The new iPhone OS upgrade is coming, let's take a look and compare the features against my own (over a year old) phone.
Multitasking
I have it, the iPhone will receive a crippled version of it.
Organise icons into folders
I have it. My even older phone had it.
SMS character count
Telling you how many characters you're using is a feature these days? My first ever mobile phone did that.
SMS search
I have the ability to search in a couple of ways, nothing fancy. The API existed from the start though and there are a load of (free) apps to give much more fancy SMS inbox features.
Digital camera zoom
No reason for this to have been excluded in the initial release. It's a basic feature of a camera. Please tell me they already have optical zoom, otherwise this is just pathetic.
Customisable wallpapers
I can't remember having a phone that has a background that wasn't customisable.
So really. These features are what everyone's getting so rabidly excited about? They're finally catching up with several year old technology. Though I suppose if you buy something as restricted as the iPhone you probably haven't looked at alternatives in any real detail.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
QFT - LICD "A Religious Rage"
Quoted for truth. Originally from a LICD news post.
Events such as this only goes to reinforce my negative attitude towards organized religion.
Let it be said that I take no issue what so every with faith. Rather the opposite, I believe in every one’s right to the faith of their choice, or none at all. Organized religion however, seems more of a business these days to me, or to some extremes, a cult.
Why do religious groups revel in their conformity?
You want to show me a progressive organization? Show me how inclusive you can be, how you reach out to your community beyond the people who pay their yearly dues and share your beliefs. Preach to be kind to thy neighbor by being kinder to thy neighbor, no matter where they come from.
Open your doors, don’t close them.
Then maybe, just maybe, I’ll change my mind about organized religion.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Pokemon Economics
Bad priorities, Pokemon, satire (for some definition of satire), and a Now Show reference, all in one quote block.
Kemp: but you need a lot of other things before a kid
Kemp: like an eee box
Overlord: XD
Kemp: or a job and a house
Kemp: I forget which
Kemp: best to get them all
Kemp: to be sure
Overlord: Gotta catch 'em all?
Kemp: Investment in a Sustainable Economic Portfolio, I choose you
Kemp: use your Inflation Tracking attack
Overlord: XD
Overlord: It's not very effective...
Kemp: enemy Banker uses Retard attack
Kemp: Portfolio has been incapacitated
Kemp: and that, for the last time, is why you can't have an Xbox 360
Overlord: LOL
Friday, January 15, 2010
Acekard 2i
I recently acquired an Acekard 2i for use with my DS Lite. I ordered the Acekard from r4i.co.uk (who are actually quite cheap for a lot of accessories) and got a 2GB microSD card for an extra £1 in the bundle. They also have other bundles with larger cards (or no card). The microSD card is needed because it's where you put all your precious files. There is meant to be a microSD reader in the bundle but I didn't receive one, I'm waiting for a response from them on that. Below is my quick guide to getting yourself up and running if you decide to get one for yourself. It's quite easy really.
Some features of the Acekard 2i in brief:
In terms of ethics, I know what you're thinking: "But Kemp, surely you don't condone playing pirated ROMs of DS games?" And no, no I don't. Sure, the Acekard has that capability, but this is one of those things I buy just to mess around with homebrew, and usually try to write a bit of my own at some point. The DS has a lot of nice features including two screens, one of which is a touchscreen, and wifi capability. Who wouldn't want to have a poke around on that? If you want help using it to play pirated games then you need to go find help somewhere else.
Setting up the Acekard 2i
The first thing you need to do is go and buy yourself a microSD card if you didn't order one along with the Acekard itself. It requires one for its own software, and you can't really do much without your own files anyway.
You should download either the official OSMenu software, or the alternative AKAIO software (which is a branch of the official software and widely regarded to be superior). This should be placed in the root of your microSD card. At this point insert the microSD into the Acekard and the Acekard into your DS, boot it, and check it works. If it hangs at the "Loading" screen then you didn't copy the software correctly.
That's basically it for the system software. Check out the options available, and make sure to change the options restricting the file types shown (you want the "All files" option).
Adding homebrew
I created a folder called "homebrew" in the root of the microSD card for this purpose. To get going you simply have to copy the .nds file for the program to this folder, boot up AKAIO, navigate to the homebrew folder, and click the file. It should be launched and (hopefully) work nicely. In general you can ignore any instructions to use DLDI to patch the software, as the Acekard handles this automatically for you.
Some nice software I've used:
Writing homebrew
A good run-through for this is at CoderJoe.net. Surprisingly, this is one of the few times (the only time?) I've seen a cross-compiler toolchain that is easier to set up in Windows than in Linux. Well wonders never cease?
Adding Python
The good bit ;-) Download the dspython binary and copy it to your homebrew directory. This will automatically run the script at /python/main.py when it is executed, so create a "python" directory in the root of your microSD card and place a script there. As an example you can download the framebuffer demo given on the dspython site. At some point I will write a browser type script to place there that allows you to select another script to run.
There is a serious lack of documentation, but if you check out their svn tree then there are a some demos. In general though, the functions are named exactly the way they are in libnds (see above), so any documentation and demos for that should be fairly easily translatable into Python (within the constraints of what has been wrapped).
Final notes
As usual, GBATemp.net ran a good review of the device.
If anyone needs a picture for something I've mentioned then add a comment and I'll see what I can do.
Some features of the Acekard 2i in brief:
- No DS flashing or passkey/passme/passwhatever device needed.
- Supports all current DS variants (right now that's DSi, DSL, IDSL, DS and IDS).
- Supports any brand of microSD card (unlike some older devices which had timing constraints). There is a size limit, but I can't seem to find it on the site, I believe it was around 32GB.
- Older devices required software to be recompiled or patched for each different device it was run on, the Acekard handles this automatically.
- Can be used as a passkey in order to boot slot-2 flashcarts (for GBA experimentation), including the 3in1 cart. No need to worry about manually flashing your image to the slot-2 cart because the Acekard does this automatically when you boot a GBA ROM.
- Supports soft-reset, Download Play, and Wifi.
In terms of ethics, I know what you're thinking: "But Kemp, surely you don't condone playing pirated ROMs of DS games?" And no, no I don't. Sure, the Acekard has that capability, but this is one of those things I buy just to mess around with homebrew, and usually try to write a bit of my own at some point. The DS has a lot of nice features including two screens, one of which is a touchscreen, and wifi capability. Who wouldn't want to have a poke around on that? If you want help using it to play pirated games then you need to go find help somewhere else.
Setting up the Acekard 2i
The first thing you need to do is go and buy yourself a microSD card if you didn't order one along with the Acekard itself. It requires one for its own software, and you can't really do much without your own files anyway.
You should download either the official OSMenu software, or the alternative AKAIO software (which is a branch of the official software and widely regarded to be superior). This should be placed in the root of your microSD card. At this point insert the microSD into the Acekard and the Acekard into your DS, boot it, and check it works. If it hangs at the "Loading" screen then you didn't copy the software correctly.
That's basically it for the system software. Check out the options available, and make sure to change the options restricting the file types shown (you want the "All files" option).
Adding homebrew
I created a folder called "homebrew" in the root of the microSD card for this purpose. To get going you simply have to copy the .nds file for the program to this folder, boot up AKAIO, navigate to the homebrew folder, and click the file. It should be launched and (hopefully) work nicely. In general you can ignore any instructions to use DLDI to patch the software, as the Acekard handles this automatically for you.
Some nice software I've used:
- Moonshell (everyone knows this)
- DSNotes (I can't seem to find an "official" page)
- Pocket Physics
Writing homebrew
A good run-through for this is at CoderJoe.net. Surprisingly, this is one of the few times (the only time?) I've seen a cross-compiler toolchain that is easier to set up in Windows than in Linux. Well wonders never cease?
Adding Python
The good bit ;-) Download the dspython binary and copy it to your homebrew directory. This will automatically run the script at /python/main.py when it is executed, so create a "python" directory in the root of your microSD card and place a script there. As an example you can download the framebuffer demo given on the dspython site. At some point I will write a browser type script to place there that allows you to select another script to run.
There is a serious lack of documentation, but if you check out their svn tree then there are a some demos. In general though, the functions are named exactly the way they are in libnds (see above), so any documentation and demos for that should be fairly easily translatable into Python (within the constraints of what has been wrapped).
Final notes
As usual, GBATemp.net ran a good review of the device.
If anyone needs a picture for something I've mentioned then add a comment and I'll see what I can do.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Upcoming posts
So a lot of posts to come when I have time to make them neat.
Stay tuned.
- Google has decided "to hell with this" and is either uncensoring all search results in China, or (if they're not allowed) pulling google.cn and closing their Chinese offices.
- My visit to Boston and the various nice places to eat and so on that I liked.
- Reviews of various DS games that I've played recently.
- Related to the above: discussion of the Acekard 2i (added)
- Some other things (as there always is).
Stay tuned.
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