Technology

Some cool things happening in my tech world:


1. Having an iPhone.

I needed a phone, I needed an MP3 player, I needed a reliable and small camera, and I found out soon after it that having a computer that fits into your pocket isn't so bad, either. I also have access to remote posting for blogger, facebook, gmail, and twitter. This means I get to update as I'm out and about. No more rushing from computer to computer to check my email.

2. FIFA 10 and PES 2010 making their best iterations yet.

I have played both the FIFA 10 and the PES 2010 Xbox 360 demos. While, I have been a long term fifa fan, over the last few years I have been getting both games, and despite grumblings from the PES fans, I think they are improving, though at a slower rate than fifa. PES looks spectacular this year, though it has as always a few niggly problems - the major one being the controls. FIFA bizarrely seems to get it right with the controls, yet lacks something that PES has. In short, one needs to buy both, because both are really fun. However, I will review them in depth later.

3. Getting a wireless network.

I have hooked up two laptops, an xbox, and two iphones to my wireless network. This means that all of my technology can speak to each other. It also means that each can access my harddrive and all my media files and documents for editing and saving.

4. Streaming from my computer to the Xbox.

This was my original impetus to do a 2 month tech upgrade of my hardware. Plugging in laptops to tvs, is a fiddly and potentially damaging (to the TV) episode. However with Windows Media Centre, you can open it up on your PC and on your Xbox, streaming anything from any nominated drive on your harddrive. This means for me that 95% of my CDs (copy protection) and all of my Itunes (converted to MP3 as I get them), and other media files are immediately playable through my primary media outlet. I have a 1TB harddrive, so as I get movies, and other files, I will be able to stream them directly.

5. Cheap games.

Go to Dungeon Crawl. Scary name, nerdy place. However, I recently upgraded my games collection with Fallout 3, Fable 2, and Unreal Tournament 3 for 170 dollars. This is about 100 dollars cheaper than what I could have done otherwise.


6. Integrated blogger, facebook, rss feeds, twitter, youtube.

Essentially I am attempting to use 4 sites instead of the world of internet options out there. If I can get RSS to feed me the news I need, it saves me hunting it down myself. I currently have most national and international news feeds that I need through RSS and integrated cross-feeds.