Pick your poison...

Adding items from the menu.

Ouch!

I would definitely recommend this application to anyone who indulges in fast food and is looking to monitor their caloric intake. I’m not going to divulge the numbers or results of my own experience with this application over the last week and a half but I can tell you that using this application is eye opening. And not in the way you might think. I think it’s common knowledge that fast food isn’t the best for you. Shucks, that’s part of the reason this app exists. The eye opening part for me was how quickly it adds up. So be warned. ;-)

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Screen Sharing

An unbelievably useful feature that has been in iChat for a while now, screen sharing is what allows me to provide the inevitable technical support that my family members need without my head exploding. Rather than try to walk them through the menus and screens and buttons that lead to eternal frustration I can do a “live screencast” right there in front of them and both fix the problem and, hopefully, teach them how to prevent it in the future.

Unlike in iChat however you can choose only to share a portion of your screen with your Skype contact. That way they can’t snoop on you and tell your significant other that you’re spending an inordinate amount of money on consumer electronics…or you know, whatever you might be doing.

Managing your chats

Skype 2.8 adds improved chat organization and allows you set priorities on your chats  as well as sort the chats in your drawer based on different criteria. This is really useful if, like me, you communicate with coworkers via Skype chats. It never ceases to irritate me when I miss something because a particular chat got pushed off of the visible portion of my list by less important people–chats I mean.

Skype now has mood messages, which remind me of LiveJournal or MySpace statuses. I can’t personally say they’re useful, at least not to me. They are nice to have though. There are also larger profile pictures–you know, for those of my friends who wanted to see my face really big.

In the same vein as larger profile pics is the addition of avatar hiding. This is a really nice feature for those profile pics that people have that are just god awful. You know, those “hey, that picture of your dog licking himself is really cool, thanks for forcing me to look at it!” Well, now they’re hidden by default.

In addition there is now a Quick Add feature which is pretty cool, you just hit Add in a chat window and then search for the person you want to add. One of my personal favorites. I wish more IM clients had this. I’m getting tired of copy/pasting things into multiple IM tabs.

Bottom line, the cool new features and bug fixes make this a worthwhile download. Check it out and let me know what you think in the comments!

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Unfortunately the Remote application on the iPhone/iTouch was horribly inconsistent in the way in which a user controlled the Apple TV. Rather than navigating and using the Apple TV’s menus the Remote application essentially put your library on your iPhone/iTouch and you navigated through your library there. Then you played and controlled the media iPod style from that point on. Flipping the album art over for chapters. It worked and the Remote application was awesome then but I always thought it was lacking.

This has been changed with the combination Apple TV/Remote application updates. Now you still get the ability to drill down into your library on your handheld device and find the track or tv show you were looking for and play it immediately but in addition you can use the new “Control” feature to bring up a trackpad like area in the Remote application which will accept control gestures.

When you select the control option you are presented with this screen.

A flick to the left or right on the trackpad or dragging and holding will allow you to fast forward or rewind while flicking down will show the chapters. Tapping on the trackpad will play or pause the media and using two fingers to drag to the left will rewind a video 10 seconds. A very cool and very useful addition to what was an otherwise already awesome application.

But back to the Apple TV update. There are a few other changes worth mentioning. First, Apple has seen fit to change the way video playback is controlled. Gone is the single right and left click to skip to the next chapter. Now a click to the left or right fast forwards or rewinds and subsequent right and left clicks increases the speed. To skip chapters you have to click down to bring up the chapter markers. Next, the view options have been enhanced. You can now sort the list of movies by Genre, by Movie (Alphabetical) or by whether or not is have been watched. You can also sort the list of Podcasts and TV shows by Date, by Show (Alphabetical) or again by watched status. The other new feature is the ability to search Flickr tags which I haven’t had a chance to play with too much yet but searching being the new sorting it seems to me like a welcome addition.

On a side note, updating the Apple TV’s firmware will undo any patchsticking you may have done so…just keep that in mind. I’m just putting that out there. To tell you the truth I haven’t re-patched my Apple TV since the 2.3 update with the Hulu problems and general bugginess of Boxee. But of course that’s not to say I wouldn’t just that I haven’t. Yet.

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Completely redone for version 1.5, the UI is both goregeous and very intuitive. After starting the game you are presented with a circular dial menu with the three game types as options on the top (Stasis, Cascase, and Blackout) and time limits on the bottom. (1, 2, 3, 5 minutes and Infinite)

The application itself is very slick in terms of both graphics and design. I was most impressed with how well thought out and easy to use the application is overall, and the attention to detail. Receving a call, suspending your iPhone or just jumping from the game to the springboard to check your email for example with cause Lexic to pause the current game immediately which you can pick back up when you return. In addition, while Lexic can be quite intuitive, in case it isn’t there is some well written documentation that is available from every menu page.

The coolest part of Lexic, which is also new for version 1.5, are the feats. Feats are essentially unlockable achievements for the game and this really is the killer app part of Lexic in my opinion. Not only is the game itself fun but there is stuff you can unlock? Well done Kieffer Bros. You can unlock different tile sets and frames as well as a couple of new abilities based on how well you perform in game. This definitely adds to the replay factor and extends the amount of time Lexic will spend on my iPhone.

There is also an online leaderboard which is really cool. You can submit your scores online after each game of Lexic you finish and see how you are doing compared to other players.

I’ve been playing with Lexic for the past week or so and I can honestly say that I am a huge fan. I think the blend of simplicity and superb design coupled with the new feats give Lexic a subtle but distinct allure that will bring even the casual gamer back for more on a continual basis.

Bottom line, in case it isn’t clear yet, I’d definitely recommend this game and rate it a buy.

[Header image via Kieffer Bros]

Update: I had a couple questions for the Kieffer Bros. so I emailed them. I received a response in less than an hour from Michael Kieffer himself! Love the support guys! In any event I asked how big the two word databases that Lexic uses are and as a percentage, how many of those words are 6 letters or longer. Here is his response:

Here’s some of the info you asked for. Keep in mind these are fairly rough estimates.

TWL (US) has about 180,000 words and 84% of those are greater than 6 letters

SOWPODS (International) contains about 260,000 words and approximately 86% of the words are greater than six letters.

So keep that in mind when you’re trying to find those longer words that a couple of the feats call for!

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A few things did give me a moment of pause and cause me to experience a silent moment of reflection however.

First of all, is voice control coming to non-S 3G iPhones? I can’t imagine there is any possible reason why it wouldn’t. But I haven’t seen anything that states it will be a part of the update that will be released for the general public on the 17th. I just put the 3.0 gold master on my iPhone and I can tell you that voice control isn’t a part of it. I give Apple enough credit that I think it would be ridiculous for this to be an artificial differentiator between the 3G and 3Gs iPhones but it seems at this point that Voice Control is not going to be a part of the OS update.

On a more positive note I do like what Apple is doing with their MacBook line with the refresh. Well, except for the alarming trend of building batteries in. That’s irritating to me. I can appreciate that they last longer, take more cycles, and are supposed to be more environmentally friendly but I can’t swap them myself. And that’s garbage. I mean it tickles me in that place inside me that’s warm and soft and all about mother earth that Apple’s greening it up. But I hate not being able to have an extra battery at the ready for those moments when you find yourself without reliable source of AC power. I’m about due for a portable hardware update myself and thankfully there are still MacBooks with removable batteries.

Finally there is Snow Leopard. The next revision of the best OS in the universe. The upgrade cost of $29 is pure win but the fact that I can’t force it to install on my 2005 G4 Mac Mini is all lose.

Okay, that was my two cents. As always comments are more than welcome!

[Props to Engadget for the image]

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Set out before each level of the game are goals to meet. Beyond that it’s primarily supply, demand, and making as much money as possible. In addition you are given a time limit for each level. The faster you can meet the goals the higher your score. Bronze, silver and gold medals are awarded as well depending on your performance.

You are tasked with balancing the desires of visitors to your station with your ability to build expansions to fulfill their desires. This is within the framework of your available resources. Specifically the money to build expansions and the power to run them.

The cute icons on the bottom are visitors to your station. They want stuff.

Kaloki Adventure is simple and straightforward while being fast paced and light hearted. The on-screen controls are well laid out and intuitive. I did have issues with the touch control however. I really like the simplicity of building onto your station which is as easy as tapping on an empty port to bring up a menu of building options. However, in my experience there were problems with the game recognizing my screentaps. I do have a screen protector on my iPhone however and this may be the reason for the difficulty.

Loading times are short, which is appreciated.

In addition to the main game mode which has 14 goal driven levels there are 6 “sandbox” scenarios which don’t have set out goals and are simply about building the most awesome station possible. Nice touch. I also dug the autosave feature which will allow you to pick up where you left off in the event you get interrupted by a phone call.

After playing this game for a while I do have one gripe with it however, which I think is most likely an easy fix for the developers; Kaloki Adventures doesn’t honor the silent mode switch on my iPhone. I learned this the hard way through the painful experience of having the game music start playing during a staff meeting at my day job. Not cool.

One thing I think is missing and that this game could benefit from would be an online component. Perhaps a way to show off your station building prowess and exchange witty quips with fellow station builders maybe? Just putting it out there.

Bottom line: if you are into resource management sims and are looking for a game that’s easy to pick up, fun to play, and has decent replay value then buy this game.

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They’re shipping from Hong Kong and should arrive in about 2 weeks.

[Tip of the hat to stonegrody for the link!]

[Photo via: Cnet]

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Copious amounts of skepticism aside it looks like Gizmodo has been able to confirm this claim without the universe tearing itself apart. The one major caveat is that there is a list of supported hardware that you need to have to get this to work correctly. And the list is short.

This sounds like an easy and painless way for PC users out there to rub a little OS X goodness on their PCs while saving themselves the trouble of going the Hackintosh route. I don’t currently have a PC lying around on which to try this so I’ll have to wait to experience this myself but for those of you out there who do it looks like US$155 will get you from PC to Mac in the time it takes to install OS X.

If any of you have tried this I would love to hear about your experience in the comments!

[Photo via Hack-A-Day]

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