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Remember the times of the immensely popular Puzzle Bubble? I recall spending a large part of my pocket money heading down to the arcade and playing Puzzle Bubble, trying to best the score of the previous player. The whole point is to burst all the bubbles by detonating them with three of the same colour before you run out of time. I recently stumbled upon Zuma Deluxe, a game based on the same principle, but more developed but equally addictive.

Zuma Deluxe is an action puzzle game designed by PopCap Games, the studio that brought us BeJeweled. The interface of Zuma is similar to that of Puzzle Bubble. You take control of a ball-spitting frog with your mouse and the objective is to shoot the coloured balls at the rows of balls that will be rotating around you. The line of balls will edge slowly towards an abyss; you will lose the game when the first ball in the line reaches the hole and drops in. Thus the player will have to detonate like-coloured balls in the snaking line by shooting balls of the same colour to them. Three of more same-coloured balls will explode, shortening the line.

There are various power-ups that add some depth to the game. ‘Backwards ball’ causes the line to reverse direction and move backwards for a temporary period of time, hence the name. ‘Accuracy ball’ allows the frog to emit a beam of light from its mouth to allow easier aiming of balls. There are also special explosive balls which detonate on a more massive scale and other bonuses.

This game is easy to understand, easy to play and extremely difficult to stop. The first time I started playing Zuma, I sat there glued to the screen for two whole hours. Stages become progressively harder and levels become more complicated. Also the innumerable levels will keep the average gamer occupied for a significant amount of time. However, since the game mechanics, although impressive compared to other puzzle games, are exactly the same throughout all levels, the gameplay might become monotonous and boring to gamers who crave more excitement.

Zuma Deluxe has given me countless hours of fun and even more hours of hair-yanking frustration and is one of my favourite puzzle games on PC. For a US$20 price tag (you can get it for less than $10 from Amazon), this game is definitely worth the buy.

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Western Digital Raptors have been widely accepted as one of the fastest standard-grade computer desktop hard drives produced. It is the choice of hard drives for innumerable computer enthusiasts as it offers reliable and fast performance and I feel that this range of drives should not just be confined to the realms of enthusiasts. With the remarkable performance boost that it can deliver, I believe that it would be widely accepted by the masses.

To the uninitiated, the Raptors have an average spindle speed of 10,000 (revolutions per minute). This is considerably faster than average drives from Seagate or Samsung (for example) which spin at an average of 7,200rpm. What this means, in simple terms, is that these drives are fast. These drives have above average seek and access times (at 4.6ms), which effectively abolishes problems of lag on slower drives. If you are facing the problem of slow loading times in Windows, or taking forever to open folders, a Raptor would be your panacea.

In the enthusiast/DIY arena, Raptors are often used in pairs, linked with each other in a RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) array. In a RAID array, two drives are used in conjunction with each other to perform various tasks. For example, a RAID-0 array links the two drives together, combining their capacities and producing one extremely fast hard drive. A RAID-1 array combines two disks into one, forming a drive with only the capacity of one disk. However, data is mirrored on both disks, which means that even if one disk fails, no data is lost. Installing two Raptors on a RAID-0 is a very popular path that enthusiasts choose. Raptors are already incredibly fast on their own, but leaving them in RAID-0 makes them even faster. As you would have realized by this point, Western Digital Raptors are all about speed.

Of course, the obvious benefits would come at a price. In the case of the Raptor, it comes with various downsides. There are only 3 kinds of Raptor capacities - 36GB, 74GB and 150GB (a 300GB will be launched soon, but will not be covered as it will not be classified under the same category as these Raptors). For storage demands now, 36GB and 74GB drives are abhorrently minute, even 150GB is considered small. However, most users would argue that Raptors are built for speed, not storage, as most would have a second hard drive for storage of data and use the Raptor specifically for programs and the operating system.

Furthermore, the Raptors are pricey - a 36GB Raptor’s price is equivalent to that of a 500GB Samsung drive. The cost per gigabyte ratio is horrendously high and some might not feel that this justifies the performance boost. This is especially so when other competitors are constantly improving their drives. While none have been able to match up to a consumer-grade drive of 10,000rpm, modern hard disk drives now are still plenty fast and with a huge storage capacity to boot.

Another minor qualm with regards to the Western Digital Raptor is that it is one noisy drive. Due to its blistering spindle speed, it emits a high-pitched whine every time it seeks out data. Though nothing substantial, it is still an annoyance. Despite this fact, I would still highly recommend this to the average consumers. I never regretted the performance increase, since I do admit that I am an impatient person. I never liked waiting too long for my computer to boot up, and the Raptor has alleviated much of this concern. I believe that the performance increase does make up for the shortcomings and this is indeed a recommended buy. Just remember, do your de-fragmentation of your drives in the day - you would not want to be kept awake by its perpetual whine.

Click here to buy a Western Digital Raptor 150GB 3.5″ SATA 1.5Gb/s Hard Drive
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The Nokia N82 is the much anticipated successor of the highly successful N73. On my first glance, the N82 looked like an oversized, cumbersome piece of shiny candy-bar (I still do think that it is) and without any doubt, the N82 is the most blocky and angular phone in Nokia’s N-series. Despite the awkward and bulky appearance, this phone is the phone that I’d recommend to my friends as its rich features more than make up for its ungainly looks.

The N82 features an elongated screen with rows of narrow, rectangular buttons below the screen. It looks cumbersome compared to the sleeker phones from the N-series as well as Samsung’s stylish sliders and Sony-Ericsson’s sleek and masculine shapes. However, the interface is user-friendly, as is the case with all Nokia sets. The buttons may seem intimidating to text on but they are actually sufficiently spaced out and protrudes from the keypad enough to make typing text messages a breeze. This is definitely an improvement over similarly-designed keys on Sony-Ericsson phones. The all-silver casing is sleek and the weight of the phone is distributed evenly, preventing the problem of it slipping out of your grip.

The most impressive feature has got to be the 5-megapixel camera with auto focus ability and Carl Zeiss optics. The 5-megapixel camera will guarantee focused and excellent photograph quality - edges are sharp and colours are accurate. This camera is similar to that on the more pricey N95 8GB. The camera is further equipped with a Xenon flash, which cements the position of the N82 camera as one of the best ones in the market. Taking pictures in the dark will not pose a problem for this powerful flash mechanism. Also, the video recorder is impressive, recording at a rate of 30 frames per second.

The other significant multimedia function is the music player. The media player can be easily accessed by depressing the multimedia key. Its functioning is simple enough, adding files into the playlist from your library. The N82 package includes a 2GB memory card which will ensure that there is plenty of space to store MP3s for either listening pleasure or for binding MP3 tunes to caller groups.

The Nokia N82 supports the Symbian operating system. The N82 synchronizes easily with your computer through Nokia’s PC Suite software - syncing your Outlook email contacts, notes, picture and video files can be done without hassle. If you switched to the N82 from a phone that uses a similar OS, data can be relocated over to the N82 through the onboard Switch application. With the N82, it is possible to read Microsoft Office documents like Word and Excel; however the shortfall of the N82 is that it lacks the necessary software to write and create these kinds of Office documents.

Connectivity and reception-wise, the N82 is formidable. Call quality is clear and crisp with excellent reception. I have found that the N82 could obtain better reception than earlier N-series phones under the same telcos (my friend’s N80 could not find any reception to make calls in my estate’s underground basement). Web-browsing is also a big plus on the N82. The web-browser allows for full-page rendering of HTML websites instead of the scaled down versions we have seen in previous generation phones. The N82 also has a GPS service and the standard Bluetooth 2.0 capability.

One qualm that most might have is the bulk of the N82. Weighing at 114 grams, it is not considerably heavy but its elongated form and slightly large width might pose a problem as it would not fit into tight pockets. Also, the buttons are a wee bit tiny. Although it is not difficult to press, however, users with large finger size will still meet with some challenge. Accidentally hitting two keys at once will be a frequent occurrence. The only negatives that I can find for the N82 are basically its layout and appearance. This speaks volumes about the depth and quality of the functions that it offers.

All in all, the Nokia N82 is a function-laden and powerful-looking phone equipped with a high-end Carl Zeiss-enhanced 5-megapixel camera. No matter what you use this phone for, be it office work or just as a fun phone, the N82 would not disappoint. This is, no doubt, a worthy successor to the best-selling N73.

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While this movie might be old, it is in fact a remake of an even older film of the same title which was released back in 1960. However, the fact that it’s a few decades old didn’t prevent director Steven Soderbergh from assembling a stellar cast to play Ocean’s Eleven men this time around. In fact, he’s done a great job with this remake of the movie in my opinion.

While it is indeed a remake, the script has been completely rewritten, but it shares the same premise as the original movie: 11 men plan a highly elaborate attempt to steal large amounts of money. In the original film, the team stole from five casinos at the same time. However, in this film, Danny Ocean (George Clooney) begins his hunt for a specialised team of men to pull of a heist. This once again differs from the original films where the members of the team were all amateurs instead of the professional thieves involved in this film. They plan to rob an underground, high-tech vault which is shared by three casinos, all of which are owned by one Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia). It is soon revealed that Danny Ocean has an added incentive to rob Benedict of his money: his lover is actually Danny’s ex wife, Tess (Julia Roberts). From then on, the 11 men then begin planning their highly elaborate heist of around 160 million dollars.

I won’t spoil any more of the plot for you here, especially not the actual plan of their heist. Partly because you really should watch the movie and experience first hand how director Steven Soderbergh decided to reveal the plan bit by bit to the audience; but also partially because I would have no idea how to properly explain the entire heist. The plan itself is so deep and complicated, yet it all fits together just nicely like the cogs of a wheel, because everything just makes sense. By that I mean you could almost imagine 11 similar men pulling off such a heist with exactly the same plan in real life. Midway through the film you’ll begin to wonder what in the world is happening since the movie doesn’t exactly reveal the entire plan to you before they actually attempt the heist, you only get to see bits and pieces of what they put together to prepare for the heist itself, never really knowing what they have planned behind the scenes. Even after they successfully carry the money out of the casino, you’re still scratching your head and wondering how in the world they managed to do it, you might even get frustrated at the movie’s lack of logic at that point in time. However, the movie then begins to show you scenes from the planning stages of their heist, as well as a few more scenes set in the present, that help to explain the entire operation. By the end of those flashback scenes, you’re left applauding the brilliant writers that thought of such an elaborate scheme.

Of course, the wonderfully intricate plot is backed up by a great cast as well. All eleven members of the ensemble cast do a great job of acting out their various roles, especially ShaoBo Qin who plays the part of the Grease Man, Yen (who, while not given many lines, undoubtedly drew quite a bit of laughter from the audience). Brad Pitt and George Clooney perfectly play the roles of mysterious pros who know everything while Matt Damon plays his part as the newbie who is desperately trying to learn the ropes from the others. I don’t have much to say about the acting in this film, since there’s really nothing much to comment or complain about it, everything’s top notch.

All in all, Ocean’s Eleven (2001) has got to be the best film of its genre that I’ve seen thus far, and in those seven years since its release, no other film has come close to this standard in my opinion. This is definitely a must see for almost anyone, though the plot might take awhile to digest and understand. However when you finally realise how elaborate the entire plot of the movie is, you’ll really begin to appreciate it. I promise watching this film won’t be a waste of your time.

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Over the past few years, Bittorrent has gained much popularity among internet users. It is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol and many choose to use Bittorrent to download their software, be it programming software or music files. The main advantage of the Bittorrent protocol is that it distributes the load off the original host of the file, allowing recipients to transfer smaller portions of the file to newer recipients. This protocol requires the download of a ‘torrent’, which is then to be opened in a compatible ‘client’ program. As a result, many Bittorent client programs have emerged, riding on the wave of the Bittorent phenomenon. BitComet, Azureus and Bittorent Client are all names synonymous with peer-to-peer sharing. However, one client that has caught my eye is a late entrant into the Bittorent scene - µTorrent.

µTorrent (also microTorrent or uTorrent) is free software available for download straight off the internet. It is a Bittorent client program which is localized for numerous languages. The main distinction between µTorrent and other popular clients like Azureus is that it functions while making use of minimal computer resources. This means that even when running µTorrent to download files, your machine is not slowed significantly by the processes and you are still free to do other things while you download.

µTorrent also supports older versions of Windows, unlike other larger client programs. µTorrent’s features are also reputed to work with Linux and most Mac operating systems. This opens up a new dimension for µTorrent, appealing to audiences previously neglected. The tech-savvy would glad to know that µTorrent uses as little as 14MB of RAM under Windows 95 on an average processor.

Personally, I have been using Azureus client, before making the transition to µTorrent recently. It was simply a very refreshing and welcome change for me. Azureus is indeed feature-packed - it supports majority of all Bittorrent functions and has many useful features. However, I ended up only making use of the search and downloading functions. In retrospect, all the other add-ons were largely unnecessary, making it a very cumbersome program. µTorrent took a moment to fully initialize and load, already a huge change from Azureus’s slow loading. It is straightforward, displaying your downloads and uploads onscreen. The interface is idiot-proof and user-friendly. Basically, just add a torrent and let it download.

I found out that I managed to achieve much faster download speeds on µTorrent compared to Azureus, but I am not sure if this is related to the client, since download speed hinges directly more on the torrent than the client. All in all, a simple and hassle-free client that serves its functions effectively and efficiently. µTorrent gets my vote.

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