5 posts tagged “review”
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End left me more than stone cold…it left me, shall I say, stone-crab cold?
The film opens with a scene that, in my opinion does not belong in a film with a 12 rating. The villain in this film is hardly defined in the plot and the decision of who the true villain’s identity is left very much to the viewer’s discretion. If you choose the character of Cutler Beckett as the main bad guy I would have to say he has less fear inducing power than a blind guy with an unloaded gun.
As I watched the film I found myself predicting what was going to happen next and usually I was right. I was excited at so few points in the film, I can point them out in my memory which is somewhat of a whirlwind…or should I say, whirlpool at this point. The scene where it is discovered that someone among them who belongs to neither side and the humor that accompanies it comes early in the film and remains one of the high points throughout.
Depp’s character, Jack Sparrow is on his best form as a bumbling idiot in this, the latest and in my opinion worst installment of the Pirates franchise. As a film producer myself I can comment on the scale of the film and how obvious the blue screen on the ships is. When Keira Knightley’s character is promoted to King of the Pirate Brethren I realised that the writers of this film really had run out of ideas when wrote the last film.
The usual super display of CGI effects from Industrial Light and Magic including the stunning “Davey Jones” character will not disappoint the film viewer who is only interested in the graphics budget however the film lacks the substance of Pirates of the Caribbean I and the soul of Pirates of the Caribbean II. All in all, it is unlikely that there will be a Pirates of the Caribbean IV, at least, not one that I will jumping up and down to see.
Although you see Jack Sparrow on his own in a tiny boat at the end of the film, you can’t help but wonder if they have set it up for a sequel or if they are proclaiming that, as the first Pirates film began with Jack alone on a tiny (sinking) boat it is only fitting that the last should end with him in the same position.
I was surprised to read on “The Whole Story” today about Windows Vista’s system sounds.
For those who don’t know, system sounds are the files that play when
Windows starts, shutsdown, new email and many other assigned
notifications. It seems that the audio files for Windows XP are of much higher quality as well, which is a welcome notion.
I listened to the old sounds, compared with the new ones on this QuickTime video. I think Vista sounds somewhat wimpy and I know I am inviting flaming from all the Vista lovers, but the sounds are in my opinion fit for small device like a PDA not a robust machine running the industry standard OS.
Incidentally it should be noted that during my continuing review of Windows Vista RC2 I determined that there were no new sounds to choose from for system notifications. It seems they have been reserved for the full release. Maybe they also reserved being able to view files as thumbnails in folder view for the full release.
I am quite interested to test Windows Vista, Release Version, as soon as it is made available for me to do so. I can’t wait to see (hear) these sounds in action and context. Maybe they won’t seem quite as wimpy.
I am pleased to announce that I will be attending PodcastCon UK next week. I will be meeting up with the three gentlemen who are behind Podcast Voices about a possible working relationship so that will be fun. I will also be having the opportunity to meet all these UK Podcasters who I have not had a chance to meet in the past and have been talking to or interviewing for the last year.
If I had thought I would be attending the con I would have mentioned to Alex Bellinger who is planning the event that I would like to have chaired a discussion session! Oh well, maybe someone won’t show up and I will have a chance.
I am going to be heading down to London (from Leeds) on Friday afternoon via GNER. GNER provides wireless internet free to 1st class passengers and for a nominal fee to coach class. So I will be heading down 1st class thanks to GNER and my X Pass to test and review the wireless service.
So if you’re going to PodcastCon next week, drop me a comment here and we could hook up for a chat! Looking forward to seeing all of the UK Podcasters out in force!
It’s
been a while since I dipped into reviewing a social networking website.
The website I am talking about today is a new kind of social
networking, in the words of CNET “The Social Networking Site that wants you to get off your butt.” FAQQLY
is a site that is designed like most other networking sites with
similar aims but it has a twist. Instead of members leaving comments on
the profiles of the user it is based on “FAQ’s” or questions that are
asked of each other instead.
I should point out that I have not been asked by the administrators of FAQQLY to conduct a review and I have been in contact with Dave Liu since I first started working with the site. Dave, CEO of FAQQLY, and I have been talking about possible ways to improve the website and we have plans to put our heads together in the future. So to clarify I don’t work with or for FAQQLY as of yet.
FAQQLY is an easy website to sign up to, the sign-up process is extremely intuitive and flows really well from start to finish. The forms are easy to fill out and before you know it you have a killer looking profile. It is around that time that the colours of your profile hit you. FAQQLY is primarily red, green and cream, not the best colours in the world for Web 2.0 but certainly not offensive. The neutral colours employed have an almost Christmasy feeling and can become slightly irritating over time. Once you have your profile you can upload photos and caption them just any MySpace or AIMProfiles account.
The general feeling of the website is really good even though their site tour didn’t work when I tried it a few months ago and remains inoperable to this day. While creating your profile you add subjects in which you are “expert” in. These are the “tags” that allow you to relate to others on the website quickly and easily. I have found these tags very useful and have added many to my own profile. I have found most of my “friends” on FAQQLY using these tags.
FAQQLY also features a couple of things you won’t find at MySpace. There is a section called “Helps” where you can ask or provide help to other members. I placed a help in that section not long ago that went totally unanswered, albeit a rather abstract question. Other sections of the website include “Shares” and “Groups.” The Shares section allows you to lend or borrow items from other members. I found it somewhat confusing and heard the little voice of doubt in my head saying you would never get something back you lent out on an Internet site without some sort of collateral. The Groups section is where FAQQLY really excels. You can create a group and/or join the many other groups already on the site. When I first signed up to FAQQLY I created the “Podcasting” group as well as the “Wordpress Users” group. The groups certainly have a community feel and are worth looking into should you choose to check out the site.
I have it on good authority that FAQQLY will be undergoing some major over-hauling soon. Some of my suggestions to Dave Liu were the ability to feed RSS into your profile and have audio / video files available for your fellow FAQQLY community members. The site has a long way to go if it is ever going to match the scale of MySpace and the marketing needs to be a little bit more focused. The membership of the site is around five thousand which may seem like a lot but does not compare to MySpace’s multi million user base. FAQQLY has recently added another great feature, a MySpace / Blog widget. (pictured on left) Although Wordpress.com users can’t use it because it employs Macromedia Flash and it isn’t supported, it looks like a great feature. I think it is really good that FAQQLY acknowledges the presence of the 800 pound gorilla in social networking, MySpace. They go as far as to make their widget compatible with Myspace profiles. I have needed very little support using FAQQLY but my opinion of their support is biased. I know the CEO to call him on Skype of his mobile phone and when I send him an email I hear right back. I can only assume everyone gets such excellent treatment from the administrators of FAQQLY!
Overall I would definitely recommend FAQQLY as a social networking site. There are people there who are not there for what they can squeeze out of you or offer you free webcam sex like you find on the other “leading brands” sites. The site has a hell of a lot of potential both in it’s current form and whatever it is going to become soon. The guys behind it certainly have good intentions and are very approachable. Check out FAQQLY and you will be glad you did. Let me know how your experience went here and click here to check out my FAQQLY profile!
Hello and welcome to sebrt.vox.com!
This is my first post obviously. I am not new to blogging by any means, I maintain and full and up to date blog on Wordpress called "Seb's Random Thoughts" at www.sebrt.com It is a place where I write about tech, life, review sites and interview influencial and exciting people. An example of an interview subject on my website: I just posted an interview I did last night with the blogging superstar, Robert Scoble.
I enjoy blogging a great deal and am always interested in a new angle. I read about Vox in this month's PCPlus magazine here in the UK. I decided to check it out as I am familiar with Typepad, having considered moving to that blogging system on a few occasions.
I will go ahead and cross posts at first over to Vox to get going a bit and try the service. I will be reviewing the site for my main blog and will definetly post my review here on this blog as well.
If you want to know anything about me, just go to my profile, my full bio is available there. A quick double sentence intro here for you: I am a blogger / writer, media enthusiast who is a bit of a tech geek but not the taped up glasses kind, I have interests in all kinds of things from cold war history to PDAs to politics. Feel free to email or IM or even Skype me.
Thanks for checking out this new blog of mine and stay tuned for some of my best posts from Seb's Random Thoughts!
