No God of War demo

Well, I guess I wasn't one of the chosen to receive the GoW demo. This sucks since I signed up just a few hours after the site went up and I've been an Underground member forever. Guess I'll have to wait for the download version. ...grumble....sucks....ass...

originally posted on 10/06/07

UPDATE:

Maybe I was a little naive when I signed up for the God of War demo. They claimed that if I signed up then I would receive a UMD demo of God of War: Chains of Olympus. If you were fooled too, or if you actually received the demo disk, then head over to PSP Fanboy and vote in their poll. Right now 97% of PSP owners who signed up did not get the disk in the mail.

I've been pretty disappointed with Sony's stance on homebrew but I still buy games and other Sony products because for the most part they make good products. For the last couple of years they have been letting their quality and customer service slide. This is probably the last straw. I can no longer support their tyrannical iron fist when it comes to the PSP or their drm/root kits.

Shame on you Sony and shame on us for believing in you.

updated on 10/16/07

UPDATE 2:

Maybe I was a little hasty with my disappointment of Sony. DCEMU Forums has a member who posted that the demos are now showing up. I investigated some other sites and can confirm that others claim to have received their demo yesterday and today. Why would Sony claim that everyone should have received their demos by now? I guess they just jumped the gun. Sony, you need to get your sh...t together.

updated on 10/18/07

UPDATE 3:

I give up it has been a month since my original post and still no demo. Sony you suck, eat ...it. I will be removing my membership in Playstation Underground.

Remember, Remember the Fifth of November

Sorry but I had to do it. V for Vendetta is one of my favorite movies. To commemorate the occasion here are some wallpapers I created after the movie came out. Hope you like them.

Targus Wireless IR Keyboard PA87OU

I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the box containing my Targus Wireless IR Keyboard PA87ou. This thing is small. As you can see it is about the same size as the PSP and only a little thicker. This is a full Qwerty keyboard minus the F1-12 keys. There are some special PDA function keys on the right hand side that won't be used with the PSP. It is amazing how Targus packed a keyboard together in such a small package and still made it very comfortable to use. The keyboard itself is smaller than my laptop keyboard but the keys are larger. That doesn't sound possible does it? Targus was able to make the letter keys larger by making the less important keys like brackets, curly brackets, caps lock, tabs, etc. smaller. Obviously this makes it very easy to type on (if you are used to typing on a laptop keyboard). I am very pleased with this purchase (only $24 plus shipping).

I have a few complaints: The cradle that holds the PSP/PDA seems a little flimsy. The "loops" that the PSP sits on are plastic and could be stronger. Also, the infrared arm that swivels up and down could get snapped off if you aren't careful. There isn't much that could be changed about the arm since this keyboard is supposed to be generic enough to be used on almost any PDA with an ir port. My last complaint is the one that really bothers me. I wish there were arrow keys. There is a silver oval on the bottom right corner of the keyboard which is the arrow keys' replacement. This oval is functional but a poor substitute for the real thing. Often I found myself moving the cursor up when I meant to go right. The oval takes up less room than four more keys, I get it, but at least make it square so that it is easier to use. Don't get me wrong this is not a deal breaker, I love this keyboard. I use the arrow keys quite a bit and I just wish they were better implemented. I would recommend it to any PSP homebrew user that wants an easier way to input text. Now I need to find a homebrew browser or app that supports the ir keyboard, for the web, because Sony's text input is a joke.

UPDATE:

I had heard about πkey (pikey) before but didn't know exactly what is was. Well it is the holy grail of ir keyboard support. Fanjita has developed a standalone and plugin which will allow you to use an ir keyboard in the xmb, games, browser, etc. Here is Fanjita's site (Noobz) and info on pikey. I will do a review of pikey once I have enough experience with it.

PSPWrite v1.0.2 (and 1.0.3)

PSPWrite is a text editor created by zx-81. This app is very well done like all of zx-81's stuff. You can create, save, and load text files with PSPWrite. Customize your documents by changing the text color, background color/image, and use tab spacing. Write also has ir keyboard support (waiting on my keyboard to get here). You do not have to have your own ir keyboard because PSPWrite has its own virtual keyboard. I will update this post when I can evaluate the ir keyboard support. If it works well then this will be a candidate for Best Homebrew.

UPDATE:

Flawless. This app works as you want it to. All of the above features work without problem and the ir keyboard support couldn't be better. I will have a separate review of the targus ir keyboard but PSPWrite and keyboard are a match made in homebrew heaven. There are some keys on the keyboard that are PDA related, so you wouldn't expect them to work, but all other keys work like a regular keyboard. I wasn't going to give this app a rave review because I thought the font was too small and was difficult to see. Well, zx-81 just released an update (PSPWrite v1.0.3) which makes my complaint less relevant. V1.0.3 now has another font size. Choose between the original or bold. The actual "size" doesn't change but it does make the text bold which helps greatly with readability. Zx-81 has also given you the ability to choose what processor speed you want: 133, 222, 266, 300, and 333. You can also adjust whether the cursor is tied to your text or can move anywhere on the screen. This is definitely going on the list of Best Homebrew.