Tech Talk

Watching a printer print is akin to watching paint dry. Unless, of course, you have the heightened senses of a feline. Like so:

By the way, that’s how we roll when we’re *this* close to a deadline and any form of technology decides to follow Murphy’s law.
Ok, back to more serious matters. Where were we? Oh yes, printers.
We’ve got the Dell Wasabi PZ310 mobile printer and made a video of how this fine machine operates. Watch that Smiley face icon light up on the Wasabi – it might just melt your geeky little heart.

Tags: Dell, Printers

If you are a fan of the Disgaea role-playing video game series, you’ll be familiar with the lovable, combustible, peg-legged penguin Prinny that loves to say “dood!” and explodes on impact.

Now, instead of merely being thrown as bombs against the enemies, the Prinnies have a game of their own. Can a Prinny really be the hero? Let’s find out, dood!

In this 2D platform side-scrolling action game, Prinny Squad commander Etna loses her “Ultra Dessert” and assigns 1,000 Prinnies to find the ingredients within 10 hours. In other words, you have 1,000 lives – and this itself is a warning of the game’s difficulty.

You can only be hit three times before you die when you play the Standard level and only once when you play the Hell’s Finest level. With the hordes of enemies attacking you, you’ll find yourself dying very often even on the Standard level. You will fare even worse when you meet the level’s boss. You have to die a lot more times before you figure out a way to defeat the boss. The treacherous platforming doesn’t help either.

In addition, you can’t save the game at any stage. Though you can activate a Revive Point that makes you reappear when you die during the game, you won’t be able to return to that Revive Point if you quit the game.

Thankfully, the controls of the game are straightforward, allowing you to dive straight into the action. The soundtrack and the colourful graphics add plenty of spice to the game. The conversation between the Prinnies and the level bosses can be hilarious as well.

VERDICT 3.5/5

Despite its difficulty, the game is pretty addictive, thanks to the intuitive controls, the simple gameplay, and your sheer perseverance to stay alive.

Every now and then, you will hear stories of some struggling programmer who suddenly became rich because of an iPhone app he or she created.

Some have even earned hundreds of thousands! But for every successful iPhone app developer, I bet there’s a hundred iPhone developers who didn’t make  even a hundred bucks for their apps.

Still, there is not much monetary risk involved. As long as you have a computer and you know C language and programming, you are able to create something from nothing.  Well, not exactly nothing – you have to pay US$99 (Standard) or US$299 (Enterprise) to join the Apple’s iPhone Developer Program.

But this startup cost is minimal compared to  the cost of starting  a company, renting an office and hiring programmers to code the apps. At the end of the day, it’s all about your own creativity and an incredible amount of luck. If you are able to hit the right codes, you can find yourself a ticket out of your day job (that is, if you charge for your apps)!

Apple and Stanford offer free iPhone Application Programming lessons for free on iTunes, with many universities around the world offering similar courses  due to huge demand.

Back home, Singapore probably has the world’s youngest iPhone app developer in 9-year-old Lim Ding Wen, who developed the free painting app “Doodle Kids”. There are also several cool local apps, like buUuK, in App Store. However, if Singapore iPhone app developers are to make it onto the world map, they are going to need a little bit of help.

Thus, International Enterprise (IE) Singapore has tied up with Apple to conduct an iPhone Developers Briefing Session for local iPhone app developers on  April 27 from 8.30am to 3.00pm. Registration is $50 per head on  a first-come first-served basis. There will be a presentation by Apple about the right tools, resources and networks to grow iPhone app projects. 

Interestingly, the briefing also includes sharing with participants on the upcoming IE mission to Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco in June. It seems like our government is also jumping on the bandwagon in double quick time after spotting a potential gold mine.

Maybe I should start learning how to program iPhone Apps, too!

Tags: iPhone