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These guys just made my day!

I knew there are other apps for the iPhone that turn it into a musical instrument, but the Ocarina app from Smule just blew my mind. I have not tested it yet but from the video it looks (and sounds) great! Plus, they played the Zelda tune… ahhh gotta love it.

Fancy those old Polaroid shots?
Now you can transform your normal photos into Polaroid style photos with Poladroid.

Poladroid is this cool software (free) for Mac where you drag and drop a photo and it gets converted to a Polaroid stype photo. Besides the results you get, what’s awesome is the fact you have to wait or shake the photo like a real Polaroid to get it “done”.

You can even configure Poladroid to add scratches and fingerprints to the photos, getting a more realistic effect 😀

Get it and don’t forget to check be Poladroid!, the Poladroid Flickr group!

It’s not a secret that the Metal Gear Solid series is one of my favorites videogame series, I’ve even mentioned it here, in this blog a few times.

Recently, Konami and Kojima released worldwide the fourth (actually there’re are a few side stories / games in the series, but this is the 4th in the canon of MGS) and probably the most expected and desired game in the series. This is the first MGS for a new generation console, in this case, an exclusive for the PS3.

Kojima had been teasing us for the past two years with trailers and screenshots of MGS4, and even last month the question among gamers still was “Is it as good as it looks?”. Well, the answer is: it’s even better! If you’re not a fan or know the series, this is not a regular game where you’re presented to a universe and play along. MGS4 is the final chapter of an epic story and it demands that you know all that’s behind. You get to know old characters and new ones as well, you can play the entire game without knowing who Solid Snake is, but MGS4 is like a movie that’s part of a trilogy, if you didn’t watch the other episodes you won’t enjoy it properly. You get some very well placed flashbacks during the game to help understand the plot, but prior knowledge of the series is advised.

That said, let me tell you that MGS4 is definitely the game of the year for the PS3. The graphics are superb, the full Dolby Digital sound is breathtaking and the plot, well… as I said, it’s the best this game can offer. The gameplay is good but with a high learning curve, still, while this is still a sneaking undercover game, you can pick a different path of action and start dumping ammo on your enemy. I advise you to master both methods because the game will demand both at certain stages.

I could write a full review of this game, but that’s not the point of this post. You can get very well written reviews on IGN or Gamespot. I want to point out a few coolness points on MGS that I wasn’t expecting.

This first is the branding effort you’ll see during the game. Kojima’s team designed some clever brands that are placed in the game, either for products / services (you’ll understand when you play the game) but perhaps what will get your attention at first, is the heavy product placement.

Besides advertising and to give a more realistic feeling to the game, certain brands and product will be available for you to interact, like the Re-Gain powerdrink you can use to get some energy boost for Snake or a Playboy Magazine that you use to lure and distract enemies (and take a peek at the centerfolds yourself).

Still, the big champion of product placement in MGS4 is… Apple! You’ll notice quite in the beginning of the game, when you’re being contacted by Otacon, his office is crammed with Apple hardware, from Cinema Displays to Mac Pro’s, you’ll spot them in a glimpse. Though this could be just a nod to Apple, the most screaming product placement ever in a game is the iPod that Snake has in his personal items, that can be used during the missions like a real iPod. You can control it like you would control an iPod in the real life, through an interface on the screen. The iPod comes loaded with podcasts and the soundtracks from previous Metal Gear Solid games, and you can find more tracks during the game as well as download more tracks from the Internet.

Metal Gear Solid 4 is a great game, no doubt about that, but it uses a kind of in game marketing that the videogame industry is eager to explore for some time now. I don’t care for in game ads and product placement, as long as it’s done tastefully and with some brains. Let me tell you that playing MGS4 while listening to a podcast via Snake’s iPod is a different but pleasant experience 😀

Closing down this long post: Metal Gear Solid 4 – Recommended! Even with all the product placement and virtual iPods in the mix 😀

Yes, I’ve been following all the ruckus about MacHeist on the blogs. I bought the MacHeist package, but only after it reached 14 apps. Nevertheless, most people when writing about it forget that MacHeist has it’s name mainly because it has a sort of hacking contest behind, where you try to get the code to unlock a vault and increase the Loot, being the loot more apps for your Mac 😀 Well, if you’re not in the mood for ‘hacking’ the code is 3572.

Best product in the Keynote, very reasonable price if you consider that a 1TB USB drive costs Eur 250 and a WIFI N router is no less than Eur 150. I was thinking about buying an Airport Extreme but I decided to wait until today. Guess it payed off 😀 Now, if I could only pre order it on the portuguese Apple store…

[tags]Apple, Time Capsule[/tags]

A laptop with a battery that can’t be removed and costs Eur 1700? You got to be kidding Steve… Next keynote we’ll probably meet the MacBook Air Pro, with an included optical drive and a removable battery…

Update: Until when someone (or Apple) releases a patch for the MacBook / Macbook Pro’s trackpads support the gesture-based input? After all, it can read at least two fingers and you don’t need more than that for most of the gestures.

[tags]Apple, MacBook Air[/tags]

Celso put the word on the street and I decided to try it out, fastest $20 I ever spent 😀

DTerm – A command line anywhere and everywhere.

[tags]DTerm, BASH, Mac OS X[/tags]

Black Friday in Apple’s Portuguese Online Store is a big big disappointment. Not only we don’t get the same discount rate on the same products among other European stores, we even don’t get some of the discounted products that are common for all European stores, like the Airport Base Station with iTunes… once again, we’re always different from the others and always for worse.

[tags]Apple, Apple Store, Black Fridat, teh suck[/tags]

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😀

[tags]Apple, Quick Look[/tags]