Posts Tagged ‘ipod touch’

Gaming skills

laelene Posted in general blog,Tags: , , ,
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There are a lot of games out there that are easy to get addicted to.  As a relaxant, I like to spend my nights playing games to wind down from busy days.  Recently the games of interest have been Trism and Doodle Jump, both of which are apparently hugely popular and have quite the following.  I played so much that the muscles I use to hold up my iPhone have gotten sore.  It makes me wonder if the skills I learn in these games help hone me for other areas of life.  Both physically and mentally, I have exercised myself in ways I don’t normally.

These two games require a lot of subtle wrist movements, which could either be good for more flexibility and agility, or create issues of range of motion and maybe even carpal tunnel-like syndrome.  They also work out your thumbs a lot, which has made mine sore and probably a bit swollen too.  Is it good for our hands, wrists, and fingers to get so much use?  Perhaps I have strengthened them in using them so much.  Plus, holding my hands vertically up puts them in a position they usually aren’t in.  I wonder if that helps with anything!

As for mental challenges, Trism forces me to think in three dimensions (versus two for Bejeweled).  Sometimes the angles throw you off from seeing easy combos, so it really makes you look at the big picture and recognize patterns better.  I like to play Infinism because you have plenty of time to strategize.  Playing Terminism puts the pressure on to find combinations quickly, forcing you to be quick on your feet.  Then Syllogism gives you fun puzzles to solve patiently, also practicing your critical thinking skills.  Doodle Jump makes you take in the big picture and quickly make important decisions on which way to go and what block to land on.  It forces you to learn how to do your best within a specific framework.

If you own an iPhone or iPod Touch and want some fun games, go check them out!  They’re not free, but for a dollar, it’s not a bad investment!  But beware, for they are fabulously addicting.

Where are the good Samaritans?

laelene Posted in general blog,Tags: , , ,
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I’m feeling really disheartened right now. My iPod Touch was taken yesterday. Though I’m bummed that it’s gone and this coming within 5 weeks of losing my first one, I’m more disappointed that it was not returned, even though it has my name and this website engraved on the back. It should be easy enough to find me, what with a name and website to go by, but I guess whoever took it never intended on returning it. After all, I’d say it’s pretty easy to find me, if you were trying. Whatever happened to nice people who return things to their owners?

I can’t help but hold out hope, but I have received no e-mails, no Facebook messages, no nothing. It’s sad to think the world isn’t as full of good people as I always expected. I’ve grown up sheltered from a lot of the worse side of life and this is a bit of a blow in the face towards my rose-colored glasses view of the world. I guess I will have to dim it a bit now and recognize the reality that there are people in the world who steal and blatantly lie and hurt others.

Thankfully, the information on there isn’t lost since I have a backup on my laptop – I just hope they don’t hack in and get any sensitive information.

iPod lost, lesson learned

laelene Posted in general blog,Tags: , , , ,
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When I was working at the Venice Whole Foods this past Monday, I was heading to get my car from street parking and bring it back to the lot so I could load up my equipment after my demo when I lost my iPod touch.  (More on this part-time job I’ve worked on and off for a couple of years in a future post.)  The last time I remember seeing it was when I was holding it in my hand walking to the car.  By the time I realized it was gone, I had driven the car to the lot, packed up in the store, and started to take my stuff out to the car.  It could have been anywhere along my walk to the car, inside the car, or in the store!  I retraced my steps again and again, hoping to see a little black pouch lying somewhere, but had no such luck.  I checked with Customer Service and nobody had turned it in, so I went around for another try, even checking my bag of used cups to see if it dropped in there while I was cleaning up.

I held out hope for a couple of hours, though I sort of knew that if I hadn’t found it by then, with my extensive efforts, it was probably already taken by someone or otherwise lost to me forever.  I spent quite some time looking up ways to track it down, but for all that effort it seemed that it wasn’t worth it.  Even if I were to track it, it’s impossibly hard to get back if someone really did take it.  By the next day, when I called to see if anyone turned it in, I pretty much knew the answer.  I also figured that it was pretty easy to figure out how to contact me if someone had it and intended on returning it, so if I hadn’t heard from anyone, it seemed a lost cause.   However, just to confirm, I also did a complete clean of the car to make sure before I committed myself to getting a new one.

Now I’ve ordered myself a brand new one, complete with engraving on the back that includes this web address, so anyone who finds it and wants to return it can do so easily.  I can happily use a passcode without worrying that the person would never be able to figure out how to get it back to me.  I’m also getting iHound, which will help ease my peace of mind in case I do misplace it again.  Now I just need to figure out how to make sure that if someone has my iPod, they don’t start using my accounts… so far no suspicious activity and no important information was stored in there.  Does signing in to an app on one device sign you out from the other?  If it’s that simple, I’ll just sign in to everything when I get the new one.  Whatever the case, I have now taken measures to be much safer with my information.  And of course, I will try not to lose this one… it’s the first electronic device I’ve lost!  🙁

Check out when I first got it… ironically, I ended up hardly ever using it to listen to music.

Ball games

laelene Posted in general blog,Tags: , , ,
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I seem to only be able to play block or ball-like puzzle/strategy games and when I do, I do so with a zest.  Recently I have been obsessed with three of them, in three different mediums.  On my iPod touch, there’s Bubble Burst; on the computer, there’s Bubble Spinner; and in real life there’s Lonpos.  All use balls in different ways to create games that I find addicting to play.  I guess part of it is because I can be decently good at them and part of it stems from my Tetris gaming days.  Sometimes I find myself playing these things for hours, shooting for amazing results.  So much time goes into them!

bubble burst iphone game high score

My high score on the easy level.


Bubble Burst is a game where balls fall into a given box region and you tap ones of the same color to get rid of them.  Mystery boxes fall down and you tap them to get prizes, which can be good or bad.  Sometimes the balls will bounce right out of the container and with each one you lose, a life is lost until you die.  This is a fun game for me to play whenever I am on the road, since I can just pull out my iPod and tap away.  The unfortunate thing is that you can’t save it mid-game, so you have to either finish or quit before you can access the other functions on your device.  However, you can press the power button to turn off the game and essentially freeze it until you decide to continue playing.  My high score on this game reached 28,007,888 once!  That was on the normal level though; for the hard level I usually shoot for 400,000 and for the extreme level I go for 200,000.

bubble spinner game on deadwhale.com
Bubble Spinner is a game that Panda introduced to me.  A sextagonal shape of balls appears, spinning on a center.  You shoot balls at it and get rid of ones of the same color if there are three or more when you shoot your ball.  With each hit, the “wheel” spins accordingly and you have to work with some crazy angles on this thing.  Gray balls along the bottom indicate how many more balls you can throw without making the minimum three before you get attacked by extra balls flying in.  When you get rid of all the balls, a new set appears and with each level up, that is how many points you get per ball removed.  What I love best about this game is that there is absolutely no time pressure, so if you need to get distracted, you can leave the game without pausing and come back whenever you want.  Sometimes you lose out a little if you pause on a game that is timed, but there’s no worries like that for this one.  They’ve also got some random “soothing” music playing in the background, which is nice to listen to at times.  My high score on that one is 56,374.  Oh, and this is one you can share your score for on Facebook, if you’re into competing with your friends.

lonpos game of plastic pieces like tetris

There are 12 pieces in all, ranging between 3 and 5 balls connected in a unique shape.


Finally, Lonpos is a game I discovered when at a friend’s relative’s place in Germany.  They are kind of like tetris pieces, but fit into a triangular shape container.  It takes a certain spatial ability to perfectly fit them all in one of the 15 possible ways.  The more complicated versions then turn them into 3D puzzles.  It’s hard to explain until you try it.  I’ve managed to solve the basic one a few times, though it always takes awhile, and back in Germany I got the 3D ones but now I forget how they work.  I really wanted one when I first found out about it nearly two years ago, but I could only find it online for over $100 (and if I remember correctly, closer to $160!).  Thank goodness I waited – I found this set in Hong Kong for only HKD 10!  🙂

And there you have it – my gaming obsessions.  Nothing nearly as complicated as video games or whatever else is out there.  I prefer simple balls, used in creative ways.

In the mood

laelene Posted in general blog,Tags: , , , , , ,
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[edit: It seems what I’m referring to here is often called flow.]

When it comes to writing, I really need to right conditions to work.  If ever I’m not “in the mood” to be writing, whether it’s for a paper, my blog, or my journal, I get a bit antsy trying to work through it.  However, if I am in the mood, I can go on and on without sleeping or eating.  That’s how I was with reading when I was a kid – it was my number one priority and the only time other things got in the way was when it started to prevent me from reading (like getting too hungry to concentrate).  The good thing is usually I’m at least mildly in the mood, so it’s not too bad to make myself get something done.

photo credit: teensygreen.com

photo credit: teensygreen.com

There are times when I really get focused and in the zone.  Take right now, for example.  Suddenly all the ideas for blog entries are starting to flow and I’ve written one draft after another (mostly all centered around the idea of my journal, since that’s been on my mind lately).  It’s refreshing, since it’ll probably come in useful next week as I head off to my travels and won’t really get time to write.  At least then I’ll have a nice back stock to choose from, which can easily be published with a quick edit.  Plus, these extra entries that are not time-sensitive are great for when I just don’t know what to talk about for a particular day.  You can always be so inspired, after all.  I also keep a running list of topics to cover that I may think of at any point, whether I’m out walking around or just surfing websites.

It’s also when I’m in the mood like this that I’m tempted to catch up in my journal, but I’m also afraid that I’ll get so into it I stay up into the wee hours of the morning.  As of now I don’t have the luxury to lose out on sleep like that, so I’m putting it off, much to my dismay, in the hopes that I’ll fit it into my schedule when I’m job searching starting next month.  I just hope my fun-loving self doesn’t get too wrapped up in going out and having fun all the time (though that isn’t so bad now, is it?).  There’s so much that I want to do when I get back though, so it will hard to resist going out all the time.  Unfortunately, my notes for my journal are now electronic, so it’s far more difficult to use them to write my entries as compared to when I used to have them in a handy little notebook.  Oh, perhaps I can find a way to transfer them to my iPod!

I just tried it and it worked!  This is excellent, now I just hope I won’t be too tired to write when I’m traveling the next two weeks.  Flights are only an hour to three hours long, so I don’t know how well I can focus, but at least there’s hope now!  I’m also super anal about how I write – there are designated sets of pens and markers and I must use each in the right order, so that’s a bit of a drag to haul around.  Nonetheless, my purse is big enough to handle it, so I’m excited at the prospect of finally starting to catch up again!

Jailbreak

laelene Posted in general blog,Tags: , , , ,
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I am insistently stubborn.  I don’t know if that’s even a way you can describe stubbornness, but I didn’t know how else to express it.  Some time after I got my iPod touch, I wanted to jailbreak it so I could get some games for free, but Mac, the resident Apple expert, told me I couldn’t because my model is too new.

But it’s only 2G! I exclaimed when he told me it was a 3G.  I then went online to find out how to go about it and downloaded some program with a pineapple logo.  I tried and tried, but alas, I failed and failed.  Perhaps he was right.  I got a scare after restoring it to “factory conditions” and thought I’d lost all the games I had, but it turns out my computer (thank goodness) kept track for me and had saved the last state it was in.  When prompted to sync with a previous version, I gladly agreed and most everything was restored for me.

photo credit: appleiphoneschool.com

photo credit: appleiphoneschool.com

Over the past week I’ve been playing this wonderful game on Typea’s iPhone called iZoo, which is basically Bejeweled but with animals.  Some may know it as Zoo Keeper.  Unfortunately, that game is only available to jailbroken iPhones and ipod touches.  Sad.  After spending a week begging and pleading every time I wanted to play, I wanted to get it for myself.  So once again I went on the prowl, first trying to see if there was some other version I could get on my iPod.  I came across an online one, but it just wasn’t as fun (who doesn’t love a touch screen?).

Eventually I found another program meant for version 2.2.1, which I swear is what I have, but try upon try made me doubt the viability of my goal.  I always got stuck when I tried to put my iPod in DFU (I think that’s what it’s called) mode, where you hold power and home forten seconds, then release power and continue holding home for thirty more seconds.  My tries only resulted in no response from my device as I frantically held down the power button, the home button, and both in an attempt to revive it.

In the end I gave up and now my iPod’s sitting here, syncing back all the music and games and other apps that I had before.  It looks like this is going to take a few hours.  Yippee.  I’m still not satisfied though.  I want that game!!!

Chirp chomp

laelene Posted in general blog,Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Haha, a lazy one.

Haha, a lazy one.

Today was Blood Donor’s Day and in celebration, all regular blood donors who gave at least once in 2008 were invited to the Jurong Bird Park for free.  Chatty, Typea’s mom, had an offer for two to go for free, which she kindly offered me when I mentioned the places I’ve been meaning to go to.  Mizu had promised me he’d take me around to similar things like the zoo and Night Safari, so I asked if he’d come along for this.  Luckily, he was free for the day and we were able to enjoy a leisurely brunch before going in.  He brought a fancy camera to take some nice photos, which was great since I had neglected to charge my camera’s battery.  Plus, it freed me up to take some video footage while the battery was still alive.

DSC04884It was a nice overcast day for the most part, which kept things cool.  Thankfully, the rain stayed away though and allowed us to enjoy a very nice time at the park.  Apparently a lot of people are blood donors because the place was packed!  From the bus that took us from Boon Lay to the park to the line to get in, we could tell it was going to be a crowded place.  It was still great fun though, as we made our way from penguins to flamingos to macaws to hawks to ostriches, and so much more!  There was even this beastly creature that was huge and rather ugly, with remnants of a dino-like crown protruding from his head.  Along the way, we came across a pelican feeding, where we were told about the seven types of pelicans in existence, and then got to see an entertaining bird show with all kinds of fun tricks.

DSC04897At the end of our trip, we took the tram for one more spin around the park and headed out to meet up with some of Mizu’s friends.  We stopped by the gift shop hoping to find a cute penguin pen to bring back to Starfish, but they didn’t have any.  🙁  We also came across this free pearl offer (where they would extract it in front of you), but it was only for real ticketholders.  🙁  I was so sad because I really wanted one so I could bring something back to Chatty to thank her.  Oh well.  We then squeezed back onto the bus to take us to the MRT and took a nice long ride to Ang Mo Kio to wait for Mizu’s buddies.  Typea’s been using my iPod touch to play Tap Tap Revenge (it’s like DDR but with your fingers on the touchscreen), which Mizu also enjoys, so we played a few rounds challenging each other as we sipped on some drinks.

Come dinnertime, I met Mizu’s classmate Gold, a Korean guy who studied in the states for a number of years, Gold’s roommate Jolly, a Korean guy who had just come to Singapore two months ago, and their mutual friend Youli, a Japanese girl who’s working over in Changi.  We made our way over to a food center called Chomp Chomp, where Mizu played host and got us all kinds of dishes to try, along with the most montrously-sized mugs of sugar cane I’ve ever seen.  We had a fun time fighting to make people eat more and even ended with a lovely competition between Mizu and Gold, who chugged the rest of their sugar cane drinks.  Poor Gold got himself a bit of a headache from the intense sugar rush.  I wish I had been able to film that footage!  Unfortunately my camera had long since died by that point, so I have no pictures or videos to share.  However, I’ll be getting all the fun shots that Mizu got on his camera in a few days!

After that, we ended the night chilling with drinks and some snacking, chatting about all kinds of random things (and, inevitably, showing them Tap Tap Revenge as well!).  Ah, what good times!  🙂

iPod Touch – a new toy!

laelene Posted in general blog,Tags: , , , , ,
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Yaaay, a package!  Please excuse my haggardly look.

Yaaay, a package! Please excuse my haggardly look.

My wait has finally come to an end as my iPod Touch arrived in the mail today!  I’ve just started to play around with it and I’m ready to use it tomorrow morning on the way to work.  I bought it to have some music to listen to as I travel to and from work, which will be a nice way to put myself in whatever mood I’m looking for.  Sometimes I want to be energized, sometimes I want to be soothed, and sometimes I want to be uplifted.  Whatever the case, my vast collection of songs (4039 to be exact) is sure to be able to whip up the right set of songs for me.  I have a traditional iPod at home, but it’s bulky and I hardly ever use it, so I decided it was time for something new.  It was also a nice way to treat myself and brighten my mood as I work through stressful times.

In my fiddling around, there are some features I wish it had – bluetooth, a camera, and speakers – but it provides more functions that I’ll probably ever use.  I’ve enjoyed setting everything up though, for the rare cases where I actually would want to know the temperature or check on some stocks.  There are also certain moments where I wish I could just integrate the phone in there as well so I don’t have to carry around a phone, camera, and the iPod.  However, I certainly am not planning on using a media package phone plan in the near future, so getting an iPhone would have been rather pointless.  I much prefer my 32 GB worth of storage in this sleek little sucker.  I wouldn’t mind if they could have put in a camera, but truth be told, it wouldn’t suffice and I’d still end up bringing my camera with me.  After all, I need flash, different focus settings, and a myriad of the features a standard digital camera has.  The one thing I would use a camera on the iPod for would be quick shots of random things when I don’t have my camera handy and portraits of the people in my contact list to use in their info.

dsc04811I’m really excited to head out to an Apple reseller store tomorrow (Cathay Photo) to find a nice backing for it, as well as some sort of screen protector.  Then I won’t feel like it is so delicate and that I have to tote it around so gingerly!  At this point I don’t want to scratch it up more so I can get something to preserve its condition, which is slightly worn in the back (but hey, it’ll be covered soon enough and it was definitely worth the discount!).  There’s not much point to this post other than to share a fun, exciting piece of my life.  New gadgets are always fun to play around with!  Now I need to arm myself with some cool applications though – any suggestions?

eBay: trustworthy?

laelene Posted in general blog,Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
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ipod-touch

photo credit: quickshipelectronics

Earlier today I claimed myself an iPod Touch online through eBay, which I’m immensely excited to have.  I’ve been watching some of their sales on the site for a few days to see the average price they go for and decided that it was well worth it.  I just hope I’m in the 99.8% positive review side of things, or else it can get complicated and ugly dealing with it overseas.  Thankfully, I have my mom to handle things on the home front, so she can help check the item before sending it to me.  In doing this whole transaction (only the second time I’ve used the site), I found that people I told all asked me the same questions, having the same concerns.

First of all, they asked about price.  Was the difference in price enough to justify the purchase versus buying it from a store?  Well, it’s a $100 difference, which in the Apple store also means the difference between a 16GB and a 32GB.  Plus, they would wonder… is it new?  Well, no, it’s refurbished, but it would only have minor scuffs and I’m willing to compromise that for the money saved.  If it’s extremely worn or dysfunctional, I can always send it in to be exchanged.

Then they would ask, is it safe?  Is it reliable?  And that launched me into an explanation about how yes, there is the off chance that I get screwed, but 1. being governed by American law, they can’t get too crazy and send me rocks like some cases in other countries, 2. they have sold over 57,000 electronic items and people would have reported them a long time ago, and 3. not only were they not reported, but they have a 99.8% positive feedback rate, which is quite high considering the bulk of sales.  I read reviews where people talking about their item that was faulty or incorrect and they got the issue resolved, so at worst it may be a bit of a hassle, but I can track down a suitable item.

ebayFinally, they would start to settle their worries and would then wonder… uhhh how are you going to get it?  Well, that’s the beauty of a mother in the right country.  😛  She helped me bid on it as I slept and she’ll help me mail it out when it arrives.  I’m quite pleased, since any Apple product sold internationally is dead expensive (in Singapore the 32GB goes for about 468 USD, whereas in the states it’s a cool $399)!  I may not have gotten the absolute best price, but it was close and still saved me tons for what I wanted.  Plus, I got it pretty much the day I decided I was going to go for it.  But it made me wonder: do people feel wary of using eBay?

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