FreeWareCentral

As I mentioned in my last post, I was getting a bluetooth dongle and a gamepad. Well, here are the reviews.

The Bluetooth dongle I purchased is a Rocketfish Bluetooth Dongle (link) from Bestbuy. It is about $50.00 CAN, though I got it for free because they told me the laptop I purchased had Bluetooth built in. I’ve used the dongle so far to connect to a) my cellphone and b) 3 wii controllers. I’ve found that there are some problems (it disables your speakers and you have to manually disable its new speaker driver), as well as some times where it disconnected, but overall its worked great. I’ve been able to play Cortex Command with a Wii controller and transferred my pictures off my cellphone. I’d still recommend you get bluetooth built in, but this dongle is still pretty good.

The gamepad I got was a Logitech Dual Action Gamepad (link) from Bestbuy. I’ve only had it for a few days yet I’ve already decided to return it. It feels cheap, with a grip that’s worthless and a low-quality plastic build. The d-pad and various buttons all have reasonably good tactile-feedback. There’s no rumble. The analogue sticks are what really bring the product down, though. Firstly, the hole is square-shaped, making it next to impossible to push directly left-right-up-or-down. Secondly, they have a very low-quality rubber top. Overall, this gamepad is cheap-feeling and not very well designed. I wouldn’t pay more than $5.00 for it and will be returning it shortly.

Final product is the Nyko Wii Charge Base (link) bought from, you guessed it, Bestbuy. They’re $40.00 CAN and, if you play the Wii fairly often, well worth the price. You get 1 charge base and 2 rechargeable battery packs. It is a pretty good package, as it saves a lot of money on batteries. Its high quality, convenient, and not that expensive. I would definitely recommend it.

Well, that’s it. I’ll be posting that review of Cortex Command soon, as well as finally finishing the site updates within two weeks. Until next post,

-Dravailo

Hey, I recently did another search for interesting pieces on a popular art site, DeviantART. This site allows people to keep journals, submit pictures, favourite other pictures, message each other, and even sell prints of their larger pictures. My account there is “Metroid48″.

If you want to see all of my currently favourited pictures, by all means check out my account. In the mean time, here are links to some of my most favourite favourites:

Escape by BenTheFobbix

Aries by BenTheFobbix

Sea Glow by vivadawolf

:Whimper: by CunningFox

Bermuda Taowls by GunnerRomantic

:l i g h t: by AzulDragon

Whoa from explosm.net (a short little one-liner comic, this is one of their better ones)

Also, just for fun, here’s something from Flickr: Squirrels with Lightsabers!!!

Anyway, check my favourites for all of my favourite pictures/stories from DeviantART. I would suggest the pictures by Lance-Foxx, transryu, tamen, CunningFox, Inaliak, kiraxlee, BenTheFobbix, and Lyanti. Until next post,

-Dravailo

PS- By the way, I have exams for the next week so I’m unlikely to make many posts during that time.

I’ve been browsing and just saw the Mythbusters web-cast of Ninja questions, in which they had the person from AskANinja.Com on. Here’s the youtube video:

Anyway, that reminded me to check out AskANinja.com again. Checked it out, funny new material. For those who don’t know, people send in questions to Ask A Ninja and a ninja (or so you think) answers them, in very funny ways, via video podcasts. There’s about 40 episodes, the more recent ones are funnier. Still, I’d recommend classics like “Ninja Skills” and “Ninja Dogs” (or Caninja’s, as the ninja calls them). Very funny site, well worth watching.

Also, on a completely unrelated note, I’m starting to try and have lucid dreams. Again. I’m too busy right now, but during summer I’ll have a lot more time and (hopefully) several lucid dreams. Lucid Dreaming is, simply put, becoming conscious that you are dreaming while you are dreaming. May sound pointless, but this gives you a whole world, which can be more vivid than life it self, in which you have control. You can actually affect things by willing them to happen. This includes flying, walking through walls, talking to your subconscious, shapeshifting, whatever. Whatever you can think of that doesn’t go against your beliefs (since your subconscious creates the dream world, deep beliefs often prevent some things from occurring) is usually possible.

If you want to learn to have lucid dreams, a few things are great resources. One is a podcast from Erin Pavlina. Another is the DreamViews site and forums. The best book on the subject is Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen Laberge.

-Dravailo

Has anyone heard of this website, http://d***interesting.com (change the stars, obviously)? It is a host to a wide variety of amazing, strange, unbelievable articles. There’s Clever Hans the Math Horse, , and my favourite, The Norwegian Puffin Dog (aka Lundehund).

The Lundehund is an amazing breed of dogs. They’re rare, with only 4 or so in existance at one point, and unique. They have six toes, are very flexible (the back of their head can touch their spine!), can seal their ears (they work in caves), and are only the size of a fox.

There’s plenty of other interesting articles to choose from. The site documents almost everything you’d never ask about! I’m sure that you’ll be surprised with what you can learn when you visit such a site!

As a final note on the interesting or the strange, have you heard of Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader series? They’re currently on their 19th edition and have so much interesting info available.

-Dravailo

My first link today is an interesting article about do-it-yourself (DIY) book binding. Click here to learn about how to bind a book. That way, you can make your own e-books actual paper-back books.

Also, need a cheap camera? Go here to download and print a .pdf that will let you build a camera. It uses real film and is reasonable quality.

-Dravailo

Want to know something completely random? Try browsing over to http://www.wikihow.com/Special:Random. You can learn how to make a whiteboard, manage conflict, write geometry equations, and plenty of stuff you’d never ask about. It’s a lot of information.

Once your done that, for more fun, go to here! Print off the pdf and fold it up for a little mac-mini, as seen in this image:

  Also, if you’re more a fan of Mario characters than macs, you can fold up popular Mario characters here with just a few sheets of paper.

Plus, there’s Advance Wars vehicles for folding too here. They’ve also got Legend of Zelda characters, Tomb Raider, and Star Wars. Plenty of choice.

See you next time,

-Dravailo