The Blue Blog

The million year old blog

Archive for 2007

4 Days Left!

Archives by Month:

Archives by Subject:

Sony eReader! <3 <3 <3

Having used my beloved eReader for close to 5 months now, I think it’s time I wrote a bit about it to share with you how I find it so far. And yes, those are indeed little hearts you see in the article title. That mean I LUVVVV IIITTTTT! =D
A while ago out of pure accident I came across one of Sony’s most ingenious little ideas, the Sony eBook Reader. I suppose you could see sparkles in my eyes when I found out what it was and what it did. I could finally be delivered from the pain of having to read all my eBooks on my monitor. I have to add here, I read a lot and I have a truly large number of eBooks. [You can see a part of my library here.] I’m not really a big fan of paper books because of obvious reasons. If I were to store the paper version of all the books that I currently have, I would need to rent the white house. In addition, I once had to leave behind my library of paper books when I was migrating from one country to the other. That was certainly not an enjoyable event. So now, for me it’s all about eBooks. I guess you can imagine what it would mean to me and what kind of freedom I would achieve by being able to load a handful of my eBooks into a tiny gadget and carry it around wherever I want, just like a simple paperback. It would also mean that I won’t have to worry about staring at the monitor for 12 hours strait and tiring the heck out of my eyes.
Obviously the first thing that I did was going through the specifications of the eReader. I noticed that there’s a main book format for the reader [BBeB aka .lrf], and it also supports most of the major formats including PDF and TXT. It also has the ability to display JPG images in gray-scale, and play mp3 files among other sound formats. That was all I needed; I was sold. But then I also started looking into the online user reviews for the gadget and that turned out to be somewhat disconcerting. I read a whole lot about how people were unhappy with the fact that the display is in gray-scale. There was also tons of rant about the loading speed for each page, and I even read comments saying that the screen would break by a touch! And that’s to mention just a few…
To my good fortune, I was too taken by it not to take the risk. Despite all the sad reviews, I decided to buy one. [Now given that the reader is only available in the USA, how I managed to get my hands on one is another story altogether..] Well, obviously I’m now more than happy I took the risk. The eReader is probably the most useful piece of electronics I paid for in the past heaven knows how many years. As it turns out, it’s indeed a splendid little gadget. The time it takes to load each page is pretty much equal the amount of time it would take the human hand to turn the page of a paper book. You can change the size of the font to your liking, and the display is just fantastic. You can read the font clearly from any given angle. It’s light, easy to carry about and the battery charge lasts for a mighty long while. The sound quality is also very nice and it can easily rid you of your mp3 player. As for the physical strength of the screen… well I have a feeling some people might have tried playing squash with it, in which case it would definitely not last. But if you know how to use an electronic gadget, you won’t have any problems. And not to forget… to my deep delight, the eReader supports both Pro Duo memory sticks and the old fashioned SD cards. The only thing that doesn’t make me very happy right now, is that since the eReader has been released for the USA, at the moment the users outside of the USA are not able to directly connect to the Sony Connect Store to buy the BeBB books for the reader. That however was not a problem for me since I already have tons of eBooks to read with the eReader, and regardless of where you get your eBook, you can read it with the eReader. Even if you want to have BBeB books, there are tons of free applications out there that would take your PDF or RTF or whatever else you have and convert it into an LRF.
At the end, it is the fact that this gadget is not for everyone, and I can see clearly where all the negative reviews are coming from. Buying the eReader, would mean that you’re paying almost twice the price of a PSP for something that does not display you colours and you can’t play games with it. This gadget is for true readers, it’s meant to make easy the lives of people like me who spend hours and hours reading books. Don’t expect from it what’s it’s not meant for, and then pour your frustration into a negative review. And yet, don’t miss it if you’re a bookworm as I am. =)

ShoutNox!

Today I finally found the time to get rid of the old messy ShoutBox, that had became full of junk thanks to the spam bots, and due to it’s old PHP syntax couldn’t work out with Fast CGI [which my beloved host recently offers]. As you may have already noticed, now I have a ShoutNox instead. Neat and clean and spam proof, thanks to it’s creator the great Genox. =D Try it out if you like!

On another happy note, today’s edition of Garfield is definitely one of the cutest ones I’ve seen so far. =) Here it is:

Oh My World….ASD!!!

Well well, let’s see what we’ve got here….well here we’ve got me, who’s been sitting here on this couch watching “Lifeforce” on my notebook over and over and over again for so many times I’ve lost count by now, and trying really hard to figure out what I’m gonna write here about the demo and still not knowing what. I mean what can I possibly say about this demo that would really describe either the demo or how I feel about it? aMUSiC just told me that ASD has been working on this demo for 6 months… what can I write in a few lines to be a fair comment about something so beautiful that has taken so much hard work?
For the first 30 minutes all that came to my mind was “Oh My God” and even now it’s mostly that. ASD’s new Assembly winner masterpiece causes quite the movement in one’s mind. I’d been told that I was about to have a new favorite ASD demo and that’s totally the case! =) The visuals bring you this beautiful mix of amazement and astonishment, way to go Navis, AMV and Archmage. And the music… well … what else can you expect from aMUSiC and Leviathan? It’s a fascinating soundtrack which is completely perfect for the demo.
There really isn’t much more that I can say… you have to carefully watch this demo, it speaks for itself and it has a lot to say actually. Do make sure to read the “read me” info as well for some extra hints.
Thanks again ASD! =)

Here Goes! =)

OK ladies and gentlemen, the Intel demo competition has officially started! I was just having a look at all the demos that are competing this time and I have to say a big good job to all the groups. They were all quite nice. As for the ASD demo, “Beyond The Walls Of Eryx“, well…. I was surprised, and not! I wasn’t surprised that the demo rulez… after all it’s ASD, what else would one expect? But the demo was so original and so awesome that it actually did manage to drop my jaw all the way to the floor! So, BIG kudos to the ASD demo from both me and Genox! The demo has great visuals, great concept and great music. Another BIG kudos to aMUSiC for the super soundtrack. So if you haven’t already, make sure you see the demo now. You can also download the demo from the same Intel page. Enjoy! =)

  • 56 Comments
  • Filed under: ASD, Demoscene, Kool
  • ASD To Compete Again! =D

    ATTENTION ATTENTION: Important news everyone! =D I was just checking my shoutbox, which is finally bug free thanks to Genox, and I found this message from aMUSiC of ASD:

    “Hear ye, Hear ye! http://www.intel-demoscene.de/ (there is a button on the bottom to switch to english. 3 minutes instead of 30 seconds, and no DJ Hell this time.”

    Wellllll I guess we all know what that means. =) Another Intel demo competition, a new ASD demo to come soon, and this time with original aMUSiC tune. I was just having a look at the list of this time’s competitors and I had my eyes going like => Oo since the teams are all my favorites! So for me this means candy shop on July 2nd. WEEEEEEE! =D Here’s who they are:

    • ASD
    • Fairlight
    • Still
    • Synesthetics
    • XPLSV

    You can have a look at the Intel page for a little memory refreshment, these are all teams that we actually have watched their demos on the big screen pretty often. =) I have to mention here, there’s a certain other team that I really wish to see more activity from. You know who you are. But just in case you don’t, well you’re Vantage. Move IT guys!

    I also have a message from Optimus reminding me of the yet to be used CDCz that I have on pouet. Well, I guess I’m waiting for the Intel demo competition! 😉
    And on a little side note: Yup my blog has a new home now. Please change your bookmarks and links to blog.aasemoon.com, thank you. =) Of course it’s not a problem to keep the old one, cause you’d still be forwarded to the right address.

    Slowly Fading Colors

    Yesterday evening, Genox released his new EP by the name “Slowly Fading Colors“. The EP includes 5 new tracks:

    Aquarius
    Proto Z
    Trafficlights
    Dling Dling
    Resurrected Piano

    Having listened to these 5 tracks over and over and over again, I believe I can say that this EP is quite a step forward for this artist, and a truly enjoyable one to listen to. The EP includes some nice surprises for the old fans, and also has a lot to offer to a wider range of new listeners. The 5 tracks are an amazing display of the artist’s ability to smoothly flow through different genres and mix elements from different styles to create something very new, and yet containing the familiar Genox atmosphere. A very special collection of colors, which in turn brings me to the title of the EP.
    With all due respect to the artist’s truly interesting reasoning for choosing the title “Slowly Fading Colors”, I can’t help mentioning that the EP brings an image of a “Box of Crayons” to my mind a lot more than fading colors. To elaborate, I basically see the EP as a collection of colors, placed side by side in a so well selected order, that causes each color to stand out in their own turn.
    All that being said, I believe it’s time for you to listen to the EP, and develop your own opinion! =) So, check out Genox’s blog post to download the EP.
    Update: Just in case you can’t load Genox’s blog, you can download the EP directly from here.

    Year 1386! =)


    Happy Persian new year [Norooz] everyone! Tonight at 8:07 PM Toronto time, the year 1386 of the Persian calendar begins. Hope it will be a great year for all of us. =)

    نوروز پیروز

  • 20 Comments
  • Filed under: Life, Norooz, Weeee =D
  • Sophia

    Hey everyone! Today I have something cute for you to watch. Sybex, the founder of the Greek demogroup “rev:eng“, has made this clip called Sophia for a poem that he has recently wrote. He asked me to post the clip here so everyone can watch and comment. He’d like to know your on it.=)

  • 11 Comments
  • Filed under: Demoscene, Friends
  • 5 Facts About Me!

    Having been ridiculously busy in the past week or so, I hadn’t found the time to check out my favorite blogs. Now that I finally stole the time to do some reading, I figured that Optimus has passed on a kind of a pyramidoid game to me, where you basically write down 5 things about you that your readers might not already know. Hmmm ok, then I guess I’m not gonna write stuff like I’m into electronics or I listen to tons of music. Hmmmmm…. what am I gonna write… lets see. =)

    1 – I tend to remember stuff, and I mean that in a bit of an unusual way. The details of everything that happens to me, everything I hear, everything I see or smell or taste… I remember everything in details, no matter how long later you ask me about it. I have clear memory of my childhood, even very early stages. Even if there’s something that I don’t remember right away, if I sit down and concentrate on it for a few minutes, I can recall the whole thing with high-def picture and surround sound. Now this thing, is both a blessing and a curse. Blessing aspect of it is … well… memorizing stuff, very handy while studying… specially when I’m studying something like a new language or so… or remembering the lines of the books I read [and well I read plenty] .. or remembering the sound track for every single movie I see [lol =P]. Oh well, it’s a useful thing. Hoowwwever, the curse aspect comes in when I’m dealing with memories that I don’t like to remember!! I mean naturally it happens for everyone, events that one might not really like, dark memories… stuff that most people tend to send to the recycle bin of their mind. No such luck for me, I have the carry the whole thing for… well.. basically forever.

    2 – I’m an optimist. I believe in the bigger image and the higher force, and I believe that everything happens for a good reason. I’ve had a life full of events… full of ups and downs, and I have came to believe that I may or may not see the reason for what happens right away, but in time I will. And when I see that… somehow it’s always for the best.

    3 – I LUV LEGO. =) I’ve always loved LEGO, ever since I was a kid I was deeply into it, and even now… I seem to only get more and more interested. =)) I like to sit down and put together the pieces and bits for hours and hours and hooooooooours, and design my perfect spaceship or submarine or robot or a little tech city full of… well… all mentioned. =)) Some people say that’s because I’m a logical thinker… or engie student… or she-nerd. =)) I donno…. that may be…. but I just love the total peace of mind it gives me. And of course I do enjoy playing with others!! =)))

    4 – If someone asks me where I’m from, I usually say that I’m Persian. From Iran, that is. Because I was born and raised there. However, if you want to break it down to the genetics, then it gets a bit more complicated than that. And I mean… very… complicated. =)) Here’s a list of where I’m genetically from [as in, where my parents routes] , the higher in the list has the bigger part:
    – Welsh
    – Persian
    – Azeri
    – Indian
    – Turkish
    – Russian
    Addition: My friend insists that I should add that I’m also considered a Canadian now, having lived here for a while… and the citizenship and everything. Well, one more for the list. =)))

    5 – In my entire life, I’ve fallen in love only once, and it’s been the most precious gift in the whole existence. Thank you for everything, Oli. =) <3 <3 <3 Well, that’s my 5 facts. =) Now I’m supposed to pass this on to 5 other people, and that’s not gonna be easy, because apparently some people like writing something like this, and some don’t. Well I’m not gonna pass this directly to anyone, I’m just gonna say this to everyone who’s reading this article: Write the 5 facts if you like to, and let me know if you do so! =D Update: Well it seems like so far 2 people have managed to write the 5 facts. =) Check them out:
    Appearing Offline
    Genox

    Hello!


    Hey, I'm Aasemoon, and this is my blog which has been around since 1998. Childhood toy project that ended up growing up with me. You can reach me here: aasemoon.blue

    Zorbas is my kitten. You can see some pictures of him below. =)

    Zorbas

    Spotify

    Instagram @aasemoon_

    GDPR

    Regarding this:
    EUGDPR.org
    I comply. ;)
    Oh and there's cookies here. Yummy ones.
    Cheers!

    Archives

    • 2022
    • 2021
    • 2020
    • 2019
    • 2018
    • 2017
    • 2016
    • 2015
    • 2014
    • 2013
    • 2012
    • 2011
    • 2010
    • 2009
    • 2008
    • 2007
    • 2006
    • 2005
    • 2004
    • 2003
    • 2002
    • 2001
    • 2000
    • 1999
    • 1998

    Goodreads Shelf

    Aasemoon's bookshelf: cariad


    goodreads.com