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Jumping URL iPhone App Review

What I will say about this app, however, is that it is absolutely awesome. Often, while surfing the ‘net, I run out of time to take a look at everything before heading out to school, or going out for dinner, etc. Using Jumping URL, I can simply beam over a few websites and check them out on-the-go. It also works in the opposite direction, which I find very handy. With this app, I can simply copy the address of a website I’d like to look at, paste it into the application (by tapping (P)) and use it as a sort of cross-platform bookmarking system. When I get home, I can whip open the application, tap “Beam” on one of the websites and go to http://www.jumpingurl.com/ (or use the fetch feature included in the Firefox extension) on my computer, instantly getting redirected to the site I’m beaming from my iPhone.

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Overall, this application could easily surpass a perfect 10 rating. It is extremely handy and came out of nowhere. Despite the developer’s original intention for it to be used with YouTube videos, this can come in handy when you come across an interesting article that you don’t have time to read, or would like to view later on your iPhone, for example. On the other side, it can also be useful for those times that you get linked to a flash-based website while you are on your iPhone, in which case you just copy the URL into the application and beam it over when you have access to a flash-enabled computer.

via Jumping URL iPhone App Review – POST1604.

I was one of the lucky few to receive a promocode from Matt (because I’m a cheapskate, lulz), and what can I say, Jumping URL just blows me away.

It’s that awesome – pushing or beaming URLs to and from your iPhone to your Mac or PC. The way it does it is so completely simple, so completely awesome, and like Matt said in his full review (hit up the link), seemingly came out of nowhere.

It’s one of those apps that make you stop and think – “hey, why didn’t I think of that?”, and yet it’s almost flawless in execution and damn, IT JUST WORKS, and brilliantly at that!

This is definitely an app I’ll be showing all my friends. I really can’t get over how easy and simple it is. I know I sound like a raving fanboy here, but it’s just so incredible.

As always, I do have one suggestion – with push notifications, this app would be *perfect*. Imagine it now – push a URL from Firefox on your Mac, you get a notification on your iPhone, and you slide to open the URL in Mobile Safari – that would be très awesome, no?

For $1.19, it’s a steal. You’d be nuts not to grab this on the App Store.

Seriously – it’s that good.

Why we quit: the moments that push us away from gaming – Ars Technica

Last night I was up at 4 am in my recliner, holding my baby while he slept after a feeding. I was playing Mass Effect, going through the game to get ready for the upcoming sequel. I had been playing for around two hours, and I was into the story, more than awake, and ready to go for another two. Then… death. A few bad decisions in a gun fight, and that was that for our Commander Shepard.

via Why we quit: the moments that push us away from gaming – Ars Technica.

I may not feel like it now that I’ve finished it, but I certinaly felt this with a tactical shooter by the name of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2, or GRAW2 for short.

It wasn’t that the gameplay wasn’t good, because it certainly was excellent – nuking some poor troops with an artillery strike, or even a tank with an airstrike was satisfying beyond imagination, but there are certain places where it fell down, and enemy AI was one of them.

The thing about enemies in GRAW2 – they’re persistent, and annoyingly so. Once they’ve spotted you, they’ll continue to shoot at you regardless of whether you’re taking cover or not – they’ll also do this until they have to reload (at which point you can pop out and shoot them).

That’s not so bad, but what I found myself doing was constantly memorising the enemy positions and taking them out with a rifle before they even spotted me or my teammates. This made each mission feel like just a chore. It’s especially annoying to have taken down every guy bar one, who just so happens to pop out when you have your back turned and shoot you, repeatedly.

…and that’s just the enemy AI. Your own teammate AI is just as stupid, not bothering to take cover, getting stuck behind objects a two year old could climb over, and sometimes moving into the most idiotic positions possible, like directly in the enemy’s sights.

Then there’s the little things, like not being able to jump or climb over things. It’s strictly about the footwork here, and sometimes that’s annoying as hell.

Sure, I managed to pick up mostly “S” (excellent) or “A” (very good) rankings for each mission, but that’s not the point – games are meant to be *fun*, and not made of this “memorising where every single enemy in a level is” crap.

Let’s hope Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is more of the same action and awesomeness that the original Vegas was.