Logical Eccentricity

Now that I have a large memory stick for my PSP, I have been using it as a music player as well as a gaming device. So, as I took it out of my pocket one of my friends thought that I was taking out my cell phone. Now this got me thinking, what is preventing you from using the PSP as a cell phone, more simply using it to make VoIP calls?

The PSP has everything that you need to make VoIP call. Sony sells a headset (the first one on the page) which has a microphone on it. The PSP has Wi-Fi support, and can connect to the internet via a wireless router. So, what is the missing piece? Some sort of software that will let you place the call. What optitions do we have here?

Either someone can release a homebrew application that functions similar to Skype or Vonage; or Sony can release something themselves. What’s more, if Sony wanted to, they could release a new add-on that would enable the PSP to directly connect to a either a GSM or CDMA cell network. The CDMA might be easier since there are no SIM cards involved, the GSM version would probably require space to insert a SIM card.

Now I know what you are thinking, “This sounds a whole lot like the failed Nokia N-Gage.” Well it is similar, but I feel that the “coolness” factor is there for this idea, and there would be enough people interested to make it worthwhile. At least I know that I would use something like this if it were released.

AnksConsulting is proud to announce the relaunch of the website for the Investment Analysis Group. AnksConsulting played a role a in the redesign and re-coding of the site, primarily on code base for the site.

Google’s Writely program is now open for sign ups once again. Back in March, Google began compiling a list of people that wanted to try Writely; they started inviting them in July. They have reached the bottom of list, meaning anyone can now sign up for an account. Writely is Google’s word processing program where users can compose, store, collaborate and share their documents. Writely was reviewed earlier this year.

Finally got around to watching Red Eye tonight; I’ve been spending a lot of my summer catching up on old movies that I missed out on before. Red Eye is an excellent suspense-filled thriller. After the genius of Scream, Red Eye is next great work of Wes Craven. The beauty of the movie is not in its special effects, but rather in the lack of them. There are no special effects. No cheap make up. Just suspense.

Rachel McAdams is beautiful in her role as a hotel manager forced to help Cillian Murphy assassinate a regular at her hotel, a very important political figure. The two of them are excellent in the roles, and you sincerely feel for McAdams as she is forced to make decisions to stay alive and keep her father alive as well.

While there are plot holes in the movie, for example, why would the bad guy, that can get crazy weaponry need the help of a hotel manager? Aren’t there easier ways of accomplishing the goal without involving a third unknown party? Despite plot hole, which every movie has, Red Eye is an excellent movie, and a definite recommendation.

I should say, trying to understand what Google’s coders write is no fun. For the past two days, I’ve been working on a little project. If you go to Google Finance, and look at a company’s information, they have a really cool rollover feature in the management section. I’ve been trying to replicate this functionality for one of my projects. The problem is that Google has three CSS files, and three JavaScript files that make the page work. In the JavaScript files, there are no comments, no line breaks! and all the variables are single characters. Pretty much they’ve tried to make it very hard to understand what is there; impossible for a novice to come and take the code.

Out of the three JavaScript files, I narrowed it down to one file; only problem was that it was 21 pages long! So for the last two days, I’ve been cutting down the JavaScript file, trying to isolate the part the I need and dump the rest. In the end, I have eight CSS declarations that I put in my main CSS file, and a JavaScipt file with only five functions, barely a page. Much better than what it was before.

I was doing all the work for IAG’s new website, but I might end up using the coding on my own site in the portfolio section since it does look really nice. I’ll eventually get around to it when I finish this current project.