Movies I'm Looking Forward to in 2014

I love super-hero movies. Most people I know already know that about me. So this year is just a treat with 2 Marvel Super Heroes!

Blah
I also don't judge movie's harshly either. Movies cannot absolutely follow a book or comic so there is no point ranting about the differences. Then again, I understand the frustration and confusion when a movie depicts a certain character - of which we've already formed our own interpretation of (from literature) - quite differently. 

The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Hello Sir! Ever since the first Amazing Spider-Man I have been absolutely obsessed with the character! Although there were a lot of moments I didn't like in this movie (compared to Sam Raimi's Trilogy), I really enjoyed this movie and look forward to the second movie. 

In this trailer we face 3 villians... Really, 3?
A lot of avid Spider-Man fans didn't like Spider-Man 3, protesting that 3 villains is what ruined the movie. This is only half true. The reason why Spider-Man 3 wasn't a big success was because it wasn't written well. I'm speculating that the bad writing was due to the fact that venom was added last minute, and most spider-man fans would agree that venom wasn't done very well. Sure he looked awesome, but he wasn't "true to the comics". 

Anyway, let's talk about those villains. So we've got Hob-Goblin (Dane Dehaan) (don't mistake it for green goblin), Rhino (Paul Giamatti) and Electro (Jamie Foxx). 

Marc Webb (Director), himself, states that "The Main Villain of the movie is Electro" and that Rhino "is there to establish a fun tone" [ComiCon 2013 Panel].
So there we go, Electro is the main villain, Rhino is just there for fun (Spidey will defeat him). But Marc didn't mention at all about Harry's role or HobGoblins role. This is because most of us found out about HobGoblin when the trailer was released.
I am very convinced that Harry's role is one of power over Electro. Here a few reasons why:

- Electro get's his powers from the Oscorp incident. 

- Harry seems to be next in command (Since Norman is bedridden) 

I might talk more in-depth about the plot later, but I'll leave it there for now!

Captain America: Winter Soldier
In this movie, Captain America (Chris Evans) has to deal with living in a completely different era, all the while a villain "The Winter Soldier" arises. All I know about the villain is that he was "Bucky Barnes" from the first Captain America, the one who "died". Oh dear. I have a few questions:
- Why is he evil? I won't go into it at all but here is a wikipedia explaining his origin and becoming of the Winter Soldier: Bucky Barnes (Winter Soldier)

GodZilla

Oh my Zilla! I am also really excited about this one. The trailer is really well done:

- appreciated all the sound effects to make it scary

- really liking how GodZilla is looking (big)

- really inpressed with GodZilla's "rawrghhhh!"

Mechanical Keyboards aren't Just for Gamers - Part 2

This is a follow up of my last post about Mechanical Keyboards:

Mechanical Keyboards aren't just for Gamers

In my last post (months and months ago) I wrote my thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and which was the best for typing or gaming, and also made my opinion that these keyboards aren't just for gamers. I still stand by this today.

Mechanical Keyboards (MKs) should be more accessible in everyday electronic stores. You'll probably use the same keyboard for years and years, so why not buy a good one that is durable and improves your typing ability?

Choosing a MK is a very daunting thing. They usually cost more than $100 and most retails stores (in Australia) like MSY or uMart don't allow you to test out the keys. How lame! So you might end up buying the wrong type and have to either deal with it or refund it (if your lucky and can actually be bothered) and buy another one. This shouldn't be. 

Blue Key Switches 

I managed to get my hands on another Mechanical Keyboard with Cherry MX Blue key switches; the Ducky Shine II ( DK9008 ). The keyboard was great. It was a full-width keyboard (with num pad), something that I am used to, having grown up with a $10 Microsoft keyboard. The keyboard offers many back-lighting options, but I'll let you read up on it. 

The blue key switches were very clicky (feeling) and were also very clicky (sound). Although they were quite loud - which is mainly why I don't use this keyboard anymore - they still made typing very fun. 

I'm not using this keyboard any more as it was just too loud, especially in the middle of the night when doing an assignment. I also had a much different preference. 

From the very start of my search, I was looking for a keyboard that had really good haptic feedback, much like the rubber-domed Microsoft/Logitech keyboards! Because the blue keys were too loud, I went back to using the brown keys switches; the CM Storm: Quickfire Pro. 

Funny thing, I'm not actually using the Brown Switch keyboard anymore! I actually had to sell it to pay a bill! Pretty brutal! But I ended up getting an Apple Wired Keyboard! Might seem pretty unusual for me to be using an apple product with Ubuntu or Windows, but it is well worth it. 

The apple keyboard is a "chiclet keyboard" with thin keys and just feel great when your typing or even gaming! I highly suggest anyone to give this keyboard a try as it offers a quality typing experience. 

Yes, I've had to deal with the extra key (command key) since it is mainly for Apple computers, but it works fine on Windows and Ubuntu. I have looked both online and at a lot of retail stores and cannot find a Windows-suitable keyboard with this style nor with this quality. 

Choosing the right Key Switch

I've made a small list of which keyboard switches you might want to try, given your preference:

• If you like the rubber-dome feeling: 
• First try an Apple Keyboard
  Retail stores usually have apple keyboards on display along with the iMac, if not then there is a high chance they will let you test the keyboard itself -- just ask :)
• then look into Brown Key Switches
  These are a lot smoother than the rubber keys, as in, it requires less force to press the key. 
• If you love typing and you usually type during the day and you (or housemates) don't care about it being loud:
• Instantly get your hands on the Cherry MX Blues
• If you want a fluid experience and can be sensitive when typing:
• Cherry MX Reds

Choosing the right Keyboard

This is not a great recommended list, but I thought I'd mention the keyboards that I used and had no problems with them:
- Ducky Shine II (2)

- Any of Cooler Master's Keyboards

drassil

Mechanical Keyboards Aren't Just for Gamers

Sure, all computer stores label mechanical keyboards as the "gamer's keyboard". But I feel this is very false. I sometimes play games and code (more than I game) and have found that mechanical keyboards are so much more authentic then the 20 dollar ones. But it really is worth the try! If you are doing a lot of typing for assignments or blogs or reviews, then I would suggest you look into buying a Mechanical Keyboard (any brand) with Cherry MX Blue Switches.

Sound foreign? I really think that their should be more stores, dedicated to keyboards, because typing is one of those things that everyone does! And it would make sense to have a durable and well-suited keyboard just for you!

So, cherry is a computer and device company which has this line of keyboard key switches (so the button underneath the keys) which have different feelings and feedback.

Blue's, as I recommended earlier to typists gives you tactile feedback (not linear) and also gives you a nice click sound when pressing the keys. A lot of typists like this key switch, not sure how, but maybe it stimulates them to type more or faster. But yes I highly recommend it.
Browns are the ones that I use. I first purchased reds and they are completely linear. I obviously didn't do enough research before buying it, but I am glad I bought the reds because now I know my preference. So I first had reds, they were amazing, allowing me to type really fast (I can understand why it is good for gaming), however it caused me to make too many mistakes since the keys were very sensitive. So I decided to go with browns. Right now I really want to try blues and see if they would work for me, but there really isn't anywhere to test them, it's a matter of buying it and seeing for myself.

This really shouldn't be the case. Now, Mechanical Keyboards cost up to 100 - 150 (or more) and I think that people should be allowed to test and get their preference, for free.

One day. One day I will open up a keyboard store and let everyone touch my keyboards!

Css Frameworks and Less!

Lately, I haven't so much been writing too much raw PHP but rather PHP within a very popular CMS (Content Management System); Wordpress. 

Learning Wordpress?
I have been on a crash course of wordpress and website frameworks/helpers. I have seen quite a bit of job opportunities and even had a few questions from friends, and they all have been concerning Wordpress! So I figured I would have to expand my knowledge and took up learning how to create themes in Wordpress. I am halfway there. I then began to read an article on nettuts.tutsplus.com which gave advice when developing a theme. It highly suggested that a 'responsive design' approach should be taken, so that the blog displays well on all devices; PCs, laptops, tablets and phones. It suggested a few good responsive frameworks such as:
- bootstrap
- less framework
- Foundation and
- Yaml

This got  me onto Less.

Less?
I cannot believe I hadn't heard of Less sooner. I guess I'm still learning, but I shouldn't ignore/be scared of helpful frameworks. 

Less is just amazing and makes writing CSS so much easier. Just like how jQuery makes simple javascript tasks effortless. 

So say you want to style a list which had links in them, your css (without content) would look something like this:

#menu {
}
#menu li {
}
#menu li a {
}

Less allows you to do this:

#menu {     /*Styling for the whole menu goes here*/     #menu li {           /*styling such as positioning might go here*/           #menu li a {           /*Fancy styling for menu*/           }     }}

Oh that's just so amazing! And it's not even the best part. You can do things with variables even! You heard that right! You can have a variable resembling a certain margin offset value, or even a certain theme color that you have set. Variables can be used to help change wordpress themes, even! You can even reuse whole classes, as in you can reference it in another class, and that class will inherit all of its styling. With using another class you can also pass in a variable! So you can set the padding of certain boxes or the color of a something!  There is just so many goodies. The article I got this from was smashing magazine: 
http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2010/12/06/using-the-less-css-preprocessor-for-smarter-style-sheets/
This will now make a huge difference in the way I approach CSS as it offers much much more flexibility and as a bonus it offers a much cleaner css (less) file. 

For all that it just takes a single .less file - which can contain both standard CSS and LESS styling - and lastly a single javascript file to compile the the LESS into css code. I might check out the PHP version since everyone doesn't all have Javascript enabled in their browsers, and it would be a complete sham if they turned up to your site and - because javascript is disabled - there are no styles. 

Anyway that's enough from me!

After Hours

So Overwerk finally released his album 2 days ago now! Its great! I am not entirely sure how he does it, but he has finally released it for free - once again - with the option for people to pay him any price. I think he is able to release it for free because he does shows,  regardless the quality is amazing.

Here is the link to his album:
http://albums.overwerk.com/

- Just type in "0" for the price for a free download
OR
- type in a small price if willing.

You may have read my previous post with his song he did for GoPro and their new camera. Well here is the original:

Like it. Share it round.

PHP: Cloning and Fluent Interfaces

Cloning
Recently been brushing up on PHP classes and learnt that Objects cannot be directly copied using just the assignment operation, like a variable. Example:

$person1 = new Person("Nick Mok"); //Constructor takes 1 parameter and sets name   

echo $person1->getName(); //Outputs Nick Mok

$person2 = $person1;

$person1->getName(); returns "Nick Mok" as expected. Now on the last line, $person2 actually references $person1. So anything we do to $person2 will happen to $person1. So if we change the name via $person2 variable:

$person2->setName("Fred");

$person1 will be directly affected:

$person1->getName(); //outputs Fred

So how can we copy a variable instead of directly referencing it? We can use the clone keyword

$person1 = new Person("nick mok");
$person2 = clone $person1;
$person2->setName("Johnny");

So now you can do what ever you want with $person2 without affecting $person1.

Fluent Interfaces
Another reminder to me was - when in class context - you can return the $this keyword to achieve fluent interfaces: 

$person1->setName("Nick")->setGender("M")->setCountry("Australia");

Inside each function setName, setGender and setCountry is the setter code and on the last line a return $this statement, example of one:

public function setName($name) {
          $this->name = $name;
          return $this;
}

Returning $this returns the object in context which is $person1, which is an object of Person. using the returned object you can perform another function without having to declare a new line with $this, like so:

$person1->setName("nick");
$person1->setGender("M");

This is just a simple but handy shortcut that I will most definitely consider when programming classes. 
That's just a little tutorial/update PHP techniques I've been getting to speed with. 

Cheers,

Nick