and as often or as rarely as you like.
Exercises can and should be logged as well. I have had some trouble finding exactly the right exercise, BowFlex exercises haven’t been directly entered for instance, but there is usually something equivalent. If you are hardcore, there is a place where you can input exercise information yourself, but unless you are a professional trainer, you are only going to use this portion with a heart rate monitor. The site uses commonly available tools to factor your weight and the lifestyle you listed to figure your calories burned.
There are some interesting reporting tools on the site and on the phone application, but they are not consistent between them. As an example, the “progress” graph detailing your weight loss over time is much more inspiring on the phone because it uses a smaller y axis on the graph, but it is much more flexible on the site because you can set it for different timelines. I wish there was a bit more consistency between my portals here as I often find myself going to one or the other for specific information.
Setup is straight forward. I put in my age, height, and weight, then detailed my goals. The site will not help a user lose more than a “healthy” 2 pounds per week when it figures the calorie budget. The community recommends everyone eat your calorie budget including any calories earned through exercise. This is not a quick fix rapid weight loss application. It is designed to assist with the change in lifestyle needed to lose weight and keep it off in the long haul.
The ads used to finance the site are not distracting either on the website or on the phone application. They appear to be from some ad service, and tend to be tailored for weight loss and fitness. Since these ads make the application and the website both free, they are easily tolerated. I can’t even say that I feel the need for a premium version of the application that would be ad free, they are just that well integrated.
To sum up, this is an application I use every day. Between the application and its associated website, I have a valuable tool to help me achieve my fitness goals that works well with the way I live my life. It requires a bit of discipline to input all the information that makes the application useful, and sometimes it’s a bit depressing to realize that I either can’t have what I want or that having it has cost me, but that is dieting and this application helps me make the informed choices required.
I decided it would be worthwhile to review some applications. I have a Sprint EVO 4G, and have become a bit of an App Junkie. I’m not on the leading edge, most of the applications I work with have been around and likely been reviewed by countless other people. Still, one more opinion isn’t going to hurt so I might as well give it.
The EVO itself has been a fantastic phone. So far it runs every application out there, something my old Sprint Hero wouldn’t do. I’m running FroYo, and its ability to save applications to the SD card is the only reason I’ve been able to feed my addiction to this point. I use this phone for work with email, RDP, and Ping applications; for home with grocery list and shopping applications; and for play with games and applications to help my workout. It has become fully integrated to the way I live my life. We no longer have a landline, so this phone is always close to me.
As the name of the feature suggests, I will be providing mostly positive feedback on applications that I like. At least in the beginning there are far too many good things to say about what this phone does to waste alot of time complaining about the apps that don't work. There may be a few comparisons between like applications, and I will always list what I wish an application does better, but there really isn't a need for a star rating on these reviews at this time. If I'm taking the time to talk about it, I probably liked it.
Is it a netbook or a tablet? AnandTech has posted a review of the Asus Eee Pad Transformer. As expected battery is excellent with the addition of the dock but lags behind the iPad 2 in tablet mode. Performance is equivalent to other Tegra 2 platforms like the Motorola Xoom which essentially means it lags behind the iPad 2 in some areas like video playback and is better in others like WiFi performance.
4 player co-op game coming "this spring" to Xbox Live, PSN & PC.
An preview of the Game of Thrones based series premiering April 17th on HBO. I just wish Martin would finish the series!
Dedicated to bringing you the latest and greatest technology, gaming and gadget news. Warning: This blog may contain frequent interruptions as other random topics are introduced.
n. (skiz-oh-THEME-ee-uh):
1. Rarely used term for repeated interruptions in a conversation by the speaker introducing other topics.
2. Digression by a long reminiscence.
