Ipod Touch ... Love at first sight ... I've always thought that the Apple products are too much "Fanboys oriented", but recently I had to give up and buy an 80Gb Ipod Classic, simply because there's no other portable media player with that capacity and size, apart from the Zune by Microsoft, that is not sold in Italy; after one day of use I started to love the clickwheel, the shiny look, the personal laser writing I requested on the back of the Ipod, buying the Ipod on line at the Apple Store ... And I started to hate the quite obliged use of Itunes, the missing of "power user" personalization of use, the lack of instructions ...

Last week I've entered for the first time in my life an Apple Store, the one in the "Roma Est" Shopping Center ...  I've spent 1 hour inside the Store, enjoying the "Bar style" of the store, and the possibility to try every single apple product. I felt in love with the Ipod Touch, first of all because in my opinion it's the most similar thing to a real paper photo album to have in one's pocket, and to give to someone to have a look at! It's interface it's incredible ... comparable to what is the Wii controller in the console world.

So my 16 Gb Ipod now it's always in my pocket ... I've spent one minute to familiarize with the interface, but one week to use the Touch the way I wanted to!

I wanted to:

1) Sort the photos album in the order I decide

2) Read comics in digital format

I discovered that:

1) The Touch sorts the photos alphabetically by the name of the file

2) Transferring the photos to the Touch through iTunes, automatically converts them to a convenient pre-defined resolution, and you can't decide the final conversion resolution; this is perfect for the normal use of a photo, like showing them to friends ... but if you transfer the jpeg pages of a digital comic, when you zoom them to read it, the resolution is too much low to read the baloons of the comic!

I solved this way:

1) I used 2 programs to manage my photos before the tranfer to the Touch, "PowerExif Editor" and "Bulk Rename Utility"; they're incredibly powerful, allowing to modify exif data of photos (useful for example when you have photos of the same event coming from different cameras with different time set ... quite common!) and to sort, rename, power modify the name of the photos.

2) I had to unlock my Touch, and to install iComic, a wonderful program for comic reading on Touch, at native jpeg resolution ... and you have to really trick the wifi connection of the Touch to your pc to transfer the jpgs to you touch ...

I will edit this post later with links to guides and infos!

With Christmas, a self gifted Wii has entered the door of my house :) ... So I've added "wiifanboy" to my daily visited web sites.

In this post, I've discovered a wonderful PC game, whose conversion to the Wii is in progress: The Blob ! In the game you're a big fat color changing smiling ball :-) Absorbing colors from poor colored living people running away from you, to give back colors to a gray themed city! You move, bounce and paint in a full 3d environment, with jumps, fans, tricks and black cops hunting for you :)

As always Wikipedia, can give an help, and quoting directly from the "Wikipedia De Blob Game Page":

History

de Blob was originally developed as a free downloadable game for the PC by eight students studying Game Design & Development at the Utrecht School of the Arts and one student studying Game and Media Technology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. THQ noticed the game and was very impressed with the team's work, and acquired the rights to the game from the original team and handed over the game to Blue Tongue and Helixe and they've been developing their own versions for their respective consoles ever since.

Synopsis

de Blob is an action puzzle title that allows players to explore and liberate an alien city from the evil, monochromatic I.N.K.T. Corporation that has taken over the city and outlawed all color and fun from daily life. Playing as de Blob, gamers will embark on a quest to re-animate the city of Chroma, and bring spunk and character back to the oppressed, by splattering buildings, landmarks, and citizens with color. de Blob features an intricate single player campaign as well as a multiplayer experience that supports up to four competitors via split screen. The game was conceived for the Windows PC by a team of eight students studying Game Design & Development at the Utrecht School of the Arts and one student studying Game and Media Technology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. At the time of conception, sections of Utrecht were being rebuilt and the principal task in creating the game was to convey how the railroad station area of Utrecht would look in 10 years. The city of Utrecht has since adopted the character of de Blob to be its mascot.

The PC game is absolutely FREEWARE! And a must download (97Mb, English Version), because it's a great and fun idea, running also on old specs PCs and laptops!

LOVELY WORK! Happy painting!

A new gaming  Rig, and a lot of hardware issues, kept me away from posting, but right now my new creature is up and running fast and steady :-) ...

A lot of new stuff arrived ( a laser carved 80gig Ipod, a Wii ... and so on ...), but this is another story! First of All, I wish you a wonderful and happy 2008!

(Courtesy of Google)

Hype is a bad thing ... being a fanboy is even worse.

I do not like soccer, I've never been a football fan ... but strangely I've always loved to play soccer on a console. PES 6 for my 360 has been a wonderful experience: while criticized from PES series fans, because of the lack of other version (PS2, PSP) features, for me (a casual PES gamer) has been, first of all, a perfect online experience.

The Hype about PES 2008 has been big ... the PC Demo, and the 360 Demo have been just a taste of what has finally arrived: average graphics, strange playing feeling ... but PES is PES :D ! Everything will change with the final release.

FIFA 2008 has arrived: but PES is PES ... Ok, very nice graphics, interface and playing, but I do not want "not to feel at home" ...

Like other millions of people in the world, I've bought the game as soon has the package has arrived to my favorite games seller .... and like other millions of people in the world I am seriously thinking in giving the game away.

Horrible interface, ridiculous replay graphics, strange look of playing field grass ... incredible fast playing game speed, pinball effect for the ball ...

OK OK it's PES it's PES ... I have to resist ...

BUT ... NO WAY TO PLAY ON LINE ... enough is enough ...: there's no way to make a decent match with people even living the next building ... lag is the king: the ball and the players are ghosts.

I DO NOT UNDERSTAND how this is possible! How a game, so famous, built by a rock steady team, can be sold with this so big problems! Konami, have you ever tried just one online match through Xbox Live ? Have you ever seen just one ridiculous action replay .... ? Have you ever noticed how the ball jumps away as being in a pinball ?!??!

KONAMI says they're working on it ... they do not even say WHEN a patch will be available, and they say sorry! For quite 70€, the price paid for the game, this is absolutely scandalous.

Like the Italian average person :D ... I have 3 SIMs and 2 phones ;-) ! So there's one spare SIM with no phone as house :). I've recently red of the total compatibility of the SIMORE DUALSIM Card G1 with my HTC Tytn so I decided to give it a try.

The package arrived yesterday from Switzerland by mail, and I've soon noticed the excellent quality of the whole stuff (dualsim card, accessories, packaging, goodies) ... what has negatively surprised me is that I've discovered that, while perfectly recognised by my Tytn, the SIMORE DUAL SIM G1 card is NOT COMPATIBLE with Italian SIMS from "TREE" operator.

I've found the same complaint in forum posts like THIS; I've already asked SIMORE to put an advice on their site, and I hope they will listen to me.

For Italian people, beware also that to the already high purchase cost you have to add the "custom taxes", even if SIMORE claims that the price is "delivery included".

For more technical infos, I have to add, because it's not SO CLEAR on SIMORE web page, that the Tytn need no additional sofware installed to manage the dualsim card, but there's an autoinstalling software that appears in the programs folder, as soon as the Tytn recognise the dualsim card.

Due to the incompatibility with the THREE Sim, I've not been able to check the effective use of the dualsim card, 'cause I don't want to cut another Sim.

Discovering my brand new Nokia N95 is an everyday joy: I've been catched by the geeky photos geotagging opportunity, and I have discovered a whole new world!

1) Take a photo with the wonderful N95 5mpx camera.

2) Use the internal gps to "geotag" it (mark your photo with satellites coordinates).

3) Upload the photo to a mapping service to link the photo to the map of the place where the photo has been taken.

So many things can be done: imagine for example putting a travel on an internet based map service (like Google Maps), with your photos connected to the map ...

Well, reading many posts on the net, I thought that the only service able to do this was Shozu: you need to install the Shozu client on your N95, and Shozu can upload photos to Flickr, also geotagging them (using the trick of keeping active a "GPS switch on" app like Nokia Sports Tracker). Then, inside Flickr you can see your own photo linked to a map.

This has been quite tricky! But worst of all ... it DOES NOT WORK on my N95: I don't know why, but there are many posts, in the official Shozu forum, about the problem (Shozu uploads the photo, but Flickr is not showing it).

I was quite giving up, but searching for a solution I discovered ZONETAG, a wonderful service offered by the guys behind Yahoo and Flickr: Zonetag claims to work with my N95, giving the opportunity to geotag a photo and to upload it to Flickr.

I gave it a try: I downloaded the client and installed in on my N95 ... and my jaws dropped down! IT WORKS flawlessy!

ZONETAG (+):

- works flawlessy with the N95

- no "GPS switch on app" trick! The gps can be turned on directly from ZONETAG client

- no resident apps, you can turn on and of completely Zonetag, whenever you want

- complete geotagging and Flickr integration

, before uploading (you can set to show or no location tags, coordinates, public or private and so no)

ZONETAG (-)

- absolutely nothing for know, after 1 day test

This is a great piece of work!

Lovely refined game! On Bungie.net you can check your own hyper detailed "Service Record"! Here it's mine :D

Lovely refined game! On Bungie.net you can check your own hyper detailed "Service Record"! Here it's mine :D

Halo 3 ... One word and a number only. Nothing more to say about the most overhyped game of the whole videogames history. I received the Limited Edition the same day it has been officially released, and I started playing it ... Halo 3, is a dish to taste slowly ... nothing SO special to look at, but with so many retrotastes that you wanna chew it soooo slowly :D ...

THEATER ... Playing between the second chapter of the single campaign and the climbing of the multiplayer ranking, I discovered the benefits of the "Theater option": minutes of pure fun! You always record your last 30 minutes of playing (single or multi), or you can download user made videos. You can replay and watch both of them, changing all the things you want, like we're used to see in Pes or Fifa soccer games replays: camera free positioning, playing speed, player ... And it's incredible fun to replay your own matches :D, slow motion way, flying around a map or watching your ultra kills of brutes :D. State of the art home made Machinima !

Flying in big levels, as in a multiplayer CTF match replay, or slow-motioning 30 minutes of the single play campaign (with the possibility to clip, save and share the topic moments you want ... also made soooo easy to do), shows also how the game has been maniacally cured ... You understand why it's a natively "low res" game, why the graphics are not so top-notch: the amount of things in every WORLD you play, is amazing ...

I've red somewhere that HALO 3 must be judged and downscored just on singleplay : this is being HERETIC! HALO 3 is a game born for multiplay.

Enthusiasm is rising ... Wait me Master Chief, I'll be back soon :D ...

P.S.: DO PLAY Halo 3 at HEROIC difficulty ... otherwise you won't appreciate it (the same Bungie suggests to do it ...)

I was watching the wonderful "Assassin's Creed" Game Trailer, coming in November for the 360: the trailer is dubbed with a very pleasant song... Juste a little googling and I found that the song is played by UNKLE ( .... a British musical outfit founded in 1994 ... ) and the song name is "Lonely Soul", included in "The Beach - Motion Picture Soundtrack". The music genre is "Trip-hop", and I've and UNKLE has just released their last album "War Stories", a wonderful mind trip and deserted open spaces evocative album ... A must listen!

Talking about games advertising music ... how not to mention the wonderful

"Gears of War" ad, with the song "Mad World" in an alternate version featuring Gary Jules, included in the "Donnie Darko" movie sound track (The original Song "Mad World", played by "Tears for Fears" is included in the album "The Hurting".

Nice listening ...

I've not used other offline blogging tools, so WLW (Windows Live Writer) is my first experience with this kind of tools: after one week of usage, I have to admit to find it very useful for my needs; the offline writing is more powerful than the online one, especially when managing pictures. When writing on line, I've been able only to upload pictures at the end of the post without editing the position; with WLW you can put pictures inside the text, as in Word, adding some nice frame effects.

What I dislike in WLW is the "not compatible with Windows ME": I've tried to install it on "my very old but very little and very light" old laptop, but WLW says "you need a newer Operating System" ... but I'd add that I need a new laptop too :D !!!

So:

(+) Very powerful and easy offline posting, especially when managing pictures

(-) Not compatible with older Windows versions, like Windows ME and less

1.  RECYCLE

2.  SWITCHOFF

3.  TURNDOWN

4.  WALK

... There's a time to play, there's a time to get serious and there's a time TO THINK. We don't need to be heroes, neither we don't need to save the world on our shoulders: but sometimes just a little drop from everybody of us can have a gigantic effect even on the world.

Ok ... getting too much rethoric :-) ...

The European Commission's "You Control Climate Change Campaign" is helping individuals contribute to the fight against climate change.

Quoting from the campaign site:

How can you control climate change?

Climate change is a global problem, and yet each one of us has the power to make a difference. Even small changes in our daily behaviour can help prevent greenhouse gas emissions without affecting our quality of life. In fact, they can help save us money.

Give it a fast, brain oriented, reading and even faster spread it to all of your friends.

P.S.: The site has a "choose your language" option, with many languages supported.

P.P.S.: "Il sito ha la possibilità di scegliere la lingua, in link diretto per l'italiano è questo"

Well ... A lot has passed since last post! I think the prob is with the "blogging method": posting on Spaces.live gets a bit "tricky" if using Firefox, and whatsmore damn slooooow.

So i resolved to find one of the "now so used" automatic blogging programs, and (I admit my ignorance :-) ) I discovered that in the MSN Live tools family there's a "Windows Live Writer" member that is just what I was looking for!

I am already quite used to the Live Tools: I use the "Live Messenger" and the "Live Mail Desktop"; they're a bit heavy for the System, but I like the Integration with XP (even if both so "Vista oriented" dressed) and with the use of my hotmail account.

Now I am blogging with "Live Writer", let's see how it goes :D ...

You can get "Windows Live Writer" from this page