Reviews

Reviews of games, movies, t.v., books, etc.

Fujitsu Lifebook offers convenience at a low price

November 2, 2012 in Reviews, Technology | No comments

A pair of Fujitsu Tablet PCs. Photo by Media Commons.

By Jeremy Kahn

Owning a Cintiq can be a nightmare for the artist on the go. It’s large, bulky and comes with so many wires that you might as well just carry a desk around with you. It’s not going to win any awards for portability any time soon. What would you say if I told you there was an alternative device that solves these issues and doesn’t dig into your wallet as much?

I’m crazy, right? How about if I say you could have this alternative for below $300? Nuts, right? Well, I can assure you I’m neither.

Many companies offer tablets that have the same function as a regular Cintiq. Fujitsu, Lenovo and Acer are just a few examples. Of these, Fujitsu’s Lifebook is arguably the best deal. In fact, I got mine for $175 off lease. The Lifebook doubles as a regular notebook as well as a drawing tablet. An attached stylus pen lets you draw right on the flip down monitor.

Still craving that Cintiq experience? Another neat feature is the monitor rotates 180 degrees so that you can lay it down on top of the keyboard and use the device just like a tablet. No need to deal with the keyboard if you don’t want to.

Making use of Wacom’s Penabled technology and Intel’s Core 2 Duo, this notebook is no slouch in the art department. Buttons on the side of the monitor allow you to map commands making working with Adobe Photoshop that much easier. The ability to change the screen orientation allows one to work from any angle. A SD and Pro memory card slot opens up the ability to manipulate photographs straight from your camera’s memory card.

You heard right, this little machine is able to run Photoshop. Granted, you might be better off using a regular laptop or desktop for intensive projects (everything has its limits) but for projects on the go, it works very well. There’s barely any lag, and the sensitivity of the touch screen is good enough to handle detail work without feeling like any small move will somehow close your work.

A vent on the side does let off some heat, but the underside stays at a good temperature. A weird design forces you to chose between an optical drive or an extra battery. If you’re planning a long trip, I’d stick with the extra battery. An LCD below the monitor shows the computer’s current status, from the battery levels to the status of the CPU. Some features aren’t exactly useful though.

Despite how cool it sounds, you’d be hard-pressed to really find a need for the finger print security scanner. Unless you have top secret government papers stored somewhere. But at that point, you’d have to be more worried about being a bad secret agent.

With the power to run Windows and the ability of a drawing tablet, this laptop is perfect for the artist on the go. And, at a price that no college student could argue with, why not look into getting one yourself.

An article made on demand

April 22, 2012 in Reviews, Technology | No comments

Jeremy Kahn guides you through the world of tech. Image: Jeremy Kahn

By Jeremy Kahn

As we move further and further away from brick and mortar stores, new avenues pop up for willing consumers. Digital and online providers, who sell products for far less than their brick and mortar counterparts, are dominating the market.

Still, even with the option of online exclusivity and digital distribution, some companies see no reason to release products that have a low demand.

If they were to release products to the mass market, no matter what route they took, there would have to be some profit. Even with just digital distribution, a company usually has to fork some money over to the digital service to host their product, or provide bandwidth for them to transfer it to the consumer.

With this in mind, how can a company make a profit off of something deemed unprofitable? A new method answering this question has become available the last few years in the form of MOD, or Made (or Manufactured) on Demand.

Let us start with Amazon. For a while now Amazon has had a special section of their site allowing companies to sell old TV shows and movies to consumers without the risk of losing a profit. This service is called, CreateSpace.

The way it works is, a company, let’s say Paramount, knows there is a fan base for their old Nickelodeon cartoons, such as Doug. Yet, they believe this fan base isn’t large enough to warrant a retail release, as the amount made off of sales would never be enough to warrant a profit.

The alternative is to make the show available as a bare bones release, essentially having the fans pay for the manufacturing. In this scenario, Paramount tells the fans, “We have the first season of Doug available, but we aren’t willing to release it as a actual product. Instead, you pay us, and we’ll make you a personal DVD with the entire first season on it.”

For many old TV shows and Movies, this has been welcomed with open hands by many fans. Following Amazon’s lead, companies like Warner Bros., and Shout! Factory have begun making titles available exclusively through their online sites.

Titles that normally would never see the light of day. For example, consumers complained that Shout! would start DVD sets for series, but due to lack of profit, never finish them. With this new alternative, many of these unfinished series are now being completed, such as COPS and Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Warner Bros. is doing the same thing through their Warner Archives service. As many know, WB owns the Hanna-Barbera library and at one point was churning out DVDs of their properties. Due to lack of sales, these releases eventually stopped. One of these sets happened to be “The Jetsons,” which stopped at Season 2, Vol. 1.

Through their Archives, WB has now released the final volume of “The Jetsons,” as well as many old Hanna-Barbera titles that normally would have a hard time selling (“Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos”).

This new way of getting titles to fans may turn some off, as you are basically paying for a DVD with a movie, or a bunch of episodes burned on to it. In some cases, there is no cover art on the case, or disc, the menus are static, if there are menus at all, and you could probably get better production values through bootlegs.

What we have is being done mostly for die hard fans. Granted, there are releases that do go all out with a good quality release like you’d get through a retail purchase, extras included. The thing is, this is still a new way of doing things. Given time, and more companies realizing the potential, I’m sure what is purchased through MOD will become just as satisfying as any retail purchase you may make.

 

Short Review: The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya

December 12, 2011 in Entertainment, Reviews | Permalink

By Jeremy Kahn

Four years ago saw the release of the first animated adaption of the highly acclaimed and popular light novel series, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. This light novel series spanned 11 volumes with The Disappearance being the more recent release in English and The Astonishment of Haruhi Suzumiya (second half) being the more recent in Japan (a limited release). For those not aware, the series is about a normal, everyday student, Kyon, finding himself being caught in a variety of extraordinary events due to a girl who is seen as a type of god. This girl is none other than Haruhi Suzumiya who is interested in the abnormal and seeks them out.

Eventually she finds herself surrounded by an alien, time traveler, and esper as she forms a club called the SOS Brigade (often referenced in Lucky Star). The catch is, she never realizes they’re there. Kyon finds out that the world in fact, revolves around Haruhi, as she has the power to change the world at a whim. This is what this movie is about. In this movie, Kyon one day wakes up in a world without Haruhi. While he thought he’d be better off living a peaceful life, Kyon finds actually misses the the hectic fun Haruhi brought into his life.

The movie itself is made mostly for the fans of the series, either the ones who’ve seen the anime, read the manga, or read the light novels. There are a lot of parts in the movie that those not familiar with the series would feel lost, as previous knowledge is needed. Running 2 hours 44 minutes, the movie itself acts as a conclusion to the anime series which finished a bit open ended. At times it does seem to seem to drag on, where the near the end the pace picks up dramatically. It is safe to say though, you’ll never be bored, which is the important thing. Especially since the majority of the movie is Kyon’s narration (which is just as cynical and amusing as in the light novel).

The animation is amazing. At times the backgrounds are so photo realistic, you’d swear they were edited in from real photos. Yet at all times the characters never seem out of place. In the extras you can even see how the crew went to various locations getting reference shots. The English dub lacks a little in some areas. While the voice of Kyon works, other characters aren’t quite up to snuff. Thankfully there’s an option for Japanese Dub with English Subs.

There’s plenty to love here from fans of Haruhi Suzumiya fans. So if you haven’t yet, be sure to pick up a copy of The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. Out now on DVD and Blu Ray.

A student’s perspective: Lynda.com

November 12, 2011 in Opinion, Reviews | Permalink

By Carlos Serrano

Chances are that by the end of their first month, many students have already been told about Lynda.com. Briefly, Lynda.com is a website that offers, for lack of a better term, crash courses in a wide range of topics. From business to animation, there are hundreds of different lessons available.

But for all that students hear about the site from advisors and professors, many don’t know exactly what a Lynda.com lesson entails. Luckily, I was recently assigned to complete a Lynda.com course, and can use that experience to bring a student’s view of Lynda.com into the conversation.

First thing’s first, where to find Lynda.com. Surprisingly, it’s not as easy as just typing in the address. Lynda.com is pay-to-use service, which means the best way to access it is through MySCAD. This takes you directly to the site and gives you access to all the lessons for free. The link is located under the Student Workspace tab, in the Student Toolkit channel.

For a website that offers so many lessons, it’s actually very easy to navigate. There’s a menu at the top of the page that divides lessons by subject, software, author and new releases. They’re all pretty self-explanatory, although it’s easy to be a little confused by the software menu. Basically, if you have a specific program you’re having trouble with (Photoshop, Pro Tools etc), the software menu lets you narrow your search to only the lessons that deal with that program. It’s actually a pretty big time saver, since it eliminates the need to look through multiple subjects for the lesson you need.

The lessons themselves come to find out, vary by subject. Most, if not all, of the lessons incorporate video streaming in one form or another. This is an important note to remember, especially if your Internet connection is unreliable for whatever reason. Lessons can also include exercise files, which is where the main difference between subjects comes in.

If, like me, you choose to do a more business-oriented course, there’ll be effectively no exercise files to speak of. More arts-oriented lessons will, of course, have more of them available. That being said, it’s my experience that Lynda.com acts more as added lecture time than anything else.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. The videos are very high quality, and they’re divided into manageable sections. A four-hour lesson never really feels four hours long because you can do it in increments of 20-40 minutes. Introductory sections can get a little repetitive, especially if you already know the information. As the lesson moves on though, you definitely get into the meat of it.

If you think you can just put this on in the background and ignore it, you’re wrong. After the first few sections, things get more technical and demanding. In my experience, there are no tests or quizzes or anything like that. On the one hand, this makes taking the lessons easier because they feel different than an actual class. On the other hand, some people might need the discipline in order to really take it seriously. Take note of your own personal learning style so that you can take advantage of Lynda.com seriously.

Ultimately, my time on Lynda.com was in fact very educational. There were a few hiccups here and there, the experience was over all a good one. As a student who’s taken a Lynda.com lesson, I’d say it’s a good idea.

Marvel planning four more movie releases after “The Avengers”

October 7, 2011 in Entertainment, Reviews, Sequential Art | Permalink

By Carlos Serrano

Surprising absolutely no one, Marvel has begun leaking information on plans to distribute more films after the much-anticipated “The Avengers” hits theaters. The biggest name that’s been tossed around? Ant-Man, one of the original Avengers and absent from the upcoming film. Since the announcement of “The Avengers,” rumors have been spread throughout the Internet about a possible Ant-Man film. Now, Marvel president of production Kevin Feige has told Entertainment Weekly that they have a draft for script ready. While the character may not be part of “The Avengers,” it looks like he’ll be given his moment in the spotlight.

In even less surprising news, “Thor 2” and “Iron Man 3” are also going forward. Not the most shocking news, considering how well the prequels for those films were received. It’ll be particularly interesting to see how they manage to keep “Iron Man 3” fresh and exciting.

The most surprising news of all comes from the Entertainment Weekly article mentioned earlier. “Guardians of the Galaxy” a comic first published in 1969, might be on its way to the big screen. The futuristic story, dealing mostly with Marvel’s cosmic side, seems like a departure from the rest of the films Marvel’s put out. “Thor” toyed a little bit with the ideas behind the cosmic side, but an entire film could be interesting.

Ultimately, it’ll be a waiting game to see if “The Avengers” is the tip of the iceberg or if Marvel loses its steam.

IBM Partners With Apache

August 1, 2011 in Reviews | 1 comment

By Jeremy Kahn

IBM has long been known to be tight when it came to developing their products. While they’ve manufactured hardware and software for a variety of companies, they always kept their work close to home. Very rarely have they allowed the public in on their progress or to have some sort of say in how something is produced. Recently though, IBM changed this by announcing the donation of the Lotus Symphony source code to Apache to potentially be used for Open Office.

For a long time now, IBM Lotus Symphony rivaled Microsoft Word, the program was created for IBM employees and eventually was also made available to consumers (it is now available free on their website). This software, even after becoming free, has remained closed (meaning that the code was unavailable).

As mentioned above though, IBM recently decided to open their source code for this software. What is interesting about his decision is that they partnered up with a group called Apache. Apache is known for developing the well-known and used open source word processor Open Office. Open Office uses an open source code which has contributors from a variety of companies as well as a individuals working on it.

IBM is actually one of two companies not yet supporting Open Office (the other being Oracle). With IBM announcement, they also said that they will be donating pretty much all its Lotus Symphony source code to Apache. More than three million lines of code will be given to Apache for their Open Office. In addition, IBM will be supplying developers to work with Apache on how to incorporate Symphony into Open Office.

An interesting thing to point out here it the fact that IBM is so willing to provide resources to this developer. Not only is so much resource being provided, but at the moment, there is no real profit being made as the program begin worked on is open source (in other words, free). From a business standpoint they must be looking at the long term goals. With enough support and work given to this, then they could potentially make Open Office a bigger, more widely know name. Also, IBM is still going to be working on their own Lotus Symphony as well. One can assume they are trying to build a better word processor by combining efforts of both teams from Apache and their own. This way they can maybe reach the level of Microsoft Word.

So while at the start IBM might be losing money. In the future they might just be able to recoup it if they play their cards right.

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