Technoreply

The need for computer gaming keyboards

Jevin — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 18:35:00 +0000

It is difficult to imagine a world without gaming keyboards. Yet it was the case, only some years back. Today, enter any decent computer shop and you are sure to stumble on those glossy keyboard boxes that will undeniably attract your eyes. But these cost a lot more than traditional keyboards, and choosing the wrong is the last thing you’d want to do.

Logitech G15

If you are on the market for a gaming keyboard, chances are that you’ve seen the Logitech G15. This is the reference in gaming keyboards for it was the first to have been commercially successful. The Logitech comes with loads of options, to name a few:

LCD screen
Ability to create hotkeys
Ability to create macros
Option to deactivate the Windows key

The last option really goes to show how much good work Logitech has put into that G15. As a gamer, you would surely know how irritating it is to press the Windows key accidentally in the middle of a game.

The LCD screen can be very useful for gamers. It can be customized to show lots of different info. From CPU/Memory usage to current playing track, without forgetting your HP. This keyboard is sure to please the inner geek in you.

Razer Lycosa

The Razer Lycosa is another good gaming keyboard. The design, coupled with the magnificent blue backlight, makes it look like it came from outer space. When you are face to face with this keyboard, you know its true gaming material. Among its options, we have:

Non-slip rubber keys
Ability to create macros
10 customizable profiles
Hyperesponse technology

The Hyperesponse technology is sure to bring a smile on your face during intense gaming. This orders the keys to react faster to your movements. Couple this with some macros, and you are sure to have a nice time gaming.

The first thing buyers will notice about the Lycosa, is the lack of an LCD display. While I feel the LCD is a handy tool, I must admit that the philosophy behind the two keyboards are not the same. If you want good all-round computer gaming keyboard, then the G15 has to be your pick. But for some serious gaming, I’d have to go with the Lycosa.

Please Rob Me dot Com

Morinn — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 06:11:09 +0000

All too often, people don’t realise the danger of posting details about their planned holidays away from home on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter or on their blogs. Giving details on when and how long your holidays are scheduled or where you are going, exposes your house to robberies.

To sensitize people on this matter, in a very unorthodox way, Forthehack has created Please Rob Me. Please Rob Me basically tracks and lists down information that people post on social networking sites about their leave from home.

Though Please Rob Me’s practice is quite unethical, at the bottom of it all, it serves to make people realise the trouble they are putting themselves into by unveiling their privacy on the web.

Haloscan will be obsolete as from February 19 2010

Morinn — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:32:53 +0000

JS-Kit’s Haloscan is being shut down on the 19th of February, this year. This is what the team from Haloscan announced today in a mail to registered members:

The Haloscan hardware and software is physically failing and we have no choice but to discontinue the service.

Haloscan users now have the choice to either switch to Echo, another JS-Kit project or export their comments freely from Haloscan to their original blog host’s commenting system.

For several years Haloscan has been a good alternative to bloggers (especially those using Google’s Blogger) looking for a better and more rapid solution to their blog’s original commenting system. Now that Blogger has implemented some changes to its commenting system and that JS-Kit has developed Echo, a better performing system, that amongst others, integrates with Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo accounts, Haloscan has become quite obsolete.

The VAIO goes all flashy

Jevin — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 08:42:49 +0000

Sony just announced the new E Series VAIO. Big surprise concerning the laptop, its physical appearance and its price tag. Indeed, the new E Series will come in a series of flashy colors to choose from. Sony states “Caribbean Green, Iridescent Blue, Hibiscus Pink and Lava Black”. Moreover, flashy keyboard skins and mouse covers are available too.

The best thing yet is the price. The laptops start at a little less than $800. This is bargain price if you ask me. The keyboard skins and mouse covers are at around $20 and $5 respectively.

And if you are still not persuaded, don’t forget that this laptop comes with the latest processor from Intel, the Core i5.

Right now, the laptop is available on pre-order only. And if you have a Sony Financial Services card, you will enjoy 12 months of free interest. Now isn’t that a deal?

Google shows IE6 the door

Jevin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:18:22 +0000

I have seen several attempts, in the past, to dissuade people from using IE6. All in vain, though. But this time, Google is trying to show IE6 the door. Let’s be honest about IE6 for a while. This browser has done its time and has had its share of glory, but it really needs to let go. All the HTML, Javascript and CSS incompatibilities are there to sate one thing… “IE6 has done its time”.

So now, just some hours ago, Google has announced that it will no longer support IE6. Their message is clear, IE6 is preventing them from moving on and adding new features to their products. They state:

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

This is a real hit towards IE6. Personally, I really like the way things are going. It’s about time some giant organisation attacked IE6.

What are your views about this? Do you think Google is going too far?

Is this the end of Wikileaks?

Morinn — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:40:55 +0000

Since December 24th 2009, Wikileaks, a website that allows the publishing of anonymous user uploads, has ceased all operations, with the exception of allowing users to upload contents on the website. The reason given for this is the lack of fund amassed from the past year. According to a statement on Wikileak’s homepage, “we have raised just over $130,000 for this year but can not meaningfully continue operations until costs are covered. These amount to just under $200,000 PA. If staff are paid, our yearly budget is $600,000.”

Wikileaks is thus asking for donations from visitors and users for it to be able to break even and continue operating.

The website which has contents that generally take the form of leaks of sensitive governmental, corporate, organizational, or religious documents, has promised the release of important documents once it has gathered enough fund to resume operation.

No date has yet been given as to when Wikileaks will resume operation but it seems that funds are not flowing that much. It has also had issues with its Paypal donation account several times which have now been solved.

Since its beginning in late 2006, Wikileaks has given rise to much a buzz around itself, featuring on many newspapers and inspiring much political reforms. Though the website has been much criticised, it remains an important asset on the web, one that could deserve being saved.

Nokia brings augmented reality to life

Jevin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:18:23 +0000

Point and find poster from Nokia Conversations

It’s just out, Nokia will be trying out augmented reality as a pilot project in Colchester in England.

This project has been made possible thanks to a collaboration between the mobile phone giant and JC Decaux, a leading worldwide advertising company. To be part of this project, users need to download and install Nokia’s Point & Find by texting “HERE” to 81066.

The system is pretty intuitive too. Just point your camera on an advertissement and you will be shown all the relevant information available from the Nokia Point & Find database.

If the pilot is a success, this will mean Point & Find can make it to your own town. All good news, let’s wait and see.

For the impatient, here is the list of officially compatible Nokia phones:
Nokia N97, N96, N95 8GB, N95,N86 8MP, N85, N82, N81, N81 8GB, N79, N78, N76, E71, E66, E63, E51, 6720, 6290, 6220, 6210 Navigator, 6124 Classic 6121 Classic, 6120 Classic, 6110 Navigator, 5700 Xpress Music, 5800

You will find more information on the official Nokia blog entry.

TJ Creamer is the first to tweet from outer space

Morinn — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 17:03:14 +0000

Makes you think that everything is now possible… sort of. Friday 22nd of January 2010 will go down in Twitter’s history as the day when the first tweet was made from outer space. The author of the Tweet is NASA astronaut TJ Creamer and here is what he tweeted:

Hello Twitterverse! We r now LIVE tweeting from the International Space Station — the 1st live tweet from Space! : ) More soon, send your ?s

This first live tweet from space was made possible due to a major software upgrade by NASA that was carried out during this past week. Astronauts working on the International Space Station now have direct access to the Web via a wireless internet connection. Prior to this, they had to email down their tweets to Earth and those were posted to their Twitter accounts by Earth-based staffs. Those were obviously not live tweets.

Astronauts assigned to the International Space Station previously had access to emails, video conferencing and Protocol phone calls, they can now add surfing the web to that list. However it is to be pointed out that they are expected to respect the same Internet use policies that are imposed on other government employees.

Comparison of the major types of memory cards

Jevin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:43:00 +0000

It’s ridiculously easy, these days, to get lost among the different types of memory cards on the market. All new phones come with a memory card slot and each have their own compatibility issues.

There are 6 major types of memory cards that you should know about: SD, miniSD, microSD, SDHC, miniSDHC and microSDHC.

SD cards

SD (Secure Digital) cards were among the first cheap memory cards to be sold. They were released in 1999 and are now becoming obsolete. This card can hold a maximum of 2GiB.

MiniSD cards

MiniSD cards came right after the SD card. For the 2 years after its release, it was the most popular memory card. The must have among geeks. These cards had the same maximum capacity as the SD cards.

MicroSD cards

When the first microSD card was released, it was a real revolution. For its 11 mm x 15 mm size could hold 4 GiB of data. These cards proved to be conveniently sized for phones, which were getting thinner and thinner at that time.

SDHC cards

The SDHC card looks exactly the same as the SD cards. But their capacity are in two leagues, since the SDHC card can hold up to 64 GiB of data. This is an enormous amount considering the size of the card. SDHC also has faster speeds of transfer.

MiniSDHC cards

The miniSDHC cards can hold up to 32 GiB of data. They share the same dimensions with miniSD cards, but offer faster speeds of transfer.

MicroSDHC cards

MicroSDHC cards are similar to microSD cards physically. MicroSDHC cards can hold much more data and have faster transfer speeds. These cards can hold a maximum of 32 GiB of data.

Additional advice

You should note that while SDHC and SD cards share the same size, devices supporting SD cards do not necessarily support SDHC cards. However, devices supporting SDHC cards do support SD cards.

Sometimes, microSD cards are sold with a miniSD or SD skeleton. This means that you can plug the microSD in a slot in the bigger card. Be aware that it is not 2 separate cards.

Memory cards are fragile, never buy them second hand. They are very cheap commodities, so buying a new one will be more profitable.

Be aware that there are a lot of memory card imitations sold. Buy from a trusted buyer.

When did you join Twitter?

Morinn — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:55:21 +0000

“When did I join Twitter?” That’s a question that you might not be asking yourself often but when you do, you often find that the answer is not so easy to find, mostly because Twitter itself does not show you the age of your account. But there’s a way to go about this… and it’s rightly called When Did You Join Twitter?

When Did You Join Twitter is pretty simple to use. You only have to correctly type you Twitter username and the age of your account is given to you. You will get to find the date on which you created your Twitter account and it will also specify the age of your account in terms of days! You can also tweet the result directly from the page.

When Did You Join Twitter is a project by Neville Ridley-Smith, an Australian coder who is the creator of yet another Twitter-related webpage, How Often Do You Tweet which gives you the frequency of your tweets in terms of time lapse and average number.

When Did You Join Twitter and How Often Do You Tweet are arguably two not very essential services but they sure provide some answers to the inquisitive “twitter”.

Images: screenshots of Whendidyoujointwitter.com and Howoftendoyoutweet.com