Would I buy the iPhone 4?

The iPhone 4 is a really cool new phone on the market right now, I have been thinking of getting one recently so I've been reading reviews and looking around on line to see if there is anything out there that can help me decide if I want to spend so much money on a phone.  The iPhone 4 is quite expensive, it can be cheaper if you tie yourself to a twelve (or in some cases eighteen) month contract, but is it worth it?

Well, the iPhone 4 boasts ultra slimness, at 9.3mm at its widest part it is 24% slimmer that its ancestors.  This is on my pro list, I like the slimness of the iPhone's, it is part of its signature look which appeals to me.  However its signature look has been altered quite a bit.  it no longer has a slightly matt back and a shiny front screen, both the back and front are shiny glass.  This could be a problem when you are trying to figure out why your phone isn't doing anything even though you just charged it up... you will realise you've been trying to get the screen at the back to work, and then you will feel stupid, and I don't want my machines making me feel stupid!

It also has had a tweaking of the battery, the battery life is now longer.  This has been a problem that apple have had with the iPhone for a long time and are finally putting right.  There is no point in having a state of the art trendy phone if the battery won't last you the whole day!

Apple seem to have put a lot of work into the retina display of the new iPhone 4.  It has the clearest and most enjoyable retina display of any hand held.  The camera is extremely impressive and alluring.  it has the clearest pictures, and the most detailed zoom features.  It probably has the best camera of any phone that I am aware of.  The iPhones have always had good cameras though, so I'm not sure if this is a big selling point for me.  I will most likely be slaughtered by die hard iPhone fans, but it's just not as impressive as I thought it would be, not to say I'm disappointed or anything, just not blown away by it.  Another thing I read was that although a lot of work had gone into developing the camera of the iPhone, the button was not what people had imagined.  All the other buttons had been replaced with stainless steel along the side edges, except the camera one, which I have to say I found confusing too.

The new design of the iPhone is impressive.  Both the front and back of the iPhone is reinforced specially treated glass.  The edges are also specially treated stainless steel.  The special treatments on the glass and steel are to make them up to ten times stronger than regular glass and steel.  I read someone checked this by dropping the iPhone on the floor, and out a low window onto concrete!!  And apparently there was absolutely no damage!  That, in my opinion is impressive for any phone.  The phone I have now is quite a nice one, but it has scratches on the screen and it's supposed to have reinforced glass.  So maybe over time and regular wear and tear will disprove the hardiness of the iPhone 4's reinforced screen and steel.  Maybe that man was just very lucky he didn't scratch his new phone that particular time he threw it out the window!  Guaranteed there will be scratches at some point in the phone's life, unless this is one really special treatment!

So at the end of the day would I buy one?  I will have to say I wouldn't.  It is extremely expensive for a phone.  It would break the bank completely for me if I were to buy it, and it's not the greatest phone ever created.  There are lots of great android phones on the market at the moment that are better phones, and more importantly, cost less!

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/apple-iphone-4-694980/review

http://the-gadgeteer.com/2011/05/23/apple%E2%80%99s-white-iphone-4-from-verizon-review/

Factors to Consider When Buying a PC or Laptop for a College Course

If I am thinking about buying a PC or laptop for academic purposes there are several things to consider before I buy.  First and foremost I want a stylish piece of equipment.  This is by no means the most important thing to think about, but for students it can be as important to have a good looking machine as a high functioning one. 

The second thing I would consider is the ROM.  My laptop will have to have sufficient ROM (Read Only Memory) for it to function efficiently for me.  RAM is responsible for such things as start up, booting and shut down.  It is imperative that these things are executed quickly so as to reduce time spent waiting for my laptop to "get ready" for use, and therefore reduce time wasting. 

Another important thing to look at is RAM, or Random Access Memory.  RAM is extremely important.  RAM makes it possible for programs to run on the laptop.  IF you had a great laptop, with all the best programs on it and great ROM and all you needed for college, but you had no RAM, the whole thing would be completely useless.  RAM allows temporary storage of material when a program is in use.  Basically the computer and its programs run off the RAM.  Of course all computers therefore have RAM, but what you must check for is that the laptop or PC you are going to buy has sufficient RAM to run the programs you need for college.

You may also need a good graphics card.  This is important because there are a lot of videos we have to watch in this course for various modules.  Some things we need to watch have been recorded in high definition.  These videos are time consuming to download or stream.  It helps to have a decent graphics card to help the laptop cope with this.  

Probably the most important thing to look at is the CPU (Central Processing Unit).  The quality of this directly controls the speed of the laptop.  You should buy the fastest one you can afford.  This is important because you need to have a fast machine that can handle a lot of programs being open at the same time.  You might have multiple word programs open, as well as the internet and Photoshop, you need to be able to run and use all this without your machine slowing you down.

Wi-Fi is essential.  Many colleges have wireless internet throughout the campus, and it would be a total waste of money to buy a laptop that wouldn't help you avail of this.  Especially when the computers in the library are usually being used all day by other students, and you can hardly ever seem to find a free one it is very handy to just take out your own laptop with Wi-Fi.

Check out the battery.  Try to find one that is light weight and long lasting like the lithium-ion laptop batteries.  This will enable you to go for longer without having to charge up so you can leave the wires at home and not trip up your fellow students with them!

I hope this information helped you decide what to look for when choosing a laptop.

an important site for anyone who has a serious interest in psychology!

http://www.psychologicalsociety.ie/

Check this out to learn more about proprioception!

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain-sense/201005/swimmers-shaving-and-proprioception

Paranormal Activity 3

OK I loved this!!!  I love suspense type things where nothing really scary happens for ages then BANG! when you least expect it a gang of old ladies slowly walk towards you in cute little matching black outfits!!!  Horrifying!

And I don't care if you think that's not scary!!  BECAUSE IT SOOOO IS!!!!  There is literally nothing in the world scarier than an old woman clan thing who has a powerful demon on its side!!  The guy in this movie got folded!  Yeah, that's right, death by folding!!!  It was the freakiest thing I've seen in a long time (mainly because I haven't seen the other movies in the PA series for a while!).  And the only thing scarier than seeing a man get folded, was hearing a man get folded.  Utterly horrendous!!

It wasn't as good as the second one, and the first one was the best!  But by the time you get to the third movie you already know the story line, and what's going to happen because the trilogy goes backwards.  The  second movie was hinted in the first movie and the third one was pretty much all laid out in the second one, so I didn't go to the cinema expecting twists in the plot.  I went expecting to get a good old fashioned PA scare!!

To sum up it was rad!!  Plus I totally overused the word scary and its variants!!  But I don't care because it was scary scary scary!!!

Final Destination 5 3D

The use of 3D in this film was epic!  I mean the opening credits alone was reason enough to go to the cinema!!  There were rusty nails flying at your face, bits of broken glass, and God only knows what the rest of the stuff was.. all I know is that it was gross!!

Besides the awesome 3D it was your typical Final Destination movie.  In the beginning  one of the characters has a premonition of some large scale catastrophe kills a LOT of people.  Nobody believes him, but eventually a select few follow him out of the situation that should have killed them.  Each one is picked off one by one while a creepy black undertaker with a lazy eye laughs inappropriately at the characters misfortune.

I have to say this wasn't my favourite of the FD series.  It is the last of the series yet new concepts were introduced, for why?  I don't know!!  Also it just didn't have the same "barely out of the 90's"charm as the first three... I don't know if I'm just nostalgic about the 90's or if I liked the first few films better for their artistic merit.

Don't get me wrong, it was good.  Any fan of the FD series goes to see elaborately gruesome killings by death himself, and you certainly get that!  I just didn't like all the modernisation of it.  And really it shouldn't have been modernised!!  If you haven't seen this I'm about to spoil the hell out of it for you so maybe don't read on!!.....

The movie is actually set in the year 2000, the year of the first film's release.  There is an airplane scene and guess who's on it!  The cast of the original film!!  I enjoyed that idea, and the fact that it tied everything together and all, but walk in off the street laser eye surgery is in the film, and I might be wrong but I didn't think that was all that popular back then.  Plus the character who gets the laser eye surgery says she's been putting it off for years then gets her eyes burned out!!  LOLZ!

Drive

drive stars Ryan Gosling as the main character "driver".  He is a stunt driver and a mechanic by day, but by night he is a hired getaway driver for criminals.  Gosling's face remains pretty motionless throughout the film, this is not a criticism, it totally suits the characters personality.  Driver is humble and calm at all times.  He performs driving stunts that most other stunt drivers won't do because it is too dangerous, and he does it silently, without a flinch or a second thought. 

He meets and falls in love with his neighbour Irene played by Carey Mulligan.  She has a young son, and his father(her husband) is serving time in prison.  He is released and harassed by "previous acquaintances" who he owes money to.  Driver agrees to help him rob a pawn shop so he and his family will be safe.  However their plan goes horribly wrong and bodies start to pile up.

This is followed by rad mafia shouting wars and random knifings punctuated by Gosling and Mulligan staring at each other for uncomfortable amounts of time in silence!!  You can't ask for anything more than that can you?  Ryan Gosling's whole head in perfect unobstructed view, and Italian crooks being angry with one another.  All that and some pretty decent cars to ogle, I was glad I went to see it!

Contagion

I was watching telly and saw an ad for "Contagion" and there was a bit in it that showed Matt Damon being told that his wife had just died, and then he said "ok, well can I go talk to her?".  Naturally I found this hilarious and thought I'd go along to the cinema and have a good chuckle at him and kill some time.  I wasn't expecting much from this film because Jude Law was shown in the add with a very dodgy fake tooth thing that reminded me of Fagin from "Oliver Twist" especially when combined with his cockney/Australian/east end mush accent.

So I was watching and waiting for a good laugh that never came.  I was totally wrong.  The film actually was what it had sold itself to be.  It was about a woman, Gwyneth Paltrow who arrives home from Japan with the flu.  That's all fine and normal until she appears to have an epileptic fit in her kitchen in the arms of her husband, Matt Damon, and dies shortly thereafter.  This is spread to Paltrow's young son, but not her husband who is immune (for some reason I either can't remember, or they didn't clear it up properly!).

Hundreds of people are dying, then thousands and so on.  The film was very good at creating a sense of desperation and claustrophobia while at the same time showing quite a lot of outdoor scenes and many countries. 

There are lots of sub-plots and a wide variety of characters, each with a necessary purpose.  Jude Law plays the personification of a conspiracy fuelled force that is so self assured and arrogant that he is almost like a contagion himself.  His purpose is to make the audience question what they are watching.  I found I was questioning the validity of the film I had paid to see.  I realised afterwards that that is the mark of a great film, you get so engrossed that you begin to think of it as though it is real life for a time.  That's what I liked most about this film, it drew me in!

In my opinion, it is well worth watching, it will make you panic for days afterwards every time you hear a cough!!

My Decision!

Ok, so I've been thinking about what to blog about and I thought to myself, "you spend a lot of time watching TV and going to the cinema... and not that much else".... I pondered this for some time and thought that I was back at square one, nothing interesting happens to me, I have nothing to write about!!  Then the obvious hit me!  I'm going to give you my opinion of films I've seen recently!  Eureka!!! Has there ever been a more original idea in the history of mankind?  NO!  And so my topic is decided, film reviews!

Introduction

Hi I'm Caoi, and I am a student of Applied Psychology. We have six modules, and one of them is Information and Communication Technology (ICT). For this module we have to start a blog. So thats what I'm doing here! I have to admit I'm not that into technology or the internet (other that e-mails and the occasional funny video of cats who think they're people!) so I'm not sure how good my blog will be. I'm not even sure what I will blog about.  I am basically trying to protect you all from having any high hopes dashed, so keep those expectations nice and low ok?!