Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts

2.11.09

Software Review: Google Voice

Google has entered the telecommunications realm with its introduction of Google Voice, a service created by Google's addition last year of Grand Central, a nifty feature that transcribes voicemail messages and cloaks all your phones and telecommunication devices under the umbrella of one number: a Google number. 
     In effect, you can give out one number to all your buddies, colleagues, friends or whoever and all your phones can be connected seamlessly. Also, you can send free SMS and have voicemails transcribed for you (also, available by other services, such as Callwave).
     I had read about the service at least a year ago when Google first acquired Grand Central but was only giving the service to customers by invitation only. Alas, I was not one of the chosen few. Ugh.
    So, I was happy to discover one day, a message in my Gmail inbox that Google Voice was now available for me to sign-up.
    I would love to use the full functionality of Google Voice but, because of a move by Apple to pull the plug on Google Voice on the iPhone, I can only use the service through my computer. I am a loyal Apple fan, but here, Apple has sold itself to AT&T. Google had created a Google Voice app for the iPhone, but Apple deleted it from the Apple store.
    Personally, I think Apple's move was a bit draconian. It would be like if Microsoft did not allow you to download Firefox onto your computer and forced you to use Internet Explorer.
    But don't worry, in a recent blog post, David Pogue assures us that Google will eventually develop a web app to counteract Apple's icks-nay of its newest FREE gadget. Now, you can only use Google Voice on its android phone or on a blackberry, on your home computer, or on a web app compatible device. But the web app does not work yet on the iPhone. Just a matter of time.
    But, why is Google Voice so cool?
    Well, it is like having CallWave, Skype and Gmail all rolled up into one. I hate listening to voicemails and would just rather read them. Also, I am an addict when it comes to new digital features. Also, I am a proponent for Open Source. Apple should not decide how I access information and what platform I use to do so.
    In the meantime, you can call me through your computer until I get Google Voice, fully.*

*This functionality has been disabled.


10.8.09

Movie Review: Some Like It Queer


Some Like It Hot — Directed by Billy Wilder — Starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, and Joe E. Brown

    Some Like It Hot (1959) directed by Billy Wilder cleverly uses musical language to code for queer behavior. I will admit I had queer on my mind when Taryn called me and said, “Hey, Greig, they’re playing Some Like It Hot at the Prytania Theater.” I said to her, “I cannot wait for a gender-bender adventure!” The theater is a one-screen cinema that plays blockbusters at night and classics in the daytime. The house’s proprietor, Mr. Rene Brunet, a sweet, intelligent geriatric, bemused us with some benign trivia about the film. When he talked about Marilyn Monroe I wanted to quote Roger Ebert, who said of the star: she’s "Poured into a dress that offers her breasts like jolly treats for needy boys.”
    But, after Mr. Brunet gave his spiel he motioned the camera guy — “Hey, Robert get those melodies rolling!” — and played “Let’s All Go to the Lobby” before the show started. Seated in a nearly full house, as if we were back in 1959, Bugs Bunny gave his last grin and the feature began.
    The black and white film is covert homosexuality created under a suspicious McCarthy era period posing as a comedy of errors murder mob mystery — the cross-dressing so seamlessly dropped into the plot as to seem virtually harmless even to the most suburban, collected type. Seeing the film fifty years after it was made, it is easy to see the sex beneath the subtext. Almost every line is a double entendre if you can catch it quick enough. Daphne (Jack Lemon) proposes a cross-dressing scheme to Josephine (Cary Grant) to get them out of debt in circa 1920s Chicago. 
    The rest of the movie is all out drag. Let me just say this about the film: Daphne is queerer than Josephine. If you know the film you know what I mean. If you don’t know the film, then you are in for a treat and I won’t spoil the uproarious ending. Josephine resists until both are found by the mob as witnesses to a murder. Donning a wig and a dress, Josephine and Daphne take a train to Florida to join "Sweet Sue's Society Syncopaters."
    Ostensibly a pair of straight guys has to save their asses dressing up as women, retaining their straight status only by the extension of voluptuous Marilyn Monroe. Without her Daphne is a drag queen in love with a millionaire played expertly by Joe E. Brown and Josephine is a dominatrix queen with a penchant for saxophones.
    It is here we hear the film’s title, “some like it hot,” when Jack Lemon’s character refers to the women’s syncopated rhythm as “hot.” I cannot help but think the word hidden beneath the word is “queer.” Plain Jane straight people probably prefer un-syncopated tunes, but we queers like our beats syncopated! Some guys and girls like it different than other guys and girls: they like it hot, suggesting breaking musical boundaries is akin to crossing over into sexual taboos. 
    Geraldine warns Daphne not to sleep with Sugar, but in the end, it is Josephine wooing Sugar and Daphne running with the girls on the beach enjoying his womanhood. Cary Grant, with angular lines and a pair of succulent lips, is a more beautiful woman than Jack Lemmon’s less than beautiful ogee and awkward broad shoulders Marilyn Monroe seems to admire!
Some Like It Hot is an example of queering straight.

26.6.09

Reference Book Review: First Fun Encyclopedia (Available as a Searchable Database on EBSCOhost)

First Fun Encyclopedia
First fun encyclopedia
     Targeted to primary school children and hosted on the electronic databases MAS Ultra - School Edition and Master File Premier, First Fun Encyclopedia was published by Mason Crest in 2003 and edited and written by Jane Walker. The book is part of the series First Fun Reference Set which includes "First Fun Atlas," by Andrew Langley; "First Fun Dictionary," by Cindy Leaney; and "First Fun Science Encyclopedia," by Brian Ward. 
Available on EBSCO
     EBSCO only has the encyclopedia available digitally for now. The entire encyclopedia is available as HTML full text with graphics. The EBSCO version has 118 entries arranged alphabetically. Each entry has a persistent link feature available so users can email or post links back to the entry. The encyclopedia is searchable and references are cross-linked. 
Encylopedia Articles are Written for Young Readers
     Categorized under the subject heading "Youth & Children's Interests" the text is written at a LEXILE rating of no more than 730. To give an idea of how the book is arranged the "Ocean and Seas" entry also directs users to the "Animal Kingdom" entry. For vocabulary skills, entries include a word box related to the subject with short, simple definitions. Some entries include a word game or puzzle for fun. Each entry has high-resolution graphics to accompany the text that are instructional rather than decorative. The "Fish" entry, for example, has an illustration of a fish with labels identifying the essential anatomical parts. The entry on "Trains" includes graphics of different types of trains  subways, bullet trains, steam trains, and so forth. The entry on "Homes" describes tall homes, tent homes, and houses in rows. 
      No entry is more than 400 words.
Create Non-Fiction Text Sets
Teachers can use the entries from the First Fun Encyclopedia to create text sets for their classrooms. For example, if an English Language Arts teacher plans to teach a unit on Carl Hiassen's novel Flush, a book that takes place in Florida, then the teacher can pre-select non-fiction articles to supplement the reading. Have kids read about the sealife of Florida, or about ecology, and environmental protection efforts to create sustainable habitats for animals.
Source: Walker, Jane. First Fun Encyclopedia. Philadelphia: Mason Crest, 2003. Internet resource.