Rainbow.....

Today was a very tiring day for me. My whole class went for a trip to the beach n mountain. But this is no holiday, but we have to do a 'field practice' assignment for biology n geography lesson. We went there by bus n it was quite a journey. Reminds me of the trip to Genting Highlands with my form3 buddies (miss u all guys).

First of all, we head to the mountain to do the geography assignment first. The journey was approximately 2 hours long. The road to the mountain was pretty scary but fun at the same time. It was very2 narrow with cliffs on one side.

When we reach there, was really amazed by the view. It was fantastic, and the temperature is a bit cold as well. Our first assignment is to measure the temperature and the humidity of the surrounding and to measure the speed and the direction of the wind. It was a simple task and i have no problem in completing it. After that, the teacher told us to identify the type of landscapes n types of rocks found there. I have to refer to my notebook to identify them as i dun really remember all of them. Hehehehe........

After we've completed our task, we took a break n have a drink together. Half an hour later, its time for friday prayers. All of the boys including me prepare themselves for prayers while all of the girls have their lunch. After we finished with the prayers, its our turn to have lunch.

As soon as we've finished with our lunch, we departed straight away n head for the beach. It took us about 30 mins to get there. The sea was on low tide when we reached there, so all the corals are revealed. It's so beautiful. U can see all kinds of small creatures living at the coral. There are lots of starfish and a numorous amount of sea urchin. And because of that, all of us have to wear slippers to prevent us from getting hurt. When examining the creatures, I saw animals such as small lobsters, fish and even worms which have a very attractive, beautiful colours. Subhanallah.... We decided to take some of the animals and algae n bring it back to the lab to examine it.

Ater at least 1.5 hours, all of us is done with our task, the teacher allowed us to refresh our brain for a while. There were students who were having fun playing with the waves, some of them were running around on the white sand but most of them played football. As for me, I decided to go far from them and have a peaceful time. While at was at peace, all of a sudden, the tought of my past time in Malaysia came into my head. My family n the quality time I've spent with them. The face of my loving mom n dad n sisters. And the sweet memories I had with my best friends. From feeling peaceful, I became really sad n tears came out of my eyes. But then, I saw a really big, bright n beautiful rainbow. It was an unexpected view! I have never seen a rainbow since I've moved to Jogja which makes it 4 months. I was so beautiful. It's as if Allah was telling me, 'Dun be sad. I'm always with you'. It dried my tears n made me smile for a long time. At the same time I prayed to Allah to give me strength in facing this new lyfe n longing. I also dzikir cause that's the only way that I can do to praise Him.

Well, I guess that's all I can tell you 'bout my day. Gotta go n make a report about the field practise. Only got a week to finish th report for both biology n geography. Eeerrgghhh, so stress!
Wish me luck guys! :)

Playstation 3 vs Xbox 360 vs Nintendo Wii

Hello guys......
All of u must have known about these 3 fantastic game console.
So, i decided to be a little naughty here by putting them together in the ring and determine which is the best game console. Who knows, perhaps it might help all of u in choosing which is the right gaming console for u. I hope so......

Everyone has been wondering which is the best among the 3 of them. Each company is pursuing a very different strategy. Sony(ps3) and Microsoft(xbox 360) are gunning for pure performance systems, while Nintendo is aiming at fun games which rely more on its impressive and unique controllers than impressive graphic hardwares,

First of all, let us see the prices, the product strategy and the features of each company.


Sony Playstation 3
Sony Playstation 3 is the most expensive consoles, costing us at around $500-600. But, it includes a standard high drive, a high definition Blu-ray optical drive, HD video output, Bluetooth wriless controllers an WiFi wireless networking! How cool is that.....

Sony is setting up as an alternative for PC. The premium model has a memory card reader for not only Sony’s own Memory Stick but also (an incredible first for the company) Compact Flash and SD memory cards, making the PS3 accesable for photo viewing; with a USB keyboard and mouse and the included web browser. So basically, it can serve as a PC.


Sony originally announced their plans to ship the PS3 with Linux pre-installed, but currently user installation of “another operating system” is only a boot option. Use of another OS is currently not supported by Sony, and would of course need to be specially designed to work on the PS3’s specialized Cell processor architecture.

The PS3 is also the new HD core of Sony’s modern revolution on the stereo system, offering 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround and true 1080p high definition video playback from prerecorded Blu-ray movies.

Popular PS3 games sell for $50 - $60.


Microsoft Xbox 360
Microsoft’s Xbox 360 price is ranged from $300-450. It uses a standard DVD optical drive, and only includes a hard drive and wireless game controller in its premium version. But recently, Microsoft updated the 360 to provide support for full HD, which is a 1080p video output to match the PS3.

Rather than making the Xbox 360 as a standalone PC alternative, Microsoft pairs it with its plans for Windows Media Center, which allows the 360 to be used as a media extender to stream music and movies from a central Media Center PC.

Microsoft has plans to offer HD movie playback both with an optional HD-DVD player in an external box, and over the web through its online Xbox Live video store.

However, the Xbox 360’s optional, external HD-DVD player is $180, pushing the 360 up to the same price as the PS3. Furthermore, the $300 core Xbox 360 systems can’t use Microsoft’s online video store because they don’t have the required hard drive to save downloaded movies.

Popular Xbox 360 games sell for $50 - $70.


Nintendo Wii
The Wii is the least expensive of the three at $250, and includes both Bluetooth for wireless controllers and a DVD drive, but you won't be able to play DVD movies in it. It also lacks a hard drive. Instead, the Wii focuses on physically involving games using the wireless Wii Remote paired with the accessory Nunchuk controller (below).

The Wii Remote uses accelerometers to sense how players swing, point, and tilt the controller, encouraging game titles to incorporate activity.

The Wii will also wirelessly connect to Nintendo’s DS portable game system, using its microphone and touchscreen as inputs for Wii games.

While the Wii has no movie store, Nintendo has an online store that sells classic games ($5 - 10) for the GameCube, Nintendo 64, and other previous game consoles.

Popular Wii games sell for $30 - $50.

The Last Generation

So which console is going to be victorious, or will there be a tie? A half decade ago, many analysts projected a close race between the Sony’s PlayStation 2, Microsoft’s original Xbox, and Nintendo’s GameCube, but their prediction turned out to be wrong: Sony simply stole the show with its PS2.

This time around however, a number of factors have changed. For example, while Nintendo’s 2001 GameCube was also the cheapest console, its sales were hurt by a game lineup that mainly targeted for the youth rather than teens and adults, something Nintendo has attempted to address.

Worldwide Sales Numbers.
Nintendo’s Wii, while nearly impossible to find in retail stores, sold slightly above the company’s second quarter June 2007 goal of 9 million units, reaching sales of 9,270,000.

Sony’s PlayStation 3 also edged slightly above its 6 million goal by shipping 6,210,000 units to stores. There is still significant inventory left unsold in stores, which prompted Sony to cut the PS3’s price in July by $100, to $499 and $599 for the two PS3 models, the same price as Apple’s iPhone.

Microsoft had originally set a target of 15 million Xbox 360s by the middle of 2007, but dropped that target down to 12 million. Even with lowered expectations, the company was still unable to meet its goal, having only shipped 11,600,000 units by the end of June.

For the first half of 2007, while Nintendo sold 6 million units a quarter and Sony shipped 2 million per quarter, Microsoft was only about to push out 600,000 units a quarter, in large part because the retail channel is already full of unsold Xbox 360s.

Falling Prices.
Sony announced that PS3 sales were up 135% for the first two weeks of July following its PS3 price cut, which ended up increasing July sales by 61% over sales in June. However, Sony still only sold 159,000 units in July through US retail stores as reported by NPD (marketing research services).

Plagued by “red ring of death” hardware issues, the Xbox 360 narrowly edged ahead of the PS3 in July sales, with NPD reporting retail sales of 170,000 units. However, Microsoft’s console unit sales lead over the PS3 fell from comfortable 100,000 units in June to a margin of only 11,000 in July.

Microsoft was forced to announce that they cut $50 from Xbox 360's original price to boost demand and remain competitive with the PS3. That cut was made the first week of August. In addition to lowering the price of new units, Microsoft also had to offer a warranty extension and allocate over a billion dollars for repairs of existing units due to extraordinary failure rates.

With 11.6 million Xbox 360s sold, that means Microsoft has set aside $100 per unit for repairs, enough to buy back every third unit sold. Imagine Sony having to spend a similar amount to fix a third of its PS2s!

Wii Takes the Lead.
Meanwhile, Nintendo’s Wii jumped in retail sales from 381,000 in June to 425,000 in July, despite availability of the consoles is considerably low. That increased Nintendo’s sales lead over the Xbox 360 by 183,000 and then 255,000 units per month in June and July.

The NPD monthly sales numbers mentioned above only include US figures for retail stores, excluding online sales through stores such as Amazon as well as sales through Wal-Mart and other major retailers who do not participate in NPD’s point of sale tracking.

NPD’s US numbers are in favor of Microsoft, since the company’s Xbox 360 systems are predominately sold in the US. In Japan, while Nintendo sold nearly 74,000 Wiis and Sony sold almost 22,000 PS3s, Microsoft sold fewer than 2,500 Xboxes in the same period.

How Microsoft got into Console Gaming.
Microsoft’s original Xbox was largely a defensive move by Microsoft against the original Sony PlayStation, which had become so big in the 1990s that it threatened the future of Windows PC gaming.

If Sony were to continue unchecked in games console development, Microsoft feared it may lose significant PC sales supported by gaming.

While the number of PCs used primarily for gaming are a small segment of the huge overall PC industry, they represent a very valuable segment: they are higher end, higher margin machines paired with non-portable software applications:

PC Gaming is Microsoft’s Macintosh.

Games are a killer app for Windows. As described in The Apple Video Game Development Myth, Microsoft worked to tie Windows PC games to its proprietary DirectX software, to help to make PC gaming immune from encroachment by competing PC platforms such as Linux.

Microsoft plotted to use DirectX against Sony’s PlayStation 2, but failed in its attempts to port DirectX to run on WinCE for the rival Sega Dreamcast. Microsoft started over with its own console plans to take on the PS2 directly, an effort initially called the DirectXbox.

Xbox Arrives.
Microsoft was prepared to to lose some serious money in presenting a challenge to Sony’s PlayStation 2. A year after the PS2 came out, Microsoft delivered its new console: the Xbox. Its marketing avoided mention of Windows and made little use of the Microsoft name.

The Xbox leveraged Microsoft’s existing PC development efforts; it was essentially a scaled down Celeron PC running a specialized version of Windows 2000, focused on graphic gaming features; conversely, it was also the first gaming console to include a common PC hard drive as standard hardware.

The high manufacturing costs of the Xbox, combined with Microsoft’s inexperience in selling hardware, resulted in a bad rollout and hardware problems that dogged the product. Furthermore, at its release it was already a year behind Sony’s PS2.

Wiivolution

Nintendo plans to sell 4 million unit of its Wii this winter. If Nintendo can mantain its strong initial sales, the Wii will make a solid platforms with a shot at redeeming its lost with the game cube.

Nintendo has some obvious advantages: it clearly makes the highest hardware margins, allowing competitive leverage to lower prices in the future and bleed sales of 360 the same way Sony did with its PS2.

The Wii's low price and unique features make it a likely accessory purchase for people who already have another game console.

Its a hard race to call, but from what i've read in forums, many people expressed thir interest in buying a PS3 an sell it online, but a Wii to actually play. If I have enough money, I'll be getting a Wii too.......

Haluw

Assalamualaikum. Hye everyone in blogger.com!! Welcome to my blog....... My name is Muhammad Aditya. I live in Yogyakarta and still studying at SMA Muhammadiyah 1 currently I'm 16 this year, so that makes me in year 10. Still young, hehehehehe :p. I'm new in blogger.com and this is also my first time writing a blog. The only reason why I make this account is bcoz my comp teacher told my whole class 2 do so. If it isn't 4 him, I probably wont be writing this blog as I am not so into blogging, hahahaha......... But it takes time. Probably after a while, I will. Well, lets hope so....... :p

So, let me tell u a little 'bout myself. I'm an Indonesian boy, born in Palembang on 2nd July 1993. I am the first child out of 4 children in the family and I am also the only boy; 3 of my younger siblings are all girls, hahha. I lived with my family in Palembang for 7 years until we moved to Malaysia as my Father got a job promotion to work in Petronas. We lived together in Malaysia for 8 years until I move to Jogja to continue my study. I live in a boarding house all by myself here in Jogja, tho I have my uncle here who's currently still studying as well. And my family? Well, they are still in Malaysia as my Father is still working over there (miss them so much T.T).

Well folks, that's all I can write at the moment. There's plenty more to come (hopefully :p). Till then, bye. Assalamualaikum