Bydood

Category: Writings

All my content regarding to writing is what goes here! Reviews, updates or just general life opinions go here!

  • Too hard to choose between tablets or laptops

    So it has come to my attention that laptops and tablets are now rising in the market and the thing is that although a laptop signifies the possibility of graphical edge, it does not suit the portability crowd however, finding the perfect portable device (tablet or ultra thin laptops) means that it will lack processing power and the usage of graphics will be shared with Random Access Memory (RAM).

    So the question is: Should I buy a laptop or a tablet?

    The bigger question is “What will you be using it for?”

    Here is my opinion on this:
    Laptops with high specifications hold a great deal of components meaning that when running games or applications that require a big mass of math calculations, it will run smoothly however, if you are the type of person who uses these types of applications a lot, I would recommend a desktop… The main benefit of a laptop which is why we all want one is so that we can take it around with us.
    A tablet, which nowadays hybrids are being introduced, are mainly to carry around and optimised the battery long enough to use away from a power supply. Also, the touch screens make it easier to navigate rather than the little touch pad laptops provide…
    Moderate users who do use a mixture between just browsing, typing up documents, watching films or requiring a little photo editing, an ultra thin laptop or even a tablet will suffice.

    Shopping for these devices are quite head aching and there is no specific answer to it. Just comes down to personal preference.

    A way to choose your device

    Pricing is a whole new story. Given all the online stores, it is a radical difference. Tablets being almost the same price as a very high specification laptop however, tablets currently carry a low end specification but handles day to day activities excessively well. But as the diagram displays, its up to you where you want to be.

    Laptops are a hard choice! Tablets can even be difficult… So it boils down to weight, price, size and keyboard.

    Here are my top 3 choices of laptop hybrids:

    Microsoft-Surface-Pro-2 Acer-Aspire-P3 Sony-Duo-13
    Microsoft Surface Pro 2 Acer Aspire P3 Sony VAIO Duo 13

    And then my top 3 choices of portable laptops:

    Sony-Vaio-Pro-13 Samsung-Series-9-Notebook Asus-UX31
    Sony VAIO Pro 13 Samsung Series 9 Notebook Asus UX31 Zenbook

    But if you were to ask me which one I would choose, I choose a hybrid laptop. It completes both worlds for me which is what I’ve chosen to date today!

    This post is for those who are confused. I hope this sheds some form of light towards your problem…

  • First glance at GTA 5

    Grand Theft Auto 5 is amongst us and having grabbed my copy on the first day of release, I managed to start playing it this weekend and here are my thoughts…

    I haven’t played it to its fullest just yet. I will give this a full review when I complete it but give my opinion in regards to where I am now…

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    The game dives straight into the action allowing players to be engaged immediately and in order to learn the controls, GTA grabs our attention with a ‘learn by doing’ approach which is very typical in the gaming era. However, it is a great way to learn the controls and is simple to get hooked. As the game proceeds, you get the entire understanding of aiming, shooting, running, hiding and getting into a car in the little 5 minute situation. The game is straight forward if you have played any GTA series before.

    The game is so far a great game with all the little extra things they put in. Seeing that the last GTA game I actually played was in fact Vice City and I enjoyed that game to the very end. From seeing GTA: VC to the 5, it’s obviously a huge improvement in graphics but more importantly, the game carries several different personalities in terms of characters (especially Trevor)… The consistency has been kept as well as the controls making players feel familiar and it is definitely a game worth trying out. The part that most people do is start messing around with the police mechanics in the game just to try see how long they last for…

    From this short review, I give it a 8/10 so far. Definitely beats the last few iterations of the GTA series… For me anyways…

  • What’s with all the haters?

    What’s with all the haters?
    So here is what I gathered. Haters are basically individuals who like to put their point of view towards a certain someone who they disagree in whatever they are doing. In other words, these people like to be the ones who like to put other spirits down when it is not necessary to.

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    I suppose it is quite nice for someone to be honest and give out their opinions but too much of it can make one feel like they should give up.

    I guess this is a two way street:
    – The person who is being hated should stay positive and not let it bother them
    – The person who is hating should let their opinions out but at least with a valid reason

    When an argument starts in regards to this matter, it occasionally gets ugly and starts making the other person think twice about what they are doing. If it is an argument, that just means that the two people have different views and have a 30% chance of getting them to agree with each other. Why spend that time trying to get your point across when the conversation can move onto something more positive?

    We, humans, cannot control ourselves when it comes to firing our mouths off when it’s not necessary however, in some cases it is a good thing to hear, taking it too far is another story.
    Now this post was not just a random one… The reason for this post is due to the fact that whether the person is a musician, an actor, a director or whatever, there comes a point in their lives where they end up in the news or articles with one of their pitfalls in life and for this very same reason that fans stop following them and begin hating on them. They believe that they are supporting the stuff read on the news when buying their product in the shop!

    A little silly don’t you think?

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    Here is an example. When we buy an album, we are simply supporting their passion, not what they have done in their lives! Haters would ask “Why did you buy their album? Don’t you know what he/she did!?” Gossip is not what gets me to decide to buy an album… It is the music and beat that I look for.
    I suppose what really triggered me to write this post was the YouTube comments I disagree with and also, artists who really deserve a lot more credit but ends up with no attention because of their history.

    I suppose I can’t change how other people feel as they are who they are but I just want to send out my view to the world.

    Stay positive…

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  • Programming in today’s world…

    Here’s a brief history about my experience in programming. I walked down a path of many different programming languages where I got to adapt to platforms that were unfamiliar to me… I went from Visual Basic, to Java, then to PHP with MySQL, and then finishing with C++. Programming languages are amazing in my opinion and rather interesting. However, nowadays, it seems like things are getting a lot simpler for people to develop programs. Sometimes, you don’t even need to write a single line of code! Seeing as that is the situation, with the right documentation and tutorials, creating games or applications has become so simple to a point that anyone can do it. All it requires is patience and motivation.

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    Creating applications can be quite fun since everything is laid out for you but there are other times when it is better when you have that flexibility to create particular objects yourself. These third party solutions have led me to decrease my skills in development and I am forced to develop programs from scratch to keep myself up-to-date.

    The last thing I created with a third party tool is a game written in C++ called Marmalade. They gave the opportunity that you can port your games or applications from C++ to any mobile device on the market. For my case, I was able to create 2 simple games and release it on the Apple App Store. This did give me the advantage to ease myself into C++ and use object oriented programming which was rather fun to code in.

    Now that I am a web developer, I am forced to develop random stuff in my spare time so I do not forget the basic principles in programming; although I am aware that it is at the back of my head somewhere.

    Not long after this development, I discovered Unity which was based more of a drag and drop development and minor effort of programming however, they do give you the option to code in C# which is rather nice. The good thing is that if programming is at its minimum, it just means more creative games will be released with minimal effort which is good and bad. Good that it creative ideas are shown quickly for others to see but bad because programmers such as me cannot appreciate the programming of the game, like the good old days…

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    Speaking of programming, it seems like the books are slowly disappearing from our ways of teaching. Books were a great source and now it is taken over by the internet. Don’t get me wrong… The Google search bar is an excellent tool and I probably use it at least once every day and it is free so why spend money if you can get information for free? It is the same question as why do we prefer internet news instead of magazines? It is because we don’t like to be using our screens all the time and our eyes need to divert to something else. Also, stumbling across something that you don’t know is highly likely just by flicking pages in a book… I believe books still have a big role at this present day so book stores… PLEASE DO NOT CLOSE DOWN!

    To summarise, this is not me complaining about the way how things are, I am only just specifying how I used to program and learn and it has changed quite a big deal! Quick development is great but slower and optimising the code to every angle is a great accomplishment and truth be told, I haven’t had that kind of feeling in a long time. Maybe some point when I actually complete a project is where I will feel that sensation once again but I suppose time will tell…

    For those who want to develop games or an application, there are loads of tools out there… Just search for them……. With Google….

  • Thoughts about gaming today

    There are so many perspectives when the category ‘gaming’ is spoken of. Generally, games have evolved to a large audience compared to how it was before. The game industries have made a great impact to the world but is it all for the best?

    XBox Hamster

    I am a fan of playing games but have toned down a big amount compared to back then. It used to be the routine to wake up early to play and end the day with playing a few more hours but I was not as hardcore as other gamers. I can’t quite pinpoint as to what happened to me and what got me to stop playing games as much now. Maturity? Realisation of other things happening in the world? Or just the fact that I don’t like change?!

    Gaming has changed completely with a different audience it once had. With genres introduced and more coming…

    My view on gaming is that games are great at passing time or killing time. But I would never come to a point where I’ll assign it as a religion! It also has come to a point where they make a huge deal about connecting with people, e-shops and the cloud. These things are very convenient but also encourages the behaviour ‘sit on your ass all day in front of a screen’. I know this because I am part of this disease too. Escaping this realm is very difficult but it’s all about self control and remembering that you have a passion in life.

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    I recently got back into gaming and I feel like I cannot play a single game properly anymore. However, playing multiplayer with mics gives you twice the amount of engagement! One thing I love about multiplayer gaming is that there is a limitation. If your friends are not online or the gamers are boring to play with, I can easily divert my attention to something else that is not gaming related allowing me to continue with the more vital things in life.

    One game that I actually sat down to complete properly was Tomb Raider. The game just kept having cliff hangers over and over again that kept me immersed throughout the entire game. Although I caught several bugs, it was easily ignored and felt like I grew to understand how Lara felt during her wild adventure. With the feeling of the sequel being released, hinted by Lara’s thoughts at the end, it is definitely a must buy from me…

    Consoles have now come to a point where it connects to you in a personal way. It predicts stuff like what you might be interested in. These kind of things are again, very convenient but hypnotises you temporarily that it is something you must have making you use money. Personally, I prefer the old days where we go to our local shops and find a game by just reading the back of a cover or reading in a magazine but the beneficial factor that it is sitting online and pricing is cheaper online, it pushes me to support the online team…

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    Summarising this is rather difficult but being as it is, the old days made gaming a whole load of fun. The days where we play together in the same room, buying games from shops, the discovery of games… Those days were much more exciting than the choices we have now. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy the new features nowadays but if I were to choose, I’d probably go back…

  • Quick update…

    It has been a long while since I have written a blog post however, now that I have installed Evernote (http://www.evernote.com) on all my devices, I can finally share across all platforms so with this, I will probably write more posts…
    So I want to start with my development progress since I have been hard at work recently. I have been working on securing a virtual server which I recently purchased from Linode.com. This is the first time I have ever used this and I spent quite a bit of time doing this. My aim is to use this virtual server to keep all my future developments here so I can monitor precisely what is going on. Although it does require a bit of technical knowledge to get around to places, but it was rather fun just getting to understand it. The server seems to be stabilised and now moving forward to creating my web servers onto it. I have 3 in total so I need to secure those. This server has the capability to do much more and I plan to use it to its full capacity!
    So lets move onto movies… After a lot of waiting around, I finally sat down to watch the entire Fast & Furious collection (only the 5 movies… The 6th one is on hold until the DVD is released)… I think it was a good set of films but the fact that it was rather a messy transition between 1-3 but went back on the story at 4-5. But 2 was more of comedy and 3 was just a whole new story with new characters which rather put me off the whole collection altogether. In my opinion, I think the 5th was probably my favourite one.
    Moving back a bit more, so I went out to purchase a tablet, Acer W700, and I need to put my opinion on this bit of kit. So this device holds an Intel i5 3rd gen processor, 4GB RAM and Intel HD 4000. The 11-inch screen grabs an impressive HD resolution with pixel perfect display. Nowadays, this tablet is my complete replacement of my Mac Mini and it accomplishes more or less my day to day activities on a computer. One downside I would probably mention is the heating and the noise that comes out when a bit of activity is being processed on the tablet… Besides this, I believe it can sit side by side with a low end laptop but just with the touch screen controls…
    Finally, gaming… Resident Evil 6… The game I bought on the first day it came out and completed 2 campaigns but need to finish the last one. The game is pretty good with the storyline and all but one problem is the camera angles. It is very frustrating when the camera just moves around a lot and also, it is too close to the body that the bottom is not visible. If these issues were fixed, this may actually reach a 8/10 but unfortunately, I would give it a 7/10…
    I hope to work more on my blog so I hope you enjoyed this one.

  • Prioritising…

    I need to straighten out my thoughts and having at first, I had the thought that being in the present was what was important but then recently, it hit me… I need to start thinking real and stop kidding myself. I had a closer look into my finance, my career, my family, my friends… Basically everything that makes me… ME…

    The conclusion I pulled out from this train of thought was that financially, I am stable and given this job, I could save much more but this year has been a complete mess! But like I said previously, I don’t see it as a waste but seeing that things have calmed down, I can finally prioritise as to what is important; that means investing money if it benefits me to excel in what I want to do in life…

    Career wise, maybe it is not what I want to do entirely, but what I can do is enjoy it as well as try to get the most out of it before moving onto something that could very well be a challenge. I thought to myself once that if something is not going right, at least I should sort out my career choice…

    For family, it turns out I should spend more time with them seeing that I’ve kept them in the dark about myself for a while and the fact is that I should start opening up instead of keeping it to myself…

    Finally, friends… They’ve got me quite far and without them even realising it, I’ve gotten over quite a few points in life where I thought was over. They made me laugh and enjoy what I’ve never experienced before.

    From the looks of everything in one go, it looks like everything currently balances out so far. My focus is currently finance and keeping my social experiences. Career can wait a while but I will keep a look out for stuff that will interest me… However, if I was to ask myself if I was happy about it, I’d answer it negatively… I can say that I am starting to develop a new me… An organised and productive me…

    So lets wrap this up, I cannot see what is up ahead but I can say that I have put a little thought into my life and I can say that I feel a little better just feeling like I have an aim of some sort…

    Lets see how this goes…

  • A look into my world…

    Generally wondering where I am going in this world is rather frustrating… Could be because I am waiting for something to happen or whether I missed my opportunity. This life experience that I’ve had for this past year has been completely eye opening for me and I do not regret how I spent my money or how I spent my time. It’s because I am a late bloomer towards living life and truth be told, people who question me about it may not understand it but I don’t need to explain it to them because at the end of the day, it’s my life. Judgement from others can take someone’s positive thoughts into something negative and once you start letting that happen, regrets are bound to question in your head.

    I want to take a minute to talk about memories seeing that I’ve had several conversations about this matter. When we lose something back in the past, we tend to start thinking about every possible reason as to why or what we could have done to bring that memory back to the present. However, the truth is that we need to just realise it is nothing but a memory and it is better if we just leave it as it is and move from it. Sounds simple huh? But the problem stands that we are human and the package comes with caring about the past and reminiscing… All we really can do is just hope the suffering passes and try realise it is all for experience…

    Moving onto something less depressing, so the battle between Xbox One and PS4 is what everyone seems to be talking about and with everything considered, here is my opinion upon it.

    So Xbox One seems to have created so much drama with preowned games, the cost of the console (£429) and not allowing people with no internet connection to get the console and was told that if you don’t have an internet connection, then Xbox 360 is more capable to accomplish your gaming needs.

    That’s a little harsh Xbox! 

    On the other hand , we have PS4 which seems as though it is the anti-Xbox: no fuss about preowned games, price is reasonable (£350) and the internet connection does now have to be paid annually but its a small price to pay… I must admit, before all this drama, I was absolutely wanting Xbox but if they are going to make it difficult, then I would just have to settle with the PS4 which is a shame… But lets see if Xbox changes from now until November…

    So the other day, I swapped back from my LG Nexus 4 over to my iPhone 4S again (I’m so glad I didn’t sell it)… I tried using an Android for roughly 3-4 months but when I looked at the iPhone 5 and the upcoming iOS 7, it made me realise that I actually miss the iOS. The retina display and just the navigation is so simple and I think maybe it is the fact that I have used iOS for a long time that adapting to a new one just does not do it for me. But that is just me… Sometimes, I can be rather difficult but I believe that the interface design and navigation on the Nexus 4 is not as good as Samsung’s or Sony’s user interface.

    Things have been rather slow for me in terms of productivity and it is because of just how tired I feel when I get home from work and my weekends slowly turn into nothing but lazing about the house making me just want to go out as that would probably have been more productive… And maybe I should have… In specific, development has gone to a complete stop! I think I just need to exercise every evening and try fit whatever time I have left to accomplish my goals… My evenings were once very easy to stay up but now I sleep at 10pm… I need to change that routine!!

    I will be back on track soon enough… Need to get my thoughts straight first…

  • Withthegamers.com

    There has been a project that I have been involved with in an upcoming website releasing a version shortly. The first version of the website will consist of the latest news in gaming and will keep you up to date with the upcoming events such as the long awaited E3!

     

     

    Sign up to our newsletters at:

    The site will be free to use and is available to anyone. We have some exciting ideas coming ahead so be sure to check the website often…

    We are open to feedback as well so if you also have ideas, please let us know and we will be sure to note it down.

    Thanks for the support…

  • Experience with Facebook Home

    After a long wait for the Facebook Home to be released on the Nexus 4, there was finally another way to get this App Launcher and so with that and the few weeks that I have used it, I can finally review it.

    It starts off with a download to the Facebook Messenger. I’ve never really installed the app but seeing that Facebook Home required it to get the “Full Experience”, then why not… Then I had to install the Facebook Home app itself; a quick and simple procedure. And finally, when returning to the home screen, it asks if you would like to keep Facebook Home as the main screen but don’t worry, you’re able to remove it if you change your mind.

     

    Moving onto the experience. With the lovely interface, it does require a bit of patience as there is a lot of getting used to. With my familiar home screen gone, pressing home goes back to your Facebook news feed which kind of diverts your attention when you actually pressed home for another reason! However, I compromise with myself to avoid pressing the home button. The news feed is nice as I get to scroll through all my friends photos and feeds in a lovely format but sometimes, I’d like to get back to the beginning and the only way to go back is to scroll all the way back so I try to look at 10 feeds so I don’t go too far from the beginning.

     

    The navigation to the apps is pretty simple. All you do is either move your profile picture located at the bottom centre of the screen and drag it to the apps section. From there, you have panels with the default apps and few most recently installed apps. The one all the way to the left shows all your apps… This is a nice way of navigating but one problem for me is that everything is too hidden. I know it is a Facebook App Launcher but I thought they would make things convenient however, for me, they failed to accomplish this fact.

    One thing I enjoyed about this launcher is the way how text messages are displayed. Whenever a text message arrives to my phone, a circle appears randomly from the left or right of the screen and sits there until you press it. Notifications are very important to me and they really did the job well.

    My thoughts… I think the installation was very easy so no headache there but the navigation needs a bit of work. Everything was so hidden (to make a phone call or get to a browser quickly. The notifications were great and would be even more fantastic if I can just customise the notifications to be able to receive Whatsapp messages the same way.

    Overall, I think I’d give Facebook Home a 6/10.