[Rogers]

Google Wave Beta Invites

Google Wave

Google Wave is Google’s vision for the future of communications — it’s a web application that combines email, instant messaging, social networking, real time collaboration, and more, into one unified, fluid interface. If you haven’t seen the presentation you should check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ, it’s 80 minutes long but it’s riveting (if you’re into that sort of thing that is). This week Google announced that it will be sending out beta invites to those that signed up for Google Wave updates at the end of September. You can go ahead and sign up at http://wave.google.com/. While I’m hoping to get an invitation, realistically I probably won’t have anyone to “wave” to (only a few people I know use gmail and it’s unlikely we’re all gonna get invites) so my experience will be limited. Really, I’m just looking forward to this thing going public and reading what people have to say about it.

HTC Hero

Images courtesy of Engadget.com and HTC.com

I’ve been looking forward to the HTC Hero because I thought it might finally put Android in the spotlight for the general population, and it looks like it just might do that. The reviews are for the most part positive and everybody is really liking the new interface. Which I think for the average person is the most noticeable, and thus, important part of a smart-phone. Especially since the iPhone showed everyone that it’s possible to make a great interface on a 3 inch screen. The home screen is very striking — large beautiful clock with weather, colourful icons, and a blurry, unfocused background that makes everything else really “pop out” on the screen. I am a bit surprised at the lack of any flash for the camera, seeing how it’s a 5MP camera — seems like a shame to waste a good camera without any flash support.

It’s just a shame it won’t be coming to Canada any time soon. I really need to get myself a smart-phone but unless Bell switches to GSM by the end of the year Palm Pre is not happening for me, I’m not getting an iPhone, and that only leaves me with HTC Dream, which is now a last year’s model.

King’s Quest and Space Quest collections on Steam

King’s Quest VI and Space Quest Collections

I’m a huge King’s Quest fan, King’s Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow in particular — that was the game that introduced me to PC gaming proper, till then it was just your various Pac-Mans, Super Mario Bros., Asteroids, and the like. I absolutely fell in love with that game and have been a big adventure games fan since then. I also played the 5th, 7th and 8th game in the series (Mask of Eternity was a disappointment — not a proper King’s Quest game) but 6 always remained my favorite. As for Space Quest, I only played the 6th one but really enjoyed it — it kinda reminded me of the Monkey Island series, with it’s humor and bizarre situations. I am really looking forward to playing through both series and the only question is — how many cups of coffee will it take?

I also just discovered that the first three King’s Quest games have been upgraded by fans to feature better graphics, and even some voice work, and are available for free. That was an extremely pleasant surprise. I haven’t yet downloaded and tried them but I’m definitely looking forward to that. The first two are available from AGDInteractive Studio, and the 3rd one from Infamous Adventures.

Screengrab! add-on for Firefox

This is a little add-on that I should’ve discovered long ago but such is life. It puts a small icon in FF status bar, which allows you to take screenshots of a site you’re viewing. You can either make a selection or tell it to grab the whole page, and then you either copy it to clipboard, or save straight to a file. This kind of tool really speeds up web design work. If you missed it like I did you can grab it on the Firefox add-ons page.