Games

My little brother already has a Xbox (Microsoft), a GameBoy Advance (Nintendo) and even a Wii (Nintendo).
But it turned out not to be enough. All his classmates and friends now have got the "brand new" Playstation 3. (Released in 2007, latest version September 2009, manufacturer: Sony EMCS).

He told me that off course every one would want one.
But why, I asked him?
1. Better graphics. I have to admit, even I (an unexperienced tv viewer, let alone gamer) can see the difference, it really looks better, sharper.
2. With the playstation 3 (PS3) my brother can play a game with and against his friends. Yes, my brother admits, he could also do that with the Wii, but everyone had this game on the PS3 and not on the Wii, so that would be impossible.
3. The PS3 doesn't require from you that you wave all the time. My brother, a 14-year-old boy rather moves as little as possible.
4. It contains a real Blu-ray Player. That's because all PS3 games are Blu-ray Discs. This also explains the better visual quality, compared to for example the Wii.
So, my brother explained enthusiasticly, now we can play Blu-ray Discs in stead of DVD's! I reminded him of the fact that we don't have Blu-rays, but he was all excited and wouldn't listen.

So he paid almost 300 euros fot the Playstation and now he's playing the game "Call of Duty" all day long.
Or, as he explains, he's dealing with his next problem: all his friends are on level 70 and he's just on level 20!

Wow!

Allright, I just can't ignore this while I've got a blog about information technology:
Gmail Buzz.
I wanted to log in my gmail account just now when Google tells me there a new function: Buzz. I shall translate my welcome message:

"Buzz is a new way to share updates, photographs, videos and more, and to start conversations about things that interest you. You can follow people you e-mail the most and with whom you chat the most."

So now we've got Twitter, Blogspot, MSN Messenger (although I don't use that), Gmail chat (don't use that either), Flikr, etc. and now Google got this crazy idea that we need another tool to communicate with others??!!!

Hello Google, I'll tell you a nice story. Once upon a time there was a world in which people had personal conversations and follies. And they lived happily ever after.

The end.

Nice people and how to deal with them?

SIRE (Stichting Ideële Reclame) has a new campaign. I must say that I'm always affected by their campaigns. For example about child abuse or about the ill-temperedness (kort lontje) of the Dutch people. This time I heard about the campaign at first on the radio, and later I saw it on the television.

Have a look at the commercial:


I think it's really funny, but on the other side, I totally agree. Myself, I try to be as nice as possible, not because of this campaign, but just because I think it's naturally.
In my opinion, more people should become aware of the others around them. It takes no money of strain to be nice to one another.

Besides the moral part of this campaign, SIRE has become really skilled in getting peoples attention. They have a television commercial besides three radio commercial.
Furthermore they have a special web site for this campaign. This web site is tachnologically really advanced (as far as I can judge). (Although, it wavers a little and is sometimes a bit confusing).

Have a look, enjoy and don't forget: nice people are not scary!
Pas op: aardig

... Part 2

So, I had my new phone, took it home, fed it electricity and discovered that I could not call/sms or receive calls/text messages.

In fact, that is the main function of a telefphone, so the next day I went back to the shop. The woman in the store has as less knowledge about phones as I have, and therefore couldn't fix it, so she took the phone back and I bought a new one.

Now I'm happy: I have a new mobile phone. It works, it is simple, I'm used to the interface (my old one was a Samsung too), I can text people, I can call people and I can take some pictures with it. It even plays music! New stuff for me.

I didn't really want fancy functions, however, you can hardly escape from fancy stuff nowadays, so my phone has something fancy too. Everytime I go from the main display to the menu and back, the background changes!

Have a look (and ignore my appearance):



Fancy huh!

Mobile phone

I tend to confuse two of the courses that I follow at the moment.
The first one is Media Use in Organisations. This is the course for which I had to make this weblog.
The other course is called User Inteface Design. In that course we are taught about interfaces.
I shall shortly explain what an interface is. An interface is a means to an end. It is an intermediate, for example: the light switch makes it possible for me to turn on the light. Or that rotating buttons on a gas cooker make it possible for me to cook. English as a language makes it possible for an Italian and a Chinese person to communicate. There is an innumerable amount of interfaces.
The reason, of course, that I tend to confuse the twe courses is because User Interface Design generally teaches us about digital interfaces.
However, I don't really mind that I confuse the two, I think they complete each other.
That's the reason that I'm going to tell you about my interface-issue of the day.

Yesterday I checked my mobile phone for the time and I discovered that the screen had died. This is what it looks like:


So, I could still make and receive calls. However, I could not use my contactlist. I could also still see whether I had received an sms, and from whom, but I could not read it.

In my opinion, these things should not possibly happen. Unfortunately they do.

So I went to the Kijkshop, to have a look at new, simlock-free mobile phones. (If you do not know what a simlock is, please leave a message and I will explain :) )
They happened to have a mobile phone of which the box was a little damaged. Because of that, the phone was very cheap.
All right, I thought, I'll do it.

At home I saw that everything functioned fine, except for that I had no reach of the phone network (is that the correct translation?)...

... To be continued

Comments

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Tessa

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Tessa