Happy to Announce Arabic Videos & Unboxings Coming Soon!!

Today I can finally reveal to you what I've had on my mind for quite a while now, ARABIC VIDEOS! No, sadly they won't be of me belly dancing to Arabic music (sorry to disappoint); but next week will show the launch of my first ever Arabic video. I've gotten loads of requests from people telling me to make some videos in Arabic or at the very least some Arabic captions for the videos I upload, seeing how this goes I will either upload an Arabic version of all future videos or just the major ones.

 

My mad Arabic skills will debut on a second version of my upcoming Lumia 920 unboxing, so for anyone who speaks Arabic (or wants to hear how bad all the TV shows get it) stay tuned!

Also this video was the first one I shot with the Nex-5N besides the camera quality test, so lemme know what you think of the quality down below.

Sony Nex-5N in The House! First Look/Impression

So I've finally taken the plunge, leaving behind the world of relying on borrowed DSLRs and using Camera phones to take picture. I've joined the club of monkeys wielding semi-expensive/expensive cameras, who think we know what we're doing with a camera.

 

 

 The Nex-5N is the mid range family member of Sony's mirror less camera set (slotted above the 3 series and below the 7 series). Packing a 16.1 MP sensor, interchangeable E-Mount lenses and 1080p Video shooting. The killer feature for me in this camera was the 10Fps Shooting speed, which is absolutely insane (think Ak-47).

 

 

A fitting end for the Nokia 808's place in my reviews, taking images of it's successor (which were taken in very poor lighting).

 

The Nex-5N packs a touch screen display on the back to help you choose your focus area, as well as gicing quick access to options. The screen itself is tilt-able (upwards only) to about 90 degrees; which is pretty neat.

 

Anyways on to the more important matter, picture quality; seeing how I'm a complete imaging noob I'm not the right person to take any tip from. But here's the very first picture I took with the camera; I think it ain't too bad.

Check the full resolution image on Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23218958@N05/8206870592/sizes/k/in/photostream/

 



Facebook For iOS Now Showing When "Friends" were Last Online; Stalkers Rejoice

In what seems to be Zucks latest attempt at figuring out who's ignoring him from his friends, a new feature (by feature we mean a stalkers Christmas, Eid and Birthday come early) has silently been rolled to the Facebook for iOS app (or at least the iPad version of it). Besides the extremely annoying Seen checkmark on messages and chat, Facebook has now implemented a last seen for anyone on a mobile device/ that let's you know when the last time they were online was, regardless if they sent you a message or not. Note the 1h, 2h, 5h besides the mobile icon on the chat sidebar (It also possible shows even if said "friend" has you set as "offline"). This feature is yet to appear on the Web client of Facebook, but it can only be a matter of time.

- Way to go Zucks! This seriously has saved me hours of wondering whether or not my "prey" has checked her Facebook today; I can't seem to figure out why she won't like my statuses! But now I can plan my timings perfectly so that heavily hinted message might just get through to her!

Review: 1Kg Solid Gold Bar #ParodyRant

We've long awaited this moment, and it's finally here; Mother Nature's flagship element has finally hit the stores, coming in a eye catching yellow; that can't help but turn heads and drop jaws, read on to see what our highly trained staff of professional monkeys and that one guy who brings us the coffee think.

Well first off let's talk about the elephant(s) in the room, there's no ignoring it, as hard as Mother Nature would like us to believe, this is NOT the element for you. There's no denying that the 1KG gold bar has some very impressive specs, but it just doesn't feel like something that our staff could fall in love with so we've decided that it's a no-go.

First off it's just too damn heavy, Mother Nature would have us believe that the reason that the 1KG gold bar is so heavy is because it's packed full of tightly wound atoms which lead to a better consistency and will eventually benefit the end-user; but we're not buying it.  For something so small nothing justifies it's weight, sure the built in feature of getting any women too swoon with just the tiniest glimpse of it is neat, but it feels more of a gimmick; sure we used it a couple times at the bar, but it's not something that's needed in todays day and age. We think that losing the swoon factor in favor of a lighter product would be a more than fair trade-off; we've also discussed whether or not the inclusion of a "never-corrode" factor is actually needed, and the general consensus is that it's just another gimmick Mother Nature have crammed in to distract you from the absurd weight.

The second elephant in the room (yes it's amazing what you can fit in one room when so little is occupied by intelligence), is the ridiculous pricing! The 1KG Solid Gold Bar is set to retail at around 40,000 Euros, nothing justifies this border-line ridiculous price, even if this 1KG bar of gold was worth it's weight in platinum it still wouldn't cost as much. For less than a tenth of that price you could easily buy an end market 1KG Silver bar which gives you a lot of similar features at a much more reasonable price point (not to mention an overall lighter product).

Finally we come to the major flaw, the carrier availability; Mother Nature has decided to make it's flagship element only available in rare remote areas of the world buried under mountains of earth, which frankly given all the flaws in the product has forced us to give the "Not Worth the Trouble" verdict.

In Summary Mother Nature had a good run teasing us with its flagship element, but no matter what features it packs it just doesn't justify the price nor the weight; if you're considering wasting your money on this might we suggest you invest in fruits, I hear Apple trees are all the rave nowdays.

Product Score: 2.5/5

Angry Birds Starwars Released: First Look at iPad Version

 

 It's finally here! the latest installment of the Angry Birds series, "Angry Birds Star Wars"; the latest version is a spin-off of the ultra-popular Movie series Star Wars.. DUH. Interestingly enough it would seem that this is the LAST ever 3rd party Star Wars product that won't pay-off to Disney, Kinda sad huh?

 

 

The game looks great on the retina screen of the iPad (especially since there's an iPad HD version); the graphics are cute and pretty funny, as you can see above. Red Luke SkyWalker looks pretty awesome, but I'm not sure I like C3PO too much.

 

Check out that Darth Vader Piggy! Scary looking! The game seems most similar to Angry Birds Space, with the trajectory path showing up for each sling (I'm personally not a fan of that; it takes away from the difficulty factor in the game).





 

 The Worlds in Angry Birds star wars are set in the Star Wars Empire world, with the first one being the ever famous "Tatooinee" with it's trademark two suns (see image above).

Anyways enjoy the game!

 

First Look at Need For Speed Most Wanted 2012/Reboot

Announced back in June and just released last week Need For Speed Most Wanted is an attempted reboot of the hit NFS game released back in 2005. First thing you'll realize? the graphics are AMAZING! no matter how much I stress this point it still won't be enough, the graphics are beautiful!

 

(as always click on any of the images to enter the fullsize gallery)

The new version of Need For Speed comes as a massive free play map with cars to find and unlock, races to complete, upgrades to win and most importantly blacklists to climb.

Around the map are cars that most be found and unlocked (by simply driving up to them), once a new car is found a specific set of races for each car are made available; where by beating these races you unlock upgrades for each car (car upgrades are NOT interchangeable).

Of course the gameplay is always amazing, with hours of fun; and since it's an open world map you can just drive around causing havoc, destroying billboards and breaking speed limits... or you could drive safely and practice your parallel parking.. up to you (we won't judge... actually we will).

Personally my favorite part of the game is the car damage, just look at the details in the screenshot above! That Aston is WRECKED! Police chases will put down tire spikes and pop your tires, making you drive on the rims of your car (painful); but of course totally fixing your car is just a gas station away.

The other super cool part about the game is the police chase dialogue, which isn't your custom "roger over over" but actual dialogue that adapts to your driving style; changed the color of your car in the middle of the chase? Don't worry the cops will send out a new APB alert on the radio with your updated color. Sweet! 

Of course what kind of Need For Speed game would be complete without cops... lots of cops.

Seriously, try it out you won't regret it!

Windows 8 Walkthrough: Pre-Installed Apps

Windows 8 is a huge change-up from any past windows experience, mainly by the inclusion of apps and an app store (check out the full detailed walkthrough of Windows 8 app types and the store here). But what about the apps that come with Windows? Well that's what we're here for, honestly it's like you don't even read the title.

Windows 8 comes preinstalled with a decent number of starter apps, things to get the ball rolling until you get the hang of it they are:

• Internet Explorer [Metro Version (no flash support) & Desktop version]
• Mail
• Calendar
• People
• Weather
• Maps
• SkyDrive
• Messaging
• News
• Photos
• Sports
• Finance
• Store
• Video (not available in "N"/European version, but can be downloaded for free).
• Games
• Bing
• Travel

I'll try to cover as much as I can, but I won't go into too much detail in the smaller apps.

Internet Explorer:

*Note: For some odd reason the Metro flash free version of Internet Explorer is only available when the desktop version of IE10 is set as the default browser, changing the default browser to Chrome or Firefox or anything else

Before you read on (or more probably skip right through this whole section) take a moment and listen to me; IE10 IS NOTHING LIKE PREVIOUS VERSIONS! It might be difficult to put your bias a side, but trust me once you do you'll actually enjoy using IE10.

First off let's get this out there, IE 10 is BLAZING FAST, not just in browsing, but in booting up as well; gone are the days where you have to wait 5 seconds for IE to open (which you accidentally clicked on) just so you could close it. Startup is instant, and pages load perfectly well, I'm not about to run some speed tests, but trust me coming from someone who hated IE with a passion, this new one is pretty good.

As mentioned there are two versions of Internet Explorer, the Metro and non-Metro versions, the Non-Metro version is the usual one that's available for download on all PCs now, while the metro version is Flash-Free and designed for use on tablets (and Windows RT devices).

In normal use IE10 runs in full screen mode (hidden toolbars, address bars, and everything else); helping you forget that you're actually using internet explorer, the same one your Grandma uses with all 50 of her toolbars (well not the exact same one, but a distant relative maybe). Right clicking anywhere on the screen will bring up the Open tabs and address bars (tabs on top, address bar on the bottom).

 Clicking on the address bar will bring up your Pinned tabs (we'll get to that in a second), Recent tabs and you favorite tabs; each represented by their own cute live tile.

Since Windows 8 is essentially a PC product (ignoring tablets for the moment), it seems a waste to create dedicated apps for things you'd usually browse online for (such as Facebook, Reddit, AliGoneMobile Etc..) that's why IE10 allows you to "pin" sites to your start screen, these pinned site act as direct shortcuts to the site, and since IE10 runs in full screen mode by default it's easy to pretend you're using a dedicated Facebook app.

Unlike Chrome which has incognito mode to hide your tracks, IE10 doesn't have such an option per say, I know what you're thinking now, but Ali! how on earth will I be able to plan my girlfriends surprise party without her finding out (cause that's what people use incognito mode for, right?). IE10 carries on the tradition of 'InPrivate browsing" which promises not to store any information at all (Yay! parties back on!). To open a new InPrivate tab simply hit the 3 dots below the new tab button and select "New InPrivate tab"

Internet Explorer as a whole is a great browser (finally!) and is actually fun to use, everything about it's redisgn is clean beautiful and smooth, even the file selector is pretty! what more could you ask for.

Mail:

Anyone familiar with Windows Phone will feel right at home once they see the new Windows 8 mail app, it's strikingly similar to the Windows Phone with the added functionality of joining all your inboxes into the same app.

Once you've linked your Outlook/Live/Hotmail address in the Windows Store it's inbox will automatically appear in your Mail app. Adding additional inboxes is super simple and hassle free, just enter your email and password!

Linked inboxes are listed in the bottom left corner of the screen, once an inbox/account is expanded all folders in that inbox are visible and sync with the Mail app, contacts are also synced from the account and added to your people hub.

Toast notifications can be turned on/off individually for each inbox, helping hide unwanted emails when trying to work (alternatively all notifications can be turned off from the PC settings).

In my personal usage so far the Mail app has been stellar, receiving mails as soon as they arrive and pushing new ones out with delay (it helps that the mail composition center is beautiful, very similar to the online Outlook mail editor).

Calendar:

Personally I'm not a big fan of calendars/schedules, I hardly ever use any at all; except on occasion on my phone to remind me of an upcoming exam. But just like everything else on Windows 8 the Calendar follows the sleek metro design, with no distracting items, straightforward and simple.

The app instantly synchronizes calendars with all your linked Email accounts as well as your Facebook, creating a centralized calendar bringing them all together. Each account is given a different color code to help avoid confusion.

Creating a new event is simple and distraction free, just click on any date and you'll automatically enter the event creator, from there you can use the drop-down menu to choose which email account you'd like to sync the calendar to.

 

  People:

People's hub first debuted in Windows Phone, under the claim that it would stop contacts from being "contacts" and turn them into actual people in your phone. The concept is great, and it works splendidly on Windows Phone, but the Windows 8 version seems to have a few bugs that need ironing out. 

  

The people's hub live tile (the orange one) works great, showing you the latest notifications from linked accounts (Twitter and Facebook). "People" in Windows 8 is supposed to be a linkage between the "Me hub" in WP as well as the "People Hub" meaning you can update your status and post from within the people hub too. 

The app can be split into 4 parts

1. The actual People:
   Here you have a list of all your contacts, from all across the internet, including Skype, Email, Facebook, Twitter and a couple other too. Of course should you feel the urge to pretend a while social network doesn't exist you can simply choose to hide any notifications from that network (people in that network will still show up in your search results). Accessing a persons "info" will take you to a page that joins all his information in one, as well as downloading his Facebok photos (stalker style).
   One issue I've faced with the contacts int he people hub is that unlike Windows Phone I can't find an option to link multiple accounts together, sure Windows 8 does a great jib at linking them on it's own but any contact with multiple spelling variations in his/her name will not be linked together (a lot more common in Arabic names typed in English).
   
2. Notifications:
   This part brings together your twitter mentions along with your Facebook notifications and joins them in one, saving you the trouble of checking each network separately. The only issue I've faced with this part of the app is the fact that sometimes notifications take a while to load, where I'm informed I have a notification on the tile, but it doesn't show in the app itself.
   
3. What's New:
   Which groups together both your Twitter and Facebook into one mega timeline allowing you to browse both simultaneously. This part of the app is truly beautiful, giving each post it's own dedicated box as well as the ability to comment/reply to each post from within the app itself.
   
4. Me:
   This hub merges your Twitter and Facebook once again, allowing you to update either of them from the same place (unlike Windows Phone there doesn't seem to be an option to send the same post to multiple social networks). The Me hub also downloads most of your Facebook profile giving you access to posts on your wall, photos you've uploaded, as well as a mini Notifications preview.
   The major issue for me in this part of the app is the lack of auto-complete for twitter handles, how is it even possible to overlook such a basic function? (admittedly it's also missing in WP and doesn't seem to have been added in Windows Phone 8).
   

Messaging:

Messaging is what seems to be a replacement for Windows Live Messenger (although Windows Messenger can still be downloaded through the Windows Essentials pack). THe messaging app unfortunately doesn't allow using multiple messaging services, only one single Live account (the one you used to access the store) and one Facebook account. Hopefully in the future it will be updated to support multiple live accounts, and dare we dream maybe even Google talk?

That's about it for the major apps, the rest of the pre-installed apps work as the name would suggest offering you Weather/Sports/Finance news in a beautiful metro interface, which would be a waste of time to describe here. One feature worth describing is that in the finance and sports you can select a preferred stock/sports team and pin the to the start menu to see all the latest updates about them at a glance. 

Windows 8: Apps, Store and Metro; What It's All About

Yesterday I posted my initial walkthrough of the Windows 8, getting to know basics, specifically the mouse/touch gestures required to fully utilize the new UI layout and start screen. Now that we've gotten that awkward part  out of the way let's delve into the juiciest bit of Windows 8, APPS! After all isn't that what it's all about these days? (Just ask Mr. Elop).

One of the biggest changes affecting the way you use Windows 8 (besides the start screen of course) is the inclusion of an App store (golly!). This is the first time Windows has ever had an integrated app store of any kind at all, thinking about it; it has become second nature to Google whatever program I wanted and either download it or torrent it (yes I admit I torrent... A lot).

Microsoft has decided to make things easier for you by creating a centralized store to download all your favorite games and applications from (you can still install .exe files or whatever you like the old fashion way, this is just a simplification process). The App Store, aptly called "Store" (funny how that happens huh?), anyways since you should have already linked a working Live/Outlook/Hotmail account to your Windows User account you should be all set (see those of you who didn't are panicking now, this is what happens when you don't follow my instructions- don't worry you'll be prompted to link one anyways, but next time listen to me).

Back on topic, one of the greatest advantages to having a centralized app store (besides the obvious plus of being a centralized app store-DUH) is being notified when updates are available to apps you've already installed on your PC (check upper right corner of the Image above). These notifications are also visible on the Store live tile, something that Windows Phone users are undoubtedly familiar with:

  

What about the apps themselves in the store? Not every application that you had running on Windows 7 or-god forbid- Windows Vista is eligible to be placed in the store, Microsoft have placed some UI guidelines and quality tests that must be passed before an app is admitted into the store. Most importantly the app must be compatible with the new "Metro Design language"; which very smoothly transitions us into an explanation of the two different types of apps in Windows 8 (I'm quite proud of that transition).

Applications and programs in Windows 8 can be divided into 2 types, Metro apps and Non-Metro Apps. Metro apps are those that follow the new UI guidelines and are available in the official centralized store, while everything else can be classified as a non-Metro app. The biggest difference between the two types of apps (besides the look once again) is the way Windows 8 behaves with these apps, honestly I'm still a bit unclear about it all.

First off the biggest difference between the two is the fact that non-metro apps run "in" the desktop "layer" of Windows 8, while Metro apps run on the Start screen. This leads to a decent bit of confusion, since each type of app behaves a different way; for starters when viewing the running application through "Windows + Tab" or by using the left side of the screen, only the applications running in Metro mode are shown, any non-metro apps can only be accessed by choosing the "Desktop pane" in the app switcher. (See image below).



 Alternatively to view all your running applications together, Metro & non-Metro you can use the "Alt+Tab" method which doesn't discriminate between apps.

Applications running in two different layers admittedly leads to a great deal of confusion, especially when multi-tasking; for example Windows 8 comes pre-loaded with two different version of Internet Explorer 10; a Metro Version and a Non-Metro version (Metro is flash free). While they are both essentially the same program they act as independent applications (tabs running between the two DO NOT cross-over), meaning although the settings, bookmarks and homepages sync between the two, running tabs do not; which in my personal experience has lead to many duplicate tabs running on the two.

Another difference between the types of apps is the way they interact with the screen/desktop itself in my last post I mentioned that Metro apps asymmetrically "snap" to either side of the screen allowing for the smaller pane to give notifications on the go without using too much screen real estate. The issues is that Non-Metro apps snap the same way they did in Windows 7, splitting the screen into two equal halves; leading to another set of differences to get used to. Of course this also means that I can run one small "snapped" metro app on my desktop while using the rest of my screen for normal work (trust me it's a lot more helpful on a 17" screen).

The third and last major difference is the way each program is displayed on the start screen, Metro UI guidelines dictate a "Live tile" be part of the application, which of course is not needed in non-metro apps; leading to a "rift" in the start screen separating Metro apps and Non-Metro apps

That pretty much covers the basics of the Windows 8 Store and the different types of apps, tune in later for another in depth look at whatever I decide to share (since it's up to me of course). 

First Impressions of Windows 8: Getting to Know Your Way Around

Last night/very-early today at 12:01 AM Windows 8 went live for all to purchase/download; unlike windows phone 8 we've seen pretty much most of Windows 8 before in the consumer preview, but here's a look at with a fresh set of eyes in the final complete form.

 I won't be reviewing Windows 8 as a whole since that's much to great of a task for a simpleton like me to conquer, but I'll try to cover the new bits (mostly UI and app changes) in several upcoming posts. This post itself is just to acquaint you with the new Metro start screen, and the new gestures available in Windows 8.

First off most people don't seem to realize that there's a lot more to Windows 8 then the new homescreen, but we'll get to that later. At first boot of windows 8 you get an option to choose your metro (or whatever we're calling it now) theme colors; an option that is surprisingly missing at first boot of windows phone devices.

Once your PC is up and running, you have the option to link your live/Hotmail/Outlook email account with your Windows 8 user account (which is a requirement to use the Windows store)- I chose to use the same account as on my Lumia, to keep things organized (contacts are automatically transferred into your people app- more on that in future posts).

Now that your PC is ready to go its time to learn the actua Windows 8 UI, I find it's easiest to visualize the actual desktop as two sides, the right and the left. Moving your cursor to either the upper or lower corners of the screen will activate the respective "sides".

• The left side of the screen acts as a task manager of sorts, wherein dragging the mouse from the upper left corner downwards will bring up a list of active/runnings programs with a thumbnail image of what the application is doing (similar to the preview seen while switching with "alt+tab").
  At the bottom left corner is a shortcut that takes you between the "Metro start screen" and the last previous app you were in.
  

  

  Left "side" of your PC screen

•  The right "side" of the screen acts as you're settings bar for whatever application you're running (in case no applications are running it acts as a general settings bar for the whole system)- Microsoft were kind enough to call this part of the screen the "Charms bar". Below is an example of the general desktop settings that can be controlled from the charms bar, the lower half of the Settings menu acts as a notification center and a replacement toolbar, from which you can control your WiFi, battery, Volume, Brightness, Language etc.
  
  
   

That's pretty much it for maneuvering around the desktop itself, and the basic app switching and configurations, here're a couple more awesome features of Windows 8:

• In the bottom left corner of the Metro start menu is a tiny "minimize button" when clicked the whole start menu zooms out giving you a wider view of your desktop; very useful once you have a large number of apps installed.
  
• Metro designed applications can be asymmetrically "snapped" to either side of the screen, allowing for side by side multitasking; such as playing music in the smaller window while browsing, or having the messenger app open while working on a project.
  
   
• Besides the task switcher built into the left side of the screen you can still use the trusty old "alt+tab" method to navigate between your open application (using Windows key + tab will switch through the applications on the task switcher pane on the left side of the screen).
  
• Screenshots can automatically be taken and saved in Windows 8 without the need of opening Paint and pasting your screen capture into a new file, simply pressing Windows key + Prt Sc. will save the screen capture in your default images library inside a folder called "Screenshots"
  Alternatively you can press "Windows Key + S" to select a specific part of the screen you'd like to capture, rather than the whole screen.
• Pressing "Windows Key + C" in any application/folder will bring up the Charms Bar as well as the system time & general notification (battery, Wifi, date).
  
• Dragging any Metro designed app from the top of the screen all the way down will automatically close the app (equivalent of Alt + F4 which by the way still works).

That's it for this first part of getting to know Windows 8, stay tuned for more interesting posts.