Monthly Archive for June, 2008

Page 2 of 2

El Orfanato

Published on June 12, 2008 in Reviews. 2 Comments

Since there’s been so much tech talk floated around recently I thought it would be a good idea to break it up with a short write up on a great movie I saw last night called The Orphanage.

While it was directed by a relative newcomer (Juan Antonio Bayona), it shares a visual style very similar to last years critically acclaimed horror tale Pan’s Labyrinth (no surprises since it was produced by Guillermo del Toro). If you’ve seen the above mentioned movie then you should know that the Spanish are building up a great reputation for delivering some really atmospheric scares.

It won’t try to spoil the the story too much but the basic premise revolves around a haunted house & a missing child. While this can originally be construed as being rather cliche, it didn’t take long before I was totally sucked into the tale & wondering where it was going to take me.

A sombre soundtrack, great camera work and a fantastic setting help to deliver a creepy & suspenseful vibe throughout (look out for the scene featuring paper mache masks). I usually hate movies that rely on cheap scare tactics to get their thrills (I’m looking at you Scream) & even though there’s a couple of instances of this, I’ve never seen them used this successfully before. Thankfully these moments are not overdone & will instead leave you with some memorable scenes that you’ll want to discuss long after you leave the cinema.

If you’ve been paying attention to the smaller aspects of the story the ending can also be interpreted a couple of ways. Therefore this is one of those rare movies where I wanted to go back & watch it straight away so I could try & unravel the twists a little more.

Final Verdict: If you’re a fan of REAL horror movies and none of that goregasm slasher shit they churn out now days (saw,hostel,etc), then you’ll love this movie & you should definitely check it out.

4 – 4.5 / 5 (depending on your interpretation of the ending).

iPhone Aus

Published on June 11, 2008 in Geek it up!. 5 Comments

I thought I would put in my thoughts on the upcoming iPhone launch in Aus and how much it might cost. In the old US of A they have said it will cost $199 and as we all know this is a lot less then the current version of the iPhone. How could they sell it for this much and still make money? The mobile providers who have the iPhone are subsidising the cost of the handset. This is commonplace in the mobile handset business as the way you make money is having people locked into a 24 month contact and using your network. Apple will not be making a loss as the Mobile providers will be paying apple more the US $199 for the handset.

So how can they (the mobile providers) subsidise the handset and make this money back if you break the contract? This is done by charging high disconnection fees that cover the cost of the handset so that the mobile provider does not loose money.

What will it cost downunder? I am going to say that it will be $250 on a 24 month contract and $400 pre-paid. For some getting the pre-paid version will be better especially those on really good old plans or on corporate plans however the catch is it will need to be with one of the 2 Australian providers Voderphone or Optus as the handset will be locked. So if you are with Optus currently and get an Optus pre-paid iPhone you can use your current SIM card and current plan with the iPhone. Unless I have it all wrong and it is not locked downunder but I don’t think that will happen.

WWDC Review

Published on June 10, 2008 in Events and Geek it up!. 5 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

There are certain levels to being an Apple fan. This morning (extremely early this morning) I levelled up as for the first time I stayed up for my first ever live Apple Keynote.

The keynote in question was the World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) and it kicked off at 3am Melbourne time. I was fortunate enough to stumble upon a live audio feed from someone in the audience so I could hear his Royal Steveness in the flesh, live and in full.

I’m typing this after 2 hours sleep and yes I did dream about the iPhone (*level up*) and yes the internet tubes will be clogged full of Apple and iPhone news but I thought seeing that I’ve already done the hard yards I might as well talk about it.

So in no particular order please find below the items from the Keynote that were of interest to myself:

OSX – Snow Leopard

Only briefly mentioned by Steve but the next version of OSX will be called Snow Leopard.

iPhone 2.0, SDK and 3rd Party Applications

While the new iPhone 3G stole most of the limelight there is great news for users of the original iPhone in the form of software update 2.0. Bringing with it a lot of functionality and enhancements such as better contact e-mail management, contact search, e-mail attachment support, push services from Microsoft Exchange and MobileMe (more on this below) and 3rd Party Applications. Support for Pages, Numbers, Keynote and also Microsoft Office will be supported so no more making half-assed notes in Notes! Your existing iPhone will feel brand new again when 2.0 lands in the near future.

While we knew 3rd Party Applications were coming to the iPhone and the SDK had been freely available for a while now it was great to see what developers have in the pipeline for the iPhone and also how apparantly simple it is to develop for the iPhone. Apple also addressed the issue/question of how do you have an application that is not actually running in the background still provide the function expected ie a MSN client or Twitter Application? Apple will provide a central push server to push alerts to your iPhone notifying you of any updates to your application. Very clever way of ensuring that applications don’t stay open in the background taking up valuable resources.

All of these 3rd Party Applications will also be distributed via the Apple Application Store making for a very easy way to install and manage applications for the iPhone.

MobileMe

Replacing Apple’s rather long in the tooth and expensive .Mac service MobileMe is a complete revamp with much needed added features to justify the $119.00 yearly subscription fee. At the core of MobileMe is again push technology where all of your e-mail, contacts, calendars even photos are synchonized in real time between your iPhone, Mac, PC and the web. This brings what would normally be an enterprise level feature to the masses and also cementing itself as a ‘must have’ addition to the iPhone. All of the existing features of .Mac are there like iDisk and iWeb with online storage increased to 20Gb making it very good value.

iPhone 3G

Everyone knew it was coming and well if Apple didn’t announce it there would be geeks rioting in the streets so it was with no great surprise that Steve took the wraps off the iPhone 3G.

Looking very much like the existing iPhone aside from some small cosmetic changes, flush headphone jack (thank lord), plastic black or white rear shell (one assumes this is to improve antenna reception) and a few millimeters added and removed here and there the iPhone is still the best looking handset on the market.

Sporting 3G which improves data speeds 2.8 times faster than EDGE and allowing both simultanious voice and data connections this was the feature that everyone had wanted from the original iPhone allowing the user to really take advantage of the iPhone’s full potential.

GPS has also been added to add yet another layer of functionallity to Google Maps and also for applications like geotagging photographs etc…

The kicker to all of this is that Apple have dropped the price of the iPhone 3G to US$199.00. Compare that to the US$599.00 launch price of the original iPhone just one year ago and you know Apple is aiming for world domination just like it did with the iPod.

The iPhone will be launched on July 11 and this includes Australia where I have already placed a deposit to secure one of these bad boys at launch.

Anyway I could go on forever but I am exhausted and need to go attach an IV of coffee to my arm so discuss away in the comments and check out apple.com.au for all the official details.

Technical Issues

Published on June 10, 2008 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment

We appear to be having some technical issues with people viewing HundredPennies in FireFox so I have rolled back to a default theme for the time being.

iPhone 3G

Published on June 10, 2008 in Events and Geek it up!. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Gyroscope – The Australia Tour

Published on June 9, 2008 in Gigs and Music. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

Gyroscope (one of HundredPennies favorite bands) are getting ready to tour Australia again (didn’t they just finish a tour…?) and as you can see above there should be at least one gig that you’ll be able to get to as they are pretty much covering every part of this big brown land of ours and are bringing NZ finest (besides Dave Dobbyn) Shihad with them.

Link – www.gyroscope.com.au

Dropbox

Published on June 9, 2008 in Geek it up!. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

DropboxI have three primary computers that I use daily, my shitty XP notebook at work and my 12″ PowerBook and iMac at home. It has always been a struggle trying to keep files that I use current and accessible across all computers. I’ve used FTP, USB drives and even e-mail in an attempt to preempt what files I want to have access to later on another machine. That is up until a few days ago when I found Dropbox.

Dropbox is a very smart little application that takes the pain and effort out of synchronizing files between multiple computers (both PC and Mac with Linux coming in the future).

Currently in beta, Dropbox gives users 2GB of space online to store your files, music, photos, whatever you want. The Dropbox application is installed on each computer you want to have access to your Dropbox and you’re ready to go. By dropping your files into the Dropbox folder they are automatically uploaded online for safe keeping.

Using multiple computers with Dropbox is a synch as everything is taken care of in the background with your computer checking for updates and downloading any new files or changes made automatically. The guys at Dropbox have also considered your network usage with Dropbox only ever using 70% of your bandwidth so your web browsing etc will never be disrupted. Thanks guys!

Where Dropbox shines is how it manages changes to your files. Unlike editing files locally where once you have made a change to and saved a file it is difficult to revert back to an earlier revision. Dropbox will keep online each revision of said file allowing you to see when and who made the last changes. If for some reason you wish to go back to an earlier version it’s as simple as logging onto the Dropbox web interface and restoring the version of file that you’re after.

screen-capture1

All in all for a product that is still in beta I have had no problems at all with it and have been very impressed with the current features and look forward to see what develops in the future.

If you would like to check it out and need an invite please leave a comment and hopefully an invite will find it’s way to you.

Mind the mess…

Published on June 6, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

…while we do a little bit of a tidy up and refresh on HundredPennies.