UK Government plans to ditch Microsoft Office in favor open-source

Hmm, I don't know if this is gonna be a controversial move or perhaps a good move. A good move in ditching Microsoft Office service is that your documents are safe from being spied. A controversial move in ditching this is that the spying process may be somewhat spread to open-source solutions that the Europeans may somewhat need to keep a lookout for. Now, it seems that the UK Government is planning to ditch Microsoft Office perhaps to save costs but despite that, many of the private companies in the UK are still using Microsoft Office. Sure, the open-source software similar to Microsoft Office is somewhat inferior but at least, the open-source office suite software is something you should have used nowadays instead.
Last year, Neowin apparently reported on the IT consultancy that claimed that many of the clients are were ditching Google Docs service in favor of Office 365. Maybe the new cloud technology from Microsoft is interesting enough to use and especially for the Office Web Apps which are incomplete compared to the clients' counterpart but at least, they look kind of similar and have more features like always. So, bravos to those clients for ditching Google Docs in favor of Office 365, not because Google is kind of an evil betrayal to the users nowadays.
OK, it seems that I still have Office 2010 in my computer in addition to the open-source office solutions and especially when I had recently switched to Springpad for note-taking after thinking that even Evernote was the next victim of the spying agencies. Maybe next time, I'll transfer the notes from my OneNote and Evernote accounts to Springpad.
And of course, for future personal works, the graphics will be done with Inkscape but that can be time consuming and not all graphics are going to be done with that.

Magical Beat for PS Vita obtained

Originally in the arcades two years ago, the Playstation Vita release took place this year and after some time the Japanese version was released for the console, there's even the Asian release on Asian PSN in which I was finally able to play it and get the Nesica X Live like arcade experience.
Unfortunately, it looks like there isn't the online play feature for this version and instead, we get the ad-hoc feature in which it will disconnect the console from the network and perform ad-hoc connection. What a shame. I can assume that the arcade version has local network battle but then the game isn't that popular by then.
Firstly, the idea of putting Vocaloid music in a video game is a good thing but too bad it is done in the wrong way that the music sounds freaking repetitive compared to the rhythm games containing Vocaloid music I had ever played in the arcades such as Sound Voltex, Maimai, Project Diva, Groove Coaster, etc. The workaround is the alternative to this repetitiveness by putting in the music from other Arc System Works games such as Gulity Gear, Blazblue and so on. They sound even better and they are the better reasons to play this game.
Secondly, is the controls. Pressing down does nothing so you may have to use one of the buttons for instant drop. Also, there's another technique where you can scatter the pieces of the dropping block and placing them in specific location. I don't know how to do that and besides, I don't know how many buttons are there for the arcade version, is it 3 or 4? If it uses 4, things may have made more sense as if the forth button does something else to the dropping block.
Gameplay is something like Lumines but the way you merge the blocks is the use of Puyo Puyo method which means merging the blocks in any shape where-else in Lumines, you form a large rectangular shaped block by forming 2x2 of the same color. There can be 2x3 or 3x2 if you will for example but the minimum area you must form is 2x2. Just like Lumines, the merged blocks don't go off immediately once they are merged but unlike Lumines, you must time correctly when dropping the blocks instantly as the game is both the puzzle and rhythm game. Be on the lookout for nuisance blocks as well and the way you eliminate them is similar to the ones in Puyo Puyo series.

LNY with IT Electronics at SIngapore Expo

Sure were tons of smart TVs taking place at this year's IT shows at Singapore Expo. It seems that LG, Samsung are not the only ones with their smart TVs. There are other smart TVs powered by Android in which you can use the remote control, the wireless USB devices by Ranger for interactivity or perhaps the standard computer accessories. Other than those IT electronics, there were non-IT stuffs as part of the show as well.
Another cool thing is the fact that the Lunar New Year is coming so some kind of special promotions were shown.
After the visit, there are even more smart TVs available for sale at the shopping complexes with the similar technologies. Also, what had shocked me was that there were even Ultra HD TVs for sale as well. Those TVs look gigantic and they are extremely expensive as hell. The least expensive one I saw cost about $5000+ with the maximum price being about $10000+!

Starblade PS1 version obtained

Man, what happened to the 32-bit versions? Why is the arcade version better to play? Well, let's see the flaws.

1. Additional bullshit coming out of nowhere: While additional voice clips are added which make it a nice move, what the hell is up with those sound effects coming out of nowhere? How could they take the clip from some superplay video from the Starblade laserdisc and then put it in the game? Can't they put in those voice clips without putting anything else?
2. Boss Self-Destruction: You can't believe that Namco has turned this arcade game into an FMV game for the 32-bit version probably due to the fact that the entire graphics are put into the video. It's fine to make things choppy but you know what's really wrong with this move? During boss battles, there's no way to take short time or longer time to destroy the bosses such as the power source of the Octopus weapon and Iceberg Control Center as well as the enemy flagship commander. Instead, they're parts of the FMV and the time for boss destruction comes in after how exactly long the time for boss battles takes.
3. Firing input is awful: You're better off playing this in the arcades, PS2 as part of Tekken 5 or the Wii. Even if you turn on the rapid fire cheat, it doesn't help out in destroying as many enemies as you want for survival. There may be a workaround in using the mouse or Playstation flight stick for better movements but it cannot be same for immediate input response in firing at the enemies.
4. Awful collision between your lasers and enemies: This flaw and the previous one when combined will take up beyond a few credits you're given. It's kind of difficult to destroy the enemies that take up several hits, the enemies you want to reach, the enemies that are parts of the environments and the amount of projectiles that are thrown at you.

There's the Mega CD version of the game which is better than the 32-bit versions and the past version you could buy instead although it still uses FMV sequences but in a better way. Other than those, you're better off playing this on the PS2, Wii, the arcades and mobile via a discontinued compilation app. From what I saw from the Wii version, you can use the Wii remote as moving the flight stick.

Samsung's product for Mobile World Congress turns out to be their handsets with Tizen OS

The MeeGo OS was somewhat underrated for the Nokia phones but then, it seems that the Nokia cellphones were quite popular until things seem to have changed the smartphone market as we know today. Popular ones are the IOS and Android smartphones and now, it seems that Samsung is likely to change the OS for their future smartphones with Tizen OS. What is Tizen OS? Well, it's another Linux based smartphone OS after the Meego OS. So, they are planning to show their Tizen related products at the Mobile World Congress event in February 23rd.
Unfortunately, there was a setback last week when NTT DoCoMo shelved their plans to release the Tizen related products. The main problem is that the other operating systems than IOS and Android are pretty much underrated that nobody may have interests in them. Sure, there may be popular Linux OSes like Ubuntu for instance but it cannot be the same for the others. Like why would people waste their time in creating their own Linux based OSes? Isn't that looking like there's way too many of those OSes? The previous underrated OS for Samsung was Bada OS for their handsets that they're now using the Tizen OS. It may look different for sure as we know.
Your best bet will be to install Cyangenmod on your Android devices for better privacy and security as this Android OS alternative is popular and you could have used that on your existing Samsung devices if compatible instead of this disaster of underrated-ness Samsung's planning this year.

SteamOS Beta Update

Now, this update brings some good opportunity to download the beta version of SteamOS as it has the dual-boot feature as well as custom partitions in expert install mode. In case you need some sort of system recovery, there's also an opportunity for you to burn the software to the DVD for that. However, since this is the beta version, expect a bunch of bugs to pop in and especially when you're using the prototype versions of other OSes like I had already used before. Sure, the users may be a little bit annoyed when those happen but then, this is the prototype version and hopefully, more things can be functional in the final version.
Final version? We don't know when but we assume that it should be released sometime this year and we know that Dell's Alienware is releasing their Steam Machines in September.

Microsoft is not pleased with the NSA reforms

What the hell happened to US nowadays? The speech for the reform was somewhat not enough like it was a failure according to the score by EFF. Sure, we have been forced to use the US related technologies that our information has been collected illegally but nowadays, we should try to find the NON-US technologies and use them in the first place.
So far as of today of this blog post, I'm already having Ubuntu OS in my computer in GNOME mode, Firefox, my Sina email account, my Nico Nico Douga account, etc. It's a shame that I don't post so much videos to NND but then, my videos are already too inferior to that service like people won't seem to be interested in comparison to showing stuffs off on YouTube which is kind of fucked up nowadays all because of Google.