Tag Archives: app

Doodle Kart App Review

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

                                        Name: Doodle Kart
Category: Games
Homepage: Jerry Lee
Rating:
Version: 1.0
Size: 46.4 MB
Price: $0.99

Doodle games, with graphics that appear to have been hand drawn, are hot. Lima Sky’s Doodle Jump, for example, is currently sitting in third place in the best-selling apps column.

Among the latest of these games is  Doodle Kart from j2sighte, a novel top-down racing game that pits cleverly crafted racers against each other on a graph paper background. j2sighte says Doodle Kart was inspired  by Sauce Digital’s Nano Rally, a similar game also with hand-drawn graphics.

There are five stages with 25 unique tracks in all, providing for hours of track time.  To begin , you’ll choose between single race and championship modes. In single mode, you have the option of going solo or playing against a CPU opponent.
In Championship mode, you have the option of taking it easy, normal, hard or nightmare.

After choosing one of three cars, you can select settings for speed, acceleration, handling, weight and items, actually weapons, such as pencils and rockets and other power ups. You control the car using a gas and brake pedals in the lower right corner.

You have two options for steering your car: touch and tilt. Touch is accomplished using right/left arrows. If you opt for Doodle Kart’s tilt control  you’ll find there are three settings (low, medium and high). I found maneuvering the course using tilt control to be difficult, so I decided to stick with the right/left arrow touch controls.

I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but I initially found the car difficult to control, even on it’s lowest settings. It took a few hours of playing before I started to feel comfortable. I finally settled on setting my speed and acceleration to about the halfway mark and handling cranked all the way up. You’ll want to experiment with these settings because they make quite a bit of difference.

Doodle Kart features a number of other options. There’s the usual music and soundtrack on/off switches,  portrait or landscape mode, tilt control on/off and item or weapon.

This app also has leader boards, forums, chat and other functions derived from the increasingly popular OpenFeint social networking platform.

Core Cases Review + Giveaway

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Core Cases

Core Cases

I was given the opportunity to review Core Cases’ Aluminum Slider case for the iPod Touch 2G. Core Cases does make this case for other Apple products such as the iPhone, iPod  Classic, as well as the iPod Nano (4th generation). Core Cases does, however, make another type of aluminum case for the iPod Shuffle. There is no doubt that all of their cases will protect whatever device you may be using.

The Aluminum Slider case for the iPod Touch 2G is a great case… one of the best in fact in terms of protection. It does fall a bit short, though, functionality wise. Because the case is made from 100% brushed anodized aluminum, it can withstand almost anything that get’s in it’s way. The inside of the case is fully lined with EVA foam to add a snug fit along with some shock protection from unexpected drops. The exterior holds up fantastically against scratches and dents while the interior keeps your device from getting any type of scratches. As you can see in the image to the right, the case has cutouts for the volume rockers on the left, one for the power/sleep button on the top, another one to reveal the WiFi antenna on the back of the case in the upper left corner, as well as one long cutout on the bottom to expose your 30-pin dock connector along with the 3.5 millimeter headphone jack. There is also a small, curved cutout on the bottom, front face of the case to better display the home button.

I have found that due the curved shaped of the iPod Touch 2G, the case did not form to the device as well as I would have liked. Of course this is understandable considering the fact that it is hard to shape solid aluminum around a curved piece of technology. Because of this, at times it can be hard to access the volume rockers as well as the power/sleep button. From personal experience, this was much better on the first generation iPod Touch. The front section of the case does cover some of the front of the device as seen in the pictures above. Because of this, if the device is dropped face down on a flat surface, the screen will not be affected unless of course it happens to fall on a corner or elevated rock, as is with all cases. The 30-pin charging cord along with the 3.5 millimeter headphone input fit in to their designated inputs without flaw thanks to the bottom cutout. There is also two very small cutouts on the bottom right-hand corner so that a lanyard/string may be attached.

The case is applied to the device by simply placing the back half of the case onto the back side of the device. Once that is done, the front half of the case can easily slide onto the front part of the device. This is better explained and demonstrated in the video review below. The case features one small metal “bump” on the bottom of both sides of the back half so that the front half of the case can stay securely fastened. I have found a minor flaw with this, though, where if the bottom of the case is not resting on any part of your hand, the bottom will slip out slightly if too much pressure is applied while pressing the power/sleep button, again, featured in the video review below. I also noticed this flaw in the first generation iPod Touch model.

Overall, for being made from aluminum, the case will protect the device indefinitely along with providing for a nice design. The case is priced at $24.95 $14.95 (you save $10) and comes in brushed silver, brushed black, or deep purple. For the price being relatively low and the amount of protection you get from this case, I would recommend this case to anyone who primarily is concerned with protection  over functionality. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding this case or Core Cases please feel free to leave a comment below or contact us at contact@techgeec.com.

Giveaway

It is extremely simple to be entered into the giveaway for a Core Cases Aluminum Slider case in deep purple. Here are the rules:
1. You must be subscribed to iPT2gGeec’s YouTube channel which you can find HERE
2. You must be following iPT2gGeec on Twitter HERE
3. You must leave a comment on the video review, HERE, starting with your Twitter name followed by your comment. For example, “@iPT2gGeec – I want that case”

The winner will be chosen at random and will be announced on August 31, 2009. Comments posted on this web page will not be eligible.

iTunes 9.0

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

2zs78uwAccording to Boy Genius Report, iTunes 9.0 will have the following features:

  1. Blu-ray support
  2. Application Management – You will be able to visually manage your apps and rearrange them
  3. Social Networking - Integration with Twitter, Facebook, and Last.fm

These are some great features but as of now, they are still just rumors. I do find, however, that the social networking feature is not needed all that much considering iTunes is still just a media player, much like WMP (Windows Media Player) or VLC media player. I do think that the integration of Blu-ray support is a very nice add-on. Because the are still not officially confirmed, we still do not know if this is true. Though if it is, I am curious if it would work on all computers or only on computers that have Blu-ray disc readers. The reason I point this out is because I doubt that if a certain computer does not have the hardware to read Blu-ray discs, what would make software on this computer capable of doing so?

There is no confirmed release date but it is believed to be released sometime near September when the new iPod Touch third generation will be announced (possibly).