Curious Geek

Could Prince of Persia be the game franchise to finally give us a good film? I’m hopeful…

Spring is slowly creeping up on us, but thats not the season I’m getting excited about. That season is the new Formula 1 season and what a season its shaping up to be! It’s only a few days now…

It’s been a busy winter for all the teams, with many rule changes and lots of different developments happening, including four new teams stepping up the challenge. That number may down to three now but they are definitely still adding excitement to the start of the new season. Just how well will they perform? My money is on Lotus performing the best out of the three but I doubt any of them will be challenging the usual suspects at the front of the grid. It’s probably a good thing they won’t be in the running at the front so soon as its going to be very close and I’m having a tough time picking my choice for the first pole of the season. Lets break it down a little…

Ferrari – They have shown brilliant pace in the early testing and they have two amazing drivers. They could well be the team where the sensible money will lie this season, they will no doubt be reliable and they will definitely be aiming to have a good season after their terrible season last year.

McLaren – Having both Button and Hamilton in the same team is brilliant for us Brits and we have an obvious team to get behind this year but will the rivalry between the two drivers mean they lose out on vital points this year? They had one of the strongest cars at the end of last year and they have shown themselves to be strong in pre-season testing. I’ll be supporting them once again this year and I have a sneaky feeling this might be Hamilton’s year again.

Red Bull – The car to beat at the end of last season. These guys will definitely be strong again but will the be good enough to take the top spot this year? They will be one to watch…

Mercedes – Last year they were Brawn GP but now under a new name and with two new drivers, will they have the same success as last year? They have a very good chance and they have a secret (Not so secret, maybe) weapon up their sleeve, Michael Schumacher.

They are the teams I predict to take the top 4 spots this season but the others shouldn’t be counted out, there’s many strong  teams and drivers this season. Tyre efficiency and fuel consumption is going to play a vital role this season with no refueling allowed and it will be interesting to see which cars and drivers handle that best. It could be the difference between first and second. That difference is also bigger than last season with the new scoring system. 25 points for first, 18 for second, with third receiving 15, 12 for fourth and then ten, eight, six, four, two, and one for tenth place. This puts a greater emphasis on winning races which should see drivers pushing for that extra place and hopefully giving us some very exciting races this year.

I can’t wait…

It’s an Album of the week! Shock! Horror!

Music has once again found its way into my life and theres been one album that keeps popping up every time.

Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More

Spotify Link: Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More

I suddenly find myself with a lot of spare time on my hands following the end of my Placement. Between looking for a new placement and taking the dog out for long walks, I’ve found myself becoming obsessed with coding again and it feels good.

Whilst at Galleria, I had so little spare time on my hands that all the coding I did was at work and because all I got the opportunity to work on was Visual Basic 6, some of my other skills fell to the back of my mind. However, I recently decided to take the plunge into Android application development and it’s started to take over my life like programming used to when I was at University. It’s great to really get my teeth stuck into something and feel like I’m learning again. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this especially as I never felt particularly pushed when it came to writing code at Galleria, it would have been nice to get on a C# project and allow me to further my skills.

If your all wondering what application I’m working on, then your going to have to wait a little longer for any more details. I can tell you it will be free and it will involve Twitter but it’s not going to be just another Twitter client. It’s also been a while since I’ve done any OO development and it’s been a little hard trying to lose the habits I got from all my time with VB6. I’m definitely getting there now though and being back with Java has been great, Android is a superb platform to develop on. One other thing, if anybody has an Android phone and feels its lacking an application in a particular area, or theres any area where the existing applications are severely lacking. drop me a line as I’m still thinking of ideas for my next project.

More blog posts coming soon by the way. I know that I’ve been slacking again but as I said, I’ve become obsessed and its brilliant.

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Enough said.

Source: PCPro

Today I was reading Google’s Blog and I stumbled across an article which I felt I had to post about. 3 Employees from Google have been convicted of failing to comply with Italian privacy code because an awful video of an autistic child being bullied was upload by some italian school children to Google Videos. The video was taken down and the children were were found and dealt with appropriately, but how on earth is it the fault of the Google employees?

This is very worrying indeed and I hope Google’s appeal is successful as more of these cases could start appearing if this conviction sticks. Google shouldn’t need to vet every video which is uploaded to their sites, neither should any other company. They just provide a platform for users to share content and it is up to the user to decide if what they are uploading is legal. Imagine if Google did have to vet every video? The internet wouldn’t be the same. This wouldn’t just apply to Video’s either…it would have to apply to everything which is hosted by a provider and that is very worrying. I’m relieved to see Google feel so strongly about it and that they will be fighting this. If you want to read the article, click here.

How I love pancake day! This years Pancakes went much better than last years i.e. they didn’t fall apart! Here’s a couple of pictures of this years pancakes, followed by one shot of last years…

What an exciting day yesterday turned out to be at MWC (Mobile World Congress). Rumours had been floating around the internet that Microsoft we’re going to make a big announcement and they sure did. They announced Windows Phone 7 Series (A bit of a mouthful).

Start Screen

They have gone back to the drawing board with this one. Gone is the Windows Mobile we all knew and hated. Everything is now finger friendly. We have the smooth animations which Apple made us all want. We have multi touch gestures throughout the OS. It really is an entirely new beast. One aspect which really excites me is the Xbox Live integration. If done properly and given the attention it deserves, this could be an excellent addition to what’s already looking like a great OS. I should give the Zune integration a little mention as this also has great potential.

Games Hub

I love the Hub concept, it really worked in the Demo’s we have been shown so far. Some of the neat little touch, such as inside the People hub, being able to touch the letter and then filter by a different letter. Its the little things like that which make this OS really exciting. I was worried Microsoft wouldn’t go back to the drawing board like they really needed too and once again polish the turd that is Windows Mobile 6. However they have alleviated all my fears and shown off something which could change the landscape of the mobile phone industry just like Apple did all those years ago.

Picture Hub

Despite all this praise, I do have some concerns and whilst I’m sure these will be addressed at MIX10 (Microsoft has promised more details then) for now, they continue to worry me. What will support be like for third party developers? How well will third party applications be able to interact with existing hubs? Is there any multi tasking support (Can I listen to last.fm whilst writing a word document?)? Copy and Paste?

These are all questions which need answering and I hope Microsoft tell me developer support will be good and multi tasking will be present because if they do, I may very well be sold. Unless Google’s continuous Android improvements manage to bring it to the same level as what WP7S appears to be at. Whilst we wait until MIX10, we will just have to live with the very pretty interface demo’s.

It’s been an incredibly tough week at work which is why there has been a lack of posts recently. I’m not going to give any more information than that at the moment but the past week has all been about relaxing whenever I got the opportunity.

It’s not all been doom and gloom though. My relationship is back on track and I had a good night out with my family at a cousins engagement party. My Android development has re-commenced as well, as I’m starting to prepare for my final year at University.

however work continues to be tough, so if my post count is a little lower than usual at least you know why.

Google has just announced it’s latest foray in Social Media. Its call Google Buzz and you’ll find it inside your GMail. This could be awesome as it will be pulling data from all the sites which matter. Twitter, Picasa, Youtube etc. Theres going to be loads of posts listing its details, so here’s a link to one as there’s no point me typing them all out again!

Once I have access to it and I’ve given it a spin, I’ll let you know my thoughts on it.