February 2010 Archives

Nerds like me have been around forever. I started playing Final Fantasy when my uncle bought it and fell in love with the series. The good news now is that the first Final Fantasy for the Nintendo Entertainment System (the 8-bit one) has come to the iPhone.

Not only is Final Fantasy for iPhone very fun but it's much like the original. The graphics, music and gameplay have all been improved. The sound effects like choosing options are way too loud... much louder than the background music and there's no way to change it. It definitely brings back a lot of memories.

Is it worth the $8.99? Absolutely. It's probably the best purchase I've made from the iTunes App Store other than Bejeweled 2 and Trillian.

I just thought some of you RPG fans who grew up playing games like this would want to know. :)

Waiting to make a change, but why not now?

This podcast episode is a little late out the door and was recorded a week apart, so some things may or may not apply anymore (especially parts where I say that I'll post it on a Friday). I apologize for not being able to get these things ready when promised lately.

In this episode, I talk about these things:

• Updates on my weight and why I think I gained that weight
• More on my accent
• More on what's going on in my personal relationship and moving

In the second part, I talk about (after 13:38):

• An Australian citizenship test I took... dot-dot-dot
• My plans until I leave
• Even more about the relationship I hold near and dear to me
• My weight progress, diet changes and being more health-conscious for the best
• New layout to idiologic.com coming, check the homepage for details and please take the survey which is supposed to close at the end of the month.

Survey: Until the end of February, I want to know what you think about idioPod. It shouldn't take longer than 5 minutes to do and your name or email address is not required.

Stay updated with upcoming podcasts by checking out the idioPod Event Calendar! (It has been recently changed - now showing local time in the USA.)

Download: Right-click or listen on your iPhone/iPod Touch
Subscribe: Subscribe here
Length: 27 minutes 58 seconds
File Size: 12.8 MB

Wow, I didn't realize that it's been forever since I've updated my weblog! So hello there, folks. There IS a new podcast episode coming tomorrow but I know there are some of you [increasingly] who don't listen to that so I'll update you a bit of what's going on.

As of late, it seems that I am not feeling entirely well. I have been quite moody and irritable. I am having a few problems with my stomach and I thought that it's possibly due to me not eating until I'm super full anymore. I don't sit around and snack all day and night. I've lost a little bit of weight (since it's my goal to lose some before I am off to one of my favorite places in less than two months).

So yes, I have joined a website that tracks my progress and unfortunately, I haven't kept up with it the way that I should but I have to admit that it's very interesting to have a place where there are tons of people to offer support. And there's a ton more, but Family Guy is on and I can't concentrate for the life of me! Basically, I signed up at SparkPeople.com because I saw my sister use it and she's lost a bit of weight from it.

So if you've stuck to your New Year's resolution to lose weight and want to join me, just click that pretty little button and sign up! And plus, you'll be my friend and we can encourage and motivate each other.

I really have about 8 more pounds to go before I meet my goal. I have 6 weeks to do it. I am sure I can do it! :)

I mentioned yesterday that I bought a magicJack and was expecting it soon. But I was really shocked when it came in today! It was supposed to arrive on the 19th. Good job USPS.

Anyway, first impressions about the magicJack...

I haven't done much with it but I did set up a Galveston, TX number (because it's the best I could get). I made a few calls with it from the computer and have to admit that the call quality is really, really good. Sure, the software is a bit ugly but it gets the job done. And I love the color it glows when it's plugged in. I was afraid I'd have to go grab a USB cord extension but hey, there was one in the box! (I don't really care for things jutting out of my laptop like that.)

I haven't made any calls with a phone plugged in out of pure laziness but I'll have to repeat myself that I think any American living or traveling extensively should get one. I guess a little corded phone wouldn't hurt either.

So, for $12.99, I'd say it's a wonderful deal (but remember that I had $25 in Amazon gift cards to use). At $37.99, it's still a great deal because it comes with a year of local and long distance phone calls. And calling Australia landlines costs $0.027 per minute with Australian mobiles costing $0.20 per minute. You pretty much have to buy prepaid minutes with those but still that's not bad.

With that said, if you have an opportunity to use one, I'm sure you'll like it. :)

Finally something a little bit different! No website or podcast updates in this one.

I had about $25 of Amazon gift certificates laying around and though I would have loved to get a carrying bag for my Nintendo DSi (or my other small gadgets), I decided to get a magicJack to use in Australia.

What is a MagicJack you may ask? It's basically a USB device that you plug in to your computer and you can plug in a regular telephone into it to make calls. It works over a high-speed internet connection. You buy that USB device for $20 (USD) and a year of calls for $19.95, so you end up paying $39.95 usually. You CAN find them cheaper. I spent about $12.99 for the bunch (thanks to the gift certificates).

The good thing about the magicJack is that I will have a local number for my family to call and it will ring in Australia. Unfortunately, my computer has to be turned on to make or receive calls. I figured that would be okay since I can turn it off at night because, sadly, people like to call me around 1 to 3 am. I can barely remember the time difference myself.

I've read reviews of it and most of it is positive. There are some reviews that weren't so pleasant but it's mostly about the customer service. From that alone, I am hoping that the setup goes well. I'm not expecting exceptional call quality and I'm not going to be making 4 hour phone calls... I just like options. We all know that.

I have a few friends who have one and they said that it works out pretty well.

I suggest, even with the negative reviews, that Americans living or traveling extensively overseas grab one, just in case.

But have said that, I have not received mine yet. And when I do set it up and use it, I'll make another post. I'm hoping it will be good news.

I've modified my podcast release schedule until my one to two week break so I can attempt to spend more time with my family and friends. Below you can find a simple calendar of when I expect to post new podcast episodes:

So this means that between some podcast updates I'll have 10 days instead of 7 which is great for me. The podcast episodes posted on Tuesdays will most likely be very short ones. And of course, the calendar above is just an indication. Dates may move around so make sure you take a look at the event calendar often.

Also having said that, podcast episode #115 is tentatively scheduled on April 9 but I am hoping to pre-record it weeks in advance.

Reminder: Episode #115 will be an introduction to who I am for new listeners, so if there are things that you think I should come right out to say to new listeners... make sure I get a message of your idea, okay? It will REALLY help things out.

Yes, it's been a long weight...

IThis podcast episode took me forever to get done because of pure, raw laziness. And yes, I'm being serious. I didn't have one topic to talk about so my topics are all over the place but I can tell you I hit on a few of these things:

• My moodiness
• My weight
• Missing people
• My crappy Chinese food
• My early sex life (or lack thereof)

Survey: Until the end of February, I want to know what you think about idioPod. It shouldn't take longer than 5 minutes to do and your name or email address is not required.

Stay updated with upcoming podcasts by checking out the idioPod Event Calendar! (It has been recently changed - now showing local time in the USA.)

Download: Right-click or listen on your iPhone/iPod Touch
Subscribe: Subscribe here
Length: 26 minutes 31 seconds
File Size: 12.1 MB

Unfortunately I did not get the new episode up. I will definitely edit and post it tomorrow (on a Sunday which is not something I willingly do).

This one will require editing. I just hope Garageband can handle it. If not, I'll go with Soundtrack.

I'll definitely need some feedback regarding the new layout. I've heard "it's too green" already. I have a preview available but not out in the public yet.

Oh, and when I die, everybody be a fan of mine on Facebook, will you? ;) Not that it's going to happen soon but if I'm a computer literate ghost, I want to feel the love.

Why am I craving peach cobbler? Now...?

If you've viewed idiologic.com lately, you might have noticed a big change.

Color theme switching is not available right now and I don't expect it to come back for a week or two. Why? Because I am changing layouts. Fortunately, I will be reusing a lot of the same code so it shouldn't take too terribly wrong.

Why a complete layout change right now? When I started the current layout, a lot of the code I put in there was meant to be temporary and I ended up leaving them there. There is a lot of code sitting there that does absolutely nothing. I need to change all of that so that idiologic and idioPod are quicker to load (because they're on slow servers to begin with).

When I am ready to post the new layout, you'll notice that both of my sites will go to my weblog (which will not be part of the layout change). You might want to delete the 'mysheet' cookie from Idiologic if you're seeing anything else but the new green color.

So that is what I'm working on and I'm giving you all a head's up. And of course, here's a little teaser what I'm working with.

Lately, I've been playing around with a few website-related things so I've been relatively quiet. And the last podcast mess really made me mad, so, yeah, but now I'm here and well I thought I'd let you know what I'm working on.

I've really wanted to implement audio on my site (mainly for idioPod) and wanted to use the <AUDIO> tag to do it.

But unfortunately, with most upcoming technologies, things aren't all the way put together.

To make it work with the newest Mozilla-based browsers (Firefox), I'd have to encode every MP3 file as an OGG file which I have noticed is very time consuming AND tedious. MP3 is a much more universal format, so I am sticking with it. I'm all for open sourced solutions, but this one doesn't suit me. So right now, the newest Mozilla-based browsers will show an X and the audio will not play. Additionally, I do not have anything to fall back on if I didn't also show the Flash player.

Because Internet Explorer (Trident-based browsers) and Opera (Presto-based browsers) do not support the AUDIO tag, a player is shown that will use Quicktime, Windows Media Player or even the VLC browser plug-in. It works, and it works quite well as far as I know.

For anybody who uses a Webkit-based browser (such as Safari, Chrome and such), it will work perfectly... the way I envisioned it would work.

With all this said, you're more than welcome to try out the new player. It will only play the latest episode of idioPod. You can keep it open and listen or you can just see if it works.

Note: You will see two players. The first is the Flash player (currently found on the weblog entries for podcast episodes). The second will either be the Quicktime/WMP/VLC plug-in or the AUDIO tag stuff. In Firefox 3.5+, the second player WILL NOT WORK.

Oh and if this weblog was a little too nerdy for you, I apologize. :)