Android Market Sale - Last day

Well, Android Market's Sale's last day is here. Unfortunately, it's not all that interesting. Today's app list is:
Sentinel 3
Shine Runner
Talking Ben The Dog
Heavy Gunner 3D
Puffle Launch
Apparatus
Camera Zoom FX
Star Chart
Colour and Draw for Kids
TileStorm HD
Hyper Jump

We have a few repeats and mostly average applications. The only one that stands out is Camera Zoom FX, which has some interesting reviews. I'm not saying that this was a negative experience, but it failed to meet its expectations. On a more outlook, I'm sure it showed Google that there's a market for low-priced applications if their quality is good enough.

Android Market Sale - almost done

The Android Market sale is almost over. The positive outlook I had on the first days is definitely fading, as the app selection is being quite poor.

Yesterday's list (which you can still buy today, at least for a few more hours) was:
Where's My Water?
Train Conductor 2: USA
FlightTrack
All By Myself
Instant Heart Rate - Pro
HD Widgets
Flick Golf
Shazam Encore
SlideIT Keyboard
Christmas HD
Sketchbook Mobile

Let's start out with the repeats. Sketchbook Mobile is a repeat from the first day. It's a nice app, worth the purchase if you don't already have it. SlideIT is an alternative for those who don't like Swype or Touchpal... but, from my experience, it's not as good. I tried it for a while and ended up cancelling the purchase, since the prediction was much worse than Swype's or Touchpal's - at least in my language. I tried a few test sentences with SlideIT, but always had to correct something, which didn't happen with the other two keyboards.

From the new stuff, only "Where's my Water?" seems interesting. Purchased it and it's a nice little game, worth the 10 cents. HD Widgets might also be a good choice for those who want an alternative to HD Widgets.

As for today, the list is:
Swiftkey X
Sleepy Jack
ezPDF Reader
MX Moto
Guns 'n' Glory
Tank Riders
Zenonia
Collapse!
Toddler Tapping Zoo
Icebreaker Hockey

There's only one repeat, Swiftkey X. If you're not into sliding your messages, this could be an interesting purchase (but you know what they say, "once you swype, you never go back"). In the app department, we have a single choice: ezPDF Reader. Seems interesting as an alternative to Adobe's own PDF reader (which is free). The remaining are games. Zenonia caught my attention, as I'm a fan of old school RPGs, but that's it. Unfortunately, since it requires an Internet connection to play (for licensing purposes, I presume), I won't get it. Let's see if things get better for the final stretch - although I'm not exactly optimistic.

Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand - Initial thoughts

The Battlelog servers are currently under maintenance, so this is the perfect opportunity to write a few lines about the "Back to Karkand" expansion, which became available today for the PC and Xbox players. This expansion features four maps from Battlefield 2 (Wake Island, Strike at Karkand, Sharqi Peninsula and Golf of Oman), along with some new weapons and dog tags. The weapons are unlocked through "assignments", which is also something new. Basically, they're objectives that the player must complete: for example, to get the FAMAS, the player needs to do 10 revives and 10 heals.

I've played it a bit already, going through all the maps. My initial impression is quite positive. The maps are really good, with a massive amount of vehicles and varied gameplay. There's also a lot more to destruct on these maps than on regular BF3 ones. Sadly, it never reaches the level we had seen in Bad Company 2... but it's an improvement nonetheless.

The thing that instantly caught my eye was the tremendous amount of action you see. On my first round, I spawned near a flag, entered a building and saw bits of it flying all around me as an enemy helicopter made it its target. I then exited it and walked straight into a firefight between half a dozen of my team mates and 3 or 4 enemy soldiers backed up by a tank. Pretty much only had time to hit the ground and start providing cover fire, which a couple of my team mates used to their advantage while flanking the enemy. This may be related to the fact that most players on B2K servers are level 15 and above (those who got it with the Limited Edition) and are already experienced, so they know how to properly work as a team. I'm not saying this isn't seen in the regular servers, but the critical difference is that, on B2K maps, most people worked together. This makes for intense games and awesome moments.

B2K seems to be a worthy expansion. I still haven't tried the new weapons, but the new levels are really nice and the increased teamwork we see on the servers boosts the fun, as well as the difficulty level. I'm not saying it'll be like this forever but, right now, seems like the more veteran gamers are improving the quality of each match. This also means that B2K isn't the place for those who are just starting out... you'll be dead in seconds. But, if you've got a few levels on your back, don't wait any longer and hit the B2K servers - well, as soon as the Battlelog maintenance is over, anyway.

Android Market sale - part 3

We're off to Day 7 and it's once again disappointing. The selected apps are:
Doodle Jump
Flight Control
Blow Up
When I Get Bigger
Block Breaker 3
Roll in the Hole (Rest of World)
Flick Soccer
Super KO Boxing 2
Beautiful Widgets
Sound Hound

"Roll in the Hole" seems interesting, but that's all. Beautiful Widgets and Sound Hound are repeats - Beautiful Widgets is pretty cool, I got it on its first day, so check it if you missed it. Its Clock+Battery widget looks rather nice and the Ring Mode Toggle widgets are also useful.

Android Market sale - part 2

Well, two more days on the Android Market sale. You can still buy the Day 5 apps, although it was a somewhat weak day: Apparatus, Age of Zombies, Zynga Drop 7, Kids Connect the Dots, Snowfall Live Wallpaper, Season Zen HD, Asphalt 6: Adrenaline HD, SlideIT Keyboard, The Sims 3 and Pano. Asphalt 6 is a repeat from Day 1, so might be interesting for those who didn't get it then. SlideIT might be interesting for those who want an alternative to Swype (although there's also Touchpal, which is free). Pano looked interesting, but I've read that it requires a constant connection to check its license, so it doesn't look like a good option - especially since ICS will bring its own panoramic photo app. In short, this will be the first day without app purchases for me.

For Day 6, we have the following apps:
Jenga
Sim City Deluxe
BackStab HD
Raging Thunder
Backbreaker Football
Captain America
NFL 3D Live Wallpaper
Just me and my mom
Endomondo Sports Tracker Pro
Great Little War

The sale started out nicely, but it's beginning to disappoint. Nothing really interesting, plus they're starting to repeat apps... I expected more.

Android Market 10 cents promotion

Google is celebrating 10 billion downloads on the Android Market in a rather cool way: every day, 10 paid applications are made available at only 10 cents. It's about to enter its fourth day and, so far, there have already been a few good apps available. This seems like a great move. I've purchased a few apps that I wouldn't have otherwise, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Google should probably consider turning this into something more permanent (like the Steam promotions).

Today's list is:
Shazam Encore
Need for Speed Shift
Sentinel 3: Homeworld
Game Dev Story
Farm Frenzy
My Beach HD
Spirit HD
Baseball Superstars 2011
Jelly Defense
Toddler Spanish

Review: Tritton PC510 HDA

The Tritton PC510 HDA headset promises a true surround sound, with 4 speakers in each ear cup, capable of giving you an advantage in gaming according to Tritton's marketing claims. Priced between €100 and €120, they're also somewhat expensive. There aren’t many reviews around – and the ones that I could find were by sponsored clans, making them clearly partial – so I hope this is useful.

The PC510 are bundled in an easy to open box, which follows the current trend of having a “viewing window” with velcro locks. Not much comes with the headphones, just the manuals, the headphones themselves and the control unit. I think that, for its price, it wouldn’t hurt if it came with alternative ear pads.

Once out of the box, the first look is positive: they seem quite solid. However, their first problem is also clearly visible: the control unit is too close to the headphones. The cord is divided in two, with a very short first segment attached to the headphones and a long second one containing the control unit in one end and the 5 connections in the other: 3 for the 5.1 audio, one for the microphone and one USB for power. Once you get everything set up, you’ll notice there’s no comfortable position for the heavy control unit. If you place it on the desk, it forces you to remain still or it’ll slip. If you don’t, it’ll dangle at your side in an uncomfortable way. You can also try placing it on your lap, but it’ll end up slipping from there due to its weight. One easy way to fix this would have been to simply place the control unit further down the cord, so you could have it sit on your desk – like most other similar headsets do.

Connecting the headphone to the PC is quite straightforward, but a bit tiresome since it requires five different connections. You’ll also have to disconnect the speakers and, in some cases (like it happened to me), reconfigure your sound card to output 5.1 on the Windows control panel – otherwise, it’ll remain in “stereo” mode. Due to having to perform these tasks every single time, I think that these headphones should be considered more of a “primary sound source”, rather than an alternative to speakers.

Once you put them on, you’ll notice that they adjust easily to the head, as the ear cups simply slide into place. Unfortunately, there isn’t a locking mechanism, so you’ll have to adjust them every time you wear them, which does get a tad annoying. On the plus side, they’re not as heavy as I was expecting, so they could be reasonably comfortable to wear… if it wasn’t for those darn fake leather ear pads. The ears get rather hot with the PC510 over them, making you sweat a bit, so wearing these headphones for anything over 10 minutes is quite uncomfortable. Fabric pads would have been a much better option.

The headphones can be turned on and off using the master volume knob on the control unit. Once on, the ear cups light up, which kind of ruins their aesthetics, going from “looking cool” to “that’s quite dorky”. Unfortunately, there’s no option to turn the lighting off or make it a bit more subtle. Apart from the master volume knob, you’ll also find four additional adjustment wheels for the 5.1 channels: front, rear, side and subwoofer. These individual adjustments could be useful, especially when switching between games and movies, but the control unit’s design stifles some of that usefulness, as there are no visual cues on the unit regarding each individual level. This makes readjustments quite difficult, since it’s hard to set the unit to an exact level. A better solution would be the led-based level indicators seen on Tritton’s AX Pro or using a slider-like level selector, like Roccat did on their Kave headset. As it stands, it’s doubtful that this feature will be used often.

The first time I’ve used them, I’ve immediately noticed something annoying: there was a constant high-pitched buzzing/whining sound, which seemed to change when I moved my mouse or typed on the keyboard. This seems to be some sort of USB-related interference. Unfortunately, since the headphones don’t work without the USB cable connected to the computer, this is something you’ll have to live with. I found that the sound can be mitigated, though, if the master volume is set to less than half. You’ll lose volume, but at least the buzzing won’t be as annoying – however, don’t think you’ll escape it.

The sound quality on the headphones was a major disappointment. It’s not terribly bad, but it’s well below what would be expected given their price tag. Everything sounds somewhat muddy, sort of like you’re underwater. The soundstage is also quite reduced, with everything sounding really close to you, although this is more or less expected given that they’re closed back headphones. I’d qualify the sound quality as decent, which isn’t exactly what one would expect from something in this price range.

I was also disappointed with the 5.1 sound effect, in terms of positional audio, as it’s sometimes far from accurate. There are no problems when the sound source is to your left or right, but I found that it was difficult to make out the origin when other directions were involved (especially up or down). Lowering my side and front sound levels did help with detecting rear sounds, but mainly because they became louder than the rest. That may help avoiding getting knifed in Counter-Strike, but it does mean you’ll lose a fair amount of environment sounds, so I ended up returning to normal levels.

I’ve also noticed severe problems with certain sounds, which become much louder than they should and completely overlap everything else. For example, the helicopter sounds in Battlefield Bad Company 2 will cover up every other sound in the game. I’m not sure why this happens, but when browsing on-line I found out that it’s common.

One thing that surprised me was the subwoofer feedback. You will have to turn this down quite a bit, since it’s extremely strong – if you make the mistake of playing a game with it set to max, it will actually vibrate during explosions, as If you had a force feedback peripheral attached to your head.

Using it for music and movies disappointed me even further. Bass-heavy songs sound nice, probably due to the subwoofer, but everything else has that prevalent muddy characteristic. The 5.1 audio didn’t help much either when watching movies, like it already happened with games.

To make it a headset, the PC510 also comes with a detachable microphone. It does its job, the sound quality isn’t great, but it’s not bad either. One thing I didn’t like, however, is that you can’t swivel it up to get it out of your way when not in use – you will have to detach and store it away or bend it to the side.

In short, the PC510 simply isn’t good enough. The sound quality is far from what’s expected for its price range and the advantages of the 5.1 audio are negligible. The headset is also plagued with design flaws, like the control unit issues, the fixed microphone, the poor choice of ear pads material and the tiresome connection procedure. Its technical flaws, such as the constant buzzing sound and the “helicopter effect” also affect negatively the user experience. For what it costs, there are far better options available on the market.

Starcraft 2 Starter Edition - play Starcraft multiplayer for free

Blizzard released a new Starcraft 2 version, which they are calling the Starter Edition. It's basically a demo with limited multiplayer support. Players are able to play the first 4 campaign missions in single player, along with the first 2 challenges. You're also able to play the Single Player vs AI mode, albeit only in "Very Easy" or "Easy" difficulty levels, so it isn't challenging at all. This mode is also limited to playing only with Terran on 4 maps, which may rotate over time. I've noticed that these maps aren't immediately available in this mode and will only show up after you play on them in the custom game option (it can also be against a computer-controlled opponent) - I'm not sure if they intended it to be like this or if it's a bug that will eventually get fixed. The Terran and number of maps limitations are also present in the multiplayer mode against other humans. The matchmaking system is stripped off as well. If you do end up wanting the full experience and buy the game, you'll be able to upgrade your account and keep the campaign progress and achievements earned with the Starter Edition.

You can get the game at trystarcraft.com. Be aware that the download is a massive 7 gigabytes, so it may take a few hours. It's a tad boring that it only allows Terran vs Terran and features only four maps, but... hey, at least it's free.

Review: SteelSeries Qck Mass

A few days ago I posted a review on the Razer Deathadder, the mouse I’ve been using for the past two months. Now it’s time for the review on the mouse pad I’m using with it, the SteelSeries Qck Mass. It has been through the same usage conditions – I’ve used it on my main system for the past couple of months, around 6 to 12 hours every day.

The Qck Mass comes rolled up inside a tube-like box, with a cardboard back and a transparent plastic cover around it. You'll have to tear the cardboard to take it out, so the box will be pretty much destroyed once you open it. On the bright side, at least it's quite easy to open, so you won't need any scissors, like usually happens in similar blister-style packages.

Since it came rolled up, I was afraid that there'd be marks or creases once I laid it on the desk. However, this didn’t happen, it was perfectly flat – no “place a heavy book on it all night” tricks were required. This may be related to its size and thickness. With a 32cm width and 28 cm height, the Mass is within the regular size for a gaming mat, but it’ll look gigantic if you’re moving from a standard mouse pad – it has about three times the area of my previous pad. At 6mm, it’s also a lot thicker and heavier than most pads.

The pad itself is quite plain. The top is black cloth, with a discrete white SteelSeries logo on the bottom left. This provides a good surface for your mouse to glide, working perfectly with my Deathadder. It’s quite soft on the mouse skates, which is a plus compared to harder pads. On the down side, it’s a dust magnet, so it gets dirty amazingly fast. Flying hair also seems to love landing on it, be prepared to clean it every now and then if you have a dog or a cat. The top surface is quite vulnerable as well, after a couple of months the area where I place my wrist is already slightly worn off. This may be a concern later on.

The bottom is made from a rubbery material, which will ensure it grips to your desk. You can still push it if you want to, but it certainly won’t budge during normal use conditions – the rubbery bottom and its weight will prevent it. Between these two sides is a thick sponge-like base, which makes for most of its 6 mm thickness. SteelSeries mentions this absorbs irregularities on the desk. Since my desk doesn’t have irregularities, I tested this feature by placing a thin plastic card underneath it. It helped mitigate the difference, but I was still able to tell exactly where the card was whenever I moved the mouse over it. However, since this probably isn’t exactly what SteelSeries had in mind when they mentioned irregularities, I’ll give’em the benefit of the doubt.

The pad is quite comfortable to use. The soft cloth cover is nice to the touch and it doesn’t get warm, making it a suitable resting spot for your wrist. The thick sponge base also plays a role in this, creating a nice cushion feeling. The size, which seemed way too large at first, starts looking like a really good fit once you adjust to it – you’ll end up asking how you managed to use smaller pads before. It’s really good for low-sensitivity gamers, since there’s plenty of space to move the mouse on. However, if you feel this isn’t enough (and if you have room on your desk for it), there’s also a bigger version, called the Qck Heavy.

The Qck Mass is reasonably cheap for a gaming surface, usually costing between €10 and €15. It’s quite comfortable and has a good size for most people, unless you’re an extremely low sensitivity gamer - in that case, you probably should look for the Qck Heavy, which is pretty much a larger Qck Mass. I didn’t find any problems using it, it provided a good surface for my mouse to glide on. It does offer a slight friction, but that’s typical in cloth pads. The only concern I have with it is the worrying worn seen on the wrist-rest area, after just two months (although, as I mentioned in the beginning, these were two months of intensive use). It also does get dirty easily, so be prepared to clean it occasionally. Either way, it's a good choice, especially given its low price.

Review: Razer Deathadder 3.5G

I’ve bought the Razer Deathadder a couple of months ago. Back then, I mentioned I’d try to write a review later on… and here it is. This will be slightly different from those seen on most review sites, as they tend to only use the mouse for a few days and focus it primarily on gaming. However, unless you’re a pro-gamer, you’re bound to use this mouse for a lot of other stuff, so I also try to cover that. I've been using the Deathadder as my "everyday mouse" for the past two months, which means that it's being used for around 6 to 12 hours a day while doing all sorts of tasks: gaming, web browsing, web design, graphic design, office applications, programming, etc. It’s also important to mention that I'm using it coupled with a Steelseries Qck Mass mousepad (cloth pad), with the Razer drivers installed.

The Razer Deathadder is a somewhat expensive mouse, with the latest version (Razer Deathadder 3.5G) usually available somewhere between €45 and €60. Therefore, I think it deserved a better bundle. The box it comes in looks quite cool, but you won't find much more than the mouse in there. I think we can all live without the CD containing the drivers, since most people would download them from Razer's website anyway, but at least an extra pair of mouse skates would be a nice addition.

The first thing you notice about the mouse when you remove it from the box is its size. It's quite big, measuring around 13 cm in length. It's also a bit on the heavy side, which will take some adjusting. The shape is asymmetric, with a larger "hump" on the left part of the palm rest and a steeper decline on the right. This means that, if you're a lefty, you should look for the left-handed version (also available), since using it with the left hand will probably be quite uncomfortable. Using the correct version, you'll notice that the asymmetric shape works quite nicely. Your hand feels comfortable, especially if you're a "palm gripper" (which means laying your hand "flat" on the mouse). "Claw grippers" will also be able to use the Deathadder without difficulty, although you'll notice that it's not as comfortable - especially if you're like me and change between grips without realizing it. It also has a long braided cord, but the only thing you'll really notice about it is that it doesn't get in the way - which is pretty much the main thing we want in a mouse cord.

After connecting the mouse to the PC, two blue leds will start emitting light. The scroll wheel's led is always on, while the logo on the palm rest keeps slowly fading in and out. You can disable them using Razer's drivers, but you can't force the logo to stay fixed. Initially, I thought that its constant fading would be distracting, but I realized that, most of the time, I don't even notice it's there, since my palm completely covers the light. As a plus, the blue is a perfect match for the leds on my Lian Li case, so it does look rather cool with them on.

Now that we've covered how it looks, let's see how it feels. The Deathadder has two types of materials covering it. The top side has a rubber-like coating, which is quite comfortable and allows you to properly grip the mouse. Some reviews complained that it made the hand feel a bit warm and sweaty, but I didn't notice that. The side, however, isn't as nice. It has a really "plasticky" feel to it, making it considerably less comfortable. It also lacks the "gripping" nature of the top cover, so the fingers occasionally slip slightly. Some reviewers complained about how "gunk" accumulated on its side. What they called "gunk" is a mix of dirt and dead skin cells. Although it's normal for your body to leave this behind, I've noticed that it does pile up a lot more than usual on the Deadthadder's side due to its material. This isn't exactly a deal breaker, but expect having to clean up the sides often.

The two primary buttons have slight indentations, which fit your fingers perfectly when using the "palm grip". One thing you'll definitely notice is how light they are. It only takes a minimal amount of pressure for them to click, which can be really good in games - while playing Counter-Strike, I did a few kills purely out of reflex, that I'm sure wouldn't have happened with a regular mouse, as I didn't really exert much pressure on the button. However, this also has a down side: it’s possible to accidentally fire your weapon, which can be annoying in games where friendly fire is activated. This extra sensibility can be a problem as well during regular use, since you might end up clicking where you don’t want to or selecting instead of clicking. The extra pressure required in other mice is a better option for day-to-day operations. This is more noticeable for “claw grippers”, since the pressure placed on the fingers when moving the mouse might be enough to trigger an accidental click. Either way, it’s something that you’ll end up getting used to, even if you’ll always notice it.

The scroll wheel, which also acts as a third button, has a nice rubberized texture. It also has indentations, so finger slipping while scrolling is nearly impossible. The wheel offers a slight resistance to movement, which is enough to allow you to “feel” how much you’ve moved it. I prefer a little more resistance, but this is just a matter of personal preference. What I really don’t like about it is the middle click. Due to the small resistance offered by the wheel and pressure required to click, middle clicking is sometimes followed by accidental scrolling, which can be annoying. It doesn’t happen always, but it happens often enough for it to be considered a hindrance. Other than that, the wheel works nicely and its placement is also spot on: if I move my index finger from the left button, it’ll hit the scroll wheel with its top third, which is perfect.

Apart from the top three buttons, the Deathadder also has two thumb buttons on the side. They’re reasonably large and require some pressure to click, so there won’t be accidental clicking if you happen to grip the mouse a bit too tight while moving it. As default, these buttons are assigned to “back” and “forward” commands, although I never use them for that effect since I prefer regular mouse gestures on the browser. The “back” button has perfect positioning, sitting right under the thumb. This can be tremendously useful in games, as you can press it without moving the rest of the hand. For example, I have it assigned to the “melee” attack in “Battlefield: Bad Company 2”, making knife kills awesomely easy. The other button is quite similar in shape, but the placement is worse. To use it, I have to lift my palm slightly and move my hand. This means that, if you’re like me, you probably won’t make use of it in regular conditions, which is why I set it up to make up for one of Deathadder’s biggest absences: DPI switching buttons.

The Deathadder 3.5G is a 3500 DPI mouse. However, unless you’re a high-sensitivity gamer with robot-like reflexes, you won’t be using it at full 3500 DPI. You’ll either tune it down to 1800 DPI (which is what I did) or lower the sensitivity. Although you can use the Windows drivers, installing the Deathadder’s drivers is recommended, since they have an on-the-fly sensitivity option that’s quite useful. You just need to press the button you’ve assigned to it (in my case, the fifth mouse button) and scroll the wheel up to increase it or down to decrease it. This works amazingly well, allowing you to quickly change sensitivity settings without having to mess with settings menus. It’s not as good as dedicated buttons and it costs you one button on the mouse (you can’t assign keyboard keys to it and won’t be able to use that mouse button for anything else), but it’s something you’ll be using more often than you might think. As an example, I use 5,5 sensitivity on the Windows desktop and while playing Battlefield, but 10 with Counter-Strike and Left 4 Dead 2. So, when loading those games, I just scroll the wheel up and, after I’m done playing, I simply scroll it back down. One flaw, however, is that the overlay is only displayed when the application doesn’t use the full screen mode… so it’s a bit harder to set a specific level when in-game (unless you already know its feel) . However, if you want to just move it to 10, simply give it a couple of whirls. This is also useful in graphics software, such as Photoshop or GIMP, as the ability to switch sensitivity might help when changing your precision needs.

This takes us to moving the mouse. How’s it like? Well, it’s quite accurate. It does take a while to get adjusted to it due to its size and weight, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll realize how smooth this mouse is. The pointer goes where you want it to go, no matter how slow or fast is the movement. No complaints regarding the sensor. The shape also helps quite a bit. However, if you’re used to lighter mice, you’ll need to readjust your style. Before the Deathadder, I spent a couple of months with a really light mouse (around half its weight), so, for the first couple of weeks, the Deathadder seemed clumsy and way too heavy. However, after I got used to it, it just feels right.

One thing to keep in mind is to properly configure the Deathadder. In the Windows settings, set the sensitivity options to the middle, so they’ll be neutral. Then, use the Deathadder’s drivers to actually change sensitivity. Set the DPI setting to something you’re comfortable with (don’t be afraid of not using the full 3500 DPI, 1800 DPI is more than enough for most people) and adjust the sensitivity on the fly. If the game provides a raw input option, make sure you use it, since you’ll be taking full advantage of the Deathadder’s awesome sensor. Don’t use mouse acceleration, play with the DPI and sensitivity settings instead.

The drivers also give you the possibility of configuring up to five different profiles, which you can select by pressing a button located on the bottom of the mouse. The only use I see for this feature, however, is if you share your PC with someone else who handles the mouse in a completely different way and requires a different DPI selection. The location of the profile swap button forces you to lift the mouse when you want to press it, so it isn't something you'd do on the fly. Personally, I think the vast majority of users will never use this feature.

In short, the Deathadder is a great choice for gaming. The sensor’s accuracy, coupled with a really good shape and sensitive buttons, will give you an edge over opponents using a regular mouse. I felt an improvement once I got adjusted to it and that’s pretty much what you can ask from a gaming mouse. It’s also a good choice for daily usage, even if this isn’t its intended role. The extra-sensitive buttons and the scroll wheel may annoy you occasionally, but the comfortable shape makes up for it. If you’re not a gamer, there are better options for half the price. If you’re a gamer, however, the Deathadder is like a roadster you can drive to work every day: really cool for having fun and still offers a good compromise for daily use.

UPDATE: After around one and a half years of use, the left mouse button started showing anomalous behaviour: it would sometimes miss single clicks or interpret them as double clicks. After contacting Razer's tech support (which seemed to be quite nice), they told me to return it to the store so it'd be RMA'd. Less than a week later, the store contacted me again, mentioning that Razer had ordered them to refund my purchase - was a bit surprised, since I expected either a repair or a new unit. Since I had purchased it on sale, I'm currently considering going for a different model.

New design

Just finished redesigning the website. :D

Well played, Valve

Valve's decision to turn Team Fortress 2 into a free to play game was met with much criticism from those who had purchased the game. I can understand their point of view: they paid for it and are now seeing an influx of new players who sometimes don't really care about the game or its community. This brings up problems like cheaters and trolls, which are less common when people actually have to pay for the game.

However, looking back at it, this is looking like one kick ass move by Valve. Team Fortress 2 is now the most played multiplayer FPS, grabbing the crown from the eternal Counter-Strike. Looking at the stats right now, there are around 62k people playing TF2 (and it peaked at near 78k), against almost 46k playing Counter-Strike (peaked at 52k) and around 39k playing Counter-Strike Source (peaked at 45k). And it's been like this for the whole week. Sure, a fair amount of those players will soon leave, but the game will still retain a fair player base. Before this change, TF2 was on the lower spots in the top 10 and now it's leading.

One of the gripes most experienced players have is in regards to how new players play. And I can totally understand that, after seeing my team go with 70% snipers in a payload match. But I've also seen teams with mostly F2P players doing a fairly good job, applying teamwork and coming up with new tactics. In the end, I think that the TF2 community ended up gaining from this, as the expanded player base renewed interest in the game (and, once it settles, it'll benefit it a lot more).

As for Valve, I'm sure the micropayment system is working fine and a lot better than just selling the game. The question to ask now is: which game will be next? Some have mentioned Left 4 Dead 2 and Counter-Strike, but I seriously doubt any of those two will become F2P. Day of Defeat, however, does seem a decent candidate - at least once Valve figures out where to use the micropayments system.

Special musical bonus

As a special bonus, here's the playlist I created for the school newspaper's Release Party (yeah, I know, I'm awesome at creating playlists :p). Since our cover theme was the students' trip to London, the playlist featured songs from the best british bands. You can listen to it on Grooveshark or hit the play button on the widget to the left. If you enjoy it, consider hitting the Like button on our Journalism Club's Facebook page.

Latest school newspaper is now out

Open publication - Free publishing - More agrupamento

The latest edition of my school's newspaper has just been released. Like last year's, it was produced by the Journalism Club, which is coordinated by me. All the content is in Portuguese.

We've followed up on the revolution we started last year, turning what was a rather bland newspaper (just a few stapled sheets of photocopied paper) into a full fledged magazine, which carries not only school news, but also content adjusted to the student's interest. You can view the on-line version for free here or, if you happen to live in Coimbra, purchase an awesome looking printed copy at Escola Básica Rainha Santa Isabel's library.

Team Fortress 2

Just a really quick post to let you know (in case you haven't read about it already) that Valve decided to release Team Fortress 2 as free to play. Just log in into your Steam account, head to store, choose "Free to Play" and install it.

The regular community (ie, those who bought the game) seems to be reacting negatively to this, though. There are plenty of complaints over at the steam forums.

Peripheral update

Just did an update on the peripherals hooked up to my PC. My mouse/mousepad combo now consists of a Razer Deathadder coupled with a Steelseries Qck Mass. I've also "upgraded" my screen, going for a 24" Asus V242H. I'll try to write a more thorough review on'em sometime, but on a first impression, the Deathadder and the Qck Mass is a kick-ass combination (although it takes a little time getting adjusted to the mouse's size).

phpBB2 to phpBB3 - offline conversion

It took a while longer than I had anticipated... but here's the short article on the offline conversion from phpBB2 to phpBB3 that I did for Fórum Coimbra. The guys at phpBB have a nice tutorial covering the main operations, so I advise you to follow it. On this post, I'll cover mainly the problems that can show up during and after the conversion.

First off, although it's possible to perform this operation on-line, personally I recommend the off-line way (especially if you're on shared hosting). The off-line process should be faster in most cases (unless you have a monster server), while providing you the ability to run a few test conversions without taking up server resources - before doing the final conversion on Fórum Coimbra, I performed 4 test conversions off-line, which helped me minimise problems and schedule an accurate time frame for the maintenance, so I could notify my users when they should expect to have the forum back on-line (which is always a nice touch). It will also eliminate all the problems related to limitations on the web host side, which probably represent most of the problems people face during the conversion.

Now, for the database's characteristics. This conversion involved a 140mb database, on a forum with around 5.500 registered users and 110.000 posts.

After downloading the database and adding it to your phpBB2 off-line installation, make sure that everything's working nicely (especially if your board uses a language with specific characters - if you use bigdump, changing the configuration file for the proper encoding might be required). Converting the forum is a fast process, took around 5 minutes on my PC (i7 920 with 6gb RAM). If you have your message board set to a language other than English, you might see some error messages related to lang.php during the conversion - just ignore'em, it's usually caused by a progress indicator sentence missing the translation in your language files.

Now that the database is converted, you also need to rebuild the search index. This is the lengthy bit... it lasted almost two hours. If you're using XAMPP, my first tip is to change the default configuration file for MySQL. XAMPP's MySQL is configured for low-memory systems (64mb), which is disastrous for this operation. I advise you to fetch a config for something better (if you're not confident enough to mess around in MySQL's config files, search for the "large" or "huge" default MySQL configs). Otherwise, you're in for days of waiting for this operation to end.

After rebuilding the search index, double check if everything is working fine and if the configuration is correct (I noticed a few differences here - plus, there are new options in phpBB3 that you also need to configure). Then comes an important step: in the admin panel, reset the statistics and resync the post count. If you don't do this, there's a good chance that search engine bots are mistaken for your first users (ie, when google's bot is indexing your board, it'll show up as one of your human users on the "who's on-line" box). This happens because phpBB2 treats these bots as visitors, while phpBB3 identifies them as users - I'm guessing that there's a user id conflict happening. It's kind of weird that this hasn't been fixed yet in the converter, but the manual fix is also easy to do.

After this, another annoying problem that might show up is related to passwords "lost in translation". Sometimes, users will get a message saying that their password was lost during the conversion. Using the "forgot password" option or setting it manually in the admin panel won't work. The only fix I found for this was to create a new user, with a password generated manually, and fetch that password's text directly from the database using phpMyAdmin. Then, all that's left to do is paste it on the user who's having problems and let him know you've changed his password (do remind him to change it again once he logs on for security reasons). This is another thing that should be fixed in the official converter, but wasn't... and the fix is a bit more annoying to do (especially since you don't know to whom it may happen, you'll have to hope that the users with problems will contact you - it also involves a bit of messing around with the database, which some users might not be used to do).

Other than this, everything should be working nicely. You might want to check the smilies if you had personalized ones or want to keep the old ones (I hate phpBB3's smilies, so I kept phpBB2's on my board) and expect the database to be larger than the old one. The conversion process itself is quite fast and painless when performing it off-line, the only boring bit is the search index rebuild process. Once everything's done, you can just upload it.

Orbix - new Android game

Orbix is a new puzzle game for Android devices I'm currently developing, with what I like to call an "open methodology". This means that the core gameplay is already implemented, but where it goes from here will depend heavily on player feedback. So, if you have an Android device (doesn't matter if it's a phone or tablet, should work on all of'em), check it out and let me know if you have any comments, suggestions, bug reports, etc. You can find it at the official Android Market, but if you search for Orbix in other places (like Appbrain) you'll probably spot it as well.

The game currently has only one game mode ("Survival Mode"), where you have to play till you lose. However, further game modes are planned (and you can always suggest some as well). Please keep in mind that the game is in an early stage, so many of the interface elements are rather primitive. My main objective at the moment is to test the gameplay: is it easy to play, can you figure it out quickly, does it progress at a good pace, do you have any suggestions, etc.


Here's the QRCode linking directly to Orbix on the Android Market. If you have an Android device, try it and let me know what you think (the game is completely free - it doesn't even have those annoying ads).

Semana da Informática

The "Semana da Informática" ("Computer Week") ended today. This was a week-long event held at my school, consisting in a series of conferences on computer-related topics, a couple of game tournaments (including GLTron, which simply rocks) and a few exhibits. The attendance was quite good, with a constantly filled auditorium during the conferences (around 80 to 90 people each), along with 96 participants in the GLTron tournament.

Apart from working on its organization, I was also responsible for three presentations. The first one was on Monday, about one of my favourite topics: game development. It was meant as an introduction to the roles in a typical game development team, what tasks each person perform and what are their biggest challenges. I've also managed to slid in a few tidbits on game design, based on my experience in that area. It was really fun and the attendees also seemed to enjoy it.

The remaining two presentations were on the topic of Internet Security. The first one was aimed at kids (ages 6 to 8). It was my first presentation for such a young audience, but it went rather well. They were extremely interested and placed tons of questions during and after the presentation. The final presentation was aimed at a slightly older audience (ages 12 to 16). It also went nicely.

Apart from me, there were also three other speakers: Telmo Amaro (who spoke about mobile software development), Licínio Roque (with a presentation about the game development process and game studies) and Ricardo Ruivo (whose presentation was on a campus network's installation, maintenance and administration).

Given the excellent crowd turnout and the positive feedback I received, I hope this becomes the first edition of an yearly event, since it was both an interesting event for the school community and an excellent hands-on event organization experience for my students.

forumcoimbra.com with new look

I've released Forum Coimbra's new look a couple of days ago. This was a major overhaul, as the forum was still running PHPBB2, so I've also converted it to PHPBB3 in a maintenance operation that lasted around four hours.

The new look is mainly based on weeb's we_universal style, but I've added a fairly good amount of tweaks to adjust it to the forum. The visitors seem to be liking it and no problems have been reported so far. Later on, I'll try to write a short description of the work involved and a few issues I had to resolve during the conversion. For now, you can check it out to see how it looks. :)

New website is up!

The new version of my personal site is (finally) finished! :D