Trine

I have just recently started to play this new game called Trine, its an interesting combination of action and strategy. The story is of three adventures, a wizard, a thief and a knight, who get there souls combined. This limits them to one body but enables you to switch between each character. Each character is unique and each character can navigate each level with their own abilities. Personally I prefer the wizard, but the others are more use full for fighting enemies. The graphics are great and it plays well. The last boss is pretty hard, took me about 5 life's to beat him. So far I love the game. Keep building.

Battle Field Heroes

I just recently started to play the new battlefield heroes and I've been blown away by it. The game is insanly fun to play and is free. It's an interesting 3rd person shooter but I has some rpg elements as your characters level up and gain new abilities. Very Addicting.

Build: Monitor Mod

I have this pretty cool monitor mod on this forum by someone that calls themselves shadowlord. He got bored looking at his plain old 17" LG LCD and decided to spruce it up a little. It has the apple inspired glass screen and a bunch of added LED's to light up the screen. I think that it is a vast improvement. There are more pictures and the steps that he went through on his forum post that can be found here. Not posting as often as I would like, looking forward to some Wii hack posts soon as I have just recently gotten into the Wii Hacking scene. Keep on building.

Google 411

I found a very interesting article written by one Garett Rogers about the true reason for google to make the google 411 service in which you call the number and ask work the location of a business and it provides you the directions to such business. Apparently there isn't much commercial applications for it, but they are using the service to create a large database of recorded voices for voice to text recognition. Sounded pretty cool, the article can be found here.

Build: FireFox Search bars

Well it has been a while since I've last posted something so I thought I would add a small project that I had just recently finished. I've all ways been disappointed that for FireFox there has never been a search bar for google images. Sometimes I'd just rather look up images of something rather then look it up on google. So I though hey why don't I just make my own search bar plug in. So I looked around and this article on the Mozilla site really help you understand how to program the search bars. I've actually made two search bars, one for google images and one that searches google for GBA Roms. A digital copy of a game that you can play if your have a corresponding emulator. Anyways the GBA Search and the Google Images Search can be found there to download. Pretty impressed that the google images has been downloaded so far 100 times in 3 days and that the GBA search has be download 20 times. Pretty easy to program one yourself but I would help to know XML. Anyways I encourage everyone to try to make one themselves, download the two that I have made and to review the ones I made so that I can make them public and not just experimental. Keep building.

Build: Electronic picture frames

I found this very cool guide for turning your old laptops in a digital picture frame that you can post of your wall. Doesn't seem like it's that complicated of a build but what I really think that is interested about is that he found thin power cords that match the colour of his wall. It's very difficult to detect the cables, unless you are looking for them.Electronic picture frames have gotten pretty cheap recently but still a cool idea for any old laptops laying around the house. The entire build can be found here. Keep on building.

Build: Multi Touch Surface

I haven't been posting much since I've sort of started my exams today, but I will try my best to keep it up to date. I recently found this very interesting build for a multi-touch surface that seems pretty cool. It use internal refraction to work and the disturbance when it is touched. Very interesting build and even has a pretty cool video to show it off. The link can be found here. I've also added the video here if your interested to watch it.

Bacon Crazy

I just thought that I would post two different recipes that I found based on the best food every invented, Bacon. Both recipes seem to look very good but they will probably kill anyone that eats them. They both seem to start out the same way with the cooking of a bacon weave. The first one, the bacon explosion, seems to be a layer of bacon stuffed with Italian sausage and crispy bacon. Warning as they do state that it has at least 5,000 calories and 500 grams of fat. This is the more healthy between the two recipes in my opinion. The second recipe seems to be some sort of bacon burrito, a layer of bacon stuffed with melted cheese. I don't know if it would taste good but it would definitely be something to try. The bacon explosion can be found here while the bacon burrito can be found here. I know this post doesn't really go with the whole theme of my blog but it's bacon and I love it. Hopefully I'll get into the flow of doing more posts.
Keep Building.

Tech news: OnLive

I've been pretty busy recently with mid terms and assignments recently and I haven't had much time to post anything new. But today I found an interesting article on cnet about an of a new game distribution system called OnLive. It promises to allow you to play the most recent video games on any computer, it works something like stream my games which I have previously posted about. Their server runs the game in encodes it as a video over the Internet to your computer and interacts with keyboard communication. Seems to work with Voip headphones which is a good idea. I don't know how good of an idea this will actually be when you consider the price, the fast Internet speed (I personally don't think broadband can handle HD streaming), as well as the fact that these server can only have a certain amount of clients per server. It would defiantly be something to try but I don't think it will really take off until Internet providers look to increase their Internet speeds through new technologies, but there really hasn't been much advancement in that field at least very little relative to the introduction of broadband. Anyways keep on building.

Story: Solar power batteries

I found a very cool little story about a new product that will be coming out by SunCat batteries. It is a pretty interesting idea but I don't know how well it would actually work out. I like the idea of solar energy but it's just not practical, at least not until they make further advances in the technology. The picture is a home-made version of their design. I would love to see some one design this as a build but I have no idea were you would find flexible solar cells. Anyways here is the story if your interested. Keep on building.

Story: Scotch tape X-rays

A little while a go I found this very interesting little story on the Internet that claims that there was a scientific discovery that when you peel scotch tape from human skin it emits x-rays. I have no idea if this is actually possible but it sounds very interesting so that I thought that I would post it. The go on to talk about the applications of this for taking x-rays in third world countries that are unable to afford x-ray machines. I don't think that scotch tape would create enough x-rays as a regular x-ray tube but you never know. Keep on building.

Build: USB solar charger

A little while ago I found myself on an interesting little site. It's a simple design that seems to be pretty cheap to make. I'm pretty happy that at the end of the video he does a real-life test of the solar array rather then just his indoor testing because that light the he uses for that is fairly strong. I don't really think that there is a large amount of energy that can come from this build since most days, atleast not here in Toronto, are not as sunny. But go ahead a build it and prove me wrong. Here is the video anyways for anyone that is interested. Keep building.

Stream my games

I've heard of stream my games before but I've never really thought to much of it. Now that I spent some time using it I really gotten into the idea of using the program. If you are not aware of what stream my games is, it is a program that allows you to stream a game your playing from one computer to another in your LAN or just through the internet. I haven't had the chance to try that yet, all I've been having fun is with the video capturing. Stream my games works by converting your display into a mp4 format that is transmitted. This enables you to make movies, allow others to stream you playing your game and it allows you to play your games from a secondary computer. I think the idea would be pretty cool to try with a netbook. I only have the free account so there is a limit to the maximum resolution that i can stream. It is a pretty low resolution but still pretty cool. Here's a video that I was able to capture and post on youtube of me playing some left 4 dead which is the reason why I don't post that much. This game is just to much fun.

Mame Bar

I've been pretty busy recently with school starting again, so I've had little time to post. I had found this site a while ago of a pretty kick ass looking MAME bar. MAME stands for multiple arcade machine emulator if you didn't know. With MAME you can play any of your favorite arcade games, new or old. I have considered making my own arcade system cabinet and all but nothing has come from that yet. I do have a giant bunch of Roms at the ready. This is an interesting take on a MAME machine in which hes integrated it into his bar. Very cool but you don't get the true fell of an arcade if you ask me. Still pretty cool to check out if you ask me. The site can been seen here. Keep building.

Build: Game Man

I would like to make sure that everyone knows about this amazing DIY project that I've just so happened to stumble upon while searching the Internet. It's a giant sized original game boy. The impressive little device is called the Game Man and it was created by one Jeff Hermann of which you can see his site here. I recommend checking out some of his pictures that he took during the build because there was a lot of work that went into it.

The entire build is based upon an old Pentium 200 computer and a game boy emulator. The time spent on the detailing and the craftsmanship is very impressive. The entire body is made out of wood. I have no idea why anyone would want a giant game boy but i think that it is an amazing idea, even the power cord is in the same place as it should be, and I've considered following in his footsteps but making so minor changes to his build.

One thing that I don't really like about his build is the way that the game cartridges work. He has these giant amazing looking cartridges that when the are connected into the Game Man the connected a switch that loads the specific ROM. The problem with this is that the are only so many switch that he can place on the inside of the Game Man (I believe that he has used 5). I think it would be interesting to make each cartridge a cheap usb drive that some metal plates that make connect, plates both for the Game Man and plates for the games them selves. The game plates can then be soldered to usb drive and the plates for the Game Man soldered to the female end of the usb for the computer. This maybe be more hard work more then anything but its just an initial idea. I would also be interested in each game being bunch of Roms from a specific system rather then just one game. I no it sorta takes away from the entire Game Boy idea but I think I would be interesting that way. I still have no idea how hes managed to get the buttons on the Game Man to work and his hasn't fully describe that off of his website. Anyways I just thought to mention it because I really think it is an amazing build, It has really sparked my interest into making ridiculously large old video game systems. Maybe a large Sega Game Gear should be in the works? Anyways that all I have to say, keep on building.