New App: Luko Remote (playbook)

So a remote app let's you use your phone or tablet as a mouse for your computer.  Most with,let also let you use the devices virtual keyboard to type things on your computer.  I got this remote app for my playbook and it's really nice.

There's the basic mouse and keyboard stuff.  There's separate buttons fir right and left clicks, as well as the middle mouse buttons.  There's also arrow keys, control, and although buttons.  Probably the most useful part of this app is the file browser. The file browser let's you open files on the pLaybook so that it reads in the computer.  For people with one monitor this could be really useful.  You could be browsing files or videos and use the playbook as the playlist to easily move through files.

The app cost three dollars. I feel it's easily worth that.  When I buy apps I usually compare the price of the app to the same dollar amount of food.  In this case I would rather have an app I can useeveryday then a large fries.

Im thinking about trying out a remote desktop app next.

New software: blackberry playbook OS 2.0

It has been.a couple days since the release of RIM's new OS.  Savy consumers should have taken advantage of the huge price drop on the playbook.  The new os brings all the things people wanted at the device's launch, such as the mail client, calender, and contacts.  It also add android app emulation.  This is primarily for the gaming apps.

Another really neat feature is the new virtual keyboard.  I always find the iPhones auto correct a little intrusive.  I would rather tap the correction to opt-in then opt-out.  RIM does well on this keyboard giving you several choices of words they think your trying to use.  and then tries to anticipate the next word.  This can be fairly useful and time saving.



There was a problem that I had with the old OS were the browser would not load pages.  This doesn't seem to be a wide spread problem but its gone now with the new OS anyway.

There are a bunch of other improvements to some apps that I don't use regularly like the "docs to go app" as well as blackberry bridge.  which now that I have an iPhone is not all too useful.

This new OS is a welcome advancement to the under appreciated tablet.

Mobile app for blogger

This Is a simple test, and review of the features offered by google blogger's mobile app for iOS. I will be travelling to Japan in the spring and will be blogging here about all of the interesting things I come across. As my laptop is far to heavy to bring on this trip I will be using either my phone or the hostel's computers.

Probably the most important thing I need in this mobile app is the ability to add pictures. At the moment it looks like the pictures are in the labels tray at the bottom of the screen. I don't think I can add them into the text the way I want to.

The app won't let me resize the pictures individually, but I can choose the default size.  I also cannot move the pictures around in the app.  A bit of a let down, But I can make drafts in the app then go back to a computer for some final editing.

The picture on the right shows the app.  I three icons let you write a post, view the blog, and some basic options.  Overall the app is very simple.  I think It would be better with a lot more features, especially being able to move photos around.

Also the picture on the left is just a picture of the street by my house.

Skyrim Mods Issue 4 (last before CK)

Its almost the end of January and bethesda has confirmed that the Creation Kit along with the skyrim patch 1.4 will be out before the end of the month.  Meaning the Internet will explode with tonnes more skyrim mods and much more substantial game changing mods.  So this will be the last post before the CK comes out.  To be honest I have not played too much of skyrim,  I personally just did not enjoy it as much as I expected.  Its no ones fault but my own though.  I had very high and specific expectations that were not entirely fulfilled.  I'm not sure if I'm going to be modding skyrim as much as I first intended, but I will still be trying out lots of interesting mods and hopefully I find the ones that make the game just what I want it to be.

Mods I'm using:
For the most part this has not changed from the last Issue, simply updates.  See the previous Issue if you want to know more about the mods I'm using.

NEW:  Skyrim.ini settings:
Thanks to a fantastic article by Nvidia I tried messing around with skyrim's configuration or .INI files.
I changed a few graphics performance values.  the first one is for the number of cells shown in full detail.  I increased the default number 5 to 9.  This had significant performance impact of course but to be able to almost double the draw distance is fantastic.  I always found it kind of distracting to see the grass and rocks load in while I was walking.  having this setting to 9 really makes the games look much better.  The second thing I changed was the grass draw distance.  I changed the default 7000 max setting to 21000.  Tripling the maximum distance the game allows.  To my surprise this caused almost no impact on game performance, but the effect is quite nice.

5 Awsome Apps

Ive had my iPhone for a couple weeks now and I've found some awesome apps that I'm going to showcase here.  Some are really common (like camera+) so I will try and focus more on the less known apps.

5.  NHK World Live
I watch the NHK world stream all the time.  NHK is a television network in Japan very similar to CBC here in Canada.  NHK World has all its programs in English and they all focus on Japanese news, culture, and entertainment.  I specifically like the Tokyo Eye, and J-mello programs.  This app simply streams the TV Chanel to your phone.  Its great for wasting time in class, and its free.

4.  Instacast
A great app for listening to podcasts.  you can download or stream them on wi-fi or 3G, and you can change your settings if you don't want the app using your 3G data.  I listen to a lot of podcasts so this app was well worth the .99$

3.  RemoteMouse
This is a pretty fun app.  Its probably most using for people doing presentations and want to use their phone to move to the next slide but its perfectly using just on the desktop.  This app lets you use the phone as a mouse and keyboard for your computer.  You download the app on the phone and computer then connect through wi-fi.  Works pretty well but the 2 finger scrolling doesn't move the page down much on the desktop.  This app has a free and paid version.  The free version works fine, the only thing the paid version adds is the ability to have a full screen touchpad or keyboard.

2.  Tunein Radio
This is a pretty popular app and for good reason.  This app lets you stream radio over the Internet to your phone.  They have a lot of different radio stations, from your basic CBC radio to a bunch of Japanese radio stations that can be fun to listen to.  Works best on a stable wi-fi connection but can be done over 3G too if you have the data for it.

1.  Kotoba
A Japanese dictionary.  It might not be using for everyone but for someone who is studying, or reads a lot of Japanese this is a excellent app.  It works in a lot of ways.  You can type English and get a translation, or just search for words in either language.  But what makes this app really great is the kanji dictionary.  You can search for radicals individually and get a list of which characters contain those radicals.  You can search by JLPT levels, the SKIP pattern, and just by looking up either reading.  This is a really using app for me, and its free.  Its a large app though at about 500MB buts I would rather have all that info there instead of transmitting over data or wi-fi.

My Minecraft City

This is a minecraft project ive been working on for awhile.  I built some of it a long time ago (like beta 1.4) in survival mode and imported it to the new location.  But a lot of the taller buildings were made in creative mode from version 1.0.  I used a map editor to lower the entire map by about 40-50 blocks allowing me to build that many higher, I also used the editor to expand the city to hide all that annoying nature.  The only building that goes to max hight right now is the redish 2 circular tower building.

The first few images will be older ones from an online server I played on for awhile.  A lot of what I built there is not shocased here because it was lost :(
I built the volcano block by block without any plan.  I think it turned out pretty good.  The mansion looked great inside but I dont have any pictures.

And now the Main Project.
Also as a quick note the small white towers on the tops of the buildings are supposed to be antennas, because I built a lot of those before fences could be stacked.

New Tech: Logitech wireless keyboard K250

OK well its not exactly as exciting as an iPhone 4s, but new tech is still fun.  But why would I need a new wireless keyboard when I already have a perfectly good one?  Simple, this one has a num-pad, and function keys.  Also it was only 15$ at walmart (30$ on their website though) and I had to spend my gift card on something.

Its a nice change to go back to larger keys from the "Chiclet" style I had on my old one.  Ive been thinking about getting a mechanical keyboard, maybe Razor's, so this logitech one is a good way to get a feel for larger keys again.

The Keyboard itself is pretty basic.  I have extra function keys on the F1-F12 keys for things like music playback, and browser shortcuts.  Another reason to get this larger keyboard is because while playing starcraft I like to look around the map with the arrow keys, and the tiny uncomfortable position of those keys on the last keyboard was annoying.