Completed Gears of War

The first game I completed on my xbox360 and it is one of the best games i’ve played. The gameplay is unique but once you get practice its awesome !! The background music is kick ass, graphics are phenomenal (back when it was released). I usually leave games unfinished but I completed this one because it kept me involved and entertained. Gears of war 2 has been released and considering how good this game was I am definitely going to try it out.

iPod Shuffle on Ubuntu with Banshee

My girlfriend got me an iPod shuffle on valentine’s day and I did not want to use iTunes (or windows for that matter) for managing it. I am running Ubuntu and use Banshee as my music manager. So I updated to the latest version of Banshee and plugged in my iPod, it was recognized instantly by Ubuntu and Banshee. The iPod status bar is like  iTunes and the rest of the interface is Banshee (example of copying what works well and still keeping its own identity).  Below is a screenshot :

XBOX 360 for christmas !!

My girlfriend got me a XBOX360 Pro for christmas and as if that wasn’t enough she even got me NHL 09 !!! The console already came bundled with Kung Fu Panda (surprisingly fun), Indiana Jones (meh), Halo 3 (AWESOME) and Stranglehold (ok) .. Got a good deal on Boxing day and bought Gears of War and Forza Motorsport 2 ..

Hooked it up to my LG 204WT running at 1680 x 1050 using the Microsoft VGA cable , looks great ..

Creative Gigaworks T20 speakers

I was looking for a replacement for my Altec Lansing 4.1 speaker system because it was too big, too many wires and no headphone jack in the front .. Usually you would want a dedicated subwoofer for the bass but that just adds to the bulk and I wanted something that was portable without sacrificing sound quality ..

After doing some research two names came up often, Creative Gigaworks T20 and Klipsch .. These are 2.0 speaker systems with some serious sound quality for under $100. The T20 had more favourable reviews and came with aux-in and headphone jacks on the front . The best price I could find was $85 but then I saw them on sale for $65 at FutureShop and said to myself “WOW great deal I am gonna pick them up asap” .. On my way to FutureShop I just decided to check how much they were selling for at Best Buy and to my surprise they were selling for $135 !!! Well what a great Pricematch opportunity .. Went to BestBuy with the FutureShop flyer and got the speakers for $58. Great price for quality 2.0 speakers and they are LOUD !! Sometimes size does not matter …

Apple iPhone Software Kit

I wasn’t feeling too good at home with a very sore throat and eating antibiotics. But then Miro emailed me a link for apple’s event of iPhone enhancements, I didn’t watch all of it but from what I saw it looks very promising.

• iPhone now hooks up directly with Exchange server using Active Sync. No need for a third party server like Blackberry Enterprise Server. Less dependence on third party servers means better reliability, security and management (remember blackberry blackouts last year).

• And a SDK for building native iPhone application. You have to watch some of the sample applications they created. Great stuff !!

For all the details watch this video.

Smart move by Toshiba

They saw it coming and bailed out before it got any worse, unlike Sony that hung on to its Betamax and MiniDisc for way too long. No inflated egos at Toshiba.

This will definitely help PS3 sales because HD-DVD on the Xbox360 is not a factor anymore. I wonder if Microsoft will use Blu-Ray in the successor to Xbox360.

No iPod for me ..

Its nothing to be sad about. I was looking to buy an iPod shuffle or nano but decided not to. I didn’t like the idea of carrying an additional piece of hardware with me, so instead I turned my Nokia 6300 into my mp3 player. All I needed was a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter, earbud headphones (Panasonic RP-HJE300 for $20 off eBay) and a microSD card ($20 for 2GB here). So for less than $50 I have my mp3 player and its surprisingly good . Granted the audio quality wont be as good as an iPod (I am not an audiophile so it doesn’t matter much), neither can I watch high resolution videos (I don’t plan on watching videos on my phone, besides I think even the nano is too small to watch videos).