The manual that's included with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II is a great starting point for learning the camera, but it's definitely not the only place you should be getting your information from if you intend to master your 5D Mark II. If you don't have the manual, you can download a copy of it here from Canon's website. It's great for learning the basics of the camera, but sometimes it can be vague and hard to follow. In order to capture the full potential of the 5D Mark II, you need to go a lit...
It's been an eventful week for Google+. Facebook decided to up its game and start rolling out several major updates intended to address privacy concerns. We got a glimpse into the future of Google+ via an insightful discussion between +Bradley Horowitz and +Tim O'Reilly. And Google decided to integrate the +1 button more fully with Google+ by allowing users to share directly from the +1 button. That's not all, though—scroll down for more news & updates that occurred in the past week.
Listen up Scrabblers... you finally have something to brag about besides knowing what MUZJIK is, and if you think it's elevator music, put those tiles back in the bag and pack up your Scrabble board because this doesn't apply to you.
The last week has been a trying one for me. On Sunday, there were four computers in my office, three of which were broken. The fourth was not really a computer, but more of a collection of parts that were cobbled together for the purpose of constructing a PC that would sneer derisively at the mere mention of turning down any game's ambient occlusion settings.
This week's roundup features three games that I've either never bothered to play, was unable to play due to PC technical limitations, or haven't played because they've just been released. None of these three games cost more than $15.
Most indie game developers will never see a million dollars in their bank accounts, and I certainly doubt that Eul, the anonymous developer responsible for the original version of Defense of the Ancients (DotA), expected to. But now even the fans can earn a little green. Some lucky and talented DotA players are about to win $1,000,000 for playing the unreleased sequel to the free unsupported Warcraft III mod from 2003.
One of the coolest things about Twitter is the fact that you can get direct access to some of your favorite celebrities, and have one-on-one conversations with them in less than 140 characters. With Google+, you can have the same advantage, but you don't need to feel constricted by the 140 character limit. Although Google+ has been weeding out fake accounts, they do not currently have a system for celebrities to verify whether their accounts are legitimate or not.
Grand Theft Auto 4 was a landmark game. It gave yet another reboot to the already rebooted Grand Theft Auto series, arguably the most prestigious video game in the West. It has a 98 on Metacritic, making it by that measure the best game of modern times. Whatever your stance on the gameplay may be—which has received its fair share of flak in the three years since its release—the graphical steps that the team at Rockstar North took to create their fantasy replica of New York were a major step f...
Google+ is the most exciting new social network to come around this decade, and the only product with a chance of challenging the monopolies we know as Facebook and Twitter. As an Internet addict, I've joined every major social network there is - from Friendster (who?) to MySpace (so ugly) to LinkedIn (yawn) to Twitter (irritating) and Facebook (annoying to manage). Competition is delicious, especially between well-financed monopolies. Google+ really seems to have identified an Achille's heel...
Anybody who spends most of their day on the internet should know all about lulz. Lulz are most often jokes made at the expense of web users, as popularized on 4Chan. Today, a consortium of hackers called LulzSec is attempting (and in some cases succeeding) in efforts to shut down some of the games that offer web users a giant share of their online fun. World of Warcraft, League of Legends, EVE Online, and Bethesda Softworks have all been targeted by LulzSec's hacking efforts in the last week,...
Speech recognition software made it easy to search Google on your smartphone, and Google Goggles made it easy to find answers from camera snapshots on your device. But now Google's bringing similar technology straight to your desktop, and with faster results—faster than Google Instant.
Netflix may be killing its competitors, but they're losing fans thanks to their reputation for rolling out interface updates without user knowledge or consent. PlayStation 3 owners were upset at the Netflix interface change earlier this year, and now nearly 5,000 diehard Netflixers are irate at the website's new look for its Watch Instantly section.
Nobody could predict the success of Microsoft's Kinect, not even Microsoft themselves. So, it was quite a surprise when it ended up earning a Guinness World Record for fastest-selling consumer electronics device, and an even bigger surprise to see people buying one that didn't even own an Xbox 360.
George Plimpton may be one of the most interesting Americans ever. Foremost a sports journalist, he was also a novelist, Fireworks Commissioner for New York City and host of Mouseterpiece Theater. Some of you may also recognize him as one of the men who tackled Robert F. Kennedy's assassin, Sirhan Sirhan. But most of you probably remember him as the pitchman for products like Pop Secret Popcorn and the Intellivision video game console. Actually, his most appreciated work would probably be a s...
Iceland Adventure Travel Are you an "adventure traveler?" That's right an adventurer traveler! Adventure tourism is becoming a popular travel niche all over the world for adventure seekers. These are people who don't necessarily want to sit on the beach with a cocktail with a tiny little umbrella in it, but rather experience the great outdoors through participating in activities.
The aging and maturity of video games as a medium has lead to some unfortunate consequences. One of these, perhaps drawn from the film industry, is the spate of remakes that has overtaken the game market over the last few years. It hasn't been as bad as the remakeorama trend in cinema, but developers have recognized the value in releasing the same thing they already made and making more money off it. Below, a roundup of some remakes of classic games released for XBLA recently, some fantastic,...
Yesterday's installment of a Gamer's Guide to Video Game Software featured Unity 3D; today we'll be covering one of the oldest consumer game making engines, RPG Maker.
What Dad Really Wants from You for Fathers Day!
Sticking with our theme of XBLA games with uninspiring names, we have Outland. This game shares its name with an unrelated sci-fi cult film from 1981, unrelated comic strip from the '90s, and unrelated region in World of Warcraft. Didn't exactly try hard to build name recognition. Other than that, Finnish developer Housemarque has created the best 2D platformer I've seen in years.
Japanese people are into many things Americans find weird—like YouTube's beloved canine-hosted cooking show or Daito Manabe's light up LED grills or even more insane, a vending machine that distributes live crabs. In light of these cultural oddities, the Japanese phenomenon of visual novels (NVL, or bijuaru noberu), seems relatively normal. A meeting place of books and video games, visual novels are a sort of "Choose-Your-Own-Adventure" for the new generation.
When you grab a video game off the shelves, finding love is probably not your end goal. Most games focus on letting the player shoot guys, order other guys to shoot guys, or build houses. Mass Effect 2 comes closer than most titles to offering virtual romance, but the relationships are shallow and strictly heterosexual. I found whoring my way around the Normandy much more satisfying as a gameplay option than developing an emotional connection to another character.
Bird spotting is a fun and also fascinating pastime that is definitely expanding in reputation. Not simply can you watch spectacular birds, but you may appreciate the wonder of the open air as well as unwind in the clean air. Having time to view birds in there natural place or in their nesting behaviors can be a great way to escape the headaches of the planet for a little bit and simply experience nature.
Where were you in 1993? Thinking about starting a tech company? Starting elementary school? Awaiting a 1996 Daft Punk party after which you would be conceived? It's been eighteen years, but the game that solidified my dorkdom for good is still coming out with new sets, still fun as hell to play, and deserves some love dammit. To that end, I have started this World: A Magic: The Gathering Spot.
Choosing the right axe for you There are many choices and factors when it comes to buying a new electric guitar. Price, style, quality and comfort are major players.
A First Timer's Guide When some new guitarists break their first string they stash it in the closet and forget about it. Me, I put the sweaty axe back in its case and asked my parents to take me to the local music store. After a morning full of senseless racket emanating from my bedroom, my mom welcomed the drive.
Today Farmville updated some of the user interfaces for crafting and farmers market! Changes
This German video is amazing. A joyously analog interpretation and deconstruction of the digital gaming experience. Malte Jehmlich is as primitive and inspiring as the the Vanuatu natives who devoted themselves to cargo worship after World War II!
Baking bread might feel intimidating in advance. The fear to screw it up can make one chicken out and instead keep buying bread as usual at the store. Personally, I am very picky about which bread to eat, and learned over time that home baked bread bits them all when made properly.
Update This issue has been resolved
A Way Out of the Overload How do we simplify? There's a welter of information, advice, techniques, schools and every imaginable video tape available on the market to answer that question for you. In making a selection from this movable feast you'd want to take into account the background and credentials of the person offering you a way out of the overload. That's assuming you didn't just throw up your hands in exasperation and walk away from the task entirely.
Kizeme This Japanese word, kizeme, means "spirit of attack." It is said of Miyamoto Musashi, the famed Japanese swordsman, that as he grew older he relied more on kizeme to defeat adversaries and, as a result, emerged victorious from challenges without taking the life of his opponent.
Red Dead Redemption is hard to pin down in game play and story. The game offers this massive multi-layered world in which the player can roam freely, offering plenty of challenges, beautiful graphics and atmosphere for the player to experience. Yet after some point the whole world feels barren and unchangeable, and your achievements are nothing more than a trophy that does not matter in the sandbox world the player resides in. The story, told in three arcs, offers an inconsistent narrative of...
Hey now! Brazil, Paraguay, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay are doing very well in their respective groups. The are all expected to qualify to the final 16. In fact, they are doing better than any other continent. Europe's top flight teams are disappointing, as are the host African nations.
"Life is difficult." That's how Scott Peck's best-selling book, "The Road Less Travelled", begins. That life is difficult is not news. Over two-thousand years ago the Buddha said it too: Life is suffering. The sanskrit word the Buddha used for suffering is dukkha. Dukkha doesn't refer to physical pain, necessarily. It refers to something more akin to our English word 'dissatisfaction'. Adages abound in our language which attest to the universality of dissatisfaction in our daily lives. "The g...
When I trained at Honbu I used to keep one of the towels reserved for cleaning the floor at the end of class close by me so that I could sop up the sweat that gathered in puddles on the floor beneath me during wazapractice. During one such class, I took advantage of a momentary break in the training to clean my space with the towel. When I was finished I lightly tossed it toward a support pillar on the main floor of the dojo for later use. “Don’t throw!” Kaicho yelled. “Place down on floor.” ...
I still have hope that this will be a good World Cup... This article aggregates a lot of things that have been said about the World Cup experience this year (South Africa's infrastructure, low scoring games, uninteresting first round match-ups, etc). I've noticed in a few broadcasts that upper seating areas are not filled to capacity and maybe the vuvuzelas make up for this. I think this will change once the Knock-out stages begin, but Nick Webster has a point:
Last week I talked about the video / image side of things, and as promised here is the audio side. Sound is integral to all studio productions, but for most student and low budget production, it's the last thing filmmakers seem to think about, and one of the most noticeable problems with low budget stuff. Sound IS half the experience, and yet it is usually all but forgotten come production.
Microsoft SharePoint is a business management system introduced by MICROSOFT. It has many build in functions to work in web based environment easily. Microsoft SharePoint 2010 is released on April 17, 2010. It is introduced with the promise of better performance than its predecessor version for both developers and IT professionals. It is entitled as “Business Collaboration Platform for the Enterprise and The Web”.
