[tech junkie]

GTA for the iPhone

It was inevitable. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars was released earlier this week for the iPhone. The was ported from the Nintendo DS and PSP version by the Rockstar Games folk on Leeds. Although I haven't played the other two versions, the game is apparently almost identical. It is available from the iTunes store for £5.99 and carries a mature/17 rating for the swearing, sex and violence that is necessary in any GTA game. My only notable experience with GTA in the past was with GTA IV o...

Commodore 64 emulator for the iPhone

[Rating:7/10] After some initial hiccups with getting (and keeping) the application in the iTunes App Store, Manomio are back with C64 (iTunes link) and 8 free games. At first you may find yourself questioning your sanity, but after dropping £2.99 in the iTunes store and playing one of the old classics, you'll be pulled right back to you gaming roots. Now maybe it was just because I was stuck on a two hour flight and had nothing else to do after I had finished reading my Stuff Magazine,...

Plex and the ultimate media center setup

[Rating:10/10] I've been using XBMC on my old Xbox as a media center for a few years now and it has served me well. In fact, it is still serving me well, but it doesn't have the horsepower to get HD content onto my TV. It also doesn't have some of the features that I'm after in a media center. Some time ago I started playing with the free app Plex (Plex was born out of XBMC) on my iMac at home and I was very impressed with what it could do. The only problem was that my iMac was nowhere nea...

Protect your iPhone

[Rating:9/10] I've never really been a fan of cell phone covers or cases. Usually because you end up compromising on the functionality of your device or you end up doubling its size. My 2G iPhone ended up looking like a expensive German bathroom fitting that had been attacked by a child with an angle grinder. Not a pretty site, but I never saw a cover that appealed to me. Mind you, I wasn't really trying very hard to find one. I was determined not to let my shiny new iPhone 3GS suffer the ...

Borderlands – conquer it with your friends

[Rating:7/10] I'm still not sure about Borderlands. I can't really fault the game. The graphics are great, it makes me laugh and it's built from the ground up for online co-op. It walks a fine line between a FPS and RPG, probably my two favorite genres, but there still just seems to be something missing. I'm probably only about 25% of the way through the game, almost all of which has been done with at least one buddy in co-op, but I haven't had that, "I must lock myself in the house and play ...

Watch classic movies for free

I thought this was pretty awesome when I stumbled upon it a few days ago. What the site has done is provide a smart interface to a library of classic movies that no longer have any copyright issues and are available on Google Video. You can search for specific titles or browse through a genre. The old school movie posters are a laugh and they feature a different set of movies based on the time of year or season. So whether you're in the mood for some classic animation or some really ba...

Macheist warming up

Macheist sounded their early warning system a few days ago. Claiming to have detected abnormal cosmic radiation levels. It seems that the countdown has begun. Navigating to correct galactic co-ordinates and sending out a solar tweet results in you getting a license for the disk visualisation application Daisy Disk worth $20. I participated in the previous Macheist and scored a boot load of applications for $39 (retail value of apps was around $558). The concept gains momentum every year a...

International Domain Names Are Coming in 2010

This really is quite big. For the first time people other than those that use the 26 letter english alphabet will be able to use a character set they are used to on a keyboard they are used to. DNS servers all over the world will need to be patched or updated to handle all of these characters, so I suspect there will be some migration and adoption pain, but in the end it will be good for everyone. The short video from the Mashable article below lays it out pretty well. The face of the Interne...

Kindle vs Nook (vs iSlate)

A few lucky early adopters have already received the Kindles down here in deepest darkest Africa, but as much as I want to get my hands on an ebook reader immediately, I'm going to try to fight the urge until there a few more killer devices available locally. The Barnes & Noble Nook was recently announced and will be available soon in the USA, but no word yet on availability internationally. I'm pretty sure that they will want to distribute the device as far and wide as possible, especially if t...