AppSales – Android Application

Going back to the origins of this blog, today I’m doing a review off one of the biggest money savers in the Google Play.

Ever since the launch of the paid applications in the Google Play there have been apps going on sale. This is always great, specially if that application that you’ve meaning to buy goes on sale. But this type of promotions is completly pointless with the current state of the Google Play. You can’t organize the results of a search by price or check which prices have dropped in the last 24hours. And if you, by random chance, happen to find an app that went on sale, there’s no way to know the amount of the discount. This is a problem, specially for developers that wish to get reach a bigger audience by doing this type of promotion.

This is where AppSales comes in. The application allows you to check which apps went on sale on the past few weeks (that’s right, weeks). In the main screen they show all the apps that went on sale over the last 2 weeks (default as far as I can tell), as well as for which apps the promotion has expire. When you select an app, the program shows a screen where there’s a lot of interesting and useful information about the app in question.
You’ll have some screenshots of the application, it’s price in dollars, the option to add it to your watch list, share it over the web (by mail, social apps, etc). It will also gives you a brief description of the application and  a graphic that shows the price evolution of the app on the last 3 months. There are other functions, but these are, in my opinion, the more useful and important.

About the general settings of the application, one comes out as extremely useful. You can login with your g+ profile (and you’ll have one since you’re using a google device). This option allows you to sync the watch list through multiple devices, like in my case, between my nexus s and my tf101.

Another very useful option is the ability to, indirectly, add apps from the Google Play to AppSales Watch list. This is done by simply going to Google Play, select the application you want to watch and click the share button. You’ll will see a selection of sharing apps, including AppSales. Select it and you’ll see a screen with a bunch of information about the app, including the eye to add it to your Watchlist.

I highly recommend the app to everyone that owns an Android Device and wish to save some money on paid apps. For me, it saved more that 50€.

Enjoy

 

Phoneblock – Lego meet phone

A friend of mine showed me this concept a few days ago. This is an amazing concept. The though of been able to “build” my own phone is amazing. And if I can simply replace the outdated parts of the phone when they became too “old”, without having to buy a new phone is great.

Check out the links and share it your friends.

Concept video

Official Site

Thunderclap crowd voice

Cheers

 

Dump to ps3

Ever since the launch of ps vita, people complained about the lack of backward compatibility with the psp games. First of all, Sony abandoned UMD (thank the Lord for that), so no loading of UMD games on the vita; secondly, they announced that the program to get the umd at a lower price on psn was only available on Japan (hummm?!?); and finally they marked on psp games on the psn as ps vita games also, charging a full price for a 4 (or more) years old game.

This attitude left many dedicated fans thinking “What am I going to do with my UMD collection? Do I need to carry two consoles with me or just spend (another) bunch of money re-buying my games? (if they are available on psn, otherwise, tough luck).

The problem seems to be without solution, but only Sony wish it to be without solution. A few years ago, right after the first CFW/devhook for the psp someone release an UMD dump homebrew. The piece of Software basically  made a file from the UMD that a CFW could read through an ISO loader. This allow legit buyers that had a cracked psp to carry with them a bunch of games without carrying a bunch of UMD’s. The games would all go to the psp memory stick. This had several advantages.

1. you would carry several games on the same card;
2. meaning that, when you where tired of a game you could switch to another
3. and the games loaded much (really much) faster.

With this in mind, I came up with the idea of a official psp software that would allow us to dump our legit bought UMD’s to a ps3 hard drive and them just copy them to the ps vita.

In order to give some restrain to piracy, the dumped games could only be played on a ps vita registered to the same account on the ps3 where the files had been created. This still doesn’t stop you from borrowing your friends UMD to dump to your ps3, but it would limited it by far.

And if you don’t have a ps3, Sony could create a desktop app with the same functions and restrictions, an addon to CMA so to speak.

This idea might go a long way to boost ps vita sales, because people would at the console and say “Ok, if I buy this device, I can dump all my umd to my ps3/pc and them just play them on the ps vita. Nice”

Cheers!

Weave Silk

I was going to check stumble upon profile because some friends asked me a full list of my web presence and I came across this siteweave silk

I’ve still don’t understand what’s the purpose of this site/application, but you can make some very beautiful drawings.

Simply check the two bellow made out of fun.

So I recommend that you check out this tool, and if you have an Ipad check the ios app (i’ll try it in a few seconds on my wifes Ipad)

cheers!

Go domain!!!

After deep consideration, I’ve decided to register a domain for myself. Fortunately the one I really wanted (Dreamcaster Studio) was available and I use godaddy to make the registration. The price was very nice, around 3€ for a year, and I manage to redirected it to my wordpress blog with the same name very easily. Then I came across the Affiliated program. Basicly they pay me to put a banner in my site, offering massive discounts (the one below is of 34% off) at the registration of new domains.

So, although this is an initial review, I’ve decided to post it here because this discount end by August 31th, so there not much time to take advantage of it. If you have a blog or a site and you where thinking about registering a domain for it, this might be the discount opportunity you’ve been waiting for.

Is the ps vita the new n-Gage

With more than a year of life ps vita is far from being the success Sony expected. Vita sales are all times low and apparently, never, since launch, it’s weekly sales have surpass it direct competitor, the 3ds. One must ask himself what is the problem? I personally own a vita. When I bought it I was torn between getting the ps vita or the 3ds. End up with vita for a single reason: hardware specifications. All other arguments where in favour of 3ds.

More games, backward compatibility with other ds games, lower price, easier to hack and run homebrews (ds flash cards have been around since the console was released, and as I write this post it’s already possible to run 3ds games on 3ds via flash card). But where the 3ds lack, ps vita excels – the hardware it’s built in.

This relation led me to remember a device that was the “Next big Thing” in portable gaming. The n-Gage. It was a great device, that never succeed. So we come to my main question. Is the PS vita the n-gage of the 2012? N-gage had “almost” everything it needed to succeed. Good hardware, join games with music with cellphone, read memory card (sd at the time), easy to install games that weren’t “arranged” legally and had an OS with personal digital agenda (PDA) functions. I remember buying  a s60 nokia phone in that period and I still use it. So why did n-gage failed? Because of the same reason that ps vita is failing: the sense that simply there aren’t any good games for the system.

Sure we had the release of Soul Sacrifice, Ragnarok, FIFA13, just to mention some. But the fact is, that if you start trying to pin-point the best vita games, you do not have much to choose from. For instance, where is Monster Hunter? Or Final Fantasy? Phantasy Star Portable?

Right now the system is on a life support system called “Playstation plus” that give 2 “free” games for the system every month and two extra for one year. However, it doesn’t have a life of it’s own, and the guilty part here is Sony.

They were so focus on preventing piracy that they ended up punishing the fans. And let’s face it, psp only started to sell like water in the desert when is was cracked. The good games for psp only came out after the console was cracked (like with all previous gaming systems from Sony). Now ps vita already has some good games (expensive as hell, but that’s another subject), it’s include in the ps+ program, has great hardware (lot’s of it not used) and the new ps4 will put the vita even more on the front line of gaming. But is that enough?

I personally don’t thing so. Where I live (Portugal) the ps vita as Zero Marketing and from I (don’t) see on youtube, neither the rest of the World. So I leave you with a list of what might save ps vita (with an emphasis on the “might”):

• More marketing (and a good one).
• Good games, at decent prices, need to come out.
• The memory card price tag problem must be solved ASAP, either by putting a 8gb card on every box or by lowering the cards prices (the second being the best).
• Some sort of backward compatibility for psp games and an app store similar to Apple and Google app store where apps can be published either for a low price or free (it’s a pity that all that marvellous hardware is only used on games).

With this I think that ps vita might actually beat the DS line to the ground, stop living on life support and be a true independent system, that can also work with living room system. Instead of the terrible feeling that I got from the ps4 show, The vita will be a companion for the ps4 that can also play games on the go.

Give me your comments and toughs on it.

Playstation Plus

When I bought my ps vita, it came with a voucher for a one year subscription of playstation plus (ps+), valuing 50€. At first I tough that it was another crappy marketing maneuver made by Sony. I couldn’t be more mistaken. The marketing is surely there. They wave at you with the “instant Game Collection”, “Additional discounts on sales” and Special discounts only available for ps+ subscribers. If you buy the service, it costs you 50€ (maybe less if buy/renovate it in Christmas time), in return you get all the mention above.

But what each of those items means.

“Instant Game Collection” – this translates to 3 free games for your ps3 and 2 free games for your ps vita. this games are yours to play as long as your subscription is active, even after they are replaced by other 3+2 games twelve months later. This games are usually reference games for each console. Last year games where: Little Big Planet 2 (ps3), Infamous 2 (ps3) and MotorStorm Apocalypse (ps3), Uncharted Golden Abyss (ps vita) and Gravity Rush (ps vita). While the vita games are still up, in the middle of June the ps3 titles where replaced (for a period of twelve months) by Uncharted 3: Drakes Fortune, Xcom: Enemy Unknown and Little Big Planet Karting.

This 5 games alone more than worth the 50€/year you have to pay. However, every month, and for a 30 days period, 5 more games enter the roaster.

Just to give you an idea, here is the list for June, July and August 2013

June: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (ps3), ICO and Shadow of the Colossus HD Collection (ps3), Demon’s Souls (ps3), Rayman Origins (ps vita) and Coconut Dodge Revitalised (ps vita)

July: Battlefield 3 (ps3), Payday: The Heist (ps3), Saints Row the Third (ps3), Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus (ps vita) and Unit 13 (ps vita) (and a big rip-off)

August (start today): Need for speed: Most Wanted (ps3), Mafia 2 (ps3), Spec Ops: The Line (ps3), Lego Lord of the Rings (ps vita) and When Vikings Attack! (ps vita)

These 3 months alone go well over 100€, no imagine this for 12 months… But before you go running to your local store to buy this or quickly login in your psn account to buy a subscription, there are some cons on this service.

The biggest one is for people that like to run homebrews on their consoles. Ps+ forces you to update to the latest version in order to access psn and there for to be able to download your “free” games.

One other issue is that you depend exclusively from want Sony thinks you want to play. For instance, this month the list for ps3 has nothing for me since I mainly enjoy RPG, however, June was AWESOME because of Kingdoms of Amalur. This means that sometimes we can ended up playing games you would never buy.

The third issue relates with a vita problem (don’t miss my article “Is the Ps Vita the new n-gage” to be publish soon already publish, just follow the link). Sometimes there will be a psp game slipped away between a monthly update branded as a ps vita game. This problem mainly affects North America and is accompanied by a lot of flaming in the official blog and forums.

However, if you don’t care about running homebrews on your console, don’t care about being force to update and specially, don’t want to spend a fortune in games, this service is for you.

if you like this post, share it on your social networks or post a comment.

Cheers

Francisco

The Elders Scrolls IV Oblivion and Windows 7 64bits

I’ve recently got a windows 7 64bit laptop and I decided to install in it my favorite game of all times: The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion. After completing the installation and copying a bunch of mods from my older installation (in a Windows 7 32Bits laptop) I tried to start the game and every single time I tried to run it crashed to the desktop (CTD) with the message that the process oblivion.exe had stopped working. After a bunch of attempts to get the game running, including compatibility mode, updating the drivers of the graphic card and others, I found a solution that worked.

The only way to solve this was to delete everything inside the folder documents/my games/oblivion The only thing I didn’t deleted was the game saves. After that the game started working.

So here is my advice for those with a similar problem, just delete the files that are inside that folder and you’ll be fine.

Commodore founder Jack Tramiel passes away at age 83

Commodore founder Jack Tramiel passes away at age 83 – http://pulse.me/s/7ZwEe

I still remember when the Commodore was the “biggest thing on the block”. We know that we all have to die, but it’s always sad when someone leaves this world. Be happy on the “other” side.
Respect!

Don’t Worry Internet, I Got Your Back on That SOPA Thing

Don’t Worry Internet, I Got Your Back on That SOPA Thing – http://pulse.me/s/5036h

First post of this year, and first in a lot of months. But I just want to share with the world how happy I am with this news. As someone that doesn’t live in the US, this law wasn’t going to affect me directly. However, any kind of law that limits the freedom of speech in any form is bad for our future as a Planet.

Cheers for you Mr. Obama! And if anyone of notice read this, there is a very simple way to combat piracy on the internet: lower the prices of originals and piracy will no longer be “profitable”. Also, mark this: one million of illegal downloads of a product it’s not equal to one million sales of that products. People might download, but most likelly they wouldn’t buy!