BallPopper - Previously "Touch My Balls".

It can be found here:

http://www.ballpopper.me/

I put a lot of work into making it a lot prettier than its predecessor.  I also added leader-boards and achievements.

- Ian.

Let's Play: TOUCH MY BALLS!

"Touch My Balls!" (New Game I've Developed). #TouchMyBalls

Focus @ Will (Increase your concentration up to 400% ... potentially)

Focus @ Will is a newly devised way of helping students (or anyone) focus more greatly on the task at hand.  The average attention span is 20 minutes, and this program claims to be able to increase that up to 100 minutes.

I had a go at this earlier today while studying my kanji flashcards for Japanese, and I must say, once I found a piece of music that suited my mood at the time, I was overcome with what I want to call a 'wave' of concentration.  It's hard to describe, but it definitely alters the brain into a higher state of focus and concentration.

Initially, and I'm not sure why, it made me feel quite pissed off, but I found once I'd been listening to it for a while, the music really took over and I was able to concentrate a lot more than usual, without letting myself become distracted by own internal thought.

However, 20 minutes still seems to be my concentration limit ... for now.

I'll keep using it, and see what differences there are in a few days/weeks.

Thank you for your time.

- Ian.

I'm gonna learn a song from an Anime or Video Game.

What I did today (a boring life-update post).

I rang my bank and cancelled my payment to UNSW Housing (where I'm obliged to pay my rent until the contract runs out on Jan 11).  You know what I think?  I think I shouldn't have have to keep paying rent to a place I'm not only currently not occupying, but to a place I have no intention of ever returning to.  If I was planning to go back after the holidays, then sure, I'd be paying to keep my room so I had somewhere to return to, but I've deferred study for the time being, and aren't going back to UNSW for at least another year ... indeed, for the foreseeable future.

I don't see why I should have to pay rent for somewhere that I have nothing to do with.  It should be illegal.  It's certainly immoral, but should be written into the law that no person, after having left the premises, should pay rent for a room they no longer intended to occupy, regardless of the length of their initial contract (something like that, anyway).

Seriously, like it says on a lot of facebook memes I see these days "F#ck the police."

- Ian.

EZPad 610 C Review

EZPad 610 C

Ian Hollis © 2012

After I opened the box the delivery man gave me, I was a) annoyed that such a small product had been shipped in such a large box, and b) delighted at the actual box in which the tablet came; the front, as expected, was comprised of, from top-to-bottom, the name of the product, an image of the product, and the endearingly mistyped slogan “Put the world your pocket!”.  The base of the box having on it a row icons of familiar services such as, amongst others, facebook, YouTube, Google+ and Skype, which is what the user can expect to find pre-installed on the device.  The back of the box containing a slightly compressed list of the device’s technical specifications.

The contents of the package itself was nothing more than the EZPad 610 C, and a USB cable for charging the device when the battery is low, and data transference.

Performance:
Start up, for me at least, is a little too long at 44 seconds, (but it’s certainly faster than my HUAWEI X1 smartphone), and at a price point of $89.95 (from www.oo.com.au, anyway), I wasn’t really expecting a lightning fast startup time.

Once you’re in, the response time is quite adequate, with the only noticeable slow down being when new apps are downloading and installing, and you’re also doing other things on the tablet.  At 6” this fits snuggly in decent size pockets, and if eye-strain isn’t one of your concerns, is an excellent size for an eReader (although some may think it a touch small).

While I haven’t tried it with a wide variety of file types, the EZPad 610 C makes a neat little movie viewer, that’d be great for bored, backseat passengers on medium-length road trips (so long as you didn’t have the brightness turned on full all the time, as that would drain the battery).  And after aforementioned backseat passenger have finished watching their films, they can get to reading a good book, or playing some Angry Birds (or any other number of high-quality game titles available from the Play Store)  

Build quality:
Sturdy!  The first thing I noticed after unboxing this neat little device was just how sturdy it was, and while I wouldn’t recommend intentionally dropping it, I think it feels sturdy enough to withstand one or two accidental drops to a carpeted floor.

Inputs/Outputs:
Micro USB
3.5mm headphone jack
MicroSD card slot, with up to 32GB expansion
Front facing camera (0.3 MP)
Built in microphone

Final words:
At a price point of $89.95 (from www.oo.com.au), you’d be hard pressed to find another tablet that offered as good value and quality for money as this one does.  Also, it’d make an excellent Christmas gift.

I’d recommend this for:
People who can’t afford a Nexus.