Archive for the ‘Geeking’ Category
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Ready Player One [Book]
Book Title: Ready Player One
Author: Ernest Cline
Genre: Fiction
Target Audience: Children of the 80′s and technology buffs.
Pages: 372 PagesTime To Review (TTR): 122 Pages
Book Intro/Preface: Ready Player One takes place in the not-too-distant future where our protagonist, Wade Watts, is in search of an ‘Easter egg’ which could reward him a late billionaire’s estate. This all happens within a virtual world called the OASIS, which has become nearly a complete replacement for the shambled and distraught real world. Every man, woman and child wants to find the egg, but it will only be rewarded to those able to solve the late billionaires obscure riddles and mazes within the game itself.
Reading difficulty: The book uses a very simple and easy-to-read tone, and contain a lot of in depth or layered context. However, it does revolve around a lot of 80′s trivia and references, which can be lost on those unfamiliar with the decade.
Character Development: Ernest does a fantastic job developing the characters attributes, as well as personalities. Given that much of story takes place in a virtual world, he has taken the liberty to indulge the reader with details of the outfits chosen by the characters to actively attribute to their personalities in a way that is near impossible outside of the game. A large part of the opening chapters is building up the characters, which in connection with the setting puts the reader into the right set of mind to imagine the story line.
Setting: The setting of the story, both in the real world as well in the OASIS, are clearly laid out and described in detail by the author. The minute details given can easily be seen by the reader as our main character, Wade, lives in the contrast of the two worlds. This provides a thriving atmosphere for the story to flourish, and the reader to connect and empathize with the characters living in this environment.
Plot Advancement: The plot and story is wonderful. The story does advance quite slowly compared to main story of similar length, however given the situation and ‘set up’ needed for the rest of the novel to work it is absolutely excusable. The Prologue more than serves it’s purpose and I feel it is absolutely needed for the story to make any sense.
Originality: Though there are an ample number of books that can place in a distraught future, none I’ve read involve so much reference to pop culture of yesteryear. This makes it more enjoyable then the typical ‘the future will suck’ stories.
Wasted Time: About 20 Pages. I love details, but some of the details that went into the setting seems (at least at this point) a little much and weren’t needed to contribute.
Hooked Time: The remaining 102 pages read. It’s a great read, I just needed to get over the ‘is he still going on about this?’ part, and get back to the story.
Pros: It’s an easy read; believable; relatable; in-a-sense, desirable.
WOW-factor(s): I love the 80′s, and I love virtual realities. The combinations of the two would be put me into a blissful coma if they truly exists.Can-be-Improved: Cut down on the initial details of the setting and focus more on the virtual reality. It’s easier to imagine a ruined trailer park (they exist), but putting more description about a about a virtual reality system good enough to replace real life? That could use a little more attention.
Continue/End Book: Hell Yes!
If yes, how long to continue? Until I’m out of quarters.
Rating: 5 = Go buy this book.Summation: I’m loving this story, it’s right up my ally. Any book involving the future and technology that makes me want to squeal like a little girl at the though of having some thing that cool is a book I’ll read. My only fear is when I’m done the novel, I’m done. I’d like to see the author put more stories inside the OASIS. I’ll definitely be passing this along to a friend to read when I’m done.
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Google I/O Keynotes: Day 2
*Edit: For some reason or another, I never ended up posting this. Sorry folks*
day 2
Some Quick facts were given about Android to set up the love. Android has been around for 18 months, and is up to 100k new activations around the world a day
Android devices cound for the #2 highest selling smartphones in the United States. This is second only to RIM (B;ackberry). That’s Right, Android > iPhone.. Though #2 in sales, it is the leading platform used for web access by more than 30%.
At the time of this post, there is also more than 50k apps on the Android market. At the increase rate the past few months, it will surpass Apple before the year is out.
And then comes FROYO!
This release will have JIT integrated, making it 2x to 3x faster than 2.1
Google has also improved dramatically on how you transfer from your computer. This means a new ‘Browser to phone intent’, not just push using cloud computing with your Google account. This means you send it from your PC with 1 click Iinstead of then getting an address to go to on yourr phone, it will load whatever you send, as it was on your PC. For example, google maps on the PC will automatically load the map on your phone using Navigator. The speaker made a great shot at iphones having to sync with itunes here
Turning your Android device into a portable hotspot and tethering will also be built in when Froyo is released. This will prove intersting as many carriers frown upon, or even lie to customers, about the current tethering abilities.
To solve the memory issue when having tons of apps, Froyo will have the ability to save apps to SD card. The System can automatically determine based on space left on phone, or you can move apps manually.
The Android market will also get some new tricks. Froyo will give you an ‘update all’ option for installed apps, and an ‘auto update’; allowing a Set it and forget it mindset.
Starting. With Froyo, the market will also be viewable on your PC. You’ll be able to use the ‘magic of the internet’ and android intents to start the download on the phone, from your PC aswell. Time to ditch some cords.
The marketplace will also see a new music category. In addition, plugins are developed to let you stream you PC library to your phone using the cloud, which will up space on the SD card.
GOOGLE TV
- Released Fall 2010
- Marketplace OTA Summer 2011
- Open Source Fall 2011
- Will run on Android, have google chrome and full 10.1 flash
- Will be able to access the Android market, and run mobile apps (not device dependant). Coming Summer 2011
-Will be an open platform. Android and Chrome trees to become open source in fall 2011
– Redid listen App, now works with pod casts, video casts and subscribed channels on GTV
- Merged TV Closed Captaion and google Translate for over 14 languages instantly
- Integrated Speech top TV searching and communicating Via Android device
- Android device works as remote control
- Wifi, HDMI and Intel atom inside
- Search Bar searchs TV, Apps, Web, Listen and other streaming forms (fox, hulu, amazon)
- Has a suggested Viewing option, recommended shows on TV, and those on teh web based on what you’ve watched
Integrated netflicks
Available at Best Buy
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Google I/O Keynotes: Day 1
The following is my review/keypoints from the Google Keynotes this year. Some will be brief, some more expanded.
Day 1Most of Day 1 spoke about HTML 5, the advancements that it is making and what can be done with it. A few nice examples were given, such as a clickable TV.
The WEBM Project was also discussed in length. The idea behind this is to have an open source video codec (vp8) so that there is an industry standard, instead of every program and OS having it’s own. Goodle invested $125 million towards this project.
Sports illustrated is on board with this open source idea, and had a presentation of how it plans to use HTML 5 and vp8 to make their magazines interactive online. However, the CEO made a comment about it being good, so can be marketed. In my opinion, I feel he fails to see th real reason behind Open source, and just that it’s new, shiny and trendy. However, he’s also old so he’s not important.
Google Wave has also granduated out of Beta, is available to everybody without a beta invite and was also made available to Google Apps, which is fantastic.
The biggest annoucement of the day was the Google Chrome Web App Store. In short: It’s the Android Market Place for Web Apps. This is sensational, and I saw it coming once they introduced the product store for Google Apps a few months ago.
This is big news, because it will allow the millions upon millions of web apps and web games to be categorized, marketed and more importantly found by users. I can’t wait until this is released to the public, or I can find my way into a beta.
With all the web apps being developed, VM Ware discussed management tools for them. Unfortunately, yours truely had to run for work during the later half of this presentation.
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TRON Hoodie
I don’t know about you, but I don’t really care if sky blue is my color or not, this TRON Hoodie would be the coolest thing to wear (and it glows in the dark!)Feel free to buy it for me. You know, only if you really love me…or something like that. Hell. I’ll let you buy it for me even if you hate me. We can have a love-hate-purchase relationship.
[via Gizmodo via Threadless via TheDailyWhat via DVICE]
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Christmas Clothing
With the holidays now coming to a close, I’m sure many of you are cleaning out your closets to make room for the snazy (or fugly as it often is) new clothing that friends and family bought you this year. I know myself I got a pretty good selection this year…and a bunch of socks. I think I’ve been wearing this hoodie the most lately, love the style of it.
But like every year, you know there are some cool things you see that you just don’t get. For instance, lets start with these Freehands gloves. What makes these different from other gloves on the market is that both the pointer and thumb part of the gloves can be easily folded down. This is a great idea allowing those that need to use their fingers for things like texting and typing while outside this winter. No more need to take off the gloves (or type with your nose!). I’ll be getting a pair of these myself, they look fantastic. How about you?But now with warm hands you need a warm head. How about throwing some top secret tunes in there as well with the Headphone beanie from ThinkGeek. What’s cooler than being able to listen to music at work? Tricking people into thinking you can hear them of course.
And last, but surely not least, you have your jacket. I’d suggest a jacket from Ardica [Via Gizmodo]. Not only do they come with built in heaters, but they can also charge your electronics while you wear it. What better way to stay warm while waiting outside the movie theater for the next superhero film right?
So that’s my quick winter recap. So what did you guys get for Christmas this year? Let me know in the comments below.
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'cause Webnotes stick on me!
Now with invites and annotations!
Ever wish that you could have a cheat sheet for a webpage? Get through all that useless junk that the author wrote? I’m sure that most of my readers do. And thus comes Webnotes.
Webnotes is a new web-working tool designed at letting users add annotations and highlighting to websites. They combine two of my personal favorite things: Post-it notes and websites, it was just a matter of time. The utility is easy to use, just install the toolbar (Firefox plug-in FTW) and you’re set. There is a button to create a sticky note, button to highlight text and a button to share what you’ve done. It’s that easy.
Once you have that done, it’s easy to place sticky notes around. I know I’m going to have the bad habit of putting them on every site I visit (I have 29 of them in sight right now around my desk offline, yikes!). The good use for this is that you’ll be able to see a site, put your options on it then send it to your friend so they can see it how you see it. Here, check out I R Blogging with some annotations I put in (I may have put a few too many…).
Some uses for this that I came up with:
- Looking at somebody’s website and giving them pointers.
- Studying notes and highlighting the parts that would be important.
- Adding reminders for the next time you visit the site (like checking out a certain link that you know will be a time-sink)
- Being used as a bookmark when going through archives.
The only thing I can think of right now that this is missing is a social aspect of this. For example, if I could make my notes, send it to a friend then have them add some of their notes and send it back to me (displaying both sets of annotations) it would make it a great collaboration tool. Also, being able to select the color of sticky note would be pretty cool as well.
I was lucky enough to get my hands on a few invites (Thanks Ryan!), so for those of you interested in some just leave a comment to this post. Be sure to include your email address when filling out the comment form, I’ll be using it to know where to send it.
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Referral Risk x2
Readers, I need your help to rule the world!
I’ve spent the past…god knows how long setting some SEO stuff up and retagging some things. Along the way I came across and older post from years ago called Troops, Fall In with a link to referral risk on it. This was cool, so it’s coming back.
What can you do? Click somewhere on the map below, it will conquer the part of the map on behalf of I R Blogging. Click a lot of you really love us. Those who help out leave a comment so I can send you your purple heart.
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Firef.ly
Firef.ly is a new service currently in beta created by Betaworks that turns any of your sites into a chat room. Before you say that you’ve seen this before listen here: There is no downloads. That’s right, two lines of code thrown into the footer of my coding (totally painless) and my site has now become it’s own chat room.
If you have a look at the bottom right of your screen, you should see a floating box with # Here, # Chatting, Start Chatting. Click start and the screen gets sort of an ‘overlay’ thing going. You can still scroll and look at whatever is on the site, but you can also move your mouse around and start typing. Where ever you type, it will create a little chat bubble that anybody else on the site can see.
Some of the extra features that look to be put in are the choice of pre-loaded cursors (because arrows are boring) and what looks to be the option to use an image of your own choosing (that doesn’t seem to work yet or I can’t figure out). There is also a twitter option to have certain parts of the convo go to twitter (again can’t get it to work). What IS working though is the time line feature. this allows you to scroll along the site’s time line and check out conversations from the past, which are conveniently marked with little white lines, turning the chat room into a nice form of bulletin board as well.
I really hope this service lasts, it seems to hold a lot of promise.
What they really need now is to get a forum/blog going so we have some way to help them perfect this. They do have a blog, and it’s even listed at the bottom of the main page, I’m a tard. Thanks Andy. Anyway, check it out because it’s awesome. Remember to leave a message there when you check it out, I’ll be sure to see it.
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Mix Turtle
Mix Turtle is everything I want in a music site: Music. You can search for a song, artist or album and it will bring up a list and let you listen to them without any need to download. It also supports playlists. Oh, and it has a big turtle smoking an undefined substance with green smoke coming off it. Need I say more?
I <3 Mix Turtle
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Habithack: Sandy
I recently stumbled upon a great service called Sandy. Sandy is your own personal assistant, without the need to actually pay her. The system is fairly simple, send an email to Sandy (you’ll get the address to send it to when you sign up) and say something like “Remember Mags can’t eat tomatoes” or “Remember that Del is a newb” and she’ll remember it for you. At the end of the week, she’ll send you a list of things you told her to remember. You can also use the remind feature (I love this) where you say something like “Remind me tomorrow at 8:00 to watch reaper” or “Remind me a week from now to tell Cheryl I lost” and she’ll tell you 15 minutes before the time of the reminder through email or sms.
The service is pretty neat, though not sure how useful it truly is. It’s fun to think you’re telling somebody to remember stuff, but for the most part it’s just as easy to set up a reminder to yourself about stuff like this. It’s still totally fun none the less and makes you feel important though, I’m just waiting for the ‘bring me coffee’ function.
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