Apple – iPod – Which iPod are you? I simply can’t let that go without a note. Today Apple announced the new iPod product line. As you may know I started this blog very much with the purchase of my first iPod (Photo or 4G with 20 GB) which I actually still use. Very much indeed. Now they have redesigned … Read More
Vague Law Scares Off Toolmakers in Germany
Vague Law Scares Off Toolmakers in Germany Very much to my surprise I didn’t notice this earlier: German government created a law that makes it illegal to possess, use, produce, or distrubute “hacker tools”. So if you help someone to break into a computer system by providing (producing, selling etc.) either passwords or software tools, which serve this purpose, you … Read More
Video Games = Art Question Mark
:: rogerebert.com :: Commentary :: Games vs. Art: Ebert vs. Barker (xhtml) I don’t know if you heard about it but when crawling through my rss feeds I found an entry on the discussion of movie critic Roger Ebert who doesn’t consider video games to be art. Full stop. I actually found it in the blog of game designer and … Read More
Starting a Second Life
I’ve been to second life a few times because it is a big subject in media research at the moment. However, I always try to have a subjective perspective in addition to what is said objectively. A few weeks ago I decided that I should personify my avatar so I started to work on that. It took some time to … Read More
iTunes Plus DRM-free, not free of annoying glitches – Engadget / Zooomr fighting for Mark III
iTunes Plus DRM-free, not free of annoying glitches – Engadget True words, I myself experienced -and still do- problems on downloading certain songs for upgrading my library. If they load they are creepingly slow and after a minute they time out. However, of an overall count of 65 songs that I upgraded 9 seem to be a problem. It may … Read More
New Music on iTunes – now DRM-free!!
It’s been announced a while ago but as of today I started using iTunes Plus. iTunes Plus offers music and videos in better sound quality and without DRM at a slightly increased price (1,29 € per song in Germany, 1,99 € per video, albums prices remain). This is possible because music publisher EMI agreed to offer his music catalog for … Read More
Episodic Gaming – Sam'n'Max and Dreamfall Chapters
I just listened to a Podcast available over at Gamasutra (Link to source) where Dan Connors (CEO of Telltale Games) talks on how the idea of episodic gaming works out for Telltale and it recent releases of episodes from the Sam and Max Season 1.I find this very interesting since episodic gaming especially in my special favourite genre of adventure … Read More
Zelda on the Wii or How story-based Gaming should be
Well, I was really excited about the Wii altogether. When I first got it I loved the Controller, the many different ways it can be used. It’s a hell of an entertainment product. That said, it is merely considered a party console by a lot of people. Many of the games are much more fun if you play with (or … Read More
Official Google Blog: From Gmail with <3
Official Google Blog: From Gmail with <3 After years of elitism and stuff GoogleMail (or GMail) has finally opened the service to all of you. Just go to www.gmail.com and get your GMail Account. I’m using it for about two years now and I don’t regret switching. Give it a try, I can’t imagine what you would miss with your … Read More
I'm with Wii…
Yes, I finally did it. I had thought about it prior to christmas but it was sold out back then and so I had to wait. But on Monday I got my brand new Nintendo Wii!!!!I’m pretty connected with Nintendo. The first gaming concole my mother bought for us was the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). I played “Super Mario Brothers” … Read More
windows alternatives / kubuntu odyssee
Well, I’m working with linux. It’s been probably 10 years since the first encounter and 8 or 9 years since I put up my first linux-only machine back at my parents’. Since then I always had a linux box at home. My main machine however always ran Windows (sometimes different versions in parallel) and my Desktop was always MS-dominated.Then I … Read More