Thoughts & Stuff Volume 1: 2010 to 2011

by Graham Hall

  Initial Thoughts On Google+

  So thanks to a friendly fellow Engadget reader I scored a invite to Google+, which is Google’s answer to Facebook. Anyways, with it being an unfinished product and all I don’t think it would be fair to give it a full assessment. It’s obvious Google needs to put a bit more work into it before it’s ready for primetime, but what they have so far is a damn good starting point. 

  The most interesting aspect of the site are things called Circles. Basically they’re groups of people that you can choose to share, or not share things with. So basically I have 3 Circles, Family, Friends, and Internet Peeps. I can choose to share, for example, my contact info with my Family and Friends, but not my Internet Peeps. 

  I seriously hope this is the “Facebook Killer” I’ve been waiting for, and I am really interested in seeing what Google does with this. 

  Ocarina of Time 3D - A Review

  It’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on a handheld! What more do you want?

  Oh fine I’ll elaborate.

  So I’m not going to talk about the content of the game simply because this is just a remake of a game that came out in 1998, and if you haven’t heard of the wonders of Ocarina of Time then you’re a seriously deprived person.

  So anyway, the most obvious change to the game is the graphics. Nintendo did an amazing job at updating the graphics but at the same time retaining the feel of the original game. While it seems a lot of the environments are just taken right from the N64 original, the textures are all upgraded to a higher resolution and aren’t as blocky. The characters and items seem to have been completely redone though which is nice.

  Another obvious addition is the 3D brain-screw. Despite my well documented hatred of 3D movies I don’t hate the 3D in this game. Yeah it makes me nauseous after like 2 minutes but it still looks really cool. It feels like you’re looking through a window into Hyrule. And when Link does his famous “item get” pose, it almost looks like you could just reach out and grab the item from him.

  Now for the controls, these are a mixed bag. I absolutely adore the new item management via the 3DS’s bottom touch screen. I love the way the circle pad feels when controlling Link. But I hate the L-targeting system. It feels very awkward to hold the 3DS in the correct position to target an enemy and move at the same time. I found myself setting L-targeting to toggle instead of hold for the first time in the history of me playing Zelda games.

  So yeah. It’s not perfect. The occasionally awkward controls have cost me their fair share of hearts. But really, it’s totally worth it to be able to play the greatest video game of all time on the go.

  Even if you have never played this, or even any Zelda game before give this one a shot. Unless of course you can’t stand awkward controls, in which case you can grab the N64 version on the Wii virtual console.

  Zelda vs Nier

  So in playing Ocarina of Time on the 3DS, I discovered something: exploring Hyrule is still just as fun as it was 10 years ago. Yes the 3DS version sports a new coat of paint which gives the game a fresh feel, but it has something thats blatantly missing from a game with a very similar style, called Nier.

  Now I picked up Nier earlier this year and played through it once. It was a great game that basically plays like a cross between Zelda and Final Fantasy, and features a world much more expansive than the Hyrule seen in Ocarina of Time. There are many more sidequests, may more NPCs, just an overall bigger, more interesting world to explore. But it felt like a chore to adventure around the world that Nier throws you into. 

  I thought this was because I had grown up too much and that I’m just no longer interested in games that let you explore. But when I picked up Ocarina of Time 3D and started playing I felt that sense of adventure again. Yes I already knew Hyrule like the back of my hand thanks to owning nearly every version of Ocarina of Time that has ever come out (the original N64 game, the GameCube port, the Wii Virtual Console version, and now the 3DS remake). Somehow the journey around Hyrule never feels like a chore.

  I honestly can’t explain what the difference is. Perhaps it’s the fact that the world of Nier is far to overwhelming. It could just be a nostalgia factor. Or maybe Nier is just missing something that Ocarina of Time has. Any ideas?

  The Gay Way Is Okay!

  Call me crazy but this anti-gay rally in New York is absolutely STUPID! These people are just incredibly ignorant if they think that gays being allowed to marry affects them in any way. Nobody is telling you that you can’t marry someone of the opposite sex, so get over yourself! Gay marriage doesn’t affect you, unless you’re gay!

  The pastor of the Empire Christian Center, Tre Staton said of New York’s new gay marriage law, “we’re not against anybody, but we don’t want his imposed on us”. Dude take a chill pill, nobody is imposing ANYTHING on you.

  Or how about this gem; “I’m worried that the younger generations will think this is normal, and it’s not”. Chilling words from Gloria Sanchez, who seems to know much about the ways of normality...

  I was wondering, after we get all this gay marriage stuff straightened out, can we pass a law that keeps these assholes from breeding? It’ll be a double-whammy! We’ll solve the overpopulation problem, and we’ll keep these bigots from raising more bigots. 

  So as a straight person why should I care? Well I like to think myself as a reasonable person who doesn’t judge people based on which gender they happen to be attracted to. These people who waste time and energy just to be horrible, prejudice losers simply enrage me! 

  I should point out that this isn’t one of my over-the-top exaggerated rants. My anger in this case is 100% sincere. I HATE ignorance, bigotry, and prejudice with a passion. Thanks, and I hope I’m not just preaching to the choir here…

  Mac OS X Lion - My Thoughts

  So I’ve bee using Lion for about 5 days now and I’m really starting to get the hang of it. Since I feel that I’ve had ample time to play with it and use it as my primary OS I have decided to share some of my thoughts on Apple’s latest entry to the Mac OS X line. This isn’t so much a review as it is just a overview of Lion and my thoughts of it.

  Unlike Snow Leopard, which felt like a revision to it’s predecessor Leopard (and essentially that’s what it was), Lion feels like a whole new beast. Many of the features and built in apps have been completely redesigned, and there are plenty of new features to be had as well.

  One of the biggest changes you will see is that Apple integrated Spaces and Exposé to make Mission Control. It makes managing multiple desktops a breeze. Also, Dashboard has been integrated into Mission Control and now is contained within it’s own Space (but it can be configured to show up as the original overlay). My only complaint is that there is no way to rearrange your Spaces manually (as far as I know). 

  Many of the built in apps like Mail, iCal, and Address Book have had a complete visual overhaul. Mail now sports a layout more friendly to widescreen displays, as the message list and message view are now side-by-side. iCal now actually looks like a real calendar, which has upset some people but I think it looks great. Address Book on the other-hand has looked better, though the layout is very nice and iOS-like.

  Lion also has a plethora of new features, a couple of which seem to have taken inspiration from the iPad. Launchpad is an obvious example of this. Launchpad displays all the applications on your Mac in a fashion similar to the iOS home screen. Another, autocorrect, works exactly as is does on iOS devices, but can be turned off if you prefer. 

  Fullscreen apps are another major new feature in Lion. Any applications you have running that support fullscreen will have to outward-pointing arrows on the top-right of the window. Clicking that will put the application into it’s own Space and put it into fullscreen mode, which creates a distraction-free, focused experience. No dock, no menubar, just the app you want to use. This is probably my favorite Lion feature, and I use it all the time for Safari, Mail, and iTunes. 

  So Lion seems like the first
step towards Apple blurring the lines between Mac OS X and iOS. While I don’t see the Mac going away anytime soon, I see the Mac becoming a niche product within the next couple years. It will certainly be hard to get used to, because when I think Apple, the first thing I think of is Mac. 

  Thoughts on the 3DS Price Cut

  So the other day Nintendo announced that they would be cutting the price of the 3DS from $249 to $169. That’s an $80 price drop. Pretty huge for a gaming system that came out only last March in America. This price drop is a result of poor sales of the system, as sales have come out far below Nintendo’s expectations. 

  Now the 3DS is not a terrible system, I’d say it’s pretty good. There are just a few problems that I see with the 3DS that definitely contributed to its poor sales.

  Firstly, the fact that Nintendo rushed the system out. It launched with a very poor lineup and so far the only game out that I would consider a “killer app” would be The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D. Now the game selection has been slowly growing, but we won’t get to see the best games, like Super Mario 3D Land until later this year.

  Secondly, timing, which is  very much tied to my first point. The Nintendo 3DS was released in March here in most of the world, and February in Japan. A huge demographic of video games are kids, and kids tend to get new gaming systems for Christmas. Releasing the 3DS in October or November would not only have ensured a much beefier launch lineup but also attracted flocks of holiday shoppers looking for the latest toy for their kids.

  Finally, and something Nintendo is remedying now, is the price. $249 is a pretty huge investment for a portable gaming system, especially when Sony’s next portable, which is promising far superior graphical power, will sell for the same price.

  One final thing I should point out is that we can now play games on our smartphones and tablets, not to mention iPods, which can do a lot more than just play games. The market seems to be shifting towards these devices, which I find very unfortunate. No matter how you dress it up, even the most graphically powerful phones can’t compete with a dedicated portable gaming device in terms of the experience. 

  I will say though that I do expect sales to pick up after the price drop goes into effect (August 12th I believe), as well as once the holiday shopping season begins. Don’t worry, I don’t think Nintendo has another Virtual Boy on it’s hands.

  Eating Organic

  Now I’m not the kind of person who is going to tell you you’re a horrible person who’s supporting the messed up American mainstream food industry just because you don’t eat organic. My concern is purely health related. 

  Organic is appealing to me because it’s down to the basics. There are no chemicals like pesticides or preservatives, you’re just eating the food without the extra baggage. A lot of these chemicals have been found to cause cancer in lab rats. Pesticides are probably the worst, they’re designed to kill insects, what do you think a lifetime of eating food that was grown with pesticides will do to you? 

  I don’t see organic food as an extravagancy or a luxury, I see it as a basic need. Yes it is more expensive, but isn’t a little extra money worth the health of you and your family? If you’re tight on money it’s always a good idea to find the things in your life that are luxurious and cut them down, or cut them out completely. Things like cable tv, and your landline if you have a cellphone. 

  I also realize that there are people who genuinely can’t afford organic food (hint: if you can afford cable you do not fall into this category). It’s a sad fact that these people are stuck eating this processed garbage because that’s all they can afford, if that. That’s why I think that everyone who donates food should donate organic. That’s the only food I wouldn’t feel guilty donating.

  Even if you’re the slightest bit curious I urge you to check out the natural food section in your local grocery store. Most of them have one, some more extensive than others. Or check out a Whole Foods or other natural food store. They can be a little more expensive but they have a much wider selection of organic foods. 

  Oh and did I mention organic food is much more delicious? 

  Some Movie Ideas For Hollywood

  So with a movie based on Battleship coming out people have said Hollywood is officially out of ideas. I think these people have a very grim outlook on the film industry. In fact, if Battleship does well at the box office (and why wouldn’t it?) there could be a whole series of films based on board games. In fact, I have a couple ideas for some great board game films that any writer can take an run with free of charge.

  Sorry - A bunch if kids get sucked into an alternate reality and must reach the center to get back to their own world. But an alien invasion wants to get to our world via the same gateway. The only way to reach the center of this alternate world is by picking cards making the entire journey a race against time, and luck. Just as all seems hopeless the aliens draw a 4 card with only 2 spaces left to move and they lose their turn, leading the kids to draw a 3, exactly enough to reach the end if there journey.

  Yahtzee - Grandma Hebert is the best Yahzee player in her social circle. Her husband needs an expensive surgery or he will die. Grandma must enter the World Yahtzee Tournament and win the championship prize which would be more than enough to pay for the surgery.

  Stratego - An army general must navigate his troops through a devastated battlefield. The catch? They can’t see the enemy until they’re face to face. The man with the best guns wins! But they must also be on the lookout for land mines, as they search for the enemy base which intelligence says is somewhere inside enemy territory. In this war of the wits, will the general lead his team to victory? Or will they be hopelessly defeated? 

  Star Fox 64 3D - A Review

  Someone, somewhere at Nintendo HQ came up with some crazy idea for a game about a bunch of anthropomorphic animals flying spaceships and called it Star Fox. And the rest, as they say, is history. While not as wildly successful as Mario or Zelda, Star Fox will always have a nice cuddly warm place in the hearts of Nintendo gamers everywhere. 

  Their have been a few Star Fox games over the years, but the only one that is even remotely a masterpiece is Star Fox 64, and Nintendo realized this just in time for the 3DS. This past weekend Nintendo released Star Fox 64 3D (yes, I know that’s a mouthful) and yours truly was fortunate enough to have picked up a copy. 

  Star Fox 64 3D (which shall be referred to as “the game” for the remainder of this blog entry disguised as a credible game review) is, of course a remake of the aforementioned Star Fox 64. The game is done in a similar vane to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, with pretty much the same gameplay but with a fresh coat of paint (enhanced graphics). Nintendo went a step further with this title and decided that the music should be redone and the voiceovers re-recorded. 

  The new music sounds great! It’s still MIDI-quality music, but nevertheless it’s a big step up from what we got on the N64. The music sounds much more elaborate, and most of it is something I wouldn’t mind listening to (conveniently, there is a ‘sound test’ mode you can unlock after beating the game once which lets you do just that). The new voiceovers have left me less than impressed though. Nintendo was able to get most of the original cast back to do the voices but somehow Peppy’s famous “do a barrel roll”, along with other beloved lines, just don’t feel the same way they did back on the N64. 

  The game is largely similar to the original version in terms of gameplay and level design though, so there is really not a lot to talk about there. But the multiplayer has been completely redone, with new maps and AI battles. I’ve only tried AI battles, because I’m the only one of my friends that was stupid enough to buy a Nintendo 3DS, but it gave me a feeling as to how the multiplayer works, and it’s not bad. It’s just missing online play, which would have been great. 

  There are some added features that take advantage of the 3DS hardware. The most obvious feature is the 3D effect, which is actually the only time I’ve felt the 3D effect a
ctually added something to a game. The gyroscope sensor, which I felt helped precision aiming in Ocarina of Time 3D, felt very gimmicky in this game. Thankfully, like Ocarina of Time, it can be turned off and the slider pad can be used to maneuver your spaceship. 

  I would very much recommend this game. While the story is short (takes about an hour to finish), the fun comes in replaying the game and trying to figure out how to get to different levels, since there are multiple paths to get to the end. 

  The Netflix Split

  So earlier this week Netflix announced that it would be spinning off it’s DVD rental subscription into a new company called Qwikster. Now, besides the stupid name, I think this is good that we’re seeing Netflix distance itself from the physical media side of things. But, it’s probably not going to work.

  The thought of putting a movie in a queue and waiting a day or 2 for it to show up seems rather antiquated to me, I exclusively use Netflix for streaming, and if I can’t stream it there, then I can usually rent it digitally on iTunes or PSN. I would prefer not to have to rely on multiple services but it can’t really be helped. And that is the problem.

  Now, in an ideal world every movie and TV show imaginable would be available to watch instantly on Netflix. But that’s not going to happen anytime soon because the film industry is run by a bunch of rich, backwards thinking, out of touch executives who are too dumb and/or greedy to see the long term benefits Netflix and other streaming services will have for everyone. 

  I think Netflix made the right move, but too early. Someday the film industry will come to it’s senses, after all they gave into home video in the 80’s. But we still have a lot of fighting to do. Physical media and cable TV are becoming outdated, but the powers that be will kick and scream the entire way. But it’s ok if they lose out because we have a younger, more forward-thinking group of people who are interested in media, and they’re more than willing to make content for this future.

  Mobile Security

  We’re constantly putting more and more of our personal data on our mobile devices. For example, my iPod has easy access to my social networking accounts, email accounts, contact information for everyone I know (including myself), and my calendar. Yet it seems to me we don’t put as much thought as keeping our private info on these devices safe as we do with our computers. 

  I personally have passwords on both my laptop and iPod, not only to protect my personal info and the personal info that friends have entrusted to me, but to keep unknown people from screwing around with my system. But I cannot tell you how often I have seen unsecured mobile devices, even I never really thought twice about it until recently. 

  Our mobile devices are becoming more and more integral to our lives, and as a result more and more of our personal data is going on these devices. As a result, we need to take steps to secure our devices to protect our personal data from prying eyes.

  Doctor Who?

  Warning! Here be spoilers.

  Last night Steven Moffat seems to have laid the groundwork for the final episode with Matt Smith’s as The Doctor. Obviously this episode is a ways off (with Matt Smith confirmed to be on board for at least another season/series), but I think this whole thing with The Silence will continue, and possibly be resolved with The Doctor’s next regeneration. Will we find out The Doctor’s name? What is it about his name that The Silence would see as a threat? 

  I think, though, that this episode resolves more questions than it appears to on the surface. It blatantly resolves The Doctor’s death from the beginning of the season, it reveals the question that we’ve been wondering about since Let’s Kill Hitler, and reveals a pretty big aspect of his relationship with River Song. But I think you can infer quite a few unanswered questions from season 5, like the whole deal with the Pandorica. 

  We know The Silence can influence people with post-hypnotic suggestion, and we now know that the Daleks have some knowledge of The Silence, so they most likely influenced The Doctor’s various enemies to lock him in the Pandorica. Obviously that failed, so River Song/Melody Pond was some sort of alternate plan after their first attempt failed. So now they think he’s dead…but do they?

  Next are the makeshift TARDISes we’ve seen in The Lodger and The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon. I think it’s reasonable to assume that this is how The Silence got Melody Pond back to the the 1960’s. But why the 1960’s? Because of the space suit, everything The Silence do seem to be in the interest of fulfilling some sort of prophecy. The Pandorica will open. Silence will fall when the question is asked. Demon’s Run, where a good man goes to war. An impossible astronaut will rise and strike the time lord dead. 

  Also, this may seem obvious to most but I just wanted to clear this up for anyone who was confused, The Doctor who get’s shot was always the Tesselecta, that was the fixed point, but everyone thought it was the real Doctor because, as you know, The Doctor lies. As I said, probably obvious, but I’ve seen some confusion over that in some forums. 

  Steve Jobs: 1955-2011

  I was going to write up my thoughts on iOS 5 tonight but I think, considering the circumstances, I will hold off for now. As you probably know by now, Steve Jobs, co-founder and former CEO of Apple, passed away earlier today. And I just wanted to write a quick piece about what this man meant to me as not just someone who uses Apple products, but truly appreciates what they are.

  Without this man, I don’t think I would have ever became so enamored with computers. He made computers into more than just ones and zeroes, his vision transformed computers into ‘bicycles for the mind’. Without him I never would have been brought up with the Macintosh. Sure, someone else would have eventually come along and sold computers with a GUI, but they couldn’t have done it the same was as Steve.

  While I have regretfully never met Steve Jobs, I was fortunate enough to exchange emails with him a few years ago. This was late 2007, before Apple had even mentioned anything about apps on the iPhone. I told him I was very happy with the iPhone and told him it was the greatest phone I had ever used. I then asked him about apps, and if they would ever come to the iPhone. Steve was kind enough to get back to me and told me “We like third party apps too, and we’re working on a secure way to let them onto the iPhone.” I have never forgotten how excited I was when that email came in, and I don’t expect to soon. Just the fact that he took the time to respond to some random kid on the other side of the country is a testament to the kind of man he was.

  This was a man who had beat all odds and changed the very Earth we live on. His drive, his passion, has, and will continue to inspire me. He didn’t sell people products, the products are just the packaging. In that package, wether it’s a Mac Pro, or an iPhone, you’ll find an unmatched experience that almost feels like an extension of yourself. It was Steve Jobs vision that made this possible, but more than that, it was his ability to drive and inspire the people who craft the experience so that we can have a computer that works for us and lets us create art, music, writing, and film. 

  So thank you Steve, for everything you’ve done. You’ve accomplished a lot in your brief time on Earth. Anybody would be lucky to have achieved a fraction of what you have in an average lifespan, never mind in a life cut tragically short. When I was in high school and most kids my age were looking up to rappers, pop stars, and athletes, I was always looking up to you as my biggest hero, and you still are even though you are no longer with us. 

  “Here’s to the crazy ones…”

  PerkStreet Financial - A Review/Story/Love Letter

  In this age of banks charging fees for increasingly stupid things, it’s pretty easy to feel trapped. That’s how I felt with Citizens Bank. While not as bad as larger banks like the infamous Bank of America, Citizens found ways to bleed the most money out of its customers. In fact a friend of my dad’s who works for Citizens Bank (who shall remain nameless for obvious reasons) told us of a scheme that the executives came up with to get as much money in overdraft fees as possible.

&
nbsp; Essentially Citizens Bank clears all your charges in order of highest to lowest. So say you have $20 in your account, and you make a mistake and buy something for $8, something for $5, and a third thing for $13, in that order. Well if they charged chronologically, they would charge the $8 first, bringing your balance to $12, then they would charge the $5, bringing you down to $7. Finally they would charge the $13 which would overdraw your account and you would be charged a single overdraft fee. 

  What Citizens actually does is first charge the $13, then the $8, and now you’re already in overdraft by $1 so you get a fee tacked on. But oh look, there’s another $5 charge so you get hit with ANOTHER overdraft fee. It seems like maybe it’s just how their system works, but I was informed by this Citizens employee that this was a concise decision by the executives to get more money from customers. Ideally of course you will never overdraw your account, but sometimes things happen, you make a mistake, a check doesn’t clear, whatever. 

  So finally I was fed up with the fees, practices, and terrible customer service that I decided to search for alternatives. I looked at small local banks, and credit unions, I even looked at ING Direct where I keep my savings account. Of course, my credit is toast thanks to some problems with student loans (long story, I’ll spare you), and every bank I applied to rejected my application.

  Then I found this little website called PerkStreet, and it looked perfect. Almost so perfect that I thought it had to be a scam of some kind. So I did my research, and it turns out it was totally legit. So I filled out an application and got a response the next day. I then proceeded to transfer the entirety of the balance in my Citizens Bank account to my shiny new PerkStreet account, and my life was changed forever.

  First off I should mention that yes, PerkStreet does charge fees, but they’re always upfront about them. In fact they have a very clear webpage that clearly explains their fees and how to avoid them. I personally feel their fees are reasonable, and very easy to avoid. The only fee I have issue with is the inactivity fee, but if you use this as your primary checking account then there’s no reason you should ever see it. 

  Even though PerkStreet is an online bank they make is super easy to deposit and withdraw your money. You can drop your completed deposit slip and endorsed checks into a prepaid envelope for mailing via the USPS, or if you’re in a rush you can drop it off at a UPS Store for free overnight. You can make withdrawals at most ATMs for free as well, though availability varies from location to location. This page ( https://www.perkstreet.com/atm.aspx ) is very helpful if you want to see which ATMs in your area you can use without any fees. 

  The customer service is amazing. You can call and get a live human, 24/7, which frankly is amazing. You can also email them and they usually get back to you in 24 hours. I had to deal with their customer service over the phone when I was having some issues transferring money from my Citizens Bank account, and they were courteous, helpful, and just as important, spoke English as a first language.

  The only downside to PerkStreet is that they don’t have physical branches, but in actuality it’s not that much of a downside. They are able to pass the money they save from not opening and maintaining branches to the customer by way of excellent phone and email support, reasonable fees, and generous perks.

  If you’re sick of your bank stealing your hard earned money then you should definitely look into PerkStreet Financial. I will say that it’s definitely not for everyone, but it’s definitely worth looking into. I use PerkStreet as my primary bank account (I still use ING Direct for my savings since I do not believe PerkStreet offers savings accounts) and I couldn’t be happier. It’s an oasis in a desert of greed.

  Mediocrity

  I consider myself a patient person when it comes to most things. But when it comes to mediocrity, I have absolutely no patience at all. This extends from myself to the world around me. I don’t think my expectations are unreasonable, I don’t demand that everything in the world be perfect, but I do thing that a reasonable level of quality should be an expectation.

  I’m not going to turn this into a Mac vs. PC argument, but I feel that Macs (and most Apple products) are of high enough quality to use. Sony (despite some of their corporate blunders) also make high quality products, which is why I choose to rock a PS3, and a Sony Alpha. Even something as simple as my microwave was chosen because of it’s solid build quality, and simple-yet-sleek appearance (a Sanyo, for those who are curious). Even if the product I purchase does have some quality issues, if the company who made it goes head-over-heels to fix it, then they just won me as a customer for life. 

  Likewise I refuse to allow myself to be surrounded by a shoddy experience. The amount of stress it causes me is unimaginable, which probably is unhealthy, but I suppose it’s good that I try to avoid it. Perhaps the only times I get angry enough to have outbursts are when things don’t work the way they should because of poor design. Certain small imperfections have a way of getting under my skin. 

  As a designer I also have high expectations for what I do, even higher than the people I’m working for. Throughout my life, my grandmother always taught me that when you do something, you should always go above and beyond what’s expected of you, not just because you’ll earn the respect of others, but also because you feel better knowing that you didn’t half-ass your work. 

  I know I probably sound like a snob, but I really don’t think I am (if I am, than I am the poorest snob in the world). I don’t think quality should be a luxury, it should be an expectation. Unfortunately, with our lives filled with fast-food, rude service, American cars, and shoddy electronics, we’ve come to expect mediocrity. Quality is pushed into being the exception rather than the norm

  Ghandi once said; “Be the change you want to see in the world.” If you don’t do work that’s shit, and you don’t accept shit in your life, then we’re one step closer to a world without shit. You can quote me on that, if you’d like. 

  Sandboxing != ‘Walled Garden’

  There seems to be a lot of FUD regarding the fact that Apple will be requiring developers to sandbox their apps by March if they want to continue being listed in the Mac App Store. Basically, sandboxing an app essentially prevents apps from accessing secure parts of your system. Many people believe that this policy means that the days of a locked-down Mac experience are drawing ever closer. 

  Look at it this way, the Mac App Store is designed for the mainstream consumer. Apple want’s to offer a catered solution for these less tech-savvy customers, a vast majority of their customer base. This added level of security is for these customers who don’t want to have to think about all the little things, they just want a computer that works. 

  As for the rest of us, I don’t think Apple is going to lock us out of our computers. For iDevices it makes sense, those are strictly mainstream consumer products. But lots of people, ESPECIALLY the people who develop software/apps for Apple devices, need the breathing room that the Mac offers. 

  So rest easy my friends, all is not lost. 

  …unless you want a Mac Pro.

  I Play Games For Fun, Not Achievements

  I was at GameStop yesterday (finally got around to picking up Batman: Arkham City) and I overheard a slightly depressing conversation between a clerk and a customer. The customer made a statement on how games aren’t worth his time if they don’t have enough achievements. The clerk countered with: “Isn’t it enough that the game is fun? What did you do before games even had achievements?”

  I’ve never been too concerned about achievements (or trophies, as they are referred to on my console of choice) because I’m more concerned about how fun the game is. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy achievements, sometimes they can present fun challenges that are satisfying to conquer. But I never try to earn achievements simply for the sake of earning achievements, because I feel that when things go that far the game simply becomes a tedious chore. 

  I’m not against trophies at all, but I feel they have caused thi
s strange compulsion amongst gamers to earn the highest gamer score or trophy level. 

  Flash Sucks, That’s Why It’s Dying!

  Some guy named Mike Chambers, a product manager for Adobe Flash, had this to say on his blog, in an entry titled “Clarifications on Flash Player for Mobile Browsers, the Flash Platform, and the Future of Flash”:

  “No matter what we did, the Flash Player was not going to be available on Apple’s iOS anytime in the foreseeable future.”

  Um…no. That’s bullshit. Apple didn’t have it out for Flash just for the hell of it. Just last year Steve Jobs himself wrote, in his piece “Thoughts on Flash”, the following:

  “We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it.”

  I think it’s fairly obvious by that quote that Steve and the rest of Apple would have loved to give Adobe the chance to prove that Flash could work on a mobile device. But Adobe was unable to deliver a version of Flash that could perform reasonably well on a phone. All the Flash team had to do was create a version of Flash that ran efficiently and I’m sure Apple would have loved to put it on iOS, but something better came around that gave Apple what it needed, and that was HTML 5.

  One might say that Apple was the one that killed Mobile Flash, but honestly, as much as I love Apple, that would be giving them far to much credit. Mobile Flash died because a stubborn company wanted to shoehorn their resource-hungry web technology into a mobile phone, and was surprised to find out that all they got was shit.

  Honestly though, now that Adobe has committed resources to HTML 5, I’m curious to see what they come up with. Though they’re probably going to stubbornly hold out on the desktop version for quite awhile in some pointless attempt to save Flash from it’s inevitable doom.

  Consistency Please

  I’ve been using Lion since it came out in August, and I feel I’m really starting to adjust to it. There are weird little quirks, but I have been able to look past them to see what I think is probably, despite it’s flaws, the best version of Mac OS X thus far.

  One quirk I cannot seem to get past though is the new system-wide fullscreen mode. Specifically, the key combo to activate it. Now most people would just click on the little arrows in the top-right corner of fullscreen-capable windows, and that would be that. But there are quite a few people like me who prefer using keyboard combos, and that is where things with fullscreen start to get tricky.

  First, I want to concentrate on the apps that appear to do it right so we have a frame of reference to go on. It seems most of Apple’s software, and a few third-part apps use the ‘control+command+F’ key combo. While I’m not a fan of three-key combos because they’re basically impossible to do with one hand (get your mind out of the gutter), this is obviously done to keep from interfering with the ‘command+F’ combo, which in most document-based apps brings up a bar or window to search the body of the open document, and in Finder brings up the Search window. Most major apps use this key combo, like iTunes (surprisingly), Safari, iPhoto, Pages, and a few third party apps like Reeder and 1Password. 

  But then we start looking at other apps, and things start to get weird. QuickTime X uses the ‘command+F’ combo to go into fullscreen, which is confusing because as I mentioned earlier, this key combo is apparently reserved for search functions. Then we have apps like GarageBand, which has no key combo at all for fullscreen. Then there’s CleanWriter, which I’m using right now to write this blog entry, which uses a three-key combo, but instead of the apparent standard, uses ‘shift+command+f”. Don’t even get me started on apps like Chrome which, last I checked, doesn’t even use the system-wide fullscreen function. 

  It doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, but it really is when you think about it. Can you imagine if every app had a different key combo for Quit or Undo? It seems that Apple really dropped the ball here by not standardizing the fullscreen key combo like it does for ‘command+Q’ or ‘command+Z’. When you’re dealing with a system-wide function like this, its pretty much UX 101 to make a consistent standard, and to set an example for your developers by using this standard across all your apps. 

  Update: I just wanted to add in regards to QuickTime X that I am aware ‘command-F’ has traditionally been used as the key combo to play video in fullscreen since the function was introduced to QuickTime Pro users. But now that Apple has an OS-level fullscreen function, which appears to be what QuickTime now uses to display video in fullscreen, should it not now use the same key combo as other apps?

  How The Kindle Fire Lost It’s Spark

  Yeah, I’m kind of proud of that title. Yes, I’m a dork. Anyways…

  So here’s a tiny summary I’ve put together from all the reviews I’ve seen of the Kindle Fire:

  “With it’s slow web browser, lousy app selection, paltry storage, poor battery life, and lack of 3G connectivity, this tablet is not going to change the world. If you just want a device to stream video from the Amazon Unbox service though, you’re in luck, because that’s pretty much the only strength of this device.”

  Again, that’s not an actual review, but a summary of the essence of each review I have read.

  The biggest flaw I see is the 8GB storage. I mean, on a tablet 8GB is a JOKE, but it shouldn’t be much of a problem since the tablet is limited to the Amazon App Store, whose selection pales in comparison to even the Android Market. 

  In addition, like the standard Kindle, the Fire is designed for reading eBooks. But also like the standard Kindle, the Fire does NOT have the capability to display the ePub format that pretty much every other eReader on the market has. Yes, even the iPad uses ePub, so much for the walled garden.

  The Fire is a great example of a device being built to make money for a service that already exists (in this case, Amazon Unbox), quite unlike the popular standard Kindle which was built from the ground up along side an eBook store. 

  And it seems the world agrees. This time I have an actual quote from DigitalSpy:

  “Amazon has reported a massive 73% slump in profits after the online retail giant invested heavily in its first tablet computer to compete with Apple’s iPad.”

  Oops!

  If you’re expecting to pay $199 for a tablet and expect an all-around quality experience, then you are delusional.