@stephenamp Twitter Word Cloud!

I've always liked word clouds. Well, always being since I first saw them maybe a year ago. Anyway I made this using Wordle.com and thought I'd share it. Not too exciting but the good thing I'm taking from the cloud is that most of the words are positive ones... it helps to have a positive mindset! :) Follow me here!

My favourite iPhone apps

The number of "Top iPhone Apps" articles/blog posts I've read are
probably in the hundreds. For the most part they usually recommend the
same apps - NetNewsWire, Last.FM, Twitterific etc. Well yes those apps
are great but there are thousands upon thousands of apps out there so
surely there are a few fantastic ones being missed by the masses. With
this post I'm hoping to draw some attention to a few *slightly* less
recognized apps that I use regularly to enhance my digital lifestyle!

*** RunKeeper ***
RunKeeper is an app designed to take advantage of the built in GPS in
the iPhone. It tracks your running time, speed, distance and even your
exact location which can be exported to Google Maps. All this is then
stored both on your phone and on the runkeeper.com website where you
can see more usable maps and graphs of your activities and trends over
time. I say activities as it isn't strictly for runners-RunKeeper can
be used for cycling, hiking, skiing and whatever else you can think
of... Though they'd have to fall into the "Other" label! Anyway it
really is a classy application and as it's available as an ad-
supported free download it should be considered a must download for
any fitness following iPhone owners out there. The Pro version is
practically identical sans adverts but I'd recommend the purchase
simply for the fact that these guys have put out such a great app and
deserve the support. One additional feature I haven't mentioned-RK can
automatically tweet your latest run to your twitter account! So as
soon as I finish that 10 mile cycle to work or 2 mile jog in the park
it automatically posts the distance and a map straight to my
account.... Which leads nicely to my next app!

*** Tweetie ***
I know what you're thinking! Why buy a Twitter app when Twitterific is
more than adequate? Well let me just say that the difference between
the two is practically chalk and cheese. Tweetie brings a beautiful
interface, much like the iPhone's SMS threads where your messages
appear on the right and your friends' on the left. It really is a lot
cleaner and prettier on the eye. You also get easy access to multiple
accounts, similar to the way multiple email accounts work with the
mail app, as well as the ability to follow/unfollow, attach pics/links
etc, search for nearby tweets and even look at the latest trend topics
on twitter! No ads, no annoying tweet sound haha... I just really like
this Twitter app.

*** PDANet ***
This one is a bit of a black sheep as it isn't instantly available to
the masses. PDANet is an application that allows you to use the 3G
connection on your phone as an Internet connection for your laptop/PC
and it is only available to those with Jailbroken phones. The ability
to share your mobiles Internet connection may not sound great to some
but for anyone without a home phone line or any other way to get
access to broadband at home this app is an absolute Godsend. With the
option to connect via USB or even wifi (though battery drain occurs
with the latter even when plugged in) you can connect in seconds and
with download rates of over 100kbps (and I mean genuine 100kb not like
when you buy 8meg broadband and get 300kbps or whatever) it more than
matches most basic home broadband options.

As I said PDANet is only available to those with jailbroken iPhones.
If there is one piece of advice I can give you it is to definitely do
this! It takes a matter of minutes when you have the right software
and the amount of customisation it opens up is astounding. You truly
are setting your iPhone free! Now I have flames licking the icons from
the bottom of my home screen, lightsaber sounds when I lock and
unlock, the ability to run apps in the background when returning to
home or doing other things (great for fring/IM) and my phone
automatically tells last.fm every single song I listen to through the
regular iPhone player! If you have an iPhone and a small amount of
technical ability you really really really should jb.

Anyway I hope these mini reviews have drawn your attention to some
great apps and you find as much use out of them as I do!

Sent from my iPhone

360 REVIEW: Sonic Unleashed

Sonic, Sonic, Sonic... Where do I start?! Having been born in the Eighties I was fortunate enough to witness the birth of the legend. At one time the blue blur was adored by Western youth as much as David Beckham currently is in Asia. But how the mighty have fallen... And Sonic more so. :-) I'm sure every review written for modern Sonic games is full of this nostalgia, all of us babbling on about how great 3 was and then the pants that followed. Well trying to avoid covered ground I'm just going to say this - make sure you've all checked Sonic Adventure and the GBA Sonics because they were awesome!

Anyway I purchased the latest attempt at capturing the glory of our younger days for a bargain price of £20 at Game. I wasn't expecting too much and mostly thought it would be something for the girlfriend to play and hopefully unknowingly rack up my achievement points... see we CAN out think them! Well it didn't quite work out like that anyway... I'd say I've easily put in just as many hours as her. In short, this game is just fun.

For those that now nothing of the game it is not strictly the Sonic that we know and love. In the opening cut scene a series of events leaves us with a dual persona-by day we still have the too cool for school hedgehog of yesterday but by night he is transforméd! Just like Teen Wolf (but less crap) we get Sonic the Werehog, the slower but stronger and more beautiful side of the great S. Now you may wonder what on Earth Team Sonic were thinking when they introduced this semi-new character but the change in gameplay between the two personalities is astounding. The hedgehog levels tend to involve the traditional high speed movement and whizzing through stages as quickly as possible, where as the werehog intoduces the other elements of great platformers like exploration and battle. Instead of simply speeding through each area and bouncing off everything in sight you are forced to use differed skills, with balance and timing being tested far more frequently. You also engage in battle areas (think Final Fantasy) often, where you have to defeat a collective of foes before been allowed to progress. The werehog can attack in several different ways and stringing buttons together creates all sorts of "combo" attacks which become more devestating as you gain experience. You can also educate (maybe?!) your hedgehog with experience (which is actually collected as an object left from battles) though as he is a slightly less complex character you'll likely max out his 2 attributes far quicker than the 5 far more influencing elements of the werehog. Anyway this all adds much needed dimension to the game and in fact opens it up to a much wider audience. What is often forgotten in the Sonic bashing that usually accompanies reviews of the next gen outings is that not EVERYONE has been playing games since the birth of Sega! So keeping the balance between games that are difficult enough to please the die hards and simple enough for newbies is a difficult task. Introducing the werehog! His movement is much friendlier to those new to the platform genre making it easier to familiarize and strengthen their control of the main character. This was incredibly noticable whilst playing with my girlfriend who had far more interesting things to do in her youth (that's a whole different post!) than playing computer games. We'd often have her doing the werehog levels, exploring and experimenting with button combos etc whilst I'd do the hedgehog ones where reactions (i.e. experience) played a far greater role. See it's a game for the whole family!

As for the levels themselves they are incredibly beautiful at times. For anyone who played the original Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast you may remember the "Whoa!" moment of level one when being chased by that killer whale from all sorts of camera angles?! Well I found myself amazed several times at the dazzling twists and turns through beautiful scenery found throughout the various stages. Just watch out for those moments where you have to press A (or another button, Shenmue cinematic stylee) or you'll be admiring them again. Several times! The mix between true 3D and classic side on view is seamless and stays true to the original Sonic ways whilst spicing up the visuals and adding the complexity expected in modern day gaming. I'd love to say that it was without it's fault but there are a few difficulties with the 3d angle from time to time (stop moving around so often!) but in honesty it adds that frustration needed to make a great game what it is. If I hadn't drown so many times in the Labyrinth Zone or been endlessly crushed on Scrap Brain then I probably wouldn't be writing this today! So if you do find yourself cursing the angles or just complaining about the game not doing what you tell it just remember that it NEVER did and we've always been losing those precious 1-ups in such unfair ways. We've just forgotten how infuriating it can be. =]

To round up I don't think I couldve asked for more from Sonic Unleashed. No it doesn't have the breath-taking graphics of your Gears of Wars or the incredible stories of your Metal Gears. But that's not where video games started. Originally they started with you and maybe a few friends just bashing away at the controller seeing who could get passed the big boss. They started with Fun. They started with Sonic. And he's definitely back!!

Sent from my iPhone

Interest rates and Manchester City FC

One day last week I was driving to Swansea for my ACCA training and I
noticed that the roads were remarkably quiet. It got me thinking...
What would happen if we simply couldn't afford to buy diesel any more?
I don't just mean one or two of us struggling but everyone. At the
moment oil is at the lowest price it's been for ages-don't even get me
started on how they can simply lower the price the way they have-but
at the end of the day it's a non-renewable product so over time it
should gradually become more expensive. So what happens when there
isn't enough oil to meet everyones needs?! Assuming alternative fuels
aren't found/successful, do only the rich drive? Or do the suppliers
start looking out for themselves? What about food? Will we always have
enough food for everyone if the global population continues to grow?
What happens when the answer is no? What if there isn't enough land to
live on? Whilst we may be far away from that (or any of the above)
happening there could obviously be a time when it does. And would it
be an instant problem? Or would the first signs be things like people
not having enough money to buy houses, pay fuel bills, buy food etc. I
think they would-but this isn't the doomsday moment. The fact that oil
and food prices can come down so quickly simply shows that we've been
severely overcharged for things over the last few years, and hopefully
with all the attention and scrutiny companies are under at the moment
we will stop getting raped of our money. But cutting prices and
interest rates is only a short term solution! Eventually food, fuel
and shelter will be in far more demand... and prices will naturally
have to go up. The prices wont have been artificially inflated this
time... they will one day represent the high value of our necessities.
So what happens when most of us can't afford the basics of living?
Well one of my good friends gave me an adapted quote from the latest
Batman movie that's sticking in my mind. It went something like
"Everyone is friendly and kind to each other when it suits them... But
when the chips are down they'll kill their neighbours". We all live
behind this falseness... We live on a world where people don't have to
worry about the next man stealing their bread, their home, their
diesel even... But what if we can't afford essentials. Quite simply..
Money becomes worthless and it's every man for himself. We keep on
ignoring it-if you live in the city it's so easy to get caught up in
your own little world and forget what's going on outside. One day a
country is going to try taking another ones riches, there'll probably
be global condemnation and they'll be brought into line. Sound
familiar? Anyway. It will begin to happen more often. Rather than once
every 40 years maybe once every 10. Once every five. And then one day
one of the major powers will be struggling... And they might have to
do something drastic. If you can't live, but I can, what are you going
to do?! I'm kind of drifting away from the point but basically we all
happily get poorer and poorer while they're building 7 star hotels in
Dubai. What happens when we're starving?

Anyway thankfully the red light turned green by Tesco and I caught up
with a lot more traffic down by Trainer BMW so I got on with my day...
But watching Man City with their £550bn backers really p's me off.
That isn't rich... That's living outside the boundaries of money. Why?
Because that country has something we all need. And it turns out they
can just lower the price when they've raped us to the point of
recession. How much is oil really worth at the moment? And how patient
will the world be when we can't afford it?!

Yes I am in a bit of a bad mood today haha. I know... We can solve it
all by getting Chuck Norris. Or David Hasselhoff. Don't hassle The
Hoff. Oh and Robinho scored an aaabsolute craaacker tonight-said in my
best Swansea accent. Nice one son.

Sent from my iPhone

Ghosts, cricket and Xbox updates!

Hola people of the internet. Hope you all had a terrifying Halloween.
I tried my first ever pumpkin pie-a frightening thought but turned out
to be pretty nice! Anyway... I've decided to up my geekdom this
evening by checking out all sorts of nerdy things. Firstly I managed
to grab the latest dashboard update for my xbox-the new xbox
experience. Shame it flipping disabled my live for the next 3 weeks...
That is quite frankly pants microsoft! Anyway first impressions aren't
ruined.. I installed evo to the hard drive (that's pes 2009 for those
who don't.. have balls) and it significantly reduced the loading time.
The only thing that's really p'd me off is now my 360voice blog is
going to report me as offline for 3 weeks... Which is fine apart from
the fact that I've just added it to my soup.io page and don't want it
moaning about my lack of gaming every day!

I've checked out quite a few new iPhone apps and things-prob say the
one worth mentioning is Trace, a wicked little game which works a bit
like that crayon physics thing that was shown online last year. You
draw in platforms for your little guy to use as platforms to get to
the goal. It's definitely one of the best free games out there.

I saw the movie Keeping Mum last night-very funny and actually quite
good for a Brit Flick. Saw Son of Rambow the night before too... Ani's
LoveFilm subscription really is introducing me to new movies! Speaking
of the lady I think she's on her way back from Swansea right now so
best wrap it up. The Swans were away today so didn't go... Was 0-0 but
apparently the on loan keeper saved a penner in the last five which is
great! United just beat Hull... But it's good to see CR is back in the
goals. And it's the Cowboys Giants game tomorrow-BOOM! Tara nutters...
Check out my soup http://stephenamp.soup.io it's butter.

Sent from my iPhone

The weekend of a million miles...

Well maybe about 300 to be more precise. Been travelling quite a bit
this weekend-went up to Cardiff yesterday to see the uni boys, before
travelling back to Newcastle Emlyn to see my lovely girlfriend and her
mates. Then this morning I bombed it down to Pembre for Burns' dog day-
was marshalling for that though turns out they didn't really need
me... And then as soon as I'd finished there I went for Sunday lunch
with madame before a stroll around Trostre retail park to pick out the
smallest skirts we could find for her... It was very successful!

Last weekends camping was fantastic. I truly felt like I took on
nature, Gethin Jones style. We went down late on Friday night
expecting to stay at Newgale (like the rest of the surfers, right?!)
but it turns out nobody camps at this time of year haha and the girl
in Newgale pub just looked at me stupid when I even suggested such a
thing. So we ploughed on to Whitesands where Ani rightly remembered a
small privately owned campsite which is open all year round! Anyway it
was pitch black when we got there and putting up her big tent proved
completely impossible so we ended up in my Tesco value tent that I got
for £4 in Newquay this summer. I thought it was great considering we'd
have been sleeping in the car without it, but to quote another party
"Sure it was waterproof... It kept all the water on the inside!". :-)
Anyway it really added to the fun... And we did get the proper tent up
for Sat. So anyway the main event had to be our sea adventures-of
course I didn't have a girly wetsuit so after about an hour and a half
of waves my body was coming out in these blue patches... I still
wanted to keep going but considering the lengths we had to go to to
warm up (probably about an hour in the car at 27C, the highest it'll
go, followed by a cup if tea in an Italian restaurant) it was a good
idea to stop when we did! Anyway I think we definitely beat the sea...
Next step it's Snowdon.

Went to see the Swans on Tuesday night against QPR and it had to be
the worst game I'd ever seen! They came purely for the draw and barely
took any shots. The one highlight had to be Alan Tate going in goal
after half an hour though! Big Bird did a great job though.. If I was
Ian Dowie I'd have gone crazy over the lack of shots, and then maybe
I'd still have a job BOOM!

Anyway it's the UK NFL game right now and LT is having a stormer so
going to watch this. Don't know who to support as Rivers and Brees are
both just awesome. Next year in going!

Sent from my iPhone

To camp I shall go

Evening muckers. The weekend has landed... And with it I am going
camping!

It's been a while since I've written here really. Of course a
distracting woman is involved... I told you not to type my name into
Google! Anyway things are great at the moment-work has become slightly
less stressful and more rewarding, fitness had been catching the right
balance in my life, uni is extremely hard but incredibly interesting
(I can do your tax return... Tax doesn't have to be taxing!)... Isn't
it annoying when people have no complaints?!? Well I guess one things
that's kind of gay is the fact that they (I'm looking at you nerdy HMV
guy in Trostre) wouldn't sell me Evo 2009 early so seeing ad it's
being released today I don't get to play it until next week. But I
wanna play!

Ohhh that Friday feeling. Got to love it. Even ate a breakfast bap
today! I'm at home now with the car all packed-got the bed, my
sleeping bag, my toothbrush... Everything! Now all I need is the
weather.. Will Wales let me down? I shall tell me all on Monday if I
can put down the game!

Sent from my iPhone