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Gaming in West Africa: Only 7 years behind
To cut a long story short and to create a forced feeling of mystery and intrigue, I'll simply point out that, on my way back home from E3 last week, I was stranded for 24 hours in Senegal, a quaint little country situated in Western Africa. And by "quaint little country", I really mean a place that technology actively flees from in blind terror. When my laptop attempted to find an active Wi-Fi hotspot, canned laughter could be heard emanating from somewhere in the universe. And so, with Guitar Hero controller strapped to my back (simultaneously a piece of carry-on luggage and a bold image), I began to explore the vast and largely undeveloped wasteland that was the country's...airport building. Leave it to a gaming nerd to find a store selling games in such an obscure place. Judging by the veritable cornucopia of new releases lining the shelves, the country's gaming scene is sure to take off. Some of the games burning up the Senegalese sales charts include: Fifa '99 (don't worry, it plays the same as this year's version) Shadow Warrior Star Wars: Behind the Magic (which isn't even a game) Pong I would have taken the time to pre-order a Sega Saturn at the counter, but the French language barrier proved to be insurmountable. I'll be better prepared next time I get stranded here.
Pod CityGuides
If you love to travel and you love your iPod, Pod City Guides are just the thing for you. Using the Notes feature of your iPod the Pod CityGuide gathers together information about attractions, lodging, and restaurants about 300 cities world wide.Perfect for the iPod toting globetrotter and they are free to boot.[via LifeHacker]
Breakfast Topic: Home is where your hearthstone is
Travelling in WoW can be helped or hindered by the casual application of a hearthstone. Hearthing can be a quick way to get out of an instance or cave, a shortcut across continents or even a handy thing to do before logging off.Sometimes, though, it's annoying rather than useful. I've acted hastily and hearthed from Un'Goro Crater to Stormwind a couple of times -- the repeat journey isn't something to be casually undertaken. Fortunately, several classes -- as well as engineers -- have tricks to help with travel, from the Shaman's Astral Recall to the Druid's Teleport: Moonglade.Where is your hearthstone set? Have you found an efficient way of getting around that relies on these travel tricks to work? My druid is parked in Stormwind, as Moonglade gives her access to Kalimdor, although the flight from Moonglade to Gadgetzan or Silithus is still a long one. On some of my lower characters, I've forgotten to set the hearthstone at all -- I managed to run a level 10 dwarf to Darkshore, but left the hearthstone near Anvilmar. Oops!
DS translator terrific for traversing Thailand
A pair of Nintendo commercials illustrates just how useful their new "traveler's notebook" translation software is when it comes to communicating to the people of a strange and foreign country. After a few taps on the touch screen, the DS displays a translated version of whatever message the young lady is trying to convey and is promptly shoved into the face of some hapless local. If that doesn't work, it can also read the sentence to you in a non-threatening electronic voice. Allowing one to haggle a hat-seller or carefully avoid ordering food that might explode halfway down your throat are just more examples of how the DS is spreading its tendrils into the realms of non-gaming. [Thanks yoorin!]
National Geographic: Tips for iPod-toting travelers
The National Geographic website has posted nine great tips for travelers with iPods. Some of their tips are pretty obvious, like creating playlists and purchasing audio books that reflect your destination. Others are more clever, like downloading audio travel guides from the likes of iJourneys.com, and podcasting your adventure by making on-the-spot audio recordings of those exotic locales (provided you don't have a 5G iPod). Finally, they suggest tossing paper maps for digital versions you can get from places like ipodsubwaymaps.com and PodQuest. Sounds great...so where are we going?[Via Micro Persuasion]
Kensington brings that portable keyboard feel to your desktop
I need to come clean: I thoroughly enjoy working on my PowerBook far more than my iMac G5. Why? Other than the obvious portability factor: it's the keyboard. Aside from an ergonomic (where'd those go, anyway?), the PowerBook's keyboard is about the best darn keyboard I've ever laid hands on. Every standard desktop keyboard just feels big and clunky, and the keys have a lot more travel to them. I can type much faster on my PowerBook's keyboard, and nowadays it's gotten so bad that I stumble and trip up on regular desktop keyboards. When you blog for a company like Weblogs, Inc. who revokes one day's lunch privileges for every typo they find, this can become a serious problem (just kidding about the lunch thing, but let's just say I'm missing a toe or two).If you're nodding your head in agreement to any of my keyboard obsessiveness, I think Kensington has a good solution for all of us. I found their SlimType Keyboard for Mac at a CompUSA last weekend, and wow did it feel like my PowerBook. Its layout is slightly different from both a PowerBook and standard Apple desktop keyboard, as the Home/End and Page Up/Down keys are lined vertically on the right of the Delete/Return side of the keyboard, but its keys have the same low rate of travel and a very similar, solid feel. I haven't grabbed one yet, but they retail for $40, and some of the online retailers that Kensington's product site link are selling it for as low as $30.If you pick one up or already own one, feel free to sound off with your thoughts.
Nokia's 3250 WESC Limited Edition Travel Kit drops
Now's the moment you've been waiting for: that Nokia 3250 WESC Limited Edition Travel Kit's now officially available, people. As usual, your limited edition handset won't be featuring anything out of the ordeinary except a retooled paint job, but if you've been thinking of taking the plunge with a Nokia 3250, and as a side note wanted your handset to be one of 500 pieces, and come packaged with travel info on an MMC card, Sennheiser PX 100 phones, an inline remote, Stereo Skateboards wheel, an eyemask, WESC travel guide, passport holder, cellphone strap, pins, and, um, balloon (for trafficing drugs, perhaps?), then this is your phone.[Thanks, Jack]
mycitymate: European City Notes for iPod
Here's a neat little tidbit for you iPod users out there who may be travelling to Europe in the near future. On mycitymate.com you can download a guide for select destinations including Berlin, London, Rome, and more.I downloaded and copied the Berlin guide (free with registration) to my iPod nano. The guide is well formatted and each subsection is organized by neighborhood or category. They're not exhaustive guides, but for a free (with registration) collection, the mycitymate guides are a great find. I especially liked the handy "Nearest Metro/Tube" note at the bottom of each entry. Snazzy![via iLounge]
My first Macworld, Pre-show and Keynote
Having never been to a Macworld before, let alone San Francisco, I thought I'd let those of you who have never been here in on some first impressions. First off, San Francisco is quite an amazing town. The people have been fantastic, the food, the architecture, and so on. But this isn't a travel blog, it's a Mac blog. So let me tell you about this Macworld thing, seen through the eyes of a total MWSF n00b. And I want to thank everyone for sending in those comments and suggestions on things to do in the City (see, I got it). At least I never called it "frisco."My father, brother, and I travelled to San Francisco with one goal in mind: see the rock show that is the keynote. In fact, we are leaving today because my brother has to get back to his college classes before he gets in trouble. Since when did education mean not broadening your horizons? Oh well. Yes, we paid nearly $200 a person just to be at the real Macworld for a day. We're crazy like that. Luckily, since we got up at 4 a.m. and stood in line for a couple of hours, we did. But I'll talk about that in a moment.
Widget watch: Nascar news
Having grown up with Pocono Downs in my backyard, I keep a special place in my heart for auto racing (I still have the picture of me at 7 standing next to Mario Andretti's car). So I was happy to find Nascar News by Travel Widgets. Nascar News displays the RSS feeds of several racing news outlets, including Fox Sports, Nextel Cup, Busch Series and Truck Series. Click any news item to read more detail in your browser. Incidentally, Travel Widgets makes some other interesting widgets, including a few webcam viewers, like the Oregon coast and Washington coast, several lighthouse cams (the closest one to my house I could find was Nantucket harbor), a hurricane tracker and NOAA weather radio. Check them out.
