Yup! The title says it all! HP is having a competition for the bloggers who were invited to the HP TouchSmart Blogger’s Event last month. The unique twist of this competition is that 2 HP TouchSmart IQ500 PLUS PCs worth $1999 each are up for grabs, one for the blogger and one for the READER .
Here’s how the competition goes:
What will your life be like
with a HP TouchSmart?
All you have to do is leave a comment answering the above question as creative and innovative-ly as you can. HP will read through the comments of participating blogs and the reader who left the most interesting comment and the blog it is hosted on will be the winners. In other words, if YOU left a comment here and YOUR comment was selected as a winner, both you and I will win HP TouchSmart PCs!
Deadline: 12 July 2008 (00:00:00)
Time is running out so do comment before 12 July 2008 if you wish to participate. I understand that it is hard to imagine how life would be like with a HP TouchSmart PC as even I myself don’t own one. Hence I’ve put together some videos and articles that is sort of like my “Dummy’s Guide to the HP TouchSmart PC” to help you understand the coolest things about it in the shortest amount of time.
Witness the power of “TOUCHING”:
Demo showing some cool features:
Found this cool ad introducing the HP TouchSmart. Doesn’t say much about the PC but putting it here for fun!
Alright! So that’s about it for my “Dummy’s Guide”. Hope it helps and happy coming up with creative and wild comments! ^_~
Before I sign off, some basic rules & regulations: * Only Singaporean based bloggers and readers are entitled to participate in the competition
* Collection of prizes by bloggers only (Bloggers to receive prize on behalf of readers).
* Bloggers need to ensure that all the comments are time-stamped. For different/duplicate ideas on different blogs, the earliest one will be selected.
So yea, don’t forget to leave your e-mail address when you comment so I can contact you if your comment won ^__^
Hey guys! I will be starting a series that will be posted every Wednesday of the week. Why Wednesday you may ask? That’s because it is the middle of the week and is probably when everyone is most stressed out and busy with work. Just thought it would be good to share the fun stuff I view to take my mind off serious things and hopefully put a smile on my reader’s faces ^__^.
Here’s the very first of the series which is a clip from The Daily Show by Jon Stewart where he makes fun of a REAL news report about a serial killer by Fox News that went very wrong. Enjoy!
Bet all the guys would love to work as a cameraman for Fox News
Honestly having owned a Dopod 818 Pro for 2 years, there isn’t that many ways you get to woo your friends with your PDA other than everyone going “COOL phone”(from its physical appearance) or “Wow! You have Windows on your phone”. Sadly, it all ends there. It isn’t enough to convince them that owning a PDA is cool unless of course the person you’re showing it to is a true techy who’d be imagining all the hacks he could do if he owned one. I decided that there must be something cool out there that would make even laymen understand how cool a PDA is. So… I spent 2 days hacking my PDA and one of the biggest change which “wow”ed a lot of people is the interface!
No, I did not get an iPhoney interface because it isn’t really a skin. To those of you who are curious, there are 2 versions of the iPhone interface for Windows Mobile.
1) Just the surface
This version is actually more of just an application “layer” with a look-alike of the iphone screen. The buttons load the appropriate Windows Mobile applications when pressed on but the huge problem is when you do that, the interface is gone and you’re back to plain old Windows-looking app. In other words, you only have a “layer” on top of Windows Mobile and the interface is not integrated with any of your apps. Kills the excitement. However if you still want this skin, you can get it here along with instructions.
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2) Integrated iPhone skin
There is however a version of the iPhone skin here that integrates with Windows Mobile applications including cool stuff like sliding contacts, missed call and message notifications but it requires a LOT and a LOT and a LOT of hard work. I gave up half way through because I couldn’t get most of the files needed and things were getting complicated.
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3) PointUI Home
After many hours of tweaking and disappointment, I decided to abandon the iPhoney journey. Decided to find NORMAL Windows Mobile skins that would just make my PDA look cool and voila! I came across the fantastic PointUI which beats even the iPhone skin! (And a lot easier to install too!). Don’t believe it’s cool? See for yourself
The demo is using v0.92 but I’m using v1.5 which has a waaay more sleek and sexy interface now:
Ok! So since I got this fully up and running as the “default” skin on my PDA, I’m going to post up the easy steps on how you can have this on your PDA as well here:
1. Download the .cab file from here
2. Transfer into PDA and run .cab file
3. PointUI is now installed. Everytime you want to run it, just go to Start > Programs > PointUI Home
Here’s the making it your default skin part: (Thanks to capt_harlock77 from the PointUI Forum)
1. Download MORT Script from here
2. Transfer the file into your PDA and run .cab file
3. Write this script in your favourite text editor
Change the path of the first line if you installed PointUI Home according to where you installed it. For me I installed it into the default location on my PDA’s memory
4. Save as script1.mscr
5. Transfer to PDA location “Windows\StartUp”
6. Write this script in your favourite text editor WaitForActive("Desktop", -1)
If(WndExists(”PointUI : Home”) = 1)
Show(”PointUI : Home”)
Else
Exit
EndIf
Run(”Windows\StartUp\script2.mscr”)
7. Save as script2.mscr
8. Transfer to PDA and paste in location “Windows\StartUp”.
9. Restart your device and you’re done!
Hope this helps! Enjoy your newfound “Windows Mobile”. Honestly, after going through this weekend I realized that Windows Mobile is actually a really powerful OS with lots of undiscovered potential. It also made me realize how software can make a huge difference on the impression it gives people of a device. The iPhone is not the only cool communication device out there after all.
Update: Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that PointUI is better than the iPhone but rather better than the WM iPhone skins currently in existence out there. Also, I’m not comparing WM and the iPhone OS coz there are quite a number of features which WM has and iPhone doesn’t and vice versa. Hence depending on the type of user you are, you will prefer one over the other.
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On a side note, apart from all the tweaking and hacking I spent my weekend with a long-time friend Cheryl whom I’ve known since secondary school. We watched a really good band performance at The Esplanade by The Philharmonic Winds titled An Evening with Tim Reynish which was held in conjunction with Reynish’s 70th birthday. (He is 70 but jovial like a 35 year old). I really enjoyed the performance (loved 4 songs out of 6) as it was really fun hearing how the individual instruments came together while figuring out which instruments were playing the different phrases. It was a really good getaway from all the techy stuff I’m doing at work right now. Thanks lots to Jiin Joo for the performance and tickets!
No, I did not join the VSOP club. As many of you know, I’m not an alcohol fan. Why am I writing about it then? That’s because I happened to pass by it a few weeks ago when I was back in Malaysia and it turned out to be something unexpected.
Check out the pics and see for yourself:
You’ve gotta admit that they have got a really creative and cute name. ^_~ It looks like a very well-maintained establishment and active society for the elderly community to network and do activities together. What have they done in the past? Well I did not venture in to check it out (obviously!! :P) because it was not for VSYP!
Everytime a documentary runs on National Geographic saying “Humans evolved from apes”, I switch the channel as it is usually a repetition of the same facts proposed over and over by many researchers. E.g: Pictures of hunched humans, bone structure comparisons and capability comparisons. Today however, Wayne told me about this TED video which proposes something along similar lines with a unique twist.
The presentation was made by Susan Savage-Rumbaugh, a researcher who has spent decades in the field of ape language studies who believes that the unique traits(intellectual thinking, language learning) human beings possess may have been culturally nurtured rather than biologically in-grained into our DNA. Her research with the Bonobo ape species has shown that in a culture of interaction where researchers are not “aiming to teach” but rather be part of the Bonobos’ daily lives, these mammals were able to learn through observation very human tasks like starting a fire with a lighter, playing Pac-man and delicately using a scissors to groom their offsprings. A comparison made between stone knives crafted by the Bonobos and those by pre-historic humans from 2 million years ago show stark similarities, creating the notion that we may have once lived like how the Bonobos are living today.
After watching the presentation, I was very convinced that humans developed the traits and capabilities we have today through millions of years of cultural interaction and development. If what Rambaugh proposes is true, then does the widely championed phrase “Humans are special” still hold? Or are we just equals of animals who happen to culturally advance through some chance encounters and interactions with a mix of other species’?
After BumpTop’s appearance at TED with the 3D Desktop where you can bump things around, I became skeptical of applications that attempt to turn traditionally 2D interfaces 3D with fancy animations, special effects and features at the expense of usability. When I came across SpaceTime on Mixx, I was adverse to trying it out but upon watching the YouTube videos I decided to give it a try.
What is SpaceTime?
SpaceTime is a web browser that introduces a new dimension to web browsing with the “hope” of enhancing the user experience. For starters, lets check out the interface.
The first thing I did when I started using SpaceTime was search for myself using the built-in Google search located on the top right of the screen. This generated a bunch of result “windows” arranged in a queue. Read the rest of this entry »
Just when I was starting to get used to the Command-Line Interface of Linux, my prof sent me a link to this pretty cool “2D Star Wars Animation” by the guys at Asciimation. Seriously, I think 2D is an understatement as it is made up PURELY from text characters in the command line. I don’t want to imagine how much time and effort they put into creating this cool animation frame by frame that runs in your command-line interface.
For the latest version of their video, visit their website here.
Note: It is better to view the video on the website because you have the option of fast-forwarding and jumping between scenes
My friend Chris sent me a really cute video today from Neatorama of a dog using a machine (similar to the Tennis ball shooter) to play fetch on its own! Check it out.
Judging from the “dog-o-meter” and height of the machine, the owner might have modified it specially for the dog’s use. Creative and innovative way to let a dog have his fun everyday!
Oh lets not forget to give credit to the techy dog!
Update: Friend made a comment that this is an example of an infinite loop!
Last week E27 and the Singapore PHP User Group organized the 2nd Facebook Developer’s Garage in Singapore. As a fresh Facebook developer, I was ecstatic when my teams and I were invited to present 2 of our applications there: AntRush and Prosperity Garden.
I have not written about AntRush before because the application is still in Beta so here’s a quick introduction:
AntRush is a simple online turn-based strategy game where you’re given an ant colony which you can grow and some eggs which you can morph into workers and soldiers. Once you have a big enough army, you can invade your friend’s colonies, kill their ants and rob them of their resources in the process.
Coming back to the event, I felt that we didn’t really give a good presentation because we didn’t have time to prepare for it and hence went with an impromptu style presentation. We mainly spoke about our experience developing the application, how we came up with the idea, the technology used and problems encountered(especially with the user interface(UI)). As promised, I’ll spare the technical details as they can get pretty mundane and focus on writing about the interesting points I learnt UI-wise from my experience of developing these 2 Facebook apps. Read the rest of this entry »
Hey guys! Sorry I haven’t been updating much. Before I know it, its been almost a whole month since I wrote anything. Yup, I’ve been busy with school work, particularly with my assignments for this module I’m taking at NUS called CS3216: Software Development on Evolving Platforms. To spare you the jargon, its a module where we develop Facebook applications for homework. Even though its been consuming a lot of my time, its the most fun module I’ve taken at NUS so far.
So what is The Prosperity Garden? It is a Facebook application my group and I developed as homework for our 2nd assignment (and also my first publicly released Facebook app). The theme for the assignment was “The Wall” but we didn’t want to make a variation of typical walls that never fail to make your profile look cluttered. We wanted to create a “wall” that profile owners could customize and call their own which was neat, flexible and interactive. Hence, we came up with the concept of a garden which friends could decorate with a gift everytime they sent you a message. At the same time, profile owners can choose to rearrange the gifts they receive so as to decorate their garden to their tastes and liking. And! Since CNY was around the corner, we decided to create a “Prosperity Garden” filled with auspicious CNY items which you could give your friends like ang pows (red packets with money), gold ingots, red lotus flower, firecrackers and etc.
The learning experience was definitely much more fun when we started getting feedback from users, (We got a few initial users who stared at the app and didn’t know what the app was for despite the instructions!), but I’ll save it for another blog post. In the meantime, do check out the app and feel free to drop me any comments / e-mails on feedback, bugs, errors, or even suggestions to further improve the app! ^_~
P.S: I do accept requests for specific gifts to be included in the app, like a blooded dagger for your enemies hehe!! Just send me a request and I’ll illustrate one for the app!
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