Since it had been long overdue for me to jump on to the console gaming wagon, I thought it’d be the best time for me to do so when I got to know that a Star Wars limited edition was about to be released. I really couldn’t resist the temptation of having an R2-D2 design on the console, and a controller which resembles the golden shine of C3PO. Of course, with Microsoft’s E3 demo of the Star Wars Kinect game, it was kinda inevitable for me to not buy it. But it meant I had to sell a kidney for it, as the initial price for the bundle was a repelling 350 quid. But thanks to the reselling gamelords of London, I got the same Limited Edition console, sealed and unopened for just 260 quid. And the guy was kind enough to even include a Dance Central 2 game with it, which costs 30 quid on Amazon. All in all, a very good deal, and we’ll get to the numbers at the end of this post. But for now, just sit back and gaze your eyes on the beauty that is the XBOX 360: Star Wars Limited Edition Kinect Console.

[Warning: Image heavy post ]

THE PACKAGE:

UNPACKING:

Under the hood, we can see the Kinect sensor.

The included manuals for Star Wars, Kinect, and a free XBOX Live subscription for a month.

The games that come with the package are – Kinect Adventures, and Star Wars Kinect

The Kinect Sensor judging by the complete white look, resembles a Storm Trooper.. I guess.

And the usual Power Brick, RCA Connector, with SCART adaptor, and a chat headphone. No HDMI cable (disappointing).

AND NOW UNVEILING – THE CONSOLE – FRONT, RIGHT AND CENTER

The Console blinks blue LEDs instead of the traditional XBOX green. And turning on, as well as
loading/ejecting Disc on the console makes the Artoo sound.

The R2-D2 design on the console is just flawless. Plus, since it comes in matte white, it is not a visible dust magnet.

The back comes with all the connector options viz. the power supply, single HDMI out, RCA out, 3 USB, single Ethernet, and a digital audio out. Since my amp does not have a digital in, I opted to get the audio from the RCA audio components (white and red), but it is a big pain. (I get the video from the HDMI). I don’t get why Microsoft would keep the HDMI out and the RCA out so close to each other, almost like an evil plot to force users to be able to use only one video output. Big pain in the ass. So I had to saw out the RCA cable’s extended plastic jaw, so as to be able to fit both the HDMI and the RCA connector.

All set and done. Here comes the C3P0 controller.

And time for some family group photographs now.

And that is it for this unboxing post. As for the calculation bit, of is it worth shelling out extra bucks on a limited edition of the Xbox just coz it’s another one of Lucas’ money-making devices, let’s have a look at how much an actual Xbox 360 Kinect bundle cost.  On Amazon, the XBOX 360 250 GB Black, with the Kinect costs |£249.88| The Star Wars Kinect Game costs |£25.85| That brings the total to £275.73

As for the Star Wars Kinect bundle, it is now down to | £294.87| on Amazon. And it is a 320 GB Console, which is 70GB more for almost £20, plus the limited edition design, which isn’t that bad. Also, limited edition consoles have more resell values, should you need to do so.

I will be soon posting my first impressions of the Star Wars Kinect Game, and about the Kinect environment in general. Hope you liked this post. Please feel free to share this, using the buttons below.

Also, you can follow me on twitter , or like the Facebook page.
Until next time, may the force be with you.

Gone are the days when animated GIFs were just flashy stuff that would decorate your geocities page. With GIF being one of the most popular tags on tumblr, it is high time, that you try it out for yourself. And we have a step-by-step instruction manual to assist you.

Softwares required: 
#1. Photoshop CS5 (or any previous version, the interface will be a bit different. For this tutorial, we’ll stick to CS5). Aslo, my PC runs Windows XP, because I am too poor to upgrade.
#2. VLC Player (or any Media player, which allows taking screencaps from a video e.g. KMPlayer, SMPlayer. Pick your favourite)

Hit the Jump to see the step by step tutorial.

Step 1: Screenshot time:
Take the required screencaps for the GIF you want to make. Although Photoshop allows to make frames directly from a video source, it can often be limited to certain video formats. Using a Media player of your choice, allows you to make frames from any video source, irrespective of the format of the source file.

A few handy preparatory steps to make your screencapping process easier.

Go to VLC preferences by hitting Ctrl+P, and go to Hotkeys to edit keyboard shortcuts. Change screenshot to “S”, and Stop to “Shift+S”. This will allow you to take screenshots, just by holding down S key.
Set your directory, where you want your screenshots to be outputted, in the Video snapshot settings under Video tab.
And also decide whether you want high quality screencaps in png, or lossy jpg screens are fine for you.
Also give a nice naming convention, with a sequential numbering enabled. Photoshop likes order. Refer to the settings in the screenshot below.

For the purpose of this tutorial, we have chosen the latest trailer of The Amazing Spiderman.

Step 2. Prepare Your Photoshop
Open up Photoshop CS5. Now, click on the Bridge icon on the top toolbar, or press Ctrl+Alt+O, or go to:

File->Browse in Bridge. Now browse to your location where the screenshots are located. You should see something like this.

Pick all the images that you want to be in your GIF, and go to Tools->Photoshop->Load in layers on Photoshop.

Step 3. Import Images
Step 2, should import those jpg/png files as layers in Photoshop. If your images are labelled img001 – img050, it will show img050 (as it is the latest one to load). Go to the right hand corner of the animation bar, and click on the edge, and select “Make Frames From Layers”. This will import all layers as frames on the animation bar.

(If you don’t see the animation bar, it might have been unselected. Go to Windows->Animation, to enable the animation bar, and follow Step 3).

Step 4. Setting the order right
The images loaded are set in reverse order i.e. in our example, the animation will show from img050 to img001. Unless you want a rewind animation, you wuold need to reverse this order. Select the first animation frame, and hold down the Shift key, and the last animation frame to select all frames. Then, go to the right hand corner of the animation bar again, and click and select – Reverse frames.

Your animation is now chronologically correct. Also, do necessary changes, such as cropping, and setting your image size using the usual Photoshop tools – Rectangular Marquee, and Image->Image Size respectively.

Step 5: Modifications
If you feel your animation is moving too slowly, then you select alternate frames i.e. img002, img004, ..and so on, and delete them. This will make the animation faster, due to drop in frame count. Conversely, if you want to slow down the animation, select all frames, as mentioned in Step 4, and set the time for each frame, by clicking at the bottom right of any frame. You can also select individual time for each frame.

Step 5: Preview and Save
When you are happy with the animation, you can view the final image in the animation window. It is also advisable to preview it in a browser window, to actually view how it would look like an image (possibly, which is going to be circulated over the web, and viewed in a browser window). For this, go to: File-> Save For Web and Devices. Select GIF.

Now it is upto you to select the settings to save the GIF in. We’ll discuss the different settings in our next post. But for now, I’ll let you know that Dithered gives the lowest size for a GIF compared to Pattern or Noise. And lower the colour count, lower the size. But your GIF won’t look as pretty either. So, we’ll leave it to you to play around with the settings. Once you’re happy with the final optimised image, you can preview it in a browser by hitting the preview button. (You can select which browser you want to view it in as well).
There is another advantage of previewing it, as the time selected for frames, can appear differently in the animation window, compared to the final browser preview.

And that is it, you are ready to save your GIF now. Here is the final image, that we have prepared for this tutorial.

In our next tutorial, we will discuss the optimisation settings of GIF sizes, and also how to add text, like we have done in the following GIF.

Feel free to share this tutorial using the buttons below. Also, follow us on Facebook.

Mobile phone games will always suffer somewhat compared to games played on a dedicated console or even a computer, largely because the controls are optimised for smartphone purposes rather than gaming. The screen size is also a major limitation. Processing power is not so much of an issue as it once was, particularly with the latest high-speed, high-memory, dual-core phones.

So, what kind of games work well on smartphones? Anything where you can touch the screen to control the action; anything where the screen size doesn’t need to be large; and, on older phones, retro-style games that can manage with less processing power than the latest console or PC games. Platform games fulfil most of those requirements, but admittedly they can be tricky with standard phone controls. Plus, the market is somewhat flooded already, particularly when it comes to free and advert-supported games. We take a look at which ones work best, and offer most fun, for Android mobile phones.

Replica Island (requires Android 1.5 or higher; free download)

Replica Island has been specially designed for Android, rather than ported over from another OS, and it really shows. It’s a labour of love for its developer – which is also very obvious when you play – and already has 40 brilliant levels of old-school, Mario Brothers style platforming fun. Plus, it’s all open source, so if you fancy trying your hand as an Android game developer yourself, making a new Replica Island level might be a good place to start. Perhaps our favourite thing about this game, if “free download” and “huge fun” weren’t enough by themselves, is that the character you control as you jump from platform to platform on Replica Island is none other than the iconic green Android mascot. Only with rocket packs in his feet.

Abduction! 2 (requires Android 1.5 or higher; free demo download or £1.29 full game)

Save cute animals from alien abduction! Control your equally cute, bouncing cow heroine by tilting your phone, as she ascends the levels to rescue her farmyard chums from unseen but doubtless grisly experiments.

Doodle Jump (requires Android 1.5 or higher; £0.61 download)

This is a highly addictive platformer, with almost perfectly balanced gameplay. It’s unforgiving, and starts off quite tough, but you’ll quickly master the basics of bouncing the Doodler from one platform to the next, without bouncing into any enemies or dropping off the bottom of the screen. There’s none of that wimpy “three lives” nonsense here – the game ends as soon as you make a mistake – but that’s part of the reason it’s so addictive, and so good.

Puffle Launch (requires Android 2.1 or higher; £0.63 download)

Puffle Launch is technically a physics/platform crossover game, but it’s so good that we decided not to let that stop us including it in our “best of” list for platformers. Cartoony graphics, 36 detailed and engaging levels, and a hugely fun boss battle make Puffle Launch a real standout.

Cordy (requires Android 2.2 or higher; free download)

If you’re not already playing Cordy, and you have a phone that runs it, go and download this beautiful 3D platformer right now. With great graphics, and impressive gameplay blending platform and puzzle game elements, this really is a must-have. Although there’s a superb free game here, you can unlock extra levels with a small payment if you love it as much as we do.

Android has in the past been accused of not having much of interest on the Android Market, but as some of these games show, Android is quickly becoming the platform of choice – not just for gamers but for game developers too.

This is a guest post, written by Simon Drew, who is a Marketing Executive at MD Operations.

Kapil Sibal - Internet Censorship in India

Until the last week, he was more famous as the man who brought to the world, the $35 laptop. And today, he is a laughing stock, not only amongst us Indians, but also in tech blogs worldwide. Even Engadget (Link) is reporting this as a shameful initiative. And if we go by the trending hashtags of Twitter in India, you will find the top 5 to be pointing towards Mr. Kapil Sibal’s idiocy. This is a Harvard and St.Tephen’s alumni we’re talking about, who is now the Minster of Communications and IT in India. What made Mr.Sibal turn on his own head to become Mr.Scissorshands with the Internet?

I cannot decide if the initiative announced by Mr.Sibal to censor “the internet” is more stupid, or is it the incident which triggered this initiative which deserves a place on the stupid-er throne. He picked a post that targeted Sonia Gandhi, to be the reason why he wants the internet in India to be screened, censored and then released for the public. Now, I am not speaking in favour of anyone’s motive to malign a public figure. But across the world, we have a lot of “I hate abc” and “I love abc” clubs. The fact that a public figure like Sonia Gandhi has been picked on, and Mr.Sibal feels the need to censor the entire fucking internet in India is beyond me (well, I know his motive, well, sort of). So, here is my open letter to Mr Sibal.

@Mr Kapil Sibal :

I will try to keep it simple, and for your understanding, will present it to you in the form of bullet points.

#1.  The internet, as they showed in the IT Crowd, is not a simple box. So, if you want an initiative to scan through the whole internet, please get a reality check. Here are some stats for a starter.

There are 48 hours of YouTube video uploaded every minute, and 250 million tweets are generated per day. (Source: Labnol).

And that is just two websites. We are forgetting user generated forums, blogs, self hosted websites, Facebook, YouTube alternatives etc. etc. And oh, there are also proxy servers, and VPN networks to allow people to access anything from anywhere. Is this getting too technical for your liking? Good!

And the fact that you want, not algorithms to scan them through, but actual humans to do it for you is in itself worthy of an applause (sarcasm, check)! Best of luck with that. Perhaps, this might be your new Yuva Naukri Yojna (Youth Employment Scheme).

#2. Censor the internet you say? Why does it give me a deja-vú of what happened in Egypt and Libya? Oh yeah, they did it there, didn’t they? Speaking of blanket filtering of content, isn’t that reminiscent of China’s Internet filters. So, in the largest democracy in the world, are we now opting *that* as a role model?

#3. I would like to point you Mr.Sibal, towards a recently premiered TV series called Black Mirror – it is an interesting watch (review with spoilers here). The premise, is of a YouTube viral video released to the nation (UK). The video features a kidnapped Princess, who is faced with a death threat, and in ransom demand, the PM has to perform an obscene act involving a pig.

Now I know the UK is a different nation altogether, with different political and national sensibilities. But it is still similar in some respects. Like, the UK has its Royal family, and the Congress would like to believe the Gandhi family is India’s political royalty. But there is more to take in from this TV series.

The government tries to take down the ransom video from YouTube, but with every single video taken down, 6 clones would be uploaded the very next minute. This goes to show, that unlike traditional media, the internet is beyond territorial regulations, and can be made available from ​anywhere across the world. So, if you think that you can censor the internet with India, how are you going to control the millions of Pravasi Bhartiyas from creating another Facebook page?

#4. Last but not the least, Sonia Gandhi is a public figure. She might be an icon to the Congress, but she is just another democratically elected Member of the Parliament for me and the 1.2 billion Indians. So the whole objective of censoring internet to be triggered by this so called “I Hate abc” page, just goes to show the seriousness of your concern towards the Indian democracy.

I hope you read this, and I hope that you release an apology letter soon. I also hope that your trending hashtag finishes its innings sooner than Rakhi Sawant’s last breaking news. I miss Chetan Bhagat on my twitter hashtag.

Sincerely,

An online Indian.

For now, it is only the Galaxy Nexus which has got the latest version of Android OS, the Ice Cream Sandwich. Amongst other improvements over the previous versions, is the new improved keyboard which has better suggestions, targetting and shortcuts. And if you have an Android phone running 2.2 or later version, then you don’t have to wait for the upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwhich.

The keyboard is available for download for free, and ready for you to use.

Go hit the Android market link here:

But is it worth the download? Hit the jump for the review of this keyboard.

Review:

There are a few changes compared to the default one on my Samsung Galaxy S2.

Good:

The num keys option of symbols is reduced.

Apart from that, the keys look well layed-out with quite generous spacing. The layout is very standard Android, and the highlight colour is pleasant blue.

Also, the punctuation suggestions at the end of each word is very welcome here.

Bad:

The ICS Keyboard does not have any pre-installed keys for emoticons. You can insert emoticons if you are texting, by hitting the menu button, and selecting “Insert Smileys”.
But if you are trying to use it as a text keyboard for any other app, you are out of luck. You’d have to write your own emoticons.

Other:

If you are searching for this app in the Android Market on the phone, it is the one developed by Johntanmi, and not Nick Zhang.

Techkeyla Rating: It does what is says on the tin, and then some more. Full marks on functionality, but the exclusion of emoticons is a step backwards.

The Ice Cream Sandwich keyboard gets 3.5 *** / 5

Let me know if it works as well on your Android phone, and leave your comments below.

Here are 40 of the most awesome Excel keyboard shortcuts to enable you to sail through all your regular and reptetive tasks like an Excel Spreadhseet Ninja.

For your convenience, I have divided them into 5 broad sections viz. – Selection, Switching, Creation, Formatting and Formula.

So here it is: 40 Excel Keyboard Shortcuts

Selection

1. Ctrl+* – Select current region.
2. Ctrl+Home – Goes to the first cell of the sheet
3. Ctrl+End – Goes to the last active cell of the sheet
4. Ctrl+Spacebar – Select entire column
5. Shift+Spacebar – Select entire row
6. Shift+Up/Down Arrow – Select adjacent column
7. Shift+Left/Right Arrow – Select adjacent row
8. Ctril +Up Arrow – Select first active cell in a column
9. Ctrl + Down Arrow – Select last active cell in a column
10. Ctrl+Shift+Up Arrow - Selecting all rows from a particular cell to the beginning of the row
11. Ctrl+Shift+Down Arrow - Selecting all rows from a particular cell to the end of the row
12. Ctrl+Shift+Home – Select all cells from active cell to the first active cell in the sheet
13. Ctrl+Shift+End – Select all cells from active cell to the last active cell in the sheet

Switching

14. Ctrl+Page Up – Switch between sheets in the same worksheet from left to right
15. Ctrl+Page Down – Switch between sheets in the same worksheet from right to left
16. Ctrl+Tab – Switch between worksheets
17. Alt+F11 – Open VBA Editor

Creation

18. Shift+ F11 – Creates New sheet
19. Ctrl+F3 – Define name for a cell
20. F3 – Paste name for a cell
21. Ctrl+; – Pastes Current date in the active cell
22. Ctrl+Shift+; – Pastes Current time in the active cell
23. Alt+F1 – Creates a chart using the active region
24. Alt+F2 -Displays the Save as dialog box

Formatting

25. Ctrl+1 – Format cells
26. Ctrl+2, Ctrl+B – Bold
27. Ctrl+3, Ctrl+i – Italics
28. Ctrl+4, Ctrl+U – Underline
29. Ctrl+5 – Strikethrough
30. Ctrl+9 – Hides selected rows
31. Ctrl+0 – Hides selected columns
32. Ctrl+D – Copy formatting of top most cell
33. Ctrl+G / F5 – Go to box
34. Ctrl+K – Hyperlink
36. Ctrl+L -Create List
37. Ctrl+R – Fill Right / Copy content and formats of leftmost cell in a selection

Formula:

38. =+FunctionName+Ctrl+A – Inserts new function
39. Ctrl+Shift+Enter – Array formula
40. Shift+F3 – Opens Formula Dialogue Box

Fell free to share this post using the buttons below. Or just proudly show off your Spreadhseet Ninja skills on your own.

No matter which flavour of Windows OS you use, you are bound to get some really unnecessary shortcuts lying in the corner of that desktop. Here we list some of them, and this is a topic open for discussion.

1. Adobe Acrobat Reader

Really, who needs this shortcut. When was the last time you opened up Adobe Acrobat Reader, and then hit Open PDF. This also applies to other PDF readers.

2. Briefcase

So, this is like a Dropbox for the offline world. Totally unnecessary.

3.Show Desktop

You are already there. Why need it?

4.IE6 (or any other version of IE)

Well, ok so this one is from a Mozilla/Chrome fan. So the only time I had to use IE was to download Mozilla/Chrome.

5. AOL

No one uses AOL IM anymore. And even if someone did, with GMail integration, this one is about to be lost in the every deep recesses of technological oblivion.

6.Terrible SW: Real Player/Bonzai Buddy/Quicktime Player

Self explanatory isn’t it. Who uses them anyway?

7.Printer

Similar to the Adobe Acrobat Reader, we just print documents from the document window itself, rather than turning on the Printer from the official HP/Canon printer application.

So, the verdict is: <insert drumroll>

I respect you, Internet Explorer shortcut, and Imma let you finish, but Adobe Reader 9 shortcut is one of the most unneeded shortcuts of all time.

Kindly leave your thoughts, suggestions for additions to this list, and comments below.

Google Plus +

After more than 24 hours of testing out the new social network in town – Google+ (you’re supposed to call it Google plus), I find myself in the middle of a dilemma. Of course, the comparison to Facebook is inevitable. After all, Facebook has evolved into this omnipresent entity in our conversations, our lives and even our offline world. With the new social network, where does Google’s old product Orkut stand in the race, is anybody’s guess. As of now, by the looks of it, Google seems to have taken the best of Facebook and spicened it up with their own goodness, and in the process also incorporated the simplicity of twitter. Confused already? Let’s discuss the points individually.

User Interface:

The overall layout of the Stream as well the Profile page looks very similar to what Facebook has. While Facebook boasts off a very blue theme, as all Google products, white, grey and green are the most prominent colours. The title fonts are in sky blue ( standard hyperlink colours). Google chat lies on the left sidebar similar to GMail. The stream is much smoother than it is in facebook, and the clutter free page is a welcome change. Of course, that is subject to future change when Google Plus eventually takes off and Google Adsense invades the stream page with targeted advertisements. But as of now, I like the simplicity of design.

Circles:

One of the key concepts of Google Plus is Circles. It is similar to what Facebook has in groups – when you can group your friends into categories. But Google Plus has a brilliant advantage. Unlike Facebook, you can decide what to share and what not to based upon the circles created. So you might have some wild night out which you’d like to share with your mates, but might be too embarrassed to  make it visible to your work acquaintances or even your family members. With the circle-centric share,  control of privacy is set at the forefront of this social networking product. Further, there are default Circles created (more can be created/added/customised), one of them being – Following. This could be similar to twitter where you can follow celebrity Google Plus users ( I am following Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg and the like).

Privacy:

Just to reiterate what has been mentioned in Circles, you can decide what is shared and with whom. So you can share publicly (as you tweet ), or share with individual users, circles etc. Also, unlike Facebook where privacy setting as embedded a hundred feet below sea level, Google Plus enables you to edit them just by clicking on the link – Google Plus settings. Most importantly, on the profile page, you can view how your own profile would look like when viewed by a specific user etc.

Ease of Share:

This is similar to what Facebook has in place already. But it still makes sense to mention that Google Plus does the job as efficiently. There’s options to add links, photos, videos or simply text. The Google Buzz is added as one of your tabs on the Profile, as well as all weblinks being +1′ed by you appear under the +1 tab. This should be sort of a deli.cio.us replacement. How are these going to be integrated is a hazy picture as of now.

+1:

A very smart rollout, the +1 button has  been termed as the Google’s answer to the Facebook Like button. And similar to the Like button, the +1 button works on web-links as a bookmarking tool, as well in your stream shared posts.

Animated Gif support:

I am a mad tumblrer. And that means I love animated GIFs. Facebook does not support GIFs in your albums (as in all uploaded animated GIFs are converted into static images). Google Plus on the other hand supports GIFs. I know its not a very big deal for the most of you. But I thought of mentioning it as this was something I missed at Facebook.

Huddle:

Group conversations, Wiki and Forums are going to get a serious facelift with this awesome feature. Now I have not personally tested this feature due to lack of time, but I have heard some very good things about this.

Picasa:

As all Google products, Google Plus has the awesome functionality of integration with other Google products. One of the major ones – Picasa is integrated into the Photos. Again, albums can be chosen to be shared accordingly. Although there have been some complaints about tagged photos on Picasa not being imported on Albums in Google Plus.

Android App:

Unfortunately there is no iOS app for the Google Plus as of now (which makes me very happy). The Android app on the other hand works like a charm. Weighing a very light 2+ MB, the app enables to instantly upload all pictures taken from your phone to an unshared web folder called – Photos from your phone. So, say goodbye to Twitpic. Of course, with Android smartphones sporting front facing cameras, I believe Google Plus would allow video chats as well.

Group Chat / Video Chat:

Again I have not tested this extensively in a group chat, but going by what Google chat video looks like, this thing is going to be a Skype killer for sure.

Sparks and RSS:

Finally, a sort of a data collecter. The Sparks tab allows users to read the latest news feed based upon interests such as – Android, Films, Sports, Fashion etc. The option to be able to add RSS Feeds would be very helpful (after all, all we want is just one place where we can have it all). But as of now, there is no sort of user customisation available on the Sparks page.

So, I believe Google Plus has indeed hit quite a lot of good notes with this one. There is absolutely huge potential in this product and the thing it can do. Integration with Youtube for video podcasting straight from the profile page will be an amazing feature to look forward to. Also, as with Facebook, Google Plus should be able to integrate commenting systems on blogs with the stream page. And finally, I really hope that Google plus never gets cluttered with crazy gaming apps such as Farmville and Mafia Wars. Let them remain with iGoogle.

P.S. There is an official Google Plus fanpage on Facebook, and Mark Zuckerberg has a Google Plus profile. Talk about a social networking full circle.