A Random Life In Review: Movies

Colombiana

Staring:

Zoe Saldana

Jordi Mollà

Lennie James

Trailer 

Whats it About: 

Well with the name as it is, it’s not hard to know drugs are going to be featured at some point in the movie, and you would be correct. A small girl, daughter to a drug lord has to run for her life when his top’ed off after a small disagreement with one of his business partners.

Later, once she’s escaped to America, and trained to be a lean, mean killing machine by her uncle she set’s out to kill her furthers killers. There is a love interest, which although I thought it was trying to play a bigger part of the movie it was a side line.

The Fed’s also play a side line to the main story, by allowing Columbia into the USA there given names and details of different drug lords, but rather than taken them out they put pressure on them to work for the Fed’s, this kinda back fires for them when Columbia finds out, well lets just say she’s not best pleased with them.

Is it Any Good:

This is an action film with a female lead, and I’ve got nothing but respect for female leads, there have been loads of great action films with female leads – Ripley in Aliens, Sarah in Terminator, just to name a couple. Alas this is not one of those, the action scenes are all a little predictable and there is nothing new here.

One scene, you get to see this really obnoxious bad guy, beside a pool with glass on the top which is the only thing keep the module on top from a nasty encounter with some sharks, and these are not just sharks these are 1970’s bad ass sharks that will no matter what react with utter killer instinct and devour any thing that go’s in the pool. I don’t think I need to tell you what happens in the very next seen other then said bad guy is fish food.

Thats the problem with the whole film, every scene is predictable, and for an audience that is now used to action such as Bourne, this kind of action would be better suited to a TV show then a 120min feature film.

Which is a shame, because if you can get past this, then there is a fun film here, I enjoyed the fact that yes, I knew what was coming next, and the film never failed, but it did it in such a stylized way that it was still enjoyable.

Overall: 

If you looking for a griping, engaging action thriller than don’t go to Columbia, however if you’re looking for an easy on the eye, no gray matter needed but keep me entertained action then welcome to Columbia.

3 out of 5

A Random Life In Review: Movies

Horrible Bosses

 

 

 

 

 

Staring:

Jason Bateman

Steve Wiebe

Kevin Spacey

Charlie Day

Jennifer Aniston

Trailer:

Whats it About:

The clue is in the title, Three middle-aged friends have horrible bosses and so plan to dispose of them via the perfect murder, they will each kill one of their friends bosses.

However there is more to it then that, Dale boss is played by Jennifer Anderson, and her trait that makes her a Horrible Boss, well lets just say she’s a little kinky, no that’s an understatement, she’s extremely kinky to the point to crazy. I sure I’m not alone when I say most men would not find her actions a horrible experience but for Dale its ruining his life.

Then there is Kurt, his boss is great, in fact his like a second father to him but that all changes when he unexpectedly (but come on we all knew something had to change) passes away leaving his son in charge. Now his son is the anti-christ, no really his one evil little shit. When his new psychopathic boss informs Kurt he has to sack the fat lady (the peregrinate one) and the guy in the wheel chair, well for honest, company man Kurt that’s it, its time for this boss to face the long goodnight.

Lastly we have Nick, his boss may be the worst of all them, Nick works all the hours just to impress, the un-impassable Dave who pulls Nick over the coals for being 1 minute late, before blackmailing him and then self promoting him self in to the role that Nick’s been working so hard to get.

All three agree that each of there boss’s must die and so begins the miss adventure of their life time, including murder (not who you may think) meetings in seedy bars and “special” interest gigolos just to name some.

Is it Any Good:

This is very funny movie, if you liked The Hangover, then your going to love Horrible Boss’s, Jennifer Anderson’s scenes are especially funny, the situation comedy is great but mostly its Kevin Spacey’s truly evil character that makes this movie such a great watch and joins the comedy, up with fact that it’s a movie and so needs to tell a story – his the unexpected gel that makes this movie work.

Overall:

I would watch this film over and over, and although it’s not my favourite comedy of all time, but it’s up there.

5 out of 5

A Random Life In Review: Top 10 iPad Apps – August 2012

Now its time for my personal top 10 must have iPad Apps , once again its in no real order:

1. Evernote

The great thing about having a iPad is its integration with my MacBook, and so when I work on my iPad I kinda work on my MacBook – or that I can see my work on my Mac, and yes there are loads of note taken apps that will let you do just that, the great thing about Evernote is it does all this and more. With integration within other apps (so you can take notes directly from them) and a Chrome app its by fair the best note taking / sharing app going and all the different Evernote apps are Free.

 

Price: Free.

2. BigOven

The great thing about the iPad is its screen, yes you can get cooking apps on your iPhone but you know what – reading from a small screen when your working just isn’t fun. Big Oven is a great app, it has 1000’s of recipes from every style of cooking but whats more, you can also tell Big Oven what you have in your kitchen and it will bring back recipes

Lastly you can add to your shopping list and use the handy planner to plan your meals before you shop – it’s a great time saver.

Can’t remember the price but I think its £10.00 a year so cheap as chips.

 

Price: £10.00 (a year… I think) 

3. Netflix / Lovefilm / Blinkbox

 

 

 

 

These 3 Video Streaming services cover the best of them, the great thing about the iPad is its screen size, watching a HD film on the go is great and much more enjoyable than on the small screen of the iPhone – I will often use the different services apps on the iPad to browse whats on / available as and when I’m in the mode to watch a movies and its often quicker to open the open then turn on the TV / Computer to check the main site.

If you don’t know BlinkBox is like your cloud based film collection, if you create an account and then link it to your club card any Blue rays / DVD’s you purchase in Tesco’s will appear on you Blink Box account – aka a free digital copy that’s stored in the cloud.

Price: All Free (require a subscription service for Netflix and Lovefilm).

4. Spotify

Yep its a music streaming app, and yep it works on the PC, Mac, iPhone and iPad (and more) but for the iPad I like to keep my storage free for editing photos and videos I may need to watch to on the go so using a service like Spotify is great – endless music over the internet (recommend you use WiFi) with out taken up space on the iPad.

 

 

Price: Free (with options to upgrade). 

5. Zite

I’m note going to say this again, ok one last time – Good apps for the iPad make use of the extra screen space and Zite is a great app that does just this but for news – just let Zite know the subjects you interested in and it will bring news to you about said subject for free. With the ability to flip from story to story you have a real tactile feel to using the app (like the iBooks app)

 

 

 

Price: free. 

6. Numbers

Numbers is Apples version of Excel, it’s not a heavy as Excel but you can do most of the daily work you would want to run in Excel within numbers – it’s not the same as the Mac version but it will sync with the Mac version as well as allow you to store documents within iCloud and share via email.

Some basic functions Number will do: Vlookup, Sum, Graphs, Charts

What I love about numbers – if you need to create a nice looking report for a customer than Numbers is the App for you – it’s so easy to make even the standard chart look interesting (as possible)

Price: £19.99

7. Pages

Just like Excel has Numbers, Word has Pages, again its a light version but do let that put you off, perfect for written letters, blog posts, meeting notes and any other day-to-day word processing need you may have. I use Pages every day for customer meeting notes, why – because I can email a copy direct to the office from within the app, it syncs and stores copies on iCloud and has all the feature you need.

Including: Spellchecking, Left, Centre and Right hand align, Tab, Column, Images, Bullets / Lists and more.

Oh and whats more if you have the Mac version then yep you can start a document on your Mac and complete it on the go or the other way round.

Price: £19.99

8. Keynote

This is the last app that makes up iWorks and its Apples version of Powerpoint – now this is one app that I think is better than the MS Office version, again its light so don’t expect to do massive presentations on this app however if you need to do a 10 / 20 slide presentation then this is the app for you – it’s so easy to create great looking slides with animations that don’t look like you’ve done them on a cheep powerpoint template.

Very quick and easy and as with all the iWork apps it fully sync with the full Mac Version via iCloud and can be emailed as well as being able to open MS documents.

 

Price: £19.99

Alternative to the above iWorks Apps – CloudOn

No matter how good the iWorks apps are – some times you need the MS version, thats when CloudOn comes in handy – it was free when I downloaded the app and it basically lets you use all the MS Office programs via the Cloud so no massive app but all the power – down side is, you need a decent internet connection and as its Cloud based it’s not the most secure platform.

On the up side – all the function of the main programmes with very little space taken up .

Includes: MS Word, MS Excel, MS Powerpoint and MS Access.

 

Price: Free

9. Skype

 

Not sure what there is to say but if you like to call people, see a nice big pitcher of them but can’t use the iOS app (as well not every one has a iPad) then Skype is the best there is, every one knows it so there isn’t much I can say… Oh you could act out a scene of trigger happy, you know the one, with the big phone… yep “I’m on the phone…”

 

 

Price: Free

10. Flipboard

There is nothing better than keeping up to date with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any other RSS feed then being able to read it like a magazine, that’s what Flipboard lets you do, follow the BBC or news source on twitter and Flipboard will open the link so in effect you’ve created your own living newspaper.

You can post, like, unlike, re-tweet etc all you want within the App as well as add additional subjects that flipbard will find and create your own news feed.

 

Price: £0.69

A Random Life In Review: iOS Secrets

So you have a iPhone or iPad but you’re not sure if you know all the small features that could make life even easer then 24hr access to email, phone, Facebook etc well I hope the below helps.

Caps Lock: 

The key board on both the iPhone and iPad are fine, but if you need to use caps for more than one letter it can be a little bit of a pain, that is until you find out you can double tap the shift key so it’s a solid blue (rather than just the arrow being blue) – here’s an image of how it looks:

As you can see it works in all the apps, including iMessanger, Email, Pages and much more.

Security 

Ok, so the iPhone does every thing, and as such it holds a ton (and some) of personal information and apps that have cost you money, also a hacked phone could result in app purchases you didn’t want to make (or more likely your child has found your unlocked phone, opened their game of choice and purchased some in-game power ups or something), this is how you set up added level of protection for your information, apps and money.

1st Open Settings

2nd Go to General

3rd Scroll down and open Restrictions

4th Turn Restrictions on, enter your pass code and then you can turn on and off different restrictions by app, content etc

Now your phone is child safe.

Quick Camera – no pass code needed

Having a half decent camera on your phone is great but some times you have no time to unlock and open the app, great news, from the locked screen you can go straight into your camera without having to do all the above.

From the locked screen you see a little camera icon to the right, simply hold and slide up.

Its easier and quicker to get into then the alternative.

Screen Dump / Printed Screen. 

Now for how I took the above images, their infact photos, you take them by pressing, that’s pressing not holding, I repeat just press quickly and let go DO NOT HOLD, the home button and the power button.

Master Reset 

Why did I repeat the above, well if you hold both the Power and Home button for 5 seconds you will reset you phone and no one wants that… unless you need to in which case now you know.

 

A Random Life In Review: Top 10 iPhone Apps – August 2012

Hi all, here my personal top ten iPhone apps as of August 2012, there not in any real order and some I have already reviewed before.

1. Hootsuite

So you like twitter, Facebook and maybe even Linked In but it’s a pain to follow all the news, posts and updates all the time – or your finding it hard to keep all your followers up to date with whats new with you, well look no further then Hootsite – ok it’s not the best looking app but it does the job.

You can open your different feeds and post to one, two or all your main social sites from your phone.

Price: Free

 

 

2. WhatsApp

Ok, most people have 1000’s of free text messages in the call plan, but some times you need more and why pay for them? WhatsApp is a great little app that works very much like BB Messenger as in you add fellow users to your contacts and then you can send them messages within the app.

The difference is that if you have internet access then you can send the messages for free (Wifi) or by using your data plan rather than your text message allocation.

Price: £0.69

 

3. Tom Tom

Although this is a little pricy and yes there are free turn by turn GPS based navigation apps out there, if (like me) you need a sat nav most days then its worth the extra money, it’s still cheaper then a standalone unit and just one advantage is its one less pice of tech to carrier around.

Also you can still listen to your music in the car and get turn by turn instructions. Also the maps are updated all the time.

Price: £59.99

 

4. Evi

Whats the best thing about the iPhone 4s? well its clear apple believes its Siri and to be fair its quite nifty, however if like me you don’t have a 4s and just a 4 (or even 3) then you may have thought you where missing out, well for as little as 70p you can now have most of the features.

Evi lets you ask it questions such as who won the game, whats the weather, tell me a joke and it will search the internet for your answers, there phrase is “ask me anything” and I’ve not really found any thing it can’t find.

Price: £0.69

 

5. Chrome

Ok I’ve reviewed this before and I’ve now been using this all the time for the last couple of weeks from Facebook, to Linked In, to well every thing on-line. With no problems and no crashes, its a little light but then all iPhone browsers are, but Chrome is able to play most flash videos.

Also it will sync up with your desktop version so your bookmarks / sites you’ve saved on you main PC / Laptop are now right there on your phone and it works the other way as well.

Price: Free

 

6. TV Catchup

Again I’ve reviewed this before, and no it’s not just a iPhone app but a website, iPad and Andriod App – but its a great app and save be from loosing it when my friend looked us out his flat at 3:00am (lock smiths take time to arrive and then drill the lock at that time of the day). Thanks to TV Catchup I was able to watch Family Guy and then South Park.

It streams over the internet, so be sure to have loads of data left or expect to pay for it later (or just watch it when you have WiFi) but all in all its a great way to watch TV on the go – pitcher quality is good, buffering isn’t a problem and it has most of the UK TV channels.

Price: Free

 

7. News 360

So you want current news, from a number of sources on the same article? Well news 360 is the app for you, it has all the up to date news, covered by all the different channels (printed and otherwise) so you can see who is reporting what and when and if its important to you, make you own mind up about the story in question.

I’m not 100% sure on the price – I think it may have been free, but it may have been 69p so to be safe…

Price: £0.69

 

8. App Advice

Looking for the most up to date information on Apps, Apple and iPhones, then this is the app for you, it features top lists such as top photo apps, trending apps and news on jail braked apps, theams and much more.

There is one downside, and that’s it’s not free (where as my blog is)

Price: £1.49

9. Wunderlist

Yep I’ve reviewed this one before, and again it’s not only for the iPhone, but the iPad and even Chrome (the full browser not the iPhone version). What I love about Wunderlist (other than the price) is that it Syncs over all you devices that you can flag important tasks, make different lists (such as work, shopping, to do, urgent, and don’t forget’s).

You can also change the background to suite your mood.

Price: Free

 

10. CardMunch

This is a great app for any one who meets lots of new customers and there for lost of business cards, open up this little app and take a photo of the business card.

It will “munch” (scan the details) and turn the printed text into text on your iPhone, but that’s not all, it will try to input a new contact on your iPhone with the phone number, email, web address, name and address in all the right places (or try to) – yep it’s not perfect but it’s normally much quicker then entering the details by hand.

And that’s not all, it will then look for the person on Linked In and invite them to connect with you.

Price: £0.69

@platinum_page Wait for the iPhone 5 its out in september any hows…

Random Rant

If there is any thing that will really wind me up like a Tasmanian Devil (check out this video if you need help visualising a Tasmanian Devil)

What got me so upset, well its was an error message in a game – I know, it’s the little things in life that can often course the most upset – this error message was in relation to a in-game purchase (Mass Effect 3 on the PS3) that failed to register, as in they took my money for me to get an error message. But itself that isn’t going to make me change from normal (if some what geeky) human to mutant crazy man but what follows did:

First of the error message simply said that there was an error with the download and to contact customer services – that’s it, no email, no web address nothing, so still in human mode I went to Google and typed in EA customer services, what I found was the EA Website, I had hope, but no I was directed to a blog which I searched and searched for advise and found nothing so back to Google – any hows four searches later I found the right sight and quite quickly the contact us button – great, oh no first I had to log in with my EA password, have I set up a EA account, well yes but I can’t remember doing this so I had wait for them to send me my password.

Ok so by now I’m a little upset – what would have taken 10 mins had taken 30 mins all because of a really lame error message (I mean even Window XP error messages are better) now I have to wait for an email to be able to log my problem.

So I have my password (40 mins now) and I’m on the form filling page with all the normal questions great… Oh no hang on EA needs 20 questions before you can log your problem.

Well in the end – 1 hour now – I’m able to drop EA an email as instructed by them.

In a perfect world – The error message would have a link to their site and would have filled in most of the form for me including all my PS3 account details, saving me 1 hour (60 mins, 3600 seconds) of my life, that I’m never going to get back.

 

Oh and EA’s response, to email me a form asking me for yet more information 48hrs later, by which time the problem had sorted it self out – I’ve said it once and I’m going to say it once more – what a lame error message.

A Random Life in Preview: Movies

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

 

 

 

 

 

Staring:

Ian McKellen

Elijah Wood

Cate Blanchett

Evangeline Lilly

Trailer:

Whats it About:

Before Tolkien placed pen to paper to scribe the trilogy The Lord Of The Rings he wrote The Hobbit, where we’re first introduced to Middle Earth, the Hobbits, Gandalf and Elves oh and not forgetting Gollum. You know in Jacksons interpretations of the trilogy that Bilbo had seen the world and be a bit of a rebel (well for a hobbit any way) well The Hobbit is Bilbo’s story.

Bilbo is persuaded to go off with 13 Dwarfs to help save a kingdom from a dragon, but he must also face Goblins, Orcs and other evil creatures including (although you could ask the question is Gollum evil or did the ring turn him)  Gollum and the one ring or My Pressios.

Three Reasons why I want to see it:

1) I’m a geek and this is high fantasy at its best

2) There is a dragon

3) “My Precious”

The Hobbit was written as a story for children (unlike The Lord Of The Rings) so The Hobbit should feel fresh as well as re-introducing us to old friends – However as Jackson is doing this backwards ref: The Hobbit after The Lord Of The Rings, it will be interesting to see how the film can introduce us to elements we have already seen three times – for example we know the Ring is evil, we know Gollum and have seen him at his highs and lows, we’re seen a simple hobbit change the world so its going to be interesting to see if The Hobbit is going to be a easy way to add profit into the franchise of Middle Earth or if Jackson is going to do some thing different – as a fan I’m sure I’m going to love this move but will the non-hardcore fans forgive a re-hash of the same story?

Out December 2012

 

Random Rant

Ad’s – I can’t stand them (ok some of them can be funny but most are just poo) but there a fact of life and if you want something for free you have to put up with ads – however that doesn’t justify the worst ad in the world, you’ve most likely not seen it, it’s for a well know, high street retailer of technology and features a man hitting his broken TV before being teleported into a world where the handy people at X will help you find the right TV for you.

Ok there’s nothing in that lot that should make me rant, but this rant is about the placement of said ad – it’s a ad played on TV Catch Up (great free TV app for your iPhone or iPad BTW) app before you can watch TV. What really bugs me is this ad is clearly aimed towards people who don’t understand technology, so why is it being played on an app which requires you to have a iPhone or iPad? technology that I doubt your target audience is using. It’s just really point less.

Oh and it’s like 30 seconds long, come on give me The Big Bang Theory and less of your stupid ad.

A Random Life In Preview: Movies

The Bourne Legacy

 

 

 

 

 

Staring:

Jeremy Renner

Edward Norton

Rachel Weisz

Donna Murphy

Trailer:

Whats it about: 

Set in the same world as Bourne, expect high action, high impact and great car chases oh and CIA spy action, Aron Cross is our new hero and he faces more life or death events again triggered again by past events – will the CIA never learn, not in the universe of Bourne.

I really hope they keep the action up as well as the gripping story line with out slowing the pace down just like in the origional three movies.