UPDATE!

My new blog is hosted on my own website now! Visit www.kylesaric.com for more info about me or go to www.kylesaric.com/blog to get my latest blog entries!

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Berlin Wall 'East Side Gallery' Picture Set

Just wanted to share some of the photos I took back in June when I went to Berlin, Germany. This section of the wall is 1km long and still sits in its original location. See the Gallery and more info after the break.

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Related Links:
Picasa Gallery
Download the Album (Requires Picasa Desktop Software)
View Slideshow Fullscreen

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New Website

Over the week two of my friends and me are going to start a new website named Expandgame. We'll be talking about gaming, art and the culture that's binding the two together. Hope you guys will bookmark the site since a lot of fresh content will be coming up soon!

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DS Browser Reviewed!

It was just a matter of time until the DS would catch up with the PSP when it comes to mobile browsing. The Nintendo DS Browser, which was built by Opera, has its pros and cons as you will find out further down in the review.

Read the rest after the Break!

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Nintendo DS Browser Specifications:

- Browser Engine: Opera 8.5
- Formats Supported: HTML, XHTML, XML, ECMAScript, CSS (There are some functions which won’t be fully supported.) SSL 2.0/3.0, TLS 1.0 (Depending on the website, some of them can’t be used.)
- Formats Not Supported: Flash, Movies, Sound Files, PDF Files, and other files which require plug-in.

From the list of supported (and non supported) formats, most people will think the browser is a complete waste of time, a gimmick to the gaming world, something you just don’t need. Of course it would be nice to stream those YouTube videos to you handheld device, or to log on into your own server and listen to Music you have uploaded. But the truth is you don’t need these things when you are on the move.

Major Pros:

I quickly found myself loving this software simply because there is a great library of websites which have special pages designed to be viewed on devices such as PDA's, or now the DS Browser. Some examples are BBC News, Engadget and 4 Color Rebellion. Although these pages look really good, any blog style page will look good on the DS Browser, just because Opera has built a really good reformatting engine. It takes the page and displays it in SSR mode (Small Screen Rendering Mode) which takes the page and formats it so it is displayed over the two screens in a vertical way. I’ll talk more about the actual features in just a minute. Checking E-mails is also a major plus point. It is really easy to check, view and even write emails on the DS Browser. Especially on Google Mail, which doesn’t have too many images, the Browser runs at high speed and it is a comfortable way of checking emails. Keeping track of your bookmarks is another major plus point. The built in bookmark manager lets you create folder and save bookmarks easily. For example, I have a News, Gaming and Email Folder which all have several links in them.

Major Cons:

The most disappointing feature about the DS Browser is the fact that I have to enter my username and password into fields every time I visit the site. For example, visiting Gmail doesn’t just take a couple of second load time, but about a minute of typing in your username and password every time you want to check your inbox. This is due to the lack of saving cookies I guess, but I’m not too sure on that… To be honest, that is the only major disadvantage of the DS Browser I can think of. Many people complain about loading times, but I don’t consider that a con since working with such a mobile device can’t really give you any better results.

Features:

The main features of the DS Browser are:

- Two viewing modes, SSR and Overview Modes

- Screen shot Mode

- Search Engine

- Handwriting recognition and On-Screen Keyboard

- Bookmarks

- HTML Help Center

As I have mentioned before, the SSR Viewing mode is the one to use if you’ll be reading a lot on the Browser (which is really the only thing you can do…). Mainly because SSR stops that annoying left and right scrolling and focuses on just scrolling up or down. This is extremely helpful when reading blog entries or e-mails. Screen Shot Mode is something you won’t be using much, or at least I haven’t used at all. It allows you to take a screen shot of the bottom page (when you are in SSR mode) and it will display it on the top screen. I guess if you really need to look at something while wanting to look at the rest of a blog entry it is useful, but other than that forget about it. Now, here we go! Where the DS Browser impressed me really was the ability to read my handwriting! I have to say my handwriting really isn’t all that good but the DS has been able to recognise all my letters (except for q and g – it gets those mixed up quite frequently). It takes just a couple of minutes to send an email to a friend or to let your mom know when your coming home. Websites that let you send SMS are also great on the DS Browser. Although I don’t use them, some websites allow subscribers to send a couple of SMS a day, meaning that if you are a cheap guy and are near a hotspot, you can easily send SMS for free. The search feature is another good feature that helps you get around the internet easily. The default browser search is Yahoo but you can easily change that in the setting. It works well and although there isn’t much to say about this, it is a really helpful tool. The Help Center is really useful when you first get used to the Browser but after a while you won’t be using it at all. It is nicely formatted, and runs fully in HTML letting you click on links and view descriptions of items

Conclusion:

All in all the DS Browser has a lot to offer and compares well to its competitors (well the PSP browser really). It doesn’t support flash which is it’s main disadvantage, but considering you’ll just want to check your mail on the go or read you latest news on BBC it’s a great way to do so. Overall a good choice for mobile Browsers!

Related Link for the DS Browser: | Just type these into the URL on your DS and hit Enter!

BBC News:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/text_only.stm

Engadget:
http://m.engadget.com/

Joystiq:
http://m.joystiq.com/

4CR:
http://lite.4colorrebellion.com/

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Special edition Pokemon DS Lite and game launches in Japan

With the launch of Pokemon: Diamond/Pearl and its special edition DS Lite over in Japan, Famitsu has extensive coverage of both launches at several retailers. Foaming at the mouth like your mother at the idea of attending a Bruce Springsteen concert, Japanese gamers can't get enough of these special edition DS Lites, let alone another Pokemon game.



With the usually long lines and ecstatic Japanese consumers, you can find plenty more pictures of different retail outlets in the rest of the post.







Related links:
Famitsu Images
Joystiq.com Article

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DIY iPod Dock

I just recently saw the post on engadget.com about the "ipod dock for value-driven consumers" and thought it would be a great idea to make my own. And so I started looking around to see if I had my own iPod box in which the iPod shiped (someone else had the same idea), but since I have the 5G and the box isn't very firm and can't really hold an iPod properly I kept looking. This guy also had a nice idea but I didn't have an extra iPod lying about! So I thought and thought until I came up with a briliant idea!

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So I used one of those paper holders which hold little note things inside them. No idea what it's called but I just fliped it over (so the cable can feed through where you are supposed to put your finger inside to get a piece of paper out) and then used a hammer and a drill (I don't have a saw) to cut out the space for the iPod dock thingy which came with the iPod when I bought it.





















Here are some more pictures on my Flickr account!

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Major Update!

Anyone who can remember how the site used to look like will be quite surprised at how much it has changed. The sidebar has now completely been removed, leaving space for a 700 pixel wide Blog. The info which was displayed on the sidebar has been moved to a small menu style thing on the top of the page just bellow the page logo. You can access the Home from there and various other things. You should check out the Latest News bit, which links you to a Gaming News Ticker which I created in the Google Reader. Previous Posts + Archives brings you down to the footer of the page where I put all the previous Posts and Archives. In the footer there are also all the RSS info etc.

That's it for now and I'll be posting more stuff up soon!

P.S. Sorry if all this sounds kind of weird but it's really late here and I'm literally falling asleep by my laptop now so see you guys tomorrow, Bye.

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Apple News

As most of you know, the Apple Special Event was held on Tuesday the 12th of this month (September). Steve Jobs did a great job again at presenting Apple's new products and some of them were rather nice to see.

Read the full post for more info!

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iPod 5.5G

The new iPod is essentially the same as the older 5G models, but with a few tweaks to make it quite a bit better. The best feature in my oppinion is that the screen has become brighter (and we all know we like brighter screens). At an astonishing 60% more brightness your Desperate Housewifes episodes just look that much better. Doesn't that drain more battery life you ask? No! At up to six-and-a-half hours, the 80GB (which is also the new size - it replaced the 60GB version) iPod has a lot of potential to become a 'real' portable media player. A new firmware update also came along with iTunes 7 (more about that bellow) which allows you to 'fast scroll' through your library and a search mode which lets you find anything quickly and effectively. For all those who like to listen to songs which were meant to use gapless playback, the iPod has full support of it now. A big surprise was that Apple now offer games and movies for download over the iTunes music store (again, more about that in the iTunes section).

So: new features, georgous colour display, movies and games (more about that in iTunes 7 section), better battery life, search and a new size (80GB). How much? At the price of 249$ for the 30GB and 349$ for the 80GB, I suggest everyone to get themselves the 80GB. It's just cheap for its vallue!


iPod Nano 2G

The iPod Nano has been 'completely remastered' they say, which is true, but it still reminds much of the iPod mini. But forget that, the fact is that is just blows your mind away. Now with sizes up to 8GB, this piece of hardware is just amazingly small. With the introduction of beautiful colours (5 to be exact), the iPod Nano has something for every personality. The features list doesn't a lot of new add-ons, but as with the iPod 5.5G there is now a search and a 'fast scroll' type of thing. Your usual features such as music, podcasts, audiobooks, photos and some handy extras are of course not taken away from you, but it would have been nice to see some enw improvemtns. The best new feature is the battery life; 24 hours of non stop listening to music is just great!

Lets recap: fabulous redisgn (although it has been used before technically), fun colours, 3 sizes (2GB, 4GB and 8GB) and some new features make this the trend of 2007. Priced at 149$, 199$ and 249$ respectively they are a good deal if you are not planning on having more then around 2,000 songs (for the 8GB version) in your pocket. If you want movies and games (and extra storage) then go with the iPod 5.5G...


iPod Shuffle 2G











The new iPod Shuffle is the perfect friend for any person planning on just having a couple of songs in your pocket. This thing is amazing! Clip it where ever you want, your belt, pants or jacket and always have full access to the main function buttons. The coolest thing is to let iTunes make a playlist fitting exactly 1GB of music and synchronising it automatically, playing you your songs in shuffle mode while you're on the go. Or, just use it to play those daily podcasts. The options are endless. The dock connector is bundled into the package and for a very good price of 79$ not a person in this world should complain.


iTunes 7


















iTunes 7 has got a couple of wonderful upgrades, my favourite being the new views. As you can see above (in the middle), the new view lets you look through your albums, as though you were flipping through your music collection. But what good is this if you don't have album art? iTunes 7 now lets you download their album art as long as you have a valid iTunes music store account. This is a great feature but it seems it doesn't always work due to it not recognising the album. Another new user interface feature is the more organised source list, which now is catogarised into section such as Library, Store, Devices, etc.

Games are now available for 4.99$ which can be downloaded and put straight onto your 5G and 5.5G iPod, giving you fun times while you're on the bus, train, etc. Personally, I find that this is great for anyone who really wants something fun like Vortex and Zuma. But at nearly 5$ I'm not going to buy a lot of them since games like Tetris just play much better on my phone (or DS?!).

The other main feature is support for movie downloads. Resolutions of 640x480 are a good enough resolution to watch on the TV and perfect for the iPod. Even more TV shows are added and the new movies are now also available at the new (higher) resolution.

Some other fun features include a download manager, an iPod summery page (with built in iPod updater), multiple libraries, gapless playback, library back up and parental controll.

Honestly though, I still don't see myself buying much (if not nothing besides a game or two) since the price of 0.99$ for songs, 1.99$ for TV shows and 12.99$ for pre-ordered and first week movie downloads are still way too expensive. An average season of a TV show features around 24 episodes. So, 24x2$ = 48$ for a season of iTunes! Way too much I think. As for movies, I prefer to just rent something, watch it once and then just return it since I don't have time to watch my whole movie collection over and over again.

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Apple did do a great job once more and I'm really impressed by all the updates and new products. What does everyone think? Post your thoughts up in the comments section!


All images belong to Apple.com

Related links:
iPod + iTunes Home
iTunes Store
Apple Store

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7 Days In September

It's been just over 5 years, when NYC was hit by the greatest terrorist attack of modern history. With material from almost 30 filmmakers, director Steven Rosenbaum turns the tragic events of September 11, 2001 -- the memories of which ... all » are forever jarred in our psyches -- into a moving portrait of emotion, loss and even kindness. Although the film uses footage of the horrific attacks on the World Trade Center and the resulting catastrophic loss, it also hones in on New York City's tremendous ability to rebuild, through will and compassion.

Update For some reason the video is not working right now. Please Come back soon!

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Zelda Music

I found this great Zelda music piece on youtube.com and I thought I'd share it with you guys! Here it is.

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Back [in Black]

Hey! So I've been on my looooong vacation and it's back for a new start. My Blog will once again continue to feature fun stuff from games, to magazines and TV. I'll be talking lots about upcoming games, games I'm currently playing and other exciting news from my everyday life.

The Expandgame.com website is up and running and Matthew is working hard on the layout and general coding. The forum has been up for a while and we hope to see a lot of new people joining since with your help it's gona be a great community forum!

So stay tuned and I'll have lots to talk about in the upcomming weeks!

P.S. I was just listening to Back in Black by AC/DC and just thought the name kind of fits in... Even though I'm not actually Back in Black!

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England!

Alright People? Just here to tell you all I'm in England for a while so I won't be writting much up here...

I'll post up pictures and a full post soon so check back soon and get the full write up then.

Have a good one!
Bye

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Weekly Poll

This week I want to know how much memory your MP3 or Personal Media Player has. Is it a flash players with 256MB? Is it a HDD player with more than 30GB? Vote bellow and see what other have themselves!

How much memory does your MP3/PMP player have?
	I don't have an MP3 or a PMP
	Less than 256MB
	Around 1GB
	Between 2GB and 6GB
	Between 6GB and 20GB
	Between 20GB and 60GB
	60GB or more

Have you got an iPod or a simple Mp3 player or even a PMP with 60+GB? Leave a comment and discuss the reasons of your choise!

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