All Good Things Must Come to an END…

I caught wind of what I thought was a rumor earlier this week. The rumor that HULU would become a paid to view site by next year was what someone wrote on a random blog. After some quick google searches and reading, it appears this is not a rumor.  After I got over my dissappointment and shock, I read some more about how this will most likely happen.

I really think this guys has some good points. You can read Jeff Bertolucci’s article  from PCWorld here:http://www.pcworld.com/article/174271/5_ways_id_pay_for_hulu.html Jeff articulates in what fasion this proposed HULU paid site might take form. He also highlights each proposal and if it would be something he would be willing to fork out some cash for services rendered.

Sadly it looks like it will happpen this coming year. Exactly how I am not sure but it re-enforces the saying I know all of you have heard at some point in your life – All good things must come to an end…eventually.

Mass Effect

I do not have much time for computer games these days. I do not purchase games like I used to in my youth. In the coming months I will be posting a couple of my personal favorite PC games.  A game that I periodically play that stands out is Mass Effect from BioWare.  Now this game is pretty fun to play.  I would argue that some of the content is pretty violent, and there is some adult situations content, but it is fun as hell.

The sheer amount of choices you are faced with during game play is astounding.  Each choice makes your character take on a different personality, and or limits future choices of weapons and abilities such as the art of persuasion etc. Each choice has the potential to change the game and ultimately the ending. The choices you make also effects the relationships between your character and other characters in the game. In short the replay potential is pretty great.

The lead character, Commander John Shepard must solve a mystery which ends up being a fight for all humanity and alien races against pure evil.  In short with the choices you are faced with, you can either be an ethical person who makes balanced nice person choices or you can be a big jerk.  To highlight the jerk part I am including this vidoe of jerk like Shepard behavior.

Now Mass Effect 2 is coming out soon and this is pretty exciting stuff. It seems like the characters are a little more vivacious than the first one. You can see an example of what I mean here:

Until then, when I have a few moments to kill here and there, I will still enjoy kicking some ass in Mass Effect, using a variety of weapons like the shotgun, special skills and biotics like lifting and hurling enemies against walls before I shoot them

iPhone Camera

Last weekend we were in Charleston and I took some snapshots with my iPhone of all things.  The iPhone camera is not spectacular, but it does the job. Most importantly it is always available. Some people say the best camera, is the one you have with you when you need it.  I find this to be very true as I don’t always carry my big SLR on all my outings. There are some pretty cool applications for the iPhone camera. I prefer the one called “Old Camera” which basically has many settings in various tones of black and white.  For most shots I find the iPhone camera requires you to have a steady hand and plenty of light. Given those two conditions with a dash of interesting subject matter and some luck the photos don’t come out half bad.  I hope you enjoy this selection I picked from some of my Charleston iPhone shots.

Cut, Copy, Paste

Holy crap it actually works! This one function has increased the usefulness of this device ten fold. I can now effectively take over the world with my iPhone.

IPhone 3.0

When I get home tonight I will download 3.0 (if it really is released today). Then we shall see if the iPhone is adult ready. I hope the new upgrade delivers all that was promised. To be honest the main thing I am looking for is the cut, copy, paste function. It better be good

Now Damn You

Just recently I had to shut down a page of my photo-blog. The page which I called the “Photo Roll Project” was a place where I posted pics from my iPhone on the go, giving my viewers a camera view of stuff I spotted throughout the day I found interesting.  At the time I had just purchased a new iPhone and my idea for the “Photo Roll Project” set in motion. That is when I learned that there was no cut and paste functionality built into the iPhone. I post my photos from my Flickr site, so my only option was to type the HTML code in manually.

At first I felt this was not a huge set back. But I quickly realized how much I relied on cut and paste when using mobile devices and that typing in HTML code on the iPhone touch screen sucked.  In the end I had to put the “Photo Roll Project” on hold until Apple gets in gear and puts this new update out there for us to use. I am waiting, fingers tapping, staring enviously at my friends windows mobile device… Each day this iPhone loses its luster no matter how many shiny, ultimately useless apps they put out there to distract me from my real desire – Cut & Paste.

Charles shines a little light on this cut, copy and paste question in his article “Apple shows off iPhone improvements
– including cut, copy and paste”. But I swear if it sucks I am getting another phone. Actually I have been secretly plotting to get an adult phone anyway. If this cut and paste with other said updates blow it would just make the money I would lose purchasing a new phone justifiable.  Check out the article by Charles here:http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/mar/17/iphone-apple-os3-update  

• , Tuesday 17 March 2009 20.11 GMT

A letter to Apple

I am a new iPhone owner. Well I have been for 3 months anyway.  This phone is great and I am not an Apple fan. Anyway, back to the point at hand.  The iPhone is great, but I have one issue with it. I decided to write to Apple and tell them about my one minor problem with their device.  It took a good 15 minutes for me to find the comments section on their website which was cause for some frustration.  I just decided I would like to share my letter to Apple. Maybe some of you agree, who knows.

Dear Apple People,
I love this device! Ok let me say some things for background purposes. I am not a fan of Apple. I am anti-Apple. I will never own a Mac or any other product including iPods etc…I have bought numerous Apple products for my loved ones, iMacs, iPods, and on and on – but I would never ever consider a Mac for myself and never will BUT I decided that after extensive research that the iPhone is something that I could bend the rules for. And I have not been disappointed. This is a great product. I can honestly say that I feel that a two year contract with AT&T is no problem; this device is a joy to use. It has far exceeded my expectations. I would expect nothing less from Apple (even though I don’t use I recognize it is quality stuff Anyway there is one thing that this phone is missing to make it fit for adult use. Sorry for the length here but I have to set it up for context. I have always used windows CE handhelds. And I thought I could trade in my iPaq for the iPhone but sadly I cannot just yet. Why you ask – “cut and paste” – there is no cut and paste on the iPhone. Now you may not feel that this is important but if you search the internet you will see it is in fact important. If I am going to do anything serious like update my webpage, use large amounts of data I don’t want to replicate by hand or grab text from a webpage I bust out my iPaq. Now I ask my kids about the cut and paste issue with the iPhone and they don’t care – why – because they don’t have jobs. They could care less about cut and paste. The iPhone has lots of stuff the kids enjoy, such as an iPod to listen to all their angst filled music, you can watch videos and play goofy app games. So while I love my iPhone, I feel it is not quiet yet ready for adult (grown people) use. It does everything I want except when it comes to work. It’s useless when I want to use it for work for the simple fact I can’t cut and paste. So until you add this one feature I will continue to deploy my adult device the trusty iPaq windows mobile device with the ability to move mountains of text with the click of a stylus. But I will wait patiently (you have 2 years) to retire my iPaq. I am sad to say if it’s not on the iPhone at the end of my contract I will have to get an adult phone. But I am hoping and yes maybe even praying a little that you do add this feature. You guys can figure anything out, your Apple so come on – do it – do it now. It’s really getting old carrying around two devices when clearly one is so much cooler than the other except for one tiny but very important feature.  Regards – John New fan (pending two year contract and cut and paste)