New Apple iPod Touch 4th Generation Announced Today | Breaking News

I heard the news right away, but didn’t get around to making a blog article until now. Steve Jobs announced today the release information for the new fourth generation of the Apple iPod Touch, along with some new details about the device.

A week from today, on September 8, 2010, the iPod Touch 4th Generation will be launched, with the cheapest 8 GB model costing just $229.99. The 32 GB is retailed at $299.99, while the mega 64 GB unit will cost $399.99. What’s spectacular about this new device is the display. While Apple decided to maintain the 3.5 inch screen size used in previous iPod Touch models, they are quadrupling the amount of pixels on-screen.

This device uses a technology called Retina Display, meaning that the pixels are so small and close together that the human eye cannot distinguish them individually.

Simply showing you an image of the unit will not be enough, because the very computer monitor that you are using to view this article is probably not capable of the 326 pixels per inch (ppi) that the new generation will bestow. Unless of course, y0u are viewing this article with a 4th Generation iPod Touch, meaning that this information would qualify as un-important, old news for you.

The screen will display a resolution of 960 by 640 pixels. If you are not a tech junky, then perhaps putting this into perspective would be to say that the most common monitor resolution today is 1024 by 768 pixels, followed by 1280 by 800 pixels. In one week we will see a resolution almost as high as that found on a typical desktop computer squeezed onto a 3.5 inch screen. Viewing web pages on your iPod will not require that you zoom in to read small text; you will be limited by the accuracy of your own eyes.

The battery power of the new generation will be capable of playing audio for 40 hours. In contrast, the third generation played up to 30 hours of audio; that’s a 33 percent increase.

The RAM will be doubled to 512 MB, and the processor will clock at about 1 gigahertz.

In terms of dimensions, the fourth generation iPod Touch will have the same height as all previous models (110 mm), a shorter width than previous models (58 mm compared to 61 mm), and most important of all, it will be the slimmest iPod Touch ever, at only 7.1 mm in depth, comparing to 8.4 mm in the previous model.

On top of all that, there is also one more major change to this new model. The new iPod Touch will have a built-in HD camera capable of recording video in 720p HD quality. It will also have a second camera facing the user, which could be used for video chat with a friend, perhaps.

With all of these changes / upgrades / additions, owners of earlier iPod Touch models will easily see the need to upgrade to this new unit. I just bought my 3rd generation iPod not even two months back, and I plan on picking up the new 4G iPod Touch as soon as I can find it in stores.

Happy Anniversary, iPod Touch!

A New Milestone in Development | Fortress RPG

I knew from the very beginning that the Technology section of the game was going to be HUGE, but I had completely underestimated what was in store for me. I was overwhelmed with work. There were nearly a half dozen database tables, several PHP pages, and lots of brainstorming and paper work that I used to compile the finalized list of technologies.

As I’ve previously stated, Arena used an upgrade system where each upgrade type (attack, defense, unit production, etc) was always available, and it doubled in price with each purchase. This worked, but it caused all players to make similar choices when it came to upgrading. Fortress RPG has an entirely new upgrade system, where the components are called Technologies. Upon purchasing a technology, the cost of your next technology increases, regardless of what it is, as the cost of a technology is 100% based upon how many you own. Additionally, new technologies may or may not become available, depending upon what you chose to learn.

My fiancee and I probably spent over 100 hours working on the technologies system, and it was well worth it, as it makes Fortress stand out from most browser-based games of this sort. In addition to that, technologies are fun to learn. After purchasing a technology, it’s fun to see the new technologies that become available. I’m sure that
everyone will be more than happy with this new game mechanic.

I’m proud to announce that Fortress RPG will consist of 100 unique technologies

I will post another update, much like this one, after the next milestone in game development is met. So what’s next on my `to-do` list? First, I plan on making and completing the Buildings section of the game, along with the cron job (a PHP script) that gets executed every 30 minutes to update rankings and income stats, and whatever else needs to be done. This is tentative, so don’t be surprised if I do things in an entirely different order.

Stay tuned! If you’ve got any suggestions, now would be the perfect time to expose them.

(Not to mention that I like getting comments.)

I Promised, and I delivered. Arena 2.0

I’ve talked up so much hype about this new game, “Arena 2.0″, yet I’ve offered nothing to back it up. Talkin’ the talk, but not walkin’ the walk. Anyways, today is a special day; one in which I would like to share with my eager readers some juicy news on this game. For many, I expect that Arena 2.0 has become a myth, a no-show, and I blame myself for that.

Although this game was on hiatus for over a year, I promise to my readers that I have been hard at work on it for at least three months now. My fiance, Kristen, has also offered a large contribution to Arena 2.0 thus far, with great ideas, page design, and artwork.

The purpose of this article is not just to share the progress that we’ve made with the game so far, but also to offer some real details about it. I will include some screen shots, in addition to a surprise announcement which I will save for the end of this post.

Let’s begin with the name of the game. Arena 2.0 doesn’t actually exist. It was simply a tentative title, as I was unsure of whether or not this was going to be a replacement for the current Arena, or run alongside it. My current plans are to focus on Arena 2.0 for a long while, and let the original Arena continue to run, possibly give it a reset, finish the archives, and whatever other maintenance must be done to keep things running smoothly. New mods, perhaps?

For the remainder of this post, I will no longer be referring to the game as Arena 2.0. Instead, I would like to publicly introduce it’s new (and finalized) title, Fortress RPG, or Fortress, for short. Some of you may remember a game that I began secretly working on a few years ago which was also called Fortress, located on NFreak.net.

I never got all that deep into the programming of Fortress for NFreak.net. I got about as far as registration and login, as well as a basic template. I had a lot of ideas for the original Fortress, but since I never followed through with the project, they were never implemented.

Fortunately, the new-and-improved Fortress RPG is much like the Fortress that would have been, except much, much better. The new Fortress is wider in terms of resolution, and has been programmed with an extra two to three years of experience. In that time, I have become a PHP and MySQL connoisseur, and I don’t mean to gloat. Additionally, it is being worked on by both my fiance and I, so there are two talented individuals working on a game that’s going to make Arena look pitiful (and the Arena’s not bad to begin with).

In just a minute, I will be revealing the URL to the Official Fortress RPG game, so I’d like to first begin by sharing the bad news. Fortress RPG is currently in a Closed Beta Testing stage. What this means is that you cannot create an account without a special promotional code. As of this writing, I am the only person on Earth that has access to these codes. I cannot give an exact date as to when the game will graduate to an Open Beta Test, but I have been working almost every day, so I don’t think it will be too much of a wait.

I’m going to be very conservative when it comes to sharing the promotional codes, so don’t get your hopes up, as I really don’t want to disappoint anyone for not receiving one. The farther along the game becomes, the more promo codes I will be willing to give away.

Currently, the game is at least 40% complete. It’s always difficult to predict completion percents and release dates; personally, I am notoriously bad at it, so I don’t even bother anymore, at least not until the game is within a week of being launched. Please understand that a large portion of the game is the template, header, footer, and database. Thus, even before a game has any sort of identifiable content, it may be more than a quarter finished.

Not that Fortress RPG lacks content. Most of the help and FAQ pages have been written, along with most of the pages that don’t require the visitor to be logged in. So for someone that’s viewing the site for the first time, Fortress RPG, on a visual level, looks complete.

Upon logging into the game, however, you will see the navigation bar more than double in size, and you will be overwhelmed by the number of features that this game is going to have. Most of them haven’t been started yet, but to be honest, it doesn’t take me very long to write a PHP page to do whatever it is that I need it to do. The reason that these pages haven’t been completed yet is because I have been spending the majority of my time working on the database for the game.

For the techies, or anyone else who happens to know anything about MySQL, I currently have twelve tables created, with many more that are on my to-do list. The largest part of this project is a page that’s labeled Technologies. The Arena had an Upgrade page where the cost of an upgrade would double after each purchase, and all types of upgrades were available from the start.

Fortress RPG has an upgrade system that’s entirely different, which allows each player to shape their army any way they like. Rather than upgrades, technologies will take there place. These technologies are in a tree format, so that in order to get “Technology B”, you must first learn “Technology A”.

There’s a HUGE amount of technologies that fill this tree, so the game would have to run for quite some time before someone unlocked all technologies. I have all intentions of fully supporting this game on a daily basis, and adding new content between each age.

Fortress RPG Control Panel

Since the majority of you will not be receiving promo codes to register to the game, I will provide a screen shot of what the Control Panel looks like so you get an idea of what to expect. It’s better than nothing, right? Trust me, Fortress RPG is no hoax; expect it to be your home page as soon as it’s released, because I guarantee that after five minutes of playing you will not want to stop.

Oh, and I almost forgot to provide you with the link to the game, which wouldn’t have been too difficult to figure out given the pattern that I’ve used for over five years for naming and linking applications. At long last…

Fortress RPG

Google’s Next PageRank Update in July 2010?

Before you get your hopes up, this is not a confirmation that Google’s PageRank update is underway. On the contrary, I am actually interested in finding out myself when Google will be executing their magical PR update.

I remember learning in the past that Google updates PageRank three or four times per year, and it being the beginning of July, I would expect them to be doing another PR update soon. We are halfway through 2010, after all.

If anyone knows any information about the next time Google will be rolling a PR update, then please comment below, as I am highly looking forward to finding out my latest PageRank status for dozens of pages across all of my websites.

It would be really nice to finally achieve a PR3 for the home page of this domain name, but I would also be more than happy to see some of my sub-pages receive a PR1.

As things currently stand, only the home page of this site has a PageRank greater than zero, which is depressing, to say the least. I do, however, have many pages at PR0, while at the same time boasting a much higher load of pages with a PR N/A, which is also disappointing.

I’ve done a lot of work on this blog since Google’s latest update, adding a ton of new content. In addition to that, I’ve also added quite the abundance of source code enhancements to help Googlebot find the information it needs to appropriately rank me on the search engine results pages.

I’ll be sure to update this entry with any news that surfaces in the coming weeks. Hopefully Google won’t keep us eager web developers waiting too much longer.

Eminem’s New Album “Recovery” | Full Track List

After spending it’s first week on store shelves, Eminem’s new album, Recovery, sold an astounding 750,000 copies. Being a big fan of the rapper myself, I picked up the album on day one, and was all but disappointed.

Every one of the tracks on Em’s latest album is fantastic. Although Relapse was released only one year ago, Eminem’s style has drastically changed between then and now. Recovery takes an entirely new direction. It seems as though Relapse was mostly written during Eminem’s struggle with drug addiction, and Recovery was written during sobriety.

Recovery features many special artists such as Lil Wayne, Pink, Kobe, Slaughterhouse, and Rihanna. I never expected Rihanna to do a song with Eminem, but it turned out to be one of my favorites, and actually a song that I’ve heard on the radio many times. Below is the extended track list for the deluxe version of the album as listed on iTunes. The track titled Not Afraid (track seven) is Em’s latest single, and it also features a music video which can easily be found on YouTube if you’re interested in checking it out.

1. Cold Wind Blows
2. Talkin’ 2 Myself (feat. Kobe)
3. On Fire
4. Won’t Back Down (feat. Pink)
5. W.T.P.
6. Going Through Changes
7. Not Afraid
8. Seduction
9. No Love (feat. Lil Wayne)
10. Space Bound
11. Cinderella Man
12. 25 to Life
13. So Bad
14. Almost Famous
15. Love the Way You Lie (feat. Rihanna)
16. You’re Never Over
17. Untitled
18. Ridaz
19. Session One (feat. Slaughterhouse)