Some weeks I just don’t feel like researching anything worthwhile let alone writing about it, and this week happens to be that time.  So I decided to get up to date with all the latest in gaming.

First of all I decided to try out Call of Duty 4.  I have always been a huge COD fan and I considor it to be among the best of the best.  And thankfully, COD 4 didn’t let me down.  Infinity Ward have ditched WW2 and decided to turn to modern warfare, a genre that hasn’t yet been saturated.  This game has received a lot of hype, and boy does it live up to the reviews - amazing!   I have been fairly pressed for time so I was only able to go through the first two levels, but I’m already hooked and can’t wait for more.  Hwever, I did notice a bit of lag, so in order not to ruin the experience I rushed onto eBay for a memory upgrade only realizing after the pruchase I might as well just upgrade to an entire new system!

Next up was Company of Heroes.  I got my hans on the “gold” edition which includes COH and COH Oppossing Fronts.  Once again, I only had limited time to play this so I only managed to do the tutorial and the first level.  To me this is a fresh game with good ideas, although I wasn’t instantly hooked.  Once again, this is a fairly resource hungry game and im looking forward to that memory boost.

And finanly I decided to give Steam a run.  Steam is Valve’s content delivery system.   I have received quite a bit of press info about this but I was never really all that excited about it.  But after installing it I soon changed my tune.  I was impressed by the range of games and even more impressed by the PayPal payment option.  These days, if I can’t use PayPal I won’t shop at that online store.  To test out the service, I decided to go with one of my childhood favorites Commandos.  And they even enticed me into purchasing the Commandos pack which includes all 5 games in the Commandos series.  It set me back $39.95 which im thinking is fairly good value.  My only gripe is the fairly slow download speeds here in Australia.  As of yet I can’t play any of the titles I purchased and acordding to the app it will be another 1:30.

Although this week is coming to an end, i’m planning on expanding it into a 2 week marathon with a trial of Guitar Here 3 for the Wii and Assassins Creed coming up.

I’m sorry about all the recent apple articles.  Its just working on my Macbook makes me want to be a fan boy!

Crap!  There is an Apple trojan!

That was my reaction when I first heard about this “particularly nasty” trojan.  But then I realised I wasn’t using Windows.

Upon reading about this Trojan I discovered that you actually had to first get prompted to install the software (off some dodgy website), install it and then enter your admin password!   It would actually take quite a bit of work to install this trojan!

So I sat back and once again gloated around my old folks when they asked me for help to renew there overpriced Virus Protection subscription - now thats what I call a scam!

Here in Australia, I am one of the very few people who actually seem to own an Ipod Touch.  In fact, I have not seen another one being used, and they are only just becoming available in the stores.

This is an awesome device but of course its missing one thing - third party apps.

Now sure, I could use the various jailbreak options that will allow me to use third party apps, but im holding out for Apple.   Yep thats right, im going to wait until Apple releases the SDK and allows me to easily install apps through iTunes (I assume).

Why?  Im scared.  Apple has scared me into believing that my device is better off without these apps.  Sure I know they won’t brick it for having third party apps, at most they will just keep getting rid of them with each update, but im still scared.  I don’t know what undercover marketing I’ve been subjected to but I really don’t want to run the relatively simple installer and turn my touch into an absolutely killer device.

Or maybe I just love the simplicity and workingness (sorry no other made up word describes apple better) of Apple.  Thats what made me switch to Apple in the first place, I was sick of Windows not working and craved a device that just worked.  And  I know that when Apple does release more apps weather they are third party or in house - they will work!

So its a combination of being scared and liking my iPod Touch to just work, thats keeping me from hacking the crap out of it!

Well rumors are flying around about the release of Mac tablet and I thought it would be only appropriate to add my 2 cents.

If Mac does release a tablet, sure its going to be stylish, good looking and most likely will be quite innovative, but do we really need a tablet?

To answer this question, im going to have to ask a further question - what will a tablet allow users to do, that we can’t do now?  It might aid designers and creative types in general, and it would be useful for presentations etc…but does this device appeal to us ordinary folks?  Maybe.

Truth is, I don’t think we will ever replace the keyboard.  It works, and it works well.  So I don’t believe that a tablet PC will be all that useful - typing on a tablet is annoying!

For a tablet to be successful, I believe that it needs to be a combo of keyboard and tablet functions.   For example, if Apple were to put a multi-touch screen in my currently Macbook, it would be a killer device.  I could use the touch screen to quickly flick through emails and browse web pages but when it comes down to writing out a report I can use the keyboard.  Don’t you agree -a combination is the best way to go!

How awesome would a Macbook with a multitouch screen be.

And I believe that we will see this exact device in the future.  But unfortunately, the mac tablet isn’t going to be this.  And may just continue the flow all tablets have been experiencing.  But don’t forget this is Apple and I look forward to being pleasantly surprised.

It must of only been a few weeks ago we were discussing on BloggerTalk, how Tumblr seemed to have died. At the time, I wasnn’t willing to give up on one of my favorite startups, and thankfully I was right in holding out. Tumblr.com seems to have undergone a snazzy new upgrade and is looking and feeling great (apart from a couple of bugs).

Notable features include a new theme editor and new posting options (I think…I can’t quite remember what options there used to be). There is also a brand new design. I also noticed an API which could be new…once again im not sure.

I use Tumblr for TastyStartup.com, a listing of all the startups that I come across. I find it to be an excellent option for those just looking for a light-weight blogging option without all the hassle.

When I used to write for the TapTechBlog, I discovered a number of web 2.0 startups that focused on wine and more specifically sharing and reviewing wines.

And to my amazement, this niche is becoming even more crowded with the entry of Adegga, a social wine discovery service, or so the site tells me.

Adegga is basically a social network focused purely on wine.  And all the expected features such as rating, sharing, watch lists etc. are there.  I would like to give a more detailed review but the site is invitation only (which seems silly as a site like this needs lots of users to succeed) so Adegga, an invite would be appreciated.

I’m interested to know how Adegga is planning on differentiating themselves from Corkd and Winelog 

But what about Beer?

Ok I know what Mahalo is meant to be, a human powered search engine.  But the hell is Mahalo?

Human Powered?  What some smallish group of editors selecting what they believe will be better results than Googles?  I don’t think so.  All i’m seeing is a glorified directory that is both slower than Google, and the results are obviously going to be outdated.

The modern day search engine was designed to replace directories and provide more efficient  results - and Mahalo doesn’t do this.  Yes, they will show Google results for terms that havn’t had a page created for it, but what about all the terms that have had pages created.  Are they going to show results as fast as Google, of course not.

Maybe im just not getting it.

Everyone is talking about PageRank - and I mean everyone.  I don’t think I have been to a blog recently that rasn’t mentioned the recent PR update.  So I thought I would wait a few days for things to settle down a bit before posting this article.

The recent PR update has supposedly seen a large number of websites lose PR because they were selling text links based on PR.  Sure this has annoyed a great deal of people, but for me this is the beginning of the end of PR as we know.

So what does this mean?  Where is Google heading?  The truth is no one really knows, but we can take pretty good stab at it.  Personally, I believe Google is trying desperatly to remove all value from PR.  ie. sites won’t be sold based on PageRank and the same goes for links, they won’t be sold for PR.    Or, Google will keep the value in PR, but will change the way in which sites gain pagerank.  Currently, PR seems to be mainly based around the number of high PR sites that link back to your webpage.  And this model, leaves the door wide open for selling text-links based on PR, something which Google doesn’t want.

So, in order to combat gtext link sales, Google needs to rethink the way PR works (or drop it all together).  Personally, I hope Google opts for a method based purely on high quality content.  The technology for picking up good quality content is starting to be developed and if Google manages to differentiate the content written purely for Search engines and the real content, then why can’t they use content as a PR determinate.

If Google does decide to place value on content, then the internet will be a better place - people like me can stop worrying about SEO and focus on writing good content that people will want to search for.

Sure, all this means a drop in income for a large number of bloggers, but hey - wouldn’t you rather blog?

So I welcomed this PR update because I think many high PR sites shouldn’t have been high PR sites (just because your good at SEO doesn’t mean your site should be more valuable…in the perfect world) and further more, this could eliminate a ton of spammy blogs - yay!

HellowTxt allows you to update multiple blogs such as Twitter, Jaiku, Yapped and Tumblr all at once.  No registration is required and sending new posts to multiple blogs just takes a couple of seconds.

I Like

The fact registration is required is a huge benefit and makes the entire process ultra simple.

Like to See

I would like to see a feature that allows me to also post to my Wordpress or Blogger blog.  The ability to include images would also be a huge feature.

HelloTxt.com 

On my old blog, TapTechBlog,  I wrote quite a bit about the mobile payments industry and I followed one company fairly closely - KushCash

Yet looking at their site today, it seems as though they could be sliding out of business.

I still believe mobile payments are going to be a trusted and useful form of payment in the future.  But is the world ready?  Well, from what im seeing maybe not.

It would be interesting to have a chat with KushCash again and see where things are going.