User Interface Immersion

My system of preference has always been theps3, it’s a no bs system. Its advertised as a multimedia power house and it is just that. It plays games and it does it well, it’s also the best blu-ray player out there. But there is something it fails at. The eco-system I mentioned before is not there, it does everything well just not all at the same time. Games feel separate from messaging your friends or even listening to music or watching Netflix. While each feature is great, using them feels like a completely different experience.

Windows Phone 7 Live Application

As soon as you turn on the 360 you’re in a world. A world where every application whether it be 1st or 3rd party blends into the grand scheme of things, My favorite being the facebook and twitter app; I can easily access those sites on my phone or computer but the eye candy of the xbox version is just welcoming, that’s due to the fact that opening those application doesn’t pull you out of the xbox experience, everything is molded into the xbox experience not the other way around.

xbox in-game ui

It doesn’t end there, consistency is key and this also applies in-game. While in game pressing the xbox button opens a miniature menu giving you quick access to useful features. Whereas the ps3 opens the entire XMB (Cross Media Bar) , ultimately stealing RAM and creating a slow clunky menu even for the simplest of tasks

Cross Media Bar

Controller

There are two key aspects of a “gaming” console, I just covered a portion of the visual now the physical.

The controller is usually a controversial topic since it’s tangible and you can physically compare them. Everyone has their own preferences and some think theirs is the best. Here’s my brief opinion on the matter.

360

The 360′s controller feels like a one trick pony, games that require heavy use of triggers and not much else play very well; any other genre it’s a hit or miss. For example playing call of duty or halo feels very natural, but switching to something like Ninja Gaiden feels clunky and frustrating. This is due to the design of the analogues and triggers which don’t translate well into every genre.

Ps3

I can’t praise the dualshock 3 enough, it’s design feels similar to the dual shock 2 but it’s definitely different. What makes it so great are it’s ergonomics, the size and location of the analogous and the distance between them makes the controller a multitasking beast. There is no withdrawal while switching from games, no restrictive triggers and no replacing batteries! I know, the last one was a cheap shot but I prefer the DS3 simply because I like to play all types of games and the 360′s controller just doesn’t feel natural for that purpose, it’s good at what it does and that’s really about it.

It’s All About The Games

These two devices are advertised as “Gaming” Consoles and at the end that’s how they should be judged. The UI is important to navigate, the controller is essential to play but the games are what defines the consoles.

Ps3/360 games

At launch the gaming library for both consoles were lacking but this late into the cycle there is a clear winner. I love the 360 for it’s take on gaming, it’s a simple idea “sit down, insert disk, play”. The 360 uses DVDs which has constraints on space but much greater reading speeds, games load faster hence you have instant satisfaction after inserting a disk. There is also communication while gaming, my friends are a click away and it’s more of a “social” experience, something gaming should be! Yet to me there is something missing, like most players I enjoy shooters on the 360 and that is where It gets a little tricky. While it launched strong the 360 like it’s controller has become a one trick pony, Microsoft is no longer launching genre defining games, it is sequel after sequel, you stick to 360 because it offers a library worth playing but this library hasn’t changed all that much. Halo is still halo, Gears is still Gears, hell Fable is still Fable.

Ps3 on the other hand is still a console worth keeping, there is great potential for it’s future and Sony constantly pushes the Gaming! While the Ui is lacking, its not the reason I use the console because it becomes secondary nature while playing games. PS3 is the clear winner because it has games, lots of them. It has exclusive top rated games for every genre, and they aren’t afraid to change either. There is always something to look forward to, whether it is Uncharted, Kill Zone, inFamous, God of War, Ratchet and Clank, Resistance…etc; Sony continues to push the envelope with its first party developers. While just counting games is important it is also important to have a consistent experience while playing the games, and that is where the ps3 shines even more. The Dual Shock 3 feels comfortable playing every genre of gaming,  when I switch from Battlefield 3 to Assassins Creed, it’s still the same experience because there is no restrictive feeling. This is just a small glimpse the ps3s capabilities, and it’s definitely not over yet.

Diving In Conclusion

I’ve said harsh words about both consoles, both have key strengths and weaknesses. Whether you choose the 360 or PS3, you will definitely have fun, but for some one is better than the other. If you want a completely social experience and you prefer specific 360s titles than that is your clear choice. On the other hand if you want a console where you can play all types of genres, and enjoy its multimedia capabilities the Ps3 is for you.

I for one chose the Galaxy Tab 10.1, and it’s a mixed bag. It’s running android 3.2 with Samsungs touchwiz interface on a Tegra 2 processor and 1gb ram. Simply put it’s fast and it works, well most of it.

There are already many in depth reviews over the net, so in the purpose of laziness and redundancy I’ll be doing a simple Pro/Con review:

Pros:

Screen:  One of the best screens I’ve seen on a tablet,  it’s bright color production is enjoyable and it’s 16:9 aspect ratio is perfect for watching HD movies.

TouchWiz:  In the case of android phones overlaying skins are frowned upon, but Samsung has done a great job adding functionality to honeycomb android without changing the entire recipe. For example, features such as better email application, quick access settings, and multitasking bar have been added, and they all work seamlessly.

Design/ Weight: I previously owned a HP TouchPad and thought that it was great, but as soon as I picked up the Galaxy Tab I realized the difference was night and day. The weight is unnoticeable and the design is magnificent. It’s a perfect slap of plastic which feels great to carry around and use in the hand.

I can say many more things that pertain to the usability and how great Honeycomb features are, but for this review I’ll stick to the specifics of the GalaxyTab.

Cons:

Propitiatory Port:  Despite every manufacturer using the industry standard of microUSB, Samsung has decided to use their own propitiatory jack that blatantly looks like Apple’s iPod/iPhone/iPad jack; most users can look past this except for the fact that it barley works.

USB Connection:  So, did I mention it barley works? Yes, unlike every other android device you cannot plug and play. The Tab is not recognized as a Mass USB device, instead it will fail to be recognized until windows installs an update, and if your using Mac you’ll have to install a 3rd party application which has yet to work for me.

Video Formats:  The GT has a great screen and it’s greatest purpose to me is to watch my MP4 videos, except for one little problem.. IT DOES NOT PLAY MP4 VIDEOS. Instead, it opts out for WMV videos. Without going into a rant, all I can say is this is completely asinine.

Usually at the end of reviews readers are encouraged to make their own decision on what tablet they should purchase. However for this one, I’ll end it a little differently. The GalaxyTab is amazing in many ways: It’s a great device to browse what ever the internet has to offer, the youtube application can eat up endless hours or minutes of your day, and it’s great design won’t give you a cramp. Unfortunately, some key choices by Samsung takes away from this masterpiece, the USB issues are unforgivable and the video formatting issues are laughable. Not to mention, all of the problems android still has.

The GT costs $499/$599, for that price you can buy something a bit more polished like the iPad 2

It’s still slow, unresponsive and has AIDS (ok maybe not)

The dyingOS:

While the TP might not have AIDS it still resembles the symptoms, developers will try to save it but in the end it will still die (on the TP). Now I am being a little extreme here but the language HP uses in their press release really translates to “We don’t want to lose anymore money with WebOS”, if the rumors are correct HP is looking to exit the consumer market as a whole,  and even if they sell off WebOS it’s highly unlikely the buyer will invest it’s time in the TouchPad.

So now what? Your TouchPad can either be two things, for a regular user it’s probably the best $150 tablet on the market, for a tech enthusiast (unsatisfied troll) it can be an empty vessel just waiting to be taken over.

Android

Like it or not Android is the only legitimate competitor to the iPad, it has feature for feature against the iPad plus a bit more on top and a bucket full of developers to “boot”, but it does have its growing pains, for one the OS isn’t as polished as  iOS and while webOS is beautiful and polished it just doesn’t work! And, i don’t know about you but i’m not spending $500/600 on an Android tablet when I can buy an iPad.

That’s exactly where the TouchPad comes in, it costs $99/$149 respectively and has hardware supported by android , also most consumers that buy vanilla android do so for it’s robust software support (i.e custom roms)

Questions you might have:

What are custom roms and why the heck would I want them!? 

Without going into details custom roms are like outfits your android can wear, some are fast and sexy while others can be a bit more functional. In a sense you can build your TouchPad to be anything you like within the android confines.

Why would developers waste their time porting to the TouchPad, won’t it take too long? 

From what we know, the TouchPad shares similar internals as recent android phones like the HTC Sensation and EVO 3D , theoretically  it shouldn’t be a hassle as long as a proper kernel is found/created. There is also a video circulating the web of a retail TouchPad with android preinstalled, so there is hope.

So now you want Android on your TP, but heres the hard part, waiting…

Current Development

We can be happy knowing there is progress, interest in the project as brought fourth bounties by different parties and CyanogenMod dev team has become involved in the project, they have posted a video of Android ported to the TouchPad

Sadly it was later tweeted  the touchpad had passed way (bricked)

So what can you do?

You can donate your resources or even an extra TouchPad laying around, one of the biggest hurdles for the team is lack of hardware.

You can also tweet @Qualcomm & @HP for the source code for the Android builds on the retail TouchPad loaded with android, I highly doubt they will do it but it doesn’t hurt trying.

Where can I get updates on the project? 

You can follow @RootzWiki and @Decad3nce on twitter, you can also read the development section of XDA-Developers and PreCentral

What should I not do?

You should not bother any developers for ETAs! It’s annoying and it’s the #1 rule of Cyanogen.

 

Now you wait..

In this tutorial I will teach you how to make a simple layout on InDesign CS5,I’ll be using the OSX version but the same process applies to Windows.

Assuming you have an idea of what you want to create open InDesign

1  Choose your dimensions
Lucky for us InDesign has preset dimensions for people who are not as adventurous.

Step 1: Open InDesign and click File-> New-> Documents

You should see this window.

Step 2: Choose a preset dimension from the page size tab or edit the width and height to your own accord, for the purpose of this guide I will choose “Letter” size

2  Familiarize your self with the InDesign tools

Step 1: You can now start experimenting with the tools the most important being the rectangle frame which can create anything from borders, frames, text and even manipulate pictures.

Step 2: Create boxes around the page as you see fit, you can be organized or extreme depending on your style, either way InDesign shows highlights as guidelines for perfect measure.

Step 3: Now you can either insert pictures by clicking on the box ->File -> Place or add color with the eye drop tool, there is no right or wrong way so it’s good to experiment.

3  Layering

“With great power comes great responsibility”, with that in mind be careful while experimenting with boxes because it can get messy without proper use of layers.

Step 1: Take a look to the right and click “Layers”, click on the drop down menu and view all of your boxes, layers control the priorities of the boxes versus each other so it’s very important they are positioned correctly in the drop down menu

Step 2: Arrange the layers to your liking, well thought out layers can make your work look aesthetically pleasing

example:
4  Effects

Now that you have learned layering you can experiment with effects. InDesign effects can vary from simple to amazing but it all depends on your vision and execution. 

Step 1: Click on the box you would like to add an effect to and click Object -> Effects , choose any effect you like and try to mix and match to make your work unique.

                     Basic Drop Shadow:

Step 2: Other than visual effects you can play around with borders for your boxes, this can be done by clicking on your box and editing it’s edge, note the edge thickness has to be increased in order for it to show up

5 Saving your work

InDesign offers popular formats such as JPG and PDF to save as and they can be accessed through the exports menu.

Step 1: Click File -> Exports -> Formats -> (jpg -or- adobe pdf) -> Save -> Export!

Step 2: Show off your work to the world, and share this guide to whoever is interested in inDesign!